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UN meeting on Middle East peace urges support for new Palestinian Government

26 March 2007


The international community has an obligation to support the new Palestinian National Unity Government without preconditions and to lift the aid restrictions imposed on it, according to participants in a United Nations meeting on Israeli-Palestinian peace. The UN International Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace, held at the Rome headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 22-23 March, welcomed the formation of the Government and voiced the hope that the development would allow the international community to restore much-needed economic and humanitarian aid and help to move the peace process forward. 

Israel, Palestinians must both take steps on path to peace, Ban Ki-moon says

26 March 2007


It is crucial that both Israel and the Palestinians take steps to reduce tensions in the Middle East in order to advance the peace process, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in Jerusalem today after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. “The long-term safety and security of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian State go hand in hand,” he added, a day after holding talks with Mahmoud Abbas, noting stressed the need to give some “political space” to the new Palestinian government formed by Hamas and Fatah. “We must use the weeks and months ahead to advance the political dialogue, since the alternative is renewed stagnation, which only means more extremism and violence,” he said. 

Welcome To Inspection Point (3/3)

26 March 2007


Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza for 39 years. In 1948, 900,000 Palestinians were expelled from present day Israel. Their six million descendants live in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza and the surrounding Arab States. An 8-12 meter high wall stretches 622km annexing 13.1 percent of the West Bank. Seven students and a camera visited the West Bank for three weeks in June 2006. They drove around the West Bank, spending time in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Aida Camp, Jenin, Ramallah among other areas. This is a glimpse of what they encountered. 

Welcome To Inspection Point (2/3)

26 March 2007


Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza for 39 years. In 1948, 900,000 Palestinians were expelled from present day Israel. Their six million descendants live in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza and the surrounding Arab States. An 8-12 meter high wall stretches 622km annexing 13.1 percent of the West Bank. Seven students and a camera visited the West Bank for three weeks in June 2006. They drove around the West Bank, spending time in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Aida Camp, Jenin, Ramallah among other areas. This is a glimpse of what they encountered. 

Welcome To Inspection Point (1/3)

26 March 2007


Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza for 39 years. In 1948, 900,000 Palestinians were expelled from present day Israel. Their six million descendants live in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza and the surrounding Arab States. An 8-12 meter high wall stretches 622km annexing 13.1 percent of the West Bank. Seven students and a camera visited the West Bank for three weeks in June 2006. They drove around the West Bank, spending time in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Aida Camp, Jenin, Ramallah among other areas. This is a glimpse of what they encountered. 

Montreal: Resistance and Hezbollah

Stefan Christoff 26 March 2007


MONTREAL: Over 100 people gathered at the Mile End Cultural Center on Tuesday, March 20th for a film-screening and public discussion entitled “Lebanon: Resistance & Hezbollah” organized by Tadamon! Montreal. In the shadow of the 2006 Israeli attack on Lebanon, widely opposed in Quebec and internationally, public discussion and debate on the Lebanese popular movement and political party Hezbollah has grown. The event featured a documentary film produced by Swiss Television, which focused on former Lebanese political prisoner Soha Bechara’s return to Lebanon after 2006 war. 

Judging Hassan Nasrallah

Sami Hermez 27 March 2007


Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, General Secretary of Hizballah, is the leader of a movement claiming to fight for the right of self-determination, in the same way that Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela were leaders of movements that claimed similar ends. However, Nasrallah will likely not be elevated to the status of a Gandhi, Mandela or other leaders of resistance movements of our time, nor will he be given the same revere and respect. Rather, he will be remembered as a violent man, a terrorist, appearing angry in pictures rather than with his innocent, almost childlike smile. 

BBC reporter still held two weeks after kidnapping

26 March 2007


In an alarming resumption of the abduction and detention of foreign journalists in the Gaza Strip, BBC journalist Alan Johnston was abducted on 12 March 2007 in the Al Rimal neighbourhood in the west of Gaza City. So far, Johnston’s whereabouts, the identity of his captors and the reason behind his abduction have not been explicitly confirmed. The targeting of foreign journalists constitutes a bewildering and dangerous phenomenon that threatens the very notion of personal security and public order in the Gaza Strip. This crime is a flagrant attack on the rule of law, and further constitutes an attack against individual freedoms. 

The crime of being born Palestinian

Anna Baltzer West Bank 25 March 2007


Almost two weeks ago, my friend Dawud, a high school English teacher from Kufr ‘Ain, called me nearly in tears to report the checkpoint hold-up that had cost him his six-month-old son. Shortly after midnight on March 8th, my friend’s baby began having trouble breathing. His parents quickly got a taxi to take him to the nearest hospital in Ramallah, where they hoped to secure an oxygen tent, which had helped him recover from difficult respiratory episodes in the past. As the family was rushing from their Palestinian town in the West Bank to their Palestinian hospital in the West Bank, they were stopped at Atara checkpoint, where an Israeli soldier asked for the father’s, mother’s, and driver’s IDs. 

The legacy of Martin Luther King: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere

Adri Nieuwhof 25 March 2007


On 4 April 1968, Martin Luther King was shot dead in Memphis, Tennessee, where he planned to lead a protest march. The powerful voice of King was silenced, but almost fifty years later, his ideas are still a source of inspiration for people who seek peace and justice. Israel claims to have a special relation with the legacy of King. Every year it marks Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a United States holiday, with a special session in parliament.