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The stories not tragic enough to notice

Anna Baltzer West Bank, Palestine 6 April 2007


Today I visited my friend Dawud in Kufr ‘Ain for the first time since he lost his six-month-old baby at Atara Checkpoint. It was heartbreaking to hear the details of the story from a man who just one month ago was asking me when I would come visit his family for pleasure, not just to take a report. He said there was more to Palestine than the sob stories. But today was all about grief. We watched a video of the funeral in silence, and saw Dawud’s mother break down and say she couldn’t take it anymore. 

Pelosi's Misguided Middle East Visit

Marcy Newman 5 April 2007


This week U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi concluded her visit to the Middle East in Damascus, Syria, to which President George W. Bush’s response was that her visit “sends mixed messages.” While Pelosi’s delegation to the region should be met with applause for refusing to participate in isolating Syria, her visit to Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria should be met with a great deal of caution. Twice in the last month Pelosi delivered a speech — of more or less the same message — before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual policy conference and before the Israeli Knesset. 

Palestinian Solidarity Strike to Secure Release of BBC Correspondent

4 April 2007


3 April 2007 — The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today called for the immediate release of kidnapped BBC correspondent Alan Johnston and backed Palestinian journalists’ decision to hold a three day-strike to call for his release. “It is unconscionable that the Palestinian government has not done more to secure Alan’s release,” said IFJ General Secretary Aidan White. “Every day that passes jeopardises Alan’s safety even further and we support our Palestinian colleagues in their work to make sure that he is released quickly and unharmed.” 

Torture: Read it in the Israeli press

Miko Peled 4 April 2007


Thanks to the Israeli press, people in Israel are informed regularly about their government’s mistreatment of the 4.5 million Palestinians under their rule. Most of the information regarding the occupation of Palestine and the oppression of its people is well documented and accurately reported in the Israeli press. But even the most serious offenses are given a “kosher” stamp, so to speak, once the word “security” is attached to them. There are ample examples of this, but few are as striking as the one provided in the March 23rd issue of the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot. 

Criminalizing Solidarity: Sami Al-Arian and the War of Terror (Part 1)

Charlotte Kates 4 April 2007


Dr. Sami Al-Arian, Palestinian political prisoner, is being held in a prison hospital, after a debilitating 60-day hunger strike seeking to draw the attention of the nation and the world to the injustice visited upon him, jailed for his commitment to justice and dignity for his homeland. This is not a scene from an Israeli jail, however, but from a U.S. prison in North Carolina. In a two-part series, Charlotte Kates examines how the unjustified detention of Dr. Al-Arian is the latest indication of a U.S. government policy of targeting Palestinian activists. (PART 1) 

Criminalizing Solidarity: Sami Al-Arian and the War of Terror (Part 2)

Charlotte Kates 4 April 2007


Dr. Sami Al-Arian, Palestinian political prisoner, is being held in a prison hospital, after a debilitating 60-day hunger strike seeking to draw the attention of the nation and the world to the injustice visited upon him, jailed for his commitment to justice and dignity for his homeland. This is not a scene from an Israeli jail, however, but from a U.S. prison in North Carolina. In a two-part series, Charlotte Kates examines how the unjustified detention of Dr. Al-Arian is the latest indication of a U.S. government policy of targeting Palestinian activists. (PART 2) 

Great concern over continued detention of BBC journalist

2 April 2007


Reporters Without Borders today voiced its serious concern about the continued detention in the Gaza Strip of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reporter Alan Johnston and appealed to the Palestinian Authority president and prime minister to take a tougher line with his kidnappers to obtain his release. “He has now been held for 21 days, longer than any other journalist kidnapped there. This is a turning-point for media workers in the Strip, many of whom have stayed away since the recent clashes there between Fatah and Hamas supporters, since armed groups use foreign journalists as bargaining chips with the authorities. 

Style or substance following Riyadh summit?

Michael F. Brown 2 April 2007


The Arab League peace initiative is back in play after an Israeli and American-imposed five-year hiatus. The return to the previously shunted aside proposal comes only because the Bush administration has utterly fouled the region — from the bloody sectarian turmoil of Baghdad to the tsunami of human waste that recently swept through part of northern Gaza — and has evidently concluded there is now a better hope of “fixing” Israel and Palestine than Iraq. In an ironic twist, the Bush administration claim that the road to Middle East peace runs through Baghdad has been inverted by the total collapse in Iraq. 

Weekly Report on Human Rights Violations

1 April 2007


Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law continued in the OPT during the reporting period (22 - 28 March 2007): Four Palestinians killed by IOF and settlers in the OPT; including a sheep herder in Bethlehem and three Palestinian resistance activists killed in Nablus and Jenin. Ten Palestinian civilians, including five children were wounded by IOF, including four wounded in Bal’ein village, west of Ramallah, and three children wounded by IOF bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip. 

Testimony: A father and ill son from Gaza stranded in Egypt

2 April 2007


“I live with my wife and children in the al-Shabura refugee camp in the center of Rafah. I have two sons and two daughters, the eldest child is six and the youngest is one year old. I work as a traffic policeman in the Rafah Police Department and make NIS 1,940 a month. In January 2003, when my son ‘Ali was six months old, I noticed that he had problems hearing and that he was slow in his movements. I took him to the clinic of Dr. Nabil al-Barqoni, a private pediatrician. He conducted some tests and found that ‘Ali had an enlarged spleen and liver and a hearing deficiency.”