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Academic freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel

Jonathan Cook 4 March 2008


In the strange world of Israeli academia, an Arab college lecturer is being dismissed from his job because he refused to declare his “respect for the uniform of the Israeli army.” The bizarre demand was made of Nizar Hassan, director of several award-winning films, after he criticized a Jewish student who arrived in his film studies class at Sapir College in the Negev for wearing his uniform and carrying a gun. Jonathan Cook writes from Nazareth. 

Trade union building targeted in Gaza

Mohammed Omer 4 March 2008


GAZA CITY, 4 March (IPS) - Two F-16 missiles were all it took to bring down the five-story headquarters of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions. The Union, established in 1965, is one of the forerunners of the movement calling for an international boycott of Israel, and imposition of sanctions on it until Israel meets its obligations over UN resolutions, borders, and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland. 

Eight new Gaza victims

3 March 2008


Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) continued their military operations in the Gaza Strip. Over the past 24 hours, IOF carried out several air raids against civilian targets and resistance fighters. As a result, eight Palestinians were killed. Two of the victims were unarmed civilians, one of them a child. With yesterday’s victims the tally since Wednesday, 27 February, till time of publication, soared to 108 victims killed, including 54 unarmed civilians. 

Colonial realities

Nimer Sultany 3 March 2008


Once again Israel defies an impotent international community which offers nothing but timid calls for ceasefire on “both sides.” And once again Palestinian suffering and death tolls continue to break records. Perhaps it is easy to dismiss this suffering by blaming the victims and resorting to ready cliches. When examined closely, however, reality rules out crude explanations of “violence without reason” and “terrorism without context. Nimer Sultany comments for EI. 

Torture coalition demands investigation into death of PA detainee

3 March 2008


Majd al-Barghouti died on 22 February, while he was being illegally detained by the General Intelligence Service (GIS) of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. There is evidence “ncluding photographs” indicating that prior to his death, al-Barghouti, 44 years old, arrested on political grounds, was subjected to torture and ill-treatment. 

Medical group warns Gaza health system on brink of collapse

3 March 2008


Israeli military forces commenced widespread operations against Gaza on 27 February 2008, following the death of an Israeli civilian in a college campus in the south of Israel, and damage caused by a Qassam rocket to a hospital campus in the town of Ashqelon. As a result of these operations 101 Palestinians (according to Palestinian counts), the majority of whom were civilians, have been killed. 

Israel keeping true to its racist words

Rami Almeghari 2 March 2008


Dehumanizing the Palestinians has been necessary for Israel to justify its actions ever since, and even before, the state was declared on destroyed historic Palestine in 1948 and then in 1967 when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza. Taken together, they indicate the historic effort to destroy Palestinian national aspirations and this is what Israel is trying to do in Gaza, which Nobel prize winner and late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin once wished would be swallowed by the sea. EI correspondent Rami Almeghari comments from Gaza.