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Belgian court to rule whether Sabra and Shatila plaintiffs can proceed

Nicholas Blanford 17 September 2003

“Just as it appeared that the case was lost, it emerged that another complaint against Sharon had been lodged by some Belgian citizens in 2001, only two weeks before the Sabra and Shatila plaintiffs filed their own suit. ‘Everybody had forgotten about this complaint,’ Belgian lawyer Luc Walleyn said. ‘It was sleeping for two years’.” The Daily Star’s Nicholas Blanford interviews Luc Walleyn, one of three lawyers representing the survivors of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in a case that continues to keep legal scholars, activists, and war criminals on the edge of their seats. 

Israeli rights group: "The threat of expulsion due to the separation barrier"

17 September 2003

Today B’Tselem held a tour to release the organization’s new report on the village of Nu’man. Although Nu’man is located within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, Israel has refused to recognize the villagers as Jerusalem residents, and give them permanent residency status, claiming they were not in the city in 1967. 

Palestinian women mobilising to resist Israel's Apartheid Wall

International Women's Peace Service 17 September 2003


A powerful force is organizing resistance to the construction of the Apartheid Wall — Palestinian women! Palestinian women have always been active in resisting the Occupation. Now they are organizing to resist the construction of the Apartheid Wall. On Sept. 6, Palestinian women in Tulkarem organized a demonstration of more than 200 Palestinian, Israeli, and international women to protest against the Apartheid Wall and the Occupation. In the Salfeet region, located in the heart of the West Bank between Ramallah and Nablus, women have also begun organizing against the wall. The Apartheid Wall is already having a devastating impact on the lives of Palestinian women living in villages and cities along its path. Families are being cut off from access to large portions of their agricultural land and greenhouses. IWPS reports. 

The Smell of Home

Rizk Ikhrais Texas 17 September 2003


“When my oranges bloomed” my mother used to tell us, talking about her family’s orange trees in Palestine before 1948, “You could smell their blossom all day and all night and for miles around.” We would be sitting around her absorbing every word she had to say about her family’s farm in old Palestine, about her father who was so good in grafting orange trees he was hired by neighboring farmers, both Arab and Jewish, to do theirs. I remember how a smile would slowly appear on her face whenever she talked about “her oranges”. Rick Ikhrais writes from Texas. 

Speculative Journalism: The making of "The Death of Rachel Corrie"

Phan Nguyen 17 September 2003


Mother Jones demonstrated how low it could set its standards for investigative journalism when it hired Newsweek reporter Joshua Hammer to surf the web and write a 7000-word feature story on Rachel Corrie and the International Solidarity Movement (“The Death of Rachel Corrie”, Sept/Oct 2003). Indeed fact-checking and verification was not a priority in the production of this article. Phan Nguyen reports. 

War-torn Palestinian economy needs to bridge relief and development, says UNCTAD report

16 September 2003


Protracted occupation and conflict have effectively transformed the occupied Palestinian territory into a “war-torn economy”, with serious implications for Palestinian development prospects, says the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in a new report. The report, issued annually on UNCTAD’s assistance to the Palestinian people, calls for a new policy framework to bridge relief and development efforts. 

Al-Arabiyya offices attacked

15 September 2003


The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the recent raid on the Ramallah offices of the Dubai-based Arabic satellite news channel Al-Arabiyya. Al-Arabiyya producer Qassem Al-Khateeb told CPJ that on the evening of Saturday, September 13, five masked and armed men entered the building where Al-Arabiyya is housed and asked whether it was the office of Al-Arabiyya. Al-Khateeb responded that it was, and the assailants immediately ordered him and the two other employees at the station at gunpoint to go to the editing room.