All Content

Remembering Sabra and Shatila -- and Atoning

Ellen Siegel 3 October 2003

“Last year, 20 years after the massacre, I returned to Beirut to be part of the commemorative events. I was there during Yom Kippur. I tried to find the remaining Jews of Beirut, but could not. I wanted to spend this day with them. Instead I went to the Khiam detention center — a place where Palestinians and Lebanese were held during the Israeli occupation of the south, many of them tortured. It was fitting to be in a place where one could ask for forgiveness for the sins committed in this horrendous chamber of horrors by my people.” Ellen Siegel, a registered nurse and an active member of the US Jewish peace movement, examines Yom Kippur’s meaning from a unique angle. 

Rebuilding Jenin

2 October 2003

There is a hole at the heart of Jenin camp. A hole where there once stood more than 400 refugee homes. Right now the site of the hardest-fought battle of Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield is still known as “ground zero” by locals, but within a year UNRWA hopes to transform several acres of mud into a community of modern shelters for almost 2,000 people. 

The glove does fit: A reply to Alan Dershowitz

Norman Finkelstein 30 September 2003

Alan Dershowitz either cannot or refuses to understand why there is a controversy surrounding The Case for Israel. Perhaps Norman Finkelstein can enlighten him. Quite simply, the book he claims to have written is a hoax: (1) substantial swatches are lifted from another notorious hoax on the Israel-Palestine conflict, (2) it is replete with egregious falsifications, and (3) the few scholarly sources actually cited are mangled beyond recognition. 

"Move on and forge ahead": Remembering Edward W. Said

Zaineb Istrabadi 2 October 2003

“Edward Said also wrote tirelessly about the Arab and Islamic world. He himself felt that even though born into a Christian family, he very much was part of Arab-Islamic civilization. It distressed him that Arabs and Muslims, and that Islam itself were presented in negative terms in the mass media and he wrote many articles criticizing their portrayal in newspapers, magazines, and film.” Zainab Istrabadi remembers the man she worked with for nearly a decade in the pages of the Turkish daily, Zaman. 

B'Tselem: Israel's recent proposal on the wall will harm tens of thousands of Palestinians

30 September 2003

Setting the route of the third stage of the separation barrier so that it passes east of the settlements of Ariel, Qedumim, Immanu’el, and Qarne Shomeron – in accordance with the proposal put forward by the Minister of Defense and the Prime Minister – proves once again that the defense establishment’s decisions regarding the barrier are based on unacceptable political considerations. 

Weekly report on human rights violations

2 October 2003

This week, Israeli forces killed 9 Palestinians, including a child, and more than 30 others were wounded. This week, Israeli occupying forces have perpetrated more violations of human rights against Palestinian civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories, including extra-judicial and willful killings, indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, incursions into Palestinian areas, home demolitions, land leveling and arrests. 

Israeli activists seek global help to save Palestinian home

2 October 2003


The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions has issued an urgent appeal to every person concerned with justice, human rights and peace in the Middle East to help save the home of a Palestinian family that has been demolished four previous times. Global citizens are asked to urgently contact their political representatives to demand that the Israeli government rescind the order against the house immediately. The true reason for not granting permits and demolishing homes is to confine Palestinians to bantustans.