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Professor Edward Said's Ninth Symphony plays on

Leila Diab 29 September 2003

On September 25, 2003, I received the somber news of the passing of Palestinian Professor Edward Said, at the age of 67. I like many others felt an unbearable loss of one Palestinian hero who had influenced and inspired my quest to ameliorate the long, unjust and unabated suffering of the Palestinian people. Professor Said was one of a kind. Educator and writer Leila Diab remembers Edward Said. 

Edward Said: The Loss of an Irreplaceable Mentor

Sarah Eltantawi 29 September 2003

Picking up a work by Edward Said is never intellectually or emotionally easy. Following Said through one of his thrusts into the meaning of the intellectual, of being an Arab or a Palestinian, or exploring with Said what it truly meant to be political is an experience so deep, at times, so painful, so unflinchingly honest that one emerges from it reborn, enlightened, and often on fire. I speak from experience as a young student set aflame by Said’s work in the mid-1990’s. I did not know Edward Said personally. I saw him lecture at Harvard and in Southern California, and I met him once at a conference in Boston. I talked to him about the challenges of being sympathetic to the Palestinians in academia. He responded, with real compassion and even a flash of anger in his eyes, “keep fighting.”  MPAC Communcations Director Sarah Eltantawi remembers Said. 

Advisory: TIPH reports "no information on the shooting" of two of its personnel

Ali Abunimah and Nigel Parry 26 March 2002

Various news organisations reporting on the killing of one Turkish and one Swiss member of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) have included the Israeli claim that it was Palestinian gunmen who opened fire on the TIPH vehicle. A TIPH spokesperson, reached by telephone in Hebron by The Electronic Intifada today categorically stated that TIPH had “No information on the shooting.” 

New Report: Three years of Israeli violations of international humanitarian law

29 September 2003

On the third anniversary of the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, PCHR submitted a memorandum to the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of August 12, 1949, summarizing violations of the Convention over the last three years and calling for immediate action to protect Palestinian civilians. 

New book on Israeli occupation draws angry response, harassment

28 September 2003


The editors and publishers of a recently released anthology about international nonviolent action supporting Palestinian sovereignty have experienced harassment by phone and email. Harassment surrounding this publication is nothing new. Months earlier when the book was first advertised on the internet, one of the authors started receiving continuous hate calls and emails at her office, acts that completely disrupted the workplace. 

Edward Said and the Contours of Palestinian Identity

A.Y. May 27 September 2003

For Palestinians born in the Diaspora, Said’s writings stand at the centre of their attempts at making sense of the world and of their place in it as a dispossessed people. I am one such Palestinian. I discovered Said’s work as an undergraduate student at McGill University in the mid-nineties. Majoring in Political Science and Women’s Studies, my intellectual growth as a human being, a Palestinian, a Canadian, a writer, a committed peace activist, and a staunchly secular feminist, were all deeply impacted by his work. This summer I had a chance to attend a 4-hour-long unedited documentary interview with Edward Said at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. A.Y. May reports. 

JCSER: Israeli Department of Antiquities hides outcome of archaeological excavations

21 September 2003

The Jerusalem Center for Social & Economic Rights (JCSER) calls on the Israeli Department of Antiquities to reveal the outcome of archaeological excavations currently taking place under its supervision. These excavations are being carried out in Jerusalem’s old City; inside the Palestinian Museum, also known as the Rockefeller Museum in Occupied Jerusalem; and in Shu’fat, along the main Jerusalem-Ramallah road. 

Israeli Conciliation Court decides to temporarily freeze construction separation barrier

24 September 2003

The Jerusalem Center for Social & Economic Rights (JCSER) has obtained a court decision from the Israeli Conciliation Court in Tel Aviv forcing the Israeli army to freeze construction work on the so-called Israeli ‘security fence’ in the Sawahreh Ash-Sharqiya neighborhood, south of Occupied Jerusalem, for thirty days.