3 June 2003
Anti-Semitism, like some plague-inducing virus, is “evolving” — or so warns Holocaust scholar Daniel J. Goldhagen in the American Jewish weekly The Forward. According to the author, the lessons of the Holocaust are slowly being forgotten and a “free-floating” globalised hatred of Jews is being spread via the Internet and television. EI contributor Jonathan Cook looks at the realities. Read more about The new anti-Semitism?
31 May 2003
This international children’s day, DCI draws the world’s attention to the plight of the Palestinian child, particularly those deprived of their liberty and locked away in Israeli prisons, which comprises an increasing number of under-18’s in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Read more about Arrest and detention: A measure of first resort for Palestinian children
31 May 2003
“As Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Two-Spirit, Trans and Intersex and Queer people we understand what it means to be silenced, used as scapegoats, and targeted with violence for being who we are. This is experienced more intensely for those of us who are also people of color and trans experience. For these reasons, we feel it is crucial in the current political climate to make anti-war organizing and the fight against racism — at home and abroad — a priority for our movement. ” More Americans come out against occupation and injustice. Read more about "No pride in war, no pride in occupation!"
31 May 2003
While working as a journalist in Israel, Patricia Naylor, a Canadian TV producer, met a number of Palestinian video cameramen and still photographers who cover the frequent clashes in Hebron. These journalists work for Western media companies. Cameramen Mazen Dana and Nael Shyouki of the British news agency, Reuters, and their colleagues are accustomed to the risks of photographing street protests and riots. But displaying their wounds, they all told Naylor they had become targets of Israeli soldiers firing rubber bullets and even live ammunition. The excellent Frontline documentary is being rebroadcast on 5 June 2003 on PBS. Read more about PBS documentary "In the Line of Fire" to re-air on June 5th
31 May 2003
Alfei Menashe and Matan’s success was a catastrophe for Kalkilya. The city became an island surrounded by fences on four sides, cut off from the villagers that bring it goods and do their shopping and depend on it for civil services. But, as Uzi Dayan says, “The fence isn’t supposed to make everybody happy. There was no choice.” Meron Rappaport reports in Yedioth Ahronoth. Read more about On Israel's separation fence (part 2)
31 May 2003
Something strange has been happening in recent months to the separation fence. What began thanks to a campaign of the Israeli Left and Center under Barak-style slogans of “we are here, they are there,” it has become the baby of the Sharon government. The same Sharon who during the unity government opposed building the fence and was dragged into it almost against his will, on any given day has 500 bulldozers at work, paving and building one of the largest projects in the history of the country, perhaps the largest. Meron Rappaport reports in Yedioth Ahronoth. Read more about On Israel's separation fence (part 1)
29 May 2003
The International Federation of Journalists today called for the rights and security of journalists to be made a priority in the forthcoming dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian leaders. “It is time to set journalists free and to build democracy through dialogue, tolerance and press freedom,” says the IFJ in a letter to both sides. Read more about IFJ calls for journalists' rights and security to be made a priority in Israeli-Palestinian dialogue
31 May 2003
A recent review by the UN of Israel’s performance under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights expressed concern that “excessive emphasis upon the State as a “Jewish State” encourages discrimination and accords a second-class status to its non-Jewish citizens. Read more about UN Committee: "Excessive emphasis upon the State as a 'Jewish State' encourages discrimination"
30 May 2003
In what may have been one of the most moving moments of protest in Israel, hundreds of women and men wearing stark black lay down outside the Cinematheque in Tel-Aviv, completely covering the large plaza in front of the building. Read more about Searching to end the lament
30 May 2003
“On May 22, at 2 P.M., the lectures and the audience arrived at hall 715 in the university. The doors were locked. In the corridor stood the university’s chief of security forces and ten of his henchmen, all armed with pistols and walkie-talkies. I was pushed into a side room by the chief and his lieutenant and handed a personal letter from the president, Yehuda Hayut. This was done in front of my wife and my colleagues, who watched helplessly as the macabre scene unfolded. Outside the corridor, my wife heard two other lieutenants of the chief informing the president over their walkie-talkies, ‘We caught him!’ They also said to each other, ‘High time! They should do the same to all the leftist lectures in the university!’” Dr. Ilan Pappe, a professor at Haifa University, prevents a chilling account in clinical detail of heavy-handed repression of academic speech at his university. Read more about The President, the Dean, and the Historiography of 1948 Palestine