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Plight of Palestinian refugees worsening in most parts of Middle East

20 June 2007


JERUSALEM, 20 June 2007 (IRIN) - Some 4.4 million Palestinians remain refugees nearly 60 years after the start of the 1948 war. As the world marks World Refugee Day on 20 June, about one third of these refugees still live inside camps, while an even larger proportion continue to receive aid and relief services, primarily from UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees. Observers say the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories has worsened over the past year due to the violence, intense infighting in the Gaza Strip and the international economic boycott on the Palestinian Authority. 

Exhibition: "Lebanon: Open Skies of Struggle"

Mostafa Heneway 27 August 2007


In the context of historical political events occurring in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East, photojournalist Stefan Christoff is currently touring a photo exhibition entitled Lebanon: Open Skies of Struggle. Christoff, who is a regular contributor to The Electronic Intifada, was interviewed by Montreal-based independent journalist Mostafa Heneway on the current Lebanon exhibition traveling across Canadian galleries. 

Call for probe into Palestinian abuse claims

20 June 2007


BADDAWI REFUGEE CAMP, NORTH LEBANON, 20 June 2007 (IRIN) - Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled the Lebanese army’s month-long siege and shelling of the north Lebanon Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, as its battle against Islamist militants continues. But one 16-year-old Palestinian student told IRIN his worst ordeal began after he escaped the camp. About 10 men he identified as soldiers and police were standing at a junction leading to the village of Muhammara, above Nahr al-Bared. “They asked to see my identity card,” said the boy, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. 

The Light at the End of the Gaza-Ramallah Tunnel

Omar Barghouti 20 June 2007


The lightening success of Hamas in forcefully taking over the supposed symbols of Palestinian power in Gaza cannot and ought not obscure the fact that, given the overbearing presence of Israel’s military occupation, the bloody clash between the Islamist group and its secular counterpart, Fatah, and irrespective of motives, has descended into a feud between two slaves fighting over the crumbs thrown to them, whenever they behave, by their common colonial master. EI contributor Omar Barghouti comments on the crisis and the imminent dissipation of the illusion of national Palestinian sovereignty under Israeli hegemony. 

Decoding the media's Palestinian "civil war"

Ben White 19 June 2007


Major news stories from Palestine/Israel are often accompanied by what becomes a self-reinforcing “vocabulary,” typically generated by Israeli government ministries or other propaganda outlets, and then picked up by the Western media. A classic example was the redeployment of Israeli settlers and military from the Gaza Strip in 2005, which was successfully packaged as a “disengagement” that pitted “Israeli against Israeli,” in a “painful compromise.” 

Division among Palestinians

19 June 2007


The following letter to the editor by EI co-founder Ali Abunimah was published by The Irish Times on 19 June 2007: As a Palestinian, I am appalled that the European Union and the United States have backed Mahmoud Abbas’s so-called “emergency government” in Israeli-occupied Ramallah. The Palestinian Basic Law makes no provision for such a development. Hamas, no matter what one thinks of it, won the January 2006 election fair and square. On the eve of its victory, it had already observed a one-year unilateral truce with Israel. 

Bush Faces Crises from Palestine to Pakistan

Jim Lobe 18 June 2007


Four years after the emergence of the first signs of a serious insurgency in Iraq, U.S. President George W. Bush finds himself beset with major crises stretching from Palestine to Pakistan.With U.S.-backed Fatah forces routed by Hamas in Gaza this week, Bush’s five-year-old vision of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict now looks more remote than ever, while a new Pentagon report in Iraq suggests that his four-month-old “surge” strategy is failing in its primary objective of reducing the violence there. 

Letter from a Palestinian Camp

Marcy Newman Beirut 18 June 2007


In 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed white American clergymen who were opposed to his civil resistance campaign that fought against racist, segregationist policies and practices in the US. Writing from his jail cell he responded particularly to people who would have preferred that African Americans be patient and wait for those rights to come to them rather than to resist: “For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’” Dr. Marcy Newman reflects upon the relevance of King’s words to the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. 

Whose Coup, Exactly?

Virginia Tilley 18 June 2007


Mutual accusations are hurled by Abbas and Haniyeh that the other side launched a coup against the legitimate authority. An international community worried by the ‘coup’ accusation might endorse the Fayyad government as the seemingly correct position. But the ‘coup’ claim stumbles over a basic problem — that Abbas’s appointing a new prime minister was itself entirely illegal. The new ‘emergency government’ is illegal, too. Virginia Tilley analyzes the situation and assesses the international community’s options. 

Hamas' Shock and Awe

Sam Bahour 20 June 2007


The recent overrunning of Gaza by Hamas militants was the equivalent to the United States’ Shock and Awe campaign in Iraq. EI contributor Sam Bahour writes, both campaigns were conducted outside the realm of international law and were violent and brutal, albeit each relative to their respective resources and internal contexts; both claimed to be “preemptive” in nature; and both events placed the Palestinian people and struggle for national liberation in even a more precarious position.