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Building an edifice on blackmail

Saree Makdisi 10 March 2006


Richard Rogers, the noted British architect, was recently summoned to the offices of the Empire State Development Corp. to explain his connection to a group called Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine which has called for a boycott of Israel’s construction industry to protest the apartheid wall. Empire State is overseeing the redesign of New York’s $1.7-billion Javits Convention Center, and Rogers is the architect on the job. EI contributor Saree Makdisi explains how pro-Israel groups, enraged at Rogers’ association with the architects’ group used their political clout to force Rogers into obsequious professions of loyalty to Israel. 

Sane Britain disappears as Neocons set agenda

Jonathan Cook 10 March 2006


Until recently liberal Europeans were keen to distance themselves, at least officially, from the ideological excesses of the current American administration. They argued that the neo-conservative enthusiasm for the “war on terror” — and its underpinning ideology of “a clash of civilisations” — did not fit with Europe’s painful recent experiences of world wars and the dismantling of its colonial outposts around the globe, writes EI contributor Jonathan Cook. But there is every sign that the public dissociation is coming to a very rapid end. As criticism of Israel is increasingly not tolerated, it is becoming normal to see Muslims as a civilizational threat. 

Britain secretly gave Israel plutonium for atom bombs, BBC investigation reveals

9 March 2006


Britain secretly supplied Israel with plutonium during the 1960s, despite a warning from British intelligence that the material could help Israel get the atom bomb. Documents obtained by the BBC program Newsnight show the decision to sell plutonium to Israel in 1966 was blocked by officials in both the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office who said “It is [government] policy not to do anything which would assist Israel in the production of nuclear weapons”. But it was forced through by a civil servant in the Ministry of Technology, Michael Michaels, whose full name was Michael Israel Michaels. 

'Annan's Story: Freedom stolen at thirteen

Maureen Clare Murphy and Zachary Wales Ramallah, Palestine 9 March 2006


One day before Valentine’s Day, ‘Annan’s father went to his 13-year-old son’s school in Beitunia, Ramallah, and only found his oldest boy’s jacket and backpack on the school grounds. Along with four other boys ranging from the ages of 11 to 14, ‘Annan had been arrested by Israeli soldiers who gave him a beating that was evidenced in the bruises seen by his parents when they were finally able to see him only briefly during ‘Annan’s 15-minute court hearing two days later. He told them that the soldiers beat him with their fists and feet, as well as the butts of their guns. 

World Bank approves $42 million to Palestinian Authority to sustain public services for Palestinian people

8 March 2006


The World Bank approved a $42 million grant to assist the Palestinian Authority (PA) meet its immediate financing needs in the wake of a severe fiscal crisis to avoid suspension of vital basic services to the Palestinian population. The grant will be made through a multi-donor trust fund—the Public Financial Management Reform Trust Fund—launched in 2004, with support from international donors, to channel budgetary aid to the PA against progress in financial reforms. The EC, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the UK contributed to the current grant. The West Bank and Gaza continue to suffer from a debilitating economic recession brought on by restriction on movement of goods and people since September 2000. 

Photostory: Israeli extremists' attack on Nazareth's most famous Christian church goes virtually unreported

Jonathan Cook 8 March 2006


Thousands of Nazarenes rushed to the Basilica of the Annunciation in the early evening of Friday March 3, as rumours swept the city that their church was under attack. For several minutes the congregation huddled together in fear of their lives before a priest and several churchgoers managed to overpower a grey-bearded man in jeans, 44-year-old Haim Habibi, an Israeli Jew accompanied by his wife, Violet, and the couple’s 20-year-old daughter Odelia. Almost from the outset the Israeli media downplayed the significance of the attack, saying only “firecrackers” had been set off by Habibi, who was described - without evidence - as being mentally disturbed. As a result, most of the world’s media ignored the event entirely. 

Palestinian children killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza

7 March 2006


On Monday evening, 6 March 2006, Israeli Occupation Forces carried out another extra-judicial execution in Gaza City, leaving five Palestinians, including three children and two members of the al-Quds Brigades, dead. In addition, twelve civilian bystanders, including six children, were injured. This attack took place in a densely populated area of Gaza, reflecting the complete disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights calls upon the international community to meet its responsibilities and calls particularly upon the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Conventions to fulfil their obligations to ensure protection of Palestinian civilians living under military occupation. 

Photostory: Students on Palestinians' right to education

7 March 2006


In 2005, a group of student photographers from Birzeit University and Al-Najah University came together to work on the Right to Education Photography Project. Their aim was to document student life and the obstruction of Palestinian education under military occupation, through the artistic expression of their own ideas and experiences. Their photographs have now become an exhibition and a book, which were recently launched Birzeit University, and will tour Palestinian and international venues throughout 2006. 

UNICEF: "Sad day for children of Gaza"

7 March 2006


UNICEF said Monday was a sad day for the children of Gaza, after five were killed in conflict-related incidents. In the first incident, two brothers, aged 14 and 15, were killed instantly when they were exposed to an unexploded device in a pond in Bereij, south of Gaza City. Later in the day, two brothers, aged 11 and 15, and a 14-year-old boy were killed as bystanders during an air attack. Monday’s tragic incidents bring the year’s death toll of Palestinian children to conflict-related violence to 11. UNICEF said the events of Monday starkly illustrate the how children are impacted in many ways by the conflict. In line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child all efforts should be made to protect children from violence as well as their rights to education, health and play. 

"Gaza Blues: Different Stories" provides surrealist snapshot of conflict

Amal Awad 7 March 2006


A collection of darkly humorous short stories by popular Israeli writer Etgar Keret and a novella by Palestinian writer Samir El-Youssef, the idea behind Gaza Blues was born during a particularly violent period of the intifada in 2002. The result is a set of stories that are not explicitly about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but rather, the people living it and the complexity of their existences. The snapshot Gaza Blues suitably offers is one of violence and tension. However, it successfully attempts to draw back the curtains on the tragedies and rhetoric of the conflict, its layered subtext forcing the readers to review their understanding of the lives inhabiting the conflict.