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Belgium's landmark ruling: Sharon to be sued for war crimes

Fabrice Randoux 12 February 2003

“Today’s ruling clears the way for Sharon to be tried once he ceases to be prime minister, regardless of whether he is in Belgium or not. It also enables a war crimes trial of Israeli General Amos Yaron, who oversaw the Beirut sector in 1982.” Fabrice Randoux reports for Australia’s Sunday Times from Belgium, a country that has given teeth to the legal principle of Universal Jurisdiction. 

Belgium Supreme Court rules that Ariel Sharon can be tried for genocide

12 February 2003

Belgium’s supreme appeals court has ruled that a genocide lawsuit against Ariel Sharon could go ahead once his term as prime minister of Israel ends. The ruling opens the way for survivors of a 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees to press their case against the Israeli leader, who they hold responsible for the deaths of hundreds of their kin in Israeli-occupied Beirut. Breaking news from ITV. 

Life in Palestine

Lucy Mair Jerusalem 11 February 2003

How do I describe what life is like here - of the sadness in the eyes of my colleagues, of the exhaustion that results when every daily action requires an extraordinary effort, when perseverance is no longer enough and futility and despair fight for a place on the proud faces carrying bags and babies and the burden of poverty through checkpoints, over dirt piles, past soldiers and tanks and the bombed-out shells of buildings. 

Letter from Bethlehem

Toine van Teeffelen Bethlehem, Palestine 10 February 2003

We had this week two curfewed days, Friday and Saturday, while sometimes the nights are open and sometimes not. In the morning, people get used to carefully listen at 5:00 whether today there’ll be a curfew or not. People sometimes even recognize the creaky loudspeaker voice: “Oh, that is the Druze, you can’t hear well what he says.” 

First prize for freedom of media to Israeli and Palestinian journalists

Media Foundation of the Sparkasse Leipzig 6 February 2003

In 2003, the Leipzig “Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media” goes to Israel and Palestine. As the Media Foundation of the Sparkasse Leipzig announced on Thursday, the first Prize of 15,000 Euro goes halves to Gideon Levy who works for the prestigious paper Ha’aretz at Tel Aviv and Daoud Kuttab, Director of the Institute of Modern Media at the Palestine Ramallah. 

Aid for Palestinians suffers due to focus on Iraq

United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East 10 February 2003


Mr Peter Hansen, Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has issued an appeal to the international community not to let the West Bank and Gaza slide down its list of priorities as the world focuses on a potential conflict in Iraq. 

Palestinians subject to Israeli 'torture lottery'

Justin Huggler 11 February 2003

Israeli security forces in Hebron have allegedly forced Palestinians to submit to a macabre “lottery”, in which the victim had to choose their own “punishment” by picking a slip of paper out of a pile. On the pieces of paper were written various acts of violence, including having a hand or leg broken, and, Palestinians say, being beaten to death. The Independent’s Justin Huggler reports. 

Mideast Standoff At U-M

Don Cohen 3 February 2003

At first glance, the fact that the Michigan Student Zionists and the campus chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) cooperated to bring two spokesmen on the Israeli-Arab crisis to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor appeared to be a positive sign. However, those attending the Michigan Union debate Jan. 21 between Morton Klein, the Philadelphia-based national president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), and Chicagoan Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the Electronic Intifada Web site, didn’t see understandings reached or bridges built. 

Ninja in Nazareth

Goel Pinto 9 February 2003

“When people ask me if the film is about the occupation of the Palestinian people, I say right away that this isn’t a film about anything. If it has to be reduced to one subject, I say it’s a film about occupation in the world as a whole — it focuses on Israel only because Israel serves as a kind of microcosm.” Elia Suleiman, director of the award-winning film “Divine Intervention,” which has just opened in Israel, talks to Goel Pinto of Ha’aretz about the ideas behind the film.