17 June 2008
OAKLAND, California (IPS) - The battle lines over Pastor John Hagee have been drawn, redrawn, and are no doubt being drawn again as this is being written. The San Antonio, Texas-based mega-preacher with the multi-million-dollar empire has always been controversial, but these days, the pastor is a lightning rod for critics. Read more about Christian Zionist gathering mired in controversy
16 June 2008
BEIRUT (IRIN) - A photograph of the sea, perfectly framed by the ragged window of a gutted building, illustrates the contrasts of Lebanon. Hanging in Medina Theatre as part of an exhibition in Beirut’s fashionable Hamra district, it could easily be the work of a professional. But the photographer is seven-year-old Manah Moustafa Diab from Rashidieh refugee camp, one of the 12 camps for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Read more about Refugee children chronicle life in camp
16 June 2008
GAZA CITY, 16 June (IPS) - When the broiling sun sinks behind the rolling Mediterranean sea in Gaza, hundreds of fishing boats turn on their motors and assemble ragged nets to round up the evening catch. Flickering blue lights scatter across the shallow seas as the boats gather offshore in close quarters. Mackerel, sardine and grey mullet are caught in nets and dumped into plastic crates to be sold in the street markets. Read more about Net tightens around Gaza fishermen
16 June 2008
GAZA CITY, 15 June (IPS) - Mahmoud Abu Teior, 13, knows it’s Abdullah’s kite up in the skies, though he has never seen Abdullah. But that kite rises into the skies from across the Egyptian side of the border across from Gaza. And, Mahmoud knows Abdullah’s voice because they speak sometimes. They have never met, and likely never will, but they are connected through their kites. Read more about Kites rise above the divisions in Gaza
Gaza Strip 13 June 2008
Tuesday morning at 9:00am, 220 Palestinian children gathered at al-Sherouq and al-Amal children’s club in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis refugee camp. Dressed in colorful clothes accompanied by cheerful smiles, the children lined up in rows to listen to their trainer. The children were attending their first day of a three-week-long program of training and activities at the club. EI correspondent Rami Almeghari visits this oasis in the besieged Gaza Strip. Read more about Shelter from the siege
13 June 2008
The impetus for Where Now for Palestine? The Demise of the Two-State Solution, as editor Jamil Hilal states in his introduction, is the increasing recognition within the Palestinian nationalist movement and among some Israelis that “the Oslo process has collapsed and the two-state solution has reached an impasse.” This collection of eleven essays aims “to show in some detail why and how this collapse has happened, and why some new solution has to be found.” Ali Abunimah reviews. Read more about Book review: "Where Now for Palestine? The Demise of the Two-State Solution"
12 June 2008
CAIRO, 12 June (IPS) - After an eight-year hiatus, Israel and Syria have resumed negotiations — albeit via Turkish middlemen — on the issue of the strategic Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967. But according to analysts in Cairo, neither side appears entirely genuine in its desire to reach a final settlement. Read more about Israel and Syria in diplomatic charade
12 June 2008
JABALIYA REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza, 11 June (IPS) - In the brightly painted new intensive care unit wing of al-Awda, northern Gaza’s only emergency medical facility in the massive Jabaliya refugee camp, doctors, nurses, aides and administrators are ready to provide emergency surgery services for the area’s 300,000 people. Read more about Gaza hospitals in need of care
11 June 2008
“National suicide” will soon be an incantation by neoconservative and other pro-Israeli pundits and politicians on the “bomb Iran” bandwagon. Its strategic implications are clear: We can’t trust irrational regimes because they are not deterred by threat of annihilation. Therefore, extraordinary actions — such as preemptive attack — may be not only justified but necessary. George Bisharat comments. Read more about The fallacy of Islamic "national suicide"
11 June 2008
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and US President George W. Bush follow contradictory policy tracks. In the major media offensive accompanying last November’s US-sponsored Annapolis peace conference both leaders presented themselves as the peace makers of the region. In Annapolis, Olmert committed to freezing settlement expansion. However, since that time according to numerous sources Olmert’s government has been accelerating illegal settlement expansion on occupied Palestinian land. Read more about Israel accelerates settlement expansion after Annapolis