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While the Fire Rages

Daoud Kuttab 27 December 2006


A major Palestinian and Arab demand has been quietly accepted by Israel and the US, but the Palestinians are too engrossed in their internal fighting to realize it. After the collapse of the bilateral and unilateral efforts, the time has come for multilateralism. Palestinian-Israeli bilateral talks saw a high point in the Oslo process, but have stalled ever since. Israel’s unilateralism, both in south Lebanon and Gaza, has also been a major failure. US State Department officials, seeing the failure of their own unilateralism in Iraq, have pushed Israel and found the Olmert administration receptive toward a multilateral approach. 

Palestinians Stranded on Iraq Border

27 December 2006


According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other relief agencies, several hundred Palestinians who were forced to leave their homes in Iraq are now stranded in no man’s land on the Syrian and Jordanian borders. Al-Hol and Al-Tanaf camps, located on Iraq’s border with Syria, consist of makeshift tents. The camps have become the home of 655 displaced Palestinian men, women and children who continue to languish there under extremely difficult conditions. Another camp, Al-Walid, was just established recently to house an additional 41 Palestinians, all of whom were forced to leave by militias loyal to the US-backed Iraqi government. 

Increasing numbers of Palestinians leaving Baghdad

27 December 2006


The number of Palestinians stuck on the Iraq-Syria border after fleeing violence in Baghdad has risen to 80, with more reported on the way. Last weekend, an additional 39 Palestinians left Baghdad for the border with Syria, where an earlier group of 41, including 19 children, has been stuck just inside Iraq since Dec. 16. UNHCR received reports over the weekend that the security situation for Palestinians in Baghdad had grown worse over the past week and that more were on the way to the border. Members of the Mahdi army were reported in Palestinian areas in eastern Baghdad, attempting to take over apartments to assert control in the mainly Shia area. 

Canada: Action to Boycott Chapters and Indigo Bookstores

Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid 26 December 2006


On Saturday 23 December a picket was organized by activists in Toronto and Montreal to officially launch a boycott campaign against Chapters and Indigo Bookstores. The campaign demands an end to the financial support offered by the majority owners of Chapters and Indigo to Heseg - the Foundation for Lone Soldiers. This is a program of financial support for former ‘lone soldiers’ in the Israeli military. The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, came out to the downtown core of Toronto, and held a mass leafleting and information picket to launch this campaign. 

We All Want to Live!

Samah Idriss 26 December 2006


But here, in the heart of Beirut, the atmosphere seems quite different. The Opposition is in the streets, holding a sit-in until the formation of a “national union” or “national unity” government or until Fuad Siniora�s government is toppled. Sunni�Shi�a agitation has reached a peak, despite assurances that Lebanon cannot be “Iraqized” [in the past, we have heard assurances that Iraq cannot be “Lebanonized”]. A martyr [whom government supporters described as having been “killed”] has fallen from the opposition ranks. The wounded number in the tens. A Western newspaper talks about new weaponary that has arrived at the Internal Security Forces from an Arab country [United Arab Emirates] in order to counter the influence of “Hezbollah” and Iran. 

Middle Eastern-American comedians making Comedy Central's "The Watch List"

26 December 2006


Can an Arab be funny? Can a Muslim tell a joke? Can an Iranian make you laugh? Find out on “The Watch List,” the groundbreaking new comedy show that will be available January 8, 2007 on Comedy Central’s Internet channel Motherload. This edgy comedy show features the country’s top Middle Eastern-American comedians performing stand up and sketch comedy. This is the only place where you can find out if “Arabs are the new blacks,” see a real virgin Palestinian-American Muslim comedian, get a taste of what its like to “fly while Muslim,” and find out if the President of Iran is high. 

The Embarrassment of the Wretched

Ran HaCohen 26 December 2006


A recent call for a cultural boycott against Israel by John Berger and others has elicited one of its more wretched responses in the Guardian (Dec. 22), signed by Anthony Julius and Simon Schama. A recurrent theme in anti-Palestinian propaganda (usually misnamed “pro-Israel”) is “Don’t Single Out.” The idea is that evil should be addressed everywhere; the greater the evil, the greater the protest against it should be; and since there are worse cases of evil than Israel’s, Israel should not be criticized. Not now, at least: perhaps after all other evils have been eradicated. 

A Palestinian view of Jimmy Carter's book

Ali Abunimah 26 December 2006


President Carter has done what few American politicians have dared to do: speak frankly about the Israel-Palestine conflict. He has done this nation, and the cause of peace, an enormous service by focusing attention on what he calls “the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine’s citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank.” The 39th president of the United States, the most successful Arab-Israeli peace negotiator to date, has braved a storm of criticism, including the insinuation from the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League that his arguments are anti-Semitic. 

Poverty-stricken Palestinians turn to drugs

26 December 2006


Palestinian refugee Samir Hassan [not his real name] never imagined he would one day replace his UN food coupons with marijuana and heroin, despite the hunger of his children. “My life was normal, everything was normal, but unemployment is difficult and poverty is more difficult. Bad conditions led me down a worse path. I have even had to beg for money,” he said. Hassan, a 35-year-old from the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, cares for nine family members including his sick mother. Before 2000, he used to work in Israel’s shipping industry, but with the outbreak of the second intifada [Palestinians’ uprising against Israeli occupation] in that year most Palestinian labourers from Gaza were banned from entering Israel. 

UN and other members of diplomatic 'Quartet' back continued aid to Palestinians

22 December 2006


Members of the diplomatic ‘Quartet’ on the Middle East - the United Nations, the United States, the Russian Federation and the European Union (EU) - today endorsed the continuation of a stop-gap measure for providing aid directly to the Palestinian people. In a statement, the Quartet backed the continuation for three months of the Temporary International Mechanism, the means devised by the EU and the World Bank to provide aid directly to the Palestinian people by bypassing the Hamas-led Government, which has been isolated internationally because it has not renounced violence and does not recognize Israel.