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UN expert: Israel puts human rights defenders at "grave risk"

11 October 2005


A top UN official accused Israel of depriving Palestinians of their basic human rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Hina Jilani, special representative of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Human Rights Defenders, said that Israel was blocking lawyers, journalists and rights activists from monitoring potential rights abuses. “‘Security imperatives’ have been allowed to deprive a vast population of their very basic rights and these measures need deeper scrutiny by all concerned if any respect for norms of international human rights and humanitarian law is to be preserved,” Jilani told reporters in Jerusalem. Hina Jilani concluded her visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. 

Selling colonialism

Anthony Loewstedt 13 October 2005


Kingdom of Heaven, directed by Sir Ridley Scott and starring Orlando Bloom, Jeremy Irons, Eva Green, Liam Neeson, has now been released on DVD (20th Century Fox). Watching this Hollywood extravaganza is like seeing the current Iraq war through the eyes of an American soldier, or a portrait of apartheid from the point of view of a rich white South African farmer, or a depiction of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank from the perspective of a Jewish settler. It is also like the foreign news in the quality U.S. and British news media today: no direct or conscious lies, but extremely one-sided. In end effect, it has all the historicity of an early cowboys-and-Indians-movie or Birth of a Nation, the infamous 1916 film that sympathizes with the Ku Klux Klan. 

The case for cultural boycott

12 October 2005


In 2004 the 20th Haifa International film festival established a section for “New Palestinian Cinema” in cooperation with Masharaf magazine in Haifa. Several Palestinian film makers were invited to present their films at this festival. A number of us at Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) contacted some of these filmmakers to urge them not to participate in that festival. There were two main reasons for that: the first was that the film festival was sponsored by the Israeli government and held under the patronage of Limor Livnat a minister in Sharon’s government and a member of the Likud party, well-known for her racist and Zionist positions and actions. 

ADC Remembers Alex Odeh

11 October 2005


The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) today marks the 20th year since the murder of Alex Odeh. Odeh, ADC’s Southern California Regional Director, was killed on October 11, 1985, when a powerful pipe bomb exploded as he unlocked and opened the door of the ADC office in Santa Ana, California. In addition to killing Odeh, the bomb injured several other victims. According to press reports, the FBI has identified members of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) as suspects in this act of domestic terrorism. 

Theatre Review: My Name Is Rachel Corrie

Cindy Corrie and Craig Corrie 11 October 2005


When our daughter Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in the Gaza Strip on March 16 2003, an immediate impulse was to get her words out to the world. We realised that her words were having a similar effect on others whose lives were being changed. Earlier this year, when a play created entirely from Rachel’s emails and journals first opened in London, we saw in a very immediate way the impact that Rachel’s words can have on others. It is disturbing to see our daughter played on stage, but it drives home the impact she has had since her killing in Gaza. 

Hamas and the PA at loggerheads

Yasser Abu Moailek 11 October 2005


For a long time, relations between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Islamist movement Hamas have been tense. On September 30 these tensions finally boiled over. After a series of mysterious and still-disputed events, members of Hamas clashed with Palestinian police officers throughout Gaza City. Three Palestinians were reported killed, including a major in the Palestinian police, while more than 50 others, among them children, were injured. 

The Skies are Weeping to premiere in London

Philip Munger 11 October 2005


Eighteen months ago I wrote a press release for what I thought would be the upcoming performance of a memorial cantata about a dedicated American college student, to be performed by other dedicated American college students. It was not to be. Some of the premises I had accepted in creating the work were seriously flawed. The first of many flawed premises was that in the environment of the ongoing Iraq War, one could expect an even table when presenting an antiwar argument - especially in a work of fine art. I was wrong. 

Gaza Last? The British Government's U-turn on Palestine

Nick Dearden 11 October 2005


“I’m not looking for Sharon to do anything other than… to act in the measured way I spoke of”. And when the “measured way” includes air raids, mass arrests of Palestinians and serious violation of international law, British Minister for the Middle East, Kim Howells, is unlikely to be disappointed. At the very time Palestine takes on the characteristics of the anti-apartheid movement - with sanctions and boycott calls, an extensive twinning network, and Churches disinvesting from companies complicit in the Occupation -the British Government appears to tread ever more delicately around Israel. 

Gazan poets gather for reading on eve of Ramadan

Sami Abu Salem 11 October 2005


Lanterns and old-fashioned lamps dangled from the wood ceiling over hundreds of citizens gathered on the eve of Ramadan (the month of fasting for Muslims) to attend night of poetry recitation by young poets. The four young poets were in a semi-competition to win the most applause from the officials and ordinary citizens who were enthusiastic to spend this unique time far from politics. The night of poetry recitation, “There is a Room for Happiness”, was organized by the Rahala Association. 

Israeli High Court bans use of human shields

7 October 2005


Amnesty International welcomes the banning, by Israel’s High Court, of the use of Palestinians as “human shields” by the Israeli army. The long-awaited High Court ruling of 6 October 2005 came in response to a petition filed in May 2002 by several Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations seeking a ban of the practice, which endangered the lives of the Palestinians who were used as “human shields” and violated international law, notably Article 51 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. In recent years, Amnesty International investigated tens of cases where the Israeli army used Palestinians, children as well as adults, as “human shields” during military operations in towns and refugee camps throughout the Occupied Territories.