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EI EXCLUSIVE: Did UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw help sell out Jerusalem?

Ali Abunimah 28 November 2005


New documents obtained by EI under the UK’s Freedom of Information Act (2000) indicate that Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was asked to personally lobby Israeli officials on behalf of a UK company whose work helps extend Israel’s administrative and legal structures into Occupied East Jerusalem in violation of international law and long-standing UK policy. The new documents indicate not only the high importance the British government attached to the contract, but that British officials dismissed concerns that the company’s work could violate British policy on the status of Jerusalem. EI co-founder Ali Abunimah reports this exclusive. 

Palestinians cross Rafah border

26 November 2005


President Mahmoud Abbas formally reopened the Gaza Strip’s border crossing with Egypt today, giving Palestinians control over one of their frontiers for the first time. Rafah is the territory’s only outlet that doesn’t lead to Israel. Palestinians in Gaza can now come and go to Egypt and the wider world without passing through Israeli security. The European Union is supplying monitors to help at the crossing. Israel will have access to video camera images of the crossing, and can object if it sees someone whose entry into Gaza it opposes. 

Podcast: Debating the Gaza "Disengagement" at North Park University

26 November 2005


Listen to a podcast of EI co-founder Ali Abunimah and Tel Aviv University Professor of Philosophy Ilai Alon discussing the Gaza “disengagement” and what it means for the prospects for Palestinian-Israeli peace. The November 1, 2005 event was held at North Park University in Chicago as part of the 10th Anniversary Lecture Series of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. 

A Land for Growing, not Settlement Growth

Oscar Randolph 26 November 2005


Settlement growth and the diminishing size of the village of Singel are intrinsically related. Singel’s families continue to brace themselves in the face of unchecked land grabs awarded to newly created Israeli settlements. While Israeli tax collectors are quick to furnish documentation that links Palestinians to their land for taxation purposes, they are quicker to dismiss these records when issuing evacuation orders. Rarely do Israeli authorities balk at this double standard with regard to settlement expansion. 

Vanunu speaks about his November 18th arrest

Zachary Wales 26 November 2005


Mordechai Vanunu, often dubbed the “Israeli nuclear whistle-blower,” was arrested on Friday 18th November for traveling to the East Jerusalem suburb al-Ram. Vanunu, 51, was released on the following day and returned to his de facto house arrest at St. George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem, where he has sought refuge since being released from his 18-year detention and torture under Israeli authorities. In addition to his anti-nuclear campaigning, Vanunu has repeatedly called for the dismantlement of Israel’s racist policies, and the fundamental right of return for Palestinian refugees. 

WaPSR Delegation Diary 3: Our Dinner with Mordechai Vanunu

Bill Dienst Palestine 26 November 2005


East Jerusalem, March 7, 2005 — Tonight, the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility met with Mr. Mordechai Vanunu at St. George’s Hostel in East Jerusalem. Mr. Vanunu is famous around the world for exposing Israel’s secret nuclear weapon’s program at the Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev Desert in Southern Israel. Vanunu was convicted to 18 years in prison and spent 11 of these years in total isolation. He describes psychological torture intended to break his will and says Israeli authorities tried to brand him as a criminal. 

EU diplomats slam Israel's policies in occupied Jerusalem

Arjan El Fassed 24 November 2005


A draft report by the Jerusalem and Ramallah heads of missions, representatives of the EU member states, to their foreign ministers, was leaked to the media. In the report the diplomats recommend a more critical approach toward Israeli policies in East Jerusalem. The diplomats want clear statements by the EU and the Middle East Quartet that Jerusalem remains “an issue for negotiation by the two sides,” and that the EU should call on Israel to desist from “all measures designed to pre-empt such negotiations.” The diplomats want the EU to request Israel “to halt discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, especially concerning working permits, building permits, house demolitions, taxation and expenditure.” 

Israeli army asks Supreme Court to reconsider ban on human shields

20 November 2005


On 17 November 2005, the Attorney General (AG) submitted a motion to the Supreme Court of Israel on behalf of the Defense Minister, Shaul Mofaz, and the Chief of the Israeli Army, Dan Halutz, requesting a second hearing before the Supreme Court in the “human shields” case. The AG argued that the Supreme Court’s recent decision created a new legal precedent, which will have a negative and harmful effect on the military’s operations in the 1967 Occupied Palestinian Territories, that it is legally flawed, and that a second hearing before an expanded panel of the Court to re-consider the decision is justified under these circumstances. 

Palestinian children's right to quality education

Monica Awad 23 November 2005


In a very poor neighborhood in the old city, in a tall tiny shabby building, sounds of children’s laughter can be heard as we walked up the 50 steep steps leading to the main hall of the Children’s Center. More than 100 girls and boys of various age groups were gathered in the main hall, listening to Sana’, the facilitator of the activity, giving instructions of the day. Main hall was full of excitement, it was the third day out of the six-day activity planned by Tamer institute, a local non governmental organization, supported by UNICEF, aiming at improving quality of education through creative reading and writing. Loud foot steps of kids running to their respective training rooms were heard. 

Another checkpoint on the road to nowhere

Hasan Abu Nimah and Ali Abunimah 23 November 2005


One constant in the long conflict over Palestine is that Israel and its backers always have an excuse to avoid the central issues that prevent peace. Israel is adapt at creating complications which then absorb and exhaust all available diplomatic and political energy, while it uses the time to entrench itself ever more deeply in the occupied territories. EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah and co-founder Ali Abunimah write that attention is set to focus on the new distraction of an Israeli general election while the hard realities of spreading Israeli settlements, extrajudicial killings and the grimness of life in still occupied Gaza feature nowhere in all the heady talk about peace.