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EI's Ali Abunimah speaks on Democracy Now!

13 September 2003


Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat declared no one will “kick me out” after the Israeli Security Cabinet authorized the army to “remove” him. Meanwhile the Jerusalem Post called for Arafat’s death. The Israeli government authorized the army last night to “remove” Yasser Arafat and gave its security services a green light to move against the 74 year-old Palestinian leader “in a manner, and at a time, of its choosing.” Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah spoke with host Amy Goodman in Democracy Now!’s New York studios. 

Who Violated Hudna?

Gideon Levy 18 August 2003

The next terror strike is on its way. You don’t need to be an expert on terror, or a compulsive gambler, to foresee that Islamic Jihad will try very soon to avenge the death of Mohammed Sider  the head of the organization’s military wing in Hebron. 

The Hillel Cafe Bombing

Yitzhak Frankenthal Jerusalem 12 September 2003


It is now 11:59 PM, half an hour after the suicide bombing at Hillel Cafe. Just the night before, my wife and I and two of our friends were sitting at the Cafe until around 11:40 PM. The place was packed. I can now hear the sirens of the ambulances racing through the streets of Jerusalem. I cannot get the images out of my head; images of severed arms, decapitated heads, people with nails and pieces or iron stuck in their bodies, broken tables, the cake and sandwich bar shattered into thousands of pieces. Yitzhak Frankenthal writes from Jerusalem 

"They have decided upon cold-blooded murder"

12 September 2003

“The government of Israel has tonight resolved to commit a cold-blooded murder, with the implementation deferred — the cold blooded murder of the elected president of the Palestinians. Let there be no mistake about it. Let no one be fooled by the talk of ‘deportation’. There is no intention that Arafat will survive the encounter with Sharon’s soldiers. I know Sharon, I have followed his career for decades, ever since he was a young commando officer carrying out brutal cross-border raids. He has not changed in any essential, only in the amount of power held in his hands. He means to do it, he means to kill Arafat. He will watch for his chance, wait for a moment when the Amercians look elsewhere - and then he will pounce.” 

A failed Israeli society collapses while its leaders remain silent

Avraham Burg 29 August 2003

The Zionist revolution has always rested on two pillars: a just path and an ethical leadership. Neither of these is operative any longer. The Israeli nation today rests on a scaffolding of corruption, and on foundations of oppression and injustice. As such, the end of the Zionist enterprise is already on our doorstep. There is a real chance that ours will be the last Zionist generation. There may yet be a Jewish state here, but it will be a different sort, strange and ugly, writes Avraham Burg, former speaker of Israel’s Knesset from 1999 to 2003. 

10 years after Oslo, question of single state unavoidable

Ali Abunimah 12 September 2003


The crisis represented by the Abbas resignation may actually signal the end of the era in which hopes for peace were predicated on the division of the land between an Israeli and a Palestinian state. If this is the case, argues EI’s Ali Abunimah, we will have to embrace a “South African solution”—bringing Palestinians and Israelis together in one political entity where they enjoy equal rights and freedom. We should be under no illusion that embracing the one-state solution is an easy choice for Palestinians, let alone Israelis. On the contrary, it entails a political movement of immense complexity and against powerful opposition. Yet this struggle may soon, if it has not already, become unavoidable.