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Appeal from the residents of Qalqiliya

Lands Defense Committees in the District of Qalqiliya, Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, The Palestinian Environment NGO Network (PENGON), Palestinian Farmers Union, Palestinian Farmers Union and The Local and Popular Organizations in the District of Qalqiliya 5 June 2003

“This is an appeal for help and an honor sent from the hearts of thousands of children, women and elders whose trees are being uprooted, whose lands are being razed, whose elders and children are being beaten daily.” The people of Qalqiliya, the Land Defense Committees and the Apartheid Wall Campaign - PENGON, the Farmers Union, and popular and local organizations in Qalqiliya ask for help. 

Doctor Earle's diagnosis

Robert Everett-Green 4 June 2003

“American singer Steve Earle, no stranger to rehab himself, has a few prescriptions for an ailing America,” Robert Everett-Green writes in the Toronto Globe and Mail. “I’m not anti-Semitic, but I am anti-Zionist,” says Earle. “Why do we expect the Palestinians who have lived there for a couple of thousand years to accept that they should be second-class citizens in their own homeland?” 

The Road Map: Where next after Aqaba?

Ali Abunimah 4 June 2003


President Bush’s two days of Middle East summitry are being hailed in the United States as a diplomatic and political triumph. And indeed even by bringing Arab and Israeli leaders to Sharm al-Sheikh and Aqaba, Bush did more than many people thought was possible. But, writes EI founder Ali Abunimah, the elation is likely to be short lived as the carefully crafted final statements by Bush, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, and the Palestinians’ Mahmoud Abbas paper over the lop-sided concessions made by each side. 

The Road Map -- a matter of time

Hasan Abu Nimah 4 June 2003


With the twin summits in Sharm Al Sheikh and Aqaba underway, many believe that the likelihood of a major breakthrough in the efforts to break the cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence and resuming serious talks towards a settlement are realistic. Yet while optimism may be justified in the short run, regular EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah argues that it is only a matter of time before the whole scheme falls apart right in front of everybody’s wide open eyes. 

Dynamic husband-wife team fight Israeli occupation

Kristel Halter 1 June 2003

With the advent of the intifada in September 2000, Adam Shapiro witnessed the unprovoked killing of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli Army. ‘One of my friends, Aseel Asleh, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was killed in civilian protests against the occupation,’ he remembers. ‘I realized that I could not stand by and watch. As someone who was an American but understood and experienced life in the Arab world, I could not be silent, especially as American-made weapons and the American government gave such overwhelming support to the Israelis’.” Kristel Halter of Beirut’s Daily Star interviews Adam Shapiro and Huweida Arraf, husband and wife, Jew and Arab, about their struggle to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine. 

Holy fire

Elizabeth Sanders and Marthame Sanders Zababdeh, Palestine 1 June 2003

“The Easter tradition among the churches of Palestine and Israel is unique. On Holy Saturday, the day before Orthodox Easter, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem enters the tomb of the Holy Sepulchre. After a moment of prayer, he emerges with the Holy Fire, passing it on by candle to the gathered faithful. From there, with shouts of Christos Anesti! (‘Christ is risen!’), it is spread to the churches of this land, a symbol of the miracle of resurrection spread throughout the world. In past years, someone would go down from Zababdeh to Jerusalem to bring the light back. It has been three years since that has happened because of travel restrictions on Palestinians in the occupied territories.” Elizabeth and Marthame Sanders, Americans living in a Christian Palestinian village in the West Bank, describe the twists and turns of an amazing journey under occupation. 

The new anti-Semitism?

Jonathan Cook 3 June 2003


Anti-Semitism, like some plague-inducing virus, is “evolving” — or so warns Holocaust scholar Daniel J. Goldhagen in the American Jewish weekly The Forward. According to the author, the lessons of the Holocaust are slowly being forgotten and a “free-floating” globalised hatred of Jews is being spread via the Internet and television. EI contributor Jonathan Cook looks at the realities.