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Letter from Bethlehem

Toine van Teeffelen Bethlehem, Palestine 10 February 2003

We had this week two curfewed days, Friday and Saturday, while sometimes the nights are open and sometimes not. In the morning, people get used to carefully listen at 5:00 whether today there’ll be a curfew or not. People sometimes even recognize the creaky loudspeaker voice: “Oh, that is the Druze, you can’t hear well what he says.” 

First prize for freedom of media to Israeli and Palestinian journalists

Media Foundation of the Sparkasse Leipzig 6 February 2003

In 2003, the Leipzig “Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media” goes to Israel and Palestine. As the Media Foundation of the Sparkasse Leipzig announced on Thursday, the first Prize of 15,000 Euro goes halves to Gideon Levy who works for the prestigious paper Ha’aretz at Tel Aviv and Daoud Kuttab, Director of the Institute of Modern Media at the Palestine Ramallah. 

Aid for Palestinians suffers due to focus on Iraq

United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East 10 February 2003


Mr Peter Hansen, Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has issued an appeal to the international community not to let the West Bank and Gaza slide down its list of priorities as the world focuses on a potential conflict in Iraq. 

Palestinians subject to Israeli 'torture lottery'

Justin Huggler 11 February 2003

Israeli security forces in Hebron have allegedly forced Palestinians to submit to a macabre “lottery”, in which the victim had to choose their own “punishment” by picking a slip of paper out of a pile. On the pieces of paper were written various acts of violence, including having a hand or leg broken, and, Palestinians say, being beaten to death. The Independent’s Justin Huggler reports. 

Mideast Standoff At U-M

Don Cohen 3 February 2003

At first glance, the fact that the Michigan Student Zionists and the campus chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) cooperated to bring two spokesmen on the Israeli-Arab crisis to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor appeared to be a positive sign. However, those attending the Michigan Union debate Jan. 21 between Morton Klein, the Philadelphia-based national president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), and Chicagoan Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the Electronic Intifada Web site, didn’t see understandings reached or bridges built. 

Ninja in Nazareth

Goel Pinto 9 February 2003

“When people ask me if the film is about the occupation of the Palestinian people, I say right away that this isn’t a film about anything. If it has to be reduced to one subject, I say it’s a film about occupation in the world as a whole — it focuses on Israel only because Israel serves as a kind of microcosm.” Elia Suleiman, director of the award-winning film “Divine Intervention,” which has just opened in Israel, talks to Goel Pinto of Ha’aretz about the ideas behind the film. 

Visa delay will prevent massacre survivors from testifying before Belgian court

Hala Kilani 9 February 2003

Survivors of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre won’t be able to testify against Israeli Prime Minister Sharon at the Belgium Supreme Court on Wednesday, as the Belgian Embassy didn’t grant them “emergency” visas. The embassy told the victims’ lawyer, Chibli Mallat, that there “wasn’t enough time” to get the visas ready before their date of departure. The Beirut Daily Star’s Hala Kilani reports on the good news and the bad news about the case against Sharon and others in Belgium. 

Bush and Sharon nearly identical on Mideast policy

Robert G. Kaiser 9 February 2003

“The Bush administration’s alignment with Sharon delights many of its strongest supporters, especially evangelical Christians, and a large part of organized American Jewry, according to leaders in both groups.” The Washington Post’s Robert G. Kaiser offers an in-depth analysis of the political and ideological dimensions of the Bush-Sharon worldview, and the role of pro-Likud neoconservatives in shaping the Middle East map.