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Where do I stand?

Rania Masri Beirut 6 June 2007


A dear friend of mine told me yesterday that I’m taking sides. That it seems as if I’m condemning only one form of violence. I thank him for that note — it forces me to clarify my position. So, here is my position on what is happening now in Lebanon. I wholeheartedly condemn the attacks against the Lebanese Army. I find it especially abhorrent that many of these soldiers were not killed in “battle” but where actually killed in their sleep, and killed in a most brutal manner. EI contributor Rania Masri writes. 

Pressure mounts on Israel's architects

Susannah Tarbush 10 June 2007


Just days before 5 June’s 40th anniversary of the start of the June 1967 war, some of the biggest names in British architecture signed a petition calling on Israeli architects and their fellow professionals to stop participating in the creation of “facts on the ground”, which obliterate the idea of a viable future Palestinian state. Susannah Tarbush follows the controversy that has surrounded the London-based Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine’s efforts to hold accountable their Israeli peers’ involvement in projects that make them complicit in the violation of Palestinians’ rights. 

Ban products with a criminal flavour

Adri Nieuwhof and Mieke Zagt 7 June 2007


In an organic grocery in Amsterdam, Natuurwinkel, which has 70 locations all over Holland, a customer noticed several Israeli fruits and vegetables on the shelves. The customer asked about the exact origin of the fruits and vegetables, but the manager of Natuurwinkel could not give a clear answer. Through the Internet the name of the director and importer to the Natuurwinkel chain, Udea — the leading Dutch wholesaler of organic and frozen products and trades with ten European countries — was found, and in several emails clarification was requested on the origin of the Israeli organic products. 

A Village Mobilized: Lessons from Budrus

Ida Audeh 13 June 2007


The story of the village of Budrus is noteworthy because it reminds us that unarmed people are not powerless. Confronted with an Israeli plan to confiscate 1,000 dunums of village lands to erect a wall that would ultimately enclose area villages in a canton, Budrus residents put their bodies in front of the bulldozers that came to raze their farmlands. Unarmed, and abandoned to their fate by the increasingly useless and indifferent Palestinian Authority, the villagers quickly realized that the wall would stifle the area and make their lives unsustainable. EI contributor Ida Audeh interviews Budrus resident and activist Abd al-Nasser Marrar. 

Interview: "There are more than 20 dead in our neighborhood"

Sari Chreih and Razan Al-Ghazzawi Lebanon 6 June 2007


Sari Chreih and Razan Al-Ghazzawi interview Saleh Bhar, a medical doctor from Nahr al-Bared Refugee Camp: “During the first hours of the first day of the bombardment … my uncle died in his home when he was hit by one of the shells; he was with his two sons and one of his neighbors. … My uncle’s wife was injured. I have many relatives who lost their houses. My cousin Amin Bhar, a dentist, lost his house. My other cousin, also a doctor, lost his house too. My cousins told me that my uncle’s neighbor, Raed el Shans, who was with him when his house was shelled, also died with my uncle.” 

Water and Resistance

Timothy Seidel West Bank, Palestine 8 June 2007


The view from the Palestinian village of Nahhalin, in the west Bethlehem area, is sobering. This small village — along with the villages of Husan, Battir, Wadi Fuqin, and Al Walaja — are becoming more and more isolated from Bethlehem. As Israeli colonization in the Etzion bloc grows and as the Wall continues to cut deeply into the West Bank and strangle these communities, these Palestinian villagers have little access to the rest of the Israeli occupied West Bank. Even now, Israel is burrowing out a tunnel under the major settler bypass road running through the Etzion bloc. Timothy Seidel writes for EI. 

The Hariri tribunal: A fait accompli?

Nisrine Abiad and Victor Kattan 11 June 2007


The establishment of the tribunal for Lebanon as conceived in resolution 1757 also suffers from many legal and political imperfections. The question remains: would other possible alternatives — such as a tribunal established within Lebanon, which some Lebanese lawyers believe could have been accomplished whilst taking into account the peculiarities of the Lebanese legal system — be better? After all, the current deficiencies with the judicial system will not be ameliorated by the establishment of a new tribunal outside the country. Nisrine Abiad and Victor Kattan look at the legal aspects of the Hariri tribunal. 

Defending Israel from democracy

Jonathan Cook 5 June 2007


I have been arguing for some time that Israel’s ultimate goal is to create an ethnic fortress, a Jewish space in expanded borders from which all Palestinians — including its 1.2 million Palestinian citizens — will be excluded. That was the purpose of the Gaza disengagement and it is also the point of the wall snaking through the West Bank, effectively annexing to Israel what little is left of a potential Palestinian state. EI contributor Jonathan Cook writes that we are witnessing the first moves in Israel’s next phase of conquest of the Palestinians. 

EI Download: 40th Anniversary of Occupation Flier

4 June 2007


This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Demonstrations and commemorations are planned in different cities around the world to mark what has become the longest standing occupation in the world today and one which “the West” still supports through military aid and weapons sales. EI offers this flier as a means of highlighting the occupation’s impact on the the lives of those forced to live under it. Print and post it to help educate the public and to spread the word about EI. 

Refugee Resentment Simmers as Fighting Escalates

Jackson Allers 4 June 2007


BADDAWI CAMP, Lebanon, Jun 4 (IPS) - Fighting escalated Sunday and Monday in Lebanon as the Sunni Islamic group Jund al-Asham attacked army positions outside Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, Ain al-Hilweh, in the south. Meanwhile, the top Palestinian leadership in Lebanon says it cannot guarantee it can control the reaction of the more than 400,000 Palestinians living in the 12 official refugee camps throughout the country if the Lebanese army’s all-out assault on the besieged Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in the north causes a heavy civilian death toll.