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Historic Days in Beirut and a White Rose

Samia A. Halaby Beirut 6 December 2006


December 3: Today is the third day of the great events in Beirut. A congregation of people, a coming together of individuals from all over Lebanon from all religious groupings, all seeking to change the majority ruling government of the country. All this is happening under the leadership of Hezbollah, which is being cool, keeping its alliances strong and its supporters disciplined. On the first day there were approximately two million people. If you were part of it you would not have been able to tell how many people were there. In the front of the event, very near the speakers’ stand where I stood with friends, I could see and hear but only a fragment of the crowd. 

Legal paper calls for protection of Arab minority in future Israeli constitution

6 December 2006


The Mossawa Center, the Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens of Israel, released a legal paper that calls to protect the legal status of the Arab minority in any proposal for an Israeli constitution. The paper was debated and discussed by leading lawyers and law experts at the Mossawa Center’s conference on the Legal Status of the Arab Minority in Israel held in Nazareth on December 1. For the last several years the Knesset’s Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee has discussed proposals to create a formal constitution for the state of Israel. 

Twenty years later, still no charges in Alex Odeh assassination

Erik Skindrud 6 December 2006


On the morning of Oct. 11, 1985 Alex Odeh made his way to his Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee office in Santa Ana, California. Odeh was likely tired as he climbed to the second-story office — he had been up past midnight the night before, appearing on a late-night talk show where he condemned the killing days earlier of Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year old Jewish New Yorker shot and dumped into the Mediterranean by Palestinian gunmen aboard the Achille Lauro cruise ship. On the show, Odeh had also repeated his oft-stated belief that peace and cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis was not only necessary, it was possible. 

Iraq Study Group: No Military Solution to the Palestine Question

Samar Assad 6 December 2006


In its 6 December report, The Iraq Study Group made three important points regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: 1) there is no military solution to the conflict; 2) UN Resolutions 242 and 338 and the principle of “land for peace” is the only way to achieve peace; 3) hold unconditional meetings to resume negotiations. The group also stressed the importance of an engaged U.S. administration in political negotiations based on a two-state solution. While these recommendations are on target and the significance of the messenger should not be dismissed, the message is not new. Palestinians have long reiterated these points. 

Why is Israel separating me from my wife?

Ghassan Abdullah Ramallah, Palestine 6 December 2006


Israel has decreed that my wife and I can no longer live together. I am Palestinian and she is Swiss and we have been married for 28 years. She was recently given two weeks to leave the occupied Palestinian territory. The Israeli Ministry of Interior wrote on her Swiss passport: “LAST PERMIT.” We have been living together in Ramallah for 12 years. We came in 1994, when, after the Oslo Agreement, we were encouraged to move to the West Bank by the prospect of ‘peace’ and development. My wife Anita speaks Arabic, likes the landscape, cooks Arabic meals, and she cares for my grandfather’s village house — an old stone building and the plants around it — more than I do. 

EU should publish report on Jerusalem, says Palestinian coalition

6 December 2006


The highest body which represents the Palestinian Civil Society (PNGO) and the Coalition for Jerusalem which enfolds Religious Dignitaries, Public Figures and Professional Associations, in addition to the Palestinian NGO Community in East Jerusalem, are hereby calling on the highest European Union diplomatic representation in Brussels to painstakingly consider the publication of this year’s European Union report on East Jerusalem and not to put its contents on ice. The Middle East peace process is at a critical junction now. And Europe may still have time to rethink its positions in order to play an active role in the Middle East by supporting the enactment of International law. 

Open Letter to EU urges publication of report

5 December 2006


The Middle East Peace Process (MEPP) appears to be on the eve of another possible defining moment, this time triggered by the proclaimed cessation of hostilities between the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority and the GoI’s call for the resumption of peace talks. In light of the possibility that the EU will consider that these developments constitute a sensitive juncture in the MEPP and that they therefore call for the EU to speak with extreme caution, we would like to convey our hope that the EU will not fail again to publish its report on east Jerusalem this year. 

National Insurance Institute refuses official Arabic-language documents

6 December 2006


On 28 November 2006, Adalah sent a letter to the National Insurance Institute (NII) requesting the issuance of administrative directives to mandate that official documents written in the Arabic language be accepted by all branches of the NII, without requiring that they be translated in Hebrew at the personal expense of those submitting the documents. Adalah emphasized in the letter that the NII has been employing a policy for several years.Adalah Attorney Noor Alatownh sent the letter after Adalah received numerous complaints of the NII’s refusal to accept documents in Arabic, including Shari’a court decisions regarding issues of personal status 

Israel demolishes entire Bedouin village in the Negev

6 December 2006


At 5:00 am hundreds of police accompanied six bulldozers and demolished 17 homes and three animal shacks in the village of Twail Abu-Jarwal. The entire village is demolished. People are sitting by the piles of tin that were their modest dwellings and wondering what to do, where to go - even their family cannot host them, as no one has a house standing. This is the fourth time this year that the government demolished in this village. This time they got it “right” - no house is left standing. But the villagers have nowhere to go to. 

Vital Gaza food conduit to open, Israel says

6 December 2006


An important commercial crossing from Israel into the Gaza Strip could be re-opened next week, Israeli officials told IRIN, allowing vital food supplies into Gaza. The Karni crossing to the west of Gaza City is the only cargo terminal designed for the passage of large containers into the Strip and as such is vital for food supplies. It has been closed almost constantly since September, according to John Ging, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which feeds 860,000 refugees in Gaza.”There’s no substitute for the [Karni] commercial crossing. There is no comparable alternative in terms of quantity. That is the weakness of the Gaza Strip. We are talking about hundreds of containers,” said Ging.