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Lack of Israeli cooperation prevents UN fact-finding mission to Beit Hanoun

11 December 2006


Israel’s lack of cooperation has prevented a fact-finding mission from the United Nations Human Rights Council from visiting Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, where an Israeli attack last month killed 19 Palestinian civilians, the head of the team, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, said today. “This is a time in our history that neither allows for indifference to the plight of those suffering, nor a refusal to search for a solution to the present crisis in the region,” Mr. Tutu told reporters in Geneva, describing Israel’s action as “very distressing.” 

Farmers seek government help to escape downward spiral of debt

11 December 2006


Desperate Lebanese farmers are urging their government to do more to help them recover from a war that the United Nations estimates has cost the vital agriculture industry some US $280 million and left them facing “a downward spiral of debt and poverty”. “I personally lost over 50 million Lebanese pounds [$35,000],” said Mohammed Mokahhal, a farmer from the eastern Bekaa Valley, describing his losses in the month-long summer war between Israel and militants from the Lebanese Hezbollah political party. 

Is every Palestinian in the Gaza Strip a terrorist?

11 December 2006


In his comments to the Editors Committee on 7 December 2006, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated that, “Since June, more than 400 members of terrorist organizations have been killed.” According to B’Tselem’s data, from the time of the abduction of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, on 26 June, to 15 November, the IDF has killed 387 Palestinians. More than half of the persons killed, 206, among them eighty-one minors and forty-five women, were not taking part in the hostilities when they were killed. Four of the remaining fatalities were the object of targeted killings, and 177 were killed while taking part in the hostilities. 

Vile Jibes At President Carter Ignored By Media

Michael F. Brown 11 December 2006


On Dec. 7, 2006, CNN journalist Glenn Beck savaged President Jimmy Carter’s important new book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, despite clearly not having given it a close read. In the course of his diatribe he referred to President Carter as a “fathead.” Time was that an employee would be fired on the spot for such a transgression. Had my mother or father run CNN and been listening I am quite certain that Beck would have been pulled from the set and a sincere apology offered to viewers within minutes. Clearly, no real standards exist at CNN. 

A rare voice: An interview with author Ilan Pappe

Christopher Brown 11 December 2006


“The ideology that Avigdor Lieberman subscribes to that is an ethnic cleansing ideology. Someone who believes that the only way to solving the problems in Israel/Palestine is by expelling the Palestinians from Israel and any territory Israel covets. I think the problem with Avigdor Lieberman is not his own views but the fact that he reflects what most Israeli Jews think, and definitely what most of his colleagues in the Olmert government think but don’t dare to say, or don’t think is desirable to say for tactical reasons. But I do think that we should be worried about Lieberman, not as an extreme fascist but rather as a person who represents the mood of Israel in 2006.” 

Archive of displacement

Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory (FAST) 11 December 2006


We have started filming the stories of Atir and Um Al-Hiran’s villagers. “As if living beside desert highways in makeshift homes with no facilities was not enough, Palestinian Bedouin villagers in Um al-Hiran and Atir now face their second, unwanted, exodus in 50 years. Drive along the desert highways around Beer el-Sabe (Beer Sheva) in the south of Israel, and it does not take long to notice clusters of makeshift houses set in from the side of the road. These Bedouin villages are ‘unrecognised’ by the state of Israel, and consequently have no official status. 

Travel Warning: Bethlehem & Jerusalem, Occupied Palestine

11 December 2006


This Travel Warning is being issued to update information on the general security environment in Israel, Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, and to reiterate threats to foreign nationals, especially American citizens. Although the situation in Israel is seemingly calm, the fact of the matter remains that Israel continues to aggressively violate International Humanitarian and Human Rights Laws daily. A disconcerting development is the Israeli practice of denying entry of Palestinian Christians and Muslims to the Holy Land; embodying religious discrimination during the high holy season. As Palestinians, we have always looked forward to your being with us during Christmas, Easter and other holiday feasts. 

Divide and conquer

Daoud Kuttab 11 December 2006


A strange phenomenon has been taking place over the past few years. Israel has been carrying out a systematic plan to try and separate Gaza from the West Bank. Little attention has been given to this effort separating people — and a country — using administrative measures. This phenomenon began in the late 1980s with the launch of the Palestinian intifada, was accelerated in the beginning of the second intifada in 2000, and has been accelerated even more since the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, causing a critical human and economic crisis. 

$450m humanitarian appeal for Palestinians

8 December 2006


United Nations agencies and NGOs have launched a US$450 million emergency appeal for humanitarian aid for the Palestinians – the biggest-ever for the Palestinians and the third-largest in the world. So much money is needed because two-thirds of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have fallen into poverty, said Kevin Kennedy, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator. The international boycott on the Hamas-led Palestinian government has crippled the Palestinian economy. International donors say they will only give money directly to the Palestinian people if Hamas recognises Israel’s existence, renounces violence and abides by previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. 

Amnesty and Israel clash over arms and human rights

10 December 2006


The London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International has asked the European Union (EU) to block arms sale to Israel and Palestinians so as to stave off impending disaster in Israel and the Palestinian territories. However, Israel has reacted negatively to the proposal. In an open letter to the EU on International Human Rights Day on Sunday, Amnesty’s secretary general Irene Khan said worsening human rights abuses in Israel and the Palestinian territories would lead to catastrophe. “We see a downward spiral of human rights abuses and entrenched impunity, sowing the seeds of a disaster with catastrophic consequences for ordinary people,” she wrote.