“For a fraction of a second, I was panic-stricken. The terrible monster coming towards me was not more than five meters away and continued to move as if I weren’t there. The giant bulldozer pushed a great heap of dirt and boulders before it. The driver, two meters above me, seemed a part of the machine. It was clear that nothing would stop him. I jumped aside at the last moment. Some weeks ago, in a similar situation, the American peace activist Rachel Corrie expected the driver to stop. He did not, and she was crushed to death.” Israeli activist Uri Avnery reports on the progress of Israel’s apartheid wall. Read more about The Evil Wall
While the Dutch celebrate the 58th anniversary of Germany’s capitulation, which meant the end of German occupation, activists organized a street theatre performance in the centre of Amsterdam raising awareness about military occupations supported by the Dutch government. Read more about Pro-Palestinian activists enforce a mock checkpoint in centre of Amsterdam
“They do it in the middle of the night. On dark nights. Quietly, stealthily. In large groups. Well organized militias - armed and all. A crowd of about 50 religious settlers. Came in the night to two houses in Israeli-annexed, Arab East Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah, over the Green Line. They threw a child out of the broken window they’d entered by. A two-year-old flying baby, falling from the 2nd storey window, five meters high, ending up in hospital traumatised. They hit a man so badly he was driven away unconscious in an ambulance; I saw him go.” Annabel Frey reports on settler harassment in Jerusalem. Read more about Settler violence and harassment in Sheikh Jarrah
The commemoration programme was built on the traditional Arab format of the condolence visit (ta’aziya). All participants were invited to wear mourning clothes, and behind the whole area hung an obituary notice, an eighteen-foot-long banner inscribed with words: ‘The sisters of the children of Baghdad and their families, and the paternal uncles of the families of Mosul, Al-Nasirya, Jenin, Rafah, and Nablus, and their kin living in the Arab world and abroad, mourn with deepest sorrow their dearly beloved deceased: The victims of American and Israeli aggression, cut down in their childhood, and their youth, and their prime, members of humanity’.” Rosemary Sayigh reports from Beirut on a symbolically charged protest action. Read more about "We are not just numbers": Commemorating the war victims of Iraq and Palestine
Kufr Sur is an isolated village of 1000 people situated between Qalqilya and Tulkarem in the West Bank. The bulldozing for the Apartheid Wall has begun, totally destroyed 10 thousand dunums of land belonging to 53 families. Anna Weekes reports. Read more about A new occupation
“Young Western activists living with Palestinians to act as human shields against Israeli raids are debating how to minimize their risk of dying after suffering a sudden rash of casualties.” Nidal al-Mughrabi reports for Reuters from Rafah in the Occupied Gaza Strip. Read more about Western human shields battered in Mideast; rethink strategies
“Rachel Corrie represented the finest tradition of nonviolent peacemaking,” said Rachael Kamel of the Jewish Mobilization for a Just Peace, in Philadelphia. “An investigation is needed not only to clarify the circumstances of her death, but also to help Congress and the American public understand more fully the violence carried out every day in the occupied territories. “Rachel Corrie is a hero,” said Washington-based Charles Lenchner, president of Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel. “These international volunteers represent the best of what American values are all about—Martin Luther King-style action.” Philip Weiss of the New York Observer examines growing sympathies among American Jewish groups with the goals of Americans like Rachel Corrie. Read more about Rachel Corrie Died In Palestine Rubble, But Her Issue Lives
“Rains of ammunition, bullets came down on us on that one single night. A single night, for me. The shooting went on continuously from 1.30 to 4.15, near the first light…’So they never hit your house itself?’ I ask him with an enormous burst of hope. ‘Oh, sometimes they do. Look at the bullet holes’. I raise my head and look to the sides. The ceiling is fool of holes, the side walls are cut up. So is the kitchen wall near the tap, near the table, in the toilet, one centimetre from the children’s beds. Some of the holes have been filled up. Every night, once the shooting ends, Jamil closes the bullet holes with white cement. The walls are patchwork, and if you dare approach the window you can see that Jamil and Nora’s home is surrounded by ruins on all sides.” Israeli peace activist Billie Moskona-Lerman writes about a night spent in Rafah, southern Gaza. Read more about "I was a human shield": An Israeli visits ISM in Rafah
On 29 April 2003, the new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) gave an inaugral speech to the Palestinian Legislative Council. Following are excerpts and a link to his full speech. The excerpts are a fair representation of the speech in its entirety. The main difference between the texts is the removal of extensive salutations. Read more about Excerpts of Palestinian PM Mahmoud Abbas Speech Before Palestinian Legislative Council
The following is the text of the performance-based and goal driven roadmap, with clear phases, timelines, target dates, and benchmarks aiming at progress through reciprocal steps by the two parties in the political, security, economic, humanitarian, and institution-building fields, under the auspices of the Quartet. The destination is a final and comprehensive settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005, as presented in President Bush’s speech of 24 June, and welcomed by the EU, Russia, and the UN in the 16 July and 17 September Quartet Ministerial statements. Read more about Text of proposed "road map"
