The Israel-EU Association Agreement is founded on the basis of a respect for human rights. Recent calls by French universities for this agreement to be suspended do not constitute a “boycott,” but rather a moral and correct response to Israel’s human rights abuses. Writing in Le Monde, Monique Chemillier-Gendreau responds to the critics who have attempted to label such actions as “anti-Semitism,” and who have failed to recognize the moral consequences of inaction. Read more about The pseudo-boycott of Israeli universities
Photo by Musa Al-Shaer.
For weeks Israeli soldiers have been invading and reinvading the Bethlehem area, holding the residents captive in their homes. In the past two nights Israeli soldiers abucted 20 Palestinians from the Bethlehem area, adding them to the approximatly 9,000 Palestinian political prisoners being held, largely without charge, in Israeli jails. Normal life, as people outside the country understand it, has not existed for some time. Kristen Ess outlines the misery of daily life for Palestinians under Israeli occupation. Read more about Israel's continued domination and destruction in the Bethlehem area
On almost any given day, somewhere in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, the ritual begins with Israeli soldiers knocking on the door. A Palestinian family snatches up a few possessions before being herded out into the predawn chill, then sappers painstakingly fit explosives to walls and foundations. The Los Angeles Times’ Laura King investigates Israel policy of house demolition in the Occupied Territories. Read more about Israel's demolition policy strikes hard
“Today’s ruling clears the way for Sharon to be tried once he ceases to be prime minister, regardless of whether he is in Belgium or not. It also enables a war crimes trial of Israeli General Amos Yaron, who oversaw the Beirut sector in 1982.” Fabrice Randoux reports for Australia’s Sunday Times from Belgium, a country that has given teeth to the legal principle of Universal Jurisdiction. Read more about Belgium's landmark ruling: Sharon to be sued for war crimes
Belgium’s supreme appeals court has ruled that a genocide lawsuit against Ariel Sharon could go ahead once his term as prime minister of Israel ends. The ruling opens the way for survivors of a 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees to press their case against the Israeli leader, who they hold responsible for the deaths of hundreds of their kin in Israeli-occupied Beirut. Breaking news from ITV. Read more about Belgium Supreme Court rules that Ariel Sharon can be tried for genocide
How do I describe what life is like here - of the sadness in the eyes of my colleagues, of the exhaustion that results when every daily action requires an extraordinary effort, when perseverance is no longer enough and futility and despair fight for a place on the proud faces carrying bags and babies and the burden of poverty through checkpoints, over dirt piles, past soldiers and tanks and the bombed-out shells of buildings. Read more about Life in Palestine
Toine van TeeffelenBethlehem, Palestine10 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.” Read more about Letter from Bethlehem
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. Read more about Palestinians subject to Israeli 'torture lottery'
“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. Read more about Ninja in Nazareth
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. Read more about Visa delay will prevent massacre survivors from testifying before Belgian court
