30 March 2005 marked the 29th anniversary of Yum El-Ard (“Land Day”) — the first mass political protest of Arab citizens of Israel, now commemorated as a national day for Palestinians worldwide. Sharif Hamadeh interviews Fr. Shehadeh Shehadeh, the activist-priest who headed the first protest in 1976. “People here are not very happy,” he says, referring to the Palestinian minority in Israel. “I’m always optimistic and I always pray for peace and work for peace - I even have a committee called Clergy for Peace - but at this time, I’m very pessimistic.” Read more about The First Yum El-Ard Protest: An interview with Fr. Shehadeh Shehadeh
For the past few weeks, Israeli machinery and bulldozers have been working at the northern entrance of Bethlehem city to construct the Segregation Wall. The path of the wall is almost complete in the area, confiscating Palestinian land and olive groves, and segregating Palestinian houses in the vicinity. Yesterday (March 30), the residents of Bethlehem city went out to peacefully protest against the Israeli policies and the theft of their land for the on-going construction of the Segregation Wall. The demonstration was part of a national day of action to commemorate Yom Al-Ard (“Land Day”) in Palestine, commemorating the killing of six Palestinians by Israeli police in 1976 at a protest against land confiscations in the Galilee. Read more about Yom al-Ard in Bethlehem
Kate Baillie, writer and travel-guide author, democratic-left activist and much-loved friend of all who knew her, passed away peacefully in France on 12 March after a debilitating fight with an untreatable cancer. She would have celebrated her 48th birthday on March 28. In her last days, she exuded the humour, tough realism and combative free spirit that she wore proudly throughout her brief life. Katy was thoroughly her own woman until the very end, when only her spirit remained unbeaten by disease. Read more about Kate Baillie - a life lived to the hilt
Free postcards at a pub in West Jerusalem. One of the postcards shows a labyrinth. My Danish colleague Maria laughs and claims that the postcard is a map of the West Bank. To make her statement evident she takes out a pen and writes the words “checkpoint”, “road block” and “occupation” all over the postcard. The crowd laughs at this cynical interpretation of the free postcard. The laughter however dies when I find myself in the Old City of Hebron. Suddenly, I find myself in Maria’s enlarged version of the free postcard depicting the labyrinth. Read more about Doom in Hebron
This week Palestine Report Online interviews Orient House Mapping and survey director Khalil Tufakji on the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank: “The expansion of Maaleh Adumim is part of this plan, which is to create facts on the ground, to annex the settlement blocs to Israel and finally to alter the demographic reality to Israel’s advantage in terms of Jerusalem and basically impose a twofold reality on the Palestinians: the first is the geographical aspect and the second, the demographic aspect.” Read more about Gaza disengagement means West Bank settlement expansion
After years of failed political efforts by the Israeli and international human rights community aimed at ending the occupation, it is clear that new approaches must be implemented. It is time for American civic institutions to support a multi-tiered campaign of strategic, selective sanctions against Israel until the occupation ends. Since the Israeli government is flagrantly disobeying the ICJ decision, international law mandates the use of sanctions to force Israel to comply with UN resolutions and human rights treaties. Read more about Know When To Say "No": A Call For Divestment From The Israeli Occupation
Frequently in the global economy, it seems that corporations are able to get away with activities which would see an individual locked up in the Hague for decades. Take the case of Caterpillar. Without selling a single bomb, gun or F16 fighter, Caterpillar has been supplying the Israeli military with its “key weapon”, in the words one Israeli commander, in its illegal and brutal occupation of Palestine. Caterpillar’s D-9 bulldozers have been responsible for destroying “agricultural farms, greenhouses, ancient olive groves.. numerous Palestinian homes and sometimes human lives”. Read more about Caterpillar: Making a Killing in Palestine?
Palestinian leaders have rejected a Jordanian proposal calling for normalisation of relations between Arab states and Israel. Leaders from across the political and ideological spectrum said they opposed the suggestion, which calls for normalisation before ending the Israeli occupation. The proposal is due to be presented to the Arab League summit in Algeria on Monday. “This would be a very grave concession,” Sakhr Habash, a member of the Fatah central committee, said. He described the Jordanian proposal as “amounting to a submission to Sharon’s designs and American dictates”. Read more about Palestinian groups reject Jordan plan
S. spent all of her childhood years and some of her adolescence with nine siblings: four brothers and five sisters. All of them lived in fear of their father, whose violence excluded none of them. Her father, rendered unemployed by Israeli closures on the Gaza Strip, only communicated with his children through physical and verbal abuse. S.’s story is one that is becoming increasingly common in Palestinian society. Statistics show that instances of domestic abuse have trebled in the years of the Intifada, and most experts agree that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Read more about Victims of violence
There is a quiet battle going on for the memory of a young woman who could have been my daughter, or perhaps yours. On one side are those who would like to erase her from history - her actions, her beliefs, her murder. If they are unsuccessful at that, they will settle for posthumous slurs on her character, falsifications of her death. On the other side are those who feel her shining principles should be praised, her courage honored, her death grieved. On this side are those who believe that heroism is noble, bravery admirable, and compassion for others the most fundamental form of morality. Read more about Rachel Corrie: On the Anniversary of a Death
