Having seen the latest developments first-hand on this trip, it dawned on me that what’s going on over there is a full-blown genocide. A genocide in slow motion, perhaps, but a genocide nevertheless. This week, EI publishes daily installments of a six-part diary from March/April 2004, by Dr. Saber Zaitoun, the pseudonym of a Palestinian-American in his thirties. Dr. Zaitoun grew up under Israeli occupation and first came to the USA during the first Intifada to finish his education. He is married, and currently teaches at a University on the East Coast. Read more about A Stranger in My Own Land: Changing the Map (5 of 6)
Peretz Kidron is an Israeli who has been fighting battles all his life, but many of them with the country he emigrated to as an idealistic young man in 1951. Now campaigning to spread the messages of Israeli military personnel who refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories, Kidron was one of the founders of Yesh Gvul (“There is a limit”), the movement of soldiers that sprang up in 1982 to oppose Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. EI’s Ali Abunimah recently spoke to him about the Refusenik movement, Israel’s internal politics and the prospects for peace. Read more about The deterrent power of Israeli refuseniks: interview with Peretz Kidron
Around Ramallah, the Apartheid Wall is still in the form a snaking stretch of electrified barbed wires surrounded by military roads and minefields, rather than the familiar slabs of concrete seen in other cities. A 5-minute drive towards the nearby village of Rafat, situated between Ramallah and Jerusalem, brings one face-to-face with three layers of wall in plain sight. This week, EI publishes daily installments of a six-part diary from March/April 2004, by Dr. Saber Zaitoun, the pseudonym of a Palestinian-American in his thirties. Dr. Zaitoun grew up under Israeli occupation and first came to the USA during the first Intifada to finish his education. He is married, and currently teaches at a University on the East Coast. Read more about A Stranger in My Own Land: Life in the Ghetto (4 of 6)
When The Hague speaks, the world listens, especially when a threat to international peace is involved. At least this was the case until the International Court of Justice took aim at Israel. At issue was the Israeli government’s building of a separation wall on occupied Palestinian lands in the West Bank, which, in essence, has caged Palestinian communities into ghettos reminiscent of the Jewish ghettos in Europe during World War II. Palestinian-American businessman Sam Bahour writes from beseiged Al-Bireh. Read more about The World Is Knocking on Israel's Door
On July 22 1987 at five in the afternoon, Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali parked his car in southwest London, and walked a few meters towards the offices of the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas where he worked. He was shot in the head by a gunman. After five weeks in a coma on a life support machine Naji al-Ali died on August 30, 1987 at the age of 49. Naji al-Ali is still the most popular artist in the Arab world, loved for his defense of the ordinary people, and for his criticism of repression and despotism. His unrelenting cartoons exposed the brutality of the Israeli army and the hypocrisy of the PLO, earning him many powerful enemies. Read more about Naji al-Ali: The timeless conscience of Palestine
Widespread protests have accompanied Yasser Arafat’s appointment of his nephew Musa Arafat as the new head of the Palestinian General Security Service. Thousands of people demonstrated in the Gaza Strip on Saturday night against the appointment while the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the armed wing of al-Fateh, described Musa Arafat as a “symbol” of the PA’s corruption. The appointment deepened the rift between Arafat’s generation, which led the Palestinian struggle from exile for decades, and young Palestinians who struggled against the Israeli occupation and who accuse the old guard of corruption and monopolizing power. Read more about What's wrong with the PA?
The Wall will affect my family as it affects many Palestinians. I live in Budrus, a village of 1,200 people, west of Ramallah. The Wall will completely surround Budrus and eight other villages, separating us from the rest of the West Bank, with just one gate connecting us to Ramallah. On Nov 23rd, 2003, Wall construction started in Budrus, and we immediately began holding peaceful demonstrations opposing it. Though our demonstrations were peaceful, the Israeli soldiers wounded 102 persons. They used sound bombs, teargas, and rubber-coated steel bullets, and beat men and women with clubs. In Biddu and Beitunia, villages near Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers killed six people during protests against the Wall. 15-year-old Iltezam Morrar reports for EI. Read more about Peacefully Confronting the Wall in Budrus
Last Friday, as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s wall through the West Bank is a violation of international law, I stood with other Palestinian women in the olive groves of the village of Az Zawiya, protesting the destruction of our land. Throughout the West Bank, thousands of Palestinian women are peacefully protesting against the wall that the Israeli government claims aims to protect its citizens against terrorism. Palestinian women are deeply rooted in their land, and work hard to support our families. Women suffer greatly when families lose their land, often the primary source of income. We raise olive trees as if they are our children. When we lose them, we grieve deeply. Fatima Khaldi writes from Az Zawiya in the Salfit region. Read more about Women Against the Wall
I am a farmer in Jayyous, a small village near the Palestinian city of Qalqilya and three miles from the 1967 border with Israel. For generations, Jayyous farmers have worked our fields on the outskirts of town each day, and returned to our homes each night. Before the Wall, we could pay Palestinian workers to help work our land. Now non-land owners cannot pass through the gate, so we cannot get the help we need and many farm workers have lost their jobs. A lot of good land is now left uncultivated and many farmers have had to abandon their land altogether. Read more about Before and After the Wall in Jayyous
In Budrus, our strategies in our struggle against the Apartheid Wall are peaceful. We only confront the bulldozers that are uprooting the trees planted by our ancestors - trees that help us to feed our children. Although olive trees won’t make us rich, we won’t go hungry as long as we have them. The Palestinian people have tried large-scale peaceful civil resistance against the Israeli occupation at various times since 1967. Each time, non-violence was crushed by Israeli government-sponsored violence. When non-violence failed to bring freedom and independence, some people turned to violent struggle. Budrus resident Ayed Morrar explains where it’s all at. Read more about The Peaceful Fall of Israel's Wall
