In my experience, the transition from the West Bank to Israel has never been pleasant. It is the act of voluntarily leaving a society where nearly everyone is outgoing and hospitable, then entering one where most people are paranoid, judgmental and usually armed. I was therefore grateful to notice that my driver extended the former qualities, as he pointed to the Palestinian villages we passed along the fringe of the West Bank. “Shoof!” (“Look!”) Beit Hanina hone (“here”),”? he said, pointing to the West, “Ou (“and”) Beit Hanina hunak (“there”),” now pointing to the East. Still smiling, he motioned ahead naming villages we would pass along the way, “Biddu, Beit A’nan, Beit Leqia ou Bil’in”. Read more about Reflections: Leaving Las Vegas, I mean, Israel, but actually Palestine 

An interview with Samah Idriss, co-founder of the Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel and editor-in-chief of al-Adab, a Lebanese arts and culture magazine based in Beirut. This interview was conducted in August 2005 in Beirut Lebanon and addresses various issues relating to the present day politics of Lebanon, while providing regional context to the major political changes taking place in Lebanon…. “The late Rafik al-Hariri had excellent relations with some Syrian elites, both politically and financially. Hariri rarely uttered a word against their interference in Lebanese public life, and their political and economic corruption in the country.” Read more about Interview with Samah Idriss: Lebanon: Assassinations, Elections and Palestine 

“Palestinians observed Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip with a mix of contradictory emotions. Paramount, perhaps, was relief. Nearly 9,000 Israeli settlers, who had occupied a third of the land there while confining 1. 3 million Palestinians to the rest, were finally gone.” However, argues George E. Bisharat, “the Israeli design for permanent colonization of lands reserved by the international community for a Palestinian state is a formula for decades of conflict and violence.” Read more about In the wake of the Gaza disengagement, enforce a ban on settlements 

For 12-year-old Sahl, riding a bicycle to school is a dream come true. Sahl lives in Aba’a which is a small picturesque village near Jenin. The vast majority of the 400 or so residents are kids below the age of 18. Ordinarily, the drive to Aba’a from Jenin would take less than five minutes. However, villagers avoiding the Israeli checkpoints have to travel more than 35 km. Poverty is pervasive in a community where most families depend on farming. Aba’a is surrounded by two small Israeli settlements – Jannim and Kaddim – among the hundreds that dot the West Bank. During the past years, the villagers at Aba’a have not had any problems with the nearby settlements. Read more about Happy to be going back to school 

In an exclusive interview with The Electronic Intifada, former and last elected mayor of Nablus, Bassam Shaka, stated that the Palestinian Authority has tried to coordinate the disengagement with Israel without results. Shaka has been a critic of the Oslo agreements, arguing they divided the Palestinian struggle for national independence into separate issues, thus dividing Palestinians and distracting attention from the national and human dimensions: “The Oslo agreements have left both sides disputing over the occupied territory and have given the security of Israel central importance. The construction of the Wall, along with other problems facing the Palestinians, will lead to the disintegration of the Palestinian cause as a national issue”. Read more about The Absence of National Unity: An Interview with Bassam Shaka 

Israel has issued orders to seize Palestinian-owned land to link a main Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank to Jerusalem, officials say, a step that could isolate Palestinians from Jerusalem. An Israeli government spokesman on Wednesday said orders were issued to seize four Palestinian-owned tracts of land around Maale Adumim, the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank, last Thursday, Reuters reported. The planned Maale Adumim section of the barrier Israel is building in the West Bank has raised alarm in Washington because of Israel’s stated intention to build homes in Maale Adumim joining it to Jerusalem, 8km away. By looping in the enclave, Israel would effectively seal Palestinians off from east Jerusalem, which they want as their capital. Read more about Israel orders Palestinian land seized 

There will be no celebrations in Burqa. This small northern West Bank town of 4,000 should have every reason to revel in the demographic shift imposed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s “Disengagement Plan”: the neighboring Israeli settlement of Homesh was cleared of its residents on August 23. But the reality for Burqa, as well as other Palestinian villages in the areas of the West Bank recently evacuated by Israel, is that little will change. There is no plan to return the land. According to its municipality, Burqa once boasted a population of over 30,000, but numerous pressures induced people to emigrate to Nablus, which lies about 10 km to the south. Read more about Not so disengaged in Burqa 

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has held its first official victory celebration, wasting no time after the Israeli army reported that the last Gaza settlement was evacuated on Monday. The movement’s leaders seized the opportunity of the demonstration to reiterate their right to continue their resistance and their refusal to disarm. About 30,000 Palestinians rallied throughout Gaza City on Monday night in the largest celebration so far since the beginning of the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. The rally also marked the anniversary of the attempted burning of al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem in 1969 and the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Abu-Shanab. Read more about Hamas rally celebrates Gaza 'victory' 

The Israeli political and military establishment didn’t just put a donkey, a goat and a cow into the Palestinian lands they put in the whole zoo. This morning I received an e-mail from a friend in Washington D.C. He expressed his sympathy for the Israeli settlers who he had watched being removed from their homes. It is his birthday today. I thought that rather then e-mail him a moral lesson all the way from the Gaza Strip or tell him the stories of the 30,000 Palestinians who lost their homes during this Intifada I would send him an old Jewish proverb that sums up the situation in Palestine one week after the start of the redeployment. Read more about Disengagement: "A donkey, a goat and a cow"