On Sunday, 28 May 2006, a number of attacks occurred in the Gaza Strip, as the security chaos in the area continues. One citizen was kidnapped in Khan Yunis, another was injured by gunfire in Gaza, and armed clashes broke out between members of the same clan in Greater Abasan. PCHR’s preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 13:00 on Sunday, gunmen kidnapped Naser Zere’i S’laiyeh (30), while he and his wife were about to take a taxi in Khan Yunis. He was brought to an undisclosed location. Read more about Internal Violence Continues in the Gaza Strip
Thaer was awaiting his family to visit from Beit Lekya, his village that is besieged by Israel’s Separation Wall. He was not sure who exactly would be his visitors this time or what kind of news they would bring. He was busy in his cell thinking of how to receive his family. He never thought in his worst nightmares that, instead of the joy of receiving his family, he would receive the news of his daughter’s fatal injury which led to her death. At home, Thaer’s daughter Rafida was rushing to her fate. She woke early in the morning and then woke her mother, wanting to get an early start on the long trip to her father. Read more about Crushed by Gate of Occupation
In approving an effective ban on marriages between Israelis and Palestinians this week, Israel’s Supreme Court has shut tighter the gates of the Jewish fortress the state of Israel is rapidly becoming. The judges’ decision, in the words of the country’s normally restrained Haaretz daily, was “shameful”. By a wafer-thin majority, the highest court in the land ruled that an amendment passed in 2003 to the Nationality Law barring Palestinians from living with an Israeli spouse inside Israel — what in legal parlance is termed “family unification” — did not violate rights enshrined in the country’s Basic Laws. Read more about Israel’s marriage ban closes the gates to Palestinians
Subdued commemorations are happening all over the rocky hillsides of occupied Palestine; there are the throngs of children waving the colorful and banned Palestinian flag which whips in the hot springtime wind, the busloads of people trying to travel to city centers to hear stories of the Nakba, only to be stopped at checkpoints and ordered back to their dusty refugee camps and shrinking villages. 58 years after the Zionist militias lay siege to over 450 Palestinian towns and villages, Palestinian refugees are still waiting, holding the iron keys that unlock the doors to homes that no longer exist. Read more about Shadows and Distortions
There is no money to pay the 150,000 public servants within the “West Bank” and Gaza Strip, including doctors, nurses and other health workers. Most have not been paid for two months. There is very little money in circulation. High quality fruit that has been grown for export has been allowed in only small amounts through Karnai, the commercial checkpoint. No other exports are passing through, and little is coming in. That includes drugs, spare parts for dialysis machines and other necessary medical equipment and supplies. There are no drugs and anaesthetic agents left in the hospitals. Shafa hospital, the main public hospital, was threatened with closure last week. Read more about Siege of 1.4 Million Souls in Gaza vs. International Law
With his coalition partners on board, Israel’s prime minister Ehud Olmert is plotting his next move: a partial withdrawal from the West Bank over the next few years which he and his government will declare as the end of the occupation and therefore also any legitimate grounds for Palestinian grievance. From here on in, Israel will portray itself as the benevolent provider of a Palestinian state — on whatever is left after most of Israel’s West Bank colonies have been saved and the Palestinian land on which they stand annexed to Israel. Read more about Israel’s road to ‘convergence’ began with Rabin
Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) party, has twice called in less than a week for Arabs MKs to be put on trial for treason and executed if found guilty. Lieberman, who surprised observers by winning 11 seats in the March elections, was recently courted by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for a seat in his new cabinet. On 8 May, Lieberman presented a speech to the Knesset in which he proposed that any Arab politicians who were disloyal to the state should be punished. He added: “How is it that no Arab MK sings the national anthem or raises the flag on Independence Day?” Read more about Israeli party leader Avigdor Lieberman calls for Arab MKs to be executed
In its latest poll, the Israel Democracy Institute found that 62 per cent of Israelis support the government encouraging the country’s more than one million Arab citizens to emigrate. The Democracy Index survey, published on 9 May, contrasts with another recent poll, by the Geocartography Institute, which found that 40 per cent of Israelis favoured the emigration of Arab citizens. Recent polls have shown that, while on average 40 per cent of Israelis want Arab citizens forced to leave the country, that figure rises close to 60 per cent when respondents are asked, more ambiguously, if they want the Arab population “encouraged” to emigrate. Read more about Poll shows 62% of Israelis favour emigration of Arab citizens
The World Bank circulated a new report on the Palestinian financial crisis. The report says that the crisis is worse than expected and it threatens to provoke a humanitarian crisis and the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. According to the report, 2006 is shaping up to be the worst year in recent times for Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories. The report follows the recent cut-off of financial aid to the Palestinian Authority. On Tuesday, Secretary-General Kofi Annan will host a high-level meeting on Tuesday of the diplomatic Quartet, the partnership of the United Nations, European Union (EU), Russia and the United States amid a potentially dangerous deterioration looming on the horizon. Read more about World Bank Report: "Palestinian crisis is worse than expected"
Michael Neumann’s “The Case Against Israel” is “the most comprehensive and devastating critique of Israel in print,” writes EI reviewer Raymond Deane. Yet it will make uncomfortable reading not only for Israel’s apologists but also pro-Palestinian activists. Neumann argues that although “Israel is the illegitimate child of ethnic nationalism,” its existence is “protected by the same useful international conventions that allow others” to retain “their ill-gotten gains.” Seeing that Palestinians have no true options to resist save violence, Neumann nevertheless advocates “the most extensive international sanctions possible”, undeterred “by the horrors of the Jewish past.” Read more about Book Review: The Case Against Israel
