In much of the Western media, the Palestinians are written-off as a gang of unruly terrorists. However, the numbers give a different account. Since September of 2000, six out of every seven children killed in this decades-long conflict have been Palestinian. Terrorism constitutes acts of violence against civilians in furtherance of political objectives. Terrorism is a Palestinian suicide-bomber attacking a bus or a pizza parlor in Tel Aviv. Terrorism is also an Israeli warplane deliberately targeting the civilian infrastructure in Gaza and Lebanon. We lose all credibility when we rightfully condemn acts of terror carried out by individuals or groups, but offer support to a state that also targets the innocent. Read more about Tax dollars sent to Israel buy enemies for US
Whatever may be the fate of the captive soldier Gilad Shalit, the Israeli army’s war in Gaza is not about him. As senior security analyst Alex Fishman widely reported, the army was preparing for an attack months earlier and was constantly pushing for it, with the goal of destroying the Hamas infrastructure and its government. The army initiated an escalation on 8 June when it assassinated Abu Samhadana, a senior appointee of the Hamas government, and intensified its shelling of civilians in the Gaza Strip. The capture of the soldier released the safety-catch, and the operation began on 28 June. Read more about What are they fighting for?
As Americans commemorated their annual celebration of independence from colonial occupation, rejoicing in their democratic institutions, we Palestinians were yet again besieged by our occupiers, who destroy our roads and buildings, our power stations and water plants, and who attack our very means of civil administration. As I inspect the ruins of our infrastructure — the largess of donor nations and international efforts all turned to rubble once more by F-16s and American-made missiles — my thoughts again turn to the minds of Americans. What do they think of this? Read more about Aggression under false pretenses
The same malign intent by Israel towards the Palestinians is stamped through its history like the lettering in a children’s stick of seaside rock. But despite the consistent aim of Israeli policy, generation after generation of Western politicians, diplomats and journalists has shown a repeated inability to grasp what is happening before its very eyes. The Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi once noted that the first goal of Israel’s founders as they prepared to establish their Jewish state on a large swath of the Palestinian homeland in 1948 was to empty Palestine’s urban heartlands of their educated elites. Read more about Israel's latest bureaucratic obscenity
This year, the 9th of July is a bitter day for Palestinians. The Occupation Army besieges Gaza, massacres its people and attacks its infrastructure. The ghettos of the West Bank take shape as the Apartheid Wall edges closer to completion and the Palestinian exodus from Jerusalem has begun. Over 9000 Palestinians sit in Israeli prison cells whilst Palestinians who remain on their 1948 lands do so under the subjugation of the most vicious and discriminatory Apartheid system. The brief euphoria of two years ago, following the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Wall, is a distant memory. Some hailed a victory for international law in Palestine when the ICJ ruled the Wall illegal. Read more about Globalizing the Occupation
The Electronic Intifada’s coverage of “Operation Summer Rain” — the code name for Israel’s massive destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure — continues. EI is currently being updated several times daily from around the world. During the Gaza invasion, we are using all of our site’s five multimedia panels to point to the special BYTOPIC section of Key Events, “Israel invades Gaza (27 June 2006)”, and to showcase some of the incredible photographs from on the ground put out by the Ma’an News Agency. EI was saddened to learn this morning of the serious injury of 20-year-old Ma’an photographer Mohammad Az Zanoun in Gaza. Read more about Mohammad Az Zanoun and the Spirit of Nonviolent Resistance
The Alice Through the Looking Glass quality of Israeli disinformation over the combined siege and invasion of Gaza — and its widespread and credulous repetition by the Western media — is successfully distracting attention from Israel’s real goals in this one-sided war of attrition. The current destruction of Gaza’s civilian and administrative infrastructure is reminiscent of the Israeli army’s cruel rampages through the streets of West Bank cities in the repeated invasions of 2002 and 2003, and the Jewish settlers’ malicious attacks on Palestinian farmers trying to collect their olive harvests. Three long-standing motives are discernible in Israel’s current menacing of Gaza. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Israel's experiment in human despair
The current “crisis” faced by the people in occupied Gaza is a matter of degree. Since the farce “disengagement” last summer, and particularly since they elected Hamas to lead them, Palestinians have been under a near total Israeli siege, backed fully by the so-called “international community” which has shamefully abandoned its responsibilities towards an occupied population. Now they face a more intense onslaught, with Israel bombing civilian infrastructure, including electricity, bridges and Palestinian Authority ministries. Thousands of Palestinians have fled their homes under direct threat from Israel. Read more about Israel's path of self-destruction
Ten months after Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, its army has re-entered the Strip, while in the West Bank it has arrested the bulk of the Palestinian government: 64 legislators, cabinet ministers and officials, members of Hamas all. The pretext was a raid led by the Hamas military wing on June 25, in which two soldiers were killed and one captured. In Israel’s view, the event gives it an excuse to create a new political reality, nullifying the Hamas victory in the January elections. In certain respects, the Israeli actions are reminiscent of Operation “Defensive Shield” in 2002. Read more about Democracy Can't be Hijacked
As the Palestinian factions prepare for peace, the Israeli military has continued to commit grave breaches of international law and inflict further suffering against the civilian population of the OPT. For the past three and a half years Israel has worked to isolate the Palestinian people by refusing to recognise their legitimate representatives (the PLO) as partners for peace. This strategy of unilateralism has taken place while very positive developments have taken place on the Palestinian side. Israeli violence has battered the Gaza Strip, perpetuating a long, hot, filthy summer of human rights violations. Read more about Palestinians Prepare for Peace While Israel Practices War
