An extensive discussion has already taken place in Israel regarding the cost-benefit ratio of Yassin’s assassination. But the question of justice has hardly been raised. International conventions are one of the means people have developed for self-preservation. Without them, there is a danger that the human race would annihilate itself - first the strong would wipe out the weak, and then each other. Palestinian farmers whose land is being robbed sit on the ground in front of the bulldozers, accompanied by the Israeli opponents of the wall - the veterans of the Mas’ha camp. What could be more nonviolent than this? But the Israeli army shoots at sitting demonstrators, like in Tiennamen Square. Israeli academic Tanya Reinhart comments. Read more about As in Tiennamen Square
In his week-old book Against All Enemies that is currently climbing the best-sellers lists, Richard A. Clarke provocatively reveals the Bush administration’s obsession with invading Iraq following the September 11 attacks, and their failure to heed Clarke’s repeated warnings of an impending attack by al-Qaeda previous to that devastating day. However, Clarke fails to give proper weight to one of the most effectively popular platforms of al Qaeda’s terrorism: the U.S.’s funding of Israel while Israel continues its 37 year occupation of Palestinian land. Read more about Richard Clarke fails to address the U.S.-Israel alliance's relationship to terrorism in "Against All Enemies"
At 5:20AM on Monday 22 March 2004, Israeli helicopter gunships fired three rockets at wheelchair-bound HAMAS figurehead Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as he exited the Islamic Association Mosque in the densely populated al-Sabra neighborhood in the center of Gaza City. The obvious point to make is that, if Yassin was responsible for planning attacks on civilians then — like anyone who attempts to use us civilians as their latest gory political billboard advertisement — he deserved to be tried, convicted, and sentenced for his crimes. It is irony of the highest level that the very process by which Yassin was killed may place Israel in the dock one day to answer questions about its own crimes against humanity. EI’s Nigel Parry comments. Read more about The 'targeted killing' of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
Getting out of the Gaza Strip is an old dream of the majority in Israeli society. Even before the Oslo agreements in 1993, the call to get out of there was heard after every terror attack. Today, according to the polls, it has the support of 60-70% of the Israelis. But governments come and fall, and still, this majority has not found the political power to realize its will. But now, so the papers say, we have finally reached a historical turn. The majority is asked to believe that of all Israeli leaders, it is Sharon who will get us out of Gaza. Israeli professor Tanya Reinhart looks at the reality. Read more about Sharon's 'Disengagement': A Pacifier for the Majority
“Crushed into the earth, her face torn and her head fractured, Rachel spoke her last words to her devastated friends: ‘I think my back is broken.’ Within the hour, Rachel Corrie, US citizen, aged 23, was dead, the victim of a murder committed in broad day light. With her killing, ISM activsts and all who share their humanitarian goals grounded in universal principles of justice and equality, had been been put on notice by the Israeli Defence Forces that their collective backbone could be broken.” EI co-founder Laurie King-Irani asks what Rachel Corrie’s life and death can tell us about achieving human rights and justice in the Middle East. Read more about One Year Later: Whose back is that strong?
A year has passed since Rachel Corrie, a 23 year-old American peace activist from Olympia, Washington, was killed by an Israel army bulldozer while nonviolently trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian house in the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. During this time, the Israeli government has strenuously sought to obscure the circumstances of Rachel’s death and prevent an independent investigation. It has even refused to release its June 2003 military police investigation final report to the United States, only allowing an American embassy official to read and take notes from selected parts. Read more about One Year Later: Rachel Corrie's Critics Fire Blanks
“My response to the query ‘Why don’t you stick to a ‘Jewish’ cause,’ is that seeking justice for the Palestinians is, in fact, the Jewish cause. When major crimes are being committed in my name, if I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror in the morning, I don’t want to see the reflection of a Jew who displays malignant indifference while Sharon uses methods of barbarism against the Palestinians. Rather, I want to see the reflection of an ordinary decent Jew who reacts to Israeli crimes by saying loudly and clearly, “Stop! You do not speak or act in my name.” Shifra Eva Stern, a researcher and writer, explains her commitment to justice for the Palestinian people. Read more about Why seeking justice for the Palestinians is the Jewish cause
When Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced his decision to withdraw unilaterally from the Gaza Strip and dismantle 17 settlements, there was reason, one might think, for celebration in certain quarters. Yet few rejoiced. There is the uneasy feeling that his words do not bode an end to the 37-year-old Occupation, rather further entanglement. Some call the would-be withdrawal an escape, some call it a threat against the Palestinians, and some call it a means to strengthen Israel’s hold on the West Bank. One thing it is not: a step toward resolving the conflict. An editorial from Challenge magazine explains why. Read more about Gaza Striptease
Palestinian UN envoy, Nasser Al-Kidwa, told the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that he hopes a ruling that Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank would lead to the same kind of international sanctions that followed after the Court’s 1971 ruling against South Africa’s occupation of Namibia. But if this hope is what Palestinian Authority (PA) strategy is built on, then we are in trouble. EI’s Ali Abunimah says that the Palestinians are not wanting for international legal decisions supporting their rights. What they badly lack is a political strategy to convert these rulings into reality. Read more about Even if Palestine wins at The Hague...
The Palestinian Authority is in a critical and untenable state, writes EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah. On the international front it is engaged in futile diplomacy designed to restore its reason for existence. Meanwhile on the home front, new allegations of corruption implicate prime minister Ahmed Qureia, Suha Arafat, the wife of the Palestinian leader, and Palestinian cabinet minister Jamil Tarifi. Yet neither Qureia’s nor Mrs. Arafat’s denials will do much to clear the thickening clouds of suspicion and mistrust that hang over the PA. Neither does the ongoing Palestinian parliamentary investigation offer much hope, in the light of earlier experience. Read more about A Palestinian Authority steeped in paralysis and corruption
