Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s announcement that he plans to remove virtually all Israeli settlers from the occupied Gaza Strip has caused a shock wave in Israel. Has some sudden epiphany convinced Sharon that the settlements are the key obstacle to peace and that Israel’s future is jeopardized by the continued attempt to incorporate occupied Palestinian territories into a greater Israel? EI co-founder Ali Abunimah, and ADC Communications Director Hussein Ibish get to the bottom of the mystery in a Chicago Tribune commentary. Read more about What does Sharon's latest settlement move mean for Israel?
Israeli historian Benny Morris crossed a new line of shame when he put his academic credentials and respectability in the service of outlining the “moral” justification for a future genocide against Palestinians. How can one explain Morris’ knowledge that the ethnic Darwinism that was used to justify the murder of millions of non-whites, including Black African slaves, Native Americans, Arabs, and others, was also used to justify the attempt to exterminate Jews? Gabriel Ash takes a closer look at Morris’ thinking and the tradition to which it belongs. Read more about Diagnosing Benny Morris: the mind of a European settler
More than three years into the intifada, the Palestinian situation seems worse than ever: the weekly death toll, the poverty and now the wall. So has the uprising failed? Seumas Milne had exclusive access to leaders across the political spectrum - from president Yasser Arafat to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. He found an unprecedented willingness to compromise - but a growing belief that the wall will scupper the best ever hope for peace. Read more about Too late for two states?
When does the banishment of an entire people become morally justified? That such a question can even be posed in today’s Israel is dismal testament to the transformation of Zionism into what it claims to abhor. EI’s Ali Abunimah comments on two recent, extraordinary documents — an article in The Guardian and an interview with Ha’aretz — in which Israeli historian Benny Morris approves of Israeli “ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinians in 1948, calls it “necessary” and prepares the ground for Israel to justify any future atrocity including renewed expulsion of all the Palestinians from their homeland. Read more about Moral decay and Benny Morris
Apartheid South Africa, which Israel increasingly resembles in the eyes of the world, taught an important lesson: the nuclear weapons which the apartheid regime developed with Israeli assistance were no defence against a majority population struggling for its freedom. EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah argues that none of the excuses for the world ignoring Israel’s weapons of mass destruction hold water, and Middle East disarmament should begin with the one state that possesses deployed nuclear weapons aimed at its neighbors. Read more about Putting Israel's weapons above the law
While state department officials and historians assemble on Washington DC this week to discuss the 1967 war in the Middle East, Admiral Thomas Moorer, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1970 to 1974, is compelled to speak out about one of U.S. history’s most shocking cover-ups. On June 8th, 1967, Israel attacked our proud naval ship — the USS Liberty — killing 34 American servicemen and wounding 172. Those men were then betrayed and left to die by our own government. Admiral Moorer believes the American people deserve to know the truth about this attack. Read more about A Legacy of Betrayal
The Ambassador of Israel in The Netherlands, Eitan Margalit spoke to an audience of mainly international lawyers on 20 November 2003 in The Hague, followed by an outpouring of criticism. Even a sympathetic observer present at the lecture would not fail to have noticed how thin the Israeli government’s arguments have become in objecting to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Jeff Handmaker, a Jewish human rights lawyer based in the Netherlands argues that the Israeli government’s insistence upon the “rule of law” yet refusal to submit to a supranational court is blatantly hypocritical. Read more about Running out of steam: Israel’s empty objections to the International Criminal Court
For decades, Israel claimed that the creation of a Palestinian state would mean the “destruction of the Jewish state.” Now, Israel insists that not having a Palestinian state would mean annihilation. EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah examines this apparent contradiction in the context of Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qureia’s recent “threat” that the Palestinians would abandon the two-state solution and call for a binational democracy in all of historic Palestine instead. Read more about Israel, the PA and the one-state "threat"
Until recently, when any of the hundred thousand people in Al Eizarya, Abu Dis or Sawahre wanted to reach Jerusalem, all they had to do was take Al Eizarya’s main road, which connects to the Jerusalem-Jericho road, and within minutes they could reach the Old City. Those days are gone. Today the Al Eizarya road comes to a sudden halt at a wall two meters high, topped by rolls of barbed wire. What was once a major artery has become a parking lot for service cabs. If you want to get to Jerusalem, the expedition goes on for an hour or more. Michal Schwartz writes in Challenge.Read more about Jerusalem: The Wall at the End of the Cul-de-Sac
Israeli politicians, intellectuals and media often passionately debate how best to face the country’s demographic “war” with the Palestinians. Few Israelis dissent from the belief that such a war exists or ought to exist. The popular call to subordinate democracy to demography, however, has entailed the adoption of reminiscent population control mechanisms to keep the number of Palestinians in check. Conclusion of the two part article by Omar Barghouti, examining more of the issues relating to Israel’s unwillingness and inability to consider full equality for Palestinians and Jews in historic Palestine. Read more about Relative Humanity: The Fundamental Obstacle to a One-State Solution in Historic Palestine (2/2)
