Rolling into Gaza I had a feeling of homecoming. There is a flavor to the ghetto. To the Bantustan. To the “rez.” Last March, poet and novelist Alice Walker traveled to the Gaza Strip just weeks after the 22-day Israeli assault. The Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Color Purple, now recounts the stories of people she met in Gaza, and offers a lyrical analysis that ties their struggle to what she and her community experienced in the segregated American South. Read more about "The best place one could be on Earth" 

I had expected to encounter difficulty from Egyptian and Israeli authorities upon attempting to enter Gaza. But neither had interfered. After traveling thousands of kilometers, and now literally standing a few hundred meters away from Gaza, the sad irony was that it was my own government that was preventing me from entering. I couldn’t understand why South Africa, which claims to be sympathetic to the Palestinian struggle, had adopted this policy. Sayed Dhansay comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Why is South Africa still helping apartheid Israel? 

A recent meeting between US President Barack Obama and Israel lobby leaders was designed to assuage American Jewish anxiety over US pressure on Israel to halt settlement construction. But rather than using American leverage to require Israel to comply with international law, the Obama administration is actually offering it more rewards at the expense of Palestinians and Arab states. Ali Abunimah comments. Read more about Obama's prizes for Israel are not "pressure" 

“I will never forget the image of the elderly woman whose son was dying in a hospital in Egypt. She only wanted to be with him. Crying, her hand touching the glass window of the office of the Egyptian intelligence services, she pleaded, ‘Please, please. I beg you, show mercy, let me go in.’” Natalie Abou Shakra traveled to Gaza a week before Israel’s massive attack last winter. She comments on what it is like to be imprisoned in Gaza, with its people, banned from leaving as Egypt works hand in hand with Israel to enforce the blockade. Read more about "Who will hold us accountable?" 

When the Israeli navy seized the Spirit of Humanity and its 21 passengers on 30 June, did the commandos commit acts of piracy under international law? Civil rights attorney Radhika Sainath argues that the laws of piracy should not be selectively applied to poor Africans who hijack huge tankers belonging to rich corporations, but enforced against Israel as well. Read more about Is Israel guilty of piracy? 

While Israel has been buying yet more time with Washington in bickering over a paltry settlement freeze, it has been forging ahead with the process of creating two Palestinian territories, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, that, despite supposedly emerging from occupation, are in reality sinking ever deeper into chronic dependency on Israeli goodwill. This is creating a culture of absolute Israeli control and absolute Palestinian dependency, enforced by proxy Palestinian rulers acting as mini-dictatorships. Jonathan Cook comments. Read more about The victory of defeat 

Israel has never been short of pretexts for obstructing progress towards a Middle East peace settlement. But recent moves to push Arab and Muslim states to normalize ties with Israel as a reward for agreeing to freeze settlement construction will likely provide Israel with more opportunities for obstruction rather than incentives for cooperation. Hasan Abu Nimah comments. Read more about Offering Israel new opportunities for obstruction 

In a major policy speech on 25 June 2009, Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, tried to do what may be impossible: present the Islamist Palestinian resistance organization as a willing partner in a US-led peace process, while holding on to his movement’s political principles and base. This is the dilemma that every Palestinian leadership, and perhaps almost every liberation movement, has eventually had to confront. It is a choice, as political scientist Tamim Barghouti has pointed out, between recognition and legitimacy. Ali Abunimah analyzes. Read more about Hamas' choice: Recognition or resistance in the age of Obama 

Recently, I spoke with some friends in Gaza and the conversations were profoundly disturbing. My friends spoke of the deeply-felt absence of any source of protection — personal, communal or institutional. There is little in society that possesses legitimacy and there is a fading consensus on rules and an eroding understanding of what they are for. Sara Roy comments. Read more about Destroying Gaza