The recent overrunning of Gaza by Hamas militants was the equivalent to the United States’ Shock and Awe campaign in Iraq. EI contributor Sam Bahour writes, both campaigns were conducted outside the realm of international law and were violent and brutal, albeit each relative to their respective resources and internal contexts; both claimed to be “preemptive” in nature; and both events placed the Palestinian people and struggle for national liberation in even a more precarious position. Read more about Hamas' Shock and Awe
The Gaza Strip is a little bit more than two percent of Palestine. This small detail is never mentioned in the present Western media coverage of the dramatic events unfolding there. Gaza is isolated now by the Israeli siege, but historian Ilan Pappé explains that Gaza was always an integral part of Palestine and its cosmopolitan gateway to the world. It is within this context that we should view the violence raging today in Gaza and reject the reference to the events there as another arena in a ‘Clash of Civilizations.’ Read more about Towards a Geography of Peace: Whither Gaza?
The Oslo endless fruitless negotiations peace process has created an ambiguous situation: the Palestinians are caught somewhere between state-building and liberation struggle without being or having either. As a result they bear the responsibilities of freedom without actually enjoying freedom. The world looks at them as if they were in a postcolonial stage while the colonialists are still around. Additionally, the Oslo process has transformed the Palestinian revolutionary project into a corrupted comprador class that enjoys some benefits from the occupier. Read more about Oslo's baleful legacy
On Friday, 8 June, DePaul University President Dennis Holtschneider announced that he had decided to uphold the university’s tenure and promotion board’s ruling denying outspoken political science professor Norman Finkelstein tenure. In a press release, the president is quoted as saying that academic freedom “is alive and well at DePaul University.” Not surprisingly, the announcement of Finkelstein’s tenure denial has spawned a national discussion. DePaul University Assistant Professor Matthew Abraham comments. Read more about The case for Norman Finkelstein
The following is a speech made by Dr. Mona El-Farra at a special meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York marking 40 years of occupation by Israel of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip: It is my honour to be amongst you today, despite the gravity of the occasion being commemorated, on this 40th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. First, let me say that 2007 is the 59th anniversary of the brutal occupation of the Palestinian people. Read more about No justice without right of return
“Forty years ago today was the last day the citizens of Israel were a free people in their own land,” wrote Ha’aretz columnist Akiva Eldar on June 4. “It was the last day we lived here without living other peoples’ lives.” This sums up the cherished mythology of what is still called the Israeli left and much of the international peace process industry — that prior to the 1967 war, Israel was pure and on the right path. EI’s Ali Abunimah challenges the idea that had Israel not “become an occupier” the region would have had a happier history. Read more about It's not just the occupation
Forty years ago this week Israel’s military unleashed lightning attacks against Egypt, Jordan and Syria, alleging provocations as justification for its strikes. Within six days the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights had been captured. Apart from the Sinai from which Israel withdrew in 1977, the other areas remain under Israeli military occupation and control to this day. Read more about Ronnie Kasrils' speech to S. African Parliament on 40th anniversary of occupation
I have been arguing for some time that Israel’s ultimate goal is to create an ethnic fortress, a Jewish space in expanded borders from which all Palestinians — including its 1.2 million Palestinian citizens — will be excluded. That was the purpose of the Gaza disengagement and it is also the point of the wall snaking through the West Bank, effectively annexing to Israel what little is left of a potential Palestinian state. EI contributor Jonathan Cook writes that we are witnessing the first moves in Israel’s next phase of conquest of the Palestinians. Read more about Defending Israel from democracy
For, having unified all of what used to be Palestine (albeit into one profoundly divided space) without having overcome the Palestinian people’s will to resist, Zionism has run its course. And in so doing, it has terminated any possibility of a two-state solution. There remains but one possibility for peace with justice: truth, reconciliation — and a single democratic and secular state, a state in which there will be no “natives” and “settlers” and all will be equal; a state for all its citizens irrespective of their religious affiliation. Saree Makdisi comments. Read more about For a Secular Democratic State
