The Palestinian rockets may indeed be futile when compared to the superior Israeli military capabilities, but they still cause harm and panic, as stones did before. They are also likely to become more advanced and lethal, otherwise why should the Israeli retaliation be that intense and violent. The life of even one victim of 200 rocket attacks, on the other hand, should be valuable too, although continuing violence and wholesale murder in as many war theatres in the region has got us accustomed to undermining the meaning and the value of human life. EI regular contributor Hasan Abu Nimah comments. Read more about 'Rockets of futility'?
In very exceptional cases, an academic boycott comes onto our agenda. This happens when a country’s universities are recognized as central players in legitimizing a regime that systematically inflicts massive human rights abuses on its own people and any pretence that the universities are independent fortresses of principled intellectual thought becomes too insulting to the human conscience. But since universities in many oppressive regimes fit those criteria, in practice a second condition is required: their faculties have the freedom to act differently. Read more about On the Academic Boycott of Israel
Bad politics create bad consequences, but because linking the effect with the cause implicates the initiators, the tendency is often to attribute man-made disasters to unrelated circumstances. It is easier, therefore, to blame the tragic fighting amongst the Palestinians in Gaza on a foolish and selfish struggle for positions, rather than the rotten politics of Oslo, cooked a decade and a half earlier. Indeed, and in many ways, it is a fierce struggle for power, but the roots of even that should be traced further back than the election results that swept Hamas into power. Read more about The result of bad politics
There is something worrying about a prime minister of a liberal, democratic country who imposes values on his country’s citizens and those who wish to become citizens, yet does not adhere to those values when he regards it politically expedient to ignore them. This is precisely what Prime Minister John Howard has done in accepting the “honour” of having a forest named after him in Israel’s Negev Desert and also the Jerusalem Prize for his support of Israel and its “values”. Read more about Howard's dubious Jewish National Fund honor
There’s something a little misleading in media reports that routinely describe the fighting in Gaza as pitting Hamas against Fatah forces or security personnel “loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas.” Read more about Palestinian Pinochet Making His Move?
Fatima knew in a timeless way, in those days of May 1948, that the Jews were coming. For the last six months shreds from the daily news — traditionally the domain of the men in the village — had reached her. She was aware that the British were leaving and that the Jews were occupying nearby villages at a frightening rate. She also heard the men complaining about the Arab world’s betrayal: its leaders made inflammatory speeches, promising to send soldiers to save Palestine, but not matching their rhetoric by any real action. PART 1 Read more about The Best Runner in the Class (Part 1)
Fatima knew in a timeless way, in those days of May 1948, that the Jews were coming. For the last six months shreds from the daily news — traditionally the domain of the men in the village — had reached her. She was aware that the British were leaving and that the Jews were occupying nearby villages at a frightening rate. She also heard the men complaining about the Arab world’s betrayal: its leaders made inflammatory speeches, promising to send soldiers to save Palestine, but not matching their rhetoric by any real action. PART 2 Read more about The Best Runner in the Class (Part 2)
The sad truth is that while the Palestinians commemorate the Nakba of 1948, the disaster is ongoing up until today. Now, however, the oppression is subtler than the forced marches of the citizens of Ramla, the forced exodus of hundreds of thousands, or those who fled from violence or from the fear and confusion about what the Jewish militias were threatening or the Arab governments promising. It is a slow, forced exodus that is not exciting enough to warrant any airtime or column space. Read more about The Nakba has Never Ended
When my mother was nine years old, she and her family mounted the back of a pickup truck and left their village of Lifta, adjacent to Jerusalem, under threat from Zionist militias. My grandmother covered the furniture in the family home that my grandfather had built. Anticipating a short absence until fighting in the area died down, they took only a few clothes. That was almost six decades ago. Like hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians, they were never allowed to return, and their property was seized by Israel. Read more about A political marriage of necessity: A single state of Palestine-Israel
The second Lebanon War of summer 2006 threw a dark shadow over the government of Ehud Olmert and his party, Kadima. For the first time, Israel got to know what it’s like to cower helplessly under barrages of rocket fire. The 4,000 Katyushas that rained on Galilee for 33 days rubbed in the feeling of failure. The air force could not stop them. The government could not protect or supply its citizens. It left them to fend as best they could, ruled by the wails of sirens. Read more about The Leader Israel Deserves
