What was the most inspiring, informative, motivating article you read on The Electronic Intifada in 2009? Take a look at some of our highlights. Thousands of people read EI every day in almost every country around the world, finding the information they can’t get elsewhere. In its annual appeal, EI asks its readers for the financial support that will enable us to continue our groundbreaking, fearless and independent reporting on Palestine in 2010 Read more about EI reader appeal: Your support makes our work on Palestine possible
As if the siege of Gaza were not already bad enough, Israel and Egypt are working even harder to tighten the prison which holds Gaza’s 1.5 million people. Egypt is building a steel wall along its 10-kilometer-long border with the Gaza Strip, according to recent media reports. This wall apparently extends not only above ground, but deep into the ground in an attempt to prevent Palestinians digging the tunnels that have become a lifeline for the territory. Hasan Abu Nimah comments. Read more about Steel walls cannot contain the struggle for freedom
United States President Barack Obama has just accepted the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo. His nomination had been controversial, not least because he is continuing and escalating two illegal wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also because it was awarded to him at the beginning of his term, before he has proven a genuine willingness to promote peace. The glaring contradiction between US President Barack Obama’s words and actions are nowhere else more obvious than in his dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Sayed Dhansay comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Winning prize for peace while advocating war
Israel started a preemptive campaign against a EU statement on the Middle East session even before it was formally presented for discussion by EU ministers this week on whether to adopt it. Israeli spokesmen expressed outrage at what they saw as an EU effort to “divide” Jerusalem, and claimed that the European position would “harm the peace process,” as if it is only Israel that has been carefully protecting it from the harmful moves of others. Hasan Abu Nimah comments. Read more about Another EU policy statement will not stop Israel's colonization
Last week Hassan Nasrallah delivered a speech over video link from an unknown location, as he frequently does. The leader of the Lebanese Shia Islamic resistance and political group Hizballah addressed the audience in Beirut to present the group’s new manifesto, their first since 1985 when the group unveiled its initial open letter. Matthew Cassel analyzes. Read more about Hizballah's call for legitimacy
From my perspective as the head of the agency mandated to assist and protect Palestine refugees, it is particularly vexing that the prevailing approach fails — or refuses — to accord the refugee issue the attention it deserves. Over 60 years, dispossession has faded from the focus of peace efforts. The heart of where peace should begin is absent from the international agenda, pushed aside as one of the “final status” issues, one which belongs to a later stage of the negotiation process. Karen AbuZayd comments. Read more about Refocus the debate on the dispossession
“We do not negotiate with terrorists” — a long-cherished mantra of Western democracies. In reality all the major powers have at some stage been forced to discuss with militants, from Northern Ireland to Iraq. Now Israel seems on the verge of granting their fiercest enemies Hamas a major coup with the mooted release of up to 1,000 prisoners. What message does this send? Kieron Monks comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Human currency
The news that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was in Australia and was welcomed by the honorable members of our parliament came as somewhat of a shock. It is one thing to have allowed a man charged with corruption and suspected of war crimes into Australia at all; it is another thing that he was listed as a distinguished guest in Hansard — the official record of parliamentary proceedings — and received a resounding “hear, hear” from our elected representatives. Sonja Karkar comments. Read more about Australia hosts war criminal Ehud Olmert
Eitam, who since then has held several senior posts in the Israeli government, has recently toured the US as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “Special Emissary” to the “Caravan for Democracy” program of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). This is a marriage made in heaven. Since Israel was founded, the JNF has organized the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the settlement of Jews on their expropriated land; Eitam sees himself as the messianic soldier-prophet directing future expulsions of Palestinians from Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Jim Holstun and Irene Morrison comment for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about "We will have to kill them all": Effie Eitam, thug messiah
The Palestinian “unilateralism” making recent news is more like a game of politicking — and a dangerous one at that. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas could be keen to push the proposal for unilateral statehood/Security Council recognition as a way of undermining Salam Fayyad’s own “two year plan,” amid worries that the US has already designated Fayyad to replace Abbas, just as Abbas himself was “empowered” by the US to sideline and eventually embrace the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Ben White comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about A desperate throw of the dice
