“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
The establishment of the tribunal for Lebanon as conceived in resolution 1757 also suffers from many legal and political imperfections. The question remains: would other possible alternatives — such as a tribunal established within Lebanon, which some Lebanese lawyers believe could have been accomplished whilst taking into account the peculiarities of the Lebanese legal system — be better? After all, the current deficiencies with the judicial system will not be ameliorated by the establishment of a new tribunal outside the country. Nisrine Abiad and Victor Kattan look at the legal aspects of the Hariri tribunal. Read more about The Hariri tribunal: A fait accompli?
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
Finally, an international tribunal will be tasked with investigating and prosecuting murder and mayhem in an Arab country. For human rights activists who have railed against continuing impunity for grave crimes in the Middle East, whether committed by Israelis or Arabs, whether orchestrated by states or non-state actors, this should be an occasion for unalloyed celebration, or at least relief. However, EI’s Laurie King-Irani writes, there are worrying aspects of the unprecedented legal initiative of the UN-mandated tribunal charged with investigating the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and other recent crimes. Read more about Tribunals, Trials and Tribulations in Lebanon?
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
“In the first three days of the recent events involving the Lebanese army and Fateh el-Islam in the Nahr el-Bared camp, the Lebanese army committed what would amount to war crimes in a similar fashion to that of the Israeli army in Gaza and in Lebanon last summer, firing on a civilian population indiscriminately. When the Israelis do this, we scream at the injustice, but when the Lebanese army does it we applaud them. These are double standards.” Sami Hermez analyzes the Lebanese support for the siege of Nahr al-Bared camp for Electronic Lebanon. Read more about Cheering to the beat of the Palestinians' misery
Thousands of Palestinian refugees are fleeing from Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon as five days of fighting by the Lebanese army and a militant group known as Fath al-Islam has left dozens of soldiers and fighters and an unknown number of civilians dead. As the situation of these Palestinian refugees worsens, 59 years after they were first expelled from their homeland into Lebanon, the world looks on in silence. Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah spoke with As’ad Abukhalil, the creator of the Angry Arab News Service blog on the origins of Fath al-Islam, the events that led to the violence and what it means for Lebanon and the region. Read more about Interview: As'ad Abukhalil on the Nahr al-Bared siege
