Opinion and analysis

As the Road Map unravels...

Hasan Abu Nimah 11 June 2003


Israel is doing everything possible to derail the road map, and the Palestinians’ Mahmoud Abbas is powerless to stop them. Regular EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah argues that more concessions from a leader who already made too many will neither halt the bloodshed nore bring peace with justice. 

Thirty-six years of silence

Gordon Murray 6 June 2003


The occupation of Palestine has festered for thirty-six years too long. Despite Canada’s official position that Israel must withdraw from all the land it occupied in 1967, the Canadian government has done nothing as Israel illegally installed entire cities on the territory it stole by force. Now, under the guise of security, the Israeli government is building a multi-billion dollar prison wall that will effectively annex up to 40 per cent of the West Bank, yet Canada remains silent. Gordon Murray from ISM Canada comments. 

Violence, settlements and peace

Ali Abunimah 6 June 2003


President Bush’s summit with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in Aqaba, Jordan, ended this week on an upbeat note. But Sharon’s announcement that Israel will dismantle “unauthorized” settler outposts as its contribution to implementing Phase 1 of the “road map,” and his failure to announce a construction freeze in other settlements, is a sign that the initiative will quickly run aground unless Bush forcefully upholds his peace plan, says EI founder Ali Abunimah in a Chicago Tribune commentary. 

The Road Map: Where next after Aqaba?

Ali Abunimah 4 June 2003


President Bush’s two days of Middle East summitry are being hailed in the United States as a diplomatic and political triumph. And indeed even by bringing Arab and Israeli leaders to Sharm al-Sheikh and Aqaba, Bush did more than many people thought was possible. But, writes EI founder Ali Abunimah, the elation is likely to be short lived as the carefully crafted final statements by Bush, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, and the Palestinians’ Mahmoud Abbas paper over the lop-sided concessions made by each side. 

The Road Map -- a matter of time

Hasan Abu Nimah 4 June 2003


With the twin summits in Sharm Al Sheikh and Aqaba underway, many believe that the likelihood of a major breakthrough in the efforts to break the cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence and resuming serious talks towards a settlement are realistic. Yet while optimism may be justified in the short run, regular EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah argues that it is only a matter of time before the whole scheme falls apart right in front of everybody’s wide open eyes. 

End of all aid work in Palestine?

Ann Kristin Brunborg and Gudrun Bertinussen 27 May 2003

International aid workers have been shut out from Gaza since Saturday 10th May. Despite the worsening humanitarian situation, the Israeli army says the exclusion could become permanent. Since January, many of us have been refused entry to Israel, cross-examined and even deported. Now aid organisations are talking about pulling out. 

Living "the other," fearing "the other"

George E. Irani 5 June 2003


Fear is nothing new in human affairs. It has been with us since the dawn of time. Now, however, we live in a world that is both increasingly intertwined and alarmingly disjointed. Globalization has dramatized a fundamental reality for the fortunate citizens living in the rich world: If you want to subject the rest of the planet to your models of consumption and personal freedoms, expect responses and reverberations. By no moral, legal, or cultural calculus will it ever be acceptable that some live in comfort and splendor while the majority of Earth’s human denizens suffer hunger, oppression, want and despair.” George E. Irani offers some insights into the dynamics underlying fear of Arabs and Muslims in the West in the pages of Beirut’s Daily Star. 

Road Map or Road Kill?

Rashid I. Khalidi 23 May 2003

“in failing to focus on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, about to enter its thirty-seventh year, and on Israeli settlements, which underpin that occupation, the road map misses an opportunity to end this conflict. Instead, it concentrates on Palestinian violence and how to combat it—as if it came out of nowhere, and as if, were it to be halted, the situation of occupation and settlement would be normal. This is a reflection of the preponderant US role in the drafting of this document. It is also a sign of why it will probably fail, for official Washington is obsessively fixated on Palestinian violence as the root cause of all the problems between Palestinians and Israelis.” Noted Palestinian-American academic Rashid I. Khalidi takes a jaundiced accounting of the Road Map in the pages of The Nation 

The edge of reason

Laurie King 15 May 2003


“All the pipes and drums of political rallies and remembrance day parades; all the ink of history books, policy papers, executive summaries, and polemical tracts; all the solemn newsbytes, sturm und drang and spin of media coverage are pointless here at the edge of Gaza. Talk or yell, scream or rationalize, pontificate or analyze all you want, but it all boil down to this: A husband, a wife, and their three small children clinging to the vain hope of home and normalcy in a shattered neighborhood of demolished houses.” EI’s Laurie King-Irani asks you to follow the Road Map all the way to Rafah and take a good, hard look around.