Responding to a column written by Thomas Friedman as a mock memo in the name of George Bush to Yasser Arafat, EI’s Arjan El Fassed, in the ‘mock memo’ style that Friedman himself likes to use, imagines what Nelson Mandela would have responded. Read more about Mandela's First Memo to Thomas Friedman 

SO, Israel has decided not to co-operate with a United Nations fact-finding mission into the military assault on the Jenin refugee camp. But this must not prevent the UN from dispatching a fact-finding team immediately. Read more about Israel must answer  

By brokering the deportations and transfers of Palestinians under siege in the Church of the Nativity, the EU has implicated itself in some thorny legal and ethical issues, argues Arjan El Fassed. Read more about Ill-considered intervention  

Ayman missed his second birthday. Mohammad did not pass the age of 4. Diana was only 5. And Mona was killed with her children, 4-year-old Subhi and 6-year-old Mohammad. What on earth did they do wrong? They were not allowed to live in freedom, not allowed to live at all. Read more about Slaughter of innocent children a brutal act of state terrorism  

“ ‘Joseph, are you still sleeping, it’s 8am already?’ These are the first words I would hear upon picking up the phone three, four times a week,” writes Joseph Massad. The powerful teasing voice on the other side was that of Edward Said. Massad remembers his dear friend and teacher, and contemplates how the legacy of this exemplary scholar and public intellectual can teach us how to continue our journey. Read more about Edward Said's journey to Ithaka 

To its standard list of revenge measures following the Haifa suicide attack, Israel added the novel step of bombing Syria. Regular EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah, and EI co-founder Ali Abunimah write that this escalation by Israel will not save it from an existential crisis that is hurtling towards it like a runaway train. Read more about Israel's date with a runaway freight train 

“Last year, 20 years after the massacre, I returned to Beirut to be part of the commemorative events. I was there during Yom Kippur. I tried to find the remaining Jews of Beirut, but could not. I wanted to spend this day with them. Instead I went to the Khiam detention center — a place where Palestinians and Lebanese were held during the Israeli occupation of the south, many of them tortured. It was fitting to be in a place where one could ask for forgiveness for the sins committed in this horrendous chamber of horrors by my people.” Ellen Siegel, a registered nurse and an active member of the US Jewish peace movement, examines Yom Kippur’s meaning from a unique angle. Read more about Remembering Sabra and Shatila -- and Atoning 

Alan Dershowitz either cannot or refuses to understand why there is a controversy surrounding The Case for Israel. Perhaps Norman Finkelstein can enlighten him. Quite simply, the book he claims to have written is a hoax: (1) substantial swatches are lifted from another notorious hoax on the Israel-Palestine conflict, (2) it is replete with egregious falsifications, and (3) the few scholarly sources actually cited are mangled beyond recognition. Read more about The glove does fit: A reply to Alan Dershowitz