The study suggests that television news on the Israel/Palestinian conflict confuses viewers and substantially features Israeli government views. Israelis are quoted and speak in interviews over twice as much as Palestinians and there are major differences in the language used to describe the two sides. This operates in favours of the Israelis and influences how viewers understand the conflict. The study focused on BBC One and ITV News from the start of the current Palestinian intifada, the Glasgow researchers examined around 200 news programmes and interviewed and questioned over 800 people. The study is unique in that for the first time it brought senior broadcasters together with ordinary viewers to work in research groups, analysing how the news informs people and how it could be improved. Read more about New Book: Bad News from Israel
“We have to make the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a mainstream concern and the only way we can do that is by effectively communicating the realities at ground zero for Joe and Jane Palestinian to the American public. Nobody would sign off on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if they knew what happened at ground zero, nobody. Only the most ardent and entrenched supporters of Israel.” This article is an edited version of a speech EI’s Nigel Parry gave at the “Palestine: Perception and Reality” panel at the 21st National Convention of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington DC, on Sunday 13 June 2004. Read more about Palestine: Perception and Reality
How can we explain the conjurer’s trick by which Sharon has turned into the darling of the Israeli peace camp? In the last Israeli elections, many voters who were fed up with Sharon voted for Labor candidate Amram Mitznah. But now their elected representatives are keeping Sharon afloat. On Monday, June 7, there were two non-confidence votes in the Israeli Parliament, one submitted jointly by the Beilin’s Yahad party and the Arab parties. The Labor party abstained, thus giving Sharon the majority he needed to survive. Tanya Reinhart comments. Read more about The address for protest is Labor's headquarters
Does UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan think that Palestinians have a right to defend themselves against the kinds of violent attacks and destruction Israel is carrying out in Rafah refugee camp? EI’s Ali Abunimah spoke to Annan’s representative, but found its not so easy to get a straighforward answer to a straightforward question. Abunimah says that Annan could use his position to have a profound effect on the Palestine-Israel conflict, but instead chooses to play word games, dressing the persistent failure of the US-led “Quartet” as a restless search for peace. Read more about Questions with no answers
Things must be bad in Palestine when the United States allows a resolution to pass in the UN Security Council, as it did late on 19 May condemning Israeli actions. The resolution is a moral victory for Palestinians, but there is no reason to take comfort from it as Israel intensified its attack on the Gaza refugee camp. Unless the other members of the Security Council and the wider international community act immediately to halt Israel’s assault, we can conclude that the UN Resolution was designed only to absolve them from any further action. EI co-founder Ali Abunimah names some specific actions the international community must take. Read more about After Rafah, Europe, Arabs have no excuse for inaction
Sam Bahour and Michael DahanRamallah, Jerusalem19 May 2004
Many words are taboo if used to describe Israel�s actions against Palestinians. One word in particular — genocide — sparks emotions that echo across Israel, Europe, and North America. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines genocide as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.” What is happening in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip today is dangerously close to genocide, close enough that photographs of terrified Palestinians in Rafah loading their meager belongings onto carts and fleeing their homes are all too reminiscent of another time, another place another people. These images should be setting off alarm bells in the hearts and minds of Israelis. Read more about Genocide By Public Policy
At this very moment, Israel army bulldozers are razing dozens of homes in the Rafah refugee camp in retaliation for the deaths of five Israeli soldiers. The Israeli cabinet authorized the army to demolish hundreds of Palestinian houses at Rafah, so as to create a “sterile” zone hundreds of meters wide. Jeff Halper argues that Israel will not know peace and security, the Palestinians will not know freedom, America will not know security and find its place in the world until the Israeli occupation ends. Read more about Israel's "state terrorism" in Gaza
Most Israelis consider it pointless to keep settlements in Gaza, where 7,500 of their countrymen live beside 1.3 million mostly impoverished Palestinians. In recent opinion polls, 56% or more of Israeli Jews backed the disconnection plan of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, calling for the evacuation of all 21 Gazan settlements plus four in the West Bank. It foundered, however. Doubtful of support from the Likud members in his cabinet and the Knesset, Sharon had the idea of bypassing them by means of a referendum among his party’s 193,000 rank-and-file. Here too the opinion polls had at first seemed favorable. Read more about Disengaging Sharon
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s recent statements on the situation in Palestine confirm that under his weak leadership the United Nations will have no role in resolving the conflict or protecting its victims. Rather, he has aligned himself with the logic that Palestinians, uniquely, must earn from their oppressors the basic human rights that for all other people are inherent. EI’s Ali Abunimah examines how Annan’s pro-Israel record has discredited the UN, and helped create an atmosphere in which Israeli war crimes are tolerated. Read more about Kofi Annan's pro-Israel policy discredits the UN
For the past decade, political leaders — Israeli, Palestinian, American, European and Arab alike, have had one point of agreement with peace activists around the Israel-Palestine conflict. That was the axiom that “neither side would triumph by force.” But now, the dangerous duo of George Bush in the White House and Ariel Sharon in the Prime Minister’s office has embarked on their attempt to prove this false. Mitchell Plitnick from Jewish Voice for Peace argues that the potential for change remains where it has always been-in the hands of those who need only organize themselves and force their governments to change course, the hands of ordinary Israelis and Americans. Read more about Can Sharon Win By Force?
