Former President Jimmy Carter’s new book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” is igniting controversy for its allegation that Israel practices a form of apartheid. As a South African and former anti-apartheid advocate who visits the Palestinian territories regularly to assess the human rights situation for the U.N. Human Rights Council, the comparison to South African apartheid is of special interest to me. Apartheid was a system of institutionalized racial discrimination that the white minority in South Africa employed to maintain power over the black majority. Read more about Apartheid: Israelis adopt what South Africa dropped
A little over a year ago, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Quartet envoy James Wolfensohn, Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz, the PA’s Muhammad Dahlan and the EU reached an agreement to allow Palestinians free movement in and out of the Gaza Strip. The Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA) signed on November 15, 2005 promised Palestinians freedom of movement of people and goods. A detailed fact sheet published by the Palestinian Monitoring Group shows that since last year, none of the agreement’s provisions have been fully implemented by Israel. In July, seven Palestinians waiting to be let into Gaza from Egypt died as a result of heat and the absence of shelter. Read more about Let our people move
Commentators and columnists are agreed. Pierre Gemayel’s assassination must have been the handiwork of Syria because his Christian Phalangists have been long-time allies of Israel and because, as industry minister, he was one of the leading figures in the Lebanese government’s anti-Syria faction. President Bush thinks so too. Case, apparently, settled. Unlike my colleagues, I do not claim to know who killed Gemayel. Maybe Syria was behind the shooting. Maybe, in Lebanon’s notoriously intrigue-ridden and fractious political system, someone with a grudge against Gemayel — even from within his own party — pulled the trigger. Or maybe, Israel once again flexed the muscles of its long arm in Lebanon. Read more about Syria is a convenient fallguy for Gemayel's death
(IPS) - The assassination of Pierre Gemayel in Beirut on Tuesday has interrupted an 18-month relative safety for anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians and intellectuals, and signals the kick-off of a series of events aiming at totally destabilising the ailing national government and dividing the Christian community in the country — and possibly plunging the entire region into chaos.
The murder of the minister of industry, shot in his car while returning from a suburban church, is very much in line with the recent killings of 15 political leaders and journalists, which culminated with the death of former prime minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005. Read more about Chaos Appears On the Horizon
IPS - The assassination of Christian Maronite leader Pierre Gemayel does more than strike a blow to a fragile Lebanese government just trying to survive: it raises fears of sectarian violence with painful memories of a devastating 15-year civil war still fresh. And, on a regional scale, it does nothing to advance new thinking to involve Syria and Iran in search for an end to spiralling violence in Iraq. If normalcy can be restored in Lebanon after the shock, anger and unease in the aftermath of the slaying, it may be thanks to a sense of national identity. Read more about Assassination Leaves Government Gasping
There is no such thing as a routine political killing, but Tuesday’s assassination of Lebanese Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel threatens repercussions - and signals intentions - that are nothing short of extraordinary. With the Lebanese political climate already fouled by soaring tensions, the timing alone indicates that the people who orchestrated the attack are both ruthless and reckless. The assailants’ identities and immediate demands are unknown, but their message is clear: They will bring the country to - and possibly beyond - the brink of disaster to get their way. Read more about Don't let one family's latest tragedy become that of a whole country
David Grossman’s widely publicised speech at the annual memorial rally for Yitzhak Rabin earlier this month has prompted some fine deconstruction of his “words of peace” from critics. Grossman, one of Israel’s foremost writers and a figurehead for its main peace movement, Peace Now, personifies the caring, tortured face of Zionism that so many of the country’s apologists — in Israel and abroad, trenchant and wavering alike — desperately want to believe survives, despite the evidence of the Qanas, Beit Hanouns and other massacres committed by the Israeli army against Arab civilians. Grossman makes it possible to believe, for a moment, that the Ariel Sharons and Ehud Olmerts are not the real upholders of Zionism’s legacy, merely a temporary deviation from its true path. Read more about Hollow visions of Palestine's future
Former President Jimmy Carter’s new book, which slaps the “apartheid” label on Israel, comes out this week. Before the book hit the stands though, members of his own party rushed to distance themselves from his allegations. While the label makes supporters of Israel uncomfortable, there is ample evidence that Israel practices institutionalized discrimination against its non-Jewish citizens. Israel, in fact, goes further than South Africa. While whites in South Africa sought to control non-whites, Israel has since its establishment pursued various means of getting rid of its non-Jewish population altogether. Read more about Lieberman: Vocalizing Israel's Apartheid Reality
Before the United States government subcontracted the Chilean military to overthrow the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in 1973, it carried out a number of important missions in the country in preparation for the coup of 11 September. These included major strikes, especially by truck owners, which crippled the economy, massive demonstrations that included middle-class housewives and children carrying pots and pans demanding food, purging the Chilean military of officers who would oppose the suspension of democracy and the introduction of US-supported fascist rule, and a major media campaign against the regime with the CIA planting stories in newspapers like El Mercurio and others. Read more about Pinochet in Palestine
Yesterday at dawn, the Israeli air force bombed and destroyed my home. I was the target, but instead the attack killed my sister-in-law, Nahla, a widow with eight children in her care. In the same raid Israel’s artillery shelled a residential district in the town of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, leaving 19 dead and 40 injured, many killed in their beds. One family, the Athamnas, lost 16 members in the massacre: the oldest who died, Fatima, was 70; the youngest, Dima, was one; seven were children. The death toll in Beit Hanoun has passed 90 in one week. This is Israel’s tenth incursion into Beit Hanoun since it announced its withdrawal from Gaza. Read more about We overcame our fear
