Radio Tadamon! speaks with the Washington editor of Harpers Magazine, Ken Silverstein, who recently published an article entitled, “Parties of God: The Bush doctrine and the rise of Islamic democracy,” which examines the current democratic developments in the Middle East within the context of the US supported “War on Terror.” Silverstein discusses the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Palestine and Hizballah in Lebanon as examples the growing role of Islamic movements in democratic political systems in the Middle East. Read more about Audio: Islamic democracy and the "war on terror"
BETHLEHEM, 16 August (IPS) - Israeli forces began Wednesday to bulldoze hundreds of trees on land owned by a Catholic convent near the city of Beit Jala near Bethlehem. This section of forest is being razed, according to Israeli plans, to complete a section of the separation wall, which continues to carve the West Bank into pieces. Near the convent, the Israeli settlement colonies of Gilo and Har Gilo, behind the wall on Palestinian lands, continue to expand over the rocky hillsides. When this section of the wall is completed, several villages will be separated from each other and the greater Bethlehem area. Read more about Bethlehem land destroyed as settlers anchor in
BIL’IN, West Bank, 13 August (IPS) - Amidst acres of twisting olive trees in front of the Israeli apartheid wall, eight protesters in a weekly nonviolent demonstration were injured and three arrested on Friday when Israeli occupation soldiers fired rounds of tear gas, smoke bombs, sound grenades and rubber bullets at the crowd in the West Bank village of Bil’in. Five Palestinian children and a paramedic were also wounded as over one hundred protesters, including village residents, Israeli activists and international campaigners took part in a weekly demonstration that has been planned every Friday for more than two years. Read more about A village makes its own protest
A source who works directly with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ ministers in the unelected and illegal “emergency government” of Salam Fayyad in Ramallah wrote to me that “Abbas has explicitly ordered the Rafah border to close and remain closed with the purpose of strangling Hamas.” The source, who was motivated to speak out by his outrage, but requested anonymity because he fears reprisals, added that Abbas “is ready to see his own people die for his political games.” Ali Abunimah comments on the effects of Abbas’ policy of colluding with Israel. Read more about Mahmoud Abbas' war against the Palestinian people
Sometimes it’s the little things that reveal the horror of oppression most vividly. Dr. Mona El-Farra, speaking in Chicago as part of a 17-city US tour, related how recently a Palestinian woman in the Occupied Territories had gone into labor and was heading to a hospital. “She was about to give birth, but she was detained at an Israeli checkpoint for three hours,” El-Farra said. “Amazingly, she eventually got through and was able to deliver her child.” Mark Almberg reports on El-Farra’s description of the current situation in occupied Palestine, particularly Gaza. Read more about Palestinian doctor paints picture of Gaza under siege
JERUSALEM, 9 August 2007 (IRIN) - On a Saturday morning in mid May 2006, Hamdi Aman, aged 30 from Gaza, had his world turned upside down. Four members of his family died in an Israeli air strike aimed at an Islamic Jihad activist in Gaza. He is concerned that his daughter, Maria, set to celebrate her sixth birthday next week, will be forced to leave the Israeli hospital where she is being treated for serious injuries sustained in the attack. The authorities want her to go to Ramallah, in the West Bank, but medical workers and Hamdi are worried this will harm Maria. Read more about "Her injuries are forever, for the rest of her life"
The image of the separation wall that Israel began building in the occupied West Bank in 2002 has emerged as a trope in literature about Palestine. Its concrete slabs are found on covers of recent books, including Jimmy Carter’s Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, Norman Finkelstein’s Beyond Chutzpah, Rashid Khalidi’s The Iron Cage, Joseph Massad’s The Persistence of the Palestinian Question, and Tanya Reinhart’s The Roadmap to Nowhere. Ali Abunimah reviews two recent books that take the wall itself as their central subject. Read more about Book review: The fantasy of hermetic closure
Last month the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the US and Israel were considering a revival of the “Jordan option.” In spite of the fervent denials emanating from Amman, the report caused a rash of speculation and concern among Palestinians. Many fear that if implemented it would mark the end of hopes for an independent Palestinian state. Resurrecting the Jordan option, in which the West Bank and possibly Gaza would be united in a political and economic confederation with Jordan, demonstrates not just the poverty of ideas in Washington and Israel, but their desperation as well. Osamah Khalil comments for EI. Read more about Deconstructing the Jordan option
While in Paris a few weeks ago, whenever the Middle East came up EI contributor Saifedean Ammous would be met with the traditional refrains of classical anti-Americanism: “they have no culture and deal with the world as if it had no culture,” “they have no morality in their foreign policy,” “they go to war for oil and money” and so on with inane over-simplified stereotypes. Soon after would come the cackle of self-righteous pride: “we Europeans are different,” “we want our foreign policy based on a concept of morality,” “we attempt to promote justice in the world and fix up the mess left behind by the Americans.” Read more about European hypocrisy
AL-HADIDIYA, 8 August 2007 (IRIN) - Palestinian residents of al-Hadidiya village in Jordan Valley (in the West Bank), live without electricity or running water and most importantly, they say, face demolition and evacuation orders. “Five families tried to fight the orders in an Israeli court,” said Ali Bsharat, an al-Hadidiya resident. “They lost.” The five then had to sign documents and commit to leave the area. “We don’t want to leave,” Bsharat said, but implied that it may just be a matter of time before all the residents are forced to do so. Read more about Villagers face evacuation orders, movement restrictions
