Nazareth-born filmmaker Elia Suleiman is one of the darlings of Cannes and stands out from the pack of contemporary Palestinian filmmakers for his unique style of filmmaking based on sewing together a series vignettes, silence — an emphasis on visual storytelling versus dialogue, and deadpan comedy found in often grim humor in the lives of everyday people living under the tyranny of what he calls a “pathetic occupation.” Sabah Haider recently interviewed Suleiman for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about "A different kind of occupation": an interview with Elia Suleiman
After the 1967 war the value of the kibbutz — instrumental in defining territory for the Jewish State of Israel — as a frontline force had become obsolete. The then burgeoning settler movement soon came to replace the kibbutz as a central colonizing body. Occupying Palestinian land and cultivating it to be inhabited by exclusively Jewish communities, the strategies of settlers are not much different than early kibbutzniks. Carmelle Wolfson writes. Read more about "Redeeming" the land: from kibbutzniks to Hilltop Youth
OCCUPIEDGAZASTRIP (IRIN) - Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza made homeless by Israel’s 23-day military assault on the Gaza Strip which ended just over a year ago, are still in tents and damaged buildings; cold weather and recent flash floods have exacerbated their plight, say aid workers and the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA. Read more about Floods bring more misery for tented communities in Gaza
Desmond Travers, member of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict led by Judge Richard Goldstone, responds to the description of an attack on an ambulance by means of a “dart bomb” to The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Goldstone member to EI: Gaza ambulance shelled "point blank"
Ittijah, the Union of Arab Community Based Associations, was founded in 1995 in response to a widely felt need for increased cooperation and exchange between Palestinian Arab organizations in Israel. The Electronic Intifada contributor Adri Nieuwhof recently interviewed Ameer Makhoul, the general director of Ittijah. Read more about "Our community is at risk": An interview with Ittijah's Ameer Makhoul
RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - The Palestinian Authority (PA) is using West Bank mosques as a new battleground in its political offensive against its opponents within Hamas as well as critics from its own Fatah party. Earlier this month, PA security forces raided several mosques in Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron before assaulting and arresting a number of Friday worshippers. Read more about Palestinian Authority: Pray our way or else
An Arab member of the Israeli parliament has sparked controversy among Jews and Arabs in Israel over his decision to join an official Israeli delegation commemorating International Holocaust Day today at a Nazi death camp in Poland. Mohammed Barakeh will be the only Arab in a contingent of Israeli parliamentarians and government ministers at Auschwitz to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Arab parliamentarian in Israel visits Auschwitz
The 1993 Oslo agreement did not only usher in a new era of Palestinian-Israeli relations but has had a much more lasting effect in transforming the very language through which these relations have been governed internationally and the way the Palestinian leadership viewed them. Joseph Massad comments. Read more about How surrendering Palestinian rights became the language of "peace"
When prolific writers compile a decade or more of their writing in a single collection, changes in style, political outlook, or interpretive tendencies are readily apparent. Consistency in all these respects is visible too. While Avi Shlaim’s latest book — Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations reveals such changes and continuities, his analytical gaze suffers from a blind spot when it comes to the ideology upon which Israel was founded. Max Ajl reviews for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Book review: Avi Shlaim's "Israel and Palestine"
