With the announcement earlier this month that the British group Massive Attack was holding a series of concerts in London to support Palestinian refugee communities was another piece of good news: that Checkpoint 303 was going to be performing a DJ set to open the three benefit shows. The international group of DJs or SCs (“Sound Catchers” and “Sound Cutters”) and musicians that make up Checkpoint 303 has quietly been bringing the noise on the internet by unleashing wickedly original sound tapestries and instrumentals (free of charge) on their website, www.checkpoint303.com for over two years now. Read more about DJ Revolutions: Spinning Beats for Freedom
WASHINGTON, Feb 21 (IPS) - If, as she insists, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is determined to make concrete progress toward achieving George W. Bush’s vision of a two-state solution, one in which Israel would be required to make major territorial concessions, it appears that she faces a major foe in the White House. No, not only Dick Cheney and the surviving members of the neo-conservative clique that surrounded him and former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld during Bush’s first term — although the vice president’s office remains a formidable force against any concessions to a Palestinian government of national unity that includes Hamas, despite Saudi Arabia’s role in midwifing its birth at Mecca last week. Read more about Rice Faces Formidable White House Foe
Journalist Gideon Levy wrote in the Israeli daily Haaretz: “From now on, the [Israeli] Supreme Court will act without Aharon Barak. It will, however, presumably continue to act within his legacy, which has authorized nearly all injustices in the territories. Barak, meanwhile, will continue to be depicted in Israel and the world as a pursuer of justice.” The Israeli High Court of Justice under the presidency of Professor Barak has impressed many observers as being many things: progressive, daring, precedent setting. However, the actual results of the Barak Court offer little in the way of comparison to a Court like the Warren Court in the United States. Read more about Reinforcing the Occupation: Israel's High Court
There are different kinds of angry. Jay Johnson-Castro has tears in his eyes when he thinks about Suzi Hazahza at the immigration prison of Haskell, Texas. But he’s not going to cry without doing something, so next week, Johnson-Castro will walk sixty miles from Abilene to Haskell and hold a vigil for the release of Suzi Hazahza and “anyone else” being mistreated for their desire to be American. “I’m almost in tears trying to tell you how angry I feel,” says Johnson-Castro via cell phone as he drives home to Del Rio, Texas on Tuesday evening following three weeks of border protests. Read more about Texas Independence Day Protest over Jailed Palestinian Family
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet today with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Ostensibly, they are to talk of a “political horizon” in order for Abbas to relay to the Palestinian people a “vision” of what could be. This now appears to be little more than a hallucination put out for public consumption. Borders, Jerusalem, and Palestinian refugees cannot be expected to highlight the agenda. Consequently, if these three issues are not central to discussions, this is not a political horizon but a cliff for Palestinians. A horizon, properly viewed, simply cannot omit these three central concerns. Read more about Core issues absent from Rice's peace rhetoric agenda
Both Salwa Salem’s and Ghada Karmi’s childhoods were violently disrupted by what Palestinians call al-Nakba, or the Catastrophe — the involuntary mass exodus of nearly three quarters of the Palestinian population when the State of Israel was established in 1948. Marking the destruction of their country, this event would define their lives as ones of exile. In their respective memoirs, The Wind in My Hair and In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story, Salem and Karmi recall idyllic childhoods in Palestine before 1948 in a society rich with culture and defined by the extended family. Their individual experiences, chronicled in their engrossing works, give a window into that of a generation of Palestinians born into dispossession. Read more about Book review: Two Palestinian women recall their lives in exile
The New York Arab and South Asian Film Festival will pay tribute to a group of filmmakers who have made significant contributions to various categories of Palestinian Revolution Cinema between the years of 1968 and 1982. Given the current political environment in Palestine, Iraq, and Lebanon in 2007, it is especially important to screen these films which have slipped through the cracks of history. They are a visual testament to past events and offer us a glimpse of history from the perspective of the people who actually lived it, a perspective not sanctioned by the official US/European meta-narrative of the region. Read more about Palestinian Revolution Cinema Comes to NYC
Tasting the food that Suzi Hazahza cooked for him on that first Thursday in November, Reza Barkhordari couldn’t have been more joyful. He went to Suzi’s house every night after work, to sit with her whole family. And each night, the wedding drew a day closer. The first Friday of November, however, found Reza driving to the Dallas offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in search of the love of his life. Suzi and her entire family had been rounded up at gunpoint. Like two other Palestinian families in Dallas, all of them had been rousted from bed at gunpoint and marched out the door in their bedclothes. Read more about Suzi Hazahza Imprisoned in Texas: Why Her Family Must be Freed
GAZACITY, Feb 14 (IPS) - In the driving rain, Suhail el-Amoudi stands on the wharf of the Gaza City port looking out over the aged and weathered fishing boats as they bob perilously amid the swells of a Mediterranean winter storm. But for el-Amoudi, a 30-year veteran fisher of Gaza’s waters, it is not the waves or the wind that concerns him. Rather, it is the Israeli naval vessel on the horizon, clearly visible despite the storm. Throughout the last three decades at sea, El-Amoudi has seen many changes — but there is always one constant of life in Gaza: “The Israelis are the key to the experience,” he said. “Their presence is always felt.” Read more about Israelis Keep a Fishy Watch
Hubris leads directly to disrespect. Back in power for just a handful of weeks, Rep. Gary Ackerman, the Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, is already displaying his disregard for the Peace Movement, Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, the unfairly maligned progressive Jewish community, and, well, generally anyone who favors a fair debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No such debate will occur on Valentine’s Day when Ackerman’s Subcommittee hosts a stacked and biased witness list. None of the three witnesses who will be present can be described as a vigorous advocate on behalf of Palestinian rights and freedom. Read more about Subcommittee hosts anti-Palestinian threesome
