“Last week, Hillel Director Robert Fishman sent an organizational e-mail over the Hillel listserv accusing me of being a terrorist,” writes GW law student Fadi Kiblawi, “The claims include that I have ‘led chants (of) ‘Death to Jews.’” In this contribution to EI, Kiblawi, a leading advocate of divestment from Israel, demands an apology for these falsehoods, calumny and intimidation, and warns he will take legal action to clear his name against those who launched this scurrilous campaign. He affirms that he and other students who insist on open debate about how to confront Israel’s human rights abuses will not be silenced. Read more about I will not be silenced
Do policymakers in Washington and Europe ever feel ashamed of their scandalous double standards? Before and since the Palestinian elections in January, they have continually insisted that Hamas comply with certain demands. They want us to recognise Israel, call off our resistance, and commit ourselves to whatever deals Israel and the Palestinian leadership reached in the past. But we have not heard a single demand of the Israeli parties that took part in this week’s elections, though some advocate the complete removal of the Palestinians from their lands, writes Ismail Haniyeh, the new Palestinian prime minister. Read more about A just peace or no peace
Palestine is reeling from high unemployment and a poverty rate of 48%, with half its people surviving on food aid. With an increasingly deteriorating situation on the ground, severe food shortages in Gaza, and talk of suspending aid to the Palestinian people, the Electronic Intifada asked Makboula Yasin, Executive Director of the United Palestinian Appeal, Inc., in Washington, D.C., what people can do in terms of getting direct humanitarian assistance to the people who need it most. Read more about UPA: Direct humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people
March 28th’s Israeli elections saw the sudden rise of Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party to become the fourth largest Israeli party, advocating transferring some Palestinian towns in Israel to PA control, thus revoking the Israeli citizenship of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. The results of a poll released last week showed that 68% of Israeli Jews would refuse to live in the same apartment building as a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and 40% of Israeli Jews believe the state needs to support the emigration of Palestinian citizens. However, because of the way Israel is portrayed in the mainstream US media, such blatant discrimination would likely surprise the US public. Read more about The New York Times Covers Up Discrimination against Palestinian Citizens of Israel
Canada and the US are the first governments that have severed all ties with the Palestinian Authority. The US administration and Canada accordingly want Hamas to denounce violence, recognize Israel and accept previous agreements, including the Road Map. EI’s Arjan El Fassed argues that this move shows how inconsistent foreign policy is towards Palestine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These governments have failed to denounce violence on the part of Israel, have not recognized Palestine themselves and have failed to ensure Israel’s for signed agreements. This latest move has formally exposed the bias of the Quartet. Read more about Asking Hamas for the moon: Severing ties illustrates flawed policy
The current calls to emphasise the role of the PLO coming from Fatah and the other political factions cannot be very convincing to the Palestinian people. Fatah bears the bulk of responsibility in destroying the PLO and marginalizing it. Whichever the motives, Fatah and all Palestinians must recognise that trying to revive the PLO as it stands is not the answer. The structure and methodology is outdated. There is no other way but to build up a different political body to represent the Palestinians everywhere, writes Rifat Odeh Kassis. Read more about Fatah Chapter Closed: Creating a Palestinian National Congress
On March 22, a congregation of ardent supporters gathered to commemorate Rachel’s life and spread her words at the Riverside Church, the very church Martin Luther King first spoke out against the war in Vietnam. This event came out of controversy. The critically acclaimed play My Name is Rachel Corrie was canceled by the New York Theater Workshop. Just weeks after the cartoon controversy and the mass trumpeting of free speech worldwide, Rachel Corrie was being silenced. The New York Theater Workshop attempted to crush her memory but her words live on. Read more about Rachel's Words Live On
Palestinian newspapers are full of the faces of the new Palestinian government, smart men and one woman, who will come in to lead an already impossible task. There is not one terrorist among them, but that makes no difference to the US which has already started undermining the new government in the name, outrageously, of promoting “the development of democratic institutions in areas under the administrative control of the Palestinian Authority, and for other purposes”. This is the language of an anti-Palestinian bill (H.R. 4681) just introduced in the US House of Representatives. Rima Merriman suggests a rewrite. Read more about Rewriting H.R. 4681 so that it actually produces peace
In the last 25 years, many Palestinians and other Arabs, in the United States and in the Arab world, have been so awed by the power of the US pro-Israel lobby that any study, book, or journalistic article that exposes the inner workings, the substantial influence, and the financial and political power of this lobby have been greeted with ecstatic sighs of relief that Americans finally can see the “truth” and the “error” of their ways. “But,” asks Jospeh Massad, “when and in what context has the United States government ever supported national liberation in the Third World?” Read more about Blaming the lobby
A few weeks after Ariel Sharon broke up his Likud party to form a new “centrist” faction, Kadima, his advisers conducted a poll to find out how potential voters would respond if its list of candidates included an Arab. The results were unequivocal: Kadima would lose votes equivalent to between five and seven seats in the 120-member Knesset from Israeli Jews worried that they might be helping to elect an Arab. Kadima appears to be on a winning streak. Separation of the crudest and most ruthless kind is now, as the polls all too clearly demonstrate, precisely what the Israeli consensus demands, writes Jonathan Cook. Read more about Israeli Elections: A Vote for Separation
