The attack on Gaza that began on 27 December 2008 is the latest in a long line of Israeli massacres and ethnic cleansing perpetrated with impunity since 1948. Often overlooked but as devastating to a society is Israel’s systematic attack on Palestinians’ right to education. Rania Masri and Marcy Newman comment on Israel’s violations of Palestinians’ right to education for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Why American academics must join boycott of Israel 

It is difficult to recall a US secretary of state who embodied the ideals of the position: the promotion of dialogue and privileging of diplomacy. Unfortunately, US President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee, Hillary Clinton, is not likely to restore these ideals to the office. Clinton has long championed military action against the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and has promised to “obliterate” Iran if the state launched a nuclear strike against Israel. Dr. Marcy Newman comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Will Palestinians hit Hillary's glass ceiling? 

It started out as a normal Saturday morning. We were hanging out in Ibdaa Cultural Center in Deheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem. We were all sitting in the cafe at Ibdaa, which is on the fourth floor and has windows around three sides of the building. We were drinking coffee, chatting, watching television and all of a sudden there was a loud sound like a grenade or a bomb. Marcy Newman writes from Deheisheh. Read more about Israeli forces terrorize Deheisheh refugee camp 

Last week a group of international activists, people from Shatila refugee camp, and a group of people from the Nahr al-Bared displaced committee held a meeting to discuss how to break the media blackout about the siege on Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. One of the men at the meeting asked us, “How do we get the story of our situation into the media on a daily basis so that people will go to sleep at night dreaming of people from Nahr al-Bared?” Read more about Dreaming of Nahr al-Bared 

It’s difficult for me to live in Lebanon and not be conscious of space and time. The space around me when I’m in an enclosed space like a refugee camp or facing the openness of the Mediterranean Sea along the Corniche or examining the changed landscape of Beirut peppered among the high-rise skyscrapers and bullet-pocked buildings from the Civil War. Those scars on the buildings in Beirut are as ever present whether one is in the city or in a refugee camp, some places more ravaged than others. Read more about A confined space 

In 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed white American clergymen who were opposed to his civil resistance campaign that fought against racist, segregationist policies and practices in the US. Writing from his jail cell he responded particularly to people who would have preferred that African Americans be patient and wait for those rights to come to them rather than to resist: “For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’” Dr. Marcy Newman reflects upon the relevance of King’s words to the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Read more about Letter from a Palestinian Camp 

The Nahr al-Bared Relief Campaign loaded up a truck from its center in Shatila refugee camp in Beirut yesterday to take a shipment of baby formula, medicine, and food aid to Nahr al-Bared refugees in Baddawi refugee camp near Tripoli. There were three of us: our driver from Shatila, a Lebanese, and me, an American. The extra people in the car were there, in part, to ensure that our driver would not be picked up by the army and detained at a checkpoint for driving while Palestinian (think driving while Black in an American context), which is increasingly becoming a problem. Dr. Marcy Newman writes from Lebanon. Read more about Three Flat Tires 

We drove up to Baddawi refugee camp Sunday morning at the request of the women of Nahr al-Bared refugee camp who are now among the thousands of internally displaced Palestinians (IDPs) in Lebanon. They asked Lebanese and internationals to join them in a die-in at the southern checkpoint of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. We painted our t-shirts with red paint and we made signs in English and in Arabic; each sign had one of the seventeen known names of Palestinians who have died as a result of the Lebanese army’s siege of the Nahr al-Bared camp. Read more about Die-in at Lebanese army checkpoint at Nahr al-Bared entrance 

1 June 2007 — Since early morning U.S. weapons have bombarded the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, though no one can get a clear idea about what exactly is happening there. On the news we watched bombs going off every few seconds all day long with huge clouds of black smoke smoldering in the sky. A journalist friend who was trying to photograph the scene called me and asked me to bring him more equipment from his home in Beirut. Since I needed to deliver medicine to Nahr al-Bared refugees in Bedawi refugee camp I drove his equipment up to Nahr al-Bared where he was trying to take pictures. Read more about Whose Truth?