The Washington Post

Cross Country: Leaving Iraq, Engaging Iran


In the Christian Science Monitor, Ali Abunimah cites the successes of South Africa’s and Ireland’s unity governments as evidence that a single Israeli-Palestinian state could work: “In both places,” he observes, “it was only when the dominant group dropped its insistence on supremacy that a political settlement could be reached. What was once unimaginable happened.” 

How to Watch the War on the Web


You too can be a wartime news editor. With the ubiquity of streaming video on the Internet and advances in search engines, RSS and self-publishing tools, anyone can bypass the editorial hierarchies of Western news organizations and assemble a personal newscast of the Israeli-Hezbollah war. You can pick and choose from multiple news sources as a way to confirm your own point of view. Or you can access the many other points of view regarding a complex and deadly conflict. The point is that watching the war on the Web can give you a very different — and potentially more complete — picture of the conflict and its causes than if you rely on any one news source or perspective. 

A War Between Neighbors, Seen From Their Back Yard


Even stories about the evacuation of Westerners from Lebanon have drawn partisan fire. Electronic Intifada, a Web site that “strives to bring the Palestinian narrative front and center,” says: “On Tuesday, when at least 35 Lebanese were killed … we had the BBC’s Ben Brown in Beirut giving a blow-by-blow account of every facet of the evacuation of foreign nationals in general and British nationals in particular. If anyone doubted the racism of our Western media, here it was proudly on display. Lebanese and Palestinian civilians die unnoticed by the Western media while we learn of onboard sleeping arrangements on the ship bound for Cyprus.” 

After Palestinian Vote, U.S. Democracy Campaign Questioned


The United States, declared President Bush in his 2005 inaugural address, seeks to “support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.” Later this month the State Department will release it annual report on U.S. efforts to support human rights and democracy. U.S. demands for democratic behavior are inconsistent, according to two journalists of Palestinian descent who run the Electronic Intifada Web site. Ali Abunimah and Arjan El Fassed say democracy cannot take root under Israeli occupation. Palestinians continue to live “under full Israeli military dictatorship.” 

Web Watch: Dispatches From The Middle East

The Palestinian National Authority, however, links to no Israeli sites at its official Web home (www.pna.org). The Israeli Government Gateway (www.info.gov.il/eng/), meanwhile, had no links to Palestinian sites that we could find. The Electronic Intifada site (electronicintifada.net) linked to Israeli newspapers such as Haaretz (www.co.haaretz.co.il) and the Jerusalem Post (www.jpost.com); the latter, meanwhile, points to a variety of Palestinian sites, including some that appear to support terrorist groups. 

Out of the Ashes, Drops of Meaning: The Poetic Success of Suheir Hammad


A little more than a year ago, Brooklyn-reared Palestinian American Suheir Hammad was just an obscure writer and occasional college student putting in work on the New York poetry circuit and taking to the streets for a variety of political causes. Then terrorists attacked her city. The 28-year-old responded the only way she knew how: She jotted down a poem, “First Writing Since.” Amid the ocean of print inspired by That Day, perhaps no other collection of words has so succinctly articulated the strange confluence of being both Muslim and American in that moment in history. Natalie Hopkinson writes in the Washington Post. 

In Middle East, Heaviest Toll Exacted on Civilians

In the space of a few minutes Thursday afternoon, the narrow main street of O Block became a corridor of fiery metal shards and flying body parts. In the end, six Palestinians who had been going about their daily lives — buying snacks, gossiping with neighbors, taking an afternoon nap — were dead, and 45 other Palestinians had been injured, mostly by shrapnel. Two other Palestinian men, who remained unidentified, were reported killed near the edge of O Block, but Palestinian medical officials said the Israeli military had not allowed ambulances to retrieve their bodies. Washington Post reporter Molly Moore writes from Rafah Refugee Camp in Gaza. [may require registration]