For the last three months, residents of the West Bank village of Bilin have been subjected to constant night raids by the Israeli military in retaliation for the village’s five-year campaign of nonviolent resistance against Israel’s wall being constructed on their land. Members of the Bilin Popular Committee have been arrested as well as teenagers and young boys from the village in order to obtain forced confessions against committee members. Bilin Popular Committee’s Media Coordinator Abdullah Abu Rahme tells the story of the 16 September 2009 raid of his home to The Electronic Intifada contributor Jody McIntyre. Read more about Night raids in Bilin target activists
Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler29 September 2009
OCCUPIEDEASTJERUSALEM (IPS) - Almost a year ago a barely noticed event took place in Sawarha, a Palestinian neighborhood in the Israeli-occupied part of the city. On that November day, Israeli Jerusalemites were voting in a new mayor and a new city council. On that same day, in this neighborhood home to 25,000, people were ignoring the Israeli-run elections. Instead, they were focused on electing their own local council. Read more about Jerusalem Palestinians defining their own future
Demands from Israel’s chief commander this month that all Israeli citizens should be required to perform national service has turned the spotlight on a rarely discussed group of soldiers: members of Israel’s Palestinian minority. Though no official statistics are available, an estimated 3,000 of Israel’s 1.3 million Palestinian citizens have broken one of their society’s biggest taboos and are currently serving in the occupied territories. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about False promise of integration for Palestinian soldiers in Israel
In recent years, a growing number of accounts of the 1948 war have corrected and exposed the founding myths of Israel, including claims by its leaders that the Palestinian people did not exist or were invented. The latest addition is Rosemarie M. Esber’s meticulously documented history Under the Cover of War: The Zionist Expulsion of the Palestinians. Esber uses British archives and oral testimonies from Palestinian survivors to demonstrate that there was a purposeful, systematic pattern by which Zionist forces depopulated Palestinian cities and villages before the end of the British mandate on 15 May 1948. Read more about Book casts new light on Palestine's ethnic cleansing
Goncalo de Almeida Ribeiro, Vishaal Kishore and Nimer Sultany25 September 2009
The Goldstone investigation into alleged war crimes committed during last winter’s Gaza attacks singles out a particular set of facts, and a limited period of time as its primary locus. However, such a high-profile report, crafted specifically to address what is perceived to be an extreme or peculiar period of time in the lives of Palestinians under occupation, might have significant negative consequences. Goncalo de Almeida Ribeiro, Vishaal Kishore and Nimer Sultany comment for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about The risks of de-contextualizing Gaza war crimes
BILIN, occupied West Bank (IPS) - Eight children between the ages of 10 and 17 were arrested and detained by Israeli soldiers during military raids Monday night and Tuesday morning in the northern West Bank cities Nablus and Qalqiliya. Defence for Children International (DCI) Palestine has released a statement that the number of children detained in Israeli jails and temporary Israeli army detention centers this year has risen by 17.5 percent compared with 2008. Read more about Arrest of Palestinian children on the rise
A local authority in Israel has announced that it is establishing a special team of youth counsellors and psychologists whose job it will be to identify young Jewish women who are dating Arab men and “rescue” them. The move by the municipality of Petah Tikva, a city close to Tel Aviv, is the latest in a series of separate — and little discussed — initiatives from official bodies, rabbis, private organizations and groups of Israeli residents to try to prevent interracial dating and marriage. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about In Israel, intermarriage viewed as treason
The summit between US President Barack Obama with and Palestinian and Israeli leaders in New York signaled the complete and terminal failure of Obama’s much vaunted push to bring about a two-state solution. Although the “peace process” will continue to go through sterile motions, the future of Palestine/Israel is actually being decided elsewhere. Ali Abunimah comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Obama's peace effort has failed but our struggle continues
Mutasem Billah Abu-Mastfa was born in Gaza. Though he is just nine months old, his parents are already trying to get him out of the Strip. Abu-Mastfa was born with severe congenital heart defects — his heart, riddled with holes, is on the right side of his chest. Due to the ongoing Israeli blockade the medical system in Gaza — short on supplies, its staff unable to leave the Strip to obtain further training — the hospital caring for Abu-Mustafa is unable to cope with such a complicated case. Mya Guarnieri reports for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Israel tightens the noose on advocacy organizations
The recent report by a United Nations fact-finding team investigating allegations of war crimes committed during the attack on Gaza last winter is an historic contribution to the Palestinian struggle for justice, an impeccable documentation of a crucial chapter in their victimization under occupation. Its impact will be felt most impressively on the growing civil society movement throughout the world to impose cultural, sporting and academic boycotts, as well as to discourage investment, trade and tourism with Israel. Richard Falk comments. Read more about The Goldstone report and the battle for legitimacy
