In the early afternoon today, in the middle of a direct, nonviolent action against the Apartheid system of walls and fences in the occupied West Bank, an Israeli citizen was shot in his leg by soldiers of the Israeli army. Gil Na’amati, whom I hadn’t met until today, was on the front line of Israeli activists who went to the fence to cut it or break it down. I was a few meters behind him, watching the soldiers and helping to take care of the barrier of the road just behind the fence. Israeli student peace activist Dan Shohet recounts what happened. Photos by IWPS. Read more about An account of the shooting of Israeli protestor Gil Na'amati 

One of the most important changes that the Oslo process brought about was the de facto transformation, indeed the ultimate corruption, of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, from a liberation movement representing the entire Palestinian people, into a vassal regime called the Palestinian Authority (PA), representing only one third of the Palestinian people, writes EI contributor, Joseph Massad. This has had an immensely deleterious effect on refugees and exiles, and Palestinians living inside Israel’s racial “democracy.” Read more about Reducing the Palestinians 

A protest camp in Dir-Balut village is a joint Palestinian, Israeli, and international action against the Apartheid Wall. The protest camp was created on Friday the 19th, and will stay there till next Friday, January 2nd. The camp is located in the yard of the newly built primary school of the village of Dir Balut. The works on the new school were stoped by the occupation authorities, as the building stands on the path of the Wall, and is now due to distruction. Dan Shohet offers some details about the camp. Read more about Protest camp in Deir Balut village, Salfit district 

Many leading media sources were quick to declare that an Israeli assassination in Gaza, followed by a Palestinian bombing in Tel Aviv on 25 December marked the end of a period of “relative calm” or “lull” in Israeli-Palestinian violence, that had supposedly lasted since the last Palestinian suicide attack in Haifa on 4 October. In fact, the period since 4 October has been one of intense Israeli violence, in which 117 Palestinians were killed, including 23 children. At the same time, Israel destroyed almost five hundred Palestinian homes throughout the Occupied Territories. EI’s Ali Abunimah examines the systematic media misrepresentation of the latest events. Read more about 117 Palestinians killed, hundreds injured during media's "relative calm" 

He read out the written text of his speech, word for word, without raising his eyes from the page. It was vital for him to stick to the exact wording, since it was an encoded text. It is impossible to decipher it without breaking the code. And it is impossible to break the code without knowing Ariel Sharon very well indeed. So it is no surprise that the flood of interpretations in Israel and abroad was ridiculous. The commentators just did not understand what they had heard. Veteran Israeli peace activist Uri Avery comments. Read more about Sharon's Speech: The Decoded Version 

Al-Baqa’a is Jordan’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, located on the outskirts of Amman and home to more than 100,000 refugees. Many of Al-Baqa’a’s youth are becoming increasingly disenchanted with life at the camp. When you ask about the Geneva Accord on the streets of Al-Baqa’a, people answer with disgusted looks as they see it as nothing but the further dismissal of the history of the Palestinian struggle in its failure to recognize that the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Stefan Christoff reports from Jordan. Read more about The Geneva Accord and the Right of Return as seen from Al-Baqa'a Refugee Camp 

An Israeli official recently called for controls on the ability of Palestinians to have babies, and said the delivery rooms where Arabs are born are the “factory for a backward population.” This panicked response to what many Israelis see as a “demographic threat” from Palestinians fits the international legal definition of incitement to genocide. Meanwhile, leftist Israelis are debating ways to “withdraw” from Palestinians lands while keeping most of the settlers in place, and preserving a “Jewish democracy.” EI’s Ali Abunimah asks if any of these schemes can save Israel from a binational future. Read more about Can Israel escape a binational future? 

As feared, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s speech on Thursday, December 18 at the Herzliya Conference provided very little hope for 2004. Sharon acknowledged there will be a Palestinian state, thereby recognizing Israel cannot control all the land between the river and the sea, but said nothing about the size of the Palestinian state. He offered no tangible vision for the Palestinians to latch on to which suggested that after decades this man is now addressing Palestinian concerns seriously. Michael Brown analyses the content of Sharon’s speech at the Herzliya Conference. Read more about Sharon's hopeless vision 

Casualties in Tel Aviv. Casualties in Rafah. Where does CNN go? Tel Aviv. And it was absolutely right to go to Tel Aviv. It’s failure came in an inexcusable unwillingness to send a second crew to Rafah. CNN also posted seven transcripts Thursday mentioning the Tel Aviv explosion. Six of these transcripts clearly noted in the link heading that they dealt with the Tel Aviv explosion. How many headings dealt with the Rafah incident? Zero. And only one of the seven transcripts even bothered to mention the attack on Rafah. Michael Brown examines the transcripts. Read more about CNN: Two stories, one news agency