“The deadly operation launched by Ariel Sharon this week in Rafah, the southernmost city of the crowded and occupied Gaza Strip, is picturesquely code-named ‘Operation Rainbow.’ Dressing up a murderous assault on unarmed civilians with an ancient symbol of glittering hope is obscene. One hue never present in any rainbow is black. But that’s the shade I’d like to focus on in this essay and call for action.” EI co-founder Laurie King-Irani suggests a simple symbolic protest to encourage thought, inspire discussion, and nurture solidarity in the face of escalating carnage in Gaza and Iraq. Read more about Black is for mourning, to say "we're not conforming," to war crimes in the Middle East
Ali Abunimah, Nigel Parry and Michael F. Brown18 May 2004
The Electronic Intifada urges all concerned people to contact international and government officials to demand immediate action to halt Israel’s assault on Rafah refugee camp in Gaza. Israel is in the process of committing major war crimes with total impunity. The United States continues to give a green light to Israeli war crimes. In recent days, Secretary of State Colin Powell half-heartedly criticized the destruction in Gaza. Today, however, as the atrocities continue in Rafah, President Bush declared in a major address to the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC that Israel “has every right to defend itself from terror.” Bush made no criticism whatsoever of the Israeli attack on Rafah. Read more about Urgent: Protest Israeli war crimes against civilians in Rafah; Gaza
The American news media have been largely eyeless in Gaza (save for Molly Moore did write a moving though haunting piece about Rafah for the Washington Post of May 16). According to UNRWA 1,100 Palestinians were made homeless in the first 10 days of May. Has that appeared in your local newspaper? Can you imagine the hue and cry if Palestinians somehow had the capacity to force 1,100 Israelis out of their homes in Ashkelon just a touch north of Gaza? The story would lead the newspapers — as it should — even if Palestinians said they were simply moving back to the land they were pushed out of more than 50 years ago. The point to make to the newspapers, and to CNN, is that both Israeli and Palestinian suffering should be covered. All too often, Palestinian casualties are ignored or downplayed. Read more about Speak out now for Rafah
The Palestinians are suffering, in the words of the UN Relief and Works Agency, the “effect of a terrible natural disaster”, but one that has been created by people and politics. A manmade catastrophe where a power imbalance, maintained and exaggerated by Western governments lies at the heart of mass impoverishment and dehumanisation of an entire people. Palestine is a microcosm of everything going on in the world today. Nick Dearden is Campaigns Officer at UK anti-poverty charity War on Want, examines the state of affairs in Palestine. Read more about Palestine: the end of their dreams
The Israeli, and pro-Israeli, media have made a great deal of noise about the recent Palestinian operations in the occupied Gaza Strip whereby eleven Israeli soldiers were killed in two separate attacks on armored personnel carriers. With very few exceptions in the Israeli and pro-Israeli media these operations have been deliberately misrepresented as some sort of “terrorist” attacks, a cynical propaganda ploy designed to discredit the Palestinian legal right to resist occupation. While there is no universally accepted definition of precisely what constitutes “terrorism”, there are particular factors that are generally accepted in most definitions as constituent elements of “terrorism”. Read more about Palestine: Legitimate Armed Resistance vs. Terrorism
At this very moment, Israel army bulldozers are razing dozens of homes in the Rafah refugee camp in retaliation for the deaths of five Israeli soldiers. The Israeli cabinet authorized the army to demolish hundreds of Palestinian houses at Rafah, so as to create a “sterile” zone hundreds of meters wide. Jeff Halper argues that Israel will not know peace and security, the Palestinians will not know freedom, America will not know security and find its place in the world until the Israeli occupation ends. Read more about Israel's "state terrorism" in Gaza
“I am asking today with deep sorrow: Can we, despite all our achievements, ignore the intolerable gap between what the Declaration of Independence promised and what was fulfilled, the gap between the idea and the realities of Israel? Does the condition of occupation and domination over another people fit the Declaration of Independence? Is there any sense in the independence of one at the expense of the fundamental rights of the other?” In this speech to the Knesset upon receiving the Wolf Prize delivered May 9, world-renowned musician and conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Daniel Barenboim asked difficult, but necessary questions. Read more about Daniel Barenboim's statement at the Knesset upon receiving the Wolf Prize, May 9, 2004
Sharon’s unilateral “disengagement” plan from Gaza does not seem to bode well for the future of the economy of the Gaza Strip. A careful reflection on the economic ramifications of what the plan has to offer will lead to this unfortunate outcome. The formidable challenge facing all concerned parties is how to make the Israeli pullout from Gaza, if and when it happens, a success to be emulated in other parts of the Palestinian occupied territories, and not a blunder to be regretted later on. Dr. Mohammed El-Samhouri, a senior economic advisor to the Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs, examines the plan. Read more about Gaza Disengagement Plan: An Economist's Viewpoint
US President George W. Bush set out his vision for the Middle East in a speech he gave in the Rose Garden on 24 June 2002. The problem with his vision is that it keeps changing, writes Victor Kattan, a correspondent for Arab Media Watch who covered the oral pleadings which took place before the International Court of Justice in The Hague in February 2004. He is the author of “The Right of Return Revisited”, which will be published in a forthcoming edition of the Mediterranean Journal of Human Rights. Read more about The President's Vision: Development Under Occupation
In a few months, the International Court will conclude its deliberations on the wall that Israeli constructs on Palestinian land. It has long been claimed that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a political problem and that the solution is a political solution. However, what the Palestinians have been witnessing since 1967 is land grab and settlements expansion done through “legal” means, when in fact the law was always abused to satisfy Israel’s expansionist whims. Azem Bishara, a legal expert, argues that an advisory opinion will reverse that process with an authoritative statement on basic legal issues that have been long disputed by Israel. Read more about The Wall and the Court: Replacing Politics with Law
