“If you want the conflict to end and you want peace, can you really afford to ignore their points of view? Go ahead; try to make peace without the Palestinians, without understanding Palestinians’ experiences and their goals as they see them. They’re going to be at war for generations — go ahead,” Wendy Pearlman, author of Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada, tells EI’s Maureen Clare Murphy. Pearlman , who interviewed 27 West Bank and Gazans for her new work oral history, explains to EI the challenges to publishing a book dedicated to understanding the hardships endured by Palestinians under Israeli military occupation. Read more about Interview: Wendy Pearlman, author of 'Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada'
In December of last year the United Nations General Assembly decided to request an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice on one of the most controversial issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent years, Israel’s construction of a “security wall” in the Occupied Territories. The ICJ, often called the World Court, is based at the Peace Palace in The Hague and was established under the Charter of the United Nations, adopted in San Francisco in 1945. A judgement or an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice carries considerable weight. Shane Darcy explains the process and implications. Read more about Legality of Israel's Wall to be tested before the International Court of Justice
Watching a peculiarly crass, inaccurate and condescending programme about the endangered historical sites of “Israel” - that is to say, the Israeli-occupied Palestinian Territories - on BBC2 in early June 2003,(1) I determined to try to work out, as a former BBC Middle East correspondent, why the Corporation has in the past two and a half years been failing to report fairly the most central and lasting reason for the troubles of the region: the Palestinians’ struggle for freedom. In this excerpt from a new book from Pluto Press, Tim Llewellyn looks at the BBC’s coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Read more about Why the BBC Ducks the Palestinian Story
David Bloom, Patrick O'Connor and Tom Wallace4 February 2004
The self-imposed US media blackout on the Wall’s construction finally began to lift last August when President Bush mentioned the problems created by Israel’s wall “snaking its way through the West Bank.” Last December, a year and half after bulldozers began cutting the Wall’s path through Palestinian villages, Thomas Friedman hosted a Discovery Channel program in association with The New York Times, and Bob Simon anchored a CBS60 Minutes segment introducing the controversy surrounding one of the world’s largest construction projects. David Bloom, Patrick Connors, and Tom Wallace examine the two programs. Read more about The US Media and the Wall: Thomas Friedman and 60 Minutes
The Wall in Abu Dis has existed in one form or another since summer 2003. From late December to early January 2004, Israel built a larger 27ft (8m) wall that cuts off Abu Dis from Jerusalem, separating thousands of residents from the Palestinian capital, and dividing the village itself. Photographer Musa Al-Shaer visited Abu Dis on 18 January 2004 as the final stages of construction had been completed and Israel had renamed the Wall the “terror prevention fence”, a laughable phrase given the number of Palestinians trapped on the Israeli side of the Wall. Read more about Photostory: The Wall in Abu Dis, 18 January 2004
SANFRANCISCO - It is a tragic irony that, more than 55 years ago, one desperate people seeking sanctuary from murderous racism decimated another - and continue to oppress its scattered survivors to this day. In 1948, about 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland, their land and possessions taken by the new Jewish state of Israel. This included the Jerusalem home of my grandparents, Hanna and Mathilde Bisharat, which was expropriated through a process tantamount to state-sanctioned theft. George Bisharat comments. Read more about Right of Return: Two-State solution again sells Palestinians short
“The struggle for justice in Palestine would be stronger if Tom were still with us. Yet I believe that his selfless actions and the ultimate price he paid for believing in humanity sparked a desire to know, struggle, and act. He will live on by helping to bring about a revolution in perception and action concerning Palestine. Tom made a choice. It is people like him, Rachel, and many others who personify a new generation unwilling to blindly accept the world as it is, but who instead take risks and work together to forge new protest movements.” Activist Miriyam Aouragh remembers ISM member Tom Hurndall and his impact on a new generation of human rights activists. Read more about An open letter to the family and friends of Tom Hurndall
Israeli historian Benny Morris crossed a new line of shame when he put his academic credentials and respectability in the service of outlining the “moral” justification for a future genocide against Palestinians. How can one explain Morris’ knowledge that the ethnic Darwinism that was used to justify the murder of millions of non-whites, including Black African slaves, Native Americans, Arabs, and others, was also used to justify the attempt to exterminate Jews? Gabriel Ash takes a closer look at Morris’ thinking and the tradition to which it belongs. Read more about Diagnosing Benny Morris: the mind of a European settler
The Israeli army has destroyed hundreds of thousands of Palestinian olive and citrus trees throughout the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in recent years. Yet in a startling admission, a staffer at the Jewish National Fund for Israel (JNF) has written that, “it is against Jewish halachic law to uproot fruit bearing trees.” EI’s Ali Abunimah explains how the JNF has been essential to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and the destruction of its landscape. Read more about If it's against Jewish law, then why is Israel doing it?
“Like Twenty Impossibles” is the work of Annemarie Jacir, co-written with Kamran Rastegar. Jacir is a Palestinian filmmaker, activist, and poet living between New York City and Palestine. The 17-minute short mockumentary tells the story of a journey in a country where checkpoints and a sinister patchwork of controlled areas make freedom of movement itself impossible, aptly portraying the complexities of oppression with a cast and crew that understand it. It is shot on location in Palestine, and the images of guns and power overwhelm the viewer as well as the waylaid film crew. Read more about Film Review: Like Twenty Impossibles (2003)
