There are lots of “One Issue Voters” out here: those who decide to support a candidate based on the sole criterion of abortion, or taxation, or gun control, or crime. For those of us who fall into the “Pro-Palestinian Rights” category of One Issue Voter-hood, it’s a particularly lonely and dispiriting time. It’s as though there’s this big progressive celebration going on, but we haven’t been invited. Laurie King-Irani comments. Read more about The loneliness of the One-Issue Voter
“His very name scatters fire through ice,” wrote Byron of an 18th-century revolutionary leader, and so it has always been with the name of that extraordinary Palestinian, George Habash. Habash died an impoverished refugee in enforced exile in Amman last weekend. What, then, can this revolutionary of a bygone area provide us with now to address today’s bleak geopolitical predicament? Karma Nabulsi comments. Read more about Rebel from a bygone era
Israeli leaders, incensed that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had not resurrected the felled border wall and stopped the Gazans from entering, began suggesting that they would relinquish control of the strip altogether, leaving Egypt responsibile for the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza. “We need to understand that when Gaza is open to the other side, we lose responsibility for it,” said Israel’s deputy defense minister Matan Vilnai. “So we want to disconnect from it.” Read more about Israel threatens further supply cuts to Gaza
The immensity of the overwhelmingly peaceful movement of Palestinians in and out of north Sinai indicated that another reality is possible and indeed necessary in the Arab world. Occupation in Palestine cannot be successfully challenged if the Arab world does not wake up to the fact that anything but more actions of a similarly massive, popular nature are not encouraged. Acceptance of a continued oppression of Arab popular movements is tantamount to acceptance of Israel’s siege of Gaza. Serene Assir comments from Egypt. Read more about Another world is necessary
UNITEDNATIONS, 29 January (IPS) - The 15-member UN Security Council (UNSC) is set to lose its credibility once again as it prepares to impose a third set of sanctions on Iran while failing to pass any strictures on Israel for its continued heavy-handed repression of Palestinians in Gaza. “Many ask whether the UNSC still has any credibility left,” says Mouin Rabbani, contributing editor to the Washington-based Middle East Report. Read more about Security Council loses credibility over Iran, Israel
JERUSALEM, 30 January (IRIN) - Vulnerable refugees in the Gaza Strip could soon be without an important source of protein, as canned meat has not been imported into the enclave in recent days and supplies from the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, are about to run out, a UN official who requested anonymity said on 30 January. “Canned meat is a major part of our food parcels, and is the only source of protein in the UNRWA food package,” Christopher Gunness, an UNWRA spokesman told IRIN. Read more about Snow further complicates relief supplies to Gaza
I lived more than half of my life in the US and I never felt the alienation that I felt on the day I read George Habash, the Palestinian revolutionary who passed away last week, labeled as a “terrorism tactician” in a front page obituary in The New York Times. What do you when they want to convince you that a kind and gentle man you met and respected as a person is a terrorist when you know otherwise? As’ad AbuKhalil reflects on George Habash as a model of revolutionary struggle. Read more about George Habash's contribution to the Palestinian struggle
I have succeeded in making peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In an interview preceding the Annapolis Conference, Palestinian Authority (PA) negotiator Saeb Erakat claimed that peace could be delivered in half an hour. The basis, everyone already knows, is the Clinton draft: two states with border adjustments and division of Jerusalem. In my case, peace took two hours — or, well, two years. I delivered it in 2009. Jonathan Ben Efrat comments on the Peres Peace Center’s and the Israeli establishment’s video game conception of Israeli-Palestinian peace. Read more about The PeaceMaker
JERUSALEM, 28 January (IRIN) - The Israeli-imposed restrictions on imports to the Gaza Strip are threatening the lives of vulnerable patients, the Oxfam aid agency has said. “Oxfam International is gravely concerned about the life and safety of the civilian population residing in the Gaza Strip,” Oxfam’s director said in a statement on 25 January. “In Shifa hospital in Gaza city, 135 cancer patients are currently unable to receive treatment due to the lack of basic medications,” Oxfam said. Read more about Medical supplies in Gaza running low
The past few days have demonstrated that there is more to the destruction of the Rafah wall than the simple Hamas-Fatah dichotomy or the endless inane commentary of its impact on the “peace process.” Hamas could destroy the wall, but unless Palestinians were willing to cross the borderline and face the threat of Egyptian security forces it would have been a futile gesture. That Palestinians went over that line again and again illustrates the powerful urge for freedom from oppression and occupation. Osamah Khalil comments from Cairo. Read more about A break in the siege
