DHAHARIYA, WESTBANK, 2 December (IRIN) - Palestinian herders in the southern part of the West Bank are facing increased poverty due to rising costs of fodder and water, as well as limitations on their access to grazing land, the herders and UN officials said. “Due to global droughts and the rising demand internationally for corn and barley bio-fuels, the prices of corn and barley fodder products have risen dramatically,” said Santiago Ripoll, a food security analyst with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization working in the Hebron area in the southern West Bank. Read more about Palestinian shepherds' livelihoods in jeopardy
The gulf between the PA and the Palestinian people is becoming increasingly obvious. Indeed the whole range of Palestinian political and social forces joined in condemning the repression on Tuesday. The choice for the PA is clear: either to go along with the dictates of the US and the occupation; or to radically alter their course, to return to the people and remember that they are leaders of the Palestinian national struggle. The grassroots movement against normalization with the occupiers will continue to grow. Resistance will continue as the Palestinian people assert their fundamental rights. Jamal Juma’ comments. Read more about The Palestine that we struggle for
In his new historical autobiography Once Upon A Country, Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, who many accuse of selling out due to his comments regarding the right of return, highlights the shades of grey in a conflict that most people prefer to see in black and white. Miko Peled reviews Nusseibeh’s new book and finds that it shows that neither Rabin, or Barak or any other Israeli prime minister had ever intended to make peace with the Palestinians. Their intention was, and still is, to turn the Palestinian people into “hewers of wood and drawers of water” for the Jewish state that was established on the ashes of a country that, as the book title suggests, once upon a time existed. Read more about Shades of grey: Nusseibeh's "Once Upon A Country"
So it is over. The much heralded Annapolis “meeting” attended by over 50 countries and organizations has ended, and the result is a vague, non-binding agreement to begin negotiating. In typical fashion, the Bush administration has hailed the conference of low-expectations and even less tangible results as a “success.” Instead of donning a flight suit and landing on an aircraft carrier, US President George W. Bush offered his best Bill Clinton imitation presiding over a ceremonial handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, like an approving father or Roman emperor. Osamah Khalil comments for EI. Read more about Mission accomplished
“We do not recognize those who hold talks in Annapolis; they do not represent the Palestinian people,” said Ismail Haniyeh, the dismissed Palestinian Prime Minister, in response to the Washington-sponsored Palestinian-Israeli summit in Annapolis. The streets of Palestine bore witness that it isn’t only the Hamas leader who doesn’t grant legitimacy to the Palestinian negotiating team at the Annapolis conference. On Tuesday, 27 November, large crowds of Palestinians in Gaza poured out of their homes — as did their brothers and sisters in the West Bank — to protest what they call the “renunciation of Palestinians’ legitimate rights.” EI correspondent Rami Almeghari reports from Gaza. Read more about Palestinians protest the Annapolis summit
GAZACITY, November 27 (IPS) - As Sunday dawns in Gaza City the traditional Islamic call to prayer mingles melodically with church bells. Side by side, mosque and church doors swing open, welcoming the faithful. Greetings are eagerly exchanged. The October kidnapping and murder of Rami Ayyad, the manager of Gaza’s only Christian bookstore, sent shudders through the Christian community. Was this a hate crime or simply a tragic occurrence? Monsignor Manuel Musallam, head of Gaza’s Roman Catholic community, doubts the attack was religiously motivated. Read more about Coexistence in Gaza
With the Golden Dome and the ancient walls of the Old City as backdrop, the cascade of Palestinian homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan is undergoing a dramatic transition. At first it is hard to spot the Israeli flags draped over scattered homes on the hill, but it is soon easily apparent that right-wing Jewish settlers and politically motivated archaeologists are rushing to claim this fragment of the Holy City as the ancient City of David. Alice Rothchild comments. Read more about The Judaization of East Jerusalem
NABLUS, WESTBANK, 25 November 2007 (IRIN) - Palestinian militants in the Nablus area of the West Bank are in the middle of what seems to be a pincer movement — chased not only by the Israeli military but also by the Palestinian Authority (PA), which, under Acting Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, has taken it upon itself to crack down on the fighters. Palestinian security forces say they are going after “illegal weapons” and the misuse of arms. All factions, they say, will be treated equally in an attempt to end “chaos.” The PA has arrested members of several groups, including the Islamic group, Hamas. Read more about Palestinian police boost presence in Nablus
The Annapolis conference simply generates new and ever-more superfluous and intricate promises which Israeli leaders can commit to and yet somehow evade. An exercise in legal obfuscation at its best: we won’t build new settlements, we’ll just expropriate more land and expand to account for their “natural growth,” until they resemble towns, not colonies, and have them legitimized by a US administration looking for some way to save face. And then we’ll promise to raze outposts. Each step in the evolution of Israel’s occupation — together with the efforts to sustain it and the language to describe it — has become ever more sophisticated, strategic and euphemistic. Laila El-Haddad comments. Read more about Annapolis, as seen from Gaza
Two years ago, Israel completed its unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. We all remember the intense media campaign shamelessly portraying the settlers as dispossessed victims of a bold move for peace. Among others, Harvard economist Sara Roy argued that Israel’s version of disengagement would bring disaster to an already desperate Gaza. Today, we are witnessing emergence of an unparalleled economic catastrophe in the Gaza Strip and with it, the evaporation of the last remaining hopes for a Palestinian state. EI contributor Kris Petersen writes from Gaza. Read more about The Gaza Strip: Disengagement two years on
