RAMALLAH, Nov 21 (IPS) - Al-Walajeh village was once a quiet but busy place. Just four kilometers from Bethlehem and 8.5 km from Jerusalem, its rolling hills filled with fruit trees, natural forests, and blooming vegetation made it a prime farming location. Easy access to large and consistent markets led its inhabitants to relative economic prosperity. Life was good. Today, however, al-Walajeh village is a different place altogether. “The demolishing of houses is a weekly event here in al-Walajeh,” Sheerin Alaraj, al-Walajeh Village Council member, told IPS. Read more about Demolition decimating Palestinian village
WASHINGTON, Nov 21 (IPS) - Despite near-universal skepticism about the prospects for launching a serious, new Middle East peace process at next week’s Israeli-Palestinian summit in Annapolis, a familiar clutch of neo-conservative hawks close to the Likud Party leader, former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, isn’t taking any chances. Hard-liners associated with the American Enterprise Institute and Freedom’s Watch, a bountifully funded campaign led by prominent backers of the Republican Jewish Coalition, among other like-minded groups, are mounting a concerted attack against next week’s meeting which they fear could result in pressure on Israel to make territorial concessions. Read more about Likudnik hawks work to undermine Annapolis
JERUSALEM, 21 November (IRIN) - Traffic news on the radio in the West Bank is more likely to be about checkpoints and barriers than jams and accidents, as a complex system of controls and permits can make a short journey for work, family or medical reasons into a time-consuming marathon, according to a new UN report. A joint Special Focus by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, released in November, said that only about 18 percent of the people who worked the land are now able to obtain Israeli-issued permits, required to access the zone between the Barrier and the Green Line, Israel’s pre-1967 border. Read more about West Bank maze of movement restrictions
This slideshow is a selection of images from the month of October 2007. The month in pictures is an ongoing feature of the Electronic Intifada. If you have images documenting Palestine, Palestinian life, politics and culture, or of solidarity with Palestine, please email images and captions to photos@electronicintifada.net. Read more about Photostory: The month in pictures
WASHINGTON, 12 November (IPS) - A small group of Middle East and African studies scholars in the United States has announced the creation of a new professional association to change the direction of scholarship in the field. And it boasts several big name albeit controversial scholars, among them Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, two academics who advised the George W. Bush administration’s policy towards the Middle East. Read more about New Middle East scholars group seen as close to White House
The Oxford Union is one of the world’s most illustrious debating chambers and a bastion of free speech. It was founded in the nineteenth century to uphold the principle of free speech and debate in England at a time when they were being severely curtailed. Recently, however, the Union failed to live up to its lofty ideals. Professor Avi Shlaim recounts how the Union crumbled under pressure from Israel’s kneejerk supporters. Read more about Israel, free speech, and the Oxford Union
For the last 20 years, the US government has accused me of being a terrorist. Along with six other Palestinians and a Kenyan, we were dubbed the “Los Angeles Eight” by the media. Our case even made it to the US Supreme Court. On 30 October — 20 grueling years after the early morning raid in which armed federal agents barged into my apartment, brutally arrested me before my three-year-old son’s eyes, incarcerated me in maximum security cells in San Pedro State Prison for 23 days without bond, and attempted to deport me — the government dropped all charges fabricated against me. Michel Shehade reflects on his case. Read more about After 20 years, freedom is sweet
The real paradigmatic shift is not to be found in talking about the “two-state versus one-state” solution or anything else in between, because this debate misses the point. It’s not a question of proposing a “one-state solution,” but of recognizing the “one-state reality.” This has been brought about by Israel’s integration of East Jerusalem and the West Bank into the infrastructure and legal fabric of the Jewish state since 1967, to the extent that there is de facto, if not de jure, annexation. Ben White comments for EI. Read more about The one-state reality
Leading Palestinian and Israeli scholars and activists will be among the speakers at an unprecedented conference to explore a one-state solution, at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London on 17-18 November. Organized by the London One State Group and the SOAS Palestine Society, the conference, “Challenging the Boundaries: A Single State in Israel/Palestine,” will explore new models for a just peace including binationalism, secular democracy, a ‘state of all its citizens’ and federalism. Read more about Palestinian, Israeli scholars to advance one-state solution in London
