8 October 2008
BARCELONA (IPS/Terraviva) - Palestinian villagers drink unsafe agricultural water rather than trusting water provided by an Israeli company, says Buthaina Mizyed, who has worked in Arraneh village near the conflict-laden West Bank city of Jenin. The reason the Palestinians avoid the water from a station in the nearby village of al-Jalameh is that it smells of chlorine. Read more about Where water leaves a bitter taste
7 October 2008
NILIN, WEST BANK (IRIN) - As the olive harvest gets under way in the West Bank, residents of the Palestinian town of Nilin say much of their land, where their trees are, is off limits because of Israel’s wall. According to estimates by residents, some 5,000 olive trees sit on 270 hectares between the path of the wall and the border of the West Bank with Israel, known as the Green Line. “People depend on this land, especially because they have already lost so much,” said Hindi Misleh, an activist in the village. Read more about Nilin village resists Israel's land confiscation
6 October 2008
In June 2007, the Palestine Media Collective produced a newspaper parody of The Vancouver Sun that satirized the anti-Palestinian bias of CanWest, the largest media conglomerate in Canada. Six months later, CanWest launched a lawsuit against those who “conspired” to produce and distribute the parody. The original writ named Mordecai Briemberg, Horizon Publications (the printer), and six Jane and John Does. Carel Moiseiwitsch and Gordon Murray comment for EI. Read more about Huffing and puffing to silence criticism of Israel
6 October 2008
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) - A new United Nations report on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories blasts the Israeli government for its heavy-handed treatment of journalists reporting on the military occupation. The 20-page report, which will go before the 63rd sessions of the General Assembly currently underway, singles out the mistreatment of award-winning Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer who was stripped, interrogated, kicked and beaten up when he returned from Europe to his home town in the occupied territory of Gaza last June. Read more about UN report castigates Israeli abuse of journalists
5 October 2008
RAMALLAH, West Bank (IPS) - An Israeli police commander has called them “provocateurs,” “militants,” and “lawbreakers.” Earlier in the year the Israeli army decided that their presence in the city of Hebron, 30 kilometers south of Jerusalem in the Palestinian West Bank, constituted a security threat and banned them from the city, stating that any member of the organization caught there would be expelled forthwith. Read more about Breaking the silence challenges the Israeli army
6 October 2008
It is inspirational to find Palestine richly meditated in poetry. Two new poetry collections provide a robust testament to that — One collection is by the Palestinian-American poet Sharif S. Elmusa, Flawed Landscape, and the other is made of selected works by various poets edited by Remi Kanazi, Poets for Palestine. Atef Alshaer reviews for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Palestine in verse: "Flawed Landscape" and "Poets for Palestine" reviewed
3 October 2008
The Israeli army officer in charge of the occupation of the West Bank, Gen Gadi Shamni, has lambasted extremist Jewish settlers, blaming rising levels of violence on the encouragement of their leadership and right-wing rabbis. It is rare for a senior commander to speak so critically of the settlers, many of whom themselves serve in senior positions in the army. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Israel's army and settlers fall out
3 October 2008
With Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert forced to concentrate on his corruption charges, Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister, won the ruling party Kadima’s primaries and is hoping to form a new government. The Electronic Intifada contributor Gabriel Ash looks at Livni’s cultivated dovish image in the context of a neo-liberal and colonial Israel. Read more about Livni: the making of an Israeli "dove"
5 October 2008
In August, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, the international watchdog organization, asked three Israeli companies to respond to a report by an Israeli non-governmental organization that protested the treatment of Palestinian workers at West Bank settlement industrial parks. EI contributor Adri Nieuwhof reports. Read more about Palestinian workers exploited at West Bank settlement factories
2 October 2008
WASHINGTON (IPS) - A series of meetings between United States and Syrian diplomats, including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterpart, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, at the United Nations over the past week is stirring speculation that Washington may at last be moving toward engaging Damascus. Read more about Tepid contact between US and Syria