On 26 September 2005, the Palestinian Counseling Centre (the PCC) announced the results of a survey on the psychological implications of the construction of the wall on people from five villages in the Qalqilya district. In 2003, the PCC conducted a pilot study, which was followed by the survey from early 2004 to August 2005. The study showed a proportional relationship between exposure to the wall and the occurrence of nightmares and aggressive behaviour in adolescents and children. The PCC’s study makes it clear that the wall has an impact on the mental health of adults and children. According to the PCC, the wall can be seen as a construction meant to confine and isolate people, which are the key characteristics of a prison. Read more about The Wall and the psychological impact on children
Until recently, there has been no affordable and timely translation source for non-Arabic-speaking diaspora Arabs or Westerners to read the Arabic press. Mideastwire.com was launched on June 15th, 2005. The service (currently free to subscribers) provides a daily email newsletter with the days headlines (translated and summarized) from all the top Arabic and Persian newspapers. Since the service is operated and dispatched from Beirut, Lebanon, the correspondents (who are scattered worldwide)� and editors have the entire workday to get the newletter finished and into the inboxes of American subscribers by midday/late morning in the United States. Read more about An affordable translation service from the Arabic language press
There is a dangerous political vacuum emerging that could fuel further extremism within both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. The Palestinians want movement on their demands and the Israelis do not want to make any further concessions. Sharon, in one of the ironies of the age, is barely fighting off the right wing. In a conflicted state, there is something called the ‘politics of time’ that is always present. There is nothing more dangerous than being static. Read more about Nationalism and its Discontents
President Bush rolled out the red carpet for his Palestinian protege, Mahmoud Abbas. The meeting in the Rose Garden, in terms of staging, equaled anything that President Clinton had done with his friend, Yasser Arafat, in the heyday of the Oslo agreements. Pessimists, on the one hand, believe that nothing will happen until after the Israeli elections, probably set for November 2006. And that means continued rolling violence between now and then. Read more about Withdrawal from Reality?
The fact that thousands of Palestinians and hundreds of Israelis are together employing nonviolent tactics similar to those of the U.S. civil rights movement and the South African anti-Apartheid movement would come as surprising and welcome news to most Americans. Americans are largely unaware of the struggling but vibrant grassroots nonviolent movement in Palestine, because the U.S. corporate media prefers a simple, flawed story of Palestinian terrorist attacks and Israeli retaliation. Read more about The invisibility of Palestinian Nonviolent Resistance in the New York Times
Leaders tend to stay at home in moments of crises. If caught out of their countries when trouble develops, they rush back. Nothing enhances the confidence of people in their leaders more than when they see them amongst them in hard times. This does not seem to be the case with the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. He embarked on an Arab and world tour just when at home he is most needed: his government is facing a possible no-confidence vote in the Palestinian assembly, and violence broke out between Israelis and Palestinians. EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah explains this backward logic. Read more about Abbas' backward agenda: all constants and no variables
Yacoub Kahlen and Robert E. Foxsohn18 October 2005
NGO Monitor, founded by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, has for some time now been deliberately spreading false and misleading information about NGOs in an attempt to discredit them. Their targets include some of the most established and respected human rights organizations. While their efforts to stifle a critical dialogue have proved unsuccessful, their efforts are relentless and it is important that they be exposed as part of an extremist, right-wing institution, closely linked with the Israeli government and military commanders, who do not have specific interest in human rights. Therefore, NGO Monitor should not be taken seriously by anyone interested in peace and human rights. Read more about NGO Monitor should not be taken seriously
As I walk down the darkened staircase into a muggy basement in this lower eastside dive bar, a scruffily bearded supporter smiles and waves a four-foot wide Palestinian flag. The chatter begins as the room fills with anxious people awaiting the show. The young crowd came out to support Free the P, the new CD compilation of “hip-hop and spoken word, dedicated to the youth of Palestine.” The proceeds will go to Slingshot Hip-hop, “a documentary film that focuses on the daily life of Palestinian rappers living in Gaza, the West Bank and inside Israel.” Within moments, our hostess, Arab-American comedienne Maysoon Zayid, takes the ground level, makeshift stage and gets the crowd going with her dry, political humor. Read more about FREE THE P! Palestine Takes NYC's East Village by Storm
The University of Haifa has warned foreign students of the dangers of visiting Palestinians. This warning, which comes in the form of “Special Security Instructions for Students”, follows a decision by the University to establish a special education programme for soldiers who serve in the Israeli army. Such actions are patently discriminatory, offering fresh reasons for the University of Haifa to again be included in a list of Israeli universities being (re)considered for an academic boycott. This fall, the Department of Overseas Studies at the University of Haifa circulated these instructions for students. The students are advised “not to travel in the West Bank or the Gaza strip. Avoid Arab population centres within Israel as far as possible. Read more about Haifa University spreads the message of fear towards Palestinians
Kingdom of Heaven, directed by Sir Ridley Scott and starring Orlando Bloom, Jeremy Irons, Eva Green, Liam Neeson, has now been released on DVD (20th Century Fox). Watching this Hollywood extravaganza is like seeing the current Iraq war through the eyes of an American soldier, or a portrait of apartheid from the point of view of a rich white South African farmer, or a depiction of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank from the perspective of a Jewish settler. It is also like the foreign news in the quality U.S. and British news media today: no direct or conscious lies, but extremely one-sided. In end effect, it has all the historicity of an early cowboys-and-Indians-movie or Birth of a Nation, the infamous 1916 film that sympathizes with the Ku Klux Klan. Read more about Selling colonialism
