UNITEDNATIONS (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
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
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
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
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"
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
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
The strategic value of international solidarity with the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, refugees in the Diaspora and Palestinians in Israel raises some fundamental questions. The most immediate and urgent are: what the nature of international solidarity should be and how it can best support the Palestinian struggle for self-determination? Savera Kalideen and Haidar Eid comment for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Learning from South Africa
The above slideshow is a selection of images from the month of September 2008. This year, September coincided with the month-long period of Ramadan in the Islamic calendar. This month’s photographs feature Ramadan in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Read more about Month in pictures: Ramadan in Palestine, September 2008
When the bottom line is threatened, corporations typically show little concern for holding the line on political principles such as freedom of expression. In capitalism, freedom is too often just another word for maximizing profits. Robert Jensen comments. Read more about Canadian media attempt to silence on Israel
