RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - The Palestinian Authority (PA) is using West Bank mosques as a new battleground in its political offensive against its opponents within Hamas as well as critics from its own Fatah party. Earlier this month, PA security forces raided several mosques in Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron before assaulting and arresting a number of Friday worshippers. Read more about Palestinian Authority: Pray our way or else
An Arab member of the Israeli parliament has sparked controversy among Jews and Arabs in Israel over his decision to join an official Israeli delegation commemorating International Holocaust Day today at a Nazi death camp in Poland. Mohammed Barakeh will be the only Arab in a contingent of Israeli parliamentarians and government ministers at Auschwitz to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Arab parliamentarian in Israel visits Auschwitz
The 1993 Oslo agreement did not only usher in a new era of Palestinian-Israeli relations but has had a much more lasting effect in transforming the very language through which these relations have been governed internationally and the way the Palestinian leadership viewed them. Joseph Massad comments. Read more about How surrendering Palestinian rights became the language of "peace"
When prolific writers compile a decade or more of their writing in a single collection, changes in style, political outlook, or interpretive tendencies are readily apparent. Consistency in all these respects is visible too. While Avi Shlaim’s latest book — Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations reveals such changes and continuities, his analytical gaze suffers from a blind spot when it comes to the ideology upon which Israel was founded. Max Ajl reviews for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Book review: Avi Shlaim's "Israel and Palestine"
The New York Times has all but confirmed to The Electronic Intifada (EI) that the son of its Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner was recently inducted into the Israeli army. Over the weekend, EI received a tip suggesting this had been the case and wrote to Bronner to ask him to confirm or deny the information and to seek his opinion on whether, if true, he thought it would be a conflict of interest. Read more about New York Times fails to disclose Jerusalem bureau chief's conflict of interest
Despite logistical problems, the 12 January earthquake in Haiti has seen much of the “international community” pull together to provide food, doctors and other emergency aid for the already poverty-stricken country. But the disaster has also provided apologists for the State of Israel’s human rights abuses an opportunity to try and grab high moral ground. Sarah Irving comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Israel's PR exploitation of Haiti aid
Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, approved last week the upgrading to university status of a college in a settlement located deep inside the West Bank, a move certain to further undermine Palestinian confidence in the peace process. The decision, authorizing the first Israeli university in Palestinian territory, is expected to entitle the college to significant extra funding, allowing it to expand its student population. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Israel upgrades settlement college to university
Umm Faris Baroud of Shati refugee camp in western Gaza City wakes up early every Monday in the hope that she will be allowed to visit her son Faris, serving a life sentence in one of Israel’s prisons. “For the past two and a half years I have been unable to visit Faris,” she explained. Rami Almeghari reports for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Gaza families fight to visit relatives in Israeli prisons
During last winter’s invasion of Gaza, Israeli forces killed 16 medical rescuers, four in one day alone. Another 57 were injured. At least 16 ambulances were damaged with at least nine completely destroyed. In a special report for The Electronic Intifada, Eva Bartlett speaks with Gaza’s emergency medical workers one year after the massacres. Read more about Gaza's thin red line one year later
“Being a journalist is the most dangerous work in the world,” says Palestinian photojournalist Nayef Hashlamoun, “especially being a photojournalist or a photographer. We work under risk every day, especially in conflict areas like Palestine or Iraq, especially if you have soldiers who feel that you are from the other side, not from their side.” Sarah Irving reports for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about "Palestinian journalists can't work freely or safely"
