Up to 2,500 residents of the Gaza Strip are stranded on the Egyptian side of the border crossing at Rafah and in the towns of al-Arish and Rafah in the North Sinai governorate, aid agencies say. The border area between Egypt and the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT), which has been sealed off to media and tourists following an escalation in violence in Gaza, is continuing to host Palestinians unable either to cross to their home territory or return to Cairo. Many of the travellers are attempting to return following medical treatment in the Egyptian capital. Read more about Gazans stranded at Rafah border, North Sinai towns
As an untenured assistant professor on this campus, who thought serious scholarship would find a site of articulation within the university named after St. Vincent de Paul, I have questioned not only my DePaul colleagues’ commitment to academic freedom, but the motivations and rationalizations of many of my colleagues who remain silent in the wake of the grave injustice that took place on 8 June 2007, when Finkelstein and Larudee received their denial letters from President Dennis Holtschneider. Matthew Abraham writes for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Finkelstein case: Academic freedom loses to Israeli lobby
JERUSALEM, 21 June 2007 (IRIN) - The Gaza Strip will face a general food shortage within two-four weeks if the main commercial Karni Crossing is not reopened, the UN has warned. “For a crisis to be avoided, commercial and humanitarian food stocks must be replenished regularly and reliably,” a report on the humanitarian situation in the Gaza strip issued by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on 20 June said. Aid workers say most food supplies in Gaza arrive through Karni Crossing. Read more about UN warns of food shortages unless key crossing point reopened
Is a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict possible? Some say that the reality that Israel has created on the ground is irrecoverable and that the partition of the historical Palestine into two states is no longer practical. Others argue that it is the one-state solution which is infeasible, as Israelis will never agree to a power-sharing deal of the Northern Ireland type. Both arguments are wrong — nothing is impossible, comments Yigal Bronner; as we do not know the future, we have no way of ascertaining the impossible. Read more about Everything is possible
This documentary recorded and produced by Seth Porcello in July of 2006 (just prior to the war on Lebanon) features audio of the people in the village of Majdal Shams shouting across the minefield (1967 ceasefire line) that separates them from their relatives in Syria. This very tangible sound of a border, and occupation, serves as a point from which to tell this story. As one hears the Safhia family, who very graciously allowed the recording their conversation, one hears without interpretation what it is to go on living and coping with the reality of never being able to reunite with one’s family. Read more about Audio: The Shouting Mountain
JERUSALEM, 20 June 2007 (IRIN) - Some 4.4 million Palestinians remain refugees nearly 60 years after the start of the 1948 war. As the world marks World Refugee Day on 20 June, about one third of these refugees still live inside camps, while an even larger proportion continue to receive aid and relief services, primarily from UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees. Observers say the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories has worsened over the past year due to the violence, intense infighting in the Gaza Strip and the international economic boycott on the Palestinian Authority. Read more about Plight of Palestinian refugees worsening in most parts of Middle East
The lightening success of Hamas in forcefully taking over the supposed symbols of Palestinian power in Gaza cannot and ought not obscure the fact that, given the overbearing presence of Israel’s military occupation, the bloody clash between the Islamist group and its secular counterpart, Fatah, and irrespective of motives, has descended into a feud between two slaves fighting over the crumbs thrown to them, whenever they behave, by their common colonial master. EI contributor Omar Barghouti comments on the crisis and the imminent dissipation of the illusion of national Palestinian sovereignty under Israeli hegemony. Read more about The Light at the End of the Gaza-Ramallah Tunnel
Major news stories from Palestine/Israel are often accompanied by what becomes a self-reinforcing “vocabulary,” typically generated by Israeli government ministries or other propaganda outlets, and then picked up by the Western media. A classic example was the redeployment of Israeli settlers and military from the Gaza Strip in 2005, which was successfully packaged as a “disengagement” that pitted “Israeli against Israeli,” in a “painful compromise.” Read more about Decoding the media's Palestinian "civil war"
Four years after the emergence of the first signs of a serious insurgency in Iraq, U.S. President George W. Bush finds himself beset with major crises stretching from Palestine to Pakistan.With U.S.-backed Fatah forces routed by Hamas in Gaza this week, Bush’s five-year-old vision of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict now looks more remote than ever, while a new Pentagon report in Iraq suggests that his four-month-old “surge” strategy is failing in its primary objective of reducing the violence there. Read more about Bush Faces Crises from Palestine to Pakistan
Mutual accusations are hurled by Abbas and Haniyeh that the other side launched a coup against the legitimate authority. An international community worried by the ‘coup’ accusation might endorse the Fayyad government as the seemingly correct position. But the ‘coup’ claim stumbles over a basic problem — that Abbas’s appointing a new prime minister was itself entirely illegal. The new ‘emergency government’ is illegal, too. Virginia Tilley analyzes the situation and assesses the international community’s options. Read more about Whose Coup, Exactly?
