Mr. Alain Rémy, the French Consul General in Jerusalem, and Moein Sadeq, the deputy general of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquity (MTA) joined many people, including children, to gather under fluttering Palestinian and French flags at the door of the little museum of Qasr Albasha in the old city of Gaza. They gathered not for politics, but to celebrate the new exhibition, “Fathers,” by the Gazan artist Taysir Batniji, hosted at the museum under the patronage of the French Cultural Centre (CCF) and the MTA. Read more about Gaza artist opens "Fathers" exhibition
The Shin Bet is possibly best known for its interrogation methods when extracting confessions from detainees. As Kimmerling notes, the most likely result will be a “professional studies” programme relating to the Shin Bet’s work. Such arrangements are nothing new in Israeli academia, Kimmerling points out. There are strong ties between the universities and the defence industry because “some university staff join academia after [military] service and careers in the defense establishment, and not all of them manage to ‘go civilian’.” Read more about Academic Boycott: Shin Bet training program highlights academic complicity with occupation
Of the 250,000 Israeli citizens living in over a hundred West Bank settlements, (not counting 200,000 settlers in occupied East Jerusalem), only one-third will face evacuation, says Leggett. “Many may be offered relocation to the large settlement blocs Israel plans to retain. … Perhaps the most sensitive issue will be the question of Jerusalem. Palestinians claim the city as their future capital and say that must be reflected in any resolution to the Mideast’s core conflict. The U.S. has generally supported the Palestinian position during previous peace negotiations.” Read more about Ehud Olmert's "convergence plan"
20 May 2006- For many months now, people assumed that the militant arm of the Islamist movement Hamas, the Ezzeddin Al Qassam Brigades, had stopped its operations by orders of the political echelons of the movement. But recent events in Gaza City demonstrate that, in fact, this militant group is more active than ever. Its agenda, however, has changed. On 23 April, several Brigade members intervened to protect Palestinian Health Minister Basem Naim, from the Hamas-led government, when he was assaulted by several gunmen at his office in Gaza City. Read more about Hamas's militant arm turns to fighting internal chaos
The Abu Kmail family sat in their modest living room in the heart of Hebron city watching their favourite local TV station - their only pastime on a quiet evening, free of Israeli raids. The documentary being shown did not quite appeal to the taste of the two teenage sons, who wanted to watch an action movie instead. The father, municipal health inspector Awni Abu Kmail, quickly dialed a number and spoke briefly on the phone. Suddenly, the documentary was interrupted and an action movie began instead. Read more about 'TV on demand' all the rage in West Bank
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s address to both houses of Congress was perhaps the most skilled use of Newspeak since George Orwell invented the term in his novel 1984. Just as Orwell’s totalitarian propagandists proclaimed WARISPEACE and Israeli government signs placed at the Wall (sorry, fence) at the entrance to Bethlehem greet Palestinians with the blessing PEACEBEUNTOYOU, so Olmert declared in Washington: UNILATERALREALIGNMENTISPEACE. Read more about Countdown to Apartheid
On Wednesday afternoon, 23-year-old Sama was stepping out of a taxi in Ramallah’s bustling Manara Circle, when machine gun fire erupted. An undercover Israeli Defense Force (IDF) kidnapping mission, aimed at a senior Islamic Jihad figure, had run amok. Sama took cover in a side-street as the events unfolded. It started with youths hurling stones at the IDF agents — they were disguised as locals — and setting their car ablaze. Within minutes, about 11 armored IDF jeeps arrived, surrounding the Lo’Lo’A building on Manara, where the agents supposedly were. Two IDF helicopters came on the scene to provide further backup as the IDF made its violent withdrawal. Read more about Summer Time and the Living's Uneasy
Well, I think, to begin with, I don’t think that anyone believes that American coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict is evenhanded. I don’t even think that journalists and editors who are responsible for that coverage believe it. The coverage in the American media of the Israel/Palestine conflict is, frankly, useless. I don’t read it at all, I’ll be perfectly honest, I stopped reading it. I don’t read the editorials, I don’t read the op-eds, and I don’t read the news columns. You learn absolutely nothing from it. Read more about Interview with Prof. Norman Finkelstein
At the present, the Western world seems still under the spell of the legend of Ariel Sharon, who, so the story goes, has brought a gigantic change in Israeli policy - from expansion and occupation to moderation and concessions - a vision to be further implemented by his successor, Ehud Olmert. Since the evacuation of the Gaza Strip settlements, the dominant Western narrative has been that Israel has done its part towards ending the occupation and declared its readiness to take further steps, and that now it is the Palestinians’ turn to show that they are able to live in peace with their well-intending neighbor. Read more about Sharon's Legacy in Action
The Palestinian people have been longing for freedom and sovereignty since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. In 1917, the British colonial power at the time dominated historical Palestine, where the Jewish state was merely a dream in Jews’ minds around the globe and the Ottoman Empire was drawing to an end, the factors that made the Palestinians hope they would eventually have their own sovereignty on their own soil. Yet, amid such great expectations by the Palestinians, the British colonial government had promised the Jews, for free, ‘a national Jewish homeland’ in another people’s land, making the Jewish immigrants also hope of practicing some kind of sovereignty. Read more about A Tale of Palestinian Sovereignty
