“Our Western culture is radically ethnocentric. This makes it difficult to widen one’s view. To use a phrase from Juan Rulfo, ‘The world is wide and belongs to no one.’ We have think tanks full of experts who tell us that the economy requires this or that, all of these things that are just assumed. This is a very narrow vision of reality. The problem is that if this reality doesn’t count — that is, if it doesn’t matter what people of color think, what Africans think, what Asians think — then we can just go on living in ignorance of them, constructing our everyday world and believing that we are the only thing that matters in the world.” Part 2 of an interview with award-winning Spanish journalist Teresa Aranguren. Read more about Spanish perspectives II: an interview with Teresa Aranguren (Part 2)
“I’m very conscious of the fact that everything having to do with the Arab world, viewed from the West, is shrouded in stereotypes. And virtually all of the stereotypes the West has of the Arab world are negative, because it’s our neighbor. The Chinese are far away, but the Arabs, we Europeans talk about them as if we knew them perfectly. We have this perception of a violent, intolerant, fanatic world, and we project all of this onto the Arab world. So I think it’s important for people who have been there, who have lived other experiences, to try to make clear that stereotypes can kill, that they end up killing, or justifying the killing.” John Collins asks award-winning Spanish journalist Teresa Aranguren about the meaning of solidarity in an age of fear. (Part 1) Read more about Spanish perspectives II: an interview with Teresa Aranguren (Part 1)
Amr Salah, a United States citizen living in Massachusetts asks for your help in demanding a formal investigation into the deaths of his father and brother at the hands of 1,000 Israeli troops. Dr. Khalid Salah, age 51, and his 16 year old son, Mohammed were shot and killed by Israeli Defense Forces on July 6, 2004 in their home in the city of Nablus in the Israeli Occupied West Bank. Throughout the hours of assault the Salahs were huddled together in a corner of the apartment, contacting relatives on a mobile phone for help. Despite an urgent call to the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, Consul General David Pearce nor anyone else at the consulate intervened. Read more about Call for US investigation into lethal Israeli assault against Palestinian-American family
Though for generations Suad Amiry’s family lived in historical Palestine, her toy Manchester terrier enjoys more political rights than her owner. Granted a coveted Jerusalemite passport by her Israeli veterinarian in a settlement nearby Ramallah, Amiry’s dog Nura is allowed to travel from Ramallah to Jerusalem, though Amiry’s West Bank I.D. forbids her from doing so. But because Amiry is Palestinian, and has lived a significant amount of her life under Israeli occupation and has developed the creativity such an existence demands, Amiry has been able to use this to her advantage. Read more about Thoroughly Palestinian Stories: A review of Suad Amiry's hit book "Sharon and my Mother-in-Law"
The French Ministry of Health, the French State Secretariat for Victims and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs are co-sponsoring an international congress entitled ‘The Place of Children in the Space of Conflict’, to be held in Toulouse, France on the 21-23 of March 2005. The primary purpose of the conference is to draw attention to the suffering of Israeli children, to the exclusion of serious and needed attention to other children living in war and conflict, the context within which these children suffer, and the reason for their suffering. Read more about Protesting 'The Place of Children in the Space of Conflict' conference
UNESCO’s recent support for establishing a joint Palestinian-Israeli scientific organization placies the organization at odds with the decision of the Palestinian Council for Higher Education which has repeatedly rejected “technical and scientific cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli universities.” This move also conflicts with the Palestinian call for boycotting Israeli academic institutions which was endorsed by tens of the most important unions, associations and organizations in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, including the Federation of Unions of Palestinian Universities’ Professors and Employees. This open letter to UNESCO challenges the move. Read more about Between South Africa and Israel: UNESCO's Double-Standards
On the morning of Friday, February 25, 2005 a group of approximately 300 Israelis, Palestinian refugees and international activists gathered near the highway leading out of Jerusalem towards Tel Aviv. In the valley below lay the ruins of the ancient Palestinian village of Lifta. The event was part tour, part protest, and part homecoming. It had different meanings for each of the groups involved. The organization responsible for planning the event, Zochrot (Hebrew for “Remembering”) takes Israelis on tours of depopulated and partially destroyed Palestinian villages. They bring Palestinian refugees to tell the stories of their village and plant signs in Arabic and Hebrew that explain what happened there. This event, however, was also a protest aimed at stopping the impending demolition of what remains of Lifta. Read more about Ethnic Cleansing 101: The Case of Lifta Village
On 8 February 2005, Jewish Voice for Peace Co-director Liat Weingart and Israeli human rights attorney Shamai Leibovitz spoke to an audience of members of the Presbyterian Church in Chicago. JVP was the first Jewish group to publicly support the Presbyterian Church’s decision to investigate selective divestment. “There is a silent majority of Jews in the US,” said Weingart, “who feel completely alienated from mainline Jewish groups because those groups are no longer in line with their central beliefs of justice and equality.” Read the transcript. Read more about Speaking to the Presbyterians About Selective Divestment
Michael F. Brown, Ali Abunimah and Nigel Parry1 March 2005
The population of Palestinians living in Israel, the Occupied Gaza Strip, Occupied East Jerusalem and rest of the Occupied West Bank combined now exceeds the number of Israeli Jews, a U.S. government report has revealed. The Palestinian population stands at more than 5.3 million while the Jewish population stands at 5.2 million. The figures come from the U.S. State Department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2004. The report provided population figures for each of these territorial units separately but failed to connect all the dots to arrive at the explosive new demographic reality. Read more about EI EXCLUSIVE: Palestinian population exceeds Jewish population says U.S. government
On 5 April 2003, in the West Bank city of Jenin, Israeli troops fired at Brian and another ISM volunteer from an armored personnel carrier (APC). They were standing still, wearing bright red medic vests with their hands over their heads, when soldiers opened fire without any warning shots. Brian suffered serious damage to the entire left side of his face, jaw, mouth, teeth, nose, and eyes. He has undergone more than six reconstructive surgeries totaling over $1,000,000 in medical expenses. Two years later, Brian has returned to Israel to demand a criminal investigation be opened into the shooting, after an internal military inquiry found that the incident in which Brian was shot, never occurred. Read more about Brian Avery's day in Israel's Supreme Court
