24 December 2002
“In 1982, lacking e-mail, a cell phone, activist list serves, or websites, the best outlet for my horror, sorrow and anger at the Sabra and Shatila massacres was to crank up The Clash’s music to full volume as I cleaned the house in fury. ” The EI’s Laurie King-Irani pays homage to the late Joe Strummer of “The Clash.” Read more about It's up to us not to heed the call-up
22 December 2002
Why do false assertions about the circumstances of Israel’s November killing of UN official Iain Hook in Jenin continue to make it into NPR news bulletins even after they have been fully exposed? Hugh Sansom, an avid NPR listener, shared this letter with EI. Read more about NPR continues to misreport Israel's killing of UN official Iain Hook
20 December 2002
James Longley, director of the acclaimed 2001 documentary “Gaza Strip” will return the prestigious Student Academy Award he received from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) unless the Academy explains why it has deemed Palestine ineligible to enter the Oscars competition. Read the story and the full interview with EI. Read more about "Gaza Strip" director to return student Academy Award to protest exclusion of Palestine
20 December 2002
“Technically, I’ve disobeyed an Israeli high court ruling that allowed me to stay in Israel for seven days on the very specific condition that I not visit the Palestinian territories. To obey the ruling on not traveling to Palestine is to be complicit in the process of normalizing Israel’s occupation. It allows the occupying power to continue to dictate its rule over the occupied.” Jaggi Singh writes from Beit Sahour. Read more about Entering Palestine: Defying the Israeli courts
18 December 2002
“It is increasingly clear that Arabs and Muslims are the new enemy in Washington, a national capital that many find reminiscent of the dark days of the McCarthy Era.” A presentation delivered by EI’s Laurie King-Irani at the seventh annual “Common Terms: The Dialogue of Civilizations” conference sponsored by the Imam Musa Sadr Foundation, 13 December 2002, in Beirut, Lebanon. Read more about Fundamentalisms, media, and the new McCarthyism: how demagogues are hijacking Washington, DC
18 December 2002
Earlier this year, 187 Israeli professors signed an “Urgent Warning” letter titled “The Israeli government may be contemplating crimes against humanity.” Today, 800 American professors have signed a similar document, warning of coming Israeli ethnic cleansing. EI’s Nigel Parry reports. Read more about 800 American professors sign document warning of coming Israeli ethnic cleansing
18 December 2002
Above: Jaggi Singh.
Jaggi Singh, a Montreal based activist and writer was granted entry into Israel after winning an appeal filed by Israeli lawyer Shamai Leibowitz on December 16th in Tel Aviv by the District Court. An illegal deportation order was issued by Israeli authorities upon Jaggi’s arrival in Tel Aviv on December 14th. Jaggi spent 2 days in detention at Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv fighting the illegal deportation order from Israel with support from many Israeli peace activists and international solidarity activists. Stefan Christoff reports. Read more about Exposing the Israeli Occupation: the case of Jaggi Singh
17 December 2002
Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher revealed either simple ignorance of a well-established school of thought or journalistic laziness when he attached the label of ‘Holocaust revisionist’ to author Norman Finkelstein. Amazingly, it took a while for Finkelstein to get a retraction. Mark Hand reports. Read more about Washington Post retracts "Holocaust revisionism" claim against Norman Finkelstein
18 December 2002
“Every six months or so a report comes out detailing the woeful state of geographical knowledge held by many Americans. Usually people chuckle and wonder how it is that so many Americans think California is on the East Coast. After all, every rightly educated American knows it’s on the Left Coast.” Mike Brown writes about what happens when the New York Times sits in on a Middle East geography test. Read more about The New York Times gets an 'F' for geography
16 December 2002
Bernard Lewis
Veteran analyst Lamis Andoni examines the views of Bernard Lewis, the man who coined the phrase “clash of civilisations” and inspiration for much of the current US administration’s Middle East policy, in this article based on her UC Berkeley course, “The War on Terrorism: The US, Islam and the Arab World”. Read more about Bernard Lewis: In the service of empire