5 November 2002
Peace activist Kathy Kern was recently deported from Ben Gurion airport after arriving for her 11th term of service with the Hebron-based Christian Peacemaker Teams. In this article about the experience, Kathy asks why the Israeli government is afraid of people reporting what it is doing in the Occupied Territories? Read more about Deported!
al-Bireh 5 November 2002
Just as the Israeli occupation to suppress the entire Palestinian population has taken on new shapes and forms in the absence of any international considerations, Israeli settlers are camouflaging this latest round of land confiscation with a facade of environmental issues, namely a solid waste landfill site on the eastern front of the Palestinian West Bank town of Al-Bireh. Walid Hamad, Mayor of Al-Bireh writes about the problem. Read more about Settlers and Trash
27 October 2002
The new US “road map” to peace in the Middle East presented by US Assistant Secretary of State William J. Burns is nothing but a placebo for the Palestinians and the world community amidst war talk and sabre-rattling in Washington, DC. The new plan is not an adequate response to Palestinian and international demands that Israel immediately end the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Palestinian Sam Bahour and Israeli Michael Dahan weigh in. Read more about Another road map to nowhere
23 October 2002
Issam Nashashibi
Two prominent African American members of Congress lost their primary bids for re-election in 2002. Their defeats were widely attributed to the influence of AIPAC, the largest pro-Israel lobby group in Washington, which was angered by positions they had taken in support of Palestinian human rights. Issam Nashashibi, in this contribution to EI, writes that while the US and Arab press continue to mythologize AIPAC’s power and invincibility, the lobby’s influence is often exaggerated. This, he argues, means that there are good prospects for Arab Americans to play a bigger role in shaping debate and policy in US politics. Read more about AIPAC's power is often overrated
22 October 2002
Yesterday, photographer Husam Abu Alan was freed from Israeli prison. Abu Alan, who works for Agence France-Presse, was arrested on April 24 near Hebron and held in administrative detention. No charges were ever filed against him. Read more about Palestinian photographer set free after six months of administrative detention
22 October 2002
Last week, armed Israeli policemen burst into the East Jerusalem YMCA offices and arrested Haytham Hammouri, a YMCA staff member. He was handcuffed and taken into police custody. No charges were made, and he was kept incommunicado for three days. Finally, he was able to see a lawyer, taken in front of an Israeli court, and sentenced to six months “administrative detention” in an Israeli prison. No charges were made against him, and there has been no trial. Haytham joins more than 12,000 Palestinians in a similar situation, and he may be the only Palestinian resident of Jerusalem held under this arbitrary pretext. To find out what you can do to help, read on. Read more about Protest Arbitrary Imprisonment
21 October 2002
How real is the threat of population transfer in Palestine-Israel today, asks Terry Rempel, the research coordinator at BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights in this contribution to EI? The fact is that population transfer is ongoing, with or without a US-led war against Iraq, through the revocation of residency rights, destruction of thousands of Palestinian homes over the past two years among other measures. As pro-transfer rhetoric heats up in Israel and the US heads towards war what are the prospects for outright ethnic cleansing? Read more about Of war and population transfer
15 October 2002
National Public Radio’s Morning Edition Host Bob Edwards says that the United States has been “encouraging democratic reforms” in the Middle East, but EI’s Ali Abunimah asks, where’s the evidence? Read more about NPR claims nonexistent US support for Middle East democracy
14 October 2002
The world is being deceived into believing that political reforms can happen in the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. As the Bush Administration continues to call for regime change in the Palestinian Authority, Israel is silently pursuing a violent strategy of establishing internment camps that imprison Palestinians from all walks of life. Sam Bahour writes from Ramallah/Al-Bireh. Read more about Reform by Imprisonment
Ramallah 12 October 2002
At the end of the day, Haytham is just one of 5,000 Palestinians Israel has detained after rounding up more than 12,000 Palestinians over the last few months. Nevertheless, I refuse to just keep adding up numbers. We must stop and put faces and families to the names of those illegally detained and tortured. Read more about My friend is being tortured!