Throughout the month of May, the Electronic Intifada will be automatically entering the names of all readers who donate to our work in a sweepstakes to win “Return 2,” an original acrylic on paper artwork by Palestinian artist Zahi Khamis. Twenty runners-up will receive EI T-shirts. The sweepstakes period is from 1 May to 31 May, 2004. The sweepstakes is open to people who live in the United States and other countries. This sweepstakes offer is void where prohibited by law. Read more about Support EI during May 2004 and win great prizes!
As South Africa celebrates its 10th year of freedom from the repressive policies of apartheid, Israel has intensified its brutal repression of a just cause - now entering 56 years of dispossession and dismemberment. It is strange therefore that a disgruntled former Israeli diplomat in South Africa, has made a desperate effort to ridicule SA’s pro-Palestinian leanings. It is lamentable that Tova Herzl’s term as Israeli ambassador in Pretoria did not teach her any lessons about the stark differences which exist between her country and a post-1994 South Africa. MRN’s Iqbal Jassat comments. Read more about No Need To Embrace Israel
For the past decade, political leaders — Israeli, Palestinian, American, European and Arab alike, have had one point of agreement with peace activists around the Israel-Palestine conflict. That was the axiom that “neither side would triumph by force.” But now, the dangerous duo of George Bush in the White House and Ariel Sharon in the Prime Minister’s office has embarked on their attempt to prove this false. Mitchell Plitnick from Jewish Voice for Peace argues that the potential for change remains where it has always been-in the hands of those who need only organize themselves and force their governments to change course, the hands of ordinary Israelis and Americans. Read more about Can Sharon Win By Force?
The endorsement of Ariel Sharon’s unilateral plan of disengagement from the Gaza Strip and from parts of the West Bank by US President George W. Bush has angered many Palestinians and inflamed tensions throughout the Arab world. It has also surprised policy makers, diplomats and politicians from the European Union - including Britain, America’s closest ally - who have sought to distance themselves from Bush’s remarks. It prompted a rebuttal from French President Jacques Chirac in Algiers, who described it as a “dangerous and troubling precedent”. Victor Kattan looks at Sharon’s plan in light of international law. Read more about Ariel Sharon, George W. Bush, "Unilateral Declarations" and International Law
Liat Weingart, Valerie Heinonen and Mary Ann McGivern28 April 2004
On April 14, an American corporation was confronted with the choice of whether or not to examine their role in perpetuating the cycle of violence in the Mideast. An alliance of Catholic nuns and Jewish peace activists teamed up to introduce a shareholder resolution asking Caterpillar, Inc. to conduct an internal investigation to determine if the use of their bulldozers to violate human rights laws goes against corporate policies. In fact, it was the first time ever that a shareholder resolution relating to human rights violations in the occupied territories has been brought before a US corporation. Though the odds against the resolution were tremendous, it still garnered 4% of the vote, enough to be re-introduced next year. Read more about Drawing Caterpillar Out Of Its Corporate Cocoon: Company Should Examine Its Role in Mideast Violence
Revd. Jeremy Frost, Precentor of Canterbury Cathedral, expresses through poetry his concerns regarding Bethlehem, a town steeped both in religious history and recent political violence. Frost has visited the Middle East on several occasions, and has researched the theological relationshp between Israel and the Church, countering Christian Zionism in the process. Read more about Poem: On the Ending of the Siege at the Basilica of the Nativity, Bethlehem (10th May 2002)
Amidst the political storm in Israel regarding the “Gaza disengagement” plan, only one really meaningful fact emerges: Sharon received Bush’s approval to proceed with his plan for the Wall in the West Bank. Along this route, Israel is uprooting tens of thousands of trees, dispossessing Palestinian farmers of their land, and pushing them into small enclaves between fences and Walls, until, at the final stage, the Wall will surround them on all sides, as in the Gaza Strip. Israeli academic Tanya Reinhart looks at the steadily increasing number of facts on the ground and the implications of Sharon’s plan. Read more about What kind of state deserves to exist?
Of course, why should anybody expect anything else in a week such as this one? The American commander-in-chief repeatedly misrepresented the situation in Iraq and dodged questions during his news conference of April 13. Then, the next day, with Ariel Sharon at his side he undid decades of U.S. foreign policy and placed US policy in clear violation of international law. When asked on both April 12 and 14 about settlements being an obstacle to peace he avoided the question. This is a leader who habitually is unable to give a plain answer to a plain question. Michael Brown examines the Bush-Sharon letters. Read more about The Bush-Sharon Palestinian disenfranchisement pact
Pro-Israel groups in the US and Europe have campaigned to suggest the European Union is aflame with a “new anti-Semitism,” and to thereby stifle criticism of Israel. But recently they’ve suffered several setbacks. Contrary to the findings in a EUMC report produced in late 2003, the new EUMC report concluded there was no evidence that the increase could be attributed mainly to Muslims and pro-Palestinian groups. Ei’s Ali Abunimah investigates new and disturbing trends in Israeli lobbyists’ efforts to silence criticism of Israel. Read more about Arabs, Muslims are not behind European anti-Semitism
The 14 April meeting between President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Washington sent Palestinian leaders into a flying panic. But their response reeks of desperation and self-interest rather than any real concern for the fate of the Palestinian people and their land or because the results of the meeting represented any new setback for Palestinian rights. EI co-founder Ali Abunimah examines the results of the meeting and the Palestinian Authority response, and makes sense of it all. Read more about Why all the fuss about the Bush-Sharon meeting?
