Tension and apprehension filled the air in the Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts on the night of Monday November 8, 2004. The Somerville Board of Aldermen held a public meeting to consider a non-binding resolution to divest from Israel bonds and from companies who profit from the human rights abuses carried out by Israel against Palestinian people. If it passes, it will be the first such resolution in the world to be passed by a city. The Presbyterian Church and the National Lawyers Guild have already voted to divest and The Anglican Church is considering it. Tom Wallace reports for EI. Read more about Sell-by date of war crimes about to expire in Somerville, MA?
We gather here at difficult times, when it seems that the Palestinian cause has been almost eliminated from the international agenda. The Western world is hailing the new “peace vision” of Sharon’s disengagement plan. The day this plan passed in the Israeli Knesset (“Parliament”) last week was hailed by Le Monde as a historical day. Who would pay attention to the two line news piece that on that same day, the Israeli army killed 16 Palestinians in Khan Younis? But Europe looks the other way, reassured of Sharon’s new vision of peace. Tanya Reinhart comments. Read more about Sharon's Gaza Pullout: Not Gonna Happen!
We piled into four shiny, new Mercedes, and headed into a foggy night in Tunisia, speeding up and down hills until we came to an office in a suburb. Armed young guards lounged at the front door. They were smiling broadly and looked like they wanted to high-five us rather than do any security checks. Our delegation filed into the main room. A burgundy sofa-set curved around half of the room, in the middle of which was an office chair on wheels. In it sat Yasser Arafat, devoid of his trademark kaffiyeh. He was in high spirits, despite the late hour, and welcomed those he’d met before with kisses and hugs, and then shook hands with the rest of us. He looked at me and asked, out of the blue: “Are you Irish?” EI co-founder Laurie King-Irani reflects on Arafat’s legacy and failings. Read more about After Arafat: refracted reflections
The saddest thing about the American election of George Bush is that in the long run it will make the United States irrelevant in all matters save that we have the power to blow the world up, many times over, through our military might. To elect a man who has brought a great nation from astonishing surpluses to the brink of fiscal and cultural bankruptcy, whose sense of moral superiority is elitist and obscene and who in the name of Christ, whose message was to love ones enemy, has declared war on an emotion - terror - and in the process killed over 100,000 people - boggles the mind. And of course, there’s always Zionist Israel and its minions pushing and prodding and mega-manipulating the message. Read more about Bush Folly, Campaign 2004 and the Middle East
Bush and Blair, seemingly jovial over Arafat’s passing, offered yet another non-starter for moving the region from its never-ending peace process to a “lasting peace.” It is said that one can fool some of the people, some of the time, but not all the people, all of the time. President Bush and Prime Minister Blair can’t possibly believe Palestinians will fall for the same tricks that have been thrown at them for years now. The substance of the most recent Bush-Blair statement on November 12 is nothing more that an unmasked and feeble attempt to fool all of the Palestinians, yet again. Read more about Play It Again Bush And Blair
Palestine mourned today as President Yasser Arafat, who passed away on November 11 in France, was laid to rest in the Muqata’a compound in Ramallah. In emotional, often chaotic scenes, thousands of Palestinians came to pay their last respects to “Abu ‘Ammar”. The video, text and images in this article were produced by Maureen Clare Murphy, Arts, Music & Culture Editor of the Electronic Intifada, who is currently living and working in Ramallah. Read more about Video/Photostory: Arafat is laid to rest in Ramallah
The New York Times’s coverage of the death of Arafat, particularly with its November 12th Op-Ed essays, exemplifies what is so wrong with American perspectives of the Palestinian struggle for independence. What voices are missing? Palestinian ones. This is the recurring problem of American and European approaches to the Middle East. Arab voices are systematically undervalued, discounted, or actively suppressed — not just by their own autocrats but also by Westerners claiming to be acting “in Arabs’ best interests”, as if the Arabs were children needing a Western parent. Read more about New York Times coverage of Arafat's death
With Arafat gone, the television screens of America are filled with “Middle East experts” who tell us that it was Arafat who was the obstacle to peace and that a new dawn is now upon us. Last night on Hardball with Chris Matthews, the host and caption team couldn’t even pronounce or spell the name of guest Palestinian Legislative Council member Hanan Ashrawi, repeatedly referring to her as Ashwari. Commentary from the guests was similarly insightful. Today, MSNBC’s Lester Holt continued the Ashwari mangling and “Terrorism expert” Harvey Kushner ludicrously claimed an Arafat/Al-Qaida link. Switch the channel, no real difference. It was the kind of Middle East coverage that got Bush reelected. Read more about Blaming Arafat for Israel's torpedoing of Oslo
On November 5th, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “As It Happens” program, rebroadcast in the US on National Public Radio, featured former Middle East Envoy Dennis Ross being interviewed about Yasser Arafat, who is currently seriously ill in a French hospital. Ross had much to say about Arafat and Camp David. Clayton E. Swisher, a former Marine reservist and federal criminal investigator, was a VIP security guard at the Camp David talks. Nation Books recently published Swisher’s The Truth About Camp David, which provides a devastating counternarrative to the commonly held myths about Arafat’s intransigence and Barak’s “generous offer” at the summit. EI’s Nigel Parry interviewed Swisher about Dennis Ross’ comments on the CBC program. Read more about Interview: Challenging Camp David mythology, four years on
In Britain, the recent publication of Glasgow University Media Group’s book ‘Bad News from Israel’ has again highlighted the depth of ignorance around the Israel-Palestine conflict and the media’s inadequacies in providing vital historical and legal context within its news coverage. Looking beyond the realm of TV news to media coverage of the conflict as a whole, it is no surprise that the likes of News International’s Times, or the Daily Telegraph with its explicit pro-Israel editorial policy, would be unwilling to address the ideological issues that lie at the heart of the conflict, but what some might find surprising is that this ideological void also exists within the supposedly liberal/centre-left press such as the Guardian and Independent. Benjamin Counsell makes the case, Guardian comment editor and columnist Seumas Milne responds. Read more about The Guardian of Zionism: The "Liberal" Press and its Missing Contexts
