In his autobiography, Embers and Ashes: Memoirs of an Arab Intellectual, the late Hisham Sharabi transports the reader seamlessly from his early life in Palestine, where he was born in 1927, to his studies at the American University of Beirut, and finally his own American experience and life as a university professor at Georgetown. While it occasionally lacks cohesion, the book is unmistakably personal and insightful. Atef Alshaer reviews for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about "Embers and Ashes:" An intellectual's exile, struggle and success
JERUSALEM (IPS) - Under a complex twin-pronged initiative from the US and Egypt, Israel’s hard-line government is moving towards backtracking on two major planks of its policy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories — resisting demands for a blanket freeze on all settlement building in the West Bank, and acquiescing in the end of its tight siege of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Read more about Egypt close to brokering Hamas-Fatah agreement
Israel’s second-largest bank will be forced to defend itself in court in the coming weeks over claims it is withholding tens of millions of dollars in “lost” accounts belonging to Jews who died in the Nazi death camps. Bank Leumi has denied it holds any such funds despite a parliamentary committee revealing in 2004 that the bank owes at least $75 million to the families of several thousand Holocaust victims. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Israeli banks accused of Holocaust profiteering
RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel has accused the Israeli security forces of deliberately shackling Palestinian prisoners in a painful and dangerous manner, amounting to a form of torture. The report, “Shackling as a Form of Torture and Abuse,” based on the evidence of over 500 prisoners, was released in advance of the UN International Day in Support of Torture Victims Friday, 26 June. Read more about Report finds Israel still torturing Palestinians
The little Sydney-based pro-Palestine lobby group which I chair called Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine decided we would commission a high class, well-known, opinion poll company to test whether Australia’s Labor machine or politicians knew something we didn’t — for example, that their one-sidedness reflected “the will of the people.” Peter Manning comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Australia's pro-Israel policies, pro-Palestine public
RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - Egyptian mediators have set 7 July as deadline for final Palestinian reconciliation talks in Cairo. The Egyptians say time is running out, and if there is no progress in July, they will no longer be prepared to arbitrate. Continued political detention and abuse of Palestinian prisoners by Hamas in Gaza and by the Fatah-affiliated Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank could, however, derail the talks before they even begin. Read more about Political arrests may derail unity talks
At a White House press conference on 18 May 2009, US President Barack Obama expressed “deepening concern” about “the potential pursuit of a nuclear weapon by Iran.” He continued: “Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon would not only be a threat to Israel and a threat to the United States, but would be profoundly destabilizing in the international community as a whole and could set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.” By his side was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the room with them, there was an elephant, a large and formidably destructive elephant, which they and the assembled press pretended not to see. David Morrison comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about The elephant in the room: Israel's nuclear weapons
Instead of coming up with an alternative program to that of the Palestinian Authority, and all the organizations belonging to it, and instead of building on the unprecedented, growing solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza, the leadership of Hamas, in statements made by its leaders and — more importantly — letters sent to the US president, have begun a process of deterioration like that of their predecessors who sold out Palestinian rights at Oslo. Haidar Eid comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Hamas' political immaturity
Of the 27 films featured in the 2009 Chicago Palestine Film Festival held last April, two exceptional shorts demonstrate the breadth of recent Palestinian cinema. Approaching the Israeli occupation from contrasting vantage points, Be Quiet(2006) and The View (2008) press viewers to imagine life under a system that dictates virtually every minute of one’s being. Maymanah Farhat reviews for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about New short films showcase breadth of Palestinian cinema
In what Nobel Peace laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel has termed “a witch hunt and an attack on democratic freedoms,” nine pro-Palestinian protesters in Argentina have been detained following a demonstration at an event celebrating Israel’s 61st anniversary. The activists have been vilified as violent anti-Semites by politicians and the television and print media, and now face up to 12 years in prison for “ideological arrogance,” under revived Juan Peron-era anti-terrorism legislation of dubious constitutionality. Hugh Harkin reports for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Argentina case threatens to criminalize criticism of Israel
