One need not look further than the present, Gaza’s “Red October”. To date, Israeli forces have killed over 140 Palestinians, while some ten-times that number are homeless and starving. For the most part, the Times has its snake oils out again. A few exceptions stand out, like the vaguely balanced and grimly titled feature by Steven Erlanger, “Intifada’s Legacy at Year 4: A Morass of Faded Hopes”; or the October 4 op-ed by Michael Tarazi, which, unlike other Times op-eds, was pulled from the Web site the following day. Zachary Wales reports. Read more about The New York Times' coverage of Operation "Days of Penitence" in Gaza
“When the Palestinians come we put on our show,” says a youthful Israeli soldier manning a checkpoint at Nablus’ Jericho road. This “show,” as it is richly documented in the new Israeli film Checkpoint, serves a seemingly dual purpose. First and foremost, it is intended to remind Palestinians just who is in power; and secondly, it serves as a form of entertainment to the young Israelis whose compulsory military service finds them wasting their time and talents at these roadblocks in the occupied Palestinian territories. Read more about Documentary film review: "Checkpoint"
September 11 brings into the open, forcing into the daylight of consciousness, the legacies of history - of racial hubris, of disequilibria imposed by wars, of messianism, of reincarnated fossils, of tribalism sanctified by religion, of racial hubris, of social science in the service of power, of naked greed disguised in the rhetoric of the civilizing mission, of citizens fed on lies and sedated by amusements, of cruelty cultivated as a racial virtue, of injustices that cannot be allowed to stand. September 11 establishes beyond reasonable doubt that the United States is deeply, irrevocably connected to the Arab world, the Islamicate world, in ways it cannot ignore or deny. Read more about Making sense of our times: Excerpts from "Is There an Islamic Problem?"
The European Union is on the verge of introducing a major new policy designed to bring member states closer to their neighbors. Launching a new initiative towards Israel and the Palestinian Authority and concluding negotiations on a new bilateral agreement with Israel, the EU this week also adopted a common position to extend the permits of Palestinians deported from Bethlehem in May 2002 for a further period of twelve months. EI co-founder Arjan El Fassed argues that the EU has never taken concrete steps to enforce international law in Occupied Palestine. A serious EU step towards enforcing international law should start with respecting the law itself. Read more about EU launches new initiative as deportation of Palestinians is extended
As usual, there has been a disproportionate and unbalanced reaction to recent and ongoing violence in our region. EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah looks at the media, official and UN reactions to Israel’s massacres in Gaza and US attacks in Iraq on the one hand, and the Taba bombings and attacks on westerners in Iraq on the other. More and more we see a world in which those who possess high-tech weaponry and uniforms are entitled to kill people far from their shores with absolute impunity and call it “self-defence” while those who challenge them in their own streets and villages in any way are labelled “terrorists”. Read more about Double standards that kill
The prestigious International Crisis Group (ICG) has published a report entitled “Dealing with Hamas.” EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah reviewed it hoping to find an original and independent approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Instead, he finds little more than repetition of clichés and shallow recommendations based on an analysis that does not scratch the surface of misguided conventional widsom. One of its flaws is evident in its title - its authors seem to accept and endorse the widely-held view that had it not been for Hamas and suicide bombings, the region would be much closer to peace and security. This assumption has the attraction of being simple, and politically uncontroversial in the west, but it is also wrong. Read more about The ICG report on Hamas: a shallow approach to a complex issue
Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center Director Adila Laidi explains that the role of culture evolves over time and raises to the public questions like the normalcy of the Israeli Occupation. If Edward Said and Noam Chomsky argue that the role of the intellectual is to speak truth to power and Bill Moyers says the same of journalism, then what Laidi is arguing is much the same for art and culture in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Laidi says that since the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, there has been no normal life. And that as the role of art and culture develop as a means of expression in the context of the Occupation and the current intifada, the Sakakini Cultural Center has a duty to reach beyond the middle, educated classes. Read more about Culture and dissent: Khalil Sakakini Center looks towards creative resistance
The fourth anniversary of Israel’s violent crackdown on the Palestinian uprising, which coincided with its latest massacre of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, occasioned a number of analyses, many concluding — wishfully — that the Intifada has been “counterproductive” for the Palestinians, or even a “failure.” But EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah and co-founder Ali Abunimah argue that Israel remains at a strategic dead end, while Palestinians on the ground are unbroken and Israel is far from victory. The is a danger that Israel, unable to escape from this predicament, may seek to spread the conflict to its neighbors. Read more about Judging the Intifada
“Twelve years ago, an El Al Boeing airplane carrying military cargo crashed into an apartment building in the Bijlmer neighbourhood of Amsterdam. Forty-three people directly lost their lives. More people have died since then, and many are still suffering from unidentified diseases. The Dutch government denies any connection between health ailments and the disaster, though hundreds of people inhaled poisonous smoke from the burning airplane and the apartment building. Some of the El Al plane’s cargo is still unknown, but three of the four components of sarin nerve gas were present at the crash site.” Lizzy Bloem reports for Electronic Intifada from Amsterdam Read more about The 1992 El Al Bijlmer crash: a cover-up of a chemical inferno?
Syria is a country that few people in the West know much about, or care to visit. After all, this is one of the countries that George W. Bush declared part of the “Axis of Evil.” But when I travelled to Syria for the first time, I could not find anything “evil” about it. Indeed, I did not find anything “evil” in the way Syria treats Palestinians who were forced to flee their homeland in 1948; and after my interview with Lex Takkenburg, Deputy Director-General of the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Syria, I concluded that “compassionate” would be a more accurate description of Syria than “evil.” Read more about The myths and reality of Palestinian refugees in Syria: An interview with Lex Takkenberg
