In an incredible example of how acceptable even the most extreme manifestations of anti-Arab racism have become in Israel, the website of the leading English/Hebrew daily, Ha’aretz today ran a front page advertisement that warned: “If the Arab population in Israel will reach 40% the Jewish State will be nullified. For the only solution press here.” The link lead to the website of an Israeli group that campaigns against abortion and offers material and emotional support to pregnant mothers before and after their babies are born. Read more about Haaretz.com runs ad discouraging Jewish abortions as "only solution" to Arab population growth
Until recently, there has been no affordable and timely translation source for non-Arabic-speaking diaspora Arabs or Westerners to read the Arabic press. Mideastwire.com was launched on June 15th, 2005. The service (currently free to subscribers) provides a daily email newsletter with the days headlines (translated and summarized) from all the top Arabic and Persian newspapers. Since the service is operated and dispatched from Beirut, Lebanon, the correspondents (who are scattered worldwide)� and editors have the entire workday to get the newletter finished and into the inboxes of American subscribers by midday/late morning in the United States. Read more about An affordable translation service from the Arabic language press
The fact that thousands of Palestinians and hundreds of Israelis are together employing nonviolent tactics similar to those of the U.S. civil rights movement and the South African anti-Apartheid movement would come as surprising and welcome news to most Americans. Americans are largely unaware of the struggling but vibrant grassroots nonviolent movement in Palestine, because the U.S. corporate media prefers a simple, flawed story of Palestinian terrorist attacks and Israeli retaliation. Read more about The invisibility of Palestinian Nonviolent Resistance in the New York Times
“Palestine Report, under-funded, understaffed and overworked as it has been simply trying to keep up with the violence of the past few years, nevertheless always tried to present those stories that got lost amid the bombs and bulldozers.” However, due to financial pressures it has simply ceased to be feasible to continue producing the Report to the standards we have tried hard to maintain for so long. Over the years, the PR has enjoyed the contributions of writers and journalists from all over the world, and the following are some contributors’ reactions to PR’s untimely demise. Read more about Farewell to All That: Palestine Report comes to a close
The event marked forty days since the assassination of the resistance fighter Mohammed Sufwat Al Assi (Nino), the shooting of sixteen-year-old fighter Khalid Mohammed Msyme and the anniversaries of many more killings. The last time the young girls in the traditional Palestinian embroidered dresses performed, Nino himself was on the stage. Then the girls sang in tribute to Nino’s friend Kalil Marshood, marking a year since his assassination by the Israeli occupation forces. Within a month of Kalil’s anniversary ta’been, Nino too was assassinated. Yesterday, the girls were singing again. This time, they had guns. Read more about Behind the images of children with guns
PA Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Al Qidwa walked into a side room before his 11am press conference dressed in a dapper navy suit and smelling of aftershave. His sophisticated comportment refined by many years of service as PLO representative to the UN in New York, integrated well with the setting of the Palestinian press center hosting the event. As one of the Palestinians’ most internationally recognized talking heads, Qidwa no doubt had prepared a succinct list of talking points sufficient to provide the necessary sound bites to represent “the Palestinian perspective” for the evening news stories across the world. Too bad he never got a chance to say them though. Read more about Real News: Disengaged in Gaza
Given Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s recent promises to harshly punish any Palestinian attempts to disrupt the disengagement process, had last week’s gunman in the West Bank settlement of Shilo been a Palestinian rather than an Israeli, and the four dead Israeli rather than Palestinian, Gazans would have likely woken up the following morning to tanks in their streets. But as it stands, the shooting of four Palestinian laborers by an Israeli settler - whose motive is reported to have been to stop the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza - has not even merited putting the more ideologically extreme settlements under military curfew, which Palestinian population centers have experienced for thousands of hours during this Intifada. Read more about Four murdered Palestinians not considered newsworthy during disengagement
On February 8, 2005, at the Sharm e-Sheikh summit, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) declared a ceasefire after more than four years of Intifada. Since the summit, the two sides have exchanged mutual recriminations on intentional and unintentional violations of the understandings that were reached. Keshev examined how the major Israeli media outlets covered the ceasefire, how they interpreted the actions (both positive and negative) of both sides, and how they dealt with each side’s pronouncements concerning violations of the ceasefire by the other side. Keshev concludes that the Israeli media played down Israeli violations and covered criticism of Palestinians profusely. Read more about Israeli media: "Quiet, We’re Disengaging!"
Journalist Jonathan Cook writing the letter one reporter in Israel wishes he could send news editors who ask him to cover Israel’s Gaza disengagement. Israel is not giving foreign journalists free access to the Gaza Strip, or even the settlements, during the disengagement. Apparently, the only way to “witness” the disengagement will be by applying to the Israeli press office for a place on a number of army coaches transporting reporters to individual settlements. I am opposed in principle to the idea of being shepherded around by the army while covering this event. How is this not just another form of “embedding”? But in any case I am told seats on the coaches will be extremely limited, maybe only a few dozen, and are bound to be snapped up by the media big-hitters. Read more about How to cover disengagement?
On July 22, E. J. Kessler, deputy managing editor of the oldest and most revered American Jewish weekly, Forward, reported that “a far-left pro-Palestinian group” sought to pass a divestment resolution at the AFL-CIO quadrennial convention, which takes place in Chicago next week. As a co-founder of this “far-left group,” Labor for Palestine — which is not a “group” but a campaign as its Web site’s watermark indicates on every page — I find it worth noting some errors and points of conjecture that my colleague’s article contains. LFP represents one of many organized movements that are dissatisfied with the AFL-CIO’s well-documented complicity with US foreign policy. Read more about Helping Forward move forward
