Electronic Intifada : Opinion/Editorial

Unite to negotiate a real truce

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:03:57 PST

Five days into the long awaited Gaza ceasefire, Israel allowed the entry of tissues and sanitary napkins into Gaza as a form of "good will." Simultaneously, it carried out an early morning raid against a student hostel in Nablus, killing two Palestinians in their beds. Dr. Eyad al-Sarraj comments on what it will take for a permanent lifting of the siege and resisting of Israeli colonial designs.

When you shoot the messenger

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:30:17 PST

GAZA CITY (IPS) - The assault of IPS Gaza correspondent Mohammed Omer has left Israeli security personnel with a lot of explaining to do. And they are not doing a very good job of it. Omer was abused and assaulted by Israeli security personnel at the Allenby border crossing into Israel from Jordan as he tried to return to his home last week in the Gaza Strip. Omer was returning from Europe where he had addressed European parliamentarians on the situation on the ground in Gaza.

Tactics that ended apartheid in S. Africa can end it in Israel

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 03:48:43 PST

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict often inspires a sense of powerlessness. What can average Americans do to bring an end to this decades-old conflict when our leaders have failed so miserably? And what good is speaking out about Israel's occupation of Palestinian land as the primary obstacle to peace when even former President Jimmy Carter and Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu are condemned for their criticism of Israeli policies? Bill Fletcher, Jr. comments.

Zionism's dead end

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:39:31 PST

The following is adapted from a talk by Jonathan Cook delivered at the Conference for the Right of Return and the Secular Democratic State, held in Haifa on 21 June 2008. In 1895 Theodor Herzl, Zionism's chief prophet, confided in his diary that he did not favor sharing Palestine with the natives. Better, he wrote, to "try to spirit the penniless [Palestinian] population across the border by denying it any employment in our own country ... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."

Occupation by bureaucracy

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 05:54:03 PST

A ceasefire went into effect in Gaza last week, offering some respite from the violence that has killed hundreds of Palestinians and five Israelis in recent months. It will do nothing, however, to address the underlying cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Intermittent spectacular violence may draw the world's attention to the occupied Palestinian territories, but our obsession with violence actually distracts us from the real nature of Israel's occupation, which is its smothering bureaucratic control of everyday Palestinian life. Saree Makdisi comments.

Rays of hope from the Gaza ceasefire

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:46:53 PST

After the unremitting hell that Israel has inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza, one can only feel relief and even joy at the ceasefire agreed between Hamas and the Jewish state that took effect this week. Its significance extends well beyond Gaza and opens new possibilities as the disastrous Bush Doctrine begins to lose influence. Ali Abunimah comments.

Israel has won the European cup: a special relationship

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:38:29 PST

Israel has now been granted the highest level of European Union relations available to a non-member state, despite the EU's own finding that "little concrete progress" has been made on issues raised between Israel and the EU, namely Israel's human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. EI co-founder Arjan El Fassed comments on the efforts towards a "more intense, more fruitful, more influential cooperation" between the EU and Israel.

Keep Israel out of elite economic club

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:31:49 PST

Israel's ruling elite now has a major aspiration: to join the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as a member country. For the sake of the Israelis and of their neighbors, this aspiration should be thwarted by an international campaign of all supporters of peace; and, in fact, by supporters of the free market as well. EI contributor Ran HaCohen comments.

The fallacy of Islamic "national suicide"

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:21:03 PST

"National suicide" will soon be an incantation by neoconservative and other pro-Israeli pundits and politicians on the "bomb Iran" bandwagon. Its strategic implications are clear: We can't trust irrational regimes because they are not deterred by threat of annihilation. Therefore, extraordinary actions -- such as preemptive attack -- may be not only justified but necessary. George Bisharat comments.

The most reliable path to freedom

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 01:20:26 PST

For cynics who still consider the above too little progress for the given timeframe, I can only reiterate what a South African comrade once told us: "The [African National Congress] issued its academic boycott call in the 1950s; the international community started to heed it almost three decades later! So you guys are doing much better than us." EI contributor Omar Barghouti argues that boycott, divestment and sanctions are the most reliable and moral path to freedom, justice, equality and peace in Palestine and the entire Middle East.

An award for the voiceless in Gaza

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 04:36:35 PST

The siege of Gaza has many layers. I work here as a journalist, amid near-daily air and land assaults from Israel, amid the unending killings and destruction of land and livelihood, which are all made more unbearable by critical shortages of fuel, food, medicine, electricity for hospital machinery and electricity for my work. Recently I returned from fieldwork to find cheerful news from John Pilger: that I have won the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, along with my respected colleague Dahr Jamail.

Slow death in Gaza

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:21:57 PST

Each American claim to moral authority becomes a foul excretion in light of US complicity in Israel's barbaric and illegal treatment of the Palestinians. Washington deploys its superpower apparatus to smother dissent against its Middle East policy in Europe and elsewhere, leaving former president Jimmy Carter and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu as lonely defenders of Palestinian human rights. No change in American policy is on the horizon, as "the rot in America goes beyond this administration, and so does the rot in Israel." Margaret Kimberley comments.

The stigmatization of anything Palestinian or Arab

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:19:11 PST

The current controversy over a celebrity chef wearing what some mistook for the traditional Palestinian kuffiyeh in a Dunkn' Donuts ad points to the increasing tendency to collapse everything Arab, especially Palestinian, into the category "terrorist." EI contributor Lilith Hope writes that the prejudice interpretation of this national and cultural symbol will only exacerbate the stigma that surrounds anything Palestinian or Arab.

Normalizing occupation: Syria, Israel and "peace talks"

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 04:04:50 PST

It may be too early to determine what truly lies behind the secret Syria-Israel "peace talks." With Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert positioned to leave office under a cloud of scandal and after a rash of policy failures across the Middle East, the Bush Administration is now counting its last days in power. Thus, it appears that the Syrian government has chosen an opportune time to attempt to usher in a new positive period for itself. Whatever the intentions of the parties involved in these negotiations, at least one thing can be said that makes them irrelevant. Yaman Salahi comments for EI.

Beyond the make-believe of negotiations

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:04:23 PST

Israel needs a Palestinian state -- or at least the illusion of one -- to mask the reality of apartheid where millions of Palestinians, soon to be the majority population between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, are ruled by a Jewish sectarian government in which they have no rights. EI co-founders Arjan El Fassed and Ali Abunimah comment.

Between oppression and empowerment

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 04:22:05 PST

Defining the status of the Palestinian citizens of Israel has always been a puzzle for many scholars. One called the Palestinian citizens "semi-citizens" with accidental citizenship. Another distinguished between "liberal citizenship" granted to the Arabs and "republican citizenship" granted to the Jews. A third distinguished between "incidental citizenship" granted to the Arabs and "substantive citizenship" granted to the Jews. I have contributed to this discussion by claiming that the Palestinians are "citizens without citizenship." Nimer Sultany comments.

From the Nakba to Absurdistan

Fri, 30 May 2008 10:09:43 PST

The matrix of vulnerabilities that attend this state of statelessness raises an obvious question: if the Nakba is still in progress, then how will it end? Few people believe Annapolis holds the answer. As Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently admitted, "Nothing has been achieved in the negotiations with Israel yet." Sharif Hamadeh comments.

A change needs to come

Mon, 26 May 2008 01:05:09 PST

Since Israel's foundational belief is that Jewish people can only be safe in an exclusively Jewish state, Israel's charter is simple. Israel is required to maintain itself as a safe haven for all Jewish people. Based on their past experience and national and religious narratives Jewish people deeply believe that it's only a matter of time before the tide once again turns against them.

Acknowledging the tragedy

Wed, 21 May 2008 08:38:31 PST

I grew up hearing about what my own family lost in Jaffa, the coastal city from which Jewish militias drove them in 1948. There were occasional references to Deir Yassin -- where more than 100 unarmed Palestinian villagers were massacred -- and the role it played in the psychological war against the Palestinians, who fled fearing for their lives. Raja Shehadeh writes from Ramallah.

Refugees are the key

Tue, 20 May 2008 05:25:41 PST

Today there are over 5.5 million Palestinian refugees and displaced persons who have never been allowed the choice to return to their homes or given redress for their losses. The continued denial of their rights encapsulates the decades-long strife, disenfranchisement and dispossession the Palestinians have suffered. EI contributor Sam Bahour comments.