Electronic Intifada : Palestine

Minister calls for Jewish takeover of Palestinian areas in Israel

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:58:36 PST

Israel's housing minister called for strict segregation between the country's Jewish and Arab populations last week as he unveiled plans to move large numbers of fundamentalist religious Jews to Israel's north to prevent what he described as an "Arab takeover" of the region. Jonathan Cook reports.

Book review: Lebanon's political posters as sites of struggle

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:15:18 PST

The power of posters, as not merely symbolic weapons but also sites of hegemonic struggle during Lebanon's civil war, is a central theme of Zeina Maasri's new book Off the Wall: Political Posters of the Lebanese Civil War. A mix of text and image, the book is a rich and visually engaging work that tackles a dimension of war long-neglected by Lebanese historians. Hicham Safieddine reviews for The Electronic Intifada.

Hiyam, a Gaza teenager killed as she offered aid

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 13:19:59 PST

"At 5:30 PM an Israeli shell landed on my brother's house," the father told visitors who had come to offer condolences for his daughter at the family's home on Friday. The shell injured a nephew and Salim Abu Ayish rushed to render aid. The Electronic Intifada correspondent Rami Almeghari reports from the occupied Gaza Strip.

Gaza's sea a "no-go zone" for fishermen

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:15:40 PST

GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - "They told us 'go west or we will shoot you,'" says Ashraf Sadallah. "Initially, we refused, so they began shooting very close all around our boat." At 6am on 16 June, Sadallah and his brother Abdel Hadi Sadallah, in their early twenties, went roughly 400 meters out to sea off the coast of Sudaniya in Gaza's northwest. "We wanted to bring in nets we had left out the night before," says Sadallah.

Why Obama should fire General Dayton

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:52:58 PST

The US-sponsored "security coordination" program headed by Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, which was launched by the Bush Administration in 2005 to allegedly help the Palestinians reform their security services, has done more harm than good. US President Barack Obama would do well to fire Dayton and put an end to US intrusion into internal Palestinian affairs. Mohammed J. Herzallah comments for The Electronic Intifada.

Gaza aid boat crew detained, threatened with deportation

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:50:44 PST

RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - Twenty-one international peace activists were seized by Israeli naval frigates in international waters Tuesday as their boat The Spirit of Humanity tried to carry humanitarian aid to Gaza. The activists, including former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and Irish Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire, and nationals from 11 other countries were part of the Free Gaza Movement (FGM) efforts to break Israel's naval and border blockade of Gaza.

Newsroom politics dramatized in "Oh Well Never Mind Bye"

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:32:13 PST

The play Oh Well Never Mind Bye is set in the busy newsroom of an unnamed London-based newspaper -- probably a right-wing tabloid -- in the days before and after London police shot dead a Brazilian immigrant on an underground train. But in a genuinely brave piece of playwriting, Steven Lally has drawn on wider themes, including the "churnalism" that has turned much of the journalistic profession into a regurgitation of celebrity press releases, the way in which Palestine and related issues are reported in the mainstream media and the influence of the Zionist lobby on news coverage. Sarah Irving reviews for The Electronic Intifada.

Month in pictures: June 2009

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:35:48 PST

The below photographs are a selection of images from the month of June 2009. "The month in pictures" is an ongoing feature by The Electronic Intifada. If you have images documenting Palestine, Palestinian life, politics and culture, or of solidarity with Palestine, please email images and captions to photos A T electronicintifada D O T net.

Drug addiction on the rise in besieged Gaza

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:31:40 PST

GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - They are little white, yellow or green pills and are available almost anywhere. At the pharmacies or in the market, they are accessible, addictive and cheap. "I take them because it makes me forget, at least for a little while, that I'm in Gaza," says Abu Alaa, a resident of the strip and father of four. "There is no alternative." Looking to escape years of war, searing poverty and an unrelenting economic blockade, medical officials in the Gaza Strip say residents have developed a serious addiction to the narcotic painkiller Tramadol.

Salam Fayyad's false optimism

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:09:42 PST

A Palestinian state could become "a firm reality" by the "end of next year or within two years at the most," Salam Fayyad, the prime minister appointed by Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas, was quoted as saying on 22 June in a speech at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, a village outside Jerusalem. Such expectations have been frequently voiced before by former Palestinian prime minister and negotiator Ahmad Qureia, or the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. But what is more evident are the facts on the ground that do not provide much support for these expectations. Rami Almeghari comments for The Electronic Intifada.

Israeli gunboats seize Gaza aid ship

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:17:52 PST

Today Israeli Occupation Forces attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, the Spirit of Humanity, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries, including Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (see below for a complete list of passengers). The passengers and crew are being forcibly dragged toward Israel.

"Embers and Ashes:" An intellectual's exile, struggle and success

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:36:49 PST

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.

Israeli doctors colluding in torture of Palestinian detainees

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:43:05 PST

Israel's watchdog body on medical ethics has failed to investigate evidence that doctors working in detention facilities are turning a blind eye to cases of torture, according to Israeli human rights groups. The Israeli Medical Association (IMA) has ignored repeated requests to examine such evidence, the rights groups say, even though it has been presented with examples of Israeli doctors who have broken their legal and ethical duty towards Palestinians in their care. Jonathan Cook reports.

Casualties rising in Gaza's "buffer zone"

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:29:11 PST

This is not an unusual situation in Gaza, where Israel has repeatedly used the dart bombs. Due to their design, flechettes dig deeply into their target -- flesh, cement and metal alike -- with their "tails" frequently breaking off, leaving multiple injuries and rendering them nearly impossible to extract without inflicting more injury in the surgical search. In most cases, doctors opt against surgery, leaving the darts inside the victim's body. Eva Bartlett reports from the Gaza Strip.

Egypt close to brokering Hamas-Fatah agreement

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:41:54 PST

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.

The elephant in the room: Israel's nuclear weapons

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:30:22 PST

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.

Melbourne dumps Connex following boycott campaign

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:04:18 PST

Connex has been dumped by the Victorian State Government as Melbourne's train system operator. Moammar Mashni of Australians for Palestine said that after four months of campaigning and some 100,000 pamphlets distributed, Palestine advocacy groups can take heart. "This is the first step in what we hope will become a strong boycotts, divestments and sanctions movement in Australia against Israel's apartheid policies," Mashni said.

Israeli banks accused of Holocaust profiteering

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:17:56 PST

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.

Australia's pro-Israel policies, pro-Palestine public

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:52:16 PST

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.

Report finds Israel still torturing Palestinians

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:53:36 PST

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.