Since the start of the Gaza war, our budget has tripled as we hired more editors and writers. We must not stop now as the Israeli genocide against innocent civilians in the Strip is worsening. Your solidarity is more critical than ever before.
Month: October 2008
The US President- King of the Planet
By Uri Avnery The president of the United States is the king of this planet. I live on this planet. Therefore, the election of the President concerns me, too. Very much so. The President is not […]
Israel Bans Mental Health Doctors from Gaza
Dozens of mental health specialists on Sunday protested Israel’s closure of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip after they were prevented from entering to attend a conference there. Around 70 demonstrators waved signs denouncing the Israeli closure […]
Nahr al-Bared: Despair, Trauma and Discontent
By IRIN – Nahr al-Bared They look like cargo crates: long lines of prefabricated steel units, stacked two high, set on the edge of the ruined Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. Inside […]
Restricted Land Access Harming Palestinian Economy: WB
Palestinians’ restricted access to land in the West Bank, due to Israeli administration of the area, has adversely affected the local economy: In the past eight years per capita gross domestic product (GDP) has fallen […]
A Glimmer of Hope
By Saleh Al-Naami After many meetings, consultations and deliberations the Egyptian government has succeeded in formulating a draft agreement for Palestinian national reconciliation which both Fatah and Hamas have approved in principle. The Palestinian National […]
Israel Heads for Snap Polls
Israeli premier-designate Tzipi Livni has decided to abort negotiations to form a new coalition government, opting for snap general elections one year ahead of schedule. "We’ll go to elections as soon as possible," Livni, the […]
Israel Sees Arab Initiative as an Opportunity
Israeli President Shimon Peres has endorsed on Thursday the "spirit" of a broad Arab initiative as an "opportunity" that can bring peace to a Middle East, still torn by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Peres, welcomed with […]
World Food Day: Global Crises’ Double Standards
By Ramzy Baroud The 25th annual World Food Day, marked on 16 October, was an occasion whose arrival and passing received little media attention or governmental fanfare. Evidently, much of the world media and governments […]
Tortured in West Bank Prisons
By Ola Attallah – Ramallah Hamza Al-Qaraawi, a nursing student at An-Najah University, was sitting with his family when he heard knocks at their door. When he opened the door, a dozen of plain-clothed, grimed-faced […]
A League of Their Own
By Hussein Al-alak "The world is a dark enough place for even a spark to be welcome!" – Sir. Terence Rattigan Walking through the streets of down town Amman, among the ruins of the ancient Roman Amphitheatre […]
Fatah in Turmoil
By Khaled Amayreh – Ramallah The sacking by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas of Intelligence Chief Tawfiq Tirawi on Tuesday seems to be more than just a "formality" related to the latter reaching the […]
Short Film Sequences at a Checkpoint
By Mats Svensson I had seen it before, a few days earlier. I had seen it on my way into one of the many homelands of the 21st century. I saw the woman who wasn’t let […]
Feeling Robbed?
By Kevin Zeese So far the US taxpayer has given Wall Street, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and the big banks $1.2 trillion. Did anyone hear a thank you? How about an apology for their risky gambling […]
Demanding a Settler-Free Olive Harvest
By Joharah Baker – The West Bank It is no wonder Jewish settlements are at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not only do they usurp Palestinians from land and water and cut into their […]
Community Organizing and the Economic Crisis
By Yossef Ben-Meir In recent days, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and this year’s Nobel Prize winner in economics Paul Krugman expressed support for a fiscal stimulus package in the face of the economic crisis. […]
Walls of Separation, Physical and Mental
By Hatim Kanaaneh I have just emerged from a week-long frustrating experience. It was exhilarating to spend the week in the company of our good guests, friends to whom we owe much. Yet now I […]
Illegitimate Orphans in Gaza on the Rise
By Ola al-Madhoun – Gaza A human rights organization in Gaza released a report showing a rise in the number of children abandoned in Gaza and warned that the problem of abandoned and illegitimate children […]
Book Review: The Rape of Palestine
By Jim Miles Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied: the Rape of Palestine. William A. Cook. EXPATHOS, Groningen, Netherlands, 2008. The cover of Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied: the Rape of Palestine tells a significant story on its […]
Hamas and Fatah Accept Cairo Plan
By Mohamed el-Sawwaf – Gaza Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah have given their initial blessings to an Egyptian-crafted reconciliation plan to end months of divisions that followed weeks of infighting. "The paper has several positive points […]
Playing for Peace
By Nadia W. Awad – The West Bank My 16-year old brother arrived home yesterday aching and tired, exhausted from a day of participating in the Peace League, a football league involving different high schools […]
On Gaza’s Suffocating Siege
By The Popular Committee Against Siege (PCAS) – The Gaza Strip Introduction As the Gaza Strip enters its fifth month of "calm" with the Israelis, 80 percent of the population lives below the line of poverty. Palestinian […]
Is Akko (Akka) Burning?
By Uri Avnery – Israel Throughout its thousands of years of history, Akko has never been an Israelite town. Even according to the mythological story of the Bible, the Israelites did not conquer the city, […]
Why I’m Voting for Nader
By Robert Weitzel I had just pressed the ‘donate now’ button on votenader.org when my email pinged. It was a rambling missive from Neil, a self-described ‘Grumpy Old Son Of A Beach’ who’d read an […]
Understanding Terror
By Deepak Tripathi The 9/11 attacks on America and the subsequent "war on terror" prosecuted by President George W. Bush have brought the debate on terrorism into sharp focus. Hardly any country today can claim to […]
Lebanon Reports Israeli Violations to UN
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora has sent two letters to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accusing Israel of violating Lebanese sovereignty through threats and of refusing to turn over maps highlighting locations of cluster bombs, a […]
Gaza’s Tunnels: A Dangerous, Vital Lifeline
Underground explosions have become a real threat to life in the Gaza Strip, as smugglers bring basic goods, such as fuel, through illegal underground tunnels from Egypt into the blockaded enclave. Some 39 people have […]
Israeli Medical Mission Denied Entry into Gaza
Israel has denied a group of Israeli medical volunteers entry into the Gaza Strip, affecting the group’s ability to reach patients in the beleaguered enclave, an official told IRIN. "We had 350 patients waiting for […]
A Letter to America: Why Must the Show Go On?
By Mary Rizzo – Italy It’s not easy or even fun to be an expatriate. Unless you didn’t know, that is just a highfalutin word that is used especially for American emigrants. Why the special […]
Now the Cost of War Really Matters
By Kevin Zeese Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz predicts the Iraq war will cost the United States 3 trillion USD. Nouriel Roubini, the economist who predicted today’s financial crisis in 2006, predicts the U.S. will […]
Israel ‘Brand’ Will Magically Smell Sweeter
By Stuart Littlewood – London As many others have remarked, Israel is among the worst brand-names on the planet. That’s understandable considering the regime was founded on terror, is massively armed and subsidised by the […]