Demolition decimating Palestinian village
RAMALLAH (IPS) � Al Walajeh village was once a quiet but busy place. Just four kilometers from Bethlehem and 8.5 km from Jerusalem, its rolling hills filled with fruit trees, natural forests, and blooming vegetation made it a prime farming location. Easy access to large and consistent markets led its inhabitants to relative economic...
UN: Israel’s siege of Gaza breeds extremism and human suffering
November 23rd, 20070 Jerusalem � A senior United Nations official has issued an unprecedented appeal to British MPs to use their influence to try to alleviate the impact of "indiscriminate" and "illegal" Israeli sanctions in Gaza which display "profound inhumanity" and are "serving the agenda of extremists."In one of the strongest attacks on recent Israeli...The undeclared Palestinian civil war
The Palestinians have never been as divided and weak as they have been since this summer's infighting in Gaza. Their internal conflict is undermining international solidarity and distracting them from challenging the Israeli occupation. The Palestinian territories could explode at any moment. HAMAS accuses Fatah of conspiring against its...Gaza marks Arafat death in bloodshed
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians marked the third anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death in Gaza Monday with more inter-Palestinian bloodshed, underscoring a division that the late Arafat had relentlessly tried to avert since the 1993 interim peace accords with Israel and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in the...Israel threatens Gaza with blackout
JERUSALEM � Israel unveiled a new tactic this week aimed at deterring Palestinians from firing rockets out of the Gaza Strip. It will cut off Gaza's electricity bit by bit as a pressure tactic every time rockets hit Israeli territory. Israel provides more than half of Gaza's electricity, and any power cutoff is sure to make life more...Prisoner swap: Marwan for Gilad?
Ramallah � More than 11,000 Palestinian prisoners are in Israeli jails. One Israeli soldier, captured 16 months ago, is being held by Palestinians in Gaza. Behind the new push for Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation are reports of talks about a possible controversial trade-off that could see the release of two of those prisoners. Such...Mourning two Palestinian giants
When I began seeing e-mails with the name "Dr. Haidar Abdel Shafi" in the subject line, I figured he must be speaking somewhere. In August 2002, I saw him speak at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC. I remember thinking how sharp his analysis was. It was so sharp, I forgot how old he was (he was born in 1919). Dr. Haidar Abdel...Gaza youth killed by IDF bulldozer
GAZA � A 17-year-old Palestinian was crushed to death by an IDF bulldozer in the central Gaza Strip on Thursday, Palestinians sources reported. The youth was transferred to al-Aqsa hospital in the Strip, and hospital officials reported many signs of trampling on his body. Palestinians reported that IDF choppers participated in the...The Palestinian Mandela
The division of the Palestinian territories into a "Hamastan" in the Gaza Strip and a "Fatahland" in the West Bank is a disaster. A disaster for the Palestinians, a disaster for peace, and therefore also a disaster for Israelis. The Israeli political and military leadership are happy about the split, according to the doctrine "What's...Palestinians poorer than ever
BRUSSELS (IPS) � Poverty in the Palestinian territories has reached "unprecedented levels" because they have been held under an "economic siege" for almost seven years, a United Nations body has found. During 2006 the number of Palestinians living in "deep poverty" almost doubled to more than 1 million. Some 46 percent of public...Palestine: A policy of deliberate blindness
Dennis Ross, formerly the United States envoy to the Middle East, admitted back in 2000 that mistakes had been made in the 1978 Camp David accords: The diplomatic process had not taken enough account of developments on the ground, especially the settlements. The number of Jewish settlers in the Palestinian territories doubled from 1994...Doesn’t anyone hear those awful cries from Gaza?
No one seems to hear the cries from Gaza enough to act, despite the reports that talk about imminent economic collapse, dangerous food shortages, total aid dependency and impending humanitarian disaster. Neither the cries nor the reports appear in the headlines or news alerts in our mainstream media. And, while the statistics make...What do Israel, U.S. expect from Abbas?
The rash and self-defeatist behavior emanating from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his close circle in the West Bank cannot possibly be intended for the benefit of the Palestinian people or for their internationally sanctioned struggle for human rights, freedom and equality. Abbas, and his self-serving Palestinian...The closed door meetings of Mahmoud Abbas
When Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestine Authority in Ramallah, holds three-hour meetings in Jericho with Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, and when these meetings are restricted to the two men only for half the time, the agenda must include issues of a very grave nature that require prior agreement. Mahmoud...Hamas optimism vs. Fatah despair
PALESTINE � Even in the face of possible economic collapse, Hamas leaders want to figure out a better way to collect garbage in Gaza. The Islamist movement, which now controls the coastal strip, is working out ways to create new jobs and reduce petty crime. A new enthusiasm has swept through this territory in the aftermath of the......
Israel’s primal myth: A barrier to peace
Forget about Hamas, the wall, Gaza and the Occupied Territories. There can be no peace in the Middle East until Israel and the Palestinians deal with one key issue: the Palestinian demand that Israel recognize their right of return. That demand is based on the Arab charge that the Zionist state created the refugee problem in the war of...The Palestinian experiment: A defining turn
All my forewarnings have suddenly actualized, all at once: Gaza has descended into total and utter chaos; Abbas has capitulated to Israel and to the United States without a shred of reservation, and the Palestinian democratic experiment, which was until recently an astounding success, has been smashed to bits. For years I have......
