Occupied Palestine and Israel: News and Articles
News
Egyptian officials to visit Ramallah, Jerusalem for talks
Ha'aretz 8/20/2004
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and the head of Egypt's intelligence service, Omar Suliman, will visit Israel and the Palestinian Authority later this month, according to a report published Friday by Egyptian daily Al-Ahram. The Egyptian officials are slated to meet with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to discuss several issues, including Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of West Bank, the paper said.
Hamas threatens to kidnap Israeli soldiers
Middle East Online 8/20/2004
Senior Hamas official warns his movement could abduct Israeli soldiers to secure release of Palestinian inmates. -- JABALIYA, Gaza Strip - A senior Hamas official warned Friday that the radical Islamist movement could abduct Israeli soldiers to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails.
Israel said to be preparing strike against Hizbullah
Daily Star 8/20/2004
BEIRUT: A Western European diplomatic source said Friday that his country had information that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was poised to strike at Hizbullah. The military strike, which is likely to precede the Nov. 8 US presidential elections, could be a serious blow to the Lebanese side, unless the Lebanese government acts wisely to prevent such an attack.
Internal pressure grows over route of Israeli barrier
Daily Star 8/20/2004
ICJ ruling could lead to sanctions -- A Supreme Court order and a rare admonition from the attorney general raised the heat on Israel to reassess its West Bank separation wall Friday, as a senior government official said the country would have to explain why it won't heed a World Court ruling to dismantle the barrier. Attorney General Meni Mazuz on Thursday warned that the International Court of Justice's July ruling at The Hague urging Israel to tear down the barrier could lead to sanctions against the Jewish state.
Israel court orders barrier reply
BBC 8/20/2004
Israel's High Court has ordered the government to respond within 30 days to a World Court ruling that the West Bank barrier is illegal. In a related development, the Haaretz newspaper reports that Attorney General Menachem Mazuz has advised the government to reroute the barrier. He argued that this will help Israel to avoid international sanctions, it says.
Bitter harvest in Gaza's breadbasket
Al-Jazeera 8/20/2004
The irony is unmistakable when trees gifted by a US taxpayer-funded organisation are bulldozed by Israeli weapons financed in part by the same US taxpayers. And it is not lost on Bait Hanun inhabitant Um Muhammad. From atop her two-storey home in the northern Gaza Strip village, only a few hundred metres away from the border with Israel, she points resignedly to the 26 donoms of her family's land that armoured Israeli bulldozers flattened recently.
United Nations Agencies Help Distribute Bread to 3,000 Palestinians
Miftah/UNWFP 8/20/2004
Nablus � 20 August � Yesterday, the World Food Program and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs provided 6,500 pieces of bread to more than 3,000 Palestinian residents under an Israeli army curfew in several neighborhoods in Nablus. �After five days of curfew, people are without bread - a major staple of the Palestinian diet,� said Jean Luc Siblot, Director of the World Food Program in the occupied Palestinian territory.
PA lawmakers: Arafat balking at signing reform decree
Ha'aretz 8/20/2004
Palestinian lawmakers yesterday said Chairman Yasser Arafat had balked at signing a decree to implement a package of anti-corruption reforms demanded by parliament. They canceled a session in protest and said they would reconvene on Tuesday to hear an overdue report on how to implement reforms.
3 Palestinian Activists Face U.S. Charges
The Guardian 8/20/2004
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Hamas leader and two other suspected members of the Palestinian militant group were indicted on charges they participated in a lengthy racketeering conspiracy to provide money for terrorist acts in Israel, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced Friday.
Iran says may preempt any attack on nuke program
Ha'aretz 8/20/2004
DUBAI - Iran might launch preemptive strikes to protect its nuclear facilities if they are threatened, Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said in remarks broadcast on Friday. "We won't sit with our hands tied and wait until someone does something to us," Shamkhani told Arabic channel Al Jazeera when asked what Iran would do if the United States or Israel attacked its atomic facilities.
Empty promises
Al-Ahram Weekly on-line 8/19/2004
American objections to Israel's West Bank settlements seem to be falling on deaf ears, Khaled Amayreh reports -- The Israeli government has decided to blatantly defy American objections to the building of thousands of settler housing units in the heart of the West Bank, calculating that the Bush administration will not dare pressure Israel in the midst of a crucial election year. On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave a green light to the construction of 1,000 new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Sharon had ordered the tenders frozen earlier in the month after US criticism over Israel's flouting of the terms of the roadmap peace plan which obliges it to halt all settlement activity in the occupied territories.
Peres to convene Labor faction, leadership cmte. next week
Ha'aretz 8/20/2004
Labor party chairman Shimon Peres will convene the party faction and leadership committee next week to discuss political developments. Peres announced the decision on Friday, after MK Ophir Pines-Paz sent him a letter, in the name of eighty leadership committee members, demanding an urgent meeting to decide whether or not to dissolve the party's coalition talks negotiation team.
High Court upholds decision not to indict Sharon
Ha'aretz 8/20/2004
The High Court of Justice yesterday rejected three appeals against the attorney general's Mazuz's decision to close the Greek Island affair and not press bribery charges against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his son Gilad. The appeals were rebuffed by six judges, with one dissenting opinion. However, even the majority judges expressed astonishment at some of the reasons that led Menahem Mazuz to close the case and hinted that Mazuz treated Sharon more leniently than an ordinary citizen.
Detained British journalist wins entry to Israel
Ha'aretz 8/20/2004
A British journalist linked to a pro-Palestinian group will be freed from detention and allowed to enter Israel, but not the West Bank, her lawyer said yesterday. Eva Jasiewicz was detained at Ben-Gurion International Airport and refused entry on Aug. 11. The authorities say she is an activist with the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian group that leads protests in the West Bank and Gaza.
Hunger strike
Al-Ahram Weekly on-line 8/19/2004
Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails protest prison conditions with a mass hunger strike, reports Khalid Amayreh from the West Bank -- Thousands of Palestinians began a mass hunger strike on Sunday in four Israeli prisons and detention centres, including the notorious Ofer and Hadarim prisons where inmates have been subject to a variety of degrading and criminal treatment at the hands of prison guards. Thousands of other political prisoners held at detention facilities -- including the hellish desert camp in the Negev, known as Kitziot -- were expected to join the strike.
'Palestinian terror - morally justified'
Al-Jazeera 8/20/2004
A leading philosopher, who has been compared to Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre and praised by Noam Chomsky, says Palestinian "terrorism" is a moral response to Israeli ethnic cleansing. Ted Honderich, a professor of philosophy at University College London, plans to take the same message to the Edinburgh International Book Fair on Thursday, where tickets to hear his speech have already sold out. The philosopher plans to begin his talk at the Opus Theatre with a close look at definitions of terrorism, particularly when it applies to Palestine and the expansion of Israel outside its 1967 borders.
Gaza: Five dead in helicopter strike
Rafah Today 8/19/2004
Apache warplanes shelled one of the buildings in Gaza City, leaving 5 people dead and another 13 injured. Al Shifa hospital said the dead are: Fathi Al Jabari, Mohammed Al Jabari, Burhan Al Jabari, Nusibah Al Hayah, and Ala Al Sharif.
Rafah: Death of Ahmed Al Hams
Rafah Today 8/19/2004
It was 14:20 when Ahmed Al Hams, 17, challenged the bullets of the Israeli soldiers and went to help an injured child who was yelling: "Mom, Help, Help!". Al Hums was injured by a bullet in his heart when he went to rescue the life of an injured child who was bleeding in Yebna during the shelling. A few days ago, 12 year old Saif Barhoum died due to the injuries sustained in his head when one of the Israeli snipers shot him during the last incursion in Al Shuaat area.
Egypt to undertake new Mideast peace mission
Middle East Online 8/20/2004
Egyptian FM, intelligence chief to meet Palsetinian, Israeli officials soon on Israel's plans to pull out of Gaza Strip. -- CAIRO - Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman will meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders soon on Israel's plans to pull out of the Gaza Strip, the government daily Al-Ahram said Friday. The daily said they would be having talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is battling opposition in his Likud party to his pullout plan, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat around the end of August.
UK journalist detained in Israel
BBC 8/20/2004
UK foreign secretary Jack Straw is being urged to take action over a UK journalist detained in Israel. Ewa Jasiewicz, 26, was prevented from entering Israel at an airport in Tel Aviv last week and was placed in a detention centre when she appealed. The Israelis say she is a political activist whose journalism is biased. The editor of Ms Jasiewicz's magazine Red Pepper has called on Mr Straw to protest in the strongest terms to the Israeli government.
Cacophonous blasts of musical - and cultural - freedom
Daily Star 8/20/2004
BEIRUT: For the majority of people free improvised music is merely noise - a cacophony of sounds from randomly matched instruments that has neither rhyme nor reason and is therefore wholly inaccessible. For Lebanese musicians Sharif and Christine Sehnaoui and Mazen Kerbaj, it is far more than that. It is not only music but a way of life. The trio have, for the last four years, organized Irtijal - the International Festival of Free Improvised Music in Lebanon, which is happening this weekend in local venues around Beirut.
US army medics 'aided' Abu Ghraib abuses
Al-Jazeera 8/20/2004
US army doctors working at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq helped design abusive interrogations and failed to report homicides, says a British medical journal. Citing government documents including sworn testimony of detainees and troops, the respected Lancet weekly in its latest issue (published on Saturday) outlined a disturbing litany of failures to safeguard detainees' human rights at the prison.
U.S. arrests two men accused of funneling money to Hamas
Ha'aretz 8/20/2004
WASHINGTON - U.S. officials have arrested two men whom they accuse of funneling money to the Palestinian militant group Hamas for the past 15 years, the Justice Department said on Friday. Mohammed Hamid Khalil Salah was arrested in Chicago and Abdelhaleem Hasan Abdelraziq Ashqar in northern Virginia on Thursday.
N.J. Sex Scandal Spills Into Orthodox World As Touro Link Is Eyed
Forward 8/20/2004
McGreevey and Cipel Camps Spar Over Role of Mystery Lawyer -- The lawyers representing Golan Cipel, the Israeli at the heart of the political tumult in the Garden State, are attempting to debunk claims that their client was a partner or pawn in an elaborate scheme to bring down New Jersey Governor James McGreevey. In an exclusive interview with the Forward, one of Cipel's two attorneys, Rachel Yosevitz, denied the latest and most shocking claim: that their camp had issued an 11th-hour demand seeking the governor's pledge to approve plans for a medical school to be run by Touro College, a New York-based institution led by Orthodox Jews.
Israel caught in Greek-Georgian holy heritage struggle
Ha'aretz 8/20/2004
The recent flap over the vandalized fresco of Georgian national poet Shota Rustaveli in the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem reopened older wounds - some of them in the walls of the 11th century monastery in the western part of the capital. Ancient Georgian frescoes have been pried from the walls of the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem at various times during the 20th century, and sold on the world antiquities market.
Rice: US should do more to improve image among Muslims
Middle East Online 8/20/2004
National Security Adviser concedes US public diplomacy is not very well organized to engage Muslim world. -- WASHINGTON - Despite the effort and money spent to improve its image among Muslim nations, the US government could better organize its public diplomacy and the American people should help get the message across, said White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
French council says Hezbollah TV station may face ban
Ha'aretz 8/20/2004
PARIS - France's highest administrative body on Friday ordered a Lebanese TV network tied to militant Muslim group Hezbollah to adhere to national broadcasting rules or face a ban from France's airwaves. The Council of State said a decision rests with France's media watchdog, the CSA, about whether to give Al-Manar network a license it needs to beam programs through a Paris-based satellite broadcaster.
Rights groups to see Guant�namo trials
The Guardian 8/20/2004
The United States is to allow human rights groups to enter Guant�namo Bay for the first time since detention camps were set up 2 years ago. The Pentagon has previously barred independent observers from the military base in Cuba, where more than 600 men are detained indefinitely as part of the "war on terror".
Articles
An Interview with Mordechai Vanunu
By Amy Goodman, CounterPunch 8/18/2004
Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Risks Arrest, Again -- Mordechai Vanunu worked as a nuclear technician at Dimona, Israel's secret nuclear installation from 1976 to 1985. He worked there at a time when Israel was insisting it would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East. What Vanunu discovered is that Israel had secretly developed an extensive nuclear program, hiding its existence from the Israeli people and parliament, and the world.
Vanunu leaked information and photos of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the Sunday Times in London. He was subsequently kidnapped by Israeli spy agency Mossad in Italy and then jailed. He would go on to spend 18 years behind bars including 11 in solitary confinement.
He was released on April 21 under strict government restrictions.
Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman reached Vanunu on his cell phone in East Jerusalem where he has been staying since his release in April. He defied the Israeli government's restriction on speaking with foreigners to talk with us.
Same old same
By Azmi Bishara, Al-Ahram Weekly on-line 8/19/2004
The head of the Israeli Army revealed nothing but cant in recent interviews: Israel's malign intentions towards its neighbours are unaltered, but not unassailable -- The kibbutz-born Israeli chief-of-staff is reputed in Israel for his diligence, his aversion to ostentation and his reluctance to mix with politicians. That a journalist such as Yaron London of Yediot Aharanot should testify to this is indicative of an Israeli nostalgia for the Igal Alon and Rabin generation of graduates of the elitist Palmach units produced by the organised agricultural communities in Palestine before 1948. In his political upbringing, Moshe Ya'alon belonged to the right wing camp of the Labour movement, receiving his schooling in the erstwhile Ahdut Ha'avoda youth movement. Founded by Alon, this movement produced the founders of the secularist All of Greater Israel Movement that preceded Gush Emunim. This generation of the military succeeded in making a smooth transition into politics, turning their early agrarian settler life, military service and political activities into the major sections of their CVs.
It was Ya'alon's brainstorm to inflict collective punitive measures on Palestinian civilians as a ploy for recruiting them against Hamas operations in Gaza. In an interview with Yediot Aharanot on 13 August, the IDF chief offers a completely candid assessment of the success of this policy, pointing to the protests appearing here and there around Gaza cautioning against firing missiles and to several incidents -- according to the information he had received -- in which the inhabitants of Beit Hanun, where the policy of collective punishment has been sustained with particular intensity, have actively prevented Hamas activists from firing Qassam missiles. Selective quoting from this interview has stirred a groundless jubilation, which, in turn, drowned out a number of frank and crucial statements, such as his admission to the Israeli assassination of Ghaleb Awali on 21 July in southern Beirut.
Thank You ISM
Editorial, Miftah 8/18/2004
The International Solidarity Movement�s theme for this summer is �Freedom Summer Palestine 2004� lasting for 56 days; it symbolically marks the 56 years that have passed since the tragic fall of Palestine in 1948 (one day, for every year of displacement, dispossession, occupation, killing, torture and above all racism.)
August 19th will mark the grand finale of the freedom march, organized by the International Solidarity Movement and its associates along the so-called West Bank barrier (the Annexation Wall in the West Bank). The freedom march which began on the 30th of July in the city of Jenin, will come to a final showdown with Israeli troops at Al-Ram checkpoint en route to Jerusalem. The 18 day march has passed threw 60 Palestinian cities, towns and villages.
Currently the freedom march is at the neighborhood of Beitunia close to Ramallah heading towards Qalandia checkpoint, where a sit in will be staged in support of some 7200 Palestinian prisoners held illegally in Israeli jails. The prisoners have been on hunger strike as of the August 15th in protest of their inhumane treatment by Israeli authorities. However, prior to the sit in, the freedom march will visit President Arafat at his Ramallah compound in order to share the stories they have heard from the communities about the hardships resulting from the Wall and the impact it has on the lives of Palestinians throughout the West Bank.
Questions of legitimacy
By Lamis Andoni , Al-Ahram Weekly on-line 8/19/2004
After weeks of internal political turmoil, Palestinians have been struggling to arrive at a consensus regarding a plan of action based on conducting municipal, presidential and parliamentary elections -- Elections, many Palestinians now argue, are the only way to prevent Israel from using an erosion of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as an excuse to implement its own plan for the de facto creation of scattered Palestinian "cantons" -- created by the apartheid wall, the annexation of lands and the permanent cutting off and isolation of the Gaza Strip. "We cannot afford to give Israel the pretext of a Palestinian power vacuum," said a Palestinian leader.
But if declaring dates for elections is viewed as a necessary step to prevent Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from implementing his own plan for a final solution -- under the title of unilateral "troop evacuation from Gaza" -- the Palestinian leadership is still far from adopting a clear political strategy.
In retrospect, Sharon, by launching his proposal for unilateral troop withdrawal from Gaza, has successfully deepened Palestinian divisions and increased confusion over national strategy. The seemingly waning rebellion, backed by former Security Chief Mohamed Dahlan under the banner of "reforms", underscored how some leaders -- driven by a combination of naked political ambition and despair brought on by Israeli strangulation of the Strip -- have sought to pressure Palestinian acceptance of the Sharon plan.
More material available from Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel - www.vtjp.org
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