If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for reading!

Is it possible for someone who matter-of-factly supports crimes against humanity to be a good historian? A startling and provocative question, no doubt, but one that inevitably arises upon consideration of the remarkable career of Israeli scholar Benny Morris. A professor in the Middle East Studies department at Ben-Gurion University, Morris is well-known as one of the most important of the “New Historians,” a group that upended traditional Zionist historiography of the Israeli-Arab conflict. In the first edition of his book The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem (1988), Morris conclusively demonstrated, through the mining of newly released Israeli government archives, that the refugees from the 1948 war had, overwhelmingly, fled or been expelled by Israeli forces rather than left as a result of encouragement by Arab leaders, as a previous generation of Israeli propagandists had claimed.

After the release of that book and in subsequent years, with the publication of Israel’s Border Wars (1997) followed by a general history of the conflict, Righteous Victims (1999), Morris was generally lauded by liberals as a historian willing to expose uncomfortable truths about the Israeli past. This Morris, the seemingly liberal Morris, rose to fame at the time of the first Palestinian intifada and the Oslo period that followed, when both support for Palestinian resistance to occupation and new hope for a peaceful resolution of the conflict gained traction around the world. (more…)

It’s a very negative signal that the International Quartet Envoy Tony Blair’s planned trip to the Gaza was cancelled yesterday, Tuesday 15th July, following what was described as “specific security threats that made the visit impossible”.

As a delegation of the European Parliament we visited, last June, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem. Our visit in Gaza was perfectly coordinated by UNRWA, and we didn’t feel any sort of insecurity, but only despair and responsibility looking at the living conditions of the Palestinian population under an illegal siege (don’t worry we also went to see the danger and the damages of the rockets fired on Sderot).

I really hope that the Israeli authorities’ pressures or other forces are not behind this decision by Tony Blair not to go to Gaza Strip, using the threat of security in order to prevent to witness the disaster of the blockade.

Palestinians, both in West Bank and in Gaza Strip, deplored the fact that Tony Blair had never visited the Strip, despite of the duties related to his role as Quartet Representative that include mobilizing international assistance to the Palestinians, working closely with donors and others, as well as helping to implement plans and concrete projects aimed to promote Palestinian economic development. (more…)

When I was coming back from my award ceremony and also a speaking engagement, I was stopped for nearly one hour and a half before an Israeli Shin Bet officer came to me and started collecting my bags, which were securely checked already. I kept waiting for some time until they got my luggage and they started checking everything.

The Shabak officer just came to me and then said, “You are a crazy man.” And I just kept quiet and listened to what he’s going to say. And then he said, “Is there anyone who has been to the Netherlands, to France, to Sweden, to Greece and to the United Kingdom and come back to Gaza Strip? Gaza is a dirty place. Why do you come back to Gaza? Gaza is a dirty place, and the people there are dirty. Why do you come to live in such a place, where there is no electricity, there is no light, and there is darkness, and there is shortages of fuel, and there is lots of difficulties? Why don’t you live in France, instead?”

And I continued to explain to the Shabak officer that I choose to come, because I want to come back to Gaza and to be a voice for the voiceless. I want to be the person who gets the message out of the Gaza Strip and to help the world understand what’s going on. And then he answered me, “OK, Mohammed, then it’s your choice. You choose to suffer.” I said, “Not really. I don’t choose to suffer. I choose to tell the truth.” (more…)

I would like to share some rather disturbing news regarding a friend of mine from Gaza. Mohammed Omer, an award winning journalist, was recently assaulted by the Israeli Occupation forces without justification as he attempted to return to Gaza via the Allenby Bridge crossing on the Jordanian-West Bank border. Mohammed, whom I came to know during my stay in Gaza, was returning from an award ceremony in London where he was presented with the prestigious 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism.

Of course, Israel controls Gaza’s borders and it took an immense effort for Mohammed even to leave Gaza to attend the London ceremony. And when he returned, Israel had a treat in store for him. How dare this presumptuous twenty-something earn an international prize for his reporting from Gaza! Needless to say, Israeli soldiers treated him in the most abhorrent, imperialistic fashion… His crime: to be Palestinian, to exist. (more…)

On June 11, eight year old Hadeel Al-Sumairi was killed when her home in south eastern Gaza was shelled by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Less than a week earlier, eight year old Aya Hamdan Al-Najjar was killed by a rocket fired from an IOF helicopter. These two young girls had been living just a few kilometers apart, in villages in south eastern Gaza, near the border with Israel. Their violent deaths highlight both the continual dangers facing families who live anywhere near the Israeli border – and the grim and rising child death toll in the Gaza Strip. Sixty two children have been killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip this year - almost double the number of children who were killed by the IOF in Gaza during the whole of last year.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is still investigating the circumstances of Hadeel Al-Sumairi’s death. Her uncle, Amin Suleiman Ahmad Al-Sumairi, has given PCHR an eye-witness account of the IOF invasion of Al-Qarara village near Khan Yunis, where Hadeel was killed. “I was at home when I heard a huge explosion. I ran from my house and saw fire coming from the home of my brother, Abdul Karim” he told PCHR. “As I ran towards the house I could smell burning flesh.” The IOF had just fired two tank shells into Al-Qarara village, and both shells struck the house where Abdul Karim Al-Sumairi and his family lived. His daughter, Hadeel, was killed instantly, her small body dismembered. (more…)

Palestinians are being regularly and illegally barred from reaching Dead Sea beaches in the occupied West Bank, according to a Supreme Court petition filed by Israel’s leading civil rights organisation.

The Association of Civil Rights (Acri) in Israel is challenging what it says is the frequently imposed ban by the military on Palestinians seeking to swim or relax at beaches in the northern Dead Sea. The salt-saturated sea is the only open water accessible to Palestinians from the otherwise landlocked West Bank.

The petition says that the Israeli military is using the Beit Ha’arava checkpoint on Route 90 – the only open access route in the occupied West Bank for travel to the Dead Sea – to turn back Palestinians, mainly but not exclusively on weekends and Jewish holidays.

Acri says that the ban is to appease Israeli settlers operating concessions along the Dead Sea’s northern shore. They fear losing Jewish customers if there are large numbers of Arabs using the beaches in territory seized by Israel during the Six Day War in 1967. (more…)

In the Gaza Strip, there are a vast number of inspiring individuals prepared to put their personal reputation (and even their own physical well-being) on the line for matters of conviction. Dr. Eyad Sarraj is one of the more prominent of these figures and I was fortunate enough to speak with him on several occasions during my time in the Gaza Strip.

Dr. Sarraj, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, is the founder of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme—a groundbreaking NGO in Gaza catering to the masses of Palestinians suffering from emotional trauma, especially victims of torture. Sarraj is well known for his outspoken criticism of the Israeli occupation and of corruption in the Palestinian Authority.

In the excerpts that follow, I discuss the state of Palestinian democracy with Dr. Sarraj. (more…)

Control Room, directed by Egyptian-American filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, provides unique insights into the media dynamics on the eve of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. It primarily portrays the interactions between Al Jazeera journalists on the one hand and US military spokespersons and Western journalists on the other hand. Al Jazeera is a TV station largely funded by the Arab Emirate of Qatar, which has the politically most open system in the Emirates. It was initially hailed by Western commentators and the US government as exceptionally critical of Arab governments and the region’s most prominent outlet for free speech. When it reported on atrocities by the Algerian military, for example, the Algerian government decided to disconnect the electricity in the capital city of Algier to avert that ordinary Algerians would observe the grim accounts. Al Jazeera fell into disfavor with many rulers, as a consequence of which its licenses to broadcast and report have been canceled or otherwise thwarted in dozen countries. Contrary to popular perception, Al Jazeera was not chiefly at odds with Western government before the Iraq invasion. (more…)

Two evenings ago, speaking before the American-Israeli Pubic Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Barack Obama desperately attempted to win back his floundering support among the American Jewish community by demonstrating his hawkish, pro-Israel stance. This is neither unusual nor suspect—especially in the United States where the Jewish demographic tends to be more fundamentally Zionist than the Israelis themselves and aspiring candidates are almost required to recite Theodor Herzl’s Der Judenstaat by heart.

Naturally, Obama made the typical platitudes: “Israel has the right to defend itself”, “I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend … Israel”, ad nauseam. But then he said something that could have caused Ariel Sharon to crack a smile through his coma:

“Any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognised, defensible borders. And Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and must remain undivided,” he said to rapturous clapping and cheering.

What? East Jerusalem will remain part of Israel? Have U.S. politicians finally ceased pretending they support a negotiated settlement? (more…)

Αt what point does rhetoric stop and effective action begin? For Palestinians, decades of dialogue and supposed peace overtures have proved fruitless, only serving to protect the status quo: sixty years of continual dispossession, forty years of occupation, and a systematic repudiation of international and humanitarian law. The situation for Palestinians will not improve without constructive movement forward—which rejects collusion with the Israeli government by exercising boycott, divestment and sanctions (known as BDS).

During the 1980’s, BDS of South Africa included a cultural boycott whereby musicians and artists from around the world were prohibited from performing in the apartheid state. In addition to internationally supporting the subjugated black population, this policy was instituted to express that no real dialogue—economic, academic, or cultural—could take place in concert with the atrocities of apartheid. With regard to Israel, the implementation of international BDS is but one necessary measure to shift the balance away from the oppressor and help place it in the hands of the oppressed. (more…)

By now the private security firm, Blackwater USA, has become a household name. The firm has been the subject of multiple investigations, lawsuits, and congressional inquiries—all leading to an obvious conclusion: Blackwater in Iraq has either acted in a manner of extreme disregard for civilian lives, or they are outright contemptuous murderers. Yet, as Democracy Now! reports, Blackwater continues to reap millions in profits from the government and was recently awarded a new contract from the State Department.

In the aftermath of the now-infamous Nisour Square Massacre of September 2007 in which 17 Iraqi civilians were mercilessly gunned down by Blackwater operatives, the puppet Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, demanded that Blackwater be held accountable under Iraqi law. Al-Maliki had apparently forgotten the directive in place since Paul Bremer’s tenure providing immunity to all private contractors in Iraq. The order to expel Blackwater from Iraq was rescinded by the Bush junta and Blackwater was already operating in the region again by last April. (more…)

It seems the U.S. State Department has reversed the decision to deny the seven Gaza students Fulbright Grants. And while this is good news in principle, it should not be praised out of context—or too early.

The spokesman for the Israeli Defense Ministry’s department of civilian affairs, Major Peter Lerner (whom I dealt with regularly when arranging coordination in and out of Gaza), says that each of the the Palestinian students will face security check before being allowed to leave Gaza.

Fine. This sounds very reasonable… but I am skeptical that these students will actually be granted permission to leave. Since June 2007, approximately 670 students have been unable to pursue higher education abroad due to the total closure of the territory by the Israeli military. (more…)

“They came at four in the morning, with two bulldozers, and they left before 8am. I own this chicken farm with my three brothers, and we worked day and night for eighteen years to build up our business. The Israelis destroyed everything in less than four hours.”

Nasser Jaber’s chicken farm was bulldozed by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) ten days ago, in the early morning hours of May 16, while he was sleeping at home in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. He still looks stunned. Wearily he guides us round the ruins of his eighteen-year business. “This was a lifetime project for me and my brothers” he says as we clamber over rubble, wire, shattered sheets of metal and thousands of putrefying chickens. “I have never belonged to any political faction, and I have never been to jail. I don’t know why they did this.” The farm workers who are starting to clear some of the rubble are all wearing facemasks. Forty thousand dead chickens lie smashed amidst the rubble and the stench is sickening. (more…)

What better way to punish Hamas than by punishing Gazan students?

The American State Department recently withdrew the Fulbright Grants for Gazan students hoping to pursue higher education opportunities in the United States. And on what grounds?

Well, it seems that because Israel isn’t letting them out anyway, it’s better not to waste money on students condemned to a future of imprisonment. The politics of accomodation work yet again, but this time the hopes of seven talented students have been drastically crushed by this moral cowardice.

True, the money can be used elsewhere, but why not take a moral stand against the collective punishment of Gaza? First, there is no guarantee of Israel policy regarding Gaza and simply assuming that Israel will never allow these students to leave the Strip is tantamount to supporting Israeli oppression in the first place. (more…)

When I reflect upon the upcoming U.S. Presidential election, I tend not to place so much faith in the rhetoric of change. Despite prevailing, popular attitudes here in Europe, I find it difficult to imagine anything but the most marginal change in domestic policy should Obama become President (and virtually zero change elsewhere).

We may count ourselves lucky, however, that whether it is McCain or Obama that takes the reins in November, our eight-year affair with Bush is almost at an end. No matter which “wing” from the corporatist cesspool of American government becomes President, at least we will be spared the inane remarks, the cheesy laughter, the genuine stupidity and brass arrogance of the Bush years. Perhaps I am alone, but I always felt the crimes prosecuted by the Bush junta were always compounded by the profound ignorance expressed by some of its more senior members. (more…)

May 15, 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, when Palestinians were forced from their homes and ethnically cleansed en masse in a premeditated and organized campaign carried out by armed Zionist militia. Historical accounts indicate that the forced migration of Palestinians from their homeland had been planned well in advance. The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 was built on the violations of the rights of the Palestinian people. After widespread massacres and killings, more than 700,000 Palestinian civilians were brutally uprooted from their homes, villages and towns, and forced to become refugees in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and surrounding Arab countries. In addition, thousands of other Palestinians were internally displaced within the land subsequently occupied by Israel.

Since the establishment of the State of Israel, and after its expansion in 1967 when it forcibly occupied the remainder of Palestinian West Bank land (including occupied East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip, Israel has relentlessly confiscated Palestinian land in order to build illegal Jewish settlements, erasing the history of Palestine in the process. Israel’s campaign of “Establishing facts on the ground” has consistently forced more Palestinians into exile, and the Israeli authorities continue to seek to rid the land of its original inhabitants. (more…)

A lack of obvious accomplishments in talks US President George Bush began with lofty ideals six months ago could change as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits the region yet again. She has visited the region nearly every month since the formal launch of peace talks last year, but nothing has yielded breakthroughs so far, at least not in public view. However, Rice might get something done with regards to Israeli roadblocks. A review of the ones that were supposedly removed will reveal that Israel has been removing just tiny dirt barriers which it calls roadblocks and is only partially dismantling the real big ones after pledging to pull them down. The UN is a witness to this charade. In March, the Israeli government announced the removal of 61 checkpoints or roadblocks in the West Bank, but the United Nations said at the time that only 44 had actually been removed and these were of little or no significance. If anything, the UN report said that as of March, the overall number of obstacles had increased. (more…)

In a nation as coiled and embroiled as this, with a language fraught and zip-filed as the bible, it’s only fitting that a single daily newspaper headline will often say more than the thousands of words that follow.

So it was, that on the day before Israel was to celebrate its independence, Maariv’s banner read, simply, “60 Years of Bereavement.”

In a narrow sense, the headline, stark white on a field of black, marked Israel’s memorial day for its war dead and its victims of terrorism. At the same time, the brief headline may have said more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - and about Israelis themselves, and Palestinians as well - than all of this week’s floodtide of 60th anniversary punditry put together. (more…)

This week, Israel turned 60 and with it came the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba—the destruction and systemic expulsion of the Palestinian community. No other event has so drastically altered the course of events in the Middle-East and the scars of Palestinian dispossession continue to be the cause of great consternation across the region and the world today.

I have always found that while most people possess only a very basic understanding of the conflict, it is a subject for which they hold firm and emotionally stubborn opinions. Very few topics change a conversation into an argument so efficiently—even among those with no ethnic, religious or otherwise personal connection to the conflict. (more…)

The dark-haired 22-year-old in black T-shirt, blue jeans and red Crocs is understandably hesitant as he sits at a picnic table in the incongruous setting of a beauty spot somewhere in Israel. We know his name and if we used it he would face a criminal investigation and a probable prison sentence.

The birds are singing as he describes in detail some of what he did and saw others do as an enlisted soldier in Hebron. And they are certainly criminal: the incidents in which Palestinian vehicles are stopped for no good reason, the windows smashed and the occupants beaten up for talking back – for saying, for example, they are on the way to hospital; the theft of tobacco from a Palestinian shopkeeper who is then beaten “to a pulp” when he complains; the throwing of stun grenades through the windows of mosques as people prayed. And worse.

The young man left the army only at the end of last year, and his decision to speak is part of a concerted effort to expose the moral price paid by young Israeli conscripts in what is probably the most problematic posting there is in the occupied territories. Not least because Hebron is the only Palestinian city whose centre is directly controlled by the military, 24/7, to protect the notably hardline Jewish settlers there. He says firmly that he now regrets what repeatedly took place during his tour of duty. (more…)