AMID PREPARATIONS FOR the Annapolis Conference, rumors abound that Israeli PM Ehud Olmert is ready to divide Jerusalem along the lines of the Clinton parameters from the year 2000. This calls for division on a demographic basis. The Arab neighborhoods…
Tag: occupation
Sight without Insight
Ruchama Marton, President of Physicians for Human Rights in Israel, made the following remarks at the closing ceremony of a photo exhibit called “Act of State” (July 7 – July 12, 2007; curator: Ariela Azulai). It included 600 pictures taken…
The Gaza Economic Crunch
QASSAM ROCKETS hit the Israeli town of Sderot on an almost daily basis, but on September 4, 2007, at the start of the new school year, one fell beside a day-care center. That night Haim Ramon, a deputy and close…
Bil’in: (Partial) Triumph in a Political Vacuum
While the Israeli Occupation hardens and the Fatah/Hamas split deepens, a remote little village near Ramallah has celebrated a victory. This is Bil’in. It went to the Israeli High Court and won a change in the route of the Separation…
The Two-Edged Sword of 1967
IN MARKING FORTY YEARS of Occupation, many on the Left take the 1967 War as a turning point, in which Israel went from innocence to guilt. “Post-Zionist” is the dismissive term for anyone who questions that former innocence. Israelis did…
The Wall and the Sweatshops
Palestinian Workers in Abu Dis near Jerusalem SINCE MAY 2006, the 75,000 people of Abu Dis and other Arab villages near Jerusalem have been cut off from the city by the separation wall. Until then there were still openings here…
The Late Shuhada Street, Hebron
IT’S A GHOST TOWN,” says a friend as we walk through deserted Shuhada Street, once a bustling thoroughfare of Hebron. The sun slides off the neat green metal bolted-shut storefronts and scalloped edges of the overhangs, highlighting the Hebrew graffiti:…
In Dixieland
IT WOULD APPEAR that the IDF Commander for the Central Region, headquartered at Bethel in the West Bank, wanted to come up with a creative gesture to aid us in remembering the late Rosa Parks. On December 1, 1955, Parks…
Encounter at Hawara
1. Jalia Suleiman a-Shtayeh August 20, 2006 started out like any Sunday. For most people in the West Bank, Sunday is simply a work day, the first of the week. For Jalia Suleiman a-Shtayeh it is the hardest day. If…
Medical Closure
IN EARLY MAY, aid organizations warned that the Gaza Strip was on the verge of a humanitarian disaster. They claimed that the health and welfare system of the Palestinian Authority was collapsing. International aid funds had been frozen since the…