Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Jessica Purkiss
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Arafat Jaradat and the man behind his autopsy
Last Monday, Haaretz on Turkish pathology expert Dr. Sebnem Korur Fincanci’s findings regarding the death of Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat. Thirty year old Jaradat died in his cell at Israel’s Megiddo Prison on February 23, 2013. He had been arrested by the Shin Bet security service five days earlier,...
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Arafat Jaradat and the man behind his autopsy
On Monday, Haaretz reported on Turkish pathology expert Dr. Sebnem Korur Fincanci’s findings regarding the death of Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat. Thirty year old Jaradat died in his cell at Israel’s Megiddo Prison on February 23, 2013. He had been arrested by the Shin Bet security service five days...
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The Israeli soldiers breaking their silence on the occupation
Zehava Galon, Chair of Israel’s Meretz Party, stood on a podium in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square and read out the testimony of an Israeli soldier. She was one of many readers taking part in an event marking the tenth anniversary of the founding of “Breaking the Silence,” an organisation...
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Palestinian families torn between the territories
Eight years ago, Mostafa Easariaj set off on a summer vacation to visit his father. His father, Hachem, still lives in the tiny, impoverished Gaza Strip, where Mostafa was born and resided in until he was 16 when his mother seized a rare chance to relocate to West Bank,...
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Hunger strike is the only choice left for Palestinian prisoners
Ahmed Rimawi was arrested at the age of 17. He has been in an Israeli prison for 1 year and 7 months- kept behind bars without charge and without trial. He is now the youngest of an estimated 125 to 200 Palestinian prisoners residing in Israeli jails on a mass...
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Pope's visit to the Holy Land stirs sectarian tensions
As the Holy Land prepares to welcome Pope Francis on Sunday, growing concerns over the rising anti-Christian attacks are darkening the occasion for Israel’s Christian community. On March 9th, church officials of a Romanian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem discovered “Price tag, King David is for the Jews, Jesus is garbage,”...
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Syrian families in the occupied Golan remain fractured after 47 years
The Syrian community of Majdal Shams – one of 4 Syrian Druze villages in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights – take delight in storytelling. Huddled around fires in their apple orchards they talk of memories of their youth, of their homeland and of their families living just across the...
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Events in Ukraine bring Beijing, Moscow and Tehran closer
In protest of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to sidle closer to Russia instead of the EU, thousands of people poured onto Kiev’s streets and in February were left counting their dead after snipers were let loose on the masses. Now the calls of protestors in the Ukraine’s capital...
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Harvesting the sweet Golan apples under the bitterness of occupation and civil war
Nazem Khater, an aging apple farmer sits on his veranda looking out at the agricultural lands of Majdal Shams, in the occupied Golan. His father, and his father’s father, were also apple farmers, ploughing the same lands, producing the regions famous sweet Golan apples, and passing down the trade...
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Spring time in Tulkarem as farms fight Israeli chemical factories
It is spring on the Tanib farm and the eskadenias or loquats – small sweet orange fruits – and the strawberries are perfectly ripe. Workers and volunteers who have travelled far and wide to take part in a two week campus on the farm grounds are busy harvesting. The...
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Haaretz journalist accuses Israel of creating friction to avoid political agreement
A prominent Israeli journalist has accused the authorities in Tel Aviv of creating friction between Israel and the Palestinians in order to avoid reaching a political agreement. Amira Hass made her statement following what she described as the “cold-blooded assassination” of Mu’atazz Washaha in BirZeit on Thursday. “The Israeli...
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A whole system of deception
“A whole system of deception”, was how anthropologist Meira Weiss, who observed the work of the Israeli forensic department, described the process of their dealing with the death of a Palestinian. On a recent Israeli television show she spoke of the fatal shooting of one Palestinian man whom the...
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Tourism as a tool to erase Palestinian identity
At the entrance of a Dead Sea resort located in the West Bank, Palestinian man Hazem paid his 70 shekels admission fee to the women sitting behind the desk. “Can we camp here?” he asked. Surveying the group of internationals, she said, “Are there any Arabs in your group?”...
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Carving Palestinian land
Yesterday, seven men from the village of Anata in the West Bank stood in court. While the specific charges against them were unknown, the crime that has put them in front of a military judge is their attempt to reclaim land that they allege was stolen by a settler. According...
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Disbanding the Palestinian Authority
In December 2010, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a television interview that if Israel continued to build settlements in the West Bank he would disband the Palestinian Authority (PA), the West Bank authority established under the Oslo Accords. “I cannot accept to remain the president of an authority that...
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Settler couple suing Bedouin community over fumes from bread oven
An Israeli settler couple are attempting to sue a Bedouin community over the fumes being emitted from their bread oven. Yaakov and Bareket Goldstein from the illegal Israeli settlement of Carmel claim that the bread oven made from natural materials emits so much smoke that it is damaging the...
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Ein Hiljeh: A symbol of resistance and hope
Hidden behind the leaves of palm trees, activists busied away resurrecting a village whose residents had long ago vacated. Until last week, the abandoned village of Ein Hijleh, in the Jordan Valley, just off a roaring main road, had remained silent since it was razed by Israeli soldiers nearly...
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The end of a long battle for the Beit Jala community in the shadow of the wall
Tomorrow, Israel’s Supreme Court may issue a final decision in a case which has seen the peaceful Cremisan Valley community in Beit Jala, West Bank, drawn into an 8 year battle. The community has been fighting against Israel’s defence ministry’s plans to sever the Valley with the construction of...
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Double punishment for family of boy shot dead by Israeli soldier
On the 18th January 2013 at 3.20pm 15 year old Saleh Elamareen was standing outside a youth centre with a group of friends in Aida refugee camp, Bethlehem, when he was shot in the head with a suspected dumdum bullet, fired by an Israeli soldier. After being rushed to the...
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Obama's "red line": fighting for gas masks in Israel while Syria waits for US bombs
In a matter of days, US President Barak Obama will seek authorisation from Congress to begin airstrikes against Syria. The members of Congress are being asked to approve “limited” intervention aimed at “deterring” President Basher Al-Assad from using chemical weapons. The resolution allows for a 60 day window for military...
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The Westgate mall attack highlights Kenya-Israel ties
The siege of Nairobi’s Westgate Mall has finally come to an end. Kenyan forces have been battling militants claiming to be members of the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Shabaab group after they stormed the western-style shopping precinct on a busy Saturday afternoon and took hostages, killing over 70 people in the...
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A year on: Operation Pillar of Cloud
Exactly a year has passed since Operation Pillar of Cloud, or defence as it has since been rebranded as, ended. The operation’s stated goal was to deter the rockets being fired into Israel by Hamas’ military wing and weaken the Islamic leadership. After 8 days of hostilities, Hamas emerged as...
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Difficult times ahead for lonely Hamas?
Under a military blockade for six years, the Gaza Strip may now be facing further isolation. Whilst Israel’s restrictive policies have secluded the enclave, the shattering of Morsi’s power under the feet of Egypt’s masses has signalled the departure of another ally for an increasingly lonely Hamas. When mass protests...
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Israel to release Palestinian prisoners
On Sunday, Israel’s Cabinet voted in favour of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to release 104 “heavyweight” Palestinian prisoners still languishing in Israeli jails. The goodwill gesture hopes to pave the way for the revival of peace negotiations and, for the Palestinian side, forms a pre-cursor to their beginning....