In a world where, we are told, the West has a free press and everyone else prints government-controlled propaganda, it is interesting to examine how the media has covered the Viva Palestina convoy story. As has been explained on the pages of Middle East Monitor in the last couple...

By Ibrahim Hewitt This week saw the first anniversary of the Israeli assault on Gaza, but only one anniversary really matters in 2010: it is now almost 62 years since the creation of the Palestinian refugee crisis by the creation of the state of Israel. Hope for one people...

Dr Abdel Sattar QassemProfessor of Political studies, Al Najah National University Egyptian officials start talking about Egypt’s sovereignty every time Gaza is in need of food even though the people of Gaza have no desires on Egyptian territory and have no army intending to invade. All they need –...

By Yvonne Ridley in Cairo Telling the truth can be a complicated business. This was one of the first lessons I learned at a very tender age. Still unable to grasp the importance of the school timetable in my first week, I rolled up for class 20 minutes late...

By Roger Higginson On 4 December 2009, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported that the United States had failed to persuade its partners in the so-called ‘Quartet’ to issue a declaration of support for Israel’s temporary pause in settlement construction. The four members of the ‘Quartet’ are the EU, the...

By Dr Hanan Chehata In an international effort to show solidarity with the Palestinian people, Viva Palestina (VP) volunteers from around the world have left their families and in some cases resigned from their jobs in order to take part in this humanitarian undertaking. They have done this for...

From Khalid Amayreh in the Israeli-Occupied West Bank5 January, 2010 Under the rubric of fighting Hamas’s influence in the West Bank, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) has flagrantly fired hundreds of school teachers and other civil servants from their jobs for unexplained “security reasons.” The dismissals were ordered by...

The European Commission’s decision last month to stop buying diesel for Gaza’s only power station means that the beleaguered territory will soon have no central power source for everyday activities. According to Rafeeq Maliha, director of the Gaza power station, without the intervention of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the...

By Seumas MilneThe Guardian, Thursday 7 January 2010 Egypt’s complicity in the Gaza’s siege underlines the role of western support for such regimes in the spread of war If an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor had gone on hunger strike in support of a besieged people in another part of the...

The source of the latest (but almost certainly not the last) attempt to revive the so-called “peace process” is shrouded in mystery. Egyptian officials claim that they kicked it off; an Israeli newspaper, Maariv, reports that it is a US initiative. The reality, of course, is that the source...

Dr Abdel Sattar QassemProfessor of Political studies, Al Najah National University An Israeli court has sentenced Sheikh Ra’ed Salah to nine months in prison for taking part in a “disturbance” at Al-Aqsa Mosque in February 2007. Sheikh Ra’ed, who is the head of the Islamic Movement in northern Israel,...

By Tariq Ramadan It is common knowledge that the Palestinians have long been direct victims of the directionless, spineless and hypocritical polices of the Arab leadership. It is equally common knowledge that the State of Israel need make no effort to impose its vision, its methods and its objectives....

By Dr. Salman Abu Sitta Newspaper columns are currently busy with commentaries on Arab, Israeli and US diplomatic moves suggesting new initiatives in the peace process, which died some time ago (although nobody has signed the death certificate yet). These attempts to resuscitate the process will not bring it back...

By Khalid Amayreh Ellen Rosser, Professor of English and a veteran peace activist, maintained an office in downtown Gaza from September 2006 to June 2007. During that period she was an eyewitness to the events which eventually culminated in the violent clashes between Fatah and Hamas in the summer...

By Dr Bothaina Shaaban Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, a number of commentators have drawn attention to Israel’s brazen efforts to use aid to the stricken country to “hide its ugly face in Gaza”. That was how Akeiva Aldar described the obverse of “Israel’s sympathy with Haiti” in...

By Nabil Sahli Recent reports have highlighted the acute water shortage facing Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank and Bethlehem in particular – and noted that the average Israeli settler consumes six times more water than the average Palestinian. This is despite the latter’s rights to the sources...

EXCLUSIVE PICTURESIt is over a year since Israel ended its brutal attack on Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, yet it appears that time stands still. The scars left by 22 days of land, naval and aerial bombardment and invasion remain fresh. More than 15,000 homes were destroyed or severely...

The political leader of Hamas, Khalid Meshal, has visited Russia and held meetings with senior officials, led by Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. This is the third visit of a senior leader of Hamas since the movement’s victory in the 2006 elections and comes sandwiched between the visit to...

To many analysts President Obama’s appointment of a special US envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) was only another item of window-dressing. On the burning issues that affect Muslim peoples worldwide the administration remains evasive at best and in denial at worst. While the just concluded “Doha...

By Ibrahim Hewitt, for Al Jazeera EnglishSenior Editor of the Middle East Monitor Allegations that the Israeli secret service, Mossad, was behind the killing of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai are gaining strength. The accusation originated with Hamas after the 49-year-old was found dead in a hotel in...

By Abdel Bari Atwan The tripartite meeting held in Damascus last week included Syrian President Bashar al-Asad and his Iranian guest Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hizbullah in Lebanon. The three came together as a “war council” to discuss plans, roles and functions in the...

Reports from Egypt claim that shortages of gas canisters led to riots in the country in January and February. The complaints of the people were exacerbated by the controversial sale of natural gas by Egypt to Israel, increasing dissatisfaction with the Egyptian government. Oil expert Ibrahim Zahran told the...

By Omar Radwan This week is the sixth annual “Israeli Apartheid Week”, a series of events including lectures, film screenings, workshops, rallies and other activities highlighting Israel’s ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people. The focus is mainly on Israel’s denial of the right of return for Palestinian refugees, its...

Putting a human face to the tragedy – Re-igniting the call for accountability On Monday 15th March Channel 4 aired an episode of Dispatches entitled “The Children of Gaza”. It focused on the lives of a few of the children living in that small strip of Palestinian land whose...

A common blueprint of Israeli hasbara, or official propaganda, is to deflect criticism of its actions in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip by stressing that within the 1948 boundaries, it is a model of democracy incomparable to other societies in the Middle East. The reality however is...

By Omar Radwan The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk, has come under renewed attack in recent days.  Professor Falk’s remit is to monitor Israeli violations of human rights in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for the UN Human...

Dr. Abdel Sattar Qassem As soon as Fahmi Shabana appeared on Israeli television to offer details of the evidence he has about corruption among officials of the Palestinian Authority, a campaign rolled into action accusing him of being a Zionist collaborator bent on distorting the image of those who...

By Abdel Bari Atwan The Palestinian scene is full of paradoxes and strange situations which are difficult to understand, but the past few days have witnessed two major issues that cannot be ignored: the first is Palestinian Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad’s speech at the Herzliya Conference in Israel;...

By Khalid Amayreh in RamallahSexual and financial corruption is “rampant” throughout the Palestinian Authority (PA), according to Fahmi Shabaneh. The former PA intelligence official has made these grave allegations in an interview in the Jerusalem Post, and again on Israeli TV Channel 10. The leadership, claims Shabaneh, knows about...

By Omar RadwanLast week, the Israeli Ministry of Interior issued Palestinian geographer Khalil al-Tafakji with a six-month travel ban. Tafakji’s activities are largely confined to surveying and cartography, he is not a politician.  However, his work has created major obstacles for Israel’s plans to Judaize the city of Jerusalem and...

Palestinians in Gaza have a lot to contend with, especially since the war launched by the Israeli Occupiers just over a year ago. With the loss of more than 1,400 Palestinian lives, most of whom were women and children, the near total destruction of whatever little infrastructure that remained...

By Yassir ZaatraOn Wednesday 13 January, an Israeli court sentenced Sheikh Raed Salah to nine months in jail with an additional six months suspended for inciting protests and “assaulting a police officer”, to whom Sheikh Salah was ordered to pay 7,500 Shekels in compensation. It is well-known that he...

By Nasha’at Halabi Despite last year’s Israeli invasion of Gaza and the strong evidence that war crimes and crimes against humanity had been committed by the Israeli armed forces, to-date the world has not gone so far as to condemn the Israelis outright. The Zionist political and media machines...

By Dr Hanan Chehata The Viva Palestina (VP) Convoy 2009/10 brought together an extremely diverse group of people with at least seventeen countries represented. Citizens of Australia, Poland, Belgium, Dominica, Iran, Ireland and a whole host of other countries and from all walks of life took part in what...

By Ismail Haniyeh That the elected government in Gaza still enjoys the popular support of its people is a mark of the failure of Israel’s criminal blockade and war launched one year ago. Today, our people enjoy the support of millions throughout the world; thousands of them are knocking...

By Sonja Karkar Australians for PalestineWomen for Palestine They came one cold December day. Not fearless warriors but fearsome hoardes hell-bent on destruction of the genocidal kind that leaves no room for regeneration. That was one year ago in Gaza. The attack shocked a complacent world into finally seeing...

By Senussi Bsaikri The suffering of Gaza’s population did not stop with the end of the war waged by Israel on the civilian population of the territory earlier this year, and it does not seem that it will end soon. Recent scientific analyses have shown that the war was...

A few weeks ago, a senior Greek Orthodox clergyman in Israel attended a meeting at a government office in Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul quarter. When he returned to his car, an elderly man wearing a skullcap came and knocked on the window. When the clergyman let the window down, the...

By Khalid Amayreh In addition to its protracted war of terror against the Palestinian people, Israel has long waged an unrelenting campaign of psychological warfare against the Palestinian will, aimed at debilitating the domestic front across the occupied territories. The Israeli media, which often operates in sync with the...

After months of intense diplomatic efforts reconciliation between the two biggest Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, remains elusive. Egypt, the convenor, and the Palestinian Authority (PA), both lay the blame on Hamas for their failure to reach an agreement. Cairo says that Hamas has refused to sign the reconciliation...

A people can only take so much abuse and violence before they finally snap. Israel knows this and it has been doing its utmost recently to provoke another popular uprising by the Palestinians. The constant stream of arrests of innocent citizens; the illegal and immoral house demolitions; the construction...

By Dr Daud Abdullah, for Al Jazeera EnglishDirector of the Middle East Monitor In a move that appears to be a celebration of the 16th anniversary of the massacre of 29 worshippers by the terrorist Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli government has proclaimed that the Ibrahimi Mosque in Khalil (Hebron)...

By Omar Radwan There has been much concern in Israel recently about alleged efforts by individuals and groups in the West to “de-legitimise” Israel. The Reut Institute, an Israeli think tank, has published a report entitled “Eroding Israel’s Legitimacy in the International Arena”, cataloguing actions targeting Israel undertaken by...

By Yoseph OudaSince the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948, Israel has exercised racist policies against minorities living within its borders. This naturally contravenes the democratic principles it claims to pursue and uphold as a way of life. Nevertheless, it continues to consider itself the only democratic...

The Israeli newspaper “Yediot Ahronot” reports on the disappearance of one of the individuals whose name appears on the list of those thought to have perpetrated the assassination of the Hamas leader Mahmoud Mabhouh… A correspondent from the newspaper visited the Kibbutz Givat Ha’shlosha where the man named James...

By Gideon LevyIsrael’s bigwigs attacked at dawn on a wide front.. The president in Germany, the prime minister with a giant entourage in Poland, the foreign minister in Hungary, his deputy in Slovakia, the culture minister in France, the information minister at the United Nations, and even the Likud...

Boycotts don’t work. At least that’s what we are told by Israel’s apologists whenever the topic of a cultural, academic or trade boycott is mentioned. It was with great interest, therefore, that I read an obscure little article in the Daily Telegraph: “Israeli army calls for boycott over model’s...

It is no secret that the power struggle within Israeli politics has taken a sharp turn recently. The picture is not bright for the Israelis as the conflict’s intensity reflects contradictions within the Israeli state and indicates clearly the magnitude of the challenges ahead. The struggle that has dominated...

Dr Azmi Bishara Jerusalem has changed drastically in recent decades. There is no doubt that anyone who was born there before 1967 and went to visit today would find a completely different city. This is the physical reality of a political fact that paved the way for the letter...

By Senussi Bsaikri Although its major offensive on the Gaza Strip ended in January, Israel’s sporadic attacks have not stopped. Early last Sunday Israeli aircrafts launched raids on targets in the Gaza Strip, wounding seven Palestinians and destroying many buildings. The army justified its aggressive action claiming that a...