Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Jessica Purkiss
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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 health…
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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 half…
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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 the…
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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 process.…
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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. After…
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The return to negotiations fractures Palestine even further
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Eraket and his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni have sat down for “talks to begin talks”, a process which US State of Secretary John Kerry has spent four months incubating. In Washington the keen Kerry is watching over the embryonic process in the hope that Israel and Palestine…
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Is Palestine’s first planned city part of the resistance or a whitewash of the occupation?
From the disorder of a construction site in the occupied West Bank, a new vision of Palestine is rising. Not far from Ramallah, workers in hard hats are busy erecting plush office blocks, luxurious residential homes and Western shopping malls. This is Rawabi, Palestine’s first planned city. The vision for…
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Visualizing Palestine in a two state solution: A state of Palestine or a Palestinian Bantustan?
After a long career as a journalist covering the apartheid in South Africa, Allister Sparks travelled Israel and Palestine, shocked by what he witnessed he was compelled to comment, “When I look at Israel, when I traveled through the West Bank, I was looking at Bantustans-totally unviable, impossible states”. Bantustans…
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The Jordan Valley in a State of Palestine
Palestinian families used to come to Al-Oja spring, in the Jordan Valley, to spend summer days bathing. The spring overflowed with water, turning the land into the “bread basket” of the West Bank. Today the spring has gone. Left behind is dry, arid land and a stone’s throw away from…
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Apartheid relived: Israeli laws conjure-up uncomfortable memories of South Africa
On Jerusalem Day, which commemorates the illegal annexation of East Jerusalem to Israel, a young Jewish settler was asked if his country is an apartheid state. His reply was both illuminating and misguided: “How can Israel be an apartheid state? Palestinian citizens of Israel have the same rights as [Jewish]…
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Israel weighs up options as brakes are placed on Obama’s military action
Last week, Congress was due to vote on a resolution which would authorize US President Barak Obama to conduct “limited” military strikes, aimed at “deterring” Syria’s leader Bashar Al-Assad from the use of chemical weapons. Obama’s resolution brought worldwide condemnation, with anti-war protestors taking to the streets, as he desperately…
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The fight to defend Al-Aqsa
Thirteen years ago former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to the compound of the third holiest site in Islam, Al-Aqsa Mosque, sparked the Second Intifada. The intifada, which raged on for 5 years, claimed thousands of innocent lives. Today, Israeli claims to the holy site, in the heart of Jerusalem’s…
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Palestinian civil society in the pursuit of International Justice
“The establishment of the Court is a gift of hope to future generations, and a giant step forward in the march towards universal human rights and the rule of law,” said former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan as he signed the treaty establishing the world’s first permanent international tribunal,…
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Teenagers face 25 years imprisonment for allegedly throwing stones
Nema Shamlawi and her family were sleeping when over 15 armed and masked Israeli soldiers raided their home in the West Bank village of Hares, during the early hours of the morning. After searching the house and questioning her husband and sons they left, but not empty handed. Amidst Nema’s…
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Israel’s latest stunt to keep settlement expansion away from critics
Whilst peace talks between Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are currently underway, internationally deemed illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank continue to mushroom. Even if Netanyahu had agreed to Abbas’ precondition of a “settlement freeze” and stopped issuing tenders for new settlement homes during…
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The GCC and Israel: an unlikely alliance?
“Ahmadinejad (Iran’s previous President) was a wolf in wolf’s clothing. Rouhani (Iran’s new President) is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a wolf who thinks he can pull the wool over the eyes of the international community,” said Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he stood in-front of the United Nations…
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Palestinian villages as “props” in Israel’s military training
A cemetery; usually a place for loss and remembrance; grief and commemoration. However in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, a cemetery is also a place for military training. The bodies that fill the graves are Palestinians; the soldiers partaking in the military training are Israelis serving in the…
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Obligations to combat settler violence under the domestic law of Third Party States
Third Party States have obligations under international law and their own domestic laws to investigate entities within their jurisdictions that are lending support to violent settler groups in the Occupied Territories, according to a new report by Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq. As internationally deemed illegal settlements have mushroomed across…