Middle East Watch

475 Article

• Palestine: A Century of Resistance against Globalized Settler Colonial Terror

  by Adel Samara

  An address prepared for Kurd, Turk and French workers, Leon-France

  25 November 2009.

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• Living by the Gate From Hell

  by Ellen Cantarow
  At no time since its 1967 West Bank occupation have Israel’s seizures of Palestinian land and water resources seemed as shocking as the ones attending its construction of "the wall," begun in 2002. Vast, complex, and shifting in form, the wall appears most dramatically as 25-foot-high concrete slabs punctuated by militarized watch towers, supplemented by electronically monitored electrified fences stretching over vast distances. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared (…)  continue
  

• What the U.S. Elite Really Thinks About Israel

  8 December 2009, by Jeffrey Blankfort
  The Council on Foreign Relations is always near the top of the Left’s list of bogeymen that stand accused of pulling the strings of US foreign policy. It is right up there with the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission, right? Wrong. If that was the case, those arguing that US support for Israel is based on it being a "strategic asset" will have a hard time explaining a Pew Research Center survey on America’s Place in the World, taken of 642 CFR members between October 2 and (…)  continue
  

• Help save the Palestinian village of Lifta from total destruction

  26 November 2009,
  Lifta, a most picturesque Palestinian village, lies on the slopes of West Jerusalem below the highway linking it to Tel-Aviv. It has been abandoned since the invading Hagana underground forces backed by the Stern Gang drove the last of its Palestinian inhabitants in 1948 during the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It was the one single event which changed the nature of the place and the whole region. Although dozens of houses were destroyed, many of them still remain poised on the landscape. (…)  continue
  

• "My Name is Rachel Corrie" and Israel’s waning impunity

  2 December 2009, by Charlotte Silver
  On 19 November 2009 the play My Name is Rachel Corrie, was staged at Stanford University. Amanda Gelender produced the play as a part of her Stanford senior thesis. Amanda is my friend and was also my college classmate. We worked together in several campus political organizations, including the student-led Israel divestment campaign. I attended opening night and along with a sold-out audience was struck by the poignancy of the play and Amanda’s subtle and deeply moving performance. Rachel (…)  continue
  

• British TV documentary tackles taboo of Israel’s lobby

  19 November 2009, by Diane Langford
  For the first time a mainstream British television program has tackled the Zionist lobby head-on. Channel 4’s Dispatches, broadcast on 16 November, promised to hold the pro-Israel lobby up to rigorous public scrutiny and it succeeded. Presented by Peter Oborne, former political editor of the right-wing weekly The Spectator, Dispatches revealed the cozy relationship between Britain’s pro-Israel lobby and both the Conservative and Labour parties as well as its attempts to stifle criticism of (…)  continue
  

• Shimon Pérès, le nucléaire israélien et "l’option Samson"

  2 décembre 2009, par Laurent Zecchini
  Si Israël était menacé de destruction, faudrait-il qu’il ait recours à l’"option Samson" ? A cette question, posée par Gil Kopatch et Shani Keinan, producteurs d’un film pas encore diffusé retraçant sa vie, le président israélien, Shimon Pérès, répond avec une surprenante franchise : "L’objectif de ces réacteurs [nucléaires] est d’empêcher la destruction [d’Israël], et jusqu’à maintenant, cela a bien fonctionné. J’espère que cela continuera à fonctionner à l’avenir." L’"option Samson" est (…)  suite
  

• “…And A Little Child Shall Lead Them”

  28 November 2009, by Uri Avnery
  THOMAS FRIEDMAN, the New York Times columnist, has an idea. That happens to him quite often. One might almost say - too often. It goes like this: The US will turn its back on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The entire world will follow. Everybody is fed up with this conflict. Let the Israelis and the Palestinians sort out their problems by themselves. Sounds sensible. Why must the world be bothered with these two unruly children? Let them kick each other as much as they like. The (…)  continue
  

• 52 Words That Shook Washington

  27 November 2009, by Franklin Lamb
  "It is the right of the Lebanese people, Army and the (Hezbollah led—ed.)Resistance to liberate the Shebaa Farms, the Kfar Shuba Hills and the northern part of the village of Ghajar as well as to defend Lebanon and its territorial waters in the face of any enemy by all available and legal means.” So reads the Policy Declaration of the new Government of the Republic of Lebanon, issued on November 26,2009, four days after the celebration of Lebanon’s 66 years of independence from the French (…)  continue
  

• Palestinian History and Identity in Israeli Schools

  17 novembre 2009, par Sa’id Barghouti
  This article is based on my personal experience as a teacher of Palestinian students in Israeli public schools and through my work as school inspector and history curriculum team coordinator for Arab schools from 1975 until 2004. During this period I was engaged in efforts at textbook reform, and on research about Israel’s education system which I undertook for my doctoral dissertation. Background Israel has a highly centralized public education system which is operated and controlled by (…)  suite