Middle East Watch

475 Article

• “Settlement Freeze" or Strategic Deportation?

  12 January 2010, by Signe Fischer Smidt

  The current “settlement freeze” is nothing but another act in the Israeli government’s theatrical play of showing the world that they are willing to make concessions in order to solve the conflict. Let us get one thing straight—the settlement construct ion continues, just as the strategic deportation of Palestinians in East Jerusalem continues. The rights of Palestinians are being violated on a daily basis and to them it becomes increasingly evident that the last thing on Netanyahu’s mind is (…)

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• Once More Into the Breach

  December 2009, by Ussama Makdisi

  Rashid Khalidi, Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East (Boston: Beacon Press, 2009)
  Patrick Tyler, A World of Trouble: America in the Middle East (London: Portobello Books, 2009)
  The first decade of the twenty-first century may well be remembered as the biggest boom time ever for Middle East studies. Jobs in the field were abundant, and publishers, after fretting for much of the 1990s about the future of the monograph, were suddenly in the midst of (…)

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• Khirbet Tana - A village threatened with expulsion

  11 December 2009,

  December 10, 2009, on the International Human Rights Day and the day Obama received the Nobel’s peace prize, the Israeli army paid a visit to the remote village of Khirbet Tana in the northern West Bank, confiscating their tractors and letting the villagers know that their homes would soon be demolished. On request from the villagers and the municipality of Beit Furik, a group of international volunteers from Project Hope visited the village the following day to hear and report their story. (…)

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• Israel Demolishes 30 Structures Near Nablus

  11 January 2010, by Saed Bannoura

  The attack was carried out during early morning hours on Sunday as the army surrounded the area and invaded it.
  One of the demolished structures is a local school built from bricks with metal girders as a ceiling. Other demolished structures include tin structures for the sheep.
  The Palestine News Agency, WAFA, reported that Ghassan Douglas, in charge of the settlements file in the northern part of the West Bank, said that this attack is not the first, and that Israel wants to remove the (…)

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• حدثونا من فضلكم عن السيادة المصرية!

  بقلم أحمد الخميسي

  هذا مقال قديم، لكني أرجوك ألا تتركه خاصة أنه ليس طويلا ولا مملا!، لأنه ما من مقال ينطبق على ما جرى مع قافلة شريان الحياة قدر ما ينطبق هذا المقال الذي نشر في مطلع مارس عام ٢٠٠٨عندما حاول الفلسطينيون المحاصرون من كل جهات الأرض الاندفاع إلي نسمة هواء عبر حدود مصر. حينذاك ارتفعت أصوات كثيرة تكلمنا عن سيادة مصر، كما ترتفع الآن بنفس النغمة بشأن قافلة شريان الحياة. إنه مقال قديم، لكني أرجوك ألا تتركه.
  أود الآن أن أسمع صوت تلك الجوقة التي رفعت أصواتها بالحديث عن"سيادة مصر "، وعن " الخطوط الحمراء (…)

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• « Un État palestinien est devenu impossible »

  4 janvier 2010,

  INTERVIEW (Propos recueillis à Jérusalem par Adrien Jaulmes) - Pour le pacifiste palestinien Sari Nusseibeh, Israël n’aura bientôt d’autre choix que d’intégrer sa population arabe.
  Sari Nusseibeh, doyen de l’université al-Qods à Jérusalem et intellectuel palestinien engagé, avait été l’auteur en 2002 d’un plan de paix cosigné avec Ami Ayalon, ex-chef du Shin Bet, le service de sécurité israélien.
  LE FIGARO. - La question de Jérusalem, qui a ressurgi en 2009, ne complique-t-elle pas la (…)

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• The Russell Tribunal on Palestine work has started

  22 December 2009,

  The Russell Tribunal on Palestine has held a meeting in Brussels to prepare for its first session, to be held in Barcelona from 1 to 3 March 2010. In the tradition of the preceding Russell Tribunals, first on Vietnam (launched by Lord Bertrand Russell in 1966) and then on Latin America, this initiative is an authentic peoples’ tribunal aimed at generating public awareness of the serious and recurrent violations of human rights in Palestine.
  Unlike the preceding Tribunals, the aim in this (…)

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• Lettre aux marcheurs de la Gaza Freedom March

  1er janvier 2010, par Nahla Chahal

  Cher-è-s marcheurs,
  Pleins de confiance, imposée par l’évidence de la justesse de ce que vous entreprenez, vous, les 1400 marcheurs, vous vous êtes préparés pendant des mois pour aller à la rencontre des Gazaouis en ce premier anniversaire de l’agression israélienne.
  Derrière chacun-e de vous, se tiennent des dizaines de personnes proches et amis, qui savent, approuvent, soutiennent et attendent le retour. Et derrière vous, des centaines de militants de différentes associations autour (…)

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• Another EU policy statement will not stop Israel’s colonization

  9 December 2009, by Hasan Abu Nimah

  Israel started a preemptive campaign against a EU statement on the Middle East session even before it was formally presented for discussion by EU ministers this week on whether to adopt it. Israeli spokesmen expressed outrage at what they saw as an EU effort to "divide" Jerusalem, and claimed that the European position would "harm the peace process," as if it is only Israel that has been carefully protecting it from the harmful moves of others.
  Despite the usual hype, the document, a (…)

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• Egypt blocks travel of Gaza Freedom March activists

  28 December 2009,

  This item comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the copyright page for conditions of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
  More than 1,000 persons from 42 countries who have vowed to travel from Cairo to the Gaza Strip on 31 December in a bid to highlight and (…)

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