Enormous resources have been marshaled by conservative and Zionist organizations in an attempt to silence criticism of the Canadian government’s unwavering support for Israel. The first few months of 2009 have seen a concerted campaign to shut down Palestine advocacy in Canada. Such examples include: cutting funding to the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) due […]
Geography Archives: Israel
Interview with Nadine Rosa-Rosso: Debating the Question of Removing Hamas from the List of Terrorist Organizations
Elkalam.com talks with Nadine Rosa-Rosso, former secretary general of the Parti du Travail (Workers’ Party) of Belgium, who has launched a Europe-wide campaign to remove Hamas from the list of terrorist organizations. She explains the reasons for this initiative today. Why did you decide to launch an appeal for the removal of Hamas from […]
Intimidation
My computer, today, is still at Tel Aviv police headquarters where it stayed after my two-hour interrogation last week. I am not given, I believe, to conspiracy thinking but the thought crossed my mind, comically rather, whether I’d ever written anything unkind about my neighbor or his family. This morning, when I brought my […]
How Many Secret Prisons Does Israel Have? UN Torture Watchdog Demands Access
The United Nation’s watchdog on torture has criticized Israel for refusing to allow inspections at a secret prison, dubbed by critics as “Israel’s Guantanamo Bay” and demanded to know if more such clandestine detention camps are operating. In a report published on Friday, the Committee Against Torture requested that Israel identify the location of the […]
The East Palestine Archipelago
The East Palestine Archipelago Above: Imagined map by Julien Bousac, graphically illustrating the Palestinians’ difficulty in getting around. All the zones of the West Bank occupied by Israel are pictured as the sea. Left: The legend of the map in English. Source: L’Atlas, Un monde à l’envers, Paris: Le Monde diplomatique, 2009. Download the […]
Benny Morris’s War on History
Benny Morris, One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict (Yale University Press, 2009). This book is a disgrace. It is difficult to understand why a reputable publisher like Yale University Press would wish to have its name on a book that is so dishonest, ill-informed, and pursues an obvious political agenda. Perhaps the clue […]
Cultural Identity in the Islamic World
A colleague of mine who now works as an editor at a large German daily newspaper told me about an experience he had while enroling in Jewish Studies. Since the main currents of Judaism and Islam both flow through the same cultural space with a strong Arab influence, he thought it would be wise to […]
Interview with Judith Butler: “Gender Is Extramoral”
Essayist, thinker and professor in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, Butler is best known for her studies of gender and sexuality, in which she examines the question of what it means to remake, to resignify, the restrictive normative concepts of sexual life and gender. Is it possible to establish any […]
Prisoners and Detainees in Israeli Prisons
General Statistics — 2008-2009 Data is presented below regarding detainees and prisoners in Israeli prisons, as collected from various sources. As of January 2009, approximately 22,500 individuals were imprisoned or detained in Israeli prisons; around 70% of those individuals are Arabs.1 Palestinian prisoners and detainees holding Israeli citizenship (January 2009) Security classification Criminal classification […]
The Unrecognized
“The Unrecognized” is a short documentary that highlights the plight of Palestinian Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel living in the Naqab (Negev) desert in the south of the country, many of whom were forced off their lands following the establishment of the state in 1948. The human rights of these citizens of Israel have been […]
The Citizenship and Entry in Israel Law
The Citizenship and Entry in Israel Law (Temporary Order), enacted in 2003, is a racist law that bans family unification between Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as any citizen from the following states defined by Israel as “enemy” states: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Adalah […]
“Israel’s Internal Matter”: The Palestinian Prisoners of Zion
A year has passed since we last marked Prisoners’ Day. Throughout this period, we have witnessed the most intensive media coverage with regard to Palestinian prisoners. Speculation about an impending deal to swap a large number of prisoners for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit (captured in Gaza in 2006) stirred waves of rumors, including […]
Forbidden Land
“Forbidden Land” is a short documentary produced by Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel that highlights the confiscation of Palestinian Arab-owned land by Israel. Thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel lost their land in the 1950s and 1960s after the government seized it, claiming that the land was needed […]
Pope’s Political “Pilgrimage” to Israel
Pope Benedict XVI upset the schedule on his first day in Israel by leaving an interfaith meeting in Jerusalem early on Monday night after a leading Muslim cleric called on him to condemn the “slaughter” of women and children in the recent assault on Gaza. The pontiff walked out, a spokesman noted, because Sheikh Tayseer […]
US Pakistan Policy Is Floundering
Aijaz Ahmad and Paul Jay
Paul Jay: So, we left off the first segment of the interview with you suggesting that there really doesn’t seem to be any kind of sensible strategy of the US in Pakistan and Afghanistan. What would the sensible strategy be right now? Obama seems to have . . . it’s very strange, they assessed the […]
Action Boycott Israel in Montigny, Paris Region
This action was led by the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA), especially Omar Slaouti, who heads the NPA list in Île-de-France, as well as by Senator Alima Boumediene-Thiery (Greens), conducted in a clear, educational fashion, with the participation of many local politicians. The NPA walks the walk, demonstrating that the call for the boycott of […]
Help Israeli Human Rights Activist Ezra Nawi
“Nawi is not a typical rights activist. A member of Ta’ayush Arab-Jewish Partnership he is a Jewish Israeli of Iraqi descent who speaks fluent Arabic. He is a gay man in his fifties and a plumber by trade. Perhaps because he himself comes from the margins, he empathises with others who have been marginalised — […]
Obama Misses Opportunity for Accountability on Aid to Israel
Washington, DC (May 7, 2009) — The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a national coalition of more than 280 organizations working to change U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine to support human rights, international law, and equality, today criticized the Obama Administration for including $2.775 billion in unconditioned military aid to Israel in its FY2010 […]
New Phase in the US-Israel Relations?
The wave of pressures exercised by Washington on Israel could signal the beginning of a new era in the relations between the US and Israeli governments. The administration of US President Barack Obama has reiterated the requirement that a Palestinian state be created, a key issue, which is not supported by the new right-wing government […]
Guerrilla Ad Campaign Replaces “Study in Israel” Billboards
Students and community members near the UC Berkeley campus were surprised one weekend to see a series of bus shelter billboards asking, “What country uses live ammunition against unarmed children?” Below a photo of identically dressed schoolboys in front of a barbed wire fence is the answer: Israel. The guerrilla ads replaced ads which […]
