Geography Archives: Israel

May 18, 2011 In an effort to define the dominant narrative about the ongoing Arab awakening and America’s role in the Middle East, President Obama will give what the White House is billing as a major address on Middle East policy.  However eloquently delivered, the address will not be able to overcome or compensate for […]

  Hassan Hijazi, a Syrian-Palestinian youth, is as surprised as the Israeli police.  Hassan, who is a civil servant in the Education Ministry of Syria, had never imagined, even in his wildest dream, that one day he would be able to stroll on the streets of Jaffa, a city annexed to Tel Aviv.  “My parents […]

Scores of protesters in Cairo clash with Egyptian security forces in front of the Israeli embassy. They were gathering to urge Egypt to cut ties with Israel and also show support for the Palestinians’ Third Intifada. As tensions grew, security forces used live rounds, tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. According to Egyptian officials over 10 protesters were injured and 30 arrested.

“We say to the Israeli establishment in the name of each and every one of us: I am not a stranger in my homeland, I am not a hostage to your ideas, I am free, despite your accusation, I am the owner of this land, despite your oppression.” — Omar Siksik, 14 May 2011 Cf. […]

“There must constantly be an intifada.  I am for the one state solution, so there must be an intifada in Palestine.  The liberation of Palestine is a part of every one of these Arab revolutions.  Now, even after the revolution, the [Egyptian] army is banning these peaceful convoys [to Gaza] and this show of solidarity […]

  “It is forbidden to mourn on the founding day of the state.” — Israel 2011 Tel Aviv, Israel, 9 May 2011 Zochrot is an NGO whose goal is to introduce the Palestinian Nakba to the Israeli-Jewish public, to express the Nakba in Hebrew.  This is in order to promote an alternative memory to the […]

Intervention in the Name of Stability Professor Noam Chomsky recently delivered an important address in Amsterdam entitled “Contours of the World Order.”1  A large part of the speech was devoted to the role of the United States in defending its area of absolute hegemony.  According to Chomsky’s excellent analysis, the US relates to all countries […]

Coptic anger turns on the army after bloody sectarian violence gripped Cairo.  The clashes between Muslims and Christians in Imbaba left at least 12 dead.  Two churches were torched.  It’s the latest in a string of sectarian incidents since Egypt’s revolution, which left the army in interim charge of the country.  Now the Coptic community […]

The trajectory of the democratic movement in the Arab world was never going to be a straight line with clear goals and objectives.  The Arab regimes are not homogeneous; they have medieval Islamist monarchies, as in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, and secular but completely authoritarian regimes, both Western puppets like Mubarak and […]

  Occupied Palestine, 4 May 2011 — In commemoration of the first of May — a day of workers’ struggle and international solidarity — the first Palestinian trade union conference for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel (BDS) was held in Ramallah on 30 April 2011, organized by almost the entirety of the Palestinian trade […]

Statement of Cuban Ambassador Rodolfo Reyes, at the Special Session of the Human Rights Council, on the human rights situation in Syria, Geneva, 29 April 2011 Mr. President: Cuba condemns the hypocrisy and double standards on which the convocation of this special session is based.  Human rights are not its genuine motive.  The motive is […]

Camille Otrakji is a Syrian political blogger based in Montreal.  Although he tends to keep a low profile, Otrakji has been, for the past several years, at the forefront of many of the most interesting and influential online initiatives relating to Syrian politics.  He is one of the authors and moderators at Joshua Landis’s Syria […]

  Two political analysts shared their view with Islam Online: the leadership of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” will not leave Syria unless it is asked to do so.  They say that it is not in the interest of Hamas to leave Damascus now. An Internal Affair London’s Al-Hayat newspaper claimed that Hamas decided […]

  Two relationships have long been key to the stability of the Syrian regime.  The first is an economic relationship: the regime puts back into national production just enough to create jobs and produce cheap national goods to keep the working population in steady or, better yet improving, living conditions.  The second is a political […]

“Here’s the Seat of the Embassy of Palestine” On Wednesday around 300 students, largely from Cairo University, held a march and protest in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo. To be honest, it was very weird marching without the Central Security Forces being around or cracking down.  At some point when we were standing […]

  It appears from Iranian Islamist blogs that the honeymoon between Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Islamic Republic’s Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is finally over.  Some reject Ahmadinejad in favor of the Supreme Leader while others show unwavering support for Ahmadinejad. It all started when President Ahmadinejad accepted the resignation of the Iranian Minister […]

Norman Gottwald belongs to a rare breed — an American Marxist biblical scholar.  More than one jarring juxtaposition in that epithet!  Unfortunately, he is less well known outside the relative small circle of biblical scholars than he should be.  In order to introduce him to a wider audience, let me say a little about his […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  | Print

Statement of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Israel The Communist Party of Israel (CPI) welcomes the accord signed by representatives of the Fatah and Hamas movements, concerning the establishment of an interim unity government, and preparations for elections for the Presidency, the Parliament, and the Palestinian National Council within eight months. An […]

On April 9, Vittorio Arrigoni — Vik to us — wrote to me in an e-mail that “I will go out immediately after this shame” ends.  The “shame” was Israel’s latest flurry of F-16-delivered explosives that landed on the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. On April 14 at noon I learned of Vik’s abduction at […]