Geography Archives: Israel

  In September 2000, I decided to do my part to bring peace to the Middle East.  As a Canadian attorney of Palestinian origin, I believed I could use my legal skills to help broker a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.  Naive?  Perhaps. I left my comfortable life in California and moved to […]

  As feminists and people of conscience, we call for solidarity with Palestinian women in Gaza suffering due to the escalating military attacks that Israel turned into an open war on civilians.  This war has targeted women and children, and all those who live under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, and are also denied […]

  Israel’s Declaration of Independence states that the Jewish people arose in the Land of Israel and was exiled from its homeland.  Every Israeli schoolchild is taught that this happened during the period of Roman rule, in 70 CE.  The nation remained loyal to its land, to which it began to return after two millennia […]

If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world’s most intractable, much the same can be said of the parallel debate about whether its resolution can best be achieved by a single state embracing the two peoples living there or by a division of the land into two separate states, one for Jews and the […]

  Rafah, the Gaza Strip, March 3 — Israeli officials said today that they finished their military operation in the Gaza Strip, but the Israeli attacks continue, and we fear that Israel is still planning a major invasion.  On February 29th, Israel’s Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai warned of “a bigger holocaust” for Palestinians. From […]

The world’s largest prison — Gaza prison with 1.5 million inmates, many of them starving, sick and penniless — is receiving more sympathy and protest by Israeli citizens, of widely impressive backgrounds, than is reported in the U.S. press. In contrast, the humanitarian crisis brought about by Israeli government blockades that prevent food, medicine, fuel […]

Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai’s much publicized remark last week about Gaza facing a “shoah” — the Hebrew word for the Holocaust — was widely assumed to be unpleasant hyperbole about the army’s plans for an imminent full-scale invasion of the Strip. More significantly, however, his comment offers a disturbing indication of the Israeli […]

6 March 2008 The Congress of South African Trade Unions is appalled at the destruction of the headquarters of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) in Gaza, by two one-ton Israeli F-16 missiles. One person is dead, 37 are injured, mostly women and children, some of them in critical condition in hospital, and […]

7 March 2008 The South African Municipal Workers’ Union has vowed to intensify its campaign to force municipalities in the country not to have any trade dealings with Israel. SAMWU firmly believes that Israel is an apartheid state that needs to be isolated and the perpetrators of human rights violations, prosecuted.  The union utterly condemns […]

GAZA CITY, Mar 4 (IPS) – Two F-16 missiles were all it took to bring down the five-storey headquarters of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU). The Union, established in 1965, is one of the forerunners of the movement calling for an international boycott of Israel, and imposition of sanctions on it until […]

If there was a time when Iranian analysts and decision makers would question the benefits of continuing to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, it would be now.  The IAEA has allowed systematic US intervention in Iran’s nuclear file, paving the way to a third round of sanctions against Iran’s nuclear programme.  But while […]

On Saturday, March 1, Colombian military forces attacked an encampment of the FARC, the largest Colombian guerilla group, across the Ecuadorian border.  The strike, in violation of international law, reportedly killed up to 20 guerrillas in their sleep.  Among those killed was Raúl Reyes, a top FARC commander.  The attack has sparked a regional crisis […]

In the strange world of Israeli academia, an Arab college lecturer is being dismissed from his job because he refused to declare his “respect for the uniform of the Israeli army.”  The bizarre demand was made of Nizar Hassan, director of several award-winning films, after he criticized a Jewish student who arrived in his film […]

Max Elbaum will be on two panels at Left Forum 2008: “The State of the Anti-War Movement” and “Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Legacy of ’68.” — Ed. WAR/PEACE AT THE PIVOT If the U.S. can be forced to withdraw completely from Iraq, many more positive changes become possible. But if the U.S. continues its […]

Left Forum 2008 Each spring in New York City, Left Forum gathers intellectuals and activists from around the world to address the burning issues of our times.  The theme for 2008 is “CRACKS IN THE EDIFICE.”  We will examine the context of an empire in the throes of collapse and discuss the possibilities for social […]

James L. Gelvin.  The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. x + 294 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliographies, glossary, time line, biographical sketches, index. Those who have noted, but not read, James Gelvin‘s The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War may well ask themselves, “do we need another […]

The status of the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt remains unsettled.  Egypt is under heavy pressure from both Israel and the United States to reestablish control and seal the border.  In an uncharacteristically blunt criticism of the regime of President Husni Mubarak, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified before the House Foreign Affairs […]

  Lara Deeb.  An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon.   Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics Series.  Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. ix + 263 pp. Illustrations, footnotes, glossary, bibliography, index. An Enchanted Modern by Lara Deeb is an important book that illustrates and explores the lives of real, modern, Muslim women.  Published […]

Abstract The global economic system has come to be dominated de facto by institutions subscribing to and enforcing the neoliberal agenda.  Since the end of World War II, these institutions have sought not only to regulate but, in a manner reminiscent of classical colonialism, to control global resources facilitated by the emergence of the neoliberal […]

It is difficult to be critical of Israel without having one’s words misinterpreted, twisted, their meaning inverted.  A controversy centering on the Turin Book Fair is raging in Italy, amid conflicting claims and counter-claims.  French Journalist Pierre Assouline in a recent blog entry further distorted the terms of the debate. The facts are these: The […]