Feature Archives

Both the United States and the European Union, which is the main donor to the Palestinians with 500 million euros a year, have suspended aid to the Palestinian Authority leaving it on the verge of bankruptcy after Hamas assumed power in March. Israel has further stopped transferring customs duties worth around $50 million a month and previously collected for the Palestinian Authority. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned on May 5th, that a humanitarian crisis was now "on our doorstep" in the Gaza Strip due to the aid freeze.

The US is leading an international campaign to isolate the Hamas-led Palestinian government and has ordered diplomats and contracts not to communicate with the cabinet ministers. On May 23rd, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly backed a bill calling for the Palestinian Authority to be designated a "terrorist sanctuary," and imposing broad restrictions on US aid to the PA. The legislation, passed by 361 votes to 37 with nine abstentions, bans visas for entry into the United States of any official or member of the PA or any component of the PA. It also recommends withholding US contributions to the United Nations proportional to the amount the world body provides the PA. The vote came during Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's first trip to Washington. During his visit, Olmert vowed to fix Israel's final borders by 2010 which include annexing large Jewish settlement blocks in the occupied West Bank, dividing Palestinian areas and making it almost impossible to create a contiguous and viable Palestinian state.

On May 29th, Israel gave a minister and three MPs from Hamas 30 days to resign their posts or face expulsion from Al-Quds (occupied east Jerusalem). Mr Abu Tir, a senior figure who was second on the Hamas candidates' list last January, said: "No one can deport residents of the holy city from their lands. We will fight this erroneous decision every way we can, via the Israeli legal system, the international courts, Palestinian public opinion and the Arab world opinion - in order to defeat these Israeli intentions."

Since Hamas won parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories it has been under immense pressure to offer Israel recognition. Hamas has simultaneously rejected flat-out recognition while offering a number of unprecedented policy shifts, including spelling out terms for peace with Israel. Ever since assuming office, Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Al-Zahar has been on an almost non-stopped shuttle diplomacy to break a US-led campaign to isolate his government and drum support for the Palestinians in their current financial crunch. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, has set a deadline for agreement on seeking a settlement with Israel - and will call a referendum if none is reached. Hamas complains bitterly that Fatah, possibly encouraged by Israel and the US, is refusing to come to terms of Hamas's electoral victory and is trying to rob the Hamas government of its basic powers and authorities, such as controlling police and security forces. While Israel has authorized deliveries of light weapons and ammunition to the presidential guard of Abbas in a bid to "contend with Hamas", Palestinian factions agreed Friday, May 26th, to stand firmly in the face of attempts trying to spark an internecine conflict and called for adopting a national code of conduct. The Hamas-led Palestinian government ordered its militia off Gaza's streets in the wake of clashes with the Fatah movement that stirred fears of civil war. Hamas had been planning to move its 3,000-strong paramilitary force into Gaza police stations in a move which threatened to undermine the rival Fatah faction's control of the main domestic security forces.

Can Hamas and Fatah ever agree on how to negotiate with Israel? | Abbas threatens referendum over two-state solution | President Bush Embraces “Bold” Israeli Plan To Annex West Bank Settlements | Surrender vs. the Right to Exist | Election Backlash: Iraq, Palestine and Israel | Abbas' Dangerous Game | Deporting Hamas Members of Parliament | Hamas Being Forced To Collapse | Starving Gaza | Israeli Human Rights: Starve the Palestinians

On Wednesday, May 31st, Bay Area Women in Black will host an event entitled "Palestinian Lesbians Speak Out from the Occupation." The event will take place at 7:00pm at the Berkeley Friends Church at 1600 Saramento Street at Cedar, in Berkeley. The event will be a fundraiser for ASWAT.

Two Palestinian human rights activists from Israel will be speaking that evening. Rauda Morcos is the co-founder of ASWAT, an organization that broke the silence for Palestinian lesbians and the first Palestinian woman to publicly come out of the closet. She will address the work of ASWAT and the everyday conflicts she experiences between her national and gendered identity. Rauda is in the US to accept a distinguished award from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. Nisreen Mazzawi is an environmentalist and feminist and is the Political Coordinator of Bat Shalom of the Jerusalem Link and Coordinator of the Women Empowerment Project in the Palestinian unrecognized villages in the north of Israel. She will speak about organizing Palestinian women under occupation.

ASWAT | Bay Area Women in Black | Kersplebedeb article about Rauda Morcos | International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission | Advocate Interview

August 6th-12th 2006 will be World Pride in Jerusalem. Queeruption 9 will take place in Tel Aviv from August 3rd through 13th. Queeruption is a do-it-yourself, anti-commercial, non-hierarchal, safe and open space for workshops, music, art, actions, parties, sex, performances and everything participants propose and/or prepare. Queeruption welcomes and celebrates all gender identities and sexualities.

World Pride is seen as a chance for the Israeli office of foreign affairs to hide the government’s war crimes behind a rainbow flag. The slogan of the World Pride Parade is “Love Without Borders”. Queeruption organizers believe that love without borders should reject occupation, Apartheid, social injustice, ecological destruction and walls. Queers who were present at Queeruption in Barcelona last year said that they view themselves as part of the global struggle for freedom, justice and self determination. They say that several Palestinian organizations have called for a boycott of World Pride, and that it is important to push their solidarity further by going to Israel and Palestine for a celebration of diversity, empowerment and resistance. Read more

The Boycott World Pride website says, "Although Jerusalem was designated as an "international city" by the United Nations, travel to Jerusalem may only be accomplished with the consent of the Israeli government and its military forces. Palestinians and other people of Arab and North African descent have routinely been barred from the City of Jerusalem by the occupying Israeli forces. We are appalled that InterPride chose Jerusalem as the site of the second World Pride event and is encouraging LGBTIQ people from all over the world to ignore the boycott and spend significant funds in Israel, bolstering its tourist economy and its disingenuous claim to be a "free," democratic, state." Deeg from LAGAI writes, "(F)or the LGBTIQ movement...for peoples who consider ourselves part of the international human rights movement, to figuratively march en masse across the Palestinians’ picket line to attend (either World Pride or Queeruption)... is an appalling spectacle."

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission has condemned homophobic statements made by Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders in connection with World Pride 2006, and has stated that it will not be participating in the event. It also points out that many people from the Middle East will be unable to participate in World Pride due to travel restrictions and conditions that limit mobility and participation. IGLHRC encourages all those who participate in World Pride 2006 to engage in discussion about the denial of human rights of all people in the region, as well as LGBTI communities in Israel and the Occupied Territories. IGLHRC's statement

Queeruption | Queeruption 9 website | Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism

Read more on Indybay's LGTBQI News Page

On March 14th, Israeli troops raided a prison in Jericho in the West Bank in an effort to arrest or assassinate Ahmed Sa'adat, Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and a number of other prisoners.

From The Egyptian Newspaper Al-Ahram Weekly:
Saadat's capture concluded an extraordinarily violent day, even by the standards of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It had begun soon after dawn when British security officials monitoring the prison abandoned their post. Within 20 minutes Israeli army soldiers, tanks, bulldozers and helicopters had encircled the compound. For the next 10 hours they shot, strafed, pounded and bulldozed the prison in a graduated assault intended to extract Saadat and his co-detainees. Two Palestinian police officers and a prisoner were killed: 18 Palestinians were injured. Speaking to Al-Jazeera television by mobile phone, Saadat said he was "ready to meet [his] destiny". At around 6.30pm a Palestinian Authority Brigade commander mediating between him and the army told him what it was. Fifteen minutes later Saadat surrendered.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas -- then in Europe prevailing on EU countries to maintain aid to the PA -- slammed the British monitors' abandonment as a gross violation of the agreement made between them, the PA, the US and Israel in May 2002. This had been a basic trade in which Saadat and the five other prisoners would be detained in a Palestinian jail under British and American supervision in return for their and Yasser Arafat's release from an Israeli siege in Ramallah.
Amnesty Holds Israel Responsible for Prisoners Safety | Israel's attack on Jericho: Palestinians remain without protection | PFLP Statement re the Jericho Prison assault | ISM: testimony from the Jericho prison attack

As news leaked out of Israel's actions and the US and British cooperation in the action, the British Council offices in Gaza were set on fire and several Western aid workers were briefly taken hostage. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) also heaped blame on the US and Britain, warning this would escalate "violence and extremism" throughout the world. "The governments of Britain and the United States bear direct and serious responsibility for what happened in the prison and escalating what took place later," the OIC said in a statement cited by Reuters.
Palestinians went on strike across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank on Wednesday but in Israel sentiments were very different; images of Palestinian police and prisoners being paraded in their underwear after their surrender resulted in a major boost to the ruling Kadima party, which is up for election on March 28th. Rifat Odeh Kassis writes for The Electronic Intifada, "Palestinians know from experience that before every election Israel becomes more brutal", but another reason for the raid was to send Hamas the message that "they will not be accepted and the agreements between Israel and the previous PA are no longer valid".
While the British government is facing possible legal action over its decision to withdraw monitors from the Jericho prison, Abbas has also taken some of the blame. Fatah officials have asked the Palestinian president to resign, dissolve the Palestinian Authority and return responsibility for the occupied territories to Israel in protest against Tel Aviv's actions.
Democracy Now: Israeli Raid on Palestinian Prison Ignites Crisis in Occupied Territories | Israeli attack on Jericho jail sparks uprising in Gaza and West Bank | Britain and US complicit in Jericho raid, says Abbas | Abbas rushes home after jail raid

The International Solidarity Movement Support Group in Northern California held its third annual Rachel Corrie Memorial on March 16th. The event was at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts (formerly the Alice Arts Center) in Oakland. Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement. She was killed by an Israeli soldier while she was nonviolently resisting the demolition of a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip in Palestine.
Corrie v. Caterpillar: The Struggle for Justice Continues | Three years to Rachel's Murder | Photostory: Rachel Corrie remembered in Seattle

The Oakland event honored victims of violence everywhere and the unjustly imprisoned. It made connections between various global and domestic issues of social justice, particularly the issue of Palestine. Speakers at the event included Huwaida Arraf, Dolores Huerta, Maria Labossiere, Todd Chretien, Kiilu Nyasha, and Mary Jean Robertson. Performers such as Stephen Kent, Ras K’ Dee, Andrea Prichett, and Dave Welsh were also present. More info about the performers

"My Name Is Rachel Corrie" was supposed to be opening in New York at the New York Theater Workshop during the week of March the 20th. However, the producers of the play were told that it was going to be postponed indefinitely. This play was based on Rachel's Corrie's diaries. The text had been edited from her diaries by Alan Rickman, who directed, with Megan Dodds playing Rachel, the show as it was performed by the Royal Court Theatre-- to overwhelming critical acclaim. The show appears to have been postponed due to its political content. Read ISM suggestions for writing letters to protest the New York Times's coverage of this story.

Activists worldwide plan to hold public space readings of Rachel's emails and journal entries during March 16th, the anniversary of Corrie's death. People plan to give fliers to passersby to encourage them to ask themselves, "Why are people so frightened of Rachel Corrie's words?" Read more

Democracy Now's Interview with Vanessa Redgrave | Warren Guykema's letter published in Counterpunch | More articles about the play | If Americans Knew's Rachel Corrie page | Rachel's Words website

In the Occupied Territories, unofficial results indicate Hamas has won a sweeping victory in the first Palestinian parliamentary elections in a decade. Israel and the United States have said they would not deal with a Palestinian Authority that includes Hamas.

According to Ali Abunimah, from writing on Electronic Intifada:
The election result is not entirely surprising, however, and has been foreshadowed by recent events. Take for example the city of Qalqilya in the north of the West Bank. Hemmed in by Israeli settlements and now completely surrounded by a concrete wall, the city's fifty thousand residents are prisoners in a Israeli-controlled giant ghetto. For years Qalqilya's city council was controlled by Fatah but after the completion of the wall, voters in last years' municipal elections awarded every single city council seat to Hamas. The Qalqilya effect has now spread across the occcupied territories, with Hamas reportedly winning virtually all of the seats elected on a geographic basis. Thus Hamas' success is as much an expression of the determination of Palestinians to resist Israel's efforts to force their surrender as it is a rejection of Fatah. It reduces the conflict to its most fundamental elements: there is occupation, and there is resistance.

For Palestinians under occupation, it is not yet clear what Hamas' win will mean. It is now common to speak of a Palestinian "government" being formed out of the election results, as though Palestine were already a sovereign and independent state. But if the first duty of a government is to protect its people's lives, liberty and property, then the Palestinian Authority has never deserved to be called a government. Since its inception, it has not been able to protect Palestinians from lethal daily attacks by the Israeli army in the heart of their towns and refugee camps, or to prevent a single dunum of land being seized for settlements, nor to save a single sapling of the more than one million trees uprooted by Israel in the past ten years. Rather, in Israel's conception the Palestinian Authority was supposed to crush Palestinian resistance to make the occupied territories safe for continued Israeli colonization.

Democracy Now Coverage | Hamas to Form Cabinet, Loser Fatah Not Joining | Hamas victory redraws political map of Middle East | Who's who in Hamas | Hamas claims victory | How Israel and the United States Helped to Bolster Hamas | Abbas Urges Respect of Result, West Alarmed | Palestinian PM and cabinet resign | Israeli Arab MKs: Hamas win will help peace process | Palestinian Elections: Forcing the West to awake to the voices of the people | Hamas Election Victory: A Vote for Clarity | Listening to the Voices of Palestine | Bush Calls Hamas Kettle Black