Philly Remembers Al-Nakba... 60 Days for 60 Years

For most Americans, Palestine does not exist. Yet it is present enough to be seen as a faceless enemy. A dangerous and unwelcoming land, a breeding ground for fundamentalist Islam, teeming with angry anti-American Jihadists, Palestine is, in the American imagination, a ravaged landscape devoid of culture and joy. Umayyah Cable's photographs tell a different story of Palestine.

Testimonies given to B'Tselem indicate that the Civil Administration recently informed residents of the Palestinian village 'Arab a-Ramadin al-Janubi that they will be demanded to vacate their village and move to another site, in contradiction of Israel's explicit undertaking to the High Court of Justice. The village is an enclave situated west of the separation barrier, near the site on which the Alfe Menashe settlement was established.

Dutch designer Annelys de Vet of the the International Academy of Arts in Palestine and the Dutch Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation, joined forces with a group of Palestinian artists to realize a moving, beautiful, poetic and at times heart-breaking book. The resulting Subjective Atlas of Palestine offers a picture of Palestine that differs from the images the public generally receives through the mass media. On 26 June 2008 it was awarded the best designed book of 2007, beating out 465 others. Adri Niewuhof reports for EI.

Escaping into ambitious political fantasy like that behind the Mediterranean Union is not the right approach to urgent political questions. It is no more than a waste of time. If Europe is truly concerned, there is a due need for a principled, bold, decisive and compatible with international law policy towards the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah comments.

At the end of my visit they started asking me to take pictures for their brothers, uncles, sons and fathers detained in Israeli prisons for over four months -- a picture of a newborn not yet seen by the imprisoned father, one father's favorite girl and a picture of the detainees' pictures hanging on the wall to let the prisoners know they are missed, they are celebrated. Philip Rizk writes from the occupied Gaza Strip.

UNITED NATIONS (IPS) - Having successfully lobbied the UN Children's Agency UNICEF to stop accepting donations from Israeli billionaire Lev Avnerovich Leviev, activists are urging celebrities who have made public appearances with Leviev to cut all ties with him. Leviev is the chairman of Africa Israel Investments, a global conglomerate that has been criticized by a variety of non-governmental organizations for its involvement in building settlements in the occupied West Bank.

JERUSALEM (IPS) - Shopping malls. Schools. Medical centers. Charities, orphanages. Soup kitchens. These are the latest targets in the campaign the Israeli military is waging against Hamas in the West Bank. Israeli military officials have identified Hamas's civilian infrastructure in the West Bank as a major source of the Islamic group's popularity, and have begun raiding and shutting down these institutions in cities like Hebron, Nablus and Qalqiliya.

Ibrahim Bornat, 25, from the village of Bil'in in the occupied West Bank, was shot three times in the right thigh with dum-dum bullets by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on 13 June 2008. Like he does every week, Ibrahim was protesting against the construction of the separation wall in his village, which will effectively result in the annexation of 58 percent of the lands by Israel. Dina Awad and Hazem Jamjoum write from occupied Ramallah.

CAIRO, (IPS) - Despite intensive mediation efforts by Egyptian officials, a delegation from Palestinian resistance faction Hamas departed Cairo Saturday without securing a prisoner exchange deal with Israel. According to local analysts, fresh swap proposals -- featuring the release of long-time Israeli captive Gilad Shalit -- continue to run up against Israeli obduracy.

Late last month a conference on the Implementation of the Palestinian right of return was organized by the Israeli human rights organization Zochrot (Hebrew for "The Remembering"). Zochrot is an anti-Zionist, pro-justice group that works diligently to raise awareness within Israeli Jewish society about the Palestinian Nakba, "ground zero of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict." Nora Barrows-Friedman reports from Tel Aviv.

The Jerusalem Municipality's gross, prolonged neglect of East Jerusalem has led to the Dahiyeh al-Salam neighborhood becoming a pirate garbage dump. The Municipality has not yet kept its promise to renovate the refuse site. Dahiyeh al-Salam is one of East Jerusalem's most neglected areas.

On 27 June, I took part in one of the regular tours of the West Bank city of Hebron and its settlements organized by the organization Breaking the Silence. Breaking the Silence is a group of Israeli army soldiers and veterans who work to expose the injustice of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Once more, the tour was disrupted because of the settlers. Anne Paq reports from Hebron.

This week on Crossing The Line: Supporters of Dr. Sami al-Arian, a Palestinian political prisoner being held in the US, are outraged at a new indictment after al-Arian refused to appear before a grand jury probing an Islamic charity in northern Virginia. Host Naji Ali gets an update from Dr. al-Arian's daughter, Laila, regarding this latest indictment.

Evidence gathered by Adalah-NY indicates that Brooklyn-based billionaire Shaya Boymelgreen owns the two little-known Canadian companies sued Wednesday for war crimes in Canada by the West Bank Palestinian village of Bil'in. Three Hebrew language Israeli media reports from 2005-2006 report that Boymelgreen owns the Green Park companies that are now being sued for $2 million in Quebec Superior Court.

A 10-year-old boy was subjected to physical abuse amounting to torture for 2.5 hours by Israeli soldiers who stormed his family's shop on 11 June, seeking information on the location of a handgun. The boy was repeatedly beaten, slapped and punched in the head and stomach, forced to hold a stress position for half and hour, and threatened. He was deeply shocked and lost two molar teeth as a result of the assault.

In a continuation of their struggle for justice in the face of unlawful appropriation of their land, the people of Bil'in village yesterday commenced legal proceedings before the Superior Court of Quebec against Green Park International Inc. and Green Mount International Inc. The defendants are Canadian corporations involved in constructing, marketing and selling residential units in the illegal settlements built on the land of Bil'in.

I wasn't really surprised by the watchdog group Physicians for Human Rights-Israel's (PHR-I) latest intervention to Israel's health ministry, in which they accused Israeli doctors of complicity in the torture of Palestinian detainees in Israeli interrogation centers. Indeed, it sounded all too familiar to what I experienced during 550 days of incarceration in a South African prison from 1990 through 1992. Naji Ali writes for EI.

The separation barrier has not been moved in any of the sections that were built and later nullified by the Israeli high court. The human rights organization B'Tselem published this finding today, 9 July 2008, marking the fourth anniversary of the advisory opinion given by the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, which held that building the barrier in the West Bank breached international law.

In the middle of the night of 27 March 2008, at around 3am, Hanna Qassis was woken up by a loud thump at the door. When he went into the living room he saw seven soldiers standing in his house. His mom had opened the door. A soldier who appeared to be the commander and spoke in broken Arabic, asked who else lives in the house. Hanna, the eldest in the family after his father passed away, said his brother also lives there. He was told to go and wake him up.

On 9 July 2008, the Palestinian BDS National Committee launched a major new online resource for the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. BDSmovement.net will bring together news, campaign materials and resources from Palestinian and global activists in a single site to support, coordinate, and provide information, updates and analysis about the international BDS movement.