Review of Palestine Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter, New York: Simon and Shuster, 2006, pp. 265+xvii.

June 6, 2007

Former US president Jimmy Carter’s historical narrative of the various efforts he has been involved in to bring peace to Palestine is a fascinating insight into the politics behind the would-be peacemakers. Carter shows great courage in describing how pro-Israeli bias within the current American administration is the real obstacle to peace in the Middle East; a bias which gives the green light to a system of oppression and apartheid.

Palestinians Under Occupation: Living Without Human Rights

June 5, 2007

The creation of Israel in Palestine in 1948 provoked untold human rights abuses both in terms of the collective rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and in terms of their individual human rights. While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) outlined ample provisions guaranteeing civil and political rights including the rights to life and liberty of all peoples, Israel has stubbornly refused to conform to these international norms.

Nightmares – How Gaza offends us all

June 4, 2007

A descriptive look at the daily life for the people of Gaza. The writer brilliantly illustrates the horrors of living under fire and portrays the Palestinians of Gaza as a people abandoned by the world to the murderous Israeli occupation, but whose will to resist strengthens with each atrocity committed against them.

Gateways to Hell: Military Checkpoints in the Occupied West Bank

June 3, 2007

Checkpoints, closures, curfews and the bureaucracy of permits and licences that back up these measures have long been the tools that facilitate the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. However, since September 2000 the system has been intensified, ‘industrialised’ and, increasingly, brutalized. This article will make the point that the very existence of this massive scheme of obstacles, even when no physical or verbal abuse are perpetrated there, is in itself an abuse of a fundamental human/civil right: freedom of movement. More than this, allegedly a necessary security measure, the checkpoints are in fact instruments of control and humiliation of a civilian population and the paralysis and disruption of their economy and society (World Bank, 2007). Checkpoints are a tool towards Israel’s realisation of maximum territory with a minimum of Palestinians; yet another element in the ongoing system of population transfer that began with the Naqba-Disaster of 1948 and that continues, by various means, up to the present time.[1]

No Place Like Home: House Demolitions In East Jerusalem

June 2, 2007

The following are extracts from a recent report on house demolitions in East Jerusalem authored by Dr. Meir Margalit and published by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. The chapters explore the underlying motivation behind house demolitions and set forth musings as to the significance of home demolition for a family; what East Jerusalemites undergo from the time they are served the demolition order until the bulldozer arrives: the scars left on the souls of young children, and the effects of house demolition on the fabric of life in Jerusalem.

Editorial

June 1, 2007

The right of return is one of the most fundamental rights granted to displaced persons all over the world and one which is anchored in several bodies of international law. It has historically been shown that the success of peace and security agreements in post-conflict