From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Robert Fisk | The Independent / Information Clearing House | 24 April 2004 Behold Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, would-be graduation commencement speaker at Emory University in the United States. She has made a big mistake. She dared to criticise Israel. She suggested--horror of horrors--that "the root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the occupation". Now whoah there a moment, Mary!
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Judy Dempsey in Tullamore, Ireland |Financial Times | 18 April 2004 European Union foreign ministers have pulled back from an all-out confrontation with the US over President George W. Bush's support for Israel's unilateral "disengagement" plan from the Gaza Strip. The decision to soften their opposition was made hours before the assassination of Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantissi, ordered by Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, and sharply condemned by the Europeans.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Peter Hounam |Index on Censorship | April 21, 2004 The Israeli whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu came to the end of an 18-year prison term on 21 April. Peter Hounam, the journalist who originally exposed the story, reflects on 14 years of solitary confinement and the fiction of Israel's non-nuclear status. ALMOST 18 YEARS AGO, I flew half way round the world – to Sydney in Australia – to meet a man who had taken a momentous decision.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Tany Reinhart, Translated from Hebrew by Netta Van Vliet | Yediot Aharonot | 20 April 2004 Amidst the political storm in Israel regarding the "Gaza disengagement" plan, only one really meaningful fact emerges: Sharon received Bush's approval to proceed with his plan for the wall in the West Bank. With regard to the Gaza strip, the disengagement plan published in the Israeli papers on Friday, April 16th specifies that within a year and a half, the Israeli occupation there should be declared to be over.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem | The Independent | 18 April 2004 Mordechai Vanunu, the man who first revealed that Israel had nuclear weapons, is "demoralised, worried and angry," as he finally prepares for the end of his 18-year prison sentence this week. In one of the more grudging and unusual prison releases of recent times, Mr Vanunu, 49, is due to walk out of jail on Wednesday at the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon and into a series of heavily confining restrictions, amounting to a form of internal exile.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Akiva Eldar | Ha'aretz | 16 April 2004 South Africa will be very interested in the Israeli disengagement plan published yesterday. The political, military, and economic aspects of the plan for the Gaza Strip and the enclave in the northern West Bank are amazingly similar to the homelands, one of the last inventions of the white minority in South Africa to perpetuate its rule over the black majority.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Khalid Kishtainy | openDemocracy.com | April 15, 2004 An American life is worth a thousand Iraqi lives. Iraqi satirist and author Khalid Kishtainy does the accounts for the recent fighting in Falluja. I don’t understand the reason for all this fuss and world condemnation of the Americans on the Falluja massacre. Only around 600 poor citizens were killed. In my opinion, this is a very modest price for the lives of the four US security men, so-called contractors, murdered by the Fallujis a few days ago.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Lev Greenberg | Haaretz Daily | 9 February 2005 Yitzhak Laor argued that the demand for a referendum is not democratic but meant to consolidate an ethnocentric regime ("Referendum means apartheid," Haaretz, February 3). He also called on "doves" who support the disengagement to stop the formalist-legalist discussion and raise democratic arguments about the rights of the Palestinians. I agree with his criticism but the question is, why is there no real democratic discourse in Israel?
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Amiram Barkat | Haaretz Daily | 20 February 2005 Fund used subsidiary Himnuta to acquire land near Green Line in the Jerusalem area Since 1967, tens of thousands of dunams of land have been purchased by the Jewish National Fund in areas of strategic importance in Judea and Samaria. The lands share a common location: They are all near the Green Line, in areas which will be up for negotiation in the event of an Israel withdrawal to the 1949-1967 armistice lines.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Meron Benvenisti | Haaretz | 10 February 2005 It's been a long time since Zionism had such a revival. Everyone's joining in the cause to affirm their contradictory position on the issue that is the heart and soul of Zionism - "redemption of the land." The attorney general's decision to put an end to the Jewish National Fund's discrimination when it comes to leasing land to Arabs - and his finding of a way to perpetuate that discrimination through "