From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) M. Shahid Alam | Amin Media Network | January 30, 2009 In the slow evolution of US relations with Israel since 1948, as the latter mutated from a strategic liability to a strategic asset, Israel and its Jewish allies in the United States have always occupied the driver’s seat. President Truman had shepherded the creation of Israel in 1947 not because the American establishment saw it as a strategic asset; this much is clear.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) M. Shahid Alam | Scoop | January 14, 2008 At a time when Palestinian men, women and children, corralled in the ghetto of Gaza since 1948, are daily, hourly, relentlessly, being bombed from the air, land and sea, it is instructive to turn to some of the founding fathers of Zionism, and ask what they might have thought about this obscene consequence of their messianic vision.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Jennifer Loewenstein | Counterpunch | 29 December 2008 The intensity of the bombings on Saturday, which left over 230 people dead and 800 wounded, many seriously, was what struck one witness, R., who claimed never to have heard so many explosions so close together and for such an uninterrupted period of time inside the Gaza Strip. One after another, the explosions sounded, most of them near heavily populated areas; and in one case only 30 meters away from his daughter’s elementary school.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Diana Buttu | This I Believe | 10 March 2008 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 the West Bank.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Mustafa Barghouthi | Baltimore Sun | 13 December 2007 As one who for decades has supported a two-state solution and the nonviolent struggle for Palestinian rights, I view the recent conference in Annapolis with a great deal of skepticism - and a glimmer of hope. Seven years with no negotiations - and increasing numbers of Israeli settlers, an economic blockade in Gaza and an intricate network of roadblocks and checkpoints stifling movement in the West Bank - have led us to despair and distrust.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Nadim Rouhana | The Nation | 11 December 2007 The Annapolis peace talks regard me as an interloper in my own land. Israel's deputy prime minister, Avigdor Lieberman, argues that I should "take [my] bundles and get lost." Henry Kissinger thinks I ought to be summarily swapped from inside Israel to the would-be Palestinian state. I am a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship--one of 1.4 million.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) DINA KRAFT | New York Times | 11 October 2006 ANATA, West Bank, Oct. 9 — Sawsan Salameh, a Palestinian from the West Bank, was thrilled to get a full scholarship from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to begin a doctorate in theoretical chemistry. But a recent move by the Israeli Army to ban new Palestinian students from Israeli universities for security reasons is keeping her from studying at the campus, just two miles from her home.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) IMEMC & Agencies | International Middle East Media Center | 20 September 2006 Following on a statement by an Israeli commander that the Israeli army fired at least 1.2 million cluster bomblets on Lebanon during the war, the majority of which were fired when hostilities were largely over, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator verified that number and harshly criticized the Israeli use of cluster bombs.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) STEVEN ERLANGER | NY Times | September 4, 2006 JERUSALEM, Sept. 4 - Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert authorized construction bids today for another 690 homes in the occupied West Bank in the face of pro forma American criticism. The houses will be built in Maale Adumim and Betar Illit, two settlements near Jerusalem that the Israeli government says it intends to keep in any final agreement with the Palestinians.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Azmi Bishara | Al-Ahram Weekly | 10-16 August 2006 Journalist: How will the deaths of Israeli soldiers today affect your plans? Israeli Army Spokesman: You saw that massacre of 12 Israelis .. it will ... Journalist: Massacre you said? But those were soldiers and this is war. Spokesman: No, it was a massacre because the people who fired the missiles weren't targeting soldiers. They were targeting Israeli civilians but killed the soldiers by accident.