From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Oren Ben-Dor | Counterpunch | 15 December 2005 Today we hear a lot about legal challenges mounted against the wall in the West Bank. I would like to reflect upon a different wall, a metaphorical wall, the wall which remains ethically and legally unchallenged and whose foundations are actually, albeit unwittingly, being fortified by many of the very people who legally challenge the real, physical wall.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) David Noble | Canadian Dimension | 1 November 2005 This is not about Jews. It is not about race, ethnicity or religion. It is about power. The new Israel lobby in Canada — the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA) — has enormous power, derived from abundant resources, corporate connections, political associations, elaborate and able organization and a cadre of dedicated activists. Since its inception several years ago, this hard-line lobby has used its power, first, to gain political hegemony and impose ideological conformity on the matter of Israel within a heretofore diverse Jewish community, and second, to influence government decisions and shape public opinion regarding Israel — ostensibly in the name of all Canadian Jewry.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Mary Ellen Davis | Montrealserai.com | November 2005 (In the heart of the West Bank, checkpoints separate Palestinian youth and instructors from their classrooms; by September the sealed wall will further disrupt access to education.) The view is impressive from the balcony of the Muhsen family's apartment in Abu Dis. Hisham, a fine arts teacher at Al Quds University, gazes over the rolling hills of Jerusalem, the campus, the valley, and the 8-metre concrete wall that meanders into the distance, cutting through land, neighbourhoods, carving East Jerusalem into pieces.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Inigo Gilmore | The Observer | 30 October 2005 It was one of the most shocking massacres to scar the Middle East, the slaying of more than 2,000 Palestinians by Christian militiamen in the wretched Lebanese refugee camps. Now a film has returned to the story of Sabra and Shatila. But for the first time it has told the story of the slaughter through the voices of the killers.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Ran HaCohen | Antiwar.com | 26 October 2005 One of the difficulties in writing regularly about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is, in my eyes, that so little ever changes. The basic constants – above all, Israel's overwhelming military, economic, and political superiority, all serving its colonialist aims – change slightly over years, if at all. The media concentrate on immediate episodes: a violent incident, a statement, a peace plan – but in hindsight, they all make very little difference.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Ramzy Baroud | Al-Ahram Weekly, Issue No. 759 | 8-14 September 2005 In the halls of infamy, Machiavelli and Sharon walk hand in hand, writes Ramzy Baroud* Many lessons can be extracted from observing Israeli dominion over the Palestinians in the past 55 years, most notably the audacious mandate of institutionalised violence. Even more alarming than the crimes themselves, legislation passed through the Knesset, and particularly during the past five years, to willfully and blatantly violate international law, while Israel remains safe in the fold of the international community, seems one of the most outrageous lessons of all.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Mohammad Abed | Znet Magazine | 17 August 2005 I The Meaning of Disengagement Maintaining or intensifying oppressive policies requires the manufacture of a diversion, a 'smokescreen' that buys time and accumulates political capital. One reliable way of accumulating political capital is to make changes that incur minimal political and human costs while creating an illusion of reasonableness, compromise, and goodwill towards one's enemies. Israel's plan to disengage from the Gaza Strip later this summer is a clear example of this well-worn political strategy.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Mohammed Abed | The Badger Herald | 8 September 2005 The territory of historical Palestine is home to two ethnic groups, Israelis and Palestinians. Today, this entire territory is under the full political and military control of Israel, a state that defines itself as serving the interests of only one of the ethnic groups residing within its territory rather than every person that falls under its political control, irrespective of their ethnic origin.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Shahid Alam | 1 September 2005 "Captain Gordon Pim stated in his speech that it was a philanthropic principle to kill natives; there was, he said, "mercy in a massacre." Sven Lindqvist, Exterminate the Brutes (1996)
At last Mr. Elie Wiesel has spoken of the ‘dispossessed’ in Palestine. It is appropriate that he should do so; that is what the world has long come to expect of him.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Sara Roy | Miftah | 20 August 2005 Israel’s disengagement plan is widely hailed by the international community, led by the United States, as a first step toward the final resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. This essay is a refutation of that view. After presenting the current situation of Gaza as the result of deliberate Israeli policies of economic integration, deinstitutionalization, and closure, the author demonstrates how provisions of the plan itself preclude the establishment of a viable economy in the Strip.