From Occupied Palestine

'A country that's fun to live in'
ALUF BENN and YOSSI VERTER
Ha'aretz, 10 March 2006

Tell us, we asked Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, must a leader give a personal example to his nation?

"Definitely," he says, with a touch of suspicion.

What will be your personal example to the nation? we wanted to know.

Challenging the new apartheid: Reflections on Palestine solidarity
RAFEEF ZIADAH, ADAM HANIEH and HAZEM JAMJOUM
Left Turn, Spring 2006

The Palestinian solidarity movement has made significant gains since the onset of the Second Palestinian Intifada in September 2000. Over the last five years, a new generation of Palestinian solidarity activists has mobilized in the streets, campuses, and schools across North America. Among the left and progressive movements, there is broad acceptance of the proposition that US foreign policy in the Middle East is based on support for Israel as a "colonial-settler" state, to draw upon the title of Maxime Rodinson's classic work. Every major mobilization against the war in Iraq has seen the Palestinian struggle placed up front in opposing the US war machine, and most activists new to the movement are introduced to the Palestinian struggle and history through an anti-Zionist perspective.

Fearing arrest, IDF officer cancels studies in U.K.
AMOS HAREL
Ha'aretz, 26 February 2006

see also: "Former Gaza General Eludes UK War Crimes Charges"

The commander of the Israel Defense Forces division along the Gaza border, Brigadier General Aviv Kochavi, was forced to cancel his planned trip to the United Kingdom after the Military Advocacy instructed that he refrain from commencing studies at the Royal College of Defense Studies this summer, fearing that he would be arrested on charges of war crimes.

Brothers in arms - Israel's secret pact with Pretoria
CHRIS McGREAL
Guardian, 7 February 2006

During the second world war the future South African prime minister John Vorster was interned as a Nazi sympathiser. Three decades later he was being feted in Jerusalem. In the second part of his remarkable special report, Chris McGreal investigates the clandestine alliance between Israel and the apartheid regime, cemented with the ultimate gift of friendship - A-bomb technology

Worlds apart
CHRIS McGREAL
Guardian , 6 February 2006

Israelis have always been horrified at the idea of parallels between their country, a democracy risen from the ashes of genocide, and the racist system that ruled the old South Africa. Yet even within Israel itself, accusations persist that the web of controls affecting every aspect of Palestinian life bears a disturbing resemblance to apartheid. After four years reporting from Jerusalem and more than a decade from Johannesburg before that, the Guardian's award-winning Middle East correspondent CHRIS McGREAL is exceptionally well placed to assess this explosive comparison. Here we publish the first part of his two-day special report

We will not sell our people or principles for foreign aid
KHALID MISH'AL
Guardian, 31 January 2006

It is widely recognised that the Palestinians are among the most politicised and educated peoples in the world. When they went to the polls last Wednesday they were well aware of what was on offer and those who voted for Hamas knew what it stood for. They chose Hamas because of its pledge never to give up the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and its promise to embark on a programme of reform. There were voices warning them, locally and internationally, not to vote for an organisation branded by the US and EU as terrorist because such a democratically exercised right would cost them the financial aid provided by foreign donors.

The roots of Sharon's legacy
SALMAN ABU SITTA
al-Ahram Weekly, 26 January - 1 February 2006

Israel's policy towards the Palestinians was not only forged out of the experiences of European Jews at the hands of Nazi Germany, but it also replicates the brutality, writes SALMAN ABU SITTA

Zionist practice in Palestine has always been to grab the land and expel its inhabitants. It is a simple strategy that in today's world is denounced as a war crime, as ruthless ethnic cleansing.

Interview with Hamas leader Dr Mahmoud al-Zahar
STEPHEN FARRELL
London Times, 27 January 2006

Gaza City -- Dr Mahmoud al-Zahar is Hamas's leader in Gaza, and was very close to the movement's murdered leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. He is believed to be second in command. In an interview with The Times on the eve of the election, he explains his views:

U.S. funds enter fray in Palestinian elections
SCOTT WILSON and GLENN KESLER
Washington Post, 22 January 2006

Bush Administration uses USAID as invisible conduit

Ramallah, West Bank -- The Bush administration is spending foreign aid money to increase the popularity of the Palestinian Authority on the eve of crucial elections in which the governing party faces a serious challenge from the radical Islamic group Hamas.

The jailer
JUAN COLE
Salon.com, 12 January 2006

Ariel Sharon is lauded for breaking with his hard-line past. But the truth is that he simply embraced a smarter way of locking up the Palestinians.

Even as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stirs fitfully from his coma, in the aftermath of a massive stroke and several operations, Gazan militants with a bad aim have fired several Qassam rockets into Israel. Israel is now, and is likely to remain for some time, a dark postmodern terrain of wealthy fortress communities besieged by hopeless unemployed militants from isolated ghettos. This archipelago of anxiety, reminiscent of the noir science fiction film "Blade Runner," is in some significant respects the creation and legacy of Sharon.