Welcome to RamallahOnline

Palestinian National Initiative

Ramallah, 28-04-08: "A sickening tragedy" was how Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP, Secretary General of the PNI described the killing of a mother and her 4 children in an Israeli military attack on the Gaza Strip this morning. The deaths have brought the number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli military since Annapolis to 418, including 59 children.

Ramallah, 24/04/08: "Thousands of lives are at stake in Gaza. Israel's siege is pushing a whole society towards collapse." This was how Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, today described the situation in the Gaza Strip, which has reached dramatic levels following the latest Israeli fuel cuts. Food assistance for 650,000 Palestinians is about to stop, 50,000 vaccines for babies are at risk of being spoiled, and sanitation services for half a million inhabitants have been halted.

Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, 19 April 2008

Sixty years after the Naqba, the catastrophe, Palestinians are still without a state. They are living under occupation, many are in refugee camps, others are scattered around the world, and a part of the Palestinian people are no more than second class citizens in Israel itself.

The Palestinian struggle to achieve freedom and independence is therefore firstly a struggle to exist as a people. In this endeavour, resistance is essential. Resistance through memory, resistance through unwavering demands for their rights, resistance against open or covert attempts to displace them and take their land from them.

Jeff Halper
Friday, April 11, 2008

It was another of those routine tragedies that are never publicized. At eight in the morning we at ICAHD (the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions) received a call that the Border Police, Israeli police and Jerusalem Municipality bulldozers were massing below the Palestinian village of Anata, poised to begin another day of home demolitions. We never know of demolitions ahead of time. The Israeli authorities responsible for demolishing Palestinian homes – the municipality and the Ministry of Interior in Jerusalem, the “Civil” Administration in the West Bank and the army – do not provide advanced warning to us or, indeed, to the families themselves. Tens of thousands of Palestinian families live with demolition orders on their homes, some 22,000 in East Jerusalem alone, where fully a third of Palestinian homes face demolition at any time. When we received word of preparations for a demolition that morning, however, we knew precisely which home would be targeted first: that of the Hamdan family, the elderly parents their married son and daughter-in-law with their five children, and an unmarried son. It was a home we had rebuilt for the second time in last summer’s ICAHD work camp, when Israeli and international peace activists joined with local Palestinians to rebuild as an act of political resistance to the Occupation.

Uri Avnery

NEXT MONTH, Israel will celebrate its 60th anniversary. The government is working feverishly to make this day into an occasion of joy and jubilation. While serious problems are crying out for funds, some 40 million dollars have been allocated to this aim.

Ramallah, 12-04-08: The killing of 8 Palestinians - including 4
children - and 3 Israelis in separate attacks yesterday has brought
the number of Palestinians and Israelis killed since Annapolis to 350
and 18 respectively. Among the victims are 44 Palestinian children.

By RAMZY BAROUD

I still vividly remember my father's face - wrinkled, apprehensive, warm - as he last wished me farewell fourteen years ago. He stood outside the rusty door of my family's home in a Gaza refugee camp wearing old yellow pyjamas and a seemingly ancient robe. As I hauled my one small suitcase into a taxi that would take me to an Israeli airport an hour away, my father stood still. I wished he would go back inside; it was cold and the soldiers could pop up at any moment. As my car moved on, my father eventually faded into the distance, along with the graveyard, the water tower and the camp. It never occurred to me that I would never see him again.

U.S. LABOR AND GAZA
New York City Labor Against the War
March 23, 2008

New York City Labor Against the War joins the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions in denouncing Israel's recent massacres in Gaza, the victims of which include at least 130 Palestinians -- half of them civilians, including dozens of women and children -- since February 27.

http://www.petitiononline.com/Gaza/petition.html

By Ali Abunimah
Palestine Center Fellow

Since Hamas won the legislative elections in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in January 2006, the United States has attempted to isolate the Islamist resistance movement in Gaza while propping up the leadership of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his defeated Fatah faction in Ramallah in the hope of reversing the election result and restoring Fatah to power. This fit the U.S. strategy of fostering so-called “moderate” regimes in the region, allied with the United States and dependent on it to a greater or less extent, and confronting indigenous forces such as Hamas in Palestine and Hizballah in Lebanon, which the United States portrays as being mere extensions of regional rival Iran.

Dear friends,

Education is a RIGHT!!

I highly urge you all to watch this documentary about how Palestinians are struggling, NON- VIOLENTLY, to get a basic education and remain sane in this insane reality of Israeli occupation. Nablus is in the West Bank. Multiply what you see here by 100 and you can start to imagine the Gaza and Hebron reality.

Sadly, my American subscribers would never have had the chance to see this when it was aired because the US' "free" media does not allow Al-Jazeera International to air in the US.

Consider showing this in a public venue (local library, city council, to your local newspaper editorial board, etc.) in your city.

Saluting teachers worldwide and free media,
Sam