Personal Voices: Crossing the Green Line

I returned from Israel and Palestine months ago; and still I dream of felafel stands, security checks at every café – and a sea of taxis and donkey carts, baking for hours in the blazing sun, waiting to crawl through a Gaza checkpoint.

As an American Jew, for three weeks I criss-crossed the Green Line, the shifting border between Israel and Palestine, reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones on this, my seventh trip to the region. This time I participated in the International Solidarity Movement's Freedom Summer campaign, doing nonviolent direct action with Palestinians against the Occupation and also networking with Israeli peace activists.
[more]

Israel's Policies on Palestinians Imperil Its Soul

Israeli security officials scrutinized our entry at Ben Gurion Airport: "Why are you coming? Aren't you afraid?" We heard that question frequently during the two weeks that followed. Fear is epidemic.

We went to the West Bank during the November olive harvest to support Palestinian villagers, who are often attacked by Israeli settlers. Often the settlers steal and destroy Palestinian crops. Today thousands of Palestinians suffer tortuous and untold economic, physical and emotional despair from Israel's systematic and insidious policies that destroy their olive groves, decimate villages, kill countless innocents and foment despair, all under the sham of security.

This was the fifth trip for my wife and me. Increasingly we have witnessed vanishing hope and mounting fear.
[more]

American intervention in Israel's elections

For the opening of the new American operation meant to bring democracy to the Arab world, the Arabs are invited to learn how the West's greatest democracy gets involved in the only democracy in the Middle East. The upcoming elections in Israel are an opportunity for Jordan and Saudi Arabia to learn a lesson in the American game that Washington wants to export to them. Before the Arabs buy the product, they better find out if the United States makes do only with helping dictators who serve Washington's interests. The Israeli case proves that democracy does not make democratic regimes immune to brutal intervention by American politicians in their election campaigns.
[more]