Locked out of Gaza - but not lunch with Arafat
By Helena Cobban

One day in mid-February, a Palestinian friend got me invited to a lunch party here - hosted by Yasser Arafat. It was a genial gathering. Some of the guests were longtime African National Congress activists from South Africa who'd known Mr. Arafat from the days when they, too, were still struggling for justice in their country.

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"You Will Not Live on This Land for Long"
Demographic Wars

On the southern tip of the West Bank, situated on the slope of a mountain, there is a small village of Palestinian cave-dwellers. Its name is Jinba, and it is home to roughly three hundred inhabitants. A visitor might see the sheep grazing on a nearby hill and a tractor plowing the fields. An idyllic scene, especially following the rainy season, when the desert has turned green. But here too, the ostensible tranquility is little more than an illusion. Not unlike other cave-dweller villages in the Mount Hebron region, life in Jinba has become unbearable, and the small rural community is now on the verge of being annihilated. A few hundred meters south of Jinba the Israeli military set up a training camp and confiscated acres and acres of agricultural land which had previously belonged to the inhabitants. Armored vehicles and jeeps travel unrestricted even on fields adjacent to the village which the military has not expropriated, and thus destroy crops and frighten young children. A few hundred meters to the north, along the mountain ridge, a series of Jewish settlements and outposts have been constructed. The settlers threaten any Palestinian who climbs the mountain slope, thus preventing the residents of Jinba from plowing their northern fields and grazing their sheep. In addition, these settlers have also blocked the path between Jinba and Yatta, the major town in the region where the cave-dwellers buy basic foods and obtain medical services. Hence, the military and settlers have successfully restricted Jinba's residents to a miniscule piece of land which barely suffices to sustain the population. The inhabitants have been confined to a desert island of sorts, and in many ways their lives are now similar to the lives of thousands of Palestinians who are trapped between the separation barrier -- a complex series of trenches, roads, and fences -- and the Green Line, the pre-1967 border; it is extremely difficult for them to travel into the West Bank and impossible to enter Israel. Their movement has been severely restricted, and they have, in a sense, been imprisoned.

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Why seeking justice for the Palestinians is the Jewish cause

I was recently asked a question I've been asked many times before, mostly by fellow Jews: Why do I spend so much time seeking justice for the Palestinians instead of directing my efforts and passions toward fighting for some noble "Jewish" cause. Surely, my questioner said, and I fully agree, there are Jewish causes worth fighting for. By the same token, I agree that anyone can easily draw up a virtually endless list of worthy humanitarian causes that everyone, Jewish or not, should devote time and energies to assisting, such as finding a cure for AIDS, halting the repression of women throughout the world, and ending the wretched poverty that afflicts so much of the Third World. Since it is impossible to be involved in every humanitarian cause, I choose to channel my efforts into fighting for a just solution of the Israel/Palestine conflict because I think that is where I can be the most useful. As a Jew, my opposition to Israeli policies carries more weight, for better or worse, simply because I am Jewish, just like the reportage of Gideon Levy or Amira Hass in Israel's daily Ha'aretz again, for better or worse, carries more weight than the dispatches and analysis of non-Jewish reporters writing for Britain's The Guardian. So both as a Jew and as an American whose tax dollars finance Israel's illegal and brutal occupation, I bear greater moral responsibility in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Furthermore, given my own personal and family background, I cannot but be deeply concerned by and opposed to Israeli policies.

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The Wall

I promised Jusuf Ramzi that I would write down the one question that he keeps asking himself over and over, "Why don't we have international protection?" Where are the Western powers, where is France, where is Germany, where are Italy and Spain...is there only America to protect Israel? Shouldn't civilians be protected in a war?, he asks. "The world is blind...they don't see the tyranny." The old Palestinian turned his back on me...he had already seen plenty of western journalists and aid organizations...but nothing has changed the relentless course of Israels' building of the "security wall" which has just reached completion of it's first phase. Once completed, the "apartheid wall" as the Palestinians call it, will total 600km, encircling their territories on the West Bank. Originally an idea of the Labor government, construction of the wall began in June 2002 as a means of disengaging the two populations and protecting Israel from the infiltration of Palestinian suicide bombers. It would seem that anything in Israel today is justified as long as it is labled a "security matter".

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Victory of brutality
By Gideon Levy

A new species of officer is achieving greatness in the Israel Defense Forces. These people did most of their service as occupation officers, and their excellence is a function of the degree of violence and brutality they exercise against the Palestinians. The most striking example of this trend is Brigadier General Gadi Shamni, a graduate of Lebanon and Hebron, who last week concluded his tour of duty as commander of the Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip and was promoted to head of the Operations Division in the General Staff, a post which is a major step on the way to becoming a major general. The promotion of an officer of this type speaks volumes about the IDF's value system and its order of priorities, far more than what it says about Shamni himself.

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