The checkpoint generation
By Amira Hass

At the Samaria Brigade, they are still investigating what happened that day at the fortified and isolated Asira al-Shmaliya checkpoint, through which only the inhabitants of several villages are permitted passage. However, according to testimonies taken by a researcher for B'Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, it emerges that Yassin had irritated the soldiers. He dared to suggest to them that their demand of women to feel their own bodies to carry out a "security check" was inappropriate. So annoying was he that a soldier shoved him. Yassin, who had returned from overseas a few months earlier, had apparently not yet internalized the fact that it is dangerous to remind a soldier that a Palestinian is a human being. When the soldier shoved, Yassin shoved back. The soldier, according to the testimonies, started to scream and curse and hit. He quickly received reinforcement from two other soldiers, who fired into the air and at the ground. Even though Yassin fell to the ground after the shooting, the soldiers, relate the witnesses, threw him onto a concrete block, handcuffed him and kicked him. They also kicked him in the head, according to the testimonies, and beat him with their rifles. [...] The truth is that even the soldiers' parents should not be interested in these explanations. They should, however, be very worried about their country sending their sons and daughters on an apartheid mission: to restrict Palestinian mobility within the occupied territory, to narrow the Palestinian expanse in order to enable Jews to move freely within that same occupied territory and in order to increase their expanse within it. In order to carry out this mission in full, facing the natives, the soldiers must feel and act like "superiors."

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Gaza: Home demolitions, nonviolent resistance, HRW, etc
by Helena Cobban

The Israeli government's assault on the rights and the physical security of the 3.2 million Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza continues. Today, the NYT made a good big splash with an article by Steve Erlanger about the report issued by the Israeli "Peace Now" organization that calculated that some 40% of the land on which Israeli settlements have been (and still are being) built in the West Bank is privately owned by Palestinians.

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Rights-less in Gaza (or not even in it yet)
by Helena Cobban

To understand somethng of how it feels to be a Palestinian, go read Laila el-Haddad's account of her (so far unsuccessful) attempt to return with her son and her parents to her home-city, Gaza. The Israelis claim to have withdrawn from Gaza in september 2005. But they still control all its means of contact with the outside world, including the tiny strip of internatinal border that Gaza shares with Egypt. That's where Laila-- along with, apparently, several thousands of other Gaza Palestinians-- is trying to cross.

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Women's activism in Hizbullah and Hamas

In this piece, Lara Deeb looks at the changing way in which, since the 1970s, women's roles have been portrayed in the annual Ashura rituals that are an important feature of Shiite community life in Lebanon (and elsewhere); and she tracks these shifts with the increased role that Lebanese Shiite women-- primarily, I think, Hizbullah women-- have been playing in public life.

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Palestinian Solidarity in a Time of Massacres
What is to be Done?

Let's face it; while the Palestinian and Arab resistance evolves into an absolute example of the ultimate heroism and collective patriotism, the Palestinian solidarity movement in the UK and around the world is not exactly what could be called a profound success story. In fact, it would be erroneous to state that this is really the fault of those who dedicate their time and energy to it. Supporting the Palestinians is a complicated subject. Though the crimes against the Palestinians have taken place in broad daylight and are not some well-kept secret, the priorities of the solidarity movement are far from being clear. When thinking about Palestinian society we are basically used to thinking of some sharp ideological and cultural disputes between the Hamas and PLO. Not that I wish to undermine that staunch disagreement, but I am here to suggest an alternative perspective that perhaps could lead towards a different understanding of the notion of Palestinian activism and solidarity both ideologically and pragmatically. I maintain that Palestinian people are largely divided into three main groups and it is actually this division that dictates three different political narratives, with three different political discourses and agendas to consider:

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No Peace, No Place For Palestine

Finally. Someone has noticed what is going on in the Middle East. The UK Telegraph reports that Britain is "furious" with Israel because of the damage it is causing in Gaza. Is it because of the wholesale slaughter of innocent Palestinians -- the bombing of a Gaza beach that turned the entire family of 12-year-old Huda Ghalia into a smoking pile of human flesh and scattered body parts? No? Then, perhaps it is using innocent Palestinians as human shields, gunning down children as they scurry fearfully to school, burying the wounded alive Jenin-style...

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Swedish human rights worker viciously attacked by Jewish extremists in Hebron

A 19-year old Swedish human rights worker had her cheekbone broken by a Jewish extremist in Hebron today. Earlier the same day at least five Palestinians, including a 3-year-old child, were injured by the settler-supporting extremists, who rampaged through Tel Rumeida hurling stones and bottles at local residents. Palestinian schoolchildren on their way home were also attacked. The Israeli army, which was intensively deployed in the area, did not intervene to stop the attacks. Tove Johansson from Stockholm walked through the Tel Rumeida checkpoint with a small group of human rights workers (HRWs) to accompany Palestinian schoolchildren to their homes. They were confronted by about 100 Jewish extremists in small groups. They started chanting in Hebrew “We killed Jesus, we’ll kill you too!” — a refrain the settlers had been repeating to internationals in Tel Rumeida all day.

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