Ali Abunimah

Israel's house of horrors

Ali Abunimah — 2007-05-31T15:34:00Z

Reading an account of an Israeli cabinet meeting in Ha'aretz is like a trip through a House of Horrors. Here are some choice excerpts:

"Ministers Meir Sheetrit and Rafi Eitan proposed Wednesday that Israel produce its own version of the Qassam rocket to be fired at targets inside the Gaza Strip in response to Palestinian rocket fire on its southern communities."

"Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Eli Yishai of Shas proposed that Israel use air strikes to destroy Palestinian towns and villages in response to the rocket fire, after giving local residents advance notice allowing them to evacuate their homes." (...)

- / Electronic Intifada

How Barack Obama learned to love Israel

Ali Abunimah — 2007-03-06T09:05:00Z

On March 2, Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama gave a speech that proved that when it came to supporting Israel he is "as strong as Clinton, as supportive as Bush, as friendly as Giuliani" in the words of one Israeli journalist. Obama blamed Palestinians for the failure of peace efforts and uttered no criticism of Israeli policies. Yet once upon a time Obama supported Palestinian rights and an even-handed US approach to solving the conflict. EI co-founder Ali Abunimah who has met the candidate half a dozen times over a decade analyzes the speech and traces Obama's path into the hardline pro-Israel camp.

- / Electronic Intifada

EI EXCLUSIVE: Leaked Israeli document gives frightening glimpse of apartheid

Ali Abunimah — 2007-01-25T21:43:00Z

President Jimmy Carter angered Israel and its friends by describing "the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine's citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank."

Now, The Electronic Intifada has obtained an Israeli Ministry of Defense Powerpoint presentation which provides a frightening glimpse into the mindset of the bureaucracy of apartheid.

The first page of the document bears the name "Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories" as well as the acronym "COGAT" at the bottom of each page. These appear to refer to the unit of the Israeli army that enforces the occupation against the Palestinian civilian population.

The top of the first slide also bears the names and insignia of the "State of Israel" and the "Ministry of Defense." Dated January 12, the presentation is titled "Key Measures for easing the daily lives of the Palestinian Population." (...)

- / Electronic Intifada

World silent as fascists join Israel government

Ali Abunimah — 2006-10-24T18:25:30Z

Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has brought Yisrael Beitenu into his coalition, a party that has openly advocated the "transfer" — ethnic cleansing —of Palestinians, and has made clear that a Jewish supremacist state is more important than a democratic one. Yet spokesperson for European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana affirmed that the EU would take no action against Israel. In contrast, the EU has imposed crippling sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, starving ordinary Palestinians for having elected a government of the which the European Union disapproves. EI co-founder investigates a new low in western double standards and appeasement of Israeli extremism.

- / Electronic Intifada

Whose human rights?

Ali Abunimah — 2006-05-11T00:53:00Z

Suppose I were to leave my office here in Chicago and walk the short distance to the kidney dialysis unit down the road and pull out the tubes to which four elderly patients were attached, making them seriously ill or killing them. Suppose I said I did this because I disagreed with the Bush Administration's invasion and occupation of Iraq, its use of torture, and its countless other profoundly undemocractic and illegal policies. What would that make me? A murderer for sure, a monster and a new vicious, kind of terrorist. Such an action would be unconscionable in any moral system.

And yet this is what the so-called "international community," a few powerful governments, feel entitled to do to Palestinians because those governments disagree with the policies of the elected Hamas authority. Ha'aretz reported yesterday that "At least four people suffering from kidney diseases died in the Gaza Strip in April, after the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority Health Ministry cut the Shifa Hospital's budget for the necessary dialysis treatments." (...)

- / Comment is free

Two failed states

Ali Abunimah — 2006-04-21T23:25:00Z

"A massive fiscal squeeze on the Hamas-led government has led to warnings that the Palestinian people could become residents of a failed state even before they achieve independence," says an Agence France Presse report this morning.

The EU and US claim that their financial and political siege of the Palestinian Authority is supposed to harm only Hamas and spare the people. We have heard this sort of thing before. The UN sanctions that led to the deaths of a million Iraqis through the 1990s were also supposed to harm only the government. But in Palestine, as in Iraq, it is ordinary people who suffer. The report goes on to note that:

"Teachers have begun to stay away from school. Hospitals have reported that nurses have been also been absent. Masked gunmen frequently storm public buildings to protest against non-payment of salaries. The extent of the crisis was underlined in new UN report into the impact of a freeze in direct US aid and EU receipts of 607 million dollars a year, which said the Palestinian Authority could end up a 'failed state'." (...)

- / Comment is free

Another checkpoint on the road to nowhere

Ali Abunimah, Hasan Abu Nimah — 2005-11-25T03:36:00Z

One constant in the long conflict over Palestine is that Israel and its backers always have an excuse to avoid the central issues that prevent peace. Israel is adapt at creating complications which then absorb and exhaust all available diplomatic and political energy, while it uses the time to entrench itself ever more deeply in the occupied territories.

By launching his Gaza "disengagement" plan in 2003, Ariel Sharon was able to skilfully exploit the hunger for political distractions that allow diplomats and politicians to appear to be deeply engaged in the "peace process" while actually doing nothing useful. Herds of them rushed to embrace the Gaza plan, which became supposedly the key to unlocking the 'stalled peace process.' New cliches were devised for the occasion: pulling out settlers from Gaza would break Israeli psychological taboos and would set a precedent for the West Bank. After all, it was claimed, only hawks can make true peace, as Menachem Begin did with Egypt, or Nixon did in China. (...)

[23 November 2005]

- / Electronic Intifada

Israeli Settlers Resist Gaza Pullout, Palestinians Call for Withdrawal from West Bank

Ali Abunimah, David Matar, Michael Bronner, Raji Sourani — 2005-08-16T00:06:00Z

Thousands of settlers are refusing to leave their homes in Gaza settlements today as Israeli soldiers and police order them to move out. The pullout is seen by some as a strategy by the Israeli state to consolidate its hold over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Others see it as a necessary step in the roadmap to peace in Israel-Palestine. We speak with a resident of Gush Katif who is resisting the pullout, the director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, a journalist who spent time with soldiers and settlers and the founder of Electronic Intifada.

- / Democracy Now!

The killing of Jean Charles de Menezes

Ali Abunimah — 2005-07-25T04:44:00Z

Since news broke that London police cornered a young man on the floor of an Underground train, and, in full view of other passengers, pumped five bullets into his head as he lay on the ground, I have been following the reports with increasing anger and sadness," writes Electronic Iraq cofounder Ali Abunimah. It emerged later that the police had shot an innocent Brazilian immigrant named Jean Charles de Menezes. Amid the officual expressions of "regret," however, there is much justification of the shooting. The crucial factor that allows all this rationalization, argues Abunimah, is that the dead man was brown.

- / Electronic Iraq

Fear and loathing across the Middle East

Ali Abunimah, Hasan Abu Nimah — 2005-03-17T04:20:00Z

Since the war in Iraq and Bush's re-election we have witnessed the collective surrender by large segments of European and Arab ruling elites, as many allow themselves to become tools of Bush administration policies, write EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah and EI co-founder Ali Abunimah. UN missions in Lebanon, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's visit to Jerusalem, and recent EU statements about about Iran represent the reassertion of a western double standard that reinforces regional fears that international law is a weapon to be used only to punish disobedient Arab and Muslim countries, while Israel is totally exempt from all enforcement action.

- / Electronic Intifada

Is peace in Palestine about to break out?

Ali Abunimah — 2005-02-26T03:33:00Z

Are Israelis and Palestinians finally on the road to peace? A cursory glance at commentary in the US press would seem to suggest so. Since Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas announced a truce in early February at the Sharm al-Sheikh summit, many observers see a "window of opportunity" they are encouraging both sides to leap through.

Sharon has announced he is now coordinating with the Palestinians on his originally unilateral plan to pull Israeli troops and settlers out of Gaza and the Israeli cabinet voted to approve the "disengagement." (...)

- / Electronic Intifada

Sharon & Abbas Hold Summit & Call For End of Violence

Ali Abunimah, Hussein Ibish — 2005-02-09T05:20:00Z

In the first Israeli-Palestinian summit in four years, Israeli Prime Minister Gen. Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas verbally agreed today to end four years of fighting. Since the intifada began in September 2000, about 3,600 Palestinians and 1,050 Israelis have been killed in fighting.

- / Democracy Now!

Palestinian Elections "Taking Place Under Continued Heel of Israel's Military Tyranny"

Ali Abunimah — 2005-01-11T04:36:00Z

Mahmoud Abbas has claimed victory in the Palestinian presidential elections this weekend. We speak with Ali Abunimah, founder of Electronic Intifada, who says, "Many Palestinians fear this is another setup so when the inevitable failure brought about by Israeli intransigence occurs, this will be another opportunity to blame the Palestinians, and accuse them of missing an opportunity once again."

- / Democracy Now!

Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat 1929-2004: From Guerilla Fighter to Nobel Prize Winner

Ali Abunimah, Amy Goodman, Lamis Andoni, Mustafa Barghouti — 2004-11-11T23:27:00Z

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died overnight in a Paris military hospital ending his 40-year struggle for statehood for the Palestinian people. Arafat was one of the most recognizable figures on the world stage; a man who rose from a guerilla icon to a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Arafat named no successor and his death brings with it what many observers believe will be a fierce fight over who will take charge of the struggle Arafat led for 4 decades. When word of Arafat's death was announced shortly after 4:30 am, thousands of Palestinians poured into the streets of Gaza and other cities to mourn.

- / Democracy Now!

Bush, America and the Middle East

Ali Abunimah — 2004-11-06T05:07:00Z

Had we awakened to a John Kerry victory, anyone seriously concerned about the conflicts in Palestine and Iraq would have faced the stark reality that Kerry offered nothing substantially different from President George W. Bush in either situation. Yet that provides little consolation for seeing Bush re-elected, as the desire to see him defeated had little to do with support for Kerry. What many wanted was accountability - to see the author of so many disastrous policies thrown out. (...)

- / Electronic Intifada, Daily Star