Greetings from the House of Fair Trade Newsletter #5
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- Written by Andrew Pappone Andrew Pappone
- Published: 29 January 2008 29 January 2008
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A couple nights ago, I sat in my friend Ibrahim's house while we watched a poet from Ramallah recite his work at a contest in the United Arab Emirates. Through Ibrahim's translation, I learned the poem was about Jerusalem and mentioned all the types of people who have passed through Jerusalem in its history, all the types of people who pass through it today and the one type of people prohibited from entering- the Palestinians.
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Worse than a Crime
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- Written by Uri Avnery Uri Avnery
- Published: 27 January 2008 27 January 2008
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It is impossible not to feel exhilaration when masses of oppressed and hungry people break down the wall that is shutting them in, their eyes radiant, embracing everybody they meet - to feel so even when it is your own government that erected the wall in the first place.
The Gaza Strip is the largest prison on earth. The breaking of the Rafah wall was an act of liberation. It proves that an inhuman policy is always a stupid policy: no power can stand up against a mass of people that has crossed the border of despair.
That is the lesson of Gaza, January, 2008.
KBOO Radio 90.7 fm: The Siege of Gaza
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- Written by Will Seaman Will Seaman
- Published: 24 January 2008 24 January 2008
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This Friday on "ONE LAND, MANY VOICES", hosts Hala Gores and William Seaman
speak with Dr. Mona El-Farra in Gaza about the escalation in the Israeli
blockade and the resulting worsening of the humanitarian crisis there. Dr.
El-Farra is a physician by training and a human rights and women's rights
activist by practice. She is Deputy Director of the Union of Health Work
Committees, heads the Rachel Corrie Children’s Center and is the Vice
President of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza.
Your phone calls and donations can help free Gaza! Please call today! And
tune in Friday at 9:00AM to KBOO 90.7FM for ONE LAND, MANY VOICES!
Greetings from the House of Fair Trade Newsletter #4
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- Written by Andrew Pappone Andrew Pappone
- Published: 22 January 2008 22 January 2008
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Sometimes, the vibrant sense of commerce and life in Ramallah is one of the only things that continues to give me any hope. Since the 1967 occupation of East Jerusalem, Ramallah has become the economic and political hub of Palestine, housing all governmental offices (besides those quasi-governmental and crippled offices in Gaza run by Hamas), and offering the visitor proof that even with all the difficulty, there is life, and a bustling one at that, on the other side of the wall. But last week, when Israel's staunchest ally George W. Bush paid a visit to Abu Mazen, that sense of liveliness was, at least for the day, completely eclipsed. A dark, gloomy atmosphere seemed to prevail over Ramallah when I arrived in the afternoon and it wasn't due to the fog that had shrouded the city for the day. No, this quiet, almost spooky mood was due to the visit by George Bush, and the president's unparalleled ability to perform below rock-bottom expectations.
Read more: Greetings from the House of Fair Trade Newsletter #4
No light, no heat, no bread: stark reality for the powerless in Gaza
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- Written by Rory McCarthy in Khan Yunis, Gaza, Guardian Rory McCarthy in Khan Yunis, Gaza, Guardian
- Published: 22 January 2008 22 January 2008
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Besieged civilians pay the price for Israel's hardline response to rocket attacks
Tuesday January 22, 2008
When it opened its doors seven years ago, the European Gaza hospital was one of the biggest foreign investments in the long-troubled Gaza Strip and one of the leading medical centres in the Palestinian territories. Yesterday, the 250-bed hospital was sliding rapidly into crisis, turning away patients for routine operations and struggling to manage emergency cases, as the sole power plant in Gaza halted electricity production after Israel stopped all fuel supplies.
Israel said its closure of the Gaza strip was intended to halt the firing of makeshift rockets by Palestinian militants into southern Israel.
Yet Israel's stark new policy has meant no fuel or food aid has come into Gaza since last Thursday. Large parts of the overcrowded strip had no power, leaving it without lights and heating, closing bakeries and forcing hospitals to rely on generators and their own limited fuel reserves. As night fell nearly all Gaza City was in darkness. Simply put, it was "collective punishment," said the European commissioner for external relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner.
Osama Nahal, a paediatric doctor in the European hospital's special care baby unit, looked resigned. "Politics is politics, but the care of human beings must be away from politics," he said. His unit now has 10 newly-born patients, of whom two are on ventilators.
Read more: No light, no heat, no bread: stark reality for the powerless in Gaza