18/5/07
As part of Al Jazeera’s coverage of the anniversary of the creation of Israel and the Palestinian ‘Nakba’, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe reflects upon the events of 1948 and how they led to 60 years of division between the Israelis and Palestinians. Between February, 1948 and December,1948 the Israeli army systematically occupied the Palestinian villages and towns, expelled by force the population and in most cases also destroyed the houses, looted their belongings and took over their material and cultural possessions. This was the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. During the ethnic cleansing, wherever there was resistance by the population the result was a massacre. We have more than 30 cases of such massacres where a few thousand Palestinians were massacred by the Israeli forces throughout the operation of the ethnic cleansing.
See: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5C0036C5-83C9-4720-853D-0BFA9A4E1BC4.htm
Sending a message to the world
Linda Haddad;18/5/08
As two Palestinian youth activists spray paint messages on the ’security wall’ in the town of Ram, a 75-year-old woman slowly approaches the massive concrete wall, stairs up at it and asks: “Is this peace?” For Nelly Mousa, the wall is not only an inconvenience to her way of life, but damaging to her family’s small fruit and vegetable shop, which sits on what used to be the main road from Jerusalem to Ramallah - now directly opposite the wall. Since Israel started constructing the wall in 2004 - today it is two-thirds completed - the United Nations International Court of Justice ruled that the construction of the West Bank barrier is illegal and that construction should stop.
See: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/53DC4322-C2BD-4D39-9D24-AB7516395485.htm
Tags: Israel, Separation, Terrorism, USA