News Highlights:

• 13 Palestinians killed in 48 hours over the weekend by Israeli forces, including a 10 year old boy in Gaza and a 14 year old near Jenin.
• Four activists from the International Solidarity Movement were shot and injured by Israeli soldiers in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus.
• 3 Palestinians died on Nov. 9 from previous wounds, one of them 7 year old Ahmad Marai from Jenin refugee camp.
• Israeli military resumed its destruction in Rafah, flattening 20 houses partially destroyed in their previous Oct. 10 raid, and wounding several civilians.
• U.N. report says Israel’s “dividing wall” will have severe humanitarian consequences for 680,000 Palestinians, 1/3 of the West Bank population – to date, $3.4 billion has been spent to build 3/4 of the wall, about 100 miles.
• Thousands of Palestinians, joined by Israeli and international activists, protested against the apartheid wall on Nov. 9, from Zabuba to Tulkarem to Jubara to Qalqilya.
• Jubara, a small village of 300, has been completely cut off by the wall and is dying a slow death – the village children must pass through the wall to go to school, with long waits and delays – they are the only ones given permits, so they also must bring supplies for the whole village.
• Nov. 9 was a global day of action, with demos around the world, 30,000 in Rome and an information picket at Robson Square in Vancouver.
• The U.S. administration withheld comment on the new Palestinian government, saying it will be tested on “performance”; earlier, Israeli spokesman Raanan Gissin made extremely similar statement saying, “Any (Palestinian)government … will be judged by its performance”.

Feature:

An interview with Jef Keighley, the co-chair of Stopwar.ca, and representative of the Canadian Autoworkers Union. Jef spoke about the involvement of Canada in the Middle East and Afghanistan and how current Canadian foreign and military policy does not serve Canadian interests. He also talked about the role of the peace movement, including Stopwar.ca, its activities, and how it is serving the interests of all Canadians by trying to keep Canada out of U.S. imperial adventures.

Focus on Zionism:

A story from news dispatches about armed young Israeli settlers who are terrorizing Palestinian villagers and destroying ancient olive trees with chainsaws and machetes. The village of Sawiya has been particularly targeted and one villager said – “The settlers are gradually getting what they want … that the Palestinians pack up and leave and let the settlements expand”.

News Highlights:

• Five Israeli soldiers, members of a parachute commando unit, were wounded in an explosion in Nablus on Nov. 2; Nablus was then totally sealed off and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel said ambulances were forbidden passage and a nine-month pregnant Palestinian woman had to wait for four hours at a checkpoint.
• Two Palestinian teenagers, both 15, were wounded in Jenin Nov. 3 by Israeli gunfire; several days earlier, a 12 year old Palestinian boy was killed in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus.
• Palestinian detainees at Ketziot prison (Al Ansar) in the Negev desert clashed with their Israeli jailors while protesting the harsh conditions at the prison camp.
• Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, while on a trip to Moscow, told Vladimir Putin that the “roadmap for peace” is in doubt, and Israel is opposed to Russia cementing the roadmap in an official U.N. Security Council Resolution; Sharon also says he is willing to meet with Palestinian PM Ahmed Qorei.
• Palestinian cabinet minister says U.S. is not serious about opposition to the apartheid wall, as evidenced by the U.N. veto, and there are some reports that the U.S. administration is ready to drop the whole issue.
• U.S. has reduced the size and budget of the team to implement the “roadmap” peace plan; the majority of the team and its leader have been back in the U.S. since Sept. 24, with no plans to return to the Middle East.
• A EU opinion poll shows that 59% of Europeans believe Israel is a threat to world peace and more than two-thirds think the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was unjustified.

Feature:

A live interview with Melissa, a B.C. university student and activist who is currently in Rafah, Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement. Melissa is one of the few international observers to make it into Rafah and see the devastation from recent Israeli airstrikes. Melissa spoke of the desperation of the homeless refugees, some of who are now living in tents on top of the rubble of their former residences. She also gave details of the time she spent in the West Bank – the checkpoints, the difficulties in movement, the permits and the apartheid wall.

Focus on Zionism:

Highlights of a Badil(www.badil.org) press release about the Israeli permits needed by Palestinians to conduct almost every aspect of daily life. There are now new permits for those Palestinians caught between the “Green Line” and the apartheid wall, the “seam zone”, permits to enter and leave the area, permits to work on their own land, and even permits to live there.

News Highlights:

• Israeli government grants “legal and permanent” status to wildcat settlement outposts, thus providing education and security services – Palestinian analysts state this will create new demographical and geographical facts on the ground.
• Israeli forces shot and killed Palestinian worker Jamal Ismail Qados, 39, near Nablus.
• Palestinian leaders denounce the new Israeli decision to extend the apartheid wall into the Jordan Valley.
• Israeli troops shoot an Australian peace activist in both legs – Joshua Taaffe was working with the International Solidarity Movement.
• Two Palestinians in Gaza die from wounds suffered in last week’s Israeli air strikes.
• Israeli PM Ariel Sharon defends the apartheid wall to European parliamentarians and adds that it will bar Palestinians from “marrying into Arab Israeli” families and becoming Israeli citizens.
• Arab newspaper editors criticize the U.S. occupation of Iraq and compare the Iraqi resistance to the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation.

Media Literacy:

An analysis on the biased (usually by neglect) coverage in our local media regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Coverage of the devastating destruction in Rafah was followed for several days last week in the B.C. media and was found to be largely ignored, despite the massive damage and Palestinian deaths. The need for alternative media like Voice of Palestine was highlighted.

Feature:

Our feature interview with Melissa live from the West Bank had to be postponed, due to technical difficulties with the phone lines. We will be trying to interview her about her work in assisting Palestinian civilians on Nov. 4th. Rather, we had a brief in studio discussion about the current developments in the West Bank and Gaza, the deadly Israeli airstrikes, the international and Arab response, and the mounting criticism against Ariel Sharon, even within his own government.

Focus on Zionism:

Excerpts of an article in The Guardian, Oct. 27, about the damage in Rafah, entitled Death of a Town. One family’s experience under bombardment is detailed and the writer also notes that the destruction in Rafah is actually worse than what was done in the Jenin refugee camp. Furthermore, an Israeli colonel is quoted from a year ago saying the home demolitions were a policy in themselves, to achieve a new border with Egypt.

News Highlights:

• Palestinians across the Gaza Strip mourned the dead and wounded from the previous day’s Israeli air raids, and the Nusseirat refugee camp with 7 people killed was the scene of a mass funeral.
• International leaders and even some Israeli politicians criticized the air raids and their toll on innocent civilians.
• A 14-year-old Palestinian boy in Rafah was crushed to death in his partially destroyed home when a wall collapsed from Israeli fire, in 10 days Rafah alone has seen 15 Palestinians die and Amnesty International has called Israel’s destruction in Rafah a war crime.
• Israeli newspapers warn that the air strikes in Gaza are counter-productive and just a reaction to the “humiliating ambush” that killed 3 Israeli soldiers.
• The Palestinian film, Divine Intervention, that was banned from the 2003 Oscars has been granted an exemption and entered in the 2003 “Best Foreign Film” category.
• 8 U.S. Marines, including two officers, have been charged with brutal treatment of Iraqi POWs; this represents the second case in just 3 months.

Feature:

Mazin Qumiyseh, professor at Yale University and co-founder of Al Awda (Palestine Right to Return Coalition), spoke about his recent trip to Palestine and also about the new “Geneva Accords”. Mazin explained the difficulties he faced as a Palestinian-American entering the West Bank, and then talked about the daily suffering of the Palestinians as they attempt to work, go to school and simply survive. Against this background, he detailed some of the clauses in the new “Geneva Accords” and said that they go against international law and the recognized national rights of the Palestinians. Mazin explained that one clause allows Israel to set its own limits on how many refugees it wants to accept, and basically treats it like any other third country vis-à-vis the Palestinian refugee question.

Focus on Zionism:

The head of the National Religious Party in Israel branded the Israeli politicians who negotiated the “Geneva Accords” as traitors and called for them to be sentenced to death or life imprisonment.

News Highlights:

• Israeli raid into Rafah leaves hundreds of Palestinians homeless and eight dead, including two young children; entire rows of houses crushed under bulldozers.
• Palestinian Center for Human Rights reports that the Israeli army used a banned nerve gas, adamatite, during the attack on Rafah
  Israel announces plans to deport 18 Palestinian administrative detainees from the West Bank to Gaza.
• Israel’s apartheid wall is discussed at the U.N. Security Council; U.S. says it may veto the resolution.
• Badil, Resource Center for Palestinian Refugee Rights, expresses concerns over the new “Geneva Accord” and its clauses regarding the Palestinian right of return.
• U.S. soldiers in Iraq uproot ancient date palms and other fruit groves as a form of collective punishment.

Feature:

An interview with Maxine, a B.C. woman currently in the West Bank for over a month. She spoke about the incredible difficulties faced by Palestinians on a daily basis at checkpoints and roadblocks, and felt they had little to do with “security”. She also talked about the olive harvest, in which she had participated, and about a book she is working on for which she did interviews. She gave an insightful look at the process happening around the apartheid wall, and how the land in between the wall and the Green Line will end up being confiscated.

Focus on Zionism:

Highlights of a press release from Iowa about the speaking tour of Salim and Arabiya Shawamreh, a Palestinian couple, whose home in the West Bank has been demolished already four times and is now threatened with demolition again by the Israeli authorities. The home is now a peace center dedicated to Rachel Corrie and Nuha Sweidan.

(Salim spoke in Vancouver in Feb., 2001, with Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee against Home Demolitions.)