News Highlights:
- April 13th – Caterpillar shareholders will vote on a resolution to
investigate if sales of its bulldozers to Israel violate its own ethics code. - April 11th – George Bush meets with Ariel Sharon and reiterates promise that Israel can keep large West Bank settlement blocs; Bush also cautions against settlement expansion but Sharon gives no commitments.
- April 11th – Palestinian and international protestors block Israeli trucks trying to bring garbage from the center of Israeli and dump it in the West Ban.
- April 10th – UNICEF official condemns the Israeli killing of three Palestinian teens that were playing soccer.
- April 9th – new confiscation orders of Palestinian land near Ramallah to build a road.
- New poll shows that Israeli settlement expansion has convinced many
Palestinians genuine peace is no longer possible.
Feature:
Highlights of the speech by Dr. Ismail Zayid at the Palestine Lives
conference at McMaster University on March 12th. The conference was organized by Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, the student group on campus, was well attended by 200 people, and brought together a wealth of activists and academics to give presentations. Dr. Zayid, a Palestinian Canadian, spoke on “The Palestine/Israel Conflict: A Legacy of Ethnic Cleansing and Dispossession”.
Focus on Zionism:
Excerpts of an April 11th, 2005 press release from Human Rights Watch about
the U.S. position on illegal Israeli settlements, calling on George Bush to
clearly state that the U.S. is opposed to all Israeli settlement activity in
the occupied Palestinian territories. (see www.hrw.org for full text)