News Highlights:
- Israeli troops target village of Budrus after villagers successfully force changes in route of apartheid wall; March 20th – soldiers even remove women and children in the middle of night during a raid and photograph them.
- Israel withdraws from Tulkarem and will “avoid” entering the town;
surrounding villages remain under Israeli control. - March 18th – leaders of 13 Palestinian groups agree to continue the truce started at Sharm el-Sheik; meanwhile, settler violence escalates in the West Bank.
- Arab League summit opens in Algiers; Secretary-General Amr Mousa says Israel should not expect normalization without offering anything in return.
- Pre-summit negotiations had rejected a Jordanian proposal that further
minimized conditions for normalizing ties with Israel; final resolution will
insist Israel withdraw to 1967 borders and that a Palestinian state is
established. - Israeli government confirms plans to expand West Bank settlements by at least 3500 units.
Feature:
A short interview with independent American journalist, Dahr Jamail, who was
in Vancouver last weekend addressing the Stopwar.ca rally marking the second
anniversary of the war on Iraq. Dahr was in Iraq for 8 months and spoke
about what he witnessed, especially in Fallujah, and also detailed the
restrictions on and targeting of “non-embedded” journalists.
Focus on Zionism:
Focus included two items, both marking the second anniversary of the murder
of the young American peace activist Rachel Corrie by Israeli forces. The
first item was about a protest against Caterpillar, the U.S. company that
builds the D9 bulldozer that was used to kill Corrie and demolish
Palestinian homes. The second item was a poem honouring her memory.
Here is an audio file of this show: