Mustafa Qadri

It’s unlikely Richard Goldstone’s report into the Gaza bombings will result in ICC prosecutions but it may mark a turning point in the conflict, writes Mustafa Qadri

This week the United Nations released an explosive report on Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip in late December last year. It finds both Israel and armed Palestinian groups guilty of war crimes and, potentially, of crimes against humanity. Over 1400 mostly civilian Palestinians (including over 300 children) and 13 Israeli (including nine soldiers) were killed during Israel’s massive invasion of the Gaza Strip, the most densely populated region on the planet.

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Ms Windisch said residents were also anti-Connex after the company recently won a $500 million 30-year contract to operate an “apartheid” light rail system in occupied Palestine that would acquire many Palestinian homes. (Thanks Antony)

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The matter came before the Supreme Court, The petitioners, Jews and Arabs, argued that this measure contradicts our Basic Laws (our substitute for a nonexistent constitution) which guarantee the equality of all citizens. The answer of the Ministry of Justice lawyers let the cat out of the bag. It asserts, for the first time, in [...]

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The founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD) has given up on any solution coming from within Israel.

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The UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Gaza, local Palestinian NGOs and mental health professionals are reporting increased incidents of domestic violence and sexual assault against women in Gaza since the beginning of 2009. (Thanks Antony).

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The United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories has said Israel’s military offensive on Gaza “would seem to constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law”.

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“That’s the beauty of Gaza. You see a man walking, he doesn’t have to have a weapon, and you can shoot him,” one soldier told Danny Zamir, the head of the Rabin pre-military academy, who asked him why a company commander ordered an elderly woman to be shot.

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…if Barack Obama can’t stand up to the likes of Marty Peretz, Jonathan Chait, Steve Rosen, and other snarky critics, and if the White House can’t defend a critical intelligence pick when that person is savaged by Republican sharks smelling blood in the water, then how can we expect Obama to stand up to Bibi [...]

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One of the headlines coming out of the Gaza donors conference currently being held in Egypt is the US’s pledge of $900 million for the Palestinians. What is getting less attention is that only one third of that will actually go to Gaza and none of that can be used for rebuilding.

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The Diplomat’s Middle East and South Asia correspondent, Mustafa Qadri, reports on Hamas’ future…

The latest edition of the excellent The Diplomat magazine, Australia’s only dedicated foreign affairs magazine, has an article by me on the future of the Palestinian Hamas movement following the recent Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. The article is available here via subscription.

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“Hamas has to change its policies,” Mr. Kerry said at the ruins of the American International School in Gaza, which was destroyed by an Israeli air attack in early January. “There is no change in our policy.” I can’t think of any other conflict on earth where the aggressor (the US, by supplying Israel with [...]

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According to most regional analysts, the results of Israel’s recent election signal a profound shift to the right. But a deeper reading reveals a more pedestrian reality.

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Israel temporarily eased its blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Thursday to allow Palestinian flower growers to export 25,000 blooms to Europe ahead of Valentine’s Day. The amount of carnations allowed out of the Gaza Strip was only a fraction of what farmers produce. Many farmers say they have no choice but to feed [...]

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Somewhere deep in the bowels of the BBC is a top secret document that could explain a great deal about the corporation’s decision to boycott the aid appeal for Gaza.

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The mental anguish of the civilians who suffered the assault is so great that the entire population of Gaza could be seen as casualties, said Falk, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

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Interesting that the Wall Street Journal has no qualms with Israeli soldiers who describe Palestinians as mosquitoes: Arieh Spitzen, the former head of the Israeli military’s Department of Palestinian Affairs, says that even if Israel had tried to stop the Islamists sooner, he doubts it could have done much to curb political Islam, a movement [...]

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U.S. President Barack Obama has taken the Middle East by surprise with the speed of his diplomacy but his first statement on the conflict between Arabs and Israelis was strikingly similar to old U.S. policies.

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“the Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously…the Army, he said, has never distinguished civilian [from military] targets…[but] purposely attacked civilian targets.” The reasons were explained by the distinguished statesman Abba Eban: “there was a rational prospect, ultimately fulfilled, that affected populations would exert pressure for the cessation of hostilities.” The effect, [...]

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The World Bank and UNICEF have reported that despite repeated requests Israel has forbidden the importation by any means — sea, air, or by land across the Egyptian border — of consignments of pumps, metal pipes, air and oil filters, and other goods that need to be obtained from outside Gaza; while allowing only a [...]

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The scale of Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip, and the almost daily reports of war crimes over the last three weeks, has drawn criticism from even longstanding friends and sympathisers. Despite the Israeli government’s long-planned and comprehensive PR campaign, hundreds of dead children is a hard sell. As a former Israeli government press adviser [...]

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In an unusually public rebuke, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel said Monday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been forced to abstain from a United Nations resolution on Gaza that she helped draft, after Mr. Olmert placed a phone call to President Bush.

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The U.S. fuel shipments are part of a sustained policy that has widened the energy gap between Israel and its neighbors. Over the past few years, the Israel Defense Force has cut off fuel supplies and destroyed electricity infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Those embargoes and attacks on power plants have exacerbated a [...]

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This is why it’s generally hard to trust the mainstream Western press when it comes to the Israel/Palestine conflict: <!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:SimSun; panose-1:2 1 6 0 3 1 1 1 1 1; mso-font-alt:??; mso-font-charset:134; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 680460288 22 0 262145 0;} @font-face {font-family:”Cambria Math”; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 [...]

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A prominent Jewish MP has compared the actions of Israeli troops with Nazis who forced his family to flee Poland.

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Three members of UN staff were injured when three Israeli shells hit the headquarters, setting it on fire. Thousands of tonnes of desperately needed food and humanitarian supplies were destroyed and about 700 refugees given shelter in the building had to be evacuated. UN officials said the shells were white phosphorus, believed to have been [...]

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The following article, on the future of Hamas after the Israeli invasion of Gaza, was published in New Matilda today:

The end of Palestinian resistance?

With a ceasefire yet to materialise in Gaza, the future looks uncertain for Hamas, writes Mustafa Qadri

As Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip enters its third week, prospects for a ceasefire look as remote as ever. The UN Security Council passed a resolution calling on all parties to cease hostilities immediately and for Israel to end its blockade, but the resolution has had no immediate effect on the violence.

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To those who have an emotional need to maintain a belief in Israel’s inherent goodness, such views may well seem self-evidently true. To those of us who do not share this need, the evidence of recent weeks makes them seem bizarre. It is hard to imagine what the civilians of Gaza would make of the [...]

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According to a joint Tel Aviv University-European University study, this fits a larger pattern in which Israeli violence has been responsible for ending 79 per cent of all lulls in violence since the outbreak of the second intifada, compared with only 8 per cent for Hamas and other Palestinian factions.

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Will Obama be more hardnosed with the Israelis? I doubt it. Why would he? You’re not supposed to say out loud that there’s a big rich Israeli lobby, but everybody knows there is. And more to the point, what’s their counterweight? Who cares about the Palestinians, even in the Arab world, never mind DC? So [...]

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The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday that it had found at least 15 bodies and several children — emaciated but alive — in a row of shattered houses in the Gaza Strip and accused the Israeli military of preventing ambulances from reaching the site for four days.

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NEARLY everything you’ve been led to believe about Gaza is wrong. Below are a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation, much of which has taken place in the press, about Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip.

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The following article, on Israel’s continued invasion of the Gaza Strip, was published in NewMatilda.com today:

The World Gives Israel The Green Light

Israel has attacked Gaza with unprecedented barbarity — largely because it has a virtual blank cheque from its powerful allies, writes Mustafa Qadri

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While Americans may believe that the current violence in Gaza began Dec. 27, in fact Palestinians have been dying from bombardments for many weeks. On Nov. 4, when the Israeli-Palestinian truce was still in effect but global attention was turned to the U.S. elections, Israel launched a “preemptive” airstrike on Gaza, alleging intelligence about an [...]

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There are other pictures that haunt me. The Israeli army issued a video of the bombing of the Hamas-run government compound, which it posted on YouTube. In it, I also can see my home being destroyed, and I watch it obsessively.

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Dr. Mads Gilbert, a member of a Norwegian triage medical team working in Gaza, has documented Israel’s use of Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME), which cuts its victims to pieces and reportedly causes cancer in survivors. Gilbert, who has worked in several conflict zones, said the situation in Gaza is the worst he has ever [...]

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“There is a growing number of Jews around the world, tens of thousands if not more in the last week, [who] if nothing else have spoken out forcefully against Israel,” he said.

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“Obama said that if rockets were being fired at his home while his two daughters were sleeping, he would do everything he could to prevent it,” Barak was reported as saying on Monday.

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The young in Gaza have nothing to do. There are no jobs. They have nowhere to escape to. They cannot marry because they cannot afford housing. They cannot leave Gaza, even for Israel. They sleep, sometimes 10 to a room, and live on less than $2 a day, surviving on United Nations or Hamas charities [...]

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And therein lies my problem. I came to the march to express solidarity with Palestinians and express my anger at Israel’s bombings. I didn’t come to express solidarity with Hamas, nor want to come to a religious march. If I wanted to hear “God is Great” I could have gone to a mosque or a [...]

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It has never been like this before. The assault is coming from the sky, the sea and the ground. The explosion of shells, the gunfire from the tanks and the missiles from planes and helicopters are incessant. The sky is laced with smoke, grey here, black there, as the array of weaponry leaves its distinctive [...]

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Ultimately, what is most notable about the “debate” in the U.S. over Israel-Gaza is that virtually all of it occurs from the perspective of Israeli interests but almost none of it is conducted from the perspective of American interests.

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Israeli officials have also enjoyed a clear edge with coverage. An Israeli foreign ministry assessment of eight hours of coverage across international broadcast media reported that Israeli representatives got 58 minutes of airtime while the Palestinians got only 19 minutes. Speaking for the Israeli military, Major Avital Leibovich said: “Quite a few outlets are very [...]

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The first 187 names of those murdered in the ongoing Gaza massacre were released today.

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But Hamas officials and analysts said Monday that the organization would actually like Israel to launch a ground operation; it hopes this would let it inflict such heavy losses on Israeli tanks and infantry that Israel would flee with its tail between its legs. (Thanks Antony)

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That is why Gaza exists: because the Palestinians who lived in Ashkelon and the fields around it – Askalaan in Arabic – were dispossessed from their lands in 1948 when Israel was created and ended up on the beaches of Gaza.

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The death toll by last night had climbed to nearly 290, with more than 700 wounded. This in reply to hundreds of rockets from Hamas militants which killed one Israeli in six months. But the equation is always like this. We also know that to have chosen to strike on a Saturday morning, when the [...]

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I can’t bear to think what will happen if the bombing continues. There are not enough beds in the hospitals and they are severely short of equipment, including x-ray machines.

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The following piece, on Israel’s bombardment of Gaza that commenced on Saturday December 27, was published in Foreign Policy in Focus today:

GAZA ATTACKS: MURDER WITH IMPUNITY

Mustafa Qadri

It was about midnight last Sunday when my phone rang. “I’m not sure I will survive tonight, the Israelis are bombing us everywhere.” It was Mahmoud, a young resident of Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt. We first met when I visited the troubled coastal territory after Israel dismantled its settlements there in September 2005. On December 27, just before midday, Israel’s powerful air force, the fourth largest in the world, commenced a deadly air assault on over 40 separate locations in the Gaza Strip. The strikes were as calculated as they were cold – the targets were almost entirely people and facilities vital to the Hamas government. In one of the areas hit, where police officers had gathered for a parade, body parts were strewn along a courtyard.

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Barack Obama yesterday appeared to line up behind the Bush administration in support of Israel’s attack on Gaza.

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One can travel from the farthest right fringe of the GOP to the heart of the Democratic Party leadership and hear exactly the same thing:  Israel is always right.  Israel must not be criticized.  Israel never bears any blame.  Any action taken by Israel is justified.  No matter the situation, that just gets repeated over and over [...]

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Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

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Palestinian medics say that at least 271 people have been killed and more than 600 injured in continuing Israeli bombardment of the impoverished Gaza Strip.

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The following article, on Israel’s influence in shaping state responses to non-state actor violence, appeared in the University of Western Australia’s New Critic magazine:

What can we learn from Israel?
Issue 9, December 2008 | Mustafa Qadri

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the birth of Israel and the dispossession of Palestine. Arguably the most ubiquitous political saga of the post Second World War world, nothing has been raised at the United Nations more frequently than the Palestine issue and Israel’s conduct in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

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Fifty percent of Israelis and 59% of the Palestinians said they believed that American policy toward the conflict would not change after Obama took office. (Thanks Antony)

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Thousands are stranded. The militant group and rival Palestinian faction Fatah are embroiled in a power struggle over who has the right to hand out visas for the pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.

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If he goes to the White House, he’ll be going to serve the president – but Israel will have a friend in the White House…

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Israel will have to give up “almost all” of the West Bank areas it occupies and accept the division of Jerusalem in order to take advantage of a rapidly closing window of opportunity for peace with the Arabs, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview published Monday. Kinda a bit late…

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If you are an Israeli citizen living in the West bank towns of Samaria and Judea and you beat up a Palestinian, even kill him or her, there’s a 90 percent chance you will get away with it.

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In 2000, then education minister Yossi Sarid suggested including some of Darwish’s poems in the Israeli high school curriculum, but then prime minister Ehud Barak overruled him, saying Israel was not ready yet for his ideas in the school system.

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The most recent footage, taken in the village of Naalin in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, sparked particular outrage because it involved a clear abuse. It shows an Israeli officer holding a young Palestinian man by the arm while a soldier standing a few feet away aims his gun at the Palestinian’s foot and fires. [...]

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On Saturday armed settlers from Kiryat Arba invaded a Palestinian house in Hebron where a wedding was taking place, throwing stones and harrassing guests. Two of the guests were wounded and one, 15 year old Hamza Abu Hitta, was thrown from the roof. He suffered a broken back and is in hospital, where his condition [...]

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HINDI MESLEH: Actually, I’m right now stuck in a house, because the Israeli army has invaded the village, because we had the Friday pray at the land. Israeli—Israel army—more than 100 soldiers now are invading the village, shooting tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at houses. The demonstrations, as usual, they are not violent and [...]

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Hamas and a group affiliated with Fatah battle it out in Gaza leading to deaths on both sides, mostly on the latter. This follows a bomb blast that killed Hamas members that the Islamic movement beleives the group is responsible for. Interestingly that blast was not described as a ‘terror attack’. That term seems to be reserved for attacks against Israel.

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This summer, at age 24, I was honored to learn that I had become the youngest journalist to receive the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, named for the famed American war reporter and awarded to journalists who counter propaganda with the truth. Although Israel has sealed Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinians in what many now call [...]

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“One wall Obama won’t be breaching” NewMatilda.com 29 July 2008
(On Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin, Germany and his omission of Israel’s separation wall in the West Bank)

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Subject: Setting Sail on August 5th 2008 to Break the Siege of Gaza Press Release – Thursday 24 July 2008 The Free Gaza Movement UK For Immediate Release Setting Sail on August 5th 2008 to Break the Siege of Gaza Around 60 Palestinians, Israelis and Internationals from 15 countries will sail to the Gaza Strip [...]

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The Occupation permeates every aspect of Palestinian life. Invariably, this makes the population acutely political in a way that is quite different from our blissfully apolitical Australian society.

Even in Ramallah, a liberal bastion for foreign aid workers and bureaucrats in the West Bank, you can see the ubiquitous sight of Israeli military outposts with their signature red and white communications towers. In Nablus, one of the centres of Palestinian militancy, several streets bear the imprint of Israeli tank treads. Not even the roads in Palestine have escaped the Occupation.

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“Will Israeli Settlers’ Violence Finally Be Prosecuted?” Alternet.org 16 July 2008
(On the general impunity given to Israeli settlers who commit violence in the West Bank)

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“Mindless violence or endless cycle?” OnlineOpinion.com.au 9 July 2008
(On the bulldozer attack on West Jerusalem by a Palestinian Israeli citizen)

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“Guilt by association” NewMatilda.com 7 July 2008
(On the punishment of NGOs coordinating their activities in the Gaza Strip with Hamas)

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“A nationa imprisoned” Dawn Newspaper 20 June 2008
(On the 41st anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Includes interviews with fighters from Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine)

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THIS month marks the 41st year of Israel’s continued occupation of the Palestinian territories. For ordinary Palestinians the occupation has turned Gaza and the West Bank into a giant prison. “[This] occupation put[s] you in a cage, a cage on your life and on your mind so you never feel safe,” says Mahmoud, an activist with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

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“The house right across the street was hit. It’s not like World War II but it’s a long term, ongoing kind of action that is causing a lot of insecurity and tension and anxiety. So people are traumatised even though there’s no colossal damage … of course [there's] the bombs that Israel sends to Gaza. But that doesn’t change the fact that you can’t find one person in Sderot who’s not been traumatised in one way or another by this endless conflict.”

I recently visited Sderot, the Israeli town one kilometre from Gaza that is routinely targeted in rocket attacks. You can read the entire report here.

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Locked into the mantra of preserving its Jewish character, Israel refuses to comprehend the extent to which it has forsaken the memory of the oppressed for the fruits of the oppressor.

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel. Here is my take on what Israel represents in the 21st century.

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“She told me, ‘I don’t want anyone to know you’re Arab. I don’t want anyone to know I rented the flat out to Arabs.’ I told her, ‘I’m not going to hide my identity.’ She said, ‘No, no you don’t have to hide.’ I said, ‘Okay, I want to put my name on the door.’ She said, ‘No, no, not that.’”

NewMatilda.com has commissioned weekly pieces while I’m in Israel and Palestine over the next two months. Click this link to read my first entry.

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My most recent piece is an interview with a friend from Gaza:

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