What are the larger implications of the current ceasefire between Gaza and Israel and why do you think it happened right now?
The timing of the cease-fire agreement has two reasons. One, a cease-fire was necessary for Israel because there was a fear that what could be seen as a successful (…)
A correspondent looks back at the deterioration across the country over the past three years: the resurgence of both the Taliban and the old corrupt elites, the failure of the occupation forces, and the worsening conditions of life for everybody else.
As the summer of 2005 faded, everyone in (…)
Nearly seventy years ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from (…)
A human catastrophe threatens the Congo In Kivu, in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, war has broken out again, bringing atrocities and displaced persons in its wake. At stake: the control of the fabulous reserves of coltan, a highly prized mineral fought over by all the major (…)
It’s time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.
In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called (…)
Peacekeepers must ensure security for women in post-conflict situations. Gender issues needed special focus, especially when sexual violence was routinely used as a tactic of war, said a top UN official during a Security Council meeting.
A comprehensive and sustainable peace is not possible in (…)
The latest tightening of Israel’s chokehold on Gaza – ending all supplies into the Strip for more than a week – has produced immediate and shocking consequences for Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants.
The refusal to allow in fuel has forced the shutting down of Gaza’s only power station, creating (…)
Just as peace is not simply the absence of war, an end to conflict diamonds does not necessarily mean that diamonds will create prosperity or that human security will prevail in the areas where they are mined. The campaign to halt conflict diamonds has largely succeeded, although the phenomenon (…)
An alarming number of women soldiers are being sexually abused by their comrades-in-arms, both at war and at home. This fact has received a fair amount of attention lately from researchers and the press — and deservedly so.
But the attention always focuses on the women: where they were when (…)
The signing on August 14 of an agreement between the governments of the United States and Poland to deploy on Polish soil US ‘interceptor missiles’ is the most dangerous move towards nuclear war the world has seen since the 1962 Cuba Missile crisis. Far from a defensive move to protect European (…)
Two Palestinian views
– The only alternative to two states is conflict
by Ghassan Khatib
Israel is interested in and working on a future for the Gaza Strip that is different from that of the West Bank. Read more
Two Israeli views
– One state definitely not an option (…)
The Best of Bitterlemons: Five years of writings from Israel and Palestine is a compilation book of the most prescient and important articles published through the bitterlemons family of publications. Creators and editors Yossi Alpher and Ghassan Khatib introduce this volume of 83 short essays (…)
The Bush administration’s claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq formed the key justification for the war to Congress, the American people and the international community. As the former chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix was at the center of the storm. From March (…)
Despite progress, efforts to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers are too little and too late for many children.
The Child Soldiers Global Report 2008 details how a near global consensus that children should not be used as soldiers and strenuous international efforts have failed to (…)
John Pilger argues that an unreported war is being waged by the US to restore power to the privileged classes at the expense of the poor
Beyond the sound and fury of its conquest of Iraq and campaign against Iran, the world’s dominant power is waging a largely unreported war on another (…)
On 11 October 2007, the Sudan Liberation People’s Movement (SPLM) announced it was suspending participation in the Government of National Unity because the National Congress Party (NCP) was not implementing key aspects of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the (…)
Amnesty International UK, CARE International UK, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Médecins du Monde UK, Oxfam, Save The Children UK and Trócaire, March 2008, 15 p. (pdf)
The situation for 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is worse now than it has ever been since the start of the Israeli military occupation in 1967. The current situation in Gaza is man-made, completely avoidable and, with the necessary political will, can also be reversed. Gaza has (…)
Children in Sri Lanka are increasingly being killed and injured and having their education disrupted as bomb attacks blamed on the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) as well as government security forces drive families from their homes in search of safety. Read more
The recent peace conference in Goma, north Kivu has raised hopes that a durable solution to the almost decade long conflict in eastern DRC will finally be found. But Congolese women of DRC are paying a huge price as each bout of fighting results in ever more women raped and mutilated. Rape is (…)
If you have ever wondered “Why is there so much violence in the Middle East?”, “Who are the Palestinians?”, “What are the occupied territories?” or “What does Israel want?”, then this is the book for you. With straightforward language, Phyllis Bennis, longtime analyst of the region, answers (…)