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te suggestions always welcome posted by laila sunday august 09 2009 0 comments sunday june 28 2009 lift the closure give life a chance ah the shalit deal on again off again on again and now off again according to haaretz and hamas both it never existed to start with as though shalit were the end all be all of the palestinian problem nevermind the 1 5 million palestinians trying to survive under siege nevermind the 11 thousand palestinian prisoners in israeli jails in any case it appears that there was perhaps something in the works and in an attempt to pressure hamas to sign on egypt already sealing rafah crossing in collusion with israel for going on two years now has hindered passage through gaza s only land crossing to thousands of palestinians yesterday and today this despite an announcement that they would open the crossing for 72 hours collective punishment of the some 5000 palestinians registered to cross only 250 were allowed out of gaza on the first day a total of 5 buses and only 4 buses scheduled to depart today my parents on bus 16 are waiting along with thousands of others they registered to travel over 2 months ago and keep checking whether their names have appeared on the list of the lucky on the website of the ministry of the interior but nothing is ever guaranteed in gaza posted by laila sunday june 28 2009 3 comments monday june 22 2009 mapping the arab blogosphere last week i was invited to participate in an event on arab blogging held by the us institute of peace and harvard s berkman center on internet society online discourse in the arab world dispelling the myths the panel discussed a report just issued by the center mapping the arabic blogosphere politics culture and dissent the case study was part of a series of studies produced by the internet democracy project a research initiative at the berkman center for internet society at harvard university which investigates the impact of the internet on civic engagement and democratic processes the study identified a base network of approximately 35 000 active arab blogs about half as many as the the persian blogosphere in their former study created a network map of the 6 000 most connected blogs and with a team of arabic speakers hand coded 4 000 blogs interestingly palestinian blogs signalled relatively low on the radar it appears there bridge bloggers and social networking sites or online forums figure more prominently among the interesting key findings 1 the arab blogosphere is mainly a country based networkkas opposed to political ideologies and topical issues such as reformist and conservative politics religion poetry etc 2 arabic bloggers are predominately young and male the highest proportion of female bloggers is found in the egyptian youth sub cluster while the syrian and muslim brotherhood clusters have the highest concentration of males so i am proud to say i represent the old ok 31 not so old and female contingent which interestingly seems to be predominant in palstine 3 personal life and local issues are most important 4 youtube arabic bloggers tend to prefer politically oriented youtube videos to cultural ones videos related to the conflict in gaza and the throwing of shoes at george bush in iraq are popular across the entire blogosphere while clips related to domestic political issues are linked to more heavily by the various national clusters 5 anonymity arabic bloggers are more likely than not to use their name when blogging as opposed to writing anonymously or using an obvious pseudonym however female bloggers are more likely to blog anonymously than males 6 human rights and culture human rights is also a popular topic of conversation across the arabic blogosphere much more common than criticism of western culture and values among cultural topics poetry literature and art are more discussed than pop culture music tv movies 7 arabic media ecosystem bloggers link to web 2 0 sites such as youtube and wikipedia both english and arabic versions more than other sources of information and news available on the internet al jazeera is the top mainstream media source followed by the bbc and al arabiya while us government funded media outlets like radio sawa and al hurra are linked to relatively infrequently the full report can be found here http cyber law harvard edu publications 2009 mapping_the_arabic_blogosphere posted by laila monday june 22 2009 2 comments gaza bonanza the nuts and bolts of the ongoing occupation a chilling inside view of how the continued occupation and blockade of gaza works the nuts and bolts this is what i mean when i say that living in gaza is living in a place where everything down to the food you put on your table and when and whether you can move is subject to israeli control the same israeli ministry of defense unit cogat also operates in the west bank cogat occupation administrators in military uniform ha aretz last update 10 55 15 06 2009 gaza bonanza by yotam feldman and uri blau every week about 10 officers from the israel defense force s coordinator of government activities in the territories cogat unit convene in the white templer building in the kirya the defense ministry compound in tel aviv to decide which food products will appear on the tables of the 1 5 million inhabitants of the gaza strip among those taking part in the discussion are colonel moshe levi head of the gaza district coordination office dco colonel alex rosenzweig head of the civil division of cogat and colonel doron segal head of the economics division these officers decided for example that persimmons bananas and apples were vital items for basic sustenance and thus permitted into the gaza strip while apricots plums grapes and avocados were impermissible luxuries over the past year these officers were responsible for prohibiting the entry into the gaza strip of tinned meat tomato paste clothing shoes and notebooks all these items are sitting in the giant storerooms rented by israeli suppliers near the kerem shalom crossing awaiting a change in policy the policy is not fixed but continually subject to change explains a cogat official thus about two months ago the cogat officials allowed pumpkins and carrots into gaza reversing a ban that had been in place for many months the entry of delicacies such as cherries kiwi green almonds pomegranates and chocolate is expressly prohibited as is halvah too most of the time sources involved in cogat s work say that those at the highest levels including acting coordinator amos gilad monitor the food brought into gaza on a daily basis and personally approve the entry of any kind of fruit vegetable or processed food product requested by the palestinians at one of the unit s meetings colonel oded iterman a cogat officer explained the policy as follows we don t want gilad shalit s captors to be munching bamba a popular israeli snack food right over his head continued http www haaretz com hasen spages 1092196 html posted by laila monday june 22 2009 1 comments besiege the siege at the rafah gate 6 months after israel s brutal attack against gaza the siege stand unrelenting rafah has been open a total of zero days for normal traffic during the course of the past two years according to gisha and only a day or two every couple of month for humanitarian purposes this month a group of people mothers sons daughters wives husbands students continue to wait at the crossing in a makeshift camp dubbed rafah camp to get through here is an update from the intl movement to open rafah border june 21 2009 the international movement to open the rafah border rafah crossing rafah egypt in the ninth day of a sit in camp at the rafah egypt border gate the international movement to open the rafah border imorb rejects president obama s rationale for the siege of gaza and the limited access through the rafah gate in his address to the american israeli public affairs committee aipac last month us president obama said that arms shipments to hamas must stop the rafah gate is not a point of transfer for weapons but a throughway for palestinians and commerce said paki wieland of northhampton mass usa through our extensive interviews we have heard again and again from aging parents families and students that they want to visit with family in gaza attend weddings or return home this is so normal continued ms wieland and when they are denied the emotional stress and economic strain brings sadness anger and devastating despair the technology is available to monitor for potential weapons shipments through rafah said don bryant of cleveland ohio usa this siege is just an excuse to strangle gaza to death he said the imorb will continue the sit in and fasting at the rafah gate indefinately on a daily basis imorb challenges the closed border and escorts people seeking entry to gaza one palestinian american family from texas usa has been waiting over two weeks like hundreds of others to enter gaza this is so humiliating said the texan mother of four contact paki wieland 002 018 735 8621 nada kassass 002 012 250 4611 posted by laila monday june 22 2009 0 comments thursday june 18 2009 carter in gaza former pres jimmy carter visited gaza a few days ago which six months after its invasion has yet to receive a repreive from the criminal siege the situation he said is unique in history and a terrible human rights crime speaking in gaza june 16 at a graduation ceremony for some 200 000 students who took a special unrwa human rights curricula carter talked earnestly about the absurdity of the israeli closure regime last week a group of israelis and americans tried to cross into gaza through erez bringing toys and children s playground equipment slides swings kites and magic castles for your children they were stopped at the gate and prevented from coming i understand even paper and crayons are treated as security hazards and not permitted to enter gaza i sought an explanation for this policy in israel but did not receive a satisfactory answer because there is none http un truth com israel former pres jimmy cartergaza situation is unique in history and a terrible human rights crime posted by laila thursday june 18 2009 1 comments tuesday june 16 2009 8 nos but nothing new 8 no s but nothing new this is the reaction i hear over and again from palestinians refugees here in lebanon s wavel refugee camp where 4 generations wait to return to the homeland from which they were brutally evicted over 60 years ago in response to israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu s so called landmark policy speech this is for from those who even bothered to listen the united states and europe saw his speech as a move towards recognizing two states while dismissing the right of return a divided jerusalem an end to settlements and the list goes on and thus some sort of advance towards peace others suggested it was a step backward both analyses are flawed one confuses a call for a palestinian ghetto as a call for a sovereign viable palestinian state the other is based on the assumption that progress was made over the past few decades vis a vis palestinian statehood the speech was full of rosy conjectures the word peace was repeated 45 times tellingly the word occupation was not mentioned once neither for that matter was international law or freedom except in the context of facilitating some freedom of movement only after palestinians give up their rights to move freely peace has always been our people s most ardent desire he explained citing 3 immense challenges that stood in the way the iranian threat the economic crisis and the advancement of peace in fact it is an illegal draconian and malicious occupation that have stifled peace and that continues to pose the biggest threat to israel s security in his speech netanyahu called for negotiations without preconditions while simultaneously imposing the conditions that would make a just and viable peace impossible an undivided jerusalem no right of return no sovereignty continued settlement expansion the demands to recognize israel as a jewish state annuls the right of palestinian refugees to return to their homes from which they were systemically and violently expelled in 1948 in what is now israel a right enshrined in international law and at the heart of the palestinian struggle such a state one would promote subsidize and allow jewish only immigration and rights as it does now while denying native inhabitants this same right nations are quick to dismiss the palestinian right of return as israel s end but equally quick to facilitate the return of darfur kosovar or east timor refugees in recent years this demand also consolidates israel s racist apartheid like policies and would dismiss in one fell swoop the rights of the palestinian minority in israel who make up 20 of the population it is effectively saying we have the right to discriminate against you to take any measures we deem necessary in order to sustain the jewish majority measures that have already been suggested in the knesset like a loyalty oath even population transfer then there is talk of the illegal settlements new settlements aren t the issue who needs new settlements if israeli loophole policies in recent years have provided ample room for expansion currently the illegal annexation barrier together with settlement related infrastructure including settler only roads army bases closed military zones and over 600 checkpoints consume 38 of the west bank annexing land and livelihoods dividing villages towns and families from one another and tearing apart the very fabric of palestinian social and economic life so we have not moved forward but we are certainly a step backwards from the heyday of oslo some might say the fact is during the oslo years from 1993 to 2000 four under netanyahu s reign the the israeli settler population expanded by 71 percent such policies are already being implemented in jerusalem where land theft and demolitions continue daily and where palestinian christian and muslim residents are subject to draconian laws that would strip them of their residency rights there if they fail to renew their id cards regularly made all the more impossible a task by the closure regime and the apartheid wall netanyahu s vision of a palestinians states is one bereft of the very factors that make a state sovereign effective control over land sky and sea among other things but this should come as no surprise israel s long standing policy has been one of re packaging the occupation and postponing viable palestinian statehood indefinitely by rendering it impossible it is a goal summed up by the late israeli sociologist baruch kimmerling as politicide a gradual but systematic attempt to cause their annihilation as an independent political and social entity in tune with this policy no where in oslo is there mention of a palestinian state only limited self rule netanyahu s own likud party s charter flatly rejects the establishment of a palestinian state ne...