The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
On May 9th, Israelis poured onto the streets to celebrate the 63rd year of Israeli Independence. Weeks earlier, at the end of March the Israeli parliament passed the controversial Nakba Law, part of numerous laws termed as anti-democratic by the association for civil rights in Israel. This law bans the mourning of the Nakba, which Palestinians commemorate to mark their expulsion from Palestine during the 1948 war.
The Nakba means "catastrophe" in arabic and refers to the war...
M K Bhadrakumar -
The thesis was just about gaining ground that the bitter legacy of the Arab spring is going to be the reawakening of the rough beast of sectarianism in the Muslim Middle East. Sectarian strife, it was prophesied, would lead to a Sunni-Shi'ite confrontation involving Saudi Arabia and Iran.
That specter helped deflect attention momentarily from the existential threat posed by the Arab spring to the authoritarian regimes of the Middle East. It also helped the United States to distract the...
Katie Halper -
I first heard of Jeff Halper at Israel-Palestine-related events, where people would ask me if I was related to him. It took me 30 seconds of Googling to realize that I’d love to be related to this Minnesotan anthropologist, activist, writer, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and founder and coordinator of Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions (ICAHD).
Though kindred spirits, we don’t seem to come from the same Halper stock. But we are Facebook friends, and it was through a...
Democracy Now -
Newly released documents show Palestinian negotiators agreed to give up large tracts of West Bank land, and nearly all of East Jerusalem, in peace talks with the Israeli government. The disclosure is among many contained in what is being called the "Palestine Papers" - over 1,700 files from inside Israeli-Palestinian negotiations dating from 1999 to 2010. The news network Al Jazeera began publishing details of the documents on Sunday.
For more on this latest exposé,...
18 January 2011 marked the second anniversary of the end of Israel’s assault on Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, that killed 1,390 Palestinians, including 318 children.
One Family in Gaza is a short film that tells the story of the Awajah family. Kamal and Wafaa Awaja lost their home and a son during Israel's assault on Gaza. They describe the day their lives were unalterably changed, their hopes for the future and how they try to heal the trauma of their surviving children.
One Family in...
Canada has long been known as a neutral mediator. The country has often played a nonaligned diplomatic role, but when it comes to foreign policy on Israel, the government of Canada has given up any pretence of neutrality and very publicly picked one side.
In 2008, when Hamas won democratic elections in Gaza, Canada was the first to cut all aid to the Palestinian Authority.
In 2009, during Israel's attack on Gaza, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution condemning the...
