Mel Frykberg, Electronic Intifada 7 May 2010, Ramallah

Photo: Ahmed Sabah was deported to the Gaza Strip from the West Bank.

Several Palestinians have set up a protest tent in no-man’s land in the northern Gaza Strip, near the Erez border crossing into Israel, as they protest their deportation from the Israeli occupied West Bank into Gaza where Hamas authorities have refused them entry.

Tens of thousands of other Palestinians face a possibly similar predicament in the near future. This follows a sweeping new Israeli military order which allows for the expulsion of Palestinians or foreigners whom Israel considers to be in the West Bank illegally as “infiltrators.”

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By Fadi Eyadat Haartez May 2010.

Photo Nazareth skyline, a historic city in Palestine.

For years government officials have been blaming economic distress in Arab towns on their local authorities’ shortcomings and failure to collect taxes. It has emerged, though, that Arab authorities receive only 0.2 percent of the taxes on government property on their land, while the majority of the money goes to Jewish local authorities, a civil rights group says.

In addition, the state has not built industrial areas and infrastructure facilities, which yield considerable taxes, in Arab communities. Other industrial areas were built on lands they say were confiscated from them, such as in Tziporit, Teradion and Afek.

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Commemoration of the 62nd Anniversary of the Nakba in Montreal

Sunday May 16, 2010, 12h-16h
Lafontaine Park
avenues Lafontaine and Rachel east
vicinity of north-west corner of the park
metro Mont-Royal or Sherbrooke

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A selection of documentaries about the Nakba and its aftermath.

Remembering the Nakba (1948)
Two film screenings: May 11-12 2010
Cinéma du Parc – cinemaduparc.com
3575 av. du Parc

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May 2010 Open letter to Margaret Atwood from Tadamon! collective and Art Threat

Dear Ms. Margaret Atwood,

Today, as systematic human rights violations continue to be committed by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people, we are appealing to you on behalf of the Montreal-based collective Tadamon! and Art Threat concerning your planned visit to Tel Aviv.

We have learned that you have been offered the Dan David Prize from the Tel Aviv University for your outstanding literary work. First, we want to openly recognize your work, renowned not only for literary excellence but also for the humanistic message it portrays. Beyond literature your sincere advocacy for social justice, from the struggle for women’s liberation to environmental protection, has made you an international role model who people respect and admire.

(…اكثر)

by Amira Hass Haaretz May 4th 2010

Photo: Uriel Sinai Israeli settlers at a West Bank outpost near Nablus, Palestine.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unjustifiably draws fire for policies that move ahead without his involvement. The Jewish intellectuals, who suddenly saw the darkness and were terrified, should know: Even if not one more Jewish home is built in the occupied territories (including East Jerusalem), the enormous apparatus of domination continues to operate there with an inner logic of many years’ duration. It moves along by itself, like some huge aircraft without a pilot.

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April 21, 2010 CounterPunch by Vijay Prashad

Photo: Palestinians in destroyed home in the Gaza Strip.

I’m not Israeli. I’m not Palestinian. Nor Jewish, nor Arab, nor Muslim. I’ve never been to Jerusalem, nor Ramallah. I’m not sure if I’ll ever go there. I have no relatives who live there, no family who ever went there, or came from there. I have a friend who lives there, but I only knew him when we were children in Calcutta more than forty years ago. I don’t remember what he looks like.

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by Jimmy Johnson on May 3, 2010 Mondoweiss

Photo: Palestinian walking to protest Israeli apartheid wall in Palestine.

January’s revelations about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers assisting with the design and installation of yet another border wall around Palestine, this one placed under the ground, is just the latest development in a series of relationships between: North American neoliberalism, U.S. domestic and foreign drug policy, structural anti-latino racism in the U.S., the Egyptian government, Mexico’s ruling elite and Israel’s military occupation of Palestine. To find connections between various international interests is not surprising but the links between, for example, Mexican classism and President Mubarak’s aversion to democracy are perhaps less known. How the occupation forces action from one and provides tools for the other is a connection worth exploring as is the potential for joint struggle between individuals and communities focusing on seemingly disparate issues amidst broader struggles for justice.

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David Heap London Free Press March 2010.

Photo: Israeli apartheid wall from above cutting through Palestinian lands.

Yves Engler’s new book raises important issues at the centre of debates in this country and about which we all need to become better informed.

The title refers to the conditions Israel imposes on Palestinians, which some say amount to the crime of apartheid, as defined by the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.

Obviously, not everyone agrees with this interpretation, and the point is one that can give rise to a healthy debate.

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Hour March 2010 by Stefan Christoff.

Photo: Israeli apartheid wall cutting through Palestinian lands.

Yves Engler’s new book, Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid, is a stunning examination of the history of Canada-Israel relations and a key read for anyone interested in Canadian foreign policy of all political stripes.

Engler’s commitment to critiquing injustices linked to Canadian government and corporate policy is applied here to Canada-Israel relations and works within a broader critique of Canada’s national narrative as a force for peace in the world. He unravels the image of Canada as a broker of peace in the Middle East through well-researched details and outlines a historical thread that links successive Canadian governments to the suppression of Palestinian human rights and self-determination.

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