The Huffington Post, August 3, 2010 Maan News Agency, August 4, 2010 After a year-long battle over the fate of 1200 children of undocumented migrant workers, the Israeli cabinet has finalized plans that will lead to the deportation of at least 400 minors, along with their parents. The government also approved criteria that would make …
Al Jazeera English, July 31, 2010 Fatma Sharif is a lawyer at Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, a non-partisan, Gaza-based NGO that has voiced sharp criticism of both Hamas and Israel. A women’s rights activist, Sharif planned to study at the West Bank’s Birzeit University for a Master’s in human rights and democracy, a …
The Jerusalem Post, July 23, 2010 Muhammad Fokra, a local attorney accused of cheating scores of migrant workers and Palestinians out of thousands of dollars, has been ordered by a Tel Aviv court to refund his clients. The civil suit against Fokra was filed by attorney David Ben-Haim, who represented 25 migrant laborers from the …
The Guardian, July 20, 2010 Michelle is the 14-year-old daughter of undocumented migrant laborers from the Philippines. In fluent Hebrew, she sums up the inhumanity of Israel’s plans to deport children of foreign workers. “It’s like they’re taking sheep and packing them,” she says, comparing the expulsion to herding animals. While Michelle will probably be naturalized, …
Al Jazeera English, July 17, 2010 For most children summer is a carefree time. But for the children of Israel’s undocumented migrant workers, deportation looms on the horizon. It has been a hotly contested issue since last July, when the Oz Unit, a strong arm of the interior ministry’s population and immigration authority, first hit …
Al Jazeera English, July 10, 2010 Mahmoud Alami, a Jerusalem taxi driver, knows the city like the back of his hand. He knows the neighborhoods, the streets. And he knows the stop lights. There’s one in particular that troubles him not professionally but personally. It stands between Beit Hanina, a Palestinian neighborhood, and Pisgaat Zeev, …
The Huffington Post, July 10, 2010 The headline excited me. “Analysis: Trying one soldier for Gaza war crime doesn’t solve root of problem,” it read. Finally, a discussion of the Israeli army’s culture of impunity, I thought. Or perhaps some reflections on a state that behaves as though neither the international community nor its own …
The Huffington Post, July 1, 2010 Maan News Agency, July 2, 2010 Fidaa Talal Hijjy, a resident of the Gaza Strip, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease in 2007–the same year Israel’s blockade of Gaza began. As her health deteriorated, so did Gaza’s medical system. Drugs are in short supply. Hospitals lack necessary equipment. And because …
Al Jazeera English, June 21, 2010 Maan News Agency, July 10, 2010 Jewish settlers storming the garden of an elderly Palestinian woman– it seems like a page from Hebron’s book, not that of cosmopolitan Tel Aviv. But that’s exactly what happened to Zeinab Rachayel, an Arab resident of Tel Aviv’s mixed suburb, Yafo. Rachayel was …
Tablet, June 11, 2010 A small country intent on preserving its demographic balance, Israel is a Petri dish for globalization’s conflicts, including those being fought in Arizona. Arizona’s controversial Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, also referred to as SB1070, takes effect in July. Proposed by Republican State Senator Russell Pearce, a staunch …