Palestine Follow

The much-vaunted Middle East ’road map to peace‘ has reached a dead end.

MOHAMMED 'IN A small city called Hebron there are 500 Israeli soldiers protecting a small number of extremist Israeli settlers. The Palestinians are forced to stay in their homes. The Israelis are putting all the Palestinians under curfew. It lasts all day.

WORK ON a "wall" in Manchester to symbolise the wall of silence in the West over Palestinian rights started at 11am in front of the town hall last Saturday. Cardboard boxes were collected, banners were made and declarations, photos and Palestinian flags stuck onto the boxes. The demonstration started at 2pm. We carried the boxes to the square in front of Manchester town hall. Together we built the wall.

Jeremy Hardy v The Israeli Army

ISRAELI PEACE activists say Ariel Sharon ordered the assassination of a leader of the Palestinian group Hamas in order to "bury" any chance of peace. The Gush Shalom group says the attempted assassination of Dr Abdel Azziz Rantisi on Tuesday of last week was designed "to destroy Palestinian prime minister Abu Mazen and prevent a planned truce".

OVER 300 people attended the West Country premiere of the film Jeremy Hardy Versus the Israeli Army in Exeter last Saturday. People came to see the film made by Leila Sansour about the journey broadcaster Hardy takes when he agrees to become a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and join them in their work in Palestine.

THERE HAS been much optimistic comment on the meeting last week in Aqaba, Jordan, between US president George W Bush, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority representative Abu Mazen. The fact that Bush seems to be putting his shoulder to the wheel and making a serious effort to implement the so-called road map, intended to revive the Middle East peace process, has surprised many people.

UP TO 200 people protested outside Downing Street on Thursday of last week against Israel's targeting of international activists in Palestine. "We want an inquiry into the deaths of the internationals targeted by Israel," the Palestinian film-maker Leila Sansour told Socialist Worker. "The British government has shown incredible lameness in tackling the situation."

Bryan Masters pays tribute to cameraman James Miller who was killed in Gaza last month.

OVER 5,000 people rallied in Trafalgar Square on Saturday of last week in support of the Palestinians. The date was chosen to mark the 55th anniversary of the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians at the founding of the Israeli state in 1948.

THIRTEEN Palestinians were murdered by Israeli tanks and troops in a single day in Gaza last week. The dead included a two year old child. Yet the British media did not care about these victims. Instead they devoted pages to the suicide bombing by a pro-Palestinian British citizen that killed three people.

Tony Blair tried to get backing for the war on Iraq by claiming that it would bring peace to the Middle East. But Bush and Blair's "road map to peace" for Israel and Palestine is a con. It is overwhelmingly weighted in favour of Israel, the US's watchdog state in the Middle East.