With Senator Hillary Clinton resigning from the US Presidential race, the Democratic nomination will almost certainly go to Senator Barack Obama. Obama gave a speech this week that raised a great deal of criticism among human rights advocates. Read More

The Palestine Investment Conference (PIC), taking place in Bethlehem from May 21-23, has enthusiastically declared "Palestine is open for business". The conference, which draws together around 1200 Palestinian, Israeli, and international private investors and government delegations, is aimed at jumpstarting the process of integrating Palestine into the global economy.

While $2 billion USD worth of projects are being planned and inked at the PIC, almost entirely absent from the agenda is any mention that the Palestinian territories have been under the longest illegal military occupation in recent history.

While some are optimistic at the economic opportunities that such a conference could bring to the impoverished West Bank and Gaza Strip, others are critical of the conference, charging that it is being used as a tool to normalize Israeli apartheid policies in the region.

Dawood Hamoudeh is an organizer with the Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (www.stopthewall.org), based in Ramallah. Hamoudeh recently authored a report entitled "Development or Normalization? A critique of West Bank development approaches and projects".

The IMEMC's Aaron Lakoff spoke with Hamoudeh over the phone about his views on the PIC in Bethlehem, and current obstacles to Palestinian economic life, particularly with regards to tourism and agriculture.

---To download a copy of Dawood Hamoudeh's report, visit:
http://www.stopthewall.org/downloads/PRDPcritique.pdf

---To view the Stop the Wall statement about the Palestine Investment Conference:
http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/1654.shtml
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Dr Mohammed Salameh of Jordan and chairman of the consolidated group for engineering and investment says that Palestine is ready for investment only if Israel will agree to peace, and stop its' killing and curfews, without Israel's support we are wasting our time here. Read More

This is an interview with Dr. Aziz Dweik, head of the Palestinian Legislative Council, imprisoned by Israel along with dozens of legislators and officials.This interview was published in Arabic by the office of Legislator Sameer Halaiqa on May 7, 2008, and was translated by Saed Bannoura of the International Middle East Media Center www.imemc.org. Read More

-->To download or listen to these interviews, visit:
http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=27485

-->These interviews will also be airing as part "Radio Free Palestine", an
international radio broadcast to be held on May 15, 2008, to commemorate
60 years of the Palestinian Nakba. For more information:
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=2196 Read More

---> To download the recorded version of this interview, visit:
http://www.ncra.ca/exchange/dspProgramDetail.cfm?progra...69960

Ashraf is from Tulkarem, Palestine. He graduated from the Arab American University in Jenin (www.aauj.edu) in the summer of 2007 with a degree in computer information technology. With the student group Green Resistance at his university, he organized a successful boycott campaign which saw Israeli products banned from the campus.

In this interview, Ashraf talks about boycotts as a highly effective tool of non-violent resistance against the occupation, and also reflects on the campaign as part of an international campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid.

Interview conducted by Aaron Lakoff in Ramallah, Palestine on April 19, 2008. Read More

click here to listen to audio recording of interview (in arabic, with english voiceover) Q. Please introduce yourself for our listeners Fouad al-Khuffash, the Director of the Ahrar Center for the Rights of Detainees.  Our Center runs a website documenting the stories of Palestinian detainees - their issues and the suffering they face in the prisons of the Israeli occupation. Read More

One again, the world celebrates the International Women’s Day while dozens of Palestinian women and mothers are still imprisoned by the occupation, stripped of their fundamental rights of even hugging their children. Read More

Hedy Epstein is a German Jewish Holocaust survivor, born in 1924, whose parents were sent to Auschwitz in 1942, where they perished. In 1948, Hedy Epstein went to live in United States. In 2003, she decided to make a trip to Palestine. Shocked by the oppression that the Israeli government is imposing on the Palestinians, she is, since then, devoting herself to make it known to the world. Read More

The Gaza-based spokesperson for the Saraya aL-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad, Abu Dajjana, told IMEMC in an exclusive interview on the eve of the Annapolis peace summit, that resisting the Israeli occupation is the Saraya's strategic choice. Read More

In an interview held in his office in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Dr Ahmad Yousef, the political adviser of the deposed Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh said that the Palestinian home made shells although underdeveloped are used as a preventive tool in order to create a balance of fear as the Israeli occupiers continue with their attacks against the Palestinians. Read More

In an exclusive interview with IMEMC, the Hamas-linked Jamila al-Shanti of the Palestinian Legislative Council's bloc, Change and Reform, and chairwoman of the PLC's women affairs committee, says her committee has exerted relentless efforts to guarantee women's rights. Read More