CHRIS TOENSING
Editor of Middle East Report, Toensing talked this morning with Boston Globe reporter Anthony Shadid, who was shot yesterday. Shadid has written for Middle East Report. Toensing said today: “The bullet missed Anthony’s spinal cord by a centimeter. The talk of him being ‘caught in the crossfire’ is misleading. The circumstantial evidence is that an Israeli sharpshooter hit him. His jacket clearly said ‘TV’ on both the front and back. The Israelis slowed his treatment by trying to prevent his Palestinian translator from leaving Ramallah with him. Israel has demanded that all journalists get out of Ramallah. This morning at least one journalist was injured in Beit Jala.”
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ALLEGRA PACHECO
A Jewish Israeli-American human rights attorney, Pacheco is in the West Bank. She said today: “Bush says he respects the right of Israel to defend herself, but this isn’t a matter of self-defense, but rather aggression, oppression, power and dispossession. Here in the West Bank, I am experiencing the fruits of U.S. military aid to Israel — F-16s flooding the skies overhead, spreading fear and trepidation in all of us.”
MOUIN RABBANI
Rabbani is director of the Palestinian-American Research Center in Ramallah.
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REVEREND DR. MITRI RAHEB
Director of the International Center of Bethlehem and author of I Am a Palestinian Christian, Raheb said this afternoon local time: “Israeli troops have entered Bethlehem and taken some strategic points, but have not yet taken the city center. The streets are dead, the shops are closed; however there are many people from the international peace camp.”
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GEORGINA REEVES
Reeves, who is British, has been living in the Bethlehem area for seven months and is working with the International Solidarity Movement, a group of people who are trying to protect Palestinians. Some members of the International Solidarity Movement have been in Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters while under Israeli fire. Others have been arrested by Israeli authorities. Five members of the group were injured today in Beit Jala, including one American.
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KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
Author of the just-released Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy and a former CIA political analyst, Christison said today: “A common refrain is that we are in this situation now because Arafat turned down such a great offer at Camp David. While it was better than previous Israeli offers, it did not offer the Palestinians a legitimate, contiguous state. We have not faced exactly what the occupation has meant to the Palestinians and the level of frustration brought by Israeli confiscation of land, increased settlements, checkpoints…”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; Norman Solomon, (415) 552-5378
