February 09, 2003
EI, Voices in the Wilderness launch Iraq site

The folks behind activist group Voices in the Wilderness and tech-savvy news site Electronic Intifada have joined forces to launch a new online news service called Electronic Iraq.

The site went live this month “as the U.S. government made clear its determination to go to war against Iraq,” the groups said. “Based firmly on humanitarian foundations, the Electronic Iraq online magazine offers news and analysis, opinion/editorial, Iraq diaries, international law, aid and development, fact sheets, and action and activism,” they explain.

Voice in the Wilderness, founded in 1996, works to end the economic sanctions placed on Iraq by the United Nations and the United States. “We demand that the UN Security Council and the US government end these immoral and unjust economic sanctions that target the regime of Saddam Hussein but in fact punish millions of Iraqi people, young and old,” the group says.

Electronic Intifada, founded in 2001 by Nigel Parry, Ali Abunimah, Laurie King-Irani and Arjan El Fassed, provides in-depth coverage of the ongoing story behind Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. In a recent online chat on WashingtonPost.com, EI co-founder Abunimah offered a simple yet eloquent response to what difference the recent national elections in Israel will make with the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis “What is needed to end this conflict and bring peace and security to both peoples is a clear and genuine decision by Israel to completely end the occupation and allow Palestinians to live in freedom either in an independent Palestine or in a single state in which all Israelis and all Palestinians enjoy equal human and political rights,” Abunimah said during the online chat.

In the chat, Abunimah presents a humanitarian solution to the conflict, not one that favors one group over another.

With Electronic Iraq, the creators will offer eyewitness reports from Iraq. “Electronic Iraq’s intention is to publish diary accounts from on the ground during any hostilities,” the groups say. Using the technological expertise of EI’s Parry, the Electronic Iraq website will use the latest in technology to publish reports from around the world.