Montreal

Ain el Hilweh in the heart of Montreal

Ali Abunimah Montreal, Canada 8 December 2004



EI co-founder Ali Abunimah writes about a visit to a family of elderly Palestinians refugees who have been given sanctuary in a Montreal church for nearly a year, after the Canadian government ordered them deported: “What was so shocking and moving about the situation Ayoubs find themselves in, in their church basement room in Montreal, is how reminiscent it is of the conditions they fled in Ain el Hilweh refugee camp.” 

The World's Largest Open Air Prison

Darren Ell Montreal, Canada 10 September 2003



Jamal Juma’ is a busy man. As coordinator of PENGON, the organization spearheading the campaign to stop the construction of the Israeli Wall rapidly surrounding the future Palestinian ‘state’, he is constantly scrambling to reach as many people as he can, independent journalists and heads of state alike. If Mahmoud Abbas and the United Nations have publicly condemned the wall, it’s in no small part due to PENGON’s meetings with them. Diplomacy aside, however, troubling facts continue to appear on the ground across the West Bank which do not bode well for peace. Darren Ell writes following a trip to the West Bank. 

Tell them, "why"

Shannon Dow Montreal, Canada 22 July 2003

I had the privilege of teaching Shaker two years ago in Bourj El-Barajneh Palestinian Refugee Camp in Lebanon. He has been visiting Canada now for the past three weeks, along with seven other Palestinian refugee youth. His English language skills are excellent, as he stands before audiences filled with hundreds of people, telling us about how he exists in Lebanon - deprived of civil liberties, victim of countless Human Rights abuses, caged within the open prison of a refugee camp. His voice is being heard. Are we listening? 

We Are Here; They Are There

Darren Ell Montreal, Canada 7 January 2003


Above: Cover of The New Intifada. Buy this book on Amazon.com
Since returning from my November 2002 trip to Palestine, I’ve been reading an illuminating new book on the Israel/Palestine conflict: The New Intifada: Resisting Israel’s Apartheid. Its essays reveal just how seriously the mainstream media has misrepresented the conflict. I recall that in 2000 we heard how former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was the Palestinians’ best chance for peace and how Arafat ruined it all by turning down Israel’s magnanimous concessions at Camp David. Quite a different story arises in Sara Roy’s essay. Darren Ell writes from Montreal, Canada. 

The background music in Rafah

Darren Ell Montreal, Canada 5 December 2002

I am home now, sitting comfortably in the quiet of my office, but the deafening machine gun fire, explosions, and anxious faces of the inhabitants of Block O in the southern Gazan city of Rafah are still with me. Now I feel compelled to keep my promises to people and tell the world what I saw. Darren Ell reports.