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Month: May 2013

A Reluctant Cook: On Palestinian Recipes and Search for Identity
By Rana Abdulla An accountant by training and practice, I was forced by circumstances to learn how to cook, and to enjoy it too. My mother says that every decent woman must know how to […]

Jamal al-Dura: Israel Killed My Son in Cold Blood
The father of Muhammad al-Dura, who was shot dead by Israeli forces in 2000, said Monday that he was not surprised by Israel’s refusal to take responsibility for his son’s death. “Every year the Israelis […]

Palestinian-American Plants Flag on top of Everest, Dedicates Climb to Political Prisoners
By Ira Glunts Palestinian-American Raed Zidan became the first Palestinian to reach the summit of the earth’s highest mountain last Saturday, dedicating his climb to Palestinians – especially political prisoners. Zidan was one of 35 […]

Video: Sons of Lifta – BADIL Production
‘Sons of Lifta’ follows refugees from the village as they return to Lifta on Land Day 2013, more than 65 years after their original forced displacement. Through the eyes and actions of Lifta’s new generations, […]

Ashrawi Slams EU Decision to Delay Labeling Settlement Products
PLO official Hanan Ashrawi on Sunday condemned the European Union’s decision to delay the labeling of settlement products following a request from US Secretary of State John Kerry. “This once again brings into question the […]

Deep in Enemy Territory – Fast Times in Palestine
By Pamela Olson (The following is part of an outtake from Pamela Olson’s book Fast Times in Palestine, published by Seal Press in March 2013. The full story, with photos is posted on her blog.) […]

Shut In, Shut Down, Shut Up: Three Years after Mavi Marmara
By Greta Berlin Three years ago, the Free Gaza movement was wrapping up final preparations for a flotilla of eight ships to head out to Gaza, determined to break Israel’s illegal siege on 1.5 million […]

Church of Scotland Report Challenging Jews’ ‘Divine Right’ to Palestine Unchanged
By Stuart Littlewood The Church of Scotland’s revised report ‘The Inheritance of Abraham?’ has now been released ahead of their Assembly. The Church felt obliged to change some of it after Jewish leaders sought to […]

Malaysia: KLPFF Kicks off with Remarkable Palestinian Participation
By Yousef M. Aljamal, CPDS – Gaza The Kuala Lumpur Palestine Film Festival (KLPFF), organized by Viva Palestina-Malaysia, in collaboration with the Malaysian Information, Communication and Culture Ministry and the Malaysian National Film Development Corporation […]

My Body in Shatat, My Heart in Gaza, My Soul in Beit Daras
By Ghada Ageel On the 65th anniversary of the Nakba (what we Palestinians call the catastrophe of dispossession), Palestinians who were born in historic Palestine and are currently growing old in refugee camps – remain […]

The Syrian Crisis: The Option
By Jeremy Salt – Ankara While all options are said to be still on the table, Barack Obama is clearly backing away from any deeper involvement in Syria now it is clear that nothing but […]

Reasons Why Palestinians Can Be Hopeful on Nakba Day, 2013
By Rima Najjar Merriman “Calamity either destroys a people or makes it stronger. In the past half century Palestinians have transformed catastrophe into strength. They have done so through education and through their exposure to […]

Gaza Border on High Alert After Kidnappings
Gaza’s Interior Ministry announced a state of alert along its border with Egypt on Thursday after gunmen kidnapped seven Egyptian soldiers and police officers in Sinai. The Hamas-run ministry said security was heightened in case […]

Israel’s Racist and Ethnocentric View
By Jamal Kanj Palestinians are this week commemorating the 65th anniversary of Al Nakba (the disaster or catastrophe). On May 15, 1948, Israel was declared a nation on the ruins of more than 500 townships […]

Hamas, the Arab Spring and the West
By Dr. Ahmed Yousef – Gaza The “Arab Spring”, as we now have come to know it, has seemingly changed the nature of politics and the balance of power in the Middle East forever. The […]

Israel, Hawking and the Pressing Question of Boycott
By Ramzy Baroud It is an event ‘of cosmic proportions’, said one Palestinian academic, a befitting description regarding Stephen Hawking’s decision to boycott an Israeli academic conference slated for next June. It was also a […]

Clashes in West Bank as Palestinians Mark Nakba Day
Clashes broke out across the West Bank on Wednesday as Palestinians marked the 65th year since the Nakba in 1948, witnesses and Israel’s army said. In east Jerusalem, police clashed with demonstrators outside the Old […]

Palestinians in N. America: Shatat Conference Stresses Return, Liberation
By Noura Khouri “They old will die and the young will forget.” declared, David Ben Gurion, the ideological father of the European colonial/settler project, Zionism. Few quotes so succinctly sum up the stated goal/vision, idealism […]

Destroying Libya and World Order – Book Review
Reviewed by Ludwig Watzal (Francis A. Boyle, Destroying Libya and World Order, Clarity Press, Atlanta 2013, 212 pp.) This book tells the story of what happened, why it happened and what went wrong between the […]

Palestinian Nakba: The Young Will Never Forget
By Ramzy Baroud Many Palestinians remember and reference al-Nakba, also known as the Catastrophe, on May 15 every year. The event marks the expulsion of nearly a million Palestinians, while their villages were destroyed. The […]

Clashes at Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound
Clashes broke out on Wednesday around the Al-Aqsa mosque compound as Israeli rightists tried to enter the holy site. Dozens of Israeli right-wingers raided the compound through the Moroccan gate, and clashes broke out at […]

Palestinians Mark 65th Nakba Anniversary, Old, Young Cling to Return
The Center for Political and Development Studies, Gaza, Palestine Palestinians in Palestine and in the Diaspora mark the annual anniversary of the Catastrophe, also known as the Nakba, on May 15th every year as a […]

The Syrian Riddle
By Deepak Tripathi Recent remarks by Carla Del Ponte, a Swiss investigator of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry, have changed the nature of debate on the use of chemical weapons in Syria’s civil war. […]

Palestine Refugee Camps: Linguistic Perspective
By The Center for Political and Development Studies – Gaza, Palestine 1948 witnessed the mass expulsion of the indigenous people of Palestine as a result of the massacres and the systemic ethnic cleansing operations carried […]

Are Israelis Now Appropriating the Nakba?
By Susan Abulhawa Al Jazeera Stream contacted me a few days ago asking if I would participate on a show commemorating the Nakbe. I would be the only Palestinian, the producer said, “to balance things […]

Will the Church of Scotland Cave in to Zionist Bullies?
By Stuart Littlewood “The political and humanitarian situation in the Holy Land continues to be a source of pain and concern for us all,” says the introduction to the Church of Scotland’s report The inheritance […]

Pakistan’s Elections: Turning over a New Leaf
By Eric Walberg Pakistan’s elections come at a key junction in the region’s geopolitics, with the public firmly opposed to the US ‘war on terror’ being conducted on Pakistani soil with no regard for its […]

Activists: Facebook Blocks Nakba Group Page
A Facebook page promoting Nakba commemoration events in Jaffa was temporarily blocked overnight, Palestinian activists said Monday. Fatima Huleiwi, an activist with Jaffa Youth, told Ma’an that it was not the first time that Facebook […]

At this Laborers’ Checkpoint a Person is Just a Number
By Tamar Fleishman “Ana Wahad Wa Talatin…” – I am number thirty one – the man answered the question as to his identity, which came from inside of the post. At the checkpoint at the […]

Nakba at 65: A Palestinian Reality in 138 Languages
By Jamil Toubbeh Following exposure of the break-in in June of 1972 at the HQ of the Democratic National Committee office at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., an event that captured US public attention […]