A documentary from Edward Said and the BBC that illustrates life in the occupied territories after Oslo but before the Second Intifada.

I came across this great documentary called “In Search of Palestine” from a friend that was aired on the BBC in 1998. It is about the return of Edward Said to Palestine for the first time since his exile in 1948. For anyone interested in revisiting the pre-Second Intifada Oslo period, it is a spectacular look at the situation on the ground with the preeminent Palestinian scholar of his time.

It also includes interviews with a number of interesting personalities including Israel Shahak, Azmi Bishara, Mahmoud Darwish, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Daniel Barenboim, and others.

For those who don’t know Edward Said, who passed away in 2003, he was a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and author of several renowned and influential books, including Orientalism. He was also publicly active and one of the most trenchant critics of the Oslo Process and Yasser Arafat. His writings in the mid-1990s were prophetic in terms of what came out of the Oslo Process and the circumstances we are in today.

The Israeli media once again fails to show the impact of Israeli military strikes in the Gaza Strip.

I personally think it’s insane that on the Haaretz website there is not a single headline or article that even refers to what the Israeli military is wreaking on Gaza, where 23 have been killed in the last four days and over a hundred injured from fighter jets and gunships, according to Ma’an.

The closest you get is coverage of the homemade projectiles fired out of Gaza in which no people were killed. Some “light” injuries were reported though.

The reporting, or lack thereof, demonstrates once again the callousness Israeli society holds for the carnage they create in Gaza. You would expect more from the media, however.

It reminds one of the Israeli response to ‘Cast Lead,’ the Israeli War on Gaza that killed over 1,400 people, the majority of them civilians.

When civilians are killed, like the 65-year old Gazan man and his 30-year old daughter, as happened Sunday night, Haaretz finds it convenient to add the ready-made Israeli military response.

One does not expect a public outcry in the streets of Tel Aviv, at least not anymore. But we do expect the media to do their job.

Noam Wiener’s post against the BDS movement once again fails to understand the movement and the general plight of Palestinians.

I am really not sure how I missed this guest post by Noam Wiener on the boycott movement, and the flurry of comments it generated, but I wanted to add a few of my own. There were way too many comments to read and I am sure that I am reiterating what many of our in-tuned readers certainly stated, but here it goes.

I have two central issues with this piece, starting with the following excerpt:

1. I don’t believe boycott means what he says it means. I may boycott Nike because it practices child labor in Malaysia, but that does not mean I view Nike as a “non-entity” with no right to exist. Boycott is about Israeli practices, not about Israel. Unfortunately, inherent Israeli exclusionary practices that privilege one people and disenfranchise another fit this bill, and may consequently force Israel to be a state for all its citizens: not such a terrible thing in my estimation.

2. No matter how many times people say it, there are those like Noam Wiener who fail time and again to understand or empathize with the refugee issue. They can say the occupation is the source of all evil till they run out of breath, but they must acknowledge that the refugees are also not a “non-entity” and that their existence and plight must be addressed.

To say that Palestinians must recognize Israel and Israeli self-determination is fine. But Israelis must then recognize Palestine and Palestinian self-determination, which includes the self-determination of refugees who were driven from their homes and desire either to return or be given compensation and resettled. Israeli self-determination does not trump its Palestinian counterpart, nor the rights that are essential to this conflict. Jewish nationalism’s desire for a state of its own, in which Jews constitute the majority, cannot justly come at the expense of another people – like white South African society’s (forgive the overuse of this comparison) desire to have an exclusionary state at the expense of the black South African population.

ADDITION:

I am not a spokesperson for BDS but I am going to attempt to reconcile what some people, including Norman Finkelstein, view as a contradiction in the movement’s logic. The argument goes that although the three-tiered platform of BDS sounds benign,...

A response to Dahlia Scheindlin’s piece about Mahmoud Abbas’ comments on ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem.

I am going to have to totally disagree with my colleague Dahlia Scheindlin on her piece, Response to Abbas: we’ll be together in Jerusalem forever. Although I am also ignorant of the speech Abu Mazen gave in Qatar, except for what I read in the papers, Abbas was saying that Israel is instituting a policy of ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, which the Israeli media framed as an attempt to deny ANY Jewish connection to the holy city.

Dahlia’s contention is that Israelis and Palestinians are fighting on the same side in a war between moderates and extremists, and that no matter what happens we will be in Jerusalem together, forever and ever.

Despite being a comforting sentiment, it is simply not true. ‘Extremist’ and ‘moderate’ alike in Israeli politics have equally perpetrated the crimes of the occupation, and it is often the most leftist among Israelis who refuse to admit that what happened in the post 1948 Israel is in complete continuity with what is taking place in the ‘occupied territories’ today. Indeed, it was the Israeli secular moderates who governed Israel uninterrupted from 1948 until 1977.

It is foolhardy to say that despite efforts at ‘Judaization’ in Jerusalem, there will always be strong Muslim and Christian links to the city. What about the 500 plus villages and towns that were wiped off the map in what is now Israel, and whose memory has been pretty much erased from history? We don’t only want a historical legacy, we want a living memory.

Shepherd Hotel in final stages of demolition. (Photo: Justin Randle)

It is always best to show instead of tell, so I will give an example. A friend of mine, originally from Nazareth, related a story to me a few years back from when she was a college student in the United States studying archaeology. She went home for a summer and was working on a dig in Israel. Her name is one of those ambiguous ones that could superficially pass as Jewish and she said that everyone assumed she was. At one point she was in the office of the head of the dig, who was examining a beautiful...

With the Palestinian political horizon looking grim, reconciliation, elections and reform may be the only hope.

News of a major development in Palestinian politics was reached today in Cairo between leaders of various Palestinian factions.

A committee established by the reconciliation agreement signed in May 2011 to advance PLO reform has agreed to push for direct elections to the Palestinian National Council (PNC), the PLO’s parliament and highest legislative body, once polling and a mechanism can be reached. PNC elections, if held, would be a landmark accomplishment for Palestinian politics and pave the way for a representational government including Palestinians everywhere, not merely in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The move is highly popular among Palestinians, who see the deterioration in the PLO as a significant problem affecting political life. On March 15, 2011, Palestinian youth groups took to the streets in Ramallah calling for PNC elections. A a reconciliation agreement soon followed, signed in Cairo by Fatah and Hamas, along with other smaller factions.

The PNC has traditionally been comprised of appointed representatives from Palestinian political parties, trade and student unions, along with various other Palestinian groups and organizations located around the world. Direct elections to the PNC have never occurred due to the geo-political difficulties involved. Since the PLO and Israel signed the Oslo Agreement in 1993, the PNC has been increasingly marginalized in favor of the PA and barely constitutes a functioning body.

A dire situation

Beyond the headlines, Palestinian politics is in a state of crisis. Despite the achievements on paper, very little has been done on the ground to mend the divisions between Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. Elections to the Palestinian Authority, which were supposed to take place within one year from the May 2011 agreement, have been stalled, with the Central Elections Commission unable to complete voter registration in Gaza. The reconciliation agreement and the prospect of power sharing in the Gaza Strip has exposed rifts within Hamas, as the Gaza-based leadership is clearly unhappy with the arrangement.

The political division and lack of elections to the Palestinian Authority have also created an untenable state where the status and legitimacy of the PA is tied directly to one man – Mahmoud Abbas. Without elections, any successor to Abbas would have no legitimacy to head either the PA or PLO, both of which Abbas currently leads.

This is all amplified by...

An impassioned speech by South African activist at Israeli Apartheid Week in London quickly gains attention.

The global symposium Israeli Apartheid Week kicked off a few days ago in cities and campuses around the world. Of particular note was an impassioned lecture given by a South African activist and PhD candidate called Mbuyiseni Ndlozi in London on Wednesday, on the connection between the struggle to end South African apartheid and what he described as an ‘evolved,’ and indeed worse, case in Israel.

Ndlozi’s statement stands in stark contrast to the recent video interview with Normal Finkelstein, who says plainly that the Palestinian struggle against Israeli apartheid should not extend beyond the confines of international law. Ndlozi encourages activists to go further and appeal to people’s principles of freedom, justice and equality, what he said worked in South Africa.

Ndlozi also highlights how the South African apartheid regime manipulated world opinion for decades in regards to the justification of separating Whites and Blacks and how this deception must be broken when it comes to Israel.

These three points, which he repeats several times, boil down to the essence of calls for the solidarity campaign on which BDS is based.

Israeli Apartheid Week began in 2005 by a student group on the University of Toronto in Canada. It now takes place in over 40 cities worldwide and includes lectures, films, workshops and other activities that educate “about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system,” according to the website apartheidweek.org.

Across the West Bank, clashes took place between Palestinians and the Israeli military. Several people were arrested and injured and at least one Palestinian was killed.

Clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli military erupted across the occupied territories over the weekend, from the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to the old city of Hebron, with scenes reminiscent of the start of the second Intifada.

It is not exactly clear what caused the clash at the Al-Aqsa Mosque because of differing reports, however, violence ensued between Israeli forces and Palestinians inside and around the compound, with teargas entering the mosque.

As news of the clash at the Muslim holy site spread, so did protests in other locations of the West Bank. Dozens were injured and one Palestinian was killed at a rally in front of the Qalandia checkpoint, the main junction separating the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem. Reports said the protester, Tal’at Ramia, was killed by live fire.

Friday also saw the annual Open Shuhada Street demonstration organized by Youth Against Settlements in downtown Hebron, calling for the reopening of the main thoroughfare in the Old City that has been closed to Palestinians since 1994. The date marks the anniversary of the massacre at the Ibrahimi Mosque that precipitated the closure, when the Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein opened fire on worshipers, killing twenty-nine and wounding over a hundred.

Friday’s demonstration comprised hundreds of people and was immediately dispersed by the Israeli military without provocation or stone throwing. Soldiers fired tear gas, stun grenades and “skunk” water directly into the crowd once they were in range, as the video I shot below clearly shows.

As the crowd fled, Israeli soldiers descended from all sides firing teargas at small pockets of Palestinians, forcing them indoors. The demonstrators regrouped on several occasions, throwing stones and burning tires in front of the Israeli blockade.

Palestinian demonstrators march, holding signs to open Shuhada Street in downtown Hebron (photo: Omar Rahman)

At least two Palestinians were arrested by soldiers in Hebron, including a youth activist from Ramallah, Fadi Quran. Quran was one of the organizers of the Freedom Rides campaign on November 15, 2010.

Soldiers...

The wife of hunger striker Khader Adnan tells me about how she is handling the situation.

The wife and daughters of Khader Adnan at a protest outside Ziv Medical Center in Safed (photo: Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to sit down for an interview with the family of Khader Adnan in their home in the village of Arrabeh, outside of Jenin. The purpose of the interview was to get a sense of how the family, particularly his wife and two small daughters, are coping with what is obviously a tremendously stressful and difficult period.

I found in Randa Adnan an extremely strong and articulate woman who is doing the best she could to support her husband in his time of need. Time, however, is no longer her own, nor is it on her side. She has visited her husband twice in the 63 days of his hunger strike, and today I believe she went to see him again. When she is not with Khader, she is trying to raise awareness about his struggle, dealing with a constant stream of visitors, and taking care of their two girls, Maali, 4, and Bissan, 18 months.

At the beginning of our interview she spoke with determination and the instinct for publicity that comes from being thrown in the limelight and choosing to swim instead of sink. Later, in a more private setting with my female colleague Abir Kopty, she opened up as a woman and a human being.

Randa told us of her husband the family man, the anxious and excited father to be (Randa is five months pregnant), who would wake up every morning and make her breakfast and freshly squeezed juice.

“If you knew him,” she says, “his life would have become precious to you. He is that kind of person.”

Below is an exerpt from the article published on Al-Jazeera English’s website.

A study conducted by the Washington-based Palestine Center documents settler violence and helps explain how it has been allowed to flourish.

Masked settler (flickr ISM NC - CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

A new study will be released this week on the growing occurrence of Jewish settler violence against Palestinians and their property in the occupied West Bank. The Palestine Center, an influential think tank based in Washington DC, has conducted the report utilizing seven years of daily reports and documentation in order to help explain how, when and where settler violence occurs.

The report, entitled When Settlers Attack, documents a heavy increase in violence perpetrated by Jewish settlers over the last four years, especially from 2010 to 2011, which witnessed a 39 percent rise over a single year and a 315 percent increase from 2006. In 2011 alone there were an average of 2.6 incidents of settler violence per day against Palestinians, marking an historical high point.

Armed settler in At-Tuwani on Friday (photo: Operation Dove)

A common theory by many observers is that the increase in settler violence can be attributed to the phenomenon of a settler “price tag” policy, enacted against Palestinians as “retribution” for actions by the State of Israel taken against the settlers.

The Palestine Center’s report objects to this conclusion, arguing that settler violence is structural in nature.

Along with general explanations of the methods used by settlers, the report studies patterns of violence over the past seven years on a geographical and chronological scale. One of the report’s most interesting attributes is the use of maps to display when and where the violence is coming from.

The report also notes a significant geographical change in where settler violence mainly occurs. Traditionally, Palestinian communities in the southern part of the West Bank were the most prone to violence originating from Jewish settlements. In 2009, however, that changed as the north of the West Bank witnessed the most settler violence, particularly in the area surrounding Nablus.

Another interesting discovery is that settler violence does not always occur in communities closest to those settlements where it originates, bypassing proximity considerations in order to...

Mahmoud Abbas and Khaled Meshaal sign agreement in Qatar on Palestinian reconciliation.

Leaders of the two main Palestinian political parties, Fatah and Hamas, signed an agreement in Qatar on Monday, reinforcing efforts at reconciliation and reform.

Reports from Qatar say that current Palestinian Authority President and Chairman of the PLO, Mahmoud Abbas, will also be in charge of a new interim government as Prime Minister until upcoming elections usher in a democratically elected one.

Mahmoud Abbas met with Hamas’ politburo chief Khaled Meshaal for the second day of talks in Qatar. According to the Palestinian Central Elections Commission’s (CEC) Twitter feed, leaders of Palestinian political factions headed to the CEC offices in Ramallah to discuss the initiative.

The agreement also stipulates the convening of a committee to discuss reforms to the PLO’s highest body, the Palestinian National Council (PNC), set for February 18.

With the virtual collapse of the peace process and revolutionary turmoil engulfing the region, Palestinian politics has been focusing internally, and the division between factions–which has persisted since 2007–is viewed as untenable.

The first reconciliation agreement was signed in Cairo in May 2011. Qatar’s position facilitating negotiations demonstrates the enhanced role the Gulf nation is playing in regional politics and the difficulties Egypt is facing one year after its revolution.

Both Khaled Meshaal and Mahmoud Abbas have stated publicly that they will not stand for office again. Both men have been in office for many years and their departures will certainly leave a political vacuum.

Activists carry injured French woman while the teargas canister burns in the background (photo: Omar Rahman)

In Nabi Saleh on Friday a French citizen–in the village for her first time–was struck in the back of the head by a high-velocity teargas canister fired by an Israeli soldier. The woman was part of a small group of activists that were walking down the main road out of the village, which was being closed off by a group of soldiers.

Although some youth from the village had been previously throwing stones from the hilltop above, the activists were unarmed and merely chanting slogans. When the group was approximately 25 to 30 meters away, the soldiers immediately began firing teargas canisters and rubber bullets directly at the people without warning. The group of around fourteen people turned to run and the girl was hit in the back of the head/neck area and dropped to the ground. A few of the others stopped to pick her up and a number of them were hit by rubber bullets.

A video shot by Bilal Tamimi, a resident of the village who was standing next to the soldiers, shows the entire incident. The teargas canister clearly ricochets off the girls head in mid-flight.

In response to the incident, Major Peter Lerner of the Israeli military began tweeting that “IDF soldiers on site” reported that she was hit from behind by Palestinian youths throwing stones. The video and eyewitnesses, including myself, can testify that this is false. There were no Palestinian youth standing behind the girl and she was struck after she turned to run from soldiers firing their weapons directly at unarmed activists. After witnesses and video refuted Major Lerner’s baseless assertion, he altered his story and tweeted that the Israeli military will investigate a teargas canister that ricocheted “off the ground.”

Palestinian activist holds blood-soaked kuffiyeh that the French woman was wearing when struck by canister (photo: Omar Rahman)

When we allow non-violence to be distorted as illegitimate, we fail to uphold our most cherished principles.

It is not a strange phenomenon for morality to be the object of contestation. Competing groups often battle for the moral high ground when presenting their case to the outside world in a customary appeal for support. Far from being an exception to this rule, Israelis and Palestinians are its standard bearers, constantly providing their accounts for the entire world to see, hear, and sympathize. The tragedy is that this game has been played for so long, with arguments crafted in such minute detail, that reality has been reduced to the level of “competing narratives,”—each given its equal weight and legitimacy—as if that is what the conflict is all about.  Still worse is when a traditional bulwark of morality in the arena of conflict, such as non-violent resistance, is reinterpreted, reframed, and demonized.

Growing up in the United States, I can remember yearly school lessons about the African-American Civil Rights Movement that took place between the mid-1950s and 60s. From a young age we were taught the moral superiority of the tactics employed by those courageous men and women who staged sit-ins in White-only restaurants, boycotted the Montgomery, Alabama bus system and held marches and non-violent demonstrations throughout the American South, often to the response of naked racism and brutal repression. This type of resistance model was idealized as the most moral and effective way of bringing about change to an unacceptable system of inequality.

Several years later, after having graduated from university and starting a career as a journalist, I moved to Palestine. For maybe the first time in my life, I encountered meaningful non-violent resistance first hand when I went to report on Palestinian villages that were being dispossessed by the steady growth of Israeli settlements and the construction of Israel’s Wall. Every Friday, activists from Palestine, Israel, and countries abroad would flock to these locales to offer up some form of counter to the unmitigated pace of colonization and apartheid that are taking place on a daily basis. Although often futile, they were full of symbolism, as if only to declare that some people oppose what is being done with more than the hollow words and empty sentiments of politicians. Above all else, though, it was designed to raise awareness and highlight the case for moral superiority.

Despite...

A link to a 2006 piece by Guardian correspondent Chris McGreal on the connection(s) between Israel and apartheid South Africa.

I wish I had been a reader of the Guardian when this two-part article on the parallels between South Africa and Israel by veteran journalist Chris McGreal came out in 2006. Sadly, I was still a US-centric consumer of media and I missed it. Lucky to have come upon this article and share it with our readers, if you have the time to read one of the great pieces on this conflict by a journalist who was stationed in both Johannesburg and Jerusalem, it is every bit worth the read.

*I read the second-part first, which is fine too.