'What made Bab Al-Shams significant was the fact that it asserted that Palestinian activists would not simply react to injustices the occupation laid at our doorstep, but that we were determined to create our own realities on the ground.' By Irene Nasser Last week, I witnessed a remarkable victory for Palestinian unarmed civil resistance. Over a frigid January weekend, I joined hundreds of Palestinians in establishing Bab Al-Shams (literally ‘Gate of the Sun’), a new Palestinian village, erected on private Palestinian land near Jerusalem in the territory known as E1, which Israel has controversially slated for future settlement growth. The…

The appointment of Senator John Kerry as the next U.S. Secretary of State could represent a new opportunity for Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. But for efforts to be successful, the U.S. will have to reconsider its message that settlement construction is a matter of negotiation. By Lorenzo Kamel The day after the UN voted to recognize Palestine as a non-member observer state, the Israeli government approved construction of approximately 3,000 new residential units in the occupied territories, a decision that was met with strong opposition by various European leaders. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on the contrary, delivered a speech at the…

Posters in Jerusalem in January 2007, protesting the killing of Abir Aramin (Photo: activestills.org) In January 2007, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 10-year-old Palestinian girl on her way home from school.  Abir Aramin lived in Anata, a Palestinian village north of Jerusalem. The pathologist who performed the autopsy found that Abir was hit in the head by a rubber bullet. However, an Israeli police investigation found the soldiers innocent, claiming there was no proof that gunfire killed Abir. For the last four and half years, Aramin's family knocked every door seeking justice. I was there at the funeral when…