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Literary world celebrates Palestinian poet’s 75th birthday
By Daoud Kuttab Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish was born on March 13, 1941, in the Galilee village of al-Birweh. Darwish’s birthplace has now been replaced by Jewish settlements. Moshav Ahihud and Kibbutz Yasur now sit where the Palestinian village once stood in northern Israel, east of the port city of Acre. Today, 75 years after…
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Are Israel’s Arabs losing hope for peace?
By Daoud Kuttab A substantial survey carried out in Israel, East Jerusalem and among Jewish settlers in the West Bank has shown that Arabs — Muslim, Christian and Druze — are much more religious than Israeli Jews.  Two-thirds of Israeli Arabs surveyed by the Pew Research Center said religion is very important in their lives,…
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Is free speech a crime in Palestine?
By Daoud Kuttab Attempts by the Palestinian Authority to arrest Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member Najat Abu Bakr for statements she made alleging corruption by a government minister have ignited a discussion about defamation being a crime and calls for its decriminalization.  Majed Arruri, a media rights expert from Ramallah, told Al-Monitor, “Defamation in both its written [libel] or…
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Losing post-Arab Spring accomplishments?
    By Daoud Kuttab The Independent Federation of Unions in Jordan wanted to hold an event to celebrate International Women’s Day. A hotel hall was booked and invitations were sent out. A few hours before the event organisers were told by the hotel management that they could not hold the event. It…
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Defamation and Development in the Arab World
By Daoud Kuttab AMMAN – With the violent radicalism and civil wars of the Middle East and North Africa capturing the world’s attention, the region’s grossly distorted legal systems are being given short shrift. Yet problematic laws, like those criminalizing defamation, \ facilitate political and economic repression, undermine development, and destroy lives. Egypt’s government is…
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How serious is the French proposal on Middle East peace?
By Daoud Kuttab The ambitious French idea first suggested by Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius at the end of January of holding an international conference to kick-start the two-state solution process in Paris in July is alive and kicking. A senior Western diplomat in Jerusalem told Al-Monitor that the initiative to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks has been adopted by…
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Is France serious about its proposal?
By Daoud Kuttab AÂ big question is looming regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: How serious is the French initiative that aims at leading an international effort to help kick start negotiations on the two-state solution? Equally important is to figure out where exactly Washington stands on this proposal. When the Obama administration said publicly that it did…
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The E1 test
By Daoud Kuttab In the battle of wills between Israel and the international community there comes a time and a place where this will is tested. The Israeli occupation and colonisation of Palestine is a creeping endeavour largely built on the attempt to wear out the other side and create facts on the ground. The…
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Is the two-state solution dead?
By Daoud Kuttab The possibility of a game-changing series of Israeli settlements east of Jerusalem has raised alarm bells in various departments of the Palestinian government. The area in question, commonly referred to as E1, threatens to physically cut off from the north and the south of the West Bank from one another.  Palestinian worries were…
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How Damascus Gate became the symbol of the intifada
By Daoud Kuttab When Washington Post Jerusalem bureau chief William Booth wanted to write a column about the recent violence in Jerusalem, he went to the most obvious location — Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate. There he found exactly whom he sought to interview, but he also found jittery Israeli security officers. What transpired Feb. 16 is detailed in a statement of protest by…