By Daoud Kuttab

For the fourth year in a row, Bethlehem hosted a spring marathon. Nearly 4,400 participants, including foreigners and local Palestinians, ran, walked or pushed baby strollers in the Palestine Marathon on April 1 in a festive atmosphere.

Local Palestinian organizer George Zeidan told Al-Monitor that this year’s marathon was the biggest. Zeidan proudly noted the participation of more than 2,000 women, nearly 46% of all registrants. While a large number of participants completed part of the marathon, 298 men and 89 women ran the entire 42-kilometer run. Runners of 64 nationalities participated in the marathon, which 450 volunteers helped make a major success. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

In a March 18 statement, the Land Defense Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) reintroduced to political discussion terminology no longer often heard. In the statement, the PLO accused right-wing Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu of reviving theAllon Plan, so named after the late Labor Party Minister Yigal Allon.

In addition to Israel having permanent control over the Jordan Valley, the Allon Plan also proposed that Israel annex areas along a corridor connecting the Jordan Valley to the city of Jerusalem, with the possibility of excluding Jericho. Israel also carried out elements of the Allon Plan under Likud administrations, but it has yet to annex the areas it covers, possibly out of concern of international opposition. Continue Reading »

                      

By Daoud Kuttab

After every horrific act of violent extremism we are inundated with right-wing incitement against followers of a major religion and, often from the West, with calls to use the Israeli approach in combating terrorism.

Very little effort is made by pundits to actually dig deeper and think of a more appropriate and effective approach to this disease without compromising human values.

A look at the Jordanian model reveals a strategy that has proved to be effective in keeping the country safe without resorting to heavy-handed and wildly restrictive actions that often do more long-term harm.

Jordan’s methodology in dealing with the scourge of violent extremism and terror is largely preventative. It stems from the need to have a good idea about some of the extreme members of the society and work diligently through different means to contain and weaken them, as well as making the red lines crystal clear.

The Jordanian model is focused. It depends much on human intelligence efforts focused on the individuals that are believed to pose a particular threat, rather than on an entire group or community. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The airlifting of a dozen-and-a-half Yemeni Jews to Israel last Monday received wide coverage. The action to evacuate 19 Yemenis to Israel is said to have included four stops and was done in cooperation with the US State Department.

What happens to these Yemeni Jews, as well as what happened to the earlier Yemenis who came to Israel, is not the focus of this article, although one can talk a lot on that issue.

The real concern is the effect the departure of these few remaining Yemeni Jews does to pluralism and diversity that has for so long been a hallmark of Arabs.

The golden years of Arabs in Andalusia were successful precisely because of the plurality, of the tolerance for people of different faiths.

People leaving during times of war and economic difficulty is not new. It is possible that people with connections to more stable and prosperous countries tend to benefit from these connections to get the needed permission to emigrate. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Karam Qubrosi can’t believe that Israel is allowing so many Gazans to travel on the occasion of Easter. “This is a dream come true, especially for many of us in the age group of 18-35,” he told Al-Monitor.

Qubrosi, who plans to settle in the West Bank, said that Israel has been giving permits to various Gazan groups, including businessmen and Muslim worshippers, in recent months. Two hundred Gazans over the age of 60 were permitted to travel to Jerusalem on Feb. 26 for Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque. Permission for similar-sized groups have come every Friday. Some individual travel requests for humanitarian reasons are being granted, but not for groups. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Hundreds of Palestinian dairy and meat farmers find themselves caught in a political struggle between Israel and the Palestinian authorities.

Kamel Mujahed, head of the Palestinian Milk Council, which represents dairy farmers, told Al-Monitor that Palestinian farmers are the first to suffer from this Israeli decision. “Fifty percent of our sales are to consumers in Jerusalem, and by barring our dairy trucks, our farmers are stuck with a very perishable products.”

It is unclear what triggered the unilateral Israeli decision that was implemented without an official announcement or justification. But Jamal Dajani, director of strategic communications at the Palestinian prime minister’s office, told Al-Monitor he believes politics are behind the Israeli decision. “It seems that this act is done in retaliation on the voluntary public Palestinian ban of illegal settlement products and an attempt to further exercise sovereignty over East Jerusalem.” Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

One of the nastiest acts that has emerged since the beginning of the current wave of Palestinian resistance to Israel is the cruel punishment of withholding bodies of dead Palestinians.

Israel is holding the corpses of some 13 Palestinians, some summarily killed by Israeli soldiers, for as long as five months.

Taher Abu Ghazaleh was killed on October 8, 2015. Also held are the bodies of Hassan Manasreh, 15, Alaa Abu Jamal, 32, Bahal Allian 22, Motaz Oweisat, 16, Mohammad Abed Nimr, 37, Omar Iskafi, 21, Abdel Mohsin Hasoneh, 21, Mohammad Abu Khalaf, 20, Fadwa Abu Ter, 51, Foad Abu Rajab, 21, Mohammad Jamal Kaloti, 21, and Abdallah Abu Kharoub, 19.

The dead all come from Jerusalem, old city, and neighbourhoods and suburbs.

Israel’s justification for this vile act is that it wants to prevent Palestinians from celebrating their martyrs whom Israel considers terrorists.

Israel seems to believe that giving these dead people a popular funeral will somehow encourage others to try and stab Israelis so that they can also be hailed as heroes. In addition to the fact that this act is immoral and is considered collective punishment by humanitarian law, the very premise of the Israeli thinking is completely flawed. Continue Reading »

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 his birth, Darwish is being recognized as an Arab international literary icon.

“He was a symbol of the Palestinian struggle and reflected Arab culture. His works and his values encompassed not only his love and defense of Palestine, but also his Arab and universal outlook,” Darraj said.

Darwish embodied the Palestinian revolution like no other poet and was closely associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization and its leader Yasser Arafat. His 1982 poem “Why did you leave the horse alone?” reflected the Palestinian bitterness at Arab abandonment after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He was elected to the PLO’s Executive Committee in 1987, but resigned in 1993 after the signing of the Oslo Accord. Continue Reading »

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.

The survey further noted that Muslims in Israel are the most religiously observant of the four major religious groups. “A majority (61%) of Muslims say they pray daily, compared with 34% of Christians, 26% of Druze and 21% of Jews. And while 25% of Druze, 27% of Jews and 38% of Christians say they attend religious services at least weekly, roughly half of Israeli Muslims (49%) report that they go to a mosque on at least a weekly basis.”

Pew found that only 15% of adult Muslims in Israel do not fast during Ramadan.

However, Alan Cooperman, director of Religion Research at Pew, told Al-Monitor that overall Arabs in Israel are less religious than in nearby Arab countries. He said, “While 59% of Lebanese Muslims are religious, the share of Muslims in Jordan is 85%, and the same in the Palestinian territories — while 82% of Iraqis say they are religious.” Continue Reading »

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.

Arruri said that by criminalizing defamation, instead of classifying it as a civil matter, the Palestinian government is not using pretrial detention for the purpose of investigating unknown components of a case, but is instead using it as punishment. “Imprisoning journalists or others for what they have said becomes a restriction on their freedom of expression, therefore resulting in self-censorship,” he noted. Continue Reading »