Palestine, media, Jordan, community radio, online journalism
    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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
By Daoud Kuttab After 90 minutes of powerful anti-Israeli speeches by 18 members of Parliament, Deputy Speaker Mustapha Amawi called the session over because of lack of quorum. The speakers were incensed by the fact that Jordan and the American Noble Energy Company signed a letter of intent to import gas from the Israeli Leviathan…
By Daoud Kuttab AMMAN — Jamal Zahalka has been a member of the Israeli Knesset in good standing for 13 years. He was first elected to the 16th Israeli legislature in 2003 and has been regularly re-elected since.  But the Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset is now barred from speaking for two months in the Knesset plenary or…
By Daoud Kuttab AÂ truce reached at the Munich Security Conference last week requires halting the fight in blood-soaked Syria within a week. We have yet to see whether the commitment to a political solution is genuine. The Russians have shown no sign of slowing down their lethal air campaign on Aleppo. Sceptics suspect that Russian…