I still remember that afternoon in the fall of 1993 when Palestinian pacifist Mubarak Awad hurled a huge Palestinian flag from the office of the Palestinian center for the study of nonviolence, which lies, next to the Orient House. Israeli soldiers, who had in the past shot at anyone seen with what had been an illegal flag, stood by without interfering. That evening we were pleasantly surprised when we saw that the graphic designer of Israel TV had created a collage backdrop which included a Palestinian flag alongside the Israeli flag. Continue Reading »

The Bush administration’s latest position regarding the Middle East is adding fuel to a raging fire. US vice president Dick Cheney told the Fox television network that the US understands Israel’s need to attack Palestinians which he called acts of self defense. Israel has been carrying out a declared policy of assassinations against Palestinian activists. In the latest attack Israeli missiles fired from a US made -apache helicopter killed eight Palestinians including two children. This extra-judicial killing is a violation of both US and international law. This US tacit support, (which was front page headlines in the Middle East) is contradictory to US values and hurts US interests in the Middle East. America should instead put its efforts in shoring up its own brokered cease fire agreement. Continue Reading »

Is there a limit to military power? Is there a limit to what a successful media campaign can accomplish? Can any party win a struggle without these two important components? Israelis have been flexing their military might and media power, but so far they have fallen far short of crushing the Palestinian will. Is there a hidden Palestinian strategy?  Continue Reading »

Twelve-year old Firas El Yateem is negotiating the string of his kite around an electric line. A few days ago Firas feeling that things have gotten quite yet unable to go places with his family because of the Israeli siege, decided to begin making and flying kites. Within days the skies of Beit Jala, where he lives with his extended family, has been filled with kites of all shapes and sizes. When I saw the scene during a visit to his family, who are relatives, I remembered how many Palestinians drew the Palestinian flag on kites as a sign of Palestinian nationalism. “There is no more need to do that.” Firas’ mother told me. The Palestinian flag is no longer illegal and therefore kids don’t feel the need to fly kites with the national flag. Continue Reading »

The Bush administration is in the process of falling in the same Israeli trap as that of the former Clinton administration as far as the Middle East is concerned. Favoring form over content will not bring about lasting peace.

Favoring the Israeli direction, the latest US policy push has been to shore up a short term cease-fire at the expense of the long term political process. Continue Reading »

It was late Tuesday night and Saleem Sweidan, who runs Nablus TV, was trying to figure out where to sleep that night. The day before he had tried to get back to Nablus and the normally 45 minutes trip took him five hours. The taxi driver deposited him and the other passengers near Salfit, they had to walk, hitch rides and walk some more before getting home near midnight. ‘I haven’t seen my children in days,” he told a group of colleagues from other West Bank cities who were meeting in Ramallah to hammer out an agreement regarding training and support for local television stations. Others from Hebron and Bethlehem had decided earlier that they will be staying at a local hotel. Continue Reading »

Israelis often misunderstand the political meaning of the word Nakba which Palestinians apply to the events in 1948 that led to the dispossession and disbursement of the Palestinian people.

Watching CNN on Tuesday, I was surprised to hear the interpretation by former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. His explanation was that, since Palestinians remember 1948 as the year of the catastrophe, then that means that they consider the creation of Israel a catastrophe, and therefore, Netanyahu went on to claim, Palestinians have yet to come to terms with the existence of Israel. The Palestinian remembrance is meant as a sign that Palestinians want to destroy Israel, the former Likud leader said.  Continue Reading »

If there was one issue that the Mitchell committee seems to have zoomed clearly on in its report has been the issue of settlement activity. In the clearest call yet from a committee made up of senior western and NATO leaders, the committee called for a clear and unambiguous freeze to settlement activity.

According to Palestinian and Israel press reports, the Mitchell committee went very far in it is statement in exposing the need for an end to settlement activity as a condition to the end of violence. “A cessation of Palestinian-Israeli violence will be particularly hard to sustain unless the Government of Israel freezes all settlement construction activity. Settlement activities must not be allowed to undermine the restoration of calm and the resumption of negotiations.” Continue Reading »

So finally we have it. A Middle East leader has finally pronounced the two-syllable word. Cease-fire. Sure, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s words were barely out of his mouth before denials and surprises came from Israel. But the fact is that after more than seven months of hell, the word has finally been introduced to the Palestinian-Israeli lexicon.

True, in 1982 the term was also used, and then, as now, the key players were the same, Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon. But the occupied Palestinian territories are not Lebanon and everyone who tries to make the comparison is wrong.  Continue Reading »

More and more Israelis and their supporters in the US are making a major issue of the fact that the peace process is dead in its tracks because of the absence of public support for it in Israel support for it in Israel. They cite negative public opinion and the absence of a credible peace movement as proof that Palestinians have squandered the last remaining hope for getting their lands back once they lost Israeli public opinion. Continue Reading »