Category: Articles

By Daoud Kuttab When three Israelis went missing three weeks ago, and before any evidence was made available, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided on his own to pin responsibility on the Islamist movement Hamas. He and his political and military cohorts continued with this fabrication by rounding up hundreds of Hamas activists and pro-Hamas…

Following appeared in the Jordan Times Newspaper By Daoud Kuttab When three Israelis went missing three weeks ago, and before any evidence was made available, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided on his own to pin responsibility on the Islamist movement Hamas. He and his political and military cohorts continued with this fabrication by rounding up…

By Daoud Kuttab Closed-circuit cameras have always been part of Israel’s high-tech approach to security, but in recent months, the presence of cameras and Palestinians’ use of cell phones have come back to haunt the Israeli security establishment. A security camera perched on top of the store owned by Hussein Abu Khdeir provided key evidence in the…

By Daoud Kuttab The Rev. Atallah Issawi, pastor of a Protestant church in the West Bank village of Aboud, and his wife, Hilda, were driving home the night of July 5 after attending a wedding in Ramallah. Issawi’s church, along with an excellent private school in their predominantly Christian village, had been established by missionaries from the…

By Daoud Kuttab The Palestinian film director had no idea that her production was a security threat. Emtiaz al-Moghrabi had produced a film — “Noor” (Light) — about the problem of drug abuse among the youth of East Jerusalem. The documentary, which was screened in Ramallah and other Palestinian cities, was to be shown in…

By Daoud Kuttab Twelve days of constant media coverage, often 24-hour live reporting and repeated accusations from the very top of the Israeli government of the involvement of Hamas in the kidnapping and killing of the three Israeli youths, have reached the level of hysteria. The Israeli army, well-armed Jewish settlers and even members of the press have taken…

By Daoud Kuttab Sixty-three days after they declared an open-ended hunger strike, some 75 Palestinian administrative detainees announced on June 25 that they have suspended their hunger strike. Few details have emerged, but the Palestinian prisoners succeeded in exposing the injustice of administrative detention without putting a stop to this undemocratic practice. No written agreement has been signed, a point Israel…

By Daoud Kuttab The kidnapping of three Israeli religious settlers in an area under the total administrative and security control of the Israeli army has partially brought back attention to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but for the wrong reasons. While it is natural that the phone calls by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli Prime…

By Daoud Kuttab The Israeli reaction to the disappearance, and most probable kidnapping, of three Israeli settlers reveals once again a worn-out, failed deterrence policy that inflicts great pain and suffering by Israel on its supposed long-term neighbors. Article 33 of the Geneva Convention (IV) specifically bans “collective punishment” by an occupying power to the people…