Category: Palestinian politics

Following appeared in the Jordan Times newspaper For years, governing powers in the Middle East have worked hard at decimating the leadership structure of any opposing group. Experts credit the success of various revolts and protests during the past three years to a leaderless revolution that governments were unable to predict or to stop. In…

By Daoud Kuttab While daily protests in East Jerusalem were triggered by the brutal July 2 burning alive of a Palestinian teenager from Shuafat, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the emotional trigger for Palestinians has and continues to be the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Daily attempts byradical Israeli Jews to enter the Muslim holy place and lay Jewish claims to…

By Daoud kuttab It would be difficult to find a student at Birzeit University who does not know the name Said Khoury. Since 2009, a 3,611-square-meter (38,868-square-foot) building bearing his name has stood tall on the hills of the new university campus. It houses the Center for Development Studies, the Ibrahim Abu Lughod Institute for International Studies…

By Daoud Kuttab “My homeland is not a suitcase and I am not a traveller,” wrote Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. But for many Palestinians living in the besieged homeland, the right to movement guaranteed in the University Declaration of Human Rights (Article 13) is just ink on paper. I met last week in Beirut a…

By Daoud Kuttab Meral, a pseudonym, 28, from the Gaza Strip, has traveled the world and returned to her hometown in Gaza. But her account of the trip she took last week and related to Al-Monitor was so traumatic that it might be the last one she attempts to take out of Gaza. A freelance…

By Daoud Kuttab For a moment at the end of the summer, it appeared that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was defeated. The Gaza war, which he was unable to do much about, badly hurt his reputation. The transcripts of the three-way meeting with the emir of Qatar and Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Meshaal had made…

Following appeared in the Jordan Times newspaper By Daoud Kuttab After the collapse of the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, in April, the July war on Gaza, the August drowning of hundreds trying to emigrate to Europe and the September war of words between their two major factions, Palestinians welcomed this week a series of unexpectedly good news….

By Daoud Kuttab After debate ended Oct. 13 in Westminster and the votes were cast, 274 British members of Parliament (MPs), representing major parties as well as diverse communities, passed a motion calling on their government to recognize the state of Palestine. “The vote is symbolic, but the discussion is essential,” Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian…

By Daoud Kuttab Sometimes the product becomes better known than the town or country of origin. This happened to the Palestinian Christian village of Taybeh, whose brew was described by Time Magazine as “the beer that made Taybeh famous.” The name of the beer and the town, which means “good” in Arabic, was given to this Palestinian village by…

By Daoud Kuttab For Swedes and Palestinians who have followed Swedish foreign policy toward Palestine, the announcement in Stockholm of the government’s intention to recognize the State of Palestine came as no surprise. In his inaugural speech Oct. 3, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven explained his administration’s decision, stating, “The conflict between Israel and Palestine can…