In an exhausting two-hour speech before the PLO Central Council on January 14, 2018, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) provided the morning papers with many headlines. Abbas laid into Trump saying Yehreb Beitak, a common insult which translates…
Category: Occupied territories
Economic Warfare in Gaza
NO MORE LIES lies or twisted tongues. Israel is saying at last what, in the past, it always refused to acknowledge: its war is against the Palestinian population. Until now, in discussions about the separation wall, closures, blockades, house demolition,…
The Gaza Economic Crunch
QASSAM ROCKETS hit the Israeli town of Sderot on an almost daily basis, but on September 4, 2007, at the start of the new school year, one fell beside a day-care center. That night Haim Ramon, a deputy and close…
Bil’in: (Partial) Triumph in a Political Vacuum
While the Israeli Occupation hardens and the Fatah/Hamas split deepens, a remote little village near Ramallah has celebrated a victory. This is Bil’in. It went to the Israeli High Court and won a change in the route of the Separation…
The Wall and the Sweatshops
Palestinian Workers in Abu Dis near Jerusalem SINCE MAY 2006, the 75,000 people of Abu Dis and other Arab villages near Jerusalem have been cut off from the city by the separation wall. Until then there were still openings here…
The Mugrabi Gate: Dig We Must?
IN FEBRUARY 2004, the ramp leading up to the Mugrabi Gate in the al-Aqsa compound partly collapsed, and a temporary wooden structure was erected. In February 2007, Israel began building a permanent bridge to the gate. A Jerusalem law ordains…
The Prison Within
AS THE CAMERA stalks Hebron in search of a story about the Occupation, it encounters oppression of another kind. New levels are discovered, things not foreseen. The film is Asurot (officially and badly translated as “Detained”; the single Hebrew word, with rich…
The Late Shuhada Street, Hebron
IT’S A GHOST TOWN,” says a friend as we walk through deserted Shuhada Street, once a bustling thoroughfare of Hebron. The sun slides off the neat green metal bolted-shut storefronts and scalloped edges of the overhangs, highlighting the Hebrew graffiti:…
Encounter at Hawara
1. Jalia Suleiman a-Shtayeh August 20, 2006 started out like any Sunday. For most people in the West Bank, Sunday is simply a work day, the first of the week. For Jalia Suleiman a-Shtayeh it is the hardest day. If…
The Mutilation of the Olive Trees
With contributions by Orli Karinis of “Friends to the Villages,” an Israeli voluntary organization active in the Nablus area. The autumn of 2005 saw a poor olive harvest both locally and abroad. In the West Bank, however, that was the…