Living in East Jerusalem – a video interactive. Demolishing Palestine. Since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip began in 1967, Israel has demolished about 27,000 Palestinian homes and other structures crucial for a family’s livelihood, according to Israeli government statistics (Compiled by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions).
Almost half of these were carried out in just the last twelve years. So far this year, 702 people have been displaced and 140 homes demolished. The government categorizes many demolitions as the consequence of not acquiring an Israeli building permit. However, in recent years, over ninety-four percent of all Palestinian permit applications have been rejected. Under Israeli zoning policy, Palestinians can build in only thirteen percent of East Jerusalem and one percent of Area C (the important connecting space between Palestinian controlled Areas A and B).
Searching for the Arab Spring in Ramallah. A year has passed since Arab youth took to the streets demanding freedom and dignity, unleashing a long-awaited revolution.
As authoritarian regimes fell in Tunisia and Libya, were shaken in Egypt, and are struggling fiercely in Yemen and Syria, I went searching for the Arab Spring in Ramallah, looking for the reverberations of the Arab uprisings on Palestine. Euphoria as much as apprehension accompanied me as I looked for the promise of a revolution devoid of any grand ideology, a revolution about freedom and rights, inclusive of everybody—Christians and Muslims, Islamists and liberals, young and old—if only for a short while. On 15 March 2011, just over a month after mass demonstrations in Cairo brought down Husni Mubarak and peaceful protestors in Bahrain were being violently dispersed, thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in Ramallah and Gaza City. Ramallah’s Bubbles. Recently there has been a proliferation of talk about Ramallah’s “bubble.”
Based on the seeming contradiction between the quality of life there versus elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, popular accounts are rife with descriptions of bubbles emerging and bursting. The bubble language is pervasive but it is not coherent. Some argue that the bubble is economic, poised to pop and thereby destroy Ramallah’s boomtown economy. Others contend that the bubble is an artificial force that encourages inorganic businesses that can’t survive the occupation. And others maintain that the bubble is based in government debt, or that it is a “problem” that the private sector will need to solve. Some argue that the bubble is a sphere of representation, a cultural fact productive of a different kind of public space, which marks Ramallah as somehow not of Palestine, and where foreign visitors are isolated from Palestinians in villages.
The question is: what binds these accounts together?
Palestinian Culture. Debating Palestine: Representation, Resistance, and Liberation. Palestinians are debating multiple inter-connected questions, including the question of representation, what strategy or strategies to adopt for liberation, the nature of the future state, and our relationship with the Arab revolutions, among others.
Some of these questions are being debated in Al-Shabaka policy briefs such as those by Noura Erakat, Jamil Hilal, Haidar Eid, and others. I would like to discuss them through a critical review of our own recent history. Gaza. Cast Lead 2008. Reading... Palestinian Political Economy / History.
Where is the Bedouin Intifada? In 2004, Israeli officials were up in arms about an impending Bedouin Intifada.
But the Bedouin didn't rebel and now, despite plans to expel tens of thousands of Bedouin from their homes in the West Bank and the Negev, things remain relatively quiet. Why? Al-arakib-aic The unrecognized Bedouin village of Al Arakib after it was demolished in September 2010 (photo: Mya Guarnieri) As Israel steps up its expansionist policies both inside and outside the Green Line, the Bedouin community has come under particularly intense pressure. Inside of Israel, the state seeks to Judaize the Negev (Naqab) desert. After the Israeli cabinet passed the Prawer plan in September 2011, Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel likened it to “a declaration of war.”
Al Arakib could be considered an opening battle. Recent years have seen Israel escalate its campaign to push Palestinians and Bedouin out of their homes. But it would be wrong to blame the writer and his interviewees alone.
Palestinian youth: New movement, new borders - Features. Reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah may present the first victory of a nascent Palestinian youth movement, which earned its moniker, the March 15th movement, from the first day of its mass protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Only one day after the launch of their movement demanding an end to the four-year internecine conflict that also divided the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas announced his willingness to travel to Gaza to engage in unity talks, while other leading Fatah members, aware of the youths' potential force, opened twitter accounts just to follow the pulse of the movement. Arguably, the unity government is a preemptive tactic to thwart rising Palestinian discontent, and the increasing relevance of youth protests, in a broader Arab Spring. According to youth leaders, reconciliation is only the first of many demands.
Palestinian youth's Arab Spring Factional discord vs unity Majdalawi explains: 'Between continents and countries' Shihade: A New Era for Palestinians. Magid Shihade writes in a guest column for Informed Comment The Palestinian Unity Agreement and the Beginning of New Era The agreement of reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, ending years of Palestinian political divisions and paralysis, was signed last week.
The reasons for signing the unity agreement at this point are many including local, regional and global dimensions, and these all will define the next chapter in Palestinian history, and thus worth recounting. Locally, there have been many calls and demonstrations in Palestine calling for ending the political division and forming a united front that can deals better with Israeli constant aggression and western complacency. Finally, Some Hope for Palestinians…and Israeli Jews. After a long winter – actually, after several years of winters – the Palestinians today have taken an important step towards national liberation, self-determination, and the overthrow of the yoke of Israeli sovereignty.
The twin announcements of a Hamas-Fateh reconciliation (albeit fragile) and an interim national unity government in anticipation of elections (albeit under occupation and siege) breathe fresh air into the lungs of Palestinians and of those Israeli Jews who desire to be free of their bondage as overlords. Indeed, all for whom the Palestinian cause is dear – that is, all decent, freedom-loving people – can only rejoice at these signs of Palestinian unity and purpose.
That does not mean that there are no potential problems with the reconciliation.