Tagged Palestinians

It’s so confusing … You’ve heard the arguments. All the spin, the ads, the furious blogs and heated discussions about a possible U.N. vote to acclaim an “Independent, Unified Palestinian State.” What lofty language. Independent. Unified. Words and concepts dear to our hearts. But would such a state, merely… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — After the mutual accusations of ethnic cleansing and the sarcastic posturing, the ball is back in the Palestinians’ court. The upshot of last week’s Lollapalooza of speechmaking at the United Nations is that the Obama administration has succeeded in persuading the international community to back the… Read more »

Last month’s multifront Palestinian terrorist attack along the Egyptian-Israeli border highlighted two major new challenges to Israel’s national security. First is the breakdown of Egyptian central authority in the Sinai Peninsula, which has created fertile ground for terrorism against Israel. Complicating matters further is a heightened sensitivity in post-Mubarak… Read more »

Twenty-four Israelis and Palestinians came together as a “Peace Team” to play Australian-rules football. (Jonathan Davis/JTA)

      SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — Sulaiman Khatib is an ordinary Palestinian with an extraordinary past. Born in the West Bank near Jerusalem, he grew up as a “freedom fighter,” as he describes it, fighting against the Israeli occupation by throwing stones and preparing Molotov cocktails. But in 1986,… Read more »

In the last several weeks Israel has been going through one of the biggest waves of protest ever. The people in the street are calling for social justice. Most protestors define themselves as middle class. They’re raising a cry over the high cost of living and the unequally spread… Read more »

Marc Stanely

I was amused by Adam Serwer’s recent blog post titled “Is Bibi anti-Israel?” in which he pointed out that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conditionally offered this month to negotiate with the Palestinians using the pre-1967 borders as a framework. Amazingly, there was no outcry by American Jews that… Read more »

Morton A. Klein

It’s high time to face an unpleasant fact: President Obama and Israel are not on the same page. This has been true ever since Obama took office in January 2009, but it was most recently apparent this May when the president ambushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an… Read more »

Israeli soldiers carry an injured person on a stretcher at the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba following a Palestinian terrorist attack near the Egyptian border, Aug. 18, 2011. (Shay Levy/Flash 90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) – After deadly terrorist attacks in southern Israel, officials in Jerusalem are on alert for how Egyptian instability may be opening up more avenues for terrorists intent on attacking Israel. Thursday’s coordinated attacks north of Eilat by terrorists who crossed over the border from Egypt left eight… Read more »

I was a participant in the Steadfast Hope series that Guy Gelbart refers to in his “Shaliach’s View” column in the June 17 issue of the Arizona Jewish Post. I really cannot disagree with him more on his characterization of the series as a “hate pill.” The series was… Read more »

Thank you to Guy Gelbart for informing the wider Jewish community about our series: Steadfast Hope, the Palestinian Quest for Just Peace. For people interested in the topic of Israel/Palestine, we will offer other, similar programs in the future. As one of the organizers and presenters of the series,… Read more »

I am not part of the organizing team that presented the Steadfast Hope series, but I was a member of the audience, so I know that most of what the shaliach said after the event is pure obfuscation and distraction and in many instances simply fabrication. According to the… Read more »

Laura Kafif, the house mother at Sava A Child’s Heart, visits with one of her charges, Zeresenay Gebru, as he recovers from heart surgery at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, Israel, May 31, 2011. (Sheila Shalhevet/JTA Photo Service)

Just two days earlier, 8-year-old Salha Farjalla Khamis said goodbye to her parents and four siblings in her village on the African island of Zanzibar. Now, in a hospital in the Tel Aviv suburb of Holon, tears roll silently down her cheeks as she watches an Israeli nurse attach… Read more »

It was a sign that ties between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations remain strong despite the apparent tensions last month when the two leaders met at the White House. On June 6, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton shot down a French proposal for renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks… Read more »

I was very pleased to see the article on J Street Policy Director Hadar Susskind’s visit to the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Acknowledgment of different voices within the Jewish community in regards to our relationship with Israel and Israel’s current policies is a breath of fresh air. Moreover, the… Read more »

Max Rusinov, UA Hillel Israel Fellow, points to information about suicide bombings prevented by the Israeli-Palestinian border fence, posted on the mock border fence on the UA campus, March 23. (Sheila Wilensky)

If there’s a difference between the U.S.-Mexico border wall and the one dividing Israel and the Palestinian West Bank, you might not have known it by looking at the nearly 1,000-foot mock border fence on the University of Arizona campus last month. The fence was erected by student members… Read more »

The topic of the day-long conference was torture, and Palestinians were describing the horrific methods the Shin Bet used in prison to get information out of them. Photos and illustrations of these practices were shown on a screen. Human rights activists, Palestinian and Israeli, spoke at length and in… Read more »

The detractors of J Street, the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobbying organization, like to portray the organization’s leader, Jeremy Ben-Ami, as so far to the left of mainstream American Jewish opinion as to be out of bounds. If they think Ben-Ami is too much of a lefty on Israel, just wait… Read more »

Many in Latin America and around the world were asking one question following the news that Brazil and Argentina had recognized the state of Palestine in the West Bank: Why now? Among the answers, PLO envoy to Washington Maen Areikat told JTA, was the frustration with the stops and… Read more »

With each passing year, the Arab-Israeli conflict seems to get an additional facelift in the media headlines. Many notable news sources seek to demonize Israel in the most “objective” manner possible, concentrating on angles irrelevant to the real conflict. Subsequently, when foreign journalists come to Israel with their notebooks,… Read more »

BIL’IN, West Bank (JTA) – Rami Burnat sits in his wheelchair toward the back of a sprawling courtyard where Palestinian speakers take turns championing the cause of nonviolent resistance. Burnat, 29, has been disabled ever since a bullet pierced his neck in clashes in late 2000, shortly after the… Read more »