Unwelcome

Tablet, June 3, 2011 It was one of the wordiest, most sophisticated protest placards I’ve ever seen a child hold. The pink sign, gripped by two Filipino-Israeli boys, read in Hebrew: “Prime minister, how long will children, innocent of crime, pay the price for the situation you created with your own hands?” There were the …

The death of Israeli democracy

Al Jazeera English, February 6, 2011 As Egyptians take to the streets to demand their freedom, I ask a Muslim in Yafo if we’ll see the same in Israel. “I don’t think so,” he answers. “Even with all the mess here, we have democracy.” Do we? And for how much longer? As we speak, the …

Israel’s ‘street apartheid’

Al Jazeera English, July 10, 2010 Mahmoud Alami, a Jerusalem taxi driver, knows the city like the back of his hand. He knows the neighborhoods, the streets. And he knows the stop lights. There’s one in particular that troubles him not professionally but personally. It stands between Beit Hanina, a Palestinian neighborhood, and Pisgaat Zeev, …

Deserted

Tablet, June 11, 2010 A small country intent on preserving its demographic balance, Israel is a Petri dish for globalization’s conflicts, including those being fought in Arizona. Arizona’s controversial Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, also referred to as SB1070, takes effect in July. Proposed by Republican State Senator Russell Pearce, a staunch …