Despite police threats, East Jerusalem protests continue

The Huffington Post, February 2, 2010 Maan News Agency, February 2, 2010 Despite police plans to end the demonstration with force, more than 300 Palestinians, internationals, and Israeli activists gathered in Sheikh Jarrah on Friday afternoon to protest the evictions of Palestinian families from their homes. Armed with only drums and handwritten signs that read …

Sidebar: A different kind of activism

The Palestinian village of Bil’in, located in the West Bank, is a flashpoint for the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since 2005, Bil’in has been the site of Friday demonstrations attended by hundreds of Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals in protest of the impending construction of the separation wall, the division of Palestinian-owned land, as well as the continued …

Waiting for Taha

  Waiting for Taha: review of Adina Hoffman’s My Happiness Bears no Relation to Happiness: a poet’s life in the Palestinian Century The Jerusalem Post, June 5, 2009 The story begins with an unlikely friendship between a Jewish American woman who has come to call Jerusalem home and a Palestinian poet, old enough to be …

Identity and crisis

 Identity and crisis: review of Rhoda Ann Kanaaneh’s Surrounded: Palestinian soldiers in the Israeli military The Jerusalem Post, May 15, 2009 An Israeli Arab friend of mine, Saleh, is married to an American woman. He is conflicted: Though part of him would prefer to raise his children here among his family, he chooses to raise …

Humans, not headlines

  Humans, not headlines Common Ground News Service, May 14, 2009 Daily News Egypt, May 18, 2009 Kuwait Times, May 20, 2008 The news is in: Israel’s press status has now been downgraded to “partly free” by Freedom House, the organisation dedicated to promoting democracy and civil liberties around the world. It is a disheartening …

Chronicles of a Refugee, a documentary review

 Chronicles of a Refugee, a documentary review Maan News Agency, May 6, 2009 “Do you know what the problem  is?” Nadine, a young Palestinian woman asks an off-screen interviewer.  She continues, “It’s that the Palestinian has the ability to forgive…  If you, as an Israeli, killed his mother and father and his family,  he [the …