Tag Archives: Palestine

Come, Let Us Adore the Israeli Occupation

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From the lead article in today’s New York Times on John Kerry’s recent speech on Israel-Palestine:

[Trump] was soon praised — also on Twitter — by Mr. Netanyahu, who later released a video statement that was unsparingly direct and dismissive of Mr. Kerry.

“The entire Middle East is going up in flames, entire countries are toppling, terrorism is raging and for an entire hour the secretary of state attacks the only democracy in the Middle East,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “Maybe Kerry did not notice that Israel is the only place in the Middle East where Christmas can be celebrated in peace and security. Sadly, none of this interests the secretary of state.”

As has been widely reported across the world (CNBC, VOA, Euronews, Al Jazeera, Economic Times), Christmas was celebrated in relative peace and security in Bethlehem. As is (or should be) common knowledge, Bethlehem is in Palestine, not Israel. Neither fact seems to interest Netanyahu, his Israeli or American supporters, or the American media. Continue reading →

Stun Grenades, Philosophy, Hilarity: Ringside at a Riot in Palestine

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I’m sitting in the common room on the eighth floor of Al Abraj Housing Complex in Abu Dis, having a conversation with a friend, when we hear a loud boom.

“What was that?” he asks. He’s a newcomer.

“I have to get a closer listen.” I go to the balcony, and cock my ear in the direction of the booms.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

“I don’t think that’s firecrackers,” he says.

“Neither do I,” I respond.

BOOM.

“Definitely not,” I confirm. “Today is Friday, right?”

“Right.”

“It’s Friday Clashes in Abu Dis. You want to go?”

He looks at me. There’s a slight tinge of apprehension on his face. “No,” he says, at last. He’s a newcomer, after all.

“OK,” I say, brightly. “Well, I’m off.” Continue reading →

St. Luke, Suicide Bomber: Political Philosophy Paper #2 in Translation

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A couple of weeks ago, I assigned paper topic #1 in my political philosophy class here at Al Quds University. Here is paper topic #2 in (Facebook) translation. There were two options, and the students were to pick one and write a short paper on it. Oddly, the directions for the assignment don’t seem to have come through in the Facebook translation. Here is what did:

This is what respect in research or the topic II..
1. A plan no uprising for the liberation of Palestine. They should include special paper:
• A description of the goal your year.
• A description of how it will be an attempt to reach the goal.
• is the use of violence? If it does, why and how? What are the boundaries that were placed on the use of violence?
• was machiavelli or Luke useful in planning your uprising? Explain.
The goal as described in a paper that can be long-term one, but he doesn’t have to be realistic: it must be achieved by means of mankind in a specific period of time. I have to assume that the Palestinian side has a weakness, and that the Israelis will use all its advantages to resist any uprising.
2. Write an essay about the theory of John Luke property.
• First, summarized the theory.
• Then explain whether you agree with the general principles of ownership, Luke.
• and then discuss the implementation of the principles of Luke a specific example. What example teach you about the theory of Luke?

Here’s the original: Continue reading →

In Memoriam: Ghassan Shabaneh

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I was both shocked and saddened to discover news of the death of Dr. Ghassan Shabaneh, for several years an Associate Professor of Middle East and International Studies at Marymount Manhattan College, and more recently a researcher at the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies in Doha, Qatar. The news is now almost a month old; I happened to discover it, painfully enough, while trying to “friend” him on Facebook.

Despite being on a first-name basis with him, I didn’t know Ghassan well enough to call him either a “friend” or a “colleague.” Having heard great things about him for years from his Marymount colleague Carrie-Ann Biondi (my then-wife) I happened to meet him exactly once, purely by coincidence, in the summer of 2013–in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. I was touring Bethlehem with my friend Sinan; he was visiting with his wife Tara. After expressing shock at the coincidental nature of the meeting, we had our one and only conversation, promising to meet up again in the near future. Our schedules never seemed to coincide, so–to my eternal regret–we never did meet again. I’d been looking forward to the meeting for years.

My deepest condolences to his family and loved ones. Unfortunately, I’ll have to miss the memorial service that will take place for him in a few days in New Jersey, but hope to attend the service that will be held for him this fall at Marymount.

Safe Haven Abu Dis

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In catching up on the news from back home, I find myself reflecting on the number of people who, on hearing of my plans to spend another summer in Abu Dis, Palestine, worried out loud about my safety. As we all know, the West Bank is a dangerous place. Well, I’m perfectly safe. I just regret I didn’t ask my friends the same question regarding their plans to spend the summer in the United States.

The U.S. State Department “warns” Americans about the risks of traveling in Palestine, imposing a long list of regulations on travel by U.S. government employees stationed here. It’s not an amusing topic, and yet there seems something funny about it: a warning to Americans about the risks of violence in Palestine? Shouldn’t the State Department be warning those of us in Palestine about the risks involved in going home?

Hussein Ibish on Elie Wiesel

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Here’s an excellent piece by Hussein Ibish in Foreign Policy on the mixed legacy of Elie Wiesel. I’d be hard pressed to find a sentence in it that I disagree with. I found this paragraph particularly poignant and admirable:

Many Palestinians have allowed the conflict with Israel to embitter them to the point that not acknowledging, learning about or engaging with the history of the Holocaust becomes a social and political imperative. This was most tragically illustrated in the experience of Professor Mohammed S. Dajani, a Palestinian scholar with impeccable nationalistic credentials, who led the drive to teach Palestinian university students about the Holocaust and ultimately had to leave his university position because of the backlashagainst the simple teaching and learning of history. Many Palestinians do want to learn about and recognize the tragedy of Jewish history, but many more myopically can’t see past their own present-day suffering and recognize Jewish Israelis as anything other than their occupiers and oppressors.

Until recently, Professor Dajani taught here at Al Quds University. I regret that I won’t be able to meet him. I particularly regret why I won’t be able to meet him. Continue reading →

Thoughts on the Middle East Quartet’s Report on the Israel-Palestine Conflict

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Americans often wonder what the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is about, and why they should be obliged to care about it. They can’t get a clear sense of what it’s about from the mass media, but lack the time, energy, expertise, or inclination to wade through history books or specialty websites to figure it out from scratch. What to do? The situation seems one designed to induce apathy about the issue. Continue reading →

My Name is Ahmad

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So I’m taking the 4 pm bus into Jerusalem from Abu Dis. There are maybe ten people on a bus that probably fits 70 or 80. We’re approaching the Ma’ale Adumim checkpoint, and I’m thinking, “This is going to be a breeze.”

We stop at the checkpoint. There’s yelling. Nothing happens. There’s more yelling–in Hebrew. I have no idea what’s being said.

The younger people get off the bus and stand in the “cage.” The cage is my name for a steel enclosure a few yards away that looks a lot like…a cage. In the past, I’ve sometimes voluntarily gone into the cage, but then, sometimes I haven’t. I’ve taken this bus dozens of times before and never been asked to stand in it, so I decide not to do so today. I just don’t feel like getting up. I’m comfy. It’s hot out. It’s my Rosa Parks moment. Continue reading →

The Circumstances of Injustice: Ben Ehrenreich on Tel Aviv and Hebron

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I’ve said before that American reporting on violence in Israel and Palestine involves a single predictable pattern: ignoring the moral significance or experiential nature of the occupation, such reporting fixates pointillistically on discrete, acontextual acts of violence by Palestinians, treating such acts without argument as initiatory violence or aggression “against civilians”; it then treats the Israeli response to such acts as retaliatory force, only raising questions (at best) about the “proportional” or “disproportional” nature of Israel’s resort to force. Continue reading →

The Israeli Occupation: What It Is, Why It Matters, and What To Do About It

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Just a reminder for those in the area: I’ll be giving a talk on “The Israeli Occupation and Settlement Enterprise: What It Is, Why It Matters, and What To Do About It,” this Saturday, May 21, at 11 am at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton, located at 50 Cherry Hill Rd, Princeton, New Jersey, 08540. (I incorrectly described the start time in a previous post as 1 pm, but that’s when it ends.) The talk is sponsored by String of Pearls Reconstructionist Jewish Congregation of Princeton, and is open to the public. Thanks to Hilary Persky, String of Pearls’s Secretary, for the invitation. The talk takes place immediately after the Congregation’s Saturday morning sabbath celebration. Continue reading →