Sat, 14/05/2011 - 16:06
The Middle East and North Africa – the end of the Cold War legacy?
Overview
US foreign policy in the Middle East dates from its post-WWII Cold War with the USSR over spheres of influence. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, Israel was central to this policy.
Today, US policies are heavily influenced by economic interests. Despite now sourcing only 10% of its oil from the Gulf, the US continues to benefit from Saudi arms acquisitions and regional trade and industry, which run to many tens of billions of...
Thu, 12/05/2011 - 18:05
Tribute to Juliano Mer Khamis: Short film
On 20 April 2011, a tribute event was held in London in memory of director, actor and filmmaker Juliano Mer Khamis. Juliano was assassinated on 4 April 2011 in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, where he established the Freedom Theatre in 2006. The son of a Arna Mer, a Jewish woman, and Saliba Khamis, a Palestinian man, Juliano described himself as “100 percent Palestinian and 100 percent Jewish.”
The memorial event was co-organised by...
Tue, 07/12/2010 - 16:59
Trouble in the South Hebron hills
We in the Arab-Jewish Partnership Ta’ayush (http://www.taayush.org) knew that Israeli army works with the security guards of the settlements, so weren’t too surprised to learn that they brief them in advance. But this time the method was original. Our weekly mailings – calling on activists to accompany the farmers and including the meeting place and details of the organisers – were simply forwarded to the security guards. How easy! A ready-made message...
Mon, 26/07/2010 - 08:54
Ending the 'War of Narratives'
In his new book The Arabs and the Holocaust Gilbert Achcar, Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, analyzes the different and changing relationships within the Arab world to the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews. Brian Klug, speaking at the book launch on 1 July, argued that the book is more than just a contribution to historical scholarship: it contributes to peace, to bringing the Arab-Israeli ‘war of narratives...
Sat, 26/06/2010 - 14:30
Being Jewish and Doing Justice
‘To accept the Torah is to accept the norms of a universal justice’
(Emmanuel Levinas, Nine Talmudic Readings)
The subject of this symposium – ‘higher roads to peace’ for Arabs and Jews – is of great public interest. It is also of deep personal moment to me. For, as someone who is Jewish, I find myself situated on the inside of the subject. Were this not the case, I am not sure that I would have anything to say about it; or, if I did, it would not be the...
Wed, 12/05/2010 - 12:58
Aftershock: Israel's ordinary soldiers
Who, or what, makes the news? In relation to the Middle East, this is of course a fundamental question, and in many ways, the driving principle of JNews. The recent circulation on the web of Yariv Horowitz’s 2003 film, Aftershock, raises it in a particularly acute form. We have become accustomed to reading about the refuseniks, or sarvanim, who since an original letter in 1970 to then Prime Minister Golda Meir, have refused to serve in the Occupied...
Thu, 25/03/2010 - 16:50
Budrus – paradoxical hope in a threatened Palestinian village
Budrus the village is in the Ramallah district of the occupied West Bank, very near the pre-1967 Israeli border. In 2004, it was one of many Palestinian villages threatened by the planned route of the separation barrier. In that particular area, nine villages were to be walled into an isolated enclave, surrounded by fences on all sides.
Budrus the film, produced by a US-Israeli-Palestinian team from the video group Just Vision, and directed by...
Sun, 21/03/2010 - 23:39
Small but hopeful: Israeli-Palestinian projects in the southern Hebron hills
The separation barrier and the proximity of settlements to Palestinian villages cause serious disruptions to the daily lives of Palestinians.
The situation is particularly acute for schoolchildren, who have to negotiate long circuitous routes to school as well as suffering settler violence. Many schoolchildren have stopped attending school because of these problems.
The Villages Group, a group of Jewish Israeli volunteers and Palestinian...
Thu, 11/03/2010 - 14:03
Background paper: Sheikh Jarrah - Jewish settlement and Palestinian dispossession
Sheikh Jarrah is a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, part of the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. It was illegally annexed to Israel after the end of the war.
The neighborhood, founded in the 1920s, was home to an affluent Palestinian community. Adjacent to it, in an area now called “Shimon HaTsadik Compound”, was a tiny Jewish community, founded in the late 19th century and gradually dispersed during the Arab...
Fri, 08/01/2010 - 14:45
A Gaza night in Norway
Ayda Abdalbari is a Palestinian woman who was born and lived most of her life in Gaza.
When the Gaza offensive began in December 2008, she was working as a field researcher for Israeli human rights organization ‘Gisha,’ and nursing her brother, Ashraf, who was dying of a brain tumor.
Ashraf died during the offensive, and shortly after the ceasefire, the Norwegian government agreed to give asylum to his widow and three children, as...