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Naqba

  • The Arab Spring Awakens in Palestine

    Here are two interviews that I did with Fox News and Russia TV on Tuesday, regarding thousands of Palestinian refugees who attempted to nonviolently cross Israeli borders from the Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian border last weekend, resulting in several deaths and dozens injured.

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  • Popes Promoting Peace: Why Not? And What is the Big Fuss in Israel?

    A curious animosity has arisen on several sides of the Pope’s visit to Israel. Israeli Members of Parliament as well as very prominent rabbis took every opportunity to snipe at every word the Pope did say, should have not said, or should have said. As I watched the media blitz unfold I was amazed at the acrimony. Roi Ben Yehuda, however, has a positive essay on the Pope’s visit and the potential role of peacemaking for religious leaders. Also, various rabbis of the United States and the world were far more generous in welcoming the Pope to Israel.

    I understand policy differences with the Pope. Most of the world has one policy difference or another with this conservative Pope. I also understand that his conservative moves with regard to liturgy have angered Jews who see his reintroduction of a prayer hoping for the conversion of the Jews as detrimental …

  • Resistance with Love: The Only Hope for Palestine

    Everything has failed in terms of Israeli and Palestinian relations for almost a hundred years. There will be more and more negotiations, and I have hopes that the Obama Administration will be the best yet in really moving the parties toward resolution. But in my heart I have always felt that there is one path to peace that has never been trod and fully adopted, that is the path of nonviolent noncooperation and resistance but with love, the way of Gandhi and King. I will develop this idea more in the coming months, but this is something that a number of Palestinians inside Israel and inside Palestine have tried, but it has never received the backing of the Palestinian National Movement. On the contrary it was suppressed because it only works when it is adopted completely as the only means of resistance.

    This is not about fairness or whether Palestinians …

  • The Gazan Peace Doctor and A Solution for Israel/Palestine?

    At first I was shocked when I read the story of the Gazan peace doctor who has been working with Israelis for years, whose daughters were decapitated and cut to pieces in front of him, from an Israeli shell aimed without care or caution at Hamas.

    But then I went through a second stage of reaction when I was warmed by how amazing a reception he received in Israel. His surviving wounded daughter was operated on to save her eye as he was surrounded by sobbing Israeli Jewish colleagues. Here are excerpts from the story:

    “I dedicated my life really for peace, for medicine,” said Dr. Abuelaish, who does joint research projects with Israeli physicians and for years has worked as something of a one-man force to bring injured and ailing Gazans for treatment in Israel.

    “The Israeli Defense Forces does not target innocents or civilians, and during the operation

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  • JOURNALS OF ECSTATIC HATE

    Sometimes in the construction of a better world, it is necessary to go into the heart of darkness, to quote Conrad. Sometimes it is only in exploring our heart of darkness that we can figure out where we are, so that we know how to get beyond our current fallen state. I am drunk with blood these days, thoughts of blood, fear of blood, the rage of boiling blood, and so is anyone for whom  Palestine and Israel are a fixation.

    This report of carnage in a Gaza hospital in all its horrifying details is typical of the innocents who are being cut to pieces. What stands out is the report of the impatient, smiling Islamic Jihad fighter who is just thrilled with the blood of his own people. New recruits to his cause. He sees around him a man with his

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  • Heart of the Other: Between the Holocaust and a Palestinian Refugee Camp

    The Jewish Holocaust in Europe is the preeminent memory of millions of Israelis, many of whose families perished. It is a memory that spurs many Jews to suspect any possible coexistence with the Palestinians and the Arab world in general. This psychological reality of Israeli Jews has been resisted for decades by Palestinians precisely because it is so unfair that they should suffer because of what Europeans did to the Jewish people. Khaled Mahameed has challenged that resistance and has instead embraced the suffering and humanity of Jewish victims as a bridge between Palestinians and Jews, and as a way for each group to begin to humanize the other. Watch his methods in this documentary’s excerpts, especially the second video excerpt. Khaleed is representative of a cutting edge approach to conflicts that seem to be irresolvable in which courageous individuals and groups are going to the heart of the …

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