Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Hossam Shaker
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The ‘Flag March’ reveals the Occupation's dilemma in Jerusalem
The fragility of a position is sometimes exposed when there is an exaggeration of self-confidence and an attempt to demonstrate control over the situation. This is the impression given by the march of Israeli settlers and extremists, who paraded through the Old City of Jerusalem on Thursday, 18 May...
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Miral, the Palestinian girl who asked about her father
Miral found herself alone in an ambulance, unaware of the fate of her family. She had been woken up by the air strike that targeted her residential building in Gaza in the early hours of the morning. The little girl asked the medic who carried her, “Where is my...
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Proposed speech for the President of the European Commission on Nakba Day
On Nakba Day, we remember the incidents of the systematic destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages, towns and residential areas and the forced displacement of their inhabitants 75 years ago. Palestinian and Israeli researchers have documented horrific details of the plans devised and practices committed to achieving this. There...
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Shireen Abu Akleh: A quarter of a century of coverage ended with an Israeli bullet to the head
She carried her belongings and went with the Press team into the field to begin the news coverage. She was ready to deliver her visual news report, as she had done for the past 25 years, but her last report made her the topic of the coverage, which was...
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Why doesn’t ‘normalisation’ really mean peace?
The new songs about peace are being sung, as if the situation in the Middle East has come to a happy conclusion. This is very misleading, as the region is mired in wars and apparently endless conflicts and yet Arab states talk of peace with Israel but do not...
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The world continues to watch as Israel disregards human rights, justice
As the date for Israel’s planned annexation of Palestinian lands draws closer, Israeli circles have expressed growing concern about the consequences of the move. The concerns do not stem from the fact annexation violates international law or that it overturns the obligations of an occupying power and violates the...
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What going home and staying there means for the Palestinians
“Stay at home” is the global command to curb the spread of the coronavirus Covid-19. It has a very different meaning for the people of occupied Palestine. How, for example, can self-isolation and social distancing work in the Palestinian refugee camps that are crowded with people who are deprived...
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Netanyahu was unusually excited about a video call with an Arab nobody
Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be unusually excited on the sidelines of the Likud party conference on 26 December, smiling widely despite the troubles he is facing with politics and the law. The cause of such excitement was a video call, on his personal phone, with someone in a powerful...
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#MuathEye: A clash between the occupation’s rifles and the eyes opened to its violations
On Friday, November 15th, photojournalist Muath Amarneh left his home wearing his uniform and blue helmet to cover the demonstrations by residents of the village of Surif, near Hebron, against the Israeli confiscation of their land. By the end of the day, Amarneh himself became the subject of news...
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Does Facebook impose curfews on Palestinians in the ‘blue world’?
When the Arab youth revolted in 2011 to demand freedom and democracy in their countries, Facebook was the social media platform of choice for crowd mobilisation, a proven experience in other contexts around the world. When Palestinian youth tried to take a chance and speak out against the Israeli...
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Israel’s excuses for shooting unarmed Palestinians don’t ring true
Images of Palestinians girls or women lying in the middle of the road with blood seeping from their heads have become “normal” since the autumn of 2015. Women, children and men have all become victims to be added to the growing body of statistics that the global media never...
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Muhammad Elayyan is a small child, but was still taken for an Israeli interrogation
Muhammad Rabi’ Elayyan was summoned by the Israeli police to be interrogated; the summons was handed to his family in occupied Jerusalem, who had to take him to the police station. The boy is just five years old, but he is not the first child to be taken for...
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Alarm bells should ring after the Manama workshop
Donald Trump’s administration has recently shown great interest in Palestinians and their welfare. Even Jared Kushner, the US President’s son-in-law, has tried to spread optimism at the Manama workshop, presenting many ‘opportunities’ for the Palestinian people. Kushner has spoken to the participants as Wall Street speculators, reducing the Palestinian...
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40 candles of solidarity: An international birthday for Rachel Corrie
“Happy Birthday, Rachel!” This is what she would have heard in her hometown, Olympia, Washington. Her family and friends would have cheerfully flocked around her as she blew out forty candles on April 10, 2019. However, Rachel Corrie deserves a warm international celebration on this day to appreciate her...
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What next after the UN investigation into the bloodshed at the Gaza protests?
Over the course of a year, the Israeli government and its senior army officers have turned the Gaza Strip into a community of funerals, walking wounded and amputated limbs. Israel did not need primitive saws to destroy and sever limbs; its trained snipers deployed around the Gaza Strip were...
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The 'Nakba 2.0' ideology of Benny Morris
Benny Morris is perfectly aware what the word “Nakba” means. He does not, however, seem to have a problem with repeating it, seeing it as more appropriate for the 21st century and, in fact, a must. As can be concluded from his words, this might be “Nakba 2.0” –...
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What’s next after trying to blame the victim in the General Assembly?
The world must forget its commitments to rights and justice, its obligations under international law, the Quartet’s promises to establish a “viable and independent Palestinian state”. An end must be put to the repeated condemnations directed at the Israeli occupation and its constant attacks and violations, including killing peaceful...
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The end of a reckless Israeli jaunt in Gaza
It must be thrilling for Israelis to hear about a group of their army’s Special Forces carrying out a professional operation to kidnap leaders from the heart of the Gaza Strip, entering and leaving the enclave without a trace, and with none of the Palestinians knowing what’s going on....
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Three faces from Gaza fuelling anger
The actual weight they carried on their shoulders was light, but it weighed heavy on the masses that walked with them to the grave. The Palestinians carried the remains of three children – Khaled, Mohammed and Abdul Hamid – with heavy hearts, aching from the new tragedy inflicted upon...
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Hostages in Israeli mortuary refrigerators
Dozens of Palestinian citizens are spending a lot of time in temperatures of minus 40 degrees, but it is not something that they have decided for themselves. They were simply Palestinians under Israeli military occupation; they were — past tense — for they are now dead and being kept...
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Lama Khater’s imprisonment exposes Israel’s fear of words
Violent banging on the door at dawn frightened the children. Armed Israeli soldiers were at the door, wanting to raid the house and arrest the mother of the family. There is no need to ask why, as she is a well-known Palestinian writer, and the free pen in Palestine...
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The Knesset: A parliamentary vote to occupy history and the future
The stone walls are meticulously sculpted so as to give those who sit in the seats of this parliament a special sense of its historical depth, and that there was no history for anyone else in this country; that no one exists but them. Some of these parliamentarians return in the evening with their automatic rifles to the settlements established in the West...
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Israel’s demolition of Al-Khan Al-Ahmar is a mini-Nakba
An attempt to remove a great tree that has deep roots is perhaps the closest analogy of what took place on Wednesday in Al-Khan Al-Ahmar. This is a Palestinian Bedouin gathering, east of Jerusalem, which the Israeli occupation forces tried to destroy by expelling the people by force after...
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Israel’s war on photographers and their images
Amid the ongoing killing of defenceless Palestinian demonstrators, the Israeli leadership is engaged in a fierce and multifaceted war on photographers, either by shooting at them or criminalising them. Israel’s occupation authorities fear that photographs and video images will expose their brutality on the ground, which may lead to...