Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Jessica Purkiss
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The return to negotiations fractures Palestine even further
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Eraket and his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni have sat down for “talks to begin talks”, a process which US State of Secretary John Kerry has spent four months incubating. In Washington the keen Kerry is watching over the embryonic process in the hope that Israel and...
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Is Palestine's first planned city part of the resistance or a whitewash of the occupation?
From the disorder of a construction site in the occupied West Bank, a new vision of Palestine is rising. Not far from Ramallah, workers in hard hats are busy erecting plush office blocks, luxurious residential homes and Western shopping malls. This is Rawabi, Palestine’s first planned city. The vision for...
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Visualizing Palestine in a two state solution: A state of Palestine or a Palestinian Bantustan?
After a long career as a journalist covering the apartheid in South Africa, Allister Sparks travelled Israel and Palestine, shocked by what he witnessed he was compelled to comment, “When I look at Israel, when I traveled through the West Bank, I was looking at Bantustans-totally unviable, impossible states”. Bantustans...
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The Jordan Valley in a State of Palestine
Palestinian families used to come to Al-Oja spring, in the Jordan Valley, to spend summer days bathing. The spring overflowed with water, turning the land into the “bread basket” of the West Bank. Today the spring has gone. Left behind is dry, arid land and a stone’s throw away...
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Apartheid relived: Israeli laws conjure-up uncomfortable memories of South Africa
On Jerusalem Day, which commemorates the illegal annexation of East Jerusalem to Israel, a young Jewish settler was asked if his country is an apartheid state. His reply was both illuminating and misguided: “How can Israel be an apartheid state? Palestinian citizens of Israel have the same rights as...
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Israel weighs up options as brakes are placed on Obama's military action
Last week, Congress was due to vote on a resolution which would authorize US President Barak Obama to conduct “limited” military strikes, aimed at “deterring” Syria’s leader Bashar Al-Assad from the use of chemical weapons. Obama’s resolution brought worldwide condemnation, with anti-war protestors taking to the streets, as he...
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The fight to defend Al-Aqsa
Thirteen years ago former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to the compound of the third holiest site in Islam, Al-Aqsa Mosque, sparked the Second Intifada. The intifada, which raged on for 5 years, claimed thousands of innocent lives. Today, Israeli claims to the holy site, in the heart of...
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Palestinian civil society in the pursuit of International Justice
“The establishment of the Court is a gift of hope to future generations, and a giant step forward in the march towards universal human rights and the rule of law,” said former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan as he signed the treaty establishing the world’s first permanent international...
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Teenagers face 25 years imprisonment for allegedly throwing stones
Nema Shamlawi and her family were sleeping when over 15 armed and masked Israeli soldiers raided their home in the West Bank village of Hares, during the early hours of the morning. After searching the house and questioning her husband and sons they left, but not empty handed. Amidst...
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Israel's latest stunt to keep settlement expansion away from critics
Whilst peace talks between Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are currently underway, internationally deemed illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank continue to mushroom. Even if Netanyahu had agreed to Abbas’ precondition of a “settlement freeze” and stopped issuing tenders for new settlement homes during...
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The GCC and Israel: an unlikely alliance?
“Ahmadinejad (Iran’s previous President) was a wolf in wolf’s clothing. Rouhani (Iran’s new President) is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a wolf who thinks he can pull the wool over the eyes of the international community,” said Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he stood in-front of the United...
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Palestinian villages as "props" in Israel's military training
A cemetery; usually a place for loss and remembrance; grief and commemoration. However in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, a cemetery is also a place for military training. The bodies that fill the graves are Palestinians; the soldiers partaking in the military training are Israelis serving in...
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Obligations to combat settler violence under the domestic law of Third Party States
Third Party States have obligations under international law and their own domestic laws to investigate entities within their jurisdictions that are lending support to violent settler groups in the Occupied Territories, according to a new report by Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq. As internationally deemed illegal settlements have mushroomed...
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International Day of Rage against ethnic cleansing of Bedouin
On Saturday, protests were held worldwide in global defiance of a bill currently going through Israel’s Knesset. The bill, known as the Prawer Plan, aims to forcibly relocate up to 70,000 Bedouin into Israeli government regulated towns and cities. In an act of solidarity with the Bedouin communities, thousands of...
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Christmas greetings from Bethlehem
The festive season has begun. In Bethlehem, a large Christmas tree stands tall in Manger Square. The tree is a gift to the Palestinians from USAID, the lead US government agency primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid. Just five minutes down the road, in Aida Refugee Camp, clashes between...
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Israel steps up its assassination policy in West Bank
Bashir Habanin’s house is full of the things he has made. As a professor of Décor at Khadoury Technical College in Tulkarem, West Bank, he was always making furniture to decorate the home he shared with his parents and siblings. On 7 November, after leaving his job...
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Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land
In the Palestinian Christian village of Iqrit, only the church was left standing. On Christmas Eve 1951, Israeli troops destroyed the village. The houses were turned to rubble and the residents scattered. “Choosing Christmas Eve to demolish our village holds religious connotations; they wanted to insinuate that this land...
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Settlement construction rose by 130% in 2013
As people across the world welcome in the New Year, they will also reflect on the year just past. For Palestine and Israel, 2013 was a year that saw the resumption of “peace talks”. The US-brokered talks are projected to continue until April 2014, at the end of which...
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Dutch business giants join boycott, causing Israel concern
In the wake of the recent termination of cooperation with Israeli companies linked to settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories by three Dutch business giants, Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans has declared that the Netherlands rejects boycotts and sanctions against Israel. Despite Israel being responsible for the settlements and the...
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With their husbands behind bars, Palestinian women find new ways of becoming pregnant
As 26 families celebrate the recent return of their sons, brothers and fathers from Israeli jails, Hana al Za’ani is awaiting an arrival of a different kind from her home in Beit Hanoun, Gaza. The former prisoners were the second group of releases authorized by Israel as a “gesture” in...