By now, news of Palestinian being evicted from their homes in East Jerusalem is routine. Last week, two more Palestinian families were thrown into the street to make way for Jewish settlers in the neighbourhood of Beit Hanina. The mechanism of land confiscation in East Jerusalem and the West Bank has become a near science [...]
On my first trip to the West Bank, I was struck with a strange sense of familiarity. I left my apartment in Jerusalem and set off driving south, passing Bethlehem on my left and Israeli settlement blocks on my right. Driving through the Occupied West Bank, I stopped at an Israeli petrol station, just like [...]
Since 1967, Israel has maintained a framework of laws and statutes to govern all aspects of life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Israel’s occupation law is enforced by soldiers and administered in court rooms by military judges in uniform. Many, if not most, of the laws governing movement of Palestinians, freedom of speech and association [...]
It will be remembered as a banner year for American democracy. Emboldened by economic crisis and inspired by revolutionary upheaval overseas, its citizens took to the streets in 2011 to show their frustration with stale political leadership. In doing so, they awakened a fresh discussion about the very nature of democracy in the United States [...]
RAMALLAH // Celebrations marking the release of 550 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails stretched into the early hours of yesterday morning, but life outside prison will not necessarily mean freedom from the long arm of Israeli authorities. Just ask Fakhri Barghouti. Mr Barghouti walked out of jail in October, part of the first phase of [...]
Residents of Nabi Saleh in the West Bank have been demonstrating, each week for the past two years, against the slow encroachment on their land by Israeli settlers.Gathering in the village centre on Friday afternoons, villagers along with Israeli and international activists attempt to march, under the watchful eye of soldiers, to a disputed agricultural [...]
On September 23, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) chairman and PA president, officially submitted Palestine’s application for full membership in the United Nations, with a bold speech delivered to the General Assembly. During the address, cities throughout the West Bank were alight with excitement. Young and old celebrated almost as if the UN [...]
During his press conference on Saturday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared developments in the Middle East to the events of the First World War. He was speaking just hours after the dramatic removal of Israeli embassy staff in Cairo following riots by Egyptian protesters. According to news reports from the scene, protesters managed [...]
Last weekend, more than 300,000 Israelis protested for economic reform throughout the country. In Tel Aviv, the epicentre of the housing protests, 250,000 Israelis marched to the defence ministry chanting the slogan “the people want social justice”. The demonstrations were some of the largest in Israel’s history and have pumped new life into the corpse of Israel’s leftist political movement. But the one issue glaringly missing from these demonstrations demanding “social justice” is the most urgent [...]
This article was jointly written by Dahlia Scheindlin and Joseph Dana, based on our shared experiences of the protests. The popular, mass protests here that began as a cry of rage against housing prices have evolved admirably into a public outcry against a slew of deep-rooted problems in Israeli social and economic life. Visiting the tent [...]