Ghaleb’s father, Rabah (48) worked in Israel as a laborer from 1977 until 2000, when he was no longer allowed to work there. He now has a job in a factory that manufactures solar heating tanks. He has provided well for his large family, his wife Mayada, his two oldest married sons, both waiters in Ramallah and living with him in the family compound. He has one married daughter who lives in Safa. Another is a sophomore at Birzeit University studying psychology. His five youngest children are all in school. Read more about Portraits of Palestinian Resistance: Ghaleb Rabah 'Allan
Ja’far’s father, Khaled, a truck driver and the father of four other sons and two daughters, was in a village called Naleen west of Ramallah when he got the frantic call from one of his neighbors. Ja’far, who had been taking driving lessons in Ramallah in the past few weeks, was there on the afternoon of May 24th for his driving test. To pay the fess of the test, he had just borrowed 350 NIS from his younger brother Hussein (20), a waiter at a restaurant in downtown Ramallah. Read more about Portraits of Palestinian Resistance: Ja'far Khaled Betillo
Refugee Camps all over the West Bank and Gaza are targets of frequent Israeli attacks. Al-Am’ari Refugee Camp, where Milad was born and where he lived with his family (refugees from Jaffa) until he was killed by the Israelis at the age of 19, is no exception. The Camp is on the outskirts of Ramallah and has seen its share of tragedies. Its approximately 6000 refugees are under siege, increasingly unable to provide for themselves. Al-Am’ari camp boasts of its share of Israeli air and land raids, home demolitions, bombs, as well as “wanted”, imprisoned and martyred men, women and children. Read more about Portraits of Palestinian Resistance: Milad Attallah Abu Al-Arayes
Palestinian resistance to the occupation comes in many shapes and forms, some of which involves armed resistance undertaken by organized groups with various ideologies. These groups are composed of barely trained young men who pit their meager and crude resources against one of the best trained and best equipped military body in the world, the Israeli Occupation Forces. Of the 76 Israeli soldiers who died in 2005, only six were killed as a result of Palestinian attacks. Read more about Portraits of Palestinian Resistance: Introduction
The Israelis call it a war, but it is really a contemptible and cruel cat and mouse game, with the mouse firmly held under the cat’s paw or locked up in a cage to which the cat has free and easy access. A case in point is Israel’s death squad murder of six Palestinians in Jenin and Qabatiya last week. Yet despite the odds stacked against them, writes EI contributor Rima Merriman, Palestinians know they have no option but to hold fast and continue to demand their rights under international law, and to figure out a way to make Israel pay a moral and material price for the destruction and suffering it is wreaking on them. Read more about A cruel cat and mouse game
While the Palestinians are manoeuvring feverishly in reaction to the latest developments dropped in their fishbowl, Israel quietly but forcefully continues its sustained policy of seizing and maintaining control over the West Bank, its land and natural resources. In face of this onslaught and international apathy and complicity, writes EI contributor Rima Merriman, pleading for fulfilment of international obligations to the Palestinians is pointless. Palestinians should put all their energies, instead, into finding ways to contain and reverse Israeli military practices that target their land and natural resources. Read more about Flattening the conflict
Palestinian newspapers are full of the faces of the new Palestinian government, smart men and one woman, who will come in to lead an already impossible task. There is not one terrorist among them, but that makes no difference to the US which has already started undermining the new government in the name, outrageously, of promoting “the development of democratic institutions in areas under the administrative control of the Palestinian Authority, and for other purposes”. This is the language of an anti-Palestinian bill (H.R. 4681) just introduced in the US House of Representatives. Rima Merriman suggests a rewrite. Read more about Rewriting H.R. 4681 so that it actually produces peace
It is only a matter of time before West Bankers start blasting holes in the wall Israel has built to contain them as though they were cattle. Right now, they seem to be satisfied with spraying graffiti on the wall and painting whimsical scenes of ladders and windows or representations of holes. On the Gaza Strip, in the fine tradition of great prison-escape movies, Hamas blasted a hole in the wall north of Rafah a few days ago to help people through. Islamic Jihad blasted a hole about a mile down the wall shortly after that. EI contributor Rima Merriman notes that Palestinians are refusing to read the lines Israel has written for them in a nightmarish script. Read more about The Palestinian 'Great Escape'
As with all dialects spoken by people who are close to the land in their daily cycle, the fallahee Palestinian dialect has a homely feel to it. Like the embroidered dresses that older fallahee women still wear in Palestinian refugee camps, villages and cities, this dialect, with its warmth and earthiness, is a national locus for a people whose identity the Zionist project in the Middle East has long tried to suppress, writes EI contributor Rima Merriman. In a PR stunt, Israel has placed people at checkpoints who speak the Palestinian dialect. But despite the smooth talk, what is Israel really saying to the people of Palestine? Read more about With Jerusalem not its capital
In Gaza and north of the West Bank, the Israelis are taking down what should never have been put up in the first place (their illegal settlements), all the while muttering, “they haven’t made us do it; we are doing it on our own”. On the West Bank, the Israelis are busy constructing what must in future be taken down and the US taxpayer is footing the bill! Day by day, what will have to be dismantled grows, concrete slab by concrete slab, what has to be “withdrawn” proliferates, and there is no one to stop it or even to protest against it. Read more about History's Greatest Reoccuring Hoax: Colonization "For Security Reasons"
