Jennifer Jajeh’s critically acclaimed one-woman show, I Heart Hamas and Other Things I am Afraid to Tell You, pulls no punches. From a Ramallah Convention in San Francisco in the 1980s, to casting lines in contemporary Los Angeles, to the front lines of the Israeli occupation and back, Jajeh navigates the complicated and often conflicted terrain of Palestinian identity. The Electronic Intifada contributor Uda Olabarria Walker interviews Jajeh about her work. Read more about Pushing the boundaries of identity: an interview with Jennifer Jajeh
The New York Times’ Jerusalem bureau chief lives on property Israel seized from Palestinian refugees forced to leave their homes during the Nakba in 1948. EI’s Ali Abunimah reveals for the first time details of The Times’ acquisition and use of this property and the story of the Palestinian family whose home it was. What are the implications for its reporting of a case that places the “newspaper of record” at the heart of the Palestine conflict? Read more about NY Times' Jerusalem property makes it protagonist in Palestine conflict
IDNA, occupied West Bank (IPS) - Israel’s illegal occupation and continued expropriation of Palestinian land in the West Bank has left 2.5 million Palestinians living there with effectively less than 40 percent of the territory. Muhammad al-Bedan, 55, a vegetable farmer with 14 children, struggles to support his family on just over $600 dollars a month. Read more about Palestinians excluded from bulk of occupied West Bank
Ivor Dembina’s one-man show This is Not a Subject for Comedy has been running, growing and developing for more than five year, dealing with Dembina’s upbringing in a 1960s “mainstream Jewish household” broadly supporting the Zionist cause. Set to perform before the British House of Commons, Dembina was recently interviewed by The Electronic Intifada contributor Sarah Irving. Read more about "The ground is shifting": An interview with comedian Ivor Dembina
CAIRO (IPS) - Activists and opposition groups are stepping up pressure on the Egyptian government to stop constructing a barrier along the border with the Gaza Strip. Officials say the barrier will prevent cross-border smuggling, but critics say it will seal the fate of the people on the Gaza Strip. On 13 February, hundreds of activists from across the political spectrum convened in downtown Cairo to protest construction of the barrier. Read more about Egyptian opposition grows against government's Gaza barrier
Leaders of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University have condemned and then defended statements by Martin Kramer, one of the center’s fellows, which endorsed a cut off of UN food and other humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugee children besieged in the Gaza Strip as a means to reduce the Palestinian birthrate and thus the Palestinian population. Read more about Harvard center condemns, then defends, fellow's pro-genocide statements
I have been to Hebron three times, but each visit was like entering a different city. In May of 1967, the entire West Bank including Hebron was under Jordanian rule. On the occasion of the anniversary of the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, Iris Keltz recalls her three visits to Hebron since the days before Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967. Read more about Four decades of occupation in Hebron
The Israeli government and its right-wing supporters have been waging a “McCarthyite” campaign against human rights groups by blaming them for the barrage of international criticism that has followed Israel’s attack on Gaza a year ago, critics say. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Israel subjecting rights groups to "McCarthy techniques"
Our sobering taste of life in Hebron included other devastating stories and the presence of Israeli guard towers, camouflage netting, checkpoints, a wall spray painted with graffiti that included a tribute to the Golani brigade, one of the Israeli army’s most aggressively violent units, and to Betar, a right-wing youth organization. I passed a concrete block obstructing the road, spray painted with an arrow and the words “This is apartheid.” Alice Rothchild writes from Hebron. Read more about Hebron's living hell
Members of prominent Palestinian families from Jerusalem came out last week in protest against plans by the Simon Wiesenthal Center to build a Museum of Tolerance on top of part of the ancient Mamilla Cemetery where their ancestors are buried. One family member behind the initiative said it is not just symbolic, but instead a full-blown campaign. Marian Houk reports for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Jerusalem families come out against museum built on ancestors' graves
