Last week, I landed in Washington, DC, brimming with optimism. Upon arrival, I was whisked into a separate room. An American official informed me that he had just received information about me that he could not reveal. However, it required him to put me on the next plane home. I was shocked. And I was taken aback at the cruelty of snatching away my educational dreams at the last possible moment. Fulbright scholarship recipient Fidaa Abed comments. Read more about Fulbright or McCarthy for Palestinian students?
RAMALLAH (IRIN) - A newly formed Ramallah-based “Palestinian community foundation” said it is looking to change the way aid is given, so that more sections of society benefit from international donations and less money goes to waste. “We don’t want to get rid of foreign aid; we want to reform it, so it is in line with the Palestinians’ priorities,” said Nora Lester Murad from the Dalia Association. Read more about Palestinian group seeks to change aid dynamics
“The moment I stepped into the camps here in Lebanon, I thought I was in Palestine,” Arab-American filmmaker Jackie Salloum said after a 6 August nighttime screening in the Shatila refugee camp of her documentary, Slingshot Hip Hop. “I hope people living in Beirut come to see the film,” Salloum said anxiously before a previous screening on 5 August in the Burj al-Barajne refugee camp. Read more about Slingshot Hip Hop comes to Lebanon
RAMALLAH, West Bank (IPS) - Over a hundred Fatah fighters loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement fled to the West Bank from Gaza last week, fearing for their lives at the hands of Hamas, the Islamic movement which took over the Gaza Strip in June 2007 after it routed Fatah forces. Read more about Gaza and West Bank in muddied separation
On Sunday, hundreds of Hamas supporters, many stranded Gaza patients, students and travelers, took part in a rally at the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing terminal in southern Gaza, against the continued closure of the terminal for the past 14 months and calling on Egypt to reopen it. The attendees blamed the Egyptian leadership for the terminal closure, saying that this crossing, Gaza’s sole outlet to the outside world, should be opened under joint Palestinian-Egyptian control. Rami Almeghari reports from Gaza. Read more about Challenging the siege from Rafah to Cyprus
Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani13 August 2008
CAIRO (IPS) - With Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s recent resignation announcement, the self-proclaimed Jewish state is headed for new leadership. Egyptian commentators, though, entertain few hopes that Olmert’s successor — whoever he or she may be — will temper Israel’s hard-line approach to the peace process. Read more about "Israeli policy won't change with a new PM"
At a time when many feel that the Palestinian cause is dying, the death of the poet Mahmoud Darwish following open-heart surgery acquires added poignancy. Variously described as “the Palestinian national poet” or “the Arab poet laureate, Darwish was 67, exactly the same age as his friend Edward Said when he died five years ago. Both men were seen as embodying the aspirations of their people, both served on the Palestinian National Council, and both resigned in protest against the Oslo Accords which, as they rightly anticipated, sold out Palestinian rights for no tangible result. Raymond Deane comments. Read more about A guest of eternity: Mahmoud Darwish in memoriam
EASTJERUSALEM, West Bank (IPS) - Palestinians from all ranks of society have pulled together to tackle the issue of AIDS, despite the increasing factional violence and chaos in the Palestinian territories. Hamas, which has authority in Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority in charge of the West Bank, and Christian and Muslim leaders, in conjunction with various UN organizations and non-governmental organizations, have worked together to ensure that the Palestinian territories retain a very low rate of HIV and AIDS infection. Read more about Unity has ensured low HIV and AIDS infection rates
If ever anyone in history deserved the title of a Poet Laureate, it was indeed Mahmoud Darwish, who spoke the mind of his people in a way I doubt anyone has ever been able to do for any other people. Today, I wake up missing my voice. The real travesty of Darwish’s death is that it revealed to me that he is no longer there to eloquently express to me how I feel about such travesties. Saifedean Ammous comments. Read more about Mahmoud Darwish: Palestine's prophet of humanism
From the moment Georgia launched a surprise attack on the tiny breakaway region of South Ossetia last week, prompting a fierce Russian counterattack, Israel has been trying to distance itself from the conflict. This is understandable: with Georgian forces on the retreat, large numbers of civilians killed and injured, and Russia’s fury unabated, Israel’s deep involvement is severely embarrassing. Ali Abunimah comments. Read more about Tel Aviv to Tbilisi: Israel's role in the Russia-Georgia war
