( Middle East Monitor) – How has Benjamin Netanyahu managed to serve as Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister? With a total of 15 years in office, he has surpassed the 12-year mandate of Israel’s founding father, David Ben Gurion. The answer to this question will become particularly critical for future Israeli leaders who hope to emulate […]
Despite massive losses, the Palestinians have altered the course of history
( Middle East Monitor) – The “Palestinian Revolt of 2021” will go down in history as one of the most influential events to have shaped collective thinking irreversibly in and around Palestine. Only two other events can be compared with what has just transpired: the revolt of 1936 and the 1987 First Intifada. The general […]
Netanyahu thought Ethnically Cleansing Sheikh Jarrah would Unite Israeli Right; Instead it United Palestinians
(Middle East Monitor) – From the outset, some clarification regarding the language used to depict the ongoing violence in occupied Palestine, and also throughout Israel. This is not a ‘conflict’. Neither is it a ‘dispute’ nor ‘sectarian violence’ nor even a war in the traditional sense. It is not a conflict, because Israel is an […]
“Much Worse than Apartheid”: Israel’s Discourse on Palestine is Crumbling
On April 27, one of the world’s largest and most credible rights groups, Human Rights Watch (HRW), concluded, in a comprehensive 213-pages report, that Israel is an apartheid state. “Across these areas and in most aspects of life, Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians. Laws, policies, and statements by leading Israeli […]
Is Grassroots American Activism Shifting Public Opinion toward the Palestinians?
( Middle East Monitor) – At a recent J Street Conference online, US Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren broke yet another political taboo when they expressed willingness to leverage US military aid as a way of putting pressure on Israel to respect Palestinian human rights. Sanders believes that the US “must be willing to […]
Israel’s Latest Election produces no Clear Winner, except the far Right and the Occupation
( Middle East Monitor ) – A “major setback” was the recurring theme in many news headlines reporting on the outcome of Israel’s General Election last week. While this referred specifically to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to secure a decisive victory in the country’s fourth election in two years, it is only part of […]
Law of the Occupier: Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians of East Jerusalem
( Middle East Monitor) – A Palestinian man, Atef Yousef Hanaysha, was killed by Israeli occupation forces on 19 March during a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlement expansion in Beit Dajan, near Nablus, in the northern West Bank. Although tragic, this news reads like a routine item from occupied Palestine, where the shooting and […]
Imagining Palestine: Literature and the Language of Exile
( Middle East Monitor ) – For Palestinians, exile is not simply the physical act of being removed from their homeland and their inability to return. It is not a casual topic pertaining to politics and international law, either. Nor is it an ethereal notion, a sentiment, a poetic verse. It is all of this […]
The Palestinian boycott of Israel is not racist, it is anti-racist
( Middle East Monitor ) – The claims made by Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang in a recent op-ed in the Jewish weekly The Forward, point to the prevailing ignorance that continues to dominate the US discourse on Palestine and Israel. Yang is a former Democratic Presidential candidate and is vying for […]