Following appeared in the Jordan Times newspaper

By Daoud Kuttab

AMMAN — Sometimes it is difficult to remember the daily suffering of Palestinians living under occupation.

The wars and turmoil all around us tend to divert our attention from genuinely terrible issues that might seem mundane when compared to the wars in Syria or Yemen. But the human tragedy in Palestine is real, even if it is not headline news.

Take, for example, the case of Khaled Abu Arafeh, Ahmad Ottwan, Mohammed Totah and Mohammad Abu Tier, who have been denied their birthright to live in Jerusalem and are forced to reside in nearby Ramallah without any documentation.

Their crime is that they were elected (in the case of Abu Arafeh, minister) following the victory of the pro-Hamas parliamentary list in 2006.

For 10 years, they have been fighting their case in the Israeli courts, and were imprisoned three times. Their main sin (as per the Israeli prosecutor) is that theyhave not shown loyalty to the state of Israel.

East Jerusalem, the birthplace of these men, was unilaterally annexed by Israel shortly after the 1967 occupation. No country in the world has recognized this annexation.

Further south, there is the case of the villagers of Susya, a rural community south of Hebron that the Israeli forces have been using for military exercises.

When the villagers complained to the Israeli high court, it ruled in favor (you guessed it) of the army, not of the third-class Palestinians living on their lands.

In April 2002, Israel surrounded the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in an attempt to arrest a group of Palestinians who had decided to hide there. After intensive negotiations, Israel agreed to allow the 39 Palestinians temporary free passage to various locations. Thirteen were sent to different European countries and 26 were sent to Gaza. Continue Reading »