Feb
27
2014
Following appeared in the Jordan Times
By Daoud Kuttab
Community media received a major boost in Jordan this week with the launch of the third Aswatona conference at the Dead Sea.
More than 100 community radio activists gathered at the lowest spot on Earth to talk about the challenges of producing, broadcasting and sustaining community owned media, especially radio.
Community radio activists from areas not under the control of the Syrian regime were the stars of the event organised by a local Jordanian NGO, Community Media Network, and the UK-based Community Media Solutions in association with Jordan’s Audio Visual Commission and the World Association of Community Broadcasters.
Broadcasting radio in the Middle East and North Africa is a huge challenge. The post-colonial region witnessed many revolts and military coups that always included taking over national radio.
New powers were careful not to allow others to own radio stations so as not to have them do what they did when they took power. Continue Reading »
Feb
27
2014
By Daoud Kuttab
In a powerful and comprehensive report, the global human rights organization Amnesty International has sharply criticized Israeli soldiers for their reckless use of force in putting down nonthreatening Palestinian demonstrations. The report calls on Israel to stop using lethal force against Palestinian demonstrators and rescind military orders that reject Palestinian rights to freedom of expression and assembly. It also called on the Palestinian Authority and the PLO to “sign and ratify, without reservations, international human rights treaties including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.â€
Publishing a damning report on Israel at a time when the world is busy with Syria and Ukraine will no doubt help shift attention back to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It also adds a powerful element to the political discussion, namely the need for Western powers to stop selling weapons to Israel because of its flagrant violation of human rights and its war crimes that have been taking place undetected. The fact that a major international organization like Amnesty International is supporting the weapons boycott of Israel is a major political breakthrough.
The 87-page research report, citing UN figures, titled “Trigger-Happy, Israel’s Use of Excessive Force in the West Bank,” reveals the Israeli military’s disregard for Palestinian human life. It includes field investigations of 22 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank killed by Israeli soldiers in 2013. A further 261 Palestinians, among them 67 children, were injured by live ammunition in the period 2011-13. The number of killings and injuries in 2013 were a sharp increase of previous years. Most of the cases documented involved young people below the age of 25, and included four children. Continue Reading »
Feb
27
2014
By Daoud Kuttab
The current Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, planned to last nine months, have one month left to produce a peace treaty. Palestinian officials are on record as refusing to extend the talks, while the Israelis are sending clear messages that they want the talks to be extended. In a statement made to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, the presidential spokesman outlined two issues that the Palestinians have a problem with.
“We will not accept a Palestinian state without East Jerusalem as its capital. We will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” Nabil Abu Rdeineh, the official spokesperson of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, was quoted as saying.
While Abu Rdeineh highlighted these two hot button issues, a more serious discussion is going on behind the scenes about the issue of land swaps. Ever since the Camp David II summit, while Palestinians have consistently called for the 1967 borders to be the perimeter of their state, Abbas and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat both publicly and privately have accepted the idea of land swaps. Continue Reading »
