“Children are a heritage from the Lord, Offspring a reward from Him” Psalms 127:3

Our youngest daughter Dina, tied the knot with, Jason Kerkvliet, three public times in 2024 starting with an engagement at her uncle Danny and Rania’s New Jersey home in April.

Following the April engagement, the family celebrated baby Daoud Bishara Kuttab’s first birthday and grandpa Daoud’s 69th birthday at Bishara’s Philadelphia home.

This was followed by a big wedding in Amman on August 10th.

Bride and groom at the Alliance Church in Amman

Salam with help from Rania went all out planning the pre-wedding hafleh at our Deir Ghbar home.

Daoud took the men to a Turkish bath. After a wonderful outdoor reception in the Hyatt Hotel in Amman many of the visitors joined the married couple on a post-wedding visit to Petra, Wadi Rum, and the Dead Sea, The well-attended tour provided many of the foreign visitors a rare cultural extravagance.

A wedding blessing was held in St. Thomas Canada December 21st.
In addition to weddings and engagements Daoud and Salam’s Amman home was a stopover for family and friends to and from Palestine. Dina Awad-Wong, whose last visit was weeks before the passing of our loving cousin Bishara’s wife Salwa whom Daoud saw on a visit to Beit Jala weeks before her passing away in July. Sami also stopped by on his way to Sir Lanka for a badly needed and well-earned vacation.

Salam’s work as director general of the Alliance Academy Jordan (AAJ) consumed all her waking hours except for three weeks late in July and early August. She and her team put extensive work into the process leading to the accreditation of the American High School diploma, which added a new option to the British curriculum they have been offering. She was happy when auditors validating their work asked her and her staff the question: What is your secret, about the amazing work that is taking place at the school which combines high-level education available to all children including children with disabilities in an inclusive wholesome environment.

Daoud’s radio station moved to a new location in Dahiat al Rashid which was convenient for the station and the staff but farther from Daoud’s daily trip. His new electric Hyundai Kona car and a selection of audiobooks have made the trip easier.

As Salam was busy with school and wedding preparations Daoud decided to write a book State of Palestine NOW, which he self-published on Amazon and is translating into several languages (German, French, and Spanish) with possibly Hebrew and Arabic versions later on. Please give Daoud’s book stars and if you can write a short review.

Tamara and Alaa’s girls, Yasmeen and Dalia were flower girls at both weddings. Qasasfa’s newborn Ameer also spent time with us before the two weddings. Ameer is a very easygoing baby; he is always ready to go wherever the family goes. His first word was “Mama,” much to Tamara’s pleasure. He has the cutest crawl, crawling on one knee and using his foot to push the other side. He has been walking around furniture, giving kisses, waving to everyone, and saying “bye” as a warning anytime he wants to go up the stairs on their recent trip to the USA. Dalia loves her third-grade teacher and has been making new friends at school. She has a strong memory of what she learned in school. She comes back knowing how to do all her homework and memorized all her tests from class.

Yasmeen has been enjoying fifth grade. She is dedicated to learning and doing well at school. Her favorite subjects are Math and Spelling. She loves school most so she can spend time with her best friend. This year, she had midterms for the first time and showed perseverance in studying ahead of time for most subjects. Tamara has decided to stay home and care for Ameer and the family. She has become the family driver, taking the girls back and forth to school, a 40-minute drive each way. She’s also working on finishing the master’s degree she started four years ago and hopes to finish it in the next two years. Alaa has continued to work at the Bible college, adding new evening classes this year. He has enjoyed teaching various subject teachers more about the Bible and ancient history.

Bishara, Zohra, and baby Daoud were also able to attend the Amman wedding after a long absence. It was Zohra and Baby Daoud’s first visit to Jordan. After the wedding, Zohra and baby Daoud went to see her family in Algiers while Bishara was able to visit Palestine after years of absence.

Tania and Samuel’s boys Saleem and Karam were ring boys at the weddings and along with their father Samuel enjoyed the reception and looked good in the red tarboosh hat at Amman’s wedding’s final indoor dance.

Tania’s work with GIZ and Samuel’s produce work have kept them busy but their visits to Amman were exceptionally happy and joyful to grandparents and grandkids alike.

2024 ended with a pre-Christmas wedding/blessing and a family get-together in Canada

and a larger Kuttab family get-together at Danny and Rania’s New Jersey home for New Year’s.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and ask you to make a prayer with us for peace and justice in our region

“Glory to God in the Highest and on earth peace among people with whom He is pleased.” Luke 2:14

Bishos Bakery and Café
Roosevelt Mall, Philadelphia, PA
American Colony Hotel Bookshop, Jerusalem
Educational Book shop, Jerusalem
Bethlehem Bible College, Bethlehem
Sharbain Bookstore, Ramallah
Books@Cafe, Amman
Readers, Cozmos, Amman

By Daoud Kuttab

The leading speech by Palestinian president at the seventh Fatah congress was planned for six pm on Tuesday. Before he was to take the podium, a number of visitors wanted to say a few words. They included the head of the socialist international, the UN peace envoy, Egyptian and Jordanian officials. The speakers continued to ask to say a few words of support and by seven thirty, Abbas decided that it was best to postpone his speech.  The outpouring of Arab and international support was exactly what Abbas needed and he was not going to allow his own speech to restrain those who wanted to speak. Speakers continued until nine thirty to express support for Palestinians and to Fatah as the leading movement for Palestine’s liberation.

The words of support were exactly what Abbas needed after he had taken a major gamble by insisting on the independence of his movement despite tremendous political and financial pressure from friendly Arab countries that were pushing for the repatriation of renegade Gaza-born leader Mohammad Dahlan.

Abbas gambled that if he can stand up to these pressures and actually hold the seventh congress, most of the same countries will quickly change course and express support for the Palestinian leader and his movement. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The 1,500-plus delegates of the seventh Fatah congress, the next generation of Palestinian leaders, will be relatively younger (in their 40s and 50s) and more representative of the occupied territories than the current leadership. The congress, to be held Nov. 29 in Ramallah, will agree on a political platform and an action plan for the Palestinian struggle and elect the new members of the movement’s Revolutionary Council and the Central Committee. Currently, the 22 members of Fatah’s Central Committee and 100 members of the Revolutionary Council are older and represent leaders who returned to Palestine after the 1993 Oslo Accord such as Mahmoud Abbas, Abu Maher Ghneim, Abbas Zaki and Mahmoud al-Aloul.

Notably, the sixth congress was held in Bethlehem in 2009 after a 20-year lull in meetings.

Congressional delegates vote using secret ballots. The once secretive liberation movement published the names of its delegates to the Nov. 29 congress, giving the world a glimpse at the next crop of Fatah leaders. The most prominent feature of the list was its exclusion of renegade Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan and his supporters.

A quantitative look at the delegates shows that about 1,100 of the 1,500 voters, or 73%, come from the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. Less than 400 delegates reside outside Palestine. Furthermore, 167, or 11%, of delegates are women, and 33, or 2%, are Christian. One delegate, Uri Davis, an Israeli Jew, was elected to the Revolutionary Council during the sixth congress in 2009. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The date Nov. 15, 1988, is a special one for Palestinians. On that day, the Palestinian National Council (PNC), the Palestinians’ parliament in exile, convened in the Algerian capital of Algiers and adopted the Palestinian Declaration of Independence. It was almost one year into the relatively nonviolent intifada that shook up Israel and the world.

PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi told Al-Monitor how the declaration had been largely drafted by distinguished professor Edward Said and Palestinian poet laureate Mahmoud Darwish, both now deceased. “Said, who along with [prominent academic] Ibrahim Abu-Lughod was in contact with the Americans, contributed to it,” said Ashrawi. “He wanted the declaration to contain a number of principles that appear in the US Constitution, but it was Darwish who drafted the final text that was read in Arabic.”

The idea of the declaration reflected the aspirations of local leaders of the intifada, including Faisal Husseini of Jerusalem. Ashrawi believes the document should not have been called a declaration. “It should have been announced as a body of principles that would define the nature of our state and the basis of our future constitution,” she said. “It was a courageous and astute statement that succeeded in gaining the support of all Palestinians.”

Ashrawi, who served as spokesperson for the Palestinian delegation to the 1991 Madrid peace conference, said that the declaration represented major Palestinian concessions. She explained, “It included Palestinian acceptance of the UN partition plan of 1947, but unfortunately it was not reciprocated with similar seriousness by Israel and the world, which continued to move the goal posts and make further demands of Palestinians.” Continue Reading »

Prominent Palestinian politicians and economists in the Palestinian territories appear to be totally unfazed by threats that the Republicans in both houses of Congress and in the Donald Trump administration might cut off aid to the Palestinian government.

Mustafa Barghouti, an elected Palestinian legislator, told Al-Monitor that the United States has already reduced aid to the Palestinian government. “In the past two years, we have seen a steady decline in financial support coming from Washington to the Palestinian government. Some of the remaining aid coming from the United States is going directly to local governments, and the rest is distributed to civil society organizations by USAID [US Agency for International Development].”

A US official confirmed Barghouti’s statement, telling the Wall Street Journal Nov. 16 that US funding, which goes straight to the Palestinian government’s creditors, “has dropped from about $100 million in 2014 to roughly $75 million in 2015.”

Barghouti, the secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, has a number of questions about the aims of USAID. “With USAID, a large chunk of the money is spent as overhead on US-based organizations, and it is not clear what their [the organization’s] goals are in Palestine.”

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal published Nov. 13 called on both the Barack Obama and Trump administrations to “stop aid to terrorists.” The conservative newspaper supported legislation in the US Congress that would “stop the flow of US tax dollars to terrorists.”

According to the British daily The Sun, the United Kingdom temporarily suspended in October some of the aid to Palestinians based on claims that “UK aid supposedly paying for civil servants in Gaza was being transferred to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation,” and is making its way to what the paper called “terrorists.” Continue Reading »