By Daoud Kuttab

Karam Qubrosi can’t believe that Israel is allowing so many Gazans to travel on the occasion of Easter. “This is a dream come true, especially for many of us in the age group of 18-35,” he told Al-Monitor.

Qubrosi, who plans to settle in the West Bank, said that Israel has been giving permits to various Gazan groups, including businessmen and Muslim worshippers, in recent months. Two hundred Gazans over the age of 60 were permitted to travel to Jerusalem on Feb. 26 for Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque. Permission for similar-sized groups have come every Friday. Some individual travel requests for humanitarian reasons are being granted, but not for groups. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Hundreds of Palestinian dairy and meat farmers find themselves caught in a political struggle between Israel and the Palestinian authorities.

Kamel Mujahed, head of the Palestinian Milk Council, which represents dairy farmers, told Al-Monitor that Palestinian farmers are the first to suffer from this Israeli decision. “Fifty percent of our sales are to consumers in Jerusalem, and by barring our dairy trucks, our farmers are stuck with a very perishable products.”

It is unclear what triggered the unilateral Israeli decision that was implemented without an official announcement or justification. But Jamal Dajani, director of strategic communications at the Palestinian prime minister’s office, told Al-Monitor he believes politics are behind the Israeli decision. “It seems that this act is done in retaliation on the voluntary public Palestinian ban of illegal settlement products and an attempt to further exercise sovereignty over East Jerusalem.” Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

One of the nastiest acts that has emerged since the beginning of the current wave of Palestinian resistance to Israel is the cruel punishment of withholding bodies of dead Palestinians.

Israel is holding the corpses of some 13 Palestinians, some summarily killed by Israeli soldiers, for as long as five months.

Taher Abu Ghazaleh was killed on October 8, 2015. Also held are the bodies of Hassan Manasreh, 15, Alaa Abu Jamal, 32, Bahal Allian 22, Motaz Oweisat, 16, Mohammad Abed Nimr, 37, Omar Iskafi, 21, Abdel Mohsin Hasoneh, 21, Mohammad Abu Khalaf, 20, Fadwa Abu Ter, 51, Foad Abu Rajab, 21, Mohammad Jamal Kaloti, 21, and Abdallah Abu Kharoub, 19.

The dead all come from Jerusalem, old city, and neighbourhoods and suburbs.

Israel’s justification for this vile act is that it wants to prevent Palestinians from celebrating their martyrs whom Israel considers terrorists.

Israel seems to believe that giving these dead people a popular funeral will somehow encourage others to try and stab Israelis so that they can also be hailed as heroes. In addition to the fact that this act is immoral and is considered collective punishment by humanitarian law, the very premise of the Israeli thinking is completely flawed. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish was born on March 13, 1941, in the Galilee village of al-Birweh. Darwish’s birthplace has now been replaced by Jewish settlements. Moshav Ahihud and Kibbutz Yasur now sit where the Palestinian village once stood in northern Israel, east of the port city of Acre. Today, 75 years after his birth, Darwish is being recognized as an Arab international literary icon.

“He was a symbol of the Palestinian struggle and reflected Arab culture. His works and his values encompassed not only his love and defense of Palestine, but also his Arab and universal outlook,” Darraj said.

Darwish embodied the Palestinian revolution like no other poet and was closely associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization and its leader Yasser Arafat. His 1982 poem “Why did you leave the horse alone?” reflected the Palestinian bitterness at Arab abandonment after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He was elected to the PLO’s Executive Committee in 1987, but resigned in 1993 after the signing of the Oslo Accord. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

A substantial survey carried out in Israel, East Jerusalem and among Jewish settlers in the West Bank has shown that Arabs — Muslim, Christian and Druze — are much more religious than Israeli Jews.

The survey further noted that Muslims in Israel are the most religiously observant of the four major religious groups. “A majority (61%) of Muslims say they pray daily, compared with 34% of Christians, 26% of Druze and 21% of Jews. And while 25% of Druze, 27% of Jews and 38% of Christians say they attend religious services at least weekly, roughly half of Israeli Muslims (49%) report that they go to a mosque on at least a weekly basis.”

Pew found that only 15% of adult Muslims in Israel do not fast during Ramadan.

However, Alan Cooperman, director of Religion Research at Pew, told Al-Monitor that overall Arabs in Israel are less religious than in nearby Arab countries. He said, “While 59% of Lebanese Muslims are religious, the share of Muslims in Jordan is 85%, and the same in the Palestinian territories — while 82% of Iraqis say they are religious.” Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Attempts by the Palestinian Authority to arrest Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member Najat Abu Bakr for statements she made alleging corruption by a government minister have ignited a discussion about defamation being a crime and calls for its decriminalization.

Arruri said that by criminalizing defamation, instead of classifying it as a civil matter, the Palestinian government is not using pretrial detention for the purpose of investigating unknown components of a case, but is instead using it as punishment. “Imprisoning journalists or others for what they have said becomes a restriction on their freedom of expression, therefore resulting in self-censorship,” he noted. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The ambitious French idea first suggested by Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius at the end of January of holding an international conference to kick-start the two-state solution process in Paris in July is alive and kicking. A senior Western diplomat in Jerusalem told Al-Monitor that the initiative to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks has been adopted by the new French Foreign Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault.

The three-step approach — which France proposed at the end of January 2016 and includes consultations with Palestinians and Israelis, a spring preparatory meeting of the international working groups and a July conference in Paris — is definitely on track, the diplomat said.

Four days after his appointment on Feb. 15, the French ambassador to Israel, Patrick Maisonnave, met with Israeli Foreign Ministry Political Director Alon Ushpiz, visited the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem and officially presented the plan. In a statement following the meeting, Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said, “Israel supports direct negotiations with the Palestinians but opposes any attempt to predetermine the outcome of negotiations.” Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

A big question is looming regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: How serious is the French initiative that aims at leading an international effort to help kick start negotiations on the two-state solution?

Equally important is to figure out where exactly Washington stands on this proposal.

When the Obama administration said publicly that it did not expect the two-state solution to happen under President Barack Obama’s watch, was that a hint and a wink to Europe to take a lead role?

While second term US presidents are usually free of pressure from pro-Israel lobbyists, some believe that Obama spent all his political capital on the Iran nuclear deal and is not interested in dealing with a case with questionable potential for success.

The French initiative of former prime minister Laurent Fabius appears to have gained (rather than lose) steam after his departure and replacement with Jean-Marc Ayrault. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

In the battle of wills between Israel and the international community there comes a time and a place where this will is tested.

The Israeli occupation and colonisation of Palestine is a creeping endeavour largely built on the attempt to wear out the other side and create facts on the ground.

The Israeli game plan is based on the idea of making its presence in the entire historic land of Palestine (which it calls Eretz Yisrael) so permanent that Palestinians would simply give up on their dream and right of independence on their national soil.

The international community, which has largely given lip service to the two-state solution, understands now more than ever that it is simply not enough to make declarations and repeat its opposition to Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

The time has come to draw a line in the sand and insist that enough is enough.

Israel’s lust for Palestinian land has no limits and this appetite to take over land and turn it into exclusive Jewish colonies is seen now, more than ever, by the world for what it is: unbridled, ugly, land theft. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The possibility of a game-changing series of Israeli settlements east of Jerusalem has raised alarm bells in various departments of the Palestinian government. The area in question, commonly referred to as E1, threatens to physically cut off from the north and the south of the West Bank from one another.

E1 is an area of 12 square kilometers (4.6 square miles), stretching from the north and the west of the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim in the West Bank. In a report published Dec. 28 after a two-year legal battle in response to a freedom of information request, Peace Now said that 8,372 settler homes are envisioned for the strategic area known as E1.

Israel’s independent daily Haaretz reported Feb. 21 that Israeli forces have razed over 200 EU-funded buildings in the West Bank in the past two years. This year alone, around 480 people, including 220 children, have been left homeless. Continue Reading »