Beit Jala is a special town for me. I went to the Hope School at the top of the hill there, and a number of my relatives and in-laws still live in this predominantly Christian town, west of Bethlehem.

Many of the original citizens of Beit Jala have emigrated to Chile and other Latin American countries and the town is relatively quiet. A settlement, Har Gilo, was built on the top of the Beit Jala mountain, near the Everest restaurant and hotel.

A large section of the townspeople’s land was confiscated during the years of occupation, to make room for the Gilo settlement and the two tunnels that connect the Hebron road with Jerusalem, bypassing Bethlehem and the Daheisheh refugee camp.  Continue Reading »

RAMALLAH, West Bank –– When I passed by the bombed out police station in the center of the Palestinian town of Ramallah, I felt sad. What has happened to the peace process, that Israel has to use U.S.-made Apache helicopters to shell one of the few signs of peace with the Palestinians? The Palestinian Authority’s police station was bombed on Oct. 12, after two Israeli soldiers were killed by a mob of Palestinians who wanted to take revenge for the more than 100 Palestinians killed in the past two weeks by Israeli soldiers.  Continue Reading »

The title of this article, “Three million hostages,” may surprise some, but this is actually what has happened to the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza during the past few weeks. These Palestinians have become prisoners in their own country. Movement between cities and towns was completely forbidden, as was the movement across the Jordan River bridge, the Gaza airport, and the land crossing with Egypt. Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport was also forbidden to Palestinians. This procedure was not limited to those wishing to exit but also applied to those who happened to be outside the area when this arbitrary decision was made. Unlike previous times when such radical steps were taken, the Israelis made no attempt to describe this action as a security precaution. This was collective punishment.  Continue Reading »

The year was 1994, long after the Rabin-Arafat handshake on the White House lawn. The memorandum of understanding between Israel and the PLO had been signed and the details of the areas from which Israel was to withdraw were known.

A Palestinian lawyer decided to use politics rather than law to solve his clients’ problems. His clients were appealing the sealing of their homes by Israel, a collective punishment that is meted out against the families of Palestinians convicted of violent attacks against Israelis.  Continue Reading »

There are plenty of reasons why Palestinians insist on the need for an independent inquiry into the violence of the past two weeks that has resulted in the killing of more than 80 civilian Palestinians, many of them children.  The United States should support this request, which will surely calm the situation on the ground.

Israel wants Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to act like its puppet and order his own people not to protest the illegal occupation of their land. But Arafat is under tremendous public pressure not to allow Israel to get away with this kind of criminal violence against civilians. He will have to produce concrete results before any thought of a return to a peace process can get a footing. An investigation and an effective mechanism to ensure the protection of  the civilian Palestinians is not only necessary but it is the right of people under military occupation according to international law. If Israel is innocent, it should have no reason to worry about the results of such an independent inquiry.  Continue Reading »

The violence in and around Al Aqsa mosque last Thursday and Friday reminded me of the incident 10 years ago (on Oct. 8) when Israeli soldiers killed 17 Palestinians on the compound of Al Haram al Sharif. I remember that incident 10 years ago because it took place one day after the birth of my second daughter Tania. It was also one of the few times that Israeli attempts to manipulate the media were clearly exposed.  Continue Reading »