Samir Awad is an American Palestinian architectural engineer. He has been working with the Kansas City bases Engineering company for the past five years where he lives with his 85-year old grandmother Huda. Earlier this month and because of a change of jobs he decided to pay his parents in Bethlehem a visit. Last Sunday, a day before he had to start his new job, he headed for Ben Gurion airport to take the KLM flight headed for Kansas City. But his trip was not to take place. He was refused travel by the Israeli security at the airport. His American passport couldn’t help him. He was told Palestinians were banned from travel as a result of the Egged bus incident in Tel Aviv a few days earlier. Continue Reading »

A group of residents of Ramallah and Al Bireh whose homes are adjacent to the Jewish settlement Psagaot seem to have found the third way. Forced to choose between opposition to the Israelis who are daily bombarding their homes with an assortment of guns and shells, or turn against their own people they chose a different route. Continue Reading »

While the rest of the world is trying to figure out what its response to the overwhelming victory of Ariel Sharon, I conducted my own unscientific survey of Palestinian reaction to the results of the Israeli elections. I chose to get the reaction of television broadcasters knowing full well that they more than anyone else have their fingers of the pulse of the Palestinian public.

While predictions varied none went to the level of deep concern and their was no alarmist tone in the expectations of Palestinians. Continue Reading »

The buzz word this week in Palestine has been the need to fight corruption. You see reference to this issue in the press, on the Internet, in leaflets as well as by word of mouth.

I was surprised when I saw a fax signed by the anticorruption unit of Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs calling on Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to weed out corruption in Palestinian society. The leaflet didn’t settle for generalities, but it named a senior Palestinian banker whom the group accused of transferring some $12.6 million it claimed were meant for those who were suffering from the recent situation to an account outside of the area.  Continue Reading »