By Daoud Kuttab
 
Orphanages are notorious the world over for being a very sensitive place. Losing one or both parents is a shocking and highly emotional condition. Having the same young parentless children living away from the warmth of a natural home produces even more trauma and tends to make such children more vulnerable.
 
It is therefore highly troubling when one discovers adults and even fellow orphans physically and sexually abuse such defenseless children with very few deterrents. This was some of the conclusions that a pair of Jordanian investigative journalists working for months under the supervision of the ARIJ team discovered. The report filling two full pages appeared in the independent daily Al Ghad on December 28, 2009. Reports supervised by Arij are screened and approved by a competent lawyer before being presented for publication.
  Continue Reading »

Although the Arabic word karameh simply means dignity, it has become an expression that has many more usages and meanings.

Karameh is also a Jordan Valley town in the Shuna District which witnessed a fierce battle against the Israelis. The date was March 21, 1968, and the Israeli army was trying to stem attacks by Palestinian fedayeen coming across the Jordan River into areas occupied by Israel. In its attempts to curtail the guerrilla attacks, the Israelis decided to launch a cross-border attack only to be rejected by brave Palestinian fighters and members of the Jordanian Army. After the battle, King Hussein was quoted as saying “we are all fedayeen”.

Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The latest news about Jordan’s demands that Canada seize the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were on display in Toronto, brings back many childhood memories for me.

For perspective this is what has happened. Jordan has requested Canada to take custody of the scrolls, citing the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, to which both Jordan and Canada are signatories.
Continue Reading »

Following appeared in the Bitterlemons website

A PALESTINIAN VIEW

Jerusalem should be at the center of peace efforts

by Daoud Kuttab

The first decade of the twenty-first century has been a disastrous one for Palestinians. Negotiations efforts were dealt a dramatic blow, historic leaders and potential leaders were killed, assassinated or imprisoned and, worst of all, the scourge of internal strife returned to Palestinians in the form of the destructive Hamas-Fateh division.

If the 1980s and 1990s witnessed a relatively non-violent first Palestinian uprising and a breakthrough mutual recognition between the PLO and Israel, the first ten years of the third millennium were violent and destructive. The decades-long hard work and sacrifice of Palestinians, Israelis and international supporters of peace evaporated almost overnight. Continue Reading »