I have always tried my best to differentiate between Jews and Israelis. It bothers me when Palestinians use these two terms interchangeably.

Every time I cross the Jordan River, I overhear people talking on their cell phones, saying how they just got into the Jewish side, left the Jewish side, or were waiting to go through the Jewish side. Such comments can be heard as people approach or leave an Israeli checkpoint or have any other dealings with Israelis.

Religious preachers use the terms interchangeably when referring to negative actions of the Israelis or the lack of trust in Jewish negotiators, etc. Continue Reading »

The hall where a lively debate had taken place for 80 minutes suddenly went silent. A courageous Jordanian journalist had just asked a feisty candidate for Jordan’s parliamentary elections a question rarely asked. “Are you in favor of a constitutional change that will allow prime minister’s to be elected and would curtail the King’s power’s to dissolve the parliament?” asked Hamza Al Soud, Radio al Balad‘s parliamentary reporter.  Continue Reading »

Without any reason, the Israeli government has created a totally artificial problem for all future persons wishing to get citizenship: They will have to pledge allegiance to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

Once again the Israelis are trying to push their internal problems and their hesitation to pay the needed price for peace onto others.

A cartoon in the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth captured the strangeness of the latest Israeli obstacle to the peace process. The cartoon reprinted on a Palestinian web site shows secular Israeli intellectuals rejecting the idea of the Jewishness of Israel and at the same time depicts Orthodox Jewish leaders rejecting the same idea. In the cartoon, right-wing Israeli leader Avigdor Leiberman tries to convince a veiled Palestinian woman to make the pledge in return for giving her citizenship and she accepts. Continue Reading »