July 21st, 20170By Ramzy Baroud
Early October 2016, Misbah Abu Sbeih left his wife and five children at home and then drove to an Israeli police station in occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem.
The 39-year-old Jerusalemite was scheduled to hand himself over to serve a term of four months in jail for, allegedly, trumped up charges of "trying to hit...
June 12th, 20170JERUSALEM — Israel has advanced plans for a further 1,500 homes in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, Peace Now, an Israeli non-profit organization advocating for a two-state solution, said on Thursday, the second such announcement in a week.
More than 3,000 units have been advanced this week, a spokeswoman for the group...
June 10th, 20171DEARBORN — The 1967 Six Day War was one of the most salient events of the Arab-Israeli conflict, its effect evident through its shaping of Israeli and Arab political discourse.
While its byproducts continue to resonate, the events of the Six Day War are solidified largely through oration and narrative.
"There's historical...
June 1st, 20170WASHINGTON — President Trump signed an order on Thursday to keep the U.S. Embassy in Israel in Tel Aviv temporarily instead of relocating it to Jerusalem, despite his campaign pledge to go ahead with the controversial move.
After months of fierce debate within his administration, Trump chose to continue his predecessors' policy of...
May 19th, 20170The Israeli Knesset (parliament) has hurriedly passed a new bill that defines Israel as the "national home of the Jewish people." Although the association between Jewishness and Israel goes back to the foundation of the state, the new law also carries clear discriminatory elements that target the country's Arab communities, numbering...
May 19th, 20170WEST BANK — A Palestinian man was killed in the occupied West Bank on Thursday when an Israeli settler opened fire as protesters crowded around his car and pelted it with rocks, according to multiple accounts.
A Reuters photographer and other witnesses said hundreds of Palestinians had gathered near the city of Nablus to show...
May 19th, 20170May 15 marked the 69th year of systematic expulsion and pillaging of Palestinian communities, in addition to the centennial of the Balfour declaration that began the travesty.
In May of 1948 alone, after the Israeli militiamen of the Haganah, Irgun and Palmach liquidated entire villages via massacres, forcing the spared from their...
May 5th, 20170DETROIT — Arab Americans are typically not regarded as a subset of immigrants with a history tied to labor movements.
However, Arab American involvement in labor movements is interwoven within the greater framework of workers' protests in the United States.
This renders Arab American history in the U.S., via its political...
May 5th, 20170Gaza is the world's largest open air prison. The West Bank is a prison, too, segmented into various wards, known as areas A, B and C. In fact, all Palestinians are subjected to varied degrees of military restrictions. At some level, they are all prisoners.
East Jerusalem is cut off from the West Bank, and those in the West Bank are...
May 5th, 20170DEARBORN — More than 1,500 Palestinian prisoners have joined a hunger strike led by Palestinian parliamentarian and prisoner Marwan Barghouti, beginning April 17.
People all over the world showed their solidarity by organizing demonstrations and vigils. Some have participated in the "#SaltWaterChallenge", in which they share videos...
May 4th, 20170WASHINGTON ― President Trump will travel to Saudi Arabia and Israel this month as part of his first foreign trip, wading directly into the tangled diplomacy of Middle Eastern politics, a senior administration official said on Thursday.
The swing through the Middle East, added to a trip that includes a NATO meeting in Brussels on May...
April 30th, 20170BEIRUT — Israeli warplanes struck a weapons supply hub operated by Hezbollah near Damascus airport on Thursday, targeting arms sent from Iran in commercial and military cargo aircraft, Syrian rebel and regional intelligence sources told Reuters.
The Israeli military said later that one of its anti-aircraft missiles intercepted a...
April 29th, 20170Israel has resorted to three main strategies to suppress Palestinian calls for justice and human rights, including the Right of Return for refugees.
One is dedicated to rewriting history; another attempts to distract from present realities altogether and a third aims at reclaiming the Palestinian narrative as essentially an Israeli...
April 20th, 20170BETHLEHEM ― Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian driver who rammed his car into a bus stop in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday injuring a pedestrian, the army and a hospital spokesman said.
An army statement said the car rammed a bus stop at Gush Etzion Junction, a busy intersection near a cluster of Israeli West Bank...
April 17th, 20170WEST BANK ― Hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails began a hunger strike on Monday in response to a call by prominent prisoner Marwan Barghouti, widely seen as a possible future Palestinian president.
Palestinians termed the open-ended strike a protest against poor conditions and an Israeli policy of detention without trial that...
April 8th, 20171Once more, the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 is taking center stage. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas insisted during his speech before the recently concluded Arab League Summit in Jordan that the initiative is the only solution on the table; asserting that it will not be changed or even tweaked.
But why is this...
April 1st, 20170
WASHINGTON, D.C. ― A 55-year old Palestinian-American instructor at a North Carolina community college was “brutally beaten” by members of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) whil
e walking through a protest outside the AIPAC conference in Washington D.C. on Sunday.
The man was identified as Kamal Nayfeh.
The JDL members...
March 31st, 20170WASHINGTON, D.C.— Days before AIPAC’s national policy conference, a wide coalition of groups assembled for a counter-conference in Washington to address Israel’s ongoing P.R. ploy of mobilizing support for its policies and quelling dissent through Congress.
The counter-conference, called “the Israel Lobby and American...
March 30th, 20170JERUSALEM-On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the establishment of Israel's first new settlement in the West Bank in over twenty years.
President Donald Trump's recommendations to Netanyahu to hold off on settlement building contrasted with Netanyahu's pushes to approve settlement building in the West...
March 24th, 20170JERUSALEM — A law barring foreigners from entering Israel if they back boycotts against the country is causing alarm among liberal American Jews and others who perceive an attempt to suppress critical political opinion.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government has long campaigned against the Palestinian-led Boycott,...
March 17th, 20170American ambassadors are stationed in nearly 200 countries across the globe, each of which has a unique relationship with the United States. Depending on the diplomatic conditions and challenges present, an ambassador's responsibilities and functions can vary widely from country to country. At the most fundamental level, however, all...
March 17th, 20170ALBUQUERQUE — Issues affecting the Middle East continued to be brought to light at the 2017 annual general meeting of Amnesty International U.S.A. members, which gathered human rights advocates from around the nation.
The plight of refugees worldwide was commemorated in the #NoBanNoWall campaign— a slogan in defiant response to...
January 29th, 20170
TEL AViV ― Israel has completed successful tests of an advanced version of its 'David's Sling' intermediate missile interceptor system that it is developing jointly with the United States, the Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.
The system is designed to shoot down rockets with ranges of 63 to 125 mile) such as those in the arsenal...
January 26th, 20170
WASHINGTON — In his last hours in office, the Obama administration transferred $221 million to the Palestinian Authority that despite opposition from GOP members of Congress, officials say.
A State Department official and several congressional aides told the Associated Press that the outgoing administration and former Secretary of...
January 21st, 20170
WASHINGTON — A recent study by the Pew Research Center has shown that support for Israel plummeted nearly 25 percent among members of the Democratic party in the last nine months.
Democratic party allegiance towards Israel has dropped 43 to 33 percent, according to the study.
For decades, Democratic support for Israel has...
January 20th, 20170
DEARBORN — A recent study by the Pew Research Center has shown that support for Israel plummeted nearly 25 percent among members of the Democratic party in the last nine months.
Democratic party allegiance towards Israel has dropped 43 to 33 percent, according to the study.
For decades, Democratic support for Israel has been...
January 13th, 20170
Last Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly supported a proposal condemning a recent U.N. Security Council Resolution reprimanding Israel for its illegal settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The U.N. Security Council resolution passed 14-0, with the U.S. abstaining, citing that...
