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In order to try to create an exclusively Jewish state in what had been the culturally diverse land of Palestine, Israel’s founders expelled or drove into flight half of Palestine’s Muslim and Christian population and seized their land, their houses, and their property (furniture, clothing, books, personal effects, family heirlooms), in what Palestinians call the nakba, or catastrophe, of 1948.

Even while demanding – rightly – that no one should forget the Jewish people’s history of suffering, and above all the Holocaust, Israel has insisted ever since 1948 not merely that the Palestinians must forget their own history, but that what it calls peace must be premised on that forgetting, and hence on the Palestinians’ renunciation of their rights. As Israel’s foreign minister has said, if the Palestinians want peace, they must learn to strike the word “nakba” from their lexicon.

Some must never forget, while others, clearly, must not be allowed to remember. Far from mere hypocrisy, this attitude perfectly expresses the Israeli people’s mistaken belief that they can find the security they need at the expense of the Palestinians, or that one people’s right can be secured at the cost of another’s. Read more

Is it possible for someone who matter-of-factly supports crimes against humanity to be a good historian? A startling and provocative question, no doubt, but one that inevitably arises upon consideration of the remarkable career of Israeli scholar Benny Morris. A professor in the Middle East Studies department at Ben-Gurion University, Morris is well-known as one of the most important of the “New Historians,” a group that upended traditional Zionist historiography of the Israeli-Arab conflict. In the first edition of his book The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem (1988), Morris conclusively demonstrated, through the mining of newly released Israeli government archives, that the refugees from the 1948 war had, overwhelmingly, fled or been expelled by Israeli forces rather than left as a result of encouragement by Arab leaders, as a previous generation of Israeli propagandists had claimed.

After the release of that book and in subsequent years, with the publication of Israel’s Border Wars (1997) followed by a general history of the conflict, Righteous Victims (1999), Morris was generally lauded by liberals as a historian willing to expose uncomfortable truths about the Israeli past. This Morris, the seemingly liberal Morris, rose to fame at the time of the first Palestinian intifada and the Oslo period that followed, when both support for Palestinian resistance to occupation and new hope for a peaceful resolution of the conflict gained traction around the world. Read more

I must excuse myself, yet again, for the recent lack of content on this site – but I am in Athens with Ilektra. As we know, Greece has only recently ben introduced to the internet and they haven’t yet graduated to broadband, so I am stuck with a crappy dial-up connection for now. Believe me, it’s driving me insane… but I have more time to enjoy the sun anyway. This means, however, that you cannot count on me posting very often for the next few weeks.

But while I have the chance, I should update you all to recent events… It seems I will be returning to Gaza in the New Year. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights has hired me from mid-January 2009 and I will spend at least six months there. Since I left Gaza last January, it has not left my thoughts… so the prospect of returning excites me very much!

Also, I have been selected to write a chapter for an upcoming book on peace philosophy. My contribution is tentatively entitled, “Israel’s Philosophy of Separation: The Flawed Vision of Unilaterally Enforced Peace”, and will discuss the notion of separation from the occupied territories as a “solution” for peace. Naturally, I am quite skeptical. The book will be out some time in 2009 (when they find a publisher) and I will keep you all updated.

…and from September until I leave for Gaza, Ilektra and I will be living in London. This will give me time to finish my thesis, get a short internship, and to continue studying to retake the GRE.

It’s a very negative signal that the International Quartet Envoy Tony Blair’s planned trip to the Gaza was cancelled yesterday, Tuesday 15th July, following what was described as “specific security threats that made the visit impossible”.

As a delegation of the European Parliament we visited, last June, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem. Our visit in Gaza was perfectly coordinated by UNRWA, and we didn’t feel any sort of insecurity, but only despair and responsibility looking at the living conditions of the Palestinian population under an illegal siege (don’t worry we also went to see the danger and the damages of the rockets fired on Sderot).

I really hope that the Israeli authorities’ pressures or other forces are not behind this decision by Tony Blair not to go to Gaza Strip, using the threat of security in order to prevent to witness the disaster of the blockade.

Palestinians, both in West Bank and in Gaza Strip, deplored the fact that Tony Blair had never visited the Strip, despite of the duties related to his role as Quartet Representative that include mobilizing international assistance to the Palestinians, working closely with donors and others, as well as helping to implement plans and concrete projects aimed to promote Palestinian economic development. Read more

When I was coming back from my award ceremony and also a speaking engagement, I was stopped for nearly one hour and a half before an Israeli Shin Bet officer came to me and started collecting my bags, which were securely checked already. I kept waiting for some time until they got my luggage and they started checking everything.

The Shabak officer just came to me and then said, “You are a crazy man.” And I just kept quiet and listened to what he’s going to say. And then he said, “Is there anyone who has been to the Netherlands, to France, to Sweden, to Greece and to the United Kingdom and come back to Gaza Strip? Gaza is a dirty place. Why do you come back to Gaza? Gaza is a dirty place, and the people there are dirty. Why do you come to live in such a place, where there is no electricity, there is no light, and there is darkness, and there is shortages of fuel, and there is lots of difficulties? Why don’t you live in France, instead?”

And I continued to explain to the Shabak officer that I choose to come, because I want to come back to Gaza and to be a voice for the voiceless. I want to be the person who gets the message out of the Gaza Strip and to help the world understand what’s going on. And then he answered me, “OK, Mohammed, then it’s your choice. You choose to suffer.” I said, “Not really. I don’t choose to suffer. I choose to tell the truth.” Read more

I would like to share some rather disturbing news regarding a friend of mine from Gaza. Mohammed Omer, an award winning journalist, was recently assaulted by the Israeli Occupation forces without justification as he attempted to return to Gaza via the Allenby Bridge crossing on the Jordanian-West Bank border. Mohammed, whom I came to know during my stay in Gaza, was returning from an award ceremony in London where he was presented with the prestigious 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism.

Of course, Israel controls Gaza’s borders and it took an immense effort for Mohammed even to leave Gaza to attend the London ceremony. And when he returned, Israel had a treat in store for him. How dare this presumptuous twenty-something earn an international prize for his reporting from Gaza! Needless to say, Israeli soldiers treated him in the most abhorrent, imperialistic fashion… His crime: to be Palestinian, to exist. Read more