Palestine-Israel Journal

We, Israelis and Palestinians working together for conciliation and peace, remain horrified and pained by the tragic war between our two peoples which is entering its third month. Since the vicious Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, Israeli cities have been subject to almost daily rocket and missile fire from the Strip, and Hezbollah attacks along the northern border have also resulted in fatalities.

The daily struggles of the Afro-Palestinian community in Jerusalem Tucked away in a corner adjacent to the Al Aqsa compound in Jerusalem’s Old City is the neighborhood of Bab al-Majles. It is a rather small neighborhood, but is heavily fortified and gated by Israeli forces at its entrance, the reason being that the locale leads directly to an entrance to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif.

It’s hard to be optimistic about the hopes for any sort of solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that offers the latter even a modicum of self-determination and collective dignity. Virtually everywhere one looks, apartheid, de facto annexation and an increasing possibility of a mass population transfer appear to be underway on the Israeli side, whose most extreme right-wing government ever is clearly moving in an anti-democratic, theocratic and even more militant direction.

It’s hard to be optimistic about the hopes for any sort of solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that offers the latter even a modicum of self-determination and collective dignity. Virtually everywhere one looks, apartheid, de facto annexation and an increasing possibility of a mass population transfer appear to be underway on the Israeli side, whose most extreme right-wing government ever is clearly moving in an anti-democratic, theocratic and even more militant direction.

Some people are talking about a Post-Oslo era; do you see it this way? Abu 'Ala: First of all, I'm sure we are at a very critical juncture. Though this is a most dangerous period, I believe that taking a long view, we are standing on the threshold of achieving the national right of our people to e$tablish their independent Palestinian State.

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The war on Ukraine by a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council has done more to expose the Western world’s double standard than all the Palestinian activists and their supporters have been able to do in decades. While the effort to end the Israeli occupation of Arab lands has received a tremendous number of words, little action has accompanied those public positions. In the Ukrainian crisis and on every level, one can see the world move past lip service and into action.

One of the bullets had penetrated behind his left ear and was sticking halfway out of his left eye. He also had bullet holes in his left chest and abdomen. When the paramedics arrived there was no pulse, so they immediately started chest compressions, intubated him, and brought him as fast as they could to our trauma center. He arrived still without a palpable pulse or any signs of life. My resident quickly began to open his chest and perform an emergency thoracotomy.

For many people, the term “apartheid” immediately brings to mind the segregation, discrimination, and repression of black South Africans during the decades of white minority rule there. In fact, the word itself means “apartness” in Afrikaans, and it was first used by the ruling party in South Africa in 1948 to describe the racial laws and regulations it imposed, purportedly to preserve the purity and primacy of the country’s white population.