Palestine Think Tank

The Islamic world is obliged to undergo a deep-rooted and all-embracing change. It cannot continue in its current form. No one is denying this. However, there is a reality which both the West and our intellectuals must accept: The Islamic world can change only in accordance with its own inner dynamics and points of reference.
Attempts [...]

At the outset of the classes I teach, I always address the question of bias in the social sciences. In one course – on the history of the global economy – this is the central theme. It critiques Eurocentric biases in several leading Western accounts of the rise of the global economy.
This fall, I began [...]

WRITTEN BY Ramzy Baroud 
When the first Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) was published in 2002, a star glistened in a vast, gloomy sky. The fact that a UN-sponsored report, authored by independent Arab scholars would receive so much attention in Arab media, was in itself a promising start. The fact that such terminology as human [...]

Historically, villagers were fully dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. They were harvesting olives, almonds, citrus and rain-fed crops such as wheat, barley, and beans. After the Israeli military occupation, villagers' hardship continued. Villagers were used as unskilled labour in Israeli factories and on construction sites. As a result, farmers neglected their remaining farmlands and agricultural produce declined sharply. As in any other Palestinian locality, shops in the village were turned into marketing outlets for Israeli produce. Moreover, the Israeli military administration controlled all aspects of economic life in the village, including the release of building permits, driving licenses, travel permits and recruitment approval of public servants. All in all, livelihood in the village was designed to serve Israeli colonial interests.
The combination of accelerated hardships of the Palestinian rural communities, including Zayta, and the failure of conventional development models to resolve Palestinian challenges call for an alternative Palestinian development worldview.

Our next entry in the First Word War, the intitiative by Palestine Think Tank and Tlaxcala to declare war against disinforamation, presents two writers who deconstruct the Israeli and Zionist lexicon. We are asked to stop calling Palestinians who live within Israel "Israeli Arabs", when they were, are and always will be Palestinians. The second intervention explains why Israel's use of the word "self-defense" is an abuse of the concept.
Translations into Italian by Mary Rizzo and Spanish by Manuel Talens

An entire mythology has been built around the Palestinian resistance movement (which morphed into a party) Hamas. This construct has actually taken on more legitimacy as a factual interpretation of Hamas than the facts themselves. In most of the Western media, no matter if it is on the right or the left, and in some of the “moderate” media in Arab countries, the very name of the party is coupled with terms such as “fundamentalist”, “radical” or “terrorist”. Clearly, this serves to create a fear trigger that will remove the word from being critically and honestly evaluated. The listener will immediately identify Hamas with a negative connotation and is removed from responsibility for understanding that this is a manipulation of reality. The listener is expected to accept the claims that Hamas is “anti-democratic” and “fanatical”. It is child’s play to then convince the listener that Hamas is Bad, that it is the Enemy of all We represent (in our own eyes, tolerance, democracy, Goodness itself). It is possible to then extend that reading to the belief that action must be taken against them, that they are a “cancer that must be gotten rid of”, as quoted by the institutional peacenik, Noa. How does one eradicate a cancer, once it has been diagnosed? By extirpation or bombardment.

While some calm has returned to the compound of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Muslim holy site is still under grave threat, writes Khaled Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem
An uneasy calm is descending over East Jerusalem after thousands of Israeli troops lifted a tight siege lasting two weeks on Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, one of Islam's holiest sanctuaries.
The site [...]

Yet while we as Arabs and Muslims can reiterate the historical facts regarding the rogue nation of Israel and its chosen method of existence that wholly depends on wars, assassinations, terrorism, mass imprisonment and the wholesale starving siege of Gaza, we should be honest with ourselves and proclaim that Arab political and economic incompetence, paralysis, hypocrisy, backbiting, and self sabotage regarding Palestine is the other side of the coin to decades of Palestinian suffering. Fifty-seven Muslim nations, 1.6 Billion Muslims, 50% of the world's oil wealth, 60% of its gas wealth, trillions of dollars of investment in Western governments and institutions, are shamefully paralyzed to face one small nation of 6 million Jews. Western politics revolves around money, media manipulation, myths, lies and propaganda, something Arabs are well accustomed to in their own nations.

Those who seek information about Palestine often tend to be attracted to particular writers and journalists for the special insights and gifts that seem to be uniquely their own. “The Middle East Crisis” is an issue having a profound, complex and multi-faceted dimension of interpretation, that for however long there has been a crisis (and worse), and despite the great abundance of written material available, more than we can ever realistically confront, the reader is driven to seek the voices that can analyse any aspect of the situation clearly. There really are far fewer with this talent than one would expect. The characteristic of this type of writer is that there is a distinctive voice or style, and more than that, there is a strong sense that the coherent and authentic ethics of this person are part of the message. It is not just reporting facts and intelligent analysis, but creating within us a consciousness of the moral situation that underlies the events. Khalid Amayreh is one such “source”. He is a very prolific author, and he is often able to correctly analyse the event of the day and place it into its overall context. This makes his work almost a diary of Palestinian events. However, as useful as it would be if he limited himself to reporting, Khalid Amayreh is far more important as a writer. He is concerned with the human condition and knows that the reader should not be left only with a cold reportage, because that would be telling only half of the story, and the less important half at that. His voice is the one speaking to the human heart, to the reader who sees the oppression that Palestinians are living under, and is mystified at they are no nearer to the end of their suffering. Khalid does not talk about “indiscriminate masses”, his work is almost a passion play, where there are names, identities, human stories behind all of the events narrated. In this interview, he touches on many issues in his intimitable way.

In March 2009, at Theatre Shawa, Italian Tenor Joe Fallisi, arriving in Gaza on one of the Free Gaza boats, performs with a group of Palestinian musicians. Here is a bit of the concert.