Palestine Think Tank

Illustration by Nasri Zacharia, Day of the Martyr
Palestinian Identity - By Remi Kanazi
I was born overseas
A refugee
With little knowledge of myself or my ancestry
Growing up in American society
I conformed to the mentality
I watched MTV
Envied actors and people who drove Mercedes
I didn’t listen to Public Enemy or read Edward Said
Comprehend the need for autonomy
I was a [...]

The commemoration events of 60 years of the Nakba have brought a very different type of Palestinian solidarity activism to my attention: it is young, vibrant, dynamic and creative solidarity campaigning. It’s a new form of struggle that goes far beyond the old dogmatic clichés, a fierce battle that aims at the exposure of [...]

WRITTEN BY IAN JACK
For the settlers, subsidies and tax breaks have become as important a motive as Deuteronomy
At Birzeit University in Ramallah last week a young woman student in a headscarf asked how it was that Nadine Gordimer, the South African novelist and Nobel laureate, could agree to visit and speak in Israel. Hadn’t Gordimer [...]

Alice was falling up, then rising down
With a quantum leap, transcending
Into a parallel universe
Were every thing is upside down
And nothing is what it seems to be
In a forgotten land, once called Palestine
In this land of wonders, Alice saw
Murderers get Nobel peace prizes
Thieves are the guardians
Of peace and security
War criminals are the law
In this land of [...]

Something positive is happening, I would even call it a shift of awareness, a realisation that the Palestinian struggle is leading somewhere after all.
Yesterday, at Exeter University, to a very crowded theatre, in an event of that was a commemoration of 60 years of the Nakba, I had a chance to listen to Dr Manuel [...]

Exeter Friends of Palestine Society Presents:
The Nakba - Voices for Palestine
Featuring: His Excellency Dr. Manuel Hassassian the Palestinian Ambassador to the UK, Gilad Atzmon and band, Nizar Al Issa and More…
University of Exeter, Monday May 12th, 2008:
 
On commemoration of the 60th anniversary of The Nakbah, meaning: “The Catastrophe”: The expulsion and dispossession of hundreds [...]

Today the bulldozer crawled
Into my village.
I watched the trees’ resistance,
Heard them groan and shake,
Hoping beyond hope
They could not break and after the trees bowed,
the stones ground their teeth in impotent fury,
Before they too tangled with the bones
Of lost tomorrows, in unmarked graves,
Corrupt foundations
For a shimmering, empty city,
Destruction in the myth of creation
By architects stripped of [...]

The 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel is for some a day of celebration, for others a day of reflection. For Palestinians it marks the nakba (catastrophe) - when 400 villages were destroyed and 750,000 refugees fled to the West Bank, Gaza Strip and beyond.
Trócaire and Poetry Ireland invite you to [...]

A poem by Tamim Tamimi
A young man’s mature poetry of yearning. How can such a young man yearn so much? This is Palestine. This is the heart of the people of Palestine. It gives birth to pain that never goes away, a pain that makes young men grow up quickly and grow up sad, but [...]

Photo from Free Gaza, one of many photos of the people of Gaza.
Beloved people of Gaza
Treasured people of Palestine
Teachers of courage and dignity
Archetype of humanity
Allow me to kneel down
And wash your feet with my tears
Kiss your blessed hands
And sprinkle your beautiful faces with musk and roses
While we sat pondering like fools
Utterly helpless
Talking much and doing [...]