Palestine Think Tank

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said on November 3, 2009 that the Palestinian Authority, and all Palestinian parties, must immediately end any and all illusions about the United States or its president, Barack Obama, and instead reject its "negotiations" based on surrender and rely on the Palestinian people and their resistance, unity [...]

Let us suppose for the sake of argument that Hamas would win the elections, even by a narrow margin. Would Fatah then cede power to the victorious party? Would the United States and Britain and Israel's Western allies come to terms with the results? Would Israel recognize Hamas as the true representative of the Palestinian people? Would the American-trained PA security forces agree to be answerable to the new government?

Obviously, the answer for all these crucial questions is absolutely "No".

Africa’s Last Colony: Spain’s Error, Morocco’s Sin aptly describes the situation and dire circumstances under which the Saharawi live. Water poisoning, torture, forced disappearances and other inhumane situations are some of the conditions under which the Saharawi live.
Over 150,000 Saharawi are internally displaced refugees living on a daily ration provided by the United Nations Food Programme while many are hounded into detention without trials or forced into exile.

The past weekend, we had a conference over two days attended by over 200 people from around the world.  The Conference addressed issues of Israeli colonialism, occupation, and racism.  It was held in the Paradise Hotel in Bethlehem, a scene of previous Israeli attack that severely damaged this beautiful hotel.  In workshops and panels we [...]

Ewa Jasiewicz, Free Gaza Coordinator in Gaza, talks in Berlin, Germany about what she witnessed during the 22-day massacre of civilians in Gaza. Her on-the-ground reporting of what she and seven others saw during that time is heart-wrenching. Israel deliberately murdered 16 medics trying to do their job of rescuing other injured Palestinians, targeting [...]

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 [...]

By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine
The recent Turkish decision to exclude Israel from an aerial military exercise over Turkish territory is another indication that Turkey will not allow itself to be blackmailed by criminal international Zionism.
Following the decision, Zionist officials and media sought to mitigate its impact on the increasingly troubled relations with Turkey by claiming [...]

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.