Palestine Think Tank

Can anyone see some ethical flaws with that?
I have no authority to talk in the name of all Palestinians, but I have previously stated that I DO NOT wish the zionist murderers, those of whom were directly or indirectly involved in massacres, theft of land, subjugation and oppression, to remain in Palestine after its liberation [...]

WRITTEN BY Sami Jamil Jadallah
The issue of continuing and expanding Jewish settlements came back to haunt the Palestinian leadership that negotiated Oslo and continued to negotiate with Israel for the last 16 years while Israeli continued to build and expand its settlements, not to mention building the Apartheid Wall.

Now 16 years later finally the Palestinian [...]

Palestinian organisations for rights and justice have issued a joint press statement in which they ask that Impunity must not be allowed to prevail. International law, and the respect for the fundamental human rights of peoples throughout the world, must not be subject to the whim of powerful States. As Palestinians and representatives of the victims we demand justice, and the possibility of a peaceful future.

The General Assembly must request that the Security Council not only consider the Goldstone Report, but also implement its recommendations.

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.

“Their/our” media is the true Apartheid Wall between Israel and our nation. It strangles our capitol like an elastic beltway that it tightens and loosens according to Israel’s directions.

It is the whip that keeps our cowardly politicians in tow and our populace ignorant of the truth about Israel “our ally and only democratic government in the Middle East”. Israel is the huge sucking sound that drains our money, military, and mind set while we like indoctrinated puppets cheer it on. We are helping Israel in its strategy to create our own national suicide.
And not only that: Twenty of the 47 fundraisers that Obama's campaign identified as collecting more than $500,000 have been named to government positions. If you look closely you will find that the vast majority of these donors are Jewish, many from Wall Street, or Pro-Israel activists.

I think most of us feel completely lost these days, not merely in the labyrinth of the Road Map, but in that of words, some of which are deeply cherished in our hearts and others, strewn, aimlessly in our path. Words such as legitimacy, rights, freedom, steadfastness, unity, dismemberment, hope, despair, impotence, boycott, normalization, apartheid, armed struggle and peaceful resistance. [...]

From: Revealing Gaza, in the eyes of the beholder
I recently was invited to a workshop discussing the Palestinian dialogue and what destiny is waiting for it, I found it very useful for non-political people like me and I thought it would be helpful and eye-opening if I share it with you.  The invitation was from Mr. [...]

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 [...]

Even up until the mass killing, the Samouni family still clung naively to the notion that their working relationship with the IDF would protect them. Haaretz reports that “on January 4, under orders from the army, Salah Samouni and the rest of the family left their home, which had been turned into a military position, and moved to the other, the home of Wael [Samouni], located on the southern side of the street. The fact that it was the soldiers who had relocated them, had seen the faces of the children and the older women, and the fact that the soldiers were positioned in locations surrounding the house just tens of meters away, instilled in the family a certain amount of confidence – despite the IDF fire from the air, from the sea and from the land, despite the hunger and the thirst.”

And then the IDF shelled that home, killing 21 of the Samouni family. Their usefulness had expired.

The Samouni’s had not thrown stones at Israeli tanks and had not waved angry fists at Israeli soldiers. Instead, they had worked dutifully for the Jewish population and had learned its language. But they were not spared. They were not spared because they had not themselves been Jewish. They were not spared because “peaceful co-existence” is merely a phrase bandied about by politicians seeking camouflage.

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