“You are a terrorist, you are not welcome in the land of Palestine”. A Palestinian from the Hamdan family shouted these words in the face of Tony Blair, Quartet Representative for “Peace” in the Middle East, when he arrived at the Iron Cage at the entrance of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. A bodyguard of [...]
In Palestine, under the Israeli occupation and the boundless criminal practices of the IDF, every unimaginable and never heard of horror is possible, while outside, most people never know or even imagines these things to be possible. In Palestine it is not enough to steal the land, to build colonies for Jewish squatters, an apartheid [...]
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.
As they say, a picture is worth more than a thousand words.
The attached photo is from the slideshow entitled "Fervent Believers" which accompanies this New York Times article:
Resolve of West Bank Settlers May Have Limits
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/world/middleeast/14settlers.html
The photo captions reads:
A settler tosses wine at a Palestinian woman on Shuhada Street in Hebron. The approach of some [...]
If the past is associated with war crimes and crimes against humanity and injustice, then the history of the perpetrators is the history of criminals and their crimes, and the victims must never forget, never forgive, lest the perpetrators continue on their path of crimes. Nobody can ask from perpetrators to take responsibility for their crimes, because if they were responsible, or even capable of responsibility, to begin with, they would not engage in acts understood as reprehensible by the vast majority of humanity. The victims, on the other hand, have the responsibility not only to take care of ourselves, but to do everything in our power to stop the perpetrators, and to warn others about them.
I have been reading an article by Robin-Yassin Kassab, entitled ‘A visit to Hebron’. Yassin Kassab is the author of ‘The Road from Damascus’. This time he was not writing about Damascus, he was writing about my home town Al-Khaleel, known to the Western world by the name of Hebron. In his article he describes [...]
Israel in May of 2009.
Just over a week ago, I visited Israel and Palestine. I was a part of a delegation of authors consisting of representatives from different continents. We were supposed to participate in a Palestinian literary conference. The inauguration was supposed to take place at the Palestinian National Theatre in Jerusalem. Just as [...]
Destruction of Hebron, one of the oldest cities in the world, to make way for a bypass road for illegal Israeli settlers
ARC●PEACE has noted with dismay that Israeli architects engage in the design of illegal Jewish sett-lements on expropriated Palestinian land in the Occupied Territories. These activities are in clear vio-lation of the code of [...]
The Beit Ayn settlement outpost near Hebron
WRITTEN BY Khalid Amayreh in al-Khalil
8 April, 2009
Religious Jewish terrorists on Thursday attacked a small Arab village north of al Khalil (Hebron), shooting randomly on civilians and vandalizing homes and businesses.
Eyewitnesses said as many as a hundred settler terrorists descended on the small village of Safa, 10 kilometers north [...]
UPDATE! FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE ARREST WRITTEN BY KHALID AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST! With friends like these – WRITTEN BY SHERINE BAHAA
KHALED AMAYREH, the Al-Ahram Weekly correspondent in the West Bank was arrested Sunday evening by the Preventive Security Forces (PSF) in Hebron. He was released after two days. Amayreh, 52, lives in [...]
