Archive

January 2021

Browsing
A general view of the Jenin refugee camp, September 12, 2011. (Photo: Wagdi Eshtayah/APA Images)

Last week an Israeli district court ruled against a Palestinian filmmaker and actor, Mohammad Bakri in a defamation and libel case, ordering him to pay hefty compensation to an officer in the Israeli military who was accused of carrying out war crimes in the 2002 documentary “Jenin, Jenin.” Ramzy Baroud says the verdict can be understood within two contexts: one, Israel’s regime of censorship aimed at silencing any criticism of the Israeli occupation and apartheid and, two, Israel’s fear of a truly independent Palestinian narrative.

Palestinian refugees during the Nakba. (Photo: Wikimedia)

In an open letter to Antony Blinken, Mona AlMsaddar tells the incoming U.S. secretary of state that his family’s story of surviving World War II resonates with her own family’s history of the Nakba. She writes, “our Nakba was not limited to 1948. It continues each day that we are forced to live under these conditions. So, please, Mr. Blinken, when you deliberate on policy related to Israel and Palestinians in the coming months, remember my family.”

The Israeli settlement of Efrat within the Gush Etzion settlement bloc between the Palestinian cities of Hebron and Bethlehem in the West Bank on June 30, 2020. (Photo: Mosab Shawer/APA Images)

On Wednesday, Israel issued tenders for more than 2,500 new settlement housing units in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem a mere hours before US President Joe Biden was sworn into office. The Israeli government has now approved and promoted thousands of new settlement housing units in the first few weeks of 2021, while also continuing to deny Palestinians the right to build on their land in Area C — the more than 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli control.