and other news from the Palestinian unity discussions, and from today in Palestine:

With no accountability, context or synthesis to Palestine, Cokie Roberts’s husband Steve Roberts explains to an NPR interviewer that the politics of Zionism replaced Judaism/ Religion for Eastern European immigrants (though that question wasn’t the intention of the interview, they were promoting interfaith Haggadah). Listen to Steve and Cokie Roberts discuss seders, replacement religion/Zionism, interfaith, […]

The theme of posts here the other day was attitudes of “denial” regarding the Palestine issue. Nothing could illustrate this more than an op-ed a couple of days ago  by a “scholar” with a comfortable job at a right-wing think tank. Josef Joffe, former publisher of the influential German newspaper Die Zeit and now ensconced […]

President Shimon Peres tells Ban ‘UN cannot remain neutral in light of the rockets fired from Gaza to Israel.’  In recent days Israel has been exploiting the attacks from both sides of the conflict and the Goldstone editorial in the Washington Post to demand that the UN Fact Finding report be retracted and to insist […]

When I first read the news about the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, I simply thought the site I was surfing was outdated or something. It was not. On Wednesday 27 April, 2011, and to my surprise, the two major Palestinian parties, Fatah and Hamas, agreed on a reconciliation deal after secret meetings were held […]

I was told that on Thursday former NY Governor Mario Cuomo, who happens to be the father of the current NY governor, was making public remarks about Masada, the mountain near the Dead Sea that was the scene of a mass suicide by Jewish soldiers after the destruction of the second temple and that today […]

I just got this update from the Friends of the Jenin Freedom Theatre about the celebration of Juliano Mer Kahmis on Tuesday night, May 4 in New York. Quite an evening: 

The MoveOverAipac conference is in 3 weeks. The organizers have just issued a statement to endorsers explaining the Helen Thomas invitation, and Thomas’s withdrawal from the conference. Medea is Medea Benjamin of CodePink, who met with Helen Thomas yesterday, and Rae is Rae Abileah. Great women. Here it is: Thank you for your support of […]

I haven’t read Ryan Lizza’s piece in the New Yorker on how the Arab spring has remade Obama’s foreign policy. ( was put off by the title, the Consequentialist, it sounded astrological, and isn’t this just a fancy way of saying Pragmatist?) I have to read it. But I have smart friends, and one sent […]

Lynda Burstein Brayer is a South African, Israeli-trained human rights lawyer. She has worked in the West Bank. This is at Counterpunch, in a takedown of the Goldstone reconsideration, a discussion of the Palestinian right to self-determination and thus, violent resistance. Others have said the same thing, of course; Michael Neumann said so, at Counterpunch […]

Egyptian law scholar Amr Shalakany blogged for the NY Times during the revolution. From the Daily News of Egypt: Law professor at the American University in Cairo Amr El-Shalakany was arrested two days ago and will be tried in a military court in Suez, according to rights activist and a member of “No for Military […]

and other news from Today in Palestine:

My theme today is denial, specifically as it involves the Arab revolutions: the failure of American media figures and Jewish leaders to recognize the huge spiritual-political effect of the Arab spring and the inevitability of that spirit coming to bear on the dire human-rights situation in Palestine.  As Issandr El Amrani said the other night […]

Israeli leaders have condemned the nascent Palestinian reconciliation, considering the possible participation of Hamas members in any government to be unacceptable because of the party’s history of terrorism. To the great surprise of no one, American politicians have been competing for press attention to parrot the same line. What if Palestinian leaders, and our own […]

Save the date. We’re proud, this is our event, along with the Culture Project. Naomi Klein and Desmond Travers and Noura Erakat will traveling to New York next month to discuss the Goldstone Report and its reverberations. They’ll be joined by our co-editor on the volume, Lizzy Ratner, and moderated by Laura Flanders of Grit-TV. […]

Yesterday we posted a piece by Hedy Epstein about the upcoming anti-AIPAC conference, called “As a Holocaust survivor, AIPAC does not speak for me.” Ali Gharib then tweeted the piece. And look at the responses from some supporters of Israel. Interesting conversation. Real venom toward Epstein’s use of her own history as an explanation of […]

I have only one theme today: the denial. The denial that my country and my community are engaged in, on a core issue of foreign policy. Writes a friend: “This censorship in Seattle is really something. It’s so flagrant you hope people not involved will start wondering what’s going on.” Seattle Times reporter Jim Brunner: […]

Editor’s note: Saleema told us to post “My father, the hero,” an astonishing post by Amina, A Gay Girl in Damascus, from two days back, and it being the internet, we’ve grabbed a lot of the post. Please read the full post at her site. It describes a nighttime visit from the “security services,” two […]

More about denial, and cultural breakthrough. In February we noted that rapper Lupe Fiasco, a Muslim, mentions the Gaza onslaught in a new song. A friend sent us more of the lyrics to “Words I Never Said”. (Including truther lines, huh.)

and other news from Thursday in Palestine:

Two children were taken to hospital after the latest army invasion in Bil’in, a village in the occupied Palestinian territories. At midday on April 28, the Israeli army entered Bil’in. Three military jeeps came through the Western gate in the Wall, drove through the village and to the mosque. Clashes erupted when a group of […]

Two great pictures at Kabobfest, 1 and 2, of Egyptian protesters getting on the Palestinian issue. And other news from the Arab uprisings:

At the end of one of my first journeys to the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 2004, I endured a shocking experience at Ben-Gurion Airport. I never imagined that Israeli security forces would abuse a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor, but they held me for five hours, and strip-searched and cavity-searched every part of my naked body. The […]