We’re told that US President Barack Obama’s Cairo Speech a year ago was a harbinger of peace, magnanimity, truth and justice. Hark, herald the new dawn. Islam is not a terrorist religion: peace; fist clench; hand open; “assalaamu alaykum.” Celestial choirs punctuated every sentence with a rising crescendo of harmonious hymning. And at the climax, we climaxed. We’re Arabs, and Barack is the New America, and we like one another. Ahmed Moor comments for EI. Read more about Obama's Cairo speech one year later
Washington insiders are now touting a misguided Obama-dictated plan to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Most recently, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Stephen Solarz took to the pages of The Washington Post to float the idea of an imposed peace, which largely undermines non-negotiable historic Palestinian rights. As a Palestinian, I believe that any plan that seeks to sacrifice our inalienable human rights to ensure race-based majorities in Israel will fail. Ahmed Moor comments. Read more about Right of return not negotiable
The relationship between the Lebanese government and the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon is changing. The process of redefining the old relationship began explosively with the battle and subsequent demolition of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, near the northern city of Tripoli, in 2007. Now the Lebanese army is erecting a barrier around the nearby Baddawi refugee camp because of “security concerns.” Ahmed Moor and Deen Sharp report for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Lebanese army encircling Baddawi refugee camp
I sat outdoors at a cafe on the Mediterranean Sea in al-Arish, a dusty seaside town in Egypt’s northern Sinai. I drank a tea and smoked a water pipe; it gave me something to do while I waited for Ismail — that’s not his real name — an Egyptian Bedouin tunnel smuggler who was going to deliver a package for me into Gaza. Ahmed Moor writes from al-Arish. Read more about Sending a laptop to Gaza
The Campaign to Stop the Wall of Shame, a newly-formed activist movement based in Beirut, Lebanon, held a press conference this morning to publicize the Arab Contractors construction company’s role in the building of an underground steel wall along the Egypt-Gaza border. Read more about Lebanon activists launch campaign targeting Egypt's "wall of shame"
In his new book Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, M. Shahid Alam successfully argues that the moral force behind the Zionist movement is a sense of Jewish, and consequently Israeli, exceptionalism. This claim of exceptionalism underpins what he calls the “destabilizing logic of Zionism.” According to Alam, Zionism “could advance only by creating and promoting conflicts between the West and the Islamicate.” Ahmed Moor reviews for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Zionism's destabilizing force: "Israeli Exceptionalism" reviewed
Israel is an apartheid state. It rules over me in Gaza yet does not permit me to vote in an Israeli election. It hoards my resources in the West Bank, it detains me and dictates the terms of my survival. It issues my travel documents and denies me the right to travel. I cannot associate or marry or build or import or consume — in short, I cannot live — without Israel’s permission. Yet, I do not have the right to vote. Ahmed Moor comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about My rights, my remedy
