Madison Rafah Journal

James Zogby, Arab American Institute, June 22, 2003

It was more than 30 years ago that I fell in love with Palestine. It was 1971 and I was in Lebanon doing research for my doctoral dissertation. Ghassan Kanafani, the brilliant Palestinian novelist, advised me “to learn about us, you must go to the camps and immerse yourself in the people.”

And so off I went to Ein al Helweh to spend some time with Abed, a new friend, who introduced me to his family and so many other unforgettable refugees. During my time with them, they told me stories about the homes and villages they left in Palestine, about the trauma of the 1948 exodus and about their lives in the camp, their “temporary Palestine”.

They also showed me pictures and other remnants of the life that had been—most especially their treasured keys to the homes they had left and to which they hoped to return.

Far from being a depressing experience, there was beauty in Ein al Helweh. The camp, though desperately poor made a remarkable statement about the power of the human spirit to create and to hope. Internally Ein al Helweh was organized as a recreation of Palestine. Its inhabitants had clustered together in neighborhoods reflecting the towns and villages from which they had been expelled. Each neighborhood bore their Palestinian names. Walking down the streets of Ein al Helweh I passed through Safsaf, Ras Al Ahmar, and Safad.

I left the unpaved and dusty alleys of the camp and entered one of its homes where I found another world. There was a courtyard under a trellised grape vine. The homes were small and somewhat tattered and, on inspection, I noted that the grape vines had been planted in a barrel. But they were homes, a proud recreation of Palestinian village homes. These families, like so many others I would meet, had not surrendered to despair. For them Palestine was not just a memory, but living reality. They carried Palestine with them. They made it come to life in their stories and their new temporary homes. And to it they were determined to return.

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Hadeel Abukwaik, standing, an engineering software instructor in Gaza, was in disbelief over losing her Fulbright grant. (Ali Ali/European Pressphoto Agency, for The New York Times)

ETHAN BRONNER, The New York Times, May 30, 2008

GAZA — The American State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted them permission to leave.

Israel has isolated this coastal strip, which is run by the militant group Hamas. Given that policy, the United States Consulate in Jerusalem said the grant money had been “redirected” to students elsewhere out of concern that it would go to waste if the Palestinian students were forced to remain in Gaza.

A letter was sent by e-mail to the students on Thursday telling them of the cancellation. Abdulrahman Abdullah, 30, who had been hoping to study for an M.B.A. at one of several American universities on his Fulbright, was in shock when he read it.

“If we are talking about peace and mutual understanding, it means investing in people who will later contribute to Palestinian society,” he said. “I am against Hamas. Their acts and policies are wrong. Israel talks about a Palestinian state. But who will build that state if we can get no training?”

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Ramallah: Allan Richardson stands in the empty office where he plans a call center for Palestine's second mobile network. (Joshua Mitnick)

Joshua Mitnick, The Christian Science Monitor, May 28, 2008

Mobile phone service in Gaza Strip and the West Bank could spur investment – and bolster prospects for peace.

Ramallah, West Bank – After getting Iraq's first post-invasion cellular phone network operational in four months, Allan Richardson expected that launching the second Palestinian mobile service would be easy.

But nearly a year and a half after arriving here, the chief executive officer of Wataniya Palestine Telecom is still waiting for Israel to release cellular frequencies.

The delay has held up a $650 million investment in the Palestinian economy and the creation of 2,500 jobs in the midst of double-digit unemployment.

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(AP Photo/Dunkin' Donuts)

MARK JEWELL, Associated Press, May 29, 2008

Dunkin' Donuts has pulled an online advertisement featuring Rachael Ray after complaints that a fringed black-and-white scarf that the celebrity chef wore in the ad offers symbolic support for Muslim extremism and terrorism.

The coffee and baked goods chain said the ad that began appearing online May 7 was pulled over the past weekend because "the possibility of misperception detracted from its original intention to promote our iced coffee."

In the spot, Ray holds an iced coffee while standing in front of trees with pink blossoms.

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STEPHANIE CLIFFORD, The New York Times, May 30, 2008

IT was a peculiarly Internet-age controversy.

On May 7, Dunkin’ Donuts began running an ad on its Web site and others, featuring the celebrity chef Rachael Ray holding a cup of the company’s iced coffee while wearing a black-and-white fringed scarf. In the ad, which was shot in a studio, she is shown standing in front of trees with pink blossoms and a building with a distinctive spire.

On May 23, the conservative blog Little Green Footballs posted an item that likened Ms. Ray’s scarf to the type typically worn by Muslim extremists. The blog said that the ads “casually promote the symbol of Palestinian terrorism and the intifada, the keffiyeh, via Rachael Ray.”

Later that day, the conservative blogger Michelle Malkin chimed in, likening the scarf to a keffiyeh and calling it “jihadi chic.” Then the story, as they say on the Internet, went totally viral.

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Mehdi Lebouachera, AFP, May 28, 2008

Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu on Wednesday plunged into the harsh reality of the conflict in Gaza where a tearful Palestinian family recounted losing loved ones in an Israeli attack and the ruling Hamas movement expounded its hardline stance.

The South African cleric, heading a team of UN human rights observers, listened to members of the Assamna family tell of a 2006 Israeli shelling of their village that killed 19 civilians, including eight children, while they were sleeping.

On the top floor of the Assamna's bombed home, the glass in the windows is gone and there is a hole in the ceiling and the blue sky can been seen through the rusted iron frame of the house.

"I was here with my son. I was holding his hand when he died. Can you imagine a mother holding the intestines of her own son," said Tahini al-Assamna through her tears, describing the scene after the attack.

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AFP, May 27, 2008

Thousands of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank risk being displaced as the Israeli authorities threaten to tear down their homes and in some cases entire communities, a UN agency said on Wednesday.

"To date, more than 3,000 Palestinian-owned structures in the West Bank have pending demolition orders, which can be immediately executed without prior warning," the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report.

"At least 10 small communities throughout the West Bank are at risk of being almost entirely displaced due to the large number of pending demolitions orders," OCHA said.

Most of the orders were issued because there were no construction permits, which Israeli authorities only seldom grant to Palestinians.

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