Permission To Narrate

– Edward Said

The late Palestinian scholar, Edward Said, remarked that Palestinians had been denied permission to narrate their history and speak of the day-to-day experiences of life in the margins. Here, we reclaim that permission to narrate our own stories.

Gaza activists’ lawsuit argues Israel attacked US territory in raid on ship

Four activists are attempting to make legal history by arguing that Israel attacked American territory when it raided a US-registered ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza six years ago. The group said they were shot with rubber bullets, Tasered and handcuffed by masked commandos during a “terrifying” midnight assault on their vessel, part of a flotilla seeking to break Israel’s naval blockade in 2010. One was injured by a stun grenade that exploded one foot from his head, he said, causing permanent partial loss of sight in one eye.

PCHR Weekly Report: Israeli troops kill 10, wound 21 Palestinians during the past week

In its Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for the week of 07- 13 January 2016, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) found that Israeli forces continued to use excessive force in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Nine Palestinian civilians, including two children, were killed, and one armed resistance fighter was killed by Israeli troops.

Why should Palestinians in Jerusalem be loyal to their occupiers?

A new bill to be introduced in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, next week would permit the cancellation of a person’s permanent residency on grounds of “disloyalty” to Israel. Last October, the prime minister’s office announced that the government had decided to revoke the residency of “terrorists,” a policy that would almost exclusively affect Palestinians living under military occupation in East Jerusalem.

Gaza faces harsh winter after Israel cuts gas supply

Palestinians say Israel has severely curtailed gas supplies to the occupied Gaza Strip this winter, fueling a major disruption to ordinary life for most families and exacerbating the harsh impact of the cold weather. Tholfikar Sweirjo, a member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s committee in Gaza, told Al Jazeera the amount of gas entering Gaza has been decreased by at least 50 percent since early December.

Palestinian poet and artist Ashraf Fayadh sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia

The Palestinian artist, curator, and poet Ashraf Fayadh, 35, has been sentenced to death by beheading. Saudi Arabian authorities have declared his crime as “apostasy,” or abandoning one’s religion—in this case, renouncing Islam. Several other charges were also leveled against Fayadh, including allegedly photographing women and storing their pictures on his phone, a violation of the country’s Anti-Cyber Crime Law. He pleaded his innocence to all the charges.

Alan Rickman gave the greatest gift to my late daughter, Rachel Corrie

My family and I were saddened on Thursday morning to learn of the death of Alan Rickman – too sad to write our feelings at the time. Alan, of course, is famous as an actor and director, both on stage and in film. But we first came to know him when, with Katharine Viner (now editor-in-chief of the Guardian), he edited our daughter Rachel’s writing into the play My Name is Rachel Corrie. The care Alan took for our family, his courage to take on this particular project and, most of all, the respect he showed for Rachel and her writing, impress me still as truly extraordinary.

Palestinian Citizens in Israel: A Fast-Shrinking Civic Space

Israel still portrays itself as a Jewish and democratic state. Yet in practice, as its Palestinian citizens can attest, it functions as a Jewish ethnocracy, leaving small margins of freedom for its Palestinian citizens that have been steadily shrinking in the past few years. Now the Israeli state has come under the complete control of the far right wing, which sees no need even for such limited margins of freedom. This is evident in the wave of discriminatory legislation and the use of the Emergency Regulations against established non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and movements such as the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel.