PALESTINE - ISRAEL - JORDAN - SINAI

Off the beaten track tours • Visit sites • Meet locals • Discuss Human Rights & Politics

Speaking Truth to Power – The Life and Legacy of Edward Said

By Miri –  Edward and his sister Rosemarie, 1940 It has been ten years since the passing of Edward Said. He was a cultural critic, an academic, a writer, an intellectual, a musician and probably one of the most powerful voices of the Palestinian cause.  Said was born in Jerusalem in 1935 to a prosperous […]

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Against All Odds: Annual Olive Harvest in Palestine

By Miri – Olive Harvest, Palestine 1886 The annual olive harvest in Palestine used to be a season of joy and festivities. Whole families, including elders and toddlers would gather in the groves and help bring in the crops, eat breakfast together in the shade of the trees, and listen to stories and jokes. In […]

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Israel’s “Foreign Workers”

By Miri –  Neve Sha’anan, South Tel Aviv Israel is a country consisting to a large extent of former refugees and immigrants. At the same time Israel does not consider itself an immigration country – as far as non-Jews are concerned, of course. Walking through Tel Aviv’s South however, will certainly give you a completely […]

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“Be Careful of Arab Women, Who Have Lately Proved as Dangerous as Men”

By Miri – Highlighting the participation of Palestinian women in the struggle for national self-determination is important, but also often misleading. Overemphasising and celebrating their role can obscure the challenges that they face within their own society. Applying gendered theories which solely focus on their position within Palestinian society on the other hand too often […]

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The Hummus Trail – Young Israeli Veterans in India

By Miri –  It has become something of a rite of passage for Israelis to embark on a long journey after their discharge from the army. Travelling constitutes something like a bridge from the army time to a nascent adulthood of university applications or job hunting and thus a rare opportunity for carelessness for young […]

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Crossing the Wall – Palestinian Workers in Israel

By Miri – Following Eid al-Fitr, Israeli as well as international media was full of pictures and articles about West Bank Palestinians enjoying and celebrating Ramadan on Tel Aviv’s and Jaffa’s beaches. Israeli authorities had granted more than 200,000 permits to Palestinian West Bank residents for the high Muslim holiday. A view at Tel Aviv […]

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A Community of Its Own? Russian Speaking Jews in Israel

By Miri –  Russian speaking Jews constitute about 20% of Israel’s total population today. Notwithstanding their large numbers, the fact that they have been calling Israel their home for quite a few decades by now, and that especially many of the younger generations perceive of themselves as Israelis, the veteran Israeli population still refers to […]

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The Role of Zionist Terrorism in the Foundation of the State of Israel – the Case of the Irgun Zvai Leumi

By Miri –  During the years between World War II and the establishment of Israel in 1948, three Jewish para-military organisations were operating in Palestine. The first one to emerge was the “Jewish Defense Organisation”, the Haganah, which was founded when the tensions between the Palestinian and the Jewish population started rising. Until 1929, the […]

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The Manifold Burdens of Palestinian Female Prisoners

By Miri –  During Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2008 and 2009 a large group of Israeli activists was arrested for blocking the entrance to a military airport north of Tel Aviv. I was one of them. At the end of our first court hearing the judge decided to send us to jail for a […]

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Land First – Earth Second? Environmentalism in Israel and Palestine

By Miri – Growing up in a middle class home in Germany in the 1980s and 1990s, I was privileged enough to learn quite a bit and grow aware of environmental problems. I remember having to drink UHT milk and my father trying to explain me what had happened in Chernobyl, which immediately turned me […]

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Rising from the Margins: Musika Mizrahit

By Miri – In a previous article on this blog we already outlined the historical roots of the socio-economic marginalisation of the Mizrahi (lit. “Eastern” Jews, stemming from Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus) communities by the dominant Ashkenazi (usually understood as European Jews) elite. The subordination of the Mizrahim also included the forced erasure […]

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On the Bedouin Serving in the Israeli Army

By Miri –  The other day I randomly got into a conversation with two guys. It turned out that they were Bedouin, working for the Ministry of Defense  and living in Tel Aviv. Soon our discussion turned political when I referred to Israel’s Arab population as Palestinians. “They are living in Israel, why do you […]

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