Arab Idol contestant wins over fans as the ‘voice of Gaza’

With his glinting smile and powerful vocals captivating audiences and panel of judges, an Arab Idol contestant has become the first Palestinian to advance into a late stage of the pan-Arab talent competition. Mohammed Assaf, from Gaza, has become a national icon among Palestinians.

Saree Makdisi

Author of Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation and professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA.

Timeline: The Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) & Establishment of Israeli Apartheid

The IMEU offers this timeline on the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) and the establishment of Israel's apartheid regime .

Noura Erakat

Human rights attorney and activist, Abraham L. Freedman Teaching Fellow at Temple University, Beasley School of Law.

Explainer: The First Intifada

The First Intifada was a large-scale popular uprising launched by Palestinians in 1987 against Israel's then 20-year-old military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

Lehava: State-Sponsored Incitement

In recent weeks, numerous requests, including from the Israeli police, have been made to Israel's Attorney General to launch a criminal investigation into a group called Lehava, which is dedicated to preventing Jews, particularly Jewish women, from mixing with Palestinians and other non-Jews. The requests come in the wake of a series of violent assaults carried out against Palestinians by Israeli Jews fueled by rumors or the mistaken belief that Jewish women had been harassed by Palestinian men. So far, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein has failed to take any action against Lehava, which receives indirect financial and political support from the government.

1967 Israeli-Occupied Territories

United Nations Partition Plan, Resolution 181

In Their Own Words: Israeli Leaders on the Expulsion of Palestinians During Israel’s Establishment

"We must expel Arabs and take their places...and, if we have to use force-not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places-then we have force at our disposal."