IMEU Institute for Middle East Understanding
I was born in the ancient Palestinian city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank in a home around the corner from the entrance to Shuhada Street, the main thoroughfare and marketplace in the city. The name of our neighborhood was Bab el-Khan.
on August 29, 2017
“You’re suspected of stealing a motorcycle,” one of the men told me as he beat me. Every time I tried to explain that I was the owner of the bike and that I was the one who had called the police, he would say, “Shut your mouth. I’ll screw you. Not a word!” As he continued to hit me, referring to me constantly as “Mohammed,” two other men began kicking me from the sidelines.
on August 18, 2017
The next time a cap gun is fired or a toy balloon is launched at Israel from the Gaza Strip, the army will start building a steel dome over the Strip to prevent it. The ceiling will also cut off the territory from the sky.
on August 13, 2017
Political analyst Diana Buttu provides insight on the ongoing protests by Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem provoked by increased restrictions imposed on Muslims who want to worship at the Noble Sanctuary mosque complex, the third holiest site in Islam, by Israel's occupying army.
on July 27, 2017
The right to boycott has a long history in the United States, from the American Revolution to Martin Luther King Jr.’s Montgomery bus boycott to the campaign for divestment from businesses serving apartheid South Africa. Nowadays we celebrate those efforts.
on July 24, 2017
Yesterday, thousands of Palestinians came to Jerusalem to perform the most simple, most peaceful act: prayer. Palestinians - Muslims and Christians, women and men, young and old - prayed in the streets after refusing to enter through the new metal detectors and barricades...
on July 22, 2017
I recently traveled to Tuskegee, Ala., to meet with civil rights icon Rosa Parks’s lawyer, Fred Gray, and we talked about the role of the Montgomery bus boycott in breaking up racial segregation. “The boycott was the spark that ignited the end of Jim Crow segregation...
on July 18, 2017
I talked to my family in Gaza earlier this week and asked them: "How do you sleep at night when you don't have electricity?" The temperature at night there doesn't go below 74 degrees Fahrenheit, and humidity is high. My 12-year-old sister answered: "We don’t." She explained that even if they try to sleep, open all the windows, drink a lot of water - still, they can’t breathe.
on July 16, 2017
As a young boy growing up in Bethlehem, I was often excited when our family had company. My dad, a Christian clergyman, loved to take us and the guests to Hebron. Dad would take us to the Cave of the Machpela, situated within the Ibrahimi Mosque, where Abraham and his family are buried and would tell the story of how Abraham obeyed God’s calling even when it came to the request to sacrifice his own son.
on July 12, 2017