Palestinians should declare statehood now and Israelis and the United States should support the move. Rather than creating tensions undermining peace, a unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinians would in fact create a dynamic in which peace would become more possible.

One of the insurmountable challenges that has perplexed the peace movement and negotiations over the years is the disparity in political reality between Israel and “Palestine,” and that has fed the skepticism of the Palestinian population and the fears of Israelis. Trying to get two peoples, one that has statehood and sovereignty to negotiate with another that lacks statehood and international support such as a seat on the United Nations General Assembly as an equal member, is difficult.

Why should Israel make any concessions to Palestinians as long as they do not have international statehood recognition and the legal status that goes along with statehood?

The absence of Palestinian statehood has created a vacuum in which Israel dominates and dictates and imposes unilateral decisions from security measures on Palestinians to the creation and expansion of settlements in areas that would otherwise be a Palestine State.

What the peace process desperately needs are two peace partners who are equal in the eyes of international law as nations. As two separate recognized sovereign states, Palestine and Israel would find it far easier to negotiate final status issues on a wide range of issues from Jerusalem, settlements, compensation and boundaries.

In fact, the creation of a Palestinian State would galvanize Palestinian nationalism and reinforce confidence in the ability of the peace process to achieve a fair and just peace, even if those negotiations were to continue through the next decade as they may well do. Peace is negotiated between nations all the time. Issues of final borders, the sharing of cities and land annexation and land ownership are oftentim... [Read More]

I have read almost every book published on the Arab-Israeli conflict. In part, I've read them all because I live in the United States where, as a Palestinian, I hunger for the truth about the Arab Israeli conflict. Here in the United States, the book publishing industry has been biased. Those few books that manage to make it into print under small usually left-wing book labels, have never satisfied my contempt for the bias in this country.

I've read all the books -- or, maybe to be more precise, I have tried to read all of them and have read most -- also because I continue to look for the Palestinian version of "Exodus," the propaganda novel penned by Leon Uris at the urging of a publicist hired by the Israeli government that recognized the power of compelling literature, something that has for far too long been missing from Arab literature in English.

Exodus was the benchmark of American understanding of Palestine, a story of poor victims of the Holocaust (victimized not by Arabs but by European Nazis and anti-Semitic Western countries like the United States). It told a great story even though much of it was false.

A lifetime of searching for one book that might have a shot at grabbing the heartstrings of American audiences in the same way that Uris' compelling and well-written propaganda moved Americans to embrace injustice against Christian and Musl... [Read More]

Jared Malsin, an English editor at the Maan News Agency in Bethlehem, was arrested and jailed by Israeli border police this week for the high crime of "criticizing Israel." The journalist is sitting in a jail cell awaiting a kangaroo court hearing before an Israeli judge. And there is nothing Arab Journalists can do about it, mainly because they spend more time fighting among themselves than they do networking and creating one, single, strong voice.

Marking an ‘American’ Arab Christmas in ’09

By RAY HANANIA

My mom was so proud when we joined the Joneses and purchased an aluminum Christmas tree in 1962.

It glistened in the light of the three high beam spotlights of green, blue and red. I’d sit next to them as a kid and melt the plastic toy soldiers on them, much to my mom’s chagrin who was more concerned that I’d burn my hands.

Fake Christmas trees. One job. One home. One wife. That was the mantra of most Americans back in the early 1960s.

Our only technology involved a car — we bought a red Rambler back in 1966, and we had a Kodak silent 8 mm movie camera (which I still have), a telephone with a line that only let you talk within four feet of where it was placed in the house, a Zenith black & white television with the gold/silver stitching on the material covering the speaker, and electricity.

Very simple lives. And you know what? That simplicity made for a better family life because it meant we were not distracted the way we are today. We actually spent more time together as a family. And we knew every neighbor on our block and across the street and “across the alley.”

Not the same today. We’re too busy. I have a cell phone, laptop, home computer PC, Internet connection, digital cameras, both still and video, and Web pages and blogs.

I don’t know how I would survive in this world today if I wasn’t a writer because today’s technology is all about information and writing. Well, for many, just typing.

But there is one thing that hasn’t changed over the past half century between 1960 and 2010 next year. And that is food.

There’s more diversity in food, more variety of food and even eating habits including health and vegetarian menus. But it all is the same old food, prepared almost the same way today as we did 50 years ago.

[Read More]

Old ways of fighting for rights must change

By Ray Hanania

This week, we’ve seen a perfect example of how the rejectionists over-press their support for Palestinian rights in Europe and end up creating disasters that harm the Palestinian cause.

The activists have been pressing European Union officials to declare that Jerusalem is to be a shared city. A proposal condemning Israel’s expulsion of Palestinians from East Jerusalem and declared the city the capital of a future Palestinian State was drafted by Sweden, which currently holds the presidency of the EU.

But while the leaked draft was praised as further proof that world opinion is turning up pressure on Israel to change its ways, the Israelis responded with their own counter pressure and the draft was dramatically changed to include the usual rhetoric condemning Israel but dropping the call to make East Jerusalem Palestine’s capital in a two-state solution.

The activists pushing this, however, don’t care that this battle has been lost. They’re goal is to portray Israel as intransigent, which is often is, and to solidify the false promises of their real agenda, creating one-state as their “dream solution” to the long simmering conflict.

But one-state is not a dream at all and is instead a nightmare that even if it had a chance of becoming real would find Palestinians victims of a stronger occupation with legitimacy that continues to deny their rights.

Essentially, the rejectionists have their “one-state” solution in the current situation with Israelis living in freedom under an umbrella of military security and Palestinians stumbling through life under oppressive laws in the occupied territories and societal discrimination against most Palestinian “citizens” of Israel.

Palestinians, under their failed leadership of the Fatah, the rejectionists and Hamas, continue to witness the weakening of their rights. And they have been brainwashed into v... [Read More]

My candidacy for president of Palestine is a campaign for peace

By Ray Hanania

In 33 years of political journalism and election campaigning in America, I’ve learned that no one can predict an election outcome.

Surprising things that people did not expect usually happens. And longshots with no hope of winning oftentimes do win.

So with all that in mind, I am announcing my candidacy for President of Palestine.

It has several goals. The last of which is to actually become Palestine’s president. First and foremost is my declaration that peace based on compromise is the only future for Palestinians and Israelis.

There is no future for Palestinians or Israelis with today’s situation. The Israelis have turned to the hard conservative right, rejecting real peace and believing they can have everything while Palestinians remain driven by anger and emotion and very little logic.

Sometimes anger is soothed by revenge, but suffering is never avenged by violence. Rejecting peace is the foundation of violence and both Israelis and Palestinians are guilty of rejecting peace each for their own misguided, anger-driven reasons.

So someone has to step up to the plate and say what needs to be said if only to give the people an alternative.

Two states, one Israel and one Palestine is the only answer. It always was and always will be. It doesn’t matter that Palestinians rejected two-states in 1948 when they fought to destroy the Jews or that Israel rejected two-states in 1948 also when they fought but failed to take over the whole country.

Two states, based on land for peace. Israel abandons its hunger for Palestinian land and Palestinians abandon their own hunger for Israel.

Two states, based on the premise of building from ashes rather than turning what remains into ashes, which is where we are all headed at the moment. We just don’t see the end. Although continued suffering and continued fear is ... [Read More]