[ePalestine] Resetting Palestine's political system (By Sam Bahour) En/Ar

Open Democracy (English)
Al-Quds Newspaper (Arabic)

Resetting Palestine's political system
إعادة ضبط النظام السياسي في فلسطين ما عاد يحتمل الانتظار

By Sam Bahour



Today, Palestinian political strategy is being driven in the total absence of a functioning political system. Israel's forced fragmentation of our geographic reality mixed with internal political party divisions, disgust, despair and incompetence, the status quo tears apart Palestine's societal fabric. If it remains on its current course, the train of national liberation is bound to derail, resulting in serious, if not permanent, damage to our bid for freedom and independence.

Repairing the Palestinian political system cannot wait any longer.

READ ON AT:

English: http://bit.ly/resetting-en



Arabic (Al-Quds, 27/2/2015, p. 17 - PDF): http://bit.ly/resetting-pdf-ar

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[ePalestine] Al-Hal: Between storytelling and reporting a story (By Sam Bahour) En/Ar

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Al-Hal (Issue 115 - Volume 10)
Issued by Media Development Center, Birzeit University

Between storytelling and reporting a story
بين رواية الخبر ونقله

By Sam Bahour

Every culture has stories, whether for entertainment, education, cultural preservation, or instilling moral values. Many times, stories address more than one goal simultaneously. These stories are sometimes repeated so often in a family or community that they take on the characteristics of a fairy tale, but not without retaining a hint of the underlying truths. The life cycle of a story from fact to fiction is a discussion for another time, but let's bear in mind that when a story's main medium of travel is oral, a mix of fact, improvisation and embellishment are usually present in the final result.

READ ON AT:

ENGLISH (PDF): http://bit.ly/story-AlHal-En
(for full English edition click here)

ARABIC: http://bit.ly/story-AlHal-Ar
(for full Arabic edition click here)

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[ePalestine] LOCAL CALL: NO CHOICE: THE PEOPLE WHO CAN NOT VOTE SPEAK

Published in Hebrew in LOCAL CALL on current Israeli elections:

NO CHOICE: THE PEOPLE WHO CANNOT VOTE SPEAK

Israel pretends its society is a normal, US-style melting pot, but there are only two problems – there is nothing remotely "normal" about Israeli's societal composition and, furthermore, the pot's ingredients, by policy design, have yet to melt. The destructive societal divisions amongst Israel's population shines through during every election; this time around is no different. While Israel's nearly five-decade military occupation of Palestinians is slowly, but surely, ripping Israel out of its global comfort zone, not one electoral contender has peeped a word about how the occupation will come to an end.

Likewise, while racism inside Israel against Christian and Muslim Palestinians—full Israeli citizens—has reached levels provoking even some Jewish Israelis to call it fascism, Israel's political parties are acting as if it's business-as-usual. The only bold and somewhat refreshing electoral move, thus far, is Avraham Burg's joining of the Hadash Political Party, and even there the debate immediately focused around Palestinian political parties running in a single slate, or not, instead of the seismic shift that Burg's move represents amongst Israel's Zionist personalities.

Bottom line for us Palestinians 'living' under Israel's boot of occupation: Historically, in the USA and many other places, when a population is long disenfranchised, unrest ensues, forcing greater equality.

Jewish Israelis living in perpetual denial should take note when they head to their polling booths this March, for their sake if not for ours. The looming fork in the road for us is signposted "Palestinian Statehood" or "Civil Rights for All." While the idea of the former is dispensable, the coming of the latter is inevitable.

~Sam Bahour

SOURCE (in Hebrew): http://bit.ly/1EGd1EV

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