Ben Lynfield covered Israeli and Palestinian politics for The Independent and served as Middle Eastern affairs correspondent at the Jerusalem Post. He writes for publications in the region and has contributed to the Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy and the New Statesman.
“This is not just about the reform,” said one protester. 'It is about control of the country, about whether the right can rule'
“In no way whatsoever do I condemn them,” said veteran settler activist Daniella Weiss about the settlers who rioted in Huwara
A version of this article originally appeared in Plus61J, an Australian Jewish publication. While receiving her dialysis treatment at East Jerusalem’s Augusta Victoria hospital last week, nine-year-old Amani Hababa broke into laughter. Two rednosed therapeutic clowns were singling her out for special attention, babbling nonsense verses, playing guitar and singing “Amani is the sweetest.” Six…
Ras Khamis, a poor neighborhood in a neglected part of Jerusalem, might be mistaken for being outside the city altogether. It lies beyond the separation barrier that Israel has erected to fence itself off from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, and the neighborhood’s Palestinian residents receive almost no city services. They burn their own…
At the upscale November Café, near Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s house, the conversation and atmosphere are relaxed, and state-of-the-art smart phones rest on tables as their young owners sip cappuccino or fruit juice. But despite the veneer of normalcy, the pinch of Israel’s 45-year-old occupation of the West Bank is palpable here. For one…
Many Israelis marked the 46th anniversary of Jerusalem’s reunification, as they see it, with the fanfare that has become a staple of Jerusalem Day, the holiday first declared by the government in 1968 to mark the historic event. The May 8 celebration, which Israel’s chief rabbinate has also declared a religious holiday, was punctuated by…
In Nabi Samwil, a West Bank village of 250 residents just north of Jerusalem, elementary school principal Khalil Abu Arqoub must choose daily between heeding the orders of Israeli military administrators and upholding the well-being of his pupils. As part of Israel’s stringent building restrictions in this area, the toilet of the Nabi Samwil Mixed…
At the Knesset in West Jerusalem, she has been threatened, denounced as a terrorist and stripped of her parliamentary privileges. Israel’s new kingmaker, Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid, has cited her as the reason he would never join a coalition that depended on support from Israeli-Arab political parties. But at the Ambassador Hotel in…
100% of profits support our journalism
