Muhammad Shehada is a contributing columnist for the Forward.
Muhammad ShehadaContributing Columnist
By Muhammad Shehada
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Opinion Memo to Abbas: Biden is not going to solve the Palestinians’ problems
As President Joe Biden was sworn into office last week, the octogenarian President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, hastened to issue a warm congratulatory statement, emphasizing his readiness for “a comprehensive and just peace process.” He sent a similar but more detailed letter to Biden’s team in November, offering to make several concessions in…
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Opinion Hanan Ashrawi’s departure from the PLO exposes the crisis in Palestinian leadership
Last week, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, an iconic Palestinian scholar, activist and feminist, and a decades-long fixture in Palestinian politics, resigned from the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee. The resignation of Dr. Ashrawi, the only woman on the committee, was accepted by PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Read: Statement by @DrHananAshrawi regarding her resignation from the PLO…
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Opinion Frustrating but indispensable, Saeb Erekat was like the peace process: heroic.
On Tuesday we learned of the passing of Saeb Erekat, a chief Palestinian negotiator, who succumbed to complications due to Covid in a Jerusalem hospital. For 30 years, since the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991, Erekat was a cornerstone of the peace process, a main pillar of any efforts to end the conflict. To most…
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Opinion Rabin’s contribution was recognizing us as partners. Don’t erase it.
This essay is part of a collection of essays commemorating the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. The collection was produced in partnership with BINA: The Jewish Movement for Social Change. What makes someone a hero? It isn’t perfection, that much I know. Nelson Mandela supported violent resistance, Mahatma Gandhi held racist views towards South Africans, and Abraham…
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Opinion Palestinian leadership must hold elections — and not run in them
The Palestinian leaders of the status quo have demonstrably failed to represent their people in the reshaping of the Middle East. This week, commercial flights between Israel and the Persian Gulf are becoming regular scenery, after the Knesset voted Thursday to approve the so-called “peace deal” with the United Arab Emirates. This premature Israeli-Arab normalization,…
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Opinion AOC should honor Rabin. She should honor Arafat, too.
Recently, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, star of the American left, announced that she would participate in an Americans for Peace Now event honoring Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister assassinated 25 years ago for his role trying to make peace with the Palestinians through the Oslo Accords. But the congresswoman was soon called out by activists…
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Opinion Violence begets despair begets violence in Gaza’s endless, hopeless loop
For the past few weeks, Gaza and Israel’s south have been involved in another alarming escalation. In retaliation for incendiary kites and balloons, launched from Gaza and falling on agricultural lands in Israel’s south, daily Israeli war planes carried out airstrikes on the strip. An attack by the Israeli occupation air force south of #Gaza…
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Opinion Why we Palestinians are not celebrating the suspension of annexation
For the last few months, Palestinians have been living under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to formally annex of large swathes of the West Bank. The pledge has, admittedly, been going nowhere, turning into a blame game between Bibi, his coalition partner Benny Gantz, and the Trump administration. What had seemed like the promise…
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