history

My grandfather, Mohammed Samara, shaking hands with an official at a football tournament in Jerusalem during the British mandate of Palestine, 1946. Photo courtesy of the Samara family.

Nakba Day attests to the power of our grandparents’ stories

For young Palestinians, Nakba Day is dedicated to remembering the catastrophes that our grandparents went through. But with every passing year, we realize how much the day belongs to our catastrophes too. My maternal grandfather was born in 1929. Although Alzheimer’s disease eroded his memory during the later years of his life, he had a…

By Amjad Iraqi May 16, 2016

The Jerusalem skyline. (Photo by Shutterstock.com)

Defusing incitement about Jerusalem

Israeli leaders like to claim that Jerusalem has never been an Arab or Muslim capital, and vowing that it never will be. But are they guilty of performing linguistic gymnastics and a selective memory of Israel’s legal commitments about the holy city? By Lorenzo Kamel At a Jerusalem Day ceremony on May 17, Israeli Prime Minister…

By +972 Magazine May 30, 2015

The Beaten Path: An introduction, or how to ruin a good story (part 1)

In a new series of adventures, travel writer Yuval Ben-Ami sets out to deconstruct the Holy Land’s most famous and heavily trodden tourist attractions. To begin, he deconstructs the entire country. The Holy Land has no history. I mean it. It is a land without any history at all, insofar as “history” can be said…

By Yuval Ben-Ami October 15, 2014

Latest

Not a liberal bone in his body. David Ben Gurion (Photo: Us National Archive)

The NYTimes has it wrong: Israel’s roots are not liberal

Perhaps the greatest myth about Israel is the one the New York Times subscribes to: that it started out as a ‘liberal’ country committed to ‘human rights.’ An examination of the early days demonstrates that the country led by Ben-Gurion and Mapai was no progressive picnic. Recently, the New York Times was bemoaning the declining…

By Yossi Gurvitz July 24, 2012

The old caravanserai in Acre (Photo: Yossi Gurvitz)

Why is Acre afraid of old signs?

An artist placed re-designed street signs, from the Turkish period, in Acre – and Israelis think this “undermines law and order.” Why? Artist Walid Qashash took a political stand (Hebrew): He designed street signs for the Old City of Acre, as they would look under the Turkish rulers, and hanged them near the normal street…

By Yossi Gurvitz March 27, 2011