Permission to Narrate is the blog project of The Jerusalem Fund and its education program, the Palestine Center.
The name derives from a quote by the late Palestinian scholar, Edward Said, who remarked that Palestinians had been denied permission to narrate their history and speak of the day-to-day experiences of life in the margins. Their voices are so often absent from popular media.
The blog seeks to educate the public by offering Palestinian perspectives on the news and events of the day.
Handala, the cartoon character who is writing our blog’s name on the blackboard, is the signature character of the famed Palestinian political cartoonist and critic Naji Al-Ali. Al-Ali was murdered in London in 1987 by unknown assailants.
Handala, typifying the Palestinian refugee, is always depicted by Al-Ali with his back turned, as if walking away from his homeland. He is present in each of Al-Ali’s cartoons, a constant reminder of refugee experience and the hopes of the generation to come.
With this blog, we are permitted to narrate.
Please note that the views expressed in blog posts do not necessarily reflect or represent the views of The Jerusalem Fund.
by Yousef Munayyer
Yesterday I became aware of Spike Lee’s emphatic response to a question posed to him at an event in Brooklyn about gentrification. The questioner asked about the “good side of gentrification”. Well, Spike Lee, a Brooklyn native, wasn’t buying into the argument at all. The notion that anyone would put a positive spin on gentrification was so insulting to Lee that he gave an emotional, expletive-laden reply.
by Yousef Munayyer
by Yousef Munayyer
The other night I was happy to participate in a program for Aljazeera America on BDS. The Stream focused on BDS for the entire episode. I was joined by Josh Ruebner, Lara Friedman and Avi Mayer. This is a topic that deserves to be discussed for much longer than half an hour and between commercial breaks and packages, the actual discussion was a fraction of that.
By Yousef Munayyer
Usually it is very easy to tell the New York Times’ Roger Cohen apart from similarly named decency-challenged columnist at the Washington Post Richard Cohen. Usually. Sometimes however, Roger’s arguments make that distinction far more difficult to make, especially when they focus on Palestinian rights.
by Yousef Munayyer
For months we have been tracking Israeli cease-fire violations in Gaza. In November of 2012, a cease-fire agreement was brokered by Egypt between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Previous cease-fire agreements, like the one brokered by Egypt in June of 2008 were shattered by extrajudicial assassinations carried out by Israel. The biggest question after the cease-fire agreement, as I made clear here, was who would hold Israel to account for cease-fire violations? Egypt was not going to play this role. The U.S. was not going to play this role. So effectively, Israel could fire into Gaza without accountability, provoke a reaction and then claim self-defense.
By Yousef Munayyer
By now you have likely heard about the controversy over Hollywood star Scarlett Johannson and her love triangle between SodaStream, a company that manufactures products in an Israeli settlement and Oxfam, an international NGO that opposes settlements. The contradiction is obvious and for anyone still unclear, this info-graphic is helpful.
by Yousef Munayyer
by Yousef Munayyer
It was inevitable, I suppose. The legacy of Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli Prime Minister who died recently after years in a coma, was the subject of much debate and conversation in the Israel/Palestine discourse this week. Some mainstream American media outlets did a particularly poor job, however, in characterizing the life of the man.
