Reem Omran is program manager for Gaza Sky Geeks, which is launching a hi-tech accelerator for start-ups this fall. (Christa Case Bryant/TCSM)

In hi-tech, Gaza Sky Geeks sees way to break through isolation

By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer / 06.04.13

Reem Omran, a petite dynamo with impeccable English and sparkly gold shoes, has grand plans to grow bushels of Gaza entrepreneurs.

Given the tough conditions of working in this tiny coastal territory with no port of its own, her ideas and optimism may sound fanciful.

But already, Gaza Sky Geeks is benefiting from a $900,000 grant from Google and landed airy modern offices in Gaza City with the help of Mercy Corps, whose economic wing promotes information communications and technology (ICT) education in Gaza. (Editor's note: The original version mischaracterized the origin of the grant and Ms. Omran's role at the organization.)

Now Gaza Sky Geeks is in serious talks with venture capitalists who could help the outfit transition from a nonprofit organization to a bona fide business whose mission is to help hi-tech start-ups develop into full-fledged companies.

“We know that the Google grant is an opportunity for Gaza.… Showing the world what Gaza really has [in terms of] entrepreneurs and start-ups is going to bring more attention and support to the ICT community,” says Ms. Omran, who started with Mercy Corps as a student volunteer and helped coordinate Google’s visits to Gaza, which began in the summer of 2010. “We want to prove that yes, those start-ups, those entrepreneurs [and] freelancers from Gaza … are able to compete and produce those Web and mobile applications.”

While Gaza’s near-moribund economy, and strict Israeli and Egyptian controls on exports, are notoriously bad for business, the potential for success in hi-tech is perhaps higher since the industry is less hampered by physical barriers. Web- or mobile-based applications can be used and sold outside Gaza without any need for physically exporting products.

The difficult conditions in Gaza also contribute to an unusually Web-savvy youth population, suggests Omran. The social restrictions on young women that prevent them from going out after school, the inability to travel outside Gaza, and the high rate of unemployment – among 15-29 year olds it is nearly 50 percent   – all mean that young people spend an astounding amount of time online.

Gaza Sky Geeks is launching Gaza’s first hi-tech accelerator to help other start-ups develop into proper businesses, and to provide more of a market for some 2,000 university students who graduate each year with degrees in information communication and technology and are largely unable to find jobs.

“We looked at entire ecosystem of start-ups … then we tried to figure out missing parts of ecosystem,” says Omran, ticking off a handful of players, from the Business and Technology incubator at Islamic University to the Palestinian IT Association. “When there’s a market for these start-ups, it’s time to accelerate them.”

Later this month, they are holding a boot camp of three to five weeks for potential grantees. Six teams will be chosen from among the boot camp participants and awarded grants of $15,000 to $20,000. They'll then be given three months to use Gaza Sky Geeks’ facilities, which include iMacs with huge screens, modern bar swivel chairs, and fairly reliable Internet and electricity.

After that, Gaza Sky Geeks will organize an opportunity for the teams to demo their products for investors, either in Gaza or in another Arab country if it proves too big an obstacle to get investors into Gaza.

To that end, they recently sent employee Mohammed Ballour to a conference in Jordan sponsored by Wamda, which trains entrepreneurs in the Middle East and North Africa. There he received training on how to start an accelerator and develop criteria for mentoring start-ups.

The small Gaza Sky Geeks team acknowledges that their aspirations are high, but so is their motivation.

“All our dreams are trying to reach the sky,” says program coordinator Mira Bakri, originally from Lebanon. “This is what we were trying to do with this name [Gaza Sky Geeks].”

A banner depicting Mohammed Assaf, a Palestinian contestant on 'Arab Idol,' is seen on a building in the West Bank city of Ramallah May 13. Assaf has suddenly become one of the Arab world's hottest singing sensations. (Mohamad Torokman/Reuters)

Arab Idol: No Bieber fever in Gaza

By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer / 05.31.13

Mohammed Assaf, who grew up in this crowded refugee camp performing with his pianist sister, has suddenly become one of the Arab world’s hottest singing sensations.

Among Gaza's teenage girls, the handsome Mr. Assaf inspires a Justin Bieber-like fandom. His sister says that young girls regularly call the family home asking to marry her brother. Ask any teenage girl on the streets of Khan Younis what they think of him and soon you'll have a gaggle of them giggling into their headscarves and vying for a chance to tell outsiders just how wonderful their hometown here is. 

His soulful renditions of Palestinian nationalist songs have prompted Palestinians of all stripes to rally behind him in the second season of “Arab Idol,” a Lebanon-based singing contest. But his stardom also represents a broader success for Palestinian solidarity. Even before hordes of teenage girls were texting their votes for Mr. Assaf, more than a few Palestinians went out of their way to help the aspiring star overcome the unique obstacles of life – never mind music careers – in Gaza.

If it weren’t for that support, Assaf may have never even had a chance to audition for Arab Idol, let alone become one of the final seven contestants out of 27.

Because of growing militant activity in the nearby Sinai peninsula and ongoing Israeli concerns about the flow of militants and weapons in and out of the Gaza, the borders of this tiny coastal territory are tightly controlled.

So when auditions were held in next-door Egypt this winter, Assaf had trouble getting through the Rafah border crossing. By the time he arrived at the audition center, the organizers had closed the doors and refused to let him in.

He immediately called his mother in disappointment. She told him, “Don’t come back with empty hands, even if you have to jump over the wall,” recalls his older sister Nisreen.

So Assaf walked the perimeter of the property with a cousin studying in Cairo and found a place to jump the fence. But when he got inside, he was denied the necessary ticket for a turn to audition. After his pleas were rebuffed by the woman in charge, he tried a different form of protest: He began singing.

A fellow Gazan in the crowded waiting area immediately recognized Assaf’s voice, which had become well-known through his radio appearances.

“He said, ‘My voice is not as good as yours, please, take my ticket,’” says Nisreen, surrounded by her brother’s image on multitudinous posters in the family’s neat but modest home. Big trucks rumble by on the sandy streets outside.

Assaf first sang in public at age five with Shireen, his eldest sister, who was well-known for her piano playing. While the siblings never had formal music lessons – no music school existed until very recently, says Nisreen – their parents strongly encouraged them to pursue their talents. Shireen broke her electric keyboard more than once and they bought a new one each time – a big financial sacrifice in a place where the goal is often to merely making ends meet.

They also encouraged her kid brother to call in to a popular television show with singer Jamal al-Najjar, who would take questions. When Assaf called in, his "question" was more of a request: Listen to me sing.

Mr. al-Najjar not only indulged him, but asked for his phone number to follow up. Soon after, Assaf’s father arranged a meeting between the two, which launched a mentoring relationship that his sister credits with making his music career.

And when the opportunity came to audition for Arab Idol, Assaf’s parents once again strongly encouraged him. The contest represents the first possibility for Assaf to earn money from his singing; according to his sister, he already has a 10-year contract with MBC, the Saudi TV station that airs Arab Idol.

“He’s never made a penny from his singing,” says Nisreen, noting that local merchants frequently use his image to boost sales without paying him due to a lack of copyright law. “Now, this is going to change.”

For Assaf’s fellow Palestinians, his success also represents an opportunity to earn more dignity and respect in the Arab world. The Palestinian cause is often championed for political reasons, but little is done to help the 5 million or more refugees whose families lost their homes in the 1948-49 war of Israeli independence.

“I believe he changed Arab perceptions for the better,” says Nismaa Arafa, a 10th grader. “Palestine became more popular in front of the Arab countries.”

Maoz Inon recently spoke about his vision for sustainable tourism at the first international Jerusalem symposium on green and accessible pilgrimage. (Christa Case Bryant/TCSM)

Can backpackers solve Middle East's tourism woes?

By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer / 05.29.13

Where others give PowerPoint presentations about wooing more souls to a storied land, he wears a faded “staff” T-shirt with a button that says, “In fun we trust.” He actively courts travelers who have visited countries at war with Israel, including Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq, and aims to boost tourism to the whole Middle East one backpacker at a time.

Meet Maoz Inon, Israel’s maverick tourism entrepreneur, whose latest venture was just recognized as one of the top 10 large hostels worldwide.

“I believe tourism is a great tool also to create political change, to create a very big impact,” he says. “Backpackers are the first adopters, so we must target them.”

Mr. Inon’s foray into shoestring travel in Israel began eight years ago in the Old City of Nazareth, one of Israel’s poorest neighborhoods, which was riddled with drugs and not exactly a prime tourist destination – even for the adventurous. But after he and his wife decided to leave their “yuppie lives” in Tel Aviv and spent months backpacking along California’s Pacific Crest Trail and later Patagonia at the tip of South America, they had returned home with a mission.

“I believe the No. 1 beneficiary should be the local community,” he says, having witnessed firsthand the transformative effect of responsible tourism.

He found a gem of an old mansion in Nazareth’s warren of stone alleyways, and turned its soaring arches and tiled ceilings into the Fauzi Azar Inn, named after the Arab family that occupied it until the 1980s. By creating a free map and daily tours of the Old City, as well as co-founding the Jesus Trail that runs from Fauzi’s steps to the shores of the Galilee, he helped create such a demand that six more guesthouses have since opened up in the Old City.

With visitors from places as cosmopolitan as London and far-flung as Mongolia, he says his inn and its clientele are gradually turning perceptions of Nazareth inside out.

“It is raising the self-esteem of the community and creating a psychological change in their mind,” says Inon, who partners with local businesses – including other guesthouses – and organizes home-cooked dinners in a local family’s home for 80 shekels ($22) a head.

“Sustainable business is not about recycling or solar power,” he says. “It’s about being a profitable business.

And he seems to have a knack for spotting such opportunities. The Abraham Hostel, which he opened in 2010 with several other Israeli backpackers, became a top-ranked Israeli hostel before renovations on all 72 rooms were even completed. In February, the annual Hoscars competition named it the 8th best large hostel in the world – the only Israeli hostel to get a mention in any of the four categories.

“I believe backpackers are the foundation of sustainable tourism,” he says. “I see them as the planktons in the ocean that we feed on.”

An ultra-Orthodox Jew walks past a palm silhouetted on the Old City's wall in Jerusalem on May 12. Director Rama Burshtein's first feature-length film, 'Fill the Void,' depicts the intimate portrait of love, family, and community in the ultra-Orthodox world. (Dusan Vranic/AP)

Ultra-Orthodox insider invites outsiders in through the big screen

By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer / 05.24.13

Israel’s ultra-Orthodox, with their bobbing side curls and modestly dressed women, are no strangers to the silver screen.

But rarely, if ever, have they been portrayed by one of their own.

Rama Burshtein has surprised more than a few people – herself included – with the success of her first feature-length film, “Fill the Void,” which won seven of Israel’s 12 Academy awards, including best director. The intimate portrait of love, family, and community in the ultra-Orthodox world makes its US debut this weekend with premieres in New York and Los Angeles.

While Israeli films and TV shows have increasingly offered glimpses into Orthodox Judaism, they tend to be directed by outsiders and involve characters who feel constricted by the community and are wrestling with their faith – or are even looking for a way out. Some two decades after finishing film school and leaving her secular life to become a strictly observant Jew, Mrs. Burshtein decided it was time for a new window for secular people to peer into ultra-Orthodox life.

“I think people were curious about this community, but it’s like you’d be curious about what happens at the Vatican, or what’s happening in Japan, or any other exotic place,” she says in the Tel Aviv offices of Norma Productions, where she spent a year on casting alone. “It’s not about true interest in the community or its beliefs, it’s more into their dress codes, into the atmosphere of what it seems like from the outside.”

But Fill the Void definitely penetrates well beyond the trappings of the community, exploring the heart of an 18-year-old girl, Shira. When the movie begins, she is eyeing her prospective match in the supermarket, but she soon finds herself facing an unexpected marriage proposition when her older sister dies in childbirth. Her parents, eager to keep their new grandchild in the family, ask Shira to consider marrying her sister’s widower.

Shira is free to make her own choice, says Burshtein, who describes true freedom as the ability to know what is right and commit to it, rather than trying all the options. But others see Shira contending with strong pressure from her family, rabbi, and larger community.

But Burshtein seems less concerned about what people see through this window of hers than with the fact that it gives them a very human picture of a largely unknown world.

“It’s a mixture of a lot of feelings and a lot of characters and a lot of virtues and faults. It’s just human. That was my main thing. I was just trying to be honest. I’m not trying to sell anything. I’m trying just to say, just look at us, just look, just let us be there, as part of humanity and not as something weird and unreachable and so far away and primitive,” she says. “And I think we were very successful.”

Micah Hendler, director of the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, started a chorus for Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem five months after graduating from Yale University. He leads practice in Jerusalem's YMCA in this photo from February. (Chelsea Sheasley/TCSM)

Musical Arab-Jewish youth seek the key to coexistence

By Chelsea B. Sheasley, Correspondent / 05.22.13

The Harlem Shake craze has hit Jerusalem and the Arab and Jewish teens in Micah Hendler's Jerusalem Youth Chorus want to make their own video. It’s not Mr. Hendler's preferred music, but the students’ exuberance leaves him little choice.

“All right, if we’re going to make this video we’re going to have to get moving,” he says.

There are plenty of expats living in Jerusalem but Hendler is the only one who started an Arab-Jewish youth chorus five months after graduating college.

Hendler is a former counselor at the Seeds of Peace coexistence camp in Maine, proud alumnus of two a capella groups at Yale – the Duke’s Men and Whiffenpoofs – and a firm believer in the power of music to create communities and empower youth.

Supported by grants from Yale and the Jerusalem Foundation, Hendler moved to Jerusalem after graduating in 2012 to put his ideas into practice – he wrote his senior thesis on the successes and failures of other music-for-peace programs in Israel.

He selected 14 Arab and 14 Jewish students from 80 applicants; together they performed to a packed house at the Jerusalem YMCA Christmas concert two months after their first practice.

He’s trying to avoid two pitfalls of other programs he studied: enabling students to remain negative toward the group as a whole, even as they make friends with representatives of “the other,” or focusing so much on broad dialogue that the students don’t form any close friendships.

Hendler’s three-hour weekly practice includes time for bonding – the Harlem Shake video was preceded by collective giggles – and a 45-minute dialogue run by trained facilitators. The dialogue is strategically placed in the middle of the rehearsal so students don't come late and miss it, as they did in other programs he studied.

Rudinah, an Arab girl from East Jerusalem, says she didn’t know there would be a dialogue portion before she joined the chorus, but that it’s one of her favorite parts. “The Jewish people here are so cool and friendly,” she says.

Likewise Shifa Woodbridge, a Jew who had never met an Arab before joining the chorus, is equally exuberant.

“It's my favorite part,” she exclaimed when asked about the dialogue. “I love talking about it. It's not weird," she says.

Hendler recognizes that some doubt whether programs like his can make a difference or are simply invigorating those already in support of peace, but points to the first free time the students were given at their second rehearsal when Arabs and Jews spontaneously mingled without prompting as evidence that the program is useful.

"People were hanging out across every possible line, of their own free will. There aren't that many places in the city, or country, or world really where that happens."

Adults with various intellectual disabilities come to work in small factories such as this one in Sderot, where several workers were stuffing envelopes with advertising magnets on a recent day. (Christa Case Bryant/TCSM)

On Gaza's border, an unexpected haven for mentally-handicapped Israelis

By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer / 05.20.13

Since moving to Israel, I have periodically found mysterious green envelopes in my mailbox. They include nothing but a flimsy magnet, advertising some business that I had never heard of.

Now I have solved the mystery, and gained a new appreciation for the folks behind this marketing front.

While reporting on Sderot’s resilience in the face of persistent rocket fire from nearby Gaza, I discovered a very different example of resilience: a factory full of adults diagnosed with various intellectual disabilities, working steadily away on various projects. One of them was stuffing those now-familiar green envelopes with flimsy magnets.

Even this, the simplest of jobs, appeared to require some serious concentration from a petite woman working that day. I gained a new appreciation for the periodic presents in my mailbox.

These individuals are paid only a nominal amount for showing up here, since they already receive considerable government stipends – even though they are doing work for corporations, not the government. In that light, the companies that contract with this factory could perhaps be seen as taking advantage of cheap labor from a disadvantaged population.

But on the other hand, it’s a haven from a society that, according to advocates for individuals labeled mentally-disabled, is uncomfortable with these individuals. 

“I used to think it was just a sweatshop,” says Miriam Fouks, a young social worker who had heard about such factories before coming to work here. “But they love being here, it gives them a social life.”

For some, the social life is the only reason they come. One man in particular can never be bothered to repackage Made-in-China menorah candles into Israeli boxes, or help with any of the other projects the 60 or so folks here are involved in.

So Ms. Fouks has just come up with a new job for him: current affairs guy. He loves reading the news, so she assigned him the task of getting up to speed every day and then sharing the highlights with his fellow workers.

Maybe he will enjoy reading about himself and his colleagues in an American newspaper.

Mounir Abu Hasira holds up a big fish that he says came from the Red Sea via tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border. Egyptian fish are much larger than those found in Gaza's overfished waters. (Christa Case Bryant/TCSM)

Gazans struggle to reel in a livelihood

By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer / 05.17.13

Mounir Abu Hasira’s name is synonymous with fish in Gaza, where his grandfather once owned more than 50 percent of the fishing boats and employed more than 2,000 workers to bring in the daily catch.

But since Israel reduced the permitted fishing zone from 20 miles to 12 miles to 3 miles – progressive steps taken with the outbreak of the second intifada, the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and Hamas’s violent takeover of the tiny coastal territory in 2007 – even Gaza’s scions of fishing can’t earn a living on the sea.

The number of working fishermen has dropped from 10,000 in 1999 to less than 3,200, according to a website advocating an end to the blockade. 

Today 80 percent of the fish being sold at a seaside shack along the main drag in Gaza City comes from Israel or Egypt, says Mr. Abu Hasira, who now only fishes for fun. He still trades in fish though, holding up a big sea bass from the Red Sea that is more than twice the size of one caught here. 

With so many fishermen fighting for a livelihood in such a narrow corridor of water, the fish they are able to catch are much smaller. They are also caught younger, meaning they don’t have as much of a chance to breed before being harvested. Thus the population continues to dwindle.

As part of the November 2012 cease-fire with Hamas that ended eight-days of intense fighting, Israel agreed to double the fishing corridor to six miles. But after Gaza militants fired a volley of rockets into southern Israel in March, it was reduced to 3 miles again. Palestinian fishermen frequently complain of harassment by Israeli naval forces, especially as the fishermen approach the boundary of the zone. 

The anti-blockade website lists 11 Palestinian fishermen who have been killed in the last five years. Detailed reports are given in about half the cases; all but one blame Israeli gunfire, though in one case Israeli forces were shooting at suspected militants in diving gear nearby.

“Now most fishermen are waiting for aid,” says Abu Hasira. “One thing growing in fishermen is to be patient, so they are waiting.”

Abu Hasira made the decision not to wait, and left commercial fishing to open a fish restaurant, which is renowned as one of Gaza’s best. That enabled him to send his daughter to university.

“If I had been a fisherman, I couldn’t have afforded it,” he says.

Israeli artist Sovar Lerner illustrates the fusion of different cultures in Israel through a new series depicting Arabic, Ethiopian, classical, and kibbutz tea pots. The project is part of a Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem exhibit in New York. (Courtesy of Sovar Lerner)

Israeli artist Sovar Lerner sees harmony in a teapot

By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer / 05.15.13

Israel, a crucible of immigrants from places as diverse as Ethiopia and Lithuania who live interspersed with an indigenous 20 percent Arab minority, simply can't be boiled down into a monolithic Jewishness.

Just ask Israeli artist Sovar Lerner, who is half Persian, a quarter Russian, and a quarter Polish – and married to a man whose parents emigrated from Libya.

Her reply is artful, elegant, yet raw and frank – and will be on display in New York from May 18-22. In a new twist on the melting pot theme, Ms. Lerner has produced a series of ceramic pots melded together, each retaining distinct characteristics yet unquestionably – if awkwardly – part of the jumbled whole.

They include the long handle of an Arabic tea pot, traditionally heated up over a blazing open fire; the simple aluminum pot of the early kibbutz days, where Jewish pioneers eked out a living as the modern state of Israel found its footing; the unique Ethiopian spout, designed for a dramatic pouring of coffee that would cool off on its long trip to the cups below; and the classical pot blending Russian, Chinese, and European styles that would be familiar to Israel's Ashkenazi Jews.

The project is part of a Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem exhibit in New York, where Lerner was inspired by the idea of pluralism.
 "It helped me to see how things can be better [in Israel] than they are now," she says.

A perennial if muted tension exists in Israel between the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe and the Sephardic Jews who came from North Africa and Middle Eastern countries. Ashkenazim were dominant in the kibbutz movement, which acquired large tracts of land at minimal cost – a huge capital investment that is reaping significant dividends as numerous kibbutzes are moving away from their agricultural roots and selling or developing their property. Sephardim, in contrast, were often settled in more rural areas and struggled economically though they became a formidable political force by the late 1970s.

In the early 1990s, a wave of more than 1 million immigrants from the former Soviet Union flooded into the country, a community that is still not fully integrated but has produced influential political leaders like Avigdor Lieberman, who is slated to serve a second term as foreign minister if he is cleared of corruption charges in the coming months.

Perhaps the most struggling immigrants are those from Ethiopia, tens of thousands of whom came via spectacular Israeli airlifts in 1984 and 1991 but – along with more recent arrivals – have found it difficult to integrate economically and religiously into Israeli society. The ancient Jewish community in Ethiopia revolved only around the Hebrew Scriptures, not the book of Jewish law and rabbinical teachings known as the Talmud, which is the basis for many of the traditional Jewish customs today, and thus have complained of being treated as "less Jewish" than other Israelis.

RELATED: Youth villages give Israeli immigrant children a place to belong

“Ethiopians are the big issue now,” says Lerner, who hopes her project will help people be more pluralistic. “I hope it will show them how cultures contribute to society, and to other cultures.”

One extraordinary aspect of her sculptures is that there is not a right-side up. No one pot is meant to be on top or on the bottom, so each piece can be turned 360 degrees horizontally as well as 360 degrees vertically, offering a 720-degree view of multiculturalism.

“It’s not who’s dominant, and who’s not,” says Lerner, who hopes to see the exhibit in New York but isn’t sure if she can afford it.

Her unselfishness as a mother may provide the ticket, though: When she was first applying to Bezalel in the late '80s, she discovered she was pregnant and postponed her education by some 20 years. Now, that daughter is 24 and works as a flight attendant for the Israeli airline El Al, so Lerner can get discounted tickets.

“It was my dream” to go to art school, she says. “I didn’t give up on my dream.”

Umm Abdullah keeps a photo of her late nephew, who carried out a Jerusalem suicide bombing during the second intifada, on a side table of her impeccable living room in Ramallah, West Bank. (Christa Case Bryant / The Christian Science Monitor)

Palestinian woman with prison legacy feels betrayed by her own

By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer / 05.13.13

Umm Abdullah’s husband, former Al-Bireh mayor Jamal al-Tawil, was recently imprisoned for what she estimates is the 14th time – although she’s not sure, because she’s lost count. She has also spent time in jail, as has her daughter.

Sitting on the regal sofa of her Ramallah home in February, she said she would like to have joined the protests that were sweeping the West Bank that week in support of Palestinian prisoners in the wake of Arafar Jaradat's death in Israeli custody.

But she’s worried that Palestinian Authority security forces, dominated by the secular Fatah faction, will report her to the Israelis as a supporter of Fatah’s Islamist rival Hamas. The last thing she needs is to give Israel a reason to arrest her again, and she resents the PA for essentially spying on Hamas supporters like herself.

“If we go back to the Stone Age, we do not see any authority acting as spies to the enemy of its own people,” she says.

The West Bank is abuzz with talk of a third intifada, but Umm Abdullah says she doesn’t think it can happen while there is such distrust between the PA and Hamas.

“How can we have a strong popular resistance movement when one side is acting against another? It is only pockets of people acting independently.”

It’s not that she and her family are strangers to resistance. Among the other fixtures in Umm Abdullah’s impeccably kept home is a photo of her nephew, a suicide bomber who blew himself up at a bus station in the Jerusalem neighborhood of French Hill in 2001.

How is that justified, if Israeli civilians are hurt as well, I ask?

“They’re killing Palestinian children all the time,” she responds.

She also has plenty of blame for the Palestinian leadership and what she sees as its neglect of Palestinian prisoners.

“In my view, they have forgotten them 20 years ago when they signed [the 1993 Oslo peace accords]. Oslo is a shameful agreement. Everything we try to achieve, Oslo seems to be the impediment,” she says, citing the economic crisis, continued Israeli settlement expansion, and the “claim” that Palestinians are building institutions in preparation for a state.

“The Palestinian people were not asked to explain their viewpoint regarding Oslo in a referendum. Every day Palestinian people are learning the mistakes of Oslo.”

Read more about heightened tensions over the Palestinian prisoner issue here.