“The organizers of suicide attacks don’t want to jeopardize their missions by recruiting unreliable people. It may be that some psychologically unstable people want to become suicide bombers, but insurgent organizations strongly prefer their cannons fixed.” - Political Sociologist Robert Brym of the University of Toronto, in a paper published in Social Forces. Brym concluded […]

In the state of siege, time becomes space
Transfixed in its eternity
In the state of siege, space becomes time
That has missed its yesterday and its tomorrow…
The siege will last in order to convince us we must choose
an enslavement that does no harm, in fullest liberty!
- Under Siege by Mahmoud Darwish
Gaza is still under siege
Mahmoud Darwish […]

The snow is on its way out so I thought I’d shift gears here on the Black Iris. Transitioning back to reality isn’t easy when snow is still the talk of the town, so here’s a selection of my delicious picks these past few days you might find interesting. Only the first two are about […]

There was an interesting debate in Al-Ghad the other day about one of Emad Hajjaj’s latest caricatures which some Christians found offensive. Portraying Gaza as a female crucified on an Israeli cross, that is in reality an electricity pole.

January 21st, 2008
I couldn’t find an online copy of what was said but I suppose the […]

Round Up: As the Israeli onslaught in Gaza continues this week, the death toll continues to climb. With many of the dead being civilians and the European Union labeling the Israeli offensive as ‘collective punishment’, the situation has not sat well with Jordanian bloggers. Here’s what they had to say in the past few days: […]

Dear, Jordanian Bloggers
I am currently putting together a timely round up for Global Voices on the Gaza situation and the reaction of the Jordanian blogosphere. Unfortunately, I only have about 8 links so far, with only 6 bloggers having made some sort of comment on their blog about Gaza. Please bear in mind, this is […]

So far, some 37 Palestinians have been killed in four days (i.e. since Bush’s visit to Israel), in an Israeli attempt to end the launching of rockets into its territory. Over 200 rockets have been launched since the seige began. Two Israeli injuries were reported. These homemade rockets have in fact killed 12 Israelis, in […]

It’s the question that seems to be on every political-aficionado/news-guru in town. If you ask most Jordanians, I think the response to that question would be a definite “yes” and the follow up to that would be “before Bush leaves office.” In the past few weeks I’ve heard a countless number of people draw the […]

Here’s another round of my del.icio.us links for this past week. The fact that most of the links are Islamic-related is pure coincidence.
- A 16 year-old girl in Toronto is murdered by her father for refusing to wear the hijab and being “too westernized”. I don’t what to say about this story other than the […]

The Guardian has run an interesting photo story of “Guerrilla Artist” Banksy’s latest graffiti work on Israel’s illegal wall that winds through the West Bank. Banksy left his mark on the wall back in 2005 and has come back with other graffiti artists, in order to promote some tourist action in Bethlehem during the Christmas […]

The Israeli military has said a tank fired at three Palestinian children who were killed in Gaza on Tuesday because troops mistook them for militants.
The three cousins - two boys aged 10 and 12, and a 12-year-old girl - were playing near rocket launchers outside Beit Hanun, a military statement said.
An internal army investigation found […]

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…
Nancy held a press conference a few hours before her concert at the Radisson Sass in Amman, Jordan. As she was talking about her participation in the Jerash Festival and everything was going as planned, an Israeli Journalist from ‘ Yadiot Ahranot’ newspaper disrupted and asked Ajram a […]

“Other than the increase in aid, we received an explicit and detailed commitment to guarantee Israel’s qualitative advantage over other Arab states…We understand the United States’ desire to help moderate states, which stand at a united front with the United States and Israel in the struggle against Iran.” Olmert
This is how the world works:
Israel […]

I came a bit late to the Arab-Israeli session but I managed to capture this moment of an exchange that took place on stage between Shimon Peres and Saeb Erekat. There’s a moment right at the beginning of this video that I felt was interesting.

You can read more about the session […]

“I decided to murder an Arab.” - 26-year-old Tel Aviv resident Julian Soufir, confessing to police after slitting the throat of an Arab taxi driver.
Two Israeli brothers have been detained in connection with the stabbing to death of a Palestinian taxi driver in an apparent hate crime, police said. Julian Soufir, 25, has been ordered […]

Human rights groups say Israeli curbs on Palestinians in the West Bank town of Hebron have forced thousands of them to leave homes and close businesses. B’Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel said Israel had in effect expropriated central Hebron to protect some 650 Jewish settlers there. Israel had breached the Geneva […]