Is Trump’s new Palestine plan a breakthrough or diplomatic mirage? Washington’s roadmap aligns surprisingly closely with a UN-backed plan – but key differences could prove unworkable

Displaced Palestinians at a tent camp in Khan Younis. Photograph: Jehad Alshrafi/AP

 Patrick Wintour in New York

Thu 25 Sep 2025

“Better truth than illusions,” Polish prime minister Donald Tusk warned on Thursday – urging scepticism over Donald Trump’s motives in claiming that Ukraine could recapture all its lost territories.

The same might be said about the US president’s new approach to Palestine, but suddenly the optimists are back, with a two-state solution emerging from the rubble of two years of war in Gaza.

The US envoy, Steve Witkoff, talks of a 21-point White House plan for Palestine that he claims regional leaders broadly support. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, says it is also compatible with the plan for Palestine set out in the New York declaration endorsed by the UN general assembly this week.

But how can there be such a convergence between the two plans – one American and one backed by the UN – and is this just another temporary Trump-induced mirage? ....READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/25/is-trumps-new-palestine-plan-a-breakthrough-or-diplomatic-mirage

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"Statehood cannot be declared in press releases while genocide burns Gaza and land is stolen daily in the West Bank. Recognition of Palestine is hollow if it ignores the uprooting of people and the violence that became a daily reality. Better to first recognize the atrocities and confront injustice than to offer symbolic statehood to a people whose very existence is already rooted in their land yet their land, and their lives are under attack." Sliman Mansour of Palestine

                 A caricature that was published in Al Fajr English language newspaper in the 1990’s.

sliman.mansour

Statehood cannot be declared in press releases while genocide burns Gaza and land is stolen daily in the West Bank. Recognition of Palestine is hollow if it ignores the uprooting of people and the violence that became a daily reality. Better to first recognize the atrocities and confront injustice than to offer symbolic statehood to a people whose very existence is already rooted in their land yet their land, and their lives are under attack.

As its former ambassadors, we urge the EU to sanction Israel now- Europe must not let Gaza become the graveyard of international law and human rights. STATEMENT by Former EU and Member State Ambassadors and Senior Officials

Palestinians search for wood to sell or use for cooking amid the rubble of a building which was destroyed in an Israeli military strike in Gaza City, Sunday, Sept. 14, 2025 [AP Photo/Yousef Al Zanoun]

Amid mounting concern about the remorseless attacks by Israel against the civilian population in Gaza, which, since October 7, 2023, have reportedly led to the deaths and injuries of over 227,000 Palestinians and the displacement, in the last two weeks, of more than 400,000 people, 325 former European Union and Member State Ambassadors and Senior Officials are calling for urgent action.

We strongly urge the EU to immediately impose targeted sanctions on the Israeli government and suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement. In addition, we urge the President of the United Nations General Assembly and the Chair of the United Nations Security Council to convene emergency meetings of both bodies to adopt sanctions against Israel for the multiple violations of international law being perpetrated daily against the people of Palestine. The United Nations, being the established global body for peace and security, must live up to its responsibilities.

We cannot stand idly by, watching Gaza reduced to rubble and its inhabitants driven into destitution and starvation. The issue is whether the EU and like-minded nations will stand up for basic humanity and for the values that underpin the post-war international order. Action needs to be taken urgently to preserve life, end the military onslaught in Gaza, secure the return of all hostages, and move to governance arrangements that allow for a swift return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza as a necessary step towards a unified and democratically elected Palestinian government.

We demand that EU leaders respond urgently to the fact that, in recent days, the actions of the Israeli army have escalated to another level, with the bombardment of Gaza City in pursuit of the openly declared Israeli government policy of clearing the population out of the city and forcing the displacement of a million and a half people within or even outside the territory.

In addition, an engineered, man-made famine is unfolding in Gaza, already affecting 500,000 people. Severe malnutrition is rife, and more than 130 children have starved to death, despite the International Court of Justice’s provisional findings in February 2024 in the case brought against Israel, which required all States to take action to ensure that adequate humanitarian supplies reach Gaza. Finally, Israel has blatantly ignored the United Nations General Assembly Resolution of September 18, 2024 calling for an end to its illegal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, instead doubling down by annexing additional swathes of Palestinian territory.

While noting the European Commission’s newly announced proposals for limited measures against Israel, our conviction is that the EU’s institutions and its Member States must act far more decisively to uphold international law and protect human rights, notably by suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement, ceasing the export and import of arms and military equipment, banning imports from Israel’s illegal settlements, restricting access to EU co-financed programmes, and urging Israel’s other key trade partners, including in the Global South, to follow suit. They must also impose immediate targeted sanctions on Israel’s political and military leadership and all those complicit in and responsible for war crimes, ensuring accountability.

In addition, we urge the 13 EU Member States that have not yet done so to join both the 147 UN Member States who have already recognised the State of Palestine, and those who have announced they will do so at the ongoing United Nations General Assembly meeting, including France, Belgium, Malta, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Furthermore, the EU must demonstrate political and diplomatic leadership within all UN bodies and in partnerships with the Global South, Arab States and regional powers, to pressure Israel into compliance with its international obligations.

It must also support and strengthen the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, the key platform for a sustainable political solution allowing Palestinians and Israelis to coexist in peace and security, and demand that the US rescind decisions preventing official representatives of Palestine and the UN from engaging in dialogue at the United Nations General Assembly.

The heinous attacks of 7 October 2023 by Hamas and others against Israeli citizens, along with the continuing detention of hostages, can never justify the retribution wreaked on Gaza, which is becoming the graveyard of international law and universal human rights. Reckless military assaults of the type committed by Israel on the sovereign territory of Qatar, a key player in ceasefire talks, together with the lack of effective action, will condemn generations of both Palestinians and Israelis to perpetual suffering and continue to destabilise the region and beyond. It is incumbent on all of us, as global citizens, to demand from our leaders nothing less than the full application of international law. The time to act is now.

The full list of signatories of this letter can be viewed here.  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PtJjleD98TAgNh2RKNeqilQBLGks1zOF/view

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/9/17/as-its-former-ambassadors-we-urge-the-eu-to-sanction-israel-now 

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UK preparing to recognise Palestinian state as early as Friday- Move comes after Israel fails to meet UK conditions that would have postponed step

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators marching in London in May amid increasing calls for the UK to act. Photograph: David Cliff/EPA

The UK is preparing to recognise the state of Palestine as early as Friday, after Israel failed* to meet conditions that would have postponed the historic step, including a ceasefire in Gaza.

Keir Starmer insisted the timing of the UK announcement had nothing to do with Donald Trump’s visit, even though the US president said at a press conference that he disagreed with Britain’s decision, without elaborating.

Recognition will bring a wave of criticism from Israel, including claims that it is a reward for Hamas and terrorism, a charge the UK rejects by saying it envisages only a Palestinian state in which Hamas is disarmed, plays no part in the future government, and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority is subject to elections within a year.

Starmer emphasised there would be no place for Hamas, insisting the group were terrorists, and adding he agreed with Trump on the need for a roadmap.

The UK prime minister said recognition was “part of that overall package which hopefully takes us from the appalling situation we’re in now to the outcome of a safe and secure Israel, which we do not have, and a viable Palestinian state”... READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/18/uk-preparing-to-recognise-palestinian-state-as-early-as-friday

* "conditions that if fulfilled would delay UK recognition of Palestine. These included a resumption of humanitarian aid, a ceasefire, Israeli engagement in a sustained peace process, and no further Israeli land annexations in the West Bank. Israel was never likely to meet these preconditions, making UK recognition largely an issue of timing rather than content.

Britain’s choice has been whether to wait for a UN conference on Monday on a two-state solution or go earlier. Prompting the decision is anger at Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and a sense that if Britain does not act now Israel will, through annexation, have destroyed the last hope of Palestinian self-determination."

International recognition of the Palestinian state

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"The Nakba – Arabic for “catastrophe” – happened because the politicians of this country enabled it. They enabled it with the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which supported the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine...." Britain must help establish a Palestinian state It has a historical responsibility to do so- By William Dalrymple in The New Statesman

[Palestine Refugees Nakba 1948] Photo by CPA Media/Alamy

Seventy-seven years ago, 750,000 Palestinians were terrorised out of their homes and farms and villages in Galilee – from Tiberias, Beit She’an, Safed and the great Palestinian ports of Jaffa and Acre.

They were driven out with napalm and machine guns and machetes, and forced to flee from their groves of olive trees on to the barren dunes of Gaza where they remain. By the end of 1948, less than 15 per cent of Palestinians remained where they had always lived. More than 85 per cent had been ethnically cleansed, despite the promises of Arthur Balfour in his declaration that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.

The Nakba – Arabic for “catastrophe” – happened because the politicians of this country enabled it. They enabled it with the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which supported the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. They also enabled it with 30 years of British colonial rule in Palestine during which the indigenous inhabitants were disarmed and their leaders arrested and sent to prison camps in the Seychelles and Cyprus. The black and tans, notorious for their violence, were brought in on Churchill’s orders and unleashed on those Palestinians who tried to stand up against the erosion of their land.

The British, determined to suppress the revolt militarily, dispatched 25,000 soldiers and policemen to Palestine in 1938 – the largest deployment of British forces abroad since the end of the First World War. They established military courts, operating under “emergency regulations” that gave the British Mandate the legal trappings of a military dictatorship. The best account of what we unleashed on the Palestinians can be found in Caroline Elkins’s Legacy of Violence, a chilling study of British anti-insurgency techniques in our imperial colonies. Elkins shows how the British destroyed the houses of all those involved in attacks under the legal authority of the emergency regulations. An estimated 2,000 houses were destroyed from 1936 to 1940.

Combatants and innocent civilians alike were interned in concentration camps – by 1939, more than 9,000 Palestinians were held in overcrowded facilities; many endured violent interrogation or torture. Younger offenders, between the ages of seven and 16, were flogged. Over 100 Arabs were sentenced to death in 1938 and 1939, and more than 30 were executed. By the time the revolt was crushed in 1939, the Palestinian leadership had been so badly intimidated they were in no position to fight for their survival when the British finally pulled out in 1948, leaving the Palestinians to their fate... READ MORE  https://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2025/09/britain-must-help-establish-a-palestinian-state

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UN general assembly votes to back Hamas-free government for Palestine. Compromise plan sees Arab states condemning 7 October attacks in return for clear UN support for a Palestinian state

The declaration contains some of the sharpest criticism of Hamas ever endorsed by the UN. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor

Fri 12 Sep 2025 08.26 EDT

The UN general assembly has voted to back a Hamas-free government for Palestine as part of a carefully crafted compromise that sees Arab states go further in condemning its October 2023 attack on Israel in return for clear support for a Palestinian state.

The aim is to show that Israel and the US are isolated in opposing a long-term solution to the Gaza war, and how countries such as Germany, a strong supporter of Israel, are backing a solution in which the Palestinian Authority governs the West Bank and Gaza.

The 142-10 vote on Friday was to endorse the so-called New York declaration, a statement calling for a two-state solution, crafted by France and Saudi Arabia in July.

It includes some of the sharpest criticism of Hamas ever endorsed by the UN. The text states: “We condemn the attacks perpetrated on 7 October by Hamas against civilians,” and “Hamas must release all hostages” held in Gaza.

Israel, the US, Hungary and Argentina were among the countries voting against. There were 12 abstentions.

The vote for the declaration will be seen as paving the way for the one-day UN conference on a two-state solution, due to be held in New York immediately before the UN general assembly high level week. At that conference a host of states, including France, UK, Canada and Australia, will formally recognise the state of Palestine.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, insisted on Thursday that Israel would never accept a Palestinian state. Around three-quarters of the 193 UN member states recognise the Palestinian state proclaimed in 1988 by the exiled Palestinian leadership... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/12/un-general-assembly-to-back-hamas-free-government-for-palestine

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Sept. 12th, 2025: UN General Assembly ADOPTS resolution endorsing the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution

UN General Assembly ADOPTS resolution endorsing the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution 

Voting result 

In favor: 142 

Against: 10 

Abstain: 12

Washington imposes sanctions on 3 Palestinian human rights groups this week, last week the United States announced it would not grant visas to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and 80 other Palestinian Authority officials to attend the United Nations General Assembly next month , where France and several other countries plan to recognise the State of Palestine.

 

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https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250905-washington-imposes-sanctions-on-3-palestinian-human-rights-groups/

 Washington on Thursday imposed sanctions on three Palestinian human rights organisations, according to the US Treasury Department’s website.

The United States listed the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights (Al Mezan), both based in Gaza, along with Al-Haq–Law in the Service of Mankind, which is based in Ramallah.

The Treasury Department said the sanctions were linked to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

According to the official wording published on the department’s website, “The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is issuing International Criminal Court-related General License 10, “Authorizing the Wind Down of Transactions Involving Certain Persons Blocked on September 4, 2025.”

Naming the three Palestinian organisations, the department’s website said, “Additionally, OFAC has updated its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List.”

On 29 August, the United States announced it would not grant visas to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and 80 other Palestinian Authority officials to attend the United Nations General Assembly next month, where France and several other countries plan to recognise the State of Palestine.

READ: US support to Israel limits EU leverage to halt war in Gaza: EU foreign policy chief

.... The Israeli army launched a brutal military offensive on Gaza since late 2023, killing more than 63,700 Palestinians. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave...   https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250903-us-support-to-israel-limits-eu-leverage-to-halt-war-in-gaza-eu-foreign-policy-chief/

Palestinians Get Approval to Fly Flag at United Nations in a bid for statehood... "It is a symbolic thing, but another step to solidify the pillars of the state of Palestine in the international arena," said Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian representative to the UN.

Palestinian man holds a flag during a protest outside the Damascus Gate, east Jerusalem in support of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' bid for statehood

Palestinian flag set to fly at UN New York HQ

In Paris, Palestinian prime minister Rami Hamdallah on Thursday called the flag vote "a step on the road towards Palestine becoming a full member of the United Nations."

Mansour [Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian representative to the UN] said the initiative had the potential to "give our people some hope that the international community is still supporting the independence of the state of Palestine.

"Things are bleak, gloomy, the political process is dead, Gaza is being suffocated. This flag resolution is like the small light of a candle to keep hope alive for the Palestinian people."

NYTimes report: Palestinians Get Approval to Fly Flag at United Nations

UK Parliament votes to recognize Palestinian state

UK MPs receive 136,000 emails on Palestine before elections

 

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http://news.yahoo.com/uk-parliament-votes-recognize-palestinian-state-214234377.html

LONDON (AP) — British lawmakers voted Monday in favor of recognizing Palestine as a state, a symbolic move intended to increase pressure for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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3. UK lawmakers pass symbolic motion to recognise Palestine as a state Reuters
4. British MPs to hold vote on recognising Palestine AFP
5. UK PM Cameron to abstain in symbolic vote on Palestine status Reuters

Legislators in the House of Commons voted 274 to 12 to support a motion calling on the British government to "recognize the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel."

Prime Minister David Cameron and other government leaders abstained, and more than half of the 650 Commons members did not participate in the vote.

But the motion had support from both government and opposition lawmakers, who said it could help kick-start the peace process following a summer war in Gaza that claimed the lives of more than 2,100 Palestinians, the majority civilians, and more than 70 Israelis, most of them soldiers.

Labour Party legislator Grahame Morris said recognizing a Palestinian state could help break the impasse in peace negotiations before it was too late.

Otherwise, he said, "any hope of a two-state solution — the only viable solution — will have disappeared altogether."

Conservative lawmaker Nicholas Soames — grandson of World War II Prime Minister Winston Churchill — said that "to recognize Palestine is both morally right and is in our national interest."

The government said the vote would not change Britain's official diplomatic stance. Middle East Minister Tobias Ellwood said the U.K. would recognize Palestinian statehood when it would help bring about peace...READ MORE

UK MPs To Vote On Recognition Of Palestine... "Dr Hanan Ashrawi, executive committee member of the PLO, told Sky News the Palestinian cause must be "rescued" to prevent jihadists [from] using it to fuel radicalisation and further extremism in the region."

UK MPs To Vote On Recognition Of Palestine

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https://uk.news.yahoo.com/british-mps-urged-recognise-palestine-001441519.html#STbzRqG

A leading Palestinian politician has urged British MPs to vote in favour of recognising a Palestinian state when the issue is debated in Westminster later today.

Dr Hanan Ashrawi, executive committee member of the PLO, told Sky News the Palestinian cause must be "rescued" to prevent jihadists using it to fuel radicalisation and further extremism in the region.

In reference to the growing influence of groups like Islamic State, she said: "The Palestinian question has always been appropriated by others, and I've always said we need to rescue it from being 'up for grabs' by those looking for a cause, or who are trying to borrow our constituency or our legitimacy.

"It is imperative we remove one core issue from the region that has constantly fed… and send a clear message to the whole region and the rest of the world that justice can prevail and that we can make peace."

The debate in the House of Commons has been tabled by MP Grahame Morris, chair of the Labour Friends of Palestine.

"Not only is statehood the inalienable right of the Palestinian people, but recognising Palestine will breathe new life into a peace process that is at an impasse," Mr Morris told Reuters.

The Westminster vote will not be binding on the UK Government and is unlikely to change official policy, which states recognition of a Palestinian state must follow a bilateral negotiated process with Israel.

However, Dr Ashrawi said it was nonetheless "a very significant moment".

She said: "It is the beginning of a process of genuine consideration of the historical responsibility of the British towards Palestine, dating back to 1917, and we believe this process of rectification has to start.

"It is about time … not just as a way of doing justice to Palestine and respecting international law, but as a way of trying to rescue the chances of peace, which are disappearing rapidly."

The debate comes after Sweden's new government said it intended to officially recognise Palestine, a move that has...READ MORE

Bird Watching and Ringing in 2014 This Week in Palestine

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http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=4250&ed=229&edid=229

 Bird Watching and Ringing in 2014
By Simon Awad

Although Palestine has a relatively small land area in comparison to other countries in the world, its wide range of temperatures, rainfalls, and topographies - as well as its advantageous geographical location - gives it great significance when it comes to upholding a wide biodiversity. Palestine profits greatly from these conditions and can be considered somewhat of an environmental haven for many different species of birds.

What makes Palestine so important is the fact that it serves as the bottleneck for bird migration between Europe and Africa. Migratory birds use three main routes: the Central Mountain Range, the Coastal Plain, and the Jordan Rift Valley.

The Environmental Education Center (EEC/ELCJHL) operates two bird-monitoring and ringing stations in Palestine, represented by the Jordan Rift Valley and the Central Mountain Range. The first one is the Jericho Ringing Station (31o51’N, 35o27’E) located in the Jericho District, which is a part of the Jordan Rift Valley (north of the Dead Sea). It is characterised by its arid climate but can also be considered an oasis that provides natural springs and therefore easy access to surface water. Since Jericho is located in the Jordan Rift Valley, which is considered an important bird area according to BirdLife International, it is the second most important flyway in the world for migratory birds, especially for soaring birds. It is also the most important route of all the Europe-Africa flyways. The Talitha Kumi Monitoring and Ringing Station is situated in the western hills of the Bethlehem area and south-west of Jerusalem, between 31° 41’N and 35° 09’E, with an altitude ranging from 700 to 913 meters above sea level.

This year, with the Palestinian Quality Authority, the EEC is organising two weeks of bird watching and ringing. The first one will be held from March 31 to April 6, and the second during the fall. These two weeks will provide a chance for interested people to learn more about birds and their importance in our ecosystem. Our aim is to change the local view towards the unique environment of Palestine and its biodiversity.

 

Dark in colour with a distinct, light throat, the Common Swift (Apus Apus) has long, curved wings and a forked tail. Its high, screaming call can be quite powerful when in a large group. It is always hunting insects in the air, sometimes flapping very fast, other times gliding against the wind. Due to the large number of insects it can eat in a day, the Common Swift is a very useful alternative to using pesticides.

---

For more information on bird watching and ringing in 2014, please refer to the events section in this issue of This Week in Palestine. For further information, please write to us at eec@p-ol.com.

Simon Awad is executive director of the Environmental Education Center/ELCJHL. He is also an environmental activist and a wildlife conservationist. He has authored and co-authored several books regarding the environment and human rights issues. He can be reached at eec@p-ol.com or sija9@yahoo.com.Article photos courtesy of EEC archive.

See PDF www.thisweekinpalestine.com/i192/pdfs/article/bird_watching.pdf
 

"Read and remember, take a minute to recall the smell of your grandmother’s za’atar and the taste of balady labaneh, and imagine what would happen if we were to lose it all…" This Week in Palestine

Theme: Rural Palestine
Cover photo: Suleiman Mansour

Message from the Editor

Ya yalla hal rabee’, nohroth hal sahel, wallah bilzare’ wallah, bnihmy ardina al hurra… The lyrics from a folkloric song, recomposed and distributed for Sareyyet Ramallah’s lastest dabkeh production, embody the essence of Palestine’s “rurality.” “Come, my people, let us farm the plain; with farming we protect our free land.” The idea that farming is a form of resistance is and should remain at the centre of Palestinian nonviolent resistance. Palestinians identify themselves with the land. We are first and foremost a rural agricultural society. Our modern urban centres have sprouted from villages and farming communities. We as a people are not urban, but rather descendants of farming families who are deeply tied to their land. And our Nakba is not simply the story of becoming refugees but rather the loss of our farming villages. Our producing farmers have become landless refugees.

It is not a coincidence that we chose Rural Palestine for April’s theme just as khobbaizeh, loof, akkoub, loze akhdar, and karaz akhdar (mallow, black lily, gundelia, green almonds, and green cherries) are in season - rural Palestinian delicacies that have many of us travel hours back to our home villages to taste a small dish. If this issue is supposed to accomplish anything at all, it should serve as a reminder that we are a hop, skip, and a jump away from rural Palestine no matter where we live. It should also put front and centre the true danger that we face as a nation today: an endangered farming craft, not only because of land confiscation but also through the seeping of Israeli produce into our markets and the savage industrialisation of rural fertile farming areas; the latter being more dangerous than Israeli occupation itself. If we lose our rural identity, we lose Palestine, plain and simple.

Read and remember, take a minute to recall the smell of your grandmother’s za’atar and the taste of balady labaneh, and imagine what would happen if we were to lose it all…

You will notice as you leaf through this issue that our print edition has a new look.  Again this is no coincidence that we chose to unveil our new look as winter dissipates and spring blossoms.  We are very excited about the new print edition, and hope that you will see it as the natural bloom and evolution of our previous look.  We look forward to hearing your feedback.

Riyam Kafri-AbuLaban
Content Editor
 

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April 2014

• Being Rural
  By Raed Saadeh

One of the unforgettable memories that seems to accompany my few morning moments most days since I was a child is the smell of taboun bread stuffed with spinach saturating the air as it mixed with the first dawn light outside my grandparents’ house. I would watch my grandmother’s hands blend into the darkness of the taboun oven as she fiddled with the bread back and forth before laying it to rest on the stone bed in the bottom of the oven. My grandmother did this sacredly every day as part of the breakfast preparation ceremony.

I guess I developed a connection to the countryside of Palestine guided by my grandmother’s passion for the fields, the fig trees, the apricots, and the sage or mint herbs that we picked to prepare tea. We would wait for the rest of the family to get up to prepare breakfast under the grape pergola. My grandmother made everything herself: the jam, the labaneh balls dipped in oil, the olives, the pickles, and the zeit and zaatar. Her kindness taught me to care for the little things around me; the sound of the birds, the small vegetable garden, the chickens running around in the coop, and the olive terraces leading down into the valley through a set of intertwined narrow paths where shade is abundant during hot summer days. My grandmother’s generosity was an enlightenment and a stone-engraved lesson in rural hospitality and graciousness.

What does rural Palestine offer beyond this affability? A diverse landscape, a commanding series of olive-tree-covered mountains, and a historically immersed serene Palestinian village are some of the first thoughts that might come to mind. In my involvement with organisations such as the Rozana Association for Rural Tourism Development working from Birzeit, NEPTO (the Network of Experiential Palestinian Tourism Organizations), Masar Ibrahim, and others, I have been active in promoting community-based rural tourism throughout the West Bank. All our work is based on a simple platform idea that aims to identify the resources and capacities that exist in rural areas and that are able to add value to and benefit the local community. Needless to say, resources in the rural areas are abundant and include elements of architecture, handcrafts, environment, nature, food, culture, and heritage. Consolidated together these elements not only form attractive packages for visitors and guests, they also contribute to the building efforts of a differentiated Palestinian identity. I used to think that people who are as connected to the land as my grandparents could convert everything they touch into gold, given that they were able to create many things seemingly from nothing. The lands in rural Palestine can provide for the well being of our people. They are our food basket and our heritage. Our villages are immersed in history and they tell the story of an ancient people whose roots reach beyond time and civilisation. 

 

The question remains: How do we move forward beyond this potential? All organisations that are involved in community-based tourism supported by a strategic cooperation within the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities have been converging towards a holistic vision that reflects the shape of the Palestinian rural-tourism product. The vision is based on a network of thematic trails and paths and a number of centres for local culture, all of which are linked together and developed in harmony and synchronisation, building and sharing synergies, resources, and capacities. One of the main pillars is a long trail that runs through the West Bank from Rummaneh in the north to Hebron and its vicinity in the south. This trail is locally called Masar Ibrahim and is essentially a cultural trail that zigzags between villages, fostering the Palestinian culture of hospitality, friendship, and kindness. National Geographic recently ranked this trail as the number one new trail in the world. It forms a spine as it crosses the entire West Bank. Masar Ibrahim intersects with the Nativity Trail in several areas as it connects between Bethlehem and Nazareth. Both trails also link with a network of Sufi trails, led by the Rozana Association. The Sufi trails model is based on a network of hub villages that operate as centres from which a number of trails originate. These are also cultural trails that attempt to promote local resources, history, heritage, landscape, environment, and an opportunity to meet and benefit the local rural communities...READ MORE

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

 

• Rural Palestine Land-Based Identification
  By Muna Dajani

 
• Artas, Hilma Granqvist, and the Lettuce Festival Portrait of a Palestinian Village
  By Ali Qleibo

 
• Rural Palestine The Unrealised Potential
  By Khaldun Bshara

 
• Green Palestine for Rural Development A Popular Action and a Cry for Freedom and Independence
  By Basem Masry

 
• “Ethno-Botanics” The Evidence of an Unperfected Crime
  By Vivien Sansour

 
• Palestinian Resistance and Israel’s Apartheid Wall and Settlements
  By Jamal Jumaa

• Artist of the Month
  Mohammad el-Shanti

 
• Book of the Month
  Mapping of the Arab Left: Contemporary Leftist Politics in the Arab East

 
• Exhibition Review
  Khaled Hourani

 
• Personality of the Month
  Abu Jamal Steadfast

 
• Where to Go ?
  Holy Week in Jerusalem

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]