Tag Archives: Palestinian Authority

07Nov/16

Are Palestinians ready for #peace?

(Washington Examiner, 05/11/2016)

Information may be “the oxygen of the modern age,” as Ronald Reagan famously said, but information technology is a mixed bag. Among other things, it has fueled the rise of global jihadism as we know it today.

It enabled a nest of tunnel-based terrorists in Afghanistan to coordinate the most deadly non-state terrorist attack in history 15 years ago. More recently, it has populated a new Islamic “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq with volunteers from around the world.

But there is a silver lining to the widespread use and abuse of social media in the Middle East: It can tell us a great deal about the individuals sitting behind the electronic screens.

Take Hashtag Palestine, the title of an insightful report by Hamleh, the Arab Center for Social Media Advancement. The Ramallah based-nongovernmental organization is dedicated to training individuals and community-based groups to engage in grassroots social media activism. Its recent report on Palestinian social media activity in 2015, a year that launched what is now called the Knife Intifada, is revealing.
Nearly two-thirds of Palestinians have computer access and half use a smartphone.
Palestinians, like others in the world, have become active internet users. Nearly two-thirds report having a computer and half use a smartphone. Young people form the majority of users. With this level of penetration, the Internet is already playing a significant social role in their lives.

What has been trending in Palestine? The report analyses 18 campaigns that tell us something about the Palestinian mood.

The most popular recorded campaign was “#it_will_not_be_divided,” centered on thwarting imagined secret Israeli plans to divide or even destroy al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a popular theme of Islamist leaders who incite violence. Ironically, Israel and Jordan, which are custodians of Temple Mount, recently reached a new understanding on how to better handle the management of the holy site. Continue reading

28May/08

The Occupation of the Palestinian Mind

by Nir Boms and Asaf Romirowsky
FrontPageMagazine.com
October 12, 2005

In May of 2000, the Lebanese-based Hezbollah terrorist group faced an unexpected challenge. Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon has threatened to pull the raison d’etre for its existence out from under its feet. After all, what can an organization that dedicated its life to fighting the “Israeli occupation of Lebanon” do after the last Israeli solider shut the border gate and the UN announced that Israel is in full compliance with Security Council resolution 425, recognizing the Israeli-Lebanese permanent border in the north? How about fighting for Jerusalem?

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14May/08

Britainistan

The Labour party is nursing a viper.

By Erick Stakelbeck & Nir Boms

New antiterrorism measures proposed by Britain’s Labour government in late January – including curfews, electronic tagging, and house arrest for terror suspects – were a step in the right direction for a nation increasingly beset by radical Islamists.

The fact that British authorities have arrested dozens of suspected Islamic terrorists and terror sympathizers over the past year and thwarted several terrorist plots (including one which involved crashing airplanes into Heathrow Airport and London’s financial district) merely underscores Britain’s dubious position as al Qaeda’s leading European target.

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08May/08

Hamas’ Weakness: Its Wallet

By Elliot Chodoff and Nir Boms
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 3, 2006

Hamas’ ascent to power in the Palestinian Authority has thrown Western policy into a quandary.  Having touted the great advantages of democracy and the having spent millions on democratization, Western leaders are faced with Islamist victories at the polls.  The recent “elections” in Iran, for instance, brought to power an Islamic tyrant who now threatens to detonate an atomic bomb over the “enemies of Islam,” and the “open” elections in Egypt brought an impressive victory to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Hamas victory in the recent Palestinian elections exemplifies the issue: the Palestinian people have chosen a terrorist organization to lead them.

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