Also in the News:

15 AUGUST, 2008

Hamas says ice begins to melt with Jordan (Source: Reuters)

Officials from Hamas have met with a top Jordanian security official to try to patch up ties soured since 2006 by charges that the Islamist Palestinian groups was planning to carry out attacks in Jordan.
(read more)

14 AUGUST, 2008

The Poetry of Loss (Source: Guardian)

Mahmoud Darwish, who died last week, should have been honoured as a national poet of both Palestinians and Israelis.
(read more)

12 AUGUST, 2008

Israel 'proposes West Bank Deal' (Source: BBC)

Israel has offered a peace deal to the Palestinians which would annex 7.3% of the West Bank and keep the largest settlements, Israeli reports say.
(read more)

Israel shuts Gaza crossings but lets in cash (Source: Reuters)

Israel closed border crossings with the Gaza Strip on Tuesday in response to a cross-border rocket attack, but Palestinian officials said banks were able to bring in 68 million shekels ($19 million) to ease a cash shortage.
(read more)

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Letter to the Editor, by Gary Keenan, The Globe and Mail, October 11th 2003

Barbara Hodgson's excellent letter (More than a Memory, Oct. 8) regarding renowned British Arabist
Gertrude Bell brings to mind the fact that the Middle East may well have been spared several decades of
violence, death, and destruction if British Prime Minister Lloyd George had heeded her wise words
regarding the 1917 Balfour Declaration. (read more)

Letter to the Editor, by Gary Keenan, The Vancouver Sun, September 8th 2003

The Ottawa Citizen guest editorial's contention that al-Qaida hates the U.S. "because of what it is -
namely, a capitalist democracy that embraces religious freedom, women's rights and MTV" rather than "because of its foreign policy" was rejected by the U.S. Senate's 9/11 Commission. (read more)

Open letter to Sarah Efron, a freelance journalist, regarding reporting about the "Peace It Together" camp held this summer in Vancouver

Thank you for the report you did for CBC Radio about the Israeli/Palestinian Peace Camp (http://www.urbanlegend.ca/stories/peacecamp.shtml). In your print edition, you quote me as saying that "As long as there is no equality (my emphasis ), dialogue is nice but doesn't lead anywhere...". (read more)

Open letter to Mr. Andrew Holota, Editor of the Leader (Surrey/N.Delta), by Hanna Kawas, May 2004

In an editorial on April 23, 2003 in the Surrey/North Delta Leader, under the title ‘What didn't happen’, you wrote: "Well, there it is then. Nothing left to do in Iraq but rebuild the country, unify diametrically opposed sects of Muslims, create a democracy instead of a fundamentalist theocracy, convince the Kurds they don’t want their own country, convince Syria to show Hezbollah the door, and make peace between Israel and Palestine." … "If one still believes the anti-American peaceniks and bad-news-is-best television pundits, it'll never happen." (read more)

Feedback on Evil Brain's Wall, by Gary Keenan, The Westender, November 2003

Kudos to columnist Brian Peterson for his insightful and much needed column regarding Israel's construction of an apartheid fence or wall around the occupied Palestinian West Bank. (read more)

Arafat's fate should rest in Palestinian hands, by Gary Keenan, Vancouver Sun September 2003, reply to  "Forget about peace until Arafat and Sharon are out of the way"

Columnist Norman Spector neglected to mention the extremely important fact that Yasser Arafat is the democratically elected leader of Palestinians in the occupied territories.

U.S. President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have no right whatsoever to insist that Mr. Arafat be removed from power, especially when it is obvious he enjoys the overwhelming support of Palestinians. (read more)

The Sharon government is a giant laboratory, by Gary Keenan, Calgary Sun September 2003, reply to "Realities of Israeli oppression rarely aired in North America"

Kudos to Bill Kaufmann for his insightful commentary on Israel's brutal occupation of Palestinian lands. ("Realities of Israeli oppression rarely aired in North America," Sept. 1.) Kaufmann's reference to the fact those who criticize Israel's policies are frequently and unjustly accused of being anti-Semitic by Israel's supporters brings to mind the wise words of Uri Avnery, renowned Jewish Israeli journalist and former member of the Knesset: (read more)

Is it Liberalism or Normalization?, by Hanna Kawas, a letter to Al Shurouq

The Al Shorouq newspaper, in its last two issues, carried a letter from Jack Chivo (an extreme Zionist supremacist), an advertisement for an event for the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), a full report in the second issue about this same event and then publicized another event for the so-called secular "Peretz Center".  With this pretense at objectivity, Al Shorouq has regrettably fallen into the trap of endorsing what the Zionists say, what they do and what they promote.  In effect, Al Shorouq has simply given the Zionists yet another platform to spout their lies against the Palestinian and Arab people. (read more)