“Seventy years ago, the world changed around my family. The establishment of the state of Israel represented self-determination for Jews, but a catastrophe — “nakba” in Arabic — for Palestinians,” writes Member of Knesset Ayman Odeh.

Saffuriya was levelled in the Nakba and replaced by a Jewish moshav. But its memory burns bright for many forced to flee during Israel’s creation.

For Palestinian historians researching the 1948 exodus of their people, the greatest challenge is getting access to the few surviving documents of the period: most are locked away in Israeli archives.

Over the past quarter-century, while peace initiatives have either languished or failed, we have seen an explosive growth in Israeli settlements in the West Bank on land designated for a future Palestinian state. FMEP’s Lara Friedman and APN’s Debra Shushan, along with other analysts, discuss the consequences for Israelis and Palestinians.

FMEP President Lara Friedman moderates a panel discussing the future of American diplomacy, especially in the Middle East, under Trump.

Vandals cut down more than two dozen olive trees and spray-paint walls in a Palestinian village in the northern West Bank with the phrase “Death to Arabs” on Wednesday in an apparent hate attack.

For decades, Haifa has been Israel’s model of what a ‘mixed’ Jewish-Arab city could be. But as the country’s 70th anniversary nears, the strain is showing.

Barnard College’s student body voted, in a substantial majority, to ask the administration to divest from eight companies doing business with Israel.

The mayor of the West Bank Christian town of Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, on Wednesday dropped a bombshell by admitting that he also works as a sales representative for Tnuva, the Israeli food processing cooperative specializing in milk and dairy products.

While the Israelis have claimed that those whom they shot were threatening to breach the border, Israeli human rights groups have documented that the overwhelming majority of those hit were hundreds of yards from the border fence and even those few whom the Israelis said were throwing incendiary devices were over one hundred yards away – their action being more symbolic then threatening.

Local activists in Gaza announced on Thursday that they had moved tents that were set up along the border with Israel as part of the “Great March of Return,” had been moved 50 meters closer to the border.