Homeland Hymn

Salman Masalha || 

Homeland Hymn

On the mountain that kisses a star, the winds
flail and wail. This is not a wind that blew in
from the west, it is a wind that sighs:
Who lifts up his eyes on high
to the bereft land, which God has left
to its own devices, filthy with hate, imprisoned
in plaints and the flame of the sword?

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Arab, speak Arabic

Salman Masalha || 

Arab, speak Arabic

Israel's Arab MKs can look to Jabotinsky for inspiration about how to achieve real equality between Arabic and Hebrew.

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Looking only backwards

This entire region is comprised of artificial states that have never managed to create cross-tribal or cross-ethnic national unity, and have always been ruled in the shadow of the bloody, torn past.

Salman Masalha ||
Looking only backwards: 

Nothing new in the Middle East

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Israeli apartheid exposed at the airport

Despite new x-ray machines, the brutal treatment of Arab citizens at Ben-Gurion Airport continues in keeping with Zionist ideology.

Salman Masalha ||
Israeli apartheid exposed at the airport

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It’s time for the Palestinians to reshuffle the deck

The Palestinian Authority could either dissolve itself and shoot for a one-state solution, or immediately call new elections and get rid of the corrupt old guard.

Salman Masalha ||
It’s time for the Palestinians to reshuffle the deck

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Why the Arabs' test grades are lower

Were I a fan of conspiracy theories, I would accuse Bill Gates of purposely trying to trip up the Arab test takers.

Salman Masalha || 
Why the Arabs' test grades are lower

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The whole tragedy in a nutshell

Salman Masalha || 
The whole tragedy in a nutshell

Ever since the two peoples, the Jews and the Palestinians, met in conflict on this small land they have been constantly plagued by the attempt to clarify the meaning of the concept “homeland.”  It seems that this term is one of the most explosive in the discourse of both sides.

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Two states for two languages

Arabic state, Hebrew state -
Discard the false visions of a binational state:

M. Abbas with B. Netanyahu (photo: AP)

The time has come to speak to the point. Both the Jews and the Arabs aren’t going anywhere. And in the absence of partition, the conflict will not be solved.

Salman Masalha ||
Two states for two languages

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Yahya Hassan || Childhood

Yahya Hassan || Childhood

Five children lined up and a father with a club
Weeping and a pool of piss
In turn we stretch out our hands
For the sake of predictability
The sound when blows rain down

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Morani Kornberg-Weiss || Dear Darwish

What happens when a young Israeli-American poet 'speaks' with the late Mahmoud Darwish.

Vivian Eden ||
This conversation could never happen in real life

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Vivian Eden || The truth about immigration

“Rest” exemplifies this. It deals with a common issue in Hebrew poetry: a conflict between a “here” and a “there”, which goes back at least as far as the rivers of Babylon in Psalm 137.

Vivian Eden ||
The truth about immigration

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Why PISA leans away from the Arabs

Why is there such a large gap in the digital reading scores between Arabic and Hebrew speakers?

Salman Masalha ||
 
Why PISA leans away from the Arabs

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The father, the son and the holy ghost

Salman Masalha ||
The father, the son and the holy ghost

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The nation marches on its hopes

“Every soldier,” as Napoleon said,” carries a general’s baton in his rucksack.” However, if you put weaponry into the hands of a fool, he is liable to think that the weaponry solves every problem he encounters.

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The answer to Netanyahu and Lieberman needs to come in the establishment of a social democratic front of the Israeli left. The ball is sitting in the court of the two Israeli parties Meretz and Hadash.

Salman Masalha || 

Answering Bibi and Libi

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Write a short essay warning the Zionist enemy

Recently I examined Syrian textbooks, and what has emerged? Hundreds of thousands of fatalities and casualties and millions of refugees scattered in every direction make no impression on the Syrian Ministry of Education…

Salman Masalha ||
Write a short essay warning the Zionist enemy

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A Palestinian Ben-Gurion

It appears that since the chances for a new Israeli Ben-Gurion’s birth are nil, someone in Israel has begun to wish for a Palestinian one.

Salman Masalha ||
A Palestinian Ben-Gurion

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The Arabs are flocking back to the tribe

Salman Masalha ||

The Arabs are flocking back to the tribe

In the Jewish sector many voters didn’t bother to show up at the polling places for the municipal elections. Some commentators have linked the low turnout to the disappearance of the national political parties from the local scene. By way of contrast, the Arab sector flocked en masse to the polling stations in order to cast the right ballots. “A festival of democracy” is how the Hebrew media labeled the high voter turnout in the Arab sector.

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Israeli nationality – there’s no such animal

A lot of religious and nationalist sewage has flowed through the state of Israel’s streams since its establishment…

Salman Masalha ||
Israeli nationality – there’s no such animal

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The code to Damascus

To fathom why the bloody Syrian civil war shows no sign of abating, one has to understand the tribal mentality of the Arab region.

Salman Masalha || 
The code to Damascus

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Saddam Hussein of Damascus

 Stop the Syrian regime
There are moments when one cannot stand idly by. The world must stop the killing in Syria.

Salman Masalha || 
Saddam Hussein of Damascus

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The Arab world will never be able to improve its future if it keeps harking back to the past.

Salman Masalha ||

Light comes from the West, nostalgia from the Middle East

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Lip service will not bring peace

Instead of playing to the gallery of public opinion, Palestinian and Israeli leaders should start telling their people the truth.

Salman Masalha ||
Lip service will not bring peace

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Share the defense burden? Let’s do it!

 If the current Arab MKs had any imagination at all, they would submit their own bill obligating every citizen - regardless of ethnicity, religion, race, color and gender - to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Then we’d see how the 'knights of the equal burden' would vote.

Salman Masalha ||
Share the defense burden? Let’s do it!

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The Islamic Movement is not the answer

Not unlike Jewish fundamentalism, the Islamic Movement is one of the damaging phenomena in Arab society in Israel. The optimal solution in the context of the volatile Israeli mix is legislation prohibiting the establishment of religious parties.

Salman Masalha ||
The Islamic Movement is not the answer

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Getting rid of the nationalism disease

Nationalism is a human illness. When the religion bug is added, the disease becomes metastatic. Before we can realize utopian visions we have to bring the “peoples” back to history.

Salman Masalha ||

Getting rid of the nationalism disease

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The invisible minority

The Oslo agreements between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel conclusively cut off the Arabs of Israel from the national solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...

Salman Masalha || The invisible minority

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Watching the slaughter in Syria

The horrors across the border do not arouse disgust or revulsion here. The opposite is true; there are those who continue to organize gatherings in support of the butcher of Damascus.
 
Salman Masalha ||
Watching the slaughter in Syria

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On the path to blood, sweat and tears

Why the renewed conflagration in the firing zones was only a matter of time.

Salman Masalha ||
On the path to blood, sweat and tears

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So many parties, so little opportunity

And if nevertheless you want to express resounding protest because you know your Arab vote is of no use in the Jewish state - vote with your feet...

Salman Masalha ||

So many parties, so little opportunity

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On demons and cousins

So did the penny drop, as they say? There is no pleasure like malicious pleasure, but every Arab citizen of Israel who flies abroad has experienced the same heavy hand of the white Zionist who prefers names that end in "ski," "baum" or "blum."

Salman Masalha || On demons and cousins

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