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Commentary

Education: A Major Casualty of the Gaza Assault
MIDDLE EAST POLICY COUNCIL

During the current onslaught, unlike the intifada, students will not be able to continue their education. Most schools are either damaged or packed with refugees from the north, and nearly 200,000 homes have already been destroyed. Gazan parents—fully consumed with burying their dead, caring for their wounded, and trying to survive—have no mental or emotional space to contemplate education.

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Gaza Interrupted
COUNTER PUNCH

The timing and reasons for Hamas’ attack parallel those that led to the outbreak of the first intifada: extreme marginalization and abandonment. This is evident by a host of factors, including the ultra-right Israeli government’s apparent intention to annex the West Bank, West Bank settlers’ increasing assaults on Palestinians, the continued desecration of Islamic holy sites, and the sequence of accomplished and pending “peace” agreements with Gulf countries.

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This is Why Gazans Won’t Back Down
CNN

The main takeaway from the “Great March of Return Protest” – a 45-day event that began just after I left Gaza six weeks ago and Tuesday reached its most important moment – is that residents of Gaza will continue to protest regardless of the number of casualties they endure.

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Interview with IPS Senior Fellow Brian Barber
INSTITUTE FOR PALESTINE STUDIES

This interview was conducted ahead of Barber’s field work in Gaza in March 2018.

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Palestinians in Gaza Suffer Enough Without Being Defamed as Sexual Deviants and Mentally Ill
HAARETZ

This is the Gaza that we know as a Gazan father and psychiatrist, and as an American social psychologist who has spent considerable time annually in Gaza for 23 years.

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The Situation in Gaza: An Interview with Brian Barber
JADALIYYA

Zeina Azzam, Executive Director of The Jerusalem Fund and Palestine Center, interviewed Brian Barber on February 5, 2016, shortly after one of his research visits to Gaza. The information was updated in early April 2016.

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Jerusalem Tensions: It’s how the Israelis are Ruling Palestinians There
INFORMED COMMENT

There is still an alarming amount of commentary that attributes blame for the violence primarily or solely to one side or the other. More enlightened observers acknowledge that political conflicts are complex.

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After the War: A Week in Gaza, My “Second Home”
NEW AMERICA

“She passed!” exclaimed 34-year old Ahmed, oldest of 9 children in a family in one of Gaza’s eight refugee camps. The news that Noor, his youngest sister, had passed the dreaded Tawjihi (the college qualifying exam required of all Palestinian students) came via text message to Hazim, the second oldest brother.

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Hamas, Shmamas: It’s about Israeli National Ambitions
INFORMED COMMENT

The call for parallel, substantial concessions distorts the reality that only one side, Israel, has power and control of the other side. Therefore, only Israel has the capacity to make substantive changes.

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Valuing humanity of Palestinians is essential for peace
KNOXVILLE NEWS SENTINEL

I’ve spent 20 years working with Gazans. In a lifetime of travel, I have never been received with such authentic goodness as I have there, where I have been chronicling the stories of its youth.

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Raise the right to resistance
OPEN DEMOCRACY

Everything rides on the answer to one question that is astonishingly unaddressed in the discourses: Do Palestinians have a legitimate right to resistance?

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What the Young People of Egypt Learned
ZOCALO PUBLIC SQUARE

This summer Egyptians took to the streets in numbers that made their historic anti-Mubarak outpouring two-and-a-half years ago pale in comparison. Once again, the volume of the recent protests took everyone—Egyptians and outsiders—by surprise.

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