Students for Justice in Palestine at University of Maryland

what a great project! - From Haaretz Fourteen-year-old Jum’a Ismail lives 50 km from the Mediterranean but had never seen the sea. The Palestinian youth had never set eyes on an Israeli civilian or an airport. Juma’a’s horizons expanded this summer, when he left Jalazoun refugee camp in the West Bank with “Birthright Replugged” on a trip taking Palestinian children to Israel to visit the villages of their ancestors. “It’s an attempt to get out, while they still can,” said the program’s creator, Dunya Alwan. Once Palestinian children turn 15, they must carry Israeli-issued West Bank identity cards and are no longer able to travel through Israeli checkpoints without special permits. “Birthright Replugged” is partially funded by the Carter Center’s Peace Program, founded by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. It takes groups of 20 Palestinian children into Israel twice yearly. Alwan, an Iraqi-American from a Jewish-Muslim family, calls her work a counterweight to “Birthright”, the pr...

The Israeli extremism the American media never chooses to highlight: Israel settlers burn olive trees The arrests followed the removal of a structure at an outpost "Ten people have been arrested during a series of disturbances caused by Jewish settlers in the West Bank after Israeli authorities removed an illegal caravan. Two Palestinians were taken to hospital after settlers threw stones at cars and tried to block a road near Nablus in the northern West Bank on Monday night. Settlers also set fire to a Palestinian olive grove in the area. The caravan was part of an "outpost", a settlement illegal under Israeli law, which Israel has agreed to remove. Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law." - - Why is it that something like this would never be featured on CNN/MSNBC/FOX news? When we talk about extremism in the Middle East it is almost always in the context of Palestinians being portrayed as evil, corrupt, crazy people. Wh...