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22 April 1998, Vol.2, Issue 4
We will be adding a section on Arab World resources soon to the Complete Guide. This last month has been busy owing to vacation times, the Birzeit Student Council Elections, and my personal involvement in Deir Yassin Remembered and Free Ahmad Qatamesh campaigns. As a consequence, new sites we know about have not yet been added to the Guide. Many more updates coming this month, including a Politics page.
Imad Al-Falouji, Minister of Communications, announced in late March that the Palestinian telephone system will be free of Israeli controls by the end of 1998.
Falouji also stressed in the last few days that PalTel will refund subscribers the differences in rates on phone calls made with Jerusalem areas for the last two months and the differences in fees to installing new phone lines.
Falouji said, "A technical error has occurred; the ministry reached an agreement with the company to consider Jerusalem like other Palestinian districts in the homeland. A large number of subscribers had complained about the company's decision to treat Jerusalem area as an Israeli contact area and about the very high fees for installing new phone lines. (from Al-Ayyam newspaper)
Palnet, http://www.palnet.com/ which offers Birzeit its connectivity to the Internet via a leased line connected by microwave links between the various campuses, upgraded its connection to the Internet at the beginning of April. This should mean faster surfing for visitors to the Birzeit website and to websites hosted at Palnet. Palnet is currently working on a Palestinian version of Excite or AltaVista, which should be launched in the coming months.
Palestinian writer Ahmad Qatamesh, detained by Israel for 5 years and 8 months, was released on 15 April 1998. The last four and a half years of his detention were spent in administrative detention, detention without charge or trial.
Qatamesh was the first Palestinian prisoner with his own website, "Free Ahmad Qatamesh". Two mirrors of the site exist:
http://www.freeqatamesh.org/ (US and North American users)
http://www.birzeit.edu/prisoners/qatamesh/ (Palestinian/Israeli users).
As well as having information about administrative detention and his particular case, the website offered a selection of his writing and asked users to e-mail Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu asking for his release. Since the 15th, the letter now commends Netanyahu on the release and asks him to consider the cases of the other approximately 250 Palestinian administrative detainees.
The role the website played is a question that had been repeatedly asked since Ahmad's release. Many people are asking if it was the website that helped secure the final release order.
Said Zeidani, a lecturer at Birzeit University and member of Rai'i - the Palestinian Campaign to End Administrative Detention which is headed by Qatamesh's wife Suha Barghouti, stated that most of the pressure came from the Israeli media, left-wing and peace groups. He cited an excellent Israeli TV documentary that aired recently.
In the end, the part Internet campaigns play in matters like these is hard to measure. What is known is that within a period of a couple of weeks, 200 individuals sent protest letters from the website to Netanyahu's office. Trying to motivate the same level of interest by asking people to send faxes or letters would have taken a longer time and far more resources.
As Qatamesh has been in prison for almost six years, he has missed the beginning of the Internet revolution that has swept the world and is still in its early days in Palestine.
Qatamesh saw the World Wide Web for the first time on Monday 20th April, when his wife Suha showed him the Free Ahmad Qatamesh website. He was reported to be "very impressed".
The family reported that, "Modern technology is amazing even to those of us who have had a chance to get slightly acquainted with the modern world. We will soon sit down to discuss where do we go from here."
Personally, I hope that this will mark a new beginning for Palestinians to take their national and individual cases onto the Internet as a way of reaching out to the international community. There is a wealth of untapped support out there that could do a lot to alleviate the current and seemingly endless crisis.
There seemed to be no shortage of wackos this March, which makes the 'Mad March' truism come to life a bit. This e-mail was included simply because it was the last thing I would have expected to read when opening the webmaster@birzeit.edu account. Marvel at the intellegence of this Web surfer:
Date sent: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 00:45:10 -0600 From: Jake Herrle [address deleted] Send reply to: [deleted] To: webmaster@birzeit.edu Subject: web I think you need more naked chciks [sic] on your site. Dr.cmorebutts
Palestine Economic Forum: http://www.palecon.org/
The Palestine Economic Forum seeks to "promote prosperity and the peace process by bringing in the economic dimension on a broad set of issues that are at the cutting edge of Palestinian economic development."
On the website, you will find extensive information on the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS), publications including the excellent Palestine Economic Pulse, West Bank and Gaza Update, Peace Economics, articles and papers, and a discussion forum, which includes topics such as Public Sector Finances and Administration, International Trade, Investment, and Capital Flows, Private Sector Development, Human Resources, and Permanent Settlement Issues.
Ray Hanania, I'm glad I look like a terrorist: Growing up Arab in America: http://www.hanania.com/book.htm
An excellent book. I'm not just saying this because Ray is advertising with us, but because I actually read the book and liked it a lot. In fact I stupidly started reading it at 1.00am, and only fell asleep after finishing it at 4.00am, as the muezzins were beginning the call for prayer. There should be a government health warning on this one. Visit http://www.hanania.com/ as well. Ray is a well established journalist, with a lot of very interesting writings on his website. He has begun putting his latest work about Deir Yassin online, chapter by chapter. Go check it out.
Hey! Advertise with the Complete Guide!. Did you know that each banner advert that runs for a year enables Birziet University to purchase a new computer? More information from http://www.birzeit.edu/links/advert.html
BP&TWWW will be back next month, around about the middle, with more sites and reviews, and hopefully - as in the case of Ahmad Qatamesh - more good news.
Nigel Parry
Birzeit Webmaster
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Haiku error message of the month:
>> A crash reduces
>> your expensive computer
>> to a simple stone.
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