16 January 2000 -

Seventeen new websites added for this month. Most of the new sites are from the computer and information technology sites, and we now find 30 sites in this category. Sites added include the software houses Noursoft and Hadisoft. Emad computers and Nawras computers are also now online, as well as the website design company Intertech.

New to the organizations and associations section of the site are Al Ihsan Charitable society, Palestine Agricultural Relief Committees, Palestine Youth Union and the Qattan Foundation. The latter are currently advertising a grant program for the year 2000.

One new site added in the Business and Economy section, that of the Management Consulting Services and 3 news sites in the Government and Services section - the Palestine Energy and Environment Research Centre , the Ramallah and Al Bireh Governates and the South African representative Office in Ramallah.

In the Arts and Culture Section we see 3 new sites, the only Gazan site for this month, that of the Gaza Village - a arts and crafts village located in Gaza city, the Palestinian magazine Al Karmel which provides Arabic language versions of its magazine on line as PDF files and finally this month's website of the month - Baha Bouraki's website. Baha is a Palestinian cartoonist whose drawings appear in Al Ayyam magazines and feature his characters Abu Arab and Abu Abed. Over 100 cartoons are available on his site.

24 September 1999 - Winners of the 1999 Golden Olive Awards have been announced. You can find those outstanding websites here. For a more detailed discussion of the web in Palestine during 1999, read the special report by the Birzeit Webmaster.

9 April 1999 - New websites this month are Guiding Star Ltd, a tourist company based in Jerusalem, USAID, and The Palestinian Rights Programme. Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a political party, have also joined us on the web.

The Arab Thought Forum now have their own domain name and updated their site, and the newspaper Assenara can now be found at http://www.assenara.com

The new NGO,Miftah, have received this month's website of the month. They aim to build democracy in Palestine and also links with other countries. Headed by former Palestinian Minister of Higher Education, Hanan Ashrawi, they launched their website at the same time they formed. Good work.

Also this month, we've launched a new section to the Complete Guide, our Recommended Reading List. Here you can read our reviews of recommended reading about Palestine, and then order the books on-line through Amazon.com.

3 March 1999 - New Palestinian websites this month include Sabeel, The Commodore Hotel, and two personal homepages of Palestinians living in Nablus, Ismail Bardan and Omar Swaidan . A German Academic Exhange Program, DAAD,is also online. Paltrade - The Palestine Trade Center, have redesigned their website. An important international campaign seeking freedom for two Palestinians, Samar and Jawad, imprisoned in England now have a website. We couldn't choose between two websites for websites of the month. Ali Abunimah - a Palestinian in Chicago - spends his spare-time monitoring how the media reports on the Middle East. While on a local level, Arab Supernet have pioneered the use of a web-database interface in Palestine.

13 December 1998 - A few changes to existing sites this month. Dheisheh Refugee Camp have changed their address, The Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre have made some big improvements to their site, Addameer now have their own domain name and former Birzeit webmaster Nigel Parry has one too where you can find a mirror of his Personal Diary.

We've added an Israeli site called the Middle East Review of International Affairs and the European Institute for Research on Mediterranean and Euro-Arab Co-operation.

There are a few local sites: an impressive publication The Jerusalem Quarterly File is new to the web and the Welfare Association Consortium for the Palestinian NGO Project have also joined us on-line. Also new this month is the House of Poetry

3 November 1998 - Only a couple of weeks over the month deadline but we've been busy. Why? Have a look at Our Voice and OutLoud.

Website of the month is the site of two Palestinian artists, Shammout.com. Definitely worth a visit.

We've also added a new section to the Complete Guide, Political Parties. So far, Fatah, Hamas and the Palestine People's Party are online.

Hani Shakeel is in a Daze, and you might want to look at the kind of advice our esteemed President is getting at the Palestine Planning Centre

16 September 1998 - We've had short break in updating the Guide but there are many new sites added. Website of the month is an on-line memorial to Yafa, home to thousands of Palestinians before Al-Nakba. We like this site because it shows how the web can be used to connect us with the past and the present. It has a wealth of information and a real feel of interaction. Good work and congratulations!

The choice was difficult though because many good sites have come online recently. You can find a lot of them in the Human Rights section of the guide, including; The Academic Freedom First Campaign, based at Birzeit University, have adopted a cool style but serious message. BADIL - A Bethlehem based NGO with a wealth of great information and an oral history archive. Addameer is also new to the web with information about Palestinian prisoners.Association of 40 - a tri-lingual site about unrecognized villages.

Also new to the Web, Freedom - the mailing list - now have a website. We've found three Arabic newspapers - Kul Al Arab, Assenara and Al Sabar and a couple of hotels, The City Inn Hotel and Alcazar Hotel. If you are into business in Palestine, invest some time at the Palestinian Trade Promotion Organization, the Arab Palestinian Investment Company and Arab Supernet. To see a good idea gone wrong, visit Sport-On-Line. A nice site for a great theatre company can be found at the Ashtar Theatre website and two very different kinds of study can be pursued at The Palestine Polytechnic Insitute or the Bethlehem Bible College. Finally, the Alternative Information Centre have changed their site and an Islamic organization which gives scholarships to students can be found at the Association for Arab Students Affairs.

13 May 1998 - Slow with updates this month, they will all be done today. First and foremost, congratulations to the webmaster and authors of the Dheisheh Refugee Camp homepage, the first Palestinian refugee camp online! You can find the review here in organisations and associations, and note that they have also won May's website of the month award! Alf mabrook!. Al-Hashamiyyeh Secondary School in Al-Bireh is online but the website is not worth visiting. The Capitolina and American Colony hotels in Jerusalem were added to tourist information. Unfortunately, just found out about the The First International Economic Conference in Palestine From 27 to 29 April 1998. More sites and next edition of "Birzeit, Palestine and the World Wide Web" in the next week. Sign up now if you don't receive it. As Israel is celebrating it's fiftieth anniversary and Palestinians are commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Nakba (Catastrophe), why not spend some time reflecting on this duality in our online memorials section?

23 April 1998 - The April edition of "Birzeit, Palestine and the World Wide Web" is now online in the archive section. It includes the latest news about Palestinian connectivity, a comment about the role of the Web in the Free Ahmad Qatamesh campaign and more.

25 March 1998 - Khaled Mardam-Bey's homepage, software writer added in personal homepages. LAW, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment has changed it's URL.

17 March 1998 - March edition of Birzeit, Palestine and the World Wide Web now available in the archives. Halhoul Municipality and Wafa, Palestine News Agency added to 'government and services'. Jerusalem in Danger website added to 'arts and culture'.

7 March 1988 - Free Ahmad Qatamesh, the website for Ahmad Qatamesh, the longest serving administrative detainee, was recently launched and is now catalogued. Ahmad has been in prison without charge or trial for five years. An attractive website design, content and timeliness made this March's website of the month.

5 March 1998 - An under construction Nablus Municipality page (in 'government and services') and a single page for the Library on Wheels for Nonviolence and Peace (in 'organisations and associations'). An outside addition in 'personal homepages' is Mazen Abu Hijleh's homepage. It's got a great collection of links. Please also visit Lycos and Excite's city net pages from the explanatory text on the Complete Guide homepage. These are two search engines that recognise that the West Bank and Gaza are disputed territories that are not automatically part of Israel. ABC News has also presented this in a thoughtful way.

3 March 1998 - The Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, and Negotiations Affairs Department, Palestinian Authority were added to government and services. Shaml - The Palestinian Diaspora and Refugee Centre was added to academic and research.

16 February 1998 - Palestinian.Net and Jerusalem Online have been added to Internet and Computers. Please webmasters of Palestinian websites, if you are not listed it is not personal. Most likely we just don't know that you exist. Tell us! Also added: In'ash El-Usra society in organisations and associations, and the Al-Bireh and the Ramallah municipalities webpages in government and services.

14 February 1998 - Alami Electronics, Jerusalem was added to the Internet & Computers section. The Population, Housing and Establishments Census 1997 website was awarded a 1998 Golden Olive Award. Thursday's mailing of "Birzeit, Palestine and the World Wide Web", the e-mail companion to the Complete Guide, is now present in the archive. This was the second mailing in 1998. Join the e-mailing list here.

10 February 1998 - Hebron University was added to the Schools and Universities section and the Palestinian Securities Exchange to the Business and Economics section.

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9 February 1998 - [1] The Landscape Perspectives on Palestine conference website (recommended) has been added to Academic and Research and the websites of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees and the Health, Development, Information and Policy Institute have been added to Government and Services. [2] A preliminary list of 1998 Golden Olive Award winners was announced today! [3] Some Mac users have reported problems with the fonts. This is being worked out at the moment.

2 February 1998 - The Jerusalem Hotel has been added to, and the Alternative Tourism Group has been moved to, the Tourist Information section.

28 January 1998 - Golden Olive Awards have still not been awarded due to a mixture of new sites still being discovered and added and current Birzeit University holidays. Announcement will be made at the beginning of February. Tathila Kumi School added in the Schools and Universities section, Amro and Associates Law Office, Ramallah has been added to Government and Services, and the Palestinian Center for Peace and Democracy in Organisations and Associations.

24 January 1998 - The Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has launched a Visit Palestine website, now found in the Tourist Information section.

7 January 1998 - The Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizen's Rights was added in the human rights section. Also, an archive for the Birzeit, Palestine and the World Wide Web mailing list has been added.

6 January 1998 - George Nimir Rishmawi's homepage was added in personal homepages, and two Beit Sahour-based organisations and associations, the Alternative Tourism Group and the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement Between Peoples. There are now 116 Palestinian websites.

5 January 1998 - The Palestinian Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture website added to the Business and Economics section.

3 January 1998 - The entire Complete Guide is new! New design, new categories, new sites, new reviews, and new opportunities for advertising. Birzeit's website gets over 15,000 visitors and many more visits a month these days and all proceeds go towards expanding our work on the Web. Further newly discovered Palestinian websites will be added by mid January. The 1998 Golden Olive Award winners will be announced immediately afterwards.