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Palestinian chef Michael Rafidi has been honored with the James Beard Awards in Chicago, winning the title of Outstanding Chef 2024.
The culinary world is full of awards and accolades that honor talented chefs, and among them is the James Beard Awards. Often referred to as the “Oscars of the food world”, it is one of the highest honors in the industry. This year, Palestinian chef Michael Rafidi, the owner of Albi — a Michelin-starred restaurant in the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C. was titled winner under the category of Outstanding Chef.
Previously, Rafidi’s restaurant garnered a Michelin Star in 2022, an award that is only granted to restaurants that are able to present an exceptional dining experience using top-notch ingredients consistently. Rafidi’s food encapsulates the rich flavors of his Palestinian heritage, with each dish presenting remnants of his culture.
Chef Micheal Rafidi’s caption on his Instagram post, or speech as he called it included a poignant homage to his grandfather who was a chef in Washington for decades, and a big source of inspiration to delve into his restaurateur journey. “I accepted this award on the shoulders of my Palestinian ancestors, my grandparents and my mother. Through it all, they held onto their love of food, a taste of our lineage that told stories of love, resilience and hope,” stated Rafidi. He added, “As I grew in my career, I realized my Palestinian identity would become my purpose for the restaurants we would build, the menus we would create, and the food we would serve. Ending the caption with, “In case I wasn’t clear on stage. This award is dedicated to the people of Palestine.”
Regarding the win, Ayman, the Palestinian-Egyptian news anchor at MSNBC posted, “Now after last night’s James Beard Awards, Palestinian cuisine is not only recognized as part of the tapestry of America, it is celebrated among the very best cuisines in the world thanks to generations of Palestinians who are constantly pushing their food to new heights.”
Palestinian activist Issa Amro on Thursday accepted the Right Livelihood prize — considered by some an alternative Nobel — for his “nonviolent resistance to Israel’s illegal occupation” in the West Bank, the jury said.
Amro was born in the city of Hebron, a flashpoint West Bank city where roughly 1,000 Jewish settlers live under heavy Israeli military protection amid some 200,000 Palestinians.
He has dedicated his life to fighting against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. The 44-year-old founded the Youth Against Settlements group, which campaigns against the proliferation of Jewish settlements in the territory — communities widely regarded as illegal under international law.
The rights campaigner has been repeatedly detained and tortured by both the Palestinian Authority and by Israel, the foundation said. “It’s a miracle that I still exist,” said Amro.
When Palestine Polytechnic University, where he was studying, closed in 2003 during the Second Intifada, Amro successfully led a six-month civil disobedience campaign. “I managed to reopen the university with other students,” Amro said in a statement. “I graduated as an engineer and as an activist — it became part of my character,” he added.
The Sweden-based Right Livelihood Foundation also honored Joan Carling, a Filipino champion of indigenous rights and Anabela Lemos, a climate activist from Mozambique.
It also gave the nod to research agency Forensic Architecture for its work in uncovering human rights violations around the world.
The foundation said the four prize winners had “each made a profound impact on their communities and the global stage.”
“Their unwavering commitment to speaking out against forces of oppression and exploitation, while strictly adhering to non-violent methods, resonates far beyond their communities,” Right Livelihood said in a statement.
Carling from the Philippines was recognized for having defended the rights of indigenous communities for three decades, particularly in their fight against mining projects.
The foundation celebrated Lemos, who heads the NGO Justica Ambiental (JA!), for her role in opposing liquefied natural gas extraction projects in northern Mozambique.
Forensic Architecture, a London-based research laboratory known for 3D modelling conflict zones, won the distinction for “pioneering digital forensic methods” to ensure accountability of human rights violations around the world.
By teaming up with Ukraine’s Center for Spatial Technologies to reconstruct Mariupol’s Drama Theatre before it was destroyed in 2022, the firm highlighted Russia’s “strategies of terror” and “attempts to obscure evidence of their own crimes,” the foundation said.
Swedish-German philatelist Jakob von Uexkull sold part of his stamp collection to found the Right Livelihood award in 1980, after the foundation behind the Nobel Prizes refused to create new distinctions honoring efforts in the fields of environment and international development.
source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)
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The rights campaigner has been repeatedly detained and tortured by both the Palestinian Authority and by Israel, the foundation said. (AFP)
The award comes after a pro-Israel nonprofit organisation criticised the nomination of the short film documenting the initial days of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda and Al Jazeera’s AJ+ have won an Emmy in the Outstanding Hard News Feature Story category for their documentary, It’s Bisan From Gaza – and I’m Still Alive.
Owda has been at the forefront of reporting from Gaza since Israel launched its assault on the territory last October, bringing the stories of Palestinians to a global audience amidst 11 months of war and devastation.
“This award is a testament to young Palestinian journalists and their professionalism. Bisan’s reporting has humanised the Palestinian story after decades of mainstream media’s systematic dehumanisation of Palestinians. Winning this Emmy is a win for humanity. We feel extremely proud of this bright moment amidst ongoing genocide, and Bisan will continue reporting,” Dima Khatib, Managing Director of AJ+ Channels, said on Thursday.
The award came a month after Creative Community for Peace, a pro-Israel nonprofit organisation, issued a letter criticising the nomination of the 25-year-old’s short film documenting the initial days of Israeli bombardment and its devastating impact on everyday people in the Gaza Strip.
The letter alleged Owda was affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which she has denied. The PFLP is a left-wing Palestinian political movement, and is designated a “terrorist organisation” by several Western countries, including the United States.
In August, Adam Sharp, the president and chief executive of the National Academy of Television and Arts and Sciences (NATAS), defended the nomination, saying that two panels, including experienced journalists, had made the decision and that the academy had not found any evidence that Owda was affiliated with the PFLP.
He said that past nominees had “been controversial, giving a platform to voices that certain viewers may find objectionable or even abhorrent”, but they were honoured “in the service of the journalistic mission to capture every facet of the story”.
At the time, Al Jazeera issued a statement, saying it stood with Owda “in the face of efforts to silence her reporting from Gaza”.
The media group described Owda as a “renowned journalist and influencer” who “has significantly contributed to bringing news from Gaza to the world with her unique style”.
Al Jazeera said the allegations were “baseless” and “an attempt to silence Bisan and present a real threat to her safety on the ground”.
“The call for the Emmy nomination to be rescinded is nothing more than an attempt to deny an important perspective to the global audience on the war and its devastating impact on innocent civilians,” the statement read.
In the past 11 months, more than 130 journalists, including three from Al Jazeera, have been killed by Israeli forces, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Other media rights groups have different numbers based on their own criteria, however, the Government Media Office in Gaza count of the number of dead journalists and media workers is 173.
“We urge the international journalistic community to support Bisan and other media professionals, ensuring they can carry out their essential work without fear of being targeted, intimidated or killed,” Al Jazeera’s statement said.
In May, Owda and AJ+ also won a Peabody Award for coverage of the devastating impact Israel’s war on Gaza has had on Palestinians in the besieged enclave.
Additionally, Al Jazeera English’s Fault Lines received the News Emmy for Outstanding Climate, Environment, and Weather Coverage for its film “Shark Fin Hunters,” which exposes wildlife trafficking that poses enormous risks for the future of the oceans.
“We are delighted and honoured to win this prestigious award,” said Issa Ali, Acting Managing Director of Al Jazeera English. “The great journalism that we do, and that done by our colleagues in other media organisations, is more important than ever in today’s world. This award is a wonderful recognition of the talent, dedication, and hard work of our teams.”
source/content: aljazeera.com (headline edited)
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source: youtube.com / ‘It’s Bisan from Gaza and I’m Still Alive’
For the Palestinian-born Arab International Women’s Forum founder, the laws of economics mean each woman must be heard.
Haifa Al Kaylani moves through the Carlton Tower Jumeriah looking as effortlessly elegant as the recently renovated decor of the landmark hotel in the heart of Knightsbridge, London.
Her hair is coiffed, make-up flawless, and a string of pearls and turquoise brooch accessorise a classic cropped bouclé jacket from a Swiss fashion house.
But she walks straight past the diners socialising over salads or the afternoon tea being served all day in the lounge, and gets down to business at a table in a nearby meeting room.
“I’ve never been one of those ladies who lunch,” the development economist and president of the Arab International Women’s Forum (AIWF) tells The National.
As Al Kaylani talks about her remarkable career, in which she has hosted Queen Rania of Jordan and been honoured herself at a reception by Sarah Brown, wife of former UK prime minister Gordon Brown, at No 10 Downing Street, it’s hard to believe there has ever been time for a midday meal.
On the global stage, she is known as a “high-impact change agent” in every area, from leadership, youth empowerment and diversity to education, sustainability and the environment.
The AIWF was founded in 2001 on two key principles dear to her heart: that no economic, political or social development is possible anywhere without optimising the 50 per cent of the population who are female; and that women from the richly diverse 22 Arab countries need to establish bridges between each other and their counterparts everywhere.
“We broke ground wherever we went,” she says. “We were the first women’s organisation to be hosted by the League of Arab States, the first hosted at the European Parliament, the first invited by the World Bank, the first conference in Madrid between Arab, Spanish and Latin American women, [the then French Minister of the Economy] Madame Lagarde chaired the forum’s annual conference in 2009 in Paris, we were the first to host a conference for business women at the Dubai International Financial Centre.
“And we had key, succinct issues on the table. It was not just about the gatherings, though they were important. Breaking the stereotypes, building knowledge and understanding were very important but we also wanted to ensure we could empower and effect change on the ground … so we walk the walk.’’
In person, Al Kaylani is reserved but warm, overcoming a natural modesty to highlight various successes in the hope of giving them renewed impetus. A story of doing good, she insists, must be told.
Her own is certainly that – a peripatetic life, first as a Lebanese of Palestinian origin and then as the wife of a Jordanian diplomat, fuelled her desire to empower women as “engines of economic growth” to foster development and prosperity in Arab countries.
Both her father, Badr Said Fahoum, the district governor of Acre in Mandatory Palestine whom she credits for her business mind, and mother, Alia Zubi, came from prominent families in Nazareth.
Nakba toddler
They moved, as did hundreds of thousands of others, to Beirut in 1948 during the Nakba when Haifa was a toddler, initially intending to stay only until it was safe to return.
“Nobody knew that they were going to spend the rest of their lives there. They left everything behind.’’
Relatives and friends continued to trickle out of Palestine, some bringing objects from the Fahoum house while those who remained sent letters and news of the events unfolding.
The family was given Lebanese citizenship at the time. An estimated 210,000 Palestinians remain stateless in the country even today, yet Al Kaylani points to how much Beirut owes to these exiled families.
“They made it their home and contributed to the economy, society, culture,” she says.
Haifa’s mother, Alia, was highly educated but took on the responsibility of raising her five daughters. She fostered an appreciation of the siblings’ heritage through stories of their ancestral home before the partition of borders but was keen, too, to ensure that they made the most of life, friends and schooling in Beirut.
Mother’s learning
Apart from her love and devotion as a homemaker, Al Kaylani recalls Alia creating a cultural cocoon full of classical music and literature such as the Abbasid-era poetry of Al-Mutanabbi that she recited by heart.
“She was an avid reader. We would go to the mountains every summer, and before we packed our clothes, we used to pack boxes of books because the vacations were supposed to be spent reading and learning, and on sports and outdoor life.’’
After being a pupil at the British Lebanese Evangelical School for Girls in Beirut, fifteen-year-old Al Kaylani was sent to board at Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset to pursue her English education.
“I loved it,’’ she says, and quotes from her end-of-term reports as testament. “They would say: ‘Haifa’s settled in as if she’s one of us.’ I think this is one of my good traits. I’m adaptable and I’m flexible.’’
The timing of her arrival made it easier not to pine for home despite the pupils having to go out for runs in snow up to their waists. As she explains, the 1962-63 academic year was one “like no other’’, and the pupils eagerly kept up with events on the BBC’s weekly news programme Panorama.
“It was number one, the year of the Big Freeze, the Beatles [with their first hit single Love Me Do], James Bond [Dr No in Sean Connery’s MI6 cinematic debut], the Profumo Affair, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vatican Council. I learnt a lot and enjoyed it all,’’ she says.
Al Kaylani chose to study economics at her father’s alma mater, the American University of Beirut, which she calls “that beautiful campus by the sea”, before regrouping with Sherborne friends at Oxford to read the new diploma in development economics.
Next was 12 months as a junior economist at the United Nations Economic and Social Council in Beirut, which enabled her to meet the second of two non-negotiable conditions set for the girls by Badr and Alia.
“We weren’t to get married or focus on a family until first having at least a Bachelor of Arts, if not a Master’s, and we had to work for one year. When you think about it, they are golden rules. So I’m very glad.
“If we had been five boys, our parents would not have done more in terms of empowerment and providing opportunities. Tashji’ [encouragement] non-stop.’’
She set up home in Amman after marrying Wajih Al Kaylani, who used to regale her with vivid tales of walking all over Palestine’s mountains, down hills and into valleys as a boy scout. “This is how you see the place, and get an affinity with the people in the villages,’’ Al Kaylani says.
While giving birth in hospital to her son, Sirri, she heard an announcement on the radio that Wajih had been appointed ambassador to Tunisia by King Hussein of Jordan, “which was a great honour but we asked permission to stay a few more months to allow the baby to grow”.
They immersed themselves in their roles in Tunis and then Delhi where her husband was ambassador to India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Thailand. “I found myself on another planet. Especially in the evenings, the sounds, the smells were different,” she says, recalling the aroma of firewood burning outside their diplomatic residence.
The couple visited every state in India at the invitation of the governors, and the deep insights gained from travelling as an Arab ambassador’s wife compelled her to take up an MPhil part-time at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
‘I wanted to read more, and Indian economists were the best in economic development at the time.’’
Al Kaylani left the country “with tears in my eyes’’ when Wajih retired from the diplomatic service in a return to the private sector, and London became their base.
After Sirri set off to board at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire, she turned to playing tennis, learning Spanish and Italian, enrolled at London Business School, and began volunteering for Arab and British women’s charitable organisations.
Help was needed for Palestinian refugees, and for Lebanon, which had entered a 15-year civil war. In the 1990s, she was part of a committee raising funds for Iraqi children and recalled the complexities of delivering aid in spite of the UN-led embargo after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. “It was very hard and serious work,” she says.
Among her biggest achievements was raising £250,000 ($318,050) for the Queen Alia Fund for Social Development, with Princess Basma as key speaker at an event in 1994.
Al Kaylani recalls a magical evening that transformed The Dorchester’s ballroom into a showcase of Jordanian culture through a fashion parade of “out of this world” Arab costumes, handicrafts and local produce on the tables, and floral arrangements of emblematic black irises and native herbs.
“It was something that London had not seen – neither before nor after,” she says.
“I’m a good fund-raiser. Why? Because I only commit my time and myself if I really believe in the cause, and believe that I can help the cause.
“I learnt a good lesson early in fund-raising, from an English friend. She told me: ‘You must be able to convince me why I should part with my funds for this cause rather than that one.’ So you need to prepare well.’’
Rebuilding the Balkans
She sat on the committee of a charity supporting Bosnian women during the war that was chaired by former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of whom she was a great admirer. “She revitalised the British economy and put it on track. She brought prosperity back.”
A few years later, Al Kaylani founded the AIWF with the aim of connecting Arab women from all walks of life as “part and parcel’’ of the international community politically, socially and economically.
As the forum has evolved from initially helping with the set-up of businesses to becoming much broader in scope, her intention has been to approach each project not as a feminist but as an economist first and foremost.
London Climate Week
In January 2017, Al Kaylani was chosen as one of 46 global leaders to become a Fellow of the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University. The key outcome of her fellowship has been an agriculture project being piloted in Jordan for which she secured World Bank funding.
“Following my pivotal year at Harvard, we have been pursuing a sustainability agenda,” she says.
Recently, the AIWF teamed up with Masdar’s global initiative Women in Sustainability, Environment and Renewable Energy, known as WiSER, to produce a report for Cop28 in Dubai, and will host the forum’s second conference on the same themes in June at London Climate Week.
Asked how she has maintained such motivation for so many decades, Al Kaylani says: “First, I enjoy what I do – otherwise I would not be doing it. This is the key because then it is from your heart, coming from inside, you’re committed. Most of my work is pro bonoand totally voluntary.
“Second, the energy … you need to read, to keep educating yourself. I’m a great believer in lifelong learning. That’s why I went to Harvard. I enjoy my own time like everybody but I love meeting people, and working, learning and connecting with others.”
Arguably the pinnacle of the numerous accolades garnered so far is being appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in King Charles’s New Year’s 2024 Honours List in recognition of services to women, young people and cultural relations between the UK and the countries of the Middle East.
She is thrilled and humbled by the thought of next month’s investiture but says none of it would have been possible without her parents – “I have to pay tribute to them” – and husband Wajih, whose face would beam every time he saw her achieve another milestone.
“My late husband was the best partner in life I could ever have had. Encouraging, loving, empowering. Without him, I promise, I could neither have started nor given so much time to the AIWF to attain what it has and continues to attain now. He was with me every step of the way.”
Al Kaylani goes on to speak of the friends and members from the wider AIWF family, who have all provided invaluable contributions, but soon returns to the source of her own personal impetus.
“Your roots sustain and empower you, those who see you when you are up and down. You know,’’ she says with a small shrug, “all of us are human after all.”
Haifa Al Kaylani OBE, pictured at the Carlton Jumeirah London, is known as a change-maker in areas from leadership and youth empowerment to sustainability and the environment. Photo: Mark Chilvers
President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan today honoured the winners of the Zayed Sustainability Prize in a ceremony held as part of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) hosted by the UAE at Expo City Dubai.
The ceremony was attended by numerous heads of delegations participating in COP28, ministers, senior government officials, and prize winners and finalists.
His Highness congratulated the winners, praising their efforts in promoting sustainability and encouraging them to continue their important contributions in this field. His Highness emphasised that the UAE is steadfast in building upon its established legacy in sustainability, a foundation laid by the country’s Founding Father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. In this regard, His Highness highlighted the significant role of the Zayed Sustainability Prize in advancing sustainable development, serving humanity, and empowering innovators, entrepreneurs, and youth to actively contribute towards making a positive difference for our planet.
The Zayed Sustainability Prize aims to perpetuate the legacy of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan by honouring and supporting small and medium enterprises, non-profit organisations, and secondary schools that offer sustainable solutions addressing challenges in health, food, energy, water, and climate. Over more than 15 years, the Prize has positively impacted the lives of 384 million people worldwide through the innovative solutions presented by its 106 winners.
The Zayed Sustainability Prize also focuses on promoting youth engagement in sustainability through its Global High Schools category, which encourages youth to play active roles in supporting their communities and leading future sustainability efforts. The winners in this category, numbering 47 global high schools, have positively impacted the lives of more than 55,186 students and 453,887 people in their local communities.
The eleven winners of this year’s edition were unanimously selected in September by the jury after a thorough review of all candidates to assess their contributions and commitment to presenting innovative, impactful, and inspiring solutions across various prize categories, including Health, Food, Energy, Water, Climate Action, and Global High Schools.
During the ceremony, Dr. Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Director-General of the Zayed Sustainability Prize, and COP28 President, stated, “In line with the vision and direction of the leadership, the Zayed Sustainability Prize has been contributing to inclusive sustainable development and advancing climate action for over 15 years. Today, the UAE reaffirms its commitment to stimulating action to mitigate climate change impacts, empowering communities in need of support, and creating positive change in the world, especially in the Global South.”
The winners in the Climate Action category include Kelp Blue Namibia, recognised for its ambitious efforts in cultivating extensive seaweed forests in deep waters. The company has contributed to the restoration of ocean biodiversity and the sequestration of 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually, in addition to creating job opportunities in coastal communities.
In the Health category, the Indonesian organisation DoctorSHARE was honoured for its pioneering work in delivering healthcare to remote and hard-to-reach areas through its floating hospitals. The organisation has made a widespread positive impact, treating more than 160,000 patients.
The Gaza Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture Platform (GUPAP) from Palestine emerged as the winner in the Food category, commended for its contributions to supporting Gaza’s agricultural sector. This non-profit organisation facilitates access to locally produced food and has provided employment opportunities for about 200 women in agriculture, benefiting over 7,000 individuals.
In the Energy category, Ignite Power from Rwanda was recognised for its significant efforts in providing affordable electricity to remote communities in sub-Saharan Africa. The company has supplied solar power solutions to 2.5 million people through a pay-as-you-go model, thereby avoiding 600,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. They have also introduced innovative solar-powered irrigation solutions, creating 3,500 job opportunities in local communities.
For the Water category, the French non-profit organisation Eau Et Vie was awarded for ensuring access to clean water in impoverished areas by installing water taps directly in homes in urban regions. The organisation has facilitated water access for 52,000 people across 27 neighbourhoods in 10 cities, raised health practice awareness among 66,000 individuals, and reduced water costs by 75 percent.
The recipients of the Global High Schools awards are Colegio De Alto Rendimiento De La Libertad (Peru), representing the Americas; Gwani Ibrahim Dan Hajja Academy (Nigeria), representing sub-Saharan Africa; International School (Morocco), representing the Middle East North Africa; Northfleet Technology College (United Kingdom), representing Europe Central Asia; KORT Education Complex (Pakistan), representing South Asia; and finally, Beijing High School No. 35 (China), representing East Asia Pacific.
The Chair of the Jury and former President of the Republic of Iceland, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, said, “This year’s winners have demonstrated a remarkable wave of ingenuity in their solutions to address urgent global challenges. We have confidence that these winners will catalyse substantial and scalable change in communities worldwide, propelling us towards vital climate action objectives and forging a path to a sustainable future for all.”
Jericho is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities on earth.
The United Nations’ cultural organization UNESCO inscribed the pre-historic site of Tell es-Sultan, near the Palestinian city of Jericho in the occupied West Bank, on its World Heritage List on Sunday.
Tell es-Sultan, which predates Egypt’s pyramids, is an oval-shaped tell, or mound, located in the Jordan Valley that contains the prehistoric deposits of human activity.
The UNESCO decision, which was posted by the organization on X, formerly Twitter, was taken at its 45th world heritage committee meeting held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. “The property proposed for nomination is the prehistoric archaeological site of Tell es-Sultan, located outside the antique site of Jericho,” UNESCO’s assistant director general, Ernesto Ottone, said at the session.
The site was inscribed following a three-year candidacy “during which no state party raised any objections,” said a diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media. “There are no Jewish or Christian remains found at the (Tell Al-Sultan) site. It’s a place of pre-historic remains,” the diplomat told AFP.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said he considered the decision to inscribe Tell es-Sultan “a matter of great importance and evidence of the authenticity and history of the Palestinian people.”He vowed that the Palestinian authorities would “continue to preserve this unique site for all humanity,” according to a statement from his office.
UNESCO’s listing shows that the Tell es-Sultan site is “an integral part of the diverse Palestinian heritage of exceptional human value,” Palestinian tourism minister Rula Maayah, who was attending the meeting in Riyadh, said in a statement.Given Tell es-Sultan’s “importance as the oldest fortified city in the world… it deserves to be a World Heritage Site,” she said.
“A permanent settlement had emerged here by the 9th to 8th millennium BC due to the fertile soil of the oasis and easy access to water,” UNESCO said on its website.
UNESCO said the “skulls and statues found on the site” testify to cultic practices among the neolithic population there, while the early bronze age archaeological material shows signs of urban planning.
The Tell es-Sultan site has been under excavation for over a century and is billed as the oldest continuously inhabited settlement on the planet, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Tell es-Sultan is the fourth Palestinian site to be listed on UNESCO’s world heritage list, alongside the Church of the Nativity and the Old City of Hebron.
source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)
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A view of the pre-historic site of Tell al-Sultan, near the Palestinian city of Jericho in the occupied West Bank, which predates Egypt’s pyramids. (Hazem Bader/AFP)
A tourist rides a camel at the pre-historic site of Tell al-Sultan near the Palestinian city of Jericho in the occupied West Bank on September 17, 2023, which was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List on the same day. (Hazem Bader/AFP)
In our continuing series of inspiring life stories across continents, we hear how the British MP is guided by a proud Jerusalem heritage.
Layla Moran’s earliest and fondest memories are of listening to tales of the days when the Ottomans ruled Palestine.
With a child’s fascination for the grisly aspects of life, she absorbed one particular story told of her great-grandfather’s first job accompanying the tax collectors. “They went to a village where someone hadn’t paid their taxes,” Ms Moran relates. “The man was dragged along the ground by his scrotum by a horse because he hadn’t paid his dues. And this was all under the draconian Ottoman rule.”
The first-hand accounts of her great-grandfather, the composer, oud player, poet and chronicler Wasif Jawhariyyeh, were published in his celebrated memoirs that span an extraordinary period for Palestine, from Ottoman rule to the 30-year British mandate and the formation of Israel.
As a young girl, Ms Moran devoured every word, finding a deep connection to her Palestinian heritage.
Those roots have at times come to the fore in her role as the first British-Palestinian Member of Parliament and as the Liberal Democrats’ shadow foreign secretary. Vividly so when she appeared in the House of Commons with a keffiyeh, a Palestinian scarf, wrapped around her neck, the first worn by an MP in the chamber.
Ms Moran explains that she wasn’t striving to make a statement, it was just that she’d had another impassioned discussion the night before about the plight of the Palestinians with her mother, who was born in Jerusalem.
“The next morning, I opened the drawer and saw the scarf. I thought, ‘I’m going to wear it for her and I’m going to wear it for us’ because it’s so much part of our identity,” she tells The National.
It was only afterwards that she realised the full impact of what she had done when friends texted their commendations alongside the inevitable social media storm.
he owes much to her mother’s side of the family, not least her love of Arabic culture and language along with a willingness to be outspoken and what she confesses can be passionate gesticulations.
The influence of her mother, particularly from those youthful days of protest during the 1970 Jordanian unrest, is obvious. Randa Jawhariyyeh was living in Amman and would often slip out to show support for the Palestinian cause, and it was Israel’s proposed annexation of the West Bank that they had been talking about the night before Ms Moran wore the scarf in September last year.
“She’ll talk about it emotionally, but she won’t cry,” she says. “She just passionately insists that Palestine is not about lines on a map, it’s about people.”
Though born in London, Ms Moran is proud of being a “Jerusalemite” of many generations’ heritage. Indeed, the Greek Orthodox family bible, signed in Arabic by every firstborn child of her Palestinian Christian antecedents, is a repository of names going back two centuries.
“It confounds people that I am not Muslim because they associate Palestine with Islam,” she says. “Then I point out that Jesus was born there and they go ‘oh, yes’ … It shows that the basic makeup of who is a Palestinian is very poorly understood internationally.”
The city at the confluence of the three major Abrahamic religions in Jerusalem has generated a rich and deep history; more than half a century of which was captured in the memoirs of Ms Moran’s great-grandfather.
Jawhariyyeh recounted one period of relatively peaceful intermingling of Muslim, Christian and Jew between the two World Wars. He was a Christian but studied the Koran and counted many Muslims — Turks included — as well as the Europeans, as friends. His diaries refer to Jews as “abna’ al-balad”, meaning compatriots.
He was, by all accounts, an engaging and charismatic man who socialised with all, no matter their background.
His many sayings were repeated at home and passed down the generations. “Money doesn’t matter, all that matters is beauty” is one that trips off Ms Moran’s tongue with a smile as she speaks by Zoom from her London apartment. “He was writing those diaries from the perspective of someone intensely proud of his homeland,” she says.
While Jawhariyyeh walked in the steps of many powerful men and worked for the British mandate, he never lost the enjoyment of speaking to ordinary people. There was one occasion when he visited Ms Moran’s grandfather in Libya during which he was “lost” for three hours after becoming engrossed in conversation with a bin-man he’d met on the street.
“People are people, and that’s where the joy in life is”, Jawhariyyeh frequently said, according to Ms Moran. “I think that very much carried through in a lot of the way my family sees the world.”
Perhaps this is why she takes offence that her elevation to becoming an MP might somehow make her superior to others. “It has never been about me, or status or how other people see me,” she says. “And if they see me in a way that is in any way elevated above them, that makes me very uncomfortable. I do everything I do out of a sense of duty to others.”
That sense of public service comes from both sides of the family. Ms Moran’s father, James, is a notable diplomat who served as the European Union’s ambassador to Egypt, among other countries
Hence, the young Layla spent a privileged childhood jumping around various states from Jordan to Ethiopia and Jamaica.
“I am British, I am Palestinian, but actually I spent the whole of my childhood living in other countries than those two,” she reflects. “So I’m very much what they call a third-culture kid, without geographic roots.”
Her upbringing meant that she had many encounters with “these extraordinary people” who came to the house. The then prime minister of Jamaica, she recalls, was among those who felt comfortable enough to take part in a good party.
“I’d meet presidents and ambassadors and see them to be normal people,” Ms Moran says.
Her parents also insisted that the fabulous homes with swimming pools and staff were “borrowed”, so “don’t have airs and graces”.
Having been imbued with Arab and Middle Eastern culture, Ms Moran puts that to good effect in the Commons to inform and educate other MPs on the region. “The best thing I can do is to tell the story of my family and that will inject an element of humanity into the conversation that hopefully will make people stop and listen,” she says.
It is those times, she believes, when she has the greatest effect, even if her mother worries that people will judge her for it. “Don’t say too much that you’re Palestinian,” Randa would chide. “You’re British and you are a British MP, and you just happen to have a Palestinian mother.”
Her mother has long had great concerns for the welfare of Ms Moran. In the Gulf War of 1991, when the family was in Athens, she kept nine-year-old Layla off school out of fears that the conflict would spill over into Greece.
Given how much politics was discussed around the kitchen table and her time in the region, the 38-year-old MP is confident about her understanding of the Middle East’s complexities. “I can speak with real authority about the region,” she says.
Some of that heritage has been digested in more ways than one, with Ms Moran claiming a skilled hand at Middle Eastern cuisine. She says she makes a mean Moulokhia that wards off cold British nights and gives her apartment an Arab-influenced aroma, especially pleasant after a hard day spent toiling over foreign affairs.
“But there’s a difference between being a Palestinian girl who likes to eat Palestinian food and listens to Arabic music, and being a spokesperson about what are very complex issues in the area. And I’m very careful when I tread on to the latter ground,” she says, in reference to the post she’s held since August. “I’m taking it slowly because I want to get it right.”
Her presence in the Commons is a clear reminder to others that Britain has a history, a legacy and responsibility to the Palestinians. She points out that it was the British mandate that governed the area for 30 years after the First World War, giving way to the formation of Israel.
“We can’t just give up on the region,” she says. “Britain is integral to its history. I’m not saying we can solve all of its problems on our own. We absolutely cannot but we certainly can’t throw our hands up and go away.”
Again, the conversation comes back to Jawhariyyeh’s diaries, in which he initially expressed joy at working under the British rule. “There was elation in his words at the arrival of the British because they freed them from the Ottoman Empire, but at the end my great-grandfather felt that the British who he had worked for utterly betrayed the Palestinians, because they promised that they were going to do good by them.”
Despite attending Roedean boarding school in Sussex, mainly because of her father’s transient life as a diplomat, Ms Moran went into politics to address the unfairness she witnessed in the British education system as a secondary school teacher in maths and physics.
She decided to do something about it and read every major party’s manifesto on education, deeming that the Liberal Democrats most closely fitted her own beliefs.
In the 2017 General Election, she took the Oxford West and Abingdon seat from the Conservatives by just 816 votes. Her straightforward and egalitarian views appear to have held sway with her constituents.
In the last election, her majority increased by almost 9,000 votes. Observers of events at the House of Commons, it seems, will have the chance of seeing that Palestinian scarf for some years to come.
‘I do everything I do out of sense of duty to others,’ says Layla Moran of her decision to become a Liberal Democrat politician. She won the seat of Oxford West and Abingdon in 2017. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Amid the headlines that the ‘red wave’ failed to materialize in America’s midterm elections as Trump-endorsed candidates crumbled at the ballot box and progressives like John Fetterman made surprise gains in hotly contested swing states, the election also saw historic firsts in Arab political representation. Palestinian-American Ruwa Romman who was the Democratic Party nominee for the Georgia General Assembly’s House of Representatives fought against an Islamophobic and racist campaign by her Republican challenger and won the election, becoming the deeply conservative state of Georgia’s first Palestinian American elected public official.
Achieving a whopping 58% of the vote, the 29-year-old Romman smashed her Republican opponent John Chan who allegedly ran a campaign that used Islamophobic and racist tropes to discredit Romman. While the presence of candidates from minority backgrounds has increasingly become a normal occurrence in some areas of the country, in the very conservative and Christian south of America it is rare for candidates from Arab or Muslim backgrounds to run for office, let alone be elected. As such, Romman’s victory in the deeply conservative state of Georgia is symbolic as she is from a family of Palestinian refugees and is both proudly American and Muslim. As a state representative for Georgia’s 97th district, her election marks both the first Palestinian-American to be elected to public office in Georgia as well as the first Muslim woman to be elected to public office. However, Romman was also joined by three other Muslim candidates that were similarly elected to the Georgia General Assembly. Her local supporters took to Twitter to signal how her victory over a hateful campaign by a Trump-supporting Republican sends a clear message that Georgia’s 97th district refuses to be turned against one other and stands united against an increasingly polarised and xenophobic political climate.
While the focus on the midterm elections in Georgia was mostly focused on the senate race between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker, which has now led to a hotly contested run-off, Ruwa Romman’s election to the Georgia General Assembly has not been given the attention it deserves according to some supporters. Although having lived in and around Georgia since the age of seven, Ruwa initially grew up in Amman, like many other Palestinian refugees that reside in Jordan. After being born in Jordan and then moving to just outside Atlanta, Romman lived her entire adult life in the state of Georgia. However, although Romman now sits in the Georgia House of Representatives, she grew up facing high levels of exclusion and racism, especially against the backdrop of the US War on Terror. CNN reported how only a year after moving to the USA, she vividly remembers sitting at the back of a school bus as an eight-year-old as other children bullied her by accusing her and her family of being terrorists. Romman’s journey from a child that suffered from Islamophobia in the deeply conservative state to representing that very same state after being elected by its people is a story that many Georgia-based activists want to tell of a changing state that is slowly becoming more accepting and Democrat-leaning. However, supporters of Romman have also taken to Twitter to describe how her victory is indicative of Arab Americans slowly gaining political representation after being spoken for many years.
While the Democratic Party, much like the Republican Party, as a whole has a history of unequivocally supporting the Israeli state, a new wave of progressive Democrats that joined the party following Bernie Sander’s successive bids to run as the party nominee, has been vocal about Palestinian rights. Romman being elected to represent Georgia’s 97th district is but one of the most recent of numerous pro-Palestinian politicians who have entered office in the last few years, often from Arab or Muslim backgrounds. Romman stands alongside Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib and Minnesota’s Ilham Omar as part of a new wave of progressive Democratic representatives from minority backgrounds that often aren’t represented by the party, but seem to be slowly changing the debate around Palestine and Arab and Muslim Americans.
Nujoud Fahoum Merancy started the Twitter hashtag ‘YallaToTheMoon’ to support latest mission.
A Palestinian-American woman is one of the leaders of the Artemis missions, a programme by Nasa that aims to fly astronauts to the Moon.
Nujoud Fahoum Merancy, 43, is the chief of exploration mission planning at the US space agency and has been working in the space sector for more than two decades.
She started the Twitter hashtag ‘YallaToTheMoon’ to support the Artemis 1 mission, which is scheduled for another launch attempt on Saturday, from Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre. ‘Yalla’ is an Arabic word that translates to ‘let’s go’ or ‘come on’.
Before the historic event, Ms Merancy spoke to The National about her Palestinian roots and her involvement in the Artemis programme.
A stellar career
The Artemis 1 mission is an unmanned flight around the Moon that will test the performance of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft.
If successful, it would pave the way for Nasa to launch Artemis 2 and 3, crewed flights around the Moon and the first human lunar landing mission under the programme.
“As a Palestinian-American, I’m very excited to be a part of this programme,” she said.
“And, really, Nasa and Artemis, it is a much more diverse workforce than it was during the Apollo era.
“It’s important to me and to a lot of us that it represents all of humanity and Artemis itself is international because we have international partners.”
Ms Merancy, a mother-of-two, earned her bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Washington in Seattle.
From there, she joined the aerospace company Boeing to work on the International Space Station.
She then started working on the development of Orion, the spacecraft launching on top of Nasa’s mega Moon rocket on Saturday that will fly around the Moon — and one day carry astronauts.
“From that, I’ve transitioned into the mission planning for Artemis, which is designing and integrating the missions across all the programmes for Artemis, and that’s my current role,” she said.
Connecting with her Palestinian roots
Ms Merancy went viral on the internet in 2019 when she posted her official Nasa photo, in which she wore a blazer embroidered with Palestinian tatreez, a traditional cross-stitch, that she bought during a visit to her father’s home town of Nazareth.
Her father moved to the US more than 40 years ago to go to college.
Although she was born in the US and does not speak fluent Arabic, she said her Palestinian roots were important to her.
“I don’t speak Arabic, unfortunately, it’s one of those regrets that I’ll always have,” she said.
“I know the basics, a few words here and there, and the polite greetings.
“But I do enjoy the food and that is something I grew up on. And then as an adult, I started cooking.
“So, I have a whole bunch of Palestinian cookbooks just to learn other recipes that my family didn’t teach me.
“I do like to cook Palestinian food and that’s probably the biggest connection to the culture that I have.”
Palestinian presence in the space sector
Other Palestinians are involved in the Artemis programme or are making a name for themselves in the US space sector through other projects.
Soha Alqeshawi, born and raised in Gaza city with her seven siblings, currently works for Lockheed Martin as a software engineering associate manager and looks after Orion’s back up-flight software.
And Loay Elbasyouni is a Palestinian-American electrical engineer who helped design Nasa’s Mars rover, Perseverance.
“My parents did their best to provide me and my siblings with a good education and shield us from the effects of the continuous horrific conflict that Gaza has been living under,” Ms Alqeshawi told Portuguese journalist Margarida Santos Lopes in 2015.
“Living under constant fear and despair where everything is uncertain and basic life necessities such as electricity and sometimes water are unavailable for most of the day.
“Although I was the only one in my family who had the opportunity to leave Gaza for the US to study and work, all of my brothers and sisters are college-educated with degrees in science, engineering and business.”
“Going to school was sometimes a dangerous journey that could have death waiting at any step of the way.
“However, that made us more determined to achieve our dreams in receiving an education.’
Nujoud Fahoum Merancy went viral in 2019 when she posted her official Nasa photo, in which she wore a blazer embroidered with Palestinian tatreez, a traditional cross-stitch that she purchased during a visit to her father’s hometown of Nazareth. Photo: @nujoud
During the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), Arab Cinema Center (ACC) granted Mouhamad Keblawi, Founder and Head of Malmö Arab Film Festival in Sweden, the Arab Cinema Personality of the year award.
This comes in recognition of his contribution and immense support to Arab Cinema through the festival, with an aim to promote Arab cinema in Sweden and Scandinavia.
Mohamed Keblawi is a Swedish-Palestinian director and producer, who has worked in television and documentary film production.
In 2011, he founded the Malmö Arab Film Festival in Sweden, which is set on encouraging Arab filmmakers to find more opportunities to tell their stories, and support Arab film projects.
The festival screened hundreds of Arab films since its establishment, including Oscar-nominated films; Director Naji Abu Nowar’s Jordanian film Theeb, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Tunisian film The Man Who Sold His Skin, and Palestinian short film The Present by Farah Nabulsi.
The festival also featured several award-winning Arab films that have been to numerous international festivals; Wajib by director Annemarie Jacir, EXT. Night by Ahmad Abdalla, A Son by Mehdi Barsaoui, Gaza Mon Amour by Arab and Tarzan Nasser, and Ali, the Goat and Ibrahim by Sherif Elbendary, among others.
Mohamed Keblawi also launched MAFF Market Forum as part of the festival with the aim of supporting Arab film projects and helping them come to light. During its latest edition, the Forum presented monetary prizes worth of $ 250,000. Ever since it was created, this annual prize supported almost 100 projects including Costa Brava, Lebanon by Mounia Akl, Beauty and the Dogs by Kaouther Ben Hania, Captains of Zaatari by Ali El Arabi, 200 Meters by Ameen Nayfeh,
Our River…Our Sky by Maysoon Pachachi, Communion by Nejib Belkadhi, Khartoum Offside by Marwa Zein, and Tiny Souls by Dina Naser.
Keblawi is also the founder of Arab Cinema in Sweden, a company that works on the distribution of Arab films in Sweden. These films include Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji’s Jordanian film The Journey, Sophie Boutros’ Lebanese film Solitaire, Mohamed Khan’s Egyptian film Factory Girl, and Khadija al-Salami’s Yemeni film I Am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced.
Most recently, Mohamed Keblawi received the City of Malmö’s Grant for Art and Culture for the year 2021. This is an annual grant allocated to twelve creators in the fields of music, theater, cinema and literature. From 2015 to 2017, he was a member of the documentary film nomination committee for the Guldbagge Awards, one that is considered as Sweden’s Oscars.“What Keblawi did by establishing a main venue for Arab cinema in Sweden, is certainly a first of its kind. Through which, thanks to his tireless efforts, he was able to develop a platform for filmmakers in Sweden and Europe, and so Arab filmmakers became quite familiar faces in Sweden. He was able to create an exceptional fan base for a festival that caters for Arab films in Europe. We are honored to grant him the prize, as he continues to expand his horizons each year, whether through the festival or through his distribution and production firms.” commented Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab, the Co-founders of Arab Cinema Center.”The prize crowns many years of hard work to try to grant the Arab film a chance to be acknowledged in places that it has never been before,” Keblawi said after announcement of the prize. “Things like the release of an Arab picture in Swedish theaters or Sweden’s funding of an Arab film were fictitious at the beginning of the millennium, this is an achievement which I am proud of. I’d like to thank everyone who helped me reach my goal. I’d also like to thank the Arab Cinema Center for this award, which I’m very proud of.
The Arab Cinema Personality of The Year award is part of its strategy of promoting the Arab film industry internationally and supporting Arab filmmakers.
During the last years, Arab Cinema Center (ACC) presented the Arab Cinema Personality of The Year award to Chiraz Latiri, former Tunisian Minister of Cultural Affairs, Screenwriter and Producer Mohamed Hefzy, the President of the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), Abdulhamid Juma, Chairman of the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), and Masoud Amralla, Artistic Director of DIFF.
Arab Cinema Center (ACC), founded in 2015 by MAD Solutions, is a non-profit organization incorporated in Amsterdam. ACC also provides networking opportunities with representatives of companies and institutions specialized in co-production and international distribution, among others. ACC’s activities vary between film markets, stands,pavilions, networking sessions, one-on-one meetings bringing together Arab and foreign filmmakers, welcome parties, and meetings with international organizations and festivals.
Also, the activities include the issuance of Arab Cinema Magazine to be distributed at the leading international film festivals and markets. Furthermore, newsletter subscription is now available on ACC’s website, allowing users to obtain digital copies of Arab Cinema Magazine, as well as news on ACC’s activities, notifications of application dates for grants, festivals and offers from educational and training institutions, updates on Arab films participating at festivals, exclusive news on the Arab Cinema LAB, and highlights from ACC’s partners and their future projects.
Arab Cinema Center has launched the Arab Cinema Directory in English language on its website, which is a comprehensive cinema directory that provides multiple tools in one place for the first time in order to enhance easy access to information on cinema to film makers inside and outside the Arab world. It also aims to facilitate the connection between the Arab film and Filmmakers and the International market. It also helps International Filmmakers to easily identify the Arab Cinema Productions.
