Word: abukeshek
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Dates: during 2008-2008
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...Saif Abukeshek when he became an online activist, and he'll give you the same answer as many of his Palestinian peers: after the second intifada erupted, in 2000. That explosion of violence in the occupied territories brought about a tough lockdown on Palestinian mobility by Israeli forces and produced the right conditions for a home-grown, grass-roots activism - frustrated youth trapped inside all day with nothing but the TV and the internet to turn to. "It's a way to achieve effective non-violent resistance," says Abukeshek, 27, who is from the West Bank city of Nablus...
...biggest hallmark of the younger generation of Palestinians is their inability to move," says Dr. Karma Nabulsi, a professor of politics and international relations at Oxford University. But the internet knows no borders and neither, says Abukeshek, does the Palestinian cause. Their reduced mobility, combined with increasing internet access, has led the stone-throwing Palestinian children who, for many, became the lasting image of the first intifada in the late 1980s and early 90s, to bring their resistance online during the second. Sociologists call the movement "e-Palestine": a feeling of nationhood cultivated online by young members of the fractured...
...News," "Jerusalem 4ever," and "Palestine4ever," all popular venues for Palestinian youth around the world to discuss ideas, news and share photos and videos from their own corner of the globe. "In the beginning it was just casual chatting and discussion, the themes were arts and culture and sport," says Abukeshek of the chat rooms he frequented before getting involved with Pal-youth.org. "But then I noticed more and more political chat rooms appearing over time - the Palestinians in Palestine had to express what was happening inside, and the Palestinians outside of Palestine had a need to learn about...
...chatrooms and forums were dedicated to discussing the Nakbah and what it means today. "Traditionally for Palestinians, the Nakbah has been about looking back in sorrow," says Nabulsi. "But what I am seeing among younger people now is that they are using Nakbah commemoration to look forward." For Abukeshek, it's about finding a jumping off point for action. "It's an event we can mobilize around," he says...
...Abukeshek and Pal-youth.org's next step is to formalize an online political mobilization plan for young Palestinians on the ground throughout the world. To this end, the organization is bringing together 150 Palestinians from 28 countries for a summit in Madrid in early November. "Everyone thought that bottom-up mobilization was dead [in America]." Says Dr. Nabulsi. "But they got a shock with Obama, and I see it also with the young Palestinians." And although he says he disagrees with Barack Obama's politics, particularly on maintaining an undivided Jerusalem, Abukeshek says he is encouraged by the influence the presidential...
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