Hisham Wyne: Columnist, Copywriter

[Picture stolen from Google. I wrote this for Bespoke. Discussion with Nader Abuljebain, author of “Palestinian History in Postage Stamps”]

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(Image from the Guardian, originally the AP)

It was akin to watching a train wreck. Not because of the human fascination with the moribund, or with carnage. No, most people watch a train wreck because they implicitly know what’s about to happen, and watch just to confirm their worst impulses.

And so it was with Obama’s oratory; not because there was crumpled metal and screams, but because most pundits, casual observers and even the average Ahmed or Daniel on the street had predicted what was to occur. It was a strictly predicable performance, albeit well meaning and powerfully oratorical, at least for an American audience.

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[Image from PalestineToday.org]

This article was originally written for the MideastPosts and can be found here.

Barely had the pundits and populace come to grips with the Tunisian revolution than the existence of the Palestine Papers was declared. Al Jazeera, the Qatari based television channel, has released a number of documents pertaining to the Israeli Palestinian peace process into the public domain, together with UK publication the Guardian.

The papers make for sombre reading, for all that they don’t add much to what followers of the peace process have known for some time: the horse has not just expired under brutal flagellation, but was for all intents and purposes sent to the glue factory a decade back.

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