UNWRA kids fly kites to to commemorate the anniversary of a deadly earthquake and tsunami in Japan

In a message from Japan, Akihiko said, “it is really, really a wonderful festivity that you are flying 'kites of hope' . Amazing! I am sure that your kiting today will greatly encourage Japanese people living in the area stricken by disaster. Let's fly kites high up to the sky to let sorrows and fears turn to hope”.

Palestinian children fly kites to show their solidarity with the Japanese people

near a Japanese-funded housing project in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip,
March 18, 2012. The event was organized by the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency to mark the first anniversary of the March 11 earthquake and
tsunami that killed thousands and set off a nuclear crisis in Japan.
(Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)
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http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=468981

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Palestinian refugee school children in Gaza gathered to fly kites on Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of a deadly earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the UN refugee agency said.

Around 1,000 children flew kites at a Japanese-funded health center in the southern Gaza town Khan Younis, UNRWA said in a press statement.

Japanese founder of the kite-flying commemoration Akihiko, which has been held in 23 locations in Japan, and 5 countries worldwide, said the Gaza event "will greatly encourage Japanese people living in the area stricken by disaster."

Director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, Christer Nordahl said, "It is typical of the children of Gaza who experience so much hardship to think of children suffering elsewhere in the world. It is a wonderful and creative symbolic act of solidarity."

The quake in March 2011 unleashed a 10-meter tsunami and risked a nuclear meltdown in Japan, leaving some 25,000 people dead or missing.

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Kites of Hope, Commemoration for the victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami
One thousand children attending UNRWA schools in Gaza have flown kites in a symbolic show of support or “kizuna” the Japanese word for solidarity, with the children of Japan and victims of the earthquake and tsunami a year ago.

UNRWA delivers relief and social services to over a million refugees in Gaza. The Agency receives generous funding from the government and people of Japan, and since the devastating earthquake and tsunami and today, Japan has contributed US$ 23 million to UNRWA.

How you can help

Help UNWRA provide education, medical care, food and other essential relief services to Palestine refugees in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

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Israeli textbooks foster hate, says author

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http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/israeli-textbooks-foster-hate-says-author

by Vita Bekker
Mar 19, 2012

TEL AVIV // One asserts that Israel's Palestinian citizens shun modernisation and are building houses illegally. Another alleges the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank steals water from Israel. And elsewhere, that Palestinians have been a "terrifying demographic problem" for Israel.

Such statements are part of mainstream schoolbooks in Israel that teach an "anti-Palestinian" approach in a bid to prepare Jewish children to be aggressive towards Palestinians once they serve in the army, according to a new book.

To be released this month in the UK, the book - Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education - is the first to publicly provide evidence that Israeli schools have racist textbooks, said Nurit Peled-Elhanan, a professor at Jerusalem's Hebrew University who has researched dozens of Israeli schoolbooks published since the 1990s.

"I was looking for reasons of why nice Jewish boys turn into monsters when they join the army," said Ms Peled-Elhanan, in an interview at her home just outside Jerusalem.

"They never meet Palestinians face-to-face as children, so the textbooks are all they know."...READ MORE

Palestine’s Economy is in Trouble, But Why?

by Joharah Baker for MIFTAH

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http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=24585&CategoryId=3
Date posted: 19/03/2012

Israel is nothing if not audacious, but this last maneuver is even cheekier than most. On Wednesday, donor countries will meet in Brussels and the Israeli delegation will be armed with a 44-page paper penned by Israel’s foreign ministry, which basically says the Palestinians are just not ready for their own state.

Israel may be right. Palestinians are still heavily dependent on donor aid and have been subordinate to Israel’s economy since the latter’s occupation of the rest of Palestine in 1967. This part is true. We cannot stand economically on our own. Some of this may be our fault. Mismanagement, reports of corruption and the squander of public funds have resulted in holes in Palestinian budgetary management and have brought on the resentment and criticism of those in Palestine who monitor the ebbs and flows of the government’s coffers.

But mostly, the Palestinians are not the culprit for why Palestine’s economy has not yet been able to stand alone on its wobbly knees. And while donor aid has decreased given the international economic slump, the world is also not completely responsible for our dire financial state. Rather, it is Israel, now generously pointing out why we are so unready for statehood, which is holding us back from just that.

Israel’s goal for pointing this out is, of course, political. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will be there; so will Quartet envoy Tony Blair. Israel is looking to convince these bigwigs in the European donor and political community that the Palestinians must stop their pursuit of statehood at the United Nations because, as evidenced, they just can’t cut it.

"The fiscal crisis is especially acute because much of the West Bank economy still depends on the public sector and on construction projects, both still heavily financed by foreign aid. It also serves as an alarming warning sign for the stability of the Palestinian economy," the report says. "The current fiscal situation raises doubts about whether the PA will be able to reduce its dependency on foreign aid in the coming years," suggesting that this, coupled with the PA’s financial mismanagement pointed to their failure to “meet the requirements of a well-functioning state.”

What Israel failed to note is its determination to keep the Palestinians in its economic grips and the multitude of ways it has achieved this. Whether we are talking about the restrictions on the import and export of goods, the number of workers Israel employs in its own factories and businesses or the withholding of tax revenues owed to the PA, Israel has always ensured a way of keeping Palestinian economic independence at bay.

This is not to say that Palestinians have not tried their best to break free of this. Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad openly declared that he had devised a plan to build up Palestine’s institutions and infrastructure in preparation for the declaration of a Palestinian state. But even Fayyad realizes that without a political solution that addresses the core issues hindering this very state, no real independence can ever happen. Take the Gaza Strip. No matter who is in power, or how many reports come out about Gaza’s beleaguered state, Israel always maintains control over what is prevented or allowed in or out of the Strip, from cement to cilantro. Or take the tax revenues Israel withholds at whim. When Israel wants to punish the Palestinians, it knows where it will hurt the most. Withholding millions of shekels means public servants cannot be paid; teachers and government employees remain without salaries and the PA is hit with yet another financial crisis.

Today, the situation is dire from all aspects. The land, which Palestinians have traditionally depended on for livelihood, is being pulled from beneath their feet with each passing day. Israeli settlements, bypass roads and the separation wall continue to grow and grab more land, which has forced Palestinians into finding other means of survival. And because of the agreements signed between both sides, the Palestinian Authority can only survive with the helping hand of the donor community, which is to say the least, unfortunate.

In the end however, it is not a case of economics. This is only a major byproduct of the fundamental ill, which is Israel’s occupation of Palestine and its control over just about every facet of Palestinian life. We can all understand why Israel’s foreign ministry drafted the report; it is not out of concern for the Palestinians. It is part of Israel’s plan to convince the world that a Palestinian state is not a good idea. What it has not said is that Israel planned this all along, that it has not adhered even to the agreements it signed itself, including the Paris Protocol and that it was never interested in an independent Palestinian economy. It has never been interested in Palestinian independence at all.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

What is Israel?

"Evidently the woman's DNA tipped the balance in her favor. In 2010 a local rabbi granted her a marriage license as a bona fide Jew."

"There is no civil marriage in Israel; the institution is controlled by a religious authority, the Rabbinate. According to halacha, ancient Jewish law, either the applicant's mother must be demonstrably Jewish (the blood connection) or else the applicant must have converted to Judaism in a verifiably Orthodox ceremony (the cultural test). If unable to satisfy the authorities, immigrants may get married outside the country, and the state will accept the union. Secular Israelis who resent the strictures go abroad by choice, nearby Cyprus often providing their version of the Las Vegas wedding.

Then the panel and the audience were asked to comment on a case study, a real one. An Eastern European woman who was a 12-year resident of Israel had documents affirming that her paternal grandfather was Jewish, but no proof of Jewishness on her mother's side save her own testimony. To bolster her claim for a marriage license, the woman went to a commercial gene-testing service and had her DNA analyzed, specifically her mitochondrial DNA. This part of the human genome is inherited strictly through the mother's line. She turned out to carry a genetic marker associated with Ashkenazi Jews, 1.5 million of whom carry it. Scientists had traced the marker to what they believe to be a founding lineage of the Jewish people in the Middle East. Should the religious authority take the biological evidence into account? Should the rabbi in charge give the woman a pass on the requirement for conversion?

The room crackled with people wishing to speak. The American geneticist Mary-Claire King, known for her research on heritable breast cancer, said that she hesitated to admit the mitochondrial marker as legal proof of ancestry. For one thing, she observed, not everyone carrying that marker was Jewish. It can be found in some Palestinians..."

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/defining-jews-defining-a-nation-can-genetics-save-israel/254428/

Defining Jews, Defining a Nation: Can Genetics Save Israel?

How studies of Jewish DNA could help answer a question that's at the heart of some of Israeli society's biggest problems: Who counts as a Jew?

Israeli Settlers taking over Palestinian springs: UN report

Israeli settlers shovel the ground to divert water from a spring in the Palestinian West Bank village of Karawa Bani Hassan in January 2010. Israeli settlers have taken over dozens of natural springs in the West Bank, limiting or preventing Palestinian access to much-needed water sources, according to a United Nations report. (AFP Photo/Jaafar Ashtiyeh)

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http://news.yahoo.com/settlers-taking-over-palestinian-springs-un-report-112612919.html

Israeli settlers have taken over dozens of natural springs in the West Bank, limiting or preventing Palestinian access to much-needed water sources, a United Nations report said on Monday.

The report produced by the UN's Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said at least 30 springs across the West Bank had been completely taken over by settlers, with Palestinians unable to access them at all.

In most instances, the report said, "Palestinians have been deterred from accessing the springs by acts of intimidation, threats and violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers."

The report said an OCHA survey carried out in 2011 identified a total of 56 springs that were under total or partial control of Israeli settlers, most in the part of the West Bank known as Area C, which is under full Israeli civil and military control.

"Springs have remained the single largest water source for irrigation and a significant source for watering livestock" for Palestinians, OCHA said, noting that some springs also provide water for domestic consumption.

"The loss of access to springs and adjacent land reduced the income of affected farmers, who either stop cultivating the land or face a reduction in the productivity of their crops."

The report said in most cases where settlers were trying to limit Palestinian access to springs, they have undertaken to turn the area into a tourist attraction, constructing pools, picnic areas and signs carrying a Hebrew name for the spring....READ MORE

My letter to the New York Times RE "To Save Israel, Boycott the Settlements"

To Save Israel, Boycott the Settlements by Peter Beinhart
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/opinion/to-save-israel-boycott-the-settlements.html?_r=1

Dear Editor,

"The one-state idea may invite the Israeli government to embark even more vigorously on policies that drive away the Palestinians — ethnic cleansing, in so many words — to preserve the “Jewishness” of Israel." Jordan Times Editorial March 18 2012 Solution Needed http://jordantimes.com/solution-needed

Boycotting Israel's burgeoning Jews-only settlement projects in the illegally occupied territories and many other frankly shocking instances of Israel's state subsidized institutionalized bigotry and injustice is a very good idea... BUT it is not such a good idea to do it in order to bolster the supposed "Jewishness" of Israel.

Religion should be a personal private matter, not a tax payer funded preference- and a refugee's natural and legal right to return needs to be respected on a universal level, not limited to people of one religious back ground or another.

A fully secular two state solution to once and for all end the Israel-Palestine conflict really is the best way and the only way to build a lasting peace, a durable and legendary peace based on full respect for universal basic human rights, the rule of fair and just laws, accountability, true equality and real democracy for all the people of the Holy Land.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES
"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."Eleanor Roosevelt

The Arab Peace Initiative requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well

"This [Israeli] occupation humiliates us, destroys our economy, causes demographic changes and deprives millions of the freedom of movement and their right to decent lives, in addition to the confiscation of land... These are the main ways Christians are persecuted in Palestine." Faysal Hijazeen

• Palestinian Refugees (1948-NOW) refused their right to return... and their right to live in peace free from religious bigotry and injustice.

• Break Away from the Echo Chamber....

• Help Build A Golden Rule Peace for the Holy Land

The Golden Rule... Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

Growing Gardens for Palestine
a personal blog

...To Return

A Spider Silk Cape... a series of three poems by Anne Selden Annab in Growing Gardens for Palestine

The one-state idea may invite the Israeli government to embark even more vigorously on policies that drive away the Palestinians — ethnic cleansing...

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http://jordantimes.com/solution-needed

Editorial

Solution needed

Mar 18,2012 | 22:54

Former Palestinian prime minister Ahmad Qureia is suggesting that the Palestinians and Israelis should now abandon the two-state solution in favour of one state.

Qureia believes this is right in view of the Israeli actions in the West Bank, particularly the unrelenting settlement activities that have rendered the two-state solution devoid of any meaning.

The decades-long Israeli colonisation of the Palestinian territories has all but preempted the two-state solution, which would give the Palestinians a tiny part of their ancestral land and East Jerusalem as their capital.

Qureia must have spoken out of frustration with the never-ending process of finding a way to bring the two sides together to talk about a mechanism to initiate, maybe, peace talks that could, perhaps, yield some result…

Yes, it is a convoluted, sterile, process that has led nowhere so far and that is often enough to frustrate even the most enthusiastic peace seeker.

But Qureia’s suggestion is not very realistic either. Neither Israelis nor most Palestinians are bound to accept it.

The one-state idea may invite the Israeli government to embark even more vigorously on policies that drive away the Palestinians — ethnic cleansing, in so many words — to preserve the “Jewishness” of Israel.

Besides, after a century or so of conflict between Jews and Arabs over Palestine, it will take quite a while to bury the hatchet, heal deep wounds and coexist in complete harmony, not to mention the cultural and religious differences that would have to be surmounted.

The two states, therefore, seems to be the only operational solution. It could, in the long run, evolve into some sort of confederation, which has all the positive features of one state and could be of benefit to all.

Whatever resolution, one has to be reached, for the conflict has been brewing for too long and the entire region suffers because of it.