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Saturday, February 20, 2010

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Palestinians guilty again?
February 19, 2010

When Palestinians act in a legitimate, non-violent way, it deprives Israel of the security excuse that Israeli governments have always used, and ruins its effective campaign of dehumanizing and demonizing Palestinians.

Hamas Would Lose Elections
February 19, 2010

49 percent of Palestinians were found to prefer Fatah's approach, 12 percent Hamas and 38 percent did not like either party's strategy or refused to answer.


Press Releases

February 11, 2010 - 3:36pm
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New ATFP book: What's Wrong with the One-State Agenda?

The Palestinian State and Institution Building Program
Documents detailing the state and institution building program of the 13th Palestinian Government, including the overall plan and priority interventions for 2010.


Abbas F. ("Eddy") Zuaiter: Credit Himes for stance on Gaza

Credit Himes for stance on Gaza
Abbas F. Zuaiter, IMEU, Feb 19, 2010

nablus_hip.jpg
A Palestinian in the West Bank city of Nablus practices during a break-dancing class. (Maan Images)

A thoughtful and measured letter from members of Congress to President Obama calling for easing the siege on Gaza has recently been subjected to unfair and misleading criticism. The letter, signed by Congressman Jim Himes and over 50 other members of the U.S. Congress, has been maligned as pressuring "Israel to loosen security measures implemented to counter the threat from terrorism originating from the Gaza strip."

The letter does no such thing. In fact, Rep. Himes and his colleagues take scrupulous care to acknowledge Israeli security concerns. "We recognize that the Israeli government has imposed restrictions on Gaza out of a legitimate and keenly felt fear of continued terrorist action by Hamas and other militant groups."

What the members of Congress find troubling, however, is that over-stringent Israeli measures are harming innocent Palestinian civilians. "This concern (for Israeli security) must be addressed without resulting in the de facto collective punishment of the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip."

Tipping unfairly in Israel's favor while it continues to repress Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza -- the future Palestinian state -- serves only to undermine our nation's moral authority. A sensible U.S. policy toward Israel and a future state of Palestine can provide for Israeli security without reducing the Palestinians to economic desperation, rampant unemployment and educational and physical degradation.

With 80 percent of Gaza's population dependent on food aid, it is little surprise that last year the Lancet, one of the world's leading medical journals, reported childhood stunting in pockets of northern Gaza at 30 percent with an overall rate of 10 percent throughout Gaza. Such chronic malnutrition (half of Gaza's population is comprised of children) damages cognitive and physical development. A society of stunted bodies and minds results in stunted aspirations.

Israel is no "light unto nations" when it supervises the infliction of such pain on children. Hunger and parental despair serve only to fuel desperation and resentment of Israel and the United States - and increasingly Egypt with its move toward limiting trade and travel from Gaza. This humanitarian crisis is created by Israeli policy, not by tragedy.

Any forward-thinking American policy must address the struggles of Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, where 70 percent of residents are refugees whose families were forced from homes and land in Israel in 1948 and prohibited from returning. Instead, they are confined to a spit of land 25 miles long by six miles wide. To ease Palestinian hardship, the letter specifically calls for "immediate improvements" in access to clean water, plentiful and varied food, medicine, sanitation supplies, construction materials, fuel, and spare parts. The letter also supports "Movement of people, especially students, the ill, aid workers, journalists, and those with family concerns, into and out of Gaza."

The case of Zohair M. Abu Shaban is a microcosm of the harm being caused to the educational aspirations of Palestinians by the siege. Accepted on a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Connecticut, but turned away at the last instant because of secret information provided by the Israeli government that he could not contest, Mr. Abu Shaban wrote in the Hartford Courant at the time: "I wonder what hopelessness all children in Gaza suffer when they learn that Gaza's best students are confined by Israel to the cramped Gaza Strip? And how are they to succeed when this week their parents discover local stores are empty of study essentials such as pencils, pens and notebooks because of the economic blockade of our small parcel of land?"

I do not believe that we benefit Connecticut or our country when talented individuals are prevented from achieving their educational dreams. I wonder often how my life and attitude towards America - and the views of many foreign students who come to our shores for education each year - would have developed had I been denied the opportunity to pursue an education in the United States.

Palestinian children in Gaza today can scarcely even imagine an American education. Palestinians, unable to import construction materials, have been bombed back into using mud for home-building. Electricity is intermittent and imposes real limits on evening study time. Palestinian families that long prided themselves on insisting on educational excellence from their children are now scrimping to survive. More than 300 Palestinian children killed by Israel in last winter's invasion will never even get the chance to pursue higher education. Israel's apartheid policy painfully divides a Palestinian child's aspirations from those of an Israeli child.

Rather than wrongly castigate Rep. Himes for ignoring Israel's security needs, he should be applauded for recognizing that "fulfilling the needs of civilians in Israel and Gaza are mutually reinforcing goals."

Abbas F. ("Eddy") Zuaiter is the Chief Operating Officer of a global macro hedge fund. He is also a member of the Boards of Directors of the Institute for Middle East Understanding and the Middle East Institute. He lives in Greenwich.

No peace without solution for Palestinian refugees - UNRWA

http://jordantimes.com/index.php?news=24156
Jordan Time Sponsor

Friday, February 19th, 2010, 2:28 pm Amman Time |

No peace without solution for Palestinian refugees - UNRWA

BEIRUT (AFP) - Finding a solution to the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East is key to peace in the region, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said in an interview on Thursday.

"UNRWA has no political role, but it does have the moral role of reminding all parties involved and all governments with a say in the peace process that there will be no peace without a fair solution for refugees in line with UN resolutions," the agency's Commissionner General Filippo Grandi told AFP.

"It is tragic that the international community has not yet found a solution to this problem," Grandi, who was appointed to the post in January, said on a visit to Beirut.

The fate of refugees is one of the thorniest issues in the stalled Middle East peace process, as Israel rejects Palestinian demands to allow their return to lands they fled in 1948 when the state of Israel was created.

The cash-strapped UNRWA provides assistance to about 4.7 million Palestinian refugees, many of whom have settled in camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

"The situation has been the same for 60 years now, and today we speak of fourth-generation refugees," said Grandi. "Without a solution, this will only continue." UNRWA remains 100 million dollars short of its budget for 2010, Grandi said earlier this month.

Part of the agency's budget in Lebanon goes to the reconstruction of Nahr Al Bared, a camp near the northern port city of Tripoli levelled in deadly fighting between the army and Al Qaeda-inspired group Fatah Al Islam in 2007.

The fighting killed 400 people, including 168 Lebanese soldiers, and displaced about 30,000 residents from the Palestinian refugee camp, where Fatah Al Islam was based.

UNRWA has made an appeal for $450 million to rebuild the camp and the surrounding areas but has so far received only $120 million.

"The money we have right now covers the reconstruction of only three of eight camp sections destroyed," Grandi said.

"We also need relief funds for the basic needs of the camp residents urgently. What we have now will run dry by May or June." On the political and economic fronts, the Lebanese constitution bans Palestinian refugees from obtaining Lebanese citizenship, owning property or entering some professions.

Grandi said he has urged Prime Minister Saad Hariri to find "a concrete solution for the legal employment of refugees in Lebanon". According to UNRWA figures, Lebanon is home to nearly 400,000 refugees, most of whom live in 12 destitute camps across the country.

Other figures put the number at between 250,000 and 270,000 as the UN does not strike off its list those who emigrate from Lebanon, which has a population of four million.

Lebanon, which supports the refugees' right to return to their homes, absorbs 12 to 15 per cent of the cash-strapped agency's total annual budget, which tops $600 million (442 million euros).

Lebanese across the board reject the permanent settlement or full integration of the mainly Sunni Muslim Palestinians, as their naturalisation would upset the country's delicate confessional balance.


19 February 2010

Let's....

Ibtisam Barakat ابتسام بركات Let's -- In an acting improv meeting, we played the game Let's! Someone says "tigers" and we all say Let's! We all become tigers. We acted monkeys, flowers, other things. I said let's be Palestinians! Everyone said Let's and started to write on their hands or on the air. I realized I am the Palestinian they know! A wri...ter. So whatever I do is Palestinian. I almost cried with responsibility. -- Ibtisam Barakat 2010.

author of
Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood by Ibtisam Barakat (Hardcover - Feb. 20, 2007)
Buy new: $16.00 $10.88

Stargazing in Gaza

Published today (updated) 20/02/2010 12:40

Gaza – Ma’an – Israel's siege can't stop Gaza's children from gazing at the sky, thick with warplanes and missiles as it sometimes appears.

Dozens of children will soon engage in stargazing under the supervision of Gaza-born astrophysicist Suleiman Baraka, a former employee of the US space agency NASA. Baraka's group will have the help of a telescope imported to Gaza with the help of the French Consulate General in Jerusalem and the French Cultural Center.

He said he wants to get children interested in astronomy in order to help them overcome what he calls a "stereotype" of the sky as a source of death, with its Israeli unmanned drones, helicopter gunships and fighter jets.

Baraka told Ma’an, “When we ask a child here, ‘what do you see in the Gaza sky?’ He would say he sees Apache [helicopters] and F-16s and all of the causes of death and destruction.”

Despite these fears, he says, “The Gaza sky is beautiful with all of its stars and galaxies.”

Baraka studied at French universities and later worked with NASA at Virginia Tech in the US. He was at work in Virginia when Israel launched its three-week war in Gaza in late 2008.

On the third day of the war, his 11-year-old son Ibrahim was killed on in an Israeli airstrike that destroyed his home in Khan Younis. Seventeen members of his family were left homeless by the same bombing.

He told his story to the US television and radio show Democracy Now: “I was in my office. I received a call that there was a bombing in my area, and then, after a while, the bombing was my house, and then I lost communication with the family for ten hours. It was really very hard, at the emotional, psychological level, because I had known that there something happened, and I cannot follow up.

“Ten hours later, I knew that my son Ibrahim was critically injured and my mom was moderately injured when they bombed my house with a one-ton bomb and destroyed the house, injuring my son and my mom.” Ibrahim was moved to a hospital in Egypt where he died on 5 January 2009.

“My house is not a military base. Ibrahim is eleven years old. He doesn’t need F-16 jet fighters to kill him. My house roof was there for me and my children to use my telescope, not anti-aircraft missiles or rockets,” he told his interviewers on Democracy Now.

Baraka says he returned to Gaza after the war in part out of the sense that his country needs him. “What would happen if I stayed at NASA with an excellent salary and carrying out research? If you are qualified then it’s better for you to stay in your homeland,” he told Ma’an.

Now back in Gaza, he is brimming with ideas for projects, saying he intends to establish an observatory and establish astronomy programs in Gazan universities. He is also interested in setting up a facility to study the earth’s magnetic fields. He says his friends in the world astronomical community will help him bring telescopes into Gaza despite the Israeli-led border closure.

Baraka’s idea is that by gazing at the sky, Palestinian children will not feel as confined in tiny Gaza.

“The universe is wide and the globe is bigger than having Beit Hanoun and Rafah as your only surroundings. Seeing the Gaza sky is an attempt to break the siege in all of its educational and political aspects, in belief that the Palestinians capable of greatness in science.”

Friday, February 19, 2010

Palestinian Refugees Key to Peace: UNRWA


Palestinian Refugees Key to Peace: UNRWA

Friday, 19 February 2010

Beirut, February 19: Finding a solution to the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees is the key to peace in the Middle East, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, believes.

"UNRWA has no political role, but it does have the moral role of reminding all parties involved and all governments with a say in the peace process that there will be no peace without a fair solution for refugees in line with UN resolutions," the agency's Commissioner General Filippo Grandi told.

Millions of Palestinians fled or were forced out of their homes when Israel was created on the rubble of Palestine in 1948.

UNRWA also defines as refugees the descendants of those who became refugees in 1948.

The number of registered refugees has subsequently grown from 914,000 in 1950 to more than 4.4 million in 2005, and continues to rise due to natural population growth.

Third of them live in 58 recognized refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"It is tragic that the international community has not yet found a solution to this problem," lamented Grandi.

"The situation has been the same for 60 years now, and today we speak of fourth-generation refugees.

"Without a solution, this will only continue."

UN resolutions guarantee the right of return of Palestinian refugees, many still holding the keys and titles of their homes in what is now Israel.

But like its predecessors, the government of hawkish Premier Benyamin Netanyaho wants Palestinians to give up the right of returning to their homes in what is now Israel.

UNRWA says it urgently needs money to provide the basic needs of Nahr Al-Bared refugees.

Cash-strapped

Grandi complained that his cash-strapped agency can not offer the most basic needs to the Palestinian refugees.

"UNRWA remains 100 million dollars short of its budget for 2010."

The UN agency has made an appeal for 450 million dollars to rebuild Nahr Al-Bared camp near the northern port city of Tripoli, which was almost leveled to the ground in clashes between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam militants in 2007.

Some 400 people, including 168 Lebanese soldiers, were killed in the fighting and about 30,000 residents were displaced.

UNRWA has only received 120 of the 450 million dollars needed to rebuild the camp and the surrounding areas.

"The money we have right now covers the reconstruction of only three of eight camp sections destroyed," Grandi asserted.

"We also need relief funds for the basic needs of the camp residents urgently.

What we have now will run dry by May or June."

Grandi has urged Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to find a solution for the legal employment of Palestinian refugees.

The Lebanese constitution bans Palestinian refugees from obtaining citizenship, owning property or entering some professions, adding insult to their injuries.

According to UNRWA figures, Lebanon is home to nearly 400,000 refugees, most of them live in 12 destitute camps across the country.

They get 12-15 percent of UNRWA's total annual budget, which tops 600 million dollars.

-Agencies

Protesters wave Palestinian flags at an Israeli border police post during a protest in the West Bank village of Bilin, near Ramallah, February 19, 2010. Israeli border police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse some 1,000 Palestinian protesters and foreign activists during a protest marking the 5th anniversary of their campaign against the controversial Israeli barrier. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside (WEST BANK - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST IMAGES OF THE DAY)A Palestinian boy walks under a huge Palestinian flag during a protest in the West Bank village of Bilin near Ramallah February 19, 2010. Israeli border police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse some 1000 Palestinian protesters and foreign activists during a protest marking the 5th anniversary of their campaign against the controversial Israeli barrier in the village. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside (WEST BANK - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST)

My letter to Time Magazine RE Unraveling the Middle East Muddle By Joe Klein


RE: Unraveling the Middle East Muddle By Joe Klein
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1964775,00.html

Dear Editor,

Klein in 'Unraveling the Middle East Muddle" really should have remembered and reiterated the three clear & compelling points made in the Arab Peace Initiative ... The necessity of:

1. Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967.
2. A just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.
3. The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

A secular two state end to the Israel/Palestine conflict really is the best bet for every one's sake- with a firm shift away from forcing tax payers (here and there) to fund and empower religious bigotry, militancy and terror.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
Growing Gardens for Palestine

Palestinian children hold candles and signs during a protest calling for an end to the blockade on Gaza, organized by the Islamic bloc at the schools, at the Unknown soldier square in Gaza City, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010. Israel and Egypt blockaded the strip after Hamas militants overran it in 2007. Arabic sign on right reads 'Help Gaza, where is the world when Palestinian children are being killed.' (AP Photo /Adel Hana)

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Palestinian fishermen fish in the water of the Mediterranean Sea, off the shore of Gaza City, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010. (AP Photo /Adel Hana)

A Palestinian boy rides bicycle on the beach of Gaza City February 17, 2010. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem (GAZA - Tags: ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY)

Ibish: Israel, the Palestinians and the One-State Agenda... Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies - Tufts University

http://farescenter.tufts.edu/events/lectureSeries/IbishVideo.asp
Events: The Fares Lecture Series

Academic Year 2009-2010

Israel, the Palestinians and the One-State Agenda
Wednesday, February 10, 2010, 5:30PM
Cabot Intercultural Center, 702, The Fletcher School
Speaker: Hussein Ibish, Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine

Main Lecture video and Q&A video

Main Lecture video
Main Lecture FLV Download


Q&A video
Q&A FLV Download

City of Mud

City of Mud

Gaza, 18 February 2010

Hassan al-Err is the head of a family of seven who are preparing to move into a mud house built by UNRWA in the Gaza Strip. UNRWA has resorted to building with mud because other building materials are not available.

The two-bedroom house in Jabalia, north of Gaza City, is an improvement on the tent in which the 67-year-old Hassan had been living with his family - next to the rubble of their former home. The family’s home was one of 4,036 houses in Gaza which were totally destroyed or damaged beyond repair last year in Israel’s 23-day military operation.

Since then, rebuilding has been almost impossible because Israel does not allow construction materials such as cement and steel into the Strip, saying they could be used for military purposes.

“I can’t forget how hard the past year has been for me and my family living in a tent in the cold winter and the hot summer,” Hassan explains. “Of course a mud house is much better than a tent, although it’s not a real solution because I can’t build another flat on top of it for my two married sons who live in a rented house in Jabalia town.”

UNRWA hopes to build around 120 mud brick houses for dozens of homeless families in the next few months in the Strip. Each house costs about US$10,000 and takes three months to build.


While not a long-term solution for homeless families, the mud houses offer better conditions than tents or partially destroyed buildings. They also provide employment for people UNRWA is training to make mud bricks and homes.

International donors pledged US$4.5 billion in aid for the Palestinian Authority, much of it specifically for Gaza, at a conference in Egypt in March 2009, but little has made its way to the Strip because of the continuing blockade and bitter Palestinian divisions between political parties Hamas and Fatah.

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Children attend a class at a school run by UNRWA in Amman. The relief agency has asked Canada to continue support for its main budget (Jordan Times )

CNN: Don't deny peaceful protests in West Bank By Bill Fletcher Jr

AS ALWAYS PLEASE go to the original link to read the story in full- help make it more popular:)
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/02/16/fletcher.palestinians.protest/index.html

Don't deny peaceful protests in West Bank

By Bill Fletcher Jr., Special to CNN
February 17, 2010 1:42 p.m. EST

Editor's note: Bill Fletcher Jr. is the executive editor of BlackCommentator.com. He is a senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum, and the co-author of "Solidarity Divided."

New York (CNN) -- Every year, beginning with the January birthday celebrations for the Rev. Martin Luther King and moving through Black History Month in February, Americans and others revisit the history, role and significance of the black freedom movement in the United States.

But there is a frequent tendency to misrepresent the lessons of that movement and apply them to other social movements overseas in a way that misses the mark. This has been happening increasingly with the historical lessons that are being misapplied to the Palestinian freedom movement.

It has become almost a cliché, yet people, including Irish rocker Bono, continue to wield King's name when they bemoan the alleged absence of his like among the Palestinians. It seems no matter what Palestinian activists do, they are condemned as terrorists.

Whether they are engaged in armed struggle or nonviolent direct action, it does not matter: Palestinian activists are often portrayed as extremists who threaten life and property. The obvious exceptions are those Palestinians who are prepared to accept whatever terms the United States insists upon for the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The recent arrests of Palestinian human rights activists Jamal Juma', Abdallah Abu Rahma, Ibrahim Amirah and Mohammed Othman are prime examples. Juma' and Othman were imprisoned without charge, Amirah faces charges of incitement, organizing illegal demonstrations, and stone-throwing, and Abu Rahma is confronted with a charge of "illegal weapons possession," apparently because a protest sign he created included a spent tear gas canister

In fact, they were imprisoned (Juma' was released on January 12 and Othman on January 13 after he was held nearly four months) not for firing missiles or ambushing Israeli troops, but for protesting what the International Court of Justice has called the illegal Israeli separation wall that carves up the West Bank and places Palestinian communities in an existence that recalls South African apartheid.

The systematic detention of such leaders has been condemned by Amnesty International, but the U.S. public is unlikely to get even a hint that the Israeli government is furthering its efforts to smash dissent in the occupied territories.

These recent crackdowns make even more ironic the hope expressed by Bono last month in The New York Times "that people in places filled with rage and despair, places like the Palestinian territories, will in the days ahead find among them their Gandhi, their King, their Aung San Suu Kyi." As a commenter on his column noted, these people exist today and have existed within the Palestinian movement. They are just in jail ... or dead.

Bassem Abu Rahme, for example, was killed by a teargas canister fired at close range by an Israeli soldier on April 17 while taking part in one of the weekly nonviolent protests that are regularly met with tear gas, billy clubs, rubber bullets and the threat of arrest.

I believe that Bassem, like many others, was following in Gandhi's path.

While it is certainly true that some of the protests by Palestinians are violent, the same could be said of the anti-colonial protests that took place on the Indian subcontinent against the British at the time of Gandhi. Gandhi certainly preached nonviolent direct action, yet there were others within the independence movement that advocated forceful courses of action.

Nevertheless, smearing or repressing all protests in the name of moving against those who use violence is disingenuous, a point well understood when viewing other freedom struggles, whether the Indian independence movement or the black freedom struggle in the United States. In fact, this repression becomes a means not of suppressing violence, but of suppressing all resistance to injustice. This is experienced today by the Palestinian movement.

Its objectives are caricatured and maligned by Israel in order to make the repression easier.

In this period -- from King's birthday through the celebrations and discussions that take place during Black History Month -- it is useful to recall similar treatment King and other freedom fighters endured, and reflect on the true lessons from his life and struggles that are relevant to the Palestinian struggle and its hopes for a lasting peace.

Despite King's acceptance now in mainstream circles, he was first and foremost a troublemaker in the cause of justice. While King believed in peace, he was more importantly a person of action, and one completely intolerant of injustice. In that sense he was a thorn in the side of the powers that be and the status quo.

King did not achieve credibility by simply preaching peace and good will, and certainly not by being passive or submissive in the face of oppression. He gained credibility because he was a person who was prepared to challenge the unjust laws and practices of his period, laws and practices that were summarized in the notion of Jim Crow segregation.

Even though Jim Crow was the law in much of the United States, King and countless others were prepared to break the law and, thereby, threaten the stability of this country. He was branded a communist, a malcontent and a criminal, all with the aim of discrediting him. And, when that was not enough, and his following did not disappear into the night, he was harassed and faced repeated death threats, ultimately leading to his murder.

The condemnation of Palestinian activists as terrorists, no matter their approach, shares a great deal in common with the manner in which King and African-American freedom fighters (and their allies) were demonized and repressed. It was the basic cause that needed to be destroyed by the oppressor and not just the individuals.

The same is true today as Palestinian activists, including those who have consciously and openly repudiated armed struggle, are sidelined so that the Israeli government can claim, with a straight face, that it has no Palestinian partner with which it can discuss peace.

The "partners" are there in Palestine. When we celebrate the courage and vision of freedom fighters such as King or Fannie Lou Hamer and the countless others who are remembered during Black History Month, we should think of those Palestinian Kings and Fannie Lou Hamers whose nonviolent struggle for freedom, justice and equality continues.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bill Fletcher Jr.

Juan Cole Informed Comment :The Decline of the Israeli Right and the Increasing Desperation of the 'Anti-Semitism' Charge


Faten Dabis: Citizens of nowhere from Iraq to Chicago (Part II)

http://www.examiner.com/x-37221-Chicago-ArabAmerican-Culture-Examiner~y2010m2d17-Citizens-of-nowhere-from-Iraq-to-Chicago-II

Chicago Arab-American Culture Examiner
Faten Dabis
Examiner Bio




Citizens of nowhere from Iraq to Chicago II





Like many Palestinians around the world, the Palestinian refugees relocated here from Iraq are literally citizens of nowhere. Despite having been born and raised in Iraq, they were never given Iraqi citizenship. The tales of these refugees are but a glimpse of what it means to be stateless in a world that only recognizes rights based on artificial concepts such as borders and nationalities. Those without the luxury of citizenship have few rights and are generally subject to more persecution.

For example, one woman from the Al Waleed refugee camp lost her husband in Baghdad for no reason other than his being Palestinian. One day, some men appeared at her door and stated that their car had broken down and asked her husband, a mechanic, to fix it. She knew something wasn’t right and begged her husband not to go but he went anyway because he believed the strangers needed his help. The next time she saw him was to identify his body. She only recognized him because of the shirt he was wearing. Having been burned and tortured by his captors, he was otherwise unidentifiable. After the murder of her husband, she decided to leave Baghdad where Palestinians were becoming increasingly unwelcome.

The Assad family, now relocated to Chicago, was more fortunate. Even though they lived in relative comfort in Baghdad prior to 2003, life became progressively more dangerous after the U.S. led war. Mrs. Assad and her oldest son were caught in a market place once when a bomb exploded killing and injuring innocent bystanders. They were lucky to escape with their lives. At one point, they also started receiving death threats. Having seen and heard about the atrocities against Palestinians, they took the threats very seriously. They decided to leave their home in Baghdad and went to stay at the Al Waleed refugee camp, where they were stranded for three years.

They applied for residency in both Syria and Jordan but were rejected. The future seemed bleak and many Palestinians believed that they would be stuck at Al Waleed forever. Mrs. Assad described the Al Waleed refugee camp as unlivable. Water was scarce and filthy, they relied on other countries to donate food and they were forced to live in a tent with their four young children, until their relocation two months ago. The living conditions at Al Waleed left a permanent imprint on everyone including the children.

Even their spirited five year old, Aya, giggled when told she had a cute little nose. She responded in Arabic saying that her nose use to be dirty and moldy when she lived in the camp but that now it was clean. Despite most of her memories being from a refugee camp, she still has a sense of humor and is afraid of nothing. She laughed and played like a child but it was clear that she knew what living in the refugee camp meant.

One of the most catastrophic issues at the camp was fire. The tents were paper thin and highly flammable. There was no water with which to fight the fires and no fire department to call for help. Hence, when a fire erupted, the only hope was to get out of the way and throw sand at the blaze to extinguish it. Fires would instantly torch entire rows of tents as most stood by helpless, watching their makeshift homes go up in flames. Mr. Assad had video footage of one fire that burned through a row of tents trapping and killing a young boy they knew at the camp.

The Assad family was brought here with a stipend of less than $500.00 and given a temporary sponsor. By the end of the four to six month sponsorship period, they have to adjust to a new country, learn English, find employment and find a way to support a family of six. Mr. and Mrs. Assad are scrambling to find jobs, a tall order in this economy where many with doctorates have struggled for work. Three of their young children are in school and all are striving to learn English. Despite their harrowing experiences and having nothing to speak of, their attitudes are amazingly positive and their spirit is unbreakable.

BBC News:Israeli restrictions make normal life "close to impossible" for Palestinians, says ICRC

Israel makes life very hard for Palestinians, says ICRC

The Israeli separation wall in Bilin
Israeli troops control many Palestinians' access to land

Israeli restrictions make normal life "close to impossible" for many West Bank Palestinians, the International Committee of the Red Cross has said.

Some Palestinians are often unable to reach a hospital or visit relatives, while 50% live in poverty, it said.

They are also frequently harassed by Jewish settlers, the organisation said.

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said the ICRC had ignored statements by the Palestinian Authority that West Bank residents lived a "normal life".

Whilst the economy has shown some signs of growth, the ICRC statement said restrictions linked to Israeli settlements had deprived many Palestinian farmers of their land.

We reiterate our call on Israel to do more to protect Palestinians in the West Bank against settler violence
Beatrice Megevand-Roggo
ICRC

It said attacks and harassment by settlers prevented many farmers from cultivating their own land, and some 10,000 Palestinian olive trees had been cut down or burned in the past three years.

"The ICRC has repeatedly called for action to be taken to allow Palestinians to live their lives in dignity," said ICRC head of operations in the Middle East, Beatrice Megevand-Roggo.

"We reiterate our call on Israel to do more to protect Palestinians in the West Bank against settler violence, to safeguard their land and crops, to allow families to repair their houses and to assure that all Palestinians can get to hospital or to school without delay."

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said the report ignored official PA figures which showed the economic situation had "improved remarkably" over the past year.

He also referred to comments by PA President Mahmoud Abbas to the Washington Post in May 2009, where he said "in the West Bank, we have a good reality, the people are living a normal life".

In November, the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a 10-month cessation of building new settlements in the West Bank, a precondition for peace talks demanded by the Palestinians.

But, according to information released by the Israeli government, around 30 settlements are still being developed in defiance of the order.

US attempts to revive peace talks have stalled over the Jewish settlement issue.

Palestinians say they will not return to peace talks unless Israel stops settlement building in the West Bank.

Israel has a long-standing commitment under an existing peace plan to stop settlement growth.

All settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

No peace without solution for Palestinian refugees: UN

Palestinians take a stroll at the Ruweished refugee camp in northeastern Jordan, 2003. The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said that finding a solution to the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East is key to peace in the region. (AFP/File/Awad Awad)
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100218/wl_mideast_afp/mideastlebanonpalestinianrefugeepolitics

No peace without solution for Palestinian refugees: UN

BEIRUT (AFP) – Finding a solution to the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East is key to peace in the region, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said in an interview on Thursday.

"UNRWA has no political role, but it does have the moral role of reminding all parties involved and all governments with a say in the peace process that there will be no peace without a fair solution for refugees in line with UN resolutions," the agency's Commissionner General Filippo Grandi told AFP.

"It is tragic that the international community has not yet found a solution to this problem," Grandi, who was appointed to the post in January, said on a visit to Beirut.

The fate of refugees is one of the thorniest issues in the stalled Middle East peace process, as Israel rejects Palestinian demands to allow their return to lands they fled in 1948 when the state of Israel was created.

The cash-strapped UNRWA provides assistance to about 4.7 million Palestinian refugees, many of whom have settled in camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

"The situation has been the same for 60 years now, and today we speak of fourth-generation refugees," said Grandi. "Without a solution, this will only continue."

UNRWA remains 100 million dollars short of its budget for 2010, Grandi said earlier this month.

Part of the agency's budget in Lebanon goes to the reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared, a camp near the northern port city of Tripoli levelled in deadly fighting between the army and Al-Qaeda-inspired group Fatah al-Islam in 2007.

The fighting killed 400 people, including 168 Lebanese soldiers, and displaced about 30,000 residents from the Palestinian refugee camp, where Fatah al-Islam was based.

UNRWA has made an appeal for 450 million dollars to rebuild the camp and the surrounding areas but has so far received only 120 million dollars.

"The money we have right now covers the reconstruction of only three of eight camp sections destroyed," Grandi said.

"We also need relief funds for the basic needs of the camp residents urgently. What we have now will run dry by May or June."

On the political and economic fronts, the Lebanese constitution bans Palestinian refugees from obtaining Lebanese citizenship, owning property or entering some professions.

Grandi said he has urged Prime Minister Saad Hariri to find "a concrete solution for the legal employment of refugees in Lebanon."

According to UNRWA figures, Lebanon is home to nearly 400,000 refugees, most of whom live in 12 destitute camps across the country.

Other figures put the number at between 250,000 and 270,000 as the UN does not strike off its list those who emigrate from Lebanon, which has a population of four million.

Lebanon, which supports the refugees' right to return to their homes, absorbs 12 to 15 percent of the cash-strapped agency's total annual budget, which tops 600 million dollars (442 million euros).

Lebanese across the board reject the permanent settlement or full integration of the mainly Sunni Muslim Palestinians, as their naturalisation would upset the country's delicate confessional balance.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

THE US SHOULD STEP BACK FROM ITS SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH ISRAEL | Intelligence Squared US

THE US SHOULD STEP BACK FROM ITS SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH ISRAEL | Intelligence Squared US

The Sheikh Jarrah Demonstrations: What Protestors Need to Know By Hajr Al-Ali for MIFTAH


Date posted: February 17, 2010
By Hajr Al-Ali for MIFTAH

A drummers’ circle, Palestinian children holding flags, Avatar activists painted in blue with kuffiyehs around their waists, and just your everyday Israeli soldiers looking on, armed and ready. Another Friday afternoon; another demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah. Israeli and international activists gathered in the east Jerusalem neighborhood again this past Friday, February 12, to protest the house evictions of Palestinian families, which has been occurring ever frequently to make room for Jewish settlers. Organized by Israeli human rights organizations such as Peace Now, the demonstration brought out around 250 protestors who demanded justice from Israel's government.

Unfamiliar with Hebrew, I asked one of the protestors what was being chanted. “(They’re saying) You can’t have democracy with walls,” she told me. An older woman with short grey hair told me her name was Irit and that she lived in a suburb of west Jerusalem. “What they’re doing (the house evictions) is illegal,” she told me. “(Also) they arrested my son for protesting and detained him for 36 hours. That’s unacceptable. The freedom of speech, to protest, is an important part of democracy.”

Ronnie agreed, and showed his opposition against government policies in a creative way. A young Israeli man from Tel Aviv, Ronnie belongs to several groups such as “Anarchists Against the Wall”, the “Israeli Boycott Movement and “Boycotting from Within.” He explained to me that, “As a Jew, I can say, ‘This is not anti-Semitic, this is against the state.’” He was also one of the two “Avatars” present at the Sheikh Jarrah demonstration. They were both part of a larger group of activists who have gained widespread media attention for reenacting scenes from director James Cameron’s most recent blockbuster, “Avatar”; equating the struggle of occupied Palestine to its intergalactic counterpart portrayed in the film.

There is something to be said for Irit and Ronnie’s presence at the demonstration that afternoon; the fact that they felt compelled to engage in their “fundamental right to protest” by speaking out against the unjust plight of their Palestinian neighbors. However, that’s where I get befuddled. Freedom? Justice? Democracy? Since when is it even plausible to associate any of those concepts with Israel? A (truly) democratic state is an entity which is founded upon principles concerning the human rights of its citizens relative to the government that works for them. It operates based on some form of a constitution of rights, and implements this constitution through legislations which ensure that all citizens are treated equally, whether through the distribution of resources or legal policies and procedures.

Israel has no such constitution, though, despite over five decades of the international community’s call for it to create one. I suppose this means pittance to Palestinians anyway, who are neither citizens, nor have their own state. Rather, Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza, or east Jerusalem are subject to the ruthless military rule of Israel’s occupation, not its “democracy.” In order for a state to be democratic, it must recognize the equal citizenship of all residents within its borders, regardless of race, religion, political views or gender.

We could stop right there. It’s facetious to expect Israel to adhere to principles of equality, let alone the “equal distribution of resources.” In east Jerusalem alone, 67% of Arab Palestinian families live below the poverty line compared to 21% of Jerusalem’s Jewish families; over half of Palestinian residents, approximately 160,000, have no connection to the water network; over 91,000 children in east Jerusalem live in a perpetual state of poverty; and by the end of 2007, 50,197 housing units for the Jewish population had been built on expropriated land while none had been built for the Palestinian population. If anything, these houses have been torn down. The condition of Palestinians living in east Jerusalem has been described as a continuing cycle of neglect, discrimination, poverty, and shortages, which has only been exacerbated by the huge wall eclipsing every aspect of their lives.

It's important for Israelis such as those present at the protest to remember this vital part of the country’s history: the story of the evictions of Palestinians from their homes doesn’t date back to November when these demonstrations first began. It began in 1948 when the establishment of the state of Israel meant the forced removal of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, continuing past 1967 when Israel (illegally) annexed east Jerusalem, claiming the city as its capital. In case anyone’s forgotten, this was all in violation of international law, most notably Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which states, "...The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population in the territory it occupies."

The demonstration itself, although a good attempt by Israel’s left to bring attention to the situation of Palestinians in east Jerusalem, felt more like a carnival than a political protest. Although they connect activists and create a brouhaha, the demonstrations can be problematic if protestors don’t recognize the root of the problem they’re protesting against: the oppressive military occupation of Palestinians. I’m glad that the Israeli protestors I met were concerned enough to come out that day; that they felt a sense of purpose and responsibility to speak out against their government's practices. However, if protestors do not recognize that the democratic principles they may enjoy do not apply to those they are speaking out for, such rallies are ultimately ineffectual.

Hajr Al-Ali 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.