My letters to the NYTimes & CSM RE From Nablus to Jerusalem by Raja Shehadeh & Khaldun Bshara has dodged bullets to preserve Palestinians' heritage

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RE: Khaldun Bshara has dodged bullets to preserve Palestinians' heritage http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/2011/1114/Khaldun-Bshara-has-dodged-bullets-to-preserve-Palestini

Dear Editor,

Khaldun Bshara: "I believe that everyone has to give back to the community that helped him to flourish," he says, citing his mother as the inspiration for this desire to help other people in this way."
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/2011/1114/Khaldun-Bshara-has-dodged-bullets-to-preserve-Palestinians-heritage

Thank you CSM for helping at least one authentic and totally admirable Palestinian voice be heard today.

I was TOTALLY delighted and frankly relived to see this fascinating story on Palestine and Khaldun Bshara's RIWAQ, a West Bank architectural firm which renovates and preserves buildings that are part of Palestinians' cultural heritage.

I like Bshara's positive attitude and his perseverance... it is good to hear that he will continue on with his inspiring work regardless of whether there is a state or not. I very much hope there will be a Palestinian state- and a just and lasting peace for both Palestinians and Israelis.

Jordan's King Abdullah points out in a recent interview that the Arab Spring is a defining moment in Arab history... and his majesty reiterated for the umpteenth time that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains the region’s core issue: “The train wreck that is waiting to happen is the Israeli-Palestinian problem. As we talk about the Arab Spring and Iran, we keep forgetting the core issue.”"

Fact is day after day after day, year after year- decade after decade with both war and peace, Israel really has been systemically impoverishing, evicting, and disenfranchising the native non-Jewish population of the Holy Land. Hanan Ashrawi wisely warns this week that “Israel’s determination to halt the Quartet’s efforts and its continued violations of international law are clear messages that Israel is not interested in a two-state solution. The Quartet Committee and international society must reject settlement expansion projects that aim to erase Palestinian existence and impose a new identity on Jerusalem.” PNN NEWS: PLO to Take Withheld Funds to Security Council

Just yesterday Israeli forces demolished four more Palestinian homes west of Jericho in the central West Bank. Families did not have a chance to remove their furniture and belongings. http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=436843

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

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RE: From Nablus to Jerusalem by Raja Shehadeh
http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/from-nablus-to-jerusalem/?ref=global

Dear Editor,

“Palestine Connected” is the title of the art installation by the Palestinian artists Iyad Issa and Sahar Qawasmi, "set in the pickle factory that now stands where the Nablus central station once was..."

Seems to me that the perfect title "Palestine Connected" is much much bigger than one fascinating and creative bit of art set in a pickle factory. "Palestine Connected" is the wave of the future as the global information age gives us all ways to reach out beyond our own borders and assumptions... Reaching out and connecting with far away people and places and conversations that very much enhance the market place of ideas that builds the momentum to end the Israel/Palestine conflict (once and for all) with a just and lasting peace.

Thank you for publishing Raja Shehadeh's Latitude essay "From Nablus to Jerusalem". I hope that at least some of your readers are inspired by his short but compelling essay to seek out and read his books. I thought “Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape” was very illuminating and I very much look forward to reading his latest book.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
American homemaker & poet

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