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Saturday, January 29, 2011

My letter to the NYTimes RE letters- In the Mideast, Days of Tumult [Re “Good News From the Middle East (Really)”]

RE: letters- In the Mideast, Days of Tumult [Re “Good News From the Middle East (Really)” (Op-Ed, Jan. 26)]
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/opinion/l29mideast.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Dear Editor,

Israel certainly does have many loyal letter writers eager to do what they can to empower Israel. Some are compassionate and even kind about Palestinians- others not so much. Time will tell what will be, but I for one very much hope that Palestine can survive the many challenges ahead as it figures out how to become a real nation state inspiring justice, peace and progress in the Middle East.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

Growing Gardens for Palestine
"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


Friday, January 28, 2011

EGYPT: Day of anger suggests a new protest scene driven by youth, free of ideology

"...the citizens’ protests in Egypt were driven purely by domestic demands. No signs read “death to Israel, America, and global imperialism” or “together to free Palestine and Iraq.” In the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez the only slogans heard demanded change, freedom, social justice and a stop to corruption in Egypt—they weren’t mixed with regional matters. Egyptians are rediscovering that politics, before anything else, is concerned with citizens’ living conditions within the borders of the relevant nation-state." EGYPT: Day of anger suggests a new protest scene driven by youth, free of ideology

Little recourse for victims of gender-based violence

"Still living under Israeli military occupation, and with 35 percent of the population below the poverty line, according to the UN Development Programme, Palestinian women lack the stability and resources to launch a full-scale women's rights movement."

Little recourse for victims of gender-based violence

RAMALLAH (IRIN) -- Gender-based violence in the occupied Palestinian territory remains at epidemic levels, according to UN agencies, local NGOs and women, while victims lack legal recourse and often face a family backlash for reporting crimes.

The number of sexual assault cases reported from 2006 to 2009 increased more than seven times, while the number of attempted murder cases [of women] increased five times, according to the Palestinian Authority women's affairs ministry. The figures do not including numerous cases of drowning and falling in which a family member was responsible for the incident.

This data prompted the PA to launch a national plan to combat violence against women in January, in conjunction with six partner UN agencies and funded by a $9 million grant from the Spanish government.

The plan aims to end gender-based violence through prevention, protection and law enforcement...READ MORE

Peaceful, pluralist, democratic and inclusive....

"Writing on the need for all - the West included - to ensure the change in Tunisia was peaceful, pluralist, democratic and inclusive, Hussein Ibish, a fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, wrote this week: ''Such reform would demonstrate that Arab political space can be opened up without the seizure of power by Islamists.

''The Tunisian rebellion appears to have been driven by principles essential for the development of a moderate, centralist Arab reform movement that replaces an old order that is moribund, if not one that is already dead, and avoids a new order controlled by religious fanatics.'' " Brisbane Times

Time for reason to triumph over propaganda and fanaticism

"Wasn't it time for reason to triumph over propaganda and fanaticism?" Aziz Shihab,
author of
Does the Land Remember Me?
A MEMOIR OF PALESTINE

Chapter 8
In a Bedouin's Tent

page 82

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Daoud Kuttab: Palestine papers reality shock for Arabs not for Palestinians

"Demonstrations in Palestine and interviews in the streets, including in Gaza, reflected feelings of opposition to Al Jazeera and support for the current Palestinian leadership."Palestine papers reality shock for Arabs not for Palestinians

Published by Daoud Kuttab at 2:08 am under Articles

Palestinian cartoonist Khalil Abu Arafeh is no Fatah loyalist. In his early years he supported the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Abu Arafeh’s brother Khaled was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council on the pro Hamas Reform and Change List. Abu Arafeh’s political cartoons in the largest daily Al Quds are often seen as a reflection of the general mood of Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Abu Arafeh captured much of the Palestinian pulse on Monday with his cartoon on the latest controversy involving the leaked Palestinian negotiating papers.

He depicts an older Palestinian man holding the hand of a young boy; they are caught in some attacks on Palestinians. On the left side, Israeli bulldozers knock down houses, under the caption “Israeli mubasher”. On the right side, arrows are puncturing the old man’s back; the caption reads “Jazeera mubasher”. Mubasher means direct, and also applies to the television term for live broadcast.

Demonstrations in Palestine and interviews in the streets, including in Gaza, reflected feelings of opposition to Al Jazeera and support for the current Palestinian leadership.

While people in the occupied territories have been largely understanding of the difficulties facing Palestinian negotiators, most responses from the Palestinian diaspora and Arab peoples have been of disgust with and anger at the Palestinian leadership.

Accusations of treason and selling out are repeated over and over on air and in talk back chats all over the Arab world.

Anger with the Qatari satellite station was also seen in some social media networks. Sami Toukan, founder of maktoob, the Arab world’s leading e-mail company that was sold last year to Yahoo for a reported $100 million, sent a number of tweets attacking Al Jazeera for focusing too much on the Palestine leaks while ignoring the demonstrations in Egypt. Diaspora Palestinians, however, are more likely to follow the Jazeera reporting than Toukan’s tweets.

The coverage of the popular pan-Arab television station has been totally against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership. Despite a few symbolic attempts to give Palestinian officials a chance to respond, the coverage focused on what Palestinian negotiators are reported to have said or promised in discussions or in nonbinding papers. Of special focus has been the reported Palestinian offer regarding the two hottest and unresolved issues: Jerusalem and the refugee issues.

So what gives? How can there be such a wide gap of opinion from two groups that are totally in support for the Palestinian cause for independence from the hated Israeli occupation?

One place to start would be the nature of negotiations. What any negotiator would consistently say is that the worst way to look at any talks is by dissecting them piecemeal. Any single position on a complex set of negotiations will invariably make the negotiator look weak. Because in the nature of negotiations, it is important to look at the entire picture.

Any Palestinian, including the Palestinian negotiating team, would be totally in favour of granting the Palestinians the right of return, of the entire East Jerusalem belonging to Palestinians, and of the need for an independent Palestinian state on all areas occupied in 1967. Revealed separately, the Palestinian negotiating position on any of the hot items would appear like capitulation.

If negotiators are willing to accept anything short of a full repatriation of the six million refugees living abroad, many would shout sell out. However, if the picture is looked at in its totality, and if a package deal is presented in which Palestinians would, after decades of occupation, be able to experience true independence in their own country, such a compromise would be more bearable.

Another problem in understanding the chasm between different Palestinian communities is the hype. For years, Palestinians have been told that they have the right to return and that East Jerusalem will be the capital of their state. Palestinian leaders of all persuasions, including the negotiators, have repeated this ad nauseam. Until all points are agreed to, nothing is agreed to. What is offered as a compromise in one file today might be withdrawn tomorrow.

This does not mean that Palestinian leaders are disingenuous when they talk about Palestinian inalienable rights and when they reflect on these rights in the framework of international law and treaties. Only when there is agreement can these leaders be expected to start preparing the public for compromises on certain fronts.

Without such agreement, the rhetoric goes on. The Palestinians living in refugee camps or with the hope of return are naturally disappointed when they are told that their rights have been compromised if such talk is not put in context. However, the Palestinians living in occupied Palestine and who are able to distinguish national aspirations from realities on the ground are not as shocked as those whose only term of reference is public rhetoric.

Negotiations in any context are naturally based on a give and take process that is often dictated by the balance of power. Few Palestinians who are willing to be honest with themselves would deny that the Palestinian negotiating powers are limited. After all, Israel continues to occupy the land, most Arabs and the international community give little more than lip service and Israel is able to arrogantly reject calls to end their occupation as long as this occupation is not very painful to it.

All is not lost, however. While the release of the so-called Palestinian Papers has been painful to the Palestinian leadership and has further antagonised Palestinian public opinion, there is a silver lining to it all. As The Guardian newspaper accurately reflected, the papers do show the seriousness of the Palestinian negotiators, Israel’s lack of interest in peace and the ineptitude of the US and international community.

The release of the Palestinian Papers is certain to hurt attempts to galvanise the Palestinian and Arab public, and to move Arab armies and political will in this direction. However, if the present conflict is to be resolved on the political and international battlegrounds, the release of these secret documents ultimately strengthens the Palestinian position and increases political pressure on the Israeli occupiers.

My letter to Phil Inq RE The revolt in Tunisia is only one of many signs that the Middle East's long-standing status quo can't continue indefinitely


RE: Trudy Rubin: Worldview: An old order finally ending. The revolt in Tunisia is only one of many signs that the Middle East's long-standing status quo can't continue indefinitely.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20110127_Worldview__An_old_order_finally_ending.html

Dear Editor,

Concerned about the very real plight of the Palestinians, I am convinced that it is crucial to support a fully secular two state solution to once and for all end the Israel/Palestine conflict. Thus I very much appreciate Trudy Rubin's glance at the Middle East and her conclusion that recent revelations "prove that Israel had a partner for peace."

We have come a long way.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

"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

Good News From the Middle East (Really)

Good News From the Middle East (Really)
"We tend to forget, amid the welter of commentary about Palestinian incitement and Israeli belligerence, that we have recently seen startling shifts in both Israeli and Palestinian attitudes... "Jeffrey Goldberg, Hussein Ibish The New York Times (Opinion)

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Ask a Name... a poem by Anne Selden Annab in Growing Gardens for Palestine

Ask a Name... a poem by Anne Selden Annab


The light comes in
with rules
about rainbows

We follow with myths
and memories...

gleaning goodness

A story retold becomes
as real as The Arc...
as firm as the floorboards
under my feet

and as big as the sky-
when I step outside...

Every fairy tale
a confirmation
a promise kept
to captivate
for generations

Ask a name
and then spin spin spin
turn straw into gold



poem copyright ©2011 Anne Selden Annab

(oil painting The Harvest by Ibrahim Ghannam
)

Growing Gardens for Palestine

If anything is to be learned from the now infamous Palestine Papers....

"If anything is to be learned from the now infamous Palestine Papers it is that Israel is succeeding brilliantly in its grand plan of turning us against ourselves. We see no rebuttal from Israeli leaders to the information from the leaked documents. They don't care. They are happy with the status quo. And, unlike us, they are united and unrelenting in their Zionist dream of a Jewish state for the Jewish people. We can actually learn quite a bit from them." Joharah Baker

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

A Pyrrhic victory will not achieve Palestinian state

A Pyrrhic victory will not achieve Palestinian state

Last Updated: Jan 25, 2011

More than a few commentators have pronounced the peace process dead. The bombshell dropped by Al Jazeera yesterday landed squarely on the credibility of the Palestinian Authority, which is accused of offering to give up most of East Jerusalem and refugees' right of return. Israel, on the other hand, appears intransigent despite concessions that Palestinians have held precious since 1967.

But if sensational leaks to the media over the past year have taught us anything, it is that it takes time for a more coherent picture to emerge. President Mahmoud Abbas stopped just short of calling the reports deliberate misinformation on the part of Al Jazeera, saying that actually Israel had suggested these major concessions. The source of the leak, not to mention the motives, are still open to conjecture.

Some, if not all, of these questions should be answered in the coming days. Mr Abbas will be fighting a rearguard action to defend the Palestinian Authority's position, first and crucially to his own people. Jerusalem is at the heart of the Palestinian cause and his political survival may be in the balance. Hamas has already rendered a predictable verdict on the PA's supposed complicity with Israel.

The reverberations may have as much to do with timing as the revealed content. Many of the allegations have already been published; the new salvo of charges does lend credence to Mr Abbas's claim that this is a political attack, among other things.

The peace talks are stalled, a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements was introduced last week, and the US is facing a decision whether to veto. The leaks will undoubtedly influence this debate.

But nothing can make these concessions palatable to the Palestinian people or their allies. In the absence of meaningful US pressure, Benjamin Netanyahu's government has, sometimes against all logic, successfully championed an agenda of sheer immovability. This would not be the first time that Israel has been offered and refused major concessions.

What all sides seem to be ignoring is that a Greater Israel alongside an eviscerated Palestine is not a viable two-state solution. The Palestinian Authority could not surrender the basic claims of its constituents even if it chose; to do so would only give oxygen to extremists and future conflicts.

Israel's hard right turn in recent years has ignored this long-term reality. Perhaps the PA has been blinkered as well, but an unjust deal would be a detour, not a solution.


Hussein Ibish: Tunisia offers a possible model for Arab reform without autocrats or theocrats

"The people of Tunisia, without any central leadership, rose up and asserted their status and rights as citizens. The concept of citizenship, with interlocking rights and responsibilities, is not part of contemporary Arab culture, where ordinary people are generally seen as subjects to be managed. But now Tunisians are demanding political pluralism, social inclusivity and the respect of individual rights based on citizenship.

The Tunisian rebellion appears to have been driven by principles essential for the development of a moderate, centrist Arab reform movement that replaces an old order that is moribund, if not one that is already dead, and avoids a new order controlled by religious fanatics. These principles are democratic and pluralistic political reform; inclusivity and individual rights for citizens; and the peaceful transition of power through elections and legitimate, unarmed political engagement, including nonviolent protest.

If Tunisians succeed in seizing this moment to push forward those three principles, even gradually, and ridding themselves of the old dictatorship while fending off a grab for power by Islamists, they will have finally given the Arab world a desperately-needed third way. They would prove it is possible for an Arab society to reject both autocrats and theocrats in favor of liberals, centrists and democrats." Hussein Ibish

Tunisia offers a possible model for Arab reform without autocrats or theocrats

Monday, January 24, 2011

My letter to the Guardian RE Only Palestinian refugees can give up their right of return

RE: Only Palestinian refugees can give up their right of return by Ghada Karmi
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/24/palestinian-refugees-right-return

Dear Editor,

Palestinian refugees need to be free to return to original homes and lands- or to relocate. Simple as that. I don't think Ghada Karmi helps people worldwide respect that very basic, inalienable right by claiming the Arab Peace Initiative is not what it seems- that the actual words are meaningless... that hidden meanings lurk underneath and other plans must be devised. Nor does she help bring an end the very real plight of the Palestinians by claiming that the west gives "implicit acceptance" of Israel's refusal to respect and honor international law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The PLO however does have a very helpful approach easily seen on their fact sheet concerning core issues: "Palestinian refugees must be given the option to exercise their right of return (as well as receive compensation for their losses arising from their dispossession and displacement) though refugees may prefer other options such as: (i) resettlement in third countries, (ii) resettlement in a newly independent Palestine (even though they originate from that part of Palestine which became Israel) or (iii) normalization of their legal status in the host country where they currently reside. What is important is that individual refugees decide for themselves which option they prefer – a decision must not be imposed upon them." http://plodelegation.us/?page_id=276

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab


Sunday, January 23, 2011

My letter PUBLISHED Daily Star RE “Arabs must end the ambiguity and hypocrisy when facing terrorism” 1-24-2011

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/letters.asp?edition_id=10#axzz1Bgm4ztis
“Arabs must end the ambiguity and hypocrisy when facing terrorism”
Jan. 14, 2011

Dear Editor

Dr. Ziad Asali and Dr. Hussein Ibish of ATFP (The American Task Force on Palestine) are wise in refusing to buy into the “clash of civilizations” worldview that so many Zionist ideologues and Islamists endorse.

Time and time again I have watched the cycle of incitement and spin sabotage support for Palestine.

Thus I applaud Asali and Ibish for noticing and pointing out that “In the U.S., the most vociferous proponents of the Arab and Muslim victimization narrative, those who blame the West, especially America or the white man for all the ills befalling the Arabs and Muslims, and those who most loudly advocate against the legal and societal harassment of America’s Arabs and Muslims, take full advantage, as they are entitled to, of the American system and find shelter in the comfort and security of its freedoms. The damage they do in being the loudest and most anti-American voices in the vulnerable Arab and Muslim immigrant communities, is to provide ammunition to the demagogues and profiteers of racism and peddlers of hate and fear of Arab and American Muslims, and to encourage the worst racist and chauvinistic tendencies in the U.S.”

It seems to me more people worldwide need to put more energy into remembering the basic Golden Rule and Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Anne Selden Annab
Mechanicsburg, United States

We shouldn't overlook the effect of violent language

"Students of language have shown that our choice of language reflects the way we think, and the way we process language is influenced by the way we see the world. Speakers and writers store many words in their mental lexicons, and they select those words that match what it is they are thinking of at a specific time and for a specific purpose. Moreover, the choice of language that communicators make reflects how they see the world. If people and events are positive or negative, we select words that mirror those views. The same is true as language users process political events around them." Milford A. Jeremiah, professor of English and linguistics at Morgan State University We shouldn't overlook the effect of violent language