In this Tuesday Oct. 11, 2011 photo, Assma Muhammad Abd el-Dayim, 4, holds a picture of her late brother Arafat, 13, who was killed on Jan. 5, 2009, at their family house in Jebaliya, northern Gaza Strip. Mohammed Abd el-Dayim, the childrens' father, is suing Israel over the deaths of four relatives: his nephew, a volunteer medic who died when Israeli tank fire struck the ambulance he was driving, and a son and two other nephews who were killed the next day when Israeli shelling struck a mourning tent where the family was grieving. Dozens of Palestinians who lost relatives in an Israeli military offensive in Gaza have been forced to put their attempts to seek compensation on hold, claiming Israeli financial barriers make it impossible to proceed with their cases. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-palestinians-face-steep-court-fees-180423207.html

AP Exclusive: Palestinians face steep court fees

By DANIELLA CHESLOW and DIAA HADID - Associated Press

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Dozens of Palestinians who lost relatives in an Israeli military offensive in Gaza three years ago have been forced to put their compensation claims on hold, saying Israel has placed near-impossible barriers to proceeding with their cases.

Israeli restrictions prevent Gazans from entering Israel to testify, undergo medical exams or meet with their lawyers. But the biggest obstacle, the victims say, are steep court fees that can reach tens of thousands of dollars.

"The victim must pay for justice," said Gaza resident Mohammed Abdel-Dayim, whose son and three nephews were killed during a military assault. "Israel should be ashamed."

Israel says the fees prevent frivolous lawsuits. They say they are imposed on many foreigners — not just Palestinians — because they don't have local assets that the state could seize to cover legal fees and other court costs.

But Palestinians say the costs are part of a strategy to protect Israeli soldiers. If the fees aren't reduced, lawyers representing Palestinians say they will have to drop most cases.

Abdel-Dayim is suing Israel over the deaths of four relatives: His son was a volunteer medic who died when Israeli tank fire struck the ambulance he was driving. Three nephews were killed the next day when Israeli shelling struck a mourning tent where the family was grieving.

An Israeli court asked Abdel-Dayim to post $22,000 in court fees, or just over $5,000 per victim. His annual income is under $6,000.

About 1,000 Gazans have prepared cases seeking compensation, mostly alleging wrongful deaths during Israel's offensive in the territory, according to their lawyers....READ MORE

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER PALESTINE AND PEACE...]

Plight of refugees hits close to home for William Salameh

“We pose a question, and we let people speak,” William says of the process of town hall meetings. “We don’t tell people the solution. We open the door for people and ask them to think about these issues in different ways then they normally do.”
[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER PALESTINE AND PEACE...]
http://blog.onevoicemovement.org/one_voice/2011/11/right-of-return-hits-close-to-home-for-william-salameh.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+onevoicemovement1+%28OneVoice+Movement%29
Plight of refugees hits close to home for William Salameh

New York, November 6, 2011—When he thinks back to that first town hall meeting, the laughter disappears from his voice. “It was very difficult. They accused me of not caring about them, of abandoning them and undermining their rights,” recalls William Salameh, now 28, of his first town hall meeting in Jenin three years ago.

Standing in front of an audience of Palestinian refugees discussing the right of return and advocating creative solutions is undoubtedly a difficult thing to do, no matter what the touted political benefits may be. For William, though, the issue hits much closer to home than for most. “I am a refugee like you,” he tells the room full of doubting men.

Some of those doubting men begin to listen.

“When I speak with refugees,” William admits, “I think of my grandfather.” William’s family was expelled from Jaffa in 1948 and has since resided in the West Bank city of Ramallah. When he broaches the topic of refugees – of what that word means to an individual, of what the land means to an identity and what the memories mean to a people – it is tinged with self-awareness.

“My father, my uncles, my aunts, they love Jaffa, they have Jaffa in their hearts,” he says. “But they left it when they were very young and their memories are collective memories that Palestinians all share.” A just solution, William continues, is not only about “refugees’ physical status, it is also about recognition, an apology and compensation for the emotional harm that has been imposed.”

And so, when William addresses a room of refugees discussing the ways to achieve a just solution with them, he does so as an equal, aware that whatever comes from the difficult but necessary process of negotiations does not apply only in some abstract way to an unfamiliar people. It applies to his family and himself.

“We pose a question, and we let people speak,” William says of the process of town hall meetings. “We don’t tell people the solution. We open the door for people and ask them to think about these issues in different ways then they normally do.”

Although he never lived there, he admits, the birthplace of his father and grandfather will always carry a special meaning for him, regardless of the final outcome. “The history and the stories will stay in our hearts,” he told that first gathering in Jenin, “but we cannot hold onto that alone. There is a reality and we need to work with that to break the status quo and move forward in accordance with international resolutions.”

One of the benefits of breaking that status quo of political lethargy, fatalism or extremism that resonates with William and the people he has talked to at town hall meetings in Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Salfeet and Jenin is freedom of movement.

When the second intifada (uprising) began in 2000, William was studying at al-Quds University in Abu Dis, a town in the West Bank just east of Jerusalem. A commute that would have normally taken 15 minutes from his family’s home in Ramallah would take hours as the bus navigated increased road closures and scrutiny at checkpoints. Often William would arrive at university to find it closed for the day, in mourning for a student who had been killed. Eventually, William was forced to abandon his studies in Abu Dis, close to his family in Ramallah, and transfer to the Arab American University in Jenin.

Experiences like these led William to join OneVoice Palestine three years ago. Frustrated with the occupation and wary of succumbing to the hopelessness that seemed to paralyze so many Palestinians around him, the OneVoice Youth Leadership Program and town hall meetings provided a mechanism to channel his anger into a positive force for change. He has since spoken with hundreds of Palestinians advocating pragmatism and creative solutions within Palestinian national interests at town hall meetings across the West Bank and has come to the United States on a OneVoice International Education Program tour in early 2010.

But as much as William has used the platform of OneVoice to advocate a vision of the future, the programs he has been involved in have simultaneously shaped how he approaches the conflict.

William participated in a joint town hall meeting hosted by youth leaders from both OneVoice Palestine and Israel in Tel Aviv in late August. “We were able to support each other,” William says of the Israeli youth leaders. “Ultimately, a framework that is good for us is good for them too.”

And while the questions have not become any easier – Palestinians living within Israel remained wary at the Tel Aviv meeting that their struggle was being overlooked and when they found out that he was a refugee they gave him a poster outlining the right of return after the meeting – William maintains that the two-state solution remains in everyone's self interest, refugees included.

“When we achieve our statehood,” he told the Palestinians in attendance, “we will have a stronger tool enabling us to help you. With an internationally recognized Palestinian state, we will have a better chance of fighting for a just solution.”

William will join his Israeli counterpart, Abigail Gottlieb, in leading an International Education Program tour of Northern California from November 11 - 18.

Scholars talk Palestine | University of Virginia: The Cavalier Daily

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER PALESTINE AND PEACE....
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2011/11/07/scholars-talk-palestine/
Professors analyze Israeli-Palestinian conflict at interdisciplinary symposium

By Elizabeth Heifetz, Senior Writer on November 7, 2011

The history department hosted an interdisciplinary symposium Saturday about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1948, focusing on the situation’s historical and legal context.

Susan Akram, a clinical law professor at Boston University, began by discussing the similarities between Palestine’s and Namibia’s struggles for statehood.

She compared the different ways law provides a framework for statehood, including whether or not independence is a precursor for statehood. Akram said statehood has four requirements: a permanent population, stable government, territory and permission to enter in negotiations with other states.

Presently, Palestine satisfies all elements of statehood except for independence, Akram said. “Palestine had no strategies linking their actions in obtaining independence,” she added.

Politics Prof. William Quandt responded to Akram’s claim.

“Palestinians have every right and reason to think that they are entitled to statehood, though the problem has nothing to do with legal strategy,” he said. “Even if they were to have a great legal strategy, they still wouldn’t succeed.”

Quandt said this is the result of Israeli and American influence, especially on compromises and negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

The United Nationals General Assembly and Security Council have been in a perpetual state of conflict about this issue, leaving the bid for Palestinian statehood uncertain, he explained. “No one is prepared to put any weight behind it.”

Other professors offered a historical perspective to compliment the analysis of contemporary politics.

Rochelle Davis, assistant anthropology professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, discussed the ways communities think of the past, focusing primarily on Palestinian village books.

“There are two reasons why they write these books: the desire to keep sentiments and memories alive, and the connotation of what it means to be a Palestinian today,” Davis said.

Davis said the villages’ histories and the village books are part of the lives of Palestinian refugees today.

More than 120 village memorial books about the 400 plus Palestinian villages which were depopulated and largely destroyed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War have been published, she said. “These documentary histories serve as proof that these villages existed and were more than just a place once on a map,” Davis said.

Gabriel Finder, associate German professor and Jewish Studies program chair at the University, compared the Palestinian village books to the concept of “yizkor,” which means remembrance in Hebrew. He described how history is recorded in the absence of written sources, refugee remembrances of home and ways of commemorating the past in the present.

Alon Confino, history professor and conference organizer, referred to yizkor again in a panel session titled, “The Coast of Tantura: 1948 and After.”

Confino said he believes more equality will reduce present-day Arab-Israeli tensions and improve Arab integration into Israeli society, making it easier to shape collective memory.

Professors analyze Israeli-Palestinian conflict at interdisciplinary symposium

Arab Spring sparks renewed interest in Arab-American literature

http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=42730

Arab Spring sparks renewed interest in Arab-American literature
By Rand Dalgamouni

AMMAN - The Arab Spring has generated more interest in Arab-American writers and their reflections on the changes taking place in the region, an author said on Tuesday.

“The media in the [United] States has been reaching out to Arab-American writers,” Susan Muaddi Darraj told reporters.

“Whether we like it or not, we are viewed as spokespeople for Arabs in America,” the Arab-American writer said. “My identity as an Arab American is a political identity.”

Muaddi Darraj was in Jordan to launch the Arabic version of her short story collection “The Inheritance of Exile: Stories from South Philly”, which was translated through the US embassy’s Arabic Book Programme.

During her visit to the Kingdom, the author also met with Jordanian writers and students at several universities.

At a media roundtable yesterday, she said the aftermath of 9/11 has led to a greater interest in Arab-American writing.

Some authors took advantage of that interest by writing “damaging” books that were not based on actual facts, she charged, citing Norma Khouri’s 2003 book “Forbidden Love” on so-called honour crimes in Jordan.

“The book caused a lot of damage… it hurt the depiction of Arab women and men in the Middle East,” Muaddi Darraj elaborated, adding that “there’s a lot that we [Arab-American authors] have to do to fix the damage”.

Khouri had claimed that her book was based on a true story, but 75 factual errors were unveiled in 2004 by journalist Malcolm Knox of Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald, with help from Jordanian activists Amal Sabbagh and Rana Husseini.

Their findings exposed the story as a “work of fiction” and revealed that the book contains over 40 erroneous statements regarding Muslims and Arabs.

Muaddi Darraj, who is also an associate professor of English at Harford Community College, told reporters she feels she has “a responsibility towards my readers to explain our culture”.

Due to the stereotypical depiction of Arabs in the media, she said most Americans think that Arab women are either “belly dancers” or oppressed, while Arab men are billionaires or terrorists.

“I want to show them that Arab women are mothers, doctors, teachers,” the author explained, stressing that she seeks to create “real, authentic” characters in her writings so that readers see them as a “challenge to what they view as Arabs”.

She noted that the experience of Arab Americans as an immigrant community is not foreign to the American reader.

“Our country is a country of emigrants… if [readers] can make the connection on a human level, they can make it on a political level.”

Muaddi Darraj, who has written several works of non-fiction, highlighted the power of fiction in breaking stereotypes by forming a connection with the reader.

“In fiction, you get to fuse truth with politics and fuse different experiences… and the reader brings his or her imagination to it, which creates further sparks.”

“The Inheritance of Exile: Stories from South Philly” follows the lives of four Palestinian-American friends: Nadia, Aliyah, Hanan and Reema, whose families emigrated to the US and settled in South Philadelphia.

The 2007 book was a finalist for the Association for Writers and Writing Programmes award series in short fiction.

*************

"This sweet, sorrowful book is rich with insight. The Inheritance of Exile tells an authentic story of Arab-American life--these characters are true, expressive, and moving. A fully engaging, satisfying collection indeed." --Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Origin, Crescent, and The Language of Baklava

The Citizenship of Grief: A Dialogue Between [poet] Naomi Shihab Nye and [poet] Robert Bonazzi

http://www.texasobserver.org/feature/item/18159-the-citizenship-of-grief

by Robert Bonazzi Published on: Tuesday, November 01, 2011
[Robert Bonazzi’s latest books of poems are Maestro of Solitude (Wings Press 2007) and The Scribbling Cure (Pecan Grove Press 2011).]

Naomi Shihab Nye (age 8) with her father Aziz Shihab

Naomi Shihab Nye’s latest book of poems, Transfer (BOA Editions), focuses on her loving relationship with her late father, Aziz Shihab. She has written or edited 32 books in various genres, including 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems from the Middle East, a finalist for the National Book Award. Aziz Shihab’s memoir of Palestine, Does the Land Remember Me?, was published in 2007. Shihab Nye is poetry editor at the Observer.

Author and editor Robert Bonazzi recently talked to her about Transfer.

Robert Bonazzi: The loss of a parent tends to be a primal event and these poems track a deep grieving which—despite the claims of clinicians as to the “ stages of grief” —follow no prescribed pattern. What was your strategy for sequencing? Were the poems placed chronologically as written or were finished texts arranged later? Was your arrangement accomplished by a conscious method or by an intuitive aesthetic?

Naomi Shihab Nye: Definitely intuitive arrangement, on the floor, page-by-page, later. It would have been impossible to structure a sequencing beforehand, and chronological arrangement would be peculiar at best. The poems wanted to move (in the second part of the book) back into the world, which for me was entirely changed by my father’s new absence and deeper presence.

RB: The second section of Transfer (“ Just Call Me Aziz” ) contains 11 poems that take their titles from lines in your father’s notebooks. Unlike your other elegies about him, wherein the first-person narrator usually represents your voice, these seem to actually inhabit his voice, giving the convincing sense that Aziz had written them. We know you wrote the poems, but to what degree do they derive from recollections of his stories and the way he told them?

NSN: His voice inhabits my memory and ear so strongly that simply using his own floating lines as titles invited his voice to take over. This wasn’t planned beforehand, it just happened while writing. Aziz was skeptical of adjectives, as journalists often are, so the poems in his voice have fewer of those than my own might have. He loved short sentences and blunt diction. Writing this section made me laugh. I found things out. It was comforting to feel his own voice emerging so easily—I wouldn’t mind writing more poems of this kind. Guess it’s another way to keep that conversation going—as Alastair Reid mentioned [in an epigraph to Nye’s “Introduction”]. My father left a lot of scrappy notebooks, after all. Many more titles awaiting …

RB:All cultures have story-telling traditions—from oral history to literature. Since your narrative poems and Aziz’s autobiographical texts about his exile from Palestine were often created from actual events, can we assume that you place great value upon story- telling, especially stories generated through the Palestinian culture?

NSN: Without a doubt, I do. No one can deny your story, or the way you remember what you describe as your story. They may argue with your opinion, but not your story.

RB: Recently, we are hearing the long-silenced Palestinian narrative spoken in its own voice (President Mahmoud Abbas spoke about statehood at the UN). Do you sense new possibilities for human rights, self-determination and peace in these developments?

NSN: Definitely I do. And it is long, long overdue. Everyone with a moderate, reasonable sensibility in any country hopes for it—Palestinians and Israeli Jews and everyone who cares about balance in the region and mutual respect....READ MORE

The calamitous toll the [Israeli] settlement project has taken...

"The calamitous toll the settlement project has taken on Palestinians—stolen land, pilfered water, divided cities—is well known. The burden borne by Israelis, though less familiar and certainly less extreme, has also been immense."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/nov/24/rising-israel/?page=2

Rising Up in Israel

"In the discussion groups that took place every night inside the tent encampments, participants traded stories about struggling to meet their expenses even as they heard ministers boast that the economy was flourishing."

"Conspicuously absent from the protests this summer were some Israelis who don’t work hard for a living: members of the ultra-Orthodox community. Like Jewish settlers, they are the beneficiaries of government subsidies reserved for politically protected theological pursuits—in their case, full-time Torah study funded by the state"

An Israeli family in a camp set up as part of a protest against the high cost of housing, Tel Aviv, Israel, July 23, 2011

My Letter to the LATimes RE: the EXCELLENT letter by Martin J. Weisman regarding "Our ally, Israel"

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof", thus building a wall of separation between Church & State" Thomas Jefferson's letter to Baptists from Danbury, Connecticut, and published in a Massachusetts newspaper soon thereafter... referencing the First Amendment to the United States Constitution

RE: EXCELLENT letter by Martin J. Weisman regarding "Our ally, Israel"
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/

Dear Editor,

I am delighted to see the straightforward and totally helpful letter by Martin J. Weisman regarding "Our ally, Israel": In his opinion "Israel will only achieve true peace and sharply reduce global anti-Semitism if it separates synagogue and state and allows the establishment of a neighboring Palestinian state."... I TOTALLY agree!

A fully secular two state solution firmly based on actually respecting international law and universal basic human rights on both sides of every border really is the most reasonable, logical, and compassionate way to once and for all end the Israel/Palestine conflict... for everyone's sake.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES
PLO *** PRESS RELEASE *** 4 November 2011 Statement on Israeli Withhold of PA Tax Revenues

The UNESCO cuts: What’s next on the U.S. chopping block?

Jumping to conclusions on the Arab Spring "While there's no reason to think Islamists are in the process of consolidating absolute power anywhere, it's simply foolish not to recognize that they remain in every meaningful sense radical and retain their totalitarian impulses. That they would like to broadly and severely restrict the rights of individuals, women and minorities in the name of religion is obvious. It's hard to see them developing such unrestrained power, but there is also no use in kidding oneself about their evident intentions." Hussein Ibish

What's God got to do with it? If you want freedom and security, you need the following...

'NEW Palestinian strategy'... set to begin 11-11-11

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine can promote peace, truth and reconciliation... We hope to aid that process

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

Dr Ziad J. Asali: "The pursuit of peace, independence and reform is not a project for cowards..."

Palestine's Salam Fayyad: "We have been trying to do the very best we can."

In Detroit, ambassador makes case for Palestinian nation

Don’t demolish my future! UNWRA: Demolitions and the threat of displacement are ruining people’s lives in the West Bank.

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin?

"A right delayed is a right denied."
Martin Luther King Jr.... American Hero

Mahmoud Abbas speech at the UN - The full official text

Weighing the Price of Resistance By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH

Visit Palestine, it Makes a World of Difference By Julie Holm for MIFTAH

This Week in Palestine

Palestinian Surprises #11: Samaritans

Help Build A Golden Rule Peace for the Holy Land

Growing Gardens for Palestine

EXCELLENT LATimes letters on Israel

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/

Our ally, Israel

Re "A true ally in the Middle East," Opinion, Oct. 31

With allies like Israel, who needs enemies? If it were not for Israel's international law violations, human rights violations and ignoring of United Nations resolutions, none of the "help" Israel gives us, which Robert D. Blackwill and Walter B. Slocombe identify, would be necessary.

Note that not one word is said about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. This singularly powerful, financially strong lobby with a highly organized support system of conservative Jews and neoconservatives can pretty much get its way in Congress.

Our relationship with Israel means that Congress and the White House can only blindly support it no matter what.

Lou Del Pozzo

Pacific Palisades

There is no arguing with Blackwill and Slocombe. Israel is a world leader in science and medicine; its economy is booming. What it lacks is peace and another friendly nation besides the United States.

In my opinion, Israel will only achieve true peace and sharply reduce global anti-Semitism if it separates synagogue and state and allows the establishment of a neighboring Palestinian state.

Martin J. Weisman

Westlake Village

♥ .. •●♥ EID MUBARAK FOR ALL♥●• .. ♥

'NEW Palestinian strategy'... set to begin 11-11-11

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=435174
Fatah leader reveals 'new Palestinian strategy'

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) – A member of the Fatah central committee says President Mahmoud Abbas has formed a committee to reconsider the strategy and future of relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Muhammad Shtayyeh told Ma’an that "the new strategy will be the path after Nov. 11," when the UN Security Council is scheduled to meet to discuss Palestine's application for membership as a state.

Shtayyeh said the Palestinian leadership is set to break the status quo with Israel and reformulate relations.

The new committee, among its members the leaders of the PLO and Fatah, is discussing "where we are going now," Shtayyeh said without revealing the substance of the strategy.

But he said reconciliation with Hamas would formulate a basic part of it and noted Abbas planned to meet Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal after the holiday.

He says the PA and Israel cooperate in some areas, but all of them are strained.

On the political front, negotiations are blocked. Economically, Israel "exports whatever it wants to us, imports whatever it wants from us." Also, "Israel gives us electricity, while it steals our water and sells it to us."

In terms of security, "We are there to maintain the general security in order not to clash with Israel."

According to Shtayyeh, Israel in general is living in a stable security state.

He added that “we want to break the status quo in Israel, but we will take some measures that won’t hurt us but will reform the relationship [with Israel].”

He added that the PA has reached a point where Israel’s stubbornness and the inability of the international community to reign it in has stalled negotiations, so it went to the UN.

Shtayyeh says even if Palestine gets nine votes in the Security Council, the result would be the same because “we know the US will not allow our application to pass in the UN.

"But this is not the end of the world; we will apply again."

He also said that if the application did not pass, this would open the door to the new strategy which the leadership is planning and which will take effect after Nov. 11.

What's God got to do with it? If you want freedom and security, you need the following...

The House voted this week to reaffirm as the national motto the phrase "In God We Trust." (Treasury Department/AP Photo)

"...If you want freedom and security, you need the following:

The rule of law; property rights; a secure and trustworthy banking and monetary system; economic stability; a reliable infrastructure and the freedom to move about the country; freedom of the press; freedom of association; education for the masses; protection of civil liberties; a clean and safe environment; a robust military for protection of our liberties from attacks by other states; a potent police force for protection of our freedoms from attacks by people within the state; a viable legislative system for establishing fair and just laws; and an effective judicial system for the equitable enforcement of those fair and just laws...."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-shermer-god-20111104,0,877363.story

Op-Ed

What's God got to do with it?

He may be invoked in the national motto, but God has nothing to do with why Americans are free and secure.

By Michael Shermer

PLO *** PRESS RELEASE *** 4 November 2011 Statement on Israeli Withhold of PA Tax Revenues

http://plodelegation.us/2011/11/press-release-november-4-2011/

*** PRESS RELEASE ***

4 November 2011

Statement on Israeli Withhold of PA Tax Revenues

The General Delegation of the PLO to the US strongly condemns the Israeli government’s decision to suspend the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority. This is not the first time Israel resorts to such illegal measures, and we are appalled by the international community’s tolerance for such acts of state piracy.

Under the Oslo Accords, Israel is obligated to collect customs and some taxes on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. We would like to emphasize that these are PA revenues, not Israeli revenues, and Israel is obligated to relay them expeditiously. Withholding this money is a violation of signed agreements and a blatant act of piracy that should strongly be condemned.

Further, this action is in line with other measures Israel has undertaken in recent years that undermined the PA’s authority. Israel is slowly rendering the PA obsolete, a reality with serious implications on the ground not only for the Palestinians but for Israel and the region as a whole.

The General Delegation of the PLO to the US urges the US Administration and members of Congress to stand up against Israeli violations and impress upon the Israeli government to immediately desist from violating signed agreements, which undermine the prospects of a future peaceful settlement.

The UNESCO cuts: What’s next on the U.S. chopping block?

" The United States contributed more than $84 million dollars to UNESCO in 2010. Best known for its World Heritage program, which designates vital international sites from the Statue of Liberty to the Egyptian pyramids, UNESCO also supports a tsunami early warning system in the Caribbean and Pacific, literacy programs in Afghanistan, media training in Tunisia and Egypt, according to Irina Bokova, UNESCO's director general. Say goodbye to this -- U.S. officials have already said the forthcoming checks won't be mailed... "

http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/11/03/the_unesco_cuts_what_s_next_on_the_us_chopping_block

The UNESCO cuts: What’s next on the U.S. chopping block?

Posted By Colum Lynch Thursday, November 3, 2011

My letter to CSM RE A message Palestinians see in Israel-Hamas prisoner exchange: Hamas - 1, Abbas - 0 by Dawoud Abu Lebdeh

RE: A message Palestinians see in Israel-Hamas prisoner exchange: Hamas - 1, Abbas - 0
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2011/1103/A-message-Palestinians-see-in-Israel-Hamas-prisoner-exchange-Hamas-1-Abbas-0

Dear Editor,

"The international community must show the Palestinian people that they support their quest for a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders and, by doing so, demonstrate that they support those who believe in diplomacy, not violence, as a way to solve the conflict and achieve peace." Dawoud Abu Lebdeh

Thank you for publishing Dawoud Abu Lebdeh's compelling column "A message Palestinians see in Israel-Hamas prisoner exchange: Hamas - 1, Abbas - 0 " ... The timing of the prisoner exchange deal certainly is suspicious. I believe Israel is totally in the wrong for persecuting, impoverishing and displacing the native non-Jewish population of the Holy Land, but Islamists are equally wrong to also be arming religion with lethal weaponry- and Islamists were wrong to keep Gilad Shalit. Two wrongs do not make a right, and a never ending escalation of wrongs and religious extremism will not lead to peace or justice for any one.

A FULLY secular two state solution that FULLY respects international law and universal basic human rights to once and for all end the Israel/Palestine conflict really is the best way forward.... for everyone's sake. Negotiations need to be a way to get there, not yet another way for Israel (or Islamists) to delay and destroy Palestine and peace.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab,
American homemaker & poet

NOTES

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

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine can promote peace, truth and reconciliation... We hope to aid that process

Nations slam UNESCO-linked Israel settlements

AFP News: Israel medics complicit with abuse of prisoners

Weighing the Price of Resistance By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH

David Hale: Hamas could be swept out of power if the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority is able to show "tangible" results from peace negotiations

Hamas Celebrates Prisoner Exchange: "Abbas had been riding a wave of popular support following his speech at the United Nations last month in which he called for Palestinian membership at the UN. But Ibish says the Palestinian president is the short-term loser here, and that was precisely the intention of both Hamas and the Israeli government in finally striking a deal."

The battle of Bet Shemesh Ultra-orthodox Haredi Jews gather at the gates of a local girls school, screaming abuse: " Since the state-funded religious-nationalist school of Orot Girls opened in new premises in September, groups of extreme Haredi men regularly gather at the gates, screaming "whore" and "slut" at the girls and their mothers."

"While there's no reason to think Islamists are in the process of consolidating absolute power anywhere, it's simply foolish not to recognize that they remain in every meaningful sense radical and retain their totalitarian impulses. That they would like to broadly and severely restrict the rights of individuals, women and minorities in the name of religion is obvious. It's hard to see them developing such unrestrained power, but there is also no use in kidding oneself about their evident intentions." Hussein Ibish- Jumping to conclusions on the Arab Spring

United Nations Division for Palestinian Rights: NGO News

Palestine's Salam Fayyad: "We have been trying to do the very best we can."

In Detroit, ambassador makes case for Palestinian nation

Don’t demolish my future! UNNWRA: Demolitions and the threat of displacement are ruining people’s lives in the West Bank.

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin?

"A right delayed is a right denied."
Martin Luther King Jr.... American Hero

Mahmoud Abbas speech at the UN - The full official text

Help Build A Golden Rule Peace for the Holy Land

Visit Palestine, it Makes a World of Difference By Julie Holm for MIFTAH

Growing Gardens for Palestine

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine can promote peace, truth and reconciliation... We hope to aid that process

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/03/russell-tribunal-palestine

Children play outside a peace mural in the West Bank. Photograph: David Levene
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine can promote peace, truth and reconciliation

The Israel-Palestine situation demands truth and reconciliation. We hope to aid that process

Desmond Tutu and Michael Mansfield

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 November 2011

Opportunities to break seemingly intractable and deadlocked situations are rare – especially on a scale which has rapidly developed this year from the beleaguered cries of citizenry across North Africa and the Middle East. There is a palpable consensus that the provenance of this movement is lodged firmly in the fundamental prerequisite for meaningful democracy: self-determination. All conventions on human rights have this tenet as a core rationale. Where it is repeatedly denied and suppressed there will never be peace or justice, let alone stability.

On Saturday the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will open its third session: after Barcelona and London, this session will take place in South Africa, the location of a seminal struggle for self-determination by a community oppressed by apartheid. Partly as a result of this courageous and persistent protest by thousands of ordinary people, who were regularly demonised as terrorists by political opponents within the South African regime (and by certain world leaders, including the UK's), there was a concerted international effort to bring international law to bear upon an entrenched position....READ MORE

Nations slam UNESCO-linked Israel settlements

http://jordantimes.com/?news=43023
A Palestinian labourer stands at a construction site in a Jewish settlement near Jerusalem known to Israelis as Har Homa and to Palestinians as Jabal Abu Ghneim on Wednesday (Reuters photo by Baz Ratner)

WASHINGTON/RAMALLAH (Agencies) - Israel’s top ally Washington on Wednesday led international calls for the Israeli government to abandon its decision to speed up settlement building in occupied territory in retaliation for Palestinian admission to UNESCO, Agence France-Presse reported.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians said Israel’s tough responses to their bid to join the UN cultural organisation are unlikely to halt their quest for recognition as a state at the United Nations, Reuters reported.

“We are deeply disappointed by yesterday’s announcement about accelerated housing construction in Jerusalem and the West Bank,” said White House spokesperson Jay Carney.

“As we have said before, unilateral actions work against efforts to resume direction negotiations and they do not advance the goal of a reasonable and necessary agreement between the parties,” he said.

“So any action, as we have said all along, that either side takes that makes it harder rather than easier for the two parties to come together in direct negotiations is something that we oppose,” Carney added, according to AFP.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was “deeply concerned” by Israel’s decision and “worried at the trajectory of developments” between Israel and the Palestinians and called on both to “refrain from provocations”, said his spokesperson Martin Nesirky.

“The secretary general calls on the government of Israel to freeze all settlement activity and to continue to transfer VAT and customs revenues that belong to the Palestinian Authority and are essential to enable it to function, in line with Israel’s obligations,” the spokesperson said.

A senior Palestinian official said on Wednesday that Israel was trying to undermine the Palestinian Authority (PA) through a decision on Tuesday to freeze transfers of PA funds after it won membership of the UN cultural agency, Reuters reported.

“It is very serious. Israel wants to strive to destroy the role of the Palestinian National Authority,” Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation...READ MORE

AFP News: Israel medics complicit with abuse of prisoners

http://news.yahoo.com/israel-medics-complicit-abuse-prisoners-study-190102199.html

Israeli medics are complicit in the ill-treatment and abuse of Palestinian prisoners, in breach of the Hippocratic oath, two Israeli rights groups said in a report published on Thursday.

The report focuses on medical professionals who have witnessed, participated in or been in contact with prisoners who have been interrogated by the Shin Bet internal security service, formally known in English as the Israel Security Agency, which it says often inflicts physical or psychological violence.

The 61-page study -- "Doctoring the Evidence, Abandoning the Victim" -- was put together by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), and the Israel chapter of Physicians For Human Rights.

The findings were based on testimonies and the files of over 100 alleged victims of torture and ill-treatment handled by PCATI since 2007, and shows that medical professionals "are frequently involved either actively or passively in torture or ill-treatment," it said.

PCATI spokesman Edan Ring told AFP that the alleged victims were all Palestinians, "under suspicion of being connected with security issues."

Whether through direct action or through their silence, medical professionals were complicit with what goes on in the interrogation rooms, the report said.

It added that evidence showed that medical professionals were doing this by systematically failing to properly document prisoners' injuries, by the failure to report abuse, and by sending detainees back to their interrogators even after seeing the injuries they had sustained.

In some cases, they also handed private medical data to interrogators, and frequently put the needs of the interrogation before the welfare of the patient, it said.

"This report reveals significant evidence arousing the suspicion that many doctors ignore the complaints of their patients; that they allow Israel Security Agency (ISA) interrogators to use torture," it said.

It added that medical staff, "approve the use of forbidden interrogation methods and the ill-treatment of helpless detainees; and conceal information, thereby allowing total impunity for the torturers."...READ MORE

"A right delayed is a right denied."
Martin Luther King Jr.... American Hero

My letter to the NYTimes 11-3-11 RE The Overblown Islamist Threat, by Marwan Muasher

New York Times Cartoon Palestine Becomes Full Member of Unesco

RE: The Overblown Islamist Threat, by Marwan Muasher, the former foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Jordan, is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/opinion/the-overblown-islamist-threat.html?_r=2

Dear Editor,

I think Marwan Muasher, the former foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Jordan, & current vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace gives us much food for thought with his essay "The Overblown Islamist Threat"... and I very much appreciate being able to read his perspective in the New York Times. I totally agree with him that the Islamists threat is overblown, but I am not so sure it is wise to use that fact to in any way empower or endorse or apologize for Islamists, even moderate ones.

Laying a bet on the hope that Islamists will do the right thing is a bit like laying a bet on Wall Street doing the right thing. Might happen- but it is much more likely to happen if we the people clearly identify and voice our objections to white collar crimes.... "Human beings are flawed and we all fall short in many ways, but moral failure in high places is more shameful and deserves to be censured and punished much more severely than moral failings among the poor, the powerless and the obscure." Walter Russell Mead The Madoffs: Shamed, Isolated, Disgraced

Here in America we have a free press, and fair and just laws which give us the ability to make more real our democracy- and bring more justice (and jobs) to more people. There is no such safe guard in the Middle East. Empowering Islamists who can too easily abuse religion for nefarious purposes, just as Maddoff did in targeting his co-religionists, is playing with fire.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
American homemaker & poet

NOTES

"While there's no reason to think Islamists are in the process of consolidating absolute power anywhere, it's simply foolish not to recognize that they remain in every meaningful sense radical and retain their totalitarian impulses. That they would like to broadly and severely restrict the rights of individuals, women and minorities in the name of religion is obvious. It's hard to see them developing such unrestrained power, but there is also no use in kidding oneself about their evident intentions." Hussein Ibish- Jumping to conclusions on the Arab Spring

The battle of Bet Shemesh Ultra-orthodox Haredi Jews gather at the gates of a local girls school, screaming abuse: " Since the state-funded religious-nationalist school of Orot Girls opened in new premises in September, groups of extreme Haredi men regularly gather at the gates, screaming "whore" and "slut" at the girls and their mothers."

Hamas Celebrates Prisoner Exchange: "Abbas had been riding a wave of popular support following his speech at the United Nations last month in which he called for Palestinian membership at the UN. But Ibish says the Palestinian president is the short-term loser here, and that was precisely the intention of both Hamas and the Israeli government in finally striking a deal."

In Newsweek Magazine: Moshe Dayan's Widow Ruth: Zionist Dream Has Run Its Course

Weighing the Price of Resistance By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH

United Nations Division for Palestinian Rights: NGO News

Palestine's Salam Fayyad: "We have been trying to do the very best we can."

In Detroit, ambassador makes case for Palestinian nation

David Hale: Hamas could be swept out of power if the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority is able to show "tangible" results from peace negotiations

Don’t demolish my future! UNNWRA: Demolitions and the threat of displacement are ruining people’s lives in the West Bank.

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin?

Mahmoud Abbas speech at the UN - The full official text

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

Help Build A Golden Rule Peace for the Holy Land

Visit Palestine, it Makes a World of Difference By Julie Holm for MIFTAH

Growing Gardens for Palestine
Flowers by Palestinian Artist Ismail Shammout

My letter to the Washington Post 11-3-2011 RE The Mideast’s new game By David Ignatius

Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles on revolution in the Middle East

RE: The Mideast’s new game By David Ignatius
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-mideasts-new-game/2011/11/02/gIQAuESmgM_story.html

Dear Editor & Mr. Ignatius,

Why do you want to push Palestine into the arms of Islamists and extremism?! Why not step up to clearly ask that Hamas- and all Islamists- step down for Palestine's sake, for the people's sake, and for Islam... and for peace.

A fully secular two state solution to once and for all end the Israel/Palestine conflict is obviously the best way forward for every one's sake. The very real plight of the Palestinians began because Zionists violated and continue to violate the 1917 Balfour Declaration's dictate "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine"

Government- and resistance- should protect freedom of religion and minority rights. Worship and religious identity should be a private matter, not a public mandate. Institutionalized bigotry and religious tyranny of every type needs to be renounced, not empowered!

So please Hamas, for Palestine's sake put down the guns, stop the rockets, stifle hate mongering, and focus in on providing real charity, good works and a more civilized, intelligent dialog: Non-violently battle to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt either that Israel is totally in the wrong and needs to be defunded, or that Israel is able to invest in a just and lasting peace based on international law and universal basic human rights.... including but not limited to the Palestinian refugees very real right to return to original homes and lands.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
American homemaker & poet

NOTES

The battle of Bet Shemesh Ultra-orthodox Haredi Jews gather at the gates of a local girls school, screaming abuse: " Since the state-funded religious-nationalist school of Orot Girls opened in new premises in September, groups of extreme Haredi men regularly gather at the gates, screaming "whore" and "slut" at the girls and their mothers."

Hamas Celebrates Prisoner Exchange: "Abbas had been riding a wave of popular support following his speech at the United Nations last month in which he called for Palestinian membership at the UN. But Ibish says the Palestinian president is the short-term loser here, and that was precisely the intention of both Hamas and the Israeli government in finally striking a deal."

In Newsweek Magazine: Moshe Dayan's Widow Ruth: Zionist Dream Has Run Its Course

Weighing the Price of Resistance By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH

United Nations Division for Palestinian Rights: NGO News

Palestine's Salam Fayyad: "We have been trying to do the very best we can."

In Detroit, ambassador makes case for Palestinian nation

David Hale: Hamas could be swept out of power if the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority is able to show "tangible" results from peace negotiations

Don’t demolish my future! UNNWRA: Demolitions and the threat of displacement are ruining people’s lives in the West Bank.

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin?

Mahmoud Abbas speech at the UN - The full official text

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

Help Build A Golden Rule Peace for the Holy Land

Visit Palestine, it Makes a World of Difference By Julie Holm for MIFTAH

Growing Gardens for Palestine
The land and love... by Ismail Shammout

A Palestinian woman collects olives during harvest in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah, October 31, 2011. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

Viewpoint: 'I am a Woman From Palestine' by Julie Holm for MIFTAH

http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=24083&CategoryId=13
Date posted: 02/11/2011

'I am a Woman From Palestine'

By: Julie Holm for MIFTAH

A week ago I went to a screening of three films during the 7th Women’s Film Festival in Palestine entitled “I am a Woman from Palestine”. The festival, arranged by the cultural NGO Shashat, consists of 10 films of and about young Palestinian women. The project focuses on Palestinian women’s expressions of their own lives and facilitates the training of female students in Gaza to enable them to create films on their own.

I went to the last of six screenings at Birzeit University, and was impressed to see how many students had found their way to the auditorium. The three films on the program for that day – “.com”, “Portrait” and “Madleen” portrayed the diverse and various aspects of women’s lives in Gaza. The first film, “.com”, created by 21-year old Fatema Abu Odeh, shows how young women used social media to raise awareness and engage people to join the March 15 movement in Gaza. I found it especially interesting to see how some young women overcame the prohibition from their families to go out and join the movement by participating from home, using the Internet as their most valuable tool.

The second film portrays Rasha Abu Zayed, a young female artist and her relationship to her art. Created by 20-year-old Rana Mattar, “Portrait”, as the film is titled, deals with the issue of how the artist can overcome the siege of Gaza as a painter. She does this particularly though exploring the architecture of Gaza but also through painting women’s bodies and portraits of Palestinian women.

It was “Madleen” however, which moved me the most; it was also the one that created the most discussion in the Birzeit auditorium afterwards. The film illustrates a day in the life of Madleen Klab, the first female fisher-(wo)man in Gaza. By portraying the life of a woman doing a “man’s job”, 21-year old Reham Al-Ghazali challenges the gender stereotypes found in Palestine today. In the film, Madleen says that she feels like a man when she is at sea and that she goes back to being more “feminine” on land. This became the point of departure for a noisy and sometimes heated discussion after the films had been shown.

I found it very interesting to see that just as many men showed up for the screening as women, given that it is a women’s film festival being shown in a predominantly male-oriented society. That did not seem to put off the male students at Birzeit however, many of whom also took the opportunity to participate in the discussions about gender roles and gender divided labor. Irrespective of their attitudes on the subject, it was great to see the men’s engagement on such matters and the fact that they had no qualms about discussing whether women should do “men’s jobs” or not. That would never have happened where I come from. Still, no matter how loud and confrontational, the arguments from the men could not overshadow the strong willed women attending the screening. They delivered calm, hard-hitting counter arguments and were not afraid to tell the men to be quiet if they made too much noise during the films.

The films, as well as the discussions that followed confirmed the impression I have of young Palestinian women; they are strong, strong-willed and aware of how to go around the restrictions put on them as women and as Palestinians. I highly admire the determination and levels of ambition of my Palestinian girlfriends, something that is also expressed by the women who made the films for the festival as well as the women they portray.

As a collection of films of and about Palestinian women, “I am a Woman from Palestine” illustrates the realities of these women and the obstacles they face as women and as Palestinians. They embrace their roles as women and as Palestinians and use them in different ways to challenge the stereotypes they meet every day. And that, I find, is truly remarkable.

Julie Holm 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.