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Saturday, July 14, 2012

Israeli settlements dates violate US laws and defraud consumers



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Dates produced by Israeli farms are sold in US markets without showing country of origin to avoid rejection by Arab and Muslim consumers. US laws require 'country of origin labeling' on all imported products and violators are subject to stiff fines. Israeli dates are sold under the brand names, Jordan Valley and king Solomon.
Dates grown in Israeli occupied Arab lands are sold in New Jersey are in violation of US laws.
Dates, the succulent fruit of the palm tree, especially those marketed by giant Israeli companies, such as Agrexco and Hadiklaim, have deliberately avoided showing the country of origin in fear of rejection by Arab and Muslim consumers. Israel has systematically conspired with unscrupulous importers to circumvent prohibition by many countries on importing products made in Israeli settlements which are built on occupied Arab and Palestinian lands. Under international law, Israeli settlements are illegal and many countries prohibit the import of products made in these locations.

The US does not place restrictions on settlement-produced products, allowing the sale of these dates in US markets, including those located in Arab and Muslim neighborhoods. However, the US has "COOL," or "country of origin labeling" guidelines, requiring imported products to clearly state the country of production.

Pursuant to code 19 USCS § 1304: "[E]very article of foreign origin (or its container...) imported into the United States shall be marked in a conspicuous place as legibly, indelibly, and permanently as the nature of the article (or container) will permit in such manner as to indicate to an ultimate purchaser in the United States the English name of the country of origin of the article." Further, the law mandates that, "Any person who, with intent to conceal the information given thereby or contained therein...READ MORE





Thursday, July 12, 2012

Provocative Palestine-Israel ads at New York train stations rile critics

Henry Clifford, co-chairman of The Committee for Peace in Israel and Palestine, told FoxNews.com he paid $25,000 to display posters at 50 Metro-North Railroad stations for 30 days. They are to “educate and inform people” on the proper historical context of the region, he said.
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My letters 7-12-2012 RE NYTimes Editorial: Wrong Time for New Settlements & Philadelphia Inquirer's Trudy Rubin Worldview: Israel should be wary of Netanyahu panel's West Bank recommendations

RE: Editorial: Wrong Time for New Settlements
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/opinion/wrong-time-for-new-settlements-in-the-west-bank.html?_r=1&ref=editorials

Dear Editor,

Is there really ever a right time for any sovereign nation to subsidize one religion- to build housing and infrastructure and create perks and privileges and jobs for some preferred citizens who are the 'right' religion while displacing and disenfranchising countless victims of institutionalized bigotry who have been deemed the 'wrong' religion?

I do believe that a two state solution to once and for end the Israel-Palestine conflict is the best way forward- but I think it is crucially important to studiously avoid further entrenching and exasperating religious tyranny on either side... for everyone's sake.

Israel’s security and regional peace depend on defusing religious extremism, investing instead in the Golden Rule and fair and just laws shaping respect for diversity, compassion and cooperation so that more people are more able to flourish as valued citizens able to make positive contributions to whatever nation state issues their passports and protects their families and communities from criminals and crooks. 

End the Israel-Palestine conflict with Palestine and Israel as two separate sovereign nations honoring international law and fully respecting universal basic human rights.  Negotiations need to be a way to help make that happen.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

******************
  RE: Trudy Rubin Worldview: Israel should be wary of Netanyahu panel's West Bank recommendations
http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/trudy_rubin/20120712_Worldview__Israel_should_be_wary_of_Netanyahu_panel_s_West_Bank_recommendations.html

Dear Editor,

I too am horrified by Netanyahu's panel recommendations justifying Israeli annexation of the West Bank, 'legalizing' Jewish settlement projects in the illegally occupied territories, but I object because Israel obsessed with being demographically Jewish, has already had been insanely cruel to the native non-Jewish people of historic Palestine.

The institutionalized bigotry and injustice necessary to sustain a preferred demographic ideal has been inspiring the worst in many people on both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict. If America elected to use tax payers money to generously subsidize housing projects, job opportunities, and immigration for Christians and only Christians I suspect Trudy Rubin would realize the importance of examining the ramifications and questioning the wisdom of such polices.

Ending the conflict with a totally secular two state solution based on full respect for international law and basic human rights will not right the many wrongs created by the conflict, but it will give Palestinians, and Israelis, the tools they both need to build a peaceful and secure future where character and cooperation count- and religion is a personal private matter. 

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES 
"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.." Nelson Mandela

''The Arabs'' by Bailey Fisher for MIFTAH

Weighing In



"It is in Israel's vital interest to come to a complete resolution of the conflict between it and the Palestinian people sooner rather than later, relieving the weight of this tragic conflict from both of our peoples' shoulders. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to the world." Maen Rashid Areikat: The Time for a Palestinian State Is Now

The Office of International Religious Freedom ( http://www.state.gov/j/drl/irf/ )  Given the U.S. commitment to religious freedom, and to the international covenants that guarantee it as the inalienable right of every human being, the United States seeks to:
  • Promote freedom of religion and conscience throughout the world as a fundamental human right and as a source of stability for all countries

"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
Live by the Golden Rule


Wednesday, July 11, 2012

World Population Day 2012: Reproductive health problems remain the leading cause of ill health and death for women of childbearing age worldwide

World Population Day 2012: Universal Access to Reproductive Health Services

Reproductive health is at the very heart of development and crucial to delivering the UNFPA vision — a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe, and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.

Universal access to reproductive health by 2015 is also one of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals. But we have a long way to go.

Reproductive health problems remain the leading cause of ill health and death for women of childbearing age worldwide. Some 222 million women who would like to avoid or delay pregnancy lack access to effective family planning. Nearly 800 women die every day in the process of giving life. About 1.8 billion young people are entering their reproductive years, often without the knowledge, skills and services they need to protect themselves.

On 11 July – World Population Day – many activities and campaigns will call attention to the essential part that reproductive health plays in creating a just and equitable world. Help us generate greater commitment to the idea that everyone has a right to reproductive health. 


''The Arabs'' by Bailey Fisher for MIFTAH

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

Yesterday, I attended a checkpoint tour through the West Bank, organized by an Israeli nonprofit organization. Traveling through the seam zone between the West Bank and the Green Line, we sat on an air-conditioned tour bus and pointed at various hills containing settlements, valleys with a few patches of Palestinian farmland, and about five checkpoints, three of which we stopped to take photos and listen to a few examples of injustice. Filled mostly with Israelis between the ages of 50 and 80, the tourists were eager to listen and learn. Yet there were things that kept ringing as the tour went on, red flags marking subtle rhetoric and a lack of understanding within the supposedly understanding group. I found the questions and points I wanted to be addressed were not only avoided, but perhaps even consciously ignored. Where I wanted there to be progress, there wasn’t any.

Before I proceed, I would to like to preserve the anonymity of the group as well as the individuals I am talking about, so I will not mention any proper names. Furthermore, this organization should be commended for its work within checkpoints themselves - aiming to ensure the safety and dignity for Palestinians - its public call within Israeli society to end the occupation, and its attempts to educate Israeli society on several injustices coming with the occupation. My account does not encompass all of Israeli activism and does not try to; rather, it is simply a personal interpretation of one example of Israeli activism.

~
Our tour guide repeated several times as she began her talk: THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL TOUR. WE WILL NOT TALK POLITICS HERE. As many times she repeated these words in different English sentences, there were still trace amounts of fear, as if she was afraid the bus would rise up in arms if she even breathed the word “Palestine” or “occupation”.

And thus the tour began. Our first destination was a small agricultural Palestinian village inside of the seam zone. We filed off of the bus and observed an agricultural checkpoint, witnessing a Palestinian boy stopped in front of the gate because he didn’t have a permit for his bag of fertilizer. The tour guides agreed publicly it was awful, but did not fail to keep throwing in security logic along the way: “If he wanted to blow himself up, why would he do it in his own village?”, answering the questions of the more security-minded folk in the audience. While that is a valid response in terms of security, they were failing to address the larger picture.

The next stop was a meeting with an “Arab friend”, a Palestinian man who told his story between constant reassurances of his friendship with the Israeli people, an effort seemingly tending to the invisible yet ever-present (and in my opinion, many times irrational) fear of international hatred towards Jews. He served us water, coffee and tea, and faced many questions from the audience not about the checkpoint dehumanization he faced, but about the lack of authority the PA held, as if Israel was no longer responsible for the frustrations he faced.

After this we stopped for lunch at a falafel shop in a small town still inside the seam zone. People lined up to use the one-stall bathroom and gave extra money to the cashier, a deed seemingly valiant but, in all honesty, quite patronizing.

Following lunch were several bathroom stops, a stop in Jayyous where we did not even step a foot off of the air conditioned bus, listening instead to a villager repeatedly reassure us he had “many Israeli friends”; only after this was repeated several times did he quickly tell his story and then sold everyone olive oil. We then stopped again, this time to buy real life “Arab sweets”, and then continued our in-bus trek winding through steep hills, pointing out settlements on top and Palestinian villages below, and finally coming back to the seam zone where we stopped at two checkpoints, one deserted and one still fully functioning.

Stopping briefly in the parking lot, we listened to the tour guide stress, “Yes, and once President Obama told Israel to get rid of this checkpoint, it did! See? Oh and it used to be awful, one of the worst. And now it is gone. Well, not really gone, because it is still blocking the road. But there are no soldiers here anymore.” Did Israel add any others to replace this one? I wanted to ask.

Before any of us really had time to process what we were seeing, we were back at the bus station in Israel, filing civilly off of our tour bus.

And I couldn’t help but feel . . . strange. While I was hoping to learn more about the construction, use and abuse of checkpoints, I instead received subtle rhetoric on the legitimacy of Israel (which I am not denouncing, however that decision should be my own, and not be constantly forced onto me), an inaccurate and frankly completely separated view of “the Arabs” (the use of that word alone exemplifies a lack of understanding) and a look into factions of supposedly leftist Israeli society. We were all spoon-fed a few examples of injustice mixed with a subtle separation from “the Arabs”, not drawing on similarities between the two peoples but instead separating them even more. It was as if the message was, “well, they do suffer, but they all also want to kill us minus a few of them. So we still need a lot of separation and security from them.”

Yet with this separation, peace will never be possible. If the Israeli society is unwilling to understand and relate to those they call “the Arabs”, (and conversely if the Palestinians are unwilling to understand the Israeli point of view) a lasting peace will never be a reality.

Bailey Fisher 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


Weighing In


             Weighing In

A Pollster called last night
about the Presidential election
here in America. Asked what issues
matter most to me I kept it simple:

"Ending the Israel-Palestine conflict."

She was startled but kind,
warm- wanted me to help work
on the Obama campaign.
Campaigns are everywhere

some formal and named, some not.

We volunteer to notice, elect to
make some news more important
help polls and surveys
and wishful thinking come true

in different ways.

When I say "Our words have a way
of echoing out into either war or peace"
I do not just mean ours - and America
But yours too... everywhere

everyone weighing in.



poem copyright ©2012 Anne Selden Annab

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Diaspora Palestinians arrive for 'Know Your Heritage' tour

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]
Participants in the 2012 Know Your Heritage program.(MaanImages)
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Palestinian youth living in five countries in the Diaspora arrived in Palestine on Monday to embark on a tour designed to connect them to their homeland.

The delegation of 41 Palestinians, living in the US, Australia, Canada, France and the UK, crossed into the West Bank from Jordan to begin a two-week "Explore & Live Palestine" trip organized by the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation.

The 'Know Your Heritage' program, inaugurated in 2011 with a group of Palestinian American visitors, aims to connect Palestinians abroad to their roots.

In 2012, the delegates come from families who left Haifa, Jericho, Hebron, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Birzeit, Gaza, Ramallah, and 20 other towns and villages in historic Palestine, HCEF said.

The organization's president Rateb Rabie said: "This mosaic of young faces represents the diversity of the Palestinian nation spread across the globe."

"Their shared dream of homecoming is an enduring testament of this same nation's cohesion and unity, across borders, oceans, religious and political divides, and across generations."

The Palestinian diaspora is spread across the world, with significant population centers in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Chile, Egypt, Europe and the United States.

BADIL resource center estimates that 70 percent of the worldwide Palestinian population of around 10 million people are refugees.


ATFP to Co-Sponsor DC Viewing and Discussion of 5 Broken Cameras on July 13, 2012


This Friday, please join the American Task Force on Palestine for a viewing and discussion in Washington, DC of 5 Broken Cameras, a critically acclaimed film about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The event is being co-sponsored with J Street DC Metro. The viewing will be followed by a discussion with ATFP Senior Fellow Hussein Ibish and Howard Sumka.

Click here to purchase tickets for the viewing and discussion, which will be held on Friday, July 13 at 4:45PM at the E Street Cinema, 555 11th Street NW, Washington, DC 20004:

https://tickets.landmarktheatres.com/Ticketing.aspx?ShowDate=7%2F13%2F2012&TheatreID=264
5 Broken Cameras is a deeply personal, firsthand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements.

The film was shot by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, and edited with the help of Israeli director Guy Davidi.

Following the film at E Street Cinema, Stephen Stern, J Street DC Metro Education and Programs Chair will lead a discussion with ATFP Senior Fellow Hussein Ibish and Howard Sumka (former USAID West Bank and Gaza Chief), representing the Greenhouse Initiative, which gave major development assistance to the filmmakers.



Synopsis

An extraordinary work of both cinematic and political activism, 5 Broken Cameras is a deeply personal, firsthand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, the footage was later given to Israeli co-director Guy Davidi to edit. Structured around the violent destruction of each one of Burnat's cameras, the filmmakers' collaboration follows one family's evolution over five years of village turmoil. Burnat watches from behind the lens as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify, and lives are lost. "I feel like the camera protects me," he says, "but it's an illusion."

Hussein Ibish: The Anti-Balfour Declaration

Official emblem for the International Anti-Apartheid Year. The UN General Assembly in resolution 32/105 B, adopted on 14 December 1977, proclaimed the year begining on 21 March 1978 as the International Anti-Apartheid Year. 1/Jan/1978. UN Photo. www.unmultimedia.org/photo/
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/10/the-anti-balfour-declaration.html
Jul 10, 2012

Wonder what it feels like to have inadvertently put yourself between a rock and a hard place? Just ask Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On Monday the Levy Committee, which he appointed last January, issued its report that was supposed to examine the question of Israeli “state lands” in the occupied Palestinian territories, but has far exceeded its mandate. The most significant aspect of the report is its blunt assertion that Israel is not “the occupying power” in the occupied territories. Its consequent outrageous legal recommendations all reflect that logic; it recommends that all Israeli settlements, including “unauthorized” outposts built on private Palestinian land, and every promise ever made by any official to any settlers, should be formalized.

Here’s Netanyahu’s quandary: Israel either is, or is not, occupying the occupied territories–and the report could well force him to take a clearer stand on that issue. If he accepts its recommendations in full, even if they are not fully implemented, he will in effect be accepting the notion that there is no occupation in the occupied territories. This would reflect rhetoric from his own Foreign Ministry, particularly Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, not to mention many Israeli policies that have treated the occupied territories as part of the Israeli state when convenient to its purposes.

However, Netanyahu can’t make the decision solely based on Israel's policies, because they do not reflect a clear view of the territories' legal status. In fact, many policies have carefully fudged the question and cultivated an atmosphere of ambiguity about the occupation. A large body of Israeli laws, court rulings, policies and, above all, treaties (including those with Egypt, Jordan and the PLO) all either explicitly or implicitly recognize the territories as occupied. So, of course, does a veritable mountain of international law including UN Security Council resolutions and the ruling of the International Court of Justice on Israel's West Bank separation barrier.
And, as David Kretzmer, a noted Israeli legal scholar, observed, "If Israel is not an occupying force, it must immediately relinquish ownership of all private lands seized over the years for military use, taken with authority as the occupying force in an occupied territory, and restore the lands to previous owners.”
Finally, there is the obvious corollary to any formal acceptance that the occupied territories are not, in fact, occupied: that Israel views them as de facto and de jurepart of its state. Full acceptance of the recommendations of the report would amount to announcing the de facto annexation of the occupied territories. That, too, has its own obvious corollary: Israel is already neither demographically Jewish nor democratic in character. Rather than administering a temporary occupation, it is presiding over a separate and unequal system that discriminates between Jews and Arabs in huge parts of its territory.
In this sense, the report might be seen as an anti-Balfour Declaration: a political statement, which, if implemented as written, would ensure that Israel can no longer continue in a meaningful sense to be a “Jewish state,” except by systematic ethnic discrimination against large parts of its population.
There's a word for such a system: Apartheid. Only by distinguishing between the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel proper can Israel sustain its objections to any application of this term to its polity. Accepting the Levy Committee's report would, in effect, dissolve any such distinction and render Israel practically defenseless against the indictment that it is an apartheid state. The long-term legal, political and diplomatic ramifications for Israel are incalculable.
When systematic ethnic discrimination is intended to be maintained rather than temporary, it is is a crime under international law...READ MORE 
 
 
*BALFOUR DECLARATION (dated 2 November 1917) His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine

Monday, July 9, 2012

The returning issue of Palestine's refugees... When negotiations resume once again, the world must not abandon the refugees of Palestine, nor attempt to coerce their representatives to do so either.


: "Before his murder in 1948, Lord Folke Bernadotte, the first UN mediator to the Arab-Israeli conflict, stated: "It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent [Palestinian] victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes, while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine." Lord Bernadotte paid for his candour with his life as Jewish militants assassinated him under the direction of Yitzhak Shamir, the man who would later become prime minister of Israel.

Less than three months after his death, as the war of 1948 ground to a close, and nearly three-quarters of the entire indigenous Palestinian population had been displaced by Israeli forces, the UN passed general assembly resolution 194, calling for the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes and to be awarded compensation for their losses...
 
... When negotiations resume once again, the world must not abandon the refugees of Palestine, nor attempt to coerce their representatives to do so either.
 
Israel's recognition of Palestinian refugee rights and its agreement to provide reparation and meaningful refugee choice in the exercise of these rights will not change the reality in the Middle East overnight, nor will it lead to an existential crisis for Israel. What it will certainly do is mark the beginning of a new reality that will no longer be rooted in repression, denial of rights, and discrimination. In other words, it will lead to a lasting peace – the kind of peace envisaged by Lord Bernadotte and hoped for by Palestinians and Israelis alike." 
 
                                       The returning issue of Palestine's refugees
 

Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, ratified by Israel in 1951, states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”


Despite past failures to reach a negotiated final status agreement with Israel, we remain committed to negotiations to achieve a permanent and durable resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict... READ MORE

  • Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, ratified by Israel in 1951, states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
     
  • In its July 9, 2004, Advisory Opinion on the Wall, the International Court of Justice held that the Wall, along with settlements, violates international law. It called upon Israel to halt its construction, to dismantle portions already built, and to provide reparations to Palestinians for damages it has caused.
     
  • The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court of 1998 (Article 8(b)(viii)) defines “the transfer directly or indirectly by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies” as a War Crime indictable by the International Criminal Court.
     
  • United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 465 (1980): “Israel’s policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in [the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem] constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention… and a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.” The resolution calls on Israel to “dismantle the existing settlements.”


JerusalemIn conformity with international law and as stated in the Declaration of Principles, all of Jerusalem (and not only East Jerusalem) is subject to permanent status negotiations. With respect to East Jerusalem, because it remains part of the territory occupied since 1967, Israel has no right to any part of it.

As the political, economic and spiritual heart of our nation, there can be no Palestinian state without East Jerusalem, in particular the Old City and the surrounding area, as its capital. We are committed to respecting freedom of worship at, and access to, religious sites within East Jerusalem for everyone. All possible measures will be taken to protect such sites and preserve their dignity.

Beyond ensuring our sovereignty over East Jerusalem, we will consider a number of solutions, as long as they are in our interest and in line with international law. For example, Jerusalem may be an open city for both Palestinians and Israelis-the capital of two nations. Whatever the specific solution, East Jerusalem is essential to the economic, political and cultural viability of our future state. There can be no integrated Palestinian national economy and, thus no sustainable resolution of the conflict, without a negotiated solution on Jerusalem that guarantees our rights.


 Refugees No issue is more emblematic of the 20th century Palestinian experience than the plight of the approximately seven million Palestinian refugees. An estimated 70 percent of all Palestinians worldwide are refugees, while one out of three refugees worldwide is Palestinian. Approximately half of all Palestinian refugees are stateless. For decades, Israel has denied Palestinian refugees the right to return, violating UNGA Resolution 194, while providing for unfettered Jewish immigration to Israel.


Palestinian refugees lack the most basic human rights, suffer from inadequate international protection and assistance, and bear the brunt of the ongoing conflict with Israel. A just resolution of the refugee issue – one that recognizes the right of return and provides a range of meaningful choices to refugees – is essential to a successful negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.   A Brief History of the Refugee Issue







Sunday, July 8, 2012

My letters 7-8-2012 RE The Economist "The calm may not last for ever" & Ma'an News Analysis: President Abbas, if you don't want to fight, negotiate


RE: Palestine and the West Bank The calm may not last for ever: Despite several years of peace and a rise in prosperity, frustration is bubbling up
http://www.economist.com/node/21557812

Dear Sir,

Ziad Asali, founder of the American Task force on Palestine, accurately points that " Palestinians and Israelis will not embrace each other’s narratives, nor should they abandon their own. They don’t need each other to confirm their own identities. What they need is a workable, ironclad, conflict-ending arrangement to allow them to live side-by-side in peace. Hearts as well as minds must change to make this possible... The only way to honor our tragic histories is to create a future for our children free of man-made tragedy. This means making peace fully, completely and without reservation, between Israel and Palestine."

I think it is obvious that it is not two state peace makers and negotiators and diplomats who are ushering in "indefinite occupation" by Israel- it is the one staters who want Palestine to be a rally cry rather than a real state living in peace and security alongside Israel.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES


"It is in Israel's vital interest to come to a complete resolution of the conflict between it and the Palestinian people sooner rather than later, relieving the weight of this tragic conflict from both of our peoples' shoulders. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to the world." Maen Rashid Areikat: The Time for a Palestinian State Is Now

The Office of International Religious Freedom ( http://www.state.gov/j/drl/irf/ )  Given the U.S. commitment to religious freedom, and to the international covenants that guarantee it as the inalienable right of every human being, the United States seeks to:
  • Promote freedom of religion and conscience throughout the world as a fundamental human right and as a source of stability for all countries

"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


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

RE: Analysis: President Abbas, if you don't want to fight, negotiate
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=501277

Dear Nasser Laham editor-in-chief of Ma'an News Agency,

I am an American who keeps a blog and occasionally writes letters mainly to mainstream American newspapers..etc... in hopes of helping America better understand and care about the people of Palestine- and justice and peace.

For me at least, collecting relevant notes (news and opinion) is an important part of creating a paper trail to help prove to mainstream America that Palestinians exist and their existence is in peril. Thus I very much like your editorial  Analysis: President Abbas, if you don't want to fight, negotiate & I would have gladly blogged it for my notes but for your assertion: "For two years, the Palestinian leadership has refused to negotiate with Israel. They went to the UN seeking recognition of a Palestinian state, but the US fought that bid very firmly, proving that it is the number one enemy when it comes to UN resolutions on the Palestinian people’s rights."

That damning assertion concerning the US may or may not be true- but phrasing it that way certainly is not going to motivate most Americans to support, much less continue to fund Palestine.  Do you really want to define the US as "the number one enemy"?  I think it would have been wiser and more helpful to emphasis diplomacy by being diplomatic and perhaps pointing out how instrumental the US was in creating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and how generous the US has been in funding and sustaining UNWRA and the Palestinian refugees. 

In fact the US was instrumental in creating the internet which makes it possible for me and many others to read Maan News and other Palestinian publications.  Huge progress has been made as far as informing the wider world about the very real plight of the Palestinians, but that progress is not guaranteed to work in Palestine's favor.  Rather than alienating mainstream Americans when you step up to advocate ending the Israel-Palestine conflict, I believe it really would be wiser to phrase things in a way that will convince more Americans to care about Palestine: Simply reiterating the importance of international law and full respect for basic human rights would go a long way towards convincing Americans to actually notice and reiterate the importance of international law and full respect for basic human rights- including but not limited to the Palestinian refugees inalienable right to return to original homes and lands.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES
"The Middle East peace process cannot become an orphan of the Arab Spring."... In West Bank, EU's Barroso urges new peace talks... "It is important that all Palestinian actors take advantage of the positive developments towards democratisation in the region to build a future of democracy, security and prosperity"

Nelson Mandela Quote

Jewish, Palestinian American groups ‘swap’ summer interns

Clinton holds 'productive' talks with Palestinian leader

2012 Presbyterian Church USA 220th General Assembly opts for ‘positive investment’ over divestment

But, of course, this wasn't just any ailing and frail 75-year-old man. It was Yasir Arafat

Our lives remain in peril

Divestment question before Presbyterians: Firms connected to West Bank dispute would not get funds

My letter to the IHT RE Thomas L. Friedman's "What Does Morsi Mean for Israel? "

My letter to the Washington Post RE David Ignatius: Bombing or the bomb? For Israel, military option is still on the table.

Ziad Asali: To honor a tragic history, we must work for peace

Fayyad: UNESCO decision a victory for rights, humanity


"It is in Israel's vital interest to come to a complete resolution of the conflict between it and the Palestinian people sooner rather than later, relieving the weight of this tragic conflict from both of our peoples' shoulders. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to the world." Maen Rashid Areikat: The Time for a Palestinian State Is Now

The Office of International Religious Freedom ( http://www.state.gov/j/drl/irf/ )  Given the U.S. commitment to religious freedom, and to the international covenants that guarantee it as the inalienable right of every human being, the United States seeks to:
  • Promote freedom of religion and conscience throughout the world as a fundamental human right and as a source of stability for all countries

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

"The Middle East peace process cannot become an orphan of the Arab Spring."... In West Bank, EU's Barroso urges new peace talks... "It is important that all Palestinian actors take advantage of the positive developments towards democratisation in the region to build a future of democracy, security and prosperity"


Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad (right) holds a joint press conference with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Ramallah on Sunday. Barroso urged a return to Israeli-Palestinian talks, warning the peace process must not become "an orphan of the Arab Spring." (AFP Photo/Abbas Momani)

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]


European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso called on Sunday for a return to Israeli-Palestinian talks, warning the peace process must not become "an orphan of the Arab Spring."

Barroso was speaking after talks with Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad on the first day of a trip which includes stops in the West Bank and Israel.

"The momentous change that we are witnessing throughout the Arab world should constitute an incitement and not a deterrent to the resumption of negotiations," he said, according to an advance copy of his remarks.

"The Middle East peace process cannot become an orphan of the Arab Spring."

Direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have been on hold since late September 2010, and efforts by the peacemaking Quartet -- which groups the EU, United Nations, United States and Russia -- have had little success.

But Barroso said the European Union considered resolving the conflict a "strategic priority," and would continue to work to find a way to bring the two sides back to the table.

"Meanwhile it is important that the two parties do not act in a way that undermines the viability of a two-state solution," Barroso said.

"In this respect it is with concern that we see the continuous growth of settlements in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem."

Barroso, who will meet later Sunday in the West Bank city of Ramallah with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, offered support for the reconciliation process between Abbas's Fatah party and the rival Hamas movement which rules Gaza.

"This is a key factor contributing to the unity of a future Palestinian state and to reaching the two-state solution," he said.

And he said that new elections, which are called for under the reconciliation deal signed last year but have been delayed as the two sides bicker over implementation of the agreement, would constitute "a significant contribution to Palestinian state-building."

"It is important that all Palestinian actors take advantage of the positive developments towards democratisation in the region to build a future of democracy, security and prosperity," his prepared remarks said....READ MORE