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Saturday, November 10, 2012

Palestinian farmers turn to organic farming

The hardships faced by local farmers, ranging from a lack of rainfall to Israeli trade obstacles, mean that organic growing is one of the few ways Palestinians have to compete in outside markets.

In this photograph made on Monday, Oct. 22, 2012, a Palestinian farmer Khader Khader, 31,picks olives on his land in Nisf Jubeil, near the West Bank city of Nablus, Monday, Cot 22, 2012. In an emerging back-to-the-land movement, Palestinian farmers are turning the rocky hills of the West Bank into organic olive groves, selling their oil to high-end grocers in the U.S. and Europe. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed
 http://news.yahoo.com/palestinian-farmers-turn-organic-farming-063753071.html



NUS JUBAIL, West Bank (AP) — The Palestinian olive harvest, an ancient autumn ritual in the West Bank, is going upscale.

In an emerging back-to-the-land movement, Palestinian farmers are turning the rocky hills of the West Bank into organic olive groves, selling their oil to high-end grocers in the U.S. and Europe.

The move is a reflection of the growing global demand for natural, sustainable and fairly traded products, albeit with a distinct Palestinian twist. The hardships faced by local farmers, ranging from a lack of rainfall to Israeli trade obstacles, mean that organic growing is one of the few ways Palestinians have to compete in outside markets.

"The Palestinian future is in the land," said farmer Khader Khader, 31, as he stood among his organic olives in the northern West Bank village of Nus Jubail.
 
Organic farming has grown into a thriving business, by Palestinian standards, since it first was introduced in the West Bank in 2004. Now, at least $5 million worth of organic olive oil is exported annually — about half of all Palestinian commercial oil exports, said Nasser Abu Farha of the Canaan Fair Trade Association, one of the companies that sells high-end organic olive oil to distributors abroad.

The West Bank-based company purchases the oil at above market prices and pays what's called a "social premium" — extra money to farming cooperatives to improve their communities....READ MORE

[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]

A Memo to the US President: Resurrecting meaningful Israeli-Palestinian negotiations will be difficult, but a peace agreement is indeed a vital American national interest.

"It is a grave error to misread the Brotherhood as a bulwark against their more extreme Salafist or Jihadist rivals. Dealing respectfully and, when possible, cooperatively with Islamist governments is necessary and important. But it is inexcusable to harbor any illusions about their fundamental worldview, value system and attitude towards the West. And it is urgent and imperative for the United States to do a great deal more to politically empower and support those in the Arab world who share our ideals." Hussein Ibish

A Memo to the US President



Whoever wins the keys to the White House today has urgent and imperative work to do in the Middle East. (AFP Photo)

[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]

“Change the Picture” UNRWA photography competition

Young Palestinians win prizes for photos of refugee life

See the winning photos

Friday, November 9, 2012

Blair: Obama win opens way for new Mideast push

"It is very fashionable at the moment to say the two-state solution is not going to work. Just examine the alternative for a moment. What does a one-state solution mean? It means you institutionalize conflict right at the heart of whatever that state might look like"  Tony Blair, Middle East envoy

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=534974

Blair: Obama win opens way for new Mideast push
Israel forces uproot trees near Bethlehem

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Addressing General Assembly, UN official calls for ‘just solution’ to plight of Palestinian refugees

UNRWA Commissioner General Filippo Grandi. UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=43444&Cr=palestin&Cr1=#.UJwef9amWS4

8 November 2012 – Addressing the General Assembly today, a senior United Nations official today called for a “just solution” to the plight of the five million Palestine refugees.

The Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Filippo Grandi, also expressed “extreme concern” that most of the 518,000 Palestine refugees in Syria were now directly caught up in the conflict and called for greater protection for civilians in the country.

A significant number of Palestinian refugees, as well as Syrians, “had been killed, injured and compelled to leave their homes,” he noted, while also paying tribute to five Palestinian UNRWA staff members killed in Syria – the latest a female teacher killed on Monday in the capital, Damascus.

Syria has been wracked by violence, with at least 20,000 people, mostly civilians, killed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began some 20 months ago. The violence has spawned more than 380,000 refugees, while more than 2.5 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to UN estimates.

Established by the General Assembly in 1949, UNRWA is mandated to provide assistance and protection to a population of some five million registered Palestinian refugees in various countries throughout the Middle East. Its services include education, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, health care and emergency assistance.

UNRWA, in a news release, noted that the losses in Syria reflected the vulnerability of the half million Palestinian refugees in the country, and in the region in general.

“The loss of our staff – Palestine refugees themselves – brings home to us in the starkest terms the human dimension of the Palestine refugee question,” Mr. Grandi said in his presentation to the Assembly’s so-called Fourth Committee, which deals with a variety of political subjects, including the issue of Palestinian refugees.

In addition to the conflict in Syria, noted the UN official, Palestinian refugees have been affected by an Israeli blockade of Gaza, with UNRWA struggling to provide food assistance to almost 800,000 vulnerable refugees there.

In the West Bank, where refugees are almost 30 per cent of the total population, Mr. Grandi cited continued settlement expansion, settler violence, land expropriation, building prohibitions, increased demolitions, movement restrictions and the asphyxiation of traditional herding as “a gradual erosion of space and rights for Palestine refugees and indeed for all Palestinians… a cause of unbearable hardship for countless people, and a major obstacle to peace.”

The Commissioner-General condemned a “lack of real action” to halt rights violations in the West Bank.

He added, “Public statements are made condemning settlement expansion and other violations of international law, but without political determination to stop it, the colonizing enterprise, which the United Nations and the international community clearly consider illegal, will move forward inexorably, with impunity, and with potentially dangerous consequences.’

In his remarks, the Commissioner-General also highlighted that despite political developments in the region – such as the Arab Spring – Palestinians, and Palestinian refugees in particular – remain sidelined, while the agency’s efforts to provide assistance and protection for the five million refugees scattered throughout the Middle East “was not becoming any easier.”

He highlighted two key challenges to it carrying out its mandated tasks: the scarcity of funds and the prevalence of conflict.

UNRWA was chronically underfunded, he said – with only 41 per cent of its emergency appeal met in 2011 – and subject to renewed political attacks.

While paying tribute to the generosity of UNRWA’s main group of donors, the Commissioner-General also underlined that the agency’s budget supporting its education, health, relief, protection and social services is in a perilous state, while refugee needs have grown and costs have increased.

With that in mind, the UN official urgently appealed for funding from countries in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, where economic growth was increasingly matched by a more assertive political role.

“UNRWA – neither the cause, nor the solution to the question of refugees, but the only tangible support felt by many of them – is more necessary than ever”, said Mr. Grandi. “Give us your backing, so that together we can ensure that Palestine refugees lead productive lives, while the political dimensions of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are addressed in a comprehensive and just manner.”

Wrapping up his presentation, the Commissioner-General also flagged the need for support from the international community, warning that the frustration, marginalization and “collective hopelessness” felt among Palestinians today could have disastrous consequences if continually ignored.

“Palestine refugees may be a political question, but they are first and foremost people – ordinary men and women who rightly insist on not being discarded and forgotten about as the flotsam and jetsam of history,” he added.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

How many Palestinian refugees would want to return?

“I don’t know,” Abbas said. “I don’t argue with anybody. ‘O.K., you want your right of return? It’s O.K., when we come to it, we will do our best to try to fulfill your dreams. According to the Arab Peace Initiative.’ But at that time, I don’t know whether the 5 million will ask — maybe some of them will ask for compensation and that’s it. Some of them will ask, ‘O.K., I will return back to Palestine.’ Some will return back to Israel. But when they think of it deeply — ‘O.K., you are going to Israel, to be a member of the Israeli society, to raise the Israeli flag, to have the identity card of Israel, to have an Israeli passport?’ ‘Oh, no no.’ We don’t go into details, no, but if somebody asks, I will answer them: ‘If you want to go to Israel, of course, you have to be an Israeli citizen. You have to make salute to their national anthem.’ ‘Oh, no no no! Some say, ‘Yes, I will go. I need to go.’”

TIME MAGAZINE

The Palestinian ‘Right of Return’: Abbas Wades into the Morass

A Hamas supporter burns a poster depicting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a protest in Jabalya, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Nov. 3, 2012 Mohammed Salem / Reuters

My letter to the Atlantic RE The Palestinian Guy Fawkes by Michael Koplow

Guy Fawkes's plot to blow up England's Parliament in1605
RE The Palestinian Guy Fawkes by Michael Koplow
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/11/the-palestinian-guy-fawkes/264529/

Dear Editor,

Abbas, an elected leader hoping to make peace with Israel in order to save Palestine from complete destruction by various religious fanatics and lunatics, is not at all like Guy Fawkes in any way....  Abbas is neither an "unrepentant terrorist" nor is he a "misunderstood scapegoat".  He is simply a man in an official and very public position doing a very difficult job that few people on earth would be able to do.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES 
After Tyrants, the People Must Act  
"What is important is that individual refugees decide for themselves which option they prefer- a decision must not be imposed upon them."

Abbas aides say Hamas outrage over right of return unfounded

".... it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine..."

Churches condemn Israeli security barrier

Dr. Ziad Asali: American Elections Matter and the System is Open

Hamas Rising?


C-SPAN: IMF Warns of Palestinian Authority's Financial Collapse: Middle East Institute Discussion on the Political and Economic Implications of the Palestinian Authority's Fiscal Crisis

Accountability & a Confession

Israel vs. No. 2 Pencils... Palestinians have suffered from a profound lack of sovereignty for decades now

How blaming the West hides a war on women

Maen Rashid Areikat: Israeli settlements are no ‘secondary issue’

Churches for Middle East Peace: Beginning of Harvest Season in Palestine Brings Violence

UN envoy alarmed by reports of Israeli settlers attacking Palestinian farmers


ATFP's Hussein Ibish: Where Settler Terrorism Comes From

''The Life of a Palestinian''

Muslims who would restrict speech to "protect Islam" have no greater allies than Jews who would do so to "protect Israel."


King Abdullah II of Jordan: The reason behind Tehran’s nuclear programme is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.


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

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 Golden Rule... Do unto others as you would have them do unto you





Occupation ... a poem by Anne Selden Annab


      Occupation

The pushers
take words
with legal meaning
and power
and make them taffy

The pullers & pushers
party on, such Ecstasy
in scrambling meaning
into nonsense
serious into silly

Palestine into
irrelevance

A piece of candy
for a pinata



Tuesday, November 6, 2012

4 poems ... by Anne Selden Annab


   Negotiations

Ancient Rome
& ancient Palestine
are history flexing
emotional and intellectual
but not civic muscle

Ancient Rome
& ancient Palestine
have no firm borders
no passports
no jobs
no future- no hope
no home, no security
for a beloved family

Avatars are free
to build a life like that
but the rest of us need more...

Oak leaves and acorns
and olive branches
Lions and lambs
mountains and valleys
driveways and doors
fair and just laws
citizenship...

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

    Boundaries

A window is a border
between here and there

A boat is a border
between drowning and the sea

Flesh is a border
between intact and pouring into

nothingness.


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



     Compromise

Is meeting the truth
with dignity and the courage
to see clearly
speak carefully
dreaming big enough
to be inclusive-
and compassionate...

Dreaming wide enough
to welcome all
Dreaming deep enough
to honor all
Dreaming high enough
to fly
past the bullet and bombs

to make peace
with the impossible
and move on
with grace.


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

  Leadership

is up to you
word by word
forward by forward
fact checked
researched
pondered

Argument
by argument
considered
deliberately
each in turn

Sources weighed
Ramifications assessed

Diplomatic language shaped
to be in balance listening
to what is heard
and what needs to be said


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

Monday, November 5, 2012

After Tyrants, the People Must Act

"But above all, a repressed society needs a motivated populace if it is to become politically vibrant again. To be more precise, it needs patriotism, historical consciousness, education, ambition, optimism and, especially, patience. The destruction wrought by totalitarian governments always takes decades even generations to repair. "  Anne Applebaum, columnist for The Washington Post and the author of “Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956."
In the chaos of Berlin in 1945, women cleared away rubble. Popperfoto/Getty Image

Harriet Sherwood: How the West Bank barrier has starved business and community

"..... Almost all the businesses in the thriving village between Jerusalem and Ramallah closed. Palestinians from East Jerusalem who had bought or rented houses and apartments fled back to the city rather than endure a long roundabout journey, via the massive Qalandiya checkpoint, to jobs which previously had been 10 minutes drive away. Abandoned, shuttered and looted apartment blocks and businesses are now the defining feature of Bir Nabala.

The area was completely encircled by the wall, leaving one road open. Bir Nabala, said Sabah, used to be "a central place, right in the middle", a commercial hub between Jerusalem and Ramallah. Now it is a desolate wasteland.

According to a new report, The Long Term Impact of the Separation Barrier, by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, the isolation of Bir Nabala "has caused a mass exodus from the village, abandonment of residential neighbourhoods and economic stasis".

In general, says the report, the barrier has led to "numerous infringements of the human rights of Palestinians, over and above the direct damage done by its construction – including property rights, the right to free movement, the right to a reasonable standard of living and collective right to self-determination."

B'Tselem calls on the Israeli government to dismantle all sections of the barrier already built inside the West Bank and halt further construction.

The report also details the impact of the barrier on Palestinians caught in the "seam zone", the area between the internationally-recognised Green Line and the route of the wall or fence. When the barrier is completed, 9.4% of Palestinian territory will be on the Israeli side.

A complex system of permits is required for Palestinians who need to cross the barrier, in either direction, to reach land, jobs, businesses, educational or health facilities.

Israel says the route of the barrier is determined by security needs, and that its construction is the reason for the decline in attacks by Palestinian militants inside Israel.

Sabah smiles bitterly at this explanation. "Israel built the wall for political reasons, to take the land, not security," he says. Without the wall, he reckons the value of his land and building would have doubled by now. "Now no one will buy it. There is no future for this village unless the wall is removed." "  in Bir Nabala

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/05/west-bank-barrier-starved-business-communities

How the West Bank barrier has starved business and community

A thriving wedding venue in Bir Nabala is among many concerns cut off by a policy that turned a thriving village into a ghost town

Bir Nabala was once a thriving community, but the West Bank barrier cut it off from Jerusalem and turned it into a ghost town. Source: B'Tselem Link to this video

Residents of the East Jerusalem suburb of Bir Nabala tell how their lives have been affected by the West Bank separation barrier, which reached the community in 2006. As the 8-metre-high concrete walls encircled the township separating it from the rest of East Jerusalem, businesses declined, leaving a derelict ghost town


Sunday, November 4, 2012

"What is important is that individual refugees decide for themselves which option they prefer- a decision must not be imposed upon them."

Visit Palestine: Jericho (which means “City of the Moon” in Arabic) is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world.

CORE ISSUES

Refugees and the Right of Return

Palestinian refugees must be given the option to exercise their right of return (as well as receive compensation for their losses arising from their dispossession and displacement) though refugees may prefer other options such as: 

(i) resettlement in third countries, 

(ii) resettlement in a newly independent Palestine (even though they originate from that part of Palestine which became Israel) or 

(iii) normalization of their legal status in the host country where they currently reside. What is important is that individual refugees decide for themselves which option they prefer- a decision must not be imposed upon them.

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UN Resolution 194 from 1948 : The refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible

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Refugees, Borders & Jerusalem

"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