My letter to the NYTimes RE Israelis Evict Palestinians

Badil Historical Overview: Palestinian Refugees

RE:  Israelis Evict Palestinians From a Site for Housing
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/world/middleeast/israeli-police-evict-palestinian-protesters-from-e-1.html?ref=middleeast&_r=0

Palestinians Set Up Tents Where Israel Plans Homes
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/12/world/middleeast/palestinians-set-up-camp-in-israeli-occupied-west-bank-territory.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_ee_20130112&_r=0

Dear Editor,

Thank you for having the courage to cover the story of Bab al-Shams, the tent village Palestinians constructed on Palestinian owned land, created in hopes of preventing Israel from building yet another state subsidized Jews-only housing project.

24,813 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel since 1967 & Israel currently has 236 Jewish-only settlements and ‘outposts’ built on confiscated Palestinian land.   Palestinian refugees and internally displaced Palestinians (IDPs) represent the largest and longest-standing case of forced displacement in the world today.  

This situation is crazy and cruel- and quite frankly a crime against humanity.  The temporary tent village of Bab al-Shams is a telling echo of the hundreds of Palestinian villages and cities that have been ethnically cleansed, looted, and destroyed by the Israel through out the years.

In 1976 Americans were celebrating our freedom and a more real democracy with a cherished Bicentennial.  The official Bicentennial events began on April 1, 1975, when the American Freedom Train began touring the country with "over 500 precious treasures of Americana. Included in these diverse artifacts were George Washington's copy of the Constitution, the original Louisiana Purchase, Judy Garland's dress from The Wizard of Oz, Joe Frazier's boxing trunks, Martin Luther King's pulpit and robes, and even a rock from the moon."

In sharp contrast in 1976 six Palestinian farmers were killed and hundreds were wounded and/or arrested because they organized nonviolent protests and marches objecting to the Israeli government's announcement of a plan to expropriate thousands of dunams of land for "security and settlement purposes" LAND DAY commemorates that tragedy which continues to this day.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES
Israelis Evict Palestinians

"We know the [Israeli] army follow us on Twitter and Facebook, so we made out we were holding a protest somewhere else."

State of Palestine

Financial Crisis in the West Bank

Bab al-Shams Village... We, the sons and daughters of Palestine

Palestinians Set Up Tents Where Israel Plans Homes

Israel continues to demolish Palestinian homes- and peace

Israel uses the crisis in Syria to try to coerce Abbas into relinquishing Palestinian refugee rights

Snow covers the Dome of the Rock in the Old City

Walls and winter rains afflict Palestinian towns

Excellent letter in the Guardian by Keith Lichman RE Israel's drift

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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

Palestinian Refugees(1948-NOW) refused their right to return... and their right to live in peace free from religious bigotry and injustice.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917

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

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

"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

Empowering Peace & Palestine

"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."

 

The Arab Peace Initiative

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.