Tuesday, November 12, 2013

My letter to the NYTimes RE Saving Kerry's Peace Plan

Jaffa... Engraving
RE: Saving Kerry's Peace Plan By Israel's Yossi Beilin
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/opinion/saving-kerrys-peace-plan.html?ref=international&_r=0

Dear Editor,

Yossi Beilin's bizarre formula for peace rewards Israel's soldiers and settlers for destroying Palestinian homes and usurping Palestinian land.  His convoluted plan also guarantees that a Jews-preferred Israel will continue to feel compelled to perceive Palestinian men, women and children as a demographic threat and a problem rather than as individuals who deserve respect and the rule of fair and just laws.

There is a huge difference between Israeli settlers who knowingly and willingly have helped sabotage Palestine and a two state solution for religious whims, and/or for economic reasons as they enjoy subsidized housing in the illegally occupied territories and Palestinian refugees who, day after day for more than sixty years have been impoverished, harassed and forcibly displaced from their cherished ancestral homes and lands.... because Israel wants to be "Jewish".

Israel's incentive should be respecting international law- and universal basic human rights, including but not limited to the Palestinian refugees right to return to original homes and lands.

Israel's incentive should be a just and lasting peace: A fully secular two state solution to once and for all end the Israel-Palestine conflict is the best way forward.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES
Washington Post 2013: Israeli hard-liners eye West Bank

Israeli Settler Violence Map

Israeli police seized computers and detained 25 Palestinians because of Facebook posts in East Jerusalem on Thursday


  • All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
'It is where religious freedom is most dishonored or repressed that the forces of violent religious extremism are likely to thrive.' Katrina Lantos Swett, vice chairwoman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom: JFK's call for religious freedom can transform places like Pakistan.

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

"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


Thomas Paine: "Of all of the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny of religion is the worst."

"In every country and in every age, the priest [rabbi/imam/...etc...] has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own"
Thomas Jefferson

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

Why Muslims should love secularism: Though secularism is widely misunderstood as anti-religious and iconoclastic, all it means is the neutrality of the state on religious affairs ...  "Muslims must recognize secularism as the only real path to religious freedom, rather than confusing it with an attack against religion." Hussein Ibish

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


U.S. 'working tirelessly' to restore UNESCO funding... UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova: "This is not only about financing. This is about values. This is the 'smart power' that is in such need today, to lay the foundations for lasting peace and sustainable development,"


U.S., Israel lose voting rights at UNESCO over Palestine row

UNWRA ... a crucial lifeline for Palestinian refugees


Dr Zogby: Focus on Palestinians’ Rights

"Can you imagine the world today without letters or without music?"

At ATFP Gala, White House Reaffirms Commitment to Palestinian State, Opposition to Settlements and Settler Violence


"So let us put the narrative of injustice away and find the joy, if it’s the last thing we ever do. " Tala Abu Rahmeh, Palestinian poet and writer

A quest to preserve Palestinian heritage in the digital stacks: Sami Batrawi's struggle to open an online Palestinian Library of Congress is part of a broader effort to recover lost Palestinian intellectual heritage.

Pomegranates in season along the path!

The Arab Peace Initiative
1. Requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well.
2. Further calls upon Israel to affirm:
I- Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.
II- Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.
III- The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
3. Consequently, the Arab countries affirm the following:
I- Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region.

II- Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.

Ancient stone villages in the occupied West Bank have become trapped in rural poverty, while investors and donors shy away from a zone of seemingly endless conflict... Israel's restrictions affect much of Palestinian economic life. It controls every access point, which enables it to oversee all imports and exports, creating bureaucratic hurdles that Palestinians say stifle or kill entrepreneurship.


The Israelis also impose strict limits on water supply, which affects industry and agriculture. Israel has not allowed Palestinians access to 3G mobile technology, citing security concerns, rendering many smartphone apps largely useless....READ MORE

Jordan's King Abdullah II explains that extremism has "grown fat" off of the longstanding conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.


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