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Friday, April 5, 2013

"Resuscitating the peace process"...excellent cartoon from the Baltimore Sun

"Resuscitating the peace process"
March 25, 2013
KAL/Baltimore Sun

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/ 
***

Aid crisis growing as millions flee Syria bombs... Top UN officials have warned that with no end in sight to the fighting, each of Syria's neighbors could be hosting a million refugees by the end of the year -- an enormous burden on already-stretched economies.

Syrians carry their belongings as they leave the Sheikh Maqsud
neighborhood in Aleppo on April 4, 2013 (AFP/Dimitar Dilkoff)
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=582543

By Jo Biddle


WASHINGTON (AFP) -- UN officials believe some four million people are now trapped inside Syria after fleeing the fighting, as the United States echoes calls for donors to step up and help in a burgeoning aid crisis.

The figure, due to be officially released in the coming days, is a dramatic rise on earlier estimates by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees of some 2.5 million displaced living in precarious conditions inside the country.

It also adds to the 1.2 million refugees who have streamed across borders into neighboring countries, placing a huge strain on governments in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon who have kept frontiers open.

With almost a quarter of Syria's population of around 22.5 million now in flight, the two-year conflict is wreaking a huge toll on civilians caught in cross-fire as opposition forces seek to topple President Bashar Assad.

"What we're seeing... is that now it is not just violence that is driving flight," US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees and Migration Kelly Clements told AFP.

"It is also just a decline in livelihoods, a decline in the economic means for families to be able to support themselves. It's disruption to services, it's kids not being able to go to school, it's water systems that have been either cut off or somehow affected."

Health services, bakeries, schools, vital components of normal life are teetering or have shut down, leaving a population in distress.

Those who could flee have already gone, leaving the most vulnerable to fend for themselves, many of whom have now been forced to relocate two or three times as the fighting has shifted and swelled.

Aid agencies themselves have lost team members killed in the fighting, while UN-led operations to try to get assistance across battle lines have proved dangerous and complex involving delicate negotiations.

"Really the most pressing challenge for all of us is just how dangerous and unpredictable the security environment is and the need for greater access," said Nancy Lindborg, assistant administrator for the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Working through partners such as the World Food Program, the United States has sponsored programs such as providing flour to bakeries in northern Aleppo -- enough to feed some 210,000 people for the next five months.

With the UNHCR they are trying to provide shelter, tents and blankets, to communities of displaced people hunkered down in schools or public buildings and cut off by the fighting.

The US has also focused on health and medical needs. Although initially the aim was to train doctors to deal with battle injuries, increasingly they are filling the gap providing basic health care as hospitals crumble.

They are also working with the local Syrian coordination councils in liberated areas to help rehabilitate schools to get children, some of whom have lost two years of education, back into the classroom.

Initial figures of 2.5 million displaced in the country drawn up earlier this year "no longer reflect the quickly evolving situation," UNHCR regional public information officer Reem Alsalem acknowledged.

The UN is revising its planning and scenarios and believes now that the number of internally displaced people inside the Syria "is around 4 million," she said in an email.

"There is this sense of lives interrupted, in addition to the deprivation and trauma," said Lindborg. "You were a law student yesterday and today you're a refugee. And it's that human dimension that sometimes gets lost."

The United States has so far provided some $385 million for humanitarian aid, of which nearly $216 million has been spent on needs inside Syria, with some 60 percent going to opposition-held areas.

Top UN officials have warned that with no end in sight to the fighting, each of Syria's neighbors could be hosting a million refugees by the end of the year -- an enormous burden on already-stretched economies.

Donors at a Kuwait conference in January pledged some $1.5 billion in aid -- of which $520 million was specifically to help people trapped inside Syria, with the rest going to help the nations hosting refugees.

But to date only about 30 percent of the funds have actually been received.

"The planning figures of this appeal, which went until the end of June, is only 30 percent subscribed, and yet we've already surpassed the needs that were articulated in that appeal," said Clements.

UNWRA Statement on today’s demonstrations inside UNRWA compound in Gaza

UNRWA calls on all the groups behind today's event to immediately stop inciting crowds at these demonstrations and to conduct themselves in a responsible manner. The Agency also calls on the authorities to play their role in providing security and ensuring demonstrations remain peaceful, and encourages donors to continue to fund UNRWA's vital relief programmes....

 




http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=1698
4 April 2013
Gaza
 
Demonstrators today stormed the compound of the UNRWA Gaza Field Office in response to a programme cut necessitated by budget shortfalls. The incident is a dramatic and disturbing escalation in a series of demonstrations that have taken place over the past week.
 
"We fully understand the impact the decision to suspend cash assistance had on some of our beneficiaries. The Agency was able instead to introduce and expand its Job Creation Programme to mitigate the effects of the reduction in cash distribution to the poorest refugee families in Gaza,” stated Director of UNRWA Operations in Gaza Robert Turner. He added that the Agency’s large-scale food distribution programme, that has an increasing caseload of over 800,000, will continue unchanged.  
 
Commenting on today’s escalation and demonstrators breaking into UNRWA’s compound, the Gaza Director stressed that the Agency “respect people's right to peaceful demonstration but what happened today was completely unacceptable: the situation could very easily have resulted in serious injuries to UNRWA staff and to the demonstrators. This escalation, apparently pre-planned, was unwarranted and unprecedented". "These demonstrations affect our ability to provide much needed service to the Palestine refugees in Gaza and—because they also targeted the Gaza headquarters building—our operations in the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria."
 
Demonstrations during the past week had already forced UNRWA to close many of its facilities. With the situation further compounded by today's actions, all relief and distribution centers will consequently remain closed until guarantees are given by all relevant groups that UNRWA operations can continue unhindered. "This is a very regrettable situation for us to be in, as food distributions right now are taking place for some 25,000 refugees every day. But we cannot tolerate these ongoing threats to our staff: their safety is of crucial concern at the moment," added Turner. "Any other affected installations will also remain closed."
 
UNRWA calls on all the groups behind today's event to immediately stop inciting crowds at these demonstrations and to conduct themselves in a responsible manner. The Agency also calls on the authorities to play their role in providing security and ensuring demonstrations remain peaceful, and encourages donors to continue to fund UNRWA's vital relief programmes.
 
 
** ENDS **
 
Background information:
 
UNRWA is a United Nations agency established by the General Assembly in 1949 and is mandated to provide assistance and protection to a population of some 5 million registered Palestine refugees. Its mission is to help Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and the Gaza Strip to achieve their full potential in human development, pending a just solution to their plight. UNRWA’s services encompass education, health care, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, and microfinance.
 
Financial support to UNRWA has not kept pace with an increased demand for services caused by growing numbers of registered refugees, expanding need, and deepening poverty. As a result, the Agency's General Fund (GF), supporting UNRWA’s core activities and 97 per cent reliant on voluntary contributions, has begun each year with a large projected deficit. Currently the deficit stands at US$ 67.2 million.
 
For more information, please contact :
 
Christopher Gunness
UNRWA Spokesperson
Mobile: +972 (0)54 240 2659
Office: +972 (0)2 589 0267
Sami Mshasha
UNRWA Arabic Spokesperson
Mobile: +972 (0)54 216 8295
Office: +972 (0)2 589 0724


Palestine is secular... "I don’t want sheets separating streets in Jerusalem and I don’t want gender-segregated schools. I don't advocate for a Muslim state, a Christian state, a Jewish state, or a Scientologist state, but rather for a state with equality for all regardless of gender or faith..."


"... The Palestine I know is a place where Christians and Muslims are equal. My mother, a Muslim village girl, attended a Catholic girls’ school in Ramallah, and my refugee husband spent the Second Intifada side by side with his Christian brothers from Bethlehem. Some areas are conservative, some are not. My mom wore mini-dresses in the 1960's and I have run around our hood in tank tops my whole life. Palestine is secular. Whether Hamas likes it or not, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Charter states just that, and states that the only body allowed to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians is the PLO. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has control over every aspect of Palestinians' daily lives, from water access to the right to life. Hamas has no actual authority, yet they keep forcing new laws." Maysoon Zayid

 [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]

 http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/04/don-t-tread-on-my-hair-hamas.html

The author's mother is pictured wearing one of her mini-dresses in Palestine in 1961. (Courtesy of Maysoon Zayid)

Don’t Tread On My Hair, Hamas

My online comment Baltimore Sun RE Ziad J. Asali's "America's challenge in the Arab world: The United States must counter the anti-American 'political correctness' that is dominating public discourse in the Middle East "


John Trumbull's painting Declaration of Independence
RE America's challenge in the Arab world: The United States must counter the anti-American 'political correctness' that is dominating public discourse in the Middle East
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-arab-spring-20130404,0,5734988.story

http://discussions.baltimoresun.com/20/balnews/bs-ed-arab-spring-20130404/10?logout=true

Dear Editor,

Good to see Ziad J. Asali's probing op-ed "America's challenge in the Arab world: The United States must counter the anti-American 'political correctness' that is dominating public discourse in the Middle East "

Asali calls on all Americans to be better diplomats for our country and for our basic ideals of democracy, secularism and the balance between the rights and responsibilities of individual citizens, to name just a few important concepts that contribute to America's long term stability and success. 

Building a case for peace and progress in the Middle East that is respectful of the diversity and sensibilities of all involved is certainly quite a challenge, but it really is the best option- for everyone's sake.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab


Thursday, April 4, 2013

My letter to the NYTimes RE Please… Draw Me a State By SHMUEL ROSNER

Growing Gardens for Palestine

RE: Please… Draw Me a State By SHMUEL ROSNER
http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/obamas-shift-from-freezing-settlements-to-drawing-borders-creates-new-problems-for-israel/?ref=global

Dear Editor,

A negotiated nonviolent end to the Israel-Palestine conflict is only possible with the establishment of two sovereign states living side by side in peace and security. 

"Drawing a border between a state and a would-be state" is indeed the crux of the matter- but keep in mind such a border is already in ink on many a map and is clearly referred to by the Arab Peace Initiative which calls for " 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."

Obfuscation, blame games, insults, righteous indignation, religious extremism, rage and violence will not end the very real plight of the Palestinians or the angst of Israelis. Full respect for international law and basic human rights, as well as an earnest desire to create -and sustain- a just and lasting peace will. 

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES
"After decades of conflict with Israel, the issue of prisoners is emotionally charged in Palestinian society. Inmates are highly esteemed regardless of the reasons for their incarceration, which range from mass murder to throwing rocks"

The reappointment of Mishaal may make sense in terms of Hamas' current power dynamics. But it does absolutely nothing to help the Palestinian people or cause.


Stepping Back... a poem

Growing Gardens for Palestine: Nominating a hero...

HEAR PEACE - SEE PEACE - SPEAK PEACE.... be peace

 
Crowdsourcing Peace: By going over the heads of Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Obama is demanding that their people step up.

Obama with Palestine's beautiful children March 2013


LIKE ATFP - The American Task Force on Palestine

"I come from there and I have memories... "



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

"Legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." 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

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

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
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.

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.


Emanating from the conviction of the Arab countries that a military solution to the conflict will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties, the council:
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.
4. Assures the rejection of all forms of Palestinian patriation which conflict with the special circumstances of the Arab host countries.
5. Calls upon the government of Israel and all Israelis to accept this initiative in order to safeguard the prospects for peace and stop the further shedding of blood, enabling the Arab countries and Israel to live in peace and good neighbourliness and provide future generations with security, stability and prosperity.
6. Invites the international community and all countries and organisations to support this initiative.
7. Requests the chairman of the summit to form a special committee composed of some of its concerned member states and the secretary general of the League of Arab States to pursue the necessary contacts to gain support for this initiative at all levels, particularly from the United Nations, the Security Council, the United States of America, the Russian Federation, the Muslim states and the European Union.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

"After decades of conflict with Israel, the issue of prisoners is emotionally charged in Palestinian society. Inmates are highly esteemed regardless of the reasons for their incarceration, which range from mass murder to throwing rocks..."

Palestinians throw stones at Israeli soldiers after the death of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh in Israeli jail in the West Bank city of Hebron, Tuesday, April 2, 2013 (AP Photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi)
"Rocket fire has been rare since an informal cease-fire was reached last November. During eight days of violence in November, the Israeli military said 1,500 rockets were fired at Israel, including the first from Gaza to strike the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem areas. The rocket attacks killed six Israelis and wounded dozens. Israeli airstrikes killed 169 Palestinians, many of them militants, and caused considerable damage."

http://news.yahoo.com/israeli-planes-strike-gaza-rocket-fire-004338130.html

Israeli planes strike Gaza after rocket fire


The reappointment of Mishaal may make sense in terms of Hamas' current power dynamics. But it does absolutely nothing to help the Palestinian people or cause.

Hussein Ibish: "....Mishaal’s ambitions may not stop with leading Hamas. He seems, in the long run, to have his eyes set on eventual leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization. As long as Hamas retains its current policies, and he remains a leader of that group, this is not possible without destroying the diplomatic and political achievements of the PLO, and its international standing. But one can certainly sense him trying to fudge those issues and maneuver his way into a more centralized national leadership role.

But it's important not to underestimate the harm this could cause to the Palestinian national movement. Hamas' policies are strictly inconsistent with those of the PLO, and contradict its treaty obligations. If Hamas joined the PLO with its current policies unchanged, let alone usurped it, the international standing of the PLO – one of the most important achievements of the Palestinian national movement, the value of which no one really questions – would be placed in dire jeopardy.


Palestinians want and need national unity. But the terms are crucial. If such unity in effect means abandoning the positions that underscore the PLO's standing at the United Nations and other multilateral institutions, and diplomatic relations with well over 100 countries, the price will be exorbitant and disproportionate.


Hamas, led by Mishaal or anybody else, cannot maintain its present policies – towards Israel, the two-state solution, violence, and other key questions that are clearly defined by international law – and simultaneously serve as part of the Palestinian national leadership. The cost of unity on those terms is prohibitive, and Palestinians just cannot afford it.


Meanwhile, in Gaza, Hamas continues to rule in the Islamist manner. That means that most of its policies are not only socially reactionary and oppressive, but flagrantly misogynistic as well. The latest outrage is a new law that will enforce gender segregation in schools for children over the age of nine, and bar men from teaching in girls' schools. This is merely the latest instance of Hamas' dual-gesture of pandering to its Islamist base and trying to impose its socially reactionary 'values' on the beleaguered Palestinians living under their rule.


So the reappointment of Mishaal may make sense in terms of Hamas' current power dynamics. But it does absolutely nothing to help the Palestinian people or cause."

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/hamas-again-avoids-change