Israeli law will strip many Arab ‘absentees’ of land: Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein decides on criteria for barring West Bank Palestinians from maintaining their properties in Jerusalem

[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.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israeli-law-will-strip-many-arab-absentees-of-land-8762235.html
Jerusalem
Wednesday 14 August 2013

Israel is moving ahead with plans to apply a legal device that would enable it to seize of up to forty percent of Arab private property in annexed East Jerusalem, the area Palestinians envision as their future capital.

The legal preparations to advantage Jewish settlers at the expense of Palestinians, combined with announcement of plans to build more than 3,100 units for settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, are enflaming tensions even as substantive peace talks resumed in Jerusalem for the first time in five years. 

Haaretz reported that Israeli Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein has now decided on criteria for barring West Bank Palestinians from maintaining their properties in Jerusalem.

One of these criteria, according to Haaretz, is the proximity of the Palestinian property to Jewish settler housing, raising Palestinian fears that the move could pave the way for significant transfers of Palestinian properties to settlers.

“This is another very dangerous, provocative move to consolidate Israel’s hold in East Jerusalem,” said the PLO spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi. “East Jerusalem is occupied territory and Israel has no business annexing it or applying this property law.”... READ MORE

My letter to the Baltimore Sun RE Kerry fiddles with Israeli-Palestinian conflict while rest of region burns By Robert O. Freedman

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

RE: Kerry fiddles with Israeli-Palestinian conflict while rest of region burns By Robert O. Freedman
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-middle-east-20130808,0,2654791.story

Dear Editor,

The crisis is here- and has been for decades. Call it Apartheid if you want- or Zionism, or The Catastrophe, or whatever... Fact is Israel already chose to be "a Jewish state" rather than a democratic state when it first refused to respect the Palestinian refugees right to return to original homes and lands which was clearly called for in 1948 by UN resolution 194.

Tragically for all involved, modern man made Israel's Jewish majority has been a dangerous delusion that depends on the continued displacement and impoverishment of the native non-Jewish Arab population.   

Middle East Peace 2013 depends on breaking free from segregationist policies, bigoted attitudes and End Times politics. Religion must not be the deciding factor on who will be allowed to be a secure and respected citizen with subsidized housing plus job opportunities and who will be oppressed and pushed out into forced exile and stateless limbo.

Stop the Israel-Palestine conflict with two fully secular fully sovereign nation states shaped by earnest respect for the rule of fair and just laws and universal basic human rights- and send the clear message to Islamists that religion really should be a personal private matter, not a state funded project.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES
11 December 1948 UN Resolution 194:"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"

On Our Doorstep... a poem

Arab Idol winner Mohammed Assaf is revered by fans in the Middle East but his main aim now is to help establish the rights of fellow Palestinians

A captivating animated "translation" of Mahmoud Darwish's poem "لاعب النرد - قصيدة متحركة (The Dice Player)"

Semitic Semantics for Palestine... a poem

Kerry: "The only announcement you will hear about meetings it's the one that I just made, and I will be the only one by agreement authorized to comment publicly on the talks in consultation obviously with the parties... That means that no one should consider any reports, articles or even rumors reliable unless they come directly from me and I guarantee you they won't."

*******

Live by the Golden Rule
Words to Honor: The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 1.

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.

"In 1949, the international community accepted Israel's UN membership upon two conditions: That they respect resolutions 181 (two states) and 194 (refugee rights). Neither has been honored. In fact, 65 years later, Israel has not even acknowledged what it did in 1948." Saeb Erekat

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

"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 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 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

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

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

My letter to IHT/NYTimes RE One-State Dream, One-State Nightmare By Roger Cohen

I Have a Dream
Martin Luther King, Jr.    August 28, 1963

RE One-State Dream, One-State Nightmare
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/opinion/global/one-state-dream-one-state-nightmare.html?ref=global&_r=0

Dear Editor,

Martin Luther King Jr decrying segregation spoke about a more real democracy here in America on August 28, 1963 in his inspiring I Have A Dream Speech: "Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation... Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."

The United Nations was founded in 1945 after World War II to empower dialogue and diplomacy- and to stop wars between countries. A mere two years later, in 1948, Israel as "The Jewish State" was an idea endorsed by the United Nations after the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust... Israel's actions since then have proven that the actuality of 'The Jewish State" has been an increasingly cruel situation for the native non-Jewish people of historic Palestine.

Bad choices have been made, and bad choices continue to be made as "The Jewish State" is more of a Jews-Preferred State that invests in institutionalized bigotry, injustice, obfuscation and dangerous propaganda rather than real respect for universal basic human rights- and real democracy.

A fully secular two state solution to once and for all end the Israel-Palestine conflict is  the best way forward.  America survived the end of slavery- Israel can and will survive the end of its own institutionalized bigotry.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES
Exodus

On Our Doorstep... a poem

Arab Idol winner Mohammed Assaf is revered by fans in the Middle East but his main aim now is to help establish the rights of fellow Palestinians

A captivating animated "translation" of Mahmoud Darwish's poem "لاعب النرد - قصيدة متحركة (The Dice Player)"

Semitic Semantics for Palestine... a poem

Kerry: "The only announcement you will hear about meetings it's the one that I just made, and I will be the only one by agreement authorized to comment publicly on the talks in consultation obviously with the parties... That means that no one should consider any reports, articles or even rumors reliable unless they come directly from me and I guarantee you they won't."

 

*******

Live by the Golden Rule
Words to Honor: The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 1.

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.

"In 1949, the international community accepted Israel's UN membership upon two conditions: That they respect resolutions 181 (two states) and 194 (refugee rights). Neither has been honored. In fact, 65 years later, Israel has not even acknowledged what it did in 1948." Saeb Erekat

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

"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 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 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

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

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

Exodus

On Our Doorstep... a poem by Anne Selden Annab

Israel destroying destroy the basis of the solution called for by the international community, which aims to establish a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders. photo credit Ma'an News

       On Our Doorstep

Will international law-
and criminal investigations
come to knock on individuals' doors
as Americans opt to be Israeli
and Israelis opt to be 'settlers'
subsidized by state funds
to pulverize Palestine.

Or will local laws here be rewritten
to funnel more & more money away
from our common good, diverting more
& more everything into the wide open
purse of segregationists & religious
idiots arming conflict
field by field, street by street-
home by home... moment by moment
be 'other' and lose all you have earned
all you have saved- valued- treasured.

Be 'other' and your very heritage
will be usurped- your food, your dance
your land, your fight for freedom...

Be 'other' and be cheated, swindled, shammed
by propagandists purporting to make peace.