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Saturday, February 15, 2014

Families Interrupted

Through a series of anonymous portraits, this exhibition by Jenny Nyman captures the reality of the many thousands of Palestinian families who are forced to live in the shadows by the Israeli Citizenship Law. By lifting the thin veil of anonymity that envelops them, the images give insights into how the ban turns them into families interrupted, struggling to lead a normal life together. By photographing them in their personal spaces, it offers glimpses of their day-to-day human existence as families.


For more information about the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (2003), visit www.adalah.org

© 2014 Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel

Haytham 2

"It is my right to choose my life partner, someone I feel comfortable with, who I can share my thoughts, life and decisions with. In the hospital I treated a Russian man who married a woman from Ethiopia. Should I be allowed to interfere and ask him why he married her? No! It’s the most basic of rights. In the children’s IDs Nuha is not listed as their mother. She can’t even take the girls to the health clinic because she doesn’t have an Israeli ID proving that she is their mother.

Arab Idol winner Mohammad Assaf banned from performing at the 2014 FIFA World Cup opening ceremony.

[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]
Assaf 'banned' from singing at World Cup ceremony

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Arab Idol winner Mohammad Assaf said this week that he has been banned from performing at the 2014 FIFA World Cup opening ceremony.

"I was supposed to sing for the World Cup 2014, in the opening ceremony, but, I do not want to accuse anyone but some people, or states or parties, God knows who, intervened and FIFA canceled my song with Platinum Records," he said at a news conference in Gaza on Tuesday.

"There are a lot of people who fight me, I do not know who," he added.

The Arab Idol star claimed that Colombian singer Shakira has "refused to sing in the World Cup because I will not sing."

In July last year FIFA president Sepp Blatter said he would invite Assaf to sing at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Assaf, the first Palestinian to win the popular Arab Idol TV singing contest, became the UN's first Palestinian goodwill ambassador in June 2013 following his victory.

An official from FIFA could not be reached by Ma'an.

The Palestinian Authority has decided to remove the section detailing religious affiliation on Palestinian identity cards... ensures the equality of all Palestinians, regardless of their religion.

[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]


PA to remove religion from ID cards
Published Thursday 13/02/2014

NABLUS (Ma'an) -- The Palestinian Authority has decided to remove the section detailing religious affiliation on Palestinian identity cards, according to officials.

The undersecretary of the ministry of interior Hassan Alawi told Ma'an that President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree to remove religious affiliation from identity cards beginning on Feb. 11, 2014.

Alawi said the decision was made entirely by Palestinian authorities and ensures the equality of all Palestinians, regardless of their religion.

Although the majority of Palestinians are Muslims, just under 10 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank are Christian, in addition to thousands more in the Gaza Strip.

A few hundred Palestinians in the West Bank are Samaritans, a religion closely associated to Judaism.

Some Excellent letters in the NYTimes regarding Israel and America’s Support

[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.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/opinion/israel-and-americas-support.html?ref=international

Israel and America’s Support

Regarding “Israel needs to learn some manners” (Opinion, Jan. 31): Avi Shlaim is correct that the “unconditional nature” of America’s support for Israel is the “fundamental problem” with the relationship between the two countries. It is this unconditional support that encourages Israel to pursue policies that are contrary to American and world interests, like its continued efforts to block a Palestinian state and block a nuclear treaty with Iran. Those policies directly undermine Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts and American foreign policy objectives. It is time for the United States to make its support of Israel conditional on Israel actually working for peace with the Palestinians and supporting the ongoing negotiations with Iran.
Ruth Persky, Los Angeles

If the international community, with America’s strong support, forced Israel to do what it has been asked to do — remove all settlers from the West Bank and dismantle all settlement buildings as well as the security barrier — then a two-state peace treaty might be achievable.
Peter Belmont, Brooklyn, N.Y.

PALESTINE REMEMBERED: Avi Shlaim, an Israeli Jewish historian, traced Israel's conduct and polices towards its Arab neighbors since the inception of Zionism in the late 19th century until the end of the 20th century. It is worth noting that the book is mostly based on declassified Israeli documents and personal diaries.

NYTimes: Camels Had No Business in Genesis


The annual camel race in the desert of Wadi Rum, Jordan, in 2007. Radiocarbon dating was used to pinpoint the earliest known domesticated camels in Israel to the 10th century B.C.— decades after the kingdom of David, according to the Bible. Salah Malkawi/Getty Images
[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.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/science/camels-had-no-business-in-genesis.html?_r=1




There are too many camels in the Bible, out of time and out of place.

Camels probably had little or no role in the lives of such early Jewish patriarchs as Abraham, Jacob and Joseph, who lived in the first half of the second millennium B.C., and yet stories about them mention these domesticated pack animals more than 20 times. Genesis 24, for example, tells of Abraham’s servant going by camel on a mission to find a wife for Isaac.

These anachronisms are telling evidence that the Bible was written or edited long after the events it narrates and is not always reliable as verifiable history. These camel stories “do not encapsulate memories from the second millennium,” said Noam Mizrahi, an Israeli biblical scholar, “but should be viewed as back-projections from a much later period.”

Dr. Mizrahi likened the practice to a historical account of medieval events that veers off to a description of “how people in the Middle Ages used semitrailers in order to transport goods from one European kingdom to another.”

For two archaeologists at Tel Aviv University, the anachronisms were motivation to dig for camel bones at an ancient copper smelting camp in the Aravah Valley in Israel and in Wadi Finan in Jordan. They sought evidence of when domesticated camels were first introduced into the land of...READ MORE

Excellent letter published in the Baltimore Sun: Academic freedom and Israel by Carole C. Burnett

A detail from The Sacrifice of Isaac, by Jacopo da Empoli. Scientists have proved that the camels in the story of Abraham and Isaac are a fiction. Photograph: Corbis...  The Guardian: The Old Testament's made-up camels are a problem for Zionism The earliest camel bones have been dated at 1,500 years after Genesis – which undermines Zionists' promised land narrative

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[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]

Academic freedom and Israel [Letter]

3:00 p.m. EST, February 14, 2014 

Thank you for publishing the commentary by Melani McAlister ("Maryland bills would stifle academic freedom," Feb. 12). She has presented a balanced summary of the arguments supporting and opposing the ASA boycott. More importantly, I applaud her lucid explanation of how the proposed Maryland legislation, in withdrawing normal support from scholars who act on their conscience, is a serious threat to academic freedom.

I would add my own speculation that the underlying issue among legislators is their reluctance to believe that Israel is violating human rights. While Zionists wallow in denial, Israel continues its ongoing violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits an occupying power from settling its own citizens on occupied land. Moreover, it is necessary only to visit the West Bank to see how the Palestinians are suffering from the "separation barrier" (most of which lies inside the West Bank, not on the Green Line between Israel and the occupied territory), checkpoints resembling cattle yards, the diversion of water supplies into settlements and home demolitions.

Yes, Israel is violating human rights, and because the U.S. gives it more than $3 billion per year, we should expect more cooperation and a higher standard of morality.

Carole C. Burnett, Silver Spring

Thursday, February 13, 2014

My letter to the Balt Sun RE Melani McAlister: Maryland legislation would stifle academic freedom. The proposed legislation is intended to enhance the free exchange of ideas but would instead squelch it


In 1950, on the second anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, students at the UN International Nursery School in New York viewed a poster of the historic document.   After adopting it on December 10, 1948, the UN General Assembly had called upon all Member States to publicize the text of the Declaration and "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories."  (UN Photo)

RE: Maryland bills would stifle academic freedom [Commentary] by The proposed legislation is intended to enhance the free exchange of ideas but would instead squelch it
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-academic-freedom-20140212,0,7489561.story#ixzz2t8ou7qA3

Dear Editor,

I totally agree with "question of how Americans should respond to the deteriorating situation in Israel and Palestine — what our government should do, what we as individuals can or should do — should be openly and freely debated"

Already social pressure tends to convince numerous concerned Americans to voluntarily refrain from criticizing Israel.  Some stay silent because they do not want to be falsely labeled anti-Semitic. Meanwhile many other people, including movie stars, who prefer to empower Israel and Israeli propaganda continue to be highly motivated to do so at every opportunity.

More than sixty years ago, back in 1949, the Application of Israel for admission to membership in the United Nations (A/818) clearly pointed out that Israel was directly contravening "the previous recommendations of the United Nations in at least three important respects: in its attitude on the problem of Arab refugees, on the delimitation of its territorial boundaries, and on the question of Jerusalem."
http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/85255e950050831085255e95004fa9c3/1db943e43c280a26052565fa004d8174?OpenDocument 

Since then things have only gone from bad to worse: Did you know that The number of Palestinian structures (including many Palestinian homes) demolished by the Israeli authorities in the Jordan Valley in 2013 more than doubled, from 192 in 2012 to 393 in 2013... Adding in American legislation to penalize the few American scholars and students who are willing to publicly discuss the very real suffering and plight of the Palestinians gives sovereign Israel even more power to oppress, persecute, disenfranchise and displace the native non-Jewish population of historic Palestine. 

Islamists thrive on the continuation of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and so does anti-American hate mongering and many misinformation campaigns. It is in our best interests as a nation, and as conscientious compassionate global citizens, to seek the full and total truth about Israel & Palestine- and to do all we can to support an actual end to the Israel-Palestine conflict with a just and lasting peace shaped by a fully secular two state solution that FULLY respects international law and The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES
Reflections By An ARAB JEW by Ella Habiba Shohat " When my grandmother first encountered Israeli society in the '50s, she was convinced that the people who looked, spoke and ate so differently--the European Jews--were actually European Christians. Jewishness for her generation was inextricably associated with Middle Easterness. My grandmother, who still lives in Israel and still communicates largely in Arabic, had to be taught to speak of "us" as Jews and "them" as Arabs. For Middle Easterners, the operating distinction had always been "Muslim," "Jew," and "Christian," not Arab versus Jew. The assumption was that "Arabness" referred to a common shared culture and language, albeit with religious differences."

UNITED NATIONS: Give Peace a Chance... The year 2014 has been proclaimed the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People... “The objective of the  International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is to promote solidarity with the Palestinian people as a central theme, contributing to international awareness of (a) core themes regarding the question of Palestine, as prioritized by the Committee, (b) obstacles to the ongoing peace process, particularly those requiring urgent action such as settlements, Jerusalem, the blockade of Gaza and the humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territory and; (c) mobilization of global action towards the achievement of a comprehensive, just and lasting solution of the question of Palestine in accordance with international law and the relevant resolutions of the United Nations.”


History of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948, was the result of the experience of the Second World War. With the end of that war, and the creation of the United Nations, the international community vowed never again to allow atrocities like those of that conflict happen again. World leaders decided to complement the UN Charter with a road map to guarantee the rights of every individual everywhere. The document they considered, and which would later become the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was taken up at the first session of the General Assembly in 1946. " http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/history.shtml

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

Dr. Zogby: This Time Must Be Different

Jordan's King urges Arab, Islamic organisations to serve nation’s causes in US... peace efforts should lead to the two-state solution based on international resolutions and the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which, he said, was a historical turning point.

Ziad Asali : The Road to the Arab Civil State

Children of the occupation: growing up in Palestine

ISRAELI DEMOLITIONS OF PALESTINIAN PROPERTY IN THE JORDAN VALLEY, 2013... UNITED NATIONS OCHA MAP


Free to Fund Palestine ... a Growing Gardens for Palestine poem by Anne Selden Annab


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
The Office of International Religious Freedom
( http://www.state.gov/j/drl/irf/ )

Refugees and the Right of Return

We call for a just solution to our refugee issue in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194. Our position on refugees is also included and supported in the Arab Peace Initiative (API), which calls for “a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.” A just solution to the refugee issue must address two aspects: the right of return and reparations.


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.

John Kerry defends US foreign policy “The reason we’re so devoted to finding a solution is simple: Because the benefits of success and the dangers of failure are enormous for the United States, for the world, for the region and, most importantly of all, for the Israeli and Palestinian people,” US secretary of state John Kerry at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

EU warns Israel, Palestinians of the cost of peace failure

Analysis: Why Palestinian leadership is right to engage in peace talks

Ziad Asali of ATFP: Why Palestinians are puzzled by the 'Jewish state' demand... Netanyahu's demand for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state bizarrely inserts Palestinians into the 'Who is a Jew' debate


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

 Live by the Golden Rule

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

My letter to the NYTimes RE Closing In on Basic Mideast Principles editorial & The B.D.S. Threat By Roger Cohen & Israel’s Big Question by Thomas L. Friedman

The Palestinian Village of Ein Kerem near Al Quds (Jerusalem) Circa 1944...This village was ethnically cleansed of its indigenous native Palestinian Arabs in 1948... photo from facebook wall of Mike Hanini Odetalla 
RE: Closing In on Basic Mideast Principles editorial & The B.D.S. Threat By Roger Cohen & Israel’s Big Question by Thomas L. Friedman
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/10/opinion/closing-in-on-basic-mideast-principles.html?ref=international
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/opinion/cohen-the-bds-threat.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/opinion/friedman-israels-big-question.html?ref=international

Dear Editor,

Are details regarding current negotiations to end the Israel-Palestine conflict leaking out, or are some people generating calculated guesses aimed at  influencing public opinion, as well as the talks themselves... Both Thomas L. Friedman and Roger Cohen use the podium of your pages to argue for an Israel obsessed about Jewishness. I think that is an imprisoning past that we Americans would be wise not to perpetuate: Tax payers should not be funding religious scholars and schemes and violations of international law as well as the insidious institutionalized bigotry and injustice necessary to sustain Israel's ongoing quest to be exclusively Jewish.

A fully secular two state solution to end the Israel-Palestine conflict is the best way forward.  In 1948 United Nations Mediator Count Folke Bernadotte wisely pointed out that "It would be an offence against the principles of justice if those innocent victims [Palestine refugees] could not return to their homes while [Jewish] immigrants flowed into Palestine to take their place." ( http://unispal.un.org/pdfs/AC1SR207.pdf  page 4, halfway down )


In 1949, the Application of Israel for admission to membership in the United Nations (A/818) clearly states "The State of Israel, in its present form, directly contravened the previous recommendations of the United Nations in at least three important respects: in its attitude on the problem of Arab refugees, on the delimitation of its territorial boundaries, and on the question of Jerusalem.

The United Nations had certainly not intended that the Jewish State should rid itself of its Arab citizens. On the contrary, section C of part I of the Assembly's 1947 resolution had explicitly provided guarantees of minority rights in each of the two States. For example, it had prohibited the expropriation of land owned by an Arab in the Jewish State except for public purposes, and then only upon payment of full compensation. Yet the fact was that 90 per cent of the Arab population of Israel had been driven outside its boundaries by military operations, had been forced to seek refuge in neighbouring Arab territories, had been reduced to misery and destitution, and had been prevented by Israel from returning to their homes. Their homes and property had been seized and were being used by thousands of European Jewish immigrants."
http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/85255e950050831085255e95004fa9c3/1db943e43c280a26052565fa004d8174?OpenDocument


Zionists then and Zionists now want the world to believe that Israel's "Jewishness" is more important than respecting property rights as well as universal basic human rights including but not limited to the Palestinian refugees right to return... keep in mind the fact that The United Nations had certainly not intended that the Jewish State should rid itself of its Arab citizens.

This week while Friedman & Cohen were essentially
asking Americans to be obsessed about keeping Israel "Jewish", Israeli Jews referred to as "settlers" (as if Palestine is the Wild West in the olden days, long before international law ) attacked Palestinian orchards  cutting down 150 olive trees in the Bethlehem-area village of al-Khader . Also this week Israeli forces destroyed the only water pipe serving a Palestinian community in the Jordan Valley and please note The number of Palestinian structures demolished by the Israeli authorities in the Jordan Valley in 2013 more than doubled, from 192 in 2012 to 393 in 2013.

Islamists are thriving on the continuation of the Israel-Palestine conflict. These are increasingly dangerous times for everyone in the region. Negotiations to end the Israel-Palestine conflict need to be the path to a just and lasting peace with the rule of fair and just laws galvanizing security and compassion for all human beings regardless of supposed religion- not a perpetuation of the cruelty, crimes and craziness created by the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES

Dr. Zogby: This Time Must Be Different

Jordan's King urges Arab, Islamic organisations to serve nation’s causes in US... peace efforts should lead to the two-state solution based on international resolutions and the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which, he said, was a historical turning point.

Reflections By An ARAB JEW by Ella Habiba Shohat " When my grandmother first encountered Israeli society in the '50s, she was convinced that the people who looked, spoke and ate so differently--the European Jews--were actually European Christians. Jewishness for her generation was inextricably associated with Middle Easterness. My grandmother, who still lives in Israel and still communicates largely in Arabic, had to be taught to speak of "us" as Jews and "them" as Arabs. For Middle Easterners, the operating distinction had always been "Muslim," "Jew," and "Christian," not Arab versus Jew. The assumption was that "Arabness" referred to a common shared culture and language, albeit with religious differences."

Ziad Asali : The Road to the Arab Civil State

Children of the occupation: growing up in Palestine

ISRAELI DEMOLITIONS OF PALESTINIAN PROPERTY IN THE JORDAN VALLEY, 2013... UNITED NATIONS OCHA MAP


Free to Fund Palestine ... a Growing Gardens for Palestine poem by Anne Selden Annab


UNITED NATIONS: Give Peace a Chance... The year 2014 has been proclaimed the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People



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
The Office of International Religious Freedom
( http://www.state.gov/j/drl/irf/ )

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

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

Refugees and the Right of Return
We call for a just solution to our refugee issue in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194. Our position on refugees is also included and supported in the Arab Peace Initiative (API), which calls for “a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.” A just solution to the refugee issue must address two aspects: the right of return and reparations.


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.

John Kerry defends US foreign policy “The reason we’re so devoted to finding a solution is simple: Because the benefits of success and the dangers of failure are enormous for the United States, for the world, for the region and, most importantly of all, for the Israeli and Palestinian people,” US secretary of state John Kerry at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

EU warns Israel, Palestinians of the cost of peace failure

Analysis: Why Palestinian leadership is right to engage in peace talks

Ziad Asali of ATFP: Why Palestinians are puzzled by the 'Jewish state' demand... Netanyahu's demand for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state bizarrely inserts Palestinians into the 'Who is a Jew' debate


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

 Live by the Golden Rule

Dr. Zogby: This Time Must Be Different

 20 Years After Oslo Paperback. Analysis of Israeli and Palestinian public opinion polls since the Oslo Peace Accords 20 years ago... Arab American Institute

[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.aaiusa.org/dr-zogby/entry/this-time-must-be-different/

Dr. Zogby

This Time Must Be Different

Monday February 03, 2014

Two decades after Israeli and Palestinian leaders signed an interim peace agreement in Washington, DC, the task of achieving a final resolution to the conflict has become significantly more difficult. Not only have the physical impediments to peace grown--  for example, the number of Israeli settlers living on occupied Palestinian lands has increased three-fold to more than a half-million-- but the political ground today is less fertile than it was back then.

In 1993, surprised by their leaders' bold initiative, Israelis and Palestinians were quite hopeful. Twenty years later, the environment has become toxic, polluted by the ill-will generated by the negative behaviors of both parties. 

This reality must be factored into the calculus of peace-making. What will be important to consider is not just the terms of the "deal" reached by the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, but their ability to "sell it" to their wary publics-- many of whom are distrustful of the "other side," no longer believing that peace is even possible.  

In my recently published book, 20 Years After Oslo, I review Israeli and Palestinian attitudes in the two decades that have elapsed since their leaders signed the Oslo Accords. The book lays out a twenty-year timeline and then traces how events that occurred during this period and the actions of both sides contributed to the erosion of both publics' support for peace.

Following up on that study, this week, I released the results of the latest Zogby Research Services (ZRS) polling of Israeli and Palestinian attitudes. What this newest poll demonstrates is the degree to which negative attitudes now prevail in both communities-- establishing how significant the loss of hope and trust has become.

Commissioned by the Sir Bani Yas Forum in the UAE, ZRS polled 1,000 Israelis and 1,000 Palestinians in late 2013. While we found areas where the sides disagreed, we also observed substantial areas of agreement-- almost always in their shared negative assessment of the prospects for peace.

For example, while majorities on both sides say they had been hopeful when the Accords were signed, today less than one in five Israelis and Palestinians say they view Oslo as a "positive development". Similarly, while a majority of Israelis and a plurality of Palestinians agree that a two-state solution is a desirable outcome, only one-third on each side believes that such an outcome is still feasible.

When asked what has accounted for this loss of hope, both Israelis and Palestinians demonstrated a remarkable shared understanding of the negative role played by their own and the "other side's" violence and the use of force in poisoning the environment. This may be one of the most positive signs emerging from the results of this poll. Both parties, for example, agreed that the following events or behaviors contributed to eroding their confidence in the prospects for peace: suicide bombings, rocket fire from Gaza, the second Intifada, the election of Hamas, continued settlement construction, Israel’s re-occupation of the West Bank, the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, and Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of Palestinians in Hebron. Israelis and Palestinians also agreed that Israel and the United States did not do enough and should have done more to make the Oslo process work.

From the results of this poll, it is clear that the past 20 years have taken a toll on both Palestinians and Israelis. The leaders engaged in the current round of peace talks, therefore, must not only wrestle with the issues of maps, rights, and each other's security concerns, they also face an additional challenge. They must produce an agreement that will be accepted by their publics, and they must be able to convince their constituents that this effort will be different than what both sides now view as the failed Oslo process.

What is clear from both this ZRS poll and the review of the last 20 years of Israeli and Palestinian opinion is that neither side can do this alone. If peace is to have a chance, external players (involving more than the United States) have a critical role to play - as guarantors, as “incentivisors”, and as arbiters. The time to begin that intervention is now-- to help prepare the ground. Waiting until the negotiations run their course or a US framework agreement is announced will be too late. 

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Jordan's King urges Arab, Islamic organisations to serve nation’s causes in US... peace efforts should lead to the two-state solution based on international resolutions and the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which, he said, was a historical turning point.

[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]
His Majesty King Abdullah is greeted by leaders of Arab and Islamic organisations in the US ahead of a meeting in Washington on Monday (Photo courtesy of Royal Court)
http://jordantimes.com/king-urges-arab-islamic-organisations-to-serve-nations-causes-in-us

AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah on Monday met with a number of Arab and Islamic organisation leaders in the US.

Discussions focused on regional developments and the role these entities play in serving Arab and Muslim causes in US decision-making circles.

The King stressed that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the core issue in the Middle East, adding that arriving at a just and comprehensive solution to this decades-old conflict requires support from the international community, including Arab and Islamic organisations operating in the US, according to a Royal Court statement.

He added that peace efforts should lead to the two-state solution based on international resolutions and the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which, he said, was a historical turning point.

The solution should lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital and that lives side-by-side with Israel.

The Monarch said Jordan places final status issues related to the Middle East conflict at the top of its higher national interests, noting that the Kingdom continues to support Palestinians’ rights, especially in establishing their state on their own national soil.

King Abdullah warned against Israeli unilateral measures, particularly settlement expansion and attempts to undermine the Arab, Muslim and Christian identity of Jerusalem, which, he said, increases tension and instability and affects peace chances.

He underlined the significant role the Arab and Islamic organisations play in supporting US endeavours to push forward the peace process.

Discussions also covered efforts to reach a political solution to the Syrian crisis, safeguarding the country’s unity and bringing an end to the suffering of its people, and limiting the number of refugees in neighbouring countries, especially Jordan, whose limited resources are under tremendous pressure due to hosting a great number of Syrians.

The King warned of attempts to turn the Syrian conflict into a sectarian one, citing its dangerous effects on the entire region.

His Majesty highlighted a conference that Jordan recently hosted, where leading Muslim scholars examined ways to promote tolerance among the followers of various sects.

The Kingdom also hosted another conference, where discussions focused on the challenges facing Arab Christians, with participants stressing the need to respect all opinions and promote interfaith tolerance.

His Majesty stressed the important role that Arab and Muslim leaders can play in presenting to US decision makers issues facing the Arab and Muslim worlds, adding that they can work to build bridges with the West.

Arab and Muslim communities in the US have had a positive part in building American society and entrenching its values, the King said.

Also during the meeting, the Monarch highlighted the Kingdom’s achievements in its comprehensive reform drive, which is aimed at meeting present and future aspirations of all Jordanians ...READ MORE

Reflections By An ARAB JEW by Ella Habiba Shohat

[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]

Ella Habiba Shohat is Professor of Cultural Studies and Women's Studies at CUNY. A writer, orator and activist, she is the author of Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation (Univ. of Texas Press, 1989) and the co-author (with Robert Stam) of Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media (Routledge 1994). Shohat co-edited Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation and Postcolonial Reflections (University of Minnesota Press, 1997) and is the editor of Talking Visions: Multicultural Feminism in a Transnational Age, (MIT Press/The New Museum, 2000). She writes often for such journals as Social Text and the Journal for Palestine Studies.

Reflections By An

ARAB JEW

by Ella Habiba Shohat

Irvi Nasawi: Sephardic & Middle Eastern Cultures

  When issues of racial and colonial discourse are discussed in the U.S., people of Middle Eastern and North African origin are often excluded. This piece is written with the intent of opening up the multicultural debate, going beyond the U.S. census's simplistic categorization of Middle Eastern peoples as "whites."

It's also written with the intent of multiculturalizing American notions of Jewishness. My personal narrative questions the Eurocentric opposition of Arab and Jew, particularly the denial of Arab Jewish (Sephardic) voices both in the Middle Eastern and American contexts.

      I am an Arab Jew. Or, more specifically, an Iraqi Israeli woman living, writing and teaching in the U.S. Most members of my family were born and raised in Baghdad, and now live in Iraq, Israel, the U.S., England, and Holland. When my grandmother first encountered Israeli society in the '50s, she was convinced that the people who looked, spoke and ate so differently--the European Jews--were actually European Christians. Jewishness for her generation was inextricably associated with Middle Easterness. My grandmother, who still lives in Israel and still communicates largely in Arabic, had to be taught to speak of "us" as Jews and "them" as Arabs. For Middle Easterners, the operating distinction had always been "Muslim," "Jew," and "Christian," not Arab versus Jew. The assumption was that "Arabness" referred to a common shared culture and language, albeit with religious differences.

Americans are often amazed to discover the existentially nauseating or charmingly exotic possibilities of such a syncretic identity. I recall a well-established colleague who despite my elaborate lessons on the history of Arab Jews, still had trouble understanding that I was not a tragic anomaly--for instance, the daughter of an Arab (Palestinian) and an Israeli (European Jew). Living in North America makes it even more difficult to communicate that we are Jews and yet entitled to our Middle Eastern difference. And that we are Arabs and yet entitled to our religious difference, like Arab Christians and Arab Muslims.

It was precisely the policing of cultural borders in Israel that led some of us to escape into the metropolises of syncretic identities. Yet, in an American context, we face again a hegemony that allows us to narrate a single Jewish memory, i.e., a European one. For those of us who don't hide our Middle Easterness under one Jewish "we," it becomes tougher and tougher to exist in an American context hostile to the very notion of Easterness.

As an Arab Jew, I am often obliged to explain the "mysteries" of this oxymoronic entity. That we have spoken Arabic, not Yiddish; that for millennia our cultural creativity, secular and religious, had been largely articulated in Arabic (Maimonides being one of the few intellectuals to "make it" into the consciousness of the West); and that even the most religious of our communities in the Middle East and North Africa never expressed themselves in Yiddish-accented Hebrew prayers, nor did they practice liturgical-gestural norms and sartorial codes favoring the dark colors of centuries-ago Poland. Middle Eastern women similarly never wore wigs; their hair covers, if worn, consisted of different variations on regional clothing (and in the wake of British and French imperialism, many wore Western-style clothes). If you go to our synagogues, even in New York, Montreal, Paris or London, you'll be amazed to hear the winding quarter tones of our music which the uninitiated might imagine to be coming from a mosque.

Now that the three cultural topographies that compose my ruptured and dislocated history--Iraq, Israel and the U.S.--have been involved in a war, it is crucial to say that we exist. Some of us refuse to dissolve so as to facilitate "neat" national and ethnic divisions. My anxiety and pain during the Scud attacks on Israel, where some of my family lives, did not cancel out my fear and anguish for the victims of the bombardment of Iraq, where I also have relatives.

War, however, is the friend of binarisms, leaving little place for complex identities. The Gulf War, for example, intensified a pressure already familiar to the Arab Jewish diaspora in the wake of the Israeli-Arab conflict: a pressure to choose between being a Jew and being an Arab. For our families, who have lived in Mesopotamia since at least the Babylonian exile, who have been Arabized for millennia, and who were abruptly dislodged to Israel 45 years ago, to be suddenly forced to assume a homogenous European Jewish identity based on experiences in Russia, Poland and Germany, was an exercise in self devastation. To be a European or American Jew has hardly been perceived as a contradiction, but to be an Arab Jew has been seen as a kind of logical paradox, even an ontological subversion. This binarism has led many Oriental Jews (our name in Israel referring to our common Asian and African countries of origin is Mizrahi or Mizrachi) to a profound and visceral schizophrenia, since for the first time in our history Arabness and Jewishness have been imposed as antonyms.

Intellectual discourse in the West highlights a Judeo-Christian tradition, yet rarely acknowledges the Judeo-Muslim culture of the Middle East, of North Africa, or of pre-Expulsion Spain (1492) and of the European parts of the Ottoman Empire. The Jewish experience in the Muslim world has often been portrayed as an unending nightmare of oppression and humiliation.

Although I in no way want to idealize that experience--there were occasional tensions, discriminations, even violence--on the whole, we lived quite comfortably within Muslim societies.

Our history simply cannot be discussed in European Jewish terminology. As Iraqi Jews, while retaining a communal identity, we were generally well integrated and indigenous to the country, forming an inseparable part of its social and cultural life. Thoroughly Arabized, we used Arabic even in hymns and religious ceremonies. The liberal and secular trends of the 20th century engendered an even stronger association of Iraqi Jews and Arab culture, which brought Jews into an extremely active arena in public and cultural life. Prominent Jewish writers, poets and scholars played a vital role in Arab culture, distinguishing themselves in Arabic speaking theater, in music, as singers, composers, and players of traditional instruments.

In Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Tunisia, Jews became members of legislatures, of municipal councils, of the judiciary, and even occupied high economic positions. (The finance minister of Iraq in the '40s was Ishak Sasson, and in Egypt, Jamas Sanua--higher positions, ironically, than those our community had generally achieved within the Jewish state until the 1990s!)

The same historical process that dispossessed Palestinians of their property, lands and national-political rights, was linked to the dispossession of Middle Eastern and North African Jews of their property, lands, and rootedness in Muslim countries. As refugees, or mass immigrants (depending on one's political perspective), we were forced to leave everything behind and give up our Iraqi passports. The same process also affected our uprootedness or ambiguous positioning within Israel itself, where we have been systematically discriminated against by institutions that deployed their energies and material to the consistent advantage of European Jews and to the consistent disadvantage of Oriental Jews. Even our physiognomies betray us, leading to internalized colonialism or physical misperception. Sephardic Oriental women often dye their dark hair blond, while the men have more than once been arrested or beaten when mistaken for Palestinians. What for Ashkenazi immigrants from Russian and Poland was a social aliya (literally "ascent") was for Oriental Sephardic Jews a yerida ("descent").

Stripped of our history, we have been forced by our no-exit situation to repress our collective nostalgia, at least within the public sphere. The pervasive notion of "one people" reunited in their ancient homeland actively disauthorizes any affectionate memory of life before Israel. We have never been allowed to mourn a trauma that the images of Iraq's destruction only intensified and crystallized for some of us. Our cultural creativity in Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic is hardly studied in Israeli schools, and it is becoming difficult to convince our children that we actually did exist there, and that some of us are still there in Iraq, Morocco, Yemen and Iran. 


Western media much prefer the spectacle of the triumphant progress of Western technology to the survival of the peoples and cultures of the Middle East. The case of Arab Jews is just one of many elisions. From the outside, there is little sense of our community, and even less sense of the diversity of our political perspectives. Oriental-Sephardic peace movements, from the Black Panthers of the '70s to the new Keshet (a "Rainbow" coalition of Mizrahi groups in Israel) not only call for a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians, but also for the cultural, political, and economic integration of Israel/Palestine into the Middle East. And thus an end to the binarisms of war, an end to a simplistic charting of Middle Eastern identities.

Monday, February 10, 2014

My letter to the NYTimes RE Whose Garbage Is This Anyway? by Thomas L. Friedman

Friends of Earth ME: Bringing together Jordanian, Palestinian, and Israeli environmentalists.

Website
RE Whose Garbage Is This Anyway? by Thomas L. Friedman
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/friedman-whose-garbage-is-this-anyway.html?ref=international
NOTES
Children of the occupation: growing up in Palestine

Israel demolished 27 Palestinian homes in Palestine's Jordan Valley in January... leaving 147 people homeless

ISRAELI DEMOLITIONS OF PALESTINIAN PROPERTY IN THE JORDAN VALLEY, 2013... UNITED NATIONS OCHA MAP


Free to Fund Palestine ... a Growing Gardens for Palestine poem by Anne Selden Annab


UNITED NATIONS: Give Peace a Chance... The year 2014 has been proclaimed the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People


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
The Office of International Religious Freedom
( http://www.state.gov/j/drl/irf/ )

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

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

Refugees and the Right of Return
We call for a just solution to our refugee issue in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194. Our position on refugees is also included and supported in the Arab Peace Initiative (API), which calls for “a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.” A just solution to the refugee issue must address two aspects: the right of return and reparations.


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.

John Kerry defends US foreign policy “The reason we’re so devoted to finding a solution is simple: Because the benefits of success and the dangers of failure are enormous for the United States, for the world, for the region and, most importantly of all, for the Israeli and Palestinian people,” US secretary of state John Kerry at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

EU warns Israel, Palestinians of the cost of peace failure

Analysis: Why Palestinian leadership is right to engage in peace talks

Ziad Asali of ATFP: Why Palestinians are puzzled by the 'Jewish state' demand... Netanyahu's demand for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state bizarrely inserts Palestinians into the 'Who is a Jew' debate


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

 Live by the Golden Rule