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| A 67-year-old Palestinian man in the Dehaishe refugee camp displays the original key and title deeds to the home his family were forced to abandon when they fled their village in the 1948 war in Israel |
RE Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/opinion/israels-nsa-scandal.html?ref=opinion
Dear Editor,
Modern technology, like religion, can be used for good or bad.
Thankfully we live in a country with a free press- a fourth estate
to help expose and thereby curb corruption and abuses of power.
Israel's political persecution of Palestinians is also religious
persecution as Jews-preferred Israel has been intentionally
impoverishing and displacing the native non-Jewish population of the
Holy land for more than sixty years:
Palestinian
Refugees
(1948-NOW) continue to be refused their right to return to
original homes and lands, and their right to live in peace free
from religious bigotry and injustice.
How much has Israel helped empower religious extremism and religious
strife so that moderate Arabs and Muslims (and Christians) can more
easily be sidelined and destroyed... How much worse has the
Israel-Palestine conflict become because Israel currently has the
motivation as well as the technological power to destroy
Palestinians and reasonable efforts to build a just and lasting
peace.
Ending the Israel-Palestine conflict ASAP with a fully secular two
state solution based on international law and full respect for
universal human rights would go a long way towards ending the very
real plight of the Palestinians, as well as stopping the scourge of
Islamist terrorists and criminals who are thriving on the
continuation of that conflict.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
NOTES
Arab states can't afford to be tepid in response to ISIL:
"While there are many other American perceptions, the New York
Times’ immediate response to the Jeddah Communique was a story
with the headline: Arabs Give Tepid Support to US Fight Against
ISIS." Hussein Ibish
Jordan
stands firm against radicalism, terrorism: "The unequivocal
support for the coalition of regional and international
countries willing to fight IS did not obliterate, however, an
issue that is often said to be the reason for many Middle
Eastern problems: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
To honor a tragic
history, we must work for peace : "The
only way to honor our tragic histories is to
create a future for our children free of
man-made tragedy. This means making peace fully,
completely and without reservation, between
Israel and Palestine." Ziad
Asali
Because
We Know How to Make Dreams Come True! This Week in Palestine
For
My Identity, I Sing! Al Mada
"The
chaplets of coins are thought by some to have inspired the halo
in sacred art."... Color photos of Palestine from the December
1926 issue of National Geographic magazine (Vol L, VI), "In the
Birthplace of Christianity,"
RECRUIT
... a poem
For
all its empty boasting, Hamas’s strategy of armed struggle has
once again been exposed as not merely a dead-end for securing
Palestinian rights, but a disaster.
US
urges Israel to reverse appropriation of land for West Bank
settlement: Israel has claimed almost 1,000 acres near
Bethlehem, in a move Palestinians say will only increase tension
The
Real Middle East Crisis Is Economic "While
Western observers focus on political issues in the Middle East,
people in the region are themselves preoccupied with economic
matters"
Vatican
Urges Muslim Leaders To Condemn The Islamic State Formerly
Known As ISIS
NYTimes:
Resisting Nazis, He Saw Need for Israel. Now He Is Its Critic.
Dean
Obeidallah in The Daily Beast: Searching for a Palestinian Dr.
King
There
Are Clues
Where
is the Palestinian Gandhi?
Zogby:
What we found was that
there has been a continued erosion in the favorable ratings
Americans have of both Arabs and Muslims, posing a threat to
the civil rights and political inclusion of both Arab
Americans and American Muslims.
"This
is a time of national crisis, I will be honest with you,
that does require commitment to non-violence of the kind
that would give everyone the time needed to rebuild, to
unify, but at the same time to agree with Israel and the
world on a date certain for ending the occupation."
Palestine's Salam Fayyad
ATFP Calls for
De-Escalation between Israel and the Palestinians
UPDATE: American Task Force on
Palestine Advocacy Efforts During the Ongoing Tragic
Hostilities : As tragic and
appalling hostilities erupted again between Israelis and
Palestinians, the American Task Force on Palestine (
ATFP) engaged
in intensive advocacy efforts to call for an immediate cease-fire to
save lives and spare the innocent. On July 8th, ATFP issued a formal
press release calling for de-escalation
between Israel and the Palestinians...
READ
MORE
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.
Side
by Side: Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine... "An
eye-opening—and inspiring—new approach to thinking about one of
the world’s most deeply entrenched conflicts"
