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Wednesday, October 21, 2015

My letter to LRB RE: Nathan Thrall's "The End of the Abbas Era"

"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..." READ MORE
RE Nathan Thrall's "The End of the Abbas Era"
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2015/10/20/nathan-thrall/the-end-of-the-abbas-era/

Dear Sir,

October 20th, 2015 United Nations Human Rights Council announces that the President of Palestine, Mr Mahmoud Abbas, will be addressing a special meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council on October 28, 2015 http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16621&LangID=E

The same day, October 20th, 2015, London Review of Books blog publishes Nathan Thrall's "The End of the Abbas Era" where Thrall deftly builds a detailed case to dismiss Palestine's Abbas... Thrall dwells on what he calls Abbas's failures, but Thrall fails to notice sovereign Israel's total failure to respect international law and the Palestinians' basic human rights, and the longest running refugee crisis in the world today: Israel clearly wants the land, but not the native non-Jewish people of that land. Israel determines citizen rights and freedoms by religion, and invests tax payers' money in subsidizing Jewish religious "scholars", Jewish settlers in the illegally occupied territories, and Jewish-only "neighborhoods", as well as "security measures" which usurp Palestinian land and resources.

What kind of world do you want to build from this day forward? One where religion and/or race determine who is free and able to find a good job and which schools, neighborhoods, and infrastructures get funds and support?

Or one where Golden Rule thinking empowers public and private support for respecting basic human rights and the rule of fair and just laws.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as Palestine's political survival is really what is at stake today- not Abbas.

The Palestinian refugee crisis created by Israel more than 60 years ago, and exasperated every day since as Jews-preferred Israel continues to push Palestinian men, women and children into poverty, despair and forced exile is a cruel situation that only gets worse as the Israel-Palestine conflict grinds on and on with endless negative ramifications.

Ending the Israel-Palestine conflict with two fully sovereign and fully secular states based on full respect for international law and human rights- and golden rule thinking- is the right thing to do.

Entertaining readers with distractions, and demonizing Palestinians individually or collectively, might help steer some away from noticing the big picture, but we need to see the big picture- for everyone's sake.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
American homemaker & Poet

NOTES
Tit-for-tat violence is ‘new normal’ in occupied territory..."The emerging “new normal” – characterised on the Palestinian side by spontaneous acts of violence mainly by youths, and on the Israeli side by settler vigilantes and trigger-happy soldiers – is yet another reminder that the status quo is neither manageable nor containable." Hussein Ibish


The ugly order of free-for-all killings in Israel-Palestine By Rami G. Khouri in the Jordan Times

Ex-U.N. Official John Dugard: Israel’s Crimes are "Infinitely Worse" Than in Apartheid South Africa

Sam Bahour: Palestinians must not fall into this trap, again!  "To cover up its crimes, Israel needs to feed all the western stereotypes of Palestinians as violent and subhuman rather than hungry for freedom and equal rights."

Artists got ‘Homeland is racist’ Arabic graffiti into the latest episode of ‘Homeland’


STAY CONNECTED... 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

Unclench your fist... Live by the Golden Rule...

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

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.

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