Christmas IS Palestine .... where it all began

One the most iconic images of the Holy Land is the fish and loaves mosaic in the Church of the Multiplication at Tabgha on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

One the most iconic images of the Holy Land is the fish and loaves mosaic in the Church of the Multiplication at Tabgha on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. It can serve as a reminder that Advent is the season of anticipating miracles. Miracles can come in many forms. This mosaic commemorates feeding thousands with very little and this Advent we may be praying for other miracles. Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus! 

 

“‘We only have five loaves and two fish’, the disciples said. ‘Bring them to me’, Jesus replied.’” Matthew 14:17-18   

St. George's College Jerusalem

Tolerance Is a Wasteland: Palestine and the Culture of Denial by Saree Makdisi author of Palestine Inside Out

"How denial sustains the liberal imagination of a progressive and democratic Israel.

The question that this book aims to answer might seem simple: how can a violent project of dispossession and discrimination be imagined, felt, and profoundly believed in as though it were the exact opposite––an embodiment of sustainability, multicultural tolerance, and democratic idealism? Despite well-documented evidence of racism and human rights abuse, Israel has long been embraced by the most liberal sectors of European and American society as a manifestation of the progressive values of tolerance, plurality, inclusivity, and democracy, and hence a project that can be passionately defended for its lofty ideals.

Tolerance Is a Wasteland argues that the key to this miraculous act of political alchemy is a very specific form of denial. Here the Palestinian presence in, and claim to, Palestine is not simply refused or covered up, but negated in such a way that the act of denial is itself denied. The effects of destruction and repression are reframed, inverted into affirmations of liberal virtues that can be passionately championed. In Tolerance Is a Wasteland, Saree Makdisi explores many such acts of affirmation and denial in a range of venues: from the haunted landscape of thickly planted forests covering the ruins of Palestinian villages forcibly depopulated in 1948; to the theater of "pinkwashing" as Israel presents itself to the world as a gay-friendly haven of cultural inclusion; to the so-called Museum of Tolerance being built on top of the ruins of a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem, which was methodically desecrated in order to clear the space for this monument to "human dignity." Tolerance Is a Wasteland reveals the system of emotional investments and curated perceptions that makes this massive project of cognitive dissonance possible."

AMAZON

Barnes & Noble  

Always, no matter what.... Even Wars Have Rules

Always, no matter what.

 

ICRC https://www.icrc.org/en

The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols are at the core of international humanitarian law, the body of international law that regulates the conduct of armed conflict and seeks to limit its effects. They specifically protect people who are not taking part in the hostilities, including civilians, health workers and aid workers, and those who are no longer participating, such as wounded, sick and shipwrecked soldiers and prisoners of war. The Conventions and their Protocols call for measures to be taken to prevent or put an end to all breaches. They contain stringent rules to deal with what are known as "grave breaches". Those who commit grave breaches must be pursued and tried or extradited, whatever their nationality. 

"If the U.S. had held Israel accountable for the killing of other Americans like Rachel Corrie or Shireen Abu Akleh, perhaps Israeli soldiers would not feel so emboldened to kill Americans, and other civilians, today." Hamad Ali in The Hill 12/14/24

American human rights activist, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, was shot in the head and killed by an Israeli soldier on Sept. 6, 2024, while she was peacefully standing under an olive tree in the occupied West Bank.

 There is a long history of Israeli soldiers unlawfully killing U.S. citizens with impunity, like the renowned Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh ...

Why isn’t Israel being held accountable for killing my wife and other innocents?

by Hamid Ali, opinion contributor  - 12/14/24

What do you do with the clothes your wife was wearing when she was killed, now stained with her blood? How do you preserve them as evidence for an investigation that may never happen? What else can you do when your government has given no indication that it will hold her killer — a soldier in the army of a close ally — accountable, despite three months of daily efforts to get basic answers?  

My wife, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, was shot in the head and killed by an Israeli soldier on Sept. 6, 2024, while peacefully standing under an olive tree in the occupied West Bank. Although the Biden administration has described her death as unprovoked and unjustified, it has yet to apply adequate pressure on Israel to seek justice for the killing of one of its citizens....  READ MORE   https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5039207-aisenur-ezgi-eygi-killed-israel/

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]