"On the International Day for the Right to Truth about Human Rights Abuses, we honour victims and human rights defenders who break the silence and uncover the facts." Volker Türk, United Nations Human Rights

Volker Türk

@volker_turk

 

Knowing the truth about human rights violations is crucial to reconciliation and justice. On the International Day for the Right to Truth about Human Rights Abuses, we honour victims and human rights defenders who break the silence and uncover the facts.

 https://x.com/volker_turk/status/2036398864719057139/photo/1

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

Love to all, Ibtisam the Palestinian author

Ibtisam Barakat

Good Palestinian moment: 

 

I went to the local authors exhibit at the public library and had a great time. Many people stopped by and said that they are sorry for what is happening in Palestine. . . That means they see our humanity . . I wrote their names in Arabic calligraphy, sold books, gave out sweet grapes rather than candy to the children and many signed up for my Arabic language and culture class on Zoom. 

 

The best part is that I don't have to fake anything. 

 

For many, many years, I had to act like I am American and my people are not facing genocide. Nobody wanted to hear that or accept that. I had to carry a mountain on my back for years. 

 

Now, people know and say they are sorry. The mountain is on the ground. It's a mountain of pain, but I can look at it and walk around it and aim to climb it now rather than it crush my soul alone . . . Thank you everyone who thinks about the humanity of Palestine denied for so long . . 

 

Love to all,

Ibtisam the Palestinian author

Ibtisam Barakat, author of 

TASTING THE SKY, a Palestinian Childhood

& 

BALCONY ON THE MOON, Coming of Age in Palestine. 

 

2010 photo: Helen Thoman, Anan Ameri, AANM director, and author Ibtisam Barakat at the AANM national book award ceremony. Ibtisam served as a judge for the fiction category, 2010. Helen's sculpture was unveiled at the event. She was funny and sad about that controversial comment that ended her career.. Sam Donaldson from ABC introduced Helen's speech. Two huge journalism icons. Washington, DC.  GALLERY   http://www.ibtisambarakat.com/ 

Prize Winning Palestinian Teacher Returning To A Hero's Welcome In The West Bank Says "It's Time For All Kinds Of Violence To Stop."

Palestinian teacher Hanan al-Hroub, left is kissed by her father Hamed Obeidallah during a welcome ceremony upon her arrival back home, in the West Bank city Jericho, Wednesday, March 16, 2016. Officials, family members and friends celebrated the teacher upon her return to the country after attending the One Million Dollar Global Teacher Prize nnouncement ceremony at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai last Sunday, March 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Palestinian teacher Hanan al-Hroub, right, holds her One Million Dollar Global Teacher Prize at a welcome ceremony upon her return to the West Bank city Jericho, Wednesday, March 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Hanan al-Hroub, 43, a primary school teacher in el-Bireh near Ramallah, spoke to a jubilant crowd Wednesday as she crossed the Jordanian border into the West Bank.

Judges with the Varkey Foundation's Global Teacher Prize on Sunday recognized her work in teaching non-violence via her book "We Play and Learn.".... READ MORE

 Palestinian teacher Hanan al-Hroub, left, holds her trophy along with the Palestinian Education Minister Dr. Sabri Saidam during a welcome ceremony in the West Bank city Jericho, Wednesday, March 16, 2016. Officials, family members and friends celebrated the teacher upon her return to the country after attending the One Million Dollar Global Teacher Prize announcement ceremony at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai last Sunday, March 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Palestinian teacher Hanan al-Hroub, holds her trophy while attending a welcome ceremony upon her arrival back home, in the West Bank city Jericho, Wednesday, March 16, 2016. Officials, family members and friends celebrated the teacher upon her return to the country after attending the prize announcement ceremony at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai last Sunday, March 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-3495714/Palestinian-teacher-returns-home-winning-1M-prize.html#ixzz439cU9ggr 

 [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 (& America ...etc...)]

For My Identity, I Sing! Al Mada

For My Identity, I Sing!
Across Palestine, spring flowers are filling the landscape with their vibrant red, yellow and purple colors, welcoming in the new season and the transformative renewal that comes with it.
On Friday, April 18, 2014, in the National Theater of Palestine, East Jerusalem, a different type of blossoming took place as boys and girls aged 14 to 17 from East Jerusalem took to the stage for an hour-long public performance of original songs. This event was the first in a series of concerts for the Al-Mada project “For My Identity, I Sing!,” an 18-month long cultural and arts education initiative, that is being completed with funding from Welfare Association. This project gives Jerusalem area youth the chance to explore their identity and issues of importance through musical and artistic expression.

Al Mada

Our Vision

Al Mada believes in the dignity and worth of every individual and the communities we serve. Our vision is a Palestine where music and the arts are at the heart of a culturally vibrant and healthy community life. We work on the basis that everyone contributes towards making social changes and that the power of art can be used to achieve truly sustainable development if individuals are enabled to contribute to the shaping of their societies.  Communication, integrity, innovation, respect and diversity are the core values, which inform every aspect of our work.

Our Mission

Specializing in music, art and music therapy, Al Mada Association for Arts based development affirms the importance of the arts in promoting individual and collective wellbeing. Bringing musical and art therapies to advance self expression, inclusion, therapy, social justice and advocacy is at the core of its inception and the focus which drives the organization to work with Palestine’s most vulnerable communities. Al Mada’s art therapists do direct interventions with a number of vulnerable groups; train teachers, community and health workers, so all programs are sustainable and work with care givers who receive no counseling themselves. Through partnerships with the Palestinian Authority institutions, international, local and civil society organizations, Al Mada is able to pool resources and extend program reach in areas including gender, education, culture, poverty reduction and mental health.

Across Palestine, spring flowers are filling the landscape with their vibrant red, yellow and purple colors, welcoming in the new season and the transformative renewal that comes with it.

On Friday, April 18, 2014, in the National Theater of Palestine, East Jerusalem, a different type of blossoming took place as boys and girls aged 14 to 17 from East Jerusalem took to the stage for an hour-long public performance of original songs. This event was the first in a series of concerts for the Al-Mada project “For My Identity, I Sing!,” an 18-month long cultural and arts education initiative, that is being completed with funding from Welfare Association. This project gives Jerusalem area youth the chance to explore their identity and issues of importance through musical and artistic expression.

 ***

In 2012, John came to Palestine with Remember Shakti for the first solidarity concert by major international artists. In 2010, John donated his entire cash prize award from the Jazzahead Festival in Germany to support Al-Mada’s music therapy center in Ramallah, the first of its kind in Palestine.

A letter from John McLaughlin 

Dear Friends: I would like to make a short statement.

I will be making a second solidarity concert in Ramallah soon, and I’ve been asked a number of times why I do this. 

It is my personal conviction that the Palestinian people need much more international support. 

The situation has been bad for many people in Palestine for too long, and it is not getting any better, to the contrary, it keeps getting worse. 

My wife and I have been working alongside a very dedicated Arts-Based Community Development NGO in Ramallah known as Al Mada. 

There is a simple reason for our desire to support our friends in Al Mada, it is because they are helping to cure traumatized children and adults through the use of music and music therapy. 

We feel that in a world full, of conflict, this is the right cause. 

Al Mada’s work is non-political and so is our support for them. 

They work with  justice, equality and dignity in mind, and so do we. 

It is our personal responsibility to show support and encouragement to the people who every day are helping children and adults to conquer their trauma, and give them another opportunity to live more free and creative lives.

Our Approach

We seek to bring a sense of joy and relief from what is often a very stressful life in Palestine. Through our programs, we are able to help individuals to connect both with themselves and with others in their immediate community.

Community development requires a collaborative, holistic approach. We support change that comes from within communities, through their own members, resources, capacities and diversities and believe that individuals and groups can be empowered to be thriving community members through artistic creative processes. The arts provide a space and a platform where individuals can express, create and heal and are a powerful tool to advocate for concerns and rights, thus advocacy represents another important component of our work.

Our objectives

• To introduce the arts as a developmental tool with considerable potential to empower individuals.
• To strengthen the role of the arts in Palestinian society at a time when the arts are overlooked and underfunded.
• To introduce and develop a Palestinian specific approach to music and expressive art therapy.
• To establish that development should not be limited to infrastructure or economic growth and is not strictly measurable by the GDP of a country, but is more accurately reflected in terms of quality of life.
• To provide a non-threatening platform through which to advocate for causes which impact Palestinian society as a whole.
• To compliment and support the work of the public sector which delivers critical services under challenging conditions.

A hands-on approach is emphasized during training, as participants are introduced to theory and different concepts, while going through a process of practical exercises and “living the experience”. In addition, trainees have the opportunity to put into practice the acquired tools and knowledge by working in communities at the grassroots level before their training ends.

 In 2013, Al Mada developed and completed an arts-based child protection and educational project with generous support from the Qattan Foundation and in partnership with UNICEF. This innovative project resulted with the production of our first CD for children called I Love Life.

This family-friendly CD introduces pre-school and primary school children to new educational concepts in a stimulating and thought-provoking way through 8 original songs. The album’s songs were composed by the Palestinian musician and composer Odeh Turjman, the founder and artistic director of Al-Mada, and the lyrics were written by Khaled Juma’, a Palestinian poet from Gaza who has written lyrics for numerous songs for children and adults. The songs are about children’s rights and touch on the themes of equality, the right to life, protection from child labor, and safety from conflict.

The album was recorded and edited in Al-Mada’s state-of-the-art recording studio by a team of professional musicians and technicians and a group of eight Palestinian children aged 8-12.  2000 copies of the CD were printed and 1000 of them were distributed to kindergartens and schools across the occupied Palestinian Territories in partnership with the Ministry of Education, UNRWA and ANERA. Our goal is to increase the number of children who have access to this CD in Palestine and to make it available regionally and in the diaspora, as well.

The idea for I Love Life came from the shortage of local/Palestinian musical resources that are directed at children. Educators, especially, lack creative and educational supplies and have been forced to rely on outdated materials and to use educational resources from countries that have little cultural relevance to children living in Palestinian society.

Al-Mada believes that art and creativity are essential to healthy child development and committed to strengthen the role of music in the educational process for Palestinian children.

We are thrilled to have created a culturally- and linguistically- sensitive product that is specific to the Palestinian context, while also spreading awareness about universal topics, such as human rights, peace, the environment and respect for oneself and community.  Even adults highly enjoy this unique CD and we hope you will, too!
Contact Al-Mada to purchase a copy of I Love Life

Al-Mada: The power of music is universal, eliminating barriers. It reaches us, no matter who or where we are. Whether it makes us dance or sing along, or evokes tears or laughter, music always touches us in ways nothing else can.

ATFP Peace Building ... civic muscle

ATFP Ending the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Youth Factor: The Missing Element in the Middle East Peace Process
April 1, 2014

Ironically, the major problem facing us now is not the novelty, but the staleness, of the idea of peace between Israel and Palestine. We need to treat peace as an idea that is still fresh, or at least that can be refreshed.

Surrounded by fanatics
April 1, 2014

Words matter. Sensible people know that. But fanatics know it too. Those who strive for peace between Israel and the Palestinians are keenly aware of their encirclement by radical propaganda. This has been true for decades, but the intensity of mania on the fringes isn't abating.

*** 

Stream ATFP's Middle East News: World Press Round up and stay up to date with the latest news concerning the Isareli-Palestinian issue.

 

World Press Round Up

A tiny fringe group of radical Israeli settlers, mostly teenagers and young men, have been carrying out acts of vandalism in recent years to protest what they perceive as the Israeli government's pro-Palestinian policies and in retaliation for Palestinian attacks.

People walk past Hebrew graffiti that reads, "America equals Nazi Germany," at the Deir Rafat convent, central Israel, Tuesday, April 1, 2014. Israeli police say vandals have scrawled hate graffiti on a Catholic monastery in central Israel and slashed the tires of nearby cars. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

ATFP Pres. Ziad Asali’s Statement at the UN Conference on the Question of Palestine in Ecuador March 26, 2014 "...encouraging in word and deed the parties to do what they need to in order to make serious progress towards a peace agreement."

ATFP Gala 2013

 American Task Force on Palestine... A Decade of Achievement: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About ATFP

 ATFP is a vehicle and asset for those Palestinian and Arab Americans who wish to make use of it. And it can serve as an exemplar for those who want to emulate or elaborate on its approach through organizations or initiatives of their own. Others who chose a different path should make use of the openness of the American political system to advance their own agendas. The single greatest asset belonging to the Palestinian- and Arab-American communities is our citizenship in by far the most powerful country in the world, which is also a free society that imposes no structural, legal or practical barriers to our own participation as fully engaged Americans. Anyone can assert their rights to full, equal American citizenship and help to define and implement our core, indispensable national interests, which include Middle East peace based on the creation of a Palestinian state.

ATFP on facebook

 Arab-Americans must embrace success over victimhood

Commissars of Arab-American political correctness want the community powerless 

 

IBISH: ‘Tough love’ can keep Israel and the Palestinians honest

Israel is used to indulgence from the West, but it’s beginning to experience unexpected and uncomfortable forms of pressure. The Palestinians are used to being pressured by the West regarding Israel, but not on internal governance. It’s high time for a period of “tough love” for both, and this seems to have begun. It’s in everyone’s interests.

Israel has been trying to get into the US visa waiver programme, meaning that citizens of Israel wouldn’t need a visa to enter the United States. But US law requires that American citizens must receive the same treatment. And it’s been clear for decades that Israel discriminates against Palestinian and other Arab Americans.

This was acknowledged by the state department last week when spokeswoman Jen Psaki noted: “The department of homeland security and state remain concerned with the unequal treatment that Palestinian Americans and other Americans of Middle Eastern origin experience at Israel’s border and checkpoints, and reciprocity is the most basic condition of the visa waiver programme.”

In other words, the Obama administration is not going to make Israel an exception in allowing it to discriminate against American citizens on the basis of their ethnicity, religion or national origin.

There has been a recent spike in the number of rejections of Israeli visa applications. In the House of Representatives, a bill that effectively exempted Israel from the reciprocity clause languished. Instead, in January, the committee on foreign affairs adopted the “US-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013”, which requires Israel to “satisfy” and “continue to satisfy” section 217 of the Immigration and Nationality Act for inclusion in the visa waiver programme. This requires “reciprocal privileges” for Americans.

The position of the state department and department of homeland security on Israel’s well-documented discrimination against Palestinians and other Arab Americans means it clearly wouldn’t qualify under the House bill.

Legislation pending in the Senate incoherently contains language that would both require Israel to comply with Section 217 and simultaneously be allotted a special dispensation to discriminate against Americans. Given the position of the House and the administration, it now seems almost certain that Israel’s efforts to get the United States to wink at its undeniable record and practice of discriminating against Palestinian and Arab Americans just isn’t going to happen.

The apparent collapse of efforts to include Israel in the US visa waiver programme is only the latest instance of what might be termed “tough love” coming from its western allies. This particular instance is pursuant to American anti-discrimination legislation and the rights of all Americans.

But many recent comments from both Barack Obama and John Kerry, the US secretary of state, have been much more blunt about the dangers facing Israel in the event of a collapse of peace talks with the Palestinians, and the limitations of what the US might be able, or implicitly interested, in doing to prevent the “international fallout.”

Among the key examples of this is an even “tougher” form of “love” coming from the European Union and individual European states, who are beginning to put substance into their long-standing policies objecting to Israel’s illegal settlement project.

They have already insisted that multilateral and public sector projects don’t include funding or support for any settlements. And Germany, Israel’s closest friend in Europe, is pushing to extend those restrictions to bilateral and private sector projects in any territories “not under Israel’s jurisdiction before June 1967”. If that happens, most other European countries will quickly follow suit.

For their own purposes, both the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) that seeks to target Israel as a whole rather than the occupation and settlements, and the Israeli government are trying to conflate the emerging European policy with BDS.

Benjamin Netanyahu spent a good deal of his recent speech at the American pro-Israel  organisation  AIPAC doing just that, with the overt purpose of making Europe’s actions seem anti-Israel, if not anti-Semitic. But in truth, the two are totally unconnected and pursuant to different goals.

Whatever BDS activists may imagine, European statesmen don’t read their blogs or Twitter feeds, and are not inspired by their rhetoric. The Europeans are pursuing the logic of their own policies and – since the United States does not appear to object to any of this – also potentially giving the Americans at least additional rhetorical leverage with Israel.

Europe’s policies aren’t anti- Israel. They are pro-peace and pursuant to international law. This is friends doing what friends should do: helping each other see what’s in their best interests and refusing to cooperate with self-destructive behaviour.

The Palestinians, too, require some “tough love.” The “love” they need is much greater aid and technical support from the West and the Arab world.

The “tough” part would be for the donor community to demand, as they can and should, that Palestinian advancements in recent years in good governance, transparency and security professionalism – many of which have frayed over the past 12 months – be at least restored to their former standards. The Palestinian people clearly want effective and accountable governance, and the donor community has unique leverage to help them ensure they get it.

The Palestinians and Israelis need their friends to help them achieve peace. But, like everyone, they also need their friends to help keep them honest. That’s what real friends do.

Hussein Ibish is a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, a columnist for Now Media and blogs at www.ibishblog.com. On Twitter: @ibishblog.

  ATFP ‏@ATFP 18h

ATFP FAQ #7: What does @ATFP stand for? http://www.americantaskforce.org/q_what_does_atfp_stand … #Palestine

ATFP's fundamental mission is to advocate that a conflict-ending solution that allows two states, Israel and Palestine, to live side-by-side in peace, security and dignity is in the American national interest. ATFP emphasizes its role as an American organization serving American interests first and foremost. ATFP sees those interests as directly and indispensably served by the creation of a Palestinian state in the territories occupied in 1967. It believes such an arrangement is the only potential conflict-ending solution and supports negotiations to achieve it. ATFP also seeks to bring Americans and Palestinians closer together at every level, and to mainstream Palestine, Palestinians, Palestinian Americans in the American policy and broader national conversations.

ATFP also stands for the continuous improvement of the Palestinian quality of life despite the political and diplomatic variables. ATFP strongly supports Palestinian economic development, institutional-building and reforms aimed at good governance, accountability, transparency and the rule of law. ATFP supports the creation of a state of Palestine that is democratic, pluralistic, tolerant and peaceful. ATFP believes that resolving the Palestinian issue is inextricably linked with developments in the Arab world and the broader Middle East. It also holds that American interests and values are complementary rather than contradictory in the Middle East, and especially with regard to Palestine.

Ziad Asali

@ZiadAsali

President and founder of American Task Force on Palestine. ____RTs are interesting!

Washington D.C. · americantaskforce.org