Photo by Palestinian Journalist Osama Abu Rabee أسامة أبوربيع : A rainbow this morning in Khan Yunis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Mar 1, 2025

Osama Abu Rabee أسامة أبوربيع

@dn_osama_rabee

A rainbow this morning in Khan Yunis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

United Nations: In this Holy Month, let us all embrace our common humanity to build a more just and peaceful world for all... as millions of people around the world begin to observe Ramadan.

United Nations

@UN

In this Holy Month, let us all embrace our common humanity to build a more just and peaceful world for all. —

@antonioguterres

as millions of people around the world begin to observe #Ramadan.

António Guterres: We will never, ever give up making this world better for everyone, everywhere.

The Whole World

Professor of Physics David Goldberg, PhD, is part of a team that tackled these questions and struck upon what is now the most accurate flat map of the world: a double-sided circle that features the Northern Hemisphere on one side and the Southern Hemisphere on the other. Picture a vinyl record and flipping it over in your hands—the edge of the record would be the equator.

CSM story by Taylor Luck Special correspondent: Ramadan peace prevails in Jerusalem as all sides keep extremists at bay.

A man and his son walk out from Haram Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary compound, following afternoon prayers on the ninth day of Ramadan, in Jerusalem, March 19, 2024.

Tension is common at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, a space for worship that can be jolted by extremists. What’s the climate now, during Ramadan, with nearby Gaza inflamed? So far, so good. Our reporter tells why.

JERUSALEM

As war rages in Gaza and violence flares across the West Bank, one of Jerusalem’s most contested holy sites is, for now, a rare oasis of calm.

Amid warnings from governments and Islamic authorities about potential clashes, and concerns about instigators from Israel’s far right and Hamas, visitors observing the second week of Ramadan at Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s three holiest sites, are praying, fasting, and celebrating peacefully.

One could almost describe it as normal. Jerusalemites say this is the way it should be.

“We don’t want trouble; we are not looking for violence. All we want is to practice our religion peacefully without restrictions,” says Umm Hazem, a mother of four, as she sat in an Al-Aqsa courtyard, awaiting sunset prayers. 

“When we are given a chance and are not harassed and attacked by Israeli extremists, we choose to be peaceful.”

Jordanian, Palestinian, and Israeli officials are mindful of what happened last year... READ MORE... https://www.csmonitor.com/Daily/2024/20240321?cmpid=ema:bundle:20240321:1176397:img1&sfmc_sub=62874446#1176397

Mosab Abu Toha: After 14 hours of fasting, this is what families in Gaza are breaking their fast on. Some lemon and cooked grass.

Mosab Abu Toha

After 14 hours of fasting, this is what families in Gaza are breaking their fast on.
Some lemon and cooked grass.

Laila El-Haddad: A Cuisine Under Siege- I couldn’t rescue my aunt in Gaza, but I can keep her recipes alive.

THE AUTHOR, Laila El-Haddad, PICTURED WITH HER AUNT UM HANI (PHOTO: MAGGIE SCHMITT)

Culture

A Cuisine Under Siege

I couldn’t rescue my aunt in Gaza, but I can keep her recipes alive. By Laila El-Haddad

https://www.saveur.com/culture/palestinian-cuisine-under-siege/

   [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]

---

"... Teaching the next generation of Palestinians how to make a celebratory stew may seem trivial,  inappropriate even, in light of the deliberate starvation and plausible genocide facing Gazans right now. But food is as integral to our identity and rootedness to the land as our centers of cultural knowledge, such as archives, libraries, theaters, and schools, which are also under attack. Israel’s assault is eliminating entire bloodlines, and with them, all of the memories and knowledge they possessed. 

I live in the United States now, and I’ve cooked sumagiyya more times than I can count—even if it never tastes quite like Um Hani’s. One occasion stands out. It was May 2021, and Gaza City was being pummeled in what was the fourth major assault by Israel on Gaza in 14 years. The attack coincided with Eid, and as I watched on my screen in Clarksville, Maryland horrific images of air raids and grief-stricken mothers, I suddenly felt the urge to make a pot of sumagiyya. Serving it to my family and friends that night, despite the unfolding tragedy, was unexpectedly liberating and affirming.  

Last month, I again found myself in tears chopping onions and chard for sumagiyya, but this time I was making it to honor Um Hani’s memory. Like in 2021, I couldn’t look away from the news: The park where I used to take my son for evening strolls, the beach promenade where I drank sage tea with my mother, the university where I gave guest lectures—they were all unrecognizable piles of overturned dirt and warped wire..."   READ MORE https://www.saveur.com/culture/palestinian-cuisine-under-siege/

In Gaza, sumagiyya is synonymous with weddings, family gatherings, and Eid Al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan and its 30-day fast. Photo by Laila El-Haddad

Huwaida Arraf: "May this holy month of Ramadan bring comfort to those in need; sanity and compassion to those lacking it, particularly world leaders; and may it strengthen our determination and resolve to keep fighting for true liberation, justice and peace. Ramadan Mubarak."

"May this holy month of Ramadan bring comfort to those in need; sanity and compassion to those lacking it, particularly world leaders; and may it strengthen our determination and resolve to keep fighting for true liberation, justice and peace. Ramadan Mubarak."

Huwaida Arraf

Rima Isam Anabtawi: "Ramadan Kareem, to those who observe. May it be as serene and peaceful as "this very old Anatolian prayer rug, and may the beauty of your month endure as long."

Rima Isam Anabtawi

"Ramadan Kareem, to those who observe. May it be as serene and peaceful as this very old Anatolian prayer rug, and may the beauty of your month endure as long"   #ramadanmubarak

Displaced Palestinian families prepare for Ramadan in Rafah, Gaza.❤ photo by Fares Abulebda

Displaced Palestinian families prepare for Ramadan in Rafah, Gaza.❤ photo by Fares Abulebda

 

Ramadan Memories By Mike Odetalla #Palestine #Community #Respect #BeitHanina

Lifta - لفتا: One Of Many From Lifta's Homes Still Stand As A Truth Witness. Palestine Remembered

 Ramadan Memories

By Mike Odetalla

 

The holy month of Ramadan is once again upon us, and its fasting. Muslims will fast from sun-up till sun down, abstaining from food, water, and intimate relationships. 

 

Each year around this time, my memories of Ramadan in our small village of Beit Hanina, a suburb of Jerusalem which was still without electricity, whereby people carried lanterns to light their way in the darkness as they went first to the mosque and from there to visit friends and family: a special part of Ramadan, are once again rekindled. 

 

Beit Hanina had a drummer, charged with the pre-dawn task of awakening the village to sahoor, the light meal whose end marked the beginning of each day’s fast. Closing my eyes and thinking real hard, still brings back the sound of Beit Hanina’s drummer banging away, and the delightful memories of joining the other children, carrying our decorated fanoosia lanterns with candles burning brightly inside them, as we ran along behind the drummer, singing, laughing and shouting to help awaken the sleeping adults and start them on sahoor and their new day. How I admired the drummer; how I wanted his job and to share his fun. 

 

In Ramadan 1979, my first visit back to Palestine since the ’67 expulsion, my cousin and I, both 18 and living in the US, finally became the Ramadan drummers of Beit Hanina. The Israeli invasion of 1967 and the subsequent occupation made the drummers’ job very high risk and today they are scarce: Ramadan drummers were often stopped, even beaten, and some have been killed by the Israeli occupying army. 

 

By 1979, the village had not enjoyed a drummer in 5 years, so my cousin and I delighted in our job of walking through the village each morning banging away on large tin cans. It must have been a very humorous sight: the elderly were happy to hear us; the younger people thought we were a great joke and made fun of the ‘bored Americans’. But everyone agreed that we had renewed some “life” that had been lost as we broke through the dark still nights of Ramadan. For me, however briefly, I was transported back to a happy childhood whose memories had never left me for a moment.

I still remember sitting by the family’s transistor radio with my siblings listening to the special programs as we awaited the “cannon” to go off, signaling that it was time to break our fast. The “cannon” was a World War I era English relic and merely made a loud bang, which was all that it, was good for. 

 

Ever since my children were very small, I had regaled them with the many stories of my childhood in Palestine, enjoying the look of fascination on their faces as they implored me to tell them yet “another story of when you were young in Palestine”… 

 

This past summer, I took my children to visit the grave of my grandmother which is located on a hillside cemetery off of Salah Eddin Street in the Old City. The cemetery is actually located inside the boundaries of the Palestinian village of Lifta which was ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian inhabitants, which included my wife’s family, by the Zionists in 1948. Many people, including my grandmother and her family members are buried there, although now it is considered part of Jerusalem.

As we made our way through the cemetery gates and up the hill so that we could read Al-Fatiha, which is the opening verse of the Quran at her graveside, I noticed a an old rusty cannon sitting on the top of the hill, virtually buried beneath the overgrown weeds. I decided to head up the hill and take a closer look. Much to my surprise, the cannon was an exact copy of the very same cannon that I had remembered as a youth. I called my children up the hill and showed them the cannon, surmising that the cannon was used to alert the residents of Jerusalem when to break their fast before the city fell under Zionist control. 

 

During Ramadan, my mother would always invite friends and relatives to our home to break the fast with us. As Muslims, we are obligated to share breaking our fast with others, especially those less fortunate than us. It is considered a blessing to do so. It is something that we continue to do here in America as we invite friends and loved ones to share in our blessing on this Holy Month, the essence of which are a time of prayer, fasting, and charity. 

 

Some of the best memories that I carry with me are connected to the month of Ramadan in Palestine when I was a child. The closeness and feeling of “community” that I felt during those times is something that is almost beyond description. The sound of the drummer, the Muezzin call to prayer, the static emanating from the transistor radio, the “boom” of the cannon, the enticing aroma of the special foods that we only ate during Ramadan, the sight of families huddled together on a mat covered floor around the evening meals, illuminated by the flickering light of a kerosene lantern, enjoying their meals, as humble as it may have been, in the company of family and loved ones… 

 

These are my memories of Ramadan before the Israeli invasion and subsequent brutal and inhumane occupation which has destroyed many families and communities and is now in the process of causing further havoc as Israel continues to erect its Apartheid Walls, checkpoints, and roadblocks which have reduced many Palestinian villages and cities to nothing more than walled off ghettos and open air prisons. 

 

Unfortunately, these will constitute the next generation of Palestinian children’s memories and experiences… 

 

Mike Odetalla 2003-2105 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

"And when we speak of our faith, it can’t be just about our personal relationship with God, it has to also be about our personal relationship one to the other, each to everybody else." John Kerry, Secretary of State, Remarks at the Ramadan Iftar Dinner 2013

State Department Hosts Annual Iftar Dinner with Sec. Kerry... ATFP's Dr. Asali is pictured sitting to the right of Kerry at the dinner table.

The State Department hosted a group of distinguished guests, including ATFP Pres. Dr. Ziad Asali, to commemorate the Muslim holy month of Ramadan at their annual Iftar dinner on Wednesday, July 24, 2013.

During his address, Kerry discussed the importance of religious tolerance, freedom, and cooperation. Kerry cited the need to transcend religious differences and find common ground for the sake of peace, prosperity and a better global future.

Kerry also emphasized the pressing need to achieve a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine and said that the necessity for this has “never been greater than it is today.”

Remarks at the Ramadan Iftar Dinner

John Kerry
Secretary of State

Ben Franklin Room

Washington, DC

July 24, 2013

Thank you very much. Assalamu alaikum. It’s wonderful to be here with everybody. And Farah, thank you for an extraordinarily gracious introduction. And most importantly, thank you for an absolutely extraordinary job, I think you will all agree, as our Special Representative to the Muslim Community. We are really pleased with what you’re doing. Thank you.

 She said in her introduction that when I was a senator, she never dreamed that she could call me boss, but I want you to know, since I was an elected official, there were lots of things she could call me – (laughter) – and probably did. But I’m honored to, quote, “be her boss” today. I don’t think of myself that way. We’re a great team here at the State Department, an extraordinary group of people, all of whom – I see our Under Secretary Pat Kennedy here, and Under Secretary Wendy Sherman, and I haven’t looked around the whole room, but many other members of our team are here, and we all join together in welcoming you here to this break of the fast.

It is a privilege to do this. I know that Washington being sort of a little bit further north – try this in Boston or even further north, you wait till later. But I know the sun sets late, so we figured it would be a heck of a lot better to have an Iftar here at the State Department than to have a Suhoor. (Laughter.) And one thing I know as a former elected official, never keep people from their meal, and believe me, after a day of fasting, even more so. So eat. Everybody has to eat while I say a few words here if I can.

We are joined this evening by a really remarkable group of people. And I want to welcome my former colleagues from the United States Congress who are here, members of the Diplomatic Corps who are here, some of whom I saw just last night as we received many of them here. But I also especially want to recognize our Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, and Rashad Hussain, President Obama’s Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. We’re delighted to have them here. (Applause.)

Most importantly – and I say this without any artifice – every single one of you were invited here because you are all doers. You are all active. You’re all engaged. You’re all involved in trying to make the world a better place, and you’re all involved in reaching out to other people and practicing, if not your faith, certainly practicing the best tenets of how human beings can live together.

And we are celebrating the holiest month of the Muslim calendar year, Ramadan. It is a time for peaceful reflection and for prayer. It is a time for acts of compassion and charity. So to all of you tonight, and to the millions of American Muslims across our land, and to the many more around the world, Ramadan Kareem.

I want to – (applause) – thank you. You can clap for Ramadan Kareem. (Applause.)

I want you to know that the tradition of sharing respect for this particularly holy month actually reaches back to the earliest days of our Republic. This is the Benjamin Franklin Room, and it’s a fitting venue for this occasion because Ben Franklin was really our first formal diplomat. And he was also among the earliest proponents of religious freedom in our country. He wrote in his autobiography, “Even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.”

To find a pulpit at one’s service, to profess one’s faith openly and freely, that is really a core American value. And I’m proud to say, as all of us are who are American here, that it is enshrined in our Constitution, and hard fought for. And it has been at the center of our story, our national story, since the 1600s, when a fellow by the name of John Winthrop, who happened to have been my great grandfather eight times removed, led a ship full of religious dissidents across the Atlantic to America in order to seek the freedom of worship.

Throughout its history, America didn’t always get it right. In my home state of Massachusetts, John Winthrop and Puritans overreached, and people ran away from Salem and from other places to found New Haven, Connecticut, and found Providence, Rhode Island, named Providence after wandering a year through the woods in the winter in order to escape from persecution. So we didn’t always get it right.

But throughout our history, we have struggled with the divisiveness of religious differences. I can proudly say today that no place has ever welcomed so many different communities, so many people, to worship so freely. The diversity and the patriotism of America’s religious communities today are sources of strength for all of us. And our freedom to worship is a powerful reminder of the traditions that we share. E pluribus unum: from many, one. And from many faiths, we do stand together in one shared country. Now ultimately, our sense of kinship is grounded in our shared sense of humanity, a moral truth that emerges based on the dignity of all human beings.

So tonight, I just pose a question to you: Can our great faith traditions – the Abrahamic faiths that Farah referred to – can they forge a common effort for human dignity? My faith and the faith that I have seen in the lives of so many Americans tells me that the answer to that is resoundingly yes. Our faiths and our fates – our fates are inextricably linked. It’s not enough just to talk about greater understanding. Our partnerships, the way we work every day in life, the way we reach out country to country, people to people, they have to foster a mutual respect and underscore the freedoms that we seek.

I think it’s safe to say – I hope it is safe to say that may there are four partnerships that will be critical if we’re going to live up to our obligations to one another: partnerships for peace, for prosperity, for our people, and for the future of our planet. Let me begin just quickly with the fourth.

For many of us, respect for God’s creation in almost every scripture really demands and translates into a duty to protect and sustain God’s first creation. Our response to climate change ought to be rooted in a fundamental sense of shared stewardship of the earth that emerges from that tradition. We must also obviously strive to forge a partnership for peace, and there is no religion, no philosophy of life – whether Hinduism, Confucianism, Native American tenets – nothing that doesn’t talk about peace and the responsibilities of each human being to another.

I’ve just returned, as many of you know, from the Middle East, and I can tell you the need for lasting peace and security between Israelis and Palestinians, between Sunni and Shia, between so many different minorities and so many different people has never been greater than it is today. Our partnership for peace obviously extends far and wide, from the Syrian people to people on every continent on this planet, all of whom seek to achieve the freedom and the dignity that they so richly deserve.

We also can find a common ground in the partnership for prosperity. Tahrir Square, a fruit vendor in Tunisia – these weren’t religiously motivated revolutions, not at all. They were demands for respect and opportunity by individual human beings frustrated by the inability of governments to address their needs. And when youth see no hope for escaping from poverty or improving their lives, then problems can become truly insurmountable.

And to meet the demands of these populations for dignity and for opportunity requires new and creative partnerships. We need to reach beyond governmental and beyond government itself in order to include business, civil society, and of course, people of all walks of life working together in order to invest in the future through collaborations like the Partnerships for a New Beginning.

This brings me to the fourth partnership quickly, and then I will close. That is the partnership between our peoples. Earlier this evening, I met very briefly in the Monroe Room there with a group of outstanding representatives of the State Department who are part of programs we sponsor working with Muslim communities around the world. I’m very proud of the work that they are doing, and as Secretary of State, I not only find it inspiring, I think it is something we need to export and grow. All of these initiatives, in the end, add up to the way you find a different way of doing things, a different way of bringing people together to work for these common goals.

I’m pleased to tell you tonight that we’re in the process of expanding our capacity to do just that here in the State Department. We’ve created the first faith-based office, which will reach out in a major way across continents and oceans in order to try to increase our engagement with faith communities, and you’ll be hearing a great deal more about this effort in the days ahead.

Before I close, let me share – just share a couple things with you. I was impressed when I first visited Saudi Arabia, and I met King Abdullah, and I listened to him talk about his sense of urgency about bringing faiths together and his own initiative to try to reach out across the divide and bring Muslim and all other religions together. That has grown. There are Jordanians – Prince Ghazi and others – who are working similarly in efforts to try to reach across the divide and prove that radical, political Islam does not represent the true heart and faith.

I’ll share a story with you. It’s a story of bringing people together and of what makes a difference. It involves a rabbi, a Greek Orthodox bishop, and an imam. Now I know that sounds like the beginning of a really bad joke – (laughter) – but I want to tell you right up front, it’s not, it’s a true story. And I think Congressman Keating from my home state is here, and you can ask him, because he lived this story as I did. It embodies the kind of partnership and the way in which all of us need to think and ways in which we can be inspired.

Back in the early 1990s in Massachusetts, the Muslim community in Quincy, Massachusetts, home, I might add, of former President John Adams and John Quincy Adams, this – the Muslim community was looking for more land on which they could build an Islamic center – not a mosque, an Islamic center. And they found a large parcel in a nearby town. But when the residents heard about the plans, not unlike what happened in New York and elsewhere, they tried to keep the mosque from being built.

Dr. Ashraf, the President of the Islamic Center of New England, was about to give up hope, literally about to quit. He called everybody and talked to people. Then, out of the blue, unsolicited, he received a phone call from a man in another town, who just said simply, “Dr. Ashraf, I heard you need some land on which you want to build a mosque and a school, a center. And we would love for you to come and build your center here. We welcome you.”

My friends, when they finally broke ground, there stood three men holding shovels, breaking ground together: a rabbi, a Greek Orthodox bishop, and the imam. Today, that center stands tall and proud, and tonight, Dr. Ashraf’s niece stands right here. This is Farah Pandith’s uncle. (Applause.)

This is what our shared humanity asks of us, even demands of us. And when we speak of our faith, it can’t be just about our personal relationship with God, it has to also be about our personal relationship one to the other, each to everybody else.

I think you will agree with me. I have never met a child in my life – two years old, two and a half years old, three years old – who hates anybody. They may hate their broccoli or something else they’re forced to eat, but they don’t hate other people or kids. They learn that. It is taught. It is passed down.

And what we need to do is care for our fellow men and women, whatever the differences. If we are doing God’s work, we can do that. So let us act in faith – act in faith – even as we preach it. Let us treat each other with respect. Let us lift up humanity and live our faiths fully and freely and draw inspiration from this day of fasting and every day of fasting in Ramadan. Ramadan Mubarak. Thank you. 

Israeli settlements dates violate US laws and defraud consumers

By Aref Assaf

[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://blog.nj.com/dr_aref_assaf/2012/07/israeli_settlement_dates_violate_us_laws_and_defraud_consumers.html

Photo by Aref Assaf:  Dates produced by Israeli farms are sold in US markets without showing country of origin to avoid rejection by Arab and Muslim consumers. US laws require 'country of origin labeling' on all imported products and violators are subject to stiff fines. Israeli dates are sold under the brand names, Jordan Valley and king Solomon.

Dates grown in Israeli occupied Arab lands are sold in New Jersey are in violation of US laws.
Dates, the succulent fruit of the palm tree, especially those marketed by giant Israeli companies, such as Agrexco and Hadiklaim, have deliberately avoided showing the country of origin in fear of rejection by Arab and Muslim consumers. Israel has systematically conspired with unscrupulous importers to circumvent prohibition by many countries on importing products made in Israeli settlements which are built on occupied Arab and Palestinian lands. Under international law, Israeli settlements are illegal and many countries prohibit the import of products made in these locations.

The US does not place restrictions on settlement-produced products, allowing the sale of these dates in US markets, including those located in Arab and Muslim neighborhoods. However, the US has "COOL," or "country of origin labeling" guidelines, requiring imported products to clearly state the country of production.

Pursuant to code 19 USCS § 1304: "[E]very article of foreign origin (or its container...) imported into the United States shall be marked in a conspicuous place as legibly, indelibly, and permanently as the nature of the article (or container) will permit in such manner as to indicate to an ultimate purchaser in the United States the English name of the country of origin of the article." Further, the law mandates that, "Any person who, with intent to conceal the information given thereby or contained therein...READ MORE