UNESCO: Pastoralists are custodians of knowledge that sustains livelihoods, protects biodiversity and helps communities adapt to a changing climate

UNESCO

@UNESCO

 

Pastoralists are custodians of knowledge that sustains livelihoods, protects biodiversity and helps communities adapt to a changing climate. 

 

As #COP17 takes place in Mongolia, discover how  @UNESCO works with pastoralist communities to safeguard living knowledge and strengthen resilience. Read more: https://unes.co/rj83a5 

 

#ForThePeople

 

https://x.com/UNESCO/status/2089351549499887754 

 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]

https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/unescos-work-pastoralists-highlights-lessons-cop17 

Across the world — in the Andes, the Sahara, the Alps, and the Arctic tundra — communities have spent centuries mastering how to live with the land, not against it. This is pastoralism — raising livestock across environments too extreme for farming, guided by knowledge refined over generations. As COP17 on desertification opens in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (17–28 August 2026), UNESCO shows how pastoralist knowledge, as well as integrated solutions, can address soil degradation, drought, and climate change. 

Working with communities, not just for them

Continuously moving their herds across vast territories is a practice known as transhumance. Several UN agencies work with pastoralist communities on climate and land issues. UNESCO's mandate is distinctive as it encompasses protecting indigenous knowledge systems, safeguarding cultural heritage, and conserving biodiversity through its natural sciences work. Combined with a network of over 2,000 designated sites, this means UNESCO works directly with pastoralists in World Heritage properties, Biosphere Reserves, and Geoparks, where they have a role in land management not just recording their knowledge. 

Roughly 200 of those sites actively partner with pastoralist communities today. Safeguarding knowledge and putting it to use are two different steps, and UNESCO's role is to hold both. 

Knowledge at risk

Pastoralist knowledge survives in songs, recitation, and objects passed between generations, which means it depends entirely on that chain continuing. Among the Tuareg of the central Sahara, ecological and geographic knowledge is carried through poetry and encoded into jewellery, such as silver crosses marking desert locations, pendants mapping the night sky for navigation. If that chain of transmission breaks for even one generation, this precise, functional knowledge can be lost outright — unlike a written record. 

Documenting knowledge before it's lost

For six years, UNESCO supported a research programme with indigenous pastoralists across West Africa, the Horn of Africa, and East Africa, documenting what they know about the changing climate and how. Where conventional climate assessments rely on a handful of measurements that include sea surface temperature and wind speed, pastoralists offered thousands of distinct indicators for reading their environment. The case study of the Mbororo Fulani of Chad shows how transhumance sustains both livelihoods and biodiversity.

Safeguarding makes the practice durable

Protection under the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention works on the same logic as site partnerships: knowledge only stays usable if it survives. In 2023, UNESCO inscribed transhumance and the seasonal droving of livestock across the Mediterranean and the Alps on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, recognizing it as a living practice, not a relic.  

UNESCO connects what pastoralist communities know with what policymakers need: safeguarding knowledge so it survives, and giving communities a role in applying it. As COP17 turns to desertification, pastoralism shows both steps working. 

 https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/unescos-work-pastoralists-highlights-lessons-cop17

 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]

A Rose Shoulders Up- poem fragment by Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha, gracefully illustrated by Hannah Maguire

Illustrated by Hannah Maguire

 

87-year-old Holocaust survivor says- “From the River to the Sea, for me - a single democratic state... equal rights ... too late for the two state solution...

J Street Strongly Opposes Republican Efforts to Gut Palestinian Aid

March 22, 2024

J Street strongly opposes efforts by congressional Republicans to cut US assistance to Palestinians and permanently ban funding for UNRWA – the only organization with the infrastructure, people and expertise to address the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. 

J Street is acutely aware of allegations that several of UNRWA’s 13,000 Gaza-based staff may have taken part in the horrific October 7 attack. We take these allegations seriously. We support full and thorough investigations underway to ensure accountability and initiate any necessary reforms, and urge Israeli authorities to provide investigators with details supporting the allegations. The Biden Administration’s temporary pause on payments to UNRWA shows that a permanent legislated ban is in no way necessary.

“It’s nauseating that while parents are watching children die of starvation and famine spreads across Gaza, MAGA Republicans are focused on amendments to tie the president’s hands and make this nightmare even worse. Being anti-Palestinian doesn’t make one pro-Israel. This focus on cruelty is wildly out of step with the American Jewish community’s values,” said Hannah Morris, Director of Government Affairs at J Street.

“Beyond the clear moral reasons to oppose this effort, this comes just weeks after former security officials warned that fuelling a humanitarian crisis on Israel’s doorstep poses a major risk to Israel’s own security and strategic interests. The blow to America’s international standing and moral authority will also be significant,” Morris said.

On March 10, Commanders for Israel’s Security – an Israeli group comprised of hundreds of former Israeli security officials, including former heads of the IDF and Mossad – warned that the humanitarian crisis was “a threat to vital national interests” and was dealing “cumulative damage to Israel’s security and strategic interests.”

https://jstreet.org/press-releases/j-street-strongly-opposes-republican-efforts-to-gut-palestinian-aid/

Art for Palestine Challenge #artforpalestinechallenge PLEASE HELP amplify PALESTINE & Palestinian Voices !

go to instagram to swipe for examples https://www.instagram.com/p/C40WUj9LdCE/?img_index=1

Mosab Abu Toha 

Lovers of and . Share widely.

 

Today we launch Art For Challenge created by me, @weirdmomart and @hannahmoushabeck

 

Please visit @weirdmomart to see previous examples.

 

The references to people are on instagram.

weirdmomart

and

mosab_abutoha

Ismail Shammout- The Exodus and the Odyssey

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ismail Shammout Self Portrait 1985

Ismail Shammout (1931- 2006 )was a Palestinian artist and art historian. Born in Lydda, he and his family were expelled from the city on July 12, 1948 by Israeli forces. His family settled in a refugee camp in Gaza. Shammout enrolled in the College of Fine Arts Cairo in 1950, returning to Gaza in 1953. That year Shammout held, with his brother Jamil, the first exhibition by a contemporary Palestinian artist in Palestine.

Ismail Shammout's 1953 'Where to?"

The exhibition included Where to? (1953), a sobering oil-on-canvas depiction of a family in exodus. A year later, Shammout was part of the Palestine Exhibition of 1954 in Cairo, inaugurated by president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Shammout incorporated Palestinian traditions in his realist painting, which commented on the plight of Palestinians since 1948. In 1954, he enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. 

Shammout moved to Beirut in 1956, where he married fellow artist Tamam al-Alkal. Shammout became the Director of Arts and National Culture for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1965. In 1983, following the Israeli attack against the PLO in Lebanon, Shammout moved from Beirut to Kuwait, then Germany, and finally to Jordan.

The Land and Love by Ismail Shammout

Arab Idol Assaf in appeal for UN Palestinian agency

[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://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=651608

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) -- Arab Idol winner Mohammed Assaf on Tuesday joined appeals to raise money for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA says it may not be able to pay staff wages in December because of a $36 million budget deficit.

Assaf, who is from Gaza and was catapulted into the international spotlight by winning the Arab Idol talent series this year, said the agency was crucial for the survival of Palestinians.

"I call upon all to help fund and support UNRWA because that is the only way the people can survive and have a bit of hope at the end of the tunnel," Assaf, who is on a US concert tour, said through a translator.

The singer, who is a goodwill ambassador for the agency, said he misses his family in Gaza and he was not sure when he would be able to return to the blockaded territory.

"I will never forget my roots," said Assaf, 24, who was born in Libya but spent most of his life in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza.

"I want to go back there soon to see my parents, but I am not going to give a date," he said. "I miss my family, they cannot be here because of the blockade."

***

Mohammad Assaf is UNRWA's first ever Regional Youth Ambassador: UNRWA is unique among UN agencies, both for its long-standing commitment to one group of refugees – the Palestine refugees - and for its direct provision of services including education, health care and relief to those refugees. But being unique doesn't mean that UNRWA can act alone: We have always depended on our partners, including our hosts and donors, to help us best serve Palestine refugees. Now, we are proud also to work with individuals who can add their voice to ours, spreading the word about Palestine refugees and reminding people who may be far away that they are not just a regional concern or a relic of the past.

http://www.unrwa.org/donate

My letter to The NYTimes RE Plan B for Palestine: Zone C by Ali Jarbawi

America's John F. Kennedy: His legacy lives on with "... the beginning of new hope for both the equal rights of Americans and the peace of the world."

RE Plan B for Palestine: Zone C
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/opinion/jarbawi-plan-b-for-palestine-zone-c.html?ref=international

Dear Editor,

Good to see "Plan B for Palestine: Zone C" By Ali Jarbawi: Obviously Israel has used Oslo agreements to further entrench its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, sabotaging Palestinians individually and collectively.

This time around, with current negotiations, one can succumb to the corrupting influences of cynicism and bigotry- or one can look for and find ways to help shape a just and lasting peace firmly based on full respect for international law and universal basic human rights.

A fully secular two state end to the Israel-Palestine conflict intentionally and conscientiously creating a fully sovereign, independent, economically able Palestine is the best way forward... for everyone's sake.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

Notes

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
John F. Kennedy
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_f_kennedy.html#D9MGRSOM9gjcySIh.99

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
John F. Kennedy
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_f_kennedy.html#D9MGRSOM9gjcySIh.99

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_f_kennedy.html#D9MGRSOM9gjcySIh.99

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_f_kennedy.html#D9MGRSOM9gjcySIh.99

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. John F. Kennedy, Inaugural address, January 20, 1961

The Office of International Religious Freedom ( http://www.state.gov/j/drl/irf/)   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

Why Muslims should love secularism: Though secularism is widely misunderstood as anti-religious and iconoclastic, all it means is the neutrality of the state on religious affairs ...  "Muslims must recognize secularism as the only real path to religious freedom, rather than confusing it with an attack against religion." Hussein Ibish

"One bad (theological) interpreter is worse than 100 terrorists," Katanacho said during a panel discussion. He said that some Israeli theologians "strive to establish a particular reading of biblical history in order to gain political advantage." Bible scholars: Zionists have 'weaponized' scripture

Israelis and Palestinians must refrain from undermining renewed talks... Settlement plans threaten renewed hopes for Israeli-Palestinian peace, UN envoy warns

It is widely accepted that under international law, the Jewish settlements in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 are illegal. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilian persons... "The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own population into the territories it occupies." BBC News

Poll: Oslo brought 'political normalization' but no benefits "83.3 percent of the respondents believe that settlement construction increased “unprecedentedly” in the Palestinian territory as a result of the Oslo Accord."

Palestinians cast first-ever vote in U.N. General Assembly "It's a symbolic (step)," he [ chief Palestinian U.N. observer, Ambassador Riyad Mansour] said. "But it is an important one because it reflects that the international community, particularly the General Assembly, is hungry and waiting for the state of Palestine to become a full member of the United Nations."

Israeli Settlers uproot 26 Palestinian olive trees in Nablus village... IT ADDS UP: Since 1967, 800,000 olive trees have been uprooted by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, resulting in a loss of around $55 million to the Palestinian economy

Hollande: France urges 'full and complete halt to settlement'

Jewish mob attacks Palestinian man in Jerusalem

Israel's policy of erasure : A path to peace between Israelis and Palestinians requires not simply dealing with settlements but with the whole complex of displacement, suffocation and erasure.

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world." Eleanor Roosevelt

Welcome to Bethlehem, Secretary Kerry: A call for humanity by Bethlehem Mayor Vera Baboun

UNITED NATIONS 2013: The nations of the world call on Israel to comply with its obligations under international law, the 2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice concerning the apartheid wall and all UN resolutions.

2013: Palestine refugees’ properties and their revenues ...Recalling its resolutions 194 (III) of 11 December 1948 and 36/146 C of 16 December 1981 and all its subsequent resolutions on the question

"The direct threat to Israeli and Palestinian existence — and, in fact, to the existence of all peoples in the region — is the absence of peace in Palestine." Ahmad Y. Majdoubeh in The Jordan Times

Palestinian Refugees (1948-NOW) refused their right to return... and their right to live in peace free from religious bigotry and injustice.

Christians are being driven out of regions around the world where they are a minority

Palestinian villages subject to Israeli mock raids not told they are exercises: Israeli military rejects complaints by Israeli human rights group Yesh Din over 'training' arrests of Arabs and raids on homes

Washington Post 2013: Israeli hard-liners eye West Bank

Israeli Settler Violence Map

'It is where religious freedom is most dishonored or repressed that the forces of violent religious extremism are likely to thrive.' Katrina Lantos Swett, vice chairwoman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom: JFK's call for religious freedom can transform...

The 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.

The Golden Rule... Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

Live by the Golden Rule

Dear President Obama... Let Freedom Ring

194

Globalizing Martin Luther King, Jr.

This Week in Palestine: In Palestine we have no physical control over our borders, and therefore have no say in how anyone could be treated at any given moment in time. But what we do have control of is the Palestine we write about, describe, and photograph in the folds of this issue’s pages.

PBS Newshour: Poet Naomi Shihab Nye: 'Telling a story helped us figure out who we were'

A quest to preserve Palestinian heritage in the digital stacks: Sami Batrawi's struggle to open an online Palestinian Library of Congress is part of a broader effort to recover lost Palestinian intellectual heritage.

U.S. 'working tirelessly' to restore UNESCO funding... UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova: "This is not only about financing. This is about values. This is the 'smart power' that is in such need today, to lay the foundations for lasting peace and sustainable development,"

U.S., Israel lose voting rights at UNESCO over Palestine row

UNWRA ... a crucial lifeline for Palestinian refugees

Dr Zogby: Focus on Palestinians’ Rights

At ATFP Gala, White House Reaffirms Commitment to Palestinian State, Opposition to Settlements and Settler Violence

"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." ATFP's Ziad Asali: To honor a tragic history, we must work for peace

Pomegranates in season along the path!

The Arab Peace Initiative

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.

We Need to Talk... Ziad Asali has proven that Palestinian-Americans can work within the system as first-class American citizens and Washington has paid attention: The status quo is clear: occupation. Asali's mission is to change that status quo.

Jordan's King Abdullah II explains that extremism has "grown fat" off of the longstanding conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

"Legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Paine: "Of all of the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny of religion is the worst."

The Charter for Compassion is a call to restore the Golden Rule to the center of religious, moral and civic life. The path to a just economy and a peaceful world requires listening, understanding and treating all others as we wish to be treated ourselves.

Freedom for Palestine - OneWorld

Understanding the Current Palestinian Financial Crisis: In the long term, the only cure for the PA's recurrent budget deficit would be sustained, productive growth led by the private sector—not one bankrolled by massive foreign aid in a highly constrained and heavily distorted setting

 [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]

 Understanding the Current Palestinian Financial Crisis

Mohammed Samhouri Article October 15, 2012

Early last month, thousands of Palestinians across the Israeli-occupied West Bank took to the streets to protest the rising cost of living, voice their anger over unpaid government salaries and the imposition of tax and fuel price hikes (later revoked under public pressure), and call for the resignation of Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad. Two weeks later, on September 23, in a meeting of donor countries held in New York City, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the United Nations reported their grim assessment of the Palestinian fiscal situation, warning of harsher times ahead and urging donors to provide the Palestinian Authority (PA) with $400 million urgently needed to bridge its funding gap for the rest of this year. Failure to act, they argued, would make things far worse and have grave political and social repercussions.

The severity of the Palestinian financial crisis was evident this summer when the cash-strapped PA struggled, for three months in a row, to pay its 150,000-plus employees their full salaries on time. It was only able to meet its obligations after receiving a $100 million grant in July from Saudi Arabia, and, in July and in September, a total of $110 million from Israel as advance payments on future monthly transfers of customs taxes that Israel collects on behalf of the PA in accordance with the 1994 economic protocol.

This fiscal crisis began in 2011, when domestic revenues, customs tax transfers from Israel, and international financial support all turned out to be lower than planned in the budget. This resulted in a higher recurrent deficit (13 percent of GDP), forcing the PA to bridge the funding gap by borrowing from domestic banks, accumulating arrears to the private sector, and continually failing to contribute the government's share of the already-insolvent public pension fund. By the end of 2011, the PA's debt to commercial banks had reached $1.1 billion, with arrears to domestic suppliers amounting to $530 million, and an estimated $1.5 billion of accumulated debt to the public pension system.
 The PA's financial troubles continued into 2012. The year started with a projected recurrent deficit of $1.1 billion, coupled with low prospects for both economic growth and donor assistance. More specifically, growth in 2012, and in sharp contrast to the impressive 9 percent annual average rate between 2008 and 2010, was forecast at 5 percent, the same as in 2011. Likewise, foreign budgetary support, though still high at an annual average of $1.27 billion over the last four years, was on a declining trajectory, reaching $814 million in 2011, down from $1.76 billion in 2008.

As 2012 progressed, so did the PA's financial misfortune. By midyear, the PA's public expenditure had climbed 4.5 percent higher than planned, gross revenues were 7 percent lower than budgeted, and the flow of donor funding was in decline. This led the PA again to turn to commercial banks and the private sector, asking for cash and credit to help finance an expanding recurrent deficit. With the PA already owing $1.7 billion to these parties, they were not in a position to extend more funds. Nor was the Palestinian public in the West Bank willing to put up with a higher cost of living when the PA raised taxes and fuel prices early last month.

 What makes the PA's current financial quandary even more serious is the fact that it has very few policy options to get itself out of the woods. Over the past four years the PA has implemented a host of reform measures principally designed to put its fiscal house in order. In the process, PA expenditure was streamlined and domestic revenues increased, mainly through improving tax administration and collection. As a result, the PA's recurrent deficit was brought down from 21 percent of GDP in 2008 to 13 percent of GDP in 2011. This policy of fiscal consolidation, successful and controversial as it has been, seems to have reached its limit now, and can only be pushed further at a high political and social cost, as recent public unrest in the occupied West Bank has vividly demonstrated.

While necessary, the preceding technical explanation of the PA's financial crisis—which considers the crisis through the prism of changes in revenues, expenditures, and foreign assistance levels—is grossly insufficient to fully understand the true nature of the PA's current fiscal predicament. To do that, one needs to look beyond the raw statistics and examine the political-economy aspect of the crisis. Through this lens, one would find a territorially-fragmented Palestinian Authority that operates under a prolonged colonial and military occupation that imposes all sorts of physical and administrative constraints on Palestinian economic activities, on access to markets and natural resources, and on the private sector's ability to plan, invest and grow over the long term.
In this extremely limiting setting, the chances of productive and sustained economic growth along with the capacity to generate enough domestic revenues to finance public expenditure are undermined. What's more, it is highly unlikely that foreign aid will have a lasting positive impact. Only in this sui generis context can one understand why, among other things, the PA—which received close to $6 billion in international budgetary and development support between 2008 and 2011—is currently experiencing such a severe financial crunch.

What can be done to solve this crisis? In the immediate to short term, donor funds are desperately needed and, politics aside, may be forthcoming. The United States is currently contemplating the release of some $200 million to the PA. The European Union is also considering granting the PA an extra 100 million euros. Israel has already made two advance payments of PA customs duties and may do so again in the near future. But this likely flow of much-needed funds, crucial as it is for the PA’s immediate financial survival, does not address the fundamental underlying causes of the PA's twenty-month-old financial predicament. Nor will the pressure on the PA to adopt more austerity-type measures, outlined in the IMF’s latest report on the Palestinian economy, be without risks.
In the long term, the only cure for the PA's recurrent budget deficit would be sustained, productive growth led by the private sector—not one bankrolled by massive foreign aid in a highly constrained and heavily distorted setting—that creates real jobs, increases per capita income, broadens the tax base, and provides the PA with more domestic revenues to finance its activities. In today’s occupied West Bank, the possibility of such growth taking place is virtually nil.

With the space for PA policy action vastly narrowing, the Palestinian public's patience growing thin, the stock of PA domestic debt piling up, donor financial support declining, and Israel's  occupation and settlement policies in the West Bank showing no signs of abating, the prospects for a solution to the PA's financial crisis anytime soon are very slim. Indeed, unless drastic action is taken on the political front, the Palestinian Authority as it has existed since its establishment in 1994 could very well be on the verge of collapse.

Mohammed Samhouri (msamhouri@yahoo.com) is a senior economist at the Cairo-based Regional Center for Strategic Studies, a former senior fellow and lecturer at Brandeis University’s Crown Center for Middle East Studies in Boston, and a former senior economic adviser in the Palestinian Authority.
 

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States. Founded in 1910, its work is nonpartisan and dedicated to achieving practical results. 

My letter to the NYTimes RE What Palestinians Need

Memorial to 418 Palestinian Villages which were Destroyed, Depopulated and Occupied by Israel in 1948.” Refugee tent and embroidery thread, 2000... by Palestinian-American Artist Emily Jacir

RE What Palestinians Need letter by NADIA HIJAB
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/opinion/what-palestinians-need.html?ref=global&_r=0

Dear Editor,

Thank you for publishing the "What Palestinians Need" letter by Nadia Hijab. I totally agree that Palestinians " need American political clout to end the occupation as the first step to a just and lasting peace. "... but I think for now at least Palestinians also need more financial aid in addition to political support. 

Both Israel and Islamists have been taking advantage of the very real plight of the Palestinians, exasperating tragedy and extremism at every turn. That dangerous trend won't magically stop if funding for Palestine is cut or decreased.

Palestinian Statehood efforts as well as UNWRA have been generously funded by the United States. Arab states should step up to help too, in hopes of helping Palestinians- and Palestine survive. 

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES

Arabs in Israel must vote

Songs and Pictures from Palestine

The Old Couple, 2000 painting by Palestinian Ismail Shammout: Detail from the mural (Life Prevails)

Keeping symbolism in perspective by Joharah Baker for MIFTAH

ELIAS KHOURY'S LETTER TO THE ACTIVISTS OF BAB AL SHAMS

Israelis Evict Palestinians

"We know the [Israeli] army follow us on Twitter and Facebook, so we made out we were holding a protest somewhere else."

State of Palestine

Bab al-Shams Village... We, the sons and daughters of Palestine

Palestinians Set Up Tents Where Israel Plans Homes

Israel continues to demolish Palestinian homes- and peace

Israel uses the crisis in Syria to try to coerce Abbas into relinquishing Palestinian refugee rights

 

Walls and winter rains afflict Palestinian towns

 
Excellent letter in the Guardian by Keith Lichman RE Israel's drift

AP Interview: Palestinian PM blasts Arab donors... In an interview Sunday Fayyad said that the cash crunch is pushing an additional 25 percent of the Palestinian population, or 1 million people, into poverty.

ATFP's Ziad Asali & Ghaith Al-Omari: Salam Fayyad's bold effort to build Palestinian institutions could soon collapse -- unless Israel and the United States spring to action.

A precarious existence in the Jordan Valley

A Serious Look at Fayyad.... (& Palestine)

CSM letter by James Martin: US Mideast policy should honor rights

********

The Office of International Religious Freedom ( http://www.state.gov/j/drl/irf/)   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

Palestinian Refugees(1948-NOW) refused their right to return... and their right to live in peace free from religious bigotry and injustice.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917

".... it being clearly understood that nothing
          shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious
          rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine..."

The Golden Rule... Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world." Eleanor Roosevelt

Empowering Peace & Palestine

"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."

 

The Arab Peace Initiative

Refugees and the Right of Return

Palestinian refugees must be given the option to exercise their right of return (as well as receive compensation for their losses arising from their dispossession and displacement) though refugees may prefer other options such as: (i) resettlement in third countries, (ii) resettlement in a newly independent Palestine (even though they originate from that part of Palestine which became Israel) or (iii) normalization of their legal status in the host country where they currently reside.  What is important is that individual refugees decide for themselves which option they prefer – a decision must not be imposed upon them.