FEATURED NEWS: Statement of the General Delegation of the PLO to the US in Commemoration of Deir Yassin

April 8, 2011

FEATURED NEWS:

Statement of the General Delegation of the PLO to the US in Commemoration of Deir Yassin

The General Delegation of the PLO would like to reiterate our determination to continue the struggle to achieve our independence and freedom. The massacre of Deir Yassin, perpetrated by the Lehi and Irgun gangs, were aimed at forcing the Palestinians to leave their homeland and to instill fear in the hearts of innocent civilians. Today, the Israeli government is using different tactics to achieve the same objective of emptying the land of its indigenous people. They are doing so by: building settlements, confiscating land, performing ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, laying siege to Gaza, and the continuing to oppress the Palestinian people through the Israeli military occupation. Despite these tactics which make the lives of Palestinians difficult and unbearable, the Palestinian people are determined to stay on their land and resist Israeli attempts to uproot them.

Tomorrow is an occasion to once again, remind ourselves that the only path to achieving our goals and objectives of self-determination, statehood and independence is through unity. If we remain divided, it will be difficult to oppose Israeli policies and schemes, much less realize and achieve our national rights. Let tomorrow be a day to remember the martyrs of Deir Yassin and all other Palestinian martyrs who gave their lives to pave the way for a better future for their children. We urge the Palestinian-American Community to rise above their differences and join hands in defending and promoting the interests of the Palestinian people in the United States by becoming engaged and active in US political system.

War on Palestinian Memory: Israel Resolves Its Democracy Dilemma by Ramzy Baroud

War on Palestinian Memory: Israel Resolves Its Democracy Dilemma

by Ramzy Baroud

April 7, 2011

Palestinian citizens of Israel must have been proud of the fact that their collective tenacity always proved stronger than any Israeli attempt at dislocating them from their rightful historical narrative. Now, they are being told to cease and desist from commemorating al-Nakba, the Catastrophe of 1948, which saw the brutal seizure and depopulation of most of Palestine in order to construct the Israeli 'miracle’.

Currently estimated at a fifth of the population of today’s Israel , Palestinians with Israeli citizenship have endured appalling treatment for decades. As Muslims and Christians, they have been regarded as an anomaly in what was meant to be a perfect Jewish utopia governed by the laws of democracy. This is the quandary that Israel has never mastered, as the non-Jewish citizens of Israel have represented a major obstacle to that vision.

The question of what to do with Palestinian citizens of Israel has long haunted Israeli politicians. Discriminatory laws, unlawful seizure of land and even violence have all failed to deter Palestinians from demanding equality and exposing the moral inconsistency of Israel ’s selective democracy and dubious history. More, all attempts at fragmenting Palestinian national identity – through different sets of laws for Palestinians in Israel, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and millions in Diaspora – were hardly enough to disfigure the innate sense of solidarity and belonging that Palestinian communities felt towards one another. When Palestinian activists gather in Jerusalem , Algiers or London , one fails to trace borderlines, the details of identity cards, or any other desperate forms of classification used by Israel . When Palestinians meet, Israel ’s divisive laws prove frivolous.

Israeli politicians have "lost sight of a basic concept in democracy," claimed the Association for Civil Rights in Israel ( ACRI ) in a recent statement, as cited by the BBC . The statement was a response to the Israeli parliament’s approval of a bill that "allows courts to revoke the citizenship of anyone convicted of spying, treason or aiding its enemies." Like scores of other bills introduced to the Knesset, many of which have been approved, the most recent amendment of the Citizenship Law of 1952 targets the Palestinian population of Israel .

The bill, passed on March 28, was sponsored by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party, the proud sponsor of nearly two dozen other discriminatory bills. Liberman’s 2009 campaign was largely based on the slogan: "no loyalty, no citizenship." The latest bill is another manifestation of this idea.

But it was hardly the only bill targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel . Another had been passed only a few days earlier. The "Nakba Bill" passed its final reading on March 22 and was sponsored by Alex Miller (Yisrael Beiteinu). This bill can be understood as a war on the collective memory of Palestinians, as it targets those who mark and commemorate the Catastrophe of 1948.

"We are ready to go to jail," was the response of MK Jamal Zahalka, of Balad party, who warned of "civil rebellion" against recent bills. "Nakba law won’t stop Arabs – we’ll just increase our protests."

Haneen Zoabi, also of the Balad party, told The Electronic Intifada: "This is a kind of law to control our memory, to control our collective memory. It's a very stupid law which punishes our feelings. It seems that the history of the victim is threatening the Zionist state."

A stupid law maybe, but one rooted in Israel ’s historical fear of Palestinian memory. Indeed, the war on memory has its own convincing, albeit cruel logic. From Vladimir Jabotinsky's 'Iron Wall’ of 1923 - aimed largely at sidelining the 'native population' from the 'Zionist colonization’ of Palestine - to Uri Lubrani's desire to "reduce the Arab population to a community of woodcutters and waiters", attempts at forcefully removing or reducing the Palestinian population is the cornerstone of Zionist reasoning. The reasoning, which was essentially predicated on presenting Palestine as a "land without people", is often challenged by the fact that the Palestinian people are too stubborn to terminate their historical, intellectual and very personal relationship to their land. Their persistence has made a mockery of Israel ’s first Prime Minister Ben Gurion’s faulty prediction in 1948 that "the old will die and the young will forget."

Palestinian steadfastness cannot bend natural phenomena. Yes, the old will continue to die. But the young are far from forgetting. So how do you now exact forgetfulness from Palestinians? Israel has always enjoyed a broad definition of 'democracy’, which purported to reconcile ethnic and religious exclusivity on the one hand, and the inclusive parameters of true democracy on the other. Outside Israel , those who dared question this wisdom were labeled anti-Semites. Palestinians in Israel , who fought against the iniquitous and dehumanizing definitions, were often labeled a 'fifth column’ and were designated 'enemies’ of the state. It is they who now risk losing their citizenship or being fined for the supposedly sinful act of remembering the tragedies that have befallen their people.
Although racist and discriminatory laws have defined the Israeli parliament for years, the unmistakably bigoted nature of these laws and the frequency at which they are being passed reflect the level of fear in the Zionist project. The major obstacle to this project remains a people who refuse to be defeated or to be relegated as "woodcutters or waiters." Israel seems to be resolving its quandary of being a Jewish and democratic state, and it has decidedly chosen to be the former. There is nothing democratic about the most recent bills that have passed in the parliament. Israel is now officially an Apartheid state, and all the Hasbra in the world cannot resolve the moral crisis that is now at the core of Israeli politics.

Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported on March 2 that veteran diplomat Ilan Baruch had quit his post as he was no longer able to defend Israeli policy. It seems Mr Baruch made his decision in the nick of time, as it would be a truly arduous task now to try and justify Israel ’s war on Palestinian memory.

The War in Libya and the "Arab Spring"

"...What's most fascinating about the Arab uprisings is that they have not been ideologically Islamist in character, although the Islamists are clearly hoping to benefit from early elections and the opening of political space. It wasn't religious identity at all that brought millions of Arabs into the streets demanding their rights and the overthrow of long-standing dictators. It was instead qualities that had been considered moribund if not dead in the Arab world by many observers, both Western and Arab: patriotism, national consciousness, and a sense of fellow feeling based on national and ethnic identity. The "Arab Spring" has produced a fascinating resurgence of a kind of Arab nationalism, or at least Arab ethnic consciousness as opposed to Muslim religious identity consciousness, but it's very different than the Arab nationalism of the past that quixotically sought to unite disparate Arab states. Instead, the Arab movements are inspiring each other, such that in Tunisia Islamic slogans were ejected in favor of patriotic ones, and the Tunisian flag predominated. In Egypt, the same thing happened, with Muslims and Christians, the devout and the skeptical, the upper middle class and the working poor, all uniting as Egyptians, waving Egyptian flags and symbols, but also Tunisian ones. In Libya and Yemen, national flags have been important but Tunisian and Egyptian flags have also been very present. In other words, people are proud to be Arabs again: They are proud of themselves, and they are proud of each other." Hussein Ibish

The War in Libya and the "Arab Spring"

A Reason roundtable

VOA: Can Arab Uprisings Further Mideast Peace Prospects?

"...Whatever the U.S. role, Samer Shehata, a professor of political science at Georgetown University, worries that Israeli leaders may want to put a hold on peace talks with the Palestinians until the political situation in the Arab world settles down. After that, Shehata says, prospects for peace talks could be much better.

"One of the primary obstacles to achieving success in terms of negotiations and in terms of a lasting, just peace in the region has been the tremendous asymmetry of power between the Israeli side and the Arab side and the Palestinian side in particular," said Shehata. "In medium and longer term, with the new reality established and hopefully the balance of power quite different than what it is now presently, there will be greater incentive for Israel to seek a just and lasting peace in the region."

But Ziad Asali, president of the American Task Force on Palestine, is not so optimistic. He says Israel’s policy of expanding Jewish settlement in the occupied territories continues to be an obstacle to successful peace negotiations.

"Barring something unexpected, unusual, like a major initiative by Obama or something like this, I think there is a high possibility that the Palestinians will come to the U.N. General Assembly in September and ask for a recognition of the state of Palestine," Asali said.

One point on which most regional experts agree is that the uprisings sweeping through the Arab world could have a huge impact on the possibility of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Whether that impact is positive or negative depends, they say, on what kind of governments emerge from the current turmoil."

Can Arab Uprisings Further Mideast Peace Prospects?

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Can-Arab-Uprisings-Further-Mideast-Peace-Prospects-119417009.html

Middle East Voices

"An Israeli initiative worth watching" By Rami G. Khouri

"The main but deep weakness of the initiative – reflecting long-standing distortions in Israeli and American approaches to resolving this conflict – is that it embraces the importance of resolving the core, existential need of Israelis for official Arab recognition and security guarantees; however, it refuses to apply the same standard of seriousness or intensity in addressing the core, existential need of the Palestinians to have their refugee status acknowledge and redressed in accordance with prevailing international legal norms. The initiative is also a private one by individuals out of power, and thus carries fascinating political symbolism but no real weight, as of now." Rami G. Khouri

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=126986#axzz1J1VXZEK7

An Israeli initiative worth watching
By Rami G. Khouri
Saturday, April 09, 2011

"During the visit, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman told the delegation that "Lebanon does not have the capacity to absorb 400,000 people; we simply cannot offer them a good life. The truth is that we will not see peace in the Middle East without the implementation of the refugees' right of return."

Foreign Minister Ali Chami said, "it is not acceptable that Palestinians have been living outside their own state since 1948. The half a million in Lebanon are in complete misery and a very dire situation. The clear solution is the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital". He also spoke of the Israelis' intransigence: "since 1978, according to UN resolutions, Israel has violated Lebanese sovereignty every day, while the international community has failed to deter them."

Referring to Israel's invasions and occupation of Lebanon, Lebanese parliamentary deputy speaker Abdel-Latif Al-Zein said, "Lebanon has endured a lot for the Palestinian cause... It is high time the West liberated itself from double standards and stopped supporting satellite regimes that do not respect Palestinian rights." A Lebanese Hizbullah MP also remarked that "more than two million people have been killed because of this cause. There are millions of Palestinian victims around the world and the international community has paid out billions of dollars, but there is still no solution." "

http://weekly.ahram.org.g/2011/1042/op9.htm

'Perpetual hell' of the Palestinian refugee camps

A delegation of British and European MPs has underlined the appalling conditions suffered by Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, writes Stuart Littlewood in London

The Daily Star - Lebanon News - An imminent return to Nahr al-Bared

"The once-thriving camp, considered one of the wealthiest in Lebanon, was utterly destroyed in early summer 2007 when fierce fighting broke out between the Lebanese Army and Islamist extremist group Fatah al-Islam.

The conflict forced residents to flee with only the most basic of possessions and take refuge in either the neighboring Beddawi camp or in one of the UNRWA purpose-built temporary shelters.

The arrangements have been the source of much anxiety, with residents subjected to chronic overcrowding, poor sanitation and excruciating heat in the summer as well as bitter cold in the winter months." ...READ MORE

The Daily Star - Lebanon News - An imminent return to Nahr al-Bared

UNRWA reply to today’s article in the Wall Street Journal, “Defund the UNRWA"

http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=947UNRWA reply to today’s article in the Wall Street Journal, “Defund the UNRWA"

1 April 2011

Dear Wall Street Journal Editor,

Your article published today, “Defund the UNRWA”, builds its case on a foundation of misinformation and recycled falsehoods. We are, in fact, a neutral United Nations humanitarian organisation helping some of the most disadvantaged people in the troubled Middle East region.

The authors cite two “UNRWA” sporting tournaments which were named after “a suicide bomber” and a “terrorist”, based on erroneous media reports. Those reports were promptly retracted. The authors suggest that UNRWA should do as UNHCR does and resettle refugees. In fact, the preferred solution for UNHCR is voluntary return of refugees. They go on to state that UNRWA facilities are “hotbeds of anti-Israel, anti-Western and anti-Semitic indoctrination”. Nothing could be further from the truth. UNRWA's staff undertake to uphold the values of the United Nations. All staff are subject to a range of processes and mechanisms to ensure their neutrality, including the provision of staff lists to states, including Israel. Allegations of inappropriate staff behavior are investigated and where wrongdoing is established disciplinary action is taken, up to and including dismissal. Our neutrality mechanisms are regularly reviewed by our donors to their satisfaction. This is a matter of public record. Do the authors really believe that UNRWA’s two largest donors, the United States and the European Union, would continue to fund the Agency if they believed there was any truth in these false accusations?

To defund UNRWA is to deprive Palestinians of education, health care and aid for those in poverty. Fortunately, the falsehoods in this article are not lost on our donors who continue to support us generously, realising the value of our work and the stability it brings to the Middle East.

Yours sincerely,

Chris Gunness,
UNRWA Spokesman

On 30 July 2009 Gaza’s children smashed the Guinness Book of World Record title for the number of kites flying simultaneously in the same place.

My letter to the LATimes RE Israel and Palestinians have conflicting visions for village's future.

Lifta - لفتا : Lifta Homes. Summer 2006. Photo: Annemarie Jacir PALESTINE REMEMBERED

RE: Israel and Palestinians have conflicting visions for village's future. Lifta is the last intact pre-1948 Palestinian village in Israel. The Israelis want to put apartments there, but Palestinians want the area preserved as an open-air museum.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-palestinian-village-20110407,0,5408261.story

Dear Editor,

I very much hope that Lifta, the last intact pre-1948 Palestinian village in Israel, is preserved as an open air museum for future generations of more compassionate and aware Israelis and Palestinians: I also very much hope that the ongoing Nakba stops- that Israel stops demolishing Palestinian homes, stops usurping Palestinian land, stops impoverishing Palestinians, stops subsidizing religious extremism... and stops pushing the native non-Jewish Palestinians into forced exile & despair.

Fully respecting the Palestinian refugees' very real right to return is reasonable- and the right thing to do.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab, American homemaker & poet

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.

NOTES

Growing Gardens for Palestine

Tamam Al-Akhal 1989 "But Education Continues"

"They called it Lifta. Today, the abandoned village is the last intact pre-1948 Palestinian town in Israel. Hundreds of similar Palestinian communities were razed after residents fled during Israel's 1948 war for independence."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-palestinian-village-20110407,0,5408261.story

Israel and Palestinians have conflicting visions for village's future

Lifta is the last intact pre-1948 Palestinian village in Israel. The Israelis want to put apartments there, but Palestinians want the area preserved as an open-air museum.

Statement by EU High Representative Catherine Ashton on settlement expansion in East Jerusalem

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MCOI-8FNBUS?OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=ACOS-635PFR
Source: European Union (EU)

Date: 06 Apr 2011

A 139/11

Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the Commission, today made the following statement:

"I am deeply disappointed by the approval of 942 new housing units in the Israeli settlement of Gilo, East Jerusalem. The EU is also closely following upcoming plans for settlements on the Mount Scopus Slopes, in Har Homa C and in Pisgat Ze'ev. These plans may further damage an already fragile political environment.

I reiterate that the EU considers that settlement activities in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law, undermine trust between the parties and constitute an obstacle to peace.

The actions taken by the Israeli Government contravene repeated and urgent calls by the international community, including the Quartet, and run counter to achieving a peaceful solution that will preserve Israel's security and realize the Palestinians' right to statehood. If there is to be genuine peace, a way must be found to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states."

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