Totally trapped by Israel's racist laws and walls, it is not so easy for today's Palestinians to go any where, except into an endless and quite cruel exile.
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| Old travel poster from 1922 about Arab Palestine (Muslim, Christian & Jewish) |
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
1922 Palestine RR "Rapid and comfortable travelling facilities to ALL PARTS OF PALESTINE with connections to Egypt, Syria, TansJordania"
USA TEACH PEACE: "I'm neither Israeli or Palestinian. I am just a military veteran fed up with $10.5 million dollars of taxpayer money each day going to Israel to fund an apartheid regime."
Jeff Bellamar
on facebook
THANK YOU Jeff Bellamar!!!!!!
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Think of Others poem by Mahmoud Darwish of Palestine
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| Palestinian embroidery. Photo credit Project Prospera Crafting Cultures:Palestinian Embroidery Workshop |
Think of Others
As you prepare your breakfast, think of others
(do not forget the pigeon’s food).
As you wage your wars, think of others
(do not forget those who seek peace).
As you pay your water bill, think of others
(those who are nursed by clouds).
As you return home, to your home, think of others
(do not forget the people of the camps).
As you sleep and count the stars, think of others
(those who have nowhere to sleep).
As you express yourself in metaphor, think of others
(those who have lost the right to speak).
As you think of others far away, think of yourself
(say: If only I were a candle in the dark).
- Mahmoud Darwish
"About Darwish’s work, the poet Naomi Shihab Nye
has said, “Mahmoud Darwish is the Essential Breath of the Palestinian
people, the eloquent witness of exile and belonging, exquisitely tuned
singer of images that invoke, link, and shine a brilliant light into the
world’s whole heart. What he speaks has been embraced by readers around
the world—his in an utterly necessary voice, unforgettable once
discovered.”" poets.org
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
1910: A young Palestinian shepherd boy plays with a home-made slingshot made out of wool
Shepherds in the region still toss stones and pebbles to redirect goats and sheep
Monday, September 24, 2018
Saturday, September 15, 2018
"Why don’t they ever ask me, ‘Why is there an occupation?’ ”" Ahed Tamimi
“I don’t like how we are always being asked, ‘Why do you go to the streets, why do you protest, why do you resist?’ Why don’t they ever ask me, ‘Why is there an occupation?’ ”
Ahed Tamimi, the new face of Palestinian protest
"The activist on the occupation, balancing teenage life and politics — and the slap that landed her in prison Nine months ago, before the slap across an Israeli soldier’s cheek that changed her life, the world knew little of Ahed Tamimi. Now the 17-year-old is a cause célèbre, her full head of curly blonde hair recognisable on “Free Ahed” posters from Toronto to Tokyo. In the Palestinian territories, she is revered. In Israel, she is reviled. And at the Reef Cafe in Ramallah, she gets the best table in the house"... READ MORE https://www.ft.com/content/e10befa4-b75f-11e8-b3ef-799c8613f4a1
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Saturday, June 2, 2018
This beautiful young lady is a Palestinian nurse, her name is Razan Najjar. June 2018 Razan was shot and killed by Israeli sniper
This
beautiful young lady is a Palestinian nurse, her name is Razan Najjar. Razan was recently shot and killed by Israeli snipers during the peaceful
protests in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Razan was on duty when she was shot directly in her chest.
Palestinian
nurse Razan al-Najjar was killed by Israeli
snipers as she was providing medical
aid to injured protesters.
Razan Al Najjar, 21 year old Palestinian nurse killed by Israeli snipers. In this photo she holds the Key of Return... a symbol of home & return & the rule of fair and just laws.
The Right of Return is a basic human right that we all enjoy- except Palestinians who have been denied their inalienable right to return to original homes and lands.
Here in America, every time you leave home for any reason you get to return. Leave for work and return. Leave for a vacation and return. Leave for a visit to the hospital and return. Leave to visit a neighbor and return. Leave to go to a park and return. Leave to go shopping and return. That is the right of return.
After the Nazi Holocaust Jewish refugees used the right of return to return to European homes, although many decided not to as some foolishly agreed with Hitler's thinking that racism is the best way to build a strong nation state. Thus modern man made Israel was born.
We should know better.
The Holocaust Museum in Washington DC should have a new wing devoted to the very real plight and suffering of the Palestinians.
Saturday, February 24, 2018
This ancient #Palestinian #olive tree existed well before #Jesus was born and local farmers date it at well over 2,000 years old
From my dear friend Mike: "This ancient #Palestinian #olive tree existed well before #Jesus was born and local farmers date it at well over 2,000 years old"
Mike's beloved grandfather, Abdelkader Tayeh, of Palestine- a fascinating glimpse
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| Pictured: Mike Hanini Odetalla's photo of his late mother (ay), uncle, and grandfather AbdelKader Allah Yirhamu circa mid 1960's in #Palestine. |
Mike Hanini Odetalla
My maternal grandfather, Abdelkader Tayeh, may Allah have mercy on his soul, was the only grandparent that I was fortunate enough to know as a child (my other grandparents passed away well before I was born)...My memories are of an elegantly dressed man, a Fellah, always in the traditional Palestinian dress of a kunbaaz, hata, wa akhaal, standing tall, never hunched over, dramatic weathered face, chiseled by the Palestinian sun, wind, and life of a true man of the land! He walked, always upright, walking stick in hand, and his ever present pipe, safely tucked in the belt of his kunbaaz.
A widower at a relatively young age, he never remarried, raising his 8 children with love, wisdom, and patience! I used to beg him to show me the battle wounds he suffered serving in the Ottoman Army during WWI, a bullet hole that ripped clear through his shoulder, which amazed me as a child. After the Balfour Declaration, he joined his fellow Palestinian young men in signing a pledge to fight the Zionists....
If one were to paint a picture of a typical Palestinian Fellah (farmer), my grandfather would have served as the perfect model! He knew the land on an intimate basis, and derived great joy being an integral part of it!
His red patterned handkerchief (yes I still remember it well some 49 years later) served as his "lunch box", as he would wrap a piece of fresh baked taboon bread, a tomato, onion, some cracked olives, some zataar, and head for the fields, or hills where he lived, preferring to eat his typical lunch under the shade of an olive tree...I still have images in my mind of him laying down, propped up on one elbow, finding refuge from the hot summer sun under the shade of an olive tree, puffing away on his pipe, the epitome of contentment! No radio, no noise, just the sound of his beloved land, whispering to him through the breeze stirred leaves above...His love for and of the land had a very profound effect on me, still does!
The last time I saw my grandfather was in the summer of 1969, just before we left for the USA! He passed away in 1978, a year before I was to return to Palestine for the first time in 1979...Allah Yirhamu wa Yirham kul imawatna!
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
2 of my recent letters to the NYTimes RE Israel/Palestine & Freedom Of, and from, Religion
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| "I’d been reading up on comparative religion. The thing is that all major religions have the Golden Rule in Common. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Not always the same words but the same meaning.–Norman Rockwell, The Norman Rockwell Album. ... From photographs he’d taken on his 1955 round-the-world Pam Am trip, Rockwell referenced native costumes and accessories and how they were worn. He picked up a few costumes and devised some from ordinary objects in his studio, such as using a lampshade as a fez. Many of Rockwell’s models were local exchange students and visitors. In a 1961 interview, indicating the man wearing a wide brimmed hat in the upper right corner, Rockwell said, “He’s part Brazilian, part Hungarian, I think. Then there is Choi, a Korean. He’s a student at Ohio State University. Here is a Japanese student at Bennington College and here is a Jewish student. He was taking summer school courses at the Indian Hill Museum School.” Pointing to the rabbi, he continued, “He’s the retired postmaster of Stockbridge. He made a pretty good rabbi, in real life, a devout Catholic. I got all my Middle East faces from Abdalla who runs the Elm Street market, just one block from my house.” Some of the models used were also from Rockwell’s earlier illustration, United Nations." Rockwell's "Golden Rule" |
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/09/opinion/sunday/palestinians-dashed-hopes-jerusalem.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fsunday&_r=0
Dear Editor,
Freedom of, and from, religion: American taxpayers should not be forced to fund a new Embassy in Israel- or Israel's supposed "Jewishness".
Israel, a heavy armed sovereign modern nation state, wants the land, but not the native non-Jewish population of that land. This is not at all like long ago when America was settled. People of every race and religion came to America, many to escape religious persecution.
America's settlement by Europeans was a less enlightened, dangerously primitive era. Slavery (and inequality) was part of life for most every nation on earth, and had been since before biblical times. But even so, our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution and our Bill of Rights laid the foundation for real freedom, justice, respect and opportunity for all, regardless of race or religion.
172 years later, the very same year that modern Israel was established in 1948, after the Nazi Holocaust, The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights made it quite clear to all the world that "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world"
Israel's sovereign choice to perpetually persecute and impoverish Palestinian men, women and children has made the Israel-Palestine conflict and refugee crisis what it is today.... and that is huge tragedy for everyone.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
***
RE Trump Is Making a Huge Mistake on Jerusalem, By HANAN ASHRAWI
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/opinion/trump-jerusalem-capital-palestinian.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront
Dear Editor,
Good to see the marvelous Hanan Ashrawi again speaking out at a crucial time, doing all she can to help more Americans understand the very real plight and suffering of the Palestinians.
It is a huge tragedy with devastating consequences that so many Americans, including Trump and his son-in-law, don't see how wrong it is to force tax payers (here and there) to fund Israel's religious "scholars" and schemes including Israel's land grabbing "Settlements" in the illegally occupied territories.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
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