Our words have a way of echoing out into either war or peace.... my letters & comments published May- August 2011

Our words have a way of echoing out into either war or peace....

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

my letters & comments published May- August 2011

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The Daily Star
online comment regarding The ex-spy who stepped into the cold by By Hussein Ibish & Michael Weiss
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/2011/Jul-29/The-ex-spy-who-stepped-into-the-cold.ashx#axzz1Vqa51tN7

Anne Selden Annab July 30, 2011

The American Task Force For Palestine (ATFP) is not associated with the U.S. Government. ATFP is independent, funded by donations and from what I have seen of it their work is quite admirable as they take both America and Palestine seriously. It is basically a think tank of educated and concerned American citizens who are trying to influence American opinion (including America's Congress) regarding Palestine. Hussein Ibish is a brilliant analyst and writer who makes a point of thinking about and even occasionally interacting with all different types of people and groups. Read his recent "Debating an extremist Israeli settler" http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=294592 and you can see quite clearly that he does not coddle or idolize Israel.

I found the Ibish/Weiss story of Alastair Crooke's Conflicts Forum quite fascinating... and I have to wonder if Alastair Crooke really believes the propaganda he generates- or is he mainly trying to do what he can to goad Arabs and Muslims into becoming enslaved and crippled by religious tyranny.

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http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2804462.html

ABC Drum Opinion
RE "Transitioning from a pro-Palestinian to pro-Israel perspective"
online comment

Anne Selden Annab :

21 Jul 2011 5:50:22pm

The point of this article is to demonize and dismiss the refugees right of return, specifically the Palestinian refugees right of return. Slavery was once popular too- and civilized intelligent people supported it deploying what they perceived as civilized intelligent arguments. I very much doubt this author would take the same stance on the topic of universal basic human rights and respecting refugee return if it was about Jewish refugees from the Nazi Holocaust seeking to reclaim property stolen and the freedom to live and work where their families had lived and worked for generations.

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http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/20/opinion/la-le-0620-monday-20110620
LATimes letters
Lessons of the 'Gay Girl' hoax
Re "Taken in by 'Gay Girl,' " Opinion, June 14

Foolishly, I too got taken in by the compassionate calls to care about Amina, who turned out to be nothing but a sock puppet for a misguided writer.

However, I do not believe that this well publicized blogosphere incident should be used as an opportunity to discredit and dismiss the Palestinian refugees' very real right to return to original homes and lands, a cause Goldberg points out this "Amina" supported.

United Nations Resolution 194 from 1948, clearly affirming the Palestinian refugees' right to return, is not a figment of anyone's imagination. The photographic records and documents following the plight of the Palestinians for the past 60-plus years are about very real, oppressed, impoverished and displaced men, women and children.

Anne Selden Annab

Mechanicsburg, Pa.

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Washington Times
5-15-2011
comment i posted online

RE: Palestinians storm into Israel, 15 reported killed during unprecedented demonstration
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/15/palestinians-storm-into-israel/?page=1

[Dear Editor,]

Religious tyranny of every type flourishes with the Israel/Palestine conflict: Both Zionists and Islamists are very eager to sabotage reasonable efforts to create a fully secular two state solution to once and for all end the cruelties of the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Both Zionists and Islamists seek to turn the Palestinian refugees very real right to return to original homes and lands into a weapon of war- it is not a weapon of war. The refugees right of return is a universal basic human right and a very reasonable expectation as well as a necessary part of civilized life in a modern world. Every time you leave your home to go shopping or to school or to work you know you can return to your home and things. It is a simple as that.

I agree with Dr. Ibish (of the American Task Force on Palestine) that President Obama deserves credit for his efforts so far... I very much hope that Obama (& Ibish) continue to support the idea of empowering real freedom, justice, peace and progress in the Middle East.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab


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my most recent letter to my elected leaders
5-14-2011

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/bio/userletter/?letter_id=6892754326&content_dir=congressorg
Dear President Obama,

The Palestinian refugees right of return is not only about what happened in 1948 and 1967 when huge numbers of Palestinian men, women and children were pushed out into forced exile.

The Palestinian refugees right of return is not simply about a distant yesterday.

The Palestinian refugees right of return is totally about today and tomorrow as Israel continues to usurp Palestinian land, rights, freedom and security in multiple ways.

Please do not let manipulative propagandists and clueless advisers push you into undermining universal basic human rights and a just and lasting peace in the Middle East... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not ignore the vital importance of FULLY respecting the Palestinian refugees very real right to return to original homes and lands!

Obviously extremists and outsiders on both sides prefer to portray the Palestinian refugees right of return as something explosive, dangerous and subversive- and hate mongers do a great deal of harm to the idea by trying to turn it into a weapon and way to undermine international law and public support for a two state solution to once and for all end the Israel/Palestine conflict.

The real right of return is ALL about living by the Golden Rule & respecting universal basic human rights:

The real right of return is ALL about empowering peace with the rule of fair and just laws & true democracy here and now in today's world.

The real right of return is about working and living in peace- as a valued part of a diverse community... The real right of return is ALL about ending institutionalized bigotry, injustice and religious tyranny.

Open your mind and your heart and welcome home true return- not more forced transfer. Many, if not most Palestinian refugees will eventually chose to relocate to a real Palestinian state rather than be Israeli- but the refugees themselves need to be the ones that make that individual choice.

Don't let extremists, bigots, religious tyrants and useful idiots destroy civilization in the Holy Land: A fully secular two state solution with both Israel and Palestine doing all they can to honor and respect universal basic human rights (including but not limited to the Palestinian refugees right to return) to once and for ALL end the the Israel/Palestine conflict really is the best way forward- for everyone's sake.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

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SanFranChronicle

5-8-2011
posted online-
RE: Israel's obstacles to peace hurt U.S. by Richard North Patterson
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/08/INRD1JA1TN.DTL&ao=all

Dear Editor,

In Jerusalem alone, and only since 1967, one by one Israeli authorities have revoked the residency rights for more than 14,466 indigenous Palestinians in an ongoing effort to make Jerusalem "Jewish". Richard North Patterson under the pretense of advocating peace wants to help Israel continue on with this myopically cruel and counterproductive trend of investing in institutionalized bigotry by convincing us that the "Palestinians must accept that there will be no huge repatriation of Palestinian refugees and their descendants."

Any one who has seriously studied this problem knows that a refugee's right to return is a universal basic human right already very much honored and implemented since 1948. One obvious precedent is the fact that Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust have been reclaiming property usurped, as well as citizenship and the freedom to work and travel all through out Europe.

Today is Mother's Day here in America. I live in community and a country where it does not matter what my religion is, and I am free to travel across town to have brunch with my daughter in her home. Yesterday I was free to travel to another state to my son's college to cheer his team on. I do not have to worry about my home being usurped in my absence, or my daughter's home being bulldozed, or our residency rights being taken away. That is what the right of return is all about- the rule of fair and just laws empowering decency, dignity, peace, security, possibility and progress for ALL the people.

Currently religious extremists and hate mongers on both sides of the Israel/Palestine conflict are thriving, as are pessimists. Time will only make matters worse: A fully secular two state solution based on honestly respecting universal basic human rights (including but not limited to the Palestinian refugees' very real right to return to original homes and lands) to once and for all end the ongoing insanity and extremism of the Israel/Palestine conflict really is the best way forward- for everyone's sake.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

Annie's New Letters (& notes)

Growing Gardens for Palestine

Honoring Heritage, Embracing Originality...The American Task Force on Palestine's 6th Annual Gala

Please save the date and purchase your tickets today!

The American Task Force on Palestine's 6th Annual Gala

Honoring Heritage, Embracing Originality

October 19, 2011

The Ritz Carlton

1150 22nd Street, NW

Washington, D.C. 20037

The American Task Force on Palestine is pleased to announce that the theme of this year’s annual gala will be:

Honoring Heritage, Embracing Originality

We will honor four distinguished Palestinian Americans: Maha Freij, Hanan Munayyer, Nawaf Soliman and Maysoon Zayid.

We are privileged to crown the event with a Concert of Arab Vocal and Instrumental Music by internationally recognized Palestinian American musician and composer Simon Shaheen and Ensemble.

We are delighted to have the very talented Palestinian American comedian Dean Obeidallah as our MC for the evening.

This will be a black tie event.

click here for more information

Palestinians only lose with violence - The National

Palestinians only lose with violence - The National

The perilous encounter between modern nationalism and ancient history

"Nationalism has been the source of much suffering, conflict, abuse and repression. But it is also built into modernity at its core level. No large, self-defining people can function in the world today -- which is made up of states and citizens of those states -- without being part of some national structure. Indeed, no individual can function in the modern world outside national structures. Try traveling without a passport, for example. Hence the particular plight of the Palestinians, by far the largest group of stateless people in the world. They find themselves outside the whale, not second-class citizens or citizens of oppressive states -- both of which can plausibly fight for their individual or collective rights within the structures of those states -- but noncitizens, citizens of no state whatsoever." Hussein Ibish

Mr. Mileikowsky and the "seal of Netanyahu": the perilous encounter between modern nationalism and ancient history

We are also Berliners By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH

http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=23796&CategoryId=3

We are also Berliners

Date posted: August 15, 2011

By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH

Fifty years ago, soldiers began to coil barbed wire and light fencing along a nearly 100 miles long border. Eventually, the barbed wire would be replaced with concrete divides up to 11 feet tall, fortified fences and heavily armed watchtowers. The border would be closed for 28 years, separating countrymen, neighbors and family from one another. Almost 150 people would die trying to breach the wall – to find a better life or just to visit a loved one.

Sound familiar? The wall, of course, is the infamous Berlin Wall between East and West Germany, erected by the German Democratic Republic, ostensibly as an “anti-fascist” protection measure against West German domination. It took almost two decades for the wall to be torn down, for east and west Berlin to be reunited and for the wounds to begin to heal. Looking back, there is no doubt Germans who lived through World War II and who experienced the division of their country understand what it means to be separated by force, to not see a relative for years or be unable to reach places in your own country that were previously minutes away.

Fortunately for Germans, that period of their past is over. With much fanfare, the wall was torn down in 1989 and the two sectors of Berlin were united. But while the wall in Berlin was being torn down, the plan for another wall was being conceived, a scheme hatched in Israel’s highest echelons of power. Less than a decade after Berlin’s wall became history, Israel’s West Bank separation wall became a grim and ugly reality. This wall however, is hundreds of miles long, cuts off communities, families, farmland and livelihood for thousands of people and, by all standards, is Israel’s de facto border between itself and the Palestinians.

While it has not been 28 years since Israel began erecting its wall –construction of the wall started in 2002 – it does not look like it will come down any time soon. Not only because Israel has no intention of tearing down something it put so much effort into building, but because there are not enough voices calling for its destruction. Each year, people celebrate the wall’s demise and on this anniversary of its erection world leaders call for the memory of the wall to be a “reminder to stand up for freedom and democracy” so that atrocities such as these “never happen again.”

Are the Palestinians not considered citizens of the world? What about their freedom? It is not even a question of whether this will ever “happen again” but rather how to handle it “happening now.” The Palestinians have long called Israel out on the illegality of the wall, debunking Israel’s initial pretext for building it, which is keeping out potential suicide bombers. If this were true, the wall would not have cut deep into the West Bank for the purpose of protecting the Jewish settlements there but would have run along the Green Line, or the 1948 border.

Even the International Court of Justice agreed with the Palestinians in an advisory opinion given in July, 2004, deeming the sections of the wall built in the West Bank illegal and saying it should be dismantled.

This of course, did not happen. Israel has continued to build the wall with impunity. The concrete and barbed wire edifice has disrupted thousands of lives, cutting people off from their land and means of survival, from work places, schools, relatives and places of worship. The outcry against the wall has come mostly from grassroots groups around the world who work actively for justice and freedom for the Palestinians and for all people. It has not come actively from governments or from international bodies who purportedly stand for the values of justice and equality.

We Palestinians are happy that the Berlin wall came down and that people stand for freedom and democracy. We, unlike others, know what it is like to have a wall disrupt lives, keeping people separated and divided. We know how damaging it can be. But we also know that if those who call for freedom and democracy do not advocate these principles for all peoples, atrocities like the Berlin wall and the West Bank wall will continue to be erected and deny thousands of people the very things they claim to stand for.

Joharah Baker is Director of the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

ATFP Urges US Government to Help Curb Proposed Israeli Settlement Expansions

ATFP Urges US Government to Help Curb Proposed Israeli Settlement Expansions

Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Information: Ghaith al-Omari
August 15, 2011 - 12:00am

The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) today urged the US government to use its influence to prevent the construction of a series of recently announced major Israeli settlement expansions in the occupied territories. In its most recent announcement, the Israeli government says it has approved 277 new housing units in Ariel, a settlement that cuts deeply into Palestinian territory in the occupied West Bank. This follows several other recent and highly provocative settlement expansion plan announcements, including final approval for 1,600 proposed new housing units in the Ramat Shlomo settlement in occupied East Jerusalem. The Ramat Shlomo plans were initially made public during a 2010 visit to Israel by Vice President Joe Biden, an announcement described by Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton as “an insult to the United States.”

Other recent settlement expansion plans include 930 new housing units in “Har Homa C,” a hilltop ridge technically in Israel's definition of the “Jerusalem municipality” but that is directly adjacent to Bethlehem and deep into the occupied West Bank. It is part of a ring of settlements around the southern flank of occupied East Jerusalem that threatens to cut the city off from the rest of the West Bank. Plans have also reportedly been proceeding for two other areas in occupied East Jerusalem, involving 2,000 new housing units in the Givat HaMatos settlement, and 700 more in the Pisgat Zeev settlement.

In response to the announcements, the US State Department said such unilateral actions “undercut trust.” A State Department official pointed out, “Jerusalem is one of the final-status issues, and therefore the disposition of Jerusalem should be decided by the parties in negotiations. Unilateral actions by the Israelis or Palestinians that appear to prejudice the outcome of the negotiations are counterproductive. These types of construction are illegitimate and not in the best interest of getting back to negotiations.” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton added that such settlement expansion "threatens the viability of an agreed two-state solution and undermines ongoing efforts to resume negotiations."

ATFP strongly opposes the building of these settlements and believes that these announcements are extremely provocative, particularly at a very sensitive time in Israeli-Palestinian relations. Such settlement activity, if completed, would undermine the prospects for a two-state peace agreement, and the credibility and viability of both negotiations and negotiators. ATFP noted the strong American national interest in restarting negotiations and securing a two-state peace agreement. The Task Force said the United States should use its influence with Israel to ensure that these proposed settlement expansions are not completed, and that the Israeli government also refrain from additional provocative announcements.

My letter to the Guardian RE Understanding is key to a two-state future for Israelis and Palestinians

RE: Understanding is key to a two-state future for Israelis and Palestinians A Palestinian state can become a reality, but only through an agreement with Israel that meets the requirements of both sides
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/17/two-state-israelis-palestinians

Dear Sir,

Balancing "needs" and narratives can not mean that Israel (or any other country) is free to oppress, impoverish and/or ethnically cleanse targeted ethnic or religious groups in order to build a preferred demographic majority... One state or two, Israel must step up to respect universal basic human rights including but not limited to the Palestinian refugees individual and inalienable right to return to original homes and lands.

Understanding that is key to understanding modern civilization.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

Refugees, Borders & Jerusalem...

"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

"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." http://plodelegation.us/palestine/core-issues/

Penniless Palestine | Foreign Affairs

Penniless Palestine | Foreign Affairs

The fabric of Palestinian identity

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=299083

The book “Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution” reminds the reader of the rich cultural history of the Palestinian people. (Image via Amazon.com) Hussein Ibish, August 9, 2011

What can a book about traditional folkloric costumes tell us about contemporary politics? Quite a lot as it happens.

Hanan Karaman Munayyer’s beautiful new volume, “Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution” (Interlink, 2011) combines superb photography of the renowned Munayyer collection of traditional Palestinian dress with an analysis of their origins, evolution and variations. Since the 1980s, Munayyer and her husband Farah have been assembling these costumes and other artifacts of Palestinian traditional life in their Palestinian Heritage Foundation.

Between the two of them and their foundation, they are among the most important documentarians and preservationists of this history and heritage, not just in the United States, but in the world. Their collection, which dates from the 1850s to the present, has been exhibited at the Kennedy Center in Washington and in museums and galleries across the globe....READ MORE

Palestinian artist use sands to show cultural heritage

Commemorating Darwish’s Legacy

Mahmoud Darwish was a Palestinian poet and academic world renowed for his beautiful, and fiercely national, writings. He tackled pertinent and controversial issues such as exile, identity, and watan (homeland) with eloquent poems and reasoned articles.

The selection below is of special significance now, as the Palestinian people turn to the world seeking recognition of their sovereignty and identity. This call for sovereignty echoes through the words of an excerpt from Darwish’s poem “Diary of a Palestinian Wound”, written in 1969:

Ah my intractable wound!
My country is not a suitcase
I am not a traveler
I am the lover and the land is the beloved.

>Read more about the press release.

Facts on the Ground - By Hussein Ibish | Foreign Policy

"The expansion in Har Homa is not only highly damaging to prospects for peace, but it also taps into the deepest Palestinian fears of relentless and carefully choreographed settlement activity designed to permanently foreclose the possibility of their meaningful independence. The bitterest experience for Palestinians in their dealings with Israel since negotiations began in 1993 was the doubling of the number of settlers in the occupied territories from 200,000 to 400,000 during the 1990s, when they believed they were negotiating an end to the occupation. Not only did the occupation not end and no Palestinian state get created, but the number of settlements and settlers greatly increased throughout the entire era of the "peace process." Including East Jerusalem, they now number more than half a million." Facts on the Ground - By Hussein Ibish | Foreign Policy