Heart-rending pictures of a toddler's lifeless body washed ashore on a Turkish beach sparked horror on Wednesday as the cost of .... a growing refugee crisis hit home.

Wearing a red T-shirt and blue shorts, the child -- identified as three-year-old Aylan Kurdi -- is believed to be one of least 12 Syrians who died when their boats sank trying to reach Greece.

Istanbul (AFP) - Heart-rending pictures of a toddler's lifeless body washed ashore on a Turkish beach sparked horror on Wednesday as the cost of Europe's growing refugee crisis hit home.

The images of a tiny child lying face down in the surf at one of Turkey's main tourist resorts has once more put a human face on the dangers faced by tens of thousands of desperate people who risk life and limb to seek a new life in Europe.

From my old friend Palestinian-American Mike Hanini Odetalla's facebook wall:

#Refugees taken in by:
#SaudiArabia: 0
#Qatar: 0
#Kuwait: 0
#Emirates: 0
#Bahrain: 0

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The archaeologist who looked after ancient ruins of Palmyra in Syria for 40 years, Khaled al-Asaad, was taken hostage {and murdered by Daesh/ISIS} after IS seized the Unesco World Heritage site this year BBC News 2015

 

A cloud rises above where the Temple of Baal Shamin stood in Palmyra until {Daesh/ISIS}Isis blew it up in August 2015... Isis is destroying the ‘Venice of the sands’ piece by piece – and worse atrocities may be yet to come.

Kidnapping and Sex Slavery: Covering ISIS' Religious Justification for Rape

The New York Times

Aug 14, 2015 - Rukmini Callimachi discusses how she worked to tell the stories of Yazidi women and girls held as sex slaves by the Islamic State.

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FYI

#‎Jordan‬ hosts second largest number of {Syrian} ‪#‎refugees‬ per capita — 2015 report ‪#‎Amman‬ ‪#‎JO‬ #Jordan http://ow.ly/RJ6yP

According to official figures, there are some 1.4 million Syrians in Jordan. - See more at: http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/jordan-hosts-second-largest-number-refugees-capita-%E2%80%94-report#sthash.TLNe3Xcq.dpuf

Refugees from 44 nations, including Somalis, Iraqis and Sudanese, reside in Jordan, according to the UNHCR. - See more at: http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/jordan-hosts-second-largest-number-refugees-capita-%E2%80%94-report#sthash.TLNe3Xcq.dpu

My letter to the NYTimes RE Roger's Cohen's Middle Eastern Zen

MOHAMMED OMER: Gaza, Gulag on the Mediterranean AUG. 24, 2015

RE: Roger's Cohen's Middle Eastern Zen
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/opinion/roger-cohen-middle-eastern-zen.html?ref=international

Dear Editor,

Roger's Cohen's Middle Eastern Zen is only possible because his world view totally ignores the part Jews-preferred Israel has played in creating and sustaining a mind boggling long and huge and increasingly complicated refugee crisis.

The Middle East with scarce water and lots of religious extremism goaded on by all who invest in bigotry- including Israel- might only last long enough for many MANY more people to suffer in many MANY more ways as the people there are living thinking feeling human beings who would rather not be stuck in impoverished refugee camps, walled ghettos and jobless quagmires for generations to come.

Daesh/ISIS is decidedly more despicable and cruel than Israel, but that is no reason for foolish Americans to fund, empower, and then excuse or ignore Israel's ongoing persecution, oppression and displacement of the native non-Jewish people of historic Palestine.

Now more than ever is a good time to insist that Israel start seriously respecting international law and universal human rights: A just and lasting peace, a fully secular peace shaping fair and just laws, for both Israel and Palestine as two fully separate, fully sovereign nation states, would go a long way towards freeing all the people from perpetual hostilities, escalating pollution and poverty- and crowded refugee camps.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

Middle East Refugee Crisis 2013 photo: Syria-Iraq border

 "Tens of thousands of people, mainly from Africa and the Middle East, have put to sea this year in the hope of reaching Europe, often dangerously packed into small vessels that were never designed to cross the Mediterranean.

Those who make it ashore and others traveling by land have increasingly tried to make their way north via the Balkans, causing tension among countries along the route... "

8-27-2015: Up to 50 refugees found dead in truck in Austria, European leaders 'shaken'

My letter to the NYTimes RE Naftali Bennett on Israel's Jewish Terrorists

ATFP news link

Obama: Palestinians deserve end to indignity of occupation

Talking to the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, President Obama said that he would never give up hope for "peace between Israelis and Palestinians."... "Palestinians deserve an end to the occupation and the daily indignities that come with it. That's why we've worked so hard over the years for a two-state solution and to develop innovative ways to address Israel's security and Palestinian sovereignty needs"

 

                                    *********

RE: Naftali Bennett on Israel's Jewish Terrorists
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/opinion/naftali-bennett-on-israels-jewish-terrorists.html?ref=international

Dear Editor,

Believing in the "legitimacy of the settlements in the West Bank" Israel's Bennett does not want a Palestinian state, but he also does not want to give Palestinians full and equal rights: Hiding in plain sight is the fact that Israelis want the land, but not the native non-Jewish population of that land...  Hiding in plain sight is the fact that institutionalized bigotry and injustice shape Israeli policy towards Palestinians, enabling Israel's sovereign violations of international law and the Palestinians' basic human rights to continue on at a rapid pace. 

Knowing how horrifying the headlines are as yet another Palestinian home is attacked and a Palestinian baby is burned alive by an Israeli, Israeli leadership is in overdrive to make excuses and distance themselves from responsibility for this situation.   Bennett's sweet talk in the New York Times about creating economic prosperity for Palestinians (with no mention of the fact Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are cruelly trapped and caged and constantly impoverished by Israeli checkpoints and walls) buys more time for more Israelis to usurp more Palestinian land, rights and life.

Religious extremism on both sides makes a bad situation even worse. Ending the Israel-Palestine conflict with a fully secular two state solution that includes full respect for UN Resolution 194 from 1948 regarding the Palestinian refugees' inalienable right to return to original homes and lands, is the only way to create true equality and peace and "a safe, secure future for all of our children, Israeli and Palestinian, without regard for their religion or sexual orientation."

America was able to acknowledge and dismantle the cruelty of Jim Crow mentality which convinced numerous 'law abiding' white citizens to feel good about being horrible to blacks - Israel can too.

Never forget the universal truth that: "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."

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

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

My letter to CSM RE Arson attack in West Bank deepens tensions over Jewish settlements

A man shows a picture of 18-month-old Palestinian toddler Ali Saad Dawabsha who died when his family house was set on fire by Jewish settlers ... Lion's share of attention

RE : Terrorism & Security Arson attack in West Bank deepens tensions over Jewish settlements (+video)

Dear Editor,

It is hard to know how best to respond to more heart breaking news regarding the horrific suffering of Palestinian children as Israel's illegal occupation grinds on and on, day after day year after year.

Insiders who are aware of the very real plight of the Palestinians know that time and time again context gets lost as basic facts are ignored.  FYI 28,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel since 1967.

FYI Israel currently has 261 Jewish-only settlements and ‘outposts’ built on confiscated Palestinian land.... oh and 2,061 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000.... furthermore 5,750 Palestinian men, women and children are currently imprisoned by Israel (164 are children (17 under 16.) 

Price tag?  Calculate the sum of the big picture as Jews-preferred Israel, generously subsidized by both private and public funds, continues to harshly persecute, impoverish and displace the native non-Jewish population of the Holy Land. 

Calculate the cost, and the cruel ramifications of the Israel/Palestine conflict as Palestinian refugees continue to be denied their inalienable natural, legal and moral right to return to original homes and lands.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

My letter to the NYTimes RE Jewish Arsonists Suspected in West Bank Attack That Killed Palestinian Toddler

 Ali Saad Dawabshe

RE Jewish Arsonists Suspected in West Bank Attack That Killed Palestinian Toddler
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/world/middleeast/west-bank-arson-palestinian-toddler.html?emc=edit_ee_20150801&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=22789767&_r=0

Dear Editor,

Many of the Israeli settlers currently usurping Palestinian land, rights and life are economic opportunists, some are religious zealots. All play a part in making a bad situation much much worse.

Israel's sovereign investments in the ongoing impoverishment, persecution and displacement of the native non-Jewish population of the Holy Land generates both motives and opportunities for extremism on all sides to flourish.

Globally both private funds and public money are being funneled into empowering Israel's Jews-preferred policies, actively sabotaging respect for universal basic human rights and the rule of fair and just laws.

A Palestinian family and home targeted for destruction by an Israeli- and an 18 month old Palestinian baby burned alive. This is not an isolated incident, connect the dots: "Since 1967 and the beginning of the Occupation, the Israeli government has demolished over 28,000 houses belonging to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem." http://icahdusa.org/facts/... "Since 2000, at least 8,000 Palestinian children have been arrested and prosecuted in an Israeli military detention system notorious for the systematic ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children." http://www.dci-palestine.org/issues_military_detention

How much more cruel must the Israel/Palestine conflict get before America's media, and our politicians and religious leaders, are more honest about Israel and the part money and bigotry have been playing in perpetuating the very real plight and suffering of the Palestinians?

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

My letter to the NYTimes RE Is This the End of Christianity in the Middle East?

Bethlehem Behind the Wall

RE: Is This the End of Christianity in the Middle East?

Dear Editor,

Israel's decades long refusal to respect the Palestinian refugees' inalienable right to return to original homes and lands continues to exasperate the longest running refugee crisis in the Middle East: As things are today, with many Palestinian Christians pushed into poverty and forced exile by Jews-preferred Israel, Christians most certainly do not have an ally in "The Jewish State" with its ongoing quest to displace and destroy the native non-Jewish population of historic Palestine.

Do you think race or religion or gender are a good way to determine who gets citizenship rights and freedoms?

How can American leadership, and lobby groups- and Israel itself, see facts in context and the bigger picture, when news reports on the burgeoning refugee crises in the Middle East totally ignore Israel's sovereign choice to demolish Palestinian homes and impoverish Palestinian communities and individuals day after day after day for decades?   

Expecting Israel to set a better example by fully respecting universal human rights would go a long way towards calming down the entire region. We can't solve all the problems in the Middle East, the people living there have to do that, but we can send the clear message that we believe in the rule of fair and just laws and real democracy.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

I expect Israel to respect and protect the rights of all children, Palestinian and Israeli.... Urge your Members of Congress to join Representative Betty McCollum in signing the letter to Secretary of State John Kerry asking the State Department to make the human rights of Palestinian children a priority in the United States’ relationship with Israel.

Urge Your MoC to Sign the Letter on Palestinian Children in Military Detention

In February UNICEF shared the details of their ongoing dialogue with Israeli authorities about the rights of children in military detention. Dialogue is a positive first step, however as long as Palestinian children continue to be arrested and detained by an Israeli military system that violates their basic human rights more must be done.

 

My letter to the Guardian RE A cross to bear: the vanishing Christians of the Middle East

A funeral in Deir Abu Hennis, Egypt, where many of the inhabitants have never left the village (July 2012). Photograph: Linda Dorigo

RE A cross to bear: the vanishing Christians of the Middle East
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/16/christians-middle-east-religion-islamic-state-linda-dorigo-andrea-milluzzi

Dear Editor,

Framing the current tragedy and burgeoning refugee crisis in the Middle East as America's fault for invading Iraq is easy, but not entirely true- and not at all helpful... Right now Islamist militants and their supporters and apologists are FULLY to blame for impoverishing the region and exasperating intolerance, cruelty and corruption. 

Life is local: Israel's example of flourishing economically while actively usurping Palestinian land and refusing to respect the Palestinian refugees inalienable right to return to original homes and lands because Israel wants to be a "Jewish" democracy has a huge influence on people in the region, who like people everywhere on planet earth, simply want to survive. 

Israel's refusal to respect international law and universal human rights should not be ignored.  Nor should the vital necessity of a fairly negotiated settlement to shape a fully secular sovereign and free  Palestinian state to live alongside and with a fully secular already sovereign Israel. Ending the Israel/Palestine conflict ASAP would go a long way towards empowering decency, dignity and better investments of time, money, and emotion, so that all the people of the region can move forward away from perpetual war and sectarian strife.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

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

A century on, the debate over the killings continues.

Patrick Chappatte for The New York Times

Boycotting Israel's Anti-Palestine War Games in the West Bank

"... a settlement boycott—and not just a refusal to buy settlement-produced goods but a prohibition on investing or financially underwriting settlement activity and industries—are really the least that any state or society that sincerely believes in the need for an eventual two-state solution can and should do."  Hussein Ibish

A settlement boycott is the least we can do

Everyone who cares about peace should boycott settlements

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentary/565132-a-settlement-boycott-is-the-least-we-can-do

[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 (& America)]

PLEASE NOTE

This is not "BDS" which too often veers off into being a podium and publicity for one-state activists, anti-Israel agitators, extremists, hate mongers and Zionists who do not support a negotiated end to the Israel-Palestine conflict.  

This is a reasonable call for reasonable people worldwide (as well as all organizations, NGOs, corporations, businesses, concerned governments...etc...) to uphold and respect international law and a two state solution to once and for all end the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Scales of Justice

"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 Universal Declaration of Human Rights

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“[The] continued expansion of Israeli illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and other territories occupied by Israel since 1967, threatens the prospect of a just and final peace agreement,”  Foreign ministers from 16 EU countries – including the UK – have signed a letter to the EU’s foreign policy head, Federica Mogherini, requesting she expedite moves to ensure the clear labelling of goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements and sold in Europe

My letter to the NYTimes RE U.N. Calls on Western Nations to Shelter Syrian Refugees

Syrian refugees waiting for transportation to a shelter after crossing into Turkey. Nearly four million refugees have poured into the countries bordering Syria — chiefly Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey — straining their resources and plunging displaced people into poverty. Photo Credit Bryan Denton for The New York Times

RE U.N. Calls on Western Nations to Shelter Syrian Refugees
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/18/world/middleeast/un-calls-on-western-nations-to-shelter-syrian-refugees.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Dear Editor,

With the news this week about the Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (his family thinks he is innocent and that the attack "was all fabricated by the American special services.")

, as well as recent reports from Italy's police that Muslim migrants had thrown 12 Christians overboard during a recent crossing from Libya it will be hard to convince America to welcome in more Syrian refugees.

We tend to hear and remember the worst news and most titillating stories. The more outrageous and anti-social the crime the more attention it gets.  I can not help but wonder about all the many migrants and refugees from the Middle East who came to America to become loyal citizens contributing positive momentum to American ideals. People like the inspiring poet Kahlil Gibran, and people like Dr. Ziad Asali, a Palestinian American born in Jerusalem who built a successful career here in America and is a Diplomat of the Board of Internal Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, as well as the founder of the American Task Force on Palestine which as been trying to get mainstream America, as well as people in the Middle East, to take Palestinian statehood and peace seriously.

Refugee crises in the Middle East have been going on for more than a century, with many innocent men, women and children losing all because of hate campaigns and bigotry. The situation might  become much much worse, but it does not have to be that way. Compassion and kindness and diplomatic efforts have the power to turn things around: Peace in the Middle East can and will be built by people who have been able to break free from the hate campaigns and bigotry, religious extremism, corruption, crime and conspiracy theories that undermine support for the rule of fair and just laws.  Offering safe harbor for some Syrian refugees here in America will increase the chances that their children will be able to get a decent eduction and a better understanding of how to help create real respect for basic human rights and freedom- and real democracy for the people, of the people and by the people.... for everyone's sake.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

American homemaker & poet

NOTES

My letter to the NYTimes RE A Tiny House in Seattle

A hemmed-in house has become Seattle’s shrine to defiance. Photo Credit Ian C. Bates for The New York Times

RE A Tiny House in Seattle
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/14/opinion/a-tiny-house-in-seattle.html?ref=international

Dear Editor,

Thank you for publishing Barry Martin's reality check on the story of Edith Macefield and her tiny house in Seattle... "she was neither the “anticorporate crusader” or the “old fool, blinded by stubbornness” that you wrote about, in describing the views of some."

Happily hyping Disney's movie "UP" the original report you published “House That Wouldn’t Budge (or Float Away) Faces a Last Stand” should have at least glanced at Barry Martin's book Under One Roof: Lessons I Learned From a Tough Old Woman in a Little Old House.  I haven't read the book yet, but will after seeing Barry Martin's fascinating letter and then reading a very easy to find online description about his book: "The story of Barry Martin and Edith Macefield is a tale of balance and compassion, of giving enough without giving too much, of helping our elderly loved ones through the tough times without taking away their dignity."

Seems to me, at the end of the day, there are many nice people and there are some not so nice people everywhere, in every walk of life, and there are countless personal motives for people to do what they do. Here in America, we have homes and we have businesses that help provide jobs so that people can have homes. We also have local zoning as well as neighborhood associations which help keep some very pleasant neighborhoods family friendly so that, as time passes and some people pass on or move away, other individuals and families are more likely to move in and invest in their earnings as well as their time and energy into maintaining a pleasant home and neighborhood.

Life is much more complex and interconnected than big bad corporate entity VS real people.  Jobs matter, personal effort matters, and so does good reporting by reliable newspapers so that we the people might be motivated to help build support for better policies by corporations, colleges, government, local business, as well as any other organization (and noble character) that influences life today.  Jobs matter, individuals matter, letters to the editor matter, stories matter, attention to detail matters, upholding the rule of fair and just laws matters immensely and so do volunteer efforts and the arts... and how we raise our children- what we teach them to see and explore and think about.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
American homemaker & poet