In Growing Gardens for Palestine "These little seeds hold the DNA of my culture—a culture that’s being attacked, eliminated and destroyed,” says Sansour, a Palestinian artist, scholar and conservationist.

          A Palestinian artist, Haya Kaabneh, designed the yakteen seed labels  for the Hudson Valley Seed Co.

In Growing Gardens for Palestine

"“These little seeds hold the DNA of my culture—a culture that’s being attacked, eliminated and destroyed,” says Sansour, a Palestinian artist, scholar and conservationist. “And so, when I share it, it becomes literally part of somebody else’s body and psyche. And in this way, we are not alone in our struggle.” 

The Hudson Valley Seed Co. and its co-founder, Ken Greene, were in many ways natural partners for Sansour, who was dubbed “The Seed Queen of Palestine” by Al Jazeera back in 2018 when her seed library first started to gain international attention. Greene also runs a non-profit focused on seed justice. His company prides itself on selling unique varieties in a sustainable way and also on telling the story behind each hard-to-find seed...." 

 
PLEASE GO TO THE ORIGINAL LINK TO READ THE ARTICLE IN FULL https://modernfarmer.com/2021/02/palestinian-seeds-come-to-america-stories-and-artwork-included/?fbclid=IwAR2n2lvc-QQXPcQAwZeJkPVQfxAvOvIVJVSs9fkkWZk-ftY6sm46Il3bhZA

Palestinian Seeds Come to America, Stories and Artwork Included

                    Vivien Sansour is bringing yakteen to the United States. 

Photo by Samar Hazboun

Gardeners please note this company, the Hudson Valley Seed Co., has many wonderful seeds and also some good gardening tools. This is the direct link to the Yakteen https://hudsonvalleyseed.com/products/yakteen-1

Dear President Biden... Israeli racism and brutality is clearly wrong. Please help right this horrible wrong in every way you can. Start by noticing and speaking out for the rule of fair and just laws

                   Norman Rockwell's "The Golden Rule" & The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

 Dear President Biden,

Thank you for winning!

Please do well by and for America, and also please notice the very real plight of the native non-Jewish Palestinians who are cruelly oppressed & impoverished by racist Israeli laws and policies. 

I know Israel is VERY very good at looking good, Palestine not so much, but it has been 70 years in a post Nazi-Holocaust world with Israel still constantly violating the indigenous Palestinian men, women and children's basic human rights. They should know better- and so should we... We have the internet- we can see the suffering when we bother to look!  

Israeli racism and brutality is clearly wrong. Please help right this horrible wrong in every way you can.  Start by noticing and speaking out for the rule of fair and just laws, including but not limited to the Palestine refugees' inalienable legal and moral right to return to original homes and lands.   

Sincerely,

Anne Selden Annab

 

 

Palestine Solidarity Campaign: "Israeli settlements are villages, towns and cities built illegally on Palestinian land. In order to build settlements, Palestinians are forced off their land and their homes are often demolished. In their place, Israel continues to build new neighbourhoods in which Palestinians are not allowed to live, and a separate road system that Palestinians are not allowed to use."

Merry Christmas from the Holy Land - The Holy Family painting by Palestinian artist Maher Naji

"Let the art and love be our common language." —Maher Naji

 

 

Dear SERRV Ethical Gift Guide

 

Sent by mail to SERRV International Administrative Office,  Madison, Wisconsin, USA

Dear SERRV,

 

I applaud you for carrying marvelous handmade objects from the West Bank, handcrafts made by Palestinians.   I have happily ordered several lovely hand made things last month from your catalogue in hopes of beautifying my own home as well as supporting persecuted and impoverished Palestinians.

 

Your most recent Holiday 2020 catalogue arrived yesterday and I was so excited!!!  I was eager to find gifts in it, and spend all my Christmas budget as you are a fair trade company advertising an Ethical Gift Guide. 

 

I saw some charming bread baskets with a bread warmer from Bangladesh which I  was about to buy until BOOM … I saw that you are calling the Arab treat and word “Za’atar” as being from Israel.

 

That was a punch in the stomach.  I gasped for air, and tears filled my eyes:  My husband’s beloved father was born in Palestine, before Israel came to be, and so we are very much aware of how Israel has spent decades ethnically cleansing the native non-Jewish population of the Holy Land from their ancestral homes and lands. 

 

Imagine being denied full freedom and rights in the land where you were born because the powers that be have deemed you the “wrong” religion.  

 

We read international newspapers in this house, and so are well aware of the constant day in and day out atrocities large and small wrought by Israeli soldiers and religious fanatics who want the land but not the native non-Jewish people of that land.

 

You are a fair trade company with an Ethical Gift Guide. If you want to advertise Palestinian Arab Za’atar then do so, but please do not hand Israel credit for producing it. Israel has taken Palestinian land and homes, don’t let them also usurp the culture and food of the native non-Jewish Palestinians.

 

If Israel agrees to be one state, with full freedoms and rights and respect for the indigenous non-Jewish population,  including full respect for the Palestinian refugees inalienable right to return, then you can call it made in Israel. Until then please don’t. Just don’t.

 

Sincerely,

 

Anne Selden Annab

 

 

#OnThisDay in 1948 #diplomat and #UnitedNations mediator Count Folke Bernadotte was assassinated by a Zionist terrorist group while on official business in #Jerusalem #Palestine

 

My letter to the NYTimes Sept 8 2020 RE The U.A.E.-Israel Flight Is Nothing to Celebrate by Diana Buttu

RE Diana Buttu's excellent op-ed: The U.A.E.-Israel Flight Is Nothing to Celebrate, It’s a slap in the face of Palestinians, who can no longer count on Arab states for political support. published September 8, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/opinion/uae-israel-palestinians.html?referringSource=articleShare&fbclid=IwAR0nL-feONpJZT0lzSACwFLbigk95qR2eejnGJ9uPanpHO8mez6__mm3Oy8

Dear Editor,

Oslo Accords were so long ago, too long ago. 1993.  A child born then has already fully grown up.  But where is the promised Palestine, as in the fully sovereign and free nation state that was supposed to be born to live side by side in peace with Israel ?!

Inch by inch that Palestine is being crushed by Israeli "settlements", monstrous land grabbing walls, home demolition policies, and Israel's state funded religious extremists... Israel clearly wants the land but not the native non-Jewish people of that land.  How is it that America's elected leaders, and now the UAE,  enthusiastically endorse and empower a Jews-preferred Israel that refuses to respect the Palestinians' basic human rights, including but not limited to the refugees right of return? 

For decades now, I have watched as many have tried all they can to help create a two state solution to end the Israel/Palestine conflict once and for all. Diana Buttu is absolutely right to say "Rather than continuing to press for a two-state solution, the P.L.O. should instead press for equal rights.", and I thank her from the bottom of my heart for speaking truth to power.

Sincerely,

Anne Selden Annab

 

Photo by Photo Ra'id Mukdi, 9 Sept. 2020 of Palestinian children (of Ras al-Tin, east of Ramallah)  during class before by Israeli forces confiscated tin panels from the school’s roof, 30 chairs and 12 classroom tables.   One example of many of how Israel daily harasses and impoverishes Palestinians. https://www.btselem.org/facing_expulsion_blog?nid=213075 

Free Palestinians

#Israel #Palestine: A clear illustration of injustice & racism ... why is this so hard for so many to understand?

"I Am From There" a poem by Mahmoud Darwish of Palestine

A Palestinian girl takes a closer look at cherry blossom at a park in central Hebron, in the West Bank

Photograph: Abed Al Hashlamoun/EPA photo published in the Guardian 2009 "In Bloom"

I Am From There

Mahmoud Darwish - Palestine

I am from there and I have memories.

I was born, as all people are born.

I have a mother,

and a house with many windows.

I have brothers, friends,

and a prison with a cold window.

Mine is the wave, snatched by seagulls.

I have my own view,

and an extra blade of grass.

Mine is the moon at the ends of speech,

and the blessings of birds,

and an immortal olive tree.

I passed over this land before the swords

Turned its body into a table.

I am from here.

I return the sky to her mother,

when she weeps her mother.

I cry to make myself known,

to a returning cloud.

I learned all the words befitting of the court of blood,

so that I can I break the rule.

I learned all the words, and dismantled them,

To create a single word: homeland…

[Original Arabic]: 

أنا من هناك

محمود درويش – فلسطين

أنا من هناك. ولي ذكرياتٌ . ولدت كما تولد الناس. لي والدة

وبيتٌ كثير النوافذِ. لي إخوةٌ. أصدقاء. وسجنٌ بنافذة باردهْ.

ولي موجةٌ خطفتها النوارس. لي مشهدي الخاص. لي عشبةٌ زائدهْ

ولي قمرٌ في أقاصي الكلام، ورزقُ الطيور، وزيتونةٌ خالدهْ

مررتُ على الأرض قبل مرور السيوف على جسدٍ حوّلوه إلى مائدهْ.

أنا من هناك. أعيد السماء إلى أمها حين تبكي السماء على أمها،

وأبكي لتعرفني غيمةٌ عائدهْ.

تعلّمتُ كل كلام يليقُ بمحكمة الدم كي أكسر القاعدهْ

تعلّمتُ كل الكلام، وفككته كي أركب مفردةً واحدهْ

…هي: الوطن

Palestine EID MUBARAK Blessed Feast

    Eid Mubarak or (Arabic: عيد مبارك‎) is an Arabic term that means “Blessed Feast/festival”.

If someone says Eid Mubarak to you, it is polite to respond by saying 'Khair Mubarak', which wishes good will on the person who greeted you. You could also say 'JazakAllah Khair' which means thank you, but literally translates as 'May Allah reward you with goodness'

Friends of Kairos Palestine #Churches #Prayer #Christians #Hope #Love #Peace #Faith #Bethlehem #Palestine

APARTHEID WALL ART

 “Our word is a cry of hope, with love, prayer and faith in God. We address it first of all to ourselves and then to all the churches and Christians in the world, asking them to stand against injustice and apartheid, urging them to work for a just peace.”

APARTHEID WALL ART ICON CLOSEUP

In this historic document, we Palestinian Christians declare that the military occupation of our land is a sin against God and humanity, and that any theology that legitimizes the occupation is far from Christian teachings because true Christian theology is a theology of love and solidarity with the oppressed, a call to justice and equality among peoples.

To read the document, click here: http://www.kairospalestine.ps/?q=content/document 

To sign the document, click here: http://www.kairospalestine.ps/?q=node/19

It's a worrying and uncertain time right now for people across the globe, including in occupied #Palestine. Parts of the #WestBank remain on lock-down and already stretched #healthcare services face even greater challenges. We express our continued solidarity with all of those in the region.

With the complete lock-down on the city of #Bethlehem, we hear that the usual #Friday prayers at the separation barrier went ahead online tonight instead. In these very difficult circumstances, work for #peace and #justice can and will continue. Let us keep our creativity and inspiration.

We encourage you to keep following our social media in the coming weeks for more on how you can stay up to date and keep working for justice in these challenging times.

#CoronaCrisis #Palestine #Israel #Solidarity #FridayPrayers

 

Celebrating Women's History Month:The exhibition "Telling the Palestinian Story" features more than 200 works of art by women spanning painting, sculpture, photography, textiles and mixed media.

A painting by Haya Kaabneh, who depicts the hardships of women under occupation. Faisal Saleh / Palestine Museum US

A view of the exhibition ‘Enough …!’ by Nameer Qassim. Courtesy Faisal Saleh, Palestine Museum US

Jacqueline Bejani’s portraits capture famous Palestinian figures, such as Edward Said, seen far right. Faisal Saleh, Palestine Museum US

Preserving Palestinian History & Culture

 https://www.palestinemuseum.us/

Palestine Museum US was founded by Palestinian American businessman Faisal Saleh who, after over 40 years of entrepreneurial work, is turning his attention to managing the most ambitious Palestinian media project in the United States. Located in Woodbridge, Connecticut, USA

Museum aims to bring the work of 50 Palestinian women artists to one show

'good part of the work is that you can’t tell it’s Palestinian by looking at it – and that’s intentional,' says Palestinian-American entrepreneur Faisal Saleh

March is truly set to be a month of Sundays. Last Sunday marked the beginning of Women’s ­History Month and today is International Women’s Day. In honour of both, the Palestine Museum US in Woodbridge, Connecticut, will be encouraging visitors to immerse themselves in the artworks of 50 female Palestinian artists from around the world every Sunday until the end of May.

The exhibition Telling the Palestinian Story, which opens today, features more than 200 works of art, spanning painting, sculpture, photography, textiles and mixed media. The participating artists, many of whom will be exhibiting their work in the US for the first time, are from 14 countries on five continents, including the US and Canada, Palestine, Kenya, Chile, Germany and the UK.... PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ THE ARTICLE IN FULL

https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/art/museum-aims-to-bring-the-work-of-50-palestinian-women-artists-to-one-show-1.989454?fbclid=IwAR0uOnU9SJ-7YUOFe9cCO9NtQl5LPrmO8BiwNwcvBJXgxj0Z4KuzG07n6Hg