My letter to the NYTimes RE What Palestinians Need

Memorial to 418 Palestinian Villages which were Destroyed, Depopulated and Occupied by Israel in 1948.” Refugee tent and embroidery thread, 2000... by Palestinian-American Artist Emily Jacir

RE What Palestinians Need letter by NADIA HIJAB
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/opinion/what-palestinians-need.html?ref=global&_r=0

Dear Editor,

Thank you for publishing the "What Palestinians Need" letter by Nadia Hijab. I totally agree that Palestinians " need American political clout to end the occupation as the first step to a just and lasting peace. "... but I think for now at least Palestinians also need more financial aid in addition to political support. 

Both Israel and Islamists have been taking advantage of the very real plight of the Palestinians, exasperating tragedy and extremism at every turn. That dangerous trend won't magically stop if funding for Palestine is cut or decreased.

Palestinian Statehood efforts as well as UNWRA have been generously funded by the United States. Arab states should step up to help too, in hopes of helping Palestinians- and Palestine survive. 

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES

Arabs in Israel must vote

Songs and Pictures from Palestine

The Old Couple, 2000 painting by Palestinian Ismail Shammout: Detail from the mural (Life Prevails)

Keeping symbolism in perspective by Joharah Baker for MIFTAH

ELIAS KHOURY'S LETTER TO THE ACTIVISTS OF BAB AL SHAMS

Israelis Evict Palestinians

"We know the [Israeli] army follow us on Twitter and Facebook, so we made out we were holding a protest somewhere else."

State of Palestine

Bab al-Shams Village... We, the sons and daughters of Palestine

Palestinians Set Up Tents Where Israel Plans Homes

Israel continues to demolish Palestinian homes- and peace

Israel uses the crisis in Syria to try to coerce Abbas into relinquishing Palestinian refugee rights

 

Walls and winter rains afflict Palestinian towns

 
Excellent letter in the Guardian by Keith Lichman RE Israel's drift

AP Interview: Palestinian PM blasts Arab donors... In an interview Sunday Fayyad said that the cash crunch is pushing an additional 25 percent of the Palestinian population, or 1 million people, into poverty.

ATFP's Ziad Asali & Ghaith Al-Omari: Salam Fayyad's bold effort to build Palestinian institutions could soon collapse -- unless Israel and the United States spring to action.

A precarious existence in the Jordan Valley

A Serious Look at Fayyad.... (& Palestine)

CSM letter by James Martin: US Mideast policy should honor rights

********

The Office of International Religious Freedom ( http://www.state.gov/j/drl/irf/)   Given the U.S. commitment to religious freedom, and to the international covenants that guarantee it as the inalienable right of every human being, the United States seeks to:

Promote freedom of religion and conscience throughout the world as a fundamental human right and as a source of stability for all countries

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

The Balfour Declaration of 1917

".... it being clearly understood that nothing
          shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious
          rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine..."

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

"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

Empowering Peace & Palestine

"The only way to honor our tragic histories is to create a future for our children free of man-made tragedy. This means making peace fully, completely and without reservation, between Israel and Palestine."

 

The Arab Peace Initiative

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.

[Palestinian] Arab Americans Need Political Normalization

"As long as normative American political behavior is stigmatized as anathema, political normalcy for Arab Americans, as a community, will remain a distant dream. Self-imposed marginalization will persist. And self-defeating Arab Americans will continue to regard "normalization" not as a goal, but as the most damning of invectives." Hussein Ibish

Arab Americans Need Political Normalization

Hussein Ibish
The Daily Beast (Opinion)
November 12, 2012 - 12:00am
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/12/arab-americans-need-political-normalization.html

Following the recent election, and noting the growing influence of nontraditional power blocs such as Latinos, Arab Americans have again raised the question of how they can become politically empowered. There is only one answer: become politically "normal" Americans.
 

This seems simultaneously a provocative and absurdly facile response. Who wants to be "abnormal?" The initial reaction might be outrage: in what way are you suggesting we're not "normal Americans?" But for many Arab Americans, especially as a collectivity, becoming politically "normal"—successfully acculturated to and invested in the American political system—is easy to endorse in theory but exceptionally difficult to accomplish in practice.
 

Normalization means accepting that the system is open to all. There are no laws preventing effective participation, and no candidates who aren't responsive to the normal levers of influence: votes, money, time and advocacy. But there is a self-defeating delusion prevalent among many Arab Americans that they are uniquely excluded. Some identify anti-Arab racism or Islamophobia as insurmountable barriers. Others say our opponents are so powerful that we cannot be heard.
 

Moreover, the community is badly divided along numerous axes. Many Arab Americans have imported political allegiances from the Middle East. They identify primarily with organizations or constituencies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq or Palestine, rather than those here in the United States, and formulate their policies accordingly. As my friend and colleague Ziad Asali, President of the American Task Force on Palestine, has pointed out, this is the equivalent of running into the middle of a football game waving a tennis racket and expecting to affect the outcome.

Many Arab Americans left the Middle East precisely to get away from politics, where it has been a terrain of oppression, corruption and, above all, defeat...READ MORE