Before I Was A Gazan -poem by Naomi Shihab Nye

 

Before I Was A Gazan

- Naomi Shihab Nye

 

I was a boy

and my homework was missing,

paper with numbers on it,

stacked and lined,

I was looking for my piece of paper,

proud of this plus that, then multiplied,

not remembering if I had left it

on the table after showing to my uncle

or the shelf after combing my hair

but it was still somewhere

and I was going to find it and turn it in,

make my teacher happy,

make her say my name to the whole class,

before everything got subtracted

in a minute

even my uncle

even my teacher

even the best math student and his baby sister

who couldn’t talk yet.

And now I would do anything

for a problem I could solve.

 

 

https://poets.org/poem/i-was-gazan

CNN: A group of US officials who publicly resigned over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy are banding together to support ongoing dissent and put pressure on the government to change course.

Former Biden officials explain why they are working to get him to change US' policy in Gaza

By Jennifer Hansler and Kylie Atwood, CNN

8 minute read

Updated 11:37 AM EDT, Sun June 9, 2024

CNN  —  More than half a dozen people from across the US government have left their jobs in public protest, saying they could no longer work for the administration, and even more have quietly departed. Many of the officials who resigned publicly said they would instead seek to have an impact outside the government.

President Joe Biden has faced pressure both abroad and at home over his support for Israel eight months into the war in Gaza with Hamas – a conflict that has cost tens of thousands of civilian lives, displaced millions and brought extreme hunger throughout the enclave. Although the rhetoric from the administration has become harsher – with warnings that Israel must do more to protect civilians and allow more aid in – the policies have remained largely unchanged.

The former officials who resigned publicly – Josh Paul, Harrison Mann, Tariq Habash, Annelle Sheline, Hala Rharrit, Lily Greenberg Call, Alex Smith, and Stacy Gilbert – said that they felt their perspectives, expertise and concerns were not being heeded, and that the administration was willingly ignoring the humanitarian toll caused by Israel’s military campaign. They spoke of the damage they felt US policy on the war is having on the country’s credibility and a sense that the administration did not fully grasp that impact.

All the officials who have resigned publicly and spoke with CNN said they have many colleagues who are still within the government but agree with their decision to leave.

Providing support and advice to those colleagues – whether they choose to leave or continue to dissent from within – is one of the key reasons that they have come together collectively. Another key reason, they said, is to increase the pressure on the administration to change course.  READ MORE...  https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/08/politics/us-officials-gaza-policy-resignations/index.html

  [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine] 

Why are America’s elite universities so afraid of this scholar’s paper? ... The Palestinian human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah's article was censored- disappeared... The Columbia Law Review website was temporarily shut down after it published a Palestinian human rights lawyer’s article proposing a new way to understand Palestinian life under Israeli rule

The Palestinian human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah. Photograph: Courtesy Rabea Eghbariah

Jonathan Guyer

Sun 9 Jun 2024 08.00 EDT

When the Palestinian human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah arrived at a Manhattan cafe on Thursday afternoon, he had just learned that his article had been reinstated in the Columbia Law Review. After a weeklong censorship controversy, the prestigious journal’s website was back online, too.

The law school journal’s faculty and alumni board had shuttered the website for most of the week rather than publicize Eghbariah’s 105-page article, titled Toward the Nakba as a Legal Concept. In it, he proposed a new framework to explain the complex, fragmented legal regimes governing Palestinians. He wanted to bring the word Nakba – which translates from the Arabic as catastrophe, and is better known for describing the displacement and dispossession of Palestinians in 1948 – to the center of a new legal conversation.

Wearing a white T-shirt and linen pants and sipping iced coffee, he reflected on an extraordinary week that saw his legal theories – ordinarily the stuff of arcane law school debates – ignite emotive conversations about the legitimate bounds of debate about Israel and Palestine.

What’s more, it wasn’t the first time his ideas were deemed too dangerous to publish by the Ivy League.

He had worked on his contribution for almost half a year, finding a home for it at the Columbia Law Review after a shorter web piece he had written for the Harvard Law Review had been blocked at the last minute.

He was proud of his scholarship but found it dangerous that the content of his article had become secondary to what he saw as the manufactured controversy of its censorship. “Now, we have to debate about my right to say what I want to say instead of debating about what I actually said,” he told the Guardian.... READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/09/columbia-law-review-rabea-eghbariah-palestine-censorship-controversy

   [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

Where Olive Trees Weep: Official Trailer (2024).... "There is no post traumatic disorder because THERE IS NO POST " - Dr Gabor Mate’ #Palestine

United Nations: More than 78 years ago, 50 nations came together to create a new organization for peace, prosperity & human rights.

Original manuscript of the UN Charter preamble, complete with handwritten notes.

United Nations

@UN

On Sunday’s #InternationalArchivesDay, check out the original manuscript of the UN Charter preamble, complete with handwritten notes. More than 78 years ago, 50 nations came together to create a new organization for peace, prosperity & human rights. https://un.org/en/about-us/un

 

 

United Nations Charter:
Preamble

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

AND FOR THESE ENDS

to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and

to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and

to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and

to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS.

Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.  https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/preamble

United Nations Charter, Chapter I:
Purposes and Principles

Article 1

The Purposes of the United Nations are:

1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

.... READ MORE  https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/preamble

 

The Charter of the United Nations is the founding document of the United Nations. It was signed on 26 June 1945, in San Francisco, at the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, and came into force on 24 October 1945...       READ MORE  https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter

Israel rescues 4 hostages today - headlines world wide celebrate this... meanwhile Palestinian prisoners- hostages of Israel- are being raped: Since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory in 1967, more than 800,000 Palestinians [including children] have been detained under Israeli military orders in the occupied Palestinian territory

June 2024: A massive demonstration took place in London to support the Palestinian people and condemn the brutal Israeli massacre in the Al-Nusairat refugee camp.

Omar Baddar عمر بدّار

@OmarBaddar

The Israeli military has now rescued a total of 7, & killed 70 of their own hostages. Their kill-to-rescue ratio stands at 10:1. You can only deem this a success if you share the Israeli government’s view that the destruction of Gaza is worth more than the lives of hostages.

 

Gaza June 2024: Part of the massive destruction in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip has been caused by Israel's massacre and unprecedented bombing.

 

 

Did you know that as of August 2017, there were more than 6,000 Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails?

Jonathan Cook

@Jonathan_K_Cook

Buried at the end of a long, 3,800-word New York Times article on Israel's secret torture prison are details that Palestinian inmates are being raped.

 

 To continue the Gaza genocide, Israel and the US must destroy the laws of war.   

 

An Israeli army battle tank operates in southern Israel near the border with the Gaza Strip on May 29, 2024-afp

The world's two highest courts have made an implacable enemy of Israel in trying to uphold international law and end Israeli atrocities in Gaza.

Separate announcements last week by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) should have forced Israel on to the back foot in Gaza.

A panel of judges at the ICJ – sometimes known as the World Court – demanded last Friday that Israel immediately stop its current offensive on Rafah, in southern Gaza. 

Instead, Israel responded by intensifying its atrocities.

On Sunday, it bombed a supposedly "safe zone" crowded with refugee families forced to flee from the rest of Gaza, which has been devastated by Israel’s rampage for the past eight months. 

The air strike set fire to an area crammed with tents, killing dozens of Palestinians, many of whom burnt alive. A video shows a man holding aloft a baby beheaded by the Israeli blast.

Hundreds more, many of them women and children, suffered serious injuries, including horrifying burns. 

Israel has destroyed almost all of the medical facilities that could treat Rafah's wounded, as well as denying entry to basic medical supplies such as painkillers that could ease their torment... READ MORE  https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza-genocide-continue-israel-us-must-destroy-laws-war

  [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

 

If Americans Knew

Political Prisoners in Israel/Palestine

103 Israelis are possibly being held prisoner by Palestinians, while 9,000 are currently imprisoned by Israel.

Number of Political Prisoners Currently Being Held

103 Israelis (one, a Bedouin Muslim) are being held prisoner by Palestinians, while 9,000 Palestinians are currently imprisoned by Israel. (View Sources & More Information)

“Since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory in 1967, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been detained under Israeli military orders in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). This number constitutes approximately 20 percent of the total Palestinian population in the oPt and as much as 40 percent of the total male Palestinian population… 8,000 Palestinian children have been arrested since 2000.”

– Addameer

 

Euro-Med Monitor

@EuroMedHR

#Infographic| Based on 100 testimonies of released Palestinian detainees from #Gaza, Euro-Med Monitor documents 42 forms of torture and inhumane and degrading treatment in Israeli prisons and detention centers. Full report https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6342

 

 

Manger Square 120 years ago. Photo taken from the church with the Masjid Umar in the background. A 120 years ago, Palestinians could travel without being shot at a check point or be worried their animals would be die because the settlers poisoned their water wells.

Good Shepherd Collective

@Shepherds4Good

Manger Square 120 years ago. Photo taken from the church with the Masjid Umar in the background. A 120 years ago, Palestinians could travel without being shot at a check point or be worried their animals would be die because the settlers poisoned their water wells.

Gaza now has the largest population of child amputees in the world.

 

Gaza now has the largest population of child amputees in the world.

Don't give Israel the power to destroy the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, International Law, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights... and America.

 Dear Elected Leaders,

80 years since D-Day marking the turning point in WWII.

80 years ago American heroes working with Allied heroes risked their lives to help end a monstrous regime. 

Many died when America stepped up and helped save the world from the cruel and murderous Nazi regime that was convincing decent people to endorse racist attitudes and war mongering ways.

America was respected then.  Sadly not so much anymore. 

Modern times are revealing a very different form of threat- an enemy within America subverting our Fourth Estate and actively corrupting our politicians: Zionist propaganda, bribes, bully tactics, and manipulative interference from a very foreign country are aggressively undermining our ideals, our security, and the future of our democracy.

This modern international threat to our freedom has been flying under the radar since before WWI & WWII.  Jews are not to blame for it, but the so-called "Jewish State" is as heavily armed ideologues advocating segregation and apartheid policies intentionally impoverish and displace the native non-Jewish men, women and children of historic Palestine.

Do you honestly believe that Israel will stop its war mongering ways once every Palestinian is either dead or silenced and 1.) pushed off their ancestral lands & 2.) bombed in their refugee camps... and every pro-Palestine supporter is harassed, doxed, and denied good jobs.

Please STOP fortifying racist Israel's apartheid laws, walls, and war mongering ways.

Don't give Israel the power to destroy the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, International Law, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights... and America.

No more weapons for Zionist war mongers and Israeli disinformation campaigns. 

Full respect for basic human rights and the rule of fair and just laws is the best way forward, both here and there. 

Sincerely,

Anne Selden Annab

NOTES  https://anniesnewletters.blogspot.com/search/label/Notes

Ghada Karmi and Ellen Siegel, in 1973, 1992 and 2011. Photos by Francis Khoo (1, 2) and Jean-Pascal Deillon (3).

In Search of Fatima - A Palestinian Story by Ghada Karmi

Israeli Racism & Zionist Violence Creates An Ongoing Nakba with Palestinians Displaced- again and again pushed into forced exile: Top photo Palestinain refugees in 1948 Bottom photo Palestinian refugees in 2024

The RED LINE happened way back in 1948 when Zionist terrorists murdered Palestinians, destroyed Palestinian homes and villages, and pushed countless Palestinians into poverty and forced exile.

Connect The Dots

There are enough weapons of war and destruction already on planet earth.

Please stop aiding and abetting Israeli insanity. Full Stop.

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin?

The UN Mediator for Palestine, Count Folke Bernadotte, believed that the Palestinians displaced had a right to return to their homes and wrote several UN reports to that effect.

"It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine, and, indeed, at least offer the threat of permanent replacement of the Arab refugees who have been rooted in the land for centuries."

Bernadotte was assassinated on Friday 17 September 1948 by members of the group Lehi, a Zionist terrorist organization, commonly known in the West as the Stern Gang 

 

 PALESTINE REMEMBERED

 

"Whereas 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..."   https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

Mosab Abu Toha poem On A Starless Night illustrated by artist Hannah Maguire

Mosab Abu Toha 

  ·

Artist Hannah Maguire does a new illustration of one of my poems.

 

“On a Starless Night”

 

So, so many similar and even worse starless nights

 

Israeli Racism & Zionist Violence Creates An Ongoing Nakba with Palestinians Displaced- again and again pushed into forced exile: Top photo Palestinain refugees in 1948 Bottom photo Palestinian refugees in 2024

Top, 1948 Bottom, 2024 Conclusion- Israel is a settler colonialist state.

In Search of Fatima - A Palestinian Story by Ghada Karmi

In Search of Fatima - A Palestinian Story by Ghada Karmi

 

Author Ghada Karmi is pictured left

 The right to speak about Israel’s racism

By Ghada Karmi

"I was born in what is now west Jerusalem. During the war to establish the state of Israel, my family and I were forced from our home, when I was a young child. To this day, I have been prevented from returning to my home, simply because I am a Palestinian Arab – whereas any Jewish person from anywhere in the world could and can automatically become a citizen of the state.

The establishment of the Israeli state, as the ethnically defined state of what was then a minority of the population of Palestine, was discriminatory and racist. And laws and practices that discriminate on the basis of race and religion – against my people, the Palestinians – have continued to this day.

This is not only the case in relation to the occupied Palestinian territories, the illegal settlements, and the violence and abuses against Palestinian people in Gaza, but also within Israel’s borders..."... READ MORE   https://prruk.org/a-palestinian-member-of-the-labour-party-demands-the-right-to-speak-about-israels-racism/

 

Ghada Karmi and Ellen Siegel, in 1973, 1992 and 2011. Photos by Francis Khoo (1, 2) and Jean-Pascal Deillon (3).

KARMI, GHADA (1939-)

"The right of Palestinian return is enshrined in international law and historical precedent, and affirmed repeatedly by the UN. Resolution 194 was passed by the UN general assembly in December 1948 and called on Israel to repatriate those "displaced by the recent conflict" with compensation for their losses. The 1948 universal declaration of human rights states that those who leave their homes for whatever reason have the absolute right to return to them. "  Ghada Karmi, writing in The Guardian in 2011: Only Palestinian refugees can give up their right of return

“Just as the ripples of a stone thrown into a pond will spread further and further away from the source, so the ripples of the disaster in 1948 hit my parents first and then spread to us and to our children long afterwards. Seeing only the ripples, it was easy to confuse the original cause with its effects.”

— Ghada Karmi

"Israel, from its inception in 1948, has been given the most wonderful opportunity to behave itself, and it clearly has not done so. It's flouted every single law, it's behaved outrageously, it's made a travesty of international and humanitarian law. On what basis should this state continue to be a member of the United Nations?"     Interview: Ghada Karmi, a voice from exile, Executive Intelligence Review, (reprinted by Middle East Policy, Spring 2010).(available online here). Also available here: Interview: Ghada Karmi, a voice from exile at Goliath.