Belgian women hold a Palestinian flag during a protest to show solidarity with Palestinians against a Jewish settlement in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem July 16, 2010. REUTERS/Baz Ratner (JERUSALEM - Tags: POLITICS)
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Stepping towards a continuous, global movement for good:
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Give 67 minutes of your time on Mandela Day this Sunday 18th July
Mandela Day launched last year as an international day of action. It celebrates the life of Nelson Mandela and calls on us all to mark the 67 years’ Mandela spent in public service by spending at least 67 minutes on a humanitarian cause. On Mandela Day we are called to devote just 67 minutes of our time to changing the world for the better, in a small gesture of solidarity with humanity, and in a small step towards a continuous, global movement for good...read more
"It is in your hand to make a difference" Nelson Mandela
Band practice for refugees: Young palestinians gain self-esteem – and find a welcome precision – in a camp-based bagpipe band in southern Lebanon.
"There are bad things in the media outside," Mr. Aljoma says. "Sometimes, they think you are Palestinian, you are living in the camps, you are a terrorist. They think like this, and this is not true."
A henna-decorated performer from Guirab illustrates a cultural contrast that has produced harmony: Palestinians, thought to have played a version of the bagpipe much earlier, were reintroduced to it under British rule between 1920 and 1948. Newscom/File
A henna-decorated performer from Guirab illustrates a cultural contrast that has produced harmony: Palestinians, thought to have played a version of the bagpipe much earlier, were reintroduced to it under British rule between 1920 and 1948. Newscom/FileBand practice for refugees
Young palestinians gain self-esteem – and find a welcome precision – in a camp-based bagpipe band in southern Lebanon.
http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Music/2010/0715/Band-practice-for-refugeesThursday, July 15, 2010
The Jordan Times: A Careless World
A careless world
With Israeli navy ships deployed to intercept another humanitarian aid mission, Israeli bulldozers demolishing houses in East Jerusalem while building others in Jewish settlements, and Israeli drones killing people in Gaza, the situation between Israelis and Palestinians is, yet again, back to square one.
Washington seems to have given up the pretence of evenhanded peacemaking.
The US is now focusing its efforts on forcing Palestinians to sit down with the very government that is killing them, blockading their livelihoods and demolishing their houses, apparently in an effort to appease an American populace for whom this is a vote winner in mid-term elections.
Indeed, this latest round of Israeli violations of human rights and anti-peace measures appears to have been sparked by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s last visit to Washington, where he received a warm welcome from US President Barack Obama who practically gave Israel green light to kill a few more Palestinians, build more settlements and demolish more houses.
Israel can gradually ramp it up again, use negotiations as they were always intended, as a cover for more and more settlements, while all the time making life so unbearable that a slow, almost indiscernible but nevertheless effective, ethnic cleansing of Palestine is completed.
This is the “only” democracy in the Middle East.
So, what is left for the Palestinians? Well, luckily Hamas is arranging Koran camps for children in Gaza, and someone else is making sure that they are the only ones available. The Palestinian Authority continues its own little delusion, pouring money from donors into maintaining a peaceful occupation for Israel.
And those with choices, leave, anywhere and everywhere. Life in Palestine is not fit for human beings. But then, it is designed that way.
Israel does not want peace, Israel wants land, and it wants land without its indigenous population. Israel wants land because it is fearful and greedy and cannot stop its expansionism, and will not end its aggression until every country in the region has bowed down before it.
It is sad that the only countries in the world with the power to stop this crime either do not care or have entangled themselves so far into Israel’s web of deceit that they cannot.
15 July 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
My letter to the New York Times RE Trapped by Gaza Blockade, Locked in Despair
Palestinian Refugees in 1949RE: Trapped by Gaza Blockade, Locked in Despair
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/world/middleeast/14gaza.html?ref=world
Dear Editor,
In my opinion, with the information age connecting and empowering people everywhere, Palestinians actually had a chance to convince the world that Israel has no right to be... BUT that chance has now passed, and is gone for good thanks to Islamists.
As things stand today, The Arab Peace Initiative, endorsing a two state solution based on respecting international law and basic human rights, offers the only real escape from escalating religious tyranny and terror as The Arab Peace Initiative firmly pushes all sides towards sensible secular solutions to end the Israel/Palestine conflict.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
The Arab Peace Initiative
Emanating from the conviction of the Arab countries that a military solution to the conflict will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties, the council:
1. Requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well.
2. Further calls upon Israel to affirm:
I- Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.
II- Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.
III- The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
3. Consequently, the Arab countries affirm the following:
I- Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region.
II- Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.
NOTES
Refugees, Borders & Jerusalem...
George S. Hishmeh: Netanyahu and Obama should do some reading
George S. Hishmeh
Gulf News (Opinion)
July 9, 2010 - 12:00am
Gulf News (Opinion)
July 9, 2010 - 12:00am
It was my intention while cruising the Danube River — which is disappointingly muddy and not blue as Mozart claimed — for two weeks last month aboard a comfortable Viking boat with my wife that my attention would be mainly focused on the Fifa World Cup and the beautiful countryside and its rich history.
Regrettably my fellow passengers hardly watched the matches — except for the two engaging Maltese couples who were eager for me to unearth the Arabic roots of their vocabulary, which has been abundantly influenced by the rise of Islam and the Ottoman empire hundreds of years ago. I was also glad that the few news channels on the boat did not have much to report on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which has kept me occupied during my long career in journalism.
But on the third day of the cruise, I found that I had brought along a book, Susan Abulhawa's Mornings in Jenin, which is described on the cover as "a powerful and heartbreaking book". I could not resist the temptation to start reading it, and to my surprise it lived up to the description and much, much more. I could not put it down for the next few days, much to the chagrin of the football watchers.
Abulhawa, a Palestinian-American and a neuroscientist graduate from the University of South Carolina, was born to a family of Palestinian refugees during the drastic June War in 1967, when Israel took over all of Palestine and parts of neighbouring Arab countries. In brief, her heart-wrenching novel tracks the experiences of a Palestinian farming family under the harsh Israeli occupation after they were driven out of their ancestral home. The tear-jerking novel traces the life of their granddaughter, Amal (Arabic for hope), since infancy through mind-boggling and tragic experiences within her family and strife-ridden existence in the West Bank and Lebanon. Ultimately, Amal managed to emigrate on her own to the United States, thanks to an American charity, where she went on to pursue her higher education in fulfilment of her father's wishes.
Abulhawa's novel should be required reading for anyone who is puzzled or concerned about the continued turmoil in the Middle East, and certainly for American and Israeli leaders who are trying to find a fair solution to the decades-long conflict. Although the novel is fictitious, the author explains that "Palestine is not, nor are the historical events and figures in this story" — a point that makes the story more vivid. Through the magic of her prose, Abulhawa explains in a straightforward manner why Palestinians are so committed to the cause of regaining ownership of their usurped lands.
Her affection for occupied Jerusalem, a top issue this week at the White House meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, comes across loud and clear, echoing the views of all Palestinians.
She writes: "Every inch of [occupied Jerusalem] holds the confidence of ancient civilisations, their deaths and their birthmarks, pressed deep into the city's viscera and onto the rubble of its edges. The deified and the condemned have set their footprints in its sand. It has been conquered, razed, and rebuilt so many times that its stones seem to posses life, bestowed by the audit trail of prayer and blood. Yet somehow, it exhales humility. It sparks an inherent sense of familiarity in me — that doubtless, irrefutable Palestinian certainty that I belong to this land. It possesses me, no matter who conquers it, because its soil is the keeper of my roots, of the bones of my ancestors ... Because I am the natural seed of its passionate, tempestuous past. I am a daughter of the land, and [occupied] Jerusalem reassures me of this inalienable title, far more than the yellowed property deeds, the Ottoman land registries, the iron keys to our stolen homes or UN resolutions and decrees of superpowers could ever do."
In another memorable passage, she writes: "... Israelis already know that their history is contrived from the bones and traditions of Palestinians. The Europeans who came knew neither hummus nor falafel but later proclaimed them ‘authentic Jewish cuisine'. They claimed the villages of Qatamon [a neighbourhood in Occupied Jerusalem] as ‘old Jewish homes'. They had no old photographs or ancient drawings of their ancestry living on the land, loving it, and planting it. They arrived from foreign nations and uncovered coins in Palestine's earth from the Canaanites, the Romans, the Ottomans, then sold them as their own ‘ancient Jewish artifacts'. They came to Jaffa and found oranges the size of watermelons and said, ‘Behold! The Jews are known for their oranges'. But those oranges were the culmination of centuries of Palestinian farmers perfecting the art of citrus growing."
I wish Obama and Netanyahu would put this powerful and heartbreaking book on their reading lists so that they could better understand the travails of the Palestinians.
Ziad Asali of ATFP: Peace Demands Courage
Peace Demands Courage
Too often Israeli-Palestinian relations are seen as a zero-sum conflict in which whatever is good for one party is bad for the other. In reality, both parties, for different reasons, need the same thing: a negotiated agreement that ends the occupation and the conflict once and for all.Palestinians cannot achieve their basic goal of independence and statehood without a negotiated agreement. Similarly, Israel cannot achieve peace, defined borders, regional acceptance and long-term security without a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians ....READ MORE
IBISHBLOG: Is the new “Emergency Committee” anti-Obama, anti-peace or both?
"....Peace is essential, and that peace, whether right wing Jewish supporters of the [Israeli] occupation and Armageddon-yearning ["Christian"] Bible bashers like it or not, in fact requires ending the occupation." Hussein Ibish
Is the new “Emergency Committee” anti-Obama, anti-peace or both?
A rather predictable group of Jewish right-wing supporters of Israel including William Kristol, Rachel Abrams, and Noah Pollak, along with their strange bedfellows allies in the end-of-days evangelical Christian ultra-right, in this case led by Gary Bauer, have apparently founded an organization called the “Emergency Committee for Israel.” And what "emergency" would that be? Well, by the looks of things it's certainly the emergency of not having a Republican president or Congress, since the group's efforts seem to be entirely targeted at Democrat candidates for Congress in the upcoming November election. In other words, the “emergency” would seem to be the election and the intention would be to use bizarre scare tactics about “anti-Israel” policies of the Obama administration and other Democrats as a scare tactic to promote Republican candidates.All's fair in love and whatsit, I suppose, but who would the actual targeted voters be in such a campaign?....READ MORE
Olive Branches All Around: The Debate about Palestinian Non-Violence"
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=22341&CategoryId=13
Olive Branches All Around: The Debate about Palestinian Non-Violence"
Olive Branches All Around: The Debate about Palestinian Non-Violence"I finally saw the olive trees. I had been in Ramallah for over a week, but had been so preoccupied with adjusting to a new environment and finding my way around, I had not even noticed all the twisted trunks and the thin grey-green leaves that filled the city. Until, one day, when I was walking home, an olive fell on my head. At first I reacted with displeasure, as we often do when impersonal forces set out to cause us embarrassment. But when I looked up to find the source of this annoyance, I was suddenly struck with the beauty. Above me was a web of branches and leaves that embodied the life source of this region. And as I began to look around, to look out over the hill upon which Ramallah is set, I realized that the horizon was full of these silent compatriots, whose branches have long been a symbol of peace.
It is well known that olive trees are precious in Palestine. They signify nourishment and wealth, the silkiness of oil, the richness of harvest. Olive trees mature slowly and live for thousands of years. On the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, in the Garden of Gethsemene, there are trees said to have been there when, 2,000 years ago, a man, considered by many to be at least a prophet if not the son of God, prayed that he might be released from his task of dying for the sins of the world. Olive trees have been the quiet witnesses to some of humanity's most beautiful moments and most devastating catastrophes. They are most at home in the sun and soil between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, and number among the inhabitants of this land, which has been loved and contested for as long as history has been written.
In the wonderful documentary film, Budrus, the importance of olive trees to the Palestinian cause and identity becomes palpable. This film has been making its way around the world, and showed last week both in Ramallah and in the Jerusalem Film Festival. I had seen the film in New York at the Tribeca Film Festival, in an audience that included Michael Moore, and it has gained much acclaim, winning awards in San Francisco and Berlin, and receiving special mention in New York, Madrid and Dubai. Budrus tells the story of a village of the same name in the West Bank, which organized and rose up in non-violent opposition when bulldozers began tearing out its olive trees to make way for the Separation Wall. This wall is particularly contentious in that it does not follow the line that is recognized as dividing Israel and the West Bank, but is, instead, built within Palestinian territory, often cutting farmers off from their farmland and olive groves. The film emphasizes the link between olive trees and Palestinian identity when the camera rests on an old woman who says of the trees, “They are like our children!" And as one watches the trees being ripped out of the ground, one is struck with the feeling of having one’s heart torn from one’s chest.
In the village of Budrus, Ayed Morrar helped organize protests against the building of the wall, bringing together a diverse ensemble of stakeholders, including Fatah, Hamas, Israelis and international supporters. His daughter is particularly inspiring as she makes the cause her own and helps organize the participation of the women. The film does an excellent job in showing the hopefulness of this non-violent, popular movement. It also reminds the viewers, however, that the story of Budrus is not unique. Non-violent protest is a marginal, but longtime part of the history of the conflict here. Villages all over, from Bil’in, Jeyyous, Ni’lin, and many more, have become known, at least locally, for their long-term efforts at resistance.
Around the same time I noticed the olive trees, I learned about the concept of "Sumud". In Arabic, this is a word that implies steadfastness. Sumud has been a motto of the Palestinian struggle since 1967. It has represented the quiet willingness to persevere, to not be moved, when all the pressures of the world are trying to force you out of your home and off your land. The concept of Sumud has been interwoven with the symbol of the olive tree, to express the courage to hold one’s ground, and stay strong and rooted. Sumud has also been represented by the image of a peasant mother and child - a mother whose love will not subside, even in the face of hardship and frustration.
Sumud has been a pillar of Palestinian resistance for decades. The first intifada saw many efforts at such non-violent actions, including marches, hunger strikes and civil disobedience. Given this history, it is frustrating when the media characterizes these struggles as nascent and experimental. Nick Kristof’s recent article in the NY Times is particularly disappointing on this point (July 9, 2010). While seemingly supportive of Palestinian grassroots efforts, he reiterates a mischaracterization of the situation by claiming that the root of the failure of these efforts lies on the side of the Palestinians who often begin the stone-throwing, thus compromising their claim to non-violence. Many participants in protests here, however, attest to the fact that tear gas canisters are launched into the crowds of demonstrators without provocation, and the display of force between the Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli soldiers is regularly disproportionate. To chide David for flinging a hopeless stone at Goliath seems to misplace the critique.
Samah Sabawi, on the other hand, writes a beautiful article in the Palestinian Chronicle, where she notes that while people toss around the question of why there is no Palestinian Gandhi, they overlook the extensive tradition of Sumud, non-violence, and the thousands of Palestinian activists and civilians held in Israeli jails and living in refugee camps (http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15969). Both individually and collectively, Palestinians have long responded to the occupation through non-violent measures. Protests against the wall, actions against the fences erected between farmers and their land, graffiti, music and marches, have all been among the many attempts to expose and reject the injustices imposed by Israel. Currently, every Friday, Palestinians, Israelis and internationals protest in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah where Palestinian families who have been evicted by Jewish settlers have set up tents in front of their homes, insisting that they will not be moved. The BDS movement, to boycott, divest and sanction Israel, which arose out of Palestinian civil society, is also a crucially important force, which has great potential and deserves international attention.
The most poignant moment in Budrus is when Ayad’s daughter jumps in front of a bulldozer as it is uprooting an olive tree. This incredible act of courage fortunately halts the progress of the bulldozer. But this act reminds us that non-violence requires great risk and unfathomable perseverance. As Sabawi writes, one of the key ingredients for non-violent resistance to work is the attention and support of the international community. Non-violence can only be successful through the external solidarity it garners. In as much as the media feeds on stories and blood and violence, it fails the many who are spending their lives in this steadfast perseverance. Because non-violence rests on the concept of making oneself vulnerable, giving up defenses to expose the violence being threatened by the opposition, it requires the willingness of outside actors to step in and demand accountability from the dominating power. It seems, then, that instead of critiquing the methods of the local organizers or the boys who throw stones, or waiting around for the emergence of a Palestinian Gandhi, the better question may be: What role are you playing in contributing to the peace efforts in this region?
Leah Hunt-Hendrix is a Writer for 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.
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