This blog as of today will become a regular collection of links and short introductions to articles about Palestine and the search for peace in the Middle East centered on the (seemingly) endless war of occupation in Palestine and Israel.

I am committed on this blog to provide information that is not readily available in “mainstream media” about the search for justice and peace in Palestine and Israel.

PLEASE HELP ME FIND PERTINENT MATERIAL TO NOTE HERE (contact me here or Email me–or post on Facebook, and I will lift it).

The material here will be loosely organized, but it will be limited enough so to be easily understood.

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IN THE NEWS

February 08, 2015
500 rabbis urge Israel to stop demolition of Palestinian homes
http://rt.com/news/230339-rabbis-demolition-palestinian-homes/
A Palestinian Bedouin near his dwelling that was demolished by Israeli bulldozers near the Jewish settlement of Karmel, near the West Bank city of Hebron (Reuters / Mussa Qawasma)
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EVENT ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Conference
  Canadian Friends of Sabeel (CFOS)
  “Seeking the Peace of Jerusalem: Overcoming Christian Zionism in the Quest for Justice”
  23 – 25 April 2015
  St. Mary’s Kerrisdale Church, Vancouver, B.C.
  Co-Sponsors:
  Anglican Church of Canada
  Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA)
  Presbyterian Church in Canada
  United Church of Canada
  http://necefsabeel.ca/?page_id=973
• Playgrounds for Palestine annual fundraiser, March 28, 2015
  http://www.playgroundsforpalestine.org/homepage.php

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PERSONAL ACCOUNTS

Rev. Robert Assaly, Chair of Canadian Friends of Sabeel was in Palestine for the 5th anniversary of the Kairos Palestine Document (December 2-4, 2014) as well as for a CFOS organized witness trip – focusing on models of popular resistance and liberation theology. While there, Robert met with CFOS partners in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. He wrote a series of reflections which are published on the CFOS website. The last, his reflections on visiting Gaza, is particularly important.

Reflections from Palestine – VII
“Gaza: When ‘Apartheid’ becomes a polite understatement.”
http://necefsabeel.ca/?page_id=1801
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“I Belong There,” By Mahmoud Darwish
I didn’t apologize to the well when I passed the well,
I borrowed from the ancient pine tree a cloud
and squeezed it like an orange, then waited for a gazelle
white and legendary. And I ordered my heart to be patient:
Be neutral as if you were not of me! Right here
the kind shepherds stood on air and evolved
their flutes, then persuaded the mountain quail toward
the snare. And right here I saddled a horse for flying toward
my planets, then flew. And right here the priestess
told me: Beware of the asphalt road and the cars
and walk upon your exhalation. Right here
I slackened my shadow and waited, I picked the tiniest
rock and stayed up late. I broke the myth and I broke.
And I circled the well until I flew from myself
to what isn’t of it. A deep voice shouted at me:
This grave isn’t your grave. So I apologized.
I read verses from the wise holy book, and said
to the unknown one in the well: Salaam upon you the day
you were killed in the land of peace, and the day you rise
from the darkness of the well alive!

From Unfortunately, It Was Paradise by Mahmoud Darwish translated and Edited by Munir Akash and Carolyn Forché with Sinan Antoon and Amira El-Zein. Published 2003 University of California Press.

On March 13, 1941 Mahmoud Darwish was born in Al Birweh, Palestine, into a land-owning Sunni Muslim family. During the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, his village was destroyed and his family fled to Lebanon. They returned the following year, secretly re-entering Israel.
As a young man, Darwish faced house arrest and imprisonment for his political activism and for publicly reading his poetry. He joined the official Communist Party of Israel, the Rakah, in the 1960s. In 1970, he left for Russia, where he attended the University of Moscow for one year, and then moved to Cairo. He lived in exile for twenty-six years, between Beirut and Paris, until his return to Israel in 1996, after which he settled in Ramallah in the West Bank. Darwish died on August 9, 2008, in Houston, TX, after complications from heart surgery.