March 17, 2015
A new (highly professional and informative) BLOG:
“Today, the Institute for Palestine Studies launched its first ever blog! We hope you’ll join us at Palestine Square for expert analysis on Palestinian affairs, exclusive interviews with Palestinian artists, Palestine Unbound – the digital counterpart to the Journal of Palestine Studies quarterly feature highlighting the ever expanding realm of discussion on Palestine and Israel unbound by the traditional media – and much, much more!”
The Institute for Palestine Studies
At first glance, this may seem to have made this little blog irrelevant. Probably not. This blog is a quick and simple compendium of (more or less) daily news. Palestine Square has the resources of the Institute for Palestine Studies and will be an important instrument for presenting in-depth news about Palestinian thought and culture.

from INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
SETTLERS RAID HEBRON’S IBRAHIMI MOSQUE
IMEMC News & Agencies
Friday March 20, 2015

A group of Israeli settlers entered the Isaac Hall inside the Ibrahimi Mosque, in Hebron, on Thursday under armed protection from Israeli forces, witnesses said.
Local sources said that guards attempted to prevent settlers from entering the mosque, but that the army facilitated their entrance.

Under an agreement with endowment officials, Jewish visits to Isaac’s Hall are limited to 10 per year, Ma’an further reports.

The agreement came into place after a Brooklyn-born Jewish settler massacred 29 Palestinians in the mosque after opening fire at worshipers in 1994.

The Ibrahimi Mosque is known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs, and is the site where both faiths believe the Biblical patriarch Abraham is buried.

Around 700 settlers live in 80 homes in the city center of Hebron, surrounded by nearly 200,000 Palestinians. The settlers are protected by the Israeli army in the tightly controlled city, where many streets are off limits to Palestinians.

from INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
DOZENS OF SETTLERS RAID MUSLIM MONUMENT NEAR NABLUS
IMEMC News & Agencies
Friday March 20, 2015

Dozens of Israeli settlers stormed, early Thursday, the monument of Sheikh Yousef Dweikat, a local religious figure, to the east of Nablus, said security sources.
Protected by Israeli forces, several buses packed with settlers stormed eastern Nablus and proceeded to Joseph Tomb, where they performed religious rituals, triggering clashes with the residents, according to WAFA.

Soldiers fired tear gas canisters at Palestinian locals who attempted to prevent settlers from storming the religious site. No arrests or injuries were reported.

The site of Joseph’s Tomb is contentious. Palestinians believe the site to be the funerary monument to Sheikh Yousef Dweikat, a local religious figure, while Israeli settlers believe it to belong to the biblical patriarch, Joseph.

from INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
38 SETTLERS STORM AL AQSA MOSQUE
IMEMC News & Agencies
Thursday March 19, 2015

Extremist Jewish settlers stormed the courtyards of Al Aqsa Mosque from the Mughrabi gate, on Thursday morning, amid tight security from a private Israeli police force.
The media coordinator at the Islamic Waqf in Jerusalem, Firas AL-Debes, told Al Ray Palestinian Media Agency that 38 settlers, spread over 4 groups, stormed the Al-Aqsa courtyards, noting that the settlers carried out provocative rounds in front of worshipers, while students in Quran study circles raised their voices in chanting, “Allahu Akhbar! (God is Greatest.)”

Extremist Israeli settlers and politicians have been violating the sanctity of the historic Mosque on an almost daily basis and always under the protection of armed occupation forces, which often attack Palestinian worshipers who try to protect their holy site.

The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, of which East Jerusalem is a part, is illegal under international law.
http://www.imemc.org/article/70952
from THE NATION
ON ‘LOST CAUSES’ AND THE FUTURE OF PALESTINE
The appearance of Palestinian defeat is an optical illusion—one that hides the probability of eventual Israeli defeat.
Richard Falk
December 16, 2014

“What follows can be seen as a more considered response to this diplomat’s stance of cynical realism: it is my insistence that Palestine is not a lost cause, and that even if it were a lost cause from the perspective of realism, a continued commitment to it is greatly preferable to defeatist resignation and indifference toward such a grossly unjust outcome of such an epic struggle. My deeper conviction is that the appearance of Palestinian defeat is an optical illusion that hides the probability of eventual Israeli defeat—that while Israel is winning one war due to its military dominance and continuous establishment of ‘facts on the ground,’ Palestine is winning what in the end is the more important war, the struggle for legitimacy, which is most likely to determine the political outcome.”

“DEPORTATION,” BY AMINAH KAZAK

Before they came for me
I took my voice and hid it under the dawn
so they found only my bleeding mouth, my broken
hands, my eyes empty of vision

They traveled
to every corner of my country,
frustration building
The sound of my voice split their heads like thunder,
my agony pumped through their veins

Later they took my bleeding mouth, my broken hands,
my eyes empty of vision
and threw them past the horizon
so I left them with a voice
singing its song of love for my country
which they will never understand
never embrace and never possess.

Meghdessian, Samira. “The Discourse Of Oppression As Expressed In Writings Of The Intifada.” World Literature Today 72.1 (1998): 39.
This poem was selected from the Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature . Although the poet lives in the diaspora, she describes one of the most violent aspects of the occupation: the deportation of Palestinian males, to empty the land of its inhabitants and to break the basic family structure.
The Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature spans the period 1858-1990. It contains an excellent eighty-page introduction, which discusses both the external forces and the internal dynamics that influenced Palestinian literature. The book includes translated works which read very well. The editor, Salma Khadra Jayyusi, does not identify the literature of the Intifada per se, but my selections fit the designated period through their dates of publication.