❶ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
GAZA FLOTILLA SHIP ‘SABOTAGED’ DAYS BEFORE EXPECTED ARRIVAL
June 25, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — One of the ships taking part in a flotilla headed towards the Gaza Strip was sabotaged south of Crete, an activist aboard one of the ships said Thursday.
____Israeli-born Swedish activist Dror Feiler told Nazareth-based al-Shams radio that the ship had been sabotaged by professionals, and would have sunk if sailed at sea. . . .
____Feiler, who relinquished his Israeli citizenship after moving to Sweden, boarded the trawler Marianne of Gothenburg in Sweden with 18 other activists six weeks ago.
(More. . .)
(Background)

❷ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL RELEASES MP AFTER YEAR OF ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION
June 25, 2015
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — Israeli authorities released Palestinian parliament member Sheikh Hassan Youssef [Hassan Yusef], 60, on Thursday as he ended his administrative detention period that was extended three times while being held in prison.
____Youssef was detained in mid-June of 2014 during a detention campaign carried out by Israeli forces across the occupied West Bank and held in the Ofer jail near Ramallah. . .
____He was one of hundreds of Palestinians to be detained by Israel during the campaign known as “Operation Brother’s Keeper. . . .
(More. . .)

❸ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PALESTINE TO SUBMIT HUNDREDS OF DOCUMENTS TO ICC FOR 1ST TIME
June 25, 2015
Palestinian Authority foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki is scheduled to make the State of Palestine’s first submission to the International Criminal Court in the Hague on Thursday in pursuit of war crime charges against Israel. . . .
____“It will take the ICC a long time to take action, possibly 5-10 years as this is one out of a hundred steps,” Abu Zneid said.
____The PLO will continue to collate information and testimonies to later be submitted to the ICC as evidence of Israeli crimes.
(More. . .)
(Background)

❹ From MONDOWEISS
‘WE ARE DOING YOU PEOPLE A FAVOR BY ALLOWING YOU TO BE SEATED HERE,’ NETANYAHU DEPUTY TELLS PALESTINIANS IN KNESSET
Roland Nikles
June 25, 2015
[A short history of the Anti-Family-Reunification Law] . . . .
The Knesset once again renewed the law on June 15, 2015. . . .
____On Wednesday, June 24, 2015, the Knesset held a “debate” on a request by the Joint Arab list (13 MK’s headed by Ayman Odeh) to revoke the anti-family-unification provision in the Citizenship Law. The result was not pretty.
____From Haaretz: During the debate, Deputy Interior Minister Yaron Mazuz of Likud. . . . called on Arab lawmakers to return their Israeli identity cards. Addressing the Arab Joint List’s MK Haneen Zoabi, Mazuz said: “Mrs. [Haneen] Zoabi, you are the first who ought to return your ID. We are doing you people a favor by even allowing you to be seated here . . . .
(More. . . .)

❺ From MONDOWEISS
OREN PUSHED RANDOM HOUSE TO HURRY HIS BOOK SO AMERICAN JEWS WILL ‘INTERCEDE’ TO STOP IRAN DEAL AND SAVE MILLIONS OF JEWS
Philip Weiss
June 22, 2015
Michael Oren said he put “immense pressure” on Random House to publish his new book, Ally, this month, so he could mobilize American Jews against the coming Iranian deal, and they would intercede as they had failed to do in response to the Nazi threat in the 1930s.
____Speaking at the 92nd Y last night, Oren said he resigned as Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. in October 2013 and then set out to write his book in a hurry for a “political reason” . . . . [Oren said] “Israel is at a . . . fateful juncture . . . [because] a major French initiative in the Security Council that will have very profound implications for Israeli security.”
____He was referring to a French proposal to require the creation of a Palestinian state within a year and a half.
(More. . .)

“IDENTITY,” BY MARWAN MAKHOUL

I’m unfamiliar with refugee camps.
Is that the ultimate in giving up?
Or are they tents I’ve been told are white
with guy ropes at the corners to hold them up
that hold me up?

I’m unfamiliar with tear gas.
Is it a weapon whose used bears the radiance of defeat?
Or is it his disappointment at the pathos of my tears
when I cry?

I’m unfamiliar with settlements.
Are some of those people good?
Sure, completely. Like I walk
on my hands,
and the sand sings?

I’m unfamiliar with my mother too.
Is she the one who suckled me?
Or is she the one bereft, standing in my doorway,
or a window on belonging?

I’m unfamiliar with UNRWA.
Is it a shipment I once chanced upon?
Or did I direct its driver
when he asked the way to Rafah?

I’m unfamiliar with the “cause”.
Is it a fiancée searching in the rubble
for her finger to put the ring on?
Or is half the whole of a fifth?

I’m unfamiliar with the truth.
Am I lacking something?
Or does my blood course within me
but not as my nerves would wish?

Personally, I’m unfamiliar with myself.
Am I the one now in my body?
Or am I that one I wrote about
the day I became my neighbor?
―Translated by Raphael Cohen    

Marwan Makhoul was born to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother in 1979 in the village of Boquai’a in the Upper Galilee region of Palestine. He currently lives in the village of Maalot Tarshiha. Marwan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Al-Mustaqbal College. His first book of poetry was published in 2007 in both Beirut and Baghdad by Al-Jamal Publishers. That same year a second edition of the book was published in Haifa by Maktabat Kul Shai’ Publishers. In 2009 he won the prize of best playwright in The Acre Theatre Festival for his first play.
(An interview with Marwan Makhoul )