❶ From +972 MAGAZINE
THE DAY THEY STRIP ME OF MY CITIZENSHIP
Samah Salaime
June 28, 2015
When the deputy interior minister demands Palestinian citizens renounce our citizenship, he only exposes the true nature of the Israeli state. After all, without us there is no ‘only democracy in the Middle East.’
____We, the rowdy Arabs who live in the democratic state of the Jewish people, formally apologize for disrupting a Knesset plenum on the Citizenship Law, which denies status in Israel to Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens. So what if the discussion was about our future, our place in society, our fate—we have no right to state our opinions.
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❷ From AL-MONITOR, PALESTINE PULSE
SENSE OF BELONGING DRAWS PALESTINIANS TO WEST BANK
Aziza Nofal (Translator―Sahar Ghoussoub)
June 25, 2015
NABLUS, West Bank — On a Saturday in Nablus, people are lining in front of the al-Aqsa sweet shop. The place is packed . . . because of Palestinians visiting Nablus from Israel. . . .
____In the last four years, some 90,000 Palestinians from Israel have been crossing into the West Bank annually. . . .
____Areej Makroush, from the town of Kafr Kana in the Nazareth district, told Al-Monitor, “. . . In the West Bank, we have a sense of belonging and security. We don’t feel estranged, unlike shopping in Israeli cities. Here, signs and banners are in Arabic, and we are not obliged to speak Hebrew.”
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❸ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI FORCES CLOSE FARMERS MARKET NEAR NABLUS
June 14, 2015
NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli forces on Sunday closed a farmers market in the northern West Bank town of Beita claiming that Palestinian gunmen had fired shots at Israeli vehicles overnight Saturday on the main road near the town.
____A Ma’an reporter in Nablus said that a large number of Israeli soldiers arrived at the farmers market and sealed the main entrance. . . .
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❹ From ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER (AIC)
HOME DEMOLITION ORDERS IN HEBRON HILLS
June 23, 2015
Operation Dove
While the inhabitants of the Palestinian village of Susiya are still living under the threat of eviction, the Israeli authorities continue to enlarge the danger of demolitions in various villages of the South Hebron Hills area.
____ Israeli officials delivered demolition orders. . .
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Operation Dove
❺ Opinion
From WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS (WRMEA)
LAND DAY COMMEMORATION HONORS PEOPLE WHO WON’T BE SILENCED
Delinda C. Hanley
June-July, 2015
The General Delegation of the PLO to the U.S. and the American Federation of Ramallah Palestine teamed up to host a special dinner to commemorate Prisoners’ Day as well as the 39th Palestinian Land Day on April 17 at the Westin Hotel in Arlington, VA. Following the playing of the Palestinian National Anthem, Ambassador Maen Rashid Areikat told the audience that Land Day honors the six Israeli Palestinians who were killed and hundreds who were injured and arrested as they peacefully protested Israeli plans to steal tens of thousands of acres of land in the Galilee.
____Turning to the dinner’s theme, “Your Silence Is Their Power,” Areikat decried efforts by U.S. colleges, mainstream media and community leaders.
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“TO MY GRANDFATHER,” BY MAHMOUD DARWISH
Face of my grandfather! Cheerless prophet!
What grave sent you forth,
Wearing a vest the colour of a blood-stained rock,
And a cloak the colour of a ditch?
Face of my grandfather! Cheerless prophet!
Sorrow of a field that carries the remains of the dead and olive
. . .trees and old winds,
What grave sent you forth
To turn me into a lifeless statue?
Glory be to Allah. I haven’t sold an inch and never have I
. . .succumbed to oppression.
They danced and sang on your grave, yet sleep
For I am awake, awake I am till death.

From: A Lover From Palestine and Other Poems: An Anthology of Palestinian Poetry. Ed. Abdul Wahab Al-Messiri. Washington, DC: Free Palestine Press, 1970.

MAHMOUD DARWISH
Born: 13 March 1942, al-Birwa, British Mandate of Palestine
Died: 9 August 2008, Houston, Texas, United States
Darwish left Israel in 1970 to study in the USSR. He attended the University of Moscow for one year, before moving to Egypt and Lebanon. When he joined the PLO in 1973, he was banned from reentering Israel. In 1995, he received a permit to settle in Ramallah although he said he felt he was living in exile there, and did not consider the West Bank his “private homeland.”
l-Birwa was a Palestinian Arab village, mentioned by Arab geographers in the 11th century. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, al-Birwa was occupied by the Israel Defense Forces. The inhabitants fled to nearby villages or refugee camps in Lebanon. Kibbutzim were established on the lands of al-Birwa in 1949 and 1950.