❶ From: MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
LAWYER:  ALLAN  REFUSED  2-YEAR  ADMINISTRATIVE  DETENTION  DEAL  BEFORE  COMA
August. 15, 2015
BETHLEHEM ― Muhammad Allan, who has been on hunger strike for more than 60 days, had refused an Israeli offer to continue his administrative detention for a period of two years, Allan’s lawyer told Ma’an Saturday.
____Allan’s lawyer Jamil al-Khatib told Ma’an that the offer was made before his health condition was critical.
____Allan remains at Israeli Barzilai Medical Center, where he went into a coma on Friday, and is currently connected to ventilators and intravenous fluids.
____His health condition has been rapidly deteriorating al-Khatib said.
More. . .
Related. . .  ‘FREEDOM  OR  DEATH’:  FAMILY  OF  HUNGER  STRIKER  LEFT  WAITING

❷ From: MONDOWEISS
IN  LATEST  THRUST  AT  OBAMA,  NETANYAHU  NAMES  UN  AMBASSADOR  WHO  TRASHED  HIM  AND  SAID   PALESTINIANS  CAN  HAVE  ‘FACEBOOK  STATE’
Philip Weiss
August 14, 2015
In the midst of his battle with President Obama over the Iran Deal, Israel’s prime minister announced today that he will appoint as the country’s next ambassador to the U.N. a far-right politician [DANNY DANON] who has been outspoken against Obama and who wants to annex the West Bank.
[. . .]
____Netanyahu fired Danon as deputy foreign minister in July 2014 when Danon said that Netanyahu was being too restrained in his attack on Gaza, which was then producing imagery of slaughtered children around the world.
____Two years ago, Danon taunted Palestinians over the idea they would ever have enfranchisement or a state. Ben Birnbaum reported in the New Republic:
More. . .
About Danny Danon

❸ From: MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ACTIVISTS,  LOCALS  RALLY  NEAR  HEBRON  AGAINST  BLOCKADE,  SETTLEMENTS
August 15, 2015
HEBRON ― Local residents, foreign activists, and volunteers with Hebron’s Youth Against Settlements rallied near the al-Buera village in the southern West Bank district of Hebron on Friday in protest of the continued closure of al-Buera’s main road.
____The village’s main road has been controlled and blockaded by the Israeli occupation since the second Palestinian Intifada broke out in mid-2000.
____For the past 15 years, Israeli forces have implemented the blockaded of al-Buera’s main road using rocks and earth mounds. In addition, a steel gate was installed on one of the village’s exits near the illegal Israeli outpost of Givat Harsina in the Kiryat Arba settlement.
____The rally kicked off near the steel gate, and protesters marched from the outpost towards al-Buera village.
More. . .

❹ From: PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
ISRAELI  FORCES  SHOOT,  DETAIN  PALESTINIAN  NEAR  RAMALLAH  VILLAGE
August 15, 2015
RAMALLAH― forces Saturday shot and injured a Palestinian youth near the village of Beit ‘Ur al-Tahta to the west of Ramallah before detaining him, said Palestinian medical sources.
____Israeli forces shot and injured Mahmoud Jomhoor, who comes from the East Jerusalem town of Beit ‘Anan, twice in his hand purportedly for attempting to stab an Israeli soldier on route 443, an Israeli bypass road that is considered the main traffic artery between Ramallah and several Palestinian villages to the southwest of the city.
____Sources from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said that a PRCS paramedics rushed to provide emergency treatment for Jomhoor, but they were prevented from approaching the scene.
____PRCS sources added that Israeli forces detained the injured man and led him to an unknown destination.
More. . .

❺ Opinion
From: PALESTINE CHRONICLE
ALLIANCE  BLACKMAIL:  ISRAEL’S  OPPOSITION  TO  THE  IRAN  NUCLEAR  AGREEMENT
Richard Falk
July 30, 2015

“Which side will prevail in this dysfunctional encounter is presently obscure, which itself is an indication of the dismal conditions of political life in America. Many unanswered and unanswerable questions bedevil the process: Will this agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program be approved, and then implemented, or will it be blocked or unacceptably revised before coming into operation, or later on? Will Iran become associated more openly with Western attempts to defeat ISIS and in the desperate need to bring peace and humane governance to Syria where the people of the country have endured such severe suffering since 2011? Will these developments allow Iran to be treated as a normal state within regional and global political settings, and if this reduced atmosphere of external tension occurs will it also have moderating impacts on the internal governing process in Iran? Or will Israel and its allies succeed in keeping Iran in ‘a terrorist cage’ reserved for pariah states, and continue to insist upon a military option to wage war against Iran?”
[. . . .]
“What seems superficially astounding is that the world’s number one state seems frightened to step on the smallest Israeli toe, while Israel is ready to do whatever it needs to do to get its way on policy issues in the event of a dispute with its supposedly more powerful partner. After negotiating a far tougher deal (on enriched uranium and intrusive inspections) with Iran than the realities warrant, at least partly out of deference to Israeli concerns. . .”

Richard Falk is Albert G Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Research Fellow, Orfalea Center of Global Studies. He is also the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.

“THE  PAGAN  FIRE,”  BY  TAWFIQ  ZAYYAD  (1929 – 1994)
Slowly,
I draw the thin thread of light
From the night’s entangled darkness,
Water the nursery of dreams
At the source of the torrent,
And dry the tears of my beloved
With kerchiefs of Arabian Jasmine.

Slowly,
I plant the scarce oases
In the burning sands,
And build for scoundrels
A life of justice and scented plentitude.
If, one day, I trip on the road,
My roots will guide me back.

Slowly,
For I am not like matches
That flicker once and die forever
But like a pagan fire,
I burn from the cradle to the grave,
And from my ancestors to my descendants.
My breath is as wide as the horizon;
I will master the craft of ants.

Slowly,
For we dictate
The course of history.
We have seen the end
Of many a tyrant;
Each gets what he deserves.
We lengthen their ropes,
Not to lengthen their lives, but to hang them.
―Translated by Dr. Mahmud Hassan of Alexandria University

From: A LOVER FROM PALESTINE AND OTHER POEMS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF PALESTINIAN POETRY. Ed. Abdul Wahab Al-Messiri. Washington, DC: Free Palestine Press, 1970.
Available from Amazon.
Tawfiq Zayyad (7 May 1929 – 5 July 1994) was a Palestinian politician well known for his “poetry of protest”. Born in the Galilee, Zayyad studied literature in USSR. After returning home, he was elected mayor of Nazareth on 9 December 1973. . .
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