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❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
400  RIGHT-WING  ISRAELIS,  SETTLERS  PRAY  AT  JOSEPH’S  TOMB  IN  NABLUS
Sept. 3, 2015
NABLUS (Ma’an) — Hundreds of right-wing Israelis and Israeli settlers performed Jewish prayers at the site of Joseph’s Tomb east of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank under armed protection at dawn on Thursday, Palestinian security sources told Ma’an.
____The security sources said about 400 Israelis arrived in eight buses at the site, heavily escorted by Israeli military vehicles.
____The visit led to clashes in the Area A neighborhood, under full Palestinian control according to the Oslo Accords [. . . .]
____Joseph’s Tomb is revered by Jews, Muslims, Christians and Samaritans, and the Israeli military allows Jews to visit as part of organized pilgrimages, DESPITE THE SHRINE BEING LOCATED IN AN AREA UNDER PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY CONTROL. . .
More. . .
Related . . . JERUSALEM  [Rabbinical]  COURT  GRANTS  RABBIS  CUSTODY  OVER  NABLUS  TOMB,  VIOLATING  STATUS  QUO.  May 17, 2012.

❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL  BLACKLISTS  40  PALESTINIAN  WOMEN  FROM  ENTERING  AL-AQSA  MOSQUE
Sept. 3, 2015
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Israeli authorities on Thursday distributed a blacklist banning 40 Palestinian women from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque, local sources told Ma’an.
____Israeli police and courts compiled the list of women last month, with the women banned from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque for periods between 10 and 60 days.
____Israeli Jerusalem police commander, Avi Bitton, said on Wednesday that the blacklist is made up of women who “cause trouble and damage” at the site, but that other women not on the list would be allowed entry after presenting identification.
____Israeli authorities have prevented women from entering the mosque between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. during the past two weeks.
More . . .

❸ THE PALESTINIAN INFORMATION CENTER
ISRAEL’S  ILL-FAMED  PM:  ZERO  TOLERANCE  FOR  ANTI-OCCUPATION  ACTIVITIES.  ISRAELI  OCCUPATION  TIGHTENS  MILITARY  GRIP  AROUND  JERUSALEM’S  NECK
Sept. 4, 2015
NAZARETH ― Israel’s notorious Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed for propping up military reinforcement across Jerusalem’s streets and alleys as part of intents to quell anti-occupation activities and set the stage for more Judaization schemes.
____Netanyahu’s decision came during a meeting he convened Wednesday in his office to discuss the security situation in Occupied Jerusalem.
____The meeting was attended by the war minister, public security minister, intelligence and transportation minister, justice minister, the head of Shin Bet and other officials.
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❹ THE MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
PALESTINIAN  FOREIGN  MINISTER  WARNS  ISRAEL  THAT  ITS  PLANS  IN  JERUSALEM  WILL  LEAD  TO  RELIGIOUS  WAR  IN  THE  REGION
Sept. 4, 2015
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki warned on Thursday that Israeli plans to impose a temporal and spatial division of Al-Aqsa Mosque will lead to religious war in the region.
____Maliki made his remarks during a meeting with members of the diplomatic corps in Ramallah attended by Palestinian Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Adnan Husseini and Jerusalem Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammad Husseini.
____Maliki said that the Israeli authorities have closed the doors to Al-Aqsa Mosque from 7.30am to 11.30am, during which time they prevent Muslim worshippers from entering the mosque and allowed entrance to Jewish settlers who call to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque and build their Temple on its site.
More . . .
Related . . .

❺ Opinion/Analysis
ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER (AIC)
STRATEGIES  OF SOLIDARITY:  ISRAEL/PALESTINE  AND  THE  EMPIRE
Joel Beinin
Sept. 1, 2015
Palestine today is perhaps the leading international issue evoking solidarity on a global scale. Nonetheless, the “community of nations” apparently remains helpless to address the Palestinian-Israeli conflict . . . The widening gap between global public opinion and the ineffectuality of the international state system in the face of the ever-worsening conditions of Palestinian lives obliges global solidarity activists to deepen our understanding of the conflict. . .
____Formerly, most of the international (but not Arab) left saw the conflict as on between two national movements. Today, the left, and even some liberals, increasingly understand the conflict as one between settlers (Zionists) and an indigenous people (Palestinian Arabs) and characterize Israel (or at least its settlement project in the West Bank) as an “apartheid state.”
More . . .

“JOSEPH,”  BY  SAMIH  AL-QASIM
For you my Beloved
I cut tents with my own skin,
And at the encampment of sorrow
Water the rose nurseries
With tears of blood.

If the wind blows,
I question it.
And should it return,
I ask it to carry my greetings
And eagerly address it,
Even if it does not answer.

Peace be with you, my Beloved,
My Brethren, my Neighbours and my Friends,
Peace.
How fare you in the seasons of heat and cold?
How fare the children
And our dead comrades?
Have they, on the other side of the fence,
Got used to the long night and its silence?
How is our father Jacob?
Does he still, my heart, lean upon his sorrows,
One hand always on his cheek
Because of the long silence of grief,
And the other sunk deep in the shirt of blood?
O my Beloved, my Beloved,
Should the wind, out of tenderness, visit me,
And choose to be my messenger,
It shall stop by the tent of our father, Jacob,
And say that I, after kissing
His hands from the distance,
Bring him the glad tidings
Of the return of our beloved Joseph.
For it is written:
God and man
Are to meet on earth.

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.
About Samih Al-Qasim