(Please read “Purpose” above. Thank you.)

❶ Israel Court Reduces 75-Year-Old Prisoner’s Sentence by 3 Years
❷ Army Kidnaps Nine Palestinians in the West Bank, Uproot Farmlands
❸ Monitor: Israeli Settlers Assault 3 Palestinians near Nablus
❹ Soldiers Close the ‘Container Roadblock’, Invade Town near Bethlehem
❺ Op-Ed. Palestine and Israel: The Double-Standard
❻ Poem by Fouzi El-Asmar

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❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL  COURT  REDUCES  75-YEAR-OLD  PRISONER’S  SENTENCE  BY  3  YEARS
Sept. 8, 2015
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — Israel’s Ofer military court on Tuesday reduced the sentence of a 75-year-old Palestinian prisoner by three years, the Palestinian Authority prisoners committee said.
____Fouad al-Shubki, the oldest Palestinian prisoner being held by Israel, had his 20-year sentence reduced by the court following an appeal presented by the committee
More. . .
Related . . . 

❷ INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER (IMEMC)
ARMY  KIDNAPS  NINE  PALESTINIANS  IN  THE  WEST  BANK,  UPROOT  FARMLANDS
Sept. 9, 2015
Israeli soldiers kidnapped, on Wednesday at dawn, nine Palestinians in different parts of the occupied West Bank, during military invasions targeting various Palestinian communities, and uprooted agricultural lands near Hebron.
____Several military vehicles invaded the al-Jalazoun refugee camp, north of the central West Bank city of Ramallah, before breaking into a number of homes, and searching them, the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) has reported. [. . . . ]
____It is worth mentioning that 95  PALESTINIANS  FROM  THE  AL-JALAZOUN  ARE  HELD  BY  ISRAEL (emphasis added) in a number of detention and interrogation centers.
More. . .

❸ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
MONITOR:  ISRAELI  SETTLERS  ASSAULT  3  PALESTINIANS  NEAR  NABLUS
Sept. 9, 2015
NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli settlers on Tuesday evening violently assaulted three Palestinians near the illegal Israeli settlement of Shave Shomron in northern Nablus while they were returning from visiting the grave of Riham al-Dawabsha, another victim of settler violence, a local monitor said.
____Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that settlers used stones and sharp tools to attack the three Palestinians while they were driving near the settlement.
More. . .

❹ INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER (IMEMC)
SOLDIERS  CLOSE  THE  ‘CONTAINER  ROADBLOCK’,  INVADE  TOWN  NEAR  BETHLEHEM
Sept. 9, 2015
Eyewitnesses said the soldiers closed the roadblock, causing a huge traffic jam, especially since it is located on the main intersection that links the southern part of the occupied West Bank with the central and northern parts.
____They added that the soldiers searched dozens of cars without any cause. . . .
More. . .

❺ Opinion
PALESTINE NEWS NETWORK
OP-ED.  PALESTINE  AND  ISRAEL:  THE  DOUBLE-STANDARD
Robert Fantina
Sept. 6, 2015
In the world of marketing, it is a given that what ‘delights’ the customer today, will simply be an expectation tomorrow. For example, when cameras were first introduced on cell phones, this was an exciting concept . . .
Today, however, one would be hard-pressed to find a cell phone that didn’t have a camera [. . . .]
____How often do we hear or read about more Palestinian homes being bulldozed? Business as usual, of course, so we don’t consider the suffering of the victims; it is all too commonplace.
____ This week, remarkably, a video went viral of a heavily-armed IDF (Israeli Defense Force) terrorist/soldier attempting to arrest an 11-year-old boy [. . . .]
____Israel, predictably, is attempting to spin this episode to attempt to make the IDF terrorist appear to be the victim. [. . . .]
____Let us consider for a moment the international reaction if the roles in this episode had been reversed. Imagine, if you will, that a heavily-armed Palestinian soldier (if Palestine had an army), had arrested a young Israeli boy with a broken arm.
More. . . 

“TO  THE  BELOVED  MOTHERLAND,”  BY  FOUZI  EL-ASMAR
Night in my cell is life still in bud.
Beloved, you are like the breaking of light,
Like truth
Like a song dissolved into longing
Tearing apart the draped evening
Wreaking the flow of moans.

Beloved,
The joy of daylight
embraces the darkness
in my cell;
Persistent silence here
will turn the blade
of the swindler, the torturer
the thief of my childhood’s dreams
In the day’s heat.

Beloved!
In your name
dusk has touched my forehead
grey dreams flooded my head
But my will remains uncowed
for since I came to manhood
with my eyelashes
I have borne your ancient love
You remain my lighthouse
And only refuge.

Beloved,
We are here to nurse at life
Your full breast stretches the lightening
of hope and will
It shall flower a new prophecy
in our souls
It shall loosen the chains
and hurl light over our love.

Beloved,
The prison is a brief cloud
The bitter winds
of a cold journey
Which we must accomplish.

Our road is wrapped in sighs,
tears and thorns
In all that dark claws can weave
but our love shall triumph
At the end of the road.

There,
we shall meet with the sun
Its rays shall enter every house
Fill every crack
Flooding the mountains, hills and plains.

As I sit in a corner of my dim cell
lacing the seeds of the little light
stretching them to these lines for you
I was struck
with the joy of a child:
Beloved,
With all the might of their hatred
that tears this life apart
They forget they cannot put
my mind in jail.

El Asmar, Fouzi. POEMS  FROM  AN  ISRAELI  PRISON. Intro. By Israel Shahak. New York: KNOW Books, 1973.
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About Fouzi El Asmar.