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❶ UN votes in favor of raising Palestinian flag at headquarters
❷ In Silwan, Jewish settlers plant their flag among Palestinians
❸ Palestinian Refugees Joining Exodus from Syria
❹ Madama Villagers Foil Infiltration Attack By Israeli Extremists
❺ Opinion/Analysis: A guide to the worst refugee crisis since WWII
❻ Poem by Samih Al-Qasim

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❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
UN  VOTES  IN  FAVOR  OF  RAISING  PALESTINIAN  FLAG  AT  HEADQUARTERS
Sept. 11, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The United Nations General Assembly voted late Thursday in favor of raising the Palestinian flag at its headquarters in New York by an overwhelming majority, in a symbolic diplomatic victory in the PLO’s campaign for statehood.
____A resolution was adopted by member states with 119 in favor, eight voting against — including Israel and the United States — and 45 abstentions.
____President Mahmoud Abbas hailed the decision, adding that the struggle will continue until the flag is raised over the “eternal” Palestinian capital of Jerusalem.
More. . .
Related. . . [Note: the NYT published this on page A4, the Associated Press story, not its own.]

❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
IN  SILWAN,  JEWISH  SETTLERS  PLANT  THEIR  FLAG  AMONG  PALESTINIANS
Sept. 11, 2015
JERUSALEM (AFP) — The Abu Snineh family woke up at their home in East Jerusalem one morning to find Jewish settlers had moved into the building and Israeli flags were on the roof.
____Their Silwan neighborhood in the shadow of Jerusalem’s Old City has become a flash-point in the struggle between ideologically driven Israelis moving in and longtime Palestinian residents.
____”There are still areas where Jews want to go back,” said Daniel Luria, whose Ateret Cohanim activist organisation facilitates the purchase of homes by Jews from Israel and abroad.
____”That was our dream, not to live on the outskirts of Tel Aviv or Haifa. It’s to be close to the Temple Mount, where the kings and the prophets walked.”
More. . .

❸ THE PALESTINE CHRONICLE
PALESTINIAN  REFUGEES  JOINING  EXODUS  FROM  SYRIA
Sep 10 2015
Palestinian pensioner Zahra Zahroura always imagined seeing out her days in her adopted Syrian hometown of Homs, sustained by the hope that being made a refugee once was enough for any lifetime.
____But as the war in Syria worsened the 84-year-old was forced to flee a second time, aiming for a new life in mainland Europe but making it only as far as Cyprus, lucky to be alive at all. [. . . .]
____“All the houses were rubble, everything was destroyed by the bombing.”
____Zahroura is one of a growing number of Palestinian refugees in Syria and Lebanon joining the hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing the war on the perilous journey to survival in Europe.
More. . .
Related. . .

❹ INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER (IMEMC)
MADAMA  VILLAGERS  FOIL  INFILTRATION  ATTACK  BY  ISRAELI  EXTREMISTS
Sept. 11, 2015
A group young Palestinian men managed, earlier on Friday at dawn, to foil an attempt by a number of Israeli extremists to carry out an attack in Madama village, near the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
____The WAFA News Agency has reported that the Palestinians noticed an unusual activity, shortly after 2 after midnight, when they saw a short, bearded armed man wearing a cap, monitoring some homes in the village, and alerted the families.
More. . .

❺ Opinion/Analysis
MONDOWEISS
A  GUIDE  TO  THE  WORST  REFUGEE  CRISIS  SINCE  WWII
Ben Norton
Sept. 9, 2015
The world is witnessing the largest refugee crisis since the horrors of World War II.
____Today there are close to 60 million war refugees, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)—“an all-time high as violence and persecution” around the world are on the rise.
____The Middle East, North Africa, and Western Asia are particularly hard hit. Millions of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Yemen are fleeing violence and war in their countries.
____In all of 2014, approximately 219,000 people tried to cross the Mediterranean to seek asylum in Europe. In just the first eight months of 2015, over 300,000 refugees tried to cross the sea, according to the UNHCR. More than 2,500 died.
____Human rights organizations warn the Gulf states, Israel, Iran, and Russia—all of which have taken zero refugees—along with the US, Canada, and Europe—which have taken few—are not doing enough to provide refuge to the asylum-seekers.
More. . .

“THE  UNKNOWN  CONTINENT,”  BY  SAMIH  AL-QASIM
How do we reach you
Slums of Chicago?
How is the spark to reach you?
How is the fire to be born?
Skyscrapers!
Stacked huts!
Stretch your arms out of the darkness―
For the big banner
Spreads its warmth, its light
Forever
Into the depths of night
And the big banner is
Forever
A sail for the drowning.

How are the storms to reach you
Jazzband Club in New York?
The black man is hungry and fearful
The wolves of the KKK roam the forest
―the current overpowering
And the conscience of the statue shaken
And the heart of night.
The wind is frozen,
And the waves of the sea unmoving?
How is the message to reach you
Deaf Washington,
With the humming of the machine?
In Vietnam you slaughter
And you export
Cokes and medicine to the sad moon!
And you sweep over the blood of victims.
How is the message to reach you?

Descendants of Ole Abe!
My voice has become hoarse
And the wind
Has become tired of my shouts!
Descendants of Old Abe!
Shake the marble of history,
Rise to the sky,
Rise above the band of stupid maggis
And halt ―for
The earth grumbles
Rivers of blood.

From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY  OF  THE  SUN:  POETRY  OF  THE  PALESTINIAN  RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970.
Available from Amazon.
About Samih Al-Qasim