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

❶ Israel is pulling the West Bank out from under Palestinian feet
❷ Israeli Troops Seize Home of PA Police Chief
❸ Ashrawi: “Israel is in the business of creating refugees, not providing them with a safe haven.”
❹ Netanyahu: EU plan to label settlement goods ‘unjust’
❺ “The right of return; a forgotten issue,” by Dr. Ghada Karmi **
❻ “The Impossible,” poetry by Tawfiq Zayyad

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❶ +972 MAGAZINE
ISRAEL  IS  PULLING  THE  WEST  BANK  OUT  FROM  UNDER  PALESTINIAN  FEET
Natasha Roth
Sept. 11, 2015
Israel has issued over 14,000 demolition orders against Palestinian structures in Area C of the West Bank since 1988, according to a new report released by the UN’s humanitarian agency. Nearly 3,000 demolitions have been carried out in that time, leaving more than 11,000 orders outstanding that affect over 17,000 structures.
____OCHA-oPt, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, derived its report from figures released earlier this year by the Civil Administration, Israel’s governing body in the West Bank.
More. . .
Related. . . 
Related. . .

❷ INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER (IMEMC)
ISRAELI  TROOPS  SEIZE  HOME  OF  PA  POLICE  CHIEF
Sept. 11, 2015
Israeli military forces, on Friday, raided the house of Palestinian Authority police chief in Nablus, Abd al-Latif al-Qaddumi, and turned his home into a military outpost after evicting his wife and children.
____PA police spokesperson Luay Irzeiqat told Ma’an News Agency that Israeli forces raided the home in Kafr Qaddum village and locked al-Qaddumi’s family in one room before declaring the property a military outpost.
Shortly afterward, Israeli forces expelled the family from the home and took it over.
More. . .

❸ INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER (IMEMC)
ASHRAWI:  “ISRAEL  IS  IN  THE  BUSINESS  OF  CREATING  REFUGEES,  NOT  PROVIDING  THEM  WITH  A  SAFE  HAVEN.”
Sept. 8, 2015
In response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu’s rejection of accepting any refugees in Israel, PLO Executive Committee Member Dr. Hanan Ashrawi said:
“Israel is in the business of creating refugees and ethnic cleansing; it bears a moral responsibility for the plight of the Palestinian refugees and the grave injustices of the past.”
____According to the PNN, Ashrawi called on all members of the international community, in particular the United Nations, to support efforts to bring the Palestinian refugees to Palestine. “Israel should not be allowed to prevent us from welcoming the refugees to their rightful homeland,” Ashrawi added.
____These comments were made in a meeting Dr. Ashrawi had with United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov at the PLO Headquarters.
More. . . 

❹ THE MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
NETANYAHU:  EU  PLAN  TO  LABEL  SETTLEMENT  GOODS  ‘UNJUST’
Sept. 11, 2015
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday attacked an EU resolution on labelling goods produced in the occupied Palestinian territories. . .
____[He said] “It is simply a distortion of justice and of logic and I think that it also hurts peace; it does not advance peace. THE  ROOT  OF  THE  CONFLICT  IS  NOT  THE  TERRITORIES,  AND  THE  ROOT  OF  THE  CONFLICT  IS  NOT  THE  SETTLEMENTS.”
[. . . .]
____The European parliament earlier voted in favour of a non-binding resolution to label all exports originating in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights – territory taken by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.
More. . .
Related. . .

❺ Opinion/Analysis
THE MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
THE  RIGHT  OF  RETURN;  A  FORGOTTEN  ISSUE
Dr Ghada Karmi
Sept. 1 2015
No issue has been so much at the heart of the Palestine cause, or so resistant to resolution, as the right of return. Palestinians worldwide see it as the basis of their case. Enshrined in international law and historical precedent, it has acquired an almost sacred quality for Palestinians, an untouchable right that no one can dispute. . . .
____Yet, far from this fundamental plank of the Palestinian case being recognised as such and forming the core of any final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ignoring it has become the norm in political discourse. [. . . .]
____Watering down the right of return, and pandering to Israel, is not the way to solve the problem. Only solutions that can reconcile the right of Palestinian return with the existence of an Israeli Jewish community which, whether we like it or not, now exists and has acquired rights too, can succeed.
More . . .
** Ghada Karmi (born 1939) is a Palestinian doctor of medicine, author and academic. She writes on Palestinian issues in The Guardian, The Nation, and Journal of Palestine Studies. She is a fellow and lecturer at the Institute of Arab & Islamic studies at Exeter University.

“THE  IMPOSSIBLE,”  BY  TAWFIQ  ZAYYAD
It is much easier for you
To pass an elephant through a needle’s eye,
Or catch fried fish in a galaxy,
Plough the sea,
Force a crocodile to speak
Than to destroy by persecution
The shimmering glow of a belief,
Or check our march,
One single step.

As if we were a thousand prodigies
Spreading everywhere
In Lidda, in Ramallah, in the Galilee. . .
Here we shall stay,
A wall upon your breast,
And in your throat we shall stay,
A piece of glass, a cactus thorn,
And in your eyes,
A blazing fire.

Here we shall stay,
A wall upon your breast,
Cleaning dishes in taverns,
Filling cups for the masters,
Sweeping sooty kitchens
To snatch a bite from your blue fangs
For our children.
Here we shall stay.
A wall upon your breast,
Facing starvation,
Struggling with rags, defying,
Singing our songs,
Swarming the angry streets with our demonstrations,
Filling the dungeons with pride,
Rearing vengeance in new generations.
Like a thousand prodigies,
We roam along
In Lidda, in Ramallah, in the Galilee.

Here we shall stay,
Go then and jump into the lake.
We will guard even the shadow of our fig and olive trees,
And ferment our cause as yeast does dough.
Here we shall stay with steel-cold nerves,
And red hell in our hearts.
We squeeze the rock to quench our thirst
And lull starvation with dust,
But we shall not depart.
Here we shall spill our dearest blood,
Here we have a past,
A present,
A future.
Stay we will, like a thousand prodigies,
In Lidda, Ramallah, the Galilee.
Strike deep in the earth
Our living roots.

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 Tawfiq Zayyad