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

❶ Palestinian pianist from Yarmouk joins migrant tide
❷ J’lem mayor warns Palestinians in holy site clashes: ‘if they use violence we will hunt them’
❸ Israeli forces level land in Gaza border area
❹ Opinion/Analysis: Using Palestinians as a human shield against BDS
❺ Opinion/Analysis: Israel’s high-stake game in Al-Aqsa and why Netanyahu may prevail
❻ Poetry by Mahmoud Darwish

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❶ AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
HIS  PIANO  BURNED  BY  IS,  SYRIAN  [Palestinian From Yarmouk Refugee Camp]  MUSICIAN  JOINS  MIGRANT  TIDE
Sept. 20, 2015
Three years of siege, famine and bombing of his Damascus refugee camp didn’t kill celebrated musician Aeham al-Ahmad, but something died inside him the day jihadists burned his beloved piano in front of his eyes.
___It was then that Ahmad, whose music had brought consolation, even a bit of joy, to Yarmuk camp’s beleaguered residents, decided to join thousands of others and seek refuge in Europe.
___”They burned it in April, on my birthday. It was my most cherished possession,” Ahmad told AFP, which is following his odyssey online, step-by-step.
More . . .

❷ MONDOWEISS
J’LEM  MAYOR  WARNS  PALESTINIANS  IN  HOLY  SITE  CLASHES:  ‘IF  THEY  USE  VIOLENCE  WE  WILL  HUNT  THEM’
Allison Deger
Sept. 19, 2015
On Friday afternoon prayers one Palestinian was shot by Israeli forces, and two Israeli police were injured in clashes across Jerusalem, amid a week of upheaval centering around al-Aqsa Mosque. In preparation for a call from Hamas for a “day of rage,” Israeli police deployed 5,000 forces around Jerusalem and limited access to the Muslim holy sites by age. By evening Israel’s parliament approved drafting army reservists to street patrols, a signal of continuing strife.
____“If they use violence we will hunt them and we will increase measures,” Jerusalem’s mayor Nir Barkat said yesterday. This followed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that police would begin using live-fire for crowd control in Jerusalem, “to make sure terrorists will not gain what they want to gain.”
____“Their strategic aim is to prevent religious freedom—when I say religious freedom I mean even the right of Jews to visit quietly,” Barkat said.
More. . .

❸ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI  FORCES  LEVEL  LAND  IN  GAZA  BORDER  AREA
Sept. 21, 2015
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Israeli military vehicles crossed the border fence into the northern Gaza Strip on Monday and leveled private Palestinian land, witnesses said.
____Locals told Ma’an that four military bulldozers entered a border area near Jabalia in the besieged enclave and leveled agricultural land.
More . . .

❹ Opinion/Analysis
+972 BLOG
USING  PALESTINIANS  AS  A  HUMAN  SHIELD  AGAINST  BDS
Rami Younis
Sept. 20, 2015
In response to the Reykjavik City Council’s — since reversed — decision to boycott Israeli goods until the occupation is ended, Israeli politician Yair Lapid wrote an open letter to the Icelandic people titled ‘The Hypocrisy of Boycott.’ In his oped, Lapid argued that Israel should not be boycotted because doing so would harm its Arab citizens. One of those citizens responds.
More . . .

❺ Opinion/Analysis
MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL’S  HIGH-STAKE  GAME  IN  AL-AQSA  AND  WHY  NETANYAHU  MAY  PREVAIL
Ramzy Baroud
Sept. 21, 2015

Ramzy Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist, author and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story.

The State of Israel was established on the ruins of Palestine, based on a series of objectives that were initialed by letters from the Hebrew alphabet, the consequences of which continue to guide Israeli strategies to this day. The current violence against Palestinian worshipers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Occupied East Jerusalem is a logical extension of the same Zionist ambition. [. . . .]
The fate of Jerusalem and its holy sites cannot be understood separately from the fate of Palestine. And the daily struggle of Palestinian Muslims and Christians in that City is a representation of the struggle of Palestinians everywhere.
____As West Jerusalem was conquered under ‘Plan Dalet,’ East Jerusalem, like the rest of the Occupied Territories was, along with other Palestinian regions, the target of another plan: The ‘Allon Plan.’
More. . .

“MY  HOMELAND,”  BY  MAHMOUD  DARWISH
. . . . (Written from prison after the June, 1967, war)
My Homeland:
The chains have taught me
The fierceness of the eagle
And the tenderness of the optimist
I did not know
That under our skin
A storm is being born
And rivers are being wed.
They dimmed the light in my prison cell
But a radiant sun is beaming in my heart
They wrote my number on the wall
And a plain of wheat has grown
I carved your bloody picture with my teeth
And wrote a song for the dying night
I stabbed my defeat in the flesh of the dark
And stitched my fingers in the verse of light
While the conqueror stands on the roof of my home
He only conquered my cell
He only saw my glow
He only heard my chains
And if I am burnt on the cross of prayers
I shall become a saint―dressed in a uniform

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 Mahmoud Darwish