❶ Palestinian MK sentenced for “disgracing a public servant”
❷ Israel lifts blockade of Qabatiya after three days
❸ 551 Palestinians arrested in January
❹ Palestinian Embassy Opens in Brazil
❺ Opinion/Analysis: The  Complex  Problematics  of  Palestinian  Representation
. . . . . ❺―(ᴀ) Also by Richard Falk: Israel shoots the messenger: An open letter to Ban Ki-Moon
❻ Poetry by Kamal Nasser
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❶ ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER (AIC)
PALESTINIAN  MK  SENTENCED  FOR  “DISGRACING  A  PUBLIC  SERVANT”
Feb. 7, 2016
(Charges against MK Haneen Zoabi come as the Israeli PRIME MINISTER CONTEMPLATES HOW TO UNSEAT MEMBERS OF KNESSET critical of the Israeli occupation.)
Member of Knesset (MK) of the Joint List party, Haneen Zoabi, reached a plea bargain of six months of probation and a fine of NIS 3,000 at the Nazareth Magistrate’s Court on Sunday for “disgracing a public servant” . . . .
___Zoabi was charged on Sunday with “disgracing a public servant,” based on the claim that Zoabi called an Israeli Arab police officer a “traitor” at a protest in Nazareth on July 6, 2014.    More . . .
❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL  LIFTS  BLOCKADE  OF  QABATIYA  AFTER  THREE  DAYS
Feb. 6, 2016
The Israeli army lifted on Saturday evening the siege on the village of Qabatiya, which has been blockaded for three days in a row after three residents of the town carried out a deadly attack in Jerusalem.
___The Palestinian Civil Affairs department in Jenin said on Saturday evening that Israeli forces has lifted the siege on the village of Qabatiya near Jenin.    More . . .
❸ ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER (AIC)
551  PALESTINIANS  ARRESTED  IN  JANUARY
Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
Feb. 7, 2016
The following report was issued on 1 February 2016 by three prisoners’ organizations in Palestine: the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, and the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Committee. The Arabic original is available at Addameer’s website.
___In a joint report, the Palestinian Prisoners Society, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, and the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Committee reported that 551 Palestinians were arrested during the month of January 2016, including 131 children and six women and girls. There have now been over 3,500 arrests since October 2015 and the beginning of the popular upsurge.    More . . .

❹ IMEMC-INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
PALESTINIAN  EMBASSY  OPENS  IN  BRAZIL
Feb. 6, 2016
The Palestinian Authority has inaugurated its first diplomatic mission in the Western Hemisphere, in Brazil, as diplomatic tensions escalate between Israel and the South American state.
___Palestinian Ambassador Ibrahim Alzeben led the opening ceremony in the Brazilian capital city of Brasilia. . . .
___“This is the conclusion of a dream of mine that was also a dream of colleagues that came before me in this mission in the last four decades,” Alzeben said.     More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
PALESTINE CHRONICLE
THE  COMPLEX  PROBLEMATICS  OF  PALESTINIAN  REPRESENTATION
Richard Falk
Feb 3 2016
While serving as UN Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine, especially in my early years between 2008 and 2010, I fully expected to encounter defamatory opposition from Israel and ultra-Zionist, but what surprised me at the time were various efforts of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to undermine my role at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. . . . .  I was puzzled at first, and then began to wonder whether the Palestinian people were being adequately represented on the global stage.
___This issue of representation has been rendered acute partly due to Israeli policies of fragmenting the Palestinian people, and then complaining that they have no partner with whom to make peace.     More . . .
. . . . . ❺―(ᴀ) Also by Richard Falk
MIDDLE EAST EYE
ISRAEL  SHOOTS  THE  MESSENGER:  AN  OPEN  LETTER  TO  BAN  KI-MOON
Feb. 6, 2016
___. . . .  Not since Richard Goldstone chaired the group that released the report detailing apparent Israeli war crimes during its massive attack on Gaza at the end of 2008 have Israel’s big political guns responded with such unwarranted fury . . . .
Netanyahu has the audacity to claim that your acknowledgement that it is not unnatural for the Palestinians oppressed for half century to resist and resort to extremism is tantamount to the encouragement of terrorism, what he described as giving a “tailwind to terrorism.”    More . . .  

“THE  STORY,”  BY  KAMAL  NASSER
I will tell you a story …
a story that lived in the dreams of my people,
a story that comes from the world of tents.
It is a story inspired by hunger and embellished by dark nights of terror.
It is the story of my country, a handful of refugees.
Every twenty of them have a pound of flour between them
and a few promises of relief … gifts and parcels.
It is the story of the suffering ones
who stood waiting in line ten years,
in hunger,
in tears and agony,
in hardship and yearning.
It is a story of a people who were misled,
who were thrown into the mazes of the years.
And yet they stood defiant,
disrobed yet united
as they trudged from the light to their tents:
the revolution of return
into the world of darkness.
― Trans. Michael R. Burch

Kamal Nasser was a much-admired Palestinian poet, who due to his renowned integrity was known as “The Conscience.” Kamal Nasser was a Palestinian Christian who was murdered by an Israeli death squad in 1973. One of the members of the death squad was Ehud Barak, who ruled as Israel’s tenth Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001. . . .

Nasser was the PLO’s most prominent Christian and he enjoyed “great appeal” in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq “both as a distinguished poet and likeable personality.” He was the “conscience of the Palestinian revolution,” according to Nazih Abul-Nidal, who worked with him on the magazine Filastin al-Thawra.
From THE HYPERTEXTS. (The site’s index.)