❶ Foreign Ministry Seeks UN Resolution to Freeze Settlement Construction
. . . . . ❶―(ᴀ) Breaking news: Ratifying the settlement project “Kedem” in Silwan
❷ Israel Detains 23 Palestinians during West Bank Raids
❸ UN: Israel’s execution of wounded Palestinian gruesome, unjust
❹ UN passes 4 Palestinian-backed resolutions in landmark victory
❺ Opinion/Analysis: WHY  NETANYAHU  IS  SO  THREATENED  BY  BREAKING  THE  SILENCE
❻ Poetry by ‘Abd al-Latif ‘Aql
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❶ FOREIGN  MINISTRY  SEEKS  UN  RESOLUTION  TO  FREEZE  SETTLEMENT  CONSTRUCTION
PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
March 24, 2016
Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the international community to seek a United Nations resolution to force Israel to halt its settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
___The Ministry, in a statement Thursday, called upon world countries to support Palestinian and Arab efforts aiming to hold an international peace conference on Palestine.
___The statement came in response to Israel’s approval of a controversial plan pushed by the settler organization ‘Elad’, which aims to construct settlement units in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.      MORE . . . 

. . . . . ❶―(ᴀ) BREAKING  NEWS:  RATIFYING  THE  SETTLEMENT  PROJECT  “KEDEM”  IN  SILWAN
WADI HILWEH INFORMATION CENTER – SILWAN
March 23, 2016
The District Council for Planning and Building ratified on Wednesday night the project of Elad settlement organization known as “Kedem project- City of David- Old City of Jerusalem” which is intended to be established at the entrance of Wadi Hilweh in Silwan south of Al-Aqsa Mosque.      MORE . . .
RELATED . . .

❷ ISRAEL  DETAINS  23  PALESTINIANS  DURING  WEST  BANK  RAIDS
PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
March 24, 2016
At least 23 Palestinians, including a minor girl, were Thursday detained by Israeli forces. . . .
___PPS said Israeli forces stormed the village of Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem, and detained 14-year-old Salwa Hayyan. . . . In Jerusalem, Israeli police detained seven Palestinians . . . Meanwhile in Ramallah district . . . In the northern West Bank, city of Nablus . . .   MORE . . .

❸ UN:  ISRAEL’S  EXECUTION  OF  WOUNDED  PALESTINIAN  GRUESOME,  UNJUST
MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
March 25, 2016
A UN official on Friday condemned in the strongest terms the brutal “extrajudicial execution” of a wounded Palestinian by an Israeli soldier that was captured on camera in Hebron the day before.
___Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov said he strongly condemned the apparent “extrajudicial execution” of the Palestinian, who was shot in the head at point-blank . . . .
___”This was a gruesome, immoral, and unjust act that can only fuel more violence and escalate an already volatile situation,” Mladenov said.      MORE . . .
RELATED VIDEO . . . .

❹ UN  PASSES  4  PALESTINIAN- BACKED  RESOLUTIONS  IN  LANDMARK  VICTORY
MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
March 24, 2016
In a landmark victory for the Palestinian leadership, the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday passed four resolutions relating to the occupied Palestinian territory, one of which will draw up a “blacklist” of companies who do business in illegal Israeli settlements.
___The PLO Negotiations Affairs Department said that in addition to the resolution regarding settlements — which passed 32 to 0 — a resolution was adopted recognizing the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.   MORE . . .  

❺ OPINION/ANALYSIS:  WHY  NETANYAHU  IS  SO  THREATENED  BY  “BREAKING THE SILENCE”
+972 BLOG
Dotan Greenvald
March 21, 2016
Breaking the Silence has classified information in its possession. The information is so confidential that its publication could pose a genuine threat. I hope you are sitting down, because I am about to disclose that information. Just don’t tell me later on that I went first and told the gentiles or anti-Semitic foreign governments. You are hearing it firsthand from me, a silence breaker: Israel is a country that controls the lives of millions of Palestinians with no rights, and its elected officials are doing one hell of a job of keeping it from you.    MORE . . . 

(Palestinian poets frequently use the image of “lover” for Palestine.)

“LOVE  PALESTINIAN-STYLE,”  BY  ‘ABD AL-LATIF ‘AQL

In times of drought you are my figs and olives,
Your barrenness is my fragrant gown.

Of the rubble that was your eyes I erect my home,
I love you alive, I love you in death.
When hungry, I feed on thyme.

I feel your hair against my face and I pine,
My weary face turns red.

I am born in the palms of your hands, and embryo,
I grow and grow, and I reach maturity.

I drink the meaning of my life from your gaze,
Then my being is awakened and is intoxicated.

I journey across frontiers, you are my suitcase,
You are my forged passport.

I boast that I can smuggle your eyes
Across borders;
I boast and boast and pride surges within me.

And when soldiers confiscate you,
Even before hashish,
And gouge the pupils of my eyes,

I feel I have been cleansed of the shame;
I have become purer
And more immaculate.

When they fear what may be under my armpits,
They confine me in small cells
I sign your name
At the end of police reports.

And when I am led all alone
To be whipped and humiliated,
And lashed at every police station,
I feel we’re lovers, who died from ecstasy,
A dark-skinned man and his woman.

You become me and I become you―
Luscious figs and shelled almonds.
And when soldiers smash my head
And force me to sip the cold of prison
To forget you―I love you even more.

‘Abd Al-Latif ‘Aql was born in 1942 in Deir Istiya, a village near Nablus. His family was exiled in 1948, and he lived in Amman and studied in Damasus and the U.S. where earned a PhD in social psychology. He worked as a school teacher in the West Bank for many years. He has published many volumes of poetry. His two plays incurred the wrath of the Israelis, and were forced to end performance at Bir Zeit University.
FROM: Parmenter, Barbara McKean. GIVING  VOICE  TO  STONES :  PLACE  AND  IDENTITY  IN  PALESTINIAN  LITERATURE.  Austin, Texas : University of Texas Press, 1994.  The Database of Arabic Literature in Western Research (DAL). OxLit Literary Publication and Documentation