❶ Friday marks the 26th anniversary of the Oyoun Qara massacre
❷ EU strongly opposed to Israel’s settlement policy, demolitions and confiscations
❸ Against Jewish will, Palestinian film screened at Cannes
❹ Opinion/Analysis:  ISRAELI  ‘CHUTZPAH’  VERSUS  PALESTINIAN  ‘SUMUD’
❺ Opinion/Analysis: IN  GAZA,  NOTHING  IS  JUST  AN  ACCIDENT
❻ “A Speech in the Unemployment Market,” By Samih Al-Qasim
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❶ FRIDAY  MARKS  THE  26TH  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  OYOUN  QARA  MASSACRE
Ma’an News Agency
May 20, 2016
Friday marked the 26th anniversary of the Oyoun Qara massacre . . .
___At 6:15 am on May 20, 1990, 20 Palestinian workers from the Gaza Strip waited for their employers to pick them up from the Oyoun Qara (Rishon Lezion) bus stop when a discharged Israeli soldier arrived and demanded that the workers show him their IDs.
___The soldier, Ami Popper, checked the workers’ IDs, and after ensuring they were all Palestinian, ordered them to line up in three lines and kneel down, then opened fire on the workers with an M16, killing seven and badly injuring 10 others. Popper then drove his vehicle away from the scene [. . . .]
___Israeli courts later convicted Popper of the murders . . .  reduced his sentence to 40 years of imprisonment.      MORE . . .
HISTORY; AMI POPPER TODAY . . .  

❷ EU  STRONGLY  OPPOSED  TO  ISRAEL’S  SETTLEMENT  POLICY,  DEMOLITIONS  AND  CONFISCATIONS
Palestine News Network
May 20, 2016
EU spokesperson said today . . .  that the EU is strongly opposed to Israel’s settlement policy and actions taken in this context, including demolitions and confiscations, building the separation barrier beyond the 1967 line, evictions and forced transfers. Such developments in the so-called E1 area call into question Israel’s commitment towards the two-state solution.
___The EU spokesperson also said that the regrettable trend of confiscations and demolitions since the beginning of the year, including of EU-funded humanitarian assistance, was confirmed once again this week by demolitions of temporary shelters in Jabal al-Baba, a Bedouin community in the so-called E1 area.      MORE . . .    

❸ AGAINST  JEWISH  WILL,  PALESTINIAN  FILM  SCREENED  AT  CANNES
Days of Palestine
May 19, 2016
Palestinian work was screened on Monday at Cannes Film Festival despite Jewish pressure to cancel it.
___The film, which name is Munich: A Palestinian Story, was screened without any delays as it was previously planned.
___Speaking to Electronic Intifada Nasri Hajjaj from Cannes, saying that the screening of a 14-minute segment passed without incident and he received a positive response from those present.
___France’s main pro-Israel lobby group CRIF had been exerting intense pressure on authorities to ban the film, even enlisting the support of the mayor of Cannes.   MORE . . .  

❹ Opinion/Analysis: ISRAELI  ‘CHUTZPAH’  VERSUS  PALESTINIAN  ‘SUMUD’
Mondoweiss
Jonathan Ofir
May 18, 2016
In his book “The Joys of Yiddish” (1968), Leo Rosten writes . . . “Chutzpa is that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan. A chuzpanik may be defined as the man who shouts ‘Help! Help!’ while beating you up” [. . . .]
___The Palestinians, as a subjugated and militarily-inferior occupied party, had to historically apply a mirror antidote to this Chutzpah. Against the policy of harassment and regular dispossession, they had to apply the attitude of steadfastness. This is the meaning of Sumud.      MORE . . .

❺ Opinion/Analysis:  IN  GAZA,  NOTHING  IS  JUST  AN  ACCIDENT
The Electronic Intifada
Hamza Abu Eltarabesh
May 17, 2016
When a candle caused a fire that killed three young children at a house in Gaza, it seemed like the kind of horrible misfortune that could happen anywhere.
___But candles in Beach refugee camp, where the recent fire occurred, are lit not for mood but necessity. And in Gaza, where rolling power cuts leave people without electricity for 12 hours a day, that need is great.
___And growing.      MORE . . .  

“A  SPEECH  IN  THE  UNEMPLOYMENT  MARKET,”  BY  SAMIH  AL-QASIM

If you like, I will forfeit my wages
and put up my clothes and bed for sale.
I’ll work as a stonecutter, porter or street-sweeper,
and search for grain in the dung of cattle
and languish, naked and hungry
but with you, the sun’s enemy, I will not bargain.
With the last throb in my veins I will resist.

Though you steal the last foot of my land
and feed my youth to the prison,
seize my grandfather’s inheritance
of furnishings, dishes and pots,
burn my poems and books,
throw my flesh to the dogs
and dwell as a dream of horror over my village
with you, the sun’s enemy, I will not bargain.
With the last throb in my veins I will resist.

You may smother my flame in the night,
withhold my mother’s kiss
and let children curse my kinfolk.
You may slip past the guardian of my sorrows
and settle my history between a coward and a senseless god.
You may deny my children holiday clothes
and fool my friends with a borrowed face,
hedge me around with all your walls
and sacrifice my days on some humble spot
but with you, the sun’s enemy, I will not bargain.
With the last throb in my veins I will resist.

Enemy of the sun,
in the port there is feasting, a flood of good tidings,
shrills and shouts and a cry of joy;
heroic anthems burst from every throat!
On the horizon, a boat
challenges the wind and boundless sea, and passes out of danger.
It is Ulysses’ return
from the lost seas―
the return of the sun, and of the exiled―
and by her eyes,
and by his eyes,
I swear I will not bargain!

I will resist.
― (1967)

An interview with Samih Al-Qasim.
From WHEN THE WORDS BURN: AN ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN ARABIC POETRY: 1945-1987. Translated and edited by John Mikhail Asfour. Dunvegan, Ontario, Canada. Cormorant Books, 1988.