❶ Israeli forces detain 18 Palestinians in predawn military raids

• Background: “Collusion as a Defense against Guilt: Further Notes on the West’s Relationship with Israel and the Palestinians.” International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies.

❷ East Jerusalem parents denounce Israeli police’s assault of Palestinian school principal
. . . . ❸ ― (ᴀ) Israeli forces fire at Gaza fishermen, spray pesticides on Palestinian crops
. . . . ❸ ― (ᴃ) The ‘silent’ war on Gaza’s hospitals
. . . . ❸ ― (c) Israeli forces demolish structures in Jordan Valley
❹ POETRY by Yousef el Qedra
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❶ ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  18  PALESTINIANS  IN  PREDAWN  MILITARY  RAIDS
Al-Hourriah   
May 9, 2017
Israeli forces carried out predawn military raids across the occupied West Bank on Monday and detained at least 18 Palestinians, according to Palestinians and Israeli sources.
[. . . .] Israeli forces raided the southern West Bank CITY OF HEBRON and detained three Palestinians. . . .  three Palestinians . . .  in the TOWN OF TUQU east of Bethlehem in the southern West Bank. . . .    four Palestinians . . . from THE VILLAGE OF FARUN in the Tulkarem district, and two Palestinians . . .  from QALQILIYA, according to the Israeli army.     . . . . five Palestinians in OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM’S OLD CITY. . . .   FOUR PALESTINIAN MINORS from the Old City and the Shufaat refugee camp on Sunday night ___[. . . .] Israeli raids in Palestinian towns, villages, and refugee camps are a daily occurrence in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
___The United Nations recorded an average of 95 weekly raids in the occupied West Bank in 2016, and 78 weekly raids on average thus far in 2017. . . .      MORE . . .

. . .  I struggle to convey here the disturbing impact of being in Palestine, with Palestinians. In this disorientating experience, one is among people coping with rupture and fragmentation, a collectively felt yet denied history, an uncertain future within a collapsing geography.  Here every aspect of life is circumscribed by a military bureaucracy that works to destroy hope and thwart every ordinary human aspiration, overseen by an army whose operations are designed “to create a sense of persecution”.
___The visitor finds him or herself welcomed by individuals and families living in a society subject to the unrestrained whim of a dominant and hostile power, which degrades life through executive fiat: the arbitrariness of the checkpoints, the unpredictability of the evictions, house demolitions, NIGHT RAIDS, the re-designation of land as no longer one’s own, the violent incursions of settlers and THE ARREST AND DETENTION OF MINORS. . . . conversations . . . .  in which are expressed a confusing blend of pain and defiance, humor, frustration, anger, betrayal, pride, despair, determination, and sometimes optimism. Every Palestinian one meets, including those living inside Israel’s 1967 borders who have full Israeli citizenship, seems to struggle to make a life against the backdrop of a project in which they have no place, exposed to a process of cultural . . .  eradication. . . .
___[. . . .] Israel has come to play a key role in maintaining Western influence and presence in the Middle East, and for Western governments to overlook the failings and shortcomings of a key ally is hardly remarkable. Still, the level of impunity with which Israel acts, the reluctance of Western politicians and media outlets to name what is happening, to question the reasonableness of creating a “Jewish State” in Palestine, to provide historical context or to explore the ideological context of Israeli behavior is, I would suggest, unique.

• Kemp, Martin. “Collusion as a Defense against Guilt: Further Notes on the West’s Relationship with Israel and the Palestinians.” International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, vol.12 no. 3, Sept. 2015, pp. 192-222.

❷ EAST  JERUSALEM  PARENTS  DENOUNCE  ISRAELI  POLICE’S  ASSAULT  OF  PALESTINIAN  SCHOOL  PRINCIPAL  
Ma’an News Agency    
May 8, 2017
JERUSALEM ― The union of parent committees in occupied East Jerusalem schools held a sit-in on Monday in solidarity with the principal of a preparatory school in the Beit Hanina neighborhood, who was hospitalized last week after Israeli police officers arbitrarily assaulted and detained him.
___ [. . . .] Israeli police were chasing a vehicle driven by a Palestinian in Beit Hanina on Thursday, and detained the young man in the Beit Hanina preparatory school’s yard.
___When school principal Hassan Ghneim came out to the yard to ask Israeli officers what was happening on the school premises, the officers started swearing at him, then violently assaulted him and held chains around his neck, causing Ghneim to fall to the ground and suffer a head injury . . . .
___Ghneim told Ma’an that he had come out after the Israeli officers hit a young student with their vehicle following the detention of the young Palestinian man, bruising the child.     MORE . . .

❸― (ᴀ)  ISRAELI  FORCES  FIRE  AT  GAZA  FISHERMEN,  SPRAY  PESTICIDES  ON  PALESTINIAN  CROPS 
Ma’an News Agency
May 9, 2017
GAZA CITY ―  Israeli naval forces opened fire at Palestinian fishermen off the coast of the besieged Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning, locals told Ma’an.     MORE . . . 
❸ ― (ᴃ) THE  ‘SILENT’  WAR  ON  GAZA’S  HOSPITALS    
+972 Magazine  
By Samer Badawi
May 7, 2017
At the height of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (2015), El Wafa Medical Rehabilitation Hospital was the target of fierce attacks from Israeli positions along Gaza’s eastern border, just over a kilometer away.
___[. . . .]  now struggles to convey the impact of another danger—an ongoing electricity crisis that, according to the World Health Organization, could “leave thousands of people without access to life-saving health care.”    MORE . . .
❸ ― (C) ISRAELI  FORCES  DEMOLISH  STRUCTURES  IN  JORDAN  VALLEY     
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA     
May 9, 2017
Israeli forces Tuesday demolished residential structures and animal barns in the village of al-Jiftlik in the Jordan Valley, local sources said.
___Othman Anouz, head of Al-Jiftlik community council, told WAFA that Israeli military bulldozers demolished two residential structures and other animal barns in the village. The structures are owned by local resident Najeh Kaabneh and his son Odeh.   MORE. . .

“I  HAVE  NO  HOME,”  by YOUSEF  EL  QEDRA

I saw clouds running away from the hurt.
I have no language.
Its weight is lighter than a feather.
The quill does not write.
The ink of the spirit burns on the shore of meaning.
The clouds are tears, filled with escape and lacking definition.
A cloud realizes the beauty she forms –
beauty which contains all good things,
for whom trees, gardens, and tired young women wait.

I have no home.
I have a night overripe with sweats caused by numbness all over.
Time has grown up on its own without me.
In my dream, I asked him again, What did he mean?
Then I found myself suspended in nothingness,
stretched like a string that doesn’t belong to an instrument.
The wind played me. So did irresistible gravity.
I was a run of lost notes that have a sad, strong desire to live.
–– Trans. By Yasmin Snounu and Edward Morin.

• From BEFORE THERE IS NOWHERE TO STAND: PALESTINE ISRAEL POETS RESPOND TO THE STRUGGLE.  Ed. By Joan Dobbie and Grace Beeler. Sandpoint ID: Lost Horse Press, 2012.  Available from Barnes and Noble.