❶ Israel steals Jerusalem’s documents from Al-Aqsa Mosque

• Background: “Relations of Ruling in the Colonial Present: An Intersectional View of the Israeli Imaginary.”  Canadian Journal of Sociology.

❷ Israeli forces destroy Palestinian home in East Jerusalem, leaving 4 homeless
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Jerusalem family has until Wednesday to vacate its home for Jewish settlers
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) Israeli forces delivers 14 demolition notices to Palestinian structures in Area B
❸ Opinion/Analysis: Don’t Historicize the Balfour Declaration: The Past is Still the Palestinians’ Present
❹ POETRY by Mahmoud Darwish
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAEL  STEALS  JERUSALEM’S  DOCUMENTS  FROM  AL-AQSA  MOSQUE   (Israeli authorities plan to forge documents in favour of Judaization plans) 
Days of Palestine
Aug. 8, 2017.   Israeli occupation forces stole important documents from Al-Aqsa Mosque related to Jerusalem’s properties and endowments, reports revealed on Monday.
___Chairman of Jerusalem International Centre Hassan Khater said that the Israeli occupation stole the documents from the “rooms, libraries, documentary archives” of Al-Aqsa Mosque when its forces were alone during the closure of the Mosque last month.
___“Through these documents, the Israeli occupation is putting its hand on the endowments, properties and real estate of Jerusalem’s endowment department,” Khater said, noting that the theft of these documents is a “real disaster.”
___He noted that these documents include “details, secrets and signatures,” adding that more than 90 per cent of Jerusalem’s Old City is part of these endowments.   MORE . . .
RELATED . . .    “Copies of those documents are kept in Jordan, and the committee will compare the lists of documents to account for any stolen items,” [Shaikh Ekrima Sabri, who heads the Supreme Islamic Council of Occupied Jerusalem] told Gulf News.

Santos, Madalena. “RELATIONS  OF  RULING  IN  THE  COLONIAL  PRESENT:  AN  INTERSECTIONAL  VIEW  OF  THE  ISRAELI  IMAGINARY.”
Canadian Journal of Sociology, vol. 38, no. 4, Oct. 2013, pp. 509-532.
[. . . .]  The seemingly evident contradiction between political Zionism and what is construed as modern secular racism are complexly interrelated. Notably, the increase in anti-Jewish sentiment during the Nazi period resulted in increased support for the Zionist movement which had not received a great deal of backing from Jewish peoples previously. The historical foundation for Zionist ideology that began as a political response to racism “through the construction of an ethnically-defined and exclusively ‘Jewish’ modern capitalist state … moved from a marginal view to one that is hegemonic in global politics”. Prior to this period, many Jewish peoples understood the Zionist idea of creating a Jewish-only state to be accepting of the racist notion that Jews were unable to live with non-Jews and could only live with each other.
[. . . .] To carry on its transformation of historical Palestine into a Jewish majority state, Israel has maintained its practices of ethnic cleansing through land expropriation which are not only geopolitically significant and meaningful in a material sense, but are culturally symbolic and intended to alter the story of Palestine. For instance, through the bureaucratic machinery of the Israeli state, 95 percent of state territory is administered via the offices of the Jewish National Fund according to “laws that differentiate between Jew and non-Jew making it illegal for non-Jews (read Palestinians) to lease state lands”. As a result, most Palestinians who remained within ’48 or what is more commonly considered Israel proper are not legally entitled to own or lease land since Israel has designated almost all of the land within the Green Line as available exclusively to Jews. Known as the “Judaization of land”, these processes include the erasure of Arab villages through their purposeful unrecognition as well as the Hebraicization of Arab villages and street names. In addition to the material dispossession of land and property, displacement of peoples, and the creation of a considerably large refugee population with all of the socioeconomic consequences that result from these processes, the Zionist methods of erasure of Palestinian history, collective memory, and existence are central to the aim of white colonial rule that naturalizes notions of settler nationality and citizenship belonging. [. . . .]  FULL ARTICLE . . .

❷ ISRAELI  FORCES  DESTROY  PALESTINIAN  HOME  IN  EAST  JERUSALEM,  LEAVING  4  HOMELESS  
Ma’an News Agency
Aug. 8, 2017.   Israeli forces on Tuesday demolished a Palestinian home in the Jabal al-Mukabbir neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, leaving a family of four homeless.     ___The owner of the home, Hamza Shaludi, told Ma’an that bulldozers, escorted by Israeli Jerusalem Municipality crews and large Israeli police forces broke into the family home “without prior notice” and “coerced the family into evacuating the home quickly.”     ___Municipality workers, Shaludi said, removed some of the furniture, but the majority of the family’s belongings remained inside the home and ended up buried under the rubble.   MORE . . .
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) JERUSALEM  FAMILY  HAS  UNTIL  WEDNESDAY  TO  VACATE  ITS  HOME  FOR  JEWISH  SETTLERS 
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
August 8, 2017.   The Palestinian Shamasneh family has until Wednesday to vacate its home located in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem following an Israeli court order to turn the home over to Jewish settler organizations.
___The occupation authorities threatened that unless the Shamasneh family leaves its home voluntarily, Israeli police will use force to evict them.
___Meanwhile, activists and supporters of the family have been holding a vigil at the house to protect the family from forceful eviction.
___The Shamasneh family rented the house in 1964 from the Custodian of Enemy Property of the Jordanian government . . . .   MORE . . .
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) ISRAELI  FORCES  DELIVERS  14  DEMOLITION  NOTICES  TO  PALESTINIAN  STRUCTURES  IN  AREA  B  
Ma’an News Agency
Aug. 8, 2017.  Israeli authorities raided the town of Silwad, east of Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank on Tuesday to issue demolition orders for 14 structures.
___Silwad Mayor Abd al-Rahman Saleh told Ma’an that the demolition orders were issued over allegations that they were built without the necessary Israeli-issued construction permits.
___Saleh noted, however, that the structures were located in Area B, under combined Palestinian civil and Israeli military control, not in Area C — the 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli military and civilian control — meaning that they should not be required to receive Israeli building permits.
___One of the 14 structures is a private school, which has been operating for more than 10 years and is the only private school that serves villages in eastern Ramallah.   MORE . . .
❸ Opinion/Analysis:  DON’T  HISTORICIZE  THE  BALFOUR  DECLARATION:  THE  PAST  IS  STILL  THE  PALESTINIANS’  PRESENT 
Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network   
Yara Hawari
June 27, 2017.   The political turmoil in the United Kingdom following Prime Minister Theresa May’s re-election with a reduced, precarious majority . . .  casts doubt on the way in which the UK will mark the centennial of the Balfour Declaration later this year. As is well known, the fateful letter, signed by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour on November 2, 1917, promised British support of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, completely disregarding the sovereign rights of the Palestinian people who lived there.
[. . . .] Britain’s involvement in Israel and Palestine has consisted of an almost unwavering support for the Zionist project since its colonial inception. Despite claims of a commitment to peace, Britain has shown that it is Israel’s ally first and foremost. . .   Britain has also failed to sanction Israel for its continued settlement building in the West Bank, which has doubled since the Oslo Accords, with over half a million settlers in areas that would constitute a Palestinian state . . .
___ A century ago, Christian Zionist ideology, which sought to facilitate the return of Jews to the Holy Land to fulfil a biblical prophecy, guided Britain’s political elite. . .   Just over a month after the Balfour Declaration, General Edmund Allenby took Jerusalem from the Ottoman forces, marking the beginning of British colonial rule in Palestine. Though this rule ended at the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948 and the forcible displacement of and denial of return to the majority of the Palestinian population, British interference in Palestine would continue thanks to Britain’s unwavering commitment to Zionism.     MORE . . .

“A  DIALOGUE  WITH  A  MAN  WHO  HATES  ME,”  BY  MAHMOUD  DARWISH
Rome was burnt, O crazy man
..Rome is more durable than Nero
Rome will not grasp your poems
..She can recite them by heart
Rome will slice your strings
..My tunes arise from my heart
Your voice echoes a miserable past
..My voice echoes a rocket rage
Your path is long
..I shall not tire
Yehuda** sold you
..I shall not be crucified
My ancestors were cremated in Auschwitz
..My heart is with them
..Pull out the wires from my skin
And the wounds of yesterday?
..A shameful scar―in the face of the executioner over there
What do you carry in your head
..A little wheat
What’s in your chest?
..A picture of a wound
Your face reflects a rancor color
..My face reflects the color of the earth
Then convert your sword into plowshares
..You did not leave me land to plow
You criminal!
..I did not steal―did not kill―didn’t oppress
You Arab! You are a dog!
..O man, may God cure your soul
..Why don’t you try the taste of love
..Why don’t you make way for the sun!!

** The Israeli town of Or Yehuda was established in 1950 on the lands of the depopulated Palestinian villages of Saqiya and Kfar ‘Ana. Jews from Iraq and North Africa settled there.

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.
Mahmoud Darwish Obituary