INTERNET SITES AND BLOGS YOU WILL FIND INTERESTING:
(I am unable to make a regular post, so I have compiled this VERY small list of sources. There will be a comprehensive list soon.)
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Below is an interesting read from Haaretz premium edition arguing that “Israel has missed the opportunity for compromises [&] new generation of Palestinian activists will not play the game that led the older generation to the dead end it finds itself in”. . It is a worthy piece by Gideon Levy reporting on a debate between Afif Safieh and Ali Abunimah. I consider all three gentlemen to be good friends and I knew the latter two “protagonists” very well for about 20 years. Safieh said repeatedly that we need better leadership (alluding to his party of Fatah) and better opposition. He was removed from his ambassadorial positions for reasons we will not get into. Clearly he is much more articulate than 98% of those who defend the Oslo accords of 1993-4 (which were a second Nakba to us as Edward Said and I and many others described in many books and articles since then). If there are two camps as Gideon Levy argues, I would fall solidly in the camp of Ali Abunimah.
___Yet, I do not think that Afif Safieh is the same as Jibril Rjoub, Ahmed Azzam, Saeb Ereqat or Mahmoud Abbas (any way things not strictly binary!). There are some who supported Oslo who had second thoughts in the 1990 are now having second thoughts after what happened with Jerusalem. Yes, they should have had second thoughts earlier and they should be out openly saying “mea culpa”. Yet, we need to work with different people differently and push them to take rational decisions NOW. My friend Munther Amayra is from Fatah and he is now in an Israeli jail (taken three days ago), his views are certainly not in line with Mahmoud Abbas (and I would challenge Abbas to come with us to just one non-violent demonstration and inhale some tear gas)!! Many other Fatah people are delaying hoping the current shake-up about Jerusalem will go away and that they will not have to pay a price. However, history will not be kind to them who miss this opportunity to show backbone and go back to their people! [. . . .]
“A HOMELAND,” BY SAMIH AL-QASIM So what,
When in my homeland
The sparrow dies of starvation,
In exile, without a shroud,
While the earthworm is satiated, devouring God’s food!
So what,
When the yellow fields
Yield no more to their tillers
Than memories of weariness,
While their rich harvest pours
Into the granaries of the usurper!
So what,
If the cement has diverted
The ancient springs
Causing them to forget their natural course,
When their owner calls,
They cry in his face: “Who are you?”
So what,
When the almond and the olive have turned to timber
Adorning tavern doorways,
And monuments
Whose nude loveliness beautifies halls and bars,
And is carried by tourists
To the farthest corners of the earth,
While nothing remains before my eyes
But dry leaves and tinder!
So what,
When my people’s tragedy
Has turned to farce in others’ eyes,
And my face is a poor bargain
That even the slave-trader gleefully disdains!
So what,
When in barren space the satellites spin,
And in the streets walks a beggar, holding a hat,
And the song of autumn is heard!
Blow, East winds!
Our roots are still alive.
Samih Al-Qasim
From THE PALESTINIAN WEDDING: A BILINGUAL ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE POETRY. Ed. and Trans. A. M. Elmessiri. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011. Reprint from Three Continents Press, Inc., 1982. Available from Palestine Online Store.
Palestinians carrying a wounded person during the Friday clashes with Israeli soldiers at the Gaza borders. One person died . . . (WAFA Images, Dec. 30, 2017) NOTE THE LARGE NUMBER OF DEADLY WEAPONS IN PALESTINIAN HANDS.
❶ Probe into killing of math teacher closed, no officer was found responsible
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Palestinian dies of wounds sustained during clashes at Gaza border
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) Red Crescent: 200 Palestinian wounded [Friday] by IOF in West Bank and Gaza
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴄ) QB puts up huge placard of Israeli soldier Shaul Aaron in Gaza
Background: “The ‘Never Again’ State of Israel: The Emergence of the Holocaust as a Core Feature of Israeli Identity and Its Four Incongruent Voices.” Journal of Social Issues.
❷ Israel withdraws from UNESCO
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) On Independence Day, UNESCO okays resolution denying Israeli claims to Jerusalem (May 2, 2017)
❸ POETRY by Samih Al-Qasim
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ❶ PROBE INTO KILLING OF MATH TEACHER CLOSED, NO OFFICER WAS FOUND RESPONSIBLE Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 30, 2017 ― The Israeli Police Investigations Division (PID) decided to close its probe into the January police killing of Ya’akub Abu-Al-Qi’an and to not hold any officers responsible for his death, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, said on Thursday.
___Abu Al-Qi’an, a 50-year-old math teacher from Atir-Umm al-Hiran in the Naqab, Israel’s southern desert region, was killed on 18 January after Israeli police opened fire on his vehicle as he was driving through the Bedouin village during state preparations for a large-scale home demolition.
___That same day, Adalah filed a request demanding the PID open an investigation into the killing.
___“The closure of this investigation means the PID continues to grant legitimacy to deadly police violence against Arab citizens of Israel,” said Adalah in a statement responding to the PID’s decision to close the investigation without bringing any officers to justice. MORE . . . SEE ALSO:Israeli Knesset to vote on ‘death penalty’ for Palestinians (Dec. 27, 2017) . . . . . ― (ᴀ) PALESTINIAN DIES OF WOUNDS SUSTAINED DURING CLASHES AT GAZA BORDER Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 30, 2017 ― A Palestinian identified as Jamal Mohammed Musleh, 21, from Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, died early Saturday of wounds sustained during clashes with Israeli soldiers the day before at the Gaza border with Israel, according to the Ministry of Health.
___It said Musleh was shot in the stomach by a live bullet and was reported in critical condition since his arrival at hospital in Deir al-Balah until he was pronounced dead hours later.
___The ministry said at least 45 people were shot by live bullets during the Friday confrontations at the Gaza borders, including four who remain in critical condition. MORE . . . . . . . . ― (ᴃ) RED CRESCENT: 200 PALESTINIAN WOUNDED [FRIDAY] BY IOF IN WEST BANK AND GAZA Palestine News Network – PNN
Dec. 30, 2017 ― More than 200 Palestinians were injured today Friday in clashes with Israeli occupation army in the West Bank and Gaza Strip after marching for the fourth consecutive week, denouncing US President Donald Trump’s declaration recognition Jerusalem as Israel capital .
___According Palestinian Red Crescent more that 130 palestinian were injured in clashes with IOF in the west bank, four of them with live bullets, 45 wounded metal bullets, and 77 inhalation of tear gas. MORE . . . . . . . . ― (ᴄ) QB PUTS UP HUGE PLACARD OF ISRAELI SOLDIER SHAUL AARON IN GAZA The Palestinian Information Center
Dec. 30, 2017 ― Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, has erected a huge poster of Israeli captive soldier Shaul Aaron at al-Saraya junction in Gaza.
___Aaron appears in the poster wearing a brown prison uniform, with remarks in Arabic and Hebrew saying, “As long as our heroes do not see freedom and daylight, this prisoner will never see freedom.” MORE . . .CONTEXT . . .
Klar, Yechiel, et al. “THE ‘NEVER AGAIN’ STATE OF ISRAEL: THE EMERGENCE OF THE HOLOCAUST AS A CORE FEATURE OF ISRAELI IDENTITY AND ITS FOUR INCONGRUENT VOICES.”
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL ISSUES, vol. 69, no. 1, Mar. 2013, pp. 125-143.
[. . . .] . . . despite this common background and misfortune, there was an unbridgeable divide between the veteran Israelis and the survivors. The Holocaust clearly “belonged” to the survivors and was alien to those who lived in Israel when it transpired. The survivors were . . . were expected to go on with life, rehabilitate themselves, adopt the Israeli identity and become new Israelis. The Holocaust in those days was perceived as something that had happened to the passive and cowardly Jews of the Diaspora who had gone “like sheep to the slaughter.” It was seen as antithetical to the identity of the “new Israeli,” who was active, free, and daring.
[. . . .] Political scientists Liebman and Don-Yihya were among the first to observe the centrality of the Holocaust as the primary political myth of Israeli society, the symbol of Israel’s present condition and the one which provides Israel with legitimacy and the right to its land. Its memory is omnipresent, cutting across differences in age, education and even country of origin. This observation appears even more compelling today. The Holocaust is a predominant issue in all areas of Israeli social and cultural life . . .
[. . . .] How was Holocaust transformed from a Diaspora reality into an Israeli event? And how was it transformed from an event that was irrelevant and even contradictory to the new Israeli identity to one of the major components of the Israel heritage and identity? In the following we first discuss the internalization of the Holocaust, starting with the Eichmann trial, and continue with the impact of the survivors and their offspring on Israeli society.
[. . . .] Israelis (those who did not experience the Holocaust personally) very slowly and reluctantly acknowledged the Holocaust as . . . the ultimate realization of the tragic Jewish destiny in the Diaspora, the destiny they had sought to break away from. The social and historical processes by which the Holocaust was gradually turned into a core feature in the Israeli identity are complex and multilayered . . . Time was involved in several processes, such as the growing impact of the survivors on Holocaust awareness, and the role of second and third generations who were born in Israel yet unashamed in their Holocaust heritage. Israel’s difficult geopolitical situation and the recurring wars also had enormous effects on the continued impact of the Holocaust on Israeli collective identity. One dominant voice of the Holocaust is to “Never be a victim again,” which many Israelis learned to identify as a source of resilience and inventiveness. And there are also the other Holocaust voices urging group members to become better human beings and, even more difficult, to refrain from victimizing other groups. These different voices are often incongruent and disharmonic. SOURCE . . . ..
❷ ISRAEL WITHDRAWS FROM UNESCO Al Jazeera English
Dec. 30, 2018 ― Israel has filed notice to withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) alongside the United States.
___Israel has blasted UNESCO in recent years over the organisation’s criticism of Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem and its decision to grant full membership to Palestine in 2011.
___UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said on Friday that she deeply regretted Israel’s decision to withdraw.
___”A member of UNESCO since 1949, Israel has a rightful place inside the United Nations agency that is dedicated to education, culture and science,” Azoulay said. MORE . . . . . . . . ― (ᴀ) ON INDEPENDENCE DAY, UNESCO OKAYS RESOLUTION DENYING ISRAELI CLAIMS TO JERUSALEM (MAY 2, 2017) The Times of Israel
May 2, 2017 ― The United Nation’s cultural body on Tuesday passed the latest in a series of resolutions that denies Israeli claims to Jerusalem, in a move both forcefully condemned by Israel and touted as a diplomatic feat due to the growing number of countries that opposed it. MORE . . .
“THE MAN WHO VISITED DEATH,” BY SAMIH AL-QASIM Leave the martyr shrouded in his garments,
Lay him at the foot of the mountain: for it knows his sorrow.
Do not bury him, while his wounds
Proclaim his testament of love and suffering.
Do you hear?
Let him take leave of his friends,
A bleeding eagle among the rocks.
Lay him in the sun; his face caressed
By the winds, redolent with the fragrance of the land of his youth.
Do not close his eyes; a final
Red glimmer still shines in them.
His call reverberates in the golden valleys:
“You who fear death, I fear it not;
Take me to my home
To rest my cheek upon its threshold,
To kiss the doorknob,
Take me to my vineyard, I would die, with the pangs of my love in my heart,
If my eyes do not feast once more on the sight of its soil.
Samih al-Qasim
From THE PALESTINIAN WEDDING: A BILINGUAL ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE POETRY. Ed. and Trans. A. M. Elmessiri. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011. Reprint from Three Continents Press, Inc., 1982. Available from Palestine Online Store.
❶ PSCC: Smear campaign targeting popular struggle activists
Background: “Conceptualising and Theorising Antisemitism and Racism: The Structural Context of Israel-Palestine.” Journal of Holy Land & Palestine Studies.
❷ Israeli forces suppress Friday rallies over Jerusalem recognition
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Israeli forces detain former Palestinian prisoner during raid on Hebron-area town
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) Israeli forces open fire at fishermen, detain 2 in northern Gaza
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴄ) Israeli forces detain four Palestinians from West Bank
❸ Israeli interrogation tactics lead to false confessions, Israeli court says
❹ POETRY by Ahmed Dahbour
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ❶ PSCC: SMEAR CAMPAIGN TARGETING POPULAR STRUGGLE ACTIVISTS Palestine News Network – PNN
Dec. 29, 2017 ― The Israeli occupation has been escalating its systematic intimidation of Palestinians since Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on the 6th of December 2017, The Popular Struggle Coordination Committee said in a statement.
___Since Trump’s statement, 15 Palestinians were killed, including disabled Gaza activist Ibrahim Abu Thoria. Moreover, Israeli Forces continue to escalate their wave of arrests.
___As of Wednesday morning, the coordinator of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, Munther Amira, 48, has been arrested by the Israeli occupation forces while participating in a demonstration at the northern entrance of Bethlehem city.
___Munther is currently facing charges of incitement and he is still under investigation. However, Munther is not the the only case. In the last few days, more than 8 activists have been arrested from Aida Refugee camp, and another 6 from the village of Bilin. MORE . . .
Shaw, Martin. “CONCEPTUALISING AND THEORISING ANTISEMITISM AND RACISM: THE STRUCTURAL CONTEXT OF ISRAEL-PALESTINE.”
JOURNAL OF HOLY LAND & PALESTINE STUDIES, vol. 14, no. 2, Nov. 2015, pp. 149-164.
[. . . .] From its beginnings, Zionism shared common European assumptions about the inferiority of non-European peoples, and often portrayed Palestinian Arabs in classically racist terms . . . the project of colonisation set up a structural conflict, in which . . . racism was fostered. After 1948, this was reinforced by the process of dispossessing Palestinians, and the continuing conflict which this set up. While Palestinians inside Israel became citizens, they were manifestly second-class, since they were not members of the ‘Jewish nation’ to whom the state belonged. Palestinians outside Israel were perceived as more dangerous for Israel, with their responses to dispossession seen as a source of violent threats. In this context, the potential for racism could be said to have become structural for Israeli Jews . . .
___On the Palestinian side, too, a structural potential for racist characterisations of Jews was created. Israel had expelled or oppressed all Palestinians, in different ways, in the name of ‘the Jewish nation’. Nearly all Jews whom most Palestinians encountered were involved in and benefited from relations of oppression and exploitation towards them. The Jewish state encouraged a homogenous view of ‘Jews’ and ‘Israel’: it is not surprising that some Palestinians also identified the two, extending hostility from the state to Jews as such, even if many Palestinians and organised currents in Palestinian life have always recognised a distinction. This ‘subaltern’ anti-Jewish sentiment may be called ‘antisemitism’, and sometimes borrowed anti-Jewish stereotypes from classical repertoires, but its causes were the structural situation in which Palestinians found themselves.
[. . . .] . . . new manifestations of antisemitism in Europe are misunderstood if they are presented as separate not just from Israel’s violence in 2014, but from the wider pattern of racism which that violence stimulated. Yet no official or academic study of this antisemitism has simultaneously problematised the anti-Palestinian racism which has been produced in Israel, despite the fact that this has been on a much larger scale and has had much more serious consequences than the expressions of antisemitism in Europe. [. . . .] Even the most sophisticated academic attempts to assimilate antisemitism to the larger field of racism have raised only one side of the significance of Israel for racism, namely the ‘new antisemitism’ involved in some opposition to Israel. They have neglected the larger complex of racism of which contemporary antisemitism is a part . . . an adequate conceptualisation of antisemitism as racism will lead us to examine the general field of racism in and surrounding the structural context of Israel- Palestine. Such an examination should explore the relationship between antisemitism in Europe . . . and the more extensive and deepening anti-Palestinian racism in Israel-Palestine . . . SOURCE . . .
❷ ISRAELI FORCES SUPPRESS FRIDAY RALLIES OVER JERUSALEM RECOGNITION Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 29, 2017 ― Israeli forces Friday afternoon violently suppressed Palestinian rallies that continued to rock the occupied territories for the fourth consecutive Friday in protest of the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
___Israeli forces cracked down on several rallies in the southern West Bank district of Hebron, injuring three Palestinians. MORE . . . . . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) ISRAELI FORCES DETAIN FORMER PALESTINIAN PRISONER DURING RAID ON HEBRON-AREA TOWN
Ma’an News Agency
Dec. 29, 2017 ― Israeli forces detained a former Palestinian prisoner and fired tear gas at locals during a raid early Friday morning into the Beit Ummar town, north of Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank.
___Locals told Ma’an that Israeli forces raided the town early Friday morning and searched several homes in the town. . . Soldiers allegedly ransacked homes and broke the glass of doors and windows during the raid. MORE . . . . . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) ISRAELI FORCES OPEN FIRE AT FISHERMEN, DETAIN 2 IN NORTHERN GAZA Ma’an News Agency
Dec. 28, 2017 ― Israeli naval forces opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats off the coast of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday morning.
___Locals said that Israeli naval ships chased down fishing boats off the coast of northern Gaza and opened fire at them. No injuries were reported.
___Israeli naval forces detained two fishermen . . . the boats of the fishermen were confiscated.
___The Israeli army regularly detains and opens fire on unarmed Palestinian fishermen, shepherds, and farmers along the border areas if they approach the so-called ‘buffer zone’, as the authorities have not made clear the precise area of the designated zone. MORE . . . .. . . . . . ❷ ― (ᴄ) ISRAELI FORCES DETAIN FOUR PALESTINIANS FROM WEST BANK Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 29, 2017 ― Israeli forces Friday detained four Palestinians in multiple predawn raids across the West Bank, said security sources and an activist . . . Faqqua village, northeast of Jenin . . . Fandaqumiya village, northwest of Jenin . . . Qalqiliya city . . . Beit Ummar town, north of Hebron. MORE . . . ❸ ISRAELI INTERROGATION TACTICS LEAD TO FALSE CONFESSIONS, ISRAELI COURT SAYS Days of Palestine
Dec. 29, 2017 ― An Israel judge ripped into the Shin Bet, an Israeli intelligence service, for its interrogation tactics, saying they could lead people to confess crimes they did not commit.
___The panel of Be’er Sheva District Court judges has issued the opinion blasting the security service as part of a ruling explaining their acquittal last month of Khalil Nimri, a Palestinian accused of terrorism.
___Israeli newspaper Haaretz said that the court found that Nimri, who had been charged with planning an attack on Eilat hotel, had confessed under interrogation to acts that it was doubtful that he committed.
___”The Shin Bet needs to take a good look at itself so that interrogation techniques, which do indeed sometimes uncover dangerous acts of terrorism, aren’t also liable to induce innocent people to admit to acts that they did not commit,” the judges wrote. MORE . . .
“THE PRISON,” BY AHMAD DAHBUR
(To Abu Faris. . . who has been there)
Prison teaches that the heart is a desert,
That light is a desert.
It curses the fire and the land of the commandos.
Prison teaches that water is a chameleon,
That the landscape is a snake,
That echo is treacherous, and the wind an enemy.
Prison teaches that the guide’s sight grows dim,
And that the homeland departs.
Prison is a black kingdom in the sand;
Prison is a sword guarding the eyelids;
Prison . . . not the homeland!
So how, my beloved homeland, will the beloved ones survive?
Here we are, no complaints and no regrets,
We never say: an aimless wandering!
Blood gushes forth from the depths of our love.
Prison assaults but does not hit the mark;
Our wounds hit back,
Reaching out like water . . . like the wilderness,
Promising the light with a new light.
From deep within us, signaling twice!
Our cub child,
And the fire of salvation.
We see it, yes we do.
We are not dreaming,
We almost step into his joyous landscape
We almost do.
This is the moment of travail in our difficult labor,
We hug the newborn―
He who springs from our very ecstasy,
Whose kicks we feel in our guts,
Who teaches the hungry what he knows
And declares in words well understood:
Revolution, revolution . . . till life.
The inmate has not lost his features in the sand,
Prison did not turn him into a desert.
From his hunger, water and vegetation sprang.
When silence wounds him,
He can break it with a sigh,
But he endures.
His testimony:
Near death, there were exhaustion and fatigue,
His executioner pressing him to promise
A word . . . a groan, or to divulge his secret,
But all in vain.
His countenance was radiating in the sand
Like an oasis,
For prison had not turned him into a desert.
About Ahmad Dahbur. And here.
From THE PALESTINIAN WEDDING: A BILINGUAL ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE POETRY. Ed. and Trans. A. M. Elmessiri. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011. Reprint from Three Continents Press, Inc., 1982. Available from Palestine Online Store.
❶ Israeli settlers attack northern West Bank school
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Scores of settlers and police forces defile Aqsa Mosque
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) Settlers conduct land survey south of Nablus
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴄ) Rabbi: Israeli settlement incubates worst violence against Palestinians
Background: “Childhood: A Universalist Perspective for How Israel Is Using Child Arrest and Detention to Further Its Colonial Settler Project.” International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies.
❷ Two boys lose eyes to Israeli fire
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Israeli occupation forces abduct 4 Palestinian children in Jenin
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) Palestinian child abducted by 21 Israeli soldiers returns home
❸ POETRY by Ibrahim Nasrallah
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ❶ ISRAELI SETTLERS ATTACK NORTHERN WEST BANK SCHOOL Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 28, 2017 ― Jewish settlers attacked on Thursday students at the Burin High School in the northern West Bank district of Nablus prompting local residents to confront them and push them back, according to the school principal Ibrahim Omran.
___Israeli soldiers, who provided protection to the settlers who came from the illegal settlement of Yitzhar, fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the Palestinians causing several cases of suffocation from gas inhalation and rubber bullet injuries.
___Omran said the students were sitting for their mid-term exams when some 15 settlers attacked the school under army protection. MORE . . . . . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) SCORES OF SETTLERS AND POLICE FORCES DEFILE AQSA MOSQUE The Palestinian Information Center
Dec. 28, 2017 ― Dozens of Jewish settlers on Thursday morning desecrated the Aqsa Mosque’s courtyards under tight police guard.
___According to local media sources, about 112 settlers entered the Mosque in groups through al-Maghariba Gate, while several police troops were deployed throughout the Mosque’s plateaus and among Palestinian worshipers. MORE . . . . . . . . ❶― (ᴃ) SETTLERS CONDUCT LAND SURVEY SOUTH OF NABLUS The Palestinian Information Center
Dec. 28, 2017 ― A group of Jewish settlers escorted by soldiers on Wednesday surveyed a vast tract of land in an area between the towns of Duma and Qusra, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
___Local sources said that several settlers and soldiers were seen using maps in their land survey, expressing fears of Israeli intents to annex lands in their area for settlement projects. MORE . . . . . . . . ❶ ― (ᴄ) RABBI: ISRAELI SETTLEMENT INCUBATES WORST VIOLENCE AGAINST PALESTINIANS Days of Palestine
Dec. 27, 2017 ― Toxic environment of radical Israeli settlements incubates violence, while Israeli occupation forces has miserable record of bringing those who attack Palestinians to justice, Rabbi Arik Ascherman said.
___In an opinion article published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Tuesday, Ascherman said he was attacked with a knife by a masked settler from the illegal settlement of Itmar in 2015 while he was leading Israeli occupation forces to a FIRE SET BY SETTLERS in a Palestinian olive grove.
___The attacker, Ascherman ironically said, was taken to court and then was sentenced, but to 150 hours of community service. MORE . . .
Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Nadera. “Childhood: A Universalist Perspective for How Israel Is Using Child Arrest and Detention to Further Its Colonial Settler Project.”
International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, vol. 12, no. 3, Sept. 2015, pp. 223-244.
[. . . .] . . . the general trend of settler colonialism is based on “a sustained institutional tendency to supplant the indigenous population” and a cultural logic of elimination that “reconciles a range of historical practices that might otherwise seem distinct” (Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler colonialism. p. 396). Furthermore, settler colonialism is located in programs of control, removal, and termination, and the invasion of the world of colonized people is a structure, not an event. Children who are maltreated in such a context suffer ongoing structural violence at the hands of the colonizer. . . In the settler colonial project, settlers regard the new territory as theirs and conceive the birth and development of native children as contributing to a “demographic threat” that compromises their dominance over the territory. . . demographic and social modes of control are connected to structural preconditions that dispossess land and dominate movement and life. Controlling, subjugating, and abusing children enhances such dispossession.
[. . . .] Within this context, Palestinian children are viewed as security threats and therefore thrust outside of acceptable and established human rights framework and into a discriminatory structure of analysis. Mohammed Zine al-Majid, for example, was only four years old when an arrest warrant was issued in his name . . . Mohammed’s father recalled asking the armed officers who raided his home in search of his toddler son, “Are you sure you have an arrest warrant? A legal one?” . . . Mohammed’s father could not believe that such a young boy could be considered a threat. Although the authorities left once they realized they had made mistake, the damage was already done.
___Legally, Mohammed was not treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention or the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child . . . Mohammed’s case calls for an analysis of how, in the context of the military occupation of the Palestinian territories, arrest warrants for children are considered “legal,”“acceptable,” and “normal,” and not seen as child abuse. SOURCE . . .
❷ TWO BOYS LOSE EYES TO ISRAELI FIRE The Electronic Intifada
Maureen Clare Murphy
Dec. 28, 2017 ― With Israel’s crackdown on protests over Jerusalem has come a spike in violations of Palestinian children’s rights.
___Since 6 December, when President Donald Trump announced that the US recognized the city as Israel’s capital and pledged to move the country’s embassy there, Palestinian children have been among the hundreds injured and arrested by Israeli forces.
___Several children have suffered potentially irreversible head injuries, according to Defense for Children International-Palestine.
___Two have lost eyes.
___Two boys were hit in the face with tear gas canisters fired by Israeli soldiers from a watchtower near Erez checkpoint during an 11 December protest at the Gaza-Israel boundary. MORE . . . .. . . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) ISRAELI OCCUPATION FORCES ABDUCT 4 PALESTINIAN CHILDREN IN JENIN Days of Palestine
Dec. 27, 2017 ― Israeli occupation forces abducted on Wednesday evening four Palestinian children from Kafr Dan Neighbourhood in West Bank city of Jenin.
___Eyewitnesses said that the Israeli occupation forces raided a Palestinian farm in the area, attacked the farmers and abducted the four children.
___The eyewitnesses identified the four children as Hamza Sabah, Mohamed Salah, Mustafa Mer’e and Ahmed Salah.
___All of them were taken by a military jeep to the Israeli military camp in the area referred to by mass media as Salem Military Camp. MORE . . . . . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) PALESTINIAN CHILD ABDUCTED BY 21 ISRAELI SOLDIERS RETURNS HOME Days of Palestine
Dec. 28, 2017 ― The 16-year-old Palestinian teen, Fawzi al-Juneidi, who was recently arrested by Israeli soldiers, returned to his family late Wednesday.
___The boy was abducted on December 7 in the West Bank city of Al-Khalil after being dragged on the ground and blindfolded by heavily-armed Israeli soldiers.
___A photo of the blindfolded youth quickly became a symbol of ongoing Palestinian protests sparked by US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. MORE . . . ..
“BROTHER,” BY IBRAHIM NASRALLAH
I have a brother in the dust
who has been waiting thirty years for his toys.
How did we not wait for him, he will ask us.
How did age take us by surprise?
How did we grow up?
And how is it, just like that, we’ve never invited him to join us?
Not once did we invite him
into our games in the mirror, in our dreams,
just like that!
One of our games is:
We have a brother in the dust.
When winter comes he waves with the grass.
He beguiles us with intense whiteness―that’s his habit―
then dwells close to our father, over there, inside mother.
Ahed Al-Tamimi during a demonstration, Dec. 21, 2017 (Photo: 2 Suns Shamsaan/Facebook; from Middle East Monitor) “. . . irrefutable proof that Palestinian women and children do not need to be saved from Arab patriarchy . . . but from the Israeli military . . .” (Nada Elia)
❶ Opinion/Analysis: The face of Palestinian women’s defiance is a 16-year-old girl
Background: “Transnational Feminist Solidarity in Times of Crisis.” International Feminist Journal of Politics
❷ US ambassador to Israel demands halt of using the word ‘Occupation’
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Arab Parliament called on to block Israel’s bid for Security Council seat
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) Guatemalans not happy with decision to move embassy in Israel to Jerusalem
❸ Israeli Knesset to vote on ‘death penalty’ for Palestinians
❹ Pictures- Arrests…demolition…and confiscating goods in the village of Silwan
❺ POETRY by Dareen Tatour
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ Opinion/Analysis: THE FACE OF PALESTINIAN WOMEN’S DEFIANCE IS A 16-YEAR-OLD GIRL The Palestinian Information Center
By Nada Elia
Dec. 26, 2017 ― Ahed Tamimi has been protecting her ancestral land since she was a tender nine years old.
___Photos of the 16-year-old in pigtails, sometimes in a Minnie Mouse T-shirt, mostly with a keffiyeh around her shoulders, started circulating a few years ago, as she and the rest of her family held weekly protests against their dispossession.
[. . . .] Gender matters. What is unusual about Ahed and her family is the visibility, by Western standards, of the “empowerment” of Palestinian women. This is not to suggest that a veiled woman is not empowered – rather Ahed’s iconic status holds up a mirror to Western myopia, which frequently fails to see beyond a headscarf.
___If Ahed wore a hijab, and let’s be honest, if she were not an attractive, blue-eyed, blonde young girl, she would not have become the favourite of millions of Western liberals who cannot quite reconcile themselves to the full validity of a hijabi woman’s struggle.
___The young Ahed Tamimi, as well as her mother, Nariman, and her cousin Nour, are the irrefutable proof that Palestinian women and children do not need to be saved from Arab patriarchy, or Islamic fundamentalism, but from the Israeli military, as it carries out their dispossession, displacement and violation of their human rights. MORE . . .
Sharoni, Simona, et al. “TRANSNATIONAL FEMINIST SOLIDARITY IN TIMES OF CRISIS.”
INTERNATIONAL FEMINIST JOURNAL OF POLITICS, vol. 17, no. 4, Dec. 2015, pp. 654-670.
[. . . .] Sharoni: For years, feminists in the Global North have failed to understand why Palestinian women insist on linking their struggles for gender equality to national liberation. As a result, Palestinian women have been at the receiving end of well-intentioned but misguided initiatives, which have disregarded their agency, needs and resilience, and have focused on a narrow understanding of “women’s issues” and critiques of patriarchy and nationalism. Missing from the feminist response to the crisis in Palestine has been recognition of its root causes, namely Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, its violation of Palestinian rights and its apartheid-like policies toward the Palestinian people.
[. . . .] NADJE AL-ALI: It is far easier to conceptualize – and even to teach – transnational feminist politics and solidarity, but it is tricky to put it into practice. Theoretically, most feminists would agree that we need to think about gendered inequalities in an intersectional manner, identifying and challenging the specific configurations of power and inequalities that circumscribe women’s and men’s lives. In practice, however, certain power relations – patriarchy, capitalism, racism, heteronormativity – might be better understood and more widely acknowledged than others. Yet, colonialism, imperialism and Zionism are also key configurations of power that intersect to severely impact upon Palestinian women’s lives. It is our responsibility as transnational feminists to challenge simplistic and flawed explanations that would peg “Muslim culture” as the key determinant of Palestinian women’s experiences of oppression. We need to listen to Palestinian women’s rights activists and feminist academics. At the same time, I would argue that gender equality for Israeli Jewish women is also impossible without a challenge to Israel’s settler colonial structures and policies. SOURCE . . .
❷ US AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL DEMANDS HALT OF USING THE WORD ‘OCCUPATION’ Palestine News Network – PNN
Dec. 27, 2017 ― US ambassador to Israel David Friedman urged the State Department to stop using the word “occupation” when referencing Israel’s presence in the West Bank specifically in official documents, The Times of Israel said on Tuesday.
___According to Israel Radio, Friedman suggested the diplomats use alternative terms for “Israeli-occupied territories” proposing they instead refer to it as the “West Bank”, considered a more neutral term by the ambassador, according to The Forward.
___The State Department refused this call, reported Kan public broadcaster, but agreed that the issue will be discussed in the future.
___Friedman has previously expressed his skepticism in the two state solution, and said that Israeli expansion in the West Bank will continue, stating that Israel is “only occupying two percent of the West Bank.” MORE . . . . . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) ARAB PARLIAMENT CALLED ON TO BLOCK ISRAEL’S BID FOR SECURITY COUNCIL SEAT Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 27, 2017 ― The Palestine Committee in the Arab Parliament meeting in Cairo completed on Wednesday a draft proposal to block Israel’s bid for a Security Council seat in 2019-2020 term that will be submitted to a general meeting of the Arab Parliament scheduled for Thursday to adopt it. MORE . . . . . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) GUATEMALANS NOT HAPPY WITH DECISION TO MOVE EMBASSY IN ISRAEL TO JERUSALEM Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 27, 2017 ― Guatemalans reacted with anger and concern over their president’s decision to move his country’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. . . .
[. . . .] Guatemala is the main exporter of cardamom pods that are used with coffee to Arab and Islamic countries with more than $300 million dollars of exports a year. When former President Ramiro J Leon Carpio (1993-1996) made a similar decision . . . he was forced to quickly rescind that decision when Arab and Islamic countries closed their doors to the Guatemalan market.
___Former vice president of Guatemala, Eduardo Stein (2004-2008), warned of the negative consequences of the decision by [President Jimmy] Morales, who is facing impeachment on corruption charges. MORE . . . ❸ ISRAELI KNESSET TO VOTE ON ‘DEATH PENALTY’ FOR PALESTINIANS Palestine News Network – PNN
Dec. 27, 2017 ― The Israeli parliament is set to vote on a draft bill that would impose the death penalty on Palestinians “involved in operations against Israeli targets”, the country’s defense minister said Monday.
___Speaking to an Israeli TV channel, Avigdor Lieberman said voting to advance legislation targeting convicted Palestinians of attacking Israeli civilians and soldiers would take place Wednesday.
___“The U.S. also has such legislation. Thus, it’s appropriate for Israel to follow such a powerful democratic system in the world,” Lieberman said. MORE . . . ❹ PICTURES: ARRESTS…DEMOLITION…AND CONFISCATING GOODS IN THE VILLAGE OF SILWAN Wadi Hilweh Information Center – Silwan
Dec. 26, 2017 On Tuesday morning, the occupation forces executed a series of arrests and raided multiple houses and commercial establishments in the village of Silwan in Jerusalem.
___Wadi Hilweh Information Center explained that the occupation forces along with intelligence personnel raided the neighborhoods of Silwan in the early morning hours and were deployed in the streets before storming into houses and arresting several youths and young men.
___The locals of Silwan explained to Wadi Hilweh Information center that the forces deliberately searched and tampered the contents of their houses while executing arrests. MORE . . . . . . . . ❹ ― (ᴀ) STUDY: AIDA REFUGEE CAMP IN BETHLEHEM IS THE MOST AREA EXPOSED TO TEARGAS IN THE WORLD Palestine News Network – PNN
Dec. 27, 2017 ― The Center for Human Rights of the University of California at Berkeley recently showed that Israeli security forces carried out the use of tear gas “widely” and “frequently” and “indiscriminately” against Palestinian refugees in the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem.
[. . . .] Aida refugee camp, occupied West Bank – A Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank – may be the most exposed place to tear gas in the world, according to the author of a new study.
[. . . .] “We found that the constant and unpredictable use of tear gas in Palestine refugee camps has a devastating effect on the mental and physical health of residents,” said the report’s co-author, Dr Rohini Haar, a researcher at the UC Berkeley centre and a doctor with Physicians for Human Rights. MORE . . .
“I WILL NOT LEAVE,” BY DAREEN TATOUR They signed on my behalf
And turned me into
A file, forgotten
Like cigarette butts.
Homesickness tore me apart
And in my own country I ended up
An immigrant.
I abandoned those pens
To weep over the sorrows
Of the inkwells
They abandoned my cause and my dream
At the cemetery gates
And that person who’s waiting
Laments his luck
As life passes.
Besiege me,
Kill me, blow me up,
Assassinate me, imprison me.
When it comes to my country,
There’s no backing down.
―― Translated by Jonathan Wright
❶ Israeli forces demolish structures, notify to demolish homes in Silwan
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) A child [from Nabi Saleh village] with an IOF bullet in his skull
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) Video: IOF shoot, injure four Palestinians in Hebron clashes
Background: “Boycotting Apartheid from South Africa to Palestine.” Peace Review
❷ PPS: since Trump announcement, Israeli forces have detained over 600 Palestinians
. . . . . ❷― (ᴀ) Video: Right-wing Israeli minister harasses Palestinians visiting imprisoned relatives
. . . . . ❷― (ᴃ) ICRC slams MK’s harassment of Palestinian prisoners’ families relatives
. . . . . ❷― (ᴄ) Abu Marzouk: Israelis should think it over before trying to ape Haza
❸ POETRY by Lahab Assef Al-Jundi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ❶ ISRAELI FORCES DEMOLISH STRUCTURES, NOTIFY TO DEMOLISH HOMES IN SILWAN Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 26, 2017 ― Israeli forces Tuesday demolished two structures and notified to demolish a number of homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, under the pretext of construction without a permit, according to WAFA correspondent.
___Israeli police accompanied by bulldozers broke into Silwan area in the early morning hours and demolished a structure and an animal shack, according to the Silwan-based Wadi Hilweh Information Center. MORE . . . . . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) A CHILD [FROM NABI SALEH VILLAGE] WITH AN IOF BULLET IN HIS SKULL The Palestinian Information Center
Dec. 25, 2017 ― On the 15th of December 2017, Mohammed climbed his house’s three-meter wall, to watch the movement of Israeli occupation forces (IOF), yet there was a soldier lying down, and watching his movement. The soldier shot the 15-year-old boy with a single bullet that penetrated his face. The boy fell from the top of the wall and hit the ground. MORE . . . . . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) VIDEO: IOF SHOOT, INJURE FOUR PALESTINIANS IN HEBRON CLASHES Palestine News Network – PNN
Dec. 26, 2017 ― Four Palestinians were shot and injured with live bullets and others suffocated on Tuesday during separate clashes with Israeli forces in the town of Sa’ir and nearby al-Arroub refugee camp, to the north of Hebron, according to local and security sources.
___Israeli forces raided al-Aroub refugee camp, spurring clashes with locals. Forces fired live bullets at residents, shooting and injuring three in the foot. They were transferred to hospital for medical treatment. Their medical condition is still unknown, WAFA reported.
___Forces further attacked residents’ homes with tear gas canisters, causing many to suffocate as a result of teargas inhalation. MORE . . .
Di Stefano, Paul and Mostafa Henaway. “BOYCOTTING APARTHEID FROM SOUTH AFRICA TO PALESTINE.”
PEACE REVIEW, vol. 26, no. 1, Jan-Mar2014, pp. 19-27.
[. . . .] There is little doubt that Israel’s international membership in numerous diplomatic and economic forums “provides both an unmerited veneer of respectability and material support for its crimes.” In fact, a key challenge of this facet of the BDS strategy is to keep international attention focused on Israeli human rights violations, so the Palestinian struggle is not subsumed under the veneer of normalization prevalent in international relations. Normalization is anathema to achieving rights and ending oppression because it allows Israelis to gain while Palestinians lose. Normalization accepts the humanity and dignity of Israelis while actively denying Palestinians their own. It obfuscates the Palestinian reality of oppression and colonialism and improperly casts the relationship between colonizers and colonized as symmetrical. BDS asserts the notion that oppression must end before peace can take place. Neve Gordon urges, “Outside pressure is the only answer. . . . Words and condemnations have not yielded results, not even a settlement freeze . . . nothing else has worked.” Noura Erakat notes that “the tripartite strategy is rooted in economic logic: Israel must comply with international law because non-compliance is too politically and economically costly to maintain . . . ” Therefore, the key to changing the conditions for Palestinians is to politically isolate Israel by calling for sanctions against it. In effect, these sanctions serve to buttress the varied boycotts by grassroots organizations that, in turn, threaten to alter the status quo. . . . SOURCE . . .
❷ PPS: SINCE TRUMP ANNOUNCEMENT, ISRAELI FORCES HAVE DETAINED OVER 600 PALESTINIANS Ma’an News Agency
Dec. 26, 2017 ― Israeli forces detained at least 24 Palestinians during pre dawn raids Tuesday across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian sources.
___The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) reported that as of Tuesday the number of Palestinians detained by Israeli forces since the US President’s declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel three weeks ago, stands at 610 Palestinians, including 170 minors, 12 women and three injured detainees. MORE . . . . . . . . ❷― (ᴀ) VIDEO: RIGHT-WING ISRAELI MINISTER HARASSES PALESTINIANS VISITING IMPRISONED RELATIVES Ma’an News Agency
Dec. 25, 2017 ― An ultra right-wing Israeli minister verbally harassed Palestinians from Gaza as they traveled on a bus to visit their imprisoned relatives in souther Israel’s Nafha prison, hurling abuse at women on the bus calling their sons “dogs.”
___MK Oren Hazan of the right-wing Likud party, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party, intercepted and boarded a bus of Palestinian families traveling to Nafha prison on Monday.
___As he confronted the Palestinian families, he turned to the mother of an imprisoned Palestinian and asked, “Who did you come to visit? What did your son do?” to which she replied “He did not do anything.”
___Hazan responded to the mother by saying “Your son is a dog. He’s a dog. You come to visit the scum who are sitting here in prison, whom you see as your family members.” MORE . . . . . . . . ❷― (ᴃ) ICRC SLAMS MK’S HARASSMENT OF PALESTINIAN PRISONERS’ FAMILIES RELATIVES The Palestinian Information Center
Dec. 25, 2017 ― The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Monday slammed an Israeli Knesset member for intercepting a bus of Palestinian families visiting their imprisoned sons in Israeli jails.
___ICRC spokeswoman Soheir Zaqout said that the Committee is following with concern what happened during the visit, stressing that the families of Palestinian prisoners have the right to visit their sons with dignity. MORE . . . . . . . . ❷ ― (ᴄ) ABU MARZOUK: ISRAELIS SHOULD THINK IT OVER BEFORE TRYING TO APE HAZAN The Palestinian Information Center
Dec. 25, 2017 ― Member of Hamas’s political bureau Mousa Abu Marzouk has said that Israeli leaders should think twice before trying to copy Knesset member Oren Hazan and bully families of Palestinian prisoners who seek to see their relatives in Israeli jails.
___“Hazan’s savage behavior reflected the fragility of this rogue entity whose leaders are looking for fake heroism,” Abu Marzouk said in Twitter remarks on Monday. MORE. . .
“HOLY LANDERS,” BY LAHAB ASSEF AL-JUNDI
Listen!
You are fighting over a land that can fit,
with wilderness to spare,
in the Panhandle of Texas.
You are building walls to segregate,
splitting wholes till little is left,
killing and dying for pieces of sky
in the same window.
The olive trees are dying
of embarrassment.
They have enough fruits
and pits for all of you.
All they want is for you to stop
uprooting them.
Sending your children to die
in their names.
Listen!
Your land is no holier than my backyard.
None of you is any more chosen
the homeless veteran panhandling
with a God Bless cardboard sign
at the light of Mecca
and San Pedro.
Draw a borderline around the place.
Call it home for all the living,
all the dead
all the tired exiles with its dust
gummed on their tongues.
There are no heroes left.
Lahab Assef Al-Jundi was born, and grew up, in Damascus, Syria. Attended The University of Texas in Austin, where he graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering. Not long after graduation, he discovered his passion for writing. He published his first poetry collection, “A Long Way”, in 1985. His poetry has appeared in numerous literary publications, and many Anthologies including: “In These Latitudes, Ten Contemporary Poets”, edited by Robert Bonazzi, “Inclined to Speak, An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry”, edited by Hayan Charara, and “Between Heaven and Texas”, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye.
❶ Live: Christmas Eve in Manger Square
❷ Jerusalem Apostolic Administrator arrives in Bethlehem for midnight mass
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Abbas wishes Christians merry Christmas
❸ 10 Palestinian students injured in clashes in al-Arroub camp
. . . . . ❸ ― (ᴀ) Rights Groups slam Supreme Court for giving ‘green light’ to torture
❹ Opinion/Analysis: Nabi Saleh is where I lost my Zionism
❺ POETRY by Fadwa Tuqan
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ❶ LIVE: CHRISTMAS EVE IN MANGER SQUARE Palestine News Network – PNN
Dec. 24-25, 2017 MORE . . . ❷ JERUSALEM APOSTOLIC ADMINISTRATOR ARRIVES IN BETHLEHEM FOR MIDNIGHT MASS Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 24, 2017 ― Christmas celebrations kicked off on Sunday with the annual procession led by the Apostolic Administrator of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem Rev. Pierbattista Pizzaballa.
___The car procession started at the Latin Patriarchate at Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City with a stopover at Mar Elias Monastery on the outskirts of Bethlehem before completing its journey to Manger Square and the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, the birth site of Jesus Christ, where the official ceremony is expected to be held at al-Salam Center. MORE . . . . . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) ABBAS WISHES CHRISTIANS MERRY CHRISTMAS Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 24, 2017 ― President Mahmoud Abbas Sunday wished Christians in Palestine who follow the Georgian calendar a merry Christmas and happy holidays.
___He hoped that in these blessed times, the hopes and wishes of the Palestinian people come true and that Palestinians finally celebrate an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
___Abbas expressed hope for all Palestinians to celebrate the end of the Israeli occupation and peace and justice in the land of peace next year. MORE . . . ❸ 10 PALESTINIAN STUDENTS INJURED IN CLASHES IN AL-ARROUB CAMP The Palestinian Information Center
Dec. 24, 2017 ― Ten Palestinian students were injured on Sunday in confrontations with the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) at the entrance of Palestine Technical University in al-Arroub refugee camp in al-Khalil province.
___Eyewitnesses told the PIC reporter that the IOF soldiers stormed the university campus and fired tear gas canisters, sound bombs, and live and rubber bullets at the students causing at least ten injuries and suffocation cases among them. MORE . . . . . . . . ❸ ― (ᴀ) RIGHTS GROUPS SLAM SUPREME COURT FOR GIVING ‘GREEN LIGHT’ TO TORTURE The Palestinian Information Center
By Ben White
Dec. 24, 2017 ― The Israeli Supreme Court has been accused of redefining torture so as to permit it after a major new ruling was greeted with dismay by local and international human rights groups.
___Last week the court – sitting as the High Court of Justice – denied a petition brought by The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) on behalf of Palestinian prisoner Asad Abu Ghosh.
___According to the petition, Abu Ghosh was tortured with “severe mental and physical violence” during a Shin Bet interrogation in 2007, including “beatings, being thrown against a wall, stress positions including the ‘banana’ position, sleep deprivation, and extreme mental duress”.
[. . . .] Despite this, and the evidence presented by PCATI, the High Court still threw out the petition, accepting an earlier decision of the Attorney General not to open a criminal investigation against the interrogators, and thus granting the agents impunity for their actions. MORE . . . ❹ Opinion/Analysis: NABI SALEH IS WHERE I LOST MY ZIONISM + 972 Magazine
By Lisa Goldman
Dec. 24, 2017 ― A short video of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi slapping an Israeli soldier has dominated the Israeli media for the past week, and received prominent coverage internationally as well. Ahed, a Palestinian girl from the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, makes a big impression with her eye-catching mane of blonde hair, the fierce, intelligent expression in her blue eyes — and her fearlessness.
[. . . .] For Israelis, one of their soldiers was provoked, almost unbearably, but still managed to rise above the situation. For almost everyone else, the video shows an unarmed adolescent . . . bravely confronting an armed soldier in her own village. Even without knowing the circumstances, a fully-grown man in combat gear and carrying a powerful weapon refraining from hitting a much smaller, unarmed adolescent girl, seems not remarkably praiseworthy but rather a response predicated on basic humanity and ethics.
[. . . .] By the time I began going to Nabi Saleh, I had spent about four years reporting on what I saw in Gaza and the West Bank, and watching detachedly as my politics moved ever leftward from the liberal place in which they started, as a consequence of what I saw on the ground. But it was in Nabi Saleh that I lost the last remnants of what I would call — for lack of a word to describe my nostalgia for the idea of a state for the Jews — my Zionism.
___My radicalization was not only a consequence of witnessing brutal violence perpetrated right in front of my eyes, by soldiers of the army that was supposed to protect me. It was also a result of my seeing the Tamimi family endure that violence week after week, seeing their relatives injured, arrested and killed, and still not coming to the conclusion that the price of resistance is too high. They simply refuse to submit. MORE . . .
TO CHRIST THE LORD ON HIS BIRTHDAY,” BY FADWA TUQAN But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. And they took him, and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard. St. Mark’s Gospel XII: 7-8
O Lord, O glory of the universe,
crucified this year on your birthday,
are the joys of Jerusalem
silenced on your birthday?
O Lord, all the bells
for two millenia have not been silenced
on your birthday
except for this year:
the domes of the bells are in mourning,
black wrapped in black.
Jerusalem along the Via Dolorosa,
whipped under the cross of ordeal,
bleeding at the hands of the executioner,
and the world is a sealed heart
in the face of affliction.
In this hard indifferent world, O Lord,
the sun’s eye is smothered: the world went astray
and was lost.
In the ordeal it did not even raise a candle.
It did not even shed a tear
to wash away the sorrows in Jerusalem.
The husbandmen killed the heir, O Lord,
and raped the vineyard.
The sinners of the world fledged the bird of evil
dashing off to defile the purity of Jerusalem,
damned and infernal, hated even by Satan.
O Lord, O glory of Jerusalem,
from the well of sorrows, from the abyss,
from the depth of the night,
from the heart of plight,
the wails of Jerusalem are raised up to you.
In your mercy, take away from me, O Lord, this cup!
Gazan names triplets ‘Quds’, ‘Assima’ and ‘Falisteen’ which means Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine. (Photo: MEMO, Dec. 22, 2017)
❶ Christian leaders say there can never be peace without Jerusalem
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Palestinian in Gaza names triplets Jerusalem, Capital and Palestine
Background: “Mobile Cartographies and Mobilized Ideologies: The Visual Management of Jerusalem.” Antipode.
❷ 2 Palestinians shot dead by Israeli forces during protests along Gaza border
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Palestinian Dies From Wounds Suffered A Week Earlier In Gaza
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) Israeli forces detain elderly man for owning two air, plastic guns
❸ Opinion/Analysis: Free at last: a UN without US diplomatic blackmail
❹ POETRY by Samih al-Qasim
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ❶ CHRISTIAN LEADERS SAY THERE CAN NEVER BE PEACE WITHOUT JERUSALEM Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 23, 2017 Christian leaders stressed on Saturday the centrality of Jerusalem to all three monotheistic religions, denouncing the United States for declaring it capital of Israel.
[. . . .] “Those who want peace in Jerusalem should know that power will not bring peace,” said former Latin Patriarch Michel Sabah. “Peace starts with Jerusalem. Power cannot impose unjust peace.”
[. . . .] Attallah Hanna, a Greek Orthodox archbishop, said that the Christians reject the US declaration on Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. . . . Hanna vowed to protect the Christian property in Palestine, “and this way we will defeat (US President Donald) Trump’s project that aims to abolish the Palestinian cause and not only the issue of Jerusalem.”
___Bishop Munib Younan of the Lutheran Church said the Christian leaders wrote Trump before he announced his decision on Jerusalem on December 6 urging him not to take any action that would prejudice the status of Jerusalem . . .
___He said that “there cannot be peace in the Middle East without peace in Jerusalem. It is time that our people gain their legitimate right in a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.” MORE . . . . . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) PALESTINIAN IN GAZA NAMES TRIPLETS JERUSALEM, CAPITAL AND PALESTINE The Middle East Monitor – MEMO
Dec. 22, 2017 ― A Palestinian from the besieged Gaza Strip’s southern village of Khan Yunis has named his three newborn triplets “Quds”, “Asima” and “Filisteen” – meaning “Jerusalem”, “Capital” and “Palestine” in Arabic – in protest against the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
___Nidal Al-Siqli, 30, told the Anadolu Agency that he chose the names “to emphasise Jerusalem’s Palestinian, Arab and Muslim character”. MORE . . .
Hercbergs, Dana and Chaim Noy. “MOBILE CARTOGRAPHIES AND MOBILIZED IDEOLOGIES THE VISUAL MANAGEMENT OF JERUSALEM.” ANTIPODE. Vol. 47 no. 4, Sep2015, pp. 942-962.
[. . . .] As the focus of religious and political yearnings throughout the ages, Jerusalem has been an object of changing depictions and gazes. The visual representation of the Old City —where the holy places of the Jewish prayer site of the Western Wall (“Wailing Wall”) and the Muslim Noble Sanctuary (Haram ash-Sharif, including al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock) are adjacently located—is central to today’s political struggles between Israel and the Palestinians.
___In this article we are interested in illustrating a particular turning point that . . . concerns a shift in the spatial and visual regimes of, and perspectives in, Jerusalem; namely from portraying the city for decades via a number of sites, most prominently the dual Western Wall/Dome of the Rock image—to promoting an exclusively Jewish-Israeli city . . .
[. . . .] Recent neoliberal policies augment and dovetail practices of urban ethnocracy in Jerusalem, amplifying social and economic divisions through further processes of spatial separation that are occurring in West Bank settlements and in other Israeli towns . . . affluent gated urban communities have been cropping in Jerusalem since the 1990s . . . These developments present a departure from the government-subsidized settlements built since 1967 on confiscated Palestinian land in and around Jerusalem, and a move towards a government–private sector partnership associated with neoliberal regimes and exclusionary forms of development . . . directed respectively at wealthy, diaspora Jewish visitors and/or buyers of properties in Jerusalem. . .
[. . . .] What we have in this case is a twofold movement consisting of the denial of the Palestinian presence and history of Jerusalem, coupled with appropriation of its architectural, artistic and cultural motifs . . . A surprising contradiction appears in relation to the traditional Jewish longing for Jerusalem: the contemporary Jewish viewer is still viewing the Old City from the pre-1967 position. This distance strikes us as a final warning against short-sighted attempts to actualize divine plan, the utopia-in-the now of ethnocratic urban planning. FULL ARTICLE . . .
❷ 2 PALESTINIANS SHOT DEAD BY ISRAELI FORCES DURING PROTESTS ALONG GAZA BORDER Ma’an News Agency
Dec. 22, 2017 ― Israeli forces have shot and killed two Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip during clashes along the border fence with Israel, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
___The first Palestinian was identified as 24-year-old Zakariya al-Kafarne, who was killed after being shot with live ammunition by Israeli forces during clashes in eastern Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip.
[. . . .] Protesters had marched following Friday prayers and protested near the border fence in response to calls from Palestinian factions for a third “Friday of Rage” in protest of US President Donald Trump’s announcement earlier this month recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. MORE . . . . . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) PALESTINIAN DIES FROM WOUNDS SUFFERED A WEEK EARLIER IN GAZA International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC
Dec. 23, 2017 ― The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported that a Palestinian man died, Saturday, from wounds he suffered a week earlier, east of Jabalia, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
___The Ministry said the young man, Sharif al-‘Abed Shalashel, 28, suffered a serious injury after the soldiers shot him with live fire, and remained in a critical condition until he succumbed to his wounds.
___He was injured on the same day when the soldiers killed four Palestinians, and wounded at least 367 others, in the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. MORE . . . . . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) ISRAELI FORCES DETAIN ELDERLY MAN FOR OWNING TWO AIR, PLASTIC GUNS Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 23, 2017 ― December 22, 2017 (WAFA) – Israeli forces Friday detained a 67-year-old Palestinian man from the village of Ya’bad, in Jenin district, for owning an air gun and another gun made of plastic belonging to his grandchild.
___The Detainees Affairs Commission said Mahmoud Hamdan, 67, was detained by Israeli army after a military raid into his home.
___Israeli forces wreaked havoc into Hamdan’s home, destroying its contents and furniture, before detaining him and his son Hadi, 30. MORE . . . ❸ Opinion/Analysis: FREE AT LAST: A UN WITHOUT US DIPLOMATIC BLACKMAIL The Middle East Monitor – MEMO Dr Daud Abdullah ..
Dec. 22, 2017 ― Not for the first time, the free world has stood up for truth and justice in Palestine. The General Assembly’s vote against President Trump’s decision on Jerusalem was a victory for the rule of law over the law of the jungle. It now leaves both the US and Israel isolated, disgraced and humiliated.
___Washington’s threat to cut aid to countries that voted not to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was an insult to the UN and a vicious assault on the sovereign rights of its members. In their customary delusional manner, Israelis believed the US threat was enough to force compliance. They were mistaken; people around the world are simply tired of their arrogance and unethical conduct.
___As it stands, Trump’s threat is consistent with a long-standing policy of US blackmail and intimidation exerted within the UN to further Israel’s illegal claims. It was no different from the threats issued to impoverished nations to extract the controversial UN Partition Resolution 181 in 1947.
[. . . .] Where does this crushing defeat leave Israel and its mercurial Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu? For sure, Israel will become more isolated among the community of nations. Instead of countries moving their embassies to Jerusalem many will now consider severing or curtailing diplomatic contact with the Zionist state. South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has taken the lead by adopting a resolution at its national conference to downgrade the South African embassy in Israel to a liaison office. MORE . . .
“THE UNKNOWN CONTINENT,” BY SAMIH AL-QASIM
How do we reach you
Slums of Chicago?
How is the spark to reach you?
How is the fire to be born?
Skyscrapers!
Stacked huts!
Stretch your arms out of the darkness―
For the big banner
Spreads its warmth, its light
Forever
Into the depths of night
And the big banner is
Forever
A sail for the drowning.
How are the storms to reach you
Jazzband Club in New York?
The black man is hungry and fearful
The wolves of the KKK roam the forest
―the current overpowering
And the conscience of the statue shaken
And the heart of night.
The wind is frozen,
And the waves of the sea unmoving?
How is the message to reach you
Deaf Washington,
With the humming of the machine?
In Vietnam you slaughter
And you export
Cokes and medicine to the sad moon!
And you sweep over the blood of victims.
How is the message to reach you?
Descendants of Ole Abe!
My voice has become hoarse
And the wind
Has become tired of my shouts!
Descendants of Old Abe!
Shake the marble of history,
Rise to the sky,
Rise above the band of stupid maggis
And halt ―for
The earth grumbles
Rivers of blood.
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. About Samih Al-Qasim
❶ PA welcomes UN resolution rejecting US recognition of Jerusalem as Israeli capital
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) PLO official: UN vote demonstrates isolation of US
Background: “‘A Simple Historical Truth’: Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip in Menachem Begin’s Ideology.” Israel Affairs
❷ President on Christmas: US recognition of Jerusalem added insult to millions of people
❸ POETRY by Samih Al-Qasim
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ❶ PA WELCOMES UN RESOLUTION REJECTING US RECOGNITION OF JERUSALEM AS ISRAELI CAPITAL Ma’an News Agency
Dec. 22, 2017 ― The United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted a resolution on Thursday rejecting US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and his plans to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
___A total of 128 countries voted in favor of the resolution, with nine countries — including the US and Israel — voting against, and 35 countries voting to abstain, including Canada, Australia and Mexico.
___The vote came after a series of threats by Trump and Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, who said that Washington would remember which countries “disrespected” America by voting against it.
___Leading up to the vote, President Trump had promised to “take names” and possibly cut donor funding to those countries who voted against it. MORE . . . . . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) PLO OFFICIAL: UN VOTE DEMONSTRATES ISOLATION OF US Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 22, 2017 ― The UN vote in favor of a draft resolution rejecting US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital demonstrates the isolation of the US, said Thursday the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
___Member of the PLO Executive Committee Hanan Ashrawi stated: “We are extremely encouraged and empowered by the overwhelming vote in favor of a UNGA resolution rejecting U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”
[. . . .] “Despite American efforts to safeguard Israeli violations and war crimes, the majority maintained their principled position while a minimal number succumbed by abstaining or voting against the resolution,” she remarked.
___“This further demonstrates the isolation of the U.S. in its blind support of Israeli lawlessness and impunity. It is therefore called on to rescind its irresponsible and dangerous decision and refrain from joining Israel in its criminal behavior,” she concluded. MORE . . .
Naor, Arye. “‘A SIMPLE HISTORICAL TRUTH’: JUDEA, SAMARIA AND THE GAZA STRIP IN MENACHEM BEGIN’S IDEOLOGY.”
ISRAEL AFFAIRS, vol. 21, no. 3, July 2015, pp. 462-481.
The orientation of Menachem Begin with regard to the political future of areas in the western part of the Land of Israel that were not in the possession of Israel before the Six Day War (1967) . . . point to one political conclusion, namely, that the State of Israel should not permit foreign sovereignty over areas of the historical homeland of the Jewish people.
[. . . .] On 8 June 1967, the day after the conquest of the Old City of Jerusalem . . . he made the following pronouncement: “On this day, we stand before the Western Wall, remnant of our resplendent Temple in a redeemed Jerusalem, in a city which is compact together [Psalms 122, 3], and we bear a prayer emitted from our hearts that the holy temple will be built quickly in our days. And we shall go to Hebron, which is Kiryat Arba, and we shall prostrate ourselves before the graves of the Patriarchs, and we shall go by the way of Efrata, coming to Bethlehem in Judea, and pray at the tomb of the matriarch Rachel, and we shall recall the words of the prophet:
‘A voice is heard in Ramah, Lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; She refuseth to be comforted for her children, Because they are not. Thus saith the Lord: Refrain thy voice from weeping, And thine eyes from tears; For thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; And they shall come back from the land of the enemy. And there is hope for thy future, saith the Lord; And thy children shall return to their own border’ (Jeremiah 31, 15–17).”
There is no doubt that he regarded the territorial gains of the IDF as justified in international law, as well as historically justified through its biblical foundations. Thus, the vision of the prophet Jeremiah, which he selected for his prayer – ‘And thy children shall return to their own border’ – was on the verge of being realized and consolidated into a permanent reality.
[. . . .] If the partitions of the country were illegal, the implication is that the reunification is not an act of illegal annexation; rather, it is the realization of the right of the Jewish people over an inheritance from its forefathers. Time and again Begin referred back to Simon the Hasmonean’s reply to the messenger of King Antiochos VII from Side, who demanded that Simon withdraw from several places that he had conquered in the Judean periphery: “We have neither taken other men’s land, nor have we possession of that which appertaineth to others, but of the inheritance of our fathers; howbeit, it was had in possession of our enemies wrongfully for a certain time. But we, having the opportunity, hold fast the inheritance of our fathers” [I Maccabees, 15: 33–34].SOURCE . . .
❷ PRESIDENT ON CHRISTMAS: US RECOGNITION OF JERUSALEM ADDED INSULT TO MILLIONS OF PEOPLE Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 22, 2017 ― President Mahmoud Abbas Friday stated on a Christmas message that the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has added “insult to millions of people worldwide and also to the city of Bethlehem”.
___Abbas added that the US President Donald Trump’s decision on Jerusalem “has encouraged the illegal disconnection between the holy cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem, both separated for the first time in over 2000 years of Christianity.” Following are excerpts from the text of the Christmas message:
“This time every year, the souls of billions of people turn to Bethlehem to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the messenger of love, peace and justice. Over 2000 years ago, the message of Jesus was delivered from a humble manger in Bethlehem. We are proud that this precious tradition is an integral part of Palestine and that Palestinians all over the world feel pride and inspiration for coming from a land of divine messages, prophets and saints.
___[. . . .] Bethlehem is currently surrounded by 18 illegal colonial-settlements that are under ongoing expansion on Palestinian land. The Annexation Wall, a wall of shame and apartheid, has been built from the heart of the city and extends towards the Cremisan Valley, affecting the livelihoods of hundreds of Palestinian families, mainly Christians. Bethlehem, the birthplace of hope, continues to be affected by the Israeli plans to create the “Greater Jerusalem” on the sufferings of Palestinians.
___Regretfully, the U.S. has decided, against its obligations under International Law, to reward such policies by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. This has been an insult to millions of people worldwide, and also to the city of Bethlehem. Washington’s decision has encouraged the illegal disconnection between the holy cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem, both separated for the first time in 2000 years of Christianity.” COMPLETE TEXT . . . ..
“A HOMELAND,” BY SAMIH AL-QASIM So what,
When in my homeland
The sparrow dies of starvation,
In exile, without a shroud,
While the earthworm is satiated, devouring God’s food!
So what,
When the yellow fields
Yield no more to their tillers
Than memories of weariness,
While their rich harvest pours
Into the granaries of the usurper!
So what,
If the cement has diverted
The ancient springs
Causing them to forget their natural course,
When their owner calls,
They cry in his face: “Who are you?”
So what,
When the almond and the olive have turned to timber
Adorning tavern doorways,
And monuments
Whose nude loveliness beautifies halls and bars,
And is carried by tourists
To the farthest corners of the earth,
While nothing remains before my eyes
But dry leaves and tinder!
So what,
When my people’s tragedy
Has turned to farce in others’ eyes,
And my face is a poor bargain
That even the slave-trader gleefully disdains!
So what,
When in barren space the satellites spin,
And in the streets walks a beggar, holding a hat,
And the song of autumn is heard!
Blow, East winds!
Our roots are still alive.
Samih Al-Qasim
From THE PALESTINIAN WEDDING: A BILINGUAL ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE POETRY. Ed. and Trans. A. M. Elmessiri. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011. Reprint from Three Continents Press, Inc., 1982. Available from Palestine Online Store.
Christmas Lutheran Church, Bethlehem (Photo: Harold Knight, 2008)
❶ Political and religious leaders light Christmas tree at the endangered Jabal al-Baba community
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Christmas in Bethlehem: How Trump’s move ruined it
❷ PLO: US bullying will not deter UN member states from voting against Jerusalem decision
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Abbas to arrive in France for talks with French counterpart
Background: “Bible and Gun: Militarism in Jerusalem’s Holy Places.” Space & Polity.
❸ Israel begins construction of separation wall in Bethlehem-area village
. . . . . ❸ ― (ᴀ) New Synagogue under Western Wall Unveiled, $50m to be Allocated for “Temple Mount Explorations”
❹ POETRY by Rachel Barenblat
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ❶ POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS LEADERS LIGHT CHRISTMAS TREE AT THE ENDANGERED JABAL AL-BABA COMMUNITY Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 21, 2017 ― Political and religious leaders attended on Tuesday a solidarity event in the endangered Bedouin community of Jabal al Baba, east of Jerusalem, during which a Christmas tree was lit.
___The community is at imminent risk of forced displacement after the so called “Israeli Civil Administration,” an arm of the occupation authority, ordered all of the community’s 320 Palestinian residents on November 9 to evacuate their homes ahead of the demolition of their homes and structures, despite ongoing court proceedings.
___Israel wants to take over the land located in the occupied West Bank to build a new settlement on it.
___The ceremony . . . was attended by Adnan Husseini, Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, Walid Assaf, Minister of Anti Wall and Settlements, Atalla Hanna, Archbishop of Sebastia, Rev. Jamal Khader, Latin Patriarchate . . . and a number of diplomats and representatives of various Bedouin communities.
___During the opening ceremony, Minister Husseini reiterated the importance of celebrating Christmas during the latest developments in Jerusalem and noted that US President Donald Trump “wanted us to refrain from celebrating Christmas but despite of his decision we tell him that we will celebrate in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jabal al Baba and everywhere because we are ambassadors of peace.” MORE . . . . . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) CHRISTMAS IN BETHLEHEM: HOW TRUMP’S MOVE RUINED IT Al Jazeera English
Dec. 20, 2017 ― President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital looms large in Christmas festivities this year in the traditional birthplace of Jesus.
___Some food vendors, sellers of holiday trinkets and a leading hotelier in biblical Bethlehem say Palestinian protests, triggered by what many here view as a provocative show of pro-Israel bias, have hurt their Christmas business.
___Yet Bethlehem also offers a stage for a Palestinian rebuttal: banners proclaiming Jerusalem as the eternal capital of Palestine have been draped over facades on Manger Square as a backdrop for Christmas TV broadcasts to a global audience.
[. . . .] Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was to have received Vice President Mike Pence, a devout Christian, in Bethlehem, but cancelled after the US pivot on Jerusalem. The snub came as Abbas rejected Washington as a Middle East broker.
___Meanwhile, Bethlehem’s flagship luxury hotel, the 250-bed Jacir Palace, closed because of frequent nearby clashes. General manager Marwan Kittani said the hotel had been fully booked for Christmas, but that he is now assessing day by day if he can reopen. MORE . . . ❷ PLO: US BULLYING WILL NOT DETER UN MEMBER STATES FROM VOTING AGAINST JERUSALEM DECISION Ma’an News Agency Dec. 21, 2017 ― The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) slammed the US for threatening to take action against countries that vote in favor of a United Nations (UN) resolution that condemns the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
[. . . . ] US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley exercised the US’ veto power on Monday at the UN Security Council (UNSC) to kill a resolution critical of Trump’s unilateral move. The veto blocked the resolution, despite the 14 other members of the Security Council voting in favor.
___Another meeting was called to vote on a resolution calling for annulling the US decision, this time, to the General Assembly where US does not have a veto power. . . . ___Ahead of the vote the US said that it would “take names” and possibly cut donor funding to those countries who voted against it. MORE . . . . . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) ABBAS TO ARRIVE IN FRANCE FOR TALKS WITH FRENCH COUNTERPART Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 21, 2017 ― President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to arrive in Paris on Thursday for a two-day official visit during which he will meet his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, according to Palestine’s ambassador to France Salman al-Harfi.
___He told Voice of Palestine radio that Abbas and his French counterpart will meet on Friday morning to discuss the implications of US President Donald Trump’s decision recognizing Jerusalem as capital of Israel. MORE . . .
Pullan, Wendy. “BIBLE AND GUN: MILITARISM IN JERUSALEM’S HOLY PLACES.”
SPACE & POLITY, vol. 17, no. 3, Dec. 2013, pp. 335-356.
[. . . .] It is once again possible to re-assess the sword and scroll relationship to suggest that rather than being equal to or led by armed struggle, religion has becoming a primary driving force in Israeli militarism. In reference to the dominant settler movements, Feige explains “the fusion of the political and the religious [as a] religious dictim in the eyes of the believers”. In broader terms . . . the nation’s shift from a “national security religion [to a] national religious culture” favouring the creation and maintenance of a Greater Israel as derived from biblical ideals. It would be wrong to belittle Israel’s emphasis upon security, which still dominates most political and military thinking; as an over-riding concept, and a threat, it is regularly used to enlist the support of secular Jews and alienate Palestinians . . . emphasis upon a new aggressiveness in the name of religion shows the concept to have altered to mean the security of the Jewish nation and the biblical Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael). This thinking dominates not just the fighting of wars, but it carries with it an ideology that permeates the practice of everyday life . . . it dominates the form and meaning of major Jewish holy places within the urban character and spatial structure of Jerusalem.
___To a fair extent, and in religious circles, national religious Jews have taken the upper hand from the ultra-orthodox groups, or haredim. The differences between the two are not always distinct, but it is possible to say that generally the latter believe in redemption realised in God’s own time and unaffected by human interference, whereas for national religious adherents, all of the Land of Israel is considered God-given, carrying an obligation for Jews to redeem it by human hands. This may be accomplished by violence if necessary, regardless of who lives there or has previous claims on the land or ownership of property. The difference between the two groups is well summarised by the criticism of national religious groups by a haredi rabbi: “instead of adapting their ideology to Judaism, they wish to adapt Judaism to their ideology.”
❸ ISRAEL BEGINS CONSTRUCTION OF SEPARATION WALL IN BETHLEHEM-AREA VILLAGE Ma’an News Agency
Dec. 21, 2017 ― Israeli authorities have reportedly began construction on a portion of Israel’s illegal separation wall on lands of the Tuqu town in eastern Bethlehem, in the southern occupied West Bank, on Thursday.
___Locals told Ma’an that Israeli bulldozers entered the town early Thursday morning and began placing cement blocks in northern Tuqu.
___According to locals, the wall would swallow up what’s left of agricultural lands belonging to the residents of Tuqu, after Israel confiscated large portions of land for the construction nearby illegal settlement of Tekoa.
___Israel’s separation wall, expected to reach 708 kilometers upon its completion — 88 percent of which is planned inside occupied Palestinian territory, is a common sight in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli-installed cement walls and barrier fences zig zag throughout the landscape. MORE . . . . . . . . ❸ ― (ᴀ) NEW SYNAGOGUE UNDER WESTERN WALL UNVEILED, $50M TO BE ALLOCATED FOR “TEMPLE MOUNT EXPLORATIONS” The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU)
Dec. 20, 2017 ― Israeli authorities, today, unveiled a new Jewish synagogue under Al-Buraq Wall – known to Jews as the Western Wall – in occupied East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. “Following 12 years of construction, the new synagogue was opened on Monday evening,” the Heritage Foundation of the Western Wall, an Israeli governmental body, said in a statement.
[. . . .] In a statement, Sheikh Ekrema Sabri, head of Jerusalem’s Supreme Islamic Council and a former Al-Aqsa imam, stressed that the Al-Buraq Wall was a component of the Al-Aqsa’s western wall.
[. . . . ]“All new construction by the [Israeli] occupation authorities in Jerusalem is illegitimate and lacks a historical basis,” Sabri said, adding that the holy city “cannot be partitioned”. MORE . . .
“FIRST VISIT TO THE CAMP D’HAISHA, BETHLEHEM,”
BY RABBI RACHEL BARENBLAT
There are no canvas tents.
The buildings don’t look
so bad, standard issue
developing-world
cement block structures
until I try to imagine
eleven thousand people
in one square kilometer,
one in every minyan
an angry alumnus
of the Israeli jails.
What do I know
about settlers or rock-throwers,
one state, two state
impossibilities?
But our grandparents
didn’t escape the ghettos
of Europe’s worst era
only to create new ones
for somebody else.
When we depart
I’m saddened, troubled
but perfectly able
to order a cold beer
and make conversation.
The sorrow and the fury
dormant overnight
explode the next day.
Even Shabbat can’t soothe
my lacerated heart.
From BEFORE THERE IS NOWHERE TO STAND: PALESTINE ISREL POETS RESPOND TO THE STRUGGLE. Ed. By Joan Dobbie and Grace Beeler. Sandpoint ID: Lost Horse Press, 2012. Available from B&N. Rachel Barenblat was ordained a rabbi in January 2011 through the Alliance for Jewish Renewal.
She holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and is the author of 4 chapbooks of poetry. Her poems have appeared in a variety of journals including The Texas Observer. She lives in western Massachusetts. She blogs as The Velveteen Rabbi. For her observations of the situation in Palestine, see her post from 2014.
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