Month: January 2018

“. . . my dreams took the night train and I did not know how to say goodbye . . .” (Mourid Barghouti)

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❶ Geneva Human Rights Centre calls on international community to halt violations in Palestine
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) FM calls on ICC prosecutor to prevent crimes against Palestinian people

  • Background: Statement of the UNRWA Commissioner-General;  PRESS STATEMENT, UNRWA

❷ US backtracks on pledge of $45 million food aid to UNRWA
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Belgium pledges $23m to UNRWA after US aid cut
❸ Abbas’ security coordination challenge
. . . . . ❸ ― (ᴀ) Al-Quds Int’l: Switching off light at Aqsa Mosque serious violation
❹ POETRY by Mourid Barghouti
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ GENEVA  HUMAN  RIGHTS  CENTRE  CALLS  ON  INTERNATIONAL  COMMUNITY  TO  HALT  VIOLATIONS  IN  PALESTINE
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Jan. 19, 2018 ― The Executive Director of the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue Idriss Jazairy appealed to the international community, and in particular the Arab and Muslim community, “to join forces and act in concert in order to halt the violations of Palestinians human rights.”
___Ambassador Jazairy said during a speech at the two-day Al-Azhar conference in Cairo on the situation in Jerusalem, that the international community has a “moral duty” to protect and to uphold the human rights of the Palestinian people in the wake of the decision of the US to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
___”Al Quds is a textbook case of multi-faceted and cross-cutting violations of human rights,” said Jazairy.   MORE . . .        RELATED . . . 
.  .  .  .  . ❶ ―  (ᴀ)  FM  CALLS  ON  ICC  PROSECUTOR  TO  PREVENT  CRIMES  AGAINST  PALESTINIAN  PEOPLE
Al Hourriah Magazine (Freedom)
Jan. 18, 2018 ― The Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates [Riyad al-Malki] called on the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Ms. Fatou Bensouda, to exercise her statutory authority, without delay, to prevent the continuation and perpetuation of crimes against the Palestinian people. On the three-year anniversary of the opening of the preliminary examination in the situation in Palestine, the Minister dispatched a letter to Ms. Bensouda pointing her attention to the recent escalation of violence by Israeli occupation forces in their implementation of unlawful colonial policies and practices in the past month, including the unlawful killing of 16 Palestinians and the injury of approximately 3000 and detention of 720, including 184 children.   MORE . . .  

STATEMENT  OF  THE  UNRWA  COMMISSIONER-GENERAL
PRESS  STATEMENT,  UNRWA
Pierre Krähenbühl, Commissioner General
January 17, 2018 ― Not for the first time in its proud history, UNRWA faces a formidable challenge in upholding its mandate – an expression of the will of the international community – and preserving key services like education and health care for Palestine Refugees.
___Today, the US government has announced a contribution of $60 M, in support of our efforts to keep our schools open, health clinics running, and emergency food and cash distribution systems functioning for some of the world’s most vulnerable refugees. While important, this funding is dramatically below past levels. The total US contribution in 2017 was above $350 M.
___Since UNRWA began its operations in May 1950, every US administration – from President Truman onwards – has stood with and provided strong, generous and committed support to our Agency. The US has consistently been UNRWA’s largest single donor, something we sincerely thank the American people for, and countless American decision-makers – presidents, members of Congress, diplomats and civil servants, who embodied the commitment of assisting a vulnerable people through UNRWA.
___Funding UNRWA or any humanitarian agency is the discretion of any sovereign member state of the United Nations. At the same time, given the long, trusted, and historic relationship between the United States and UNRWA, this reduced contribution threatens one of the most successful and innovative human development endeavors in the Middle-East.   COMPLETE STATEMENT: Gaza.Scoop.ps – Real Time News From Gaza.

❷ US  BACKTRACKS  ON  PLEDGE  OF  $45  MILLION  FOOD  AID  TO  UNRWA          The Palestinian Information Center
Jan. 19, 2018 ― The US State Department on Thursday announced that Washington will not provide $45 million in food aid which it pledged last month for Palestinian refugees.
[. . . .] Spokeswoman for the US State Department, Heather Nauert, said in statements, “At this time we will not be providing that, but this does not mean that it will not be provided in the future.”
___Nauert claimed that the withholding of the funds was not intended to punish Palestinians who strongly criticized the US president Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital last month.
___”Other countries are required to do more,” she said, adding that the US does not have to be the chief donor to every organization around the world.  MORE . . . 
.  .  .  .  . ❷ ―  (ᴀ)  BELGIUM  PLEDGES  $23M  TO  UNRWA  AFTER  US  AID  CUT
Al Jazeera English
Jan. 18, 2018 ― Belgium has pledged to donate 19m euro ($23m) to UNRWA, the UN’s aid organisation for Palestinian refugees, after the US government announced it would slash its funding to the agency by half.
___Deputy Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said in a statement on Wednesday that Brussels would allocate the funds over three years.
___The first annual payment is being disbursed immediately “considering the financial difficulties that UNRWA currently faces”, the statement said.      MORE . . .  
❸ ABBAS’  SECURITY  COORDINATION  CHALLENGE
Al-Monitor (Palestine Pulse)
By Daoud Kuttab
Jan.18, 2018 ― In a fiery two-hour speech at the start of the Palestinian Central Council (PCC) meeting Jan. 14, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not once raise the issue of ending security coordination with Israel. Abbas did, however, mention, several times, the futility of continuing with the Oslo process . . . Despite this omission, however, the PCC resolved the matter in the final statement.
___This was not the first time the Palestinians have resolved to end the security arrangement, a step often demanded by Hamas and other opposition groups. In March 2015 . . .
[. . . .] An online survey by the leading Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds on the eve of the PCC session, revealed that an overwhelming 94% of Palestinians want the PCC to withdraw recognition of Israel and end security coordination . . .   Palestinian leaders are concerned that fully implementing the recommendation would mean the end of the Palestinian government . . .
[. . . .] Israel is unlikely to sit idly by if the recommendation were implemented. Its tolerance for the existence of the Palestinian government, with its security apparatus, is contingent on the Palestinians adhering to the minimum level of security coordination.   MORE . . . 
.  .  .  .  . ❸ ―  (ᴀ)  AL-QUDS  INT’L:  SWITCHING  OFF  LIGHT  AT  AQSA  MOSQUE  SERIOUS  VIOLATION
Al Hourriah Magazine (Freedom)     Jan. 18, 2018 ― Al-Quds International Institution (QII) condemned on Wednesday Israeli attempts to cut power feeding the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.
___“Switching off the light of the Dome of the Rock is an aggression against Muslims and their holy sites,” a statement by QII read.
___QII warned of Israeli attempts to control and obstruct reconstruction and maintenance works at al-Aqsa Mosque.
___QII’s director Yassin Hamoud said the fact that the Israeli authorities obstructed the entry of materials needed to fix power cuts at al-Aqsa is “a translation of Trump’s biased move into action.”   MORE . . . 

“I  HAVE  NO  PROBLEM,”  BY  MOURID  BARGHOUTI
I look at myself:
I have no problem.
I look all right
and, to some girls,
my grey hair might even be attractive;
my eyeglasses are well made,
my body temperature is precisely thirty seven,
my shirt is ironed and my shoes do not hurt.
I have no problem.
My hands are not cuffed,
my tongue has not been silenced yet,
I have not, so far, been sentenced
and I have not been fired from my work;
I am allowed to visit my relatives in jail,
I’m allowed to visit some of their graves in some countries.

I have no problem.
I am not shocked that my friend
has grown a horn on his head.
I like his cleverness in hiding the obvious tail
under his clothes, I like his calm paws.
He might kill me, but I shall forgive him
for he is my friend;
he can hurt me every now and then.

I have no problem.
The smile of the TV anchor
does not make me ill any more
and I’ve got used to the Khaki stopping my colours
night and day.
That is why
I keep my identification papers on me, even at
the swimming pool.
I have no problem.
Yesterday, my dreams took the night train
and I did not know how to say goodbye to them.
I heard the train had crashed
in a barren valley
(only the driver survived).
I thanked God, and took it easy
for I have small nightmares
that I hope will develop into great dreams.

I have no problem.
I look at myself, from the day I was born till now.
In my despair I remember
that there is life after death;
there is life after death
and I have no problem.
But I ask:
Oh my God,
is there life before death?
――Translated by Radwa Ashour
From poem hunter.com
Interview with Mourid Barghouti 

“. . . our eyes full of dust That never clears in our ceaseless wandering . . .” (Jabra Ibrahim Jabra)

Harold KnightLeave a comment

❶ OCHA says reduction in humanitarian aid to UN refugee agency worrying
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Fatah: U.S. action will restrict the work of UNRWA
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) American Arab group condemns US cut in aid to UN agency
❷ After Jenin raid, Israeli army leaves behind devastation, both physical and psychological

  • Opinion:  “In Words and Deeds: The Genesis of Israeli Violence.” The Palestine Chronicle.

. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Israeli court indefinitely extends detention of Ahed Tamimi and her mother
❸ Israeli army considering taking control of Palestinian areas in Jerusalem
❹ PLO calls on EU to take effective political steps to salvage peace
❺ POETRY by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶  OCHA  SAYS  REDUCTION  IN  HUMANITARIAN  AID  TO  UN  REFUGEE  AGENCY  WORRYING
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA 
Jan. 18, 2018 ― The significant reduction in funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is worrying against the backdrop of an overall decline in humanitarian funding in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) in recent years, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for the oPt said on Wednesday.
___The United States announced this week that it has cut $65 million of its $125 million January installment to UNRWA . . .
___“I am deeply concerned about the significant reduction in funding for UNRWA, which is critical to the provision of humanitarian assistance in the occupied Palestinian territory. Some 2.5 million Palestinians in this area, or about half of the population, need humanitarian aid, including 1.4 million Palestine refugees, who are among the most vulnerable groups in the oPt,” Acting Humanitarian Coordinator for the oPt, Roberto Valent, said in a statement.  MORE . . . 
.  .  .  .  .  ❶ ― (ᴀ) FATAH:  U.S.  ACTION  WILL  RESTRICT  THE  WORK  OF  UNRWA     Palestine News Network – PNN 
Jan. 18, 2018 ―  [. . . .] It is important to note that the U.S. contribution to UNRWA represents neither support nor assistance to the Palestinian National Authority . . .  It is to an agency of the United . . . .
___A statement by the Palestine National Liberation movement (Fatah) in a press release said that this U.S. action will restrict the work of UNRWA and threaten severe deprivation putting Palestinian refugees at even more serious risk.
[. . . .]  “We believe that the methods of extortion and pressure of the U.S. Administration on the United Nations, especially with regard to programs that do not suit Israel and rightwing extremists, are unacceptable to the international community and UN member states.”   MORE . . . 
 .  .  .  .  .  ❶ ― (ᴃ)  AMERICAN  ARAB  GROUP  CONDEMNS  US  CUT  IN  AID  TO  UN  AGENCY
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Jan. 18, 2018 ― The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) strongly condemned on Wednesday the US cut of $65 million in funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which provides education and healthcare to millions of Palestinian refugees in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
___“This abrupt cut in funding has created an existential crisis for UNRWA,” said ADC in a statement.
___At stake is the education of more than 525,000 students, primary health care for millions, and the provision of emergency relief, including food assistance to one million refugees in Gaza.    MORE . . . 
❷ AFTER  JENIN  RAID,  ISRAELI  ARMY  LEAVES  BEHIND  DEVASTATION,  BOTH  PHYSICAL  AND  PSYCHOLOGICAL 
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
By Mohammad Najim
Jan. 18, 2018 ―  At about 11:00 pm (Jerusalem time) on a cold Wednesday night, Palestinian residents of Wad Burqin neighborhood in Jenin, north of the occupied West Bank, were awakened at the sound of gunfire. It was soon clear that a large Israeli military force has surrounded a number of Jarrar family buildings and opened heavy gunfire at the houses to force a member identified as Ahmad Nasr Jarrar, 26, to come out.     [. . . .] Army units used loudspeakers to call on the family to leave their house, and soon after Ahmad Nasr’s mother, her younger son, Mohammad, and her daughter were out in the cold the army asked them to remove their coats.
[. . . .]  She said the soldiers then asked her daughter to get back to the house and to open all of the windows and doors before their bulldozers approached the house and started to demolish it together with the house of her elder son, Sohaib . . . .   the residents were shocked to find out that three buildings for the Jarrar family had been demolished and a fourth was badly damaged.
___The Palestinian Ministry of . . . . identified the dead person as Ahmad Ismail Jarrar, 31, a cousin of Ahmad Nasr Jarrar.     MORE . . . 

OPINION:    IN  WORDS  AND  DEEDS:  THE  GENESIS  OF  ISRAELI  VIOLENCE 
The Palestine Chronicle
By Ramzy Baroud
Jan. 16, 2018 ― Not a day passes without a prominent Israeli politician or intellectual making an outrageous statement against Palestinians. Many of these statements tend to garner little attention or evoke rightly deserved outrage.
___Just recently, Israel’s Minister of Agriculture, Uri Ariel, called for more death and injuries on Palestinians in Gaza.
[. . . .] Israeli Education Minister, Naftali Bennett, known for his extremist political views, demanded that Ahed [Tamini] and other Palestinian girls should “spend the rest of their days in prison”.
[. . . .] This violent and revolting mindset, however, is not new. It is an extension of an old, entrenched belief system that is predicated on a long history of violence.
___Undeniably, the views of Ariel, Bennett . . . are all reflections of real policies that have been carried out for over 70 years. Indeed, killing, raping and imprisoning for life are features that have accompanied the state of Israel since the very beginning.
___This violent legacy continues to define Israel to this day, through the use of what Israeli historian Ilan Pappe describes as ‘incremental genocide.’
[. . . .] Israel’s violent birth in 1947- 48 was the culmination of the violent discourse that preceded it for many years [. . . .] Nearly 30 years later, a once wanted terrorist, Begin became Prime Minister of Israel. He accelerated land theft of the newly-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, launched a war on Lebanon, annexed Occupied Jerusalem to Israel and carried out the massacre of Sabra and Shatilla in 1982.
[. . . .]  Some of the other terrorists-turned-politicians and top army brass include Begin, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, Rafael Eitan and Yitzhak Shamir. Each one of these leaders has a record dotted with violence.
[. . . .] So, when government ministers like Ariel and Bennett call for wanton violence against Palestinians, they are simply carrying on with a bloody legacy that has defined every single Israeli leader in the past. It is the violent mindset that continues to control the Israeli government and its relationship with Palestinians; in fact, with all of its neighbors.     MORE . . .    ..

.  .  .  .  .  ❷  ―  (ᴀ)  ISRAELI  COURT  INDEFINITELY  EXTENDS  DETENTION  OF  AHED  TAMIMI  AND  HER  MOTHER  
Ma’an News Agency   
Jan. 18, 2018 ―  An Israeli military court on Wednesday ordered 16-year-old Palestinian activist Ahed al-Tamimi to remain in custody indefinitely, until she faces trial for a number of charges relating to a video of her slapping and kicking an Israeli soldier.
___The teenager was arrested on December 19, days after the video of her confrontation with the soldiers — who were raiding her hometown of Nabi Saleh in the central occupied West Bank, and had shot her 14-year-old cousin in the face moments before the video was filmed — went viral on social media.
[. . . .]  During the hearing, the judge reportedly said that they could not grant the teenager bail because she was “too dangerous.”
___The court also ruled to indefinitely extend the detention of Ahed’s mother, Nariman, who was detained a day after her daughter. Nariman is being charged with “incitement” for livestreaming the video.     MORE . . .  
❸ ISRAELI  ARMY  CONSIDERING  TAKING  CONTROL  OF  PALESTINIAN  AREAS  IN  JERUSALEM 
Palestine News Network – PNN
Jan. 18, 2018 ― Israeli military forces are considering taking control over Shu’fat refugee camp and Kafr Aqab areas, according to information obtained by Israeli daily Haaretz.
___Whilst the proposed  plan is still unknown, army officials said the decision has been motivated by an increase in unrest and violence in East Jerusalem.     ___The two areas are currently under the jurisdiction of the Jerusalem municipality but are physically cut off from the city [by] the separation wall.     MORE . . .  
❹ PLO  CALLS  ON  EU  TO  TAKE  EFFECTIVE  POLITICAL  STEPS  TO  SALVAGE  PEACE
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA    
Jan. 18, 2018 ― Secretary-General of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Saeb Erekat Thursday called on the European Union to take effective political steps to save peace in the region.
___This came during a meeting with representatives of the EU countries at the PLO’s headquarters in Ramallah . . . .
___He called on the EU to protect the principles and the human rights’ system that it has built over the years, by translating and embodying its firm position on the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders and recognizing East Jerusalem as the capital of a recognized State of Palestine.
___Erekat reiterated the PLO’s position that the United States’ has lost eligibility to play the role of peace broker after its illegal recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel . .  MORE . . .

“IN  THE  DESERTS  OF  EXILE,”  BY  JABRA  IBRAHIM  JABRA
Spring after spring, in the deserts of exile,
What are we doing with our love,
When our eyes are full of frost and dust?

Our Palestine, green land of ours;
Its flowers as if embroidered of women’s gowns;
March adorns its hills
With the jewel-like peony and narcissus;
April bursts open in its plains
With flowers and bride-like blossoms;
May is our rustic song
Which we sing at noon, in the blue shadows,
Among the olive trees in our valleys,
And in the ripeness of the fields we wait for the promise of July
And the joyous dance amidst the harvest.

O land of ours where our childhood passed
Like dreams in the shade of the orange grove,
Among the almond trees in the valleys―
Remember us now wandering
Among the thorns of the desert,
Wandering in rocky mountains;
Remember us now
In the tumult of cities beyond deserts and seas;
Remember us with our eyes full of dust
That never clears in our ceaseless wandering.
They crushed the flowers on the hills around us,
Destroyed the houses over our heads,
Scattered our torn remains
Then unfolded the desert before us,
With valleys writhing in hunger
And blue shadows
Scattered into red thorns
Bent over corpses left as prey for falcon and crow.

Is it from your hills that the angels sang to the shepherds
Of peace on earth and goodwill among men?
Only death laughed when it saw
Among the entrails of beasts
The ribs of men,
And through the guffaw of bullets
It went dancing a joyous dance
On the heads of weeping women.
Our land is an emerald,
But in the deserts of exile,
Spring after spring,
Only the dust hisses in our face.
What then, what are we doing with our love,
When our eyes and our mouth are full of frost and dust?

About  Jabra Ibrahim Jabra      Related
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.

“. . . bored with the death creeping in their bones . . .” (Harun Hashim Al Rashid)

Harold KnightLeave a comment

❶ Israeli forces kill Palestinian student, former prisoner during clashes in Qalqiliya
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Israeli forces detain Palestinian, injure another as settlers visit holy site in Nablus
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) Israel orders 19 Palestinians to administrative detention

  • Background: “Israeli TV Host Warns Israelis: “Apartheid Has Been Here for Ages.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture.

❷ Israel to ban medical treatment visits by Hamas members
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) New Israel bill to ban ministers from taking part in BDS activities
❸ 500 West Bank schools to get power through solar cells
❹ Opinion/Analysis: Facing serious damage to its image, Israel must smear its critics as anti-Semites
❺ POETRY by Harun Hashim Al Rashid
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAELI  FORCES  KILL  PALESTINIAN  STUDENT,  FORMER  PRISONER  DURING  CLASHES  IN  QALQILIYA 
Ma’an News Agency 
Jan. 16, 2018 ― Israeli forces shot and killed a 28-year-old Palestinian student and former prisoner during clashes on Monday in the northern occupied West Bank district of Qalqiliya.     ___Locals identified the slain Palestinian as Ahmad Abd al-Jaber Muhammad Salim, a student at al-Quds Open University in Qalqiliya and the secretary of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) student bloc.      [. . . .] Witnesses told Ma’an that Israeli soldiers opened fire at Salim from less than 20 meters away, and that forces prevented Palestinian ambulances from reaching him by firing tear gas at ambulances and paramedics.     MORE . . .    ..
.  .  .  .  .  ❶  ―  (ᴀ)  ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  PALESTINIAN,  INJURE  ANOTHER  AS  SETTLERS  VISIT  HOLY  SITE  IN  NABLUS
Ma’an News Agency
Jan. 16, 2018 ― At least one Palestinian was injured and another was detained by Israeli forces before dawn on Tuesday, as Israeli security forces escorted 1,000 Israeli settlers to perform religious rituals in the northern occupied West Bank city of Nablus.     ___Official Palestinian Authority (PA)-owned Wafa news agency reported that busloads of Jewish settlers, who live in the occupied Palestinian territory in violation of international law, were escorted into southern Nablus under heavy Israeli military protection, sparking clashes.
___According to Wafa, one 20-year-old Palestinian was injured with a rubber-coated steel bullet, while dozens of others were exposed to tear gas fired by Israeli forces.
___Israeli forces also detained one Palestinian, whose identity remained unknown.   MORE . . . 
.  .  .  .  .  ❶  ―  (ᴃ)  ISRAEL  ORDERS  19  PALESTINIANS  TO  ADMINISTRATIVE  DETENTION
Ma’an News Agency
Jan. 16, 2018 ― Israel recently issued 19 administrative detention orders — Israel’s widely condemned policy of internment without charge or trial — against Palestinians . . .
___Wafa reported on Tuesday that eight of the 19 orders were issued against Palestinian prisoners already serving time under administrative detention.
___Israel uses administrative detention almost exclusively against Palestinians. The widely condemned Israeli policy allows for a detainee to be sentenced for up to six-month renewable intervals based on undisclosed evidence.
___Although Israeli authorities claim the withholding of evidence during administrative detention is essential for state security concerns, rights groups have instead claimed the policy allows Israeli authorities to hold Palestinians for an indefinite period of time without showing any evidence that could justify their detentions.   MORE . . . 

Assaf Harel was the popular late-night show host on the
Israeli TV program “Good Night With Assaf Harel.”
He used his monologue on final episode [March 3, 2017]
of the program to warn his fellow countrymen about
the dangers of the continuation of the occupation.
Harel, Assaf.
“ISRAELI  TV  HOST  WARNS  ISRAELIS:  ‘APARTHEID  HAS  BEEN  HERE  FOR  AGES’.”
PALESTINE-ISRAEL JOURNAL OF POLITICS, ECONOMICS & CULTURE, vol. 22, no. 2/3, July 2017, pp. 182-184.
I don’t want to dedicate this last monologue to a specific issue from the last few days, but to something more general. If you look at our life in Israel, it’s pretty great . . .  Great weather, great food, great people, great beaches, it’s not so bad here, in general. And that’s exactly the point, that were doing great, but there are a couple of million people that we’re responsible for, and they’re in a horrible state.
[. . . .] Ever since the right wing took power, more and more voices are warning of apartheid. Are you kidding? Apartheid has been here for ages. . . .  We’ve been abusing the Palestinians on a daily basis for years, denying them their basic rights. In Judea and Samaria we’re taking their lands from them . . . .
___Soldiers shoot at stone-throwers because they’re a real threat, but if in Israel someone throws stones they won’t even be charged. Palestinian journalists are put under administrative detention, without trial because they wrote something wrong. . .  For years we’ve been deepening the hatred, the same hatred that we later complain about in peace talks.
[. . . .] The human-rights organizations are the most legitimate and healthy thing today in Israeli society. They are trying to wake a dormant society, a blocked society . . . and Bibi and Bennet know that on the day Israeli citizens wake up and discover what’s happening beyond the Green Line — what it does to our soldiers, to the children that are raised there, to the elderly, to the families, to the millions of innocent people, what it costs our budget, our society, our economy . . .  people will ask themselves if the occupied territories are really worth it.
___That’s why I believe — perhaps I’m convincing myself— that in the end the right wing will lose. Because they’re afraid of the truth. Of reality.  [. . . .]   SOURCE . . .  

❷ ISRAEL  TO  BAN  MEDICAL  TREATMENT  VISITS  BY  HAMAS  MEMBERS 
The Palestinian Information Center
Jan. 16, 2018 ― The Israeli government on Monday decided to ban the travel of Hamas members in Gaza and their first-degree relatives to the 1948 occupied Palestine for treatment.     ___The decision came in response to a petition filed by the family of the Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin, who was captured by Hamas during the 2014 war, to the Israeli Supreme Court . . .      ___The Israeli occupation totally refuses to allow Hamas members to enter the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories for any reason, but in some cases it allows their sick relatives to receive treatment there.    MORE . . .   
.  .  .  .  .  ❷  ―  (ᴀ)  NEW  ISRAEL  BILL  TO  BAN  MINISTERS  FROM  TAKING  PART  IN  BDS  ACTIVITIES  
Palestine News Network – PNN 
Jan. 16, 2018 ― Chairman of the Knesset House Committee, Yoav Kish proposed a bill that prevents BDS movements from financing trips made by Members of the Knesset abroad, Quds Press reported yesterday.     The news site reported the Israeli newspaper saying that the law is to be proposed to the Knesset tomorrow, noting that it is likely to be pushed through after the Ministry of Strategic Affairs identified a list of “blacklisted” organisations. Haaretz reported Kish saying that at least one of the blacklisted groups, American Muslims for Palestine, funded a trip by Arab MK Ahmad Tibi.  MORE . . . 
❸ 500  WEST  BANK  SCHOOLS  TO  GET  POWER  THROUGH  SOLAR  CELLS          Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA    
Jan. 16, 2018 (WAFA) – An estimated 500 West Bank schools are soon going to get their electric power from solar cells.
___The Ministry of Education and the Palestinian Investment Fund (PIF) signed on Tuesday an agreement to install solar cells on roofs of 500 public schools to generate 35 MW of electricity. The project, worth $35 million and funded by the PIF, the investment arm of the Palestinian Authority, will take four years to complete.
___Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah attended the signing ceremony and said the agreement is part of the government efforts to invest in renewable energy in many institutions.
___PIF director Mohammad Mustafa said this project is the first in the region in this volume and investment value and an important step in the Light Palestine project launched by the PIF.    MORE . . .    ..
❹ Opinion/Analysis: FACING  SERIOUS  DAMAGE  TO  ITS  IMAGE,  ISRAEL  MUST  SMEAR  ITS  CRITICS  AS  ANTI-SEMITES  
Mondoweiss   
By Moshé Machover
Jan. 16, 2018 ― On January 25, Labour activist and co-founder of Britain’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign Tony Greenstein will undergo a disciplinary hearing over accusations of alleged anti-Semitic comments made online. . . .
___This testimony is addressed to the Labour Party National Constitutional Committee in connection with its hearing called to consider accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ that have been made against him . . .    I am a dissident Israel citizen, born in Palestine in 1936. I have been living in London since 1968 and am naturalised British citizen. I am a member of the Labour Party . . .
___I have known Tony Greenstein for over 40 years, as staunch socialist, active in defence of the rights of workers, in particular the unemployed, and against all racism, including anti-Semitism. In line with this, he is an uncompromising opponent of the Zionist project of colonisation and of Israel’s Zionist regime, which makes it a colonising settler state. He has devoted much scholarship and thorough research to the history of Zionism . . .
Having myself also done much reading on the subject, I find his statements on it well grounded in fact.   MORE . . .  

“LET  IT  BE  KNOWN,”  BY  HARUN  HASHIM  AL RASHID (b. 1927, Gaza)
Let it be known:
there will be no peace.
because the lodgers in the tents
have become fed up with humiliation of
living there,
become tired of suffering, misery and illness,
bored with the death creeping in their bones,
sick of life itself,
because they are homeless,
walking in darkness.   
–Source  
About Harun Hashim Al Rashid

“. . . A thousand eyes for an eye . . .” (Lahab Assef Al-Jundi)

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vicmensa
“Vic Mensa has been nothing less than courageous speaking out and singing for the Freedom of Palestinians.” (Photo: Social Media, from Palestine Chronicle)

❶ Israel: Gaza economy on the verge of collapsing
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) On the border of Gaza Israel destroys the hopes of farmers
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) Vic Mensa’s searing piece in ‘Time’ on Israeli oppression is prefaced by clunky disclaimer re anti-Semitism

  • Background: “Apartheid, Settler Colonialism and the Palestinian State 50 Years on.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture.

❷ Abu Rudeineh: Strength of Palestinian position foiled free normalization
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Abbas at Central Council calls for revision of agreements with Israel
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) Lieberman attacks Abbas: He had “lost his senses”
❸ Opinion/Analysis: Decades of failed peace talks: How Israel negotiates with itself
❹ POETRY by Lahab Assef Al-Jundi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAEL:  GAZA  ECONOMY  ON  THE  VERGE  OF  COLLAPSING
Palestine News Network – PNN     
Jan. 15, 2018 ― The Israeli daily, Haaretz on Monday reported that Israeli  military officials said the Palestinian situation is deteriorating, and that the economy and infrastructure  in Gaza was “from zero to below zero.”
___Haaretz said Israeli politicians were acting as if military pressure can continue on Gaza, ignoring the worsening economic situation in the strip.
___“In the long term, continually deteriorating infrastructure brings the risk of an uncontrollable blow-up in the Strip,” the daily said.    MORE . . .  
.  .  .  .  . ❶  ―  (ᴀ)  ON  THE  BORDER  OF  GAZA  ISRAEL  DESTROYS  THE  HOPES  OF  FARMERS
The Palestinian Information Center
Jan. 15, 2018 ― Farmer Mohammad Rashad Abu Ezzar, 30 years old, checks up the land and plants of his family, estimated at 40 dunums, which was burned by the poisonous gas recently sprayed by Israeli planes .
___Abo Ezzar spoke to the PIC of the devastation of their crops, which is the only source of income for his family in light of the high rate of unemployment in the Gaza Strip.
[. . . .] He feels like shouting out loud: “World, what happened is a sin. These are God’s blessings for us to live and eat.” He appealed to the world to intervene in order to stop this crime against all agricultural lands.     MORE . . .  
.  .  .  .  .  ❶  ―  (ᴃ)  VIC  MENSA’S  SEARING  PIECE  IN  ‘TIME’  ON  ISRAELI  OPPRESSION  IS  PREFACED  BY  CLUNKY  DISCLAIMER  RE  ANTI-SEMITISM    ___Mondoweiss
By Philip Weiss
Jan. 14, 2018 ― Rapper Vic Mensa has published a wrenching piece in Time Magazine about “oppression and abuse” in Palestine. He saw elderly women being “punched in the face” by Israeli soldiers, saw hundreds of children being harassed and detained, and felt a solemn obligation to bear witness. But check out two of the opening sentences in the article:    “I am not anti-Semitic, and the views expressed in this essay are in no way an attack on people of the Jewish faith.”
[. . . .] Those words are an insult to the essay itself . . .  the article has nothing to do with Jewishness.   Vic Mensa went to Palestine last summer “with a group of African-American artists, scholars and activists organized by Dream Defenders.”   MORE . . . 

Salem, Walid.
“APARTHEID,  SETTLER  COLONIALISM  AND  THE  PALESTINIAN  STATE  50  YEARS  ON.”
PALESTINE-ISRAEL JOURNAL OF POLITICS, ECONOMICS & CULTURE, vol. 22, no. 2/3, July 2017, pp. 112-118.
After 50 years of the Israeli occupation . . .  the situation on the ground cannot be described as being any less than catastrophic for the Palestinians. This is a situation that can reasonably be described as a continuation of the 1948 Nakba.
___The aspects and ramifications of this ongoing Nakba can be seen everywhere: First, the Palestinians in East Jerusalem are losing their residency rights . . .  Second, the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza live under constant attacks, imprisoned in their tiny 360 km2 strip . . . Third, in the West Bank, Area C‘ Bedouins and farmers are subjected to ongoing processes of evacuation . . .    Fourth, the Palestinians in Hebron are subjected to daily settler attacks and the division of their city . . .   Fifth, the Palestinians in Area A and B”‘ are being subjected to Israeli Army “hot incursions” . . .  Sixth, and finally, the plight of the Palestinian refugees continues almost 70 years after 1948 and 50 years after the displacement of persons in 1967.
___In brief, an Israeli one-state solution in all the historical land of Palestine is in the making, while the Palestinians are facing a growing ignorance of their right to self-determination in an independent state on the 1967 borders. The PLO has accepted this compromise in 1988, a two-state solution to live side-by-side in peace and security with Israel. However, Israel is no longer interested in the two-state solution.  FULL ARTICLE . . .  

❷ ABU  RUDEINEH:  STRENGTH  OF  PALESTINIAN  POSITION  FOILED  FREE  NORMALIZATION   
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Jan. 15, 2018 ― Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas, said on Monday that the strength of the Palestinian position towards Jerusalem has succeeded in foiling the biased US policy, exposed the conspiracy against Jerusalem, the core and title of the Palestinian cause, and foiled free normalization, which goes against the Arab Peace Initiative.
___“Everyone is now required to stand united in the face of the attack on the Palestinian cause, particularly Jerusalem with its Islamic and Christian holy places, which necessitated the convening of the Central Council to take decisions that live up to the seriousness of the period,” Abu Rudeineh.   MORE . . .      RELATED . . . 
.  .  .  .  .  ❷  ―  (ᴀ)  ABBAS  AT  CENTRAL  COUNCIL  CALLS  FOR  REVISION  OF  AGREEMENTS  WITH  ISRAEL
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Jan. 14, 2018 ― President Mahmoud Abbas called on the Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) meeting in Ramallah on Sunday for a revision of the agreements signed between the PLO and Israel.
___“I call on the Central Council to revise all the agreements signed between the PLO and Israel because Israel has brought these agreements to a dead end,” he said, adding that “we are going to take this decision even though we know in advance what it will bring to us.”     MORE . . .  
.  .  .  .  .  ❷  ―  (ᴃ)  LIEBERMAN  ATTACKS  ABBAS:  HE  HAD  “LOST  HIS  SENSES” 
Palestine News Network – PNN
Jan. 15, 2018 ― The Israeli minister of army, Avigdor Lieberman in response to the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech said that he had “lost his senses”  for criticizing the US administration and its bias towards Israel.
___Lieberman told Israeli Army Radio that Abbas’ address conveyed his give up on the negotiations, failure of relations with the US, and having narrow political horizons.
___Criticism came not only from right wing Israeli leaders, but also from the Israeli opposition parties.    MORE . . .  
❸ Opinion/Analysis: DECADES  OF  FAILED  PEACE  TALKS:  HOW  ISRAEL  NEGOTIATES  WITH  ITSELF
+972 Magazine   
By Noam Sheizaf
June 28, 2017 ― Why have Israeli-Palestinian negotiations failed?  . . . .
[. . . .] What does this reality look like on the ground? The Jewish and Palestinian populations are mixed together throughout the territory. Jews and Arabs live alongside one another in the West Bank . . .  in each one of these areas, the State of Israel is sovereign. It controls every land and sea border, all of the airspace, the primary currency and the population registry . . .    Israel also exercises perhaps the most important ingredient of sovereignty — it enjoys a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence in the entire territory.
[. . . .] Let’s put it another way: ALTHOUGH  WE  LOVE  ARGUING  ONE  STATE  VS.  TWO  STATES,  IN  REALITY  WE  HAVE  BEEN  LIVING  IN  A  SINGLE  STATE  FOR  SOME  DECADES  NOW — one in which half the population (Jews) holds almost all of the political power and controls all the resources, while enjoying full rights throughout the entire land.   MORE . . .  

COLLATERAL  SAVAGE,”  BY  LAHAB  ASSEF  AL-JUNDI
Survivors of The Holocaust please
Talk to me. Help me understand―
Do you sanction what’s being done
In your names?

I thought your spirits
grew more gentle
having lived through the unspeakable.

Bombs are not less lethal or evil―
Stop being so deathly afraid of the other.

A thousand eyes for an eye?
Children of the Holocaust
please do not lash out
as if you lost your sight.

Lahab Assef Al-Jundi
Lahab Assef Al-Jundi was born of Palestinian refugee parents and grew up in Damascus, Syria. He graduated from the University of Texas in Austin 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 Inclined to Speak, An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry, edited by Hayan Charara, and Between Heaven and Texas, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye.
From BEFORE  THERE  IS  NOWHERE  TO  STAND:  PALESTINE  ISRAEL  POETS  RESPOND  TO  THE  STRUGGLE.  Ed. By Joan Dobbie and Grace Beeler. Sandpoint ID: Lost Horse Press, 2012. Available from Barnes & Noble.

“. . . Though they betray me and my cause, Palestinian I am . . .” (Harun Hashim Rashid)

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❶ Netanyahu threatens Hamas with “greater force”
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) US envoy to Israel: PA is reason there’s no peace

Background: “Religious, Hateful, and Racist Speech in Israel.” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies.

. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) How the Israeli Right succeeds at making itself the victim
❷ Israeli army declares Nabi Saleh, home to Tamimi family, closed military zone
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Civilians arrested, access roads closed by IOF throughout West Bank
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) Life-saving treatment to be halted at Gaza hospitals over fuel dearth
❸ POETRY by Harun Hashim Rashid
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ NETANYAHU  THREATENS  HAMAS  WITH  “GREATER  FORCE” 
Palestine News Network – PNN   
Jan. 14, 2018 ― Israeli Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu on Sunday threatened to use “even greater force if necessary,” after Israeli strike on a Gaza tunnel on the Palestinian Rafah, Gaza-Sinai border.
___“There are those who have said the IDF just targeted sand dunes — this is incorrect,” Netanyahu said in remarks to Israeli media before departing on his trip to India. “Hamas must understand that we will not permit these attacks and we will respond with even greater force.”
___Hours later, the Israel army confirmed reports that the target of the strike was a Hamas tunnel . . . .   MORE . . .   
.  .  .  .  .  ❶  ―  (ᴀ)  US  ENVOY  TO  ISRAEL:  PA  IS  REASON  THERE’S  NO  PEACE
Palestine News Network – PNN
Jan. 14, 2018 ― US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman slammed the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the wake of shooting that killed Jewish rabbi settler in occupied West Bank city of Nablus . . . .
___On Twitter, Friedman accused the PA of spending the financial aid it receives from donors on “killers” of Israelis and basing the amount of financial reward they receive on the amount of damage they cause to Israelis.
___His comments came after an Israeli settler was shot and killed on Tuesday evening in the Nablus region of the occupied West Bank.
___The diplomat went on to justify America’s threats to cut financial aid to the PA and UNRWA which supports Palestinian refugees.   MORE . . .  

Cohen-Almagor, Raphael.
“RELIGIOUS,  HATEFUL,  AND  RACIST  SPEECH  IN  ISRAEL.”
SHOFAR: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF JEWISH STUDIES, vol. 31, no. 2, Winter2013, pp. 95-117.
[. . . .] This essay is largely concerned with Israel’s policy on hate speech and racial expressions as they have come into expression by religious authorities . . .  Those expressions have stemmed from the ideologically motivated religious authorities against two groups of people: those who aimed to give away parts of Israel’s territory, and Palestinian Arabs. . . .
[. . . .] In 2008, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu called on the government to carry out “state-sanctioned revenge” against Arabs in order to, in his words, “restore Israel’s deterrence”. . .   Rabbi Eliyahu wrote: “It’s time to call the child by its name: Revenge, revenge, revenge. We mustn’t forget. We have to take horrible revenge for the Arab terrorist attack on Mercaz Harav Yeshiva,” referring to the incident in which eight students were killed in June 2008. “I’m not talking about individual people in particular, I’m talking about the state,” Eliyahu wrote. Israel has “to pain them to the point where they scream ‘Enough,’ to the point where they fall flat on their face and scream ‘help.’ Not for the sake of satisfying the need for revenge but for the purposes of deterrence.” 
___In the newsletter that was distributed to synagogues around the country, Eliyahu proposed “hanging the children of the terrorist who carried out the attack in the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva from a tree.” The rabbi said: “We’ll stay here. We need to live with those who understand very well the language of revenge.”    SOURCE . . . 

.  .  .  .  .  ❶  ―  (ᴃ)  HOW  THE  ISRAELI  RIGHT  SUCCEEDS  AT  MAKING  ITSELF  THE  VICTIM
+972 Magazine  
By Almog Behar
We are in the historical stage of the ideological Right, in which every single detail, which would have previously embarrassed the right wing, now only strengthens it.
___ The most recent example of this phenomenon is that of Ateret Cohanim, the settler organization that used prostitutes, front organizations, and threats of murder to buy Palestinian properties in East Jerusalem. The ideological Right . . .  view the organization’s deeds as a mitzvah on the way to taking control of more land. Ateret Cohanim’s cleverness evokes wonderment rather than criticism . . .  As Yair Netanyahu, son of the prime minister, recently wrote on his personal Facebook page, the real danger is the Left, including groups such as Black Lives Matter and the BDS movement, rather than the extreme right that believes in white supremacy or neo-Nazism.   MORE . . .  
❷ ISRAELI  ARMY  DECLARES  NABI  SALEH,  HOME  TO  TAMIMI  FAMILY,  CLOSED  MILITARY  ZONE
Ma’an News Agency
Jan. 13, 2018 ― The Israeli army declared the central occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh — home to imprisoned teenage activist Ahed al-Tamimi — a closed military zone on Saturday, closing off all entrances and exits.
___Official Palestinian Authority (PA)-owned Wafa news agency reported that that Israeli forces set up barriers on the main road that leads to Nabi Saleh and prevented Palestinians, including journalists, from entering the village.   MORE . . .  
.  .  .  .  .  ❷  ―  (ᴀ)  CIVILIANS  ARRESTED,  ACCESS  ROADS  CLOSED  BY  IOF  THROUGHOUT  WEST  BANK
The Palestinian Information Center 
Jan. 14, 2018 ― Several Palestinians were kidnapped by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) in abduction sweeps rocking the West Bank at predawn Sunday.
___The Israeli army claimed responsibility for the abduction of 15 Palestinians on allegations of involvement in anti-occupation activities.
___The IOF wreaked havoc on civilian homes and aggressively beat several arrestees in the presence of their family members.
___Reporting from the northern West Bank, a PIC reporter said the occupation forces kidnapped 26-year-old Islam Samar from Jenin’s western town of Yamon after they ravaged his family home.
___The IOF also seized surveillance cameras from a Palestinian home in Mesliya town, in Jenin.   MORE . . .    
.  .  .  .  .  ❷  ―  (ᴃ)  LIFE-SAVING  TREATMENT  TO  BE  HALTED  AT  GAZA  HOSPITALS  OVER  FUEL  DEARTH 
The Palestinian Information Center
Jan. 14, 2018 ― The Palestinian healthcare system in the besieged Gaza Strip is facing an alarming crisis due to the shortage of fuel supplies for generators that provide power for hospitals, a spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza has warned.
___Health Ministry spokesman, Ashraf al-Qidrah, said the ministry has enacted a “Plan B” which involves the redistribution of resources to more critically needed health assets.
___Al-Qidrah also warned of the possibility of delayed or canceled surgeries and inter-hospital transfers if no urgent action is taken on the part of the concerned authorities.   MORE . . .  

“PALESTINIAN,”  BY  HARUN  HASHIM  RASHID
Palestinian,
Palestinian is my name.
In a clear script,
On all battlefields
I have inscribed my name,
Eclipsing all other titles.
The letters of my name cling to me,
Live with me, nourish me,
Fill my soul with fire
And pulse through my veins.
Palestinian,
Such is my name, I know
It torments and grieves me,
Their eyes hunt me,
Pursue me, wound me.
For my name is Palestinian.
And as they pleased
They have made me wander.

I have lived all my life
Without traits and features
As they pleased,
They gave me names and titles.
Jails with their gates flung wide
Summon me
And in all the airports of the world
Are found my names and titles―
The lying wind carries me,
Disperses me.
Palestinian―
The name pursues me, lives with me.
Palestinian is my fate,
Clinging to me, reviving me.
Palestinian I am
Though they betray me and my cause
Palestinian I am
Though they sell me in the market
For what they please,
For thousands of millions;
Palestinian I am,
Though to the gallows they drive me;
Palestinian I am,
Though to the walls they bind me.
Palestinian I am,
Palestinian I am,
Though to the flames they cast me.
I―what am I?
Without my name, Palestinian,
Without a homeland to live for,
To protect and be protected by?
I―what am I?
Answer me, answer me.

Harun Hashim Rashid  
AN  ANTHOLOGY  OF  MODERN  ARABIC  POETRY. Selected, Edited, and Translated by Mounah A. Khouri and Hamid Algar. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1974. Available from Amazon.

“. . . Do not bury him, while his wounds Proclaim his testament of love and suffering . . .” (Samih al-Qasim)

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DQohyu5W0AAsqhu
‘The honourable gentlemen of “the most moral army in the world” of “the only democracy in the ME” with their guns pointed at a “terrorist” Palestinian toddler!’ (photo and caption via @khanfarw)

❶ Israeli forces kill two 16-year-old Palestinians during clashes in Gaza, West Bank

  • “Israeli Civilians Versus Palestinian Combatants? Reading the Goldstone Report in Light of the Israeli Conception of the Principle of Distinction.” Leiden Journal of International Law.

. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Thousands attend funeral of slain teen in Nablus village
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) Israel ‘Accidentally’ Shoots Palestinian Toddler in the Head (VIDEO)
❷ Israeli forces suppress Jerusalem recognition rally, detain Fatah officials
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Israeli forces detain 5 Palestinian family members during northern West Bank raid
❸ France condemns Israeli plans to build over 1,100 units in 20 West Bank settlements
. . . . . ❸ ― (ᴀ) Irish Foreign Minister visits Gaza Strip
❹ POETRY by Samih Al-Qasim
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAELI  FORCES  KILL  TWO  16-YEAR-OLD  PALESTINIANS  DURING  CLASHES  IN  GAZA,  WEST  BANK
Ma’an News Agency
Jan. 12, 2018 ― Two Palestinian teenagers were shot and killed by Israeli forces, while three others were injured during clashes on Friday in the besieged Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank.      ___In the Gaza Strip, dozens of Palestinian youth took to the border fence with Israel, east of the al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, in continued protest of US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.      ___Israeli forces opened live fire on the protesters, who threw rocks towards the border fence, tens of meters away from Israeli forces.     MORE . . .    ..

KOT, JEAN-PHILIPPE.  “ISRAELI  CIVILIANS  VERSUS  PALESTINIAN  COMBATANTS?  READING  THE  GOLDSTONE  REPORT  IN  LIGHT  OF  THE  ISRAELI  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  DISTINCTION.”
LEIDEN  JOURNAL  OF  INTERNATIONAL  LAW , vol. 24, no. 4, Dec. 2011, pp. 961-988.
[. . . .] During the first phase of the Targeted Killing case [Israeli Supreme Court, Dec. 14, 2006], in response to the question presented by the applicant’s representative as to why Israel does not arrest rather than assassinate targeted people, Justice Cheshin said ‘my son, not yours, goes into that area and I do not want to endanger him’. In other words, the safety of ‘our’ soldiers takes precedence over the safety of ‘their’ civilians. Even if one should not overestimate the legal implications of such a statement, it reveals the close ties between Israeli society and its defence forces. The reasons are easy to understand. In the words of the president of Israel, pardoning GSS agents for beating to death a suspect under interrogation, ‘[i]n the special conditions of the State of Israel we cannot allow ourselves any relaxation of effort, nor permit any damage to be caused to the defence establishment and to those loyal men who guard our people’. It does not seem necessary to explore deeply what those special conditions are. Suffice it to recall that a majority of the Supreme Court justices were of the opinion that: The danger to the Israeli public, to its security and to its life is a clear and present danger “. . . . The SOURCE OF THE DANGER, it should be remembered, is not merely the Palestinian Authority but – and perhaps mainly – the terror organizations and THE PALESTINIAN PUBLIC IN ITS ENTIRETY.”
___The Kasher and Yadlin doctrine must be understood in this context. In an endeavor to substitute a system of rights for a utilitarian pecking order of interests, this doctrine indeed offers a new ethical appraisal of the traditional principle of distinction between civilians and combatants, which turns this ‘us/them’ dichotomy into practical guidance for military action.     SOURCE . . .    ..

.  .  .  .  .  ❶ ―  (ᴀ)  THOUSANDS  ATTEND  FUNERAL  OF  SLAIN  TEEN  IN  NABLUS  VILLAGE
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Jan. 12, 2018 ― Thousands of Palestinians Friday afternoon attended the funeral procession of a slain Palestinian teen in Iraq Burin village, south of Nablus.
___Thousands of mourners attended the funeral procession of Ali Qadous, 16, who was killed by Israeli forces near a makeshift checkpoint at the entrance of the neighboring village, which had been sealed off by Israeli troops with cement blocks.
___Mourners raised Palestine flag and flags of different Palestinian factions and shouted slogans condemning the Israeli occupation and threatening to avenge the killing. Among the mourners was Nablus governor Akram al-Rajoub.
___This came as Israeli forces violently suppressed Palestinian rallies that continued to rock the occupied territories for the sixth consecutive Friday in protest of the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.   MORE . . . 
.  .  .  .  .  ❶ ―  (ᴃ)  ISRAEL  ‘ACCIDENTALLY’  SHOOTS  PALESTINIAN  TODDLER  IN  THE  HEAD  (VIDEO)  
Palestine Chronicle
Jan. 11, 2018 ―     A three-year-old Palestinian was shot in the head during an Israeli “military training” session in the northern occupied West Bank city of Tubas.
___According to a statement by the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Health, the child was hit in the head with live bullets. He was taken to Rafidia Surgical hospital in Nablus.   MORE . . . 
❷ ISRAELI  FORCES  SUPPRESS  JERUSALEM  RECOGNITION  RALLY,  DETAIN  FATAH  OFFICIALS 
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA   
Jan. 12, 2018 ― Israeli forces Friday afternoon violently suppressed a rally protesting the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, detaining a senior Fatah official in Bethlehem city.
___Palestinians rallied from Jerusalem-Hebron Road to the northern entrance of Bethlehem city, chanting slogans condemning US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
___Israeli forces opened fire and cracked down on the protesters, detaining two and causing several others to suffocate due to tear gas inhalation.
___The detainee was identified as member of Fatah Revolutionary Council Hassan Faraj.   MORE . . .  
.  .  .  .  .  ❷ ―  (ᴀ)  ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  5  PALESTINIAN  FAMILY  MEMBERS  DURING  NORTHERN  WEST  BANK  RAID    
Ma’an News Agency
Jan. 12, 2018 ― Israeli forces detained six Palestinians, including five members of the same family, during pre dawn raids on Friday in the northern occupied West Bank.
___In the Alar town in northern Tulkarem, locals told Ma’an that Israeli forces raided the home of Muayyad Taqatqa and detained his son Yazan, 17.
___The family reported that soldiers stole 17,400 shekels ($5,105), 750 Jordanian Dinars ($1,057), and 600 USD from the house.      MORE . . .  
❸ FRANCE  CONDEMNS  ISRAELI  PLANS  TO  BUILD  OVER  1,100  UNITS  IN  20  WEST  BANK  SETTLEMENTS
Palestine News Network – PNN
Jan. 11, 2018 ― The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs Thursday condemned the Israeli authorities’ decision to allow more than 1,100 housing units to be built in 20 different West Bank settlements with some on private Palestinian lands.
___The ministry said in a statement that the country condemns allowing “the construction of more than 1,100 homes in 20 different settlements in the West Bank, and particularly that of seven structures in Nativ Haavot [a West Bank settler outpost] partly on private Palestinian land against the decision of the High Court of Justice, which had ordered its evacuation by March 2018.”
___The ministry added that settlements activities are contrary to international law as stressed in resolution 2334 of the UN Security Council.    MORE . . .  
.  .  .  .  . ❸ ―  (ᴀ)  IRISH  FOREIGN  MINISTER  VISITS  GAZA  STRIP
The Palestinian Information Center
Jan. 11, 2018   The Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Simon Coveney, arrived on Thursday to Gaza Strip and visited a number of projected funded by his country.
___The Irish Minister entered Gaza Strip via the Israeli-controlled Beit Hanoun crossing for a few hours visit.
___During the visit, Coveney met with officials of a number of international organizations working in the besieged Strip.     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.

 

“. . . Don’t ask me to abandon my eyes, my love, the memory of my childhood . . .” (Fouzi El-Azmar)

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❶ Secret Firm Set Up With Top Israeli Ex-generals to Fight “Delegitimization Campaign”

  • Background:  “The [United States] Israel Lobby.” Journal of Psychohistory.

. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) EU, Norway to hold meeting for Palestine donors soon
❷ Israeli army sues Palestinian family for damages caused to vehicle that killed its son
. . . . . ❷― (ᴀ) Wounded prisoner and mother appeals for release to receive proper medical treatment
❸ Israeli settlers raze Palestinian lands in Nablus
. . . . . ❸ ― (ᴀ) Thousands at risk as Gaza hospitals undergo fuel dearth
❹ POETRY by Fouzi El-Azmar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ SECRET  FIRM  SET  UP  WITH  TOP  ISRAELI  EX-GENERALS  TO  FIGHT  “DELEGITIMIZATION  CAMPAIGN”       
International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC
Jan. 11, 2018 ― Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry has set up a public-benefit corporation to engage in what it calls “mass awareness activities” as part of “the struggle against the delegitimization campaign” against Israel internationally.
___Haaretz has obtained a list of the shareholders and directors of the company, Kella Shlomo, who include former Israeli ambassadors to the United Nations.
___According to a ministry document, Kella Shlomo people would work via social networks because “the enemy directs most of its awareness and motivating efforts to this area.”   MORE . . .  

Hewitt, William F.
“THE  [UNITED  STATES]  ISRAEL  LOBBY.”
JOURNAL  OF  PSYCHOHISTORY, vol. 36, no. 1, Summer2008, pp. 59-71.
[. . . .] So, isn’t the Israel Lobby doing what other powerful lobbies do? Seeking to find traction and influence Congress and the executive, and the courts for that matter, to pursue their agenda or at least not pursue policies antithetical to their agenda? Sure. But . . . a growing number of activist left-wing American Jews, contend is that the Israel Lobby has bribed and cheated, bullied and browbeaten elected officials and the media into unqualified support for policies that are not only counterproductive to the best interests of the United States, but to those of Israel and, by extension, Jews everywhere.
___It is not important here to go into all the indictments regarding the Israel Lobby’s behavior and the submissive attitude of the American political establishment. Let me just cite, as an indication, the testimony of one Congressional staffer cited by Massing in his magisterial New York Review article from last June, in regard to contributions funneled by AIPAC, “We can count on well over half the House—250 to 300 members—to do reflexively whatever AIPAC wants.”
[. . . .] Let’s now return to Sara Roy’s poignant question: “How Can Children of the Holocaust Do Such Things [as the 2006 murderous invasion of Lebanon]?”
[. . . .]  In James Traub’s profile of ADL leader Abe Foxman from January of 2007, we get an up close and personal glimpse of this hypervigilance. Traub writes: “Foxman escaped the worst of the Holocaust, but it has deeply shaped his sense of the world and is presumably responsible for his feeling that nothing short of supreme and unflinching vigilance will ward off the next cataclysm.”
[. . . .] But the Jewish experience during World War II is not enough.
[. . . .] “Most of all, the Zionist movement was characterized by its focus on a rapid transition from inferiority to overcompensation.” (Jay Y. Gonen, The Psychohistory of Zionism, New York: Mason/Charter, 1975, p. 3).        SOURCE . . .   

.  .  .  .  .  ❶  ―  (ᴀ)  EU,  NORWAY  TO  HOLD  MEETING  FOR  PALESTINE  DONORS  SOON 
The Palestinian Information Center  
Jan. 11, 2018 ― The European Union (EU) and Norway have decided to convene an extraordinary session of the international donor group for Palestine at the end of the current month.
___This came in a press release issued by the office of EU’s high representative Federica Mogherini.
___Mogherini agreed with Norway’s foreign minister Ine Eriksen Søreide to hold the meeting at the ministerial level in Brussels on January 31, 2018, according to her office.   MORE . . .  
❷ ISRAELI  ARMY  SUES  PALESTINIAN  FAMILY  FOR  DAMAGES  CAUSED  TO  VEHICLE  THAT  KILLED  ITS  SON 
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
By Ihab Rimawi
Jan. 11, 2018 ― In an unprecedented and bizarre move, the Israeli army is suing a Palestinian family for damages caused to a military vehicle that ran into a wall while chasing its son at high speed and then flipped over him and killed him.
___Abdullah Ghneimat, 22, from the village of Kufr Malik, east of Ramallah, was chased by an army jeep in the early morning hour on June 14, 2015 when he was returning home from work. He was surprised to see soldiers in his village and therefore ran away, prompting the soldiers to go after him.
___Ghneimat took cover behind a wall, but the jeep ran into the wall and then turned over and fell on him, killing him.   MORE . . .   
.  .  .  .  .  ❷―  (ᴀ)  WOUNDED  PRISONER  AND  MOTHER  APPEALS  FOR  RELEASE  TO  RECEIVE  PROPER  MEDICAL  TREATMENT     
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Jan. 11, 2018 ― Isra Jaabis, 32, a mother of a baby child and a resident of Jabal al-Mukkaber neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, appealed to the Israeli High Court against her 11-year sentence levied against her in November 2016 after she was charged of attempting to blow up an Israeli army checkpoint outside Jerusalem in October 2015.
___The High Court deliberated her appeal on Thursday and said it will send its decision to Jaabis’ attorney at the end of deliberations.
___Jaabis, who is married to a Palestinian from Jericho, had a gas cylinder in her car when it blew up, apparently accidently, when she was only meters away from the checkpoint to the east of Jerusalem. Her family said at the time that she was moving her stuff from Jericho to a new place in Jerusalem when the cylinder blew up by accident. The army, however, decided otherwise. . .       MORE . . .  
❸  ISRAELI  SETTLERS  RAZE  PALESTINIAN  LANDS  IN  NABLUS  
Palestine News Network – PNN    
Jan. 11, 2018 ― A group of Israeli settlers on Thursday morning razed Palestinian land in the villages of Tal and Far’ata, southwest of Nablus, northern West Bank.
___Activist Abdul-Rahman Al-Taweel told PNN that these acts began immediately following the killing of an Israeli settlers in Nablus two days ago.
___The settlers set up tents and bulldozed lands near the villages of Asira, Tel and Farata, in preparation for the establishment of a settlement units in the area.     MORE . . .  
.  .  .  .  .  ❸  ―  (ᴀ)  THOUSANDS  AT  RISK  AS  GAZA  HOSPITALS  UNDERGO  FUEL  DEARTH   
The Palestinian Information Center 
Jan. 11, 2018 ― Increasing shortages of fuel are creating an impending crisis for Gaza’s hospitals, threatening the closure of essential health services which would leave thousands of patients without access to life-saving health care.
___Health Ministry spokesman, Ashraf al-Qidrah, said the health system’s fuel reserves are insufficient and if a solution is not found, Gaza’s hospitals will be forced to partially or completely close essential services.
___Al-Qidrah also warned of the possibility of delayed or canceled surgeries and inter-prison transfers if no urgent action is taken on the part of the concerned authorities.    MORE . . .   

“TO  A  JEWISH  FRIEND,”  BY  FOUZI  EL-ASMAR
Don’t ask me
the impossible
Don’t’ ask me
to hunt stars,
walk to the sun.
Don’t ask me
to empty the sea
to erase the day’s light
I am nothing but a man.

Don’t ask me
to abandon my eyes, my love,
the memory of my childhood.

I was raised
under an olive tree,
I ate the figs
of my orchard
drank wine from
the sloping vineyards
Tasted Cactus fruit
in the valleys
more, more.

The nightingale has sung
in my ears
The free winds of fields and cities
always tickled me
My friend
You cannot ask me
to leave my own country.  (March 1971)

El Azmar, Fouzi. POEMS  FROM  AN  ISRAELI  PRISON. Intro. By Israel Shahak. New York: KNOW Books, 1973.    Available from Amazon.
About Fouzi El Asmar.

“. . . they bring panic and terror they are utterly not-to-be-trusted . . .” (Yousef Al-Mahmoud)

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❶ Foreign Minister says Israeli settlement plans have a US green light
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) President Abbas receives important call from Saudi King Salman

  • Background: “Clarity or Ambiguity? The Withdrawal Clause of UN Security Council Resolution 242.” International Affairs.

❷ Palestinian refugees live in fear of Trump aid cuts
❸ Israeli forces shoot 2 Palestinians, detain minors during predawn raids
. . . . . ❸ ― (ᴀ) Israeli settler killed in shooting attack near Nablus
❹ POETRY by Yousef Al-Mahmoud
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ FOREIGN  MINISTER  SAYS  ISRAELI  SETTLEMENT  PLANS  HAVE  A  US  GREEN  LIGHT
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Jan. 10, 2018 ― Foreign Minister Riyad Malki said on Wednesday that Israeli announcement of plans to build 1285 new settlement units in the occupied West Bank was one outcome of US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which gave Israel the green light to do whatever it wants with the Palestinian land.
___Malki told Voice of Palestine radio that the Israeli decision was also a result of the international community’s failure to hold Israel accountable for its acts, particularly with regard to settlement construction.      MORE . . .   
.  .  .  .  .  ❶  ―  (ᴀ)  PRESIDENT  ABBAS  RECEIVES  IMPORTANT  CALL  FROM  SAUDI  KING  SALMAN    
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Jan. 10, 2018 ― Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas received on Tuesday an important telephone call from King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia.
___King Salman reaffirmed Saudi Arabia’s firm and continuing support for Palestinian right to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
___He affirmed as well the importance of continuing with direct daily coordination to assure support for the Palestinian cause, the Arab’s number one issue, reiterating his country’s firm position from the Palestinian issue, particularly Jerusalem.    MORE . . .   

(Note: while the “facts on the ground” have changed considerably since this article was written, it provides important information about of the intent of UN Resolution 242.)  

McDOWALL, DAVID.
“CLARITY  OR  AMBIGUITY?  THE  WITHDRAWAL  CLAUSE  OF  UN  SECURITY  COUNCIL  RESOLUTION  242.”
INTERNATIONAL  AFFAIRS, vol. 90, no. 6, Nov. 2014, pp. 1367-1381.
[. . . .] How does one explain the failure to hold the line, either on the ‘inadmissibility’ preamble or on the withdrawal clause? Both the US and UK were politically more sympathetic to Israel than to the Arab states. In America this attitude encompassed virtually the whole electorate, as well as government and commerce. In Britain, the electorate was also overwhelmingly pro-Israel, but the government’s position, while still firmly pro-Israel, was tempered by the importance of trade with the Arab world. These attitudes possibly affected the two countries’ position regarding Resolution 242, giving Israel the leeway on the withdrawal clause to which the Council majority were opposed. Fatefully, however, neither America nor Britain felt able to defy its ardently pro-Israel electorate and take a firm stance against Israel’s practical disregard for Resolution 242. Neither had the political will to do this; and Israel, from the outset, knew it.
[. . . .] So let us do so now, almost 50 years later, with a comparison of the requirements of Resolution 242 with those relevant parts of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Quite simply, it is illegal for any body purporting to represent civilian persons under occupation—including, in this case, the PLO, the Palestinian Authority or the government of Syria—to agree any terms with the occupant that in any regard ‘renounce in part or in entirety the rights secured to them by the present Convention’ (article 8). In elaborating on this theme, article 47 states:

Protected persons who are in occupied territory shall not be deprived, in any case or
in any manner whatsoever, of the benefits of the present Convention by any change introduced, as the result of the occupation of a territory, into the institutions or
government of the said territory, nor by any agreement concluded between the authorities of the occupied territories and the Occupying Power, nor by any annexation by the latter of the whole or part of the occupied territory.

In the light of everything that has transpired since 1967 one must gulp at the clarity and foresight of this prohibition, articulated specifically to protect and prevent the vulnerable from giving up their rights in the face of overwhelming military and political pressure.     SOURCE . . .  

❷ PALESTINIAN  REFUGEES  LIVE  IN  FEAR  OF  TRUMP  AID  CUTS 
Al Jazeera English 
by Ibrahim Husseini
Jan. 10, 2018 ― Palestinians living in refugee camps have expressed deep alarm over US threats to potentially cut funding for a relief agency tasked with providing aid and services to them.
___For nearly 70 years, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) has been the lifeline to the more than five million registered Palestinian refugees in the occupied territories and neighbouring countries.
___It offers support in food supply, access to education, healthcare, social services and employment.
___”Today, more than two-thirds of refugees are children who go to UNRWA schools. If the schools shut down, there will be a big problem,” Salah Ajarmeh, a 44-year-old living in Aida refugee camp outside of Bethlehem, told Al Jazeera.    MORE . . .   
❸ ISRAELI  FORCES  SHOOT  2  PALESTINIANS,  DETAIN  MINORS  DURING  PREDAWN  RAIDS
Ma’an News Agency 
Jan. 10, 2018 ― Two Palestinian youths were injured with live ammunition as Israeli forces conducted predawn detention raids in several districts across the occupied West Bank before dawn on Wednesday, detaining 12 Palestinians.
___Locals in the city of Jericho told Ma’an that two youths, whose identities remained unknown, were shot by Israeli forces with live ammunition during a raid on the Aqbat Jaber refugee camp. Two other Palestinians were detained during the raid.
___According to a statement from the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS), a 16-year-old Palestinian and his 26-year-old brother were detained from Jericho.
___Meanwhile, PPS said in a statement that Israeli forces detained 10 other Palestinians during West Bank raids.     MORE . . .   
.  .  .  .  .  ❸  ―  (ᴀ)  ISRAELI  SETTLER  KILLED  IN  SHOOTING  ATTACK  NEAR  NABLUS 
Ma’an News Agency 
Jan. 10, 2018 ― An Israeli settler, 35, was killed late Tuesday after he succumbed to wounds sustained in a shooting attack near the Surra village, south of Nablus City in the northern occupied West Bank.
___Israeli media identified the settler as Raziel Shevah. Reports said that Shevah came under fire while driving in his car near.
___The assailants, whose identities remained unknown, reportedly fired 22 shots at his vehicle.
___Shevah was transferred to the Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba in central Israel, where he was declared dead.
___Following the attack, Israeli forces closed the Yitzhar-Nablus road, a main road in the northern West Bank, and heavily deployed in the area.   MORE . . .   

“ENEMY,”  BY  YOUSEF  AL-MAHMOUD
They come from all the ends of the earth to sit among us
they come from the ends of the winds
they bring sickness and a hissing like sakes
they come from the ends of the snows
they come smelling of death
they come with blood-dipping knives
they bring panic and terror
they are utterly not-to-be-trusted
they are utterly murderous
they are proud of their murders, they are drinkers of blood
proud of tooth and nail
even more proud of guns and treachery
they come to burn the love in our hearts
and turn it to torture and bitterness
they bring sorrow, terror, sickness. . .
How have they come to sit among us?
—Translated by DM Black

Yousef Al-Mahmoud is a prominent broadcaster and poet, and former head of the Ministry of Culture in his native Jenin.
From A  BIRD  IS  NOT  A  STONE:  AN  ANTHOLOGY  OF  CONTEMPORARY  PALESTINIAN  POETRY (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014) –available From Amazon.com.

“. . . because love and peace are holy and are coming to town . . .” (Mahmoud Darwish)

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❶ ICC to open full-blown investigation in settlements, 2014 Gaza war

  • Background:  Palestine in The Hague: justice, geopolitics, and the International Criminal Court.” Global Governance.

❷ Abbas instructs Washington delegate to intensify work in US
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Erekat: No negotiations until Jerusalem decision is dropped
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) Minister Abu Shahla meets UNRWA operations chief in Gaza
❸ Israel detains 19 Palestinians, including a 14-year-old boy
. . . . . ❸ ― (ᴀ) Israeli navy detains five Gaza fishermen, seizes their boats
❹ POETRY by Mahmoud Darwish
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ICC  TO  OPEN  FULL-BLOWN  INVESTIGATION  IN  SETTLEMENTS,  2014  GAZA  WAR
Palestine News Network – PNN 
Jan. 9, 2018 ―  The International Criminal Court in The Hague is planning on investigating Israeli leaders over Israeli settlement expansion in Jerusalem and West Bank, as well as the 2014 aggression on Gaza titled ‘Operation Protective Edge.’
___According to a report by Channel 10 Monday evening, the Israeli National Security Council warned Israeli lawmakers in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the international court is planning on opening an investigation later this year into the 2014 war with Hamas, as well settlements in the West Bank.
___Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court, at the behest of the Palestinian Authority, have opened cursory examinations in both matters . . .    MORE . . .    ..

Note: Article gives detailed background information about the ICC’s decision.

Bosco, David.
“PALESTINE  IN  THE  HAGUE:  JUSTICE,  GEOPOLITICS,  AND  THE  INTERNATIONAL  CRIMINAL  COURT.”
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE, vol. 22, no. 1, Jan-Mar2016, pp. 155-171. On 1 April 2015, Palestine joined the international criminal court. The 123rd ICC member state, Palestine immediately became its most controversial. Israel’s Foreign Ministry described its accession as a “political, hypocritical, and cynical maneuver.” The United States expressed regret about the court’s involvement, calling any ICC scrutiny of Israel a “tragic irony.” For their part, Palestinian officials insisted that they seek “justice, not vengeance,” and major human rights groups hailed the move as a step toward potential accountability for all parties.
[. . . .] Palestine did not appear on the court’s docket until early 2009. The catalyst was Israel’s 2008−2009 campaign in the Gaza Strip, dubbed Operation Cast Lead. Designed to reduce Hamas’s ability to launch rockets and artillery at Israel, the action resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians, including many civilians. Palestinian officials and some outside observers argued that Israeli forces had committed war crimes. In January 2009, Palestine’s justice minister flew to The Hague and sought an ICC investigation.
[. . . .] The conflict in Gaza that lasted most of July and August 2014 will be a priority for the prosecutor. By providing retroactive jurisdiction, Palestine has allowed the court to consider all events on Palestinian territory after the outbreak of major fighting . . . . The prosecutor will likely focus on several categories of possible crimes by Palestinians and Israelis.
[. . . .] For all the attention paid to the fighting in Gaza, the most dangerous issue for Israeli officials lies elsewhere. Israel’s policy of supporting settlements in the occupied West Bank could place senior Israeli officials in greater legal jeopardy than its conduct in Gaza. Israel’s settlements in territory occupied during the 1967 war have been widely described as illegal, including by the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice. A commission of inquiry appointed by the UN Human Rights Council described settlements as potential war crimes.
[. . . .] Yet international courts have not directly addressed the issue of criminal responsibility for these policies. The Rome Statute lists as a war crime “the transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” The ICC’s preliminary examination will likely be the first international judicial inquiry into whether the Israeli promotion of settlements in the Occupied Territories meets this definition [. . . .]  SOURCE . . . 

❷ ABBAS  INSTRUCTS  WASHINGTON  DELEGATE  TO  INTENSIFY  WORK  IN  US
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA  
Jan. 9, 2018 ― President Mahmoud Abbas Tuesday gave clear instructions to the Palestinian diplomatic delegation to Washington to intensify work in the United State to influence public opinion and increase awareness of the Palestinian cause, chief Palestinian delegate Hussam Zomlot said on Monday.
___He said in a statement, after meeting heads of Palestinian and Arab organizations in Washington, that Abbas stressed the importance of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) general delegation to the US in intensifying efforts with all representatives of the American people and influence public opinion by collaborating with the Palestinian community, the Arab, Islamic and Christian institutions, solidarity groups and civil society organizations in the US.     MORE . . . 
.  .  .  .  .  ❷  ―  (ᴀ)  EREKAT:  NO  NEGOTIATIONS  UNTIL  JERUSALEM  DECISION  IS  DROPPED
Palestine News Network – PNN
Jan. 9, 2018 ― Secretary-General of the PLO  Executive Committee, Dr. Saeb Erekat, said that the continued American attempts to revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations  are unacceptable to the Palestinian leadership, unless the decision to declare Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is dropped.
___“The Palestinian leadership will not accept any offers for negotiations unless the American decision on Jerusalem is dropped,” Erakat told the official Voice of Palestine radio station on Tuesday.
___Erekat said that US President, Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel dictated removing Jerusalem from any negotiations.     MORE . . . 
.  .  .  .  .  ❷  ―  (ᴃ)  MINISTER  ABU  SHAHLA  MEETS  UNRWA  OPERATIONS  CHIEF  IN  GAZA
The Palestinian Information Center 
Jan. 8, 2018 ― Palestinian labor minister Ma’moun Abu Shahla on Monday met with director of UNRWA operations  Matthias Schmale at the headquarters of the ministry in the Gaza Strip and discussed with him the US decision to freeze funding for the agency.
___Abu Shahla discussed the impacts of the US decision on the UNRWA’s operations and the need for taking serious action by the UN against such US threat.     MORE . . . 
❸ ISRAEL  DETAINS  19  PALESTINIANS,  INCLUDING  A  14-YEAR-OLD  BOY           Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Jan. 9, 2018 ― Israeli forces detained on Tuesday 19 Palestinians, including a 14-year-old boy, during wide-scale raids in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, said the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS).
[. . . .] According to a statistic by Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association, the total number of Palestinian political prisoners is 6154, with 453 of them held in administrative detention without charge, 311 minors and 59 women.   MORE . . .    ..
.  .  .  .  .  ❸  ―  (ᴀ)  ISRAELI  NAVY  DETAINS  FIVE  GAZA  FISHERMEN,  SEIZES  THEIR  BOATS 
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA 
Jan. 9, 2018 ― Israeli navy detained on Tuesday five Gaza fishermen and confiscated two fishing boats in al-Sudaniya area, northwest of the Gaza Strip, WAFA correspondent said.
___He said that the Israeli navy opened fire at the fishermen and their boats as they were sailing four nautical miles in the sea of al-Sudaniya area . . .    MORE . . . 

“IN  JERUSALEM,”  BY  MAHMOUD  DARWISH
In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,
I walk from one epoch to another without a memory
to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing
the history of the holy . . . ascending to heaven
and returning less discouraged and melancholy, because love
and peace are holy and are coming to town.
I was walking down a slope and thinking to myself: How
do the narrators disagree over what light said about a stone?
Is it from a dimly lit stone that wars flare up?
I walk in my sleep. I stare in my sleep. I see
no one behind me. I see no one ahead of me.
All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter. I fly
then I become another. Transfigured. Words
sprout like grass from Isaiah’s messenger
mouth: “If you don’t believe you won’t believe.”
I walk as if I were another. And my wound a white
biblical rose. And my hands like two doves
on the cross hovering and carrying the earth.
I don’t walk, I fly, I become another,
transfigured. No place and no time. So who am I?
I am no I in ascension’s presence. But I
think to myself: Alone, the prophet Mohammad
spoke classical Arabic. “And then what?”
Then what? A woman soldier shouted:
Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you?
I said: You killed me . . . and I forgot, like you, to die.

From Darwish, Mahmoud. The Butterfly’s Burden. Trans. Fady Joudah. Copper Canyon Press, 2008. Available.
About Mahmoud Darwish.

“. . . Do you remember your panic―at the reign of death . . .” (Samih al-Qasim)

Harold KnightLeave a comment

❶ Intelligence thwarts plans of land sale to Israel
❷ Premier briefs Norway’s foreign minister on latest political developments
❸ Impoverished Gaza’s economy on verge of total collapse

  • Background: “From Gaza to Warsaw : Mapping Multidirectional Memory.” Criticism.

❹ Opinion/Analysis: Haass and Kristof can’t cross the Zionist Rubicon
. . . . . ❹ ― (ᴀ) Israel is a Nazi-like state with a potent public relations machine
❺ POETRY by Samih al-Qasim
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ INTELLIGENCE  THWARTS  PLANS  OF  LAND  SALE  TO  ISRAEL
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Jan. 8, 2018 ― The Palestinian General Intelligence in Qalqilya, north of the occupied West Bank, said on Monday that it was able foil a plan to sell land to Israelis and to arrest those involved in the deal.
___It revealed on its website that four people, including a lawyer, were arrested after they were suspected of getting involved in attempts to sell land to Israelis, noting that the lands are located in Jerusalem, Qalqilya, Nablus, Tulkarm and inside Israel.
___One of those involved in the foiled sale who fled to Israel and a land broker from inside Israel worked together to pass the deal estimated to worth over $11 million.   MORE . . .  
❷ PREMIER  BRIEFS  NORWAY’S  FOREIGN  MINISTER  ON  LATEST  POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENTS 
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA    
Jan. 8, 2018 ― Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah met on Monday with the Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Marie Eriksen Søreide in Ramallah and briefed her on the latest political developments in the area.
___Hamdallah informed Eriksen Søreide of the consequences of US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and US threats to cut off UNRWA’s funding, in addition to Israeli violation against Palestinians.     MORE . . .  
❸  IMPOVERISHED  GAZA’S  ECONOMY  ON  VERGE  OF  TOTAL  COLLAPSE
Al-Monitor (Palestine Pulse)      
By Ahmad Abu Amer
Jan. 7, 2018 ― Economists say the Gaza Strip’s economy has entered a  phase of total collapse  as the Israeli blockade continues into its 11th year and the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank has failed to lift sanctions, despite what Gazans hailed as a promise of relief weeks ago.
___Gazans are strapped for cash and markets are suffering from an unprecedented recession. Last month, some economic experts called on Gazan citizens living abroad and businessmen to send money to their families in Gaza in the hope of improving the economy and stopping its collapse. Business-media organizations started an Arabic hashtag that translates into #Transferyourmoney.  Meanwhile, on Dec. 30, for the first time in many years, shops in the southern Gaza Strip closed to protest the poor economic conditions.
___According to a Dec. 31 Haaretz article, the number of trucks carrying merchandise into Gaza from the southern Kerem Shalom crossing declined during December, to around 530 per day from a peak of almost 1,000 in October 2015.    MORE . . . 

Rothberg, Michael. “FROM GAZA TO WARSAW : MAPPING MULTIDIRECTIONAL MEMORY.”
CRITICISM, vol. 53, no. 4, Fall2011, pp. 523-548.
[. . . .] The Warsaw Ghetto has always been a resonant symbol in public discourse and a multivalenced knot of memory. Established and then quickly sealed by the Nazis in the fall of 1940, the Warsaw Ghetto held approximately 400,000 Jews in a 1.3-square-mile area. Three features of the ghetto have shaped its memorial legacy: it was at once a place of almost absolute segregation and constriction, a way station from which hundreds of thousands of Jews were sent to extermination camps (primarily Treblinka), and a staging ground in 1943 for one of the twentieth century’s most heroic, if suicidal, resistance struggles. References to Warsaw draw selectively or inclusively on all of those characteristics of the ghetto and have anchored collective memories of many persuasions. . . .
[. . . .] Several opportunities are lost in discourses that equate the Warsaw Ghetto with Gaza and the Israeli occupation. Besides obfuscating the fate of certain victims of the Holocaust . . .  the reference to Warsaw obscures the conditions of Palestinian life and death in significant ways. Whereas the Holocaust framework taps into a ready channel of public discourse, its evocation discourages thinking through the novel forms of domination being developed in the occupation and blockade—forms that are distinct from industrialized genocide. The situation in Gaza is the result of forms of Israeli control not even feasible during the Nazi genocide, as well as overlapping and clashing modes of sovereignty that encompass intra-Palestinian conflicts, local powers Israel and Egypt, and the global structures of empire underwritten by the United States. Finally, the discourse of equation in Gaza–Warsaw analogies also imports a dangerous model of victimization into Palestinian politics. For, as a genocidal way-station, the Warsaw Ghetto ultimately offered no exit except the suicidal struggle that the resistance fighters waged in 1943. The situation in Gaza is dire but still allows forms of politics beyond suicide. As historian Mark LeVine writes, “If Gaza is today’s Warsaw, then Palestinians have no hope.” [. . . .]  SOURCE . . .   

❹ Opinion/Analysis: HAASS  AND  KRISTOF  CAN’T  CROSS  THE  ZIONIST  RUBICON 
Mondoweiss  
By Scott Roth and Phil Weiss
Jan. 7, 2018 ― David Halbfinger produced a fine piece of reporting for  the New York Times this weekend, an article addressing the death of the two-state solution and Palestinians’ recognition that they have begun a struggle for equal rights in one state. Why– there might even be a Palestinian prime minister one day.
___The article quotes Palestinian leaders who are giving thought to what a one-state future would look like. That outcome is “dominating the discussion,” says Mustafa Barghouti. While Saeb Erekat says Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital “was the death knell for the two-state solution.”
___Halbfinger speaks plainly about what a real democracy would look like between the river and the sea:  Palestinian supporters envision one state with equal rights for Palestinians and Jews. Palestinians would have proportionate political power and, given demographic trends, would before long be a majority, spelling the end of the Zionist project.  MORE . . . 
.  .  .  .  .  ❹  ―  (ᴀ)  ISRAEL  IS  A  NAZI-LIKE  STATE  WITH  A  POTENT  PUBLIC  RELATIONS  MACHINE 
The Palestinian Information Center 
Khalid Amayreh
Jan. 7, 2018 ― I know it is still a taboo to call Israel a Nazi or Nazi-like state. However, an honest writer should always be guided by his or her moral conscience and never succumb to the tyranny of public opinion or prevailing media discourse. . . .
___I believe that we Palestinians who live under the yoke of Zionism here in Occupied Palestine know Israel better than anyone else. That is why we tend to reject with utter contempt lectures by condescending outsiders, irrespective of their intentions, on how we ought to relate to our tormentors and the choice of words we use in describing the killers of our children.
___I am not calling Israel a Nazi-or Nazi-like entity because I am convinced that Israel used the very same tools in effecting the Nakba that the Third Reich used in effecting the Holocaust against European Jewry. . .  No, Israel . . .  has not perpetrated a holocaust in the classical sense against my people.
___But Israel has been adopting Nazi-like policies against my people. . .  In Germany there was the Master race; here in Israel-Palestine we have “God’s chosen people versus the water carriers and wood-hewers!”  MORE . . .   

“BUCHENWALD,”  BY  SAMIH  AL-QASIM
Have you forgotten your shame at Buchenwald?
Do you remember your flames at Buchenwald?
Have you forgotten your love in the lexicon
of silence? Do you remember your panic―
at the reign of death, in the nightmare of time―
that the whole world
would become a Buchenwald?
Whether you’ve forgotten or not,
the dead’s images linger
among the wreaths of flowers,
and from the dismembered corpses
a hand emerges,
a nail in the palm and tattoo on the wrist―
a sign for the planet.
Do you remember? Or not?
Buchenwald― whether or not you’ve forgotten,
the images of the murdered
remain among the wreaths of flowers . . .

From Al-Qasim, Samih. SADDER  THAN  WATER.  New  and  Selected  Poems.  Trans. Nazih Kasis and Adina Hoffman. Jerusalem: Ibis Editions, 2008.   Available from Amazon
Samih Al-Qasim Obituary, August 20, 2014.