SELECTED   NEWS   OF   THE   DAY. . .

PROTESTS  CONTINUE:  16-YEAR-OLD  GAZAN  SUCCUMBS  TO  WOUNDS
A 16-year-old Palestinian succumbed to his wounds on Saturday night that he had sustained during “The Great March of Return” protests in Khan Younis in the southern besieged Gaza Strip over a month ago.    [. . . .]  Suhaib was shot and injured by Israeli forces during protests on August 3rd east of Khan Younis.   ___Meanwhile, mass protests continued on Saturday in various places in the Gaza Strip.   More . . .

UN  MLADENOV:  ‘ISRAEL’S  ACTIONS  ARE  CONTRARY  TO  INTERNATIONAL  LAW’
The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nikolay Mladenov, expressed his concern on Sunday at the intention of Israeli authorities to demolish the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar, east of Jerusalem.     ___Mladenov said in a statement “I am concerned at the intention of the Israeli authorities to demolish the Bedouin village of Khan Al-Ahmar . . .  [. . . .] Mladenov concluded “Such actions are contrary to international law . . .”    More . . .
Related . . .    PRESIDENT  ABBAS  SAYS  LEADERSHIP  TO  SEEK  UN  ACTION
Related . . .   AL-QUDS  UNIVERSITY’S  ACADEMY  FOR  GLOBAL  JUSTICE  GRADUATES  FIRST  COHORT  OF  TRAINEES  IN  ICC  LITIGATION

COMMENTARY    AND    OPINION. . . .

[United  States]  BENJAMIN  NETANYAHU’S  ISRAEL  WAS  BROUGHT  TO  YOU  BY  JEFFREY  GOLDBERG
Yakov Hirsch
[Report of Senator Booker’s breaking the taboo] . . . because of the taboo associated with the Palestinians’ side of their conflict with Israel—the taboo associated with BDS.   ___This taboo is reflective of Israeli and Diaspora discourse right now. It dismisses attempts to portray Palestinians—or people critical of the Israeli government—as making decisions about what to support based on rational criteria. Instead, people are reduced to ideas, to symbols of ancient Jew hatred. “BDS is a modern version of an irrational hatred of the Jewish people,” says Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL.    More . . .

[United Kingdom] HOW  ISRAEL’S  BOGUS  DEFINITION  OF  ANTI-SEMITISM  SHUTS  DOWN  FREE  SPEECH
The fierce campaign to cajole, bully and shame the UK Labour Party into adopting a controversial definition of anti-Semitism produced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) . . .  has been waged all summer long by pro-Israel lobby groups inside and outside the party. . .   [. . . .] One of the most insidious tactics employed by Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) and the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) – the two organized vocal Zionist campaign groups inside the Labour Party – has been to claim it is an innocuous and uncontroversial document.  [. . . .] This lie has been repeated time and again.   More . . .

NOTICES  FROM  ORGANIZATIONS. . . .

UNRWA USA is an independent nonprofit that supports the humanitarian and human development work of the  UNITED  NATIONS  RELIEF  AND  WORKS  AGENCY  for Palestine Refugees through fundraising, education, and advocacy.  UNRWA USA aims to promote a life of dignity and human development for Palestine refugees. Due to the United States government’s recent decision to cut all funding to UNRWA, the Agency faces an unprecedented funding crisis.  HELP FUND UNRWA’S WORK.

POEM  FOR  THE  DAY. . . .

“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?

–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.
(“Jabra Ibrahim Jabra’s Baghdad Home Destroyed; The End of an Era?”)