SELECTED   NEWS   OF   THE   DAY. . .
| ON  DAY  OF  SOLIDARITY  WITH  PALESTINE,  GOVERNMENT  CALLS  ON  WORLD  TO  END  ISRAELI  OCCUPATION   
Marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on Thursday, the Palestinian government called on the international community to work hard toward implementing international resolutions and law that demand an end to the Israeli occupation and enable the Palestinian people to regain all their legitimate rights.    ___Government spokesman Yousef al-Mahmoud said in a statement on Thursday that the international community must go past remembrance of the Palestinian tragedy and move toward enabling the Palestinian people to establish their fully sovereign independent state on all the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.    More . . .
. . . . Related  Haneyya [Hamas Political Bureau] calls on UN to protect Palestinians’ right to resistance
.  .  .  .  . Related  Russia Foreign Ministry invites Haneyya to Moscow
. . . . Related  Bill on boycott of Israeli settlement products passes first reading in Irish Senate
. . . . Related  Erekat applauds Chilean parliament for standing by Palestinian rights
|  NETANYAHU  AIMS  TO  COMPLETE  TOTAL  ANNEXATION  OF  JERUSALEM  FROM  PALESTINE
In light of the recent grave developments in Jerusalem and the Israeli occupation’s accelerated and egregious violations committed against the Palestinian people’s national and human rights in the occupied city, Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee Member, Hanan Ashrawi, said on Wednesday that “the reality and future of Jerusalem is a litmus test for the world.”    ___Ashrawi appealed to governments around the world and all members of the international community to hold Israel accountable for its illegal actions in occupied Jerusalem.    [. . . .] Israel has accelerated and intensified its efforts to entrench its colonial military occupation . . .   measures include Israel’s theft of Palestinian lands, the expansion of its illegal settlement enterprise, the arrest of Palestinian representatives and officials and the deliberate targeting of Palestinian ministries and institutions, the revocation the IDs and residency status of Palestinians, the demolition of commercial and residential Palestinian-owned properties and other structures, and the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes, among other flagrant violations of international law and relevant conventions.”    More . . .
. . . . Related  Israeli police summons Palestinian Authority minister of Jerusalem Affairs
. . . . Related  Israeli demolition leaves Palestinian family homeless [East Jerusalem]
. . . . Related  Over 170 settlers break into Al-Aqsa Mosque
. . . . Related  Israeli forces attack Palestinian students near Jerusalem university
| KUFFIYEHS  AND  TALLITS:  HOPE  IN  THE  OLD  CITY’S  SOUQ    
By Nissim Lebovits
The Old City’s Souq (open-air market) is an often-overwhelming collision of competing visuals. Its optical milieu is rooted in Jerusalem’s status as the meeting point of a wide range of cultures, as well as the market’s thousand-plus year history. One of the most jarring manifestations of this reality is the merchandise sold there; in shops across the souq, kuffiyehs hang next to tallits. The t-shirt vendors sell “Free Palestine” designs, and also “Guns’n ’Moses”. Food carts offer rugelach next to ka’ak, and postcards of the Dome of the Rock are for sale next to pictures of the Western Wall. Merchandise choices in the souk often seem so hyper political and contradictory as to cancel each other out.     More . . .

COMMENTARY    AND    OPINION. . . .
|  ISRAEL’S  DE  FACTO  ANNEXATION  OF  EAST  JERUSALEM  VIOLATES  THE  PALESTINIAN  PEOPLE’S  RIGHT  TO  SELF-DETERMINATION   In observation of the 2018 International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the Executive Director of the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue Ambassador Idriss Jazairy appealed to the international community to express solidarity to the endeavours of the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination.    ___Ambassador Jazairy stated that Israel’s de facto annexation of East Jerusalem impedes the prospects of a two-state solution and hinders the realization of regional peace and security. The decision of several countries to move their embassies to Jerusalem, thus recognising the latter as the capital of Israel, contradicts the provisions set forth in the Arab Peace Initiative that calls for the normalization of relations between Arab states and Israel once the latter cedes, inter alia,its military occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem.    More . . .

POEM  FOR  THE  DAY. . . . 

“MY  SAD  CITY,”  BY  FADWA  TUQAN
. . . . (The day of Zionist Occupation, June 27, 1967)
The day we saw death and betrayal,
The tide ebbed.
The windows of the sky closed,
And the city held its breath.
The day the waves were vanquished, the day
The ugliness of the abyss revealed its true face,
Hope turned to ashes,
And gagging on disaster,
My sad city choked.

Gone were the children and the songs,
There was no shadow, no echo.
Sorrow crawled naked in my city,
With bloodied footsteps,
Silence reigned in the city,
Silence like crouching mountains,
Mysterious like the night, tragic silence,
Burdened,
Weighed down with death and defeat.
Alas! My sad and silent city.
Can it be true that in the season of harvest,
Grain and fruit have turned to ashes?
Alas! That this should be the fruit of all the journeying!
―Translated by A.M. Elmesseri

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 B&N.