Category: Halhul Town

“. . . Do you sanction what’s being done In your names . . .” (Lahab Assef Al-Jundi)

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❶ Jerusalem: Israel planning park to connect two settlements

  • Background: “UN Security Council Resolution 2334: An Important Lease on Life for the Two-State Solution.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture

. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) IOF closes off al-Khalil thoroughfares with checkpoints
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) Qareqea: Israel’s intent to seize our tax money “financial piracy”
❷ Dozens of Palestinians were wounded during clashes with IOF on Friday of anger
❸ Opinion/Analysis: Trump’s Palestine deal is a real estate transaction
❹ POETRY by Lahab Assef Al-Jundi
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❶ JERUSALEM:  ISRAEL  PLANNING  PARK  TO  CONNECT  TWO  SETTLEMENTS
Palestine News Network – PNN
Feb. 8, 2018 ― The Hebrew daily, Haaretz newspaper on Thursday has unveiled an Israeli plan to build a park in the Mount of Olives overlooking Old Jerusalem, which will link two settlement outposts to the Jewish side of  Jerusalem.
___According to Haaretz, the park will be located on the western slopes of the Mount of Olives, and will link the settlement neighborhoods of “Beit Orot” and “Beit Hohchen.”     MORE . . . 

Liel, Alon. “UN  SECURITY  COUNCIL  RESOLUTION  2334:  AN  IMPORTANT  LEASE  ON  LIFE  FOR  THE  TWO-STATE  SOLUTION.”
PALESTINE-ISRAEL  JOURNAL  OF  POLITICS,  ECONOMICS  &  CULTURE, vol. 22, no. 2/3, July 2017, pp. 78-84.   Dr. Alon Liel served from 2000 to 2001 as the director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
[. . . .] At a time when support for a two-state solution was rapidly disappearing, the international community provided emergency aid in the form of Resolution 2334 [Dec. 23, 2016]. The resolution demands that Israel cease illegal settlement activity, focus on the two-state solution . . .   The UNSC resolution makes a clear distinction between the area of the sovereign State of Israel and the area of the territories occupied in 1967. . .   This distinction between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) touches upon the holy of holies of the current Israeli government; senior ministers call the occupied West Bank “the heart of the land,” and the settlers are the political elite in Israel today.
[. . . .] Beyond touching the sensitive settlements nerve, the reason for the Israeli anger is very clear. Most of the Knesset members of the ruling coalition . . .  do not support the two-state solution. . . .
[. . . .] Precisely because of the tremendous anger that it raised, UNSC Resolution 2334 also became an important life-saver for the Israeli opposition that supports the two-state solution. This opposition . . .  is practically not felt in the political/parliamentary discourse in Israel.
[. . . .] Now President Trump is preparing, at least according to his declarations, to “broker a deal” to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, the most important statement he made in connection with the conflict has already caused real damage. In the joint press conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu, he said: “I am looking at two states or one state, and I like the one that both parties like.” With this possibly unplanned off-the-cuff remark, the president shook up the one foundation for agreement that has accompanied the peace process for the last 20 years (1994-2014). [. . . .] This is where we are today. Within Israel and Palestine, the two-state idea is disappearing from the horizon; the world via Resolution 2334 is trying to revive and breathe new life into the peace camp on both sides; and President Trump is trying to undermine the UN itself and destroy the lifesaver. . . .  Resolution 2334, therefore, is much more than just a resolution about the fate of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The resolution has become a symbol of the global struggle between facts and “alternative facts,” between sanity and magic tricks, between international diplomatic continuity and the dangerous breaking of rules.    FULL ARTICLE . . . 

.  .  .  .  .  ❶  ―  (ᴀ)  IOF  CLOSES  OFF  AL-KHALIL  THOROUGHFARES  WITH  CHECKPOINTS
The Palestinian Information Center
Feb. 9, 2018 ― The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Thursday evening set up a series of military checkpoints at the main entrances to Halhul town, north of al-Khalil province, in the southern West Bank.
___Reporting from al-Khalil, a PIC news correspondent said the IOF cracked down on Palestinians at a military checkpoint pitched in al-Hawawer area, north of Halhul. Palestinian civilians have been made to endure exhaustive inspection.     MORE . . . 
.  .  .  .  .  ❶  ―  (ᴃ)  QAREQEA:  ISRAEL’S  INTENT  TO  SEIZE  OUR  TAX  MONEY  “FINANCIAL  PIRACY”
The Palestinian Information Center
Feb. 9, 2018 ― The Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs has strongly denounced Israel’s intent to enact a new law confiscating Palestinian tax revenues to prevent the Palestinian Authority from using them to support families of prisoners, martyrs and wounded citizens.
___In a press release on Thursday, head of the commission Issa Qaraqea accused the Israeli government of practicing financial extortion and pressure on the Palestinian people through its racist legislation. . . .     MORE . . .  
❷ DOZENS  OF  PALESTINIANS  WERE  WOUNDED  DURING  CLASHES  WITH  IOF  ON  FRIDAY  OF  ANGER
Palestine News Network – PNN
Feb. 9, 2018 ― Dozens of Palestinians were wounded today Friday during clashes with IOF on Friday of anger in which began in several areas and Palestinian cities after Friday none prayers.
___The confrontations took place in several Palestinian cities, including Ramallah and its villages, Bethlehem northern entrance, Bab al-Zawiya area in Hebron, Qalqilya and Nablus in addition to Gaza Strip borders.     MORE . . . 
❸ OPINION/ANALYSIS:  TRUMP’S  PALESTINE  DEAL  IS  A  REAL  ESTATE  TRANSACTION
Al Jazeera English
By Bill Law
Feb. 9, 2018 ― As President Donald Trump continues to bluster and tweet his way through a chaotic presidency, the Middle East is simmering dangerously close to a boiling point. Wars in Yemen and Syria are still burning hard . . .   Once again, all but forgotten are the Palestinians.
[. . . .] Trump threatens to cut off US aid because the Palestinians refused to meet his Vice President Mike Pence after the president had provocatively named Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. . . .
[. . . .] The peace proposal that Trump likes best – and that his son-in-law and special Middle East adviser Jared Kushner is reportedly pursuing together with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – looks remarkably like a real estate transaction. Unsurprising, given that the 36-year-old Kushner has no previous experience in diplomacy, but an awful lot of it in wheeling and dealing in the high-stakes world of New York property ventures.      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.

“. . . a permanent phenomenon incapable of being nullified, and we need to consider another vision. . .” (Dr. Meir Margalit)

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❶ Government condemns Likud’s decision to annex West Bank settlements
. . . . . ❶― (ᴀ) Knesset to vote on unified Jerusalem bill
. . . . . ❶― (ᴃ) Abbas to make important decisions in 2018 in response to Israel’s violations

  • Background: “Jerusalem between the Veteran and the Younger Generation.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture.

❷ Palestinian girl indicted for slapping heavily armed Israeli soldier
. . . . . ❷― (ᴀ) IOF arrest retired General at Jerusalem checkpoint
. . . . . ❷― (ᴃ) IOF extend re-arrest of Parliamentarian Khalida Jarrar
❸ IOF breaks into al-Khalil, erects checkpoint north of Halhul
❹ “On Hope,” poetry by Mahmoud Darwish
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❶ GOVERNMENT  CONDEMNS  LIKUD’S  DECISION  TO  ANNEX  WEST  BANK  SETTLEMENTS
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA 
Jan. 1, 2018 ― The government condemned on Monday the approval by Likud party, Israel’s ruling party, of a draft resolution that calls on Likud leaders and Israeli lawmakers to agree on annexing Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
__Government’s spokesman Yousef al-Mahmoud described the resolution as “an outrageous violation of the resolutions of international legitimacy, especially the resolutions of the United Nations and the Security Council, as well as an irony and contempt for the entire UN system.”
___“The Palestinian land that includes the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, foremost of which our eternal capital Jerusalem, is a land occupied by Israel. . .   MORE . . .  
.  .  .  .  . ❶ ―  (ᴀ)  KNESSET  TO  VOTE  ON  UNIFIED  JERUSALEM  BILL
The Palestinian Information Center   
Jan. 1, 2018 ― The Knesset is set on Monday to vote on the “unified Jerusalem” bill which provides for separating Palestinian neighborhoods from Jerusalem and prohibits relinquishing any part of the city under any future agreement.
___The bill, filed by the Jewish Home party, requires the approval of 80 MKs for any decision to hand over parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority in the future.   MORE . . .   
.  .  .  .  . ❶―  (ᴃ)  ABBAS  TO  MAKE  IMPORTANT  DECISIONS  IN  2018  IN  RESPONSE  TO  ISRAEL’S  VIOLATIONS  
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA  
Jan. 1, 2018 ― President Mahmoud Abbas said that he is going to make important decisions in 2018 to hold Israel accountable for its grave and systematic violations of international law.
___Abbas’ statement came in response to the decision of the ruling Israeli party, Likud, to annex the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank to Israel, which the president said was a result of the support Israel enjoys from the United States.
___“We shall make important decisions during 2018, including regarding legal venues, in order to hold Israel accountable for its grave and systematic violations of international law, and to revisit agreements signed with Israel,” Abbas said in a press statement.    MORE . . .    ..

Margalit, Meir.
“JERUSALEM  BETWEEN  THE  VETERAN  AND  THE  YOUNGER  GENERATION.” PALESTINE-ISRAEL JOURNAL OF POLITICS, ECONOMICS & CULTURE, vol. 21, no. 2, Nov. 2015, pp. 43-50
[. . . .] We have always known the solution to the conflict . . . .  and in the realm of intellectual debate, there are no inherent deficiencies in our program. However, the general public has not been impressed by our rational arguments . . . .
[. . . .]  We [Israelis] have also ignored the irrational components of the conflict. We provided a rational answer to a conflict that is, to a large extent, irrational. We downplayed (or ignored) the irrational dimensions, and in doing so, we lost most of the public. Freud wrote in 1915 that the behavior of nations stems far more from impulses and irrational compulsions then it does from rational calculations, and most even employ rational arguments to justify irrational urges. . .  We would like to believe that in life there is rational order, but . . . nothing can be taken for granted, and no rational explanation can truly explicate phenomena around us.
[. . . .]  . . .  since the 1990s . . . Jewish settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories have changed the reality . . . such that the occupation appears to be here indefinitely, a permanent feature of the landscape that is not going anywhere. A change of such magnitude is not merely quantitative but also fundamentally qualitative, which obligates new thinking, a different perspective and an alternative political model. If our occupation is akin to that of Algeria, Ireland or apartheid, then the impetus to disengage is correct. However . . . we are dealing with a permanent phenomenon incapable of being nullified, and we need to consider another vision. It would then not be precisely ending the occupation but reducing its associated damages and changing the power relations from within, for example, ensuring full civic equality for all citizens from the Jordan River to Mediterranean Sea and allowing demographic trends to exact their consequences. . . . we need to understand that “peace” itself is also no longer feasible.    SOURCE . . .  

❷ PALESTINIAN  GIRL  INDICTED  FOR  SLAPPING  HEAVILY  ARMED  ISRAELI  SOLDIER  (In Israel, killing thousands of innocent Palestinians does not matter, but slapping a heavily armed Israeli soldier by a little girl deserves rape and life sentence.)    Days of Palestine 
Jan. 01, 2018 ― Israeli court indicted on Sunday Palestinian girl Nour Tamimi, 21, who was seen slapping heavily armed Israeli soldier along with her cousin Ahed Tamimi two weeks ago.
___The Israeli court charged Tamimi with aggravated assault of an Israeli soldier and obstructing a soldier from carrying out his duty.
___ A short video showed the young Tamimi girls, slapping an Israeli soldier in Nabi Salih after shoting their cousin in the head.   MORE . . .   
.  .  .  .  . ❷― (ᴀ) IOF  ARREST  RETIRED  GENERAL  AT  JERUSALEM CHECKPOINT
Palestine News Network – PNN    
Jan. 1, 2018 ― Israeli occupation forces on Sunday afternoon arrested the retired Major General and activist Yusuf al-Sharqawi at a military checkpoint east of occupied Jerusalem, while on his way from Ramallah to Bethlehem.
___Eyewitnesses said that the Israeli occupation forces arrested Al-Sharqawi during while he was in a taxi heading home from Ramallah to Bethlehem, when the vehicle was stopped by soldiers, and he was asked to show his ID card.
___After that, he was taken to an unknown destination.       MORE . . .  
.  .  .  .  . ❷ ―  (ᴃ)  IOF  EXTEND  RE-ARREST  OF  PARLIAMENTARIAN  KHALIDA  JARRAR 
Palestine News Network – PNN
Jan. 1, 2018 ― The Israeli occupation military issued an order extending the arbitrary administrative detention of Palestinian parliamentarian and national leader Khalida Jarrar for an additional six months on Wednesday, 27 December 2017, four days before her detention was to expire. Jarrar was seized by occupation soldiers who invaded her home in El-Bireh on 2 July 2017. A well-known Palestinian leader, Jarrar is a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, head of its Prisoners’ Committee and Vice-Chair of the Board of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association.     MORE . . .  
❸ IOF  BREAKS  INTO  AL-KHALIL,  ERECTS  CHECKPOINT  NORTH  OF  HALHUL
The Palestinian Information Center
Jan. 1, 2018 ― The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Monday morning stormed al-Shuyukh town in al-Khalil province.
___Eyewitnesses told the PIC reporter that six Israeli military vehicles, accompanied by a car belonging to the so-called Civil Administration, broke into a neighborhood to the southeast of the town, conducted some examinations and took several photos of the area.
___More than 20 years ago, the Israeli occupation authorities issued a decision to confiscate dozens of dunums of land privately-owned by Palestinian families living in al-Shuyukh in preparation for the establishment of a new settlement outpost, but the residents’ protests prevented the implementation of the Israeli plan.     MORE . . .  

“ON  HOPE,”  BY  MAHMOUD  DARWISH
Do not tell me:
I wish to be a baker in Algeria
In order to sing with the revolutionaries
Do not tell me:
I wish to be a shepherd in the Yemen
To sing for the uprising of the age
Do not tell me:
I wish to be a waiter in Havana
To sing for the victory of the poor
Do not tell me:
I wish to be a stone carrier in Aswan
To sing for the rocks
My friends:
The Nile will not pour into the Volga
The Congo and Jordan Rivers
Will not serve the Euphrates
Each river has its own
Our land is not barren
Each land has its own rebirth
Each dawn has a date with revolution.

From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY  OF  THE  SUN:  POETRY  OF  THE  PALESTINIAN  RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970.  Available from Amazon.
About Mahmoud Darwish.  

“. . . The twenty revolutions that will eternalize this cell . . .” (Fouzi El Asmar)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Aug. 19, 2016, Philadelphia: Friday Protest: Free Bilal Kayed! End Administrative Detention! (Photo: Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network)
Aug. 19, 2016, Philadelphia: Friday Protest: Free Bilal Kayed! End Administrative Detention! (Photo: Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network)

❶ Palestinian released, placed on house arrest after serving 14 year sentence in Israeli prisons
❷ Palestinian PM Office: Israel’s ‘horrific treatment’ of Bilal Kayid amounting to ‘torture’
❸ Seven Palestinians arrested in WB, Jerusalem
❹ Opinion/Analysis:  “HUNGER STRIKE: STILL AN EFFECTIVE MODE OF RESISTANCE FOR PALESTINIAN PRISONERS?”
❺ POETRY by Fouzi El Asmar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ PALESTINIAN RELEASED, PLACED ON HOUSE ARREST AFTER SERVING 14 YEAR SENTENCE IN ISRAELI PRISONS 
Ma’an News Agency 
Aug. 24, 2016
An Israeli judge Tuesday ordered the release of a Palestinian from the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabal al-Mukkabir who was redetained four days after being released from a 14-year sentence in Israeli prisons, according to local sources.
___Israeli Magistrate Court’s judge ordered the release of Jerusalemite prisoner Sufian Fakhri Abdo from Israeli prison and imposed 14 days of house detention and a 10,000 shekel ($2,653) fine on him.  MORE . . .

❷ PALESTINIAN PM OFFICE: ISRAEL’S ‘HORRIFIC TREATMENT’ OF BILAL KAYID AMOUNTING TO ‘TORTURE’
Ma’an News Agency
Aug. 23, 2016
The Palestinian Prime Minister’s office called on Tuesday for the immediate release of Bilal Kayid, saying that Israel’s “horrific treatment” of the hunger-striking prisoner amounted to “torture.”
___Kayid has been on hunger strike for 70 days after Israeli authorities sentenced him to administrative detention — internment without trial or charges — on the day he was scheduled to be released from prison after serving a 14-and-a-half year sentence.  ___Kayid has since been hospitalized after his health severely deteriorated. However, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) has kept him shackled to his hospital bed and has had guards surrounding him at all times.     MORE . . .    

❸ SEVEN PALESTINIANS ARRESTED IN WB, JERUSALEM
Alray-Palestinian Media Agency
Aug. 24, 2016
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested on Wednesday morning seven citizens in raids to different parts of the occupied West Bank.
___The public Israeli radio said that the occupation forces accused four of the detainees in involving in “terrorist actions.”
___Local sources said that Israeli forces raided several houses in the town of Halhul in Hebron, and arrested three citizens identified as Abed Jnazrah, Ayman al-Omran, and Ali Sarayaa.       MORE . . .

❹ Opinion/Analysis: “HUNGER STRIKE: STILL AN EFFECTIVE MODE OF RESISTANCE FOR PALESTINIAN PRISONERS?”
Bailey, Pam.  Washington Report On Middle East Affairs 33.3 (2014): 21-22.

Prisoners are perhaps the most powerless individuals in the world. They are at the mercy of their captors–deprived of freedom of movement, stripped of virtually all personal resources, limited in communication with the outside to rationed, supervised moments.  ___But the human spirit is not easily extinguished and, particularly when people are imprisoned for their belief in a cause, the natural leaders among them fight back with what little they have: their brains and their bodies.
[. . . .]   The Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association has joined the World Organization Against Torture to express concern about their health and harsh treatment, as well as call on international activists to protest to Israeli authorities. Meanwhile, the Israeli government is considering a new rule that would allow the force-feeding of hunger-striking prisoners whose lives are in danger. Israel had previously stopped the practice after three prisoners died as a result.
[. . . . ]  Sometimes, however, what seems like individual wins can carry larger symbolism–as in the case of Samer Issawi. Over the course of a partial hunger strike of 266 days, Issawi lost half his body weight and suffered numerous health problems–yet rejected offers to release him if he agreed to be deported someplace other than East Jerusalem. By insisting on going home, he captured the hearts of activists and caught the fickle media’s attention–and won.
___”My victory was a Palestinian victory that proves nothing is impossible in the face of our will,” he says now. “If I had to do it over again, I would, because nothing is more valuable than freedom.”     FULL ARTICLE . . . . 

“TWENTY  COMRADES,”  BY  FOUZI  EL ASMAR  (1970)
Beloved, you ask me
Of life in this prison, this cell
what of the chains
chafing my wrists
what of my food and drink
and the comrades of my cell?

Beloved, let me tell you:
Our clouds are indeed heavy
But our being here
is a smile of spring,
The shock of thunder
in autumn, after draught.
We are not defeated
Like our jailers.

Life in this prison, this cell
is a palm tree impregnated
at the dawn.
My chains are the round
echo of a muezzin,
Their clank is the ringing
of my people’s bells.

Beloved, you as me
of the meaning of my food
Here beloved
we grow like the wild flowers.

And what of
my comrades in this cell? You ask
They are the twenty candles
lighting the darkness of this cell
The twenty songs
shaking the walls of this cell
The twenty revolutions
that will eternalize this cell
And we, beloved
we shall not be stopped.  (June, 1970)

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