Category: Palestine Land Day

“. . . we are trying very hard to lead a normal life. . .” (Samia Nasir Khoury)

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Runners pass the separation wall during the Right to Movement Marathon in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on April 1, 2016 in Bethlehem, West Bank. Thousands of runners, both professional and amateur come from across the globe to participate in the Right to Movement Marathon. April 01, 2016| (Photo: Getty Images; Credit: Darrian Traynor)
Runners pass the separation wall during the Right to Movement Marathon in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on April 1, 2016 in Bethlehem, West Bank. Thousands of runners, both professional and amateur come from across the globe to participate in the Right to Movement Marathon.
April 01, 2016| (Photo: Getty Images; Credit: Darrian Traynor)

❶ Thousands join Palestine marathon to affirm right to movement
❷ Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival 2016 (“Danstory” April 11–26)
❸ Palestinian rights group submits Israeli war crimes report to ICC
❹ Why Land Day Still Matters
. . . . . ❹― (ᴀ) (VIDEOS) Thousands March on 40th Land Day to Protest Decades of Land Grabs
❺ Opinion/Analysis: ECONOMIC  POLICIES  ENTRENCH  ISRAELI  OCCUPATION
❻ From a letter by Samia Nasir Khoury
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ THOUSANDS  JOIN  PALESTINE  MARATHON  TO  AFFIRM  RIGHT  TO  MOVEMENT
MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
April 1, 2016
Thousands of Palestinians and foreigners took to the streets on Friday to take part in the fourth annual marathon hosted by the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, aimed at highlighting the severe movement restrictions Palestinians face under Israel’s military occupation.
___First conceived in 2013 under the theme “RIGHT TO MOVEMENT,” the marathon was applauded by the UN and other humanitarian bodies as a reminder of the “many barriers to freedom of movement faced by Palestinians every day,” although Israel condemned it as a “cynical” use of sport.      MORE . . .  

❷ RAMALLAH  CONTEMPORARY  DANCE  FESTIVAL  2016  (“DANSTORY”  APRIL 11–26)
THIS WEEK IN PALESTINE
April, 2016
Courtesy of Sareyyet Ramallah
In confrontation with the death, destruction, and exile witnessed by the world today and in the midst of the Palestinian current popular uprising against the Israeli occupation, a military occupation that has been stripping Palestinians of the simplest of human rights for the last 68 years, the Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival 2016 presents its 11th edition under the theme “Danstory,” underscoring the passion of Palestinians for joyfulness and their tight grip on hopefulness and life.      MORE . . .

1-Sareyyet-Ramallah-1-558x1024❸ PALESTINIAN  RIGHTS  GROUP  SUBMITS  ISRAELI  WAR  CRIMES  REPORT  TO  ICC
MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
March 31, 2016
In ongoing efforts to hold Israel accountable for gross violations of international law, Palestinian legal rights group Badil has published key findings on alleged war crimes during the 2014 Gaza war that the group submitted to the International Criminal Court earlier this month.
___The report documents in detail the accounts of Palestinian victims of Israel’s large-scale military offensive . . . .
___In the report, NO SAFE PLACE, Badil focused in particular on Israel’s mass forced displacement of some half-a-million Palestinians at the height of hostilities, around 28 percent of Gaza’s population.      MORE . . . 

❹ WHY  LAND  DAY  STILL  MATTERS
HAARETZ NEWSPAPER IN ISRAEL
Sam Bahour and Fida Jiryis Mar 30, 2012
Today, with no resolution in sight to the historic injustices inflicted upon them, Palestinians in Israel and elsewhere use this day to remember and redouble their efforts for emancipation.      MORE . . .
. . . . . ❹― (ᴀ) (VIDEOS)  THOUSANDS  MARCH  ON  40TH  LAND  DAY  TO  PROTEST  DECADES  OF  LAND  GRABS
PALESTINE CHRONICLE
Mar 30 2016
Thousands of Palestinians across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory marched Wednesday to commemorate the 40th Land Day, protesting decades of Israeli land grabs.      MORE . . .

❺ OPINION/ANALYSIS:   ECONOMIC  POLICIES  ENTRENCH  ISRAELI  OCCUPATION
ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER (AIC)
Nassar Ibrahim
March 20, 2016
The Palestinian economy has not been independent in centuries. Like the economies of other Arab countries, the Palestinian economy was subject to foreign control and looting for four centuries under Ottoman rule. Next, British colonial rule lorded over Palestine, until the Nakba uprooted Palestinians from their land in 1948. Following Israel’s occupation of Palestine, Israeli colonial powers took control of the Palestinian economy. . . .  Israeli management of the Palestinian economy has created deep structural disparities in Palestinian society.  MORE . . .  

FROM  A  LETTER  TO  A  SWEDISH  FRIEND,  2001,  BY  SAMIA  NASIR  KHOURY.

Although we are trying very hard to lead a normal life, you can imagine how difficult this when everything around us is so abnormal. It is not easy for you, as a young person and in a country like Sweden, to envisage what occupation means. It does not only mean the deprivation of a nation’s freedom, but also the deprivation of one’s personal freedom. . . . I hope you will always be grateful for what you have and which many young people take for granted, never realizing how precious freedom, democracy, and water are. (July 31, 2001. Letter to a Swedish friend.)
[Note: the last sentence refers to a poignant description of the Israeli restriction on resources for Palestinians.]

Khoury, Samia Nasir. REFLECTIONS  FROM  PALESTINE:  A  JOURNEY  OF  HOPE.  A  MEMOIR.  Nicosia, Cyprus: Rimal Publications, 2014 (117).
About Samia Khoury.
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“. . . Sorrow of a field that carries the remains of the dead and olive trees. . .” (Mahmoud Darwish)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel take part in the March of Return, in the lands of the destroyed village of Hadatha, near Tiberias, April 23, 2015. (photo: Omar Sameer/Activestills.org)

Thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel take part in the March of Return, in the lands of the destroyed village of Hadatha, near Tiberias, April 23, 2015. (photo: Omar Sameer/Activestills.org)

❶ From +972 MAGAZINE
THE DAY THEY STRIP ME OF MY CITIZENSHIP
Samah Salaime
June 28, 2015
When the deputy interior minister demands Palestinian citizens renounce our citizenship, he only exposes the true nature of the Israeli state. After all, without us there is no ‘only democracy in the Middle East.’
____We, the rowdy Arabs who live in the democratic state of the Jewish people, formally apologize for disrupting a Knesset plenum on the Citizenship Law, which denies status in Israel to Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens. So what if the discussion was about our future, our place in society, our fate—we have no right to state our opinions.
(More. . .)

❷ From AL-MONITOR, PALESTINE PULSE
SENSE OF BELONGING DRAWS PALESTINIANS TO WEST BANK
Aziza Nofal (Translator―Sahar Ghoussoub)
June 25, 2015
NABLUS, West Bank — On a Saturday in Nablus, people are lining in front of the al-Aqsa sweet shop. The place is packed . . . because of Palestinians visiting Nablus from Israel. . . .
____In the last four years, some 90,000 Palestinians from Israel have been crossing into the West Bank annually. . . .
____Areej Makroush, from the town of Kafr Kana in the Nazareth district, told Al-Monitor, “. . . In the West Bank, we have a sense of belonging and security. We don’t feel estranged, unlike shopping in Israeli cities. Here, signs and banners are in Arabic, and we are not obliged to speak Hebrew.”
(More . . .)

❸ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI FORCES CLOSE FARMERS MARKET NEAR NABLUS
June 14, 2015
NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli forces on Sunday closed a farmers market in the northern West Bank town of Beita claiming that Palestinian gunmen had fired shots at Israeli vehicles overnight Saturday on the main road near the town.
____A Ma’an reporter in Nablus said that a large number of Israeli soldiers arrived at the farmers market and sealed the main entrance. . . .
(More. . .)

❹ From ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER (AIC)
HOME DEMOLITION ORDERS IN HEBRON HILLS
June 23, 2015
Operation Dove
While the inhabitants of the Palestinian village of Susiya are still living under the threat of eviction, the Israeli authorities continue to enlarge the danger of demolitions in various villages of the South Hebron Hills area.
____ Israeli officials delivered demolition orders. . .
(More. . .)
Operation Dove
land day poster❺ Opinion
From WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS (WRMEA)
LAND DAY COMMEMORATION HONORS PEOPLE WHO WON’T BE SILENCED
Delinda C. Hanley
June-July, 2015
The General Delegation of the PLO to the U.S. and the American Federation of Ramallah Palestine teamed up to host a special dinner to commemorate Prisoners’ Day as well as the 39th Palestinian Land Day on April 17 at the Westin Hotel in Arlington, VA. Following the playing of the Palestinian National Anthem, Ambassador Maen Rashid Areikat told the audience that Land Day honors the six Israeli Palestinians who were killed and hundreds who were injured and arrested as they peacefully protested Israeli plans to steal tens of thousands of acres of land in the Galilee.
____Turning to the dinner’s theme, “Your Silence Is Their Power,” Areikat decried efforts by U.S. colleges, mainstream media and community leaders.
(More. . .)

“TO MY GRANDFATHER,” BY MAHMOUD DARWISH
Face of my grandfather! Cheerless prophet!
What grave sent you forth,
Wearing a vest the colour of a blood-stained rock,
And a cloak the colour of a ditch?
Face of my grandfather! Cheerless prophet!
Sorrow of a field that carries the remains of the dead and olive
. . .trees and old winds,
What grave sent you forth
To turn me into a lifeless statue?
Glory be to Allah. I haven’t sold an inch and never have I
. . .succumbed to oppression.
They danced and sang on your grave, yet sleep
For I am awake, awake I am till death.

From: A Lover From Palestine and Other Poems: An Anthology of Palestinian Poetry. Ed. Abdul Wahab Al-Messiri. Washington, DC: Free Palestine Press, 1970.

MAHMOUD DARWISH
Born: 13 March 1942, al-Birwa, British Mandate of Palestine
Died: 9 August 2008, Houston, Texas, United States
Darwish left Israel in 1970 to study in the USSR. He attended the University of Moscow for one year, before moving to Egypt and Lebanon. When he joined the PLO in 1973, he was banned from reentering Israel. In 1995, he received a permit to settle in Ramallah although he said he felt he was living in exile there, and did not consider the West Bank his “private homeland.”
l-Birwa was a Palestinian Arab village, mentioned by Arab geographers in the 11th century. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, al-Birwa was occupied by the Israel Defense Forces. The inhabitants fled to nearby villages or refugee camps in Lebanon. Kibbutzim were established on the lands of al-Birwa in 1949 and 1950.

MAHMOUD DARWISH (1942-2008)
MAHMOUD DARWISH (1942-2008)