Category: Rashid Hussein

“. . . hear my child’s approaching footsteps at the threshold of your soul? . . . ” (Rashid Hussein)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Young Palestinian protesters demonstrate against Israeli forces at Qalandia checkpoint, October 6, 2015. (Photo: Allison Deger)
Young Palestinian protesters demonstrate against Israeli forces at Qalandia checkpoint, October 6, 2015. (Photo: Allison Deger)

❶ Clashes break out across West Bank after Netanyahu declares ‘an all-out war’
❷ 270 Jerusalemites arrested in 21 days
❸ Israeli violence, Palestinian resistance and Abbas’s pleas for foreign interference
❹ At a settler sit-in in Jerusalem, they speak in American accents about ‘our land’
❺ Opinion/Analysis: The Question of the Third Intifada
❻ Poetry by Rashid Hussein
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ MONDOWEISS
CLASHES  BREAK  OUT  ACROSS  WEST  BANK  AFTER  NETANYAHU  DECLARES  ‘AN  ALL-OUT  WAR’
Allison Deger
Oct. 6, 2015
Scores of Palestinians were injured in clashes across the West Bank and more than 200 were arrested in Jerusalem, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday he is “running an all-out war against Palestinian terrorism.”
____Palestinians protested today in a “day of rage,” after a string of Palestinian attacks on Israeli citizens in the past week and Israeli incursions into the West Bank and Jerusalem—including the demolition of two homes overnight Monday and the killings of three Palestinian youths in the preceding 24 hours.
[. . . . .]
____The march followed a funeral for Abdel-Rahman Abeidallah, 13, who was shot in the heart during a demonstration yesterday. Abeidallah was the third Palestinian killed by Israeli forces on Sunday and Monday.
____Before daybreak Israeli forces demolished the East Jerusalem homes of Ghassan Abu Jamal, 32, and Muhammed el-Ja’abis, 23, two Palestinians from the Jabal Mukaber neighborhood who were implicated in the killings of Israelis in 2014.
More . . .
❷ ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER (AIC)
270  JERUSALEMITES  ARRESTED  IN  21  DAYS
Oct. 7, 2015
The settler-affiliated media site Arutz 7 reported that just last night Israeli police arrested seven Palestinians throughout East Jerusalem, of whom four are children.
____Israeli authorities are employing heavy-handed tactics in an attempt to quell clashes with Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank, clashes trigged last month by Israeli attempts to change the status quo in Jerusalem’s al Aqsa mosque.
More . . .
❸ MIDDLE EAST MONITOR (MEM)
ISRAELI VIOLENCE, PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE AND ABBAS’S PLEAS FOR FOREIGN INTERFERENCE
Ramona Wadi
Oct. 6, 2015
Israeli settlers and soldiers have increased their use of violence in recent days following the murder of 19 year old student Hadil Hashlamoun last month. The latest extrajudicial killing by Israel, of Palestinian teenager Fadi Alloun, has once again demonstrated that, despite general outrage and notorious publicity, the world’s attention is constantly diverted in a manner that provides the Israeli aggressors with impunity.
____The rampant Israeli violence of these past few days, which has also included brutal beatings of Palestinian citizens and raids on houses in the West Bank, has shown clearly that Israel does not need a reason to commit atrocities; it is simply demonstrating and enforcing its perverse presence in occupied Palestinian territory.
More . . .
❹ MONDOWEISS
AT A SETTLER SIT-IN IN JERUSALEM, THEY SPEAK IN AMERICAN ACCENTS ABOUT ‘OUR LAND’
Sai Englert
Oct., 2015
This afternoon I went to the old city of Jerusalem.
____It is like a Ghost Town. Very few Palestinians in the streets, many shops are closed, and so are most entries to Al Aqsa. The passages that remain open are heavily policed, only those above 55 and tourists are allowed in. The streets are full of mobile check points. Each street corner is occupied by a crowd of ‘Police Officers’ (basically soldiers with a different uniform). Israeli Settlers (to use that tautology for lack of a better word) are all over the place, across all neighbourhoods, walking in small groups, armed, confident, jubilant. In the street where the two armed settlers were killed, in the Muslim Quarter, a large crowd of their accomplices were holding a sit in: guitars, songs, candles and flags, as well as signs in English and Hebrew calling for ‘revenge’, for ‘retaliation’, for ‘justice’. They laugh and chat, for the most part in perfect north American English accents – or terrible Hebrew -, about ‘their neighbourhood’, ‘their land’, ‘their houses’.
More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
THE PALESTINE CHRONICLE
THE QUESTION OF THE THIRD INTIFADA
Oraib Al-Rantawi
Oct. 6 2015
The issue of the moment is the question of an impending third intifada. Are the events taking place in Jerusalem and the West Bank heading towards another Palestinian uprising? What are the opportunities and the possibilities? What are the obstacles and the challenges? Who is working to prevent this from happening and who is working towards encouraging such an eventuality?
____The truth is that the Palestinian situation, especially in the occupied West Bank, has become more complicated and this reality has prevented us from finding any straightforward or easy answers; in any case and under any conditions it would be a mistake to underestimate the possibility of events unfolding where there will be a third intifada. There are many factors contributing to the outbreak of an uprising in the occupied territories and these are currently restrained by a low ceiling. The Palestinians have many reasons to break through this ceiling and head for the streets in protest.
____Israel has closed every window of hope for the Palestinian people; there are currently no portals leading to a brighter future.
More . . .

“TO  A  CLOUD,”  BY  RASHID  HUSSEIN
I am the land,
I am the land . . . do not deny me rain,
I am all that remains of it,
If you plant my brow with trees
And turn my poetry into vineyards,
And wheat
And roses
That you may know me.
So let the rai pour down.

I, cloud of my life, am the hills of Galilee,
I am the bosom of Haifa
And the forehead of Jaffa.
So do not whisper: it is impossible.
Can you not hear my child’s approaching footsteps
At the threshold of your soul?
Can you not see the veins of my brow
Striving to kiss your lips?
Waiting for you, my poetry turned to earth,
Has become fields,
Has turned into wheat
And trees.
I am all that remains of our earth,
I am all that remains of what you love,
So pour . . . pour with bounty,
Pour down the rain.

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.
About Rashid Hussein

Palestinians in Qalandia march toward an Israeli checkpoint in a day of protests across the West Bank, October 6, 2015. (Photo: Allison Deger)
Palestinians in Qalandia march toward an Israeli checkpoint in a day of protests across the West Bank, October 6, 2015. (Photo: Allison Deger)

“. . . for I had no address. I am a man in transit. . .” (Rashid Hussein)

Harold KnightLeave a comment

(Please read “Purpose”above. Thank you.)

Palestinian women during the funeral of Riham Dawabsha, on Sept. 7, 2015, at a cemetery in the West Bank village of Duma. AFP Thomas Coex
Palestinian women during the funeral of Riham Dawabsha, on Sept. 7, 2015, at a cemetery in the West Bank village of Duma. AFP Thomas Coex

❶ Israeli soldiers ordered to “map entire Palestinian civilian population”
❷ Israel’s MoD knows who is behind deadly West Bank arson attack
❸ Israeli settlers set fire to olive trees after West Bank shooting
❹ (Opinion/Analysis) Palestine: The End or a New Beginning?
❺ (Opinion/Analysis) The idiot’s guide to whitewashing the occupation
❻ Poem by Rashid Hussein

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

❶ THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
ISRAELI  SOLDIERS  ORDERED  TO  “MAP  ENTIRE  PALESTINIAN  CIVILIAN  POPULATION”
Maureen Clare Murphy
Sept. 10, 2015
Israel’s “mapping procedure” reveals the profound control that it exerts on Palestinians living under its military rule.
____The mapping procedure unfolds much like Israel’s routine nighttime arrest raids in the occupied West Bank.
____Armed soldiers surround a Palestinian family’s home in the dead of the night. A squad bangs on the front door, waking everyone up. Once inside, the soldiers gather the residents into a single room.
____The family’s ID cards are inspected and recorded, as is how everyone is related, and their phone numbers.
____One of the family members may be taken by the soldiers as they go from room to room, and ordered to open closet doors, or lift up mattresses.
____But unlike during an arrest raid, once the soldiers have gone through the home, they leave and move on to the next one, telling the family that they can go back to sleep.
More. . .
Related. . .

Israeli soldiers search through Palestinian computer files during a home invasion in Hebron, West Bank. Credit: Creative Commons/joshhough.
Israeli soldiers search through Palestinian computer files during a home invasion in Hebron, West Bank. Credit: Creative Commons/joshhough.

❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL’S  MoD  KNOWS  WHO  IS  BEHIND  DEADLY  WEST  BANK  ARSON  ATTACK
Sept. 10, 2015
BETHLEHEM, (Ma’an) — Israeli authorities know who is responsible for the arson attack in the northern West Bank village of Duma, which resulted in the death of three out of four family members caught in the blaze, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Thursday.
____Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon told a closed meeting of 20 Likud activists on Wednesday that Israel’s defense establishment has chosen to “prevent legal recourse in order to protect the identity of their sources,” Haaretz reported. [. . . .]
____According to UN figures, Israeli settlers have carried out at least 142 attacks on Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank since the start of this year.
More. . .

❸ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI SETTLERS SET FIRE TO OLIVE TREES AFTER WEST BANK SHOOTING
Sept. 9, 2015
NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli settlers on Wednesday set fire to olive trees in the village of Burin south of Nablus, after an Israeli settler was lightly injured in a shooting earlier Wednesday morning, Palestinian sources told Ma’an.
____Sources said that Israelis from the illegal settlement of Yizhar had set dozens of olive trees west of Burin on fire, in full sight of Israeli soldiers who reportedly did nothing to stop them.
____A large number of olive trees were burnt before the Palestinian Civil Defense was able to reach the scene and put out the fire.
____Earlier Wednesday, a female Israeli settler was lightly injured when she was shot at while driving near Yizhar settlement.
More. . .

❹ Opinion/Analysis
THE PALESTINE CHRONICLE
PALESTINE:  THE  END  OR  A  NEW  BEGINNING?
Alan Hart
Sept. 7 2015
There is a strong case for saying that Palestine is a lost cause. And it, the case, can be summarised as follows.
____The nuclear-armed Zionist (not Jewish) state of Israel is the regional superpower and not remotely interested in peace on terms the Palestinians could accept. The vast majority of its Jews have been brainwashed by Zionist propaganda. . . .
[There follow three more arguments]
____The idea for this article was triggered by an analysis written for Al-Shabaka, The Palestinian Policy Network, by Palestinian professor Tariq Dana. The title of his policy briefing paper was Corruption in Palestine: A Self-Enforcing System. Dana is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Hebron University.
More. . .

❺ Opinion/Analysis
+972 MAGAZINE
THE  IDIOT’S  GUIDE  TO  WHITEWASHING  THE  OCCUPATION
Natasha Roth
Sept. 9, 2015
“Occupation, shmoccupation!” declares a new booklet published by the Yesha Council, the lobbying and political arm of West Bank settlements.
____Titled “Kibush kishkush” (which translates more literally as “occupation nonsense”), the pamphlet states its professed aim of addressing “misconceptions about settlements and the settler public in Judea and Samaria.”
____The book is intended to tackle the “stigmas left-wing organizations are trying to disseminate,” Yesha Council spokesperson Yigal Dakmoni told Ynet.
More. . .

“AN  ADDRESS,”  BY  RASHID  HUSSEIN
―1―
Hairs as short as my life is
And a mouth as sensuous as my dreams
And fire is her voice
And so is the music
Yet she wants me to rest
On an easy chair
And keep my thoughts clean.

Oh my dear hunter!
What you ask is much more
Than all that I can give. . .
For the angels are dead
And I am not one of them.
―2―
A wine was her perfume
Generous was her bed
But her hopes were stronger,
And the strongest of all:
She wanted my address.
She asked: “Where lives the ‘Prince’?”
Then, I stood silenced
For I had no address.
I am a man in transit,
Twenty years in transit
A man who was even deprived
The right of having an address.

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.
Rashid Hussein (1936-1977) was born in Musmus, Palestine. He published his first collection in 1957 and established himself as a major Palestinian poet and orator. He was the first celebrity poet to appear on the Arab-Israeli stage; other poets called him “the star“. He showed them it was possible to write about “human things“ – bread, hunger, anger.
More. . . 

“Wouldn’t you prefer if they called you ‘mityashvim’?’ (A less pejorative word for settlers.) “I would prefer if they didn’t label us at all.” Idiot's Guide.
“Wouldn’t you prefer if they called you ‘mityashvim’?’ (A less pejorative word for settlers.)
“I would prefer if they didn’t label us at all.”
Idiot’s Guide.

“. . . the moon is trudging there downcast and weary as the UNRWA. . .” (Rashid Hussein)

Harold KnightLeave a comment

(Please take a moment to read the page “Purpose” above. Thank you.)

Morning lineup at UNRWA school in Gaza. (UN Photo-Shareef Sarhan. November 27, 2013.)
Morning lineup at UNRWA school in Gaza. (UN Photo-Shareef Sarhan. November 27, 2013.)

❶ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
UNRWA  STAFF  IN  GAZA  ANNOUNCE  STRIKE  ON  1ST  DAY OF  SCHOOL  YEAR
Aug. 24, 2015
GAZA CITY ―Around 225,000 Gazan schoolchildren were forced to return home on Monday after local staff at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza went on strike on the first day of the new school year.
____The strike comes amid a financial crisis in the agency that earlier threatened to delay the start of the school year.
[. . . .]
____The union met with UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl on Sunday and said the “atmosphere wasn’t positive.”
[. . . .]
____For Palestinian refugees, the start of the school year came as a relief after UNRWA warned for weeks that it would have to delay the school year if it was unable to cover a $101 million deficit.
____The UN agency was only able to announce on Wednesday that the year would go ahead as scheduled, after it secured just short of $80 million in contributions against its deficit.
More. . .
Related. . . UNRWA  COMMISSIONER  GENERAL  FREEZES  CONTROVERSIAL  ‘UNPAID  LEAVE’
Related. . . ‘WE  CAN’T  HAVE  ANOTHER  YEAR  LIKE  THIS’:  UNRWA  COMMISSIONER-GENERAL

❷ From: AL-MONITOR (PALESTINE PULSE)
AFTER  ISRAELI  SETTLERS  LEFT,  THESE  GAZANS  PLANTED  MORE  THAN  EGGPLANTS
Hana Salah
August 23, 2015
KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip — A vast agricultural area in southern Gaza was dubbed by the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture in 2007 as Muhararat, or liberated lands. This term designates the settlements that were vacated by Israel in August 2005 and turned into Palestinian properties after 38 years. Ever since, the Palestinian government has been using these lands for cultivation, housing projects and resorts.
____When former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan in 2003, the withdrawal in 2005 was warmly welcomed in the Gaza Strip. Nineteen settlements and settlement outposts distributed in the south and north were evacuated, and checkpoints were abolished. . .
____In 2006, the Palestinian government announced the formation of the General Administration of National Muhararat, tasked with managing, protecting, investing and supervising the Muhararat while reaping profits from them.
More. . .
Hana Salah is a Palestinian financial journalist based in Gaza. She previously worked with Palestinian newspapers and Turkey’s Anadolu News Agency.

The supervisor of citrus and potato cultivation in Muhararat areas inspects a crop, Gaza Strip, Aug. 12, 2015. (photo by Hana Salah)
The supervisor of citrus and potato cultivation in Muhararat areas inspects a crop, Gaza Strip, Aug. 12, 2015. (Photo by Hana Salah)

❸ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL  BEGINS  CONSTRUCTION  ON  RUINS  OF  NEGEV  BEDOUIN  VILLAGE
August 23, 2015
BEERSHEBA ― Israeli excavators on Sunday morning began work on infrastructure for two Jewish-only settlements in the former Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in the Negev desert in southern Israel, locals said.
____Locals told Ma’an that excavators and bulldozers were building a new road under heavy protection of Israeli forces.
____In November 2013, the Israeli government approved a decision to demolish the unrecognized Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran and passed plans to create two Jewish settlements, Hiran and Kassif, in the area.
More. . .

❹ From THE PALESTINIAN INFORMATION CENTER
HAMAS:  NO  JUSTIFICATION  FOR  THE  UNRWA’S  REDUCTION  OF  ITS  SERVICES
August 24, 2015
GAZA ―Hamas Department of Refugee Affairs Sunday called on the international community and UNRWA to continue offering aid to and protecting right of Palestinian refugees till their return to their homeland from which they were forcibly displaced in 1948.
____There is no justification for the reduction of UNRWA’s services provided to Palestinian refugees in its five fields of operations especially after its Commissioner-General declared UNRWA’s 2015 financial crisis is over, the statement said. . .
____The department also stressed its total rejection of reducing UNRWA’s health care services provided to Palestinian refugees.
[. . . .]
____The Department of Refugee Affairs also stressed the importance of using Palestinian Authority textbooks in UNRWA schools, as it helps save huge amounts of money and prevents any distortion to the Palestinian history and struggle.
More. . .

❺ Opinion/Analysis
From INSIGHT ON CONFLICT
BORN  &  BRED  WITHOUT  RIGHTS:  GAZA  STRIP  REFUGEES  IN  JORDAN
Dario Sabaghi
July 10 2015
2 million Palestinian refugees live in Jordan but they are not all afforded the same legal status. Dario Sabaghi explains how those originating from the Gaze Strip are not considered citizens leaving them in a very precarious position.
[. . . .]
____Jerash Camp, also known locally as Gaza camp, was established in 1968 for 11,500 Palestine refugees who fled from the Gaza strip, as consequence of 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It is located not far from the Roman stone ruins of Jerash. Currently, it hosts about 28,000 registered refugees, who live in an area of 0.75 square kilometres. If you want to understand its overcrowding, you have to take in consideration that Gaza Camp is almost twice as large as Vatican City populated by 845 inhabitants.
More. . .

“TENT  #50  (SONG  OF  A  REFUGEE),”  BY  RASHID  HUSSEIN
Tent #50, on the left, is my new world,
Shared with me by my memories:
Memories as verdant as the eyes of spring.
Memories like the eyes of a woman weeping,
And memories the color of milk and love!

Two doors has my tent, two doors like two wounds
One leads to the other tents, wrinkle-browed
Like clouds no longer able to weep;
And the second ― a rent in the ceiling, leading
To the skies,
Revealing the stars
Like refugees scattered,
And like them, naked.

Also the moon is trudging there
Downcast and weary as the UNRWA,
Yellow as if it were the UNRWA
Under a load of yellow cheese for the refugees.

Tent #50, on the left, that is my present.
But it is too cramped to contain a future!
And ― “Forget!” they say, but how can I?

Teach the night to forget to bring
Dreams showing me my village
And teach the wind to forget to carry to me
The aroma of apricots in my fields!
And teach the sky, too, to forget to rain.

Only then, I may forget my country.

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.
Rashid Hussein (1936-1977) was born in Musmus, Palestine. He published his first collection in 1957 and established himself as a major Palestinian poet and orator. He participated in founding the Land Movement in 1959. He left in 1966 and lived in Syria and Lebanon and later in New York City where he died in February, 1977. He was buried a week later in Musmus. His funeral was attended by thousands of Palestinians.
More. . .

Jerash Camp, also known locally as Gaza camp, was established in 1968 for 11,500 Palestine refugees who fled from the Gaza strip. Photo Dario Sabaghi.
Jerash Camp, also known locally as Gaza camp, was established in 1968 for 11,500 Palestine refugees who fled from the Gaza strip. Photo Dario Sabaghi.

“. . . If I and others don’t go to prison, How will the prison guard Feed his children . . .” (Rashid Hussein)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Caption: Palestinian protesters shout slogans during a demonstration on August 16, 2015 in front of the hospital in Ashkelon where Muhammad Allan is being held. (AFP/Ahmad Gharabli)
Palestinian protesters shout slogans during a demonstration on August 16, 2015 in front of the hospital in Ashkelon where Muhammad Allan is being held. (AFP/Ahmad Gharabli)

❶ From: MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI  COURT  TO  REVIEW  REQUEST  TO  FREE  PALESTINIAN  HUNGER  STRIKER
Aug. 17, 2015
BETHLEHEM ― The Israeli Supreme Court will consider a request by the Palestinian Authority Committee for Prisoner’s Affairs to release hunger striking Palestinian prisoner Muhammad Allan, head of the committee Issa Qaraqe said Monday.
____The Palestinian official made the comments to the official Wafa news agency, without providing further details.
____Muhammad Allan, 31, slipped into a coma on Friday after ingesting only water since June 18 in protest at his detention without charge by Israeli authorities.
____If and when he regains consciousness — and if he continues to refuse to eat — Israel’s government must decide whether it will invoke a law passed in July allowing the force-feeding of prisoners when their lives are endangered.
More . . .

❷ From: PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
PRISONERS’  MINISTER:  SITUATION  IN  ISRAELI  JAILS  HEADING  TOWARD  ‘OUTBURST’
August 17, 2015
Ramallah ― Chairman of the Commission of Prisoners’’ Affairs (CPA), Minister Issa Qaraqe, said on Monday that the situation in Israeli prisons is heading towards an “outburst”.
____He said tension has run high in Israeli prisons after the Israeli prison authorities declined to meet a series of agreements concluded with the Palestinian prisoners, under which the authorities pledged to improve their prison conditions. . . .
[. . . .]
____Qaraqe stressed that efforts are being exerted to ensure [Muhammad] Allan’s release and provide him with the much needed treatment, after 65 days of hunger strike against his administrative detention, without charge or trial.
More. . .

❸ From: +972 MAGAZINE
ADMINISTRATIVE  DETENTION  BEING  USED  TO  PUSH  CONTROVERSIAL  ‘TERROR  LAW’
Sawsan Khalife’
August 16, 2015
A week after the Shin Bet recommended that Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon sign off on administrative detention for two Jewish Israelis following the attack in the Palestinian village of Duma, he also recommended the Knesset pass an “anti-terrorism bill.”
____The bill . . . authorizes the defense minister to use administrative detention without the standard prerequisite of declaring a “state of emergency” (which has been in place, essentially, since Israel’s founding). The law refers specifically to the administrative detention of Israeli civilians, since Palestinians in the occupied territories already live under a military regime.
The law will allow the court 48 hours to review the confidential evidence at hand, while the suspect will be denied the right to know the charges against him or her.
More. . .

❹ From: PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
ISRAELI  ARMY  RAZES  LAND  NEAR  BETHLEHEM  TO  EXPAND  APARTHEID  WALL
August 17, 2015
BETHLEHEM― Israeli army Monday razed an agricultural land belonging to local Palestinians near the town of Beit Jala to the north of Bethlehem in preparation to expand the apartheid wall, according to local sources.
____Witnesses told WAFA that an Israeli army force accompanied by two heavy machinery broke into the area, planted with olive trees, and proceeded to raze the land, which has an area of around 30 dunums, for the expansion of the separation wall following an Israeli court order to the change the route of the wall.
____According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, Eighty-five percent of the Israeli Separation Barrier is within the West Bank itself, not along the Green Line. In areas where the Separation Barrier has already been built, the extensive violations of human rights of Palestinians living nearby are evident.
More. . .
Related
Related

Overlooking Beit Jala valley and Cremisan Monastery
Overlooking Beit Jala valley and Cremisan Monastery

❺ Opinion
From: PALESTINE NEWS NETWORK
BDS  ECHOES  PRISONERS  APPEAL  TO  BOYCOTT  ISRAELI  PRISON-INDUSTRIAL  COMPLEX
August 17, 2015
The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) calls on people of conscience around the world to initiate and/or escalate boycott and divestment campaigns against the companies that are most complicit in these Israeli crimes, in response to an unprecedented appeal from Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. The appeal came in the context of an escalation in Israel’s repression against Palestinian political prisoners. Israel’s systematic use of torture, a crime against humanity under international law, as a policy against Palestinian prisoners, including child prisoners, has recently seen a sharp rise.
____Israel, which remains one of few countries in the world that legalizes torture under circumstances deemed as “necessary,” has passed at the end of July a law allowing the force-feeding of Palestinian prisoners who have resorted to hunger strikes as a last ditch attempt to achieve their basic rights and dignity.
More. . .
Related (G4S website)

“JAIL  AND  CHILDREN,”  BY  RASHID  HUSSEIN
Don’t be sad, Darling!
To put me in prison, as they did, is a very easy thing!
But what can they do about the sun
Shining outside and torturing new rebels?

I should like to be romantic and say to you:
If my being in jail
Did nothing more than bring you to visit me
And cry in my arms ―
Then my arrest was not in vain.

But I’m not feeling romantic right now!
(How can one be romantic with the bedbugs
having such a feast?)
I’m just scratching away, and writing to you,
And asking myself this banal question:
If I and others don’t go to prison,
How will the prison guard
Feed his children?

Darling! I would so like for us
To have a baby!
We spoke of it once,
But I don’t know if
We’ll ever be given the chance.
That is why, for the time being, I give myself
To thoughts about the babies of others
Including my enemies’ babies!
And because they cannot understand this simple feeling
They put me here in prison.

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.
Rashid Hussein (1936-1977) was born in Musmus, Palestine. He published his first collection in 1957 and established himself as a major Palestinian poet and orator. He participated in founding the Land Movement in 1959. He left in 1966 and lived in Syria and Lebanon and later in New York City where he died in February, 1977. He was buried a week later in Musmus. His funeral was attended by thousands of Palestinians. More. . .

Protest at G4S accuses company of violating human rights. Thursday June 7 2012.
Protest at G4S accuses company of violating human rights. Thursday June 7 2012.

“. . . tired of minds that have become hotels . . .” (Rashid Hussein)

Harold KnightLeave a comment

Caption: Father Ramiz Baker, with Muntaser [left] and Sayid [right] (Photo, The Middle East Monitor)
Father Ramiz Baker, with Muntaser [left] and Sayid [right] (Photo, The Middle East Monitor)
❶ From THE MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
ISRAEL APPROVES 800 NEW SETTLEMENT UNITS IN BETHLEHEM
July 15, 2015
Israeli Public Prosecution has revealed an Israeli settlement plan consisting of 800 new settlement units in Bethlehem, south of the occupied West Bank, Palestinian newspaper Al-Resalah reported yesterday.
____The plan was approved by the Israeli Housing and Construction Minister Ori Ariel, during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s previous government at the end of last year.
(More. . .)

❷ From INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER (IMEMC)
ISRAELI EXTREMISTS UPROOT VEGETABLE CROPS IN BETHLEHEM
July 19, 2015
Several fanatic Israeli settlers invaded, on Saturday evening, Palestinian farmlands in the town of al-Khader, south of the West Bank city of Bethlehem, and uprooted hundreds of tomato and cauliflower plants and seedlings, in addition to destroying an entire field planted with Okra.
____Ahmad Salah, coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements in al-Khader, said the Israeli extremists came from the illegal Israeli settlement of Efrat, built on stolen Palestinian lands.
(More. . .)
(Background)
(Background)

Caption: Israeli settlers uprooted hundreds of olive trees from the lands of al-Khader village, south of Bethlehem, March 20, 2013 (Photo flotillahyves.com).
Israeli settlers uprooted hundreds of olive trees from the lands of al-Khader village, south of Bethlehem, March 20, 2013 (Photo flotillahyves.com).

❸ From THE PALESTINIAN INFORMATION CENTER
ISRAELI VANDALS ATTACK PALESTINIANS IN AL-KHALIL
July 19, 2015
AL-KHALIL, (PIC)– A horde of Israeli extremist settlers, residing in the illegal Ma’un settlement, attacked on Saturday Palestinian passers-by and shepherds in al-Khalil’s town of Yatta, in the southern West Bank.
____ . . . the Israeli settlers, ESCORTED BY ARMY OFFICERS, attacked shepherds and unarmed citizens.
(More . . .)

❹ From AL-MONITOR: THE PULSE OF THE MIDDLE EAST
WEST BANK COMMUNITY WELCOMES KHADER ADNAN HOME FROM ISRAELI PRISON
Aziza Nofal
July 17, 2015
JENIN, West Bank — Cries of joy were heard at the home of administrative detainee Sheikh Khader Adnan after he was released and carried on the shoulders of supporters into his town of Arraba, near Jenin . . . .
____After his release July 12, Adnan stepped out to the rostrum in front of his house and addressed hundreds of people who came from the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem to welcome him. He said Israel made a mistake by detaining him and has paid a high price.
(More. . .)

❺ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PALESTINIAN YOUTHS STUCK AT CAIRO AIRPORT
July 18, 2015
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Several Palestinian youths from the Gaza Strip heading to Saudi Arabia and European countries have been stuck at the Cairo International Airport for a month.
_____Three young men and two young women were reportedly taken by Egyptian authorities from the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt to the airport where they were prevented from travelling due to expired residency permits for their destination countries.
(More. . .)

❻ OPINION
From THE MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
ONE YEAR ON FROM THE ISRAELI OFFENSIVE, GAZA’S CHILDREN ARE UNABLE TO FORGET
Motasem A Dalloul
July 16, 2015
During the 51-day Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip . . . a group of Palestinian children fled to the beach to escape from the harsh and extensive bombing of houses, hospitals, healthcare centres and playgrounds; they went there to play football.
____They thought that the beach, an open area, was a safe place because it has never been used by the Palestinian resistance. Although the seven of them arrived on the beach safely, minutes later, four had been killed and three were wounded after being targeted by shells apparently fired from an Israeli warship.
(More. . .)

“WITHOUT A PASSPORT,” BY RASHID HUSSEIN (1936-1977)

I was born without a passport
I grew up
and saw my country
become prisons
without a passport

So I raised a country
a sun
and wheat
in every house
I tended to the trees therein
I learned how to write poetry
to make the people of my village happy
without a passport

I learned that he whose land is stolen
does not like the rain
If he were ever to return to it, he will
without a passport

But I am tired of minds
that have become hotels
for wishes that never give birth
except with a passport

Without a passport
I came to you
and revolted against you
so slaughter me
perhaps I will then feel that I am dying
without a passport

From Rashid Hussein, Al-A`mal al-Shi`riyya (al-Taybe: Markaz Ihya’ al-Turath al-`Arabi, 1990), Translated by Sinan Antoon.
Rashid Hussein (1936-1977) was born in Musmus, Palestine. He published his first collection in 1957 and established himself as a major Palestinian poet and orator. He was the first celebrity poet to appear on the Arab-Israeli stage; other poets called him “the star“. He showed them it was possible to write about “human things“ – bread, hunger, anger.
(More. . .)
(Another poem by Rashid Hussein)

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“. . . Jaffa, who broke the days on these sands, is motionless. . .” (Rashid Hussein)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
The Bedouin village of Umm el-Hieran
The Bedouin village of Umm el-Hieran

From MONDOWEISS
ONE LAST APPEAL BEFORE A BEDOUIN VILLAGE IN THE NEGEV IS DEMOLISHED AND A JEWISH TOWN IS BUILT IN ITS PLACE
Allison Deger
June 1, 2015
The Bedouin village of Umm el-Hieran in Israel’s southern Negev desert is running out of time and appeals before it will be razed to the ground and an exclusively Jewish town will be built in its place. After a decade of legal battles—a matrix of court cases over lands, houses, and demolition orders—the Bedouins now have one final petition at their disposal, a re-trial. If they lose this hearing their township will be demolished and the saga will end with a modern Jewish bedroom community owned by a private Israeli developer that does not sell homes to Arabs. . .
____. . . In the lead up to the final ruling expected in the next few months the 25 Jewish-Israeli families who want to move into Umm el-Hieran are already living in mobile houses in a nearby nature reserve. They relocated there in 2009. Set behind a barbed-wire fence and a gate, they are ready to motor their caravans downhill to the Bedouin town as soon as the bulldozers remove the last shanty structure. Their hope is to construct 2,500 units serving more than 10,000 Israelis.
(More. . .)

From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER CALLS FOR LIFTING OF GAZA BLOCKADE DURING VISIT
June 1, 2015
GAZA CITY (Ma’an)
The German foreign minister on Monday called on Israel to lift the blockade of Gaza in return for Palestinian security reassurances during a visit to the beleaguered coastal enclave.
____Frank-Walter Steinmeier, heading a delegation of 60 German officials, arrived in the region on Saturday to hold talks with top Palestinian and Israeli officials.
____During Monday’s visit to Gaza he said the enclave was a “powder keg” at risk of exploding, and called for efforts to quicken reconstruction.
____”I came out of all my discussions yesterday in Jerusalem and in Ramallah with the hope that all parties are mindful that here we are sitting on a powder keg here and that we must ensure that the fuse does not catch light,” Steinmeier said at a press conference in Gaza City’s fishing port. . .
(More. . .)

From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
LAWYER: PALESTINIAN CHILDREN FACING TORTURE IN ISRAELI JAILS
May 31, 2015
Palestinian children are being beaten and tortured in a “heinous” way by Israeli soldiers during interrogation, a Palestinian Authority lawyer has said.
____Hiba Masalha, a lawyer for the PA committee of prisoners’ affairs, said in a statement on Sunday that teenage detainees are being “terrified, threatened and blackmailed” in contravention of international law and conventions advocating children’s rights.
____Masalha said that she had visited Section 3 of Megeddo prison, where 68 Palestinian teens are currently being held. Most of the detainees she met had been arrested from an orphanage in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem. . .
(More. . .)

Dangerous children
Dangerous children

From THIS WEEK IN PALESTINE
Special report
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE PALESTINE CAPITAL MARKET AUTHORITY
Abeer Odeh
June 2015
The Palestine Capital Market Authority (PCMA) is a quasi-governmental agency . . . established in 2004 as the regulator of the Palestinian non-banking financial sector. The PCMA is governed by a board of directors . . . and its mission is to regulate, supervise, and oversee the securities, insurance, financial leasing, and mortgage finance sectors in Palestine . . . the PCMA is responsible for developing and maintaining sound capital markets in Palestine. . . .
____During recent years, Palestine has successfully positioned itself as an emerging nation on the international stage by joining several international organizations where it can demonstrate its capabilities. After the state of Palestine was granted observer status by the United Nations General Assembly . . . February 2014, the PCMA was admitted as the 124th ordinary member of the International Organization of Securities (IOSCO). . . .
(More. . .)

From JONATHAN COOK: THE BLOG FROM NAZARETH
BEN GURION ’48 LETTER BARRED RETURN TO HAIFA
Jonathan Cook
May 27, 2015
Over many decades, Israel’s self-serving deceptions about the Nakba in 1948 have been exposed for the lies Palestinians already knew them to be.
____It was long accepted in the west that, as Israel claimed, Palestinians left their homes because they had been ordered to do so by neighbouring Arab leaders. . .
____. . . For decades Israel’s supporters have been arguing that Haifa, one of Palestine’s most important cities, was not ethnically cleansed of its population. The tens of thousands of Palestinians who fled under Israeli attack in April 1948 were later urged to return, according to Israel’s supporters, but they chose not to . . . But now a letter signed by David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister and the engineer of its ethnic cleansing policy in 1948, shows that, far from Haifa’s doors being thrown open, Ben Gurion ordered that the refugees be barred from returning. . .
(More. . .)

“Jaffa,” by Rashid Hussein
An opiate cloud hangs over Jaffa,
And the lean roads are pregnant with flies and boredom.
In the streets of heaven, the moon’s funeral.
Jaffa is then without a moon;
Jaffa is then blood on a stone.

Jaffa, who suckled me the milk of orange,
Thirsts! She, whose waves watered the rain.
Jaffa, who broke the days on these sands,
Is motionless, her back broken.
Jaffa, who once was a garden, its trees, men,
Is now an opium den dulling our senses.

I was in Jaffa, removing the rats from her forehead,
Raising the rubble, uncovering corpses without knees,
Burying the stars in the sands and fences.
I took the bullets from her bones and sipped anger.

And, when feeling tired, I got myself a dry bush,
Smoked it and rested.

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

Rashid Hussein was born in Nazareth in the Galilee in 1936. After college he was a school teacher, but was dismissed for his political views. He edited Al-Fajr, an Arabic journal that was banned in 1962. He later wrote on Arab affairs for Uri Aveneri’s paper Ha-olam Hazeh.
____He published two volumes of poetry in 1957 and 1959. He was one of the organizers of Al-Ard, the revolutionary Palestinian movement whose goal was equality for all citizens of Israel that started in 1958 and was banned in 1964. He was imprisoned by Israel several times. He finally chose self-exile after the 1967 War. He emigrated to New York where he lived and wrote until his death in 1977.

One of the many homes of Palestinian families taken over by Jewish fighters in 1948 and still occupied by Israeli citizens, the Palestinian owners having no Right of Return.
One of the many homes of Palestinian families in Jaffa taken over by Jewish fighters in 1948 and still occupied by Israeli citizens, the Palestinian owners having no Right of Return. The same situation exists in Haifa.

“. . .hotels for wishes that never give birth. . .” (Rashid Hussein)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Has the Pilgrimage been hijacked?
Has the Pilgrimage been hijacked?

from THE PALESTINE CHRONICLE
ISRAEL’S ARAB POLITICAL PARTIES UNITED FOR FIRST TIME
March 11, 2015
A coalition of once fractious Arab parties is suddenly emerging as Israel’s newest power bloc, forcing the Jewish state to pay attention to its large Arab minority as never before.

If polls taken ahead of next week’s general election are accurate, Arab Israelis could end up heading the third-largest political faction in Israel’s next parliament, giving a voice to the often-sidelined Arab population.

It’s a remarkable of twist of fate for Israel’s 1.7 million Arabs, who make up roughly 20 percent of the country’s population and have never had much political clout. (More. . .)

from THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
THE FRAT BOYS WHO SLANDER PALESTINE SOLIDARITY
Rania Khalek and Nora Barrows-Friedman
March 10, 2015
Last month the student court at the University of California at Davis overturned a recently approved resolution to divest from companies that profit from Israeli violations of Palestinians’ rights.

Determining that the resolution was “unconstitutional,” the student court’s ruling was based on a complaint made by Jonathan Mitchell, a former student body senator and former board member of the campus chapter of a right-wing Jewish fraternity.

The fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi), has close ties to Israel lobby groups intent on crushing the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. (More. . .)

from MONDOWEISS
ISRAEL’S FOREIGN MINISTER CALLS FOR BEHEADING ARAB CITIZENS AND IT’S NOT ANYWHERE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES
Scott Roth and Phil Weiss
March 10, 2015

Two days ago Israel’s foreign minister called for beheading Arab citizens of Israel who are “against us.” Haaretz did the story yesterday. So did Newsweek.

Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has said that Arab citizens who are not loyal to the state of Israel should have their heads “chopped off with an axe”.

The minister, leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party and an outspoken critic of Israel’s Arab population, made the controversial remarks on Sunday in a speech to an election rally held in the western Israeli city of Herzliya ahead of the March 17 vote.

“Those who are with us deserve everything, but those who are against us deserve to have their heads chopped off with an axe,” the ultra-nationalist politician said. (More. . .)

from THIS WEEK IN PALESTINE
HAS THE PILGRIMAGE BEEN HIJACKED?
Richard LeSueur
March 2015
The travel industry has discovered a new word, “pilgrimage.” What was commonly marketed in previous years as a “Tour to the Holy Land” is today promoted as a “Pilgrimage to the Holy Land.” Has anything changed? Not really. The itineraries read the same: the frenetic pace, glossy hotels, air conditioned coaches, sumptuous meals, ample shopping opportunities, and the blur of sites. One might ask then, what do these tours have to do with the ancient practice of pilgrimage? Is this simply a marketing scheme to add sticker value and appeal to religious clients? Has the pilgrimage been hijacked for consumerist ends? Is there a difference between tourism and pilgrimage?

For more than twenty-five years I have been facilitating programs of Christian pilgrimage primarily in the Middle East. Pilgrimage is not tourism. Pilgrimage may involve elements of tourism common to all travel, but it is an ancient, soulful way of approaching a land, its peoples, and its story. Pilgrimage is different from tourism in its intention, design, collective rituals, and the principles that underlie the day-to-day experience. (More. . .)

Print
INTRODUCING THE BDS MOVEMENT
The global movement for a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights was initiated by Palestinian civil society in 2005, and is coordinated by the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), established in 2007. BDS is a strategy that allows people of conscience to play an effective role in the Palestinian struggle for justice.

. . . On July 9 2005, a year after the International Court of Justice’s historic advisory opinion on the illegality of Israel’s Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), a clear majority of Palestinian civil society called upon their counterparts and people of conscience all over the world to launch broad boycotts, implement divestment initiatives, and to demand sanctions against Israel, until Palestinian rights are recognized in full compliance with international law. (More. . .)

“WITHOUT A PASSPORT,” BY RASHID HUSSEIN

I was born without a passport
I grew up
and saw my country
become prisons
without a passport

So I raised a country
a sun
and wheat
in every house
I tended to the trees therein
I learned how to write poetry
to make the people of my village happy
without a passport

I learned that he whose land is stolen
does not like the rain
If he were ever to return to it, he will
without a passport

But I am tired of minds
that have become hotels
for wishes that never give birth
except with a passport

Without a passport
I came to you
and revolted against you
so slaughter me
perhaps I will then feel that I am dying
without a passport

Translated by Sinan Antoon. From Rashid Hussein, Al-A`mal al-Shi`riyya (al-Taybe: Markaz Ihya’ al-Turath al-`Arabi, 1990)
Rashid Hussein (1936-1977) was born in Musmus, Palestine. He published his first collection in 1957 and established himself as a major Palestinian poet and orator. He participated in founding the Land Movement in 1959. He left in 1966 and lived in Syria and Lebanon and later in New York City where he died in February, 1977. He was buried a week later in Musmus. His funeral was attended by thousands of Palestinians.

A view "Pilgrims" never see.
A view “Pilgrims” never see.