Tag: Ariel Sharon

“. . . After being killed I washed by the river . . .” (Ibrahim Nasrallah)

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❶ Health Ministry: Two Palestinians killed in Israeli shelling on Gaza
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Israeli forces detain 17 Palestinians, assault others in West Bank raids
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) Student injured during Tulkarm university protests over Trump’s announcement
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴄ) Clashes with soldiers reported in some West Bank locations

  • Background: “Trumpian Ethics and the Rule of Law.” Creighton Law Review.

❷ Tens of thousands of Israelis hit the streets, and it has nothing to do with Trump
❸ Opinion/Analysis: Opinion/Analysis: Will the Jerusalem Freedom Intifada break out?
. . . . . ❸ ― (ᴀ) Trump protests evoke memories of the Second Intifada
❹ POETRY by Ibrahim Nasrallah
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ HEALTH  MINISTRY:  TWO  PALESTINIANS  KILLED  IN  ISRAELI  SHELLING  ON  GAZA 
Palestine News Network – PNN
Dec. 12, 2017 ― Two Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on northern Gaza on Tuesday afternoon.
___The Palestinian ministry of Health announced that two youths were killed after an Israeli scouting plane in Beit Lahia town, northern Gaza strip.
___The ministry said that the two bodies of martyrs were moved to the Indonesian Hospital in the strip, while another youth is still suffering injuries.    MORE . . .
.  .  .  .  .  ❶  ―  (ᴀ)  ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  17  PALESTINIANS,  ASSAULT  OTHERS  IN  WEST  BANK  RAIDS 
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 12, 2017 ― Israeli forces Monday night and early Tuesday detained at least 17 Palestinians and assaulted several others mostly in multiple raids across the West Bank, said security and local sources.   MORE . . . 
.  .  .  .  .  ❶  ―  (ᴃ)  STUDENT  INJURED  DURING  TULKARM  UNIVERSITY  PROTESTS  OVER  TRUMP’S  ANNOUNCEMENT 
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 12, 2017 ― At least one Palestinian was injured on Tuesday during renewing clashes between Israeli forces and students at the campus of Palestine Technical University in Tulkarm, northwest of the West Bank, according to local sources.   MORE . . . 
.  .  .  .  .  ❶  ―  (ᴄ)  CLASHES  WITH  SOLDIERS  REPORTED  IN  SOME  WEST  BANK  LOCATIONS     
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 12, 2017 ― Palestinians clashed on  Tuesday with Israeli soldiers in at least two locations in the occupied West Bank, according to reports.   MORE . . .

MCKAY, JOHN.
“TRUMPIAN  ETHICS  AND  THE  RULE  OF  LAW.”
CREIGHTON LAW REVIEW, vol. 50, no. 4, Sept. 2017, pp. 781-799.
[Begin page 788] Anyone working for human rights in troubled places of the world will question whether their work contributes to peace. Working in the Middle East alone neither answers the question of how such a conflict ends between Israel and Palestine, nor answers how Israel might live in peace with its neighbors. Like many Americans who work for Palestinian rights and statehood, I came to this region supporting and believing in the State of Israel, and I left supporting the State of Israel. However, when I became deeply aware of the political situation and, in particular, of the policy of the occupying Israeli forces toward the Palestinians, my reaction was shock and dismay. As a law professor, lawyer, and human being, I condemn the violence that has been inflicted on both sides of this conflict. Scores of Palestinians have lost their freedom and many have lost their lives, as have Israeli soldiers and innocent civilians in both Israel and in Palestine. I cannot imagine, from the Palestinian side, how knife attacks against elderly couples in Tel Aviv or elsewhere in Israel, or against children, can ever be justified. Clearly the only path to a Palestinian state is the path of nonviolence, including the nonviolent refusal to cooperate in the Occupation. The peaceful paths of Gandhi and Martin Luther King are the only ones possible in this place. But for the Israeli side, the violence and slavery of nearly fifty years of occupation of the Palestinians, Israeli settlement-building, and the killing and imprisonment of Palestinian youth must end.
___The biggest obstacle to peace in the region is the unfettered building of settlements by Israel in occupied Palestinian lands. Almost everywhere you travel in the West Bank, when you look up to the hills, you will see an Israeli settlement, illegal in every way under international law. And they are building all the time. When asked whether I have hope for peace in the Holy Land, my answer has to be “No.” I do not have hope about how this problem can be resolved.  FULL ESSAY. . .

❷  TENS  OF  THOUSANDS  OF  ISRAELIS  HIT  THE  STREETS,  AND  IT  HAS  NOTHING  TO  DO  WITH  TRUMP 
+972 Magazine
Dec. 11, 2017 ―   Anti-corruption protests against Netanyahu are growing, and have already notched a win or two. And while the occupation couldn’t be further from the agenda, the movement could serve as a new rallying point for resistance to the authoritarian right.  MORE . . .
❸ OPINION/ANALYSIS:  WILL  THE  JERUSALEM  FREEDOM  INTIFADA  BREAK  OUT?  
The Palestinian Information Center
Dec. 12, 2017 ― The Palestinian people took to the streets in all the governorates of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the occupied city of Jerusalem, expressing their anger and rejection of the announcement by US President Donald Trump in which he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
___“The uprising of the freedom of Jerusalem”, coincided with the anniversary of the first Intifada or “the Intifada of Stones”, which began on 8 December 1987, and documented the struggle of the Palestinian people and was considered a milestone in the history of the Palestinian cause after attempts to obliterate it and at a time the violations and measures against the Palestinian people by the Israeli occupation forces had increased.
___In an atmosphere similar to the one experienced prior to the first intifada, thousands of youths took to the checkpoints and contact points with the Israeli occupation forces in a number of locations, during which youths threw stones and Molotov cocktails at the Israeli occupation forces.   MORE . . .
.  .  .  .  .  ❸  ―  (ᴀ)  TRUMP  PROTESTS  EVOKE  MEMORIES  OF  THE  SECOND  INTIFADA  
+972 Magazine
Zizo Abul Hawa
Dec. 12, 2017 ―   I was nearly 13 when the Second Intifada started. We were in school when Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount [Sep. 28, 2000]. School ended early when the rioting began. The children were told to return home; parents came to pick up their kids. My school was in the center of East Jerusalem, very close to the Old City.
[. . . .] We turned on the news and I thought to myself that surely this is a one-off event — tomorrow, it will all be over. No one could possibly want more of this, despite what I heard all around me: “tomorrow will be even worse, it’s Friday.”
[. . . .] Each day, it was the same, a kind of ritual: wake up, clean the blood and bullets from the streets, then riots and fires would start again. Tear gas and burning eyes. . . .
[. . . .] We didn’t return to school until January of 2001. We stayed home for more than three months. When we returned, it wasn’t the same. More than half of the class was gone, schoolchildren, 12- and 13-year-olds like me: some because their families had fled the area, or because they were wounded and in the hospital, or because they were arrested and in jail, or because they were buried deep in the earth. They say children always pay the highest price in war.     MORE . . .

“A  SPECIAL  INVITATION,”  BY  IBRAHIM  NASRALLAH
My corpse hovered over a sea of silence.
My house was a cloud of dust,
the streets were a wild extinguishing dream
and the night was like the face of a friend divided
between silence and earning one’s keep.
The trees opposed their own colors
and the wind opposed riding a song,
a bird in the air was a period
then a comma in conversation.
The sky was arid.
After being killed I washed by the river
and the green along its banks
and when the mourners were late
I rushed to a wave in my mind and plucked a song.
I sang it for two whole nights until it waned
and broke like a mast.
When they were late
I turned onto every path to darkness,
like the soul breaking over the rims of flowers and wooden cups
and said: They will catch up with me on the way.
The road was lonesome and the moon ripped apart my body
although this was not the Age of War.
= = =
My funeral proceeds on its own
moved by the power of darkness to the grave site.
I heard him ask:  “Where are they?”
I recognized him by his clothes, his fear, his blue face,
and the blood on the collar of his shirt,
by the bullets embedded in his flesh.
I recognized him, I did.
But the mourners were late.
So I said:  “Invite my killer. . .”

Ibrahim Nasrallah   
From Nasrallah, Ibrahim. RAIN  INSIDE:  SELECTED  POEMS. Trans. Omnia Amin and Rick London. Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press, 2009. Available from Barnes and Noble.

 

“. . . he laughs, his Uzi sputters―they are nothing. . . [Sabra/Shatilla, Sept. 16, 1982]” (Sam Hamod)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
massacre
Massacre of Palestinian People at Sabra and Shatilla Camps. By Katsikoviannis. (Photo: Arabic Literature in English, Sept. 17, 2010)

❶ The Appointment of General Yaron: Continuing Impunity for the Sabra and Shatilla Massacres
❷ Palestinian shot dead, another injured in Hebron after car ramming attack
. . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Israeli forces shoot and kill Jordanian in East Jerusalem after alleged stab attack
❸ Opinion/Analysis: The Logic of Murder in Israel: A Culture of Impunity in Full View of the Entire World
❹ POETRY by Sam Hamod
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ Malone, Linda A. “The Appointment of General Yaron: Continuing Impunity for the Sabra and Shatilla Massacres.” Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 32.3 (2000): 287.     FULL ARTICLE  

According to Yaron’s [1985] testimony. . . “one of the Phalangists had asked the commander what to do with 45 people, and the reply had been to do with them what God orders you to do.”
[. . . .]
Lieutenant Grabowsky, who had witnessed the Phalangists’ treatment of civilians from the earth embankment outside the camps, continued his own inquiry that afternoon. One of his soldiers, at his request, asked Phalangist soldiers in Arabic why they were killing civilians. He was told, “The pregnant women will give birth to terrorists and children will grow up to be terrorists.” Throughout the afternoon, the l.D.F. soldiers saw the Phalangists’ treatment of men, women and children and heard complaints and stories of the massacre. One soldier said he heard a report to the battalion commander, describing the Phalangists as “running wild.” Lieutenant Grabowsky left the area at 4:00 p.m., and later that afternoon related what he had seen to his commander and other officers. They referred him to his brigade commander, to whom he reported at 8:00 p.m., again conveying what he had seen earlier in the day. The battalion commander, in his testimony, denied receiving any report of killings or mistreatment of civilians other than the report that 300 were killed on Thursday night. The Report says there was no need to resolve these testimonial conflicts beyond the soldiers’ attempts to report the acts to their superiors, and that these soldiers’ reports did not reach Yaron or Drori. The Commission sent no 15(a) notice to the battalion commander, leaving any further investigation of his conduct to the I.D.F.
[. . . .]  The Chief of Staff did not ask the Phalangists any questions or debrief them about activities in the camps. Eitan said he refused to permit them to send in more forces, but Yaron testified that there were no restrictions placed on the Phalangists’ use of additional forces. The killing continued beyond 5:00 a.m. the following day [Saturday], until 8:00 a.m.
[. . . .]  The Phalangists removed truckloads of bodies. Other bodies are believed to remain under the ruins or in mass graves the Phalangists dug. The I.D.F. itself estimates 700 to 800 were killed. Other estimates place the death toll at approximately a thousand, with more than 900 people driven away in trucks. One Israeli source suggested the total number civilians killed was 3,000.

❷ PALESTINIAN  SHOT  DEAD,  ANOTHER  INJURED  IN  HEBRON  AFTER  CAR  RAMMING  ATTACK
Ma’an News Agency
Sept. 16, 2016
Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man at the entrance of the Kiryat Arba settlement in the occupied West Bank district of Hebron and critically wounded a woman who was also in the vehicle after the two allegedly carried out a car ramming attack on Friday that left three Israeli civilians injured.
___The slain Palestinian was later identified by locals as Moussa Muhammad Khaddour, 18, while the wounded Palestinian woman was identified as  Moussa’s fiance, 18-year-old Raghad Abdullah Abdullah Khaddour, the sister of Majd Khaddour who was killed by Israeli forces at the same junction in June after attempting a car ramming attack.     MORE . . . 

. . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) ISRAELI  FORCES  SHOOT  AND  KILL  JORDANIAN  IN  EAST  JERUSALEM  AFTER  ALLEGED  STAB  ATTACK
Ma’an News Agency
Sept. 16, 2016
Israeli forces Friday shot and killed a Jordanian youth in occupied East Jerusalem after an alleged stab attack at Damascus Gate in the Old City.      ___Israeli police spokeswoman for Arabic media Luba al-Samri said in a statement that a “terrorist” attempted a stabbing attack on an Israeli border policeman outside Damascus Gate and was “neutralized” by Israeli forces. . . .      MORE . . .

sabra
1982, the massacre of Israeli-allied Christian Phalange militiamen in west Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila refugee camps (Photo: Associated Press, Sep 14, 2015, found on Madison.com)

❸ Opinion/Analysis  (REPOSTED):  The  Logic  of  Murder  in  Israel:  A  Culture  of  Impunity  in  Full  View  of  the  Entire  World
Palestine Chronicle
Ramzy Baroud
Apr. 13, 2016
“Whether he made a mistake or not, is a trivial question,” said an Israeli Jewish man who joined large protests throughout Israel in support of a soldier who calmly, and with precision, killed a wounded Palestinian man in al-Khalil (Hebron). The protesting Jewish man described Palestinians as ‘barbaric’, ‘bestial’, who should not be perceived as people.
___This is hardly a fringe view in Israel. The vast majority of Israelis, 68%, support the killing of Abdel Fatah Yusri al-Sharif, 21, by the solider who had reportedly announced before firing at the wounded Palestinian that the “terrorist had to die.”
[. . . .]    ___The incident, once more, highlights a culture of impunity that exists in the Israeli army, which is not a new phenomenon.      MORE . . .    (paste URL into browser)

“SABRA/SHATILLA:  IN  SORROW,”  BY  SAM  HAMOD

It is nothing, the blood
red    into stony ground,    nothing,    we can say
nothing, the flares red and white, blue, nothin
against black sky, faces blur, nothing
sharp rope cuts into wrists, it is
nothing, slash of knife on throat, gurgling, knowing
nothing, phalangist, israeli, we hear phalange, not
spoken, it is in the face, frangüyah’, gemeyal, it is
nothing, mustache moves,
nothing, these words
nothing, thunk, thunk of bazookas,     crunch
of bone, nothing, it is nothing, the
children run hiding under the bed
like play, a man comes in
they say nothing, he laughs, tells them
they’ll be safe, nothing, no sound, he
shouts, “Come out!” nothing
he lifts the bed,
their big eyes open,
he laughs,
his Uzi sputters―
they are nothing
their flesh nothing
oh, it is nothing
do not worry, they are
nothing, it is
nothing, do not worry, nothing
has happened,
nothing, it is nothing, say it is nothing―
so be peaceful brothers and sisters    do not run away
we are all Arabs     we will do nothing     it is nothing
we do nothing    it is nothing    it didn’t happen     if it did
it is nothing     oh, it is nothing
nothing at all
and now say it and believe it, it is nothing
nothing      nothing
oh God       nothing.

Sam Hamod, Palestinian-American Pulitzer Prize-Nominated poet.
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 and Noble.

 

“. . . Then I found myself suspended in nothingness . . .” (Yousef El Qedra)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
pyo1
The Palestine Youth Orchestra (Photo: Edward Said Conservatory of Music Homepage)

❶ Israeli forces demolish 12 homes in Qalandiya village, assault homeowners
. . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Israeli forces demolish 4 structures in East Jerusalem’s Issawiya

  • background from Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal

❷ Uncovering the Lost Palestinian Villages Underneath Glitzy Tel Aviv
❸ Palestinian Orchestra spreads positive message with music
❹ POETRY by Yousef El Qedra
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAELI  FORCES  DEMOLISH  12  HOMES  IN  QALANDIYA  VILLAGE,  ASSAULT  HOMEOWNERS
Ma’an News Agency
July 26, 2016
Under the escort of Israeli forces, bulldozers entered the village of Qalandiya on the outskirts of the central occupied West Bank district of Jerusalem late Monday evening, where they demolished 12 homes, according to locals.
___Israeli authorities destroyed the homes, which had previously been issued demolition notices, claiming they were too close to Israel’s separation wall and that they lacked the proper Israeli-issued licenses. . . .
___Israeli soldiers reportedly fired rubber-coated steel bullets, sponge bullets, tear gas, and stun grenades at locals, and assaulted residents of the homes before the demolitions.      MORE . . .   
. . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) ISRAELI  FORCES  DEMOLISH  4  STRUCTURES  IN  EAST  JERUSALEM’S  ISSAWIYA
Ma’an News Agency
July 26, 2016
MORE . . .      RELATED . . .  

From Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal
There is a very strong argument that Zionist Israel has committed, and continues to commit, genocide against Palestine and the Palestinians in terms of Lemkin’s famous passage . . .
Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population which is allowed to remain, or upon the territory alone, after removal of the population and the colonization of the area by the oppressor’s own nationals.   (Lemkin, R. Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: laws of occupation, analysis of government, proposals for redress. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944.)
[. . . .]
Whilst the daily living reality for a Palestinian citizen of Israel inevitably differs from a Palestinian living in the West Bank, Gaza or the diaspora, the underlying techniques employed by the Israeli government are the same.. . . .  The intention of these policies was clearly stated by ARIEL SHARON IN AN INTERVIEW IN 1988:
_‘YOU DON’T SIMPLY BUNDLE PEOPLE ON TO TRUCKS AND DRIVE THEM AWAY. . . I PREFER TO ADVOCATE A POSITIVE POLICY. . . TO CREATE, IN EFFECT, A CONDITION THAT IN A POSITIVE WAY WILL INDUCE PEOPLE TO LEAVE.’
. . .  it is apparent to Palestinians in different contexts experiencing discriminatory policies intended to drive them away from their land that the ‘Nakba’ of 1948 did not end in that era and is an ongoing process.

  • Rashed, Haifa, Damien Short, and John Docker. “Nakba Memoricide: Genocide Studies And The Zionist/Israeli Genocide Of Palestine.” Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal 13.1 (2014): 1-23.    FULL ARTICLE.

❷ UNCOVERING  THE  LOST  PALESTINIAN  VILLAGES  UNDERNEATH  GLITZY  TEL  AVIV
The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU)
Mira Sucharov
July 19, 2016
Tel Aviv residents are often described as living in a “bubble,” because of their relative distance from the epicenter of conflict and occupation, and because, at least compared to Jerusalem, the zeitgeist of the city tends toward liberalism and open-mindedness.
___But despite all the talk about Tel Aviv’s insulated status, this “first Hebrew city” is very politically saturated — if you look underneath it. I’m thinking of the eight Palestinian villages whose traces, post-1948, are just barely visible beneath the bustling urban center that this place has become. What remains of these villages, whose remnants were absorbed by Tel Aviv’s municipality as the city expanded after the war, and what remains to be done?     MORE . . .  

la-fg-israel-palestinians-raid-home-demolished-20151116-001
A home lies in ruins after a raid by Israeli troops in the Qalandia refugee camp near Ramallah. (Photo: Alaa Badarneh / European Pressphoto Agency, November 15, 2016)

❸ PALESTINIAN  ORCHESTRA  SPREADS  POSITIVE  MESSAGE  WITH  MUSIC
Days of Palestine
July 25, 2016
Glasgow -A group of Palestinian young orchestrates are trying to travel around the world to spread a positive message about Palestinian with their orchestra.
___It is lunchtime on a sunny day in the Scottish city of Glasgow, and the general director of The Edward Said National Conservatory of Music is making a thoughtful observation about the aims of its Palestine Youth Orchestra (PYO).
___Suddenly, a ping-pong ball bounces across the table. Suhail Khoury barely bats an eyelid.
___“Having an orchestra can tell people that young Palestinians are like anyone else, despite their situation,” he says. “They like to play music, they like to have fun.”    MORE . . .    –   VIDEO . . . (Music begins 9:45)

“I  HAVE  NO  HOME,”  BY  YOUSEF  EL  QEDRA

I saw clouds running away from the hurt.
I have no language.
Its weight is lighter than a feather.
The quill does not write.
The ink of the spirit burns on the shore of meaning.
The clouds are tears, filled with escape and lacking definition.
A cloud realizes the beauty she forms—
beauty which contains all good things,
for whom trees, gardens, and tired young women wait.

I have no home.
I have a night overripe with sweats caused by numbness all over.
Time has grown up on its own without me.
In my dream, I asked him what he looks like.
My small defeats answered me.
So I asked him again, What did he mean?
Then I found myself suspended in nothingness,
Stretched like a string that doesn’t belong to an instrument.
The wind played me. So did irresistible gravity.
I was a run of lost notes that have a sad, strong desire to live.
―Translated by Yasmin Snounu and Edward Morin

Yousef El Qedra is a young poet and playwright living in Gaza. He has his BA degree in Arabic Literature from Azhar University, Gaza. Since 2006 he has worked as a project coordinator of theater and youth groups for the Cultural Free Thought Association in Gaza City. He has written several books and plays and published four volumes of poetry, translated into French and Spanish.
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 Amazon.