Tag: International Solidarity Movement

“. . . The ink of the spirit burns on the shore of meaning . . .” (Yousef El Qedra)

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Israeli bulldozers enter Khan al-Ahmar in advance of demolition. (Photo: Al Jazeera, Oct. 16, 2018)

SELECTED   NEWS   OF   THE   DAY. . .

|   PALESTINE  CINEMA  DAYS  PROMOTES  RESILIENCE  THROUGH  CINEMA          This year’s Palestine Cinema Days is focused on promoting Palestinian films and stories in the face of increasing pressure on Palestine and its people wherever they may be.    ___From the United States moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, to cutting financial funds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Palestinians have greatly suffered for seven decades since the start of the Israeli occupation.    ___Palestine Cinema Days brings to the Palestinian audience important stories of suffering, resilience and the human condition shared by us all.    ___The festival will open on October 17th with the screening of The Tower at the Ramallah Cultural Palace, with more than 60 films from Palestinian, Arab and international filmmakers.    More . . .
. . . . Related  What  it  takes  to  organize  a  film  screening  in  Gaza
|   AGREEMENT  SIGNED  FOR  BUILDING  LARGEST  INDUSTRIAL  CITY  IN  WEST  BANK     The Palestine Investment Fund (PIF) and the Palestinian Industrial Estates and Free Zones Authority, represented by the Minister of Economy Abeer Odeh, signed on Tuesday the concession agreement for the development and operation of a multi-sector industrial area in Tarqumiya, in the south of the West Bank, a PIF statement said on Wednesday.    ___The Tarqumiya industrial city project is expected to be the largest among industrial cities and is planned to utilize a total area of 1542 dunums of lands in Tarqumiya and Beit Olla in the Hebron Governorate,  the largest part of which is located in areas designated as Area C, that is under full Israeli control. Cost is also estimated at about $160 million.    More . . .
|   ICC  PROSECUTOR  WARNS:  DEMOLISHING  KHAN  AL-AHMAR  A  ‘WAR  CRIME‘
Prosecutor of the International  Criminal  Court  Fatou Bensouda issued a stern warning to Israel officials on Wednesday, saying she will not “hesitate to take any appropriate action” should they demolish the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar and forcibly transfer its residents.     ___Bensouda’s warning comes as Israeli authorities ramp up their attempts to destroy the village and remove its residents, who have lived in Khan al-Ahmar for over 40 years.     ___The ICC prosecutor also expressed concern about the continued violence at the Gaza-Israel border, several hours after a rocket fired from the Strip struck a home in the southern Israeli city of Be’er Sheva. In response, the Israeli Air Force struck 20 targets it said belonged to Hamas.   More . . .
. . . . Related  Everything  you  need  to  know  about  Khan  al-Ahmar

COMMENTARY    AND    OPINION. . . .

|   THE  US  MAINSTREAM  MEDIA  IS  IGNORING  THE  ISRAEL-SAUDI  ARABIA  DE  FACTO  ALLIANCE      Over the past week or so, Saudi Arabia has gotten more U.S. mainstream media coverage than at any time in decades. But conspicuously missing has been any reporting on the kingdom’s growing friendship with Israel — a de facto alliance that may help explain why Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman thought he could get away with ordering the murder of the dissident journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.    ___Madawi Al-Rasheed is a Saudi Arabian woman professor, presently at King’s College London, who has written or edited more than 13 books on her home nation. Particularly valuable is her recently edited (2018) collection about the kingdom’s new leadership, entitled Salman’s Legacy: The Dilemmas of a New Era in Saudi Arabia.     ___In that book, she is clear about the growing Saudi rapprochement with Israel. She writes that the Crown Prince “has continued to clandestinely cooperate with Israel on security and economic matters”. . .   More . . .

NOTICES  FROM  ORGANIZATIONS. . . .

|   International Solidarity Movement:  ISRAELI  AND  INTERNATIONAL  ACTIVISTS  JOIN  GAZAN  PROTESTERS  IN  THE  GREAT  RETURN  MARCH       On the morning of October 10, 2018, ten activists from around the world delivered messages of support to the Great March of Return in the Eastern Gaza Strip via Skype, as a part of a ‘virtual rally’ entitled “Words Over Walls.”     ___The speakers hailed from countries as diverse as the US, UK, Brazil, South Africa and Norway. They included authors Mike Peled, Denny Cormier, Robert Martin, Mike Farah, and Peter Cohen and International Solidarity Movement volunteer Kristin Foss. Participants expressed their solidarity with the Marchers, their tactics and their goals. Musician and composer Mike Farah then sang an original song about the Palestinian’s Right of Return.     ___“All people of conscience, all people who have a heart, regardless of nationality or religion, must stand with the brave people of Gaza and support their demand to be free and to return to their land and homes in Palestine. The siege on Gaza must be broken and the prison walls that surround Gaza must come down. Palestine must be free,” said author Mike Peled.    More . . .

POEM  FOR  THE  DAY. . . . 

“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

――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 University of Washington Press.

“. . . as if his look could order the rubble to become a house . . .” (Mourid Barghouti)

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2018-09-07-04.53.35-2-600x399Activists stand in solidarity
with the residents of Khan al-Ahmar
Photo: International Solidarity Movement,
Sept. 7, 2018.

SELECTED   NEWS   OF   THE   DAY. . .

PACE  OF  ISRAEL’S  LAND-GRAB  POLICY  HITS  ZENITH  IN  SALFIT      Israelis residing in the Atz Afraim outpost continue to level Palestinian lands in Mesha village, west of Salfit, to expand illegal settlement.    ___Eye-witnesses said Israeli settlers have been bulldozing Palestinian lands to establish new facilities in the area.   ___The occupation authorities continue to prevent Palestinian farmers from entering their land lots behind the apartheid wall.   More . . .
JEWISH  SETTLERS  EXPAND  OUTPOSTS  IN  THE  JORDAN  VALLEY  (VIDEO)        Israeli settlers “started building and setting up housing structures” in a settlement outpost in Khirbet Al-Sweida village in Tubas in the northern Jordan Valley of the occupied West Bank, reported Ma’an News Agency yesterday.  “The settlement outpost was set up in May 2018 south of the Shadmot Mehola Israeli settlement, the only area where Palestinian shepherds could herd their sheep”.  More . . .
Related . . . ISRAELI  SETTLERS  VANDALIZE  PALESTINIAN  PROPERTY,  PAINT  RACIST  GRAFFITI

A  PALESTINIAN  GIRL  INTRODUCING  NEW  ART  TO  GAZA     At her modest home in the northern Gaza Strip, Sahar Wishah joined the world of arts by turning iron and wooden tools into beautiful paintings.   [. . . .] The girl uses nails, threading, wooden boards, and a small iron hammer to create those drawings and artworks. She is relying on the internet and the visual materials published on it to develop her artistic talent.   ___This art, which attracted many citizens and the Palestinian and Arab public, dates back to the Ottoman era.   More . . .  More from Reuters . . .

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Sahar Wishah joined the world of arts. (Photo: The Palestinian Information Center, September 12, 2018)

COMMENTARY    AND    OPINION. . . .

PREPARATION  OF  INTERNATIONAL  CONFERENCE  FOR  UNRWA  SUPPORT        Secretary General of the Arab League, Ahmad Abul Gheit, revealed on Wednesday that the international conference for the support of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) will be organized by Jordan and Egypt.    ___Ahmad Abul Gheit held a press conference at the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo at the end of a meeting with Arab foreign ministers during which he revealed that both Jordan and Egypt are organizing the international conference.   ___He said “we were informed that Jordan and Egypt have called for an international conference with a legal and political framework to discuss the UNRWA crisis.”   More . . .
DEPRIVING  PALESTINIAN  REFUGEES  OF  THEIR  BASIC  RIGHTS  A  RECIPE  FOR  TROUBLE,  SAYS  PLO  OFFICIAL        Depriving 5.3 million Palestinian refugees of their right to education, health and work by dismantling the international agency that has been taking care of them since their forced dispersion in 1948 is an invitation for  trouble not only in Palestine, but also in the region where the Palestinian refugees are based, Hanan Ashrawi, member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said on Wednesday.    More . . .

NOTICES  FROM  ORGANIZATIONS. . . .

INTERNATIONAL  SOLIDARITY  MOVEMENT        ISM London is offering a day of pre-training for prospective volunteers who are interested in joining the International Solidarity Movement on the ground in Palestine. Any volunteer is required to participate in training before joining activities in Palestine.   Information . . .    Donate . . .

POEM FOR THE DAY. . .

from “MIDNIGHT,”  BY  MOURID  BARGHOUTI

After the dust and smoke
have cleared from the house that once stood there
and as I stare at the new emptiness
I see my grandfather wearing his cloak
wearing the very same cloak –
not one similar to it,
but the same one.
He hugs me and maintains a silent gaze,
as if his look
could order the rubble to become a house,
could restore the curtains to the windows,
and my grandmother to her armchair,
as if it could retrieve her colored medicine pills,
could lay back the sheets on the bed,
could hand the lights from the ceiling,
and the pictures from the walls,
as if his look could return the handles to the doors,
and the balconies to the stairs,
and persuade us to resume our dinner,
as if the world had not collapsed,
as if Heaven had ears and eyes.
He goes on staring at the emptiness.
I say:
What shall we do when the soldiers leave?
What will he do when the soldiers leave?
He slowly clenches his fist,
recapturing a boxer’s resolve in his right hand,
his coarse bronze hand,
the hand that tames the thorny slope,
the hand that holds his hoe lightly,
and with ease,
the hand which, with a single blow,
splits a tree stump in half,
the hand that opens in forgiveness,
the hand that closes on the candy
with which he surprises his grandchildren,
the hand that was amputated
many years ago.
–– from Mourid Barghouti,  MIDNIGHT  AND  OTHER  POEMS,  trans. Radwa Ashour. Arc Publications, Todmorden, UK, 2008.

“. . . I guard one seed of a tree . . .” Fawaz Turki

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Israel has carried out hundreds of punitive house demolitions over the years. (Photo: ActiveStills.org, Published in Palestine Chronicle, Aug. 28, 2018)


SELECTED   NEWS   OF   THE   DAY. . . . 

FOREIGN  MINISTRY  SAYS  REMARKS  BY  US  ENVOY  TO  UN  ON  REFUGEES  IGNORE  INTERNATIONAL  LAW         
The Foreign Ministry strongly criticized on Wednesday statements by United States envoy to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, in which she questioned the official figure of Palestinian refugees and called for cutting it down by the millions and expressed opposition to their right of return to the homeland they were forced out from after Israel was created on their land in 1948.     ___The remarks by Nikki Haley on Palestinian refugees and their right of return “ignore international law and international legality and are hostile to the Palestinian people and their rights,” said the ministry in a statement [. . . .]   ___It said this is a further step in the war US President Donald Trump’s administration has waged against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which is the symbol of the Palestinian refugee issue.   More . . .
ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  25  PALESTINIANS,  INCLUDING  TWO  MINORS            Israeli forces detained at least 25 Palestinians, including a teen and a child, during predawn raids in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.     ___Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) confirmed that Israeli forces detained five Palestinians from the southern West Bank district of Hebron. . . .   ___In the southern West Bank district of Bethlehem, three Palestinians were detained . . . .   ___In the Silwan neighborhood of the central West Bank district of Jerusalem, Israeli forces assaulted and detained two Palestinians . . . .  ___In the central West Bank district of Ramallah and al-Bireh, four Palestinians were detained . . . .    More . . .
ISRAEL  DESTROYS  FAMILY  HOME  OF  KILLED  PALESTINIAN  TEENAGER  (VIDEO)   
Israeli forces have demolished the family home of the Palestinian teenager who was recently killed in the occupied West Bank.    ___ The Israeli army said on Tuesday it had destroyed the family home of Mohammed Dar Youssef in the village of Kobar, north of Ramallah.   More . . .
—Background:  ISRAELI  DEMOLITION  OF  ATTACKERS’  FAMILY  HOMES  PROVOKES  PALESTINIAN  BACKLASH   (2015)
[. . . .] Ruth Edwards of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions said [2015] such drastic steps ensure that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank “is a permanent presence in people’s daily lives, that there’s always a sense of instability, of insecurity.”    ___Israel frequently demolished homes during a Palestinian uprising in 2000 to 2005. . . .    ___Netanyahu revived the tactic last year [2012] after the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank.   More . . .

COMMENTARY    AND    OPINION. . . . 

IN  VIDEO  –  PALESTINIAN  CHILD  FORCED  TO  CLIMB  HER  WAY  HOME 
An Israeli activist and spokesperson of the Breaking the Silence Non-Governmental Organization, Achiya Schats, captured on video the moment a Palestinian child was forced to climb an Israeli military fence to be able to go home in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron. . . .  ___The caption also reads that the girl’s house was recently blockaded by a fence and that Israeli forces locked the gate leading to her home, which forces Palestinian residents to climb the fence. “Don’t worry, it’s not because we’ve made them less than humans, it’s about security.”   More . . .    Related . . .

PLO  OFFICIAL  DENOUNCES  ISRAELI  COURT’S  RULING  LEGALIZING  SETTLEMENT  OUTPOST  AS  TRAVESTY 
Hanan Ashrawi, member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), strongly denounced on Wednesday the Israeli Jerusalem District Court’s ruling to legalize Mitzpeh Kramim settlement outpost, north of Ramallah and which was built illegally on private Palestinian land, describing the decision as “an outrageous travesty.”   ___The court had said that if the settlers built with “good intentions,” then the settlement should not be removed, in contradiction with previous court rulings forcing the Israeli government to remove outposts . . . on private Palestinian land in the occupied territories.   ___”The Israeli annexation of Palestinian territory, whether on public or private land, and its illegal settlement enterprise are an egregious violation of international law and conventions, including UN Security Council Resolution 2334; it also constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the Fourth Geneva Convention”. . .   More . . .

NOTICES  FROM  ORGANIZATIONS. . . .

International Solidarity Movement | Ramallah, occupied Palestine
CALL  TO  ACTION:  OLIVE  HARVEST  2018  –  JOIN  ISM  NOW!
the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is issuing an urgent call for volunteers to join us for the 2018 Olive Harvest Campaign at the invitation of Palestinian communities.   ___The olive tree is a national symbol for Palestinians. As thousands of olive trees have been . . .  destroyed since September 2000—harvesting has become more than a source of livelihood; it has become a form of resistance.   ___The olive harvest is an annual affirmation of Palestinians’ historical, spiritual, and economic connection to their land, and a rejection of Israeli efforts to seize it. Despite efforts by Israeli settlers and soldiers to prevent them from accessing their land, Palestinian communities have remained steadfast in refusing to give up their olive harvest.   ___ISM volunteers join Palestinian farming communities “on the ground” each year to harvest olives, in areas where Palestinians face settler and military violence when working their land.   MORE INFORMATION . . .

“THE SEED KEEPERS: A Recital,” by FAWAZ TURKI (b. 1940)

Burn our land
burn our dream
pour acid onto our songs
cover with sawdust
the blood of our massacred people
muffle with your technology
the screams of our imprisoned patriots,
destroy,
destroy
our grass and soil
raze to the ground
every farm and every village
our ancestors had built,
destroy every city and every town
every tree and every home
every book and every law,
flatten with your bombs
every valley
erase with your edicts
our past
our literature
our metaphor,
denude our forests
and the earth
till no insect
no word
can find a place to hide.
Do that and more,
I do not fear your tyranny.
I guard one seed
of a tree
my forefathers have saved
that I shall plant again
in my homeland.

—From Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature, Columbia University Press, 1992.

“. . . nonviolence is a mix of the pragmatic and principled, tragic, and comic styles . . .” (Matthew Eddy)

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bilin-01
Protesters in Bil’in, the West Bank, mark Palestinian Prisoners Day, Friday April 17, 2015. (Photo: Allison Deger, Mondoweiss)

❶ Israeli forces detain Palestinian, Israeli activist during Bilin protest

  • Background: “‘We Have To Bring Something Different To This Place’: Principled And Pragmatic Nonviolence Among Accompaniment Workers.” Social Movement Studies.

❷ Israeli forces raid home of slain Palestinian, clash with youth in Beit Ummar
❸ Take Action: Demand release of detained Palestinian human rights defender and BDS leader Salah Khawaja
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❶ ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  PALESTINIAN,  ISRAELI  ACTIVIST  DURING  BILIN  PROTEST   
Ma’an News Agency
Nov. 4, 2016
Israeli forces detained a Palestinian and an Israeli activist during the weekly protests in the Ramallah-area village of Bilin in the central occupied West Bank on Friday.   ___Protesters marched in condemnation of the 99th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration — the first ever explicit commitment made by Britain, and the West in general, to establish a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine.
___Israeli forces detained Ahmad Abu Rahmeh, a member of the popular committee in the town, and Israeli activist Mikha Rachman.
[. . . .] Bilin is one of the most active Palestinian villages in peaceful organized opposition against Israeli policies, as residents have protested every Friday for 11 consecutive years, and have often been met with tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets, and stun grenades from Israeli forces.        More . . .      

  • Eddy, Matthew P. “‘We Have To Bring Something Different To This Place’: Principled And Pragmatic Nonviolence Among Accompaniment Workers.” Social Movement Studies 13.4 (2014): 443-464.  Full article.

[. . . . ] As an ISM [International Solidarity Movement] volunteer in the summer of 2006, I joined the weekly protest in Bilin, a village in the Israeli-occupied territory of the West Bank, Palestine. Most of Bilin’s protests follow a theme chosen by Bilin’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements. At times, Bilin activists have carried large pictures of Gandhi, Rosa Parks, and King, conferring a ‘universal character upon their struggle over the barrier.’
[. . . .]    Arriving at the wall, we were confronted by about 25 Israeli Border Police and Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers. Village elders asked for permission to pass through the gate . . . . The commander stood above us on the hood of a jeep, surveying the protest. He quickly denied the request. Drumming, traditional Palestinian chants, and hand clapping ensued, as the bridal party engaged in circle dances. ___Suddenly, four Palestinian boys under the age of 12 years, standing far to the side, began throwing stones at the soldiers from a distance of about 30 yards. One of the stones struck the commander in the face. Immediately, the commander issued an order and his soldiers began firing rubber bullets, concussion grenades, and tear gas into the throng of nonviolent protesters, while ignoring the boys now running away.
[. . . .]   [One of ISM’s Palestinian leaders] Mansour admitted, ‘That boy will be a hero in the village tonight.’ Mansour’s commitment to pragmatic nonviolence (confirmed in interviews), rather than the principled nonviolence of a Gandhi and King who invoked love for the enemy, is illustrated by the ambiguity in his final comment at the debriefing:

“We don’t like throwing stones, but somehow, we are happy that this commander
gets hit. Since he was humiliating us, was insulting us, was trying to disrupt the
demonstration by any means. This commander has been with us for at least three
months and – his craziness or his madness about the power and authority he has
enforcing his orders! He was showing his power, that he was the man of the
situation here.”

[. . . .]   Such is the complexity of stone throwing and nonviolence in a place like Bilin, suggesting that the performance of nonviolence is a mix of the pragmatic and principled, tragic, and comic styles.
[. . . .]   A few thousand pragmatic nonviolent adherents from a handful of Western nations – primarily young ISMers – have been virtually the only members of the international community willing to risk engaging in accompaniment in this context. They deserve to be commended for their courage and their solidarity activism, which by even the strictest measures, has been relatively nonviolent. Of course, the courage and creativity of Palestinian nonviolent activists in places like Bilin is even more worthy of recognition and analysis.

bilin
A demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during the weekly protest against the wall  in the West Bank village of Bil’in, January 4, 2012. (Photo: Hamde Abu Rahma/ Activestills.org)

❷ ISRAELI  FORCES  RAID  HOME  OF  SLAIN  PALESTINIAN,  CLASH  WITH  YOUTH  IN  BEIT  UMMAR   
Ma’an News Agency
Nov. 5, 2016
Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian youth during a predawn raid in the village of Beit Ummar in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron.
___Local activist Muhammad Awad told Ma’an that Israeli forces raided the family home of Khalid Ahmad Elayyan Ikhlayyil, 23, who was killed by Israeli forces on Sunday after he allegedly attempted to commit a car-ramming attack near the village.
___Soldiers searched Ikhlayyil’s home and questioned his father before leaving.   ___Awad highlighted that Ikhlayyil’s body remained in Israeli custody in accordance with the Israeli government’s practice of holding the bodies of slain Palestinians accused of committing attacks against Israelis.
[. . . . ]   According to Awad, clashes broke out between local youth and Israeli soldiers after the soldiers removed and stepped on a memorial poster of Ikhlayyil.   More . . .

❸ TAKE  ACTION:  DEMAND  RELEASE  OF  DETAINED  PALESTINIAN  HUMAN  RIGHTS  DEFENDER  AND  BDS  LEADER  SALAH  KHAWAJA  #FreeSalahalestinian    
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network      
Nov. 5, 2016
Human rights defender and Secretary of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee Salah Khawaja remains imprisoned and denied access to a lawyer at the Petah Tikva interrogation center.
___Khawaja, 46, a leading member of the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall) and BDS leader, has been detained under interrogation since 26 October, when he was seized in a violent pre-dawn military raid on his home. As occupation forces raided his home, they sprayed tear gas in the area entering many neighborhood homes in an attempt to quell protests against the seizure of this popular activist. The Palestinian BDS National Committee, of which Khawaja serves as secretary, is the broadest Palestinian civil society coalition that works to lead and support the BDS movement, the growing international movement for the boycott of Israel.      More . . .   

ism-bilin
International Solidarity Movement activists, Bilin, April 2, 2016 (Photo: ISM)

“. . . Israel can militarily defeat but not politically subdue Palestinians . . .” (Martin Shaw)

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nablus-destruction
September 6, 2006. Israeli military in Balata Refugee Camp, south-east of Nablus partially destroy ten shops in the marketplace on the main street of the camp city center. (Photo: International Solidarity Movement)

❶ Israeli forces demolish warehouses, butchery near Nablus
❷ Israeli forces detain family of 8, journalist, 14 others in West Bank raids
. . . ❷― (a) Report: Israel detained 554 people, including 130 children, in October
❸  Israeli settlers call to stop ‘noise pollution’ caused by Muslim call to prayer in Jerusalem

  • Background: “Palestine And Genocide: An International Historical Perspective Revisited.” Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal

❹ Asma has been a refugee for 36 years; now a fashion startup has offered a lifeline
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❶ ISRAELI  FORCES  DEMOLISH  WAREHOUSES,  BUTCHERY  NEAR  NABLUS
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA   
Nov.3, 2016
Israeli forces demolished early Thursday two storage warehouses and butchery in the town of Beita, south of Nablus, according to a local official.
___Beita mayor Wasef Mualla told WAFA that the warehouses and the butchery were located near the town’s vegetable market.     More . . .   

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Al-Amari Refugee Camp, Funeral of Muhammad Qattri, killed by Israeli forces during protest, Aug. 15, 2014. (Photo: Electronic Intifada)

❷ ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  FAMILY  OF  8,  JOURNALIST,  14  OTHERS  IN  WEST  BANK  RAIDS  
Ma’an News Agency   
Nov. 3, 2016
Israeli forces detained at least 25 Palestinians, including two parents, their six sons, and a journalist, in overnight raids in the occupied West Bank between Wednesday and Thursday, Israeli and Palestinian sources told Ma’an.
___In the West Bank district of Ramallah, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) said that Israeli forces detained eight members of the same family in the AL-AMARI  REFUGEE  CAMP, sparking clashes in which four Palestinians were injured according to witnesses.
___The family members were identified as Zuhdi Thib Abu Shusheh, his wife Jihad Abu Shusheh, and their six sons Mahran, Ihab, Muhammad, Fadi, Bahaa, and Thib.  More . . .  
. . . ❷― (A) REPORT:  ISRAEL  DETAINED  554  PEOPLE,  INCLUDING  130  CHILDREN,  IN  OCTOBER    
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA    
Nov. 2, 2016   Israel detained 554 Palestinians during the month of October, including 130 minors and 11 women, according to a joint report by rights and prisoners’ advocacy groups published Wednesday.     ___The Prisoners’ Affairs Commission, the Prisoner’s Society, al-Mezan for Human Rights and Addameer said in their joint monthly report on situation of detainees from the occupied Palestinian territories held in Israeli jails that almost half of the detainees were from Jerusalem.      More . . .   

❸ ISRAELI  SETTLERS  CALL  TO  STOP  ‘NOISE  POLLUTION’  CAUSED  BY  MUSLIM  CALL  TO  PRAYER  IN  JERUSALEM 
Ma’an News Agency  
Nov. 3, 2016
A number of Israeli settlers from illegal settlement of Pisgat Zeev protested in front of the house of Israeli Mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barakat on Thursday morning over the ‘noise pollution’ caused by the Muslim call to prayer. . . .
___The call to prayer ―also known as the adhan ― broadcast five times a day from mosques or Islamic centers.
___A spokesperson for the Jerusalem municipality told Ma’an that Barkat, “in collaboration with the Jerusalem District police chief and local Muslim leadership, has developed a plan to protect the religious freedom of Muslim muezzin to announce the call to prayer, while ensuring reasonable quiet in Jerusalem’s residential areas.” [. . . .]
___Adnan al-Husseini, the Palestinian Authority (PA)-appointed governor of Jerusalem, told Ma’an that the call to prayer was one of the main Muslim religious rituals and an integral part of Jerusalem’s identity. He said that Israeli demands to lower the sound of the adhan was a threat which had been issued several times before in Jerusalem. More . . .

  • Shaw, Martin. “Palestine And Genocide: An International Historical Perspective Revisited.” Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal (Edinburgh University Press) 12.1 (2013): 1-7.    Full article.

[. . . .]     Considered as a case of decolonization, Zionism was also unusual. Despite their lack of an organic connection with the British Empire, Zionists aspired nonetheless to present themselves as its natural heirs. Britain had committed itself to a Jewish national home, but it was ambivalent about the Zionist bid to monopolise land, wealth and power in Palestine, and it prioritised its own interests as decolonisation loomed. Zionists were not unusual in having, in the end, to fight the empire that protected them (so did Algerian and Rhodesian colons), but they were unique in lacking traditional national leverage in the imperial nation. They would compensate for this by seeking the protection of the United Nations, and as pioneers of the ethnic lobby in US domestic politics.
___Among the reasons that Zionist critics have given for rejecting the genocide frame are the low civilian casualties among Palestinian Arabs as a result of direct Zionist violence against them in 1948. A death toll of around 5,000 is generally accepted, compared to 750,000 people removed, a relatively low ratio suggesting that killing was a spur and aid to expulsion rather than an end in itself. . .  cases like the Holocaust and Rwanda where violence escalates to all-out mass murder are the exception . . .  critics have pointed out that a substantial Palestinian population remained in Israel after 1948 and has continued up to the present day. This too is not so unusual: neither Bosnia nor Darfur has seen total population removal either.
___. . .  The lateness of Zionist colonization, its expansionary ambitiousness compared to the consolidating projects of other East European nationalisms, and its lack of organic imperial protection all made the removal of Palestinians higher-risk than many genocidal projects. Israel was dependent on the support of the UN and its great powers, and that was also a constraint. . .  Israel’s destruction of Palestinian society responded to a short window of opportunity offered by the 1948 war. Although Palestinians were weakly organized in that year, the Naqba and their ongoing persecutions under Israeli rule and later occupation eventually catalysed a strong national consciousness, in turn a key reference point for wider Arab nationalism and later Islamism. All this has ensured an ongoing struggle in which Palestinians can provoke but not overthrow Israeli power; Israel can militarily defeat but not politically subdue Palestinians.

❹ ASMA  HAS  BEEN  A  REFUGEE  FOR  36  YEARS;  NOW  A  FASHION  STARTUP  HAS  OFFERED  A  LIFELINE  
The Guardian
Oliver Balch
Nov. 3, 2016       Palestinian refugees in Jordan are one of the longest standing refugee populations. SEP Jordan has trained 500 to make embroidered products
___Born in a Jordanian refugee camp to Palestinian parents, Asma Aradeh is stateless. The 36-year-old mother of six is one of more than 30,000 Palestinian exiles living for decades in legal limbo in Jordan’s Jerash camp. But there is one silver lining to Aradeh’s story: she is no longer jobless.
___Three years ago, Aradeh became one of 40 women to join a fledgling social enterprise called SEP Jordan, which manufactures contemporary design products based on traditional Palestinian embroidery. She is now quality controller of the socially minded startup, which has trained around 500 women across the camp.       More . . .

“. . . my child You are the victim, drowning in lies . . .” (Fadwa Tuqan)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
15 year old
A 15-year-old Palestinian boy sustained a broken hand and heavy bruising after being assaulted and detained by undercover Israeli police officers. (Photo: Ma’an News, July 30, 2016)

❶ 15-year-old Palestine abused, medically neglected during detention by Israeli police

  • Background from Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture

❷ B’Tselem: Israel’s use of administrative detention on Palestinian minors steadily increasing
― ❷ (ᴀ) Palestine Youth Orchestra’s triumphant UK debut
❸ Second debate in UK parliament on children in military custody in 2016
❹ POETRY by Fadwa Tuqan
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ 15-YEAR-OLD PALESTINE ABUSED, MEDICALLY NEGLECTED DURING DETENTION BY ISRAELI POLICE
Ma’an News Agency
July 30, 2016
A 15-year-old Palestinian boy sustained a broken hand and heavy bruising after being assaulted and detained by undercover Israeli police officers in the Issawiya neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem.
__Fadi Rafat al-Issawi was detained last Sunday when two Israeli undercover police officers in civilian clothing stopped to ask him and his friend Mustafa Abu al-Hummus for directions, before the officers assaulted the two minors and detained them for allegedly throwing rocks, according to a member of the village’s monitoring committee Muhammad Abu al-Hummus.
___Abu al-Hummus told Ma’an that during a court hearing held for the two minors, Israeli authorities said three cars raided the village and detained the two “in order to limit rock throwing incidents.”      MORE . . .   

From Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture
The Youth Law, enacted in 2008, seeks to guarantee that a child who is suspected or accused of committing a crime is treated in accordance with his or her rights as reflected in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. (Israel ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child on 3 October 1991 and in 2008). The Youth law was amended to reflect provisions consistent with the spirit of the Convention. More specifically, the law establishes special safeguards for minors during the entire legal process, from arrest to detention and interrogation, to ensure that their welfare is protected, and that they are rehabilitated — the underlying objective of the law.
___Despite the existence of these safeguards, it has been well documented that the Israeli police regularly violate the Youth Law in East Jerusalem, improperly employ exceptions, and thereby deny Palestinian minors their rights under the law. . . the law requires the police to issue a summons for interrogation and outlines that detaining the minor must be a measure of last resort. . . . Palestinian children in East Jerusalem are routinely arrested during violent nighttime raids and subjected to interrogation without the issuance of a summons, often without the presence of a parent or attorney.
___Recent amendments to the Penal Code and the Youth Law reveal that they are intended to discriminatorily apply to and punish Palestinian minors of East Jerusalem.
___In 2014, the Israeli . . .  instructed the State Prosecutor’s office to amend the State Prosecutor’s Guidelines of December 2009 relating to the enforcement policy for stone throwing. The committee responsible for the decision found that the Guidelines did not “provide an optimal response for the prevailing security reality in East Jerusalem.” A review of the amendments reveals that Decision 1776 is blatantly aimed at increasing the punishment for stone throwing to include actual imprisonment.
[. . . .] goal of Amendment 119 was to create a separate offense for stone throwing, as offenders were previously accused under the offense of “willfully endangering human life on a transportation . . . Military Order 1651 prescribes that a Palestinian minor convicted of stone throwing with the intent to harm can be imprisoned for up to 20 years.
___Discussions surrounding the law in the [Knesset] confirm that these amendments were proposed to specifically target and punish the Palestinian youth of East Jerusalem for resisting the occupation.

  • Baker, Aseil Abu. “Laws Targeting East Jerusalem: Discriminatory Intent And Application.” Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture 21.3 (2016): 55-64.     FULL ARTICLE. 

AseilAbu Baker is a Palestinian lawyer based in Ramallah, and is licensed to practice law in the United States. Ms. Abu-Baker currently focuses on international law issues, and previously litigated business and contract issues before state and federal courts in the United States.

❷ B’TSELEM: ISRAEL’S USE OF ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION ON PALESTINIAN MINORS STEADILY INCREASING
Ma’an News Agency
July 28, 2016
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem released a report Thursday evening revealing that Israeli authorities have steadily increased their use of administrative detention — Israel’s policy of internment without charge or trial — on Palestinian minors since October.
___The group stated in the report that the controversial policy that allows for the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial based on undisclosed evidence had not been used by Israeli authorities on Palestinian minors since December 2011.
___However, the group found that Israeli authorities had begun to use the policy again on Palestinian minors as of October, when a wave of violence first erupted across the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel.     MORE . . .
RELATED . . .   Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP)
. . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) PALESTINE YOUTH ORCHESTRA’S TRIUMPHANT UK DEBUT
The Electronic Intifada Glasgow
Sarah Irving
July 29, 2016
True to form, the rain is hammering down on Glasgow. In the foyer of the Royal Concert Hall young men in sharp black, wearing scarves bearing the unmistakable checkered print of the Palestinian kuffiyeh, are prowling around moodily. One detects pre-performance nerves.
___This is the second night of the Palestine Youth Orchestra’s six-night debut tour of Britain.
[. . . .] If there were indeed pre-show nerves, they weren’t necessary: the Palestine Youth Orchestra received a full standing ovation. Not even greats like the St. Petersburg Philharmonic get that when performing in Scotland.      MORE . . .

ism
Seven-year-old violently detained in Hebron September 8, 2014 (Photo: International Solidarity Movement)

❸ SECOND DEBATE IN UK PARLIAMENT ON CHILDREN IN MILITARY CUSTODY IN 2016
The Middle East Monitor – MEMO
July 24, 2016
On the last day before the summer recess, the House of Lords debated “the conditions in which Palestinian children are living and the impact on their health and wellbeing” including their treatment while held in military detention. This is the second time this year that the UK parliament has considered the treatment of Palestinian children . . . .
___The most recent debate was sponsored by Lord Norman Warner who visited the West Bank in April as part of a cross-party parliamentary delegation organised by CAABU and MAP. As part of the visit, the delegation went to Ofer military court near Jerusalem.  MORE . . .

EYTAN  IN  THE  STEEL  TRAP,  by  Fadwa  Tuqan

Under the tree, branching out, spreading and growing … growing
In savage rhythms,
Under the “star”, as it builds before his very eyes
Walls of bloody dreams,
Forming a trap, held tightly together with the thread of steel,
Trapping him within, denying him movement
Eytan, the child, the human being, opens his eyes
And asks,
Why the trap and the walls?
Why the time with amputated legs, clad in khaki and death,
Enveloped in smoke rising from flames and from sorrows?

If only the “star” could tell the truth,
If only it could.
But alas!
Alas, the “star”!

Eytan, my child
You are the victim, drowning in lies,
And like Eytan, the harbor is sunk in a sea of lies,
Drowned by the bloated dream
With the head of a dragon
And a thousand arms.
Alas, alas!
If only you could remain the child, the human being!
But I shudder, and live in dread .
That you may grow up inside the trap,
In this time of amputated legs, clad in khaki,
In cruel death, in smoke and sorrow.

From Abdel-Malek, Kamal. The Rhetoric of Violence: Arab-Jewish Encounters in Contemporary Palestinian Literature and Film. MacMillan, 2005. Web.

“. . . my right to behold the sun To demolish the tent and banishment . . .” (Fouzi El Azmar)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Caption: A man kisses the forehead of Naser al-Deen Allan, the father of Mohammed Allan, following news from Allan's lawyer regarding the suspension of his detention, at the family home in the West Bank city of Nablus on August 19, 2015. (Agence France-Presse/Jaafar Ashtiyeh)
A man kisses the forehead of Naser al-Deen Allan, the father of Mohammed Allan, following news from Allan’s lawyer regarding the suspension of his detention, at the family home in the West Bank city of Nablus on August 19, 2015. (Agence France-Presse/Jaafar Ashtiyeh)

❶ From: MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PALESTINIAN  DETAINED  BY  ISRAEL  ENDS  2-MONTH  HUNGER  STRIKE
Agence France-Presse
Aug. 20, 2015
ASHKELON, Israel ― Palestinian detainee Muhammad Allan ended a two-month hunger strike Thursday that had put his life at risk and sparked intense debate over his detention without trial by Israeli authorities, his lawyer said.
____”Muhammad Allan regained consciousness and is not on hunger strike,” Jamil al-Khatib told journalists of his 31-year-old client, after Israel’s top court late Wednesday temporarily lifted his detention without trial.
____Khatib spoke after visiting Allan in hospital in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon and said his health was improving, though he remained bedridden.
____He was receiving vitamins and minerals intravenously.
____”He is in a good health condition and can communicate with others,” Khatib said.
More. . .

❷ From: PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
EU  WELCOMES  UNRWA’S  REOPENING  OF  SCHOOL  YEAR
August 20, 2015
BRUSSELS, ― The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Wednesday declared that schools are set to re-open for Palestinian children and refugees in neighboring countries in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria in the coming weeks.
____In a joint press statement, the EU said this positive and encouraging news has been made possible because of the European Union’s support, as the largest donor to UNRWA, as well as the important contributions from other partners and donor countries.
[. . . .]
____With its Member States, the EU remains the largest donor to UNRWA. EU overall funding in 2014 accounted for almost 40% of the total support to UNRWA. Since the year 2000, the EU has provided over €1.6 billion in support of UNRWA’s work.
More . . . 
Related . . .

UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krähenbühl visiting the Abu Tue’ma school in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, on 14 September 2014, to celebrate the start of the new school year. Photo: UNRWA/Shareef Sarhan
UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krähenbühl visiting the Abu Tue’ma school in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, on 14 September 2014, to celebrate the start of the new school year. Photo: UNRWA/Shareef Sarhan

❸ From: MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  2  CHILDREN  FROM  KAFR  QADDUM
August 20, 2015
QALQILIYA ― Israeli forces detained five Palestinians from the occupied West Bank town of Kafr Qaddum early Thursday, including two children, a local official said.
____Israeli forces raided the town early in the morning and detained three residents. The forces also delivered notices ordering two Palestinian children in the town to meet with Israeli police in the illegal Ariel settlement, coordinator of a local popular committee Murad Ishteiwi said.
____Abdullah Jamil and Subhi Mansour were then interrogated and detained by Israeli police for allegedly taking part in the town’s weekly march, Ishteiwi added.
[. . . .]
____Residents of Kafr Qaddum have carried out weekly demonstrations for four years, often calling for the reopening of a village entrance which has been closed 13 years and is the main route to the nearby city of Nablus, an economic stronghold in the area.
More. . .

❹ From: THE PALESTINIAN INFORMATION CENTER
ISRAELI  OCCUPATION  THREATENS  DEMOLITION  OF  MOSQUE  IN  SILWAN
August 20, 2015
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM ― The Israeli municipal staff in Occupied Jerusalem notified on Thursday the demolition of the al-Qaaqaa Mosque, in Jerusalem’s town of Silwan, under the pretext of unlicensed construction.
____Activist Fakhri Abu Diab said Israel has pursued a policy of arbitrary demolitions in an attempt to mar the life of Palestinian Jerusalemites and force them out of occupied Jerusalem so as to set the stage for settlement expansion particularly around the Old City and the holy al-Aqsa Mosque.
____He said demolitions make part of Israeli intents to Judaize the city and wipe out its typically Islamic character.
____Member of the Mosque’s supervision personnel, Sheikh Hani Abu Tayeh, said the Israeli municipal crews, escorted by police officers, ordered the evacuation of the holy site within no more than a week’s time.
More. . .

❺ Opinion
From: MONDOWEISS
END  OF  LOCKSTEP  US  JEWISH  SUPPORT  FOR  ISRAEL  IS  A  TRIUMPH  NOT  A  TRAGEDY
Philip Weiss
August 19, 2015
It’s all over but the shouting. Politico says that Republicans might not even have the 60 votes needed to get cloture and end a Democratic filibuster that would prevent passage of a disapproval bill of the Iran deal.
Indeed, the most pressing question at this point is whether they can even get the 60 votes in opposition that are needed to break a filibuster and get a disapproval resolution to Obama’s desk. Senate Majority Mitch McConnell himself has all but said overriding a veto isn’t going to happen as Congress prepares to vote on the deal when it returns from its month long recess in September.
____This is complete tea-leaf reading, but here are the last three quotes on Senator Cory Booker’s Facebook page. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough, says FDR. And Constant kindness can accomplish much, Schweitzer.
More . . .
From POLITCO . . .

“THE  WAY,”  BY  FOUZI  EL  AZMAR
I shall not despair;
Whether my way leads to a jail,
under the sun
or in exile
I shall not despair.

It is my right to behold the sun
To demolish the tent and banishment
To eat the fruit of the olive
To water the vineyards
with music
To sing of Love
in Jaffa, in Haifa
To sow the fertile land
with new seeds
It is my right.

Let my way
be the reaching of one hand to another
That a tower of dreams be built

This is my way
And if the last price to pay
is my sight
my life
I shall
but will not give up
my way.

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

Caption: Italian group of women and Kafr Qaddum protesters asking for the opening of the Kafr Qaddum village road. Weekly demonstration, May 1, 2015. ISM photo.
Italian group of women and Kafr Qaddum protesters asking for the opening of the Kafr Qaddum village road. Weekly demonstration, May 1, 2015. ISM photo.

“. . . it was only the pomegranate tree that remained standing . . .” (Tala Abu Rahmeh)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
“This is not to say there is no element of danger in Gaza. I can recall several moments when I was fearful. However, these instances were results of Israeli violence” (Dan Cohen).
Naomi Zeveloff–Brave Jewish reporter in Gaza. “This is not to say there is no element of danger in Gaza. I can recall several moments when I was fearful. However, these instances were results of Israeli violence” (Dan Cohen).

❶ From MONDOWEISS
A JEWISH REPORTER IN GAZA RESPONDS TO JANE EISNER
[Note: Jane Eisner is editor-in-chief of the of The Jewish Daily Forward]
Dan Cohen
June 9, 2015
Today, Jane Eisner, editor-in-chief of the of The Jewish Daily Forward wrote a piece called “Why the Forward Sent a Brave Reporter to Gaza,” in which she described the decision to send their Middle East correspondent, Naomi Zeveloff, to Gaza for a three day reporting trip. She writes that the decision to send Zeveloff, who is Jewish, was “mulled over for many months” and required “complex planning.”
____Eisner’s assumption is that Gaza is a dangerous place for a Jewish journalist to visit, even for a couple of interviews on a subject as non-controversial as psychological trauma. This viewpoint is shared by Eisner’s colleague at the Forward, JJ Goldberg, who put it into blunt terms last summer while debating The Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah on Democracy Now!, claiming “I’d be shot” upon stepping foot into Gaza. . . .
(More. . .)

❷ From INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER (IMEMC)
MENTAL DISABILITY ON THE RISE UNDER THE ISRAELI SIEGE
Miguel Hernández – International solidarity Movement
June 10, 2015
The number of mentally disabled people in the Gaza Strip has increased substantially in the last years.
____70% of the cases come from the communities located near the fence that separates Gaza from the territories occupied in 1948. Such data is surprising, as most of Gaza’s population lives on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, relatively far from the fence.
____The doctors and people responsible for the care of these children believe that this is due to the fact that these populations have been the most attacked in the successive massacres committed by Israel in Gaza. . . .
(More. . .)

❸ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
UN KEEPS ISRAEL OFF CHILD RIGHTS BLACKLIST
June 9, 2015
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — The United Nations on Monday released a “List of Shame” of children’s rights violators but did not include Israel, despite an outcry over the death of more than 500 children in the Gaza war.
____Rights groups had called on Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to add Israel to the list, and there was much debate among UN agencies ahead of the final decision that rested with the UN chief.
____Ban decided that last year’s list would remain unchanged, but said he was “deeply alarmed” by the “grave violations suffered by children as a result of Israeli military operations in 2014.”
____”The unprecedented and unacceptable scale of the impact on children in 2014 raises grave concerns about Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law, notably the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution in attack, and respect for international human rights law, particularly in relation to excessive use of force,” he said.
(More. . .)

Three of the children of Shadi Abu Habed each suffer from some kind of mental disability, all of them are younger than five years. Shadi, whose job is blacksmith, has been unemployed for many years, (Photo, Miguel Hernández, ISM)
Three of the children of Shadi Abu Habed each suffer from some kind of mental disability, all of them are younger than five years. Shadi, whose job is blacksmith, has been unemployed for many years, (Photo, Miguel Hernández, ISM)

❹ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
EGYPT TO OPEN RAFAH CROSSING [Gaza] FOR 3 DAYS
June 10, 2015
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Egyptian authorities will open the Rafah crossing with Gaza for three days next week, a Palestinian Authority official said Wednesday.
____Nathmi Muhanna, general director of border crossings, told Ma’an that Egypt notified his department that the terminal will be open Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in both directions.
____Priority will be given to Palestinians with foreign passports, students and patients seeking medical treatment.
____Use of the crossing will be based on lists of travelers already registered with Gaza’ Ministry of Interior.
____Egyptian authorities have done little to alleviate Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip, keeping the Rafah crossing — Gaza’s only connection to the outside world — virtually sealed since October 2014.
(More. . .)

❺ From PALESTINE CHRONICLE
I FEEL FREE, BUT DEFEATED: CROSSING RAFAH (PART III)
Johnny Barber
June 8, 2015
At the Travel Hall we join another crowd, once again pushing and shoving to get through the narrow doorway. We manage to get to the middle of the crowd and are funneled into the hall.
____The cavernous hall is packed. We drop our bags against a wall. Hanaa goes to buy something to drink; I push my way through the crowd to the counter to try and get the man behind the glass to take our passports. He finally takes them, gives them a quick glance, and throws them back at me. Our exit papers don’t have the proper stamps. We need to go to a different counter and then return.
(More. . .)
(Part II) Raising a Gun at Women with Infants: Crossing Rafah
(Part 1) Heading to Gaza: Crossing Rafah

“POMEGRANATES,” BY TALA ABU RAHMEH
Gaza

Was it pomegranates we used to eat?

I can’t quite remember
it was before all the bombs
fell everywhere even on that church
in the backyard of grandma’s house,
when grandma did not believe in Jesus
and pushed her little sister
off of the window sill,
then her mother got pregnant again.

The new daughter got the dead
daughter’s name;
it was Aisha-the living one.

I think they were pomegranates,
we’d pick them, you and I mom,
from the tree,
red pearls they were
perfect sets of teeth.
we’d eat them so well
and stain our shirts with the mess.

It was nice then mom,
before the bombs, before you got sick.

Oh, the pomegranates
my cousin-who three days later,
got shot in the lungs-
reached for the highest one.

Mom I told you,
if we put a band aid on his chest,
he get better.

Mom are you sure they were pomegranates?

Somehow I keep thinking of little figs
you’d break your arm to reach,
as they grew ripe and plump.
You’d sneak outside, past midnight,
and hum as you swallow
their little strings of joy.

Mom remember how it was only
the pomegranate tree
that remained standing
when you leaped off of the couch
and over my body screaming.

“I swear I will come up there
to your damn chopper
and scope your eyes out
if one inch of this missile
pierces the edges of my daughter.”

Yes mom, it was pomegranates you couldn’t chew,
when your body got infested with morphine,
when you spent July sleeping
before you slept forever in august.

I don’t know how to make them sweeter,
you never gave me the recipe,
and now I cant ask you about them,
or about anything,
so I grab one and stare at its shell,
and wonder if that’s how the earth is now
harsh on the surface,
but housing your body;
your limbs now pearls
and you are the lightest pomegranate
the reddest there is.

Tala Abu Rahmeh, a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus, is a young writer based in Palestine. Her work has been published by several magazines and anthologies, including Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye (Harper Collins, 2010). She is currently working as an instructor at Bard College’s chapter in Jerusalem. More about Tala Abu Rahmeh here.

Googling
Googling “pomegranate trees Gaza” returns no images of trees in Gaza, but many Israeli trees. Odd?

“Jerusalem, the luminous city of prophets the shortest path between earth and sky. . .” (Nizar Qabbani)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
East Jerusalem, 2008. Palestinian neighborhood in foreground, illegal
East Jerusalem, 2008. Palestinian neighborhood in foreground, illegal “settlement” on hill at right (Photo by Harold Knight)

❶ from INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT
JOURNAL: HOUSE DEMOLITION IN EAST JERUSALEM
April 27, 2015
Team Al Khalil (Maja, Siggy and Jenny)
This has been hard to write down. The three of us put off again and again the thoughts and fears of that day, to remember them and to finally write them down. We have been avoiding it, because it is easier to simply try and forget. But then at the same time, for us it was just this one night, whereas for the families living in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi al-Joz this is everyday life.
___An illegal demolition of the majority of the Amro-family home on the 31st of March, 2015 left all the families in Wadi al-Joz scared for the future.
(More. . .)

❷ from PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
PALESTINIANS INJURED DURING CLASHES IN EAST JERUSALEM VILLAGE
Jerusalem
April 25, 2015
Dozens of Palestinians were shot and injured on Saturday and others suffocated during clashes that erupted with Israeli forces in the East Jerusalem village of al-Tur, following the Israeli soldiers’’ shooting and killing of a teenager earlier on Saturday.
. . . Seventeen-year-old Ali Abu Ghannam was shot dead by Israeli forces stationed at the checkpoint around 1:00 a.m. following a scuffle.
(More. . .)
ISM❸ from MA’AN NEWS
THOUSANDS ATTEND FUNERAL FOR PALESTINIAN ACCUSED OF STABBING SOLDIER
HEBRON (Ma’an)
April 26, 2015
Thousands of Palestinians attended the funeral of Mahmoud Abu Jheisha on Sunday, after the 20-year-old was shot dead by Israeli forces outside the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron when he allegedly stabbed an Israeli soldier.
___The funeral procession began at the Amari Mosque in Abu Jheisha’s hometown of Idhna, west of Hebron, where family and friends paid their final respects, before he was taken to be buried in the town cemetery.
___Participants reportedly chanted slogans condemning Israeli crimes and calling for an end to Israeli practices as part of the occupation.
(More. . .)

❹ from INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT
IN PHOTOS: DEMONSTRATION IN NABI SALEH
April 26, 2015
ISM is bringing the story of Friday’s weekly demonstration in Nabu Saleh, 20 kilometers northwest of Ramallah, the Occupied West Bank, in photos.
___Israeli forces shot one Palestinian teenager in the head with live ammunition and fired stun grenades at the press.
(More photos. . .)

❺ Scholarly article of history
from JERUSALEM QUARTERLY of the Institute for Palestine Studies
YARA AND THE WANTED EIGHTEEN
Khalid Farra
JQ 60 ( 2014)
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reacted to spiraling events in Jerusalem and elsewhere in October and November with a predictable, if dangerous, formula: force and more force. The slew of directives from his right-wing government includes a 2 November cabinet-proposed amendment to the penal law increasing the punishment for stone-throwers (peculiarly, even if there is no evidence of intent to harm) from ten to twenty years in prison. Most recently, in the wake of protests erupting after the 8 November police killing of a young man in the Galilee village of Kafr Kanna, Netanyahu threatened to strip Palestinian protestors of Israeli citizenship.
___An alarming number of Palestinian children have been arrested since the “silent intifada,” as Jerusalemites like to call it. . .
(More. . .)

“JERUSALEM,” BY NIZAR QABBANI

Oh Jerusalem, the luminous city of prophets
The shortest path between earth and sky

Oh Jerusalem, the citadel of laws
A beautiful child with fingers charred
and downcast eyes
You are the shady oasis passed by the Prophet
Your streets are melancholy
Your minarets are mourning
You, the young maiden dressed in black
Who rings the bells in the Nativity
On Saturday morning?
Who brings toys for the children
On Christmas eve?
The city of sorrow
A huge tear trembling on your eyelid
Who will halt the aggression
On you, the pearl of religions?
Who will wash your bloody walls?
Who will safeguard the Bible?
Who will rescue the Quran?
Who will save Christ?
Who will save man?
Oh Jerusalem my town
Oh Jerusalem my love
Tomorrow the lemon trees will blossom
And the olive trees will rejoice
Your eyes will dance
The migrant pigeons will return
To your sacred roofs
And your children will play again
And fathers and sons will meet
On your rosy hills
My city, city of peace and olives.
—Translated by Sharif Elmusa and Naomi Shihab Nye

From BEFORE THERE IS NOWHERE TO STAND: PALESTINE ISREL POETS RESPOND TO THE STRUGGLE. Ed. By Joan Dobbie and Grace Beeler. Sandpoint ID: Lost Horse Press, 2012.
Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998) was a Syrian diplomat and poet revered by Arabs for his sensual and romantic verse. A man of his times and of all times, he is by far the most popular contemporary poet in the Arab world.

Jerusalem 2008.
Jerusalem 2008. “Who will halt the aggression
On you, the pearl of religions?” (Photo Harold Knight 2008)

“. . . Happy is he with an iron roof above his head. . . ” (Zakaria Mohammed)

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olivesfrom PALESTINE NEWS AND INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
ISRAELI FORCES DEMOLISH WATER CISTERN, UPROOT OLIVE TREES IN JENIN, HEBRON VILLAGES
Jenin
March 24, 2015 (WAFA)
Israeli forces Tuesday demolished a water cistern, uprooted olive trees and handed two demolition orders in Ta‘annak village to the west of Jenin and al-Kom locality to the southwest of Hebron.
.  .  .  Escorting a bulldozer, large Israeli troops, consisting of at least 10 vehicles, raided Ta‘annak, where they proceeded to demolish a 50-meter-deep water cistern that is used to provide local farmers in this village as well as Rummana, Zboba, Silat al-Harithiya and al-Yamoun with water for irrigation, said ‘Abdul-Rahman Zyoud, a local farmer and owner of the water cistern.
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from PALESTINE NEWS NETWORK
IOF HAND OUT FIVE ARBITRARY DEMOLITION THREATS TO JERUSALEM HOMES
PNN/ Jerusalem/
March 23, 2015
Israeli occupation forces this morning have handed out demolition threats to 5 homes in Silwan village north Jerusalem, under the pretext of having no permit to build. Some of the structures date back to 45 years, some of them were newly constructed and others in the process of construction.
.  .  .  The Palestinian Christian-Islamic committee on Monday warned of these threats, since they count as extra Judaization project against Silwan and Al-Aqsa mosque altogether.
(More. . . .)

Jerusalem home demolition (photo by Harold Knight, August, 2008)
Jerusalem home demolition (photo by Harold Knight, August, 2008)

from THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
Art, Music & Culture
ISRAELI PORTRAIT OF ROSE-TINTED PAST GIVES WAY TO RAGE AT SETTLERS
Selma Dabbagh
March 23, 2015
It is unusual to read a book on Israel and the Palestinians — perhaps the most documented conflict in world history — that starts by focusing on commonalities rather than divisions: on marriages rather than feuds, festivals rather than riots and municipal housing plans rather than the demolition of homes.
.  .  .  Menachem Klein’s Lives in Common: Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Hebron (Hurst Publishing) is a loving, albeit rose-tinted, depiction. By conveying past realities, the book offers a vision of a future for the area that was the British Mandate of Palestine
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From JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE
UCLA RESOLUTION ON ANTI-SEMITISM CREATES DANGEROUS PRECEDENT
Naomi Dann Naomi@jvp.org
March 11, 2015
Jewish Voice for Peace welcomes the commitment of the UCLA Undergraduate Student Association Council (USAC) to addressing issues of anti-Semitism on campus. We recognize that a recent series of troubling incidents, including anti-Semitic graffiti and inappropriate questioning of a Jewish student, have raised concerns about rising anti-Semitism on campus, which we condemn in the strongest terms. However, we are also deeply concerned that the resolution passed by the USAC on March 10, 2015 further enshrines long-standing political efforts to silence legitimate criticism of the state of Israel by codifying its inclusion in the definition of anti-Semitism.
.  .  .  The resolution draws on the “State Department Definition of Anti-Semitism,” (sometimes referred to as the “3 D’s”). However, this definition has no legal standing in the US and was actually removed as a working definition by the European body where it originated.
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from THE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT (ISM)
IN GAZA THE FARMERS IRRIGATE THE LAND WITH THEIR BLOOD
Valeria Cortés
March 18, 2015
Tilling the land in Gaza is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. The Zionist Occupation Forces fire on the peasants and their families while they sow or harvest their own land near the infamous Zionist fence which surrounds Gaza. They also burn their fields and routinely ravage their crops with bulldozers, leaving hundreds of families ruined and preventing the Gaza Strip from developing its already devastated economy or achieving a minimum of food sovereignty.
(More. . . .)

“THE CYPRESS TREE,” BY ZAKARIA MOHAMMED
The gale above the rooftops –
this gale which has swept through mountain passes
and raced down glens –

Hellish, horned wind –
bellowing and breaking branches. . .

Who smashed the metal stockade?
Who let loose the terrified herd?

The herd-dogs couldn’t stop them,
those horses, fleeing before the wind,
whinnying and upturning time. . .

This storm overhead – horned wind,
battering lampposts, flagpoles, telegraph poles,
pounding with its hooves our hearts and minds –

Happy is he with an iron roof above his head
For the gale will spare his house.
Happy is he who lashes his soul to the cypress tree
that shall not be moved
for his spirit won’t be broken by the winds.
–Translated by Kathleen Jamie

From A BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014) –available from Amazon.com.

Zakaria Mohammed was born in Nablus in 1951, studied in Baghdad, and now lives in Ramallah, working in the Palestinian Ministry of Culture. He is also a journalist and creative writing teacher.