Tag: Israeli “defense” Force

“. . . . The Holy Land seemingly chooses bullets . . .” (Farrah Sarafa)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
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Police and some 1,200 protesters clash during a rally against the government’s plan to resettle some 30,000 Bedouin residents of the Negev, in the southern Israeli town of Hura, earlier this month (Photo credit: David Buimovitch/Flash90)

❶ Palestinian woman shot dead after alleged car attack at Gush Etzion
❷ Israeli forces open fire on Palestinians near Gaza border
❸ PHOTOS: Arabs and Jews protest planned expulsion of 1,200 Bedouin
❹ BDS win: UNICEF in Jordan ends G4S contract
❺ Opinion/Analysis: THE RIGHT TO OWN PROPERTY — FOR JEWS ALONE
❻ Poetry by Farrah Sarafa
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ PALESTINIAN  WOMAN  SHOT  DEAD  AFTER  ALLEGED  CAR  ATTACK  AT  GUSH  ETZION
MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
4 Mar. 2016
Israeli forces shot dead a 34-year-old Palestinian woman on Friday morning after she allegedly rammed her car into an Israeli soldier stationed at the Gush Etzion junction in the southern occupied West Bank.
___An Israeli army spokesperson said that after the woman hit the soldier with her car, Israeli forces “responded to the imminent threat” by shooting and killing her.     MORE . . .
❷ ISRAELI  FORCES  OPEN  FIRE  ON  PALESTINIANS  NEAR  GAZA  BORDER
MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
4 Mar. 2016
Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinian workers east of Gaza City on Friday morning, with no injuries reported, locals told Ma’an.
___Heavy gunfire was heard as Israeli soldiers stationed in military towers along the Gazan border opened fire on workers and bird hunters.
___Witnesses told Ma’an that the Palestinians left the area fearing for their safety. Medical sources said that no injuries were reported.      MORE . . .

bedouin children
Bedouin children take part in a demonstration outside the Be’er Sheva District Court against the planned demolition of Umm al-Hiran and Atir, two unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel’s Negev Desert, March 3, 2016. (Photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

❸ PHOTOS:  ARABS  AND  JEWS  PROTEST  PLANNED  EXPULSION  OF  1,200  BEDOUIN
+972 MAGAZINE
Yael Marom, photos by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org
3 Mar. 2016
Over 300 demonstrators marched outside the Be’er Sheva District Court Thursday against the planned demolition of two unrecognized Bedouin villages, Umm al-Hiran and Atir, in Israel’s Negev Desert. Two villages are slated to be replaced by a Jewish-only community and a Jewish National Fund forest, respectively
___The protesters, Arabs and Jews, accompanied by members of Knesset from the Joint List and Meretz’s Issawi Freij, chanted “We will not move from Atir and Umm al-Hiran,” and “the Negev belongs to all of us — Jews and Arabs.”      MORE . . .
❹ BDS  WIN:  UNICEF  IN  JORDAN  ENDS  G4S  CONTRACT
PALESTINE NEWS NETWORK
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Jordan has ended its contract with G4S following a campaign by BDS activists in the country and across the world over the company’s role in Israel’s detention and torture of Palestinian political prisoners and other Israeli human rights violations.
___Guman Mussa, the Arab World campaigns coordinator with the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society leading the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, welcomed the move.  MORE . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis: THE  RIGHT  TO  OWN  PROPERTY  — FOR  JEWS  ALONE
+972 BLOG
From YESH DIN, by Yossi Gurvitz
4 Mar. 2016
The government never authorized the wholesale annexation of the West Bank. That’s why it’s doing it behind everyone’s backs. . . .
[. . . . ]
The Israeli government never authorized . . . unofficial policy of annexation – one that does not grant equal rights to those being annexed, while at the same time depriving them of the legal defenses they are entitled to as protected persons, since, allegedly, there is no occupation.      MORE . . . 

“LET  THE  LAND  CHOOSE,”  BY  FARRAH  SARAFA

Who do you think the Holy Land
Would choose: Palestine or Israel?

Do you expect the birthplace of 3
Religions to ever really be peaceful?

I mean—Jesus was a saint,
Tortured and crucified by men with gold.

Do we celebrate Pilot’s cursed victory
Or the sacrifices made by a saint,

A hero, who rises from the dead?
His Resurrection marked by Easter eggs,

Reproduction. Do miracles
Require modernity or tradition

To appear? Chemicals or nature?
Mind or heart? Bulldozing olive trees,

Whose oil sustained families, diet
And economy, Israel is yet to produce

A decent olive oil. Its blood somehow
Curdles with the juice of branches needed

To extract an extra virgin olive.
The Holy Land seemingly chooses bullets,

Nightclubs, Capitalism, Snobbery-
(Ignorance is bliss)—but the roots

The veins reaching into mountains’
Throats seem to not be cooperating.

Why is that? Ask Jesus, the rebel,
Who’d say: First get to love Palestine.

About Farrah Sarafa
In 2006 she wrote: “My mother was born in Palestine, my father in Iraq; they married in Egypt twenty five years ago and had me here in the States. I am a pure, product of occupation and war, therefore, confused by my American upbringing. The war has been eating me up more than ever and poetry is my primary response. . .”
From Warpoetry.co.uk
 BDS FINAL LOGO_v5WEB_URL_side

“. . . 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)

“. . . Rub salt into every wound old wounds new wounds . . .” (Fouzi El Asmar)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
A masked Palestinian youth throws stones towards Israeli security forces during clashes at the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem on Sept. 18, 2015. (AFP/File Ahmad Gharabli)
A masked Palestinian youth throws stones towards Israeli security forces during clashes at the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem on Sept. 18, 2015. (AFP/File Ahmad Gharabli)

❶ Israel broadens rules on use of live fire against stone-throwers
❷ Palestinian shot by Israeli fire dies of wounds
❸ Palestinian detainee in critical condition despite ongoing PA concerns
❹ Taybeh Golden Hotel Opens Its Doors for Oktoberfest
❺ Opinion/Analysis: What’s behind Netanyahu’s war on stone throwers
❻ Poetry by Fouzi El Asmar

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

◊  ◊  ◊  ◊  ◊  ◊

❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL  BROADENS  RULES  ON  USE  OF  LIVE  FIRE  AGAINST  STONE-THROWERS
Sept. 24, 2015
JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel’s security cabinet on Thursday broadened the rules under which stone-throwers can be targeted by live fire, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.
____”The security cabinet has decided to authorize police to use live ammunition against people throwing stones and Molotov cocktails when the life of a third person is threatened and no longer only when the police officer is threatened,” a statement said. [. . . . .]
____The use of .22 caliber bullets — long used as a crowd control method in the occupied West Bank — will be allowed in occupied East Jerusalem in circumstances that Israeli forces determine are life-threatening.
More . . .

❷ THE PALESTINIAN INFORMATION CENTER
PALESTINIAN  SHOT  BY  ISRAELI  FIRE  DIES  OF  WOUNDS
Sept. 25, 2015
NABLUS, (PIC)– A Palestinian young man has died of wounds he sustained after being shot and critically injured by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) at a military checkpoint in the West Bank city of Nablus last week.
____Palestinian medical sources said Ahmad Khatatbeh, 25, succumbed to his injuries after being shot at Beit Furik checkpoint in eastern Nablus last Friday.
____Israeli sources claimed that Ahmed Khatabteh allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli car. . .
____However, family sources affirmed that Israeli soldiers stationed at the checkpoint suddenly opened fire at Khatatbeh while driving along with his two friends on their way back home.
____Khatatbeh did not understand what happened as he was born deaf and mute, the family stressed.
More . . .

❸ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PALESTINIAN  DETAINEE  IN  CRITICAL  CONDITION  DESPITE  ONGOING  PA  CONCERNS
Sept. 24, 2015
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — The health condition of Palestinian prisoner Sami Abu Diak, 33, has reached a critical stage despite repeated calls by the Palestinian Authority for the Israeli Prison Service to address his medical needs.
____PA Minister of Health Jawad Awad sent a medical delegation, headed by the general director of primary health Kamal al-Shakhra, to visit Abu Diak at the Assaf HaRofeh Hospital where the detainee is currently being held.
____Al-Shakhra said Abu Diak is suffering from renal and pulmonary failure, adding that doctors expect his body to respond to treatment in a week, but any lack of response would result in further deterioration of his health.
More . . .

Taybeh Golden Hotel is in the center of Taybeh Village, roughly 25 minutes away from Ramallah. Within close distance to the hotel is the St. George Byzantine Church, the Taybeh Brewing Company, Old City of Taybeh and the Taybeh Winery. (Photo: Taybeh Golden Hotel)
Taybeh Golden Hotel in Taybeh Village, 25 minutes away from Ramallah. Within close distance to the hotel is the St. George Byzantine Church, the Taybeh Brewing Company, Old City of Taybeh and the Taybeh Winery. (Photo: Taybeh Golden Hotel)

❹ THIS WEEK IN PALESTINE
TAYBEH  GOLDEN  HOTEL  OPENS  ITS  DOORS  FOR  OKTOBERFEST
Sept. 2015
Maria Khoury
(Dr. Maria C. Khoury, author of Christina Goes to the Holy Land, has organized the annual Taybeh Oktoberfest since 2005.)
All of a sudden it seems like I have a house with eighty rooms. This is exactly what working at the new Taybeh Golden Hotel feels like to me since we are still at the setting up stages and taking reservations, especially for Taybeh Oktoberfest that will be back in Taybeh this September.
More . . .

❺ Opinion/Analysis
MONDOWEISS
WHAT’S  BEHIND  NETANYAHU’S  WAR  ON  STONE  THROWERS
Dan Cohen
Sept. 24, 2015
Last Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood at the site in occupied East Jerusalem where a 64-year-old Israeli driver was injured after his car hit a pole and later died.
____“We are declaring war on those who throw stones and bottles and rioters,” he declared. [. . . . .]
____Now that thwarting the Iran deal is out of reach, Netanyahu’s political calculus demands a new threat – and stone throwers have replaced the nuclear duck.
More . . .
Background . . .

“DETERMINATION  II,”  FOUZI  EL ASMAR
Whip me
Fetch more whips
more executioners
By the thousands
Render my skin
to shoe soles
Rub salt into every wound
old wounds
new wounds
Search my mind
for every thread of a new image
to a new poem
Take away the pen and the pencil.
With my blood
I shall write
every day
a million songs.

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

THE NECESSARY PROTECTION AGAINST A BOY THROWING A STONE. The Israeli army is using live ammunition against unarmed Palestinian stone-throwers in the Occupied West Bank. (Photo: Middle East Monitor)
THE  NECESSARY  PROTECTION  AGAINST  A BOY  THROWING  A  STONE. The Israeli army is using live ammunition against unarmed Palestinian stone-throwers in the Occupied West Bank. (Photo: Middle East Monitor)

“. . . my country is the wave that froths and foams . . .” (Najwan Darwish)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Caption: An Israeli court has issued an order to demolish Palestinian village Susya and relocate its residents. The village was built even before the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967. (Photo by Guy Butiva.)
An Israeli court has issued an order to demolish Palestinian village Susya and relocate its residents. The village was built even before the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967. (Photo by Guy Butiva.)

❶ From +972 MAGAZINE
U.S. WARNS ISRAEL AGAINST EVICTING PALESTINIANS FROM SUSYA
Mairav Zonszein
July 18, 2015
While the Iran nuclear deal captured most of the attention . . . . this week, the tiny rural Palestinian village of Susya also managed to get the U.S. State Department’s attention. . . .
____According to Susya resident Nasser Nawaj’ah, who is also a B’Tselem researcher, the Israeli army’s Civil Administration . . . . notified residents of its intention to demolish about half of the village’s structures. . . .
____U.S. State Department spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday . . . “we strongly urge the Israeli authorities to refrain from carrying out any demolitions in the village. Demolition of this Palestinian village or of parts of it, and evictions of Palestinians from their homes would be harmful and provocative.”
(More. . .)

❷ From INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER (IMEMC)
TEEN KIDNAPPED AS SOLDIERS ATTACK NABI SALEH PROTEST
Saed Bannoura
July 18, 2015
Israeli soldiers attacked, on Friday, the weekly nonviolent protest against the Annexation Wall and settlements in Nabi Saleh village, northwest of the central West Bank city of Ramallah, and kidnapped one teenager.
____Nabi Saleh television reported that the soldiers kidnapped Walid Dhifallah, 18 years of age, and took him to an unknown destination.
(More. . .)
(Further details)

❸ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ICC ORDERS PROSECUTOR TO RECONSIDER PROBING ISRAEL’S FLOTILLA RAID
July 17, 2015
THE HAGUE (AFP) — The International Criminal Court on Thursday ordered its chief prosecutor to review a decision not to probe Israel’s deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in 2010, saying “errors were made.”
____Fatou Bensouda late last year dropped the investigation leading to potential prosecution into the incident in which 10 Turkish activists were killed by Israeli forces, saying the incident was “not of sufficient gravity.”
____The case was first filed by the Comoros, where the activists’ ship the Mavi Marmara was registered.
____The tiny Indian Ocean island state in January asked the Hague-based ICC’s judges to review Bensouda’s decision.
(More. . .)

Caption: A boat escorts Turkish ship Mavi Marmara with Israeli forces near Ashdod on May 31, 2010, after the Israeli navy raided a flotilla of aid ships bound for Gaza. (AFP/ Menahem Kahana, File)
A boat escorts Turkish ship Mavi Marmara with Israeli forces near Ashdod on May 31, 2010, after the Israeli navy raided a flotilla of aid ships bound for Gaza. (AFP/ Menahem Kahana, File)

❹ From JADALIYYA–ARAB STUDIES INSTITUTE.
PLANNING UNDER OCCUPATION: ELASTIC GEOGRAPHIES AND ‘AREA C’
Lamya Hussain
July 16, 2015
In recent years there has been growing concern about Israel’s planning regime and its operations across the West Bank . . . the growing number of demolitions, eviction orders, and restrictions in Area C. . .
____Since 2005, the Israeli Civil Administration (ICA) has initiated a number of “special outline plans” for Palestinian villages in Area C. These plans . . . set in motion a series of home demolitions and other civil-military orders that forcibly displace the local population . . . in order to maintain Israeli hegemony in Area C.
(More. . .)

❺ Opinion
From THE PALESTINIAN INFORMATION CENTER
KHADER ADNAN: A SYMBOL OF PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE
Ghada Ageel
June 26, 2015
(Ghada Ageel is a visiting professor at the University of Alberta Political Science Department [Edmonton, Canada], an independent scholar, and active in the Faculty4Palestine – Alberta. Her article was published in the Middle East Eye website.)
The body of Khader Adnan is again on the line and the very life of this Palestinian political prisoner is in great danger. Adnan. . . . has drastically deteriorated with his refusal to undergo medical tests and to take certain vitamins offered to hunger strikers. [Note: Adnan has been released.]
____According to Addameer organisation, Adnan is among an estimated 426 political prisoners currently locked up in Israeli jails as administrative detainees. His hunger strike throws a spotlight on some 5,800 Palestinian freedom fighters . . . .
____The strike also casts light on Israel’s use of administrative detention as a way of cracking down on any attempt by Palestinians to speak out against the occupation and its unjust practices.
(More. . .)

“A GLIMPSE IN THE MIRROR,” BY NAJWAN DARWISH

Sometimes I glimpse in the mirror and see
the ideal I strive for
the gallant savior I wait for
I see a thread of beauty rippling
like a river of nobility
But instantly I tell myself:
Shut up and look away
narcissus surrounded by Zionists’ lies
walls and checkpoints rising all around you
Shut up
and avert your gaze
from your so-called beauty

“AWAKE,” BY NAJWAN DARWISH

Awake for longer than forever
and since before eternity
my waking is the wave that froths and foams

Awake in hymns and the mailmen’s passion
Awake in a house that will be destroyed
in a grave that machines will dig up:
my country is the wave that froths and foams

Awake so that the colonizers might leave
Awake so that people can sleep
“Everyone has to sleep sometime,” they say
I am awake
and ready to die

Najwan Darwish (b. 1978) is one of the foremost Arabic-language poets of his generation. Since publishing his first collection in 2000, Darwish’s poetry has been translated into ten languages. . . . While his poetry is at times political, it embodies a universal message, reminiscent of the great mystical poets like Rumi. From Jerusalem (Palestine) where he works and lives, Darwish has become a distinguished voice for his nation’s struggle . . . .
(More. . .)

Caption: Clouds of tear gas in Nabi Saleh. (International Solidarity Movement, Nabi Saleh)
Clouds of tear gas in Nabi Saleh. (International Solidarity Movement, Nabi Saleh)

“. . . to forget the word ‘future,’ or to erase it completely from your vocabulary. . .” (Somaya El Sousi)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Church goers before the troops arrived
Unruly (dangerous?) Church goers before the troops arrived

from INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
ISRAELI SOLDIERS RAID PALM SUNDAY CELEBRATION IN BEIT JALA
by IMEMC News & Agencies
Monday March 30, 2015
Palm Sunday celebrations in Beit Jala were brought to an abrupt end, on Sunday, when Israeli troops raided the majority-Christian town near Bethlehem and began threatening locals. Palestinian policemen on duty near the celebrations were threatened by Israeli soldiers with arrest during the raid, which took place in the middle of the day as Sunday mass was coming to an end in local churches, Ma’an News Agency reports.

The town of Beit Jala is subject to regular incursions by Israeli forces, even though the large majority of its population live in Areas A, subject to full Palestinian civil and military control under the Oslo Accords. Palm Sunday is celebrated this year on March 29 according to the Gregorian calendar, which is recognized for religious purposes by most Western Christian denominations in Palestine. Orthodox Christians, meanwhile, use the Julian calendar and will be celebrating Palm Sunday on April 5.

The raid raises fears of a repeat of last Easter, when Israeli restrictions on Christian worship during the holiday prevented thousands of Christian Palestinians from traveling to Jerusalem and led to chaotic scenes in the city itself.
(More. . . .)

From B’TSELEM
CIVIL ADMINISTRATION DEMOLISHES 4 HOMES IN KHALLET MAKHUL, NORTHERN JORDAN VALLEY, 18 MONTHS AFTER DEMOLISHING ALL STRUCTURES IN COMMUNITY
25 Mar 2015
At 6:30 A.M. on 18 March 2015, representatives of the Civil Administration arrived with a military escort at the shepherding community of Khallet Makhul in the northern Jordan Valley. Civil Administration bulldozers demolished four residential tents belonging to four of the community’s nine families. They also demolished 4 kitchens, 12 livestock enclosures and a tent used by one of the families to produce cheese. The very same day, the families erected tents they received from aid organizations to serve as substitute housing. The next evening, a military patrol arrived at the community. Once more, they demolished the tent of one of the families.
(More. . .)

Khallet Makhul - Israeli demolition equipment
Khallet Makhul – Israeli demolition equipment

from MONDOWEISS
PALESTINIANS MARK THE 39TH ANNIVERSARY OF LAND DAY
Allison Deger
March 30, 2015
Today, March 30th Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, marched for Land Day, Yom al-Arda in Arabic, which commemorates protest in the Galilee in 1976 where six Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed.

The main marches today were held in the village of Sakhnin and Arrabe in the north of Israel, home to the first Land Day protests 39 years ago. Other demonstrations took place in the lower Galilee and in the Bedouin town of Rahat in the Negev desert. Unlike past years, no general strike was called. Businesses and schools stayed open although the Israeli outlet Ynet News reported 70% of school-aged Palestinian children inside Israel took the day off. “Sixty-seven years have passed since the establishment of Israel and there still is no equitable allocation of land,” said Joint List Knesset-elect member and current parliamentarian Ahmed Tibi in Rahat, reported the Jerusalem Post.
(More. . . .)

from COMMON DREAMS
WHEN BEING PRO-PALESTINIAN AND PRO-ISRAELI IS THE SAME THING: ON WHY I PAINTED PHYSICIAN, AUTHOR, AND PEACE ACTIVIST ALICE ROTHCHILD
By Robert Shetterly
March 31, 2015
Editor’s note: The artist’s essay that follows accompanies the ‘online unveiling’—exclusive to Common Dreams—of Shetterly’s latest painting in his “Americans Who Tell the Truth” portrait series, presenting citizens throughout U.S. history who have courageously engaged in the social, environmental, or economic issues of their time. This painting of Alice Rothschild—a physician, author, filmmaker, and peace activist—is his latest portrait of those who dedicated their lives to equality, freedom and justice. Posters of this portrait and others are now available at the artist’s website.
(More. . .)

“THE ART OF LIVING IN GAZA,” BY SOMAYA EL SOUSI
(A narrative prose-poem)
To live in a dreamless city, a city abundant in its discontents and completely forgotten about, a city whoever enters is lost and whoever leaves is destined for a new life, you must learn a great many survival skills. Then, as an individual, you can become harmonised with the paradigm that rules everything in it.

The first of these skills is the ability to interact with time. I don’t mean that time is important, to such a great extent, in this city. On the contrary: in Gaza there is a great surplus of time, which you must know how to use up, how to get rid of, in every possible way, as there are no important appointments binding you to your schedule, and no particularly sacred or respected times. Everything is possible at any time, and it’s up to you to kill time as you see fit. So you either remain a prisoner in your own home, workplace, or wherever it is that you know and that knows you, or you think of other ways to kill time. Whatever you do will lead you to the same result in the end: you will make it as far as your pillow, at night, with a sense of absolute futility. You will be unable to find anything to think of other than fleeing from your self, the self that asks itself constantly until when? And what will you do tomorrow? And how are you going to spend the rest of your life?

The second skill is to forget the word ‘future,’ or to erase it completely from your vocabulary, because it doesn’t mean anything when it comes up against the reality you inhabit. You cannot contemplate what you’ll do in an hour’s time, because there are so many changes which you have no say in and which happen at lightning speed; so you could fall prey to a stray bullet which comes at you in your house or in the street, a bullet no one knows the source of. Bullets are so plentiful these days and they roam around with such an unprecedented freedom that your life could end with absolute simplicity and you could become just another number, the latest addition to the list of casualties of random firearm use. . . . (More. . .)

Somaya El Sousi was born in Gaza City in 1974. She studied English language at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University, and works as a researcher in the sociological division of the Palestinian Planning Centre. Four collections of her poetry have been published so far: The First Sip of the Sea’s Chest (1998), Doors (2003), Lonely Alone (2005), Idea, Void, White – in a joint collection with the poet Hala El Sharouf, published by Dar Al-Adab, Beirut, (2005) (More. . . )

Dr. Alice Rothschild, by Robert Shetterly
Dr. Alice Rothschild, by Robert Shetterly

“. . . they shout, but their clamour makes no sound . . .” (Mourid Barghouti)

Harold Knight3 Comments

regular for every postFrom:
ei
YOUNG DANCER JAILED BY ISRAEL FOR TAKING PART IN PROTEST
By Charlotte Kates. Beirut. 13 February 2015

Lina Khattab, 18, is in her first year of media studies at Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank. An accomplished dancer, she is a member of the renowned troupe El-Funoun.

She was arrested by the Israeli military on 13 December as she joined fellow university students in a march to Israel’s Ofer prison, which holds Palestinian political prisoners.

El-Funoun has produced a video of scenes from her arrest spliced with some of her performances with the troupe, which specializes in the traditional Palestinian dance dabke.

Khattab has now been imprisoned for nearly two months and brought before the military court at Ofer nine times. Her last hearing on 25 January was a closed session; no family or observers were allowed to enter the military court. (Full story.)

Follow-up story from
mondoweiss
.

ISRAEL SENTENCES PALESTINIAN TEEN LINA KHATTAB TO 6 MONTHS IN PRISON FOR PROTESTING
By Ben Norton, February 18, 2015

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From:
haaretz

AMERICAN JEWS, SPEAK OUT AGAINST NETANYAHU’S POLICIES
Benjy Cannon
Feb. 18, 2015
The Israeli prime minister and the majority of U.S. Jews fundamentally disagree on key issues. The time has come for American Jewish institutions to address this tension.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned speech before Congress – organized behind President Obama’s back – has uncharacteristically split the Jewish communal establishment. Yet the controversy over the speech exposes a tension that has been brewing below the surface for years. The fact is that when it comes to politics, values and the key issues that will decide Israel’s future, Netanyahu and the majority of American Jews fundamentally disagree. The time has come for American Jewish institutions to accept and address that important tension.

The speech, and Netanyahu’s intransigent refusal to back down from it, have created a firestorm of criticism, coming from such mainstream Jewish leaders as Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League and Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the Union for Reform Judaism.  (Full story.)
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From:
palestine

ISIS AND ISRAEL: ALLIES AGAINST A PALESTINIAN STATE
Sep 10 2014
By Jonathan Cook – Nazareth

An image speaks a thousand words – and that is presumably what Israel’s supporters hoped for with their latest ad in the New York Times.

Two photographs are presented side by side. One, titled ISIS, is the now-iconic image of a kneeling James Foley. . . awaiting his terrible fate. The other, titled Hamas, is a scene from Gaza, where a similarly masked killer stands over two victims. . .

A headline stating “This is the face of radical Islam” tries, like the images, to equate the two organizations. . . Netanyahu’s depiction of Hamas and ISIS, or Islamic State, as “branches of the same poisonous tree” is a travesty of the truth.

ISIS militants burning Palestinian flag.
ISIS militants burning Palestinian flag.

The two have entirely different – in fact, opposed – political projects. ISIS wants to return to a supposed era of pure Islamic rule, the caliphate, when all Muslims were subject to God’s laws . . . the implication is that ISIS ultimately seeks world domination.

Hamas’s goals are decidedly more modest. It was born and continues as a national liberation movement, seeking to create a Palestinian state. Its members may disagree on that state’s territorial limits but even the most ambitious expect no more than the historic borders of a Palestine that existed a few decades ago. (Full story.)

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“A NIGHT UNLIKE OTHERS,” by Mourid Barghouti
His finger almost touches the bell,
the door, unbelievably slowly,
opens.
He enters.
He goes to his bedroom.
Here they are:
his picture next to his little bed,
his schoolbag, in the dark,
awake.
He sees himself sleeping
between two dreams, two flags.
He knocks on the doors of all the rooms
– he almost knocks. But he does not.
They all wake up:
“He’s back!
By God, he’s back!” they shout,
but their clamour makes no sound.
They stretch their arms to hug Mohammed
but do not reach his shoulders.

He wants to ask them all
how they are doing
under the night shelling;
he cannot find his voice.
They too say things
but find no voice.
He draws nearer, they draw nearer,
he passes through them, they pass through him,
they remain shadows
and never meet.
They wanted to ask him if he’d had his supper,
if he was warm enough over there, in the earth,
if the doctors could take the bullet and the fear
out of his heart.
Was he still scared?
Had he solved the two arithmetic problems
in order not to disappoint his teacher
the following day?
Had he . . . ?
He, too, simply wanted to say:
I’ve come to see you
to make sure you’re alright.
He said:
Dad will, as usual, forget to take his hypertension pill.
I came to remind him as I usually do.
He said:
my pillow is here, not there.
They said.
He said.
Without a voice.
The doorbell never rang,
the visitor was not in his little bed,
they had not seen him.
The following morning neighbours whispered:
it was all a delusion.
His schoolbag was here
marked by the bullet holes,
and his stained notebooks.
Those who came to give their condolences
had never left his mother.
Moreover, how could a dead child
come back, like this, to his family,
walking, calmly, under the shelling
of such a very long night?

مريد البرغوثي‎, Murīd al-Barghūti (born July 8, 1944, in Deir Ghassana, near Ramallah, on the West Bank) is a Palestinian poet and writer. While Barghouti was studying at the University of Cairo in 1967, the 6-Day War broke out, and he was unable to return to the West Bank until 1996. He was expelled from Egypt in 1977 and was exiled in Budapest separated from his wife, the Egyptian novelist Radwa Ashour. They have been together in the West Bank since they were allowed to return together in 1996. Their son, Tamim Al Barghouti, born in Egypt in 1977, is himself an important Palestinian poet.