Tag: Rashid Hussein

“. . . the stars Like refugees scattered . . .” (Rashid Hussein)

Harold KnightLeave a comment

(NOTE: A group of articles about the Partitioning of Palestine prompted by yesterday’s UNGA votes.)

tadamon1948
Palestinian Refugee Camp, c. 1948. (Photo: Institute for Palestine Studies, Journal of Palestine Studies)

SELECTED   NEWS   OF   THE   DAY. . .
|  UNGA  VOTES  AGAINST  ANTI-HAMAS  RESOLUTION
The United Nations General Assembly failed to pass an anti-Hamas resolution, on Thursday, serving a crushing defeat to both the United States and Israel after weeks of diplomacy.     ___While the draft resolution, which was proposed by outgoing UN envoy, Nikki Haley, received 87 votes in favor, it fell short of the two-thirds super-majority needed to pass.     ___Additionally, 57 opposed it and 33 countries abstained and another 23 were not present.    ___Israeli leaders still praised the outcome as a “show of wide support” for their position against the Hamas movement.     More . . .
|   UN  VOTES  IN  FAVOR  OF  RESOLUTION  TO  END  ISRAELI  OCCUPATION  OF  PALESTINE 
The UN General Assembly voted in favor of a resolution calling to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, current President of the UN General Assembly Maria Espinosa said in a statement.    ___The Comprehensive, Just and Lasting Peace in the Middle East resolution sponsored by Ireland urges to end the occupation of Palestinian territories by the state of Israel and reaffirms its support for the two-state solution.    More . . .   UN Press Release

COMMENTARY    AND    OPINION. . . .
|  THE  MYTH  OF  THE  U.N.  CREATION  OF  ISRAEL
By Jeremy R. Hammond
There is a widely accepted belief that United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 “created” Israel, based upon an understanding that this resolution partitioned Palestine or otherwise conferred legal authority or legitimacy to the declaration of the existence of the state of Israel. However, despite its popularity, this belief has no basis in fact, as a review of the resolution’s history and examination of legal principles demonstrates incontrovertibly.   More . . .
|   70  YEARS  LATER,  ISRAEL  CONTINUES  TO  IGNORE  WHAT  IT  DOESN’T  LIKE  IN  PARTITION  RESOLUTION   
By Ian Williams
IT IS NOW 70 years since the U.N. General Assembly voted for Resolution 181 to partition Palestine between an Arab and a Jewish state. . .    The partition of Mandatory Palestine and dispossession of its people are the original sins of the world organization when it collectively overrode the very principles it had just written into its charter.    ___The Arab side understandably boycotted the U.N.’s Special Committee on Palestine. After all, they were being invited to help map out the cuts for their own vivisection and did not agree with the process. . .   and the Palestinian absence allowed the Zionist side to shape the agenda and the details for the committee members—who, minutes show, were already predisposed to see the Jewish refugees and settlers in a very sympathetic light.    More . . .
|  THE  INTERNATIONAL  COMMUNITY’S  ROLE  IN  ISRAELI  HISTORY 
by Hillel Schenker
The fact that after over 20 years of fruitless negotiations the Palestinians have chosen an internationalization strategy to try to achieve national independence is considered by the current Israeli government and its supporters to be illegitimate “unilateral action” that bypasses the need for bilateral negotiations with Israel to resolve the conflict. What those opponents of internationalization are conveniently forgetting is the major role that internationalization has played in Israeli history.     More . . .
| THE  UNITED  NATIONS  AND  PALESTINE:  PARTITION  AND  ITS  AFTERMATH
By Phyllis Bennis  
[. . . .] The bi-polar U.S.-Soviet agreement on the partition of Palestine, and parallel efforts by Washington and Moscow to establish and maintain close ties with the nascent Israeli state, insured that neither the UN nor any other international institution was likely to respond to the Israeli capture of far more of 1947 Palestine than it was granted in Resolution 181. The partition agreement was ostensibly to include the creation of a Palestinian Arab state as well as a special international regime for Jerusalem under the UN Trusteeship Council. But those conditions were never met. Establishing UNRWA to alleviate some of the humanitarian crisis facing the Palestinians expelled from their homes was the primary response.    More . . .
|  THE  ORIGINS  AND  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  PALESTINE  PROBLEM  1917-1988 – Prepared for, and under the guidance of, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People – UNITED NATIONS, New York, 1990

POEM  FOR  THE  DAY. . . . 

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

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

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

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

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

Only then, I may forget my country.

From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY  OF  THE  SUN:  POETRY  OF  THE  PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970.  Available from abebooks.com

 

“. . . How will the prison guard Feed his children? . . .” (Rashid Hussein)

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❶ Army Invades a School in Jerusalem, Abduct Principal and Three Teachers

  • Background: “Textbooks as a Vehicle for Segregation and Domination: State Efforts to Shape Palestinian Israelis’ Identities as Citizens.” Journal of Curriculum Studies.

. . . . .  ❶ ― (ᴀ) Israeli Soldiers Abduct At Least Twenty-One Palestinians
❷ Israel holds the bodies of 5 Palestinian Militants killed in the tunnel bombing
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) International humanitarian law forbids holding bodies as bargaining chips, say groups
❸ Cameras to monitor Palestinians installed at Al-Aqsa Mosque
❹ POETRY by Rashid Hussein
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ARMY INVADES A SCHOOL IN JERUSALEM, ABDUCT PRINCIPAL AND THREE TEACHERS
International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC    
Nov. 6, 2017 ― Israeli soldiers invaded, Monday, a Palestinian school in Beit Hanina neighborhood, north of occupied Jerusalem, abducted the principal along with three female teachers, and shut the school down.     ___The Union of Parents Committees in East Jerusalem Schools said many soldiers invaded Zahwat al-Quds School, in Beit Hanina, causing anxiety attacks among many children, and abducted the principal, Mona al-Karawi, and two teachers, before taking the three women to an interrogation center.     ___The school later announced receiving an order issue by the City Council, shutting the school down, and informing the families that they needed to transfer their children to other schools.   MORE . . .   ..

Nasser, Riad and Irene Nasser. “TEXTBOOKS AS A VEHICLE FOR SEGREGATION AND DOMINATION: STATE EFFORTS TO SHAPE PALESTINIAN ISRAELIS’ IDENTITIES AS CITIZENS.”
JOURNAL OF CURRICULUM STUDIES, vol. 40, no. 5, Oct. 2008, pp. 627-650.
. . . Through education, a state’s elite can grant or deny certain individuals or groups membership in a nation, and have the power to produce knowledge that reconstructs their past and collective memory . . . . textbook knowledge, like other forms of knowledge, is not objective or neutral, but a social construction deeply rooted in a nexus of power relations.
[. . . .] the overwhelming majority of textbooks for the Palestinian Israeli system have been published by the Ministry [of Education] itself. The Ministry has employed a ‘chosen’ group of a handful of Palestinian Israeli authors (teachers and superintendents) to write and translate textbooks for all school levels. In most cases, those authors have little freedom to deviate from the strict instructions they receive from the Ministry.
[. . . .]  Arab history in the Arabian Peninsula is portrayed as beginning in 200 BCE, while the textbooks present an elaborate discussion of Jewish history that dates back to 2500 BCE. This sort of sequencing is also evident in portraying the Arab presence in Palestine as beginning with the emergence of Islam in the 7th century CE, whereas Jews are reported to be deeply rooted in the region for a much longer period. . . . The textbooks also describe the land as ‘ruined, abused, and neglected’ when its ‘original owners’ left it, or when others occupied it. In the modern era, Jewish efforts have been to ‘normalize’ their existence by ‘redeeming’ the land . . . .
___The absence of Jews from Canaan makes it a land without history, regardless of the fact that during 2000 years other civilizations arose and declined on that land. The textbooks in both periods refer to Canaan as an ‘empty land’ or as ‘empty-populated.’
[. . . .]  . . . textbooks developed for use by Palestinian Israelis convey messages that privilege the culture and legitimate the political and economic power of the dominant group, while blaming subordinate-group members for their disadvantaged status. To the extent that such messages are perceived in this way, and internalized, unequal inter-group relations are reproduced. To the extent that such messages are either perceived differently, not internalized, and/or rejected, there may be a strengthening of the already existing tensions between the minority and the majority groups in society over the use of national economic and political resources.   SOURCE . . .

. . . . .  ❶ ― (ᴀ) ISRAELI SOLDIERS ABDUCT AT LEAST TWENTY-ONE PALESTINIANS    
International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC    
Nov. 6, 2017 ― The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) has reported that Israeli soldiers have abducted, earlier Monday, at least twenty-one Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, during extensive and violent searches of homes in the West Bank, and one of them was taken prisoners at the Erez Terminal, in northern Gaza.
___The Bethlehem office of the PPS said the soldiers abducted Moayyad Ghassan Qaisi, 18, Samer Shibli al-Qaisi, 19, from the al-Azza refugee camp, north of the city, in addition to Zeid Taleb al-Badan, 24, from Teqoua’ town, east of Bethlehem, and Abdul-Rahman Shawqi Sheibat, 28, from Beit Sahour city, west of Bethlehem.
___In addition, the soldiers invaded homes in Qalqilia, in northern West Bank, and abducted Amir Emad Nofal.   MORE . . .
❷ ISRAEL HOLDS THE BODIES OF 5 PALESTINIAN MILITANTS KILLED IN THE TUNNEL BOMBING
Palestine News Network
Nov. 6, 2017 ― The Israeli Occupation Forces aid that it is holding the bodies of five Palestinian militants killed last week in the tunnel which Israel blew up in Gaza.
___Last week Israeli Occupation Forces blew up tunnels on the Gaza Strip border near the Kissufim military base and killed 12 militants who were in the tunnel.
___The Israeli military said it would not release the five bodies unless an agreement is made towards releasing the bodies of two Israeli soldiers which have been held by Hamas since 2014, according to Haartez.   MORE . . .
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW FORBIDS HOLDING BODIES AS BARGAINING CHIPS, SAY GROUPS   
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA    
Nov. 6, 2017 ― Two human rights groups in Haifa and Gaza denounced on Sunday Israeli army holding bodies of five Palestinians retrieved from a tunnel destroyed by the Israeli army last week saying international humanitarian law forbids holding bodies as a bargaining chip.
___The families of the deceased maintain their right to demand the return of the bodies of their sons for burial, they said.     MORE . . .
❸ CAMERAS TO MONITOR PALESTINIANS INSTALLED AT AL-AQSA MOSQUE 
The Middle East Monitor – MEMO
Nov. 6, 2017 ― Israeli police have begun placing new cameras at the Council Gate of Al-Aqsa Mosque to monitor Palestinians’ entry and exit, Safa News Agency has reported.
___Director of Al-Aqsa Academy for Science and Heritage Sheikh Najeh Bkeerat said that Israeli police “are placing the cameras to monitor the movement in and out of Al-Aqsa Mosque and to restrict the movement of Jerusalemites, mainly in the Old City”.
___According to Safa, Israeli Interior Minister Gilad Erdan said he was preparing a security plan to prevent “Palestinian attacks” in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem.
___The plan includes tightening the security fence in Damascus Gate and the Old City by setting up inspection points similar to military checkpoints.     MORE . . .

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

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

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

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

From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY OF THE SUN: POETRY OF THE PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970.  Available from Amazon.  
Rashid Hussein (1936-1977) was born in Musmus, Palestine. He published his first collection in 1957 and established himself as a major Palestinian poet and orator. He participated in founding the Land Movement in 1959. He left in 1966 and lived in Syria and Lebanon and later in New York City where he died in February, 1977. He was buried a week later in Musmus. His funeral was attended by thousands of Palestinians. 

“. . . I am all that remains of our earth . . .” (Rashid Hussein)

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❶ Israeli forces suppress protests marking Balfour Declaration centenary

  • Background: “The Framing of the Question of Palestine by the Early Palestinian Press: Zionist Settler-Colonialism and the Newspaper Filastin, 1912-1922.” Journal of Holy Land & Palestine Studies.

❷ Ashrawi condemns Israeli plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Jerusalem
❸ More Illegal Israeli Settlements
❹ POETRY by Rashid Hussein
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAELI  FORCES  SUPPRESS  PROTESTS  MARKING  BALFOUR  DECLARATION  CENTENARY
Ma’an News Agency
Nov. 1, 2017 ― Clashes erupted between Palestinians and Israeli forces in Bethlehem city on Wednesday following a march commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the 1917 document which supported establishing a Jewish state on what would become British Mandate Palestine, and paved the what for the to the establishment of Israel.
___Palestinian protesters marched from the southern to northern ends of the city, until they reached Israel’s separation wall. Protesters set up an effigy of Arthur Balfour, the author of the declaration, beating and throwing shoes at the figure while burning a copy of the declaration.
___Members of various Palestinian political factions had called for the march in protest of the 100 year anniversary of the declaration, and of recent comments by British Prime Minister Theresa May celebrating the centenary of the declaration.
___Israeli forces quickly suppressed the protest, using live ammunition, rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas, injuring one with a rubber-coated steel bullet in the foot, while several others suffered from severe tear gas inhalation.  MORE . . .

Pappe, Ilan.
“THE FRAMING OF THE QUESTION OF PALESTINE BY THE EARLY PALESTINIAN PRESS: ZIONIST SETTLER-COLONIALISM AND THE NEWSPAPER FILASTIN, 1912-1922.”
Journal of Holy Land & Palestine Studies, vol. 14, no. 1, May 2015, pp. 59-81.
[. . . .]  Settler colonialism depicts the Zionist movement as a project that had all the characteristics of a colonialist enterprise, initiated by people coming from Europe and settling in the rest of the world, but who developed their own, and new, national identity within the colony or the colonised area (as happened in Australia, the USA and elsewhere).
[. . . .] The settler-colonialism paradigm focuses on those who colonised, invaded and settled. The victims are the same whether they are the genocided indigenous population of the Americas or the colonised natives of South Africa and Palestine. As their fate proves they were not fighting only against classical colonial exploitation but against their physical or conceptual elimination as a nation in their own right. . . .  Palestine, if indeed one accepts even in part the applicability of the paradigm to this case study, offered a very articulate, documented and written response to ‘their’ settler colonialism. This local view is described in this article not as regular feature of national discourse or even liberation . . .   but as an existential angst, warranted by the very nature of settler colonialism. It was angst voiced in a very definitive period, just before and during the First World War and has impacted on the Palestinian very existence ever since, and in particular when the angst proved to be validated by the events of the 1948 war in Palestine.
[. . . .] In similar vein, Yusuf Diya Pasha al-Khalidi wrote [in 1891] to the Chief Rabbi of France appealing to him to halt Jewish colonisation, predicting it would lead to a violent conflict: ‘There were still uninhabited countries where one could settle millions of poor Jews. . . But in the name of God let Palestine be left in peace.’
[. . . .] Zionism became a central issue when Britain occupied Palestine and established a League of Nations’ Mandate there. Early suspicions of the pro-Zionist bias of the new rulers arose when the Zionist committee of delegates (Va’ad Hazirim) was invited by Britain in April 1918 to survey the country and examine the, still secret then, pledge by the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, to create a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. The committee transformed the Jews in Palestine from religious millet into a political movement with a representative body, claiming the right to own Palestine.   SOURCE.

❷ ASHRAWI  CONDEMNS  ISRAELI  PLAN  TO  ETHNICALLY  CLEANSE  PALESTINIANS  FROM  JERUSALEM 
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Oct. 31, 2017 ― PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi Tuesday condemned what she described as “the dangerous plan” proposed by Israel’s Jerusalem Affairs Minister Zeev Elkin aimed at ethnic cleansing Palestinians from Jerusalem by splitting off the Palestinian neighborhoods situated next to the Apartheid Wall from the so-called Jerusalem Municipality, placing them under a new Israeli jurisdiction.
___Elkin’s plan specifically targets Shufat refugee camp, Kufr Aqab, al-Walaja, and a small part of al-Sawahreh. The measure is expected to affect between 100,000 to 150,000 Palestinians living in these neighborhoods.
___“Should this be adopted, such a deplorable plan would forcibly displace thousands of indigenous Palestinian Jerusalemites and transform their status to ‘non-existence,’ depriving them of the most basic rights and services, including shelter, healthcare and education. It is beyond a doubt that Israel is deliberately working to erase the Palestinian presence from our occupied capital and to distort the demographic, cultural, religious, and political character of the city,” said Ashrawi.   MORE . . .
❸ MORE  ILLEGAL  ISRAELI  SETTLEMENTS
Palestine at the UN    
Oct. 18, 2017 ― Israel’s constant provocative declarations and advancement of plans to construct and expand Israeli settlements throughout the Occupied State of Palestine, including East Jerusalem, in direct and grave contravention of international law and United Nations Security Council resolutions, including resolution 2334 (2016), and in blatant defiance of the international community, continue to heighten tensions and to undermine any efforts to salvage the two-State solution on the 1967 lines and the prospects for peace.
___In this connection, yesterday, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office issued a press release announcing its plans to construct 3,736 more settlement units throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.
[. . . .] It is clear that with each announcement of further Israeli settlement construction the Government of Israel reveals its true and unlawful intentions, which is to annex and colonize more and more Palestinian land and to persist with its half-century foreign occupation. The global consensus continues to be in support of the two-State solution based on the 1967 lines as the only viable solution and foundation for a just and comprehensive peace. . . .  Israel’s provocative and inciteful rhetoric, decisions and actions are totally to the contrary of this global consensus and constitute grave breaches of international law . . .    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 rain 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

“. . . I stood silenced For I had no address . . .” (Rashid Hussein)

Harold KnightLeave a comment

❶ Israeli authorities deliver demolition notices to Palestinians in Silwan
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Israeli bulldozers raze lands along Gaza border
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) Israeli settlement’s sewage destroys Palestinian agricultural land near Nablus

  • Background: “Powers Of Illegality: House Demolitions And Resistance In East Jerusalem.” Law & Social Inquiry.

❷ Group calls on PA to continue funding Jerusalem hospital
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Are days numbered for Jerusalem’s Greek Orthodox patriarch?
❸ POETRY by Rashid Hussein
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAELI  AUTHORITIES  DELIVER  DEMOLITION  NOTICES  TO  PALESTINIANS  IN  SILWAN  
Ma’an News Agency
Oct. 23, 2017 ― Israeli forces on Sunday raided the neighborhood of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem and delivered several home demolition notices to Palestinian residents.     ___Wafa reported that staff from Israel’s Jerusalem Municipality raided the neighborhood, under the protection of Israeli police forces, and delivered notices to a number of Palestinians informing them of the municipality’s intent to demolish their homes, under the pretext of construction without a permit.
[. . . .] According to United Nations documentation, 202 Palestinians were displaced and 116 buildings have been demolished in East Jerusalem since the beginning of the year as of Oct. 9. Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem reached a record high in 2016.   MORE . . .
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) ISRAELI  BULLDOZERS  RAZE  LANDS  ALONG  GAZA  BORDER      Ma’an News Agency
Oct. 24, 2017 ― Several Israeli bulldozers entered into the “buffer zone” in the central Gaza Strip, along the border with Israel, and leveled lands in the area on Tuesday morning.
___Palestinian security sources told Ma’an that four Israeli bulldozers entered dozens of meters into the Juhr al-Dik area and razed lands as drones flew overhead.
[. . . . ] military incursions inside the besieged Gaza Strip . . .  have long been a near-daily occurrence.
[. . . .] The practice has in effect destroyed much of the agricultural and fishing sector of the blockaded coastal enclave . . . MORE . . .
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) ISRAELI  SETTLEMENT’S  SEWAGE  DESTROYS  PALESTINIAN  AGRICULTURAL  LAND  NEAR  NABLUS
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA    
Oct. 24, 2017 ― Sewage from the illegal Israeli settlement of Alon Moreh has destroyed rich agricultural land in the village of Deir al-Hatab, east of Nablus, a human rights activist said on Tuesday.
___Zakaria Sidr, head of the West Bank section in Rabbis for Human Rights organization, told WAFA that residents found out on Tuesday when they got to their land that settlers have been dumping their sewage at their land.   MORE . . . ..

Braverman, Irus.
“POWERS  OF  ILLEGALITY:  HOUSE  DEMOLITIONS  AND  RESISTANCE  IN  EAST  JERUSALEM.”
Law & Social Inquiry 32.2 (2007): 333-372     . . . . while Foucault’s analysis [of the spectacle of a public execution in DISCIPLINE AND PUNISH, 1979] depicts brutality as inflicted upon the human body, in the demolition instance this brutality is imposed upon the nonhuman body of the house. Significant as it may seem, this distinction between human and nonhuman bodies is rendered irrelevant by most of the Palestinian informants. The Palestinian community planner, for example, claimed that “a person whose house has been demolished, I don’t see any difference between him and a person whose only child is killed,” and a Palestinian defense lawyer told me: “to demolish a man’s house is to tear his heart into little pieces . . . the demolition is an . . . extremely inhuman act.”
___Clearly, most Palestinian informants not only themselves relate to their house as interchangeable with their body but also believe that Israel relates to it in a similar way. Accordingly, this is how a Palestinian Jerusalemite that has worked as a planner in the Jerusalem municipality for over thirty years described the situation: “they twist our hand behind our back until they hear a cry of pain: [then] the municipal officials smile with pleasure, and twist our hand even tighter in order to produce a louder cry. They take pleasure in the Palestinian pain more than in anything else.”
___But while the identification of the Palestinian body with the body of her house may establish one cause for its demolition, another explanation is also possible. Such an alternative explanation is provided by a Jewish Israeli defense lawyer who has been representing Palestinians from East Jerusalem for over twenty years. The lawyer suggests that the official Israeli discourse regards the Palestinians as “airplanes that are not even detected by the Israeli radar,” namely as invisible to Israeli administrators. Rather than choosing between these two seemingly conflicting interpretations, it is important to see their simultaneous existence: while the first interpretation embodies the Palestinian in this space by rendering her body opaque, the second interpretation disembodies her, making for a transparent Palestinian body.
___Instead of undermining each other, the bifurcated dialectic between these two bodily interpretations provides for their reciprocal reinforcement.   SOURCE . . .

❷ GROUP  CALLS  ON  PA  TO  CONTINUE  FUNDING  JERUSALEM  HOSPITAL 
Al Hourriah Magazine (Freedom)  
Oct. 23, 2017 ― The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) on Monday expressed its deep concern that Augusta Victoria Hospital (al-Mutala’) in occupied Jerusalem stopped receiving the Gaza Strip patients referred for treatment due to accumulating debts owed by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
___PCHR called upon the Palestinian Ministry of Health to pay off immediately the accumulating financial dues for al-Motala’ Hospital, warning that the Palestinian backboned organizations in occupied Jerusalem would collapse after the Palestinian Government withheld funds and payments of the financial dues at the time the Israeli authorities intensify its policies to create a Jewish majority in Jerusalem and paralyze and ruin the work of its institutions, which provide basic services to all Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.   MORE . . .
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) ARE  DAYS  NUMBERED  FOR  JERUSALEM’S  GREEK  ORTHODOX  PATRIARCH?
Al-Monitor (Palestine Pulse) 
Ahmad Melhem
Oct. 23, 2017 ― The relationship between Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem and All Palestine and the Greek Orthodox community in the Palestinian territories and Jordan is closer than ever to escalating into all-out war. . . .
The patriarch is responsible for the management of all church endowments as stipulated by Jordanian Law no. 27 (1958). The church owns property in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza and in Israel. Fed-up members of the Greek Orthodox community have organized in opposition to Theophilos in an attempt to remove him and encourage Jordanian and Palestinian authorities to withdraw their recognition of him.
___Haaretz reported on Oct. 13 that six dunams of land with dozens of businesses on it around the clock tower in Jaffa as well as 430 dunams in Caesarea, including large parts of the Caesarea National Park and Amphitheater and a Roman amphitheater, were sold to anonymous foreign companies.   MORE . . .

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

Oh my dear hunter!
What you ask is much more
Than all that I can give . . .
For the angels are dead,
And I am not with them.

―2―
A wine was her perfume
Generous was her bed
But her hopes were stronger,
And the strongest of all:
She wanted my address.
She asked: “Where lives the ‘Prince’?”
Then, I stood silenced
For I had no address.
I am a man in transit,
Twenty years in transit
A man who was even deprived
The right of having an address.

Rashid Hussein  
See also  
From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY  OF  THE  SUN:  POETRY  OF  THE  PALESTINIAN  RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970. Available from Amazon.

“. . . Teach the night to forget to bring Dreams showing me my village . . .” (Rashid Hussein)

Harold KnightLeave a comment

❶ Israeli settlers attack Hebron neighborhood, injure 4 Palestinians
. . . . . ❶― (ᴀ) Israeli forces raid Jenin-area village, detain 5 Palestinians, including 12-year-old boy
❷ “F***  it, wipe out Gaza,” [Tweets] spokesman for new EU campaign
❸ Archives belie Israel’s narrative of Palestinian conflict

  • Background: “Deliberating the Holocaust and the Nakba: Disruptive Empathy and Binationalism in Israel/Palestine.” Journal of Genocide Research.

❹ POETRY by Rashid Hussein
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAELI  SETTLERS  ATTACK  HEBRON  NEIGHBORHOOD,  INJURE  4  PALESTINIANS     
Ma’an News Agency
Aug. 5, 2017.   A group of Israeli settlers injured four Palestinians in Hebron city overnight on Friday as they raided the Wadi al-Hassin neighborhood, located directly beside Israel’s illegal Kiryat Arba settlement.
___The Palestinians sustained light to moderate wounds, according to locals, in the attack.
___Palestinian Red Crescent sources said that two Palestinians were transferred to a hospital for treatment, one of whom sustained an arm fracture and the other suffered from a head injury.
[. . . .] Local sources added that Israeli forces were present in the area at the time and had witnessed the assaults, without intervening.   MORE . . .
. . . . . ❶― (ᴀ) ISRAELI  FORCES  RAID  JENIN-AREA  VILLAGE,  DETAIN  5  PALESTINIANS,  INCLUDING  12-YEAR-OLD  BOY  
Ma’an News Agency
Aug. 5, 2017.   Israeli forces raided the village of Yabad in the northern occupied West Bank district of Jenin on Saturday, as clashes broke out between the Palestinian residents and Israeli armed forces, while at least 5 Palestinians were detained, including a 12-year-old boy.
___Yabad’s mayor Samer Abu Baker reportedly told Palestinian news agency Wafa that Israeli forces raided the village after midnight, causing clashes to erupt between Palestinians and Israeli forces.
___Israeli forces reportedly fired rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas canisters, and stun grenades at the residents, causing several Palestinians to suffer from tear gas inhalation.   MORE . . .
❷ “F*** IT,  WIPE  OUT  GAZA,”  [TWEETS]  SPOKESMAN  FOR  NEW  EU  CAMPAIGN  
The Electronic Intifada  
Ali Abunimah and Dena Shunra
August 3, 2017.  The European Union has hired an Israeli who advocates genocidal violence against Palestinians as the face of a new promotional campaign.
___Avishai Ivri appears in a video the EU embassy in Tel Aviv posted on its Facebook page last month.
___“The European Union. You think it’s anti-Israel, right?” Ivri begins. “Let me surprise you.”
___Ivri then rattles off trade and tourism statistics meant to convince Israeli viewers of just how much the European Union benefits Israel. He also boasts that the EU is a customer for Israel’s weapons industry, particularly drones.    MORE . . .
❸ ARCHIVES  BELIE  ISRAEL’S  NARRATIVE  OF  PALESTINIAN  CONFLICT  
Al-Monitor (Palestine Pulse)   
Daoud Kuttab
August 1, 2017.   It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. In the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, an image can also be as dangerous as a cannon . . .
___Rona Sela, a curator and lecturer [explained], “I was doing research in the mid-1990s,” she began. “My focus was an analysis of Zionist photography in the early stages of the state of Israel. I researched the way institutional Zionist propaganda departments from the 1920s to 1948 used visual images to construct a national identity to build people’s consciousness about national issues. As the Palestinian narrative was, in most cases, missing from the Zionist one, I started searching for Palestinian images.”
___Early on in her research, Sela found a large group of images by the photographer Khallil Rasas, whose work was not known but had been looted from his studio in Jerusalem. Rasas’ images of Palestinian life during the first half of the 20th century, never made public, often contradicted the official Israeli narrative. Sela published a few texts about Rasas and his work as well as other Palestinian photographers active in Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s.
[. . . .] The Village Files included photographs and surveys of most of the 418 Palestinian villages that have since been demolished or repopulated by Zionists after the Nakba.   MORE . . .

Bashir, Bashir and Amos Goldberg. “DELIBERATING  THE  HOLOCAUST  AND  THE  NAKBA:  DISRUPTIVE  EMPATHY  AND  BINATIONALISM  IN  ISRAEL/PALESTINE.” Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 16, no. 1, Jan. 2014, pp. 77-99. (Bashir Bashir teaches political philosophy in the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  Amos Goldberg is Senior Lecturer in Holocaust Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.)
This article develops a theoretical framework for shared and inclusive Jewish and Palestinian deliberation on the memories of the Holocaust and the Nakba. It argues that a joint Arab-Jewish public deliberation on the traumatic memories of these two events is not only possible, however challenging and disruptive it may be, but also fundamental for producing an egalitarian and inclusive ethics of binationalism in Israel/Palestine. We contend that there are several reasons justifying common deliberations on these two foundational events.
[. . . .] To deliberate on these traumatic and foundational pasts under present conditions of animosity and asymmetry is exceptionally challenging. After all, creating such an enterprise is not a technical matter. As we have stated, not every exchange of words turns into a public deliberation, and not every shared discussion generates civil partnership. Regrettably, an inclusive and joint public sphere seldom evolves among Jews and Palestinians, even more so when it comes to the Holocaust and the Nakba. This is first and foremost because the traumas of the Holocaust and the Nakba continue to be experienced first-hand by each of the societies and constitute an open wound, and anything perceived to reframe it in an unorthodox manner generates extreme reactions.   SOURCE . . .

For a personal discussion by one of the above authors,  SEE ALSO : “The Nakba and the Holocaust: A Conversation with Bashir Bashir.” The Nakba Files.

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

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

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

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

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

Only then, I may forget my country.

From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY  OF  THE  SUN:  POETRY  OF  THE  PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970.  Available from Amazon.
Rashid Hussein (1936-1977) was born in Musmus, Palestine. He published his first collection in 1957 and established himself as a major Palestinian poet and orator. He participated in founding the Land Movement in 1959. He left in 1966 and lived in Syria and Lebanon and later in New York City where he died in February, 1977.    More. . .

“. . . To put me in prison, as they did, is a very easy thing . . .” (Rashid Hussein)

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prison
Blindfolded Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention facility. 46 Palestinians at Etzion Prison on hunger strike to protest mistreatment. Mar. 4, 2016 (File Photo: PressTV)

❶ Palestinian prisoners declare 3-day hunger strike after death of fellow detainee
. . . ❶ ― (ᴀ)  Samidoun demands accountability for Israeli medical neglect in the death of Palestinian prisoner Yasser Hamdouna

  • Background from Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly

❷ Detainees Committee: “Israeli Soldiers Kidnapped 1000 Children This Year”
. . . ❷ ― (ᴀ)  Pilot programme to limit night arrests – update
❸ POETRY by Rashid Hussein
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ PALESTINIAN  PRISONERS  DECLARE  3-DAY  HUNGER  STRIKE  AFTER  DEATH  OF  FELLOW  DETAINEE      
Ma’an News Agency
Sept. 25, 2016
Palestinian prisoners held by Israel announced a three-day hunger strike in protest and mourning after a fellow detainee died in Israeli custody on Sunday morning following a fatal stroke.
___Residents of the occupied West Bank village of Yaabad in the Jenin district, said that Yasser Thiyab Hamduna, a 41-year-old Palestinian from the village, died of a stroke on Sunday in the Israeli prison of Ramon.
___Israel Prison Service (IPS) spokesman Assaf Librati confirmed to Ma’an that a Palestinian prisoner held in Ramon had had a “heart attack or stroke,” and was pronounced dead by medics at around 8:30 a.m. on Sunday.
___Local sources in Yaabad said that Hamduna, who was serving a 14-year prison sentence, had been suffering from a number of health issues, including shortness of breath, heart problems, and ear pains.       MORE . . . 
. . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) SAMIDOUN  DEMANDS  ACCOUNTABILITY  FOR  ISRAELI  MEDICAL  NEGLECT  IN  THE  DEATH  OF  PALESTINIAN  PRISONER  YASSER  HAMDOUNA  
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network    
Sept. 25, 2016
Palestinian prisoner Yasser Diab Hamdouna, 41, died on Sunday morning, 25 September, in Israeli Ramon prison
[. . . .]  Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network condemns the ongoing medical neglect and mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners by the Israeli occupation prisons and demands the immediate release of the sick prisoners in Israeli jails.
[. . . .]  Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network affirms the responsibility of the Israeli occupation state for the medical neglect, mistreatment and death of Yasser Hamdouna and dozens of fellow Palestinian prisoners . . .  and demand international accountability for the death of Hamdouna and the ongoing threats to Palestinian prisoners’ lives due to medical neglect.     MORE . . .  

  • OMAR, SA’ED. “Food Is Not Our Issue”: Reflections On Hunger Striking.” Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 37.2 (2014): 556-559.    FULL ARTICLE.  

It’s impossible to ignore the smell of meat when you are dying from hunger.
___But food is not our issue. We don’t live to eat. We eat to live. If your life is without dignity, you don’t need life. That’s how we look at things in prison.
___Even in prison, you are home. Being restricted from entering Palestine is our greatest fear, to be deported or prevented from going home. The Prison Administration offered to deport us, to Jordan, to Syria, anywhere we wanted. They offered us freedom if we would leave Palestine. But we preferred jail to freedom outside of Palestine.
___This is the life we live here. We have a government that doesn’t support its own people. It just chases its political and economic projects.
___And a few people who fight every day for their freedom.
___And over our heads, Occupation.

❷ DETAINEES  COMMITTEE:  “ISRAELI  SOLDIERS  KIDNAPPED  1000  CHILDREN  THIS  YEAR” 
International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC   
September 25, 2016
The Palestinian Detainees Committee reported Saturday that Israeli soldiers have kidnapped at least 1000 children, between the ages of 11 and 18, since the beginning of this year. Testimonies from six detained children are included in this report.
___In a press release, the committee said that the numbers showed an %80 increase when compared to the number of child abducted in the same period of 2015.
___It stated that some of the kidnapped children have been imprisoned under arbitrary Administrative Detention orders, without charges or trial, while many others were sent to court, faced high fines and even were sentenced to actual prison terms.       MORE . . .   

arrest6alray
On International Children’s Day, Israel Kidnaps 400 Palestinian Children. Nov. 22, 2015 (Photo: IMEMC News)

. . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) PILOT  PROGRAMME  TO  LIMIT  NIGHT  ARRESTS – UPDATE
Military Court Watch
Sept. 22, 2016
Following widespread criticism of the use of night raids to arrest children in the West Bank, the military authorities announced in February 2014, the introduction of a pilot programme to issue written summonses in lieu of night arrests.
___The programme commenced operation in the Nablus and Hebron districts but was temporarily suspended in or about September 2014 due to “increased violence”. At the time of the suspension the military authorities stated that they did not keep any statistics during the initial operation of the programme making any official assessment impossible.
[. . . .]  During the course of 2016 there appears to have been a sharp decrease in the use of summonses which are currently being issued in just 2 per cent of cases documented by MCW. Meanwhile, the practice of arresting children at night is currently unchanged and remains at 2013 levels.     MORE . . . 

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

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

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

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

From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY OF THE SUN: POETRY OF THE PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970.  Available from Amazon.  
Rashid Hussein (1936-1977) was born in Musmus, Palestine. He published his first collection in 1957 and established himself as a major Palestinian poet and orator. He participated in founding the Land Movement in 1959. He left in 1966 and lived in Syria and Lebanon and later in New York City where he died in February, 1977. He was buried a week later in Musmus. His funeral was attended by thousands of Palestinians. 

 

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

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khuzaa
Palestinian women walk past a mosque and water tower damaged by Israeli air strikes and shelling in KHUZAA near ABU RIDA GATE in the southern Gaza Strip. Aug. 3, 2014. (Photo: The Irish Times)

❶ Israel surveys vast tract of land southeast of J’lem to declare it state land

  • Background: “Settlements and Ethnic Cleansing In the Jordan Valley.”

❷ Israeli forces level lands in southern Gaza Strip

  • Background: “Perils of Parity: Palestine’s Permanent Transition.”

❸ Palestinian human rights groups ‘gravely concerned’ over ongoing death threats to staff
❹ POETRY by Rashid Hussein
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAEL  SURVEYS  VAST  TRACT  OF  LAND  SOUTHEAST  OF  J’LEM  TO  DECLARE  IT  STATE  LAND
The Palestinian Information Center
Aug. 15, 2016
The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) has embarked recently on conducting a land survey between the settlement of Efrat (southeast Jerusalem) and the area to its east with the intention of annexing it and declaring it state land, according to a report published by Haaretz newspaper on Sunday.
___Efrat is in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc in the southern West Bank, and the area to its east is called Givat Eitam.    MORE . . .  

  • Tofakji, Khalil. “Settlements And Ethnic Cleansing In The Jordan Valley.” Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture 21.3 (2016): 81-87.

[. . . .] The Israeli government utilized two main methods in order to construct and expand its settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).The first method involved setting legal and bureaucratic procedures enabling the government to confiscate lands. By using the following justifications: seizure for military purposes, declaration of state lands, seizure of absentee property, confiscation for public needs, and initial registration, Israel has managed to take over about 50% of the lands in the West Bank, barring the local Palestinian public from using them. The second method is by evicting Palestinians from these lands, with the declared objective of controlling maximum land with a minimum number of Palestinian Arabs. The Israeli daily Haaretz on 21 May 2014 revealed in a report the methods the IDF uses to remove the Palestinians from Area C, and quoted Israeli army officer col. Einav Shalev as saying the Israeli army practices daily confinement, harassment and attacks on Palestinians through the sabotage of their crops and lands, as well as preventing them from obtaining building licenses, water and electricity. These “tools” are used to place pressure on and eventually force the Palestinian inhabitants of these areas to leave their houses and lands. Shalev added that the army also increased its military training in the Jordan Valley in an attempt to force the Palestinians to leave the land.
___These methods are viewed by Palestinians as systematic ethnic cleansing policy and have also been also implemented in the Jordan Valley.
[. . . .] With security considerations no longer being the primary motivation, the continued expansion into and occupation of the West Bank is a strategic move for Israel serving its economic interests. Through the restrictions on movement of people and goods, Israel is able to control the Palestinian economy and constrain growth to limited designated areas, or via immigration into neighboring countries. These methods, combined with the Bahrain Canal Project linking the Dead Sea to the Red Sea, which would primarily benefit the Israelis, the continued demolition of Palestinian homes, and the eviction of Bedouins, aim at attaining the undeclared goal of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the OPT.    SOURCE.

efrat
Illustrative photo of the West Bank settlement of Efrat, December 17, 2014 (Photo: Times of Israel/Miriam Alster/Flash90)

❷ ISRAELI  FORCES  LEVEL  LANDS  IN  SOUTHERN  GAZA  STRIP
Ma’an News Agency
Aug. 15, 2016
Israeli military vehicles staged a limited incursion across the borderline of the besieged Gaza Strip to level land on Monday morning, locals said.
___Locals told Ma’an that six Israeli military vehicles crossed the Abu Rida gate at the border east of the town of Khuzaa in the southern Gaza Strip and leveled Palestinian land in the area.
___Israeli military incursions inside the besieged Gaza Strip and near the “buffer zone” which lies on both land and sea sides of Gaza, have long been a near-daily occurrence.    MORE . . .  

  • Miller, Zinaida. “Perils of Parity: Palestine’s Permanent Transition.” Cornell International Law Journal 47.2 (2014): 331-415.

[. . . . ]  Rather than understanding the situation in terms of occupation—a framework that seeks to protect a vulnerable people from a militarily strong sovereign—the Oslo regime suggests two warring parties. In the process, Israeli, international, and even Palestinian discourse has gradually reduced or eliminated the use of the term ‘occupation’ while focusing on the achievement of ‘peace.’
___The Oslo regime has also affected Palestinian resistance. While the PLO in the past sought to end the occupation, current iterations have focused on the achievement of statehood. In the process, the goal of equality . . .  may at times be undermined by a process predicated on parity . . . . Relations of parity resulted in part from the Palestinian belief that mutual recognition or formal status would alter the terms of the conflict; in the end, however, the conception— and perception—of equivalence largely overtook the reality of asymmetry, making it harder rather than easier to address the structural inequality between the players. The focus of the international community (and the PLO) on establishing a state has oriented the Palestinian national movement away from earlier approaches rooted in rhetoric of emancipation and liberation.   [. . . . ]    No longer simply occupier and occupied, Israel and the Palestinian Authority have been transformed into putative equals engaged in perpetual negotiation [. . . .]
___These changes came about in no small part because of the unexpectedly enduring presence of international actors. The Accords reassigned responsibility for the Palestinian population to the newly created Palestinian Authority while leaving control over territory largely in the hands of the Israeli government. With the nascent Authority severely lacking capacity, the arrangement was tenable only because of international support in the form of money and expertise [. . . . ]
___Over the course of the following two decades, international actors and organizations provided aid . . .  facilitated peacebuilding, development, and post-conflict reconstruction, and supported negotiations between the parties. International actors, however, brought more than money or institutional blueprints: their ideas about how to make peace and reconstruct territories after conflict reshaped the form and conceptualization of governance and peace in the Occupied Territories.  FULL ARTICLE.

❸ PALESTINIAN  HUMAN  RIGHTS  GROUPS  ‘GRAVELY  CONCERNED’  OVER  ONGOING  DEATH  THREATS  TO  STAFF
Al-Hourriah
Aug. 15, 2016
The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC) said in a press release on Sunday that they were “gravely concerned” over an ongoing smear campaign and mounting threats by Israeli authorities and associated groups directed at employees of PHROC member organizations. ___The statement came after reports emerged that human rights lawyer Nada Kiswanson, who represents Palestinian NGO Al-Haq before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, had been receiving death threats since February, Dutch newspaper NRC reported on Wednesday. ___The report revealed the threats referred specifically to Kiswanson’s work with the ICC, rousing suspicions that Israeli security services may have been involved in the attack, according to the newspaper.    MORE . . .          RELATED . . .

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

Oh my dear hunter!
What you ask is much more
Than all that I can give . . .
For the angels are dead,
And I am not with them.

―2―
A wine was her perfume
Generous was her bed
But her hopes were stronger,
And the strongest of all:
She wanted my address.
She asked: “Where lives the ‘Prince’?”
Then, I stood silenced
For I had no address.
I am a man in transit,
Twenty years in transit
A man who was even deprived
The right of having an address.

Rashid Hussein  
See also  
From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY  OF  THE  SUN:  POETRY  OF  THE  PALESTINIAN  RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970. Available from Amazon.

 

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

Harold KnightLeave a comment
kufr aqab
Ahmad Sub Laban with uncollected garbage in No-Man’s-Land, Kufr ‘Aqab, East Jerusalem. (Photo: Amil Salman for Haaretz)

❶ Village in Jenin declared a closed military zone
❷ How one Jerusalem neighborhood has been left to fend for itself
❸ A brief history of the [use of the word] ‘Nakba’ in Israel
❹ Opinion/Analysis:  PALESTINIAN  DEAD  END  HIGHLIGHTS  THE  RIGHT  OF  RETURN
❺ POETRY by Rashid Hussein
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ VILLAGE  IN  JENIN  DECLARED  A  CLOSED  MILITARY  ZONE
Ma’an News Agency
June 3, 2016
Israeli forces Thursday declared the village of al-Taybeh west of northern occupied West Bank district of Jenin a closed military zone, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
___Israeli soldiers stormed the village and declared it a closed military zone, local sources told WAFA, before carrying out a large-scale raid in the community. . . implemented for several hours as soldiers prevented anyone from leaving or entering the village.
MORE . . . 

❷ HOW  ONE  JERUSALEM  NEIGHBORHOOD  HAS  BEEN  LEFT  TO  FEND  FOR  ITSELF
Al-Monitor (Palestine Pulse)
Daoud Kuttab
June 2, 2016
When Tamara and Ala’a got married in 2012, in addition to their wedding in Beit Jala, they held a second ceremony in Jerusalem to ensure that they could register their marriage in the holy city. The couple moved into a small house in the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Safa to make sure that they could legally prove their connection to Jerusalem [. . . .]
___. . . Israeli policy aimed at administratively reducing the Arab population of East Jerusalem, by forcing Jerusalemites to constantly have to prove their connection to Jerusalem or else risk losing their right to live in Jerusalem as permanent residents.
___After three years, the couple could no longer take it and decided to move to a high-rise apartment building in the north Jerusalem neighborhood of Kufr Aqab.      MORE . . .        RELATED . . .              RELATED: AMERICAN MEDIA . . .

Following the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada, the Israeli government implemented a tidal wave of closures throughout the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, imposing restrictions on the movement of citizens and intensifying their isolation. . . . These new policies were executed through mechanisms including military checkpoints scattered throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and the separation wall [. . . .]___The Qalandia checkpoint was among these new tools used by the Israeli government to restrict the movement of Palestinians between the West Bank and East Jerusalem [. . . .]___The current goals of controlling Palestinian movement through Qalandia now exceed the security considerations under which the checkpoint was originally built. Today, the checkpoint no longer targets the Palestinian residents of the West Bank . . . . The real target today are the residents of East Jerusalem— the goal of the barrier being to harass them and restrict their movement in order to remove them, directly or indirectly, from the city.

  • Laban, Ahmad Sub. “Qalandia Checkpoint: A Main Palestinian Gateway to Jerusalem.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture 17.1/2 (2011): 104-108. [Available through EBSCO.]

❸ A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  [use of the word]  ‘NAKBA’  IN  ISRAEL
Mondoweiss
Eitan Bronstein Aparicio
May 16, 2016
This text describes the discourse on the Nakba — mostly the concept but also the historical event — in Israel. When did it appear? When did it decline and was repressed? What caused these changes? The attempt here is to describe historical moments, a periodization, from the founding of the state until today, in order to describe the relation to the term in each period and the changes it went through. This text deals with the attitude towards the Nakba in Hebrew almost exclusively and does not attempt to describe the attitudes and changes it went through in Arabic and in the Arab world.     MORE . . . 

In 2002, however, a group of Israeli Jewish peace educators [founded] the Zochrot Association, an organisation dedicated to ‘remembering the Nakba in Hebrew’. Zochrot operates from the premise that the Nakba needs to be confronted and owned as an integral part of Israeli Jewish identity . . . . to open up possibilities for different forms of memory. ‘The hegemonic Zionist discourse [. . . .] conjures up images of a violent memory, invariably exclusive and masculine, and leaves no room for the (Palestinian) ‘other’. Zochrot seeks to promote an alternative discourse on memory, one that strives towards true reconciliation and is openly inclusive and compassionate towards the Palestinian side’.
. . . . Over the past few years Zochrot has organised multiple events at the ruins of Miskeh, often in conjunction with groups of internally displaced Palestinians. . . . Ahmad Sa’di has noted the polyvalent character of Nakba-memory for Palestinians, ‘its ability to reclaim new terrains, to acquire new meanings and representations, and to maintain its powerful presence’; Zochrot’s practices . . . show how the Nakba can also acquire ‘new meanings and representations’ within an Israeli Jewish society in which memories of the Nakba, like the ruins of Miskeh, are actively erased. . . .  Zochrot’s acts of memory perform in the present an embodied hope for a bi-national future.

  • Weaver, Alain Epp. “Remembering The Nakba In Hebrew: Return Visits As The Performance Of A Binational Future.” Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal (Edinburgh University Press) 6.2 (2007): 125-144. [Available from Project Muse]
disappearingpalestine
Israel continues the Nakba due to as yet unrealized plans of expanding its borders. (Image published: Alternative Information Center – AIC, May 15, 2016)

❹ Opinion/Analysis: PALESTINIAN  DEAD  END  HIGHLIGHTS  THE  RIGHT  OF  RETURN
Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network
Randa Farah 
May 6, 2014
(Blogger’s Note: Written before the assault on Gaza in the summer of 2014. It is remarkable how little has changed in the interim.)

Like a broken record perpetually playing a deeply disturbing refrain, the peace process has scratched on despite missed deadlines, threats, and promises, with intermittent halts . . . .  the consequences to the occupied, dispossessed, and exiled Palestinian people have been disastrous, and their termination has been long overdue. It is worth drawing some of these lessons to map a different road moving forward [. . . .]
___The cost to the Palestinian people of endlessly futile negotiations has been very great, particularly as the PLO/PA has prioritized the creation of a Palestinian state over addressing the Palestinian right of return . . . . In fact, the right of return should be treated as intrinsic to the right to self-determination and entwined with the aim of establishing an independent state and not as a stand-alone cause . . . .  the rights of refugees remain at the core of the Palestinian national liberation movement; the Israelis know that very well, and it haunts them.      MORE . . . .

(Blogger’s Note: By the poet quoted by Randa Farah)

“AN ADDRESS,” BY RASHID HUSSEIN

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

Oh my dear hunter!
What you ask is much more
Than all that I can give . . .
For the angels are dead,
And I am not with them.

―2―
A wine was her perfume
Generous was her bed
But her hopes were stronger,
And the strongest of all:
She wanted my address.
She asked: “Where lives the ‘Prince’?”
Then, I stood silenced
For I had no address.
I am a man in transit,
Twenty years in transit
A man who was even deprived
The right of having an address.

Rashid Hussein  
See also  
From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY  OF  THE  SUN:  POETRY  OF  THE  PALESTINIAN  RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970. Available from Amazon.

“. . . And ― “Forget!” they say, but how can I? . . .” (Rashid Hussein)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Nakba march, Bethlehem, West Bank, 14.5.2013
Palestinians in Bethlehem commemorate the Nakba, May 14, 2013. (Photo: Activestills.org)

❶ Amara: The Nakba anniversary is a chance to renew the vow of resistance
❷ Annual ‘March of Return’ draws thousands of Palestinians to the Negev
❸ Israel locks down West Bank, Gaza for Nakba Day
❹ Palestinians on Nakba Day 2016 — Defiant, Undeterred and Organizing
❺ Opinion/Analysis: LESSONS  ON  THE  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  NAKBA
. . . . . ❺― (ᴀ) Sykes-Picot agreement [May 16, 1916] unravelling on its centenary
❻ How I explained the Nakba to my kids
. . . . . ❻ ― (ᴀ) The Making of Israel: Zionist settler colonialism in historic Palestine
❼ POETRY by Rashid Hussein
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❶ AMARA:  THE  NAKBA  ANNIVERSARY  IS  A  CHANCE  TO  RENEW  THE  VOW  OF  RESISTANCE
The Palestinian Information Center
May 14, 2016
Senior Hamas official Shaker Amara, from Jericho, has said that the 68th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) is a good chance to renew the vow to continue resisting the occupation until its removal from the Palestinian land.      MORE . . .  

❷ ANNUAL  ‘MARCH  OF  RETURN’  DRAWS  THOUSANDS  OF  PALESTINIANS  TO  THE  NEGEV
Ma’an News Agency
May 12, 2016
Thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel participated in the annual “March of Return” on Thursday afternoon near Bedouin towns in the Negev (Naqab) in southern Israel, commemorating the 1948 Nakba, amid the conclusion of Israeli Independence Day celebrations.
___Demonstrators waved Palestinian flags and held banners emblazoned with support for the right to return for Palestinian refugees abroad and Palestinians internally displaced from their villages in Israel, as they made their way across the Negev in the dry afternoon heat.       MORE . . .    

❸ ISRAEL  LOCKS  DOWN  WEST  BANK,  GAZA  FOR  NAKBA  DAY
Days of Palestine
May 12, 2016
Israeli occupation army has announced plans to totally seal off West Bank, besieged Gaza Strip during 68th Nakba Day, which anniversary on May 15.
___According to an Israeli army statement, all checkpoints between the West Bank and Israel will be sealed off to West Bank residents expect for “humanitarian” cases. MORE . . . 

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A Palestinian protester holds a Palestinian flag during clashes with Israeli troops at a protest ahead of Nakba day, in the West Bank village of Bilin near Ramallah May 13, 2016. (Photo: Shadi Hatem/ APA Images)

❹ PALESTINIANS  ON  NAKBA  DAY  2016 —  DEFIANT,  UNDETERRED  AND  ORGANIZING
Mondoweiss
Nada Elia
May 13, 2016
Dima al-Wawi knows what she wants to be when she grows up:  “My dream is that when I grow up I can be a lawyer who can defend children who have been oppressed,” the twelve-year old said in an interview shortly after her release from a four-month sentence in an Israeli jail.
___Al-Wawi will likely be extremely busy:  at any time in the past few years, Israel has held anywhere from 400 to 700 children in its prison cells, where physical and psychological torture are routine, adding injury to the insult of being arrested strictly because one is Palestinian.       MORE . . .

❺ Opinion/Analysis: LESSONS  ON  THE  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  NAKBA
Palestine Chronicle
Hani Al-Masri
May 13 2016
On the anniversary of the 1948 Nakba, I think it is appropriate to share what I consider some lessons to be learned from the Palestinian experience since the establishment of Israel on the land of historic Palestine.
___For a start, it is a lie to say that the Palestinian and Arab rejection of the UN Partition Plan contributed to the Nakba and led to Israel occupying 78 per cent of Mandatory Palestine; the UN allocated just over 50 per cent to the Zionist state. This excess has been shrugged off as a “mistake” but documents now in the public domain throw more light on this lie.      MORE . . .  

. . . . . ❺― (ᴀ) SYKES-PICOT  AGREEMENT  [MAY 19, 1916]  UNRAVELING  ON  ITS  CENTENARY
Middle East Eye
James Reinl
May 12, 2016
Centenarians are seldom in ruddy health.
___This is certainly true of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which celebrates its 100th birthday on Monday.
___The secret deal to divide the Ottoman Empire’s vast land mass into British and French zones of influence precipitated the borders of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and much else in the Middle East that exist – at least nominally – to the present day.      MORE . . .  

❻ HOW I EXPLAINED THE NAKBA TO MY KIDS
+972 Blog
Noam Rotem
May 11, 2016
Say Dad, what is independence?
___An independent person is a person who can do whatever they want. They are free and nobody makes decisions for them. When a state is independent, it means that no one tells it what to do and it can decide for itself what it deems to be good and bad.    MORE . . .  

. . . . . ❻ ― (ᴀ)  THE  MAKING  OF  ISRAEL:  ZIONIST  SETTLER  COLONIALISM  IN  HISTORIC  PALESTINE
Mondoweiss
May 13, 2016
This Sunday May 15 marks the 68th Nakba Day, an occasion of commemoration for the over 750,000 Palestinians that were forcibly displaced by Zionist militias between 1947 and 1950. For Palestinian communities, the violence of the Nakba started much earlier than 1948 and continues today. Our latest visual covers 143 years of Zionist settler colonialism.
Data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics shows how European Zionists began . . . .
MORE . . .  

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

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

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

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

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

Only then, I may forget my country.

From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY  OF  THE  SUN:  POETRY  OF  THE  PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970.
Available from Amazon.
Rashid Hussein (1936-1977) was born in Musmus, Palestine. He published his first collection in 1957 and established himself as a major Palestinian poet and orator. He participated in founding the Land Movement in 1959. He left in 1966 and lived in Syria and Lebanon and later in New York City where he died in February, 1977.     More. . .

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

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Palestinians boys sit on the rubble of their family home. It was one of three houses destroyed by Israeli occupation forces in Qabatiya village in the occupied West Bank on 4 April, as part of a policy of punishing relatives of Palestinians accused of attacks. (Photo: APA Images/Nedal Eshtayah)
Palestinians boys sit on the rubble of their family home, destroyed by Israeli forces in Qabatiya village in the occupied West Bank on 4 April, punishing relatives of Palestinians accused of attacks. (Photo: APA Images/Nedal Eshtayah)

❶ UNRWA condemns Israel’s large scale home demolitions in the West Bank
❷ PA drafts new UN resolution against Israel’s illegal settlements
❸ The occupation burns 47 olive seedlings carrying the names and pictures of Jerusalemite Martyrs
❹ Struggle for Jerusalem takes on new form
❺ Opinion/Analysis: ISRAEL  AIMS  TO  “SAVE  SOULS”  BY  MAKING  PALESTINIANS  HOMELESS
❻ POETRY by Rashid Hussein
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❶ UNRWA  CONDEMNS  ISRAEL’S  LARGE  SCALE  HOME  DEMOLITIONS  IN  THE  WEST  BANK
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
April 7, 2016
UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees] condemned Thursday’s large scale home demolitions by the Israeli Authorities in the Bedouin refugee community of Um al Khayr in the South Hebron Hills. . .  31 Palestine refugees, including 16 children, were made homeless as a result to the demolitions.
___It confirmed that the affected community has endured several rounds of demolitions and often faced harassment from the nearby illegal settlement of Karmel.     MORE . . .  

❷ PA  DRAFTS  NEW  UN  RESOLUTION  AGAINST  ISRAEL’S  ILLEGAL  SETTLEMENTS
Ma’an News Agency
April 8, 2016
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to present a draft resolution condemning Israeli settlements to the UN Security Council in two weeks in a move likely to spark fury among Israel’s supporters.
___The resolution will be the first to directly condemn Israeli settlements as illegal under international law since the United States vetoed a similar resolution in 2011, the official said.     MORE . . . 

Palestinian children play near the illegal Israeli settlement of Maaleh Adumim, on the outskirts of Jerusalem. (Photo: Agence France‑Presse/Ahman Gharabl, File)
Palestinian children play near the illegal Israeli settlement of Maaleh Adumim, on the outskirts of Jerusalem. (Photo: Agence France‑Presse/Ahman Gharabl, File)

❸ THE  OCCUPATION  BURNS  47  OLIVE  SEEDLINGS  CARRYING  THE  NAMES  AND  PICTURES  OF  JERUSALEMITE  MARTYRS
Wadi Hilweh Information Center – Silwan
April 5, 2016
The occupation police and Intelligence removed and burned on Tuesday olive seedlings carrying the names of Jerusalemite Martyrs. The seedlings were planted in the village of Silwan on the anniversary of Earth Day.      MORE . . .

❹ STRUGGLE  FOR  JERUSALEM  TAKES  ON  NEW  FORM
Al-Monitor (Palestine Pulse)
Daoud Kuttab
April 7, 2016
Israel’s constant attempts to turn the city of Jerusalem into an exclusively Jewish city have taken an unusual turn with an attempt to politicize tourism.
___A map of the Old City of Jerusalem issued by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism in March attempts to reinforce this twisted narrative by trying to deny the physical reality of Jerusalem. . . .
___Of the 57 sites on the map, only one Muslim site and five Christian sites are identified. . . . no less than 25 of the Jewish sites named such buildings — along with synagogues and yeshivas — that have never been heard of, even by experienced tour guides.”     MORE . . .  

❺ Opinion/Analysis:  ISRAEL  AIMS  TO  “SAVE  SOULS”  BY  MAKING  PALESTINIANS  HOMELESS
The Electronic Intifada
Charlotte Silver
April 7, 2016
Less than two weeks after Israel’s high court lifted an injunction on punitive house demolitions, Israeli bulldozers arrived in Qabatiya in the occupied West Bank on Monday morning and razed three homes.
___The houses belonged to the relatives of the young men accused of an attack at Damascus Gate in occupied East Jerusalem in early February that left an Israeli border police officer dead.
___All three youths were shot to death at the scene of the incident.
___By the end of Monday, 20 people were left homeless in Qabatiya.      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 rain 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