Tag: Susiya

“. . . and the pulse blossoms into a flower . . .” (Ibrahim Nasrallah)

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❶ Video: Masar Ibrahim al Khalil launches the Thru-Hike program

  • Background: “A study of the late antique and early medieval pottery of Palestinian sites.” Palestine Exploration Quarterly.

❷ 15 new Israeli police centers to be established in Jerusalem
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Israel to delay demolition of Susiya due to diplomatic pressure
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) Israeli arrests of Palestinians
❸ “A century on from Balfour, I challenge Britain to finally do the right thing” – Hanan Ashrawi
❹ POETRY by Ibrahim Nasrallah
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
(Note: The first two items are the beginning of a series of news items and articles about tourism and archaeology in Palestine.)

❶ VIDEO:  MASAR  IBRAHIM  AL KHALIL  LAUNCHES  THE  THRU-HIKE  PROGRAM 
Palestine News Network – PNN      Nov. 5, 2017 ― Masar Ibrahim Al-Khalil launched a new hiking trip which includes introducing the participants to Palestinian nature and environment, as well as many historical sites.
___The participants have the chance to visit houses of Palestinian families and learn about their life and culture through this journey which began on Saturday and continues for twenty-one days from the north to the West Bank.
___Executive Director of Masar Ibrahim, George Rishmawi, said the hike started in the Rummaneh village in Jenin, north of the West Bank within the program of walking non-stop known known as the Thru-HIKE. It includes a walking for 330 kilometers to the village of Beit Marsam in Hebron in the south of the West Bank, where participants will pass in about fifty-three villages and cities.   MORE . . .       YOUTUBE

Lopez, Jose Carvajal.  REPORT:  “A  STUDY  OF  THE  LATE  ANTIQUE  AND  EARLY  MEDIEVAL  POTTERY  OF  PALESTINIAN  SITES.”
Palestine Exploration Quarterly, vol. 144, no. 2, July 2012, pp. 134-139.    This project was conceived as a way of establishing links between production centres at the two extremes of the Mediterranean during the period of the Islamic expansion. Additionally, my knowledge of the early Islamic pottery of Spain (7th to 11th centuries CE) could be tested against the productions of the Levant, specifically that of Palestine, where many of the Arab settlers of the West (supposedly those who transmitted the basics of Islamic culture) had their roots.
___The project did not assume a straightforward relationship of between the pottery of a homeland (the Levant) and that of a colony (al-Andalus). There is no doubt that a sense of the centrality of Arabia and the Levant is paramount all over the Islamic culture, but this centrality is more a shared topological conception that binds together all the people and lands of Islam rather than an essentially political and economic core-periphery relation. In Gosden’s proposed model of colonialism, this relationship should be understood in between the middle ground and the shared cultural milieu (Gosden 2005, 30–33). Research in Spain shows that only a minority of Arabs chose to settle in al-Andalus in comparison with a larger influx of Berbers from North Africa and a considerable native pre-conquest population (Chalmeta 1994). However, there was a marked cultural change towards an Islamic society after the conquest of al-Andalus and the Arab influence must have played an important role in this (without dismissing other influences as well). A way to study this may be the comparison of material culture from areas with a documented strong Arab settlement with that from well-contextualised assemblages in the Levant.    SOURCE . . .

❷ 15  NEW  ISRAELI  POLICE  CENTERS  TO  BE  ESTABLISHED  IN  JERUSALEM
The Palestinian Information Center  
Nov. 4, 2017 ― Hebrew media sources on Saturday revealed further details about the Israeli decision to launch a special police unit in Occupied Jerusalem following the tension that broke out recently at al-Aqsa Mosque.
___They added that the plan also includes establishing 15 police centers and recruiting hundreds of new officers to work in the city.
___Speaking at a ceremony honoring Israeli officers last week, Gilad Erdan, Israel’s Public Security Minister, announced that the job of this special unit, which will include more than 100 policemen, is to maintain “public order” at al-Aqsa Mosque.   MORE . . .
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) ISRAEL  TO  DELAY  DEMOLITION  OF  SUSYA  DUE  TO  DIPLOMATIC  PRESSURE
The Palestinian Information Center 
Nov. 4, 2017 ― Haaretz newspaper on Saturday reported that the Israeli authorities on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court for a two-week delay in announcing its position on Susya village despite the fact the Israel’s war minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has declared that there will be no more delays in the demolition decision.
___The paper said that the request was made after senior European and British diplomats pressured Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Lieberman not to demolish the village.    MORE . . .
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) INTERNATIONAL  MIDDLE  EAST  MEDIA  CENTER – IMEMC 
Nov. 5, 2017
Israeli Soldiers Abduct A Palestinian Near Jenin.
Army Abducts Three Palestinians in Hebron and Jerusalem, Injures Several Others.
Israeli Soldiers Abduct Seven Palestinians, Detain Schoolteachers, In West Bank, Detain Schoolteachers, In West Bank.
❸ “A  CENTURY  ON  FROM  BALFOUR,  I  CHALLENGE  BRITAIN  TO  FINALLY  DO  THE  RIGHT THING”  – HANAN ASHRAWI   
The Guardian
Nov. 2, 2017 ―
“Today we mark the centenary of the calamitous Balfour declaration. In 1917, with a few paragraphs and a stroke of his pen, the British foreign minister, Lord Balfour, unleashed historic forces that changed the fate of an entire people and a whole region. He committed a grave sin: promising the homeland of one people to another.
___A century on, every Palestinian is still plagued by the consequences of that decision – whether it is the refugees yearning to return, still clutching the keys to their homes, Palestinians suffering under an occupation that has lasted 50 years, Jerusalemites experiencing the fraudulent transformation of the character, demography, culture and landscape of their city before their eyes, or Palestinian citizens of Israel who are undergoing an intricate and cruel system of discrimination and exclusion in a country that claims to be democratic.
___A veneer of ‘religious conflict’ has been superimposed on what are political, legal, moral and human rights violations.
___The Balfour declaration was quintessentially a colonial decision emanating from the myth of the “white man’s burden”, the idea that “advanced nations” needed to administer the territories of “peoples not yet able to stand by themselves” – in the words of the covenant of the League of Nations – an inherently problematic and racist notion in itself.
___The land was neither Balfour’s nor Britain’s to give away, but, as is always the case with colonialism, a diktat made in a capital far away is meant to supersede the collective rights and aspirations of a people. . .”   MORE . . .

“OUR  SONGS,”  BY  IBRAHIM  NASRALLAH
Who are these songs for?
When they break the silence of the night
spreading warmth and life over the snow,
when they fall on the jasmine and carry it to water,
when they pass by a dim window, secretly embracing a lover,
when they spread over the grass, wrapped in clouds?
Who are these songs for
when they free the flowers
and the hidden flame of passion in women,
when they come to you with their flowers,
when they come to me with their secrets,
when they embrace the sun or a bouquet of flowers
or anything abandoned on the road?
When they send a pulse into the ground
and the pulse blossoms into a flower
in the space between two deaths,
or in a cloud, or in fire?
Who are these songs for
when they laugh,
who are these songs for when they rise?
And who are these songs for
when they open the doors to our houses
and embrace us one by one,
returning us to our lore?
When they carry our bodies in weddings
and cushion us with a lovely homeland
and then pick the most delicious fruit
and the farthest star
and hide them from the eyes of soldiers
to carry them―like our mother―home to us?

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

“. . . Boundless fear binds our hands . . . and our beating hearts . . .” (Ibrahim Nasrallah)

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❶ Israel to vote on annexing illegal West Bank settlements to Jerusalem

  • Background: “State Authority in the Balance: The Israeli State and the Messianic Settler Movement.” International Studies Review.

❷ Israel demolishes Palestinian Bedouin village for 120th time
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) UK parliamentarians urge Israeli compensation for demolished Palestinian homes
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) Israel’s military informs Qabatiya family of plans to demolish its home
❸ POETRY by Ibrahim Nasralla
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAEL  TO  VOTE  ON  ANNEXING  ILLEGAL  WEST  BANK  SETTLEMENTS  TO  JERUSALEM
Ma’an News Agency
Oct. 25, 2017 ― Israeli ministers are expected vote next week on the so-called “Greater Jerusalem Bill,” which would annex 19 illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank to Israel’s municipal boundaries for Jerusalem, according to Israeli news daily Haaretz.
___Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threw his support behind the bill earlier this month, which would reportedly allow the settlers to retain their autonomy but afford them voting rights in the city’s mayoral race.
___It would meanwhile create “independent municipalities” for some 100,000 Palestinian citizens or residents of Israel who live within Israel’s Jerusalem municipality borders, but are located on the other side of Israel’s illegal separation wall.
[. . . .] According to the bill, the settlements of Maale Adumim — which itself is home to between 125,000 and 150,000 Israeli settlers — Gush Etzion, Efrat, Beitar Illit and Givat Zeev will be included under Jerusalem’s municipal jurisdiction, but not officially annexed to Israel, Haaretz said.     MORE . . .

Mendelsohn, Barak.
“STATE AUTHORITY IN THE BALANCE: THE ISRAELI STATE AND THE MESSIANIC SETTLER MOVEMENT.”
International Studies Review, vol. 16, no. 4, Dec. 2014, pp. 499-521.
(Barak Mendelsohn: M.A. in Security Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1999; Ph.D. in Government, Cornell University, 2006; Professor, Haverford College, 2007-present) For four decades now, the Israeli state has tolerated and even utilized the Jewish messianic movement in the context of its conflict with the Palestinians, even as the messianic movement has challenged and undermined the authority of the state.
[. . . .] The [Jewish messianic right] movement, only informally linked to the state’s institutions, is challenging state authority. Its actions regarding the territories Israel captured in 1967—primarily in the West Bank—have undermined the state and complicated policies to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Yet, successive Israeli governments since the 1970s have declined to exercise state authority when facing radical messianic groups in the West Bank. Moreover, both right- and left-wing Israeli governments have pandered to religious extremists and even supported them despite the fact that these extremists have operated outside Israel’s political system, violated the law, used unauthorized violence, and subverted state authority. Israel’s policy has not offered significant strategic benefits. In fact, it has backfired: Rather than ameliorating the Palestinian problem, it has intensified the conflict while reducing the state’s ability to reach a peace agreement. In addition, its settlement policies have weakened Israel’s international standing. Compromising state authority has had detrimental consequences, undermining Israel’s ability to change course even when its view of the settlements’ strategic value shifted. At the same time, it has deepened domestic divisions that threaten the state’s internal unity.   SOURCE.

❷ ISRAEL  DEMOLISHES  PALESTINIAN  BEDOUIN  VILLAGE  FOR  120TH  TIME
Ma’an News Agency
Oct. 25, 2017 ― Israeli authorities on Wednesday demolished the Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Negev desert in southern Israel for 120th time, according to official Palestinian Authority (PA)-owned WAFA news agency.      ___WAFA reported that staff from the Israel Land Authority (ILA) accompanied by Israeli police and bulldozers raided the village and demolished the makeshift homes made out of tin that the residents build every time the village is demolished.     ___An Israeli court ruled last month that six residents of al-Araqib must pay 262,000 shekels (more than $72,000) for previous demolition costs, in addition to 100,000 shekels ($27,693) to cover the costs of the state’s lawyer. It was only the latest payment in which the village has had to compensate Israel for its routine demolitions in the village.    MORE . . .
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) UK  PARLIAMENTARIANS  URGE  ISRAELI  COMPENSATION  FOR  DEMOLISHED  PALESTINIAN  HOMES
The  Middle East Monitor – MEMO 
Oct. 26, 2017 ― A group of UK parliamentarians have urged Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to seek Israeli compensation of Palestinian structures demolished in the occupied West Bank.
___Writing in a letter to Johnson, the parliamentarians ask whether the British government will join “eight other European countries in demanding compensation from Israeli authorities” for the demolition or damage of Palestinian structures funded directly or indirectly by the UK.
[. . . .] “You will be aware of the huge parliamentary concern about the impending demolitions of the communities of Khan al-Ahmar and Susiya”, the letter notes, “where structures have been built with EU funding”.
___“We continue to urge you to do everything within your power to prevent the demolitions of these communities and many others in Area C of the West Bank”.     MORE . . .  
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) ISRAEL’S  MILITARY  INFORMS  QABATIYA  FAMILY  OF  PLANS  TO  DEMOLISH  ITS  HOME
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Oct. 26, 2017 ― The Israeli occupation forces Thursday informed the family of Mohammad Abu al-Rub of its intention to demolish its home in Qabatiya, south of Jenin, as a punishment for its son’s act, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.
___Abu al-Rub is currently in Israeli detention after he was accused to killing an Israeli in the town of Kufr Qassem inside Israel few weeks ago.
___The army informed the family that its home will be demolished in four days.
___Abu al-Rub was arrested along with fellow town member Yousef Kmeil and charged with killing an Israeli in Kufr Qassem.
___The Kmeil family was not informed that its house will be demolished yet.   SOURCE . . .  

“THE  SURVIVORS,”  BY  IBRAHIM  NASRALLAH
They were for a year at our doorstep,
sleepless with their brown flesh-and-blood complexions,
knocking against our ribs to make us see them.
At the end of the night they depart.
They circle around the city seven time
like the revolving sun,
like a reverberating echo.
They kill the silence      with their flutes
and light and birds hover around them
as they swim in the shadows
of tall wheat spikes and white stags.
As night falls the wind shakes the streets
and the darkness breathes out crazed spears among trees
jostling toward the windows and balconies.
We heard the hooves of their horses,
so we hid in the corners,
under beds, between ribs.
We hid like a storm among branches.
Their olives sill eventually grow tired . . .  we said:
It might snow . . .     soldiers might come by this evening and immediately kill them,
or like a sun’s fading light they might grow tired    
and kill themselves.
Night falls once more . . . the wind blows.
We hold our breath and retreat.
Boundless fear binds our hands . . . and our beating hearts.
The most recent among us said . . . Let us all rise up and ask them:
You who have been sleepless at our doorstep for a year and two nights:
What do you want?
Storms of corpses rushed to the corners.
The smell of death rose from the roofs of the mirrors,
from the colors of the eyes.
Let us all rise . . . the most recent among us said.
And when we reached the door, they shouted at us:
You. . .O dead ones . . . don’t open the door!

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

“. . . Those cities we love. Hanged with the noose by the blue guards. . . .” (Izz al-Din al-Manasra)

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hebron-mospque
Sanctuary of Abraham or Ibrahimi Mosque, Hebron; staircase representing how teachers spread the word of the Prophet Muhammad. Rare original from the 11th century made of inlaid wood and no nails. (Photo: Rick Steves Blog)

❶ Israeli forces deliver stop-construction notices to residents of Hebron-area village

  • Background: “The Occupation: A Powerful And Self- Regulating Mechanism Of Organized Cruelty.” Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture

❷ Muslim Call to Prayer Stopped 86 Times at Ibrahimi Mosque [Hebron] in October
. . . ❷ ― (a) Israeli Soldiers Hurl Stones at Palestinian Primary School Children (VIDEO)
❸ Israel sentences Palestinian [Hebron] minor to life in prison, $500 thousand fine for killing Israeli
❹ Poetry by Izz al-Din al-Manasra
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAELI  FORCES  DELIVER  STOP-CONSTRUCTION  NOTICES  TO  RESIDENTS  OF  HEBRON-AREA  VILLAGE     
Ma’an News Agency    
Nov. 2, 2016  Israeli forces delivered notices earlier this week to several families in the southern occupied West Bank village of Idhna ordering the halt of construction on several homes.
___The public relations department of the Idhna municipality said that resident Abdullah Suleiman al-Masri received a stop construction notice . . .   The municipality added that Muhammad Yunis Tmeizeh also received a stop construction notice . . .
___Israeli forces regularly issue notices and leave them near houses without their owners’ knowledge, the Idhna municipality said, adding that it would provide its services to targeted residents and follow up on these notices with the appropriate parties.    More . . .     Related:   GOLDMAN   SACHS   IS   FUNDING   HEBRON   SETTLERS

  • Shulman, David. “The Occupation: A Powerful And Self- Regulating Mechanism Of Organized Cruelty.” Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture 19.3 (2014): 88-93.   Source.  

The phrase “Obstacles to Successful Negotiations” has a somewhat distant ring to it. . . .  It’s an abstraction, and far too hopeful at that. Obstacles could, in theory, be removed. Maybe someday they will be. But, for now, anyone who knows the reality of what is happening on the ground in the south Hebron hills isn’t likely to think in terms of “obstacles.” There exists a system that is self-sustaining, multi-leveled, with overlapping feedback mechanisms and upheld by overwhelming brute force, and this system has one and only one rationale. We can defy it, and  sometimes we do achieve minor, though meaningful, victories in the micro-struggle for every inch of land; but we have no chance of undermining the system itself or satisfying its endless hunger.
___Let’s begin at Umm al-Ara’is, wholly typical of that reality. The village lands once extended over a large area in the southern Hebron hills, not far from Palestinian Susya. Most have been lost to the settlers, including a particularly fertile wadi that is today just under the settlement — technically, the illegal outpost — of Mitzpeh Yair. The settlers simply took over these fields and have been cultivating them, as if they were theirs, for over two years. It’s a case, in no way unusual here, of out-and-out theft. As in other such cases, the Civil Administration, that is, the Occupation authority, has declared these fields “in dispute” — a legal category that means, in effect, that they are out of bounds to the Palestinian owners, though the settlers have free access to them at any time. A ruling on the question of ownership will probably be made, eventually, by one or more of the relevant authorities, possibly the Ministry of Defense.
___Members of the large ‘ Awad family have the title deeds to these lands.
[. . . .]  The Occupation works on automatic pilot, like other self-regulating systems. It is by now far bigger and infinitely more malevolent than any individual, or group of individuals, operating within it. Still, within the system, there is ample room for individual acts of wickedness. We see them in south Hebron every week.
[. . . .]  “Crazy,” in this case, points both to the fundamental absurdity of what passes for reality in the south Hebron hills and to the utterly arbitrary nature of the rules the soldiers are sent to enforce, as the officer’s words clearly reveal.
___ Yet both “absurd” and “arbitrary” are here synonyms for “wicked,” framed by the wider goal of taking the land. Quite often that wider goal spills over into acts that are truly sadistic . . . .

❷ MUSLIM  CALL  TO  PRAYER  STOPPED  86  TIMES  AT  IBRAHIMI  MOSQUE [Hebron] IN OCTOBER 
Palestine Chronicle     
Nov. 2, 2016  The Israeli occupation authorities prevented the call to prayer from being made at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque 86 times last month with the excuse given was that the call to prayer “annoyed” illegal Jewish settlers during holiday periods, a Palestinian Authority report has revealed.
___The Israeli occupation authorities “ignore the feelings of the Muslims and well as international laws and conventions which guarantee the protection of holy sites and free access to them,” the PA explained.
___The Ibrahimi Mosque was divided into two parts after a US-born Jewish settler entered the prayer hall at dawn on Friday, February 25, 1994 and shot dead 29 Palestinians and wounded 150 others while they were praying.       More . . .   
. . . ❷ ― (A) ISRAELI  SOLDIERS  HURL  STONES  AT  PALESTINIAN  PRIMARY  SCHOOL  CHILDREN  (VIDEO) 
Palestine Chronicle
Nov. 2, 2016  Israeli soldiers used slingshots to hurl stones at Palestinian school children they are deployed to protect, footage posted on YouTube shows.
___The video taken on 25 October at 13:05 and uploaded by AtTuwaniProject, shows Israeli soldiers using slingshots to throw stones at Palestinian primary school children who are on their way home from school between the villages of Tuba and Twaneh in the South Hebron Hills.       More . . .    

p1010109
Al Shuhada Street, once the main market street of Hebron, is today a ghost town with businesses boarded up and soldiers and a few tourists walking around. (Photo: Katie Duffus Blog)

❸ ISRAELI  SENTENCES  PALESTINIAN  [Hebron]  MINOR  TO  LIFE  IN  PRISON,  $500  MILLION  FINE  FOR  KILLING  ISRAELI 
Ma’an News Agency
Nov. 3, 2016  An Israeli court sentenced 16 year-old Palestinian Murad Badr Ideis to life in prison and a nearly $500,000 fine on Wednesday for carrying out a deadly stabbing attack in January.
___Ideis, a resident of the village of Beit Amra in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron, received the life sentence and a 1.75 million-shekel ($458,875) fine after being convicted of carrying a stabbing attack on Jan. 17, killing Dafna Meir, a 38-year-old Israeli woman living in the illegal settlement of Otniel.
[. . . .] The head of the Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs in Hebron, Ibrahim Najajra, called the sentencing unjust and said the sentence, as well as the huge fine, was part of an Israeli policy of revenge on the Palestinian people.
___Israeli forces demolished Ideis’ family home in Beit Amra in June.       More . . .

“AT  NIGHT,”  BY  IZZIDDIN  AL-DIN  AL-MANASRA

At night I come to you,
at night I tempt you,
and your memory wounds me.
I weep for you
traveling toward your vineyards in my dream,
towards your mountain paths.
I slide onto your sandy roads like a snake,
leaving my traces before I die.

At night I speak, bringing the sea
to the mountain, reconciling thorns with lilies
and night guards
with people awaiting seaborne barbarians
or desert strangers, coming from oil wells, coming.
I yearn for you at night but green cities do not merge
with cities of flame; you never leave your exile
and I never enter it.
How can I reconcile our exiles with the
cities of green? Those cities we love.
Hanged with the noose by the blue guards.
Guarded by rubies, oil, and gold.
―Translated by May Jayyusi and Naomi Shihab Nye

IZZ  AL-DIN  AL-MANASRA was born in Hebron in 1946. He has been the Director of cultural programs in Jordanian radio, editor of Palestinian Affairs magazine, and worked as a professor of comparative literature in Constantine University in Algeria. He has published more than ten collections of poetry sine his first one, Ya Inab al-Khalil (O grapes of Hebron, 1968) ―all in an earthy and very direct language rich in alluisions to symbolic features of the homeland. . .  He has received several literary awards. In 2003 he was invited to represent Palestine at the Poetry International held in Rotterdam, Netherlands, were he read some of his poems in Arabic, with simultaneous Dutch and English translation.
From:  ANTHOLOGY  OF  MODERN  PALESTINIAN  LITERATURE.  Ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Available from Columbia University Press.

“. . . with the end goal of preventing the emergence of a contiguous Palestinian state. . .” (Hatem Bazian)

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feinstein
Did she mean to be so welcoming? US Senator Diane Feinstein (Democrat of California) welcomes citizens of Susiya Village (Photo: Sen. Feinstein webpage)

❶ Fate of Hebron Hills village [Susiya] likely to be decided by Israeli defense minister
. . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) American Senator Dianne Feinstein graciously receives Susiya & Um Al Kheir families  (September 29, 2015)
. . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) Reckless politicking: Lieberman to be named Israel’s defense minister
(May 20, 2016)

  • Background from Harvard International Review

❷ Opinion/Analysis:  HOME  DEMOLITIONS  ARE  ORGANIZED  STATE  VIOLENCE
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ FATE  OF  HEBRON  HILLS  VILLAGE  LIKELY  TO  BE  DECIDED  BY  ISRAELI  DEFENSE  MINISTER
Ma’an News Agency
August 1, 2016
In the latest development in a decades-long legal battle by Palestinian residents of the village of Susiya in the southern Hebron Hills to remain in their ancestral lands, an Israeli supreme court hearing confirmed on Monday that a decision regarding the fate of the threatened village could likely be decided by ultra-right Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
___The hearing was set to decide whether to accept the state of Israel’s request to immediately and without prior notice demolish 40 percent of the occupied West Bank village where some 100 people live, according to Israeli NGO Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR).     MORE . . .
. . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) AMERICAN  SENATOR  DIANNE  FEINSTEIN  GRACIOUSLY  RECEIVES  SUSYA  &  UM AL KHEIR  FAMILIES
Rabbis for Human Rights
September 29, 2015
California Senator Dianne Feinstein graciously received representatives from the villages of Susiya and Um Al Kheir – two villages under the threat of demolition by the state of Israel. In July of this year, Senator Feinstein sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking him to halt any demolition orders for the village of Susiya.    MORE . . .
. . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) RECKLESS  POLITICKING:  LIEBERMAN  TO  BE  NAMED  ISRAEL’S  DEFENSE  MINISTER
Brookings Institution
Natan Sachs
May 20, 2016
[. . . .]
Netanyahu is now poised to bring back Avigdor Lieberman, a former foreign minister and Israel’s least diplomatic politician. Lieberman won’t be returning to diplomacy, however. Instead, he will get a significantly more powerful position, second only to the prime minister: minister of defense.
[. . . .]
Lieberman’s pending appointment has been met with astonishment by the opposition in Israel, by many in the military which he will oversee, and indeed here in Washington—and with good reason.
___Just these past few months, Lieberman has viciously attacked both Netanyahu and the military brass for what he claimed was a weak response to terrorist attacks.
[. . . .]
Most importantly, Israel’s actual policy may be affected significantly by this move. Of all the governmental posts, defense is the one that has the most effect on the crucial questions of security for Israelis (and on the daily lives of Palestinians). . . . Netanyahu’s political brilliance has wrought one of the most hardline governments Israel has ever had.      MORE . . .

From Harvard International Review
On November 10th, 2013, the Israeli cabinet voted in a special session to authorize the demolition and removal of Umm al-Hiran, an “unauthorized” Palestinian Bedouin village in the Negev Desert. In its place was to be built a new community for national Jews to be named Hiran, which had been planned and approved in early 2002. The stated reason for this demolition and forceful eviction is the existing settlement’s lack of permits. . .  Umm al-Hiran itself was set-up in early 1956 by the Palestinian Abu-Alkian tribe after they had been forced to move from their ancestral tribal lands near Kibbutz Shoval in the Northern Negev.
___A more critical development related to this event is the Israeli Parliament’s passing of the first reading of the Prawer law [2011]. . .  [which] would cause the forceful displacement of 40,000-70,000 Arab Bedouins from the Negev, the confiscation of 800,000 dunams of Arab land, the razing to the ground of 36 or more Arab villages. . . According to Adallah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, the “underlying premise of the draft bill is that there is no Bedouin land ownership,” effectively negating the “population’s right to property and historic affinity to the land.”
[. . . .]
The debates within Israel proper surrounding the eviction of the Arab Bedouin communities focus on the same themes that propel the building and expansion of settlements in the Occupied West Bank and the Golan Heights. Since Israel’s occupation of both areas in 1967, policy has been to effectively alter the areas’ demographic landscape by transferring and settling Jewish civilian populations onto confiscated lands, with the end goal of preventing the emergence of a contiguous Palestinian state. Indeed, settler movement into the West Bank has swelled in the past 20 years, and at present some 344,779 settlers reside in approximately 130 settlements authorized and protected by the Israeli government. In addition, another 200,000 settlers have moved into East Jerusalem in hopes of altering the Palestinian demography in the city and preventing a possible Palestinian capital from emerging if a “peace” agreement is reached.

  • Bazian, Hatem. “The Indigenous Palestinians.” Harvard International Review 35.3 (2014): 40-43.   FULL ARTICLE.

❷ Opinion/Analysis: HOME  DEMOLITIONS  ARE  ORGANIZED  STATE  VIOLENCE
+972 Blog
Hagai El-Ad
July 28, 2016
Over the last decade, Israel has demolished over 1,100 Palestinian homes in the West Bank, leaving homeless more than 5,199 people, including at least 2,602 minors. The extensive demolitions are part of a broader Israeli policy of forced transfer. The following speech was delivered at a conference on home demolitions held at the Knesset on July 27, 2016.
[. . . .]
First and foremost, these figures deal with human lives. Lives that Israel ruins, deliberately, as part of a broader strategy designed to dispossess Palestinians from vast areas of the West Bank, to make their lives unbearable until they finally take the hint and move, to move them into smaller concentrated areas, to push them out.
[. . . .]
We at B’Tselem present these figures and explain their import to the Israeli public, to you – members of Knesset, and to the world. We show how Israel managed to [employ] bureaucratic mechanisms to promote the big move of dispossessing Palestinians in the West Bank, and to justify it all on administrative and legal grounds. This is organized state violence, and all the Israeli branches of government are party to it, each playing its own role: the planning mechanisms, the military, the Civil Administration, and also the settlers, and last but not least, the courts that serve as the crowning jewel in whitewashing the injustice.     MORE . . . demolition

Israeli forces demolish Bedouin houses in the village of al-Arakib in the Negev desert, March 1, 2015 (File photo: PressTV)

“. . . the homeless, the eternal wanderer . . .” (Mourid Barghouti)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
1-sysyia-sky
Afternoon sky over Sousia Bedouin Village, South Hebron Hills (Photo: Harold Knight, Nov. 7, 2015).

❶ Israeli forces demolish structures, assault locals in West Bank village
“`Article from Transactions Of The Institute Of British Geographers
❷ Israeli Forces Detain 16 Palestinians, Shoot and Injure Two Brothers
“`Article from The Nation
❸ Opinion/Analysis:  AN  ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN  CONFEDERATION?  NOT  SO  FAST
❹ POETRY by Mourid Barghouti
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAELI  FORCES  DEMOLISH  STRUCTURES,  ASSAULT  LOCALS  IN  WEST  BANK  VILLAGE
Ma’an News Agency
June 19, 2016
Four people were injured and 26 Palestinians were left homeless on Sunday afternoon after Israeli forces assaulted locals and demolished Palestinian structures in the village of Susiya in the southern occupied West Bank, in what activists said was an unprecedented move to carry out a demolition during the holy month of Ramadan.
___According to the Israeli organization Rabbis for Human Rights, two homes were demolished in the southern part of Susiya, in addition to agricultural structures, including a barn and an outdoor kitchen.   MORE . . .   

[. . . .]
When talking and writing about the destruction of Palestinian property, it is usually a case of house demolitions and rarely home demolitions. This slippage perhaps occurs easily when moving from Arabic to English, since the Arabic word beit can be translated as both house and home. However, in English, while house refers to a built structure, as Blunt and Dowling point out in their recent book on the subject, there are multiple experiences of home:

“Some may speak of the physical structure of their house
or dwelling; others may refer to relationships or connections
over space and time. You might have positive or
negative feelings about home, or a mixture of the two.
Your sense of home might be closely shaped by your
memories of childhood, alongside your present experiences
and your dreams for the future.”
(Blunt A. and Dowling R. Home Routledge, London. 2006)

I understand the term house demolitions to mean the destruction of a built form used as ⁄ for housing, and the term home demolitions to imply the destruction of a set of material, social and affective relations that constitute home. While writing about house demolitions may invoke images of a bulldozer reducing concrete, steel and other building materials to a pile of rubble, talking about home demolitions  broadens the discussion to examine the extensive economic, political, cultural and social geographies (and temporalities) of such violence. My understanding of home demolitions is very similar to what Porteous and Smith term ‘domicide . . . defined as the deliberate destruction of home by human agency in pursuit of specified goals, which causes suffering to the victim’. (Porteous J. D. and Smith S. Domicide: The Global Destruction Of Home. 2001).

  • Harker, Christopher. “Spacing Palestine Through The Home.” Transactions Of The Institute Of British Geographers 34.3 (2009): 320-332.   SOURCE.  
1-susyia-settlers
From Sousia Village looking across valley to encroaching Jewish settlement (Photo: Harold Knight, Nov. 7, 2015)

❷ ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  16  PALESTINIANS,  SHOOT  AND  INJURE  TWO  BROTHERS
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
June 20, 2016
Israeli occupation forces Monday detained 16 Palestinians from across the West Bank district, as well as shot and injured two brothers, according to local and security sources.
___In Hebron, forces detained seven Palestinians, including two journalists, during a military raid into Hebron city.
___Forces reportedly stormed several neighbourhoods in the city before detaining Hamza al-Jamal, Hazem Neurokh, Suhaib Abu Nejmeh, Mohammed Taha, and Firas Abu Snaineh, in addition to two journalists who were identified as Adeeb al-Atrash and Rani al-Haymoni. Al-Haymoni’s two brothers were shot and injured with rubber-coated steel bullets during his arrest. They were both transferred to hospital for medical treatment.      MORE . . .   

Seeking to quell the unrest, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that his government would undertake more stringent measures to suppress Palestinian protests, including the use of live rounds against demonstrators and the immediate demolition of residences belonging to Palestinians involved in violence. PALESTINIANS ARE NOT SAFE, NOT EVEN IN THEIR OWN HOMES [emphasis added]. Israel is also threatening to remove Palestinians from Jerusalem, rendering them stateless.
[. . . .]
___And while the mainstream Western media focus heavily on the loss of Israeli lives, Palestinian deaths are often treated as mere numbers and statistics. More importantly, lost in the media coverage of the violence from “both sides” is the fact that only one side is occupying the other.
[. . . .]
___Palestinian civil society and the international solidarity movement have both reached a point of strength and maturity not seen since the first intifada of the late 1980s. In the United States, solidarity groups are making inroads into AIPAC’s traditional arenas on Capitol Hill, particularly in the Democratic Party. This growing movement should do everything it can to prevent Washington from vetoing an international protection force or from using it to cement a sellout of Palestinian rights.

  • BUTTU, DIANA, and NADIA HIJAB. “Palestine Besieged.” Nation 301.19 (2015): 8-11.   ARTICLE.  

❸ Opinion/Analysis:  AN  ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN  CONFEDERATION?  NOT  SO  FAST
+972 Blog
Yuval Eylon
June 19, 2016
The latest hit in the peace plan business comes from “Two States One Homeland,” an initiative that eschews both the two-state solution and the one-state solution, instead envisioning a confederation between Israel and a future Palestinian state [. . . .]
___On paper it [leaving settlements] seems like a fair exchange. However with hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens in sovereign Palestinian territory, the Palestinian state will inevitably lack all sovereignty. The disparities in power ensure that Palestinian sovereignty will remain a formality, while actual sovereignty will remain in the hands of Israeli settlers. On the other hand the State of Israel will gain hundreds of thousands of laborers who lack both citizenship or even the very ability to become citizens of Israel.        MORE . . .  

“THE  STAB,”  BY  MOURID  BARGHOUTI
The moonlight said:
I am the first of the homeless,
the eternal wanderer;
you find me on the breakwaters,
on the soldier’s helmet,
on the false teeth of the party’s general secretary,
in the begging of the willow and in the river’ obstinacy,
on the woman’s brow when pleasure lifts it,
on the executioner’s fingernails and the robber’s key-ring,
on parliament’s oppressive dome,
on a deserter’s medals,
on the tilted surface of a bomber,
on the marble steps,
on a knife blade
which a friend takes from the front of his cloak
and points at your backbone.
And in my moment of agony,
I beg the clouds:
“Hide me!”

Barghouti’s essay, “Verbicide,” in which he describes being a refugee.
From Barghouti, Mourid. MIDNIGHT  AND  OTHER  POEMS. Trans. Radwa Ashour. Todmorden, UK: Arc Publications, 2008. Available from Amazon.

 

“. . . Life will flow, surely it will flow into all our villages anew. . .” (Jabra Ibrahim Jabra)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Dianne Feinstein meets with Palestinians from Susiya. (Photo from Dianne Feinstein’s Twitter feed.)
United States Senator Dianne Feinstein meets with Palestinians from Susiya. (Photo from Dianne Feinstein’s Twitter feed.)

❶ Palestinians bring US attention to plight of threatened village
❷ Israel notifies Salfit farmers of plans to remove 140 olive trees
❸ West Bank wall threatens Palestine’s flora, fauna
❹ Photo exhibit challenges Zionism’s most popular myth
❺ Analysis: New Report Documents How Israel Keeps Palestinians off Third of West Bank Land
❻ Poetry by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra

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

◊  ◊  ◊  ◊  ◊  ◊

❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PALESTINIANS  BRING  US  ATTENTION  TO  PLIGHT  OF  THREATENED  VILLAGE
Sept. 29, 2015
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Six Palestinians came to Washington to secure support against Israeli plans to raze their tiny West Bank village of Susiya, and at the last minute FOUND ASSISTANCE FROM US SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN.
____The hamlet, which has been torn down before and mainly consists of tents and makeshift structures for homes, is among a number of communities threatened with demolition by the Israeli army and has become a symbol of the occupation of the West Bank.
____For Susiya’s proponents, any gesture or public recognition, regardless of how small, by an elected member of the US Congress is a boost they can use as leverage in pressuring Israel’s authorities.
____The US State Department warned this summer that demolition of the village would be “harmful and provocative.” Since then the army has been deliberating the issue, and a deadline has been set for Oct. 13.
More . . .

❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL  NOTIFIES  SALFIT  FARMERS  OF  PLANS  TO  REMOVE  140  OLIVE  TREES
Sept. 28, 2015
NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli authorities on Monday delivered notices to Palestinian farmers informing them of plans to remove 140 olive trees from the town of Qarawat Bani Hassan in Salfit district in the occupied West Bank, the farmers told Ma’an.
____They said that the trees are located in the al-Safar area of the town, which Israeli officials consider a nature reserve.
More . . .

❸ AL-MONITOR (PALESTINE PULSE)
WEST  BANK  WALL  THREATENS  PALESTINE’S  FLORA,  FAUNA
Ahmad Melhem
Sept. 27, 2015
RAMALLAH, West Bank — The West Bank barrier project has been condemned by many for its crushing effects on the Palestinian people. Now steps are underway to document its devastation of nature and wildlife as well. The Palestinian Environment Quality Authority and the Ministry of Agriculture plan to prepare and present to the United Nations a comprehensive study on the direct consequences of the wall and its long-term hazardous effects on the environment.
More . . .

A Palestinian walks with his horse past a section of the controversial Israeli barrier, in Shuafat refugee camp in the West Bank, near Jerusalem, Nov. 21, 2013. (photo by REUTERS/Ammar Awad)
A Palestinian walks with his horse past a section of the controversial Israeli barrier, in Shuafat refugee camp in the West Bank, near Jerusalem, Nov. 21, 2013. (photo by REUTERS/Ammar Awad)

❹ +972 BLOG
PHOTO  EXHIBIT  CHALLENGES  ZIONISM’S  MOST  POPULAR  MYTH
Tom Pessah
Sept. 27, 2015
Using haunting aerial photographs of the Negev Desert, American artist Fazal Sheikh challenges the notion that the desert was an unpopulated land before Zionism made it bloom.
More . . .

❺ Analysis:
THE MIDDLE EAST MONITOR (MEM)
NEW  REPORT  DOCUMENTS  HOW  ISRAEL  KEEPS  PALESTINIANS  OFF  THIRD  OF  WEST  BANK  LAND
Sept. 29 2015
Around a third of the entire West Bank is closed to Palestinians as Israeli military zones, according to a new report.
___“Walled Garden – Declaration of Closed Areas in the West Bank” is published by Israeli non-profit NGO Kerem Navot, and authored by long-time activist and settlements monitor Dror Etkes.
___The report, now available here on Middle East Monitor, reveals the ways in which the Israeli authorities have designated more than 1.7 million dunams as closed military zones.
(Link to full report included.)
More . . .

“THE  MOUTH  OF  THE  WELL,”  BY  JABRA  IBRAHIM  JABRA

[During the massacre of Deir Yassin, the enemy flung the bodies of its victim in the village well.]

Mouth of the well,
Where the hands of playful young maidens
Met in friendship, pouring
Spring water into the jugs,
Amidst merriment and song.
Was it suddenly to become an opening to nothingness,
That opening of a grave, stuffed with young maidens
And bleeding pregnant women,
Their blood mixed with gunpowder?
Did the clusters of grapes around it shrivel up and dry?
Was the wheat scorched, and did the oilskins
Spill their contents on the scattered stones,
And was Jesus crucified there once more?
The mouth of the well will be our second Golgotha.
From its bloodied opening will pour forth
Black lava, smoldering and sizzling,
Mixed with the flesh of young women and pregnant women.
To destroy
Those who sowed death
And fed the eagles of our land.
Then, from its sacred and abundant fertility,
Life will flow, surely it will flow
Into all our villages anew.

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 Jabra Ibrahim Jabra

Israeli regime committed war crimes in Deir Yassin by ethnic cleansing of a whole population. The massacre of the Palestinian small town of Deir Yassin in 9th of April, 1948. The “democracy” on which the State of Israel is built.
Israeli regime committed war crimes in Deir Yassin by ethnic cleansing of a whole population. The massacre of the Palestinian small town of Deir Yassin in 9th of April, 1948. The “democracy” on which the State of Israel is built.


“. . . My country is the rape victim I will marry. . .” (Marwan Makhoul)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Children flying kites in Susiya, August 12, 2015. From: Susiya Forever Community, Facebook.
Children flying kites in Susiya, August 12, 2015. From: Susiya Forever Community, Facebook.

❶ From: MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI  FORCES  OPEN  FIRE  AT  MEMORIAL  FOR  SLAIN  INFANT  IN  SUSIYA
August, 15, 2015
HEBRON ― Israeli forces opened fire at Palestinian and foreign activists on Friday during a memorial in the village of Susiya south of Hebron for 18-month-old Ali Dawabsha who was killed in an arson attack by Israeli settlers on July 30, a spokesperson from the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee told Ma’an.
____No injuries were reported.
____During the memorial, activists and local children were flying kites above a nearby illegal Israeli settlement when Israeli soldiers in the area responded with opening fire at the kite flyers. . . .
____Organizers said the memorial signified that the arson attack on the 18-month-old was just one piece of a series of crimes committed by the state of Israel and Israeli settlers across the Palestine territory.
More. . .

❷ From: MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PALESTINIAN  LAWYERS  ORGANIZE  SIT-IN  RALLY  IN  SUPPORT  OF  ALLAN
August, 15, 2015
RAMALLAH ― The President of the Palestinian Bar Association said in a statement Sunday that several members of the association’s general assembly, as well as other Palestinian citizens of Israel will meet for a sit-in in front of Barzilai Medical Center in southern Israel, where Palestinian hunger striker Muhammad Allan is being treated.
____Allan, a Palestinian lawyer who fell into a coma on Friday, has been on an open-ended hunger strike for over two months against his administrative detention. . . .
____Allan has been held under administrative detention status since November.
____Palestinian bar president Hussien Shabana said that Allan’s cause is a fair and just cause and must be made a priority for all Palestinian lawyers, AS WELL AS EVERY FREE PERSON IN THE WORLD.
More. . .

❸ From: ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
HOW  GLOBAL  REAL  ESTATE  GIANT  RE/MAX  PROFITS  FROM  STOLEN  PALESTINIAN  LAND
Ben Norton
August 12, 2015
Agents working for the US-headquartered real estate giant RE/MAX are promoting themselves as specialists in property built in Israel’s settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
____The Colorado-based corporation which says it operates in nearly 100 countries was identified as responsible by a 2013 United Nations’ probe for how its Israeli franchises sell houses and apartments in the occupied West Bank.
[. . . .]
____Despite that criticism, many RE/MAX representatives are continuing to handle such property. . .
____[Shlomo Benzaquen, a RE/MAX agent] particularly recommends Kokhav Yaakov, Tel Zion and Adam (also known as Geva Binyamin) as “communities” which “offer tremendous value to young families and investors looking for high returns.”
____In fact, all of these “communities” are Israeli settlements inside the West Bank and are illegal under international law.
More. . .

❹ Analysis
From: THE PALESTINE CHRONICLE
PALESTINE:  ONE  STATE  FOR  ALL  OR  A  FINAL  ZIONIST  ETHNIC  CLEANSING?
Alan Hart
Aug 14 2015
____The headline over a recent article in The Times of Israel by the paper’s Middle East analyst, Avi Issacharoff, was The end of the two-state solution. And the strapline (secondary headline) underneath that was a quote from the body of his article. “It’s time to say it out loud: The Israeli right has won – a temporary, pyrrhic victory that has set Israel on the path to becoming a Muslim-majority state.”
____Issacharoff’s opening thoughts were the following.
“Conditions are now such that an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank has already become impossible.
“And here it must be said: The watershed line seems to have been crossed. The two-state solution is no more.
“No Palestinian state will exist here beside the State of Israel.”
[. . . .]
____In reality the two-state solution was never on from the moment the UN Security Council passed Resolution 242 on 22 November 1967.
More. . .

UN Security Council passes Resolution 242 on 22 November 1967.
UN Security Council passes Resolution 242 on 22 November 1967.

❺ Opinion
From: MONDOWEISS
MEETING  JIMMY  CARTER
Marc H. Ellis
August 15, 2015
The news of President Carter’s illness has political pundits preparing his obituary. Since I have encountered President Carter on numerous occasions, my reaction is personal. My first encounter was most memorable.
____It was 1988, at the height of the Palestinian Uprising. The venue was a conference, “Theology, Politics and Peace,” that the Carter Center co-sponsored with Emory University in Atlanta. As with most conferences, the papers delivered at the conference were, for the most part, theoretical. With the Uprising in the air, however, I was determined to highlight the brutal repression the Israeli government was meting out to Palestinians struggling for freedom.
More. . .
Related. . . CARTER  SAYS  ISRAEL  KILLED  TWO-STATE  SOLUTION

“DAILY  POEMS,”  BY  MARWAN  MAKHOUL
The homeland having fallen down a well
and after sixty years, it’s up to us
to raise the rope a little, then let it fall again,
for only thus will hope learn patience.
***
There are things I don’t understand,
not being an Israeli
and not being entirely Palestinian.
***
My country is the rape victim
I will marry.
***
My grandfather told me: Palestine is an irregular verb in the past.
My father said: No, it’s in the present tense.
I say, and a plane has just landed nearby: My grandfather’s right
and my father too.

From BANIPAL: MAGAZINE OF MODERN ARAB LITERATURE 45 Winter, 2012. WWW.banipal.co.uk
Marwan Makhoul was born to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother in 1979 in the village of Boquai’a in the Upper Galilee region of Palestine. He currently lives in the village of Maalot Tarshiha. Marwan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Al-Mustaqbal College and now works as a civil engineer and is the director of a construction company.
More. . .

US-based multinational RE/MAX is marketing properties in illegal Jews-only settlements built on stolen Palestinian land such as Ariel, near Salfit in the West Bank. Keren Manor / ActiveStills.
US-based multinational RE/MAX is marketing properties in illegal Jews-only settlements built on stolen Palestinian land such as Ariel, near Salfit in the West Bank. Keren Manor / ActiveStills.

“. . . The great trunk is smashed! The hurricane leaves no life in the Tree!. . .” (Fadwa Tuqan)

Harold Knight1 Comment
Susiya Protest Image By Bassam Shweiki Hebron Defense Committee
Susiya Protest Image By Bassam Shweiki Hebron Defense Committee

❶ From INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER (IMEMC)
ISRAEL AFFIRMS PALESTINIAN OWNERSHIP OF SUSIYA VILLAGE, BUT CONTINUES WITH DEMOLITION PLAN
The Israeli daily Haaretz has reported that a document released by the Civil Administration Office of the Defense Ministry affirms that Susiya village, in the southern West Bank district of Hebron, is built on private Palestinian property.
____But in spite of this admission, the Israeli military has stated that they will continue with a plan to demolish the village, and forcibly relocate the Palestinian families who live there.
____The Jabour and Nawaja families, based in Susiya for hundreds of years, have in their possession ownership documents of their land that date back to the Ottoman empire of the late 1800s.
(More. . .)

❷ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI FORCES, RIGHT-WINGERS STORM AQSA MOSQUE COMPOUND
July 26, 2015
JERUSALEM — Israeli forces broke into Al-Aqsa mosque compound Sunday morning firing stun grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets at Muslim worshipers as they cleared way for right-wing Jews who were visiting the compound to mark a Jewish fast day, witnesses said.
____Dozens of Palestinian worshipers were reportedly hit with rubber-coated bullets and suffered excessive tear gas inhalation, while Israeli police officers were reported to have attacked worshipers with pepper spray, rods and rifle butts.
____At least three Palestinians were reportedly detained.
(More. . .)

(Ma'an Images) Israeli forces broke into Al-Aqsa mosque compound Sunday
(Ma’an Images) Israeli forces broke into Al-Aqsa mosque compound Sunday

❸From PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
ISRAEL ARRESTS FIVE YOUNG PALESTINIANS IN WEST BANK
July 26, 2015
BETHLHEM, (WAFA) – Israeli forces Sunday arrested five Palestinians, including four between the ages of 17 and 19, from the West Bank, while clashes erupted between forces and Palestinians to the east of Ramallah, according to local and security sources. . . . forces arrested two young Palestinians from the village of Husan to the west of Bethlehem after raiding and searching their families’ homes.
[. . . .]
____Meanwhile, forces intensified their military presence across several neighborhoods and towns in the Hebron district, where they arrested three Palestinians from the towns of Yatta and Halhoul. . . .
____Forces further stormed the town of Beit Owa to the west of Hebron and searched several homes, However, no arrests were reported.
(More. . .)

❹ From THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
ISRAEL EXPLOITS SYRIAN CHAOS TO PLAN LOOTING OF GOLAN OIL
Paul Fallon
July 21, 2015
According to Geoff Rochwarger, CEO of Afek, energy independence is the new Zionism.
____The Afek oil and gas exploration company has almost completed its second drilling test in the Golan Heights, a part of Syria which Israel has occupied since 1967 and annexed in violation of international law.
____The test is part of a three-year program to see if hydrocarbons in the area could lead to oil or gas for Israel.
[. . . .]
____Israel is now taking advantage of the chaos in Syria to look for precious resources to extract from the occupied Golan Heights.
(More. . .)

❺ Opinion
From MONDOWEISS
IT’S TIME FOR AMERICAN JEWS TO RECOGNIZE THEY HAVE BEEN DUPED
Avigail Abarbanel
July 25, 2015
Two stories came to my attention this morning. . . . The second story, by Raphael Ahren in the Times of Israel is about the apparent decline in support for Israel among American Jews . . . .
____As a long-time activist for Palestinian rights and an anti-Zionist, I should have been pleased to read that American Jews increasingly question their knee-jerk support for Israel. But instead, I felt a familiar frustration. Jewish American support for Israel has always been vital for Israel and not just for economic reasons. . . . Israel also relies on Jewish American support for its feelings of legitimacy. As long as American Jews support Israel ‘right or wrong’, Israel feels justified in its existence and in everything it does.
____I believe Israeli Jews feel in the depth of their bones that Israel’s existence the way it is, is illegitimate.
[. . . .]
____American Jews either do not know or refuse to acknowledge that Israel is a settler colonial project. If they knew or if they acknowledge it, would it make a difference to their opinion?
(More. . .)

“THE DELUGE AND THE TREE,” BY FADWA TUQAN
When the hurricane swirled and spread its deluge
of dark evil
onto the good green land
‘they’ gloated. The western skies
reverberated with joyous accounts:
‘The Tree has fallen !
The great trunk is smashed! The hurricane leaves no life in the Tree!’

Had the Tree really fallen?
Never! Not with our red streams flowing forever,
not while the wine of our thorn limbs
fed the thirsty roots,
Arab roots alive
tunneling deep, deep, into the land!

When the Tree rises up, the branches
shall flourish green and fresh in the sun
the laughter of the Tree shall leaf
beneath the sun
and birds shall return
Undoubtedly, the birds shall return.
The birds shall return.

From poemhunter.com

Fadwa Tuqan (born 1917 in Nablus – died 2003), was well known for her representations of resistance to Israeli occupation in contemporary Arab poetry.
Tuqan’s poetry is known for her distinctive chronicling of the suffering of her people. Born to the wealthy Palestinian Tuqan family known for their accomplishments in many fields, she received schooling until age 13 when she was forced to quit school at a young age due to illness. One of her brothers, Ibrahim Tuqan, known as the Poet of Palestine, took responsibility of educating her. She attended Oxford University, where she studied English and literature.
Fadwa Tuqan’s eldest brother is Ahmad Toukan, former Prime Minister of Jordan.
Tuqan eventually published eight poetry collections, which were translated into many languages and enjoy renown throughout the Arab World.

Israeli soldiers patrol near the occupied Syrian town of Majdal al-Shams in the Golan Heights in 2011. Oren Ziv ActiveStills
Israeli soldiers patrol near the occupied Syrian town of Majdal al-Shams in the Golan Heights in 2011. Oren Ziv ActiveStills

“. . . 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)

“. . . His God-given rights are a grain of salt tossed into the sea. . .” (Taha Muhammad Ali)

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Caption : Susiya Village (MaanImages/Charlie Hoyle, File)
Caption : Susiya Village (MaanImages/Charlie Hoyle, File)

❶ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL ORDERS PALESTINIAN VILLAGE TO BE DEMOLISHED AFTER RAMADAN
July 16, 2015
HEBRON (Ma’an) — Israeli authorities ordered the demolition of homes in a village south of Hebron to be carried out after Ramadan. . .
____Rabbis for Human Rights and B’Tselem said in a statement that pressure from Israeli settlers had led to the decision to carry out demolition orders in the village of Khirbet Susiya. . . .
____The Israeli Civil Administration, the Israeli army, and the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) office announced the demolition order to the villagers in a meeting on Sunday.
(More. . .) 

❷ From THE MIDDLE EAST MONITOR (MEM)
SHOOT AND LIE: ISRAELI FORCES ARE KILLING CIVILIANS WITH IMPUNITY
Ben White (see end note)
July 15, 2015
[. . . .]
According to the recently-published UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry, between June 12 and August 26, 2014, Israeli forces killed 27 Palestinians, including five children, and injured 3,100 others, including 460 children. Around a quarter of Palestinian injuries were sustained as a result of Israeli forces’ use of live ammunition.
____The Israeli soldiers who pull the trigger know there is almost no chance they will be held to account for the killing and maiming of Palestinian civilians. . . .
____ . . . . Indeed, the impunity enjoyed by Israeli armed forces in the killing of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank is significant in light of the preliminary examination being conducted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
(More. . .)

❸ From PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
DAILY ARRESTS CONTINUE: ISRAELI FORCES DETAIN THREE FROM WEST BANK DISTRICTS
July 16, 2015
JENIN― Israeli forces early Thursday detained three Palestinians, including a minor, from multiple West Bank districts, said security sources.
____Israeli forces raided early Thursday Rummana, a village to the west of Jenin, where they proceeded to detain a Palestinian after breaking and wrecking havoc into his family’s house, sparking clashes with villagers.
____The detainee was identified as Mahmoud Abu Sayfin, 21, who is a student studying Shari‘a studies in a local college.
(More. . .)

❹ From PALESTINE NEWS NETWORK (PNN)
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY HAS FAILED THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
July 13, 2015
PLO Executive Committee Member Dr. Saeb Erakat today released a statement commemorating the 11th anniversary of the International Court of Justice’s historic condemnation of the Israeli annexation wall.
____Erakat said that despite the ICJ’s opinion that the international community bears responsibility for putting an end to Israeli crimes in Palestine, countries around the world have not fulfilled their obligations. . . .
____He said that the international community has failed to put enough pressure on the Israeli government to end its policy of settlement expansion (illegal under international law), and in fact the settler population increased from 425,000 settlers in 2004 to around 600,000 today.
(More. . .)
taha-muhammad-ali❺ Opinion
From THE PALESTINE CHRONICLE
WHY PALESTINIANS FIGHT BACK: THE LOGIC OF LIFE AND DEATH IN GAZA
Ramzy Baroud
July 15, 2015
Another row is brewing between Israel and the Palestinian Resistance Movement, Hamas, over the release of Avraham Mengitsu. . . .
[. . . .]
Not only is Israel’s occupation of the West Bank the least costly of all illegal occupations in modern times, it is also the most profitable.
____Expecting Gaza not to resist is an invitation for Israel to complete its humiliation of the Palestinian people, to utilize the [Gaza] Strip for financial gains (for example, natural gas near the coast and racially segregated beach resorts, etc.), and to turn its men, women and children into cheap labor. . . .
____The failure of the international community to act following the last round of massacres in Gaza means that Palestinians there are on their own, at least for now. . .
____So, even if the math of Resistance does not add up – whether in unguaranteed prisoners swaps, or terrifying death tolls – Palestinians in Gaza will continue to resist.
(More. . .)

“ABD EL-HADI FIGHTS A SUPERPOWER,” BY TAHA MUHAMMAD ALI
In his life
he neither wrote nor read.
In his life he
didn’t cut down a single tree,
didn’t slit the throat
of a single calf.
In his life he did not speak
of the New York Times
behind its back,
didn’t raise
his voice to a soul
except in his saying:
“Come in, please,
by God, you can’t refuse.”
—
Nevertheless—
his case is hopeless,
his situation
desperate.
His God-given rights are a grain of salt
tossed into the sea.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury:
about his enemies
my client knows not a thing.
And I can assure you,
were he to encounter
the entire crew
of the aircraft carrier Enterprise,
he’d serve them eggs
sunny-side up,
and labneh
fresh from the bag.

From: Ali, Taha Muhammah So What: New and Selected Poems, 1971-2005. Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin, Trans. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2008.
Available from Amazon
Palestinian poet and short story writer Taha Muhammad Ali (1931–2011) grew up in Saffuriya, Galilee. During the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, he moved with his family to Lebanon for a year; he returned to Nazareth, where he owned a souvenir shop. Self-taught through his readings of classical Arabic literature, American fiction, and English poetry, Ali started writing poems in the 1970s. His collections in English include Never Mind: Twenty Poems and a Story (2000) and So What: New and Selected Poems, 1971–2005 (2006).
(More. . .)

Reporter Ben White. “Ben White is a freelance journalist, writer and activist, specialising in Palestine/Israel. He has been visiting the region since 2003 and his articles have been widely published in the likes of The Guardian’s Comment is free, Al Jazeera, Electronic Intifada, New Statesman, Salon, Christian Science Monitor, Middle East International, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, and others. He currently works as a writer and researcher for Middle East Monitor and Journal of Palestine Studies.”
(More. . .)

Blood for gas: Why Bibi is punishing Gaza. Smoke billowing from buildings following an Israeli air strike as a projectile falls in the background in Gaza City (AFP Photo / Jack Guez).
Blood for gas: Why Bibi is punishing Gaza. Smoke billowing from buildings following an Israeli air strike as a projectile falls in the background in Gaza City (AFP Photo / Jack Guez).