Tag: Tawfiq Zayyad

“. . . fill the streets With demonstrations And the jails with pride . . .” (Tawfiq Zayyad)

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Israeli soldiers seal off the West Bank village of Deir Abu Mashal on June 17 (Photo: Daily Mail, Getty Images, June 18, 2017)

❶ B’Tselem: Israeli army continues to disrupt life for residents of Deir Abu Mashaal
❷ Israeli forces deliver stop-work notice in Hebron-area village
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Kufr Qaddoum marks six years for its Intifada against the Israeli occupation
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) IOF bulldozes lands in Daher al-Maleh village

Background:   Slater, Jerome. “Terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” Middle East Policy.

❸ POETRY by Tawfiq Zayyad
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ B’TSELEM: ISRAELI ARMY CONTINUES TO DISRUPT LIFE FOR RESIDENTS OF DEIR ABU MASHAAL
Ma’an News Agency 
July 1, 2017.   Israeli authorities have continued to implement restrictive policies on Palestinians in Deir Abu Mashaal in the central occupied West Bank district of Ramallah, after three residents of the town were shot dead last month after allegedly carrying out a deadly attack near Damascus Gate in occupied East Jerusalem, which killed an Israeli police officer, B’Tselem reported on Thursday.     ___After it was revealed that the three alleged assailants — Baraa Ibrahim Saleh, 18, Adel Hassan Ahmad Ankoush, 18, and Usama Ahmad Ata, 19 — were from the village of Deir Abu Mashaal, the town was subsequently placed under lockdown, and was subjected to multiple military raids.
___Based on field research conducted in the village, B’Tselem reported that, on the night of the attack, Israeli forces installed an iron gate at the entrance of the village and erected large rocks and piles of dirt on three dirt roads used by villagers, and refused to allow any Palestinian from leaving or entering the area, putting the village under a complete siege.
___Locals removed some of the obstacles in order to drive out of the village, as many residents are dependent on work in Ramallah city.  MORE . . .
❷ ISRAELI FORCES DELIVER STOP-WORK NOTICE IN HEBRON-AREA VILLAGE     Ma’an News Agency 
July 1, 2017.   Israeli forces delivered a stop-work notice to a Palestinian home in the Khillet Ibrahim area of western Idhna village in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron for lacking nearly impossible-to-obtain Israeli-issued building permits.      ___The house, which belongs to Jamal Muhammad Abu Zalta, measures 150 square meters in area, Mayor of Idhna Muammar al-Tmeizi told Ma’an.
___Five Palestinians reside in the home, according to al-Tmeizi.
___Al-Tmeizi also pointed out that two-thirds of the village’s area has been declared Area C — the more than 60 percent of the occupied Palestinian territory under full Israeli military control as a result of the Oslo Accords.    MORE . . .
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) KUFR QADDOUM MARKS SIX YEARS FOR ITS INTIFADA AGAINST THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION  
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
July 19, 2017.   Six years ago today, the Palestinian residents of Qufr Qaddoum, a peaceful village near Qalqilya in the north of the West Bank, decided to rise against the Israeli military’s closure of a vital and historical village road and demand its reopening.
___In six years of uprising, the village witnessed 500 marches, usually carried out on Fridays following the prayer. During these protests, an elderly man was shot dead by the army during confrontations and 85 wounded with live bullets, including six children, some of them lost an eye or speech ability, 170 people detained, homes destroyed, fields torched, farms wrecked, military checkpoints, collective punishment and more than $70,000 in fines imposed on the helpless Palestinian civilians.
___But all this did not deter or tire the residents, who are determined to continue with their weekly activity until they get the vital road reopened.   MORE . . .   
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) IOF BULLDOZES LANDS IN DAHER AL-MALEH VILLAGE  
Al Hourriah Magazine (Freedom)
July 1, 2017.   The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) bulldozed on Friday agricultural lands in Daher al-Maleh village which is isolated behind the apartheid wall to the north of Yabad town in Jenin province for the purpose of constructing a road and a new section of the apartheid wall.
___Head of Daher al-Maleh village council Omar al-Khatib said that the IOF bulldozers razed about 20 dunums of land planted with olives and tobacco in preparation for the construction of a road linking between Shaked settlement and the settlements of Tal Menashe and Hananit, according to Wafa news agency.   MORE . . .

Slater, Jerome. “TERRORISM AND THE ISRAELI -PALESTINIAN CONFLICT.” Middle East Policy, vol. 22, no. 3, Fall2015, pp. 79-99.     [. . . .] . . . the political path to a settlement is all but dead, leaving only nonviolent resistance as an alternative to terrorism. In fact, at various periods the Palestinians have tried nonviolent resistance, civil disobedience and political protest, especially in the first and largely unarmed intifada in the late 1980s, and in the last few years to prevent the further expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. All of these efforts have been suppressed or violently crushed by Israeli forces. As Meron Benvenisti, the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem . . . has written: “. . . The Israelis have managed to persuade the Palestinians that they have no inhibitions when it comes to using force, even gunfire, against unarmed protesters, and they make no distinction between violent and nonviolent demonstrations.”
[. . . .]  The more important point today is this: even if it is arguable whether the Palestinians gained more than they lost by their earlier periods of terrorism, it no longer is. In the last 10 years, it has become clear that Palestinian terrorism is a disaster for both peoples. It has reinforced the Israeli “Never Again” mindset that results in an entirely preposterous analogy, cynical or genuine, comparing Palestinian resistance to the Holocaust.
[. . . .] In 2008, an allegedly “new” Israeli military doctrine was announced by Gadi Eizenkot, a leading Israeli general. This so-called “Dahiya doctrine,” named after a 2006 Israeli attack with 2,000-pound bombs on the residential Beirut suburb of Dahiya, made explicit and, in effect, official what until then had been obvious though unacknowledged: “What happened in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on….We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction….This is not a recommendation….It has been approved.” Today Eizenkot is the IDF chief of staff.
[. . . .] It is necessary to separate the issue of whether it was legitimate for the Jewish people to have a state of their own from the issue of where it could have been established. The argument is strong that, in light of centuries of murderous European anti-Semitism, in general, and the Holocaust, in particular, the establishment of a Jewish state was justifiable. . .  For that reason, the argument has been made . . .  that the moral wrongs of Zionist and Israeli terrorism and ethnic cleansing during the 1947- 49 period were at least mitigated by the need to establish a viable state with a large Jewish majority . . .   no such mitigation is available for Israeli terrorism since the end of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War . . . Not only have the continuing Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians and their institutions been unjust, so have their essential purposes: to maintain the occupation and prevent the Palestinians from reaching their just goal of an independent state. . . Aggressor states have no “right of self-defense” when it is their criminality that has provoked violent resistance  . . .
[. . . .] For several reasons, Israeli terrorism has been morally worse than that of the Palestinians. First, at least since the 1980s, most — though not all — Palestinian terrorism has been largely driven by the just cause of national liberation in part of Palestine . . .
[. . . .] . . . a second reason Israeli terrorism has been worse than that of the Palestinians is that its scale and extent have been far greater and more destructive. Numbers matter . . .
[. . . .] Third, Palestinian terrorism comes much closer to meeting the just-war criterion of last resort, or the absence of alternatives. In their legitimate quest for independence and political sovereignty — not to mention dignity — the Palestinians have tried armed resistance against the Israeli occupying forces, negotiations and diplomacy, and nonviolent political action. None have worked.
[. . . .]  A final reason that Israeli terrorism is worse than Palestinian terrorism is that Israel is a democracy (however flawed) . . .  than do the Palestinians in Gaza, who live under the autocratic rule of Hamas.
[. . . .]  As I have argued, while there is a reasonable case that Palestinian terrorism in the 1970-2000 period did bring international recognition . . . Palestinian terrorism has backfired. The Palestinians have no other means of attaining their just cause other than through nonviolent resistance, international diplomacy and moral appeals to convince the United States to end its de facto support of the Israeli occupation.  FULL ARTICLE . . .

“WE SHALL REMAIN” (1970), BY TAWFIQ ZAYYAD
It is a thousand times easier
For you
To pass an elephant through the needle’s eye
To catch fried fish in the Milky Way
To plow the sea
To teach an alligator speech,
A thousand times easier
Than smothering with your oppression.
The spark of an idea
Or forcing us to deviate
A single step
From our chosen march.
Like twenty impossibilities
We shall remain in Lydda, Ramlah, and Galilee.

Here upon your chests
We shall remain
Like the glass and the cactus
In your throats
A fiery whirlwind in your eyes.

Here, we shall remain
A wall on your chests.
We wash the dishes in the hotels
And serve drinks to the masters.
We mop the floors in the dark kitchens
To extract a piece of bread
From your blue teeth
For the little ones.

Here, we shall remain
A wall on your chests.
We starve,
Go naked,
Sing songs
And fill the streets
With demonstrations
And the jails with pride.
We breed rebellions
One after another.
Like twenty impossibles we remain
In Lydda, Ramlah, and Galilee.

Here, we shall remain.
You may drink the sea;
We shall guard the shade
Of the olive tree and the fig,
Planting ideas
Like the yeast in the dough.
The coldness of ice is in our nerves
And a burning hell in our hearts.
We squeeze the rock to quench our thirst
And if we starve
We eat the dirt
And never depart
Or grudge our blood.

Here – we have a past
……a present
………..and a future.
Our roots are entrenched
Deep in the earth
Like twenty impossibles
We shall remain.
Let the oppressor review his account
Before the turn of the wheel.
For every action there is a reaction:
Read what is written in the Book.
Like twenty impossibles
We shall remain – in Lydda, Ramlah and Galilee.

Tawfiq Zayyad, poet, scholar, politician (1929-1994)
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. 

“. . . usurped the right of peaceful men who did not sin . . .” (Tawfiq Zayyad)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
image5
Palestinian refugees of the Six-Day War fleeing the West Bank across the Allenby Bridge between Jericho and Jordan (Photo: UNRWA archive, 1967)

Understanding the Six Day War

❶ TRACKING  THE  TRENDS  OF  THE  PALESTINIAN  CAUSE  SINCE  1967:  LOOKING  BACK
Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network      
Nadia Hijab, Mouin Rabbani
June 6, 2017
On the eve of June 5, 1967, the Palestinians were dispersed among Israel, the Jordanian-ruled West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the Gaza Strip administered by Egypt, and refugee communities in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and beyond. Their aspirations for salvation and self-determination were pinned to Arab leaders’ pledges to “liberate Palestine” . . . .
___The Six-Day War, which resulted in Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the Syrian Golan Heights, and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, brought dramatic changes to the geography of the conflict. It also produced a sea change in the Palestinian body politic. In a sharp break with previous decades, Palestinians became the masters of their own destiny rather than spectators to regional and international decisions affecting their lives and determining their fate.       MORE . . . 
❷ SIX-DAY  WAR –  50  YEARS  LATER
1A – WAMU 88.5   
Joshua Johnson, Host
Jun 05 2017
If the ongoing conflict in the Middle East confuses you, then the Six Day War 50 years ago is a good place to start to gain an understanding. During this conflict, Israel came to occupy East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip defeating the armed forces of Egypt, Jordan and Syria.       ___Why is the Six Day War so important and why does it still impact relations in the region today?       AUDIO . . .
❸  CHALLENGES  TO  INTERNATIONAL  HUMANITARIAN  LAW:  ISRAEL’S  OCCUPATION  POLICY
Peter Maurer
International Review of the Red Cross, vol. 94, no. 888, Dec. 2012, pp. 1503-1510.
[. . . .] without respecting the basic tenets of international humanitarian law (IHL) in these testing times, it is most unlikely that the various communities will find their way toward reconciliation or be prepared to share the burden of a just peace after decades of conflict. Considering that the customary core of that law is older than the state- based system itself, the specific nature and extraordinary significance of IHL in today’s armed conflicts provide a legitimacy beyond the current international system. Far from being outdated, humanitarian law is very much a contemporary and future-oriented body of law.
___ While respect for IHL is a crucial element of the protection of victims    of armed conflict, and ultimately of fostering stability in such contexts, a critical analysis of the policies underpinning the status quo in conflict-affected states is also indispensable.
___Turning secifically to the situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the particular challenges facing humanitarian action there cannot be tackled without an honest look at certain Israeli policies that have become key features of the occupation.
___Israel has exercised ‘actual authority’1 over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for almost half a century, making its presence in these areas one of the longest sustained military occupations in modern history. . . .       MORE . . .  
❹ Opinion/Analysis:  WHAT  IS  ANTISEMITISM?      
Counterpunch  
Michael Neumann
June 4, 2002
[. . . .] Israel is building a racial state, not a religious one. Like my parents, I have always been an atheist. I am entitled by the biology of my birth to Israeli citizenship; you, perhaps, are the most fervent believer in Judaism, but are not. Palestinians are being squeezed and killed for me, not for you. They are to be forced into Jordan, to perish in a civil war. So no, shooting Palestinian civilians is not like shooting Vietnamese or Chechen civilians. The Palestinians aren’t ‘collateral damage’ in a war against well-armed communist or separatist forces. They are being shot because Israel thinks all Palestinians should vanish or die, so people with one Jewish grandparent can build subdivisions on the rubble of their homes. This is not the bloody mistake of a blundering superpower but an emerging evil, the deliberate strategy of a state conceived in and dedicated to an increasingly vicious ethnic nationalism.     MORE . . . 

“AFTER  THE  JUNE  AGGRESSION,”  BY  TAWFIQ  ZAYYAD
What did you hide
for to-morrow
You shed my blood
and dimmed the light
of my eyes
You silenced my pen
and usurped the right
of peaceful men
who did not sin

What did you hide
for to-morrow
you rent my flag
and opened wounds
in my skin
You stabbed my dreams
What did you hide?

We’re deeper than the sea
and taller than the stars
Our breath is long
longer than space

Which mother, I wonder
bequeathed you half the Canal
Which mother bequeathed you the Jordan Bank
the sand, petroleum, and the Heights
He who forcibly takes a right
must guard his own
When the balance shifts

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.
About Tawfiq Zayyad

“. . . We squeeze the rock to quench our thirst/And if we starve . . .” (Tawfiq Zayyad)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
2011_2_3-Palestinian-farmers-work-in-turning-the-household-garbage-and-the-remains-of-plants-into-compost-for-farming-in-stead-of-the-chemical-fertilizers-in-the-southern-Gaza-Stri
Palestinian farmers work in turning household garbage and the remains of plants into compost for farming instead of chemical fertilizers and pesticides (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Apaimages)

❶ Beyond the Binary: Two States, One State, Failed State, No State
❷ UN denounces Israeli occupation’s impact on Palestinian humanitarian situation
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Elderly Palestinians recall ‘good old days’ of Palestinian food security
❸ New crisis in Gaza as ‘our eyes wide open,’ UN envoy says
. . . . . ❸ ― (ᴀ) Surgeries cut by one-third in Gaza’s main hospital
❹ POETRY by Tawfiq Zayyad
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ BEYOND  THE  BINARY:  TWO  STATES,  ONE  STATE,  FAILED  STATE,  NO  STATE
Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network
Amal Ahmad
May 30, 2017
Though the international community has hailed the two-state solution since the early 1990s, it has become clear that Israel’s fragmentation of Palestinian people and territory over the past 50 years aims to make a sovereign Palestinian state impossible. While politicians explain this as a result of misunderstandings or missed opportunities between the two parties, the accurate explanation is that Israel does not, in fact, desire two states. This outcome would undermine its goal of conserving preferential rights for Israeli Jews in the territory under its control. Numerous progressives now argue that one state with equal rights for all is the logical alternative. While such a binational state may be just, it is highly unlikely, especially in the short to medium term.      MORE . . . .  
❷ UN  DENOUNCES  ISRAELI  OCCUPATION’S  IMPACT  ON  PALESTINIAN  HUMANITARIAN  SITUATION
Ma’an News Agency  
May 31, 2017
In its 2016 annual report released on Wednesday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) denounced Israeli policies for remaining “the key driver of humanitarian need” in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT).
___OCHA estimated that some 4.8 million Palestinians were affected by the occupation, two million of whom were “in need of humanitarian assistance and protection” and exposed to conflict, violence, forced displacement, and restricted access to essential infrastructure and services.
___“The prolonged occupation, with no end in sight, cultivates a sense of hopelessness and frustration that drives continued conflict and impacts both Palestinians and Israelis,” the report deplored, days ahead of the 50-year anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.       MORE . . . 
RELATED . . . .
RELATED . . . .
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ)  ELDERLY  PALESTINIANS  RECALL  ‘GOOD  OLD DAYS’  OF  PALESTINIAN  FOOD  SECURITY
Ma’an News Agency    
Abdul-Hakim Salah
May 31, 2017
“God bless the good old days, when we all had abundant, healthy food from our own production without the need for cash,” 84-year-old Khadijah Balboul . . .  told me with a deep sigh.
___It was my repeated complaints about the high cost of living and my irregular salary payments that aroused my mother’s old memories . . .      I was not asking . . .  to define food security or sustainability, but [she] unknowingly struck a chord.
___The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization identifies food security as a state when “all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”
___ . . . Palestinian households spend approximately 38.6 percent of their monthly income on food and beverages. . . .     MORE . . .

2754688507
A Palestinian shepherd tends her flock alongside Israel’s separation barrier on the outskirts of east Jerusalem, Dec. 28, 2016. (Photo: Oded Balilty/AP)

❸ NEW  CRISIS  IN  GAZA  AS  ‘OUR  EYES  WIDE  OPEN,’  UN  ENVOY  SAYS 
Days of Palestine 
May 27, 2017
UN Envoy to Middle East Nicholay Mladenov told UN Security Council “in Gaza we are walking into another crisis with our eyes wide open.”
___In a statement issued on Friday, Mladenov said: “I am today warning the Security Council that unless urgent measures are taken to de-escalate, the crisis risks spiralling out of control with devastating consequences for Palestinians and Israelis alike.”
___. . . . Mladenov speaks about the reality on the ground in Gaza. “Hospitals are now forced to postpone elective surgeries and have already reduced 80 per cent of cleaning, catering and sterilization services.
___“Since mid-April desalination plants are functioning at 15% of their capacity and drinking water is supplied for a few hours every 2-4 days.
____“As we speak 100,000 cubic meters of raw sewage are discharged into the Mediterranean Sea on a daily basis.
___. . . . “Food prices are soaring as the price of water for irrigation has gone up by 65per cent. The manufacturing sector is grinding to a halt and over half of private industry workers have been suspended.”     MORE . . .
. . . . . ❸ ― (ᴀ)  SURGERIES  CUT  BY  ONE-THIRD  IN  GAZA’S  MAIN  HOSPITAL       The Electronic Intifada 
Ahmad Kabariti
May 29, 2017     Fayez Ahmed’s operation was supposed to last six hours.
___With Gaza beset by power cuts, his medical team could not guarantee an uninterrupted electricity supply for that length of time. After weeks of delays, Ahmed decided to discharge himself from the hospital without having the surgery he needed to remove an abscess from his lung.
___ . . . . Ahmed has been seeing doctors in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Gaza’s largest hospital. Many others with lung and respiratory complaints have struggled to cope with regular power cuts.
___. . . . Walid Daoud, a doctor at al-Shifa, described the operations required by some patients with respiratory complaints as “sensitive and extremely dangerous.”
___“We have to ensure that there is a continuous flow of oxygen into the patient’s lungs,” he said. “It’s not like a procedure for toothache or something else that can be done without electricity.”        MORE . . .     

“WE  SHALL  REMAIN,”  BY  TAWFIQ  ZAYYAD
It is a thousand times easier
For you
To pass an elephant through the needle’s eye
To catch fried fish in the Milky Way
To plow the sea
To teach an alligator speech,
A thousand times easier
Than smothering with your oppression.
The spark of an idea
Or forcing us to deviate
A single step
From our chosen march.
Like twenty impossibilities
We shall remain in Lydda, Ramlah, and Galilee.

Here upon your chests
We shall remain
Like the glass and the cactus
In your throats
A fiery whirlwind in your eyes.

Here, we shall remain
A wall on your chests.
We wash the dishes in the hotels
And serve drinks to the masters.
We mop the floors in the dark kitchens
To extract a piece of bread
From your blue teeth
For the little ones.

Here, we shall remain
A wall on your chests.
We starve,
Go naked,
Sing songs
And fill the streets
With demonstrations
And the jails with pride.
We breed rebellions
One after another.
Like twenty impossibles we remain
In Lydda, Ramlah, and Galilee.

Here, we shall remain.
You may drink the sea;
We shall guard the shade
Of the olive tree and the fig,
Planting ideas
Like the yeast in the dough.
The coldness of ice is in our nerves
And a burning hell in our hearts.
We squeeze the rock to quench our thirst
And if we starve
We eat the dirt
And never depart
Or grudge our blood.

Here – we have a past
……a present
………..and a future.
Our roots are entrenched
Deep in the earth
Like twenty impossibles
We shall remain.
Let the oppressor review his account
Before the turn of the wheel.
For every action there is a reaction:
Read what is written in the Book.
Like twenty impossibles
We shall remain – in Lydda, Ramlah and Galilee.

Tawfiq Zayyad, poet, scholar, politician (1929-1994)
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. 

“. . . Like twenty impossibilities/ We shall remain. . .” (Tawfiq Zayyad)

Harold KnightLeave a comment

key
A Palestinian woman holds the key to her old family house as Palestinians stage a Nakba Day rally. [Photo: Alaa Badarneh/EPA]
❶ ‘We will support you by every possible means:’ David Friedman arrives in Israel

  • Background: “The One-State as a Demand of International Law: Jus Cogens, Challenging Apartheid and the Legal Validity of Israel.”

❷ Israel is still unable to deal with the catastrophe of 1948
❸ Jewish Nation-State Bill: Israel’s Precarious Identity is Palestine’s Nightmare
❹ POETRY by Tawfiq Zayyad
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ‘WE  WILL  SUPPORT  YOU  BY  EVERY  POSSIBLE  MEANS:’  DAVID  FRIEDMAN  ARRIVES  IN  ISRAEL
Ma’an News Agency
May 16, 2017
US President Donald Trump’s pick for US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman embarked on his first official trip to Israel on Monday, as the ultraright, pro-settler ambassador reportedly told Israeli leaders that he and Trump would support Israel “by every possible means.”
___Friedman’s first stop after landing in Israel was the Western Wall, a holy Jewish site located in occupied East Jerusalem and adjacent to Al-Aqsa Mosque, where the ambassador “prayed for Donald Trump.”
___On Tuesday, Friedman met with President Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem and presented his credentials. . .  MORE . . .

Ben-Dor, Oren. “The One-State as a Demand of International Law: Jus Cogens, Challenging Apartheid and the Legal Validity of Israel.” Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal (Edinburgh University Press), vol. 12, no. 2, Nov. 2013, pp. 181-205.
[. . . .] Thus, the possibilities for genuine political struggles that contest political, social and economic inequalities are heavily managed so as to protect the apartheid premise for the sake of which the state [Israel] was constituted. The injustices in it are not just a de facto durational injustice which are found and persist for some time in any political community and which may be more or less systematic until the narratives that give rise to them are overcome. . . .  In Israel, apartheid (separateness) is rather inbuilt into the very constitutional life of the state, a sense of ‘separateness; of Jews that has to be constantly rejuvenated and reinvented and reinforced by the state. Because the Zionist ideological doctrine of ‘separateness’ led to the raison d’etre of the state, this separateness . . .  is disguised as ‘democratic’ practices. As such this denial is more entrenched in collective unconscious memory and thus more morally repugnant than the explicit apartheid of South Africa [which] was thus already open to reform . . . a political community that [could] be made responsible for its actions. In short. . .  South Africa could reform and stay South Africa. Israel cannot reform and stay Israel.          ___Moreover and crucially, in Israel it is because of the need to create a state which is based on this apartheid premise that sustains Jewish majority and character that ethnic cleansing took place . . .  such a state should not be recognised and . . .  in the case of Palestine national self-determination must not, under any circumstances, imply a Jewish state.     Full Article.

❷ ISRAEL  IS  STILL  UNABLE  TO  DEAL  WITH  THE  CATASTROPHE  OF  1948
+972 Blog
Oren Barak
May 16, 2017
Why does the State of Israel, which just celebrated 69 years of independence, struggle to deal with the unpleasant events in its distant past, especially not the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe in the 1948 War?
___Professor Avraham Sela and Professor Alon Kadish, two top scholars of the 1948 War from Hebrew University, recently published a book titled The War of 1948: Representations of Israeli and Palestinian Memories and Narratives. The book looks at a number of realms in which the memory of the war, as well as how it is forgotten, are expressed . . . .
[. . . .] The final chapter, was written by Sela and Professor Neil Kaplan, a Canadian researcher who focuses on the Israeli-Arab conflict, suggests an important insight: memory and historical narratives are the product of a particular political and social reality — not the other way around. The question is, then, what is the political and social reality that influences what is remembered and what is forgotten about the war     MORE . . .

knesset-635x357
View of the assembly hall of the Knesset, during the opening of the winter session, October 31, 2016. (Photo: New York Jewish Week)

❸ JEWISH  NATION-STATE  BILL:  ISRAEL’S  PRECARIOUS  IDENTITY  IS  PALESTINE’S  NIGHTMARE
Palestine Chronicle     
Ramzy Baroud
May 17 2017
The Israeli Knesset (parliament) has hurriedly passed a new bill that defines Israel as the “national home of the Jewish people.” Although the association between Jewishness and Israel goes back to the foundation of the state, the new law also carries clear discriminatory elements that target the country’s Arab communities, numbering nearly two million people.
___The ‘Jewish Nation-State Bill’ is the latest concoction of Israel’s rightwing Zionist Jewish parties, which have dominated Israeli politics for years. With the Israeli ‘Left’ rendered irrelevant, or has itself moved to the right, the right wing elements of Israel are now the supreme rulers of that country.
[. . . . ] Israel’s odd definition of democracy and relentless attempts to reconcile between democracy and racial discrimination, however, is rarely challenged among its American and European allies.
___Palestinians, on the other hand, are bearing the brunt of racism more than ever before, for Israel’s Jewish dream has become their never-ending nightmare.  MORE . . .

“WE SHALL REMAIN,” BY TAWFIQ ZAYYAD
It is a thousand times easier
For you
To pass an elephant through the needle’s eye
To catch fried fish in the Milky Way
To plow the sea
To teach an alligator speech,
A thousand times easier
Than smothering with your oppression.
The spark of an idea
Or forcing us to deviate
A single step
From our chosen march.
Like twenty impossibilities
We shall remain in Lydda, Ramlah, and Galilee.

Here upon your chests
We shall remain
Like the glass and the cactus
In your throats
A fiery whirlwind in your eyes.

Here, we shall remain
A wall on your chests.
We wash the dishes in the hotels
And serve drinks to the masters.
We mop the floors in the dark kitchens
To extract a piece of bread
From your blue teeth
For the little ones.

Here, we shall remain
A wall on your chests.
We starve,
Go naked,
Sing songs
And fill the streets
With demonstrations
And the jails with pride.
We breed rebellions
One after another.
Like twenty impossibles we remain
In Lydda, Ramlah, and Galilee.

Here, we shall remain.
You may drink the sea;
We shall guard the shade
Of the olive tree and the fig,
Planting ideas
Like the yeast in the dough.
The coldness of ice is in our nerves
And a burning hell in our hearts.
We squeeze the rock to quench our thirst
And if we starve
We eat the dirt
And never depart
Or grudge our blood.

Here – we have a past
……a present
………..and a future.
Our roots are entrenched
Deep in the earth
Like twenty impossibles
We shall remain.
Let the oppressor review his account
Before the turn of the wheel.
For every action there is a reaction:
Read what is written in the Book.
Like twenty impossibles
We shall remain – in Lydda, Ramlah and Galilee.

Tawfiq Zayyad, poet, scholar, politician (1929-1994)
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. 

“. . . I shall carve my sighs . . . on the tombs of my dead . . .” (Tawfiq Zayyad)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
cancer
The condition of Hind Shahin, a breast cancer patient, has been deteriorating ever since she was denied exit from Gaza for treatment (Photo: Feb. 5, 2017, Mersiha Gadzo/Al Jazeera)

❶ NGO mourns 2 Palestinians after Israel denied them exit from Gaza for treatment
❷ Executing Palestinians is Israeli policy
❸ BACKGROUND ARTICLES

  • “Lack of Security for Palestinians.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture.  
  • “Calls for Extrajudicial Killings of Palestinian Suspects Proliferate.” Human Rights Watch.   
  • “From Colonization to Separation: Exploring the Structure of Israel’s Occupation.” Third World Quarterly.

❹ POETRY by Tawfiq Zayyad
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ NGO MOURNS 2 PALESTINIANS AFTER ISRAEL DENIED THEM EXIT FROM GAZA FOR TREATMENT  
Ma’an News Agency 
May 11, 2017
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Health non-profit Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) mourned on Wednesday the recent deaths of two Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, including a five-year-old girl, after Israeli authorities denied them permission to leave the besieged territory for treatment. . . .    [The NGO] reported in April the death of five-year-old Aya Khalil Abu Mitalq, who passed away waiting for Israeli authorities to grant her a travel permit to a hospital in occupied East Jerusalem to treat a metabolic disorder. . . .
___Earlier this month, [the NGO] also reported the death of 59-year-old Walid Muhammad Muhammad Qaaoud . . .  on May 2 after cancer metastasized all over his body, following more than a year of Israeli authorities rejecting his requests for a travel permit to receive life-saving treatment in a hospital in East Jerusalem.
[. . . .] ___MAP quoted the World Health Organization . . .  that Israeli authorities had denied or delayed 40 percent of requests to leave Gaza for medical reasons in February, in a stark increase from 2012, when the rejection rate was 8 percent.      MORE . . .   
❷ EXECUTING PALESTINIANS IS ISRAELI POLICY  
The Electronic Intifada      
Maureen Clare Murphy
May 10, 2017
By now, no one can deny that extrajudicially executing Palestinians who pose no immediate lethal threat is Israeli policy.
___Not the 100 US Senators who signed a shameful letter decrying efforts to hold Israel accountable for its rights abuses at the United Nations, parroting Israeli talking points claiming that the state is being unfairly singled out. . . .
___Nor Israel lobby groups in the US, which are fretting that the latest Israeli move to codify state discrimination against indigenous Palestinian citizens will make it harder to sell Israel as a liberal democracy. . . .
___There is no denying this policy of execution – long obvious to Palestinians and human rights observers, and admitted to by a settler security chief in an Israeli court – after police were shown on video demonstrating how to confirm a kill to a crowd of fifth-graders in the city of Ramat HaSharon . . .       MORE . . . .  

killing
Mourners carry the body of 17-year-old Qusay al-Umour out of the Beit Jala hospital on Jan. 17, 2017. (MaanImages/Yumna Patel)

❸ BACKGROUND ARTICLES

  • Amira Abd Elrahim. “LACK  OF  SECURITY  FOR  PALESTINIANS.”
    Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture, vol. 21, no. 2, Nov. 2015, pp. 28-35.
    Palestinians who were accused of attacking Israelis were shot directly, either by Israeli military forces or by settlers who may have just felt insecure or threatened with or without reason. Most of the martyrs would not be liable for a death sentence in a state of law. The homes of these Palestinian martyrs are being demolished in violation of international law, and their families are threatened with loss of residency. While raids on Palestinian homes and schools continue, the theft of Palestinian land and spree of barbaric extrajudicial killings are all being buoyed by the cheers of the masses, media incitement and the encouragement of the Israeli government and the Zionist far-right extremists.
    ____Israelis have a government and weapons. They are protected by an army that stands behind them. Recently the Israeli government set up metal detectors at the entrances of the Old City of Jerusalem so that Palestinians aren’t allowed to go through with any metal objects, while Israeli settlers pass through with their guns!! The Israelis are asked to keep their weapons with them at all times!!! Could you think for yourself what do Palestinians have, who is there to protect them or care about their lost livelihoods. They are paralyzed and fed up with injustice, racism, the denial of rights practiced by the Israeli government and the ignorance of the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians are the only people on this earth who are asked to guarantee the security of their occupier, while Israel is the only country that calls for defense from its victims. Are you still wondering why this is happening? Palestinians chose to resist and express their anger in their own way.      MORE . . .
  • “ISRAEL/PALESTINE:  SOME  OFFICIALS  BACKING  ‘SHOOT-TO-KILL.’  CALLS  FOR EXTRAJUDICIAL  KILLINGS  OF  PALESTINIAN  SUSPECTS PROLIFERATE.”  Human Rights Watch
    January 2, 2017
    Some senior Israeli officials have been encouraging Israeli soldiers and police to kill Palestinians they suspect of attacking Israelis even when they are no longer a threat, Human Rights Watch said today in an analysis of those statements. Other Israeli officials have failed to repudiate the calls for excessive use of force.    ___Human Rights Watch has documented numerous statements since October 2015, by senior Israeli politicians, including the police minister and defense minister, calling on police and soldiers to shoot to kill suspected attackers, irrespective of whether lethal force is actually strictly necessary to protect life.
    ___“It’s not just about potentially rogue soldiers, but also about senior Israeli officials who publicly tell security forces to unlawfully shoot to kill,” said Sari Bashi, Israel advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.    MORE . . .
  • Neve Gordon. “FROM  COLONIZATION  TO  SEPARATION:  EXPLORING  THE STRUCTURE  OF  ISRAEL’S OCCUPATION.”
    Third World Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2008, pp 25 – 44.
    In the second intifada, the suspension of the law became the norm. One example of this suspension is Israel’s pervasive employment of extrajudicial executions. The fact that not one Israeli soldier has been tried for these killings and that they are part of an overt policy suggests that some of the occupied inhabitants have been reduced to what the Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben has called homo sacer, people who can be killed without it being considered a crime.
    ___Another example of how the law has been suspended involves the massive destruction of Palestinian homes. . . .     MORE . . . 

“ON  THE  TRUNK  OF  AN  OLIVE  TREE,”  BY  TAWFIQ  ZAYYAD
Because I do not weave wool,
And daily am in danger of detention,
And my house is the object of police visits
To search and “to cleanse,”
Because I cannot buy paper,
I shall carve the record of my sufferings,
And all my secrets
On an olive tree
In the courtyard
Of my house.

I shall carve my story and the chapters of my tragedy,
I shall carve my sighs
On my grove and on the tombs of my dead;
I shall carve
All the bitterness I have tasted,
To be blotted out by some of the happiness to come.

I shall carve the number of each deed
Of our usurped land
The location of my village and its boundaries.
The demolished houses of its peoples,
My uprooted trees,
And each crushed wild blossom.
And the names of those master torturers
Who rattled my nerves and caused my misery.
The names of all the prisons,
And every type of handcuff
That closed around my wrists,
The files of my jailers,
Every curse
Poured upon my head.
I shall carve:
Kafr Qasim, I shall not forget!
And I shall carve:
Deir Yassin, it’s rooted in my memory.
I shall carve:
We have reached the peak of our tragedy.
It has absorbed us and we have absorbed it,
But we have finally reached it.

I shall carve all that the sun tells me,
And what the moon whispers,
And what the skylark relates,
Near the well
Forsaken by lovers.

And to remember it all,
I shall continue to carve
All the chapters of my tragedy,
And all the stages of the disaster,
From beginning
To end,
On the olive tree
In the courtyard
Of the house.

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 Tawfiq Zayyad.

“. . . Let the oppressor review his account Before the turn of the wheel . . .” (Tawfiq Zayyad)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
orphanage-001
Dar al-Aytam al-Islamiyya dates back to the Circassian Mamluk and Ottoman periods, and includes an Islamic orphanage and  secondary school. (Photo: Archnet)

❶ Israeli forces kill Palestinian teen in Beit Ummar, Hebron for alleged rock-throwing

  • Background: “International Law And The Occupied Territories.” Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture.

❷ Israeli forces raid Palestinian orphanage for 5th time
❸ Israeli Soldiers Open Fire On Farmers In Southern Gaza, Navy Attacks Fishers In Northern Gaza
❹ POETRY by Tawfiq Zayyad
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAELI  FORCES  KILL  PALESTINIAN  TEEN  IN  BEIT UMMAR,  HEBRON  FOR ALLEGED  ROCK-THROWING
Ma’an News Agency    
Oct. 20, 2016
Israeli forces Thursday evening shot and killed a 15-year-old Palestinian near the Beit Ummar junction in the northern part of the village of Beit Ummar in the occupied West Bank district of Hebron. Israeli authorities have claimed an Israeli soldier shot the teenager dead in response to a rock-throwing incident.
___Local activist Muhammad Ayyad Awad told Ma’an that he saw the body of a young Palestinian on the ground near the entrance of Beit Ummar. The young Palestinian, later identified as Khalid Bahr Ahmad Bahr, 15, was reportedly shot by Israeli forces in the back, with the bullet exiting through his chest.     More . . .       

  • Weiss, Peter. “International Law And The Occupied Territories.” Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture 21.3 (2016): 96-101.   Source.

There is virtually unanimous international agreement that Israel’s presence in the West Bank constitutes an occupation within the meaning of Section III of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which deals with the protection of civilian persons in times of war. . .
* The settlements are illegal because, under Article 49, “the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”;
* Under Article 3, “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment” are prohibited, as well as violence to life and person, in particular murder and torture”
[. . . .]
As with international law generally, the law of war [is] based on moral principles rather than formal treaty. . . .
* Article 1: “A place, district, or country occupied by an enemy stands, in consequence of the occupation, under the Martial Law of the invading or occupying army. . . .”
* Article 4: “Martial Law is simply military authority exercised in accordance with the laws and usages of war. Military oppression is not Martial Law . . . it is incumbent upon those who administer it to be strictly guided by the principles of justice, honor, and humanity
[. . . .]
All Palestinians living in the West Bank are protected persons under the law of occupation. They do not lose that status by killing settlers or committing other war crimes; they only become protected persons who remain entitled to due process and humanitarian treatment.
[. . . .]
The difference between a war crime and a crime against humanity is that the former can be committed as an isolated act constituting a serious violation of the law of war, while the latter requires that it be part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against the civilian population. . . . . The most recent definition of both types of crimes is found in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which entered into force in 2002.
[. . . .]
Article 7 lists the following as crimes against humanity: murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment in violation of international law, torture and other sexual crimes, persecution, enforced disappearance, apartheid, other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.
___The situation is paradoxical: Israel, not being a party to the ICC, may not, as a matter of international law, be bound by certain crimes enumerated in the Rome Statute, such as rape, while Palestinians are. Many of these would, of course, be crimes under domestic or military law or under customary humanitarian law. However, it is troubling that, when Israeli officials speak about these non-treaty obligations, they do so in terms of Jewish values or IDF values, rather than universal values, as if the universal values . . .  do not necessarily apply to Israel.

❷ ISRAELI  FORCES  RAID  PALESTINIAN  ORPHANAGE  FOR  5TH  TIME
Days of Palestine
Oct 20, 2016
Israeli forces kidnapped teen orphan following fifth raid on  Palestinian orphanage   in Old City of occupied Jerusalem.
___Seventeen-year-old orphan Mp’az Khalil was kidnapped after the orphanage was raided for the fifth time in ten days. He had been interrogated after being accused of throwing stones at Israeli occupation forces.
___The orphanage’s administrative board evacuated it before the end of the day to prevent any clashes with the Israeli occupation forces, sources said.
___On Monday, the Israeli occupation forces kidnapped the Director of the Palestinian Ministry of Education Samir Jibril.   More . . .    
Related . . .   HEAD  OF  JERUSALEM  EDUCATION  ADMINISTRATION  ARRESTED 

❸ ISRAELI  SOLDIERS  OPEN  FIRE  ON  FARMERS  IN  SOUTHERN  GAZA,  NAVY  ATTACKS  FISHERS  IN  NORTHERN  GAZA
International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC
October 21, 2016
Israeli soldiers opened fire, on Friday morning, targeting Palestinian farmers in their own lands, east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, while navy ships opened fire on fishers in northern Gaza.
___Eyewitnesses said the soldiers, stationed on military towers across the border fence, fired many live rounds into Palestinian agricultural lands, forcing the farmers out in fear of additional army fire.
___They added that the attack was carried out while military vehicles were seen heavily driving across the border fence, while many army sharpshooters were deployed across the border fence.   More. . .

“WE  SHALL  REMAIN,”  BY  TAWFIQ  ZAYYAD  – 1970

It is a thousand times easier
For you
To pass an elephant through the needle’s eye
To catch fried fish in the Milky Way
To plow the sea
To teach the alligator speech, a thousand times easier
Than smothering with your oppression
The spark of an idea
Of forcing us to deviate
A single step
From our chosen march.
Like twenty impossibles
We shall remain in Lydda, Ramlah, and Galilee.

Here upon your chests
We shall remain
Like the glass and the cactus
In your throats
A fiery whirlwind
In your eyes.

Here we shall remain
A wall on your chests.
We wash dishes in the hotels
And serve drinks to the masters.
We mop the floors in the dark kitchens
To extract a piece of bread
From your blue teeth
For the little ones.

Here, we shall remain
A wall on your chests.
We starve,
Go naked,
Sing songs
And fill the streets
With demonstrations
And the jails with pride.
We breed rebellions
One after another.
Like twenty impossibles we remain
In Lydda, Ramlah, Galilee.

Here, we shall remain.
You may drink the sea;
We shall guard the shade
Of the olive tree and the fig,
Planting ideas
Like the yeast in the dough.
The coldness of ice is in our nerves
And a burning hell in our hearts.
We squeeze the rock
To quench our thirst
And if we starve
We eat the dirt
And never depart
Or grudge our blood.

Here―we have a past
―a present
―and a future.
Our roots are entrenched
Deep in the earth.
Like twenty impossibles
We shall remain.

Let the oppressor review his account
Before the turn of the wheel.
For every action there is a reaction:
Read what is written in the Book.
Like twenty impossibles
We shall remain―in Lydda, in Ramlah
And Galilee.

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.
About Tawfiq Zayyad 

“. . . For the tragedy I live Is but my share in your larger tragedy. . .” (Tawfiq Ziad)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Khan-Al-Ahmar-810x608
Khan Al Ahmar Primary School, West Bank (Photo: James Mollison, 2015)

❶ UN: 46 areas in West Bank ‘at risk of forcible transfer’
❷ Israel opens construction tenders for the expansion of illegal Maale Adumim settlement
❸ PCHR Weekly Report: One civilian killed, 33 wounded, 73 abducted by Israeli forces this week

  • Background:“Israel’s Palestinian Minority in the Two-State Solution: The Missing Dimension.” Middle East Policy 

❹ POETRY by Tawfiq Ziad
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ UN: 46 AREAS IN WEST BANK ‘AT RISK OF FORCIBLE TRANSFER’
Days of Palestine
Aug. 20, 2016
United Nations warned that 46 Palestinian residential areas in Central West Bank are “at risk of forcible transfer” due to increasing Israeli settlements.
___David Carden, Head OCHA oPt, delivered a speech on the occasion of the opening the school year in Khan al-Ahmar, one of the ‎Palestinian community at risk of forcible transfer in Central West Bank, and launched his warning.
___Carden delivered the speech on behalf of the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and Development Activities Robert Piper.
___“We come here today to express our solidarity with the people of Khan al-Ahmar, long identified as a community at risk of forcible transfer and with whom the international community has worked closely for many years,” he said.
___”As we know, Khan al-Ahmar is one of 46 residential areas in the Central West Bank identified as being at risk of forcible transfer due to Israeli relocation (settlement) plans,” he said.    MORE . . .

❷ ISRAEL OPENS CONSTRUCTION TENDERS FOR THE EXPANSION OF ILLEGAL MAALE ADUMIM SETTLEMENT
Ma’an News Agency
Aug. 20, 2016
The Israeli Land Authority (ILA) and the Maale Adumim Economic Development Company Saturday opened four tenders for leasing land, establishing a hotel, and constructing a park in the illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, according to Israeli media.
___Two tenders were published to lease land for renewable 49 year contracts, while the others were for building a hotel and park near the industrial zone of the settlement, according the Israeli newspaper Kol Hair.
___The six-story hotel will reportedly be the first in the settlement, and is planned to be built over 2,300 square meters. It will also be located near the mall.     MORE . . .

maale adumin
Apartments in Maale Adumim near Jerusalem, in this June 7, 2012 file picture. Picture taken June 7, 2012. (Reuters)

❸ PCHR WEEKLY REPORT: ONE CIVILIAN KILLED, 33 WOUNDED, 73 ABDUCTED BY ISRAELI FORCES THIS WEEK
International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC
August 20, 2016
In its Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for the week of 11– 17 August 2016, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) found that Israeli forces continued systematic crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
___A Palestinian civilian was killed while 32 others were wounded in al-Fawar refugee camp, south of Hebron. A Palestinian civilian was wounded in the eastern side of al-Bureij in the Central Gaza Strip.      MORE . . .

BACKGROUND: Waxman, Dov. “Israel’s Palestinian Minority in the Two-State Solution: The Missing Dimension.” Middle East Policy 18.4 (2011): 68-82.  FULL ARTICLE.

[. . . .]
Thus, if Palestinians in the territories abandon their demand for an independent state and instead demand equal rights within Israel, Palestinians in Israel could easily join them in demanding a single bi-national state within the whole territory of Israel/Palestine. As long as the occupation continues and the Palestinian minority in Israel is completely marginalized; the chance of this happening — a “nightmare scenario” for Israel — steadily increase. There are already signs of growing support for the one-state solution among Palestinians in the territories, and, although most Palestinian citizens of Israel are currently opposed to this, some prominent individuals have voiced support for it. One thing is certain: there is absolutely no way Israeli Jews will accept a one-state solution. They will staunchly resist it, even at the cost of war.
[. . . .]
Respecting the rights of all parties to the conflict — Jewish citizens of Israel, Palestinian citizens of Israel, Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, and Palestinian refugees in the Diaspora — is the only way to eventually achieve peace and reconciliation.

[Note: In this blogger’s opinion some of the conclusions the above article are faulty, but they are based in sound reasoning and are, therefore, ideas worth considering.]

“I  CLASP  YOUR  HANDS,”  BY  TAWFIQ  ZAYYAD
I call upon you
And clasp your hands.
I kiss the dust under your shoe
And say: I’ll lay down my life for you,
Grant you the gift of eyesight in my eyes.
The warm love in my heart I give to you,
For the tragedy I live
Is but my share in your larger tragedy.

I call upon you
And clasp your hands.
I never stooped in my country
Nor will I ever be humbled.
Orphaned, naked and barefoot
I confronted my oppressors,
Carrying my blood in my palms.
I have never lowered my flags,
And have always tended the grass over my ancestors’ graves.
I call upon you, and clasp your hands!

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.
Tawfik Zayyad (Tawfiq Ziad) was a Palestinian poet, writer, scholar and politician. He was born in Nazareth in 1929 and died on July 5, 1994.   (More. . .)

“. . . I shall carve the record of my sufferings . . . On an olive tree. . .” (Tawfiq Zayyad)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
uproot
Suspended in space: uprooting of olive trees for the expansion of Zufin, Jewish settlement in the Tulkarm district (Photo: B’Tselem/ Christoph Gocke – EAPPI)

❶ Israeli forces demolish Palestinian-owned structures in Nablus
. . . ―❶ (ᴀ) Israeli Occupation uproots 300 trees west of Hebron
. . . ―❶ (ᴃ) Israel demolishes multiple Palestinian structures in Jerusalem area
. . . ―❶ (ᴄ) Israeli forces uproot 50 olive trees as Palestinian farmer awaits court date to appeal

  • Background: “Uprooting Identities: The Regulation of Olive Trees in the Occupied West Bank.”

❷ Gaza Strip: Attacks in the Border Areas and their Consequences
❸ POETRY by Tawfiq Zayyad
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAELI  FORCES  DEMOLISH  PALESTINIAN-OWNED  STRUCTURES  IN  NABLUS
Ma’an News Agency
Aug. 17, 2016
Israeli forces on Wednesday demolished two rooms used for agricultural purposes and leveled stone walls in the villages of Khirbet al-Marajim and Qusra in the southern part of the occupied West Bank district of Nablus.
___Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official who monitors Israeli settlement activities in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that Israeli bulldozers, escorted by Israeli forces, demolished a room belonging to Tariq Dirawi in Khirbet al-Marajim.    MORE . . .  

. . . ―❶ (ᴀ) ISRAELI  OCCUPATION  UPROOTS  300  TREES  WEST  OF  HEBRON
Alray-Palestinian Media Agency
Aug. 17, 2016
Hebron. ALRAY. Israeli military bulldozers uprooted about 300 olives trees on Wednesday morning and swept lands in Oula town, West of Hebron in the south of the occupied West Bank.
___Isa Al Omla, the activist in the wall and settlements resistance, said that the Israeli bulldozers broke into Al- Najar Valley area, near the apartheid wall, and swept away some lands ( 15 acres) owned by the family of Mohammed Khalil Abdul Aziz Al Omla.  MORE . . .

. . . ―❶ (ᴃ) ISRAEL  DEMOLISHES  MULTIPLE  PALESTINIAN  STRUCTURES  IN  JERUSALEM  AREA
Ma’an News Agency
Aug. 16, 2016
Israeli forces demolished multiple Palestinian structures in the Jerusalem area on Tuesday, the same morning that Israeli-enforced demolitions left more than 70 Palestinians homeless in the Hebron and Bethlehem districts of the occupied West Bank.
___In the Jabal al-Mukabbir neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, bulldozers escorted by Israeli police officers and Jerusalem municipality inspectors demolished a single-room house and several outdoor walls, because the structures were built without licenses issued by the Jerusalem municipality.     MORE . . .  

Event marking Rachel Corrie's death, Qariyut, West Bank, 15.3.2
Israeli soldiers attack Palestinians during an olive tree planting commemorating (March, 2015). Corrie, an American, was killed by an Israeli military bulldozer in 2003, blocking the demolition of a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip (Photo: Activestills.org)

. . . ―❶ (ᴄ ) ISRAELI  FORCES  UPROOT  50  OLIVE  TREES  AS  PALESTINIAN  FARMER  AWAITS  COURT  DATE  TO  APPEAL
Ma’an News Agency
Aug. 16, 2016
Israeli bulldozers uprooted more than 50 olive trees on Tuesday morning in the Palestinian village of Shufa in the northern occupied West Bank district of Tulkarem, Palestinian farmers told Ma’an, two weeks before a court hearing was scheduled to be held to appeal the Israeli-ordered confiscation of the land.
___One of the farmers, Abed Hamid, said he received a phone call from a neighbor notifying him that Israeli forces brought bulldozers to his olive tree orchard and started to uproot the trees, which were planted between 15 and 20 years ago.
___After Hamid rushed to his land, he said he witnessed Israeli forces “stealing” the majority of his trees, which were left intact.    MORE . . .    

  • Braverman, Irus. “UPROOTING IDENTITIES: THE REGULATION OF OLIVE TREES IN THE OCCUPIED WEST BANK.” Polar: Political & Legal Anthropology Review 32.2 (2009): 237-264.    FULL ARTICLE.   

Trees in general, and olive and pine trees in particular, perform a pivotal role in both the Zionist and the Palestinian national narratives. Since 1901, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) . . . has planted over 240 million trees in Israel, most of which are pines. This massive enterprise has fundamentally transformed the Israeli/Palestinian landscape. Indeed, over the years, the pine has come to be perceived as the quintessential symbol of the Zionist project . . .  If the Jewish tree is the pine, the Palestinian tree is the olive. As Ismat Shbeta, a refugee from the depopulated Palestinian village Miske, tells me in an Interview, “The olive is the Palestinian tree . . . . That’s the olive’s nationality”
[. . . .]  A fusion of humans and trees is thereby constructed: the olive embodies the Palestinian people, the green of its foliage is perceived as interchangeable with the red of their blood. However, the olive is not only a proxy witness; it also provides a model of survival for the Palestinian people. In this sense, the olive not only stands for but also speaks for the mute and uprooted Palestinian . . .
[. . . .]  Since its inception, and increasingly in the last two decades, Israel has been uprooting Palestinian olive trees. . . . . Israel’s central rationale for uprooting olive trees in the occupied territories has not been framed as punitive, or at least not explicitly so. Israel explains these uprootings, rather, as essential for its national security. First, Israel has been uprooting olives to make way for the recently built Separation Barrier. In the same vein, Israel’s Defense Forces have uprooted thousands of olive . . .  to secure roads, increase visibility, and make way for watchtowers, checkpoints. . . .
[. . . .]  In addition to the uprooting of Palestinian olive trees by the State of Israel, for the last decade or so Jewish settlers have also been targeting Palestinian trees. . . . The tree warfare conducted by the New Settlers adds another layer of meaning to the relationship between humans and trees in the occupied West Bank. . . .  the sabotage of olive trees is still an everyday occurrence in the West Bank. As a result, Palestinian access to agricultural land is frequently jeopardized.
[. . . .]   Although both the New Settlers and the human rights activists interviewed here have insisted that the Israeli/Palestinian war is not really about trees but about land, it is nonetheless clear that the emotional, cultural, ritualistic, and economic significance of the tree has been at the forefront of their actions. [Palestinians] would never have claimed that trees are unimportant in this battle. However, they also see clearly the connection between the trees and the overall power struggle over land, autonomy, identity, and power . . . .

❷ GAZA  STRIP:  ATTACKS  IN  THE  BORDER  AREAS  AND  THEIR  CONSEQUENCES
International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC
Aug. 16, 2016
Following disengagement from the Gaza Strip in September 2005, Israel unilaterally and illegally established a so-called “buffer zone”, an area prohibited to Palestinians along the land and sea borders of the Gaza Strip.
[. . . .]
Preventing Palestinians from accessing their lands and fishing areas violates numerous provisions of international human rights law, including the right to work, the right to an adequate standard of living, and the right to the highest attainable standard of health. Enforcing the “buffer zone” through the use of live fire often results in, inter alia, the direct targeting of civilians and/or indiscriminate attacks, both of which constitute war crimes.     MORE . . .

“ON  THE  TRUNK  OF  AN  OLIVE  TREE,”  BY  TAWFIQ  ZAYYAD
Because I do not weave wool,
And daily am in danger of detention,
And my house is the object of police visits
To search and “to cleanse,”
Because I cannot buy paper,
I shall carve the record of my sufferings,
And all my secrets
On an olive tree
In the courtyard
Of my house.

I shall carve my story and the chapters of my tragedy,
I shall carve my sighs
On my grove and on the tombs of my dead;
I shall carve
All the bitterness I have tasted,
To be blotted out by some of the happiness to come

I shall carve the number of each deed
Of our usurped land
The location of my village and its boundaries.
The demolished houses of its peoples,
My uprooted trees,
And each crushed wild blossom.
And the names of those master torturers
Who rattled my nerves and caused my misery.
The names of all the prisons,
And every type of handcuff
That closed around my wrists,
The files of my jailers,
Every curse
Poured upon my head.
I shall carve:
Kafr Qasim, I shall not forget!
And I shall carve:
Deir Yassin, it’s rooted in my memory.
I shall carve:
We have reached the peak of our tragedy.
It has absorbed us and we have absorbed it,
But we have finally reached it.

I shall carve all that the sun tells me,
And what the moon whispers,
And what the skylark relates,
Near the well
Forsaken by lovers.

And to remember it all,
I shall continue to carve
All the chapters of my tragedy,
And all the stages of the disaster,
From beginning
To end,
On the olive tree
In the courtyard
Of the house.

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 Tafiq Zayyad. 

“. . . Filling the dungeons with pride . . .” (Tawfiq Zayyad)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
silwan
Arrest of Jerusalem child, February 9, 2015 (Photo: Silwan, Jerusalem, SILWANIC)

❶ The occupation forces arrest two children from Shu’fat and renew the administrative arrest of a young man
. . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Arrest and abuse by Israeli police part of life for children in Silwan
❷ Palestinian youth shot, injured in head with live fire during Israeli raid on Ramallah-area village
❸ Israeli Soldiers Kidnap Three Palestinians In Bethlehem
❹ Opinion/Analysis:  PALESTINE IMPACTS EVERY SOCIETY IN THE WORLD
❺ POETRY by Tawfiq Zayyad
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ THE OCCUPATION FORCES ARREST TWO CHILDREN FROM SHU’FAT AND RENEW THE ADMINISTRATIVE ARREST OF A YOUNG MAN…EXTENSIONS OF ARREST
Wadi Hilweh Information Center – Silwan
July 24, 2016
The occupation forces arrested two children from the neighborhood of Shu’fat north of Jerusalem.
___Lawyer Mohammad Mahmoud explained that the Israeli forces arrested Adam Abu Khdeir and Mahmoud Mohammad Abu Khdeir from Shu’fat and transferred them for interrogation.
___On the other hand, the occupation authorities renewed the administrative arrest imposed on Ahmad Abu Mayaleh for 3 more months as explained by lawyer Mahmoud.
MORE . . .  
. . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) ARREST AND ABUSE BY ISRAELI POLICE PART OF LIFE FOR CHILDREN IN SILWAN
Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP)
Elisa Tappeiner
Feb 22, 2014
[. . . .] ___The consequences of child arrests in Silwan, and other Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, extend beyond the detention period. The traumatic experience of arrest and interrogation alongside the constant fear of arrest, disruption of education and the financial burden of posting bail and paying fines have taken their toll on the children, their families and the Silwan community as a whole.    MORE . . .   

❷ PALESTINIAN YOUTH SHOT, INJURED IN HEAD WITH LIVE FIRE DURING ISRAELI RAID ON RAMALLAH-AREA VILLAGE
Ma’an News Agency
July 24, 2016
A Palestinian youth was seriously injured Sunday at dawn during clashes with Israeli forces who raided the village of Silwad in the Ramallah district of the occupied West Bank.
___According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, the youth was injured in the head with live fire and was taken to Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah in a serious condition.
___Israeli forces reportedly fired live bullets, stun grenades, and tear gas as it raided the village in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday, while youths responded with throwing rocks and molotov cocktails.     MORE . . .  

ramallah
Thirteen-year-old Ahmad Sharaka, shot dead by Israeli forces in Ramallah, October 11, 2015 (Photo: Al Jazeera)

❸ ISRAELI SOLDIERS KIDNAP THREE PALESTINIANS IN BETHLEHEM
International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC
July 24, 2016
Many Israeli military jeeps invaded, on Sunday at dawn, Bethlehem city and the nearby towns of al-Khader and Beit Sahour, searched homes and property before kidnapping three Palestinians, and confiscated surveillance tapes.
___Ahmad Salah, the coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Colonies in al-Khader town, south of Bethlehem, said the soldiers violently searched a number of homes and kidnapped two Palestinians.
___Salah added that the two kidnapped Palestinians, identified as Khaled Jamil Abu Samra, 50, and Mohammad Adeeb Mousa, 33, are former political prisoners.     MORE . . .

❹ Opinion/Analysis: PALESTINE IMPACTS EVERY SOCIETY IN THE WORLD
The Middle East Monitor – MEMO
July 21, 2016
The UK Parliament can have a positive impact on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; Scottish National Party MP Paul Monaghan told a cross-party reception and seminar in London on Tuesday.
___The event, entitled “Palestine: Key for stability and peace in the Middle East”, was organised by the EuroPal Forum in an effort to build bridges between Palestinian, Arab and European decision makers and to exchange ideas to reach a just solution for the Palestinian cause.
[. . . .]
EuroPal Forum chairman, Zaher Birawi, said the Palestinian issue is an international issue that “has an impact on every single society in the world, in one way or another.” MORE . . .

“THE  IMPOSSIBLE,”  BY  TAWFIQ  ZAYYAD
It is much easier for you
To pass an elephant through a needle’s eye,
Or catch fried fish in a galaxy,
Plough the sea,
Force a crocodile to speak
Than to destroy by persecution
The shimmering glow of a belief,
Or check our march,
One single step.

As if we were a thousand prodigies
Spreading everywhere
In Lidda, in Ramallah, in the Galilee. . .
Here we shall stay,
A wall upon your breast,
And in your throat we shall stay,
A piece of glass, a cactus thorn,
And in your eyes,
A blazing fire.

Here we shall stay,
A wall upon your breast,
Cleaning dishes in taverns,
Filling cups for the masters,
Sweeping sooty kitchens
To snatch a bite from your blue fangs
For our children.
Here we shall stay.
A wall upon your breast,
Facing starvation,
Struggling with rags, defying,
Singing our songs,
Swarming the angry streets with our demonstrations,
Filling the dungeons with pride,
Rearing vengeance in new generations.
Like a thousand prodigies,
We roam along
In Lidda, in Ramallah, in the Galilee.

Here we shall stay,
Go then and jump into the lake.
We will guard even the shadow of our fig and olive trees,
And ferment our cause as yeast does dough.
Here we shall stay with steel-cold nerves,
And red hell in our hearts.
We squeeze the rock to quench our thirst
And lull starvation with dust,
But we shall not depart.
Here we shall spill our dearest blood,
Here we have a past,
A present,
A future.
Stay we will, like a thousand prodigies,
In Lidda, Ramallah, the Galilee.
Strike deep in the earth
Our living roots.

From: A  LOVER  FROM  PALESTINE  AND  OTHER  POEMS:  AN  ANTHOLOGY  OF  PALESTINIAN  POETRY.  Ed. Abdul Wahab Al-Messiri. Washington, DC: Free Palestine Press, 1970.  Available from Amazon.
About Tawfiq Zayyad

“. . . names of all the prisons, and every type of handcuff . . .” (Tawfiq Zayyad)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Imam Mohamed Salim, Al Aqsa, Jerusalem. (Photo: Agence France‑Presse)
Imam Mohamed Salim, Al Aqsa, Jerusalem. (Photo: Agence France‑Presse)

❶ Israel Issues Administrative Detention Orders to 35 Palestinians
. . . . . ❶― (ᴀ) Israel Blocks off Jerusalem Home of Palestinian Detainee
❷ Settlers Storm Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque
. . . . . ❷― (ᴀ) Arrest of Al-Aqsa Imam ‘Violation of International Law,’ Insists Jordan
❸ Israeli Army Kidnaps Eight Palestinians in Hebron
Army Kidnaps Six Palestinians in Nablus
Israeli Soldiers Kidnap a Palestinian in Bethlehem, And Three in Jerusalem
Army Kidnaps One Palestinian Near Jenin, Injures Many Others
❹ Silwan: Demolition orders for several houses in the neighborhood of Ein Al-Lozeh
❺ Opinion/Analysis: WHAT’S  SO  THREATENING  ABOUT  HUMAN  RIGHTS?
❻ POETRY by Tawfiq  Zayyad
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAEL  ISSUES  ADMINISTRATIVE  DETENTION  ORDERS  TO  35  PALESTINIANS
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
April 11, 2016
Israeli authorities issued administrative detention orders to 35 Palestinians, said Monday Palestine Prisoner’s Society in a press release.
___Fifteen Palestinians received administrative detention for the duration of six months. . . .
imprisonment of Palestinians without charge or trial on the basis of secret evidence for up to six month periods, indefinitely renewable by Israeli military courts.
[List of detainees]
___The use of administrative detention, according to the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network (PPSN) . . .  violates international law; such detention is allowed only in individual circumstances that are exceptionally compelling for imperative reasons of security.”     MORE . . .

. . . . . ❶― (ᴀ) ISRAEL  BLOCKS  OFF  JERUSALEM  HOME  OF  PALESTINIAN  DETAINEE
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
April 11, 2016
Israeli police on Monday blocked off with metal bars the house of a Palestinian detainee in Israeli jails, during a raid on the neighborhood of Sur Baher in Jerusalem.      MORE . . .

Israeli settlers and security officers storm Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque April 11, 2016. (Photo: WAFA)
Israeli settlers and security officers storm Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque April 11, 2016. (Photo: WAFA)

❷ SETTLERS  STORM  JERUSALEM’S  AL-AQSA  MOSQUE 
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
April 11, 2016
Extremist Israeli settlers Monday resumed their provocative tours to al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, amid calls by Jewish organizations for mass visits to the holy site to mark the beginning of the Jewish Passover holiday.
___WAFA correspondent said small groups of Jewish settlers accompanied by policemen entered the compound from the Moroccan Gate, provoking tension with Palestinian worshipers, who chanted religious slogans to protest their entry.      MORE . . .  

. . . . . ❷― (ᴀ) ARREST  OF  AL-AQSA  IMAM  ‘VIOLATION  OF  INTERNATIONAL  LAW,’  INSISTS  JORDAN
Palestine Chronicle
April 10, 2016
Jordan has condemned Israel’s arrest of an imam at Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday as a “violation of international law”, Anadolu has reported. Mohamed Salim was arrested when he left the mosque after delivering the Friday sermon.
___“This is an interference by the Israeli authorities in the affairs of Al-Aqsa Mosque and it is a violation of its own duties and pledges as an occupying authority,” said Jordan’s Minister of Religious Affairs and Endowments, Hayil Daud. “This is a violation of international law.”     MORE . . .

❸ ISRAELI  ARMY  KIDNAPS  EIGHT  PALESTINIANS  IN  HEBRON
International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC
April 11, 2016      MORE . . .  
ARMY  KIDNAPS  SIX  PALESTINIANS  IN  NABLUS      MORE . . .
ISRAELI  SOLDIERS  KIDNAP  A  PALESTINIAN  IN  BETHLEHEM,  AND  THREE  IN  JERUSALEM      MORE . . .
ARMY  KIDNAPS  ONE  PALESTINIAN  NEAR  JENIN,  INJURES  MANY  OTHERS       MORE . . .

❹ SILWAN:  DEMOLITION  ORDERS  FOR  SEVERAL  HOUSES  IN  THE  NEIGHBORHOOD  OF  EIN  AL-LOZEH
Wadi Hilweh Information Center – Silwan
April 9, 2016
The occupation municipality’s crews along with Israeli forces raided on Saturday the neighborhood of Ein Al-Lozeh in Silwan and distributed “demolition notices” to five residential houses under the pretext of building without a permit.
___Wadi Hilweh Information Center was informed that municipality crews raided “Hosh Al-A’war” in Ein Al-Lozeh and took pictures of commercial and residential establishments . . .       MORE . . .

❺ Opinion/Analysis:  WHAT’S  SO  THREATENING  ABOUT  HUMAN  RIGHTS?
+972 Blog
Dror Etkes
April 10, 2016
There is a positive aspect to the continuing, orchestrated campaign by Israel’s right-wing government and its helpers against “leftist” organizations . . . . As the campaign goes on, it helps create an intuitive, collective understanding . . . that there is no room for the artificial barrier dividing human rights organizations from other left-wing groups, under the pretense that these are “professional” and “apolitical” organizations. . . .
___I will not try to establish universal truths about the connection between human rights and the political left, but rather say something about the relationship between the two as has been formed in the Israeli context since the occupation in 1967. . . .      MORE . . .

“ON  THE  TRUNK  OF  AN  OLIVE  TREE,”  BY  TAWFIQ  ZAYYAD

Because I do not weave wool,
And daily am in danger of detention,
And my house is the object of police visits
To search and “to cleanse,”
Because I cannot buy paper,
I shall carve the record of my sufferings,
And all my secrets
On an olive tree
In the courtyard
Of my house.

I shall carve my story and the chapters of my tragedy,
I shall carve my sighs
On my grove and on the tombs of my dead;
I shall carve
All the bitterness I have tasted,
To be blotted out by some of the happiness to come.

I shall carve the number of each deed
Of our usurped land
The location of my village and its boundaries.
The demolished houses of its peoples,
My uprooted trees,
And each crushed wild blossom.
And the names of those master torturers
Who rattled my nerves and caused my misery.
The names of all the prisons,
And every type of handcuff
That closed around my wrists,
The files of my jailers,
Every curse
Poured upon my head.
I shall carve:
Kafr Qasim, I shall not forget!
And I shall carve:
Deir Yassin, it’s rooted in my memory.
I shall carve:
We have reached the peak of our tragedy.
It has absorbed us and we have absorbed it,
But we have finally reached it.

I shall carve all that the sun tells me,
And what the moon whispers,
And what the skylark relates,
Near the well
Forsaken by lovers.

And to remember it all,
I shall continue to carve
All the chapters of my tragedy,
And all the stages of the disaster,
From beginning
To end,
On the olive tree
In the courtyard
Of the house.

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 Tafiq Zayyad.
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