Tag: Temple Mount

“. . . After being killed I washed by the river . . .” (Ibrahim Nasrallah)

Harold KnightLeave a comment

❶ Health Ministry: Two Palestinians killed in Israeli shelling on Gaza
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Israeli forces detain 17 Palestinians, assault others in West Bank raids
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) Student injured during Tulkarm university protests over Trump’s announcement
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴄ) Clashes with soldiers reported in some West Bank locations

  • Background: “Trumpian Ethics and the Rule of Law.” Creighton Law Review.

❷ Tens of thousands of Israelis hit the streets, and it has nothing to do with Trump
❸ Opinion/Analysis: Opinion/Analysis: Will the Jerusalem Freedom Intifada break out?
. . . . . ❸ ― (ᴀ) Trump protests evoke memories of the Second Intifada
❹ POETRY by Ibrahim Nasrallah
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ HEALTH  MINISTRY:  TWO  PALESTINIANS  KILLED  IN  ISRAELI  SHELLING  ON  GAZA 
Palestine News Network – PNN
Dec. 12, 2017 ― Two Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on northern Gaza on Tuesday afternoon.
___The Palestinian ministry of Health announced that two youths were killed after an Israeli scouting plane in Beit Lahia town, northern Gaza strip.
___The ministry said that the two bodies of martyrs were moved to the Indonesian Hospital in the strip, while another youth is still suffering injuries.    MORE . . .
.  .  .  .  .  ❶  ―  (ᴀ)  ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  17  PALESTINIANS,  ASSAULT  OTHERS  IN  WEST  BANK  RAIDS 
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 12, 2017 ― Israeli forces Monday night and early Tuesday detained at least 17 Palestinians and assaulted several others mostly in multiple raids across the West Bank, said security and local sources.   MORE . . . 
.  .  .  .  .  ❶  ―  (ᴃ)  STUDENT  INJURED  DURING  TULKARM  UNIVERSITY  PROTESTS  OVER  TRUMP’S  ANNOUNCEMENT 
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 12, 2017 ― At least one Palestinian was injured on Tuesday during renewing clashes between Israeli forces and students at the campus of Palestine Technical University in Tulkarm, northwest of the West Bank, according to local sources.   MORE . . . 
.  .  .  .  .  ❶  ―  (ᴄ)  CLASHES  WITH  SOLDIERS  REPORTED  IN  SOME  WEST  BANK  LOCATIONS     
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Dec. 12, 2017 ― Palestinians clashed on  Tuesday with Israeli soldiers in at least two locations in the occupied West Bank, according to reports.   MORE . . .

MCKAY, JOHN.
“TRUMPIAN  ETHICS  AND  THE  RULE  OF  LAW.”
CREIGHTON LAW REVIEW, vol. 50, no. 4, Sept. 2017, pp. 781-799.
[Begin page 788] Anyone working for human rights in troubled places of the world will question whether their work contributes to peace. Working in the Middle East alone neither answers the question of how such a conflict ends between Israel and Palestine, nor answers how Israel might live in peace with its neighbors. Like many Americans who work for Palestinian rights and statehood, I came to this region supporting and believing in the State of Israel, and I left supporting the State of Israel. However, when I became deeply aware of the political situation and, in particular, of the policy of the occupying Israeli forces toward the Palestinians, my reaction was shock and dismay. As a law professor, lawyer, and human being, I condemn the violence that has been inflicted on both sides of this conflict. Scores of Palestinians have lost their freedom and many have lost their lives, as have Israeli soldiers and innocent civilians in both Israel and in Palestine. I cannot imagine, from the Palestinian side, how knife attacks against elderly couples in Tel Aviv or elsewhere in Israel, or against children, can ever be justified. Clearly the only path to a Palestinian state is the path of nonviolence, including the nonviolent refusal to cooperate in the Occupation. The peaceful paths of Gandhi and Martin Luther King are the only ones possible in this place. But for the Israeli side, the violence and slavery of nearly fifty years of occupation of the Palestinians, Israeli settlement-building, and the killing and imprisonment of Palestinian youth must end.
___The biggest obstacle to peace in the region is the unfettered building of settlements by Israel in occupied Palestinian lands. Almost everywhere you travel in the West Bank, when you look up to the hills, you will see an Israeli settlement, illegal in every way under international law. And they are building all the time. When asked whether I have hope for peace in the Holy Land, my answer has to be “No.” I do not have hope about how this problem can be resolved.  FULL ESSAY. . .

❷  TENS  OF  THOUSANDS  OF  ISRAELIS  HIT  THE  STREETS,  AND  IT  HAS  NOTHING  TO  DO  WITH  TRUMP 
+972 Magazine
Dec. 11, 2017 ―   Anti-corruption protests against Netanyahu are growing, and have already notched a win or two. And while the occupation couldn’t be further from the agenda, the movement could serve as a new rallying point for resistance to the authoritarian right.  MORE . . .
❸ OPINION/ANALYSIS:  WILL  THE  JERUSALEM  FREEDOM  INTIFADA  BREAK  OUT?  
The Palestinian Information Center
Dec. 12, 2017 ― The Palestinian people took to the streets in all the governorates of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the occupied city of Jerusalem, expressing their anger and rejection of the announcement by US President Donald Trump in which he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
___“The uprising of the freedom of Jerusalem”, coincided with the anniversary of the first Intifada or “the Intifada of Stones”, which began on 8 December 1987, and documented the struggle of the Palestinian people and was considered a milestone in the history of the Palestinian cause after attempts to obliterate it and at a time the violations and measures against the Palestinian people by the Israeli occupation forces had increased.
___In an atmosphere similar to the one experienced prior to the first intifada, thousands of youths took to the checkpoints and contact points with the Israeli occupation forces in a number of locations, during which youths threw stones and Molotov cocktails at the Israeli occupation forces.   MORE . . .
.  .  .  .  .  ❸  ―  (ᴀ)  TRUMP  PROTESTS  EVOKE  MEMORIES  OF  THE  SECOND  INTIFADA  
+972 Magazine
Zizo Abul Hawa
Dec. 12, 2017 ―   I was nearly 13 when the Second Intifada started. We were in school when Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount [Sep. 28, 2000]. School ended early when the rioting began. The children were told to return home; parents came to pick up their kids. My school was in the center of East Jerusalem, very close to the Old City.
[. . . .] We turned on the news and I thought to myself that surely this is a one-off event — tomorrow, it will all be over. No one could possibly want more of this, despite what I heard all around me: “tomorrow will be even worse, it’s Friday.”
[. . . .] Each day, it was the same, a kind of ritual: wake up, clean the blood and bullets from the streets, then riots and fires would start again. Tear gas and burning eyes. . . .
[. . . .] We didn’t return to school until January of 2001. We stayed home for more than three months. When we returned, it wasn’t the same. More than half of the class was gone, schoolchildren, 12- and 13-year-olds like me: some because their families had fled the area, or because they were wounded and in the hospital, or because they were arrested and in jail, or because they were buried deep in the earth. They say children always pay the highest price in war.     MORE . . .

“A  SPECIAL  INVITATION,”  BY  IBRAHIM  NASRALLAH
My corpse hovered over a sea of silence.
My house was a cloud of dust,
the streets were a wild extinguishing dream
and the night was like the face of a friend divided
between silence and earning one’s keep.
The trees opposed their own colors
and the wind opposed riding a song,
a bird in the air was a period
then a comma in conversation.
The sky was arid.
After being killed I washed by the river
and the green along its banks
and when the mourners were late
I rushed to a wave in my mind and plucked a song.
I sang it for two whole nights until it waned
and broke like a mast.
When they were late
I turned onto every path to darkness,
like the soul breaking over the rims of flowers and wooden cups
and said: They will catch up with me on the way.
The road was lonesome and the moon ripped apart my body
although this was not the Age of War.
= = =
My funeral proceeds on its own
moved by the power of darkness to the grave site.
I heard him ask:  “Where are they?”
I recognized him by his clothes, his fear, his blue face,
and the blood on the collar of his shirt,
by the bullets embedded in his flesh.
I recognized him, I did.
But the mourners were late.
So I said:  “Invite my killer. . .”

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.

 

“. . . And here I shall remain . . .” (Fouzi El-Asmar)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
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At least nine Palestinians were left homeless after settlers escorted by Israeli security personnel forcibly evicted them from their homes in the Batn Al-Hawa neighborhood of East Jerusalem (Photo: Holy Land 24 News, Oct 16, 2015)

❶ Approving the establishment of a settlement outpost in the neighborhood of Batn Al-Hawa
. . . ❶― (ᴀ) In Controversial Move Israel Approves More Funding for West Bank Settlements
~~From: Refuge Journal
❷ Almost 42% of West Bank and Gaza Strip Residents are Refugees (VIDEO)
❸ Israeli Settlers Storm Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa
~~From: Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture
❹ POETRY by Fouzi El-Asmar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ APPROVING  THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  A  SETTLEMENT  OUTPOST  IN  THE  NEIGHBORHOOD  OF  BATN  AL-HAWA
Wadi Hilweh Information Center – Silwan
June 19, 2016
The Local Constructions and Organizing Committee recently approved the establishment of a settlement outpost in the neighborhood of Batn Al-Hawa in Silwan [. . . .]
___The committee of Batn A-Hawa will submit through its lawyer an objection against the settlement project within 30 days. The lawyer pointed out that the Constriction and Organizing Committee ratified the establishment of the building without publishing anything regarding the project in the newspaper to avoid any objections. Also, the area of the project is bigger than the area of the land that Ateerat Cohanim organization claims to own.    MORE . . .     

. . . ❶― (ᴀ)  IN  CONTROVERSIAL  MOVE  ISRAEL  APPROVES  MORE  FUNDING  FOR  WEST  BANK  SETTLEMENTS
The New Arab
Jun 20 2016
The Israeli government on Sunday approved some $18 million in additional funding for settlements in the occupied West Bank, calling it a response to security concerns.
___The decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing cabinet will see some 70 million shekels ($18 million, 16 million euros) allocated to settlement-related spending.
___According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the amount is in addition to an already allocated $88 million.    MORE . . .

In the case of Palestine, a complex multi-ethnic society was transformed in 1948 into an ethnocentric state. Ideologues of the new Israel elaborated a highly contentious account of local history in which the indigenous population had no significant role. Palestinians were silenced by the impacts of mass displacement and by an ideological agenda that celebrated certain traditions, rights, and achievements embedded in the new national agenda. At the same time they were affected by continuous efforts of the Israeli state to enforce further ethnic cleansing, a process described by Yiftachel as “ethno-spatial domination and exclusion” (Yiftachel, Oren. Bedouin Arabs And The Israeli Settler State: Land Policies and Indigenous Resistance).
___The dominant Zionist account of foundational events in Israel can be seen as a paradigmatic example of Renan’s contention that “deeds of violence” are excluded from the national narrative. Those who have challenged this record, notably Palestinian academics and Israel’s “revisionist” historians, have often been accused of seeking to “delegitimize” the Israel state—a marker of the importance of the past in contemporary politics. The Palestinian experience also reveals the significance of mass displacement as a functional practice for exclusionary regimes. Most of the Palestinians displaced in 1948, and their descendants to the fourth or even fifth generation, remain in “camps” and settlements in Arab states and in Israel and Israeli-occupied territories, while “internal” displacement (within the borders of Israel)
continues. Exclusion of Palestinian Arabs appears to be an existential principle for the Zionist movement. Here, the violence of the “founding fathers” is revisited continuously upon a historic Other.

  • Marfleet, Philip. “Displacements Of Memory.” Refuge (0229-5113) 32.1 (2016): 7-17.    ARTICLE.
settlers
Israeli extremist settlers storming the compound of the Aqsa Mosque under protection of Israeli regime forces (Photo: Alwaght News & Analysis, July 21, 2015)

❷ ISRAELI  SETTLERS  STORM  JERUSALEM’S  AL-AQSA
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
June 22, 2016
Israeli settlers on Wednesday resumed their provocative visits to Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.
___WAFA correspondent said small groups of extremist settlers accompanied by an Israeli police escort broke into the site during the morning to perform rituals [. . . .]
___The al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem has become a flashpoint of the escalating conflict in recent months. It is the third holiest place for Muslims, and has since 1967 been the center of the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict.     MORE . . .

The Muslim-Jewish conflict over the Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif was revived in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, accelerating tensions. Thus, the critical historical change in the status of the Temple Mount, East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territories ignited feelings of despair, revenge and religious solidarity among Muslims. In particular, conservative and zealous Muslims deepened their ideological religious attachment to al-Haram al-Sharif, elevating its importance and vowing to liberate it by Jihad against Israel. Similarly, many Jews in Israel and abroad were deeply moved by the redemption of the Western Wall.
___But among zealous Jews, the Messianic longing to rebuild the Temple was empowered by the intention to blow up the mosques that had “desecrated” the Temple Mount. These mutually hostile attitudes have been accompanied by denial of each side’s attachment to their respective holy shrines.
___The political and religious leaders of both sides adopted these positions regarding these critical issues to advance political and national objectives and to please their militant groups. Simultaneously, attempts have been made by the relevant governments, as well as by various global organizations, to settle this dispute, but to no avail.

  • Ma’oz, Moshe. “A National Or Religious Conflict? The Dispute Over The Temple Mount/Al-Haram Al-Sharif In Jerusalem.” Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture 20/21.4/1 (2015): 25-32.    ARTICLE.

❸ ALMOST  42%  OF  WEST  BANK  AND  GAZA  STRIP  RESIDENTS  ARE  REFUGEES  (VIDEO)
Palestine Chronicle
Jun 21 2016
Approximately 41.6 per cent of Palestinian residents in the state of Palestine are refugees, Quds Press reported Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) saying yesterday.
___In an official report, the PCBS said that 26.3 per cent of West Bank residents and 67.7 per cent of those in the Gaza Strip are refugees.
___According to UNRWA, there were 5.6 million Palestinian refugees in January 2015. MORE . . .

“I  AM  THE  SON  OF  THE  LAND,”  BY  FOUZI  EL ASMAR
You may take my hands
and lock them in your chains
You may also blindfold me.

You bereaved me
from the light
and I marched
You robbed me
of the bread
and I ate.
You plundered the land
from me
and I ploughed.

I am the son of the land
and for that
I find goodness in this earth
anywhere I happen to be:
The ants of this land
feed me
The branches of this land
foster me
The eagles of this land
will shield my open revolt

Yes
You may take my hands
And lock them in your chains
You may also blindfold me
But here I will stand tall
And here I shall remain
until the very end. (April, 1970) 

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

“. . . for my city’s sake, raped and abused . . .” (Harun Hashim Rasheed)

Harold KnightLeave a comment

PLEASE NOTE: The content of this blog is slightly changed: it presents fewer news items and gives more background for those items. This will provide deeper understanding of the issues shaping the news. All articles without direct links can be found through an EBSCO search in any library with online databases. 

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Inside Al-Aqsa Mosque (Photo: November 13, 2015, Harold Knight)

❶ Israeli calls for collective break-ins into al-Aqsa
❷ Israeli Justice Minister: West Bank settlements will continue
❸ Retracing Jaffa’s erased Palestinian history (Photo essay)
❹ Opinion/Analysis: IT  JUST  AIN’T  CRICKET:  HOW  ISRAEL  ‘TRANSFERS’  LAND  FROM  PALESTINIANS  TO  SETTLERS
❺ POETRY by Harun Hashim Rasheed
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAELI  CALLS  FOR  COLLECTIVE  BREAK-INS  INTO  AL-AQSA
The Palestinian Information Center
May 26, 2016
Israeli extremist groups have called on Thursday for collective break-ins into al-Aqsa Mosque on the 5th of June that coincides with the occupation of the eastern part of Jerusalem. According to Quds Press, the extremist groups called through social media for massive participation in collective break-ins into the Islamic holy shrine and Talmudic rituals in its plazas to celebrate what they called “the anniversary of Jerusalem’s reunification.” Israeli police will provide security protection for the plan, the groups pointed out.      MORE . . . 

Jerusalem is an arena of conflicting and competing visions of both the past and the future. While Israeli political and military control over both halves of the city has not been disputed since its occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, there is no sense in which the Zionist imaginary of a Jewish city has been achieved or is irreversible. This has meant that alternative visions of the city, both ethno-national and eschatological in nature, continue to vie for dominance and act as mobilizing forces for dissident groups.
___This battle for the sacred is most famously played out on Jerusalem’s ancient fault­ line: the Jewish “Temple Mount” [ Har haBayit] or the Muslim “Noble Sanctuary” [al­ Haram al-Sharif] , the site of the Western (Wailing) Wall and the only visible remainder of the second Jewish Temple and the al-Aqsa Mosque, the place of Muhammad’s legendary night journey to Heaven. While scholars have extensively charted the historic conquests and religious imaginings that imbue this revered 66 square acre compound, our interest is in its contemporary politicization as a dynamic symbol and site of Israeli­ Zionist domination and Palestinian-Muslim resistance.

  • Larkin, Craig, and Michael Dumper. “In Defense Of Al-Aqsa: The Islamic Movement Inside Israel And The Battle For Jerusalem.” Middle East Journal 66.1 (2012): 31-52.

❷ ISRAELI JUSTICE MINISTER: WEST BANK SETTLEMENTS WILL CONTINUE
Palestine News Network
May 26, 2016
The Israeli Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked on Tuesday night promised that her government will continue settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.
___Shaked’s statement came during the opening of a new school in Itamar illegal settlement.  MORE . . .

Since 1967, Israeli policy in the West Bank (referred as Judea and Samaria by Israel since 1967) have been to create facts on the ground by annexing land without its people, by constructing enclaves within and a round the Palestinian built-up areas.
___Since 1967, Israel has been attempting to create facts on the ground that would forever link East Jerusalem to West Jerusalem and Israel. Israel has been trying to limit Palestinian natural growth as much as possible. . .
___According to many Israeli criticisms, settlement polices considers as a problematic issue for both Palestinian and Israeli communities, this is due to many reasons such as the way the settlements damage the Arab-Jewish relations, the negative influence of the settlements on the Israelis security, the role of settlements in deepen the social disparities, and the way the settlements generate a massive waste of resources. In spite of that, Israel continue constructing settlements as a part of its national strategy. . .

  • Thawaba, Salem A. “Jerusalem Walls: Transforming and Segregating Urban Fabric.” African & Asian Studies 10.2/3 (2011): 121-142. EBSCO.

❸ RETRACING  JAFFA’S  ERASED  PALESTINIAN  HISTORY  (PHOTO  ESSAY)
The Electronic Intifada
Silvia Boarini
24 May 2016
In mid-May, when Israeli Jews celebrate Independence Day, Palestinians commemorate the Nakba — the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of people from cities and villages across Palestine that began in December 1947 and intensified throughout 1948, both before and after the declaration of the State of Israel.
___This process of removing Palestinians from their land continues in various forms to this very day.
___Palestinian refugees as a whole have never been allowed to exercise their right to return to their homeland.      MORE . . .  

In Jaffa, 4,000 Palestinians–a mixture of original inhabitants and refugees from surrounding villages–were gathered in the southern Ajami neighborhood while their houses in other parts of the city, or the surrounding villages, were occupied or destroyed. In June 1948 Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary: “Jaffa will be a Jewish city. War is war.” Less than a year later he reported to the Israeli parliament that 45,000 new Jewish immigrants had been settled in the city’s “abandoned” homes.
[. . . .]
___A look at the Judaization of Jaffa’s Old City illustrates something of what Israeli policymakers have in mind for the Ajami neighborhood. The heart of the Old City today has been totally renovated, with Palestinian residents long gone. Spotless pedestrian walkways weave between buildings that once served as Palestinian homes, shops and factories and now have been transformed into expensive restaurants, galleries and gift shops for foreign and Israeli tourists. The simple fact that the asking price is beyond the range of the average Jaffa Palestinian would prevent them from even attempting to move into the area.

  • Humphries, Isabelle. “The Nakba Continues: The Ethnic Cleansing Of Jaffa’s Ajami Neighborhood.” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs 27.5 (2008): 14-15.
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Evidence of Israeli “transfer” of land, Hebron. (Photo: Harold Knight, November 18, 2015)

❹ Opinion/Analysis:  IT  JUST  AIN’T  CRICKET:  HOW  ISRAEL  ‘TRANSFERS’  LAND  FROM  PALESTINIANS  TO  SETTLERS
The Palestinian Information Center
Kamel Hawwash
May 22, 2016
The cricket season is in full swing in England and this was possibly playing on my mind when I read this headline in Haaretz: “Israel seized Palestinian family’s East Jerusalem land behind its back, gave it to settler NGO.”
___My immediate reaction was this is simply not cricket, a British term used to describe an act that is unfair, not honest, or immoral. . . .  Israel expropriated the land from the Abu Ta’ah family in East Jerusalem without a tender and against the rules, then handed it over to Amana, an organisation that works to establish settlements and outposts for Jews.
MORE . . .  

“POEM TO JERUSALEM,” Harun Hashim Rasheed (b. 1927)

For the sake of a city that’s imprisoned,
for its Dome and Aqsa Mosque,
for the annihilated sanctuary
where Muhammad’s feet once stood,
for all this city has endured,
and for all it has preserved,
for Mary and Jesus,
for all the beings she has known,
for my city’s sake,
raped and abused,
on its wounded brow
God’s words are effaced.

I call on all our dead
and all our living
with verses from the Bible
if only they could hear
with verses from the Quran
in the name of God
calling the young among them and the very old
calling them from my depths
to every brave fighter
I tell them the struggle is for Jerusalem
I call on them to resolve and have faith
tell them how Jerusalem’s sanctity is wounded
I call upon them all to help Jerusalem
She cannot wait any longer,
she overflows with grief.

From the Atlantic to the Arabian Gulf
I call upon you in the name of God
with the purity of anger I beseech you
for the city with the humiliated eyes
I call you in your name,
I call my Arab people.
―translated by Sharif Elmusa and Naomi Shihab Nye

Harun Hashim Rasheed (b. 1927)
Born in Gaza, poet Harun Hashim Rasheed witnessed, as a child, British soldiers demolishing his and his neighbors’ home in reprisal against Palestinian rebels, an incident which left a deep mark on him as a poet. After obtaining a Higher Teacher Training Diploma from Gaza College, he worked as a teacher until 1954. He then became director of the Sawt Al-Arab broadcasting station in Gaza. After the fall of Gaza to the Israelis in 1967, he was harassed by the Israeli occupation forces and was eventually compelled to leave. He has had a long and illustrious career as a Palestinian poet and literary figure in exile.

From: ANTHOLOGY  OF  MODERN  PALESTINIAN  LITERATURE. Ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Available from Columbia University Press.

 

“. . . a fierce struggle of liberation in the name of free men everywhere . . .” (Mahmoud Darwish, 1970)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Palestinian land in the Jordan Valley. (Agence France‑Presse/Photo)
Palestinian land in the Jordan Valley. (Agence France‑Presse/Photo)

❶ Palestinian shot dead in Hebron after alleged stabbing attempt
❷ Israeli forces deliver demolition orders in Jordan Valley
❸ Palestinian Shot Dead By Israeli Army Fire In Hebron
❹ Opinion/Analysis: Jerusalem in Context
❺ Opinion/Analysis: Recasting the rules: An intellectual intifada in the offing
❻ Poetry by Mahmoud Darwish
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
PALESTINIAN  SHOT  DEAD  IN  HEBRON  AFTER  ALLEGED  STABBING  ATTEMPT
Oct. 20, 2015
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli forces during clashes in Beit Awwa west of Hebron, Palestinian sources said.
The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health identified the Palestinian as 24-year-old Udaay Hashim al-Masalma, and said that doctors in Hebron’s public hospital confirmed a bullet to the head was the cause of death.
____An Israeli army spokesperson alleged that Masalma was shot after he attempted to stab an Israeli soldier during a “violent riot” in Beit Awwa.
____She said the soldier “responded with live fire,” and that the Palestinian was evacuated for medical treatment by the Palestinian Red Crescent.
____She added that the Israeli soldier was lightly injured, and as far as she was aware, had not been evacuated for medical treatment.
More . . .
❷ MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI  FORCES  DELIVER  DEMOLITION  ORDERS  IN  JORDAN  VALLEY
Oct. 20, 2015
TUBAS (Ma’an) — Israeli forces on Tuesday delivered demolition orders to two Palestinian families in the northern Jordan Valley, notifying them that their tin shacks and tents would be destroyed in less than a month.
____Local sources said the structures belonged to the families of Lutfi Muhammad Bani Audah and Muhammad Ali Bisharat and would be destroyed on Nov. 8.
____The families said that the structures slated for demolition were built several years ago and that they have official deeds to prove their ownership of the land.
More . . .
❸ IMEMC-INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER
HEALTH  MINISTRY:  “46  PALESTINIANS,  INCLUDING  10  CHILDREN,  KILLED  SINCE  OCTOBER 1”
The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported, Monday, that the number of Palestinians, killed by Israeli fire since the beginning of this month, has arrived to 45, including 10 children, in addition to a political prisoner who died of medical neglect.
____The Ministry said the youngest slain Palestinian was 16 months of age, and that eight of the children were killed in the West Bank, and two in the Gaza Strip.
____It stated that 31 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, and 14 in the Gaza Strip, including a mother and her infant, in addition to a young man in the Houra area, in the Negev.
____As for wounded Palestinians, the Ministry said 1850 were shot with live rounds and rubber-coated steel bullets; some suffered burns and others were beaten and assaulted by soldiers and settlers, while more than 3500 suffered the effects of tear gas inhalation.
More . . .
❹ +972 MAGAZINE
JERUSALEM,  IN  CONTEXT
Noam Sheizaf
Oct. 19, 2015
Jeffrey Goldberg wrote a powerful piece in The Atlantic last week claiming to scrutinize Palestinian violence . . . . Goldberg starts by discussing Palestinian “paranoia” over Israel’s actions in Jerusalem and ends with a broader, more common claim: that the Palestinian refusal to recognize Jewish ties to the land of Israel is the primary source of the conflict’s intractability, replete with its frequent rounds of violence.
____There are many holes in this theory, and I’d like to point some of them out.  [. . . . .].
____. . . The belief that Palestinians are invaders or mere guests in this land and that their own ties to the Temple Mount are a political hoax is widely held in Israel’s right wing.
More . . .
❺ Opinion/Analysis
MIDDLE EAST MONITOR (MEMO)
RECASTING  THE  RULES:  AN  INTELLECTUAL  INTIFADA  IN  THE  OFFING
Ramzy Baroud
Oct. 19, 2015
My first stop, after living for 22 years in a refugee camp in Gaza, was the city of Seattle. . . . There, for the first time, I stood before an audience outside Palestine, to speak about Palestine [. . . . .].
____Here, I learned, too, of the limits imposed on the Palestinian right to speak, of what I could or should not say. Platforms for an impartial Palestinian discourse were extremely narrow to begin with, and when any was available, Palestinians hardly took center stage [. . . . .].
____However, after spending almost two decades living in the US, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and travelling across the globe to speak about human rights – starting with Palestinian rights, history and struggle – I began to grasp the seriousness of an unmistakable trend: where the Palestinian narrative is marginalized and fundamentally misunderstood [. . . . .].
____So it was not uncommon to see an entire two-day conference on Palestine divided into several sessions and many workshops without a single Palestinian on the podium . . . . the frame of mind that neglected or avoided the Palestinian narrative has not been defeated completely.
Ramzy Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist, author and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story.
More . . . 

“I  DECLARE,”  BY  MAHMOUD  DARWISH  (1970)
As long as a hand-span of my land remains
As long as I have an olive tree―
A lemon tree―
A well―and a cactus plant
As long as I have but a single memory
A tiny library
A grandfather’s picture―and a wall
As long as Arabic words are uttered
And folk songs are sung
In my land
Scribes of poetry
Tales of Antar Al-Abse
Epics of the war against Persia and Rome
As long as I possess my eyes
Lips and hands
My own-self!
I shall declare in the face of my foe!―
A fierce struggle of liberation
In the name of free men everywhere
Workers―students―and poets―
I shall declare―
And let the cowards―ENEMIES OF THE SUN
Be satiated of the bread of shame
As long as I have myself
As long as myself remain
My words will remain―
Bread and arms―
In the hands of freedom fighters!

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 Mahmoud Darwish

Right-wing ‘Temple activist’ Yehuda Glick holding a book depicting the Jewish Temple while standing in front of the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, May 21, 2009. Glick survived an assassination attempt by a Palestinian man in 2014. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
Right-wing ‘Temple activist’ Yehuda Glick holding a book depicting the Jewish Temple while standing in front of the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, May 21, 2009. Glick survived an assassination attempt by a Palestinian man in 2014. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Yousef el Qedra, “. .Time has grown up on its own without me. . ” [A special post of news analysis]

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Israeli troops shower protesters with tear gas in Bethlehem on Wednesday - Photo by WAFA Israeli troops shower protesters with tear gas in Bethlehem on Wednesday - Photo by WAFA
Israeli troops shower protesters with tear gas in Bethlehem on Wednesday – Photo by WAFA

❶ MONDOWEISS
ON  BRET  STEPHENS’  HATE  SPEECH
Dorgham Abusalim
Oct. 14, 201
For Israel and her allies it seems that panic mode is on, and Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens, who somehow manages to pass himself for a psychologist in his latest column, is freaking out.
____His article “Palestine: The Psychotic Stage” bears the subtitle, “The truth about why Palestinians have been seized by their present blood lust.” In typical desperate fashion of the pro-occupation ilk, Stephens manipulates the tragic deaths of Israelis reported over the past two weeks. Meanwhile, he conveniently pretends that Palestinians are immortal. They don’t die. Hence, not one mention of a Palestinian death is worth his words — never mind that one of the world’s strongest armed forces is flexing its muscles against them. The issue is not so much with reporting on who died. Stephens’ dangerous propagation in this regard is that a Jewish death is a tragic one and worth reporting, while a Palestinian death is just not worth it because a Palestinian is a psychotic blood thirsty terrorist. Stephens writes:

Treatises have been written about the media’s mind-set when it comes to telling the story of Israel. We’ll leave that aside for now. The significant question is why so many Palestinians have been seized by their present blood lust—by a communal psychosis in which plunging knives into the necks of Jewish women, children, soldiers and civilians is seen as a religious and patriotic duty, a moral fulfillment. Despair at the state of the peace process, or the economy? Please. It’s time to stop furnishing Palestinians with the excuses they barely bother making for themselves.

More. . .
❷ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
PALESTINE:  THE  PSYCHOTIC  STAGE
THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  WHY  PALESTINIANS  HAVE  BEEN  SEIZED  BY  THEIR  PRESENT  BLOOD  LUST.
Bret Stephens
Oct. 12, 2015
If you’ve been following the news from Israel, you might have the impression that “violence” is killing a lot of people. As in this headline: “Palestinian Killed as Violence Continues.” Or this first paragraph: “Violence and bloodshed radiating outward from flash points in Jerusalem and the West Bank appear to be shifting gears and expanding, with Gaza increasingly drawn in.”
____Read further, and you might also get a sense of who, according to Western media, is perpetrating “violence.” As in: “Two Palestinian Teenagers Shot by Israeli Police,” according to one headline. [. . . . .]
____The significant question is why so many Palestinians have been seized . . . Please. It’s time to stop furnishing Palestinians with the excuses they barely bother making for themselves. [. . . . .]
____Above all, it’s time to give hatred its due.
____Today in Israel, Palestinians are in the midst of a campaign to knife Jews to death, one at a time. This is psychotic. It is evil. To call it anything less is to serve as an apologist, and an accomplice.
More . . .
❸ OPENDEMOCRACY. FREE THINKING FOR THE WORLD
PALESTINIANS  MUST  NOT  FALL  INTO  THIS  TRAP,  AGAIN!
Sam Bahour
Oct. 14, 2015
To cover up its crimes, Israel needs to feed all the western stereotypes of Palestinians as violent and subhuman rather than hungry for freedom and equal rights.
____The lid on the powder keg of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, has been rattling for years now. Palestinians from all walks of life have lost their voices making the case that Israel’s right-wing government . . . is pursuing policies bound to lead to exactly what we are witnessing today, violence. [. . . . .]
____Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has built his entire political career on a platform of violence against Palestinians.. . . . Netanyahu prides himself on being the leader who stopped the peace process in its tracks. To make sure peace would never have a chance, he accelerated settlement building in the West Bank, attacked Gaza multiple times, demolished more Palestinian homes, arrested Palestinians, including minors, often without charges, and failed to bring to justice the Jewish settlers who recently burned alive a Palestinian family while they slept in their home.
____But why does Israel seemingly seek violence? The answer is elementary to anyone following this conflict: Israel has a single gamebook against the legitimate Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence, that of using their well-oiled military machine to squash any Palestinian who attempts to resist occupation. Israel since 1948 and 1967 has routinely used war and violence to seize more land, all the while pushing Palestinians to either turn violent or emigrate.
More. . .
❹ CBS/AP
U.S.  CONDEMNS  PALESTINIAN  ATTACKS  AGAINST  ISRAELI  CIVILIANS
Oct. 13, 2015
Video of the CBS coverage. No mention of settler terrorism. No mention of the International treaty that gives the Palestinians sole right to administer Al-Aqsa mosque. Palestinians are “terrorists.” The Israelis are afraid to go out, to ride buses. No mention of the complete control of Palestinian society by Israel.
More. . .
❺ +972 MAGAZINE
ISRAEL’S  SCAPEGOAT  PROBLEM
Talal Jabari
Israeli governments always found someone to blame for whatever violence came their way, and then they bombed them. This time around there’s nobody to blame. Except for that one thing.
Oct. 14, 2015
This current wave of “lone-wolf” attacks by Palestinians against Israelis poses a threat to the Israeli government unlike any other. Obviously I am not referring to the security risk they pose — after all, Israel has far more deaths and injuries from car accidents. Nor am I referring to the fear this onslaught of attacks may be causing Israelis. No, the real threat is that for the first time since the First Intifada, almost 30 years ago, the Israeli government has nobody to blame. [. . . . .]
____Clearly the Israelis haven’t found anyone to blame, but that’s only because they’re not looking in the right place. Here’s a short list of where they should be looking.
____Let’s start with the obvious. No Palestinian under 50 living in the West Bank, and to an extent the Gaza Strip, has known a day of freedom in his or her entire life. No freedom of movement, no freedom of worship, no sense of personal safety or stability.
More. . .

“I  HAVE  NO  HOME,”  BY  YOUSEF  EL  QEDRA (June 22, 2009)
I saw clouds running away from the hurt.
I have no language.
Its weight is lighter than a feather.
The quill does not write.
The ink of the spirit burns on the shore of meaning.
The clouds are tears, filled with escape and lacking definition.
A cloud realizes the beauty she forms―
beauty which contains all good things,
for whom trees, gardens, and tired young women wait.
I have no home.
I have a night overripe with sweats caused by numbness all over.
Time has grown up on its own without me.
In my dream, I asked him what he looks like.
My small defeats answered me.
So I asked him again, What did he mean?
Then I found myself suspended in nothingness,
stretched like a string that doesn’t belong to an instrument.
The wind played me. So did irresistible gravity.
I was a run of lost notes that have a sad, strong desire to live.

From BEFORE  THERE  IS  NOWHERE  TO  STAND:  PALESTINE  ISREL  POETS  RESPOND  TO  THE  STRUGGLE. Ed. By Joan Dobbie and Grace Beeler. Sandpoint ID: Lost Horse Press, 2012.
Available from Barnes and Noble.
Yousef el Qedra is a young poet and playwright living in Gaza, Palestine. He has a B.A. degree in Arabic literature from al Azhar University, Gaza. His poems have been published in local, national and international magazines, newspapers, and internet websites. More. . .