Israeli army destroys road students in West Bank village use to reach their school
WAFA August 28, 2019
Israeli army bulldozers destroyed today a road the al-Tira village council had opened a year ago to facilitate movement of students to their school and back as well as movement of residents in general, according to Abdul Jaber Mohammad, head of al-Tira village council located to west of Ramallah. . . .
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ He stressed Israel wants to build a road in that area to connect the illegal Israeli settlement of Beit Horon to the highway that connects Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. More . . . .
Israel Punishes Gaza with Fuel Cuts
Palestine Chronicle August 27, 2019
The Israeli government took retaliatory aim at Gaza’s electricity supply Monday ordering fuel shipments into the coastal region to be cut-in-half “until further notice”, over alleged Palestinian rockets attacks against southern Israel on Sunday night.
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ Mohammad Thabet, a spokesman for the Gaza power company said: “We already are in a crisis and now the Israeli decision will make it worse. It will have a grave impact on the lives of 2 million people and on vital services such as hospitals.” More . . . .
Committee Calls on International Community to Protect Palestinian Civilians
IMEMC-International Middle East Media Center August 28, 2019
The Legal and International Advocacy Committee of the National Commission for the Return and Siege Breaking Marches strongly condemns the continuation of the Israeli occupation forces targeting the Palestinians participating in the return and siege breaking marches in Gaza Strip.
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ The demonstrations have been held for 71 consecutive Fridays, and on August 23, 2019, the Israeli occupation forces, deliberately used excessive and lethal force against demonstrators, injuring 122 civilians, 50 of them with live bullets. These injuries included children, women and 3 badged paramedics and journalists.
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ The Committee affirms that the return marches and the popular activities that still maintain a peaceful approach, to which the Israeli occupation forces react with deadly force, demonstrating Israel’s arrogance and contempt for the International Law system of human rights. . . .
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ Therefore, the Legal and International Advocacy Committee calls for the implementation of the recommendations in the report of the international commission of inquiry, which was adopted at the 40th Session of the Human Rights Council. More . . . .
State of the Gaza Strip Border Crossings (01 -31 July 2019)
Palestinian Center for Human Rights August 27, 2019
During the reporting period (July), the Israeli authorities continued to impose their closure on the Gaza Strip for the 13th consecutive year along with tightened restrictions on the crossings surrounding the Gaza Strip, contrary to the Israeli claims of easing restrictions on the movement of persons and goods. Further, the Israeli authorities continued to control entry and exit for pedestrians from the Gaza Strip at the Beit Hanoun “Erez” Crossing as they narrowly allow some categorioes such as patients of urgent cases and their companions, who both undergo a very long and complicated process in order to get travel permits and are subject to tightened security measures while traveling through the crossing. During July, the Israeli authorities at Beit Hanoun “Erez” Crossing obstructed the travel of 661 patients . . . . More . . . .
POEM OF THE DAY
“NAME OF THE SOIL,” BY ZUHAIR ABU SHAIB
what is its name?
what is the name of the soil
that falls from my withered body?
what is its name as it drifts and gathers
under my clothes
while, slowly, I build wall after wall?
I picture a sky full of clouds
I see it as I wish it to be when night falls, I gulp my fill of springs in darkness I lift my latch
to wise men
I ask my guests
who imprisoned the soul in rock?
who left prophets spread-eagled on doorsteps?
who risks everything to capture the earth?
a man who does not know his own shadow
what can I call this rug of soil?
is it my country or the source of my exile?
is it my miracle or my cross?
what is its name?
――Translated by Tom Pow
From A BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014). Zuhair Abu Shaib was born in Deir al-Ghusun, a town near the city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank and studied at Yarmouk University. He was a teacher and journalist in Yemen, and a book designer. He was also editor of the journal Awraq.
Inhabitants of YITZHAR – a reputation as being among the most extreme Israeli settlers in the West Bank. (The Palestinian Information Center Sunday, December 3, 2017)
SELECTED NEWS OF THE DAY |WEST BANK WITNESSES WORST ESCALATION IN THIS YEAR, ISRAELI FORCES KILL 4 PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS WITHIN ONLY 48 HOURS; TWO OF THEM WERE EXTRA-JUDICIALLY EXECUTED The West Bank is witnessing the worst and most violent escalation by the Israeli forces and settlers in this year. Only within 48 hours, the Israeli forces killed 4 Palestinian civilians, including an elderly and 2 extra-judicially killed, and wounded dozens due to use of armed force against the peaceful demonstrators. The Palestinian cities have witnessed large-scale incursions; mostly in the cities of Ramallah and al-Bireh, and a strangulating closure on both cities. Meanwhile, the Israeli settlers have escalated their attacks against the Palestinian civilians and their property in light of the Israeli military and political leaders’ calls for incitement against the Palestinians. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) emphasizes that the Israeli forces continue to pursue the policy of Extra-judicial executions that have publicly carried out for the first time in the so-called “Bus 300” operation on 10 April 1984 when 4 Palestinians were killed. More . . . | ISRAELI SETTLERS RAZE PALESTINIAN LANDS TO EXPAND [YITZHAR] NABLUS-AREA SETTLEMENT
Israeli bulldozers, belonging to settlers from the illegal Israeli settlement of Yitzhar in the northern occupied West Bank district of Nablus, razed Palestinian lands in the Assira al-Qibliya village, on Wednesday morning. ___Ghassan Daghlas, an official who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that several Israeli settlers from Yitzhar razed lands in eastern Assira al-Qibliya to expand their settlement. ___Daghlas confirmed that these lands belong to several Palestinians. More . . . ~~ISRAELI FORCES UPROOT 200 CACTUS SEEDLINGS IN JORDAN VALLEY
Israeli forces uprooted hundreds of cactus seedlings belonging to a Palestinian resident in the Bardala village in the northern occupied West Bank, on Tuesday afternoon. ___A Palestinian official in charge of Jordan Valley’s Israeli settlements file at the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mutaz Bisharat, said that Israeli forces uprooted 200 five-month-old cactus seedlings. ___Bisharat added that the seedlings belong to local resident Faris Sawafta in Bardala in the Jordan Valley. More . . . ~~ISRAELI SETTLERS UPROOT OVER 100 TREES WEST OF HEBRON
Israeli settlers Tuesday evening uprooted over 100 trees belonging to the Palestinian villagers of Tarqumiya, west of Hebron, said a local official. ___Head of the Agricultural Damage Documentation Section Hashem Badarin told WAFA that settlers from Adora settlement uprooted and destroyed over 100 fruitful trees belonging to the village. More . . . |OFFICIAL: WE INFORMED ISRAEL THAT WE ARE GOING TO RECONSIDER ALL SIGNED AGREEMENTS Hussein al-Sheikh, head of the Civil Affairs Commission, said on Monday that the Palestinian Authority has informed Israel that it is going to reconsider all the agreements signed between them. ___”We have told the Israeli side a clear message and that was as long as the agreements are being slaughtered and murdered every day on the ground by the behavior of the settlers and the army, we are going to reconsider all the agreements signed between us and them,” he said in an interview. [. . . .] “We have delivered a very clear message that the current serious escalation is targeting all the occupied territories. More . . .
COMMENTARY AND OPINION |KHAN AL-AHMAR: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT By Angela Godfrey-Goldstein
The story of Khan al-Ahmar has been told countless times in the media in recent months. The way it is being told, however, is chock full of misconceptions. Here’s the real story behind the embattled village. ___ The village of Khan al-Ahmar, home to 193 Palestinian Bedouins and a school, is under the very real and imminent threatof demolition and forcible displacement by Israeli authorities. Israel wants to remove Khan al-Ahmar to facilitate its “E-1” development plan, which envisions 3,910 housing units for Israelis and over 2,000 hotel rooms, and which would connect the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim to East Jerusalem. The separation wall would then be built around that bloc, with Greater Jerusalem “Judaized” and the viability of a Palestinian state jeopardized. More . . .
POEM FOR THE DAY
“NAME OF THE SOIL,” BY ZUHAIR ABU SHAIB
what is its name?
what is the name of the soil
that falls from my withered body?
what is its name as it drifts and gathers
under my clothes
while, slowly, I build wall after wall?
I picture a sky full of clouds
I see it as I wish it to be
when night falls, I gulp my fill of springs
in darkness I lift my latch
to wise men
I ask my guests
who imprisoned the soul in rock?
who left prophets spread-eagled on doorsteps?
who risks everything to capture the earth?
a man who does not know his own shadow
what can I call this rug of soil?
is it my country or the source of my exile?
is it my miracle or my cross?
what is its name?
――Translated by Tom Pow
FromA BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014) –available from Barnes & Noble.
Medical sources reported that Abdullah Hamayel sustained fractures and bruises in various areas of his body due to the violent assault by Israeli forces. (Photo: Ma’an News Agency, Nov. 9, 2018)
SELECTED NEWS OF THE DAY. . . . |WEEKLY REPORT ON ISRAELI HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY (01 – 07 NOVEMBER 2018) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
Israeli forces continue systematic crimes in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) Israeli forces continued to use excessive force against unarmed civilians and peaceful protestors in the Gaza Strip:
A civilian succumbed to wounds he sustained during his participation in the Return and Breaking Siege protests.
77 civilians, including 12 children, a woman, a journalist and 3 paramedics, were wounded; 4 of them sustained serious wounds.
[. . . .] Israeli forces wounded 12 Palestinian civilians, including 3 children and a woman, in the West Bank.
Israeli forces conducted 88 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and 2 limited ones into the southern Gaza Strip. 53 civilians, including 11 children and a woman, were arrested in the West Bank. More . . .
| ISRAELI FORCES REPEATEDLY ASSAULT AL-BIREH MUNICIPALITY EMPLOYEE
Israeli forces assaulted and injured Abdullah Hamayel, a Palestinian staff member of the al-Bireh Municipality, late Thursday, while passing by on the road leading to the illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Mikhmas, built on the lands of Mikhmas Palestinian village, in the central occupied Ramallah district. [. . . .] The reason for the assault remained unknown. More . . .
. . . . RelatedISRAEL BANS JERUSALEM GOVERNOR ENTRY TO WEST BANK . . . . RelatedISRAELI FORCES ARREST 8-YEAR-OLD NEAR HEBRON . . . . RelatedPALESTINIANS REINSTALL MONUMENT TO PALESTINIAN MARTYRBackground
. . . . RelatedIOA HAND EVICTION NOTICES TO AGRICULTURAL LAND IN SOUTHERN WEST BANK . . . . RelatedLIEBERMAN AGREES TO RETURN BODY OF MARTYR
Jerusalem’s Palestinian governor, Adnan Ghaith, was detained without explanation. (Photo: Anadolu Agency, Oct. 22, 2018)
|BDS VICTORY: UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS DIVESTS FROM ISRAEL-LINKED FIRMS A UK university has ended investment in companies involved in Israeli arms trade following a fierce student-led BDS campaign. ___The University of Leeds has ceased its dealings with Airbus, United Technologies and Keyence Corporation – all of which supply military equipment to Israel. More . . .
COMMENTARY AND OPINION. . . . |ECONOMIC DISENGAGEMENT AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN PALESTINE By Dr. Mohammad Mustafa, Chairman of Palestine Investment Fund
Given the political deadlock we have reached, the Palestinian leadership is in the process of reviewing the framework governing our relationship with Israel. ___The notion of economic disengagement from Israel is top of mind for the Palestinian leadership; and with it the need to revise or terminate the Paris Economic Protocol that was signed between the PLO and Israel in April 1994 . . . the creation of a custom union with free movement of people and goods, and unified taxation between Palestine and Israel. ___Israel’s unilateral actions over the years . . . have effectively abolished the essence of the Paris Protocol, and created in its place a system to cement the Palestinian economy’s captivity to Israel. More . . . |THE THOUSANDS OF UNDOCUMENTED GAZANS LIVING IN LIMBO
By Amjad Yaghni
Wafaa Abu Hajjaj has been active in the media industry in Gaza for the past eight years, working as a correspondent for various local and regional television news outlets. But she has also been deprived of dozens of job opportunities abroad because she doesn’t have a Palestinian identification card. Without it, she can’t be officially employed or access government services. __Abu Hajjaj and her father are among thousands of undocumented Palestinians in Gaza. ___Israel withdrew its military and civilian presence from the Strip in 2005, but one of the countless ways it still exercises immense control over the lives of Gazans is through its control over the Palestinian population registry. Many simple types of changes to the registry, including changing the address or place of one’s residence, still require the Israeli army’s approval. More . . .
POEM FOR THE DAY. . . .
“MARTYR,” BY ZUHAIR ABU SHAIB
When they found him
he had become an emerald flame;
as when they lifted his arms they found
sheaves of wheat where a heart should be;
and they say those sheaves were whispering
beneath his shirt; and they say the wild birds
ferried his blood to his family, drop by drop;
and they say he will come back, suspended
in the hidden tree at the burning heart of volcanoes
and that his mother will fold him in her arms.
But when they found him he was an emerald flame,
so they stitched together rose petals for a shroud
and smoothed out the sky to keep him warm
and for a pillows, they lifted down the sun
and laid it beneath his head.
—Trans. By John Glenday
Zuhair Abu Shaib was born in Deir al-Ghusun and studied at Yarmouk University. She was a teacher and journalist in Yemen, and a book designer. She was also editor of the journal Awarq.
From A BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014). Available from Barnes and Noble.
| LIEBERMAN TO APPROVE 31 SETTLEMENT HOUSING UNITS IN HEBRON CITY
The Israeli Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, announced on Thursday that he expects the Israeli government to approve the construction of 31 new illegal settlement housing units in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron. ___Lieberman announced his intention to have the Israeli government approve the construction of 31 news illegal settlement housing units, in Hebron City, on Sunday. ___He posted a tweet on his official Twitter account that the illegal settlement plan includes new housing units, kindergartens and public parks. ___”We continue to strengthen the Jewish settlement in the West Bank with actions, not words.” More . . . |ISRAEL DECLARES TUBAS-AREA VILLAGE CLOSED MILITARY ZONE
Israeli forces declared the village of Khirbet al-Hadidiyeh in the northern Jordan Valley a closed military zone and sealed off several roads leading to the village, on Friday. ___Local activist, Aaref Daraghmeh, said that Israeli forces sealed off entrance roads to Khirbet al-Hadidiyeh and prevented activists from reaching the area, where Israeli forces demolished Palestinian housing structures and steel structures used for housing sheep on Thursday. ___Israeli forces declared the village a closed military zone . . . More . . .
. . . . RelatedClashes break out as IOF storms Nablus villages . . . . RelatedIllegal Settlers Attack Palestinian Cars and High School [Nablus area] |283,000 UNEMPLOYED INDIVIDUALS IN GAZA STRIP
Gaza unemployment has doubled since Israel imposed a land, sea and air blockade on the Gaza Strip 12 years ago, the General Federation of Palestinian Labor Unions said on Thursday. ___It said that while unemployment rate has reached 27.2% before the blockade, it has now reached 50%, including 283,000 workers considered unemployed in 2018, which it described as “unprecedented.” ___The poverty rate has reached 80%, which indicates critical deterioration in the standard of living and economic performance in the Gaza Strip, said the Federation, explaining that Gaza’s two million people have been living difficult and catastrophic conditions for over 12 years. More . . .
. . . . RelatedThousands of Chronically Ill Gazans Deprived of Medicine . . . . RelatedWeekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (04 – 10 October 2018)
COMMENTARY AND OPINION. . . .
|THE AUDACITY OF UNCHECKED POWER IN KHAN AL-AHMAR
An entire Palestinian village is facing destruction. What follows will dictate the fate of Palestinian communities all over the West Bank.
Hagai El-Ad
Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s recent op-ed in the Jerusalem Post – designed to whitewash the war crime of the destruction of an entire Palestinian community in the occupied West Bank – is riddled with lies and distortions. ___ The very premise he posits in his opening sentence is untrue. Lieberman writes of “a judicial ruling for the relocation of a small group of squatters from Khan al-Ahmar.” The High Court of Justice’s ruling, however, actually addressed demolition orders, not “relocation.” More. . . | AS THE OLIVE HARVEST BEGINS, SO DO THE SETTLER ATTACKS
Yumna Patel
The time had finally come: the residents of Turmusayya, a lush Palestinian village nestled in a valley between Ramallah and Nablus in the central occupied West Bank, had gotten permission from Israeli authorities to go harvest their olive trees. [. . . .] When they arrived, they were devastated to find dozens of trees chopped down, uprooted, and rotting. ___The 40 olive trees belonged to 78-year-old Palestinian Mahmoud al-Araj, who had been tending to the trees since he was a boy. [. . . .] “I have been cultivating these trees, this land, since I was a boy. We helped our families and tired ourselves on this land so we could provide for our children and the future generations,” he said. “We give everything we have to our land and to these trees, and then the settlers come and destroy it all.” More. . .
what is its name?
what is the name of the soil
that falls from my withered body?
what is its name as it drifts and gathers
under my clothes
while, slowly, I build wall after wall?
I picture a sky full of clouds
I see it as I wish it to be
when night falls, I gulp my fill of springs
in darkness I lift my latch
to wise men
I ask my guests
who imprisoned the soul in rock?
who left prophets spread-eagled on doorsteps?
who risks everything to capture the earth?
a man who does not know his own shadow
what can I call this rug of soil?
is it my country or the source of my exile?
is it my miracle or my cross?
what is its name?
Zuhair Abu Shaib was born in Deir al-Ghusun and studied at Yarmouk University. She has been a teacher and journalist in Yemen, and a book designer. She has also been editor of the journal Awarq.
From A BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY.Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014. House of Poetry in Mafraqlaunches its fourth meeting in Amman
Under the patronage of the Minister of Culture, the House of Poetry – Mafraq – was opened four years ago on the initiative of the ruler of Sharjah, Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi. In the presence of the chairman of the cultural authority in Sharjah Abdullah Al Owais with creative contributions by the poet Zuhair Abu Shaib. . . More . . .
EGYPT CONFIRMS EFFORTS TO ACHIEVE PALESTINIAN UNITY
The Egyptian Presidency stressed that the country is keen to achieve Palestinian reconciliation and national unity. ___Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s statement was made during a phone call with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, on Thursday. ___According to spokesperson of the Egyptian Presidency, Bassam Radi, al-Sisi said that the Palestinian Authority must take over its responsibilities in the besieged Gaza Strip, pointing out that it would help revive the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. More . . .
ISRAEL KILLED 19 PALESTINIANS IN AUGUST, REPORT SAYS
Israeli occupation forces killed a total of 19 Palestinians, including four children, during August 2018, according to a report by Abdullah Horani Center of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The center said of those 19 Palestinians, 17 were killed by Israeli forces during the Great March of Return protests at Gaza border or in airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. Another Palestinian was killed in the occupied West Bank and the last one was a Palestinian citizen of Israel. More. . . Related . . . ISRAELI FORCES OPEN FIRE NEAR GAZA RETURN CAMPS
ACTIVIST SOUNDS ALARM OVER SIMMERING TERRORISM BY ISRAEL SETTLER GANGS Extremist Israeli settlers have been raking through Palestinian lands in Nablus and Ramallah, paving the way for more attacks against Palestinians and their property, an activist has warned. ___Ghassan Dughlas, who monitors settlement activity in the northern occupied West Bank, said settler gangs have showed up on Palestinian land located between Yitzhar outpost, south of Nablus, and Shilo, north of Ramallah. More. . .
COMMENTARY AND OPINION. . . .
HOW ISRAEL SPIES ON US CITIZENS: THE TRUTHS THAT WON’T BE HEARD Alain Gresh An investigative documentary by Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera scheduled for broadcast earlier this year was expected to cause a sensation. Its four 50-minute episodes centred on the young and personable James Anthony Kleinfeld, British, Jewish, an Oxford graduate . . . – seemingly a natural fit for a western foreign ministry or a major thinktank. ___The documentary showed Kleinfeld being enthusiastically recruited for his skills by The Israel Project (TIP), which defends Israel’s image in the media, and associating . . . [with] the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the powerful US lobbying group. . . . ___Kleinfeld’s contacts told him they were spying on US citizens with the help of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, founded in 2006, which reports directly to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu . . . ___At the end of Kleinfeld’s time at TIP, his boss there . . . wanted to hire “Tony” on a permanent basis . . . ___Kleinfeld turned down the job. His qualifications were genuine, but he was, of course, an undercover reporter, sent by Al Jazeera to investigate the pro-Israel lobby. More . . .
THIS PALESTINIAN LIFE: UNCOVERING THE STORIES OF WOMEN BEHIND THE WALL
Henriette Chacar
A mother in the West Bank struggles to explain to her child, on reaching a checkpoint, that no, they have not yet arrived at the zoo. [This is one of] women’s stories featured on “Women Behind the Wall,” a new podcast which aims to “amplify minority perspectives in the Israel-Palestine conflict,” according to the project founder, Shadia Qubti. The show centers around the stories of Christian Palestinian women – a double minority group in terms of gender and religion – in an attempt to expose how the occupation impacts their lives. ___According to Qubti, Palestinian society is very diverse and rich, but “in the media, we do not reach the average peoples’ stories.” She believes there is a humanizing power to storytelling, and “these moments, hopefully, will make the listener intrigued to understand more.” More. . .
NOTICES FROM ORGANIZATIONS. . . .
Land of Canaan Foundation: Regenerative agriculture – what is it? Regenerative farming goes beyond just organic agriculture. It naturally creates healthy soil which holds water and carbon better and will produce healthy crops at a higher yield. More . . . Donate . . .
what is its name?
what is the name of the soil
that falls from my withered body?
what is its name as it drifts and gathers
under my clothes
while, slowly, I build wall after wall?
I picture a sky full of clouds
I see it as I wish it to be
when night falls, I gulp my fill of springs
in darkness I lift my latch
to wise men
I ask my guests
who imprisoned the soul in rock?
who left prophets spread-eagled on doorsteps?
who risks everything to capture the earth?
a man who does not know his own shadow
what can I call this rug of soil?
is it my country or the source of my exile?
is it my miracle or my cross?
what is its name?
Zuhair Abu Shaib was born in Deir al-Ghusun and studied at Yarmouk University. She has been a teacher and journalist in Yemen, and a book designer. She has also been editor of the journal Awarq.
From A BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY.Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014.
Settler Bypass Road near Beit Jala (Photo: Harold Knight, Nov. 8, 2015)
❶ Agricultural group urges support for farmers in Sakout area in Jordan Valley
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Israeli settlers attack Palestinian olive pickers in Hawa
Background: “Not Just a Picnic: Settler Colonialism, Mobility, and Identity among Palestinians in Israel.” Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly.
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) Mar’ee: Israel seized my olive grove in Salfit and built factories
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴄ) US project aims to improve water access for Palestinian farmers
❷ Netanyahu to build bypass roads for 200 million NIS to protect illegal West Bank settlers
❸ POETRY by Zuhair Abu Shaib
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ❶ AGRICULTURAL GROUP URGES SUPPORT FOR FARMERS IN SAKOUT AREA IN JORDAN VALLEY Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Nov. 7, 2017 ― The Union of Agricultural Work Committee (UAWC) called on Tuesday to support Palestinian farmers in Sakout village in the northern Jordan Valley after settlers had forced a farmer to leave his land and sabotaged a water pipe built to irrigate crops.
___They said in a statement that Israeli settlers protected by the army attacked Zamel Daraghmeh and his family while they were working on their land planting it with vegetables and forced them to leave it.
___The settlers also sabotaged a water pipe they had built to help the area farmers reclaim their land and irrigate their crops.
___UAWC said the Palestinian farmers in Sakout, whom the army had not allowed to reach their land since 1967, were able to win a court order allowing them to work on their land after they proved ownership. The order affected 3500 dunums of land out of a total of 5600 dunums. MORE . . . . . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) ISRAELI SETTLERS ATTACK PALESTINIAN OLIVE PICKERS IN HAWARA The Palestinian Information Center
Nov. 7, 2017 ― Extremist Israeli settlers have stepped up assaults against Palestinian farmers across Hawara’s olive groves, south of the occupied West Bank province of Nablus.
___Head of the West Bank department at Rabbis for Human Rights, Zakaria Sadah, said dozens of Israeli settlers violently attacked Palestinian farmers on Monday evening while they were picking olives in their groves northwest of Hawara town.
___The Israeli army forced the Palestinians out of their farmlands after they ruled that all olive-picking activities in the area be immediately halted. MORE . . .
Shihade, Magid.
“NOT JUST A PICNIC: SETTLER COLONIALISM, MOBILITY, AND IDENTITY AMONG PALESTINIANS IN ISRAEL.” Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 2, Spring2014, pp. 451-473.
[. . . .] Compounding this situation of estrangement, for the rest of the Arab world leadership, it was as if the Palestinians never existed. Political leadership in the Arab world spoke about Palestine and about liberating Palestine, but never about the Palestinians who remained on the land. In the eyes of the Israeli state they were and remain “present-absent”: physically there, yet legally, and as a national indigenous group, without existence . . . . for the Arab leaders, too, the Palestinians who remained within the Israeli settler colonial state in 1948 did not exist . . . Arab Palestinians behind enemy lines, facing forgetfulness by Arab leadership and a war on existence and memory by the Israeli settler colonial state.
[. . . .] Another shift evident in the village is the contraction of land and resources . . . space is shrinking due to state policies of land confiscation and encroachment on Arab villages and towns. The past, where homes were more humble but surrounded by large gardens with fruit trees, is almost extinct . . . . After destroying the Palestinian urban space that existed before 1948, Israel built hundreds of Jewish settlements on land confiscated from Arab villages, limiting further the space for those villages that remained intact after the creation of the state. These villages’ natural space and fields shrank, and the villages became more crowded . . . .
___While resembling ghettos in many western cities, here the village as a whole is constituted as a ghetto, a shanty town to the Jewish cities nearby, which have much more space, superior public services, cleaner streets, gardens, libraries, cinemas, and more state funding. This inverted ghetto, which exists not inside but rather on the outskirts of Jewish towns and cities, divides Palestinian Arab citizens from Jewish Israelis, who come to the village only for cheap labor, cheap products, cheap food, and possibly to feel good that they have some contact with the Palestinian Arabs . . . FULL ARTICLE . . .
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) MAR’EE: ISRAEL SEIZED MY OLIVE GROVE IN SALFIT AND BUILT FACTORIES The Palestinian Information Center
Nov. 1, 2017 ― With a sigh of sadness, Palestinian farmer Abdullah Mar’ee looked at his annexed plot of land in Farkha village, west of Salfit, which was once an olive grove before Israel took it over along with other vast tracts of Palestinian land and built large factories in their place.
___“We planted olive saplings on 25 dunums of land in Karm Ashour area, west of Salfit, and we were happy with them, especially when we saw them starting to yield olive fruits of the Nabali type, but all of a sudden, the settlement of Ariel encroached on our land,” Abu Mar’ee said.
___“They built a factory for cosmetics, another for sweets and a huge iron plant, and their bulldozers are still embarking on razing more lands belonging to us and others,” he added. MORE . . . ..
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴄ) US PROJECT AIMS TO IMPROVE WATER ACCESS FOR PALESTINIAN FARMERS Al-Monitor (Palestine Pulse)
By Ahmad Melhem
Oct. 31, 2017 ― The US Consulate in Jerusalem launched a $10 million project on Oct. 15 to support the water sector in the West Bank governorate of Jericho. In attendance during the announcement of the launch was Jason Greenblatt, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
___The project . . . (network expansion), which should be ready by early 2018, will connect 70% of the residents of Jericho to the water treatment plant, which, in turn, was funded by the Japanese government in the city and launched by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in June 2014.
___The project will be of great help to the farmers in the city of Jericho and the Jordan Valley, especially palm farmers, as it will increase their irrigation resources, which is the biggest problem plaguing this sector. MORE . . . ❷ NETANYAHU TO BUILD BYPASS ROADS FOR 200 MILLION NIS TO PROTECT ILLEGAL WEST BANK SETTLERS Palestine News Network – PNN
Nov. 7, 2017 ― Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledges to support a plan to build new bypass roads and deploy new measures to “strengthen protection” for the Israeli settlers in the West Bank for 200 million NIS.
___This came after arguments in the Knesset’s Finance Committee meeting in the presence of Netanyahu, who was strongly criticized from families whose sons were killed in the streets of the West Bank.
___They demanded “strengthening their protection by creating bypass roads” away from the centers of Palestinian towns. MORE . . .
“NAME OF THE SOIL,” BY ZUHAIR ABU SHAIB
what is its name?
what is the name of the soil
that falls from my withered body?
what is its name as it drifts and gathers
under my clothes
while, slowly, I build wall after wall?
I picture a sky full of clouds
I see it as I wish it to be
when night falls, I gulp my fill of springs
in darkness I lift my latch
to wise men
I ask my guests
who imprisoned the soul in rock?
who left prophets spread-eagled on doorsteps?
who risks everything to capture the earth?
a man who does not know his own shadow
what can I call this rug of soil?
is it my country or the source of my exile?
is it my miracle or my cross?
what is its name?
――Translated by Tom Pow
Zuhair Abu Shaib was born in Deir al-Ghusun, a town near the city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank and studied at Yarmouk University. He was a teacher and journalist in Yemen, and a book designer. He was also editor of the journal Awraq.
FromA BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014) –available from Barnes & Noble.
Blockaded street in Hebron, preventing Palestinians from entering area controlled by Israeli illegal settlers, with Israeli soldiers guarding above. (Photo: Harold Knight, Nov. 15, 2015)
❶ Hebron is the next Israeli-Palestinian fight at UNESCO
Background: “Settler-Colonialism, Memoricide and Indigenous Toponymic Memory: The Appropriation of Palestinian Place Names by the Israeli State.” Journal of Holy Land & Palestine Studies
❷ Palestinian fires at Israeli soldiers during Jenin raid to remove memorial
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Israeli settlers change name of Damascus Gate-area street to ‘honor Israeli soldiers’
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) Europeans for Jerusalem warns of Israel’s practices in holy city
❸ Knesset begins deliberations on bill to cut funds to PA over ‘martyrs’ social program
❹ POETRY by Zuhair Abu Shaib
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ❶ HEBRON IS THE NEXT ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN FIGHT AT UNESCO +972 Blog
Yonathan Mizrachi
June 29, 2017. In recent years, every time UNESCO convenes to discuss world heritage sites, Israel-Palestine is in the limelight. Usually, tensions center around the Old City of Jerusalem, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Danger in 1982. Recently, however, the Israeli Foreign Ministry began a campaign against the Palestinian nomination of the city of Hebron as a World Heritage Site. Though Hebron is not Jerusalem, Israel’s claims to the place sound pretty much the same: a national and religious connection to the Cave of the Patriarchs which is based on the city’s status as a sacred site from Biblical times. Names such as Abraham and King David — who made Hebron his first capital for seven years before conquering Jerusalem — are proclaimed in connection to the city with requisite pathos.
___The discussion about recognizing Hebron as a World Heritage Site will take place during the meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Krakow, Poland from July 2 to 12. The Palestinians propose recognizing the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Hebron as a World Heritage Site because of the city’s rich 6,000 year-old history. Like the Israelis, the Palestinians also revere the tombs of the Matriarchs and the Patriarchs — Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah. They note that the present structure of the Cave of the Patriarchs dates to the time of Herod — a tradition accepted by all sides, but that is yet to be verified by archeologists. MORE . . .POSTED HERE Israel refuses entry to UNESCO group expected to visit Hebron’s Old City June 26, 2017
Masalha, Nur. “Settler-Colonialism, Memoricide and Indigenous Toponymic Memory: The Appropriation of Palestinian Place Names by the Israeli State.” Journal of Holy Land & Palestine Studies, vol. 14, no. 1, May 2015, pp. 3-57.
Cartography and toponymy – the term derives from the Greek words topos (‘place’) and onoma (‘name’) – were central to European empire building in the nineteenth century. Place names (including human settlements such as villages, towns, cities, streets and countries and natural places such as mountains, hills, valleys, rivers, springs, and wadis) are meant ‘to provide clues as to the historical and cultural heritage of places and regions’. Yet in reality place names are not just spatial references; they are rooted in power relations and struggles over land and resources and the identities of the people that inhabit these places.
[. . . .] Since the rise of the Zionist settler movement in the late nineteenth century, and especially since the establishment of Israel in 1948, the struggle over toponymic memory and the renaming of sites has developed as an integral part of the political conflict in Palestine. The indigenous Palestinians have insisted on their own comprehensive set of Arabic place names through which they see their own social memory and deep-rootedness in the land of Palestine. On the other hand, since the ethnic cleansing of the 1948 Nakba and the creation of the Israeli state, a large number of Palestinian Arabic place names have been Judaised, Hebrewised. Indeed since 1948 the Israeli army and Israeli state have sought to rename systematically Palestinian Arabic place names, claiming priority in chronology and using modern archaeology, map-making, and place names as their proofs of Jewish roots in ‘the land of Israel’. In Israel the significance of place names lies in their potential to legitimize ‘historical claims’ asserted by the Zionist settler-colonial movement. FULL ARTICLE . . .
❷ PALESTINIAN FIRES AT ISRAELI SOLDIERS DURING JENIN RAID TO REMOVE MEMORIAL Ma’an News Agency
June 30, 2017. An armed Palestinian opened fire on Israeli forces carrying out a raid in the northern occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Friday, causing no injuries.
___An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an that a Palestinian shot towards Israeli soldiers during a dawn raid in Jenin, before dropping his weapon and fleeing.
___No Israelis were injured in the incident, the spokesperson said, adding that the army recovered the weapon on the scene.
___The spokesperson added that the soldiers were targeted as they were undertaking an operation to remove a memorial stone commemorating Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) leader Khalid Nazzal. MORE . . .
Five fully armed Israeli soldiers detaining and searching a lone Palestinian young man, outside Damascus Gate (Photo: Harold Knight, Nov. 12, 2015)
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) ISRAELI SETTLERS CHANGE NAME OF DAMASCUS GATE-AREA STREET TO ‘HONOR ISRAELI SOLDIERS’ Ma’an News Agency
June 23, 2017. A group of Israeli settlers escorted by Israeli police and border police forces changed the name of the Damascus Gate-area Sultan Suleiman Street in occupied East Jerusalem to Heroines Street, “in commemoration of killed Israeli soldiers.” ___Hebrew-language media sites reported on Friday that a group of Israeli settlers under the protection of Israeli forces changed the name of the Damascus Gate-area street, in commemoration of two Israeli soldiers who were killed in shooting and stabbing attacks near Damascus Gate — including 23-year old Hadas Malka, an Israeli police officer who, along with three Palestinian assailants, was killed last week at the gate’s entrance.
___Israeli settlers, police and border guards lit candles at the site before putting a sign reading “Heroines Street” in Hebrew, Arabic and English over the original street sign, which read Sultan Suleiman Street. MORE. . . . . . . . ❷ ― (ᴃ) EUROPEANS FOR JERUSALEM WARNS OF ISRAEL’S PRACTICES IN HOLY CITY Al Hourriah Magazine (Freedom)
June 21, 2017. Europeans for Jerusalem foundation has warned against Israel’s persistence in its serious practices in Occupied Jerusalem in general and at the Aqsa Mosque in particular.
___In a statement, Europeans for Jerusalem described the exposure of the holy city in general and the Aqsa Mosque in particular to direct targeting, break-ins, desecration and assaults on worshipers under police protection as “a threat to regional stability.”
___The foundation voiced deep concern about acts of desecration and sabotage which Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque are being exposed to . . . MORE . . . FOUNDATION . . . ❸ KNESSET BEGINS DELIBERATIONS ON BILL TO CUT FUNDS TO PA OVER ‘MARTYRS’ SOCIAL PROGRAM Ma’an News Agency
June 29, 2017. Israel’s parliamentary foreign affairs and defense committee began discussing on Wednesday a bill aimed at slashing tax transfers to the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) over its controversial “martyrs” compensation program, which provides financial support to Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, their families, and for relatives of those who have been killed by Israeli forces — whether during attacks against Israelis or in situations void of wrongdoing.
___The bill, which would see the Israeli government cut an estimated 1 billion shekels ($280 million) in tax transfers to the PA each year, was approved for a preliminary reading in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, earlier this month.
___Israel collects an estimated $2.1 billion in taxes yearly on behalf of the PA, according to a 2015 report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), representing three quarters of the PA’s revenue.
___Israel has regularly withheld transferring taxes to apply pressure on the Palestinian government, despite rights groups saying such punitive measures amount to “collective punishment.” MORE . . .
“NAME OF THE SOIL,” BY ZUHAIR ABU SHAIB
what is its name?
what is the name of the soil
that falls from my withered body?
what is its name as it drifts and gathers
under my clothes
while, slowly, I build wall after wall?
I picture a sky full of clouds
I see it as I wish it to be
when night falls, I gulp my fill of springs
in darkness I lift my latch
to wise men
I ask my guests
who imprisoned the soul in rock?
who left prophets spread-eagled on doorsteps?
who risks everything to capture the earth?
a man who does not know his own shadow
what can I call this rug of soil?
is it my country or the source of my exile?
is it my miracle or my cross?
what is its name?
――Translated by Tom Pow
Zuhair Abu Shaib was born in Deir al-Ghusun, a town near the city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank and studied at Yarmouk University. He was a teacher and journalist in Yemen, and a book designer. He was also editor of the journal Awraq.
FromA BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014) –available from Barnes & Noble.
An Overview of Nof Zion Neighborhood (Photo: ARIJ, in POICA.com)
❶ Israel to build synagogue and plunge pool on Palestinian lands
Background from Global Business & Development Law Journal (University of the Pacific)
❷ Israel admits to confiscating privately owned Palestinian lands ‘by mistake’
❸ Opinion/Analysis: Interview with Khalida Jarrar, Prominent Palestinian Activist and Parliamentary Member, After her Release from Prison
❹ POETRY by Zuhair Abu Shaib ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ❶ ISRAEL TO BUILD SYNAGOGUE AND PLUNGE POOL ON PALESTINIAN LANDS Alray-Palestinian Media Agency
Aug. 10, 2016
The so-called Committee for planning and construction in the municipality of Jerusalem is scheduled to discuss, on Wednesday, a plan to confiscate lands from the Mount Scopus Jerusalemite neighborhood, for the construction of synagogues and a plunge pool.
___The synagogues and plunger pool are planned to be constructed in the settlement neighborhood of “Nof Zion”. The area of land that will be forfeited is 1.2 dunums, while 90 families live in the neighborhood surrounded by the Mount Scopus neighborhood. MORE . . . HISTORY OF Nof Zion Settlement
From Global Business & Development Law Journal (University of the Pacific)
Watts, Bianca. “Better Than A Thousand Hollow Words Is One Word That Brings Peace: Enforcing Article 49(6) Of The Fourth Geneva Convention Against Israeli Settlements In The Occupied Palestinian Territory.” Global Business & Development Law Journal 24.1 (2011): 443-472. [See footnotes below poetry]
Israel first inquired about the legality of settling in the OPT, specifically the West Bank and the Golan Heights, in the fall of 1967. 28 On September 18, 1967, Israeli Foreign Ministry Officials received a top-secret memo that settlement in the West Bank and Golan Heights would violate Article 49(6). 29 Israeli officials were advised that the prohibition of settlements under Article 49(6) was categorical, unconditional, and aimed at preventing colonization of a conquered territory by the conquering state. 30 This memo confirmed that Israeli officials knew that building settlements in the OPT violated international law prior to beginning settlement construction. 31 Yet, despite the memo’s unequivocal warning that settlements violated the Geneva IV, Israel forged ahead with plans that resulted in the settlement enterprise we see today.
___A key substantive principle of the international law of belligerent occupation, which finds influence in the Geneva IV, is that belligerent occupation is temporary. 32 This principle is based on the fact that prolonged occupations negatively impact the occupied community. 33 The risks of stagnation, impoverishment, and the “backwardness” of the occupied community all follow prolonged occupations. 34 Scholars argue that “the longer an occupation continues, the more difficult it is to ensure effective compliance with the Geneva IV.” 35 [. . . . ]
Security Council Resolution 465 also confirmed the applicability of the Geneva IV to the OPT. 41 In this resolution, the Council stated that all measures taken by Israel since 1967 to change the physical and demographic composition of the OPT had no legal validity. 42 It further noted that Israel’s policy of settling its population and new immigrants in the OPT constituted a “flagrant violation” of the Geneva IV, 43 and asked that no state provide any assistance to Israel in connection with the settlements in the OPT. 44 ___This resolution is particularly significant because it marks the first Security Council resolution where the United States joined in criticizing Israel. 45 But just two days later, the United States declared that it had intended to abstain, and that its vote in favor of Resolution 465 was the result of a miscommunication. 46 The United States has assisted, and continues to assist, Israel in connection with the settlements by providing economic and military aid. 47
❷ ISRAEL ADMITS TO CONFISCATING PRIVATELY OWNED PALESTINIAN LANDS ‘BY MISTAKE’ Ma’an News Agency
Aug. 10, 201
The state of Israel admitted to the Israeli Supreme Court that they had expropriated privately held Palestinian land for the construction of the Ofra settlement in the north of the occupied West Bank district of Ramallah, according to Israeli media.
___Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Wednesday that the state admitted that it had “mistakenly expropriated” 45 dunums (11 acres) of land privately owned by Palestinians, and claimed the expropriated land would be returned to their Palestinian owners.
___Last year, the court ordered the demolition of nine already populated Jewish homes in the Ofer settlement on the grounds that the lands were privately held by Palestinians. MORE . . .BACKROUNDFROM B’TSELEM
Houses in the settlement of Ofra, with the village of ‘Ein Yabrud, Ramallah district, in the background, July 18, 2013. (Photo: REUTERS/Baz Ratner)
❸ Opinion/Analysis: INTERVIEW WITH KHALIDA JARRAR, PROMINENT PALESTINIAN ACTIVIST AND PARLIAMENTARY MEMBER, AFTER HER RELEASE FROM PRISON Jadaliyya (Arab Studies Institute)
Noura Erakat
Aug. 8, 2016
Khalida Jarrar is a longtime Palestinian activist, feminist, and leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). She served as the Director of the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association between 1993 and 2005 and has been a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) since 2006 . . .
___In 2014, the Israeli military ordered that Jarrar move from her home in Ramallah to Jericho. . . . The deportation order is on its face, violative of [the Oslo Accords]. In response, Jarrar staged a month long sit-in in front of the PLC offices in Ramallah and . . . successfully overturned the military order.
___On 2 April 2015, Israeli military forces arrested Jarrar in a pre-dawn raid where they forcibly removed her from her home. . . . She accepted a plea bargain whereby she would serve a fifteen-month sentence and pay a 10,000 NIS fine (~2,600 USD) for being a member of the PFLP and incitement. MORE . . .
“NAME OF THE SOIL,” BY ZUHAIR ABU SHAIB
what is its name?
what is the name of the soil
that falls from my withered body?
what is its name as it drifts and gathers
under my clothes
while, slowly, I build wall after wall?
I picture a sky full of clouds
I see it as I wish it to be
when night falls, I gulp my fill of springs
in darkness I lift my latch
to wise men
I ask my guests
who imprisoned the soul in rock?
who left prophets spread-eagled on doorsteps?
who risks everything to capture the earth?
a man who does not know his own shadow
what can I call this rug of soil?
is it my country or the source of my exile?
is it my miracle or my cross?
what is its name?
――Translated by Tom Pow
Zuhair Abu Shaib was born in Deir al-Ghusun, a town near the city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank. and studied at Yarmouk University. He was a teacher and journalist in Yemen, and a book designer. He was also editor of the journal Awraq.
FromA BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014) –available from Barnes & Noble.
Footnotes for Watts article
See GERSHAM GORENBERG, THE ACCIDENTAL EMPIRE: ISRAEL AND THE BIRTH OF SETTLEMENTS, 1967-1977, at 99-100 (2006).
29.Theodor Meron, Legal Council of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, advised the Prime Minister’s PoliticalSecretary that “civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” Id. at 99-100.
Id.
Id.
Imseis, supra note 5, at 91.
Id.
Special Rapporteur of the Comm’n on Human Rights, Rep. on the Situation of Human Rights in thePalestinian Territories Occupied by Israel Since 1967, Comm’n on Human Rights, ¶¶ 3, 11, 18, U.N. Doc.41. S.C. Res. 465, ¶ 5, U.N. Doc. S/RES/465 (Mar. 1, 1980). The Security Council is the organ responsible for maintaining international peace and security. It determines the existence of threats to international peace and security, and recommends what action should be taken in response to those threats. One of its key powers is that it can take military action against an aggressor state should it determine that that state proposes a threat to international peace and security. See generally U.N. Charter chs. V, VII (for a detailed discussion of the functions and powers of the Security Council).
See MADIHA RASHID AL MADFAI, JORDAN, THE UNITED STATES AND THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS 1974-1991, at 111 (1993).
Id. at 112.
See U.S. Census Bureau, The 2010 Statistical Abstract 29 tbl.1263 (2010), available http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s1263.pdf (outlining statistical information of foreign economic and military aid received from the United States).
Wall in Bethlehem (Photo: By Michaela Whitten, Nov. 26, 2014)
❶ PLO condemns international complicity on 12th anniversary of ICJ ruling on Israel’s separation wall
background from Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture
❷ Jordanian Government Rejects Israeli Settlement Policies in Occupied West Bank
❸ Palestinians, International Peace Activists, Hold Weekly Protest In Bil’in
background from Social Movement Studies
❹ POETRY by Zuhair Abu Shaib
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ❶ PLO CONDEMNS INTERNATIONAL COMPLICITY ON 12TH ANNIVERSARY OF ICJ RULING ON ISRAEL’S SEPARATION WALL Ma’an News Agency
July 9, 2016
The 12th anniversary of a decision by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that deemed Israel’s separation wall illegal under international law was marked on Saturday, as the PLO released a statement criticizing the international community for their complicity in Israel’s continued annexation of the Palestinian territory.
___The ICJ issued an advisory opinion in 2004 stating that the wall was illegal under international law and its construction must stop immediately, adding that reparations should be paid to Palestinians whose properties were damaged as a result of the construction.
___Twelve years later, the construction of the wall has continued unabated . . . MORE . .
From Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture
The Wall powerfully reveals the current geopolitics in the West Bank as it has created a Kafkaesque reality that challenges the sustainability of its natural and built environment. It is a constituent part of “the matrix of control” that established enduring “facts on the ground”. The “matrix of control” extends under, on and above ground, constituting “a vertical occupation.” This “politics of verticality” has fragmented the Palestinian environment, giving Israel control not only of large parts of West Bank territories (while the Palestinian Authority controls only isolated territorial islands), but of the air space above and the subterranean sphere beneath, including water aquifers. The Wall is also part of an extensive “Western Segregation Zone” that extends beyond the Green Line — the 1949 armistice line and penetrates up to 22 kilometers into the West Bank. This “seam zone the area trapped between the Green Line and the wall — represents 9.9% of the West Bank territory. The “Western Segregation Zone” is mirrored on the Eastern side of the West Bank, where an “Eastern Segregation Zone” is de facto established through a web of military checkpoints and physical obstructions, which include 29.4% of the West Bank.
Leuenberger, Christine, and Ahmad El-Atrash. “Mosquitoes Don’t Carry Visas:Walls, Environments And The Hope For Cooperation In Palestine/Israel.” Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture 19/20.4/1 (2014): 68-78.
❷ JORDANIAN GOVERNMENT REJECTS ISRAELI SETTLEMENT POLICIES IN OCCUPIED WEST BANK Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
July 8, 2016
The Jordanian government expressed its utmost rejection to the Israeli government’s settlement policies and repetitive decisions to build and expand [illegal] settlements in the occupied West Bank, according to Jordan’s news agency, Petra.
___The Jordanian government’s spokesperson, Mohammad al-Momani, said these Israeli policies Constitute an assault on the Palestinian territories and the rights of the Palestinian people. MORE . . .
❸ PALESTINIANS, INTERNATIONAL PEACE ACTIVISTS, HOLD WEEKLY PROTEST IN BIL’IN International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC
July 9, 2016
Dozens of Palestinians, Israeli and international peace activist participated, Friday, in the weekly nonviolent protest against the illegal Israeli Annexation Wall and colonies, in the village of Bil’in, west of the central West Bank city of Ramallah.
___Members of the Italian Parliament and activists from The Netherlands visited the village and participated in the weekly nonviolent protest.
___The Popular Committee against the Wall and Colonies in Bil’in has reported that the protesters raised Palestinian flags and marched chanting for national unity, steadfastness, the liberation of Palestine and the release of all political prisoners. MORE . . .
From Social Movement Studies
This was, and still is to the Palestinians involved, about the survival of their communities and their way of life, it is a social struggle as much as apolitical one. . . It is of course linked into the wider struggle against the occupation more generally in the rhetoric used by many Palestinians from the villages, yet what is clear is the primary goal of saving their land from the bulldozers and the route of the separation Wall. It is also of fundamental importance that the struggle is led by the Palestinians and predicated on practices of solidarity . . . . Also what was, and remains most notable, is the lack of institutionalisation of the struggle. While the villagers appeal to the authorities to stop building the Wall, they know that this is futile. They have been radicalised by years of being ignored, therefore, they have decided to undertake direct action facilitated by the presence of the Israelis . . . to force the authorities to stop building the separation Wall. They also undertake this direct action as they know that the authorities to whom they would appeal in a traditional hegemonic, hierarchical relationship are manifold. This is especially true in the village of Bil’in, the villagers have been struggling for three years against the Wall in a situation that is inextricably linked with the expansion of the neighbouring settlement Modi’in Illit. Thus, other interests . . . are all involved in the subjugation and oppression of the people of Bil’in. Claims cannot be made to all of these interests and so direct action becomes the tactical choice.
Pallister-Wilkins, Polly. “Radical Ground: Israeli And Palestinian Activists And Joint Protest Against The Wall.” Social Movement Studies 8.4 (2009): 393-407.
Weekly demonstration in Bil’in West of Ramallah continued on April 20, 2014. (Photo: hamde abu rahma)
“NAME OF THE SOIL,” BY ZUHAIR ABU SHAIB
what is its name?
what is the name of the soil
that falls from my withered body?
what is its name as it drifts and gathers
under my clothes
while, slowly, I build wall after wall?
I picture a sky full of clouds
I see it as I wish it to be
when night falls, I gulp my fill of springs
in darkness I lift my latch
to wise men
I ask my guests
who imprisoned the soul in rock?
who left prophets spread-eagled on doorsteps?
who risks everything to capture the earth?
a man who does not know his own shadow
what can I call this rug of soil?
is it my country or the source of my exile?
is it my miracle or my cross?
what is its name?
――Translated by Tom Pow
Zuhair Abu Shaib was born in Deir al-Ghusun, a town near the city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank. and studied at Yarmouk University. He was a teacher and journalist in Yemen, and a book designer. He was also editor of the journal Awraq.
From A BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014) –available from Barnes & Noble.
Israel imposes travel ban on BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti (Photo: Electronic Intifada, Intal/Flickr, May 10, 2016)
❶ Many Injured As Israeli Soldiers Attack The Weekly Protest In Kufur Qaddoum
❷ Senior Israeli minister: Make BDS activists in Israel ‘pay a price’
. . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Viet Thanh Nguyen, 2016 Pulitzer Prize winner, endorses academic and cultural boycott of Israel
❸ Opinion/Analysis: BDS: DISCUSSING DIFFICULT ISSUES IN A FAST-GROWING MOVEMENT. INTERVIEW WITH OMAR BARGHOUTI
❹ POETRY by Zuhair Abu Shaib
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ❶ MANY INJURED AS ISRAELI SOLDIERS ATTACK THE WEEKLY PROTEST IN KUFUR QADDOUM International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC
June 18, 2016
Israeli soldiers attacked, on Friday, the weekly protest in Kufur Qaddoum town, in the northern West Bank district of Qalqilia, and fired gas bombs at the protesters and homes, causing scores of residents to suffer the effects of tear gas inhalation.
___Media coordinator of the Popular Committee in Kufur Qaddoum Morad Eshteiwy said several military vehicles invaded the town from various directions, before the soldiers stormed homes. MORE . . .
❷ SENIOR ISRAELI MINISTER: MAKE BDS ACTIVISTS IN ISRAEL ‘PAY A PRICE’ +972 Magazine
Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man
June 16, 2016
Israeli Public Security, Strategic Affairs and Information Minister Gilad Erdan says that BDS advocates inside Israel must be made to pay a price and that he is working to create legislation that would do just that.
___“The message has to be that it’s not worth being a BDS activist,” the minister said at a panel on BDS at the Herzliya Conference on Thursday. “Anybody who works to delegitimize Israel, to bring an end to the Zionist enterprise, they should know that there will be a price.” MORE . . . RELATED. . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) VIET THANH NGUYEN, 2016 PULITZER PRIZE WINNER, ENDORSES ACADEMIC AND CULTURAL BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL MORE. . .
IMAGINE MY SURPRISE. For decades I have passively endured ritualistic sneering about the irrelevance of nerdy scholars in ivory towers . . . . Then, on December 16, 2013, the membership of . . . the American Studies Association (ASA), ratified a convention resolution to participate in an “academic boycott” of Israeli universities to bring to light discrimination against Palestinians. Starting with headlines in the New York Times and Washington and Washington Post the ASA decree became the vote heard round the world. . . .
[. . . .] Raging tantrums over the boycott haven’t been confined to the Right, either. Michael Kazin, a specialist on U.S. radicalism and editor of Dissent, decried the ASA proposal as “idiotic” . . . while the Chair of American Studies at Brandeis University . . . ranted on the History News Network that the ASA “has completely gone off its rocker” with its “boneheaded boycott.”
[. . . .] What readers of the mainstream press may gain from the calibrated verbal assaults of the anti-ASA scholars . . . is a lesson in how not to read texts; their “interpretations” of the ASA position provide repeated demonstrations of the use of language to obscure inconvenient truths from oneself as well as others.
Wald, Alan. “In Defense Of The ASA.” AGAINST THE CURRENT 39.1 (2014): 7-14. Alan M. Wald is the H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor of English Literature and American Culture at the University of Michigan. ARTICLE.
❸ Opinion/Analysis: BDS: DISCUSSING DIFFICULT ISSUES IN A FAST-GROWING MOVEMENT. INTERVIEW WITH WITH OMAR BARGHOUTI Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network.
June 14, 2016
Israel’s attacks on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and other human rights defenders living under occupation, such as Al Haq staff, have dominated the headlines in recent weeks, including the direct threats made by leading Israeli officials against BDS activists and in particular against the movement’s co-founder Omar Barghouti.
___Beyond the headlines, the work goes on [. . . .]
___Barghouti: “BDS of course recognizes that there are other strategies and approaches; we’re just saying that we chose to focus on the rights, not the solutions, because for any political solution – determined by the majority of Palestinians everywhere – to be just, comprehensive and sustainable it must accommodate our rights under international law. Moreover, to be effective you need to have something close to a Palestinian consensus, and to achieve that we had to stick to the most principled and strategic lowest common denominator, to the most significant and least controversial goals of the Palestinian people that hardly anyone can object to: Ending the 1967 occupation, ending the system of apartheid, and fulfilling the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homes and properties from which they were ethnically cleansed during and since the Nakba. And we adhere to these rights strictly.” MORE . . .
“NAME OF THE SOIL,” BY ZUHAIR ABU SHAIB
what is its name?
what is the name of the soil
that falls from my withered body?
what is its name as it drifts and gathers
under my clothes
while, slowly, I build wall after wall?
I picture a sky full of clouds
I see it as I wish it to be
when night falls, I gulp my fill of springs
in darkness I lift my latch
to wise men
I ask my guests
who imprisoned the soul in rock?
who left prophets spread-eagled on doorsteps?
who risks everything to capture the earth?
a man who does not know his own shadow
what can I call this rug of soil?
is it my country or the source of my exile?
is it my miracle or my cross?
what is its name?
―Translated by Tom Pow
Zuhair Abu Shaib was born in Deir al-Ghusun, a town near the city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank. and studied at Yarmouk University. He was a teacher and journalist in Yemen, and a book designer. He was also editor of the journal Awraq.
From A BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014) –available from Barnes & Noble.
Palestine InSight 