Швейцарският политик Daniel Streich, който стана известен с кампанията си срещу минаретата на джамиите, прае Исляма.
Член на Швейцарската народна партия (SVP) и добре познат политик, Daniel Streich беше първият човек, който предприе инициатива за налагане на забрана на минаретата и за затваряне на джамиите в Швейцария.
Оповестяването на приемането на Исляма от Streich е предизвикало фурор сред политическите среди на Швейцария и е шокирало подкрепилите забрана за строителство на минарета.
Стрейч води анти-ислямска пропаганда надлъж и нашир в страната, пося сред хората семената на недоволство и презрение спрямо Исляма и прокара път на общественото мнение срещу ислямските проповеди и минаретата на джамиите.
Сега обаче Streich става войник на Исляма. Неговите анти-ислямски убеждения накрая до такава степен го доближиха до тази религия, че той прегърна Исляма. Той се срамува от делата си и сега иска да построи в Швейцария най-красивата джамия на Европа.
Най-интересното нещо в случая е, че в момента в Швейцария има четири джамии и Стрейч иска да положи основите на петата. Той иска да потърси опрощение на греха си за разпространението на ненавист срещу Исляма. В момента обмисля да организира кампания, противоположна на предишната си, за насърчаване на религиозната толерантност и мирното съжителство, независимо от факта, че забраната за минарета вече е придобила законов статут.
Това е най-голямата характерна черта на Исляма - че се възвръща с още по-голяма сила, когато е бил изправен пред сблъсък.
Абдул Мажиид Алдаи, президентът на OPI, неправителствена организация, работеща за благото на мюсюлманите, казва, че европейците имат голямо желание да научат за Исляма. Някои от тях искат да знаят за връзката между Исляма и тероризма; такъв беше и случаят със Streich.
По време на споровете, Streich детайлно се запознал със Свещения Коран и започнал да разбира Исляма.
"Искаше да бъде безмилостен към Исляма, но резултатът беше друг" добави Алдаи.
Въпросът за забрана на минаретата неотдавна бе поставен на референдум в Швейцария, при което швейцарските граждани му придадоха правен статут.

Important Two-Part PowerPoint Presentation About Al-Awda's Work

An important two-part PowerPoint presentation has just been posted to Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition's website (http://al-awda.org). The first part of the presentation provides a brief review of Al-Awda's work in the U.S. educating, advocating and organizing since the founding of the organization in 2000. The second part of the presentation provides a report about the work Al-Awda has been doing with regard to Palestinian refugees arriving in the U.S. from Iraq.

PowerPoint Part 1: http://www.al-awda.org/web1.ppt
Review of Al-Awda Education, Advocacy and Organizing - The Past Ten Years

PowerPoint Part 2: http://www.al-awda.org/web2.ppt
Refugee Support Program - Palestinians Arriving in the U.S. from Iraq

Both of these presentations will be updated further over the next few weeks.

To support and become a member of Al-Awda, please go to http://www.al-awda.org/membership.html and follow the instructions

Until Return,

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-918-9441
Fax: 760-918-9442
E-mail: info@al-awda.org
WWW: http://al-awda.org

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC) is dedicated to advocacy for the restoration of all Palestinian human, national, legal, political and historical rights in full with particular emphasis on the right of Palestinians to return to their homes and lands of origin from which they have been dispossessed since 1948. PRRC is a not for profit tax-exempt educational and charitable 501(c)(3) organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States of America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations to PRRC are tax-deductible. To donate, please go to http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the instructions.

Support your cause!

В Лондон бе открита изложба на тема "Приносът на Исляма за науката"

В столицата на Великобритания Лондон бе открита изложба на тема "Приносът на Исляма за науката".
Сред изложените експонати в Музея на Науката в Лондон са много непознати досега открития на ислямски учени от периода 7-16ти век.
Един от най-интересните експонати е макет на проектирания през 13ти век Слонски Часовник.
Също така голям интерес предизвиква и триметрово копие на начертана през 12ти век от ислямския пътешественик Мухаммед Ел Идриси географска карта.
След Лондон, изложбата целяща по-доброто представяне на исклямската религия, ще бъде открите и в други градове в Европа.

Конференция за Палестина в Уганда...

Председателят на ВНСТ Мехмед Али Шахин отправи от Уганда важни послания във връзка с палестинския проблем.
В изявлението, което направи от Уганда където се намира за участие в заседанието на Парламентарния Съюз на организацията Ислямска Конференция, председателят на ВНСТ Мехмед Али Шахин подчерта, че Турция ще продължи да изразява позициите си по палестинския проблем.
Палестинският проблем е главна тема на заседанието и се водят преговори за възприемането на съвместна позиция относно военните престъпления на Израел в Ивицата Газа.
Мехмед Али Шахин отбеляза, че Туpция винаги е оказвала подкрепа на преговорите между Израел и Палестина и искат проблемът да бъде разрешен чрез основаването на независима палестинска държава със столица Източен Ерусалим.
В словото си Мехмед Али Шахин засегна и кипърския проблем и подчерта, че не кипърските турци, а кипърските гърци са отговорни за неразрешаването на проблема и че проблемът ще се разреши въз основа на параметрите на ООН и на платформата на ООН.
След приключването днес на конференцияата, ще бъде публикувана съвместна декларация във връзка с палестинския проблем.

Шведски политик - Daniel Streich, върл противник на минаретата, прие Ислям

RENOWNED Swiss politician Daniel Streich, who rose to fame for his campaign against minarets of mosques, has embraced Islam.
A member of the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) and a well-known politician, Daniel Streich was the first man who had launched a drive for imposition of ban on mosques minarets, and to lock the mosques in Switzerland. The proclamation of Streich’s conversion to Islam has created furore in Swiss politics, besides causing a tremor for those who supported ban on construction of mosques minarets.
Streich propagated his anti-Islamic movement far and wide in the country, sowed seeds of indignation and scorn for Islam among the people, and paved way for public opinion against pulpits and minarets of mosques.
But now Streich has become a soldier of Islam. His anti-Islam thoughts finally brought him so close to this religion that he embraced Islam. He is ashamed of his doings now and desires to construct the most beautiful mosque of Europe in Switzerland.
The most interesting thing in this regard is that at present there are four mosques in Switzerland and Streich wants to lay the foundation for the fifth one. He wishes to seek absolution of his sin of proliferating venom against Islam. He is thinking of a movement contrary to his previous one to promote religious tolerance and peaceful cooperative living, in spite of the fact that ban on mosques minarets has gained a legal status.
This is the greatest quality of Islam that it comes up with even greater vigour, when it is faced with confrontation.
Abdul Majeed Aldai, the president of OPI, an NGO, working for the welfare of Muslims, says that Europeans have a great desire to know about Islam. Some of them want to know about the relationship between Islam and terrorism; same was the case with Streich.
During his confrontation, Streich studied the Holy Quran and started understanding Islam.
He wished to be hard to Islam, but the outcome was otherwise. Aldai further says.
Recently the question of ban on minarets was put to voting in Switzerland, wherein the Swiss nationals gave the issue a legal status.

Газа - хуманитарната катастрофа 1 година след войната

Тъй като някои читатели ме помолиха, тук пускам кратък обзор от конференцията, която се проведе на 21-ви този месец с тема за последствията от войната в Газа.

Британската журналистка Ивон Ридли не можа да присъства, както и парламентаристът Джордж Галоуей, който в същия ден имаше ангажимент в Брюксел.
Сред аудиторията бяха български политици, финансисти, чужди дипломати от поне няколко страни.
Като гост-лектор участие взе равин Давид Вайс, председател на еврейското ортодоксално движение "Нетурей карта".
Той направи пространно изложение, в което обясни защо неговата ортодоксална еврейска организация се противопоставя на съществуването на държавата Израел. Спроде мен, ключови бяха две негови твърдения - създаването на Израел не е изпълнение на написанато в юдейските свещени книги, тъй като създаването на държавата трябва да бъде след идването на Месията; на следващо място - връзката между мястото на съществуване на държавата и божествените повели не е така пряка, както някои опитват да ни убедят.
В общи линии, речта му съдържаше редица дискусионни моменти и интересни гледни точки, но ще си позволя да не я представям в цялост.
Като гост-лектор журналистът Ангел Григоров сподели свои наблюдения и мисли върху българското медийно отразяване на конфликта, като маркира до болка познатите проблеми - липса на достатъчно хора, които да имат съответната езикова подготовка и да четат по-редките езици; липса на кореспонденти на място, поради финансов недостиг, което води до превеждането на материали от големите западни агенции, като опасен синдром у нас е наблюдаванотот нерядко предоверяване на даден източник, само защото е западен. За съжаление, пространните обяснения на рави Вайс не оставиха много време и не можахме да чуем пълния текст на подготвения от А. Григоров материал.
Иранският посланик в София с няколко думи сподели, че 18 януари, денят в който войната приключи, е обявен от парламента на Иран за ден за почит към жертвите на въоръжения конфликт.
Кратко експозе като човек, посещавал Газа, направи д-р Петър Берон. В него той описа хуманитарната криза, която е видял с очите си.
Аз също имах възможност да кажа няколко думи.
Акцентирах върху нуждата от завръщане на светската логика на международното публично право. За решаването на израело-палестинския конфликт трябва да прибегнем да резолюциите на Съвета за сигурност на ООН и другите главни органи на световната организация. Смятам, че са безпочвени обвиненията, че тя действа като пропалестинска организация, тъй като има множество резолюции на Общото събрание, осъждащи действията на Израел, които резолюции са приети с по 150-180 гласа (т. е. целият свят) срещу най-често 2 гласа - САЩ и Израел. Понякога на тяхна страна застават и някои зависими от САЩ страни като Палау, Микронезия или Доминиканската република.
Всичко това показва огромно съгласие сред международната общност, за което гласовете на 22-те арабски и петдесетината мюсюлмански страни (да не говорим, че повечето от тях са верни съюзници на Запада) просто не са достатъчни.
По-долу си позволявам да ви предложа пълния текст на изказването, което бях подготвил, но времето не стигна, за да го чета цялото.


С монотонност се повтаря, че вследствие на израелската война срещу Газа загинаха над 1400 души, почти 400 от тях деца. Ранените бяха 5500. Единствено мъка и съжаление могат да изпълнят сърцата ни, ако опитаме реално да вникнем зад тези ужасяващи цифри.
Материалните щети също стряскат с мащаба си - 4000 сгради бяха напълно разрушени, а поне 12 000 – сериозно повредени. От 640-те училища в Газа, 18 са били напълно разрушени, а 280 са били частично засегнати от израелските удари. От 122 здравни служби, признати от Световната здравна организация, 48% са били унищожени или са били засегнати.
Това даде основние на редица анализатори да заговорят за повторение на доктрината „Дахия” – тя беше приложена през 2006 г. в южния квартал на Бейрут, където се намираше щабът на Хизбула. Доктрината се състои в унищожаването на цял квартал или село, при положение, че някой стреля по Израел оттам.
Според други автори, напр. Ноам Чомски, Израел умишлено е приложил прекомерна жестокост, за да помислят потърпевшите, че врагът им е „полудял”. В подкрепа на това становище се привежда и фактът, че датата и часът на първия израелски въздушен удар съвпаднаха с началото на церемонията по завършване на абсолвентите на Ислямския университет в Газа. Така още в първите минути на бомбардировките броят на жертвите надскочи 225 души.
Икономиката на Газа беше разрушена, условията, в които живее населението са ужасни – режим на електричеството; заради гъстотата на населението и високото строителство, липсата на ток означава и спиране на помпите, които осигуряват вода...
Тежки и дългосрочни са последиците върху здравето на обитателите на Газа - „най-големият затвор на света”, както нарече Ивицата английският писател Джон Бъргър. Рязко нарастна броят на раковите заболявания; съсипването на пречиствателните системи и замърсяването на въздуха причиниха взрив на бъбречни, белодробни и заболявания на стомашно-чревния тракт.
Ако позволите, ще си послужа с думите на Хосе Марти, един от освободителите на Латинска Америка от испанците, че „всеки истински човек трябва лично да почувства на гърба си удара, който друг човек някъде понася.”

За да разберем случилото се, наложително е да се върнем назад във времето.
Подобна ретроспекция ще ни позволи по-прецизно да вникнем в трагичните събития.
Парламентарните избори в Палестина през януари 2006 г. бяха образцово проведени под погледите на журналисти и наблюдатели, които констатираха тяхната демократичност. Израел и САЩ отказаха да признаят резултатите, тъй като ХАМАС беше безспорният победител от тях. По тази причина, през март 2007 г. ХАМАС и ФАТАХ сформираха правителство на националното единство, което изрази готовност да преговаря за дълготрайно примирие и спиране на огъня с Израел (за 20, 30 или даже и 50 години, но в границите на еврейската държава отпреди 5 юни 1967 г.). ХАМАС предложи решението да бъде в съответствие с резолюциите на ООН, което де факто значеше мълчаливото признаване на Израел. Също така, самото 30-годишно примирие означава приpнаване.
Въпреки това, ХАМАС не бяха допуснати до властта, което доведе до сблъсъците през юни 2007 г., след които те установиха контрол над Газа. Израелската блокада над Ивицата се ожесточи.
Професорът по литература от Колумбийския университет в САЩ Едуард Саид описа Газа така: „Това е най-ужасното място, на което някога съм бил. Изключително мрачно място, заради отчаянието и мизерията, в които хората живеят. Не бях подготвен за лагери, които са много по-зле от всичко, което съм видял в Южна Африка”. Джон Дугарт, специален пратеник на ООН за човешките права в Окупираните палестински територии, който е южноафриканец, изказа подобно мнение. Сара Рой, изследовател от Харвард, „най-достойният за доверие авторитет по проблемите на Газа”, говори за „систематичен икономически регрес”.
След като срина икономиката на Газа, след като в нарушение на международното право Израел допуска риболов само на 2 морски мили от брега, израелските власти отказаха и достъп на хуманитарните организации и помощи до Газа. Всичко това беше описано от Дов Вайсглас, адвокат, съветник и началник на кабинета на бившия израелски премиер Ариел Шарон, с арогантната му и цинична забележка, че жителите на Газа са поставени на „диета”. Официалната израелска версия бе, че блокадата ще доведе до недоволство на населението от ХАМАС. Важно е да се отбележи, че блокадата, както и навскякъде, където е прилагана подобна мярка, предизвика рухване на социалния ред и нормалния живот. Обратно на прокламираната си цел, блокадата превърна дори и жителите на Газа, които се противопоставяха на Движението за ислямска съпротива, в зависими от ХАМАС, тъй като за ежедневното си физическо оцеляване жителите бяха принудени да разчитат на разпределяните от властта продоволствие и гориво.
Вече цитираната Сара Рой пише, че всъщност една от главните цели на Израел е да насърчи възприемането на палестинците в Газа само като хуманитарен проблем; като просяци, които нямат политическа идентичност и следователно не могат да имат политически искания.
Циничен момент в израелската политика по отношение на Газа беше, че едновременно с преговорите, довели до подписването на примирието от 19 юни 2008 г., Израел, по признанието на Ехуд Барак, израелският министър на отбраната, операция „Закалено олово” е подготвяна поне 6 месеца преди началото й. Макар че никакво решение не е взето тогава, още на 12 декември 2007 г., т. е. броени дни след мирната конференция в Анаполис, Кабинетът за сигурност на Израел заседава, за да обсъди широкомащабна военна операция в Ивицата, а на 18 януари 2008 г. Израел затваря всички пропускателни пунктове, използвани за доставки на хуманитарна помощ. Всичко това е само месец след международната мирна конференция.
За времето до инвазията Израел създаде Национална дирекция за информация. Според британския вестник „Обзървър” дипломати, групи за натиск, блогове и еврейски асоциации още в началота на войната започнаха да разпространяват получените от тази дирекция грижливо подготвени съобщения: че ХАМАС нарушава условията на споразумението за примирие; че целта на Израел се състои в защита на своето население и че израелските въоръжени сили правят всичко възможно, за да не причиняват щети на цивилни граждани.
Според престижния израелски историк Ави Шлаим: „... все пак, в същността си, тази пропаганда е куп от лъжи.”.
Израелските пи-ари постигнаха редица успехи в разпространяването на тези послания, но все пак световното обществено мнение не беше заблудено.
В статията си „Кой ще спаси Израел от самия него" авторът й Марк Ле Вин изтъква, че дори и дясно-центристки израелски разузнавателни организации признават израелските провокации като причина за конфликта. В доклад от 31 декември 2008 г. на „Информационния център за разузнаване и тероризъм”, озаглавен „Доклад на разузнаването за шестте месеца примирие", се споменава, че „ескалацията и нарушаването на мирното споразумение" са започнали, след като Израел е убил шестима членове на ХАМАС на 4 ноември без никаква провокация и след това, на следващия ден, е поставил цяла Газа под обсада.
Според съвместно проучване, извършено от университета в Тел Авив и европейски университет, това отговаря на модела, според който израелското насилие е причина за прекратяването на 79 % от мирните споразумения след избухването на Втората Интифада (септември 2000 г.), в сравнение със само осемте процента за ХАМАС и други палестински фракции.
Цифрите говорят сами по себе си: за три години след изтеглянето от Газа от ракетен обстрел са загинали 11 израелци, но за трите години от изтеглянето на Израел (2005-2008 г.) израелската армия е убила в Газа 1700 палестинци, включително 222 деца.
Според Б`Целем, израелска правозащитна организация, през 2007 г. 13 израелци са загинали в конфликта, докато броят на палестинците, убити от израелските сили за сигурност, е 384 души!
За пример могат да послужат данни и от Втората интифада (след септ. 2000 г.) - на 16 декември 2001 г. палестинците обявиха пълно прекратяване на огъня. „ХАМАС” и „Ислямски джихад” го спазват. Израелският премиер Шарон иска само 1 седмица примирие, но палестинците прекратяват огъня за 3 седмици (точно 21 дни). За това време обаче израелците убиват 24 палестинци. Друг случай е когато „ХАМАС” прекратиха атентатите за 6 седмици между 4 август и 18 септември 2002 г. Точно в този интервал Израел уби 75 палестинци - мирни, невъоръжени граждани.
В изследването си „Властелините на Земята” израелските автори Идит Зертал и Акива Елдар представят дълъг списък на убийства на палестински активисти, както и други провокации, извършени от Израел, които са били причина за палестински насилствен отговор, включително и атентати.
На 19 юни 2008 г. с посредничеството на Египет представители на ХАМАС и Израел договориха примирие, което предвиждаше три основни точки: спиране на огъня между страните; удължаването му с още няколко месеца за Западния бряг и Израел да вдигне блокадата на граничните пунктове на Газа. Макар насилието чувствително да намаля, Израел не спази условията на споразумението за вдигане на блокадата, като продължи да налага колективни наказания като спиране на електричеството и водата; ограничи достъпа на камиони с гориво, храна, медикаменти и хуманитарни помощи.
Въпреки че 30 жители на Газа бяха убити от израелски огън, а десетки други починаха от блокадата по време на това „прекратяване на огъня”, ХАМАС се стараеше да спазва примирието.
Медийното отразяване на конфликта показваше само „ислямския фундаментализъм”, но факти като писмото на бившия върховен сефарадски равин Мордехай Елиаху до израелския премиер Ехуд Олмерт, в което равинът заявяваше, че няма „никаква духовна забрана да се избиват безразборно мирни граждани по време на евентуална офанзива срещу Газа, целяща да предотврати изстрелването на ракети”, бяха неглижирани.
Борбената Газа винаги е била в челната редица на далите свидни жертви в името на свободата. Жертвите на последната война се вписват и продължават тази дълга редица на мъчениците, дъщери и синове на палестинския народ, пожертвали живота си. Сред тях нека отдадем вечна почит на Мохамад Ал-Асуад - Гевара Газа; на убитите поети Гассан Канафани и Камал Насър; художникът и карикатурист Наджи Али, „Съвестта на революцията”; винаги в сърцата ни остават Омар ал-Касем и Абу Али Мустафа. Да умреш за родината означава да живееш! За да не останат напразни тези жертви, много важни са обединението и помирението между различните палестински фракции и партии в името на голямата цел – реализацията на мечтата за изграждане на свободна, демократична - в която юдеи, християни и мюсюлмани да имат равни права - и независима Палестина, без чужди проконсули, които да определят политиката й. Все още не е намерено оръжие, което да разруши мечтите ни. Докато някой не го открие, ние ще продължаваме да мечтаем, а това означава, че ще продължаваме да побеждаваме.
За разлика от боричкащите се за власт навън, на свобода палестински фракции, най-честните родолюбци - палестинските затворници – дадоха пример и от тъмницата.
Легендарният Маруан Баргути, един от ръководителите на движенията „Ал-Мустакбал” и "Ал-Фатах" на Западния бряг, и Абделхалек ал Наджи от Хамас, подписват прочутия „документ на затворниците” за сътрудничество между двете движения.
Ние знаем, че нямаме оръжията, парите и медийното влияние на олигархията и на Израел. Знаем, че САЩ никога няма да ни дават по 7 милиона долара дневно. Знаем, че никога няма да притежаваме техните „Апачи", танкове „Меркава” или изтребители. Но също така никога няма да спрем или да се откажем от борбата. Защото също така знаем, че ако не действаме, не протестираме и не помагаме, ние ставаме съучастници във всяко убийство, което израелците извършват срещу хора, които се борят против несправедливостта.
В момента на палестинския народ му е нужна солидарност. А солидарността - това е нежността между народите!

Блога на Мариян

Palestinian Authority: Pray our way or else

Mel Frykberg , The Electronic Intifada, 28 January 2010

RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - The Palestinian Authority (PA) is using West Bank mosques as a new battleground in its political offensive against its opponents within Hamas as well as critics from its own Fatah party.

Earlier this month, PA security forces raided several mosques in Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron before assaulting and arresting a number of Friday worshippers.

The confrontations broke out after dozens of worshippers hurled abuse -- in one case shoes were thrown -- at imams reading a prepared sermon attacking critics of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

The sermon, which was authored by the PA's Ministry of Religious Affairs, was given to the imams who were then ordered to read it by PA officials prior to Friday prayers.

The PA has been dictating the imams' speeches for about a year but Friday's controversial sermon followed an attack on Abbas by the Egyptian-born but Qatar-based Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi who is sympathetic to Hamas.

Al-Qaradawi launched his blistering attack on Abbas after an increasing number of foreign and local media reports alleged that the PA president whose term expired last January and has been in power under controversial emergency laws had colluded with Israel's military onslaught on Gaza at the beginning of last year.

Al-Qaradawi also condemned Abbas' attempts to thwart a UN vote on Justice Richard Goldstone's report on Gaza which largely criticized Israeli war crimes committed during the war. However, the cleric denied issuing a fatwa against Abbas.

"I did not issue a fatwa. I am not a judge or investigator. What I said is that the Arab League should investigate the matter, and if it was proved that Abbas instigated Israel against Gaza, he deserved to be publicly stoned in Mecca because this would be a betrayal on his part," said al-Qaradawi.

Abbas' retaliation was swift as his media outlets were instructed to launch a vitriolic smear campaign against al-Qaradawi who is considered a prominent scholar on Islamic law.

Al-Qaradawi was called an "ignoramus" and "a puppet of the government of Qatar," amongst some of the less offensive epithets.

Despite the controversy stoked by the newly appointed and pro-PA imams, on PA orders, some braver West Bank imams simply refused to read the propaganda sermon while others edited the text thereby threatening their future employment.

"There is a strong possibility that these imams will lose their jobs. The PA has been targeting imams who are critical of the PA for some time now," said Mahmoud Ramahi, the Palestinian Legislative Council secretary-general.

"The PA has been carrying out a political arrest campaign against Hamas and trumping up charges against political opponents for some time now," Ramahi told IPS.

The PA charges that Hamas is doing exactly the same in Gaza. But it is not only Hamas that the PA has to contend with.

Of significance is the fact that many of Friday's protesting worshippers included Fatah members who had walked out on the imams' sermons in disgust and protest at the politicization of religion by their own party. They were not arrested.

On Saturday the smear campaign ratcheted up a level when a giant photographic mural of Qaradawi kissing a Jewish rabbi was plastered on a building near the center of Ramallah.

The mural was courtesy of Tarek Abbas, president Abbas' son who runs an advertising company. The idea was to paint Qaradawi as an agent of Zionism.

However, the fact that the rabbi in question was actually a member of the anti-Zionist Naturei Karta movement, which advocates that the current State of Israel is illegal and that a Jewish state can only be established once the Messiah returns, was not lost on the Palestinian street.

"We are not stupid. The PA insults our intelligence assuming that we are unaware who the real agent of Zionism is and who is really colluding with Israel," Yasser Aboud (name changed) told IPS.

While the PA may have not succeeded in fooling Ramallah residents with regard to al-Qaradawi's credentials, it appears to have succeeded in silencing dissent and criticism amongst ordinary Palestinians -- at least publicly.

The fear on the street was palpable as IPS tried to speak to a number of individuals outside the Gamal Abdul Nasser Mosque in Ramallah, one of the mosques where PA security forces were seen beating up and arresting worshippers.

Several individuals refused to talk or just shook their heads and claimed ignorance of the whole affair.

One young man who started talking to IPS stopped when a police car drew up and a PA security man armed with a two-way radio spent an inordinate amount of time examining the clothing the young man was selling.

Another young man, Saleh Amin (not real name), told IPS, "The only reason I'm talking to you is because you are foreign. If you were Palestinian I'd be suspicious immediately."

"There are mukhabarat [detectives or plain-clothed security agents] listening and watching people in the street all the time. Anybody who is critical or suspected of dissenting is arrested and investigated," said Saleh.

Samir Awad, a political scientist at Birzeit University near Ramallah, said that people in positions of power or influence, including himself, had some immunity from arrest but that this didn't apply to the man in the street.

"There is little doubt that people are being persecuted for their political beliefs here in the West Bank," Awad told IPS.

Meanwhile, in a subsequent development, Ramahi informed IPS that after the Palestinian Legislative Council held a press conference on Sunday, one which the PA had tried to prevent from taking place, members of the PLC staff were arrested by PA security.

All rights reserved, IPS - Inter Press Service (2010). Total or partial publication, retransmission or sale forbidden.

"Together we can end this occupation"

Jody McIntyre writing from Beit Hanoun, occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 29 January 2010


Saber Zanin volunteering in an orchard. (Beit Hanoun Local Initiative)

The Israeli military recently dropped hundreds of leaflets warning Palestinian residents from the village of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip not to travel within 300 meters of the border -- the distance of Israel's so-called "buffer zone." In response, local activists marched to and nonviolently demonstrated inside the "buffer zone" against the illegal action. The Electronic Intifada contributor Jody McIntyre recently spoke with demonstration organizer Saber Zanin.

Jody McIntyre: Can you tell us about yourself?

Saber Zanin: My name is Saber Zanin. I am 31 years old, living in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip. I am a Palestinian who loves life, peace, justice and equal rights for all.

I come from a poor family, around 20 of us in all, from Beit Hanoun. In November 2006, our house, the house I lived in my whole life, was completely destroyed by Israeli air strikes, and then by a tank which came to finish the job. We don't know why they chose to target our home, but this is an example of the collective punishment we face living in Gaza.

I had the idea to create a group of volunteers, to work together in the local community, to resist Israel's occupation through nonviolent methods, and to encourage others to do the same. In September 2007, the "Local Initiative" was formed. Rather than relying on governmental institutions or foreign agencies, we work in a personal capacity, and rely on ourselves for everything we need. Altogether the group now consists of around 60 young men and women, from 17-35 years of age, and although we have no political affiliation, we all agree on socialist principles of helping those most in need, and on each individual's freedom to express their own views.

The group works with all sections of society: women, children, people with disabilities and teenagers. In particular, we give priority to the farmers and residents working and living in the so-called "buffer zone." As a group, we visit the residents and offer them aid brought by charities to Gaza (although this is small in amount, and limited in effect) for nothing in return, and we accompany the farmers who continue to work on their land, despite regularly being shot at by the Israeli military for doing so. We also work with the young kids in their area, taking them presents, playing games with them and making parties for them, as well as practicalities such as not going out onto the street in certain areas.

The people living in the "buffer zone" are the foundation of the Local Initiative. If there are any farmers who want help working on their land, we will go to help them. We have also organized protests against Israel's wall in the occupied West Bank and the "buffer zone."

We are always looking for ways to encourage others to join us in our popular resistance against the occupation, and as part of this we try to teach the local community about the human rights they possess: the right to freedom of expression, the right to live freely, the right to an education, to work, to health care, and to a home. We want people to know about their rights so that when they are taken away from them, they will fight for them.

JM: As someone who used to participate in armed resistance against the occupation, what made you adopt nonviolent resistance?

SZ: Any occupied people have the right to resist, and Palestinians are occupied by the Israelis. It is our fundamental right to resist against this occupation. I used to participate in armed resistance, but armed resistance isn't everything. I am convinced that popular resistance, and protesting against the occupation through nonviolent methods, can actually achieve more than armed resistance, by gaining the sympathy and support for our struggle from people around the world. When we go to protest against Israel's wall in the occupied West Bank, as they do in the villages of Bilin and Nilin, and now here in Beit Hanoun in Gaza as well, we have international activists marching with us, and the whole world is watching. Our demonstrations are nonviolent, so the Israeli army has no excuse to shoot at us and to kill us. I believe that this is one of the noblest ways of protesting against the occupation.

Last week, the Israeli military dropped hundreds of leaflets near the "buffer zone," instructing residents not to go within 300 meters of the border. We reject this illegal de facto land grab, and in response organized a march to the "buffer zone" on Monday [11 January]. The march was under the slogan: "With popular resistance, we challenge the decisions of the Israeli occupiers." We protested against the occupation through nonviolent means.

We will now be marching to the "buffer zone" every Monday. We will not be intimidated by the Israeli army's threat, and we will never give up until the occupation is over.

JM: How can people living abroad support your struggle?

SZ: As we move into the new year, the Local Initiative is in urgent need of funds, in order to continue supporting the families living in the "buffer zone," and to purchase materials in order to document the ongoing crimes of the Israeli occupation forces.

We truly hope that activists from around the world will support us. They could also write in the media against Israel's crimes, organize demonstrations outside the Israeli embassy -- some governments have even expelled the Israeli ambassador! In the UK an arrest warrant was issued for Tzipi Livni for the war crimes she committed against the people of Gaza, and this should serve as an inspiration for others to follow. Together, we can end this occupation.

Jody McIntyre is a journalist from the United Kingdom, currently living in Beit Lahiya in the occupied Gaza Strip. Jody has cerebral palsy, and travels in a wheelchair. He writes a blog for Ctrl.Alt.Shift, entitled "Life on Wheels," which can be found at www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk. To contact Jody, and for more information about the Local Initiative, email jody.mcintyre AT gmail DOT com.

"Our community is at risk": An interview with Ittijah's Ameer Makhoul

Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 29 January 2010



Ameer Makhoul (Adri Nieuwhof)
Ittijah, the Union of Arab Community Based Associations, was founded in 1995 in response to a widely felt need for increased cooperation and exchange between Palestinian Arab organizations in Israel. Ittijah's member organizations are engaged in a variety of issues from human rights to social and economic development as well as culture and the arts. The Electronic Intifada contributor Adri Nieuwhof recently interviewed Ameer Makhoul, the general director of Ittijah.

Adri Nieuwhof: Please introduce yourself and Ittijah.

Ameer Makhoul: I am the general director of Ittijah, the network of Palestinian civil society organizations within the borders of Israel. Ittijah unites the majority of the organizations of the Palestinians who remained in the homeland. One major goal is to organize Palestinian community efforts in the context of creating unity among Palestinians. We have succeeded in uniting 81 Palestinian no-governmental organizations from around the whole country. I also chair the Palestinian Committee for the Protection of Political Freedoms in Israel that was founded in 2003 in response to increasing political persecutions. The committee is composed of civil society organizations and all of the Palestinian political parties in Israel.

AN: What is life like for the Palestinian community inside Israel?

AM: I would say our community is the most organized compared to other Palestinian communities. Our community is at risk because of the systematic, colonial, racist practices and policies of Israel [imposed] to weaken this group and to try to disconnect it from the other Palestinian communities. I witness an increase in our role in the debate about how to obtain our rights as a community and as a people. At the same time, the Israeli persecution increases. There are attempts to delegitimize our work and to disconnect us morally from our homeland and from the responsibility we feel for our homeland. Israel uses its legal system and its laws on citizenship and loyalty to the Jewish state to achieve this. Even having contacts with the outside world can be considered illegal. Any speech or essay can be judged by Israel law as illegal or as a sign of maintaining relationships with the enemy. Israel is a Jewish state, it is not our state. So we Palestinians are marginalized and delegitimized by this society. And Israeli policy is that we have to accept this.

AN: Do you see parallels between the conditions of Palestinians in Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and the Diaspora?

AM: I always see the connection, always. Look at the nature of Israel. They make this connection, but they do not allow us to make it. For example, the disengagement from Gaza in 2005 was not for peace; it served the campaign for a Jewish state. Israel wants to influence the demographic balance by Judaizing the Galilee [region of northern Israel], the Negev and East Jerusalem. Most of the Palestinians live in those places. There is a right of return for Jews, but our right for return is blocked by Israel.

Israel's projects in Nazareth Illit and Maale Adumin [in the occupied West Bank] are aimed at the same goal: to disconnect the Palestinian population, to gain control over Palestinian land. The infrastructure of the Palestinian people must be destroyed. The aim has not changed since 1948. We Palestinians in Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Diaspora are facing the same nature of policies. All of us have a lack of control over our sovereignty, our land and our education. And now with the new legislation on loyalty we have a lack of control over our thinking and even our feelings.

AN: You attended a court hearing on 13 January in the case against Sheikh Raed Salah. Can you tell us about the case and the hearing?

AM: Sheikh Raed Salah is the leader of the largest Palestinian extraparliamentary movement in Israel, the Islamic movement. He is a very active, credible and highly respected leader. The movement's al-Aqsa Association aims to protect religious property of both Muslim and Christian all around the historic Palestine and in particular in East Jerusalem. They revealed plans for the construction of a synagogue and archaeological plans around the al-Aqsa mosque. Sheikh Raed made it difficult to implement these policies and was involved in protests against home demolitions and home evictions. He and other leaders of the movement received orders from the Israeli military not to come to Jerusalem. Sheikh Raed Salah was accused of attacking a policeman -- by spitting on him -- during one of the campaigns in occupied East Jerusalem. Bishop Atala Hanna of the Greek Orthodox Church attended the court hearing, as did leaders of all other political parties. I also attended. The verdict was nine months imprisonment and six months suspended sentence. The justification was that the sheikh does not recognize Israel's sovereignty in East Jerusalem, which Israel considers as its capital. But under international law it is occupied territory.

AN: Are Palestinian youth in Israel actively involved in improving their situation?

AM: Yes, and three youth organizations are members of Ittijah. Youth are targeted by Israel. Israel wants to disconnect Israeli Arabs from the Palestinian cause, homeland and history. [Israeli President] Shimon Peres and others say that we should "forget about the past." But he is looking back millennia to try to justify the Zionist enterprise, to claim Israel as "my father's land." The last year more than 1,000 youth were invited by the Shabak, the Israeli security agency, and were interrogated and intimidated for hours. Israel does not want Palestinian youth to be active. Family is used to put pressure on them. The message is to choose your career, perform civic services and become an informant for the Shabak. I call it state terror.

Israel has a system of compulsory military service. Serving in the army gives certain benefits in life, for example loans, housing, etc. By law Palestinians are not called to perform this military service. Thus Palestinians in Israel are excluded from these benefits. Yet members of the ultra orthodox religious groups who do not serve in the army still enjoy these benefits automatically as Jews. At the same time, Palestinian Druze Arabs who must perform compulsory full military service are treated as Palestinians in terms of rights. This is racial discrimination. Above all the most colonial and racist law in Israel is the law of return and law of citizenship which is the basis for all discrimination.

AN: How do you think this institutional discrimination can be challenged?

AM: Israel is pushing the Palestinian community to a big confrontation, in order to harm the whole community. We must look at the whole of the Palestinian community since 1948. We need to include the 1.4 million Palestinian people living in Israel in our efforts for just solution. The international community looks at us as part of the Israeli problem. International solidarity should be based on the root causes of the problem, meaning the situation since 1948, which includes Palestinians inside Israel.

Adri Nieuwhof is an independent consultant based in Switzerland

Press release: Our Last Port Is Freedom

Translations of this press release are available at:
http://www.freegaza.org/our-last-port-is-freedom

Sending a Flotilla in the Spring to Break the Siege of Gaza

Contact:
* IHH, Ahmet Emin +90 530 341 19 34
* Free Gaza Movement, Eliza Ernshire +44 754 011 22 94

[Istanbul, Turkey, 28 January 2010] Today the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Relief Foundation (IHH), announce a joint venture, sending 10 boats in the spring of 2010 to the besieged Gaza strip. Organizations from Greece, Ireland and Sweden have also promised to send boats to join the flotilla with the Free Gaza movement and
Turkey.

Mr. Bulent Yildirim, chairman of the IHH said, “We sail in the spring to Gaza, and our last port is freedom; freedom for the 1.5 million Palestinians denied the right to rebuild their society. We will never stop sailing until Israel's siege is lifted.”

Two cargo ships will be part of the flotilla, one donated by the Malaysia-based Perdana Foundation and one from IHH. Both will be laden with building supplies, generators and educational materials that Israel prohibits from entering Gaza since their brutal attack on the civilian population a year ago.

The many passenger boats accompanying the cargo ships will carry members of Parliament from countries around the world as well as high-profile journalists and human rights workers.

According to the chair of the Free Gaza Movement, Huwaida Arraf, “The illegal blockade on Gaza and Israel's continued intransigence make a mockery of international law. If our governments will not take a stance to stop Israel's abuse of the Palestinian people, global civil society is showing that we will.”

The Free Gaza movement, a human rights group, sent two boats to Gaza in August 2008. These were the first international boats to land in the port in 41 years. Since then, seven more voyages boarded Parliamentarians, human rights workers, and other dignitaries to witness the effects of Israel's draconian policies on the civilians of
Gaza. The last three voyages were illegally stopped by the Israeli navy when, in December, 2008, they rammed the DIGNITY in international water, turned back the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY by threatening to shoot all on board, then hijacking the SPIRT on July 1, 2009, kidnapping the passengers and throwing them into prison for a week. www.freegaza.org.

Since 1992, the Turkish Relief Foundation (IHH) has provided humanitarian assistance to civilians who have been victims of war or natural disasters all over the world. One of IHH's main objectives is to take necessary steps to prevent any violations against civilian basic rights and liberties. IHH aims at providing relief help so
communities can resume their daily life and stand on their own feet, as well as strengthening leadership and institutions of communities that have been made dependent on aid. http://www.ihh.org.tr

Read the articles: Gaza's thin red line one year later

"Palestinian journalists can't work freely or safely"


Lebanon activists launch campaign targeting Egypt's "wall of shame"

American Surgery Mission Treats Kids in Hebron

On January 22nd, a 3-member team from the USA arrived in the West Bank town of Hebron to start a week of screening and treating children with urological disorders.

The team included pediatric urological surgeon Dr. John Gazak from Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina, Dr. Kevin Healy, an anesthesiologist from Ames, Iowa, and scrub nurse Teresa Bubb from Portland, Oregon. The same team worked last Spring in Palestine through the PCRF as part of a project in coordination with International Volunteers in Urology (IVU).

In addition to screening over 140 children on the first day, the team has a full week of complex surgery on children from all over the West Bank.
Dr. Gazak also has treated two Palestinian children for free at his hospital in North Carolina through the PCRF and another child from Gaza will be traveling there for surgery next month.

"I was supposed to be born in a villa by the sea"

Marryam Haleem writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 26 January 2010



Atef Abu Saif (Marryam Haleem)

Her name meant "lively." And from the way her grandson spoke about her, she was in nature as in name. Aisha, full of life.

She lived in a beautiful villa on the sea. She was friendly, passionate and generous, like most Palestinians. And proud of her hometown, like most Jaffans. When Jewish refugees rolled in from war-torn Europe in the 1940s, Palestinians took them into their homes. Aisha took in a teenaged girl, gave her a room, and made her part of their family. In 1948, when Jewish terrorist gangs attacked Jaffa and started to round up the people, killing and throwing them out of their homes, Aisha refused to leave her beloved home. But the Jewish girl who lived with her in her home put a gun to Aisha's head and forced her out of the house. Aisha screamed, "What are you doing?! I gave you my home! I gave you my family! And this is what you do?!"

Aisha, her family, and hundreds of other Jaffans walked until they reached the Jabaliya area in Gaza. She lost everything -- her home, her identity, her dignity, and a beloved son who was killed in the fighting. Aisha, so full of heart, lost her sight from crying over his death.

She gained, however, the absolute adoration and undying love of a grandson who was born and raised in that corner of Jabaliya which was now a refugee camp. She gave him all she had -- love and memories of a place called home. She told him every detail of Jaffa. The names of the streets. The neighborhoods and houses. The trees. The mosques. Each smell and sound. It was the whole world to a boy who was born in a refugee camp.

Grandma Aisha was not the only one with these stories and her grandson, Atef Abu Saif, was not the only one who took them to heart. These memories and these stories are the only treasure and wealth of the refugee. They are the sole inheritance for the children of the dispossessed generation. Memories of what once was. Stories of what ought to have been.

"The old men in the refugee camp," said Atef, recalling his childhood days, "in the evenings they would sit and talk about Jaffa." And the children would gather round, listening with fascination as the grownups talked of the place they knew they were from, but had never seen.

"The refugee in Gaza," said Atef, trying to explain the significance and meaningfulness of the stories, "the refugee lives in his memories. In the old towns and villages. Even us, the sons and grandsons of that generation, we also live in this moment, this wishful moment."

Grandma Aisha, her life and her stories, became his inspiration to write. He started at a young age and is now a published novelist and short story writer. He has written four novels, a collection of short stories entitled Everything is Normal, and two plays. Many of his short stories have been translated into English and can be found online.

"One of my first dreams was to capture those moments she gave me and to retell them in writings," he said, "because in her stories there is a kind of pain which you wouldn't feel if you didn't hear her telling it. And this is where literature matters." To show what can't otherwise be conveyed.

Atef’s writings reveal the everydayness of oppression, providing a glimpse into how very mundane suffering truly is. The muted scenes of pain catch the reader unaware: one realizes with horror that the grief is inescapable, occupying even the most banal of acts -- writing a letter to a brother, driving to the airport, a day at the beach. His stories show, with raw accuracy, the unspoken knowledge that something is deeply wrong in the Palestinian life.

"I want to remind my readers that these people don't live in the refugee camps by their own choice. The refugee camp is not a place to love. It's a curse ... [In my writing] I have to be faithful, loyal to the people's suffering. I want to make it clear that this is not a 'national issue.' It's not about 'the struggle.' It's a human issue."

Paradise lost

"Like my grandmother, if I'd tell her something here [in Gaza] is beautiful, immediately she would be like, 'Don't tell me that, Jaffa is more beautiful!' Or if I'd compliment the sea, right away she would respond, 'This sea?! This is not a sea! You should see the sea in Jaffa!' I mean, it's the same sea," Atef said, laughing affectionately. "But in her mind, it was not the same sea. It was an entirely different world. If I'd tell her about a place here, immediately, 'You should see the buildings in Jaffa! But I excuse you,' she would say to me, like I said something wrong, 'I excuse you because you didn't live there.'

The loss of the refugees is as painful as it is irretrievable. The ever-present feeling of injustice is felt by the Palestinians, individually and collectively.

"But the Jaffans," Atef said, smiling wryly, "we feel that we were done an especially great injustice by being driven out of our homes. You have to understand," he said facetiously, "we are very racist in Jaffa. We are very proud of our city. We are from the largest Palestinian city. We are urban people, not villagers. Before 1948 we had 20 newspapers. We had 12 sports clubs. We had a union for the railway workers. This was the second Arab metropolitan city after Cairo. Many Arabs would immigrate there to work, especially from the Levant -- Syria, Lebanon, Jordan."

This was what they lost. The memory of the greatness of Jaffa became the symbolic reminder for all Palestinians of what life ought to have been. "Jaffa means Palestine for us, the true Palestine. So in this sense Jaffa is something imagined, the lost Paradise.

"Even we [the children of the refugee camp] had this image of Jaffa as this Paradise, this lost Paradise. When you grew up in the refugee camp, with all this suffering, you believe strongly in this idea that if we lived in Jaffa, this wouldn't be happening. It's a real feeling, not just for my grandmother, but for me and my generation.

"I grew up in a home of 80 meters -- me, my father, my mother, my grandmother, my brothers. Just three rooms. It was very crowded. And then you think, if the Nakba didn't happen, we would be living in my grandfather's villa on the coast of Jaffa," he paused, "It's owned by a Jew from Yemen now. Not owned," he corrected himself, "but he lives in it."

To be a refugee

The refugee lives with the constantly reinforced feeling that he is illegitimate. From childhood he is taught that in the civilized, established world, the refugee has no place and, by default, no rights.

"I remember," Atef said, "sitting in a geography class as a kid and the teacher saying that there are three kinds of places where people live: the city, the village and the desert. So I asked, 'What about the refugee camp?' I didn't understand why he didn't mention the refugee camp. It was real for me and it was all I knew. The teacher responded saying that the refugee camp wasn't really a place where people lived. It is temporary, he tried to explain. It doesn't actually exist in normal urban or rural settings. It is something that happens for a moment, or was meant to happen for a moment, until the problem is resolved."

There is little stability or sense of belonging in life as a refugee.

"We never think of the place as permanent, as ours. Take the architecture of the refugee camps, for example." It is, in its form and function, incomplete. "You will make your flat very beautiful on the inside. But you won't care about the outside. Because you don't care. The place is the thing on the outside. And that place doesn't belong to you.

A man will build a floor and the rooms he needs for the immediate present and no more. Even if he has money to build a complete house, he will not. He builds for necessity only. He does not build to establish himself. He does not build to make a home. He already has a home, but he is barred from it.

"Take my grandfather," said Atef. "He refused to buy a piece of land outside the refugee camp in order to build a house, even though he had the money. Because he felt that this is all temporary. It's not permanent. This refugee camp is temporary. 'We are going to leave it,' is the feeling, the hope of every refugee ... Palestinians do not live in the today ... We either live in a past that was beautiful or a future that would have been beautiful."

Life becomes a conflict between holding on to the past and taking the reigns of the present. One's immediate reality is temporary. What is permanent is a place imagined, a Neverland that cannot be.

Visitors only

Atef described this best with a story about his grandfather. It is a scene in his upcoming novel. After being kicked out in 1948, his grandfather refused to ever visit Jaffa again. It would be too painful to see his hometown in the hands of the very people who threw him out. But in 1982, after 34 years of exile, suddenly he ached to set his eyes on his Jaffa again. So they got in a car -- Atef, his father, and his grandfather -- and headed for Jaffa. When they reached the town just before Jaffa, Atef's father pulled off the highway and turned onto a side road. This road would take them into the city. In just a few minutes they would be able to see it from the road.

"Stop!" Grandpa Ibrahim said abruptly. He was crying. "Stop and drive back, Talal," he told his son, the tears falling freely, "drive back."

"He couldn't see Jaffa again," Atef said softly, "he wanted to keep Jaffa as he left it in 1948."

The old man died without ever seeing his home again. But he died with a pristine memory of how it was, when it was his. That is the strength of the permanency the refugee feels and its unspoken pain. It is passed down to and relived by those who never had the privilege of being born and raised there.

Atef described how, when he visits Jaffa now, he feels the great urge to mentally edit the reality he sees before him with the descriptions Grandma Aisha gave him. With her eyes he imagines the Old Jaffa, "with the same streets, the same buildings, the same architecture ... You want to rebuild the city [in your mind], to recapture the old place. So you don't live in reality even when you see it before you. This is where your life is a kind of metaphor. Our lives are a kind of metaphor."

The metaphor gives the refugee a kernel of hope. It is a protective cloak that shields away some of the painful reality, that veils part of the humiliating knowledge of one's status, that covers a little of the irrevocable sense of loss. Visiting a hometown, for a refugee, is like a catharsis without the relief.

"You visit, you don't return," said Atef. "I've been to Jaffa a few times. The last time I went was in 1998. It was the 50th anniversary of the Nakba," he explained, referring to the forced dispossession of historic Palestine during the establishment of the State of Israel. "I went for a couple of days and stayed with some relatives that are still there. I cried -- mostly for my grandmother. I imagined her walking in Jaffa again ... It's this beautiful villa," he said, talking of his grandparent's house, "a very nice house on the sea. Seeing my family's house was very sad.

"I wrote about it in one of my novels. There is this scene with a dialogue between this Israeli girl and a Palestinian guy. It's this encounter between the two characters. She tells him, You live in the past. Lets live in the present. The Palestinian responds, telling her, But your present is my past. You live in Tel Aviv now. I was supposed to be born in a villa by the sea. But I was born in a refugee camp.

"I was supposed to be born in a villa by the sea," he said again, talking of himself this time. "But I was born in a refugee camp. A place where you can hear your neighbor snoring while you sleep."

He, like every Palestinian, is each day made newly aware of the crushing knowledge that "a stranger came and changed the natural course of my life."

"And you don't have hope," he concluded. "The people now wish they could fly over Gaza and leave. Unfortunately, of course. It is the opposite image of the Palestinian returning to his country. But it's true. Because life is pushing them. And they have such a hard time. When you lose hope you lose the ability to continue."

Later that day, I sat brooding as I looked out on the grey Gazan sea and watched the gulls soar majestically overhead, as if they owned the world and had not a care in their hearts. Hope is the thing with feathers, I thought, recalling the first line of Emily Dickinson's poem. Hope, the elusive metaphor of the Palestinians. A metaphor they daily renew, only for it to be perpetually broken.

Hope is the thing with feathers,
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

The waves crashed loudly against the shore. Yes, I thought, sore, indeed, must be their storm.

Marryam Haleem is a senior at the University of Wisconsin studying philosophy and comparative literature and spent last summer in Gaza doing research for her senior thesis.

My family's ongoing Nakba story

Mohammad Alsaafin writing from Doha, Qatar, Live from Palestine, 26 January 2010



Israel restricts the freedom of movement of Palestinians through the imposition of an ID system. (Anne Paq/ActiveStills.org)

One of the most traumatic effects wrought upon Palestinian society by the 1948 Nakba, or the dispossession of historic Palestine, is the physical separation it forced upon Palestinians, between those in the diaspora and the refugees, between those living in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 and those who became citizens of Israel. Yet this process is ongoing to this very day, and targets even individual families, like mine. This is our story.

My dad was born in the Gaza Strip in 1962, the son of refugees, and left to the United Kingdom along with his wife and first son (myself) in 1990 to pursue his PhD at the University of Bradford. By 2004, I had a brother and two sisters, and our entire family moved back to Palestine, this time to the town of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. My father was working as a foreign journalist licensed by the Israeli Government Press Office and we were living in our country on yearly renewable Israeli work visas.

In 2005, I was turned back by Israeli border agents at the Sheikh Hussein Bridge as I attempted to cross into Jordan to visit my aunt. The agents told me that since I was born in the Gaza Strip in 1988 I had been issued a Gaza ID by the Israeli occupation authority and was therefore not allowed to legally reside in the West Bank. Additionally, I was informed that from then on, Israel would not recognize my British passport. I was able to return to Ramallah that day, but for the next four years I risked daily arrest by Israeli troops on the way to Birzeit University, where I was studying, and for a year after that while I was working in Ramallah. This summer, I left the West Bank to find work abroad, and was told by the Israelis that I would not be allowed to return home.

Despite this reprehensible situation, the rest of the family was thankfully spared such hardship. My dad continued working relatively unhindered as he moved across what is now Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza, and my mother and siblings enjoyed freedom of movement across the West Bank and inside Israel. This all changed very suddenly last August when, on a routine trip to Gaza where my dad had several assignments and where he wanted to visit his ailing father, he was detained by Israeli security at the Erez checkpoint, and was harassed, stripped of his press credentials and told -- as I was four years earlier -- that his British passport was worthless in Israel. He was also informed that he too had an Israeli-issued Gaza ID and thus would be treated as a Gazan, deprived of the most basic freedom of choice and movement and barred from ever returning to his wife and children in Ramallah. He was sent into Gaza, where he appealed to Israeli rights organizations, and as a British citizen to the British consulate and to former Prime Minister Tony Blair, now the Quartet's Middle East envoy, for the right to leave Gaza and see his wife and children, if only for a day. The Israeli organizations were unable to help, the consulate was unable to circumvent a wall of Israeli bureaucracy, and Tony Blair chose to ignore our letter calling for assistance. In order to save his job, my dad had to give up hope of being allowed back into the West Bank, and left Gaza through Egypt in December.

At the time that my dad was stripped of his press credentials and work visa, my mother and siblings back in Ramallah were forced to accept their own Israeli-issued ID cards. Incredibly, my mother was given a Gaza ID despite being born abroad, raised in the West Bank and still owning a copy of her original West Bank ID! She now lives in constant fear of arrest and deportation by Israeli troops; if she were to leave the West Bank she would also be banned from returning to our family and home in Ramallah.

Meanwhile my brother and sister, who were both born in the UK and are now university students, have bizarrely been issued with West Bank ID cards, even though their parents and older brother were given Gaza IDs.

As a result of all of this, our family has been torn apart. My father is finally out of Gaza, but he is unable to see his children unless they travel abroad to meet him. My mother is in the West Bank, afraid to even leave Ramallah and risk being detained and deported at an Israeli army checkpoint. She is unable to leave the West Bank while my father and I are unable to enter. We don't know how long it will be before we can see each other again -- the Israeli authorities have said that they will not change my mother's ID.

Israel has treated my family like criminals for being Palestinians. We have been punished, displaced and deprived from each other's company. Our extended family was torn from its land in 1948 and expelled to refugee camps. In the 1990s, Israel's policy of closure solidified our separation, particularly from my father's side in Gaza. Now Israel's racist and draconian demographic policies have separated my parents, my siblings and myself, just like they separate Jerusalemites who wish to marry other Palestinians from the West Bank, or Palestinian citizens of Israel who are legally barred from marrying Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza.

This is one of the many faces of the ongoing Nakba today, and I urge more individuals and families who have suffered like this to speak out. The world must realize the true nature of Israeli apartheid, and the cruel separation of families is one more reason why Israel must be boycotted.

Mohammad Alsaafin is from the Palestinian village of Fallujah, ethnically cleansed by Israeli forces in 1949. He was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp and lived in the UK and US, before moving back to Palestine to study at Birzeit University.

Take Action: Thank Representatives for Letter on Gaza Blockade

Take Action: "Cheer or Jeer" Your Representative for Signing or Not Signing Letter on Gaza Blockade

Unfortunately, it's not too often that we get the opportunity to thank Members of Congress for doing the right thing. That's why it's so important to do so when they do something that we ask of them.

On January 21, 2010, 54 Representatives sent President Obama a letter that termed Israel's blockade of the occupied Gaza Strip as "de facto collective punishment" and called on the United States to press Israel "for immediate relief for the citizens of Gaza."

To read the entire text of this "Dear Colleague" letter, organized by Rep. Jim McDermott and Rep. Keith Ellison, and to see the full list of signatories, please click here.

Please take a moment to "cheer" your Representative for signing this important "Dear Colleague" letter calling attention to the devastating humanitarian impact of Israel's illegal blockade of the occupied Gaza Strip, or "jeer" your Representative for not signing the letter by clicking here.


What Else Can You Do to Help Us Change U.S. Policy?

* Join more than 100 activists from more than 25 states and 75 Congressional districts in our Congressional District Coordinator (CDC) network. Join in this important grassroots initiative to coordinate a national movement to change U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine to support human rights, international law, and equality. To view the responsibilities of a CDC, check out our interactive CDC network map, and join the CDC network, please click here.

* Join us for a conference call tomorrow night, Thursday, January 28, 9PM Eastern to help us strategize about challenging military aid to Israel in 2010. Our special guests on the call will be members of the Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel, an Albuquerque-based member group of the US Campaign which put up billboards in their city calling for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel. Learn how to replicate this creative campaign in your city and much more on this call. To RSVP and get call-in information, please click here.

* Join the US Campaign and Interfaith Peace-Builders for a Grassroots Advocacy Training and lobby day in Washington, DC, March 7-8. Get the skills you need to become an effective grassroots advocate for policy change and lobby your Members of Congress on ending the blockade of Gaza and other important policy issues. To learn more and to register, please click here.

* Make a secure on-line tax-deductible contribution to support the advocacy work of the US Campaign by clicking here or call us at 202-332-0994 to make a donation by credit card. Thank you for your generous support!

"We are all complicit": an interview with Ewa Jasiewicz

Frank Barat, The Electronic Intifada, 19 January 2010



Ewa Jasiewicz at Gaza's al-Awda hospital. (Alberto Arce)
A year ago, Israel launched its invasion of Gaza. Dubbed "Operation Cast Lead" by the Israeli military, the invasion started on 27 December 2008 and finished on 18 January 2009. During those 23 days, more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed including more than 320 children. More than 5,000 Palestinians suffered serious injuries.

Originally from England, Ewa Jasiewicz was one of a handful of "internationals" on the ground. A human rights activist, union organizer and journalist, Jasiewicz has spent years working in occupied Palestine and Iraq with oil workers, refugees, paramedics and community groups. She is a coordinator for the Free Gaza Movement and part of the editorial collective of Le Monde Diplomatqiue Polish Edition. Her book Gaza: Getto Nieujarzmione (Gaza: a Ghetto Unbroken) will be published in Poland by Ksiazka i Prasa in March. A year later, she reflects on those bloody days with The Electronic Intifada contributor Frank Barat.

Frank Barat: You were in Gaza a year ago during Operation Cast Lead. Why and how did you and other activists go to the Gaza Strip?

Ewa Jasiewicz: Myself and several solidarity activists from Lebanon, Spain, Canada, Australia, Italy, UK, Ireland and Greece managed to get into Gaza aboard the Free Gaza Movement's (FGM) Dignity boat. FGM has sailed five successful missions to Gaza from August to December 2008, bringing in human rights workers to build political solidarity activism, to break the isolation of ghettoized communities and directly confront Israel's illegal and brutal siege.

FGM's missions are political -- we know Palestine is not a charity case, and that the solutions to a 60-year policy of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and militarized ghettoization are not extra bags of flour, medicine, new tents and millions in aid, but political will and direct action. This is currently unforthcoming from governments around the world, so our actions are about directly applying international law from the grassroots up because it isn't being respected and is being violated, daily, from the top-down -- the siege of Gaza and occupation of Palestine is international, the states supporting it either with their silence or direct complicity in economically supporting Israel are co-occupiers and collaborators in war crimes against the Palestinian people, along with Israel.

FB: Previously you spent some time in the occupied West Bank during various Israeli operations (more particularly in the Jenin refugee camp). What were the main differences between the two places and what did you expect to see in Gaza? Did you expect the attack?

EJ: I didn't expect the attack -- but people in Gaza and the Hamas authority did expect an attack because the ceasefire had expired and Israel was saber-rattling, threatening to eliminate, as always but with greater intensity and focus, resistance leaders -- military and political -- and their supporters. There was an increase in unmanned aerial vehicles flying 24/7. I had experience of smaller operations in the West Bank in Jenin and Nablus following Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. Operation Defensive Shield was massive, hundreds of Palestinians were killed, the heart of Jenin refugee camp was bulldozed and dozens of civilians massacred in the process. By the time I came, all the ruins and trauma were still very fresh but the worst of the destruction and killing had subsided.

The smaller invasions were carried out under curfew, involving hundreds of troops, carrying out house-to-house searches, and mass arrests with every man aged between 15 and 50 rounded up, interrogated and beaten. A typical operation, with groups of children throwing anything they can at tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs) in the street -- and often getting shot at for doing it. There would be sporadic resistance at night from fighters, but many of the most experienced had been killed at that point. Troops would carry out collective punishment like home demolitions using bulldozers or explosives and civilians would be used as human shields. What was different at that time in the West Bank was that a lot of the Palestinian Authority's (PA) infrastructure and military infrastructure of the resistance -- fighters and leaders -- were destroyed during Defensive Shield by F-16 fighter jets. Israel was executing its cyclical strategy of having decimated the leaders of the armed and political resistance of major political factions, moving on to target the social infrastructure -- community leaders, social activists -- and continuing to arrest relatives of the "wanted" and trying to bait out and kill the younger, more inexperienced fighters.

Because of the tunnels, fighters in Gaza have had access to more sophisticated and threatening weaponry than their West Bank counterparts, so Israeli aggression has been more intense in Gaza and heavily reliant on aerial bombardment. Since the withdrawal of the colonists and military bases [in 2005], this has increased.

In the West Bank, activists could be much more mobile and confront and dialogue with soldiers. In Gaza 2009 that was impossible. I only once saw soldiers -- a special forces soldier trained his gun and apparently shot at our ambulance. In the West Bank we were often between tanks and APCs and following and observing soldiers close-up. If you got close to soldiers in Gaza they'd kill you -- that is what everyone kept telling us.

FB: What did you plan to do there? Did your plans changed once the invasion of Gaza started?

EJ: I planned, as had other activists, to work with Palestinian partners -- civil society groups, unions, farmers and fishermen, local campaigns for the right to education and to end the siege. My role was going to be to coordinate and guide visiting delegations coming aboard FGM boats along with [Irish human rights activist] Caoimhe Butterly. Once the invasion started, it became immediately clear that what we needed to do as foreign activists was to fulfill our role of witnessing and reporting, mitigating the risk to those most likely to be attacked -- which during invasions are the medical services.

The Israeli occupation forces killed 16 rescuers in 22 days and injured dozens more. By volunteering with medics we attempted to deter attacks on them by informing the media and our embassies that we would be accompanying all services -- 13 of the medics killed were from the Civil Defense services. We did not differentiate between "independent" and "government" services; all must be protected under international law. Also, we didn't just sit in the ambulances, we physically carried the injured and dead and tried to assist where possible Secondly, we could remain mobile -- ambulances were the only vehicles moving around 24 hours; we needed to be able to document and report on the attacks as fully as possible. Thirdly, in our mobility and proximity to the front line we could witness the effects of the bombardment on civilians in their homes, and take testimonies from families and Palestinian human rights workers inside hospitals.

FB: Could you describe a day in Gaza during the invasion?

EJ: The constant sneer of surveillance drones, repetitive bombing and crashing sounds, some close some further away, muted panic, empty streets, rubble everywhere, ambulance sirens wailing endlessly, screaming relatives coupled with the groans of the bloodied and dust-covered crushed and injured, medics praying and smoking, heart-beating perpetual ratcheted-up adrenaline, a constant readiness for the next strike and yearning for it to all end, endless stream of bodies and blood-soaked stretchers, cyclical dread, pierced with fresh-surges of shock and horror unabsorbed, and a deep fear of the night and whether we would make it through and whether each ambulance run might be the last. None of the fear paralyzed us but nevertheless it was present. But we all early on accepted we could die, and took on the risks because it was worth it, the Palestinian people are worth it. We wanted to save lives and I know I let go of my attachment to mine, inspired and encouraged by the bravery of those around me, and their willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of others.

FB: What was the feeling of the population on the ground? How were they surviving and responding?

EJ: Everybody was terrified but defiant. The feeling on the ground was that anything could happen, all the red lines had been crossed. Not just with this operation, we have to remember that Operation Cast Lead was only an intensification and a drastic one at that, of an existing policy of massacre and deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure, but in [the northern Gaza refugee camp of] Jabaliya, many of us were expecting another Sabra and Shatila with all witnesses banned from seeing the worst and with media being attacked, and tanks moving in closer and close, we felt that the atrocities already happening signified more could come and on a much wider scale. [Editor's note: Sabra and Shatila were Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon where a massacre occurred during Israel's 1982 invasion. Israeli forces surrounded the camps and allowed and supported the militia of the Lebanese Phalange Party to conduct the massacre inside the camps.]

FB: What was the most useful thing you think international volunteers were able to achieve and contribute? What did Palestinians in Gaza think of your presence there?

EJ: The community were glad we were there and kept telling us, "Please report what you see, we cant even believe this is happening to us, let the world know, it's your duty to speak out about what you witness." And that's what we did, through TV and radio interviews, our own written reports, some of us wrote books too: for example, Vittorio Arrigoni (Italy) Gaza, Stay Human, Sharyn Lock (UK) Gaza Beneath the Bombs, myself Gaza: A Ghetto Unbroken. Some of us made films, like Fida Qishta and Jenny Linnel, and documentaries on the phosphoric bombardment of Khoza. Alberto Arce and Mohammad Rujailah produced To Shoot an Elephant.

I think we contributed to the testimony of the Palestinian community that white phosphorous was being used, that civilians were deliberately being targeted, that hospitals, schools, emergency services were being targeted. And that counteracted Israel's propaganda. Also, I know for a fact that we lifted the spirits of the medics we worked with; they felt they had a witness with them in case of their death, and a possible small bit of protection against Israeli attack. Everybody needs a witness when they're going through hell -- wherever and whatever that hell is -- it's a form of solidarity, of verification, that the unbelievable really is happening to you. Also, we were urging people on the outside to step up their protests and direct actions and advocacy for boycott, divestment and sanctions. Getting that narrative out was important too, peoples' eyes were opened and many people wanted to get involved and deepen their activism.

FB: Could you recount one event that truly shocked you during the invasion?

EJ: There were so, so many. Probably the bombing of a house by an F-16 just a few feet away from four of our ambulances. I was in the passenger seat with my hand on the door, my friend and driver told me just wait, wait a little, and suddenly there was this enormous explosion -- everything went bright fire orange and rubble and debris showered our ambulance. One of our drivers was injured and needed to be carried out on a stretcher. Our exit route was blocked by rubble, a family was screaming and gathering their belongings and getting out, we were stumbling with our casualty and surveillance drones were thundering above, and we feared a repeat strike, more casualties, and losing four ambulances when every single one was vital. We cheated death that night. The Israelis saw us and our lone movement in the streets of Jabaliya, and bombed a house less than 10 feet away from us -- this is a criminal, reckless use of force.

Another was the bombing of the Beit Lahiya Elementary School with white phosphorous. We arrived in our ambulances after evacuating dozens of residents suffering from phosphoric inhalation and after the school had taken a direct hit. I was masked up but the stench and smoke was still penetrating, and when we got there a second round exploded above us, I was frozen to the spot and could see these burning blobs raining down next to me, I had to be screamed at to move and find shelter. The refugees in the school were screaming and crying under a flimsy metal shelter in the school yard. The third floor of the school was on fire. We brought Bilal Ashkar, aged seven -- just this limp boy -- into our ambulance. He'd been hit by the phosphorous shell and thrown down the stairs of the school by the force of the explosion. He was dead on arrival.

FB: A ceasefire was declared on 18 January 2009. Did things change much after this? What did Gaza feel like and look like after the ceasefire?

EJ: The Israeli occupation forces flew F-16s over people returning to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives in Ezbet Abed Rabo [neighborhood near Jabaliya], drones continued to sneer above us every night. There was this hollow humiliation and undigested horror, and loss, such a profound sense of dislocation and loss -- of lives, of the loved, homes, whole communities, streets, mosques, shops, gone. People literally felt physically lost in their own neighborhoods. It was like another Nakba [the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland in 1948 when Israel was created]. People felt mocked by the international community. "They're laughing at us, the whole world doesn't care, they're mocking us," was what we frequently heard. It felt like a tsunami had hit.

FB: Many reports coming from UN bodies, aid agencies and human rights organizations came out very quickly in the months following the invasion. Most of them agreed on the fact that war crimes and possible crimes against humanity were committed during the Israeli attack. Did you ever witness actions that for you were crimes of this magnitude?

EJ: Absolutely. The targeting of civilians and civilian areas, the reckless and wanton destruction of property, the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force, seen with the bombing of the Beit Lahiya School, the Samouni family massacre, the F-16 bombardment of the Hamdan children in Beit Hanoun, the utter disregard for our ambulances, the blocking of access to the injured resulting in hundreds of deaths, the extrajudicial killing of Sayed al-Seyam and Nazar Rayan and scores of their family members. We picked up so many shredded men (and some women too) axed by heavy-duty bombs released by surveillance drones -- these can carry a 150 kg payload and are sophisticated enough to detect the color of a person's hair. According to the al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, proportionally, most people killed [during the invasion were] by UAVs followed by F-16s.

FB: A few weeks ago, 16 aid agencies issued a report saying that the international community had "failed Gaza." On the ground things have not changed at all for ordinary Palestinians in Gaza but have gotten worse. Keeping this in mind, what do you think is the role of popular resistance or citizen activism?

EJ: Yes, the international community facilitates and pays for Israel's occupation, and pathologizes and de-develops Palestine in the process. Ordinary citizens have a responsibility not to fund or politically support [an] industry which hides a relentless project of ethnic cleansing and colonization of Palestine. [Instead, citizens have a responsibility] to build a critical mass of political pressure by all means available -- through BDS and direct action -- to bring about sanctions against Israel and to enforce international law by targeting the companies that violate it with respect to Palestinian human rights, and to expose Israel in the same way [apartheid in] South Africa was exposed and eventually brought to an end.

FB: What in your opinion is most urgently needed in Gaza? What can people do to help and change the status quo?

EJ: Palestinians in Gaza should answer that, but what many say, is that what Gaza needs is the rest of Palestine. People living in camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank want to be reunited with their families and homes. The inalienable and legal right of return for Gaza's and all Palestinian refugees needs to be enacted. The Israeli tactic of divide and torture, of chopping up the Palestinian community, is a long-term tactic designed to break down the strongest weapon against ethnic cleansing that Palestinians possess -- memory, community, family. As long as you have a people who remember their homes and lands, and know each other, refer to one another as cousin, uncle, sister and brother, and can ask, "Which home/family are you from?" then the struggle can never be alienated or abstracted. Palestinians in Gaza need to have the means to speak and act for themselves and not be spoken for, and to have access to the rest of the world -- twinning relationships and projects between schools, mosques, universities, hospitals, youth groups, initiatives -- these are all means to break the isolation inside and build a more intimate and motivated solidarity movement on the outside. Aid is not the answer. Solidarity is.

FB: A year after the war, people marched in hundreds of cities around the world to "commemorate" those horrific events. What do you think of those demonstrations? What type of effect do they have on Palestinians in Gaza? Are they useful at all in your opinion?

EJ: The rallies are a focus point; we do need collective mourning, remembrance and action in our streets. But its also important to target companies violating international law and which are key in perpetuating Israeli apartheid, which we must always remember is not limited to Gaza -- the West Bank is 15 times larger than Gaza and is full of mini Gazas -- Bantustans surrounded by Israel's apartheid wall. Companies like Veolia, Alstom, Caterpillar, Elbit Systems, CRT Holdings and Carmel-Agrexco could be charged with aiding and abetting war crimes of ethnic cleansing and illegal colony-building. The boycott, divestment and sanctions call from Palestinian civil society needs to be responded to and supported -- actively, daily. We are all complicit in the reproduction and reinforcement of the occupation -- it is an international occupation, it is an international issue, and international solidarity for Palestinian human rights can create the conditions for a local solution.

FB: Will you ever go back to Gaza?

EJ: I am going back! I only meant to leave for a month, I deeply miss Gaza. It became like a home to me, I miss my friends and "family" there. Like so many activists that go to Palestine, what we witness never leaves us. We learn from and are humbled by the people that we work with, and it's an honor and a privilege to participate in this struggle.

Frank Barat is a human right activist and coordinator of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine. He lives in the UK.

Inauguration & Gaza Events This Week in NYC!

January 19, 2010


Dear supporters,

Join CODEPINK NYC for a PEOPLE'S INAUGURATION and in further welcoming the Gaza Freedom Marchers back to NYC and hearing their stories! Don't miss it!

January 20: People's Inauguration
Poetry & Dialogue on the One Year Anniversary of Obama's Inauguration

WHEN: Thursday, Jan 20, 7pm (doors open 6:30pm)

WHERE: Where: The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space
44 Charlton Street (on the corner of Charlton and Varick)
New York, New York 10014
Streamed Live: www.MVMT.com

Panelists: Rosa Clemente - 2008 Green Party Vice-Presidential Candidate, Cindy Sheehan - author of "Not One More Mother's Child", Michael Skolnik - Political Director to Russell Simmons & Editor for GlobalGrind.com, cosponsored by CODEPINK.

To commemorate the one-year anniversary of Obama's inauguration, kahlil almustafa, The People's Poet, leads an interactive session combining performance poetry and critical dialogue.

==================================================================

January 21: Report Back From Gaza Freedom March

WHEN: Thursday, Jan 21, 7pm
WHERE: Judson Memorial Church 230 Thompson at W. 3rd St.bordering the southside of Washington Square Park

Hear Ali Abunimah founder of the Electronic Intifada speak on Cairo, Gaza, and BDS (Boycott, Divestiment, and Sanctions).


For questions email codepinknyc@gmail.com

==================================================================
January 22: Ali Abunimah Speaks on: Global Grassroots Activism & the Gaza Freedom March
1300 People, 43 countries, 1 aim: Life the Siege on Gaza


WHEN: Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 2:15pm
WHERE: Earl Hall Auditorium (2nd Floor), Columbia University 2980 Broadway, NY, NY 10127
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=256061418577&ref=mf
Cosponsored by CODEPINK NYC

==================================================================
January 28: City-wide Planning Meeting for March, Rally and Festival during the Non -Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the UN
Jonathan Schell of The Nation will discuss how the grassroots peace movement can halt the drift towards nuclear anarchy and threat of nuclear terrorism.

WHEN: January 28,Thursday 7-8:30 PM
WHERE: All Souls Church - Reidy Friendship Hall
1157 Lexington Ave (between East 79 & 80 Streets) Manhattan
For more information: call 646.723.1749

He will help kick off NYC organizing for the International Day of Action on May 2, 2010 for "Peace and Human Needs: Nuclear Disarmament Now!"

As the United Nations Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference begins on May 2, people from all over the world are coming to march in Midtown to call for Peace and Human Needs: Nuclear Disarmament Now!

Come to the NYC planning meeting!

February 10: Next CODEPINK NYC planning meeting
Please RSVP to codepinknyc@gmail.com
WHEN: February 10, 6pm
WHERE: 630 9th Ave, between 44th and 45th, Suite 807

See you there!!

CODEPINK NYC

What is "Kosher"?

by Len Giles

According to the prevailing Jewish mindset, all the despicable Israeli acts listed below, comply with the requirements of the Jewish Law. In other words, they are “kosher”.


1-Stealing 80% of the Palestinians’ land is “kosher”.


2-Killing innocent, unarmed, Palestinian men, women, and children, is “kosher”.


3-Practicing Apartheid, Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing, in Palestine, is “kosher”.


4-Building an enormous dividing wall in Palestine, on Palestinian land, without the Palestinians’ permission, is “kosher”.


5-Behaving like tyrannical, racist, bullies, is “kosher”.


6-Demolishing 23,000 Palestinian homes (often with the occupants still inside), is “kosher”.


7-Burning thousands of Palestinian homes, orchards and farms, is “kosher”.


8-Unlawfully confiscating Palestinian properties, machinery and animals, is “kosher”.


9-Raping, and murdering, Palestinian girls, is “kosher”.


10-Massacres and Atrocities inflicted upon the innocent, unarmed, Palestinian civilians, are perfectly “kosher”.


11-Torturing approximately 125,000 Palestinian prisoners, for decades, is “kosher”.


12-Forcing 1.3 million Palestinians (at gunpoint) to abandon their homes, their farms and their ancestral homeland, is “kosher”.


13-Breaking the arms and legs of children for throwing stones at Israeli tanks, is “kosher”.


14-Poisoning the water wells of Palestinians, with arsenic, to make them leave their homes and villages, is “kosher”.


15-Ignoring dozens of United Nations Resolutions, since 1948, is “kosher”.


16-Assasinating politicians, and leaders of the Palestinian Authority, is “kosher”.


17-Terrorising Palestinian families, in the middle of the night, with “Gestapo style” raids, is “kosher”.


18-Treating the Palestinian civilians like sub-human creatures, is “kosher”.


19-Using American helicopters and jets to destroy Palestinian cars, with all the passengers still inside, is “kosher”.


20-Deliberately harassing, and bullying, Palestinian civilians at hundreds of “check points”, and “road blocks”, is “kosher”.


21-Desecrating Mosques and Muslim Holy Books, is “kosher”.

22-Desecrating Churchs and the Bible, is “kosher”.


23-Crushing demonstrators to death, with bulldozers, is “kosher”.

24-Wiping 250 Palestinian villages of the face of the map is "kosher".


25-Renaming dozens of stolen Palestinian towns and villages with Hebrew names, is “kosher’.

26-Murdering in, cold blood, members of the international press is "kosher".

27-Turning the Gaza Strip into the world's largest open-air prision of 1.5 million persons is "kosher".

28-Using Palsetinian children as human shields is "kosher".

29-Killing, on average, five (5) Palestinians every single day of the week, 365 days a year is "kosher".

30-Sinking an American ship in international waters and murdering 35 American sailors is "kosher".


31-The lucrative business of selling Palestinian body parts, is “kosher”.


Behaving like demented, homicidal maniacs is perfectly normal for the Isaralis. It is the result of 4,000 years of inbreeding.

How can wicked, mentally deranged, immoral, murderers claim to be members of the Human Race?

"This is life:" remembering earlier massacres in Gaza

Eva Bartlett writing from occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 14 January 2010



Ahmad Hammad (Eva Bartlett)

It's a sunny day in the border region east of Beit Hanoun. Aside from a glaring absence of the citrus and olive trees which for decades abounded on this fertile land, finally razed by Israeli military bulldozers, all seems idyllic.

"This is the first time I've returned here since my friends were killed," Ahmad Hammad says. He stands at the edge of a vacant plot and gestures to its far end which lies over 1 km from the border separating Israel and the Gaza Strip. "They were over there, I was standing here," he explains.

Hammad, 24, recalls the day two years ago when three of his friends, all in their early twenties, were torn apart by an Israeli-fired surface-to-surface missile.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reported that an Israeli military spokesman claimed that the Israeli army "targeted Palestinian gunmen accused of launching home-made rockets at Israeli towns."

But Hammad remembers differently.

"They were all sitting over there, beside a small concrete hut. We used to come here all the time, to relax, drink tea, talk of our hopes and dreams. I was late that day."

The date -- 23 February 2008 -- is etched in Hammad's memory. His is a story of seeking a sanctuary where politics, occupation, siege and Israeli attacks didn't exist. Just friends, tea, tobacco water pipe and talk.

"I left home around 2pm when they called me. They were already here, preparing the tea, relaxing. When I arrived to this spot, Muhammad stood up and began dancing around, joking, waving me to come over."

He relives the next painful minutes in slow motion:

Then -- it was exactly 2:28pm -- there was a huge explosion and much smoke. I couldn't see the area where they'd been standing, the smoke was so thick. When I finally got through the smoke and reached where they'd been standing, I found only pieces of my friends. I couldn't even identify them by their faces, they were so destroyed.

I couldn't think straight, couldn't talk. I cried and cried, for maybe half an hour. Then I tried to call an ambulance, but I was still crying so hard the dispatcher couldn't understand me. I called a friend instead and told him to bring a car and come here. He asked why, and I just told him to come here, still crying.

We collected my friends in pieces and took them to the hospital.

Hammad walks now, venturing to the site where his best friends were martyred. He sits near a water pipe leading from the ground and explains the area. "That was the hut, it was just a single room. We'd prepare tea and heat coals [for the water pipe] here."

Pointing beyond the flat space where the hut stood, he notes a pile of rubble. "The room was destroyed in the last Israeli attacks on Gaza."

The land is parched and cracked from want of rain or irrigation. "All the water pumps and wells in this area have been destroyed," Hammad says, diverting to the troubles which now plague the region. "My own father's well, over there, just 700 meters from the border, was destroyed. It must have cost him at least $10,000 to build, and now he can't water his citrus trees."

The Hammad family is not alone in repeatedly losing trees, crops and wells to Israeli bulldozers. Throughout the border region, wells, cisterns, piping, houses, farm equipment, and crops have been destroyed over the last decade, the most thorough destruction being during Israel's invasion of Gaza last winter.

This dry, flat plot of land once sprouted onions. "Some of our other friends rented the land. They wanted to earn some money, so they planted onions and worked the land together. But they always let us come here to relax, whenever we wanted. That's why we came here that day."

He points up, over the border region where a fat white blimp hangs in the sky, surveying the land below with great accuracy. "These blimps are along the border. They can see everything with great detail, including my clothes and face."

What the blimp misses, the drone hovering above sees. During Israel's invasion, drones clouded Gaza's skies and accounted for 519 of the 1,419 Palestinian civilians murdered during the Israeli massacre, according to the al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights. Often, the first drone-fired missile would be pointedly followed minutes later by a second or third, striking those who came to rescue the injured.

Earlier this day, Israeli warplanes leafleted the border regions, again declaring the 300 meters from the border mortally off-limits to anyone on the Gaza side. The Israeli-imposed "buffer zone" goes back a decade. And although the current limit is 300 meters, in practice Israeli soldiers target Palestinians up to nearly 2km away.

"They were young, were still dreaming and planning their lives," says Hammad.

Muhammad al-Zaniin was from Beit Hanoun. He was still in school, studying business and English at al-Azhar University.

"He was an over-achiever, always wanted to get the highest marks possible. His goal was to be first in his class throughout university, and to finish early. He was always studying. Just before he was killed, he had learned the results of some of his exams: 97 percent, 95 percent. But he was killed before he knew the rest. He wasn't asking for much from life, just to do well in school, get a job, and marry a girl he loved."

Ibrahim Abu Jarrad was also from Beit Hanoun.

"He was the quietest of us all. He was very thoughtful and a mediator, always solving problems between people. His hopes were very simple: to build a home and marry the girl he loved."

Muhammad Hassanain was from Jabaliya. His father was dead and Muhammed had taken on the role of providing for the family.

"He dreamed of building a new home, large enough to house the family comfortably. He was such a responsible guy -- as paying the university tuition of his younger brother. He just wanted to marry and take care of his family."

It was the same week that the Israeli military killed another six civilians in Gaza and wounded 16. Among the martyred were an elderly shepherd and a farmer in his thirties, both nearly 3 km from the border when shelled by an Israeli surface-to-surface missile east of Gaza City. A 12-year-old and two 10-year-olds were killed later the same day west of Jabaliya, targeted by Israeli air strikes. An infant was killed by shrapnel to his head and chest after Israeli aircraft bombed a government building surrounded by houses in the center of Gaza City. A 31-year-old in the east Khan Younis region was killed by indiscriminate Israeli fire the day earlier.

"After I saw my friends torn to pieces, I kept thinking, 'I wish I had been with them.' I saw part of the missile that looked like it hadn't exploded, and I wished that it would now explode with me," Hammad says. "It was the end of the life I had, the end of my dreams."

The killing of Hammad's three friends wasn't his first personal loss, but it hit him the hardest.

"I'd seen my cousins killed, in 2004. But that was nothing. This was the most difficult thing for me, it still haunts me."

While Hammad no longer visits places that remind him of his martyred friends, he does still regularly visit their families.

"Of course, they are like my own families. But even though I know they love me, I always feel that they blame me, think I was the reason their sons were killed. I see it in their eyes."

Like most Palestinians who've suffered the loss of their loved ones, or suffer from the grinding, nearly four-year-long siege on Gaza, Hammad hides his pain behind smiles and laughter.

"I told my friends that I'd never laugh again after my best friends were killed. But we go on. And my laughter is hollow."

Fluent in English, Hebrew and his native Arabic, Hammad is educated and employed. But not happy.

"I also had many dreams. I used to dream of doing a Masters degree abroad. Now I just live day to day, continue because everyone tells me I must. This is life. It comes and takes everything you want."

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who arrived in Gaza in November 2008 on the third Free Gaza Movement boat. She has been volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement and documenting Israel's ongoing attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. During Israel's recent assault on Gaza, she and other ISM volunteers accompanied ambulances and documenting the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.