Former Arab-Israeli Knesset MP Azmi Bishara Speaks From Abu Dhabi About Treason Charges

from Democracy Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/04/1419201

Former Arab-Israeli Knesset MP Azmi Bishara Speaks From Abu Dhabi About Treason Charges

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Israeli police have accused former Arab Knesset lawmaker of treason and espionage. The charges reportedly center around Bishara's alleged contacts with members of Hezbollah during Israel's attack on Lebanon last year. There are reports Bishara's conservations were wiretapped. Bishara resigned his position in the parliament and left Israel last month. Israeli police say they'll arrest him if he returns. We speak to Bishara from Abu Dhabi. [includes rush transcript]

As an outspoken supporter of Palestinian rights and Israel's most well-known Arab member of parliament, Azmi Bishara is no stranger to clashes with the Israeli government. Five years ago, Bishara was put on trial for supporting terrorism for comments he made in public speeches about the Lebanese group Hezbollah. One year later Israel's election commission barred him for running in parliamentary elections but later had the decision overturned.

Today, Azmi Bishara is facing his most serious challenge to date. Israeli police have accused him of treason and espionage. The charges reportedly center around Bishara's alleged contacts with members of Hezbollah during Israel's attack on Lebanon last year. There are reports Bishara's conservations were wiretapped. Bishara resigned his position in the parliament and left Israel last month. Israeli police say they'll arrest him if he returns. Bishara's resignation takes away his parliamentary immunity from prosecution.

Today, Azmi Bishara joins us from Abu Dhabi. And here in the firehouse studio we're joined by Yael Lerer. She is an Israeli Publisher who worked as an aide to Azmi Bishara in 2000.

Azmi Bishara, former member of the Israeli Knesset. Resigned his post last month after Israeli officials accused him of treason and espionage. Speaking from Abu Dhabi.
Yael Lerer, Israeli Publisher with Andalus Publishing. She worked as an aide to Azmi Bishara in 2000. She took part in an event last night here in New York called An Evening of Solidarity with Dr. Azmi Bisahra.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

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JUAN GONZALEZ: As an outspoken supporter of Palestinian rights and Israel's most well-known Arab member of parliament, Azmi Bishara is no stranger to clashes with the Israeli government. Five years ago, Bishara was put on trial for supporting terrorism for comments he made in public speeches about the Lebanese group Hezbollah. One year later, Israel's election commission barred him for running for parliament, but later had the decision overturned.

Today, Azmi Bishara is facing his most serious challenge to date. Israeli police have accused him of treason and espionage. The charges reportedly center around Bishara's alleged contacts with members of Hezbollah during Israel's attacks on Lebanon last year. There are reports Bishara's conservations were wiretapped. Bishara resigned his position in the parliament and left Israel last month. Israeli police say they'll arrest him if he returns. Bishara's resignation takes away his parliamentary immunity from prosecution.

He explained his decision to flee at a news conference last week in Cairo.

AZMI BISHARA: I decided not to wait and not to hide behind the immunity and to do it myself according to my rules and not to wait until they do it. So in order not to create an impression that I am hiding behind my membership in the Knesset or my immunity, etc., I resigned myself. And I also want to give an opportunity to my party to work in the parliament with three members, not only with two.

AMY GOODMAN: That was former Arab member of the Israeli parliament, Azmi Bishara, speaking last week in Cairo. Today, he joins us from Abu Dhabi.

Can you talk, Azmi Bishara, about why you have left Israel, why you resigned from the Knesset?

AZMI BISHARA: Well, both decisions have nothing to do actually with the charges. I resigned from the Knesset because I wanted to -- like a year ago, I felt already exhausted from parliamentary work -- eleven years. This was a very, very intensive year, and I wanted to give more time for my philosophy and literature writing on my books and also for political work, but not in the parliament. It’s a very exhausting place to be. And I think my work was very intensive and very creative. And the tools are there; everybody can use them. I think parties should change their MKs or MPs every two or three times. I did that. But I delayed, actually, the resignation, because of the charges, for a month or two after I knew that they started an investigation.

And I left the country to attend two or three conferences abroad, including an Al Jazeera commenting the Arab Summit. And then I heard the kind of campaign which is run against me in the Israeli press and the kind of plans, like hearing the Israeli intelligence commander -- previous intelligence commander saying on the TV that we have decided to finish the phenomena of Azmi Bishara and all these things, and the kind of, you know, totalitarian campaign without any dissent in the Israeli press, orchestrated like the first weeks of wars, when Israelis engage in wars, in the beginning of wars. So I thought I should slow down a little bit and think.

They changed the rules again totally. Now they are not accusing me of supporting the state of the citizens against the Zionist character of the state, or they're not accusing me of saying things. They’re accusing me of doing things. It is totally different. It’s actually -- they’re accusing me of security crimes that, according to the Israeli law, it’s very hard to clear yourself from, because it’s their arena. They can bring the evidence they want from unknown intelligence sources. They can actually impose new things that you did not do and interpret your relationships. For example, they can declare any friend you have or any journalist you talk to in Lebanon or in Jordan or in Egypt as a foreign agent. And this is so, according to Israeli law. Security courts are very different from civil courts, although they are civil courts formally. But the rules of the game are totally different in there, because of the kind of evidence that convinces a court. So I thought it’s very mean, actually, the fact that instead of facing my political and ideological work, that they referred to security tools with which it’s very, very hard to compete. It’s very hard to challenge...[more]

Huge gulf in Mid-East narratives- BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6608689.stm

Huge gulf in Mid-East narratives

By Claire Bolderson
BBC News, Tel Aviv

Israel's independence celebrations gloss over parts of history

If you watch the introductory video at Tel Aviv's Independence Hall Museum you will hear barely a mention of the Arabs who lived in Palestine before Israel became a state.

If you look at a map in an Israeli school text book you are unlikely to find the Green Line, the ceasefire line which until 1967 separated Israel from the Palestinian territories.

Israel stretches to the border with Jordan. It is as if the Palestinians don't exist.

And you won't find the word "Nakba", the "disaster", as Arabs call what befell the Palestinian people when the Israeli state was created in 1948.

If you ask people in Israel about the Nakba the majority don't know what it is

Eyal Danon

As Dr Ruth Firer, a historian at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, says, every country is guilty of telling its own version of history and of being the hero of its own story.

"But every narrative has to be flexible enough to let others live by it. If one's own history is written in a way that doesn't let others live by it then we have a problem".

And the problem isn't just on the Israeli side.

Garbled picture

At a girls high school in Ramallah in the West Bank a civics class concentrates on the birth of Palestinian nationalism.

Asked what they know about the history of the Jewish people on the other side of the security barrier, few show much interest or understanding.

Palestinian refugees claim rights to return to what is now Israel

"Yes we know their history, that they used to cause problems in Britain," says one 16-year-old of why the Jews came to Israel.

"They wanted to get rid of their problems. So they sent them to us because we didn't have anyone to protect us. "

It's a rather garbled picture of the past and when the discussion turns to the subject of the Holocaust, the girls are dismissive.

Yes, they say, they know the Jews were oppressed. But, adds one, "that doesn't give them the right to do the same thing to us".

One-man mission

Does it matter that the Palestinian teenagers treat one of the pivotal events in Jewish history so casually?

Certainly, according to Khaled Kasab Mahameed. He runs the Arab Institute for Holocaust research and education, in Nazareth.

There is no way to deal with the Israelis if we deny the element that constructs 90% of their personality

Khaled Kasab Mahameed

Its walls are lined with graphic photos of Jewish suffering that he got from Israel's official Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

Khaled, an Israeli Arab, takes them with him when he goes on his one-man missions to educate Palestinians in refugee camps.

"We have to understand this picture to understand who we are dealing with," he says.

He believes the Holocaust affects the Israeli character deeply. "There is no way to deal with the Israelis if we deny the element that constructs 90% of their personality."

Ignorance

Dr Ruth Firer agrees. The memory of persecution in Europe is very strong she says.

"It is rooted in our personality". She adds that she wishes the Palestinians understood the Jewish "tragedies" better. But what about understanding theirs?

Eyal Danon works on a project with Israeli Arabs documenting the Arab and Jewish history of Jaffa.

He says that's even more important, but it is also much harder.

Demonstration against Israeli barrier in the West Bank

The two sides now have virtually no contact to learn about the other

"If you ask people in Israel about the Nakba the majority don't know what it is."

He adds that Israelis should study the Nakba, the events surrounding the birth of Israel that resulted in an estimated 700,000 Palestinians fleeing, because it was their responsibility.

Only after Israel's dealt with that he says, can there be dialogue with the Palestinians.

In the 1980s a new generation of Israeli historians started writing about some of the more brutal aspects of their country's origins including expulsions and violence against Arab villagers.

But most of that still hasn't made it into the mainstream narrative.

And today, young people on either side of the conflict have little chance to find out more about each other's present lives let alone the past.

Apart from a few official school exchanges youngsters from the two sides have virtually no contact at all.

We Will Return..... award winning poster by Qutaiba Aboud, Aseera al-Shemaliyya, Nablus

The image “http://www.badil.org/Publications/Press/2007/nakba-poster.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

http://www.badil.org/Publications/Press/2007/nakba-poster.jpg
http://www.badil.org/Publications/Press/2007/press445-07.htm
BADIL's Al-Awda Award encourages cultural expression on the Nakba and Palestinian refugees' right of return. For photos of the event and copies of the award winning posters, see: www.badil.org

The winners of the 2007 Award are:

Posters:
1.Qutaiba Aboud, Aseera al-Shemaliyya, Nablus (See the Poster)

One state, not two by Khaled Amayreh...& more from IMEU

Palestinian children attend an art exhibit organized by BADIL in the West Bank city of Ramallah. (Maan Images) The Institute for Middle East Understanding provides journalists with quick access to information about Palestine and the Palestinians, as well as expert sources, both in the U.S. and the Middle East. Need story assistance? Contact us. New to the issue? See our Background Briefings

One state, not two
Khaled Amayreh, Palestine Times, May 4, 2007

This article was originally published by Palestine Times and is republished with permission.

Palestinians cross an Israeli military checkpoint at the entrance to the northern West Bank city of Qalqilia. (Maan Images)

Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was quoted as saying on Tuesday that there was no intention of “dissolving the national unity government.” Haniyeh’s remarks coincided with the remarks of his own deputy, Azzam al-Ahmad, who warned that “the government won’t survive more than three months” if the American-backed, Israeli-enforced, blockade persists.

Earlier in the week, both Haniyeh and Hamas’ politburo, Chief Khalid Mash’al, issued a plethora of statements warning that “Palestinians would resort to alternatives” if the West continued to coerce and shun the Palestinian national unity government.

The two leaders didn’t clarify what the contemplated “other alternatives” would be. However, it was amply clear that both were alluding to ending the already fragile ceasefire with Israel (which Israel itself is threatening to end, anyway) or perhaps embarking on a fully-fledged new intifada.

It is abundantly clear though that the statements reflect profound indignation, stemming from the failure of the national unity government to end the hermetic blockade which has already pushed numerous Palestinian families to the brink of starvation.

True, the crisis is occasionally mitigated by some irregular and noncommittal financial aid from some oil-rich Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. But this gives Palestinians only false-hope for a breakthrough that doesn’t seem likely to be coming anytime soon.

In other words, there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and the reasons are clear.

First, Israel, which is undergoing a severe political crisis as a result of the Winograd Report, is not willing to allow the Palestinians to have a truly viable and territorially-continuous state.

Related stories

Why Israel is after me

Time for a bi-national state

A separate and unequal reality

A hope not lost

'Farewell to our house!'

Indeed, the continued expansion of Jewish-only settlements on confiscated Arab land in the West Bank, especially in Occupied East Jerusalem, is more reflective of Israel’s true stance than a hundred statements by Israeli officials expressing a desire for peace. Actions, after all, speak louder than words.

More to the point, Israeli society itself is drifting menacingly toward right-wing jingoism, if not outright fascism. Furthermore, the backbone of Israeli society – its army – is on its way to becoming a “national-religious army” as an increasingly high and disproportionate percentage of its officers are affiliated with the extreme religious parties and/or settler camps. This is demonstrated through the existing ratio of 4 soldiers to each settler in Hebron, for protecting the settlers, in spite of their actions.

Second, it is manifestly clear that the Bush administration is preoccupied with the Iraqi quagmire as well as with the political and constitutional showdown with the Democrats on the domestic front, so much so that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is becoming of secondary importance.

True, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice keeps visiting the region every few weeks. But her visits have produced virtually nothing. In fact, Rice’s visits have only served to deepen frustration on both sides, frustration at the failure to revive the moribund peace process and also at America’s enduring inability to do what it takes to make the promise of peace more realistic, namely to pressure Israel to give up the spoils of the 1967 war.

Third, the European Union, who’s rotating presidency is now assumed by Germany – the most pro-Israel European state – clearly holds an overall position that is more-or-less a carbon copy of American policy. This nearly totally negative approach toward Palestinians is expressed through the E.U.’s constant refusal to lift the blockade of the Palestinian government, along with the E.U.’s reluctance to pressure Israel to unfreeze more than $700 million of Palestinian tax money unjustly held by Israel.

Finally, the Arab sates don’t lag far behind Europe, US and Israel in tormenting Palestinians. This is clear from the persistent refusal of these states to allow national banks to transfer aid money to the cash-strapped PA, despite rhetorical claims to the contrary.

In light, one doesn’t have to be a great prognosticator to predict that the crisis facing the Palestinian people and its enduring just cause will exacerbate even further as Israel continues to blackmail us into giving up our national rights, including the right of return for Palestinian refugees uprooted from their ancestral homeland in 1948 and 1967....[more]

Israel and apartheid
IMEU

Lines of resistance
John Palattella, The Nation

Gaza as testing ground
Al-Ahram Weekly

Three Palestinians killed near Jenin
Al-Jazeera (May 4, 2007)

Israeli protestors demand that Olmert resign
The Washington Post (May 4, 2007)

The Livni-Rice Plan: peace or apartheid?
Jeff Halper, Counterpunch (May 4, 2007)

EU: Political crisis should not harm peace process
Reuters (May 4, 2007)

Israel arrests 12 across West Bank
Maan News (May 4, 2007)

South Africa invites Haniyeh to visit
The Associated Press (May 3, 2007)

EU coordinates payments with Palestinian govt
Reuters (May 3, 2007)

The Livni-Rice plan for the Middle East
Jeff Halper, Counterpunch (May 3, 2007)

Still no hope for peace
The Jordan Times (May 3, 2007)

It is entirely possible that by the time this editorial hits the streets, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will have resigned.

If so, good riddance. Like the previous Israeli prime minister, this one has done little for peace, justice, security or prosperity in our region. On the contrary, every Israeli step seems designed to make things worse.

It is not necessarily Olmert’s fault. In a country where we are told again and again that a majority wants peace with the Palestinians based on a two-state solution as the necessary first step towards peace with all Arab countries, there is a remarkable lack of politicians willing to run on exactly that ticket.

Rather, Israeli leaders are elected for their ability to fight and defeat Arabs. Israeli leaders’ popularity rises and falls in step with the degree to which they are successful in that venture. Hence Olmert’s demise.

So while it is good riddance to one Israeli leader, it is with sadness that the Arab world surveys his likely successors. Not one of them — whether former PMs Ehud Barak or Benjamin Netanyahu (imagine!), current Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni or former chief of staff Ami Ayalon — offers the slightest bit of encouragement.

Not one has indicated that s/he is ready to take the necessary steps to reach a proper settlement with the Palestinians (and indeed the Syrians). Not one has indicated that s/he is ready to once and for all dismantle the illegal settlement project in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, or the Golan Heights.

Not one countenances that there should be a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, including, but not limited to, the choice for these refugees to return. Not one, therefore, offers any hope for any peace any time soon.

And while we in the Arab world can only envy and marvel at the solid independence of an investigative commission that publicly takes its political leaders to task for failing their own people, we can only despair at the fact that Israeli political leaders are judged to have failed their people for not winning an illegal and insane massacre against a neighbouring country, rather than for having entered into that madness in the first place.

Or for failing to make the peace that is the only kind worth having: a just one.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

MSM Promotes Palestinian Voices by umkahlil

MSM Promotes Palestinian Voices

by umkahlil

Fri May 04, 2007 at 11:10:02 AM PDT

President Jimmy Carter's courageous stand on behalf of occupied Palestinians has sparked a surge of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices appearing in the mainstream media. For example the LA Times' News Blog reprinted a story, which was first published in 1957, by the late Ambassador Robert G. Neumann. Neumann, according to the Times was an "Austrian who was held in a Nazi concentration camp for his political activities," and a "UCLA professor who wrote frequently about world events for The Times . . . ."

Neumann's suggestion in 1957 for Middle East Peace:

Arab states must accept existence of Israel as an integral part of the area.

Israel must accept principal responsibility for the return, resettlement or compensation of refugees.

Both sides must recognize that fear of aggression is mutual and genuine.

Arab leaders must realize that their frequent blood-curdling statements render a poor service to their cause.

Israel must recognize that as long as there is worldwide agitation for Jewish immigration into Palestine, Arab fears of Israel's aggrandizement will persist.

umkahlil's diary :: ::

Neumann's story was followed the next day with Israeli Knesset member and Palestinian Azmi Bishara's Op-Ed, Why Israel is After Me.

Bishara writes regarding allegations that he passed information to Hezbollah:

These trumped-up charges, which I firmly reject and deny, are only the latest in a series of attempts to silence me and others involved in the struggle of the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel to live in a state of all its citizens, not one that grants rights and privileges to Jews that it denies to non-Jews.

He informs Americans about the realities of Israel:
..[more]

LITERALLY BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE from Desertpeace

Imagine working all of your life and paying into a government pension plan. Millions of people are in 'that boat' and have one less thing to worry about after they retire. After one's death, benefits usually revert to the surviving spouse. ... that is unless your home is not technically in the country you paid into any longer... specifically if you are a Palestinian living in Israel.Former Americans and Canadians living in Israel have no such problems from their lands of origin... only Palestinians living here, just another case of dehumanisation. And why? Because they can! They, being the Israeli government. The following is a report of one such instance...
The case is in court at the moment... let's hope this family receives some justice. Click HERE to see the original including a map of the area.
_____________________________________________________________________
A Little House in the Darkness: Where lies the Al-Kurd Family’s Living Room?
By: Meir Margalit
Far from the media spotlight, a most absurd case is being heard before the Jerusalem District Court. In "the State of Israel vs. Diana Al-Kurd" the state is attempting to cancel Mrs. Al-Kurd's widow's pension because at the time of her husband's death he was residing outside of Jerusalem's city limits. Actually, mostly outside, since the Jerusalem city boundary passes straight through the Al-Kurd house - leaving part in Jerusalem and part in the Occupied Territories.
The house in question is located in Anata, a village that straddles the '67 border. Like several of the buildings in East Jerusalem, the Jerusalem boundary passes through this village arbitrarily: in this case through the Al-Kurd's living room...[more]

LITERALLY BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

Nakba at 59 - winners of Al-Awda Celebration of Creative Resistance

BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
Press release, 2 May 2007

2007 Al-Awda Award Festival Celebration of Creative Resistance

BADIL, 1 May: "Today we have crossed walls and borders. Your presence, energy and works prove that the quest for justice and the right of return inspires generations", said Palestinian novelist Salman Natour, moderator of the 2007 Al-Awda Award Festival, to the full theater hall of the Cultural Palace in Ramallah.

The 16 winners of the Al-Awda Award were honored by Palestinian artists, scholars, politicians and professionals, members of the jury and award committees, a special performance of the Palestinian dance troupe al-Funoun al-Sha'biyya, and an audience of over 750 who had arrived from Haifa, Nazareth, and the refugee camps and towns of the occupied West Bank. Best short films and posters were exhibited during the event.

BADIL's Al-Awda Award encourages cultural expression on the Nakba and Palestinian refugees' right of return. For photos of the event and copies of the award winning posters, see: www.badil.org
The winners of the 2007 Award are:

Posters:
1.Qutaiba Aboud, Aseera al-Shemaliyya, Nablus
2.Muhammad Abdel-Ghanni Saba'na, Qabatya, Jenin
3.Rana Bisharat, Tarshiha, Nazareth

Children's Stories:
1.Maliha Maslamani, Jerusalem
2.Ahlam Bisharat, Jenin
3.Majdi Shomali, Beit Sahour

Research Papers:
1.Maliha Maslamani, Jerusalem
2.Jabra'il Shomali, Beit Sahour
3.Sabreen Zaban, Jerusalem

Oral History Documents:
1.Rasha Abu Zaytoun, Deir al-Ghassoun, Tulkarem
2.Rashad al-Madani, Gaza
3.Maliha Sa'id To'ama, Haifa

Short Films Drama:
1.Shadi Srour, Nazareth (Ya Ana, Ya Haifa)

Short Films Documentary:
1.Tha'er Abdelrahman al-Azza, Dheisha camp (Erth Mukhayyem)
2.Du'a' Anati, Hebron (Risha Min Wahi al-Zakira)
3.Raneen Jiries, Kafr Yassif, Galilee (Nisa' Filastiniyat)

Labels: activism, good news, Nakba, Palestine

# posted by thecutter @ 15:31

from peacepalestine: Miguel Martinez - Ethnocracy and Democracy

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Miguel Martinez - Ethnocracy and Democracy

The world is full of countries having hateful politics, starting with Uganda, one can move on down the line until reaching Italy.

Israel, in other words, is in excellent – or terrible – company.

And we could even be disinterested in all of this: as it is, it is tiring enough for me to consign in record time the translations I do to put food on my table, how could I spend what time is left focusing on all the horrors that happen in the four corners of the world.
...[more]

Israel occupation and the non-violent Intifada

Demonstrators chant songs near the Apartheid Wall

Israel occupation and the non-violent Intifada

Interrogation and Denial: How Israel Keeps Palestinians Down and Out

by Sabbah

Fri May 04, 2007 at 01:00:38 PM PDT

The following shocking testimony is a sample of what an uprooted Palestinian face if s/he wish to return home, Palestine.

Nadia Hasan is a Palestinian woman with a Chilean passport. She is a human rights activist and translator. She visited Palestine once before, but since then, her only "sin" is wishing to set foot in the land that gave birth to her family, the land that is part of her. For this sin, for the racist prejudice against Palestinians, for the fear that Israelis have of facing the fact that the land they came to live on is the land that others yearn for and have been attached to for countless generations, she is paying the price.

Sabbah's diary :: ::

This is her story:

30th March 2006: Nadia's experience while crossing the borders from Jordan to Palestine (borders occupied by Israel). She wrote me the following email:
...[more]

Palestinians Marooned in No-Man's Land Losing Hope

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http://bbsnews.net/index.php?topic=mideast

Palestinians Marooned in No-Man's Land Losing Hope

Thursday, May 03 2007 @ 08:00 PM EDT

Palestinian refugees despair after year marooned between Iraq and Syria

BBSNews 2007-05-03 - DAMASCUS, (IRIN) -- Over 1,000 Iraqi-Palestinian refugees stranded in camps on the Syrian-Iraqi borders are sinking into despair as their situation continues to deteriorate and a solution to their plight remains elusive.

Palestinian families suffer from discrimination and displacement.

Image Courtesy: © IRIN

For the image shown above in a larger size, please see: Palestinian families suffer from discrimination and displacement.

More BBSNews images are available in BBSNews Photos.

"We are losing hope," one refugee in the Al-Tanf camp, who requested anonymity, told IRIN. "There are problems between husbands and wives because of the situation and we are afraid for the future of our children. We are searching for a solution, but it does not exist."

Over 1,000 Palestinians are marooned in no-man's land at the Al-Tanf and Al-Waleed camps on the Syrian-Iraqi borders as well as Al-Hol camp just inside Syria. They fled the violence in Iraq only to be refused entry into Syria by the Syrian government.

As Al-Tanf heads towards its one year anniversary in June, life in the tented camps is fraught with anguish and daily struggles.

In the last few days a pregnant woman attempted and failed to commit suicide, while at the end of April a fire swept across the Al-Tanf camp leaving 28 refugees injured. Several deaths and miscarriages have been reported, and having endured the cold and floods of winter the refugees are now living under dust storms and the heat of the approaching summer.

"The conditions are absolutely dire, [the camps] are places where people are dying. No man, woman or child should be living in that environment," said Sybella Wilkes, spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Damascus, one of the few organisations able to gain access to the camps.

As the situation worsens, there is no immediate prospect of a solution. The only proposal thus far, an offer by the Palestinian Authority to take in the refugees, was rejected by Israel.

"At the moment there is nothing that we can tell the Palestinian refugees that is going to happen. We tell them that we think about them and we're talking about them," said Wilkes. "We never want them to feel that they're forgotten."

The permanent doctor for the camps is hugely over-stretched and while the UNHCR and the Syrian Red Crescent continue to provide ambulance cover as well as food and water deliveries, the health of the refugees, who include several hundred children, is deteriorating.

Unlike the majority of Iraqi refugees who are still free to enter Syria, Palestinian refugees from Iraq have been prevented from entering since May last year, with the government fearful of a large influx of extra Palestinians.

"The Syrians are saying that we have 450,000 Palestinians already, since 1948 and 1967, and that is enough," said Wilkes.

With no legally-recognised homeland, regional governments are worried that the Palestinians - unlike the Iraqis whom they believe will eventually return home - will remain indefinitely.

Since the fall of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Palestinian community has been systematically attacked because of the favourable conditions it enjoyed under the old regime.

According to the United Nations, close to 200 Palestinians have been killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion of the country began in March 2003.

Britain protests to Olmert about illegal settlement

article2514300.ece

Britain protests to Olmert about illegal settlement

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem

Published: 05 May 2007

The British Government has directly intervened in the controversy over Jewish colonisation in Arab East Jerusalem after the formation of plans to build an illegal settlement within 50 metres of its Consulate General in the city.

The British Ambassador Tom Phillips, has raised serious concerns with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office over proposals to demolish the empty Palestinian Shepherd's Hotel in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, and build apartments for 122 Jewish settler families in its place.

The British have told the Israeli authorities that the plans, which if implemented, could not only change the character of the historic and highly sensitive East Jerusalem district, but also pose a serious security risk to its diplomatic mission.

Sheikh Jarrah borders - on the Arab side - the "green line" that denoted Israel's border up to the Six Day War in 1967, and includes a number of other foreign diplomatic missions to the Palestinians beside the British consulate, as well as a mosque and Palestinian residential homes.

When right-wing settlers occupied another small enclave in the Shimon Hatzadik district five years ago, their leaders indicated that part of the purpose was to help cut off the Palestinian core in the Old City from the highly populated northern Jerusalem Arab neighbourhoods of Beit Hanina and Shuafat. This would threaten Palestinian "contiguity" in East Jerusalem which Palestinian negotiators have always identified as the future capital of a Palestinian state.

Danny Seidemann, a prominent Israeli lawyer who specialises in challenging Jewish settlement in Arab areas of Jerusalem said yesterday that the building was owned by an offshore firm controlled by Irwin Moskowitz, a right-wing American businessman whom he described as "the patron saint of settlers in East Jerusalem."

Dr Moskowitz has acquired a number of properties in Arab sectors of the city for use by settlers in what most of the international community, including Britain, regards as a violation of international law....[more]

Palestine’s spring blooms in Anatolia

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=110305
Today's Zaman
Arts & Culture Music

Palestine’s spring blooms in Anatolia

"When I received the invitation for this event, my eyes caught the line, 'Palestine's Spring Blooms in Anatolia'. Let me tell you that this spring, the Spring of Palestine, has never ended in the heart of Anatolia."

Ankara Mayor Melih Gökçek was addressing about 300 people in the hall of the State Painting and Sculpture Museum. Half of the spectators were of Palestinian origin. You would see Palestinian youngsters in the official garments of the Turkish Army, or of the police forces. The members of the Palestinian diplomatic mission here in Ankara know well that these young boys are the flowers of that Palestinian Spring that blooms in Anatolia.

The Palestine Culture Week was organized by the Embassy of the State of Palestine in Ankara. Ambassador Nabil Marouf was determined from the outset that this cultural event should become a tradition and be repeated every year with growing enthusiasm. "I hope we will organize a Turkish Cultural Week next year in Palestine," he says with his Arabic-accented English. The guttural sounds make his English more passionate and convincing; his "Next year in Palestine" echoes the "Next year in Jerusalem" of the diaspora Jews.

Palestine Culture Week is an event that incorporates photographic exhibitions, music and folk dance. As might be anticipated, the musicians and dancers are not from Palestine. A Palestinian group would face enormous difficulties in reaching Turkey and in returning afterwards. Both the musicians and the dancers are from Lebanon. The Firkat Hanin [Group Yearning] is a group of 12 people, singing and playing Palestinian music. Sanabil al-Aqsa [The Tendrils of Aqsa] is a group of young boys and girls from the refugee camps in Lebanon. The group was established in 1997 and is in Turkey to perform dabka, the Palestinian folk dance.

The show starts with group songs rather reminiscent of military torch songs. At one point, Sahar Sablani, a half-Lebanese, half-Palestinian young lady with dark brown skin and short blonde hair, sang a solo. She is not one of those Palestinian girls with long black hair who love to have the wind comb their tresses. But the sound, the passion, the lament was all Palestinian. Understandably, she sings of the longing of the Palestinian refugees to return to their lands. The lyrics of the song belong to her. "With loud voices return to Palestine," she says. "So that the villagers will feel that I am alive / If I am martyred before my return / I will sing this same song from my grave…"

The words of Sablani reach the hearts of the Palestinian diaspora here in Turkey. They may not feel like foreigners here, but they are aware that the dream to return to Palestine is not to be realized in the near future. How can a people live such a life? Almost a thousand years ago Yehuda Halevi of Spain would sing the same feelings in despair: "My heart is in the East, and I in the uttermost West / How can I find savor in food? How shall it be sweet to me?" But then suddenly you hear Sahar Sablani change the mood of the song: "Layadi Layadi! Hand-in-hand!" And applause follows. "This is my nation," says Sablani. "Our lamenting is a twin of our joy."

The second singer is Haysam Osman. He is in his thirties, which makes him from the second generation of Palestinian refugees. He has never seen Palestine, nor did his parents, probably. One man in the orchestra never saw, and will never see Palestine, even in photographs. He opens Haysam's song with a long violin solo. Muin Ali Yunis lost his sight when he was only three months old. He is originally Lebanese, but his family used to live in Palestine during the Nakba, the Catastrophe of 1948. They returned to the south Lebanese city of Sur, where Muin was born, educated and now lives. He has never seen "the enemy," the Zionist soldiers, but had spoken to one during the 1982 occupation. He cannot define the enemy in visual terms. For him the enemy is a sound, the sound of flying fighter planes from the South. "I can't see things, but I can see light and darkness," he says. "And I can see fear."

Since the enemy is a sound, Muin's resistance is also a vocal one. He uses the violin to recreate the Palestinian resistance fighters in notes and tunes. Haysam joins in with his Haqq al-Awda [The Right of Return]. "Every word of this song has a deep meaning," he says. "The doves travel and travel around, but in the end they return / All those who have left in '48 and in '67 are determined to return / Flag, land, nation and state… This is freedom for us. / Old, young, boys, girls from East, West, North and South, all will return home…" At this point the drum joins in. For those who know the geography of Palestine, the drum beats not for Haysam's song, but to give a marching rhythm for the returning Palestinian. Note-by-note Haysam reaches the end of his song, step-by-step the Palestinians return to their lands…

Muin also returns to Palestine. Had he ever dreamt of it? No, but when he reconstructs the memories of Palestine he heard from his parents, he draws a green Palestine. Green forests, green valleys and beautiful children playing and singing… The people of those green lands are a humble, peaceful people. That is all he can make up of the Palestine he longs for.

Haysam finishes his imaginary march back to Palestine and leaves the microphone to Muhammad Aga. The Aga family is a large Turkish family from Palestine. So Muhammad feels himself at home. This gives him the incentive to play with the words of a famous song that calls on Abu Ammar -- Yasser Arafat. The song originally praises Abu Ammar as the gatherer of the dispersed Palestinian people. But Muhammad prefers to refer to Turkey with the same sentiments. "Ya Turkiyya!" he starts. "O Turkey! You have brought our people together. You have given us consciousness of brotherhood and love. You have gathered different groups under one umbrella. O my brother! Come, come hand-in-hand!" Here Muhammad turns to Abu Ammar. "Just like Abu Ammar wanted us to be. Hand-in-hand!" Muhammad didn't speak of his hopes for Turkey's becoming the "old Turkey" once again and bringing the dispersed Arab nation under its leadership, but he does later.

Songs follow songs, joy follows lamentation, applause follows sad "Ya baa"s. Then comes in the Sanabil al-Aqsa. Four girls are followed by four boys. The choreographer, Ilham Shuli, is a Lebanese lady. "Dabka is a dance of Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria," she explains. "The theme of dabka is taken from ancient Palestinian wedding and courtship dances. Dabka is our national dance. It does not have political symbols, but it has a political meaning. It tells the happy, joyful lifestyle of the Palestinian people before the Zionists came."

Sanabil al-Aqsa performs several different dances. Dabka Dahiyye is about a wedding occasion when young boys are looking for beautiful girls to chat with. Girls, of course, behave coquettishly and want the boys to show their courage and strength. The competition between the boys reaches the point that swords are unsheathed and a show of strength begins. "This is not something made up," says Ilham Shuli. "In the past marriages were arranged at wedding ceremonies. Boys and girls would dance the dabka and boys would sing improvised songs about a girl who finds favor in their eyes. The girl would respond if she was interested in chatting, and you would know the next couple in the village." Much more sophisticated than throwing a bride's bouquet!

In another dance called Zaytoun wa Bayan al-Nasr (Olives and Declaration of Success) the Sanabil al-Aqsa tells the story of a marketplace where boys ask for the hand of a girl in marriage. The movements are taken from agricultural activities; hands sprinkle, plough and harvest and feet work on the earth. In the market harvested fruits change hands, and girls offer water to the young boys. Here emerges the utopian side of the Palestinian return myth. Haysam Osman's Haqq al-Awda finishes with these utopian lines: "The fisherman returns to fishing; the farmer returns to farming…"

The songs and dances tell that the Palestinian diaspora wants to regard the 60 years of exile as nonexistent; as if time had stopped and if the Palestinian nation dreamt a nightmare from which they will soon wake up… The fisherman will return to fishing… The farmer will return to farming…

Hunger in Eden- TIME blogs

May 2, 2007 5:44

Hunger in Eden

Posted by Andrew Lee Butters

"...Though it's hard to believe that food could be scarce in this land of milk and honey, the 24 families who live in Yanoun are being slowly starved. The settlements now control access to about 96 percent of the village's land making commercial agriculture nearly impossible. And though Yanoun could possibly support itself with some kind of highly cultivated garden in the bowl shaped valley beneath, they don't have enough water to do so because the settlements have taken over their rain catching ground cisterns. And even if they could grow produce, the villagers would have trouble getting it to market. The reliable roads to the region are for Israelis only. The rest are clogged with checkpoints. So the people of Yanoun -- like some 400,000 other people in the West Bank -- scrape by with the help from the WFP.

The WFP brought me here to see an example of what they called "food insecurity" -- a condition not of outright starvation but of scarcity that occurs when people don't have reliable access to enough food to have productive lives...."
http://time-blog.com/middle_east/2007/05/hunger_in_eden.html

A democracy for Jews only By Azmi Bishara in the LA Times

A democracy for Jews only

By Azmi Bishara

How Israel uses its government to deny Palestinians full democracy.

[more]

Palestinian youths take part in a demonstration marking May Day at the Qalandiya checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah May 1, 2007. REUTERS/Oleg Popov (WEST BANK)

A Palestinian worker waves a Palestinian flag during a May Day demonstration next to a section of Israel's separation barrier at the Kalandia Checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, Tuesday, May 1, 2007. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

Palestinian protesters scuffle with Israeli border police during a demonstration marking May Day at the Qalandiya checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah May 1, 2007. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (WEST BANK)

Palestinians search through garbage at a dump near the West Bank city of Hebron May 1, 2007. Palestinian children regularly sift through the garbage looking for clothes, metal and any other object thrown out by the nearby Jewish settlements. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun (WEST BANK)

Palestinian refugee Abu Ibrahim, 66, who has worked as a labourer in Jordan's scrap metal industry since 1967, poses during a break at his workplace in the centre of Amman May 1, 2007. REUTERS/Ali Jarekji (JORDAN)

Palestinian refugee Abu Ibrahim, 66, who has worked as a labourer in Jordan's scrap metal industry since 1967, poses during a break at his workplace in the centre of Amman May 1, 2007. REUTERS/Ali Jarekji (JORDAN)

Palestinian refugee Abu Ibrahim, 66, who has worked as a labourer in Jordan's scrap metal industry since 1967, poses during a break at his workplace in the centre of Amman May 1, 2007. REUTERS/Ali Jarekji (JORDAN)

Members of the Samaritan sect take part in the traditional Passover sacrifice ceremony on Mount Gerizim near the West Bank city of Nablus April 30, 2007. The Samaritans, who trace their roots to the biblical Kingdom of Israel in what is now the northern occupied West Bank, observe religious practices similar to those of Judaism. Picture taken April 30, 2007. REUTERS/Yonathan Weitzman (WEST BANK)

Samaritan priests pray during the ritual of Sacrifice, part of a Passover ceremony, in Mount Gerezim, overlooking the West Bank town of Nablus, Monday, April 30, 2007. According to tradition, the Samaritans are descendants of Jews who were not deported when the Assyrians conquered Israel in the 8th century B.C. Of the small community of close to 700 people, half live in a village at Mount Gerizim, and the rest in the city of Holon near Tel Aviv. (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh)

Palestinian children hold pictures of relatives held in Israeli jails during a protest demanding the release of prisoners in Gaza City, Monday, April 30, 2007. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

Palestinian children attend a non-violence workshop in the West Bank caves village of Ghwein, near Hebron, April 30, 2007. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun (WEST BANK)

Palestinian children attend a non-violence workshop in the West Bank caves village of Ghwein, near Hebron, April 30, 2007. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun (WEST BANK)

Palestinian children attend a non-violence workshop in the West Bank caves village of Ghwein, near Hebron, April 30, 2007. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun (WEST BANK)

Palestinian teachers gather inside the Ministry of Education during a demonstration in the West Bank city of Ramallah April 30, 2007. (Loay Abu Haykel/Reuters)

The World Says NO to Israeli Occupation! Global Day of Action - June 9-10, 2007

Global Day of Action - June 9-10, 2007
The World Says NO to Israeli Occupation!

June 2007 marks the 40-year anniversary of Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights. On June 9-10, 2007, the people of Palestine and people of the world will join together to say NO! to Israeli occupation.

For 40 years Israel has constructed illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land. For 40 years Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians, demolished 12,000 Palestinian homes, arrested 650,000 Palestinians, destroyed more than a million Palestinian olive trees.

Since 2002 the Apartheid Wall built on occupied Palestinian territory aims to encircle the Palestinian population, squeezing Palestinians into truncated Bantustans and cementing Israeli expansionism. The Wall divides farmers from their land, students from their schools, workers from their jobs, and people from their communities. Despite the International Court of Justice ruling it illegal, the Wall now encircles Palestinian towns and cities in the most massive land-grab in 40 years. In its recent war against Lebanon, Israel's unilateralism and militarism have been exposed to the world. Israel continues to establish "facts on the ground" to maintain strategic control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and to annex land and get rid of the non-Jewish population.

For 40 years of occupation Israel has continued to deny Palestinians in the occupied territories their internationally guaranteed human rights to food, water, education, livelihood, and health care; imposes a system of checkpoints, closures, military fences, sieges and curfews that deny Palestinians freedom of movement within and between their own communities; and, again in violation of the Geneva Conventions, Israel imposes collective punishments on the entire Palestinian population. Mass arrests have included dozens of democratically elected Palestinian parliamentarians and government ministers. Since the year 2000, Israel's "targeted" killings, often carried out by U.S.-provided F-16 bombers or Hellfire missiles have resulted in more than 337 dead Palestinians; 129 of them were not the "target" at all, and many of those killed were children.

In Jerusalem and inside Israel, Palestinians since 1948 face institutionalized discrimination and are denied equality and their full rights as citizens. And Israel continues to deny Palestinian refugees, who were forcibly exiled from their homeland in the 1947-48 war, their internationally guaranteed right of return.

Thirty years ago, the United Nations recognized, condemned and committed itself to oppose the international crime of apartheid wherever it appeared. Today, 12 years after the end of apartheid in South Africa, Israel continues to practice a system of apartheid. We call on the United Nations once again to join with us to identify, condemn and commit ourselves to opposing these heinous crimes. As we were in the past, we are again determined that the perpetrators of that crime be brought to justice.

Throughout its years of occupation, Israel continues to stand in violation of dozens of international laws and scores of UN resolutions. And the international community bears much of the responsibility for those violations. Led by the United States, many governments around the world have actively collaborated in providing support for Israel's occupation and its denial of Palestinian rights. Others have stood mute, or spoken too quietly, failing to mobilize a serious global challenge to Israel's global violations.

We are building nonviolent global campaigns of Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions, and we will work on a wide range of educational and cultural campaigns, all culminating in a

Global Day of Action on June 9-10, 2007,
held under the banner, "The World Says No to Israeli Occupation."

People across the globe will come together on those days to demand an end to occupation and the realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to self-determination and the right to establish an independent, sovereign Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem. We will insist that our own governments stop providing military, economic, diplomatic and corporate support for Israel's illegal occupation, and instead create new foreign policies that will support an end to occupation, equal rights for all, and a comprehensive, just and lasting peace

Join with us as THE WORLD SAYS 'NO' TO ISRAELI OCCUPATION!

Endorse the call with a mail to ICNPcall@gmail.com