& notes
posted by annie at 1:57 PM
0 comments
Al-Nakba, 59th anniversary
May 15th, 1948, was the Palestinian Al-Nakba (the Catastrophe), or what Israel refers to as the “Day of Independence.” To Palestinians, it symbolizes the dispossession, displacement, and uprooting of 800,000 Palestinians from their homes in what then became Israel. Many of these refugees and their descendants, who now number more than 4 million, still languish in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and surrounding Arab countries. While Al-Nakba embodies the first major wave of forced expulsion of Palestinians from their land, Israel’s premeditated campaign of ethnic cleansing continues to this very day.
posted by annie at 1:51 PM
0 comments
Updated September 12, 2006
The Right To Return, a Basic Right Still Denied*
• Palestinian refugees represent the longest suffering and largest refugee population in the world today.
• In 2005, there were approximately 7.2 million Palestinian refugees, equivalent to 74% of the entire Palestinian population which is estimated at 9.7 million worldwide.
• The breakdown of the refugee population is as follows:
 |
• The Right to Return has a solid legal basis:
 |
Moreover, the Principle of Self Determination guarantees, inter alia, the right of ownership and domicile in one's own country. The UN adopted this principle in 1947. In 1969 and thereafter, it was explicitly applied to the Palestinian People, including "the legality of the Peoples' struggle for Self-Determination and Liberation", (GAOR 2535 (xxiv), 2628 (xxv), 2672 (xxv), 2792 (xxvi)). International law demands that neither occupation nor sovereignty diminish the rights of ownership. When the Ottomans surrendered in 1920, Palestinian ownership of the land was maintained. The land and property of the refugees remains their own and they are entitled to return to it.
• In 1948, the international community felt a deep sense of responsibility for the mass dispossession, ethnic cleansing and the Zionist transfer policy that began then. United Nations Mediator Count Folke Bernadotte, who was later assassinated by a Zionist terrorist hit squad, stated: "It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes, while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine" (UN Doc Al 648, 1948). This remains true today as any Jew, regardless of national origin, can gain automatic citizenship while Palestinian Arabs are denied their right to return to their own homeland.
• Consistent with International Law, The United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 194 on December 11, 1948. Paragraph 11 states: "the [Palestinian] refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible."
• UN General Assembly Resolution 194 has been affirmed by the UN over 130 times since its introduction in 1948 with universal consensus except for Israel and the U.S. This resolution was further clarified by UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 which reaffirms in Subsection 2: "the inalienable right of Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return."
• Israel's admission to the UN was conditional on its acceptance of UN resolutions including 194. Denying the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands is a war crime and an act of aggression which deserves action by the international community. The international community can apply sanctions on Israel until it complies with international law.
 |
• The right of refugees to return is not only sacred and legal but also possible. Demographic studies show that 80% of Israelis live in 15 percent of the land and that the remaining 20% live on 85% of the land that belongs to the refugees. Further, of the 20%, 18% live in Palestinian cities while the remaining 2% live in kibbutzim and moshavs. By contrast, more than 6,000 refugees live per square kilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wire their lands are practically empty. Ninety seven percent of the entire refugee population currently lives within 100 km of their homes. Fifty percent live within 40 km. While many live within sight of their homes.
• The inalienable rights of refugees are not negotiable. International law considers agreements between an occupier and the occupied to be null and void if they deprive civilians of recognized human rights including the rights to repatriation and restitution.
• The US is bound by its laws not to fund regimes that violate human rights and basic freedoms. There is no more elemental right than one's right to his/her home and to live in his/her land. The US could use the leverage of the massive financial support it gives to the State of Israel to press for this right.
*Sources:
Dr. Salman Abu Sitta
Palestine Land Society
Badil Resource Center for Refugee Rights
Shaml - The Palestinian Diaspora and Refugee Center
United Nations Relief and Works Agency
Download fact sheet 
(need acrobat? Download from Adobe.com)
See also: FAQs on Refugees and Al Awda's Points of Unity
Further reading:
Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem
From Refugees To Citizens At Home
The Question of Palestine and the United Nations
History of the Palestine Problem
2000 - 2007 Copyright Al-Awda/PRRC. All Rights Reserved. Legal Information.
posted by annie at 1:47 PM
0 comments
History   Arts & Culture |
   Ismaeil Shammout |
| IBDAA Cultural Center |
| The Palestinian Artists Association |
| ASHTAR for Theatre Production & Training |
| Bethlehem Academy of Music |
| Cardinal House of Bethlehem |
| Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation |
| GHIRASS Childrens Cultural Center |
| First Ramallah Group |
| Al-Harah Theatre |
| El-Funoun Dance Troupe |
| Hawwa Society for Culture & Arts |
| Dheish Ibdaa Cultural Center |
| Society of Inash Al-Usra |
| Karmel Cultural Foundation |
| Al Kasaba Theater & Cinematheque |
| Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center |
| Lajee Center |
| The Palestinian Association for Cultural Exchange |
| Foundation for Contemporary Art (Jerusalem) |
| Palestinian Childrens Art Center |
| Palestinian Heritage Center |
| Palestinian House of Poetry |
| Palestinian National Theater |
| The Popular Art Centre |
| A.M. Qattan Foundation |
| Riwaq Center for Architectural Conservation |
| Sabreen Association for Artistic Development |
| Shashat |
| Turath Center |
| Al-Urmawi Center for Mashreq Music |
| Yabous Productions |
| Yafa Cultural Center |
| Ramallah Underground |
| Bashar Barghoutis Palestinian Folklore & Poetry |
| Home in Palestine |
| Khaled Zighari |
| Palestine Costume Archive |
| Steve Sabella Photographs |
Palestinian Refugee Research Network
posted by annie at 7:42 AM
0 comments
Author: Haitham The silent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Hebron never stopped since the Israeli occupation landed. Following are few examples of the endless crimes conducted by Hebron colonizers (a.k.a. settlers) and their terrorist army (IOF), against land and Palestinian families, documented and published by B’Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.
Introduction: The “quiet transfer” in Hebron:
Hebron is the only Palestinian city with a Jewish settlement at its heart. To enable a few hundred settlers to move about freely, Israel chose to enforce a formal policy of discrimination against more than 120,000 Palestinian residents of the city. Throughout the years Hebron city center became a ghost town.... [more- including videos]
posted by annie at 7:39 AM
0 comments
| ||||||||
| ||||||||
posted by annie at 7:33 AM
0 comments
All U.S. citizens must accept a measure of responsibility for Israel’s grip on America. Those of us who knew what was happening did not protest with sufficient force and clarity. |
|
By Paul Findley
In the greatest service of his long public life, former President Jimmy Carter warns of the grave consequences of America’s phenomenal subservience to Israel. In his latest book and recent lectures, he focuses on how Israel’s cruel occupation, made possible by massive and unconditional U.S. support, has subjected the Palestinian people to terrible suffering for forty long years. Beyond that grave human tragedy, candid observers must cite U.S. complicity in Israeli lawlessness as the major factor that prompted the horror of 9/11 and lured America into launching three costly, wrong-headed, and failing wars, —Afghanistan, Iraq and the War on Terror. The linkage is easily identified.
America’s support of Israel’s brutality was the main motivation for 9/11. It was the ultimate expression of Arab fury over America’s double standard that routinely ignores Israeli violations of Arab human rights. Nine-eleven would not have happened if any U.S. president in the last forty years had refused to finance Israel’s humiliation and destruction of Palestine. Michael Scheuer, a former CIA analyst now a consultant to CBS News, recently told a congressional committee that “our unqualified support of Israel” was the main reason for 9/11. Marine General Anthony Zinni, President George W. Bush’s first special envoy to the Middle East, has stated that the United States invaded Iraq for Israel and oil. Osama bin Laden repeatedly said it was payback for U.S. support of Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinians and other Arabs and for U.S. complicity in 1982 when Israeli forces used U.S.-donated munitions to massacre over 18,000 innocent Arabs in Lebanon.
The U.S. acts of war in Afghanistan and the War on Terror were President Bush’s retaliation for 9/11. Israel—and only Israel—urged the United States to invade Iraq. Israel’s lobby in Washington pushed hard and prevailed. To our foreign critics, these wars focus on killing people outraged by our pro-Israel bias. Our government has done nothing to redress the grievances of Israel’s victims.
Despite this grim record, U.S. subservience to the wishes of Israel’s leaders does not change. Unconditional aid to Israel keeps flowing, as does Israel’s savage treatment of Palestinians and other Arabs. Moreover, the Bush administration is fully and openly pledged to do whatever is necessary—--even acts of war--to halt Iran’s nuclear program even if its projects are lawfully limited to peaceful purposes. Israel is the only nation urging the United States to attack Iran. The lobby is pushing hard again. If the U.S. assaults Iran it will be on Israel’s behalf.
Congress, like the rest of America, is totally devoid of debate on the amazing role of this small nation in critical U.S. policy. Members are fulsome in public praise of the Jewish state, but no politician mentions the illegal behavior of Israel or the staggering burden it imposes on our country...[more]
posted by annie at 7:30 AM
0 comments
|
|
To the Editor:
Where are the millions of Palestinians in the Diaspora? What are they doing? Why can't they counter one whacked guy like Mad Al D? He rants now like Prof. Shockley once did. Yet millions can't/won't/don't confront him. Why not? How badly do Palestinians want a state if they can't counter one loon?
Where is the boycott of Israeli products in the USA? Where is the effort to remind Americans that Sharon is no more like Seinfeld than Goebbels was like Clark Gable?
Where is the effort to remind Americans of Arab-Americans like Tony Shalhoub, Jamie Farr, Casey Kasem, Paul Anka, James Zogby, Former Senate Majority, Leader George Mitchell, Selma Hayek, Danny Thomas..?
Palestinian statehood depends on one thing: AMERICAN, not European, public opinion. Yet Arafat wore Arab headdresses and guns, looking like a loon, instead of appearing statesman-like in Brooks Brothers suits. He should have deferred to an Oxford-educated spokesman.
So it goes.
Stop speaking to the Arab choir. Start reaching American farmers in Kansas.
Stop letting Israel determine terms and definitions. As long as you let the charge of "terrorism" stand nothing you say will matter. Like him or not, President Clinton never let 24 hours go by without countering negative aspersions. Palestinians hear themselves called terrorists and say nothing. They don't "get" that in America silence equals agreement. That is, Palestinians seem to agree that they ARE terrorists.
Hamas' leader should have weekly fireside chats explaining his people's condition to Americans. He doesn't. Why escapes me.
I've never seen group more hell-bent on losing than Palestinians. They refuse to master mass communication in the Information Age. They have little sense of what their PRIMARY audience (Americans!) needs to be moved. Year after year they complain about the unfairness of their lot while that lot worsens. The Jewish Diaspora is organized. The Palestinian Diaspora is not. Ergo, the former always wins.
Where are the attention-getting, media-attracting protests in America?
The few protests there are remain feeble, done mostly by "liberal" Jewish groups more intent on helping Israeli PR than ending Palestinian suffering. They act like German debating societies "pondering" the plight of Jews in the Reich while actual Jews were sent to concentration camps.
There is no sense of war in America. Most of us live like we're at peace: vacations, nightclubbing, business as usual. Few can point to Iraq on maps.
Your talking about The Nakba falls on deaf ears. Jews occasionally use "Shoah." Mostly, though, they use English ("Holocaust"). Why? Because their prime audience speaks English! Most Americans think "The Nakba" is a Persian restaurant.
And Palestinian students at universities? Invisible. Ergo, ineffective.
I strongly suspect there'll be another 60 years of ever-worsening conditions for Palestinians. And why not, since they don't seem to mind. There are no massive, Gandhi-like marches to protest conditions.
Why aren't rich Palestinians sending cheap digital cameras and picture-taking cell phones to the Territories so Israeli abuses can be documented? Pictures speak louder than words.
Where is the "in-your-face, up-yours, eff-you" Palestinian response to Israel?
Abbas comes across as a loser, not a leader. He's a tired, wimpy-acting man, ready to be Israel's patsy. Haniyeh is more like Gerry Adams, more unafraid to show some guts.
Would WWII Germans "recognize" the Reich like Israel wants Palestinians to do for it?
Why Americans aren’t told Israel has no Constitution?
Americans are a fair people, given facts. You are not giving them facts. We can't hear what you don't say.
-Robert S
Brookline, MA, USA
http://palestinechronicle.com./story-061107104108.htm
posted by annie at 7:25 AM
0 comments
By BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 11, 10:39 PM ET
Since February, there have been three large pilgrimages to this site, which settlers believe to be the graves of biblical figures Joshua and Caleb, Bouzia said. But smaller groups of armed settlers come more frequently.
Villagers' feelings were further ruffled when Israeli soldiers returned early Sunday morning with pilgrimage organizers to fix the damaged graves and paint over graffiti.
"This was desecration on top of desecration," Bouzia said, adding that Muslim graves can be repaired only by Muslims. The village leaders are planning to consult with Islamic authorities on how to restore the graves.
The village filed a complaint Sunday with Israeli police in Ariel, the Jewish settlement next to Kifl Hares. Bouzia warned that his villagers would confront future pilgrimages, and that this could cause "serious friction between the residents and the settlers."
posted by annie at 7:17 AM
0 comments
 |
Israeli bulldozers level Palestinian land in the Aida refugee camp, near Bethlehem, in order to construct the West Bank separation wall. (Magnus Johansson, Maan Images) |
 My silk road: a memoirTania Tamari Nasir |  Israel's death penaltyMustafa Barghouti, IHT |  Searching for truthWard Boston, SD Union-Tribune |
| Four decades of heroes in Palestine James J. Zogby, The Jordan Times (Jun 12, 2007)   Failing the civics examination Daphna Golan, Haaretz (Jun 12, 2007) 14,000 Palestinians have emigrated from Gaza since 'disengagement' Maan News (Jun 12, 2007) A birth in prison Manal Ghanem, The Guardian (Jun 11, 2007) Palestinian detainee dies after being denied medical treatment IMEMC (Jun 11, 2007) Fresh Gaza violence leaves seven dead The Guardian (Jun 11, 2007) Desecrating graves and morality Haaretz (Jun 11, 2007) 52 Dutch officials demand Holland recognise Hamas Maan News (Jun 11, 2007) Tel Aviv fountains painted red to protest killing of Palestinians Ynet News (Jun 11, 2007) |
posted by annie at 7:13 AM
0 comments
| |||
 | |||
Four decades of heroes in Palestine | |||
| James J. Zogby We are 40 years into this occupation, and the systematic destruction of Palestine, its people and their culture continues. I am not Palestinian, but throughout my adult life their story has been important to me. From my first visit to the Palestinian camps in Lebanon in 1971, which led to my doctoral dissertation “Arabs in the Promised Land”, a study of the emergence of Palestinian national consciousness, and later motivated me to found the Palestine Human Rights Campaign, I have been haunted by the plight of this captive and displaced nation. Along the way, I have met some extraordinary people whose commitment to justice and perseverance in the face of adversity have inspired and challenged me. First and foremost among them were the people of Ain Al Hilweh, the refugee camp I visited in 1971. Despite a quarter century in exile and the harsh conditions of the camp, they had, with determined creativity, reconstructed a facsimile of Palestinian life in their camp. They spoke with reverence of their homes, villages and way of life they had lost, of their remembrances of forced exodus in 1948, and of their hopes for the future. I recall most vividly the grandmother of my host in the camp. Umm Abed was a strong woman who possessed steel grey eyes and a face hardened by history and the elements. The day I left, she looked hard at me and said: “Now you’ve heard our stories, what will you do?” In some ways, through my work during the past 36 years, I have been answering her question. I was also fortunate enough to meet Palestinian poets and artists, men like Kamal Boulatta and Ismail Shamout, who embodied the soul of Palestine in their art. Kamal’s calligraphy and his delicate but evocative line drawings defined for me the themes of Palestinian hope. His work shaped my own, and still adorns the walls of my office. Ismail’s portraits of Palestinian pastoral life continue to haunt me with his visions of what Palestinians had lost but seek to regain. Then there were poets like Tawfiq Zayyed and Mahmoud Darwish, whose works taunted the occupiers, like Old Testament Prophets challenging injustice, while empowering Palestinians with a bold new language of identity. Through my work with the Palestine Human Rights Campaign, beginning in 1977, I was privileged to meet Palestinian leaders from the occupied territories: some of whom had been expelled, others tortured. Among them were leaders like Dr Hanna Nasir, the president of Bir Zeit University, and Abdul Jawad Saleh, the mayor of El Bireh — both arrested, humiliated and expelled by Israel on December 10, 1973 — the UN day of Universal of Human Rights. Hanna, who was a man of thoughtful dignity and wry humour, never showed bitterness. While he preferred, he told me, to study the stars, he accepted the challenge of exile. Abdul Jawad was a charismatic political leader who as mayor had organised cooperatives to empower his community. In exile, he too refused to surrender. Both men demonstrated, by example, the Palestinian characteristics of steadfastness in the struggle for justice. Over the years, I interviewed so many men and women who had suffered unimaginable horror at the hand of the occupation authorities. There were victims of crude torture whose stories moved me to tears. There were those whose houses had been demolished in acts of collective punishment or whose centuries-old orchards had been uprooted to make way for settlements. There were young men hardened by years of imprisonment without charge and without trial. And there were men and women, young and old, who told stories of the indignity of countless acts of humiliation visited upon them by daily life under the thumb of an occupier. What remained with me from all of these encounters was the lack of anger. What these Palestinians wanted most was to return to a normal life and to secure the right to live as free people to rebuild Palestine. My work also brought me in contact with some extraordinary Israeli human rights activists. Two who stood out as most significant were Felicia Langer and Dr Israel Shahak. Israel, who as a child was interned in the Nazi camp at Bergen-Belsen, chaired the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights. His motto was “Equal rights for every human being”, and he lived it, letting no injustice pass. A brilliant researcher and analyst, and a tireless advocate, he devoted himself to opposing hypocrisy and abuse wherever he found it, whether in Israel or among the Arabs. Derided by her detractors as a communist, Felicia was an attorney and a passionate defender of Palestinian victims of Israeli land theft, house demolition and political repression. Each week she would write to me in elegant prose, telling me of her new cases and appealing for support. “Your letters from the US,” she would say, “can hold back the hand of the torturer, and rein in the bulldozers.” Writing of Felicia and Israel, one young Palestinian said: “They defend us. But they also defend their own, because they remind us all that our two peoples can coexist.” We are not yet done. The occupation continues and new heroes have emerged. There are the courageous internationals like Rachel Corrie and the Christian Witnesses for Peace, who put their lives on the line to stop abuse. There are also the Israelis in Peace Now’s Settlement Watch Campaign and the human rights monitors at B’Tselem. The risks they take are great and their reporting is invaluable. And then there are men like Zahi Khouri, Ibrahim Abu Lughod and Sam Bahhur — Palestinian Americans who, after Oslo, decided to pull up stakes in America and return to rebuild their beloved land. Zahi, an extremely successful New York businessman, Ibrahim a tenured professor of renown, and Sam, a young and dynamic entrepreneur — all took great risks and have paid dearly for their commitment. These are but a few of the many heroes Palestine has produced. I have been inspired by their lives and work. And from them I’ve learned even more. The tragedy, of course, is that 40 years later the nightmare continues. Gaza has been strangled by a permanent blockade. The West Bank and East Jerusalem, by deliberate design, have been maimed by settlements, settler-only roads, checkpoints, and now the insidious wall and barrier that have cut Palestine and Palestinians into pieces. The violence, collective punishment and humiliation, and the past four decades have also taken a toll on the psyche of ordinary Palestinians and their culture. But I know Palestinians, their steadfastness and their remarkable ability to breed heroes out of hardship. And I know that there remain Israelis committed to justice and who, like Jeremiah of old, continue to challenge their people to righteousness. Because of this, I have faith that this nightmare will continue to produce heroes who will, one day, bring it to an end. Wednesday, June 12, 2007
|
posted by annie at 7:08 AM
0 comments
posted by annie at 8:59 PM
0 comments
| Date posted: June 09, 2007 By Remi Kanazi | |
| Time and again one is told of the Israeli “left,” the many number of Israelis, ranging from members of the Knesset to shop owners, dedicated to peace. The 40 year occupation is of particular concern to putative peace activists and purported individuals of conscience. “The burden of occupation” and its ugly realities, as many so-called dovish Israeli politicians have pointed out, tear at the moral fiber of the Jewish state. Yet, even when one looks at the horrors of the occupation in the Israeli media and political circles, it is at best through the Israeli prism, which juxtaposes the pain of Israel in equal magnitude to the pain of the Palestinian people. This Israeli pain, without its counterpart’s suffering, is transferred to the papers of the US press and is ultimately exponentially magnified, giving the American people a distorted awareness of the Israeli narrative. Nonetheless, there must be a clear understanding that only one people is living under occupation—many after being dispossessed in 1948 and again in 1967. By even phrasing today’s climate as a conflict, it lends support to the assumption that this is a dispute between two equal sides, with equal grievances. The complexities of the Palestine question is further complicated by issues beyond the 40 year occupation, including the Palestinian right of return, the Israeli settler movement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the third class status of Palestinians living in a Jewish state. Supposed peace activists find solace in verbally condemning the settlement movement and the harsh conditions that emanate from occupation. Yet most aren’t doing anything to actively stop it, and when moral fiber is truly urgent, as was the case during the Lebanon war or the continuing debilitating sanctions and bombardment on the Palestinian people, they remain silent. Condemnation after a war isn’t moral reflection, it’s cowardice. There is no difference between hawkish and dovish policy in Israel, only a divergence in the approach to implement it....[more] | |
posted by annie at 7:13 PM
0 comments
by Samah Jabr
In the June 16, 2003 edition of bitterlemons.org, under the title "Tearing down the walls", I explained why I view the two-state solution as a desperate political option for Palestinians. To take this discussion one step forward, let us look at the psychological aspect of this question.
Irreplaceable time has been lost talking about a two-state solution. In the meantime, Israel has been working on a no-state solution: settlements are bigger, the wall is longer, the occupation is ever more committed and the political discourse of ethnic cleansing has gotten louder. Israel wants an endless occupation of either a self-destructing Palestine or a Palestine that provides "the hewers of wood and the drawers of water" forever.
In social psychology it has been argued that the importance of justice cannot be ignored in conflict resolution. Perceived fairness is an important determinant of human behavior and affective reactions. All peace proposals seem to ignore this important aspect. Deals are based on profoundly unjust divisions of land, water and natural wealth that establish a de facto ghettoization and promote slave labor by maintaining huge economic differences and a significant discrepancy in average income and basic labor rights while maintaining Israel's military superiority that will always threaten and jeopardize our survival.
Yet we are expected to accept Israel's pathological equation of safety with having a Jewish majority in a Jewish state. There is already a level of physical integration between Palestinians and Israelis, both inside and outside the green line. And there is no guarantee that Israel will remain a Jewish state due to the rapid growth of its Arab minority. What will happen then? Transfer or genocide? What about Palestinian fears? Why can't Israelis accept that a constitution that guarantees equality before the law and equality of opportunity will protect us from each other?
Palestinians have developed a very distinct and strong national identity that draws on the heritage, culture, narrative, glories and tragedies related to historic Palestine. Any amputation from this land is a profound trauma to our national pride and will always hurt us as a phantom pain for a lost limb that we feel intensely but others don't recognize.
I realize that it is impossible for both Israelis and Palestinians to discard their identities. But I believe that a larger group identity can be constructed, like the identity brought by a unity state, which does not conflict with the other two. Under constitutional protection that respects civic life, provides a guarantee of individual and group rights and thus organizes relationships we could engender a state of mutual respect and trust, rather than the manipulation and abuse inherent in the relationship between a dominant Israel and a weak and fractured Palestine.
After so great a loss of people, prestige, land and dignity a nation has to mourn. But the lack of acknowledgment and the mooted partial compensation leaves any possibility of mourning polluted by feelings of humiliation, rage, irredentism for what has been lost and a sense of entitlement to regain it that will always impair hopes of peace. In a two-state solution we shall internalize all those negative feelings, identify with our aggressor and live with psychological degeneration. Separation breaches legal equality and equality of opportunity and can never be fair or just; it will only exacerbate hatred, prejudice, fear and mistrust.
A unity state will not be the undoing of the historic injustices inflicted upon the Palestinian people. But it will allow us, after a full recognition of the wrongs and the subsequent possibility of true mourning, to forget about the past and put an end to ongoing injustices: the occupation of Palestine and the discrimination against Palestinians with Israeli citizenship.
On September 14, 2003, the New York Times reported a poll showing that 25 to 30 percent of Palestinians support the idea of a unity state. My own impression is that a majority of Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship view the one state proposition as the optimal one, this, without any serious supportive political or media advocacy.
Today, this solution seems ever more popular given the facts on the ground Israel has established, leaving no possibility that a viable, sovereign Palestinian state with real resources can be created out of the remnants of the pre-1967 borders. The Palestinian elections also exposed the US myth that two democratic states never fight each other.
The Palestinian struggle for liberation and justice can only come to fruition in a unity state. It is the only viable, desirable and sustainable solution that will restore to Palestinians their dignity and morality and guarantee freedom.
Let me add something personal. I'm a junior Palestinian psychiatrist and I work with a senior Israeli colleague. We sit together every couple of weeks and discuss patients and other matters. I like my mentor and I don't wish for her or hers any less than I wish for my own. To my mind, when I defend a unity state, I defend my rights as well as hers and our right to stay in touch. If this is lost for political reasons, it will only be a phantom pain in another lost limb.- Published 11/6/2007 © bitterlemons.org
Samah Jabr is a psychiatrist who is currently working at the Community Mental Health Clinics in Ramallah and Jericho and is a regular writer for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and the London-based monthly Palestine Times.
posted by annie at 7:10 PM
0 comments
posted by annie at 5:22 PM
0 comments
By DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 11, 2:16 PM ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Daliya Naji could barely concentrate as she studied for her final exam while Palestinian gunmen battled outside her house all night. Other students barely made it past militant roadblocks to take their tests...[more]
posted by annie at 5:20 PM
0 comments
NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon (AFP) - Two Red Cross workers and three soldiers were killed on Monday around a besieged camp in
