'Don't mention occupation' by Khaled Amayreh...& more from IMEU

A Palestinian child eats some bread in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. (Naaman Omar, Apollo Images)

'Don't mention occupation'
Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly, Jul 21, 2007

This article was originally published by Al-Ahram Weekly and is republished with permission.

When Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the latter's official residence in West Jerusalem 16 July, Olmert delivered "glad tidings" to Abbas about his intention to free 250 Fatah prisoners and pardon some 180 Fatah militiamen on condition they hand over their weapons and formally pledge to abandon the armed struggle against Israel.

However, when Abbas requested that Israel restart the stalled final-status talks with the PA, a peremptory Olmert told Abbas "to stop talking about the occupation because now is not the right time to discuss a final settlement."

Instead, Olmert told the frustrated leader that his Ramallah-based government would have to get stronger in order to be able to defeat Hamas and consequently create "a suitable environment for peace."

Olmert didn't elaborate on what he meant by a "suitable environment," but one of his aides explained that if Abbas succeeded in eliminating or at least neutralising "the forces of extremism and terror," Israel and the PA could then reach a compromise.

Needless to say, in Israeli diplomatic jargon, a suitable environment denotes one thing, and that is a Palestinian willingness to give up on the right to East Jerusalem and the right of return. Additionally, Palestinians must acquiesce to accepting a truncated, Bantustan quasi-state on the remaining pieces of land in the West Bank, cut off from other Palestinian towns and surrounded by Jewish settlements.

Prior to the meeting in West Jerusalem, PA official Saeb Erekat vowed to make "the endgame" the sole and only subject of discussion between Abbas and Olmert.

However, when Olmert refused even to listen to requests pertaining to ending the occupation or even restarting a genuine political process, Erekat realised that Olmert was the master of the day and Abbas's weak position rested entirely on "Israeli goodwill."

Related stories Destroying a population Longing to go home What are the major Palestinian institutions of higher education? Who will save Palestine? Hollow gestures

This is probably what prompted Riyadh Al-Maliki, the minister of information in the Ramallah-based government, to comment that "we don't give much weight to these meetings."

Nonetheless, it was clear that Olmert didn't want Abbas to return to Ramallah completely empty-handed.

In addition to the slated release from Israeli custody of 250 Fatah prisoners, most of whom have almost completed their sentences and are due for release shortly, Olmert promised Abbas that he would also unfreeze an additional amount of Palestinian tax revenue, withheld by Israel.

Furthermore, Olmert promised Abbas that Israel would tighten its siege on the Gaza Strip, including keeping the Rafah border crossing closed for as long as deemed necessary to "strengthen Abbas" and weaken Hamas.

At one point during the meeting, Abbas appealed to Olmert to free imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, arguing that his release would bolster Fatah vis-à-vis Hamas.

Olmert responded by saying that he was not sure that the release of Barghouti would serve the interests of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

A few weeks ago, the Israeli internal security service, the Shin Bet pointed out in a report presented to the Israeli government that the release of Barghouti would actually weaken Abbas and strengthen the "Arafat camp". This is the group within Fatah which refuses to accept any settlement which does not include a full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories as well as a fair settlement of the refugee problem pursuant to UN Resolution 194.

The release of the Fatah prisoners is unlikely to be boost Abbas's popularity amongst Palestinians since it portrays him as president of only one faction (Fatah), not the entire Palestinian people.

Moreover, the decision by Israel to pardon Fatah-affiliated militiamen in the West Bank in return for giving up the armed struggle against Israel could prove an embarrassment for Abbas and his government since it doesn't include any commitment by Israel to stop its incursions and raids into Palestinian population centers.

However, the crux of the matter remains Israel's unwillingness to grant Abbas any political achievement with which he could face an increasingly frustrated and sceptical Palestinian public.

Indeed, the Israeli government continues to refuse repeated requests by Abbas to withdraw from the erstwhile (area-A), where according to the defunct Oslo Agreement, the PA is supposed to have full authority.

Moreover, the Israeli army is adamant about keeping some 600 roadblocks and checkpoints throughout the West Bank which effectively ensures daily life for Palestinians remains a recurring nightmare.

Recognising the deadlock with Israel, and the failure and/or inability of the international community, including the Bush administration, to pressure the Jewish state to stop the unrelenting carving up of the West Bank for more Jewish settlements thereby rendering any possibility of a two-state solution obsolete, Abbas continues to desperately attempt to make some political progress as he faces off with Hamas.

In this context, Abbas ordered the PLO Central Council (PLOCC) to convene in Ramallah later this month ostensibly in order to neutralise or possibly dissolve the Hamas-controlled Legislative Council, already paralysed by the Hamas-Fatah showdown as well as by the abduction and incarceration by Israel of more than 40 Palestinian lawmakers.

The embattled Palestinian leader hopes that the council will reassert the supremacy of the Fatah- dominated PLO over the PA, thus rendering the Gaza-based Hamas government as well as the legislative council itself practically irrelevant.

The PLOCC, however, is not an elected body and many of its members have either died of old age or are too old to fulfil their responsibilities.

Abbas hopes the councillors will strengthen his hand against Hamas and will lend another layer of legitimacy to the Salam Fayyad government.

Last week, Abbas asked Israel to allow a number of key PLO leaders, including Democratic Front leader, Nayef Hawatmeh and the head of the PLO's Political Department, Farouq Al-Qaddumi, to travel to Ramallah in order to take part in the PLOCC deliberations.

Israel agreed in principle, but insisted on several humiliating conditions including restricting the duration of the visits.

Eventually, both Hawatmeh and Al Qaddumi, opted not to attend, saving themselves the humiliation and embarrassment they would suffer at the hands of the Israeli occupiers.

This week, a number of Palestinian National Council (PNC) members based abroad made several proposals to reform the PLO, including organising elections in Palestine and the Diaspora for the various PLO bodies.

However, it is unlikely that Abbas and his Fatah Party will accept any far-reaching reform of the PLO, lest they lose their grip on it.

The Americans and Israelis are also unenthusiastic about empowering any Palestinian political institution which could place restrictions on the Palestinian leadership, especially with regard to negotiations with Israel.

In the final analysis, Abbas and his government are expected to face a real predicament sooner or later due to Israel's intransigence in ending its 40-year-old occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

This week, the noted Israeli journalist Danny Rubenstein pointed out that despite all the fanfare surrounding Abbas and the wholesome praise and support he is receiving from the West, the Palestinian leader has actually nothing to offer the Palestinian people.

Writing in Ha'aretz, Rubenstein argued that Abbas's strategy of creating a viable Palestinian state was reaching a dead end.

"Abu Mazen and Fatah have nothing to sell the Palestinian public. The vision of an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital, gradually dissipated during the Oslo Peace process."

Rubenstein added that "it was not corruption and an absence of leadership that brought down the Fatah movement (in the last elections) but rather the fact that the political path of Abbas and his friends had reached a dead end, and could not be resurrected.

"And all of this is leading to one result, namely the death of the two-state solution and the inevitability of the one-state solution."

Longing to go home Mona El-Farra, IMEU

Vertical disintegration James Ron, The Nation

FAQ on developments in the PA IMEU

Prisoner release must be followed quickly by bold steps
The Daily Star (Jul 21, 2007)

Parents held in Israel, 6 kids left alone
Ynet News (Jul 21, 2007)

Israel to annex thousand of dunams from Arab villages
IMEMC (Jul 20, 2007)

Israel starts Palestinian release
BBC (Jul 20, 2007)

Mixed reaction in Middle East as Blair makes debut as envoy
The Guardian (Jul 20, 2007)

Israel contemplating offensive against Hamas
Maan News (Jul 19, 2007)

Palestinians in Gaza appeal for more aid
Reuters (Jul 19, 2007)

Egypt opens shelters in Sinai to house stranded Palestinians
Haaretz (Jul 19, 2007)

A Lebanese Red Cross personnel attends to a camel at the outskirts of the bombarded Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in north Lebanon July 20, 2007. Many of the 32,000 Palestinian refugees who have fled fighting between the Lebanese army and Islamist militants will need temporary homes while their devastated camp is rebuilt, a U.N. official said on Friday. REUTERS/Omar Ibrahim (LEBANON)

Released Palestinian prisoners lean out of bus windows, as they are greeted by relatives shortly after their release at the Beituniya checkpoint on their way to the West Bank city of Ramallah, Friday, July 20, 2007. Israel released more than 250 Palestinian prisoners Friday, in an attempt to bolster moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his power struggle with Hamas. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A released Palestinian female prisoner Faten Daraghmeh hugs her daughter after her arrival at the West Bank village of Alloban near of Nablus, July 20, 2007. Israel released more than 250 Palestinian prisoners on Friday as part of a U.S.-backed deal to bolster Abbas after Hamas Islamists took over the Gaza Strip last month. The prisoners, who were mostly members of Abbas's secular Fatah faction, arrived in Ramallah where they were greeted by Abbas and reunited with family members. REUTERS/Eliana Aponte (WEST BANK)

Two Israeli journalists scrap ethics for scoop

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=83870

Two Israeli journalists scrap ethics for scoop
Jewish reporters endanger lives of lebanese citizens interviewed under false pretenses
By Nour Samaha
Daily Star staff
Tuesday, July 17, 2007

BEIRUT: When two Israeli re-porters entered Lebanon under false pretenses last week to conduct reports on Lebanese life a year after the summer 2006 war with Israel, they not only broke Lebanese law, but also violated codes of ethics in journalism and endangered the lives of those they interviewed, according to professors and residents who spoke to The Daily Star Monday.

Lisa Goldman and Rinat Malkes flew into Lebanon from Amman on their respective Canadian and Brazilian passports. Both Israeli citizens, both working on reports to be published in Israel - a country officially in a state of war with Lebanon - they embarked on deceiving Lebanese officials and the general public in order to get their exclusive scoops.

"The word Israel must not be mentioned in Lebanon," said Malkes in her article in the right-wing Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, describing how the two journalists cut out the labels from their clothes before arriving in Beirut to hide any Hebrew inscription that may reveal their true identities.

Once in Lebanon, the two went their separate ways - Malkes traveled to the South, while Goldman remained in Beirut.

In footage aired on Israel's Channel 10 news, Goldman showed snippets of interviews she conducted with local residents and misinformed viewers that only one small section of the southern suburbs was hit by Israel. "I particularly remember the BBC's hourly reports during the war, each one beginning with the following [paraphrased] sentence: 'As Israel continues its relentless pounding of southern Beirut ...' But according to several residents ... the Israeli air strikes were actually very much pinpointed on an area in the center of the Dahiyeh called the 'security square' - the area where senior Hizbullah leaders lived," she said on Pajamas Media.

Yet Goldman, who admitted that she never went to the southern suburbs of Beirut, failed to mention the surrounding areas that were affected, such as the bridges in the Dahiyeh that are still being repaired, local media stations, Chiyah and other neighborhoods further away from the "security square" - areas that are not known to host Hizbullah leaders.

One Lebanese who grew up in Dahiyeh and was interviewed by Goldman stated that she not only misquoted him, but deceived him from the start, supplying him with a false name and misinforming him that she was writing for a European paper as a Canadian. "She completely hid her Israeli nationality, saying she was from Vancouver, and gave me a different name from Lisa Goldman ... she also said she was writing for a European paper," he said on Monday.

The Beirut resident, who asked to remain anonymous, added: "When she wrote about me she said I had told her Israel only bombed the security square, which is wrong - I said they were hitting everything ... She also gave the impression that I talked of Israel in a good light, which is certainly not the case."

"If I'd known she was Israeli, I would've had her arrested," he added. "What she did was extremely wrong, and it could get me into a lot of trouble - she has me doing an interview on camera ... my family are extremely worried about repercussions from officials for talking to her ... But I didn't know she was Israeli."

According to Magda Abu-Fadil, the director of the journalism training program at the American University of Beirut, the mere fact that a journalist would misidentify herself or conduct an interview under false pretenses, is in itself unethical.

"In general terms, I don't think you should assume a false identity unless something like national security is involved or the public good is at stake, like saving someone's life," she said. "But this is not the case here - this situation does not fall under the category."

This point was also reiterated by Ramez Maluf, a professor of journalism at the Lebanese American University. "It is common practice for standards of journalism, where they exist, to state that reporters should not obtain information under false pretense," he said. "But that rule is broken all the time, often by invoking some higher moral objective."

"If you believe that your job is to inform your public about vital issues of interest and importance to them as best you can, then you may excuse yourself from breaking any rules," he continued. "The important issue then is whether you can actually report fairly when you do so under false pretense."

Yet the deception may have serious repercussions on those who were unwittingly taken in under false pretenses by the two Israeli journalists. "You have to ask, how did they represent themselves, and did they endanger anyone locally?" Abu-Fadil asked. "Suspicions may arise and people may not want to deal with those that were interviewed if they think they are in contact with Israelis."

Malkes' report on the South of the country painted an image of a Hizbullah-controlled area that has achieved little in terms of reconstruction since the end of the war. She begins by incorrectly stating that Hizbullah's approval was necessary to visit villages in the South, when in fact approval to visit areas in the South is not obtained through Hizbullah, but through the Lebanese Army, who have maintained control of the area since the end of the war last August.

In addition, Malkes gave the false impression that Hizbullah is in charge of the reconstruction effort in the South, citing Bint Jbeil as an example of how little had been done over the past year. "Life has not yet returned to normal," she wrote. But the Qatari mission in Lebanon is tasked with the reconstruction effort in Bint Jbeil.

"The power supply is also interrupted," she added, apparently unaware that the power cuts in the South are unrelated to the war, and have long plagued that part of the country.

The question on everybody's lips now, however, is what can be done to ensure this does not happen again? Abu-Fadil suggested a system for monitoring foreign journalists who enter Lebanon to check their backgrounds. "We don't want a police state, but by the same token, is there anything than can keep track of who these people are?" she asked. "It is much harder to do these days with new technology, but we need to be more vigilant and organized on how to deal with journalists."

Maluf added that monitoring all foreign journalists may not be necessary, but because Lebanon is currently in a state of war with Israel, there should be a monitoring system of "any and all Israeli incursions of any kind into our country," he said.

"Let them rely on the wire services" to get news from Lebanon, he added.

Stranded at the border : Rami Almeghari writing from Al-Arish, Egypt

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7119.shtml

Stranded at the border
Rami Almeghari writing from Al-Arish, Egypt, Live from Palestine, 20 July 2007

Palestinians demonstrate near Rafah crossing during a protest against the closure of the border at the southern Gaza Strip, 19 July 2007. (Hatem Omar/MaanImages)

My wife and myself, like thousands of other Palestinians, are currently stranded in Egypt since the Rafah crossing to Gaza was closed in mid-June.

We are now staying closer to our home of Gaza. The destination this time is not Cairo. Rather, it's the coastal town of al-Arish now that my wife has completed her medical treatment in the Egyptian capital.

In the evening of 7 July, we cheerfully smiled for the first time since my wife was hospitalized in a Cairo hospital a month ago, after the doctor assured us she could leave the hospital.

The first thing I thought of was, of course, heading back to Gaza, where our beloved four children, along with the rest of our family, have been anxiously awaiting our return.

For an ordinary traveler, all he or she needs to do is to book tickets. But for us as two Gazan Palestinians, it is not that simple, because Israel has banned our airport from operating since 2000, and since been destroyed by Israeli tanks.

At any rate, we have another means of entering, which is the Rafah crossing terminal. However, Israel has ordered the closure of this crossing for the past five weeks, preventing me from moving, thinking or even fully enjoying that happy moment with my wife.

I had an idea by then -- moving towards the closet destination to our home of Gaza. So we moved to al-Arish, about 45 km away from Gaza, hoping we could get to the border as soon as possible so we could resume our lives.

We have been here for two weeks; however, al-Arish's golden sandy beach, palm trees or even its lit streets haven't and could never compensate for a single moment with our kids.

Aseel, my ten-year-old daughter, asked us over the phone, "Dad, when you are coming? We are fed up, we want you back."

I told her very quietly, "Aseel, my darling, we are coming soon, just take care of your brothers and sister, especially Mohammad as you are the eldest, and wish for your mom a speedy recovery." Mohammad is our eight-month-old baby.

The coastal Gaza Strip, 40 km long and about 10 km wide, is home to 1.4 million people, including my family. We have but one outlet to the outside world -- the Rafah crossing terminal, to the south of Gaza.

Despite the fact that Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and despite the US-brokered arrangements for running the crossing with the help of European observers, Israel frequently closes the passage to the extent that in 2006 alone, the terminal was only opened for a fifth of the time.

Recently, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to reopen all Palestinian crossings in order to avert a humanitarian crisis.

Unfortunately, the crisis has already begun as the Egyptian Red Crescent Society has provided blankets, food stuffs and medication to hundreds of stranded Palestinians who have run out of money and personal affects -- and their patience has run out as well.

Along with these border-bound people in al-Arish, there are about 5,000 Palestinians, 20 percent of whom are medical patients, who staying in other Egyptian border towns like Sheikh Zweaiyed and Egyptian Rafah.

Twenty-eight medical patients have lost their lives at the border since the crisis began in June, according to Palestinian health ministry.

The Rafah crossing terminal is situated on the borderline between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. When exactly my wife and I will be able to cross that line to reunite with our family is left to Israel's whim.

Rami Almeghari is currently contributor to several media outlets including the Palestine Chronicle, aljazeerah.info, IMEMC, The Electronic Intifada and Free Speech Radio News. Rami is also a former senior English translator at and editor in chief of the international press center of the Gaza-based Palestinian Information Service. He can be contacted at rami_almeghari at hotmail.com.

A Palestinian Adventure in Israel's Largest Airport: Is This Ben Gurion or Hell? By REMI KANAZI

http://www.counterpunch.org/kanazi07192007.html

July 19, 2007

A Palestinian Adventure in Israel's Largest Airport

Is This Ben Gurion or Hell?

By REMI KANAZI

Anyone who has traveled through Ben Gurion airport in Israel knows that it is a unique experience. For most Israeli Jews, the experience is comforting, a quick and accommodating entry into a nation created and developed for the Jewish people. For Palestinian-Americans and many activists working in occupied Palestine it is quite a different experience. Most of these travelers are held for hours and questioned repeatedly; some of who are stripped naked and in some cases (especially in the last two years) denied entry.

As I write from Ramallah, I recall my and my brother's experience in Ben Gurion just one week ago... [more]

Regarding NYTimes 7-19-2007 Forced to Get Along By Mark Helprin

RE: Forced to Get Along By Mark Helprin
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/opinion/19helprin.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

Dear Editor,

How much ink and blood has already been spilled- wasted- for Israel and its ongoing war on the people of historic Palestine?

Zionists have consistently rejected the idea that the native non-Jewish residents of historic Palestine are human beings who have rights- and a just cause for complaint... Rejecting Israeli racism and apartheid is a healthy wholesome response to an increasingly dangerous and dire situation.

Most Palestinians have no real freedom or security anywhere, while most Israeli Jews have full freedoms and economic opportunities in more than one sovereign wealthy nation- and yet Israelis insist on stealing more and more and more Palestinian land, rights and peace on that little patch of ground deemed holy by the three Abrahamic faiths.

Don't be too distracted by the Abbas/HAMAS split: The Palestinians have always been divided with every weakness intentionally exasperated by idiots for that is how Israel's racist war works... Divide conquer and destroy... but despite the superficial bickerings the Palestinian cause lives on and grows more strong and sure.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
NOTES 7-20-2007

the keychain

Regarding LA Times Editorial "Giving peace a chance" 7-20-2007

RE: Giving peace a chance
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-mideast20jul20,0,645099.story?coll=la-opinion-leftrail

Dear Editor,

The basic apartheid formula thanks to political Zionism, is that Jewish immigrants get freedom, jobs and security (plus a plethora of positive PR) while the native non-Jewish Palestinians get pushed into prison camps and despair... Gaza's economy is barely alive and everyone is supposed to make more peace with racist Israel as if that will stop a totally toxic status quo that has already been in place for more than 59 years.

How can we call this cruel farce "peace negotiations" when an entire population is under duress ?

This Israeli made mess already is one country with a chosen few free to flourish while an abused many are insulted, harassed, harshly oppressed and tortured at every turn, no matter what they do or say.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
NOTES 7-20-2007

Regarding Chic Trib 7-20-2007 Abbas wants talks to hit core issues: Israel's preference for slower approach puts sides at odds

RE: Abbas wants talks to hit core issues: Israel's preference for slower approach puts sides at odds
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-mideast2_greenbergjul20,1,5406591.story

Dear Editor,

59 years after Israel officially began its sovereign refusal to respect the native non-Jewish Palestinians- and the Palestinian refugees inalienable right to return to original homes and lands: I can not help but look at the headline "Abbas wants talks to hit core issues: Israel's preference for slower approach puts sides at odds" and know that

Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied

Talks about talks about talks- and fact is it has all been said before and fact is we the world need a rights based solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict- and we need it fast for everything keeps going from bad to worse for everyone except the war mongers who profit from other people's pain.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES 7-20-2007

NOTES 7-20-2007

NOTES:

• 7.5 million Palestinian refugees and IDPs - In need of a rights based solution
• Palestinian refugees determined to rebuild Nahr al...
• The Humanitarian and Political Impact of the Segregation and Annexation Wall
• Destroying a population by Richard Falk ...& more from IMEU
• Israel to annex thousand of dunams from Arab villages
• Palestinians in Gaza appeal for more aid
• Beware of Oslo's destructive route
  
• Fury over Israeli bill to limit some land sales to Jews
  
• UN officials issued warnings yesterday about the dire collapse of Gaza's economy
• Mona El-Farra's Longing to go home ...
• Width Matters: Displacement and Israel's Wall by Susan Miller
• Eurodeputies denounce Iraqi stance on refugees
• Iraqis dying to tell the story
• A New Nakaba in Jaffa City
• Number of West Bank settlers increases...
• One of the 13 bullets fired at Wael Zuaiter hit volume two of One Thousand and One Nights
• Wael Zuaiter was the first victim in Europe in a series of assassinations of Palestinian artists, intellectuals and diplomats perpetrated by Israel...
• Cracks in Zionism by Charley Reese
• Wiping whom off the Map??? By Dr. Elias Akleh
• The Palestinian Refugees Right of Return- & Zionist tricks
• Zionism Is The Problem....
• Recognising Israel’s past record and current policy by Michael Jansen
• Michigan's vigilant outcasts: BREAK THE SILENCE

Weekly Report on Israeli human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory 05 - 11 Jul 2007

FACTSHEET The Right To Return, a Basic Right Still Denied

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html
Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

"The humanitarian aid and assistance that UNRWA provides to the Palestine refugees can never be enough. But it will be required as long as the issues of statelessness, prolonged military occupation, economic marginalization and vulnerability characteristic of the Palestinian refugee crisis are not addressed." http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/publ/opendoc.htm?tbl=PUBL&id=4444d3c92f

Al Nakba 1948
The largest planned ethnic cleansing operation in modern history	530 depopulated towns and villages 85% of the Palestinians in the land that became Israel are refugees today Their land is 92% of Israel’s area

http://www.plands.org/power/1.htm

The State of the World's Refugees 2006 - Chapter 5 Protracted refugee situations: Box 5.1 Palestinian refugees .....

By far the most protracted and largest of all refugee problems in the world today is that of the Palestine refugees, whose plight dates back 57 years.
http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/publ/opendoc.htm?tbl=PUBL&id=4444d3c92f

& Forced Migration Review's (FMR) recent edition on Palestinian refugees
http://www.forcedmigration.org/

& more on the Palestinian Refugees....
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/israel/return/
http://www.badil.org/index.html
http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/index.html
http://imeu.net/news/background-briefings.shtml
http://www.rorcongress.com/
http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Right-Of-Return/
http://www.p4pd.org/refugees.html
http://www.plomission.us/links.php
http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/reliefresources/115746336017.htm
http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/refugees.shtml
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_mamboezine&Itemid=182
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=10241&CategoryId=4
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/israel-palestine/returnindex.htm
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/israel-palestine/return/2004/0927necessary.htm
http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/MEPP/PRRN/papers/abusitta.html
http://www.world-crisis.com/analysis_comments/A147_0_15_0_C
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/687/region_ror.htm
http://www.al-awda.org/abusitta.html
http://www.afsc.org/pwork/0102/010220a.htm
http://www.fmreview.org/palestine.htm
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

7.5 million Palestinian refugees and IDPs - In need of a rights-based solution

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/SBOI-74BR45?OpenDocument

Source: BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights

Date: 20 Jun 2007

OPT: 7.5 million Palestinian refugees and IDPs - In need of a rights-based solution

At the end of 2006, the Palestinian population worldwide was estimated to be over 10.1 million. 70% of them (nearly 7.5 million) were refugees and internally displaced persons. Six million Palestinians have been refugees since 1948, and approximately one million since 1967. Approximately 450,000 Palestinians are internally displaced persons in Israel and the OPT, while the legal status of some 400,000 additional Palestinians is unclear. The majority of the latter have likely been forcibly displaced from or within the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967 as a result of Israeli policies. More than two thirds of the Palestinian refugees live in exile, in particular in Arab countries surrounding Palestine (Jordan, Syria and Lebanon), and approximately 20% of them live in UNRWA-serviced refugee camps.

These data are released on World Refugee Day by BADIL Resource Center based on systematic review and analysis of available sources, including the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS). Since 1948, no agency has comprehensively registered displaced Palestinians. However, data provided are considered the best estimates as indicative figures.

As the largest and longest unresolved refugee case in the world approaches its 60th year, Badil calls upon all parties to the conflict to adopt a rights-based approach to the search for durable solutions. In particular, Badil calls upon Israel, the United States and the European Union to recognize the rights of Palestinian refugees and IDPs to return to their homes of origin, property restitution and compensation for losses and damages incurred.

Since 1948, negotiations over the Palestinian refugee issue have failed to put international law at the center of the search for durable solutions. So-called “practical and realistic” solutions based on the unequal balance of power between the parties has instead been the chosen framework, leaving little space for respect for the rights of refugees and IDPs. Addressing and resolving the issue of Palestinian refugees and IDPs in accordance with international law is, however, central to building a just and lasting peace.

The lack of a rights-based approach has left Palestinian refugees and IDPs particularly vulnerable to renewed displacement and has created a climate of impunity. In the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT) and Israel, displacement of Palestinians continues as a result of Israel's quest for control over a maximum amount of land with a minimum number of Palestinian people. The lack of effective protection leaves Palestinian refugees vulnerable to discrimination, persecution and renewed forced displacement also in their current host countries. In Iraq, for instance, many are stranded on border areas or live without access to protection. Thousands more have been displaced during Israel's war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 and the current conflict in the Nahr el Bared camp.

Despite ongoing displacement, no national and international response has been developed to prevent, protect from and respond to the forced displacement of Palestinians. Badil believes that international organizations, in particular the United Nations, need to urgently develop a response to the ongoing forced displacement of Palestinians in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel's government and officials responsible for population transfers (ethnic cleansing) must be held accountable.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/LRON-74CBNA?OpenDocument

Source: Agence France-Presse (AFP)

Date: 20 Jun 2007

Palestinian refugees determined to rebuild Nahr al-Bared lives

by Michel Moutot

BEDDAWI, Lebanon, June 20, 2007 (AFP) - The thousands of Palestinians of Nahr al-Bared in north Lebanon, refugees in the nearby camp of Beddawi, dream only of returning to their battered homes and rebuilding their lives.

For the past month the army has been besieging the Islamist fighters of Fatah al-Islam in Nahr al-Bared camp near the port city of Tripoli, pounding the refugee camp with high-explosive shells in a bid to root out the militants.

As ever in such a conflict, it is the civilians who suffer most. Of the camp's estimated 31,000 inhabitants before the conflict erupted on May 20, only about 2,000 have stayed put. Their fate remains unknown.

Most of the thousands who fled during a lull in the early stages of the battle now find themselves in Beddawi, another of 12 registered camps that house around half of Lebanon's estimated 400,000 Palestinians.

Even though their homes may have been reduced to piles of rubble, the Nahr al-Bared displaced now packed into every available space in schools and mosques in Beddawi insist they will return.

Ahmed al-Hajj, a stonemason lying on a foam mattress at a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) at Beddawi, told AFP he had received news about his house at Nahr al-Bared from a neighbour.

"The top floor has caved in -- that's where one of my sons lived with his family -- and the rest of the place is damaged," the 57-year-old father of 10 said.

"It's not too bad. We can fix it. We Palestinians are like ants -- we build all the time, we work without end. Our homes don't cost much. Mine was about 200 dollars a floor," he said.

"It's because we know they could be destroyed, by nature in an earthquake or by man. The 12 of us will live on the ground floor, in one room if we have to," the white-bearded Hajj said.

"We'll see what we can do to fix the rest, bit by bit," he added. "Maybe relatives abroad will send some money. Rebuilding three floors, if we have the materials, should take six weeks. Another two months to finish it off...

"I think it will cost me about 2,000 dollars to rebuild. I just need the first dollar."Pledges of funds to aid in reconstruction, from the government in Beirut and oil-rich Arab monarchies in the Gulf, do not impress those refugees who spoke to AFP.

"If the Arab states send money, half of it will disappear as usual to buy Range Rovers for government ministers," 45-year-old mother of eight Amal Ibrahim said ruefully.

"All of our men are builders in one way or another. They can rebuild for very little money," she said, adjusting the veil of one of her four girls.

"We'll go back home, no matter what. We'll sleep on the beach if everything is destroyed. It would be better than here, packed like chickens inside this school with nothing but rice to eat for a month."

The Nahr al-Bared refugees in Beddawi all point to the example of the Shiite Hezbollah group, which handed out envelopes containing a crisp 10,000 dollars to each family whose home was destroyed in last year's summer war with Israel.

"The Shiites in the south got aid from (Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan) Nasrallah" but "nothing from the government," sighed public works driver Ahmed Mohammed Hussein, 41.

"They had Hezbollah. What do we have? UNRWA. We had to flee in such a hurry that all we've got now is the clothes we stand up in. My whole working life was in the house I left behind."

Hajj, who was born in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, expects nothing from the Arab states. "Since we were chased out of Palestine they have always betrayed us. The only people who help are the Europeans, especially France.

"For us Palestinians the most important thing is to educate our children. If the UNRWA schools reopen in September it'll be fine."

mm/srm/hc AFPNANviaNewsEdge

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The Humanitarian and Political Impact of the Segregation and Annexation Wall

http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=14329&CategoryId=21

The Humanitarian and Political Impact of the Segregation and Annexation Wall Date posted: July 19, 2007 By MIFTAH
Introduction: With the onset of a peace process in the early 1990s, Palestinians hoped that the Two-State Solution would come to fruition and an autonomous, independent Palestine would emerge, forging forward into the new millennium with the enthusiasm and hopefulness that marked the beginning of the Oslo Process and the return of many of the exiles, including late President Yasser Arafat. As time went by the euphoric prospect of peace turned into disillusionment. The beginning of another Intifada in September 2000 was not unexpected but those who failed to read the clear signs that the political situation was headed that way only rode the wave of renewed violence to justify their own ends. The Segregation and Annexation Wall was one outcome of Israel’s continued aggression towards the Palestinians. It has been documented that the Wall was being planned in the early years of the peace process. Under the guise of security it was actually a deliberate attempt to solidify Israel’s hold on the most fertile lands, the aquifers and other resources in the West Bank. The Wall cuts deeply into the West Bank and only 20 percent of it is being built on the Green Line. It is therefore a clear attempt to include major West Bank settlement clusters in Israeli territory. In some places the Wall encircles entire towns, such as Qalqiliya, only allowing passage to inhabitants arbitrarily and haphazardly. Much of the Wall has encroached on fertile village land and aquifers necessary for Palestinian sustenance and wellbeing. The barrier route has had adverse effects on a largely agrarian society, pushing it towards non-traditional labor, such as construction. The loss of land is also a loss of livelihood for many families and has drastically reduced families’ self-sustainability, especially in light of the dire economic conditions in the Palestinian Territories. Beyond the security/terrorism rhetoric, the route of the Wall proves a statement made by Haim Ramon, the Israeli Minister of Justice, in July 2006 when he said that the Wall had political implications. This was corroborated by a comment issued from the State Attorney’s Office in the lawsuit Dr. Ahamad Bader Miselmani made against the State of Israel. “Unlike the other sections of the barrier, Israel admitted that, regarding the Jerusalem Envelope, the route was not based solely on security considerations, but also, in the words of the State Attorney’s Office, in a way that ‘considers Israel’s political interests.’ Accordingly, the route was set to run along Jerusalem’s post-annexation municipal border.”I Beginnings: Actual plans for the wall’s construction began in November 2000, when Ehud Barak, the then Israeli PM approved a plan to establish the Wall in the northern and central West Bank. There are those who consider that the Wall project started with the construction around Gaza in 1994, just as the Oslo Agreements were kicking off and “peace” was on the horizon. Under the leadership of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the opportunity to go ahead with the plans for the Wall came in April 2002 when a series of suicide attacks occurred inside Israel. The Israeli cabinet called for a barrier and fences around major Palestinian towns, ostensibly to curb these attacks. In June 2002 Phase I of the Wall begins to include sections of Jerusalem. Originally the route of the Wall was supposed to be around 670km, but was extended to 703km in its current form. According to the latest statistics 51 percent of the construction has been finished, with 13 percent still under construction while 36 percent remains in the planning phase.II Despite the fact that the International Court of Justice gave an advisory ruling in July 2004 stating that the Wall is against international law and called for its dismantlement, it did not happen and construction continued unabated, especially since the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled in September 2005 that it was not in contravention to International Law. Some minor victories were scored by Palestinian families affected by the wall and in very few cases, the route was changed in consideration of the humanitarian impact of the Wall on these areas. However, the major battle for the dismantlement of the Wall continues to this day, as the Wall reaches almost full completion. Humanitarian Impact: West Bank: Although the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled in June 2004 that the route of the Wall must ensure that humanitarian considerations on the Palestinian communities along this route are not affected, it has in fact had adverse consequences on these communities, especially since the most fertile land lies between the Wall and the Green Line. Largely agrarian, tilling and living off the land for generations, many families have lost not only their livelihood, but also centuries-old traditions. One example is the olive harvest. An annual ritual every October, it has now become a bitter harvest, one where families are subjected to the violence of Jewish settlers, who often physically assault olive pickers, even if they are accompanied by foreign and Israeli peace activists. An average tree is said to bear the equivalent of 9kgs of fruit and because it is able to live in arid conditions and can survive in soil of poor quality, it is the perfect crop to grow in the Palestinian climate. III . Settlers have been known to steal the fruit of the trees under the cover of darkness, thereby robbing families of a major source of income. All this occurs under the watch of Israeli soldiers, who either stand idly by or actually aid the settlers in their assaults. Once planted, olive trees can survive for centuries, but it can take a few years for the tree to become productive. The fact that over 450,000 trees IV have been uprooted is a cultural, ecological and economic calamity. Forty-two villages and towns in the West Bank, where approximately 60,500 people live, will be directly affected by the Wall if it continues to be built as planned and will be sandwiched between it and the Green Line. Around 31,400 Palestinian inhabitants residing in 12 villages in the West Bank will be completely encircled by the Wall. This will make it extremely difficult for residents of these areas to access medical facilities, education services, jobs and markets. All affected sectors will need to apply for Israeli-issued permits in order to access most of the major facilities that offer these basic services. Families, whose farmland lies on the western side of the wall, are cut off from it, unless they are able to get the necessary permits to get to their fields. The permits system installed for the farmers is a major obstacle towards them reaching their land. In the Qalqiliya governorate for example, 38% of permit requests were rejected by July 2005.V Some of the permits are only granted to the immediate land owner, if he is indeed able to prove ownership, but the workers and other extended family members, who help work the land, are unable to get the necessary permits. The gates in the Wall are often open for short periods, but if there is a security threat, the gates may be closed for extended periods. They are usually only open at set times of the day and only for a short time. To make matters more challenging for the farmers, they are not allowed to cross with any vehicles or other farming equipment. The more farmers are discouraged from reaching their land, the less likely they will be able to make use of it and maintain proof of ownership. According to an old Ottoman law that still applies, if the land is not cultivated three years in a row, it can be declared as state property and thus confiscated.VI In Qalqiliya and Tulkarem, two of the more fertile areas of the West Bank, over 85,000 dunums are in the closed off areas beyond the Wall. Nearly 8,400 dunums have been confiscated for the construction of the Wall and land immediately affected by the Wall, which includes the buffer zone areas, totals almost 31,000 dunums. VII The social fabric of these communities has also been torn, with many unable to maintain normal family and social relations because of the access restrictions that the Wall imposes. Jerusalem: The Wall around Jerusalem, which is 162km in length and sometimes up to 25ft high, will cut off around 25 percent of Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency and put them on the West Bank side of the barrier. These inhabitants will find it harder to access some of the services they are entitled to as Jerusalem residents, and may also find their residency rights jeopardized in the future if they are unable to prove residency inside the Israeli self-proclaimed Jerusalem municipality borders. Specifically, the West Bank residents of Biddu (around 32,500) and of Bir Nabala (approximately 20,000) VIII are now completely cut off from Jerusalem Residents of Biddu will only be able to access Jerusalem through the Qalandia checkpoint, but they will have to travel north in order to go southward to Jerusalem, significantly lengthening their journey to more than an hour, whereas their previous travel time was significantly less. Additionally, these residents must first obtain permits to enter Jerusalem since they hold West Bank IDs. Though Israel continuously uses the pretext of security as the major reason for the construction of the Wall, it is obvious in Jerusalem that the barrier has political motivations, as it follows the municipal boundaries that the Israeli Authorities have modified and expanded constantly since the 1967 war and since the illegal Israeli annexation of the city. “A substantial part of the route of the Jerusalem Envelope indeed runs more of less along the municipal border. As a result, it leaves 200,000 Palestinian residents of the East Jerusalem on the ‘Israel’ side of the barrier. In some sections though, the route veers sharply from the municipal border, at times leaving out areas within Jerusalem’s jurisdictional area in which Palestinian live, thus separating the residents from the rest of the city. This is the case with the neighborhoods Kafr ‘Aqeb, ‘Anata Hahadash, Wallaja, and the Shu’afat refugee camp, which are home to at least 30,000 Palestinians. In other sections, the route veers from the municipal boundary in the opposite direction, and ‘annexes’ additional areas in of the city’s jurisdictional area.” IX The Wall eliminates a large portion of Palestinian Jerusalemites in order to ensure that the demographic balance remains in favor of a Jewish majority. Many of these Palestinian residents will be cut off from basic health services, as Jerusalem has a number of Palestinian-run hospitals that cares for the population, as well as many residents of the West Bank. In order to access these services, jobs, family and friends, social and cultural events, shopping and normal aspects of every day life, the people who are now on the West Bank side of the Wall are only allowed through an elaborate system of checkpoints and terminals, where heavily armed security personnel, sniffer-dogs, and metal detecting machinery are in place, searching the bags of every woman, man and child. The Wall & Prospects for a Palestinian State: The Wall is in part an extension to Israel’s settlement project. At its completion, the Wall will have effectively annexed 56 settlements in the West Bank to Israel. Seventy-five percent of the 170,123 settlers living in these settlements will end up residing between the Wall and the Green Line, making any final status negotiations on settlements impossible, as new facts on the ground are not only created, but concretely drawn into the area of what was supposed to be part of the future Palestinian State. The settlement project, including the wall, blocks any potential for growth of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. It also obstructs the contiguity of major West Bank cities, further preventing the possibility of a future Palestinian State. Most specifically, the wall around the Ma’ale Adumim settlement, built on expropriated private Palestinian land, digs into the West Bank. It swallows a total of 70 square kilometers, an area fifteen times bigger than the settlement itself. The E1 Plan, as it is more generally known, will envelope Jerusalem and block access between the northern governorates of Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqiliya, Nablus and Ramallah and the southern governorates of Bethlehem and Hebron, thus shattering any contiguity between these regions. Other settlements in the West Bank such as the Ariel and Emmanuel settlements and the Gush Etzion settlement bloc encroach on Palestinian land in order to extend the land for these settlements for future development. X The Wall in those areas has made sure that Palestinians are contained into a limited space with limited resources. ----------------------------------------------- References and more information: Preliminary Analysis of the Humanitarian Implications of the April 2006 Barrier Projections, Update 5, OCHA Territorial Fragmentation of the West Bank, OCHA, May 2006 Separation Barrier Statistics,www.btselem.org, April 2006. Crossing the Barrier: Palestinian Access to Agricultural Land, UN, Update 6, January 2006 Separation Barrier, Route of the barrier around East Jerusalem, www.btselem.org/english/Separation_Barrier/Jerusalem.asp A Wall In Jerusalem: Obstacles to Human Rights in the Holy City, Btselem, Summer 2006 Timeline of the Apartheid Wall and the Resistance Against, it, www.stopthewall.org, June, 2005 ----------------------------------------------- I - Under the Guise of Security: Routing the Separation Barrier to Enable the Expansion of Israeli Settlements in the West Bank, B’Tselem, Bimkom, December 2005, pg. 49 II - Preliminary Analysis of the Humanitarian Implications of the April 2006 Barrier Projections, Update 5, OCHA III - Olive Tree Campaing keeps hope alive I Palestine, Lewis Turner, 22 November 2005 www.ycareinternational.org/?lid=2176 IV - Ibid. V - Crossing the Barrier: Palestinian Access to Agricultural Land, UN, Update 6, January 2006 VI - Ibid VII - Ibid VIII - Territorial Fragmentation of the West Bank, OCHA, May 2006 IX - Under the Guise of Security: Routing the Separation Barrier to Enable the Expansion of Israeli Settlements in the West Bank, B’Tselem, Bimkom, December 2005, pg. 49 X - Crossing the Barrier: Palestinian Access to Agricultural Land, UN, Update 6, January 2006
Source: MIFTAH

Destroying a population by Richard Falk ...& more from IMEU

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.

Destroying a population
Richard Falk, IMEU, Jul 20, 2007

A Palestinian child peers through the window of the morgue at the hospital in Deir Al-Balah in Gaza. (Hatem Omar, Maan Images)

Recent developments in Gaza should be troubling to anyone with a common sense of humanity. It is particularly anguishing to me as an American Jew that the prolonged, systematic, and cruel abuse of Palestinians in Gaza risks becoming the world’s latest holocaust.

I say this with an awareness of the deservedly special status that the Nazi Holocaust has in our moral imagination, due to its unconcealed genocidal intent, systematic and sustained cruelty, as well as its reliance on the mentality and instruments of modernity.

Recent developments in Gaza vividly express Israel's deliberate intention to subject an entire captive population to life endangering conditions. I do not make this comparison lightly, but as an appeal to the international community to act urgently to halt an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe.

There were strong advance signals in 1994 of a genocide-to-come in Rwanda; yet nothing was done to stop it. The world watched while the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of Bosnian Muslims took place. There have been repeated allegations of genocidal conduct in Darfur, and hardly an international finger has been raised.

Why should we single out Gaza when mass death on this scale has not yet resulted? The international community is not merely watching this tragic spectacle unfold. Some of its influential members are actively assisting Israel’s continuing collective punishment of Gaza as a whole.

Israel's 38-year military occupation turned Gaza into a cauldron of pain for the entire population. With great fanfare, Israel supposedly "left" Gaza in 2005. Yet Israel continues to maintain full control over Gaza's borders, air space and offshore seas, caging in the people in oppressive conditions, and frequently intervening with lethal force.

Related stories A declaration of independence from Israel Finding lessons in Gaza's bloodshed Gaza: from economic to humanitarian disaster Who will save Palestine? Israel's hollow declarations

When Hamas prevailed in the January 2006 Palestinian elections, the civilian population was subjected to a brutal economic boycott. Indeed, Sharon and Olmert advisor Dov Weisglass summarized Israel's chilling plans for Palestinian children, women and men with the euphemistic: "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet."

Hamas had been encouraged, including by the Bush Administration, to participate in elections - only to be punished later for winning. Rather then respecting the Palestinians' democratic choice, Hamas was castigated as a terrorist organization.

Almost immediately after forming a government, Hamas indicated its desire to work with other Palestinian groups, like Fatah. Hamas declared a willingness to recognize Israel within its pre-1967 borders. Hamas proposed a ten-year truce with Israel, and upheld a unilateral ceasefire for eighteen months, broken only infrequently in response to frequent Israeli military attacks.

Instead of using diplomacy, Israel and its supporters were determined to make Hamas fail. The U.S. appointed a special envoy, Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, to work with Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas and his forces, unlawfully channeling $40 million to Abbas' Presidential Guard.

After more than a year, the Israel/US game succeeded. Hamas and Fatah forces fought each other. Hamas now controls Gaza and Fatah the West Bank. Despite Hamas' renewed call for a unity government, Israel seems determined to foment civil war, to make Gazans suffer, and to separate Gaza and the West Bank permanently.

Why would Israel instigate such suffering, while simultaneously insisting that it desires peace, if only it had a "reasonable Palestinian negotiating partner"? Sharon humiliated and discredited Arafat as incapable of negotiating. Later, Abbas was dismissed as too weak to negotiate.

Perhaps this disparity between Israel's words and its actions is explained by the fact that peace would depend on compromises Israel is unwilling to make. There is widespread recognition that peace would require Israel to withdraw to its pre-1967 borders, to establish a Palestinian state with full sovereignty on the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as capital, and to ensure sufficient financial assistance to achieve economic viability for a sovereign Palestine.

Israel instead appears intent on isolating Gaza and cantonizing the West Bank, leaving Jewish settlements intact, and appropriating all of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Even during the Oslo peace years, the number of Israeli settlers on the West Bank doubled, huge sums were invested in Jewish-only settlement roads linked to Israel, and Palestinians from East Jerusalem were steadily replaced with Jews.

In addition, Israel has built an illegal wall on Palestinian land and stiffened the economic boycott that is bringing Gaza's 1.4 million people to the brink of collective starvation.

Dare we compare gas chambers to the four decades of oppressive occupation? The measures and scale differ, as do the justifications and cover-up tactics. But both are deliberate in their attempt to punish and destroy an "unwanted" population.

Should crimes against humanity even be compared? When does criminality cross the line and become genocidal? For Israel to persist with its policies risks the material and psychological destruction of an entire Palestinian community that is an integral part of an ethnic whole. It is this growing danger that makes it responsible to warn of a uniquely Palestinian holocaust-in-the-making. It has become urgent to heed to post-Nazi pledge of 'never again.'

Richard Falk is Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Longing to go home Mona El-Farra, IMEU

Vertical disintegration James Ron, The Nation

FAQ on developments in the PA IMEU

Palestinians construct new houses as part of a UN project for refugees whose homes have been demolished by Israel in Gaza. (Maan Images)


Israel to annex thousand of dunams from Arab villages
IMEMC (Jul 20, 2007)

....The plan includes grabbing lands that belong to several Arab villages, such as Kisra, Al Bqei'a, Kufur Samee', and Yanouh, which are all known for their green landscape and fertile agricultural lands. The project was approved by the Israeli Interior Ministry....

Israel starts Palestinian release
BBC (Jul 20, 2007)

...Many Palestinians are saying that freeing only 256 Palestinian prisoners out of some 10,000 is not enough, our correspondent in the West Bank says......

Mixed reaction in Middle East as Blair makes debut as envoy
The Guardian (Jul 20, 2007)

...Columnist Rami Khouri wrote in Beirut's Daily Star: "If there is an award for the combined negative credibility of an institution plus an individual, the Quartet and Blair should be its first recipients. Appointing Tony Blair as special envoy for Arab-Israeli peace is something like appointing the Emperor Nero to be the chief fireman of Rome."....

Israel contemplating offensive against Hamas
Maan News (Jul 19, 2007)

Palestinians in Gaza appeal for more aid
Reuters (Jul 19, 2007)

..."We now have only God and then UNRWA," said Ahmed al-Jammal, a father of five, inside an aid centre in Gaza City. "We have no other source of income," he said as he received sacks of flour and rice and bottles of cooking oil.....

Egypt opens shelters in Sinai to house stranded Palestinians
Haaretz (Jul 19, 2007)

...About 6,000 Palestinians are waiting on the Egyptian side of the crossing, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Information. Most are staying with relatives, in mosques, at an airport or in rented houses. Some 30,000 others are waiting elsewhere in Egypt, the ministry said....

European and Palestinian volunteers build houses, friendships in Taybeh
Maan News (Jul 19, 2007)

...Dr. Jubeh continued: "On TV Palestinians are either portrayed as fighters or terrorists. Here, these young people have the opportunity to meet another kind of Palestinian: the kind who is educated, cultured, and who aspires most of all to lead a normal life."....

Beware of Oslo's destructive route
Meron Benvenisti, Haaretz (Jul 19, 2007)

...Israeli construction on the West Bank continues at a rapid pace and infrastructure networks are covering the entire area; a regime that is severing and crushing the Palestinian community is taking root; the separation fence is being built; the isolation of the West Bank from the Gaza Strip is taking on the character of a quasi-permanent geopolitical separation; and the chances that Abu Mazen will succeed in establishing a stable government in the West Bank seem distant...

Palestinians walk through the rubble of Nedal Hussein Kamel's family home in the West Bank village of Harmaleh after it was demolished Thursday morning by Israeli bulldozers (AFP photo by Musa Shaer)

Regarding USAToday 7-19-2007 Refugees: One Iraq issue that should unite us all

(Photo -- In the crossfire: Refugees gather in a camp in Baghdad’s Shaab district. They were evacuated after insurgents torched their homes. / By Thaier al-Sudani, Reuters)

Refugees

One Iraq issue that should unite us all

Iraqis who have aided the U.S.-led mission are already targets. Once the American troops pull back — and they inevitably will — entire families will be left to fend for themselves. We still live with the haunting images from the Vietnam War. This country mustn’t let history repeat itself in Iraq.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/07/refugees-one-ir.html#more
RE: Refugees- One Iraq issue that should unite us all

Dear Editor,

I recall as a teen helping some newly arrived Vietnamese refugees learn English. It was very educational- for me at least! There are many ways we can help the Iraqis who might want to come here feel more at home and ready to face the challenge of fitting into wherever they might be lucky enough to go for now.

I quite agree that "Regardless of one's views on the Iraq war, all people of goodwill must recognize that we owe a debt to those Iraqis who risked everything to assist the U.S. dream of a pro-Western democracy in the heart of the Middle East" ... However we also owe it to everyone to be more honest about the refugee crisis in the Middle East and the part Israel has played all along in exasperating tension and conflict- and bigotry.

Resettling helpful Iraqis here in the US would be a very good start, but it will be but a drop in the proverbial bucket as long as our 'friend' Israel continues to push Palestinians into exile and despair.

At the heart of everything is home and family- and the inalienable right to return. Not more forced transfer but true return to original homes and lands as clearly spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948 : "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.".

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES 7-19-2007

A builder works on a site constructing houses in the Jewish settlement of Har Homar, 2006. Arab Israeli lawmakers and civil rights groups slammed a bill that would limit the sale of some state land to Jews, a day after parliament passed it in a preliminary reading.(AFP/File/Odd Andersen)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070719/wl_mideast_afp/mideastisraelarabconflictland_070719124055;_ylt=AprQGnXAhvF0N3IcD6VpQq0UvioA

Fury over Israeli bill to limit some land sales to Jews

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Arab Israeli lawmakers and civil rights groups on Thursday slammed a bill that would limit the sale of some state land to Jews, a day after parliament passed it in a preliminary reading.

The bill, approved by a vote of 64 to 16, "represents the height of racism," Arab Israeli MP Ahmed Tibi told AFP.

The bill must pass three more readings to become law.

"Racism has become the dominant current in Israel, including in the Knesset and the government," said Tibi, comparing the bill to anti-Semitic legislation passed in Nazi Germany before World War II.

It would limit to Jews the sale of land belonging to the Jewish National Fund, around 13 percent of all state land.

The Israeli Civil Rights Association also blasted the bill.

"This is a proposition that has clearly racist and discriminatory character," which aims to circumvent previous high court rulings that Israeli Arab citizens have the right to purchase JNF land in certain cases, spokesman Yoav Lev said.

Regarding: Perilous times for Iraq Palestinians, Washington Times 7-18-2007

Sunni Palestinians in Iraq, once protected by Saddam Hussein, now face a Shi'ite majority's loathing that can erupt into the kind of terror suffered by Salah Hassan (center), his son Mohanned (right) and Mr. Hassan's brothers-in-law Easan Marie (top) and Mousa Marie. Mr. Hassan and Mousa Marie were reportedly killed when they tried to recover Mohanned's body from Baghdad's Sadr City ghetto. Easan Marie, who accompanied them, has not been seen since.

RE: Perilous times for Iraq Palestinians
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20070718/FOREIGN/107180067/1003

Dear Editor,

Thank you for glancing over to notice the plight of the Palestinian refugees in Iraq. For 59 years Israel has refused to respect the Palestinians and their inalienable right of return to original homes and land.... Israel's racist refusal to respect the native non-Jews of historic Palestine has been creating a huge humanitarian disaster that long predates our war on Iraq.

In 1948 in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was carefully written and affirmed by many sovereign nations, carefully keeping in mind all the lessons of history and civilization: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights encourages the rule of fair and just laws and policies that might help lay the foundation for world peace.

Israel has been blithely ignoring the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (including but not limited to the Palestinian refugees right of return).

Israel has chosen instead to invest in segregation and promote apartheid with religion being the ticket 'home' for economic opportunity and security in the so-called "Jewish State".

We live in a modern age where passports are a necessity and computer paper trails quickly disclose a person's religion and ancestry. There is no where to hide and no true refuge for innocent men, women and children who have been pushed aside, impoverished and demonized by the powers that be: By endorsing and arming Israel's racist war on all of Palestine we foolishly send a message to all the world that arming and encouraging religious bigotry brings power and eventual economic success, respect and glory.

We are already seeing the ramifications of this loaded message all through out the Middle East, and it will only get worse as time goes by and technology makes more punitive persecution possible.

For everyone's sake don't foster radicalized religious extremism on every side plus some- instead get to the heart of it all by insisting that the sovereign nation named Israel fully respect the Palestinian refugees legal right of return to original homes and lands.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES 7-19-2007

NOTES 7-19-2007

NOTES:

• UN officials issued warnings yesterday about the dire collapse of Gaza's economy
• Mona El-Farra's Longing to go home ...& more from IMEU
• Width Matters: Displacement and Israel's Wall by Susan Miller
• Books- Mideast selection BBC WORLD SERVICE
• Iraqi refugees: Donor governments must provide bil...
• Eurodeputies denounce Iraqi stance on refugees
• Iraqis dying to tell the story
• A New Nakaba in Jaffa City
• Number of West Bank settlers increases...& more from IMEU
• One of the 13 bullets fired at Wael Zuaiter hit volume two of One Thousand and One Nights
• Wael Zuaiter was the first victim in Europe in a series of assassinations of Palestinian artists, intellectuals and diplomats perpetrated by Israel...
• Cracks in Zionism by Charley Reese
• Wiping whom off the Map??? By Dr. Elias Akleh
• Palestinians in Iraqi No Man's Land; Part 1...As death tolls and temperatures in Baghdad.
• UNRWA has called for urgent aid for Gaza as fears about a humanitarian crisis mount
• Abed Hamdan : I left my heart in Palestine
• Interview with Maha Saca, Director of the Palestine Heritage Center
• ‘No homeland on stolen land’ Sally Bland book review on overcoming Zionism
  
• July 15 ...
• I remember the butterflies and the clear feeling that everything was open...Mahmoud Darwish
  
• Timeline required for Palestinian state — His Maje...
• The Missing
• Iran's Jews reject cash offer to move to Israel
• We call upon all Palestinians to use the memories that they still have to protect and strengthen their sacred rights ...
• A wonder of the Arab world by Rami G. Khouri
• The Palestinian Refugees Right of Return- & Zionist tricks
• Zionism Is The Problem....
• Recognising Israel’s past record and current policy by Michael Jansen
• Michigan's vigilant outcasts: BREAK THE SILENCE
  

Weekly Report on Israeli human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory 05 - 11 Jul 2007

FACTSHEET The Right To Return, a Basic Right Still Denied

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html
Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

"The humanitarian aid and assistance that UNRWA provides to the Palestine refugees can never be enough. But it will be required as long as the issues of statelessness, prolonged military occupation, economic marginalization and vulnerability characteristic of the Palestinian refugee crisis are not addressed." http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/publ/opendoc.htm?tbl=PUBL&id=4444d3c92f

Al Nakba 1948
The largest planned ethnic cleansing operation in modern history	530 depopulated towns and villages 85% of the Palestinians in the land that became Israel are refugees today Their land is 92% of Israel’s area

http://www.plands.org/power/1.htm

The State of the World's Refugees 2006 - Chapter 5 Protracted refugee situations: Box 5.1 Palestinian refugees .....

By far the most protracted and largest of all refugee problems in the world today is that of the Palestine refugees, whose plight dates back 57 years.
http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/publ/opendoc.htm?tbl=PUBL&id=4444d3c92f

& Forced Migration Review's (FMR) recent edition on Palestinian refugees
http://www.forcedmigration.org/

& more on the Palestinian Refugees....
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/israel/return/
http://www.badil.org/index.html
http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/index.html
http://imeu.net/news/background-briefings.shtml
http://www.rorcongress.com/
http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Right-Of-Return/
http://www.p4pd.org/refugees.html
http://www.plomission.us/links.php
http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/reliefresources/115746336017.htm
http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/refugees.shtml
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_mamboezine&Itemid=182
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=10241&CategoryId=4
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/israel-palestine/returnindex.htm
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/israel-palestine/return/2004/0927necessary.htm
http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/MEPP/PRRN/papers/abusitta.html
http://www.world-crisis.com/analysis_comments/A147_0_15_0_C
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/687/region_ror.htm
http://www.al-awda.org/abusitta.html
http://www.afsc.org/pwork/0102/010220a.htm
http://www.fmreview.org/palestine.htm
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

UN officials issued warnings yesterday about the dire collapse of Gaza's economy...

Closed crossings pushing Gaza into disaster, says UN

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2129658,00.html

· Agency asks Blair to visit Hamas-controlled strip
· 68,000 Palestinians lose jobs in one month

Rory McCarthy in Gaza City
Thursday July 19, 2007
The Guardian

UN officials issued warnings yesterday about the dire collapse of Gaza's economy and called on the international community to open crossing points for trade.

At least 68,000 Palestinians have lost their jobs in the past month since Israel closed the crossings out of the narrow, highly populated strip of land, according to the latest Palestinian figures. The closures came after the Islamist movement Hamas seized full security control of Gaza in mid-June after months of near civil war with its rival Fatah.

Around 85% of Gaza's private-sector employees are out of work, according to Nasser el-Helou, a prominent business leader. Thousands of factories have closed as imports and exports have halted...[more]

UN warns of economic collapse in Gaza

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2129337,00.html

Rory McCarthy in Gaza City
Wednesday July 18, 2007
Guardian Unlimited


A Palestinian boy moves bags of food aid delivered by the UN. Photograph: Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images


UN officials issued new warnings today about the dire collapse of Gaza's economy and called on the international community to open crossing points for trade...[more]

Mona El-Farra's Longing to go home ...& more from IMEU

Palestnians take a dip in the Mediterranean Sea at a beach in Gaza, where 1.4 million Palestinians remain isolated from the outside world. (Maan Images)

Longing to go home
Mona El-Farra, IMEU, Jul 18, 2007

Palestinians wait to pass through the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. (Maan Images)

My mother is in her last moments and I cannot cross the border.

My mother is in the hospital at the moment. She is severely ill. She was admitted to the hospital 3 days ago. I cannot reach her.

I recently finished my 45-day speaking tour of the United States. Everywhere across the United States, and in each lecture, I told the audience about our suffering, living in this big prison called Gaza. I told them about the border closures and about the patients who have passed away while waiting to cross the border.

Now it is my personal story - like the daily stories of the 1.4 million people living in Gaza under siege and occupation, suffering from poverty, lack of resources, killing, shooting, and violence.

I cannot cross the border. I cannot pass through the Rafah crossing. I badly need to be next to my mother. I badly need to be there with her to help her, to do whatever I can for her, to say Goodbye, mum.

Related stories Gaza: no exit Vertical disintegration Cross-border crisis

I was always there for my patients and for many other people, to help and try to alleviate their suffering. In her last hours, I cannot be there with my mother. My hands are tied, I am helpless.

I can do nothing, I just have to wait and wait and wait. My throat is dry, my are eyes full of tears. This is unjust, inhuman. It is the occupation - how can it be just and fair, when it is mainly based on injustice, agression and cruelity?

Can anybody help me to go home? I badly need to be at home next to my mother in her last moments. Goodbye, mum. Hope you rest in peace, peace we do not enjoy in Gaza.


The borders of Gaza have been closed for more than five weeks. Twenty-eight patients have died while waiting to cross the Rafah crossing. Rafah is the only crossing between Gaza and Egypt - all other exits are completely sealed by the Israeli army. The border was opened only 70 times in one year.

Mona El-Farra is a physician and human-rights advocate in the Gaza Strip.

FAQ on developments in the PA IMEU

Weapon of the weak Ghada Karmi, Bitterlemons.org

Munir Nayfeh: Professor and researcher IMEU

Power like the king of England
Amira Hass, Haaretz (Jul 18, 2007)

Israel rules out final status talks
The Daily Star (Jul 18, 2007)

Fatah: Israel must release more prisoners
Ali Waked, Ynet News (Jul 18, 2007)

Palestinians in Sinai desperate to return to Gaza
Reuters (Jul 17, 2007)

A historic anomaly
Ghada Karmi, The Guardian (Jul 17, 2007)

Rights group slams 'light' indictment for officer who killed Israeli Arab
Haaretz (Jul 17, 2007)

Few Gazans allowed out for medical treatment
Maan News (Jul 17, 2007)

List of prisoners to be freed finalized
Haaretz (Jul 17, 2007)

Displacement and the wall
Susan Miller, Couterpunch (Jul 17, 2007)

Regarding lsj letter by Mary Hanna "Check the video"

RE: "Check the video" letter by Mary Hanna

http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070718/OPINION02/707180315/1085/opinion

Dear Editor,

Delighted to see Mary Hanna's excellent letter "Check the Video". There is indeed a wealth of information concerning (racist) Israel's never ending war on the people of historic Palestine and Hanna is wise to point that fact out.

Zionist PR tricks and propaganda worked better before the advent of modern multimedia and camera phones. And as fast as clever Zionists try to cut links to damning evidence, new videos and pictures pop up else where... The real conversation is not taking place in our main stream news or even in street protests by radicalized crowds, but on blogs and lists and in family rooms everywhere as more and more citizens of the world become aware of what (racist) Israel really is and does.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070718/OPINION02/707180315/1085/opinion

Check the video

Despite his bizarre attempt at a modern form of McCarthyism by listing a roster of published writers who demand Israeli accountability, I am thankful to Don Weinshank (Letters, July 10) for bringing up YouTube videos. There is a myriad of footage that shows the blatant violations of international laws, including this British two-minute news report about Israeli soldiers using Palestinian civilians as human shields, something Israel has denied. Pictures don't lie, however.

Check it out for yourself: www.youtube.com/watch? v=FjEd4hJNVCE and www.youtube.com/watch?v =tomdEkOgdKU&mode= related&search=

As Americans and citizens of the world, we can and should expect that our government to be held accountable for their actions. We all lose when a misguided few demand a different standard and support Israel's human rights violations.

Mary Hanna
Haslett

Width Matters: Displacement and Israel's Wall by Susan Miller

http://www.counterpunch.org/miller07172007.html

July 17, 2007

Width Matters

Displacement and Israel's Wall

By SUSAN MILLER

Width matters. Semantic disputes concerning the Israeli Palestinian conflict have existed for years. Arguments continue over Jimmy Carter's use of the word "apartheid" to describe the system under which Palestinians live in Israeli administered areas. These areas are called "Judea-Samaria" and considered "disputed" land by the Israeli camp while others refer to them as the "West Bank" and "occupied". Finally the term, "The Wall" , is dismissed by Israel as a misrepresentation of the controversial structure it is building. Supporters of Israel claim that only a small percent of the structure consists of a 25 feet high concrete wall. The remainder is considered a simple wire "fence" that can not be equated with a wall. In reality, neither of these descriptors conveys the structure's essential nature.

The structure is more accurately understood by its width, not its height. Winding its way down from the northern most point of the West Bank it leaves in its wake a 65 to 87 yard wide swath of bulldozed land on which trenches, barbed wire, footprint tracer paths, a two-lane patrol road and watch towers have been placed. From edge to edge, the structure exceeds the width of six lane segments of Interstate 95 or half the length of a football field.

When one considers the expansive reach of the structure and that eighty percent of it has been built on Palestinian land, the enormity of its impact on Palestinian society is understood...[more]

Regarding Phil Inq 7-18-7 Trudy Rubin's Worldview | Hasty, dangerous blather: Bush's latest Israeli-Arab plan exhibits ever more delusionary thinking

Regarding:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20070718_Worldview___Hasty__dangerous_blather.html

Worldview | Hasty, dangerous blather

Bush's latest Israeli-Arab plan exhibits ever more delusionary thinking.

By Trudy Rubin

Inquirer Columnist

A while back, I wrote a column wondering whether there was a secret White House doctrine dictating policy in the Middle East: the Doctrine of Two Years Too Late.

That doctrine was in full view this week when President Bush proposed steps to bolster moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and revive an Israeli-Palestinian peace process. If Bush had taken these steps in 2005, when Abbas was elected, I doubt the radical Islamic movement Hamas would have won Palestinian legislative elections, or taken control of Gaza.

Instead, the White House chose to ignore the peace process and squander its Mideast clout on Iraq. Now, pushed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Bush is belatedly trying to renew some Israeli-Arab engagement. But this proposal contains the same delusionary U.S. thinking that helped Hamas....[more]

**************************************************

RE: Trudy Rubin's Worldview | Hasty, dangerous blather : Bush's latest Israeli-Arab plan exhibits ever more delusionary thinking.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20070718_Worldview___Hasty__dangerous_blather.html

Dear Editor,

Upside of Bush's latest "Israeli-Arab plan" is that columnists here in the USA have an opportunity to look honestly at Israel's actions as well as Zionist policies and propaganda... if they dare.

Yes, Bush's plan is two years too late- but frankly it might be too late for Israel period, no matter what the plan. Sixty sovereign years of systematically oppressing, impoverishing, displacing and demonizing Palestinians is a really big problem only getting worse.

Israel defined what it is to be "The Jewish State" by waging a genocidal war on the native non-Jewish population of historic Palestine. Israel choose to try to erase Arabs and Arabic from the land. But in this modern age, old maps and memoirs have a way of empowering the truth and new realities such as that monstrous Israeli built apartheid wall are documented in detail using every technology available- and the information spreads with the click of a button.

In war and in peace Israel has never stopped usurping Palestinian land, rights and freedom. In war and in peace Israel has never stopped pushing Palestinians into poverty and despair. In war and in peace Israel as the Hasbara obsessed "Jewish State" is institutionalized bigotry armed to defend a very toxic status quo. Should any one (regardless of supposed religion) really make peace with that?!

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

Books- Mideast selection BBC WORLD SERVICE

The World is a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.

Mideast selection Recent headlines about upheaval in the Palestinian territories reveal a population in free-fall. The World's book critic Christopher Merrill recommends five books dealing with the problems of the region.

http://www.theworld.org/?q=taxonomy/term/8

If you have a favorite book and would like to tell us about it or what you think about books reviewed on The World, send us an e-mail at theworld@pri.org.

Our reviews are written by Christopher Merrill, The World's international literature critic, unless noted otherwise. Merrill directs the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.

Latest books reviewed on The World:

• Travel books
• Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life
• 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East
• Landscape of Hope and Despair: Palestinian Refugee Camps
• Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood
• Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
• Macedonia
• Salman Rushdie
• I'jaam
• American Visa

Why boycott of Israel is necessary- great letter by ALDRIC BROWN

http://comment.independent.co.uk/letters/article2779400.ece

Why boycott of Israel is necessary

Sir: Howard Jacobson's latest tirade against those who advocate an academic boycott of Israeli institutions exemplifies a prominent and recurrent feature of such criticisms (14 July). He says little or nothing about the Palestine-Israel situation. He ignores the motivations of the boycott, which originate in Israel's violations of international law, infringements of Palestinians' human rights, and the 40 years' oppression of the population of the Occupied Territories. Instead of confronting the advocates' case he misrepresents them, without distinction, as accusing "Israel of every known crime against humanity" and encourages his readers to see in that the signs of anti-Semitism.

Those who advocate the boycott are not insensitive to the importance of academic freedoms but they give higher priority to the rights to life and livelihood and believe that public opinion must find ways of actively and effectively opposing those policies of Israel which perpetuate oppression.

If the critics, who make passing reference to not supporting the Israeli occupation, were to show that they actually oppose it and were to present alternatives to the boycott, then they could be taken seriously. Otherwise they appear only as apologists for Israel.

ALDRIC BROWN

LONDON N7

Regarding CSM Bush's final push for a Palestine: The US must push Israel for big concessions at the peace conference to win over even Hamas backers.

RE: Bush's final push for a Palestine: The US must push Israel for big concessions at the peace conference to win over even Hamas backers.
from the July 18, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0718/p08s01-comv.html

Dear Editor,

Thank you for noticing the Palestinian refugees- although it would have been much more informative and helpful had you also mentioned The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 13, Section 2 which clearly states "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.".

Furthermore UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (concerning the Palestinian refugees right of return) has been affirmed by the UN over 130 times since it was first introduced in 1948. Affirmed by everyone EXCEPT Israel and the US.

In addition, UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 clearly spells out "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."

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

Iraqi refugees: Donor governments must provide bilateral assistance to host countries

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/SJHG-7573W6?OpenDocument

Iraqis are now the third largest displaced population in the world, after Palestinians and Sudanese. Their number will likely continue to grow as violence in Iraq shows no signs of diminishing. Estimates identify 2.4 million refugees, with Syria and Jordan, two countries with sizeable Palestinian populations as well, hosting the vast majority. Lebanon, Egypt, Iran, and Turkey have also received significant flows of Iraqi refugees. In host countries, school systems, medical services, water supplies, sanitation infrastructure, and housing stock are now stretched to the limit. Despite the increased international awareness of the Iraqi displacement crisis, adequate resources to address the true scope of refugees' needs have yet to materialize.

Syria is now host to between one and one and a half million Iraqi refugees. It has shown interest in working with the international community to address the needs of this population. Iraqi children are encouraged to attend Syrian schools, and the government hopes to enroll up to 100,000 Iraqi children in time for fall classes. Iraqis are also being provided primary medical services, and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society has expanded the number of clinics it operates solely for Iraqis to ten to meet increased demand.

Despite these positive steps forward, many Iraqis still can not access basic services, as the population is growing too fast for Syria to adequately respond to all needs. Moreover, the Syrian government is not currently able to offer specialized medical care to Iraqis for problems such as cancer and heart disease. The International Committee of the Red Cross is concerned about the inability of the current water system to provide clean water in neighborhoods where Iraqis live because of the growing numbers. In these areas, residents now have to buy their water, which has a detrimental impact on both their health and finances. And a lack of housing continues to increase rents in urban areas, forcing many Iraqis out of Damascus, placing them further away from vital services.

Jordan currently hosts an Iraqi refugee population that may be as high as 750,000 people. Though the government has been hesitant to offer Iraqis access to basic services, there are new positive developments that should be supported. In June, the government signed an accord with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to allow documented Iraqi children access to schooling, and it has plans to enroll up to 50,000 Iraqis in the domestic school system. Though no similar accords exist in other sectors, conversations have begun to expand health care to Iraqis.

Similar to Syria, the Jordanian government is not able to expand services to Iraqis on a sufficient scale to adequately address the need. School services, though expanding to educate some Iraqis, will only reach a fraction of Iraqi refugee children. Health care, including access to prescription medication, continues to be a top priority for Iraqis, and specialized care is again in need of serious funding. Water resources in Jordan – one of the most water-poor nations in the world – are being stretched to their limit, and could present serious challenges. As in Syria, Iraqis are moving further away from Amman in search of affordable housing, again making it more difficult for them to access the services that do exist.

In April of this year, UNHCR sponsored a conference in Geneva to raise awareness of the Iraqi refugee crisis. While the rhetorical flourishes of donor representatives at the conference apparently signified that their concern was finally rising to an appropriate level, donor governments have not responded with adequate action to address the needs discussed in Geneva.

The majority of assistance that Iraqis receive is coming from host country governments. The national education, health, water, and sanitation systems of host countries are facing the challenge of meeting the needs of a rapidly expanding refugee population, and it is therefore the government agencies that provide these services that are in most need of international support.

For Iraqi refugee programs, bilateral assistance to Jordan and Syria, much less to smaller hosts such as Lebanon and Egypt, is virtually non-existent. To date, the only bilateral assistance to Syria has come from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in the form of one million dollars. UNHCR has acted as a conduit for some direct aid to the Syrian government as well, with agreements for close to ten million dollars for health and education, and is also providing some assistance to the government in the form of equipment. Syria is still clearly bearing the brunt of paying for these services alone.

Jordan has begun to enter agreements with the US government to support the Ministry of Education, but again, the dollar amounts are tiny in comparison to the need – approximately $10 million. UNHCR has provided no direct support to the government, and no other international donors are providing bilateral support.

While bilateral assistance is slow in coming, the governments of Syria and Jordan are actively working to develop plans to address the needs of Iraqis, and have also begun to detail the costs of these plans. The government of Syria now has multi-year planning documents for the provision of health and education services to Iraqis, and is in conversations with European firms to expand the capacity of its water and sanitation systems. Jordan has developed a plan for education for the next year, and their Ministry of Health has begun conversations with UNHCR and the World Health Organization to develop plans for health access for Iraqis. Costs for these plans are in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and reflect the reality that governments, and not the United Nations or international NGOs, will have to address the needs of Iraqi refugees.

Funding for UNHCR is the one area where international donors have responded quickly – it expects to fully fund its 2007 budget of $123 million. However, small appeals by UNICEF and WFP in Syria to work with Iraqis have been difficult to fund, and as a result, involvement by UNHCR's sister agencies has been slow to develop.

Providing bilateral assistance to the governments of Jordan and Syria, as well as to other countries hosting Iraqis, should be the top priority of the international community. The United States has shown a willingness to compensate Jordan in the past for the effects of instability in Iraq with large grants of bilateral aid, most notably a 2003 assistance package totaling $700 million, which was provided to "help Jordan offset the economic dislocation it faces due to the conflict in Iraq." The US must now increase its assistance to Jordan, and expand it to other countries in the region that are hosting Iraqis. Other Western governments, and especially countries that have participated in the Iraq war such as Great Britain, Australia, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Japan, have been unacceptably detached from the refugee crisis, and have an obligation to respond with bilateral assistance to host countries. Arab governments, especially US allies in the Gulf, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, should also respond, as the situation in their region will only deteriorate without this help.

Iraq must take a proactive role in contributing to the basic needs of its citizens who have fled violence at home. Despite the effects of the war, Iraq continues to be a resource-rich country, and should use those resources to help refugees living in Syria and Jordan, as well as other host countries. The international community, the US in particular, should encourage Iraq to provide direct assistance to its neighbors.

Donor governments should coordinate bilateral assistance to Jordan and Syria to provide a comprehensive package of financial support. These plans must also be developed in close consultation with host governments, which should conduct a complete review of needs, ministry by ministry. A framework for regular, high-level discussions will need to be developed to facilitate this entire process.

Refugees International therefore recommends that:

The United Nations:

- Develop a process to discuss coordinated bilateral assistance to countries hosting Iraqi refugees. This process should incorporate assistance to host governments in assessing their needs and developing adequate assistance requests. It should also provide for immediate as well as longer term planning to ensure that donors undertake multi-year commitments to caring for Iraqi refugees.

The Government of the United States:

- Immediately consider providing Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon with a substantial bilateral assistance program to meet the needs of Iraqi refugees.

- Coordinate with other donor governments to ensure that Syria receive adequate bilateral assistance as well.

- Work with the government of Iraq to help it provide substantial bilateral assistance to its neighbors hosting Iraqi nationals.

Other Donor Nations:

- Begin to address the needs of Iraqi refugees through bilateral assistance programs. Nations that participated in the Coalition intervention in Iraq should especially evaluate and increase their giving.

Advocates Kristele Younes and Sean Garcia, joined by Assistant Director of Development Sara Fusco, just returned from Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

Contacts: Kristele Younes and Sean Garcia, ri@refugeesinternational.org or 202.828.0110

http://www.eubusiness.com/news_live/1184266806.69

Eurodeputies denounce Iraqi stance on refugees

12 July 2007, 22:37 CET

(STRASBOURG) - European lawmakers deplored Thursday Iraq's handling of Palestinians and Iranian opposition members living in the conflict-torn country.

In a resolution adopted at their plenary session in Strasbourg, members of the European Parliament condemned "the call of the Iraqi minister of displacement and migration to expel all Palestinians from Iraq."

It also denounced "the Iraqi government's decision to impose onerous registration requirements to Palestinians, making it difficult for them to stay legally in Iraq."...[more]

Iraqis dying to tell the story

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/16/271847.aspx

Iraqis dying to tell the story

Posted: Monday, July 16, 2007 11:49 AM
Categories: Baghdad, Iraq

By Jane Arraf, NBC News Correspondent

Khalid Hassan was irrepressible. In the days after Baghdad fell, he would drop by my office with the most positive outlook of anyone I’d ever seen. It was only after I got to know him better that I realized how even more remarkable that was.

After Saddam was toppled, the dream of a better life went horribly wrong for Palestinian-Iraqi families like Khalid’s much sooner than for most Iraqis. Iraqis blamed even Palestinians born here for supporting Saddam while he was in power and drove thousands of them out of their homes. When I met Khalid four years ago, his family had taken shelter in a school. It was a fact that he mentioned in passing with a rueful and still hopeful smile – hopeful that everything would turn out OK.

NBC News

Khalid Hassan, the New York Times reporter killed in Iraq last week, with NBC News' Kianne Sadeq, left, and Jane Arraf during happier times.

For a while it did. He got a job he loved with the New York Times, a steady paycheck..[more]

Palestine Online

Victory Dance
ISMAIL SHAMMOUT'S ART @ Palestine Online Store

A family picnic

from Zahi
[Please Forward Widely]

Its summer and its time!

The Arab community of Southern California invites you to a family picnic

The First Annual Palestine Picnic Day

SATURDAY AUGUST 18, 2007
begins at 11 am - food 1:00 pm - 3:30 pm
WILLIAM MASON REGIONAL PARK
18712 University Drive
IRVINE, CA 92612

suggested donation: $10 Adults, $5 Children 12 and under

Picnic menu includes

Kafta, falafel, barbecue beef and chicken kabab, hummus, salad,

beverages, water mellon and more!

Games, Face Painting, Kids and Adult Raffle, and more!

Come join us!

Please advertise, call and invite your friends!

Download, print and distribute our flyer:

http://al-awdacal.org/pdf/picnicflyer.pdf

Hosted by various community organizations in Southern California including:

Al-Awda Los Angeles/Orange County, Al-Awda San Diego, Al-Awda Riverside, The Palestinian American Women's Association, and The National Council of Arab Americans.

For further information, contact: 760-685-3243 or 619-980-0677

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
E-mail: info@al-awdacal.org
WWW: http://al-awdacal.org

& more letters

********************************

RE: Bush calls for Mideast peace talks : The fall conference, to include Arab nations, would aim to speed creation of a Palestinian state.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/Bush_calls_for_Mideast_peace_talks.html

Dear Editor,

Regarding "Bush calls for Mideast peace talks : The fall conference, to include Arab nations, would aim to speed creation of a Palestinian state."... 59 years and counting as the conversation continues to be curtailed by Israeli tricks while Palestinian men, women and children suffer, starve and get shot at by the Israel Defense Forces because many Palestinians dare object to the bigotry and injustice that is Israel today.

HAMAS did not even exist 60 years ago. Nor did it exist 40 years ago .... and what will be 20 years from now as one very racist Israel Uber Allis continues to find numerous ways to attack, divide, torment, and radicalize the native non-Jewish population of the Holy Land, essentially bringing out the worst in everyone.

This should be a moment of clarity for all the world. We now live in an electronic age and the truth has been revealed: Palestinian men, women and children are in dire danger - and deep despair... all because of political Zionism.

We who are free to speak out must speak out for true justice, peace, possibility- and Palestine.

We who are free to think and dream should be thinking and dreaming of Palestine past, present and future.

We who are free to act, should be acting with love and compassion- for ALL... including the Palestinians.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

**********************************************************

RE: Israel, Palestinians welcome Bush plan
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2007/07/17/israeli_ministers_ok_prisoners_release/

Dear Editor,

Hasbara efforts ensure that most Israeli citizens are Jews who in many ways protect and promote the idea of "The Jewish State" stealing and destroying historic Palestine.

Meanwhile because of "The Jewish State" the native non-Jewish Palestinians are oppressed and impoverished- and then demonized and punished no matter what they say or do. Trapped by quite a Catch 22 many Palestinians are forced to try to make peace with the very entity that means an ongoing war on their basic human rights.

Israel & Palestinians might welcome Bush's most recent plan but we the people of the world have every right to step up and speak out freely to object to the very idea of making peace with political Zionism.

Let us be fully honest: Israel today, after sixty sovereign years to prove its potential, is nothing but institutionalized bigotry, injustice, apartheid and a never ending war on the native non-Jewish population of the Holy Land.

Shame on any one who invests in racist Israel.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

**********************************************************

RE: U.S. acts to boost Mideast summit: Bush revives plan for 2-state solution
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-mideast_silva_greenbergjul17,1,4659353.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

Dear Editor,

60 sovereign years of one very racist Israel (as the misnamed Jewish State) pulverizing historic Palestine in every possible way and all there is is talk about talk while the native non-Jewish Palestinian continue to be cruelly oppressed and impoverished - and displaced.

I long for the day of awakening when all the world realizes that political Zionism is nothing but barbaric ignorance, selfishness and a totally uncivilized home wrecking ideology that has created a worldwide war on both Palestine and America- with the Palestinians bearing most of the pain while America is framed and forced into shouldering most of the blame.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

**********************************************************

RE: Bush will try to revive Mideast peace process
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bush17jul17,1,632698.story?coll=la-headlines-world

Dear Editor,

The best way to forge peace in the Middle East is a rights based solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict. In other words- stop empowering political Zionism.

Step away from racist Israeli propaganda and start noticing the vital importance of full focus on the dictates of international law including but not limited to full respect for the Palestinian Refugees inalienable right of return: Not more forced transfer and apartheid but true return to original homes and lands.

Palestinian life and liberty should be our highest priority: Peace talks should be about true return- and reparations... otherwise this latest revival really is all just more of the same old nasty Zionist war on the Palestinians' basic human rights with even more Palestinian men, women and children intentionally and systematically impoverished and displaced.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

**********************************************************

RE: Bush to Bolster Abbas and Seek Peace Talks
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/washington/17prexy.html?ref=world

Dear Editor,

As far as “ending the fiction that Israel does not exist” .... We would be wise to simply realize that modern man made Israel is and always has been institutionalized bigotry creating an economic crime that cruelly impoverishes, vilifies and destroys the native non-Jewish Palestinians individually and collectively.

Modern Israel is an idea created and defended by talented propagandists that now has one of the most powerful arsenals of lethal weaponry in all the world: It also has a very concrete and very ugly apartheid wall.

Its been a war mongering mess since Zionist terrorists first took up arms to fight for "freedom"... freedom mainly meaning that a select few Zionist ideologues prosper and find 'security', while most everyone else becomes a hapless victim of a huge home wrecking war machine in one way or another.

The Israel Industry today exists to empower Zionist control over the Holy Land AND the conversation. The only way to bolster true peace is by breaking away from racist Israeli dictates to simply see that the Palestinians have every right to be.... And every one else has the right to refuse to empower political Zionism.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

Regarding Wash Post 7-17-7 Bush Renews Mideast Efforts

RE: Bush Renews Mideast Efforts :President Plans Peace Conference, Direct Aid to Abbas http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/16/AR2007071600063.html

Dear Editor,

Starving, bullying and then bribing Palestine to accept "Israel" might make sense to some, but it really doesn't make sense to me... Stop and think- what exactly IS Israel?

"The number of Israeli settlers living in contravention of international law within the West Bank [not including East Jerusalem] has reached 275,000, an increase of 5.5% in relation to last year. The total number of Jewish people in Israel has risen by 1.5% overall." (Number of West Bank Settlers reaches 275,000, says Israeli Interior Ministry report).

Thanks to political Zionism, Hasbara efforts go on continuously, encouraging ALL people world wide to defend and invest in Israel as "The Jewish State", subsidizing Jews while the native non-Jewish population continue to be systematically impoverished and displaced, and then vilified and punished because they dare object.

Israel's economy thrives enabling Israel to become more and more of a home wrecking war on all of historic Palestine as immigrant bigots make Aliyah to a land that really is not theirs to take... Meanwhile "The Jewish State" builds an immensely expensive and monstrously ugly land and rights grabbing apartheid wall on Palestinian Land under the guise of 'security'.

Please note that despite all the distracting talk of peace, Israelis are for the most part electing to live on the far side of that nasty wall so as to gobble up even more Palestinian land and rights.

But don't make the mistake of thinking this is simply about the illegally occupied territories. Glance over at "Israel-proper" to see that there is a new Nakaba in Jaffa city: "All old Palestinian neighborhoods that survived the 1948 war and since the establishment of Israel, and until the day have suffered not only neglect, marginalization and lack of services, but also the demolishing of houses and historical monuments, to build apartment and public parks by investment corporations supported from successive Israeli governments.

According to Amier Badran, the layer for the Arabs association in the city, that the Israeli government want to build five thousand housing units on the location of Ajami neighborhood because the location will be the best location to build summer houses for reach investors since its so close to the sea and the nature." http://www.imemc.org/article/49488

The Palestinians already have been living for generations under an Israeli imposed "future of terror and death"- that's the problem! Israel IS institutionalized bigotry and injustice. We the world should not make peace with such a totally toxic status quo.

Forget trying to force everyone to pledge allegiance to the idea- and the ongoing crimes of the misnamed Jewish State. Let's simply work on final status with the highest priority given to fully respecting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights including but not limited to the Palestinian refugees inalienable and sacred right to return to original homes and lands.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES:

• Number of West Bank settlers increases...& more from IMEU
• One of the 13 bullets fired at Wael Zuaiter hit volume two of One Thousand and One Nights
• Wael Zuaiter was the first victim in Europe in a series of assassinations of Palestinian artists, intellectuals and diplomats perpetrated by Israel...
• Cracks in Zionism by Charley Reese
• Wiping whom off the Map??? By Dr. Elias Akleh
• Palestinians in Iraqi No Man's Land; Part 1...As death tolls and temperatures in Baghdad.
• UNRWA has called for urgent aid for Gaza as fears about a humanitarian crisis mount
• Palestinian poet blasts infighting
• Reality check on Palestinian elections...
• Abed Hamdan : I left my heart in Palestine
• Interview with Maha Saca, Director of the Palestine Heritage Center
• ‘No homeland on stolen land’ Sally Bland book review on overcoming Zionism
  
• July 15 ...
• I remember the butterflies and the clear feeling that everything was open...Mahmoud Darwish
  
• Timeline required for Palestinian state — His Maje...
• The Missing
• Iran's Jews reject cash offer to move to Israel
• We call upon all Palestinians to use the memories that they still have to protect and strengthen their sacred rights ...
• A wonder of the Arab world by Rami G. Khouri
• The Palestinian Refugees Right of Return- & Zionist tricks
• Zionism Is The Problem....
• Recognising Israel’s past record and current policy by Michael Jansen
• Michigan's vigilant outcasts: BREAK THE SILENCE
  

Weekly Report on Israeli human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory 05 - 11 Jul 2007

FACTSHEET The Right To Return, a Basic Right Still Denied

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html
Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

"The humanitarian aid and assistance that UNRWA provides to the Palestine refugees can never be enough. But it will be required as long as the issues of statelessness, prolonged military occupation, economic marginalization and vulnerability characteristic of the Palestinian refugee crisis are not addressed." http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/publ/opendoc.htm?tbl=PUBL&id=4444d3c92f

Al Nakba 1948
The largest planned ethnic cleansing operation in modern history	530 depopulated towns and villages 85% of the Palestinians in the land that became Israel are refugees today Their land is 92% of Israel’s area

http://www.plands.org/power/1.htm

& more on the Palestinian Refugees....
http://www.fmreview.org/palestine.htm
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Right-Of-Return/
http://imeu.net/news/background-briefings.shtml
http://www.un.org/unrwa/index.html
http://www.badil.org/index.html
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=10241&CategoryId=4
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/687/region_ror.htm
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/israel-palestine/returnindex.htm
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/israel/return/
http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/refugees.shtm

http://www.imemc.org/article/49488

A New Nakaba in Jaffa city

Monday July 16, 2007 16:31 by By Mayssa Aby Ghazalah - IMEMC News ghassanb at imemc dot org

Ajami neighborhood, in the city of Jaffa near Tal Aviv in Israeli, on the compass of Israeli demolitions, and the arrow turns towards five hundred Palestinian houses, the homes of three thousand Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. Within a public scheme that remained of the first Nakba, the Israel government is planning to make the residents of that old Palestinian neighborhood to live a second one.

The old houses and buildings Ajami neighborhood stand as witnesses to the 1948 Nakba today the Israeli government is trying through various methods demolish the rest of the history and culture and heritage of Palestinian Arab in the city of Jaffa.

Changing the Palestinian identity of Jaffa city is not new, and attempts to change the identity of the city that was once called by its Palestinians residents the pried of the sea never stopped by the Israeli that took over the city in 1948.

All old Palestinian neighborhoods that survived the 1948 war and since the establishment of Israel, and until the day has suffered not only neglect, marginalization and lack of services, but also the demolishing of houses and historical monuments, to build apartment and public parks by investment corporations supported from successive Israeli governments.

According to Amier Badran, the layer for the Arabs association in the city, that the Israeli government want to build five thousand housing units on the location of Ajami neighborhood because the location will be the best location to build summer houses for reach investors since its so close to the sea and the nature.

The layer added that most of the residents there has no official documents due to the 1948 war and lose of all official records.

Israel continuous its attempts to capture the Ajami neighborhood and the refusal of its residents continues too even if the Israeli government gives them millions of Israeli of shekels, but the question is, will this neighborhood survive the second Nakaba imposed by the Israeli government on it.

Translated by: Ghassan Bannoura – IMEMC News Room.

Number of West Bank settlers increases...& more from IMEU

A Palestinian worker fixes an irrigation pipe near Israel's separation wall outside the West Bank city of Qalqilia. (Khaleel Reash, Maan Images)

Vertical disintegration
James Ron, The Nation, Jul 17, 2007

This article was originally published by The Nation and is republished with permission.

A view of Israel's seperation wall in the West Bank city of Qalqilia with a settlement in the background. (Khaleel Reash, Maan Images)

In 2002 Israel began building a fence, ditch and wall combo between its internationally recognized territory and the Palestinian West Bank, arguing this was the best way to protect Israel's heartland from Palestinian suicide bombers. In fact, the barrier was a desperate last-minute attempt to resolve a thorny security problem of Israel's own making. Ever since the late 1970s, Israel's aggressive colonization project had exponentially increased traffic flows across the Green Line, making it all but impossible to separate legitimate from clandestine travelers. Many of the 400,000 Jewish settlers travel across the Green Line daily, as do thousands of occupation soldiers. Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem has given tens of thousands of Palestinians Israeli identity cards, allowing them to cross the line at will. Until recently, there were dozens of potential crossing points, as well as long stretches of unguarded frontier. As a result of these and other Israeli policies, the boundary between "Israel" and "Palestine" had almost disappeared, enormously complicating efforts to filter out suicide bombers. The barrier was thus built to stanch a self-inflicted wound, creating an impregnable obstacle to channel all travel between Israel and the West Bank through a few heavily policed gates.

Many liberals oppose the effort, arguing that since it does not faithfully follow the Green Line, it is a de facto land grab in advance of an Arab-Israeli accord. The wall divides many Palestinian communities in two, cutting Arab East Jerusalem from the West Bank, and will eventually leave 250,000 Palestinians stranded on the wrong side. Yet many occupation opponents view the project more positively, arguing that it is tangible proof of Greater Israel's demise.

Related stories The weapon of the weak History erased What did, in fact, happen at Camp David in 2000? Who will save Palestine? Palestinians must have hope to move forward

The optimists' logic is simple. For years, Israel banned any sign of separation from Palestine, erasing the Green Line from official maps and instructing young Israelis that the Land of Israel stretched to the river Jordan. In 2002, for the first time, an Israeli government led by redoubtable hawk Ariel Sharon reversed course, building a borderlike structure that signals, perhaps, the end of the settlement era. Palestinian suicide bombers appeared to have accomplished in just two years what decades of political protest and diplomacy failed to do.

Eyal Weizman, the author of Hollow Land, believes the optimists are wrong. He says Ariel Sharon never conceived of the wall as a dividing line between Palestine and Israel but rather as the last line of defense in a permanent Jewish control matrix stretching across the West Bank. Weizman is a young Israeli architect whose studies of the "architecture of occupation" have won him renown in some quarters and notoriety in others. He has a keen eye for design, space and structure, bringing a refreshingly new perspective to a topic hitherto ruled by journalists, historians and social scientists. The result is one of the most original books on Israel to appear in years. ...[more]

Cross-border crisis Serene Assir, Al-Ahram Weekly

Munir Nayfeh: Professor and researcher IMEU

'Mowing grass' in Nablus Gideon Levy, Haaretz

Number of West Bank settlers increases
Maan News (Jul 17, 2007)

According to a report issued by the Israeli interior ministry, the number of Israeli settlers living in contravention of international law within the West Bank [not including East Jerusalem] has reached 275,000, an increase of 5.5% in relation to last year. The total number of Jewish people in Israel has risen by 1.5% overall.

The report stated that the number of religious settlers increased the most. 4,000 new settlers came to the settlement of Modi'in Illit, west of Ramallah. Bitar Illit settlement, near Bethlehem, grew by some 400 settlers.

New Bush initiative met with scepticism
Inter Press Service (Jul 17, 2007)

Most analysts said Bush's speech -- including his pledge to provide some 190 million dollars to support Palestine Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and convene a regional conference to support renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks -- was too little, too late and included too many conditions to rally strong Palestinian or Arab support....[more]

Abbas says he will only talk to Olmert about final status issues
Haaretz (Jul 17, 2007)

....the PA has essentially imposed an agenda for future meetings between Olmert and Abbas, despite the fact that Olmert rejected Monday a Palestinian proposal to restart negotiations on the final status "core issues" - Jerusalem, the refugee question and borders....

Gaza at risk of becoming totally aid-dependent, agencies warn
Maan News (Jul 16, 2007)

...Bashi stressed that the major responsibility lies with Israel. Israel remains the occupying power, despite its claim of having 'disengaged' from Gaza, as it maintains tight control over all the borders and crossing points, she clarified.

"Israel controls Gaza's airspace and territorial waters, and it exercises significant control over Gaza's border with Egypt, where the passage of goods is prohibited," Bashi added. "The only way for residents of Gaza to send and receive goods is through its border with Israel. Israel owes an obligation to re-open the commercial crossings - and Palestinian leaders must cooperate in coordinating their re-opening."

Bush regional summit on reviving peace process
Haaretz (Jul 16, 2007)

Toward a Palestinian-led rebuilding
Osamah Khalil, The Electronic Intifada (Jul 16, 2007)

...Meanwhile, Israel's continued colonization of Palestinian land, coupled with the overt corruption and ineptitude of the PA and declining living standards of the population, led to an increasing frustration among Palestinians.....

Israel to free inmates this week
BBC (Jul 16, 2007)

Bush to offer new support to Abbas' govt
The Associated Press (Jul 16, 2007)

One of the 13 bullets fired at Wael Zuaiter hit volume two of One Thousand and One Nights

One of the 13 bullets fired at Wael Zuaiter hit volume two of One Thousand and One Nights which Zuaiter carried on him when he assasinated by the Israeli Mossad in Rome, Italy on 16 October 1972.

"Material for a film": A performance (Part 2)
Emily Jacir, The Electronic Intifada, 16 July 2007
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7097.shtml

On Monday, 16 October 1972, Wael Zuaiter left Janet Venn-Brown's apartment and headed to his apartment at no. 4 Piazza Annibaliano in Rome. He had been reading One Thousand and One Nights on Venn-Brown's couch, searching for references to use in an article he was planning to write that evening. He took two buses to get from Venn-Brown's place to his in northern Rome. Just as he reached the elevator inside the entrance to the building of the apartment block where he lived, Israeli assassins fired 12 bullets into his head and chest with .22 caliber pistols at close range.

Wael Zuaiter had become the first victim in Europe in a series of assassinations of Palestinian artists, intellectuals and diplomats that was already underway in the Middle East.

Zuaiter ended an article he wrote for the newspaper L'Espresso two or three weeks previously by quoting the English mystic Francis Thompson:

"That thou canst not stir a flower
Without troubling of a star"......[more]

Wael Zuaiter was the first victim in Europe in a series of assassinations of Palestinian artists, intellectuals and diplomats perpetrated by Israel...

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7098.shtml

"Material for a film": Retracing Wael Zuaiter (Part 1)
Emily Jacir, The Electronic Intifada, 16 July 2007

Detail of Emily Jacir's mixed media installation (in this shot a photograph of Wael Zuaiter) currently featured at the 2007 La Biennale di Venezia.

Wael Zuaiter was the first victim in Europe in a series of assassinations of Palestinian artists, intellectuals and diplomats perpetrated by Israeli agents that was already underway in the Middle East. Zuaiter was gunned down by 12 bullets outside his apartment in Piazza Annibaliano, Rome on 16 October 1972.

In 1979, Zuaiter's companion of eight years, Sydney-born artist Janet Venn-Brown published For a Palestinian: A Memorial to Wael Zuaiter. One chapter, titled "Material for a film" by Elio Petri and Ugo Pirro, is comprised of a series of interviews conducted with the people who were part of Zuaiter's life in Italy, including Venn-Brown herself. They were going to make a film, but Petri died shortly afterwards and the film was never realized. This chapter was the point of departure for my project.

I went back to Rome in 2005 to continue collecting material for a film.

I visited his friends in Rome, Massa Carrara and elsewhere and I made several trips to Nablus to visit his sister Naila and see his family home where he grew up. I visited Venn-Brown in Rome regularly during these three years. We spent many weeks together, calling on Zuaiter's old friends and going through her extensive archives. I found a letter Venn-Brown had written to filmmaker Costas Gavras asking him to consider making a film about Zuaiter because she believed that through his story, that of thousands of other Palestinians could be told.

Zuaiter's friends during his ten years in Rome included a myriad of cultural leaders, artists, journalists and poets, including Alberto Moravia (with whom he traveled twice to the Middle East), Raphael Alberti, Antonio Gambini, Bruno Cagli, Jean Genet, Ennio Politi, Piero Della Seta, and Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Venn-Brown told me, "He was a poet. He was completely lost without poetry."

The following are two videos and texts which are part of the ongoing work "Material for a film" currently being shown in Venice:

WAEL ZUAITER IN PETER SELLER'S PINK PANTHER...[more]

Cracks in Zionism by Charley Reese

http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=11283

July 17, 2007

Cracks in Zionism

by Charley Reese

One of the myths created by the Israeli lobby is that Jews around the world are unanimous in their support of Israel, regardless of what it does. That's not true and never has been true. Modern political Zionism, whose ideology demands a Jewish state with a Jewish majority, was invented by an Austrian journalist and for decades struggled desperately. It wasn't God who created the modern state of Israel. It was British colonialism, the U.S., the Soviet Union, and Zionists. Only about a third of the world's Jews choose to live in Israel, despite nearly a century of efforts to persuade Jews to immigrate. There were many early Jewish critics of Zionism, and there still are, despite modern Zionists adopting fascist tactics to silence debate. Joel Beinin, a Jewish liberal who has been on the receiving end of the campaign to silence critics of Israel, had this to say in a recent article reprinted on Znet: "Organizations claiming to represent American Jews engage in a systematic campaign of defamation, censorship and hate-mongering to silence criticism of Israeli policies. They hollow the ethical core out of the Jewish tradition, acting instead as if the highest purpose of being Jewish is to defend Israel, right or wrong. "Why discredit, defame and silence those with opposing viewpoints? I believe it is because the Zionist lobby knows it cannot win based on facts. An honest discussion can only lead to one conclusion: The status quo in which Israel declares it alone has rights and intends to impose its will on the weaker Palestinians, stripping them permanently of their land, resources and rights, cannot lead to a lasting peace. "We need an open debate and the freedom to discuss uncomfortable facts and explore a full range of policy options. Only then can we adopt a foreign policy that serves American interests." Avigail Abarbanel, a native-born Israeli Jew who lived there 27 years before emigrating, has even harsher words: "Palestinian citizens of Israel live under an arbitrary and brutal police state. Their dealings with Israeli bureaucracy are not just frustrating but can be outright dangerous. "The Palestinians in the Occupied Territories live under a Pinochet-like regime. They can and do disappear in the middle of the night. They are blindfolded, cuffed, beaten, humiliated, taken to unknown locations with no information given to them or their families, tortured physically and psychologically and incarcerated indefinitely, often without charges and regardless of whether they are guilty of anything. "Israel is not a nice country. It is a powerful police state founded on pathological paranoia with only a veneer of civility, carefully crafted and maintained for the consumption of those who still believe in the myth of Israeli democracy." You might want to send that paragraph to the next politician you hear repeating AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) propaganda that "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East." Abarbanel is a psychotherapist, and her article appeared on the Web site ElectronicIntifada.net, which I highly recommend as a source of information about the Middle East. America badly needs an open and frank debate, based on facts, with no name-calling. Our politicians are as timid as an introverted baby when it comes to Israel. The Israeli lobby likes to boast about defeating candidates who don't toe the Israel-right-or-wrong line. As a tip to the not-completely-gutless politicians, the way to handle that is to make AIPAC an issue in the campaign. A group of Zionist leaders is meeting in Israel as I write this, worrying about an increase in criticism of them for stifling debate. They are not invincible. They can't silence any American unless the American succumbs to fear of being called names, and I learned as a child that sticks and stones can break bones, but words can't hurt you.

The world's most recognized Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, pauses during a reading in the northern Israeli city of Haifa Sunday, July 15, 2007. Darwish, considered by many to be the Palestinian poet laureate, made his first appearance in Israel on Sunday since leaving for Lebanon and Jordan in 1971. (AP Photo/Gil Cohen Magen, Pool)

Palestinian poet and journalist Mahmoud Darwish gestures during his show in the northern Israeli city of Haifa July 15, 2007. Darwish, seen as a symbol of Palestinian nationalism, made his first appearance in Israel on Sunday since his self-imposed exile from Israel, where he lived until 1971. REUTERS/Gil Cohen Magen (ISRAEL)

A Palestinian woman holds a framed picture of a relative, who is reported to be held in Israeli jails, during a weekly protest demanding the release of prisoners outside the Red Cross office in Gaza City Monday, July, 16, 2007. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were to meet in Jerusalem Monday, with the international community looking over their shoulders and trying to nudge the two sides to talk about the core issues blocking the way to a fully-fledged peace treaty and Palestinian statehood. Olmert recently pledged to free 250 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails and improve life in the West Bank, where Abbas' Fatah rules, while Hamas holds sway in the politically and economically isolated Gaza Strip.(AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

June 2007. US President George W. Bush is expected to outline Monday new US support for the beleaguered Palestinian government, a senior White House official said Sunday.(AFP/File/Mahmud Hams)

Members of the Hamas security forces inspect a car that was targeted by an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, June 2007. US President George W. Bush is expected to outline Monday new US support for the beleaguered Palestinian government, a senior White House official said Sunday.(AFP/File/Mahmud Hams)

Palestinian militants from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group linked to the Fatah Movement, talk in the Old City of the West Bank city of Nablus Sunday, July 15, 2007. Scores of Fatah militants in the West Bank have signed a pledge renouncing attacks against Israel in return for an Israeli promise to stop pursuing them, a Palestinian security official said Sunday. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Palestinian militant Bassem, 32, from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group linked to the Fatah Movement, pauses in the Old City of the West Bank city of Nablus Sunday July, 15 2007. Scores of Fatah militants in the West Bank have signed a pledge renouncing attacks against Israel in return for an Israeli promise to stop pursuing them, a Palestinian security official said Sunday. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Palestinian militant Bassam Abu Serayeh, 32, from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group linked to the Fatah Movement, walks with his daughter Heba, 3, in the West Bank city of Nablus Sunday, July 15, 2007. Scores of Fatah militants in the West Bank have signed a pledge renouncing attacks against Israel in return for an Israeli promise to stop pursuing them, a Palestinian security official said Sunday. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Palestinian militant Bassam Abu Serayeh, 32, from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group linked to the Fatah Movement, holds his weapon as he talks on his phone in the Old City of the West Bank city of Nablus Sunday, July 15, 2007. Scores of Fatah militants in the West Bank have signed a pledge renouncing attacks against Israel in return for an Israeli promise to stop pursuing them, a Palestinian security official said Sunday. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Lebanese villager children look at war booty seized by Hezbollah guerrillas in operations against Israeli soldiers during last year's summer war at a Hezbollah exhibit of captured Israeli gear in the southern Lebanese village Aita el-Shaab, near the area where Hezbollah guerrillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, triggering the monthlong conflict, south of Lebanon, Sunday July 15, 2007. Lebanese in south Lebanon continue marked the first anniversary of last summer's devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas amid sectarian and political tensions that threaten to tear the country apart. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Lebanese villager boys, holds Israeli gun machine from the war booty seized by Hezbollah guerrillas in operations against Israeli soldiers during last year's summer war at a Hezbollah exhibit of captured Israeli gear in the southern Lebanese village Aita el-Shaab, near the area where Hezbollah guerrillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, triggering the monthlong conflict, south of Lebanon, Sunday July 15, 2007. Lebanese in south Lebanon continue marked the first anniversary of last summer's devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas amid sectarian and political tensions that threaten to tear the country apart. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Smoke billows from destroyed buildings as Lebanese soldiers take position in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared near Tripol. Two Lebanese soldiers have been killed as the army said it had made tangible advances in its eight-week-old battle to crush Islamist fighters besieged in a refugee camp.(AFP/Joseph Barrak)

Fatah militant Amjad Halawi jokes with a television cameraman during an interview after coming out of hiding in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Sunday, July 15, 2007. In seven years on the run from Israel, Amjad Halawi grew a thick mane of black hair well below his shoulders because he said he was too afraid to come out of hiding, even for a trip to the barbershop. On Sunday, he got a new life, and the chance for a haircut, as one of dozens of Fatah gunmen who've laid down their weapons in an amnesty deal with Israel. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

Palestinian women hold pictures of their sons during a protest calling for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, in Gaza July 16, 2007. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem (GAZA)

Palestinians ride a donkey cart at the closed international airport of Rafah in southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, July 15, 2007. The Israeli army entered the airport early morning which has been closed since 2001. (AP Photo/Eyad Baba)

Yahoo! Slideshow: Mideast Conflict

Idiots on the March by Charley Reese

"....The neocons are not only idiots, they are evil. They show a complete disdain for peace, a callous disregard for human life, and utter contempt for the rule of law. If that ain't evil, the devil had better retire."

July 16, 2007

Idiots on the March

by Charley Reese http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=11282

Wiping whom off the Map??? By Dr. Elias Akleh

http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=14284&CategoryId=5

Wiping whom off the Map???

Date posted: July 16, 2007
By Dr. Elias Akleh

Since the establishment of their terrorist state on usurped Palestinian land Israelis keep regurgitating their phobic mantra “Arabs want to wipe Israel off the map” in order to draw international sympathy, and to cover up their war crimes throughout the Arab World. To build their divinely racist “God’s promised Jewish only” state from Nile to Euphrates Israeli government is conducting the policy of graduated wiping Palestinians off their own existence. Israel had, so far, successfully wiped Palestine off the map. Palestine had become to be known as occupied territories, disputed territories, and finally West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestine, a name used for the last three thousand years, to describe the land between Mediterranean shores west to Jordan River east, and from Lebanon north to Egypt south, can no longer be found on any modern map. PALESTINE HAS BEEN WIPED OFF THE MAP!!!

Israel was established and built on Zionism, a colonialist expansionist political movement based on religiously elitist ideology (God’s chosen people), and a complete denial of the other. Its ultimate goal is to build a super power state, which they hope would eventually exceed the US in controlling the globe, within the heart of the Arab World to control their resource-rich region. Its first step was to establish Israel in place of Palestine and to win (force) its international legitimacy through imperial power (unfortunately might is still right in our age). Thus Palestinians became the primary target of Zionist terror and occupation to evacuate the land, since an independent viable Palestinian state would negate the essence of Israel’s right to exist on occupied land, and would put an end to the Zionist’s expansionist dreams. The birth of the Zionist entity is based not only on wiping Palestine off the map, but also wiping all Palestinians, their history and their culture off existence. Zionist Israel, thus, had adopted a graduated genocidal policy against Palestinians in specific and against Arabs in general.

Zionists perceived seeds of conflict among Arabs due to the variety of their culture, ethnicity, and religious backgrounds. To build their divinely racist Jewish-only Greater Israel from Nile to Euphrates through the division of Arabs, Zionist Israel developed its own expansionist geopolitical policy inspired from and akin to the German Nazi geopolitical policy of 1890 to 1933 of dividing Europe into smaller states to be swallowed up by strong Germany. Where Nazi Germans prescribed to a biological elitist ideology of the superior pure Arian blood (the Superman), Zionist Israelis prescribed to a divine elitist ideology of the superior pure Jewish blood (God’s chosen people).

In occupied Palestine Israel differentiates between Christian and Muslim Palestinians, between Fatah and Hamas, between West Bank and Gaza Strip, and between citizens of one town and the other. Within the neighboring Arab states (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq) Israel is inciting conflict and hatred between the citizens of those countries and Palestinian refugees, between Christians and Muslims, between Shiites and Sunni Muslims, between Kurds and Arabs, and between different political parties.

On the Palestinian front Israeli government had adopted a three-dimensional graduated genocidal policy...[more]

Regarding Phil. Inq 7-16-2007 Editorial | Iraqi Refugees: Betrayed, again

RE: Editorial | Iraqi Refugees: Betrayed, again
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20070716_Editorial___Iraqi_Refugees.html

Dear Editor,

Yes, the United States really is still "doing wrong by Iraqi refugees". It is also doing wrong by the many Palestinian refugees..."As death tolls and temperatures rise in Baghdad, Iraqis are not the only ones suffering in Iraq, and may not even be the worst off. Each difficulty that has been experienced by an Iraqi Arab or Kurd, or Turkoman or Assyrian, has been experienced by a Palestinian living in Iraq." http://blip.tv/file/304397/

The hardships experienced by Iraqi refugees today have been experienced by Palestinian refugees for sixty odd years. Both persecuted Palestinians and Iraqis who show respect for America should be able to find sanctuary and respect here in America. As many as quickly as possible, for everyone's sake!

This really is a dire emergency and for humanitarian reasons alone we should be doing all we can to help the refugees.... And as with the gift that keeps on giving, then perhaps these many refugees can learn our language and our ways and thus be more able and eager to find civilized and reasonable ways to help explain to America's mainstream the vital importance of always respecting innate human dignity and worth worldwide, as well the rule of fair and just laws including laws and policies that support and encourage a person's inalienable and sacred right of return to original homes and lands.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

Palestinians in Iraqi No Man's Land; Part 1...As death tolls and temperatures rise in Baghdad

http://blip.tv/file/304397/

Palestinians in Iraqi No Man's Land; Part 1

Alive in Baghdad

As death tolls and temperatures rise in Baghdad, Iraqis are not the only ones suffering in Iraq, and may not even be the worst off. Each difficulty that has been experienced by an Iraqi Arab or Kurd, or Turkoman or Assyrian, has been experienced by a Palestinian living in Iraq. Unfortunately Palestinians in Iraq lack even the most basic necessities of life, much less representation in the government, civil rights, or most everything else one might expect a nascent democracy to protect.

...More

As death tolls and temperatures rise in Baghdad, Iraqis are not the only ones suffering in Iraq, and may not even be the worst off. Each difficulty that has been experienced by an Iraqi Arab or Kurd, or Turkoman or Assyrian, has been experienced by a Palestinian living in Iraq. Unfortunately Palestinians in Iraq lack even the most basic necessities of life, much less representation in the government, civil rights, or most everything else one might expect a nascent democracy to protect.

Today there are more than 1400 Palestinians stranded in a purgatory between Syria and Iraq. These Palestinians find themselves not only reviled and targeted in Baghdad, where many have lived for the past 60 years. Now they live in tents in the desert, left to wonder why none of the world's governments will give them safe passage. Furthermore, so they claim, when the rare offer of resettlement comes, they're left waiting desperately, hoping the government of "their country," the Palestinian Authority, will permit the move. Many claim the PA is using them as just another pawn in a shell game of victimhood, distraction, and deal-making.

In part one of a two part series, these Palestinians (or are they Iraqis?) speak about desperate circumstances in Baghdad, and the reasons they fled the country they called home for generations. After they fled Baghdad, they found their circumstances still desperate, and perhaps in some ways worse. Syria has closed its borders to Palestinians, Jordan is closed to Palestinians and Iraqis alike.

UNRWA has called for urgent aid for Gaza as fears about a humanitarian crisis mount

http://www.un.org/unrwa/english.html

UNRWA Calls for Urgent Aid for Gaza

East Jerusalem, 15th July 2007: The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, has called for urgent aid for Gaza as fears about a humanitarian crisis mount. The call came during a meeting, in Cairo, between the UNRWA Commissioner General, Karen AbuZayd and the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Musa. ...more

Regarding Kansas City Star Bk Review: Tasting the Sky memoir shows Palestine through a child’s eyes By Steve Weinberg

"Untold in the book itself is how Barakat received an education through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, how she lined up an internship in New York City at The Nation magazine, how she migrated to Columbia to attend the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Before this book, Barakat had published bits of her experiences as a Palestinian in the larger world. Although many bits remain to be shared, because Tasting the Sky is such a selective volume, it is a marvelous start to sharing her life with a broad audience."

RE: Book review: Tasting the Sky memoir shows Palestine through a child’s eyes By STEVE WEINBERG http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/books/story/187801.html

Dear Editor,

Delighted to see Weinberg's excellent review of Ibtisam Barakat's memoir Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood.

I very much hope it helps entice many a curious reader to explore a gently told story of a very harsh time & place... Sadly things have only grown worse in Palestine with Israeli Occupation devastating the children of the land in many obvious as well as insidious ways.

Tasting the Sky is proof positive that the Palestinian men, women and children really are worth caring about... and kudos to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for helping provide food for both the body and the soul: In the words of UNRWA's Commissioner-General, Karen Koning AbuZayd: "Anyone who has lived and worked among Palestinians will have been struck by.. their passionate appreciation and desire for educational achievement and professional skills." http://www.un.org/unrwa/edu_series/index.html

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/books/story/187801.html

Book review: Tasting the Sky memoir shows Palestine through a child’s eyes

By STEVE WEINBERG

Special to The Star

For Ibtisam Barakat, the journey from a Palestinian refugee camp to Columbia, Mo., meant leaving behind family.

Although she makes friends wherever she goes because of her sunny disposition, acute intelligence, classroom teaching skills and poetic prose, Barakat cannot ever ignore the ache of separation. She is an adult, in her early 40s, but her dangerous, deprived childhood will never become her past.

In an unusually structured, gorgeously composed memoir, Barakat now shares what she has mostly kept to herself during her 21 years in the United States.

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood opens in 1981...[more]

The world's most recognized Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, gestures during a reading in the northern Israeli city of Haifa Sunday, July 15, 2007. Darwish, considered by many to be the Palestinian poet laureate, made his first appearance in Israel on Sunday since leaving for Lebanon and Jordan in 1971. (AP Photo/Gil Cohen Magen, Pool)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070715/ap_on_re_mi_ea/palestinians_poet

Palestinian poet blasts infighting

By DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writer Sun Jul 15, 7:26 PM ET

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The world's most recognized Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, delivered a stinging tirade against Palestinian infighting on Sunday in his first public appearance in decades in the Israeli city of Haifa.

The reading by Darwish, known as the "Palestinian national poet," came a month after deadly battles between rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip claimed dozens of casualties.

The factions subsequently formed separate regimes. One is run by militant Islamic Hamas in Gaza, while the moderate Fatah formed a government in the West Bank.

Darwish, 66, described the infighting as a "a public attempt at suicide in the streets." He spoke to a packed auditorium in the port city and his remarks were broadcast live over Arab satellite television.

"We became independent," Darwish said mockingly. "Gaza became independent of the West Bank, and for one people, two countries, two prisons."

Darwish said bitterly the two governments made the possibility of creating a Palestinian state "one of the seven wonders of the world."

Darwish, who was born in a village near Haifa, also directed barbs at Israel. He blamed the Jewish state for not taking advantage of a historic chance at peace.

It was Darwish's first poetry reading in Haifa since he left the port city in 1970 to study in the former Soviet Union.

While Haifa is city known for its coexistence among Jews and Arabs, it was a flourishing mostly Palestinian town before Israel won the 1948 war that followed its creation. Most of its original residents fled or were forced out in 1948, and the town, nicknamed "the Bride of the Sea," looms large in Palestinian literature.

Since 1970, Darwish only briefly returned for personal engagements.

He joined the Palestinian Liberation Organization, living in different Arab countries. He resigned from the PLO in 1993 in protest over the interim peace accords that the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, signed with Israel. Darwish moved to the West Bank city of Ramallah in 1996.

His poetry has been translated into more than 20 languages, and he has won many international prizes for his work.

Reality check on Palestinian elections...& more from IMEU

A Palestinian child at Gaza's airport after it was damaged by an Israeli attack last week. (Maan Images)


Bush to offer new support to Abbas' govt
The Associated Press (Jul 16, 2007)

US resists pressure to expand Blair's Mideast mandate
Agence France Presse (Jul 16, 2007)

Court halts construction of wall between Arab, Jewish towns
Haaretz (Jul 16, 2007)

The Blair option in Palestine
Robert E. Hunter, The Jordan Times (Jul 15, 2007)

Hamas rejects 'illegal' government
Al Jazeera (Jul 15, 2007)

UN Secretary-General urges Israel to open Gaza crossings
IMEMC (Jul 15, 2007)

In spite of Israeli claims of allowing “some humanitarian aid into Gaza”, several human rights groups confirmed that the Gaza Strip is still suffering from shortages in foods and medicine, and warned further collapse in the situation.

Last Thursday, the World Bank warned that the Gaza Strip is on the verge of an “irreversible economic collapse”.

Reality check on Palestinian elections
Nadia Hijab and Diana Buttu, Institute for Palestine Studies (Jul 14, 2007)

....Israeli incursions and assassinations, and daily clashes between the occupying forces and Palestinians take place daily in both the West Bank and Gaza.

It is hard to see how elections can be held in these conditions, or indeed whether they can ever be held again under the so-called interim arrangements put in place by Oslo. When historians look back at the period since the 2006 elections, they may mark it as having terminally exposed the impossibility of democratic governance under conditions of military occupation.

*******************************************
The weapon of the weak
Ghada Karmi, Bitterlemons.org, Jul 16, 2007

This article was originally published by Bitterlemons-Interational.org and is republished with permission.

Palestinians attend a rally in Ramallah calling for a boycott of Israeli products in August of last year. (Mushir Abdelrahman, Maan Images)

Boycotts are the weapons of the weak in conflicts. Their chief importance lies in their ability to raise public awareness and arouse disapproval. Yet, going by the paranoid reaction to the academic boycott of Israel, it might as well have been a declaration of nuclear war. No peaceable action in recent times has provoked so much anger and hostility as this British-based boycott.

In the wake of the British University and College Union's vote at its annual general meeting on May 30 to initiate a national debate on boycotting Israeli academic institutions, a wave of hysteria engulfed Israel and its friends. Articles appeared, before and after the vote, denouncing the UCU resolution and its initiators, and heated correspondence is still ongoing. Threats were made against members of the boycott group by pro-Israel organizations and individuals, and campaigns were mounted to defeat the boycott. Costly one-page advertisements appeared in The Times and The Guardian carrying scores of eminent signatories opposing the boycott.

Photographs of the boycott's "ringleaders", like those of wanted criminals, appeared on the front page of the major British Jewish weekly, The Jewish Chronicle, which also carried a distressed article by Britain's chief rabbi condemning the boycott as an anti-Semitic "witch-hunt". The Daily Mail's Jewish columnist Melanie Phillips declared "the age of reason" over. The Jewish-American lawyer and fierce warrior for Israel Alan Derschowitz has teamed up with his British counterpart, Anthony Julius to take legal action against British supporters of the boycott. While this would not be valid in British law, its aim is clearly to intimidate.

The fuss has not abated yet and more battles lie ahead this autumn as pressure is put on the UCU to ballot its members individually in the hope they will reject the motion passed by conference.

Related stories US fails to self-correct Israel policy Only sanctions will stop this brutal campaign What role do NGO's and other civil society groups play? 'Mowing the grass' in Nablus Palestinian workers' boycott call (PDF)

Two major misconceptions lie at the base of this response, both deliberately fostered. The first misconception is that the boycott is aimed against Israeli academic individuals, and the second, and more important, that it is anti-Semitic.

With regards to the first misconception, the boycott in fact calls for a ban on dealings with Israeli academic institutions, for example, not participating in joint research, conferences or other collaboration with them. In a malicious misrepresentation of this position, opponents claim that the boycott will end the free exchange of ideas with individual Israelis and encourage discrimination against them in British academia. By suppressing "free speech", this would end any hope of change in Israel's policies that academics could have brought about, an erroneous argument that has galvanized opposition in Britain to the boycott.

The second charge of anti-Semitism follows closely on this. The allegation is that the real reason for the boycott is hatred of Jews, a new outbreak of an old gentile affliction. Nothing is more designed to provoke and mislead than this charge, which, its authors know, antagonizes all Jews and many non-Jews.

In fact of course, the imputation of anti-Semitism is a red herring, as so often when Israel is criticized, and its aim as always is to deflect criticism. In the case of the British boycott committee, it is particularly inapt, since most of the members are Jewish. The campaign started in 2004 with a letter that two British academics, Hilary and Steven Rose, published in The Guardian calling for a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions in support of a similar call by Palestinian civil society organizations. These, representing a majority of Palestinian academics and other professionals, had united to form a campaign for boycotting Israel because of its repressive polices against them.

The Guardian letter spearheaded a growing demand for Israel to be called to account for its policies, soon joined by many academics in Europe and beyond. Support was particularly strong in South Africa, which had lived through a similar boycott during the apartheid era, and was especially sympathetic to the boycott's rationale and aims. Since that time, the boycott and divestment campaign against Israel has grown, resulting in the Association of University Teachers' Union voting for a boycott against two Israeli universities at its meeting in 2005. Thanks to a vigorous pro-Israel campaign against it, the decision was overturned within a month. But the issue did not go away, and resulted in the vote for the boycott two years later by the newly formed UCU which had absorbed the AUT.

Academic boycotts are not new to Britain. In 1965, a boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa was initiated by 34 universities in response to a call for solidarity by the African National Congress. After a prolonged British campaign, the boycott was adopted as policy by the AUT in 1988 and remained in place until the end of apartheid.

The academic boycott against Israel is no different. Israel's well-documented repression of Palestinian academic life and victimization of Palestinian teachers and students is a scandal to be denounced by all those who claim to care about academic freedom. Rather than rushing to Israel's defense in a situation so perverse and immoral, all efforts should be directed toward boycotting all Israeli institutions. Only by making Israel a pariah state, as happened with South Africa, will its people understand they cannot trample on another people's rights without penalty.

Ghada Karmi is author of "Married to Another Man: Israel's Dilemma in Palestine".

© bitterlemons-international.org

Munir Nayfeh: Professor and researcher IMEU

'Mowing grass' in Nablus Gideon Levy, Haaretz

Jewelry in Ramallah This Week in Palestine

Abed Hamdan : I left my heart in Palestine

Abed Hamdan on 15 Jul 2007 11:01 pm

I left my heart in Palestine

Yes, I spent the best 10 days of my life in Palestine! This is why I didn’t blog in a while

So much to write about, and so many things in my mind! Palestine is magnificent! I can’t write enough about the beauty of the occupied territories of Palestine.

In Palestine, everything is different. The trees, the stones, the smell, the wind, the food, the people, the buildings…I can go on forever! It’s a shame that war is taken place there.

So much to say about the beauty of Palestine. And of course, so much to say about the Israeli occupation, stupid interrogations in the Allenby Bridge, screwed up check points scattered all over the West Bank, and of course Fateh vs. Hamas insanity.

Well, let’s start with the beauty of Palestine. I visited : Ramallah, Tulkarem, Jenin, and many villages in between. With Ramallah being the most modernized city in the west bank, Jenin is more like a big village. Tulkarem is something in between. Since beauty is best sensed through the eye, I took photographs of almost everything!

I finally bought a flickr pro account so I can upload as much photos as I want, here are the photos organized in sets according to the cities they were taken in:

1) ‘Arrabeh (3arrabeh) [ Our old roots belongs here].
2) Ya’bad (ya3bad) [ Ya’bad is the village my family belongs to].
3) Zabda [ Small village, belongs to the family].
4) Ramallah

...[more]

http://www.imemc.org/article/49475

Interview with Maha Saca, Director of the Palestinian Heritage Center

Monday July 16, 2007 00:01 by Jenka Soderberg - 1 of International Middle East Media Center - IMEMC Editorial Group jenka at imemc dot org

Maha Saca (center) with her daughter and mother

Q. Can you tell me what is your aim in this Heritage Center?

The most important thing is to preserve and promote our heritage. And I think, in this situatio, this is another struggle, to show that this land belongs to people, this is not “a land without people”, through our culture and heritage. The Center has more than 200 postcards showing the historical, archaeological and religious places, and showing the dresses, which are like the identity for every village and town in Palestine.

I think that this is the time to show that we have been here in this land for more than 5,000 years. The Center also employs more than 100 women who work embroidery. They can increase their income -- I give them the thread, the cloth and the design. We imitate the old design exactly, the design and the color. In this way we keep the identity of the design in any thing we make. We have bags, shawls, runners, cushions. I think this is a very good situation, because this is work that the women can do in their house, between their children, when they have time. Especially because Bethlehem is a closed area, and the people of Bethlehem have depended on tourism for their work. Now, because of the Wall and the situation, there are no tourists. This means no work for anybody.

Q. You are located very close to the Wall here. How has that affected your Center?

I think it's another....not struggle....I feel....it's important to open. But it's more dangerous for the people to come here. They are afraid to come here! Because the Center is only 20 meters from the Wall....the bad Wall. Because I don't believe that they divided Bethlehem for security -- they took more than half of Bethlehem for this Wall. It means that many people living in Bethlehem are behind the Wall or beside the Wall or after the Wall. It affects my Center very much, especially the tourists. They can't come here.

Q. This road that you're on used to be a main road that was cut by the Wall?

It's very unbelievable. Since I was a child, this was the main road to Jerusalem. Everybody knows this is the main road to Jerusalem. They cut it just like this. They can plan anything they like. We ask the people just to come and _see_ how they have divided Bethlehem. They closed the main road to Jerusalem. Like me, I can't enter Jerusalem since five years. I need a special permit and a special excuse in order to just go to Jerusalem. I think it affects us very, very badly.

Q. Can you speak about the dresses you have here? You mentioned that the dresses represent different regions of historical Palestine? What are those designs?

I made a map showing Palestine before 1948, showing the dresses for each village and town -- the dress is like the identity of the village or town. Why do I say the dress is like identity? Because every woman writes the story of her village -- what surrounded her, what she thinks about it -- with embroidery on the dress. That's why the dresses are completely different. You can tell where a woman is from by her dress. That is why I made the map, and many pictures and posters showing these designs. We have many special designs -- for every village. Every design is different, it is the identity of every village and town.

Q. Maybe you can describe that -- how does that indicate a continuous Palestinian cultural identity in this land?

Like I said, every design is different. I can give you the example of Beer Saba. The bride wears a red color dress, but if she becomes a widow, she changes to a blue colored dress. But if she would like to marry again, she adds some red to the embroidery on her dress.

One of the aims of the Center -- when young people get married, they come to rent the dresses for the day before the wedding, for the henna ceremony. In this way, we connect the old and the new. Also, the young dancers take the old style dress for the dabke traditional dances. In this way we preserve our traditions.

Also, we put the old designs on new designs -- like blouses and fashion gowns.

Q. Prior to the Naqba, it was mostly peasant women who wore these dresses -- non-peasant women scorned the dresses. How did it move from being a peasant dress to representing all sectors of Palestinian society?

I think after the intifada, we have another struggle, to show that this land belongs to people. That is why we returned to our traditional dresses, and wear them on every occasion.

Q. How does this challenge the Israeli presentation of what is the state of Israel?

I think they know they don't own our dresses, our designs. I attended an exhibition in Haifa with the museum of Haifa, and they had dresses from Haifa, showing the dresses as Palestinian dresses, not Israeli. No one from the Jewish side wears our dresses.

But one of our dresses -- my grandmother's dress, from Bethlehem, was featured in the World Book Encyclopedia Vol. 4, page 692, saying that this dress was from Israel. We sent the World Book many letters to tell them this dress was Palestinian, not an Israeli dress.

Q. Are there attempts by Israel to destroy this Palestinian cultural identity?

I don't think they can do this. Because every Palestinian from every village and town knows their grandmother's dress. They return back to this dress to show they have rich roots in our culture.

Q. What about the refugees?

The refugees, some carried their dresses with them. I have done some research in Deheishe camp. They remember every detail of their village's dresses -- the wedding dresses, they know the design by heart. But after they were expelled from their villages in historical Palestine, the UNRWA (United Nations Refugee and Works Agency) paid them to embroider different designs to make them forget their traditional designs. They brought them a catalog of designs from Europe to embroider, and brought the thread, and they could earn money by sewing these new designs. They said if the women forget their dress designs, maybe they will forget their village.

But after the intifada, the people returned back to their traditional designs.

Q. Do you think that women are the carriers of the cultural tradition, more than the men?

Yes, of course. The dress of the men, there are just one or two for all over Palestine. But for the women, there is a different design for every village. So yes, the women keep the identity more than the men.

Q. How old would you say this tradition is?

More than 5,000 years. I have a design for Jericho -- you know, Jericho is the oldest city in the world. This Egyptian book shows a design carried by people from Jericho to Egypt 5,000 years ago as a gift. This is the same design that we have for Jericho, that has been passed down in our tradition. We wear the same dress generation after generation.

Q. Have you had any experience with Israeli authorities trying to suppress your work?

Well, when I bring thread from Jordan across the border, they confiscate the thread. I asked, “What, is thread a weapon?” They said, “If you work in this embroidery....”, they took the thread and threw it. They won't let me bring the thread in to Palestine. I buy it from Jordan because it is cheaper there. And they won't let me sell my postcards sometimes. I don't know. Maybe because we are still under occupation.

But I still, I try to do my work. I make exhibitions all over the world, showing people the beauty and culture of Palestine. And people are astonished, they come to me and tell me they didn't know. They say, “This is Palestine? You have beautiful dresses like this? Beautiful views?” They thought we were just desert, they didn't realize that we have deep roots in this land, a deep connection to this land.

Once I made an exhibition in the US, and a grandmother brought her daughter in law. They saw how beautiful it is, and that encouraged them to come here and see this for themselves.

Q. Do you think this type of work can help to end the occupation?

The worst thing is this occupation. In this century and still ongoing -- unbelievable! We'd like to have two states for two people, to live together. We are human beings! We'd like for our children to live in peace. Before 1948, we lived as people, together! But after the occupation began in 1948, that's why - the bad thing is the government, but as people, we can live together, when we have real peace, justice peace!

Now the power is the main thing. But maybe, step by step, in this way, people make pressure on them to say, look, these are people! They have roots in this land....maybe in this way we can affect the normal people. Because anyone who comes to Palestine, when they see how the occupation treats us, how we are living in jail, they don't believe it! Because the media doesn't tell the right thing about what is really happening to us, the Palestinians.

Q. Do you have Israelis come to your Center?

Yes, many of the people and groups who come are Israelis. They don't believe it, when they see how we, the Palestinians, have such roots in this land. But there are many good Israelis, many groups who support the Palestinians, who are working to end this occupation. This is only the government, not the people. Everybody would like to live in peace. We just live one time, and we'd like to live in peace. We hope and pray for that.

‘No homeland on stolen land’ Sally Bland book review on overcoming Zionism

http://www.jordantimes.com/mon/features/features1.htm

Book Review ‘No homeland on stolen land’
Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine Joel Kovel London-Ann Arbor: Pluto Press, 2007 Pp. 299 IN A NOVEL and incisive approach, Joel Kovel begins his deconstruction of Zionism with the tribe and carries this concept up to the existential choice facing Israel today. That the Israelites of ancient times, “a grouping of hill tribes whose identity was based on refusing to be like the others”, saw themselves as “a people apart” could have led to emancipation, but could also spawn perpetual conflict and a drive to dominate. (pp. 18-19) The creation of Israel signifies the ascendancy of the second tendency. While Zionism arose as a patently modern political movement, its “dynamic was drawn from the most tribal and particularistic stratum of Judaism, and its destiny became the restoration of tribalism in the guise of a modern, highly militarised and aggressive state”. (p. 33) Kovel’s analysis is firmly grounded in Jewish history, but his devastating critique of Zionism and Israel are equally informed by the reality of the Palestinian people. Though Jews may have considered themselves a nation, they were not in reality. Thus, in order to create the territorial base for the imagined nation, Zionism unavoidably embarked on a genocidal project against the Palestinians by imposing “for-Jews-only tribalism as the condition for national identity”. (p. 53) Accordingly, the very notion of a Jewish state is wrong, because it will lead to racism. The fundamental flaw in the whole idea of Zionism is that “No matter what Zionism does or says, there can be no homeland on stolen land.” (p. 171) But positing that fundamental flaw is not enough for Kovel. He rounds up his critique with a comprehensive review of almost all aspects of Israel and its relation to the Palestinians, marshalling political, historical, philosophical and psychological arguments. As to why Israel has no constitution or bill of rights, he notes that this would have introduced the concept of human rights “which would make the expropriation of Palestinians, and the Jewish state itself, illegal”. (p. 100) Reviewing the political economy of Israel, Kovel includes a section entitled, “Making the Desert Desolate”, tracing Israel’s ecological crisis to Zionism’s drive to constantly augment the state’s Jewish population. “What country would not experience environmental woes with a sixfold population increase in half a century in a context of rapid industrialisation?” (p.112) In a most interesting chapter, the book examines the US-Israeli special relationship not only in terms of imperial strategy and the Zionist lobby, but also in the context of the ideological affinity between Zionism and fundamentalist Christianity: “America, the ‘redeemer-nation’, and Israel, the Chosen one, are set upon tracks that remarkably parallel each other, and their respective national mythologies, derived from messianic readings of the Old Testament, provide many switching points as well as a kind of lingua franca for their elites, even as they shape the worldview of many ordinary people” (p. 142). Kovel draws up a kind of indictment sheet against Zionism and Israel, filled with accusations of racism, human rights abuses, aggression, perverting the memory of the Holocaust, spreading nuclear weaponry, supporting reactionary regimes around the globe and of being “the greatest single instigator in the rise of political Islam, due to the animosity these policies have elicited among Muslim populations in different parts of the world”. (p. 193) The alternative, according to Kovel, is not just ending the Israeli occupation for that would leave the essence of the Israeli state untouched. The two-state solution is no longer viable in view of how Israel has all but destroyed the material base for the projected Palestinian state. Rather, Kovel envisions a democratic state for all its citizens in what he calls “Palesrael”. Besides various activities he suggests to isolate Israel, the Palestinian right of return is the most potent strategy for achieving a democratic, unitary state. Thus, Kovel concludes with the injunction: “Bring Palestinians home.” Sally Bland Monday, July 16, 2007

Steadfast As A Rock by Tamam Al-Akhal

Steadfast As A Rock
The sea is generous and life-sustaining, but not when a cruel enemy bars fishermen from the freedom of the sea, from seeking their legitimate and age-old livelihood. But the knight is coming… from the land… from the sea… from the sky… he is coming. Tamam Al-Akhal, 1999

Tamam Al-Akhal's paintings are featured in the 2007 calendar and also available as framed prints on canvas paper at PalestineOnlineStore.com.

July 15

Israel declares "Law of Return" (1950)

Jews from anywhere in the world become eligible to immigrate to the occupied Palestinian homeland who's inhabitants were driven out, and claim Israeli nationality.

Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old American peace activist from Olympia, Washington, who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer on 16 March 2003, while undertaking nonviolent direct action to protect the home of a Palestinian family from demolition.

Since her killing, an enormous amount of solidarity activities have been carried out in her name around the world.

http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/?page_id=16

from Karmalised: Statement from the Corrie family on the Caterpillar appeal

from Karmalised
http://www.karmalised.com/

Statement from the Corrie family on the Caterpillar appeal

July 14th, 2007 by Diane Warth · No Comments

The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice

Dear Friends,

Monday, July 9th, was a powerful day for us at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Seattle.

It was moving and momentous, after four years of seeking accountability, to actually be in a court room, to feel a bit of the majesty of the law and the hope that we still find in it.

It was powerful to be there on Rachel’s behalf and on behalf of Palestinian families who have suffered and continue to suffer such terrible losses, and to see even a very limited application of the law to these tragedies.

It was powerful to sit in a U.S. courtroom and to hear even a few comments and questions related to the terrible acts that have happened in the West Bank and Gaza.

[Read more →]

from Desert Peace: BOTH HOPE AND DESPAIR CAN BE FOUND IN GAZA TODAY

DesertPeace

Sunday, July 15, 2007

BOTH HOPE AND DESPAIR CAN BE FOUND IN GAZA TODAY

(Ben Heine © Cartoons)
Hope that this generation will be the one to lead the Palestinian Nation to Freedom and Statehood, despair that never before has a Palestinian taken the life of another Palestinian.

There is bitterness, lots of it. Bitterness towards the Israelis for the brutal occupation, bitterness towards the West for sanctioning it, bitterness towards Fatah and Hamas both...

I was surprised to find the following report in the New York Times today. It appears to be both honest and objective and gives a pretty good picture of what is on the minds of the people in Gaza today. It is definitely worth reading....[more]

Palestinians play on the rubble of a destroyed part of Gaza international airport following an Israeli raid in the southern Gaza strip July 15, 2007. Israel has closed the airport since 2001. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)

Palestinians play on top of a damaged control tower of Gaza international airport following an Israeli raid in the southern Gaza strip July 15, 2007. Israel has closed the airport since 2001. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)

Palestinians play on the rubble of a destroyed part of Gaza international airport following an Israeli raid in the southern Gaza strip July 15, 2007. Israel has closed the airport since 2001. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)

Sudanese refugees hold letters addressed to Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during a demonstration against their expected deportation in Jerusalem July 15, 2007. A rights activist working with Sudanese migrants said more than 390 arrived in Israel in the first six months of 2007. The migrants, mainly Muslims and Christians, are drawn to Israel by rumours of better living conditions and hopes of gaining asylum there, but are also keen to leave Egypt where activists say they face persistent racism, abuse, and economic marginalisation. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun (JERUSALEM)

Palestinians play on the rubble of a destroyed part of Gaza international airport following an Israeli raid in the southern Gaza strip July 15, 2007. Israeli has closed the airport since 2001. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)

Palestinian-born Americans display traditional dresses at the Palestinian Heritage Centre in the West Bank city of Bethlehem July 14, 2007. Picture taken July 14, 2007. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (WEST BANK)

A Palestinian-born American displays a traditional dress at the Palestinian Heritage Centre in the West Bank city of Bethlehem July 14, 2007. Picture taken July 14, 2007. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (WEST BANK)

A Palestinian-born American looks in the mirror during the display of traditional dresses at the Palestinian Heritage Centre in the West Bank city of Bethlehem July 14, 2007. Picture taken July 14, 2007. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (WEST BANK)

A Palestinian-born American displays a traditional dress at the Palestinian Heritage Centre in the West Bank city of Bethlehem July 14, 2007. Picture taken July 14, 2007. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (WEST BANK)

A Palestinian-born American displays a traditional dress at the Palestinian Heritage Centre in the West Bank city of Bethlehem July 14, 2007. Picture taken July 14, 2007. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (WEST BANK)

Palestinian-born Americans display traditional dresses at the Palestinian Heritage Centre in the West Bank city of Bethlehem July 14, 2007. Picture taken July 14, 2007. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (WEST BANK)

A Palestinian militant from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group linked to the Fatah Movement, holds his weapon as he walks along the central market at the Old City in the West Bank city of Nablus Saturday July 14 2007. Israel also was considering a deal to remove dozens of Fatah militants from its wanted list, in exchange for guarantees they would suspend operations against Israel, the Palestinians said. 'There are the beginnings of an agreement,' said Kamel Ghanam on Saturday, a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent offshoot of Abbas' Fatah movement. Ghanam said the militants could sign an agreement with Israel, and 'if they sign, Israel will stop chasing them.' Talks are continuing on who is eligible for amnesty, he said. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

from Yahoo!'s Slideshow: Mideast Conflict

letters 7-15-2007

RE: Is peace out of reach? by Aaron David Miller
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-miller15jul15,0,3203292.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

Dear Editor,

Peace is possible- probable- and not as far away as many might think... however political Zionism in any of its many forms (both war camp and 'peace' camp) will not be the vehicle by which true prosperity will bless the Holy Land and all the people who might live there.

No one should make peace with apartheid... Aaron David Miller errs in thinking that "The Jewish State" as an armed political entity is an idea worth defending in this day and age: He is also wrong to advocate more forced transfer and segregation rather than real respect for international law and the Palestinians refugees right to return to original homes and lands.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

*************************************************
RE: A reminder of our vulnerability by Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/07/15/a_reminder_of_our_vulnerability/

Dear Editor,

To quote Joe Leiberman in his op-ed A reminder of our vulnerability ": "If you see something, say something."... OK- What I see is that we are quickly marching towards being a punitive police state because most of our Congress is more loyal to Israel than America, and Israel's economy is booming because Zionists have been deemed 'security' experts.

The Israel Industry thrives, rewarding anyone who empowers political Zionism, while the rest of the world has to deal with many a negative ramification... Its an echo of the way that Israel's Aliyah addled immigrants find security and jobs while the persecuted, impoverished and displaced Palestinians are pushed into poverty and despair, and then called terrorists because they dare object to such obvious injustice.

Our Congress has been foolishly wasting America's time, money and intellectual energy helping Hasbara efforts and our "friend" racist Israel. That's our true vulnerability.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

*************************************************

NOTES:

• US fails to self-correct Israel policy...& more from IMEU
• The Alternative Media
• Flower power
• I remember the butterflies and the clear feeling that everything was open...Mahmoud Darwish
  
• Timeline required for Palestinian state — His Maje...
• West Bank town unites among Palestinian divisions....
• NYTmes Book Review 7-15-7 Peace for Land. DAVID ...
• BBC News Refugee crisis threatens Lebanon
• The Missing
• World Bank: Gaza may face 'irreversible' collapse...& more from IMEU
  
• "The Olive Tree" by Ismail Shammout (1930-2006) Artist, Activist, Legend
  
• Iran's Jews reject cash offer to move to Israel
• We call upon all Palestinians to use the memories that they still have to protect and strengthen their sacred rights ...
• A wonder of the Arab world by Rami G. Khouri
• The Palestinian Refugees Right of Return- & Zionist tricks
• Dreams can not be denied. Would a life devoid of dreams have meaning?
• Zionism Is The Problem....
• Ismael Shammout
• Recognising Israel’s past record and current policy by Michael Jansen
• Palestinians call for Blair's role to include policing Israeli pledges...& more from IMEU
• Michigan's vigilant outcasts: BREAK THE SILENCE
• "Blood Brothers" By Joharah Baker

Weekly Report on Israeli human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory 05 - 11 Jul 2007

FACTSHEET The Right To Return, a Basic Right Still Denied

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html
Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

"The humanitarian aid and assistance that UNRWA provides to the Palestine refugees can never be enough. But it will be required as long as the issues of statelessness, prolonged military occupation, economic marginalization and vulnerability characteristic of the Palestinian refugee crisis are not addressed." http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/publ/opendoc.htm?tbl=PUBL&id=4444d3c92f

Al Nakba 1948
The largest planned ethnic cleansing operation in modern history	530 depopulated towns and villages 85% of the Palestinians in the land that became Israel are refugees today Their land is 92% of Israel’s area

http://www.plands.org/power/1.htm

& more on the Palestinian Refugees....
http://www.fmreview.org/palestine.htm
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Right-Of-Return/
http://imeu.net/news/background-briefings.shtml
http://www.un.org/unrwa/index.html
http://www.badil.org/index.html
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=10241&CategoryId=4

US fails to self-correct Israel policy...& more from IMEU

Palestinian girls in traditional clothing wait before performing in a cultural event in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. (Mushir Abdelramhman, Maan Images)

US fails to self-correct Israel policy
Louis Werner, Middle East Times, Jul 15, 2007

An Israeli border policeman stands guard near the entrance to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem. (Moti Milrod, Maan Images)

The hallmark of democracy is that it allows for the self-correction of government policies. Whether from the privacy of a ballot box, or the public arena of free speech and a free press, the necessary political will eventually emerges to change a bad policy or to stop it dead in the water.

But such political will falters in the case of US foreign policy regarding Israel, which - for a variety of structural and historical reasons - has been set on a self-defeating course ever since the June 1967 war.

Examples abound of policy self-corrections that have saved America from disasters both large and small. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's defeat of Herbert Hoover in 1932 at the height of the Depression brought a laissez-faire economy out of its tailspin with new interventionist policies. Vietnam War demonstrators and combat-zone reporters like David Halberstam convinced militarist politicians, however belatedly, to end a futile conflict and discard a faulty-domino theory. Of less dire consequence: when economists have shown that cuts in small but cherished public subsidies lead to better outcomes for everybody, even populist politicians have usually gone along.

But the case of US policy toward Israel is different. In spite of ample evidence that the blind American embrace of anything and everything Israel does in the occupied territories and to its neighbors severely hurts US interests in the region, America's pro-Israel tilt remains as slanted as the leaning tower of Pisa. Over a period of 40 years, this policy has only gone further askew.

The structural reasons for this failure to self-correct were examined last year by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer in

Related stories Cross-border crisis A declaration of independence from Israel Israel's hollow declarations A nation occupied The follies of US policy in Palestine

their analysis of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington, both through the strong-arm political tactics of groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and in the more apparently neutral policy analysis of such Israel-aligned think tanks as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and the American Enterprise Institute.

But political lobbying is the great game in Washington, and as long as its disclosure rules are followed, and lobbyists for foreign governments register themselves as such, there is no permanent threat to the national interest.

AIPAC has lost, lately, its share of skirmishes. Jonathan Pollard, the Navy intelligence analyst convicted of spying for Israel, is still in prison, despite the lobby's strong push for his release.

Walt's and Mearsheimer's report had a fair hearing, despite charges of anti-Semitism from the lobby's top guns, and pressure on the press to bury its coverage - their article was published in the London Review of Books after The Atlantic Monthly backed out of its promise to run it.

What might better explain the runaway US policy toward Israel are a series of historical phenomena, all, in fact, incidental to the internal dynamics of US-Israeli relations.

To read the full article please visit Middle East Times.

Munir Nayfeh: Professor and researcher IMEU

'Mowing grass' in Nablus Gideon Levy, Haaretz

Jewelry in Ramallah This Week in Palestine

The Blair option in Palestine
Robert E. Hunter, The Jordan Times (Jul 15, 2007)

Hamas rejects 'illegal' government
Al Jazeera (Jul 15, 2007)

UN Secretary-general urges Israel to open Gaza crossings
IMEMC (Jul 15, 2007)

Reality check on Palestinian elections
Nadia Hijab and Diana Buttu, Institute for Palestine Studies (Jul 14, 2007)

Abdullah warns Mideast conflict breeds more violence, extremism
The Jordan Times (Jul 14, 2007)

Israel to 'pardon' wanted West Bank Fatah men
Ali Waked, Ynet News (Jul 14, 2007)

Israeli army takes over Gaza airport
Maan News (Jul 14, 2007)

New Palestinian cabinet lineup
Middle East Times (Jul 14, 2007)

The Alternative Media

Dear Mr. Baroud,

Regarding your article "The Alternative Media":

It's a fascinating analysis however I can not help but wonder if any conglomeration of individuals creating a media outlet of any type is in fact a part of corporate media with the more mainstream and popular outlets simply more likely to have ways to get funds- and publicity.

"Alternative Media" might have good intentions and more freedom to frolic through ideas that our mainstream media is reluctant to even touch- but it is also every bit as prone to bias as well as outside pressure as anyone else. It is all a matter of opinion after all, and trying to survive.... In thinking on this matter, I am not sure if the rule of thumb of what makes any media outlet 'corporate media' should be that more than one person's efforts to process, sort and present information creates the corporate aspect, or the necessity to find and keep funds creates the corporate aspect. Perhaps it is both factors in an either/or way make it so.

I am upset but not surprised that the modest amount the Palestine Chronicle requires to function has not been swiftly forthcoming. I do not agree with all the articles posted but some are amazing- informative- very revealing and honest and simply not really found in many other places.

I wish you and the Palestine Chronicle the best of luck and do hope that the funds you need are forthcoming.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

in responce to-

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The Palestine Chronicle is in Urgent Need of Your Support We are calling on our readers to help us to continue with our mission of presenting the Palestinian struggle to the world clearly and unapologetically, and providing a unique point of view that is often censored by the mainstream press. The Palestine Chronicle is sustained entirely by the contribution of its own volunteers and readers; although dedicated volunteers give freely of their time, financial assistance is still required to pay part-time staff and offset unavoidable expenses. However our current income cannot sustain these costs. We do not want to discontinue our services; infact we would like to expand our work in providing media outlets around the world with much needed insight and information about the Palestinian issue. We believe it is important for information provided by the chronicle to be available freely; mandatory subscriptions would drastically reduce our remit and the situation in Palestine is too critical for us to go in that direction. For these reasons, we are urgently appealing to you to make any voluntary subscription of your choosing. Contributors of $50 or more will receive a Palestinian headscarf; contributors of $100 or will also receive a signed copy of Ramzy Baroud’s latest book, The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press). Our fund-raising target is 15,000 USD by July 15th, 2007. Thank you in advance for your support. Your contribution will help keep our small organization with its great outreach alive and growing. To make a contribution, please send your contribution to PalestineChronicle.com; P.O. Box 196, Mountlake Terrace, WA, 98043, USA or pay by PayPal.
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Poll

Is Israel Lobby a major player in shaping US policies in ME?

Yes 77%

No 19%

Unsure 3%

http://palestinechronicle.com./story-07140720207.htm

Saturday July 14, 2007 Ramzy Baroud: The Alternative Media The corporate media is, by definition, forged and sustained with corporate funds, by wealthy individuals whose objective is to amass more wealth, rather than ensure that freedom of speech serves as a guarantor for personal and collective freedom. Show Your Support The Palestine Chronicle is 100% reader-supported. If you find our publication worthwhile and valuable, we urge you to subscribe to our online edition today. Without your voluntary subscription the Chronicle cannot survive. Subscribe Now By Ramzy Baroud Special to PalestineChronicle.com To speak of an alternative media is to acknowledge the deficiency of the prevailing media, the mainstream, in addressing the issues, catering to the concerns, and responding to the woes of the general public, the overwhelming majority of people who are almost completely disregarded by the corporate media everywhere. It is disheartening, to say the least, that at a time of unpopular wars, corrupt elites and a widening gap between rich and poor, the corporate media still finds it tasteful to follow the mischievousness of Paris Hilton, now that Britney Spears is getting back in shape after her drug mishaps, or discuss at length and tirelessly the most recent scandals or spectacular performances at Britain’s Big Brother or American Idol. This is, of course, problematic if one is to consider the role of the citizenry in sustaining a healthy democracy, which itself requires an educated and well-informed public. When the public sphere becomes a puppet in the hands of the corporate media, whose profits and losses are often determined by friendly relations with the state, then a meaningful change in the lives of peoples of democratic societies is simply untenable. The corporate media is, by definition, forged and sustained with corporate funds, by wealthy individuals whose objective is to amass more wealth, rather than ensure that freedom of speech serves as a guarantor for personal and collective freedom, social cohesion – as opposed to alienation – and democracy. Unlike theocratic or authoritarian societies, which simply stifle freedom of expression altogether, the conduct of the media in Western societies is legitimate from a legal standpoint: it violates no written rules, but the end result is the same. In Taliban’s Afghanistan, people knew little of the outside world because TVs and satellite dishes were tabooed. In the US, most people, no matter how will intended, also know little of the outside world. Their perception is almost entirely concocted based on bits and pieces from CNN’s sound bites, Jay Leno’s comedy and Hollywood’s stereotypes. But it should be recognised that democratic societies, although being robbed in so clever a way from their own meaningful democratic platforms, are more than capable of tipping the balance in favour of free speech – as opposed to nations that are violently coerced not to exercise the same right. Indeed, the more the US administration and its corporate media benefactors attempt to consolidate their control over public opinion, under various pretences, notwithstanding, the need for unity in the ‘war on terror’ – thus justifying the ostracising of dissidents – the more agitated Americans insist on their right to exercise their free speech, refusing to succumb to the new skewed logic of the time. Thus, the need for an alternative media. Increasingly so, alterative media is breaking away from being a mere local expression of dissent, and is emergent as global initiatives; from international newspapers to progressive publishing houses, there is indeed an intense and genuine effort at countering the corporate media in a collective and equally global fashion. I spoke with two leading individuals whose work is felt around the world, but still, require the support of the public for their missions to truly succeed. Wendy Kristianasen, the editorial director of LMD, Le Monde diplomatique’s English edition, told me: “I think it comes down to this: we publish wonderful writing that illuminates the state of the planet in a fresh way. LMD specialises in the very best journalism – things nobody knows about until after we’ve exposed them and important stories other papers miss altogether. And the analysis is sharp, and authoritative.” “Everyone has heard of Le Monde diplomatique, they know of it as the famous Paris monthly, radical and independent. What they don’t know is that the paper has dozens of foreign editions around the world, in thirty languages, making for a global readership of one and a half million.” One of its many foreign editions is, of course, in English, and it can be easily obtained from www.mondediplo.com. Dr Roger van Zwanenberg is the Chairman and Publisher of Pluto Press Limited (www.plutobooks.com). This tireless individual, through his company, disseminates scores of most valuable books to countless bookstores and academic institutions the world over. His office on London’s Archway Road is reminiscent of a dungeon, but a lot of good comes out of it. He commented during a recent conversation: “Pluto is 20 years old this year. We are a dying breed, an independent book publisher producing 60 new, non fiction, books a year. In a world where book publishing and selling are part of the great global media conglomerates, Pluto struggles to remain viable and alive. Our niche, our rationale and our advantage in the marketing place of the world, is that we tackle the great issues of our day... the grandeur of Imperialism, war and peace locally and globally, the tyranny of oppression, and the domination of one people by another.... the great issues as seen through socialist writers’ eyes. Our readers expect not only relevant books, high quality professional production, and modest prices. This is what our house proudly stands for, and why we have a good chance to succeed to remain against the odds of a globalised world.” Online, CounterPunch.org remains one of the most important and respectable commentary website anywhere. But since no single article can give a full account of the best alternative media available today, CommonDreams.org is an excellent place to start; this homepage list of alternative media is simply exhaustive. It’s important to note that the success or failure of the alternative media is wholly reliant on the engagement and the support of the public, who would, ultimately have to make a choice: what issues to care about? What books to read? What music to listen to? And what news are worthy of attention: health coverage, education, war and peace, or Paris Hilton’s prison fiasco. The choice is ultimately ours. -Ramzy Baroud is an author and journalist. His latest volume: The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press: London) is available at Amazon.com. He is the editor of PalestineChronicle.com and can be contacted at editor@palestinechronicle.com 'Masterful prose - a scathing but heartfelt portrait.' Norman G. Finkelstein The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle By Ramzy Baroud Now Available

Copyright © 2006 palestinechronicle.com. All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-ed.flowers15jul15,0,5046454.story?coll=bal-opinion-headlines

Flower power

Originally published July 15, 2007

An embarrassment of blossoms was heaped upon the offices of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services last week - a hundred, perhaps even a thousand, bouquets of protest. They came from people (most of them Indians) who are working here legally but have been waiting years for green cards, and have been jerked around in the past few weeks by an announcement that a certain number of green cards for highly skilled immigrants would be made available as of July 2, if the final paperwork was submitted, followed by an announcement that no green cards would be available as of July 2. The protest organizers hit upon the idea of flowers....[more]