letters
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2008/08/27/israeli_group_says_settlements_rise_sharply/
Dear Editor,
Noticing how much America's newspapers have failed us by refusing to explain and condemn Zionist Israel's cruelty and crimes against Palestinian men, women and children, I suppose I have to be grateful that at least the Boston Globe glanced at one way which Israel makes a mockery of international law and the peace process as it blithely continues to invest in illegal settlements. However I can not help but wish that Palestinian groups and individuals were the ones we turned to, to find out how Israel's genocidal campaigns to usurp Palestinian land, rights and peace harm humankind.
America needs to know that Zionist Israel systemically and intentionally attacks and ruins Palestinian homes, families, communities and livelihoods on both sides of that monstrous Israeli made 'security' wall. Much of this mess really is all about economics:
This week The Council for the National Interest Foundation has a simple straightforward ad in the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News (targeting the Democratic convention) as well the Christian Science Monitor addressing this issue and why America should care: " 1.3 million American families lost their homes to foreclosure in 2007- Meanwhile, billions of YOUR tax dollars continue to purchase beautiful new homes with subsidized mortgages...in Israel"
(http://annies-letters.blogspot.com/2008/08/brilliant-cni-ad-calls-for-readers-and.html
& http://annies-letters.blogspot.com/2008/08/excellent-cni-ad-reaching-out-to-help.html)
This is the anniversary of Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech. Thanks to many civil rights activists America is a better, more real democracy than we were 100 years ago. We are not perfect- but at least we have hope: America's prosperity should not be squandered on the crime called Israel.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
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RE: Israelis in Anguish Over the Abuse and Murder of a 4-Year-Old & Israel, After 43 Years, Is Ready for Beatlemania http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/world/middleeast/28rose.html?ref=middleeast
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/world/middleeast/28beatles.html?ref=middleeast
Dear Editor,
Now knowing how (all along) Jews-preferred Israel has been horrible to and about Palestinians, I find it hard to stomach the saccharine pro-Israel spin all through out "Israelis in Anguish" concerning the tragic story of the abuse and murder of 4 year old Rose. Heavens Bronner laid it on thick, as if his motive for using this attention grabbing story was to get America to idolize Israel & Israelis.
Oh and like icing on the cake it is reported in the recent polished and glowing report " Israel, After 43 Years, Is Ready for Beatlemania " that Israel is embarrassed about refusing to let the Beatles play 43 years ago: Israel should be embarrassed about how it has systemically oppressed and displaced countless Palestinian men women and children... and we should all be noticing non-violent Palestinian resistance to blatantly racist Israel crimes: "In 2005, inspired by the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, Palestinian civil society called for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) [1] against Israel until it fully complies with international law and recognizes the fundamental human rights of the people of Palestine." Beatles, don't let it be! Palestinian Dispossession and Israeli Apartheid are no Cause for Celebration http://www.pacbi.org/press_releases_more.php?id=655_0_4_0_M
NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF writes of the "Media’s Balancing Act" in today's opinion pages... Where pray tell is the balance in constantly barraging America with 'news' stories spun to depict Israel & Israelis in positive ways- stories that consistently neglect to include highly pertinent information concerning the very real plight and suffering of the people of historic Palestine. In other words it is not only the stories chosen- but how the stories are told.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
NOTES 8-27-2008
NOTES 8-28-2008
Recent News & Opinion:- Palestinian herders hard-hit by drought...& more from IMEU
- BBC News: Palestinian leader visits Beirut
- Narratives Under Siege (19): “I still cannot farm my own land
- Israel-oPt: Palestinian water boss reduced to "crisis management"
- Palestinians should not linger in Lebanon: Abbas
- Mahmoud Darwish's translator (Fady Joudah) is honoured
- Why have Palestinian refugees not returned to their homes?
- Israel-oPt: Scheme to give Israelis "wet jobs" in construction in place of Palestinians
- 'All Palestinians need right of return'
- Iraq: Some Palestinian refugees to get special IDs
- Excellent CNI ad reaching out to help shape better foreign (& domestic) policies
- letters
WHEREAS recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world....Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, is a broad-based, non-partisan, democratic, and charitable organization of grassroots activists and students committed to comprehensive public education on the rights of all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands of origin, and to full restitution of all their confiscated and destroyed property in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International law and the numerous United Nations Resolutions upholding such rights (see Fact Sheet).
FACTSHEET: The Right To Return, a Basic Right Still Denied
If you'd like to make a difference in the lives of the millions who have been forgotten, we need you. Please contact us for more information.
[AL-AWDA-News] The Arab Community of Southern California Mahmoud Darwish
August 26, 2008
Sixth Issue of UNTIL RETURN Now Available Online!
"Twenty Five Thousand Tents Maybe More" Now Available on DVD
August 19, 2008
Photos from Second Annual Palestine Picnic Day!
August 14, 2008
Palestine Picnic Day! - This Sunday August 17, Irvine California
August 14, 2008
Sixth Annual Al-Awda Convention DVD'S Now Available For Immediate Shipment
August 8, 2008
Palestine Library Progress Report
August 5, 2008
Sign Up to Al-Awda's New National and International Announcement List
- Sixth Al-Awda Convention – A Major Step Forward For The Right to Return Movement
- Hundreds attend sixth Al-Awda convention marking 60th year of Al-Nakba (InFocus)
- We remember (Al-Ahram)
- Because it is our right (Al-Ahram)
- Video Quilt - The First Edition
- Photos from Sixth Al-Awda Convention
- Excerpt from Bishop Atallah Hanna Speech at Sixth Al-Awda Convention
"It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important." Martin Luther King, Jr.
Exile, Exclusion and Isolation: the Palestine Refugee Experience Op Ed by Karen AbuZayd, Commissioner-General United Nations Relief and Works Agency To Mark World Refugee Day: 20th June 2008
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"The horrors of the Second World War gave impetus to a quest for universal peace, justice and human dignity, with the United Nations at the fore. It is a disturbing commentary on our quest that as we commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Palestinians mark six decades of what they refer to as the Nakba, or catastrophe, with many languishing in conditions of exile, exclusion and isolation. This is a testament to our collective failure to give meaning to human dignity for Palestinians and to achieve a lasting, just peace in the Middle East. We who serve Palestine refugees believe that there is time to make amends.
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Exile: for sixty years, Palestine refugees have been in exile from their ancestral lands. Nowhere is this more starkly visible than in the West Bank, where the illegal barrier, hundreds of checkpoints and physical obstructions daily reinforce the exile. And in Gaza, the policies of closure and indiscriminate punishment devastate lives, causing mass despair, threatening to destroy hopes for peace.
Exclusion: Palestine refugees also face exclusion from the justice afforded by international law, the aim of which is to offer the protection, security and dignity taken for granted in a world where respect for human rights and the rule of law have become guiding principles of global governance. Embodied in the canons of international law are clear prohibitions against systematic attacks against civilian populations, against deliberately depriving civilians of food, against the intentional destruction of civilian infrastructure and against the transfer of an occupying power’s population onto the land it occupies. The violations of these and other provisions serve to underscore among Palestinians a sense of exclusion from the protection of the international system...." Exile, Exclusion and Isolation: the Palestine Refugee Experience, Op Ed by Karen AbuZayd, Commissioner-General United Nations Relief and Works Agency To Mark World Refugee Day: 20th June 2008 http://www.un.org/unrwa/news/statements/2008/WRD_20jun08.html
2008 is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 60th anniversary. It's time for a global conversation about human rights and the values that unite us as one human family. But it can also be a time when each of us chooses to take human rights into our daily lives, by joining a powerful people network.
I wish to take responsibility for upholding the goals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in my daily life and in my community. I will do my best to speak out to protect the freedom and rights of others in my community.
I affirm the following principle: “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”
I believe Every Human Has Rights.
Maps of Israel and Palestine
Palestinian Heritage Foundation
Nonviolent Resistance
The Fabric of a People United in the Struggle for Justice and Dignity...
Recent Anthologies & reports that help explain the Palestinian perspective: http://www.badil.org/Publications/badil-nakba-60-info-packet/index.html
(it takes a while to load- so please be patient)
Nakba issue of al-Majdal, issue 36/7, is available at:
www.badil.org/al-majdal/2008/winter-spring/majdal36-37.pdf
The untold stories from The Institute For Middle East Understanding
The Wretched Wall
To commemorate Al Nakba, the Institute for Palestine Studies has compiled articles from past issues of its flagship Journal of Palestine Studies....1948 : SIXTY YEARS ON
- FOCUS: THE PALESTINIAN RIGHT OF RETURN
- Global Policy Forum: The Right of Return of Palestinian Refugees
- Palestine Right Of Return, Sacred, Legal, and Possible By Salman Abu Sitta (Palestine Remembered)
- The Israeli contention that the return of the refugees will "flood" Israel and change its "Jewish character" is both racist and illegal.
- Do Palestinian refugees have a right to return to their homes?
- PALESTINIAN REFUGEES: Badil Resource Center Enables an Online Search of its Library Materials
FAQs on Refugees
Who are the Palestinian refugees?
Palestinian refugees are the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine, the majority of whom were dispossessed, were forced to run away or were expelled when the state of Israel was created in 1948. This dispossession and expulsion has continued since with the second largest such event in Palestine taking place during the 1967 war, which Israel launched on its Arab neighbors and which resulted in the occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Palestinian refugees generally fall into three main groups: Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948, internally displaced Palestinians who remained within the areas that became the state of Israel, and Palestinian refugees displaced in 1967 from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. For the past 58 years, Israel has continued to deny Palestinian refugees their right to return to their ancenstral towns, villages and homes.
How did the Palestinian refugee problem arise?
The Palestinian refugee problem arose from a systematic policy of ethnic dispossession and elimination, the results of which are apparent in the Palestinian refugee camps and in the Palestinian Shatat (exile). These policies continue to this day.
Zionist policy sought to create an exclusive homeland for Jews in Palestine, a region that already had an indigenous population with a history stretching back thousands of years. The characterization of Palestine as "a land without a people for a people without a land" was a myth created to suggest that Palestine was waiting to be populated. Nothing was further from the truth and this has been evidenced by the atrocities of 1948 and since.
How did Israel expel Palestinians from their land?
Jewish terrorist groups such as Haganah, Irgun and Stern terrorized the Palestinian street, destroyed villages and slaughtered entire Palestinian families. Thirty four massacres were documented by Zionist historian Benny Morris to have occured within a few months: Al-Abbasiyya, Beit Daras, Bir Al-Saba', Al-Kabri, Haifa, Qisarya. These attacks were part of Plan Dalet and aimed to annihilate the Palestinian population. Approxiamtely 50% of all Palestinian villages were destroyed in 1948 and many cities were cleared from their Palestinian population including Akka, Bir Al-Saba', Bisan, Lod, Al-Majdal, Nazareth, Haifa, Tabaria, Yaffa, and West-Jerusalem among others.
Israeli forces killed an estimated 13,000 Palestinians and forcibly evicted 737,166 Palestinians from their homes and land. Five hundred and thirty one Palestinian villages were entirely depopulated and destroyed.
The tragedy of the refugees continued in 1967. That year, Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and many Palestinians were uprooted for the second time. The refugees found shelter in surrounding countries including Jordan, Syria and Egypt.
How many Palestinian refugees are there today?
Palestinians are the largest and longest suffering group of refugees in the world. One in three refugees world wide is Palestinian. There are about 7.2 million Palestinian refugees worldwide. More than 4.3 million Palestinian refugees and their descendents displaced in 1948 are registered for humanitarian assistance with the United Nations. Another 1.7 million Palestinian refugees and their descendents, also displaced in 1948, are not registered with the UN. About 355,000 Palestinians and their descendents are internally displaced i.e. inside present-day "Israel". When the West Bank and Gaza Strip were occupied in 1967, the UN reported that approximately 200,000 Palestinians fled their homes. These 1967 refugees and their descendants today number about 834,000 persons. As a result of house demolition, revocation of residency rights and construction of illegal settlements on confiscated Palestinian owned-land, at least 57,000 Palestinians have become internally displaced in the occupied West Bank. This number includes 15,000 people so far displaced by the construction of Israel's Annexation Wall. Such dispossession of the Palestinian population continues today.
Where do Palestinian refugees reside today?
The majority of Palestinian refugees live not far from their homes of origin either in their own homeland or in neighboring countries. More than half the refugee population lives in Jordan. Approximately 37.7% live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, comprising about 50 percent of the population in those areas. About 15% live in almost equal numbers in Syria and Lebanon. About 355,000 internally displaced Palestinians reside in present-day Israel. The remaining refugee population lives throughout the world, including the rest of the Arab world. Of the 4.3 million refugees registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), 33% live in UNRWA's 59 refugee camps throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
What are the basic rights of refugees?
According to international law, refugees have the right to return to their homes of origin, receive real property restitution, and compensation for losses and damages. The UN General Assembly set forth the framework for resolving the Palestinian refugee case in UN Resolution 194 (III) which provides: repatriation for those refugees "wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbors," or compensation for those choosing not to return. On November 22, 1974, Resolution 3236 clarified the right to return as an "inalienable right". In Res. 302 (IV), the UN General Assembly created UNRWA and assigned the agency the task of caring for Palestinian refugees. UNRWA defined Palestinian refugees as persons who resided in Palestine two years prior to the outbreak of hostilities in 1948 and who lost their homes and livelihoods as a result of that war.
Why are Palestinian refugees excluded from coverage under UNHCR's mandate?
When the UN adopted the Refugee Convention and established the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, it excluded those falling within the UNRWA mandate from coverage under UNHCR's mandate. In effect, this has meant that UNHCR does not concern itself with (or count) Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, or the West Bank and Gaza Strip, although the agency assists Palestinian refugees outside the UNRWA-mandate area. Although unintended, the effect has been that Palestinian refugees have enjoyed fewer protections than other refugees because UNRWA only has a mandate to provide Palestinian refugees with humanitarian assistance, and, unlike UNHCR, does not have a specific protection mandate.
Is something being done to rectify this exclusion?
Since the beginning of the last Palestinian uprising, the UN Commission on Human Rights, the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, and some independent refugee experts have argued that the fact that many Palestinian refugees lack effective protection should trigger the applicability of the UN Refugee Convention to Palestinians in the UNRWA mandate area. These organizations and individuals cite Article 1D of the Refugee Convention, which effectively states that whenever protection or assistance for Palestinian refugees has ceased for any reason before their situation is resolved in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions, they shall "be entitled to the benefits of this Convention." Proponents of this view contend that UNHCR should have begun to exercise its protection mandate for Palestinian refugees long ago when it became clear that the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine, which was concerned with protection for Palestinians, was unable to carry out its responsibilities.
Why have Palestinian refugees not returned to their homes?
The state of Israel refuses to allow Palestinian refugees to exercise their natural, legal and historic right to return citing three main arguments; first, that there is no space in Israel for the refugees to return, second, that the return of Palestinian refugees would threaten security and lead to conflict, and finally, that the return of the refugees would jeopardize the Jewish nature of the state. With regards to the first argument, recent research shows that 80% of the Jewish population of present-day 'Israel' resides on 15% of the land. The areas where Palestinian villages were demolished lie mainly uninhabited. Hence there is space. As for security concerns, Palestinian refugees broadly accept that exercising their right to return would not be based on the eviction of Jewish citizens but on the principles of equality and human rights. The final argument though is a testament to Israel's false claim that it is the only democracy in the Middle East. Israel is a democracy for Jews only, and this religion-based discrimination or oxymoron should not be confused with real democracy.
Is there a durable solution?
There can be no comprehensive solution without honoring the rights of Palestinian refugees. Three UN human rights treaty committees have found key aspects of Israel's nationality, citizenship, and land legislation which effectively bar Palestinian refugees from exercising their inalienable right to return to be incompatible with the rights codified in relevant human rights conventions. Israel's ongoing aggression against the Palestinian people and continued pursuit of population transfer are incompatibel with the quest for peace.
Sources:
Adapted from The Palestinian Dispossession - Frequently Asked Questions
May 15, 2003 By MIFTAH
Badil Resource Center for Refugee Rights
Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding
Shaml - Palestinian Diaspora and Refugee Center
United Nations Relief and Works Agency
U.S. Committee for Refugees
Download FAQ's on Refugees (54K) 
(need acrobat? Download from Adobe.com)
See also Background Resource: The Crisis of Palestinian Refugees and the Right of Return for a more detailed expose on refugee issues.
Sustain Al-Awda!
Monthly or Annually
The Key: Growing Gardens for Palestine
posted by annie at 2:37 PM
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