Padjelantleden: Sweden’s jewel of a trail

Hiking through the light in Padjelanta

Dramatic changing light and a wild Arctic landscape are just a couple of reasons to put Padjelantaleden on your short list to hike and photograph. This stunning trail runs through Padjelanta National Park (Sweden’s Largest) and is situated just above the Arctic Circle bordered by Norway to the West and the rugged mountain peaks of Sarek National Park on the East. One of the enticing aspects of Padjelantaleden is that mountain cabins are strategically placed about a day’s hike apart all along the trail, making lightweight  backpacking possible in this remarkable wilderness region. So, with a little planning and fitness training, you’ll be prepared for an experience that includes dazzling wildflowers, scenic lakes and rivers, and perhaps an encounter with a reindeer or two!

Background and Planning

Padjelanta National Park gained distinction in 1996 through designation as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Laponia. The park actually derives it’s name from a Sami term meaning high land. The Sami people have inhabited the region for centuries and you’ll be hiking through summer grazing ground for reindeer and will experience the Sami villages at Staloluokta and Arasluokta. The Sami maintain the cabins within Padjelanta  and the Swedish Tourist Association oversee the cabins that lie just outside the park on the trail . One key resource is the BD-9 Map entitled Padjelanta-Sulitelma which can be found at Maps Worldwide. The BD-9 map shows the entire trail and identifies each of the stops which include the mountain cabins.

There are many ways to experience Padjelanta but perhaps the best way is to hike the entire trail (about 160K), starting from Kvikkjokk in the South or Ritsem in the North. Either end is a great launching point with accommodations, supplies and transportation to train stations or the airport in Gällivare.  For hikers with less time, you can rent a helicopter with Lapplandsflygg and fly to Staloluokta in the middle of the park and simply day hike the region.  Summers are short in the Arctic so most hikers head to Padjelanta during late July and early August.

Trail to Tarraluoppal

Hiking North: From Kvikkjokk to Ritsem

Is there a better place to begin a hike, any hike, than Kvikkjokk?  At this scenic mountain station you have rooms for sleeping, showers, a restaurant and supply store. All of which make for a perfect launching pad. Oh, and this just happens to be situated next to a wild arctic river flowing into a scenic lake with brilliant pink fireweed lining it’s banks. It would be from Kvikkjokk that our two-man backpacking team would head into the unknown. The night before an adventure is always difficult. We were up late listening to hikers coming from the North with stories of wildflowers and an endless number of rainbows on the horizon. So, after a massive breakfast at the Kvikkjokk mountain station we jumped into the boat and left civilization behind for the next two weeks. The short boat ride goes upriver for about 3 kilometers and dropped us off at the trail head. From here the trail begins in a birch and evergreen forest while heading to the cabins at Tarrekaise. The hike through the Tarra valley includes patches of delicious cloudberries and shoulder-high stands of infinite varieties of wildflowers. If you decide to take it easy on the first day out, then you can stay at the cabins at Nunjes. We continued on an additional 8 kilometers to Tarrekaise, about 21k total hiking.

Cabins at Såmmarlappa

The cabins along Padjelantaleden are a hiker’s dream. The rooms have beds (with mattresses and pillows) and gas heat along with kitchen and cooking gear. All this means you can pack really light and enjoy your trip so much more. The cabin fees are pretty nominal and you’ll enjoy meeting the cabin keepers and other hikers who’ll be eager to swap stories and share trail updates. English is widely spoken since most of the hikers are native Swedes or German.

We decided to take it easy on day two and hike the short distance of 13 kilometers to Såmmarlappa from Tarrekaise. The trail to Såmmarlappa winds through more of the Tarra river valley covered with wildflowers. Sections of the trail often have wooden planks through the wet boggy areas to help with the footing and also to protect the sensitive environment. The scenery continues to amaze as we wander through open sections of cottongrass and cloudberries.The terrain begins to change dramatically on the next leg of the hike from Såmmarlappa to Tarraluoppal. On the 15K trek you will finally cross into Padjelanta National Park proper and are treated to a huge open valley now above the tree line. It’s here where you really begin to grasp that you’re in the Arctic wilderness. It would be here that we would see the first of many reindeer pass just outside our cabin. The cabins at Tarraluoppal can also be a great staging point for entry into the rugged Sarek National Park just to the East. From Tarraluoppal, it’s an easy two-day hike to through the dramatic, glacier carved area around the cabins at Tuottar and from there on to the idyllic mountain station at Staloluokta.

Staloluokta: The halfway point

Church at Staloluokta

Staluluokta is a destination all to itself. Surrounded by incredible beauty and endless hiking possibilities, many choose to helicopter directly into Staloluokta.  If this is your plan you will not be disappointed. The village is located next to the massive arctic lake Virihaure, aptly known as the most beautiful lake in Sweden.  At Stalo, as it’s known, you’ll be able to resupply with food and sample some smoked Arctic Char, some of the best fish you will ever eat. All of this combined with world-class day hikes and even a sauna to rejuvenate your sore and achy muscles makes it difficult to leave. Whatever your plans include, make sure you have several days allocated for Stalo, it will be the highlight of the trip.

From Staluokta you’ll spend two days hiking North and stopping at the scenic Sami village of Arasluokta before landing at Låddejåkkå. On the trail to Låddejåkkå we would see rainbow after rainbow as afternoon showers would pass through the region. At Låddejåkkå you have an option to hike an easy but longer hike to Kisuris or you can take a spectacular boat ride upriver and shorten the hike. We opted for the boat ride and remarkably were treated to meeting Lars Svonni who was president of the Sami parliament at the time. It was an unforgettable ride to say the least. The scenery and conversation were yet another highlight.

River at the Låddejåhkkå cabins

Leaving Kisuris the next day was a little bittersweet since this would be the last day of our hike through Padjelanta. You look forward to your creature comforts but it’s always a bit sad to end an adventure and leave such a spectacular wilderness behind. The hike from Kisuris to Akka slowly includes more and more birch trees as you see the Akka massif to the East. We celebrated our arrival in Akka with a nice meal with the cabin keeper and hopped the boat to Ritsem and civilization the next day. Whether you hike all or part of Padjelanatleden, you’ll be treated to an amazing experience surrounded by the beauty that can only be found in the Arctic wilderness. Start planning now!

The AKKA project offers an interesting mixture of actors, software transactional memory, persistence and REST. There are more aspects to AKKA, but you can get much more detail on the AKKA project homepage on github.

AKKA is written in scala. It provides its own actor implementation which is intended to be more lightweight than the reference implementation from scala. Additionally an actor in AKKA can be transaction aware. A transaction aware actor is called a transactor. You can get all the details from the AKKA wiki. This is a good starting point. On top of all this it is very easy to expose an AKKA transactor as a REST resource, which makes AKKA actors a very good backend for ajaxy webfrontends..

You can even build a comet style chat application with a few lines.

Long polling chat application

The chat application is a merge of Viktor Klangs Akka chat example and a long polling chat example in scala for atmosphere by Paul Sandoz with a (hopefully) nice UI on top.

The final chat application looks like this on the server side:

@Path("/chat")
@Produces(Array("application/json"))
class ChatActor extends Actor with Logging {
  makeTransactionRequired

  private val storage = TransactionalState.newVector[Message]

  case class ChatEvent extends ScalaJSON
  case class Message(@BeanProperty data: String, @BeanProperty publishedAt: long) extends ChatEvent
  case class ChatHistory(@BeanProperty sinceWhen: long) extends ChatEvent

  @GET @Path("/history")
  def history(@QueryParam("date") lastSeenTime: long):Any = chat(ChatHistory(lastSeenTime))

  @Suspend
  @GET
  def suspend:Any = "" 

  @Broadcast{val resumeOnBroadcast = true}
  @POST
  @Consumes(Array("application/x-www-form-urlencoded"))
  def publishMessage(@FormParam("message") message: String) = chat(Message(message, (new Date).getTime))

  def chat(m: ChatEvent):List[Message] = (this !! m).getOrElse { Nil }

  def receive = {

    case m: Message => {
      storage.add(m)
      reply(List(m))
    }
    case ChatHistory(sinceWhen) => {
      reply(
        storage.elements.filter(_.publishedAt > sinceWhen).toList)
    }

  }

}

The first two lines are just plain JAX-RS annotation, declaring the transactor as a resource that produces a JSON response. Line 4 is more interesting, this line declares that the actor will support transactions. Line 6 defines a storage for the chat messages. The state of the storage can only be modified in a transaction, so this is where the software transactional memory comes into play. This could easily have been a persistent storage with a cassandra or mongodb backend.
In Line 8 to 10 we define some case classes to send to the actors mailbox. The case class in line 9 is used to transfer actual chat messages, whereas the case class in line 10 is a request for the entire message history. The constructor arguments are annotated with a @BeanProperty annotation which generated getter (and setter) methods for the class. This is a bit strange on a case class. It is in fact an artefact of the JSON serialization (we will come to that in a moment).

The actor defines three methods for RESTful access. The first method is a straight forward JAX-RS method:

  @GET @Path("/history")
  def history(@QueryParam("date") lastSeenTime: long):Any = chat(ChatHistory(lastSeenTime))

On a GET request to /chat/history this method returns a (scala) list of all chat messages. The List is serialized into a JSON array by a MessageBodyWriter for scala lists, that is provided by AKKA. The serialization of the scala objects is done by AKKA (see the wiki page on serialization for more details). It occured that an underlying JSON serialization framework could’nt serialize plain case classes but needed a @BeanProperty annotation.

The suspend method

  @Suspend
  @GET
  def suspend:Any = ""

does nothing interesting but blocks the callers request (see atmosphere for more infromation).

When a client accesses the third method

  @Broadcast{val resumeOnBroadcast = true}
  @POST
  @Consumes(Array("application/x-www-form-urlencoded"))
  def publishMessage(@FormParam("message") message: String) = chat(Message(message, (new Date).getTime))

several interesting things happen. This method accepts a POST request with the actual chat message. After the message is appended to the storage this method returns a List with only the new message as an element. Because of the @Broadcast annotation the response from this method is appended to all suspended GET requests. The suspended GET requests are then resumed and the response is sent to the client.

Lines 26 to 37 contain the AKKA transactors receive method which simply adds new messages or returns all messages.

So, from a clients perspective the chat server responds with a JSON array of messages that need to be displayed. Furthermore we know a GET request on the resource /akka will block until some client posts a new message.

The client is implemented in javascript using jQuery and HTML.
The interesting part of the javascript looks like this:

function fetchLatest(config) {

    var cfg = config || {initial:  false};
    var chatwindow = $('#chat-window');

    var url = cfg['initial'] ? '/akka/chat/history' : '/akka/chat';  

    var request = $.getJSON(url, function(messages){

        if (messages) {
            jQuery(messages).each( function() {
                var msg = $('<p><span class="message">'+this.data+'</span><br/>'+
                                 '<span class="quiet small">'+(new Date(this.publishedAt).toLocaleString())+'</span></p>');
                chatwindow.append(msg);
                chatwindow.get(0).scrollTop = chatwindow.get(0).scrollHeight;
                msg.effect("highlight", {color: "#F4717E"}, 1500);
            });
        }

    });
    request.onreadystatechange = function() {
        if (request.readyState == 4)
            setTimeout('fetchLatest()', 100);
    }
 }

The lines 10 to 18 contain the rendering code. Each message in the JSON response is appended to a DIV-Tag. All new messages are briefly highlighted. If the messages overflow the DIV, the DIV is scrolled to the end, so that the newest message will always be visible. This code needs to be executed for both suspended and unsuspended responses.

When the application is accessed for the first time the following code is executed

                fetchLatest({initial: true});

this results in an ajax request to the (non-suspending) resource /chat/history.

After each ajax request is completed the onreadystatechange handler triggers the next GET request. Except for the first request this will always be to the suspending resource /chat. I had to set the timeout to 100ms, because otherwise I sometimes got the same reponse returned for multiple times when running on localhost.

When a new message is posted the suspended GET request is resumed, the JSON array of messages is rendered and the next suspending GET is triggered.

And now: configuration. An AKKA actor can be started directly (see here) or via bootstrapping using a supervisor (see here).
In the chat example the following bootstrapping code was used:

class Boot {
  val factory = SupervisorFactory(
    SupervisorConfig(
      RestartStrategy(OneForOne, 3, 100, List(classOf[Exception])),
      Supervise(
        new ChatActor,
        LifeCycle(Permanent)) :: Nil))

  val supervisor = factory.newInstance
  supervisor.start
}

The boostrapping classes can be defined the AKKA configuration file: akka.conf.
The akka.conf can live in $AKKA_HOME/config or on the classpath.
For the chat application the following akka.conf was used:

<akka>
  version = "0.6"

  boot = ["akkatest.Boot"] # FQN to the class doing initial active object/actor
                                                   # supervisor bootstrap, should be defined in default constructor

  <actor>
    timeout = 5000              # default timeout for future based invocations
    serialize-messages = off    # does a deep clone of (non-primitive) messages to ensure immutability
  </actor>

  <stm>
    service = on
    max-nr-of-retries = 100
    distributed = off           # not implemented yet
  </stm>

  <rest>
    service = off
  </rest>

</akka>

AKKA applications can be started as a standalone server or embedded in existing applications.
The chat application was deployed to jetty. When deploying to a web container AKKA can be configured via the web.xml like this:

    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>AkkaServlet</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>se.scalablesolutions.akka.AkkaCometServlet</servlet-class>
        <init-param>
           <param-name>cometSupport</param-name>
           <param-value>org.atmosphere.container.JettyCometSupport</param-value>
        </init-param>
    </servlet>

The complete source code of the example can be downloaded here.
To run the example just type mvn jetty:run and point your browser to http://localhost:8080/.

Dear Akka,

Happy Birthday!!

This must be your most exciting year ever.. You got a promotion at work and you moved out of home. Your living out our dream as children . There is so much I want to tell you but I don think this space would be adequate for it.. Also, I don wanna tell you everything so that we have something to discuss when we are sitting as old ladies in a nursing home. I can almost picture it. Us gossiping about the baldy who keeps stumbling, the food that would never compare to granny ma’s cooking and the asshole’s who remind us of some very unpleasant relatives

But I do want to leave you a birthday wish. I know I am younger than you and all; but lets face it, I am the more mature and boring one amongst us.

I wish that this birthday makes you realize how perfect you are. I am not saying you are perfect for everyone, but your perfect for us. And one day, you will find that elusive special one who thinks and talks of you as fondly as Amma & I do.

I wish you would become less emotional. I am not saying I want you to be a cold-hearted bitch, but I want you to realize that the world is full of petty, cheap & sadistic individuals. They suck ur soul & determination out and make you feel like trash. But the truth of the matter is, that they are trash! They are lonely, angry people who depend on this behavior for some human interaction. So, the next time a boss annoys you, a friend bitches about you, relatives talk about you – mentally show them ur middle finger and feel a wee bit sorry for the poor thing

I wish you realize how talented you are. You take some awesome photos.. For someone who has owned a camera for less time, you have an amazing view of the world through the lens of a camera. You have the most beautiful voice I have ever heard (live that is, I still think Nickelback rocks!!). I remember waking to the Carnatic music practice in the morning and it used to lull me back to sleep with its sweetness. You are an amazing dancer. Where the hell did u learn to do that?!? Ur the life of the party and it makes Amma & Appa very proud to have a social child against the crazy introvert thats me

I wish you see how generous you are. You are the perfect mix of Appa & Amma’s generosity and kindness. It fills my heart with joy when you call the maid home and put on an old filmy Kannada movie for her. Or when, you buy expensive food home, you always remember to include the DH & me, even if we tell u a 100 times that we won’t be home. The way you call every sad, happy, angry friend home; completely sure that staying with you in our house will make them feel better. You cook for random strangers because they accidently told you they are pregnant and are craving chocolate fudge.

I wish you can see how kind you are. You took care of so many doggies in the road when we were children. They were so fond of you that they followed you home like you were the pied piper and as they grew older took care of the road we lived in and we had no robberies at all. Goldie loves you!! She gets all depressed when you leave home and we have to pamper her so much to match the amount of love you shower on her.

And most importantly, I wish you years and years of wonderful health. Whats happened, happened. There is nothing you or anyone can do. Get up, brush the dust of your backside and stride forward. Life is too short to worry about small things like cancer. Get healthy, make the right lifestyle choices, stop smoking, drink in moderation & you can see a sea of change in how you look and feel. Considering we both are blessed with ampleness on both sides of the family, we gotta take care.

I love you. I know we fight like bitches on heat when we are together but my life would have been sooo empty without you. It feels hollow already with you living so far away but I console myself thinking and thanking God that your at least in the same city. Things that have happened are water under the bridge and we are now on top of that bridge. So, let me get a glass of coke and you a glass of rum with coke and enjoy the view from up here.

Cheers!

Love,

Dee

it all started when i went with my friend rakesh to anna university to attend the mba counselling on behalf of my sister she was abroad that time..she got seat in anna university for the marks she scored in the entrance..it was for mba in correspondence..she has to attend just a class or two in a month..just when i registered her for anna university, her mom called me and asked me to choose a college near our area, so it ll be easy for her to go..but then i had chose CEG already.. i said her like don worry i ll accompany sister when she got class..i said it for fun then..but didn expect it ll happen..it happened last weekend..i had to attend a seminar in anna university, the same day as her first mba class..so, we decided to go together..i didn expect it ll happen till it did.. ( almost everything i really wish to happen, usually doesn’t   but this is an expection ) 20 of my class were attending that seminar..i told em like i ll be coming with my sister and meet up at anna univ..they started early..by the time we started, the guys were long gone..we finally took a bus to reach halfway..my frens messaged me asking where was i..i was jus crossing my area then..if i had told em that, i would ve got lotta good words from em ..so,i thought better not to reply..we talked all the way in the bus..or should i say i talked all the way..she was a bit tired from work the day before and was a bit sleepy ( dunno if my talk made her sleep ) we reached anna univ right on time..my friends reached nearky an hour early and was waiting for me..i managed without getting any scolds.. the seminar went well for me, i told her ll meet up for lunch..but they served us free lunch at the seminar ( it was good too..we had paid 300 for the day and the certificate ) but had to skip it.. for my sis i got my lunch and gave it to the guys and went to meet sis..we had lunch in the canteen..she had waited in the looong queue to get lunch for me too.. ( sweet of her ) we finished and was to meet after my seminar got over..the afternoon session was too borin..i had to wait for the certificate to be issued..i didn pay 300 bucks for nothing..her class got over an hour b4 mine and she was waiting for me ..we decided to take the train back..we got a train the minute we got into the station..we boarded, then a lady police asked me to get down..i asked if it was a ladies compartment but then the whole train for ladies it seems..come on, they even get a train for their own and they still fight for some 33%..i think we guys are the ones who should fight..it was drizzling and the journey was great..guys took the bus..we reached nearly an hour b4 em this time.. it was great being with my sis..( i always wanted a sister in my life and she filled it perfectly..i love calling her as my sis.. ) well, a wonderful weekend..no other word to describe it..hope i get to go next time too.. fingers crossed..all upto u yagna akka!

i’ve been reading various articles and blog posts about the anniversary of the massacre of the palestinian refugee camp shatila and the surrounding neighborhood of sabra (no, sabra is not a refugee camp, but many palestinians live there). pulse media and falasteenyia both had nice posts on the subject. ma’an news posted a reflective piece on the zionist-kata’eb massacre of palestinians in 1982:

“That is the old Israeli watchtower and entrance to Sabra,” a man on the street pointed, standing in front of the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camps. Below the tower, quarantined like a civil war time capsule, were the camps left to fend for themselves on the outskirts of Beirut.

No more than 20 meters past the former Israeli watchtower, in an empty lot, is the memorial for the victims of the 1982 Lebanon Civil War massacre. Camp residents say the site was once a mass grave for the slain. The memorial was a single-track dirt path linking a series of billboards with images of the dead.

The massacre’s perpetrators were of the predominantly Christian Phalange party: supplied, supported and supervised by onlooking Israeli soldiers.

The Phalangist pogrom was clear. What was not, however, was the extent of the crime. At the time of the massacre, the Director of Israeli Military Intelligence said that between the days of September 16 and 18, 1982, a minimum of 700 “terrorists” had been killed. Yet, reporter for the Independent Robert Fisk wrote in his book, Pity the Nation, “Phalangist officers I knew in east Beirut told me that at least 2,000 ‘terrorists’ — women as well as men — had been killed in Chatila.” The real number, according to Fisk, is thought to be higher.

Leaving the mass grave memorial and moving into the open-air market of the Sabra camp, a bullet-ridden wall stands separating a camp dump from its market. In all likelihood the half-block dumping ground was once on the fringes of the camp, but not anymore. The camp had no urban planner, so it grew until the market fully encircled the awful collection of stench, sewage and a sore reminder that nobody really intended to be living in the Sabra camp some sixty years after the Nakba, the Palestinian exodus of 1948.

At the far end of the bullet-chafed wall stood a child of about ten years, a refugee. With little hesitation he immersed himself into the filthy heap, heaving his woven sack of valued rubbish over the rotting mounds. For all the archetypes of the poverty-ridden Palestinian refugee that exists in a foreigner’s consciousness, this is surely it. There was to be no school for this boy. No passport, no rights and no state.

Beyond the heap hung layers of political propaganda posters: A keffiyehed militant with the bold letters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine plastered next to a green-tinted portrait of Hamas’ founder Sheik Yassin with the party logo “Martyrs of Freedom & Victory;” a weathered PLO poster of Arafat; even one of a masked fighter on a tank, clutching a Kalashnikov with the brand of Islamic Jihad. And the posters were not just of Palestinian parties, but of the Lebanese Amal and Hezbollah as well. As a nearby shopkeeper who sold Hezbollah DVD’s put it, “The camp is mixed now… mixed with Palestinians and [Lebanese] Shias… United by resistance…”

Despite appearances, however, inside the Lebanese Army’s encirclement of the camp a surprisingly calm business-as-usual air prevailed. The streets weren’t crowded, but populated. The buyers, the sellers, and of course the children, were everywhere, looking to relieve the gnawing boredom of a lifetime’s confinement to the camp. “We are not allowed to leave [the camps],” one of the sellers said, “No papers.”

United resistance aside, the camp was in shambles. Everything the Lebanese government might do in Sabra and Shatila—urban planning, paving streets, coordinating an electrical grid, sewage—was left to the Palestinian residents. At the beginning, however, the camp played host to the bigwigs of the Palestinian leadership in the Palestine Liberation Organization, who organized camp life and connected the residents to the Palestinian struggle.

The powerful PLO, back in 1982, provided the motive of the massacre’s perpetrators, the Christian Phalange militia, who sought to take revenge against PLO leaders—which had in fact already fled Lebanon—for the alleged assassination of the Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel. But the only people who remained in the camps that summer of 1982 were unarmed Palestinians.

What happened at Sabra and Shatila is still considered the bloodiest single event in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is also among the most egregious and underreported aspects of the Palestinian calamity to date.

On the anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacres, 16 September, the issue of the refugees and the right of return reaches again for the surface of Palestinian politics. With the newly-charged peace process being pushed by the United States, and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s recently released strategy to establish Palestinian state in two years, the issue of returnees has been subsumed by talk of settlements in the West Bank.

American efforts, and Fayyad’s plan focus more on securing infrastructure and borders than focusing on the estimated 500,000 refugees without rights in Lebanon, or the hundreds of thousands of others in Jordan, Syria, Iraq and in the Gulf.

Palestinians in the camps have a precarious relationship with the current peace initiatives, particularly the older generation who still recall the villages they fled in 1948 and 1967.

“Sure I would support Obama’s plan,” an old man reflects on the US President’s push for a two-state solution. “But what kind of solution is it? I have nothing in this West Bank… it would make me a foreigner in my own land… I would only go back to my village. And I don’t even know what is there now.”

He picks up an old hatchet from his coffee table and continues, “They [the Zionists] chased us and hit us on the head with these. I left my small village near Acre [Akko] because of it.”

ah yes the selling out of the palestinian refugees like those in shatila who everyone loves to remember on occasions such as this one, but who never fight for their rights (read: fayyed among others). but a different piece in ma’an news was a bit more interesting–about george mitchell’s visit to lebanon which coincided with the anniversary of the massacre:

Palestinian refugees were the top of US Special Envoy George Mitchell’s list during a 20 minute sit down with Lebanon’s President Michel Suliman Wednesday, the day marking the 27th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

Michell told Suleiman that Lebanon, whose Phalangist faction 27-years earlier entered two Palestinian refugee camps and slaughtered thousands of civilians with Israeli support, would not bear the brunt of the refugee issue.

“US efforts toward peace would not come at the expense of Lebanon,” a statement from Suleiman’s office said following the meeting. Mitchell made no comment.

The two discussed the latest developments in Mitchell’s pursuit to halt Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and, according to the Lebanese press, stressed “continuous US support and aid to Lebanon on all levels and in all areas.”

Suleiman reportedly told Mitchell that all Lebanese factions refused the option of naturalizing Palestinian refugees “on the basis of the constitution.” He also stressed his desire that Israel retreat from its occupation of Lebanese lands.

what i find especially disturbing about all of this is how everyone remembers the anniversary of the sabra and shatila massacre but no one seems to remember the destruction of nahr el bared refugee camp. it is rather convenient that mitchell and his lebanese cohorts discussed palestinian refugees, but of course did not reveal any tangible information about their right of return. for palestinian from nahr el bared this right of return is now two-fold: first to their camp and then to palestine. if only that first step could be eliminated and they could return home immediately.

this is why i am feeling like i am against anniversaries. anniversaries, ideally, should be a time when you reflect upon the person/people/event. it should make you act in a way that honors that memory. the only real way to honor the memory of the massacre in 1982 or the destruction of nahr el bared in 2007 is to fight for the right of return for palestinian refugees. but no one is talking about that. nor are they talking about reconstructing narh el bared. except a few people. my friend matthew cassel attended the protest in trablus the other day and took this photography among others:

image by matthew cassel

my dear friend rania never forgets and she linked to an article in al akhbar today on the subject:

بين الحفاظ على الآثار في الجزء القديم من مخيم نهر البارد وطمرها، تُعلّق حياة 35 ألف لاجئ فلسطيني كانوا يظنّون في فترة سابقة، قبل الحرب تحديداً، أنّها حياة مستمرّة.. على بؤسها. ربما، يجدر بهؤلاء المتروكين لحالهم الانتظار بعد، ريثما يتخذ مجلس شورى الدولة قراره النهائي المستند إلى مطالعات الدولة اللبنانية والتيار الوطني الحر ووزارة المال المكلفة بتمويل تكاليف طمر الآثار

راجانا حمية

كان من المفترض أن يُقفل مجلس شورى الدولة، اليوم، أبوابه أمام المطالعات القانونية المتعلقة بالطعن بقرار إيقاف طمر الآثار في البارد القديم. فقد أجّل محامي النائب ميشال عون، وليد داغر، تقديم مطالعة يحدد فيها صفة النائب عون كمستدعٍ إلى الاثنين المقبل. ويعود سبب التأجيل إلى رغبته في ضم رد التيار على مطالعتين تقدمت بهما وزارة المال في 18 آب الماضي والدولة اللبنانية في 21 منه، وتبلّغ بهما داغر في العاشر من الجاري.

وحسب المحامي داغر، تطالب هاتان المطالعتان مجلس شورى الدولة بالرجوع عن قرار إيقاف الطمر، استناداً إلى «المعطيات التي تفيد بأن طمر الآثار تم وفقاً للمعايير الدولية». وأكثر من ذلك، تستند الوزارتان في مطالعتيهما إلى «اعتبار صفة عون ومصلحته لا تتطابقان مع شروط المادة 77 من نظام مجلس الشورى». وهي المادة التي تنص على أنه «يفترض لوقف تنفيذ القرار المطعون فيه أن تكون المراجعة مرتكزة على أسباب جدية ومهمة وأن يكون الضرر المتذرَّع به ضرراً بليغاً».

طعن داغر بالمطالعتين، سلفاً، حتى قبل التقديم إلى مجلس الشورى، لأنه «لو لم يكن لعون صفة مباشرة لما كان مجلس شورى الدولة قد أوقف قرار الحكومة، كما إن الضرر لحق به كمواطن ذلك أن الآثار ليست ملكاً عاماً، بل هي ملك إنساني». لا يكتفي داغر بهذه الحجة، بل يستند إلى الاجتهاد القانوني الصادر عام 2000، والذي «لا يشترط لتوفر المصلحة أن يكون المدعي صاحب حق مباشر».

من تظاهرات طرابلس، الناس باتت لا تصدق موضوع الآثار (عبد الكافي الصمد)من تظاهرات طرابلس، الناس باتت لا تصدق موضوع الآثار (عبد الكافي الصمد)إذاً، من المفترض أن يتقدم داغر صباح الاثنين المقبل بمطالعتين: أولى تتعلق بتحديد صفة عون كمستدعٍ، والتي حددها داغر بصفة مواطن، وثانية يرد بها قانونياً على مطالعتي المال والدولة. بعد ذلك كله، يقوم مجلس الشورى بمطابقة الصفة والمصلحة قبل إصدار القرار المتوقع في 13 تشرين الأول المقبل.. و«ربما قبل هذا التاريخ، إذا لم تتطابق الصفة والمصلحة مع شروط المادة 77، بحيث يصار إلى إبطال القرار فوراً»، حسبما يرجّح رئيس مجلس الشورى القاضي شكري صادر.

لكن، إذا فاز عون بصفته والمصلحة، ينتقل أعضاء مجلس الشورى إلى «الأساس»، الذي يتعلق بدراسة مطالعتي عون المتضمنة مبررات الحفاظ على آثار البارد، والحكومة اللبنانية التي تشرح فيها موجبات الإعمار. ويحصر رئيس لجنة الحوار اللبناني الفلسطيني خليل مكاوي هذه الموجبات بثلاثة «تعهّد الدولة بإعادة المخيم كما كان والتزامات الحكومة تجاه المجتمع الدولي والدول المانحة، إضافة إلى الحفاظ على الأمن القومي».

إما استكمال طمر الآثار بحسب المعايير الدولية وإما إيقاف الإعمار «واستملاك الأراضي

إذاً، يتعلق مصير المخيم القديم بالمطالعتين المذكورتين، فإما استكمال طمر الآثار بحسب المعايير الدولية، كما يرجح مكاوي، وإما إيقاف الإعمار «واستملاك الأراضي القائم عليها المخيم الجديد وبعض ما حواليه»، كما جاء في بيان لجنة الدراسات في التيار الوطني الحر الأسبوع الماضي. غير أن ما تعوّل عليه لجنة الدراسات يواجه بعض الرفض من جهتين: الأولى فلسطينية، إذ يخاف هؤلاء من ضياع حقوقهم، وخصوصاً أن غالبية البيوت مسجّلة باسمهم، وأن ببعض تحايل (قبل صدور قانون التملك اللبناني عام 2001)، والثانية غالبية الأقطاب السياسية التي ترى في استملاك أراضٍ جديدة بداية مشروع التوطين.

ما بين المطالعتين، يضيع سكان المخيم القديم. يتساءل هؤلاء عن سبب إثارة هذه القضية الآن بالذات، تزامناً مع بدء إعادة الإعمار. يخاف الأهالي من أن تتكرر تجربة المخيمات المسحولة هنا في البارد. خوفهم هذا يدفعهم إلى «الهلوسة» في بعض الأحيان، إذ يذهب البعض إلى القول إنه «لا وجود للآثار بدليل أن الأعمدة هي قنوات صرف صحي مركبينا جدودنا اعتبروها رومانية، وبعض الفخارات من إيام أبوي». يستند الرجل في تكهناته إلى أن الحفر التي قام بها المهندسون من مديرية الآثار لم تتعدّ الثمانين سنتمتراً، «فكيف ستكون المدينة على هذا العمق؟».

يستغرب آخرون، ومنهم لطفي محمد الحاج، عضو الهيئة الأهلية لإعادة إعمار البارد، سبب التفات الدولة اللبنانية إلى هذه الآثارات رغم أنها هي التي أتت باللاجئين إلى تلة البارد رغم معرفتها بوجود الآثارات منذ العشرينيات من القرن الماضي. ويستغرب الحاج أيضاً سبب الاهتمام «الذي لا مثيل له»، على الرغم من «أن الآثار المحيطة بنا مهملة»، ويعطي مثالاً على قوله: «مثلاً، قلعة حكمون على جنب المخيم عاملينا مزرعة بقر وتلة عرقة وغيرها». لا يحتاج الرجل إلى أكثر من رؤية منزله مجدداً، ويطالب مجلس الشورى بالعودة عن قرار الإيقاف، مبرراً مطالبته بالقول: «احنا هون مش سوليدير، هون ناس ساكنة ما عادت تحمل تهجير». أكثر من ذلك، يضيف أبو خالد فريجي، أحد سكان القديم: «إحنا رمينا البارود لنساعد الجيش، اليوم ما عدنا قادرين ما نحمل البارودة».

مقابل هذه التعليقات للأهالي، يضع بعض الأطراف القضية في خانة التجاذبات السياسية. هذا ما يقوله المسؤول عن ملف إعادة إعمار البارد مروان عبد العال. ولئن كان لا حول ولا قوة من إدخال الفلسطيني بهذا التجاذب، يسأل عبد العال: «لماذا لم تُرسل فرق للتنقيب عن الآثار منذ تسعين عاماً؟ وليش الرسائل ما بتوصل إلا من صندوق بريدنا؟».

البراكسات التي يعيش فيها السكانالبراكسات التي يعيش فيها السكانيؤمن عبد العال بقداسة الآثار. وهي، من وجهة نظره تضاهي قداسة هوية الفلسطيني. لكن، السؤال الكبير الذي لا بد منه هنا هو «أنه إحنا مش آثار؟ ما بنمثل خصوصية؟ مش ولاد نكبة عمرها 61 عاماً وإلنا هويتنا كما الآثار؟ أكثر من ذلك، يسأل عضو الجبهة الشعبية في البارد سمير اللوباني: «ما هو الثمن السياسي الذي يجب أن يدفعه الفلسطيني من أجل إعادة البارد؟

لكن، كل هذا لن يأتي بنتيجة. فالنتيجة الوحيدة في مجلس شورى الدولة، وبانتظار صدور القرار، يعمل الفلسطينيون على رفع سقف الاحتجاجات الجماهيرية، وخصوصاً أنه لا يحق لهم مثل «أهل الفقيد» تقديم مطالعة قانونية، كونهم جهة غير معترف بها في القانون اللبناني. يضاف إلى ذلك أن الأونروا أيضاً لا تستطيع تقديم مطالعة قانونية لمجلس شورى الدولة، لذلك تعمل على إعداد مطالعة تشرح فيها موجبات الإعمار للحكومة اللبنانية فقط.

بالعودة إلى سير عملية الإعمار في البارد، كانت شركة «الجهاد» المتعهدة من قبل الأونروا قد طمرت في الرزمة الأولى حيث وجدت الآثار موقعين من أصل 5 مواقع قبل أن تثار القضية. وتلفت الناطقة الرسمية باسم الأونروا هدى الترك إلى «أننا انتهينا من تنظيف 95% من الركام، باستثناء جزء من الرزمة 2 وآخر من الرزمة 4». وأكدت أن الأونروا لا يمكنها الإعمار إلا بالتسلسل، أي من الرزمة 1، «والعملية متوقفة الآن بانتظار قرار مجلس شورى الدولة».

there is also a new article about the situation in nahr el bared in as-safir newspaper:

جهاد بزي
يستطيع المخيم أن يكون من شقين،
أو أن نبحث عن قطعة أرض بديلة للمخيم..
لكن لا نستطيع أن نجد ارتوزيا في مكان آخر.
الجنرال ميشال عون
(17 حزيران 2009)

في مخيم نهر البارد مدينتان.

المدينة الأولى بقايا أثرية اكتشفت تحت أنقاض المخيم القديم الذي سُحق بالكامل. هذه البقايا اسمها أرتوزيا. يستميت العونيون في الدفاع عنها، وقد رفعوا طعناً إلى مجلس الشورى جمّد إثره طمر آثار المدينة المكتشفة، ريثما يتخذ قراره. ولجنة الدراسات العونية لا تنفك تصدر بيانات بلغة أكاديمية رصينة تعلّل فيها أسباب دفاعها عن المدينة وتدفع عن نفسها تهمة العنصرية وتشدد على أنها ضد التوطين.

المدينة الثانية هي مدينة «البركسات». هي النقيض التام لكل الآثارات على وجه الأرض. هي صناديق «عصرية» من حديد وبلاستيك وإسفنج، وغيرها من المواد المثيرة لغثيان عالم الآثار إذا سقط مكبره عليها. وعلى العكس من القلاع والاعمدة والمدرجات الخالدة خلود الآلهة، فإن مدينة البركسات بلا أعمدة ولا فخامة ولا تاريخ، وهندستها رتيبة ومقيتة.

وهي عرضة للتلف أسرع بمليون مرة من مدينة أرتوزيا. عناصر الطبيعة الجميلة، الشمس والمياه والهواء، هي أوبئة دائمة تفتك بالمدينة الهشة المقامة على عجل لإيواء النازحين في بلاد لجوئهم.

هناك فارق أساسي بين المدينتين: البركسات مأهولة. ارتوزيا غير مأهولة. وأن نقول إنها مأهولة، فلأننا قررنا، كلبنانيين، مواجهة الإرهاب بطريقة فريدة من نوعها، هللت لها قوى سياسية شرسة في «حبها» للفلسطينيين، وتغاضت عنها قوى أخرى كانت قد نادت يوماً بأن المخيم خط أحمر. تلك الحرب ستبقى، بأي حال، «إنجازاً ناصعاً» في تاريخنا اللبناني، وإن طُمرت خطاياها بكل ما فيها كرمى لعناوين كبيرة وفارغة.

وأن نقول إن البركسات مأهولة منذ نحو سنتين. أن يضطر لاجئون، قصمنا ظهورهم سياسياً واجتماعياً واقتصادياً، إلى حياة منسية كهذه التي يعيشونها في علب الصفيح المكتظة تتساقط الصراصير من أسقفها الاسفنج المبقورة بسبب الحرارة والمياه، أو تنبت الجرذان من أرضها، أو تصير مستنقعات وحول عند كل مطر. أن يضطر لاجئون سحقنا حيواتهم إلى يوميات طويلة في هذه المجمعات الحديدية الأقرب إلى مجمعات عزل المصابين بأمراض معدية قاتلة. أن تضطر عيون اطفالهم إلى العتمة ليل نهار وانفاسهم إلى الرطوبة وآفاقهم إلى ممرات ضــيقة خانقة. وأن يضطر الفلسطينــي إلى هــذه العقوبة المستمرة عليه لذنب ليس ذنبه، فإنه عــيب هائــل يتدلى من عنق لبنان جرســاً فاضحاً يرن كيفــما هزّ هذا البلد عنقه.

أما أن يقال للفلســطيني إن أرتــوزيا أهم من الأرض التي ولد عليها، وإن علــيه أن يبـحث عن مكان آخر يقيم عليه مخيمه، فهذا يفوق خيال الكوابيس التي يراها.

ثمة افتقاد تام لحس إنساني بسيط: المكان، مهما كان مؤقتاً، له قيمة رمزية ترتبط بقيمة المجتمع الذي يقيم فيه منذ ستين سنة. هم لاجئون لكنهم ليسوا بضاعة يمكن وضعها في أي مكان، بانتظار شحنها إلى فلسطين. المثل قاسٍ، لكنه الاقرب إلى المنطق الذي تتعاطى به الغالبية اللبنانية العظمى مع الشأن الفلسطيني. هناك سخرية مرّة في أن يضطر الواحد إلى الشرح بأن المخيم الفلسطيني ليس نزهة كشفية بين أحراج الصنوبر، تقام وتفك ثم تنتقل إلى مكان جديد. المخيمات الفلسطينية هي مثل مدننا وقرانا وأحيائنا. مثل حي السلم والحمرا والاشرفية والرابية. قد نكرهها وقد نحبها، لكن فيها شكّلنا ذكرياتنا وتفاصيلنا وأحزاننا وافراحنا. وإذا كان الفلسطيني يعيش في مؤقت مفتوح، فهذا لا يعني أن حقائبه موضبة طوال الوقت. هذا لا يعني أنه بلا ذاكرة. من السخرية المرّة تذكير لجنة الدراسات وغيرها، بأن الفلسطينيين مثلنا، نحن اللبنانيين أحفاد الأرتوزيين العظام.

وكما لا يحق لأحد أن ينقّلنا كيفما شاء، لا يحق لنا أن ننقلهم كيفما شئنا. معادلة بسيطة.

ثم..
إذا كانت إعادة الإعمار بهذا الحجم من التعقيد، وإذا كان هناك خلاف حتى على اسم المخيم الجديد من البارد حدا بالجيش اللبناني إلى أن «يأمل» من الإعلام تسميته بالبقعة المحيطة بالمخيم، فأين سيجد الفلسطينيون النازحون مخيماً آخر؟ فلتنكب لجنة الدراسات العونية على درس فكرة الجنرال وجعلها حجر أساس لدراسة متكاملة تلحظ موقع المخيم الجديد على أرض لبنان، ومساحته وكيفية استئجاره أو تملكه للبدء بإعادة الإعمار بسرعة كي ينتقل الفلسطينيون إليه. وربما على اللجنة زيارة البركسات والنزول في غرفها لأيام تستفتي خلالها رأي المنكوبين فرداً فرداً بموقع جديد للمخيم. كما ينبغي عليها لاحقاً أخذ موافقة جيرانهم الجدد من اللبنانيين. هذا جهد يمكن للجنة الدراسات أن تقوم به بالطبع، لما يعرف عنها من عمق وقدرة. غير أن الفلسطينيين ليسوا قضية اللجنة. قضيتها أرتوزيا.

المصائب تأتي دفعة واحدة. نزلت على المخيم فدمرته، ثم صعدت من أسفله، فزادت على معوقات إعماره معوّقاً جديداً. الأولوية الآن هي في طمر مدينة البركسات، وهذه لن تطمر إلا إذا طمرت آثار ارتوزيا، بغض النظر عن أي أهمية لها. من أقل حقوق فلسطينيي مخيم نهر البارد على هذا البلد هو ألا يجعلهم ينتظرون أكثر. بقاء الفلسطينيين على حالهم هناك جريمة بحق الانسانية واللبنانيين، وليس طمر ارتوزيا هو «الجريمة بحق الإنسانية والشعب اللبناني» كما قالت لجنة الدراسات.

أما أرتوزيا العونية فيمكن لها أن تنتظر. يكفيها فخراً أنها أثبتت عمق تجذرها في الأرض اللبنانية وعنادها وتحديها للزمن. هي خالدة وشامخة شموخ الجبال والأرز. ولا شك بأنها ستطلع من بين الركام ثانية، يوم يغادر الفلسطينيون هذه البلاد التي لا تفعل منذ عقود إلا معاقبتهم على وجودهم القسري فيها.

جهاد بزي

of course, it is not surprising that al akhbar and as safir would publish articles on nahr el bared. these are the only two newspapers who have consistently covered the story. that can be counted on. not just because it is an anniversary, but because it matters. but who else will cover the refugees from nahr e bared and their rights? their right of return. and i’m thinking not only of the people i care about from nahr el bared and other camps in lebanon who want to return to their original villages, but also dear friends in falasteen who want to return to their villages. this summer when we did the al awda camp with kids from deheishe refugee camp, two of the kids who i adore returned home and produced a new rap song (here is my post on taking them to beit ‘itab, which i did for a second time after the camp). the song includes hisham’s grandfather at the beginning, talking about their village of beit ‘itab. here is a description of their song and a link to the mp3 file you can listen to:

Badluck Rappers – اغنية جديدة بعنوان ” رحلة لبلادي ” تحكي قصة كل لاجئ فلسطيني

Badluck Rappers – اغنية جديدة بعنوان
تم نشر إغنية مؤخراً من فرقة الـ Badluck Rapperz من قلب مخيم دهيشه , بيت لحم
بعنوان رحلة لبلادي تحكي قصة كل لاجئ فلسطيني عايش داخل و خارج فلسطين ,
وتعودنا نسمع اغاني كثيرة عن اللاجئين من الفرقة لانها من قلب المخيمات , اكبر المخيمات
الفلسطينية للاجئين داخل فلسطين , واكتر اشي بميز الاغنية , بدايتها الجميلة المختارة
الي ببداها لاجئ فلسطيني بحكي قصة قريته الهاجر منها

الكل يسمع الاغنية , يقيمها , ويترك تعليق

Read more: http://www.palrap.net/PalRap/263/Badluck_Rappers_Witn_New_Track_Called_Re7la_La_Blady.html#ixzz0RWCnqv9L

i do not need an anniversary to make me think about the people i love in shatila, nahr el bared or deheishe refugee camps. i do not need an anniversary to make me remember their right of return. i think about it every day and hope that the work and writing i do, in some small way, advances that right. but i’m also thinking about the palestinian refugees who were in iraq and who i tried to help when they were displaced yet again in jordan in al ruweished refugee camp. they have all been resettled in third countries, a fact that does not negate their right of return to palestine. at the time friends i worked with tried to get the u.s. to take them in to no avail. now it seems my home state of california is granting refuge to some palestinians from iraq as patrik jonsson writes in the christian science monitor:

The State Department confirmed today that as many as 1,350 Iraqi Palestinians – once the well-treated guests of Saddam Hussein and now at outs with much of Iraqi society – will be resettled in the US, mostly in southern California, starting this fall.

It will be the largest-ever resettlement of Palestinian refugees into the US – and welcome news to the Palestinians who fled to Iraq after 1948 but who have had a tough time since Mr. Hussein was deposed in 2003. Targeted by Iraqi Shiites, the mostly-Sunni Palestinians have spent recent years in one of the region’s roughest refugee camps, Al Waleed, near Iraq’s border with Syria.

“Really for the first time, the United States is recognizing a Palestinian refugee population that could be admitted to the US as part of a resettlement program,” says Bill Frelick, refugee policy director at Human Rights Watch in Washington.

Given the US’s past reluctance to resettle Palestinians – it accepted just seven Palestinians in 2007 and nine in 2008 – the effort could ruffle some diplomatic feathers.

For many in the State Department and international community, the resettlement is part of a moral imperative the US has to clean up the refugee crisis created by invading Iraq. The US has already stepped up resettlement of Iraqis, some who have struggled to adjust to life in America.

al awda is asking for people to help with their resettlement:

The US government has approved most of the population of Al-Waleed Palestinian refugee camp for resettlement as refugees in the US in the coming year. For more information see http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0708/p02s04-usgn.html and http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/2009618161946158577.html

The first Palestinian family of the year from Al-Waleed will be arriving in San Diego on Wednesday September 16, 2009. This family, as with all the refugees who will be relocated to the US from Al-Waleed, will arrive with essentially nothing. Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, is therefore conducting an urgent fund raising campaign to help all the Palestinian refugees arriving in the US soon with their transition to a new life in this country.

BACKGROUND

An estimated 19,000 Palestinians, out of an initial population of 34,000, fled Iraq since the American invasion in 2003. Of these refugees, approximately 2500 have been stranded, under very harsh conditions, some for more than five years, in three camps, Al-Tanaf, Al-Waleed and Al-Hol. These camps are located in the middle of the desert far from any population centers. Al-Tanaf camp is located in no-man’s land on the borders between Iraq and Syria. Al-Waleed is located on the Iraqi side of the border with Syria, and Al-Hol is located in Syria in the Hasaka region. The camp residents had fled largely from Baghdad due to harassment, threats of deportation, abuse by the media, arbitrary detention, torture and murder by organized death squads. They thus became refugees again, originally as a result of the Zionist theft and colonial occupation of Palestine beginning in 1948. Some became refugees also when they were expelled from Kuwait in 1991 by the US-backed Kuwaiti government. Now, after years of waiting, many of the refugees stranded in the camps on the borders of Iraq are being relocated largely to Europe and the US, which continues to occupy Iraq to this day.

The first Palestinian family from Al-Waleed this year will be arriving in San Diego on September 16, 2009, a few days before the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, with 1350 more Palestinians to follow in the months ahead. According to the Christian Science Monitor most of these will be resettled in Southern California and possibly Pennsylvania and Omaha.

ACTION

Al-Awda is asking all its activists, members and supporters to contribute to help our sisters and brothers in their move to the US.

Please donate today!

Address your tax-deductible donation via check or money order to: Al-Awda, PRRC, PO Box 131352, Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA – Please note on the memo line of the check “Palestinians from Iraq”

Alternatively, please donate online using your credit card. Go to http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions. Please indicate that your donation is for “Palestinians from Iraq” with your submission.

Drop off locations

We will also need furniture, cars, computers, tv’s, clothes, toys for the kids etc. The following are the current drop off locations:

General:
8531 Wellsford pl # f, Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670
Te: 562-693-1600 Tel: 323-350-0000

For Clothes:
1773 West Lincoln Ave., Anaheim, CA 92801

For Southern California residents, an emergency meeting is being called for Sunday September 13, 2009 starting at 2 PM at the Al-Awda Center, 2734 Loker Avenue West Suite K, in Carlsbad CA 92010.

Our sisters and brothers need all the help they can get after having suffered from the death squads in Baghdad, and more than five years stranded in the camps. We need our people to feel at home as much as possible. We can not disappoint them.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT

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

three great new stories on palestinian rappers and how hip hop culture is used as a mode of resistance:

first: from a dear friend in bourj al barajneh refugee camp in lebanon. yassin and mohammed are originally from akka and are rapping until and for their right of return:

then ayman mohyeldin is reporting for al jazeera on breakdancers in gaza:

then eva bartlett has a piece on palestinian rappers in gaza:

In a backstreet open-air café in Gaza late at night, Khaled Harara from the Black Unit Band starts to talk about rap.

A phone call interrupts him. “Oh my god, it’s my dad, he will kill me because I’m not home yet.” Not quite the tough image one conjures of rappers.

After assuring his father he’s giving an interview, he’s ok to stay.

But that interruption brings up something he wants people to understand better: rap doesn’t have to be what the corporate market makes it to be. “We are trying to show people that hip-hop can be good; it doesn’t have to be about sex and drugs. We are returning rap to its old roots, talking about real issues.”

His friend Ayman Mughames from Palestinian Rapperz joins him.

“When we started in 2002, our message was to show the real life in Palestine and especially in Gaza,” Mughames says. “We talk about cases, things that must be talked about: the Israeli occupation, the siege on Gaza, the Israeli wars on Gaza, Palestinian unity.

“Rapping is our way of resisting. We need people to resist not only by weapons, but by words too.”

Palestinian Rapperz (P.R.) joined the ‘new’ generation of rappers like Harara’s Black Unit Band. Under the umbrella Palestinian Unit, the group now comprises P.R., Black Unit, and supporting musicians and break-dancers from the Water Band and Camps Breakerz.

“That’s what we wish for, Palestinian unity,” says Mughames, playing on the group’s name.

The two speak some of the many difficulties they face as rappers in Gaza.

“People don’t understand what rap is, they think it’s some negative Western influence, like we’re forgetting our culture,” Harara says. “But we are mixing Palestinian tradition and patriotism with rap. It’s our way of reaching youths inside and outside of Palestine.”

They admit that a part of the problem lies with other rappers in Gaza who don’t hold the same ideals.

“There are some bad rappers. Their behaviour is bad, so then they reflect badly on rap in general,” says Harara. “But we try to teach youths what rap is really about, and how it can be used for the Palestinian cause.”

Harara goes on to explain their work with Gaza’s youths.

“Recently we established a hip-hop school. Many of the younger generation had come to us saying ‘we want to learn to rap’, so we opened a school.”

Mughames, considered Gaza’s old-school rapper, is emphatic about the benefits.

“It’s good for youths. They have nothing to do in Gaza. We teach them concrete skills: how to make good lyrics, how to set the lyrics to the beat, how to control their voices…how to be a good rapper.”

Harara adds, “Our school is free. And it’s actually very important, because these kids might otherwise end up going to the bad rappers and learning bad ideas.”

Aside from public perception, most of their problems are due to the Israeli- led siege on Gaza, imposed shortly after Hamas was elected in early 2006, but severely tightened in June 2007 after Hamas took control of Gaza.

“Equipment is a serious problem,” says Mughames. “If we want to give a concert, we need speakers, microphones…they aren’t easily available in Gaza.”

“There’s only really one good DJ in Gaza, with his own equipment. He charges between 200 to 500 dollars per show. We can’t afford that,” Harara says.

Producing an album is not easy either.

“Since we don’t have equipment, and the recording studio is too expensive, we try to cut albums in the most simple way, using a laptop mixer programme and recording in our home,” says Harara.

New York based Palestinian-Syrian film-maker Jackie Reem Salloum produced the documentary ‘Slingshot Hip Hop’ last year featuring Palestinian rap artists in Palestine and Israel, among them the Palestinian Rapperz.

“The slingshot movie was released, we got the invitation to attend the opening, we got the visas, but we couldn’t get out of Gaza,” Ayman Mughames recalls.

There are limits at home as well. “We want to go to the camps where people who lost their homes in the Israeli war are living. We want to give concerts for the orphans,” Harara says.

But for now, the rappers concentrate on what is viable. “We can’t make concerts, can’t leave Gaza. We are limited in what we can do. So we focus on the school and making more songs,” says Harara.

Like the one on the Israeli war on Gaza (‘23 Days’), patriotic songs (‘My City’), and love songs too (‘Take Me Away’).

Much of the music is in some way a plea for unity among Palestinian parties. The rappers speak again and again of the need for Palestinians to come together and face their common enemy: the Israeli occupation, siege, and denial of basic rights.

One song goes: “Palestine forgive me, I can’t shut up about everybody who steals you, trades you/You’re like a supermarket, people get more rich by you.”

The songs are all in Arabic. “It’s our language and we are proud of it. And we can express subtleties and nuances in Arabic that aren’t possible for us in English,” Mughames says.

Despite the many constraints, the Palestinian Unit has been able to perform now and then.

“We had a concert at Rachad Shawa (the Gaza cultural centre) a few weeks go, sponsored by Mercy Corps,” says Mughames. “The audience were mixed…guys, girls, even conservative types.”

“There were about 6,000 people, and they didn’t know what to expect,” recalls Harara. “And when we started rapping, they were shocked, because we were rapping, and there was the band playing, and the break- dancers…People were amazed.”

In December this year the next Viva Palestina convoy is due to enter Gaza with humanitarian aid. Mughames and Harara expect Palestinian rappers from outside of Gaza to be in the convoy.

“We’re going to give a concert on January 1,” says a hopeful Harara.

here are some news items over the past month–just the latest examples in 122+ years of why zionism = racism.

1. An Arab couple whose one-year-old daughter was expelled from an Israeli day-care center on her first day are suing a Jewish mother for damages, accusing her of racist incitement against their child.

Maysa and Shuaa Zuabi, from the village of Sulam in northern Israel, launched the court action last week saying they had been “shocked and humiliated” when the center’s owner told them that six Jewish parents had demanded their daughter’s removal because she is an Arab.

In the first legal action of its kind in Israel, the Zuabis are claiming $80,000 from Neta Kadshai, whom they accuse of being the ringleader.

The girl, Dana, is reported to be the first Arab child ever to attend the day-care center in the rural Jewish community of Merhavia, less than one kilometer from Sulam.

However, human rights lawyers say that, given the narrow range of anti-racism legislation in Israel, the chance of success for the Zuabis is low.

Since its founding in 1948, Israel has operated an education system almost entirely segregated between Jews and Arabs.

However, chronic underfunding of Arab schools means that in recent years a small but growing number of Arab parents have sought to move their children into the Jewish system.

Dana was admitted to the day-care center last December, according to the case, after its owner, Ivon Grinwald, told the couple she had a vacant place. However, on Dana’s first day six parents threatened to withdraw their own children if she was not removed.

Kadshai, in particular, is said to have waged a campaign of “slurs and efforts aimed at having [Dana] removed from the day-care center, making it clear that [her] children would not be in the same center as an Arab girl.” Zuabi was summoned to a meeting the same evening at which Grinwald said she could not afford to lose the six children. She returned the contract Zuabi had signed and repaid her advance fees.

Zuabi said that while she was in the office Grinwald received a call from Kadshai again slandering Dana and demanding her removal.

2. A 23-year-old woman of Ethiopian descent claimed that the driver of an Egged No. 5 bus in Rishon Lezion refused to allow her to board his bus because of the color of her skin.

Speaking to Ynet, Yedno Verka recounted last Wednesday’s incident: “As I prepared board the bus, the driver suddenly shut the door. I banged on the glass, but he ignored me. Then a young woman came running towards the bus, and he opened the door for her. I stayed close to her and boarded the bus.

“When the driver saw me he said, ‘what, don’t you understand that I don’t allow Kushim (derogatory term for black people) on board? Are you trying to smash my door in? Were there buses in Ethiopia? Why don’t you walk? In Ethiopia you didn’t even have shoes and here you do, so why don’t you walk?’ I was shaking all over; I couldn’t even speak,” she said.

At this point Verka handed the driver the bus fair, but, according to her, he refused to accept it and said, “Kushit hold on, what’s your hurry? Since you (Ethiopians) made aliyah you’ve become arrogant.”

3. At least 100 students of Ethiopian origin in Petah Tikva do not know what school they will be attending in the fall, with the opening of the school year just two and a half weeks away. The uncertainty stems from the fact that the city’s private schools with an ultra-Orthodox or national Orthodox bent have refused to accept children of Ethiopian origin.

Much of the funding for the private schools comes from the Education Ministry and the city. Education Ministry director general Shimshon Shoshani said Wednesday that the schools that continue to refuse to enroll the children will be fined and may have their licenses suspended.

A few days ago the Petah Tikva municipality told the city’s private schools that they would need to enroll about 70 students of Ethiopian origin. Another 30 students were to be enrolled in the public Orthodox school system, where most Ethiopian-Israeli students go. However, sources at the ministry and municipality said conversations with officials at the private schools indicated that they would refuse to enroll the children.

Administrators at the city’s public Orthodox schools said they would not accept the 30 children as planned.

Sources familiar with the situation said that around 150 to 200 students of Ethiopian origin are to go to school in Petah Tikva.

According to a senior city official, the private schools “told us specifically that they do not intend to register the new students. It’s clear to everyone that the response to the enrollment instruction would be negative, but we had to go public with it to allow the Education Ministry to begin the process of imposing monetary fines.”

4. A trip for some 250 children from Al Jish village, near Safad north of the country, had to be cut short after the manager of a Jewish-run swimming pool refused to allow the organizers of the Jish Church Summer camp, play Arabic music.

Israeli Ynet News published a report on the incident and stated that Jad Salman, the director of the Jish Church Summer Camp, stated that the pool manager was insulting and racist in his statement.

Salman said that this summer camp is conducted by the church every year, and is considered one of the best summer camps among Christians in Israel, the Ynet added.

Salman stated that after he along with the organizers of the trip, and some 250 children entered the country club to swim, he asked the personnel about the location of an electricity connection, but the workers did not give a direct answer and kept sending him around.

Later on, Salman managed to find a power outlet, and connected a stereo system before playing church music.

As soon as he went to fill some drinking water, he noticed that the music had stopped, he went back and the instructors told him that they were asked to stop the Arabic music and were instead given a Hebrew music CD.

He then approached the club manager, Shemi Namimi, and asked him about what is going on, and then the directors said “do not put Arabic music, but you can play Hebrew music”, the Ynet reported.

Salman tried to convince the manager to allow them to play Arabic music, as he told him that this is a summer camp, and that the mother tongue of the children is Arabic.

But the manager just said “There will be no Arab music in the club”. After he heard the response, Salman used a microphone and called on the children to leave the pool.

5. UNRWA’s Hebrew-language outreach program titled “Building Understanding: Epitaph of a Dead Warehouse,” was cancelled by Acre festival authorities in the last days before the UN organization was to present photos and films of their work in Palestine.

The agency had prepared a multimedia theatrical performance that documented the “dramatic last day of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s warehouse in Gaza which was destroyed during the fighting in Gaza on 15th of January 2009,” a program for the evening read.

“[The production] has already been shown in Tel Aviv and Sderot where it was well received,” UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said in a statement. “We presented the piece to the Acre Festival authorities a couple of months ago and they gave an immediate green light and it is surprising that the play should be cancelled by the Festival authorities just hours before our first performance here.”

The festival also booted UNRWA’s photo exhibit and another film from the program.

6. Israel’s national water company announced Tuesday that it would be disconnecting the water in the Bedouin community of Rahat due to an accumulated debt of about $400,000 owed by the town’s municipality.

The 46,281 residents of the town, located in Israel’s desert region, will remain without water for a few hours a day until the municipality settles its debts with Mekorot.

Heads of the Bedouin councils held a meeting with Shlomo Buchbut, chairman of the Union of Local Authorities, in order to discuss their financial difficulties.

Rahat Mayor Faiz Abu-Sabihan said a plan had been formed in order to pull the municipality from its deficit, which currently stands at around $7.8 million. However he said the plan had not yet been approved.

“Our accounts have been seized,” the mayor told Ynet. “And the employees are not being paid. We’ve been chosen to provide a service I cannot provide.” He said the municipality would strike until the plan was approved.

An official with the Interior Ministry’s southern district said the plan had been approved, but that the ministry still had to cooperate with the Treasury in order to allot funds towards its implementation.

Meanwhile, the data presented by the municipality at the meeting was disheartening. While Rahat exacts municipality taxes from just 30% of its population, 35% receive income support and 26% are eligible for unemployment payment. The city’s rate of unemployment is a whopping 20%, and the average age of its residents is 13.5.

7. The government extended on Sunday, by one year, the force of the Law of Citizenship and Entry into Israel, which prevents people from the Palestinian Authority and enemy states from becoming Israeli citizens by marrying Israeli citizens.

A High Court decision on the legality of the law is pending, and could cause its negation.

8. A Bedouin forum on education has recently filed a complaint with the Prime Minister’s Office inquiring why the government committee tasked with promoting the representation of Arab citizens in government offices did not include a single Arab member.

The forum’s coordinator, Dr. Awad Abu-Freih, demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appoint Arab representatives to the committee.

According to the government’s Civil Service Commission, the number of Israeli Arabs employed by the government does not exceed 6.8 percent of the employees. Last week, the cabinet decided to establish a committee to promote proper representation of Arabs in government offices.

The members of the Bedouin education forum were dismayed to find that the 11-member committee did not include a single Arab member. The committee includes Civil Service Commissioner Shmuel Hollander, Prime Minister’s Office Director Eyal Gabbai and Welfare Ministry Director Nahum Itzkovitch.

“There is no doubt that in the absence of Arab citizens on the committee, the commission may continue to give unfair preference to Jews in appointments, in promotions, and in handing out key positions,” Abu-Freih said in his complaint to the prime minister.

“The promises on fair representation still sound hollow and empty,” he went on to say. “Again and again we will be told that ‘no qualified Arabs could be found for the job.’”

“The services offered to Arab citizens will also continue to be discriminatory,” he continued. “For example, the education services offered to the Arab community in the Negev are neglected and deprived.”

“Out of 20 percent of the population of the state, not one Arab could be found who would be qualified to be honored with serving on the committee?” Abu-Freih asked.

9. Five years after a mounted militia stormed his village, torching houses and killing his relatives, Ibrahim Saad el-Din, a refugee from Sudan’s Darfur region, gazed at remnants of another slaughter: hundreds of shoes worn by Jews killed in a Nazi death camp during the Holocaust.

Saad el-Din was among a dozen African refugees brought by an Israeli advocacy group to Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial last week, hoping to spur public sympathy for their plight by invoking the Jewish people’s own history fleeing death and persecution.

Over 16,000 asylum seekers have poured into Israel in recent years, most from Africa, posing a unique dilemma for the Jewish state.

Israel is proud of its heritage as a refuge that took in hundreds of thousands of Jews who survived the Nazi genocide. But it’s conflicted over refugees from elsewhere. Israel’s many wars with its Arab neighbors have left it distrustful of outsiders, while some fear accepting non-Jews could threaten the state’s Jewish character. As a result, it is struggling with how to handle the non-Jewish newcomers.

“The Jewish past makes us particularly mindful of the dangerous plight of exiles and refugees and the need to help them,” said Yaron Ezrahi, a political science professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. “But the smallness and siege mentality of our country given its hostile environment make us more committed to maintaining our majority.”

Israeli refugee advocates criticize the state, saying stints in jail and the scant support asylum seekers find in Israel fail to honor the memory of Jewish persecution through the ages.

“I think it’s a great shame the way we’re behaving,” said Sigal Rozen of the Hotline for Migrant Workers. “We have an extremely short memory.”

Israel’s current refugee influx started in 2005, when Egyptian smugglers helped a few hundred Africans sneak into Israel. The government arranged jobs for some, and as stories of their new lives spread, more came.

Just under half are from Eritrea, whose repressive government often detains returned asylum-seekers, according to Amnesty International. About one-third are from south Sudan and Darfur, whose conflicts have left millions dead and homeless, according to the U.N.

Under the U.N.’s Refugee Convention, all those claiming to be refugees should have their cases reviewed, said Sharon Harel of the U.N. refugee agency.

But the sudden influx outstripped the ability of the UNHCR and the government to process them, officials in both bodies said, resulting in stopgap policies that critics say make Israel inhospitable.

Those arriving now are detained for an average of five months — and some more than a year. They then receive release papers that must be renewed every three months but give them no right to work, though the government usually looks the other way when they take under-the-table jobs.

Simona Halperin of the Israeli Foreign Ministry said the government has a “full moral and legal commitment” to protecting refugees, but must distinguish them from economic migrants.

Asylum seekers from Sudan pose a unique problem, she said, because their mere entering Israel — which Sudan considers an “enemy state” — prevents their return.

10. The Education Ministry’s budget for special assistance to students from low socioeconomic backgrounds severely discriminates against Arabs, a new study shows. The average per-student allocation in Arab junior high schools amounts to only 20 percent of the average in Jewish junior highs.

The study, published recently in the journal Megamot by Prof. Sorel Cahan of Hebrew University’s School of Education, supports the claims of institutionalized budgetary discrimination that Arab educators have long voiced. On Monday, when the ministry published town-by-town data on what percentage of high school students pass their matriculation exams, most Arab towns were once again at the bottom of the list. A rare exception was Fureidis, where 75.86 percent of students passed – the third highest rate in Israel.

Ordinary classroom hours are allotted to schools on a strictly per-student basis. But the special assistance budget, which totaled NIS 150 million last year, is by nature differential, as its purpose is to give extra assistance to schools with a large proportion of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. The money goes toward tutoring, enrichment activities and more.

The special assistance budget is allocated in two stages. First, it is divided between the Jewish and Arab populations based on the number of students in each. Then, it is distributed among schools in each sector based on an index with three components: the percentage of students per school from low-income families, the percentage from large families, and the percentage whose fathers have relatively little schooling.

However, Cahan found, because the Arab sector has more students who meet these criteria but less students overall, “educationally needy” Jewish students receive anywhere from 3.8 to 6.9 times as much funding as equally needy Arab students.

This discrimination defeats the whole point of the special assistance budget, he wrote.

11. The inhabitants of the Bedouin village of Amra have good reason to fear that the harsh tactics used by the Israeli army against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have been imported to their small corner of Israel’s Negev desert.

Over the summer, the Tarabin tribe, all of them Israeli citizens, have had the sole access road to their homes sealed off, while the dirt track they must use instead is regularly blocked by temporary checkpoints at which their papers and vehicles are inspected at length.

Coils of razor wire now surround much of the village, and children as young as eight have been arrested in a series of night-time raids.

“Four-fifths of our youngsters now have files with the police and our drivers are being repeatedly fined for supposed traffic violations,” said Tulab Tarabin, one of Amra’s 400 Bedouin inhabitants. “Every time we are stopped, the police ask us: ‘Why don’t you leave?’”

Lawyers and human rights activists say a campaign of pressure is being organised against the Tarabins at the behest of a nearby Jewish community, Omer, which is determined to build a neighbourhood for Israeli army officers on Bedouin land.

“The policy in Israel is that when Jews need land, the Bedouin must move – no matter how long they have been living in their homes or whether their communities predate Israel’s creation,” said Morad al Sana, a lawyer with the Adalah legal centre for Israel’s Arab minority. “The Tarabins’ crime is that they refuse to budge.”

The 180,000 Bedouin in the Negev have never been welcome, says Oren Yiftachel, a geographer at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheva. They are descendants of a few thousand who managed to avoid expulsion from the southern semi-desert region during the 1948 war that founded Israel.

12. The UN says that access to education is a basic human right. But for Palestinian children living in the occupied West Bank, getting to school itself is a challenge. One Bedouin community lost three children in road accidents on their long walk to school. Making matters worse, Israeli authorities are trying to block the building of a school near the community’s home outside Jerusalem.

13. Gaza’s children are starting a new school year, but Israel’s blockade and its January war on the territory mean many are doing so without adequate supplies. Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin reports from one school in Gaza where classes are resuming.

14. Black British filmmaker Ishmahil Blagrove has launched an outspoken attack against the “racist” Israeli government after being abducted from the high seas and imprisoned for seven days.

Jamaica-born Blagrove, who lives in West London, was one of six British nationals taking part in a mercy mission to Gaza who were seized from the vessel Spirit of Humanity on June 30 by Israeli military forces.

The ship, which Blagrove says was illegally boarded in international waters, was bringing a cargo of medicines, children’s toys and reconstruction materials to the devastated people of Gaza.

“I’m not concerned with the time that I spent in jail because I am now free, however, there are still thousands of people being persecuted as we speak,” said Blagrove.

“I went on the voyage to deliver medical aid, toys and film a documentary about Palestinians living in Gaza post the 22-day bombing last year however, I was unable to fulfill my mission and have now returned with a bigger story to tell. Africans, like Palestinians, are being persecuted by the Israeli governmentand the world needs to know.”

Sailing from Larnaca, Cyprus, with a crew of 21 human rights activists, humanitarian workers and journalists from 11 different countries, those on board included Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire and former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.

“We were surrounded by four Zodiac Special Forces, which are Israeli gunships.”

Blagrove told how Israeli warships surrounded their vessel threatening to open fire if they did not turn back.

“We were 18 miles of the coast of Gaza and 23 miles outside the international water boundaries. The Israelis made contact with us via radio at approximately 1.30 am. Our ship had been given security clearance by the port authorities in Cyprus so we posed no threat, yet the Israeli government insisted that we aborted our journey.

“When we refused to be intimidated, they jammed our instrumentation and blocked our GPS, radar, and navigation systems, putting our lives at risk.

“Before we knew it we were surrounded by four Zodiac Special Forces, which are Israeli gunships and helicopters were also flying over our heads. They stormed our ship and took us against our will to Ashdod Port in Israel.

“They confiscated and destroyed all our equipment including all our medical aid and toys and eventually we were all taken to Ramla High Security Prison where we were imprisoned.”

“Most astonishingly the prison was full of black Africans.”

Describing his experience inside Ramla, Blagrove said: “Without insulting the memory of those that have survived the Nazi concentration camps, the prison we were kept in can only be described in that manor. But most astonishingly the prison was full of black Africans. I was absolutely dumbfounded!

“Israel operates under a right-wing racist government that discriminates anyone that is non-Jewish.

“The first day I was there, I witnessed 500 Africans scooped from the streets of Tel Aviv thrown into prison. The next day 300 more Africans were taken in and the prison population continues to grow daily with Africans falling victim to the Israeli judiciary system.

“There were Africans from the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Ethiopia and so on. The prison population in Israel is 90 percent black, which is why I was so welcomed by fellow inmates. There are thousands upon thousands of Africans inside the Israeli prisons.

“I was told atrocious stories. Real harrowing tales and countless inmates that have been transferred from one prison to the other informed me and that every prison is the same and the government is refusing to send them back to their own country.”

“I witnessed 500 Africans scooped from the streets of Tel Aviv thrown into prison.”

Haunted by the conditions of the prison, he said: “I shared a seven foot by seven foot cell with 14 others. We were constantly being barked at and threatened with physical abuse. If you disobey, prisoners are stripped naked and put inside a hole with no lights or heating. We were seen as sub-human.

“In the corner of the room there was a white plastic bag full of single slices of bread, which was our breakfast, lunch and dinner. If we were lucky they occasional gave us a cup of yoghurt to share.

“The toilets are two tubes and to pass your waste you have to aim and squat. The smell was indescribable because it was a mixture of sweat, urine and feces.”

Explaining that the government officials tried to force him to sign documents in Hebrew, which is illegal as all prisoners must be able to understand what they are consenting too, Blagrove said: “My fellow passengers and I were only kept for seven days because they knew the world was watching.”

helena cobban’s recent article in ips of one zionist terrorist colonist who is renouncing zionism because of its racism, though it appears, not the colonialism:

I’ve never met Dov Yermiya, a Jewish Israeli peace activist who is now 94 years old. But I read of course the book he published in 1983 in which he wrote with anguish about the torture and other gross mistreatment of civilians he witnessed directly during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon the year before.

I have it in my hand now.

I just learned, from an open letter published by Uri Avnery, that Yermiya, recently renounced the ideology and practice of Zionism with these stirring words:

“I, a 95 year old Sabra (native born Israeli Jew), who has plowed its fields, planted trees, built a house and fathered sons, grandsons and great-grandsons, and also shed his blood in the battle for the founding of the State of Israel,

“Declare herewith that I renounce my belief in the Zionism which has failed, that I shall not be loyal to the Jewish fascist state and its mad visions, that I shall not sing anymore its nationalist anthem, that I shall stand at attention only on the days of mourning for those fallen on both sides in the wars, and that I look with a broken heart at an Israel that is committing suicide and at the three generations of offspring that I have bred and raised in it.

“… for 42 years, Israel turned what should have been Palestine into a giant detention camp, and is holding a whole people captive under an oppressive and cruel regime, with the sole aim of taking away their country, come what may!!!

“”The IDF eagerly suppresses their efforts at rebellion, with the active assistance of the settlement thugs, by the brutal means of a sophisticated Apartheid and a choking blockade, inhuman harassment of the sick and of women in labor, the destruction of their economy and the theft of their best land and water.

“Over all this there is waving the black flag of the frightening contempt for the life and blood of the Palestinians. Israel will never be forgiven for the terrible toll of blood spilt, and especially the blood of children, in hair-raising quantities… “

yes, the zionist entity does all these things. this is its “normal.” but how to get these abnormal hateful people to wake up, renounce zionism, and voluntarily leave the land (since 70% have dual citizenship) so that palestinian refugees can return…

Akka is the language spoken by the Bayaka. Very few of them speak French, though most of the men and some of the women also speak Sangho, which is Central Africa’s second language.

Akka is a tonal language, which means subtle differences in pronunciation make for totally different meanings. One example: koko, depending on the pitch of the syllables, can mean “grandfather,” “chicken,” or a particular kind of forest vegetable. This leads to occasional confusion; for example, one of the crew members was trying to tell someone to do cut sticks “after” and was in fact telling them to cut sticks “angrily.” Apparently our horrible mispronunciation is subject to frequent mockery in the village.

Akka is also not a written language, so spelling is as-you-will. Nonetheless, here are some basics:

Oka – the film’s title, meaning “listen” or “understand.” It is also used a bit like “okay” or “ca va” in french.
Bambamako – hello, to which you respond “ee-yay”
Boi? – what’s up/ ca va?
Nakutu – tomorrow/see you tomorrow
Nabone- very good
eenyay – good, pretty
kututu- car/airplane
bimoso – happy/smile
mawa – sad

Most of the other words we’ve learned are highly department specific, for example, wardrobe knows the words for underwear (caliso) and shoes (baporo) but not much else.

Kris wins the award, having learned a great deal of Akka for his scenes with the local actors.

The last post’s hangover of Teddy Bear and doll marriages is not yet over. I am having a strong tendency to go back to my child hood days again. I never thought it would be so sweet but as I have started writing I feel like indulging in more on the same topic.

As a young girl I was very quiet, never got involved in any quarrel or fights and was supposed to be the best behaved girl in the family, but not always. I have created embarrassing situations for my folks. I did have the mischievous streak in me and it came out during the most unwanted times.

As I had told earlier I was in a joint family and I had three cousins all elder to me and I have created problems for the eldest two. My eldest cousin was studying for his pre-degree course and he was in the NCC. Every Saturday he would get ready early morning in his Khaki uniform with belt, cap, a plume of pink feathers on it, the NCC badge on his shirt, and the military shoes which made the metal sound. My anna (cousin) would really look smart. We used to be awed when he got ready and marched with his head high. After the training over when he returned he kept his cap and badge in the safety of a locker as we were all young and naughty.

I liked the pink feather on his cap and one day when I found the locker door ajar I carefully removed the feather from the cap and added to my collection. It would have been enough if I had stopped with that but I also removed the badge and cut out the NCC logo and kept it in my box. Nobody knew this except me and I never thought I had done any thing serious.

Next Saturday my anna was getting ready, he searched for his cap and found that the feather and the badge were missing. He was really upset and seeing his predicament I slowly brought out his badge and he was shocked to find the badge had become a miniaturized version as I had happily trimmed it down. Then he complained to my mom who appeared on the scene when I did not want to see her. I slowly retraced my steps to search for a safe hiding place but not before I got a few beatings from my mother. I started crying out loud and my anna was sorry for the complaint he made and pleaded with my angry mom to spare me. Licking my wounds I went and sulked for the day.

Next to this anna, 2 year younger was akka who is 8 years older than me. She was and is liked by everyone as she had a good way of taking care of all the young ones. When she was in 10th standard I was in 2nd, studying in the same school. She had a Mathematics teacher, nobody bothered to know his name as he was popularly known as kullan (dwarf), his nick name. Everybody was afraid of him and he was my akka’s class teacher too and was very strict.

One day in the evening we were standing outside our house, that is my akka and me. She never knew in her wildest of her dreams that what was going to follow would get her into trouble. As we were watching the people move by, our hero of this story, the teacher made entry. We sighted him rather suddenly and retreating from bumping into him was unavoidable. Immediately my akka folded her hands in Namaste and greeted the teacher, he acknowledged it and moved on. As she was heaving a sigh of relief, the teacher moved on and was taking a turn at the end of the road which was 50 feet away from us. I was perplexed why my sister should be so scared of such a short person and to show my sister, I was bold enough I shouted “Kulla……”. I think my voice would have been heard even if he was a kilometer away as the road was deserted. My akka immediately squeezed my mouth shut to stop me from an encore. With fear she looked in the direction of the teacher and we exactly saw he was turning around to look at us. Both of us ran inside the house, my akka’s eyes welled up with tears and she started complaining and telling she would not go to school the next day. Hearing the commotion my mom came outside and what do you think would have happened? As usual I had to face the music and drum beats. I don’t exactly know how my akka faced the class teacher. But the teacher didn’t rake up any issue and my sister was spared. But I had on a quite a few occasions bumped into him at various family functions and I imagined I was looking at a face which carried a mischievous smile to make me believe that he knew who I was.

I am sorry akka and anna that I had put you in trouble. I don’t know what went through me at that time. You are so wonderful people that I always love and cherish every moment I spend with you.

I have one more to add to my list. My father had a textile business and many salesmen used to visit his shop from Tamil Nadu, we were in Kerala then. Those who came to the shop would also drop home as there were no good hotels, lodges to stay in Mattancherry those days. We had a separate room on the terrace for guests. Once, a person from Salem came with my father to our house. He proceeded to take rest in the room up stairs. I was sent up to serve water for him. When I went up he started to talk to me in Tamil, a language which was alien to me then. I knew only one or two words. He asked me “sappattacha?” (Have you taken food?) . I didn’t know what to answer so before he asked further questions I ran down the stairs, but my big mouth did not keep quiet. I called him sappaturama the only word I knew in Tamil (meaning a glutton which I knew only later). I don’t know what he would have thought about me, may be he thought I was only a kid. But luckily for me I didn’t tell all this to any body and nobody heard me as I had gone upstairs alone. Probably he also didn’t inform my father about that incident.

I felt very sorry for all the things and never had an opportunity to express my self to them in person. But now a days writing my blog has given an opportunity to do so and I thought it would be appropriate to do that sooner rather than later. They would have forgotten all this but I remember all this vividly. I do feel embarrassed and hence I have made a point that when children come out with their mischief and difficult behaviour I never go over board and bash them but let them politely understand what the other persons’ perspective could be so that they do not repeat similar behaviour. I feel this is all childhood is about, bold and fearless. In fact there is a Tamil proverb Ilam kandru bhayam ariyathathu. (A calf is not afraid)

Cheers!

my time in la has been taken up by running far too many errands. i’ve been both picking up stuff i haven’t been able to buy in palestine because i couldn’t find any local versions of products, like underwear, and also grocery shopping. but everywhere i go i am confronted by products from the zionist entity such as this underwear pictured below:

driving down the street one is confronted by things like the zionist entity’s bank leumi on ventura boulevard:

i went with my friend lisa to a liquor store in burbank, owned by an armenian man, who sold only one brand of arak–from the zionist entity. he made a point to tell me that he won’t sell any turkish products, but he didn’t seem to see the parallels with respect to the one brand of arak he sold:

at amir’s felafel shop, the closest such restaurant to my grandma’s house, they sell a few products from the zionist entity. if memory serves me correctly, the owner is from yemen. they have snacks and 2 kinds of juice from the zionist entity:

and whole foods, like trader joe’s, sells something called “israeli couscous” (what on earth is that? when did couscous get coopted by the zionist entity? and for the record the boise co-op sells something under the same name):

whole foods can be redeemed a tad bit, however, because they are carrying palestinian olive oil (check out palestine video’s blog this week for some cnn footage on the palestinian olive harvest):

and jon’s supermarket in van nuys has not one but 2 kinds of palestinian cheese! one from nablus and one from akka (they also sell labneh and lebanese beer):

on another note in little tehran the i-love-the-shah iranian shops all have the “where’s my vote” green bracelets prominently displayed at checkout counters and in shop windows:

of course the solution to the problem of zionist products infiltrating the market place is to buy local. and the best place to do that is the hollywood farmer’s market. i went with my friend ian today and here are some of the beautiful fruits and vegetables available from family farmers in california:

one of the stands at the farmer’s market sold dates from a california town i’d never heard of before: mecca, california. apparently, this town is named mecca because they imported date palm trees from mecca, saudi arabia. since then they have varieties from iraq and iran in mecca, california, too. they sell all sorts of date varieties there–including fresh dates, which are amazingly good. not as good as jericho dates, but pretty good:

one last food item. i was teaching someone to make za’atar this past week. he wanted to see where it came from and he happened to look at the wikipedia page for za’atar. apparently, the zionist colonist terrorist entity also has stolen za’atar. here is what they say (check out the photograph of “israeli za’atar” too by clicking on the link below):

Za’atar has been used along with other spiced salts as a staple in Arab cuisine from medieval times to the present.

Za’atar has historical significance for Palestinians. For instance, in Politics of Food (2004), Lien and Nerlich explain how “Tastes, smells, plants and food are the anchors of memory, invoking a much wider context,” noting that for Palestinian refugees, plants serve as signifiers of the house, village, and region from which they hailed.

For Israeli Jews, za’atar used to be an exotic treat associated with visits to Arab bakeries. Today, commercial production of the plant in Israel has made it “an integral element in Israeli cuisine.” Some Israeli companies market it commercially as “hyssop” or “holy hyssop”; however, Hyssopus officinalis is never found in the wild in Israel, whereas Origanum vulgare is extremely common. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “wild hyssop” was on the verge of extinction due to over-harvesting and it was declared a protected species in 1977. The law “is considered almost anti-Arab” by Arab citizens of Israel who have picked wild herbs like za’atar for hundreds of years, learning from their ancestors how to preserve the yield of future years. A 2006 Israeli military order led to the confiscation of some za’atar from West Bank Palestinians at checkpoints.

for a reminder of why the boycott is necessary, here is omar barghouti and sid shnaid in electronic intifada last week:

There is a growing understanding of the fundamental issues that drive the crisis: the occupation of Palestinian land by Zionist Jews claiming a right to do so by virtue of an alleged historical-Biblical entitlement; the expulsion of masses of Palestinians from their homeland — first by Zionist militias and, later, the state of Israel — at the time of Israel’s establishment; the legalized and institutionalized discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel; and the ongoing military occupation and colonization of Palestinian and other Arab lands conquered in 1967.

As a result, a long-overdue determination has arisen in the ranks of civil society around the world, a determination to take concrete steps to generate tactics and strategies to bring a satisfactory resolution to this ongoing crisis by addressing its root causes. One of the most important manifestations of this new determination is the rise of an international movement endorsing the nonviolent, morally-consistent, universalist strategy of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel to compel it to comply with international law and human rights principles. The struggle against apartheid in South Africa was one of the key inspirations behind this fast spreading movement.

As expected, the prevailing Zionist response to this development has been a vitriolic denunciation of the individuals and organizations involved and a sustained attempt to bully them into silence. This usually involves an ascription of anti-Semitism as the motive for such action. In April of this year, however, when Independent Jewish Voices Canada joined the growing number of organizations endorsing BDS to promote a just peace based on international law, the Zionist establishment chose to ignore the development — presumably because the fact that it was Jews endorsing the strategy strongly challenged the false notion of a monolithic Jewish voice in support of Zionism and Israel. From the Zionists’ perspective, engaging IJV on the subject would focus increased attention on the underlying substantive issues and neutralize their most powerful tools: brow beating and intimidation.

Unfortunately for Israel’s unquestioning supporters, however, the support for BDS continues to grow. It has recently surfaced that, consistent with its long tradition of engaging on matters of social justice, the United Church of Canada (UCC) plans to debate its own version of a BDS resolution at its national conference, set for Kelowna, British Columbia in August. As expected, Zionist organizations have aimed their big guns at the UCC, attributing all sorts of vile motives to it for even considering such a resolution. We appeal to the UCC to ignore the thinly-veiled smear campaign and to join this global movement in the pursuit of sustainable peace based on freedom, equality and universal justice.

Har fortfarande semester och det känns skönt, orkar hålla på med lite tråkiga och roliga måsten. Tvättkorgarna börjar sina och lite bättre ordning i huset blir det. Saftkokning och bullbak har jag också åstadkommit, känner mig lite smånöjd.

Några av de 149 bullarna jag och Mariline bakade i fredags

Lotta var idag och rengjorde de två sista hundgårdarna, nu fattas bara några liter träolja. Jag och Sten var och köpte 33 liter på Byggmax men det räckte inte ända fram men imorgon skall Matti och Stina till Luleå och har lovat köpa  mer åt oss, hoppas bara att det finns kvar försökter ringa och be dem lägga undan de tre burkarna som fanns kvar men det gick inte. Det blir verkligen tjusigt i hundgårdarna med vitt och brunt.

Hundarna har också fått lite “berikning” i sina hundgårdar idag var jag och gav dem lite björk och sälgkvistar att leka och busa med en del dagar ger jag dem lite gräs som de även äter lite av. De flesta hoppar och ylpratar när jag kommer med något, Ronja the grand old Lady är väl inte så imponerad. Jenna har fått lite våteksem så henne får jag smörja in morgon och kväll med Fucidinsalva och det har blivit mycket bättre. Vilmas allergi gör sig påminnd så hon får fortsätta några dagar till med sin medicin. Annars är alla hundar friska och krya, Akka och Illja har börjat löpa så de får fortsätta att gå tillsammans. Hundarna har fått byta platser när vi har rengjort och målat hundgårdarna.

Det är rätt svårt att fota hundarna för så fort jag går in i hundgården vill de bara vara nära och kela och jag kan inte motstå så det får oftast bli bilder utifrån.

Vi har även hunnit vara och hälsa på “våra” valpar och Mariline har fastnat för en av dem som är helt vit. Hon har dessutom lovat att hjälpa till jättemycket med alla valpar om vi bara väljer den. Hon har alltid haft en liten förkärlek för vita lurviga valpar så jag förstår henne. Jenki som var Angels tidigare husse har varit och hälsat på och tittat bl a annat på Dino, han fick nog godkännt tror jag, trots att han inte fick se honom i action. Angel är ju väldigt meriterad men inte Dino eftersom Sten inte tävlar, men i våra ögon är han en väldigt duktig draghund.

Imorgon skall jag och Mariline åka till Gällivare för att fixa hennes pass. Inget vidare samhällsekonomiskt när man måste åka 10 mil enkel väg för att få ett pass. Det skulle i och för sig räcka med ett Svenskt EU-godkännt ID-kort, men det kostar lika mycket som ett pass och utfärdas på samma ställe. Jag fattar inte riktigt vitsen med det, lika bra att skaffa pass på en gång.

Avslutar detta inlägg med två pioner vi fick av Lotta igår, den ljusrosa luktar dessutom gott.

at camp al awda with kids from ibdaa cultural center at deheishe refugee camp a couple of weeks ago we realized, too late, that we made a big mistake with at least one of the villages we took the youth to. instead of taking kids to بيت عطاب (or beit ‘itab) we took them to deir al hawa instead. part of the mistake is somewhat understandable. although we were using salman abu sitta’s amazing book, the return journey, as our guide, it is extra challenging to find the remains of a palestinian village that was ethnically cleansed when one must do this in land that was forested over by the zionist terrorist colonists. this particular forest, “the american independence national park” contains at least twelve ethnically cleansed villages whose residents and their descendants now reside in deheishe refugee camp among other refugee camps. the map above is one that the zionist terrorist colonists give out at its information center of the so-called national park. the interesting thing about the map is that it identifies the names of several palestinian villages like beit ‘itab, however, it does not identify them as palestinian.

zionist terrorist colony on the land of beit itab

one of the ways one has to find palestinian villages that were ethnically cleansed is to look for the zionist terrorist colonies now occupying the land. and even in this national forest there are such colonies. one of them is nes harim, which is where we parked our car. i brought three youth back to the village who were the youth leaders we smuggled out to help us run the camp. because they are older than 15 years and already have identity cards it was especially dangerous for me to smuggle them out. too, it is far more difficult to smuggle out men and boys than women and girls. so we took a risk and did it one more time two days ago. we drove until we saw the sign for nes harim colony, which if you notice in the picture above has stickers over the arabic. this is a common phenomenon in historic palestine because the racist colonists actively work to conceal the arab character of this land. incidentally, jonathan cook reported for electronic intifada on a more official, state practice emerging that will remove the original arabic names from street signs altogether:

Thousands of road signs are the latest front in Israel’s battle to erase Arab heritage from much of the Holy Land.

Israel Katz, the transport minister, announced this week that signs on all major roads in Israel, East Jerusalem and possibly parts of the West Bank would be “standardized,” converting English and Arabic place names into straight transliterations of the Hebrew name.

Currently, road signs include the place name as it is traditionally rendered in all three languages.

Under the new scheme, the Arab identity of important Palestinian communities will be obscured: Jerusalem, or “al-Quds” in Arabic, will be Hebraized to “Yerushalayim”; Nazareth, or “al-Nasra” in Arabic, the city of Jesus’s childhood, will become “Natzrat”; and Jaffa, the port city after which Palestine’s oranges were named, will be “Yafo.”

Arab leaders are concerned that Katz’s plan offers a foretaste of the demand by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

On Wednesday, Mohammed Sabih, a senior official at the Arab League, called the initiative “racist and dangerous.”

“This decision comes in the framework of a series of steps in Israel aimed at implementing the ‘Jewish State’ slogan on the ground.”

Palestinians in Israel and Jerusalem, meanwhile, have responded with alarm to a policy they believe is designed to make them ever less visible.

Ahmed Tibi, an Arab legislator in the Israeli parliament, said: “Minister Katz is mistaken if he thinks that changing a few words can erase the existence of the Arab people or their connection to Israel.”

The transport ministry has made little effort to conceal the political motivation behind its policy of Hebraizing road signs.

In announcing the move on Monday, Katz, a hawkish member of Likud, Netanyahu’s right-wing party, said he objected to Palestinians using the names of communities that existed before Israel’s establishment in 1948.

“I will not allow that on our signs,” he said. “This government, and certainly this minister, will not allow anyone to turn Jewish Jerusalem into Palestinian al-Quds.”

Other Israeli officials have played down the political significance of Katz’s decision. A transport department spokesman, Yeshaayahu Ronen, said: “The lack of uniform spelling on signs has been a problem for those speaking foreign languages, citizens and tourists alike.”

while the racist nature of this new project of the zionist entity may seem new, it isn’t. there are many signs throughout 1948 palestine that only have hebrew, for instance. signs indicating the new zionist terrorist colonies where original palestinian villages used to be–like beit itab–only carry an arabic transliteration of the hebrew re-naming of the stolen land. so you can see the arabic in the sign pictured above peaking out from the other end of the sticker which shows the colony’s name not the palestinian village’s name.

in beit ‘itab the layers of erasure are even more striking. there are signs all over this so-called national park indicating the various touristic things one should hike to and look at. while palestinian names are used (as in the photo above where the youth point to their village’s name in arabic), the zionist entity has done all it can to elide thousands of years of history on this land, a history which the buildings and trees eclipse. and indeed we saw many remains from a water well to fig trees to cacti and olive trees attesting to the palestinian presence on this land.

water well in beit itab

an intertwined grape and fig tree in beit itab

the photograph below and above shows one of the signs that is trying to erase palestinian people and their history from beit ‘itab. while it acknowledges that these ruins exist, and that they are relatively recent ruins–from the 1830s, a date which they get wrong–they mention only the crusaders (another foreign entity that occupied palestinian land) and not the people whose labor and love built the homes pictured here. reading walid khalidi’s all that remains gives us a far more accurate view of the village:

The village stood on a high mountain, overlooking some lower mountain peaks below. Its lands extended southwest as far as Wadi al-Maghara. Several springs around the village provided drinking and irrigation water. A secondary road linked Bayt ‘Itab to the Bayt Jibrin-Bethlehem road that ran about 3 km to the south. Bayt ‘Itab is identified with Enadab, which appears in the list of Palestinian towns that was compiled by the fourth century A.D. historian Eusebius.The Crusaders knew it as Bethahatap. Edward Robinson visited the village in 1838 and described its stone houses as solidly built. Several houses had two storeys, and in the center of the village were the ruins of a crusader castle. (274)

if you compare the sign to khalidi’s book, or even to robinson’s book, you will realize that the zionist terrorist colonists attempting to re-write history are using robinson’s dates as if to say the village begins when the white man comes and notices it exists (this is akin to saying christopher columbus “discovered” america). khalidi gives us a sense of what the people’s lives were like in that village as well, which of course, is not acknowledged by the zionist entity’s sign because that would be to admit there were not just homes and structures but real live people who built and lived in them:

In the late nineteenth century, Bayt ‘Itab was a village built of stone, perched on a rocky knoll that rose 60 to 100 feet above the surrounding hilly ridge. Its population in 1875 was approximately 700. The villagers, who were Muslim, cultivated olive trees on terraces to the north. A large cavern–eighteen feed wide and six feet high–ran beneath the houses. The original layout of the village was circular, but new construction to the southwest (along the road that led to the neighboring village of Sufla) gave it the shape of an arc. Most of its houses were built of stone. Agriculture was the main source of livelihood. The village lands were planted in grain, grapes, olive trees, and other fruit trees. In addition, the residents owned extensive areas on the coastal plain that also were planted in grain. During the [British] Mandate, some village lands were expropriated to make a large, government-owned woodland. The villagers also engaged in livestock breeding. Crops were rainfed and irrigated from springs. In 1944/45 a total of 1,400 dunums was allocated to cereals; 665 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, of which 116 dunums were planted with olive trees The village contained the ruins of an old Crusader fortress. (275)

that is the life that the zionist terrorist colonists destroyed and here is what khalidi says about it:

Bayt ‘Itab was one of a string of villages in the Jerusalem corridor that was captured following the second truce of the war. Israeli historian Benny Morris writes that it was occupied on 21 October 1948, during Operation ha-Har. The operation was complementary to Operation Yo’av, a simultaneous offensive on the southern front that aimed at thrusting southwards into the Negev. (275)

the above, of course, is a militaristic description of an nakba experienced by the palestinians from beit ‘itab. merely addressing this history is in the process of being criminalized in the zionist entity’s usurping government:

Legislation that Israel’s Arab citizens fear could limit their freedom of speech came a step closer on Sunday to becoming law.

The bill, proposed by a legislator from the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, would withhold government money from any state-supported institutions that fund activity deemed detrimental to the state.

Such activity includes “rejecting Israel’s existence as the state of the Jewish people” and supporting “armed struggle or terrorist acts” against Israel.

A ministerial committee approved the bill, clearing the way for its presentation to parliament for future debate and voting.

zionist terrorist colonists erasing palestinians

to get to the village we had to hike quite a bit from the road where the entrance to the colony and park are. it took us about an hour and a half to climb up the mountain. it was super hot and we did not bring enough water with us and i think i had borderline heat stroke. at the top of the mountain the fruit on the fig trees was not quite ripe, but i tried to eat a few anyway just for the sake of getting something inside me to cool down. then i found a cactus with sabr fruit on it and decided i’d try that since it’s juicier. i broke one apart with a stone and then carefully tried to peel it back, trying to avoid any of the thorns. little did i know how difficult this would prove to be. not only did i get my hands covered in these hard-to-see little hairy thorns, but i also got them in my lips and on my tongue. this lasted until the next day. when we hiked back down the mountain we found one of the village springs where we drank the most amazing tasting water. i was so refreshed.

the ruins of beit itab

the ruins of beit itab

the palestinian houses that remain in beit ‘itab testify to the palestinian people, to their presence on this land, and to their right to return to it. this is why i take palestinian refugees to their land: to see it, to know it, to fight for their right to it. i wish i could have a full-time job doing this. i would make signs and paint them on the car saying سيارة العودة. i would spend all day doing this from all the refugee camps. we could make it a widespread movement to get palestinian teachers to circumvent the palestinian authority’s curriculum so that palestinians could actually learn their own history. they could use that history to fight for their rights. they could learn about their legal rights, think creatively about how to implement and take back what belongs to them.

a view from beit itab of the forested over palestinian villages

the shebab wanted to go for a swim at the beach in yaffa after we finished exploring their village. we drove to the beach and saw the palestinian cemetery in yaffa, which is next to the so-called “peres peace center.” peres, of course, is a notorious war criminal and this center named after him is on stolen land. but the cemetery was striking. it shows how the zionist terrorist colonists will not even let palestinians rest in peace after they die. it was totally vandalized and not only were there very few headstones left in tact, many of the tombs themselves were destroyed. you could see some places where some palestinians have tried to put the pieces back together, but it is difficult to find any marked grave that contains all the information about who is buried there.

palestinian cemetery in yaffa with the so-called peres peace center behind

not even the palestinian dead are allowed to rest in peace

they swam and i watched the sunset. it was a glorious sunset. i took them to yaffa to swim, but i want to be clear that taking palestinian refugees to any place that is no occupied by the zionist entity is a political act for me to help them feel connected to their land and to fight to take it back. this is in contradistinction to the zionist terrorist colonists who stand and watch (and do nothing i might add) at checkpoints, otherwise known as machsom watch, and who think that all palestinians need or want is a “fun” day at the beach, even if that is the child’s own wish:

The Israeli peace organization Machsom Watch had plans to take 50 West Bank children to the sea, but Israeli army denies one of them the entry permit, citing “security reasons”.

Israeli media report that 15-year-old Ahmad’s only wish was to go to the sea, but that his permit request was turned down by the military. Ahmad lives in the West Bank village of Burin, close to the city of Nablus, and has never in his life even seen the sea. In his daily life Ahmad work as a bottled-water and candy vendor at Huwarra checkpoint. Machsom Watch is convinced that the army’s decision was made without explanation or reason and set away the army’s security reasons as nonsense. “This is a 15-year-old boy, what could he possibly do?” a source said. The organization said they have known the boy for many years now. “We can testify, beyond a shadow of a doubt that he has never been part of any security incident, including throwing stones,” according to the organization’s spokeswoman Raiya Yaron. Machsom Watch sent out a petition for Ahmed. The petition has since then touched the hearts of many, among them two famous Israeli actors. This is the third time Machsom Watch holds a day of recreational activities for around 50 Palestinian children and youth from the area of Nablus, in the northern West Bank. The plan is to take the children to the beach, where they will get the chance to swim in the sea for the first time in their lives after which they will return to the West Bank on the same day. Just like Ahmad, most children in and around Nablus have never been to the sea and state this as their biggest dream. When asked, nearly all, children say that swimming is their favorite hobby, only to admit immediately after, that they don’t even know how to swim.

yes, they should know how to swim and they should be free to swim in their sea whenever they want to. but the zionist terrorist colonists, including those in machsom watch, are occupying their land. but they want to relieve their guilty consciences or some such thing and so they seem to think that spending the day at the beach with palestinian children, which forces the children to normalize with their colonizing occupying terrorists.

sunset over yaffa, palestine

and after all this we still had not eaten. so we got in the car and drove another 1.5 hours north to akka for some palestinian fish. we ate dinner and then went to another place to smoke argilla on the sea. and then we walked around the old city where i noticed new american and zionist terrorist colonizing schemes in the old city (see photos below).

we didn’t leave the old city until around 3 am. i drove all night and as we reached the checkpoint to come home the sun was rising and there was an amazingly beautiful layer of fog on the hilltop (see below). but the hardest part was taking the shebab home. while i think it is important, and i know that this trip was intensely meaningful to them, it kills me to have to take them back to the camp when their village exists. when so much of it remains unused. but, of course, their right of return is not just to their houses, but to the open space of their entire country. to the sea. to the borders–all the borders. but this is why i do this and why i believe and i hope and i will fight until my last breath for the right of return for all palestinian refugees.

sunrise over hanoun, palestine

deheishe refugee camp at 6 am

a couple of weeks ago al jazeera ran ilan mizrahi’s four-part documentary entitled “the rise of the right” in the zionist entity. it follows rabbi meir kahane who preached ethnic cleansing until his death in 1990. one of his followers was responsible for the massacre of palestinians praying in the ibrahimi mosque in khalil in 1994. i think this is important viewing material because these ideas of hate and jewish supremacy you will see below are far more wide spread among zionist terrorist colonists occupying palestinian land than one might imagine. and they are not only the views of a few religious zealots.

here is max bluementhal and jesse rosenfeld’s “feeling the hate in tel aviv” (their sequel to “feeling the hate in jerusalem”) to give you an idea of the more secular hatred expressed by zionist terrorist colonists who occupy palestinian land:

such racist ways of thinking are not isolated moments outside a bar or on a university campus. they are part and parcel of ministers, mayors, and city planners as jonathan cook pointed out last week in relation to a new scheme of zionist terrorist colonists to wipe palestinians off the map:

Israel’s housing minister called for strict segregation between the country’s Jewish and Arab populations last week as he unveiled plans to move large numbers of fundamentalist religious Jews to Israel’s north to prevent what he described as an “Arab takeover” of the region.

Ariel Atias said he considered it a “national mission” to bring ultra-Orthodox Jews — or Haredim, distinctive for their formal black and white clothing — into Arab areas, and announced that he would also create the north’s first exclusively Haredi town.

The new settlement drive, according to Atias, is intended to revive previous failed efforts by the state to “Judaize,” or create a Jewish majority in, the country’s heavily Arab north.

Analysts say the announcement is a disturbing indication that the Haredim, who have traditionally been hostile to Zionism because of their strict reading of the Bible, are rapidly being recruited to the Judaization project in both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

Atias, of the ultra-Orthodox party Shas, is drawing on a model already successfully developed over the past decade in the West Bank, where the Haredim, the group with the highest birth rate in Israel, have been encouraged to move into separate settlements that have rapidly eaten into large chunks of Palestinian territory.

Several mayors of northern cities in Israel have appealed to Atias to help them “save” the Jewishness of their communities in a similar manner by recruiting Haredim to swell the numbers of Jews in the north.

Atias revealed his new drive on Thursday as he spoke at an Israeli Bar Association conference in Tel Aviv to discuss land reform plans. He told the delegates: “We can all be bleeding hearts, but I think it is unsuitable [for Jews and Arabs] to live together.”

His priority, he said, was to prevent the “spread” of Arab citizens, who comprise one-fifth of the country’s population and are mostly restricted to their own overcrowded communities in two northern regions, the Galilee and Wadi Ara.

Referring to the Galilee, where Arab citizens are a small majority of the population, he said: “If we go on like we have until now, we will lose the Galilee. Populations that should not mix are spreading there.”

Atias also revealed that mayors of several northern cities where Arab citizens had started to move into Jewish neighborhoods had asked him how they could “salvage” their cities.

One, Shimon Lankry, the mayor of Acre, where there were inter-communal clashes last year, met with the minister only last week. “He told me, ‘Bring a bunch of Haredim and we’ll save the city,’” Atias said.

“He told me that Arabs are living in Jewish buildings and running them [Jews] out.”

The Haredim have a birth rate — estimated at eight children per woman — that is twice that of the Muslim population and are increasingly seen as a useful demographic weapon to stop the erosion of Israel’s Jewish majority.

Atias’s comments brought swift condemnation from Israel’s Arab lawmakers. Mohammad Barakeh, the head of the Communist Party, told the popular Israeli website Ynet: “Racism is spreading throughout the government and Minister Atias is the latest to express it.”

The key initiative proposed by Atias is the development of a large Haredi town of 20,000 homes based on an existing small community at Harish in the Wadi Ara, a region close to the West Bank.

and there are more examples of such ideologies of jewish supremacy and racism against the indigenous palestinian population. last week the zionist entity cut off water supplies on the hottest day of the year to a palestinian druze town in 1948 palestine:

The Israeli National Water Company has cut off the water supply to two Arab Druze towns inside Israel. While water cut-offs by Israeli authorities are common within the Occupied Territories of Gaza and the West Bank, they are fairly unheard of within Israel itself.

While the National Water Company, Mekorot, blamed the municipal authorities in the towns of Daliyat al-Karmel and Usafiya for collecting the fees and then keeping them instead of passing them on to the water company, the municipal authorities say the Ministry of Interior is to blame.

For the last five years, the towns have been under the control of a federally-appointed comptroller who was supposed to arrange a payment plan for the towns to pay off past debt to the water company. First, the two municipalities were combined under a single entity called Carmel City, and ‘Carmel City’ signed an 18-month payment plan that would have ended in May 2009.

But after six months, the entity ‘Carmel City’ was dissolved, and the two municipalities returned to having separate governing authorities. But apparently the federally-appointed comptroller did not take responsibility for following up on the 18-month payment plan made with the no-longer-existent Carmel City, and the plan expired with millions of shekels unpaid.

The water company makes no provision for the weather in their decisions to cut off water in non-payment cases. Instead, they happened to choose a day (July 1st) that is in the middle of a heat wave, and is in fact the hottest day so far this year.

elsewhere in 1948 palestine the racism is not only direct against the indigenous population, but also towards brown folks who are living in palestine as refugees from africa. these refugees, apparently, are allowed to live on palestinian land while palestinian refugees may not return to their land. in any case, when it comes to the zionist terrorist colonists who occupy this land, any brown folks are a problem–and like palestinian refugees who attempt to return to their land, these refugees are also called “infiltrators”:

Some will see it as pure racism, while others will refer to it as a real concern over a small city’s identity. Taxi drivers at the cab station in Arad’s commercial center launch a spontaneous parliament when asked about the issue of infiltrators. They don’t even try to conceal their sense of aversion towards the guests from Sudan, Eritrea and other African countries.

“The blacks have Sinai, the Chinese have China, and the Moroccans and Russians have Arad,” says cab driver Leon.

“I don’t want my grandson to be in a kindergarten with Sudanese,” says Alexander, a veteran immigrant, who claims the refugees have not undergone proper medical examinations. “Their women are pregnant with many kids,” he states. When asked about large Israeli families, he gets angry: “It’s my garbage. It’s stinks, but it’s mine.”

….Maxim Oknin, a committee member and a former City Council member, says “Arad has been chosen to be the Darfurians’ paradise. Without a solution we could simply be annihilated.”

….Fear is the key player here. When there were only dozens of infiltrators, Arad’s residents welcomed them kindly. But over time, the hospitality has been replaced by fear, aversion and loathing.

“My daughter is afraid to walk on the street at night,” says Moshe Edri. “My family is Arad, and I can’t sleep because of this fear.”

Marcelo, a volunteer at the jeep unit, speaks about his small children, saying “I see a black future for them.”

….Julius expresses himself in a less subtle way: “The Israelis treat us like animals. Why? They think we have taken the Russians’ jobs. But the hotel managers need people who will do a good job.”

Interior Minister Eli Yishai is expected to take part this week in a discussion aimed at helping the mayor solve the infiltrators problem. Yaakov Ganot, head of the Interior Ministry’s Population Administration, says this is not a simple matter.

“On the one hand we want to compromise with the mayor, but on the other hand we must take into account that the moment they leave Arad they’ll arrive somewhere else. The problem may simply be relocated to a different place.”

“I hate them,” says high schooler D. while sitting with her friends at a municipal playground, near the kindergarten of the infiltrators’ children. Her father took the family to Arad after finding a good job and searching for a quiet town.

“At first there were only a few of them, but suddenly they are all being brought here,” she says. Her friend suggests “building a city just for them.” They laugh.

and one other bit of racist news in the last week–the street signs will begin to erase palestinian presence on this land by altering street signs and ethnically cleansing traces of the origin of who is really from here and who really belongs here:

The Israeli transport ministry said on Monday that it will get rid of Arabic and English names for cities and towns on road signs, keeping only the Hebrew terms.

“Minister Yisrael Katz took this decision that will be progressively applied,” a ministry spokeswoman told AFP.

Currently Israeli road signs are written in Hebrew, Arabic and English, with the city names in each language. So Jerusalem is identified as Yerushalaim in Hebrew, Jerusalem in English and Al-Quds in Arabic (along with Yerushalaim written in Arabic script).

Under the new policy the Holy City will only be identified as Yerushalaim in all three languages. Nazareth (Al-Nasra in Arabic) will be identified as Natzrat and Jaffa (Jaffa in Arabic) will only be written as Yafo.

and perhaps the icing on the cake, for this week any way, is a report about the way palestinian female political prisoners are treated by zionist terrorists holding them in their torture chambers treat pregnant women as vita bekker reported in the national:

A Palestinian human rights group yesterday lambasted Israel’s treatment of female Palestinian prisoners, saying they are beaten during their arrests, their education and visitation rights are violated and those who are pregnant are shackled before and after they give birth.

The report by the Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association, which was sponsored by the United Nations and based on dozens of interviews with current and former female inmates in Israeli jails, condemned Israel for providing them poor access to health care, education and family visits and said the country’s prisons and detention centres were ill-suited for women.

Addameer slammed Israel’s treatment of pregnant prisoners, saying their hands and feet are often shackled with metal chains when they are transferred to hospitals to give birth. The women are frequently chained to their beds until they enter the delivery rooms and once again afterwards, the group said.

I discovered a relatively new Etsy shop in a treasury the other day and I like Akka Design (http://akkadesign.etsy.com) is relatively local, based in Dublin. I love all of the colours!

แอ็กก้า (Akka) สตรีทซอคเกอร์ ติก ติ๊ก เทพ

DH: (at the doctor’s hospital) *my sister’s name*, they are going to prick you with a lot of injections..

Akka: I have had so many major surgeries, CANCER too.. Injections are nothing..

I was so proud of my sister and also, very very sad..

“You Son of a Bitch, what are you doing on the Beach?”  (June 2, 2009)

It is March 2008.  The Bedouins Sabri and Ismail decided to have a swim at the nearby beach in Ashkelon; they live in one of the seven colonies reserved for them by Israel in the Negev Desert with no running water or electricity.  Two civilian Jewish guards confront them: “What you dirty Arabs are doing here? You have no rights being here. Get out instantly”   Ismail is shackled and detained for two days without charges. Sabri will die at the hospital with double hemorrhages of the brain and the lungs; Sabri’s suffered bones fracture in the head, chest, legs, and face.  The Israeli police refused to divulge the autopsy and the cold murderers were not apprehended.

The Bedouins of Al Nakab were 70,000 as of 1948; they are 11,000 by 2009.  The Bedouins enjoyed over one million hectares of land to cultivate in 1948; they shrank to barely 24,000 hectares in 2009.  Frequently, the Israeli authorities demolish entire villages of makeshift homes because the Israeli authorities refuse building permit in non recognized communities of Bedouins and they ruin their agricultural lands with poisonous chemicals.

The Palestinians with Israeli passports (PIP) are not fairing better than the “Arab Bedouins” After Israel was recognized a State by a majority of a single vote in the UN in 1948 only 160,000 Palestinians out of one million remained in their villages.  The government of Ben Gurion unleashed military detachments to massacre entire villages which spread fear among the Palestinians who took refuge in Jordan and Lebanon, supposedly for temporary stay because the UN resolution 194 demanded the return of the Palestinians.  The salary of a Palestinian worker is half the Israeli “Jew”; his average yearly revenue is $7,700 compared to $19,000 for the Israeli “Jew”; 18% of the Palestinian (PIP) find jobs compared to 58% of the Israeli women “Jews”. 

The Palestinians with Israeli passport (PIP) retained only 3.5% of their entire lands and they constitute 5.5% of governmental posts.  The PIP represents 20% of Israel’s population and receives only 3% in government budget.  Since the establishment of Israel not a single locality was created for the PIP compared to new 600 villages and colonies for the Israeli “Jews”. Over 52% of the PIP lives under the threshold of poverty.

Over 75% of the Israeli Jews oppose the formation of PIP political parties, and would not live in the same building with the PIP.  The current minister of Israel Foreign Affairs (the Russian Avigdor Liberman) prosecuted for criminal activities wants to transfer the remaining PIP to other Arab States.  The former minister Tsivi Livney expressed the same wishes.

The plans for transferring the PIP “somewhere” are already at the execution phase.  A new law declared Israel “Jewish” and another law is forcing the PIP for military circumscription.  For example, 40 PIP working on maintaining a railroad track were fired because they did do their military obligation even though the law was not in effect at the time of the licensing. 

The City of Jaffa (Yafa), annexed to Tel Aviv, is 40% PIP and the municipality refuses building permit to them; thus, you see on one side of the main road new establishments for the Jews and on the left side shantytowns.  The municipality of Jaffa hired a private enterprise to evacuate the PIP who failed to pay rents; more than 500 of denied building permit are pressuring many PIPS into precarious living because they can no longer afford skyrocketing renting expenses.  The city of Akka is 53,000 strong with 17,000 PIP.  The municipality is turning its downtown into a Jewish quarter and closed down the Mosque Al Lababidi.  Armed Jewish guards escort school children: this city suffered fascist upheaval by Jewish right-wingers who ransacked 30 homes and destroyed 80 shops.  The city of Lod (Lydda) has 11,000 PIP and the municipality is doing its best to chase out the PIP and replace them with Russian Jews.

The PIPs are reacting accordingly: 52% of eligible PIP voted and most of them for the communist party Hadash. Only 12% (out of the regular 30% three years ago) opted to vote for one of the Zionist political parties.  The PIPs participated heavy in the demonstrations during the “Land Day” in order to counter attack this “rampant wave of apartheid” of the Zionists.

Note: theme extracted from the monthly “Le Monde Diplomatic”

May 29 marks the anniversary of the Ascension of Baha’u'llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith.  Following forty years of exile and imprisonment, Baha’u’llah passed away in 1892 in the mansion of Bahji outside Akko (in what is now northern Israel).

His remains were laid to rest in a small stone house adjacent to the mansion. This Shrine is the holiest place on earth for Baha’is, and is the point towards which we turn in prayer each day.

In the early hours of this morn, those lucky enough to be physically present at Bahji gather in prayerful tribute to circumambulate this most sacred spot; while Baha’i communities in localities spanning the planet likewise gather for their own unique commemorations.

(Click on image to enlarge)

While the excerpt below was penned in 1992, I’ve been reflecting on its words today and wanted to share it with you.

Tribute by the Universal House of Justice to Bahá’u'lláh on the Centenary of His Passing

With soul-stirring emotion we gather in the hallowed environs of His resting place to honour the memory of the Supreme Manifestation of God, Bahá’u'lláh, on the solemn, historic occasion of the centenary of His ascension.

We lift our voices at the prompting of our hearts’ desire to pay tribute to a life infinitely beyond compare. But how shall we realize such a wish when it is evident that no mind can attain the comprehension which would make possible the vocabulary worthy of His celestial court? In very truth, our tongues falter in their impotence to describe, let alone extol, the prodigies of a prophetic career which was framed in superlatives. For here at Bahji, one hundred years ago, was drawn the last breath on earth of the world’s greatest Luminary, Founder of the Dispensation marking the culmination of the six- thousand-year-old Adamic Cycle, and Inaugurator of the five-thousand-century Bahá’í Cycle. He, the Most Great Manifestation, appeared in the Most Great Name and endured the greatest suffering in authoring the Most Great Revelation, which is the wellspring of the Most Great Peace. In our attempt to appreciate these matchless bounties, we recite the gem-like names of the Adored One, picked out as pearls from the veritable ocean of His Revelation, bestrewing them throughout our testimonial that they may lend an acceptable gleam to our expression of His glory and majesty.

King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Supreme Mediator, Most Ancient Beauty: He is the Well-Beloved of all worlds. We hail Him as the long-awaited Promised One, the Object of the adoration of the world. And we exclaim: “Hallowed be the Lord in Whose hand is the source of dominion!”

How grievously Bahá’u'lláh suffered to regenerate the world! Wrongly accused, imprisoned, beaten, chained, banished from country to country, betrayed, poisoned, stripped of material possessions, and “at every moment tormented with a fresh torment”: such was the cruel reception that greeted the Everlasting Father, Him Who is the Possessor of all Names and Attributes. For two score years, until the end of His earthly days, He remained a prisoner and exile — persecuted unceasingly by the rulers of Persia and the Ottoman Empire, opposed relentlessly by a vicious and scheming clergy, neglected abjectly by other sovereigns to whom He addressed potent letters imparting to them that which, in His truth-bearing words, “is the cause of the well-being, the unity, the harmony, and the reconstruction of the world, and of the tranquillity of the nations”. “My grief”, He once lamented, “exceedeth all the woes to which Jacob gave vent, and all the afflictions of Job are but a part of My sorrows.”

The voice halts for shame from continuing so deplorable a recitation, the heart is torn by mere thought of the Divine Target of such grief — grief no ordinary mortal could endure. But lest we give way to feelings of gloom and distress, we take recourse in the tranquil calm He induces with such meaningful words as these: “We have borne it all with the utmost willingness and resignation, so that the souls of men may be edified, and the Word of God be exalted.” Thus, the Wronged One, patient beyond measure, preserved a majestic composure, revealing His true Self as the Merciful, the Loving, the Incomparable Friend. Concentrating His energies on the pivotal purpose of His Revelation, He transmuted His tribulations into instruments of redemption and summoned all peoples to the banner of unity.

No worldly power could thwart the purpose of the Most Exalted Pen. Through the copiousness of His writings, He poured upon the planet the healing waters of the Word of God renewed. Descending upon Him like a spring rain, His Revelation comprises some one hundred volumes — “volumes replete with unnumbered exhortations, revolutionizing principles, world-shaping laws and ordinances, dire warnings and portentous prophecies, with soul-uplifting prayers and meditations, illuminating commentaries and interpretations, impassioned discourses and homilies, all interspersed with either addresses or references to kings, to emperors and to ministers, of both the East and the West, to ecclesiastics of divers denominations, and to leaders in the intellectual, political, literary, mystical, commercial and humanitarian spheres of human activity.” Foremost among His Books is His Kitab-i-Aqdas, the charter of the future world civilization in which He has announced the Laws of God for this age. Our hearts thrill to the prospect that during the course of this centennial year, the annotated English translation of this Mother Book of Bahá’u'lláh’s Revelation is to be published. We acknowledge with astonished joy the prolific legacy of this divine outpouring. And we exclaim: “Praised be Thou, Who art the Desire of the world, and thanks be to Thee, O Well-Beloved of the hearts of such as are devoted to Thee!”

Today, we bear witness to the further abundance of a peerless heritage. With the setting of the Sun of Baha, the Moon of His Covenant rose in reflected glory, lifting the darkness of a night of despair, and lighting the path to the unity of all humankind. In the fullness of its radiance stands the magnetic Figure of `Abdu’l-Bahá, the beloved Son Whom Bahá’u'lláh designated as the Interpreter of His Word and Executive of His authority, and Whom He appointed the Centre of His Covenant, an office without parallel in all religious history.

We acknowledge the mysterious power of His wisdom, the illuminating potency of His words, the immortal example and unific character of His deeds. By His untiring exertions the fame of the infant Cause was spread abroad, the design of its Administrative Order was completed, the World Centre of the Faith emerged into clear visibility, and the splendours of the Mountain of God, as alluded to in Bahá’u'lláh’s Tablet of Carmel, began to be manifested. With profound gratitude for such evident blessings we reaffirm our loyalty to the Covenant of Bahá’u'lláh. And we exclaim: “Glorified be the All-Merciful, the Lord of Grace abounding!”

As a result of the phenomenal effects of His Covenant, a world community has been raised up on an “unassailable foundation”. The entire system of the Administrative Order originated by Bahá’u'lláh in His Most Holy Book has been erected. A vigorous network of local, national, continental and international institutions functions in exemplary harmony throughout the planet. Vitalized and nurtured by His stupendous Revelation, watered by the precious blood of countless martyrs, and tended by the loving care of unnumbered, devoted servants, the Tree of the Cause has, in these hundred years, grown mightily, has put forth its far-stretching branches and borne its first and plentiful fruit.

Bahá’u'lláh found the world in a “strange sleep”. But what a disturbance His coming has unloosed! The peoples of the earth had been separated, many parts of the human race socially and spiritually isolated. But the world of humanity today bears little resemblance to that which Bahá’u'lláh left a century ago. Unbeknownst to the great majority, His influence permeates all living beings. Indeed, no domain of life remains unaffected. In the burgeoning energy, the magnified perspectives, the heightened global consciousness; in the social and political turbulence, the fall of kingdoms, the emancipation of nations, the intermixture of cultures, the clamour for development; in the agitation over the extremes of wealth and poverty, the acute concern over the abuse of the environment, the leap of consciousness regarding the rights of women; in the growing tendency towards ecumenism, the increasing call for a new world order; in the astounding advances in the realms of science, technology, literature and the arts — in all this tumult, with its paradoxical manifestations of chaos and order, integration and disintegration, are the signs of His power as World Reformer, the proof of His claim as Divine Physician, the truth of His Word as the All-Knowing Counsellor.

Bahá’u'lláh wrote voluminously about the purpose of this mysterious force and its transformative effects, but the essence can be drawn from these few perspicuous words: “Through the movement of Our Pen of Glory We have, at the bidding of the Omnipotent Ordainer, breathed a new life into every human frame, and instilled into every word a fresh potency. All created things proclaim the evidences of this worldwide regeneration.” And again: “A new life is, in this age, stirring within all the peoples of the earth; and yet none hath discovered its cause or perceived its motive.” And yet again: “He Who is the Unconditioned is come, in the clouds of light, that He may quicken all created things with the breezes of His Name, the Most Merciful, and unify the world, and gather all men around this Table which hath been sent down from heaven.”

Let the denizens of the earth wake from their slumber at the resonances of His Name and arise from their confused dreams to embrace the clarity of the new Day: For “This is the King of Days, the Day that hath seen the coming of the Best-beloved, Him Who through all eternity hath been acclaimed the Desire of the World.”

Our thoughts turn back to the mourning time in 1892 when a vast number of residents from the surrounding area came to join His bereaved followers in lamenting the departure of the immortal Beloved. These were not adherents of His Cause and had no real understanding of His station, but the effect of His presence among them was such as to fill them with a grave sense of loss. Today, a century later, it is we, who identify ourselves with His community, who have come in multitudinous array from the far corners of the earth to pay homage to the King of Glory. With us in spirit are the millions of His lovers scattered among tens of thousands of villages, towns and cities, themselves observing in their own localities this solemn anniversary, their hearts focused on the Primal Spot here at Bahji…” (source)

The DH & I in what is uncharacteristically us, bunked work for the past 1 week!! Knowing the 2 of us, its nigh impossible, but we did.. The in-laws went to Mysore for the week too which added to the fun factor!! But then, it was such a blah vacation, that the DH and I spent most of our time, with our respective laptops, checking and finishing work from home.. We are such dorks, I tell you!!

Also on Tuesday was Appa’s birthday which Amma made so special that my moved my father who is made of stone, so much…We had loads of friends, relatives and lots of good food!! There were the usual assoles, but then, we din dwell on them much because we did not want to spoil the day for Appa & Amma.. We did not get him much though, just made sure he had fun and tried to be nice to people for him (it takes a lot to get Akka & me to be cordial to world class idiots, aka relatives)..

Apart from Appa’s birthday, the DH & I spent most of the week, walking malls, watching some movies, having some food out in cheap & good restaurants, doing some shopping for the DH’s birthday, running errands, got the DH’s bike serviced, bought cut mangoes for Amma to make pickle out of them (yummmmmmmy) and gave some salwars for stitching.. The DH and I wanted to make the weekend all saucy and have sex morning, noon & night but then, we realized that we were not 20 any more & holding hands were all the romance we were going to have!!

Also, coming up in June, a couple of days before the DH’s birthday is Amma’s… I want to get her something special, no sarees, no jewellery (coz I can’t afford it) and nothing for the house.. I want to get her something that only she can use… Any suggestions?

That’s about it from me folks, the DH has gone to the railway station to pick the in-laws.. I just finished making lunch & will be heading for a bath now.. Our lovely holiday, however lame, just came to an end… Come Monday, the madness will start all over again, and yours truly, is actually looking forward to it..

Have a great weekend and pray that the Royal Challengers Bangalore win the IPL cup!!

tam tam and i have been planning a trip we want to take next summer. we’ve been thinking about where we want to go and who might want to join us. one of the criteria we have agreed on is that the place we go cannot be involved in or complicit with any colonial or imperial adventures. and, as you can imagine, this leaves out a number of places in the world. for instance, in nancy better’s article in the new york times today seems to be reporting that americans should take their summer vacations in the zionist entity (a place where tam tam is not allowed to visit because she is a palestinian refugee in lebanon):

Our Golan Heights excursion unleashed a torrent of questions about the war for independence and Israel’s 1948 declaration of statehood. We found answers at the Ayalon Institute, formerly a clandestine munitions factory built by the Haganah (the pre-independence armed forces) under a kibbutz near Tel Aviv. Restored and opened to the public, the institute is not mentioned in many guidebooks and gets little press. Yet Charlie — who devours detective novels and has twice toured the International Spy Museum in Washington — declared it his favorite site.

The place conveys a real sense of danger; had the Haganah members been discovered, they would have been hanged. The factory operations were concealed by a bakery and laundry; a 10-ton oven and a large washing machine hid entrances to the shop floor, which housed as many as 50 workers who, at the peak, produced 40,000 bullets a day. The noise of the washing machines camouflaged the din of the manufacturing process below ground.

David was especially fascinated by the sunlamps that munitions workers used to get an artificial tan. “It’s like an alibi,” our guide explained. “They pretended to leave the kibbutz each morning to work on a neighboring farm and then they sneaked back into the factory to make bullets. People would be suspicious if they looked too pale.”

Next we traveled to Akko, site of a medieval Crusaders’ fortress and later an Ottoman citadel. When the Turks were defeated by the British in 1918, the fortress became a high-security prison that held Jewish freedom fighters. Today the Underground Prisoners Memorial Museum pays tribute to them. A gloomy, ominous air hangs over the prison cells, with their thick stone walls, iron bars and narrow windows. Our group was mesmerized by the gallows room, with a noose centered over a trapdoor in the floor.

the above is just a sample of what the article says. you may click the link and read the entire piece and in it you will not find one use of the word palestine or palestinian. there’s no mention of the fact that akka is a palestinian city and that those so-called “jewish freedom fighters” were and are terrorists who massacred palestinians, stole their land, and created 750,000 refugees. there is no mention of syria either in their little excursion to occupied golan.

conversely, adrian bridge’s recent article in the telegraph on sri lankan tourism talks about the tamils, although as if they are only resistance fighters and not a massive civilian population massacred and made into refugees:

With the fighting still fresh, outrage over the number of civilians killed and fears that pockets of Tamil Tiger fighters may continue with terrorist attacks, the Foreign Office continues to advise against all travel to the north and east of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka travel experts, however, hope that in the long term, the ending of the 26-year-long civil war will signal a fresh start for tourism in what is potentially one of the most attractive holiday destinations in Asia.

“This is a good step forward but we have to be cautiously optimistic; there is still a lot of work to be done to bring about a true peace,” said Jean-Marc Flambert, who promotes a number of hotels in Sri Lanka.

“But in fact the best beaches on the island are on the east coast. Also, with the rainy season there coming at a different time to the rain in the south and west it could turn Sri Lanka into a year round destination.”

the above link came to me via the amazing rapper @_m_i_a_ on twitter (aka maya arulpragasam) and her perfect tweet in response to the article was:

I SAY YEAH … IF U like swimming in blood and hiking and biking on mass graves and eating chemically contaminated fried fish for lunch.

the problem with this story about sri lanka and its war against a civilian tamil population is that even news sources like al jazeera continue to report in a decidedly biased way. take this report by tony birtley on al jazeera today in which he says that 17,000 tamil fighters were killed:

tamil net gives us rather different figures:

Sea Tiger Special Commander of the LTTE, Col. Soosai Sunday noon said that around 25,000 civilians injured in the artillery attack of Sri Lanka Army are dead and dying now without receiving medical attention. The LTTE has repeatedly requested the ICRC through Mr. Pathmanathan to evacuate the injured through Vadduvaakal or Iraddaivaaikkaal, but there was no IC response. Within a 2 square kilometre area, there are dead bodies everywhere while the remaining thousands are in bunkers amidst the use of every kind of weapon by Colombo’s forces. The SLA is not even allowing the people to flee but prefers to fire at them, Soosai said.

for people who want some background on the conflict al jazeera put up a time line on their website starting from sri lanka’s independence from british rule–1948 (yes, the british “leave” one colony and ensure the existence of a new one in the same year)–through the recent genocide. additionally the conversation on democracy now! yesterday between anjali kamat and ahilan kadirgamar that provided some context that doesn’t demonize tamils seeking liberation:

i think that the above interview is important for the way it reveals the orwellian language used by the sri lankan government in which internment camps become “welfare centers.” all of this has been enhanced and made possible by the u.s. exporting of the so-called “war on terror” in which any government wanting to clamp down on resistance groups can commit massacres and genocide and get away with it.

suren surendiran’s article in the guardian today gives us some further context and a broader understanding of the toll this has taken on the tamil people of sri lanka:

Sri Lankan military killed thousands of Tamil civilians over the past few months (not to mention the years before) using the full might of its fire power by way of artillery and air strikes. It has, with intent, starved its own people by refusing to send food and medicine in sufficient quantities and in adequate frequencies.

Crucially, this genocide by the Sri Lankan state has been enabled by the international community, including Britain.

What is deeply disappointing is the fact that powerful liberal states which have long espoused human rights, the Geneva conventions and, most recently, the responsibility to protect, have all allowed thousands of innocent lives to be lost unnecessarily and with full knowledge.

The slaughter went on every day, with many women and children being killed not just by the shelling but due to starvation and lack of medical care. Yet the international response, especially those of the UN and western liberal states, has been pathetic. Mere statements after statements were released by heads of states like Gordon Brown and Barack Obama and institutions such as the UN, EU and various non-governmental organisations such as Amnesty, HRW and Crisis Group. No one showed real leadership in stopping this genocide which took place in broad daylight.

Even now thousands of displaced young Tamils are being abducted and disappeared, the wounded and injured are not given medical care and families are separated and abused in overcrowded barbed-wire-fenced camps. Thousands are still lining up at check points which have no independent observers present. International media has no way of reporting without government interference.

Sri Lanka is conducting this war beyond its means. Its economy is in a mess due to mismanagement, as stated by the World Bank. Sri Lanka’s Central Bank is seeking an emergency loan from the IMF due to its fast depleting reserves. Yet, year on year defence budget has been consistently rising by huge percentages. Regional powers and others have assisted financially and otherwise to continue with this government’s war with its own people. Unemployed youth from Sri Lanka’s rural south who could be put to more constructive development use were being used for destruction and killing.

Pretending to promote human rights and high moral values, western governments are turning a blind eye to the state terrorism in Sri Lanka, but also incentivising such horrendous violations by granting large sums in loans and grants. Hypocrisy of the international community is obvious as they argue any sanctions against such financial assistance will hurt the wider economy of Sri Lanka. The same wasn’t true it seems for the poor Zimbabweans or the Palestinians of Gaza City.

of course, i wrote the other day about the zionist entity providing sri lanka with its weapons in order to carry out this genocide. the genocide may be over in sri lanka, but the trauma will not be over for a long time. nor will the refugees lead a normal life for some time to come either. and while this massive refugee crisis comes to a head the one in pakistan just continues to worsen also because of a so-called “war on terror” instigated by americans. unhcr is now reporting that refugees may be reaching 1 million:

The number of displaced people registered since May 2 by authorities with help from UNHCR climbed above the 1 million mark over the weekend and continues to rise rapidly. Most of the displaced are staying with relatives or friends, placing huge economic and social strains on the country. More than 130,000 others are staying in camps supported by UNHCR. The 1.17 million recently registered join another 555,000 Pakistanis displaced in earlier fighting since last August.

and for those who need reminding that this is a united states-made war on the civilian population of pakistan, the u.s. bombed the region yet again this week as alamgir bitani reported in the independent:

A bomb blew up in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on today killing 10 people, hours after a suspected US drone aircraft fired missiles at militants in another region on the Afghan border and killed 10.

The violence came as the Pakistani military battled Taliban militants in a northwestern valley in an offensive that has forced more than 900,000 people from their homes.

The blast in Peshawar blew up a passing school bus and city police chief Sifwat Ghayyur said four children and two women were among the dead.

“It was a remote controlled bomb. Ten people have been killed and 18 wounded,” Ghayyur told Reuters.

according to mainstream american news media, they are praising these actions in pakistan calling them “effective” on cnn as reported in common dreams:

U.S. airstrikes aimed at al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan have been “very effective,” with few civilian deaths as a result, CIA Director Leon Panetta said Monday in a rare public acknowledgment of the raids.

Asked about criticism of the missile attacks by counterinsurgency experts, Panetta said he did not want to discuss specifics, “but I can assure you that in terms of that particular area, it is very precise and is very limited in terms of collateral damage.”

“Very frankly, it’s the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the al Qaeda leadership,” Panetta told the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles.

i just wonder what is effective about creating 1 million refugees? bombing civilian villages? sowing the seeds of future generations who will seek justice for sure and perhaps vengeance. though who knows because the media campaign in pakistan seems to be as mythologizing as the american media with respect to distancing the war from the united states as declan walsh reported in the guardian the other day:

The human exodus from the war-torn Swat valley in northern Pakistan is turning into the world’s most dramatic displacement crisis since the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the UN refugee agency warned.

Almost 1.5 million people have registered for assistance since fighting erupted three weeks ago, the UNHCR said, bringing the total number of war displaced in North West Frontier province to more than 2 million, not including 300,000 the provincial government believes have not registered. “It’s been a long time since there has been a displacement this big,” the UNHCR’s spokesman Ron Redmond said in Geneva, trying to recall the last time so many people had been uprooted so quickly. “It could go back to Rwanda.”

The army reported fierce clashes across Swat, a tourist haven turned Taliban stronghold. After a week of intense aerial bombardment with fighter jets and helicopter gunships the army has launched a ground offensive to drive out the militants to rout the militants from the valley. Commandos pushed through the remote Piochar valley, seizing a training centre and killing a dozen Taliban, a military spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, said. Gun battles erupted in several villages surrounding Mingora, Swat’s main town. Abbas said the military had killed 27 militants, including three commanders, and lost three members of the security forces. The figures could not be verified, as Swat has been largely cut off since the operation started.

The Taliban leader in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, remains at large. His spokesman vowed the rebels would fight until their “last breath”.

The operation continues to enjoy broad public support. Opposition parties endorsed the action at a conference called by the government, dispelling the notion that the army was fighting “America’s war”.

farooq sulehria has a great piece in dissident voice on the way that this media and military campaign has been playing out in pakistan, and here is the upshot:

Over 700 people have been killed in U.S. drone attacks on Pakistan since 2006, with 164 killed in 14 attacks under Obama’s watch. These drone attacks are further fueling anti-U.S. sentiments.

Instead of finding an exit strategy in Afghanistan, the Obama administration is practicing an Iraq-style surge. But it is U.S. presence in the region that will sustain the conditions that breed Talbanisation. The longer the USA stays in Afghanistan, the longer the Taliban’s defeat will be delayed and the suffering of the poor masses prolonged. For those lucky enough to survive bombs dropped by the Pakistan military in Swat, they will also have to deal with the possibility of having their throats slit by Taliban hit squads. Or they have the option to become refugees in their own country.

and just like the american support for the zionist entity when it gives it massive bombs to pound gaza (which it is doing as i type, by the way) and then gives money to rebuild gaza (which it only pledged, it never actually gave the money), the americans are paying to bomb pakistan and now paying to supposedly help the refugees:

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has pledged $110m in humanitarian aid to Pakistan as part of Washington’s new strategy for helping Islamabad counter Taliban’s growing influence.

Clinton announced the aid package during a press conference at the White House on Tuesday.

She said the money is meant to ease the plight of at least two million Pakistanis who have fled fighting in the country’s Swat valley and are living in squalid tent cities.

US officials said $100m in aid would flow from Clinton’s state department and the other $10m will come from the defence department.

so far news from the aipac (american israel public affairs committee) conference is as banal as can be. it’s the same old propaganda. you can probably just replay past speeches, just change a few names here and there, but insert the same words. mondoweiss has been tweeting and blogging about it, but here is the most interesting part of what they tweeted in the screen shot below:

the things that seem to be new are the increased fear they have of boycott, divestment, and sanctions in the united states as can be seen in the tweets above. and this is great news! but it seems as though there are those–like shimon peres–who fail to mention palestinians altogether and see iran as the proverbial obstacle to peace.

what i think is the bigger piece of news today is the release of the united nations report on israeli terrorist war crimes in the gaza strip. here is rory mccarthy and ed pilkington’s report on this investigation’s findings:

A United Nations inquiry today accused the Israeli military of “negligence or recklessness” in its conduct of the January war in Gaza and said the organisation should press claims for reparations for deaths and damage.

The first investigation into the three-week war by anyone other than human rights researchers and journalists held the Israeli government responsible in seven separate cases in which UN property was damaged and UN staff and other civilians were hurt or killed.

However, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, rejected the report’s call for a full and impartial investigation into the war, and refused to publish the complete 184-page report. Only Ban’s own summary of the report (pdf) has been released.

Israel rejected the inquiry’s findings, even before the summary was released, as “tendentious” and “patently biased”.

The board of inquiry, led by Ian Martin, a Briton who is a former head of Amnesty International and a former UN special envoy to East Timor and Nepal, had limited scope, looking only at cases of death, injury or damage involving UN property and staff. But its conclusions amount to a major challenge to Israel.

It found the Israeli military’s actions “involved varying degrees of negligence or recklessness”, and that the military took “inadequate” precautions towards UN premises. It said the deaths of civilians should be investigated under the rules of international humanitarian law.

The UN should take action “to seek accountability and pursue claims to secure reparation or reimbursement” for UN expenses and payments over deaths or injury to UN staff and damage to UN property where the responsibility lay with Israel, Hamas or any other party, the report added. In total, more than $11m worth of damage was caused to UN premises.

The inquiry looked in detail at nine incidents, in which several Palestinians died. It found the Israeli military responsible in seven cases where it had “breached the inviolability” of the UN. In one other case, Palestinian militants, probably from Hamas, were held responsible; in a final case, responsibility was unclear.

The report summary will now go to the UN security council. In a later press conference , Ban confirmed that he would be seeking no further official inquiry into the Gaza events. But he did say he would be looking for reparations from Israel on a “case-by-case” basis.

The secretary general was asked whether his decision not to publish the full report amounted to a watering down of the inquiry’s findings. He categorically denied the suggestion: the inquiry was independent, and he was powerless to edit its conclusions.

Israel’s foreign ministry said the Israeli military had already investigated its own conduct during the war and “proved beyond doubt” that it had not fired intentionally at UN buildings. It dismissed the UN inquiry.

“The state of Israel rejects the criticism in the committee’s summary report and determines that in both spirit and language the report is tendentious, patently biased and ignores the facts presented to the committee,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

It said the inquiry had “preferred the claims of Hamas, a murderous terror organisation, and by doing so has misled the world”.

The most serious incident investigated took place on 6 January, near a UN boys’ preparatory school in Jabaliya that was being used as a shelter for hundreds of Palestinians who had fled their homes to escape the fighting. The Israeli military had fired several 120mm mortar rounds in the “immediate vicinity” of the school, killing between 30 and 40 Palestinians, the inquiry found.

Although Israel at the time said Hamas had fired mortars from within the school, the inquiry found this as not true: there had been no firing from within the compound and there were no explosives in the school.

It held Israel responsible for the attack and said the deaths of civilians should be “assessed in accordance with … international humanitarian law.” It also called for a formal acknowledgement from Israel that its allegations about Palestinian militants being present in the school were untrue.

what has been most disturbing in all of this is the predictable response of ban ki-moon who says that this is just a report and won’t be legally binding in any way. if you want to see ban in his on tool-like self you can watch it on palestine video’s blog as i don’t have the stomach to post it. al jazeera’s ghida fakhry interviewed moustafa barghouti on the findings and on ban’s lame-ass tool of a response to it:

[UPDATE]: here is nick spicer’s report on al jazeera that gives us a little dose of reality on the situation:

and just in case you think that the savagery of gaza is over imagine what palestinian medical patients who survived that savagery who need medical care have to go through when they are faced with the choice between collaboration with the zionist enemy or no medical treatment:

Israel’s intelligence services are increasingly pressuring Palestinian patients from Gaza to spy and inform on other Palestinians if they want to enter Israel for medical treatment, a report released on Monday by an Israeli rights organization said.

Data and 30 testimonies collected by Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHR-I) and presented at the UN Committee Against Torture in Geneva, indicates a rise in the number of Palestinian patients interrogated and forced to provide information, usually at the Erez border crossing into Israel.

According to PHR-I, Israel’s General Security Service (GSS, known as Shabak) interrogated minors; photographed patients against their will; harassed, accused, cursed and intimidated patients during interrogations.

Patients that did not cooperate were returned to Gaza without receiving a permit to exit for medical treatment, the report said.

Between January 2008 and March 2009, at least 438 patients have been summoned for GSS interrogations at Erez Crossing, as a precondition for a review of their applications to access medical treatment outside the Strip.

The data points to an increase in the ratio of the number of interrogations to the total number of applications submitted to the authorities at Erez Crossing: from 1.45% in January 2008 to 17% in January 2009.

The following is one of the testimonies that was submitted to the UN committee:

“R., a 17-year-old cancer patient who is being treated at Sheba Medical Center in Israel, arrived at the Erez Crossing after having been informed by PHR-Israel that her departure, accompanied by her mother, had been approved. When they reached the crossing point at 9 a.m they were told to sit and wait in the departure hall. At around 11.30 three GSS men in civilian dress came over and asked R. to follow them for interrogation.

“Despite the girl’s tears and pleading, one of the GSS men threatened that if she did not accompany him, he would send her back to Gaza. R. was separated from her mother and taken for interrogation. All this time, her mother was locked in the adjacent room and told to wait for her daughter.

“The interrogation lasted an hour, and in its course, the girl’s cell phone was taken, she was questioned about her uncle and her father, their place of employment etc. On conclusion of the interrogation, the girl was taken back to her mother, and at the end of the day, around 17.00 she was permitted to leave for Israel

“R. … who was interrogated on 29.1.09. Testimony submitted to PHR-Israel on the same day. The patient suffers from a malignant tumor on the leg and is being treated at Shiba Medical Center in Israel.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel is one of at least eight organizations that have submitted testimony to the Committee Against Torture, which this week is reviewing Israel’s record. This year the UN is examining Israel as well as Chad, Chile, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Philippines as part of periodic reviews that it does of all nations.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s spokesperson, Mark Regev responded to the Physicians for Human Rights report saying, in remarks quoted by the Jerusalem Post, “There are unfortunately countless examples of people who have asked to come into Israel for medical reasons, and who have been exploited by terrorists,” Regev said.

of course war crimes and ethnic cleansing are business as usual in the rest of palestine as well. first is the news that the “loyalty oath” policy of avigdor lieberman is becoming a reality as a means of ethnically cleansing palestinians from 1948 historic palestine:

Interior Minister Eli Yishai decided Tuesday to begin revoking the citizenship of four Israelis involved in activities prejudicial to the State’s security.

Ynet has learned that the four are Arabs from northern Israel, who left the country in the 1970s and were involved in activities on behalf of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and other terror groups.

According to Israeli suspicions, the men were involved in the recruiting and training of terrorists. The four sought to return to Israel through Jordan and asked for passports. One of them even asked to bring his children along.

Yaakov Ganot, head of the National Immigration Authority, asked Minister Yishai to look into the possibility of revoking the four men’s citizenship. According to the information presented by Ganot, the four left Israel many years ago and resided in countries defined by law as enemy states, including Lebanon and Tunisia.

israeli terrorist colonists destroyed palestinian trees and land, in other words their livelihood yesterday:

Dozens of Israeli settlers chopped town Palestinians’ olive and fig trees in the village of Sinjil, north of the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday.

Sinjil’s Mayor Imad Abdullah Masalmeh explained that the settlers cut the trees owned by the sick father of four disabled children, Shawqi Hussein Ghafari.

The settlers also cut down olive trees owned by Ali Hussein Fuqaha, Adib Ali Fuqaha, Hussein Farhan Dar Khalil, and the family of Muhammad Yousef Khalil.

The mayor explained that this village is frequently attacked by settlers, pointing that five settlements and outposts encircle the community.

He added that the municipality formed a committee to defend the land from settlers and the expansion of settlements. He said large swaths of the town are threatened with confiscation as a result of settlement expansion.

He appealed for the Palestinian Authority and rights-related organizations to support the farmers and put a stop to such practices.

and americans are getting in on the ethnic cleansing of palestine action, too! it seems that they have decided to occupy a stolen palestinian home to set up its “american corner” in akka:

On April 1, 2009, the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv opened the newest, and possibly most beautiful, American Corner in the world. This Corner is housed in the newly restored medieval structure at the A-Saraya, and is perhaps the first of the hundreds of American Corners in the world to be located in a UNESCO World Heritage site. On hand for the gala opening were U.S. Ambassador James B. Cunnigham, Akko Mayor Shimon Lankri, and over 150 community leaders, educators, and business people from Akko and surrounding areas. Peter Yarrow of the American folk group “Peter, Paul, and Mary” and Israeli music legend David Broza headlined the gala opening.

if you’re wondering why this is a unesco heritage site it is because it predates the zionist colonization of akka. this medieval structure is a palestinian one, though of course they fail to mention this.

the american colonists can fool themselves about the stolen palestinian space they are occupying just as much as those who believe that the mayor of al quds is actually creating some green space when he is stealing land, bulldozing palestinian homes, and covering it up with a park (sound familiar? read ilan pappe’s the ethnic cleansing of palestine if you don’t recognize this pattern.):

Mayor for the Israeli-run Jerusalem municipality hopes to make “Jerusalem the greenest city in Israel,” largely at the expenses of Palestinian residents.

Jerusalem municipal Mayor Nir Barkat revealed his “master plan” for the city on Monday, which includes the ominous pledge for the “Development of eastern Jerusalem,” where most of the Palestinian population lives.

Also of concern to Palestinian residents is his intention to create five new metropolitan parks, particularly given the current demolition orders on nearly 100 Palestinian homes in the Silwan neighborhood of the city to make way for the construction of green space.

Equally distressing is the issue of Israeli “Conservation and preservation of historic buildings,” since this often means the judization of Islamic or ancient historic sites.

In his explanation of “Developing Eastern Jerusalem,” Barakat said “An additional 13,550 housing units will be made available for construction for the residents of eastern Jerusalem,” which means the expansion of illegal East Jerusalem Israeli settlements. These settlements will be constructed on the land Palestinians will establish their capital city on under the Road Map and Arab Peace Initiative.

The mayor said he intended to build most of the new housing in the Palestinian A-Tur neighborhood (1,500 units), the Palestinian Beit Hanina- Shuafat neighborhoods (2,500 units), Tel Adesa (2,000 units), Jabel Mukabar (2,500 units), and the eastern Jerusalem city center (750 units). These areas house the highest number of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem.

Barakat outlined his plans for the revitalization of tourism in Jerusalem, saying efforts would be concentrated on the Old City, again an area of high-concentration Palestinian homes.

According to reports, “The plan affixes the borders of the historical city to include the neighborhoods and buildings built until 1948,” which will annex even more Palestinian land.

and, of course, the kidnapping of palestinians continues, including university faculty and students as in the latest political prisoners from birzeit university:

The employees union at Ramallah’s Birzeit University called on the Palestinian Authority (PA) on Tuesday to release a professor and two students it said were arrested for political reasons.

The union said in a statement that PA forces seized mathematics Lecturer Maher Nour from his home in Ramallah. The two students were not named.

in addition, 40 palestinian children are among the kidnapped political prisoners just for the month of april alone:

The PA ministry of prisoners and ex-prisoners’ affairs in Gaza has accused Tuesday the Israeli occupation authorities of kidnapping 345 Palestinian citizens, including 40 minors during the past month of April.

but, yes, ban keep on being a tool of the west. i honestly don’t know how you can sleep at night knowing what you let these terrorists get away with. you must have no soul.

i posted yesterday my dear friend nora’s interview with another friend of ours hazem jamjoum on her show flashpoints in audio form. i decided to spend today transcribing the interview because it is so amazing and important. hazem is amazing at speaking–and for sure it’s better to listen to the interview–but i think there is too much crucial information packed into this interview to not have it available in text form as well. here is the raw transcript of the interview. i’ve added some links to some of hazem’s statements.

Nora Barrows-Friedman: I wanted to interview you because you’ve been researching in exquisite detail how Israel practices apartheid on the ground here in occupied Palestine. And this is an area that I think the United States corporate mainstream media definitely is not touching. But it is becoming more and more relevant, more and more visible as this entrenched occupation grinds on. So I was wondering if you could maybe start by talking about what apartheid is and what it isn’t under the guidelines of international law.

Hazem Jamjoum: Alright, well first of all the word apartheid is an Afrikaans word, which means apartness or to separate, separateness. It was introduced to kind of the international language as a result of the regime that was implemented by white settlers in South Africa after the 1948 election. The regime in South Africa, essentially–and this has roots from before 1948: the British [sic] had instituted laws and practices which displaced indigenous Black communities off of their land, squeezing them into about 13% of the territory of South Africa. And what the national party did, which was largely representative of the Afrikaners who are descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa, the body of laws they implemented after 1948 came to be known as the apartheid laws. And these laws included such things as pass laws, which restricted the freedom of mobility; things like the Group Areas Act, and the various bodies of laws that kind of outlined who belonged to which group in the country, where you were allowed to be based on that group, and what kinds of rights and privileges you had. Really what that system was was a system of laws that was designed to maintain the supremacy and domination of the white settler group over the Black community, which was the majority.

Now in the mid-1970s, after the Soweto uprising, and the massacre of the demonstrators in Soweto, what the international community did was there was a proposal, bill kind of at the United Nations General Assembly, and was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, called the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment for the Crime of Apartheid. And in this convention what the United Nations did, or what the international community did, was it defined the crime of apartheid and then detailed a set of consequences if a state was found or if a regime was found to be guilty of the crime of apartheid. And these consequences range from being legally prosecuted if a member or an institution that is part of the implementation of this regime sort of goes into a territory or a country which is a signatory to the convention, they can be prosecuted. The international community is supposed to essentially isolate this regime and do whatever it can to stop this crime of apartheid from continuing to be implemented. And now there’s some confusion with for some whether apartheid can only, is limited to South Africa during the period of 1948 to 1994. Actually, if you read the convention it’s quite clear. It stems from an understanding of what’s happening in South Africa at the time in the mid-1970s, but it’s a crime of general applicability. It can, any state can commit the crime of apartheid. And the definition of the crime–of course later there are other conventions that also talk about what the crime of apartheid is, most notably the 2002 Rome Statute, which establishes the International Criminal Court. It’s also mentioned in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. And I bring up the Rome Statute because it was passed in 2002 well after racial apartheid ends in South Africa. So it’s quite clear that by defining apartheid and by saying that this is a crime, the international community is saying apartheid is still a crime and any state that commits it will be punished as an internationally-defined criminal act or an international crime. So the crime itself–even though you have different wording in these different conventions–the idea is generally the same. The idea is that you have one group that institutes institutionalized racial discrimination or institutionalized discrimination against another group for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination and commits inhumane acts in order to maintain that domination. Inhumane acts are generally, basically human rights violations and crimes against humanity, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and actually in the international convention from the mid 70s you have a complete list of what these crimes or apartheid practices are, and they range from the denial of life and liberty to the denial of return to the exploitation of labor to banning mixed marriages. And what we find is that actually Israel is practicing all of these. The entire list of the practices that are considered apartheid practices.

If we want to talk about Israel as an apartheid regime what we have to show is there is one group that has institutionalized discrimination against another group for the purposes of establishing and maintaining domination. With the case of Israel it’s actually what they call a “no brainer.” It’s actually quite obvious and in Israeli laws themselves. As far as Israel is concerned there is a group called Jewish people. It’s defined in such things as the Law of Return and the Citizenship Act, so basically as far as Israel is concerned anyone who is Jewish anywhere in the world is automatically a national, is a part of the Jewish nation and a national of Israel and entitled to be here and be part of the dominant group. And then there’s another group, which in Israeli laws you would generally kind of see it as non-Jews, but as far as the facts on the ground are concerned, that means the Palestinians. And so these are Palestinians who are Muslims and Christians, atheists and agnostics, it doesn’t matter. As far as Israel is concerned, if you don’t fit that definition of Jewish, that is debated within Israel, but generally that’s the group, then you fall into that subservient group. And so it’s actually quite clear that Israel is committing this crime of apartheid.

NBF: That’s the voice of Hazem Jamjoum of the Badil Resource Center here in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem. We’re talking about how Israel, as a state, practices the crime of apartheid. Okay, give us some examples. And I want maybe to start with how Israel practices apartheid in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and then we’ll move into maybe inside the Green Line itself and then talk about Jerusalem, which I think is kind of an anomaly within historic Palestinian area. So talk about how Israel practices apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza.

HJ: Alright, if you’ll excuse me, I think it actually works the other way around. The core of Israeli apartheid is what’s practices against the majority of Palestinians. Seven out of ten Palestinians are refugees. And the Israeli apartheid system comes into being with the creation of the state of Israel and as this new settler colony begins to implement its laws. By the early 1950s the key laws that make up the Israeli apartheid regime were already in place. And these laws are the Law of Return, which essentially says any Jewish person anywhere can come and become a citizen, which defines essentially the dominant group. But then you have the policies and practices that deny the return of the refugees. So in the late 1940s and the 1948 nakba you have the forced expulsion of the majority of Palestinians who become refugees. The denial of their return is essentially like the prime apartheid crime as far as Israel is concerned. The fact that you have a group of people with an internationally enshrined right to return to their homeland, to the places from which they were expelled, but because they are of a certain type, they are of a certain group, which is non-Jewish, then they have no right. Israel does not recognize their right to return. In fact, it actively denies their right to return. And in fact passes laws to that effect. Over and above the policies and practices on the ground that may or may not be written. And so this is kind of point number one as far as Israeli apartheid is concerned.

The second place you look is within the Green Line. Within what is called Israel proper. Because there you have, I mean, when people talk about Israeli apartheid, the Israeli response is, “no we cannot be an apartheid regime because we have Palestinian citizens and these citizens can vote and run for the Knesset, for the Israeli parliament. And this is pointed out particularly because in South Africa the indigenous community was not allowed to vote. In the early 80s sort of these other groupings that the South African apartheid regime created, like coloreds and Indians, the apartheid regime started to create new–they created something called the tri-cameral parliament and tried to modify things so it looked like Indians and coloreds could vote. It was largely a sham and it wasn’t very long lasting. But the case of Palestinian citizens inside Israel, Israeli apartheid is quite clear for anyone who wants to look. Actually, one of the earliest books dealing with the issue dealing with Israeli apartheid is called Israel an Apartheid State: Possibilities for the Struggle Within by Uri Davis who’s a Jewish Israeli who identifies as a Palestinian Jew. And he has a–this book is very interesting–and he focuses entirely on land, on the issue of land. He talks about the Law of Return and he talks about the refugees, particularly because 80% of the land inside Israel proper, within the Green Line, is refugee land. So by the early 1950s, with the passing of such things as the Absentee Property Law, where refugees were called “absentees,” they were kind of classified within Israeli law as “absentees,” their lands–80% of the land of Israel–was automatically transferred to the state. To the Israeli state. This includes what is today around 300,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel who were displaced from their villages but stayed within the state of Israel, within the Green Line. So they are internally displaced. So they lost their lands through the Absentee Property Law, but they’re not really “absentees.” They’re still in the country. They’re citizens. So Israel created their own legal classification, which I think doesn’t exist anywhere in the world: they are called “present absentees.” Present physically in the country, with citizenship, absent because they’re not allowed to get their land back.

Since 1948–between 1948 and 1966–Israel implemented a very important, and not very often talked about, regime on those Palestinians who remained. Those Palestinians who somehow managed to stay. Through the extremely violent ethnic cleansing of the 1948 nakba. It was, it is often referred to the military regime because what happened was you had two bodies of law operating within Israel. You had one body of law for Jewish Israelis, which were the regular laws passed through the parliament, they are called the Basic Laws, and then the various policies that you’d have at a municipal level, at a regional level. But then for Palestinians you had something called military law. And essentially what military law is, is that the military commander of the region in which you live is judge, jury, executioner, police force. Sort of, can essentially issue edicts that then become law automatically. And some of these laws, through their use over time, become kind of entrenched. So for example, a military law like Military Order 125. This is a very important one. This declares an area a Closed Military Zone. And what that means is that any Palestinian in the area has to leave the zone. Any person has to leave if you’re not a military person. Of course, the land that were declared Closed Military Zones were all Palestinian land. And this is something very important. If you look at Israeli laws–if you’re reading Israeli laws–and this is something Uri Davis does a really good job explaining–you won’t, other than the Law of Return, which says that any Jewish person anywhere in the world can become a citizen, the way they talk about it is aliyah, you ascend to becoming a citizen of Israel. Other than that law, the way that Israel distinguishes between Jew and non-Jew and the practicing of the laws is through the practice itself. It’s not written in the laws. So this Military Order 125 declaring an area a Closed Military Zone is a good example. You have Palestinian areas that are thousands of acres declared Closed Military Zones so people are kicked off their land. And then you have another law, for example, that says if your land is left uncultivated for three years it becomes property of the state. So that means you get kicked off–the military physically kicks you off, saying this is a Closed Military Zone–and three years later you get a piece of paper from the court saying “We’re taking your land. It’s now state land because you haven’t been there for three years. You haven’t cultivated it.” And if you go to challenge, like the thousands of Palestinians who tried to go to Israeli courts to challenge this, you’ll be told by the court that, “It’s none of our business that the military kicked you off your land, you can deal with the military for that. We’re just implementing the law.” Right and so on its face Israel looks like a regular, democratic regime that’s implementing its very benign looking laws, it’s very regular looking laws.

Another example is a very important law called the 1965 Planning and Construction Law. This law essentially lists all the towns, cities, and villages inside Israel. And so when you read the law it’s saying “this area is an archaeological area, this place is for roads, this place is for residents, this place is commercial” in each of these towns, cities, and villages, but it is what is left out that’s important. You have dozens of Palestinian villages that are simply not listed. And because this law is supposed to list all the communities that exist, so therefore, any community that’s not listed is by definition illegal. Not only does it not exist, it’s not supposed to exist. And so these villages that pre-date the existence of Israel, sometimes by centuries, simply no longer exist. They don’t appear on any Israeli maps, official maps. They receive no municipal services–we’re talking water, electricity, sewage, waste collection, clinics,–let alone hospitals–schools, nothing. They live in the fourteenth century as far as services are concerned. And because they don’t exist none of the houses are legal, which means that the houses can be demolished at any time. Again, these are citizens of the state of Israel. These are the examples of how great Israeli democracy is and yet these people on a weekly basis–and this is not an exaggeration–on a weekly basis we have home demolitions, mosque demolitions. You can just put up–because they have no water and electricity, they buy generators, that’s how you get electricity. You buy water tanks and then you buy water from anywhere you can get water. And so if you have a water tank it gets destroyed. If you have a pen for your cattle it gets destroyed. Any structure–any two bricks on top of each other is the way that we say it–you have two bricks on top of each other, that becomes an illegal structure.

Now beyond that is what happened in the cities. The interesting thing that happened in Palestinian cities that were occupied in 1948 like Yaffa, Ramla, Lydd, Akka–now some cities like Safad and Beer Saba’ or Beer Sheva were completely emptied out of their Palestinian residents. Other cities where Palestinians stayed became called “mixed cities.” And what happened was that the Israelis squeezed those Palestinians who managed to stay, or who were displaced from villages nearby and ended up in the city, squeezed them into one neighborhood. And often that neighborhood was surrounded with barbed wire with a checkpoint at the gate. And you needed a military permission in order to enter or leave this neighborhood. Of course you had these European Jewish refugees coming in from the Nazi holocaust who had only one word for this kind of neighborhood: which is ghetto. And until today, and this is one of the thousands of ironies of Palestine today, until today Palestinians who live in these neighborhoods think that the word “ghetto” actually means Arab neighborhood in Hebrew. So they call their own neighborhood “the ghetto” thinking it’s just the Hebrew word for what an Arab neighborhood is. Now these are still around today.

After 1966 you had no more of this military regime–[though] still in the south until 1970–but for the most part the military regime was disbanded only because it was exported into the West Bank and Gaza and I’ll talk about that a little more later. But what we have in these cities–these “mixed cities”–is an intensive process of expelling the Palestinians from their land, from their homes. And it doesn’t happen the way that it happened in 1948. You don’t necessarily have a military force coming in knocking houses over, collecting people into the middle–you know a big square–shooting into a crowd until it disperses and runs out of the city, or you know picking out men who are involved in the resistance and executing them the way that we had in 1948. What you have is the workings of Israel’s “democratic” laws. So each city it’s a different story. In Lydd and Ramla, for example, the entire Palestinian neighborhoods have been zoned as agricultural land so in Lydd, for example, you have 1,000 Palestinian homes with demolition orders because they are residential buildings, again many of which pre-date the state of Israel, which are illegal because they are built on agricultural land. And so the state comes in–and this is one of the interesting things–when your house is going to be demolished they make you pay for it. So basically you have two choices: either you go and get someone who owns a bulldozer to come and destroy it for you–as in destroy your own house and clean up the rubble–or the army will come, or the police or whatever authority in that particular place is running the demolition business, will come in and destroy it for you, and then fine you. And it’s actually–the fine is more expensive than building a house in many of these cases. So you’re caught in this impossible position: to destroy your own house or pay a fine that’s larger than the cost of building a new house and then if there’s rubble remaining they make you pay for removing the rubble, or again, they come and remove it and they make you pay a fine for the removal. I mean, so if anything it’s just cruel. It’s cruel and it’s inhuman. And as many South Africans who have visited have said, it’s worse than what they witnessed in South Africa. But as far as the crime is concerned, these are practices and policies that very clearly fit the fact that you have an institutionalized regime where over time, across the board, discriminates–it’s institutionalized discrimination–and it’s very clearly for the purposes of Israel being a Jewish state. A state for Jewish people, maintaining the domination, the dominance of this group, which Israel has defined itself as, you know, the Jewish group, and at the expense of, and where the inferior group is, the non-Jews, the Palestinians. In the West Bank and Gaza, I mean it’s just beyond plain for everyone to see.

NBF: And I want to tell people that you are listening to Flashpoints on Pacifica Radio. My name is Nora Barrows-Friedman reporting from the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem in Palestine. We’re sitting here with Communications Director of Badil Resource Center, Hazem Jamjoum. We’re talking about apartheid as Israel practices it. So, Hazem, the West Bank and Gaza.

HJ: So the West Bank and Gaza. First of all, when you had the occupation in 1967, you had a very important strategic goal of maintaining control over these areas and so there were various plans kind of thrown around. First of all, what Israel did was it cleared out, it forcibly expelled over 400,000 Palestinians right off the bat in 1967. Half of them–or just under half of them–were already refugees from 1948. So for many of them this was the second, third, or fourth time they were being displaced. Still in 1967. Some of these people have been been displaced multiple times since. What this meant in the West Bank, and this is something that was developed by an Israeli general who became a minister, and was actually Prime Minister for a while, his name was Yigal Allon. So it’s known as the Allon Plan. The main idea of the Allon Plan is that you close off any access between Palestinian areas and neighboring Arab countries. So Gaza is not to have any border with Egypt with the Sinai and the West Bank is not to have any uncontrolled border with Jordan. And so the entire Jordan Valley is cleared out of its Palestinian residents with the exception of Jericho, but then that border is still controlled. And then the same happened in Gaza. The other aspect of it is that the West Bank is to be split up to be made more controllable, but also because the Zionist movement always saw Jerusalem as its eternal undivided capital. And so what this meant is that the West Bank was split in the middle through the annexation of the Jerusalem area. And so you had a northern West Bank and a southern West Bank with no access to Jordan. So you had essentially two closed-in reservations. And Gaza being the third, closed, completely controlled reservation. Now with the passage of time, especially through the 70s, you had additional kind of developments. It was modified by many different people, most notably Ariel Sharon.

In the late 70s, and especially in the early 80s, you have something that comes up called the Sharon Plan. And the main idea of the Sharon Plan is why cut the West Bank into two parts when we can cut it into many more parts. And so he cuts, he proposes that the northern part of the West Bank be split in two as well. And then that as many settler enclaves be created, the way that–I mean, so Jerusalem was one way that the West Bank was created, eh split up, but further ways that the West Bank is split up is through, essentially Israel exports its civilian population into this occupied territory through the construction of these heavily fortified things that are colonies. And internationally, the media usually calls them settlements. But essentially they are settler colonies with people who are armed to the teeth, full armed guard. I mean, the army spends a lot of money and resources defending these places, even if they are not being attacked, and they are almost always on the hilltops. And they always split Palestinian communities from one another. So if we look at a map of the West Bank today, it’s just extremely plain. One of the most recent ones I’ve seen makes it look like–the color, the non-Palestinian controlled area is blue and the Palestinian-controlled area is green–and it looks like an island archipelago. And the map is called, you know, the Palestinian archipelago. And it looks like a bunch of islands. And that’s what it is.

Now what the peace process, or so-called peace process, enabled Israel to do in terms of geography, was to begin to entrench this archipelago as a fact on the ground by expanding very rapidly through the 90s. And this is during the Labor government, the “left-wing” Israelis as they’re called, so through the Labor Party who’s in power, under Ehud Barak, who is still, I think, considered sort of a “peace dove” for many, especially in `North America who don’t know–I mean he’s the most decorated soldier in Israel, right, and that’s not because he planted a lot of trees. You know, he killed a lot of people and that was his business for most of his life and that’s why he’s so decorated. And so under his reign the settler population essentially doubled. And what Israel began to do in the early part of this millennium was to build a wall and to just entrench this geographic apartheid regime, the Palestinian Bantustan, concretely, literally, by building a wall that largely surrounds Palestinian communities, splitting them up from each other and splitting people from their lands, splitting people’s ability to reach hospitals, and to reach their work, and to reach their schools. And so this is when people began to really look at apartheid just because on the map it began to look like the Bantustans in South Africa, even though if we were to look at the legal definition, Israel’s been an apartheid regime since its inception regarding the refugees and regarding the people who became its citizens–the non-Jews who became its citizens, the Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Now in the West Bank and Gaza it’s just that much more obvious because Palestinians living in the occupied territories in the West Bank and Gaza do not have Israeli citizenship. They–so they have no vote–so you know that argument about Israeli democracy no longer applies, and then you have the brutality of the occupation, right, and this is something that South Africans who visited Palestine said–you know the South African police, the apartheid police were brutal. There is no question about South African police brutality, the torture in the prisons–it’s just that the intensity of the violence–it’s just that it’s more here as far as they’re concerned. I mean bombing entire communities with F-16s, you know, coming in and just mass house demolitions, mass arrests of entire communities. You know, where the army will come in and say “everyone, every male between the age[s] of twelve and fifty-five come to the school.” You know and if you don’t you’re in big trouble, and if you do then most likely you’re going to jail for a while. So these are the kinds of things that sort of are an intensity of Israeli violence that wasn’t necessarily as common as it was in the apartheid regime in South Africa. The fact that you have one group that has established and that is maintaining its domination over another group using institutionalized discrimination is very obvious. Like I said, the military regime, the military laws were exported here and you have actually two separate laws for two peoples. You have, if you’re an Israeli settler in the West Bank, then you are governed under Israeli civilian law. If you are a Palestinian in the West Bank then you are governed under the military law. And the person who happens to be the military commander in your region, again, reigns supreme. They make the law and they implement the law at whim. And it can be quite whimsical, actually. You know you have military orders in the West Bank that ban the growing of certain kinds of flowers. And it seems absurd at first and then you do a little bit more research and find out that the nearby settlement is growing the same kind–those flowers and they don’t want any competition so they’ve ask the military commander to outlaw the Palestinians who are growing those flowers. You know, so it can be that random.

And there are stories from the original military regime between 48 and 66 where you have the military commander punishing people by telling them they have to stand on one leg under a tree for like, say this many hours. So I mean there’s all kind of absurdity and there’s all kind of anecdotal stuff, but the big picture of the implementation of a crime, which is the crime of apartheid, plus the fact that you have a prolonged military occupation, you know for some, inside the Green Line, is occupied territory since 1948. For the entire world there is consensus that for the past 40 some years you’ve had a military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Plus all of this in the context of the colonial enterprise, right. Zionism came–it was a movement of Jewish people outside of Palestine–to come and colonize Palestine. And in their own language. What’s today called the Jewish Agency, a charitable organization in the United States, one of the–I mean it used to be the government of the Jewish community in Palestine before 1948–subservient to the British government, but it was the authority, used to be called the Jewish Colonization Association. You know, it is very clear and at the time it was more cool to be a colonizer. Since World War I and since the national liberation movements of the global south over the past century or so it’s less in vogue. But still, Zionism is a colonial movement. And all of these practices are basically colonial practices. It’s just that it’s also a military occupation. It’s also an apartheid regime.

NBF: That’s the voice of Hazem Jamjoum. We’re sitting here at the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights in Bethlehem. And now I want you to talk–focus on a little bit about what’s happening in Jerusalem because you have a population, the indigenous population, which is being rapidly ethnically cleansed and squeezed out, the borders are being redrawn. And their status as residents versus citizens is also very indicative of the process of apartheid. Can you talk a little bit more about what’s happening in Jerusalem as its own entity.

HJ: Well I don’t think that Jerusalem is an anomaly so much as it is a microcosm. Essentially most of what you see in the rest of the country over time, over the past sixty years, you also see in Jerusalem. So Jerusalem is a city that was divided between 48 and 67. It was divided because the Zionists wanted–I mean their armed forces went right after trying to get as much of Jerusalem as they could in the 1948 war, during the ethnic cleansing, during the nakba. What they managed to do was to get everything up until the western wall of the Old City. So that part of Jerusalem, which is now referred to as West Jerusalem, that was completely ethnically cleansed. You know there was no–there were very few Palestinian families that were able to remain. All of that land was reverted to absentee property. Most of those buildings are still standing. Any person who comes and visits the city can go and visit the–you know, and they even call them “Arab houses.” If you have an Arab house it’s more expensive because it’s more authentic. It’s older looking. You know and there are certain kinds of Israeli fetishes with the Arab that are quite–I mean, they’re largely quite disgusting, but I mean they’re very interesting. They’re indicative. So you have–I’m going to digress a little, I’m sorry. But you have over 530 Palestinian villages that were destroyed in 1948. Many of them, their rubble is still there, you know, in Jewish National Fund parks and forests, on the lands that has been taken over by kibbutzes and moshavs, you know these socialist utopias that had nothing to do with socialism and much more to do with ethnic cleansing and apartheid practices. But what you have is this movement within Israeli society to go and steal the rocks from the rubble–the stones that these houses were built from and to build your own house using these rocks because it looks more authentic. It makes your house look old. And so when you walk around West Jerusalem you see these beautiful–I mean, it’s one thing, I say this, you know, Palestinian bourgeoisie used to know how to build houses.

There are very beautiful villas that are in West Jerusalem and now they’re inhabited by Jewish families and a story that you will hear from many Palestinians who will go and have tried to go and see their–because the thing with the 1948 nakba also is that many people left in a very big hurry. There were bombs going off. There were bullets within, there were children who were at threat [sic] of dying so, you know, some people left the food on the table, some people left the bread in the oven, but also their belongings, all their photo albums, all their papers, all their books, all their little–you know, the things that you collect over a lifetime, especially when you have houses, and these are houses that are generational houses. These are houses that were passed on from grandparent to grandchild. And so you have several generations of belongings that are in these houses in West Jerusalem and in the other cities and the places where houses were left intact. And so people have tried to go and get their stuff. You know, before 2000 people were able to move at least into Jerusalem and people with Jerusalem IDs–and we’ll talk about this in a second–are able to still go into West Jerusalem. And so people would go and visit their houses and in the vast majority of cases either the door was shut in their faces or the cops were called. You know, the settlers who took over these houses did not want to confront the fact that they were living in someone else’s house and that this someone else was ringing the doorbell and wasn’t asking for the house back, because they knew that this was a much larger story. They wanted to go and get their dad’s picture from over the fireplace. I’m not making this up, right, these are actual–a story that someone told me. They wanted their dad’s picture. Or their grandfather’s picture from over the fireplace. And the door was slammed in their face and when they rang the doorbell again the cops were called. So these are the kinds of–in terms of just mentality–that an apartheid regime will breed and will foster.

Now what you did have was those Palestinians who did manage to remain, like with the other cities, they were crammed into what was called the Baqa’a zone, a ghetto, literally. It was surrounded by barbed wire, you couldn’t enter or leave without permission from the military commander, et cetera, et cetera, like I’ve been describing. In 1967 Jerusalem was one of the most important places for the Israeli military to take control over. And so that was one of the first things they went for, they got it. The Jordanians didn’t put up much of a fight. Of course there were some sort of low-level officers who fought heroically and did put up a fight but as far as the regime was concerned this was a lost battle. And so they just gave up the city for the most part. And as far as Israel is concerned the city was re-unified as Israel’s undivided eternal capital. And it’s not on the negotiating table. You know, people talk about the peace process and the negotiations–as far as–the two things that Israel will not negotiate, will not touch are the refugees, that’s the first issue, and Jerusalem. And that’s why they call them the “thorny issues.” That’s why they call them the “obstacles.” Of course, usually it’s in the context of Palestinians not being flexible enough. You know, they’re not being flexible on their right to go back to their own home. Or they’re not being flexible on the fact that they want the occupation of their city to end. Regardless, what happened after 1967 was Israel began what they call, in its, you know, they call “Judalization.” The idea of Judaization, or in in Hebrew yehud, so the Judaization of places like the Galilee or Jerusalem, or today Yaffa and Akka and Palestinian cities–the idea is that you want to bring up the number of Jewish residents as high as possible and minimize the number of Palestinians, hopefully to zero, but if not at least to have a very strongly entrenched vast majority of residents who are Jewish. And again this idea of Jewish and non-Jewish is very entrenched in Israeli law, policy, and practice on every single level.

Now, in order to Judaize the city of Jerusalem several things were done. The first thing was the establishment of settlements, of colonies. So the first colony in the West Bank is actually Ma’ale Adumim. It’s the settlement that expands Jerusalem eastward and splits the West Bank into north and south and since it’s considered part of Jerusalem, it automatically raises the number of Jews compared to non-Jews in the city. But then you have several other settlements that are established in waves. After the late 1970s you have further expansion of the city. If you look at a map of Jerusalem with its settlements, the settlements are actually built kind of in concentric rings around the Old City with settlements being built inside the Old City. And there have been many sneaky tactics for this. In some cases you have straight up harassment and violence. In some cases you have settler organizations approaching Palestinians and offering massive amounts of money. There’s always stories of blank checks being thrown around. And then you have these stories of heroism where people don’t sell, you know, and they’ll say for no price will I do this. Or, you know I met an old man who told me, “you know they came and offered me a blank check. I said, I don’t want your money. I want you to go around and apologize to every single Palestinian baby and then maybe I’ll reconsider handing over my shop to you.” They had come to take his shop. But I mean usually it’s a multiplicity of tactics used even on the same piece of land–so first it’ll be an offer of money, then it’ll be an offer of much more money, then it’ll be some harassment, and then the police may get involved, then the municipality may get involved, then all of a sudden you’re being taxed for things you didn’t know you could be taxed for, and then, you know, you come to relicense your property and you find that it’s so expensive to relicense, you get the money, and then you find that there all these administrative obstacles to you being relicensed or to renewing your license and then all of a sudden your place is not licensed and so it’s subject to demolition or to you being kicked out of it, evicted. And so you have these cases, right, you have thousands of people facing eviction orders, thousands of people facing home demolition. A new policy, for example, says that if you live in a building where you are renting and it’s not licensed then both the person who is the owner and the person who is the renter get fined. And also you have these policies that gradually–and time is very much on Israel’s side with a lot of these things, right, so maybe international pressure is growing, but on the inside, as far as the power balance is concerned, it’s clear who has the guns, it’s clear who has the weapons. It’s also clear who has international state support. And so time is on Israel’s side.

If they come to demolish a house today and the community comes out and stops the bulldozer from reaching the house, and you know people get beat up, some people get arrested, and the bulldozer doesn’t manage to get to the house, you know then the municipality can just try next week. And if it doesn’t work next week they can try next month. And if it doesn’t work next month, they can try next year or in five years or in ten years. And so with the passage of time you actually have people now being kicked out of their homes–maybe they’re being kicked out of their second or third home–you know, you’ve done stories like on Um Kamel al Kurd who, you know, she was kicked out of her West Jerusalem house and became a refugee in East Jerusalem. Now her house in East Jerusalem, she’s been kicked out of it–settlers have taken over the physical house. She built a tent next door. The tent has been destroyed five, I think now, six times. And she’s still there, right, and so–this is the thing–there’s a certain stubbornness to our people. That stubbornness has become a compliment in a way. It’s become a valued trait because if you’re not stubborn then you’re in the street. If you’re not stubborn then you’re not anywhere near your second or third home. You know we’ve been–people are fighting not to return to their original home, they’re fighting to–I mean everybody’s fighting to return to their original home ultimately–but we’ve reached the point where you’re fighting to go back to the little shed that you’ve been living in and you’ve been kicked out of.

But what’s been happening also is Israel has built its wall and the most interesting, the most intricate, complicated place where the wall runs is in Jerusalem. What they’ve done is they’ve demarcated Jerusalem through the wall. And when I say wall, by the way, the wall and its associated regime, the way that the International Court of Justice talks about it, it’s not just the cement wall. You also have like vast expansive areas of kind of like barbed wire with militarized zones on both sides. You also have the checkpoints and the settlements–this is all part of the associated regime of the wall. It’s essentially a closure regime. Or most appropriately you can describe it as a cage. It cages Palestinians and the communities they’re in and it prevents them from entering other communities. And the most important one, because it’s so close and it’s also the economic, social, cultural, political hub of the West Bank is Jerusalem. And so this Jerusalem area–the Palestinians in Jerusalem for one thing have their own special status in the state. They’re not citizens of Israel, but they don’t have the West Bank Palestinian IDs, which prevent them from entering Jerusalem. They have Jerusalem IDs. They’re non-citizens, but they have the ability to move. The only thing that kind of differentiates them–between them and West Bank or Gaza Palestinians–is that they’re able to move a little bit more freely. Now, but for this Jerusalem ID has become a major burden. Because having a Jerusalem ID enables you also to get such things as social insurance. But what it also means is that you have to remain in Jerusalem to keep it. Now what’s happened with the construction of the wall and the closing off of Jerusalem is that people with Jerusalem IDs who are living without–on the other side of the wall now have to move in. So you have this massive rush of people who are living in areas that became West Bank areas overnight because the wall was put up, because Israel rezoned their area, and these are large areas, like Al Ram, Bir Nabala, Shu’fat refugee camp, Qalandia refugee camp, all these areas that you had Jerusalem ID people living in, all of a sudden, overnight if they stayed where they were living they would lose their Jerusalem residency. They would become West Bank people.

This is another way that Israel kind of on the literal meaning of apartheid has separated between people with different types of–today we talk of a Palestinian refugee, a 48 Palestinian, a Jerusalem Palestinian, a Gaza Palestinian, a West Bank Palestinian, in any case. But what it also meant was that Jerusalem prices were skyrocketing. The value of prices in Jerusalem became so high that you actually had people living in sheds. You had people living in the shack next door where people have kept their tools, you know, in the garden shed. And so it’s become extremely overcrowded. It was overcrowded before in places like Shu’fat refugee camp, like Anata. But now it’s extremely overcrowded. The prices have skyrocketed. And nobody can afford it, you know. There’s a high unemployment rate. And so what it means is that people are being forced to leave. So again you don’t have people–soldiers–coming in necessarily with guns and telling you to leave like in 1948. What you have is the slow working of various political, municipal policy and practice, the economy, so you have financial pressure, you have municipal pressure, you have the cost of renewing your license, the cost of acquiring a license, administrative hurdles–all of these working together to push you out if you’re Palestinian. If you’re Jewish it’s a completely different story. If you’re Jewish most of these things don’t apply to you. You can always go live in a settlement you know. Every few weeks we hear news of this many hundred settlements being built or established or expanded in Jerusalem settlements as well as the settlements that are further away, the colonies. So you have a very clear distinction. Israel doesn’t have to put the word Jewish or Palestinian or non-Jewish on any piece of legislation because it’s all done on the level of policy. It’s all done on the level of practice. Some things are simply not done if you’re Jewish. I have never heard of a Jewish resident of Jerusalem having their house demolished you know. I haven’t heard–you know maybe evictions happen, but it’s probably because you haven’t paid your rent not because, you know, they’ve decided that your presence here is not in the interest of the Jewish state. No: your presence here, if you’re Jewish, is in the interest of the Jewish state. It is the Judaization of the city. And so Jerusalem does operate as a kind of microcosm of the city.

NBF: That’s the voice of Hazem Jamjoum of Badil Resource Center in Bethlehem here in the occupied West Bank in Palestine and you’re listening to Flashpoints on Pacifica Radio. We only have a few minutes left, but I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what’s being done to challenge, to counteract, to eventually bring down this apartheid system that Israel has been practicing over the last sixty-one years. Even longer as it prepared to colonize. And really how the international civil society, how individuals and collectives and communities can get involved. What is being done? And what do you see as maybe some of the most important mechanisms that are being looked at and designed and implemented right now?

HJ: Alright so this is a very massive question for like a few minutes remaining, so just to say Palestinians in very, very, many different ways. Ranging from–I mean in Jerusalem, for example, you have people who are fundraising to submit zoning plans to the municipality and wage these kinds of battles. You have people who are physically trying to stop homes from being demolished. You have people like Um Kamel who has built a tent next to her house just to kind of be there in-your-face, to say I have nowhere else to go. And then in the rest of the West Bank and in the rest of Palestinian–between Palestinian citizens of Israel, Jerusalem Palestinians, refugees, West Bank and Gaza, et cetera you have various forms of resistance.

What I’ll focus on, though, is–I mean, and it’s largely because Palestinians don’t have a choice–like it says on the wall in Qalqiliya, “to resist is to exist and to exist is to resist.” That’s what it means here, right, and to go on living and to go on doing this is even part of the resistance: to try to make a living, to try to just stay on your land is a real act of resistance–something that is as banal as that. And anywhere–in most other places in the world–not all, of course, is an act of resistance. But where there is choice is the rest of the world. I mean, most importantly in the United States, which is the major backer, Israel is not going to be able to do any of this, the only thing that has enabled Israel to do this is the international backing. And international backing takes many forms. At its lowest level you have the straight up complicity. The fact that the world will turn the other way. We just saw Israel massacre over 1,400 people in Gaza, destroy entire neighborhoods, injure thousands. The international community barely lifted a finger, but what it did afterwards is say, okay, I’ll help you rebuild, right. Let’s pay the bill for Israel’s destruction. And of course the money that Israel used to do this, and the military supplies that it used to do this, came from countries like the United States, from Italy, from Switzerland, from the international community. And so–and it’s not just in the form of aid, you know direct aid or military aid–it’s also that these companies that make up the Israeli economy, they thrive off exporting to Europe, off doing business with the United States, off the fact that even unions and left-wing organizations, and civil society invest in things like Israel bonds, invest in corporations that do business with Israel. So Israel has become normal in the international community even though it does these extremely abnormal and abhorrent things. And so what is required is required is very similar to the case of South Africa. And what is required in most cases of oppression where the international community, where the state, government, and armies have turned their backs is that the regular citizen, the regular community organization, the regular union and the worker, and the responsibility begins to fall on our shoulders as regular people. And what this responsibility means is to work towards the isolation of this regime until it implements international law. It kind of–it sounds simple–again, kind of like a no brainer–you’d think it would be very simple for this to happen, but what we’ve also seen is the massive amount of very well-funded pressure to shield Israel from any kind of public scrutiny.

You know we just came out of the Durban Review Conference where many in the international community were trying to say, “hey, what’s happening in Israel is not an issue of people just shooting at each other, it’s an issue of institutionalized racism. This is one of the key issues of racism in the world. And but Israel did everything in its power to make sure that it was not mentioned as an issue of racism: to say that Palestinians aren’t facing any racism, there’s a peace process, you know. And so this peace process has been used as a shield. Because they know that we’re talking. We’re talking with the Palestinians in the way that the South African apartheid regime was talking with its Bantustan administrators. In the way, you know, that Washington talks to tribal band leaders on the reservations, right. And so what we really need is a campaign that was started and called for by the vast majority of Palestinian civil society actors across the board–so whether refugees, citizens of Israel, or in the West Bank or Gaza, saying that we want boycott, divestment, and sanctions.

We want people not to buy Israeli products, for companies to remove their investments from Israel, if you’re investing–or your institution, your church or your union, your school, your university is investing–in Israeli companies or companies doing business with Israel, essentially war profiteers, to withdraw those investments and to work towards governments and countries actually imposing sanctions on Israel until the Israeli people, until the Israeli government feels the heat and says, “okay we’re no longer being treated as a normal country, maybe if we acted like a normal country we’d be treated as one.” And what I mean by normal is implementing the basic, most fundamental rights that everybody already agrees with as far as the international community is concerned. You know you look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it’s pretty basic stuff. It’s like I get to live; I get to be free; I get to move; I get to go back to the country, to the place that I’m from; I get to leave the country if I want to knowing that I can come back; I have the right to keep the things that I–you know, my land, without someone coming and kicking me off of it arbitrarily; and I have the right not to live in an apartheid regime, right. Just because I was born to a certain group doesn’t mean that I have to be a victim of racism for my entire life. And so this is what Palestinians are demanding and this is what we’re asking the rest of the world help us do–is to help us overthrow apartheid in Palestine.

NBF: Where can people go for more information on the BDS movement and maybe some of the history that you’ve been talking about this hour?

HJ: Alright so the boycott campaign’s main hub website is bdsmovement.net. For historical information there’s a really good site that’s run out of Chicago, actually, it’s called palestineremembered.com. And you’re always welcome to come and visit our website as well where you can find links to all kinds of other useful information and that’s badil.org.

hazem talked quite a bit about south africans comparing the crime of apartheid in their country to palestine after having visited palestine. i want to share two recent examples of this. the first comes from a report in ma’an news about zeko tamela, who was in palestine this week and who expressed solidarity with palestinians:

He expressed the importance of international support and coordination especially following the recent Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip and the importance of Palestinians to continue with “struggle on all fronts.”

Tamela urged the Palestinians in the room, addressing them as “comrades,” not to compromise on their vision of full justice and equality. He said that the South African anti-Apartheid movement was pressured to reduce its struggle for a demand for civil rights, a claim that can only be made by citizens, as opposed to the struggle “of an oppressed people for liberation.”

“Because of our work the UN declared Apartheid a crime against humanity. Palestinians must do the same, must insist that Zionism is a crime against humanity,” he said.

“We knew that only a united, non-racial democratic South Africa could satisfy us; nothing in between,” he added.

Asked by a journalist what can be done to convince Jewish Israelis that they are participating in an unjust system, he said, “There is no other solution than struggle on all fronts; once they see the struggle is stronger and international solidarity is stronger they will see their cause is going to die.”

the second comes from a story in electronic intifada by arjan el fassed about a south african man who is having a message painted on the apartheid wall that he authored:

“My dear Palestinian brothers and sisters, I have come to your land and I have recognized shades of my own.” These are the first 20 words of an open letter written by Farid Esack, a South African scholar and political activist known for his role in the struggle against apartheid. The total length of his letter is 1,998 carefully chosen words in which he argues that the situation in Palestine is worse than it ever was in South Africa under apartheid rule. Esack, a black South African who worked closely with Nelson Mandela, is astonished at how ordinary people beat about the bush when it comes to Israel and the dispossession and suffering of the Palestinians. “Do ‘objectivity,’ ‘moderation,’ and seeing ‘both sides’ not have limits?” he asks. “Is moderation in matters of clear injustice really a virtue? Do both parties deserve an ‘equal hearing’ in a situation of domestic violence — wherein a woman is beaten up by a male who was abused by his father some time ago — because ‘he,’ too, is a ‘victim?’”

Almost five years after the International Court of Justice declared the wall that Israel built on Palestinian land “illegal” and ruled that it should be dismantled, Palestinians have started to spray-paint Esack’s letter along a three kilometer (1.85 miles) stretch of the structure. This is done as part of the Dutch-Palestinian collaborative project www.sendamessage.nl.

and to be sure it seems that much of what hazem says is catching on as an op ed in ha’aretz by meron benvenisti pointed out today:

Without a doubt, the intense interest is not solely academic or intellectual in nature. The steep decline in Israel’s standing in the wake of its violent actions has spurred attempts to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish state – and even the legitimacy of the Jewish collective in Israel – by advocating a binational formula. Those hostile to Israel have discovered that the call for one state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, a state based on civil and collective equality, is a powerful propaganda tool, because it is based on universal norms that enable critics to denounce Israel as an apartheid state.

Israelis who seek to earnestly examine various models that could serve as the basis of a future sovereign entity at times find themselves being used as fig leaves to cover up efforts to spread anti-Israel propaganda. But this is always the lot of those who pursue new avenues. We should not rule out participating in such a discussion by denouncing it as illegitimate, because it is taking place in the shadow of the reality that has taken hold in the territories and in the midst of a diplomatic stalemate.

Several factors have combined to rouse greater interest in the binational option. First, there is a growing realization that the chances of establishing an independent, viable Palestinian state no longer exist, aside from an entity along the lines of a Bantustan. Second, the status quo that has emerged, though it appears chaotic, is in practice quite stable and could be characterized as de facto binational. Third, the diplomatic positions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government inevitably lead to a diplomatic deadlock and a deepening of the policy of annexation.

Under these circumstances, it appears that the continued preoccupation with establishing a Palestinian state is not just hopeless, but also injurious, since the delusions that it fosters enable the continuation of the status quo.

Nothing serves the interests of Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman better than the demand that they recognize the principle of “two states.” What happens if they agree to it? They do not intend to offer the Palestinians any proposals more generous than those Mahmoud Abbas already turned down in talks with Ehud Olmert. And in the meantime, they would have a free hand to expand settlements. Even the impassioned pleas for the Obama administration to finally enforce the “road map” lead to the same smokescreen of imagined progress toward a dead end.

But if the fictitious option is taken off the table, the real dilemmas will finally be revealed. And this is precisely what the talk of a binational state seeks to accomplish.