By PETER B. BACH and ROBERT KOCHER
New York Times Opinion
Published: May 28, 2011
DOCTORS are among the most richly rewarded professionals in the country. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that of the 15 highest-paid professions in the United States, all but two are in medicine or dentistry.
Why, then, are we proposing to make medical school free?
Huge medical school debts — doctors now graduate owing more than $155,000 on average, and 86 percent have some debt — are why so many doctors shun primary care in favor of highly paid specialties, where there are incentives to give expensive treatments and order expensive tests, an important driver of rising health care costs.
Fixing our health care system will be impossible without a larger pool of competent primary care doctors who can make sure specialists work together in the treatment of their patients — not in isolation, as they often do today — and keep track of patients as they move among settings like private residences, hospitals and nursing homes. Moreover, our population is growing and aging; the American Academy of Family Physicians has estimated a shortfall of 40,000 primary care doctors by 2020. Given the years it takes to train a doctor, we need to start now.
Making medical school free would relieve doctors of the burden of student debt and gradually shift the work force away from specialties and toward primary care. It would also attract college graduates who are discouraged from going to medical school by the costly tuition.
We estimate that we can make medical school free for roughly $2.5 billion per year — about one-thousandth of what we spend on health care in the United States each year. What’s more, we can offset most if not all of the cost of medical school without the government’s help by charging doctors for specialty training.
Under today’s system, all medical students have to pay for their training, whether they plan to become pediatricians or neurosurgeons. They are then paid salaries during the crucial years of internship and residency that turn them into competent doctors. If they decide to extend their years of training to become specialists, they receive a stipend during those years, too.
But under our plan, medical school tuition, which averages $38,000 per year, would be waived. Doctors choosing training in primary care, whether they plan to go on later to specialize or not, would continue to receive the stipends they receive today. But those who want to get specialty training would have to forgo much or all of their stipends, $50,000 on average. Because there are nearly as many doctors enrolled in specialty training in the United States (about 66,000) as there are students in United States medical schools (about 67,000), the forgone stipends would cover all the tuition costs.
While this may seem like a lot to ask of future specialists, these same doctors will have paid nothing for medical school and, through their specialty training, would be virtually assured highly lucrative jobs. Today’s specialists earn a median of $325,000 per year by one estimate, 70 percent more than the $190,000 that a primary care doctor makes. (Although a large shift away from specialty training may weaken the ability of our plan to remain self-financed, the benefits would make any needed tuition subsidies well worth it.)
Our proposal is not the first to attempt to shift doctors toward primary care, but it’s the most ambitious. The National Health Service Corps helps doctors repay their loans in exchange for a commitment to work in an underserved area, but few doctors sign up. The National Institutes of Health offers a similar program to promote work in research and public health, but this creates more researchers, not more practitioners.
Many states have loan forgiveness programs for doctors entering primary care. The health care reform law contains incentive programs that will include bonuses for primary care doctors who treat Medicare patients, and help finance a small increase in primary care training positions.
Our proposal is certain to raise objections. Because some hospitals that provide training to specialists are not associated with medical schools, we will need a system to redistribute the specialty training fees and medical school subsidies. Several entities that have not collaborated before, including the organizations that license specialty training programs and medical school associations, would have to work together to manage this. For the plan to work, it will also be critical that medical schools do not start raising tuitions just because people other than their students are footing the bill.
Our plan would not directly address the chronic wage gap between primary care providers and specialists. But efforts to equalize incomes have been stymied for decades by specialists, who have kept payment rates for procedures higher than those for primary care services. When Medicare has stepped in, most of the increases given to primary care have been diluted by byzantine budgetary rules that cap total spending.
Nothing in our plan would diminish the quality of medical school education. If anything, free tuition would increase the quality of the applicants. Neither would our approach quash the creativity of medical schools in developing curriculums. Medical students would still be required to pass the various licensing examinations and complete patient care rotations as they are today.
Critics might object to providing free medical education when students have to pay for most other types of advanced training. But the process of training doctors is unlike any other, and much of the costs are already borne by others. Hospitals that house medical residents and specialist trainees receive payments from the taxpayer, through Medicare. Patients give of their time and of their bodies in our nation’s teaching hospitals so that doctors in training can become skilled practitioners.
We need a better way of paying for medical training, to address the looming shortage of primary care doctors and to better match the costs of specialty training to the income it delivers. Taking the counterintuitive step of making medical education free, while charging those doctors who want to gain specialty training, is a straightforward way of achieving both goals.
Peter B. Bach, a senior adviser at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from 2005 to 2006, is the director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Robert Kocher, a special assistant to President Obama on health care and economic policy from 2009 to 2010, is a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. They are both doctors.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Gaza gets gateway to the world
Egypt lifts four-year blockade on Rafah post bringing relief to 1.5m Palestinians
Gulf News
By Nasser Najjar, Correspondent
Published: 00:00 May 29, 2011
Palestinians pass through the Rafah Egypt-Gaza border crossing yesterday. Hundreds of men, women and children headed to the Rafah crossing, most intending to travel to Cairo for medical treatment, studies or business.
Gaza: Hundreds of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip flocked to enter Egypt via the Rafah border crossing as it reopened Saturday after a four-year closure.
Among the first to cross the coastal enclave's only border post not controlled by Israel were two ambulances ferrying patients from the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip for treatment in Egypt, as well as a bus carrying 50 visitors.
"I never took a vacation before. The only time I left Gaza was for medical reasons. I had to pay a lot of money to the Egyptian police and it was very humiliating," Mohammad Abd Al A'al told Gulf News.
Egypt lifted a four-year-old blockade on the Gaza Strip's main link to the outside world Saturday, bringing relief to the crowded territory's 1.5 million Palestinians but deepening a rift with Israel since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.
The Egyptian move will allow thousands of Gazans to move freely in and out of the area that has been under prison-like siege for years.
Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade after Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007. The closure, which also included tight Israeli restrictions at its cargo crossings with Gaza and a naval blockade, was meant to weaken Hamas, but it also fuelled an economic crisis in the densely populated territory.
First bus
Hundreds of Gazans gathered early Saturday as the first busload of passengers crossed the border at 9am. Two Egyptian officers stood guard next to a large Egyptian flag atop the border gate as the vehicle rumbled through.
Rami Arafat, 52, was among the earliest arrivals. "All we need is to travel like humans, be treated with dignity, and feel like any other citizens of the world who can travel freely," Arafat said. Nearby, 28-year-old Khalid Halaweh said he was headed to Egypt to study engineering at Alexandria University.
"The closure did not affect only the travel of passengers or the flow of goods. Our brains and our thoughts were under blockade," said Halaweh, who said he hadn't been out of Gaza for seven years.
UAE calls for state on 1967 borders
The UAE called on the members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to work towards the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders so that Palestine can take its seat at the next session of the UN General Assembly.
Addressing the 16th NAM ministerial meeting in Bali on Friday, Dr Saeed Mohammad Al Shamsi, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organisation Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said peace will never prevail in the Middle East as long as the Palestinians are denied the right to establish their state on borders that existed on June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Al Shamsi said permanent peace requires Israel's withdrawal from all the occupied Arab lands including Golan Heights and the occupied lands of Lebanon.
In a joint statement, NAM ministers "reaffirmed the long-standing international consensus recognising the Palestinian people as a nation and recognising their inalienable right to self-determination".
— with inputs from WAM
Gulf News
By Nasser Najjar, Correspondent
Published: 00:00 May 29, 2011
Palestinians pass through the Rafah Egypt-Gaza border crossing yesterday. Hundreds of men, women and children headed to the Rafah crossing, most intending to travel to Cairo for medical treatment, studies or business.
Gaza: Hundreds of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip flocked to enter Egypt via the Rafah border crossing as it reopened Saturday after a four-year closure.
Among the first to cross the coastal enclave's only border post not controlled by Israel were two ambulances ferrying patients from the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip for treatment in Egypt, as well as a bus carrying 50 visitors.
"I never took a vacation before. The only time I left Gaza was for medical reasons. I had to pay a lot of money to the Egyptian police and it was very humiliating," Mohammad Abd Al A'al told Gulf News.
Egypt lifted a four-year-old blockade on the Gaza Strip's main link to the outside world Saturday, bringing relief to the crowded territory's 1.5 million Palestinians but deepening a rift with Israel since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.
The Egyptian move will allow thousands of Gazans to move freely in and out of the area that has been under prison-like siege for years.
Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade after Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007. The closure, which also included tight Israeli restrictions at its cargo crossings with Gaza and a naval blockade, was meant to weaken Hamas, but it also fuelled an economic crisis in the densely populated territory.
First bus
Hundreds of Gazans gathered early Saturday as the first busload of passengers crossed the border at 9am. Two Egyptian officers stood guard next to a large Egyptian flag atop the border gate as the vehicle rumbled through.
Rami Arafat, 52, was among the earliest arrivals. "All we need is to travel like humans, be treated with dignity, and feel like any other citizens of the world who can travel freely," Arafat said. Nearby, 28-year-old Khalid Halaweh said he was headed to Egypt to study engineering at Alexandria University.
"The closure did not affect only the travel of passengers or the flow of goods. Our brains and our thoughts were under blockade," said Halaweh, who said he hadn't been out of Gaza for seven years.
UAE calls for state on 1967 borders
The UAE called on the members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to work towards the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders so that Palestine can take its seat at the next session of the UN General Assembly.
Addressing the 16th NAM ministerial meeting in Bali on Friday, Dr Saeed Mohammad Al Shamsi, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organisation Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said peace will never prevail in the Middle East as long as the Palestinians are denied the right to establish their state on borders that existed on June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Al Shamsi said permanent peace requires Israel's withdrawal from all the occupied Arab lands including Golan Heights and the occupied lands of Lebanon.
In a joint statement, NAM ministers "reaffirmed the long-standing international consensus recognising the Palestinian people as a nation and recognising their inalienable right to self-determination".
— with inputs from WAM
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Netanyahu's Congress speech could set Middle East peace back another 18 years
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech to Congress yesterday offered only more obstacles to lasting peace in the Middle East. He not only failed to provide a vision for the peace process, but he also introduced new terms and phrases that are likely to hamper future peace efforts.
Christian Science Monitor
By Ibrahim Sharqieh / May 25, 2011
Doha, Qatar
Taking advantage of his New York accent while addressing Congress on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an eloquent speech offering only more obstacles to a lasting and just peace in the Middle East. He not only failed to provide a vision for the peace process in a changing Middle East, but also introduced new terms and phrases that will probably hamper any peace efforts in the future.
While Mr. Netanyahu demanded that a final agreement not be made along “indefensible lines,” he failed to define what borders he would consider “defensible.” Indeed, defining this term alone would require several rounds of negotiations. This issue of defensible borders is particularly complicated in today’s world, where technology plays an increasingly important role, as mentioned by President Obama and as evidenced by the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions.
Even if one follows the traditional definition of defensible boundaries, it remains unclear what would satisfy Netanyahu’s definition. This vagueness sets a dangerous precedent, which is capable of providing a pretext for Netanyahu to annex the entire Palestinian territories and still argue that the borders are not defensible.
What are 'generous offers' and 'painful compromises'?
Though he has categorically rejected them in the past, Netanyahu also referred to the “generous offers” made by two Israeli Prime Ministers to argue that peace is not possible with the Palestinians. What he considers to being a “generous offer” is in fact what the Palestine Papers revealed to be merely a map presented to Palestinian President Abbas, which he was reportedly allowed to take down on only a napkin.
Netanyahu’s treatment of this as a “generous offer” sets yet another dangerous precedent. Since the Israeli prime minister has rejected such border offers in the past, he is now likely referring to an offer that is most likely to be even less generous than a map on a napkin.
Furthermore, Netanyahu repeatedly used the term “painful compromises” without ever explaining what the phrase meant. Netanyahu’s political history does not indicate to what extent he would be willing to engage in what he calls a “painful compromise” to reach peace with the Palestinians.
For someone with his right-wing political agenda, withdrawal from any part of the West Bank could be seen as a “painful compromise.” This deliberate ambiguity makes the quest for peace even more elusive, as we are left to chase definitions of terms rather than begin negotiations on final status issues and create a possible peace plan.
Christian Science Monitor
By Ibrahim Sharqieh / May 25, 2011
Doha, Qatar
Taking advantage of his New York accent while addressing Congress on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an eloquent speech offering only more obstacles to a lasting and just peace in the Middle East. He not only failed to provide a vision for the peace process in a changing Middle East, but also introduced new terms and phrases that will probably hamper any peace efforts in the future.
While Mr. Netanyahu demanded that a final agreement not be made along “indefensible lines,” he failed to define what borders he would consider “defensible.” Indeed, defining this term alone would require several rounds of negotiations. This issue of defensible borders is particularly complicated in today’s world, where technology plays an increasingly important role, as mentioned by President Obama and as evidenced by the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions.
Even if one follows the traditional definition of defensible boundaries, it remains unclear what would satisfy Netanyahu’s definition. This vagueness sets a dangerous precedent, which is capable of providing a pretext for Netanyahu to annex the entire Palestinian territories and still argue that the borders are not defensible.
What are 'generous offers' and 'painful compromises'?
Though he has categorically rejected them in the past, Netanyahu also referred to the “generous offers” made by two Israeli Prime Ministers to argue that peace is not possible with the Palestinians. What he considers to being a “generous offer” is in fact what the Palestine Papers revealed to be merely a map presented to Palestinian President Abbas, which he was reportedly allowed to take down on only a napkin.
Netanyahu’s treatment of this as a “generous offer” sets yet another dangerous precedent. Since the Israeli prime minister has rejected such border offers in the past, he is now likely referring to an offer that is most likely to be even less generous than a map on a napkin.
Furthermore, Netanyahu repeatedly used the term “painful compromises” without ever explaining what the phrase meant. Netanyahu’s political history does not indicate to what extent he would be willing to engage in what he calls a “painful compromise” to reach peace with the Palestinians.
For someone with his right-wing political agenda, withdrawal from any part of the West Bank could be seen as a “painful compromise.” This deliberate ambiguity makes the quest for peace even more elusive, as we are left to chase definitions of terms rather than begin negotiations on final status issues and create a possible peace plan.
Without talks, Palestinians to head to UN: Abbas
(AFP) – 45 minutes ago
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories — Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday slammed a speech by Israel's prime minister and said the Palestinians would seek UN recognition if peace talks don't resume.
Mahmud Abbas (AFP/File, Abbas Momani)
"Our first choice is negotiations, but if there is no progress before September we will go to the United Nations," Abbas said, criticising a speech by Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu to the US Congress on Tuesday.
In his address, Netanyahu repeated a litany of well-known Israeli demands of the Palestinians but broke no new political ground nor did he offer any incentives for breaking the deadlock in peace talks.
Netanyahu's words were "a long way from the peace process" and contained "errors and distortions," the Palestinian leader told reporters in Ramallah.
The Israeli leader, who addressed Congress on the last day of a trip to Washington, said he was willing to make "painful compromises" for peace.
But he ruled out a division of Jerusalem, the return of Palestinian refugees, and the possibility of using the borders that existed before 1967 as a basis for peace negotiations.
In a key policy speech on Thursday, US President Barack Obama called for new talks based on the armistice lines in place before the 1967 Six Day War.
But Netanyahu used the trip to reject the 1967 lines as "indefensible" and insist that Israel would never accept them as a basis for negotiations.
Earlier on Wednesday, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told reporters that Netanyahu's speech showed that "Israel's government is not a partner ... in the peace process.
"He has already decided the outcome of the negotiations on final status issued without talks and by laying down dictates," Erakat added.
Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories — Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday slammed a speech by Israel's prime minister and said the Palestinians would seek UN recognition if peace talks don't resume.
Mahmud Abbas (AFP/File, Abbas Momani)
"Our first choice is negotiations, but if there is no progress before September we will go to the United Nations," Abbas said, criticising a speech by Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu to the US Congress on Tuesday.
In his address, Netanyahu repeated a litany of well-known Israeli demands of the Palestinians but broke no new political ground nor did he offer any incentives for breaking the deadlock in peace talks.
Netanyahu's words were "a long way from the peace process" and contained "errors and distortions," the Palestinian leader told reporters in Ramallah.
The Israeli leader, who addressed Congress on the last day of a trip to Washington, said he was willing to make "painful compromises" for peace.
But he ruled out a division of Jerusalem, the return of Palestinian refugees, and the possibility of using the borders that existed before 1967 as a basis for peace negotiations.
In a key policy speech on Thursday, US President Barack Obama called for new talks based on the armistice lines in place before the 1967 Six Day War.
But Netanyahu used the trip to reject the 1967 lines as "indefensible" and insist that Israel would never accept them as a basis for negotiations.
Earlier on Wednesday, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told reporters that Netanyahu's speech showed that "Israel's government is not a partner ... in the peace process.
"He has already decided the outcome of the negotiations on final status issued without talks and by laying down dictates," Erakat added.
Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.
Netanyahu Congress speech raises few hopes
JERUSALEM | Wed May 25, 2011 5:49am EDT
(Reuters) - Palestinians and Israelis alike saw little prospect of a fresh start to Middle East peace talks on Wednesday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's keynote speech to Congress.
At a Washington encounter with sympathetic U.S. lawmakers, Netanyahu pleased core supporters while offering nothing new to secure peace with the Palestinians, in the assessment of most media commentators.
Invited by the Republican opponents of President Barack Obama, Netanyahu won standing ovations as he extolled Israel's democracy and military self-reliance while rejecting any Palestinian state based on Israel's pre-1967 borders.
He ruled out dividing Jerusalem and urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to shun the Islamist Hamas movement, promising to be "generous" with West Bank land if Abbas would make peace. But he pledged to keep control of the Jordan Valley.
Palestinians said it was a familiar offer of "leftovers" that could not divert them from their new strategy of seeking majority United Nations recognition of Palestinian statehood at the General Assembly in September.
"Netanyahu is the best spokesman Israel has in the United States," wrote Nahum Barnea in Yedioth Ahronoth. "All Israelis love America ... and the members of Congress love Israel."
American-educated Netanyahu chose exactly the right tone and used idioms like a native to create the right atmosphere in the packed chamber.
"Regrettably, members of Congress will not be there when Israel gets into trouble," Barnea said.
"Their engagement in foreign policy is marginal. Their influence on foreign affairs is small. And mainly, it is not they who will look for shelter in Ashkelon or Beersheba if rocket fire is resumed" by Hamas in Gaza.
TOP OF POLL
Obama, currently on a visit to Europe, has won international support for the principles he set out in a major policy speech last week to revive the moribund Mideast peace process.
Abbas is due to consult Arab states at the weekend on how to respond to the initiative.
Israel's daily Maariv published a poll showing about 57 percent of voters believe Netanyahu should have supported Obama's initiative rather than opposing Obama.
But the poll also showed Netanyahu was still Israel's most popular political leader.
"Netanyahu knows very well that the conditions that he set yesterday for a peace process are a complete non-starter," wrote Maariv's Ben Caspit.
"There is no Palestinian in the world who will accept them, there is no Arab state in the world that will support them, there is not a single person in Europe who will take them seriously, and they will only make Barack Obama angry."
Caspit also made the point that in the United States, foreign policy is set by the President, not Congress.
"Nobody in the world will change their attitude toward Benjamin Netanyahu as a result of this speech. Nobody will change their attitude toward Israel as a result of this speech. Peace will not break out as a result of this speech. No peace outline was presented in this speech," he concluded.
(Writing by Douglas Hamilton; editing by Ralph Boulton)
(Reuters) - Palestinians and Israelis alike saw little prospect of a fresh start to Middle East peace talks on Wednesday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's keynote speech to Congress.
At a Washington encounter with sympathetic U.S. lawmakers, Netanyahu pleased core supporters while offering nothing new to secure peace with the Palestinians, in the assessment of most media commentators.
Invited by the Republican opponents of President Barack Obama, Netanyahu won standing ovations as he extolled Israel's democracy and military self-reliance while rejecting any Palestinian state based on Israel's pre-1967 borders.
He ruled out dividing Jerusalem and urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to shun the Islamist Hamas movement, promising to be "generous" with West Bank land if Abbas would make peace. But he pledged to keep control of the Jordan Valley.
Palestinians said it was a familiar offer of "leftovers" that could not divert them from their new strategy of seeking majority United Nations recognition of Palestinian statehood at the General Assembly in September.
"Netanyahu is the best spokesman Israel has in the United States," wrote Nahum Barnea in Yedioth Ahronoth. "All Israelis love America ... and the members of Congress love Israel."
American-educated Netanyahu chose exactly the right tone and used idioms like a native to create the right atmosphere in the packed chamber.
"Regrettably, members of Congress will not be there when Israel gets into trouble," Barnea said.
"Their engagement in foreign policy is marginal. Their influence on foreign affairs is small. And mainly, it is not they who will look for shelter in Ashkelon or Beersheba if rocket fire is resumed" by Hamas in Gaza.
TOP OF POLL
Obama, currently on a visit to Europe, has won international support for the principles he set out in a major policy speech last week to revive the moribund Mideast peace process.
Abbas is due to consult Arab states at the weekend on how to respond to the initiative.
Israel's daily Maariv published a poll showing about 57 percent of voters believe Netanyahu should have supported Obama's initiative rather than opposing Obama.
But the poll also showed Netanyahu was still Israel's most popular political leader.
"Netanyahu knows very well that the conditions that he set yesterday for a peace process are a complete non-starter," wrote Maariv's Ben Caspit.
"There is no Palestinian in the world who will accept them, there is no Arab state in the world that will support them, there is not a single person in Europe who will take them seriously, and they will only make Barack Obama angry."
Caspit also made the point that in the United States, foreign policy is set by the President, not Congress.
"Nobody in the world will change their attitude toward Benjamin Netanyahu as a result of this speech. Nobody will change their attitude toward Israel as a result of this speech. Peace will not break out as a result of this speech. No peace outline was presented in this speech," he concluded.
(Writing by Douglas Hamilton; editing by Ralph Boulton)
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Change we make
Change we make
President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke to the Israel
lobby in Washington essentially promising to liquidate the central struggle
for freedom today. Politicians whether Hosni Mubarak or Netanyahu or Obama
do not change their behavior unless we the people change ourselves and
decide to take matters into our own hands. We the people in the Arab world
and all people of conscience are doing so and we urge you to join us in this
summer of change.
Palestinian civil society organizations applaud the Freedom Flotilla that
will again, in June, challenge the brutal and illegal siege of the people of
Gaza. Decent people around the world will be working in support of this
international initiative. While we rightly focus on Gaza we must not forget
that Israeli colonial authorities are implementing their racist apartheid
policies throughout historic Palestine. In the West Bank (including East
Jerusalem) and in the Negev and the Galilee, ethnic cleansing and
killing/injuring civilians are just some of the many violations of basic
human rights. The aim is always to keep us isolated as well as divided, the
better to achieve the goal of dispossessing us.
We call on civil society organizations and people of conscience around the
world to support and join the other important challenges this summer to the
Israeli apartheid system. After the very successful events on May 15, there
are now two dates of significance: June 5 and July 8-16. On June 5, again,
there is a call for everyone to converge on borders and on checkpoints
throughout Palestine and on embassies and consulates of the apartheid state
everywhere in the world.
We will also have a week of solidarity and action 8 - 16 July. Hundreds of
men, women and children will fly into Tel Aviv airport to visit us in
Palestine. The international community must recognize our basic human right
to receive visitors from abroad and support the right of their own citizens
to travel to Palestine without harassment. Where Israel works to isolate us,
we invite you to join with us openly and proudly as the decent human beings
you are. We do not accept the attempts to keep us apart or to force you to
speak less than with the honesty you are used to.
You will be accommodated locally. You will enjoy Palestinian hospitality and
a program of networking, fellowship, and volunteer peace work in Palestinian
towns and villages. Local activist groups in Europe and in the United States
have organized delegations and hundreds have booked their flights. Once here
much can be done. See this tape about a previous visit organized by our
group
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rif2ZSSeRok
or
http://www.europalestine.com/spip.php?article5786
Dozens of local groups and popular resistance committees* have sponsored the
events and many have been working hard on mobilizing locally. But this work
will need to be intensified to make it a great success that it will be with
your help. We could use all kind of volunteer help (locally and
internationally). Volunteers with different backgrounds and with varied
skills or those willing to be trained are welcome. Email us at
info@palestinejn.org with your name, location,
and background so that you can join us to be part of this practical response
to the machinations of politics.
Sponsoring local groups in Palestine
[Local list in formation. Many international groups joined us and organized
delegations. Send us name and contact of your organization/group if you
would like to join]
Al-Rowwad Cultural and Theatre Training Centre,
www.alrowwad-acts.ps
Alternative Information Center - AIC -
www.alternativenews.org
Ansar Youth Center, Al-Walaja
BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights:
Bil'in Popular Resistance Committee
www.bilin-village.org
Friends of Freedom and Justice, Bil'in
www.bilin-ffj.org
Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign
www.stopthewall.org
Handala Center - www.handalla-center.org
Holy Land Trust: www.holylandtrust.org
Ibdaa Cultural Center
www.dheisheh-ibdaa.net
International Solidarity Movement:
www.palsolidarity.org
Open Bethlehem: www.openbethlehem.org
Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People
www.PCR.PS
Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center (Wi'am)
www.alaslah.org
Palestine Justice Network www.palestinejn.org
Palestine Medical Relief Society www.pmrs.ps
Palestine Solidarity Project
www.palestinesolidarityproject.org
Phoenix Center, Dheisheh Camp
www.phoenixbethlehem.org
Popular Struggle Coordinating Committee
www.popularstruggle.org
Siraj Center for Holy Land Studies,
www.sirajcenter.org
Youth Against Settlements (Hebron)
Youth Activity Center - Aida Camp www.key1948.org
and popular resistance committees in 12 Palestinian villages and towns so
far
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
http://qumsiyeh.org
http://palestinejn.org
http://pcr.ps
http://IMEMC.or
http://www.alrowwad-acts.ps
President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke to the Israel
lobby in Washington essentially promising to liquidate the central struggle
for freedom today. Politicians whether Hosni Mubarak or Netanyahu or Obama
do not change their behavior unless we the people change ourselves and
decide to take matters into our own hands. We the people in the Arab world
and all people of conscience are doing so and we urge you to join us in this
summer of change.
Palestinian civil society organizations applaud the Freedom Flotilla that
will again, in June, challenge the brutal and illegal siege of the people of
Gaza. Decent people around the world will be working in support of this
international initiative. While we rightly focus on Gaza we must not forget
that Israeli colonial authorities are implementing their racist apartheid
policies throughout historic Palestine. In the West Bank (including East
Jerusalem) and in the Negev and the Galilee, ethnic cleansing and
killing/injuring civilians are just some of the many violations of basic
human rights. The aim is always to keep us isolated as well as divided, the
better to achieve the goal of dispossessing us.
We call on civil society organizations and people of conscience around the
world to support and join the other important challenges this summer to the
Israeli apartheid system. After the very successful events on May 15, there
are now two dates of significance: June 5 and July 8-16. On June 5, again,
there is a call for everyone to converge on borders and on checkpoints
throughout Palestine and on embassies and consulates of the apartheid state
everywhere in the world.
We will also have a week of solidarity and action 8 - 16 July. Hundreds of
men, women and children will fly into Tel Aviv airport to visit us in
Palestine. The international community must recognize our basic human right
to receive visitors from abroad and support the right of their own citizens
to travel to Palestine without harassment. Where Israel works to isolate us,
we invite you to join with us openly and proudly as the decent human beings
you are. We do not accept the attempts to keep us apart or to force you to
speak less than with the honesty you are used to.
You will be accommodated locally. You will enjoy Palestinian hospitality and
a program of networking, fellowship, and volunteer peace work in Palestinian
towns and villages. Local activist groups in Europe and in the United States
have organized delegations and hundreds have booked their flights. Once here
much can be done. See this tape about a previous visit organized by our
group
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rif2ZSSeRok
or
http://www.europalestine.com/spip.php?article5786
Dozens of local groups and popular resistance committees* have sponsored the
events and many have been working hard on mobilizing locally. But this work
will need to be intensified to make it a great success that it will be with
your help. We could use all kind of volunteer help (locally and
internationally). Volunteers with different backgrounds and with varied
skills or those willing to be trained are welcome. Email us at
and background so that you can join us to be part of this practical response
to the machinations of politics.
Sponsoring local groups in Palestine
[Local list in formation. Many international groups joined us and organized
delegations. Send us name and contact of your organization/group if you
would like to join]
Al-Rowwad Cultural and Theatre Training Centre,
Alternative Information Center - AIC -
www.alternativenews.org
Ansar Youth Center, Al-Walaja
BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights:
Bil'in Popular Resistance Committee
www.bilin-village.org
Friends of Freedom and Justice, Bil'in
www.bilin-ffj.org
Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign
Handala Center -
Holy Land Trust:
Ibdaa Cultural Center
www.dheisheh-ibdaa.net
International Solidarity Movement:
www.palsolidarity.org
Open Bethlehem:
Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People
www.PCR.PS
Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center (Wi'am)
www.alaslah.org
Palestine Justice Network
Palestine Medical Relief Society
Palestine Solidarity Project
www.palestinesolidarityproject.org
Phoenix Center, Dheisheh Camp
www.phoenixbethlehem.org
Popular Struggle Coordinating Committee
www.popularstruggle.org
Siraj Center for Holy Land Studies,
www.sirajcenter.org
Youth Against Settlements (Hebron)
Youth Activity Center - Aida Camp
and popular resistance committees in 12 Palestinian villages and towns so
far
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Obama's empty rhetoric on Israel
The Guardian
Monday 23 May 2011
Letters
Obama's speech was disappointing (Obama tells Arab dictators: change or go, 20 May); he is prepared to support a radical approach across the region but not in Israel-Palestine. Instead we have the 1967 borders "with mutually agreed swaps", which would reward Israel for its illegal settlement policy; a "non-militarised" Palestinian state, which would be at the mercy of the Israel Defence Forces; Israel as a "Jewish state", which would mean that we'd probably see population "transfer" to accompany the land swaps; and, of course, US commitment to Israel's security is "unshakeable".
letters illustration 2305 Illustration: Gary Kempston
These starting points will, inevitably, be whittled down during negotiations. And yet as he prepared to meet Binyamin Netanyahu, Obama could have picked up on a statement made by the Israeli prime minister and proposed something really radical as the starting point which would leave all parties with room to manoeuvre. In response to Mahmoud Abbas's New York Times op-ed last week, Netanyahu boasted about the "Jewish leadership" accepting the 1947 UN partition plan for Palestine; call his bluff, Obama, and suggest that that plan is a good place to begin discussions, including Jerusalem being run by an international body. Netanyahu may well agree that the 1967 borders suddenly look very tempting.
Ibrahim Hewitt
Senior editor, Middle East Monitor
• Barack Obama is all mouth and no trousers. Once again he says he favours a peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis, and once again he does nothing whatsoever to bring it about.
Indeed, the White House specifically supported the Israeli action against Palestinian demonstrators on 15 May, in which 14 Palestinians were murdered by Israeli troops. You refer to the sanctimonious speech by Obama in Cairo two years ago. What happened afterwards? Zilch. What will happen after this latest self-satisfied sermon? Zilch. The Palestinians will be left to fend for themselves until the Arab spring really takes hold in their homeland.
Gerald Kaufman MP
Labour, Manchester Gorton
• There seems to be some confusion about how "explicitly and in public" past US presidents have called for a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine based on the pre-1967 borders (Obama and Netanyahu a long way apart over president's Middle East peace plans, 21 May). In fact, it was very explicitly and publicly the basis of the roadmap proposed by George W Bush in 2003 – even if his motives were to buy off some critics of his Iraq policy.
Rob Wall
Bedford
• Ian Black states (20 May) that "UN resolution 242 of 1967 calls for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces 'from territories occupied in the recent conflict'" and that therefore "The absence of a definite article has sometimes been interpreted as suggesting that Israel could keep some of those territories". The only parties to give that interpretation are the Israeli government and the US. Moreover, the UN's other five official languages – French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese, all of which have equal legal status with English – use the definite form. Overwhelming international and legal opinion is against the US-Israeli interpretation.
Andrea Teti
University of Aberdeen
• James Zogby (Comment, 19 May) is right to highlight President Obama's lack of substance on the Palestine-Israel issue. But the reality is that however genuine a US president might be in wanting to act as honest broker, the forces of bigotry and bias lined up behind Israel in the US are overwhelming. Of course the Palestinians know this only too well, and it is their bond with Arab neighbours who suddenly find themselves free of US-backed dictators that holds out real hope for a fair and just resolution to decades of struggle.
Graham Simmonds
London
• There is one simple way to get Israel to agree to President Obama's plan that its borders should be set at the 1967 boundaries: for the US to withdraw the cash that bankrolls the Israeli state. In the long term, returning to the 1967 borders would increase Israel's security and that of the Middle East as a whole.
Valerie Crews
Beckenham, Kent
Monday 23 May 2011
Letters
Obama's speech was disappointing (Obama tells Arab dictators: change or go, 20 May); he is prepared to support a radical approach across the region but not in Israel-Palestine. Instead we have the 1967 borders "with mutually agreed swaps", which would reward Israel for its illegal settlement policy; a "non-militarised" Palestinian state, which would be at the mercy of the Israel Defence Forces; Israel as a "Jewish state", which would mean that we'd probably see population "transfer" to accompany the land swaps; and, of course, US commitment to Israel's security is "unshakeable".
letters illustration 2305 Illustration: Gary Kempston
These starting points will, inevitably, be whittled down during negotiations. And yet as he prepared to meet Binyamin Netanyahu, Obama could have picked up on a statement made by the Israeli prime minister and proposed something really radical as the starting point which would leave all parties with room to manoeuvre. In response to Mahmoud Abbas's New York Times op-ed last week, Netanyahu boasted about the "Jewish leadership" accepting the 1947 UN partition plan for Palestine; call his bluff, Obama, and suggest that that plan is a good place to begin discussions, including Jerusalem being run by an international body. Netanyahu may well agree that the 1967 borders suddenly look very tempting.
Ibrahim Hewitt
Senior editor, Middle East Monitor
• Barack Obama is all mouth and no trousers. Once again he says he favours a peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis, and once again he does nothing whatsoever to bring it about.
Indeed, the White House specifically supported the Israeli action against Palestinian demonstrators on 15 May, in which 14 Palestinians were murdered by Israeli troops. You refer to the sanctimonious speech by Obama in Cairo two years ago. What happened afterwards? Zilch. What will happen after this latest self-satisfied sermon? Zilch. The Palestinians will be left to fend for themselves until the Arab spring really takes hold in their homeland.
Gerald Kaufman MP
Labour, Manchester Gorton
• There seems to be some confusion about how "explicitly and in public" past US presidents have called for a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine based on the pre-1967 borders (Obama and Netanyahu a long way apart over president's Middle East peace plans, 21 May). In fact, it was very explicitly and publicly the basis of the roadmap proposed by George W Bush in 2003 – even if his motives were to buy off some critics of his Iraq policy.
Rob Wall
Bedford
• Ian Black states (20 May) that "UN resolution 242 of 1967 calls for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces 'from territories occupied in the recent conflict'" and that therefore "The absence of a definite article has sometimes been interpreted as suggesting that Israel could keep some of those territories". The only parties to give that interpretation are the Israeli government and the US. Moreover, the UN's other five official languages – French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese, all of which have equal legal status with English – use the definite form. Overwhelming international and legal opinion is against the US-Israeli interpretation.
Andrea Teti
University of Aberdeen
• James Zogby (Comment, 19 May) is right to highlight President Obama's lack of substance on the Palestine-Israel issue. But the reality is that however genuine a US president might be in wanting to act as honest broker, the forces of bigotry and bias lined up behind Israel in the US are overwhelming. Of course the Palestinians know this only too well, and it is their bond with Arab neighbours who suddenly find themselves free of US-backed dictators that holds out real hope for a fair and just resolution to decades of struggle.
Graham Simmonds
London
• There is one simple way to get Israel to agree to President Obama's plan that its borders should be set at the 1967 boundaries: for the US to withdraw the cash that bankrolls the Israeli state. In the long term, returning to the 1967 borders would increase Israel's security and that of the Middle East as a whole.
Valerie Crews
Beckenham, Kent
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Act for new one-state
From: Mazin Qumsiyeh
Please consider joining this action call and forward to those who you think
might join (Israelis and Palestinians). Mazin
Many people of good faith yearn for a future that is a joint democratic
pluralistic state that encompasses all of the historic land of Palestine
(currently the political entities of the apartheid State of Israel and the
post-1967 Israeli occupied Palestinian Territories). It is time to put our
beliefs into practice by bringing together all these people to effect the
needed transformation socially and politically. We call on you to join us to
formulate all the needed mechanisms for this transformation. We are seeking
local and international legal experts to draft a constitution for our joint
future state and we are seeking activists with other skills (media,
lobbying, civil disobedience etc) to translate the vision into reality. In
our joint future state, Palestinian Refugees will have the right to return
to their homes and lands and to receive reparation for their suffering as
supported by UNGA resolution 194. Return and self-determination are key
pillars of peace based on justice. The validity of all actual laws and
policies will be subject to this constitution with a bill of rights. This
constitution is founded on the critical principle that all people who live
in historic Palestine as well as Palestinians who will realise their
inalienable right of return will have an effective equality of citizenship
and will enjoy fundamental rights and freedoms as articulated in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Substantively and procedurally, the constitution and structures to effect
the needed transformation will be modified and adopted only via
democratically structured institutions and, in this vein, we support efforts
to reconstitute the Palestine National Council on democratic and
representative foundations for all Palestinians regardless of where they
currently live. The constitution will enable constant contestation of actual
laws ensuring that structures of power never entrench themselves.
Equal citizenship will have the result that present apartheid-based laws
will be abrogated and future social and economic rights will never again be
attached to any patterned and structured identity test that necessarily
results in discrimination, oppression and domination of those who do not
pass it. We believe in popular resistance and an anti-Apartheid struggle to
achieve our collective goals. We will build on the previous initiatives and
conferences that focused on one state solutions. We urge the international
community to support us in ending Israeli apartheid and achieving our goal
of one democratic state via the use of Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions
(BDS) and all other means of pressure as articulated in the Palestinian
Civil Society Call to Action 2005.
If you would like to join us, go to
http://www.palestinejn.org/component/content/article/47-ongoing/124-join-the
-one-state-initiative . By signing, you agree to the use of your name and to
the outline above and to help the effort. Organizations may also join this
effort by sending the name of the organization, email address, physical
address, phone number, and individual name of the person authorized to
communicate with us on behalf of the organization to
onestate@PalestineJN.org .
Names, affiliation
(Affiliation does not imply institutional endorsement, all signers in
personal capacity)
Samir Abed-Rabbo (Dr.), ODS and Center for Advanced International Studies
Susan Abulhawa, Author
Ali Abunimah
Abdelfattah Abusrour (Dr.), Alrowwad Cultural and Theatre Center, Aida
Refugee Camp
Khalid Amayreh, writer, journalist and political commentator. Dura, Hebron
Naseer Aruri (Prof.), Emeritus (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth),
Author of Dishonest Broker
Omar Barghouti, human rights activist
Ramzy Baroud, Author, Editor, The Palestine Chronicle
Oren Ben-Dor (Dr.), School of Law, University of Southampton, UK
George Bisharat, UC Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco
Haim Bresheeth (Prof.), BRICUP and University of East London
Eitan Bronstein
Shuki Cohen
Uri Davis (Prof.), Al-Quds University
Haidar Eid (Prof.), ODSG, Gaza
Jamil Fayez (Dr.)
Burhan Ghanayem (Dr.), Businessman and Philanthropist, Previously Researcher
at NIH, North Carolina
Neta Golan, International Solidarity Movement
Alma Abdul Hadi Jadallah (Dr.), School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution,
George Mason University
Sami Jamil Jadallah, JD, Founder of United Palestinian Appeal
Hatim Kanaaneh (Dr.), Author of a "Doctor in Gallilee"
Ghada Karmi (Prof.), University of Exeter, Devon, UK
Lubna Masarwa, Activist and Community Organizer, Jerusalem
Nur Masalha (Prof.), SOAS, University of London, UK
Lois Nakhlah
Dorothy Naor (Dr.)
Susan Nathan, Author, The other Side of Israel
Ken O'Keefe, Irish, Hawaiian, and Palestinian citizenship
Allegra Pacheco, Advocate
Ilan Pappe (Prof.), University of Exeter
Mazin Qumsiyeh (Prof.) Bethlehem University
George N. Rishmawi, Palestinian Center for Rapprochement, Beit Sahour
Suleiman Sharkh (Dr.), University of Southampton, Chairman of the PSC
Southampton Branch, Palestinian Refugee from Majdal Asqalan
Please consider joining this action call and forward to those who you think
might join (Israelis and Palestinians). Mazin
Many people of good faith yearn for a future that is a joint democratic
pluralistic state that encompasses all of the historic land of Palestine
(currently the political entities of the apartheid State of Israel and the
post-1967 Israeli occupied Palestinian Territories). It is time to put our
beliefs into practice by bringing together all these people to effect the
needed transformation socially and politically. We call on you to join us to
formulate all the needed mechanisms for this transformation. We are seeking
local and international legal experts to draft a constitution for our joint
future state and we are seeking activists with other skills (media,
lobbying, civil disobedience etc) to translate the vision into reality. In
our joint future state, Palestinian Refugees will have the right to return
to their homes and lands and to receive reparation for their suffering as
supported by UNGA resolution 194. Return and self-determination are key
pillars of peace based on justice. The validity of all actual laws and
policies will be subject to this constitution with a bill of rights. This
constitution is founded on the critical principle that all people who live
in historic Palestine as well as Palestinians who will realise their
inalienable right of return will have an effective equality of citizenship
and will enjoy fundamental rights and freedoms as articulated in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Substantively and procedurally, the constitution and structures to effect
the needed transformation will be modified and adopted only via
democratically structured institutions and, in this vein, we support efforts
to reconstitute the Palestine National Council on democratic and
representative foundations for all Palestinians regardless of where they
currently live. The constitution will enable constant contestation of actual
laws ensuring that structures of power never entrench themselves.
Equal citizenship will have the result that present apartheid-based laws
will be abrogated and future social and economic rights will never again be
attached to any patterned and structured identity test that necessarily
results in discrimination, oppression and domination of those who do not
pass it. We believe in popular resistance and an anti-Apartheid struggle to
achieve our collective goals. We will build on the previous initiatives and
conferences that focused on one state solutions. We urge the international
community to support us in ending Israeli apartheid and achieving our goal
of one democratic state via the use of Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions
(BDS) and all other means of pressure as articulated in the Palestinian
Civil Society Call to Action 2005.
If you would like to join us, go to
http://www.palestinejn.org/component/content/article/47-ongoing/124-join-the
-one-state-initiative . By signing, you agree to the use of your name and to
the outline above and to help the effort. Organizations may also join this
effort by sending the name of the organization, email address, physical
address, phone number, and individual name of the person authorized to
communicate with us on behalf of the organization to
Names, affiliation
(Affiliation does not imply institutional endorsement, all signers in
personal capacity)
Samir Abed-Rabbo (Dr.), ODS and Center for Advanced International Studies
Susan Abulhawa, Author
Ali Abunimah
Abdelfattah Abusrour (Dr.), Alrowwad Cultural and Theatre Center, Aida
Refugee Camp
Khalid Amayreh, writer, journalist and political commentator. Dura, Hebron
Naseer Aruri (Prof.), Emeritus (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth),
Author of Dishonest Broker
Omar Barghouti, human rights activist
Ramzy Baroud, Author, Editor, The Palestine Chronicle
Oren Ben-Dor (Dr.), School of Law, University of Southampton, UK
George Bisharat, UC Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco
Haim Bresheeth (Prof.), BRICUP and University of East London
Eitan Bronstein
Shuki Cohen
Uri Davis (Prof.), Al-Quds University
Haidar Eid (Prof.), ODSG, Gaza
Jamil Fayez (Dr.)
Burhan Ghanayem (Dr.), Businessman and Philanthropist, Previously Researcher
at NIH, North Carolina
Neta Golan, International Solidarity Movement
Alma Abdul Hadi Jadallah (Dr.), School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution,
George Mason University
Sami Jamil Jadallah, JD, Founder of United Palestinian Appeal
Hatim Kanaaneh (Dr.), Author of a "Doctor in Gallilee"
Ghada Karmi (Prof.), University of Exeter, Devon, UK
Lubna Masarwa, Activist and Community Organizer, Jerusalem
Nur Masalha (Prof.), SOAS, University of London, UK
Lois Nakhlah
Dorothy Naor (Dr.)
Susan Nathan, Author, The other Side of Israel
Ken O'Keefe, Irish, Hawaiian, and Palestinian citizenship
Allegra Pacheco, Advocate
Ilan Pappe (Prof.), University of Exeter
Mazin Qumsiyeh (Prof.) Bethlehem University
George N. Rishmawi, Palestinian Center for Rapprochement, Beit Sahour
Suleiman Sharkh (Dr.), University of Southampton, Chairman of the PSC
Southampton Branch, Palestinian Refugee from Majdal Asqalan
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu rejects pre-1967 border agreement call
BBC News
21 May 2011
Last updated at 00:13 ET
Israel PM defiant over Obama border proposals
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected US President Barack Obama's call for peace with the Palestinians based on pre-1967 borders.
After tense talks at the White House, a defiant Mr Netanyahu said Israel was prepared to compromise but there could be no peace "based on illusions".
Mr Obama, who formally adopted the principle on Thursday, admitted there were "differences" between the views.
But he said such differences were possible "between friends".
In his speech to the state department on Thursday, Mr Obama stated overtly for the first time that the peace talks should be based on a future Palestinian state within the borders in place before the 1967 Middle East War.
"The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognised borders are established for both states," he said.
This proposal has been a key demand of the Palestinians in the negotiations.
But speaking in the Oval Office after their meeting, Mr Netanyahu flatly rejected this proposal, saying Israel wanted "a peace that will be genuine".
"We both agree that a peace based on illusions will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle Eastern reality, and that the only peace that will endure is one that is based on reality, on unshakeable facts."
'Demographic changes'
Israel was "prepared to make generous compromises for peace", he said, but could not go back to the 1967 borders "because these lines are indefensible".
He said the old borders did not take into account the "demographic changes that have taken place over the last 44 years".
An estimated 500,000 Israelis now live in settlements built in the Palestinian West Bank, which lies outside those borders.
The settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
Mr Obama said there were obviously "some differences" in the "precise formulations and language" used by Israel and the US, but that this "happens between friends".
He did not bring up the matter of the borders in his joint conference with Mr Netanyahu.
But he said Palestinians faced "tough choices" following the recent reconciliation deal between Fatah, which runs the West Bank, and Hamas, which governs Gaza and still denies Israel's right to exist.
Mr Obama said true peace could only occur if Israel was allowed to defend itself against threats.
The BBC's Paul Adams in Washington says that while notion of a peace agreement based on 1967 lines is not news, Mr Obama has clearly angered Mr Netanyahu by formally adopting it.
Mr Netanyahu has come under increasing pressure as world figures and organisations, including American's partners in the Middle East Peace Quartet, EU, UN and Russia - lined up to back Mr Obama's position.
Arab League chief, Amr Moussa, also called on President Obama to remain committed to the plan.
But in the absence of a viable peace process, it is unclear what will come of US-Israel talks, says our correspondent.
Where is Palestine in this Israeli settlement takeover of the West Bank? Does Israel think the whole world are fools? Perhaps we are..
21 May 2011
Last updated at 00:13 ET
Israel PM defiant over Obama border proposals
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected US President Barack Obama's call for peace with the Palestinians based on pre-1967 borders.
After tense talks at the White House, a defiant Mr Netanyahu said Israel was prepared to compromise but there could be no peace "based on illusions".
Mr Obama, who formally adopted the principle on Thursday, admitted there were "differences" between the views.
But he said such differences were possible "between friends".
In his speech to the state department on Thursday, Mr Obama stated overtly for the first time that the peace talks should be based on a future Palestinian state within the borders in place before the 1967 Middle East War.
"The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognised borders are established for both states," he said.
This proposal has been a key demand of the Palestinians in the negotiations.
But speaking in the Oval Office after their meeting, Mr Netanyahu flatly rejected this proposal, saying Israel wanted "a peace that will be genuine".
"We both agree that a peace based on illusions will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle Eastern reality, and that the only peace that will endure is one that is based on reality, on unshakeable facts."
'Demographic changes'
Israel was "prepared to make generous compromises for peace", he said, but could not go back to the 1967 borders "because these lines are indefensible".
He said the old borders did not take into account the "demographic changes that have taken place over the last 44 years".
An estimated 500,000 Israelis now live in settlements built in the Palestinian West Bank, which lies outside those borders.
The settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
Mr Obama said there were obviously "some differences" in the "precise formulations and language" used by Israel and the US, but that this "happens between friends".
He did not bring up the matter of the borders in his joint conference with Mr Netanyahu.
But he said Palestinians faced "tough choices" following the recent reconciliation deal between Fatah, which runs the West Bank, and Hamas, which governs Gaza and still denies Israel's right to exist.
Mr Obama said true peace could only occur if Israel was allowed to defend itself against threats.
The BBC's Paul Adams in Washington says that while notion of a peace agreement based on 1967 lines is not news, Mr Obama has clearly angered Mr Netanyahu by formally adopting it.
Mr Netanyahu has come under increasing pressure as world figures and organisations, including American's partners in the Middle East Peace Quartet, EU, UN and Russia - lined up to back Mr Obama's position.
Arab League chief, Amr Moussa, also called on President Obama to remain committed to the plan.
But in the absence of a viable peace process, it is unclear what will come of US-Israel talks, says our correspondent.
Where is Palestine in this Israeli settlement takeover of the West Bank? Does Israel think the whole world are fools? Perhaps we are..
Friday, May 20, 2011
Unchanging Obama versus the changing landscape
by Mazin Qumsiyeh
In follow-up to the very successful 15 May events (the beginning of the
global uprising), activists around the world called for a day of protests
Friday (tomorrow). In Bethlehem, we gather after Friday prayers in front of
Omar's mosque (the Nativity square) and march towards the apartheid wall.
President Obama tried in his (Cairo II) speech to again convince a skeptical
world that the US promotes democracy and human rights. We have heard all of
this orientalist talk before and yet have seen no action/change. The change
is coming from the people waving Palestinian and Egyptian flags everywhere.
Even Obama's rhetoric seems hypocritical: why speak of peaceful
demonstrations being suppressed in Syria and Libya but not speak about the
constant repression of demonstrators by the Israeli apartheid regime? Obama
even went further than other US presidents and talked as a typical Zionist:
he lectured us the native people that we should stop "delegitimizing" Israel
and accept it as "a Jewish state", "for the Jewish people". Even
Reagan who supporting apartheid South Africa in his first term did not ask that we stop delegitimizing South Africa and recognize it as a "White state" "for
"the white people". What about International law (not mentioned by Obama) and
what about a state of all its citizens (including the refugees who must be
allowed to return to their homes and lands)? No, these basic rights are to
be removed and the colonizers have a right to security but the colonized
must be content to live in a demilitarized ghetto and accept their
dispossession.
Ronald Reagan refused to speak to AIPAC. But Obama agreed. Reagan at least
pulled troops out of Lebanon while Obama still keeps his troops in both Iraq
and Afghanistan (and uses the verbal trick of "ending combat mission").
Obama will also host war criminals at the White house and Netanyahu (the
gang leader) will address the (Israeli-occupied) congress. No mention will
be made of Israel's illegal use of US weaponry in war crimes and crimes
against humanity. Yet, the success of the popular uprisings in the Arab
world including the new uprising that started on 15 May in Palestine and two
scandals that hit the apartheid state this week add to the cracks in the
"Iron wall" (fortified by the US). In one scandal, Russia charged the
Israeli military attache working at the Israeli embassy with espionage and
expelled him. Russia and Turkey and many other countries previously friendly
to the apartheid regime have been changing. Israeli papers also reported
that Ron Arad, national security advisor to Netanyahu did not actually
resign voluntarily but was fired because he leaked "sensitive information".
The "sensitive" information was that the United States had given Israel
unequivocal guarantees that its "strategic capabilities" in the nuclear
field would be preserved and strengthened (according to Haaretz). This put
another nail in the coffin of the "change we can believe in" facade and
embarrassed Obama.
We should all write to the US media immediately to demand balanced coverage
of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the US. Netanyahu
and Obama talk about threats from Iran (like he did about Iraq getting us
into a mess) and about Hamas's refusal to recognize the apartheid state of
Israel. It is fine to put their views out there but why not allow the facts
of how Israel's lobby pushed for wars and that Israel is the largest
recipient of US foreign aid or that Netanyahu's own political party opposes
a Palestinian state and rejects international law (settlements are illegal
and yet he even refuses to suspend partially colonial activities so that
negotiations can resume). The Likud party platform clearly states: "The
Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab
state west of the Jordan river." It also refuses to recognize basic rights
in Jerusalem or for the refugees to be returned . For this racist platform,
see http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections/knesset15/elikud_m.htm or PDF:
http://bit.ly/likudplatform. I think the Israeli government must first rid
itself of all political parties that refuse to recognize our rights as
Palestinians or refuse to shed racist preferences for Jews before we agree
to negotiate with it.
The only official in the Obama administration who genuinely wanted Israel to
at least suspend its persistent violations of International law is now out
of the way (George Mitchell). Business thus goes on as usual between the
two governments supporting apartheid, repression, and violation of
International law. Obama will address the AIPAC convention saying the same
nonsense about Israeli security (security for a colonial racist regime).
Maybe his Zionist aids will not allow him to know that the US public is
demonstrating against this lobby. Maybe he thinks most people don't care
that Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and assistant secretary of
state for Near Eastern affairs Jeffrey Feltman are two known Zionists and
yet are leading a US delegation in an annual strategic "dialogue" with
Israel officials (headed by war criminal Danny Ayalon).
The issue really is not about what these people do; they are criminals and
professional thugs who profit off of wars and conflict. The issue is how
many people in this land and around the world will join us in the unfolding
global uprising (intifada) to change our collective situation towards peace
with justice. Corrupt business at the highest level that harms US public and
strategic interests will not be changed by a speech from Obama. We, the
people of the US and the world must take matters into our own hands. What
Obama does not understand is that the millions who pour into the streets do
not buy his fake caring. To prove sincerity he should start by cutting off
aid to Israel until it complies with International law and basic human
rights.
The Zionist project has not succeeded in its stated aim of full ethnic
cleansing and transformation of Palestine. While over two-thirds of the
native Palestinians in the world became refugees or displaced people, 5.5
million Palestinians remain defiantly here. We faced over 130 years of a
relentless assault against our people. The assault was supported by
European and other Western Countries and aided and abetted by despotic
rulers in the Arab world. Over the past 20 years more and more people around
the world have joined the struggle for freedom from oppression and
colonization. Obama failed to revive the charade of a fake "peace process"
whose only beneficiaries are profiteers interested in liquidating
Palestinian rights.
A monumental transformation in the Arab world is happening and a global
intifada is spreading using tools like media work and boycotts, divestment,
and sanctions. The Palestine issue remains the torch for this global
transformation. More people in the West are shedding illusions about what
is really happening here in Palestine and in the rest of the Arab world. As
for us, the 400 million Arabs that Obama wants to befriend with words, we
will say with our feet and our bodies: the time for talk is done and it is
time for revolutions and real change.
Yalla to the streets Friday. La Luta Continua.
Mazin@Qumsiyeh.org
In occupied Palestine
In follow-up to the very successful 15 May events (the beginning of the
global uprising), activists around the world called for a day of protests
Friday (tomorrow). In Bethlehem, we gather after Friday prayers in front of
Omar's mosque (the Nativity square) and march towards the apartheid wall.
President Obama tried in his (Cairo II) speech to again convince a skeptical
world that the US promotes democracy and human rights. We have heard all of
this orientalist talk before and yet have seen no action/change. The change
is coming from the people waving Palestinian and Egyptian flags everywhere.
Even Obama's rhetoric seems hypocritical: why speak of peaceful
demonstrations being suppressed in Syria and Libya but not speak about the
constant repression of demonstrators by the Israeli apartheid regime? Obama
even went further than other US presidents and talked as a typical Zionist:
he lectured us the native people that we should stop "delegitimizing" Israel
and accept it as "a Jewish state", "for the Jewish people". Even
Reagan who supporting apartheid South Africa in his first term did not ask that we stop delegitimizing South Africa and recognize it as a "White state" "for
"the white people". What about International law (not mentioned by Obama) and
what about a state of all its citizens (including the refugees who must be
allowed to return to their homes and lands)? No, these basic rights are to
be removed and the colonizers have a right to security but the colonized
must be content to live in a demilitarized ghetto and accept their
dispossession.
Ronald Reagan refused to speak to AIPAC. But Obama agreed. Reagan at least
pulled troops out of Lebanon while Obama still keeps his troops in both Iraq
and Afghanistan (and uses the verbal trick of "ending combat mission").
Obama will also host war criminals at the White house and Netanyahu (the
gang leader) will address the (Israeli-occupied) congress. No mention will
be made of Israel's illegal use of US weaponry in war crimes and crimes
against humanity. Yet, the success of the popular uprisings in the Arab
world including the new uprising that started on 15 May in Palestine and two
scandals that hit the apartheid state this week add to the cracks in the
"Iron wall" (fortified by the US). In one scandal, Russia charged the
Israeli military attache working at the Israeli embassy with espionage and
expelled him. Russia and Turkey and many other countries previously friendly
to the apartheid regime have been changing. Israeli papers also reported
that Ron Arad, national security advisor to Netanyahu did not actually
resign voluntarily but was fired because he leaked "sensitive information".
The "sensitive" information was that the United States had given Israel
unequivocal guarantees that its "strategic capabilities" in the nuclear
field would be preserved and strengthened (according to Haaretz). This put
another nail in the coffin of the "change we can believe in" facade and
embarrassed Obama.
We should all write to the US media immediately to demand balanced coverage
of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the US. Netanyahu
and Obama talk about threats from Iran (like he did about Iraq getting us
into a mess) and about Hamas's refusal to recognize the apartheid state of
Israel. It is fine to put their views out there but why not allow the facts
of how Israel's lobby pushed for wars and that Israel is the largest
recipient of US foreign aid or that Netanyahu's own political party opposes
a Palestinian state and rejects international law (settlements are illegal
and yet he even refuses to suspend partially colonial activities so that
negotiations can resume). The Likud party platform clearly states: "The
Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab
state west of the Jordan river." It also refuses to recognize basic rights
in Jerusalem or for the refugees to be returned . For this racist platform,
see http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections/knesset15/elikud_m.htm or PDF:
http://bit.ly/likudplatform. I think the Israeli government must first rid
itself of all political parties that refuse to recognize our rights as
Palestinians or refuse to shed racist preferences for Jews before we agree
to negotiate with it.
The only official in the Obama administration who genuinely wanted Israel to
at least suspend its persistent violations of International law is now out
of the way (George Mitchell). Business thus goes on as usual between the
two governments supporting apartheid, repression, and violation of
International law. Obama will address the AIPAC convention saying the same
nonsense about Israeli security (security for a colonial racist regime).
Maybe his Zionist aids will not allow him to know that the US public is
demonstrating against this lobby. Maybe he thinks most people don't care
that Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and assistant secretary of
state for Near Eastern affairs Jeffrey Feltman are two known Zionists and
yet are leading a US delegation in an annual strategic "dialogue" with
Israel officials (headed by war criminal Danny Ayalon).
The issue really is not about what these people do; they are criminals and
professional thugs who profit off of wars and conflict. The issue is how
many people in this land and around the world will join us in the unfolding
global uprising (intifada) to change our collective situation towards peace
with justice. Corrupt business at the highest level that harms US public and
strategic interests will not be changed by a speech from Obama. We, the
people of the US and the world must take matters into our own hands. What
Obama does not understand is that the millions who pour into the streets do
not buy his fake caring. To prove sincerity he should start by cutting off
aid to Israel until it complies with International law and basic human
rights.
The Zionist project has not succeeded in its stated aim of full ethnic
cleansing and transformation of Palestine. While over two-thirds of the
native Palestinians in the world became refugees or displaced people, 5.5
million Palestinians remain defiantly here. We faced over 130 years of a
relentless assault against our people. The assault was supported by
European and other Western Countries and aided and abetted by despotic
rulers in the Arab world. Over the past 20 years more and more people around
the world have joined the struggle for freedom from oppression and
colonization. Obama failed to revive the charade of a fake "peace process"
whose only beneficiaries are profiteers interested in liquidating
Palestinian rights.
A monumental transformation in the Arab world is happening and a global
intifada is spreading using tools like media work and boycotts, divestment,
and sanctions. The Palestine issue remains the torch for this global
transformation. More people in the West are shedding illusions about what
is really happening here in Palestine and in the rest of the Arab world. As
for us, the 400 million Arabs that Obama wants to befriend with words, we
will say with our feet and our bodies: the time for talk is done and it is
time for revolutions and real change.
Yalla to the streets Friday. La Luta Continua.
Mazin@Qumsiyeh.org
In occupied Palestine
Thursday, May 19, 2011
What Arabs want to hear (or not hear) from Obama speech
In contrast with Obama's major speech two years ago in Cairo, today's address on the Middle East has generated little interest in Egypt. But Libyans and Syrians have higher hopes.
Christian Science Monitor
By Kristen Chick, Correspondent / May 19, 2011
Cairo
Ahead of President Obama’s major address on the Middle East today, many Arabs were not even aware that he is going to present his vision for US involvement in a region transformed by the Arab Spring. But when asked what they would like to hear, their responses ranged from a desire for the US to stay out of their affairs to pleas for help, particularly from those still oppressed by dictators in Libya and Syria.
“Obama is giving a speech?” asked downtown-Cairo newspaper hawker Mahmoud Hamza. “Why? We don’t want anything from him. We got rid of [former President Hosni] Mubarak without him, and now we don’t want American interference in Egypt.”
Indeed, in a marked difference from the widespread interest and pockets of hope generated by Obama's speech in Cairo two years ago, many Egyptians are resentful that the US only belatedly supported their uprising against Mr. Mubarak. Now, many Egyptians envision a more independent country and a much smaller role for the US.
“US policy is going backwards. If Arabs thought that US policy was bad during Egypt's revolution, it's worse now,” says Shadi Hamid, director of research at Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. “Arabs are not going to forget who was with them and who was against them in their struggle for democracy … If the US is remembered as being on the wrong side of history here, that is going to further damage its influence and credibility in the region.”
Youth coalition refuses to meet with Clinton
A coalition of six youth groups that have become vocal movers in Egypt’s revolutionary movement announced on their Facebook page that they had refused an invitation to meet with Clinton “based on her negative position from the beginning of the revolution and the position of the US administration in the Middle East.”
During the first days of the uprising, as they fought off attacks by police under a government-imposed blackout, many protesters expressed outrage at Clinton’s statement on Jan. 25 that the Egyptian government was “looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.” The tear gas canisters marked “Made in the USA” only furthered their perception that the US was on the side of the dictator, not the people.
The US was criticized for its response to the revolution, with the White House, State Department, and Pentagon not always in sync. By the end of the uprising, the administration had adopted more cohesive rhetoric supportive of the protesters demands for democratic change. But for many Egyptians, it was too late.
Emad Gad, an analyst at the state-funded Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, calls the US response to the revolution a “black spot” on the record of the Obama administration. “Perhaps this will be the last chance for Hillary Clinton to change the stereotype of the American position toward the revolution,” he says.
Will US apply lessons in Bahrain, Yemen?
The US risks the same outcome, or worse, in places like Bahrain and Yemen, says Dr. Hamid. Both nations have cracked down on protesters demanding change.
The king of Bahrain declared a state of emergency Tuesday, a day after Saudi forces arrived to help quell a month-long protests movement calling for democratic reform. Three people were reportedly killed Tuesday as violent clashes between police and protesters continued, after seven people were killed in February when Bahrain’s military fired on protesters. On Tuesday, Clinton called for restraint in Bahrain, saying all sides must take steps toward political resolution of the crisis.
Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, is a majority Shiite country ruled by a Sunni family, and some fear that Iran – as well as neighboring Saudi Arabia – will try to take advantage of the upheaval to boost its own interests.
RELATED: Why Bahrain is unlikely to turn into an Iran-Saudi battleground
In Yemen, the recipient of $250 million in US counterterrorism aid to combat a regional Al Qaeda franchise over the past five years, police have opened fire on crowds demanding the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. On Monday, the government also expelled four Western journalists.
The US has urged both nations to avoid violence, but taken little concrete action.
“Clearly, it's good to be on the right side of history,” says Hamid. “[US] policy on Bahrain, Yemen, and the Gulf appears to show that they haven't learned that lesson.”
He says the crisis in Libya, where rebels are battling forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, has drawn the Obama administration’s attention away from developing a strategic vision for the Middle East.
Clinton, who met with a Libyan opposition leader in Paris Monday, said Tuesday the US is looking at ways to support the opposition. As she arrived in Cairo, time was running out for Libya’s rebels, who were being pushed further east by Qaddafi’s forces. The no-fly zone that they have asked for is still being debated.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Update on Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh
Sorry about sending two messages in one day. I just wanted to send out
this good news as soon as I got it. Lawyers just informed us that Mazin and
two other Palestinians will be released on bail tomorrow. Their cases will
be reviewed later, and if there is no evidence to bring charges then the
case will close and bail money returned. We can all breathe a sigh of
relief now. Your support and prayers meant so much to our family and made
us strong. We thank each and every one of you. Next message hopefully will
be coming from Mazin himself. In the meantime, our work continues until the
rest of them are free.
Peace
Jess
HumanRights newsletter
http://lists.qumsiyeh.org/mailman/listinfo/humanrights
this good news as soon as I got it. Lawyers just informed us that Mazin and
two other Palestinians will be released on bail tomorrow. Their cases will
be reviewed later, and if there is no evidence to bring charges then the
case will close and bail money returned. We can all breathe a sigh of
relief now. Your support and prayers meant so much to our family and made
us strong. We thank each and every one of you. Next message hopefully will
be coming from Mazin himself. In the meantime, our work continues until the
rest of them are free.
Peace
Jess
HumanRights newsletter
http://lists.qumsiyeh.org/mailman/listinfo/humanrights
Palestinian official: Peace possible in days, but Israel isn't interested
Haaretz.com
Published 21:47 16.05.11
Latest update 21:47 16.05.11
Palestinian official: Peace possible in days, but Israel isn't interested
Abbas' spokesman: Peace deal means East Jerusalem will be capital of Palestine; Palestinian negotiator: Peace is not a favor, but a mutual interest.
The Palestinian Authority on Monday rejected statements Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made at a parliament session, which he described as pre-conditions for peace.
Netanyahu said that the Palestinians have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, solve the refugee problem outside Israel and accept a permanent Israeli army presence in a demilitarized Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank that does not include Jerusalem.
Netanyahu's statements "are unacceptable pre-conditions," said presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeineh.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, addressing a Geneva Initiative conference in Tel Aviv on May 16, 2011
Photo by: Mati Milstein
"Any peace deal means that East Jerusalem will be the capital of the state of Palestine and all permanent status issues should be resolved at the negotiations table according to international resolutions and the road map," he said.
Abu Rudeineh criticized Netanyahu's statements saying, "they once again show that Israel is not interested in peace and defies the will of the international community, but that will not stop the Palestinian people from asking for their full rights, including going to the United Nations."
The Palestinians plan to ask the UN Security Council and General Assembly in September to recognize a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Also Monday, Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told a Geneva Initiative conference in Tel Aviv that there could be a peace agreement within days, but that no Israeli official seemed willing to make that decision.
Israel and Palestinians need to make decisions, not start from scratch with negotiations, Erekat said. He also warned that the Palestinians would turn to the UN for recognition of statehood if the peace process did not resume.
Peace must not be looked at as a favor from the Palestinians to the Israeli or vice versa, said Erekat, but rather as a mutual interest.
Commenting on Netanyahu's speech, Erekat said the Israeli leader had chosen "dictation, not negotiation" and was "solely responsible for the derailment of the peace process".
Published 21:47 16.05.11
Latest update 21:47 16.05.11
Palestinian official: Peace possible in days, but Israel isn't interested
Abbas' spokesman: Peace deal means East Jerusalem will be capital of Palestine; Palestinian negotiator: Peace is not a favor, but a mutual interest.
The Palestinian Authority on Monday rejected statements Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made at a parliament session, which he described as pre-conditions for peace.
Netanyahu said that the Palestinians have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, solve the refugee problem outside Israel and accept a permanent Israeli army presence in a demilitarized Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank that does not include Jerusalem.
Netanyahu's statements "are unacceptable pre-conditions," said presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeineh.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, addressing a Geneva Initiative conference in Tel Aviv on May 16, 2011
Photo by: Mati Milstein
"Any peace deal means that East Jerusalem will be the capital of the state of Palestine and all permanent status issues should be resolved at the negotiations table according to international resolutions and the road map," he said.
Abu Rudeineh criticized Netanyahu's statements saying, "they once again show that Israel is not interested in peace and defies the will of the international community, but that will not stop the Palestinian people from asking for their full rights, including going to the United Nations."
The Palestinians plan to ask the UN Security Council and General Assembly in September to recognize a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Also Monday, Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told a Geneva Initiative conference in Tel Aviv that there could be a peace agreement within days, but that no Israeli official seemed willing to make that decision.
Israel and Palestinians need to make decisions, not start from scratch with negotiations, Erekat said. He also warned that the Palestinians would turn to the UN for recognition of statehood if the peace process did not resume.
Peace must not be looked at as a favor from the Palestinians to the Israeli or vice versa, said Erekat, but rather as a mutual interest.
Commenting on Netanyahu's speech, Erekat said the Israeli leader had chosen "dictation, not negotiation" and was "solely responsible for the derailment of the peace process".
2nd Updte on Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh and Compilation of Videos on Nakba Demonstrations
Human Rights Newsletter
Sent: Mon, May 16, 2011 07:04 AM
PNN journalist Ghassan Bannoureh took the following video which documented
Mazin’s arrest yesterday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD06coIJWQs
>
&feature=player_embedded>
The latest from the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem (USCG) is that Mazin
is being held in Ofer prison as a detainee, and a hearing is scheduled on 19
May 2011. They are aware of the many calls people made calling for Mazin’s
release. They said at this moment, any additional calls would not change
Mazin’s status. Regardless of that statement, I urge people to continue to
file complaint to President Obama and to the US State Department of the
ongoing discrimination against US citizens of Palestinian decent. Two other
US citizens were also detained with Mazin at Al-Walaja but were released at
1 a.m. this morning, while Mazin is continued being held. Let’s also
demand our government to stop supporting Apartheid Israel in our names and
demand justice for all Palestinian nonviolent protesters being detained.
The following compilation of videos, pictures and some articles on Nakba
Demonstration yesterday was forwarded from a friend and I include them here
for your information:
COMPILATION OF VIDEOS, PICTURES AND SOME ARTICLES ON NAKBA
DEMONSTRATIONS YESTERDAY
QALANDIA
- - video of the morning and early afternoon by Haitham Khatib
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y43IqA7B4I
- - video by I. Putterman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buGYv35X1yE
- - video by The Al3ned
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPrh1xN1LIA&feature=share
- - video by cnn:
http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2011/05/15/vo.israel.nakba
.kalandia.clash.cnn.html
- - interview w journalist Joe Elmer by Electronic Intifada:
http://electronicintifada.net/content/interview-undercover-israeli-soldiers-
arrest-west-bank-demonstrators/9958
- - pictures on
www.flickr.com/activestills
EAST JERUSALEM
- - video by RT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoCHwCpawjo&feature=youtu.be
LEBANON
- - video by al Jazeera English w Matt Cassel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYM-soef3c4&feature=player_embedded
IN FRONT OF ISRAELI EMBASSY IN CAIRO:
- - video by rnnnews1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESzXTyP0XYQ&feature=player_embedded -
graphic video of protestor shot in the stomach by Midan al Tahrir
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4QIXJravCo
- - video and article by AJE:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/05/2011515131427646668.html
- - video of protestors showing US made tear-gas projectile by 3arabawy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-Xx_bv6CG4&feature=player_embedded - video
of ambulance transferring injured by 3arabawy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfQLG-KSO1M
- - video of ambulances by 3arabawy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfQLG-KSO1M
- - video of Protesters during clashes with army and police outside
Israeli embassy in Cairo by 3arabawy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQkSaoiOdd0&feature=player_embedded
- - video of clashes by moftasa:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF5UaKiFlq4&feature=player_embedded -
picture by 3arabawy.org (more pics and posts on his
site)
http://www.arabawy.org/2011/05/16/photography-nakba-cairo/
JORDAN:
- - by Klashenkoof1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypg5AepqAqQ&feature=player_embedded#at=208
PPL ENTERING OCCUPIED JOLAN HEIGHTS (MAJDAL SHAMS)
- - by baladeenet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekgkuAaTjPg&feature=player_embedded - other
video by baladeenet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekgkuAaTjPg
&feature=player_embedded#at=484
- - article by Ali Abunimah on ei:
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/dramatic-video-shows-palesti
nians-syrians-entering-israeli-occupied-golan-heights
AL WALLAJE:
eight Palestinians were arrested yesterday, four early on, four later when
during clashes and while the army searched each house and had sealed off
the village; six or seven internationals were arrested; the internationals
were reportedly released at 1 a.m., a Palestinian with Jerusalem ID
released at 4am, 12 year-old twins released at one point last night, so
that the remaining detainees are: Basel al 'Araj (26 yo), Ahmad al 'Araj (24
yo), Ahmad
Abu Khiyera (22 or 23 yo), Mohammad al 'Araj and Mazin Qumsiyeh
video by English PNN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD06coIJWQs&feature=player_embedded –
Video by Mazin Qumsiyeh prior to his arrest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfizCh0TaZE
GAZA (IN FRONT OF ERETZ):
(I still don't know if and how many people were killed, last I heard, around
60 were injured, 15 seriously, and friends reported that army shot to
kill; also, I am not sure what the situation is now, I had heard that people
were staying in the buffer zone and that Israel had threatened with some
military action if they didn't move.
- - video by vik2gaza.org:
http://vik2gaza.org/2011/05/15/manifestazione-al-valico-di-erez/
- - pictures by vik2gaza.org
http://lockerz.com/s/101878010
- - pictures by Shady Alassar
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1532993784616.63643.1827938682 -
more videos and pics to follow, I think, on vik2gaza.org
SAFAD:
apparently 6 got arrested, there will be a demo today to demand their
release; I AM NOT CERTAIN THAT THE BELOW VIDEOS ARE ACTUALLY FROM SAFAD,
IF THEY ARE NOT AND YOU KNOW, PLEASE LET ME KNOW
- - video by Nooly1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP-c_TfO2Qo
- -
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=174670432587923&ref=notif¬if_t=event_i
nvite
SAN FRANCISCO:
- - video by Tom Vee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0NzW6Z8AOw&feature=share
MIXED:
- - (Golan Hights and West Bank) by RT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgnMczQAIGs&feature=youtube_gdata
- - pictures by AJE:
http://english.aljazeera.net/photo_galleries/middleeast/20115141283124773.ht
ml
Peace,
Jess
Sent: Mon, May 16, 2011 07:04 AM
PNN journalist Ghassan Bannoureh took the following video which documented
Mazin’s arrest yesterday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD06coIJWQs
&feature=player_embedded>
The latest from the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem (USCG) is that Mazin
is being held in Ofer prison as a detainee, and a hearing is scheduled on 19
May 2011. They are aware of the many calls people made calling for Mazin’s
release. They said at this moment, any additional calls would not change
Mazin’s status. Regardless of that statement, I urge people to continue to
file complaint to President Obama and to the US State Department of the
ongoing discrimination against US citizens of Palestinian decent. Two other
US citizens were also detained with Mazin at Al-Walaja but were released at
1 a.m. this morning, while Mazin is continued being held. Let’s also
demand our government to stop supporting Apartheid Israel in our names and
demand justice for all Palestinian nonviolent protesters being detained.
The following compilation of videos, pictures and some articles on Nakba
Demonstration yesterday was forwarded from a friend and I include them here
for your information:
COMPILATION OF VIDEOS, PICTURES AND SOME ARTICLES ON NAKBA
DEMONSTRATIONS YESTERDAY
QALANDIA
- - video of the morning and early afternoon by Haitham Khatib
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y43IqA7B4I
- - video by I. Putterman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buGYv35X1yE
- - video by The Al3ned
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPrh1xN1LIA&feature=share
- - video by cnn:
http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2011/05/15/vo.israel.nakba
.kalandia.clash.cnn.html
- - interview w journalist Joe Elmer by Electronic Intifada:
http://electronicintifada.net/content/interview-undercover-israeli-soldiers-
arrest-west-bank-demonstrators/9958
- - pictures on
www.flickr.com/activestills
EAST JERUSALEM
- - video by RT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoCHwCpawjo&feature=youtu.be
LEBANON
- - video by al Jazeera English w Matt Cassel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYM-soef3c4&feature=player_embedded
IN FRONT OF ISRAELI EMBASSY IN CAIRO:
- - video by rnnnews1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESzXTyP0XYQ&feature=player_embedded -
graphic video of protestor shot in the stomach by Midan al Tahrir
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4QIXJravCo
- - video and article by AJE:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/05/2011515131427646668.html
- - video of protestors showing US made tear-gas projectile by 3arabawy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-Xx_bv6CG4&feature=player_embedded - video
of ambulance transferring injured by 3arabawy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfQLG-KSO1M
- - video of ambulances by 3arabawy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfQLG-KSO1M
- - video of Protesters during clashes with army and police outside
Israeli embassy in Cairo by 3arabawy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQkSaoiOdd0&feature=player_embedded
- - video of clashes by moftasa:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF5UaKiFlq4&feature=player_embedded -
picture by
site)
http://www.arabawy.org/2011/05/16/photography-nakba-cairo/
JORDAN:
- - by Klashenkoof1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypg5AepqAqQ&feature=player_embedded#at=208
PPL ENTERING OCCUPIED JOLAN HEIGHTS (MAJDAL SHAMS)
- - by baladeenet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekgkuAaTjPg&feature=player_embedded - other
video by baladeenet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekgkuAaTjPg
&feature=player_embedded#at=484
- - article by Ali Abunimah on ei:
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/dramatic-video-shows-palesti
nians-syrians-entering-israeli-occupied-golan-heights
AL WALLAJE:
eight Palestinians were arrested yesterday, four early on, four later when
during clashes and while the army searched each house and had sealed off
the village; six or seven internationals were arrested; the internationals
were reportedly released at 1 a.m., a Palestinian with Jerusalem ID
released at 4am, 12 year-old twins released at one point last night, so
that the remaining detainees are: Basel al 'Araj (26 yo), Ahmad al 'Araj (24
yo), Ahmad
Abu Khiyera (22 or 23 yo), Mohammad al 'Araj and Mazin Qumsiyeh
video by English PNN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD06coIJWQs&feature=player_embedded –
Video by Mazin Qumsiyeh prior to his arrest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfizCh0TaZE
GAZA (IN FRONT OF ERETZ):
(I still don't know if and how many people were killed, last I heard, around
60 were injured, 15 seriously, and friends reported that army shot to
kill; also, I am not sure what the situation is now, I had heard that people
were staying in the buffer zone and that Israel had threatened with some
military action if they didn't move.
- - video by
http://vik2gaza.org/2011/05/15/manifestazione-al-valico-di-erez/
- - pictures by vik2gaza.org
http://lockerz.com/s/101878010
- - pictures by Shady Alassar
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1532993784616.63643.1827938682 -
more videos and pics to follow, I think, on vik2gaza.org
SAFAD:
apparently 6 got arrested, there will be a demo today to demand their
release; I AM NOT CERTAIN THAT THE BELOW VIDEOS ARE ACTUALLY FROM SAFAD,
IF THEY ARE NOT AND YOU KNOW, PLEASE LET ME KNOW
- - video by Nooly1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP-c_TfO2Qo
- -
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=174670432587923&ref=notif¬if_t=event_i
nvite
SAN FRANCISCO:
- - video by Tom Vee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0NzW6Z8AOw&feature=share
MIXED:
- - (Golan Hights and West Bank) by RT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgnMczQAIGs&feature=youtube_gdata
- - pictures by AJE:
http://english.aljazeera.net/photo_galleries/middleeast/20115141283124773.ht
ml
Peace,
Jess
Sunday, May 15, 2011
1st Update on Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh
Sun, May 15, 2011 04:54 PM
As of now at local time Monday morning 2 a.m. May 16, 2011, Mazin is still
being detained. His cell phone battery died as he called and wanted me to
write down the names and countries of the seven internationals that were
detained with him so that I can get help calling their respective country's
embassy (Ireland, USA, Canada, Germany, Netherland.) Later he borrowed
someone else's phone to call and let me know that all the internationals
would be released shortly, but not him and other Palestinians. For them, he
said, maybe days. He wanted me to follow up with the lawyer. He sounded in
good spirit and did not seem to be mistreated. I will keep you updated.
Your calls to the U.S. State Department, Senators, Congresspersons, and
foreign governments if you are non-US nationals should also help.
Here is a video that he took up to the moment when he was arrested. He
managed to pass on the video to a friend before being taken away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfizCh0TaZE
Many of you wrote in response to the earlier e-mail breaking the news of
Mazin's arrest. Our family greatly appreciate that. Please understand that
they may not be replied individually due to the overwhelming responses. I
will send updates as they become available.
Hope I have good news to share with you tomorrow.
Jess
As of now at local time Monday morning 2 a.m. May 16, 2011, Mazin is still
being detained. His cell phone battery died as he called and wanted me to
write down the names and countries of the seven internationals that were
detained with him so that I can get help calling their respective country's
embassy (Ireland, USA, Canada, Germany, Netherland.) Later he borrowed
someone else's phone to call and let me know that all the internationals
would be released shortly, but not him and other Palestinians. For them, he
said, maybe days. He wanted me to follow up with the lawyer. He sounded in
good spirit and did not seem to be mistreated. I will keep you updated.
Your calls to the U.S. State Department, Senators, Congresspersons, and
foreign governments if you are non-US nationals should also help.
Here is a video that he took up to the moment when he was arrested. He
managed to pass on the video to a friend before being taken away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfizCh0TaZE
Many of you wrote in response to the earlier e-mail breaking the news of
Mazin's arrest. Our family greatly appreciate that. Please understand that
they may not be replied individually due to the overwhelming responses. I
will send updates as they become available.
Hope I have good news to share with you tomorrow.
Jess
The Arab Revolution is knocking at Israel's door
Haaretz.com
Published 02:39 16.05.11
Latest update 02:39 16.05.11
For Israel, the risk that Syria President Bashar Assad would undermine calm of northern border less threatening than prospect of him toppled; Israel blames Assad and Iran for border infiltration on Nakba Day.
By Aluf Benn
The Arab revolution knocked on Israel's door yesterday, in Nakba Day demonstrations carried out by Palestinians from Syria and Lebanon in Majdal Shams and in Marour al-Ras. The demonstrators entering the Druze village in the foothills of Mount Hermon shattered the illusion that Israel can live comfortably, a "villa in the jungle," cut off entirely from the dramatic events surrounding it.
More than the revolution in any other Arab country, the uprising against the Assad regime in Syria had threatened to spill over into Israel. President Bashar Assad hoped that his position as the leader of the "opposition" to Israel would save him from the fate of his counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt. When his seat became unstable, there was concern that Assad, or whoever replaces him, would try to escalate the conflict with Israel in order to regain legitimacy among the Syrian public and the Arab world at large.
Television stills capture protests in Majdal Shams, after hundreds reportedly infiltrated from Syria on Nakba Day, May 15, 2011.
But the risk that Assad would undermine the calm and stability on the northern border was seen by Israel as less threatening than the prospect that he would be toppled. For that reason, Israel refrained from intervening in support of the uprising against him. The IDF could have deployed a large force on the Golan Heights out of "fear of escalation," and thereby divert the Syrian army to the other side of the border, away from the protesters in Daraa and Homs. But instead, Israel adopted a policy of sitting still and letting Assad suppress the uprising in the hope hope that deterrence and stability would be preserved.
This calm was disturbed yesterday and the nightmare scenario Israel has feared since its inception became real - that Palestinian refugees would simply start walking from their camps toward the border and would try to exercise their "right of return." Israel prepared for demonstrations of Nakba Day in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, in the Galilee and the Triangle, but instead it was the Palestinian diaspora that tried to climb its fences. More than an intelligence lapse, the situation highlighted the limits of power. It is impossible to control all fronts and disperse forces everywhere. There will always be a spot that is less protected and the enemy will exploit it.
Israel was quick to blame Assad and, as usual, also Iran, for dispatching "Syrian and Lebanese rabble-rousers," according to the IDF spokesman, "in order to divert attention from the crushing of demonstrations in Syria."
But it is hard to imagine that Israeli policy in the north will change and that it will try to heat up the border in response in order to assist in toppling Assad and replacing him with a more comfortable regime. Israel will try to ensure this remain an isolated incident and to restore calm in the area.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to use the incident up north to strengthen his public relations campaign in Washington. As far as he's concerned, this is further proof that Israel is confronted by forces bent on its destruction.
"This is not a struggle over the 1967 borders," Netanyahu said in response to the incident on the Golan border, "but a challenge to the existence of the State of Israel, which they describe as a catastrophe, and which must be redeemed."
Netanyahu scored another little victory yesterday after President Barack Obama announced he would address the AIPAC Conference. Obama will not appear before the stronghold of Israel's supporters in America in order to attack the settlements and the occupation. His decision to appear there, rather than sending his vice president, suggests that Obama does not intend to clash with Netanyahu in their upcoming meeting.
Published 02:39 16.05.11
Latest update 02:39 16.05.11
For Israel, the risk that Syria President Bashar Assad would undermine calm of northern border less threatening than prospect of him toppled; Israel blames Assad and Iran for border infiltration on Nakba Day.
By Aluf Benn
The Arab revolution knocked on Israel's door yesterday, in Nakba Day demonstrations carried out by Palestinians from Syria and Lebanon in Majdal Shams and in Marour al-Ras. The demonstrators entering the Druze village in the foothills of Mount Hermon shattered the illusion that Israel can live comfortably, a "villa in the jungle," cut off entirely from the dramatic events surrounding it.
More than the revolution in any other Arab country, the uprising against the Assad regime in Syria had threatened to spill over into Israel. President Bashar Assad hoped that his position as the leader of the "opposition" to Israel would save him from the fate of his counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt. When his seat became unstable, there was concern that Assad, or whoever replaces him, would try to escalate the conflict with Israel in order to regain legitimacy among the Syrian public and the Arab world at large.
Television stills capture protests in Majdal Shams, after hundreds reportedly infiltrated from Syria on Nakba Day, May 15, 2011.
But the risk that Assad would undermine the calm and stability on the northern border was seen by Israel as less threatening than the prospect that he would be toppled. For that reason, Israel refrained from intervening in support of the uprising against him. The IDF could have deployed a large force on the Golan Heights out of "fear of escalation," and thereby divert the Syrian army to the other side of the border, away from the protesters in Daraa and Homs. But instead, Israel adopted a policy of sitting still and letting Assad suppress the uprising in the hope hope that deterrence and stability would be preserved.
This calm was disturbed yesterday and the nightmare scenario Israel has feared since its inception became real - that Palestinian refugees would simply start walking from their camps toward the border and would try to exercise their "right of return." Israel prepared for demonstrations of Nakba Day in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, in the Galilee and the Triangle, but instead it was the Palestinian diaspora that tried to climb its fences. More than an intelligence lapse, the situation highlighted the limits of power. It is impossible to control all fronts and disperse forces everywhere. There will always be a spot that is less protected and the enemy will exploit it.
Israel was quick to blame Assad and, as usual, also Iran, for dispatching "Syrian and Lebanese rabble-rousers," according to the IDF spokesman, "in order to divert attention from the crushing of demonstrations in Syria."
But it is hard to imagine that Israeli policy in the north will change and that it will try to heat up the border in response in order to assist in toppling Assad and replacing him with a more comfortable regime. Israel will try to ensure this remain an isolated incident and to restore calm in the area.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to use the incident up north to strengthen his public relations campaign in Washington. As far as he's concerned, this is further proof that Israel is confronted by forces bent on its destruction.
"This is not a struggle over the 1967 borders," Netanyahu said in response to the incident on the Golan border, "but a challenge to the existence of the State of Israel, which they describe as a catastrophe, and which must be redeemed."
Netanyahu scored another little victory yesterday after President Barack Obama announced he would address the AIPAC Conference. Obama will not appear before the stronghold of Israel's supporters in America in order to attack the settlements and the occupation. His decision to appear there, rather than sending his vice president, suggests that Obama does not intend to clash with Netanyahu in their upcoming meeting.
Mazin Qumsiyeh arrested
Demand the Release of Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh and others;
Call your government to stop supporting Apartheid regime
This is a quick note that Israeli soldiers arrested Mazin along with two
other Palestinians early this afternoon local time May 15, 2011 as he was
participating in a peaceful nonviolent civil disobedient march toward the
Green Line in Al Walaja (one of the many Nakba events taken place today.)
Many media were there and his arrest was caught on tapes as he was just at
the scene peacefully. He is currently being held at the Israeli military
compound near Rachel's Tomb. As this message is being written, I got a
call from a friend who was still in Al-Walaja reporting that IDF is firing
tear gas at the remaining protest crowd. Some protesters escape to village
houses, but IDF soldiers followed into one house and arrested five more
people (one Irish, one other international, and three Palestinians) from
inside the house.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, and Golan Heights, there
were reports that dozens were wounded in many places, including more than
150 wounded at Qalandia checkpoint. Please complain to your government and
demand them to stop supporting the brutal Israeli Apartheid regime. Please
support and participate the Nakba events around the world today and double
the effort of BDS on Apartheid Israel.
Jess
Call your government to stop supporting Apartheid regime
This is a quick note that Israeli soldiers arrested Mazin along with two
other Palestinians early this afternoon local time May 15, 2011 as he was
participating in a peaceful nonviolent civil disobedient march toward the
Green Line in Al Walaja (one of the many Nakba events taken place today.)
Many media were there and his arrest was caught on tapes as he was just at
the scene peacefully. He is currently being held at the Israeli military
compound near Rachel's Tomb. As this message is being written, I got a
call from a friend who was still in Al-Walaja reporting that IDF is firing
tear gas at the remaining protest crowd. Some protesters escape to village
houses, but IDF soldiers followed into one house and arrested five more
people (one Irish, one other international, and three Palestinians) from
inside the house.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, and Golan Heights, there
were reports that dozens were wounded in many places, including more than
150 wounded at Qalandia checkpoint. Please complain to your government and
demand them to stop supporting the brutal Israeli Apartheid regime. Please
support and participate the Nakba events around the world today and double
the effort of BDS on Apartheid Israel.
Jess
Israeli forces open fire at Palestinian protesters
BBC News
15 May 2011
Last updated at 09:15 ET
Jon Donnison in Ramallah: "Palestinians are feeling emboldened and inspired by the uprisings elsewhere [in the Middle East]"
Israeli forces have fired on groups of protesters at borders with the Palestinian territories, Syria and Lebanon.
Unconfirmed reports say several people have died, and dozens have been injured.
In one incident, thousands of Palestinian supporters from Syria entered the Golan Heights, Israel says.
Palestinians are marking the Nakba or Catastrophe, their term for the founding of the Israeli state in 1948.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced out of their homes in fighting after its creation.
Impetus
Clashes have been taking place at four separate border crossing points - in Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and the frontier with Lebanon.
The BBC's Jon Donnison, in the West Bank town of Ramallah, said this year's Nakba protests have been given impetus by the uprisings in countries across the Middle East and North Africa.
"We are seeing here an Iranian provocation, on both the Syrian and the Lebanese frontiers, to try to exploit the Nakba day commemorations”
-Brig Gen Yoav Mordechai Israeli army
Our correspondent, at the Qalandiya checkpoint there, says there is a stand-off now, but dozens of Palestinians have been injured.
Palestinian protesters have been throwing stones at Israeli security forces, who have been firing tear gas and rubber bullets.
On the occupied Golan Heights, the Israeli military said it had only fired warning shots as a large number of protesters tried to breach a border fence near the village of Majdal Shams.
But unconfirmed reports said four people had been killed and at least 10 people injured.
Israel's army says this is a "serious" incursion. Brig Gen Yoav Mordechai said soldiers were still trying to control the crowds and that dozens of protesters had crossed.
The army has reportedly sealed off Majdal Shams and is carrying out house-to-house searches for infiltrators.
Israeli seized the strategic territory from Syria in 1967.
On the Lebanon-Israel border, a large number of protesters also approached the crossing with Israel.
Dozens of buses had brought protesters to the area under the rally slogan of "March for the return to Palestine".
Map
Lebanese soldiers had fired in the air to try to disperse the protesters, who were chanting: "By our soul, our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Palestine."
Gen Mordechai says Israeli troops fired as demonstrators began vandalising the fence. He confirmed casualties among protesters but could give no details on numbers.
Lebanese military officials said at least 10 people were injured in the shooting and one unconfirmed report said four people had been killed.
"We are seeing here an Iranian provocation, on both the Syrian and the Lebanese frontiers, to try to exploit the Nakba day commemorations," Gen Mordechai said.
A spokesman for the UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon called on both sides there to show restraint.
On the Israel-Gaza frontier, at the Erez border crossing, Israeli troops opened fire with tanks and machine guns, injuring dozens, Palestinian medical officials said.
Meanwhile in Tel Aviv, Israeli police are investigating whether an Arab-Israeli lorry driver deliberately ploughed into pedestrians, killing one Israeli man.
15 May 2011
Last updated at 09:15 ET
Jon Donnison in Ramallah: "Palestinians are feeling emboldened and inspired by the uprisings elsewhere [in the Middle East]"
Israeli forces have fired on groups of protesters at borders with the Palestinian territories, Syria and Lebanon.
Unconfirmed reports say several people have died, and dozens have been injured.
In one incident, thousands of Palestinian supporters from Syria entered the Golan Heights, Israel says.
Palestinians are marking the Nakba or Catastrophe, their term for the founding of the Israeli state in 1948.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced out of their homes in fighting after its creation.
Impetus
Clashes have been taking place at four separate border crossing points - in Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and the frontier with Lebanon.
The BBC's Jon Donnison, in the West Bank town of Ramallah, said this year's Nakba protests have been given impetus by the uprisings in countries across the Middle East and North Africa.
"We are seeing here an Iranian provocation, on both the Syrian and the Lebanese frontiers, to try to exploit the Nakba day commemorations”
-Brig Gen Yoav Mordechai Israeli army
Our correspondent, at the Qalandiya checkpoint there, says there is a stand-off now, but dozens of Palestinians have been injured.
Palestinian protesters have been throwing stones at Israeli security forces, who have been firing tear gas and rubber bullets.
On the occupied Golan Heights, the Israeli military said it had only fired warning shots as a large number of protesters tried to breach a border fence near the village of Majdal Shams.
But unconfirmed reports said four people had been killed and at least 10 people injured.
Israel's army says this is a "serious" incursion. Brig Gen Yoav Mordechai said soldiers were still trying to control the crowds and that dozens of protesters had crossed.
The army has reportedly sealed off Majdal Shams and is carrying out house-to-house searches for infiltrators.
Israeli seized the strategic territory from Syria in 1967.
On the Lebanon-Israel border, a large number of protesters also approached the crossing with Israel.
Dozens of buses had brought protesters to the area under the rally slogan of "March for the return to Palestine".
Map
Lebanese soldiers had fired in the air to try to disperse the protesters, who were chanting: "By our soul, our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Palestine."
Gen Mordechai says Israeli troops fired as demonstrators began vandalising the fence. He confirmed casualties among protesters but could give no details on numbers.
Lebanese military officials said at least 10 people were injured in the shooting and one unconfirmed report said four people had been killed.
"We are seeing here an Iranian provocation, on both the Syrian and the Lebanese frontiers, to try to exploit the Nakba day commemorations," Gen Mordechai said.
A spokesman for the UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon called on both sides there to show restraint.
On the Israel-Gaza frontier, at the Erez border crossing, Israeli troops opened fire with tanks and machine guns, injuring dozens, Palestinian medical officials said.
Meanwhile in Tel Aviv, Israeli police are investigating whether an Arab-Israeli lorry driver deliberately ploughed into pedestrians, killing one Israeli man.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
U.N. calls to end forced displacement ahead of Palestinian protests
CNN Wire Staff
May 15, 2011 --
Updated 0106 GMT (0906 HKT)
Jerusalem (CNN) -- United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos arrived in Jerusalem for a four-day tour to the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel, her office said. She is expected to meet with members of the Palestinian leadership and also hopes to meet with Israeli authorities.
The U.N. humanitarian chief appealed Saturday for an end to forced displacement, one day before Palestinians are set to mark what they call the Nakba -- a day to commemorate the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that accompanied the creation of Israel.
"These policies lead to forced displacement of Palestinians from Jerusalem and from the rest of the West Bank," Amos said in a statement about rules that limit new construction and the land available for Palestinian use.
"Palestinians must be able to plan and develop their communities. They must be able to access education and health care facilities and to conduct their professional and personal lives without restriction," she said.
She spoke just one day before Palestinians are expected to commemorate the Nakba -- translated as "catastrophe" in Arabic -- which commemorates the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in warfare that led to the establishment of Israel in 1948. More than 700,000 people fled or were forced from their homes during the fighting.
Their fate and that of their descendants has proven to be a key stumbling block to any Mideast peace. For most Palestinians the eventual return to their former homes in what is now Israel remains a fundamental requirement, while Israelis argue that any large-scale return of refugees would spell the end of the Jewish majority state.
Large demonstrations are predicted in the West Bank, Jerusalem and in other parts of Israel on Sunday to mark the day. In advance of the commemoration, the Israeli military closed West Bank crossings, it said.
May 15, 2011 --
Updated 0106 GMT (0906 HKT)
Jerusalem (CNN) -- United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos arrived in Jerusalem for a four-day tour to the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel, her office said. She is expected to meet with members of the Palestinian leadership and also hopes to meet with Israeli authorities.
The U.N. humanitarian chief appealed Saturday for an end to forced displacement, one day before Palestinians are set to mark what they call the Nakba -- a day to commemorate the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that accompanied the creation of Israel.
"These policies lead to forced displacement of Palestinians from Jerusalem and from the rest of the West Bank," Amos said in a statement about rules that limit new construction and the land available for Palestinian use.
"Palestinians must be able to plan and develop their communities. They must be able to access education and health care facilities and to conduct their professional and personal lives without restriction," she said.
She spoke just one day before Palestinians are expected to commemorate the Nakba -- translated as "catastrophe" in Arabic -- which commemorates the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in warfare that led to the establishment of Israel in 1948. More than 700,000 people fled or were forced from their homes during the fighting.
Their fate and that of their descendants has proven to be a key stumbling block to any Mideast peace. For most Palestinians the eventual return to their former homes in what is now Israel remains a fundamental requirement, while Israelis argue that any large-scale return of refugees would spell the end of the Jewish majority state.
Large demonstrations are predicted in the West Bank, Jerusalem and in other parts of Israel on Sunday to mark the day. In advance of the commemoration, the Israeli military closed West Bank crossings, it said.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Judges hand down the law with help from Bob Dylan
The protest era's vagabond poet is cited more often than any other songwriter in legal opinions and briefs. His ballads have become models for legal storytelling.
By Carol J. Williams,
Times Staff Writer
May 9, 2011
On summer nights in the mid-1960s, while black-and-white television crackled elsewhere in his Staten Island home with news of Southern violence and Vietnam, Bobby Lasnik would stretch out in his bedroom to let the righteous soundtrack of the civil rights movement waft into his impressionable teenage soul.
Tuned in to WBAI-FM, coming across the water from Manhattan, he heard baleful laments about injustice that he would carry with him for a lifetime.
"Suddenly there was someone speaking a certain kind of truth to you. You'd say, 'Wow! That's something I'm not used to hearing on the radio, something that moved me,'" Lasnik said of the first time he heard the lyrics of Bob Dylan. "I don't even remember which song it was, but I loved the imagery, the words you wouldn't think about putting together and the concepts that would emerge in your mind when you heard them."
Now the imagery flows in the other direction. U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik — Your Honor, not Bobby — has been known to invoke the voice of the vagabond poet in rulings from the federal bench in Seattle. He has recited lines from "Chimes of Freedom" in a case weighing the legality of indefinite detention and "The Times They Are A-Changin'," the battle cry of the civil rights movement, in a landmark ruling that excluding contraceptives from an employer's prescription drug plan constitutes sex discrimination.
Lasnik isn't alone in weaving Dylan's protest-era pathos into contemporary legal discourse.
No musician's lyrics are more often cited than Dylan's in court opinions and briefs, say legal experts who have chronicled the artist's influence on today's legal community. From U.S. Supreme Court rulings to law school courses, Dylan's words are used to convey messages about the law and courts gone astray.
His signature protest songs, "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'," gave voice and vocabulary to the antiwar and civil rights marches. His most powerful ballads, "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" and "Hurricane," have become models for legal storytelling and using music to make a point.
Dylan's music and values have imprinted themselves on the justice system because his songs were the score playing during the formative years of the judges and lawyers now populating the nation's courthouses, colleges and blue-chip law firms, says Michael Perlin, a New York Law School professor who has used Dylan lyrics as titles for at least 50 published law journal articles.
Perlin and others lured to the law by the moral siren songs of the 1960s credit Dylan with roles in passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, federal sentencing guidelines that purport to ensure more equitable prison terms and due process reforms prohibiting racial profiling.
"Everyone wants to believe that the music they listen to says something about who they are," says Alex Long, a University of Texas law professor who has researched the penetration of political songwriting into the legal system.
"Being a judge is a pretty cloistered existence, having to crank out these opinions in isolation. Dylan was popular at the time they were coming of age and trying to figure out who they were," says Long, a 41-year-old exposed to Dylan's musings as a child at the foot of his parents' record player. "The chance to throw in a line from your favorite artist is tempting, a chance to let your freak flag fly."
During a semester in 2007, Long combed legal databases to identify lyrics in court filings and scholarly publications, finding Dylan cited 186 times, far outpacing the rest of the top 10: the Beatles, 74; Bruce Springsteen, 69; Paul Simon, 59; Woody Guthrie, 43; the Rolling Stones, 39; the Grateful Dead, 32; Simon & Garfunkel, 30; Joni Mitchell, 28; and R.E.M., 27.
And it doesn't end with musicians. In apparent efforts to add rhetorical flourish to their rulings, judges have also often cited famous writers and humorists. In a U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruling last year, Judge Francis M. Allegra lamented the perplexity of the 1982 Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, writing that it "is the sort of law that brings to mind the old Mark Twain line: 'The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it.'"
But to date, it is the songs of the 1960s that seem to have the judges' ears.
One oft-cited line comes from Dylan's first top 10 hit, which half a dozen California appellate court rulings have included to convey that expert testimony is unnecessary to make a point obvious to any layman.
You don't need a weatherman
To know which way the wind blows.
Devoted Dylan fans now teaching law have incorporated into their curricula that ballad and "Hurricane," the story of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter's murder trial in Paterson, N.J., as models from which aspiring trial lawyers can hone their craft.
The traffic stop during which the Paterson police found shell casings linking Carter to a triple murder should have led to exclusion of the evidence because the police had no "reasonable suspicion" of a crime having been committed when they stopped him, said Allison Connelly, a University of Kentucky law professor and former public defender.
His trial is a textbook example for young attorneys on the value of digging for evidence and challenging the authorities' side of the story, Connelly said. She asks her students to draw on Dylan's lyrical account of the case to identify flaws in the prosecution's theory, find witnesses and set up parallel time lines to create an alibi for the defendant.
All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus he never had a chance
—"Hurricane"
The song tells a story of racist cops, a crooked judge and a biased jury that sent Carter to prison for two life sentences. A federal judge ultimately overturned Carter's conviction, saying the prosecution had been "based on an appeal to racism rather than reason."
Dylan's portrayal of the case as a frame-up may have influenced the enactment or enforcement of laws prohibiting traffic stops without cause and barring prosecutors from dismissing jurors because of their race, Connelly speculates.
In one of his first important cases after being named to the federal bench by President Clinton in 1998, Lasnik quoted Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom" to evoke the artist's sympathy for the downtrodden and mistreated. The case centered on a challenge by deportable undocumented immigrants who had been detained for years.
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An' for each an' ev'ry underdog soldier in the night
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
—"Chimes of Freedom"
But while judges like Lasnik, 60, pay homage to Dylan, the respect doesn't appear mutual, notes David Zornow, a partner at the New York office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
"This is a guy who doesn't have a lot good to say about judges," says Zornow, who in the voluminous archive of the artist's lyrics found only two references to judges that cast them as caring and professional. Most refer to corruption and caprice.
Like a suspect invoking his right to remain silent, Dylan declined through his spokesman Larry Jenkins to talk about his role as legal muse.
Dylan's lyrics are often identified with the left, but the two citations in U.S. Supreme Court rulings were made by conservatives. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. ruled in 2008 that billing firms hired by payphone operators didn't have standing to sue because they had no claim on the money they collected, slightly misquoting Dylan with his comment: "When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose."
The lyrics:
When you ain't got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.
—"Like a Rolling Stone"
Last year, Justice Antonin Scalia brought up Dylan when he scolded his high court colleagues for declining to rule yet on the evolving question of when employees have an expectation of privacy in using company email, arguing that " 'The times they are a-changin'' is a feeble excuse for disregard of duty."
Lasnik, who has also quoted Paul Simon's line from "The Boxer" about willful ignorance — "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest" — feigns distress at the justices' emulating of his habit of referencing Dylan.
"When Chief Justice Roberts quoted Dylan, I thought, 'Oh, no!'" said Lasnik. "Now it's not cool anymore."
carol.williams@latimes.com
Ocha: Israel has seized 35% of occupied East Jerusalem since 1967
Gulfnews.com
By Nasouh Nazzal, Correspondent
Published: 15:52 May 10, 2011
Israelis have seized more than one third of the total land in occupied East Jerusalem, according to report
Ramallah: Israeli authorities have seized 35 per cent of lands and properties in occupied East Jerusalem since 1967, according to a report by the United Nation Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha).
In the report, Ocha said that Israelis have seized more than one third of the total land and properties in the area to create new colonies and expand existing ones.
The report is the first of its kind issued by a UN department to address the general conditions of the Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.
The report added that Israelis dedicate less than 13 per cent of the lands of occupied East Jerusalem for the Palestinians who find themselves with very limited options and force them to go for the illegal construction of new houses to accommodate their increasing families.
The report also said that Israelis have demolished more than 2,000 Palestinian houses in the past forty four years.
By Nasouh Nazzal, Correspondent
Published: 15:52 May 10, 2011
Israelis have seized more than one third of the total land in occupied East Jerusalem, according to report
Ramallah: Israeli authorities have seized 35 per cent of lands and properties in occupied East Jerusalem since 1967, according to a report by the United Nation Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha).
In the report, Ocha said that Israelis have seized more than one third of the total land and properties in the area to create new colonies and expand existing ones.
The report is the first of its kind issued by a UN department to address the general conditions of the Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.
The report added that Israelis dedicate less than 13 per cent of the lands of occupied East Jerusalem for the Palestinians who find themselves with very limited options and force them to go for the illegal construction of new houses to accommodate their increasing families.
The report also said that Israelis have demolished more than 2,000 Palestinian houses in the past forty four years.
Sunday, May 08, 2011
From Mazin Qumsiyeh's journal: the beginning of the end
May 15, 2011:
By Mazin Qumsiyeh
I teased a friend the other day: Do you feel safer in the new world order?
We discussed the fact that there is a "new world order" whereby two states
(regimes) in the world feel immune from International law, disregard
existing mechanisms including the UN and Interpol, and send agents or
machines regularly to other sovereign countries to engage in extrajudicial
assassination of those they deem enemies. On most occasions, nearby
civilians are killed or the victim turns out to be someone else. There is
the argument that these people assassinated are bad guys and should be
killed. My friend and I certainly do not have sympathy for Bin Laden and
people like him. But violating laws is not the way to go (two wrongs do not
make a right).
My friend points out that some two million Iraqis, half of them children,
perished by the unjust US/UK led blockade, sanctions, and war. Millions
suffered and over 60,000 were murdered by the Israeli policies of land
theft, ethnic cleansing, regular massacres of civilians, and other war
crimes and crimes against humanity. These are all acts of state terrorism in
whole sale as opposed to the retail terror acts of Al-Qaeda. Yet imagine if
Afghani commandoes (or Chinese or Irish for that matter) landed in a
clandestine way in the US, Britain, or Israel and "took-out" one of the
masterminds of such mass terrorism. Come to think of it, the stage is set
now for this to happen since the message sent around the world is that
"might makes right". As humans, we have clear choices to make: we either
support the notion of "dog-eat-dog world" and put our faith in military
might OR we insist that another world is coming and that we can shape it
with our hands using popular and nonviolent resistance.
My friend laments a history of our species of oppression, exploitation,
destruction, and even mass murder (e.g. the genocide during slavery, during
colonization in the Americas, the use of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki). She asks half jokingly why should we expect a dramatic change in
our life-span? History does show that, slowly but surely, democracy and
peace are spreading around the world. In Latin America an amazing progress
transpired from the era of colonialism (including genocide and slavery) to
the era of "banana republics" (ruled by ruthless, western-supported
dictators) to the hard won democratic revolutions. A similar transformation
is occurring in the Arab world. This Arab spring came later and is more
painful because such a transformation threatens the implanted Western wedge
that is the racist apartheid state of Israel. My friend and I debate whether
acting is contingent on being 100% sure of winning! While a more rational
reading of history would lead one to be more optimistic, acting on our
beliefs and our ideals is not contingent on existing power structures or
short-term outcomes but only on how we believe we should live and act.
Self-transformation itself is a win!
I ask my friend to imagine activists 10 years before each of these events
and what motivated them to act (even as they did not foresee the end): the
collapse of the Berlin wall, the freedoms in the countries of Eastern
Europe, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the end of segregation in the
South of the US, the woman suffrage, and the end of the US supported
Pinochet, Suharto, and Mubarak regimes. In each of those instances and
hundreds more, many activists died even before seeing the end of the
struggle. In each of these cases, some thought it was a hopeless struggle
against incredible odds. But even some activists did not understand how
close they were to winning. Some even gave up the struggle a year or two
before it triumphed.
Even when it seems most entrenched the status quo will not stay the same.
The mighty Persian and Roman empires ended. Who now remembers that in the
19th century, Portugal, Spain, and England had armies and colonies around
the world and seemed invincible. Even Hitler's relatively short-lived third
Reich seemed invincible. Human constructs are invariably changeable by new
human constructs ESPECIALLY if they are repressive and antagonize too many
people. The Israeli and US regimes are thus more susceptible on this front
than any other in existence today. Martin Luther King Jr once said of the
US: "I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of
the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the
greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government.."
Israeli historian Benny Morris stated "The Jewish generations of 1948,
however, knew the truth and deliberately misrepresented it. They knew there
were plenty of mass deportations, massacres and rapes . . . . The soldiers
and the officials knew, but they suppressed what they knew and were
deliberately disseminating lies." Ilan Pappe summarized years of his
historical research thus: "Jews came and took, by means of uprooting and
expulsion, a land that was Arab. We wanted to be a colonialist occupier, and
yet to come across as moral at the same time.." These 'original sins' (as
another Israeli historian titled his book) will catch up with this
generation.
I tell my friend that the sins of the past come to haunt people whether at
the individual level or the national level. Similarly, the good deeds do
get repaid sooner or later. I remind her that her good deeds were already
rewarded many times over as she herself acknowledged to me. I am sure the
many Israelis and US citizens who worked very hard for peace with justice
will be vindicated. She states that our biggest troubles are not sustained
by those who work against us but the masses who are apathetic. Apathy
indeed is the scourge of humanity. Each of us should look themselves in the
mirror everyday and honestly think if they have done enough! Here in
Palestine, like in other parts of the world there are also those who act and
those who are apathetic. The latter may watch TV, may feel pangs of
frustration or anger but are not willing to sum up the inner courage
(present in all of us) to finally act on their convictions. On our
deathbed, will we lament a life wasted or smile at a life of achievement for
fellow human beings.
My friend and I are pleased to be alive in this day and age and continue to
be very optimistic. We are grateful for the tentative initial steps of
reconciliation of the Palestinian house (but must keep pushing) and we are
grateful for the failure of Netanyahu to get Europeans to pressure the
Palestinian people to keep their divisions. We know Netanyahu will next go
to the US but there he will have to pass through demonstrators to get to the
Israeli occupied halls of Congress. And the US is already 14 trillion in
debt, one third of it caused directly by the Israel-first lobby. But AIPAC
is being challenged.(1)
Meanwhile, the struggle here in the last land of apartheid continues.
Saturday, our friends Yusuf and Musa AbuMaria were attacked and injured by
Israeli forces in a peaceful demonstration in Beit Ummar near Hebron (Yusuf
had two breaks in one arm) and we attended two conferences in Hebron the
same day. One was the Palestinian Forum for Medical Research first
biomedical research symposium (2) where one of my master's students
presented her research results. The second was attended by 300 activists
nearly half Israeli and was titled "Joint Struggle for an End to the
Occupation and Racism". The final declaration from this conference is
meaningful in showing the change happening on the ground in joint struggle
(as opposed to normalization)(3).
Join us 15 May 2011 on the streets as we launch a global intifada (uprising)
using popular resistance methods. It will not be the end but the beginning
of the end as hundreds of demonstrations and marches are held around the
world (including marches to checkpoints) and from nearby countries to the
borders of occupied Palestine.
We will say that 63 years of destructions and war is enough and our Nakba
must end. Some are calling this the third intifada (4) but it is actually
the 14th or 15th and it is likely going to be the last (5). In follow-up you
can join us in Palestine this July (see PalestineJN.org) to take a bigger
step forward.
In the meantime, as our friend and martyr Vittorio reminded us to always
"STAY HUMAN".
By Mazin Qumsiyeh
I teased a friend the other day: Do you feel safer in the new world order?
We discussed the fact that there is a "new world order" whereby two states
(regimes) in the world feel immune from International law, disregard
existing mechanisms including the UN and Interpol, and send agents or
machines regularly to other sovereign countries to engage in extrajudicial
assassination of those they deem enemies. On most occasions, nearby
civilians are killed or the victim turns out to be someone else. There is
the argument that these people assassinated are bad guys and should be
killed. My friend and I certainly do not have sympathy for Bin Laden and
people like him. But violating laws is not the way to go (two wrongs do not
make a right).
My friend points out that some two million Iraqis, half of them children,
perished by the unjust US/UK led blockade, sanctions, and war. Millions
suffered and over 60,000 were murdered by the Israeli policies of land
theft, ethnic cleansing, regular massacres of civilians, and other war
crimes and crimes against humanity. These are all acts of state terrorism in
whole sale as opposed to the retail terror acts of Al-Qaeda. Yet imagine if
Afghani commandoes (or Chinese or Irish for that matter) landed in a
clandestine way in the US, Britain, or Israel and "took-out" one of the
masterminds of such mass terrorism. Come to think of it, the stage is set
now for this to happen since the message sent around the world is that
"might makes right". As humans, we have clear choices to make: we either
support the notion of "dog-eat-dog world" and put our faith in military
might OR we insist that another world is coming and that we can shape it
with our hands using popular and nonviolent resistance.
My friend laments a history of our species of oppression, exploitation,
destruction, and even mass murder (e.g. the genocide during slavery, during
colonization in the Americas, the use of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki). She asks half jokingly why should we expect a dramatic change in
our life-span? History does show that, slowly but surely, democracy and
peace are spreading around the world. In Latin America an amazing progress
transpired from the era of colonialism (including genocide and slavery) to
the era of "banana republics" (ruled by ruthless, western-supported
dictators) to the hard won democratic revolutions. A similar transformation
is occurring in the Arab world. This Arab spring came later and is more
painful because such a transformation threatens the implanted Western wedge
that is the racist apartheid state of Israel. My friend and I debate whether
acting is contingent on being 100% sure of winning! While a more rational
reading of history would lead one to be more optimistic, acting on our
beliefs and our ideals is not contingent on existing power structures or
short-term outcomes but only on how we believe we should live and act.
Self-transformation itself is a win!
I ask my friend to imagine activists 10 years before each of these events
and what motivated them to act (even as they did not foresee the end): the
collapse of the Berlin wall, the freedoms in the countries of Eastern
Europe, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the end of segregation in the
South of the US, the woman suffrage, and the end of the US supported
Pinochet, Suharto, and Mubarak regimes. In each of those instances and
hundreds more, many activists died even before seeing the end of the
struggle. In each of these cases, some thought it was a hopeless struggle
against incredible odds. But even some activists did not understand how
close they were to winning. Some even gave up the struggle a year or two
before it triumphed.
Even when it seems most entrenched the status quo will not stay the same.
The mighty Persian and Roman empires ended. Who now remembers that in the
19th century, Portugal, Spain, and England had armies and colonies around
the world and seemed invincible. Even Hitler's relatively short-lived third
Reich seemed invincible. Human constructs are invariably changeable by new
human constructs ESPECIALLY if they are repressive and antagonize too many
people. The Israeli and US regimes are thus more susceptible on this front
than any other in existence today. Martin Luther King Jr once said of the
US: "I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of
the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the
greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government.."
Israeli historian Benny Morris stated "The Jewish generations of 1948,
however, knew the truth and deliberately misrepresented it. They knew there
were plenty of mass deportations, massacres and rapes . . . . The soldiers
and the officials knew, but they suppressed what they knew and were
deliberately disseminating lies." Ilan Pappe summarized years of his
historical research thus: "Jews came and took, by means of uprooting and
expulsion, a land that was Arab. We wanted to be a colonialist occupier, and
yet to come across as moral at the same time.." These 'original sins' (as
another Israeli historian titled his book) will catch up with this
generation.
I tell my friend that the sins of the past come to haunt people whether at
the individual level or the national level. Similarly, the good deeds do
get repaid sooner or later. I remind her that her good deeds were already
rewarded many times over as she herself acknowledged to me. I am sure the
many Israelis and US citizens who worked very hard for peace with justice
will be vindicated. She states that our biggest troubles are not sustained
by those who work against us but the masses who are apathetic. Apathy
indeed is the scourge of humanity. Each of us should look themselves in the
mirror everyday and honestly think if they have done enough! Here in
Palestine, like in other parts of the world there are also those who act and
those who are apathetic. The latter may watch TV, may feel pangs of
frustration or anger but are not willing to sum up the inner courage
(present in all of us) to finally act on their convictions. On our
deathbed, will we lament a life wasted or smile at a life of achievement for
fellow human beings.
My friend and I are pleased to be alive in this day and age and continue to
be very optimistic. We are grateful for the tentative initial steps of
reconciliation of the Palestinian house (but must keep pushing) and we are
grateful for the failure of Netanyahu to get Europeans to pressure the
Palestinian people to keep their divisions. We know Netanyahu will next go
to the US but there he will have to pass through demonstrators to get to the
Israeli occupied halls of Congress. And the US is already 14 trillion in
debt, one third of it caused directly by the Israel-first lobby. But AIPAC
is being challenged.(1)
Meanwhile, the struggle here in the last land of apartheid continues.
Saturday, our friends Yusuf and Musa AbuMaria were attacked and injured by
Israeli forces in a peaceful demonstration in Beit Ummar near Hebron (Yusuf
had two breaks in one arm) and we attended two conferences in Hebron the
same day. One was the Palestinian Forum for Medical Research first
biomedical research symposium (2) where one of my master's students
presented her research results. The second was attended by 300 activists
nearly half Israeli and was titled "Joint Struggle for an End to the
Occupation and Racism". The final declaration from this conference is
meaningful in showing the change happening on the ground in joint struggle
(as opposed to normalization)(3).
Join us 15 May 2011 on the streets as we launch a global intifada (uprising)
using popular resistance methods. It will not be the end but the beginning
of the end as hundreds of demonstrations and marches are held around the
world (including marches to checkpoints) and from nearby countries to the
borders of occupied Palestine.
We will say that 63 years of destructions and war is enough and our Nakba
must end. Some are calling this the third intifada (4) but it is actually
the 14th or 15th and it is likely going to be the last (5). In follow-up you
can join us in Palestine this July (see PalestineJN.org) to take a bigger
step forward.
In the meantime, as our friend and martyr Vittorio reminded us to always
"STAY HUMAN".
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About Me
- Steve Lewis
- Prophesy bearer for four religious traditions, revealer of Christ's Sword, revealer of Josephine bearing the Spirit of Christ, revealer of the identity of God, revealer of the Celestial Torah astro-theological code within the Bible. Celestial Torah Christian Theologian, Climax Civilization theorist and activist, Eco-Village Organizer, Master Psychedelic Artist, Inventor of the Next Big Thing in wearable tech, and always your Prophet-At-Large.