Oranges and Olives

Don't be part of Apartheid

2010-10-18T21:43:00.002+02:00

I am impressed by the creativity of the young and young-at-heart activists who are willing to put so much effort in in Boycot, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign.

love thy enemy

2010-09-30T03:37:00.002+02:00

You know what? I just love Liberman! He simply tells the whole world what we, Palestinians, have always been saying all along. There has never been an Israeli politician who was as open about Israel's intentions and actions.

We always knew, and said, that Israel loves the situation as it is now and tries to keep it this way because it helps it get what she wants: more land and less people. Liberman doesn't hide his satisfaction when he claims that they should keep the situation as it is, and 'manage the conflict' instead of resolving it. This is also exactly what he does, put one obstacle after another in the face of reaching a just peace.

We have always said that the conflict is not about creating an independent Palestinian state. We always said it is about justice. Here is Liberman expressing his desire to force upon the Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship loyalty to the enemy or a choice to leave their country.

We always said that Israel wants more land and less people, and here he declares to the whole world, that he wants to reassess the citizenship of Palestinians in Israel.

We always said that Israel is more interested in land than in peace, and here goes Liberman declaring unrelenting support to the settlement enterprise, of which he himself is a pioneer.

In short, if people can only hear what Liberman says and compare it to the actions of Israel for the past 63 years they will only see that Liberman is the only honest politician Israel has had. They will know that such policies are exactly what led Palestinians to frustration, year after year and that these are the policies that will keep the conflict raging for decades to come.

Only free men can negotiate

2010-09-28T10:47:00.002+02:00

The beginning of this month was marked by a seemingly hopeful declaration of the relaunch of direct negotiations, but eyes were firmly fixed on the deadline of 26th September when Settlement building would be allowed to continue unhindered.

Of course, both sides entered into negotiations under pressure from the Americans after a long process of foot dragging the Palestinians into negotiations through a 'settlement building freeze' which looked nothing like a freeze. For 10 months I traveled around the west bank and could easily see construction activity going as usual especially in the southern areas of the West Bank. Jerusalem of course was excluded from this freeze. Of course, even Israelis didn't consider this as a freeze as Dror Etkes, in his op-ed, likens settlements to water as 'the only substance that expands instead of contracting when it freezes.'

Israel is trying to sell the idea that Palestinians are placing pre-conditions on the negotiations. But this is far from true. The negotiations are on the area of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) that will be under a proposed Palestinian state. Every new house and every new settler is actually an addition to the problem. Settlement building is in itself creating new facts that will mean less Palestinian land, more land to Jews. Each housing unit, is a further 4-5 settlers added to the problem, or maybe 10 in orthodox settlements. Each one of these settlers is an addition to the problem. each of them a new pre-condition on peace.

The situation in Jerusalem is even worse. An intifada is on the verge of breaking out. Settlers have the backing of the whole system to take land and houses, evict Palestinians residents and use them for Jews. A landmark court ruling, would entitle jews not only to houses they bought but also to houses they leased before 1948, putting dozens of families at risk of eviction from their houses. a further 80 houses are set for demolition in Silwan, just south of the old city, to make way for a park, courtesy of the settler organisation Elad. It is hard to envision such a grand plan to besiege the old city without the orchestrated efforts of all state organs working diligently to remove Palestinian presence in and around Jerusalem in favour of creating a Jewish majority in the area of the 'holy basin', the old city and its surroundings.

Abbas, entered into negotiations shouting and screaming that he will not tolerate the relaunch of settlement building, when settlement building was ongoing throughout. This illustrates the leadership crisis we are in. The Palestinian leadership is not capable of making a stand and standing by it. The are not masters of their free will. They declare that they will negotiate, and that negotiations are the only option they will explore. doesn't this mean that they are not free to walk out of negotiations? that they are not free to determine the course of negotiations?

This reminds me of Mandella's famous quote: Only free men can negotiate.

I think i should go back to writing

2010-09-25T22:51:00.003+02:00

When I write, i get all these bad thoughts off my mind and on the web. they don't really go off my mind, but i guess i can understand them better when i see them there on the post. right now, there are so many bad thoughts with all that is going on, that's why i think i should go back to writing. I always used to tell myself, that when i get enough time, i will rearrange my blog and go back to writing, but this is not going to happen, so i will write then go back to rearranging it.

There are so many hot things going on in this country. peace talks are on the rail with a huge bumper ahead. Jerusalem is on the brink of exploding. Settler violence is escalating. Stupid half-men are running the show almost in every single country involved. Someone has to talk about this. I hope i can do that.

on bullying and sanctions

2010-03-25T22:49:00.003+02:00

On 30 Januray 2006, representatives of the Middle East Peace quartet came out in London to commend the Palestinian elections that were held earlier that week and to set 4 conditions that any new Palestinian government must adhere to in their policy: commitment to non-violence; recognition of Israel; acceptance of previous agreements; and, engaging in negotiations aimed at realising the two state solution. These conditions became a basis for a later international boycott against the Palestinian Authority when Hamas came to power in March that year. This boycott, in turn brought the Palestinian economy to ruins and was a major factor in the ongoing schism between Hamas and Fateh.

Four years later, we find ourselves in a similar situation: we have a government that is not, in any way, committed to non-violence; a government that does not recognise previous agreements, specifically the road map; a government that does not recognise the two state solution; and, one that is not committed to any meaningful negotiations. Had this government been not Israeli, it would have been brought to its knees by economic sanctions. Instead, the Americans, despite the ongoing row over Israel’s stance have just signed a quarter of a billion dollars arms deal with Israel. How could all of this be true, and yet this reward be given to the Israelis? I will try to discuss these allegations that I have just made to support the argument that similar actions necessitate similar reactions- in a fair world, that is.

Speaking about Israel’s commitment to non-violence can only be a sub story in Alice in Wonderland. I won’t put a lot of effort into discussing the four people killed earlier this week by Israeli soldiers while plowing their fields or demonstrating against the wall. neither will i spend more time discussing the continuous Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.

Israel is clearly not committing itself to its obligations under peace understandings, specifically the Road Map. While the Palestinians have met all their commitments to stop incitement and violence, Israel is committed to continuing the building of settlements, a clear violation of the Road Map. Even the announced ‘freeze’ by Israel which does not include Jerusalem, ‘natural growth’, building in progress and social infrastructure is short of its obligation to cease all settlement activity. To add fuel to fire, the Israelis keep on announcing new plans everyday, especially in Jerusalem where they recently announced that plans in the pipeline include over 50,000 housing units. That’s at least 250,000 more obstacles to any peace process.

Israel’s only commitment to the two state solution came in the form of a Palestinian state that is non-contiguous, has no sovereignty over airspace, no control over its borders, no armed forces… practically nothing that can make it a state. We are currently in the same situation, under such circumstances the PA cannot free electromagnetic spectrum for a mobile communications company nor can it find a suitable place to establish a dumpster for Ramallah without getting Israeli consent.

As for peace negotiations, it is clear that Netanyahu is interested in gaining political capital by standing up to the US in its efforts to restart the negotiations. Every time things start moving he finds the perfect way to put them back to square one, just as he did during Biden’s visit.

So it is clear that the Israelis are not keeping with the requirements of the quartet. When the Palestinians were in the same position, they had to suffer from 2 years of sanctions. Why shouldn’t the Israelis be directed to the same treatment now? It is easy to come up with all sorts of excuses against this. Some might say we cannot interfere in Israel’s democracy- but isn’t that exactly what the world did to the Palestinians in 2006, dealing a strong blow to Palestine’s nascent democracy?

Israel is acting like a school bully. Such behaviour calls for measures that would put an end to it. The only conceivable measure, taking into consideration that diplomatic effort the world has put into managing it so far, is to impose sanctions on Israel.

a sense of purpose

2009-12-26T22:39:00.002+02:00

Um Salamona is a village south of Bethlehem can be seen en route to Hebron surrounded by the settlement of Efrata and an Israeli industrial park built on its land. The village faces yet another threat of being shrunk by the relentless Israeli appetite to confiscate more and more land. Half a mount is under threat of confiscation by the Israelis, under the claim that it should be government land, which would then be allocated to yet more settlement growth.

The people of Um Salamona petitioned the matter to an Israeli court, which ruled that they can keep THEIR land if they changed it into agricultural land. Otherwise, it would be up for land grab.

The challenge, as unfair as it is was taken up by the owners of the land. They also went on in recruiting volunteers for help in preparing the land and making it into agricultural land. Tens of volunteers have been flecking to the village over the past 3 weeks with trees and shovels and their bare hands to do the best they can to change how this plot looks on areal photographs in order to protect it from from being stolen.

It was a hard day, trying to remove the thorny bushes that covered the slopes of this mount. I believe the volunteers were able to work on more than 20 dunums on that day, maybe even more. But it was not the size of the plot that mattered to us, but rather the feeling that each of us felt that he was doing something of purpose.

Sitting in an office all day, typing on a computer or meeting with professionals, I often get into a mood of dissatisfaction from myself and the purpose of what I do. On that day, I felt that everything I have done was meaningful. I can hold the excitement of actually participating in a positive act of resistance that is not meant to harm anyone, but rather to revive the land.

The story of Samarah

2009-12-22T10:23:00.001+02:00

This is a story from a friend of mine about her daughter trip to Palestine/Israel.

As you know she is a British subject who wanted to spend a couple of weeks Christmas holiday. seeing friends and family in Jerusalem and Haifa to “have a bit of fun” as she puts it. She arrive Sunday at 3:30 pm at Tel Aviv airport not expecting any problems . Sammarah is 17 years of age and is in year 12 of school in a school in the UK.

What she went through from the moment she arrived at the airport until she was sent back to U.K was unbelievable. She was taken in a white van to what I presume the detention center at the airport. There she was questioned by a “bulky big man who kept shouting at me and asking silly questions about my friends and family. I kept saying yes to everything he asked so that he would stop shouting”. The reason given to her for refusing to allow her in was that they thought she may not leave the country, even though it was clear from what she said and the school books she carried with her that she was a school girl .

At any rate after the interrogation , she was put in a cell “filthy small cell with a double bunker bed . the bottom mattress was filthy, the top one was rubber with many holes in it but looked cleaner than the bottom one. No bed cover apart from a very dirty looking blanket. I slept on the top bed with my Palestinian “kufia” for a cover. They initially said they would leave the door open as I was under age. But woke up at some point to find the door locked and kept that way all the time. I screamed my head off to get them to open the door but they did not. The food they gave me was a sandwich part eaten. I was given some water to drink and some tea which I held very tightly to warm my very cold hands. They took all my things away from me including my telephone and they refused to let me call anybody from my family to let them know what was happening. At 6:30 am I was taken by a police car to board a plane to UK, only to find out they managed to put me on the wrong plane which was heading to Denmark! Eventually I was on the right plane to London”.

It is possible!

2009-11-07T19:44:00.001+02:00

The Wall. The symbol of Apartheid in Palestine. I always believed it must fall. I thought of a million ways to bring it down. A bulldozer, and excavator, bombs, earthquakes... a million other ways.
Aparently, all it has ever needed is a handful of committed individuals. Now that's easy to find, isn't it?

Taking it Global

2009-10-30T13:29:00.005+02:00

The Palestinian cause is currently succeeding in mobilising international grassroots support around the world. It would have previously been unthinkable to, for example, see people in America standing up so courageously against a War criminal like Olmert. Now this is becoming a growing trend. The British UCU has time and again discussed the boycot of Israeli institutions. So has many other European, American, Canadian institutions. The Trade Unions movement is also leading BDS effort around the world and this is leaving an echo.
The Goldstone Report has also marked an important milestone in this process. Israeli officials are increasingly becomming concerned that this report will discourage soldiers from participating in military operations because of the ensuing criminal responsibiltiy and the potential legal implications around the world. already, Barak and Ya'alon had to worry about the prospects of beign arrested in the UK if not for their diplomatic immunity as official state visitors.
What I see today is the core of an international campaign that will grow in the coming years to sufficient strength to be able to push for a real and just change in international policy towards Israel. The increased isolation of Israel will force it to review its policy and the way it deals with the conflict. It will make it understand that its policies cannot be sustainable. It will happen, it happened before in South Africa, it will happen again here.

Jerusalem

2009-03-27T22:25:00.001+02:00

Jerusalem… There is not a single Palestinian who can imagine or think of Palestine without Jerusalem. I have more reasons than one to think the same.

The Israelis on the other hand say that Jerusalem is Jewish, has always been and will always be. Of course an idiot can identify the fallacy in that argument. In the first place, a city can never belong to a people in the manner these people are claiming. Second, Jerusalem has been there long before David ever made it the capital of his kingdom, and since its establishment, its people have always lived there. They lived through the rise and fall of the Jewish Kingdoms, they lived through out the Romans, and the brief return of the Jews, and the subsequent Roman victory. They lived there through the Arab Caliphate, the crusades, the return of the Arabs and the Ottomans. They lived there through the British and Israeli occupations, and as they did previous conquerors, they will outlive the current ones.

Most importantly though, if the city so rightly belonged to the Jews, why do we see a vicious campaign to erect the Arabs? After all, if that claim was right, were did these Arabs come from?

Israel is clearly trying to change the whole face of Jerusalem, making it more Jewish than it has ever been. In the process, thousands of Arabs are losing their right to live in the city they called home, long before Israel was born. Their homes are being destroyed, and their families are split apart.

In Ma’amanillah, a commercial centre just outside Jaffa gate, I saw whole buildings which have been brought from elsewhere in Palestine and rebuilt as shops, malls and pubs. I thought how would the person who owned that house feel to see it moved from where he had built it, and used by someone else without him being consulted.

Yesterday, as I walked through the city, I noticed the Mezuzah at Jaffa Gate. As if, that gate was a gate to a Jewish home. I used to play around those gates, long before all those who touched it and kissed their hands came to this land. And now, I have to climb up and down the mountains to get there, while they can pass through the gate, and kiss their Mezuzah whenever they like.

In any case, her smile inside the old walls, where more than enough to deserve the climb to city.

A place among enlightened nations

2009-03-21T19:47:00.003+02:00

This week was eventful. Israel launched its Farsi radio, beginning its broadcast with Nairuz greeting by president Peres, who urged the Iranian people 'to reclaim their place among enlightened nations'. It must be a twisted definition of enlightened that he refers to. Forget the masccares he orchestrated and led in his career, for on the same day we were destined to learn of a new fiasco with Israeli army recruits at its centres. It appears that these young, brainwashed boys tend to celebrate their murderous career by printing T-shirts with slogans and cartoons that illustrate their exprience in the army. The picture on the left (courtesy of Maan News), an example, portrays a young Palestinian boy in the target range of a sniper shot, with the words "the smaller, the harder". Not much further can be said about this.
Today, was the launch day of "Jerusalem, Capital of Arab Culture" a year long of cultural events focused around the city and its contribution to Arab culture, a contribution that cannot be denied even by the most stubborn of Zionists. The 'enlightened' State of Israel waged a war against the events of launch spreading thousands of its police and border guards around the city, detaining organisers, invading monasteries, schools, universities and cultural centres in their attempt to stop the events.
It is ironic that a country that claims to be a light unto the nations would use such barbaric force to put an end to cultural celebrations of this kind.

ICC

2009-03-06T16:39:00.001+02:00

The world cheered the decision by the International Criminal Court to issue a warrant of arrest for Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan over allegations of crimes against humanity and war crimes in connection with the ongoing conflict in Darfur. The warrant lists 7 criminal counts based on the Rome Statute. These are:

1. Murder (Article 7(1)(a));

2. Extermination (Article 7(1)(b));

3. Forcible Transfer (Article 7(1)(d));

4. Torture (Article 7(1)(f));

5. Rape (Article 7(1)(g));

6. Directing attacks against civilians (Article 8(2)(e)(i)); and,

7. Pillaging (Article 8(2)(e)(v)).

I always believed that what the Sudanese government and its sponsored militias were doing in Sudan is a crime against the people of Darfur. I always felt for those unfortunate civilians who were attacked, and whose homes were destroyed, villages torched down, women raped.

One of the argument Zionists and supporters always used to suppress any case or argument against Israel, was the referral to the human rights situation in Sudan, asking the rhetorical question “why is Israel always blamed while other countries can do as they wish?”

Well, I guess the ICCs decision clears the way in response to this question. So The Court’s decision to issue a warrant for the arrest of a president while in office, is a precedent. The Court, however, believes that the Rome Statute does not provide any exemption or immunity based on official capacity.

So, maybe now the Court can turn its eye to another part of the Middle East where clear violations of the Rome Statute have been committed. Israeli leaders current and past can be tried for a hell more crimes than those seven. I will try here to list my counts:

1. Article 7/1/a- Murder: There are numerous cases of murder committed by the Israeli army. The consecutive chiefs of staff, ministers of defence, and prime ministers are liable for prosecution under this article based on their direct and indirect responsibility of coordinating, designing, leading and promoting the events that led to such cases, as well as their hierarchical control of the “apparatus” of the State of Israel that implemented this crime.

2. Article 7/1/b Extermination: (as per 7/2/b) “the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population.” The responsibility of Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barack and the Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, in particular for the siege of Gaza and the prevention of urgently needed medical supplies, food and electricity which lead to over 300 deaths among Palestinians requiring medical attention.

3. Article 7/1/d Deportation or forcible transfer of population: Several cases of this crime have been committed and documented. The most notable of which are the two massive waves of transfer of population in 1948 and 1967. Currently, the Israeli Government is not fulfilling its obligations to stop the Settlers Militia from enforcing such transfers. The village of Yanoun in the centre of the West Bank is one example of forced transfer. Tana village, with supreme court support is due for demolition by the State of Israel.

4. Article 7/1/e Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law: There are over 10,000 prisoners in Israeli Prisons. Many of them sit there on Administrative Detention which is renewed endlessly. Many others are serving absurdly high sentences reaching for some over 1200 years (yes, one thousand two hundred years).

5. Article 7/1/f Torture: Israeli Supreme Court (of Justice?) has made several rulings allowing the Shin Bet to exercise torture against Palestinian prisoners. The Shin Bet is the Government’s National Security Agency, it falls under the authority of the Prime Minister

6. Article 7/1/h Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court.

7. Article 7/1/j The crime of apartheid: (As per 7/2/h) ‘The crime of apartheid’ means inhumane acts of a character similar to those [mentioned above], committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.

8. Article 7/1/k Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

9. Article 8/2/a/i Wilful Killing. Several documented cases of wilful killing can be raised under this article. Many of those gained international fame such as the case of the assassination of Salah Shehada.

10. Article 8/2/a/ii Torture and Inhumane treatment. Several documented cases most notably the actions of Israeli army on roadblocks across the West Bank.

11. Article 8/2/a/iii Wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health;

12. Article 8/2/a/ iv Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. Many such cases exist. In the early fifties Israel transferred the ownership of millions of dunnums of land to the KKL/JNF. These lands were owned by Palestinian refugees, by the transfer Israel ensured that these lands will only be used by Jews as KKL regulations forbid selling property to non-Jews.

13. Article 8/2/a/vi Wilfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial;

14. Article 8/2/a/vii Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement;

15. Article 8/2/b/i Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities;

16. Article 8/2/b/i Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives;

17. Article 8/2/b/iii Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict;

18. Article 8/2/b/iv Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated;

19. Article 8/2/b/v Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives;

20. Article 8/2/b/viii The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory;

21. Article 8/2/b/ix Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives;

22. Article 8/2/b/xvi Pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault;

23. Article 8/2/b/xix Employing bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core or is pierced with incisions;

24. Article 8/2/b/xx Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict, provided that such weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare are the subject of a comprehensive prohibition and are included in an annex to this Statute, by an amendment in accordance with the relevant provisions set forth in articles 121 and 123;

25. Article 8/2/b/xxi Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;

26. Article 8/2/b/xxiii Utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations;

27. Article 8/2/b/xxiv Intentionally directing attacks against buildings, material, medical units and transport, and personnel using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions in conformity with international law;

28. Article 8/2/b/xxv Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions;

So Twenty eight counts. Of course these have been committed by various Israeli politicians since the establishment of the state, but I am sure current politicians have a criminal responsibility over many of these. The only problem we have is that no one will file a case on behalf of the Palestinians. The double standards that plague international organisations will necessarily mean that the ICC prosecutor will not file a case on his own as he did in the case of AlBashir.

I am sure with some research all of these crimes can be documented and presented as a complete case. Maybe, just maybe, at one point we would be able to launch such a suit.

Miracles

2009-01-22T12:26:00.002+02:00

Palestinian nationalism might be recent phenomenon, But so is Jewish nationalism. Despite finding its roots the 3000 year old history of the Jews, this form of nationalism only started as a real movement in the late 1800. It wasn't this history that made the Jews a single nation, Jews around the world never identified with Zionism. That's why the state had to carry out its aliyah programmes to bring in Jews from Africa, the Middle East, central Asia and elsewhere (ah! BTW this is not a miracle from G-d, it is the result of Mossad work and a lot of money). These groups may now have this sense of Israeli patriotism but it wasn't there 60 years ago.
The root of the story is not if Palestinian nationalism existed or not before 1967 (and it did because traces of an independent Palestinian national movement can be traced as far back as mid 1800's- read Baruch Kimmerling and Yoel Migdal, "The Palestinians").
The root of the conflict is not in religion either. You believe that G-d gave the land to Israel. I don't believe that. So what makes your belief an argument in a conflict like this one? you can use your belief to justify to yourself what you are doing. But to the whole world it doesn't make sense because the world doesn't believe in a God that gives away land like a feudal lord.
The essence of the problem is that when Israel was established, hundreds of thousands of people lost their possessions, livelihoods, and lives. These people are scattered around the world, just like the Jews were in their diaspora. And these people have one objective, to go back to their homes.
Now please spare me the arguments of War and attacks by Arabs. As Palestinians we are not responsible for the failure of incompetent Arab armies who were (ALL of them) under British leadership. These armies were there to fake a war not to fight one. They have even facilitated the Israeli war effort.
Israel may have created a flourishing economy. An economic miracle i would say (but not a divine one). But if you examine closely how this happened you will find out that if you take over 3 million dunums of land, and transfer their ownership to one entity (KKL), and bring hundreds of thousands of low skilled workers to till them, then it is easy to create wealth.
In fact the reason that made Israel so rich is the same reason that made the Palestinians so poor. You cannot steal all they own and claim that they are not helping themselves. You can't steal all they own and boast about your ability to make the desert bloom.
The Palestinians want to go back to their homes and live peacefully. They don't have anything to do with All the gods of the world and all their promises.

Jerusalem

2009-01-20T11:41:00.002+02:00

In response to quoting Psalm 137 in my previous post, I got this reply.

Our ancestors composed this tearful lament over 2500 years ago. Exiled from their beloved land, they sat down and mourned by the rivers of Babylon.

The Jewish people never forgot Jerusalem. 3 times a day, we pray in the direction of Jerusalem and ask G-d that "our eyes may behold in mercy Your return to Zion". For 2000 years, 3 times a day without fail, we looked towards Jerusalem and prayed for its rebuilding. We observe 4 fasts anually over the destruction of Jerusalem, culminating in the fast of the 9th of Av, the most tragic day i nthe Jewish calendar, when both Temples were destroyed. At the end of every Yom Kippur fast and Passover seder, we declare: "Next Year in Jerusalem!"

Jerusalem is mentioned 700 times in the Hebrew Bible. It is never mentioned in the Qur'an. Muslims pray towards Mecca, with their backs to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was never the capital of any Muslim nation. The only times Jerusalem was a capital was when Jews ruled Israel: during the Davidic kingdom, the Hasmonean dynasty and in the modern state of Israel.

G-d has returned Jerusalem to us after 2000 years of longing, mourning, hoping and praying. Never will we be distanced from her again.

I amuse myself with the many similarities between the Palestinian and Jewish peoples. The Hebrew bible is a chronicle of the Jewish people written almost as an autobiography summarising events and lessons learned in over 3500 years of their history. For Jews the 'national' is so entangled with the 'religious' that both may seem as one. That's primarily because the bible, a religious text, is also their national narrative.
Palestinians are not a religious group in their own, despite being overwhelmingly Muslim, their history and plight is not a religious matter but rather a national one. But Palestinians have the same nostalgia to the very same places that Jews have longed for. The Hebrew bible has seven hundred mentions of Jerusalem, But if you survey Palestinian literature and culture in the past century you will find that Jerusalem is at the heart of the Palestinian national identity. There is no single Palestinian home I have entered that did not have a picture of Jerusalem. Not in Palestine, not in Jordan and not in Syria and probably not anywhere else in the world. So the attachment to the symbol is ever present. At the beginning of every year, on Land Day, on Nakbeh Memorial day, on Independence Day and every other national or religious event, we Palestinians which each others three things: Return, Independence and a state with Jeruslaem as its capital.
I don't believe in God. It is So obvious that G-d did not return the Jews to Jerusalem. It was the efforts of Zionist leaders and the grace of the government of the United Kingdom and the continuous military build up in the twenties, thirties and forties of Jewish armed power which fought against the British and the Palestinians. Then Israel was established, and it did unto the Palestinians what the Romans did unto the Jews. The same distruction of their property, dispossession, and exodus. But, just the same, we will have our own Bar-Kochba, and that state will last.

O Jerusalem

2009-01-19T01:26:00.001+02:00

1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.

2 There on the poplars
we hung our harps,

3 for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"

4 How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land?

5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill .

6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.

7 Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
"Tear it down," they cried,
"tear it down to its foundations!"

8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us-

But I am too much of a humanist to spell out the last verse.

Marketing

2009-01-18T09:40:00.002+02:00

After the cannons have hushed down a little, it is time to inspect the damage in Gaza. Initial estimates say that Israel have bombed Gaza with around 1000 tonnes of bombs. This is a little less than half of the tonnage dropped by the Brits on Dresden during the Second World War. Allegations of war crimes have evidence from all around Gaza with Red Cross testimonies and evidence in support of these allegations. The world voiced its concerns against what was happening throughout the past three weeks, with major demonstrations going out in almost all parts of the world. But what will this lead to? Sanctions against the rogue state? War crimes tribunal? personal trials of those who led the massacre that killed more than 1200 Palestinians in just three weeks?
Of course none of that. All of this will lead to only on thing: a huge marketing/PR campaign! This campaign has been going on since the beginning of the war. It attempted to deviate public attention from the grotesque abuses of human rights committed in Gaza and focus it on the number of rockets being fired.
Inside Israel, the bait has been taken easily. You rarely see an argument in the press against the war of even slightly mentioning the plight of Palestinians. All you could see over the past three weeks are articles of praise for the boys in the field as they went on a rampage whose resemblance can be found in stories of medieval wars when the victor sows destruction unto the families of the loser. Even the pictures you saw in Israeli press, they were either of soldiers showing their heroism, or of a bombing of structure, show from afar, and labeled as a terrorist infrastructure. The Israelis didn't see what their hands did to little kids of Gaza. Their press didn't tell them about the use of white phosphorus and what it does for its victims. (By the way, if this weapon is so illegal, who makes it?)
Unto the world a new campaign will be unleashed. The will show Israel both as a country that stands strong against terror, yet a country that is so peaceful. The world will forget what happened in Gaza. After all, who would want to remember those horrific pictures? Only a few committed souls will continue to be agonised by the presence of beast amongst the nations of the world.
The rest will just live as they always did, and when they will hear of Israel in a couple of months they will think of sandy beaches, the dead sea, good universities, maybe a football match or a singer in the eurovision. And some, only some, will have a distant memory of a war that took place here, they will not remember the details they will however remember that there was a terrorist group involved.
It's elementary, in a capitalist world, you can market anything, even a war criminal.

As you sow, so shall you reap

2009-01-09T11:06:00.004+02:00

I stopped watching news on TV. I could not go on with this feeling of guilt that haunts me every time I see a new report. I don't understand how thousands of houses can be destroyed like that, living tens of thousands of Palestinians with no refuge. I can't comprehend how the dead cannot even get the least they deserve, a decent burial, as their bodies lie in the streets and under the rubble.
However, this didn't stop the images of the attacks in Gaza finding their way to me. The hardest is too graphic to be mentioned here. But the images that express the daily plight of those who survived are too strong to ignore.
The Red Cross explains how its teams found young children exhausted in the rubble of their homes as the clutched to the dead bodies of their mothers. Another picture of three children coming out of their collapsing home covered in blood and carrying all their belongings, a sweater that might protect them against some of the winter's cold.
What is Israel trying to do in Gaza, no one knows. They refuse to express their goals clearly in order to be able to portray anything they do as a victory. But what they are doing, whether intended or not, is so clear. They are creating a traumatised generation of children who will grow up with the bitterness created by this inhumane attack inside them. They are creating a new generation of warriors who will be committed to the destruction of Israel. And then, 20 years from now, they will come out and say that the Arabs are terrorists! But the fact of the matter is that as you sow, so shall you reap. And those who sow destruction and murder can never reap peace.

Surrealism

2008-12-28T19:53:00.001+02:00

More than 1000 casualties in 24 hours. And what does the world say?

"These people are nothing but thugs, so Israel is going to defend its people against terrorists like Hamas that indiscriminately kill their own people,"
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe

“Clearly, we are calling on Hamas and other militants to cease shelling southern Israel.”
Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard

“Whilst we understand the Israeli government's obligation to protect its population we urge maximum restraint to avoid further civilian casualties.

"We also call on militants in the Gaza Strip to immediately cease all rocket attacks on Israel."

British Foreign Office Statement

Yes, no one can say that Hamas are angels. They are not. But doesn’t it sound absurd that while F-16s and Apaches are bombing Gaza and while tanks are taking position around the strip, the calls are coming out to Hamas to stop the violence?

But surrealism, as stark contrast between elements, can only be strengthened by a third element in our case. What adds to this surrealism for me is not to be found in the world reaction, not the Arab reaction, but the reaction of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. A small march goes out in Central Ramallah, and it appeared to be infested with agents of the Intelligence apparatus. It was disgusting to see that Hamas supporters were being arrested in the heart of Ramallah, by Palestinians. What added to the sadness is the sight of a line of riot police that blocked the road to the Muqata’a (the presidential compound). If we are to treat a peaceful demonstration in such a manner that calls for the use of riot police then what should we expect from others?

It might not be easy for me to list my expectations. After all, who is capable of doing what? Everyone is wrong, no one is doing the right thing, but things have entered into a spiral of wrongs and blames that it is now impossible to say that one thing can stop everything. This is why my thought goes back to the root of the problem, at least its root on our side of the game.

The bottom line of my analysis is that we do not have sincere leaders. No one is genuinely interested in the best interest of the Palestinian people, not even the Palestinian leaders themselves. On the one hand, the PA cannot be expected to come out strongly against military action that can potential restore power in the strip to them. Nor are the Hamas leaders expected to leave their throne after the finally got there. Nor are we, as a people, intelligent enough to stand up against this catastrophic leadership and create a new one that represent us. It looks so gloomy.

tragedy

2008-12-27T22:40:00.001+02:00

Four years ago, as I woke up on Boxing Day 2004, I was shocked. I could not believe the ease by which hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost to the sea. I could not comprehend how so many people could die within hours, I could not understand such a tragedy. Today I stood with the same disbelief as I watched the news about more than 200 Palestinians killed by Israeli bombings on Gaza.

Of course, the numbers of casualties in both tragedies are different. But that is not the only difference for no sick human mind had planned the Asian Tsunami, while Gaza’s tragedy was premeditated by many sick men who saw pleasure in a “surprise” that took people at midday.

I don’t intend to talk about the reasons. I don’t intend to blame anyone. I don’t intend to undermine any justifications. Simply, I just want to state how I feel, but I am out of words for now words have yet existed to describe mass murder at such a scale. Language stands i at the site of so many lives being lost in just a few minutes with the release of a button.

At risk of being ridiculed, I say that I abhor terrorism. But what is terrorism if not the use of such force against a largely civilian and unarmed population. It is hard to maintain sanity as you see human beings, just like you, dying by the hundreds. It is a struggle to keep a faith in humanity when you see how worthless human life has become. It suffocates to witness murder being justified and accepted without a mere thought of the lives shattered by today’s events.

Just getting married

2008-06-18T10:12:00.002+02:00

Getting married is not any easy thing. There is too much planning to be done, finding the right place for the party, arranging the other requirements, organising the new house, in country with no professional wedding planners it is really hectic.
But in Palestine, it is different. A young man from Wadi Rasha just south of Qalqilia is planning to get married. Wadi Rasha is a little different from other villages in the world because it has been sent to the middle ages. With a fence around it, and military manned gate at its entrance, only residents are allowed to get into this enclave which includes two other Palestinian villages totally encircled with the wall.
Added to all the other arrangements our young man has to send a list of invitees to the Israeli Army which Israel has to approve for these to attend his wedding. Of a 200 name list (yeah we have large weddings in Palestine), only 30 names were approved.
You see, it is these things that make your life in your home a constant hell, and strip you of the things that other people take for granted, that create this bitterness. How do you deal with a soldier at a gate stopping your cousin from attending your wedding?

Back!

2008-06-05T21:52:00.002+02:00

It has been over 2 months since I have last written here. Since then, I have been travelling around the Middle East on work doing evaluation research for regional projects. While this has been a very nice opportunity to get to enjoy some of the most beautiful countries of the region, it has been exhausting, and the amount of work I am expected to do still is yet more overwhelming. However, I intend to go back to writing more frequently since I am more or less settled down.

Me vs. the occupation

2008-03-08T18:51:00.000+02:00

For a while I dealt with this conflict as if it was far away...as if it was a series of events that touched other people and not me. I would get depressed when I feel its impact on me: when I drive down one road which I might not be able to drive through again; or, when a roadblock stops me from getting home. Through all of that, I thought my personal safety was always protected. I thought that the peaceful little town I live in will shield off all those stories I read so frequently. It is not that I did not sympathise with the characters in these stories, or that I felt unattached to them. I just never felt their feelings. I never knew the uncertainty that overcomes them about their most basic right: their right to live. Well, living in Palestine, you won’t be able to escape for long. That is what I have just learnt recently.

Last Saturday, we thought that we had enough of working non-stop and the daily routine of Ramallah, so we decided to go down to Jericho for BBQ. We found a friend who was willing to let us use their house, and so we went to enjoy our time. Coming back, we were stopped at the main checkpoint out of Jericho. Just because a friend had “Gaza” as the place of residence on his ID, we were not allowed to use that road. We were told to take a back road.

At mid-night we arrived at another checkpoint in the middle of the desert. When confronted with the opportunity to make an event of their long night, the ten or so teenage-age soldiers who manned the checkpoint rushed to our car. “ID’s and get out of the car!” they demanded in a tone that gave a good idea of what was to come. They started searching the car so violently as if it was an old box left in someone’s attic. When they found a bat in the booth, they saw it as an opportunity to make a fuss, and search everything else. The two knives we had to work on our BBQ were then treated as a murder weapon. Suddenly, their crowd turned violent for nothing other than amusement. We tried to reason with them, but with their astounding lack of ability to speak any other language other than Hebrew (except for one Druze soldier), all we got back were their kicks. For a while, and as the girls with us were frightened and crying, I thought that there are no limits to what we could expect that night. A game of chance between the Heavens and the devil, and our lives could be at stake. Each of them started playing his part of the game, and if his friends liked what he was doing they would join him, if not, they’d leave him alone.

It is not easy for someone to have to go through this. All the emotions that you could ever feel play with like a tape: Anger, sadness, humiliation, oppression, dispossession, fear, strength, worrying. Then you stop controlling these feelings and you start a series of incoherent actions: shouting, accepting their violence, hitting back, silence, defending yourself, obeying order and then disobeying them... all of this while you try to know where this will ever lead.

And you never know, even as they ask you to put your stuff back in the car and park on the side of the road. Or when you wait in the car and see them, done with you, trying to find amusement through fighting each other. You never can know until you leave with a limp that will last for few days and the cold desert wind blows into your car as you try to calm down your fears.

Never again

2008-03-03T18:59:00.000+02:00

Yes, I know, I always use this title. That's because I really believe in it. When we say 'never again', we mean never again to any actions like the Holocaust regardless of the scale, or, more importantly, the victims.
However, when the State of Israel says 'never again', it seems they only mean that the world should not kill Jews ever again. Killing others is fine, and if they happen to be Palestinian then that's even encouraged and promised.
When the deputy defence minister promises Gazans a holocaust (שואה), and the world stays silent, you'd think they have all gone crazy. They would torment you if you use Nazi figures in virtually anything, their foreign ministry would call everyone in the world to condemn anyone who plays down the suffering of the Jews by the Nazis.

Arabs agree on something

2008-02-14T12:37:00.003+02:00

Arab information ministers met in Cairo last week and agreed, and they rarely agree on anything, on a new convention that would severely restrict the freedom of satellite channels. The convention comes because "Some satellite channels have strayed from the correct path" as phrased by the Egyptian minister. His country indicated it is very keen on adopting and implementing the convention after its government has become subject to scrutiny by numerous channels due to its records of human rights abuses, long term emergency rule, and, more recently rumors of preparing the monarchist president's son to succeed his father.
The convention will prohibit all stations operating in the Arab World from broadcasting material which is considered offensive to "the leaders or national and religious symbols" of Arab countries. Let alone that this phrasing puts the leaders in the same category as God, a tradition long upheld in many Arab countries (Jordan and Morrocco kings claim descent from Mohammad's lineage, while Gaddafi claims ancestral roots with no other than the angels of heaven) it is so vaguely written, that the lines between offensive and subjective criticisms are not longer relevant.
The document imposes on channels that no less than 30% of broadcast material should be produced by the Joint Arab Productions. A frameworks which lacks professionalism, content, funding or proper structures to provide material for 21st century journalism.
Channels could risk the permits being withdrawn, frozen and not renewed for not abiding by the document. They will also be subject to legal processes both in origin countries and second countries.
So when Arab leaders meet on something, this is what we get? Thanks, but no thanks! Please go home!

discourse analysis

2008-02-12T18:57:00.000+02:00

I don't know if it was intended or not, but the above image is a screen print from Maan News Agency website. If we were to run a simple discourse analysis based on this image we will have a strange result.
Primarily, the Palestinians are divided: One front, two players (sounds like a one country two systems). The PA, represented by the president and his government, seems to act as a passive observer to a war that is being waged on part of its land. Eirikat, in this article asks the international community to interfere in imposing a ceasefire between the Palestinians and Israelis. As if, he's not included in the "Palestinian" side.
Haniyeh, has reached a point where he's willing to negotiate, but he has no partners. Abbas believes if Haniyeh is ousted by an "external" force then he might gain Gaza back without any concessions to Hamas. Such concessions would ultimately embarrass him with the Americans, Israelis and others. They might stall the peace process again and are likely to cut off the $$$ tap which was opened in Paris.
Haniyeh on the other hand must have realised that things are not as easy as he first thought. Staging a rebellion should necessarily be prepared in a much better way. When he took the Iranian example as a guide, he should have also taken into consideration that Iran was a well established country at the time of the revolution, not one which begs each and every other country to pay the salaries of its civil service and perform its day to day job. Add to that, he also knows that his life is at stake now. So he is willing to negotiate. He might even apologise and possibly agree to fresh elections. Of course in such case, him and his brethrens will present themselves as those who conceded for the public good trying to win more support, and maybe even have an eye on the Muqata'a.
Israel, simply, doesn't care. Hamas or Fatah, it is all "Palestinian Terror" and should be fought. Of course for Israel, toppling the Gaza regime will only be considered as a routine operation against terrorists. This, however, will secure its western border with the Gaza strip, and possibly allow Abbas to extend its authority to Gaza.

Winograd-Abdul Rahim

2008-01-31T17:43:00.001+02:00

Two events took place within one month of each other. In the 13th June 2007, Hamas took over the Gaza strip in an unprecedented coup in the PA. On the 12th of July 2007, Israel started a full fledged war against Lebanon, which has failed miserably. In both cases the governments of the PA and Israel, respectively, commissioned an investigation into the factors and actors that played a role in both events.
The Palestinians appointed Tayeb Abdul Rahim, a close aid of Abbas, who received a BA in commerce which he never used from Azhar University in Cairo back in 1967. Obviously he cannot be considered an unbiased evaluator, but lets put that aside. The man issued a report, within one and a half months of the incident, which is a de facto secession, without visiting the area under question. He told us what we already knew, the the security forces were corrupt, unprofessional and the recruitment sucked. The report remained secret, bar for a short statement void of any original content, although it is in the interest of every Palestinian to know what it is in it.
Elyahu Winograd, holds a Phd in Law, Former acting supreme court member, and president of Tel-Aviv District Court, headed the second commission. Excellent Choice for a commission head!
9 months after the war, and 7 month after the appointment his commission issues a preliminary report and takes a further 9 months before issuing the full report, yesterday. The report did not fear criticising the leadership of the world's fifth strongest army, and laid blame virtually on the whole government. Its findings are made public, and the press tackled their every aspect.
The difference between the two, is the same difference between one side which really wanted to know the truth about what has happened, and another which preferred to keep it hidden.
The consequences are the same, people who took responsibility for their actions, quit the IDF, a defence minister who was ousted by his party (remember Amir Peretz? that's partly why he lost Labour's leadership). On our side... well, nothing has changed, nothing ever will until the guys at the top learn what it means to play with people's destinies.

2008-01-28T01:26:00.000+02:00

"Menachem Mazuz said there was insufficient evidence to pursue a prosecution against officers who opened fire during anti-government riots." says the bbc
13 Dead bodies, how about that as a proof?
aren't thirteen bodies enough proof that something wrong has happened? it is amazing that a guy in such a position in a "democratic" country can come up to such an opinion!

Warsaw to Gaza

2008-01-26T19:28:00.000+02:00

On the day the world marks the third International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Gaza goes into its 10th day of complete siege. Don't take the news of the biggest jail break in history too seriously, The siege is still on, fuel, food and medicine are still low.
"Let us never take our human rights for granted," says Ban Ki-Moon, the UNSG. True, and let us, on this day and everyday, think about those who's cannot enjoy these most basic rights. Since the siege was established, more than 70 persons have lost there lives due to not being able to receive medical treatment. By who? by the country that boasts one of the most advanced health services in the world.
On this day, and every day to come, we should know about those who continue to dwell in their past, turning the future of another people into a mirror image of what they passed through.
The thing about human suffering is that it is all equal. No one's pains are more sacred than others. If you really knew how the residents of Warsaw Ghetto felt on that November 1940 day, you will sure know how Gazans felt on the 17th of this month.
You can only honour the memory of those who died in the Holocaust, by 'never again' allowing it to happen to another people. If only those who say 'never again' just do it!

Never before

2008-01-20T20:05:00.000+02:00

Never before in contemporary history has there been a siege on more than one and a half million people, A siege that can put at danger their lives, and the world has stood there and watched. What is being allowed to happen in Gaza is an unprecedented. To let this happen, in the twenty first century is just an indication of how morally corrupt the world is.
In Gaza the main power generator engine has shot down. The second and last is due to shot down in few more hours. All of Gaza will go into the dark. That includes hospitals, which will not be able to continue to care for the patients without power.
Gaza is low on food and clean water, with the lack of power, it is hard to imagine how long it will take before the situation really turn into a humanitarian crisis. Children in Gaza went out in a demonstration asking the world to "stop killing [them]", but if the world doesn't interfere that's exactly what will happen.

Mr. President

2008-01-06T12:15:00.000+02:00

President of the Palestinian Authority
Chairman of the PLO
and all the other names and titles you claim for yourself!

Your excellency,
You once said, at the height of the PA's financial crisis that bread is more important that democracy. few months later, Hamas rebelled against the democracy that brought it to power. You, on your end, rebelled against Hamas. A few more months down the road, we don't have democracy anymore, we also don't have bread. You honourable government is doing nothing to fight the crazy hike in prices. We understand they are busy fighting Hamas, but what do we have to do with that?
Let me tell you where I think the blame can be laid: On Everyone, me included, but primarily you people in power.
Hamas won a fair elections. She came to a government that is totally yours. If we are such a pluralist country, then why does the whole nation have to celebrate the launching of your party? Why on earth did you replace the nice national anthem we grew up with in this land, with the anthem of your party? Why is it that on your party's anniversary, the campaign against stolen cars suddenly stops and Ramallah is full of these cars, driven by careless youths, so long as they carry your yellow banner? Isn't the police force and the army for everyone? Why do they carry your party's flag? And isn't the presidential complex for all Palestinians? What would you say if Hamas wanted to have a rally there?
You see, Mr. President, you never handed over power, your party continued to play as if it owns the country. And your followers made hell of the life of the new ministers.
Hamas, totally inexperienced in the politics of the modern world, thought the can do just the same. They never had money to pay the salaries, but still were oblivious to the needs of the people.
Tell me, had Fatah been in power during the financial crisis, would the so-called union of public employees ever gone on strike? Of course not!
So between your party's thirst for control, and Hamas's irresponsible attitude to us, we were lost in the middle. Then you guys start killing each other, what a nice ending to our national struggle!
Then you guys share the pie. Hamas in Gaza to do whatever she wishes, and you go on with your nice plan for the West Bank.
In a situation of National Emergency, you bring Fayyad, a professional, but still a neo-liberal. He tries to enforce his free market ideology. The thing is, we don't have a market, or an economy. So lets play the guessing game: What do you guess will happen?
Let me try to explain, if there is no substantial market in this country, and you opt for a free market policy, then people with money can buy everything, and can become filthy rich. People who are already poor, are likely to just get poorer. The socialist revolution in Latin America has had its roots in a similar situation, when the US was pushing its allies in despotic regimes across the continent to adopt a free market strategy. Now, two or three decades later, the situation has become unbearable for the poor majority that they are willing to rebel against this system that institutionalises their marginalisation. You, and your government, are doing just that.
You people (both in Fatah and Hamas) act as if this country is yours, and yours alone. You seem to be oblivious to the fact that what you are doing now is going to significantly impact the lives and aspirations of Palestinians for generations to follow. You have no right to decide for us if you are not sharing with us or getting our thoughts and wishes on your agenda.
You have no right to sell our rights to your private sector cronies, or to Israel. Just as Hamas no right to impose on us that financial crisis. If she could not deal with such a problem they should have had the courtesy to just leave office. It is people's lives you guys are playing with and it seems to mean nothing to you.
What we want is a country for US, all of US. A country to live in in dignity and to be able to make a decent living. If you are not going to do that, then you might as well pack and go. Better late than never!

sincerely,

World Aids Day

2007-12-02T00:24:00.000+02:00

It is important to keep referring to forgotten issues. HIV/AIDS is never spoken off in the Arab World. If it is, then with a mixture of derogatory and somewhat humiliating tone. There are no reliable statistics about the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in th Arab region simply because people prefer not to know and more importantly because the lack of sufficient awareness raising activities and support to infected individuals.
Arab societies offer one solution to HIV/AIDS: abstinence. In a society were sexual relations are the most extreme of taboos, there is a segment of population that tends to outcast those who are infected (regardless of the means of infection). While stigmatising HIV+ is common elsewhere, it carries extra weight in Arab society due to its association with sex.
It is probably worth it to come out with real information about HIV/AIDS, providing other alternative solutions to avoiding infection (safe sex), facilitating access to health care and (if needed) rehabilitation services to these individuals. More and more people should speak up in order to be able to put a stop to this disease. The ridiculous "don't do it" is not really an answer. If people are not able to access information on HIV/AIDS it is likely to spread more.

Take it or get lost!

2007-11-28T23:30:00.000+02:00

When summing up Israel's attitude to peace with the Palestinians, and its other neighbours, it is a "take it or get lost!" attitude. These are the same words that Zvi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister told Saeb Erikat when he was trying to negotiate the joint declaration at Annapolis. He took it! After all to him we owe the great self-boasting quote: "The Palestinian Negotiation school is the most developed in the region!" Yeah right, and the results are obvious!
Annapolis came and went. We saw, for the first time in years, PA police using extreme force against demonstrators. Yesterday witnessed an unconstitutional ban on all demonstrations. If this was the PA's response to demonstrations against the conference, how are they going to respond to demonstration against an unfair deal? It is getting a little scary here. I hope my darkest thoughts wont materialise.

Annapolis: One big party

2007-11-21T20:15:00.000+02:00

Annapolis is waiting for next Tuesday have its biggest party yet. Leaders of 40 countries are invited to celebrate the end of the two-state solution. Obviously, you cannot expect that single day to bring a progress that 60 years of an outstanding conflict and 17 years of negotiations could not bring. It would be ridiculous to expect that forty presidents will rush out of their bath tubs on Tuesday to King George shouting "Eureka!"
I, and many people with me, hope that on Monday evening the world will realise that so much time, effort and money has been wasted on the two state solution, that this solution is unfeasible, and that the time has come to recall our losses and start working on a real end to the conflict: An end that will ensure justice and equality for all.
More and more voices are coming out in support of the one state solution. It is not, as the Zionists would like to believe, a matter of the European radical left. Many mainstream leaders are seeing it as a potential solution. Even people like Condi have expressed concern about the fate of the two state solution. It is about time to present the one state solution as a real alternative.
Last week, London hosted the One State conference in SOAS. The conference entertained several possible formulas that would achieve a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. All these are worth looking into and examining their potential for ending the current conflict without infringing on the rights of any group. Then everybody can be happy and satisfied- well, except racists to whichever people they belong.

Abolishing honour killing?

2007-11-20T22:38:00.000+02:00

In a surprising move, ministers of justice and tourism (the one i think is foxy), announced today that a presidential decree is in the process of drafting which will nullify articles 90 and 340 of the Jordanian Penal Code (we still don't have a Palestinian penal code, we still use the Jordanian penal code as is before 1967) which contain leniency clauses for perpetrators of honour crimes.
Finally, a courageous step from this government. Something that probably would not have been possible under Hamas.
The trick, however, is not in nullifying these articles, but actually implementing the law. More importantly, tackling the cultural roots of this despicable practice. This is a more difficult task, but one that can achieve better results on the long run.
However, the legal framework still needs more courageous steps. Canceling polygamy is a start, recognising only civil marriage, instead of religious one. There is a lot that can and should be done.

The road to peace does not go through Annapolis

2007-11-16T12:43:00.000+02:00

Jonathan Steele presents a very interesting argument in today's issue of The Guardian:

The central requirement for any new Palestinian initiative is Palestinian unity. Don't let opponents divide you. Resist international flattery. Ignore the instinct for revenge. The jury of international public opinion is still on the side of the Palestinians' demand for justice. It may not have achieved as much as it could have, but it matters, and needs to be preserved.

He starts by presenting the first Intifada as one of the most impressive popular activism experiences of the twentieth century. To a large extent, it really was! Unfortunately, we now lack the unity of goal we had back in the late 80's. Oslo and the creation of the PA, the restrictions that followed have created new facts for us. People became disenchanted, the engine behind such activism has burnt out.
In the 70's and 80's the existing parties constituted a real opportunity for people, they combined political activism with development, cultural and charity activities. Each party was responsible for a group of non-profits which provided support to agriculture, health, cultural activities etc... Now all of this is gone. The parties have died and no one is paying attention to the needs of the people.
We know for sure that military action against Israel is futile. It is like trying to escape from quicksand but pushing yourself down in the process. Let alone that we lose our moral and ethical higher grounds by engaging in such activity. We should abandon the idea of 'liberating Palestine' with our guns, because guns are dangerous, they don't succumb to laws and they end up hurting us more than they hurt the enemy. What happened in Nablus and still happens in Gaza are clear examples to that.
What we need is a popular movement with a vision. A vision only for how to end the conflict, but also how to develop the society and improve the way people are living. We need a vision for creating opportunities for people, for getting them to understand and believe that they are part of a larger collective called the Palestinians, all of whose members are exposed to the same treatment, and aspire to the same goals.
Such a movement cannot start in Ramallah, like the notorious Palestine Forum, a group of economic, religious and political elites, who believe can emerge as a strong power in the Palestinian scene because they have the money and authority. This movement cannot also start in Ramallah as a group of youths who cannot bear the current situation and continue to act in isolation of the community, as Another Voice is doing.
For this movement to emerge, it needs to go to every village and every refugee camp, to speak to people, to present a vision that people can identify with, to present alternatives to what people are facing, to prove to them that by working together, we will not only liberate Palestine, we will develop it, and create better opportunities for us and future generations. With this, we can show those who resort to guns that guns don't work. We will show those who resort to religion, that God is not there to help us. We will show those who resort to America and Israel, that they will not do us any good. We will show the rest of our people, and the world, that the only thing that works is us, and us alone. We will show them that we can do it!

It's independence day!

2007-11-15T18:19:00.000+02:00

It is ridiculous that we still get this day off! It is even stupid that we mention it as if it is something to be proud of! A game played by Arafat to boost his popularity as he started a rapproachment policy towards the Americans.
In any case, on our "independence day", the main news items concern Israel's new trick before Annapolis:"The Jewishness of the State".
The Israelis want the Palestinians to recognise that Israel is a Jewish state (or a state for the Jews, too many declarations make difficult to keep track of the real wordings). Surprisingly enough, the Palestinians are refusing this condition. I didn't expect such principled position of our "Steadfast Leadership" as they like to call themselves.
In principle, no one with a slightest bit of intelligence can accept for a state to identify with a religion. It is ridiculous that the Americans and Israelis go on and on about Iran and Saudi Arabia for identifying themselves as Muslim states, when they want the same for Israel.
The repercussions of such an agreement by the Palestinian leadership stretch much further than the "End to all Claims" trick played by Barak during the Camp David retreat back in 2000. Here, they want us to admit that Israel, on 78% of historic Palestine, is for Jews. Thus any claims by Palestinians, whether refugees or Israeli citizens, will be scrapped because our national leadership has admitted that this land is Jewish and therefor, Jews have a right to expel a group of "foreigners" who were occupying their land. In a sense, our acceptance of the Jewish nature of the state, will not only mean that we are accepting the inequalities against non-Jews in Israel. We will be justifying the Nakba as an act of self-defence by Israel. We will be accepting the Israeli narrative of the conflict, and we will put an end to all claims that any Palestinian has to his or her land. We will be justifying the cruelest and longest military occupation in modern history. And, worse yet, we will be accepting the future Palestinian state as a gesture of good-will of the ever so nice Israelis who own the land yet are happy to let us live on one fifth of it!

The Nablus Campaign

2007-11-15T12:25:00.000+02:00

For two weeks now, a strong campaign has been waged in Nablus to restore law and order. The situation in Nablus was definitely the worst in the West Bank, and it really needed a strong campaign to maintain public safety.
However the strongest campaign that is being waged is a PR campaign Nablus is in the news everyday. Fayyad is visiting it once or twice a week, and each time new reports are published about how they are making progress in Nablus.
The details of the campaign are a little ambiguous. The PA has authority over the city between 6am and 12 midnight. The Israelis are free to enter between midnight and 6am. This division seems to suggest the following:
1. The PA will try to restore law and order
2. Those who pose a risk at the Palestinians will be arrested or will have to stop what they are doing and lay down their weapons.
3. if they don't, we'll get the Israelis to make them.

Fayyad Said: "Nablus is more important than Annapolis." It is, the life of Palestinians is much more important than any summit.

The Poor Bitch

2007-11-12T22:50:00.000+02:00

You wouldn't expect a poor woman to be crying in front of French Guards of Honour would you? Well, this bitch is. Apparently she says that the USD 10,000 a month in her late husband's pensions are not enough to support her family (Mum and daughter).
Well, what the fuck are you doing in Malta then? And what on earth did you do with the 1 million a month you received for over a year?
I have no idea why we still pay this lady to lead an extravagant lifestyle. She earns half as the US president, and is not content! This money has better places to go to.
In our country we learn to let go of things, just forget, or ignore as we see people stealing a bit here, and a little there, and in the end, we find that the government has done nothing for the people. There are many corrupt leaders, but I have not seen a country that people boast about their corruption in. You can see the corrupt, you know they are corrupt, and the most that can be done for them is Kaf Yad "lifting their hands" which practically means: sit at home, do nothing, you will get your salary, but nothing more! Wow! that'll stop people!

Good Arabs!

2007-11-09T20:01:00.000+02:00

"Good Arabs", a phrase that runs in the Israeli streets a lot, and is soaked with racism. It implies that Arabs by default are bad, and the good ones are those they signal out.
My point here relates to what are the good Arabs that Israel wants. Today, The Palestinian Authority security forces arrested Mutaz Al-Kurdi, president of Al-Amal TV in Hebron for reporting on Hamas activities. This arrest is undoubtedly against the essence of freedom of press and democracy, as the authorities have no right to arrest journalists for their work.
Since June, the PA tried to install a ban on publishing reports covering Hamas activities. The three national dailies adhered to the ban, Filisteen Daily, a relatively new Hamas Backed paper was prohibited from distribution in the West Bank. Maan Network, a private network that brings together many of the private TV and radio stations and other media outlets in Palestine, continued to publish news from both sides of the political divide, disregarding the ban.
For Israel, the perceived role of the PA (or any future Palestinian state) will be to maintain a strong hold on the society preventing the rise of a force whose interests will not coincide with those of Israel. Therefore, Israel, and the international community in general, will turn a blind eye to all the breaches of human, political and civil rights on the part of the PA, in order to strengthen it. Just as the US turns a blind eye to such breaches in Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as they are interested in maintaining the 'friendly' with those regimes, they will do the same here. We as Palestinians should tell all sides that we don't want this. We don't want Hamas and its Islamic state. We don't want a despotic Fatah led PA. We don't want a government that, to please the Israelis, will strip us of our rights.
The problem I see is that as long as we think of creating two states, this situation is likely to arise.

Can you bring me a Cola, please?

2007-11-07T13:10:00.000+02:00

When we travel, we ask our friends and family if they would like to have anything from abroad. Usually, their requests are for things that you can't find in their country or things that are known to be a specialty of other countries.
A colleague of ours, working with a UN agency, managed to get a permit to leave Gaza to Ramallah. The stories he tells are all of a horrid situation where living standards and personal safety are deteriorating to extents that we cannot imagine, despite living in the same country.
I might not have been very interested in the lack of cigarettes, or the fact that a packet is now as expensive as in the UK, in a territory whose per capita GNP is less than 5% of the UK. What really made me sad, was a request that his son asked from him: "can you bring me a cola, dad!"
In a territory where all supplies coming in are controlled by the Israeli Army, most of the essentials are not available, causing severe hike in prices and a lack of all essentials.
Such tactics were prevalent in medieval warfare, in our contemporary history they were used in by the US against Iraq, and are applied to other countries such as Cuba. Since 700 years have passed since this type of war tactic was dominating military action, is it not right to assume that through these 700 years, our ethical code has been developed so as not to justify such means? A request like that boy's is an indicator that something is clearly wrong in Gaza. Two million people are being starved. Does this sound in anyway like an action of a rogue state? To any sane person, it clearly is.

Another peace is possible

2007-10-29T20:22:00.000+02:00

"Our concern is growing that without a serious political prospect for the Palestinians that gives to moderate leaders a horizon that they can show to their people that indeed there is a two-state solution that is possible, we will lose the window for a two-state solution."
Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the US. Senate

"In my estimation ... The Palestinians are exhausted. There isn't the energy in the public and there also isn't the leadership right now that could spur such resistance,"
Shin Bet Head, Yuval Diskin's testimony before the Knesset's FAD Committee

"Another peace is necessary."
A statement by Another Voice, a Palestinian group that opposed One Voice's "peace concert"

Another peace is truly necessary. The inviability of the two state solution is finally knocking the doors of the mainstream. We always saw that it is not viable, more importantly we thought it was unjust.
On Wednesday 31st of October, Ramallah will host Dam Rap, Ramallah Underground, Reem Talhami, Jamil Al-Sayeh and other performers in an event that is intended to affirm a commitment to a just peace that will not infringe on "Palestinians' rights."
While I believe that a true and solid movement should be based on principles far more verifiable that "Palestinian Rights", I am hoping there would be a breakthrough in the deadlock that has characterised youths in Palestine and will create a nucleus of a movement that will work for a real alternative of what is currently being discussed in negotiation rooms.

More difficult than Noah's Ark

2007-10-22T18:57:00.000+02:00

In Jerusalem, a mixed Arab-Jewish school is causing discomfort in the conservative Jewish neighbourhood of Pat. The School, which was built by an organisation with the name Hand in Hand, is the third school built and managed by this organisation. The schools allow Arabs and Jews to grow up together paving the way for a better understanding of each other.
However, the problem is not with the children, who, if left alone, would create a generation of people who are willing to live peacefully and put aside the petty differences and racism that roam this place. It is with the older generations who have these racist tendencies entrenched in their mindsets.
One woman from the neighbourhood where the school is built tells Haaretz "I've got nothing against Arabs, but why do they have to go to school with Jews?" Another resident says "It's the mixing between Jews and Arabs that's the problem. The rest pales in comparison."
Well, to any intelligent observer, it is the separation rather than the mixing that creates the problems we end up having to live with. If both people were raised to feel that they are equals then why would any of them discriminate against the other when they have the power to decide?
In the words of the school's co-principal, Ala Khatib, "It's harder than populating Noah's Ark." So is solving this ridiculous conflict which has taken way too much effort, time, money and more importantly, lives. But it remains an endeavour worth pursuing and an effort well placed.

Make Poverty Histroy

2007-10-18T23:30:00.000+02:00

The 17th of October was the Global Day of Action Against Poverty. The day was marked in Palestine with a set of activities, yet never reached as many people as it should. However, while we should remember that awareness is good, action is important!
Apart from a few initiatives here and there (and one UNDP project), nothing is happening in Palestine on the issue of poverty. Everyone suffers, and very few are actually committed to changing the situation.
Most of the Gaza Strip population is surviving on food handouts from the various charities, and significant proportion of West Bank households are doing the same. The situation is shocking, yet it still is not as close as in other countries.

"The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Maybe this is a very harsh way to describe the situation. I am sure cannibalism wasn't that prevalent.

Where we are failing

2007-10-16T20:05:00.000+02:00

Palestinians never cease to amaze me. Every time I tell of my view that this conflict can only be truly and justly ended by establishing a single state in which we are all equal, I am surprised at how many head nods I get. I am not talking about the intelligentsia here, but normal people from the street. In the back of their minds, they only have the dream that we will be equals and just that: Arabs and Jews living side by side, no hate, no domination, no oppression.
I don't know how and if this issue is ever debated in Israel. It hardly appears in the mainstream media outlets and when it does it is often presented as a threat that is to be avoided.
A thorough analysis of all the issues that are fueling the conflict can only lead us to this solution. This is what many of the worlds leading political scientists, historians and intellectuals have come to. And this is how the issue is viewed from the eyes of the oppressed here.
However, the idea of a single state never makes it to the mainstream, even in the Palestinian media. The only time I remember it to have spurred debate is when Qurei, then prime minister, declared that current Israeli practices, if they continue, will make the two states solution impossible and Palestinians will have no choice but to struggle for a single state.
My concern, over the last few days has been why is this the case? In other words, why is it that the more practical (albeit difficult) solution is off the table?
I came up to a single answer. Yes, the one state solution is a the solution that is seen by intellectuals as the only feasible and just solution to the conflict. However, over the years, it has always remained an intellectual solution. We never managed to take it to the streets, there was never a grassroots movement that was dedicated to this, neither here in Palestine/Israel nor abroad. That is why the idea remains debate material in the intellectual circles, but never makes it past these debates.
What is needed here is to propose a clear framework for a peaceful resolution of the conflict based on a single, democratic, secular state, and build a movement around it.
The two states solutions has managed to build a strong movement amongst Israelis a weaker movement on the Palestinian side. Since the Intifada, both movements have more or less disintegrated, and now they are building themselves up again.
Us on the One State side, have sat, rather idly watching the other movement rise and fall then picking up again. Over those years we did nothing to step forward and present ourselves. We might have been afraid of the consequences, embarrassed of being idealistically motivated, or unable to gather our strength... Whatever it was, we can't go on like this, Otherwise we will wake up one November morning to find that our dream has been shattered.
What is needed now is to start building a single movement with a single base amongst both peoples. Only such a movement will be strong enough to show that it is possible, and to fight for achieving this dream.

Blog Action Day: Environment

2007-10-15T00:24:00.001+02:00

The 15th of October is the annual "Blog Action Day". This year's theme is the environment. A very important, yet largely ignored theme here in Palestine. The responsibility of the damage that is being caused to the environment in Palestine is shared between Palestinians and, as with all bad things, Israelis.
On the Palestinian side, it is both unawareness and lack of interest that are contributing to the problem. For a country that is under occupation, coming up with a call for saving the environment seems to many as a luxury, an effort better spent elsewhere. Many argue that we have other national priorities which are more urgent, referring to dealing with/resisting the occupation. We have a tendency to postpone looking into all things important: Democracy, freedoms, poverty, environment, law and order.... until our main problem is resolved. But it doesn't seem to be going in that direction. The occupation is there, and fighting against it (in any form), does not necessarily mean that we should not think of improving other aspects of our life. Otherwise, and it seems we are going in that direction, poverty will spread even further, we will face more restrictions on our freedoms, we will end up living in a largely unhealthy environment and in a potentially larger chaos and lack of personal security. So while maintaining that occupation is evil and we should work on ending it, we should also, try to help ourselves in having better lives by working on other questions.
The notion that environmental activism is a western luxury is prevalent in this place. That's why it lies at the bottom of everyone's agenda. What we fail to notice is that it is not a luxury, but rather a need. We also fail to recognise how we can lead more environmentally friendly lives with little or even no drop in convenience. The internet is full of resources and suggestions on how you can do this. A car with smaller engine, turn off lights you don't need, reduce, reuse& recycle, less detergents, organic food.... very easy things, and in fact these really enhance your standard of living. Someone should take up the issue!
Israelis on the other hand, hold the greater share of the damage. Air pollution and water degradation, and loss of land and other natural resources are just an example. Israelis continue to view the oPt as a free source of everything they need and, as with all free things, they do not value it. They continue to treat this country as just another place which can be trashed at no cost. We babble a lot about the Israelis' lack of regard to Palestinian environment, yet we do nothing about it. Neither as a leadership nor as a people have we ever been so passive in our lives. We watch, feel pain, and then we move on.
With such attitudes, this place will quickly cease to be inhabitable. Then we can only feel sorry about the times when we could have changed it and stood there doing nothing.

What is occupation?

2007-10-05T16:26:00.000+02:00

To most people (military) occupation is the presence of a foreign army on another people's land. Many examples exist, political scientists would say, such as America and UK in Iraq, Syria in Lebanon, Morocco in Western Sahara, China in Tibet. Of course, the majority would avoid mentioning Israel in Palestine, but that's another story.
Occupation to political scientists is about the objectively verifiable fact of an army controlling a foreign land. For the people of that land, however, it is more than that. It is about another person controlling all the decisions you will take in your life. Even the simplest decision or plans you will ever have are going to be faced and challenged by the occupation. You marriage might be canceled if there is a curfew, your trip to these unrealised because of a checkpoint, your hopes for an income from the sale of olive oil shattered when a soldier pours it onto the street, your attempts to get health care failed, or your plans for a university education destroyed simply because the border is closed and you can't leave.
Occupation affects people, normal people. The majority of people affected by this are not revolutionaries, they don't carry guns, probably never touched one in their lives. They probably don't hate anyone at the beginning. But when their plans are destroyed, they must put the blame on someone. Of course it is the occupation that they blame.
Today, I saw two important issues that need to be talked about. First the right to movement, this was sparked with the story of Khaled a Palestinian student at Bradford who is unable to leave Gaza, back to the UK, because Israel has closed the border. He lost an appeal at an Israeli court which judged in favour of the army, thus denying that the State of Israel has the obligation to allow Palestinians to move freely in and out of their country. This is a case of not only the right to movement, it is also about right to education. So all the hypocrites who opposed the boycott on the grounds of Academic Freedom, clearly appear to hold double standards because we can't hear their voices now.
The second issue is the essential right to health care. Maarive, the Israeli daily, reported yesterday that Israel is putting conditions on issuing permits for patients to get to hospitals. Let alone the idea that putting conditions on the provision of health care is a disgusting practice, the conditions themselves are even uglier. The permits are tied to the patient's agreement to collaborate with the Israeli army. Of course, collaboration means information on the whereabouts of people Israel wants to kill. Haaretz published another report on a Physicians for Human Rights statement that elaborated on this policy.
If you lost your legs because someone stopped you from reaching a hospital, what would you do? If you had to live seeing your father or son losing their limbs or even dying because someone stopped them from reaching a hospital what would you do? How would you feel?
See? The occupation is the root of all evils! it is not just an on a foreign land, it is an army in every detail of your life.

What's under the table?

2007-10-04T00:42:00.000+02:00

Whenever there is a hint of any movement in the "peace process", or even in the war that Israel wages against them, Palestinians ask one question : What's being cooked under the table?
Well, something is always being cooked, isn't it? How else did Oslo come to life? These days, however, things are different. What worries me most is the fact that the "peace process" is actually moving despite the Gaza situation. In fact, it is moving because of the Gaza situation. Is it possible that in November we will hear a joint declaration that says West Bank first? Say the negotiations and efforts that are being spent these days aim at creating a Palestinian State in the West Bank. Is it probable? I don't usually give way to conspiracy theory, but something fishy is taking place:
First, Fatah loses Gaza, easy as that. Then a new government takes charge within two days- making the phone calls would have taken longer! The PLC is not working.
Then the new government treats Gaza as if it does not exist. There goes the first secession movement that is unchallenged. No effort is being done to change the situation. Fatah seems to be keen on keeping the new status quo.
And, more importantly, the negotiations are picking up pace.
So, are we moving towards the Independent State of the West Bank?

Commercialising Charity

2007-10-02T01:56:00.000+02:00

I always intended to write on the topic. It first started as I once saw a scene from Oprah. I don't remember the details, but as usual, someone with a real problem for example a kid whose father and mother were killed in a tragic accident, and Oprah gets them on TV and in comes a large shoe manufacturer with one year free shopping.
Ridiculous, I thought. Were these shoes the most urgent need of this person? obviously not, But they indeed were quite convenient for the manufacturer to put its name on national TV. When you do the audit, the manufacturer gained, and the kid was exploited for this gain, in the process s/he received a pair of shoes.
But look everywhere around you and it like that! Even in a place like Palestine. Paltel, for example, which is buying the whole country. It has a "Social Responsibility Fund", what does it do? distribute 100 school bags to students from the remote village of Jayyous, presenting itself as this nice little fellow who just loves helping. In the process, Jayyous' name is in the papers for first time in years, not because of its sewage network problems, or the farmers lack of access to land or anything of that sort. National newspapers and TV stations will run this news of the 100 new bags and it will be cheaper than an add for the same space. Again the poor students were exploited, and in the process gained 100 bags.
It does not stop here. What really triggered this today is the situation of Palestinian Non-governmental sector. It has become so commercialised that it does not makes sense to call it non-profit anymore. NGOs are springing up exactly as in the freely competitive market model. They all claim they will do things to benefit the community, unfortunately they only do those that benefit the donor.
Should NGO's be allowed to work like that? My answer is no, of course. I am totally for a strong civil society . Gramsci applied the concept of civil society to anything outside the realm of the political society, specifically criticising the hegemony which the state tries to exercise on the civil society in order to spread its commonsense culture. The civil society has role to play in defying such a hegemony.
Our NGO sector is becoming but a tool of implementation, a bunch of consultants, project managers, coordinators working for donors without knowing what they should be doing. It works exactly like a business: Fuck principles, tell me where the money is! That's why it is so easy for people to switch between the profit and non-profit sectors. How can our civil society live up to such a role when it's clearly driven by the funding and not by the cause? obviously it can't! It has adopted the approach of the private sector. The obsolete concepts of values, ethics and justice are not sexy anymore. Well, unless they turn up on the agenda of some donor.

Islam, sipirtuality and civilisation

2007-09-28T12:18:00.000+02:00

I am usually critical of religious sentiments. This, however, is not because of my hatred for religions. It is because the majority of religious views being expressed emphasise an exclusionary nature of religions that creates two groups: us and the rest. Religions, however, are not only that. They are comprised of sipirtual aspects, codes of conduct, rituals and many other components, which largely go unnoticed in mainstream religious rhetoric as it centres on the differences between believers and infidels.
This is true of all religious rhetoric. However, in an era of 'Western dominance', the exclusionary nature of religions is only seen when it contradicts with the West, i.e. when the West is on "the other side". Hence, Islam is viewed as an extremist religion while it is composed of the same set of positive, negative and neutral components of every religion.
In Ramadan, I got exposed to someone who, I believe, is doing a great job in presenting a different aspect of Islam. His name is Sami Yousef. He is a British Muslim singer who sings religious songs. My fascination with his works comes from the fact that, while his songs are full of religious symbols, he emphasises the spiritual nature of Islam, putting aside the differences between people and focusing on the relationship between the Muslim and the elements of the religion (God, Prophet and Quran). One of his songs is in English, Arabic, Turkish and Urdu which presents a unifying theme of religion.
The song I am including here is about Mohammed, the teacher of teachers (as he says). He presents spiritual themes while focusing that these can go hand in hand with modern life.
I think we need more people to revolutionise Islam. We need more people to encourage Islamic communities around the world to stop emphasising the difference between them and "the others". This is not intended to mean that other communities have stopped this differentiation, as this is something needed in all religions. To truly reach a stage where religions only controls the relationship between individuals and their Gods and does not infringe on the freedoms of others. Then, maybe, religions can gain back their self-proclaimed status as belief systems that seek to create a better life for humankind.

Still Alive

2007-09-24T18:40:00.000+02:00

I am still alive. Sometimes I seem to forget the difference between life and work and as the lines blend into each other I indulge in fantasies of changing the world, or a frenzy struggle to meet a deadline. This is how I spent this September. As it approaches its end, we all start looking forward for Eid, then another Eid, and finally Christmas. Two weeks of holiday in which I will do just that.
In Palestine, as in the rest of the world, nothing has changed. The view from here is bleak, yet we continue to live.
Yet, somewhere at the margins there is some light which I am following. Let us see what October is hiding for us.

No to the silencer

2007-08-30T15:50:00.000+02:00

Today marks the 20th anniversary of Naji's death. A man who did what few people have dared to do. He was never intimidated by the threats he received when he criticised those who were wrong, were they Israelis or Arabs. No matter how highly they ranked.

As he used to say "I am charged with being biased. It is a chargeI don't deny... Personally, I am biased in favour of my class. I am not liying to myself or being hypocritical to anyone. The case is clear that there is no room for interpretations.The poor are the ones who die, they are the ones who are imprisoned, they are the ones who truely suffer."

He also explained his main character, Handala: "Handala was born at 10 years old. At that age I left my homeland. When he returns he will still be ten, he will only then start to grow. The known rules of nature do not apply to him, he is an exception. Because losing a homeland is an exception and things become natural when the homeland returns."

Handala was an exception, just as every Palestinian is. The rules of this world do not apply to us. just as the rules of nature do not apply to him.

Naji was also an exception, he would have been 70 this year, and he could have contributed so much to the way we see the world now because he refused to yield to the silencer.

We need one another

2007-08-28T16:09:00.000+02:00

The 13th of September has never been a good date for me (It was the day when my grandmother died, The DoP was signed). This year it will be the beginning of the New Hebrew Year. This will be a Shmita year, in which land owned by Jews should not be tilled or harvested under Jewish law. That last Shmita year started on the 29th of September 2000, another unhappy day.
Since Jewish law prohibits the selling of agricultural produce from Jewish owned land during that year, Rabbis, the Israeli Civil Adminsitration of the Occupied Territories, the Palestinian Minsitry of Agriculture and Palestinian farmers are going to be cooperating in providing agricultural produce for observing Jews in Israel.
There are many issues which prove that Arabs and Jews can, and need to, live with each other in this land. This case is only one of them. Had we focused more on the issues that can bring us closer than those issues that put us apart it would be a much better place to live.
I just hope produce prices don't go up next year.

Dissecting the Anti-boycott rhetoric

2007-08-26T12:50:00.000+02:00

The intelligent observer of anti-boycott arguments proposed by Israelis can only be surprised at the construction of these arguments. None of the arguments presented by this camp go into claiming that Israel does not deserve to be boycotted for its racism and continuous violations of human rights. The question that lingers is: what messages are being disseminated in this rhetoric? I will review some of the major themes that have persisted throughout the debate.
“If you want to boycott Israel, you should start by throwing away your mobile phone and personal computer, because there is a high likelihood that there components were developed in Israel!” The sad thing this is true Motorola, Intel, US Robotics, Texas Instruments all keep R&D centres in Israel, many of which are in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Indeed, these companies should be boycotted until they withdraw from their support for the occupation. However, the message sent by this statement can be read as: “Israel is wrong, but Israel is strong! So what are you going to do about it?” This message tries to convey that it is difficult to boycott Israel, and hence the world should just be complacent with its racist practices.
“Academic boycott is an attack on academic freedom!” Attacks on academic freedom are wrong, they should not happen. But in the larger scheme of things, the value of human life, equality and justice come far before academic freedom. The basis on which our societies are based and organised allows us to limit certain freedoms in order to maintain the more fundamental freedoms. That is why the society does not frown upon imprisoning a murderer, because it is done as a deterrent and punishment for more fundamental infringements on other people’s rights. In any case this argument, is mainly directed towards academic, making academic freedom seem much more valuable that any other freedom being denied to the Palestinians (including their academic freedom). Is this in a way saying that academic freedom of Israelis is more important the Palestinians right to life?
“We should build bridges for dialogue, not walls!” Coming from the same institutions that advocate 8 meter concrete walls this sounds ridiculous. This argument builds on the ideal of cultural tolerance and understanding in order to gain support for intolerable behaviour. Building bridges between civilisations and cultures is a worthy cause, but who would have thought of building bridges with the Latin American Juntas- ah, I know, the USA!
“The boycott is Anti-Semitic.” This one tries to build on the guilt factor. But it is completely untrue. The advocates of the boycott are clearly proposing very progressive agenda that is not targeting Jews, in fact some of the leaders of the movement are (self-hating?) Jews. The movement is clear on this line, and does not welcome anyone who tries to hijack the cause for Anti-Semitic purposes. The boycott is directed at Israel as a state and its actions, if this is Anti-Semitic.
“The academic boycott will harm the academia.” If academics boycott Israel, they will lose on the potential of joint research projects and potential funding. If this is not extortion, what is? This argument aims to outline personal losses for people who will participate in the boycott. But this is what activism is all about, no? When you stand up for a cause you are willing to lose a little in order to allow more communal gain. So the question that faces academics here: what’s better, ₤100K of possible funding, or contributing to enhancing the quality of life of an oppressed population? Of course, academics can chose either, but I really don’t want to be taught by someone who chooses the former. In fact, I don’t think such a person is capable of living up to his/her role as an academic.
“Why Israel? Look at Sudan in Darfur, Saudi Arabia and women rights, UK and US in Iraq….” Well, this argument is a nice one, of course all violations of human rights are not tolerated. But what this argument says is the opposite: If these folks can do it, we should be allowed to do it without being harassed. Twisted logic, no?
None of the messages above says that Israel is not wrong. If this was brought to a fair trial, all the evidence against Israel brought up, and all the Dorshowitz’s in the world came up with these arguments, no self respecting jury would say “not guilty”, and no self respecting judge would rule with anything less than a boycott.
This sort of attitude, and the acceptance of anti-boycott rhetoric on the part of the undecided majority and, more importantly, the active actors in the international community, can only be seen as a message that reads: “Israel is indeed wrong, but it is against our personal/national interests to undo this wrong.”

Hypocrisy again and again

2007-08-21T02:35:00.000+02:00

If you speak to any Zionist, anywhere in the world, about the appalling human right violations perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians, you are likely to hear this argument: "Human right abuses are carried out in the Arab world everyday, why should Israel be singled out?"
Well, I am not going to get into the fallacy of the argument, since injustice being done somewhere does not justify injustice done somewhere else.
Israel was put to the test in the last few months, and as usual when it comes to issues of justice and equality, it failed. Last Saturday Israel extradited 50 Africans (mainly from Darfur), who crossed into the country a day earlier and requested asylum, back to Egypt.
Haaretz is worried that this comes in contradiction of international law.
Noise from Israel must be saying: International law? what's that!

Hypocrisy and bureaucracy

2007-08-19T22:20:00.000+02:00

I don't know which city it was, but I remembered I smiled at a postcard that looked like the 'picture' to the left and on the back said "[city name] by night". This scene is not a reason to smile today because Gaza looks like this tonight. Over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza have to live on 8 hour blocks of electricity every day.

Outrageous? that's not what the EU thinks! It is conducting an "overall review" of the programme under which it funds the power supply to the strip. Apparently in some twisted bureaucrat's logic it is alright to put a whole population in darkness because they are not sure if the programme is consistent with their philosophy.

Obviously, Palestinians have a share of the blame. Israelis have their share as well. But to think that the EU, which continuously tries to present itself as a morally responsible player in the international scene, would force all economic and other activities to cease in the Gaza Strip is just one step too much. This redefines hypocrisy!

Collective Punishment

2007-08-12T01:29:00.000+02:00

To say that a state practices collective against a group of its inhabitants, is one thing, but to have these practices endorsed by the Hight Court is another. A petition by a group of Gazan students to allow them to return to their university studies in the West Bank was rejected by Israel's High Court (of Justice?). Israel has continuously sought to undermine the educational system of the oPt and mainly the higher education institutions. Long lists exist of the various "shut-downs", attacks and restrictions on access to academic resources. However, to top its crimes, Israel has been, since the mid-90's, implementing a campaign aiming at the disruption of the studies of Gazan students through arrests, deportation, and impeding their access to education inside their country.
In this ruling the judge claimed "the bottom line is that situation between Israel and Gaza has deteriorated to an all time low, and issuing a court order that sets aside would not fit in with the present dire reality."
To me, the bottom line is that Israel continues to be racist, and unjust. The mere fact that it goes up in arms against the world when the academic boycot is mentioned claiming its right to academic freedom, while restricting this freedom for Palestinians is a clear indicator of the moral low Israel's government, army and academia have reached (actually they reached it long ago). The fact that you find academics standing up to defend academic freedom when they are under fire, but raise no voice when their neighbours are continuously deprived this freedom shows what lows this academia has reach. Is there a better justification for the boycot? not just academic but at all levels.

The danger growing from within

2007-08-07T22:11:00.000+02:00

An unbelievable report about Hamas scraping a year off for inmates memorising 5 chapter of the Quran is actually true. Hamas is clearly stumbling between its ideology and being a responsible political party. While for a while it has been promising that it will not enact Shariá laws, or change the nature of Palestinian laws (which are centred around religion, anyway), this constitutes a step in the wrong direction. More to that, AlQuds Newspaper published today an article about an up coming conference for Hizbu-ut-tahrir, the Islamic party which is silently building an underground movement for a new caliphate state. The article presents the most outrageous remarks criticising civil liberties, human rights, women rights, democracy and other concepts as Western inventions intended to undermine Islamic values.
For ages, Islamists have been claiming that the development towards secularism and separation between the state and the church in Europe is an irrelevant change for us living in Islamic countries. Their main argument is based on the fact that the Church's interferences in political life of medieval and classical Europe has brought continuous political crises in Europe, while Islamic rule during the Caliphate period only contributed to the welfare of the citizens of the Islamic empire at those times. The fact of the matter is, this is an utter lie.
Firstly, Islamic theocracy and Christian theocracy are different. In Islam there was a union between political and religious authority, the "church" and the state were one, and therefore the fact that there was no conflict between them is only logical. Whenever politicians wanted to discourage something they used the power of religion, and whenever religion interfered with their interests they disregarded it, and the fact that the Caliph was not accountable to anyone, and that he was instated for life meant that disagreement was not possible. In fact, Islamic law punishes those rising against the Caliphs for "inducing 'Fitna'". Thus ensuring the stability of the regime, even if it was corrupt.
In Islamic literature, we see a rosy picture of Baghdad, Damascus, Andalusia and Cairo. In fact this is true, these and other major cities benefited enormously from being the centres of power (both political and economic). However, how often did we see a true representation of the life in rural and remote areas which constituted the great majority of the subjects of this vast empire. In fact, what we know is that even in the urban centres on the periphery of the empire, the situation was not all that good. Historians and writers lived in the urban centres of these civilisations and were largely oblivious to the lives of those who lived outside those centres. We also know for a fact that many of these authors were complacent with the existing authorities. When we were taught that the Abbasids compensated scholars with the weight of their books in gold, we should have known that for sure this gold did not go to those who criticised the system of governance or presented its shortcomings. Therefore, what has been passed to us from those times can only reflect such a bright view of a wonderful life. Even then ivory towers existed.
However, what is most worrying is what is happening now. Islamic parties and movements are quickly climbing up the ladder of popularity by capitalising on the frustration of those living in Muslim countries and promising them a better life under the green flag. They make it seem that such a flag carries the magical solution to the problems of the world and, more particularly, the Islamic world. They forget that in the 800 years of the last empire, our part of the world lived in dire poverty, and while other civilisations took large strides towards enhancing the quality of life of their citizens, we, more or less, stayed in the same place only benefiting of the products of other civilisations while we tried to occupy more territories. In any case, even the most enlightened vision of an Islamic state (which neither Hamas nor Hizbu-ut-tahrir are pursuing), is only likely to take us back to the dark ages.
Our main challenge in this part of the world is an even and sustainable development whose effects will be felt by all citizens. Surrendering to the vision of these groups will mean taking the risk of leaving half our society in the house. It will also mean that issues such as freedom, human rights and accountability of the state will be left aside, as God has written His laws 15 centuries ago and we are but mere subjects to what has been written then. The government will only be accountable to God, and us, as citizens, can only accept His gift to us (well, we can also pray in thanks and praise).
The scary part of the story is yet to come. These movements are extremely successful in their recruitment. They use mosques and religious events to make people feel guilty about their lack of participation with them. They place in their own hands the power of assigning seats in heaven and hell. They use extremely outspoken leaders to expand their fellowships. They use religious texts and historical references to advance their aims. They have in their hand all the tools than can block the minds of their followers and encourage them to do whatever they want them to do.
And what do we have? We have the power of reason and logic which they deny their followers the right to use. We encourage people to think of the possible results, but it is so much easier to follow a ‘divine’ path than to create your own. Over the past century we have seen ideologies rise and fall in our part of the world, starting with pan-Arabism, nationalism, and socialism. Each of these ideologies left its mark on us, and they use these marks to say that they are right. They are on the rise now, but the moment they are in power, they will face the mission they are unequipped for: leading a nation. This is when their fall will start. This is what (I hope) happened to Hamas, leading its popularity to drop dramatically. In the meanwhile, we are faced with the challenge of building a coherent movement which aims at creating a secular state which is truly democratic and concerned with the wellbeing of every citizen. This challenge requires a culture of citizenship: people who are concerned with their society and interested in benefiting and supporting its wellbeing and development.

Cultural Intifada

2007-08-03T14:15:00.000+02:00

I think I previously mentioned Dam Rap, a Palestinian group from Lod. They are here again singing (protesting?) against the continuous discrimination they face as Arab citizens of Israel.We, Arabs of Palestine, whether Israeli citizens or not, have similar claims against the injustice and discrimination of the State of Israel which of course favours Jews over anyone else.Unfortunately, we do not have a political leadership, none of our politicians is competent enough to raise our claims in their true sense, the official Palestinian leadership, in its efforts to achieve an independent state of its own, is really oblivious to the threat of continued discrimination that such a state would entail against all segments of the Palestinian people.Several groups of disenchanted youths are springing up against this whether through music, films, photography or other cultural activities, they are trying to express what we all feel, each in what they do best. This is creating a core group of dissidents, not necessarily against A state (which is only one protagonist in this conflict) but also against our own society, and our own political leadership. The passiveness and even oppressiveness that our society practices agaisnt its youths is a major factor in maintaining the current injustices.What is needed is to disseminate the outputs of these youths, to bring what they say to every house, whether Arab or Jewish. Then we need to build a movement around the claims these groups are presenting, which are in fact, our own claims that we have held for long inside us. Maybe one day this form of cultural protest would materialise in a movement that is strong enough to demand, and achieve, the justice and equality that we have always dreamt of.The politics of Palestine/Israel has for long been played as a zero sum game. It does not necessarily have to be so, by changing the rules of the game, you can reach a situation where everybody can when. This, of course, can only be done when everyone realises that for you to gain, others should not lose. Therefore the rules of the new game should be based on the equal perceptions of the needs of every part of this large mess we call Palestine/Israel.If we can move this cultural movement from a sporadic set of separated events and people to a united group working towards one goal, we can then achieve this and build around it. The cultural production of these groups can inspire the millions who await so eagerly for the day the bloodshed would end.

What next?

2007-07-27T11:48:00.001+02:00

Today the inquiry commission into the events of Gaza submitted its report to the President. The comission's spokesman, told us all what we already knew: "The basic structure of the security apartus is wrong and useless and unreliable and work will start now to change this rule." I will not attack the professionalism of the report. Afterall, the commission was largely unprofessional and highly politicised: 4 politicians and a general.
What I seek to understand, and lead you to question, is if the commission actually did its job? Or was it really a post-mortum report that was written to commend the steps taken by the president?
The first question that comes to mind relates to the person who holds the responsibility for what happened to Gaza. In my opinion, the head of the political system, in all what he did and did not do, is largely responsible. So, did the commission start by questionining the president? Very unlikely since the head of the commission was his chief of staff.
When the Palestinian people gave Abbas 64% of their votes and made him president, they wanted a leader. Despite the fact that Hamas seems to me largely responsible for the mess, we still have the right to know what the president did to stop this from happening. The investigation is not about if he was responsible for the coup, but rather if he fulfilled his duties in trying to stop it.
Secondly, the report was written on an issue that is so critical to the whole Palestinian people, it is our right, and their duty, to let us know every finding of this report. Saying that we had a commission and report and holding a press conference is just not sufficient. The idea of having a government is to protect the people from such happenings, and in case of government failures, the people have to know the details of this failure. This is ABC of democratic governance.
More importantly is what will happen next? The commission has acknowledged that its mandate was insufficient. It was asked to investigate what happened in Fatah and the security forces, but the event is one of national consequences and not just in relation to the party, unless Fatah sees itself as one with the PA (which was the case during the years up to 2006).
There is a need for a national inquiry. This, however, is only possible when there is one authority and not two. All, should be brought to questionning, and such commission should be independent, experienced and professional.
The report indicates that the security apartus have turned into semi-feudal groups, and that its findings should be used to build a modern security aparatus. We would love to see this happening, two questions however : is Syria's secret police modern? and, when?

Israel: Democracy and dictatorship

2007-07-25T15:50:00.000+02:00

One of the founding myths of the Zionist discourse is that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. Of course the debate on whether or not true democracy is possible under a capitalist economy is still valid here. However, I do not intend to enter into generalisations in political philosophy. What I intend to do is to examine the thesis itself and test its validity.
On a superficial level, Israel strongly portrays the basic elements of a modern western style democracy. Its leadership is elected by public suffrage where even citizens from the minority group have equal voting rights. The Israeli press is one of the most vibrant worldwide, it can discuss and criticise the government at will. State institutions are fully functional. The government answers to the Parliament which in several occasions dissolved the government and called new elections. The Judiciary is seemingly independent, any citizen can call the state to court on virtually any issue.
At this level Israel seems, and acts like a democracy. However, to many of us Palestinians, whether with Israeli citizenship or not, it feels like a military dictatorship. Arab press, even those inside Israel, is subject to the censorship of the army. The Israeli Arab educational system is supervised by the security services. Arab towns (inside Israel) are scoring at the bottom of the economic development lists.
In the West Bank and Gaza it is even worse. Palestinians are not considered citizens. The Army is not responsible to anyone. As a matter of fact, the army is responsible for administering the territories. Destruction of property, curbs on civil and political liberties and even murder of Palestinians by the Army are not punishable.
The question that might be raised here is why can Israel look so democratic and yet feel like a military dictatorship to us? I think I have the answer.
There is one institution in the Israeli society to which the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews have sworn loyalty to- The Army. Almost every Israeli serves in the army pledging to sacrifice his/her life if need be. Even though the Army is seemingly outside the political scene, it extremely influences it. The current government (before Barak was admitted), was the only government where both the Prime Minister and Minister of Defence did not come from the Army. The majority of decisions taken by Israeli governments are influenced by reports and recommendations from the Army or other security services and intelligence organisations.
To protect their power, the generals and the state have placed one constraint on Israeli democracy: Zionism. In Israel you can do and say anything as long as it does not impact “the Jewish nature of the state.” It is such a cute democracy until you trigger the beast of military dictatorship when you attack this principle. Then, the individual or the group which has triggered this threat will suffer just as the dissidents of Saddam, Assad or Pinochet. In such a case, the public is not affected. What is worse, the public is complacent with the acts of the states. After all, this is what they have sworn allegiance to when they were 18.
The Army acts in a similar manner to the Council of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Democracy is allowed as long as it does not endanger Zionism. The Army itself acts as a huge brain-washing machine. Youths join the army at an age in which they begin to explore life and understand it. At this critical age, they are given guns, and request to pledge to devote all of their strength and to sacrifice their lives to protect the land and the freedom of Israel. They are given extensive training in patriotism and Zionism to the extent that they are blinded from seeing any truth that contradicts the version they learnt in the army. This way, the Israeli army created a society which is loyal to it. The Army is probably the most respected public institution in Israel.
Military dictatorships usually spring up when the power of the military can be compromised by democracy. In Israel, the population generally does not find itself in that position because the majority is, by default, a part of the army. Those groups who are not are being increasingly criticised for their disloyalty.
Israel does not need to be a military dictatorship, it is a military democracy!

Attention: you are approaching a wall

2007-07-24T22:26:00.001+02:00

Every time the peace process picks up momentum in the direction of a two state solution I start to feel worried. At the moment the Palestinians are two weak to set the rules of peace. Israel has enough power to impose all of its conditions slowly. At the moment Israel cannot afford to have a Palestinian state next door, because this state will not be stable. How Israel is trying to approach this problem is by building up the capacity of the Palestinian Authority to become a dictatorship. Not any kind of dictatorship, but one which is willing to accept all the conditions of Israel. Such a state, should protect Israel at all costs, even if this meant that it would oppress its citizens.
So long as Israel is allowed to impose its conditions with minor concessions, this is what a two state solution is likely to lead to.
If we are to come to a sustainable democratic solution, the international community has to place so much pressure on Israel to equate the pressure the Palestinians would have placed on Israel in any negotiated settlement.

What went wrong

2007-07-24T07:19:00.000+02:00

One of the books I started reading but never finished was "What Went Wrong", in which Bernard Lewis tried to explain the reasons behind the retreat of the Arabi-Islamic civilisation and the advance of the Western civilisation. Despite being extremely orientalist in his presentation and thesis, the book should be read by us as it is trying to explain the demise of our civilisation.
I was discussing a similar issue with Fanen, we came to the conclusion that as a cultural unit (Arab/Islamic) we are not producing any form of cultural activities, or to be fair, our cultural product whether in the arts or the sciences is so little that it is marginal compared to the size of the population. If we continue to disregard the importance of cultural outputs, then the distinctive traits of this cultural unit (I use this term instead of a nation) will vanish. A culture that does not continuously reproduce and recreate itself is likely to be overtaken by other cultures.

What went wrong, and what is going wrong now, is that we stopped being an active civilisation, and at this rate we are going to stop being a civilisation. At the height of the Islamic empire, knowledge is what kept us going, culture, arts, architecture, music etc... in the 14th century Muslims were inventing musical instruments, in the twentieth, we are banning them. In the 14th century Muslims produced architectural outputs that outlived all other civilisations remaining intact. Now, with few exceptions, our previous architectural products are forgotten.
Today we are reproducing the cultural products which will reproduce the cultural outputs of the beginning of the twentieth century. The central theme of all cultural products is the religion, and we are hardly thinking or producing in any other domain. If you walk in the streets of Palestine, Jordan, Syria etc... you will find, for example, that the majority of the books being displayed and sold are religious books. You will also find that there is a growing market for the "Islamic Song". This is what we are producing, but this will eventually produce a whole society which will be merely concerned with these issues only. We will be trapped in a situation of lack of conciousness about anything else but religion, can you imagine a whole society of monks?

As Adel Imam once said "people have stepped on the moon while we are debating with which leg to step into the toilet."

Imagine

2007-07-23T09:10:00.000+02:00

Imagine you wake up one morning, and you walk to the kitchen, prepare your coffee, walk to the door get your paper. You sit on your balcony to read, and here are the headlines that you find:
* Parliament approves law reserving government land to ethnic group X
* The Municipality of the Capital City issues tender calls which prohibit residents who are of ethnic group Y from applying
* The PM: Military investment is the best way to protect the citizen
* Report: Government okays 20% more wiretaps per capita than US.

That would be a worrying day, would it not? Well, that day is today- Open Haaretz!

The Ultimate Sin

2007-07-19T09:04:00.000+02:00

"It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do." The virtuous amongst us try to identify evil, and not do it. However, how often do we consider the act of NOT DOING as evil?
In a world which runs according to a universal system of power and wealth, very few own the power that determines how the world progresses. We all know and refer to the oligarchy of the multinationals and the power of Western Politicians. We consider what Nestle does in Africa, what Coca-Cola does in India and Colombia, what Caterpillar, Motorolla and Intel do in Palestine as evil, and we decide to boycot them.
These corporations are definitely evil in their means. However, did we ever stop to think how we benefit from their deeds? If I worked for a company that did the auditing for Coca-cola, or was the authorised agent of Intel, or just loved Lion Bar would I not be benefiting from these companies? Would I not be making money from money they made doing evil things?
The problem is we all live like that we allow ourselves to indulge in superfluous luxuries knowing that these luxuries were made for 50 cents a day in Bangkok or GuangZhou. We know that we are depriving whole communities of the hope of a sustainable, decent and dignified livelihood yet we still do it.
Today's ultimate sin is complacency.

Can we afford a Palestinian state?

2007-07-16T21:15:00.000+02:00

Today Bush came out in another of his infamous speeches: too many compliments for Israel, and a pat on the back for Abbas. It is funny/sad to hear Bush speaking negatively of murders, people being thrown from rooftops, and masked militiamen! It sounded exactly as if Pieter Botha (then Prime minister of South Africa) coming out to congratulate the Zimbabwean people on their liberation from the racist rule in 1980.
Anyway, Bush reiterated his position in favour of a Palestinian state. Since 1999 we have heard a promise of declaring the state each year during the times of Arafat, and a less confident expression of hopes since Abbas came to power. In both cases Palestinians applauded the speeches. However, our presidents never told us if we can actually afford a Palestinian state now.
Let us have a look at the more recent history. In January last year, we had elections. Hamas won. Funding stopped. Employees had no salaries for 16 months. Hamas did not care. Fatah could not care less. What does this crisis tell us?
First, we have a 'country' with an economy that cannot support the government's current bill. In short, we are (I think) the only political entity on earth that begs even the salaries of its employees. Half of our GDP comes from foreign aid, half of the other half comes from remittances, and less than a quarter is actually produced inside Palestine. If we have a state now, we would stop being a pressing issue in the eyes of the world. We will stop receiving international aid. Hopefully, with some luck, fifty years from now we will have an economy resembling that of Afghanistan nowadays.
The ruling party could not take responsibility for the crisis, the opposition did nothing. We have political parties that are incapable of representing anyone. As a matter of fact, these parties, despite their large historic popular bases are merely puppets in a regional and international play. So we do not have a multi-party system, we actually have a multi-state system. Hopefully, with any luck, in 50 years from now, we will develop into Lebanon's current political system.
We have more military factions that our population size. A friend tells me that the Red Cross had to negotiate with 19 separate groups to secure their exit from Gaza. These were the moderate groups which agreed to negotiate, of course. Any two guys with guns can start a brigade and terrorise Palestinians before they do Israelis under the mask of patriotism we are intimidated into hailing them as the angels of the gods.
Of course, I am not required to mention the fact that institutions such as the police, the justice system, the health services are more crippled than those of the least developed countries of the world.
So Mr. Abbas, when you come up and tell us I will get you a state, do you know what you will do the next day?

The Wall mentality

2007-07-15T22:49:00.000+02:00

IN 1923 Vladimir Jabotinsky, who came to be one of the enthusiasts of the Zionists right, wrote an essay titled "The Iron Wall". In this article Jabotinsky, advocates that Zionists' policy towards the Arabs of Palestine and the region should be an Iron Wall policy, a policy based on total isolation from the Arabs of the region which would inevitably force the Arabs to negotiate concessions with the Zionists.
Whether metaphorical or physical, walls are the most disgusting expression of separation from others. They are abrupt to the natural flow of things, and in essence they contradict with equality and justice. In that article Jabotinsky claims that his attitude to the Arabs is "polite indifference." But this exactly is when people lose their humanity. Because when you are indifferent to a whole people and you happen to rule them, then you are bound to also be indifferent to their needs, concerns and discrimination against them.
Well, after the Great Apartheid Wall of Israel, Israelis seem to have got a kick out of the idea. Residents of Moshav Nir Zvi began the construction of a wall that will separate the Moshav land from the Arab neighbourhoods of Lod. The Wall was approved by the government in 2002, and construction began but it has now stopped pending a court order.
If this mentality rules Israel now, then what can you expect to see in 20 years?

How Hamas surpassed the US

2007-07-13T09:05:00.000+02:00

Imgine two populations which have been starved for a very long time through complex systems of financial and trade sanctions. A military occupation imposed on this population is going to further complicate the situation. Take for example the case of the US in Iraq. They came in, and thought they could eliminate all the existing national structures and start anew. So to start with they dissolved the army: the only institution which could have kept the stability. The result? you have a security mess.
Take a look at the other side of the Middle East: Gaza. Hamas took over in what was reminiscent of the fall of Baghdad 4 years ago. What did Hamas do afterwards? of course with a small force like the Executive Force you cannot rule almost 2 million people most of them in deep poverty. Hamas now controls the same security forces that used to belong to Fatah. They got rid of the previous leaders and promoted others from the lower ranks to lead the institutions. So the institutions remained in place, and were run by people who always worked in them. Therefore, these people did not need to start learning about the institution, its roles and its responsibilities, they just continued to do their job.
I think, therefore, that Hamas was much smarter than the US, albeit, maybe, just as evil.

Italy 2007

2007-07-12T18:10:00.000+02:00

I don't know how to start writing again. I travelled very long this year. Since April, I have only spent parts of May and less than 2 weeks of June at home. I was very tiring. But finally I have visited the one destination, that was always comming top- ITALIA.
I always thought to myself if for nothing, then for the sight of those belle ragazze. But it was one month of beautiful girls, beautiful scenery and chunks of world history. I came home with a lots of nice memories (and a fever and very soar throat). I met wonderful people at a summer school on Migration and Development in Florence, travelled around, Seen Siena (enjoyed it), Pisa (laughed at the tourists), La Rossa (Bologna), Venice (a one of a kind city) and finally Rome where I was pulling my legs from monument to monument too many of them to see (especially for someone who had just become sick).
In short it was wonderful. I am back, and I can now write about other things.

Civil War

2007-06-15T18:11:00.000+02:00

I never thought I would be writing these words. For a very long time I have not been able to write and now, when I got the 15 minutes of internet connection, I have to write about a civil war.
It has been a quite unimaginable one. It is impossible to believe that Fatah did not have the capacity to fight, not that I want to have done that.
I am wondering, if this whole thing was part of a planned non-action on the part of Fatah to justify firing Hamas from the government.
Considering what Hamas is doing and has done, and considering their rehtoric. This is the first time i will say that I support the decision of Abbas, it is the only decision that could have been taken.
Now, We have an emergency government, we have a suspended parliament, which probably would never meet again. The questions that remain now are determining what kind of developments on the political landscape of Palestine there will be:
how long will the emergency government last?
will the president call for an early elections?
what are the implications of such a call on the field? will that cause more violence?
are we going to move into the Egypto-Syrian style of long lasting states of emergency?
There are provisions in the basic law for firing the government, but there are non for dissolving the parliament. How is this going to be done. Because clearly, the current parliament cannot be maintained in light of the fact that Hamas is fighting a war against the Authority.
Did it ever happen that the party in power actually fight a war against the government?

lumpenproletariats

2007-05-31T22:49:00.000+02:00

I could not have written things better than this, this is a comment I received on the previous post:
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This is great!!!! Not only in the fact that the lecturers have voted but also in the appeal of the four universities...at last there is actual proof the boycott will lead to internal changes and pressure which I think is the only solution.By the way, the International Design Forum took place in Dubai a couple of days ago and in one of the sessions one of the world most prominent designers "Karim Rashid" who is originally from Egypt had referred to a project he was working on with an Israeli peer. When he was asked HOW DO YOU CONNECT PRACTICALITY WITH CULTURE? He was explaining that the project aimed at enhancing the Israeli cultural DISH WHICH IS FALAFIL AND PITTA BREAD.It was outrageous…not only was it normal for him to mention that he was working with an Israeli in a country that claims that it has no diplomatic relations with Israel but he referred to an Arabic dish as part of the Israeli culture. When confronted by one of the people attending he just gave her a lecture about where homos chick peas come from and brushed her off by telling her go do your research! Anyway maybe such an amazing designer whom from what I understood has been a revolutionary in the design sector should be addressed…who knows what could happen?
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The type of people you are talking about can best be analysed through a framework of marxist analysis. In marxist theory they are labelled as lumpenproletariates. which refers to a specific group of people from the class that is oppressed or exploited in the society and they are working against the benefit of their class. In political rehtoric, they are often described as regressive elements of the society. In Neo-marxism they can be more radically described as a group Comprador bourgeoisie.

Do it because it works!

2007-05-30T23:08:00.001+02:00

So British university and college lecturers voted in favour of the boycott. The discussion of boycotting Israel has finally ceased to be a characteristic of what Israel supporters call "radical leftist" and is finally taking it rightful place in the mainstream.

While the boycott discussions were going on, a committee inquiry in Israel revealed that planned entry requirement into the medical sciences faculties in Israeli universities can only serve to deter Arab Israeli students from studying in these faculties. The new regulations would prohibit anyone from entering the faculty of medicine if he or she is under 20 years old unless s/he is chosing to study along side his or her army service. Arab students who don't serve in the Army enter university at the age of 18, while Jewish students only start their studies after serving for at least 2 years in the army, by which time they would have met the age requirement.

On the other hand, Israelis are proving that the boycott can lead to positive results as 4 Israeli universities called on the Israeli Defence Minister to re-examine the ban on Gazan students to study in West Bank Universities. The Israeli Army which cites security concerns over everything, claims it would be a security threat to allow students to pass from one part of their country to the other. Anyone who has passed through Erez crossing which separates Gaza from Israel would know that this is at best a ridiculous claim.

Anyway, with the boycott in sight these universities tried to make a gesture against one of the many policies through which Israel oppresses the Palestinians. Although this is a proof that the boycott can work eventually, it is a very small step in the 10000000000 mile journey to rid Israel of its Fascist nature.

Isolate it!

2007-05-30T09:59:00.001+02:00

Today, the British University and College Union will discuss a proposed boycott of Israeli institutions. Israeli academicians with the support of Zionist groups have been trying to dissuade their British counterparts from voting in favour of the motion which  comes after the UCU's predecessors (NAFTHE and AUT) have both endorsed such motions which then became void after their merger last year.

The boycott is being fought by Israel's supporters on grounds of "Academic Freedom" a term which seems to be put in use only when convenient as the Israel continues to attack Palestinians and their freedom with the complacency of the majority of Israel's academia.

The boycott is becoming more and more often a mainstream debate despite the opposition it faces. This fact is probably one of the few positive developments in the conflict in the last few years as it shows that more and more people are becoming concerned with situation in Israel/Palestine and are seeing the similarities between here and Apartheid South Africa. More people are becoming aware of the need for similar treatment of Israel.

Those who oppose the boycott on ground of academic freedom are at best one sided. They can see the harm it does for Israeli academia but turn a blind eye to this group's complacency with Israel's practices against Palestinians.

Those who oppose the boycott on grounds of harm done to UK research activities, since Israel is a leading actor in research and development in certain fields, are putting their own personal gains above the suffering of the Palestinians. In fact, this group is willing to benefit of the plight of the Palestinians and hence are not, morally, better than Israeli professors who do the same.

Rima's Permit

2007-05-28T16:16:00.001+02:00

Rima, a colleague of mine comes from Gaza but married a Palestinian from Ramallah 5 or 6 years ago. Back then, the Intifada had already started, so she and her husband fought hard, and left no stone unturned to ensure that Rima gets a permit to come to Ramallah. Of course, the permit expired, and she has been living in Ramallah for the past 5 years illegally (in Israel's twisted logic).

In practice, a Palestinian has to know what he is marrying into. If you are from the West Bank, it would be impossible in legal terms to get a wife from Jerusalem, Gaza or Israel. Israeli law does not explicitly state that some marriages are prohibited, however, it says that certain couples cannot live with each other!

So if you are from the West Bank you are not allowed to live with your partner who is from Israel, Jerusalem or Gaza. There are thousands of families which are separated or risk separation everyday because of this situation which makes it illegal for someone with Israeli citizenship to enter PA areas, or a Palestinian to enter Israeli areas, or for Palestinians to move between the PA areas of Gaza and West Bank.

Rima got a permit from the Israeli army to see her family! So she can go to Gaza for two weeks enjoy seeing them for the first time since she left after getting married. I am happy for her.

On the other hand, I can't help but think of how ridiculous it is that in order to see your family, which lives in the same country, you will have to get a permit from the Army. Or, how ridiculous it is to not be able to live "legally" with your partner, because you come from different areas in the same country. It is sad when you get happy because you are allowed to see your family. This logic is anachronistic with the 21st century, but it still is the prevailing logic of the God's most gracious gift to mankind, the light unto the nations, the State of Israel.

Tsunami Survivors turn to faith?

2007-05-24T00:07:00.000+02:00

Plea: Please, this is provided in good faith, as a criticism of religion in general, it is not used to show that Muslims want to kill all non-muslims or anything of that sort. so please do not use it in this way.
This is a video which is supposed to prove that Islam will prevail. It shows that in Tsunami affected areas mosques are the only structures that survived. To me it looks very apalling that they can actually refer to that as something good, which they do.
I can't help but feel as if going to war, and the music on that clip can only sound like Hatikva to me!

A personal experience

2007-05-22T16:42:00.001+02:00

Sometimes I feel that I am abandoning the real cause d'etre of this blog by switching my focus from daily experiences to the generalisations and opinionated discussions. I want today to share a personal story of a friend of mine. I leave you with the story in her words.

the pages of the book turn, the color may change, the names may change too. what stays the same is the words. Starting my day, I was told how could you start smiling and singing. Not before long, a soldier managed to turn this around. "why don't you cancel your people because its better for my people. I was shocked to hear it so spelled out. I can not by excusing him because I know he's a human being. on the way back, another soldier said he wants to ask us a personal question. With humor, I said sex? 3 times a day. He frowned to that and said"I'm a religious and don't like this. I then asked so if you're religious, you don't have sex; he replied with no. he then asked: out of all this big world why did you chose to come to Nablus? my colleague replied: we where in tubas. so he elaborated where you're from, my colleague said: Jerusalem. So you're Palestinian. So there's not Jerusalem.
he considered me retorted after my reply. he emphasized that there's many nice places and why come to Palestinian, ugly areas.

having faced this blunt hatred in one day worried me. it seems like old, familiar tendencies are reviving. so what's next? I wonder. most behaviors, massacres, etc start with being ideas, generalizations, dehumanization and bluntly. if we know this from history, and where it leads to, where is our responsibility in calling it what it is? there's clearly a mob mentality amounts Israelis that is aggressive and ligitimises racism. yes, we know these signs from previous historical disasters.

Pride

2007-05-20T20:40:00.000+02:00

No one has ever been more proud of himself, or praised himself more than Mahmoud Darwish. When he woke up from one important surgery he had he wrote a long poem called "Mural" in it he says:
Oh death wait, and sit on the
chair. Take a glass of wine, and do not
negotiate with me, your likes do not negotiate
a human being, and my likes do not oppose the servant
of the unknown. Relax... you might have been tired this
day from the star war. Who am I
for you to visit me? Do you have time to test my poem.
No. This is not your business. You are responsible for
the dust in the human, not his deeds or words.
You were defeated, oh death, by all the arts.
You were defeated by the songs of Mesopotamia.
The Egyptian's Obelisk, the Pharaohs' graveyard
the engravings on the stones of a temple defeated you
and won, and from your trap, immortality escaped
so do with us, and with yourself what you want.

Some sense in a senseless world

2007-05-19T20:17:00.000+02:00

I hardly ever come out in defence, let alone support, of an Arab ruler. So, this man must have done something to really deserve what I am about to say about him.
Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktum, announced what the BBC called one of the largest charitable donations known today. Sheikh Mohammed said this morning that he will set up a fund named after himself with the aim of furthering human development and creation of a knowledge based society in the Arab region. The 10 billion (yes with a B) dollar fund will aim to create educational opportunities and facilitate research and knowledge creation in a region which produces less books than Israel and spends a hundred times less of their GNP on research and development activities.
The fund itself is an important tool to sway attention to a fact we largely ignore in the Arab region. Our compatriots are not able to contribute as much as they should to world knowledge. We need the tools to change the current situation. In many countries the situation is caused by the lack of sufficient funding to educational research. For example, in Palestine 2% of the Ministry of Education's University allocations are earmarked for scientific research, while all other funds cover running expenses and salaries.
However, we should not be led to believe that these 10 billion are going to lead us to the top of the world. There are huge investments and bold steps that need to be taken by the governments of Arab countries before any development of this sort can materialise. Educational systems which are feeding us mere propaganda should be developed and imporved to allow for critical thinking and analysis. Universities should become hubs of research and development rather than their current state which can classify them as "large schools". More importantly there should be an emphasis on the additions each individual can make to us rather than the rigid concern of maintaining the existing systems.
I would love to see the goals of the fund materialising, but in our situation we need more than just money.

Lay them down

2007-05-17T13:23:00.000+02:00

Disclaimer: Nothing mentioned here should be taken to mean that Israel is not largely responsible for the misery of the Palestinian people!

For years, Palestinian movements have defending the continued militarisation of the Palestinian society by claiming that this is an essential pre-condition for the continued struggle for liberation. They have sold us the belief that liberation is only reachable through armed struggle. Then they forced us into a mind set which glorifies the leaders of this armed struggle.
Then we did not know how power can corrupt people. More importantly, we did not really understand the Arab proverb that says "the weapon in the hand of a coward hurts." Now we wake up to see what it really means. They found power in their weapons, and want to ensure it is only for them. They want to ensure that no one shares this apparent power the have come to own, and the results are clear: deaths on the streets of Gaza. This time Israeli and Palestinian bullets have united to spill our blood.
Now, that the bullets of our resistance movements have killed more of our own people than they have liberated of the land, can we stop for a moment and think about the need for such a "resistance"? It is common sense only to let go of what harms more than benefits and in any reckoning, the benefits of the armed groups (if any) have been for long out weighed by the disasters they have brought upon us. Maybe it is time to admit that we have been deceived by the proponents of armed struggle for all this time.
I understand that armed struggle is only a natural component of a set of strategies oppressed peoples devise to fight oppression. In some cases it because a necessity and in other cases, it defies its point. In our case, we have been led to place so much emphasis on this particular strategy and leave behind us all other possible strategies. We have come to dismiss these other strategies as if they don't exist. It is about time that we put our act together and put a stop to this ridiculous state we have reached. We should come out straight and demand that they lay down their weapons.
For 60 years, they have dragged us from bad to worse, it is about time that we stand up against their approach to the conflict and enforce a new approach based on rational analysis of the situation. The armed groups clearly are in no position to fight Israel and win. The propaganda they tried to sell us on the eve of the Gaza withdrawal is really nothing but propaganda. Israel only withdrew because it is more feasible for it to go that way and because it saw a great PR stunt in the move. Oslo, if anyone would like to claim it as a victory, is nothing close to being so and even that was not forced onto Israel through armed struggle, on the contrary it was forced on the Palestinian people and so willingly agreed to by our incompetent leadership.
The only solution to the current crisis is a radical one where the Palestinian Authority would show political will and courage by demanding the de-militarisation of all non-security forces personnel. Such a step should create a grace period through which all are encouraged to voluntarily lay down their weapons after which the possession of weapons would be punishable according to the existing laws. Without such a bold (and unlikely) step we are likely to keep falling into this trap until real civil war rages in the streets of Gaza. Maybe in a year's time we will hear of Gaza Islamic State imposed by Hamas!
We should all demonstrate, not only against internal fighting but against possession of weapons, and if need be against even those who claim they are defending us, because based on the facts, they are killing us. We should tell them clearly: Lay down your weapons.

Nakbeh

2007-05-16T15:58:00.000+02:00

Fifty-nine years have passed since Israel was established. While for Jews, this meant a state of their own for the first time in almost 3000 years, for us it mean the beginning of a disposition that lasts until this day. I will not try to rewrite how Israel has and continues to oppress Palestinians I just want to post a reminder of this date.

Beatings....

2007-05-14T09:19:00.000+02:00

Few days ago an uproar spread in Israel in opposition to the Israeli Army's treatment of Israeli Anti-wall protesters. Israeli soldiers were filmed beating Jewish protesters from the Anarchists Against the Wall movement, sparking a debate about how the Israeli Army was treating its citizens. I was actually surprised at the treatment of the protesters, and much more astonished with the uproar it has sparked.
So those bleeding heart liberals who oppose to the use of force against civilians have been so blind for the past 60 yeas of Israeli dominance, and have just woke up to the images of the soldiers beating fellow Jews? Or is their uproar related to the fact that the army was treating citizens in that way, and since Palestinians are not citizens then the army can do as it wishes? But even this assumption falls in front of the numerous events when Israeli soldiers fired at Arab citizens of Israel, killing tens of them in October 2000, in March 1976, in November 1956, and many other dates.
The heart of the matter is the fact that the beaten protesters were Jewish. The treatment itself, to those who opposed it, is not objectionable. What is is the fact that the subjects involved were Jewish. Because a Jew, in their point of view, is worth more than a non-Jew, then it is normal that you see a debate that did not occur even in response to the most horrific acts of oppression against Palestinians (whether citizens or not). If deep down in their mentality they believed that we are all equal human beings they would have come out long before seeing their soldiers beating their compatriots. But they don't believe that, I don't blame them they have been fed such attitudes since they were young, why should they go out of the mainstream?

Apartheid

2007-05-10T10:00:00.000+02:00

When people compare Israel to Apartheid Israelis and their supporters stand up in arms against such a comparison. They say that there is no room for such a comparison. From this day on, I will agree with them. In South Africa, for example, there were beaches for Whites and Beaches for Blacks. In Apartheid Israel, there are beaches only for Israelis.
Israel has just declared that it will stop Palestinians from reaching the Dead Sea beach, already the only beach they are allowed to reach. Soldiers serving in the eastern end of the Jericho - Jerusalem road have been instructed to stop Palestinian cars, and cars of Israeli Palestinians and stop anyone with a Palestinian ID card from accessing the beach. The soldiers have indicated that "they have been informed that Israeli citizens who head to the beach for leisure are not satisfied with the presence of Palestinians on the beach," hence the decision.

The State, The Economy and the Society

2007-05-07T00:20:00.000+02:00

I have just returned from a long trip in three Arab countries which opened my eyes to many facts regarding the socio-economic-political structures of these countries, and probably many other third world countries. In Syria, Jordan and Egypt you will find that the majority of governmental employees receive salaries which are significantly lower than subsistence levels even in the standards of those countries. While Jordanian employees are the most ‘well-off’ as the starting teachers receive a salary of around USD200, in Syria the starting salary is less than USD 100 while Egyptian teachers have to find a way to live on less than USD24 a month!

On the other hand you will find that in the same country there are shops, restaurants, hotels and other leisure places charge as much as you can expect in any Western country. This situation got me thinking about the various political structures that have survived and flourished while their constituents have their ‘blood sucked’ as the Arab saying goes.

Around the world, political and economic elites live luxuriously while poverty spreads just a couple of kilometres from their door steps. However, in many countries of the developed world there are structures that exist to protect the poor from falling totally out and enable them to meet their most basic needs. While these structures and systems are not sufficient for the poor and they, in most cases, sustain the poverty of these groups, they still manage to save the country from falling into complete chaos as the wealthy get wealthier, and the gap between them and the poor increases.

To ensure such a chaos does not happen, a totally different system and set of structures operate in many countries of the Arab World, these are named “Mukhabarat”- The Intelligence Services. The name itself is sufficient to throw fear into the heart of any Arab regardless of his or her nationality. Their methods and stories have turned into a strange mix of myths and facts similar to Orwell’s Room 101 in 1984. They are everywhere, you can see them in the pictures of Bashar Al-Assad around the streets of Damascus, you can find them in the “Jordan First” logos that fill the streets of Amman and you can definitely see them in each and every policeman (of which there are many) that fill the streets of Cairo.

The state has created a system of unmatched brutality both physically and mentally. The ruling elites maintain their political powers through an unholy alliance with the economic elites, they use their monopoly over coercion, which they have mastered so well, to ensure that no danger can spring out to challenge their authority.

Meanwhile, the state, with most of its resources is put to the service of these two groups: the political and economic elites. It delivers minimal services to the population delivering the most basic education and health services, and while university education is free in some of these countries, the high costs associated with it and the opportunity cost of not entering the labour market so soon are too high for the average person to even consider such an option.

The educational system is nothing but a toy that feeds two things. First is propaganda about the traits and achievements of his Majesty/Excellency the Almighty, and second are the basic skills that encourage obedience to the system and discourage any critical/analytical lines of thought. The system is largely centred around the state-set curriculum which focuses on the faculty of memorisation disregarding all other (useless) faculties of the human mind such as analysis, problem-solving, planning etc. You come out after 12 years knowing one thing: My king is God on Earth, my country is heaven on earth.

This creates a society that continues to uphold the system even as it continuously strips it of its most basic rights, and most of all its dignity. Individuals quickly learn how to become active participants in this machine which is based on deception and treachery. They start believing it is right to accept bribes even for the most basic services they should deliver to you as a citizen, stamping your passport at immigration or allowing you pick up a passenger at the airport or even accrediting your school certificate. This creates a new system which runs in parallel with the official one. It becomes largely acceptable for the traffic policeman to stop your car and ask for a bribe, because if you didn’t give it he will find a heftier fine to charge, and you come to accept it because it is his only way of making a living- for you as well would do the same thing, albeit in a different manner or situation.

However, all of you, as citizens, will find yourselves in the service of the two master groups. Every thing you do whether as a policeman or a waiter or parking attendant will be for their service. That is why in Egypt they say “Egypt is not for the Egyptians any more”, neither is Syria nor Jordan nor Iraq nor ...

As an outsider, I can only be saddened by the state which these countries have reached.

The myth called Israeli left

2007-04-23T15:46:00.000+02:00

Around the world, the word spreads that among the Zionists there are the good guys and the bad guys. We have grown accustomed to calling the first group The (dovish, peaceful intellectual ...) Left, and the second was accordingly named The (hawkish, radical, fanatic...) Right. And so the word spread that there are the good guys who work for justice and peace, and there are bad guys who are only interested in bloodshed and violence.
This has become a strong argument of many of Israel's supporters. Saying, for example, this government does not represent all Israelis, there are Israelis who want peace.
However, the idea of what a leftist movement really is usually escapes these arguments. The Left, should, in my modest understanding, present a way forward that is not built on intolerance and bigotry. The left should me more open to ideas that present a real alternative. More importantly, the left can only be called so if it puts matters of justice, equality, democracy, participation and human rights over and above all other considerations. The left should be the anti-thesis of all social and political forces which are based on intolerance and bigotry. It should be willing to fight these groups, in democratic means, in order to achieve these ideals.
That is why the left has come to be understood amongst progressive groups as good. Simply because all humans are viewed as equals and no matter of their differences.
My argument is that in Israel, no such movement exists. At least not at scale which can be called a movement.
The pride of Israel's propagandists who preach of its "Left" is Meretz. It is nonetheless a Zionist party which views all humans as equal in their status, beneath Jews- that is. Of course you will not find this argument in the party's literature which is full of arguments on peace and justice. But racism is not only to call an African American the N-word, it is a state of mind. Meretz's state of mind, allows its to believe that Jews have more rights to this land than other people who lived and continue to live there. This is really interesting considering the fact that they do not hold religious reasons behind their views, but rather historic reasons. So to them it is not the fact that God promised this land to Abraham's seed, but rather that the seed lived here. At the same time, other people who lived there do not have this right. That really is a strange reasoning coming from a secular party! If religious people cite a divine promise for their claims, then what can you call such secular claims other than racism?
look at the following words of Yossi Sarid for example "... Britain had made up its mind to fold up the flag of the empire ... the Yishuv must prepare for its real war of liberation, against the Arabs, and not waste its strength in a war against the rearguard of an imaginary enemy."
These words are a clear indication of the fact that his mentality, as that of his party and Zionism in general, is loaded with bigotry. So how can this mentality be considered to stem from a leftist progressive mind?

Legal Vs. Ethical

2007-04-20T17:13:00.000+02:00

Zionists, usually try to defend the discriminatory practices against non-jews living inside Palestine (whether Israeli citizens or not) by claiming that they are following specific laws that serve the public interest. I am not intending to argue that the "public" in this context refers to Jews in particular, for this is an axiom of Israseli politics which needs no proof.
It is interesting however to inspect how Israel creates a legal framework that allows for such practices to pass. One only has to pay a passing look to the fact that Israel applies two sets of laws in the West Bank and Gaza. While these areas are subject to the Israeli Civil Administration which applies martial laws in the territories, settlers, by virtue of being Jewish are excluded from these laws. Inside Israel you will find that a strange leagal framework gives more rights to those who serve in the Israeli army, while miracuoulsly giving these privelages to Orthodox Jews, and somehow, "legally", leaving the Arabs outside this set of privelages.
To be short, Israeli laws are full of "ifs and thens": if the subject is a Jew, then ..., if the subject did not serve in the army, then.... except if he is a Jew.
Now enters the "Bishara Law", the diamond of Israel's sick mentality, which would give the Kinnesset the right to strip another member of his membership! Wow! how wonderfully democratic... of course there are lots of ifs and thens in this law, but somehow, these ifs and thens can only be applied to Arabs.
This law, is tailor made to suit the Bishara case. I am really speechless, but did anyone from around the world hear of a similar law being applied in a democracy. I think even the harshest autocratic regimes would not have a similar provision in their laws. The Knesset will soon become a rubber stamp parliament for the Zionist leadership, and maybe then those blinded Israel supporter can see that. But maybe not, afterall there were people who thought South Africa was always a democratic country!
The issue here is that we can defend some acts by saying they are legal. But laws are set by those who have the power, and if these are corrupt (ethically I mean), then we will need a different standard to judge state practices other than the legality of such practices. Afterall, the sick minds in Israel which thought up a grey 8 meter high concrete wall to imprison the Palestinians, can think up anything else.

Crack de Chevalier

2007-04-20T10:05:00.000+02:00

Syria is one of the most magnifecent places in the world. It contains a wealth of historic and natural sights to which no like can be found in such a small area. I visited the Crack de Chavelier, a castle which protected the only breach between Syria and the Lebanese coast. Seven hundred meters above the see level, it oversees green mountains and a valley giving a view which I have never seen before. Syria is really a land of wonders. It is probably good that not so many tourists come here, it helps it maintain its charm I guess.

On Corruption and the corrupt

2007-04-17T06:46:00.000+02:00

The World Bank, which is supposed to be the leading institution in the field of development, only noticed that corruption is an obstacle in the face of the development. It is interesting that an institution with all these capacities only started looking at the issue of corruption when it was convenient for the Americans.
Ask any individual living in countries where corruption is crippling the whole economy, they will tell you that they know this since a very long time. So, the question is, why are these WB employees being paid so much if they cannot figure out such a factor?
The answer is clear: they are corrupt themselves. Of course I am not saying anything new when I say that WB is there to serve, not the interests of the poor, but those of the rich. It is obvious that in todays world, the whole world is designed to serve the oppressors.
The recent Wolfowitz scandal is just one sign. The man is guilty, there is no doubt in that! He came out as a WB Director with one issue on his agenda, fighting corruption. In the process, it appears that he came out corrupt. But it is not him alone, it is him and the whole system that brought him to this position. It is also interesting to view the White House position on the issue, which declared its support to Wolfowitz. It is interesting how the powerful can be selective, how some are above the law, not only in third world countries in Asia and Africa, but also within the whole world order.

I fell in Love!

2007-04-15T17:33:00.000+02:00

I fell in love! Damascus, I never felt so at home while abroad. Such a wonderful city, still yet untarnished with the globalisation wave sweeping across the Middle East! In a way, Damascus reminds me of Old Jerusalem, the two cities can only be twins. But what else, they are born of the same history and people. Jerusalem is Arab despite the aggressive Judisation attempts. maybe that's what drawing me to Damascus. All I know is that I can't stop humming Marcel's words "I pass by your name, as I retreat to myself, as a Damascene passes by Andalusia. Here, the lemons lit the salt of my blood, and over here, the wind fell of the horse." I hum and think of these same places, the walls and streets, a year ago.

The Bishara Affair

2007-04-13T15:49:00.000+02:00

So, all the papers in Israel are talking about him!! "a big mouth who talks before he thinks," says Uri Elitzure. What? If Bishara does one thing in life, he thinks! And yes he talks a lot, but isn't that what intellectuals are supposed to do? lead their society? Not in Israel! But what would you expect from someone who goes on to say "The idea of "a state of all its citizens" does not work, and it would not work even if we change the words of our national anthem and annul the Law of Return." Yes, I agree with that, But I have a totally different explanation as to the why! It is simply, because an Ethnic state can never be a state for all its citizens, no matter how hard it tries!
Bishara, has finally declared his intention to resign, all the words that were passed earlier were just rumors, now it is official.
Upon his resignation, he will face legal action, possibly, due to his numerous visits to Syria, which is considered by Israel an enemy state. Bishara says, as an Arab, he does not see Syria as an enemy! which somewhat makes since. Afterall, Israel has gone out against Bishara and his people more than Damascus had (if it ever did).
I will be in the Heart of Damascus tomorrow! and in three weeks, I will be back at the Israeli Terminal in Allenby Bridge. I wonder what they would have to say at that.

2007-04-13T15:39:00.000+02:00

Bagar: 1. Cows (literally- in a very Jordanian accent)
2. People who think human life is about eating and sleeping, and consider anything out of this range to be out of the ordinary.

So the reason I think about this is that I had to pay a visit to the Intelligence officer at the Jordanian terminal while crossing into the country. The reason: The police man found my camera, a Nikon SLR with two lenses. "Are you a journalist?" He asked, "No.", "But this is a journalists' camera!", he says. I tried to correct his closed mindedness "No, it is a camera, and I have it because I like to take pictures."
"You like to take pictures, of what?"
"Anything I find interesting!"
"Ok, Follow me!"

The intel officer, who is supposed to be smarter, took the camera, and could not see an LCD display (since it is a film camera!) "So How can I see the picture?" he asked. "You have to develop the film, duh!" (ok, I didn't say duh, but I meant it!)
Anyway, if you are doing anything outside the range of eating sleeping and drinking, then you have to do a lot of explaining in this country.

Of hate, love and narratives

2007-04-12T00:06:00.000+02:00

When peace prevails, there is always a very tough task ahead. When the papers are signed and the ink is dry, blood and memories are still alive. The peoples will always be asked, and sometimes they will also secretly pose the questions unto themselves: so why is it that we were fighting? And so long as they can’t answer that question (and the one which follows: why did we stop?) peace will never truly be.

In Israel/Palestine, the history is rich with hatred. No matter how much we try to refute this fact when we go so nationalistic, it is true. We learn to hate the Jews, and they learn to hate us. However, something needs to be clarified here: Palestinians’ hate for Jews is not anti-Semitic. As strange as this might sounds, I believe it! As a young boy of ten or eleven, I remember seeing overly dressed silhouettes climbing the drain pipe next to our first-floor apartment window, the loud noises banging on our metal balcony door. When asked to identify themselves, they said: “Iftach, Yahoud!” That’s how they labelled themselves and we grew up to hate them not as a religious group but as an occupying army and state. Whenever we called them Jews, it was not because we liked to use the term in a derogatory manner, it is because that is the name they brought with them when they came here, along with their M-16 rifles and khakis. We never forced them to carry yellow starts of David and neither did we boycott their shops. On the contrary, they forced upon us orange and red ID cards, and blue license plates for our cars (before they were changed to green later on), they imposed on us cheap labour and restricted our access to higher education and professional jobs. We hated them for that, but, unfortunately, with hate, just as with love, you forget why, and you only remember that you hate!

They hated us too, for all the wrong reasons, but they still did. They labelled us as terrorists when were trying to fight against being driven out of our villages and towns in 1948. The labelled those of us who stayed as traitors and fifth column. They claimed we want to throw them into the sea, something we, unfortunately, picked from their mouths and started vowing to!

For 90 years we have only learnt to do just that! The world looks upon us, and so patronisingly says that we should make peace when they were one of the main reasons behind this continuation of this hate. When they had a chance at solving the issue, the only suggestion they could come up with was separation. That only made matters worse not because Arabs were not interested in establishing their own state, and not because Israelis didn’t want peace, simply because both people loved the same land just as much, but neither of the two people could recognise the fact that the other side could actually have those same feelings for this land. The Arabs thought: how could those coming from Europe feel a belonging to this land? The Jews thought: how could those who had a discontinuous history that didn’t not extend 3000 years in the past, and was not supported by a divine promise feel for this stretch of soil the same feelings?

Both people loved, yet were so oblivious to the fact that the other side did just the same. We could not imagine to share this love although there was, and there still is, enough room for sharing! This is because both sides learnt to love, and yes you can learn to love. You can learn to love when you read for 2000 years of Diaspora: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.” You can learn to love, when for hundreds of years you go out to the fields in the morning and you treat every plant as if it was your son. You learn to love when you see, as a boy of five, your grandfather caressing an olive branch as fondly as he strokes his wife. Yes, you learn to love, and in love you believe that no one can share this love with you.

Our love did not change; for 59 years we believed that this land is rightfully ours to go back to. And they believe they have renewed their presence, and they have no other home. So they only solution is the one we have never tried, to share: one country for all of us.

However, and I will stop the romanticising and get into the practicalities now, for one country to exist, there is a need for a massive investment in one unconventional area: history! We both have two versions of history that are irreconcilable. Palestinians can never accept that they have merely been blood thirsty terrorists whose only aim was to kill the Jews, and Jews would never accept that they came and based a state on a godly fable.

Ok, let us leave God aside for now because he has already created so much trouble ever since he did not clarify which of Abraham’s “seeds” he meant, and also since he did not tell the Jews to their faces that he changed His Mind and backed on His Promise, and also since he was the one who told the Muslims to fight for this land, without consulting with the Jews or at least letting them know of his change of plans. So excuse me all religious people, I will leave Him out simply because He will always be the One we will always fight about.

Now we need to agree that we both went wrong in one place or another we did. We need to start with the basic premise, our love to the land, and trace each step we took since then and how our steps started to clash. We will sit there, as mature adults and discuss, not which plot goes under what flag, but what was it that we should have done to avoid this long and terrible history.

In the end we will come to a story like this: We are two groups, whose ancestors lived here at various points of time. We valued both valued this place and “set it above [our] highest joys.” The Jews were forced to leave when they did not want to, and after much persecution and when the time was suitable, they decided to go back. They thought, since they lived here and then left, that nobody else was here. At least, that’s what some of their leaders told them. And they could not believe it when they saw that cattle roamed with their shepherds, and olive groves were planted and attended to and houses were inhabited.

Their reactions varied, some thought, that’s fair enough, we’ll share, and some could not comprehend these facts, and considered that those people were only there because they forced the Jews out 2000 years ago, which we all know is not true, and decided to restart the old war, and they did. The Arabs reacted the same, some thought new neighbours are always welcome, and other thought these people are here to fight us, so they got ready for the fight. Of course those who were ready to share did, and those prepared to fight did. And there was 1921, 1929, 1936 and eventually 1948. Palestinians were forced to flee, that’s a fact! Even those who left without there being any fighting they left because of the war. Israelis, in their newly established state, “naturally” tried to protect it from their perceived enemies so they instated an ethnic democracy regime which continuously refused to accept that Palestinians have a right to go back to were they used to live. Wars continued, sometimes cold, sometimes hot, and two diverging versions of history were ultimately built. Had those Jews who thought “fair enough, we’ll share” and those Arabs who thought “new neighbours are always welcome” prevailed, we would have only had one version.

It is very hard to accept this solution, especially after 90 years. But every year, new blocks are added to each version, and it is hard to take them off, imagine how much harder it will be in 10, 20 or 30 years? We would still be at the same point, with a far greater load on our shoulders, with far more scars.

From now on when I get the naïve question on what is the conflict all about, I will say, it is about love! And when asked about the solution, I will say, a new narrative!

Azmi Bishara

2007-04-11T11:11:00.000+02:00

Rumors are spreading about the eminent resignation of Dr. Bishara from the Israeli Knesset. While I have noticed this since it came on As-Sinnara website 2 days ago, I thought it would be better to wait on it before I can say what I thought about the whole issue.
Dr. Bishara, is really one of the most prominent thinker in the Arab world. He is not only a writer. Bishara moved in 1996 from his position as a professor of philosophy and cultural studies at Birzeit University.
What impresses me with Dr. Bishara is the logic of his arguments. Although he identifies himself as part of the Arab-Islamic culture (That's the identification he uses despite being Christian), he has been fighting for equal Arab rights in Israel. He coined the famous phrase "a state for all its citizens" and made it the logo of his campaign for true democracy.
The phrase itself tells you a lot about Israel. It tells you that it does not act as a state for its Arabs, and that it is only and primarily a Jewish state. Any democracy in that context can only be seen as Jewish Democracy, just like you could say that Apartheid South Africa had whites democracy.
Bishara used his service in the Knessets 14-17, to raise attention to these issues which he saw as most important in terms of the relationship between the state and its citizens. I believe by focusing on the root of the problem rather than its symptoms (such as low employment rates, poverty etc...), while Israel is not acting in anyway to change this situation, and while the "national identity" field will continue to appear in the ID cards of all Israelis, and will continue to determine how the state treats this citizen, he has raised people's awareness on where the root of the problem lies.
He used the Knesset as a platform to discuss his ideas and vision. If he leaves, he will sure be thinking of another platform whether this be Al-Jazeera, a university teaching hall or, as many Israelis wish, a defendant seat in an Israeli court room.

Deir Yassin Remembered

2007-04-09T09:31:00.000+02:00

Today, the 9th of April, 2007 is the 59th anniversary of the Deir Yassin Massacre. Deir Yassin was a medium sized village at the time which rested on a hill just outside Jerusalem. While according to the 1947 division plan of the UN it was part of the Arab state, the Zionists would not let this be the case. The attacked the village on the morning of this day, killing many of the villagers.
When you read the oral history accounts of the event you cannot help but wonder how a peaceful village can turn into the site of such an ugly event. How the baker wakes up early in the morning, and goes to his bakery like every other day, except this would be his last day! things like this move you.
This is Deir Yassin, and what happened there happened in more places. How the Zionist gangs would come to houses in Jaffa, and tell the residents that they had to leave! Just because the residents are Palestinian Arabs. If they didn't they would be killed.

Anyway, April 9th is a really sad day I guess. Four years ago, on this day, Baghdad fell, becoming the third Arab capital to fall to foreign occupation in the recent history, preceded by Jerusalem and Beirut.

Palestinians

2007-04-08T10:55:00.000+02:00

One of the main arguments Zionists use against Palestinians is the fact, they still dwell in refugee camps and yearn to go back to their lands. "Why don't they get assimilated in their new societies?" "It is the fault of them and their Arab brethren," they would say!
But let us take a look at the issue from a different point of view: Didn't the Jews maintain their national aspiration for a return to the holy land? Did they not stay for 2000 years in the diaspora while maintaining themselves as a distinct group from those other groups they lived amongst?
So why is it normal, and even a source of pride, for Jews to have maintained their cultural and national identities for 3000 years, and, at the same time, it is a signal of dysfunctional Arab mentality that Palestinians, 59 years after the Nakbeh, still maintain their national and cultural identities which are very distinct from those identities of the communities in which they live.
I have to admit that managing to maintain such an identity for a very long time requires a great deal of determination, and identification with those groups to which people belong. So, after all, Jews and Arabs have more in common than just their fight over the land. They maybe in love with it just the same. That, however, does not justify the atrocities committed in the name of this love.

The religion of Peace

2007-04-05T15:32:00.000+02:00

I found this most appalling website, call The Religion of Peace. It is supposed to be a sarcastic name, based on the origin of the word Islam. The website has the most despicable news analysis, and op-eds which should all direct you to one conclusion, that Islam is a religion that calls for murder!
It tries to bring out all the slightest mentions of terrorism relating to Islam to say that this is what Islam is about. I am not really a Muslim, and I constantly criticise Islamic practices, and political Islam and Islamic militant movements. My criticism is often based on ideological terms, and not mere rhetoric like this one!
The website asks if there is so many terrorist among Muslim groups then it must be Islam behind this!
Guess what? NO!
Let's try to look at the situation over again. Which part of the world has been subjected to colonialism and western interference more than any other Place? it is by far the Middle East, no? and there is one dominant religious group here: Muslims.
So it is only logical that rejection for this situation can appear amongst Muslims. And since Muslims identify themselves as a group, It is only natural that they would act as such! Just like Americans were united against Al-Qaida Terrorism then Muslims have to be united against Bush&Blair's terrorism!

Chag Sameiach

2007-04-02T16:03:00.000+02:00

Jews around the world will sit tonight for their Seder, to celebrate the beginning of the Pesach. Tonight they will remember how G-d delivered them from the oppression of the Pharaohs. They well remember their enslavement, Moses' pleas for the Pharoah to 'let my people go', and the Pharaoh's refusal. They will remember plague by plague, each of the ten plagues their G-d placed upon the Egyptians and their first-borns will break their day's fasting in gratitude for sparing the Israelite's first-born children when the plagues started.
That is a classical story of oppression.
They will remember how they were oppressed, how they found a saviour in Moses, and how they followed him into the sea as it parted just for them, just that night.
That is a classical story of salvation.
They will drink and celebrate the beginning of their first return!
They will remember the commandments: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery"
Will they remember a different form of oppression?
"You Shall not murder"
Will they remember the murders that have been committed in their names, along side those committed against them?
They will remember the Philistines and their unwillingness to fight them. Will they remember the Palestinians and fighting them?
They will remember their forty years of wandering. Will they remember their forty years of occupation?
If only people can look at things from another eye, this world would be different!
Chag Sameiach, anyway! And... "Next year in Jerusalem", all of us!

Settlers are the guardians of democracy

2007-04-01T09:33:00.000+02:00

No. This is not and April fools comment! It is true, in my point of view at least. Israel Harel Wrote today in Haaretz that "Israeli settlers are not a threat to democracy". I say they are the only hope for democracy!
Israeli settlers are among the most ideologically driven members of the Israeli community. They look upon the colonisation of the West Bank as a divine order which they should fulfill. This ideological drive which controls the settlers' mentality turns them in some areas into beasts when dealing with their Palestinian neighbours. One should only have a look at the settlers in Hebron, Gush Emunim and Gush Etzion to understand what I am talking about.
However, the settlers still give hope for democracy. This is one oxymoron in the Israeli society, one of many.
How is this possible? To understand this, I will go into a journey through the five pillars of the final status negotiations which have for long ago been forgotten! The five pillar are: water, refugees, security and borders, Jerusalem and settlements. At least three of these five can be resolved in a two state solution. Two issues remain unresolved under such an agreement: Refugees and settlers.
Water is one of the most controversial topics. The water resources between the Jordan Rive and the Mediterranean come from three large underground aquifers one in the Northern West Bank, another in the Southern West Bank, and a shared aquifer between Gaza Strip and Negev Desert. Other water resources include the Jordan River and the Sea of the Galilee (Tiberias Lake). So most of these resources are inside the 1967 borders. Israel, however, has monopoly rights over them, as Palestinians extraction is severely limited by Israel. Palestinians buy water from Mekorot, the Israeli company, which sells it at significantly higher prices. Palestinians end up covering the subsidies of water consumed by Israelis. This however, will be forgotten in the final status if two states are formed. The current situation is likely to remain. Very few international players ar expected to have the moral integrity to mention this!
Border and Security arrangements are possibly the easiest! they can be discussed and agreed upon. The agreement is likely to infringe on Palestinian rights, but who cares!
Jerusalem, also is likely to fall under an agreement. Palestinians will not accept anything less than East Jerusalem. This is likely to happen at a very high price in concessions in other areas!
Refugees! Israel says no right of return. UNGA R194 says Yes. This is likely to remain an obstacle in a two state solution. But since its subjects are Palestinians it is likely it will not be regarded as important in the international arena.
Settlers and settlements! It is unlikely that over a half million settlers in West Bank including Jerusalem are likely to agree to any solution that requires their relocation. They have significant powers in Israel, they are supported by political parties with strong powers in the Knesset. So any solution that contradict their demands will not be passed!
Settlements are spreading like a cancer that eats away through the heart of the West Bank. They are the most stubborn obstacle in the face of a two state solution. Any solution as such, is likely to institutionalise a Bantustans system which is in effect in Palestine/Israel. It will therefore be unacceptable for any Palestinian, and it will emphasise Israel's Apartheid nature.
Being such a difficult scenario, Israeli settlement will remain the main obstacle in achieving a two state solution until Israeli and Palestinian leaders will have the courage to sit down and discuss how true democracy should prevail in this piece of land. We know it can only prevail in a single state for all its citizens, one that all Jews and Palestinian Arabs would call 'our home'. The settlers are hence the guardians of our dream for a true and just democracy!

Rule number 2

2007-03-31T20:15:00.000+02:00

Rule Number 1: Always have your camera!
Rule Number 2: Always have enough films- 20 extra grams wont matter!
Why the fuck did I forget rule number 2?
It was a lovely evening. At 5 we decided to go to the Dead Sea. We were stopped by an Israeli road blocked then they allowed us through. It was wonderful. The Dead Sea under moonlight! I need to get my camping gear.
Had we been 10 minutes earlier, I would have been able to get the sun setting between these trees...
Rule number 2 Rule number 2 Rule number 2 Rule number 2 Rule number 2 Rule number 2 Rule number 2 Rule num...

Land Day

2007-03-30T08:27:00.000+02:00

Today is Land Day. Thirty one years ago, Palestinian citizens of Israel went out in the thousands to protest Israeli confiscation of their land. On that day, 21,000 dunums were marked for confiscation from Arab owners to be transfered to the State in order to build Jewish Industrial villages, one of Israel's continuous attempts to shift the demographic balance in the Galilee. Although it is Illegal in any democracy for the Army to get involved against citizens (except in cases of National Emergency), The Israeli Army went into the Arab towns in Israel, Killed 4 of the demonstrators and the Police assisted it by killing two others. From that day in 1976, March 30th became known as the Land Day, and is commemorated widely by Palestinians inside Israel, West Bank and Gaza and abroad.
The day is an opportunity to speak of the continuous discrimination Israel practices against its Arab citizens, particularly in the area of Land. In 1950 Israel passed the 'Custodian of Absentee Property Law- 1950'. As is the case with oxymoronic Israel, replace custodian by thief, and you get an understanding of the function of this custodian. Basically Absentees are defined as any persons who on the eve of the creation of Israel (14.05.48) were not in their original places of inhabitance. Any property these people owned, was transferred to the Custodian/Thief. As you might expect, no documented cases are available for such transfer of ownership affecting the Jewish citizens of Israel (how democratic!).
Even Internally displaced people (IDPs) who are Arab and who were forced to leave their villages and take refuge in other villages/towns within the 1949 armistice lines were subject to this law. In common Arab political discourse these are known as the present absentees (another oxymoron), they compose around 200,000 citizens.
To completely change the shape of the terrain. After the Custodian was created in 1950, Israel transferred the ownership of 3,000,000 dunums from the ownership of the Custodian/Thief to the ownership of the Keren Kiemit LiYesrael/JNF in 1951. The aims of this step were:
1. KKL is not a government body, therefore it can use its property as it wishes and is not obliged to abide by equality between Jews and Arabs since it is at the service of the Jews. Transferring land ownership to it would mean that this Land becomes earmarked as "Jews-only" without it being considered state discrimination.
2. As there was continuous pressure in that time for the Implementation of UNGA resolution 194, which calls for the return of the refugees to their properties, and was the main condition upon which Israel was admitted into the United Nations, Israel hastily created the custodian office, and hastily sold its property to the KKL in order to be able to claim that these properties are legally not owned by the state and therefor cannot be confiscated and given to their original owners.
(Poster by PLO)

Take That!

2007-03-28T13:19:00.001+02:00

So Let us consider the following facts from a recent opinon poll in Israel
1. Over half Israeli Jews consider marrying into an Arab family is national treason.
[Other facts to consider: Inter-racial marriages were illegal in Apartheid South Africa, The Law for protection of German blood and honour(1935) banned marriages and sexual relationships with Jews, Several Israeli laws make it impossible for Israelis to get married to other Arabs who do not hold Israeli citizenship)
2. Over 75% of Israelis do not approve of shared apartment buildings, 60% would not allow arabs to visit their homes, 55% want Jews and Arabs to be separated at entertainement sites.
[other facts to consider: There was no mixing between whites and coloured people in Apartheid South Africa]
3. About 40% want the Israeli-Arab's voting rights revoked. Over a half of the respondents believe The govenment should encourage Arabs to immigrate!
[In Apartheid South Africa: blacks did not get to vote in south african parliamentary elections]

So, for mentioning these facts I can be labeled as a racist anti-semite. However, I suggest that we look at the root of the problem. What would cause so many people to have such extremist views? I believe the indoctrination that Zionism enforces on the Jewish citizens of Israel can only lead to such an effect. If you eliminate Zionism, it wont be long before racism is non-existent!

Birds of a Feather

2007-03-26T22:46:00.000+02:00

I am Not in the mood to write, but i Found the following breaking news headline on Haaretz:

20:12 Bosnian Serb leader says wants Alan Dershowitz to represent him at The Hague (AP)

Alan Dershowitz is a zionist american lawyer author of the book "The Case for Israel"

Really, birds of a feather flock together!