Nora Lester Murad - The View From My Window in Palestine

Guest post: “Northern Jerusalem or North of Jerusalem? Israel’s Land Grab in Process” by Muna Dajani

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Kufr Aqab is a unique neighborhood of Jerusalem because it lies on the West Bank side of the Annexation Wall. This means that Palestinians living in Kufr Aqab can keep their rights as residents of Jerusalem but have access to Ramallah without passing through a checkpoint. It also means that the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality is responsible for all municipal functions in Kufr Aqab, although it is separated from the rest of Jerusalem by the Qalandia checkpoint. Kufr Aqab is not the only anomaly—where the legal status and geographic realities conflict—but it’s among the most important. Palestinians are fighting to keep Kufr Aqab part of Jerusalem and to keep Jerusalem part of Palestine. Nura Alkalili (Lund University), Muna Dajani (Birzeit University) and Daniela De Leo (Sapienza University Rome) conducted research to voice the realities and concerns of the voiceless Palestinians in Jerusalem, including in Kufr Aqab. Their research findings have been presented in conferences in Turkey, Argentina and Italy. In this guest post,environmental researcher and activist, Muna Dajani explains some of the complexities of life in Kufr Aqab and how residents are responding.

Israeli Sanctioned Chaos

I set out with two friends, Nura AlKhalili, an urban planner, and Daniela De Leo, an Italian professor, to research the construction boom and chaos of Kufr Aqab. Agno” between Jerusalem and Ramallah, there are shocking urban transformations in the neighborhood.

 

Photo credit: Nura Alkhalili
Photo credit: Nura Alkhalili

Kufr Aqab is easily identified by endless rows of towering buildings averaging ten stories high. Most are apartment blocks with commercial shops on the street level. Adjacent to each other, they threaten to fall over like dominos. The streets of Kufr Aqab are full of signs announcing vacancies and apartments for sale despite visible deficiencies: air contamination from the daily burning of garbage (because it is hardly ever collected), lack of proper water and electrical infrastructure, and streets that are not even asphalted.

The streets are overrun with cars with yellow Israeli license plates, yet none of the strict Israeli traffic laws seem to apply in Kufr Aqab. Cars drive in the opposite direction on the high-speed road and cars and trucks are parked in every direction possible. Other Israeli laws aren’t enforced either. For example, construction is booming without building permits and sometimes without the landowners’ knowledge and consent!

Despite this dark and distorted “development,” Kufr Aqab has become the temporary living solution for more than 60,000 inhabitants. Apartments in Kufr Aqab are much cheaper than a few kilometers south, thus making the area attractive to Jerusalemites who must remain within the Jerusalem municipality borders and pay taxes to Israel in order to keep their legal status. Most importantly, Jerusalemites who live in Kufr Aqab can live under the same roof with their spouses who, because they carry a Palestinian identity card, are prohibited from living in Jerusalem and can only enter by obtaining an Israeli military permit.

Being a daily traveler on the road from Jerusalem to Ramallah, and after passing the Qalandia checkpoint, I have often entered this zone where people appear so idle and passive. How can they live in Kufr Aqab under such unacceptable conditions with no sign of either opposition or civic engagement? Do they not see Israel’s systematic push of Palestinian Jerusalemites to the periphery thus disconnecting them from their center, Al Quds, and emptying the city of its residents, weakening its Arab character?

Community Activism in No Man’s Land

In our quest for answers, we met with Abu Zakariya Al Sous, an elected representative to the Jerusalem North Committee (JNC). Looking out from the window of his home, not even two meters away, lies a construction site so big that it dwarfs the old two-story building we’re in. The Jerusalem North Committee replaced the Israeli-run community center, one of those that are inserted in every Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem and which slowly but steadily impose their own ‘Israelization’ agendas on Palestinian residents, adding to their identity crisis.

Abu Zakariya has been an active resident of Kufr Aqab since long before the construction boom that infected the area one decade ago. Abu Zakariya stressed that “Jerusalem North” is symbolically and strategically important because Israel has relentlessly tried to label Kufr Aqab as an area North of Jerusalem (that is, an area that does not belong to the municipal boundaries of the city of Jerusalem)thus disconnecting it from its historical significance as a suburb of Jerusalem. By doing so, the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality tries to create new facts on the ground, implying that its responsibilities stop at the first cement section of the Annexation Wall, leaving Kufr Aqab and its 60,000 Jerusalemite residents to fend for themselves in terms of acquiring rights to proper infrastructure, education, health services, public facilities, and their own security.

The JNC is composed of 12 volunteer members and its main objectives are advocating for and reclaiming full rights for Palestinians in the North of Jerusalem from the Jerusalem Municipality to whom they pay taxes. Abu Zakariya explained the complexity of mobilizing Kufr Aqab residents to challenge the political, social, health and environmental problems that haunt them. JNC decided to use legal means to fight against the problems that most affect people’s daily lives and to build momentum for positive change. For example, in June 2011, the JNC filed a lawsuit against the waste collection department at the Jerusalem Municipality and the Ministry of Environmental Protection. They demanded a clean environment free from diseases that have emerged recently due to the continuous burning of uncollected garbage. In 2012, the court ruled that the Municipality must submit a plan to improve services in Kufr Aqab. Since then, seventy new large garbage bins have been delivered to the neighborhood with an additional 110 smaller bins distributed on the side roads and thirty additional collection trucks operate on a weekly basis.

This is a success on all levels for the Jerusalem North Committee and the Palestinian communities of Jerusalem, as it sets a precedent and encourages use of legal measures for Jerusalemites to reclaim their rights as residents of the city. The JNC is now demanding proper infrastructure from the Israeli phone company, Bezeq, and advocating for more schools and public spaces.

Abu Zakariya added: “We are not asking for charity. We have lived for generations in this city and we have rights. We will not stop demanding our rights—from the basic demand for garbage-free neighborhoods to our biggest demand: equality, stability and prosperity for Palestinian Jerusalemites in Al Quds.”

Stolen Books, Stolen Identity: What Did Israel Do with Palestinians’ Literary Heritage?

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This story was originally published by Arabic Literature in English.

AP 1 corrThe camera follows two Palestinians with Israeli citizenship from the counter at Israel’s National Library to a table. They carry a small stack books from a collection labeled “AP” for “Absentee Property.”  They sit awestruck in front of the books. They touch covers showing respect for the books, their rightful owners, and the Nakba that caused Palestinians to lose their country and heritage.

One of the Palestinians opens a book and finds “Khalil Sakakini” written by hand in the inside cover. He gasps. The audience watching the film, crammed into the basement floor of Educational Bookshop on Salah Al-Din Street in Jerusalem, is captivated.  I crane my neck to see past the tall woman in front of me. The importance of this book, a one-time possession of one of the Arab world’s most important educators and nationalists, jumps off the screen. I feel an unspoken sadness in the room as we grasp the reality: This priceless piece of Palestinian heritage, and so many others, is held by Israel’s National Library.

This scene is one of many gripping scenes in the film, “The Great Book Robbery” shown for the first time in Palestine on January 12, 2013 to an audience of almost 150 people. The documentary by Israeli-Dutch director Benny Brunner unfolds the story of at least 70,000 books looted from Palestinian homes and institutions in 1948. Benny Brunner, a longtime maker of films says of himself: “His work is subversive in nature and has proven to be a thorn in the collective Israeli establishment’s backside.”

It is widely known that when approximately 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from Palestine before and after the establishment of Israel, most Palestinian land and belongings were lost. This film, however, highlights the plight of books. It’s a story that isn’t well-known, and to lovers of books, it is particularly tragic.

AP 6 corrAccording to the film, Gish Amit, a PhD student at the time (2005-9), stumbled by accident upon Israeli documents attesting to the “collection” of Palestinian books in 1948 as he was writing his dissertation about archives. Among papers preserved at the National Library, he found detailed documentation about approximately 30,000 Palestinian books that were taken from private homes and institutions in Jerusalem, by staff of the National Library in coordination with the army. In an article originally published in Haaretz, Amit commented on the fact that documentation of the theft was found in the Library itself. He said, ““It is the paradoxical structure of any archive: the place that preserves the power and organizes it is also the place that exposes the violence and wrongdoing. In this respect, the archive is a place that undermines itself.”

Only about 6,000 books are still labeled “Absentee Property”—and these, we were told, can be seen by logging into the National Library of Israel and searching by call numbers starting with AP. Brunner speculates that the other 24,000 books that are listed in the documentation are either mixed in with the general collection or have been lost or destroyed. Another 50,000-60,000 books are known to have been looted from other parts of Palestine, mostly textbooks, which Brunner speculated were mostly destroyed or sold. During the discussion that followed the filom, he also made the point that rare manuscripts (estimated by a knowledgeable member of the audience as numbering around 50,000 originating from 56 libraries in and around Jerusalem) are not included in the estimates and are totally unaccounted for. There are rare Palestinian manuscripts in the collection at the National Library, but they are not accessible by the general public. There are also rare Palestinian manuscripts at Hebrew University. “We should remember,” Brunner added, “the film only addresses books that were stolen in 1948. We don’t know the details of what happened in 1967, though we do know there is a pattern of Israeli looting of Palestinian books, photographs and archives, including the PLO archives in Lebanon.”

To prove this point, a member of the audience later told me that a rare copy of Palestine in Pictures from the early 1920s was confiscated by the Israelis when her father crossed Allenby Bridge from Jordan in 1987 after he waited five hours to get it back. He finally asked for and was given a receipt for his book, but as history proves, documentation does not necessarily lead to restitution. The only other copy the owner knows of is in Bodlian Library at Oxford University

The Great Book Robbery, which took five years to make, was broadcast by Aljazeera English and seen in fifty countries, and has also been screened in the three major cinemas in Israel. The director has so far been unable to arrange a showing on Israeli television. Apparently, there is some controversy over whether the original intention was to protect the books or to steal them, but regardless of the original intent, the Israel National Library, in cooperation with the Israeli Custodian of Abandoned Property has kept Palestinian private property for over 64 years and made no effort to return it to its rightful owners. In fact, according to Benny Brunner, until the 1950, each card in the catalogue listed the book with a code that linked it to the place where it came from, thus identifying the original owner. However, those codes were erased in the late 1950s.

Credit: Educational Bookshop
Credit: Educational Bookshop

Those who watched The Great Book Robbery that night were visibly moved. The film showed the vibrancy of Palestinian literary and cultural life before 1948, how it was stolen (with poignant quotes by a Palestinian prisoner of war who was forced to take part in looting his own village), and the impact on Palestinian identity and well-being today. Many seemed inspired by the movie’s concluding slide which noted that: 1) no effort has been made by Israel to return the stolen books; 2) nor has there been any organized effort by Palestinians to claim them.

* Should there be a national effort by Palestinians to reclaim books stolen in 1948 and since?

* What Palestinian entity is the best custodian for these national treasures?

* Would a successful claim on books strengthen the Palestinian claim on other stolen property or would a piecemeal approach starting with books weaken the Palestinian national movement for self-determination and reparations on a broader scale?

Neda was in my house — in Jerusalem!

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This article was originally written for PeaceXPeace.

Neda* was in my house. In Jerusalem! A friend sneaked her in from Ramallah. It’s not easy—getting past the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint or around the Annexation Wall. But Palestinians have their ways. If they need to get to work or want to shop at the mall or have to visit a sick relative, they get creative. And Neda had a critical mission to fulfill—exploring historic Palestine. So she used her smarts and got herself in. And there she was, in my house. In Jerusalem!

As we set out on our jaunt with our mutual friend Dina, I felt like I was Thelma from the movie “Thelma and Louise.” Neda and Dina were young and reckless and I was old and reckless, and our adventure was thrilling and dangerous and important. My friends hadn’t seen the movie so I just told them it was a feminist classic and I didn’t mention the ending.

We filled the borrowed car with gas and headed north.

Neda took this photo of me in a demolished Syrian village in the Golan
Neda took this photo of me in a demolished Syrian village

Neda delighted in every village, every landscape, every hill, and every stand of trees, and I delighted in her. She is a Palestinian in love with her country, a place denied to her, and I had the honor of appreciating the land through her eyes.

As we approached Tiberias, she was giddy like a child. The GPS sent us round and round in circles before we saw the sea, and she nearly exploded with joy. We walked past the beautiful old Palestinian buildings, built lovingly with black stones, and took photos at ruins and in front of the mosque and the church. We lingered at the sparkling water—imagining the trading and the farming and the family life that once flourished there. It’s a different city now. The shop owners selling falafel are Jewish, but the Palestinian echo is melodic and enduring.

I often hike with my family through demolished Palestinian villages like Lifta and Sataf. They are museums, testimonies to the Palestinian reality before 1948, to the life that would have continued to blossom were it not for the Nakba or catastrophe. These are romantic places, especially when I visit them with Neda and Dina, not, as you might think, because of their imagination of the past. The romance is in their imagination of what will someday be.

It’s too late to prevent the occupation, colonization and dispossession of Palestinians. It happened and continues to happen with ferocious momentum. It’s critical (critical!) to learn about past and present injustices and indignities, but counterproductive to let history hold us back. We can’t build a liberation movement out of the Nakba; we need to struggle for something, for a vision of our future government, economy, educational system, gender relations, environmental goals, and more.

Neda and Dina and I talked late into the early morning hours about the Palestine that can be, that will be, and what we must do to achieve it. Young Palestinian women—inspirational, professional, creative, strategic, smart, fearless, and hardworking. It was hopeful trip.

What is your vision for the Palestine to be?

 

*Names changed for security purposes.

Do Pigs Fly – Or Is This a Matter of Human Rights?

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This article was written for Peace x Peace, a global network of peacebuilders in 128 countries.

I sat on the far side of a large, plain room in the municipality building in Zawiya village in the West Bank governorate of Salfit. On the other side of the room, six local men were introducing themselves. I was there to do research for an article about community philanthropy, and I promise I will write that article, but first I need to write about wild pigs.

Wild pigs?

“Mansour is so big,” one of the Zawiya residents teased, squeezing the bulging forearm of the man sitting next to him, “even the pigs are scared of him.”

The joke was off topic, so I let it go, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind. It is strange for Palestinians to talk about people and pigs in the same sentence. The majority of Palestinians are Muslim and they, like Jews, consider pigs the dirtiest of creatures. Why were they joking about pigs?

I was sure that I had misunderstood. My Arabic isn’t that good. I probably imagined hearing the word, khanazeer (the Arabic word for pigs). I asked one of my friends.

“There are lots of wild pigs (aka boars) in the villages in the West Bank,” my friend told me. “The Israeli settlers let them loose to destroy Palestinian crops. Sometimes the pigs even attack children.”

Wild board in the West Bank (Photo: Karen Sears)

Wild pigs? I’ve lived in Palestine for eight years and I’ve seen a lot of inhumanity, but the thought of wild pigs being intentionally released shocked me. Is it possible that, like me, the international community doesn’t know about this?

I found an article or two online, but they didn’t report any details. (There may be more in the Hebrew press, but I can’t read it, and I’m told the Arabic press comments from time to time.) I called the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). They had never heard of the problem of wild pigs, but said it would fall under the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). OHCHR said they were unaware of any reports of wild pigs being released by settlers in Palestinian villages. (The UN does monitor lots of other settler violence against Palestinians). I spoke with the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (B’Tselem) who said they’ve never studied the problem and can’t comment on topics they have not studied. They did mention, though, that there was recently a fatal car accident involving a wild pig (read about it here). Yesh Din, another Israeli human rights organization, said the claim is “fantastical,” and “science fiction.” I started to wonder if the wild-pigs-being-released-by-Israeli-settlers story was an urban legend like the myth that Yasser Arafat died of AIDS.

But Rabbis for Human Rights said that while it sounded unlikely, it was not totally impossible since settlers do release attack dogs on Palestinians. “They even do it on the Sabbath,” he said with disgust. “They somehow rationalize that attacking Palestinians is holy.”

I was no closer to finding out if the story is true, but I was feeling doubtful because since wild pigs are, by definition, wild, wouldn’t the settlers have to first catch the pigs in order to release them in Palestinian villages? These pigs reach 200 pounds or more and have long, sharp tusks. Catching them seems like dangerous, specialized work. Also, pigs are unclean for Jews and most Israeli settlers are religious. Would they really touch pigs in order to harm Palestinians? And besides that, what would prevent the wild pigs from turning around to ravage the crops of the settlements once they finish eating the Palestinian produce?

I expanded my investigation and spoke with farmers, journalists, agricultural workers, and researchers, and everybody confirmed that wild pigs are a serious and growing problem. In some villages there are only occasional sightings of small numbers of animals, but in others, wild pigs are a major threat to the safety, well-being and livelihoods of thousands of people. Over and over people implored me to understand the urgency of the problem: “They move in packs of 50-60 pigs. “They live between the houses. We are scared to go out to visit neighbors at night.” “Many farmers have been forced to abandon their fields because the pigs eat their wheat, watermelons, guavas, and even the roots of olive trees.”

Wild boars in trap near Ramallah (Photo credit: Danna Masad)

But how can we be sure that the wild pigs are being released by Israeli settlers? Nearly everyone I spoke with argued that wild pigs aren’t native to Palestine and the only people with the ability to import them are the Israelis; that the problem started during the first Intifada when settler violence began and when, they claim, settlers began to cultivate wild pigs; that the problem is worst in villages adjacent to settlements.

But I wasn’t convinced! I was losing sleep. I had to find the source of the wild pig problem. Yet I couldn’t find anyone who had seen settlers release pigs into villages with his/her own eyes. One farmer said his wife’s relatives reported seeing a helicopter deliver a male and female to Kursa village; and an agricultural expert had been told by a farmer from Jalameh village said that a civilian truck accompanied by a military jeep opened the gate that controls the entry and exit of laborers and released several wild pigs into Jalameh. Surely, if thousands of pigs were being transported into Palestinian villages, there would be more evidence.

Moreover, according to Birzeit professor of political science and naturist, Saleh Abdel Jawad, wild pigs ARE indigenous to Palestine. Most Palestinians don’t realize they are indigenous because the population was smaller and lived only in the wild until the last 8-10 years. It turns out that the hyena, the only other indigenous predator of the wild pig has been hunted to near extinction. This has led to a dramatic and unchecked increase in the population of wild pigs. In fact, there is apparently a dramatic increase of wild pigs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria too.

But does not mean that the infestation of wild pigs in Palestinian villages is merely a fluke of nature? No, because if the problem were merely natural, there would be a problem in the Galilee, a similar environment adjacent to the West Bank but inside Israel. There isn’t. If the problem were natural, the Israeli settlements would also be suffering. But they aren’t.

What do I believe?

1-   Wild pigs, indigenous to Palestine, are increasing naturally. Their numbers have become a problem because its only animal predator, the hyena, is no longer keeping the population in balance.

2-   Although there isn’t a large domestic market for wild pig meat, people have in the past been able to trap, poison or shoot wild pigs when they threaten farmland or populated areas. However, harming or trapping wild pigs is now forbidden and Israelis frequently catch and prosecute people who seek to limit the population of wild pigs. Also, carrying firearms that would be needed to kill these large and dangerous animals is forbidden to Palestinians.

3-   Israel erected a 708km “barrier” (aka Annexation Wall) comprised of sections of concrete wall and fence, totally enclosing the West Bank and encircling many villages. Since we know that pigs can’t fly, the population of wild pigs will inevitably increase within the West Bank without any opportunity to disperse naturally throughout the region or even to escape from populated areas.

4-   Israeli settlers live in fenced-in settlements and are protected. Only Israelis control the gates in the Annexation Wall through which wild pigs could pass. Only Israelis have the ability to move pigs within the region.

I realize that settlers often actively organize attacks of all kinds against Palestinian children, farmers and property, with near-total impunity for harm they cause to Palestinians (even when their actions are illegal), but in this case, I think the fault lies squarely with the Israeli government. The Israeli Nature and Parks Authority of Judea and Samaria told me definitively that settlers do not cultivate or move wild pigs. They admitted that they are the only ones who move wild pigs and they do so to spread the population. They agreed that the population is growing too big, and that more are entering populated areas, but said the animals are still protected because they are part of nature. When I said that Palestinians complain about the danger of wild pigs in villages they told me that wild pigs don’t threaten people unless people threaten their offspring. “A pig might run at you and you might think he’s going to attack you, but he won’t,” they told me. “If you step aside, he’ll run right past you.”

Incredible! Wild pigs in Palestine are protected, but no one is protecting the Palestinians!

This is not a “normal” situation in which a national animal protection policy needs to be modified. Israel is an occupying power, with obligations under international humanitarian law, that intentionally acts to multiply the number of wild pigs that live in areas in which Palestinians are surrounded and enclosed. It’s a matter of human security, livelihoods, sanitation, and well-being. It’s a matter of human rights.

So here’s a call to action to the Israeli and international human rights organizations:

1-Study the problem of wild pigs in Palestinian villages, immediately;

2-Hold Israel accountable for its obligations to protect and promote the wellbeing of the people under its control;

3-Find ways to remove wild pigs from Palestinian farmland and populated areas;

4-Tell the world: Israel has locked Palestinians in villages with wild pigs!

Do I sound impatient?

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I wrote this article, “Do I sound impatient? Busan +1 from Palestine” for one of the best development sites around, How Matters. It is part of an Oxfam-sponsored feature on DevEx called, “One year later, where do we stand on  commitments made in Busan?“

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What exhilaration I felt as a delegate to the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4)! I represented a Palestinian NGO with a long commitment to activism for aid reform. For years we did research, made films, circulated petitions, and finally, we were at the table with the decision-makers. I felt bolstered by a decade of global commitments to aid reform and inspired by the brilliance of the advocates coming from conflict and fragile situations. I hoped that the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States would pave the way for a new type of aid that respects legitimate politics, people’s security, access to justice, improved livelihoods, and accountable and fair service delivery. After all, all the major donors to Palestine, including the United States and European Union, immediately endorsed the New Deal.

But now, one year later, I sit in Jerusalem contemplating the white tails of rockets, trying to understand the logic: yet another unconscionable Israeli attack on Gaza using bombs paid for by the U.S. Yet when the bombs stop and the burials are complete, the U.S. (and others) will pay for the reconstruction. Is that a good use of aid?

The conflict and fragility advocacy team in Busan

 What is the purpose of “aid” if the major donors to Palestine fail to ensure protection for those they claim to seek to help? What is the purpose of “aid” if the major donors to Palestine continue to support Israel politically and economically despite its continued lack of compliance with international humanitarian law?

Do I sound impatient? I am. We don’t have time for consultations on policy coherence. We need donor governments to implement their own policies, fulfill their commitments, and act with integrity. Now. Integrity doesn’t need a logframe.

Do I sound angry? I am. I feel duped. I was part of the aid reform movement before realizing that both aid and aid reform are industries that profit some at the expense of others. Both aid and aid reform distract us from real social change, allowing the powers-that-be to get on with their business of saying one thing and doing another.

Nora (left) with Ava Danlog of Reality of Aid at the Busan Civil Society Forum

In October, I wrote an article in the Guardian outlining my disappointment with aid and aid reform entitled, “Should Palestinians Boycott International Aid?”  It does not advocate a blanket rejection of aid, but calls for Palestinians to proactively articulate criteria for acceptable aid and when and why it should be rejected. If Palestinians and other aid-dependent peoples become the gatekeepers for aid funds allocated on their behalf, it will achieve a subtle but profound shift in the balance of power. And this will influence global aid policy much faster and more sustainably than high level forums.

Am I disappointed by the outcome of Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness? Hell yeah. Aren’t you?

A Few Good (according to me) Resources

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Since the recent attacks on Gaza, and now the UN statehood vote, some folks have been asking me for resources about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yay! Educating ourselves is the first step to taking responsible positions, and THAT will make it harder for the powers-that-be to do damage in our names.

Here’s a start of a list of resources that I think are good. Nothing’s perfect, of course, but I think these are worth your time. PLEASE add to the list by leaving a comment (teal button on the left). Include a link AND a sentence or two describing the resource. If you think I should add a “resources for further learning” tab to my website, let me know and I’ll put it on my list of things to do.

-Nora

 

This article talks about how Israel’s negotiation of a ceasefire in Gaza is essentially admission of the occupation that they have long denied.

http://972mag.com/ceasefire-tells-the-world-gaza-still-under-israeli-occupation/60669/

 

This article by the late, brilliant Edward Said back in 1988 argued against the declaration of a Palestinian state. Much of his solid, critical argument has validity even today.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1998/397/op1.htm

 

Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Primer by Phyllis Bennis is a book that I haven’t read, but given the author’s record, it is probably excellent. Even better, the entire book is available on line!

http://endtheoccupation.org/article.php?list=type&type=52

 

The Jewish Voice for Peace made a 6-minute video explaining the basics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They also have information under the tab Israel/Palestine 101.

http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/campaigns/israel-and-palestine-an-animated-introduction

 

If you’re willing to read a book, anything by Jonathan Cook is excellent (and he has a great blog).

http://www.jonathan-cook.net/

 

Believe it or not, the view from Ramallah

 

 

 

Don’t just end this attack on Gaza. End all attacks. Yes, I’m talking to you.

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The old man who lives above me on the third floor calls out for his aide, his voice muffled by the concrete that separates us. The elevator opens and closes delivering children from the fourth floor to the foggy street where they walk to school “as usual.” But nothing is usual. Not even in Jerusalem, far from rockets and bombs. Even my neighbor’s rooster crows an uneasy and foreboding sound.

Just a few weeks ago we were complaining about the calm. “Nothing is happening,” friends said. “This occupation will go on for decades if we don’t do something.” At that point, we wanted the youth to take to the street. We wanted the world to pay attention. And now they are, but what will come of it?

“What should we do?” another friend of mine asked yesterday. A palpable helplessness traversed the phone line in both directions. Most of us here know someone in Gaza. We can visualize young parents, their in-laws, aunts and uncles, children, all huddled under a dirty blanket in the corner farthest from the windows, their lips moving in prayer, even if they never prayed before, and trying, against all forces, not to cry in front of the children, because isn’t the worst thing a child can experience the look of terror on their father’s or mother’s face?

I am glued to Aljazeera just like you are. The kitchen smells faintly of the unwashed dishes that are piled on the counter, and I have trouble finding my sweater in the mess of sheets piled on the bed. There are so many, many things to do. I should write. I should read. I should demonstrate. I should shout, demand, shake some sense in the people firing on 1.5 million people in the prison that is Gaza, and I should do my best to dislodge their confusion, stop the madness, remind them of their humanity.

Palestinian women mourning the death of Mahmoud Raed Saddllah, a 4-year-old child, killed following an explosion in Jabalia, Gaza Strip, November 16, 2012 Credit: ActiveStills

 

But there is no stopping a war during a war.

We must protest, and it will make a difference, but it’s not enough.

 

 

 

 

 

I’d like to get this message out: it’s important to give support and sign petitions. I’m doing the same. But it’s not enough. We must prevent the next attack, and the one after that. So many lives can be saved, and so much fear avoided if we do the much harder work of war prevention. Now.

Preventing war is not an impulsive act of compassion. Preventing war is an ongoing commitment to fighting injustice and inequality wherever it exists. It means that in those periods of calm, the times when we let our attention be diverted to deadlines at work and soccer competitions, in those months and years when Israel and Palestine seem so far away and not in need of attention – that’s exactly when your attention is most needed.

Let us be a visible part of the constituency for peace with justice, make bold claims on the public discourse, watch the powers that be and let them know that we are watching. Let us develop real relationships with people on the ground, support activists, connect the issues in our minds and in our lives. Our actions matter.

And let’s start now to prevent the next war. Yes I’m talking to you. And I’m talking to myself, too.

This is Part 2 of my interview with Janan Abdu, wife of Palestinian political prisoner Ameer Makhoul. In this segment, Janan talks about how Ameer’s imprisonment has changed her personally and about the challenges facing thousands of Palestinian women whose husbands, sons and brothers are jailed for political reasons. Enjoy!

It was a pleasure speaking with Janan Abdu, wife of Palestinian political prisoner Ameer Makhoul (who is a colleague and a friend) about Ameer, political prisoners in Israeli jails, and the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel. Enjoy!

Things I love about Jerusalem #1

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“Extra large?” The shop owner holds up the soft, pink pajamas I’ve brought to the register. “For you?” (He is surprised because I am very small.)

Photo by Princessrica

“No, for my friend’s daughter.”

“Is she fat?” he asks. He uses the word descriptively not as an insult.

(I realize this conversation reminds me of buying meat. I point to the cut I want and ask for half kilo, but the butcher insists on knowing what I’m cooking before he agrees to sell it to me.)

“No, she’s not fat,” I indulge the man’s curiosity. “She’s tiny.” I hold up my pinky finger to indicate that the girl is a stick. It’s true. Her eyes have started to bulge over her sunken cheeks. I tremble slightly and the shop owner notices.

“Why, sister, are you buying an extra large pajama if the girl is small?”

“Her mother told me to buy extra large.”

“Is she tall?”

I hesitate. I image her lying in the pale green hospital gown with the hospital sheet over her bony knees. “I’m not sure,” I confess. “I’ve only seen her lying down.” (This is not exactly true. I met her at her aunt’s wedding some months ago. But there were hundreds of women there, and I don’t remember meeting her. Who knew that she would come to play such a prominent role in my life?)

There is a pause.

“The girl is sick?” he says, compassion flooding his face. I nod. “She’s only eighteen,” I say to fill up the silence pressing on my throat.

“You have done me a favor!” he bursts out, startling me. He puts the extra large pajamas in a bag and slides them across the glass counter. “I try to do good every day, but I don’t always find an opportunity.”

I begin to shake my head, embarrassed by what I think he is saying, but he continues: “Please take these to her. Please do it as a favor to me. Let me do this good thing today.”

“No, I can’t accept that. I came to buy the pajamas. I can pay for them.” I fumble with my purse.

“But you are already doing good for her. You are visiting her, right? And you’re going to take her the pajamas?” He’s practically begging.

“Yes, but…”

“So let me do something good, too. Let these pajamas be from me.”

Our eyes meet and I know how he feels: powerless to make a difference, desperate to contribute something meaningful to this suffering world. I nod and clutch the pajamas to my chest so my emotions won’t spill out onto his tile floor.

Two days later, I’m sitting on the edge of the hospital bed and I ask about the pajamas. The girl’s mom smiles awkwardly. “She’s lost a lot of weight,” she says, having discovered for herself what the rest of us already knew.

“I’ll exchange them,” I say, reaching for the bag that she’s put in a box under the hospital bed.

“It’s too much trouble for you.”

“Please…” I say, “let me do something good. Please?”

And she let me.

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