Time for a Bi-National State

I discovered this article from Le Monde Diplomatique titled:

Time for a Bi-National State

Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas may have affirmed that they want a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, but it may be more promising to return to a much older idea.

By Leila Farsakh

There is talk once again of a one-state bi-national solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Oslo peace process failed to bring Palestinians their independence and the withdrawal from Gaza has not created a basis for a democratic Palestinian state as President George Bush had imagined: the Palestinians are watching their territory being fragmented into South African-style bantustans with poverty levels of over 75%. The area is heading to the abyss of an apartheid state system rather than to a viable two-state solution, let alone peace (1).

There have been a number of recent publications proposing a one-state solution as the only alternative to the current impasse. Three years ago Meron Benvenisti, Jerusalem’s deputy mayor in the 1970s, wrote that the question is “no longer whether there is to be a bi-national state in Palestine-Israel, but which model to choose” (2). Respected intellectuals on all sides, including the late Edward Said; the Arab Israeli member of the Knesset, Azmi Bishara; the Israeli historian Illan Pape; scholars Tanya Reinhart and Virginia Tilley; and journalists Amira Haas and Ali Abunimeh, have all stressed the inevitability of such a solution.

The idea of a single, bi-national state is not new. Its appeal lies in its attempt to provide an equitable and inclusive solution to the struggle of two peoples for the same piece of land. It was first suggested in the 1920s by Zionist leftwing intellectuals led by philosopher Martin Buber, Judah Magnes (the first rector of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Haïm Kalvarisky (a member of Brit-Shalom and later of the National Union). The group followed in the footsteps of Ahad Ha’am (Asher Hirsch Ginsberg, one of the great pre-state Zionist thinkers).

Underlying their Zionism was a quest for a Jewish renaissance, both cultural and spiritual, with a determination to avoid injustice in its achievement. It was essential to found a new nation, although not necessarily a separate Jewish state and certainly not at the expense of the existing population. Magnes argued that the Jewish people did not “need a Jewish state to maintain its very existence” (3).
No to partition

Although supporters of the bi-national state remained a marginal group in Zionist politics under the British mandate, they made sure they were heard both in official Zionist circles and the international arena. They also pleaded before the 1947 United Nations special committee on Palestine. When the commission finally recommended partition, they strongly opposed it, calling for a bi-national state in Palestine, forming part of an Arab federation. They campaigned for a federal state that would respect the rights of all citizens, while guaranteeing the national aspirations of the Jewish people to cultural and linguistic autonomy. They proposed, in line with the British, the creation of a legislative council based on proportional representation, safeguarding the rights of its nationals but also assuring equal political rights for all citizens of the state.

But with the UN’s partition plan and the Arab-Israeli war that broke out in 1948, a one-state solution was shelved. It came to light again in 1969 with the call by Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement for the creation of a “secular and democratic state” in Palestine. The new state was based on the right of return — while accepting a Jewish presence in Palestine — and it was to end the injustices stemming from the creation of Israel and the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinian villagers. Although it called for the destruction of Israel as a colonial entity, it upheld the principle of a single state for all, Muslim, Christian or Jew. This was the first official attempt by the Palestinians to address the relationship between national and individual rights of citizenry. The idea met with no enthusiasm in Israel, and none internationally, and again lost momentum.

The failure of the one-state option has often been attributed to the idealism of its cause and its failure to come to terms with local realities. Nevertheless, as Magnes pointed out, the option offered significant advantages in demographic and territorial terms in 1947 to the Jewish cause (4).

In fact, the idea failed because the political actors of the time rejected it: the Zionist organisations were not interested, the British were unsupportive and the Arabs too suspicious. Between 1948 and 1993 the only significant change in these positions came from the Arabs, who finally came to terms with the existence of Israel.

Despite the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s calls for a secular, democratic state, Arafat prepared Palestinians for partition as the only available option. The PLO’s national council accepted the position in 1974, and confirmed it with its declaration of Palestinian independence in 1988 and the acceptance of the UN partition plan. A separate, independent Palestinian state was the best hope, even if it had to be on only 22% of the territory. The long Palestinian struggle for statehood culminated in 1993 with the Oslo accords.
From dream to nightmare

The tragedy of Oslo is that it turned the dream of two states into the nightmare of a single new state of apartheid. Israel’s prime minister Yitzhak Rabin declared that the great success of the accords, perhaps their only success, was to recognise that Israelis and Palestinians were “destined to live together, on the same soil in the same land” (5).

Since 1994 the Palestinians have not been liberated; they have been imprisoned by the Israeli system of permits and the installation of 50 permanent checkpoints and terminals fragmenting the territory into eight bantustans (6). Since 2002 the Palestinian Authority has seen its territory further eroded by the 700km-long wall being built with the aim of severing the West Bank from the remaining 46% of the territory.

What is the attraction of a bi-national state in these circumstances? For a start, a two-state plan appears to be less of a solution to the nationalist aspirations of either Zionists or Palestinians. Before 1947 partition had not been tried; since then it has taken root in circumstances of total Israeli domination. Despite the historic compromise of 1993, the Palestinians have not obtained the independent, viable state they sought. Palestinian nationalism has also met its limits: its leaders have failed to guide their people to independence and are now reduced to tearing themselves apart.

But partition has also failed to give Jews the security the state of Israel promised. About 400 Israelis were killed in suicide attacks in the 1990s, and 1,000 more have died since the second intifada of 2000. Antisemitic feelings are worsening around the world.

Demographic changes will continue to undermine any plans for partition. In 2005 there were 5.2 million Israelis living between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river, and 5.6 million Palestinians. Despite Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and its plans to demarcate the West Bank frontier, a separate Israeli state will have to deal with the much more rapid demographic growth of the Palestinian population within its own frontiers. This will have not only economic but political consequences, given the Palestinian population’s current lack of basic rights.

There is another factor that argues against a two-state solution: the idea of citizenship founded on justice and equality. History has shown that, in this region as elsewhere, partition cannot be achieved without the expulsion and transfer of populations. This raises ethnic issues. There can be no peace, from a moral point of view, without an equitable solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, based on the right of return or compensation, as required as early as 1948 by resolution 194 of the UN General Assembly.

But this right of return, and the expansion of the Palestinian population, endangers Israel’s Jewish identity. This has always been a major problem for Israelis.
Essential anachronism

According to historian Tony Judt, this is where Israel reaches its limits. No state can claim democratic credentials whilst practising ethnic exclusion; not after the crimes of the last century (7). Virginia Tilley says that partition, and the very existence of Israel, are “flawed from the start, resting on the discredited idea, on which political Zionism stakes all its moral authority, that any ethnic group can legitimately claim permanent formal dominion over a territorial state” (8).

The establishment of a bi-national state would redefine the identity of the state; it would favour democracy over nationalism. For Ali Abunimeh it would allow “all the people to live in and enjoy the entire country while preserving their distinctive communities and addressing their particular needs. It offers the potential to deterritorialise the conflict and neutralise demography and ethnicity as a source of political power and legitimacy” (9). At the heart of this conflict there remains a persistent territorial issue. Ethnicity (and, even more, religion) continues to be the main source of legitimacy and the quest for power.

Those arguing for a single democratic state now detect growing popular support for this solution, inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement. Boycott campaigns are being organised in Europe and the United States against what is often now called Israeli apartheid (10).

Groups in Israel and in Palestine are working together against the construction of the separation wall and are inventing new forms of resistance. The struggle has been redirected, against Israel’s policies rather than its people, and for rights for all rather than separate states for each.

True, the three political protagonists seem far from convinced. Israel’s politicians and the majority of its population insist on separation, as their wholehearted support for the wall seems to prove. The international community seems intent on a two-state solution, but does little to bring it about or influence progress. The Palestinian leadership is at a loss for a strategy, and the differences between Hamas and Fatah continue to generate conflict. But the present deadlock has created new conditions. Perhaps the time is ripe for original ideas and untried solutions.


---------------------------------

Leila Farsakh is an assistant professor at University of Massachusetts, Boston, and author of ‘Palestinian Labour Migration to Israel: Labour, land and occupation’ (Routledge, London, 2005)

(1) Leila Farsakh “Israel: an apartheid state?”, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, November 2003.

(2) Meron Benvenisti, “Which Kind of Bi-national State?”, Haaretz, Tel Aviv, 20 November 2003.

(3) See www.one-democratic-state.org

(4) Judah Magnes, Like All Nations, Weiss, Jerusalem, 1930.

(5) Yitzhak Rabin’s statement at the signing of the Declaration of Principles, Washington, 13 September 1993.

(6) www.btselem.org/english/statis tics/. See Dominique Vidal, “Jerusalem’s apartheid tramway”, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, February 2007.

(7) Toni Judt, “Israel: the Alternative”, New York Review of Books, 23 October 2003.

(8) Virginia Tilley, The One-State Solution, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2005.

(9) Ali Abunimah, One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, Henry Holt, New York, 2006.

(10) See the calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions against http://www.bds-palestine.net/

ONE Democratic State

I have just discovered a group called The Association for One Democratic State in Palestine/Israel. They believe (as I do) that the only just solution in Palestine is one secular and democratic state and not the two-state solution which is painfully obvious that it is not working. Here's something about them:

The Association

The Association is a non-governmental organization incorporated according to the Swiss association law. Its headquarters is located in Geneva , Switzerland .

Membership is open to all nationalities provided a candidate for membership accepts the principle of one democratic state in Palestine/Israel.

An international conference and general assembly will be held in Geneva on Octobre7 and 8, 2006.

Who we are

We are Palestinians who have been continuously acting reflexively because of the atmosphere of urgency that we have lived under for decades, and now find it imperative to plan strategically. We are the Palestinians, who inspite of being brutalised for generations have not lost our humanity and have not become racist or exclusivists. We are calling for PEACE, RECONCILIATION and EQUALITY with Israelis in one political entity. We are the overwhelming majority of Palestinians who are not intimidated by the wealth, political skills or the connectedness of the Israelis to superpowers; for we are an educated and energetic people who excel when provided the opportunity. We are the refugees who realize that they can have a homeland only in a reunified country in historic Palestine

We are Jews in and outside Israel who overcame Zionist indoctrination and do not want to support a brutal, racist state. We do not want to be an appendage of world imperialism in their drive to subdue and exploit the Middle East . We are the Israelis who realize that we can thrive and prosper in a country at peace with its neighbors with a vast economic market open for it. We are the Jews who want a spiritual-cultural home in Palestine/Israel rather than a mercenary-military state that exists to fight and destroy

We are the Europeans and North Americans who are cognisant of the role of their countries in establishing and maintaining a colonial-setter state in Palestine at the expense of its indigenous population. We realize that at the root of the tension between the Arab and Muslim societies and those of Europe and North American is the Palestine/Israel conflict. Our states are based on citizenship not ethnicity, and we are not going to support a supremacist exclusivist state for one ethnic group. We are Europeans who understand that, because of geographic proximity, our strategic and economic well-being depend to a large extent on a stable Middle East .

We are members of the international community who are keenly aware of the threat that this conflict constitutes to world peace. We want it resolved in the same manner that all other colonial-settler experiments, most recently South Africa , were resolved: one country, with one person-one vote, and without apartheid.

We all subscribe to the highest standards of human rights. We do not patronise, denigrate or discriminate against any group.

We are not naïve dreamers, for we realize that the road is rough, but it is the only road to peace and justice. We shall not be demoralized, cynical or complacent.

Also they have a forum of discussion, that you may want to join by using the following link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/one-democratic-state/

You will need a Yahoo! account...it's FREE though...

Patriarch: Son of a Refugee

Since hip-hop was born on the streets of the Bronx in the 70s, it has been a mechanism by which disaffected people have expressed their concerns and empowered themselves through music. Through the years, different groups have put their own stamp on the rap world and this tradition continues today through a man who goes by the name of Patriarch.

Born in San Francisco and raised in the East Bay, Hayward, California, Patriarch's love for communication through art began early. In elementary school, he played a bevy of musical instruments, including the violin and by the age of 12, he was writing poetry. These talents later manifested themselves in a lyrical form of music - hip hop.

Patriarch never let obstacles deter his drive to become someone respected and admired for his work. Patriarch developed a rare speech impairment as a child which limited his ability to communicate with others which in turn only secluded him from the outside world. At the age of 11, Patriarch witnessed a divine event in his life when miraculously with the help of his and his grandmother's prayers his speech impairment was rid from his life in one night. His strength and his strong faith comes from the lessons and teachings of his grandmother.

Growing up in a predominantly African-American and Latino community, Patriarch was immersed in West Hayward bred rap artists such as Spice 1 and influenced by other local artists such as Tupac Shakur, Digital Underground, Richie Rich, E-40, Dru Down, The Luniz, Too Short and many more. Living only a block away from Spice 1 in Patriarch's West Hayward neighborhood, Patriarch would see a lot of the artists he grew up listening to visiting the East Bay Legend Spice 1, and would only inspire him to pursue music even more.

Patriarch has now worked or performed with such great artists such as, The Dogg Pound, The Outlawz, Dead Prez, Immortal Technique, Akon, Tyrese, San Quinn, D12, Obie Trice, Furious, Get Lit Ent. and the list goes on and on. Patriarch has traveled across the world to perform and is only getting started

It is the dichotomy of the struggle of the African in America and the plight of the Palestinian that makes Patriarch's choice to rap a natural one. Hip hop is like air for Patriarch. With a determination to change the world through his art, this Son of a Refugee is destined to touch the lives of true hip hop fans, make a difference and introduce you to a whole new shade of hip-hop.

Download the song "Palestine" here for FREE!

Buy the album on iTunes

Learn more: Patriarch on MySpace

Hot Winter

My friend Lucy, has been MIA for a while...last I heard she was back in Nablus. And then all of this:







Tell me this DOESN'T remind you of stormtroopers during WWII...I hope she's alright.

1948...in Pictures and Words

A previous post (Old Newspaper Clippings) has had a lot of reaction both on and off the blog mostly thanks to the photographs, so I decided to try and give some depth to what actually happened when the Jewish state was declared in 1948. To do this along with some more photographs, I have decided to use an excerpt from the book "Blessed are the Peacemakers ...The History of a Palestinian Christian" written by Father Audeh Rantisi.

A special note for those who come to this blog and have bought into the idea that Palestinians hate Jewish people (Palestinians are also Jewish by the way) we Palestinians are fighting for justice and for our dignity...we don't hate Jews, we hate Zionism, an ideology which brought this kind of destruction to our peaceful part of the world...the "Holy Land".

That said, here's a bit about Father Rantisi: He was born in Lyda, now the site of Ben Gurion Airport, in 1937. From 1955 to 1958 he attended the Bible College of Wales, moving in 1963 to continue his studies at Aurora College in the state of Illinois. He then served as a missionary in Sudan. In 1965 he opened the Evangelical Home for Boys in Ramallah, West Bank. In 1976 Father Rantisi was elected as Ramallah's deputy mayor and he is now the director of the orphanage of the Evangelical Home of Boys.

I cannot forget three horror-filled days in July of 1948. The pain sears my memory, and I cannot rid myself of it no matter how hard I try.

First, Israeli soldiers forced thousands of Palestinians from their homes near the Mediterranean coast, even though some families had lived in the same houses for centuries. (My family had been in the town of Lydda in Palestine at least 1,600 years). Then, without water, we stumbled into the hills and continued for three deadly days. The Jewish soldiers followed, occasionally shooting over our heads to scare us and keep us moving. Terror filled my eleven-year-old mind as I wondered what would happen. I remembered overhearing my father and his friends express alarm about recent massacres by Jewish terrorists. Would they kill us, too?

We did not know what to do, except to follow orders and stumble blindly up the rocky hills. I walked hand in hand with my grandfather, who carried our only remaining possessions-a small tin of sugar and some milk for my aunt's two-year-old son, sick with typhoid.

The horror began when Zionist soldiers deceived us into leaving our homes, then would not let us go back, driving us through a small gate just outside Lydda. I remember the scene well: thousands of frightened people being herded like cattle through the narrow opening by armed soldiers firing overhead. In front of me a cart wobbled toward the gate. Alongside, a lady struggled, carrying her baby, pressed by the crowd. Suddenly, in the jostling of the throngs, the child fell. The mother shrieked in agony as the cart's metal-rimmed wheel ran over her baby's neck. That infant's death was the most awful sight I had ever seen.

Outside the gate the soldiers stopped us and ordered everyone to throw all valuables onto a blanket. One young man and his wife of six weeks, friends of our family, stood near me. He refused to give up his money. Almost casually, the soldier pulled up his rifle and shot the man. He fell, bleeding and dying while his bride screamed and cried. I felt nauseated and sick, my whole body numbed by shock waves. That night I cried, too, as I tried to sleep alongside thousands on the ground. Would I ever see my home again? Would the soldiers kill my loved ones, too?

Early the next morning we heard more shots and sprang up. A bullet just missed me and killed a donkey nearby. Everybody started running as a stampede. I was terror-stricken when I lost sight of my family, and I frantically searched all day as the crowd moved along.

That second night, after the soldiers let us stop, I wandered among the masses of people, desperately searching and calling. Suddenly in the darkness I heard my father's voice. I shouted out to him. What joy was in me! I had thought I would never see him again. As he and my mother held me close, I knew I could face whatever was necessary. The next day brought more dreadful experiences. Still branded on my memory is a small child beside the road, sucking the breast of its dead mother. Along the way I saw many stagger and fall. Others lay dead or dying in the scorching midsummer heat. Scores of pregnant women miscarried, and their babies died along the wayside. The wife of my father's cousin became very thirsty. After a long while she said she could not continue. Soon she slumped down and was dead. Since we could not carry her we wrapped her in cloth, and after praying, just left her beside a tree. I don't know what happened to her body.

We eventually found a well, but had no way to get water. Some of the men tied a rope around my father's cousin and lowered him down, then pulled him out, and gave us water squeezed from his clothing. The few drops helped, but thirst still tormented me as I marched along in the shadeless, one-hundred plus degree heat.

We trudged nearly twenty miles up rocky hills, then down into deep valleys, then up again, gradually higher and higher. Finally we found a main road, where some Arabs met us. They took some of us in trucks to Ramallah, ten miles north of Jerusalem. I lived in a refugee tent camp for the next three and one-half years. We later learned that two Jewish families had taken over our family home in Lydda.

Those wretched days and nights in mid-July of 1948 continue as a lifelong nightmare because Zionists took away our home of many centuries. For me and a million other Palestinian Arabs, tragedy had marred our lives forever.
Throughout his life my father remembered and suffered. For thirty-one years before his death in 1979, he kept the large metal key to our house in Lydda.
After more than four decades I still bear the emotional scars of the Zionist invasion. Yet, as an adult, I see what I did not fully understand then: that the Jews are also human beings, themselves driven by fear, victims of history's worst outrages, rabidly, sometimes almost mindlessly searching for security. Lamentably, they have victimized my people.

Four years after our flight from Lydda I dedicated my life to the service of Jesus Christ. Like me and my fellow refugees, Jesus had lived in adverse circumstances, often with only a stone for a pillow. As with his fellow Jews two thousand years ago and the Palestinians today, an outside power controlled his homeland-my homeland. They tortured and killed him in Jerusalem, only ten miles from Ramallah, and my new home. He was the victim of terrible indignities. Nevertheless, Jesus prayed on behalf of those who engineered his death, "Father, forgive them..." Can I do less?

We are fighting for justice and for our dignity...we don't hate Jews, we hate Zionism. One of the other sad truths of this is that Israeli children aren't taught the story of their countries original inhabitants despite it only happening 58 years ago. If anything they are taught despise and look down on 'the Arabs'.

Refugees being forced out of their villages (near Lod and Ramla). "Nakba in Pictures"




1948 UNRWA photo





Israeli soldiers looting an unidentified Jerusalem area Palestinian village in 1948. GPO/AIC photo.




Palestinian refugees separated from their home by the "green line". 1948 UNRWA photo




Israeli Soldiers in abandoned Palestinian home in Qatamoun, West Jerusalem, in 1948. GPO/AIC Photo.

Palestinians Are Not Children of a Lesser God

This is an op-ed piece that I just discovered. It was published by The Jewish Daily Forward

We Palestinians Will Honor Our Word

I know of no way to measure suffering, no mechanism to quantify pain. All I know is that we Palestinians are not children of a lesser God.

Had I been a Jew or a Gypsy, I would consider the Holocaust to be the most atrocious event in history. Had I been a Native American, it would be the arrival of the European settlers and the subsequent near-total extermination of the indigenous population. Had I been an African American, it would be slavery in previous centuries and apartheid in the last. Had I been an Armenian, it would be the Turkish massacre.

I happen to be a Palestinian, and for Palestinians the most atrocious event in history is what we call the Nakba, the catastrophe. Humanity should consider all the above as morally unacceptable, all as politically inadmissible. Lest I be misunderstood, I am not comparing the Nakba to the Holocaust. Each catastrophe stands on its own, and I do not like to indulge in comparative martyrology or a hierarchy of tragedies. I only mention our respective traumas in order to illustrate that we each bring to the table our own particular history.

The fact that the accords reached last week in Mecca between Hamas and Fatah were met with a variety of reactions, ranging from warm to cautious to skeptical, makes it imperative to revisit and learn the lessons of the diplomatic history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Time and again the three “no’s” of the Khartoum summit in 1967 — no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel — are invoked as proof conclusive of Arab intransigence toward Israel. Such a claim, however, conveniently forgets that Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt and Jordan accepted United Nations Security Council resolution 242 just months after the Khartoum meeting.

Also forgotten is that Syria, after the October War in 1973 — the purpose of which, it should be remembered, was to reactivate a dormant diplomatic process and to capture the attention of American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger — accepted U.N. resolution 338, which incorporated resolution 242. Ignored, too, is that the entire Arab world endorsed a peace plan put forth by the then-Saudi crown prince Fahd at a 1982 summit in Fez, Morocco, as well as unanimously backed the initiative put forth by then-Saudi crown prince Abdallah in Beirut in 2002.

For the Palestinian national movement, the October War in 1973 was a demarcation line in strategic thinking. It is then that we concluded that there was no military solution to the conflict. Until then we had advocated a unitary, democratic, bicultural, multiethnic and pluri-confessional state in Mandatory Palestine.

After 1973, a pragmatic coalition within the Palestine Liberation Organization emerged. Composed of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah, Nayef Hawatmeh’s Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and As Sa’iqa, the Palestinian branch of the Syrian Ba’ath Party, the coalition demanded not absolute justice but rather possible justice within the framework of a two-state solution. The fact that As Sa’iqa belonged to that school of thought, it is worth noting, is proof that Damascus can be a constructive player in the region if properly engaged and its concerns addressed. Syria is not necessarily the eternal spoiler that needs to use the Lebanese theater or the Palestinian scene in order to remind everyone of its presence.

Led by this pragmatic coalition, the PLO was ready for a historical compromise as far back as 1974. It was not the rejectionist player, as many have labeled it, but rather the rejected party until the Oslo peace talks in 1993. Throughout its presence in Lebanon, the PLO aimed to remain a military factor so as to be accepted as a diplomatic actor.

I have told my many Israeli interlocutors that I believe that the Israeli posture in peace negotiations was to expect a diplomatic outcome that would reflect Israeli power and intransigence, American alignment toward Israeli preferences, declining Russian influence, European abdication, Arab impotence and what they hoped to be Palestinian resignation.

It is this attitude that has resulted in having a durable peace process instead of a lasting and permanent peace. Peace and security will stem not from territorial aggrandizement but from regional acceptance — and make no mistake about it, we Palestinians are the key to regional acceptance of Israel. For years now, the Arab world from Morocco to Muscat has been ready to recognize the existence of Israel if it withdraws back from its expanded 1967 borders. The perpetuation of the Arab-Israeli conflict is due not to the Arab rejection of Israeli existence, but to the Israeli rejection of Arab acceptance.

The absence of a credible diplomatic avenue has allowed for the emergence and the strengthening of radical movements. The electoral defeat of Fatah in January 2006 was caused by a plurality of factors, not least of them the fact that Fatah became identified with negotiations and a peace process that was non-existent for the last six years and totally unconvincing during the years preceding. To the Palestinians, the last 15 years of “peacemaking” were years during which we witnessed the expansion of the occupation — with the number of settlers doubling — not a withdrawal from the occupation.

Now, however, there is a chance to move beyond this history. As a result of the agreement reached last week in Mecca, the Palestinian government will be more representative than at any period before. The new foreign minister, Ziad Abu Amr, both enjoys the confidence of Hamas and is a political friend of Mahmoud Abbas — who as PLO chairman is charged with negotiating on behalf of the Palestinian people and as P.A. president has prerogative over the conduct of foreign affairs.

Both Fatah and Hamas are in favor of a cease-fire, for which they can now ensure disciplined Palestinian adherence — especially if it is reciprocated by the Israeli side and extended to the West Bank, where alas we have recently witnessed an escalation in assassinations and arrests. And in Mecca, Hamas and Fatah agreed that the Palestinian government will honor all agreements signed by the PLO, will abide by all the resolutions of previous Arab summits and will base its activity on international law.

The term “honor,” rest assured, has as much a ring of nobility to it in Arabic — if not more — as it does in any other language.

A territory that was occupied in 1967 in less than six days can also be evacuated in six days — so that Israelis can rest on the seventh, and we can all finally engage in the fascinating journey of nation-building and economic recovery.

Afif Safieh is head of the Palestine Liberation Organization Mission to the United States.

Debunking the Myth of Israeli Democracy

As part of Israeli Apartheid Week 2007...tomorrow night in Montreal:

Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights presents:

"Debunking the Myth of Israeli Democracy"

Speaker:
Dr. Jamal Zahalqa
Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset, and member of the National Democratic Assembly (Balad) Party

Thursday February 15th 2007
8:30pm
Concordia University, Hall Building (on DeMaisoneuve) room H-937

Dr. Jamal Zahalka is a Palestinian Israeli and member of the Israeli Knesset. Zahalka will be speaking about the nature of Israeli apartheid and how it operates within Israel to discriminate against the indigenous Palestinian minority. His lecture will expose the brutal reality faced by the Palestinian citizens of Israel and debunk the myth of "Israeli democracy".

As Israel and its global backers like Canada and the United States tighten the strangulation hold on the Palestinian people in an attempt to provoke Palestinian infighting; and while the Israeli military continues its brutal daily assault on Palestinian life, it is crucial that people in the rest of the world wake up to the apartheid nature of the Israeli state, and it is our collective responsibility to expose and isolate this regime until apartheid is dismantled.

The analysis of apartheid put forward during Israeli Apartheid Week in previous years has played an important role in raising awareness and disseminating information about Zionism, the Palestinian liberation struggle, as well as the connections with the Aboriginal sovereignty struggle on Turtle Island and the South African Anti-Apartheid movement. The analysis put forward in the week is spreading on a global scale, and this Israeli Apartheid Week is taking place simultaneously in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, New York, Oxford, Cambridge and London.

Visit the "End Israeli Aparthied" Website for events near you.

Israel and the Media: The Ten Commandments

Well, considering that the subject of my last post barely made the news this week, here are ten rules everyone should memorize before watching the evening news or reading the morning paper. They make everything perfectly clear:

Rule # 1: If the story is about the Middle East, the Arabs always attack first and Israel always defends itself. This is called "reprisals".

Rule # 2: Arabs, Palestinians or Lebanese have no right to kill the soldiers or civilians of the other side. This is called "terrorism".

Rule # 3: Israel can kill civilian Arabs. This is called "legitimate self-defence".

Rule # 4: When Israel kills too many civilians, the West asks Israel to be more "proportionate" in its attacks. This is called "the reaction of the international community".

Rule # 5: Palestinians and Lebanese are not allowed to capture Israeli soldiers, even if it’s only three soldiers, since this would pose "an existential threat to the state of Israel".

Rule # 6: Israelis have every right to kidnap as many Palestinians as they like. They now have approximately 10,000 such prisoners, including 300 children. There is no limit to the number that can be kidnapped and no need to prove the guilt of the kidnapped individuals. It is enough to use the magic word "terrorist" and that settles the matter.

Rule # 7: When you say "Hezbollah", you must always add the words "Islamists", "Shiites" and "backed by Syria and Iran".

Rule # 8: When you say "Israel" you must not add "the Jewish State" or "the Jewish army" and above all must not use the words "backed by the United States, France and Europe" since this implies an unequal conflict.

Rule # 9: Never mention the "occupied territories" or UN resolutions except for Resolution #1559, which called for the disarming of Hezbollah. And do not mention violations of international law or of the Geneva Conventions. This upsets TV viewers and radio listeners by forcing them to think.

Rule # 10: Israelis speak better English than Arabs. This is why we give them and their defenders as much time as possible to speak on the air. This allows them to help us better understand Rules # 1 - 9.

And this is what is called "journalistic neutrality".

Written by Sabri Khayat

Thanks to PAJU Montreal

Beginning of "The End"?

Israeli forces demolished the entrance to the Al Aqsa Mosque after destroying the Moroccan Gate bridge leading to the Muslim holy site. Chief Palestinian Justice Sheikh Taysir Tamimi said that the timing of the destruction in the Old City of East Jerusalem was purposeful as all eyes are on the meeting in Mecca and political leaders are enroute.

The Sheikh told a press conference in Ramallah this afternoon that the Israeli government is continuing with its plan to demolish the historic road at the Moroccan Gate with a major threat to the western side of the Mosque.

Israeli forces expelled all Arab workers and journalists Monday, increased the military presence in the face of nonviolent protests over the past two days, and closed all roads on Tuesday.

Sheikh Tamimi pointed out that today's demolitions began a few years ago when the excavation plan was laid to destroy Al Aqsa Mosque one part at a time and build over its remains. He said that Israel is committed to ethnic cleansing.

The Israeli government is destroying Muslim neighborhoods and historic sites, demolishing Palestinian homes and closing Jerusalem to Palestinians with the Wall. It is also penetrating the Muslim Quarter of the Old City and building a synagogue and putting Jewish settlers in place.

The Sheikh said that he trusted the ability of Palestinians to defend the holy places and face the occupation. A number of Palestinian leaders issued statements and sent letters of protest, as did the Jordanian King and government, but this has not stopped Israeli forces in the systematic takeover of Jerusalem.

Listen to this ABC report by David Harker:
Real Audio | Windows Media | MP3

Old Newspaper Clippings

Palestine pre-Israel

I've created a photo gallery of some old newspaper clippings of Palestine. Click on the image above to open the gallery.

You can run the pictures as a 'slide show' or just click on the individual thumbnails.

Take some time to read the captions describing the picture contents...you may gain a better understanding of what Palestine was before the creation of the Jewish state and why I (and others) lament the loss of what Palestine was...and what it could have been.

I still believe it's possible to re-Unite Palestine and ALL of it's people as a secular, modern nation.

Global Peace March

Hundreds of thousands of Americans will march to their capital city Washington DC on Saturday 27 January. It could be the rebirth of the US peace movement. People round the world - let’s join the march with our own global internet protest! Last week, our ad told decision-makers in Congress how strong world opposition is to Bush’s escalation in Iraq.

This Saturday, Avaaz supporters at the US march will carry banners and country placards announcing how many of us from each nation are joining the marching. Every signature will be counted on the banners! Let’s raise a global voice for a real plan to end this war. Let’s make those numbers big. Time is short. Join the global peace march and tell your friends today!

Click here or cut an paste this: http://www.avaaz.org/en/global_peace_march/act.php

UPDATE!

Here's how things went:

Jewish Like Me

McGill University is one of the bigger University's in Canada and it's campus is here in Montreal. It may actually qualify as an "Ivy League" school. I was going through the McGill Daily paper online and came across this story, "Jewish Like Me" written by Jesse Rosenfeld, a Toronto transplant.

It's a very good article that illustrates the dichotomy of what it is to be a Jew from a North American perspective. As a Palestinian forced to leave his home I am encouraged by this public display of condemnation of Israel's violent past and a call for justice for the Palestinian people.

Here's part of the article:

"Like most kids growing up Jewish, I loved Israel. I identified with the country and saw my Jewish identity expressed in it.

Maybe it was because I found inspiration in an Israeli culture that seemed to focus on youth. I liked how David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, referred to the “New Israeli Jew” – strong, committed and independent – as opposed to the idea of a “European Jew” – weak, emasculated, and dependent. Or maybe I wanted to identify with something other than tedious family gatherings in Toronto complete with a grandmother who pinched my cheeks.

Either way, as a short, underweight early teen looking to find a form of community and feeling of empowerment, Israel and its image provided me with a feeling of masculinity. The Israeli myth allowed me to reject the stuffiness of North American Jewish culture while keeping a sense of an imagined community that was still accepted, and even encouraged, by my family and community.

As I explored this more, I began to realize that Zionism was synonymous with a violent colonization and occupation of another people."

>> Read More Here

'Peel'ing Back History

One of the most dynamic streets in Montreal, my adopted home is Peel Street. It's full of great restaurants, chic shopping and a beautiful park. As a Palestinian I have always felt uneasy with the name 'Peel' (See: Peel Commmission) but in the desire for knowledge I have done some research and discovered some very interesting things about Peel Street.

The street was actually named after a former British Prime Minister The Right Honorable Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet. He was the British PM before Canada was even established as a country, from 1834 to 1835 and then again from 1841 to 1846. With my uneasy feeling suppressed I decided to dig further on who was the guy the Peel Commission was named after and discovered that indeed Lord Peel (William Wellesley Peel) was the Grandson of Robert Peel. His Dad was Arthur Wellesley Peel also a very prominent politician most notable the Speaker of the British House of Commons 1884 to 1895. All of this to say that long before the Peel Commission made it's "decision" vis-a-vis Palestine, there was a long history of elitism.

You've got to think with THAT kind of political pedigree it's no wonder W. W. Peel got it wrong.

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies." -Groucho Marx

The British should have helped the European immigrants assimilate themselves into Palestinian society while helping the Palestinians to understand Jews came to Palestine to create a new life for themselves and not to steal land and jobs from them. Then before the British left Palestine they should have set them working shoulder-to-shoulder to build a liberated Palestine they could all be proud of...they didn't...















If you're interested here's a live webcam looking down on St. Catherine and Peel Streets.

House Buying in Jerusalem

Happy New Year! (It's not too late is it?) I've been busy.

You'll be happy to know (unless you're a Zionist) that with the new year I've decided to start looking for a place to live back in Jerusalem and came across this listing. The down side is that it's just an apartment and I would prefer to "buy a piece of land" for obvious metaphorical reasons, but man, look at the view...come to think of it it looks exactly like my profile picture doesn't it?!?! Hey, that's cool!

Tell me what you think of the place...

Montrealers Denounce Israeli Apartheid

Boycott Israeli Apartheid Banner in Downtown Montreal [Photo: Ron Saba Montreal Planet Magazine]

On Saturday, December 16th, 2006 Palestinian solidarity activists gathered on St. Catherine street in downtown Montreal to draw attention to a 2005 appeal from over 170 Palestinian civil-society organizations to, "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights."

Distributing information to curious Montrealers strolling downtown Montreal, members of the International Solidarity Movement [ISM] and Tadamon! appealed to curious onlookers to support the Palestinian call to boycott Israel.

Click HERE to Download / Listen to the report from EI.

This audio report was produced by Stefan Christoff of Tadmaon! for broadcast on CKUT Radio, 90.3fm in Montreal & Internet distribution through Electronic Intifada.

No More Taking Sides

Once again I turn to a great radio show on NPR called Speaking of Faith. I heard the story of Robi Damelin who lost her son David to a Palestinian sniper and the story of Ali Abu Awwad who lost his older brother Yousef to an Israeli soldier. But, instead of clinging to traditional ideologies and turning their pain into more violence, they've decided to understand the other side — Israeli and Palestinian — by sharing their pain and their humanity. They tell of a gathering network of survivors who share their grief, their stories of loved ones, and their ideas for lasting peace. They don't want to be right; they want to be honest.

Listen to the show which runs about 53 minutes (.MP3 or Real Audio) and then feel free to comment.

I know that a re-United Palestine, secular and for all of it's people will not be easy, but it is something we NEED to do. It is the only way out of this mess...

Israel's High Court Legalizes Assassination

Yup, Israel...(the only democracy in the Middle East) has just legalized assassinations of it's political opponents...nice, eh? Already some 500 Palestinians have been "sentenced" since the year 2000...now, it's legal well at least according to Israel's High Court. I just wanna know what they've been smoking.

Of course this decision will help all of those Israeli military officers in defending themselves against a slew of war crimes lawsuits filed against them in foreign courts.

Read the story

They Were Just Kids

I cried for 5 minutes this morning when I saw the pictures.

The other day I read the story on Laila's blog...but couldn't get my mind around the atrocity of it until today when I visited Asad al Nimr's blog. I'm warning you that the pictures are a gruesome disfigurement of what should be three angelic children.

As some have speculated I fear that this was a "false flag" operation (see: Operation AJAX) meant to stimulate infighting amongst the Palestinian population.

Not only should Palestinians stand together, all peace loving human beings should stand together and condemn this atrocity and any to come.

Together - One People

Thanks for the picture Naughton321

Kofi Annan - Final Speech as UN Secretary General

Today, Kofi Annan has made his final speech as UN secretary general, calling on the US not to lose sight of its core principles in its fight on terror.

"No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over others," Mr Annan said, urging the US to respect human rights in its "war on terror". Click here to read more...