US Era of Jewish and Evangelist power is over

JesusChrist (Dreamstime)

By Tzvia Greenfield

Last update - 10:23 23/03/2010

A little more than a year ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formed the largest, most wasteful and extreme coalition in Israeli history. Tzipi Livni and Kadima may have won the most votes, but Netanyahu chose to bond with the wackiest, most extreme elements in Israeli society - to ensure Israel's continued hold on the territories and keep a two-state solution at bay.

Netanyahu's belief that occupation and messianism would serve Israel better than rational pragmatism is worrying, but not surprising.

Netanyahu's ideological preferences are known. It is still surprising, however, that once again he has emerged as a failing schlemiel of a politician. He cannot read the new global map and is incapable of evaluating his real chances of surviving as prime minister of a radical right-wing cabinet opposite the new administration in Washington.

In opting against a centrist-pragmatist coalition with Livni, Netanyahu kept moderate people out of his government who could speak in a language acceptable to Barack Obama. This would have saved Netanyahu's cabinet from moments of tension and disagreement with the Americans.

It is clear that to do so he would have had to agree to Livni's demand to reach a final decision regarding the peace process, in order to ensure Israel's legitimate existence as a democratic Jewish state. He would also have had to agree to a rotating premiership with Livni - which would have spared him the shameful surrender to Yisrael Beiteinu and the ultra-Orthodox parties.

But Netanyahu did not accept Livni's terms to join the government and instead got himself into an impossible situation.Now he has thrown Israel into a dangerous, insufferable collision course with the United States and will apparently have to pay for it with his post.

Netanyahu could have been expected to understand the meaning of Obama's election as U.S. president and to prepare accordingly. Obama was elected without really needing the Jewish vote. He came to power on the back of a clear, enthusiastic agenda to make a fundamental break with all the previous administration's principles.

The era of Jewish and evangelist pressure in America is over, and a renowned Americanologist like Netanyahu should have seen that his lunatic politics would raise strong objections in the United States and endanger Israel and its future.

The writing was on the wall. Livni, who represents the Israeli center, could have conducted a friendly, more moderate dialogue with the Americans, thanks to her credibility and clear support for the two-state principle, unlike Netanyahu's lack of credibility in this arena.

Had Netanyahu really been an adroit statesman, he would have understood immediately that Livni was actually offering him the only way of running Israel in a new world. But Netanyahu did not understand. In his blindness he assumed that in the worst case he could trust the faded magic tricks of Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres. In view of the storm coming from Obama's direction, it is clear that these two cannot divert the lightning.

Washington wants unequivocal progress toward an agreement, and only Livni can do that. Anyone who doesn't see that has failed in a pathetic, worrisome way.

Netanyahu's wretched entanglement with the U.S. administration proves again that his judgment is fundamentally flawed and his political assessments are not merely invalid, but put Israel at risk.

Anyone who can't understand that we will end up bruised in a collision with a tough U.S. administration isn't capable of the simplest reality check and cannot be entrusted with fateful decisions of war. Bibi is dangerous to the Jews. The writer was a Meretz MK in the 17th Knesset.

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ISRAEL’S DEVIOUS PLOY

Netanyahu's vision of "Economic Peace" for the Palestinians

Editor's Note:

An important development is taking place in Palestine which has so far gone relatively un-noticed. It has far reaching political and economic implications, ramifications and consequences which need careful study and analysis so as to help shape adequate strategies. The reference is to joint Israeli-Palestinian ventures (also known as joint Israeli-Palestinian industrial zones) in West bank. On the face of it, they seem to be helpful to the Palestinians. But they have a sinister undercurrent.

Samah Sabawi, who was born in Gaza and is currently in Melbourne, brought this subject up in a paper she read on Tuesday, March 9 at Prince Philip Theater, University of Melbourne during the course of a forum organized by Australians for Palestine/ Women for Palestine.

She later wrote an article based on the paper she had read and this was published by Palestine Chronicle on March 10. The article deserves to be taken note of and is being reproduced here with the permission of Samah Sabawi

For the original article, as published by Palestine Chronicle see:
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15799

For a short biographical note on Samah, please see at the end of the article

- Gulamhusein Abba

* * * * *

Is PA Guilty of Undermining BDS Campaign?

by Samah Sabawi

In 2008 Netanyahu announced during his election campaign that he plans to 'weave an economic peace alongside the political process which will give a stake in peace for the moderate elements in the Palestinian society'. (1) Since its election, the Netanyahu government has made “economic peace” central to its policies in the West Bank. This is not a coincidence. At a time when Palestinian civil society and grass roots solidarity groups are calling for an economic war on Israel, the Apartheid State has waged economic peace in order to undermine its efforts by seeking normalization with Palestinian and Arab businesses as well as Palestinian and Arab leaders. In order to understand what Israel is offering and the kind of trapping that has been laid out for Arab and Palestinian investors, we must first take a look at Israel’s history of economic manipulation.

Contrary to all the hype that surrounds economic peace, it is important to acknowledge the fact that it represents more of the same old policies Israel has pursued in the Occupied Territories for decades. Since 1967, Israel has faced the same dilemma it does today; annex Gaza and the West Bank and form one geo-political and economic unit, one State, and integrate the Palestinian population into Israeli society; or comply with international law and withdraw from the territories occupied and later have two political and economic units, two states, one Palestinian and one Israeli, living side by side. Since 1967, Israeli politicians have chosen neither option. They wanted the land and the resources but not the people. So instead, they’ve opted for a course that falls somewhere in between. The Israeli government decided upon (limited) economic integration and practical elimination of the Green Line. (2) This was the beginning of Moshe Dayan’s Open Door Policy – an older version of what is today Netanyahu’s Economic Peace. Dayan’s policies were based on the assumption that close economic dependency would prevent Palestinians from contesting Israeli occupation by force. (3)

The PA needs to be accountable not only to its wealthy class of investors.

To foster this economic dependency, Israel isolated the West Bank and Gaza strip from the rest of the world. Palestinians in the OT were only allowed to trade with Israel (and in limited amount of agricultural goods with Jordan). (4) Israel monopolized the Palestinian captive consumer market, flooding it with Israeli goods and products and, at the same time, through various tariffs and regulations, it restricted the entry of Palestinian products into Israel. Palestinian workers were allowed to work in Israel as cheap laborers but they were not afforded many of the worker’s rights afforded to Israeli workers doing the same job. Israel also strangled the Palestinian economy by placing restrictions on investment in agricultural and industrial productions. For Palestinians who wished to build a factory or import equipment a permit from the Israeli military governor was needed but was rarely attained. Israel’s policies yielded clear results; between 1970-1993, Israel accounted for 90% of the West Bank and Gaza Strip’s exports, and 70% of their imports and became the major source of employment for Palestinians. Desperate for work, Palestinians were willing to work on Israeli settlements and Industrial Zones in poor conditions in low paying jobs. Most of them earned 30-50% less than Israelis working in the same occupation and sector.

When the first intifada began, it should have served as a clear indication to Israel that economic dominance and control cannot dampen a people’s dreams of equality and nationhood. If anything, it was the poor conditions, the low pay, the lack of civil rights and the blatant double standards in dealing with the Palestinians that sparked the first intifada. And it was the first intifada that brought about what became known as the Oslo years. A new phase in Palestinian Israeli politics but not necessarily a better one.

Oslo was supposed to pave the way for reducing Palestinian economic dependency on Israel until the creation of a Palestinian state. The Palestinian National Authority was established and became responsible for the economic management of the OT starting in 1995. As part of its mandate, they were to create and implement policies related to industries, business, finance, employment and taxes amongst a long list of other things. But as time progressed, it became clear that economic management under the suffocating grip of occupation was not possible. The PA had no authority over the land they managed, its boarders, its air and its sea. With a few minor exceptions, all goods imported by the Palestinians were made to pass through Israeli controlled areas first and were subject to Israeli Custom Duties and Trade Policies. And as settlements grew at more than double their rate prior to Oslo, an Israeli policy of checkpoints, curfews and closures prevented Palestinian workers from accessing their jobs in Israel and from getting to and from their work places even within the territories. This lead to a decrease in Labor reliance on Israel but it meant an increase in Palestinian unemployment. Then came the apartheid wall separating farmers from their land, doctors from their clinics, teachers from their schools etc…While the Palestinian economy continued to disintegrate, territorial fragmentations worsened and unemployment and poverty increased.

Palestinians came face to face with Oslo’s failure. This was intensified during the second intifada, the destruction of Jenin, the confinement of Arafat, the mayhem in Ramallah and the long list of corruption charges against the PA. It was against this backdrop that the Palestinians went to the polls in 2006 and voted Oslo out by voting Hamas in. The West and Israel boycotted the newly elected government but knew that they needed to reinvent their approach of pacifying the Palestinians through a system of economic dominance. It was then that Bush’s West Bank First Policy began. The underlying assumption of this policy is to reward so called “moderates” in the WB and engage them with promises of economic prosperity in hope that full stomachs will mean a tame population. This while punishing so called “extremists” in Gaza and crushing down resistance by means of economic boycott.

It was in this environment that Netanyahu’s idea of Economic Peace was born. His vision is based on the same assumption as Dayan’s open door policy of the late sixties, and Bush’s West Bank First policy a couple of years ago: Rewarding “moderates” who don’t protest the occupation while starving and making an example of those who do. The most questionable aspect of Netanyahu’s plan is to develop "three or four" joint Israeli-Palestinian economic projects, or, as more commonly known, industrial zones along the West Bank border area with the support of Egypt and Jordan.

There is nothing new about building Industrial Zones in the West Bank. In fact, there are already around 18 Israeli industrial zones in the OT and in most cases they are attached to Israeli colonies making them the economic engine of the settlement blocs. (5) It is important to recognize that Israeli Industrial Zones in OT are considered illegal under international law, but they are an attractive lure for Israeli businesses as they receive generous tax reductions from the government, and they deal with minimum environmental and labor regulations. This is one reason why they tend to house a large number of industries that deal with toxic materials and harmful waste. There are no proper checks to ensure Palestinian workers’ rights. So these industries exploit Palestinian workers who make less than one quarter that of what Israeli workers make. (6) Although Palestinian Workers are made to pay for membership in the Histadrut, they are not entitled to become members and are not represented in labor disputes.

Having established the reality of existing Industrial Zones let’s examine what we know about the new Industrial Zones that are coming into being under Netanyahu’s “economic peace” plan. Today, we are looking at the development of 3 or 4 new joint Palestinian Israeli industrial zones in the West Bank. The key words here are Joint Palestinian Israeli. This is significant to the BDS campaign because it introduces a new sinister twist to an already tragic tale. Products made in these Zones will have a “made in Palestine” stamp and therefore these zones will have an advantage that previous Israeli Industrial zones in the OT didn’t -- they can now act as gateways to the Arab and World markets which have in the past rejected products made in the Israeli settlements.

The first and largest Joint Industrial Zone is being built near Jenin and it is predicted to be operational by 2011. According to a report by Shir Hever from Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem (AIC) (7) all of the new joint Industrial Zones will have a gate on the Palestinian side where Palestinian workers can come and go and another entrance on the Israeli side where the products go out into Israel for export or sales. Products from these zones can only be exported through Israeli companies. Hever reported that the zones are under strict security control and although they are built on Palestinian land, the security will not be monitored by Palestinians but by private companies approved by Israel. Also, that all the Industrial Zones will be walled in by one side by the apartheid wall, which is a violation of international law because, according to a ruling at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, using the wall for any purpose, even if it were to help the Palestinians, is considered collaboration in a war crime. What was most disturbing in Herver’s report was that the Palestinian workers' salaries were already set at about 200 Euros/month and it had been decided already that Palestinian workers will not be allowed to join any labor unions. Finally, Herver reported that the companies which will operate in the Industrial Zones are not going to be Palestinian companies but are actually Israeli or international.

When Netanyahu first proposed “economic peace”, the PA was very critical. In March 2009 Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, wrote in the Washington Post: “Rather than ending the occupation, Netanyahu has proposed an 'economic peace' that would seek to normalize and better manage it. Instead of a viable Palestinian state, his vision extends no further than a series of disconnected cantons with limited self-rule.” (8) Also, Salam Fayyad, who is the Prime Minister of the PA and a former International Monetary Fund economist, insisted that the conflict was a political one that required a political solution. His direct quote to Haaretz was: "Even though I am an economist by profession and I appreciate the importance of the economy very much, the solution is not to be found in money or in industrial zones. I am interested not in redefining the occupation but in ending the occupation." (9)

Yet the reality on the ground is telling us a different story. While the PA seemingly refuses to “talk” with the Israelis until they see a settlement freeze, we are seeing reports of monthly Joint Economic Committee meetings between Israeli Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Regional Development Silvan Shalom and the Palestinian Minister for National Economy Bassem Khoury. (10) We are also hearing from the Israelis success stories of Palestinian-Israeli joint business ventures. This raises many questions in the minds of Palestinians and justice advocates everywhere. The Palestinian Authority needs to address these questions: Will these joint economic ventures help the Palestinians or will they “redefine the occupation” with a “made in Palestine label”? How much jurisdiction will the Palestinians have over the Industrial Zones? Will Palestinians have open-free access to import and export outlets (airport, seaport, and land borders)? Do we risk legalizing the presence of Israeli industry on Palestinian occupied land? Do we risk sacrificing the rights and dignity of our working class by denying them worker’s rights and memberships in labor unions?

The Palestinian Authority needs to be accountable not only to its wealthy class of Palestinian investors and would-be profiteers, but to all Palestinians, especially those who linger in the refugee camps, and who will be exploited as disposable cheap laborers. The need for economic viability and job creation in the West Bank, and the excitement of the private sector over the idea of building a strong Palestinian economy can be understood, but how much do Palestinians stand to lose when our policies are no better than those of our occupiers.

Palestinian Civil Society was clear in its calls for justice and equality through the implementation of a global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, a campaign that is gaining great momentum. Arab and Palestinian normalization of business relations with Israel and trading Palestinian legitimate rights for short-term economic gains that will only benefit a select class will no doubt undermine these efforts.

Notes:
[1] “Netanyahu: Economics, not politics, is the key to peace” Raphael Ahren. Haaaretz Nov 21, 2008.
[2] “Israeli Policy towards the Occupied Palestinian Territories: The Economic Dimension, 1967-2007.” Arie Arnon The Middle East Journal
[3] “A Palestinian View: repeating old mistakes” Ghassan Khatib. Bitterlemons.org Septmeber 3, 2007.
[4] “The Palestinian Economy and the Oslo “Peace Process" by Leila Farsakh Research fellow at the Trans-Arab Research Institute, Boston.
[5] Industrial Zones and Israel’s Colonial Strategy Fact Sheet Canadians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East.
[6] Although an Israeli Supreme Court recently ruled that Palestinian settlement workers are entitled to the Israeli minimum wage, the Israeli Ministry of Industry has claimed that this ruling does ‘not expand to the criminal enforcement of the state’.
[7] Shir Hever from Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem (AIC).
[8] “Israel’s Step Back From Peace” The Washington Post March 2009.
[9] “Palestinian PM: Settlement building will destroy peace process” By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent 18/11/2008.
[10] Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations Press Release Israel-Palestinian joint economic committee convenes.

NOTE: Samah Sabawi is a Human Rights and Social Justice advocate. She was born in Gaza and shortly after her birth her family was displaced as a result of Israel's occupation of the Gaza Strip in 1967. She has lived and worked in many countries around the world and is currently residing in Melbourne, Australia. In addition to numerous articles and poems (published in as many publications and web-sites), she has also co-authored with her father, Abdel-Karim Sabawi, a play “Cries from the Land” which was sponsored and produced by Friends of Sabeel and http://www.canpalnet-ottawa.org/. She has also produced the play “Three Wishes” based on her adaptation of Deborah Ellis's book "Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israelis Speak Out". Samah Sabawi is also former Executive Director and Media Spokesperson for the National Council on Canada Arab Relations.

If you like this article, please consider making a contribution to the Palestine Chronicle.

Germany's Penance: UNCONDITIONAL SUPPORT OF ISRAEL!

Here is a forceful, well argued and well written article by Germany based Anis Hamadeh. It is reproduced here (with minimal changes) with the permission of the author, as it first appeared on his blog. The original can be seen in German and English at http://www.anis-online.de/1/essays/24.htm.
Gulamhusein A Abba


Finkelstein Banned in Berlin: A Democracy that isn't a Democracy
Anis Hamadeh,
February 18, 2010, http://www.anis-online.de/1/essays/24.htm


“By calling the genocide of the Jews the "original crime",
the unique and incomparable act, every other crime is
devalued as being not so important’.

“Germany has decided to do penance for the Nazi crimes
by means of supporting the State of Israel”

“Hitler has won in the end, for the violence that made this
criminal a criminal in the first place, this violence has not
stopped. On the contrary: the compulsive "Never again!"
serves as a justification of violence and killing. This works
only because the genocide of the Jews was taken out of
its historical context and floats around freely”.

*****************************

Dr. Norman Finkelstein has written several books in the field of Israel/Palestine/Holocaust and is one of the most sagacious analysts of our time. Like Professor Ilan Pappe, he formulates sharp criticism in respect to past and present of the State of Israel. Both use very rational arguments and are reliable researchers.



Especially after the mass murders in Jenin and Gaza, these two men and many other Jews (also in Germany) speak out, because they do not want to be counted among supporters of violence by a state that arrogates to itself the right to speak on behalf of, and act in the name of all the Jews worldwide.


As is known now, both the Heinrich Boell Foundation and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation have canceled Finkelstein talks that were already scheduled in Berlin. While the foundation close to the Green party did not even bother to explain its behavior, the board of the foundation close to the Left party explained its drawback in a media info with the empty statement that such a talk would be "explosive" ("brisant"). One wonders what is going on there. Does Finkelstein call for violence? Are his views outside legal norms? Does he disesteem human rights? Nothing of all this. On the contrary.


The reason for banning him is the veto of groups that seek to avert criticism of Israel, connecting this issue with the reproach of anti-Semitism. This is an old chestnut and not specifically interesting. What is interesting, though, is that the German public buys this nonsense and denies a man, who lost his family in German concentration camps, to talk on German soil. What is interesting is that the German public tolerates his being labeled an anti-Semite for his reflections on violence in Israel. The same thing happened only some months ago to the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe in Munich, when the city's Lord Mayor canceled a scheduled talk. Pappe

then wrote in an open letter that his father "was silenced in a similar way as a German Jew in the early 1930s".


The German Self-Conception


So let us revisit the German self-conception and then take a short look at the historical background to understand this apparently great fear that is going around in Germany. Recently, when the Israeli politician Shimon Peres talked on the occasion of the Holocaust Memorial Day in the German Bundestag, he received a standing ovations. The few, who did not stand up because of their rejection of Peres' and Israel's violent policies, were publically attacked.



There is, for example, the quote of a member of the Bundestag: "The Nazi crimes, the Shoa, and the war of annihilation are the original crime of humanity. (...) The Jewish victims of National Socialism are memorized on January 27 in the Bundestag memorial. On this occasion, only they and the reminder of 'Never again!' can be the topic. Everything else in this context is a relativization of the Nazi crimes." It is a quote typical for Germany and reveals the German angst as well as the great danger that goes with it.



The genocide of the Jews in this quote is taken out of any historical context and declared a unique event. Firstly, this reveals a "We (We!) are the greatest" narcissism. Secondly, it reveals a pro-Jewish racism, as if one racism could make up for another one. It is not victims in general who are important, Only the Jewish victims are! The Nazi killing of Sinti and Roma (The Nazis also killed Sinti and Roma -- considered "gypsies" -- communists, homosexuals and others) thus is kind of OK. And how much then will the killing of Palestinains be OK if conducted by Jews.



Put in a more general way: by calling the genocide of the Jews the "original crime", the unique and incomparable act, every other crime is devalued as being not so important. Finkelstein and Pappe do not fit in here. They disturb the celebration by entering the historical framework, which is all the more embarrassing as they are Jews with family ties to Nazi victims. Banning them shows that in the end even Jewish Nazi victims are not what the whole circus is about, despite all the pathetic oaths and solemn declarations. This is what Germany fears, that people realize that the public "Remembering the Holocaust" is a fake and that Finkelstein and Pappe are eloquent and powerful enough to unmask this farce.



Germany has decided to do penance for the Nazi crimes by means of supporting the State of Israel. When it stands in solidarity with the Zionist state, then Germany would fulfill its historical responsibility. This dogma is not questioned, although it is beyond any logic to support Zionism, of all things, in order to do penance. Perhaps not beyond logic because there had been fruitful cooperation between Nazis and Zionists. (It was in the interest of both ideologies to bring Jews out of Germany.) What is much worse is that violence is not recognized as the problem.



Thus Hitler has won in the end, for the violence that made this criminal a criminal in the first place, this violence has not stopped. On the contrary: the compulsive "Never again!" serves as a justification of violence and killing. This works only because the genocide of the Jews was taken out of its historical context and floats around freely.


The Israeli Self-Conception


Both Finkelstein and Pappe write about the missing historical context and this is what people are afraid of, because both use their arguments brilliantly, even compellingly, and they are concerned as Jews whose families have Nazi experiences. Like Goldstone, Chomsky, and some others, the two academics are subject to hate and rejection of the ruling Zionism and its strenuous friends. Finkelstein lives in the USA, where Zionism is even stronger than in Israel, and he does not lead an easy life. Pappe needed to go to exile in England, because life in Israel became unbearable for him. He wrote the book "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" in which he clearly shows how the Israeli state was built on heavy violence. Considering that both authors face bans in Germany it is no wonder that there is not much heard of the events around 1948 other than flat stereotypes.



According to the Israeli self-conception the Zionist state emerged out of a "War of Independence". In this view, the Jewish victims of National Socialism created a state to protect themselves and were immediately attacked by their evil Arab neighbors. This version of the story is sacrosanct and is defended with great hysteria, be it in Israel or in Germany, because it does not stand up to a neutral analysis. The fact is that when Israel was founded in May 1948, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine had already been going on for half a year.



This was called "Plan Dalet/Plan D" and everybody can read about it. Hundreds of indigenous Palestinians were killed and hundreds of thousands were expelled from their villages by Zionist militias. According to the Israeli self-conception, many Palestinians went away voluntarily, as if anybody would voluntarily leave their home and property just like that. International pressure, orchestrated by US arm twisting, led to the UN partition plan which deprived the native population of a little more than half of Palestine which was to be given to the Zionists.



Yet the Zionists were not content with that. They received weapons and took more of the land by force. When they then built a state on this land, they did not do it in agreement with anybody, but unilaterally and surprisingly. The dogma of the "right of existence" was invented so that people would not talk about these events anymore. Here is the seed of the problems we are confronted with tilll today. It is possible to begin earlier, with the Sykes Picot Treaty or the first settlers from abroad who, for the most part, did not integrate, but appeared aggressively. One can talk about the British and about Zionist and Arab terrorism, about Jabotinsky and other pioneers.



But it is the founding of the state and Plan D which show most clearly why history is escalating until today. The massacre of Deir Yassin happened in the framework of this plan. Iit was covered in the world press. Nobody was ever held responsible for this blood-spree and thus a precedent was created which is working until today. Nobody has been taken to account for the mass murder in Gaza either, or for nay of the other massacres that Israel habitually commits. The Plan D land theft is another precedent. Up to this day the Israeli territory gets wider while the Palestinian territory shrinks. All this is inherent in the biased concept of "right of existence", as are the race laws from 1950 which guarantee all Jews in the world a "right of return" to Israel while the expelled native population has to keep out, an unprecedented act in the long history of the country. Their land and property was confiscated by the new masters who clung to a blood-and-soil ideology.



A lot of this reminds one of the Nazis, which by no means is a wonder when you consider the victim/perpetrator dynamics. It is known that victims, because of their traumas, are prone to become perpetrators and it is so obvious that it takes a whole lot of energy to suppress the respective discourse. It is suppressed in militarized Israel just as it is in Germany. It is taboo. For this reason, a government of right-wing extremists in Israel is not a problem. Right-wing extremism is not right-wing extremism, when it comes to Israel!.


The Tip of the Iceberg


The cancelation of Finkelstein's talks are but the tip of a huge iceberg. Even as these lines are written, Palestinian houses in Barta'a Ash-Sharqiya are being demolished, and, in Sheikh Jarrah/Jerusalem new land thefts are scheduled. A big historic Arab graveyard is to be confiscated to build a "Museum of Tolerance" on it while in Bil'in the nonviolent resistance against the wall enters its sixth year. The protesters are injured by the army on a regular basis, and also killed.



The world press says almost nothing about the heroes of nonviolent resistance, because it does not fit the image. Russian Jews in Be’er Sheva in the Negev have just killed a Bedouin boy and heavily injured another, while a group of fundamentalist settlers have injured a Palestinian child in Hebron. About 11.000 Palestinians are kept in Israeli prisons. The "checkpoints" to Nablus have been closed down recently so that nobody can enter. The Gaza fishermen are being shot at by the Israeli navy and Gaza is still under siege. The head of the Dubai police just confirmed that according to police investigations there is a very high probability that the Mossad is behind the murder of a Hamas politician in the Emirates.



Every day you can read on www.theheadlines.org what happens in the country and that since 1948 there has been no change of the routine. In Germany, the Palästina Portal is one of the sources one can turn to. Most of what happens remains unknown to us.Our media skips most of it, for fear of inciting an increasing "anti-Semitism". It is for the same reason that we are not to listen to Finkelstein and Pappe, for they verify the terrible events and the historical development sketched above. Instead, we are fed with "information" on "terrorism".



It is well-known to some of the leading politicians and opinion-leaders that the Israeli policy can only lead to the self-destruction of the State of Israel. Call it a culture of death. Maybe self-hatred is another reason for this behavior, something human rights advocates like Finkelstein and Pappe are labeled with by exactly those who display it themselves. But even according to our mainstream dogmas we have a big problem here, for this development is bad for the Jews, too, the Zionists among them and the anti-Zionists.



Norman Finkelstein (www.normanfinkelstein.com) will talk about Gaza in Munich on Feb. 24, 7 p.m. Amerikahaus, Karolinenplatz 3, and on Feb. 25, 7 p.m., Kulturhaus Milbertshofen, Curt-Mezger-Platz 1

NAKBLINKA

The Cleansing of CoExistence

TransGalactic Publications, 2010. 108 pages. $9.95
Available at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

BOOK REVIEW

by Gulamhusein Abba

In the shadows of Palestine
Out in the wilderness
Of an emaciated Present
Are the dampened ashes
Of a people
Incarcerated by hope
And the choiceless visions
Of tomorrow!

— Dom Martin
Excerpt from “The Damnation to Exist”

Dozens of books have been written by competent writers recording the injustices and cruelties heaped on the Gazans, and their pain, suffering and loss. But it takes an imaginative artist or a gifted poet or a visionary to effectively capture and eloquently and poignantly convey the essence of the terrible saga of Gaza.

Dom Martin is a unique combination of all three – a renowned artist whose paintings adorn the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa, a poet who has penned gut-wrenching poetry, and a visionary who has created prophetic images. His latest volume of poetry, NAKBLINKA: The Cleansing of Co-Existence, commemorates the first anniversary of the brutal attack on Gaza by Israel. It is a step beyond other books on the subject.

Filled with thought provoking and emotional poems, arresting photos and unique drawings and paintings, the 108 pages of NAKBLINKA: The Cleansing of CoExistence, will grip the reader from the onset and move one to tears. But more importantly, the volume speaks to an understanding of what the Gazans are up against, with admiration for their tenacity, resilience, courage and unflinching resistance in the face of the brutal, illegal, and longest lasting current occupation by Israel of their land.

Those who appreciated Dom Martin’s CoEexistence: Humanity’s Wailing Wall (2006) and Genocide: The New Order of Imperialism (2008) will appreciate his latest work even more. The title itself is a play on words, recalling both Nakba (the “day of catastrophe” when Palestinians were expelled from their homeland in 1948) and Treblinka, where the Jews suffered unimaginable inhumanity at the hands of the Germans during the Nazi regime. As Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate (1976) has observed in her Foreword to this book: “Dom Martin cries out for an end to the infliction of cruelty and death upon the oppressed peoples of the world”.

Among the poems in the book are ones with such challenging titles as: The Displacement Of Humanity; The Second Crucifixion; Icons Of Innocence; Omer Abed Al-Aziz Mosque; and The Discoloration of CoExistence.


For a preview of the book and to read the Foreword go to: http://www.propheticimagery.com/Nakblinka%20Book/Index.htm

NAKBLINKA: The Cleansing of CoExistence (2009)
Dom Martin
Pencil on Paper (16cm x 18 cm)

PALESTINE'S WAILING MT. RUSHMORE (2009)
Dom Martin
Pencil on Paper (18cm x 12 cm)

PALESTINE IS DYING ON YOUR WATCH

Robert Fisk,
January 30, 2010

Photo: NASSER ISHTAYEH / AP
Palestinian women huddle amid their belongings after Israeli

forces demolished their homes in the West Bank village of

Khirbet Tana, near

January 30, 2010
In the West Bank's stony hills, Palestine is slowly dying
In the richest of the Occupied lands, Israeli bureaucracy is driving Palestinians out of their homes.

Robert Fisk reports from Jiftlik

Area C doesn't sound very ominous. A land of stone-sprinkled grey hills and soft green valleys, it's part of the wreckage of the equally wrecked Oslo Agreement, accounting for 60 per cent of the Israeli-occupied West Bank that was eventually supposed to be handed over to its Palestinian inhabitants.

But look at the statistics and leaf through the pile of demolition orders lying on the table in front of Abed Kasab, head of the village council in Jiftlik, and it all looks like ethnic cleansing via bureaucracy. Perverse might be the word for the paperwork involved. Obscene appear to be the results.

Palestinian houses that cannot be permitted to stand, roofs that must be taken down, wells closed, sewage systems demolished; in one village, I even saw a primitive electricity system in which Palestinians must sink their electrical poles cemented into concrete blocks standing on the surface of the dirt road. To place the poles in the earth would ensure their destruction - no Palestinian can dig a hole more than 40cm below the ground.

But let's return to the bureaucracy. "Ro'i" - if that is indeed the Israeli official's name, for it is difficult to decipher - signed a batch of demolition papers for Jiftlik last December, all duly delivered, in Arabic and Hebrew, to Mr Kasab. There are 21 of them, running - non-sequentially - from numbers 143912 through 145059, all from "The High Planning Council Monitoring [sic] Sub-Committee of the Civil Administration for the Area of Judea and Samaria". Judea and Samaria - for ordinary folk - is the occupied West Bank. The first communication is dated 8 December, 2009, the last 17 December.

And as Mr Kasab puts it, that's the least of his problems. Palestinian requests to build houses are either delayed for years or refused; houses built without permission are ruthlessly torn down; corrugated iron roofs have to be camouflaged with plastic sheets in the hope the "Civil Administration" won't deem them an extra floor - in which case "Ro'i's" lads will be round to rip the lot off the top of the house.

In Area C, there are up to 150,000 Palestinians and 300,000 Jewish colonists living - illegally under international law - in 120 official settlements and 100 "unapproved" settlements or, in the language we must use these days, "illegal outposts"; illegal under Israeli as well as international law, that is - as opposed to the 120 internationally illegal colonies which are legal under Israeli law. Jewish settlers, needless to say, don't have problems with planning permission.

The winter sun blazes through the door of Mr Kasab's office and cigarette smoke drifts through the room as the angry men of Jiftlik shout their grievances. "I don't mind if you print my name, I am so angry, I will take the consequences, " he says. "Breathing is the only thing we don't need a permit for - yet!" The rhetoric is tired, but the fury is real. "Buildings, new roads, reservoirs, we have been waiting three years to get permits. We cannot get a permit for a new health clinic. We are short of water for both human and agricultural use. Getting permission to rehabilitate the water system costs 70,000 Israeli shekels [about £14,000] - it costs more than the rehabilitation system itself."

A drive along the wild roads of Area C - from the outskirts of Jerusalem to the semi-humid basin of the Jordan valley - runs through dark hills and bare, stony valleys lined with deep, ancient caves, until, further east, lie the fields of the Palestinians and the Jewish settlers' palm groves - electrified fences round the groves - and the mud or stone huts of Palestinian sheep farmers. This paradise is a double illusion. One group of inhabitants, the Israelis, may remember their history and live in paradise. The smaller group, the Palestinian Arabs, are able to look across these wonderful lands and remember their history - but they are already out of paradise and into limbo.

Even the western NGOs working in Area C find their work for Palestinians blocked by the Israelis. This is not just a "hitch" in the "peace process" - whatever that is - but an international scandal. Oxfam, for example, asked the Israelis for a permit to build a 300m2 capacity below-ground reservoir along with 700m of underground 4in pipes for the thousands of Palestinians living around Jiftlik. It was refused. They then gave notice that they intended to construct an above-ground installation of two glass-fibre tanks, an above-ground pipe and booster pump. They were told they would need a permit even though the pipes were above ground - and they were refused a permit. As a last resort, Oxfam is now distributing rooftop water tanks.

I came across an even more outrageous example of this apartheid-by- permit in the village of Zbeidat, where the European Union's humanitarian aid division installed 18 waste water systems to prevent the hamlet's vile-smelling sewage running through the gardens and across the main road into the fields. The £80,000 system - a series of 40ft shafts regularly flushed out by sewage trucks - was duly installed because the location lay inside Area B, where no planning permission was required.

Yet now the aid workers have been told by the Israelis that work "must stop" on six of the 18 shafts - a prelude to their demolition, although already they are already built beside the road - because part of the village stands in Area C. Needless to say, no one - neither Palestinians nor Israelis - knows the exact borderline between B and C. Thus around £20,000 of European money has been thrown away by the Israeli "Civil Administration" .
But in one way, this storm of permission and non-permission papers is intended to obscure the terrible reality of Area C. Many Israeli activists as well as western NGOs suspect Israel intends to force the Palestinians here to leave their lands and homes and villages and depart into the wretchedness of Areas B and A. B is jointly controlled by Israeli military and civil authorities and Palestinian police, and A by the witless Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas. Thus would the Palestinians be left to argue over a mere 40 per cent of the occupied West Bank - in itself a tiny fraction of the 22 per cent of Mandated Palestine over which the equally useless Yasser Arafat once hoped to rule. Add to this the designation of 18 per cent of Area C as "closed military areas" by the Israelis and add another 3 per cent preposterously designated as a "nature reserve" - it would be interesting to know what kind of animals roam there - and the result is simple: even without demolition orders, Palestinians cannot build in 70 per cent of Area C.

Along one road, I discovered a series of large concrete blocks erected by the Israeli army in front of Palestinian shacks. "Danger - Firing Area" was printed on each in Hebrew, Arabic and English. "Entrance Forbidden." What are the Palestinians living here supposed to do? Area C, it should be added, is the richest of the occupied Palestinian lands, with cheese production and animal farms. Many of the 5,000 souls in Jiftlik have been refugees already, their families fled lands to the west of Jerusalem - in present-day Israel - in 1947 and 1948. Their tragedy has not yet ended, of course. What price Palestine?

January 30, 2010

Note: The original was published in the "Independet" and can be accessed at: http://www.independ%20ent.co.uk/%20news/world/%20middle-east/%20in-the-west-%20banks-stony-%20hills-palestine-%20is-slowly-%20dying-1883669.%20html

THE JEWISH EXILE THAT NEVER WAS!

by Gulamhusein Abba

Note: Recently I submitted a piece by Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD to various editors and moderators for posting on their sites. In it Mazin stated, among other things,” The victimhood pathology started rather early with the myth of the exodus from Egypt (archeologists and historians have long shown that this notion of enslavement in Egypt and redemption is simply not consistent with the facts or the historical record)”.

While some of the editors/moderators published the piece, several rejected it, claiming that Mazin’s statement about “the myth of the exodus from Egypt” was unsubstantiated and unacceptable. That made me evaluate the claim and the following article is the outcome of that research.

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Even more than the oft averred promise by God to the Jewish people, exile is central to the Jewish claim on Palestine. Because they were exiled, they have a right to return. (Incidentally, this is precisely why the Zionists keep denying, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that the Palestinians were forced out of their homes and villages by the Zionists during the formation of an Israeli state. If they admit that they were forced out, they would have to admit Palestinians’ right to return. But if the Palestinians, as the Zionists insist, left of their own accord, they have no such right!)

The Jewish “exile” claim raises two questions. First: Even if they were exiled, and had a right to return, does that mean they have a right to claim Palestine, or a part of it, as a Jewish state? Second, the more important one: Were they in fact exiled from Palestine?

Research scholars, several of them Jewish and some of them ardent Zionists, have been asserting for quite some time that the claim of exile is a myth propagated by the Zionists.
Dr.Mazin Qunsiyeh, PhD, recently wrote : “….archeologists and historians have long shown that this notion of enslavement in Egypt and redemption is simply not consistent with the facts or the historical record”.

This is by no means a new or far fetched claim.

Dissertations by Dr. Shlomo Sand and Jeremiah Haber

Dr. Shlomo Sand, the author of “Invention of the Jewish People” and an expert on European history at Tel Aviv University, has claimed in his book that "The Jews were never exiled from the Holy Land…. most of today’s Jews have no historical connection to the land called Israel”.

His earlier book, “When and How Was The Jewish people Invented”, has been on Israel's bestseller list for 19 weeks.

Sand annotates what prompted him to write the book: "I started looking in research studies about the exile from the land - a constitutive event in Jewish history, almost like the Holocaust. But to my astonishment I discovered that it has no literature. The reason is that no one exiled the people of the country. The Romans did not exile peoples and they could not have done so even if they had wanted to. They did not have trains and trucks to deport entire populations. That kind of logistics did not exist until the 20th century. From this, in effect, the whole book was born: in the realization that Judaic society was not dispersed and was not exiled." The original Jews living in Israel, contrary to the propounded history, were not exiled. Sand argues that most of the Jews were not exiled by the Romans. They were permitted to remain in the country.

Sand suggests that the story of the exile was a myth promoted by early Christians to recruit Jews to the new faith. They portrayed that event as a divine punishment imposed on the Jews for having rejected the Christian gospel. Sand writes that "Christians wanted later generations of Jews to believe that their ancestors had been exiled as a punishment from God."

Elaborating further, Sand continues: "The supreme paradigm of exile was needed in order to construct a long-range memory in which an imagined and exiled nation-race was posited as the direct continuation of 'the people of the Bible' that preceded it."

Jeremiah Haber, an orthodox Zionist and a professor Jewish studies, writing under the nom de plume Jeremiah (Jerry) Haber, was critical of columnists like Charles Krauthammer and Leonard Fein. In the July 29, 2007 issue of the Magnes Zionist, Jeremiah admonished the two columnists for accepting “the myth that the Jews were forcibly expelled from the Land of Israel, and taken into captivity by the Romans.”

Jeremiah went on to emphasize: “To this day, most lay people, Jews and non-Jews, accept the myth of the exile, whereas no historian, Jew or non-Jew, takes it seriously.” And to further detox the seemingly blind addiction to this myth, he presented two assertions: : “The first point to make is that well before the revolt against Rome in 66-70 c.e., there were Jewish communities outside Palestine, most notably in Babylonia and in Egypt, but elsewhere as well. References to the dispersal of the Jewish people throughout the civilized world are found in the book of Esther, Josephus, and Philo. There is no indication that these communities were small, satellite communities.

“Second, there is no contemporary evidence – i.e., 1st and 2nd centuries c.e. – that anything like an exile took place. The Romans put down two Jewish revolts in 66-70 c.e. and in 132-135 c.e. According to Josephus, the rebels were killed, and many of the Jews died of hunger. Some prisoners were sent to Rome, and others were sold in Libya. But nowhere does Josephus speak of Jews being taken into exile. As we shall see below, there is much evidence to the contrary. There was always Jewish emigration from the Land of Israel…..”.

Similarly, in a post dated March 25, 2008 of the Jews Sans Frontieres, it was claimed that there are “a couple of pervasive racial myths upon which Zionism is founded. One is that of exile and the other is that of the common origin of the Jewish people…”

Yet another learned critic of the Jewish Exile is Israel Jacob Yuval, director of the Interdisciplinary Research Center in Jewish Studies, Backenroth Senior Lecturer in Medieval Jewish Studies. In his book, The Myth of the Jewish Exile from the Land of Israel: A Demonstration of Irenic Scholarship, Jacob Yuval extended his sincere empathy to the Palestinians. “On the one hand, I am a Zionist loyal to awareness of the need for the existence of the State of Israel. On the other hand, I am deeply troubled by the price paid by the Palestinians for the fulfillment of this dream. Like many others, I desperately seek a fair solution that will minimize the pain and suffering for both sides”

All this leads one to ask by whom was this myth of exile concocted and why?

As already stated, the suggestion made by Sand is that the story of the exile was a myth promoted by early Christians to recruit Jews to the new faith.

This myth suited the Zionists exceedingly well.

Jerry Haber, in his post dated July 29, 2007, suggests that though the myth was not invented by the Zionists, they dropped the “punishment” part and used it and nurtured it, “in part, to justify the return of the Jews to their ancestral homeland. For the tacit assumption of the Zionists was that if the Jews had left the land willingly, if they had merely ‘emigrated’ because they found opportunities beckoning in the Diaspora, then they would have betrayed their allegiance to the land, and their return would have been less justified….. it (the myth)dovetailed nicely with the historical view of the wandering Jew that finds no rest outside of his native place from which he was expelled”.

In Sand's view, at a certain stage in the 19th century, intellectuals of Jewish origin in Germany, influenced by the folk character of German nationalism, took upon themselves the task of inventing a people "retrospectively," out of a thirst to create a modern Jewish people. From historian Heinrich Graetz on, Jewish historians began to draw the history of Judaism as the history of a nation that had been a kingdom, became a wandering people and ultimately turned around and went back to its birthplace.

The third chapter of Sand’s book “The Invention of the Diaspora” starts with the quotation from the preamble to the Israeli Declaration of Independence: "After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people remained faithful to it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom" As we have seen, Sand argues that the Jewish people's exile from its land never happened.

Sand goes on to state that the description of the Jews as a wandering and self-isolating nation of exiles, "who wandered across seas and continents, reached the ends of the earth and finally, with the advent of Zionism, made a U-turn and returned en masse to their orphaned homeland," is nothing but "national mythology." Like other national movements in Europe, which sought out a splendid Golden Age, through which they invented a heroic past - for example, classical Greece or the Teutonic tribes - to prove they have existed since the beginnings of history, "so, too, the first buds of Jewish nationalism blossomed in the direction of the strong light that has its source in the mythical Kingdom of David."

Sand asserts: “Zionism changed the idea of Jerusalem. Before, the holy places were seen as places to long for, not to be lived in. For 2,000 years Jews stayed away from Jerusalem not because they could not return but because their religion forbade them from returning until the messiah came.”

These revelations about the oft asserted exile of the Jews being a myth are indeed revealing and shocking. They completely demolish the Jewish claim of their right to return to the Holy Land. But this is not all. Modern researchers and historians go further. They claim that the Jews never existed as a nation and that the vast majority of the present day Jews have no connection to the Biblical Jews or the Biblical Holy Land.

But that is another story. (Please watch for: “Was there a Jewish nation?”)

WHAT "SHARED VALUES"?

Is Israel normal?

By: Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
(with a note and slight editing by Gulamhusein A. Abba)

Editor’s note: Israel spends millions of dollars on Public Relations. It hires top PR firms to project a favorable image of itself. In its relations with powerful European nations great emphasis is put on “shared values” between them and Israel! The aim is to make them feel that Israel is one of them (and, by implication suggest that the Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular are quite different and therefore to be wary of!) This same tactic was employed even before Israel came into existence. When representatives of foreign governments visited on fact finding tours,they were met by English speaking Israelis with polished manners who banqueted them in the style they were accustomed to. This was in great contrast to what these representatives saw when they visited the Arabs. A subconscious leaning towards the Jews was assured. The Israelis now continue the same strategy. But in fact, though superficially there seems to be much in common, Israel and the European nations are poles apart. My friend Mazin Qumsiyeh, a Palestinian who lived in the States for a long time but has returned to Palestine,, brings this out clearly in the following strong and thought provoking message he recently sent from Italy.(The message as it appears here has been very slightly edited and the emphasis in it have been put in by this editor)
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Dear friends:

My wife and I are now in Italy to give a few talks and maybe get a break from the jail of Bethlehem under apartheid. Every time I visit Europe or other countries I wonder why can't we get to live a normal life in a normal country in Palestine. Israelis pretend they live in a normal country. Having removed most of the natives and confined the rest to ghettos and bantustans, the Israeli public by and large goes around pretending that everything is normal; that Israel is like any European country. It has a parliament (albeit it spends time deciding who is a Jew entitled to automatic citizenship and how to strip non-Jews of citizenship) , a military, a high tech industry, universities, bars, fancy restaurants, elites and poor people, religious and secular etc. But deep down Israelis know that this is all a mirage and an illusion. After all, here in Europe, there are no walls, no checkpoints, and no two systems of laws for people living in the same country.


As I was leaving the occupied areas through the only crossing allowed to us (into Jordan via King Hussain Bridge), a man on the bus commented as we reached the fifth checkpoint that the reason Israelis are so paranoid with all this security is because they know the country is not theirs.

Of course many Zionist Israelis were brainwashed to think that the reason they are paranoid is because the world is anti-Semitic; “they hate us for being Jews not for anything we have been doing to them”. The victimhood pathology started rather early with the myth of the exodus from Egypt (archeologists and historians have long shown that this notion of enslavement in Egypt and redemption is simply not consistent with the facts or the historical record). People who believed in certain ways indeed were persecuted for their beliefs or for who they were, but this is not unique for a particular group of people. Christians were historically persecuted (they were literally hunted down and fed to lions for the first 300 years) and Muslims and Armenians, and Gypsies and all others.

Perhaps no people on earth have suffered as much as Natives in North and South America. Estimates of 50-100 million people perished in the 100 years after the European invasion. What we are being told at schools in the West (under great pressure from Zionist lobby groups) is that Jewish suffering is somehow different than suffering by others (as if we are children of a lesser God or that God does have a chosen ppeople). While each atrocity in the world is unique, it is simply not valid to engage in comparative martyrology let alone determine a priori who has suffered historically the most. Just because someone is Jewish (or Christian or Muslim) today does not mean that they are related to those Jews (or Muslims or Christians) who lived in the Arab world hundreds of years ago, let alone have a continuity obligating them to get revenge for the atrocities from people who had nothing to do with it. It is simply not right or decent (or sustainable) to use injustice done hundreds of years ago to justify doing an injustice to someone else TODAY.

Today 11 million Palestinians live in the most deplorable conditions. 7 million are refugees or displaced people. The rest live in isolated ghettos, impoverished and marginalized. Israeli authorities come up with scheme after scheme to continue this process of marginalizing and hurting us. Using their leverage with great powers, they get puppet regimes in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world to do their bidding.

Egyptian government's lame attempts to justify sealing off 1.5 million people in Gaza (70% of them refugees) from the outside world simply does not hold water. More and more people see the injustice. Yet Israeli defenders and their puppets still cling to self-delusions. History will not be kind to them. But history will not be kind to Arabs also nor to other people who go about their daily life ignoring glaring injustice. Even in dictatorial regimes, governments do not get away with what they do unless they are able to get the consent and acquiescence of the people. People can believe the lies and the distortions or not believe them and still acquiesce because they have little self confidence.

People have more power than their governments want them to have and (more importantly) want them to believe they have.


Effecting change first of all requires education. The first is education to let people know that their governments lie to them all the time. Thus, when the Israeli government tells its people that building walls and oppressing others is for their security, this should be exposed as lies. When the Jordanian government uses the slogan "Jordan First" or the Egyptian government uses the slogan "Egypt above all" that these are lies. Egypt security and sovereignty for example, is not threatened by the starving Gazans but by the enslavement of its rulers to outside agendas (and two billion in conditional US aid that goes to support the elites).
People are first, and, people of this part of the world would all prosper if all these governments step aside and let people connect to other people.

Direct rail links and direct travel without restrictions, without borders would be good for people, for their economy and for their prosperity. Narrow nationalism (especially the fake varieties of it, like ethnocentric chauvinistic nationalism exemplified by Zionism) is not good for anyone. Does it make sense that I can travel between France, Germany, Spain and Italy without visas or checkpoints while traveling even within one and among several middle Eastern Countries is like traveling in Apartheid South Africa while being black? This when the total population of the five countries in the Eastern Mediterranean region does not add up to half the population of Italy or even the population of one city in China. Ironically, all these "countries" were created and supported by Europeans (who are now abandoning nationalism) .


Anyway, those of us who, like Arundhati Roy, believe "not only is another world possible, on a quiet day I can hear her breathing", those of us who believe in people, not governments, will continue to work to welcome this new world.


Action, as always, is required and is the antidote of despair. Boycotts, divestments and sanctions as well as reaching out with education to others.

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD