Sixteen Minutes to Palestine

Alicia Keys is making a bad decision

June 11, 2013 By Sami Kishawi 3 Comments

Alicia Keys is scheduled to perfom in Tel Aviv on July 4. An international campaign calling on the talented and conscious Keys to cancel her concert in Apartheid Israel is gaining momentum.

Earlier today, Palestinian-American leaders and community activists delivered a petition signed by over 12,000 to Alicia Keys’ nonproft charity in New York City. The day before, Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of New Mexico released a video (see above) “inspired by the Palestinian women who every day nonviolently resist the illegal occupation of their land,” the video description says.

Below is a press release detailing the recent efforts to show Keys why she must cancel her show:

Rights Advocates Deliver 12,000 Signature Petition Asking Alicia Keys to Cancel Israel Show

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 11, 2013, New York, NY – A delegation of Palestinian-Americans, representing coalitions of over 500 US organizations, delivered a petition today signed by over 12,000 people to the New York City office of Alicia Keys’ nonprofit fighting HIV/AIDS, Keep a Child Alive, calling on Keys to cancel her July 4th concert in Israel. The petition asked Keys “to stand on the side of justice and cancel her gig in Tel Aviv, Israel,” and to “join us now in the cultural boycott of Israel, and help stop entertaining apartheid. The petition’s 12,000+ plus signers outnumber the audience expected to attend her Tel Aviv show. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Activism, News Tagged With: Alicia Keys, Apartheid, BDS, Boycott, Israel, New York, Palestine, South Africa, Tel Aviv

Palestinian necklaces of clove

June 11, 2013 By Guest Contributor 1 Comment

Guest contribution by Wedad Yassin

Clove Necklace - W Yassin 1

Summertime is wedding season. But for many Palestinian-Americans, the season brings out more than just parties.

During my last semester in college, I wrote my Bachelor’s thesis on the Palestinian Diaspora in America. My research and writing was based on fifteen interviews of Palestinian-Americans across the country and focused on identity and culture. When presented with the question, What aspect of your life would you say is clearly Palestinian? the most common answer, expectedly, was food. But the second most common answer – weddings – was more of what I was expecting.

Living in a land so far from Palestine and feeling the need to preserve one’s identity and history forces one to sacrifice many things on both sides of the cultural spectrum in order to live a balanced enough life. Nevertheless, I feel the easiest way to keep the Palestinian cultural identity alive and well is through our weddings.

Families have taken the smallest of cultural practices and preserved them from summer to summer through our wedding festivities. Although we may have adopted the Western white dress and fancy banquets, many traditions still thrive in different parts of the wedding process. The most outward example is the henna party where traditional attire is worn, folk songs are sung, and traditional jewelry is also worn. Writing about the Palestinian wedding experience would take more space than we could afford but there is a tradition I want to bring attention too, a tradition that I feel has become forgotten in my circles of Palestinian-American life and is not celebrated as much as others. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture, Guest Contribution, Photo Set Tagged With: Al-Ram, Cloves, Marriage

Scenes from the invasion

June 6, 2013 By Sami Kishawi Leave a Comment

You are in the dining room. Your husband is on his way to purchase bread and a treat for the kids if something in the street vendor’s crate of candy bars catches his eye. Two of your children are at school. The third is young still. She sleeps comfortably on her stomach, thumb-in-mouth, on your bed.

The first crash startles you. It sounds different, nearer. The second crash rattles the building. The little one races to you as you do your best to steady tipping objects.

You do the unthinkable. You set her down in the middle of the room and run to the door. Your head pokes out but only for a brief second. Maybe your husband is on his way back and you can see that he’s safe or at least alive. But the third crash forces you to shut your door.

The children are still at school. You can’t help but panic but you know how easily your youngest child breaks down at any sign of fear on mama’s face. You stroke her hair as she sits in your lap. Every couch and seat and cushion in the house is empty. You are sitting on a rug in the middle of your living room, far enough from the windows so that you won’t get cut when they shatter but close enough to characterize of the smoke. Thick means close; thin means far.

For many, these were the opening moments of Israel’s invasion on the Gaza Strip in December 2008. The invasion would last for 22 days, increasing in intensity as it wore on. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: Family, Gaza Strip, Operation Cast Lead

D.C. activists disrupt Olmert speech, call for his arrest for war crimes

June 5, 2013 By Sami Kishawi Leave a Comment

D.C.-based activists disrupted a speech by former Israeli Primer Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday, pointing to Olmert’s role in authorizing the 2008-2009 invasion of Gaza that left 1,400 people dead, including hundreds of women and children.

Olmert had been invited to speak at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., a recognized think tank emphasizing research and dialogue in national and foreign policy. A lone panelist, Olmert was asked to share his opinion on Syria’s civil war, Israel’s heightened tension with Iran, the Arab Spring, and the future of Israel-Palestine relations.

Throughout his lecture, community and student activists stood up and walked out, revealing facts, statistics, and personal experiences relating to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Olmert attempted to dismiss the disruptions in a few cases by jokingly praising democracy at work. In one specific case, although the audio isn’t entirely audible, it appears as though he questioned one activist’s declared identity as Palestinian. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Activism, News Tagged With: Ehud Olmert, Israel, Operation Cast Lead, Palestine, Wilson Center

Irony and dilemma concerning Newseum’s decision to reverse plan to commemorate slain Palestinian journalists

May 14, 2013 By Sami Kishawi 1 Comment

The Newseum, a Washington, DC news museum, announced plans last week to memorialize 84 journalists killed in the line of duty in 2012. Included among the list of honored journalists were Mahmoud Al-Kumi and Hussam Salama who worked for Al-Aqsa TV when an Israeli air strike on November 20, 2012, killed them and at least four others. Al-Kumi and Salama were covering the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip when a missile hit their vehicle.

Al-Aqsa TV is the state television network for the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip.

The Newseum’s announcement drew harsh criticism from conservative and pro-Israel groups including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) which issued a nasty statement belittling the lives of these journalists by calling their employer “not a legitimate news organization”.

On Monday, the Newseum unveiled the memorial. Instead of 84 names, it included only 82. The Newseum caved to the pressure and Al-Kumi and Salama’s names had been removed.

In a shoddy attempt at balanced news coverage of the Newseum controversy, a concept seemingly unfamiliar to Fox News, Fox decided to make its own judgment call by labeling the two Palestinian journalists as “operatives” working for Hamas. Ironically, the article headline begins with the question, “Terrorists or journalists?” as if Fox was actually going to approach the issue appropriately, tactfully, accurately, and intelligently. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Commentary, Media & Journalism, News Tagged With: Abraham Foxman, Anti-Defamation League, Fox News, Gaza Strip, Hamas, Hussam Salama, Iran, Israel, Mahmoud Al-Kumi, Newseum

To Israel, one man’s journalist is another man’s terrorist

May 13, 2013 By Guest Contributor 1 Comment

Guest contribution by Deanna Othman

As Palestinians prepare to mark the 65th anniversary of al-Nakba on May 15, the date that symbolizes the beginning of the methodical dispossession and oppression of Palestinians, they have been greeted with a slap in the face by Washington, DC’s Newseum in another attempt to delegitimize and stifle their struggle.

The Newseum, which features exhibits both on news history and contemporary media technology, announced the names of 82 journalists who died covering the news in 2012, and added them to the Newseum’s Journalists Memorial in a ceremony held May 13 in the Journalists Memorial Gallery. Among the honored were Marie Colvin and Anthony Shadid, who both died in Syria.

Absent from the list of 82 journalists were an additional two names originally slated to be included — Hussam Salama and Mahmoud Al-Kumi, who were doing camera work for Al-Aqsa TV when they were killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza in November 2012.

The Newseum announced Monday that the museum will “re-evaluate their inclusion as journalists on our memorial wall pending further investigation.”

Although many held out the hope that the Newseum would stand by its decision, it is a grave disappointment, but not a complete surprise, that yet another institution that purports to celebrate diversity of voices has caved under Zionist pressure. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Commentary, Guest Contribution, Media & Journalism, News, Opinion Tagged With: Abraham Foxman, Al-Aqsa TV, Anti-Defamation League, Hamas, Hussam Salama, Israel, Journalism, Mahmoud Al-Kumi, Newseum

BDS campaign leaders convene in Chicago for public lecture

May 10, 2013 By Sami Kishawi Leave a Comment

On Tuesday, May 14, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Chicago will be hosting a lecture panel on the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement gaining traction around the world.

Palestinian civil society initiated the BDS call in 2005. Since then, countless high profile figures, artists, institutions, and organizations have cut or withdrawn connections with Israel until Israel complies with international and human rights law. If it’s any indication of how relevant and effective BDS is, Professor Stephen Hawking announced his backing of the boycott movement earlier this week.

The event, titled “From South Africa to Israel: The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement”, features Sherry Wolf, a prominent journalist and activist; Rabbi Brant Rosen, leader of the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston; and Andrew Kadi, a digital media specialist involved in regional organizing. The three speakers will relate today’s BDS movement to previous boycott campaigns, showing how BDS can be effectively applied and advocated on campuses and beyond.

For more information, visit the event’s Facebook page.

The event is co-sponsored by the Jewish Voice for Peace chapter at the University of Chicago and is part of SJP’s annual Nakba Commemoration. The event is free and open to the public.

Filed Under: Activism Tagged With: BDS, Nakba, SJP, Stephen Hawking, University of Chicago

Excellent sentence by The Guardian on Stephen Hawking’s boycott of Israel (with bonus at the end)

May 10, 2013 By Sami Kishawi 2 Comments

World-renouned theoretical physicist Professor Stephen Hawking joined the boycott of Israel on Tuesday by withdrawing from a conference hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem.

The announcement was met with ferocious (and nonsensical) pressure from backers of Israel’s occupation. In one case, an Israeli law firm, Shurat HaDin, condemned Hawking’s decision to join the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as “hypocritical”, arguing that the computers he uses contain technology designed by Israeli tech engineers.

Rather than addressing Hawking’s concern about the rights of Palestinians as well as Israel’s frequent and disproportionate use of force against Palestinian civilians, the critics chose instead to bring attention to Israeli technological or scientific contributions. It is as if these advancements grant Israel free reign to violate international law (via settlement building, occupation, etc.), civil rights (via minority rights, race-based deportations, etc.), and human rights (via movement restrictions, incarceration of children, etc.).

Luckily, Hawking isn’t bending. Whitewashing and rebranding Israeli human rights and international law violations, and attempting to guilt BDS advocates by skewing the focus of the boycott call is wholly unsuccessful. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Commentary, News Tagged With: Avi Mayer, BDS, Human Rights, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestine, Shimon Peres, Stephen Hawking

What can we do to keep even more from being lost in Syria?

May 7, 2013 By Sami Kishawi 1 Comment

Human and civil rights need to be restored in Syria. To accomplish this, Bashar Al-Assad and his regime need to go. The regime’s replacements must be dignified, honest, just, and completely in contrast to the “leaders” Syria has seen in decades past. The destruction needs to end, and in its wake shall be a new era of Syrian history, a new body of Syrian pride that refuses to mirror any element of previous oppressive rules.

This much is clear. The sane and the rational agree on this end. But so many questions remain. What about the means? How do we get there? Is U.S intervention — historically problematic and guided by self-interest — the ultimate solution? Will Israeli air strikes on Syrian territory — an affront to Syria’s national autonomy regardless of what the targets may be — bring the end to within our reach? Should we just wait it out — death tolls climbing and all — and pray the opposition continues its slow but certain advance against regime strongholds?

And how about when we cover it, do we keep calling it a revolution or do we call it a civil war? Can it be both? At this point in time, considering the number of fallen civilians, of new refugees, of destroyed relics, is it both? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Activism, Personal Tagged With: Bashar Al-Assad, Revolution, Syria

The official story all Palestinian parents tell their kids

May 3, 2013 By Sami Kishawi 1 Comment

Palestinian parents are different, sure. I think we use the word ‘unique’ now. But for some odd and unexplainable reason, they all tell identical stories about their lives back home to make us Palestinian children feel guilty about our apparently luxurious lives here. Many of us have grown increasingly suspicious about the nature of this story, but until we can formally figure out how they are all able to recite the same story, here it is in full:

“Ya baba (or ya mama, depending on which parent is telling the story), when I was your age I used to walk over mountains. I never had the privileges you and your friends have. You wish it doesn’t take you an hour to get to school? Consider yourself lucky. Back in my day I used to walk three miles up a hill, barefoot, over Israeli tanks and broken glass, just to get to school. I would have to wake up before fajr. And when school finished, I would walk another three miles up the same hill, barefoot still, over more tanks and glass. Dinner was a single zaytoona and I would always save the pit so I could play glool with the neighbors. When it was time to do homework, I lit the candle and shared a desk with my fifteen brothers, sisters, and cousins. I also had just one notebook throughout all my years in school. At the start of each year, I would erase all of the pages and use them again. Sometimes I didn’t even have an eraser because it fell down the hill I climbed to school or back home. You have too many luxuries.”

Mind you, this story is typically shared once the parent sits on the fancy sofa his or her children are not allowed to sit on.

Filed Under: Culture, Miscellaneous, Personal Tagged With: Parents