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Palestine, my dear love

February 14, 2012 By 2 Comments

Guest contribution by Deena Kishawi

A Valentine's Day donkey in the Gaza Strip

My dear love,

I write this letter to you on February 14 otherwise known as Valentine’s Day. As I walk through the halls of my high school, I see every typical thing you’d expect to see on Valentine’s Day. The popular girl walking with a huge teddy bear holding chocolate roses, the ‘I love you’ balloons tied to backpacks, the bouquet of flowers or boxes of chocolates in the hands of students as they rush to class. I also see a fair share of boyfriends sneaking flowers into their girlfriend’s lockers. I see couples who purposefully dressed in the same color or even the same shoes just to match with each other. But what I don’t see today is my true dear love. I haven’t seen you today. And I haven’t seen you for eight months, since the last time I saw you on July 16, 2011.

Palestine, I love you with all my heart. Better yet, you are my heart. My blood flows to your beat every second of every minute of the day. I’d be helpless without you. Palestine, you are my pride. My joy. My love. My life. You give me a reason to keep fighting every day. You are my true love and I will always have you. I don’t need to see you every day of my life to stay in love with you. I saw you for a whole month and I could never get enough of seeing you. I even began packing ten months in advance! I couldn’t help it. I needed that visit to be the best one, and alhamdulillah, it was. Alhamdulillah. [Read more...]

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Silence: The Turnover at PennBDS

February 13, 2012 By 1 Comment

Guest contribution by Bayan Founas

In preparation for the National BDS (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions) Conference that took place last weekend at the University of Pennsylvania, there was much controversy regarding the ethics of BDS and its implications of being hosted on the University’s campus. With frank judgment, I anticipated an anti-BDS or pro-Israel type demonstration on campus. Driving there I imagined all sorts of scenarios and confrontations and how I would respond yet only to be dumbfounded by their silence when I arrived to Penn. This shocked me considering how fast media coverage grew as the PennBDS conference approached. I was at least expecting to see a small gathering marked by Israeli flags, but no such activity commenced.

On the second day of the conference we were later informed of anti-BDS advocates present at the conference. Their presence was evident but their attendance was marked by silence. Martin Himel, a Zionist filmmaker, registered as a media attendant later to be discovered posing as a journalist from Canada’s CBC.  Himel uses this mask in an effort to gain an insider’s perspective of the conference, attempting to justify the criticisms PennBDS has received. Another presence was marked by StandWithUs, an anti-Palestine group, at Ali Abunimah’s keynote address. When Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, asked the audience if there were any StandWithUs attendees, the crowd was marked by silence. Himel’s alias and StandWithUs’s silence depict such proponents as cowardly and simply pathetic for creating such negative buzz surrounding the conference to only result in no action. Ironically enough, StandWithUs is notorious for working with Israeli officials to muffle those of the Palestinian cause yet self-silenced themselves here. [Read more...]

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Interview: Nakba survivor relives his last moments in ethnically-cleansed Saffuriyya

February 9, 2012 By 3 Comments

Guest contribution by Danya M.

Overhead they heard sounds of air planes dropping explosives onto the village, soldiers shooting up in the air and at those who dared to defend themselves, screams of women and children not knowing what to do, and the noise of panicking civilians running from their homes.

This was the scene on July 16, 1948, exactly two months after the establishment of the state of Israel. Before that night, Saffuriyya was a thriving agricultural village with thousands of years of history behind it. Saffuriyya was once was a blossoming village overlaying a hilltop, but now only remnants of destroyed buildings show from underneath the unhistorical trees planted by the Jewish National Fund in order to cover up what was once a rich and beautiful history.

A local resident whose family came from Saffuriyya holds a picture of the village in 1945. (Courtesy of Danya M.)

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Left behind at the scene of the crime: Israel wages war on Bil’in

January 30, 2012 By 2 Comments

Photos by Wedad Yassin

Weeks ago, Wedad Yassin traveled back to Ein Yabrud, a village near Ramallah in the West Bank, to visit her family and to experience Palestine’s rich cultural heritage. Her intention had been to tour through the Al-Khalil district, Ramallah, Bil’in, and Jerusalem. However, she was denied entry to Jerusalem. Nevertheless, Yassin explored Bil’in, site of the weekly demonstrations against Israel’s apartheid wall, and came across this jam’iyya or association dedicated to “enhancing and reviving Palestinian culture along with documenting Israeli crimes”.

Included is a series of photographs from Yassin’s visit to this center. Each of the shells, bullet casings, and projectiles featured in these images were collected over time by the members of this jam’iyya after they were used against unarmed protesters during the demonstrations in Bil’in. Israeli forces continue to use live ammunition, rubber bullets, and USA-made tear gas canisters against the Bil’in activists on a regular basis and have designated the area a military zone to allow soldiers to treat the civilians as hostile combatants.

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U of Michigan students to dismantle the myths of Israeli democracy

January 24, 2012 By 1 Comment

This Thursday, January 26, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) at the University of Michigan — Ann Arbor will be bringing renown author, journalist, and commentator Ali Abunimah for a groundbreaking lecture discussing, “Colonial Reality: Dismantling the Myths of Israeli Democracy. Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, will address the campus community on the reality of Israel’s claim as the region’s only beacon of light, a terms it regularly assigns to itself. (Editor’s note: Event information can be found at the end of this post.)

Rhetoric surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict has continuously revolved around the argument that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. Such claims are not only false and biased, but have harsh implications in terms of the public opinion regarding the question of Palestine. These falsehoods propagated by the media and other outlets have lead to the pardoning of Israel for their blatant racist, discriminatory and colonizing practices and have characterized the Israeli government as the only nation in the Middle East that has any promising future because of its democratic ideals. These falsehoods lead to the Israeli exceptionalism that we see so often. Forgetting about the war crimes, violations of international law, illegal occupation and ethnic cleansing of a people, we see figures of power praising Israel for democratic traits they do not truly possess. We hope that this event will shine light on the realities of the that most college-age students at a public university may never hear. This topic is crucial because it will, as the title suggests, dismantle the myths that have been propagating popular opinion. [Read more...]

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Baking political

December 5, 2011 By 1 Comment

News of Sixteen Minutes to Palestine’s winter cupcake contest inspired in me fond thoughts of a passionate, savory poem I’d read once by the marvelous German anti-Nazi dramatist and poet, Bertolt Brecht. (His poem, “The Bread of the People”, is included at the bottom of this post.)

I am continually humbled by the role that food and culture—really everything in everyday life—plays in political thought and action. I lament that this role is not overtly appreciated or highlighted enough.

SMP’s bake-off has the potential to remind us that baking can be a political act.

It is miraculous that the abundant fruits of the earth can be kneaded, caressed, shaped and formed into fiery servings of sustenance that arms the body and feeds the soul with whatever content is baked within: existence, growth, desire, struggle, resistance, self-determination, justice, freedom. In “Bread of the People”, Brecht so seamlessly interweaves into the senses of the reader several crisp, ordinary feelings of bread and politics that, immediately, within a few lines, these ideas of bread and justice become indistinguishable. After all, there is a deep-seated cultural knowledge of bread and baking that is immemorial to people, because it is often perennial in our upbringing. The effect of the metaphor itself is strongest as a representation of solidarity between these two seemingly unlike things, that their merging is that much more special and meaningful.

The collective strength of family and community rises from the ingredients of sympathy and solidarity, and sharing this act together animates these feelings within everyone. To such an extent that to bake and dine together is a way of maintaining strength especially through times of social struggle.

So, I hope that when those of you who are planning and executing your delectable political activities, with the oven as your weapon, this poem may bring you a warm and sweet delight that you can feel in the soft pit of your gut.

Gabriel Matthew Schivone

Gabriel Matthew Schivone is a Chicano-Jewish American from Tucson, AZ, and an organizer on the ad hoc steering committee of Students for Justice in Palestine National Conference 2011. He was a passenger aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla 2. E-mail: gschivon@asu.edu. Twitter: @GSchivone.

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Filed Under: Activism, Arts & Culture, Guest Contribution, Personal Tagged With: ,

A Visual Chronology of the Freedom Rides

November 16, 2011 By 2 Comments

Photos by Dena Elian

On November 15, 2011, six Palestinian Freedom Riders boarded a settler-only bus traveling to occupied East Jerusalem to openly challenge Israel’s apartheid policies towards Palestinians and its minority populations. The following is a visual chronology of the events.

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SJP Conference 2011: A Chronological Photo Tour

October 24, 2011 By 5 Comments

Photos by Sara Jawhari

A street vendor’s food stand reads “From Tahrir Square, Egypt, to Liberty Park, New York”. Students attending the National Students for Justice (SJP) Conference joined the Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park.

Rhoda Ann Kanaaneh and Mahmood Mamdani address the audience during the SJP Conference’s opening and keynote address at Columbia Univeristy.

Mahmood Mamdani details Israel’s apartheid policies during the keynote address for the first ever National SJP Conference. [Read more...]

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Remembering Mama Hind and her lasting legacy on the Palestinian struggle

September 22, 2011 By 1 Comment

From the horrific atrocities committed in the Sabra and Shatila Massacre to the tragic, untimely death of world-renowned scholar and prominent Palestinian activist Professor Edward Said, who lost his battle to leukemia, September has long-been a month of aching loss for Palestine. This Palestinian narrative is not new; tragedy and injustice have permeated Palestinian national life for over six decades now, but there does exist a tale of immeasurable hope, the rebirth of a new Palestinian landscape at the hands of a legendary Palestinian heroine.

Exactly one year after the signing of the ill-fated Oslo Accords, the Palestinian people witnessed another great loss when Hind Al-Husseini lost her strenuous battle with lymphoma. But even until her very last breath on September 13, 1994, she never once conceded defeat in her lifetime battle against the oppression of the Palestinian people.

As I write this, I wonder how I could possibly begin to describe this remarkable woman who profoundly impacted countless lives including my very own. No words, accolade, or film could ever do adequate justice to honor this champion of justice. To Mama Hind, as she was affectionately known – the mother, advocate, teacher, and social worker who devoted her life to saving, educating, and inspiring generations of Palestine’s youth, who gave a warm home to the homeless, an empowering voice to the voiceless, and a lasting legacy filled with the indestructible asset of hope to Palestine, I will forever be indebted. [Read more...]

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Recognizing common humanity ten years later

September 11, 2011 By 3 Comments

I was a freshman in high school—in first period art class—when it happened. Half way through, Alan, a kid in my class, received a text and told everyone that the Japanese had attacked us. We didn’t take him seriously, particularly because Alan had a reputation for being the class clown. I brushed it off.

In second period, I was in honors biology class. Our teacher, Ms. O’Donnell, explained to us what happened. “They attacked New York,” she said, in a voice that was calm on the surface but had worrying undertones. She proceeded to roll out a TV and turn on the news. As we watched, one of the twin towers collapsed. All of us were completely in shock, sitting wide-eyed in silence. Finally, a student raised her hand and broke the silence.

“Who did this? I heard it was the Japanese. Are they trying to get back at us for bombing them all these years later?”

Yup, that was the rumor at my school.

“Hun, I don’t know who did this. I wish I knew,” Ms. O’Donnell replied. Ms. O’Donnell was the teacher who we always looked to for all the answers, but this time she didn’t have any. No one did. We were all afraid and although she tried her best to hide her emotions, so was she.

During third period English, we would hear the intercom go off every five minutes or so, calling down students whose parents were waiting for them at the principal’s office, ready to take them home.

By fourth period lunch, the school was half empty. The cafeteria was eerily quiet.

By fifth period physical education class, everyone was so consumed with fear that we weren’t allowed to go outside for our usual soccer activities. My P.E. teacher warned, “Chicago might be next. We have to play it safe, guys.” And somehow, that meant our small, southwest suburban school about forty minutes from Chicago might get attacked along with the Sears Tower. [Read more...]

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