Photo credit: Unknown
Date taken: April 4, 2013
Location: Palestine
Alaa Al-Ali hugs his mother for the first time in twelve years after being released from an Israel prison earlier this week. His family hails from the village of Silwan along the outskirts of Jerusalem’s Old City. [Read more...]
What. This was his actual response.
Apparently Jewish Agency official Avi Mayer knows best. Dispossessed Palestinians should be relieved that they don’t have to face traffic jams. Palestinians not allowed to drive on Jewish-only or settler-only roads (which Mayer doesn’t believe exist) are lucky they get to use roads leading through — or stopping at — personally invasive security checks and military checkpoints. Thank you for saving us, colonists.
I’m not allowed into the West Bank. Neither is Nour, a Palestinian-American schoolteacher who teaches English to students in Ramallah. Wedad and millions of other Palestinians are also kept out. But hey, they “aren’t missing out on much,” thank God.
Most times, I really hate to do this. I hate to have to bring things like this to your attention. I hate that things like this even exist, or that you will spend the evening resisting the urge to replay this in your head.
The twenty second clip above shows Israeli soldiers wrestling a Palestinian boy to the ground. You can hear him shouting for the beating to stop. “Khalas,” he says. “Khalas.” A soldier punches him in the face. His head hits the concrete floor. He’s identified later as 17-year-old Hasan Al-Afifi.
The worst sound is the thud you hear when two human beings make contact, forcefully. The soft clap that precedes it acknowledges that contact has been made. Skin on skin. The thud that comes next screams of a vague but sharp pain. And while you may not literally hear a scream, the agony is there. You know it’s there because you feel it in your gut where it lingers.
Israeli special military forces raided the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem today. Hasan, who had been standing outside of his home uninvolved in any confrontations, was beaten and his mother, who had attempted to shield her son, was teargassed. He was sent to an interrogation complex. She passed out.
Visit the Electronic Intifada for more detailed coverage.
I spent the weekend at the Islamic Society of North America’s national convention, this year held in Washington, D.C, where I volunteered at the American Muslims for Palestine booth and tried my hardest to sell little handmade souvenirs. It was both a fun experience and a sad one—fun because I discovered that I do not belong in a bazaar setting, and sad because, well, the Palestinian cause felt overwhelmingly neglected and misunderstood.
I know that this kind of convention isn’t the most ideal place to gauge the general public’s interest in Palestine but I do believe that, for the segment of the American public it does attract, it’s a great opportunity to share and discuss points of relation to the cause. For Muslims worldwide, Jerusalem is not only the occupied capital of Palestine but it is also the site of the third holiest mosque.
The remainder of this post will include reflections on quotes from some of the conference attendees I met during my time at the booth.
“It’s still not over? I thought Palestine and Israel became peaceful.” — High school student
It’d only take a quick glance at Google News or any other general news site to learn that no, the occupation isn’t over yet. Let there be no illusion about it: there is no peace and there won’t be any—and justifiably so—until all human rights are restored and protected and until Israel abides by international law and takes down the apartheid regime it has pitted against the Palestinian people.
“I’m with the Palestinians but I really hate that they think everything is about them.” — College student
I remember wishing he would’ve articulated that better. He revealed that he had only recently begun to learn about Palestine and its history mostly because, he sheepishly admitted, a classmate he had once eyed for marriage was Palestinian. So what prompted his comment? Palestinians, he said, choose to be too unrelatable and self-interested. The more I dwell on his comments, the more I realize how harsh they are. Yes, there’s a general exclusivity among certain Palestinians but that is to be found in any movement really. I’d even argue that it has little to do with selfishness and much more to do with an unpreparedness to build bridges with allied movements. Of course, this is still a problem and it’s one that needs to be addressed internally and reversed externally. But these connections are a two-way thing and it is important that both sides tackle the perceived exclusivity, not just complain about it at a convention that barely addresses Palestine at all. (Only one of the more than one hundred sessions offered at ISNA this year touched on Palestine—briefly too, because the session was mostly about foreign policy as it relates to the Middle East as a whole.) [Read more...]
It all started with a simple question.
Earlier today, Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the Jerusalem Fund, published on op-ed in the New York Times, known for its shaky and scandalous coverage of Palestine-Israel over the last few years. His op-ed focuses on a harsh but true reality: institutionalized discrimination in Israel. Munayyer, a Palestinian who holds Israeli citizenship, and his wife, a Palestinian from Nablus, are not equals.
Even if we fly together to Amman, we are forced to take different bridges, two hours apart, and endure often humiliating waiting and questioning just to cross into Israel and the West Bank. The laws conspire to separate us.
Yousef Munayyer, ‘Not All Israeli Citizens Are Equal‘, New York Times
It’s a profound op-ed, an interesting read, and a controversial piece simply because it exposes facts that are so often hidden to everyday readers. So when I asked if Jodi Rudoren, the new Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the New York Times, if she was going to to tweet about this op-ed the way she normally does with other pieces concerning Palestine-Israel, her response stumped me. [Read more...]
Guest contribution by Dena Elian
If Palestine were a human body, its women would be the heart. Although sometimes we forget how hard it works, it operates 24 hours a day, pumping the blood and oxygen necessary for us to live. And like generations, each heartbeat relies on the one before it in order to continue. It’s a sequence that will make us stronger if we maintain it.
Today marks the 101st anniversary of Women’s Day. While the woman of today may be a different woman than her grandmother, let us remember that we owe the achievements of the present to the steadfastness of the past. Take today to honor the she-roes of yesterday, without whom today’s Palestinian resistance would cease to exist.
My grandmother, Tamam Sbaih, was 19 years old when Israel waged war on Palestine on June 5, 1967. She and my grandfather lived atop the Mountain of Olives; a region quickly flooded with Israeli tanks and soldiers due to its close proximity to Jerusalem’s Old City. On the first day of six when the war cries had reached the mountain, residents took hold of their children and whatever valuables they fit in their pockets. In a panic, they hastily fled by foot as they sought refuge while they still had the chance.
An expecting mother at the time, my grandmother worried that choosing to stay or to go could likely end in the same fate. She was 7 months along and had there been a criteria for physical suitability to evade your home with the desperate anticipation of seeing another day, she surely wouldn’t have met the requirement. [Read more...]
On the final day of classes before exam week was set to begin, the name Al Aqsa Mosque emerged from a pile of terms my classmates were asked to define. One student outlined its significance in Islamic history, another mentioned its construction date, and another, in a seemingly arrogant tone, explained that she had been yelled at for getting too near to the compound, that although she had not visited during the appropriate tour hours, she felt unwelcome.
My immediate thoughts:
You were yelled at for getting too close to Al Aqsa Mosque? I’m yelled at for even attempting to reach Jerusalem. You missed your tour time? My “tour” ended in the summer of 2004. At age 13, I watched an Israeli soldier arbitrarily force my aunt, who was born and raised under occupation in Palestine, to wait at a checkpoint until she was ultimately denied entry. I returned the very next day, this time with a different relative, and was lucky to be granted permission to visit a limited number of districts in Jerusalem before my permission expired in a matter of hours. I and my family members — immediate and distant — are no longer allowed to pray at the Dome of the Rock or to see Al Aqsa Mosque in the flesh. In fact, we aren’t even allowed in the West Bank. No more tours for me. [Read more...]
Student activists at the University of Chicago stands in solidarity with the Palestinian Freedom Riders challenging Israeli apartheid in the occupied territories and towards its minority populations
CHICAGO, IL (November 15, 2011)—On November 15, Palestinians in the West Bank will reenact the U.S. Civil Rights Movement’s Freedom Rides in the American South by boarding segregated Israeli public transportation and traveling to occupied East Jerusalem. By nonviolently challenging the apartheid that governs their lives, Palestinian students, activists, and community members demand their right to justice and self-determination. As members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Chicago, we stand with them.
SJP at the University of Chicago is founded on the principles of human rights, justice, and self-sovereignty. This ethic transcends cultural, religious, and geopolitical boundaries, and the Freedom Rides of the 1960s serve as a model example of SJP’s ultimate mission to restore and promote the dignity and equality of all people. It is this very same ethic that compels us to stand with the Freedom Riders in Palestine who seek to challenge the status quo, the segregation, the apartheid, and the blatant violation of human and civil rights reminiscent of the daunting actions of the original Freedom Riders.
The Freedom Riders’ intentional act of defiance against the systematic apartheid enforced by Israel within the occupied Palestinian territories and against its minority populations carries significant risk. It is possible that the activists will be arrested for months or years without trial, as is common under Israeli martial law, and it is plausible that their nonviolent actions will be met with violence from both Israeli soldiers and illegal settlers. But as Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his letter from Birmingham jail, “we know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” We stand in solidarity with the newest generation of Freedom Riders who refuse to shrink in the face of immense risk and oppression. [Read more...]
Guest contribution by Dina Elmuti
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...]
Excellent sentence by The Guardian on Stephen Hawking’s boycott of Israel (with bonus at the end)
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...]