Ce sont parfois des incidents qui, à première vue, paraissent anodins qui nous donnent une idée sur les véritables pensées des hommes et des femmes qui dirigent notre pays. De tels incidents se sont produits récemment lorsque le gouvernement de Stephen Harper n’a pas réagi à l’entrée au pays de la commentatrice américaine d’extrême-droite, Ann Coulter, pendant que notre gouvernement émettait très en retard un visa d’entrée à Moustapha Barghouti, citoyen pacifiste palestinien.

Pour comprendre le sens de ces événements qui peuvent paraître anodins, il est important de savoir ce que ces personnes véhiculent dans leur discours respectif. Ce qu’ils disent en public reflète leurs valeurs et leurs pensées.

Ann Coulter se décrit comme une « conservatrice » américaine. Ce terme englobe un vaste éventail politique qui va du conservatisme classique aux franges les plus extrémistes de la droite américaine. Pour mieux apprécier Ann Coulter, je me suis permis de traduire quelques-unes de ses déclarations au sujet de sa conférence avortée à l’Université d’Ottawa:

« On ne m’a pas donné d’exemples au sujet des mots et des phrases que je n’étais pas autorisée à prononcer, mais je crois comprendre que je ne devais pas dire » « Va te faire foutre, François » (F--- you, Francois.) (…) en lisant la lettre de François, je me suis soudainement aperçue que j’étais victime d’un crime haineux. Ce geste était commis par Francois A. Houle (français pour « Frank A. Hole »). (…) Est-ce que François A. Houle avait envoyé une lettre semblable à Omar Barghouti, une personne qui haït Israël, avant qu’il ne prononce sa conférence l’an dernier à l’Université d’Ottawa. (« Ottawa : mot indien qui signifie : « Pays de ceux qui pissent au lit »). 1

Ces quelques extraits enlèvent toute crédibilité à celle qui est régulièrement invitée aux réseaux américains de télévision pour cracher son fiel qu’on tente de faire passer pour du commentaire politique.

D’autres parts, voici le discours qu’articule Moustapha Barghouti, leader palestinien qui prévoyait prendre la parole en différentes villes canadiennes. Il n’a pu le faire étant donné que le gouvernement canadien lui a livré très tard son visa de séjour amputant ainsi toutes possibilités pour lui de faire ses arrangements de voyage.

« (…) en tant que docteur, je peux vous affirmer qu’une des pires erreurs que peut commettre un médecin, c’est de confondre les symptômes et les causes d’une maladie. S’il les confond, il court le risque de tuer le patient. Or, dans leur pratique de la propagande, les Israéliens mélangent fort habilement les symptômes et les causes. Ainsi, presque tout ce que les médias rapportent sur le conflit israélo-palestinien a trait à la violence. Mais ils oublient de dire que la violence n’est qu’un simple symptôme, l’expression d’un malaise, une manifestation produite par quelque chose d’autre, par une cause. Et ils rappellent rarement que la cause de cette violence est l’occupation israélienne. Ils omettent de préciser que – comme, par exemple, en France de 1940 à 1944 – l’occupation elle-même constitue la pire des violences. » 2

Donc, d’un côté nous avons une personne qui manie fort bien l’art des déclarations fracassantes qui excitent les passions et de l’autre, une personne rationnelle qui sait analyser une situation, la décortiquer et l’expliquer à la population.

Pourquoi donc une personne a-t-elle le champ libre de dire ce qu’elle veut, alors que l’autre est confrontée aux obstacles administratifs, prétexte facile du gouvernement, pour empêcher l’information de se rendre au public ?

Pour se faire, il faut comprendre ce qu’est le Parti Réformiste du Canada qui a réussi à prendre le manteau du parti conservateur pour se déguiser tout en s’accaparant une certaine légitimité qu’il utilise pour déplacer le discours public canadien vers la droite et l’extrême-droite comme c’est le cas au sud de la frontière. Ce discours a sa base à Calgary et c’est à partir de ce lieu qu’on essaie maintenant de propager « la bonne parole » extrémiste vers d’autres villes du Canada, Ottawa consistant le nerf névralgique puisque la capitale politique du pays est occupée par la confrérie réformiste qui n’a de cesse de se limer les dents pour un jour mordre la proie à mort si leur espoir de constituer un gouvernement majoritaire se concrétise.

L’idéologie de cette droite extrême s’exprime de diverses manières. La prise de position idéologique des réformistes se manifeste particulièrement dans le cas d’Israël, alors qu’on tente d’associer toute critique de cet état qui pratique l’apartheid contre les Palestiniens à de l’antisémitisme. On voit aussi les coupes draconiennes qui sont pratiquées par ce gouvernement aux organismes qui défendent les droits de la personne et des Palestiniens.

Si le racisme de l’État d’Israël devient une cause que défendent avec véhémence les membres du parti réformiste du Canada, cela nous permet alors de comprendre pourquoi on permet à Coulter de venir répandre sa hargne et sa haine chez nous, alors qu’on empêche un pacifiste d’expliquer au public canadien les causes de cette hargne et de cette haine. Ainsi, cet incident nous révèle la pensée profonde des hommes et des femmes qui nous gouvernent présentement à Ottawa.

1 : Coulter, Ann, Oh, Canada !, March 24, 2010, http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/article.cgi?article=361
2 : Ramonet, Ignacio, Entretien avec le Dr Moustapha Barghouti. Pour une résistance de masse non-violente contre Israël, Mars 2008, http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/carnet/2008-05-09-Moustapha-Barghouti

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

Comme la plupart des Canadiens et des Canadiennes, j’entends régulièrement parler du conflit en Palestine qui oppose l’armée d’occupation israélienne à la société civile palestinienne qui résiste farouchement et avec raison à la perte graduelle de son territoire et de ses moyens de survie.

Je me suis intéressé pour la première fois à cette région du monde, alors qu’au secondaire, j’avais fait une présentation sur les efforts du peuple juif pour trouver une terre de refuge visant à leur permettre d’échapper aux persécutions dont ils ont été victimes au cours de l’histoire. À cette époque, bercé par la chanson Inch Allah de Salvatore Adamo et les actes terroristes perpétrés par les différentes factions armées de la résistance palestinienne, je croyais à la noble cause de l’état israélien.

C’est dans ce contexte que je suis donc devenu familier avec la partition de la Palestine en six territoires distincts dont trois attribués aux Palestiniens et trois aux Juifs. Par la suite, une guerre a éclaté entre les deux peuples qui s’est soldée par la victoire juive qui a rapidement débouchée en 1948 sur la Déclaration d’indépendance de l’état d’Israël par David Ben Gourion. Le nouveau pays ainsi créé comprenait maintenant l’ensemble du territoire palestinien. À cette époque, c’était donc la victoire des bons sur les méchants. Le scénario qu’on me présentait était en tout point semblable à ce que nous avons tous vu dans les films de cowboys américains qui proclament les vertu des bons colons blancs qui tentent de développer leurs terres et d’élever leurs bons enfants chrétiens alors qu’ils subissent les attaques répétées des « méchants Indiens ». Ces films nous présentaient les Indiens comme des barbares qui n’ont pas de respect pour la vie, alors qu’on ne disait rien à propos des terres qui leur étaient volés, des massacres qu’ils subissaient et de leur mode de vie qui disparaissaient sous les assauts de la civilisation blanche.

Pendant longtemps, j’ai cru à cette histoire des « bons Israéliens » et des « méchants Palestiniens » comme j’ai cru aux mauvais scénarios des films de cowboys. Avec l’expérience, je sais que c’est une illusion qui est entretenue au sein de la population pour nous empêcher de comprendre ce qui se passe réellement dans cette partie du monde. Il faut, dans un tel contexte, se demander qui profite de notre confusion.

Un jour, j’ai pris conscience que la victoire des uns est devenu la catastrophe (Nakbah) des autres. Avant, pendant et après la guerre de 1948, des centaines de milliers de Palestiniens ont été forcé de fuir leurs villages pour échapper aux persécutions du conflit qui a amené la création de l’état d’Israël. En étant ainsi forcé de quitter leur maison, leurs propriétés, leurs champs et leurs terres, des centaines de milliers de familles palestiniennes ont été condamnées à l’exil. Aujourd’hui encore, leurs enfants ou leurs petits-enfants habitent des camps de réfugiés à Gaza, en Cisjordanie ou au Liban. D’autres ont trouvé refuge en Jordanie, en Syrie, en Irak, en Égypte et dans de nombreux autres pays à travers le monde, dont le Canada. Nombreux sont ceux d’entre eux qui rêvent de retrouver le village de leurs parents ou de leurs grands-parents pour enfin trouver la paix.

Ce rêve reste pour le moment impossible à réaliser pour les réfugiés Palestiniens parce que l’état israélien n’est pas intéressé à les accueillir par millions sur le territoire palestinien qui s’appelle maintenant l’état d’Israël. Nombreux sont ceux en Israël qui ne peuvent même pas songer à un tel scénario parce que la réalité démographique forcerait le peuple juif à remettre en question l’existence de ce qu’ils qualifient « de seul état démocratique au Moyen-Orient ».

Pourtant, les réfugiés palestiniens ont le droit de rentrer chez-eux. C’est leur droit légitime. Quoi que fasse Israël pour résister à cette inexorable réalité, un jour les Palestiniens et les Palestiniennes retourneront dans leurs villes et leurs villages.

C’est à ce moment que le peuple juif devra décider si le pays qui les abrite est vraiment le « seul état démocratique du Moyen-Orient ».

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

In 2006, the world watched as the Palestinian Authority held its first ever elections. The competing parties were Fatah, the incumbent, and Hamas. The elections were monitored by former US President Jimmy Carter and declared free and fair despite Israel's attempts to disrupt them. In a region where incumbent presidents hold make-believe elections and "win" 99.9% of the vote, the Palestinian elections were a remarkable achievement. There was one problem with the elections: the party that won, Hamas.

As soon as the votes were tallied and the results announced, Israel and the West decided that they would isolate the new Palestinian government. Canada, for its part, terminated its funding of projects in the Palestinian territories. When it was apparent the Fatah was not able to strong-arm Hamas in the Palestinian parliament, the West pushed Fatah to take on Hamas militarily. In 2007, there were bloody battles on the streets of Gaza and, in the end, Hamas was able to oust Fatah from Gaza.

Following Hamas's victory, Israel declared a siege on Gaza which, for all intents and purposes, turned Gaza into an open air prison.

Israel's siege of Gaza was not just a military siege; it was a humanitarian siege of the worst kind. Palestinian patients who required medical attention whether inside Israel or the West Bank were barred from seeking such care. Students from Gaza who were studying in West Bank universities, some of whom were in their year of graduation, were expelled back to Gaza by force. This siege was declared by the UN as collective punishment and, hence, a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Even so, in June 2008, Hamas agreed to a ceasefire with Israel.

By late 2008, almost a full two years after the choking siege of Gaza began, in an aim to restore its military deterrence after suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of the lightly armed Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel decided to flex its muscle against the even more lightly armed Hamas. On November 4th, 2008, Israel broke the ceasefire by killing 6 Hamas operatives inside Gaza. Hamas which had, upto this point, fully honoured the ceasefire, responded by firing rockets at Israel. For 22 days, Israel mercilessly bombed everything in sight. It illegally used weapons such as white phosphorus against civilians and destroyed Gaza's infrastructure to "teach" Hamas a lesson. After the assault on Gaza ended, Israel tightened the siege even more, if that was possible.

The combined effects of the siege and the military assault against Gaza left the territory in virtual ruins with no prospects of rebuilding anytime in the near future. There are reports from the United Nations that indicate that the siege, which prohibits the importation of the basic needs of life, is having a very negative effect on the health of the population of Gaza. The tunnels, which are the remaining lifeline to Gaza, are bombed periodically and Egypt, the big sister in the Arab world whose behaviour towards the Palestinians is anything but sisterly, is building an iron barrier on its border with Gaza to choke off the population even more.

The tragedy that is unfolding in Gaza demands an international outcry, condemnation, and sanctions against both Israel and the Egyptian government for their criminal abuse of 1.5 million defenseless civilians, half of whom are children, and whose only crime was to take part in free and fair elections.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

At a town hall meeting this week in Florida President Obama was asked an unusual question – unusual not so much for its candor (who can forget the candid – if misguided – question addressed to McCain by a bemused elderly lady, aghast at the idea that Obama was one of them Ay-rabs?) but for its astuteness: how does Obama explain America’s support for Israel and Egyptian human rights violations when he specifically decried human rights violations in his State of the Union speech last Wednesday night?

It should be of no surprise to the readers of this blog that the answer to this straightforward question was a circuitous non-answer, beginning with something about the entire region being a smoldering brew of human misery and misfortune in the first place, winding around a statement of unwavering support for the “vibrant democracy” that is Israel, and culminating in a very tepid concession to the “legitimate grievances of the Palestinian people”. (The “Egypt” part of the question was tellingly ignored)

It seems the honeymoon days of “Palestine” (the symbolic usage of which James Zogby waxed poetic about in The Huffington Post) are over – we’re back to “the Palestinian people” now.

And, as if most of us didn’t know it already, gone are the days when we could pretend that this time, THIS TIME, it would be different.

Maybe we were so brow-beaten by Bush’s ignorance-plus-arrogance-times-ten combo, or perhaps we were even guilty of some reverse-racism, expecting that an ultra-educated, mixed-race man who probably knows a thing or two about injustice might be prevailed upon to fight for the opposite if given the chance. For whatever reason, we expected more out of Obama. We expected far better than this.

Some will gloat – of course they knew it all along, it doesn’t matter which puppet sits in the Oval Office, the puppeteers remain unchanged. Others will hang their head sheepishly and mutter something about it being the system, not the man. Still others will ask the faithful to persevere, for what weapons do peace activists around the world have but faith and perseverance?

Faith and perseverance are nice, but so are reality checks.

The reality is that no president in recent history had been swept into office with as much optimism, support, and both the mandate and majority to actually change things. And yet, plus ça change…

It may be time, even as the cultural and economic supremacy of the United States is put to the test, for activists, politicians, and all those looking forward to an actual Palestinian state one day to prepare for the next chapter in the Middle East peace process. One that sidesteps the US (and yes – Canada under our current cabinet) in favor of creating alliances (with China? India? Brazil?...) based on leverage and mutual benefit as opposed to begging for table scraps that never come.

Click here for The Huffington Post’s reporting on the event: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/28/obama-asked-why-us-doesnt_n_440816.html

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

On December 15, 2009, it was reported that Tzipi Livni, former foreign minister and current leader of the Kadima party of Israel, cancelled a planned trip to Britain out of concern that an arrest warrant that was issued by a British court for war crimes committed under her watch in Gaza last winter may be enforced. The war crimes charges include the killings of 1,400 civilians as well as a number of rapes that were committed by the Israeli army against the defenceless civilian population of Gaza in contravention of UN resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention. The arrest warrant was issued because the United Kingdom is a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court. It affirms that "most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole must not go unpunished and that their effective prosecution must be ensured by taking measures at the national level and by enhancing international cooperation". It was determined imperative "to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of these crimes and thus to contribute to the prevention of such crimes." The warrant was rescinded shortly thereafter when the court determined that Livni would not be visiting Britain.

An earlier failed attempt was made to issue an arrest warrant for Ehud Barak for war crimes in Gaza but the British court refused to hear the case on the grounds that Barak enjoyed diplomatic immunity. More recently, Ynet News reported that an arrest warrant was issued against Barak in Vienna, Austria on suspicion of committing war crimes.

In response to the British case, the British government made contrite apologies to Israel. Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, made calls to Livni just to tell her that she is still welcome in Britain. British Foreign Secretary, David Milliband, went as far as to suggest that the British criminal code may be amended to remove the power of courts to issue such arrest warrants without the attorney-general's approval. No attempts to change the law have succeeded so far.

It is very encouraging that the crimes committed by Israel with absolute impunity - thanks to the US veto - are starting to generate some long overdue legal repercussions against the perpetrators, whether they are Israeli military leaders or Israeli politicians. Israel has long used its underdog status and global sympathy due to the Holocaust to avoid rebuke. The world is starting to wake up and see that Israel, which has the fourth largest army in the world, is far from being the underdog and is, in fact, a regional superpower. The world is also finally coming to its senses and realising that wrongs, however grave, committed against any group of people, do not, by any means, give them the right to violate the human rights of others.

CJPME calls for the arrest and prosecution of all individuals who are suspected of war crimes whether they are members of Hamas or the Israeli government.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

From time to time I like to watch movies from my childhood that help me rekindle my youth. Although I don’t celebrate Christmas, I think there are some very important lessons of charity and caring exemplified in Christmas movies that that are not stressed at other times of the year. One such movie that I revisited recently was "Scrooged", a 1988 comedy/drama with Bill Murray. Murray plays Frank Cross, portrayed as a modern day Ebenezer Scrooge who runs a TV station in a ruthless fashion. As in the original tale of A Christmas Carol, Cross is visited by three ghosts that take him through his past, present, and future to caution him and remind him in a very fearful manner about the need to be charitable and kind to others. So you may wonder, what does this have to do with the Middle East, right?

It came to my mind that many of the major powers on the International scene are acting in a similar manner to the arrogant and heartless Scrooge, and some of their "ghosts" or warnings may have already come. International terrorism may well be the haunting reality of a colonial past (not justifying it, only pointing to its root cause). Today’s financial sector and banking failure could be the ghost of a shaky present. And, nobody knows what tomorrow will bring, but I feel worried that if the current state of silence continues it will spell serious disaster for the future.

I am not laying the blame on ALL nations. In fact, I believe all countries, cultures and people have the ability to shine light upon their bright pasts and present abilities to make a positive change in the right direction. However, my fear is that if we stay silent, we will be assured that oppression and injustice will continue to exist. It is said, “Evil will triumph so long as good men do nothing.”

The silent majority must speak up.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

December 6, 2009, marks an important anniversary in Quebec’s history, one cloaked in sorrow and punctured with disbelief. Twenty years ago this week, fourteen young, would-be engineers were gunned down, execution-style, in the classrooms, hallways, and communal spaces of their university while their male classmates stood watch, unable to help.

With every macabre anniversary – five years to the day, ten years, fifteen, twenty – Quebecers join in mourning and wonder how it came to pass that their tolerant nation could have produced this rabidly primitive brand of tragedy.

In Quebec we remember this day not because it was the bloodiest in our history, but because every time we relive the scene in our minds, the one where a crazed man with a semi-automatic rifle enters a classroom and orders the male students out, leaving the women behind, we want to scream. We want to imagine that if it had been us in that room we would not have stood by, impotent, as one man killed so many women for no other reason than they were women. And every year we take a moment to remember that this was not a crime that affected “only” fourteen women, but a chilling reminder that so many people in this world continue to feel justified in taking out their anger, frustrations, and social impotence on their mothers, daughters, wives, cousins, and neighbors. It’s a reminder that an embarrassingly huge swath of society – even in democratic and liberal Quebec – is still subject to what is arguably the world’s most far-reaching, systematic, and damaging of human rights violations: misogyny.

And as I fight to have the grievances of Palestinians heard in Canada and the human rights violations of Israel to be exposed, I wonder why the Arab people – whether suffering under occupation and dictatorships, or flourishing in Western democracies – continue to consider the suffering of Middle Eastern women as “negligible” or simply accept it as a way of life in the Middle East.

I can already see eyes rolling.

How can you defend women’s rights when Gaza is under siege, when Israel can kill 1400 in one fell swoop!

1400 deaths? That’s truly a horrifying number. And many of those dead are in fact women, something we like to underscore when seeking to expose the cruelty of the Israeli army, implying with this carefully chosen emphasis that we recognize women as a group deserving of special protection.

But how do honor killings stack up against this terrible number? How many women are killed, maimed, disfigured, or even jailed (usually to protect them from being murdered by relatives) for engaging in normal human behavior – talking, flirting, kissing, associating, or possibly even (though usually not) having sex with men?

A few dozen? A few hundred? A thousand?

In 2000, the UN estimated the figure of honor killings at 5,000 worldwide. The UN, Amnesty International, and plenty of other human rights groups around the world have since agreed that this number is grossly underestimated. It continues marching upwards and onwards, encountering little organized resistance from Arab religious moderates, intellectuals, professionals, public servants, academics or even humanitarians – those same people who are so vocal in their yearning to sit at the table of global discourse but whose silence on atrocities committed by their kin and in their midst speak louder than anything they could ever say about their stand on universal human rights.

Silence is a position too. It is precisely because of the maddening weight of silence that Quebec has chosen not to be silent on the deaths of fourteen young women, twenty years ago.

For those tempted to use culture as a scapegoat, consider that many populations torn by war and conflict have historically clamped down on the rights and freedoms of women as a means of holding on to their cultural identity, as if women represented the last defensive front in a war against a nation’s integrity and continuity. Amnesty International reports that countries as culturally diverse as Argentina, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Palestine, Peru, Syria, and Venezuela have codified in their laws “honor” as a partial or complete defense against murder.

But as diverse as the above list is, the reality is that nowadays, only in the Middle East do well-meaning people who would regard the death of a woman at the hands of an Israeli soldier as a crime, regard the same woman’s murder at the hands of her family as justifiable, defensible “under the circumstances”, or even honorable.

Still, it might seem difficult or even a little cruel to heap yet another layer of criticism and responsibility on the backs of suffering, besieged populations for their mistreatment of women – but only if you define women as something other than human.

Women’s rights are human rights. They are not two different concepts. Any wavering or pandering to ludicrous cultural mores only helps maintain an idea as old as religion itself, that some cultures are truly superior to others, and it is the responsibility of these superior cultures to impose social order on “savages”.

It should be a source of absolute shame to each and every Muslim and Arab Canadian that in a survey conducted by the World Economic Forum ranking 128 countries by their treatment of women, 10 of the bottom 12 were majority Muslim.

We have succeeded in out-macho-ing some of the most macho peoples to have ever existed: most Latin American countries now have majority female populations because their governments ensure women survive labor and have equal access to education and health care as men. India – a culture that still burns brides for inadequate dowry – does better at educating women and providing them with economic opportunity and independence than any Muslim country. China, once famous for foot-binding and female infanticide, has shrugged off the crueler and more inhumane aspects of its cultural legacy and now enjoys a 40% female participation in the workforce, fuelling economic explosion in the 21st century.

Speaking of economic expansion, a recent UN Arab Human Development Report remarked:

“The rise of women is in fact a prerequisite for an Arab renaissance.”

I can only sit here and wonder how those who labor so tirelessly to persuade others to support and foster a lasting peace in the Middle East persist in ignoring the largest elephant in the room, the one that dwarfs the death toll of Israel’s latest massacre, one that continues to kill, maim, harass, de-humanize, and force into submission millions of people everyday, and that’s directly contributing to the dismal economic backwardness of the Middle East.

Israel is not preventing millions of women from seeking an education or joining the workforce. Medieval laws, cultural stigma, a sick and twisted obsession with female virginity, and the conspiratorial silence of the privileged among us are.

In the age of iphones and Youtube, an image is worth a thousand blog posts. If you can stomach watching a modern day stoning, complete with mobile phones, uniformed police standing impotently on the side, a crazed and angry mob venting all its despair and frustration on one love-struck teenaged girl, then google the name Du’a Aswad.

Quebec’s reaction to the killing of 14 women was to “never forget”. What has been the Arab and Muslim communities’ reaction to D’ua’s murder?

What is yours?

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

Richard Goldstone, a South African judge with extensive experience in investigating and prosecuting war crimes was commissioned to investigate allegations against Israel during it's most recent offensive on the Gaza Strip. Goldstone, also a Zionist who has very close ties with Israel, agreed to take on the task on condition that he also investigate war crimes allegations against the other party to the Gaza conflict, namely Hamas.

From the outset, Israel refused to cooperate with the UN Commission which had to enter Gaza through the territory's border with Egypt. From there, the group documented the carnage that was wrought on the tiny enclave by Israel's criminal war machine. They saw the hospitals and the UN buildings that were targeted, the houses, the schools, and mosques that were demolished. They also heard the testimony of the the victims of Israel's assault as well as the residents of Israeli towns such as Sderot that are within range of Hamas's Qassam rockets.

On September 15, 2009, Judge Richard Goldstone and his team of investigators released their findings in a document titled "Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict." The report contains multiple accounts of both Israel and Hamas committing acts that qualify as war crimes. Some of the acts may even qualify as crimes against humanity.

Israel rejected the report as completely biased and accused Goldstone, himself a Zionist Jew with multiple ties to Israel, of being an anti-Semite. President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, caving to pressure from the US and Israel, first requested that discussion of the findings be postponed a few months. The public outcry from the Palestinians and the supporters of justice around the world caused Abbas to reverse his decision. Thereafter, the US has voted against the report at every chance. The US Congress even passed a resolution calling on President Obama to continue blocking the report. It is widely expected that when and if the report reaches the UN Security Council, the US, which has used its veto countless times to shield Israel from the consequences of its actions, will, once again, use its veto to finally kill the report.

Considering the fact that Judge Goldstone is well-respected and highly regarded in the field of war crimes investigation, it is highly unlikely that the Goldstone Report is flawed. The additional fact that Judge Goldstone is a known Zionist who is a staunch supporter of Israel and who has accepted this undertaking only on condition of investigating Hamas as well makes any possibility of an anti-Israel bias even less likely. It therefore stands to reason that Israel's stonewalling of the initial investigation and its smear campaign against Judge Goldstone are a clear admission of guilt.

If the US does indeed veto the Goldstone Report, it will be the ultimate proof that the US only cares about its strategic allies, friends, and client regimes around the world, however undemocratic, despotic, or criminal, without any regard for peace, justice, or the rule of law.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

It is often too easy to fall into the trap of letting the mass media dictate what is important in the world. As the rubble continues to settle and the sanctions persist in Gaza, many have forgotten the extent of destruction and ill intent that existed on behalf of Israel. With some simple math, we can discover just how malicious Israel’s intent really was.

In an article published by the Times Online following the ceasefire (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5545939.ece) Hamas claimed that 22,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed in Gaza by Israel. According to the same article Hamas also declared that it launched 345 Qassam rockets, 213 Grad rockets and 422 mortar shells during the conflict giving a total of 980 projectiles fired. In order to come to some simple mathematical conclusions let us round the projectiles launched by Hamas to 1000 and the figure of 22 000 buildings destroyed by Israel down to 20 000 in case it was an overestimate. With some simple grade three division skills I found that for each projectile Hamas launched during the conflict approximately 20 buildings were destroyed by Israel.

Israel has claimed that the main reason for the innocent deaths and destruction in Gaza was that Hamas was firing from civilian populations and that Hamas is to blame for the collateral damage when Israel responds. But the math does not add up. If Israel was only bombing buildings that were launching missiles why was there not only a 1000 buildings destroyed as a “response” to the 1000 rockets fired? The answer is simple: Israel’s policy was not response, it was genocide.

Israel was indiscriminately dropping bombs with no regard for human life. The 20 buildings destroyed by Israel for each projectile launched by Hamas proves this. So as Israel continues to use the rhetoric of terrorism against anyone seeking mere justice, we need only to look at the simple disproportion of the damage in Gaza to see who the real terrorists are.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

Picture it.

You’re a nine-year old recent immigrant, one-time exemplary student, forced by a certain language law that shall remain nameless to undergo a year-long French immersion program ironically called (I can only imagine, by a civil servant with a twisted sense of humour) “Welcome Class” where you find out that anything you accomplished in your home country wasn’t worth much if you couldn’t speak French. You would expect that the government, in its wisdom, would enlist culturally-sensitive teachers to ease the transition of impressionable, terrified, and in some cases, somewhat traumatized youngsters into Canadian and Quebecois society.

You’d be wrong. Or at least you would have been in a certain classroom in 1987 Saint-Laurent, Quebec.

“What is this?”

The teacher, who shall also remain nameless, pointed to the picture I’d been asked to draw of myself earlier that day with the word “Palestine” scripted in a child’s hand underneath. It was past 3:30 pm, the class had emptied, and a ragtag group of fellow-immigrant friends with whom I communicated mainly through sign language were waiting for me outside. Also, the teacher had spoken in French which at that point in my life, sounded like what you might get if you played a Pink Floyd tape backwards.

Eventually, through a combination of terrible English (hers), exasperated explaining (mine), and yes, sign language, I managed to decipher that Miss Cultural Sensitivity 1987 could not understand how a person born in Beirut, Lebanon, could possibly call herself Palestinian. My nine-year-old self threw around words I once thought of as mundane as “bread” or “water” but were actually inflammatory, misunderstood, and controversial in this frosty new country of mine. Words like “refugee” and “birthplace” versus “racial ancestry” or even “travel visa” versus “passport”.

Clearly in no mood to argue, my teacher tore off the part of the picture that said “Palestine” and wrote “Lebanon” instead. She hung it back up on the wall, along a row of similarly crafted self-portraits, drawings with words like “Syria”, “Iran”, or “El Salvador” written in brightly coloured crayons underneath the smiling stick figures.

The curiously altered piece of art was the subject of some discussion among my classmates the next morning, but I quickly cleared it up. Though I was born in Lebanon I had never, in my entire life, held a Lebanese passport. My grandparents were Palestinian, as are my parents, which in turn makes me Palestinian. Simple. The kids got it. The adult had not. Call it an early lesson in absurdity.

Some years later I’d come to understand that in the Western world, unlike the one I’d come from, there was not one set of laws for some people, and another for others. It didn’t matter that your grandfather was born in a small coastal village south of Jaffa where he tended the local coffee shop until the Nakba of 1948. Neither the olive hue of your skin, nor the distinctive shape of your eyes ever drew any special attention beyond mildly annoying comparisons to Disney’s Princess Jasmine.

What mattered in this new country was a newfangled notion regarded as quaint where I’d come from. If you were born in Canada, you were Canadian. If you weren’t, you could become one through a clear and unbiased process, after which you were every bit as Canadian as the descendants of Samuel de Champlain. It was a cultural quirk that had pitted the preconceived notions of a stubborn nine-year-old against those of a narrow-minded teacher.

But that was 1987.

In 2009, the picture has become very different.

In 2009 Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who was taken back to his native Afghanistan by his father when he was a minor and was subsequently labelled an “enemy combatant” in a questionable conflict, with questionable goals and questionable motives still sits in a cell located in a tropical naval base of questionable repute and origin. He’s been sitting there since 2002, waiting for the federal government to throw a charge at him that actually manages to stick.

Also, in 2009, Suaad Mohamud, a Canadian citizen was finally allowed back into Canada after being unlawfully detained for three months in Kenya because a customs official didn’t think she looked like her passport picture too much. Maybe she’d lost weight; maybe she’d gotten a haircut, or switched her glasses for coloured contacts. Who knows. You’d think the process standing between you and three months in an African prison would come down to something substantial than whether you were having a “fat day” or not. Anyway, she’s back, after DNA testing established that she was indeed the biological mother of a Canadian kid whose two-week stint with babysitters had turned into three months. The Canadian IDs, credit cards, transit tickets and old dry cleaning stubs hadn’t done the trick.

Finally, this summer, a bittersweet ending to a six year ordeal. The court-ordered return of Sudanese-Canadian, Abousfian Abdelrasik to Montreal after countless efforts by the federal government to bar his re-entry, each more surreal and cruel than the next (decreeing, for example, that he will be re-issued a Canadian passport if he can purchase his ticket back to Canada, knowing full well that all his assets have been frozen, and invoking a law stating than anyone caught assisting Abdelrasik in obtaining return fare to Canada can be prosecuted. George Orwell couldn’t have made this up).
September 11th marks the eighth anniversary of the event that triggered the reconsidering of such quaint notions as citizenship rights, Canadian support for citizens incarcerated abroad, or even clemency requests for Canadians sitting on death row – a practice in direct violation of Canadian laws and principles.

South of the border, a Black man ran for president on a platform of change, and won. Here in Canada, our government has morphed into a gleeful champion not of its citizens, but of the laws and decrees set by the now-defunct and discredited Bush administration, ex-rulers of a foreign nation.
Some might say the tables have turned.

Some might say the world the nine-year-old immigrant girl had left behind, the one her coddled teacher knew nothing about, had triumphed over Canadian principles and values. That Canada is slowly turning into the kind of place where things like where your grandparents were born, or how much you look like a character from Disney’s Aladdin, matter more than what kind of passport you hold.

Some might also say a Canadian passport is no longer worth much at all.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

Israel's illegal siege of Gaza, now in its third year, is still causing severe suffering to the civilian residents of the strip. The deprivation, a direct and intentional consequence of Israel's strategy, has reached such levels that there are reports of shortages in the basic staples of life. These staples include such mundane items as bread. The suffering of the Palestinians was further compounded by the illegal assault of Israel on Gaza on December 27, 2008 which targeted the infrastructure of the territory including schools, hospitals, farmland, factories, and shops. Even places of worship and UN buildings were not spared from Israel's assualt.

According to the Sabbah Blog - an excellent site run by a Palestinian activist who is the co-founder of the Palestine Think Tank, as of December 31, 2007, 6 months into the siege and one year before Israel's assault on Gaza, the outcome included 67 thousand factory employees and 25 thousand textile workers losing their jobs, and 85% of citizens living under the poverty line. On the medical front, 136 medical instruments are in various states of disrepair, 97 classes of medicines are on the verge of depletion, and 107 classes of basic medicines are depleted from Gaza Strip. This has resulted in 322 patients being in serious danger and in need of urgent treatment, and 1562 patients in need of treatment outside the Gaza Strip.

One can only imagine the level of suffering being felt by the Gazans almost three years into the siege and nine months after Israel's assault which illegally targeted Gaza's vital institutions and infrastructure in an attempt to break the Gazans' will. It is a shame that, to this day, Israel is not internationally condemned for the inhumane and cruel siege that is nothing more than the collective punishment of innocent civilians.

Join CJPME in mobilizing support for the Gaza Freedom March on January 1st, 2010.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

With the recent calm in the occupied West Bank, you might be forgiven for thinking that Israel would likely ease the many travel restrictions it has imposed on the territories' more than one million Palestinian inhabitants. Not so, as it turns out. In fact, Israel has just expanded its travel restrictions to include Canadians and other foreigners visiting the West Bank (http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/video/internationalus/new_palestinian_entry_visa.html).

Canadians with family or business in the West bank are now being issued “special” visas that limit how long they can remain in the territory to one month, and only allow them to travel within the West Bank – not within Israel proper. Lose your passport, and you may be out of luck. The Canadian Embassy is in Tel Aviv and off limits to those granted this “special” visa.

So what purpose do these arbitrary restrictions serve? Your guess is as good as mine. The Israeli foreign ministry has refused to comment on the new restrictions. One thing is for sure though, by making travel to the West Bank more difficult these visas are likely to isolate the West Bank even further at a time when Israeli officialdom is talking about helping promote economic development in the West Bank.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

As a war that is going into its eighth year, with no sign of finishing soon, Canadians should reconsider the war in Afghanistan. Currently there is a withdrawal plan for 2011, but with the rising casualty rates it makes more sense to plan a speedier departure.



I am no fan of the Taliban. Their approach is probably too harsh for even the strictly observant Muslim. However, war should never have been an option. The Taliban, as evil as they may have been portrayed, were willing to hand over Osama bin Laden had evidence been provided that he was responsible for 9/11. Instead, the Bush administration was adamant on waging a war on terror that has only produced more extremism and a great deal of death and destruction to no avail. Canada complacently went along.



As we evolve towards a global village that is based on human rights, Canada should demonstrate foresight on world issues instead of using guns, war, and killing as a solution. As a Canadian, I do not like the feeling that perhaps even a nickel of my tax dollars may have contributed for one stray bullet that found its way into an innocent bystander. Unfortunately, the reality of innocent casualties is far greater than just a few stray bullets with the growing use of drone planes which are responsible for multitudes of innocent lost lives. Our moral integrity continues to be jeopardized being a part of this war and saying “Oops” over and over again is not a justifiable excuse. We are not only adding to the death of innocents in Afghanistan, our hands are blood-stained in Iraq as well.



Although we did not pledge troops for the Iraq war, a lot of Canada’s industry has supported it indirectly through our manufacturing of weapons which are supplied to the US. With the current push for green industry, morally astute Canadians should also launch campaigns against war profiteering. In Afghanistan, many of the improvised explosive devices that are killing our own soldiers are made out of un-blown bombs that are retrieved by the Taliban from aerial bombardments. This is besides the fact that many of the weapons held by the Taliban are remnants of the CIA’s supply to the Mujahideen resistance during the Soviet occupation in the eighties. Hence, our acceptance of violent means is causing the death of our own soldiers. If we intend to have a world filled with human rights and justice, we must be leaders in demonstrating our belief through action in our economic structure. We cannot produce weapons for profit and we should sign this into our own law before advocating non-violence globally which should be our goal.



We should not fear the fate of Afghanistan. With the growth of global economic trade, political culture too is traded as a result. In a condition where there is no compulsion through force of arms, the stronger ideologies will rise naturally. Democracy will arise in Afghanistan eventually, and elsewhere, if there is a sizable middle class that seeks to protect its economic rights. Forcing democracy is proving futile. Instead, let us demonstrate to the world that we are wise and sincere in our beliefs by abandoning war-profiteering and violent means in Afghanistan. Our neighbours to the South may appreciate the foresight.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

The Middle East peace process between Israel and its Arab neighbours is based on the principle of land-for-peace: Israel concedes land on which the Palestinians can create a viable state of their own and the Arabs rescind their declaration of war against Israel and normalize relations with the Jewish State with full diplomatic recognition and exchange of ambassadors. While neither Israel nor the Arabs have fulfilled their obligations under the signed peace treaties, the overwhelming focus of the world has been on the Arabs while completely ignoring the blatant violations of Israel against the indigenous Palestinian population.

In its recent push to jumpstart the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the current US administration has done something that no other administration in recent history has even attempted to do. It decided to forgo the stereotypical story of the poor Israelis who are besieged by millions of bloodthirsty Arabs and focus on the reason behind the whole conflict in the Middle East, namely the unending usurpation of Palestinian and Arab land (the Golan from Syria and the Shebaa farms from Lebanon) by Israel.

The most recent instance of Israel's continuing theft of internationally recognized Palestinian land is the eviction of 53 people from their East Jerusalem homes which they have owned since 1956 and the allowing of Jewish settlers to move in with no questions asked. It was refreshing to see that the whole world including the US who, until recently, has been a willing partner in crime with Israel, condemn the Israeli actions as counterproductive to the comatose peace process.

Israel wants to have its cake and eat it too. It gives unending lip service to the peace process and demands peace while continuously violating its responsibility of ending its illegal occupation of Arab lands.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

ON AHMADINEJAD AND PROGRESSIVE MYOPIA - Whenever Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes a public appearance, the airwaves, papers, and Internet become flooded with outraged and self-righteous opinion pieces. He is called everything from “evil,” “racist,” a “blowhard” and a “hatemonger” to “ridiculous,” “ignorant,” “silly,” and a “clown.” His speeches are described as “diatribes,” “rants,” “screeds,” and “tirades.” Whereas this reaction is obvious and expected from those both in the mainstream media and on the Freedom Fries end of the political spectrum, these same epithets and denouncements are often found coming from a most surprising and disappointing source: so-called “liberals” who proudly identify themselves as anti-imperialist progressives.

Many recent critiques of Ahmadinejad’s speech at the Durban II conference in Geneva last week, written by peace activists and left-leaning analysts, have concluded that, even though the president may have uttered some painful and important truths, his understanding of Middle East history was reductionist, his speech poorly timed, and his words were, if twisted the wrong way by faulty analysis, an offensive, anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying incitement to genocide.

This reaction is not new. The character of President Ahmadinejad himself has been consistently caricatured as some sort of Persian court jester by Western progressives: one who may speak truth to power, but who does so crudely and without requisite tact. These same progressives label him as the domineering leader of an oppressive regime and he is therefore deemed unsuited to voice the opinions of the Western anti-imperialist cause. Something about glass houses and stone-throwing follows, perhaps.

While these forward-thinking, long-time Cheney-haters have never been fooled by the bogus search for WMD or the torturific term “enhanced interrogation,” they seem to have a hard time believing that the country of Iran isn’t some Israel-threatening hotbed of hostile anti-American activity, lorded over by apocalypse-happy clerics, eagerly spinning centrifuges with the intent to destroy the Western world. This image of both the country of Iran and its current President is frustrating, and never more so when it comes from those who should be better informed and leading the fight against these very misconceptions and mischaracterizations. If the progressives among us don’t tell the truth, then who else will?

Yes, Ahmadinejad condemns Zionism. What is not explained in right-wing harangues or progressive criticism is that he views Zionism as a political ideology separate from Judaism, a distinction all informed people should make as well. He has consistently called for a free and fair referendum to determine the representative political structure of the whole population - a vote by all inhabitants of the land of historical Palestine. There is no call for the return of Palestinian land at the expense of Jews - only that justice be served and self-determination by the residents of the region be respected. He has never threatened Israel with military force or aggression (and isn’t even in a position to make such threats, considering he’s not Commander-in-Chief of the Iranian military). In fact, he attempted to quash constant accusations of the Iranian leadership’s anti-Semitism by telling Larry King last fall, “we don't have a problem with the Jewish people.” Ahmadinejad further clarified his government’s political position towards Israel during a press conference in September 2008: “We are opposed to the idea that the people who live there should be thrown into the sea or be burnt...We believe that all the people who live there, the Jews, Muslims and Christians, should take part in a free referendum and choose their government.”

It should also be made perfectly clear that Ahmadinejad does not condemn Israel for claiming to be a “Jewish” state. He believes that the decision to pick a political system should be left to the people who have to live under that system. He has stated that Iran will recognize and accept any resulting governmental system once it has been voted on openly.

The progressive left, when discussing Ahmadinejad’s position on these matters, often resorts to accusations of pot-calling-the-kettle-black-isms. It is dismissive to claim that no Iranian politician should have a problem with the ethnic or religious nature of the Israeli governmental system when Iran itself is an Islamic Republic. This can only be seen as hypocrisy by the uninformed. The Iranian Constitution, which came into force less than a year after the collapse of the Shah’s dictatorship by popular revolution, was adopted by national referendum. It established (in Chapter I, Article 1) the government of Iran as an Islamic Republic, a political system combining and integrating elements of both religious doctrine and representational democracy. The Constitution was approved by an estimated 98.2% of the Iranian voting population (and yes, that included women).

By contrast, Israel has never written or adopted a formal Constitution of any form. Israel’s own unilateral declaration of independence on May 14, 1948 stated that a constitution would be formulated and ratified by the state no later than October 1, 1948. The adoption of a democratic constitution was also a requirement of the General Assembly Resolution 181, which even supported the establishment of a “Jewish” state. Nevertheless, no constitution was ever drawn up, voted on, or adopted. Instead, Israeli constitutional law has been established piecemeal over time by Knesset-approved legislation that gained legal ascendancy by a Supreme Court ruling in 1998. These “Basic Laws,” which establish the roles of various governmental institutions and offices and affirm certain human rights to its citizenry (including the ironically named, “Freedom of Occupation”), have never been subject to popular vote or referendum by the Israeli people, whether Muslim, Christian, or Jewish. And this is what people call the great democracy in the Middle East?

The Iranian Constitution, on the other hand, established a governmental system that was approved by the overwhelming majority of the population of that country. Iranians were not colonized or made to accept a system with which they disagreed or that would endanger their lives. Did Native Americans or African slaves get a vote regarding the US Constitution, which holds non-whites to be valued as less than a whole person and affirms the continuation of slavery, or Manifest Destiny that saw the genocide of tens of millions of people? I don't believe that Black South Africans voted for Apartheid. As such, progressives should all agree that many laws set up by colonial governments, such as Israel’s “Law of Return,” are, at the core, racist and unrepresentative.

Is Iran a perfect bastion of freedom of expression and human rights? No, certainly not. But to claim that criticism of another country must be in direct proportion to the troubles or issues facing your own country is an absurd concept. Were that the case, Barack Obama, the current embodiment of the US government, shouldn't ever open his mouth regarding anything having to do with a just foreign policy, the rule of international law, or anything else, ever. It is the US that is currently occupying two foreign countries and that has over 700 military bases overseas. It is bankrolling and supporting Israeli aggression, occupation, and continued colonialism and expansionism. Black kettles, anyone?

There is also umbrage taken at Ahmadinejad’s condemnation of the Zionist movement in Palestine - a movement that preceded World War II and the Holocaust by decades. In his Durban speech, critics argue, Ahmadinejad condenses history so as to ignore the anti-imperial elements of the pre-state Zionist militias and assigns blame to the fledgling United Nations for validating Jewish nationalism only after World War II. Personally, I do not believe that President Ahmadinejad arrived in Switzerland with the intent of giving a lengthy history lesson. Nor do I believe that his historical analysis is simplistic or reductionist. Speaking at the UN conference, Ahmadinejad discussed the UN’s role in displacing over 750,000 indigenous people from their land and the immorality and injustice of using the horrors of the Holocaust to justify such deliberate ethnic cleansing. The bombing of the King David Hotel by Irgun occurred after the Holocaust. The 1947 Partition Plan came after the Holocaust. The Deir Yassin massacre came after the Holocaust. The Nakba came after the Holocaust; this is what Ahmadinejad refers to in his speech. Since the Western powers did not support the Zionist cause before World War II, it is clear that pre-State Zionism is irrelevant to Ahmadinejad’s point.

Rabbi Michael Lerner, in his critique of Ahmadnejad’s speech, ascribes reductionism and error to the Iranian President’s truncated description of history. He claims that the Arab aversion to the implementation of Zionism in Palestine was a “misunderstanding,” explaining that “Palestinians saw the Jews as an invading force that would uproot their own Arab society. Yet most Jews coming to Palestine were fleeing oppression, and simply could not understand how Palestinians would view them as agents of a Christian West.” This viewpoint as presented by Lerner clouds the truth, intentionally or not, about Zionist thought from the very beginning.

As far back as 1898, Theodor Herzl recognized that, in order to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, the Arabs who were living there would have to be removed. He proposed the following solution for such an inconvenient indigenous population:

“We shall try to spirit the penniless population (i.e. Arab) across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country.”

Israel Zangwill, the sloganeer behind “The land without a people for a people without a land,” also knew full well that Palestine was already inhabited. “There is, however, a difficulty from which the Zionist dare not avert his eyes, though he rarely likes to face it. Palestine proper has already its inhabitants,” he wrote in the Voice of Jerusalem in 1904. “The Pashalik of Jerusalem is already twice as thickly populated as the United States, having fifty-two souls to every square mile, and not 25 percent of them Jews; so we must be prepared either to drive out by the sword the tribes in possession as our forefathers did, or to grapple with the problem of a large alien population, mostly Mohammedan [i.e. Muslim].”

Vladmir Jabotinsky, in his 1923 Zionist manifesto, The Iron Wall, spoke directly to Lerner’s erroneous claims when he wrote,

“…there has never been an indigenous inhabitant anywhere or at any time who has ever accepted the settlement of others in his country…And so it is for the Arabs. Compromisers in our midst attempt to convince us that the Arabs are some kind of fools who can be tricked by a softened formulation of our goals, or a tribe of money grubbers who will abandon their birth right to Palestine for cultural and economic gains. I flatly reject this assessment of the Palestinian Arabs…We can talk as much as we want about our good intentions; but they understand as well as we what is not good for them. They look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and true fervor that any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or any Sioux looked upon his prairie. To think that the Arabs will voluntarily consent to the realization of Zionism in return for the cultural and economic benefits we can bestow on them is infantile. This childish fantasy of our “Arabo-philes” comes from some kind of contempt for the Arab people, of some kind of unfounded view of this race as a rabble ready to be bribed in order to sell out their homeland for a railroad network.”

Jabotinsky continues,

“Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized…Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population…As long as there is a spark of hope that they can get rid of us, they will not sell these hopes, not for any kind of sweet words or tasty morsels, because they are not a rabble but a nation, perhaps somewhat tattered, but still living. A living people makes such enormous concessions on such fateful questions only when there is no hope left.”

To claim that peaceful coexistence was the goal of Jewish nationalism is to rewrite history in order to assuage the consciences of those who regret the consequences of colonialism but insist on justifying it anyway.

Furthermore, in his article regarding the Durban II speech, Steve Weissman writes, “If we follow Ahmadinejad’s logic, as many in Hamas now do, we must fight to undo over 60 years of history, and that will be a fight to the death. The call to eliminate the State of Israel, while not explicitly a call to kill Israelis or other Jews, will sound to them as an incitement to genocide, and they will fight it without mercy.”

Sound to “them”? It appears that Mr. Weissman may hold more contempt for the Palestinian and Arab intellect than Jabotinsky. First of all, Ahmadinejad is not the leader of Palestinian resistance. Hamas certainly does not take its cues from his speeches. But it is also important to realize that Ahmadinejad’s words do not inflame the Muslim people of the Middle East, they enrage the white people of the West, those who boycott or leave international conferences without even a hint of embarrassment. In fact, the prior agreement by European delegates to walk out at the first mention of “Israel” proves that these undignified dignitaries would have missed anything he wound up saying anyway and wouldn’t have taken a lengthier, more nuanced discussion any more to heart. It is not that the historical and current reality isn’t known well enough; it’s that the imperial powers in support of the ongoing Israeli Occupation and aggression simply don’t care.

Some critics, such as Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler, have accused Ahmadinejad of bad timing, delivering this particular speech at a time when American and Iranian relations may finally be rekindled. These analyses tend to focus more on the eagerness of Israeli leaders to attack Iran, using as an excuse Iran’s wholly legal nuclear energy program and the repetition of the mistranslation of Ahmadinejad’s supposed threat to “destroy Israel,” than on Ahmadinejad’s speech itself. These critics appear to blame Ahmadinejad for not kowtowing to US and Israeli rhetoric and capitulating to its demands in the face of grave and imminent danger posed by two nuclear-armed states. How is this Ahmadinejad’s problem? Is truth supposed to tremble in the face of adversity? This argument infers that the illegal threat of attack or annihilation should silence all debate, thereby entirely subverting even the most basic of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist ideologies.

Additionally, it clear that Israeli leaders are not interested in establishing peaceful relations with their immediate Arab neighbors, let alone with Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu took the opportunity afforded to him by misrepresenting Ahmadinejad’s speech to state that any renewed peace talks with Palestinian leaders was contingent on the removal of the “Iranian nuclear threat.” Meanwhile, Iranian leaders speak only of the need for “mutual respect and justice” and the upholding of international law in order to resume diplomacy. And yet, which nation does the United States call upon to unclench its fist?

The Iranian Constitution is quite clear with regards to international relations, explicitly stating that “the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is based upon the rejection of all forms of domination, both the exertion of it and submission to it, the preservation of the independence of the country in all respects and its territorial integrity….” The document forbids any agreement that may result in foreign control over the natural resources, economy, military, or culture of Iran and affirms Iran’s commitment of “non-alignment with respect to the hegemonic superpowers and the maintenance of mutually peaceful relations with all non-belligerent States.”

Furthermore, the Constitution declares that, “The Islamic Republic of Iran has as its ideal human felicity throughout human society, and considers the attainment of independence, freedom, and rule of justice and truth to be the right of all people of the world. Accordingly, while scrupulously refraining from all forms of interference in the internal affairs of other nations, it supports the just struggles of the oppressed against the oppressors in every corner of the globe.”

Thus, to allow the threat of Israeli aggression or potential of renewed American diplomacy to muzzle him, President Ahmadinejad would have done a great disservice to himself, his government, the Iranian people, their Revolution and their Constitution.

The tone of much progressive criticism of Ahmadinejad’s speech seems to say, "He should've been more tactful… It's unhelpful to say things so bluntly… He should be more understanding, more wishy-washy, less specific, more diplomatic." Pardon me, but when did outrage over injustice have to be nicely stated? Ahmadinejad should be "nicer" when speaking out about the murderous policies of the US and Israel while Iran hasn't threatened or attacked any other country in centuries? Why is it Ahmadinejad’s responsibility gently walk on eggshells when addressing a room full of historic and current colonialists, occupiers, militarists, and imperialists, who consistently attempt to degrade him by namecalling? This smacks more of Western Caucasian apologia than progressive tenderness and tact. If you're not furious about what Israel is doing on a daily basis, then you're not paying attention. Well, Ahmadinejad is paying attention and he doesn't feel compelled to coddle the European (and American) imperialists who brought the world to this point, the same people who supported the repressive tyranny of the Shah's dictatorship in Iran.

Are these critics truly suggesting that the Iranian guy in the room should practice deferential diplomacy with Western powers? Is he their butler? The elected president of a country whose democratic government was aggressively overthrown by a CIA coup at the bidding of Britain, an historically imperial and colonial country, should be sensitive to the delicate sensibilities of the Western governments that have demonized and ostracized that country for thirty years? Why should imperialists be handled with kid gloves? So that their delegates won't storm out in a pre-planned huff like so many frustrated toddlers?

At the end of his critique, Weissman writes, “One final question: Should we join Ahmadinejad in calling the Israelis ‘racist perpetrators of genocide?’ I would not. The long-standing Israeli policy of seeking ‘more land and fewer Arabs’ is horrendous. But it is not genocide, at least not until Avigdor Lieberman has his way. And it is not essentially racial, but increasingly religious, denying people first-class citizenship because they do not share the dominant faith or identity. To me, that is every bit as pernicious as racism, whether in Israel or any number of Islamic countries.”

When it was founded in 1948, the United Nations defined genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

Is this really such an outlandish description of what Palestinians have been subjected to for the past hundred years and what continues to befall them on a daily basis? Thoughts of cancer patients denied travel permits and mothers forced to go into labor at West Bank checkpoints, as well as the hundreds upon hundreds of slaughtered innocents in Gaza just four months ago, prove the point quite easily.

Also, is the “Islamic racism,” mentioned by Weissman, intended to implicate Iran? If so, he should elaborate. Even Ayatollah Khomeini, whom progressives still love to demonize as an extremist and a zealot, always made a strong distinction between Judaism and Zionism. When Khomeini returned from exile in 1979, he met with representatives of Jewish communities and issued a religious decree, ensuring the safety and protection of Jews in Iran during and after the coming Revolution.

President Ahmadinejad’s speech at Durban II doesn’t really need my defending. His words speak for themselves. However, when progressive commentators treat Ahmadinejad as a pariah, they wind up speaking for the very imperialists they’re supposed to be opposing.

There’s already plenty of propaganda out there. I think it’s time for a little truth.

Contact Nima at wideasleepinamerica@gmail.com.
http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

THE SEA, INSHA'ALLAH - The inky mass pulsated before the young man’s narrow eyes as he peered into the darkness from where came the sounds and smell of the sea. In the distance he could distinguish Israeli vessels. They were the same which had fired on Gaza only a few days ago. He sat very still in his uncle’s dinghy, back straight, alert, his left hand resting on the outboard motor’s throttle. There were two plastic gas containers at his feet and a backpack. Only the moonlight interrupted the slow movement of dark clouds and was dimly reflected in the receiver and barrel of his AK-47. His attention shifted to the assault rifle and he picked it up from the bottom of the boat, resting the butt on his thigh. He took the gun’s magazine out and checked it, though he knew it was full. He pushed the magazine back into the receiver and placed the weapon on the floor.

The fishing boats around him moved with the water’s swell. Beyond the beach he could discern the outlines of buildings jutting out amongst the densely populated neighbourhoods, where an expanse of concrete structures was punctuated by the minarets of mosques and the empty spaces left by the bombs. Lives remained entangled and broken in the rubble-filled craters in which bodies lay rotting under heavy slabs and mangled iron rods. Here and there bombed-out buildings, pockmarked and gutted, still stood like concrete carcasses. Gaza was all concrete, and now, it seemed to Hakim, Gaza was empty, dead and cold. The vast sea too seemed cold. Without feeling afraid or nervous Hakim mulled over the fact that he would soon likely be killed. He contemplated his death from the little boat floating on the cold sea and made up his mind to go. Khalas, he said, no more, and he pulled on the motor’s starter cord.

He untied the dinghy, turned the throttle, and cut the sea’s surface with the bow. No fishermen had yet come to prepare their boats. Perhaps they were too tired from burying their dead or helping bury the dead of others, Hakim thought. Many had spent the day combing the ruins for survivors and bodies. Hakim wondered if perhaps the absence of fishermen meant they thought it was too dangerous to cast their nets in the few, overfished miles from the shore the Israelis still allowed them to be in. Those who cast their nets in deeper waters were often rammed by Israeli patrol boats from which soldiers fired shots over their heads while ordering them to go home. Now there were Israeli vessels waiting at the ready. But Hakim didn’t care about fishing, he wanted out, and he was going.

The bodies he had seen over the course of three weeks had gotten all mixed up in his mind. He couldn’t remember which airstrike had killed what person. In his dreams he helped carry the dead out of a crater where an apartment block had stood moments before while the sirens of ambulances wailed from every direction. The bodies kept coming and a bearded man with sweat pouring down his face and holding his palms out as though he were praying kept imploring Hakim to go to Zeitoun where the Samounis’ house had been bombed. Hakim refused to go because he knew what he would find there. So he carried bodies, ignoring the pleading man, until he would wake up, choking and in tears.

Hakim looked back at Gaza city and the few lights in buildings running on generators people had been able to find fuel for. The boat was moving fast now and his fist tightened around the outboard motor’s throttle. The boats floating in the port were becoming hard to make out in the dark. His heartbeat quickened, he took a deep breath, looked at the city and then turned his back on the strip of land he had never left before.

The sea was large before him and he scanned the horizon for the Israeli ships. There were three to the southwest so he aimed northwest where he could not make any other vessels out. The dinghy was going as fast as the spiral blades on the motor’s propeller could cut through the dark waters, and Hakim knew he was approaching the limit to which Palestinians could navigate without being intercepted or attacked. Hakim fought the urge to look back at Gaza and tried shutting down his mind, which had frantically began trying to reckon how far he was from Gaza and how soon he would die.

The AK-47 was sliding around on the floor along with the oars, so Hakim placed his foot over the rifle to keep it in place, but changed his mind and picked it up with his right hand instead. He had lost track of time and distance, and again he repressed the urge to look back. If the battle was coming he wanted to stay focused on what lay ahead. He put his hand over the pistol grip to be ready. A frightening thought came over him that perhaps they would shoot him from far away or that an Israeli drone high above him would suddenly turn him to pieces on which fish would feed. His heart raced now trying to imagine all the different scenarios. He concluded it was most likely they would try to capture him, so they would send patrol boats to chase him down. He could see a few lights on the vessels and wondered if he was being watched through binoculars or tracked by radar.

If he was to have any chance of killing at least a couple he would have to hide the weapon and spring it on them at the last second. He put the rifle back down on the floor and pinned it against the hull with his foot. He moved up on the seat so that he was just on its edge. If he was stopped he could try to get his right knee down, grab the pistol grip and swing the barrel around over the gunwale. No, he thought, that would never work. They would have a gunner on him and he would be shot as soon as he made his move.

If he was caught out here, he considered, he would never make it back to dry land. He imagined his decomposed body washing up on a beach in Gaza. Gaza. He looked back and it was almost gone. Far in the distance he could see a few dim lights which looked like stars seen through a foggy night. His grip over the throttle slowly loosened and the boat slowed down. He looked at the faint flicker in the distance and then the sea all around him. The Israeli ships were the last obstacles, then only open water. His fear for a minute was subdued by the elation that accompanied the realization that there were no visible, physical boundaries around him. Then panic surged over him as he caught the flicker of a moving object in the sky. He strained his eyes, desperately trying to see it again but everything seemed out of focus. Quickly he turned the throttle and the boat lurched into motion. He found the lights of Gaza, located the Israeli ships, and sped away from both.

He knew he had to get out to international waters. It was his only chance, and even then if he was picked up by an Israeli vessel he doubted he would be brought back to the coast alive. Hakim imagined the headline: Israeli Navy Rescues Palestinian Terrorist Lost at Sea, Puts him out of his Misery. No, he was just one Palestinian, he was not even worth a headline. He would just be shark food, a story for the soldiers to laugh about over cold beers at the barracks.

Hakim heard a sound like thunder rumbling in the distance. He thought perhaps the Israelis had just fired on him and that he was moments away from obliteration, but realized that impact would have taken place before the sound could have ever reached his ears. He could still barely make out the ships in the distance and it seemed one had moved closer towards the coastline.

The wooden dinghy’s bow dove further into the Mediterranean night and further away from territorial waters and certain death. He closed his eyes and began to recite Al-Fatiha, the opening of the Qur’an. In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful… his lips moved and he could taste the salty breeze on the tip of his tongue. He recited Al-Fatiha not out of piety but because he had suddenly been overcome by the impulse to so. He said the words over and over again. You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help. Guide us to the straight path… The boat bounced off a wave and landed back on to the sea with a slap. Darkness encompassed him when he opened his eyes. There were no Israeli vessels. There was no Gaza. Only water and shadows as far as the eyes could see.

Hakim navigated the enveloping darkness in which the few stars still shining through the clouds had suffocated and died out. Scarcely could he see six feet ahead of him as the bow broke through the undulating sea mass. He had wanted to print out a map but there had been no power. He remembered the geography from school when he was a child and his teacher had asked him to draw the Mediterranean basin on the board. South of him, stretching from east to west, lay the shores of North Africa. Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. That dog Mubarak, pyramids, Colonel Gaddafi, the Sahara desert, and the Casbah. More importantly, North Africa was resistance, struggle and independence, legends of which he had been brought up on as a child growing up through the two Intifadas.

To the North, he knew he could reach Turkey, Greece, or Italy, and, further, France or Spain. He thought Italy would not be a bad start, Venice and Rome. Then he could travel by land through Europe to France—the Evil tower, wine and women. But really he hoped to hit Cyprus, for it was closest. He had seen the boats arrive to Gaza from Cyprus carrying aid and foreigners despite the Israeli blockade. He wished he had a compass, better yet a GPS, but in the wreckage of Gaza he had been unable to find either.

The gas level in the container connected to the outboard motor was about three-quarters out, which made Hakim a little uneasy. He released the motor’s throttle, shut the engine off and rummaged through the backpack for a cigarette. Smoke filled his lungs as he leaned back against the boat’s gunwale slowly exhaling. Presently he wondered about currents and realized he had lost all sense of orientation. He thought Gaza was still behind him but could not say for certain. For a minute, a disturbing feeling came over him. It was the same feeling he had felt during the last three weeks and many times before as Gaza was under fire. His father would pray and hold his mother whose breathing was loud and quick. Little good did praying do him.

There was no guessing what street or what house the airstrikes might hit so no way to be sure whether it was safer to run or to stay put. Hakim felt the same way, only now he had power: he had a motor, he had gas, he had a boat, and there were no borders with watchtowers and snipers. He pulled the starter cord, turned the throttle and the motor roared. He sped away from a hopeless fate and towards immeasurable hope.

Slowly dawn leaked through the darkness and Hakim was struck by the immensity of his surroundings. There was only water and though to some the sight would have seemed a desolate one, to Hakim it was spectacular. He scanned the horizon for land or for a ship, but for the moment he was content to see a horizon of only sky and sea. There was joy in his heart but sadness as well for the land he had left and knew he would never see again. He remembered climbing the branches of olive trees as a child to pick the fruit and drop them on the blanket laid out bellow. He thought of his friends and decided he would write to them as soon as he could, to tell them he was okay and to tell them he would send money when he found steady work. Or perhaps he would call, and he smiled at the thought of what Mahmoud would say upon hearing of Hakim’s journey.

Hakim shut the motor off to let it cool and to check the oil. He connected the other gas container to it then got on his back on the floor of the boat to smoke and to look at the clouds. The water gently rocked the dinghy as Hakim tried to imagine the profusion of possibilities and he wondered what nation’s soil his feet would touch next. He laughed at the thought of a cruise ship spotting him and rescuing him. He would be the talk of all the tourists on board who would beg him to dine with them and whom he would entertain with stories of war.

If he was handed over to the authorities he would claim refugee status, telling them he had fled persecution from Hamas for being a loyal Fatah member. Yes, foreigners would eat that up, he thought. Obviously he would not mention being at the Hamas police graduation ceremony when the first bombs had hit.

Waves lapped against the hull of the small boat as a warm breeze swept over from the open sea, whose surface was only a darker, more agitated projection of the clear azure above, and in which the sun was reflected like the shiny, white scales on a giant fish. Hakim imagined a large creature gliding smoothly through the water beneath his boat.

Hakim regretted not having brought music. He would have liked to hear the sound of Marcel Khalife playing his oud, playing in a bombed-out concert hall in Beirut, the notes exceeding place and time. Floating alone in a throbbing mass, home indeed felt far away. He sat up and looked ahead, squinting eyes on a dark face, hair blown back. Miles away on that godforsaken sliver of land there would be people searching and calling his name. He wondered if his name could be carried on the wind, if the sound of it might swirl by his ears even if the sea rendered it inaudible. He tried to listen for his name in the wild whistling breeze. Everything moved and pulsed like the beast beneath him.

Then Hakim became aware that it was the first time in his life he did not see buildings and concrete. He did not hear the honking of cars, the loud voices of vegetable hawkers or any radios blaring. He did not smell burning charcoal, diesel fumes, tobacco smoke or roasting meats. There was only the sun, sky and sea, and Hakim thought how remarkable it was to be free

He wondered who would be the first to discover his letter. He hoped it would be Mahmoud and not one of the women, because the women were always emotional and prone to fainting. He imagined Nayla reading his letter, falling back and smashing her head on a corner or the floor. They would blame him for her injuries or worse, her death.

He decided maybe he would write a book about his odyssey, then he would be invited on radio and TV shows and he would talk about Palestine, his homeland. He would tell the world how she suffered and how her rocky soil and streets were stained with too much blood. Maybe the Israelis would send Mossad agents to shut him up but he would escape by jumping out of a window on to a moving truck, and some tourist would happen to be filming at that moment on the street, and he would be on the news, and the Israelis would feel ashamed for having failed their mission to kill him and on account of his successful escape from that open-air prison despite their vessels and radars and drones. Yes, he concluded, he would be famous and he would humiliate them.

The clouds above him were drifting quickly and Hakim wondered whether the boat was being carried by the currents. I wonder what country the currents would take me to. He rather hoped it wouldn’t be North Africa, since being a Palestinian refugee in North Africa likely meant being poor. The Egyptians were traitors in any case as they kept the border with Gaza closed. They were likely to march him through the Sinai and throw him back into Gaza. He hoped the currents moved north towards Europe where he could make money, meet a nice girl, walk the boulevards and sit at cafés while working on his book. The Stone Thrower and the Sea, he decided to call it. Yes, Europe was most certainly preferable to the crowded and feverish streets of Cairo.

Hakim turned his attention to the AK-47 next to him and deliberated whether or not he should throw it overboard. He didn’t want to be found with it since he new foreigners were so obsessed with terrorists. Being a Palestinian would be bad enough let alone being a Palestinian with an AK-47. The Americans would probably demand to know where Osama bin Laden was hiding and he would have to try to explain to them that he was from Gaza where he lived under occupation and that he was an Arab and a Palestinian but not a terrorist.
On the other hand he feared there remained a chance an Israeli vessel might pick him up. Perhaps the soldiers had been distracted by the shooting Hakim had heard near the beach and had notified a patrol boat afterwards to hunt him down, in which case he wanted to be armed. He had promised himself that he would not go back, and would rather die in a hail of bullets if that were the case—with any luck taking at least a couple of them down with him.

Hakim sat up and prepared to restart the motor. The sun had risen from the east so Hakim knew he should travel in the opposite direction in order not to navigate inadvertently back to where he had started from. Feeling hungry and thirsty he took out a bottle of water and some bread from his backpack. When he was finished he lit a cigarette and sped off westwards.

During the following hours he felt the sun’s rays intensifying, and began worrying the motor might overheat. He stopped several times to splash water over it and to let it cool down. By noon Hakim was himself feeling the effects of the scorching orb above so he took a shirt from his bag, soaked it in the sea and wrapped it around his head. The sun’s glare upon the sea’s surface hurt his eyes. Slowly the sun began descending to the West and Hakim decided to bear North so as to avoid having the blinding light reflected directly into his face, and because he hoped to get closer to Cyprus, Turkey, Crete or Greece.

The sea’s vastness and emptiness came as somewhat of a surprise. He had always imagined the Mediterranean as being a center of travel and commerce as ships from Africa crossed paths with European vessels. Many times sitting on a beach in Gaza he had imagined all the people and ships travelling the same sea while he could scarcely get a few miles out without being pushed back. But now he was alone in the sea and could see no one.

By the time the sun set over the horizon the remaining gas had all been used up. The temperature dropped so Hakim put on his extra clothes to stay warm, and curled up on the bottom of the boat. He shut his eyes and slowly drifted away on a shifty sea.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

IN TORONTO, SORRY FOR THE CONVENIENCE - Yesterday, two of the three elevators in my Yonge/Sheppard apartment building broke down. This basically meant that I could not take the elevator momentarily as usual; I had to wait for an extra 5 minutes. In shock, I have eventually realized how greatly annoyed I was.

My feeling of shock gradually turned into embarrassment, then genuine surprise. This trivial elevator incident revealed to me how much I’m becoming used to the comforts of life in Canada; the absolute freedoms of movement and expression that I now take for granted. The elevator came. I took it and on my way down I started thinking of my life back in Nablus. Such a sharp contrast! My life there was a non-ending series of small incidents that I had to “overcome” on a daily basis, with no “sorry for the inconvenience” messages following any of them. Living in Palestine means overcoming daily obstacles, from checkpoints to curfews to arbitrary arrests to many other little “inconveniences” here and there. And I started wondering, how would people living here react if they were put in an apartheid situation? Trying to grapple with this question was like trying to link my two worlds, my two states of being if you will. It is mind-blowing really how my mind adjusts to the new very different reality once I cross the Jordan River Bridge to the West Bank- a trip that dwarfs the elevator incident in a way that renders it invisible! Sadly, the extremely “inconvenient” living conditions in Palestine have been radically normalized. Perhaps it’s a form of godly mercy that the human mind can normalize the surrounding environment no matter how harsh it is; otherwise the underprivileged people in our world would eventually lose their minds and the will to live.

In Nablus, many “Al-Najah” university students –especially those who commute from outside the city- wake up awfully early to make sure that the university is open, and if it is, to allow enough time for the soldiers on “Howwara” checkpoint to hold them up for no apparent reason. Of course that remains a mere attempt: more often than not, students experience inexplicable delays at the checkpoints and end up missing their first lectures. The same story repeats itself on the trip back to their houses in the evening. Since 2000, this situation has been the status quo of their university life.

I get out of the elevator. On my way to the subway, I try to think of a typical summer evening in Nablus. A café in Rafidia, the “hip” street in the city. Guys playing a game of cards on one of the café shabby tables. Distant noise that is getting louder and louder until it becomes deafening. An army tank on the street. Guys leave the cards and jump out to defend their close-by houses and families in case the army wants to inspect the area. Bullets in the air. Guys running. 20 minutes later, the tank turns around and goes back to the end of the street and out of the city. Guys go back to their card game in that stuffy café, laughing off the incident and offering each other cigarettes.

No one in Nablus would pause and reflect on that scenario. It is a typical “side” of life if you will. Within that incident, loss of life was a very possible outcome; and indeed, it does happen sometimes that the army claims that they declared curfew a few hours ago and so soldiers start shooting or arresting innocent, usually male, bystanders. This kind of severe disruption of daily life has become so normalized, in fact, that people recount them to neighbours and friends as jokes, stories for the purpose of entertaining guests and family members on the dinner table.

I’m now standing on the platform staring plainly at the fast passing train in front of my eyes. I enter the passenger car, find a seat and let my mind wander back to Nablus again. The situation in Palestine is distressing not only in terms of violence but it extends to all parts of life: it is the “unpredictability” of living under military occupation that is simply dreadful. It is very difficult to control and thus plan your life. Do you have a business meeting in Ramallah next week? Maybe yes and maybe no. No one knows. It all depends on the “situation” that day. I am quite sure that “Minshoof shu biseer” (We’ll see what happens) is one of the most commonly used phrases in Nablus.

Oh how many days have I woken up not knowing whether there would be school on that day or not; not knowing whether I should study for a final exam or not; whether the food my mom is making for my little sister’s birthday will be eaten by her friends or will stay in the fridge for days because they couldn’t make it to our house. Oh how many times have we travelled (or attempted to travel) to Amman in order to catch our flight but would be turned back after 7 hours on the road- and that is why we usually leave Nablus to Amman at least 3 days ahead of our scheduled flight to make sure we get there. Almost everyone I know, including my father and uncles, lost jobs and money because of the volatile political situation. Absolutely everyone I know is terrified from the water scarcity issue which loomed particularly strongly after the building of the separation wall and the isolation of hundreds of Palestinian wells. Many people in Nablus are subject to frequent house arrests because their houses are in ideal locations for the soldiers to occupy and watch over the city. Hundreds of stores and shops have been looted by the soldiers in times of curfew. The list goes on and on and on.

A woman’s gentle voice brings me back to reality. “Attention all passengers on the Yonge-University subway line. We are currently experiencing a delay between Eglinton and St. Clair subway stations. The train will move again shortly. We apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused you”. I smile to myself while some other guys and girls on the train roll their eyes and check their watches in impatience.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

WATER SECURITY IN PALESTINE - For Palestinians living in the occupied territories, water scarcity is one of the most urgent problems. On many accounts, water scarcity in the Middle East is an escalating problem that could very possibly intensify the already existing conflicts in this highly volatile area. Palestinians suffer from a massively inequitable distribution of water that threatens their livelihoods and, in many cases, lives. This discrimination posits the necessity to prioritize water security as an issue on the negotiation agenda.

Since 1967, when the Palestinian territories came under military occupation, Israel has controlled all their major water resources. Shortly after the end of the war, the Israeli army issued a series of military orders that declared all water resources in the occupied territories to be Israeli state property that is to be controlled militarily, established a permit system for the drilling and rehabilitating of wells and fixed pumping quotas on existing wells, and required that every new water-related project obtains Israel's consent.

In effect, the only time when the existing water system was discussed to be modified is during the Oslo Interim Agreements in 1995. Article 40 of the Agreement stated that Israel “recognizes the Palestinian water rights in the West Bank and Gaza” but that “these will be negotiated in the Permanent Status Agreement relating to the various water resources”. In the meantime, “existing quantities of utilization” were to be maintained. In effect, Palestinian population growth has been ignored, with the amount of water allocated to Palestinians capped at 1967 levels.

The water resources available for the two populations, the Palestinians and the Israelis, are: The Jordan River, which is being depleted intensely by Israel; the Mountain Aquifer, sitting almost entirely on the West Bank; the Coastal Aquifer, sitting alongside the Mediterranean coast, including the Gaza strip [both aquifers are under full Israeli control]; the Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberias), onto which the Golan watershed flows.

The World Health Organization recommends a minimum quantity of water of 100 litres per person per day. In our geographical area of interest, Israelis get 350 litres of water per person per day while Palestinians get 70. As things stand now, more than 80% of the West Bank and Gaza’s water resources is exploited by Israel, although these resources –the aquifers- are largely replenished by water falling on the Palestinian Territories. In the West Bank, residents are either connected to the water network, pay for water trucks to come refill their water tanks at around 50 USD a tank, or rely on rainwater collection. Only 46% of communities have 100% coverage by the water network, and 13% are not connected to it at all.

As for the Gaza strip, it is the second most water-poor region in the world, with a total of 52 m3 apportioned per person per year for all uses. The water quality in Gaza is very low; containing high levels of toxins that can potentially pose serious health threats to human life. On January 7th, 2009 the World Bank issued a statement in which it states that Gaza is showing growing signs of a “severe public health crisis because of water shortages” and calls on the Israeli government to “allow enough fuel into Gaza to operate some 170 water and sewage pumps”.

In Israel, which is also suffering from a severe water crisis, measures are being vigorously taken to deal with the water situation. It is noteworthy that almost 75% of Israel’s water demands are being met outside its internationally recognized borders.

When supplies are short, for example in the dry summertime, the Israeli water company, Mekorot, shuts off supply to Palestinian villages and towns so that the Israeli supplies are not affected. In essence, this means that the settlers’ swimming pools are topped off while the West Bank Palestinians are left suffering from severe drinking water shortages. In terms of pricing, B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights body, reports that Mekorot drains off Palestinian water then sells it back to the Palestinians at 10 times the rates they sell it to the Israelis. Furthermore, Palestinians are banned from developing water infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza. Since 1967, Palestinians have had to acquire permits for the drilling of wells. In the same time period, only 23 permits have been issued. The number of operating wells has dropped from 413 to around 300 due to the prohibition on rehabilitating wells and the drilling of deeper wells by Mekorot, which caused many of the Palestinian wells to dry up. In contrast, the drilling of wells inside Israeli settlements is free-flowing.

In 2004, B’Tselem reported that the Israeli security wall conclusively affects the water distribution in the region. The wall winds through Palestinian villages and towns, separating them from their wells, which are thereafter used by Israeli settlers.

Instead of viewing access to water as a fundamental and basic human right that cannot be denied Israel regards water scarcity as a national security problem. Israel holds large parts of the West Bank as “security zones” around all the major water resources.

Practically speaking, certain steps must be taken immediately and the goals of water negotiations should be set and depicted as irretrievable human rights that must be secured before negotiations on any other issues ensue. For starters, the Israeli government should abandon its monolithic national security paradigm and perceive the issue in terms of “rights”. From an international law perspective, Palestinians should be granted absolute sovereignty over all the Eastern Aquifer water resources, as this aquifer is entirely located beneath the West Bank and is not a shared water resource. Palestinians should also be given equitable water rights in the western and northeastern aquifers, as these aquifers are recharged almost entirely from the West Bank. With regards to the Jordan River, as a downstream riparian nation to the Jordan River System, Palestine is legally entitled an equitable share of the system's water resources. Furthermore, Palestinians can claim water and fishing rights in the Lake Tiberias: this natural reservoir is an integral part of the Jordan River system, in which Palestine is legally a riparian nation with the privilege to utilize all of its available resources. Further, Palestine is one of the coastal countries to the Mediterranean Sea and thus should enjoy full rights to its resources, including fishing and sailing, and should have the right to protect it from trans-boundary pollution. Finally, there should be full compensation for damages to Palestine's water resources caused by Israel and reimbursement for water that has been utilized by Israel during the occupation.

The real thorny question in all this is how to persuade Israel, the possessor of power in this equation, to make compromises and give up these water resources. If access to water is understood as a human right, and the inequitable distribution of resources is recognized to be a violation of international humanitarian law, then international agencies and state entities could potentially freeze all loans and funding to the water sector in Israel until it grants the Palestinians their water rights. Simultaneously, the Palestinians could declare that negotiations will not proceed and that no issues will be put on the table before the water crisis is addressed. Sooner or later, when the Israelis finally decide to resume the negotiations for a viable and long-lasting peace settlement, they will have no choice but to resolve the water issue if they wish to move on to other issues on their agenda.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

SINGING MARTYRDOM - Raise your voice, raise your voice, raise it in your song! Songs are still possible, they are still possible!

“Please tell me how he was! How did you find him? Was his body still put together? Was it in pieces?! You have to tell me!” demanded the mother of the martyr Yousef Abu ‘Oda.

On Wednesday February 10, 2009, we were requested to join a team of Beit Hanoun locals in the Bura area in search of the body of Abu ‘Oda who had not been found despite two days of searching. We were around twenty individuals and we set out to search in areas around fifty metres away from the Apartheid wall on the northern border. After around thirty minutes, as we searched in pairs, we found the body of 21 year old Abu ‘Oda in the close proximity of a hill where the Israeli Occupation Forces were present. It was raining heavily, and small chips of ice were falling from the sky. It was cloudy and gray, and some soldiers were in a jeep that had its headlights on, looking like a spooky object amidst the surrounding darkness. Another was in a square-like concrete block, hiding, holding a sniper rifle, with a helmet atop his head. As the soldiers threatened via their megaphone to begin shooting at us, someone behind me screamed “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” The corpse had been found. Against the torrents of rain, it was carried in carpets back to an ambulance that could not make it where we were out of fear the IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces] would target it.

Abu ‘Oda had decided to choose the path of martyrdom, to use his body as a reaction against the oppressor’s recent massacre against his people. He had decided to blow himself up, at the borders, by the Israeli Occupation Forces’ soldiers who were present at the border. Abu ‘Oda, along with another young man, Kafarneh, were shot as they got closer, with the TNT explosives around their waists exploding at the instant. Kafarneh’s body was found earlier, but no one dared come closer to the borders to search for Abu ‘Oda.

Yousef is the ninth child of a family composed of ten individuals. He used to deliver chairs for funeral services during the twenty two day Israeli attack on Gaza. “Under the bombs, he insisted to take the chairs to the service, despite our constant disapproval,” said Reem, his cousin. Yousef had told his family that he wanted to honor his country by choosing martyrdom. As I sat beside his relatives in his funeral service, I couldn’t but relate to the irony. It is now Yousef’s funeral, Yousef’s chairs, Yousef’s green tent under which the men sit, and Yousef’s dates that the family serves as guests enter to offer their condolences. “How old are you?” asked his mother, and when I said I was twenty one, tears formed in her sparkling brown eyes. “He was 21 as well.”

But, it was not the end. The children smiled, there was food on the tables, the women cheered, and the men stood welcoming people in. Their heads were raised high, and their spirits strong against the death of their son.

Perhaps Yousef will not be mentioned in history books to come. Perhaps his family’s grief will not be noted down, or his story narrated that often. But his act is an echo, a symbol, a defiant decision against the weaponry of the only nuclear power in the region.

“I do not walk the line, where I place my foot, the line begins,” says Mahmoud Darwish in Goodbye to War, Goodbye to Peace, with his words never dying. Yousef walked his line, the path to the border. What he was thinking, no one knows. But, what he was doing, millions shall respond to, to the symbol, to the meaning, to the echo. This is not a culture of death, and this is not recklessness. This is the choice of death, for life. This is what would break the feeling of helplessness to those who own no F16s, F15s, F35s, Apaches, white phosphorous, gun boats, tanks and snipers. Yousef is a soldier, a soldier of a hidden army that rises against the injustices of time, of place, and of the dominant discourses of power. In Palestine, everyone is a soldier, each soldier with a different weapon, each weapon with a different echo, each echo with a variant form of resistance.

In whose hands does victory lie?

The human… the human will stand victorious, and politics falls at its feet (M. Darwich, 1974)

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

HAPPY VALENTINES FROM GAZA - It was after three years that Israel finally allows the Palestinians of Gaza to export flowers! What news!!! Well, 60% of Gaza's agriculture was annihilated in the war!

In Rafah town, there are flower greenhouses that produce 10 million flowers every year. For three years Israel gave no permission to any farmer to export it! Gazans had to “eat and drink” flowers for two years.

Well, this year, after the invasion, Holland bought 25,000 flowers to be shipped in three shipments. Yesterday, Israel permitted the shipping of 10,000 flowers! Happy Valentines Day!

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

VISIT TO BEIT HANOUN - I leave to Beit Hanoun where I meet with the great family that I was supposed to visit during my first week in Gaza. The Muslih family where the 17 year old Sa'id's leg got amputated by Israeli shelling in the Northern Gaza Strip when he and his father were watering the olive trees on their land. This occurred before the official massacring, since slaughtering of Palestinian citizens in Gaza was occurring in minute doses during long periods of time. Sa'id and his father were capable to get on board of one of the returning Free Gaza boats to Cyprus. I met Sa'id and his father before my coming here, back in Larnaca where they spoke to me of how much they missed their family back in Beit Hanoun. Umm Sa'id, Sa'id's mother, told me that there was minimal contact between Sa'id, Abou Sa'id and the family during the on going slaughtering.

The taxi dropped me off at the Tawba mosque and Umm Sa'id and I walked to her house. All of the eleven children with Umm Sa'id welcomed me in and I kissed each and every one of them. Abu Sa'id's sister in law, Leila, held my hand strongly and looked deeply into my eyes. Umm Sa'id told me that there was much difficulty during the intensive bombings and shelling for her to receive any income from Abu Sa'id and she had to rely mostly on her and his family's financial support here. The children gathered around me, each smiling and giggling. Little Samir went under the table and made 'ba'ousi" for me. He kept going under the table and then peaking from beneath it and then giggling loudly. We all laughed strongly. Little Mohammad kept crying every time I turned to take a picture of someone else. He wanted all the attention only on him! Umm Sa'id told me how it was a miracle that Sa'id was admitted to leave on board, and how a nearby doctor helped in this matter. "At the beginning when I used to tell Sa'id he might leave for better medical service abroad, he used to tell me off for dreaming. Later, when he had his hopes high, I told him to stop dreaming. And then, when it happened, there were no words for me to express my happiness for my son receiving this opportunity." My telephone interrupted much of our talk, and I was called for an exclusive interview on the Fakhoura channel that is called after the Fakhoura school massacring. This channel, I was told, will be broadcasting for only a few days, dedicated to Gaza.

I leave, as Omar from Ramattan picks me up. I promise Umm Sa'id to come for a longer visit, maybe a stay over if possible. The children follow me to the car with goodies and nuts…

The interview began at around five o'clock in the afternoon, and I already had a gathering with the ISM and some police officials in the Grand Palace Hotel at five. This interview was particularly meaningful to me, since, on the other side, in Qatar, there were students with the host, and there was a channelling of ideas about civil resistance and boycotting movements. This particular movement was initiated by Kirsten Scheid, professor of Anthropology at the American University of Beirut, and Samah Idriss the editor in chief of the Adab academic journal that circulated in the Arab world. It was a plan of action for activists after the Summer 2006 war in Lebanon. Scheid is a strong advocate and activist of the international community of boycotting the Apartheid Israeli state, and has published many informative and helpful articles about the products that support Israeli weaponry and killing of Lebanese and Palestinians.

I came in late to the gathering, and as I ascend the staircase comrade George signals for me to be quiet. Comrade George can be extremely uptight. I urged him before to calm down but with no success. His tension sometimes makes me tense. He can also be extremely particular, with a nagging attitude. He makes me smile amidst all my troubles. I come in already tense with his signaling, and I bump into a long paper board that falls on me as I enter. Nervous laughter emerges from those present. Adnan, the Hamas police official smiles at me. I go towards him and sit by adjacently. He asks if I am originally Palestinian. I say that I am Lebanese (again identity politics), and if he is surprised that an Arab would be doing this, in the era of Arab leadership betrayal and conspiring against the Palestinians. He laughs, and we speak about our disbelief in the Sykes-Picot agreement that divided the Levant into Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. We call ourselves the people of the Levant, ahl bilad eshsham, and he finds comfort in this category of identification. My dear comrade Cueeva sits adjacent to me, and smiles to me as I speak and look at her. I wish one day she would know that she embodies what heroism means to me (of course, Kirsten Schied played that role in my life and still does, secretively, in a way that I never showed… maybe one day, she will know what she symbolizes to me).

Vittorio has been feeling unwell for a few days now. Seeing him in this condition, and feeling helpless against his sadness, I feel compelled to leave him by himself. He needs to be alone, for a short period. I wish to take care of him, to listen, but I ask myself how can I take care of him when I need to care for myself. The chaotic period has not ended for us, for all of us, and there is a need for solitude and to rethink the happenings of the last weeks… I play some Fairouz for him, my medicine is usually listening to Marcel, Fairuz, or Abdel Halim (specifically Maw'oud)… instead we listen to the soundtrack of the Lebanese movie Caramel… ya mreyty, rah ihkilik hkayti, ouleeli ana meen? [mirror, o mirror, I shall tell you my tale, and you shall tell me who I am?]

I extremely despise it when someone categorizes me as a journalist, or as a "humanitarian activist"… I am neither. My activism is political and social… radical. Please do not call me humanitarian. We live in the midst of the era of human rights production and matters of the sort. We witness humanitarian international law being broken daily… do you think we want to be labeled as "humanitarian"? No! My role, our role, is greater than that… much greater than that… we are a revolution, we support an armed struggle and an armed resistance for liberation… Fanonians par excellence… Hasta la Victoria Siempre! Free Palestine! Down with totalitarian Arab regimes, down with colonialism, imperialism, occupation and oppression! No negotiations are allowed after massacres, genocides and schemes of ethnic cleansing… the vocabulary and diction used in such times are extremely important…

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

17/1/09 JOURNAL ENTRY –

7p.m.

I go home, as I feel the need to be around Sitt Wafaa, Azzouz and Dr. As'ad. I want to play cards with the children again. I realize I learn a lot from them, and I never want to be an adult, immersed in conformity to society and its standards, norms and rules.

Imad (Rima, Rita and Raghad's father), after I ask him to borrow some literary books from his library, takes me in the office and shows me all his books. He gives me books to read, searching every shelf and allowing me to borrow any book of my choice. He tells me, "I like to see people reading. That is why I lose many books, they never return them back!"

He left his home in Tal el Hawa to another area, as it was possible that the Israelis imprison him, like they did to many people on my block. Imad wanted to leave Gaza to do his masters, but the Occupation forces considered that a threat to their security and disallowed him to leave.

He shows me his Nawal Saadawi collection, Azmi Bechara, Ghassan Kanafani, Mahmoud Darwish… I feel euphoric. He shows me his photos with Abu Ali Mustafa, and tells me some stories of his early days, and about the intifada. As we sit and talk the children play around in the office.

We stay at Imad's and Taghreed's place, Sitt Wafaa, Azzouz and I. Sitt Wafaa tells me that Azzouz was worried about me! "He asked about you every single night you were away…" she said. He looks at me naughtily and smiles.

Sitt Wafaa was so happy with what I was doing. She told me stories of her youth when her parents would lose her and find her donating blood or working in one of the hospitals. She said she would have accompanied me everywhere had Azzouz not been dependent on her safety and well being. It was difficult doing activism while you have children, she told me.

We spoke about 1987 and about how women played a huge role in activism against the occupation forces. "The women used to go near the tanks and act as if they were the mothers of the boys that the Israelis kidnapped." Taghreed says [these are renown tales]. "My son, where have you been! I was searching for you the whole time!" and the women used to take as many boys from the Israelis as possible… "Now, the occupation forces do not care about the women. They shoot them." Taghreed continues.

At night, I sit with Dr. As'ad and we have some tea. He tells me about Turkey's role in the events and the positions it has taken during this massacre. He says that it has just promoted itself to being a good player in the region… so is the case with Qatar and Iran that is responsible

(ma fi hada… la tindahi ma fi hada…)(meaning: there is no one there..do not call..there is no one there)

10:31p.m.

It is raining heavily… but, it isn't cold… we are not cold any longer

Dr. As'ad, Sitt Wafaa, little Abdel Aziz… we are all sitting at the kitchen table. Dr. As'ad and I engage in a political discussion… Turkey and Arab nationalism… while Abdel Aziz, 7 years, is looking through a collection containing Naji el Ali's drawings. When I see a child of seven years do that… I feel alright.

Sitt Wafaa's family calls. Her sister tells her that she saw me on television. She asked is she could speak with me and Sitt Wafaa passed on the phone. All her sisters spoke to me. they were so proud of what came out of my mouth… when I hear such comments, I feel I have lived up to the role I assigned to myself for coming here and doing what I do, and did. If not… then I leave, as my coming and "doing" would not be effective. "Tahiyyati ilayki!" she said [salutations to you!].

Later, I got a phone call from the Red Crescent head of volunteers. They wanted to meet with me Abdel Aziz didn't let me go! He insisted that if I go the occupations forces would bomb and that I wouldn't come back!

I assured him that I am not going but that they needed to confirm meeting with me tomorrow to go around and distribute nylon to the houses with no windows.

I am singing an article in my mind. This is how I write… I have to be feeling something intense, either happiness, or sadness… pain, love… I need to feel an intensity of emotion, any kind of emotion, a high for me to write.

And I dislike diplomacy in writing… I could never do that. I was told by one of my dear friends and comrades to not to fall in the "sin of pride." He told me that people, after being through suffering, or those who have heroic work, tend to fall in this self-destructive existence… making the other feel guilt while the subject is proud. I admit though to have been conscious of my internalization of anger… I do not want to hate, nor do I want to become forever angry… but, I will despite all, and I know it after living two wars from the same death machine… never to forgive, never to forget-El Passionaria.

I get a wonderful phone call from a fellow comrade and dear friend from Canada… Ghassen… I thank him so much for his kind words and I am ever so happy to see all of you who write to us, and who persist on the morality and justice of the Palestinian cause (and the Lebanese one… anti-sectarianism and occupation forces' atrocities… Israel as war criminal…)… when we hear such words, and I have seen it here on people's faces … your words and your support do make a difference… and it is also very important to put those words into action and not only believe in them and feel them… need I say again how? (boycotting! Voting [for morality and justice and not for skin colour, gender, race and ethnicity]! Demonstrating!)

Ghassen says my presence is symbolic, especially to Arabs… and then I recall the identity politics of this all… woman, 21, Arab from Lebanon… how many stereotypes am I breaking…

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

FROM GAZA: A BURNING HOSPITAL – It was an irony; they said the invasion was over; the Israeli tanks pulled back from their positions. I said, the invasion is not over yet. The invaders are still inside Gaza Strip. Redeployment does not mean withdrawal! Three summits followed to decide! Decide on what? I am not talking politics in this context, rather I am talking humanitarian! My major concern is the civilian casualties and human loses! Unfortunately, no one king, president, emir, or sultan, or country's delegation dared mentioning Israel's violation of human rights; their use of white phosphorous bombs indiscriminately against civilians and residential buildings was "not seen"!

One of the major losses comes from destroying the agricultural life! The Israelis destroyed a very wide agricultural area; it's wide as compared to the overall area of Gaza Strip. Their military bulldozers uprooted trees, destroyed greenhouses, plants, crops, water wells, irrigation systems, electric lines, and everything else in the green field, and I mean everything else around! They killed domestic animals, meat animals, and poultry too! The features of the place have changed! Even fences between pieces of land were destroyed! Even the homes of farmers were demolished! The agricultural field has turned to be as plain as the palm of my hand! Israel punished every Palestinian living in Gaza Strip! Among losses estimated, approximately 50% of the overall loses were in the field of agriculture!

In simple words, the Israeli war waged against Gaza Strip proved to be an indiscriminate punishment of everyone in Gaza Strip! It was a process of killing an upcoming generation; hundreds of infants and children were killed under rubble. Also, hundreds of women were killed in the crazy bombing of civilians homes! The Israeli justifications and pretexts were silly by all means. UN secretary visited Gaza; he was taken to see how innocent civilians live inhumanely in UNRWA schools; he went to al-Fakhoura school in Jabalia where 67 Palestinian war escapees were killed, and dozens others wounded by Israeli tanks shelling! Did he condemn Israel even with his words? So what! I really mean it; so what his visit! Three summits were held in the region without mentioning a word of condemnation of Israelis violations of human rights and war crimes!

In Gaza, people are still trying to find their dead. The first day after the ceasefire 103 dead bodies were found under rubble, then 26 other were found the following day, and search is sill under way. Whole families were wiped from the map of humanity! Now, if we speak about those who were saved and remained alive in a way r another, we would mention dozens of orphans in need of care! Who will take care of them with no facilities available and no official social program for the orphans? There is only one orphanage in Gaza Strip and it's a poor institutions depends on donations and good doers!

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

THE BRAVE NATION OF PALESTINE - My brain has somewhat settled down. In the aftermath of this horror, I am trying to collect myself and I try to look forward. However, this morning, my calmer soul became outraged again; swearing loyalty to its angry side it has become too familiar with lately.

Firstly, I watched Ehud Olmert's speech after I decided that I wouldn't. In his speech, Olmert basically declared a unilateral ceasefire. Fine. His speech sounded like a mass of contradictions to me though. To start off, he offered words of courage and admiration to the families of the 14 dead and wounded soldiers, praising their "bravery in times of war". This was not a "war"! He makes it sound like a WWI battlefield where two armies fought on equal terms. This was an episode of savage bombardment of an unarmed civilian population; horrific 3 weeks of blind killing. I have no doubt in my mind that what happened in Gaza will go down in history as a war crime. How much more propaganda do you need to cover up all of this horror? History books will condemn the blind US support to Israel as the main reason why Olmert's government could not be stopped. Olmert. Right. Back to his speech. Let's handle this in point-form. These are some quotations from the speech.

- “our targets, as defined when we launched the operation, have been fully achieved, and more so.
Hamas was badly stricken, both in terms of its military capabilities and in the infrastructure of its regime”.

WRONG! If I may ask, how on earth do you know that your target; namely, weakening Hamas, has been met? This is a counterinsurgency war. If there’s one thing I learned in the UNI360 course I took last year, it is that it is almost impossible to claim victory in a counterinsurgency war. You still don’t know if Hamas is weakened or not. Missiles have been fired towards Israel this past week, and I bet you they will continue to be fired for a long, long time. I would even argue that Hamas became stronger after these 3 weeks, drawing the support of millions of Arabs and even the more moderate-minded Palestinians. Bravo! Great job!

- “The government decided to launch the operation in Gaza only after long thought and great consideration, and only after all attempts through other means to stop the firing and other acts of terror by Hamas failed. Israel, which withdrew from the Gaza Strip to the last millimetre at the end of 2005 - with no intention of returning - found itself under a barrage of missiles. Hamas violently took control of the Gaza Strip and began attacking the communities in the South more intensely”.

Ok before I dwell on this, I just have to invite you to giggle with me at the first sentence. How ridiculous!
Also, WRONG and WRONG! Israel withdrew from Gaza. Yes. It still placed Gaza under military occupation, blockade, no control over air or water, quick army invasions, and secret night assassinations and arrests, but it “withdrew” guys, to the “last miilmetre”!

Hamas, Mr. PM, did not “violently take control of Gaza”. It was democratically elected just 2 years ago. Are we supposed to giggle again?!

Also, allow me Mr. Olmert to ask you, how exactly did “all attempts through other means to stop the firing” failed? What other attempts have you taken? You have dismissed the Hamas-Fateh coalition government in 2006 when it has expressed the will to negotiate. Could you please, PLEASE, tell my why this happened? Because Gaza-style bombardment is a better solution? Very wise, Mr. Olmert. Kiss peace goodbye for at least another 15 years. Great job.

- “During the operation, the State of Israel demonstrated great sensitivity in exercising its force in order to avoid, as much as possible, harming the civilian population not involved in terror. In cases where there was any doubt that striking at terrorists would lead to harming an innocent civilian population - we abstained from acting”.

Thank you for your great sensitivity, Mr. Olmert. We appreciate it. Don’t worry about the 1200 victims. It could have been worse. We understand.

- “I wish to express my great appreciation to the international organizations which acted and continue to act tirelessly to assist us in providing the Palestinian population with appropriate living conditions”.

No need to “express your great appreciation” to them again. I think you have expressed it enough. The UN headquarters, two hospitals and 3 UN-run schools were bombarded, more than once. Your gratitude is kindly received.

- “Beginning at 0200 [0000 GMT], Israel will cease its actions against the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip and will remain deployed in the Gaza Strip and its environs... If our enemies decide that the blows they have already suffered are not enough and they wish to continue fighting, Israel will be ready for that scenario and will feel free to continue responding with force”.

So basically, the occupation will continue. Great. You also think that this massacre broke the will of the Palestinian people. Oh how wrong you are! Do yourself (and the Palestinians and Israelis) a favor and read a history book.

- “I also wish to say something to the people of Gaza: … We feel the pain of every Palestinian child and family member who fell victim to the cruel reality created by Hamas which transformed you into victims”.

The “cruel reality created by Hamas”. Right. 100% agreed. Hamas are the murderous war criminals who should take full responsibility for the victims. And you then, Mr. Olmert, you take full responsibility for the 8 Israeli citizens who were killed in the last 7 years by Hamas missiles. Hamas is not to blame then. Fair enough?

- ‘Your suffering is terrible. Your cries of pain touch each of our hearts. On behalf of the Government of Israel, I wish to convey my regret for the harming of uninvolved civilians, for the pain we caused them”.

I beg of you, don’t express regrets. There’s nothing more despicable and insulting than claiming regret and sorrow after all that has happened! I think I can safely say that this is the thing that has enraged me the most since the bombing of Gaza started. You’re sorry? Ok. Give us back the 420 children we have lost, the houses you have destroyed, the hospitals and schools and ambulances you have bombed, people’s cut-off limbs, and Rami’s vision. Rami, Mr. Olmert, is the 10-year old boy who got blinded because of your army’s use of white phosphorus, an internationally-prohibited weapon when used against civilians. So you give us back all that, and we’re cool.



Alright moving on, I heard (or read on Facebook, rather) that there is a pro-Israel rally tomorrow at Toronto's Dundas square- exactly where Palestinian supporters rallied for 3 Saturdays in a row to protest the situation in Gaza. I have to say I was baffled. Let me make this clear: I have no problem with you if you are pro-Israeli. This is a matter of personal opinion. I might try to talk to you about the Palestinian perspective, but I won’t hold it against you if you stick to your beliefs. That said, I must ask, what the hell are you protesting/rallying about right now? What is your message? Support for Israel during this “crisis”? Supporting Israel against what? Israel is getting a free hand in Gaza, backed 100% by the US while International condemnations and UN resolutions mean nothing to it. So what exactly are you asking for? More dead Palestinians? Is that what you want?? I’m just genuinely curious. Ok and a little angry. Ok very angry. Have you no shame?! It’s a good time to stay quiet at least till the Gaza events come to an end. Don’t you think?!

I wonder sometimes what my view on the matter would be if I was Canadian born and raised. Maybe if I were a Peace and Conflict Studies student, I would have raised myself above the pervasive biased media and sought the facts. But what if I wasn’t interested in politics? Would I have been another passing parrot echoing negative sentiments about the “terrorist Hamas”? Probably. This is how a lot of people think. Sad and terribly unfair. I feel so powerless against all the unfortunate but understandable ignorance. A recurring fantasy I had lately is seizing some sort of a world stage where my voice can reach all the people on Earth, telling them about the Palestinian reality and the atrocities and injustice Palestinians suffer from daily in the 21st century; about the history of displacement and death that repeats itself over and over and over and over.



I think it's a known fact now that the conflict has always been over the land. Well, I am a Palestinian who, like almost all Palestinians, have accepted the state of Israel. What more do you want from us? All we’re asking for is an independent and sovereign Palestinian country on whatever land we have left, a country where we can live in peace and dignity. All I want to see is a prosperous Palestine where children can play safely on the street. Is that too much to ask for? Why do you keep denying it to us? We are people, just like you. We like ice cream and shriek when we see a snake. We’re human beings, not dogs. We deserve to be treated with humanity and respect. We deserve to be granted human rights and freedom from occupation and discrimination. You can never break the will to be free, so end your occupation and show good will. Negotiate so we can both achieve peace. It's as simple as that. I have said this once and I will say it again: Hamas fighters are not deranged murderers. They are fighting occupation. If you grant us our rights, the rockets will stop. I wonder if there's a way to drill this fact into your brains.

May all the innocent victims rest in peace. May the blood of all the children never be savagely spilled again. May we be spared the cruelty of the last 3 weeks. May peace and freedom prevail in our lifetimes. For what it’s worth, I am immensely proud that I belong to a brave nation.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

WATERED DOWN RESOLUTION STANDS ON THE BACKS OF THE PEOPLE OF GAZA - There is no safe place in Gaza. A statement by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reads, "This war is unique in the way that the civilians have no place to go and no place to hide." On Saturday evening, one week after the launch of Operation Cast Lead, Israel's ground operation began and civilian casualties increased rapidly. The UN grimly reports that one-third of the over 850 dead and 3300 injured were children. Entire families were buried under the rubble of houses that were hit, and starving children were later found sitting next to their dead parents and other corpses.

Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the UN Agency in Gaza are just a few voices in the chorus of condemnation against Israel's blatant disregard for human life, with accusations ranging from denying food and aid to injured children, to deliberately targeting and using civilians as human shields. The global community is realizing what voices on the ground asserted 14 days ago: there is no such thing as surgical operations in Gaza. Civilians cannot be separated from so-called military targets in an area as congested and densely populated as Gaza.

Recognizing that the ground assault "complicated" efforts to broker a cease-fire, regional and international figureheads from the Middle East Peace Envoy Tony Blair to Turkey's Foreign Minister Ali Babajan began a series of diplomatic muscle-flexing. Keen on rejecting what they deemed an "unbalanced" and "one-sided" draft resolution circulated by Libya on behalf of the 22-member Arab League on January 1 – before the ground invasion – that demands a halt in the military attacks on Gaza, the United States and its allies initiated a series of marathon meetings to issue an alternative resolution.

To their delight, French President Nicholas Sarkozy drew a plan for a truce on humanitarian grounds between Israel and Hamas with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. What is essentially Israeli terms with an Arab face, the much touted Franco-Egyptian resolution conditions Israel's military pullout both on the permanent cessation of rocket attacks and closure of underground tunnels, a relatively new invention used by Hamas to smuggle in arms, but also basic goods and supplies denied to the Gazan population after the Israeli imposed siege in June 2007. However, this plan was rejected by Defense Minister Ehud Barak who feared that admitting a humanitarian crisis existed in Gaza "would undermine Israel's offensive in the Strip."

Egypt, who suffered widespread criticism on the Arab street for its closure of the Rafah crossing throughout the Israeli imposed siege and current military invasion, is seen as a defunct player to many. Its role as mediator has been shaken by accusations of complicity in Israel's military campaign, given shared interest in "toppling the Hamas government." In addition to placing political demands on Hamas, the Cairo-sponsored resolution is a favorite of the United States given its call for an international presence on the Egyptian side of the Gaza border, and a potential naval presence to monitor the shore of the Strip.

Knowing that Hamas is unlikely to accept international presence along the Gaza Strip - particularly if it is ostracized from the entire diplomatic process - and facing mounting pressure at home through coordinated grassroots campaigns and massive demonstrations, the Arab League continuously voiced its intention to get a resolution passed.

On January 6, virtually every Arab speaker denounced the failure of the Security Council to adopt a legally binding resolution to halt the Israeli offensive. Even voices from staunch US-allies such as Saudi Arabia were disapproving, asserting a "deafening silence" by the council which placed "a big question mark over its credibility." To bypass the procrastination of the Security Council, Libya even circulated a modified draft resolution calling for an "immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip" and adding an "end to rocket firing into Israel by Palestinian militants" as part of its demands. But this had little chance of survival as it failed to meet US and Israeli terms for border monitors to destroy Hamas' underground tunnels. Indeed, throughout the diplomatic squabbles, the US was steadfast on ensuring a resolution gets passed that "does not allow the rearmament of Hamas".

Desperate for an international response and weary of returning empty-handed to an outraged population, Arab nations decided to put aside their proposed Security Council resolution, instead negotiating on a rival document proposed by Britain, the United States and France. This was prompted by the realization on part of Arab nations that these veto-holding powers would block any resolution imposing strict measures on Israel to end its brutal attacks.

In the end, the diplomatic showdown on January 8 resulted in the Arab League's week-long request for a legally binding and enforceable U.N. resolution that condemns Israel and calls for an immediate halt to the Gaza blitzkrieg failed, miserably.

The resolution passed by the Security Council is a political farce for two main reasons:

1) It lacks form

Hamas was not included in the diplomatic process.

Paradoxically, Hamas is expected to abide by a document whose authors deny it a chair at the diplomatic roundtable. Tzipi Livni’s insistence that Hamas is “not to be given the opportunity to gain any sort of legitimacy within a renewal of a truce” fails to recognize the popularity of this group in the West Bank, and its control of Gaza. Contrary to common belief, Hamas has time and time again requested inclusion in the international political process; even if it means talking to Israel. But this is old news. Hamas adopted this position almost 2.5 years ago by recognizing the Prisoners Document whereby it agreed to surrender control of the Palestinian government in favor of a power sharing administration committed to a negotiated two-state settlement on the territories Israel occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem. This document fell on the deaf ears of the international community and was dismissed by Israel as “advocating continued resistance.”

The UN resolution is perhaps most favorable to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who, while his 4-year term officially ran out on January 9, has been trying to use the diplomatic process to secure his rule at home. Warnings by the Chief of the Shin Bet in late August of the need to come up with a political solution prior to the end of Abbas’ term prompted the PLO to declare him “the president of the future state of Palestine.” But the PLO is not an elected body and cannot legitimately elect others to power. Thus, to win more time in office Abbas has used the current negotiations to extend his term, hoping to bypass the Palestinian elections for another year.

Indeed, Abbas’ statement that an Israeli rejection of the Gaza ceasefire makes it responsible for “perpetuating a waterfall of blood” is also true in that it would severely weaken his own rule; further destabilizing an already tense political atmosphere in the West Bank.

2) It lacks substance

The resolution is not legally binding and issues no time restrictions
.
Granted, it "stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire leading to the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza." However, when words like “durable” and “leading to” are translated into military terminology, it means that Israel now has free reign to end Gaza blitzkrieg when it wants.

The resolution also dilutes important issues by addressing everyone’s concerns without imposing protocols for their engagement. Violence against civilians is condemned. Humanitarian assistance is to be distributed. Initiatives aimed at creating and opening humanitarian corridors are welcomed. Tangible steps towards intra-Palestinian reconciliation are encouraged. Intensified discussions will occur. And finally, member states are instructed to increase efforts for peace.

Vague language with various mechanisms attached. In fact, Hamas is not even mentioned in the resolution. Even the reopening of the crossing points in Gaza are to be conducted through a document signed by the Palestinian Authority in 2005 and dealt with through Cairo. Further, it was just announced on January 10, that EU diplomats seek to bypass Hamas by restoring control over the crossings to Fatah-led PA security personnel.

As evident from the attacks of the past few days, the resolution allows Israel to announce its own ceasefire and not be bound by an international document. In effect, it serves as yet another diplomatic cushion between Israel’s ongoing war crimes in Gaza and the region, and international law.

Thus far, it is becoming evident that both Mahmoud Abbas and the Arab states jumped on the US-led diplomatic train to quell widespread public dissent at home, the effect of which is the encouragement of Israeli unilateralism. And while recent movement by Abbas and the Egyptian-led initiative seeks to broker agreement from Israel and Hamas on the UN document, both have yet to adopt its recommendations.

Until the adoption of a resolution with vigor or the severe insertion of a world power both with the political prudence of sitting down with Hamas and the ability of cornering Israel into a ceasefire, the unbearable status quo persists. In the meantime, Israeli bombs rain on the Strip and people of conscience around the world are glued to their televisions, continuing to witness an organized genocide against an oppressed peoples.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

ISRAEL'S HISTORICAL MISTAKE - No matter how the current war plays out, it is certain that Israel has made a big historical mistake in entering Gaza.

On Saturday night, one week after the start of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli ground operation began. Israeli Forces began deploying combat units to surround Hamas' main power base, the declared goal of which is “not to chase after and destroy every last rocket launcher, but rather to break the Hamas' resistance”. Israel believes that the ground incursion into Gaza will significantly damage Hamas’ standing army and give its leadership a clear sense of the threat to their rule.

Livni was clear from the beginning. "The state of Israel, and a government under me, will make it a strategic objective to topple the Hamas regime in Gaza," she said at a Kadima meeting almost a week before the war began. Indeed, the call to remove Hamas is reiterated by most of Israel’s prominent political figures.

The Israeli operation poses a serious risk to Hamas’ hold on Gaza. In addition to eleven days of intense military pressure, Hamas is also contending with political and economic difficulties from an 18-month siege imposed by Israel. That said, it is not safe to assume that Hamas will collapse under the Gaza blitzkrieg.

However broken and destabilized by the pressure, all Hamas really has to do is survive.

Even after suffering for 18-months under a brutal blockade, the majority of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip support the Hamas regime. According to a public opinion survey conducted by the Al-Mustiqbal Center in Gaza a week before the invasion began, 52% of those surveyed said they “would vote for Hamas” in the upcoming elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council. Only 13% of those surveyed said they would vote for Fatah. Indeed, most public opinion surveys that have been conducted as of recent in the West Bank and Gaza indicate this trend. Considered the most senior Hamas official in the West Bank, Sheikh Hassan Yousef said:

"It should be said that we don't live in the clouds. We're not disconnected from the ground, but live among the people and are well aware of the reality. We read the situation in Israel, the region and the world very well, and we are well connected to the reality and assess it... A government can be removed by force, just as Saddam Hussein's government was removed in Iraq. You can't get rid of us."

Sheikh Yousef’s words are echoed by the head of the Lebanese political group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, who notes that the social and political reality of the Hamas regime will prove extremely difficult for the Israel’s ground invasion “because of the one and a half million residents who are embracing the resistance.”

In the meantime, it looks like the Israel’s plan for Gaza is progressing as planned. Over 500 dead. Over 2800 injured. Chaotic scenes in hospitals with entire families killed the attacks. The damage done to Israel by Hamas since its inception is nothing compared to what Israel did in the first 3.4 minutes of the Gaza Blitzkrieg.

The question is how much time the army has left. On the diplomatic front, the UN Security Council has proved inadequate to deal with Israeli aggression as the US has thus far effectively blocked two calls for a ceasefire. Remarkably, at a time when the military invasion is escalating on the ground and civilian casualties are swiftly rising, the Security Council has actually downgraded its response, refusing even to grant a formal press statement. Further, the international community -- mostly the US and Egypt -- is giving Israel time to carry out the ground offensive, to severely damage Hamas' hold on Gaza. Indeed, Israeli diplomats report that Egypt's support for Israel in the war with Hamas has “been a pleasant surprise for Jerusalem.” Like other regional actors, Egypt wants to see Hamas bleed before it assumes the role of mediator.

While a weakened Hamas may improve the chances of achieving an agreement of interest to these states once the fighting settles, the cost of giving Israel free reign to conduct its genocidal attacks may be too much for the region to handle. Hamas must be understood as a creature of the occupation. It is a response to the occupation, to years of failed peace processes neglecting the basic demands and legally enshrined rights of the Palestinian people. In fact, most of the Hamas senior leadership was raised under the occupation. They were the Children of the Stone of the Intifada. And while the Children of the Stone are not made of stone, no Fatah leadership would last if it rolls into Gaza on Israeli tanks.

So who will fill the power vacuum in the potential absence of Hamas? What type of regime will emerge after this brutal military incursion? Whatever party that comes into power in Gaza will inhabit a political and social environment void of restrictions imposed by international law or principles of human rights and dignity. Through their blatant disregard for human life, Israel and its allies have effectively placed Gaza outside the human rights discourse. They have ensured that similar to the hundreds of innocent civilians with scars documenting the Gaza blitzkrieg, the faction that seizes control over the Strip will carry the political scars of this grotesque invasion.

Operation Cast Lead has thus far succeeded in creating a "new security reality" in the region, but this reality may not be one Israel is able to contend with.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

A GLIMPSE OF MY WORLD - Before I welcome you to my world, I must warn you that although you see infants and children of all ages, it’s rated R. Before I welcome you to my world, I am obligated to warn you of what you’ll see. If you believe in peace, in humanity, in the greater good of mankind, in the 21st century, in human rights, then you may want to reconsider entering my world. For those of you who choose to go on, to take a step into my world, I say welcome. I shall guide you along your path through my world and I apologize for offering no guarantees over your life but I cannot even guarantee my own safety.

You are now standing over the ground where the American bulldozer, driven by an Israeli soldier, purposely ran over the American peace activist Rachel Corrie for trying to stand in the way of the demolishing of a Palestinian family’s home. Over here is where a children’s school used to be, to your right stood a mosque once upon a time, to your left a church. If you walk along this path you’ll reach a hospital, I’m sorry to say there won’t be any room for you or a doctor available to examine you if you get sick while visiting my world because we’re overstuffed with the 450 bodies and 3,500 injuries that came in, in the past week alone. Why are you so surprised? Yes, that is a child you see, dead, left on the cold hospital floor. Many more will soon follow with the electricity blackout as hospital equipment will stop working. You must’ve been listening to the Israeli foreign minister and other Israeli officials around the globe assuring the world that they’re only targeting Hamas militants—they seem to forget the thousands of innocent children and civilian causalities.

I will take you now to meet the terrorists you have heard so much about. Hamas. Here they build the homemade weapons they use to fight an army with its 21st century weaponry and top military training. This man standing in front of you is the man you labeled a terrorist for having the pride that forced him to refuse living on his knees, for swearing his life for his people’s freedom. Beside him stands the next “esteshhade” or as you like to call him “suicide bomber”, a man preparing to sacrifice his life for his country. He would have told you his story, why he so easily welcomes death, the reason he can sacrifice his life so easily with nothing to hold him back, he has no one to live for, the story of how his entire family was murder by the airstrike that demolished his home, the story of why he couldn’t give his kids a decent life in a free world, why he can’t get a job or leave, but he no longer cares to, he no longer cares to get you to understand, to see his story. He doesn’t care if you label him a terrorist; he’s ok with being alone in fighting the true war on terror. He gave up on your sympathy long ago and doesn’t ask for your help but for you to just leave him alone.

I hate to ask you to leave, not when there’s so much more for you to see but the next airstrike is about to hit and you will not be safe. But before you leave I ask you to please apologize on the behalf of my people for supporting terror, for forcing our Israeli neighbors to live in shelters. Apologize to the world please for resisting our genocide, the ethnic cleansing of our land, for refusing a peace without freedom, for refusing a two state solution that allows our neighbors to live without fear but gives us a state without control over its borders, water or air, a state with tens of Israeli settlements. We apologize for the international chaos we are causing. And to my people, I personally send my deepest apologizes for making all this financially possible by existing in this world, for buying international and even local products that have taxes paid to Israel. I apologize for the clothes I wear, for the food I eat, for the home I live in, for the water and electricity I use, for the phone I talk with, for the gas and car I drive, and for the air I breathe, all of which have made your genocide possible.
As an American, I would also like to apologize for paying for the military weapons used to kill you by paying my taxes. I’m sorry for being able to stand in the center of Tel Aviv and feel happy without thinking of you. Sorry that I trivialize my ability to go to Jerusalem with my American passport when it has been your lifelong dream.

I stand in front of you today saying sorry but there isn’t much I can do. I can watch the news and watch you die. When we protest on our sliver of occupied land, separated from you, the Israeli soldiers will greet us with bullets too. I’m sorry to say that amongst those I call friends here there are some who couldn’t care less what happens to you. Farewell to those who will leave us today, to those who I will not get another chance to write to, I ask you to please accept my apology before your soul departs this earth. I need to clear my conscience for after this is all over, the world will go on living and it will be as though you were never here.

Mostly, I’m sorry I believed in peace.


Dana Halawa is a Palestinian-American who lives and goes to high school in Nablus, in the Occupied West Bank.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

Thank God my family and I are all ok but the situation is very bad here in Gaza. My house was almost destroyed as it is only 10 meters away from the almontada (Presidential Office). The F16 bombed it the first day. It was a really hard time and a nightmare. We left our home and I came to my parents' place. I sent my wife and my daughter to her grandparents place as it is safer. I have not seen my daughter and my wife for almost 10 days and I can't even leave my parents' house. We are shocked by the response of the Arab world and the UN. We have had no water or electricity for over 5 days. If the problem is with Hamas then why are 1.5 million Palestinians paying for this? May god assist us and help us. I hope that this will end soon. My regards to everybody. Pray for us.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

Today was another demonstration in Ramallah. This time the crowd was much larger and more organized, but there was little unity. People would attack the flags held by others—most of the flags that were pulled down and then burned among the crowds were Hamas flags. Some were thrown on rooftops so that they could not be waved in the demonstrations. Also, the organizers were competing over who gets to hold the microphone to the point where there were fights breaking out among the enraged and frustrated demonstrators. It upset many who attended to see the internal divisions in the Palestinian national movement reflected in these clashes.

Qalandia checkpoint opened up this afternoon so people are able to get in and out, but there were serious clashes between Qalandia camp and the occupying soldiers at the checkpoint. I saw a number of soldiers shooting bullets at the crowds of young Palestinian boys throwing stones and lighting cars and tires on fire. The Israeli soldiers were also joking (!!) about making the Palestinians "dance" with the number of bullets they would shoot by their feet. It was really disgusting to listen to and watch.

The '48 Palestinians are also incredibly upset. There were demonstrations in Acca and Haifa today and the shops in Haifa, Nazareth and Acca were closed in solidarity to mourn the loss and continuing loss of lives. People are concerned the war will spread in the region and Israel is mobilizing its reservist troops and tanks at the border of Gaza for a possible ground invasion.

I just heard back from my parents and brother that the demo in Toronto today had a good turnout, and that the weather was freezing... People here express feelings of relief when they hear about solidarity work overseas, especially since Abu Mazen's comments: placing blame fully on what he called Hamas' failure to keep the ceasefire.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

THE ONLY LIVING JEW IN KABUL - Zablon Simintov is likely the only living Jew in Afghanistan. A few years ago there were two. But they had a falling out and, by his own admission, Zablon Simintov was not at all sad to find Ishaq Levin, the Jew with whom he had shared Kabul's only synagogue, lifeless on the floor.

According to a 2005 article in the Washington Post by N. C. Aizenman, the animosity between the two men began when Simintov offered Levin some help to immigrate to Israel. This did not please the elderly Levin who apparently, on another occasion, denounced Simintov as a spy to the Taliban—who were already none too pleased about Kabul's stubborn Jewish population of two—when he found out Simintov wanted to send the dilapidated synagogue's handwritten Torah scroll to Israel for safekeeping.

There is certainly something of the miraculous in Simintov's survival through Taliban rule. A North American friend I told Simintov's story to was tempted to draw an analogy between Kabul's lone and vulnerable Jew surrounded by a sea of angry Arabs, to Israel's own endurance despite the enmity of its neighbours.

Of course there would be a couple issues with that analogy, not least of which would be the fact that Afghans aren't Arabs, nor do they even really live in the Middle East, but since when are we North Americans so discerning when it comes to that region? Indeed for that comparison to work Simintov would probably also need at least a few nuclear bombs in his arms cache under the synagogue, a hefty bank account, and a really generous and powerful friend. On top of that, he would have sent most of his neighbours fleeing from their homes and then forbade them to return. All things poor Simintov does not have and did not do.

Let us put an end to this habit of finding a comparison for all the Middle East's quagmires, and, please, for the love of God, let us be done with Second World War clichés. Benjamin Netanyahu, the hawkish former Prime Minister of Israel and leader of the conservative Likud party, likens the current regime in Iran to the rise of the Third Reich in Germany, and Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Hitler—effectively, albeit unintentionally, trivializing the crimes of Nazi Germany. No Mr. Netanyahu, this is not 1938.

But a few months ago I was traveling in Iraq and something did make me think of Simintov. We were driving along Iraq's endless highways bordered by quasi-lunar landscapes of garbage and stones; the smoggy sky, so grey, so heavy, and hanging so low above our heads it felt it as though it would surely crush us. The sporadic signs indicating the way to Baghdad had started showing distances falling short of the more reassuring three-digit range. I kept looking over at my driver who spoke not one word of English, my eyes asking "are you sure this is the way?" and his grin seeming to say "don't worry, we're not going there," though it may have meant "ha! This foreigner is shitting himself!"

Thinking of Baghdad, or rather dreading Baghdad, reminded me of Simintov in Kabul. Somewhere in Baghdad, I knew, there remained a handful of Jews. Like Simintov, these Jews are all that remain of a once thriving community. In 1948 there were 5000 Jews in Afghanistan. Today there is one. Baghdad was once the cradle of Jewish culture in the Middle East. Today you could count the number of remaining Jews on the fingers of your hands. In both cases, Jews fled persecution and most ended up in Israel or the United States.

But as veteran Middle East correspondent David Hirst points out in his book, The Gun and the Olive Branch, the Jews of Baghdad were once a prosperous and educated community. They enjoyed equality with other citizens under the constitution, they had representation in parliament, worked in the civil service and the Minister of Finance was a Jew from 1920 to 1925.

Oriental Jews, as those from the Middle East are called, had historically not suffered as the Jews of Europe had in European Christendom. Modern Zionism, the political movement started by Theodore Herzl aiming to establish a homeland for Jews in Palestine, therefore had much less appeal.

The arrival of the British in Iraq after World War One and the subsequent Zionist drive to establish a state in Palestine, did not help the Iraqi Jews. The Jewish minority was seen as being in special favour with the foreign rulers, as they were perceived to be throughout the Arab world once it was carved up by the French and British. In 1941 there was a riot in which more than 130 Jews were killed. It was the first pogrom in Iraqi history. After the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 there were still 130,000 Jews in Iraq.

What happened in the early 1950s is a matter of debate. David Hirst maintains, as a couple descendants of Oriental Jews I met in Israel told me they also believe, that the Iraqi Jewry was tricked into fleeing Baghdad by Zionist agents in Iraq which spread fear in the community with a series of three bombings. The Iraqi authorities subsequently made arrests of suspects allegedly members of a clandestine Jewish organization called "The Movement". Arms caches were found in synagogues. There was a trial and two were sentenced to death.

Hirst's claim that the Jews of Baghdad were "ingathered" by Zionists to meet Israel's need for new immigrants is controversial and disputable. Whatever the sources of the violence, a thriving Jewish community was decimated. Oriental Jews arriving in Israel were put in transit camps where they were lectured by teams of Zionist educators, and many of the Oriental Jews never felt at home or even accepted as equals amongst the European settlers of Israel.

Middle Eastern history may well be filled with battles, conquests and persecutions. All history is remembered this way. Blood and gore mark the climaxes of our narratives. Times of calm and cooperation are forgotten like the lull in an action movie.

I've heard Jerusalemites say there will never be peace in these holy lands because there has never been peace there before. Gone from their narrative is the grace of Cyrus the Great, the Persian king, when, in 538 BCE, he allowed the Jews of Babylon to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Forgotten is the fact that following the Roman-Persian wars it is the Arab conquest which, in 638, permitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem. When Saladin, the Kurdish Muslim leader, defeated the Christian crusader armies that had killed most Jews and Muslims of Jerusalem, it was he too in 1187 who allowed the Jews to return. Jerusalem under the Ottoman rule of Suleiman the Magnificent enjoyed development and peace, including protection for its Jewish inhabitants.

It is currently virtually impossible for most Christian and Muslim Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza to visit Jerusalem. If these more benevolent moments of the city's history were recalled more frequently, would it perhaps be a courtesy the Israeli regime would be more inclined to extend to the Arabs of its occupied territories?

Benny Morris, the Israeli historian, documents in his books that Israel was indeed ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian population in 1948 but believes that had it been done completely—meaning that if all Palestinians had been pushed across the Jordan river—there would now be peace. He said in a televised debate on Democracy Now! with Saree Makdisi and Norman Finkelstein that Jews and Arabs could never coexist in the same state because they were simply too different. As Professor Makdisi pointed out, they have and they can.

If we look to history for analogies and clichés, why not also look to it for inspiration and hope? History affirms that Arabs (Christian and Muslim) and Jews can cohabit peacefully and prosperously. Let's try to replicate these moments of our history instead of constantly resurrecting the spectres of its darkest hours.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

VESTIGES OF WAR: HOW WE CHOOSE TO REMEMBER - As a child my grandmother took me to the coast of Normandy so I could learn about the Second World War and see for myself the landscape and bunkers fought over at the cost of so many lives. Across the world, war is memorialized. Victories are celebrated and defeats bitterly remembered, and often even the most humiliating of loses are distorted into triumphs with tales of heroism and resistance in the face of pure tyranny.

We erect monuments and recite poetry—In Flanders fields the poppies blow, between the crosses row on row—in memory of wars waged and to souls lost. Often, in our efforts to pay tribute and to never forget, we sanitize the infamy of warfare into something aesthetically sterile but incredibly moving nonetheless. Those who have laid eyes upon the identical rows of white crosses which populate the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer cannot help but be stirred by their sheer number. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. is equally poignant in its austerity by the seemingly endless list of names.

In our concerted effort to remember we often also try to absolve ourselves of our wrongdoings. Those accused of committing massacres point at others who have equalled or outdid their own. Those whose crimes are too monumental for the national psyche to absorb without precipitating an identity crisis often choose not to recall at all and to move on. Thus no genocide was committed against the Armenians at the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the massacres at the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila were no worse than others committed during Lebanon's protracted civil war.

In Damascus, I stop to take-in the monument depicting Saladin on horseback guarding the entrance to the Old City. The revered Muslim leader who fought the West's Crusader armies and recaptured Palestine is buried nearby in the Umayyad mosque.

Not far away, the October War Panorama, built with the help of North Korea, celebrates the 1973 war with Israel and focuses on Israel's methodical destruction of the town of Quneitra.

However, north of Damascus in the peaceful town of Hama, with the Orontes River flowing through its city center and riverbanks lined with trees and gardens, I can find no clue of the bloodletting which took place in 1982 when then President Hafez al-Assad sent in troops to suppress a rebellion against his iron-fisted rule by the Muslim Brotherhood. The three weeks of fighting that ensued left the city center razed and between 10,000 and 30,000 of Assad's fellow Syrians and coreligionists dead. No memorial here.

In the Middle East the dregs of war are everywhere and open to anyone's interpretation. In Hebron, there is a shrine to Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli settler and army reservist who entered the Ibrahimi mosque with his automatic weapon in 1994 and killed 29 Muslims during prayer, injuring over a hundred more. So fundamentalist Jewish colonists pay tribute to a man who is unequivocally considered a terrorist by the surrounding Arab population.

In Beirut, I climb what is left of the Holiday Inn tower. From its roof, I can survey the bombed out and derelict buildings jutting out awkwardly amongst the city's booming reconstruction efforts. These pock-marked skeletons are unsavoury reminders of civil war, invasions and occupation..

I obtain permission from the Lebanese authorities to travel to the South of the country where the ruins of the Beaufort castle overlook the region from one of its highest ridges. Because of the castle's strategic location it has been fought over by invading army after invading army during the past 1000 years. It was used by Palestinian guerrillas in the 1970's, attacked by Israeli jets in 1982 and then occupied by Israel until its retreat in 2000. Despite pleas by the Lebanese government to preserve what was left of the site's historic integrity, Israel blew out parts of the castle as it withdrew. The Israelis may have understood that the vestiges of war left by one army can quickly become the memorials of its enemy.

It is then not untypical of the kind of irony found so readily in the Middle East that a memorial to one war should become a military target of another. Such is the case of the al-Khiam Detention Camp located not far from Beaufort. This prison was run by Israel's proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army (SLA), during its occupation of Southern Lebanon. The SLA held prisoners there without charges, in appalling conditions, in an attempt to keep the surrounding—largely Shiite—villagers acquiescent. After Israel withdrew and the SLA guards fled, the villagers ran to the prison to free those still trapped inside.

Hezbollah turned the notorious camp into a museum displaying the occupation's brutality, and in tribute to the prisoners who did not make it out alive. But the museum was bombed and all but completely destroyed by Israel when it faced off with Hezbollah during the summer of 2006. The wreckage, with Hezbollah flags protruding out of the piles of stone and wire, now houses two mock missiles aimed, as one can guess, at the prison's destroyer.

In Syria, during the war of 1967, the town of Quneitra, situated in the Golan Heights, was captured by the Israeli army. They occupied the city for six years until it was briefly recaptured during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The Israelis repulsed the Syrians in a counteroffensive and held onto it until 1974 when a disengagement agreement was signed. However, before withdrawing, in what amounted to a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Israelis systematically stripped the town of any valuable goods or materials which were sold to Israeli contractors. Bulldozers and tractors subsequently went to work. Every building, shop, bank, restaurant and the town's hospital was destroyed.

Today Quneitra is a ghost town of rubble bordered on its western side by rolls of barbwire delimiting where one would be unwise to venture since the area is heavily landmined. There is a UN post and a few Syrian police officers scattered amongst the ruins. In the distance to the West are the rollicking green fields cultivated by Israeli colonists. A Syrian intelligence officer "accompanies" you while you visit and you must obtain permission from the Syrian authorities to do so. He is, of course, all too happy to point out the extent of the damage wrought by Israel's occupation.

How we are so alike! We cannot bear our dead to remain nameless or the pain of loved ones lost in vain. We cannot accept defeat so death, through a desperate metamorphic process, becomes righteous. We attempt to make of war a dignified affair. We swear vengeance in the face of injustice but justify injustice if done on to others by our own hands. And it is a charade we never tire of.

So we treasure our vestiges. For when the guns fall mute and the lark's song is heard once more we hasten to make meaning of our use of force for fear that we may look in the proverbial mirror and see we are, after all, not so dissimilar from Beirut's unsightly, concrete carcasses.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

STUCK IN IRAQ - Had I known, as I began to travel through eastern Iraq towards the Iranian border, that the very city my Kurdish acquaintance had told me, as we parted, to be careful in and to get out of quickly would be the one I would end up stuck in for the night, I would assuredly have suffered another night in boring Suleimaniya.

About three hours and two taxis later, I approached the Iraq/Iran border by foot. The signs warning to be prepared to stop at the checkpoint and that the use of lethal force was authorized definitely caught my attention. However, being by now no stranger to the Middle East's checkpoint formalities (act casual and confident you have the right to be there; with most soldiers, you can lessen their hostility and suspicion towards you by means of a smile and a loud "Salam aleikum!" or "Shalom!" if you're in Palestine) I didn't feel overly threatened.

At first glance it seemed deserted until I detected two men in fatigues with sunglasses and scarves covering their faces peering at me from the security of their bulletproof booth. Believing my reddish beard and blond hair gave me a little leeway, I waved and smiled. "Salam aleikum!" I called out merrily.

By the way he reached for his weapon I could tell he hadn't been impressed by my western appearance. Perhaps having frequently been stopped on the street by people asking to have their pictures taken with me had gone a bit to my head. Right, I remembered, I'm not Leonardo Dicaprio, and I was overtaken by the urge to runaway from this clearly unhappy gunman.

I was ordered to stop, drop my bags, lift my shirt and spin around; a little dance I did most obediently. I tried to explain in as few words as possible that I was not a human bomb but simply a harmless backpacker who, God knows why, thought he'd cross Iraq instead of Turkey to get to Iran. I gently reached for the passport in my pocket with the barrel of his gun following closely my every movement.

He signaled for me to go stand behind the waist-high blast-wall, thereby emasculating the TNT presumably strapped to my legs. With much hesitation he approached me and patted me down. He looked at my passport, saw it was Canadian, grinned and said: "Canada… I have brother in Waterloo".

Since it had been established I was not a security threat and that authorized lethal force was not required here, the soldier informed me that the border was closed. Now being stranded on the Iraq/Iran border is exactly as much fun as it sounds. Dejectedly, I hitched a ride back to the near-by Iraqi city of Khanaqin, the words of my Kurdish acquaintance playing over in my head "Be careful there, you know, not just Kurds there so sometime little dangerous".

The hotel manager in Khanaqin wanted nothing to do with me so I walked up the street looking for another place to rest my head. I reached a roundabout and approached a police officer. I have no idea from what nooks or crannies they appeared from, but suddenly I was surrounded by at least fifteen officers all asking me a variant of the same few questions simultaneously.

Before I even had the time to object, I was being shuffled off into a pick-up truck and driven to the police headquarters. We spent considerable time knocking on the door of whomever it was who was supposed to be in charge, and everyone seemed quite unsure of what to do when the sounds of heavy snoring were discerned coming from behind the locked door. After a few minutes of arguing and banging on several other doors in the same hallway, a groggy and corpulent man appeared.

The interrogation was not totally unpleasant. The officers were friendly and seemed confused more than anything else by what on earth a twenty-four-year-old Canadian was doing in Khanaqin. The officer in charge wanted to know if I could arrange for him to find a Canadian wife so he could immigrate.

It was determined I would spend the night in a hotel, which, I tried to explain in vain, was what I had been intending to do all along. I enquired about whether or not it was really safe for me here since ethnically mixed cities in Iraq are generally unstable and I thought the Americans posted a few kilometers down the road probably didn't help my case either. "Oh yes!" they all exclaimed. "Very safe" they choired happily. Then, not thirty seconds later, the man in charge, suddenly very serious: "But don't leave hotel when night".

I was then accompanied back to the hotel by two officers. The manger seemed apprehensive to have me as his sole client. Though their conversation was incomprehensible to me, I couldn't help but get the impression his concern was either for my safety or that of his hotel's.

Reluctantly he accepted and demanded fifty dollars. Now when trying to negotiate the price of your room, at the only hotel, in the sketchy Iraqi city you are stranded in, the odds may be against you. But the officers present, suddenly panicked by the prospect of having to figure out what to do with this Canadian claiming to not have enough money for the hotel room and going on about how he will take his chances outside, argued in my favor and the price was eventually dropped to twenty-five.

My room was absolutely repugnant. There were five beds and my problem was not so much finding which one was not too soft, not too stiff, but just right, as it was figuring out which sheets were the least covered in other people's sweat and which bed contained the least foreign hairs. I scanned the floor to decide which square foot was the least grimy so I could set down my backpack.

As I walked the city streets it was clear I was the first Westerner out-of-uniform anyone had seen in a long time. A large building by the city centre was still pockmarked from the eight-year Iraq-Iran war during which trench warfare and poison gas were used. The city streets soon emptied as people went home to break fast, this being the month of Ramadan. I felt it wise to return to my hotel room, where power cuts helped add some theater to my predicament.

The next morning a cheerful, elderly taxi driver took me towards the border. As we drove passed a smoldering heap of trash, he pointed at it and said: "This… Iraq". Then he broke out into a frightful fit of laughter.

At the border I was thoroughly searched and finally driven on a bus to where the Americans process those who come and go—for it is decidedly the Americans who have the final say on who or what enters and leaves Iraq. I was greeted by an American-Latino carrying an assault rifle. "Hey what's going on brother?" he said. He was wearing fatigues with the word “Contractor” written over the left side of his chest. Then a huge American female soldier came waddling out of the compound and asked me to follow her to the Bat Cave.

The Bat Cave (with its own logo and everything) is a biometrics system which scans irises, takes a headshot and records fingerprints. It allows evidence taken off of Improvised Explosive Devices, for example, to be passed through the system to see if anything matches someone's profile. "I've never done this to no one who can speak English before," she told me as she processed my information. Another friendly soldier told me about his visit to Niagara Falls.

Finally I walked to the border fence where Iraqi guards warned me about "those Iranians". On the Iranian side of the border, as the Iraqi guards who had taken a liking to me waved farewell through the gate, the Iranian officer bringing me to the immigration department said "Iraq" with a hiss and a dismissive wave of his right hand.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

AN IRAQI VACATION - Two days and two nights of interminable bus rides through barren, rocky planes and of too few hours of sleep caught on grimy terminal floors, left me a bit dazed, looking for a taxi in Iraq.

Northern Iraq is undoubtedly one of the few successes the American-led war can rightly claim. The Kurdish autonomous region is thriving relative to the rest of the ravaged country, and so far the only place I have traveled to in the past eight years where someone on the street has given me a thumbs-up and said "George Bush too good!"

But my taxi ride by the soaring flames of Kirkuk's oil wells and then through the dangerous city reveals a large population still living in abject poverty.

Seemingly endless expanses of garbage-strewn highways and quasi lunar landscapes punctuated by decrepit mud and stone huts lie in sharp contrast with the breathtaking, mountainous countryside where herds of sheep are shepherded by boisterous, dirty Kurdish children. The positively atrocious buildings and North Koreanesque monuments sprouting up haphazardly throughout the region's main cities can also serve as an adequate enough metaphor for a society at odds with itself; a place where modernization and the old-way play tug-of-war with modernization pulling too hard and too fast.

For despite oil revenues and aid, the cost of living remains almost unbearably high for many. The price of food has risen, power cutts happen daily, the price of gas is exorbitantly high since Iraq does not have the adequate infrastructure to refine all of its own oil, and everything is imported from outside the country. Indeed the apple I bit into this morning had somehow found its way into my hand from Chile.

The threat of violence is also never far but these are a people hardened by war and accustomed to pain and loss. Having survived the genocidal ambitions of the late Saddam Hussein and his attempts to Arabize the oil-rich Kurdish region, these are a people presently preoccupied with the material. The money being injected into Kurdistan and trickling down to the bottom-folk has already meant the arrival of the hardworking Ethiopians and Filipinos ready to work the menial jobs no longer deemed suitable for complacent Kurds.

But cash-fueled change is a difficult force to rein-in and while tourism in Iraq may not happen tomorrow it could happen provided the Kurds show some restraint and carefully rethink how their newfound fortunes will be used and developed.

The numerous military checkpoints and strong army presence will remain a necessary reality throughout Kurdistan for the time being, but it is worth noting that, despite Iraq's infamous suicide bombers and sectarian violence, in Suleimaniya, Northern Iraq, one can sip on tall bottles of Heineken after a day of sightseeing. It may not be many people's eco-adventure dream vacation, but for Iraq it's a start.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

The "Palestinian State" is being created out of the scraps that are left out of the West bank and the grotesque prison that has become the Gaza Strip.

Take Ramallah. Ramallah is a relatively booming commercial center. The Israeli government seeks to make it the capital city of a future Palestinian state and have succeeded in doing so. Even Arafat was buried there, but in a movable casket in the hope that he will someday return to East Jerusalem to be buried. This was recently changed and the wheels were taken off, effectively burying him in what has become the capital city of Palestine.

Then there is Bethlehem which still has a very small tourist base. Yet, it too, like the other "Palestinian cities" are heading towards economic strangulation, and very fast. The Israeli government had built a new Jewish settlement just outside of Bethlehem called Har-Homa and is being posited as the "new Bethlehem." I read in a report by Ittijah (a Palestinian NGO) that Israeli archaeologists are coming up with theories arguing that the Church of the Nativity is not actually where it is now, but within the Jewish settlement. This is, of course, for tourists most of whom are directly brought into Har-Homa via buses to spend their money, and then return to Jerusalem. There is even a tunnel going straight from Har-Homa to Jerusalem.

Often the water in Bethlehem, Beit Jalah and Beit Sahour (the two districts which are connected to Bethlehem) is shut down. The distrubing thing is that some can actually tand in their homes and see the Jewish kids playing in swimming pools of the settlers while the entire city of has no access to water. The prices have also heavily increased in Bethlehem as they have no more business coming from Jerusalem. It is very hard to ship goods to and from Jerusalem with the Apartheid Wall as it basically encircles Bethlehem, creating ghettos. I arrived at what is called the "Container Checkpoint" at 5am from Nazareth on Saturday morning and saw a huge crowd of Palestinian men, at the checkpoint, looking to get through to go to work in Jerusalem. These men get up early, and walk to the checkpoint as they cannot pass with a car, and then walk to Jerusalem for work, returning the next day.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.