Filed under: 1948, Israel, Palestine | Tags: Anniversary, Birthday, diaspora, Umm el Zeinat
In Diaspora is a touching account of the return home to Palestine of a Palestinian-America woman. As a sample of her work I’ve included her post on her visit to her grandparents village, Umm el Zeinat, from which her family was uprooted in 1948.
As planned, yesterday we returned to my ancestral village, Umm el Zeinat, near Daliyat al Karmel, on Mount Karmel, in Haifa. Of course when I say “return” this is much greater than my brother and me. This return is about my family, about an oppression that they, along with all the people of Umm el Zeinat and the people of the other 500 destroyed villages of Palestine had to endure. What we undertook is the greatest act of resistance against the Zionist movement. Three generations later we remember, and though not under our own conditions, we return to a village from which they hoped to erase our traces.
On our way into the village we met a man and his wife, picking cactus fruit with their four children. My uncle pulled over to ask then how well they knew the village. As it turns out they are from the Fahmawi family of Umm el Zeinat. We told them we were returning and they offered to guide us through the village. Of course all that is left of the village is rubble from demolished homes, overgrown shrubbery, and trees– both indigenous and those planted by the state in an attempt to make it seem as though no one ever lived there.
Filed under: Israel, Palestine | Tags: 61, Anniversary, Birthday, celebration, Sixty One
Israel celebrates 61 years.
Obama congradulates European colonisers for ethnically cleansing native Palestinians 61 years past – a process that continues to this day. From the Jpost:
The US bond with Israel is “as unshakeable as ever” as both nations pursue peace, President Obama said on Israel’s 61st birthday.
“On behalf of the people of the United States, President Obama congratulates the people and government of Israel on the 61st anniversary of Israel’s independence,” said the statement issued Tuesday by the White House. “The United States was the first country to recognize Israel in 1948, minutes after its declaration of independence, and the deep bonds of friendship between the US and Israel remain as strong and unshakable as ever.
“The President looks forward to working with Israel to advance our common interests, including the realization of a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, ensuring Israel’s security, and strengthening the bilateral relationship, over the months and years to come,” the statement continued.
Filed under: Israel, Palestine | Tags: 61, Anniversary, Birthday, Lia Tarachansky, Nakba
The following is by Lia Tarachansky a producer and journalist for The Real News Network.
As we celebrate the sixty-first anniversary of the creation of our state, Palestinians commemorate their Catastrophe, al-Nakba in Arabic. After all these years, it is time for us to recognize what has happened, and continues to happen in our name, and by hour hands.
Our national denial of the events of 1948, of the dispossession of at least 418 Palestinian villages, is at the root of our so-called conflict. Many historians have uncovered what has actually happened, though the Israeli state and its educational system refuse to change the denial narrative.
Excellent short animation announcing Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). From the website PULSE. Watch the 2008 trailer here.
One of the best news reports I’ve seen. Although again it fails to explain the context of Israeli occupation and aggression. From Channel 4. Thanks to Pulse.
The human toll on just one Palestinian family in the OPT, an Israeli soldier says he doesn’t know what they are doing there, “purification, maybe”. This CBC report would not have made it under Israel censorship. Condolences to the Hunwajas who can never get their mother back (3 minutes). H/T Juan Cole
Filed under: Children, Israel, Video, War Crimes | Tags: Annie Lennox, london
Annie Lennox in London 11 January 2009
More from Safa Joudeh on her life in Gaza. Really heartbreaking, yet Safa is clearly a strong woman. Interesting that as Israel refuses international journanlists access to Gaza, locals are getting wider coverage. Safa is now in TIME and her writing certainly deserves to be: she is both impassioned and honest.
As big sister, I accompany two of my five younger siblings to the roof of our 14-story building. We head up there whenever we can, even if people say it makes us easy targets. We climb 13 floors of stairs just to stand and look out on Gaza and breathe in 15 minutes of air before we duck inside again. “Burning City,” the children call it. Columns of smoke rise from various locations in the distance changing the color of the sky and the sun. The entire landscape is transformed. We can make out the locations of several of the many public, residential and landmark buildings that have been turned to piles of rubble. Israeli tanks now block the roads where we used to drive along the coast. Dark, ominous warships look out of place so close to our beautiful Gaza shore, which had been one of the only escapes and source of relaxation for the besieged people of the Gaza Strip. Earthen barriers have risen in the Zatoun area, cutting off the densely populated, heavily bombarded neighborhood from the rest of the city. Continue…
From Juan Cole “Israel’s immediate reaction to the ceasefire call was to intensify its bombardment of Gaza.“:
The United Nations has now called for a ceasefire in the Israeli war on Gaza, which is probably a sign that it will wind down not so long from now. Despite assurances given by outgoing US Secretary of State Condi Rice to her colleagues that the US would sign off on the resolution, in the end the US simply abstained. She appears to have been ordered into this humiliating about-face by W. when she made the mistake of phoning him before the vote. The lack of unanimity may weaken the force of the measure, but it nevertheless is a signal that Israel’s freedom of movement is now going to be increasingly constrained. Continue…
