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: Music, Palestine | Tags: Michael Jackson, Remix, They Don't Really Care About Us
An excellent Michael Jackson / Palestine remix video by my good friend Jihane. European colonialism continues to ravage Palestine.
Filed under: Israel, Palestine | Tags: 61, Anniversary, Birthday, celebration, Sixty One
Israel celebrates 61 years.
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.
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
Questions from Palestine َأسئلة من فلسطين
بقلم مازن قمصية By Mazin Qumsiyeh
Forwarding/publishing encouraged- النشر يشجع
Filed under: Carlos Latuff, Cartoon, Gaza, Illustration, Israel, Palestine
Filed under: Apartheid, Christianity, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, USA | Tags: Bishop John Bryson Chane
‘May we no longer be silent.’
-Bishop John Bryson Chane
The Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC, The Rt. Rev. John Bryson Chane, delivered a powerful sermon Sunday, October 5, at St. Columba Church, the largest Episcopal church in DC, on the topic of his recent trip to Palestine/Israel.
H/t: Thanks to Australians for Palestine
Harvard scholar Sara Roy on the political economy of Palestine under Israeli occupation. Roy explains how the economic and social changes of the past decade in Israel and the Occupied Territories have undermined the possibility of peace in the region. (Running time 1:26:55)
Jones, a wealthy financier, had on many occasion in the good old days — when trains were flourishing and coaches were the last word in technological luxury — crossed the continent by Pullman. He was well known and well served and was accustomed to every convenience, particularly when dining. Imagine his exasperation, then, when it turned out that the chef did not have tutti-frutti ice cream.
“No tutti-frutti?” he shouted. “I always have tutti-frutti.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the waiter, soothingly. “We have chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, black walnut, cherry, mocha almond —”
“I want tutti-frutti,” cried Jones, banging the table and turning red. “I have always had tutti-frutti and I won’t have anything else.”
For miles he muttered, scowled, growled, and snarled at everyone, so that every train employee on board had visions of angry reprisals. Finally, the train stopped at a station; a word to the conductor kept it there while the crew scoured the town for tutti-frutti ice cream.
A whole pint of the dessert was found and all of it was presented to Jones, with huge gobs of cherry sauce on it, together with a sliced banana and a swirl of whipped cream. (more…)
Filed under: Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Video | Tags: Gaza Blockade, Huwaida Arraf, Kyriacos Triantathyllides, Ranaan Arraf, SS Free Gaza, SS Liberty
Watch Huwaida Arraf’s excellent advocacy (ISM activist and co-founder, Free Gaza participant) and Ranaan Arraf (former Israeli advisor to Ariel Sharon) tell blatant lies and go apoplectic. European Union rep. Kyriacos Triantathyllides is also excellent.
Inside story- Gaza blockade- 24 Aug 08- Part 1 (13.12)
Slides courtesy of End the Occupation — visit their site to download and for more resources.
