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Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Revolution, you are doing it wrong!

This morning I got an email through a yahoo group called RamallahRamallah, the group is for advertising  available apartments, rooms, local business so they reach local and international customers, and even for political activist, to spread the word about actions, protests and events. 

The Email is in the picture you see below, the text is also included right below it.




It's Thawra time @ Andareen Pub . . .
It's time for a real revolution..Come to Andareen and let us show you how the real revolution works . . . We are partying Thawra style....
REVOLUTION  
Wear a Koffye (7ata) and get 10 NIS discount on cover charge, OR a free shot.DJ Atallah Tarazi will be playing the best and newest revolutionary music.... Don't miss it 
New Thaura cocktails! Kassam... Kheibar... AK47 and more... Couples of groups only  
Cover charge 20 NIN 
See you all there, 
Peace

I am not going to comment, I just want you to set back and think about it!
Think how low we sank.

Best
A

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Close Range

An old picture I found while going through my old files. 
The picture is for an Israeli Army officer arguing with a Palestinian resident in the village of Bilin, during the soldiers search for Palestinian stone thrower. 

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Normalizing the Occupation.

Allow me to start with the following phrase. Normalizing the occupation is one of the most dangerous notions that the Palestinian people in the occupied territory face nowadays.

In the early years of the occupation, that is the occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem starting from June 1967, Palestinians were still fighting the Israeli colonization on all levels. Back than it was easy to recognize the occupiers; occupation was obvious as it penetrated through all aspects of life; it affected the schools and its pupils, the hospitals, its patients and its doctors. As it was, back than, still the occupier that was responsible of the civilian life; Soldiers and officers set out the rules for daily Palestinian life. People could easily identify their enemy; the blond man wearing the green army suit.

Although it was through Oslo that the Israeli colonization started to take other forms, people, at first, were still able to identify the brutal occupation. The big military towers, jeeps patrolling the streets between the by PA controlled cities, the manned checkpoints, and finally the settlements that came crawling down the hill tops. At early stages of Oslo, the people were still highly aware of those dangers, yet they didn't act. As also they, like their leadership, were mislead by the illusion of peace; a peace with  Israel. A peace with the colonizer, a colonizer that was in fact not leaving the territory it had so violently taken, but a colonizer that was in fact staying and hovering over the execution of decolonization within a by them defined piece of land.

It was only at the end of the nineties that the Palestinian people started to see the reality as the illusion started to fade away; settlements were ever expanding; more and more land was absorbed by the colonizer that had promised them ' peace'; and the population of imprisoned Palestinians in Israeli jails kept on growing. Until finally the 'peace talks' were put to a Halt!

Then at the 28th September of 2000 the second Intifada broke out, one of the bloodiest eras in the Palestinian history, after the Lebanon war of 1976-1989, was about to begin. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed in the first months, thousands in a few years. It was then that the Palestinian was disparately trying to fight tanks and jet fighters with AK47, RPJ, and home made rockets.

Then in 2006, the Palestinian election were held, the elections that were widely encouraged and even demanded for by all of the so called 'democratic' states in the West. Unfortunately for them, the elections ended with a major victory for the Islamic Hamas over the secular Fatah. As for divide and rule, the elections would, due to a clash of interests, end with an almost total separation between the West Bank (staying under Fatah government control) and Gaza( now under Hamas government control).

In December 2008, Israel would start one of it's biggest operations since the Lebanon war of 2006, i.e. they would start an operation they called "Cast Lead". An operation that was meant, at least this is how they tried to legitimize it to the West, to destroy the infrastructure of Hamas. Slogans such as " We have to stop the Hamas rockets that kill innocent Israeli lives" were brought up to legitimize the killing of at least 1400 Palestinians, the majority of them being civilians. Hamas stayed in power and rockets are still falling on the Israeli side. Al in all cast lead was just another run of killing worthless Arabs, while showing the Palestinians and the Arab world with what this cruel exhibitionist colonizer could come away with; without sanctions, without economic loss. (In fact, they might even have gained financially.)

All of those atrocities committed against the Palestinian people, compelled the Palestinian people to build a defense mechanism of acceptance to what was and is happening on the ground in the last few years. This mechanism was later reinforced and fortified by Israel's policies 'to ease' the situation in the west bank; checkpoints became unmanned and people were able to travel with their own cars between the by the PA controlled cities in so-called A areas. And off course this all was accompanied by a huge dose of capitalism to smear the transaction from a occupation fought against to an occupation normalized in the minds of the people. Slowly people took on nice jobs in Ramallah with relatively good salaries, and went out at nights in one of the many western-look-a-like-bars and night clubs. Eventually people even applied for trips to a beach in Tel aviv and Natanya, that they once called their own. In other words, the wall kept on eating more and more land from the West Bank, settlements kept on expanding, yet the Palestinian people seamed not to notice it anymore or seamed unwilling to grasp the seriousness of the situation that they were slowly buying themselves into.

Finally, Palestinians reached a level where they were unable or unwilling to grasp the occupation that still affects most of their lives. The IDF became just another law enforcer, just like the Palestinian policemen were becoming. And settlers were just some nasty neighbors, but hey, that doesn't mean we can't live with them, it doesn't mean we can't drive on high ways especially designed for them, right?

In general people tend to ignore what doesn't affect them directly. So why the fuck should I care about an old man who just lost his land to a settlement in Hebron? This doesn't affect me so it doesn't bother me. And why would I care about a piece of land lost by the building of the Apartheid Wall, in bilin, nilin, walaja, just to name some villages affected by its building? So what if a man was beaten or shot by a settler in Iraq Bourin, Awarta, or Hebron? They are not relatives of me anyway.

At the same time you will find many of those normalizing the situation, cursing the evil Jews, "those mother fucking bastards who kill us everyday", posting pictures and videos with racist and antisemitic comments into the cyber world. While in the meantime, that is in the real world, the ones who are really making a difference on ground are often Jewish and Israeli anarchists. Well I might be exaggerating it a bit here, but you can't undermine the role they are playing in our resistance movements anymore.

The Palestinians residing in the occupied territories, after 44 years of occupation, reached a level where it is OK to have soldiers passing by people;the military towers practically became part of the landscape and the same will soon apply for the apartheid wall; as for the checkpoints, well they are there to protect us from... us.

The saddest part is that the same applies for the Palestinian activist community, though it may be harder to notice the normalizing patterns in these communities. In order to notice it, one is required to look to the story told on the other side as well; when they talk of the current situation they tend to diminish the suffering of the Israeli and exaggerate the occupation's actions. Not because they think the Israelis aren't any good, but because they been through too much and start to believe that their suffering is not enough to interest the white world. So they start to make up much worse stories, making the Israeli Occupation forces look worse than they in fact are. Such behavior will, in the end, only lead to a disastrous outcome, as the Israeli propaganda machine, well-oiled as it is, will only gladly use this misleading picture Palestinians start to portray in order to demonstrate the world that all of the Palestinian people are suffering from are their own lies.

I am only saying this, because we need to understand, our suffering is not something we have to get used to, we do need to cope with the occupation to live, but this shouldn't blind us from the obvious fact, we still live under occupation. closing your eyes wishing it will go away wont work, opening your eyes so wide it ain't big enough for you wont help either.

My fellow Palestinian, things are what we see! checkpoints are checkpoints, whether it was maned or unmanned, military towers are military towers. Nothing is normal about occupation and colonization. Your suffering is huge no matter how small you see it!

Think simple... Act simple!

Best
A

Monday, June 13, 2011

Good morning #Muslim #Nazi

A couple of weeks ago, some fellow Palestine advocate tweeps started a fun "joking" #PalestinianPickUpLine hashtag, it was and still fun, we just ran out of pick up line for now. 

But among those tweeps I couldn't help noticing some very raciest, Islamophobic remarks, you stuff you get from people who can't tell between a Sikh and a Shaikh. they mainly come from a single person.. he call himself Jarvis Redwine, under username @AnalBossInsMan 

anyway this man left those comments :
“#PalestinianPickUpLine my two brothers were great #suicide bombers.Killed 100 #Jews between them. They now get their 72 virgins
#PalestinianPickUpLine my two brothers were great #suicide bombers.
I re-tweeted the second one, after adding my personal touch.
some #Idiot still think we celebrate other ppl death! @AnalBossInsMan: #PalestinianPickUpLine my two brothers were great #suicide bombers.
Later he followed me on twitter, this morning i get this as a response to my Good Morning tweets.



I don't have much response to that, specially to someone with obviously a fake name, and fake account. seriously, how many self-respecting person will have a real account on twitter that start with "Anal"!


When I was a kid, my dad, gave me a book and said, "you can't blame an Ignorant, I want you to be accountable about every word you say". This was in the early 90's, knowledge was few and mainly controlled by corporation, but since then many has changed. Information is uncontrollable anymore, social media is taking over, it's the world new source of information. 
Knowledge is flowing in the internet space, if you wanna learn anything, you can just Google it. The corporate media, has no power over anything anymore.


The old "I didn't know" excuse is no longer acceptable. 


Get educated.. at least to know in which side you are. 


Best 
A

Friday, June 10, 2011

Peaceful Resistance

The Confrontation with the Israeli army in Naksa day at Qalandia in Sunday, and  after the Israeli took over the streets in no time with their tear gas, concussion grenade, and rubber bullets. the Palestinian protesters were forced back to the same old position, the same one as May 15, Nakba clashes.
Well, I have nothing to say about it, The pictures below will tell more,





But the protest took a different direction, a group of protesters gathered around the soldiers, the Protesters were chanting and holding signs, and every time the soldiers throw tear gas, they would gather again as soon as the gas fade away, at this moment boarder police went down to confront the protesters, pushing "usually with their bodies, never saw a soldier use his hands." the protesters back -who had their hands behind their back-. the police used the means they know the best, they used tear gas at least twice, they stopped after they gassed themselves"somehow the commander who throw the gas canister, just miss calculated the wind, so he teargassed his men, rather than the protesters, I have some respect for this commander, as he returned to his men, although the gas was everywhere, to check on them.!"


After the second gassing, the police called the Skunk water Canon (it is chemical blue/greenish liquid that smell like sewage water. it stick on clothes and skin, not easy to remove). as soon as it's arrived the protesters rushed to confront it, as soon they stood in front of it, the canon opened fire!! "to be more accurate, open water" refreshing them in the very hot sunny day! I got some of this refreshing liquid as well, a week later I still smell it.


The protesters stood against the truck for a while, they were pushed, and pepper sprayed before the police finally push them aside letting the trucks enter, to wash the street of Qalandia refuge camp.




The protester stood doing almost nothing for a while before a military jeep showed up, 2 protesters tried to block it's way, the soldiers at this point responded violently they stormed the 2 protesters, they arrested one, dragged him and forced him inside the jeep. The protester who escaped the arrest said "we shall not let this Jeep leave as long as this guy inside", the protester tried to block the path, but the soldiers were aware this time and forced everyone away.



One of the protesters tried to b lack the way, but not for long, he was chased and brought to the ground for a while, protesters and medics argued the Israeli police to let him go in an ambulance eventually, claiming he was badly injured.


Seeing all this made me think-for the first time- about the power of peaceful resistance in Palestine, the soldiers most of the time stood there a bit confused as for the first time, they are dealing with Palestinian protesters with no stones in their hands, they wanted to use the same old means, I could see the urge in the border police face to shot, yet he couldn't, their was no excuse to use such power, over an obviously unarmed civilian.

The soldier, and border police are used to deal the stones throwers, young men who can be easily listed under combatant, that can cause harms to the soldiers(the list of people who can be considered as a threat on the soldiers life is wide). In other hand Israeli police is more capable to suppress peaceful protest, but they don't operate in the west bank,....... maybe they will sometimes soon.

Yet, you can easily note, how noneffective the peaceful protest was(so the stone throwing), the soldiers could easily arrest them all in minutes, their were only 20 protester.. "maybe less" they were scared, or at least not welling to be arrested. after the water canon stand, there was no more action only 2 people were left to meet their fate, with the Jeep stand.
Those activist failed to understand, peaceful resistance is just like the armed one, need planing, need attacks plans as much as it need defiance mechanism, it's not enough to walk down the street with your hand behind your back, this can be stopped in a tear canister.
The people who adopt the peaceful resistance must maintain the same qualities an armed fighter poses, they must be willing to be arrested, beaten, and even shot dead to achieve their purposes. those qualities I didn't see among most of the activist who stood there.

In the end as someone believe in armed resistance, I think those peaceful resistance advocate have something to offer, we must give them the chance.. in the end, it can't get worse.

Final note, you can't throw stone and do/claim peaceful protest at the same time... those 2 don't work very well together.

Best
A

PS: The Palestinian as people still maintain their right to use any mean necessary to achieve their purposes of Independent state on their righteous land, and the return of the refugees.  

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Arrested At Qalandia

An Israeli Police officer Hold down a Palestinian protester in attempt to Arrest him, after he stood in front of an Israeli army jeep, to prevent it from driving away with another protester arrested earlier. The protester in this picture was taken away with ambulance later! He is fine now.