11 Years

11 years ago, in the 29 of September, AlQuds newspaper head line was "Ariel Sharon visit AlAqsa mosque", 2 lines below the newspaper quoted him "I came here with a message of peace, I believe we can liver together with the Palestinian." and peace is the only thing we didn't see since then.

yaa, it's all his fault 

In  29/9/2000 the Palestinian worshipers clashed with the Israeli police in Al Harram Al Shareef, after the Friday prayer, 7 people were killed, in less than a week another 66 Palestinian were shot dead in protests and clashes all over Palestine, in the west bank, Gaza, and the48. The Palestinian second Intifada has started!

Remember him?

The situation, regardless all effort to save the peace talk, the situation on ground escalated, the number of  Palestinian causalities raises every day, no day would pass without a Palestinian being killed by the Israeli, by the IDF in most cases and Settlers during the hunting seasons, 7000+ Palestinian and 1000+ Israeli were killed until now, and still counting.

Until 2002, most of the clashes between Palestinians and Israelis took place outside the major cities, either on villages, cities entrances or sometimes refugee camps(usually located on the outskirt of the cities).
In April 2002 the Israeli launched Operation Defensive Shield on the Palestinian cities, they started in Ramallah and Baitlahem and continues in Nablus, Jenin...etc. by the end of April hundreds of Palestinian were killed in both Jenin and Nablus, hundred of houses and business were either partially or completely destroyed, and the fight was brought to the Palestinian houses.

In the years followed, the Israeli continue to invade the Palestinian cities, with a different name each time,- must admit, some of those names were cool- all of them brought nothing but more death and more damaged houses, all of those attacks continued until, well, I want to say now, but I am not sure, but lets say until the end of 2008.

On personal level, the second Intifada brought the worse of me, as a 14 years old, it was what brought to reality, for the first time I realized how brutal my enemy is, and how hard is it to fight against his war machine. The books I used to read about the Russian, Vietnamese, Cuban revolutions didn't prepare me to what I witnessed.
But, as many Palestinian, I distanced myself from reality, started to look to everything going around me, as something happening in far away land, I shut my eyes close, and prayed the next bullets wont hit me. Unfortunately this tactic was adopted by many Palestinians, living in the main cities, and mainly belong to middle class and upper middle class. "that's why their is a good chance you will hear a Palestinian from Nablus, saying (Nablus has suffered a lot, don't want that to happen again) as if it's in his/her hand!"

This survivel tactic, -distancing from reality-, made the least damaged (on personal level) yet it was disastrous on collective level, the people started to care less and less about the suffering of their fellow Palestinian, after the fight between Fatah and Hamas in 2006 took place the problem deepen even more. The micro-protests that took place(if any) in the west bank during Gaza war are my prove on that.

The problem extend to even more dangerous level, the level where Palestinian "who live under occupation", don't see the occupation anymore, (I am serious, this is not B.S, this is real).
The people I have met over the last years(average locals and even internationals sometimes), made me feel that the occupation doesn't exist anymore, as if its only exist when soldiers invade Nablus or Ramallah, and what happen in the villages, towns, and Jordan valley is...nothing!.
They pass through Huawra, and Attarah every day, yet they don't see the soldiers standing at the checkpoint or even the big concrete tours.
Lets say they do see them, but hey, this is not that bad. at least their is no curfew in Nablus..

At last, I must admit, I have no idea whats going on those days, are we in peace? Are we resisting? Are we free? Are we independent? Are we occupied? Are we a life? Are we dead?
But i know one thing, Stop crying the dead and start crying yourself, as a nation, we are all DEAD

Good luck
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Another Hunger Strike Behind Bars

The minister of detainees in the Palestinian government (yes, we have a ministry for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails) announced earlier today: “Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons will start a hunger strike and practice civil disobedience against the Israeli prison administrations laws”.

The Palestinian prisoners’ protest comes in response to the continued punitive measures Israel adopts to humiliate and dehumanize the Palestinian prisoners in attempt to influence their families, friends or even their political factions.Which is a certain consequence of these measures, since in fact every Palestinian has either been in Jail, or knows someone who has been or is in jail.

Over six thousand Palestinian prisoner face these new punitive measures, inflicted on them from the Israel prison administration, these measures include:

1- A stop of the University education for the prisoners.
2- Expanding the Solitary Confinement.
3- Collective punishment, by stopping family visits.
4- Collective punishment, by banning the prisoners from buying from the prison canteen
5- Freezing the Canteen account for some prisoners
6- Transform the Rooms and Sections of the Detainees into isolates sections.
7- Separating  siblings from each other.
8- Stop selling food from the prison canteen.
9- Collective punishment, by paying fines.
10- Stop to the provision ofnewspapers in the prisons.
11- Stop the transmission of 5 satellite channels inside the prisons.
12- Continuous search and raids of prisoners’ rooms and sections.
13- Banning doctors and medicine from reaching the prisoners
14- Chain the prisoners’ hands and legs during visits and  meeting with a lawyer.
15- The prisoners won’t be allowed to hug or touch their children.

Finally, the Palestinian prisoners decided to take matters into their own hands and stand up against their fascist oppressors. The hunger strike is expected to start tomorrow in the 28th of September, Palestinian activists call for a sit-in, in front of the international red cross, in the west bank city of Ramallah.

For more info, read the Palestinian ministry of detainees press release at maan here and here (Arabic)
and here (English).

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Israeli Military Commander Admits Violently Dispersing Nabi Saleh Protests Also When Peaceful

The trial of Nabi Saleh protest organizer, Bassem Tamimi, opened today with the testimony of Major Michelle Dahan who alleged that Tamimi ordered youth to throw stones based on the fact that he saw him on rooftops during demonstrations.

After more than half a year behind lock and key, the trial of Palestinian protest organizer, Bassem Tamimi, opened today with the testimony of the first prosecution witness, Major Michelle Dahan. Dahan served as a deputy battalion commander in Nabi Saleh between January and May this year, and was to testify on behalf of the prosecution in order to substantiate allegations of incitement to violence against Tamimi.


Dahan, who was commander of the military forces in the area and in charge of the Nabi Saleh demonstrations throughout said period, made it clear that the protests were dispersed before any violence ensued . He said, "[...] after midday prayer, at around noon, some 40 to 70 people would set out from the mosque's courtyard [...] and march down with flags [...]. As soon as the procession arrived at the [village's] main junction, we would declare it illegal and order people to disperse [...]. When the march would not disperse, we would start using crowd control measures [...]".


Referring to the protesters Dahan said, "We recognized the same activists, the same children and adults, with the adults mostly occupied with directing the forces [...]". Throughout his testimony, Dahan reputedly  to referred to the stone throwing children as "forces", alternating the two words.


 He went on to say that "The defendant would appear at the beginning of every demonstration, and as soon as it would turn violent, the defendant would disappear. During the stone-throwing, when we would enter inside the  village to arrest the stone throwers, we'd recognize him on rooftops".


The indictment against Tamimi alleges that he architected an elaborate system of violence against soldiers during Nabi Saleh demonstrations. Dahan indeed testified that Tamimi directed the village youth from rooftops, but could not back his statement by more that hearsay and speculation. The only concrete incident Dahan was able to tie Tamimi to took place at an unknown date in January wherein he claimed to have seen the defendant standing on a roof top in the village, shouting  and waving his arms during clashes in the village. Dahan, however, admitted to not having heard what the older men were shouting and to the fact that he does not at all understand the Arabic language.


When asked why he did not order Tamimi's arrest based on what he saw, Dahan admitted that his commanding officers ordered him not to do so, saying "My certainty [that Tamimi incited the youth] was apparently not sufficient [to justify arrest]".


Source: the popular struggle 

37 year old Essam Aoudhi is martyred whilst protecting his village against ruthless settler and military violence.

In September 23, Essam Kamal Abed Aoudhi, a 37 year old father of 8 children, from the village of Qusra was murdered by the Israeli army as they fired live ammunition indiscriminately into a crowd of villagers gathered in their village.

Essam Kamal

A large group of settlers from the nearby outpost of Esh Kodesh, meaning ‘Holy Head’, built entirely on stolen Qusra land, left the settlement and entered the village just after 1pm and began attacking the people and burning the olive groves. As the villagers gathered to protect themselves and their land the soldiers arrived and stood between the settlers and villagers, protecting the settlers as they retreated.

Soldiers instantly began to fire tear gas canisters, rubber bullets and live ammunition directly at villagers, making no attempt to disperse but intending solely to injure.

Rami Hassan

Mohammad Abdul Odeh, age 16, shot in the stomach with a high velocity tear gas canister as he stood on his land.

Remi Yusef Faiz Hassan, age 35, was shot with 4 rubber bullets and one dum dum from 2 meters as he peacefully walked to soldiers to ask why they allow the settlers to enter his village and burn his trees.

Sameeh Hassan, age 24, was shot in the crotch with rubber bullets as he attempted to reach his olive trees and extinguish the fire destroying them.

Essam Aoudhi was shot with live ammunition as he joined his fellow villagers protesting the army’s incursion into his village. According to Dr Sameh Abu Zaroh, a doctor at Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, the wound on Essam’s body shows that the bullet was shot from just a few meters away and from below in such a way to insure maximum injury. The bullet entered the right side of Essam’s chest and exited through the top of his back, fracturing his vertebrae in multiple places.

After Essam was carried to an ambulance, the soldiers left immediately, clearly understanding what had just happened. The people of Qusra returned to the centre of the village where children had gathered, shouting slogans expressing their anger over Essam’s martyrdom.

As the sun set in Qusra, the punishment continued, as two teenagers stumbled into the village before collapsing to the ground in pain. Both Amar Masameer, age 19, and Fathi Hassan, age 16, were arrested earlier in the day as they made their way towards Qusra’s burning olive trees. They did not resist arrest yet returned to the village dripping with blood and faces so swollen they were barely recognisable. Once arrested, Fathi Hassan explained, settlers from the outpost had asked the soldiers detaining them for permission to beat the two boys. The soldiers did not interfere and so the settlers began stoning the boys whilst their hands where cuffed behind their backs. Amar Masameer was hit directly in the eye with a stone thrown from just a few meters and is now in Rafidia hospital awaiting treatment. 

Source: Popular Struggle 

popularstruggle.org

The UN bid day, what you didn't see on TV

I barely knew Abu Haneen , I had the pleasure of meeting him a couple of times.I was even detained with him by the Israeli army at Attara checkpoint at one point. After that, I met Abu Haneen a couple of times, either at a protest at Qalandia or in Nabi Saleh. The last time I saw him was at last Friday’s protest in Nabi Saleh. We barely talked then, I remember how I was showing him some of the pictures I took earlier that day, how we shared a couple of laughs before we went our separate ways at the end of the day. 

Yesterday, while the PA was manipulating the Palestinian masses at AlMannara, some activist took matters into their own hands and marched towards the Israeli wall and checkpoint at Qalandia, announcing it loud and clear "We don't want to see you anymore". The Israeli army responded in the only ways it knows: violence. While they were attacking the crowds with gas, Rubber bullets, beating and undercover police; the Palestinian youth responded with the oldest weapons on earth, stones. 

Note the beating of an unarmed man in the first few seconds  

As a result of the clashes some young kids were injured including 13-15 years old Ahed Wahdan who lost his eye, other young men were arrested by the undercover Israeli Police including AbuHaneen.

Ahed carried away by a foreign Journalist 

Although we are aware of the consequences ofgoing into protests and confronting the colonialist army; many will be thrown to jail, and many others will be taking to Hospitals either dead or with serious injuries. Yet, it still hurts every time we hear the news about a fallen or a captured fellow activist

 

The path is long and hard, but we have no choice. Its either this, or living on our knees; we can’t do that,our knees hurt.

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The Chair

The Chair.

The Blue Chair.

The UN Chair.

The Palestine's Right Chair.

The Palestine Deserve Chair. 

The State of Palestine Chair. 

The God Forbid Chair. 

The For God Sake Give Me A Break Chair. 

The Over Compensation Chair. 

The *censored* Chair 

The What Ever You Want To Call It Chair.

Must admit, this blue is pretty nice 

Are we done with the chair!? more?

With chair that big, the US wont Veto

Now, lets put the big ass blue chair a side and lets talk real politics.  

How the UN bid is going to serve the Palestinian cause? 

To be fair watching the US and Israel panicking is pretty amusing, yet this wont change much as the US value it relation with Israel more than its relation with the Arab world "which is already fucked anyway", adding to that the US presidential election is around the corner, so, Fuck those Arab "VETO". 

at the same time Israel expect violence to break anytime in the coming days, regardless the PA promises it will be peaceful, the troops in the west bank were increased 20%, new equipment have been bought and of course a lot of statements were made, either calling the PA for negotiation, or claiming the PA is playing solo. "as id Israel is a great team player"

In other hand the coming Palestinian state will mean nothing as long as Israel doesn't recognize it, after all the Israeli still consider the West Bank as disputed territories, which mean the Israeli government and people wont have any moral obligation to give up the occupied west bank. After all, morality tend to fade away when 40% of you economy come from controlling this territories and its native population. 

Fast Note: Security and military industry make good money without mentioning the settlements and it's business. agricultural, industrial and touristic"around dead sea" one!

leaving the most important to the end"Those are what concern me the most", The Right to Return-the core of the Palestinian cause-, and the PLO status as the only representative of the Palestinian people everywhere.
Can someone please explain it to me, how the PLO will represent the Palestinians when the state is declared, people can not have 2 representative, its simply not logical.
The PLO after the establishment of the Palestinian state will no more represent the Palestinian people, the Palestinian state governments will, a government the Palestinian refuges in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and diaspora wont be able to elect.  

Speaking of the refuges, how they expect from Israel to allow the Palestinian refugees back to their original homeland, while the Palestinian state is just next door. Its a first grade logic, Palestinian live in Palestine, Israelis live in Israel! Which mean the Palestinian refuges, if they were ever allowed to return, will be only allowed to return to the Palestinian state, in the West Bank and Gaza, not to their original homeland, Israel will be no more responsible about their cause and their right to return.

The Palestinian want Palestine

Until someone give me a clear answer regarding the PLO and the right to return I will never consider supporting the PA bid in the UN. At the contrary, I will stand with many other Palestinian youth against it(I guess I live in a free nation). After all, Haifa and Jarra aren't mine to give up.

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* Pictures and Art work are stolen from around the web, I would mention the source if I wasn't lazy to trace them back.

Bread and Roses

The Poem:

As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,

A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,

Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,

For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"

As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,

For they are women's children, and we mother them again.

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;

Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!

As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead

Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.

Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.

Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for roses, too!

As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.

The rising of the women means the rising of the race.

No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes,

But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!

The song:

The Poem was wrote by James Oppenheim as an attribute it to "the women of the west" the poem symbolize the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike (Also known as Bread and Roses Strike) demands of fair wages and dignified living conditions for the immigrant workers in the US.

 

  

Danny Ayalon HBO Special

First of all watch the video!



Did you watch the Video? are you sure? The man obviously worked hard on the drawing, music, and even on his personal look. Brought a very lazy script though, he gives the Palestinian as the Israelis only a one word line "NO" for Palestine and "YES" for Israel.

Have you ever watched something really bad on TV, yet you found it really funny, not because it's funny but because it's really bad, It happen to me when I watched Spice World, the movie. the video you just watched is the second best thing.

I have 4 reasons to enforce my point, Their is more, but those are the one crossed my mind. so here you go!

1- The Palestinian never fight for the West Bank and Gaza strip, thinking that shows nothing but Ignorance in the conflict"yup, this ignorance is coming from Israel's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs". The Palestinian since they started their armed struggles they have a single aim, returning to their home land, the 2 state solution was proposed for the first time in the 1978 with Camp David talks with the Former Egyptian president Anwar AlSaddat, PLO agreed on it later in 1993 Oslo accords.

2- Again with the partition of Palestine, resolution 181, and how the Arabs refusal brought nothing but war. let us be crazy here and put ourselves in the Arab-Palestinian shoes, maybe we can understand why they said "No" allow me to use this old example for it.
lets say you have a small farm where you live, one day I showed up from nowhere, and rented a small part of your farm, few years later, my friends showed up and said, "we think you should divide the land between both of you".
reminder, I didn't pay you anything in return, and the only paper I have, is a couple of pages from an old book, that says my great great great great great great.......4000times.... great grand father had a small house in this same land.
What would you say? Yes? No? I don't know about you. but any real man would say No..

3- The 1967 war, when Israel defeated Egypt's, Syria's, and Jordan's armies only in 6 days. was NOT to protect Israel from PLO attacks, or any Palestinian movement attacks "the video showed some flying rocket..... we didn't have Hamas then to have it's military wing rockets.".
Israel based on inelegance information heard Egypt has a better Air force, so they used the whiteman invention "The Preventive War" Attacking them before they attacks us.
Israel did airstrikes the Egyptian air force bases, destroying them in the first few hours, then crushed the ground forces with it well air supported ground forces, they end up invading the West Bank, Gaza, Golan highs, and Sinai desert. Wonder why he ignored the Sinai and Golan highs part, he did talked about the 1967 after all

4- Offering the Palestinian 90% and 100% of the west bank. I am sorry have you ever heard of the Palestinian paper, other people calls it AlJazeera papers... come on.. you must heard of it,.. it leaked what the Palestinian were welling to give, but the Israeli insisted on their famous line, "NO", "YES", "NO", I mean I don't know.... I guess the leaked documents said "NO".
I knew something good will come up from those papers after all.

In the end, I hope you all enjoyed the Ignorant misleading video by the one and the only Dany Ayalone.. I can't wait for the next one.

"People clapping"

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Life log 06

In late September 2002, we started going to school again despite the curfew, which was imposed by the Israeli army. We went to school risking our own lives, as we could have stumbled on an Israeli tanks or soldiers paroling the streets. We would walk 2 or 3 km to avoid them, yet we were caught sometimes.

One day we were coming back from a long day at school, when the driver in the bus announced, “there is a checkpoint ahead, I am going to drop you here, and you can walk through the mountain.” When he finished his announcement, I looked to my new shoes, and then to my friends “I am not walking through the mountains, I am going through the checkpoint!” all of my friends agreed to go with me but two.

We walked confidently to the soldiers expecting to pass in 10 minutes, 20 minutes top. We walked down the streets, for a while before a few soldiers showed up at the gate of a building 100m away from the tanks, they asked us to stop, and to hand them our IDs if we had any.  

The soldiers asked us to follow them. Confidently we followed them as we expected that they were going to lets us go in a minute or two. The soldiers took us to a wider side walk, in front of a building containing warehouses in the ground floor and apartments in the first and second floor. They asked us to stand. Then, 40 minutes later, another soldiers came by and said, "everybody sit now." 

They took our IDs around 2:30pm, we were released at 9:00pm. We were forced to sit in the cold, with 3 soldiers standing guard. We weren't allowed to talk or even to look at each other, every person who dared to talk, move or look to anyone around him would be punished by having to stand on his knees in the street with his hands behind his neck.

We stayed there for hours before soldiers showed some mercy and let all the kids under the age of 16 leave, leaving me and another 20 high school students on the streets. We stayed, looking down at the street, until someone came up with a fun small game: throwing small stones on the soldiers standing guard! The soldiers didn't get our sense of humor. They ended up forcing us all to stand against the wall, with our hands behind our heads. For the next 2 hours I thought of nothing but expecting one of us to be shot in the head by the soldiers. I didn't feel safe until one soldier called my name to give me my ID back, while telling with a hand gesture that I was allowed to go.

This story burly represent 1% of the Palestinian people suffering, yet it help explaining the collective punishment policies the Israeli adopted to deal withe the Palestinian population. later that night curfew was imposed, we would return to school 2 weeks after.

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