UN Closed

Today a group of Activist closed the entrance of the UN offices building in Ramallah, demanding a direct and serious actions from the UN to help saving the lives of the Palestinian prisoners in hunger strike.

UN closed Poster

Before taking this actions the protesters sent a message to the UN with their demands, the message "see below" asked the Ban Ki-Moon and the UN to help saving the Palestinian hunger strikers in the Israeli prison complex. 

Their inaction triggered our action. 

Police was there

Prisoners families joined us too

Leaving marks

The Message we sent to the UN 

May 10, 2012

His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon

Secretary-General of the United Nations

New York

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

We, Palestinians for Dignity, represent a network of movements and individuals united in the struggle to achieve equality, justice and freedom for the Palestinian people wherever they reside. In your capacity as the United Nations Secretary General and in support of the rule of International law, we are writing to urge you to take urgent action to stop Israel’s continued violations of the rights of the over 4,600 Palestinians currently held in Israeli jails.

Over 1,600 Palestinian prisoners initiated on April 17^th an open-ended hunger strike to protest abuse at the hands of the Israeli Prison Service and to demand that their basic rights be respected. Hundreds more prisoners joined the hunger strike since then bringing the number of hunger strikers up to an estimated 2,500 prisoners.  Their plight has become even more urgent with the deteriorating health condition of eight prisoners, five of whom are held under the illegal practice of administrative detention, and some of whom have been on hunger strike for over two months.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel said yesterday that the lives of Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla are in danger, and demanded that Israel transfer them to a civilian hospital, without moving them back and forth to the prison. Israel has thus far refused to do so, highlighting Israel’s disregard for the lives of Palestinians. The cruel, inhuman and degrading practices that Palestinian prisoners are subjected to include denial of access to medical care, torture, solitary confinement, limits to family visitation, violations of children’s rights and bans on education, not to mention hundreds of them were never charged or given legal due process and are being held in Administrative Detention..

We note with disappointment your silence ever since this protest movement began in December 2011 with Khader Adnan’s arbitrary arrest and subsequent hunger strike. This stands in stark contrast to your vocal and persistent remarks in support of formerly incarcerated Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Though Shalit has been released, Palestinian prisoners are still suffering under the so-called “Shalit Law”, which imposed harsher measures on their conditions of detention.

We remind you of your responsibilities as Secretary-General of the UN. We invoke the norms of international law that guarantee basic rights to Palestinian prisoners, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention Against Torture and the World Medical Association Malta Declaration on Hunger Strikers.

We urge you to take a firm and vocal position in opposition to Israel’s abuse and violation of Palestinian prisoners’ rights and encourage, through UN mechanisms at your disposal, measures of accountability for these violations. We urge you to take an official position in linewith the Palestinian prisoners’ demands and to encourage member states to stand against these gross human rights’ violations. We await your urgent response.

Sincerely,

Palestinians For Dignity 

  

Copied:

Navanethem Pillay UN Commissioner for Human Rights

Robert Serry, UN Special Coordinator of the Middle East Peace Process

...

REMEMBER: 

Bilal Diab 72 days of hunger strike

Thaer Halahleh 72 days of hunger strike 

Hassan AlSafadi 66 days of hunger strike 

Omar Abu Shalal 64 days of hunger strike 

Muhamad Taj 53days of hunger strike

Mahmoud Sarsak 52 days of hunger strike 

Jaafar Azzedien 49 days of hunger strike 

Abduallah Al Barghoti 28 days of hunger strike 

more than 1500 23 days of hunger strike 

Palestine is NOT Ready

A friend send me this earlier today through email, I am in shock since I clicked play. 

The video starts nicely talking about the 3 major religion who lived in Palestine, and how important Palestine is for everyone. All OK, until, the commentator start talking about the establishment of Israel in 1948, this where the whole video started to go down all the way. First, the Video, Justified the establishment of Israel, by repeating the Zionist propaganda, Israel was established to save the Jews from the holocaust "The 2/11/1917 British promise, 20 years before the holocaust, has nothing to do with Palestine and Jews, Right?" 

The video continued, totally Ignoring the 1948 and that forced 750 thousand Palestinian out of their homes, destroying over 400 villages "by the way the 750,000 became 6+ millions over the last 63 years".

What we are going to do with those? 

The video also talked about the new generation of leaders, the youth, "they mentioned them, but they interviewed none!" and how all the political factions and social economical structure, and the youth formations "youth formation? really?" ACT like they are a part of state that believe in governmental structure, "and the Oscar goes to....".

Then they mentions the most important, the industry "obviously we have one!" and economy in Palestine, and how in Palestine we enjoy "economical growth","Building boom","a growing foreign investment"  and a total dependency on Israel as it controls, borders, harbors, airports, customs, Telecommunication lines, the radio waves the Palestinian use, roads, and... I think this is enough. I wont call myself an economist, I burly passed my economy class in school, but don't you have to be controlling your borders first to have a good dependent economy?

Finally, where the hell they filmed this video, other than some landscapes, the video must be filmed in TelAvive or something, nice covered markets with a lot of tourist walking around, people having fun, enjoying life while working for Cocacola. But is this the same Palestine me and you live in? and what about the other Palestinian cities, Nablus, Jenin, Hebron, what about Gaza? 

My Name is Ahmad, and their Palestine is not my Palestine. 

Update, 

Comment by Diana.  

People who worked on this video in away or another affiliated with PA. either working for them or did in the past but either way what makes me upset in the video is not the issue of one vs. 2 states but rather the image they reflect upon us..

No the Palestinians are not rich, not educated and not all have the privileged of going to Orjuwan and such places... this might reflect a minority of a max 2000 Palestinians happened to live in Ramallah.. but the majority is refugees, villages and people who do suffer on daily bases. I do not intent to show the suffering in the counter video.. As we and the world as sick of seeing..

The image of us being ready for freedom.. The mass protests on the borders and the success stories of Palestinians are things people around the world should see.. But one thing the world needs to understand: This is who we are, we may be savages and we may be not meeting the qualifications of the west but this is who we are and nobody ever lived under such longs of occupation and made it to the end..

This video is made in a way to satisfy donors and western audience... But you know it does not reflect the real Palestinians and that's what we should focus on!

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.

Best 

A

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.

Best
A


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