First they came.....

A friend of mine asked me to speak in her class, mainly to talk about my twitter experience and citizen journalism, to a bunch of Journalism student in Bierzait University. I talked about twitter, facebook, blogs, etc and how we usually use them to pass news "ideas, and random thoughts too", and to campaign for actions such as Freedom waves "the 2 boats headed to Gaza about a month ago".

As part of my talks, I mentioned the protest we did in solidarity with the Egyptian revolution and how this protest were suppressed by the Palestinian Authority, and how someone tweet made it all the way to Al Jazeera. At this point one of the student said "ohh yaa, the PA suppressed them because they chanted for over throwing the regime!" -please note, we were not discussing the reason legitimacy of the protest and suppressing it- I didn't response to this remarks and went on Talking, yet in my mind I was thinking, Is Suppression excusable?

As I am writing those lines I remembered an incident happened during Jan25 revolution in Egypt, the Egyptian national TV as part of it's propaganda campaigns called several Egyptian celebrities asking them to comments on what was taking place in the Tahrir Square, an actress "Samah Anwar" during a phone calls said "Burn them all". Few weeks later, Mubarak steps down. When she was asked to comment on her earlier statement, she said "they told me the people there, were all Ekhwan(Muslim brotherhood)"

Burns them all

Those 2 separate events, Justifies suppression of protesters based ideas, believes, and faith. don't get me wrong, its the same everywhere, right wing, left wing, Muslim, Christians, Jews, Sunnah, Shiaa, Fatah, Hamas, Jabha, Ekhwan, Salafis, Wahabi, every group, everywhere support the suppression of the other group by the government mercenaries "also known as the Police". The will stand there look to the other group's suffering with a big smile, "you deserve it, for speaking against your master!". They all forget! Nothing last for ever.

In the other hand, many people who are no one master, the average person in the street, who cant care any less about what happening around him, and usually manipulated by corporate or regimes media such, the Egypt and Syrian TV's make a good "funny" examples.
Those people usually justify suppression by saying "they deserve it those Ekhwan are ruining the country!" as someone once commented on a friend status on facebook.  those "someones" doesn't ideologically hate the Ekhwan or any other group, those people were just mislead by the regime medias. With simple logic and a small reminder "Ideologies, faith and political affiliation is not an excuse for oppression" they will be brought back to the people path, or at least shutting them up.

In the end, will leave you with Martil Niemoller words, it might help you understand.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Best

Ahmad

The Foreign Policy Top 100 Global Thinkers

The Idiots in Foreign Policy didn't choose me as one of the globe 100 thinkers, AGAIN!.
Come on people what should I do?, Starting a revolution? But did we ever finished any, to start another one
"The Palestinian have a long list of unfinished revolutions!", plus it's so old school.
Standing up against a regime? No, I am such a cowered when it come to this.
Starting a social media site? Mehh, NERDS are not cool!!
So, out of desperation and laziness, I decided to declare myself the world best thinker, and those are my answers to Foreign Policy weird Questions!

MusePatrice Émery Lumumba Stimulus or austerity?Stimulus.America or China?I want a true freedom and a true democracy so Neither Arab Spring or Arab Winter?A long winters, before an even longer spring! Reading listWretched of the Earth by Frantz Fannon, We want freedom by Mumia Abu Jamal, and I write what I want by Steve Biko Best ideaThe people taking their faith into their handsWorst ideaThe PA going to the UN for a Palestinian state! 

In Solidarity with Egypt

Earlier tonight a group of Palestinian gathered at Al Manarah sq. in Ramallah, Palestine in solidarity with the Egyptian people who decided to take the street again, and return to Al Tahrir after the military dictators failed to meet the Jan25 revolution demands. 

The protest started in Friday November 18, until writing those lines the number of dead passed 30, and the injured is more than 1000. 

Palestinian holds a sign that read "we want a military code that can protect Egypt and liberate Palestine"

Palestinian holding signs during the protest

My takes on the Freedom Ride

In November 15, 2011, a group of Palestinian activist calling themselves the "freedom riders", attempted to ride "Israeli only" bus in its way to Jerusalem " all Israeli buses operating between the settlement in the occupied west bank don't allow Palestinian IN" , the action organizers said this action is to........ read the press release here

This action I didn't support, and those are my reasons:

1- The Name, "Freedom rides": Although the use of this name may help the average US citizen to relate the palestinian freedom ride with original freedom rides in the late 60's. It was a historical political statement against segregation and white supremacy.
Yet what the people missed is, average person will make the relation directly, they wont read the press release "how many people you think actually read". Next thing you know is tweets and posts "Brave Palestinian fighting the Israeli segregation in the West Bank demanding equality and social justice" specially if they knew so little about the conflict.

2- It was an educational event, introduced to the world as a Liberation act. YES, it was a great method to educate the world about Israel's segregation system in the occupied West Bank. Yet the the freedom ride  was introduced to the media as an act of liberation. which confused individuals and media outlets, turning the Palestinian struggles from a fight for liberation and decolonialization into a struggle for equality with colonizers and social justice.

3- All struggles for justice, equality, and freedom, all over the world, established its personal tactics in resisting oppression whether they used chooses Nonviolent as their weapon, such as the civil right movement, or used armed resistance such as the Cuban revolution.
At the same time Palestinian failed to establish their own resistance tactics, well, this is not fair, the Palestinian did establish their own tactics, they did adopt the popular war in the first Intifada".
In other hand when the Palestinian adopted nonviolent, they end up imitating other nations, without any creativity or consideration to the special case the Palestinian cause is.
They even used the same names for god sake "really? freedom rides!!?".
Using the wrong tool leads to the wrong out comes.. simple logic

4- Disengaging the average Palestinian. let me put it this way, when you do something almost half of the world know about it, at the same time your own people almost knew nothing about it, then what ever you do, does not represent them, but represent you as an individual or your group. In other words, you are doing it wrong.

5- finally, It just didn't feel right!

Best

Palestinian Freedom Riders to Ride Settler Buses to Jerusalem

Inspired by the Freedom Rides of the US Civil Rights Movement Palestinian activists will attempt to board segregated Israeli settler buses to occupied East Jerusalem

Action video on Youtube

[Ramallah] Groups of Palestinian Freedom Riders will attempt to board segregated settler buses heading to Jerusalem through the occupied West Bank this Tuesday November 15, in an act of civil disobedience that takes its inspiration from the US Civil Rights Movement Freedom Riders aim to challenge Israel’s apartheid policies, the ban on Palestinians’  access to Jerusalem, and the overall segregated reality created by a military and settler occupation that is the cornerstone of Israel’s colonial regime. While parallels exist between occupied Palestine and the segregated U.S. South in terms of the underlying racism and the humiliating treatment suffered then by blacks and now by Palestinians, there are also significant differences. In the 1960s U.S. South, black people had to sit in the back of the bus; in occupied Palestine, Palestinians are not even allowed ON the bus nor on the roads that the buses travel on, which are built on stolen Palestinian land.

In undertaking this action Palestinians do not seek the desegregation of settler buses, as the presence of these colonizers and the infrastructure that serves them is illegal and must be dismantled. As part of their struggle for freedom, justice and dignity, Palestinians demand the ability to be able to travel freely on their own roads, on their own land, including the right to travel to Jerusalem.

Palestinian activists also aim to expose two of the companies that profit from Israel’s apartheid policies and encourage global boycott of and divestment from them. The Israeli Egged and French Veolia bus companies operate dozens of segregated lines that run through the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, many of them subsidized by the state. Both companies are also involved in the Jerusalem Light Rail, a train project that links illegal settlements in East Jerusalem to the western part of the city. By facilitating population transfer into occupied Palestinian territory, Egged and Veolia are actively and knowingly complicit in Israel’s settlement enterprise, which the International Court of Justice has determined to be a breach of international law, and particularly Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting an occupying power from transferring part of its population into occupied territory.

This Tuesday, Palestinian Freedom Riders will head to Jewish-only bus stops in the West Bank and attempt to board the settler buses. Palestinians understand that this act of nonviolent disobedience may result in violent attacks and even death at the hands of Israeli settlers that are to Israel what the Klu Klux Klan was to the Jim Crow South, or the authorities that protect them. Nonetheless, the Freedom Riders believe that this act of civil resistance is necessary to draw the attention of the world to the immorality of Israel’s occupation and apartheid system as well as to compel justice-loving people to take a stand and divest from Egged, Veolia, and all companies that enable and profit from it.

The Freedom Riders will be joined by activists from all around the world who will stage activities in their cities that highlight the systematic oppression of Palestinians and the need to divest from Egged and Veolia.

For inquiries send an email to palestinianfreedomriders@gmail.com

For more Info visit the action BLOG 

Background

The buses that the Freedom Riders will be boarding are operated by the Egged, the largest Israeli public transportation company, and by the French transnational company Veolia. Both companies are complicit in Israel’s violations of international law due to their involvement in and profiting from Israeli's illegal settlement infrastructure. Palestinian Freedom Riders endorse the call for boycotting both companies, as well as all others involved in Israel’s violations of human rights and international law.[1]

In July 2011, an Egged subsidiary won a public tender to run bus services in the Waterland region of the Netherlands, north of Amsterdam. The company makes money from trampling on the rights of Palestinians and has been a target of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign, which is endorsed by an overwhelming majority of Palestinian civil society. The Freedom Riders call on the people of the Netherlands to sever all dealings with companies, like Egged, involved in human rights violations.

Veolia, has been a target of an international divestment campaign or running bus lines through the West Bank connecting settlements to Jerusalem and for its involvement in the Jerusalem Light Rail which connects Israel’s illegal settlements in and around occupied East Jerusalem to the western part of the city, thereby directly servicing the settlement enterprise.[2]

Over 42 percent of Palestinian land in the West Bank has been taken over for the building of Jewish settlements and their associated regime[3] (including the wall which was declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004), depriving local communities of access to their water resources as well as agricultural lands. Settling Israelis in the occupied Palestinian territory constitutes a war crime according to the Fourth Geneva Convention[4] and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.[5]

The occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip constitute only 22 percent of the Palestinian homeland from which over 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in 1948 when the state of Israel was created. Since then, Palestinian refugees have been languishing in refugee camps and other places of exile, denied the right to return to their homes.

Settlements' infrastructure includes hundreds of kilometers of segregated roads that are forbidden for Palestinians to use. They carve deep into the West Bank further separating Palestinians and their cities and villages from each other.

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[1] Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS, available at: http://www.bdsmovement.net/call.

[2] http://www.bigcampaign.org/veolia/

[3] B’tselem Report: “By Hook and By Crook, Israeli Settlement Policy in the West Bank, July 2010; summary available at: http://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/201007_by_hook_and_by_crook.

[4] See “Israel’s settlement policy is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention,” The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Gaza, highlighting the relevant articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention to support the determination that settlements are a war crime, athttp://www.pchrgaza.org/Intifada/Settlements.conv.htm; see also “Demolitions, new settlements in East Jerusalem could amount to war crimes – UN expert,” UN News Centre, June 29, 2010, at http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35175&Cr=Palestin&Cr1.

[5] Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court prohibits “[t]he transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”