On Politics & Prose

Saree Makdisi, professor of English literature at UCLA, latest book "Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation" chronicles life under Israeli military rule. As a part of his book tour, he was invited to do a book signing and reading at Washington, DC area's well-known bookstore "Politics & Prose". But, given that it is a crime to deviate from the "two-state solution" speak, his appearance was cancelled. So much for being a leftist bookstore...

Here is Saree's op-ed in the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2008/06/06/AR2008060603066.html

Banned in the U.S.A. (Almost)

I didn't think America was a place where bookstores barred people for their viewpoints, until it happened to me, right here in Washington, D.C., the city of my birth.

I was scheduled to speak at Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse last month about my latest book, "Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation." My appearance was canceled when the bookstore owners realized that my book concludes by questioning the viability of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead it proposes a single democratic, secular and multicultural state in which Israelis and Palestinians live peacefully as citizens with equal rights.

"I do not believe that your book will further constructive debate in the United States," one of the owners wrote to me in an e-mail. "A single state is not a solution." I was dismayed that my invitation was rescinded because I express a different point of view from the one sanctioned by a supposedly independent bookstore. Yet the cancellation seems to fit into a larger pattern of nationwide censorship about this issue.

Stanford professor Joel Beinin had been invited to speak about Israel and Palestine at a Silicon Valley school last year; his appearance was canceled when the school was criticized for booking the event. Tony Judt of New York University was invited to speak about Israel and Palestine at the Polish Consulate in New York last fall; his talk was canceled after the consulate came under pressure from the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee.

The fact that senior scholars are prevented from speaking in well-known forums because they do not toe an official line suggests that the civic culture on which our country was founded has broken down, at least when it comes to Palestine and Israel.

Yet citizens can object to the muzzling of ideas. After receiving letters of protest and eloquent entreaties by bloggers, Politics and Prose decided last week to reissue my invitation. This reversal is an important step forward but questions still linger. Can we afford not to hear each other out as we evaluate our Middle East policies? Should Palestinians not be allowed to speak unless their erstwhile audience gets to tell them what to say? What, then, is the point of a conversation? What is the alternative to conversation?

What is so unspeakably wrong with saying that justice, secularism, tolerance and equality of citizens -- rather than privileges granted on the basis of religion -- should be among the values of a state?

-- Saree Makdisi

The writer is a professor of English literature at UCLA.

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NYTimes Finally Admits that the Nakba was a Holocaust

Following yesterday's statement by Israeli Deputy Minister Matan Vilnai in which he threatened the Palestinians with a "shoah" (Holocaust, in Hebrew), the New York Times has finally come to its senses! You see, the New York Times translated the word "shoah" (Holocaust) into "catastrophe" despite the fact that the word "catastrophe" already exists in Hebrew (and it is not "shoah", it is "catastrophe"). Using this logic, the Nakba (in Arabic "catastrophe") marking Israel's systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestine must therefore translate into a "shoah" in Hebrew! So Israel really did commit genocide against the Palestinians. Thanks New York Times for being the first major media outlet to make the link!

Tarboush tip for cartoon: Nimr

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Impossible Travel

This week, Israel announced that Gazans wishing to return to Palestine from Jordan will NOT be permitted to go to the West Bank (or anywhere else for that matter) but will be sent back to Gaza in specially-designated buses. Gazans must now return via the Allenby bridge on Thursdays only and will be sent directly back to Gaza. This rule affects ALL Palestinians registered as being from Gaza, even though they may reside in the West Bank.

NOTE: Many Gazans who reside in the West Bank have applied to have their residency changed to the West Bank. These applications have been refused and therefore now any Palestinian registered as being from Gaza will automatically be sent back to Gaza, even though many have not lived there for years. This rule affects thousands of Palestinians who work in the West Bank, attend university in the West Bank, or have married someone from the West Bank have established families in the West Bank.

To paint a more accurate picture of Israeli movement restrictions, the latest restriction must be added to the list of movement restrictions listed below:

(Compiled by Amira Hass)


Standing prohibitions

* Palestinians from the Gaza Strip are forbidden to stay in the West Bank.

* Palestinians are forbidden to enter East Jerusalem.

* West Bank Palestinians are forbidden to enter the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing.

* Palestinians are forbidden to enter the Jordan Valley.

* Palestinians are forbidden to enter villages, lands, towns and neighborhoods along the "seam line" between the separation fence and the Green Line (some 10 percent of the West Bank).

* Palestinians who are not residents of the villages Beit Furik and Beit Dajan in the Nablus area, and Ramadin, south of Hebron, are forbidden entry.

* Palestinians are forbidden to enter the settlements' area (even if their lands are inside the settlements' built area).

* Palestinians are forbidden to enter Nablus in a vehicle.

* Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are forbidden to enter area A (Palestinian towns in the West Bank).

* Gaza Strip residents are forbidden to enter the West Bank via the Allenby crossing.

* Palestinians are forbidden to travel abroad via Ben-Gurion Airport.

* Children under age 16 are forbidden to leave Nabus without an original birth certificate and parental escort.

* Palestinians with permits to enter Israel are forbidden to enter through the crossings used by Israelis and tourists.

* Gaza residents are forbidden to establish residency in the West Bank.

* West Bank residents are forbidden to establish residency in the Jordan valley, seam line communities or the villages of Beit Furik and Beit Dajan.

* Palestinians are forbidden to transfer merchandise and cargo through internal West Bank checkpoints.



__________________________


Periodic prohibitions

* Residents of certain parts of the West Bank are forbidden to travel to the rest of the West Bank.

* People of a certain age group - mainly men from the age of 16 to 30, 35 or 40 - are forbidden to leave the areas where they reside (usually Nablus and other cities in the northern West Bank).

* Private cars may not pass the Swahara-Abu Dis checkpoint (which separates the northern and southern West Bank). This was canceled for the first time two weeks ago under the easing of restrictions.

__________________________


Travel permits required

* A magnetic card (intended for entrance to Israel, but eases the passage through checkpoints within the West Bank).

* A work permit for Israel (the employer must come to the civil administration offices and apply for one).

* A permit for medical treatment in Israel and Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem (The applicant must produce an invitation from the hospital, his complete medical background and proof that the treatment he is seeking cannot be provided in the occupied territories).

* A travel permit to pass through Jordan valley checkpoints.

* A merchant's permit to transfer goods.

* A permit to farm along the seam line requires a form from the land registry office, a title deed, and proof of first-degree relations to the registered property owner.

* Entry permit for the seam line (for relatives, medical teams, construction workers, etc. Those with permits must enter and leave via the same crossing even if it is far away or closing early).

* Permits to pass from Gaza, through Israel to the West Bank.

* A birth certificate for children under 16.

* A long-standing resident identity card for those who live in seam-line enclaves.

__________________________


Checkpoints and barriers

* There were 75 manned checkpoints in the West Bank as of January 9, 2007.

* There are on average 150 mobile checkpoints a week (as of September 2006).

* There are 446 obstacles placed between roads and villages, including concrete cubes, earth ramparts, 88 iron gates and 74 kilometers of fences along main roads.

* There are 83 iron gates along the separation fence, dividing lands from their owners. Only 25 of the gates open occasionally.

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* Road 90 (the Jordan Valley thoroughfare)

* Road 60, in the North (from the Shavei Shomron military base, west of Nablus and northward).

* Road 585 along the settlements Hermesh and Dotan.

* Road 557 west from the Taibeh-Tul Karm junction (the Green Line) to Anabta (excluding the residents of Shufa), and east from south of Nablus (the Hawara checkpoint) to the settlement Elon Moreh.

* Road 505, from Zatara (Nablus junction) to Ma'ale Efraim.

* Road 5, from the Barkan junction to the Green Line.

* Road 446, from Dir Balut junction to Road 5 (by the settlements Alei Zahav and Peduel).

* Roads 445 and 463 around the settlement Talmon, Dolev and Nahliel.

* Road 443, from Maccabim-Reut to Givat Ze'ev.

* Streets in the Old City of Hebron.

* Road 60, from the settlement of Otniel southward.

* Road 317, around the south Hebron Hills settlements.

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Travel time before 2000 versus today

Tul Karm-Nablus
Then: half an hour, at the most.
Now: At least an hour.

Tul Karm-Ramallah
Then: less than one hour.
Now: Two hours.

Beit Ur al-Fawqa-Ramallah
Then: 10 minutes.
Now: 45 minutes.

Katana/Beit Anan-Ramallah
Then: 15 minutes.
Now: One hour to 90 minutes.

Bir Naballah-Jerusalem
Then: seven minutes.
Now: One hour.

Katana-Jerusalem
Then: five minutes.
Now: "Nobody goes to Jerusalem anymore."

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Nakba Survivor: Inea Bushnaq

As the 60th anniversary of the Nakba approaches, the Institute for Middle East Understanding will feature the “Untold Stories” of those, like Inea Bushnaq, who lived through this tragedy. Visit http://www.imeu.net/ to read more.

Nakba Survivor: Inea Bushnaq


On the window sill of her Central Park West apartment, Inea Bushnaq keeps a miniature orange tree and an olive sapling. They remind her of her first home, a house on the western edge of Jerusalem overlooking an olive grove.In 1948, fighting between Zionists and Palestinians sent bullets through the windows of the house. Bushnaq was nine years old at the time. "I could sense that my parents were frightened," she recalls, "And to a child that was more alarming than the bullets." The next day the family packed two suitcases and moved to Nablus, to the house of an uncle which had become a refuge for other family members fleeing Haifa and Tulkarem. "We stayed in Nablus for about six months always expecting to go back. For a while my father continued working at the Arab College in Jerusalem, where he taught, visiting us on weekends." When it became too dangerous to travel or to keep students at the college, the family moved to Jordan and then to Beirut and Damascus finally landing in London where Bushnaq's father worked in the Arabic section of the BBC. The family eventually moved back to the Middle East, to Amman, Jordan. Finishing her education in England, Bushnaq still held out hope of a return to Jerusalem but after the 1967 war she decided to move to New York, "I just gave up."


Bushnaq travels to Palestine frequently. "Every time the walls of Jerusalem's Old City come into sight I have the same reaction: overwhelming delight mixed with sadness," she said. "Something about the clarity of the air, the way the sun slants on those stones, the smell and the sound, the echo when you speak, has an impact as powerful as a physical blow. I think that those of us who left unwillingly in 1948, we are all plagued with this painful nostalgia." Three years ago, Bushnaq visited the house in West Jerusalem for the first time. It is an Israeli nursery school now and a whole neighborhood has replaced the olive grove. Sixty years have passed, but Bushnaq feels that the injustice done to the Palestinian people in 1948 needs to be acknowledged and addressed if there is to be peace. "Palestinians paid a huge price for what the Germans and the Russians and others in Europe did to the Jews. Against our will, our land was partitioned and half the population displaced so that Israel might be a safe haven for world Jewry. A first step would be for Israel and the West to acknowledge what was done to the Palestinians. In the silence about this history it becomes easy to demonize the Palestinian resistance to being totally occupied by Israel and it becomes reasonable to tell Palestinians they have no right of return after 60 years while Jews anywhere in the world are welcome to return to Israel after 2000 years. American tax money has been very generously supporting Israel for decades. Americans need to be made aware of the facts underlying the violence. Maybe then the U.S. would exert pressure for a peace acceptable to Palestinians as well as Israelis."In the meantime, Bushnaq is left with her miniature trees, the visits to East Jerusalem and an unsettled feeling. "Like all displaced people," she said, "one fits in neither country 100 percent."

**

The "Nakba" ("catastrophe" in Arabic) refers to the destruction of Palestinian society in 1948 and the exile of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes and homeland. It is estimated that more than 50 percent were driven out under direct military assault by Israeli troops. Others fled in panic as news spread of massacres in Palestinian villages like Deir Yassin and Tantura. Nearly half the Palestinian refugees had fled by May 14, 1948, when Israel declared its independence and the Arab states entered the fray. Israel depopulated more than 450 Palestinian towns and villages, destroying most while resettling the remainder with new Jewish immigrants without regard to Palestinian rights and desires to return to their homes. Israel still refuses to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and to pay them compensation, as required by international law. Today, there are more than 4 million registered Palestinian refugees worldwide. The Nakba is a root cause of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel's denial of its expulsion of the Palestinians and seizure of their homes and properties for Jewish use continues to inflict pain and to generate resistance among Palestinians today.

Tarboush tip: IMEU

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Finally the UN Gets it Right...

After four decades of whitewashing Israel's military occupation, the UN has finally figured it out:  Palestinian violence is a RESPONSE to Israel's arrogant military rule.  I am surprised that I am applauding this light bulb moment for the UN but given the recent trends on the part of the UN to try to get the Palestinians to accept Israel's colonial rule, this is a refreshing change.

The comments will appear in the UN's Human Rights Council report authored by Professor John Dugard, a South African lawyer who fought against apartheid.  In the report he notes that Palestinian acts of violence, "must be understood as being a painful but inevitable consequence of colonialism, apartheid and occupation."

Expect Dugard to lose his job.

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Who wants to be free? Not the PA

Well, it appears that the PA has become negotiations addicted. Who can blame them? The rush of sitting in a room with an adversary doing good things for your people, your nation, indeed the world. Who could resist?

The addiction appears, however, to have gotten out of hand and self-proclaimed "Chief Palestinian Negotiator", Saeb Erekat needs to go into negotiations rehab. Silly Saeb actually believes that the Palestinians will one day attain their freedom through negotiations. I guess he seems to be blind to the fact that the Palestinians have been negotiating with Israel for almost 15 years! He conveniently ignores the fact that settlements have tripled during that period, that there are now more than 500 checkpoints in the West Bank and that the Israelis have now put into place a Bantustan-like regime that would make apartheid South Africa blush! Poor Saeb - his addiction has made incapable of looking at the big picture. His refrain is no longer, "end the occupation" but "let's negotiate!"

Saeb's and the rest of the PA's addiction reached new heights earlier this week following Kosovo's declaration of independence. Yasser Abed Rabbo, a casual user of negotiations announced that, "Kosovo is not better than us. We deserve independence even before Kosovo." And with that, he announced that the PA was not getting enough negotiations to meet the needs of the addicted: "If things are not going in the direction of actually halting settlement activities, if things are not going in the direction of continuous and serious negotiations, then we should take the step and announce our independence unilaterally." Ooooohhhhhh....a move against negotiations? What about the addicts?

Saeb quickly displayed all of the signs of withdrawal: the shakes, the fits of rage, the demands for more....He was quick to act. Armed with memos by his "legal advisors" (who are equally addicted) he rushed to condemn the comments. (Note, they are never quick to condemn the killing of Palestinians but they were swift on this one). Saeb proclaimed, "we need negotiations, not independence!" Later in the day, Saeb calmed down (he had his fix later that evening when Olmert met Abbas) and stated, "We will pursue negotiations in order to reach a peace agreement in 2008 that includes settlement of all final status issues including Jerusalem." In short, he confirmed that the 15-year failed negotiations strategy would continue to be pursued. Palestinian journalists, intrigued by the thought that the PA was finally going to pursue a strategy to liberate the country by unilaterally declaring independence put the question to the new Chief Palestinian Negotiator, Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala). Abu Ala, another addict berated Abed Rabbo and gleefully proclaimed in that "negotiations were serious." Could it be that the strategy was working? No. He added that, "no serious progress had been made." Hmmmm....

And if the negotiations fail to yield an agreement in 2008? Well, there is always 2009 and 2010 and who can really resist negotiations in European capitals in the springtime.

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Nakba Survivors

As the 60th anniversary of the Nakba approaches, the IMEU will feature the untold stories of those, like Darwish Addassi, who lived through this tragedy.

Nakba Survivor: Darwish Addassi

Darwish Addassi wishes his fellow Americans could spend a day in his shoes.

Maybe then they would know what it feels like to be a refugee. The 74-year-old retired chemist still remembers the day he was expelled from his home 60 years ago and became a refugee. Addassi has not been back to Lydda, Palestine since.

On July 11, 1948, when Addasi was just 14 and in the eighth grade, an "informal" Israeli military unit entered Lydda after days of encircling the city.

"My brother came into the house and he said 'Lydda fell,'" Addassi said. "The Israelis came and announced that we have kicked you all out."

His family's farm of oranges, grapefruits and lemons, more than 4,000 years old, was gone. Making matters worse, Addassi, along with the other men of his family, were rounded up and detained by the newly formed Israeli government. They were deemed a threat because before falling, Lydda was one of the few Palestinian towns to resist the takeover and to refuse to sell its land to the future Israeli state.

"They took about 1,500 of us to a place called Jalil," he said, adding that each prisoner was interviewed, numbered and put in a pen. "It was like a prison or a concentration camp."

For two days Addassi and his fellow prisoners of war did not get any food and were even forced to dig their own latrines. Forty men were crammed into each tent. "So if you sleep on your back the other guy has to sleep on his side," Addassi said.

Addassi spent nine months in detention all the while having no communication with his mother and two sisters who had fled to Jordan.

"We were part of the lucky refugees because we knew people in Jordan, influential people," he said. "They came and they took the whole family to Amman and they gave them a small house."

Still, the horror stories that Addassi heard from his mother and sisters about their journey are difficult to share. Stories of Israelis stealing whatever the refugees had - from rings to watches - and of people being killed for the few possessions they were able to sneak along, since they were not allowed to take anything with them, not even water.

After working in Jordan and Kuwait to support his family, Addassi moved to Chicago in 1957, with $2,000 in his pocket, to go to school. Now retired and living with his wife in Walnut Creek, California, the father of two enjoys making wine and trying to recreate the beautiful gardens he remembers from Lydda in his backyard, all while waiting for his right to return home 60 years later.

"If the Jews gave themselves the right to go back after two thousand years I should have that right, too," he said. "What would you do? Put yourself in my shoes. What would you do if someone came and kicked you out of your house?"


The "Nakba" ("catastrophe" in Arabic) refers to the destruction of Palestinian society in 1948 and the exile of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes and homeland. It is estimated that more than 50 percent were driven out under direct military assault by Israeli troops. Others fled in panic as news spread of massacres in Palestinian villages like Deir Yassin and Tantura. Nearly half the Palestinian refugees had fled by May 14, 1948, when Israel declared its independence and the Arab states entered the fray.

Israel depopulated more than 450 Palestinian towns and villages, destroying most while resettling the remainder with new Jewish immigrants without regard to Palestinian rights and desires to return to their homes. Israel still refuses to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and to pay them compensation, as required by international law.

Today, there are more than 4 million registered Palestinian refugees worldwide. The Nakba is a root cause of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel's denial of its expulsion of the Palestinians and seizure of their homes and properties for Jewish use continues to inflict pain and to generate resistance among Palestinians today.

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I guess you can't control everything...

Details are now being revealed about the preparations for President Bush's visit to Ramallah. In addition to closing down parts of the city, President Bush's costly visit (which included repairing parts of the Muqata so that Bush would not have to see Israel's devastation of the building) the team made a reportedly number of demands on Abbas's staff:

* President Bush would NOT stand at attention for the Palestinian national anthem (even though he stood at attention for the Israeli anthem;
* President Bush would NOT go to Bethlehem with President Abbas, thereby reinforcing the claim that Abbas is the President of Ramallah
* President Bush would NOT place a wreath of President Arafat's grave;
* President Bush did NOT want to see any pictures of Arafat. It is reported that President Bush's team asked Abbas's team to remove President Arafat's photograph from the wall of the meeting room where Presidents Bush and Abbas would be meeting. Although Chaim is still trying to determine whether the photo was actually removed or simply covered up by drapes (it certainly didn't appear in any of the photo ops), it appears as though someone from the Whitehouse staff was not as detail-oriented as needed: one photo of the late President actually escaped the watchful eyes of the protocol team. Take a look at this.



Tarboush tip: Dion

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An Open Letter to Abbas

Dear President Abbas,

It is the early morning hours of January 10th and in a few short hours your greatest "ally", President Bush, is slated to arrive. Given that you are surrounded by "yes" men who refuse to tell you what is happening here, and given that protests have been banned, please indulge me as I provide you with a glimpse of reality.

President Bush arrives today after what you have determined to be an "historic" event at Annapolis. Interestingly, it is also 3 years (plus a day) since your election in 2005. As someone who has watched you closely over the years, I have come to the conclusion that you desire to "be" president but don't desire to "do" the presidency. Your three years have been 3 of the worst years in Palestinian history since the nakba. Allow me to explain: I am not someone who believes that ANY PA President has the capability of doing anything more than being a good PR person. I know that you need a permit from a 19-year old Israeli soldier before you wish to leave Ramallah and I understand that you cannot set an economic agenda for Palestine because a 19 year-old Israeli soldier controls the flow of goods in and out of Palestine. But, you can continue to demand Palestinian rights and you most certainly can ensure that Palestinian dignity remains in tact as we resist this brutal colonial rule.

Given that you have been in office for 3 years, it is fitting that we go over your track record in office. Your first year in office was marked by an increased expansion in Israeli colonies in the West Bank and the Israeli evacuation of its colonies in the Gaza Strip. Your response? A murmured nothing. We waited for you to proclaim that the Gaza Strip was still occupied; we waited for you to denounce Israel's military assault on Gaza despite having "left" it; we waited for you to press the international community to open the Gaza Strip so that its 1.5 million residents would not have to live in an open-air prison and we waited to hear your plans to revitalize Gaza after 37 years of economic devastation caused by Israel's brutal control. (To be certain, we weren't asking you to throw in $30 million USD of your own wealth). Instead you were myopically focused on your party, Fatah (a party that has been on life support since the early 90s) and its winning the general elections so that you could sit back once again. Your acceptance of American funds during the election and your utter failure to host primary elections for Fatah were unforgiveable. And, each step of the way you continued to demand one thing: not an end to Israel's brutal denial of freedom but "a process". In 2006, stunned by the Hamas general election victory, you quickly realized that the fun was over. During 2006 rather than embracing "democracy" and accepting Hamas's victory, you flailed. Internal fighting ensued turning 2006 (and 2007) into two of the bloodiest years of internal Palestinian fighting. You supported the sanctions imposed on the PA (don't lie...) and relished in the fact that monies were now being channeled to your office (where they could be siphoned) rather than through PA structures. This is odd given that in 2003 you pressed the international community to create the post of an "empowered PM" (you being the first) taking away fictional powers from the President and placing them in your hands. Who would have known that 3 years later - in 2006 - you would demand that these same powers be placed in the Presidency so as to avoid Hamas spoiling your Oslo-fest? As internal fighting continued, your only response was to turn inwards: demand new elections to undo the 2006 elections rather than demand from the international community that the siege be lifted. You conveniently met with Olmert though you refused to meet with Hamas and somehow became convinced that the real enemy rests within rather than the enemy being Zionism and its failure to view us as equals.

In 2007, the trends of 2006 continued. This time, however, you lost Gaza. I know that you are secretly happy as it means that you no longer have to make the trek down there and you don't have to see the misery that Israel imposed on the place. I know you miss your lavish house but I'm sure you will expropriate more property in the West Bank (just as you did in Gaza) to build a larger house (either for yourself or for your corrupt sons). The constitution? Who cares about that - we have an enemy (ourselves) to fight. Throughout, you decried the killing of Israeli settlers and soldiers while turning a blind eye to the effects of Israel's rule. You failed to denounce the killing of Palestinians and Israel's ongoing land confiscation. You didn't even feign the slightest bit of interest in visiting the Wall. And rather than wag your fingers at the Palestinians telling them what NOT to do, you failed to support non-violent resistance to the occupation. In short, you sat back in the Muqata drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes handed to you (and lit for you) by your security guards.

There was, however, one "victory" in your eyes: Annapolis. For you, this was the culmination of years of effort - again not to see that freedom is granted to the Palestinians, but to ensure that there is once again "a process". And, like the previous, "process" I am sure that you will gain a lot financially from it. But maybe you seem have overlooked reality, so I am here to remind you: 96 Palestinians have been killed since that "historic" event; Israel announced its intention to expand the settlement on Jebel Abu Ghneim by an additional 307 colony housing units; 60 new units are slated for construction in East Jerusalem; 8 Palestinian homes have been demolished; Israel announced that it will add $250 million USD to the budget for the construction of 750 colony housing units; Olmert announced that Ma'ale Adumim will forever remain in Israel's hands and Barak has similarly announced that checkpoints will NOT be removed. In case you have forgotten, Israel continues to besiege the Gaza Strip, both invading the area and denying Palestinians the ability to import and export even the most basic goods. And yes, 64 Palestinians have died from the siege imposed there.

Will you raise these issues with President Bush? Will you ask President Bush why he refused to visit a refugee camp? Will you ask President Bush why he refuses to hear the Palestinian national anthem? Will you mention the word occupation? Will you even show President Bush a picture of the Wall - particularly in areas where it has prevented school children from going to school while Bush claims that "no child will be left behind?" Will you pliantly nod your head or proclaim that "we're not in Gaza" as Bush berates you for not doing more when it comes to the pathetic firecrackers being tossed from Gaza? Will you challenge Bush on yesterday's "green light" to Israel to militarily invade us or will you explain that no people around the world have quietly sat back to the denial of their freedom (including the Americans)? I fear that I know the answers to my questions and for this reason, Mr. Abbas, it is time for you resign. You have failed in your task of explaining to the world what occupation and dispossession really mean and instead have devastated the Palestinian cause. Resign for the sake of the nation.

Sincerely...

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On Israel, the "Jewish State" and Annacrapolis...

The following piece appeared on The Nation online on 11 December 2007

Israel's Palestinians Speak Out
by NADIM ROUHANA

The Annapolis peace talks regard me as an interloper in my own land. Israel's deputy prime minister, Avigdor Lieberman, argues that I should "take [my] bundles and get lost." Henry Kissinger thinks I ought to be summarily swapped from inside Israel to the would-be Palestinian state.

I am a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship--one of 1.4 million. I am also a social psychologist trained and working in the United States. In late November, on behalf of Mada al-Carmel, the Arab Center for Applied Social Research, I polled Palestinian citizens of Israel regarding their reactions to the Annapolis conference and their views about our future, and how they would be affected by Middle East peace negotiations.

During Israel's establishment, three-quarters of a million Palestinians were driven from their homes or fled in fear. They remain refugees to this day, scattered throughout the West Bank and Gaza, the Arab world and beyond. We Palestinian citizens of Israel are among the minority who managed to remain on our land. Like many Mexican-Americans, we didn't cross the border, the border crossed us. We have been struggling ever since against a system that subjects us to separate and unequal treatment because we are Palestinian Arabs--Christian, Muslim and Druze--not Jewish. More than twenty Israeli laws explicitly privilege Jews over non-Jews.

The Palestinian Authority is under intense pressure to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. This is not a matter of semantics. If Israel's demand is granted, the inequality that we face as Palestinians--roughly 20 percent of Israel's population--will become permanent.

The United States, despite being settled by Christian Europeans fleeing religious persecution, has struggled for decades to make clear that it is not a "Christian nation." It is in a similar vein that Israel's indigenous Palestinian population rejects the efforts of Israel and the United States to seal our fate as a permanent underclass in our own homeland.

We are referred to by leading Israeli politicians as a "demographic problem." In response, many in Israel, including the deputy prime minister, are proposing land swaps: Palestinian land in the occupied territories with Israeli settlers on it would fall under Israel's sovereignty, while land in Israel with Palestinian citizens would fall under Palestinian authority.

This may seem like an even trade. But there is one problem: no one asked us what we think of this solution. Imagine the hue and cry were a prominent American politician to propose redrawing the map of the United States so as to exclude as many Mexican-Americans as possible, for the explicit purpose of preserving white political power. Such a demagogue would rightly be denounced as a bigot. Yet this sort of hyper-segregation and ethnic supremacy is precisely what Israeli and American officials are considering for many Palestinian citizens of Israel -- and hoping to coerce Palestinan leaders into accepting.

Looking across the Green Line, we realize that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has no mandate to negotiate a deal that will affect our future. We did not elect him. Why would we give up the rights we have battled to secure in our homeland to live inside an embryonic Palestine that we fear will be more like a bantustan than a sovereign state? Even if we put aside our attachment to our homeland, Israel has crushed the West Bank economy--to say nothing of Gaza's--and imprisoned its people behind a barrier. There is little allure to life in such grim circumstances, especially since there is the real prospect of further Israeli sanctions, which could make a bad situation worse.

In the poll I just conducted, nearly three-quarters of Israel's Palestinian citizens rejected the idea of the Palestinian Authority making territorial concessions that involve them, and 65.6 percent maintained that the PA also lacked the mandate to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Nearly 80 percent declared that it lacks the mandate to relinquish the right of Palestinian refugees--affirmed in UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948 and reaffirmed many times--to return to their homes and properties inside Israel.

Palestinians inside Israel have developed a history and identity after nearly sixty years of hard work and struggle. We are not simply pawns to be shuffled to the other side of the board. We expect no more and no less than the right to equality in the land of our ancestors. Israeli Jews have now built a nation, and have the right to live here in peace. But Israel cannot be both Jewish and democratic, nor can it find the security it seeks by continuing to deny our rights, nor those of Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, nor those of Palestinian refugees. It is time for us to share this land in a true democracy, one that honors and respects the rights of both peoples as equals.

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Moral Value of the Israeli Army

Sometimes it is rough being an Israeli soldier. It is tough to have to beat Palestinians, shoot them, demolish their homes and deny them their freedom. But the inflicted torture, beatings, killings and home demolitions can, in no way compare to the horrendous pain felt by Israeli soldiers for having to torture and kill Palestinians or demolish Palestinian homes. In the words of former Israeli PM Golda Meir, "We will never forgive the Arabs for forcing our soldiers to kill them."

Wow...it must be rough. Well now, it appears that there is a consolation for Israeli soldiers for to having to live through such pain: trading pics of dead Palestinians. You heard it: Israeli soldiers, take pictures of dead Palestinians using their camera phones and then send them to one another via bluetooth. At least the pain of being an Israeli soldier has been eased.

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Seller's Remorse

It is well known that buyers often experience some level of remorse: "did I buy the right item"; "did I pay too much"; "it is it really what I need" and so on...

But, in Palestine, it's not so much buyer's remorse that is seen but seller's remorse: the remorse expressed by people in power who, while powerful, manage to effectively screw over the Palestinians (ie. sell them out) only to later express some level of remorse or stand in solidarity with the Palestinians. Examples of those with Seller's Remorse include former US President Jimmy Carter who, while in office, turned a blind eye to Israel's colonization of the West Bank (though he demanded a dismantling of the then-outpost "Shilo" he later backpedalled). Twenty-five years later, he correctly labels Israel's actions as apartheid.

Yet, one is left wondering why he didn't act while in office. Another with Seller's Remorse is former British PM Tony Blair who, after screwing up the Middle East for 10 years (support for the invasion of Iraq, turning a blind eye to Israel), Mr. Blair is now fashionably pro-Palestinian as he travels the world trying to collect money for the cash-strapped PA. He went to Jericho on his recent tour of Palestine where he reportedly proclaimed that Israel's "security" restrictions had little to do with security! Hmmm Mr. Blair...wake up and smell the qahwa.

Kofi Annan and Ted Turner are among the latest inductees to the Seller's Remorse club. Both are members of the UN Foundation, headed by Ted Turner. Ted Turner, founder of CNN, can hardly claim to be unbiased. CNN's has unabashedly maintained a pro-Ziofacism stance as expressed in its "Victims of Terror" stories aired for more than 6 years. (Interestingly, not A SINGLE Palestinian was profiled, despite the fact that they are killed at a rate of 6 to 1). Kofi Annan is the same person who (a) repeatedly refused to condemn the killing of Palestinian civilians by Israel; (b) refused to condemn Israel's assassination policy; (c) turned a blind eye to Israel's colonization; (d) backed the Quartet-imposed sanctions when Palestinians dared to exercise democracy and (e) demanded that the occupied provide security to its occupier and oppressor.

Turner and Annan visited a number of sites, including a Palestinian refugee camp. They donned cute UN/Palestine pins and listening as dispossessed school children explained that they could not travel to nearby towns owing to Israel's apartheid (supported by Carter 3 decades ago). When asked the purpose of their visit, Turner and Annan indicated that they wanted to "see if we can help." Mr. Annan, Mr. Turner, you can definitely help: recognize that this is an occupation, not a "conflict" and demand that Israel end its occupation rather than ask the Palestinians to get comfortable with it.

(Apology to Maytha for also ranting...)

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The Spitfire-side Chats: The Low Down on the High Value of "Low" and "Good" Numbers in the UAE and other Persian Gulf States

"Yo son, what you sporting these days?"
"Well, you know how I do; I got me some gators, 22s, and a single-digit license plate number-ya herrrrd!"

That's right, big pimpin' in the Arab world has taken a life of it's own. Because of the general level of wealth enjoyed by Khaleeji national community (and corrupt monarchy-sustained elites in other Arab countries), a couple of imagined commodities have taken the respective countries by storm as a means to distinguish individuals from the pack; many centered around "Low" and "Good" numbers.

Low and nice numbers go beyond being a representation of material wealth, they represent that of symbolic wealth, of the kind of power one can wield for accessing and possessing exclusive imaginary commodities. And what are these imaginary commodities specifically?

License plates: The lower the number the more well-connected you are to government-unless of course you bought one off of some enterprising sheikh for beaucoup bucks.

Cellphone and home numbers. The "good" numbers are basically the "nicer sounding" ones. From what my informants have told me, the "nicer" sounding connotes easy memoryability (remember I'm a budding anthropologists, I'm allowed to make up words), which usually means there are repeating or symmetric numbers in the sequence.

Here are some ads on an UAE-based ebay-like classified site called Bazaar.ae that sell "good", "nice sounding" cellphone and home numbers-some at undisclosed prices and others that will cost you a pretty dirham: Here, here, here, and oh yes, HERE.

The following are KABOBer reactions, highly-opinionated comments, sensationalist stories and titillating hearsay about the low and nice numbers phenomenon in the Arab, but mostly Khaleeji, world:

Maytha: I have been informed by my cousins who live in Abu Dhabi that low numbers on license plates are considered the 'it' thing in UAE. So, Sheikh Maktoum having a "1" as his license plate number basically means that homeboy is the biggest balla in Dubai.

Assouli: License plate numbers are also big in Jordan. the king has number 1. i remember Abdulmajid Shoman had a 5. people are very proud of their license plate numbers. poor poor people have nothing else to be proud of in Jordan. generally, it's gotta be 5 digits to be cool, unless it's 5 digits on a shitty car, which just means the person got it a long time ago. 4 digits is unheard of for anyone other than the closely connected Jordanian or the very wealthy. people pay a premium for the numbers and any repetition in numbers is hip such as 11145. then apparently there are numbers that show some connection to the mukhabarat (intelligence services) and that supposedly grants you immunity from traffic tickets without having the moustache and the Bedouin accent...

By the way, same thing for cellphone numbers... you're cool as hell if your number is 677-7776 or something... buying a SIM card you can expect to pay a healthy premium above the price of an ugly number like 648-5210, although that 210 at the end is bordering on hot!

That's pretty much what's going on in Jordan in a nutshell...

Nimr: To add my 5 cents, it is not just Jordan. In Qatar and Bahrain I heard of guys buying these "good" numbers for thousands of dollars for their cars or phones. there were even speculators and re-sellers. talk about an imagined commodity.

Omar: It's not just hearsay about people willing to pay thousands for "cool" phone numbers and license plates. When I was in Saudi my brother had a really easy number to remember and constantly kept getting calls from people who wanted to buy it. I think the highest offer he got was around ~$3500. Come to think of it, I don't know why he didn't just sell it.

I also heard of people willing to pay millions for license plates.

Diana: In Palestine, numbers are also hot too but we don't have to pay big money for them: you just have to pay an additional $5 when getting the number. Sometimes you luck out - like me - with a cool number. But I get a weirdo from Gaza always calling me thinking that I am his wife. Cars are different, of course, due to apartheid-incentiving Oslo: only PA officials get red coloured licence plates with four digits. Arafat was the only person with a 0001. The licence plate has been retired. Abu Mazen's car is now: 2000. Here the cool thing is with PASSPORT NUMBERS: PA guys get super cool numbers: A011111 (used to be the Passport Number of Abu Mazen).

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"Flee" by Ahmad Habash

This film was part of a Palestinian film festival. Filmmakers were required to produce a film no more than 3 minutes in length, filmed in one take.

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Illegal Attacks

Illegal Attacks – Ian Brown (feat. Sinead O’Connor)

So what the fuck is this UK
Gunnin’ with this US of A
In Iraq and Iran and in Afghanistan

Does not a day go by
Without the Israeli Air Force
Fail to drop it’s bombs from the sky?

How many mothers to cry?
How many sons have to die?
How many missions left to fly over Palestine?
‘Cause as a matter of facts
It’s a pact, it’s an act
These are illegal attacks
So bring the soldiers back
These are illegal attacks
It’s contracts for contacts
I’m singing concrete facts
So bring the soldiers back

What mean ya that you beat my people
What mean ya that you beat my people
And grind the faces of the poor

So tell me just how come were the Taliban
Sat burning incense in Texas
Roaming round in a Lexus
Sittin’ on six billion oil drums
Down with the Dow Jones, up on the Nasdaq
Pushed into the war zones

It’s a commercial crusade
‘Cause all the oil men get paid
And only so many soldiers come home
It’s a commando crusade
A military charade
And only so many soldiers come home

Soldiers, soldiers come home
Soldiers come home

Through all the blood and sweat
Nobody can forget
It ain’t the size of the dog in the fight
It’s the size of the fight in the dog on the day or the night
There’s no time to reflect
On the threat, the situation, the bark nor the bite
These are commercial crusades
‘Cos all the oil men get paid
These are commando crusades
Commando tactical rape
And from the streets of New York and Baghdad to Tehran and Tel Aviv
Bring forth the prophets of the Lord
From dirty bastards fillin’ pockets
With the profits of greed

These are commercial crusades
Commando tactical raids
Playin’ military charades to get paid

And who got the devils?
And who got the Lords?
Build yourself a mountain – Drink up in the fountain
Soldiers come home

[Tarboush tip: Idrees]

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Using the "I" Word

Wow, it seems that even t-shirts are now subject to censorship, as Debbie Almontaser has now learned. Worse still, is that mainstream media, such as the IHT article, seem to have bought into the thinking that there is something wrong with the word.

The dreaded "I" word: intifada. "Intifada" literally means "shaking up" - there is nothing "highly charged" about it. But there is another "I" word that is highly charged: Israel - a settler-colonial entity that privileges one group of people over another; an entity that has dispossessed millions; an entity that uses missiles and tanks against stateless, dispossessed refugees. That is the "highly charged" word, folks; not the "I" word that aims to "shake up" the status quo.

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Using the "N" Word

Well, it appears that Israel is now clamping down on those you use the "N" word. No, it's not what you think...it is the other "N" word...and given that I reside in the Zionist entity, I won't use it for fear of being arrested). In the aftermath of the al-Khalil (Hebron) media event, it seems that Israeli police will be conducting a probe (?) into the comments of a Zionut professor: Hillel Weiss.

It appears that Mr. Weiss said some pretty nasty things (he hasn't been convicted so we have to say "allegedly"):

"the policemen are worse than the Nazis."

He added,

"May your mother be bereaved, your wife be widowed, your children be orphaned and may you be struck down in the next war and any memory of you be erased."

Wow - it sounds as though he wished that the Israeli soldier be treated as a Palestinian!

Having once been called a "Nazi and a terrorist" by the former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. after demanding, in a public forum, that the Palestinians be treated as "equals" (God forbid!), I wonder whether I can now call upon the Israeli police to probe (?) the ambassador.

I'm sure that I am not the only one....maybe we can all seek to have probes (?) conducted on our Israeli/Zionut friends who use the "N" word against us? I wonder...

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When you got to go...

Yesterday's "confrontation" between the whacko settlers in Al-Khalil (Hebron) and the Israeli army soldiers protecting them was clearly a smelly affair. Following a government decision to remove 2 families from a Palestinian building illegally occupied by the settlers (removed not because they are illegal or because they wreck havoc on the lives of the 130,000 Palestinian residents of Hebron, but because they could no longer "protect" them), the Israeli army notified the 17 inhabitants of the 2 homes that they would be forcibly removed if they did not leave the houses they had stolen from Palestinians. (The settlers, under the army's watch, had, months earlier, kicked out the Palestinian owners from these homes, claiming that they were once "ancient Jewish properties").

Upon being notified (something, of course, that the army doesn't do when it decides to demolish Palestinian homes), the settlers prepared themselves. A media-planned standoff was set into motion. But before that could begin, the army sent in moving companies to assist the families with moving their belongings. (Hmmm...this is unprecedented; usually they just demolish Palestinian homes with the Palestinians inside them. Oops...silly me, that is a practice reserved for non-Jews). By 6 a.m. the army came into the area (of course, placing the Palestinians under curfew) and the cameras began rolling. The tears, the screams, and even a soldier gently picking up the eyeglasses of one of the settlers all made it into mainstream media: CNN, BBC and the New York Times, among others. "The pain," proclaimed Israeli officials.

For their part, the settlers demonstrated that you do funny things when you "got to go." They hurled slippers, shoes, eggs, and cooking oil at the army and barricaded themselves into these homes. My favourite settler, Nadia Matar, perpetually constipated (that's the only thing that can explain the rants), determined that the soldiers were, "anti-Semitic bullies" (maybe she was referring to Israel's actions against Palestinians? who knows?!). (Incidentally, Nadia left the area dressed as a pregnant woman so as to escape arrest).

The highlight came late in the afternoon when the army realized that a third home had been occupied by some settlers. These settlers barricaded themselves in the home and had created a sealed-room bunker, surrounded by oxygen tanks. They barricaded the doors with concrete, with the concrete poured a few days before the army's arrival so as to be set by the time the army arrived. Here is how Israeli news reported the incident:

The three youthful activists who refused to leave the sealed room, according to Army Radio, were shirtless and exhausted. Reporters peered in the tiny window built into the bunker to speak with the youths, who remained steadfast in their efforts to resist the expulsion until forces managed to penetrate the walls. Engineers worked for more than an hour to find a way to open the bunker without harming the young protestors, due to concerns that using cement-cutting saws would create sparks could ignite oxygen tanks that were placed inside the bunker."

After using the army's Home Front Command's Search and Rescue Unit, usually reserved for natural disasters and building collapses, the army managed to break into the room. What did they find: a whole lot of fecal matter. It seems that the settlers weren't so prepared when they built their concrete fortress. They forgot that they needed a place to do numbers 1 and 2 and so, well, let's just say that, when you got to go...you got to go.

The settlers are being treated for dehydration and for, well, improper hygiene.

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Deja Vu

Much has been said and written about the failed 90s "peace process" as a means of ending Israel's rule over the Palestinians. The critics of Oslo (including many Kabobfesters) pointed to the absurdity embedded in the "peace process" whereby the Palestinian Authority would be required (under the Oslo Agreements - the very "signed agreements" that the Quartet have demanded be "accepted" by Hamas) to be the security subcontractor to the Israeli occupation. The logic was twisted: an occupied people are supposed to provide security to their occupier! Along with the signing of the Oslo Agreements came the formation of Palestinian "intelligence" and "security" appartuses in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Their job? To monitor, report and often commit human rights abuses against Palestinians who did not buy into the "process."

To be clear, Hamas quickly denounced the 90s Oslo Agreements and was later subjected to many of the repressive measures committed by the security appartus, done in the hope that the "process" could only proce