Through his life and his body, Juliano Mer-Khamis embodied the possibility of a binational resistance movement.
Those who knew Juliano Mer-Khamis, the Nazareth-born actor and director who was shot in Jenin on Monday, will have to be the ones to write about him; all that the rest of us can do is write about the milestones in his life.
Juliano was lucky. He was born Palestinian and Jewish, Jewish and Palestinian. This angry man was beset by conflicting yet complementary identities. He was the long shadow of an imagined binational community from the 1950s. Like a Peter Pan who refuses to grow up, Juliano embodied the potential of a shared life (ta'ayush in Arabic ) while striving for equality. The son of a Jewish mother and a Palestinian father, he was born to two cultures, and chose to live in both. He saw no need to explain.
Juliano Mer-Khamis was angry. But the Palestinians must conquer their anger, like rage against the Jewish enclave in the middle of the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
My guess is that Juliano wasn't entertaining illusions; sustaining blows from all sides, the potential of ta'ayush shrank. Ta'ayush is the sane vision, but the chance that it will be realized is increasingly slim. There are some who fantasize about the days of the Messiah to avoid thinking about the days before the next disaster strikes. Juliano's was the offspring of a fantasy of ta'ayush. His birth was the outcome of a fantasy of ta'ayush, and his death is a disaster.
Juliano was angry. His rage was the kind that only a Jew like him, who was born on the left and craved equality until the end, can allow himself to express as a way of life. Palestinians must conquer the anger, mellow it; they must tame it, repress it, sublimate it. That's the only way to stay both alive and sane (without getting arrested, wounded or killed ) under the conditions of physical and non-physical violence dictated by Israel.
Oy, this coarse violence, which reeks of rationalism and supremacy and pretends to be enlightened. It is found in every detail of life, moment by moment, from cradle to grave. It is found from a expropriation order and an accompanying map to the firing hole of a watchtower; from the Interior Ministry expelling Palestinian Jerusalemites from their home town to the blocking of return to the Galilee village of Bir'im; from the racist responses of Jewish youth in opinion polls to the drone that homed in on children playing on the roof in Gaza. The violence is always there, from the Jerusalem municipal taxes despite the ruined roads and uncollected garbage to the security cameras in the Jewish neighborhood/Crusader shtetl in Silwan; from the lush green of a settlement to the Palestinian cistern destroyed by an Israeli bulldozer; from the permits granted to individual ranches in the Negev to the incrimination of Bedouin as "infiltrators." In short, from the Jewish to the democratic.
This violence has so many different angles that it can drive you mad. Juliano was lucky to be an artist, and madness was one of his paintbrushes. Through the theater he founded in Jenin, Juliano allowed himself to criticize repressive aspects of Palestinian society. One would guess he did so as a left-winger, as an actor committed to the artist's oath of truthfulness, and as a Palestinian. Let's hope that the killer will be found, and then we'll know if a Palestinian artist was killed because of his courage to live in a way that disrupts the order, or if a Jewish artist was killed because he gave himself permission to overtly criticize a society that is not his, according to some, or if a left-winger was killed because he was disrupting the norm. Or perhaps all three together. Even if he was killed for some other reason, Juliano was still an artist and a Palestinian, a left-winger and a Jew.
Now that the prospect of the sane vision of ta'ayush is small, what is left? The path. This is the option of a binational resistance movement, which wants to topple the Gadhafi-like, Mubarak-like, Assad-like rule of one people over another.
There are some who insist on fantasizing about a binational movement as a historic necessity, as a logical antithesis to the ideology of the demographic separation that has become the bible of the Oslo process. The truth must be said: In the meantime, most of those who harbor such a fantasy are Jewish. Thus do we soften the contradiction between love for the people and the place on the one hand and the abhorrence of the enlightened violence on the other.
Through his life and his body, Juliano Mer-Khamis embodied the possibility of a binational resistance movement. The killer, whatever his motive, was aiming for the body. In his death, Juliano has bequeathed us the possible.
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Hommage à Juliano Mer Khamis mercredi 6 avril 2011
Les amis parisiens de l’acteur, homme de théâtre et militant de la liberté Juliano Mer-Khamis, assassiné le 4 avril 2011 dans le camp de réfugiés de Jenine, lui rendront hommage lundi 11 Avril à partir de 19h, aux Ateliers Varan , 6 Impasse Mont-Louis , 75011 Paris (M° Philippe Auguste). Ils pourront à cette occasion voir ou revoir son film exceptionnel "LES ENFANTS D’ARNA", dont voici le début :
http://www.europalestine.com/spip.php?article6050
http://www.europalestine.com/spip.php?article6050
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Juliano dedicated his life to love : Family of Juliano Mer Khamis
We are shocked and devastated by the death of our beloved Juliano.
Juliano dedicated his life to love, people and freedom. Freedom was the essence of Juliano’s being and he fought for justice and equality on the collective and individual level.
He was a caring and nurturing father to Keshet, Milay and Jay—a legacy they will surely share with their siblings, his yet unborn twins.
He was a loving and supportive son, brother, husband, partner, friend and comrade.
He was an amazing, talented and inspiring human being.
For Juliano, freedom emanated from within. Art, politics, love and life were one. He was a rebel with a cause, a cultural freedom fighter, an articulate advocate of simple truths.
Defining himself as “100% Palestinian and 100% Jewish,” he embodied us all, not as an amalgamation of fragments but as a single organic whole.
His death is a great blow to us and to the Freedom Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp, which he co-founded with his mother, Arna, and which we will continue to support. We share his loss with the people of Jenin and will continue to share our lives and aspirations for freedom and liberty with them.
Juliano, you deserve our loyalty to you and your mother جوليانو تستحق منا الوفاء لك ولامك
بيان صادر عن مسرح الحرية
فقدت جنين و مخيمها والثقافة الفلسطينية و اطفال الحرية شهيدهم و شهيد الانسانية جوليانو خميس الذي قضى برصاصات غادرة سوداء اطلقت من قاتل مجهول.
لقد مثل جوليانو للمخيم و لاطفاله نموذج الداعي للحرية و الحريص على الثقافة و الحامل للقيم الانسانية و رمز من رموز ثقافة المقاومة
نأسف ان تكون نهاية حياته حيث بدأها.
لكنها ارادة الحياة تبقي جوليانو باعماله و ابداعاته و بمحبيه من الناس الطيبين حيا دائما في وجداننا و سيبقى مسرح الحرية رمزا للحرية التي قدم روحه على مذبحها ( اظنها رصاصات الغدر حين هوت تكاد لو ادركت عينيك تعتذر) انك يا جوليانو تستحق منا الوفاء لك ولامك ولابنائك و زوجتك و لرسالتك الفنية الخالدة كل محبيك و تلاميذك سيذكرون فنك و قيمك الى الابد وليكن اسمك احد اسماء الثقافة الفلسطينية.
The Jenin City, Jenin Camp, Palestinian Culture and Freedom Children have lost a martyr of great humanity Juliano Mer-Khamis who was killed by black betrayal buletts by an unknown murderer.
Juliano represented a model of someone who caused for freedom, culture and human values. He was one of the cultural resistance symbols in our society.
We are very sorry that the end of his life had place in the exact place where he started it, but it was what life wanted: and now we must keep Juliano and his works, creations and beloved ones, keeping him alive always in our hearts. The Freedom Theatre will always stay the symbol for Freedom that Juliano has provided his soul on his slaughter.
“They were the betrayal bullets when they were shot, almost apologizing if they saw your eyes” . Juliano, you deserve our loyalty to you and your mother, your children, wife and we will keep alive your immortal artistic message.
All the people that loved you and your students will always remember your art and your values forever, and let your name continue to be part of the Palestinian Culture.
Palestinians mourn Israeli mentor,Was it too much for us to have one good person?” : Joel Greenberg
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/palestinians-mourn-israeli-mentor/2011/04/05/AFNc3dlC_print.html
A black flag hung Tuesday over the Freedom Theater in the Jenin refugee camp, where tearful young Palestinians mourned the sudden death of their Israeli teacher, a prominent actor and director slain a day earlier by a masked gunman in a nearby alley.
Juliano Mer Khamis, the son of a Jewish mother and Arab father, was the founding director of the youth theater, a project he saw as a mission to bring cultural revival to a community scarred by years of violence and occupation.
A well-known film and stage actor in Israel who lived and worked with the Palestinians, Mer Khamis, 52, seemed to transcend the chasm separating the two societies, and his death left his students crushed.
In a darkened theater hall, young men and women sobbed as images of their mentor at work were projected on a large screen to the strains of a mournful Palestinian song.
“Why?” wailed one girl. “We also have dreams. We can’t go on without him. Was it too much for us to have one good person?”
Mer Khamis, remembered here as a passionate and charismatic figure, was the driving force behind the theater, established in 2006 as a creative alternative for youngsters in the Jenin camp, home to Palestinian families pushed out of what is now Israel when the Jewish state was created in 1948. The project was a successor to a children’s theater group set up in the late 1980s by Mer Khamis’s mother, Arna, who sought to remedy the hardship of camp life with therapeutic drama.
In the years before the Freedom Theater’s founding, the Jenin camp had been a battleground for local militants confronting Israeli troops. Offering an acting school, stage productions, and workshops in filmmaking, photography and creative writing, the theater presented a cultural challenge to a conservative society that had turned inward during the years of violent conflict.
Mer Khamis, who described conditions in the camp as a “ghetto culture” created during years of Israeli-imposed movement restrictions that isolated Jenin, took it upon himself to liberate the minds of the younger generation as a prelude to national liberation of the Palestinians, his associates said.
The idea, said Samia Steiti, program manager at the theater, was to promote “cultural resistance, with words and pictures.”
“Jail is a state of mind,” says a message written on a wall of a theater office. “Free your mind to liberate Palestine.”
Plays staged by the theater, such as a version of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” or a recent adaptation of “Alice in Wonderland,” prodded audiences to think critically about Palestinian society and politics. Coeducational classes drew fire from religious conservatives who objected to mingling of young men and women, and there were also phone threats, two attempted arsons and harassment on the street, said Nabil al-Rai, the director of the acting school.
No group has asserted responsibility for killing Mer Khamis, and while there has been at least one reported arrest of a suspect by the Palestinian security forces, no explanation has emerged for the slaying.
“Maybe his words killed him,” said al-Rai.
Iyad Hourani, an acting student, said Mer Khamis had taught him a prescient lesson. “He said that a person with a gun but without culture and an education will kill his friend before his enemy,” he recalled.
Zakaria Zubeidi, a former militant leader in the camp who is the theater’s unofficial protector, told a news conference Tuesday that the killing bore all the markings of a carefully prepared hit.
“We will have no mercy and we will not forgive the hand that was raised against the leader of freedom, Juliano Khamis,” declared Zubeidi, who as a youngster participated in the theater group founded by the slain actor’s mother.
On the streets of the camp, residents said that while there had been criticism of the theater by people who accused it of violating traditional social norms, there was broad support for the center’s educational activities for local youth. Mer Khamis, who lived next to the camp, was a familiar face on the streets and widely accepted despite his Israeli origins, the residents said.
“We got accustomed to him,” said Ayman Saadi at his shop near the theater. “He became one of us.”
In an interview rebroadcast Tuesday on Israeli Army Radio, Mer Khamis said he straddled both identities, Israeli and Palestinian. He noted that most of his mother’s family had died in a Nazi concentration camp and that most of his father’s relatives became refugees in Lebanon after Israel’s creation in 1948.
“I’m a son of both peoples,” he said. “Either we live together, or we won’t live at all.”
A black flag hung Tuesday over the Freedom Theater in the Jenin refugee camp, where tearful young Palestinians mourned the sudden death of their Israeli teacher, a prominent actor and director slain a day earlier by a masked gunman in a nearby alley.
Juliano Mer Khamis, the son of a Jewish mother and Arab father, was the founding director of the youth theater, a project he saw as a mission to bring cultural revival to a community scarred by years of violence and occupation.
A well-known film and stage actor in Israel who lived and worked with the Palestinians, Mer Khamis, 52, seemed to transcend the chasm separating the two societies, and his death left his students crushed.
In a darkened theater hall, young men and women sobbed as images of their mentor at work were projected on a large screen to the strains of a mournful Palestinian song.
“Why?” wailed one girl. “We also have dreams. We can’t go on without him. Was it too much for us to have one good person?”
Mer Khamis, remembered here as a passionate and charismatic figure, was the driving force behind the theater, established in 2006 as a creative alternative for youngsters in the Jenin camp, home to Palestinian families pushed out of what is now Israel when the Jewish state was created in 1948. The project was a successor to a children’s theater group set up in the late 1980s by Mer Khamis’s mother, Arna, who sought to remedy the hardship of camp life with therapeutic drama.
In the years before the Freedom Theater’s founding, the Jenin camp had been a battleground for local militants confronting Israeli troops. Offering an acting school, stage productions, and workshops in filmmaking, photography and creative writing, the theater presented a cultural challenge to a conservative society that had turned inward during the years of violent conflict.
Mer Khamis, who described conditions in the camp as a “ghetto culture” created during years of Israeli-imposed movement restrictions that isolated Jenin, took it upon himself to liberate the minds of the younger generation as a prelude to national liberation of the Palestinians, his associates said.
The idea, said Samia Steiti, program manager at the theater, was to promote “cultural resistance, with words and pictures.”
“Jail is a state of mind,” says a message written on a wall of a theater office. “Free your mind to liberate Palestine.”
Plays staged by the theater, such as a version of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” or a recent adaptation of “Alice in Wonderland,” prodded audiences to think critically about Palestinian society and politics. Coeducational classes drew fire from religious conservatives who objected to mingling of young men and women, and there were also phone threats, two attempted arsons and harassment on the street, said Nabil al-Rai, the director of the acting school.
No group has asserted responsibility for killing Mer Khamis, and while there has been at least one reported arrest of a suspect by the Palestinian security forces, no explanation has emerged for the slaying.
“Maybe his words killed him,” said al-Rai.
Iyad Hourani, an acting student, said Mer Khamis had taught him a prescient lesson. “He said that a person with a gun but without culture and an education will kill his friend before his enemy,” he recalled.
Zakaria Zubeidi, a former militant leader in the camp who is the theater’s unofficial protector, told a news conference Tuesday that the killing bore all the markings of a carefully prepared hit.
“We will have no mercy and we will not forgive the hand that was raised against the leader of freedom, Juliano Khamis,” declared Zubeidi, who as a youngster participated in the theater group founded by the slain actor’s mother.
On the streets of the camp, residents said that while there had been criticism of the theater by people who accused it of violating traditional social norms, there was broad support for the center’s educational activities for local youth. Mer Khamis, who lived next to the camp, was a familiar face on the streets and widely accepted despite his Israeli origins, the residents said.
“We got accustomed to him,” said Ayman Saadi at his shop near the theater. “He became one of us.”
In an interview rebroadcast Tuesday on Israeli Army Radio, Mer Khamis said he straddled both identities, Israeli and Palestinian. He noted that most of his mother’s family had died in a Nazi concentration camp and that most of his father’s relatives became refugees in Lebanon after Israel’s creation in 1948.
“I’m a son of both peoples,” he said. “Either we live together, or we won’t live at all.”
Dear Mr. Barak Obama The President of the United States of Americ a: Best regards: ABDULLAH AHMED NONAN
Massacres, blood baths and mass murders
continue for the third day in Yemen
Dear Mr. Barak Obama,
The President of the United States of America
And the Leader of the Free World
Geneva April 5th, 2011
Mothers and children of the slaughtered young and peaceful protesters are in need to hear from you personally.
They need to hear from you that these atrocities should stop and the tyrant will be held accountable.
They deserve that Mr. President.
Best regards,
ABDULLAH AHMED NONAN
(Resigned Ambassador)
alnoman@yahoo.com
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
April 05, 2011
Statement by the Press Secretary on Violence in Yemen
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/04/05/statement-press-secretary-violence-yemen
continue for the third day in Yemen
Dear Mr. Barak Obama,
The President of the United States of America
And the Leader of the Free World
Geneva April 5th, 2011
Mothers and children of the slaughtered young and peaceful protesters are in need to hear from you personally.
They need to hear from you that these atrocities should stop and the tyrant will be held accountable.
They deserve that Mr. President.
Best regards,
ABDULLAH AHMED NONAN
(Resigned Ambassador)
alnoman@yahoo.com
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
April 05, 2011
Statement by the Press Secretary on Violence in Yemen
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/04/05/statement-press-secretary-violence-yemen
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Dana Kennedy : The Mystery Behind Gadhafi's Birth: Some Say He's Jewish
ContributorWhat if the biggest mystery surrounding Col. Moammar Gadhafi had nothing to do with his long, brutal reign as the world's most eccentric and violent leader turned pariah?
And what if a long-lost letter from a Catholic cardinal who knew Gadhafi's true identity was evidence that could have solved the mystery?
To many Libyan people, the biggest question mark about Gadhafi does not involve his repressive and dictatorial rule, delusional statements or brazen lies. Behind closed doors, for years, they've wondered if he is Jewish. Last week the issue came out in the open, asNBC's Richard Engel reported from Libya that one in five rebels was fighting Gadhafi because he believes the leader is Jewish.
Conflicting reports surrounding Gadhafi's birth have circulated since about 1970, two years after a Gadhafi-led coup made him the de facto leader of Libya.
In a handful of biographies from years ago, mostly written by Europeans, Gadhafi is almost always described as being born in a tent in Sirt, the son of a poor, illiterate Bedouin sheepherder and his wife.
But the hushed-up rumors in Libya about Gadhafi's parentage involved his mother being Jewish. The stories have conflicted over the years, and the narratives are different. One had her converting to Judaism at age 9. In another, Gadhafi's grandmother is Jewish but leaves her husband for an Arab sheik.
A more specific claim, backed up by a Libyan historian, is that Gadhafi was born out of wedlock to a Jewish woman and an Italian soldier in a village east of Tripoli. Because of the shame surrounding the birth, the baby was given to a Catholic cardinal who in turn gave the child to the sheepherder and his wife.
And what if a long-lost letter from a Catholic cardinal who knew Gadhafi's true identity was evidence that could have solved the mystery?
To many Libyan people, the biggest question mark about Gadhafi does not involve his repressive and dictatorial rule, delusional statements or brazen lies. Behind closed doors, for years, they've wondered if he is Jewish. Last week the issue came out in the open, asNBC's Richard Engel reported from Libya that one in five rebels was fighting Gadhafi because he believes the leader is Jewish.
Conflicting reports surrounding Gadhafi's birth have circulated since about 1970, two years after a Gadhafi-led coup made him the de facto leader of Libya.
In a handful of biographies from years ago, mostly written by Europeans, Gadhafi is almost always described as being born in a tent in Sirt, the son of a poor, illiterate Bedouin sheepherder and his wife.
But the hushed-up rumors in Libya about Gadhafi's parentage involved his mother being Jewish. The stories have conflicted over the years, and the narratives are different. One had her converting to Judaism at age 9. In another, Gadhafi's grandmother is Jewish but leaves her husband for an Arab sheik.
A more specific claim, backed up by a Libyan historian, is that Gadhafi was born out of wedlock to a Jewish woman and an Italian soldier in a village east of Tripoli. Because of the shame surrounding the birth, the baby was given to a Catholic cardinal who in turn gave the child to the sheepherder and his wife.
Paul Craig Roberts : The New Colonialism Goes Both Ways
http://vdare.com/roberts/110331_new_colonialism.htm
What we are observing in Libya is the rebirth of colonialism. Only this time it is not individual European governments competing for empires and resources. The new colonialism operates under the cover of "the world community," which means NATO and those countries that cooperate with it. NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was once a defense alliance against a possible Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Today NATO provides European troops in behalf of American hegemony.
Washington pursues world hegemony under the guises of selective "humanitarian intervention" and "bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed peoples." On an opportunistic basis, Washington targets countries for intervention that are not its "international partners." Caught off guard, perhaps, by popular revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, there are some indications that Washington responded opportunistically and encouraged the uprising in Libya. Khalifa Hifter, a suspected Libyan CIA asset for the last 20 years, has gone back to Libya to head the rebel army.
Gaddafi got himself targeted by standing up to Western imperialism. He refused to be part of the US Africa Command. Gaddafi saw Washington’s scheme for what it is, a colonialist’s plan to divide and conquer.
The US Africa Command (AFRICOM) was created by order of President George W. Bush in 2007. AFRICOM describes its objective: go to link
What we are observing in Libya is the rebirth of colonialism. Only this time it is not individual European governments competing for empires and resources. The new colonialism operates under the cover of "the world community," which means NATO and those countries that cooperate with it. NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was once a defense alliance against a possible Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Today NATO provides European troops in behalf of American hegemony.
Washington pursues world hegemony under the guises of selective "humanitarian intervention" and "bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed peoples." On an opportunistic basis, Washington targets countries for intervention that are not its "international partners." Caught off guard, perhaps, by popular revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, there are some indications that Washington responded opportunistically and encouraged the uprising in Libya. Khalifa Hifter, a suspected Libyan CIA asset for the last 20 years, has gone back to Libya to head the rebel army.
Gaddafi got himself targeted by standing up to Western imperialism. He refused to be part of the US Africa Command. Gaddafi saw Washington’s scheme for what it is, a colonialist’s plan to divide and conquer.
The US Africa Command (AFRICOM) was created by order of President George W. Bush in 2007. AFRICOM describes its objective: go to link
Aluf Benn : The monster
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-monster-1.353747
Sara Netanyahu is right when she says she's being put on the spot but the real target is her husband. This is the price of being married to a controversial leader who shuns responsibilities and tough decisions.
The Beatles broke up when I was five, and my elder brother told me why: because of Yoko Ono. John Lennon's dominating wife insisted on joining the band, the other boys didn't agree and the Fab Four broke up forever. This was the popular narrative of that calamity, and I internalized the subtext: In every famous couple, the man takes care of status and success and the woman bears responsibility for the failures.
This model is embedded in our culture, ever since the story of Adam and Eve. We have been trained to believe that the wives of leaders and rock stars ride on their backs and effortlessly enjoy the prestige, power, limousines and suites, but are never happy and will forever make demands, or try to run their husbands' careers and decide on all the important things. The famous husband is presented as a victim who made a mistake in choosing a spouse and pays for the choice by being expelled from Paradise. Link
Sara Netanyahu is right when she says she's being put on the spot but the real target is her husband. This is the price of being married to a controversial leader who shuns responsibilities and tough decisions.
The Beatles broke up when I was five, and my elder brother told me why: because of Yoko Ono. John Lennon's dominating wife insisted on joining the band, the other boys didn't agree and the Fab Four broke up forever. This was the popular narrative of that calamity, and I internalized the subtext: In every famous couple, the man takes care of status and success and the woman bears responsibility for the failures.
This model is embedded in our culture, ever since the story of Adam and Eve. We have been trained to believe that the wives of leaders and rock stars ride on their backs and effortlessly enjoy the prestige, power, limousines and suites, but are never happy and will forever make demands, or try to run their husbands' careers and decide on all the important things. The famous husband is presented as a victim who made a mistake in choosing a spouse and pays for the choice by being expelled from Paradise. Link
Or Kashti : Students on trip to IDF base simulated shooting targets with Arab headdress
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/students-on-trip-to-idf-base-simulated-shooting-targets-with-arab-headdress-1.353728
Incident took place during at a military base where students were being escorted as part of an 'IDF preparation' project, sanctioned by the Education Ministry.
Twelfth-grade students from Herzliya's Hayovel High School took part in a simulated shooting attack in which the targets were figures decked out with the Arab keffiyeh headdress, Haaretz has learned.
The incident took place at a military base last week during the annual 12th grade trip. The students were being escorted to a commanders' base in the Negev as part of an "IDF preparation" project, which is sanctioned by the Education Ministry.
Incident took place during at a military base where students were being escorted as part of an 'IDF preparation' project, sanctioned by the Education Ministry.
Twelfth-grade students from Herzliya's Hayovel High School took part in a simulated shooting attack in which the targets were figures decked out with the Arab keffiyeh headdress, Haaretz has learned.
The incident took place at a military base last week during the annual 12th grade trip. The students were being escorted to a commanders' base in the Negev as part of an "IDF preparation" project, which is sanctioned by the Education Ministry.
Bahrain : Death of a suspect protester after 7 days in detention
http://www.policemc.gov.bh/news_details.aspx?type=1&articleId=7568
Death of a suspect protester after 7 days in detention
This is the case no 27 of “Extra judicial killing” since 14 February
Urgent actions are requested to save the lives of hundreds of other detainees
The Ministry of interior has announced today, 4 March 2011, the death of Mr Hassan Jassim Mohammed Makki, aged 39, in a detention centre where he has been kept since his arrest on 28 March as a suspect of being involved in the recent unrest. The General Inspector of the Ministry, Ibrahim Habib A-Ghaith, claimed that the cause of death is a hereditary blood disease suffered by detainee. Source:
The death of Hassan Makki brings the number of people who lost their life since the beginning of protests, on 14 January, to at least 27, among them one child and one women. (List attached).
ِAli's brother told Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights: " That Ali suffered from hereditary blood disease , but not dangerous for him.Ali One and half years did not went to the hospital because of this disease".
Ali's Relative told : " After we saw his body, we noticed torture in the hands, legs and back"
There is high concern on the physical and psychological well being of hundreds of citizens who have been in detention since 14 February with no access family or legal counseling while whereabouts is unknown. Therefore, Urgent actions are requested to save the lives and secure their well-being.
Death of a suspect protester after 7 days in detention
This is the case no 27 of “Extra judicial killing” since 14 February
Urgent actions are requested to save the lives of hundreds of other detainees
The Ministry of interior has announced today, 4 March 2011, the death of Mr Hassan Jassim Mohammed Makki, aged 39, in a detention centre where he has been kept since his arrest on 28 March as a suspect of being involved in the recent unrest. The General Inspector of the Ministry, Ibrahim Habib A-Ghaith, claimed that the cause of death is a hereditary blood disease suffered by detainee. Source:
The death of Hassan Makki brings the number of people who lost their life since the beginning of protests, on 14 January, to at least 27, among them one child and one women. (List attached).
ِAli's brother told Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights: " That Ali suffered from hereditary blood disease , but not dangerous for him.Ali One and half years did not went to the hospital because of this disease".
Ali's Relative told : " After we saw his body, we noticed torture in the hands, legs and back"
There is high concern on the physical and psychological well being of hundreds of citizens who have been in detention since 14 February with no access family or legal counseling while whereabouts is unknown. Therefore, Urgent actions are requested to save the lives and secure their well-being.
Asaf Romirowsky, Alexander H. Joffe : Defund the UNRWA
Yes of course, instead UNRWA youth centres and soccer teams should be named to commemorate the victims of the holocaust and righteous gentiles like the "social scientists" and "philosophers" of Al Quds University and American Task Force on Palestine:
The outfit intermittently dispatches its more presentable directors and management around the West, largely to give polite talks at Jewish events. But the proof of its work is in Gaza and the West Bank. A youth center at the UNRWA's Al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah recently dedicated a soccer tournament to Wafa Idris, the first Palestinian female suicide bomber, who killed one Israeli and injured more than 100 in 2002. Last year the Fatah Students' Youth Movement at the UNRWA's Women's Training Center and Faculty of Educational Sciences in Ramallah named its soccer tournament after the notorious terrorist Abu Jihad.
In early March, Palestinians took the streets of Lebanon to protest the tragic death of a handicapped 11-year-old boy who was denied care by a Lebanese hospital. The boy was turned away after Lebanese officials told his family that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) had to pay for his care. The organization only covered the boy's care for 10 days, and he died at the hospital's entrance when his parents could not afford further treatment.
After his death, a grieving relative told the AhlulBayt News Agency that "We no longer want UNRWA. We want an insurance company to insure our children, families and women." In short, they want the opportunity for a normal life.
But in Lebanon, as in all Arab states except for Jordan, legal restrictions prevent Palestinians from leading such lives, forcing them instead to remain, as they have for over 60 years, dependent on the UNRWA. Lebanese rules keep Palestinians out of various professions, such as engineering and medicine; prevent them from owning property; and ban them from accessing services such as private health insurance.
This latest tragedy underscores these practical barriers against the development of Palestinian civil society. But the organization meant to help them is also a major obstacle to their well-being and peace with Israel. UNRWA facilities are hotbeds of anti-Israeli, anti-Western and anti-Semitic indoctrination, and according to the Palestinian Press Agency, Hamas has stored weapons in tunnels dug beneath UNRWA schools. The organization still refuses to screen its employees against lists of known members of Hamas, Hezbollah and other terror groups (although it does say it checks for and excludes al Qaeda and Taliban members as required by a U.N. Security Council resolution). Meanwhile, its staffers intimidate anyone from taking a stand in favor of peaceful coexistence with Israel.
All this helps explain why the Canadian government announced last year that it would defund the UNRWA and divert taxpayer monies to specific projects to help Palestinians. This decision has of course been met with howls of anger, as it challenges the sacred cow that the UNRWA has become.
The outfit intermittently dispatches its more presentable directors and management around the West, largely to give polite talks at Jewish events. But the proof of its work is in Gaza and the West Bank. A youth center at the UNRWA's Al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah recently dedicated a soccer tournament to Wafa Idris, the first Palestinian female suicide bomber, who killed one Israeli and injured more than 100 in 2002. Last year the Fatah Students' Youth Movement at the UNRWA's Women's Training Center and Faculty of Educational Sciences in Ramallah named its soccer tournament after the notorious terrorist Abu Jihad.
The U.S. is the largest Western investor in the UNRWA, having given it almost $228 million in 2010, with another $600 million pledged to support the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and $300 million for Gaza. The U.S. provides around a third of the UNRWA's total budget. The European Union isn't far behind, having committed 66 million euros towards the UNRWA's general fund last March, and another 20 million euros in November. And in October the U.K. announced it was adding a GBP 3 million "performance bonus" to its earlier GBP 8 million pledge. Americans and Europeans alike would do well to follow Canada's example and use tax money to promote independent Palestinian organizations and private-sector growth instead.
For the moment, though, that aim seems distant. A bill in the U.S. Congress to demand transparency and accountability from the UNRWA died last year in committee. Fiorello Provero, vice-chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, has also pressed for more clarity on how European taxes are spent by the UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority, though without much success thus far.
That's a pity, because both in practice and design, the UNRWA is the exact opposite of other refugee-relief operations, which generally seek to resettle refugees, not stir grievances and perpetuate indefinite states of dependence. Despite its purported goal, it is hard to claim that the UNRWA has created any Palestinian institutions that foster a genuinely civil society.
Ideally the UNRWA would be disbanded and Palestinians given the freedom -- and the responsibility -- to build their own society. Or, should the organization be found to carry out any necessary activities that Palestinians couldn't better provide for themselves, these services could be transferred to agencies within the U.N. that actually deal successfully with refugees. The worst choice would be to pour more money into the unaccountable black hole of the Palestinian Authority. Ultimately our tax money would be better spent promoting independent civil organizations and private-sector growth. Perhaps then injustices like the death in Lebanon might be avoided.
The outfit intermittently dispatches its more presentable directors and management around the West, largely to give polite talks at Jewish events. But the proof of its work is in Gaza and the West Bank. A youth center at the UNRWA's Al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah recently dedicated a soccer tournament to Wafa Idris, the first Palestinian female suicide bomber, who killed one Israeli and injured more than 100 in 2002. Last year the Fatah Students' Youth Movement at the UNRWA's Women's Training Center and Faculty of Educational Sciences in Ramallah named its soccer tournament after the notorious terrorist Abu Jihad.
In early March, Palestinians took the streets of Lebanon to protest the tragic death of a handicapped 11-year-old boy who was denied care by a Lebanese hospital. The boy was turned away after Lebanese officials told his family that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) had to pay for his care. The organization only covered the boy's care for 10 days, and he died at the hospital's entrance when his parents could not afford further treatment.
After his death, a grieving relative told the AhlulBayt News Agency that "We no longer want UNRWA. We want an insurance company to insure our children, families and women." In short, they want the opportunity for a normal life.
But in Lebanon, as in all Arab states except for Jordan, legal restrictions prevent Palestinians from leading such lives, forcing them instead to remain, as they have for over 60 years, dependent on the UNRWA. Lebanese rules keep Palestinians out of various professions, such as engineering and medicine; prevent them from owning property; and ban them from accessing services such as private health insurance.
This latest tragedy underscores these practical barriers against the development of Palestinian civil society. But the organization meant to help them is also a major obstacle to their well-being and peace with Israel. UNRWA facilities are hotbeds of anti-Israeli, anti-Western and anti-Semitic indoctrination, and according to the Palestinian Press Agency, Hamas has stored weapons in tunnels dug beneath UNRWA schools. The organization still refuses to screen its employees against lists of known members of Hamas, Hezbollah and other terror groups (although it does say it checks for and excludes al Qaeda and Taliban members as required by a U.N. Security Council resolution). Meanwhile, its staffers intimidate anyone from taking a stand in favor of peaceful coexistence with Israel.
All this helps explain why the Canadian government announced last year that it would defund the UNRWA and divert taxpayer monies to specific projects to help Palestinians. This decision has of course been met with howls of anger, as it challenges the sacred cow that the UNRWA has become.
The outfit intermittently dispatches its more presentable directors and management around the West, largely to give polite talks at Jewish events. But the proof of its work is in Gaza and the West Bank. A youth center at the UNRWA's Al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah recently dedicated a soccer tournament to Wafa Idris, the first Palestinian female suicide bomber, who killed one Israeli and injured more than 100 in 2002. Last year the Fatah Students' Youth Movement at the UNRWA's Women's Training Center and Faculty of Educational Sciences in Ramallah named its soccer tournament after the notorious terrorist Abu Jihad.
The U.S. is the largest Western investor in the UNRWA, having given it almost $228 million in 2010, with another $600 million pledged to support the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and $300 million for Gaza. The U.S. provides around a third of the UNRWA's total budget. The European Union isn't far behind, having committed 66 million euros towards the UNRWA's general fund last March, and another 20 million euros in November. And in October the U.K. announced it was adding a GBP 3 million "performance bonus" to its earlier GBP 8 million pledge. Americans and Europeans alike would do well to follow Canada's example and use tax money to promote independent Palestinian organizations and private-sector growth instead.
For the moment, though, that aim seems distant. A bill in the U.S. Congress to demand transparency and accountability from the UNRWA died last year in committee. Fiorello Provero, vice-chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, has also pressed for more clarity on how European taxes are spent by the UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority, though without much success thus far.
That's a pity, because both in practice and design, the UNRWA is the exact opposite of other refugee-relief operations, which generally seek to resettle refugees, not stir grievances and perpetuate indefinite states of dependence. Despite its purported goal, it is hard to claim that the UNRWA has created any Palestinian institutions that foster a genuinely civil society.
Ideally the UNRWA would be disbanded and Palestinians given the freedom -- and the responsibility -- to build their own society. Or, should the organization be found to carry out any necessary activities that Palestinians couldn't better provide for themselves, these services could be transferred to agencies within the U.N. that actually deal successfully with refugees. The worst choice would be to pour more money into the unaccountable black hole of the Palestinian Authority. Ultimately our tax money would be better spent promoting independent civil organizations and private-sector growth. Perhaps then injustices like the death in Lebanon might be avoided.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
MOHAMMED DAJANI DAOUDI and ROBERT SATLOFF: Why Palestinians Should Learn About the Holocaust
These "social scientists" would have us believe that while its essential for Palestinians to be indoctrinated about the Holocaust, because the Nazi-Jewish struggle was not a "political conflict", the same education of Israelis about the Nakba is apparently not necessary since its a political conflict in which the Nakba was just an episode to be forgotten so we can make peace in the future. I am not sure if this is closest to the Israeli Druze position on the state of Israel or indeed represents a new strand of indigenous Palestinian Zionism.
While it is important for both Palestinians and Israelis to appreciate the historical legacies that have shaped their strategic outlook and national identities, teaching Palestinians about the Holocaust for this reason alone runs the risk the feeding the facile equation that “the Jews have the Holocaust and the Palestinians have the Nakba.” We urge Palestinians to learn about the Holocaust so they can be armed with knowledge to reject the comparison because, if it were broadly avoided, peace would be even more attainable than it is today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/opinion/30iht-edsatloff30.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=satloff&st=cse
This is not an academic question. Many Palestinian and Arab political organizations recently pounced on reports that a new human rights curriculum being prepared for use in Gaza schools operated by Unrwa, the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees, might include historical references to the Holocaust. Their reaction underscores the urgency of answering this fundamental question: Should Palestinians (and other Arabs) learn about the Holocaust? Should this historical tragedy be included in the Arab curriculum?
We — a Muslim-Palestinian social scientist, and a Jewish-American historian — believe the answer is yes. Indeed, there are many reasons why it’s important, even essential, that Arabs learn about the Holocaust. And much of this has nothing to do with Jews at all.
One of the sad realities of many modern Arab societies is that Arab students have been denied history, their own and the world’s. For decades, millions of Arabs have lived under autocrats resentful of the legacy of the leader they replaced and fearful of the leader-to-come. Although Arabs revere the study, writing and teaching of history, and have produced many famous historians, their rulers often tend to view history as a threat. The result is that many historians in Arab countries are more like the court chroniclers of long-dead dynasties, and entire chapters of history have been expunged from the curricula that Arab governments teach their students. Go to link....
While it is important for both Palestinians and Israelis to appreciate the historical legacies that have shaped their strategic outlook and national identities, teaching Palestinians about the Holocaust for this reason alone runs the risk the feeding the facile equation that “the Jews have the Holocaust and the Palestinians have the Nakba.” We urge Palestinians to learn about the Holocaust so they can be armed with knowledge to reject the comparison because, if it were broadly avoided, peace would be even more attainable than it is today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/opinion/30iht-edsatloff30.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=satloff&st=cse
This is not an academic question. Many Palestinian and Arab political organizations recently pounced on reports that a new human rights curriculum being prepared for use in Gaza schools operated by Unrwa, the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees, might include historical references to the Holocaust. Their reaction underscores the urgency of answering this fundamental question: Should Palestinians (and other Arabs) learn about the Holocaust? Should this historical tragedy be included in the Arab curriculum?
We — a Muslim-Palestinian social scientist, and a Jewish-American historian — believe the answer is yes. Indeed, there are many reasons why it’s important, even essential, that Arabs learn about the Holocaust. And much of this has nothing to do with Jews at all.
One of the sad realities of many modern Arab societies is that Arab students have been denied history, their own and the world’s. For decades, millions of Arabs have lived under autocrats resentful of the legacy of the leader they replaced and fearful of the leader-to-come. Although Arabs revere the study, writing and teaching of history, and have produced many famous historians, their rulers often tend to view history as a threat. The result is that many historians in Arab countries are more like the court chroniclers of long-dead dynasties, and entire chapters of history have been expunged from the curricula that Arab governments teach their students. Go to link....
Democracy Now! Interview with Jadaliyya Co-Editor on Syria
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1046/democracy-now-interview-with-jadaliyya-co-editor-o
This is the second time this expert has insisted that Syria is not Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrein, Jordan or Saudi Arabia. Then what exactly is it?? I thought it was the model for Arabism?
Scores of protesters have been killed in Syria during 10 days of protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad. In an attempt to appease protesters, Assad’s administration has reportedly vowed to lift the emergency law, which for nearly 50 years has allowed the government to detain people without charge.
"For more than 40 years, people have been politically suppressed,” says Bassam Haddad, the director of the Middle East Studies Program at George Mason University. “That suppression was coupled more recently in the past 20-some years with neoliberal-like economic policies that have created huge gaps between different segments of Syrian society.”
Watch the Interview
This is the second time this expert has insisted that Syria is not Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrein, Jordan or Saudi Arabia. Then what exactly is it?? I thought it was the model for Arabism?
Scores of protesters have been killed in Syria during 10 days of protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad. In an attempt to appease protesters, Assad’s administration has reportedly vowed to lift the emergency law, which for nearly 50 years has allowed the government to detain people without charge.
"For more than 40 years, people have been politically suppressed,” says Bassam Haddad, the director of the Middle East Studies Program at George Mason University. “That suppression was coupled more recently in the past 20-some years with neoliberal-like economic policies that have created huge gaps between different segments of Syrian society.”
Watch the Interview
Is Assad Capable of Reform? : Volker Perthes
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/opinion/31iht-edperthes31.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=volker%20perthes&st=cse
I have replaced only three words from the original article with those in bold, and one word in the title and it sounds perfect:
This is mainly because Fayyad, in contrast to the image of him that some Western leaders have developed, is not a reformer. He can better be described as a modernizer. When he inherited power from Arafat in 2005 he set out to modernize the system — the economic and technological foundation as well as the political, security and bureaucratic elite on which he bases his power. He allowed archaic economic and trade regulations to be shelved, private banks to operate, foreign investments to come in, mobile-phone companies to operate. And, starting with regional party leaders and governors, then ministers, and finally the top echelons of the security apparatus, he managed within only a couple of years to remove Arafat's old guard and replace it with people loyal to himself. In doing so, he gave Ramallah a more modern face and made some things work more efficiently, but he also made sure that the basic system — which relies on the heavy hand of the security services, on personal ties, and on a form of tolerated corruption that allows loyalists to enrich themselves — remained intact.
I have replaced only three words from the original article with those in bold, and one word in the title and it sounds perfect:
This is mainly because Fayyad, in contrast to the image of him that some Western leaders have developed, is not a reformer. He can better be described as a modernizer. When he inherited power from Arafat in 2005 he set out to modernize the system — the economic and technological foundation as well as the political, security and bureaucratic elite on which he bases his power. He allowed archaic economic and trade regulations to be shelved, private banks to operate, foreign investments to come in, mobile-phone companies to operate. And, starting with regional party leaders and governors, then ministers, and finally the top echelons of the security apparatus, he managed within only a couple of years to remove Arafat's old guard and replace it with people loyal to himself. In doing so, he gave Ramallah a more modern face and made some things work more efficiently, but he also made sure that the basic system — which relies on the heavy hand of the security services, on personal ties, and on a form of tolerated corruption that allows loyalists to enrich themselves — remained intact.
Thousands demonstrate in Tahrir Square : Ivan Watson
Dubbed the "Friday to Save the Revolution," the rally is an effort to show opposition to a recent proposed law which would criminalize protests. It is also an effort to re-assert the youth movement which drove former president Hosni Mubarak from power.
Many liberal activists fear they have been side-lined since Mubarak's February 11 overthrow by Egypt's ruling military council and by more politically-experienced Islamist groups, well disciplined after operating for decades in secret while facing harsh persecution.
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