Opinion Editorials, June 2009

Many of you wrote after the last email to tell of health-care experiences.  Many told stories of unsung heroes among medical personnel in Palestine and elsewhere.  Many stated their desire to change the capitalist healthcare system in some western countries and cities that makes humans into “consumers” receiving “services” from “professionals”.  Some of the stories were truly remarkable (one about the loving care given to her dying mother).  I think these stories and first Faqoos harvests (variety of vegetable related to the cucumber famous in Beit Sahour) nicely balanced the spat of sad and surreal news that we have received the last few days. 

But things are changing for the better as the myths long propagated are dissipating and reality and realism sets in that peace and freedom in this world are not without price in struggle and clear demands of justice. Saturday I had the honor of speaking to an audience of Internationals and Palestinians on a panel that included a representative of the civil resistance committee against the wall in South Bethlehem.  Earlier we had dinner with other brave souls from Bilin and elsewhere.  These Palestinians risk their lives (we marked 40 days on the murder of our friend Basem AbuRahma), spend jail time, pay huge fines, and at a minimum lose the ability to travel out of the country once they participate in a public nonviolent demonstration.  But not only Palestinians are involved.  Other fellow human beings join us.  On the same panel Saturday was an Israeli who faces jail time for his nonviolent actions to protect basic human rights (visit http://www.supportezra.net/  and especially view the videotape of Ezra's arrest by Israeli occupation forces). 
 
Our collective struggle gains more urgency as racist Israeli settlers and soldiers intensify their rampages through the occupied West Bank.  With impunity, illegal Israeli Jewish colonial settlers in the Nablus area injured several Palestinian workers including one who is in serious condition and they set fires to Palestinian fields and orchards. (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/2009611419166931.html).

Another Jewish man killed a Palestinian in Jerusalem (and unlike if the situation was reversed, the Israeli government refused to attribute “nationalist motives” and instead and as usual mentioned that the guy may have been mentally disturbed).  Many Israelis see these actions as a warning to the right wing government in Israel not to evacuate the colonial settlement outposts that have been added to the 250+ illegal colonial settlements that dot the area Israel illegally occupies since 1967.

But they are better understood as a symptom of the same forces that brings a racist bigot from Moldova to live in a colonial settlement deep in the West Bank (near my home in Bethlehem area) AND become Israel’s foreign minister! But we also share responsibility to speak out against other symptoms such as the needless killing of six people in Qalqilya in a Fat'h attack on Hamas men killing members of both sides. That incident came after Mahmoud Abbas went to Washington and reportedly got some promises about settlement freeze, though not rollback let alone concessions on basic International law (right of return and ending the occupation recede in the background).  

In return for these vague promises, a crackdown on resistance forces in the West Bank was anticipated.  I believe all these things are symptoms of the original injustice of dispossession and ethnic cleansing that now lasted an unbelievable 61 years.  Is it not time for all people of good conscience to say enough is enough to the charade of a peace process not based on justice? Isn’t it time we all take on our role as care-givers of fellow human beings.  I will save the rest of this email for other material (symptoms) that might be of interest...
 
Video: Um Kamel retells the story of how she was kicked out of her home in Arab East Jerusalerm (as part of the structured program to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem) after they were removed in 1948 from their home in West Jerusalem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icNzhe3bHqU
 
This week Amnesty International issued a report on violations of human rights in the occupied Palestinian areas http://report2009.amnesty.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-africa/israel-occupied-territories
Also this week a UN team arrived in Gaza to investigate allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity
 
Truly amazing and must-see video: Jewish Telegraphic Agency reportd about Israeli lobby:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Fs73XZqm8