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IDF closes Palestinian school to make way for West Bank training zone

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by Eileen Fleming

The term Al-Nakba refers to the events that took place in Palestine in 1948, when the indigenous Palestinians were driven from their homes and land, as the new state of Israel was established on 78 percent of Palestine which resulted in the expulsion of some 800,000 Palestinians to the Diaspora.

Al-Nakba continues on in the hearts and minds of all Palestinians and in people of conscience who reach out to humanity by telling the stories.

Because “Everywhere except in America, the Palestinian narrative is well known.”-Rashid KhaladiRead more…

I wrote KEEP HOPE ALIVE

In 2008, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation sponsored a competition to express the Palestinian narrative from 1948 in the form of visual arts, poetry, essays, music, video and digital media.

I received Honorable Mention for the following chapter in my first book, which is based on the memories of a 1948 Muslim refugee from the Galilee who made his way to the USA and into a top secret position in the Defense Industry during the Cold War. After THAT DAY we call 9/11, Dr. Khaled Diab united Jews, Christians and Muslims to literally extend the olive branch of peace to all people of the Holy Land and KEEP HOPE ALIVE was one vehicle used to raise funds that helped replace 40,000 fruit bearing trees –out of the over one million trees- that Israel’s Wall has destroyed.

Keep Hope Alive (an excerpt) By Eileen Fleming

The wailing of families throughout Majd Al Krum could be heard for miles that cold night in October 1948. In single file, under the cover of darkness, Khaled, his sister, two cousins and hundreds of neighbors guided by only the light of a crescent moon trekked through the Galilee to Lebanon fearing for their lives, for the Israeli army had surrounded their village.

Twenty-one hours later they reached the town of Bint Jubayl and the family joined the end of a queue at a water well. The land owner offered them drink and hard crusts of bread and Khaled told him of their twenty-one hour odyssey of terror. Their host sighed and shrugged, then handed Khaled a blanket and pointed them down the grove where they could sleep amongst thousands of other Palestinian refugees. When they found an unoccupied olive tree they spread the blanket atop the dirt and roots and huddled together beneath the tree’s broad canopy and fell into an exhausted sleep.

The next day, a mile from the grove, the young family found a vacant, unfurnished room in an unfinished building and sat down. For two days, they moved in a cloud of unknowing as more refugees flooded into Lebanon. On the third day Khaled announced, “We must move on. I say we go to Damascus. I have my teacher’s certificate with me. I will teach the children of wealthy merchants, and we will eat and sleep without fear until we can return home.”

He smiled, remembering the fierce joy of Khaldiyeh and Latifah when they erupted into song and dance, and Little Mo asked, “Why not?” It was their first laugh since leaving home.

The only transportation available was a decrepit old train that had once carried livestock. Hundreds of refugees were packed in like standing sardines and people relieved themselves and vomited all around the young family. After five hours, Khaled noticed the girls looked ready to pass out and announced that they must all jump off.

“I will count to twenty, and then we must all jump at the same time. Are you ready?”

The girls were visibly trembling, but nodded yes. Little Mo appeared stoic, but quaked within. Khaled counted slowly as they all stood at the edge of the open car holding hands. When Khaled screamed “twenty,” he, Little Mo, and Latifah jumped, but not Khaldiyeh!

With astounding power Khaled ran after the train, climbed back aboard, grabbed his sister, picked her up, and jumped off once more. The siblings were scraped and bruised, but grateful to get off that wretched train. They all laughed for the second time since they had fled Majd Al Krum.

The young family walked the remaining mile to Beirut, where they spent the night wide awake in a bus depot, waiting for their ride to Damascus. They were filled with idealistic, youthful hopes, until their connection arrived, carrying thousands of dazed and confused Palestinians.

After disembarking from the long, silent ride, Khaled led his family into a dingy gray Damascus neighborhood. He was able to afford a few nights in a sparsely furnished attic room. On the third day, he ventured alone into the center of the cradle of civilization.

The Damascus streets sights and smells overwhelmed Khaled’s senses. His gait slowed to a shuffle as he inhaled and savored the pungent spices of meats and the sweet perfume of fresh fruits. He stopped at a booth displaying rugs and despaired at the thought of his family sleeping another night on a bare floor.

With a crooked smile the Syrian merchant inquired, “Which carpet is it that you desire?” Khaled pointed to the thinnest scrap and asked “How much?”

“Only 125 Syrian liras. It is a bargain, and it is a fine eye you have for excellent quality. I see you are a smart young man, who will not pass up my gracious offer.”

Khaled was shocked into silence. The amount was five times more than he possessed. He turned to leave, as the rug merchant shouted, “How much can you spend? You cannot just walk away from me. What can you afford? You cannot treat me this way! You must answer me. How much can you spend?”

Khaled never had experienced such a verbal assault from any of the merchants in his hometown, and blurted out, “I have twenty-five Syrian liras.”

The rug merchant’s face clouded over with concern, and he asked, “Ah, young man, are you a refugee?”

Khaled sighed and nodded sadly.

The merchant smiled broadly as he extended his palm to receive all that Khaled had and effusively expressed, “I am so very sorry for all of you refugees. My dear boy, I will lose a lot by accepting your offer. But I feel so sorry for you. I will suffer the loss to make a poor refugee happy.”
Khaled ran and danced his way home, proudly carrying the scrap of wool high above his head. The young family danced with joy on top of their new rug until a booming knock on their door startled them into silence. Khaled opened the door and in popped their landlady, “Just what is all the commotion about? I thought you were coming through the ceiling; you all made so much noise,” she complained.

Khaled proudly pointed to the rug and told of the excellent bargain he had made. The landlady stood upon the scrap and sniffed twice. She spoke through a smirk, “Oh, I have the same rug and paid only nineteen Syrian liras for it.”

One month after fleeing their comfortable home in Majd Al Krum the family traveled on bus and train for the two day journey to Khaled’s new job as a math teacher in the town of Hasaka, Syria.

The train was unheated, and the bus carried people, goats, sheep, and chickens that spilled out from all sides. They traveled on rocky dirt roads and saw only homes made of mud. By midnight, they arrived at the town of Hasaka and checked into the nearest hotel. Khaled was aghast when he opened his thin wallet and handed over the first night’s rent. They were now out of money.

Their senses were assaulted by the damp, musky smell that permeated the tattered building on the way to their room furnished with only four thin mattresses on a wooden floor, a chipped table, a cracked water pitcher, and a naked light bulb set in an old wine bottle. The three fell asleep immediately, but Khaled remained wide awake engulfed by dark, tormenting thoughts of suicide and homicide in those last few hours before he reported to his first day on the job.

At three AM, the door shot open, and in charged two Syrian policemen. The girls screamed and the police accused them of prostitution. In fear and trembling, Khaled recounted the events of the past month as the police examined their papers and it was nearly dawn before the police were satisfied and left.

Khaled’s dark mood turned more bitter with every step towards the school building on that frigid damp morning. He sighed and fumed as he waited for the Principal, Mr. Hamza to arrive. When he did, Khaled could barely mumble a greeting and followed the regal Kurd in a daze, to his classroom where Mr. Hamza introduced him to the students, waved and left.

Khaled looked into the eyes of thirty adolescent boys, picked up the math book and demanded to know just what they did and did not know. The bravest boy in the class blurted out indignantly, “What is your problem? We just want to learn, not fight with you.”

Khaled retorted, “You all may be too stupid to learn anything, but I will try.”

At the end of the school day, the students cut and ran from Khaled and descended upon Mr.Hamza’s office demanding he fire the new math teacher. After hearing them out, Mr. Hamza found a trembling Khaled sitting in the darkened classroom and softly inquired, “What happened in here? Is it money? Do you need money?”

Without waiting for a reply, Mr. Hamza opened his wallet, took out a month’s worth of wages, and handed it to Khaled. “Now Khaled, go home, feed your family, and get some sleep. And make sure you report back to work tomorrow morning. Don’t thank me, but help another whenever you can.” www.expressionsofnakba.org

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A hunger striker’s son in Gaza’s sit-in tent carrying a sign reading “I am in solidarity with Palestinian detainees”–By Mjd Abusalama

The sit-in tent for Palestinian political prisoners has been moved from the International Committee for the Red Cross to a central park near the statue of the Unknown Soldier in the middle of Gaza City. It is one of the few green places and thus one of the most lively places in Gaza, where people escape from their dark houses and seek fun and relief, or to simply waste their times observing others.  However, the sit-in tent is now used differently, to send messages of solidarity with our Political prisoners who have been on a mass hunger strike since April 17, and to show anger with the Arab and international community and all human rights organizations, which keep calling for human rights, democracy and justice, but when it comes to our prisoners, they do nothing but watch them dying and remaining helpless.

The solidarity is taking many forms, such as lighting candles, making marches, creatively performing plays, songs, poetry and Dabka, joining a symbolic hunger strike.  In Gaza’s sit-in tent, 50 men and 45 women have joined a symbolic hunger strike in solidarity with the detainees since May 2, including prisoner’s wives, parents, sisters and former prisoners. Those people have been protesting day and night. The tent is their shelter as long as the revolution of hunger is going inside Israeli prisons. Having been in the solidarity tent daily, even more than in my house, I’ve witnessed most of the cases among hunger strikers whose health conditions got deteriorating. Several cases were sent to hospital for low or high blood pressure and so many people fainted or emotionally collapsed. Ambulances and doctors never leave the tents anymore as if they have full time job at the tent.

While observing the hunger strikers getting paler as more days pass, I can’t help but think of our heroes, our prisoners behind Israel’s bars and compare. The strikers here have access to water and salt and they also have a small dish of yogurt and soup per day. But our prisoners have nothing but water and salt, ‘in case it’s not confiscated by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS).’  Strikers here can rest or sleep whenever they feel like it, but our prisoners keep being transferred between sections and prisons by the IPS attempting to exhaust them. Loai Odeh, a former prisoner who is also now on a hunger strike in solidarity, emphasizes that the IPS mercilessly prevents the strikers from resting, with these words he wrote recalling his experience of hunger strike during the campaign of disobedience.  “Soldiers burst into strikers’ rooms aggressively as if they were confronting armed fighters on a battleground, not hunger strikers with feeble bodies that can barely stand.  Knowing that strikers are intolerant of noise, soldiers break into their rooms with loud screams and initiate a  hand search in a way that one feels that he’s being beaten rather than searched.”

Loai Odeh and Abu Hosny Al-Srafity in the sit-in tent

While making the daily tour to show support and admiration to the hunger strikers in the tent, I was surprised to see Abu Hosny Al-Srafity wearing the strikers’ t-shirt that distinguishes them from others, and which beautifully designed with the Palestinian flag with “we’ll live dignified” written on it.  Abu Hosny is a 66-year old detainee’s father whom I met since I started going to the weekly protest in the ICRC for political prisoners. Whenever we meet, we greet each other and have a short and informal conversation, but never had a real one that would make me feel like knowing him intimately. Finally, I had this conversation with him after I said “You, too?” out of surprise reacting to seeing that t-shirt.

“Absolutely!” He powerfully confirmed. “We took this step because we consider ourselves as partners in this battle of dignity but our hunger strike remains symbolic at the end of the day. It equals nothing of our detainees’ enormous suffering under the Israeli oppressive regime. They aren’t only hungry for food, they are hungry for dignity, justice, and freedom.”

He refused to let his age be a barrier in front of standing with his son Ali who was detained for 10 years and still has six to go. Doctors keep pressuring him to break his hunger strike but he refuses saying that “my life isn’t any more precious than that of my son.”

Our conversation was still in the beginning.  What came next was heartbreaking. I was amazed at his high spirit and his determination but this profound chat we had clarified to me where he got that strength from.

“Ali is the only son left.” He said. “Left?” I interrupted. Then he moved his below to take a photo he kept below and started explaining. “I had three sons. My oldest son Hosny and my youngest Mohammed were killed and the one in the middle is behind Israel’s bars.” I felt raged and asked how. “In 2004, I was sitting with my wife chatting alone about the terrifying sounds of warplanes that occupied Gaza’s sky. We knew an attack was coming. Then a loud expulsion was heard and shook the land below us. We were in indescribable panic.  My wife prayed, “May Allah stand with the mothers of the targeted people.”  Then she answered the phone that informed her about the assassination of her oldest son, having no idea she was praying for herself.”

It was very hard to keep control of my emotions after hearing that tragedy. I continued looking directly at his eyes that were full of sorrow and listened silently. “Wait. The next story is even more shocking.” He said. “I was on my way home from a family visit with my wife and my seven-year-old son Mohammed in 1994. We were close to the eastern line, near Naheloz settlement. While standing in the street and waving for cars to take us back home, we suddenly glanced an Israeli car and a jeep driving too fast toward us. We got confused and scared. They intentionally smashed my son under their wheels, hit my wife and badly injured her and kept driving fast toward the settlement. It was horrible. It all happened so quickly that I couldn’t rescue my son who froze out of fear in front of that heartless driver who killed him and didn’t bother to even look back.”

Abu Hosny stopped talking to see my reaction but I was too shocked to utter any word after hearing that horrible incidents. His voice narrating the stories of the murder of his two sons kept replaying in my ears, and my tears kept flowing and the features of shock didn’t leave my face.  He saw me in that condition and softly tapped on my hand and said, “Don’t be sad, my daughter. As long as we’re living on these holy lands of Palestine, we’ll never get fed up giving any sacrifice. These unjust and unsecure lives we’re leading are the source of our inner strength and determination. If that wasn’t the case, you wouldn’t see me now hunger striking in solidarity with my son, the living martyr, with hope to celebrate his freedom soon.”

Let’s pray to all detainees’ families to celebrate the victory of their detained sons in their battle of empty stomachs against the armed merciless jailers and pray that this victory will result in allowing them to visit their sons after over 6 years of family visits’ ban. Let’s support our prayers with  taking serious actions.

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Thousands of Palestinians are on hunger strike for  their karameh: their dignity; and they refuse to quit until the Zionist occupation grants them freedom.

by Jonathan Azaziah

I am in awe of you my sisters and brothers…

What is a nuclear-armed rogue regime…

Compared to your courage that is so pristine…

What is a gulag-type prisoncompared to your magnificent hunger…

I am in awe of you I repeat, like a child who lays his eyes on a shooting star for the first time…

You are leaders amongst a region of deceivers, you are dreamers amongst a legion of schemers, you are lions amongst liars of the occupier that persists in making every massacre it commits even more twisted than its last “worst crime”…

You are giants amongst ants, your will is an immovable object that shakes the earth to its core…

There are only a few struggles as worthy, righteous and determined as yours…

Expansionist monsters, never content with the land that they’ve conquered, they’re always yearning for more…

They cannot relate to your heroics because they’re soulless, their hearts are made of dirt and impure…

While your very essence is made of the heavens’ shiniest levels…

And the wondrousness of the martyrs who scoffed at the darkness that swallowed them, like lightning they struck the Zionist devils…

Murder and rape, torture and theft, colonization and lots of devastation, this is what the occupiers have peddled…

Slaughtered trees, killed flowers, ended animals and executed buildings…

Violations of every aspect of human life, its insanity, strife and calamity, breaking up and frightening families, shock, the electrocution of children...

For 131 years, these monsters have swarmed the land like the parasites they are…

Khader Adnan: Palestinian hero and survivor of a 66-day hunger strike.

At one point, Palestine was Jannah on earth, but now, paradise is far…

64 years of occupation and terrorism, a terror system built where the holy land was…

Supremacy and hatred, planted in the heart because the enemies have raped it, pathetically erased it, replaced the holy land’s love…

The truth of what happened swept under the holy land’s rugs…

An infestation of demons, happily bathing in the holy land’s blood…

Your poetry and paintings, marches and stones against their war machine…

Your undying will is all that stands in their way of bringing forth their morbid dream…

Nile to the Euphrates, and then from there, the whole damn planet…

And the Zionist-occupied West tells you “nonviolence,” I know you can’t stand it…

They want nonviolence during annihilation, Al-Dayah and Al-Samounifams damaged…

They want nonviolence during ritualistic sacrifice, Ghalia and Akkash fams vanished…

They want nonviolence as women and children are murdered during birth at checkpoints…

Hana al-Shalabi: Palestinian hero and survivor of  a 43-day hunger strike.

They want nonviolence and slavery, subjugation and overall, just less noise…

And when you refuse their silence, they lock you away in deadly dungeons…

Where they oppress you and hurt you more, controlling your every function…

Where they humiliate you and animalize their hold…

Where they threaten your family for noncompliance, where they cannibalize your soul…

Where over 300 are imprisoned in administrative detention, no charge, its sheer barbarity…

Where your rights are even more usurped than before, where they beat you so bad you can longer hear with clarity…

Where their dignity is none…

Where you transcend the spectrum, Palestinian is what chivalry becomes…

Where you take up the mantle of “defender” of those dispossessed…

Where you stand up for the old and oppressed…

Where you give hope to those hoping for death…

Cast iron stomachs, bulletproof will and minds made of kevlar…

Live and let die your stomachs growl, souls scream live and let starve…

Your hunger pains are the oppressors’ nightmare…

Kept awake screaming in the wee hours of the morning, haunted by your refusal to be type scared…

Hasan al-Safadi: Palestinian hero on hunger strike; 60+ days and counting.

Cast iron stomachs, a hunger strike for the ages…

A strike for the men, women and children, a strike for the workers and a strike for the sages…

Ireland is in solidarity, Bahrain is with you as well…

Your cry for justice is being heard the world over, from all peoples sitting in hell…

4,653 Palestinian political prisoners, more than half are striking…

More than half are revolting, more than half are fighting…

Khader Adnan lit the match, Hana al-Shalabi fueled the fire…

Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh now carry the torch at 70 plus days,Hasan Safadi and Omar Abu Shalal spread the embers in a 60 plus blaze,Mohammad al-Taj, Ja’far Ezzedine and Mahmoud Sarsak continue to inspire…

Cast iron stomachs, defying Jewish supremacist ideology that keeps the occupier thuggish and implores them to prevent family visits…

What kind of inhumanity is this…

Cast iron stomachs, your hunger pains scream that it is not time to die, it is time to see…

Prison is a fragile and meaningless piece of glass that is easily shattered when your mind is free…

They are incapable of feeling, incapable of anything but killing, they are slaves to their own dangerous lies…

Palestinian families don’t even sleep as their loved ones languish in cells, pain is the only thing keeping them sane or alive…

Protests around the world in solidarity, but nothing changes and we wonder why…

Will there be outrage if any one of the living martyrs suffering from the hunger dies…

Bilal Diab: Palestinian hero on hunger strike; 70+ days and counting.

Will there be demands of “Israeli” embassy closures, will there be calls for Zionists to be jailed…

Probably not, due to Jewish sensitivities, this environment is just swell…

This must change; we must be fearless in our truth-telling, so the taboos can be ended…

Our brothers and sisters are dying, who gives a damn if Jews are offended…

Fake Western activists run their mouths about international law, yawn…

Zionist entity tramples upon it while they keep producing movies of international war porn…

Assassinations and espionage, hasbara generation and shadowy money...

Jewish kids in their classrooms who think “Israeli” savagery’s lovely…

Would they smile if it were Jews on hunger strike, would they smile if it were their own being violated…

Not at all; but they revel in their ethnocentrism, they won’t even deny their hatred…

Cast iron stomachs, a demand for what is just or death…

To die for a righteous cause is the pinnacle of humanity, after that, there is nothing left…

And why does the international community offer nothing but stupor and silence…

Because Jewish networks demand it whenever the Zionist entity commits abuses and dishes out gratuitous violence…

Jewish Lobby runs America, France too…

Britain and Australia, it plays the music that nations dance to…

The usurping Zionist dragon is merely the center of international Jewish power…

We are living in Jewish days, our moments counted by clocks that record Jewish hours…

Organized Jewry is behind the planet’s plight, the driving force of war, destruction…

Thaer Halahleh: Palestinian hero on hunger strike; 70+ days and counting.

More war, some war after that, another war or two and more corruption…

So hungry for death, it aims to even topple Russia and China...

The entire Islamic world burning over a Jewish-Zionist plot, just a reminder…

Americans know nothing of Palestine, where are the professors educating them or pushing a manual…

Americans know nothing of the hunger strikers nor would they care if they did, Jewish Hollywood has made them believe that all Arabs and Muslims are animals… 

Tyrannical terror under a totalitarian tribe, not even the pitiful accept this…

Our comrades rot in Zionist occupation hellholes and we should be quiet over political correctness…

Supremacist tribalists, overly drunk on their own notions of chosen-ness…

World Jewry is the engine that powers Zionism in Palestine, it is a clan of living omens, ferocious and vulturous…

When will the world understand what these creatures are, vile and sick…

So brazen that they’ve shot Palestinians into oblivion on television then denied they exist…

A wise woman once said to save Palestine is to save the world…

Save the babies and the elders, save the boys and save the girls…

Save the holy land, crush the beasts…

Save the oppressed ones, lift up the weak…

Return their strength to them, tell them they are the reason we fight…

Tell them that you are so strong its crazy, tell them that they are beaming with light…

Khader Adnan lit the match, Hana al-Shalabi fueled the fire…

Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh now carry the torch at 70 plus days,Hasan Safadi and Omar Abu Shalal spread the embers in a 60 plus blaze,Mohammad al-Taj, Ja’far Ezzedine and Mahmoud Sarsak continue to inspire…

Blood pressure, weight and heart rate dropping, bleeding from the gums and the nose…

Hair falling out, muscles atrophying and the music of numbness is drumming your soul…

Children denied their baba, mothers denied their sons…

Deprivation and degradation, torturous and slaughterous, this is the system that these Zionist tyrants run…

Harbingers of death, rapists of dignity…

Evil resides in their spirit, making them makers of your dangers and misery…

Fake leaders ignore you, meet with Jewish supremacists instead...

American government gives “Israel” more money, while pretending that you’re dead…

World doesn’t hear your cries, it doesn’t hear your screams…

Occupation wants to keep you awake in agony, ‘cause it fears your dreams…

Cast iron stomachs, hunger and pain swallowed in your refusal to comply with…

From the River, to the Sea, one day, Palestine The Beautiful, will be free.

The ugly occupation; your beautiful defiance…

Cast iron stomachs, just by living, you defeat them…

When you’re hungry for justice, the only suitable food is freedom…

You are the stones of the throwers, the poems of the hopers, the blaze that ignites from the security zones to the ocean, the equivalents of righteous kings overthrowing an aggressor…

Every breath that you take is a victory over your oppressor…

You are living martyrs, warriors of a heavenly force…

Armed with your cast iron stomachs, a predetermination of the enemy’s loss…

No, not an exaggeration, no, not the solving of an illustrious mystery…

When a “state” is born from injustice, its only destination in due time is the dustbin of history…

You stare Malak al-Mawt in the face, and you tell him to go somewhere and play…

Because your martyrdom is living, the Akhira is not where you will stand today…

But if you cross over tomorrow, the Resistance will struggle onward, we refuse to allow despair to reign…

O’ mighty hunger strikers! You will be triumphant, nevermind the machinations of monsters and the ignorance of thieves…

Solidarity with you! Your courage is legendary, you give shivers to the world and I know you’ll keep giving the shivers when you’re free…

Cast iron stomachs, your hunger paves the road for Palestine to return to its rightful place from the River to the Sea…

Cast iron stomachs, heroes is what you are, may we all fight like you and pray with no fear…

Palestine from the River to the Sea, sub7an’ALLAH wa insha’ALLAH ya Rab, that beautiful day is so near…

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The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns the prevention of the al-Quds satellite channel’s crew from carrying out their work at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and their detention by the security officers of Shifa Hospital on Monday, 07 May 2012.  PCHR calls upon the Palestinian police in Gaza to respect the press freedom and the freedom of opinion and expression which are ensured under the Palestinian Basic Law and relevant international standards.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR and the testimony of Rami Abu Shammalah, a cameraman, at approximately 10:00, on Monday, 07 May 2012, al-Quds satellite channel’s crew comprised of Hanadi Nasrallah, a reporter, Rami Abu Shammalah, a cameraman, and Yusef al-Telbani, a sound technician, was denied entry into Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.  The crew went to the hospital to report on the health conditions of the mother of Rami Barbakh, a Palestinian prisoner detained in Israeli jails.  The mother was hospitalized as a result of starting a hunger strike in solidarity with her son.  Abu Shammalah said that once they started to film the admission of the mother to the hospital in order to receive necessary medical treatment, two security officers came, began to shout at them, and pulled them out of the place.

Then four police officers, who were present at the hospital, arrived at the scene.  Abu Shammalah told them that he had stopped filming and would leave the hospital.  However, the police officer refused to let them go and detained the whole crew in one of the security rooms.  The director of Al-Quds channel’s office came to the hospital in an attempt to have the crew released, upon which the police officers told him that the crew did not have a permit for filming.  The director replied that al-Quds channel had obtained a permit for filming from the Ministry of Interior which allows its crews to film everywhere.  He also requested the police officers to release the crew, but they refused to do so. The director left and after a while the Public Relations Officer of the hospital intervened and arranged the crew’s release.

“The police officers also obstructed the work of another crew from al-Quds channel comprised of Mohammed al-Akhras, a cameraman, and Mahmoud Abu Seedo, a producer, when they were trying to interview Rawhi Moshtaha, an ex-prisoner who was admitted into Shifa Hospital.  Moshtaha’s health conditions deteriorated because of the hunger strike he started in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

PCHR denounces the detention of al-Quds channel’s crew and their prevention from carrying out their work, and:

1.     Calls for providing protection to journalists and media, and taking necessary measures to allow them to work freely in respect of the right to freedom of opinion and press freedoms;

2.     Stresses that the right to freedom of opinion and expression and press freedoms are guaranteed under the Palestinian Basic Law and relevant human rights conventions;

3.     Calls upon the Palestinian security services to respect international human rights standards, the Palestinian Basic Law and other relevant laws.

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What Jesus Would Say and Other’s Have RE: BDS, Israel and United Methodist’s Failure to Act According to the Christian Manifesto

by Eileen Fleming

“Blessed are the Peacemakers; they shall be called the children of God.”-Jesus said in Mt. 5:9

“Violence breeds violence, those that live by the sword shall die by the sword.”-Jesus said in Mt. 26:52

“Love is not the starving of whole populations. Love is not the bombardment of open cities. Love is not killing…Our manifesto is the Sermon on the Mount, which means that we will try to be peacemakers.”-Dorothy Day: Made in USA Christian Anarchist and a review of ALL IS GRACE

Palestinian Christian, Reverend Alex Awad, serves with the General Board of Global Ministries in Israel and in Palestine, and on 3 May 2012, wrote:

Methodist Voices that Prevailed

In describing the trial of Jesus before Pilate, Luke the Evangelist brilliantly described the mood of the crowd when he wrote, “But with loud shouts they insistently demanded that he be crucified, and their shouts prevailed.” (Luke 23:23 NIV)

On May 2, 2012 at the United Methodist General Conference in Tampa, Florida, once again shouts of injustice prevailed over the shouts of those who yearned to see actions promoting justice in Palestine.

United Methodists and Jewish allies had come from around the world to stand in solidarity with Palestinian Christians who called for divestment to help end Israel’s occupation.

But opponents spread fear and misinformation that carried the day.

The delegates of the United Methodist Church considered three resolutions that dealt with the Israel-Palestine question. The first two passed in favor of justice for the Palestinians, in particular against the occupation and settlements, but these two resolutions have little practical power in them to change realities on the ground. The third resolution, which called for divesting United Methodist Pension Funds from three companies that support and sustain the occupation through their machines and technologies, was defeated with the final tally showing 39% in favor of divestment and 61% opposed.

On May 2, “…their shouts prevailed” and I watched with pain my people being crucified again.

As a Palestinian I am concerned about the occupation of my homeland, the settlements, the separation wall and all the other forms of injustices but as a Christian, I am more concerned over the health of the Church. A Church that is not ready or willing to hear the voice of the oppressed and stand with justice is out of sync with the will of her Head and Maker.

On 26 April 2012, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote:

Dear Friends of the United Methodist Church

The situation in Israel and Palestine pains me greatly since it is the place where God formed a very particular relationship with a particular group of people; Hebrews who were oppressed as slaves in another land. As time moved on, this people disobeyed God and time and time again the prophets had to call them back to their deepest values.

The Jewish Holocaust, engineered and implemented primarily by Europeans, gave some ideologues within the Jewish and Christian community an excuse to implement plans that were in the making for at least 50 years, under the rubric of exceptional Jewish security. In this way began the immense oppression of the Palestinian people, who were not at all involved in the Holocaust.

Not only is this group of people being oppressed more than the apartheid ideologues could ever dream about in South Africa, their very identity and history are being denied and obfuscated. What is worse, is that Europe and the USA are refusing to take responsibility for their actions with regard to both the Holocaust and the over-empowering of the Israelis, their disregard for the international conventions and regulatory framework of the nuclear industry and their continued oppression of the Palestinian people.

But God, who is the same yesterday, today and forever, neither slumbers nor sleeps. Prophetic voices have been calling this empowered people who were once oppressed and killed, to their deepest values of justice and compassion, but they have refused to listen even to the most reasonable voices.

The human community cannot be silent in the face of the gross injustice being meted out to the people of Palestine. If international courts and governments refuse to deal with this matter, we in the churches and in the rest of civil society really have no choice but to act in small ways and big ways.

God is busy doing a new thing. And God is using all of us to be partners with him.

Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have to be liberated, but at this stage the greater onus is on the Israelis since they are the ones who are in power, economically, politically and militarily. We have to think about ways that will allow them to reflect deeply on what it is that they are doing and bring them back from the brink, not out of spite or revenge, but because we love them deeply.

I therefore wholeheartedly support your action to disinvest from companies who benefit from the Occupation of Palestine.

This is a moral position that I have no choice but to support, especially since I know of the effect that Boycotts, Disinvestment and Sanctions had on the apartheid regime in South Africa.

May God bless your conference as you deliberate on this matter, and I pray that your decision will reflect the best values of the human family as we stand in solidarity with the oppressed.

God bless you. 
Archbishop-Emeritus Desmond Tutu
Cape Town, South Africa. [1]

Omar Barghouti, wrote for The Nation

The BDS movement is not asking for anything heroic from people of conscience. It is merely asking them to desist from complicity in oppression.

Anyone who supports Palestinian self-determination while calling only for ending the 45-year-old Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is only upholding most of the rights of just 38 percent of Palestinians while expecting the rest to accept injustice as fate. According to 2011 statistics, of 11.2 million Palestinians, 50 percent live in exile, many denied their UN-stipulated right to return to their homes of origin, and 12 percent are Palestinian citizens of Israel who live under a system of ‘institutional, legal and societal discrimination,’ according to the US State Department. More than two thirds of Palestinians are refugees or internally displaced persons.

Equal rights for Palestinians means, at minimum, ending Israel’s 1967 occupation and colonization, ending Israel’s system of racial discrimination and respecting the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their lands from which they were ethnically cleansed during the 1948 Nakba. The 2005 Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) call was endorsed by an overwhelming majority of Palestinians because it upholds all three. By appealing to people of conscience around the world to help end Israel’s three-tiered system of oppression, the BDS movement is not asking for anything heroic. It is merely asking people to desist from complicity in oppression.

Moreover, given the billions of dollars lavished by the US on Israel annually, American taxpayers are subsidizing Israel’s violations of international law at a time when American social programs are undergoing severe cuts. Striving to end US complicity in the occupation is good for the Palestinians and for the 99% struggling for social justice and against perpetual war.” [2]

Tikkun is Hebrew for mend, repair and transform the world.

In the Sept/Oct. 2007 issue of TIKKUN Magazine, the well-known Zionist, Rabbi Lerner wrote:

“From Moses to Jeremiah and Isaiah, the Prophets taught…that the Jewish claim on the land of Israel was totally contingent on the moral and spiritual life of the Jews who lived there, and that the land would, as the Torah tells us, ‘vomit you out’ if people did not live according to the highest moral vision of Torah. Over and over again, the Torah repeated its most frequently stated mitzvah [command]:

“When you enter your land, do not oppress the stranger; the other, the one who is an outsider of your society, the powerless one and then not only ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself’ but also ‘you shall love the other.’” Page 35.

The ancient Hebrew prophet Micah warned, “What does God require? He has told you o’man! Be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with your Lord.” -Micah 6:8

In his book, PALESTINIAN MEMORIES, Rev. Awad explained:

“Christian Zionism is a contradiction in terms…Zionism deviates from the heart of the New Testament…Christian Zionism is adding fuel to the tensions between Muslims, Christians and Jews…If the Christian Zionists’ agenda is realized, it will mean the death of Palestinian Christianity in the Holy Land…
“Zionism is militarizing the church…Christian Zionists overwhelmingly supported the war in Iraq and continue to support oppressive Israeli measures in the West Bank…
“The ‘blind spot’ of Christian Zionists is the fact that the Palestinian people, every day and in every aspect of their lives are living under an oppressive military occupation…
“Unlike the prophets of the Old Testament Christian Zionists have no prophetic words of reprimand for the State of Israel.” [3]

As a Senator Joe Biden spoke with Shalom TV and stated that, “There is this inextricable tie between culture, religion, ethnicity that most people do not understand…You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, I am a Zionist.”

Sen. Joe Biden I’m a Zionist

Zionism began as a nationalistic philosophy that developed among European Jews in the 19th century, which aspired to create a safe secure homeland for Jewish people.

Christian Zionism is an extremist movement, which supports the claims of those who believe that the State of Israel should take control of all of the land currently disputed between Palestinians and Israelis. It views the creation and expansion of the modern state of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy toward the second coming of Jesus.

Christian Zionism is also a modern theological and political movement that embraces the most extreme ideological positions of Zionism, thereby becoming detrimental to a just peace within Palestine and Israel.

The Christian Zionist program provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism. In its extreme form, it laces an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than living Christ’s love and justice today.

Believing that God fights on the side of Israel, Christian Zionists call for the unqualified support for the most extreme political positions related to the Holy Land that preclude a just peace between all of its citizens. Some Christian Zionist spoke-persons have even attributed Hurricane Katrina to God’s wrath over America’s failure to stop Israel from ‘disengaging’ in Gaza. Many also consistently oppose any moves towards a solution to the conflict, which would validate the political aspirations of both Palestinians and Israelis.

Christian Zionism is both a political movement and a way of interpreting current events with the focus on Israel and the Middle East and its promoters share many beliefs but are not organized through any one institution.

Throughout history Christians have at times twisted scripture to justify violence: for the Crusades, for Anti-Semitism, for slavery and the church has been too slow to respond to these biblical distortions with disastrous results.

Christian Zionists – particularly those with dispensationalist leanings – whose motives are couched in terms of compassion toward the Jewish people- adhere to a literal reading of scripture that promotes a political agenda of territorial expansion which has given the green light to injustices against Palestinians and added fuel to the fire of conflict in the Middle East.

In 2005, The United Methodist Church, at its Illinois Conference on “Unwrapping the Rapture” warned, “Every household should give prayerful consideration as to how God will actually judge us for our silence about and complicity in the crushing of the Palestinian people.”



Tikkun researched to discover that there are three distinct elements energizing the Christian Zionists:



1. A strong commitment to conservative and ultra-nationalist American politics (so strong, I believe, that if the U.S. were to decide to break with Israel, this part of the Christian Zionist leadership would go along with that and drop its defense of Israeli policies).

2. Dispensationalist religious commitments that lead many of the Christian Zionists to yearn for a cataclysmic “end of history” eschatological war in the Middle East that will precipitate the second coming of Jesus and the Rapture in which all true Christians will go to heaven and all Jews who have not yet converted to Christianity will burn in hell for eternity.

3. A widespread understanding among many Christians that atonement and repentance is needed for 1700 years of murder, rape, and oppression of Jews that was frequently generated by the Church (though, of course, the Evangelicals do not recognize that church as their church). In this category are many Christian Zionists who genuinely feel terrible about what has happened to the Jews and genuinely want to help the Jewish people. Their philo-Semitism is real and sincere. [Rabbi Lerner, Tikkun Magazine page 9, Nov/Dec. 2007]

The BDS movement was inspired by the teachings of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The move to Boycott Divest and Sanction Israel until Israel ends the military occupation of Palestine and honors the equality of all citizens will not and cannot be defeated because it has taken up roots in the consciences of global citizens beyond the bounds of religiosity.

The struggle for this struggling Christian Anarchist and citizen of conscience for US HOUSE of Representatives from Florida; is bearing the cross caused by willful ignorance and the pervasive apathy in the US Body of Christ.