More on Israeli Settler Extremism

Disturbing article from the NY Times on the violent extremist faction of Israeli settlers and their attacks on Palestinians AND Israelis.

Quote for the Moment

Reading: Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky

"The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." -Thomas Paine

In response to the Republican platform plank mocking community organizing

Photo montage by me. Some of the faces are famous, some aren't. You don't become a community organizer for the fame and fortune. What is a community organizer and what have they done for you and others? Well, for one thing, without community organizers (see Cady-Stanton and Anthony above and Google Lucretia Mott) women wouldn't have won the right to vote in 1920, which means without community organizers there would be no GOVERNOR Sarah Palin.

Salaam.

By the way, community organizing can be on the right, left or in the center...the Wikipedia entry for CO includes a reference to Pat Robertson.

Hate, delivered straight to your door

Hate is alive, well and being delivered to your very door! Not to mention misinformation, far-mongering....

This morning, our local paper (The Palm Beach Post) delivered to every home a copy of the hideously inflammatory hate film Obsession, which claims to be an expose on radical Islam, which is, of course, code for Islam in general. We're actually going to try to sit through the whole thing, but it's hard to stomach a film that intersperses images of Muslim children with images of Nazis. Proud to report that Mom, the subscriber, complained by email and phone and canceled her subscription to the paper. Even Olberman picked up on the story tonight on Countdown as it seems the DVD went out via several newspaper outlets nationwide. Frighteningly, it was also distributed free at BOTH the Democratic and Republican conventions. The American Muslim has a detailed background story on the film and the mass distribution of 28 million copies of the DVD and resources for how you can respond. For more information go to Obsession Watch. If you received a copy, please take a few minutes to demand that your newspaper to not take part in spreading hate and misinformation.

Salaam.

Update: Mom's on a roll and has emailed the president of Cox Newspapers, which published The Post, and the head of Cox's advertising department to complain to them as well. It's not that people should be deprived of their right of free speech, no matter how disturbing. It's that by being distributed by a newspaper, a supposed bastion of truth and unbiased information, the publishers lend credence to the filmmakers, their backers and their message. I hope others with cancel their subscriptions. To ignore is to condone!

Mondo Bizarro World Redux

I believe I have awoken inside some sort of mirror realm. Both Carl "El Diablo" Rove AND Fox News called the McCain camp out on the lies their campaign has been spewing. (Shakes head violently to try to reboot brain in face of confusion) With not much time left until election day, I am hoping that all these people so excited by "relatable" Gov. Palin, who have so obviously been sipping from the same Kool Aid that had folks saying that then-candidate Bush43 was somebody they could "relate to" - because can't we ALL relate to a guy whose dad ran the CIA? - will wake up. Things are getting bizarre and I agree with my mother who is calling this election as another squeaker. I can't take another election night like 2000 - going to bed satisfied and waking up to a nightmare.

But, hey, on the bright side, today's financial disasters aside, don't worry. McCain said this morning that the foundation of our economy is sound. Seriously?

Salaam.

D is for Disappointing

I'm facing some serious disappointments right now, personally and professionally. It's just a really rough time. I love my kids, I love Palestine, but, man, am I in a bad place right now spiritually. I don't have time for a proper post, just a brief vent. Too busy making all the materials to teach my kids, who are actually kindergarten level, not 1st grade, but who I adore. Anyway...

Salaam.

Update: Bringing up Bubba

Yes, once again, I bring a little of the South to the East. First, it was Mardi Gras and gumbo...

After trying out a roster of names including Kunafe, Mejnoon, Deeb - and Tarkan and some Chinese names courtesy of Nichole - I settled on "Bubba". I sort of end up calling things Bubba anyway and it suits him.

However, I also made the difficult decision to find a permanent home for Bubba. The landlords are not happy about the dog, people here are aghast that I would bring a dog into my home and my work schedule means he's home alone on my balcony, our only space to keep him in, most of the day. It all adds up to a bad situation for him. Luckily, the vet said he's in good health and raved about what a great dog he is (of course!). He was trying to help me place him on a farm, but on a whim - actually out of desperation - I emailed the professors of the local university's vet school, explained the situation and begged for help.

Much to my delight I received a warm response saying they would love to take him at their farm facility and that he will be well taken care of. So, now I just have to arrange taking him there. Though I know it's the best for him, I'll be increadibly, sad to see him go - despite his puppy habit of sometimes biting me in rather inappropriate places. He's made a good bit of progress in three days. I was able to get him to "do his business," as my mom says, outside on a leash for the first time today. His "leash" at the moment is actually lots of shoe laces tied together, but it works. Funny how elated you can feel at the sight of a small animal taking a dump; I was like a proud parent. We, of course, plan follow-up visits to make sure the vets know how to take proper care of our Bubba. I jest - the tone of the email was warm and welcoming. I am thrilled for the little guy. But, still, a bit sad.

Salaam.

Bringing Up Baby

Much to my surprise, I have acquired a puppy. I was spending the day at a friend's house and heard a terrible whelping coming from across the street. A group of teen-age boys was crowded around some tall weeds surrounding a phone pole. They had a dog cornered, a few had sticks and were whacking at the source of the sound. If I see you hurting a child or an animal I may end up hurting you. So, I went over to try to talk to them and get them to leave the dog alone. I asked what the problem was and why they were bothering the dog. As soon as I reached into the weeds for it, shushing it, the dog started licking my hands and let me pick him right up. The boys were pretty surprised I cared this much about a dog. One tried to sell it to me, but another just said they would give it to me, which is mighty generous since it wasn't theirs to begin with. We ended up having a relatively nice talk; I even gave an impromptu English lesson. In the end, I walked away with the dog. A barber across the street asked what had happened and when I explained he agreed I'd done the right thing and that the boys were in the wrong. My friend's husband and I bathed him with Johnson's baby shampoo in their yard and we picked up some dog food on the way home.

So, I have a dog, which is really unusual for this city. Not sure how old he is, but can't be much. A vet's going to take a look at him today. We don't have anything for him to chew on except a pair of men's tennis shoes one of the summer volunteers left. Right now he's asleep on my floor, curled up with his shoe. I "crated" him in my room last night with an overturned table and he did fine. Now I just have to start paper training. Oh, and he's well into the wild stage of teething. Haven't picked out a name for him, though. Any suggestions?

Pioneer Spirit

Just finished: White Noise by DeLillo
Next up: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palesine by Pappe
Listening to: The Calling by Mary Chapin Carpenter & Mahler's 9th Symphony
Eating: Far too many figs from my Fig Guy in the souq. I think even he's getting concerned.

Darwish was buried today. I haven't seen news of the burial yet. Some of us listened to radio coverage between meetings. I thought about going, being a part of it, but decided I would better honor him by continuing to work on getting our school up and running. I think he would have agreed with me. We are very busy at the moment with seemingly everything as the first day of classes rushes up on us. Busy is a bit of an understatement.

I was so happy today to see one of my students from the summer program, a tiny, adorable and wildly bright boy who will enter second grade this year. He was in the office with his sister and parents and his parents, who I'd not met, looked a bit amazed when he walked right into my open arms for a big hug. My group this summer were new students who didn't have much English at all, so I focused on getting them ready to handle school. But hug was one of the first words I taught them and I hugged each of them, and most of the rest of our kids, every day. It sort of became an automatic response with a few of the: they would see me, throw their arms open wide and walk right over to hug me.

School opens on the 24th and there is just a skeleton crew on hand at the moment. The Palestinian teachers are enjoying a much needed break. In the midst of trying to get the two first grade classes arranged and outfitted, planning my lessons, and remembering little things like food and water, we are still working to arrange the library and make it all it can and should be. Then there's organizing the joint staff meeting with its full agenda of discussion and break-away groups, helping develop the new Web site, coordinating with my two Palestinian co-teachers, welcoming the newest members of our international staff as they arrive, my mural projects, sorting out where to plant a student garden, designing my after-school programs, trying to arrange meetings with community groups for joint projects....

I am getting more of a sense of settling in. I exchange far more greetings as I walk through the old city and the neighborhood around our school each morning. A few of the people I see regularly have begun addressing me as "mualeema", or teacher, when greeting me. I feel a part of things and it is wonderful. Sadly, I've no time at the moment to sit and chat, but everybody is very understanding.

Salaam.

Beautiful Things, Terrible Things

Palestine is a surreal mixture of beauty, horrors, pain, joy, warmth, frustrations, sadness...The elements swirl about your wherever you go here.

A few articles from the news today reminded me of this.

Raja Shehadeh's book, Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape, is in my on-deck circle. People need to know there is beauty here worth saving, in the land and people. This is a nice article from today's NYTimes about the West Bank and Shehadeh's attempts to just go for a walk there. If I every have a child, I may name it Sarha...

However, the pain continues and wounds are opened anew. The Israeli tank crew that fired on and killed Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana, 24, and eight young bystanders in Gaza in April will not face legal action. Shana was in a car bearing clear markings identifying it as a press vehicle. From the story in The Guardian: "Reuters said x-rays showed several of the inch-long flechette darts were embedded in Shana's chest and legs as well as his flak jacket. Shana's flak jacket was marked with a fluorescent "Press" sign and his car, which was not armoured and was set on fire in the incident, was marked Press and TV."

Salaam.

Guest Post - The Loss of Darwish

My friend, Areej Ja'fari, a phenomenal community organizer at the Ibdaa Cultural Center in the Deheisha refugee camp, sent me this today, her thoughts on the loss of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish this week. Darwish is to be buried in Ramallah today. She agreed to let me share her words here:
____________________
Hi!
As Palestinian I am living the shock of losing Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian Poet, he was our spokesperson for decades. I am sharing these feelings with you about this tragedy we are living now:

Mahmoud Darwish is not a passing traveler in Palestine

Singing for freedom has always been a part of national struggles throughout the world; but when you sang for freedom, you sang with words of love with your entire mind and with every drop of your blood ---and for your whole professional life.

You took the responsibility of documenting the moments of our lives and made them unforgettable, like a mural painted across the surface of the moon to be seen and remembered by all who love nature, and especially those who love the moon.

You spoke honestly about Palestinian history and what was happening to us on the ground as if we were watching a movie---informing our minds with beautifully and ingeniously written Arabic poems.

We read your words once, twice and maybe three times to understand the ideas that gave life to your words. We wanted to read your words again and again because we wanted to live the moments of your words, especially when you described our beautiful mother Palestine.

"So leave our land. Our shore, our sea. Our wheat, our salt, our wound. Take your portion of our blood and go away."

We love life as you loved it; we want to live in dignity---not under oppression. You did everything to oppose oppression and to show the world we are not human bombs walking in the streets killing Israelis, We are birds of love, peaceful farmers, lovers of Palestine and life-makers in the midst of domination.

When you wrote the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, your words placed us within the sphere of diplomacy. You led the nations of the world to their first recognition of Palestinian rights, and you made us proud of who we are as refugees and Arabs. You have sown the seeds of the Palestinian Dream since you were uprooted from Al Berouah, and you spoke loudly of who we are when you wrote...

Record!
I am an Arab
And my identity card is number fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the ninth is coming after a summer
Will you be angry?
Record!
I am an Arab
I have a name without a title
Patient in a country
Where people are enraged . . .

Your death is not our end, nor will it ever be. Though it might be the end of your love story with your beloved "Falasten", you didn't take your words with you when you left; they remain with us forever to read again and again.

"My homeland is not a traveling bag,
Nor am I a passing traveler.
It is I who am the lover and the land is my beloved"

Your politics never mattered because you were always more than this; you were Palestinian. Your greatest disappointment was the oppression and bloodshed among brothers; and your final wish was to visit Gaza---the added wound to our already divided homeland.

You have seen us lose everything, but you kept hope in your words and in your heart, and you brought this same hope back into our hearts and lives. You made us, the Palestinian refugees, visible at the time when everybody had forgotten us. You remain the voice of the promised return of Palestinian refugees to their homelands. We will return, but we will return without you. Al Berouah and Al Jadeedah will always remember that you tried everything to be able to go back to them.

Mahmoud Darwish always called for peace, but never experienced this peace, even when he lived in France or in other countries outside of Palestine. He lived like a stranger even in his own country. I share this with him and with more than three million other Palestinians. Now he is at peace, but not in Palestine or on the Earth he loved so much. It is only we who will continue this call for peace and justice---the same as he did.

Palestine . . .

You spread onto my body like sweat
You spread into my body like desire
You take over my memory like an invader
And occupy my brain like light.
Die, that I may mourn you
Or be my wife that I may know betrayal
Once and for all."
--
Areej

Salaam.

What Part of 'No' Don't They Understand?

So much for "no new settlements". Not at all surprising, but no less disappointing.

Salaam.

Death of a Poet

I awoke just now to the terrible news of the death of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish at the age of 67 following open heart surgery two days ago. If you don't know his work, you should. Listen to him read his own works in Arabic here. Listen to Marcel Khalife sing (and NPR translate) one of his best known poems, Umi (My Mother) here. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has declared three days of official mourning. Remember him the best way; read his work. You can start here:

I Come From There

I come from there and I have memories
Born as mortals are, I have a mother
And a house with many windows,
I have brothers, friends,
And a prison cell with a cold window.
Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,
I have my own view,
And an extra blade of grass.
Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,
And the bounty of birds,
And the immortal olive tree.
I walked this land before the swords
Turned its living body into a laden table.

I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother
When the sky weeps for her mother.
And I weep to make myself known
To a returning cloud.
I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood
So that I could break the rule.
I learnt all the words and broke them up
To make a single word: Homeland.....

Salaam.

Newsline Neopolis

Since local news from here rarely shows up on the evening news in other countries, I wanted to share a few news stories out of my town and the West Bank in the last few days, courtesy of Ma'an News Service and others.

The very troubling, but not unusual, news in the West Bank these days seems to concern the escalating aggressive actions of some Israeli settlers. Settlers attacked a caravan with two British diplomats in Hebron this week. An armed group of about 50 tried to storm the Ibrahimi mosque (the site of the Goldstein massacre of 29 Muslims in 1994), also in Hebron. In our own city, Israeli forces arrested a small group of settlers who entered the city illegally in an attempt to visit the shrine of Joseph. These follow the horrible incident of August 2, in which settlers stormed a home and threw a 14-year-old boy from the roof of the home. He survived the 60 foot/20m fall, but suffered serious injuries. The same group later attacked a nearby wedding party. Living in a city surrounded by settlements, this escalation in the violence concerns everyone.

However, in the midst of all the bad news, sometimes good things do happen here:

Turkey to donate 15 Ambulances, PA asks for support for An Najah University hospital

International spinal surgeon trains Palestinian doctors in Nablus

Israeli authorities release Nablus mayor and businessman

Early Friday morning I went for a run up my mountain and ended up, after running up to one of the checkpoints, at a bend in the road overlooking a hilltop settlement in the west, likely illegal even under Israeli law. The morning light was just breaking red and gold and the white trailers, lined up in a tight formation that seemed to mock the original tract homes in the U.S., appeared only a shade lighter than the reddish brown earth they occupied, but still marred the landscape, even in sleep.

Salaam.

Welcome to Israel

An interesting blog post from Stolen Words Stolen Days (via Sabbah's blog) about what some travelers face trying to enter Israel. I got lucky upon arrival and dealt with a witty young woman in passport control who was actually very helpful. She asked a bare minimum of questions and obviously recognized me as the wildly nonthreatening soul I am. Sadly, that's not always the case:

"The woman accused me of lying, saying I wanted to volunteer instead of sight see or visit friends. She wanted me to log into my email so she could go through it because she didn’t believe me and said since I received the papers through an email that she needed to see my emails. I refused, saying I couldn’t, “as an American,” and this was a violation of my privacy. She stated that I was not cooperating in an angry and aggressive tone...

"I asked her how could I have time to volunteer in three weeks, and she replied that I could extend my ticket. She continuously asked if I was going to volunteer or attend Arabic classes. I told her repeatedly no and she replied that I was lying. She also threatened to call the university that was in Nablus that put together the papers to ask if they knew about me, and I told her to go ahead as they would not know whom I was, yet she did nothing but continued to call me a liar. Even though I was going to sightsee and visit friends, I do not see how a possibility of volunteering at a university in Nablus to teach English would be a possible reason to deny me entry. She appeared to refuse to listen to my plans but was just assaulting me with “questions” that were really more like statements or assumptions of what she thought I would be doing, regardless of what I said."

In the end, this person, a tourist, as with so many others, was fingerprinted, photographed, and detained overnight before being placed on a plane and deported. Read the full description and see the photos of the detention center. Welcome to Israel, indeed.

Salaam.