Similar protests were also taken out in Kargil and Sanku towns of Ladakh region, which was carved out as a separate Union Territory when Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into two Union Territories after abrogation of Article 370 of Indian Constitution in August 2019. Muslims in Kargil town and its surrounding areas observed Quds Day 2024 after the Friday prayers.

Sajjad Kargili, a prominent activist and member of the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) posted videos of both the protest rallies of Sanku and Kargil on his social media handle ‘X’.

An official statement of Anjuman-e-Sharie Shian, a body of Shia Muslims, issued in Srinagar claimed that thousands of people on Friday took to the streets in the parts of the Kashmir to voice their protest against Israel’s siege and relentless bombing on the Gaza Strip, demanding an end to the oppression of the innocent Palestinian people.

The statement claimed that The demonstrators raised Palestinian flags and held posters that said ‘From Land To The Sea, Palestine Will Be Free’ and ‘Stand in solidarity with Palestine’.

In central district of Budgam, a huge rallyhttps://kashmirobserver.net/2024/04/05/video-al-quds-day-observed-in-kashmir/ was held by the Jammu and Kashmir Anjuman-e-Sharie Shian, with scores of women and children in attendance. They called for complete stop to genocidal attacks on the people of Palestine and bombings in Gaza, where thousands of innocent people including women and children have been killed since October 7, 2023, the statement said.

Addressing the gathering, Anjuman-e-Sharie Shian President Aga Syed Hassan Mosavi criticised the world community for supporting Israel in its oppression of Palestinians. He demanded that Muslim countries should come together for the Palestinian cause.

“Raising our voices for Palestinians is the responsibility of Muslims and a part of their faith,” he added.

Separately, in Magam town of Budgam district, supporters took to the streets, demanding Muslim world leaders to “break the chains of silence”.

“While Addressing the solidarity March Anjuman-e-Sharie Shian leader Aga Syed Mujtaba Abbas said that this Quds Day comes during one of the darkest chapters in the history of the Palestinian people. He said “permanent humanitarian ceasefire is pre-requisite with unrestricted access for life saving aid, the release of all hostages, the protection of civilians and an end to violations of international humanitarian law.

A video of the protest rally in Srinagar was posted by ‘Kashmir Observer on its website.

Reports in local media of Kashmir said that different rallies and demonstrations were held at many places across Kashmir valley. People from the mostly Shia community participated in the rallies. The demonstrators raised pro-Palestine and anti-Israel slogans and called for an end to the Zionist occupation of the holy land.

The largest procession in Srinagar city was taken out from Gupkar shrine on Dal Lake Boulevard after the Friday prayers. Processions were also taken out in Hassanabad and Zadibal localities of the Shehr-e-Khaas in Srinagar. Similar protest rallies were taken out in Budgam town and many areas across Baramulla district.

Smaller processions were taken out from Bhagwanpora in Srinagar, Balhama, Khanda and scores of other places in Kashmir valley.

Addressing a gathering at Chattabal in Srinagar, Maulana Masroor Abbas Ansari reiterated his support for the Palestinian cause and denounced the mute response of the International community to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, a report of local news gathering agency said.

In central Kashmir’s Budgam district, a massive procession led by Anjuman-e-Sharie Shiayan Chief Agha Syed Hassan was carried out from Imambargah Budgam. Thousands of people participated in the procession.

Another video on Kashmir protests:

https://en.mehrnews.com/news/213527/VIDEO-People-in-Kashmir-mark-Intl-Quds-Day

Similar procession was led by Agha Syed Hadi al Musawi al Safavi from Bemina Imambargah. Agha Hadi also highlighted the plight of Palestinians and the need for liberation of the first Qibla from the Zionist clutches.

Reports of demonstrations were also received from different parts of north and south Kashmir including Pattan, Mirgund and Laweypora in North Kashmir and several areas of South Kashmir.

This year Quds rallies saw a remarkable surge in attendance compared to last year, coinciding with the Israeli war on Gaza. The event drew significant crowds indicating heightened public concern and solidarity with the Palestinians.

Another short video of protest rallies in Kashmir was posted on the website by Editorji.

https://www.editorji.com/world-news/protest-in-kashmir-against-israeli-attacks-in-gaza-watch-1712324526906

Amidst the backdrop of escalating violence, where over 33,000 Palestinians, including thousands of women and children, have lost their lives so far, protestors say, the rallies carried out every year serve as an expression of support for the people of Palestine.

A demonstration was also organized in Poonch town of Jammu region to express solidarity with Palestinians. The rally participation witnessed sloganeering against Israel calling for an end to genocidal attacks in Gaza Strip.

It may be recalled that all pro-Palestine and anti-Israel protests were barred in India and unofficial campaign was launched in Kashmir to prevent people from holding such rallies. The Muslim priests in Kashmir were asked not to make any mention of the Gaza killings and Israeli attacks on Palestinian people.

Many activists and anti-Israeli protesters were either detained or prohibited from taking out processions in different part of India during the past six months. The BJP-government has taken a position contrary to previous stand of India, which advocated separate state for the Palestinians since 1930s and 1940s.

Courtesy: https://kashmirtimes.com

The post On Yaum-Al-Quds 2024, Massive Rallies Renew Call For Al-Aqsa Liberation In Kashmir, Kargil appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Ghalib could equally have been describing the situation in Gaza today, where the ongoing violence– both the brutal attack by Hamas on Israeli communities and the genocidal response by Israel – have strong parallels to this dark chapter from the colonial past.

What began as a mutiny by Hindu and Muslim soldiers of the East India Company over cartridges greased with cow and pig fat, which hurt their religious sentiments, soon erupted into extreme violence. Indian civilians and sepoys vented their rage on indignities suffered under exploitative Company Raj by targeting  British settlements and garrisons.

From Kanpur to Jhansi and Delhi, rebels enacted horrific slaughter of British civilians and prisoners, including women and children, throughout the summer of 1857. Tales of rebels gang-raping English governesses and violating high-born British ladies dominated the British press.

In the Times, a letter stated that “our ladies have been dragged naked through the streets by the rabble of Delhi. Quiet ministers of the gospel have been murdered. Their daughters have been cut into snippets and sold piecemeal about the bazaar”. The Illustrated London News painted “a ghastly picture of rapine, murder, and loathsome cruelty worse than death”.

Britain reacted in May 1857 towards its colonized Indians much as Israel has done in October 2023 to the Palestinians– with fury and extreme overreaction. After the British put down the rebellion, soldiers and officers were allowed days of reprisals and retribution against any Indians suspected of collaboration.

Eyewitness accounts and historians estimate thousands were shot dead in bazaars, civilians used for target practice, and villages were burnt to the ground. No mercy was shown to innocent Indian commoners for the uprising as they were slaughtered in their homes regardless of age or gender. Bodies lay rotting for days in the streets of the ruined cities.

“Delhi meant the Fort, the Chandni Chowk, the daily bazaar near Jama Masjid, the weekly trip to the Jamuna bridge, the annual Fair of the Flower-sellers. These five things are no more. Where is Delhi now? Yes, there used to be a city of this name in the land of India”, wrote Ghalib. Today, after relentless Israeli bombing, one can say in similar vein – ‘Yes, there used to be once a place called Gaza in the land of Palestine’.

Apart from quenching a thirst for revenge, the larger aim of the British colonial rulers was to render entire populations too terrified to ever rebel again. However, if the aftermath of 1857 in India offers any lessons, it is that such brutal retaliation almost always fails in fully breaking the resistance.

By all accounts, the ferocity of the British crackdown on Indian cities left smouldering hatred against the foreign rulers. Within a generation, Indians were gearing up for the rise of the Indian Independence movement under Gandhi and others.

Similarly, Israel’s vengeful attempt to ‘eliminate’ Hamas is only bound to fail as the latter is less an organization and more the expression of desperation of the Palestinian population. Until Palestinian demands are addressed meaningfully, future rounds of violence remain almost inevitable.

If this potentially endless war without any winners is to be resolved, there will have to be a shift in paradigms on both sides of the divide. Israel, for example, will have to realize it can never live in peace and protect its citizens as long as the Palestinians are not given a full state of their own to run and live in as a free people.

On the Palestinian side too, it is time to recognize that they cannot win as long as they consider military means as the only way to liberation. After seven decades of armed struggle they have little to show in terms of gains in territory, freedom, resources, or power, while losing thousands of their own to brutal Israeli reprisals.

The extreme asymmetry in power makes it impossible for Hamas or any other militant group to outright defeat Israel through violent attacks. Israel possesses one of the most powerful professional militaries globally, equipped with cutting-edge weapons, sophisticated defence systems, and clear battlefield dominance.

What the experience of the Indian struggle for independence from British rule after 1857 indicates is that perhaps the Palestinians too need their own Gandhi today. While Gandhi described the rebels of 1857 as ‘true patriots’ he also correctly recognized that, when faced with a vastly superior military power,  the moral authority of non-violent movements can successfully challenge oppressive regimes.

Gandhi demonstrated how mass non-cooperation, civil disobedience and willingness to abstain from violent retaliation can build enormous global opinion and internal pressure for change.

While adopting Gandhian methods looks incredibly difficult under the harsh apartheid-like reality of Israeli rule, organized non-violent protests perhaps offer Palestinians their best hope to erode the foundations of Israeli occupation in the longer term. It denies the occupier any ethical grounds or political/national security justifications to continue subjugation, while mobilising worldwide support for the struggle.

Given its different historical trajectory as well as cultural and political milieu obviously it is very unlikely that a Gandhi-like figure will emerge in Gaza any time soon. However – at a minimum – it is certainly possible to reimagine the Palestinian freedom movement.

Into one that that is far less dependent on support from countries like Iran or Qatar with their own geo-political axes to grind and more in sync with millions of nameless people worldwide, who passionately support the Palestinian cause for reasons of justice and anti-colonialism.

And into a movement that harnesses a much wider range of Palestinian skills and political processes than those required for digging tunnels or using hostages to win small concessions. And surely one that is far more democratic and inclusive and not so dominated by conservative, hot-headed, bearded men obsessed with the cult of martyrdom.

Who knows? Maybe someday the women and children of Palestine – who have suffered the most all these decades from the violence-  could collectively turn out to be the ‘Gandhi’ that the Palestinian movement needs? Imagine that, an all-female leadership – with solidarity action from across the globe – winning freedom for Palestine!

Wishful thinking? Perhaps yes, but in the nightmare that Gaza is today, a dream – even the wildest one –  could be the spark for meaningful change.

As Ghalib himself would have said:

“ham ko maalūm hai jannat kī haqīqat lekin
dil ke ḳhush rakhne ko ‘ġhālib’ ye ḳhayāl achchhā hai”

“I know very well the reality of heaven, but Ghalib,
The very thought keeps the heart content”

Satya Sagar is a journalist and public health worker. He can be reached at sagarnama@gmail.com

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org

The post Yes, there was once a place called Gaza appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Last Monday, October 9, Holloway had released this public letter to the Rutgers community, entitled “Responding to the Violence in Israel and Gaza.” In the days immediately following Hamas’ attacks, he also attended a student vigil organized by a wide range of Rutgers student Jewish groups.

Then on Oct. 11, the Rutgers president posted this, a second letter, where he wrote “That does not diminish my concern for members of the university community with family and friends in Gaza. I fervently hope for the sparing of innocent lives, the release of hostages, and a peaceful and just resolution to these terrible events as soon as possible.”

The Rutgers professors say he did show enough sympathy to the victims of war in Gaza.

“President Holloway’s message to the entire Rutgers community on Oct. 11, 2023 clearly excluded the pain and suffering of our Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students arising from the atrocities taking place in Gaza and Israel,” said Rutgers Law Professor Sahar Aziz. “That Rutgers University has some 7,000 Muslim and Arab students across three campuses makes this omission particularly harmful.”

The letter was sent to Holloway Monday, and can be found here: Faculty Letter to President Holloway Supporting our Palestinian, Arab, & Muslim Students at Rutgers.

The professors who signed the letter said Holloway’s statements “failed to even acknowledge Palestine, Palestinians, or the death of Gazans who are suffering an unprecedented bombardment by Israeli forces.

At the time of, over 1,000 Palestinian children have been killed by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza … President Holloway demonstrated a clear lack of temperament unbefitting a university leader by issuing a statement that offered consolation to only one group of civilian victims.”

Here is the letter the professors sent to Holloway, and all the nearly 200 professors who signed it:

October 16, 2023

Dear President Holloway –

We, the undersigned, are faculty who teach and do research in a myriad of fields across all three Rutgers University campuses. One of the great privileges of our jobs here at Rutgers is the ability to work with our amazingly diverse student body, which includes over 7,000 Muslim and Arab students, in a state with some of the largest Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim communities in the country.

These students and communities are integral to our beloved community here at Rutgers. For their sake, we are compelled to express our shock, dismay, and disappointment at your October 11, 2023, message regarding the current situation in Israel and Palestine. Like you, we mourn the loss of all human lives, and we welcome efforts to invite empathy and denounce violence against all civilians. However, your deeply one-sided message was a gut punch to the many Rutgers students who have family and friends in Gaza and Palestine. It also failed to acknowledge the ongoing hate and racism directed at our Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students, who have never known a world where they are not vilified as terrorists for simply being brown, Muslim, or Arab.

As their teachers, we want you to know that your failure to express concern for our Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim student population–who are also suffering pain, anguish, and fear–made a large portion of our student body feel devalued and demoralized. It did not go unnoticed that you did not even name Palestinian students in your message. Your mention of the campus and NJ State Police–after not even acknowledging that our Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students are also vulnerable to violence during this time–conveyed to them that they would be the ones targeted, not protected. Many of these students have written to us saying they are frightened to come to campus and unable to complete their work due to their exhaustion and fear.

To be blunt: your message further inflamed campus tensions and exacerbated divisions in our RU community. While we cannot know your intentions, it conveyed to our students that you had clearly chosen a “side,” whereas, as educators, we must support all of our students.

We call upon you, President Holloway, in keeping with the ethical and moral values we seek collectively to uphold at Rutgers University, to make a statement of concern for Palestinian civilians under assault and the members of our community who have loved ones there and close ties to Palestine. We also call upon you to acknowledge that Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students are vulnerable at this time and are terrified by the public support for unfolding crimes against humanity in Gaza. We call on you to pledge your support for their safety, protection, and overall well-being.

Respectfully,

Sahar Aziz, Distinguished Professor of Law, Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar, Rutgers Law
School (Newark)
Sylvia Chan-Malik, Associate Professor, American Studies & WGSS (NB)
Sadia Abbas, Associate Professor, English, Center for European Studies (Newark/NB)
Zahra Ali, Assistant Professor, Sociology (Newark)
Maya Mikdashi, Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Associate Professor, WGSS (NB)
Noura Erakat, Associate Professor, Africana Studies and the Program in Criminal Justice (NB)
Omar Dewachi, Associate Professor, Anthropology (NB)
Zakia Salime, Associate Professor, WGSS & Sociology (NB)
Allan Punzalan Isaac, Professor, American Studies/English (NB)
Genese Sodikoff, Associate ProfessorSociology and Anthropology (Newark)
Ethel Brooks, Associate Professor, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Sociology, Chair
of WGSS (NB)
Alex Zamalin, Professor, Africana Studies and Political Science (NB)
Radhika Balakrishnan, Professor, WGSS (NB)
Martin F. Manalansan IV, Professor, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (NB)
Dr. Alison Powell, Associate Teaching Professor English and Creative Writing (NB)
Carter Mathes, Associate Professor, Department of English (NB)
Suzy Kim, Professor of Korean History, Asian Languages and Cultures (NB)
Kaiser Aslam, Muslim Chaplain, Center for Islamic Life (NB)
Charles Haberl, Professor, African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures
(NB)
Amir Moosavi, Assistant Professor, English (Newark_
Ousseina Alidou, Distinguished Professor, AMESALL (NB)
Antonio Y. Vazquez-Arroyo, Associate Professor, Political Science (Newark)
Alamin Mazrui, Professor, AMESALL (NB)
Wendell Marsh, Assistant Professor, Africana (Newark)
Alison Howell, Associate Professor, Political Science (Newark
Catherine Fihpatrick, Director, WGSS (Newark)
Adnan Zulfiqar, Associate Professor, Law School (Camden)
Audrey Truschke, Professor, History (Newark)
Brian Murphy, Associate Professor, History (Newark)
Jamilah Malika Abu-Bakare, Instructor of Professional Practice Africana Studies, Express
Newark (Newark)
Hanan Kashou, Asscociate Teaching Professor, AMESALL (NB)
Dr. Lyra D. Monteiro, Assistant Professor, History, American Studies, Africana Studies
(Newark)
Mayte Green-Mercado, Associate Professor, Federated Department of History (Newark_
Asli Zengin, Assistant Professor, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department (NB)
Kayo Denda, Librarian for Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, NB Libraries (NB)
Beryl Saker, Professor, Department of History (Newark)
Jehan Mohamed, Lecturer, AMESALL (NB)
Melissa Valle, Mellon Assistant Professor of Global Racial Justice, Sociology and Anthropology/
Department of Africana Studies (Newark)
Jawid Mojaddedim Professor, Department of Religion (NB)
Mary Rizzo, Associate Professor, History (Newark)
Feri Paydar, Lecturer, AMESALL (NB)
Whitney Strub, Associate Professor, History (Newark)
Donna Murch, Professor, History (NB)
Melissa De Fino, Librarian, Rutgers University Libraries (NB)
Leslie M. Alexander, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of History. History, SAS (NB)
Evie Shockley, Zora Neale Hurston Distinguished Professor of English, English (NB)
Karishma Desai, Assistant Professor Education, Culture & Society Program, Rutgers GSE (NB)
Chrystin Ondersma, Professor of Law (Newark)
James Jones, Assistant Professor, Africana Studies (Newark)
Kate Cairns, Associate Professor, Childhood Studies (Camden)
Tim Raphael, Professor of Arts, Culture and Media, Director, Center for Migration and the
Global City (Newark)
Steven Brechin, Professor, Sociology (NB)
Joanna Kempner, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology (NB)
Charles I. Auffant, Clinical Professor of Law, Law school (Newark)
Sean T. Mitchell, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
(Newark)
Todd Wolfson, Associate Professor, Journalism and Media Studies (NB)
Arlene Stein, Professor, Sociology (NB)
Seema Saifee, Assistant Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School (Camden)
Colm Atkins, Research Associate, Cell Biology and Neuroscience (NB)
Khadijah Costley White, Associate Professor, Journalism and Media Studies (NB)
Gabriela Kueking, Professor, Political Science (Newark)
Andrea Marston, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography (NB)
Sarada Balagopalan, Associate Professor, Childhood Studies (Camden)
Samah Selim, Professor, AMESALL (NB)
Meredeth Turshen, Professor Emerita, Bloustein School (NB)
Laura Lomas, Professor, English (Newark)
Brikney Cooper, Professor, WGSS/Africana Studies (NB)
Andrew Urban, Associate Professor, American Studies (NB)
Diane Shane Fruchtman, Associate Professor, Religion (NB)
Stéphane Robolin, Associate Professor, Dept. of English/Center for African Studies/AMESALL
(NB)
Jaime Shearn Coan, Postdoctoral Associate, ISGRJ/WGSS (NB)
Meheli Sen, Associate Professor, AMESALL/Cinema Studies (NB)
Dr. Leslie Kay Jones, Assistant Professor, Sociology (NB)
Andrés Morera, Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry (NB)
Norah MacKendrick, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology (NB)
Carolyne J White, Professor, Dept of Urban Education (Newark)
Emily Marker, Associate Professor, History (Camden)
Simeon Marsalis, Assistant Professor, English (Newark)
Teona Williams, Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow, Geography (NB)
Michal Raucher, Associate Professor, Department of Jewish Studies (NB)
David M. Hughes, Professor of Anthropology, Anthropology (NB)
Jamal Ali. Assistant Teaching Professor, AMESALL (NB)
Christien Tompkins, Assistant Professor, Anthropology (NB)
John Keene, Distinguished Professor, English/Africana Studies (Newark)
Susan Martin-Marquez, Professor, Department of Spanish & Portuguese (NB)
Catherine Lee Associate, Professor, Sociology (NB)
Yasmine Khayyat, Associate Professor of Arabic Literature, AMESALL (NB)
Lauren Silver, Associate Professor, Childhood Studies (Camden)
Sandy Russell Jones, Associate Teaching Professor, History/Religion (NB)
Frank Edwards, Assistant Professor, School of Criminal Justice (Newark)
James J. Brown, Jr., Associate Professor, English and Digital Studies (Camden)
John Kuo Wei Tchen, Professor, History Department (Newark)
Todd Clear, University Distinguished Professor, Law and Criminal Justice (Newark)
Keith Green, Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies, English and Africana
(Camden)
Salam Al Kuntar, Assistant Lecturer Professor, Classics (NB)
Manar Habbal, Lecturer, AMESALL (NB)
Timothy Stewart-Winter, Associate Professor, History (Newark)
Mukti Mangharam, Associate Professor, English (NB)
Ulla D. Berg, Associate Professor, Anthropology /Latino and Caribbean Studies (NB)
Janice Gallagher, Associate Professor, Political Science (Newark)
Louisa Schein, Associate Professor, Anthropology/WGSS (NB)
Uchechi Okereke-Beshel, Core Faculty, Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South
Asian Languages and Literatures (NB)
H. Surowih, Assistant Professor, Religion (NB)
Kyle Riismandel, Associate Teaching Prof. of History and Director of the Graduate Program in
American Studies, History/American Studies (Newark)
Hana Shepherd, Associate Professor, Sociology (NB)
Rebecca Kunkel, Librarian, Law Library (Newark)
Mark Krasovic, Associate Professor, History / SASN (Newark)
Dr. Rina Bliss, Associate Professor, Sociology (NB)
Deepa Kumar, Professor, Journalism and Media Studies (NB)
Ben Sifuentes-Jauregui, Professor, American Studies (NB)
Emily Coyle, Adjunct, English (Newark)
David Winters, Adjunct, SCI (NB)
Dana Luciano, Associate Professor, English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (NB)
Atiya Aftab, Esq., Adjunct Professor, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Political Science
Department (NB)
David Kurnick, Professor, English (NB)
Haydee Herrera, Associate Professor, Math (Camden)
Tamara Sears, Associate Professor, Art History (NB)
Lauren Kelly, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education (NB)
Maurice Wallace, Professor, English (NB)
Ed Cohen, Professor, Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies (NB)
Manar Habbal, Lecturer, AMESALL (NB)
Malcolm Kiniry, Associate Professor, English Department (Newark)
Frank Garcia, Assistant Professor, Department of English (Newark)
Kevin L. Clay, Assistant Professor, Black Studies in Education, Graduate School of Education
(NB)
Nicole J. Auffant, Lecturer, Political Science, SASN (Newark)
Colin Jager, Professor, English (NB)
Karen Elizabeth Bishop, Associate Professor, Spanish & Comparative Literature (NB)
Evelyn Saavedra Autry, Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow, WGSS (NB)
Brendan Kibbee, Postdoctoral Fellow, African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and
Literatures (NB)
Luis M. Rivera, Professor, Psychology (Newark)
Jason Bird, Associate Professor and Chair, Social Work / SASN (Newark)
Krystal Strong, Assistant Professor, Black Studies in Education, Graduate School of Education
(NB)
Elizabeth Surles, Archivist, Institute of Jazz Studies (Newark)
Arthur B. Powell, Professor, Department of Urban Education (Newark)
Jackie Wakers, Teaching Assistant, Earth and Planetary Science (NB)
Derek J. Demeri, Esq., Akorney/Adjunct, Law School (Camden_
Rachel Barber, Adjunct, Rutgers, Writing Program (Camden)
Sean Silver, Associate Professor, English (NB)
Sakae Kikuchi, Teaching Assistant, English (Camden)
Lynn Festa, Professor, English (NB)
Howie Swerdloff, Secretary, Rutgers Adjunct Union, English Writing Program (NB_
Katie Elson Anderson, Reference and Instruction Librarian, Rutgers University Libraries
(Camden)
Marcy Schwarh, Professor, Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese (NB)
Daniel Sidorick, Lecturer, Labor Studies and Employment Relations (NB)
Kyla Schuller, Associate Professor, WGSS (NB)
David Letwin, Lecturer, Rutgers Arts Online (NB)
Elena Gambino, Assistant Professor, Political Science (NB)
Naima Chowdhury, Assistant Director, Asian American Cultural Center (NB)
Gaiutra Bahadur, Associate Professor of Arts, Culture and Media, Department of Arts, Culture
and Media (Newark)
Alison Lemovih, Associate Professor, Federated History (Newark)
Nuria Sagarra, Professor, Spanish and Portuguese (NB)
Gary Farney, Associate Professor, History/Global Affairs (Newark)
Elin Diamond, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, English (NB)
Andrew Goldstone, Associate Professor, Department of English (NB)
Kornel Chang, Associate Professor, History (Newark)
Sandy Placido. Asst. Professor, History (Newark)
Ileana Nachescu, Assistant Teaching Professor, WGSS (NB)
Kathryn Sabbeth, Professor of Law, Law School (Newark)
Lauren Shallish, Associate Chair, Department of Urban Education (Newark)
Anjali Nerlekar, Associate Professor, AMESALL (NB)
Akissi Brikon, Assistant Professor, Africana Studies (NB)
Keish Kim, Presidential Postdoc, English (Newark)
Travis DuBose, Director, Writing Program (Camden)
Paru Shah, Professor, Political Science (NB)
Sofie Wise, Instructor, English Dept (Camden)
Zeynep Devrim Gürsel, Associate Professor, Anthropology (NB)
Ann E Freedman, Associate Professor of Law, Law School (Camden)
Shaheen Parveen, Assistant Professor (Teaching), AMESALL(NB)
Walton R Johnson, Professor, Africana Studies (NB)
Paul O’Keefe, Assistant Teaching Professor, Geography (NB)
Dámaris M.Otero-Torres , Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese (NB)
Leyla Amzi, Professor, History (Newark)
Dennis C. Prieto, Associate Professor and Reference Librarian, Rutgers Law School
(Newark)
Beth Stephens, Distinguished Professor, Law School (Newark)
James Gray Pope, Distinguished Professor of Law, Emeritus, Law (Newark)

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The post 200 academics criticise Rutgers President for Israel-Hamas Response appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Whether you believe the American rabbi and historian Arthur Hertzberg’s assessment of the Zionist idea as “unprecedented … an essential dialogue between the Jew and the nations of the earth”, rather than a matter between Jews and God, or you believe the assessment of Ass’adRazzouk, researcher and contributor to the PLO Research Center’s 1970 Arabic translation of Hertzberg’s book, that Zionism, at its heart, emerged naturally from Jewish religious sources and is thoroughly influenced and motivated by traditional Jewish religious ideas, both conscious and unconscious, the fact remains that there exists a complex picture of the relationship between Judaism and Zionism.

To Palestinians, the intersection between Judaism and Zionism has always been considered the most dangerous aspect of Israel’s existence as a Jewish state in Palestine today.

The focus today among the international activist community advocating for Palestine is on Zionism’s modern European political and ideological roots, a focus that represents Zionism as no different from any other form of European colonialism, as a settler-colonial movement foreign to the Middle East.

This “narrative”, if you will, has made great inroads in concentrating international attention, especially through the human rights formulations of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. But I believe, by itself, such a theoretical framework for the Palestinian decades-long struggle for justice and liberation is insufficient to effect change, not only because of the ongoing complicity of Western powers in the Nakba, but also because, by itself, this narrative cannot sufficiently move the hearts and minds of Israelis and Jews worldwide.
Only a resurgence of the progressive and developed principles of Reform Judaism, as expressed in a series of rabbinical conferences in German lands in the 1840s and in the U.S. in the second half of the 19th century, will have the necessary ideological power to defeat Zionism.

Upon the partitioning of Palestine and the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state, Herzl’s expectation that rabbis would devote their energies in the service of Zionism came to fruition; Zionism has long gained the great masses of religious Jews around the world and “redirected their love of Zion from its spiritual and longing sense and its traditional supplicatory character” to political Zionism, as Ass’adRazzoukexpressed it in his book al-Dawlawa-l-Din (Religion and the State).

The Reform Judaism movement, a modern historical development of Judaism, arose early in the 19th century, in reaction to changing conditions in Europe that overthrew oppressive medieval laws against Jews. The movement, among whose requirements was the repudiation or disavowal of Jewish nationalist aspirations, aimed to accommodate the beliefs and religious practices of Judaism to the new liberal and enlightened age in Europe and in the U.S.

Reform Judaism addresses both the Zionist idea of the historical inevitability of a Jewish state resulting from antisemitism and other external factors, as well as the messianic idea resulting from religion and religious texts — the book of Exodus and the belief in the advent of the messiah. Reform Judaism disrupts the conception, so useful to Israel, that Zionism is heir to a long uninterrupted Jewish history. It also opens up the door for the universal application of the supposed values of modern (i.e., political) Zionism — namely, individual liberty, national freedom, economic and social justice, i.e., the door for the Palestinian people that Zionism slammed shut against them in their own homeland.

Many Jews (as well as Evangelical Christians) understand Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a wonderful, almost miraculous restoration of Jewish sovereignty over ancient religious sites. To Reform Jews worldwide who had been shaken out of their optimistic, universalist stance after the Holocaust, the war of 1967 also brought Israel close to home to Canadian, American (and other) Jews around the world, through “ethnic pride”.  The Naksa, as Palestinians call the war, fed the “Jewish identity” side of Reform Judaism, destabilizing the balance this reform movement was trying to uphold,at its inception, in the “interplay between universalism and particularism”, an interplay that, to Palestinians, means having one’s cake and eating it too.

Reform Judaism has now reached its 200th anniversary. Can the Reform movement, not Zionism, finally satisfy Jewish religious and identity needs in a way that swings the interplay between the universal and particular in Palestinians’ favor?In ‘History of Reform Judaism and a Look Ahead: In Search of Belonging’, Rabbi Lawrence A. Englander (Canadian) writes:
Two hundred years ago, one’s personal identity was essentially defined through one or two primary groups to which one belonged-usually country and religion. Today, identity is more fractionalized and complex, determined by such factors as country, language, gender, profession, socioeconomic status-and religion. Each of these components make up our identity like pieces of a pie.

The PLO charter declares Judaism as a religion and not “nationalism”, and describes Jews as “citizens of the states to which they belong … not a single people with a separate identity.” These definitions of Judaism and Jews play an important role in the rhetorical battle against Zionism. In the 1964 and 1968 PLO National Charters, the words Muslim or Islam don’t appear.

Palestinian nationalism is universalist in nature, encompassing both Muslims and Christians — as well as indigenized Jews pre-1948. And even though the multiplicity of religions within a single national movement does not abolish concerns or religious communal interests from the national agenda, such concerns can be addressed rationally within the context of one secular and democratic state. The Palestinian will for national liberation is not disconnected from religious impulses. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are explicitly religious and function as a response to the judaization of Jerusalem, in particular.

The Palestinian understanding of Zionism as a movement at the heart of which lies religious, messianic interests and myths (as documented and argued prolifically by the PLO Research Center in Beirut) has long been silenced or attacked in scholarly debate and blurred by contemporary politics as going against the secularist claims of Zionist leaders, but it provides us with an important insight. Ignoring it or refusing to engage in it dismisses a vital context of the Palestinian struggle and forms an insurmountable obstacle to the formation of a secular democratic state in all of Palestine, the only remaining viable solution to Israel’s aggression on the Palestinian people.

Christians who now embrace Zionism (some as a result of funds and gifts received from Zionists) abdicate true Christian values, as do Jews who call for Jewish nationalism on a secular (political) or religious basis and embrace a mythical “birthright” in Palestine.

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/

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This organization, endorsed by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, has been out with a similar campaign last year, with billboards in Arabic featuring Palestinians and Palestinian colors, saying “we are soon the majority”.

They thus show a particular taste, or rather lack of it, for gimmicks which are supposed to catch the Israeli nationalist mind – and it is very important to emphasize that this is not right-wing Zionism, this is the left and center.

The organization, which advocates for unilateral ‘separation’ from the Palestinians, started the recent campaign last week with videos which went under a Youtube channel of “Israel Israeli”, supposedly a private name, meant to mark their ultra-nationalist Zionist leaning. The logo features a likening of a wedding photo, which is being torn in the middle. The series of videos featured half-minute clips (Hebrew) of people who are supposedly speaking about their private lives. This recent one for example (from yesterday), features a man around his 30’s, saying:
 

“I’m trying to remember when we last had it good between us. Trying, trying, trying, and not succeeding. I think about our future and only see black, and I’m tired of it – tired of it! That’s not the life I want. Don’t want mediation, don’t want consulting, there’s no one to talk to! I want freedom, I want to live, and I’m not willing to wait any longer – I want to divorce”.

A slide then appears saying “it’s time to divorce and to separate from millions of Palestinians”, revealing the organization (Commanders for the Security of Israel) and inviting to enter their website.

All the videos basically follow this pattern, with that final sentence “I want to divorce” and the campaign promotion.
 

The vision – Bantustans, with a contractor

In a recent interview with TV host Avri Gilad one of the organization’s leaders, Uzi Arad, former head of the Institute for National Security Studies, laid out the group’s vision and said they hope the campaign is “hitting the awareness” of people. The vision is the notion that the ‘Jewish and democratic’ state is under threat – a demographic threat. The whole discussion is framed against the notion of a possible annexation of Area C of the West Bank, which comprises more than 60% of the area, surrounding some 165 Palestinian enclaves in a Bantustanized archipelago. This area C under full Israeli control is a design of the Oslo Accords of the mid 1990’s. Prominent proponents of its immediate annexation are people such as Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and Education Minister Naftali Bennett (both Jewish Home party), who are to the right of Netanyahu. These areas have contained an estimated 300,000 Palestinians in a UN count of 2014, and it is likely close to 350,000 by today. Shaked says that Israel can afford ‘absorbing’ this population.

In the interview with Gilad, Arad says the annexation of Area C will have disastrous implications. He mentions several issues he thinks are central in relation to this “divorce”, and why annexation would hurt Israel:
1)     The “birth rate” of Palestinians (2:58).
2)     “Ongoing tension”, because “the Palestinian side will “become agitated” by annexation.

Gilad answers the latter by suggesting that maybe, when those Palestinians get Israeli citizenship, they will “calm down”. Arad answers that “then Israel will be less Jewish”.

This is what it all circles around. It’s a central Zionist concern: Maximum territory, but minimum Palestinians – just like ‘centrist-liberal’ lawmaker Yair Lapid says.

Then Gilad presents scare scenarios, in opposing a supposed ‘two-state solution’:
 

“What’s the option? To give them a state in that area, in their areas, and then masses rush in, all kinds of Palestinian refugees and the such, Hamas takes over, rockets on the airport – that’s more-or-less the script, no?”

Against such doomsday theories, which Gilad and Zionists in general are so prone to, Arad seems desperate to provide a comforting message of ‘security’. He thus assures:

“It’s clear that Israel needs to maintain security control of the whole area, such a situation that you hint at here cannot arise”.

Arad is suggesting that due to this “separation”, the Palestinian Authority will “blossom and thrive”. In other words, the Bantustanization will continue, with a contractor.
 

‘Separation between the yolk and white’

“Separation” is now a central word for liberal-Zionists. Recently, centrist opposition leader Tzipi Livni likened the separation between Israelis and Palestinians to “separation between the yolk and white” of an egg, in order to make “a good cake”.

People who are part of the Commanders for Israel’s Security line have been advocating for such “separation” also in order to “save Jewish Jerusalem”. Two years ago, in an appallingly racist, Islamophobic video, the Movement for Saving Jewish Jerusalem suggested a scenario where East Jerusalemite Palestinian residents go to vote en-masse, electing a Palestinian mayor. This is essentially the same scare-mongering as Netanyahu’s “the Arabs are going to vote in droves“ from the eve of the last elections, only it’s uttered by people who generally identify as the ‘peace camp’. The notion of the clip is that the terrorist Arabs will use Israeli democracy as their weapon. The solution is thus to cut off the 28 West Bank Palestinian villages which Israel annexed as part of east Jerusalem (expanding the municipal borders tenfold from 1967), yet maintain all the Jewish settlements in the same areas, in order to better ‘Judaize’ ‘Greater Jerusalem’. The group included Shaul Arieli, one of the lead negotiators of the Geneva Initiative, and Ami Ayalon, the former Shin Bet head and Labor Party MK who launched a two-state peace initiative with Sari Nusseibeh in 2003. Both have been central in the forming of the Commanders for Israel’s Security.

In other words, more or less everything that comes from Zionists, left and right, is always about Apartheid, and it’s always appallingly racist.

The Zionist ‘peace-camp’ cannot catch the attention of those in their fold or further right by means other than vulgarity, in order to “hit their awareness” – that Zionist awareness, that the Arabs are threatening the Jewish State in droves. Zionism doesn’t have a solution to this, because its adherents can’t seem to find in themselves the ability to even conceive a divorce of Zionism. The talks about ‘divorcing Palestinians’ are disingenuous from the outset, because it’s not as if Israel ‘married’ them to begin with. The ‘divorce’ solution is likewise not an actual equal separation where each goes to their own life, but one where Israel continues its colonialist control and subjugation of the ‘divorced’ Palestinians. The inherent racist imbalance is never addressed.
 

The ‘plague’ of mixed-marriage

One might also be under the impression, that the “divorce” campaign is but a euphemism for a purely national, impersonal issue. Yet it echoes a general Zionist isolationist vein that reaches all the way to the private lives of individuals, and this often comes from the left and center of Zionism.

Earlier this year, former left and opposition leader Isaac Herzog warned that intermarriage, especially in USA, is a “plague”. In response to a recent marriage between Jewish and Muslim celebrities Tzahi Halevy and Lucy Aharish, the mentioned ‘centrist-liberal’ Yair Lapid bemoaned merely that condemnations of the marriage (from top Israeli ministers) were not reserved for a week after the wedding; back in 2014, Lapid responded to another supposed “mixed marriage” (supposed, because the woman had converted to Islam an the man was Muslim), by saying:
 

“It would bother me if my son married a non-Jew… It would bother me greatly.”

So there is a very real personal aspect here, one of fundamentalist isolationism, and it’s very Zionist. The ‘peaceniks’ use the personal ‘divorce’ notion as a metaphor, because they know it will “hit the awareness” of Israelis (read=mostly Jewish), since they will imagine it as if they were, God forbid, married to a Palestinian (read=non-Jewish).

In this mindset Palestinians are regarded with intrinsic and institutional disgust by the colonialist state of Israel. And none of these enlightened Zionists really care how this portrays Palestinians, because it’s all for the sake of the sacred ideal of Zionism: “separation”. Because we need to be a nation apart, in “our land” as the national anthem goes.
 

A debate over the speed of expansion

In the end, there is really nothing new here. This is all very Barak-like, that is, when Ehud Barak made a supposedly “generous offer” to Palestinians in 2000, one which basically amounted to Bantustans. The struggles between right and left Zionism have always historically been not about a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but about the speed and rate at which expansionism needs to happen. The essential factor is always Jewish demography, which is existentially important for Zionists, because the coveted and supposed ‘Jewish and Democratic’ nature of the state could only be achieved by means of expulsion and Apartheid in various forms. The ‘peace process’ has also played an integral part in this. As Ben White summarizes in his recent in The Arab Weekly:
 

“Thus, while Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s decade in power has seen the consolidation of a de facto single state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, it was the Oslo Accords and Rabin’s vision of separation which lay the foundations for today’s apartheid status quo”.

While the Commanders for Israel’s Security are warning about the dire consequences of annexing Area C, Israel is engaged in ongoing slow-motion ethnic cleansing of that area. B’tselem, the Israeli human-rights monitoring NGO, has a permanent theme-page with a live blog called “facing expulsion”:
 

“Thousands of people – residents of dozens of Palestinian communities located throughout Area C, the West Bank – face imminent expulsion by Israeli authorities on a variety of pretexts”.

So Israel is actively engaged in “solving the demographic problem”. While the left-center say that annexation is no solution, this is not so as far as the right, as well as Zionist logic as a whole, are concerned. ‘Non-solutions’ of Zionists have also played part in Zionist strategy. In the wake of the 1967 war, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan proposed saying to Palestinians:

“We don’t have a solution, and you will continue living like dogs, and whoever wants will go, and we’ll see how this procedure will work out”.

This is essentially how Israel carries on, shifting Palestinians around, dispossessing them, and creating settlement ‘facts on the ground’ in order to ‘Judaize’ the territories it expands into. This is all Zionism 101. The ‘liberal-Zionist’ concern is always about how fast it should go, and which solutions, or non-solutions, are acceptable at any given time.

That’s why I’ve divorced Zionism. 

Many thanks to Ofer Neiman

Courtesy: https://mondoweiss.net/
 

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The village of Ras Karkar (background) overlooks the Risan mountain (foreground), which was taken over by a family of Israeli settlers in September (Photo: Yumna Patel)

But when the residents of the Ramallah-area village of Kafr Ni’ma woke up, expecting to spend the day decorating their homes and preparing sweets for the visitors they would receive the following morning, they were shocked to find a group of visitors on the outskirts of the town.

“The settlers came in the middle of the night, no one knew. By morning they had paved a road up to the mountain, set up their tents, and had soldiers protecting them,” Zafer Attayah, a resident of Kfar Ni’ma told Mondoweiss.

Attayah pointed to the top of Risan mountain, located just 500 meters northeast of the village. “You can see now they have set up a caravan, and there are some soldiers around them,” he said.

The family of settlers, which Attayah estimates numbers around 10, first showed up on Risan mountain on September 7th. “Every day since then, the soldiers have been present in the area. Day and night they are there,” Attayah said.
 

Armed Israeli forces are now a permanent fixture on the Risan mountain (Yumna Patel)
 

The Risan mountain is nestled between three villages northwest of Ramallah, just a few kilometers from the Green Line — Kafr Ni’ma, Ras Karkar, and Kharbetha Bani Hareth.

“People from all three villages own land on the mountain,” Attayah said, noting that his family is among the landowners.

“After the settlers came, the Israeli occupation authorities told us that they were confiscating the land for the settlers,” he said. “They want to take 1,000 dunums [about 250 acres] of our land.”

Ever since the settlers showed up two months ago, the Palestinians from Risan’s three surrounding villages have been staging weekly Friday protests on the mountain in attempts to stop the confiscation.

“We have to maintain our presence in the area,” Attayah said. “They think they can just come and take the land, but we will not make it easy for them.”
 

A history of resistance

The villagers of Kafr Ni’ma are no strangers to resisting the Israeli occupation. The village sits just four kilometers from the Green Line, the skyline of Israel’s large coastal cities clearly visible beyond the hills of the West Bank.
 

(Map: The Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem)
 

Just a few hundred meters west of the village is Israel’s separation wall. Its 26 foot tall concrete panels weave through the lands of Kfar Ni’ma’s famous neighbor, Bil’in village.

Hundreds of Kafr Ni’ma’s residents participated in Bili’in’s years long nonviolent resistance campaign against the wall. “Many men and youth from our village were imprisoned for their activism in the Bil’in protests,” Attayah told Mondoweiss.

When the Oslo Accords were signed in 1995, 30% of the villages lands were designated as “Area C,” and put under the full civilian and security control of Israel.

Following the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000, Israel established hundreds of military checkpoints and watchtowers across the West Bank. One of those watchtowers was built on a road connecting Kafr Nima with its neighboring village, Ras Karkar.

Israel confiscated 120 dunums of land from the village and its neighbors for the construction of Israeli bypass road No. 463. The villagers protested against that as well.

The confiscation of Risan mountain has ignited a dormant flame in the people of Kafr Ni’ma and its surrounding villages, who are determined to stage peaceful resistance.

“Every Friday, at least 150 to 200 youth and men from all three villages take to the mountain and we perform Friday prayers before we stage the demonstration,” Attayah, who has been participating in the demonstrations since day one, told Mondoweiss.

“These are peaceful, non-violent demonstrations,” Attayah insisted, “there are young boys and old men participating. We are trying to get as much attention from the media and from the popular resistance in Palestine so we can put pressure on the Israelis to stop,” he said.
 

Friday: Prayers & Protest

Palestinian protesters pray underneath an olive grove on Risan mountain (Yumna Patel)
 

On the road to Risan mountain, just minutes before the Friday prayer was scheduled to begin, sounds of rubber bullets firing and sound bombs exploding filled the air.

“Look, they already started to attack the people,” Attayah said as he exited the car, pulling his sweater over his face to shield himself from the overwhelming smell of tear gas.

Dozens of armed Israeli soldiers dotted the mountaintop around the settlers’ caravan, while dozens more descended into the valley firing tear gas at protesters who were attempting to reach the top of the mountain.

Eventually, as protesters receded and soldiers established new positions in the valley below Risan mountain, the Israelis held their fire just long enough for demonstrators to perform prayers under an olive grove.

Within minutes after the conclusion of the prayer, soldiers started firing tear gas again, sending protesters and journalists running in the other direction. Several Palestinians, including at least one child, were treated by medics on the scene.

One of the protesters was the Mayor of Kafr Ni’ma, Khader al-Dik, who spoke to Mondoweiss just moments after he was tear gassed.

“Today, the people tried to reach the area close to the land that they confiscated in order to perform Friday prayers there,” al-Dik said. “But the Israeli forces prevented people from reaching the mountain for the prayer, and attacked the people with tear gas and rubber bullets as you see.”

According to al-Dik, when the protests began, residents were able to perform prayers at the top of the mountain. But he says every week since, the soldiers have been pushing the protesters further and further down, away from the settlers.

“Even with the peaceful protests, the Israeli occupation refuses to keep the peace,” al-Dik said. “They always escalate the situation and respond with violence.”
 

Intimidation tactics

Journalists take cover from tear gas fired by Israeli forces on Risan mountain (Yumna Patel)
 

As part of their efforts to suppress resistance from the Palestinians against the land confiscation on Risan mountain, Israeli forces have been engaging in other intimidation tactics, according to the villagers.

Mariam Attayah, 55, told Mondoweiss that in the weeks since the demonstrations began, Israeli forces have escalated their nightly raids on the village.

“They come into the village every two or three days, to intimidate and arrest people who are involved in the protests,” she said, adding that at least seven young men have been arrested from Kafr Ni’ma since September.

“One of them was 12 years old, and they made his family pay a 3,000 shekel bail,” she said, adding that the boy spent 15 days in detention.

“The Israelis have always raided and arrested people from Kafr Ni’ma, as they do all across Palestine,” Attayah, who goes by ‘Umm Hassan’, said. “But things have gotten worse over the past two months.”

“Sometimes they raid the village just to go ransack people’s homes and break things and scare people,” she said.

When asked if she believed the raids were meant to scare villagers into not protesting against the confiscation of Risan mountain, Umm Hasan responded with an emphatic “Of course.”
 

Mariam ‘Umm Hasan’ Attayah says she is deeply saddened by the confiscation of Risan mountain, where her family owns tens of dunums of land (Yumna Patel)
 

“This is obvious,” she said. “We have been working to defend the mountain, so the soldiers come here and attack all the people as part of what they say is their protection of the settlers.”

“They think they can just come here and claim this land as their own, but we are telling them ‘no’,” she continued.

‘No one can stop us’

Despite the fact that the mountain is in Area C, Umm Hasan said that up until September, villagers would go tend to their land on the mountain, and take their families to enjoy the weather in the spring and summer.

But since the settlers arrived, Israeli forces have prevented any of the villagers from reaching their lands on the mountain, including Umm Hasan’s family.

“This land has been in our families for generations,” said Umm Hasan, whose family owns tens of dunums of land on Risan mountain. “It should be our right to go to this land whenever we want. Who are they to tell us no?”

“We feel sadness, we feel it deep inside. We are trying everything we can to protect our land, but this is very difficult on us,” she said.

“The settlers do not keep anything for us Palestinians to use. They took every mountain, every street. There is not a single hill in Palestine that the settlers have not put their hands on,” she continued.

In the face of it all, Umm Hasan said she is determined to continued supporting the popular resistance in the villages, and to return the land to her family and all the other Palestinians in the area.

“No one can stop us from going to our land,” she said. “We will go there day and night, we will sleep there if we have to. But no matter what they say or do, we will never give it up.”

Courtesy: https://mondoweiss.net/

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The final fig leaf has just dropped revealing the true nature of the American ‘honest broker’ for the so-called Deal Of The Century. Biased, aggressive, untrustworthy and sitting solidly and without compromise in the Israeli corner.

Thank you, Mr Trump
Thank you, Mr Mike Pompeo
Thank you, Mr John Bolton
Thank you, Ms Nikki Haley
Thank you, Mr David Friedman
Thank you, Mr Nathan Greenblatt
Thank you, Mr Jared Kushner

Why all this largesse on my part towards the declared enemy of the Palestinian people? Because yesterday, my friends and compatriots, the Trump administration performed the cruelest act of strong arm tactics against the Palestinian people by closing the offices of their ‘sole representative’, the Palestine Liberation Organisation in Washington. The reason given for this bullying tactic was that the PLO “has not taken steps to advance the start of direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel.”

Really, Mr Trump?

Please tell us what the Palestinian Authority has been doing since the Oslo Accords almost twenty five years ago that were agreed by the then leader of the PLO, Yasser Arafat and signed by his successor, Mahmoud Abbas?

And please, also tell us what twenty five years of compromises by the PLO/PA have given us, the Palestinian people.

As if that wasn’t enough, Mr John Bolton, the chief of Homeland Security confirmed on Monday that the Trump administration had closed the Palestine Liberation Organisation’’s office as “punishment” for calling on Israel to be investigated by the International Criminal Court and threatened the ICC with sanctions and annihilation.

“We will not cooperate with the ICC”, he said. “ We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us”.

Why such venom?

Because the ICC is moving towards prosecuting the USA and Israel for war crimes committed against the people of Afghanistan and Palestine respectively.

Mr Sa’eb Erekat, Secretary General of the PLO, responded to this move by stating, “This is another affirmation of the Trump administration’s policy to collectively punish the Palestinian people.”

While Mrs. Hanan Ashrawi, member of the Executive Council of the PLO, was a little more forthcoming. She described the US government as “extremely cruel and spiteful to persist in deliberately bashing the Palestinian people by denying them of their rights, giving away their lands and rightful capital of Jerusalem”.

“This form of crude and vicious blackmail … once again seeks to punish the Palestinian people as a whole who are already victims of the ruthless Israeli military occupation.”

This, my friends and compatriots, came after the Trump administration recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and relocated the USA embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Also, it came after the United States of America had withdrawn any financial support for the PA and even more importantly, cut off any and all financial support for UNRWA, further limiting the diet that Israel has enforced on Gaza and other Palestinian refugees for the last eleven years. As if to make the murky waters of American foreign policy totally muddy these announcements came on the tail of a recent visit by Palestinian Security Chief, Majed Faraj and his team to Washington and a meeting with officials, including a face to face between Mr Faraj and Mr Mike Pompeo, ex CIA chief and now Secretary of State.

To the PLO Executive Command, I’m sorry but, as far as America is concerned, you don’t matter. Nothing you say or do will make any difference. The message is loud and clear. Israel is our ally. Israel matters to us and to our national security and interests in the area and you do as you’re told. Or else.

If those people purportedly acting on our behalf need any further explanations as to why they do not matter at all just listen to the words of Mr Netanyahu.

“The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive.”

There you have it in big, bold letters. If the people at the helm of the PLO/PA think that they have an authority think again. If they think that they will ever have a semblance of a contiguous future state on Palestinian soil think again. If they think that diplomacy will get them anywhere think again. The USA has just closed all avenues and Israel continues to flex its muscles.

To the people at the helm at both Ramallah and Gaza, I say this.. the meek shall not inherit the earth.

What next?

Are you going to crumble?

Are you going to be erased from history?

Or are you going to unite and resist?

Jafar M Ramini is a Palestinian writer and political analyst, based in London, presently in Perth, Western Australia. He was born in Jenin in 1943 and was five years old when he and his family had to flee the terror of the Urgun and Stern gangs. Justice for the people of Palestine is a life-long commitment.

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/

The post Stripped and Exposed: At last the naked Truth appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A Palestinian girl waves the Palestinian flag along the Israel-Gaza border, in Gaza City, 27 April 2018. Picture by: Wissam Nassar/DPA/PA Images. all rights reserved.

Seventy years ago, more than 170,000 Palestinian from historic Palestine were forced to leave their homes, villages, cities and lands, as refugees to the Gaza Strip. They were part of the 710,000 Palestinians who were forced to leave, seeking refuge in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and elsewhere. 

The images of elderly people and kids fleeing the killings of the Zionists gangs and militias in 1948, still occupy the vivid memories of Palestinians as well as comprising the visual identity of the Nakba (Catastrophe). Today, after seven decades, the grandsons and granddaughtersof those refugees are making their way back to their villages. They have never seen their villages, homes or land, but they kept the memories of their grandparents, linking their identity to their villages, vowing to return to their homes, relying on the international recognition of their right to return, and the moral responsibilities of their right. 

The Great Return March is not solely a protest against the ongoing siege of Gaza

The Great Return March (GRM) is not solely a protest against the ongoing siege of Gaza, and the increasingly severe humanitarian crisis, but rather it is a protest against the Nakba, that has been ongoing since 1948. The young generation of Palestinians know that the current humanitarian crisis and the disintegration on the Palestinian system is a result of the Nakba, as well as thedehumanization and the apartheid that is institutionalized against the indigenous people of Palestine. Therefore, any discussion on the GRM should consider the protests as an action and a reaction. Action against the ongoing imprisonment of 1.8 million Palestinians in the Gaza strip for more than ten years, and a reaction to the apathy of the international community. 

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, forty Palestinian civilians were killed and 5511 were wounded since March 30. Two journalists were assassinated deliberately by the Israeli forces, despite each bearing a clear sign that they are journalists. In addition to this, hundreds of the wounded were children and minors. Each of the forty people who scarified themselves had a story to tell, and a mission to accomplish. They were humans, who loved, and were beloved bytheir families, friends and relatives. 

One of those killed was Mohammed Ayoub, 15 years old from Jabbaliya, who was shot in the head in front of cameras, without threatening or causing any harm to the Israeli Army. In his photos there is one where he drew aheartbetween his initials and those of another person. He did not think that he would be a target ofan Israeli sniper who might have even cheered after shooting a civilian, as one video showed soldiers cheering as they were shooting at civilians. Mohamed died and left a story to remember. 

Another person killed was the beloved journalist, Yasser Mourtaja, who was well- known in Gaza for his kindness tochildren and his professionalism as a photojournalist. Weeks before he was killed by the Israeli snipers despite wearing a vest marked by “PRESS”, he was awarded a USAID fund for his media organisation.

A third person lost was the artist Mohamed Abu Amro, who was shot in the head while participating in a nonviolent protest on the eastern borders of Gaza. 

19 year old Abdulfatah Abdulnabi was running away from the fence between the besieged Gaza Strip and Israel, when an Israeli sniper shot him dead. 

A video published by the Israeli media shows how the Israeli soldiers and army view the Palestinians. The video shows an Israeli Armyofficer asking one soldier to “shoot the guy in blue”, but the soldier tells him that he will take the one in red. This interaction shows how the Palestinians have been dehumanized by the Israelis, with the removal of their names, history, families, and humanity. The video illustrates the approach of the Israeli Army which sees millions of Palestinians as objects rather thanhumans. It is evidence that the conflict is not only about freedom, but also aboutlife. 

This killing doctrine and the dehumanisation of the Palestinians can be seen clearly in the words of Israeli defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who said after nine Palestinians were killed that there were “no Innocent people in Gaza”. 

The population of the Gaza Strip that has been under intense siege since January 2006 and has been suffering enormously. Since the early 1990s, Israel imposed movement restrictions on the Gaza Strip, where 1.8 million people live, making itone of the biggest open air prisons in the world. 

It is 2018, and the Gaza Strip is already uninhabitable
In 2015, a UN report warned that, under the current conditions, the Gaza Strip will be “uninhabitable” by 2020. However, it is 2018, and the Gaza Strip is already uninhabitable. 

The ongoing Israeli blockage, and the sanctions imposed by the Palestinian authority against the Gaza Strip, was the result of failed reconciliation efforts with Hamas. Since then the economy and life in Gaza has been crippled, with suffering growing rapidly. In 2015, the GDP in the Gaza Strip was 971 USD, while it was 5754 USD for the same period in the West Bank. 

Comparatively in Israel it is at 44,019 USD. The unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip and West Bank reached 26.9% in 2016, with Gaza hardest hit at 41.7% unemployment compared to 18.2% in the West Bank. Yet, the real numbers of youth unemployment in Gaza have reached more than 75%. This shows the inequality that the Palestinians suffer compared to Israel, and also how the Gaza Strip is suffering from huge inequality compared to the West Bank. 

The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are walking through a dark tunnel, with no end in sight. They are stuck between the hammer of the Israeli apartheid and the anvil of Palestinian political parties. This reality pushes them to take the lead and organize nonviolent protests, shifting attention to the real cause of the problem, which started in 1948. 

The youth of the Gaza Strip are rising up in the face of Israeli colonialism, and the status-quo, as well as an act of rejection ofthe political parties in the Gaza strip, including Hamas and Fatah. The youth in Gaza struggle for their dignity, and prefer to fight for life and die in dignity, rather than die slowly from the blockade.

Abdalhadi Alijla is a Palestinian-Swedish academic and researcher. He is  the executive director of the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies Canada (IMESC). He serves as the regional manager for Gulf countries at Varieties of Democracy Institute, Gothenburg University, Sweden. He has a PhD in Political Studies from Milano University, and MA in Public Policy from Zeppelin University.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/
 

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Moving those yards closer left four Palestinians killed and 152 others injured by Israeli soldiers firing live ammunition from across the border, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported.
 

April 20, 2018 Gaza protest. Photo by Mohammed Asad
 

Breaking the barriers of fear, the protesters hurled tear gas canisters back at the soldiers, buried them or even dumped them in buckets filled with water.

In the past three weeks, 37 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds wounded by troops firing from across the border fence.
 

April 20, 2018 Gaza protest. Photo by Mohammed Asad
 

Ra’fat Jendiyeh said he was the “only loser” of this week’s protest. Ra’fat, a 41-year-old farmer, owns 25-dunums (about six acres) near the fence, planted with okra, wheat and eggplant. He says his fields have been turned into a “daytime club and open-air restaurant.” His family had 35 dunums on the other side of the Israeli border too.
 

Ra’fat Jendiyeh at Gaza protests, April 20, 2018. Photo by Mohammed Asad.
 

“It is impossible to find someone walking between these fields before last March, except masked resistance fighters or farmers with faces well-known to the soldiers,” he told Mondoweiss.
 

April 20, 2018 Gaza protest. Photo by Mohammed Asad
 

“These masses are no longer afraid of anything,” he said. Thousands of casualties, dozens of dead and grisly scenes of wounds on television have not stopped them from joining the march. “So I cannot prevent dozens from running back and crushing the seedlings,” he said. “But it does not matter if they are relieved of their anger.”
 

April 20, 2018 Gaza protest. Photo by Mohammed Asad
 

In one protest camp, organizers placed four life-sized effigies of Israeli soldiers behind iron bars facing the fence. Hamas is believed to hold the remains of two soldiers from the 2014 war between Israel and Gaza.
 

April 20, 2018 Gaza protest. Images of Israeli soldiers. Photo by Mohammed Asad
 

Ismail Haniyeh, the chief of Hamas’s Political Bureau, said in a televised speech to mark Palestinian Prisoners’ Day on Tuesday, that his movement is ready for a prisoner swap with Israel through third-party mediation.
 

April 20, 2018 Gaza protest. Life size effigies of Israeli soldiers behind bars. Photo by Mohammed Asad
 

In today’s protests, a large number of women were also seen. Nour Habib, 17, and her mother, Nihad, 35, and her sisters were urging each other to move close to the border “to see the green fields behind the soldiers”.

Women are less likely to be shot at the weekly rally, it is widely understood.
 

April 20, 2018 Gaza protest. Nour Habib and her mother. Photo by Mohammed Asad
 

I asked Nihad Habib if her daughters and she are afraid to be in this precarious area. As she prepared Thai-style fried chicken for lunch, she replied, “I am originally from the Bayt Jirja village (15.5 km northeast of Gaza) and nothing frightens you as long as you… want to go back to your original land”.
Nour, who is preparing for high school exams next month, says she comes here weekly for a walk and to refresh her mind. “I do not think we’ll go this summer to the sewage polluted beach. Here I can breathe fresh oxygen.”
 

April 20, 2018 Gaza protest. Photo by Mohammed Asad
 

“We live in a male-dominated society,” she went on, and girls’ participation in the protests can make for a strange scene. But she said men were more accepting and encouraging the idea to be here, “especially since we came with my uncle, who did not like the idea at first, but he agreed and we got his car.”

Nour said she did not like the 300 meters “only” move of tents. “It should be moved at zero distance next Friday,” she said. Palestinians have no fear because they face a country that was built on their displacement. “They think the young will forget but we will not.”
 

April 20, 2018 Gaza protest. Nihad Habib fleeing tear gas. Photo by Mohammed Asad
 

Then Nour and her family fled due to a tear gas attack during the interview. So, being a female protester wasn’t a guarantee for protection after all.

The participation in the weekly rallies seems to have impressed even the children, some of whom feel lucky to have the demonstration to go to on Friday on their school weekend.
 

April 20, 2018 Gaza protest. Photo by Mohammed Asad
 

I met Basma Abu Hashish (9 years old) who was with her family eating lemon flavored ice.
 

April 20, 2018 Gaza protest. Basma abu Hashish, 9, and her family. Photo by Mohammed Asad
 

“Nothing is scary here,” she said.

“We brought mineral water to rinse our eyes if we have been attacked by gas,” she said. “At least my father will tell us stories about what he did when he was our age and what my granddad was catching in the Jaffa’s sea.”
 

April 20, 2018 Gaza protest. Photo by Mohammed Asad

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Protest March against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s India visit was organised in Delhi by the Left Parties. The March took place in the larger context of atrocities committed by Israeli government in Palestine and illegal occupation.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

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