People of Faith CT

by Mazin Qumsiyeh
14 January 2012

http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2012/01/20-puntipoints.html

Palestine is the Western part of the Fertile Crescent: an area that includes Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. In this Fertile Crescent the first human agriculture developed.  Here the first domestication of animals (e.g. goats, donkeys, camels) and plants (e.g. wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils, olives) happened.

2- This is also where civilization began including development of the first alphabet (by Phoenician Canaanites) and the first laws.  It was where we first developed sciences like astronomy, engineering, and mathematics

3- The original inhabitants of the Western part of the Fertile Crescent were called Canaanites and the original language was called Aramaic which Jesus spoke (he was born in the country called then Palestine and thus he was Palestinian)

4- The old Aramaic language gave rise to derived languages including Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew and this language group is called Semetic languages

5- Arabic alphabet evolved in Southern Canaan (today’s Jordan and Palestine) while the Latin alphabet evolved in Northern Canaan (Phoenicia, present day Lebanon and Syria).  The Alphabet used in Europe today came from our part of the world.

6- The people of Southern Canaan including Palestine endured many invasions of armies with nearly 15 times that local people were ruled by kings or emperors (Persian, Roman, Umayyad, Abbasid, Israelite etc).

7- Local religious ideas evolved over the ages from Cananitic Pagan ideas to monotheistic ideas to Christianity (first century), Rabbinical Judaism (3rd century), Islam (7th Century).,

8- Palestine was always multi-cultural, multi-religious society despite attempts to homogenize it in certain periods (e.g. the Crusaders killed and exiled Jews, Muslims, and Christians of other sects).

9- Jews of today, like Christians and Muslims of today come from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds.  They are thus genetically (biologically) heterogeneous.

10- Before the wave of European Jewish immigration, Palestinians were of various religions: about 85% Muslim, 10% Christian, 5% Jewish and others. For hundreds of years Palestinians of various religions lived in relative harmony.

11- Zionism is a political idea that spread among a minority of European Jews who adapted to the European notions of ethnocentric nationalism and thus claims Jews of today should gather in Palestine and create a Jewish state because of discrimination in Europe.  Socialist Jews and other Jews believed in fighting for equal rights.  Zionists thought that anti-Jewish feelings in Europe serves their interests and thus even collaborated with racists.  There was a transfer agreement between the third Reich and the Zionist movement. Zionists also lobbied Western governments not to take in European Jewish refugees so that they all go to Palestine.

Phoebe Greenwood, Bethlehem
December 22, 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/22/jesus-the-year-bethlehem-closed

If Joseph and Mary were making their way to Bethlehem today, the Christmas story would be a little different, says Father Ibrahim Shomali, a parish priest in the town. The couple would struggle to get into the city, let alone find a hotel room.

"If Jesus were to come this year, Bethlehem would be closed," says the priest of Bethlehem's Beit Jala parish. "He would either have to be born at a checkpoint or at the separation wall. Mary and Joseph would have needed Israeli permission – or to have been tourists.

"This really is the big problem for Palestinians in Bethlehem: what will happen when they close us off completely?"
Bethlehem is the heart of Christian Palestine and it swells with pride every Christmas. Manger Square is transformed into a grotto of lights and stalls crowned by a towering Christmas tree. Strings of illuminated angels, stars and bells festoon the streets. But just a few minutes' drive to the north, the festive atmosphere stops abruptly.

A strip of Israeli settlements built on 18 sq km of what was once northern Bethlehem threatens to cut the city off from its historic twin, Jerusalem. To the Israeli authorities, these have been neighbourhoods of Jerusalem since 1967. One of the settlements, Har Homa, is built on land where angels are said to have announced the birth of Christ to local shepherds. A narrow corridor of land between Har Homa and another settlement, Gilo, still connects Bethlehem to Jerusalem but the construction of Givat Hamatos, a new settlement announced in October, will fill this in a matter of years.

The European Union and United Nations routinely denounce Israel's unilateral settlement expansion but in October, EU high commissioner Baroness Catherine Ashton warned the construction of Givat Hamatos was "of particular concern as [it] would cut the geographic contiguity between Jerusalem and Bethlehem".
European concern is not slowing Israel's progress. Last week, 500 new units were approved for Har Homa and a further 348 in Betar Illit, on Bethlehem's western boundary. Earlier this month, an additional 267 units were sanctioned for settlements running up to the edge of the city's southern suburbs, where the Ministry of Defence also gave settlers permission to start a farm on Palestinian land. This is in addition to the 6,782 new apartments already slated for Har Homa, Gilo and Givat Hamatos.

In the short term, the closure won't make a big difference to everyday life in Bethlehem: the separation wall already prevents Palestinians from entering Jerusalem from the town without an Israeli permit.

But this ring of settlements will permanently change the geography of the biblical landscape: if a peace agreement razes the separation wall, the two cities will remain divided.

Israeli activist Hargit Ofram, director of Peace Now, reads a clear political intention in Israel's plans: "These efforts are being made to prevent a possible two-state solution because in order for that to work, you would need a viable Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem.
"If that capital is going to be surrounded by settlements, Israel would have to remove them. The more Israel is building, the higher the price of a Palestinian state is becoming."

On the day Christians commemorate the slaughter of innocent children by King Herod who attempted to kill the baby Jesus, we also commemorate the Israeli slaughter of innocent Gazans on this date in 2008:

Two years ago today Israel launched a horrific attack, codenamed "Operation Cast Lead," against the 1.5 million besieged people of the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

In an all-out, 22-day assault that shocked the conscience of millions around the globe, Israel killed approximately 1,400 Palestinians, most of whom were civilians [1].

Although a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has largely held since then, Israel continues to collectively punish Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip through an illegal siege.

Its leaders have not been held to account for what the Goldstone Report [2] documented to be violations of human rights and international law, war crimes, and possible crimes against humanity.

Join the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation's Call upon the Obama Administration to:

1. Demand that Israel end its illegal siege of the Gaza Strip, and

2. Stop blocking the international community from holding Israel accountable for its actions.

Three weeks ago, on Human Rights Day, the State Department told us that there is a "single universal standard that applies to every country, including our own. We apply it to Israelis," and that it views "Palestinians as being human beings under the Universal Declaration [of Human Rights] and entitled to these rights" (our camera recorded these remarks).

We need to hold the Obama Administration accountable because its policies don't match its rhetoric.  State Department spokesperson Robert Wood infamously refused to answer whether the United States considered pasta--an item denied to Palestinians under Israel's illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip--a "dual-use item."

The United States, as revealed in a State Department cable [3] posted by Wikileaks, has also been colluding with Israel to deflect further damage to Israel's image from the Goldstone Report, rather than hold it to the "single universal standard that applies to every country."

Help us end the Obama Administration's hypocrisy on human rights and on its policies toward Israel and the besieged Palestinian Gaza Strip by signing our petition right now:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/641/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5424

by Mazin Qumsiyeh

Those who still had any illusions that peace is possible with a racist Zionist ideology should just look at reality.  Benjamin Netanyahu’s “speech” recently illustrates the litany of lies, distortions, and demands made that can only remind one of speeches by European colonial generals who gave similar speeches after committing massacres and genocides in Africa and Asia.  It shows that there is no Israeli left or right since their differences are merely cosmetic (both now agree to solve the problem of having too many Palestinians remaining on the coveted land by creating a castrated entity for them called a “state” while denying us all basic rights.

Netanyahu says he does not want to rule over Palestinians but merely wants to keep our stolen lands and want to control their airspace, water, entry and exit and otherwise relegate us to Bantustans in order to achieve the illusory security for him and the other colonizers/occupiers.  To him this is all the “Land of Israel” and yet he recognizes there are some people who remain “here” and who while having no right to their own lands, can be tolerated as long as a) they accept that the ethnic cleansing in which 530 Palestinian villages and towns were completely depopulated was legitimate (i.e. that is what is meant by accepting Israel as “a Jewish state”), that Palestinian rejection of colonization and occupation was an abnormal phenomenon and illegitimate (that is what he means by accepting no right of self-defense for the native people), and that any Palestinians allowed to continue to live in the “land of Israel” would do so as servants and subservient to the Jewish chosen people (economic peace, no Palestinian self defense or any semblance of sovereignty).

Netanyahu avoided all the vocabulary that would indicate any semblance of possibility of peace: Palestinian sovereignty/freedom, ending the occupation, complying with International law, obeying UN resolutions, respecting Palestinian rights (including rights of refugees), ending colonial settler activities, ending home demolitions, giving freedom of movement etc. Instead he cited irrelevancies (like the peace treaty with Egypt and Jordan (forgetting to mention that there is a dramatic difference since Israel sits on top of Palestine) and (like Obama) forgot to recognize that Palestinians are the ones who need security after 61 years of massacres and ethnic cleansing.

I am a Christian and I teach at a Catholic University in the occupied West Bank but I doubt the Pope will hear views of people like me. His trip is scripted by the Israeli foreign ministry, itself under a direction of a Russian racist who lives in an illegal colonial settlement on the land of the Bethlehem District, the birthplace of Jesus.  We do not know if he will ask Israel privately to end the occupation but it is likely his visit is dominated by the usual politics of history (and Jewish-Catholic issues).  We do know that the Pope’s visit is looked at as a big PR success for Israel as it legitimizes the state of apartheid and the mistaken notion that Zionists represent “the Jewish people”.  As the Pope stands next to war criminals like Shimon Peres and Binyamin Netanyahu, he utters words of contrition and friendliness to “the Jewish people”.  Jesus would not stand next to the murderous Herod and utter such words.  Jesus would be with the poor (in this case the people of Gaza would be a perfect target group, like the lepers of his time).  The Pope at least should meet with more decent Jews like Ezra Nawi, a peace activist who stood up to the demolition of poor Palestinian homes near illegal colonial settlements and was arrested by occupation soldiers who were laughing about the demolition of homes (Must see video at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/06/israel-human-rights-... Help to free him is needed.).  Or he could meet with the Israeli artists who declared in 2002: "If the state of Israel aspires to perceive itself as a democracy, it should abandon once and for all, any legal and ideological foundation of religious, ethnic, and demographic discrimination.  The state of Israel should strive to become the state of all its citizens.  We call for the annulment of all laws that make Israel an apartheid state, including the Jewish law of return in its present form"

By Stanley Heller
New Haven Register
Thursday, March 26, 2009

HERE’S a riddle. When is an American not an American? Answer: When he or she opposes crimes committed by Israel.

Tristan Anderson of Oakland, Calif., stood in a Palestinian village, Ni’lin, taking photographs March 13. He was shot in the head by a special high-velocity tear gas grenade and is grievously injured.

He wasn’t hurt by an Arab "terrorist." He was shot by someone in the Israeli army, which the United Nations says is illegally occupying the West Bank of Palestine.

by Stanley Hellar
Chair, Middle East Crisis Committee
Yale Daily News, Letter
January 27, 2009

I agree with Yale Friends of Israel President Benjamin Alter '11 that police were outrageous in demanding that his group pay $1,500 to have eight officers on hand with bomb-sniffing dogs for security at a speech by an Israeli general (“Vigil for victims causes a stir,” Jan. 16). Our group, the Middle East Crisis Committee, has for 26 years peacefully protested appearances by human rights abusers at Yale and many other places in the state. Why would one need bomb sniffing dogs? Is it because Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims would be involved in the protest and they should automatically suspected of homicide?

by Sadanand Nanjundiah
New Britain Herald
January 26, 2009

It is a shame that Daniel Kline ("Never apologize for defending yourself," The Herald, Jan. 17) finds nothing wrong with Israel’s three-week assault on the beleaguered, beseiged Palestinians of Gaza. Even worse, he calls any criticism of Israel’s barbaric spree of killing and destruction of over 1,300 Palestinians "anti-Semitic". This is a standard ploy of the powerful Israel lobby to squelch debate on the Israel-Palestinian conflict that reflects unfavorably on their patron.