She talks, she walks...

ok so she doesn't quite talk (more like squeaks). Or walk. but it was a catchy blog entry title, no?

I did snap these pics of her attempting to crawl-she's really anxious to get moving and exploring! So much to see and do, why limit yourself to a play gym?

Nakba at 60 and my blogger suspension

I just want to start by saying that the reason for my absence of the past few days (besides the obvious preoccupation of motherhood!) is that Blogger suspended my blog and I had to request a review to get it unlocked! I received an email telling me that "Your blog, at http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/, has been identified as a potential spam blog" and that though this was likely an error I had to request a review. Eventually, it was unlocked.

However I was curious and obviously upset, and upon further investigation, I found that several Palestinian and Pro-Palestinian blogs have suffered a similar fate-they blogs being targeted as "potential spam blogs". Some took months to get unlocked.

According to Haitham Sabbah, "Zionists are sending claims about pro-Palestine blogs and signaling them as spam blogs so that Google closes them. Some of these blogs got reviewed and cleared in few days, other stayed blocked for few months. there is no guarantee that Google will review the blog within certain period."

Cyber-terrorism, perhaps, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Nakba? If so, shame on Google, shame on blogger.

In other news, my parents remain in Egypt. They are making their way tonight to the border to attempt to get in on the single day of 3 days (the first in almost a year) that the Crossing will be open for passage into Gaza.

Meanwhile, with Gaza's only power plant forced to shut down for lack of fuel, Gaza is suffering blackouts once again. The dead are being carried to morgues and cemeteries on donkey carts now. Cars are no longer in use. Light--and hope--are being shut out of people's lives. A bag of flour is now 160 shekels, with many bakeries threatening to shut down. Meats have doubled in price. Fida tells me in Rafah, people are seen going door to door begging for morsels of food.

I hope to post a more personal reflection on the Nakba in the coming days.

Waiting for the rainfall

I have a small garden behind the townhouse I rent. Nothing terribly impressive. In fact the soil is so acidic that it is inhospitable to most plants. Its mainly red clay, not unlike Gaza. Good for cucumbers and the like. But mainly, just mint grows in my garden. Lots and lots of mint, interspersed with some thyme.

And a small Loquat tree.

Last year, my sister in law's Syrian father gave me the Loquat sapling from a larger tree that he smuggled in from Syria more than twenty years ago as a seedling and transplanted in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Now, two decades on, I transplanted it in this small, acidic mint garden of mine.

The insects ate of the leaves what the tired soil did not. But it is spring, and somehow , new life has been breathed into it. new leaves are coming out. It has survived.

But today, as North Carolina faces a continued drought, I contemplated for a moment whether I should even be watering this sad little garden of mine. Or the brave little Loquat tree.

My mind travels. In Gaza, due to the Israeli imposed power shortages, nearly 20% of Palestinians there receive water sparingly, for only 3 to 5 hours every four days.

The fuel shortages have cut the energy supply by 31%, and have caused the suspension of garbage collection in Gaza City for the past two weeks.

And last week, 21 more dead. Five children, a farmer, a young cameraman, hit by a Flechette shells ...but who cares.

I decide not to water my the mint; or the Loquat. They can make do with the occasional rainfall.

Last week my parents left to Egypt to try and return to Gaza. They were stuck here for 9 months. They grew tired. So they figured they'd change pace, and grow tired somewhere else; And wait; and wait some more, for the border to open, So they can return home;as if borders open on their own.

And if after a month of waiting, or maybe two, there is no hope in waiting, they will return here to wait again.

And contemplate the ethical dilemmas of watering a mint garden during a drought.

Meeting Khaled Meshal

Well, not me, though I did translate a 13 page interview with him for UK Channel 4's in December. But it seems former President Carter is.

"I think someone should be meeting with Hamas..." Carter said on ABC this week.

"If Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, Hamas will have to be included in the process."

At least someone is willing to acknowledge that there is no ignoring them anymore if a meaningful and sustainable resolution is to be reached.

In their most recent report, the International Crisis Group found that "The policy of isolating Hamas and Gaza is bankrupt" and has in fact backfired.

Now I just wonder if Carter is going on his own accord or whether he was sent indirectly by his government as a "feeler" of sorts...

A Noor milestone!

ok, I'm pathetic, but I just had to post about this: Noor rolled over by herself today!! I'm so proud of my little girl, she's growing up at 3 months! Next thing I know she'll be off to college!! aah!

In the Big Easy

I'm in New Orleans with Noor this weekend to present Tunnel Trade at the New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival.

Several other Palestinian films being screened include Bilin my Love, Driving to Zigzigland, Digital Resistance, and the Truth from Palestine.

I am staying with a Lebanese family who live in-yes its true-the West Bank (suburban New Orleans west of the Mississippi).




Hana is an oncologist and Mustapha is a Pediatrician. They have three children-aged 13, 14, and 17. They graduated from AUB and came to specialize in the US in the late '80s. Hana's house in Beirut was just overlooking the camps of Sabra and Shatila, where she says she used to volunteer. "I remember carrying corpses of mutilated children-of children... in my arms."

She says she remembers seeing [Mahmoud] Abbas, corrupt even then, driving into the camps in his black Mercedes to meet with Fatah's Force 17, pushing his way through the crowds.

"Now, when I hear talk about 'negotiations' and about Abbas doing this or that, I am nauseated. I am really nauseated in every sense of the word. What have they turned into? They are basically policing for the Israelis."

Noor takes Istanbul!

We've just returned from back to back transatlantic trips so taking me some time to update the blog (I'm in the process of a major overhaul-perhaps even moving to a website. Gazamom.com?)

Istanbul was fascinating, especially to see how its changed over the past ten years (last time I was there was '96). Namely, just how insanely-disproportionately almost-expensive its gotten. I'm still not sure how to figure it- but Turkish apricots are actually cheaper in the US than they are in Turkey.

We got a glimpse of a pro-Kurd demonstration in front of our hotel (protesters were subsequently tear-gassed).

The exhibit was also a success and garnered much attention from the local media. Some pictures on the curator's flickr account here.

But without doubt, the highlight of the trip was Noor! I always knew the Turkish people were warm and affectionate, but I no idea just HOW MUCH they loved children!! There wasn't a passerby, receptionist, waitress, coffee drinker, or couple who didn't stop to coo at her. Before we knew it, she was being whisked out of our hands by total strangers- and I can't even tell you how many cell phones' her picture is on now! Incidentally, the shot of the women with headscarves was taken about two weeks after the headscarf ban reversal in Turkish universities. Theirs was one of hte only ones to implement the reversal-most are challenging the decisions in courts.

I also had the chance to meet up with some readers from my blog (Aicha Qandisha and Zeynap Alp) who treated me like a long-lost sister!

Here are some highlights:

"Unrecorded" in Istanbul

I'm in Istanbul this week to present the You Are Not Here urban tourism mashup project that I narrated and helped present last year in Rotterdam, this time at a gallery in Istanbul. The exhibition is called "Unrecorded".

Noor has come along for the ride, Yousuf (much to his dismay) has been left behind this time.

I'm writing to see if any readers of my blog happen to be in Istanbul (I seem to remember at least one) and wouldn't mind meeting up, maybe giving me the local scoop. I'm at a bit of a loss seeing as how I speak no Turkish (maybe besides the words that happen to overlap in Arabic...tamam, kofte, meydan, etc).

My mother is traveling with me. We continue to keep abreast of the situation back home. Last time we spoke with my cousin Sunday morning, usually the optimistic and cheerful type, all was not well. "Our lives are difficult; so very difficult. We are living in dark and desperate times" he said solemnly. He said a building next to his was leveled-with all the occupants still inside of it- with no advance warning. And that because cement has run out, bodies are being buried with no gravestones to mark them.

The Gaza Genocide

We celebrated Yousuf's fourth birthday today. We ate cake. And we counted the bodies. We sang happy birthday. And my mother sobbed. We watched the fighter jets roar voraciously on our television screen, pounding street after street; then heard a train screech outside, and shuddered. Yousuf tore open his presents, and asked my mother to make a paper zanana, a drone, for him with origami; And we were torn open from the inside, engulfed by a feeling of impotence and helplessness; fear and anger and grief; despondence and confusion.

"We are dying like chickens" said Yassine last night as we contemplated the media's coverage of the events of the past few days.

Even the Guardian, in a wire-based piece, mentioned the Palestinian dead, including the children, in the forth to last paragraph.

In fact, a study by If Americans Knew found that the Associated Press Newswire coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict significantly distorts reality, essentially over-reporting the number of Israelis killed in the conflict and underreporting the number of Palestinians killed. The study found that AP reported on Israeli children’s deaths more often than the deaths occurred, but failed to cover 85 percent of Palestinian children killed. A few years ago, they found that the NY Times was seven times more likely to comment on an Israeli child's death than a Palestinian one's.

Is it only when Israeli deputy minister Matan Vilnai used "shoa" to describe what will come to Gaza that some media outlets took note. Here was an Israeli government official himself invoking the Holocaust, of his people's most horrific massacre, in reference to the fate of Gaza. But it was not necessarily because Gazans may suffer the same fate that they were perturbed, but rather that this event, this phrase-genocide or Holocaust- could be used with such seeming levity; that using such a loaded term may somehow lessen the true horror of the original act.

It is as though what has been happening in Gaza-what continues to happen, whether by way of the deliberate and sustained siege and blockade, or the mounting civlian death toll, is acceptable, and even encouraged
Illan Pappe has said that Genocide “is the only appropriate way to describe what the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip” after much thought and deliberation.

But the real genocide in Gaza cannot or will not be assessed through sheer numbers. It is not a massacre of gas chambers. No.

It is a slow and calculated genocide-a Genocide through more calibrated, long-term means. And if the term is used in any context, it should be this. In many ways, this is a more sinister genocide, because it tends to be overlooked: All is ok in Gaza, the wasteland, the hostile territory that is accustomed to slaughter and survival; Gaza, who's people are somehow less human; we should not take note; need not take note; unless there is a mass killing; or starvation.

As though what is happening now was not a slow, purposeful killing; a mass strangulation; But the governments and presidents of the civilized world, even our own "president" (president of what?) are hungry for historic peace deals and make-believe accords; theatrical summits and quasi-states; so they say, “let them eat cake!” And we do.

Breaching the other border: on non-violent resistance and mass mobilizing in Gaza

As gas ran out over the weekend in Gaza again, Haaretz reported "fears" amongst the Israeli military establishment of a mass civil protest, this towards Gaza's border with Israel.

The Army apparently "beefed up troops along the border with Gaza, fearing thousands of Palestinians may march on the border in protest Israel's economic sanctions."

Many people have been calling for such a mass march, seeing it as the most effective way to break the blockade and draw global attention to the plight of Gaza.

Apparently, so does Hamas now.

Some 40,000 Palestinians are expected to march along the Gaza Strip's border beginning at 10 A.M. on Monday, including women and children.

The felling of the Rafah wall was powerful, but just a temporary respite and ultimately a distraction from the underlying issue; Gaza cannot continue to hover just above the brink of disaster, surviving from truckload to truckload of aid, from trickle to trickle of fuel; and even if it does, it does not change the fact that the occupation is still in place; that the "status quo" of "accepting a harmless slavery, in fullest liberty!" to quote Mahmoud Darwish, is no longer acceptable.

And unless it can be followed through with international action and a change in government policies of major powers, so too will a mass march towards Erez. However I still feel such a march has enormous symbolic power. I think perhaps the Israeli army would fear such an act of massive civil resistance more than anything, because it is not something they can easily "retaliate" against without drawing global criticism (though the world has largely been ok with the genocide Gaza is being subject to so far).

I often get asked why there is not more "non-violent resistance" in Gaza. Its a tricky question to answer-but essentially, I think the thinking has been that the world isn't necessarily listening-or reacting-anyway, so fight "fire with flowers" when you can fight "fire with fire". At least I think this was the common notion when the second Intifada started where Israel was utilizing far more militarized and deadly force

Another perspective on this is that I don't think one can necessarily place the burden of what kind of resistance to choose on a population that is being subject to the military force of the world's fourth largest army (meaning, strategy and effectiveness aside, it comes across as almost self-rightouss to dictate what and how an occupied people should resist).

This is not to say that non-violent resistance has been wholly absent from the Palestinian struggle. The first Intafada is a prime example, but so too was the second Intifada-despite the fact that it was notably much more militarized.

An excerpt from an October 2007 article by Ben White in the electronic Intifada notes that

"It is not just contentment (for the few) or sheer fatigue (for the many) that makes mass mobilization a challenge. Palestinians also fear that two critical elements for the success of nonviolent popular struggle are missing in their case: international coverage and limited repression on the part of the oppressor. As previously mentioned, "popular struggle" has always been a part of Palestinian resistance to occupation and colonization -- but receives only a fraction of the press coverage afforded to violent resistance."

I have noticed that the tide's a changing though. Hamas seems to be making a more concerted effort at such mass mobilization in Gaza, while making it clear that they shall not relinquish their "legal right to other forms of resistance" (quote from an interview with Khaled Meshal that I will post soon).

A prime example was the felling of the Rafah wall-initiated by a group of women and children. So to was the effort of dozens of unarmed women of the Islamic movement (including MP Jamila Shanty) to shield and help rescue several fighters under siege in a Beit Lahiya mosque a year and a half ago.

Two of the women were killed by Israel.


And notably-Hamas was the first Palestinian group to initiate a "no arms" policy in their public protests.

The Rafah Border "Breach" and the media

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to comment on the felling of the Rafah Wall and the media's coverage of it for Aljazeera's Listening Post, one of my favorite programs by the way (which I contribute to on a semi-regular basis). You can watch the video below (also watch for the brilliant piece of Burmese media activism following the Rafah Wall segment!).

In short, my point was that the Western media tended to view the felling of the wall as something of a "jail break", and the Palestinians filing across as swarming insects, and at best, a deprived people out on a shopping spree. The tone of coverage tended to shift more towards the negative as days progressed. I even received a series of interview questions from an Italian journalist in which she said many journalists were commenting on how the “poor and hungry” Palestinians were returning from Egypt “charged of Televisions and Computers and Mobile Phones” .

Suddenly, attention shifted from the event's proper historical and political context...of decades of isolation and occupation; of continued Israeli control over Gaza and its borders; of a deliberate and sustained siege, ongoing for not one year, but over a decade now in varying degrees... to Palestinian shopping habits and auditing their degree of need. Of course, underlying all this is the fact that you cannot resolve a situation by simply providing Gaza's population with humanitarian supplies, enough to sustain them for a few weeks at at time, enough to prevent and international outcry, enough to prevent death and starvation without addressing the continued occupation.

The same way you cannot resolve Israel's security dilemma's by simply demanding an end to rocket attacks, and keeping the borders closed, and occupation ongoing at the same time; as though that status quo-of simply not attacking Gaza in response but continuing the siege and the occupation- is acceptable to Palestinians.

And of course while the "border breach" brought temporary respite, it certainly did not resolve the deeper seeded Gaza crisis. Beyond the dramatic images of the border pilgrimage, the mass media is no longer interested in this issue. As far as they are concerned now, the situation has been resolved-Gaza's found a way out, so why the fuss?

Talk at Columbia University

On Thursday, for anyone in the NYC area, I am participating in a panel as part of a teach-in on Gaza at Columbia University. So much for Maternity Leave (Noor, incidentally, is coming with me)! Here is the pertinent information:

"GAZA: The Biggest Prison in the World?"
A Panel Discussion

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 14th 5:30-7:30pm
Location: 702 Hamilton, Columbia University

The Gaza Strip has been consistently described as the biggest prison in the world, with approximately 1.5 million people living in 139 square miles enclosed entirely within security barriers, where all movement in and out of Gaza, whether of people or of essential goods, can be cut off at any time byblockades.

Please join the Arab Student Association for a panel discussion that will explore the ongoing crisis on the ground, bringing together academic, journalistic and humanitarian perspectives.

Panel members:

Rashid KHALIDI: Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies in the Department of History and Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University

Idith ZERTAL: Professor of Contemporary History, Institute of Jewish Studies, The University of Basel, Switzerland

Andrew WHITLEY: Director of the Representative Office of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in New York

Laila El-HADDAD: Laila El-HADDAD: Palestinian journalist, filmmaker and photographer based between Gaza and the U.S. and writes principally for the al-Jazeera English website and the Guardian Unlimited. Frequently contributes to the BBC World Service, her work has also been published in the New Statesman, the International Herald Tribune, and and Le Monde Diplomatique. She recently co-directed the short film "Tunnel Trade" and maintains her own widely read blog.

MODERATOR: Nadia ABU EL-HAJ, Associate Professor, Department of
Anthropology, Barnard College, Columbia University

Should I be worried?

Acupuncture or torture? I'm not sure! But I found Yousuf's teddy bear pierced with toothpicks!

Pictures of Noor

I know these are late in coming...but I suppose a few sleepless weeks can do that to you ! That and having to update all the various sites...facebook, skype, etc. etc. !

More posts to come.















































































































Yousuf shows Noor how to make the Spiderman sign with her hands!

Gaza: From Prison to Zoo

Excellent article by good friend Darryl Li following his most recent visit to Gaza. In it, he describes the inhumane new Israeli policy of "essential humanitarianism":

In place of any legal framework the state has proposed – and the court has now endorsed – a seemingly simple standard for policy: once “essential humanitarian needs” are met, all other deprivation is permissible. If it is possible to ration fuel for hospitals and the sewage network, then Gaza’s economy need not play a role: “We do not accept the petitioners’ argument that ‘market forces’ should be allowed to play their role in Gaza with regard to fuel consumption.”

This logic reflects the radical transformation of Israel’s policy of blockade since the summer of 2007: from frequent and crippling closure to indefinite blockage of all but “essential humanitarian items.” Israel has shifted from trying to punish the Gazan economy to deciding that the economy is a dispensable luxury.

The policy shift is akin to treating Gazans not as prisoners but rather as animals; the Occupier as zoo-keeper, rather than prison warden.

The metaphor of the Gaza Strip as the world’s largest prison is unfortunately outdated. Israel now treats the Strip more like a zoo. For running a prison is about constraining or repressing freedom; in a zoo, the question is rather how to keep those held inside alive, with an eye to how outsiders might see them. The question of freedom is never raised.

The ongoing electricity crisis helps to illuminate this shift, so to speak.

In 2006, Israel decided that the best way to punish Gazans for the capture of one of its soldiers was a one-off, spectacular act of violence that would lead to widespread deprivation. Now it seeks similar results – the loss of electricity and the resulting disruption of everyday life – through more calibrated, long-term means. This shift in approach is akin to the difference between clubbing an unruly prisoner over the head to subdue him and taming an animal through careful regulation of leash and diet.

The Israeli court is complicit in all of this, acting more, he says, "as administrator than as adjudicator, a partner in the calibration of how much pain Gazans are to be made to feel."

Read the rest here.

Noor's first protest!

I know I have to post more (newer) pictures of Noor...most of my days and nights are consumed with either nursing or attempting to sleep (or in some cases, both at the same time!) and yet somehow I have found myself committing to a variety of talks, interviews, and articles when I should be on "maternity leave" (right!).

Last weekend my family and I participated in a small vigil/protest to end the siege on Gaza. Noor attended too-though she slept through it! Yousuf insisted on placing a sign on her car seat.

Down goes the wall

Last night I received a text message from my dear friend Fida-"its coming down-its coming down!" she declared ecstatically. "Laila! the Palestinians destroyed Rafah wall, all of it. All of it not part of it! Your sister Fida."

More texts followed, as I received an periodical updates on the situation in Rafah, where it was 3 am.

"Two hours ago people were praising God everywhere. The metal wall was cut and destroyed. So was the cement one. It is great Laila, it is great" she declared.

For the first time in months, I sensed a degree of enthusiasm, hope...relief even, emanating from thousands of miles away, via digitized words, from Gaza. Words that have been all but absent from the Palestinian vocabulary. Buried. Methodically and gradually destroyed.



[Palestinians stock up on fuel in Egypt's Arish. Picture by Fida Qishta]

Of course the border opening will only provide temporary relief, and the ecstasy it generates will be fleeting, as it was in 2005 when shortly after Israel's Disengagement, the once impervious and deadly, sniper-lined border became completely porous. It was an incredible time. I will never forget the feeling of standing in the middle of the Philadelphi corridor, as it was known.

Of standing there with hundreds of thousands of other Gazans, savoring the moment of uninterrupted freedom, in this case, freedom of movement. Goats were being lobbed over the secondary fence; mattresses; cigarettes; cheeses. Egyptians took back bags of applies from northern Gaza, and comforters. For two weeks, it was the free market at work.



[The Rafah Wall, from the Palestinian side. Picture by Laila El-Haddad]

Once a nesting ground for Israeli tanks, armored bulldozers, and the like-all of the war metal-the face of the occupation- that became synonymous with destructions and death for us in Gaza, and particularly for the resident's of Rafah, Philadelphi had so suddenly become nothing but a a kilometre of wasteland, of sand granules marking the end of one, battered, besieged land, and the beginning of the rest of the world.

But traveling this short distance had previously been so unthinkable, that the minute it took to walk across it by foot was akin to being in the twilight zone. You couldn't help but feel that at any moment a helicopter gunship would hover by overhead and take aim.

It was then that I met a pair of young boys, 9 and 10, who curiously peered over the fence beyond the wall, into Egypt. In hushed whispers, and innocent giggles they pondered what life was like outside of Gaza and then asked me: Have you ever seen an Egyptian? What do they look like? They had never left Rafah in their lives.



[picture by Laila El-Haddad]

And so once again, this monstrosity that is a source of so much agony in our lives, that cripples our movement and severs our ties to each other and to our world, to our families and our homes, our universities and places of work, hospitals and airports, has fallen through the will of the people; and sadly, once again, it will go up. Of course, Mubarak has tried to take credit for this, blabbering something about how they let them open it because Gazans were starving, while arresting 500 demonstrators in Cairo for speaking their mind against the siege.

The border opening also will not provide Gazans with an opportunity to travel abroad, b/c their passports will not have been stamped leaving Gaza, but it will at the very least give them some temporary respite from the siege. I emphasize temporary because this too, just like Israel's on again-off again fuel stoppages is not going to resolve the situation. Allowing in enough supplies to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe, in the words of the Israeli security establishment, somehow makes sense in the logic of the occupation; as does escalation; and cutting fuel in response to rocket attacks. And Israelis can all learn to forget Gaza, at least long enough to feel comfortable.

People often ask me why such things-meaning people powered civil protests that can overcome even the strongest occupation- don't happen sooner, or more often, or at all for that matter. We underestimate the power of occupation to destroy a people's will to live, let alone resist and and attempt to change the situation. This is the worst thing about occupation, whether a military occupation like Israel's, or a political one like Hosni Mubarak's in his own country. And it is only when you can overcome the psychological occupation, the occupation of the mind, that the military occupation in all its manifestations can be defeated.

My new year's surprise!

Well, I was planning on posting my latest article in the Guardian Unlimited-reflections about Gaza in 2007. Instead, I got my own little new year's surprise-we welcomed (drum roll please....) little Noor into the world at 1:36pm January 1 ! 13 hours too late for a tax deduction, as Yassine will note :) This girl sets her own rules form the get go.

I would like to post in length about the experience, but I am sure you will forgive me if I seek a little rest :) In brief, let's just call it an unplanned natural delivery! I ignored my own body's signals that I was in labor (not to mention my husband's!) and convinced myself it was nothing, until I was quite in its advanced stages.

We rushed to the hospital, and by the time we got there, little Noor was about ready to pop out of the oven. It took only about an hour for her to show up. Of course I was confronted with the grim news from my doctor and nurse as I screamed my way into the delivery room (epidural please! now!!!) that there was simply no time for pain medication at that point. Talk about nature taking its own course!! All they could manage to give me was a small dose of morphine, which only made me dizzy and gave me delirious recollections of the doctor having a conversation about sushi and pregnancy with Yassine as I pushing ("just think" he said, attempting to comfort me, "you can have sushi again!").

Anyway, I will save you all the painful details, just suffice to say it was certainly all worth it when I saw her precious little face. And Yousuf, of course, is already assuming the role of older brother like a pro-including schooling her in the ways of spiderman (he attempted to pose like Spiderman in all his pictures with her :)).

And for those of you wondering, yes, we took the laptop with us to the hospital :)

Caroling against conflict diamonds

And by conflict, I mean the conflict.

Such is the latest initiative of the conscientious Adalah-NY (the Coalition for Justice in the Middle East), who adopted one of the campaigns of the Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel in New York City. For weeks now they have been organizing regular protests against Israeli diamond and real estate mogul cum settlement financier Lev Leviev in front of his newest Jewelry store in NYC.

The group is organizing an encore performance on December 29.

Leviev, one of Israel’s wealthiest businessmen, is helping to build the Mattityahu East settlement on the lands of the village of Bil’in with partner Shaya Boymelgreen, the Zufim settlement on the lands of the village of Jayyous, and the strategic West Bank settlements of Har Homa and Maale Adumim around Jerusalem which divide the northern West Bank from the Southern West Bank.

Check out video of some of their "alternative caroling"-great stuff. More posted on their site.

How about some Hannukah paper for that Eid gift?

Eid ul Adha was upon last week (or as we refer to it in Gaza-the meat Eid-)and this time it happened to coincide with the holiday season here in the US. So in shopping for a Eid gift for Yousuf, I had to deal with puzzled looks down south when I explain that we don't celebrate Christmas, but taken a step further, when I explain that actually it was also the Muslim Eid. I'm not trying to be facetious here, really. I'm just relaying conversations as they happened, and you be the judge.

Example:

Woman at checkout counter in toy store: "Oh what a lovely choice! Now is that a Christmas present for your son, or a birthday present...what kind of wrapping paper would you like?"

Me: "Actually, its a Eid present. Eid is a Muslim holiday. It happens to coincide with Christmas this year".

Woman: "I see. Well we have Hanukkuah paper right here!"

You get my drift (this is a true story by the way).

I had an equally enlightening conversation with our neighour's grandson, who was in the process of showing off his new bike to Yousuf.

Jacob: "What did you get for Christmas Yousuf!"

Me: "Actually, Yousuf doesn't celebrate Christmas, Jacob. He celebrates Eid."

Jacob: "Well we celebrate Christmas. and I got a cool new bike."

"Yes, I know that, Merry Christmas. Our Holiday is called Eid."

"I thought you speak Spanish"

"We speak Arabic, but that's not the point...."

"Well, i got a bike for Christmas. What did Yousuf get?"


I rest my case. I'm not asking for much here, am I? Is a simple "oh-what's Eid?" too much to expect?

I'm not sure if I should blame the schools in this case, the media, the people themselves, even the Muslim community. Maybe a little bit of each, coupled with the fact that it is just easier to ignore anything having to do with Islam here. Either way its a little startling that so few people actually have any clue about what Eid is-compared with, say, Boston, where we used to live. I even took the initiative myself in one case, and attempted to email a supermarket chain I'm very fond of (Trader Joe's) explaining that it was also Eid and suggesting they add a "Eid Mubarak!" to their flyers along with "Happy Hannukah and Merry Christmas".

The response: Thank you for contacting us. We will forward your comments to Marketing and get back to you". Needless to say, they never got back to me. But I'm still holding out hope.



Yousuf decorating cupcakes with friends this Eid.

Thing you should never say to a very pregnant woman!

As I near the end of my pregnancy, I've taken some time to reflect... and I've come up with a list of grossly insensitive things that you (yes, YOU...husband, friend, sister, brother, random person standing next to a pregnant woman on the subway) should never say to a very pregnant woman. So future fathers, uncles, cousins...take note (and yes, several of these things have actually been said to me! And I'm pretty petite as far as full-term pregnant woman go):

1. Weren’t you wearing that yesterday? (Also see: Don’t you have anything else to wear?)
2. Wow, look at that, your belly button is popping out!
3. Wow, you’re really getting big!
4. Is something wrong with your face or is it normally that swollen?
5. Do you need help with those dishes (said unenthusiastically)?
6. Boy your house is a mess.
7. Didn’t you just go to the bathroom?
8. You think you can’t sleep now, wait till the baby arrives!

Who's afraid of the One-State solution?

Olmert, for starters. A day after the theatrical display at Annapolis, the Israeli Prime Minister gave Haaretz a telling interview, in which he acknowledged in no uncertain terms Israel's Apartheid like nature:

"If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished."

Because heaven forbid Israel should have to face that struggle. Equal voting rights? Phshh. Why face a fight for equal voting rights when you can fight with Merkavas and F-16s; when you can sustain a decades long occupation of land, people, and resources and mask it with an empty and unrealistic call for two-states (see also his comments today: no firm timetable for peace talks, despite Annapolis) ?

His statement-similar to one he made in 2003 (back then he "shudder[ed] to think that liberal Jewish organizations that shouldered the burden of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa will lead the struggle against [Israel] ), is essentially an acknowledgment not only of the untenability (and the inequity) of the so-called two-state solution, and everything it entails (including sustaining a Jewish majority at the expense of the Palestinian population, no matter what the cost, i.e. ethnic cleansing) but also of the inevitability of a one-state solution.

Its just NOT clear to me why more media has not caught on to this stunning declaration. Maybe its easier to suspend reality for a while-a long while-in favor of an easier to digest fiction (well, easier for some people). That's one mushy piece of fiction.

Preparing for the Dawn

Even in the worst of times, there's one thing we're never short of in our troubled part of the world: another conference, meeting, declaration, summit, agreement.

Something to save the day, to "steer" us back to whatever predetermined path it is we are or were meant to be on. And to help us navigate that path.

Never mind the arguable shortcomings of this path, or the discontent it may have generated, for we all know what happens to people who question that; the important thing is to move forward, full steam ahead.

Enter Annapolis. I've been there a couple of times. Beautiful port city, great crabs, quaint antique shops. And of course, the US Navy.

So what exactly is different this time around? Well, if you believe some of the newspaper headlines, lots. Like the fact that Ehud Olmert has promised not to build new settlements or expropriate land.

And yet, as recently as September, Israel expropriated 1,100 dunams (272 acres) of Palestinian land in the West Bank to facilitate the development of E-1, a five-square-mile area in the West Bank, east of Jerusalem where Israel plans to build 3,500 houses, a hotel and an industrial park, completing the encirclement of Jerusalem with Jewish colonies, and cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank.

The conference simply generates new and ever-more superfluous and intricate promises which Israeli leaders can commit to and yet somehow evade. An exercise in legal obfuscation at its best: we won't build new settlements, we'll just expropriate more land and expand to account for their "natural growth," until they resemble towns, not colonies, and have them legitimized by a US administration looking for some way to save face. And then we'll promise to raze outposts.

Each step in the evolution of Israel's occupation -- together with the efforts to sustain it and the language to describe it -- has become ever more sophisticated, strategic and euphemistic.

Israel has also promised the release of 450 Palestinian prisoners (who have, by Israel's own admission, nearly completed their sentences) on Sunday ahead of the conference, while dozens of others are detained and thousands of others remain in custody without charges or trial -- making theirs the highest rate of incarceration in the world.

Still, Annapolis is being hailed as the most serious "peace effort" in eight years. According to the US State Department's spokesperson, the conference "will signal broad international support for the Israeli and Palestinian leaders' courageous efforts, and will be a launching point for negotiations leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state and the realization of Israeli-Palestinian peace."

Support, I gather, that will also entail arms and money to help Abbas rid Gaza of Hamas once and for all.

So then what are people's expectations in Gaza from all of this?

In short, not much. But then, if history has taught them anything, it's that they never have much of a say in anything that involves their destiny, be it Madrid or Oslo or the Road Map. And the moment they do attempt to take control, the repercussions are to "teach" them never to attempt to do so again.

To quote Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish, "The siege will last in order to convince us we must choose an enslavement that does no harm, in fullest liberty!"

The stage has been set, the roles are the same, but the actors have been switched. That is the feeling of many in Gaza.

"The Annapolis meeting will not bring anything new for the Palestinians; it is a repetition of many other conferences which sought to reinforce the principle of making concession on the Palestinian national rights," says Yousef Diab, a 35-year-old government employee.

For Fares Akram, a young Gaza-based journalist, the conference will result in little more than token concessions aimed at further isolating Hamas-run Gaza, and bolstering support for Abbas: "The Israeli government is weak in this time. President Abbas may get some support in the conference but the support will be for his struggle against Hamas. Gaza will remain forgotten and the improvements that may come out from the meeting will only apply to the West Bank while nothing will be done here in Gaza."

Fida Qishta, a videographer and community activist in Gaza's troubled town of Rafah, can't even be bothered with thinking of things as abstract and distant and -- ultimately -- irrelevant as Annpolis when life in Gaza as she sees it has all but come to a standstill.

"I wish you were here to see how life is, it is really like a body that died. I still can't imagine we are living through this and I try not to think about it a lot."

Aliya Moor, a mother of eight, adds: "We're already dead, the only thing we need is to be buried, to be pushed into the grave and buried. It's already been dug up for us."

We are prisoners, others have told me, constantly waiting and helplessly hoping for decisions to be made that determine whether they live or die -- both figuratively and literally.

Except there is a certain set of rules in prisons, and prisoners are guaranteed certain things, like food and water and access to medical care. Gazans are guaranteed none of these things. Instead, they are setting the bar as the first occupied people in history to be embargoed and declared hostile. People are no longer waiting for Godot, they are simply waiting for the next awful thing to be imposed on them. And a new coping mechanisms.

"People just want out," explained another friend. It doesn't matter whether it's Fatah or Hamas anymore."

We have become a people, to quote Darwish, constantly preparing for dawn, in the darkness of cellars lit by our enemies.

This piece was originally published in the Guardian's Comment is Free

Like a dead body

Like a dead body

That is how my friends are describing their lives now in Gaza.How they are describing Gaza.

One friend of mine, who recently moved to Gaza (in June, just before the borders closed up) to start an NGO called “Save Gaza”, says it is the feeling of hopelessness and abandonment that are most overwhelming of all. Her group's first project is helping Palestinians establish sustainable home gardens in Rafah’s refugee camps.

Yasmin has some riveting posts, like this one about a woman’s attempt to get pregnant in Gaza.

My neighbour Heba, in her fantastic blog Contemplating from Gaza, has marked a year since beginning her blog, and happily, has decided to continue doing it. As I too have found, it provides a much needed outlet, in a place where there are literally none.

Heba says the Palestinian people’s will to survive never ceases to amaze her.

The question is, do they even have a choice anymore? They take the cards they are dealt and go on with their lives. I can’t help but sigh when I’m asked to gauge people’s expectations or opinions regarding the latest peace deal, treaty, meeting, or forum. Like Annapolis for example (Yassine jokingly asked today whether another $1.75 million-the amount spent on Arafat's tomb- would be spent to feed those in attendence crabs).

The situation leaves no room for something as luxurious as opinions. It’s adapt or die.

My cousin says meat is scarce and very expensive now. Butchers are not working all hours as they used to. And people only buy what they can afford. A kilo of stewing beef has shot up to 52 shekels ($13) in a place where the average daily income is less than $2 a day for the overwhelming majority.

Meanwhile, Rafah remains closed. Gaza remains neglected. And the merry makers of it all are smiling, waiting for it to all fall apart. I say it because people’s lives already have. But in the end, success is calculated not in human terms, not in the sheer numbers of hopes crushed, souls suffocated, eyes and hearts and chances lost, or futures destroyed, but whether or not Gaza has fallen; and things can go back to "normal".

The Fro' Must Go

Yousuf's hair is getting a little on the wild side. In fact, I haven't cut it since we were in Gaza this past spring. Now a debate is raging in our household: Fro or no Fro?

You be the judge!

(note: hair's maximum potential not reached due to use of frizz control products...)






























Yousuf in pre-school last month










Yousuf during a local Eid celebration










With Seedo watching an Arabic tamsaliya... (miniseries)

Raising Yousuf AND...

Ok, I figure its about time I make an annou