Raising Yousuf and Noor: diary of a Palestinian mother

We've moved!

2009-08-09T18:33:00.003+03:00

We, physically, have moved to Columbia, MD, but more pertinently, finally...yes finally (drum roll pls) my blog has moved to a new location!

By the time you read this third sentence you should be re-directing to the new site, but in case not...it is: www.Gazamom.com

Its still under developed, but I certainly hope you will find the new design easier to navigate. Suggestions always welcome!

Lift the Closure-Give Life a Chance!

2009-06-28T19:00:00.004+03:00

Ah-the Shalit deal. On again. Off again. On again-and now, off again (according to Haaretz and Hamas both, it never existed to start with).

As though Shalit were the end all be all of the Palestinian problem. Nevermind the 1.5 million Palestinians trying to survive under siege. Nevermind the 11 thousand palestinian prisoners in israeli jails.

In any case, it appears that there was perhaps something in the works-and in an attempt to pressure Hamas to sign on, Egypt (already sealing Rafah Crossing in collusion with Israel for going on two years now) has hindered passage through Gaza's only land crossing to thousands of Palestinians yesterday and today. This, despite an announcement that they would open the crossing for 72 hours. Collective punishment.

Of the some 5000 Palestinians registered to cross, only 250 were allowed out of Gaza on the first day (a total of 5 buses), and only 4 buses scheduled to depart today.

My parents-on bus # 16, are waiting along with thousands of others. They registered to travel over 2 months ago, and keep checking whether their names have appeared on the list of the lucky on the website of the Ministry of the Interior, but nothing is ever guaranteed in Gaza.

Mapping the Arab Blogosphere

2009-06-22T13:16:00.002+03:00

Last week, I was invited to participate in an event on Arab Blogging held by the US Institute of Peace and Harvard's Berkman Center on Internet & Society: “Online Discourse in the Arab World: Dispelling the Myths,”

The panel discussed a report just issued by the center: Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture, and Dissent

The case study was part of a series of studies produced by the Internet & Democracy Project, a research initiative at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, which investigates the impact of the Internet on civic engagement and democratic processes.

THe study identified a base network of approximately 35,000 active Arab blogs (about half as many as the the Persian blogosphere in their former study), created a network map of the 6,000 most connected blogs, and with a team of Arabic speakers hand coded 4,000 blogs.

Interestingly, Palestinian blogs signalled relatively low on the radar; it appears there bridge bloggers and social networking sites or online forums figure more prominently.

Among the interesting Key findings:

1) the Arab Blogosphere is mainly a country-based networkkas opposed to political ideologies and topical issues, such as reformist and conservative politics, religion, poetry, etc.

2) Arabic bloggers are predominately young and male. The highest proportion of female bloggers is found in the Egyptian youth sub-cluster, while the Syrian and Muslim Brotherhood clusters have the highest concentration of males.

so I am proud to say I represent the "old" (ok, 31, not so old) and female contingent! which interestingly seems to be predominant in Palstine.

3)Personal Life and Local Issues are Most Important

4) YouTube: Arabic bloggers tend to prefer politically oriented YouTube videos to cultural ones. Videos related to the conflict in Gaza and the throwing of shoes at George Bush in Iraq are popular across the entire blogosphere, while clips related to domestic political issues are linked to more heavily by the various national clusters.

5)Anonymity: Arabic bloggers are more likely than not to use their name when blogging, as opposed to writing anonymously or using an obvious pseudonym. However, female bloggers are more likely to blog anonymously than males.

6) Human Rights and Culture: Human rights is also a popular topic of conversation across the Arabic blogosphere—much more common than criticism of Western culture and values. Among cultural topics, poetry, literature and art are more discussed than pop culture (music, TV, movies).

7)Arabic Media Ecosystem: Bloggers link to Web 2.0 sites such as YouTube and Wikipedia (both English and Arabic versions) more than other sources of information and news available on the Internet. Al-Jazeera is the top mainstream media source, followed by the BBC and Al-Arabiya, while US-government funded media outlets like Radio Sawa and Al-Hurra are linked to relatively infrequently.

The full report can be found here:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications/2009/Mapping_the_Arabic_Blogosphere.

Gaza Bonanza: the nuts and bolts of the ongoing occupation

2009-06-22T13:08:00.002+03:00

A chilling inside view of how the continued occupation and blockade of Gaza works-the nuts and bolts. This is what i mean when I say that living in Gaza is living in a place where everything-down to the food you put on your table and when and whether you can move is subject to Israeli control.

The same Israeli Ministry of "Defense" unit- COGAT, also operates in the West Bank.
COGAT = OCCUPATION ADMINISTRATORS, in military uniform.

Ha'aretz
Last update - 10:55 15/06/2009

Gaza bonanza

By Yotam Feldman and Uri Blau

Every week, about 10 officers from the Israel Defense Force's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit convene in the white Templer building in the Kirya, the Defense Ministry compound in Tel Aviv, to decide which food products will appear on the tables of the 1.5 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. Among those taking part in the discussion are Colonel Moshe Levi, head of the Gaza District Coordination Office (DCO), Colonel Alex Rosenzweig, head of the civil division of COGAT and Colonel Doron Segal, head of the economics division. These officers decided, for example, that persimmons, bananas and apples were vital items for basic sustenance and thus permitted into the Gaza Strip, while apricots, plums, grapes and avocados were impermissible luxuries. Over the past year, these officers were responsible for prohibiting the entry into the Gaza Strip of tinned meat, tomato paste, clothing, shoes and notebooks. All these items are sitting in the giant storerooms rented by Israeli suppliers near the Kerem Shalom crossing, awaiting a change in policy.

The policy is not fixed, but continually subject to change, explains a COGAT official. Thus, about two months ago, the COGAT officials allowed pumpkins and carrots into Gaza, reversing a ban that had been in place for many months. The entry of "delicacies" such as cherries, kiwi, green almonds, pomegranates and chocolate is expressly prohibited. As is halvah, too, most of the time. Sources involved in COGAT's work say that those at the highest levels, including acting coordinator Amos Gilad, monitor the food brought into Gaza on a daily basis and personally approve the entry of any kind of fruit, vegetable or processed food product requested by the Palestinians. At one of the unit's meetings, Colonel Oded Iterman, a COGAT officer, explained the policy as follows: "We don't want Gilad Shalit's captors to be munching Bamba [a popular Israeli snack food] right over his head."

...continued http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1092196.html

Besiege the Siege at the Rafah Gate

2009-06-22T11:01:00.002+03:00

6 months after Israel's brutal attack against Gaza, the siege stand unrelenting; Rafah has been open a total of ZERO days for normal traffic during the course of the past two years, according to GISHA; and only a day or two every couple of month for "humanitarian purposes"; This month, a group of people-mothers, sons, daughters, wives, husbands, students, continue to wait at the crossing in a makeshift camp dubbed "Rafah Camp", to get through; Here is an update from the Intl Movement to Open Rafah Border:

June 21, 2009

The International Movement to Open the Rafah Border

Rafah Crossing-Rafah, Egypt

In the ninth day of a sit-in camp at the Rafah, Egypt border gate, the International Movement to Open the Rafah Border (IMORB) rejects President Obama's rationale for the siege of Gaza and the limited access through the Rafah gate. In his address to the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) last month, US President Obama said that arms shipments to Hamas must stop.

"The Rafah gate is not a point of transfer for weapons, but a throughway for Palestinians and commerce," said Paki Wieland of Northhampton, Mass, USA. "Through our extensive interviews we have heard again and again, from aging parents, families, and students, that they want to visit with family in Gaza, attend weddings or return home; this is so normal," continued Ms. Wieland, " and when they are denied, the emotional stress and economic strain brings sadness, anger, and devastating despair.

"The technology is available to monitor for potential weapons shipments through Rafah," said Don Bryant of Cleveland, Ohio, USA. "This siege is just an excuse to strangle Gaza to death," he said.

The IMORB will continue the sit-in and fasting at the Rafah gate indefinately. On a daily basis, IMORB challenges the closed border and escorts people seeking entry to Gaza.

One Palestinian-American family from Texas USA has been waiting over two weeks, like hundreds of others, to enter Gaza. "This is so humiliating," said the Texan mother of four.

CONTACT:

Paki Wieland (002) 018 735 8621
Nada Kassass (002) 012 250 4611

Carter in Gaza

2009-06-18T20:03:00.003+03:00

Former Pres. Jimmy Carter visited Gaza a few days ago, which six months after its invasion has yet to receive a repreive from the criminal siege. The situation, he said, is unique in history, and a terrible human rights crime. Speaking in Gaza June 16 at a graduation ceremony for some 200,000 students who took a special UNRWA Human Rights curricula, Carter talked earnestly about the absurdity of the Israeli closure regime:

..."Last week, a group of Israelis and Americans tried to cross into Gaza through Erez, bringing toys and children’s playground equipment - slides, swings, kites, and magic castles for your children. They were stopped at the gate and prevented from coming. I understand even paper and crayons are treated as ’security hazards’ and not permitted to enter Gaza. I sought an explanation for this policy in Israel, but did not receive a satisfactory answer – because there is none...."

-http://un-truth.com/israel/former-pres-jimmy-cartergaza-situation-is-unique-in-history-and-a-terrible-human-rights-crime

8 Nos, but Nothing New

2009-06-16T12:22:00.003+03:00

“8 no’s, but nothing new”. This is the reaction I hear over and again from Palestinians refugees here in Lebanon’s Wavel Refugee Camp, where 4 generations wait to return to the homeland from which they were brutally evicted over 60 years ago, in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s so-called landmark policy speech.

This is for from those who even bothered to listen.

The United States and Europe saw his speech as a move towards recognizing two-states (while dismissing the right of return, a divided Jerusalem, an end to settlements, and the list goes on), and thus, some sort of advance towards peace; others suggested it was a step backward.

Both analyses are flawed. One confuses a call for a Palestinian ghetto as a call for a sovereign, viable Palestinian state. The other is based on the assumption that progress was made over the past (few) decades vis a vis Palestinian statehood.

The speech was full of rosy conjectures. The word” peace” was repeated 45 times.

Tellingly, the word occupation was not mentioned once. Neither, for that matter, was international law. Or Freedom-except in the context of facilitating some freedom of movement only after Palestinians give up their rights to move freely.

“Peace has always been our people’s most ardent desire” he explained, citing 3 “immense” challenges that stood in the way (the Iranian threat, the economic crisis, and the advancement of peace).

In fact, it is an illegal, draconian, and malicious occupation that have stifled peace and that continues to pose the biggest threat to Israel’s security.

In his speech, Netanyahu called for negotiations without preconditions while simultaneously imposing the conditions that would make a just and viable peace impossible: an undivided Jerusalem, no right of return, no sovereignty, continued settlement expansion.

The demands to recognize Israel as a Jewish state- annuls the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes from which they were systemically and violently expelled in 1948 in what is now Israel-a right enshrined in international law and at the heart of the Palestinian struggle.

Such a state one would promote, subsidize, and allow Jewish only immigration and rights as it does now while denying native inhabitants this same right.

Nations are quick to dismiss the Palestinian right of return as Israel’s end, but equally quick to facilitate the return of Darfur, Kosovar, or East Timor refugees in recent years.

This demand also consolidates Israel’s racist Apartheid like policies, and would dismiss in one fell swoop the rights of the Palestinian minority in Israel, who make up 20% of the population.

It is effectively saying: we have the right to discriminate against you, to take any measures we deem necessary in order to sustain the Jewish majority. Measures that have already been suggested in the Knesset, like a loyalty oath, even population transfer.

Then there is talk of the illegal settlements. New settlements aren’t the issue. Who needs new settlements if Israeli loophole policies in recent years have provided ample room for expansion?

Currently, the illegal annexation barrier, together with settlement-related infrastructure (including settler-only roads, army bases, closed military zones, and over 600 checkpoints) consume 38% of the West Bank, annexing land and livelihoods, dividing villages, towns, and families from one another and tearing apart the very fabric of Palestinian social and economic life.

So, we have not moved forward. But we are certainly a step backwards from the heyday of Oslo, some might say. The fact is, during the Oslo years from 1993 to 2000, four under Netanyahu’s reign, the the Israeli settler population expanded by 71 percent.

Such policies are already being implemented in Jerusalem, where land theft and demolitions continue daily, and where Palestinian Christian and Muslim residents are subject to draconian laws that would strip them of their residency rights there if they fail to renew their ID cards regularly -made all the more impossible a task by the closure regime and the Apartheid wall.

Netanyahu’s vision of a Palestinians states is one bereft of the very factors that make a state sovereign: effective control over land, sky, and sea, among other things.

But this should come as no surprise. Israel’s long-standing policy has been one of re-packaging the occupation and postponing viable Palestinian statehood indefinitely by rendering it impossible.

It is a goal summed up by the late Israeli sociologist, Baruch Kimmerling as politicide: a gradual but systematic attempt to cause their annihilation as an independent political and social entity.

In tune with this policy, no where in Oslo is there mention of a Palestinian state, only limited self-rule.

Netanyahu’s own Likud party’s charter flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Neither is the Hamas the issue, with whom Netanyahu foreswore talks. They were not even elected prior to 2006. Not even existent prior to 1987. But they enjoy broad support among Palestinians; they were rightfully elected in free and fair elections encouraged and unhindered by the United States and Israel respectively, despite con; and they are deeply entrenched within society; they are a reality with which Israel must come to grips.

And long before Hamas, Israel was similarly destroying civilian infrastructure, assassinating Palestinians, closing borders, de-developing the economy, and sowing lawlessness and chaos in Gaza; all punishment for not being “cooperative” enough; “moderate” enough; tame enough.

All of this, of course, is leaving aside the 1.5 million human beings consigned to a life of living death by Israel and its allies-and by allies I also mean the Arab world. Closed in on all sides, deliberately deprived of the most basics rights of life.

Even after the so-called disengagement from Gaza-the landmark event that supposedly reigned freedom unto Gaza and its people, Israel continued to maintain effective control over Gaza’s borders, her air, sea, sky, even the population registry; continued to impose a longstanding siege.

This despite warnings from experts about the dire consequences that would ensue by not guaranteeing movement and access to people and goods. Gaza faced poverty and unemployment unprecedented in 40 years since Israel’s occupation as a result.

But by Netanyahu’s estimates, this is peace. Gaza is the model-the vision- for what a so-called Palestinian state would look like.

Netanyahu talked idyllically of a peace in which a tourism-driven economy would draw millions to Nazareth and Bethlehem. He forgot to mention the caveat that tourists will first have to face an Apartheid barrier twice the size of the Berlin wall, navigate a Kafkaesque matrix of Israeli administrative control, and, if they carry the wrong color ID, scale sewers if they desire to visit a family member across the way in East Jerusalem.

Action Alert: Demand That Saudi Authorities Divest From Alstom NOW!

2009-06-07T11:48:00.001+03:00

Action Alert: Prevent Alstom From Building The Haramain Express Railway! End Saudi collusion with Israeli apartheid!

Saudi Arabia awarded French company Alstom a multi-million dollar contract for the construction of Haramain Express Railway, to link the holy cities of Makkah and Madina. Alstom is in violation of international law for its part in the construction of the Jerusalem Light Rail, which will link illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory (including East Jerusalem) with the city of Jerusalem. The construction of the light rail is part of a wider Israeli policy to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from Jerusalem and turn permanent the illegal occupation of the city.

The decision by the Saudi Arabian authorities is in violation of its own international commitments. The Arab League barred member states from dealing with companies involved in the construction of Jerusalem Light Rail project. The Saudi contract sends a signal of approval for Alstom's actions in Jerusalem and highlights the lack of integrity of the Haramain project: the Saudi Arabian government has chosen to link two of Islam's holiest cities by sponsoring the colonization of another.

Across the world a divestment campaign is taking pace against Alstom and its partner company Veolia, with victories in Sweden and France. In 2006, Dutch ASN Bank took the responsible decision to divest from the project. Alstom and Veolia are accused by Palestinian civil society, represented by the BDS National Committee, BNC, of complicity in grave violation of international law and Palestinian rights for their role in the JLR project. Despite the pressure, the two companies have refused to end their participation in the project. With construction at an advanced stage, Alstom and Veolia are guilty of actively colluding with Israeli apartheid.

Demand That Saudi Authorities Divest From Alstom NOW!

1 - Write to the Saudi Railway Organization and to the Saudi Arabian diplomatic representation in your country demanding immediate cancellation of the contract with Alstom.
Saudi Railway Organisation contact details (http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://tiny.cc/llcfC)
karni@http://www.facebook.com/l/;saudirailways.org (Vice President)
shafqatrabbani@http://www.facebook.com/l/;sro.org.sa (Project Manager)
salim@http://www.facebook.com/l/;sro.org.sa (Project Manager)
sohail@http://www.facebook.com/l/;sro.org.sa (Project Engineer)

Saudi Arabian diplomatic representations worldwide: http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://tiny.cc/NvtOd
Please bcc us on your correspondence: saudialstomdivestment@http://www.facebook.com/l/;gmail.com

2 - Sign the petition: http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.petitiononline.com/BDSaudi/petition.html

3 - Write about this issue in your local media. Discuss it in your local mosque and community centers. Participate in actions for boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel.

Find Out More:

The Case Against Veolia and Alstrom:
GulfNews: Company in Saudi rail project linked to Israel

Divestment campaign gains momentum in Europe

Veolia looses 3.5 billion EUR contract in Sweden

PLO takes Veolia Transport and Alstom to court in France

Legal action in France against Veolia and Anstrom

Time to hold Veolia to account

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians From Jerusalem:
Ethnic Cleansing in East Jerusalem

Civic Coalition to Defend Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem

Israeli House Demolitions in Jerusalem Slideshow

Policy of Residency Revocation of Palestinians in Jerusalem

Global Movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israel

Images of Palestine in exile

2009-05-27T17:07:00.006+03:00

Images from the Wavel Camp in Baalbeck, Lebanon; here Palestine is always within reach, but the residents of the camp can never grasp it, can never meet it; like night and day-there is a brief time where the two overllap-by way of a visitor from abroad; the spouse of a camp resident, with Palestinian Authority papers, and so on.

View from the rooftop of Yassine's house in the Wavel Refugee Camp, Baalbeck.

Life interrupted

2009-05-27T16:47:00.002+03:00

Well, here we are, still in Lebanon…nearly two months after attempting to get into Gaza.

I tried, and failed, to get an Egyptian visa from here. So I am slowly facing the fact that I will not be able to return to Gaza, at least not now.

I have torn off my limbs at the final frontier, but there is no passage for the stateless. Where do you reside when you do not exist?

Identity and citizenship remain abstract, tightly bound concepts that we carry in a small satchel around our necks, ready to present and explain in dizzying detail at a moment’s notice, or ready to be hung by equally as fast:

Where are you from? What do you mean? What answer do you want to hear? Don't let my accent fool you! or my scarf!

Citizenship, then: I leave this blank empty, for here I do not exist

National of: Palestinian Authority (an authority over ?)

So then you cannot enter… (this changes based on the political climate)

Parents place of Birth: Gaza City.

My place of birth: Kuwait, (but wait…there’s more. I lived there for just one year; then Saudi Arabia, then Bahrain)

Place of permanent residence: Gaza, with a footnote (a residence I cannot reach, a permanence that is illusory; does this still count? Did I pass the test?)

Husband’s nationality: Palestinian refugee residing in Lebanon (but not since 1993); but NOT Palestinian Authority- this honor is reserved to those with hawias, identity cards (the better to track you with my dear); he has never been to Palestine (only smelled and touched it through an intermediary; does this count?)

***
My father goes to the Ministry of Civil Affairs maybe once a week. Here, Palestinian passengers register to leave Gaza through Rafah. But the wait is anywhere from 2-4 months or more. He registered nearly 1.5 months ago, but is in no immediate rush to leave. Nevertheless, he goes to check on his status anyway. He wants to come visit my brothers and I in the United States (when I return) since I cannot make it to Gaza.

The Ministry updates travelers on the status of their request via web. This is perhaps the only convenient and “modern” aspect of the entire process. When the Egyptians announce the border will open, a few days beforehand, a list of “lucky names” appears on the ministry’s website.

You are assigned a bus number. My father’s is 66, but it has yet to appear. During the last opening, they made it to bus 20.

“What does that mean?” I ask of the curious numbers. “Are you at least guaranteed passage eventually?” Rafah’s onerous procedures change almost yearly, and it’s hard to keep track.

“It simply means you have a seat on a bus from Gaza to the border. The rest is up to the Egyptians. Maybe 40% of people are turned back” he explains.

Most travelers go to the Ministry in person anyway, like my father, some on an almost daily basis. The last time my father went-a few days ago, he described the heart wrenching scenes to me:

There was the newly wed, separated from her husband; the newly engaged, separated from her fiancé for over a year; and then there were those who were simply bawling and begging: for some small miracle; to someone who had no “authority” over anything in the end of the day; to somehow clear the brackets of all the unknowns and get right to the source of the equation; to make things work.

In Gaza, life is interrupted on an hourly basis, in an infinite number of ways.

The most mundane of them are often the cruelest. They go unnoticed.

In Baalbeck

2009-05-05T19:00:00.003+03:00

Well, we aren't in Gaza, but we did manage to make it to Lebanon after more days of drama (this time, involving Yassine's refugee passport requiring a British transit visa-though we did not even pass through British immigration, but i digress).

We are currently in Wavel Refugee Camp in Baalbeck, enjoying cool mountain weather, spheeha Baalbakia (meat pastries), lots of sumptuous sweets (try an avocado shake mixed with pistachios, honey, and topped with fresh clotted cream and chocolate syrup!), and most of, seeing Yassine's family.

Yousuf got his beautiful locks sheared off before I could utter a word-he was whisked away by his grandmother who said this just wouldn't do :) ! He is running around the camp like a sheep who found its flock.

Noor is enjoying discovering new things too- she bottlefed a baby lamb, and coated herself in ashes from top to bottom as she explored the roof of the building!

The net connection is painstainkingly slow here so will have a post with pics later in the week once we make it to Beirut inshallah.

I was born Palestinian

2009-04-14T00:32:00.005+03:00

"Its not very comfortable in there is it?" said the stony faced official, cigarette smoke forming a haze around his gleaming oval head.

"Its OK. We're fine" I replied wearily, delirious after being awake for a straight period of 30 hours.

"You could be in there for days you know. For weeks. Indefinitely. "So, tell me, you are taking a plane tomorrow morning to the US?"

****

It was our journey home that began with the standard packing frenzy: squeezing everything precious and dear and useful into two suitcases that would be our sustenance for the course of 3 months.

The trips to the outdoor recreation store- in preparation for what I anticipated to be a long and tortuous journey across Rafah Crossing to Gaza. The inspect repellent; the mosquito netting; the water purifier; the potty toppers for my kids and the dried fruit and granola bars and portion sized peanut butter cups. This time, I wanted to be ready, I thought to myself-just in case I got stuck at the Crossing. The Crossing. My presumptuousness is like a dull hit to the back of my head now.

In addition to all the packing of suitcases, we were also packing up our house- my husband was finishing up his residency at duke University and set to start a medical fellowship at Johns Hopkins in July. In the meantime, we were "closing shop", putting our things in storage, selling the rest, and heading overseas: me to Gaza, he to Lebanon to visit his family.

Eventually I was too meet him there (assuming i could get into Gaza, and the, assuming I could get out). Yassine is a third-generation Palestinian refugee from the village of Waarit al-Siris in nothern historic Palestine; he was born in a refugee camp in Lebanon and holds a Laizze Passe for Palestinian refugees. Israel denies him return to his own home- or even to the home of his spouse in Gaza. So when we go overseas, we often go our separate ways; we cannot live legally, as a unit, as a family, in our own homes.

I hold a Palestinian Authority passport. It replaced the "temporary two-year Jordanian passport for Gaza residents" that we held until the Oslo Accords and the creation of the Palestinian Authority in the mid '90s, which itself replaced the Egyptian travel documents we held before that. A progression in a long line of stateless documentation.

It is a passport that allows no passage. A passport that denied me entry to my own home. This is its purpose: to mark me, brand me, so that I am easily identified and cast aside without questions; it is convenient for those giving the orders. It is a system for the collective identification of those with no identity.

***

We finished packing as much as we could of the house, leaving the rest to Yassine who was to leave a week after us, and drove 4 hours to Washington to spend a few day sat my brother's house before we took off.

First, we headed to the the Egyptian embassy.

Last year, my parents were visiting us from Gaza City when Rafah was sealed hermetically. They attempted to fly back to Egypt to wait for the border to open- but were now allowed to board the plane in Washington. "Palestinians cannot fly to Egypt now without a visa, new rules" the airline personnel explained, "and no visas can be issued until Rafah is open" added the Egyptian embassy official.

They were in a conundrum, aggravated by the fact that their US stay entry stamp had reach passed its six-month limit. Eventually, they got around the issue by obtaining an Egyptian tourist visa, made easier by their old age, which they used to wait in Egypt for one month until Rafah Crossing opened again.

I did not want to repeat their ordeal, so I called the embassy this time, which assured me the protocol had changed: now, it was only Palestinian men who were not allowed to fly to or enter Egypt. Women were, and would get their visa at the Egyptian port of destination. I was given a signed and dated letter (April 6, 2009) by the consul to take with me in case I encountered any problems:

"The Consular Section of the Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt hereby confirms that women, who are residents of the Gaza Strip, and who hold passports issued by the Palestinian Authority are required to get their visa to enter Egypt at Egyptian ports and NOT at the various Egyptian consulates in the United States on their way to the Gaza Strip for the purpose of reaching their destination (i.e. Gaza Strip)" it read.

With letter and bags in hand, we took off, worried only about the possibility of entering Gaza- the thought of being able to enter Egypt never crossing my mind.

2 long-haul flights and one 7 hour transit later, we made it. I knew the routine by heart. Upon our arrival, I was quick to hit the bank to buy the $15 visa stamps for Yousuf and Noor's American passports and exchange some dollars into Egyptian pounds. I figured it would help pass the time while the lines got shorter.

I then went and filled out my entry cards-an officer came and filled them out with me seeing my hands were full, a daypack on my back, Noor strapped to my chest in a carrier, Yousuf in my hand...

we then submitted our passports, things seemed to be going smoothly. Just then the officer explained he needed to run something by his superior. "You have a Palestinian passport; Rafah crossing is closed..."

"I promise it will just be 5 minutes" he assured me. But that's all i needed to hear. I knew I was in for a long wait. It was at this point I yanked out my laptop and began to tweet and blog about my experience (full progression of tweets here courtesy Hootsbuddy). At first I thought it would simply help pass the time; it developed into a way to pool resources together that could help me; and ended as a public awareness campaign.

****

The faces were different each time. 3 or four different rooms and hallways to navigate down. They refused to give names and the answers they gave were always in the form of cryptic questions.

The first explained I would not be allowed entry into Egypt because Palestinians without permanent residency abroad are not allowed in; and besides- Rafah Crossing is closed he said (my response: so open it?). I was told I was to be deported to the UK first. "But I had no British visa" I explained. I was ordered to agree to get on the next flight. I refused-I didn't come all this way to turn back.

I was escorted to the "extended transit terminal". It was empty at first, save for a south Asian man in tightly buckled jeans and a small duffel bag that spent the good part of our time there there in a deep sleep. During the day the hall would fill up with locally deported passengers- from villages of cities across Egypt, and we would move our things to the upper waiting area.

Most of the time was spent in this waiting area with low level guards who knew nothing and could do nothing.

At different intervals a frustrated Yousuf, fully caped in his black spiderman outfit and mask, would approach them angrily about "why they wouldn't let him go see his seedo and tete?" and why "they put cockroaches on the floor". When we first arrived, he asked if these were the "yahood", his only experiences with extended closure, delay, and denial of entry being at the hands of the israeli soldiers and government. "No, but why don't you ask them why they are are allowed through to sunbathe and we aren't to our own homes?"

"Rabina kbeer" came the response. They were impotent. God is great.

There was very little time I was given access to anyone who had any authority. I seemed to be called in whenever the new person on duty arrived, when they were scheduled for their thrice daily interrogation and intimidation, their shooting and crying.

Officers came and went as shifts began and ended. But our status was always the same. Our "problem", our case, our issue was always the same. We remained, sitting on our chairs, with our papers and documents in hand, waiting, and no one the better.

Always waiting. For this is what the Palestinian does: we wait. For an answer to be given, for a question to be asked; for a marriage proposal to be made, for a divorce to be finalized; for a border to open, for a permit to be issued; for a war to end; for a war to begin; for a child to be born; for one to die a martyr; for retirement or a new job; for exile to a better place and for return to the only place that knows us; for our prisoners to come home; for our home to no longer be prisons; for our children to be free; for freedom from a time when we no longer have to wait.

We waited for the next shift as we were instructed by those who made their own instructions. Funny how when you need to pass the time, the time does not pass.

"You need to speak with whose in charge-and their shift starts at 10 am". So we pass the night and wait until 10. "Well by the time they really get started its more like noon". So we wait till noon. "Well the real work isn't until the evening". And we wait until evening. Then the cycle starts again.

Every now and then the numberless phone would ring requesting me, and a somber voice would ask if I changed my mind. I insisted all I wanted to do was go home; that it was not that complicated.

"But Gaza is a special case, we all know that" I was told.

Special, as in expendable, not human, not entitled to rights special, I thought.

Unfamiliar faces that acted as though though I was a long-lost friend kept popping in and out to see me. As though I were an amnesiac in a penitentiary. They all kept asking the same cryptic question "so you are getting on a plane soon, right?"

First, a gentleman from the Palestinian representative's office that someone else whose name I was meant to recognize sent. " It'll all be resolved within the hour" he promised confidently, before going on to tell me about his son who worked with Motorola in Florida;

"Helping Israeli drones do their job?"

"That's right!" he beamed.

An hour came and went, and suddenly the issue was "irresolvable", and I was "a journalist up to trouble".

***

Friends and family in Egypt, the US, and Gaza, worked around the clock with me, calling in any favors they had, anyone they knew, doing anything they could to get some answers and let me through. But the answer was always the same: Amn il Dawla (State Security and Intelligence) says no, and they are the ultimate authorities. No one goes past them.

Later a second Palestinian representative came to see me.

"So you are not going on that second flight are you?"

"What are you talking about? Why does everyone speak to me in question form?"

"Answer the question"

"No, I came here to go to Gaza, not to return to the US"

"Ok that's all I needed to know; there is a convoy of injured Palestinian with security clearance heading to the border with some space; we are trying to get you on there with them; 15 minutes and it'll all be resolved, we just need clearance, its all over" he assured me.

Yousuf smashed another cockroach.

****
We were taken down a new hallway. A new room. A new face. The man behind the desk explained how he was losing sleep over my case, how I had the while airport working on it, ho he had a son Yousuf's age; and then offered me an apple and a bottle of water and told me istaraya7i, to rest, a command I would hear again and again over the course of the 36 hours.

Is this man for real??? an apple and a bottle of water? I thought to myself, my eyes nearly popping out of my face.

"I don't want your food. I don't want to rest. I don't want your sympathy. I JUST WANT TO GO HOME. To my country. To my parents. IS THAT TOO HARD TO UNDERSTAND?" I screamed, breaking my level-headed calm of the past 20 hours.

"Please don't yell, just calm down, calm down, everyone outside will think I am treating you badly, c'mon, and besides its 'ayb (disgraceful) not to accept the apple from me".

"'Ayb?? What's 'AYB is you denying my entry to my own home! And why should I be calm? This situation doesn't call for calm; it makes no sense and neither should I!"

A distraught Noor furrowed her brows and then comforted me the only way she knew how: by patting me on the back with her little hands and giving me a hug. Yousuf began to cry.

"C'mon lady don't have a breakdown in front of your kids please. You know I have a kid your son's age and its breaking my heart to do this, to see him in these conditions, to put him in the conditions, so please take the plane."

"So don't see me in these conditions! There's a simple solution you know. LET ME GO HOME. Its not asking a lot is it?"

"Hey now look lady" he said, stiffening suddenly into bad cop, his helpless grimace disappeared.
"Rules are rules, you need a visa to get in here like any other country, can you go to Jordan without a visa?'

"Don't play the rules game with me. I HAD APPROVAL FROM YOUR EMBASSY, FROM YOUR CONSUL GENERAL, to cross into Egypt and go to Gaza; and besides how else am I supposed to get into Gaza???" I shouted, frantically waving the stamped and signed document in front of him as though it were a magic wand.

"So sue him. Amn il Dawla supercedes the foreign ministry's orders, he must have outdated protocol."

"The letter was dated April 6, that is 2 days ago, how outdated could it be?? Look- if I could parachute into Gaza I would, trust me. With all do respect to your country, I'm not here to sight-see. Do you have a parachute for me? If I could sail there I would do that too, but last I check Israel was ramming and turning those boats back. Do you have another suggestions?

"What is it you want lady- do you want to just live in the airport? is that it? Because we have no problems letting you live here, really. We can set up a shelter for you. And no one will ever ask about you or know you exist. In any case you don't have permanent residency abroad so our government policies say we can't let a Palestinian who does not have permanent residency abroad"

"I have a US Visa- its expired but my extension of status document is valid until the end of June. and besides- what kind of illogical law is that? you aren't allowing me back home if I don't have permanent residency abroad?"

"I don't read English please translate.."

"You see it says here that my status is valid until June 30, 2009"

"Good, so then we CAN deport you back to the US" he said, picking up the phone and giving a quick order for the Palestinian convoy of injured Palestinians heading to the Crossing to go on without me, my only hope of returning home dissipating before my eyes at the hands of a barely literate manipulative enforcer.

"You just said if i have permanent residency abroad I can go home, now you say I can't, which is it??"

"I'm sorry you are refusing to go on the plane. Take her away please."

We were ushered back to the extended waiting area, back to our roach ridden premises that had become our home, along with a newly arrived Luxembourgian and French couple and their two children who had failed to produce their passports and were being sent back home. Here I was, about to be deported away from home, over prepared, with my documents and signed papers, from consulates and universities and governments; and they, used to traveling passport-free the EU, being sent back home because they had only an ID card.

***

It wasn't long before a new guard came to us, and request we follow him "to a more isolated room". "It will be better for you- more private. All the African flights are arriving now with all their diseases, you don't want to be here for that! It'll get overcrowded and awful in here."

Given the the well-wishes that preceded my last interrogation about the "uncomfortableness" I may endure, I somehow had a feeling where we were headed.

We were asked to bring all our luggage and escorted down a different hallway; this time we were asked to leave everything behind, and to give up our cameras, laptops, and mobile phones. We took our seats in the front of a tiny filthy room, where 17 other men (and one Indonesian woman was sleeping on the floor in the back, occasionally shouting out in the middle of her interrupted sleep) of varying nationalities were already waiting.

A brute man-, illiterate by his own admission, took charge of each of files, spontaneously blurting out vulgarities and ordering anyone who so much as whispered to shut the hell up or get sent to real prison; the room was referred to as "7abs", or a cell; I can probably best describe it as the detention or holding room. a heady man with a protruding belly that seems at odds with his otherwise lanky body was the door guard.

Officer #1 divided up the room into regions: the 5 or so south Asians who were there for whatever reason-expired paperwork, illegal documentation- were referred to as "Pakistan" when their attention was needed; The snoozing, sleep-talking woman in the back was "Indonesia"; and the impeccably dressed Guinean businessman, fully decked in a sharp black suit and blue lined tie, was "Kenya" (despite his persistence please to the contrary). There was a group of Egyptian peasants with forged, fake, or wrongly filed Id cards and passports: a 54 year old man whose ID said he was born in 1990; another who left his ID in his village 5 hours away, and so on.

By this point, I had not slept in 27 hours, 40 if one were to count the plane ride. My patience and my energy were wearing thing. My children were filthy and tired and confused; Noor was crying. I tried to set her cot up, but a cell within a cell did not seem to her liking and she resisted, much as I did.

We took the opportunity to chat when officer #1 was away. ""So what did you do?" asked Kenya, the Guinean.

"I was born Palestinian" I replied. "Everyone in here is being deported back home for one reason or another right? I bet I am the only one being deported away from home; the only one denied entry to my home."

Officer #1 returned, this time he asked me to come with him "with or without your kids". I brought them along, not knowing what was next.

There was two steely-eyed men on either end of a relatively well-furnished room, once again inquiring about my "comfort" and ordering-in the form of a question- whether I was taking a flight that morning to the US.

Noor began making a fuss, bellowing at the top of her lungs and swatting anyone that approached her.

"She is stubborn. She takes after her mother I see" said the man.

Soon we were escorted back to the waiting area. I knew there was nothing more I could do. We waited for several more hours until my children exhausted themselves and fell asleep. I bathed them in the filthy bathroom sinks with freezing tap water and hand soap and arranged their quarters on the steel chairs of the waiting room, buzzing with what seemed like a thousand gnats. Thank God for the mosquito netting.

Eventually, dawn broke, and we were escorted by two guards to the ticket counter, our $2500 flights rerouted, and put on a plane back to Washington.

I noted on one of my tweets that I would be shocked if my children's immune system survived this jolt. It didn't.

My daughter vomited the whole flight to London as I slipped in and out of delirium, mumbling half Arabic half English phrases to the flustered but helpful Englishman sitting next to us. I thank him wherever he is for looking after us.

Whatever she had, Yousuf an eye caught in the coming days-along with an ear and throat infection.

Eventually, we reached Dulles Airport. I walked confidently to the booth when it was my turn.

What was I going to say? How do I explain this? The man took one look at my expired visa, and my departure stamps.

"How long have you been gone?"

"36 hours" I replied bluntly.

"Yes,I see that. Do you want to explain?"

"Sure. Egypt forbade me from returning to Gaza".

"I don't understand- they denied you entry to your own home?"

"I don't either, and if I did, I wouldn't be here."

With that, I was given a a stamp and allowed back inside.

Now that we are warm; clothes; showered, rested and recovered from whatever awful virus we picked up in the bowels of Cairo airport, I keep thinking to myself: what more could I have done?

“The quintessential Palestinian experience,” historian Rashid Khalidi has written, “takes place at a border, an airport, a checkpoint: in short, at any one of those many modern barriers where identities are checked and verified.”

In this place, adds Robyn Creswell, “connection” turns out to be only another word for separation or quarantine: the loop of airports never ends, like Borges’s famous library. The cruelty of the Palestinian situation is that these purgatories are in no way extraordinary but rather the backdrop of daily existence."

Darwish therapy: Athens Airport

2009-04-13T22:25:00.002+03:00

Yassine sent me this prose poem of Darwish's while I was in Cairo airport, which he published just after the siege in Beirut. He describes the revolving door nature of Athens Airport and airports in general-which change their residents each day, while "we remain in our seats." Time stands still for the Palestinian.

From Robyn Creswell in an article she penned on Dariwsh for Harper's in February:

"The poem describes an entire community—an intellectual, a clerk, a militant, a lover—all trying to carry on their everyday tasks in that international limbo. In this place, “connection” turns out to be only another word for separation or quarantine: the loop of airports never ends, like Borges’s famous library. The cruelty of the Palestinian situation is that these purgatories are in no way extraordinary but rather the backdrop of daily existence."

Athens Airport -Mahmoud Darwish

Athens airport disperses us to other airports. Where can I fight? asks the fighter.
Where can I deliver your child? a pregnant woman shouts back.
Where can I invest my money? asks the officer.
This is none of my business, the intellectual says.
Where did you come from? asks the customs' official.
And we answer: From the sea!
Where are you going?
To the sea, we answer.
What is your address?
A woman of our group says: My village is my bundle on my back.
We have waited in the Athens airport for years.
A young man marries a girl but they have no place for their wedding night.
He asks: Where can I make love to her?
We laugh and say:
This is not the right time for that question.
The analyst says: In order to live, they die by mistake.
The literary man says: Our camp will certainly fall.
What do they want from us?
Athens airport welcomes its visitors without end.
Yet, like the benches in the terminal, we remain, impatiently waiting for the sea.
How many more years longer, O Athens airport?

(Translated by Munir Akash and Carolyn Forché)

getting deported away from home

2009-04-09T07:26:00.000+03:00

quick post to let everyone know after 36 hours I am being deported- away from my home. more later

Our pause in Cairo Airport

2009-04-08T18:31:00.000+03:00

We have been stuck in Cairo airport for nearly a day now. We are neither being allowed entry or exit by Egyptian authorities, who insist that as long as Rafah Crossing is closed, they are under strict orders not to allow Palestinians in.

This is despite a signed letter of consent I received personally from the Egyptian consul-general in Washington the day of my travel from the US.

To quote the Egyptian officials here in the airport "so sue him".

I tried to plead that it was not my fault Egypt was in the way of my home- that if I could,I'd parachute in; that i simply wanted to go back home.

For now, we wait and sleep on the roach ridden floors of the transit hall as our own "Borders" film (a classic Syrian satire by iconic actor Dreid La7am about a man who is stuck between the borders of two fictional countries who speak the same language) unfolds.

We cannot return to the US b/c my visa has expired and I was planning on renewing it in Beirut where I was to meet up with Yassine after my Gaza stay.

And we are not beig allowed entry to Cairo because Rafah is closed.

No one seems to have an answer, other than whast was told to me this morning. No one knows where my file is or what is going to happen. I have an off again on again wifi signal, and tryig my best to keep updates on twitter @gazamom.

The only certainty is uncertainty.

The Success of BDS

2009-04-05T20:08:00.002+03:00

It is always difficult to quantify the success of a grassroots activist movement. It is particularly frustrating in the case of the anti-Israeli Apartheid BDS movement. Enter this short piece form the Jerusalem Post about over one-fifth of Israeli exporters suffering losses as a result of the boycott. Progress is slow, but the abnormalization of Occupation and highlighting its Apartheid-like nature is the way to go.

Local exporters are losing foreign markets and customers because of the global economic crisis and a growing anti-Israel boycott of locally made products following Operation Cast Lead, the Israel Manufacturers Association said Sunday.

"In addition to the problems and difficulties arising from the global economic crisis, 21 percent of local exporters report that they are facing problems in selling Israeli goods because of an anti-Israel boycott, mainly from the UK and Scandinavian countries ," said Yair Rotloi, chairman of the association's foreign-trade committee.

A survey conducted among 90 exporters from a variety of sectors found that 53% had lost foreign markets and customers as a result of the global economic crisis. In addition, 62% said they were having trouble collecting payments from foreign clients, while 49% said their customers have asked to pay in installments.

Foreign customers had forced 66% of Israeli exporters to cut prices because of the economic climate, the survey showed.

Twenty-nine percent of exporters reduced business travel abroad by more than 30%, 11% cut it 20%, 6.5% reduced it 10% and 43% reported no change. Twenty-six percent of exporters said business visits by their foreign customers had declined .

Palestine Children's Festival in Gaza

2009-03-30T02:22:00.002+03:00

Gaza's College for the Applied Sciences presents the Palestinian Festival for Childhood and Education April 5-9- the largest annual children's event in Palestine!

We attended the festival a few years ago-when Yousuf was about 2 at the time, and I hope we will be able to make it through Rafah in time for this year's.

Lessons from South Africa: a Duke event

2009-03-27T17:26:00.002+03:00

Prof. Dugard is a personal friend of ours and comes with a wealth of experience and knowledge- Duke is lucky to have him this year, though few people are aware of it. He was also the predessor of Richard Falk, having authored a number of excellent reports on the situation in the OPT-and is credited with coinign the oft-quoted phrase "Gaza is a prison and Israel seems to have thrown away the key". I encourage those residing in the Triangle area to come to this event!

People-to-People Foreign Policy: Lessons from South Africa-and their Relevance to the Struggle for Palestinian Self-Determination

An Open Public Discussion led by Professor John Dugard

John Dugard is one of the world's leading experts on international law and international human rights law. South African by birth, he was a vocal critic of the Apartheid regime. He has since gone on to play an influential role in a variety of human rights causes. He has twice served as a Judge Ad Hoc for the International Court of Justice. From 2001 to 2007 he was UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian territories. He will help lead a public discussion about how pressure from everyday people and civil society impacted the struggle against Apartheid, and what these tactics of protest can do for the struggle for Palestinian self-determination. Tuesday March 317 p.m. Rm. 107 Friedl Bldg.124 Campus DriveDurham, NC 27701.

Remote control death

2009-03-25T04:56:00.003+02:00

An excellent article was published in the Nation and co-authored by good friend Darryl Li, a consultant with Human Rights Watch, after a recent fact-finding mission to Gaza. The title: "Remote-Control Death". It deals with the now all-too familiar drone technology employed over Gaza, and investigates how "discriminate" they really are (hint: not very), and suggests that no weapon better symbolizes Israel's indirect occupation of the Gaza Strip.

What resonated with me the most was the line that was attempting to describe the so-called paradox that is Israel's "relationship" to Gaza ("indirect occupation" or as i like to call it, remote-control occupation); how, despite the fact that Israel has disclaimed responsibility for Gaza, it continues to control every aspect of life there, down to what Gazans can eat and when they can turn on their lights:

"Since removing its military bases and settlers from Gaza in 2005, Israel has disclaimed any responsibility as an occupying power for the well-being of Gaza's populace. But even without permanent garrisons, Israel continues to control Gaza's economy and infrastructure, from its borders and airspace to its power grid and monetary policy. The Israeli blockade of Gaza, tightened in mid-2007 after Hamas took over Palestinian Authority institutions, has created immense hardships on Gaza's civilian population. And just as Israel's control of Gaza's borders allows it to dictate from a safe distance what Gazans can eat, whether they can turn on their lights and what kinds of medical treatment are available to them, drones give Israel the ability to carry out targeted attacks without having to risk "boots on the ground."

This is Gaza. This is Occupation.

On that note, we are leaving to Cairo April 6, in hopes of making it across Rafah shortly thereafter.

Goodbye MOTO! Goodbye Apartheid!

2009-03-22T05:54:00.003+02:00

Join the New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel (NYCBI) as they launch their city-wide boycott of Motorola!

Monday, March 30
7:45-9:30 am
Motorola’s NYC Headquarters
335 Adams St., Brooklyn

(A,C,F to Jay St./Borough Hall, 2,3,4,5 to Borough Hall, M,R to Court St./Borough Hall or to Lawrence St./Metro Tech)

Why Boycott?
In the wake of Israel's recent assault on the people of Gaza and the US government's complicity in the attacks, we as people of conscience in the US must challenge Israeli policies. Hundreds of Palestinian civil society organizations have called on the world to work on campaigns of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, and New York is taking up the call!

Why Motorola?
Motorola USA and its wholly owned subsidiary Motorola Israel develop and provide equipment to the Israeli military and settlers, including bomb fuses, military communication systems, and surveillance systems for the wall and settlements. Similar practices by Motorola during South African apartheid prompted a successful boycott against them. Let’s do it again!

Canada in 8 days

2009-03-15T05:27:00.007+02:00

Well, we're back, and I think finally caught up on sleep after a tour that saw us through 8 different cities in as many days. As I noted to a friend who suggested I was "amazing" for doing this trip with both kids in tow: some call it amazing...some call it insane. Thin line.

I should say I feel a little guilty-ever since I've begun twittering, I've found myself devoting less time to blogging. Its like I'm cheating on my blog! I admit it-I'm having an affair with Twitter!

Back to our trip:

We began our whirlwind in Buffalo, NY where I was invited to speak at the University of Buffalo fundraiser for Gaza-during which an iconic Palestinian painting by Ismail Shamout, "Victory Dance", was auctioned off.

From there we flew to NYC for the night, and the following morning to Edmonton, Canada in Alberta for my first speaking engagement as part of a national (and apparently global event-40 cities worldwide) Israeli Apartheid Week. It was Edmonton's first IAW and was very well organized.

It was also the coldest city of the lot- also the city where Noor had the pleasure of experiencing her first snow (sheer joy for the first 40 seconds-until her fingers began to go numb!).

Yousuf took the opportunity to go sledding (on a cardboard box- an hour before our flight out-see action shot below!).

We were hosted by an extraordinarily devoted local group of activists-whose house I fear sustained permanent damage as a result of my offspring (who would have thought a 14 month old could do so much damage?)

From there we moved on to Calgary, where I addressed a packed auditorium on the realities of the "Gaza Zoo*", emphasizing throughout my talks the consistency and constancy with which Israeli policies have played out there-regardless of who has been in power. Policies I suggested were aimed at deliberately forestalling any prospect for viable Palestinian statehood-something never explicitly outlined in any agreement.

We were again met by an enthusiastic group of organizers there, who saw us off to our third stop, Toronto, where IAW was launched in 2005. I caught up with old friends there-including my nursery school teacher, Um Bashar, now retired (whom I had not seen for 28 years!).

Toronto had the most packed crowed. I spoke there with fellow journalist and photographer Jon Elmer, who was in Gaza reporting at the same time I was and who gave a moving presentation.

One picture in particular stands out in my mind- of a clearly distraught mother nevertheless tutoring her child-on a cardboard box outside their demolished home.

Toronto was also the city where I was interrupted in the middle of my presentation by staunch zionists.

From there I went on to Kingston, where we celebrated Yousuf's 5th birthday (and not a picture to prove it! (HINT HINT TO EVERYONE WHO TOOK SNAPS AND PROMISED TO EMAIL THEM!! :)) and finally, Montreal, where I was met by the organizer of the tour, the tireless Laith Marouf and his lovely family (below, a cheeky Yousuf poses next to little Yafa, Laith's daughter, atop of Mont-Royal). After my speech there, a woman stood up to the microphone and made a comment that really touched me. She told me was a native Canadian/aboriginal and that she was married to a Palestinian. They frequently discussed the similarities between their plights. But she reminded him-and me- how lucky we were to at the very least have preservfed our language and our culture. She tearfully explainedh how her native language has essentially been lost, save for a few words, through the brutal segregation and elimination of her people and their social fabric.

I should take this moment to mention that IAW is not your ordinary awareness week. In its few years of existance, it has been met by staunch resistance and a hateful campaign attempting to vilify it and its organizers by status quo defenders and hypocrites on all levels-a testimony to its significance and its success.

Posters of the event were banned on certain campuses, and donors urged to condition their funding of universities on banning the week. Even top-ranking politicians have gotten involved-including a former professor of mine at the Kennedy School (now head of Canada's Liberal Party) who I am sorry to say I ever took a course with.

From a recent oped in the National Post on the subject, "the poster announcing Israeli Apartheid Week was banned at Carleton, University of Ottawa and Wilfred Laurier University. B'nai Brith took out advertisements urging university presidents to ban Israeli Apartheid Week. Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff have denounced the event. Jason Kenney also threatened to pull funding from immigration settlement programs administered by the Canadian Arab Federation on the basis of their record of advocacy for Palestinian rights"

On our way back to the, I was stopped briefly for a secondary security screening. As the two immigration officers were taking care of my paperwork, one asked if I had just come from Palestine after seeing my passport. I told him no, that I hadn't, and that the borders to Gaza were sealed in any case.

"No one can get out either?" asked the second officer.

"No one" I replied. "And if they manage to, it is somewhat of a miracle".

"Damn, if I wasn't allowed out of here, I think I'd kill someone!" he snapped.

Then, some uncomfortable laughter and acknoledging nods.

That, in short, was a briefing on our trip to Canada! I wish I had more photos but my batteries went dead and everyone who promised to send shots they'd taken never came through :(

In roughly 3 weeks we are packing up our things-again-this time leaving Durham for good and moving upwards, literally: Yassine will start his Cornea fellowship this July in Baltimore, but in the meantime, the kiddos and I are heading (make that: attempting to head) to Gaza while Yassine will go visit his family in Lebanon.

As usual we will have to play things by ear and gamble on when and whether Rafah Crossing might open to Palestinian residents. Will definitely be blogging and tweeting between now and then and all along the way.

* Gaza Zoo is a reference to the term coined by good friend and scholar Darryl Li in a piece he wrote for Adalah describing the Gaza Strip: a situation where the freedom of animals is never up for discussion; rather, the objective is to tame them through careful regulation of leash and diet.

Oh Canada! @Gazamom

2009-03-02T06:42:00.003+02:00

Our journey began in Buffalo, NY where I gave a talk at a fundraiser for PCRF put on by the University of Buffalo Arab Students Organization.

Now am in Edmonton, Canada for the first in a series of talks I am invited to give here.

www.apartheidweek.org

Quick note to say you can follow my travles on Twitter @Gazamom

Gaza and pain in the distance

2009-02-23T05:20:00.002+02:00

Some excellent Puerto Rican press coverage of my talk (note: for non-Spanish speakers, you can use Google translate tool to read the articles).

"Gaza o el dolor en la distancia" by RUTH MERINO MÉNDEZ

and

Una periodista en Gaza by Ana Teresa Toro

I thought this line was particularly entertaining:

"El-Haddad, who to the naked eye responds to the stereotype of Muslim women veiled and submissive attitude, but as soon as begins to talk shows full mastery of the stage" =) b/c you know that's me, oppressed Muslim woman.

My Canada speaking tour

2009-02-23T04:58:00.002+02:00

so my posts will be a bit further apart for at least the next two weeks...I'm doing some more travel starting Friday: first, to Buffalo, NY, and then a week across Canada with Yousuf and Noor in tow. For anyone interested, here is the schedule:

Edmonton, Alberta
Monday, March 2 @ 7pm
University of Alberta. Telus Center for Professional Development, Room 150
111 Street and 87 Avenue

Calgary, Alberta.
Tuesday, March 3 @ 6:30pm
University of Calgary. Cragie Hall Rm 119

Toronto, Ontario.
Wednesday, March 4 @ 7pm
Gaza: Breaking the Siege
University of Toronto. Walberg Building, Room 116
184-200 College Street.

Kingston, Ontario
Thursday, March 5 @ 6:30pm
Queens University.

Montreal, Quebec
Friday, March 6 @ 6:30pm
Concordia University, Room H-937
1455 de Maisonneuve west

de Gaza a Puerto Rico!

2009-02-17T05:44:00.016+02:00

ok, so where to begin. We recently returned from our 8 day trip to Puerto Rico. I'm still moping about why I am back in dreary Durham as opposed to warm and welcoming Puerto Rico, and that has somewhat hindered my progress in blogging about my experience there (that, and one too many late night dinner parties hosted by the burgeoning Palestinian community there...suffice to say, I am all kharoofed out for the season!). Honestly, we need a vacation from our vacation!

The purpose of the trip was to give a talk at Sacred Heart University (Universidad Sacredo Corazon)'s Center for Freedom of the Press.

The talk took place the evening of Monday, February 9th, following a day of interviews with local press, including this one in WAPA TV Puerto Rico, by journalist Julio Rivera-Saniel (notice my incessant arm-flailing-as though there were an invisible fly I were trying to swat), and a very thoughtful lengthier piece in his personal blog (he actually got all the details of my seemingly nonsensical life correct so I must give him some credit!!).

In short, it was a tremendous success. I was absolutely overwhelmed by the reception I got and by the unprecedented attendance- organizers estimated that up to 1000 people showed up, and 500 others had to be turned away for lack of room (both in the parking lot and the two rooms that were filled to capacity). Never in the history of the Center have so many people showed up to an event.

It was clear the people of Puerto Rico were thirsty for knowledge about the Palestinian conflict, and have a deep sense of the injustice of it all. What was even more remarkable was the diversity of the attendance: traditionally, I was told, it is the Independentista, supporters of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, or Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (PIP) that make up about 5% of voters only, who would attend such functions, relating on many levels to the Palestinian situation and their struggle for statehood (but as one man later pointed out to me-

"In your case it's not only the struggle for sovereignty but also a struggle to obtain a minimum of Basic Human Rights."

Another NY blogger of Puerto Rican heritage added:

"The Taino (the indigenous of Puerto Rico) welcomed the first European invaders. In exchange, the Taino were greeted with an unrelenting Holocaust. After 500 years of systematic efforts to destroy the Taino, it's only recently that a Taino identity is beginning to re-emerge. Unfortunately, we have so little left. The land was taken and our customs and language were obliterated. But slowly bits and pieces of our lost heritage--along w/DNA evidence--are helping us reclaim our true heritage. However, progress is hindered by the propaganda of Puerto Rico's ruling families--which are of European heritage--that the Taino were eliminated."

He also related the the similar experiences of Mexican-AMericans in Texas.

Back to the talk-participation was across the board I was told. People from all backgrounds and level of knowledge appeared. I was particularly touched a Puerto Rican man of Taino heritage who brought his young 8-year-old daughter with him (she later asked for my autograph :)).

The talk was without incident, barring an eruption at the end by an Israeli right-winger who -in true Zionist fashion- occupied the podium, took over the microphone and demanded to be heard, before being asking to respect the Q&A procedures.

We spent the rest of the week in the welcoming hands of the Puerto Rican Palestinian and Muslim communities. They make up roughly 5000 inhabitants on the island. Most of the Palestinians are third generation, descendants of immigrants from villages surrounding Ramallah. Many work in the pharmaceutical industry that is the underpinning of the Puerto Rican Economy (and inf act Palestinians own the second largest chain of pharmacies there, El-Amal). Many started out in Columbia or New York and ended up in Puerto Rico, where their amicability and forgiving business habits helped them gain favor with the locals.

On Sunday we were invited to speak to the the Farouk Mosque in Vega Alta, a suburb of San Juan. It was stunning, located on a hill top surrounded by banana and grapefruit trees, overlooking the freeway and the rest of the island. In attendence were also a group of native Puerto Rican Muslims.

We did manage to sneak out and enjoy ourselves for at least two days. We took a ferry to the island of Culebra just off the coast of Puerto Rico, where we spent one rainy day indoors as well as exploring the gastronomical topography of the island, witch oregano, belladonnas, star fruit trees, and all, and ended up making up our own rice pudding recipe with local hibiscus leaves, star fruit and fresh coconut and passion fruit fruit juice (courtesy of the juice man across the casita from where we were staying). We spent the next day on the stunning Playa Flamenco.

Earlier in the week, we had an opportunity to view an outdoor photography exhibit, "Earth From Above", by artist-activist Yann Arthus-Bertrand, of 150 four-foot by six-foot aerial photographs of the Earth and our world (in case you are wondering, that's a photo of a man taking a nap on an enormous pile of freshly picked and bundled cotton- not a cauliflower).

Yousuf practiced his own photography skills- snapping a revealing (I'm kidding) photo of my legs, and a vendor selling peeled oranges on the main promenade in Old San Juan.

Egypt arrests blogger, Gaza activist, Philip Rizk

2009-02-09T17:12:00.006+02:00

Sorry this is a little late in coming...been consumed with my travel to San Juan and preparations for the conference I'm speaking at (and on top of that did not have internet access until today)...I have just learned that my good friend and fellow blogger, journalist, and activist Philip Rizk, has been arrested by Egyptian secret police-thugs.

I cannot even imagine Philip in the hands of these torturers, he is one of the most low-strung, peaceful people I have met (especially given that he lived in Gaza for some time, which can tend to make people a nervous wreck!)

I first met Philip, who is a dual German-Egyptian citizen, in Gaza City's Dira hotel through a mutual friend who told me he had just moved to town working on aid projects with Canon Andrew White, special envoy to the Middle East for the Archbishop of Canterbury. I remember clearly- a then 18 month old Yousuf was wreaking havoc in the restaurant-tugging at the tablecloth when we were unsuccessful in distracting him with the indoor playground.

In any case, Philip began a blog after that titled "Tabula Gaza" to which I have a link below.

He was arrested a few days ago during a rally north of Cairo held as part of a series of rallies organized by the Egyptian Popular Committee in Solidarity with The Palestinian People in commemoration of the breaching of the Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt one year ago on January 23rd, 2008 and in a bid to End the Siege on Gaza.

Here it is worth noting of course that Philip is not alone in his arrest. Every day dozens of Egyptian activists are arrest, taken to undisclosed locations, and tortured by the Egyptian secret police. As recent as last week, more than 50 members of the Muslim Brotherhood organization were also detained after a recent Gaza rally, and more than 500 in the past month.

All hail Mubarak...this is what the United States means when it says it wants to work with "moderate leaders" in the Middle East. Democracy at work people.

For more on Philip's case (and others in Egyptian penitentiary) check Egypt and Beyond blog (notable is the "Mafia with a License" piece by Sarah Carr), Ben White's blog, and for a detailed account of the kidnapping, see Inanities blog.

Remembering a time

2009-02-05T06:27:00.005+02:00

Yousuf keeps bringing up Gaza and his grandfather. Little things will evoke memories of his time growing up in Gaza-fragments he continues to piece together in a sort of non-linear way from a time he can barely remember yet is so hauntingly familiar: the turtle we found trying to cross the road from the beach inland that we securely re-located to my father's farm (do you think it has a new family now? is it still there?); the time he burned his bottom in the ice-cream shop across the street when my mother accidentally sat him on a container of boiled corn-(hey don't call child protective services-it was an accident!)

Today, it was an old manual camera. My father bought it for him from a garage sale during a visit here last year. I dusted it off after Yousuf said he wanted to take his own pictures when we go to Puerto Rico next week, where I am going to be delivering a lecture at the Center for the Freedom of Press in San Juan.

The camera elicited a host of questions and a conversation I can only pretend to answer with any certainty.

"Mama...inshallah we'll see them again. But what if they are shot before we go? And how will we get across if the border is still closed?" he asks, knowing full-well from years past that going to Gaza is not as easy as hopping on a plane from point A to point B.

"It will all be ok I promise, don't worry too much about such things. Leave that to me and take some pictures of the present, so you can remember your happy times."

Every time I rub his little almost-5-year-old head after he wakes up from an afternoon nap, when his face is still warm, I remember how we huddled together in my bed in Gaza as our windows shuddered from nightly shelling.

He belongs to that place, and he belongs to this time. He belongs to that time, and he belongs to this place.

A Gazan feast!

2009-02-05T05:58:00.004+02:00

I wanted to post these pictures because they made me smile- seeing my parents glowing faces, happy and well-rested, in front of our kitchen table back in Gaza City with a spread that is truly "Gazan feast": traditional suppertime staples like dagga (a famous tomato-dill-hot chili salad), olives from my father's farm, and hearty locally baked wheat-bran bread, in addition to zibdiyit gambari (spicy shrimps baked in a Gaza earthen clay pot), tangy stuffed grape-leaves, and imtaball (aka baba ghanooj) topped with pomegranate seeds (the influence of Yafa, the native city of the dear woman who helps my mother). It was a meal they prepared for my good friend Darryl who was visiting Gaza on a human rights fact-finding mission. He took these pictures of them-before lapsing into a food coma on the way back to his apartment. Word is that his whole team ate the leftovers he took back with him!

Israeli ambassador gets the shoe

2009-02-05T01:35:00.002+02:00

...and apparently, it hit the intended target this time around. From an eyewitness attending the lecture:

Sweden: Shoe hits Israeli ambassador

A shoe was thrown at Israel ’s ambassador to Sweden, Mr. Benny Dagan, when
he was giving a speech at Stockholm University today. The shoe hit its
target. It was followed by two books and a note pad, all hitting the
severely embarrassed ambassador.

The two protesters, a young woman and a young man, shouted “Murderers!”
and “Intifada!” while pelting Dagan with the objects. They are currently
under arrest, suspected of assault and public disturbance.

The lecture was organised by the Foreign policy association at Stockholm
university. The ambassador was supposed to talk about the upcoming
elections in Israel , but turned quickly to issues of Hamas and Iran and
developed a lengthy defence for Israel ’s recent actions in the Gaza
Strip.

Some 20 minutes into the lecture, a woman stood up in the audience, threw
a red shoe at the ambassador and shouted “Murderers!”. The shoe hit Dagan
in his stomach. Another protester then joined in and hurled two books and
a note pad.

Dagan was dumbstruck and paralysed, but returned to his lecture shortly
after a few minutes – only to face shouts and other verbal protests from
the audience. The meeting ended in chaos, while the two protestors were
taken to custody.

The boycott movement in Sweden has gained momentum during the last weeks,
not the least since Veolia lost its Stockholm metro contract, worth some
3.5 billion euro a year, after a long campaign against the company’s
notorious involvement in the Jerusalem tram project. The movement is now
taking aim at the Davis Cup tennis match between Sweden and Israel
scheduled in Malmö 6-8 March.

ISM didn’t participate in the action, but was at the meeting.
International Solidarity Movement-Sweden: www.ism-sweden.org

Seeing is not like hearing

2009-02-04T06:44:00.005+02:00

Yesterday my father joined friend and local activist Fida Qishta and members of the ISM Gaza to visit the site of the al-Daya home- a four-story house that was leveled by Israeli forces on top of its occupants. My father told me there were still four unburied bodies underneath the rubble.

They then went to visit the area where the Samouni clan lived-some 15 houses, citrus groves olive trees, two green houses, and one chicken pen (with about 10, 000 chickens), a water well, cattle and other animals- ALL were eviscerated from existence. The only surviving animal was a donkey. The poor beast was shot in the neck but survived nonetheless with a battle scar and a bandage on his wound.

He sent me the following pictures (my father, not the donkey), of all that remains of the village; its residents showing their hospitality nonetheless as they served them coffee warmed on a small wood-fired grill. In another picture, surviving family members anxiously accept water donations from a truck.

"Seeing is not like hearing" he told me bluntly of the devastation they saw, the livlihoods that were destroyed, and the life that was extinguished.

What YOU can do: 10 way to help Gaza/Palestine

2009-01-30T06:39:00.005+02:00

The last month has been mentally exhausting. Trying to keep up with events in Gaza, my parents safety, and the media frenzy, all while taking care of my children and home definitely takes its toll. But being able overcome that overwhelming feeling of frustration and nagging negative energy is the real challenge.

During such intense events, any person of conscience will be overcome with a feeling of anger, sadness, and often, helplessness. Our gut reaction is sometimes simply to shut down or disengage, whether you are a Palestinian living through this hell, or an observer on the outside, not matter what your level of involvement may be.

The question I keep hearing again and again from people is:

"What can we do to help? Nothing I will do can make much of a difference anyway so why do anything at all."

I am here to tell you, you are wrong! It is time to use that energy-that feeling of helplessness, and harness it into something positive and effective- change for the future.

There is a prophetic saying attribute to Muhammad, peace be upon him, that goes:

"He among you who sees something bad should change it with his hand (e.g. proactively-activism, organization, movement ). If he is unable, then with his tongue ( by speaking out against it ). If he cannot do that, then within his heart ( by always disliking what is evil or harmful ) and that is the weakest of faith".

Notice all are acts of faith. So do not despair!

We all have different levels and abilities and gifts and situations. For some of us, the spoken word is what we excel at. For others, organization and activism; still others, a simple conversation with our neighbors, co-workers, or friends. Or even just a silent prayer.

That said, I would like to offer a list of things that can be done to defeat this feeling of impotence. Things YOU can do to help Gaza. To help Palestine. To help achieve justice for all.

1. Get informed. Sounds easy enough, but a large number of people I have met whose gut instinct is to sympathize with the Palestinians cause are surprisingly uninformed about the issue, or the history. Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est. And oh so true. Being informed will enable you to speak intelligently about the topic-whether to your family, to your friends, to your co-workers, or to your politicians.

Some of my favorite sources of information are also the least orthodox:

This Week in Palestine, the only English language magazine that is published in occupied Palestine. It is a monthly periodical with a distribution of 12,000 copies reaching all major cities and towns in Palestine. You can subscribe yearly (particularly good for institutions) or read the STELLAR compilation of articles online that run the gamut from cultural highlights (check out my piece on the foods of Gaza in the search engine!) to thoughtful political analysis. This is one sure way to immerse yourself into everything Palestine.

Electronic Intifada

2. Wear a Palestine pin, t-shirt, or arm-band-great conversation starters and ways to show your support. You can purchase a number of creative shirts online in the Palstine online store or Cafe Press.

3. Contact local media. Write letters to editors (usually 100-150 words) and longer op-eds (usually 600-800 words) for local newspapers. But also write to news departments in both print, audio, and visual media about their coverage. In the US http://tinyurl.com/2jxwf You can find media listings in your country using search engines like google.

4. BDS!! Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. Now more than ever the BDS campaign must be used and intensified against Israel to end its impunity and to hold it accountable for its persistent violation of international law and Palestinian rights. Remember: It was only when Apartheid was abnormalized that the anti-Apartheid movement gained momentum.

Thus, our efforts must focus on abnormalizing Israel's illegal occupation and its tactics. Begin work to encourage your local institutions to divest from Israel.

There are many regional branches active on various fronts- check out the global BDS website for more leads on who's active in your community.

One example of a successful BDS effort: The NY branch of Adalah managed to put enough pressure through their creative and sustained campaign against Israeli real estate mogul-cum-settlement financier Lev Leviev (who uses profits from his jewerly stores to build settlements) that ultimately were able to convince several starlets to stop purchasing his jewelry and using them as endorsers.

See who's active in your community and put on the pressure.

Here is a statement endorsing and encouraging BDS in the wake of the Gaza massacres: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10056.shtml

5. Contact elected and other political leaders in your country to urge them to apply pressure to end the attacks. In the US, Contact the State Department at 202.647.5291, the White House 202-456-1111 the Egyptian Embassy 202.895.5400,

6. Work towards bringing Israeli leaders before war crime courts (actions along those lines in courts have stopped Israeli leaders from traveling abroad to some countries like Britain where they may face charges).

7. Join local groups in your area active on the issue. Many-such as those here in Durham- have also been successful in at bringing coalitions from different constituencies in their local areas to work together (human rights group, social and civil activists, religious activists, etc) and most are made of ordinary people who also have other lives to live and so welcome any input and activism. Some things to suggest:

*Develop a campaign of sit-ins at government offices or other places where decision makers aggregate. Canadian activists have been remarkably effective using this technique of civil disobediance as of late.

*Hold a group fast for peace one day and hold it in a public place, with signs and informative fliers explaining what you are doing.

*Make large signs and display them at street corners and wherever people congregate.

*Hold a teach-in, seminar, public dialogue, documentary film viewing etc. this is straightforward: you need to decide venue, nature, if any speakers, and do some publicity.

*Pass out fliers with facts and figures about Palestine and Gaza in your community (with direct relevance to the audience: e.g, US taxpayers paying for the carnage) or even place these fliers in car windshields (hey, if buffet restaurants do it...).

8. Visit Palestine! Two great groups that facilitate such trips are the Alternative Tourism Group, whose guide I helped write, and the Siraj Center.

If you cannot visit, support human rights and other groups working on the ground in Palestine, such as the Free Gaza Movement (which accepts tax-exempt donations).

9. Contact your local churches, mosques, synagogues, and other houses of worship or institutions and ask them to take a moral stand and act.

10. Support Palestinian farmers and workers by buying gifts and produce directly from the West Bank and Gaza. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=9082405&postID=8428369486442165593 few of my favorites:

Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children (Gaza Strip); a stunning array of hand-crafted items made by deaf men and women; proceeds go to support the Gaza Strip's first and only school for deaf children and to continue the vocational training provided for the deaf there. The building was damaged in the recent Israeli bombing but they are up and running nevertheless.

Mountain High Imports

Olive Branch Olive Oil

Holy Land Olive Oil
Palestine Online Store

11. If you prefer, donate your money to a charity, or hold a creative bake sale (manaeesh anyone?). Some good options:

MECA (Middle East Children's Alliance)

ANERA (American Near East Refugee Aid)

Playgrounds for Palestine

Other aid organizations include CARE, the IRC, Islamic Relief...and so on.

You can also learn about specific NGOS working in Gaza.

Ending on an inspiring note, I just read that One Laptop Per Child donated 5000 solar-powered laptops to Gaza's children through the UNRWA.

Wait a second...I just realized that was 11 ways (after much condensing of "ways" into option 7).

GISHA: Israel deliberately withholding supplies

2009-01-29T17:09:00.003+02:00

Again, we see how despite promises to facilitate humanitarian aid...despite talk of ceasefire...the deliberate suffocation of Gaza continues. Here, a press release from GISHA-the Tel-Aviv based Legal Center for Freedom of Movement.

Israel Is Preventing Repair of the Electrical, Water and Sewage Systems in Gaza

Policy of Deliberate Obstruction Continues Even After the Ceasefire:
* The amount of industrial diesel Israel has permitted to enter Gaza is just 64% of the total needed to operate the power station.
*Since the fighting ended, Israel has totally obstructed the transfer of vital spare parts needed to repair the electrical, water and sewage systems.
*As a result, 1/4 million people have been without electricity in Gaza for the past month; power outages span 16-18 hours a day for the others.
*More than 200,000 people have no access to running water; the rest get water for only a few hours every 2-5 days.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009 – Ten days after the ceasefire, and despite promises to permit humanitarian aid to reach Gaza residents, Israel is continuing its deliberate policy of restricting supply of industrial diesel and humanitarian goods to the Gaza Strip.The policy, in place for the past 15 months, is preventing the supply of electricity to humanitarian facilities in Gaza.

As a result of the restrictions on the supply of industrial diesel and the mass devastation caused by the military operation, 1/4 million people have been entirely without electricity for over a month, and more than 200,000 people are denied access to running water. Those who receive electricity -- suffer power outages of 16-18 hours per day, on average.

Ihab Abu Zaiter, a 32-year-old father of three, living east of Jabaliya, whose home was partially destroyed in the bombings, has been living entirely without electricity for the past month:“We don't buy any food that requires refrigeration; it’s like living in the Middle Ages,” he said. “We light a fire inside the house in order to keep the children warm.This is a very cold month, and we can’t sleep without the fire, but I’m afraid that the rest of the house will catch fire or that the children will burn themselves.”

Rabbinate publication: Show No Mercy

2009-01-27T07:02:00.002+02:00

I just want to say- for those who keep asking "what can we do", I promise I have a post in the works (its even in my "draft" section!) but just haven't finished yet.

I really would like to offer a more thoughtful post.

In the meantime, I'd like to share this article I came across in Haaretz, which once again lends credence to what I have argued is the morally bankrupt way the Israeli occupying army was acting in Gaza, with no impunity whatsoever.

The article exposes racist, propagandistic materials (which Haaretz obtained from Breaking the Silence, a group of veteran Israeli soldiers demanding accountability for what their army is doing in teh Occupied Territories), provided to Israeli soldiers terrorizing the people of Gaza. It explains that for the first time, there was a significant presence of Rabbis "to fill them with yiddishkeit and a fighting spirit."

The article found that:

"an overview of some of the army rabbinate's publications made available during the fighting reflects the tone of nationalist propaganda that steps blatantly into politics, sounds racist and can be interpreted as a call to challenge international law when it comes to dealing with enemy civilians.

"[There is] a biblical ban on surrendering a single millimeter of it [the Land of Israel] to gentiles, though all sorts of impure distortions and foolishness of autonomy, enclaves and other national weaknesses. We will not abandon it to the hands of another nation, not a finger, not a nail of it."

"The Palestinians claim they deserve a state here, when in reality there was never a Palestinian or Arab state within the borders of our country."

The IDF rabbinate also advised the soldiers, according to the article, on the proper "code of conduct", telling them to "show no mercy to a cruel enemy. This is a war against murderers."

Another publication calls on "soldiers of Israel to spare your lives and the lives of your friends and not to show concern for a population that surrounds us and harms us. We call on you ... to function according to the law 'kill the one who comes to kill you.' As for the population, it is not innocent ... We call on you to ignore any strange doctrines and orders that confuse the logical way of fighting the enemy."

Wait and see.

2009-01-26T01:28:00.005+02:00

Another one of my stimulating conversations with my father, which, as usual is at once morose and comical.

Dad: Tariq & Hazim just called-they are driving back from skiing

Me: what?? they went without me!! Hazim didn't want to go last weekend

Dad: Well anyway, I asked if they need anything from here since D. is coming to town and back for some work. He said he wants bharat idra*, za3tar* and dugga*. Regarding skiing: They went this morning and now on their way back.

Laila: I see. (and I am silently plotting how to exact revenge...).

Dad: Tariq fell and had a big bruise in his leg

Me: oh no!! Are you sure its just a bruise?? I was just kidding about that revenge thing you know...did you hear that? It was supposed to be a silent thought!

Dad: This is what he said. He is on the phone with mama. He says it is just a bruise.

Dad: Breaking news- Ma3bar Rafah was closed this evening as there is a threat to bombard it. There is a red alert here.

Me (in disbelief): what??

Dad: Yes. They sent the children home from schools this afternoon. There a rumor that Israel might hit again. So we just have to wait and see. Wait and see.

* Bharat idra: a 10-spice mix widely used in Gazan cuisine, particularly in its namesake dish, ruzz idra (spiced rice in a clay pot).

* Zaatar: A spice blend consisting of dried thyme leaves rubbed with extra virgin olive oil and mixed with sumac and sesame seeds. Eaten with kmaj/pita and olive oil or used as a rub. Regional variations abound (in Gaza, sage is mixed in and the resulting mixture is much lighter in colour).

* Dugga: Not to be confused with Dagga, the legendary Gazan hot chili tomato relish-salad, Dugga is sort of brown Zaatar specific to Gaza. It consists of pulverized roasted wheat, sesame seeds, ground chickpeas, and a variety of warm spices such as coriander, cumin, pepper, dill and caraway.

Virtual Gaza

2009-01-25T08:15:00.006+02:00

A great civic media initiative by a collective of scholars, media activists, and Palestinian residents of Gaza and others from Harvard the MIT Media Lab.

Virtual Gaza is a 2D website that employs Wikimapia and Google earth images to create an online space where visitors can break the siege, albeit virtually. It is a space where "ordinary Palestinians under siege can describe their experiences in their own words, and where the destruction of the Gaza strip can be documented by those experiencing it directly."

Says one of the creators: "We plan to map all the attacks and create simple digital representations of what is going on using flash animation. However, the more important component of the project will be to locate individuals on the map itself, and be uploading testimonials, video podcasts
(from cell phones etc), text messages, photos, emails and so on."

On the same note, a very useful (and disheartening) "map of bombing intensity and casualties" created by a group of media and mapping activists.

What YOU can do: 10 way to help Gaza/Palestine

2009-01-25T07:52:00.008+02:00

The last month has been mentally exhausting. Trying to keep up with events in Gaza, my parents safety, and the media frenzy, all while taking care of my children and home definitely takes its toll. But being able overcome that overwhelming feeling of frustration and nagging negative energy is the real challenge.

During such intense events, any person of conscience will be overcome with a feeling of anger, sadness, and often, helplessness. Our gut reaction is sometimes simply to shut down or disengage, whether you are a Palestinian living through this hell, or an observer on the outside, not matter what your level of involvement may be.

The question I keep hearing again and again from people is:

"What can we do to help? Nothing I will do can make much of a difference anyway so why do anything at all."

I am here to tell you, you are wrong! It is time to use that energy-that feeling of helplessness, and harness it into something positive and effective- change for the future.

There is a prophetic saying attribute to Muhammad, peace be upon him, that goes:

"He among you who sees something bad should change it with his hand (e.g. proactively-activism, organization, movement ). If he is unable, then with his tongue ( by speaking out against it ). If he cannot do that, then within his heart ( by always disliking what is evil or harmful ) and that is the weakest of faith".

Notice all are acts of faith. So do not despair!

We all have different levels and abilities and gifts and situations. For some of us, the spoken word is what we excel at. For others, organization and activism; still others, a simple conversation with our neighbors, co-workers, or friends. Or even just a silent prayer.

That said, I would like to offer a list of things that can be done to defeat this feeling of impotence. Things YOU can do to help Gaza. To help Palestine. To help achieve justice for all.

1. Get informed. Sounds easy enough, but a large number of people I have met whose gut instinct is to sympathize with the Palestinians cause are surprisingly uninformed about the issue, or the history. Knowledge is power, goes the cliche, and oh so true. Being informed will enable you to speak intelligently about the topic-whether to your family, to your friends, to your co-workers, or to your politicians.

Some of my favorite sources of information:

This Week in Palestine, the only English language magazine that is published in occupied Palestine. It is a monthly periodical with a distribution of 12,000 copies reaching all major cities and towns in Palestine. You can subscribe yearly (particularly good for institutions) or read the STELLAR compilation of articles online that run the gamut from cultural highlights (check out my piece on the foods of Gaza in the search engine!) to political analysis. This is one sure way to immerse yourself into Palestine.

Electronic Intifada

2. Wear a Palestine pin, t-shirt, or arm-band-great conversation starters and ways to show your support. You can purchase a number of creative shirts online in the Palstine online store or Cafe Press.

3. Contact local media. Write letters to editors (usually 100-150 words) and longer op-eds (usually 600-800 words) for local newspapers. But also write to news departments in both print, audio, and visual media about their coverage. In the US http://tinyurl.com/2jxwf You can find media listings in your country using search engines like google.

4. BDS!! Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. Now more than ever the BDS campaign must be used and intensified against Israel to end its impunity and to hold it accountable for its persistent violation of international law and Palestinian rights. Remember: It was only when Apartheid was abnormalized that the anti-Apartheid movement gained momentum.

Thus, our efforts must focus on abnormalizing Israel's illegal occupation and its tactics. Begin work to encourage your local institutions to divest from Israel.

There are many regional branches active on various fronts- check out the global BDS website for more leads on who's active in your community.

One example of a successful BDS effort: The NY branch of Adalah managed to put enough pressure through their creative and sustained campaign against Israeli real estate mogul-cum-settlement financier Lev Leviev (who uses profits from his jewerly stores to build settlements) that ultimately were able to convince several starlets to stop purchasing his jewelry and using them as endorsers.

See who's active in your community and put on the pressure.

Here is a statement endorsing and encouraging BDS in the wake of the Gaza massacres: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10056.shtml

5. Contact elected and other political leaders in your country to urge them to apply pressure to end the attacks. In the US, Contact the State Department at 202.647.5291, the White House 202-456-1111 the Egyptian Embassy 202.895.5400,

6. Work towards bringing Israeli leaders before war crime courts (actions along those lines in courts have stopped Israeli leaders from traveling abroad to some countries like Britain where they may face charges).

7. Join local groups in your area active on the issue. Many-such as those here in Durham- have also been successful in at bringing coalitions from different constituencies in their local areas to work together (human rights group, social and civil activists, religious activists, etc) and most are made of ordinary people who also have other lives to live and so welcome any input and activism. Some things to suggest:

*Develop a campaign of sit-ins at government offices or other places where decision makers aggregate. Canadian activists have been remarkably effective using this technique of civil disobediance as of late.

*Hold a group fast for peace one day and hold it in a public place, with signs and informative fliers explaining what you are doing.

*Make large signs and display them at street corners and wherever people congregate.

*Hold a teach-in, seminar, public dialogue, documentary film viewing etc. this is straightforward: you need to decide venue, nature, if any speakers, and do some publicity.

*Pass out fliers with facts and figures about Palestine and Gaza in your community (with direct relevance to the audience: e.g, US taxpayers paying for the carnage) or even place these fliers in car windshields (hey, if buffet restaurants do it...).

8. Visit Palestine! Two great groups that facilitate such trips are the Alternative Tourism Group, whose guide I helped write, and the Siraj Center.

If you cannot visit, support human rights and other groups working on the ground in Palestine, such as the Free Gaza Movement (which accepts tax-exempt donations).

9. Contact your local churches, mosques, synagogues, and other houses of worship or institutions and ask them to take a moral stand and act.

10. Support Palestinian farmers and workers by buying gifts and produce directly from the West Bank and Gaza. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=9082405&postID=8428369486442165593 few of my favorites:

Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children (Gaza Strip); a stunning array of hand-crafted items made by deaf men and women; proceeds go to support the Gaza Strip's first and only school for deaf children and to continue the vocational training provided for the deaf there. The building was damaged in the recent Israeli bombing but they are up and running nevertheless.

Mountain High Imports

Olive Branch Olive Oil

http://www.holylandoliveoil.com/

http://www.palestineonlinestore.com/

Occupation: the elephant in the room

2009-01-23T07:17:00.006+02:00

And so its done; the curtain has been draw. After months, and by some estimate, a couple of years, of careful preparation, laying the groundwork, massaging public opinion, crafting a Gulf of Tonkin; immaculate timing; hasbara campaign: its a wrap folks! Just in time to make way for an Historic American inauguration, we are reminded again and again.

Intent on proving his critics wrong, Obama wasted no time in reminding them of America's resolve and tenacity: We will defeat you.

But noticeably missing from the talk was any mention of Israel or Palestine.

Fair enough, it was a big moment on its own, no need to weigh it down with a bloody and distant conflict that you will spend the next 4-8 years getting mired down in anyway -or miring down further.

And so as we are told, Obama hit the ground running. The next day, the newly minted President in his first speech talked about the need to open Gaza's crossings-because as any casual observer might have gleamed from this recent "cycle of violence" it is that in order to have a "lasting ceasefire" we must give Israel security, and open Gaza's crossing (in case you aren't sensing it, I'm being sarcastic here).

But the devil is so often in the detail-not in what was said, but what was not. Notably missing from the call was a need to open the crossing to people as opposed to merely humanitarian aid and commerce, as though the Gaza problem can be vanished by tons of food.

It was this very clause that was negotiated to inclusion in the Agreement on Movement and Access brokered by none other than Condie rice herself shortly after Disengagement: the need to provide Access and Movement for goods AND people, and keep the crossings operating on a continuous basis. Of course, this never materialized: neither in percentage of trucks allowed in or out, nor the promised Palestinian control over Rafah within one year. OCHA keeps a good record of weekly violations of the AMA as a reference.

Obama also said the US "will support a credible anti-smuggling and interdiction regime so that Hamas cannot rearm". See this had me a little confused- because I thought it was Israel with the Merkava tanks, F 15 and F 16s, white phosphorus, DIME, and nukes.

Regardless, none of this will matter. If Palestinians are not granted their most basic human right of freedom of movemen, the tunnels will continue to thrive.

So I'm going to throw something out here that might sound a bit out there- hold your breathe everyone: how about we actually try ending the occupation instead of coming up with a million and one excuses why we shouldn't?

Notice the pattern vis a vis any Palestinian group-whether it was Fateh and the PLo before, or Hamas now: they are and always will be terrorists (the PLO is still on the US terrorist list); once you negotiate, its only a process meant to serve as a cover for continuing settlement expansion and consolidation of the Occupation; if that doesn't work, cry foul and say you have no partner for peace- then bomb their security infrastructure and say they have to have better security before they become a partner. If the people elect someone else, start over.

For real change, why start by saying things like they are: if Israel has the right to defend itself, don't Palestinians have not only the right, but the obligation to both defend themselves and resist against an illegal occupation?

In Zeitun, a massacre and its perpetrators desire for genocide

2009-01-20T06:04:00.005+02:00

"They left behind their own unique detritus: bullet casings, roasted peanuts...But most disturbing of all was the graffiti they daubed on the walls of the ground floor... Some was in Hebrew, but much was naively written in English: "Arabs need 2 die", "Die you all", "Make war not peace", "1 is down, 999,999 to go", and scrawled on an image of a gravestone the words: "Arabs 1948-2009". "

Rory McCarthy reports for the Guardian on all that remains in one decimated Gaza neighborhood-and one massacred Gaza family: the Samounis. The appalling results are a very small reflection of what happens when there is not only no moral compass, but an occupying army of largely teenagers are actively encouraged to use utmost violence, terrorism, and brutality, no holds barred. According to one paper, graffiti also included "The only good Arab is a dead Arab" and other phrases that they paper said were "too disturbing to publish".

yeah, this is definitely self-defense, folks...

Gaza stencil: Seth Tobocman

2009-01-19T20:55:00.002+02:00

Another great stencil sent to me for publication by artist Seth Tobocman- a Raising Yousuf exclusive!

Bono's shout out to Palestine

2009-01-19T20:39:00.004+02:00

According to friends in attendance, (and several publications, including the Nation), U2's Bono gave a shout out to Palestine to the crowd of half a million that was gathered on the mall where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

"Let freedom ring. On this spot where we're standing 46 years ago Dr. King had a dream. On Tuesday, that dream comes to pass," said Bono, before launching into 'Pride (In The Name Of Love)', U2's tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"This is not just an American dream," he said, adding that it was "also an Irish dream, a European dream, an African dream... an Israeli dream..." then pausing for a few seconds, and adding with emphasis "and also a Palestinian dream."

Of course our bar is so low at this point that we get excited when anyone-let alone a celebrity- shouts out to the Palestinian dream for freedom. As noted by the Nation, the reference to Gaza with Obama sitting a few feet away will do little to "change the circumstance on the ground in Gaza" or "inspire a more engaged or functional U.S. policy with regard to the Middle East. But Bono deserves a measure of credit for reminding the partygoers that peace and justice, for Israel and Palestine is a part of the dream."

Gaza rising

2009-01-19T06:46:00.005+02:00

There is a an unfamiliar stillness in Gaza today, says my father. No F-16s ripping through the sky. No ravaging explosions. There is time to hear yourself think. All a sort of anesthetic. A pause in a sick calculated brutality- to allow the caged disposables a moment to contemplate their options- to create the illusion they even have options.

"This siege will endure until we are truly persuaded
into choosing a harmless slavery
but in total freedom!"

And so the cowering uncower. The homeless return to no homes. The decomposing dead are unearthed from the rubble, only to buried once again.

The damage is surveyed.

Uprooted trees. Entire groves. A city eviscerated. People burned to a cinder. Disemboweled streets. And more tales of horror on every corner.

A woman's 5 sons are killed in the assassination of Saeed Siam. they lived in the building over.

25 more bodies recovered from Samouni family. An ethnic cleansing.

Reports of executions by young trigger happy Israeli soldiers, cheerleaders on the borders. A boy, 15 years old. And in between air force pilots on playstation. " I want to destroy the city" said one gleefully. And sub-contracts are handed out to further enforce the siege. Hands are shaken. Lives taken.

"They destroyed anything in their path-people, buildings, streets...nothing was left untouched" my father said. "It is calm, for now. We sleep, for now. But the siege continues. And make no mistake- Gaza will rise."

Human Rights Watch on CNN: Israel intended to harm civlians

2009-01-19T06:46:00.001+02:00

Gazan astrophysicist tells his story

2009-01-18T06:00:00.003+02:00

Suleiman Baraka is a brilliant Palestinian astrophysicist from Gaza that my father met while he awaiting permission to leave to fulfill a scholarship he had attained. He is now working at Virgnia Tech with NASA. His eleven-year-old son Ibrahim was killed in an Israeli air strike on his house. His wife and three other children are now homeless in Gaza, along with seventeen members of his family. In his first broadcast interview in the US, Suleiman Baraka tells his story to Democracy Now.

The rest of the interview can be seen here.

Sound Bites

2009-01-17T22:38:00.003+02:00

A poem by DC-based spoken word poet Safiyya Abdullah, friend of a friend (there seems to be a lot of those ...:)).

We are a people of reality TV

That is, we are a people of sound bites

We watch TV and think that someone's week. ~

that is 168 hours, which is 10,080 minutes,

weed that down to 36 minutes

(after time out for commercials)

is the whole story…

And we watch it fervently,

Diligently,

Determinately,

Slavishly,

No, make that slave-ish-ly…

Because that is what we have become

Slaves to the sound bites of society…

Never taking the time

to train our minds

to find what is behind

these sound bites.

So let me give U some sound bites of my own:

Sound Bite:

Most populated real estate on the face of the earth: Gaza

Sound Bite:

50% of the population under 18

Sound bite:

52% of the population lives below poverty.

And that was 18 months ago,

before the economic embargo

Sound Bite:

This densely populated area is walled off on all sides,

preventing materials, food, supplies, and people from getting in or out.

Sound bite:

December 26^th: Chanukah, Jewish Holiday,

the Sabath~can't work day

Sound bite:

Day who-knows-what of an 18 month old blockage denying food, medicine, supplies

Day who-knows-what of a 50+ year old internationally illegal, immoral, occupation

DAY ONE:

Sound Bite:

Lunchtime shopping

Kids coming home from school

Sister across the street had a miscarriage

Because there wasn't enough food to eat…

Funeral yesterday…cousin died of dysentery

No medicine shipments in a month of Sunday's

Bread lines 13 hours long,

Sound Bite:

Zainab, mother of 3, boiling water

To soak the peas, make the tea,

and soften the day old bread for her daughter

til her 10 year old son gets home with more bread…

WHOOSH! BANG!

Sound Bite:

Zainab flies across the room…

sits up in a daze

automatically makes her way

across the kitchen…

Got 2 turn off the gas…

What was it that caused that blast?

Another follows and wails begin

while mothers pour out in the streets and holler

their children's names

Searching streets for children who

were just playing games,

or coming from school,

or standing in line waiting for water or fuel

WHOOSH! BANG! WHOOSH! BANG!

Sound Bite:

Here comes more missiles once again

Sirens blaring.. then silent

As missiles hit police stations,

fire houses

civilian populations

already under siege

now besieged by F15s

Paid for with US dollars…

Make that our dollars

taken from food stamp programs

And education scholar-

ships

firing missiles from the Israeli navy

Hitting families

playing on beaches

just longing 4 a small distraction

from a long life of occupation…

DAY TWO:

Sound Bite:

Hospitals overflowing...

beds, floors with rivers of blood pouring

No way 2 triage the wounded

Lives, as always in God's hands

Doctors slipping on blood soaked

floors as they struggle

to treat bodies burned and mangled

Hospitals turning away injured

No room inside or out

As minute by minute the death count

Rises

as the bombing continues another day

Gaza is deafened by the world's silence

Sound Bite:

Bodies litter the streets

there a young girl's hand

still clenching her book

next to it an old boot

within it the foot

of an elderly man who once ran

trying 2 save her

as she stood frozen with fear

DAY THREE:

Sound Bite:

More of the same

Israel saying they're only playing a game

Started by Hamas

Alas,

Did we forget

The cease fire was violated election day

Nov 4,

When the Israeli Army

invaded the Gaza Strip?

Or did we just miss that sound bit?

Sound Bite:

Israel saying they warn the civilians before

dropping bombs

Give them a call on their telephone:

Ring…Ring…Hello, U there under siege that have no where to go…

This is the Israeli Army just placing a courtesy call

telling U we are about to drop in your neighborhood

for a friendly visit

Or was that a bomb hit.

Doesn't matter…

ain't got no phone anyway…

all the lines & satellites have been hit by the second day

DAY FOUR:

Sound Bite:

Worldwide demonstrations galore

As concerned citizens pour

Out into the streets

Begging someone to but an end to this

Genocide and massacre…

But once again just being ignored…

So ladies & gentlemen

of privileged conditions,

I apologize for ruining your peace & serenity

with my sound bites of another's reality

but maybe tonight

when U kiss your children or your lover

goodnight

these sound bites

will replay in your sleep

and U will become outraged…

decide to become engaged…

decide find the courage

to enter the sound stage

and stop listening to sound bites.

The children of Israel's war, and a "seize" fire

2009-01-17T07:25:00.012+02:00

My mother-a pediatrician- spent the day yesterday visiting the child victims of Israel's war on Gaza. She distributed some toys bought with donations to try and bring some smile to their destroyed lives.

My father took these pictures of the children, as well as of ambulances hit by Israeli shells and shrapnel.

They spent what they told me was the most terrorizing night of the past two weeks yesterday- missiles destroying buildings around their house, lighting apartments and towers on fire.

He sent me a brief email around dawn, in terrifying clarity it read:

Loved ones :
I thought to take few moments on the generator to write this email to you, It might be our last communication. The Israeli army has been heavily bombarding everything in GAZA now. They escalated their attack intensively after 4 AM. Tal El-Hawa is on fire ( I will attach photos that I took of smoke from burning buildings), they just fired a missile on one apartment in a huge apartment building in front of our house ( Borj Al-Shorook) I guess Laila knows it. Phosphorus bombs now are fired everywhere on houses and on people. UNRWA's main stores in GAZA were hit.
Hundreds of people are trapped in burning buildings in Tal El-Hawa and Al-Sabra and everywhere in GAZA. It is clear now that these people decided now to finish everyone and everything in GAZA strip. I still have faith in Allah.

This late evening as I write this post, and we hear word of Israel unilaterally ending its offensive- on its own terms-a sinister action in the cloak of benevolence; such a ceasefire (or "seize fire" as an Israeli journalist friend of mine unintentionally put it) would allow the suffocating siege of Gaza to stay in play, and allow the occupation army to re-enter and re-attack at any moment of their choosing. There is also word of a curious Israel and US signing an agreement to help Egypt end "smuggling on Gaza's border" without any involvement of the people who the border surrounds (not to mention the solar technology already exists for spotting the tunnels; or the fact that new tunnels will continue to pop up as a gateway to the outside world and a means of subsistence for the people of Gaza as long as the siege is in place and Gazais blockaded).

And as the dust settles and death-drenched streets quiver back to life, it remains to be asked: what has this accomplished exactly? Do Israel's feel safer now, knowing they have eliminated over a thousand Palestinian lives; maimed tens of thousands; and destroyed the rest?

Medics also say a woman and child have been killed in (another) Israeli raid on UN-run school in thte northern Gaza Strip. Eleven other people are wounded. But who's to stop them?

Earlier, in Jabaliya, a mother and her 5 children- all under the age of 13- were completely eliminated as they huddled together for shelter. THese are the victims of Israel's question for a new equation. They are the factors that are included in the calculation. Very clinical, very clean, very defensive.

And here, an account of a family whose son was killed while they enjoyed a brief respite from the onslaught- only to be sniped to death and used for target practice by Israeli soldiers.

Bomb a Ghetto, Raise a cheer: Pro-Israel rally in NY

2009-01-16T00:18:00.001+02:00

Attendants of a rally joined by Sen. Chuck Schumer and Gov. David Paterson in support of Israel's attacks on Gaza go far beyond the pale. Read the background behind Ma Blumenthal's piece at Alternet's site here.

Obama as the 3 monkeys

2009-01-15T07:40:00.002+02:00

By anarchist cartoonist Seth Tobocman, a friend of a friend...

The inebriants of Israel's war

2009-01-15T06:26:00.009+02:00

During a radio program yesterday, I was asked "what next"?

In the course of my answer, I said something about how I don't know that the Israeli government has thought that through; that they are so drunk with self-conviction, absolute power and military might, racism and nationalism and perceived "success" all while a media blackout, a well-planned hasbara campaign and a public hungry for "action" fuel the war-terror machine with their blessings and support, that they will blaze ahead, losing sight of why-ever the hell they think they started this and whatever the hell it was supposed to achieve (the latest line is "increasing their deterrent force").

The herd mentality at its best.

Barak's popularity is through the roof: street parades for the war hero who makes the public feel "safe" and "secure".

To quote Gideon Levy, it is "war as child's play":

"...pilots bombing unimpeded as if on practice runs, tank and artillery soldiers shelling houses and civilians from their armored vehicles, combat engineering troops destroying entire streets in their ominous protected vehicles without facing serious
opposition. A large, broad army is fighting against a helpless population and a weak, ragged organization that has fled the conflict zones and is barely putting up a fight. All this must be said openly, before we begin exulting in our heroism and victory."

Even the name of the "operation" (Cast Lead), which is lost on many, exudes innocence and excitement and joy.

According to my friend Mushon, who talks of the polarized rendering of events in the Israeli blog-o-sphere in his excellent post:

The blogs in Israel are divided between covering the terror of life in Sderot and the rest of the Israeli south under the Hamas rocket fire, and the excited coverage of the “glorious” operation titled ‘Cast Lead’ - quoting a Hanuka song where a child sings about playing with a Dreidel of cast lead - a holiday present from an uncle.

Mushon goes on to say that as a result, the coverage we are getting is confused and erratic, a reflection of the aimless war itself:

But overall, through out the whole operation there is no “bigger picture”, no objective report, no clue of what this operation aims to achieve or when will it end.

Also evident is an incipient racism gradually becoming acceptable in Israeli public discourse, as well as a "occupier as enlightener" mentality: Jewish women don't cry like Arab women; Palestinians don't exist as a nation anyway; they are violent; they are inhumane; we gave them the only good things they have; we just want to liberate them-we are on their side; and so on.

I have noticed this in Israeli media *and new media* accounts of the attacks against Gaza, accounts confirmed in conversations Israeli friends against the war have had with their friends- who have been quoting right wing European politicians in describing Gaza and Palestinians (yeah, those guys definitely on your side...) ...hello.

In article entitled "Is Israel Losing the Media War in Gaza", TIME talks of Israel's "extensively planned hasbara campaign" ahead of the war o Gaza, and the bluntness with which Israeli officers speak to their domestic audiences ("We are very violent," the commander of the Israeli army's Élite combat engineering unit, Yahalom, told the Israeli press, "We do not balk at any means to protect the lives of our soldiers.".)

These factors taken together might also explain the numerous accounts being heard of Palestinians being used as human shields by Israeli soldiers and being shot at (and in many cases, killed) as they raised white flags-after being ordered to leave their houses by those same soldiers: when there is no accountability, and an ingrained lethal ambiguity in "operating procedures", why NOT be "very violent"; why NOT shoot at "any moving thing" to quote another young Israeli soldier in yesterday's Haaretz?

Now Olmert is avoiding meeting with his security cabinet so that a "timeline" can be avoided; and Livni is asking the international community for "more time" to "achieve their goals" (again: what exactly is the goal here? Human suffering? destruction of infrastructure so that Abbas can rebuild it? Sowing more anger and destroying hope? all of the above?);

Not that the Israeli government gives a damn about the international community; Olmert made that very clear yesterday when he boasted to a press conference about how he had Bush pulled aside from a speech he was giving about education policy to order Rice to abstain from a UN Security Resolution she helped draft. Rice says his rendering of events is "fiction" (perhaps he was drunk with the inebriants of his war...).

As I conclude typing this post, as Livni lobbies for more time and Olmert does his song and dance, another night of terror and confusion has passed on Gaza, another weary dawn has risen.

I was unable to speak with my parents all day, and so I rang him just after midnight my time. He sounded wrecked and suffocated, not his usual collected self. "I'm so tired... I'm just so tired. I didn't sleep all night, the bombs are tearing through my head. I really have no idea what's going on outside, nobody has any idea what's going on...Aljazeera in Qatar called to ask me if I knew what was going on...and what this is about anymore. I can't even here anything on the radio anymore, everyone is just praying. I really just want to go now dear, I'm sorry. Goodbye." he ended abruptly.

"Seedo?" piped in Yousuf. "Just remember- the only one who has the power to stop this is God."

The Gaza Perspective- WUNC

2009-01-15T06:22:00.002+02:00

Link to my interview on the State of Things, on NPR's NC station, WUNC.

Laila El-Haddad is a Palestinian from Gaza. She is also a journalist, mother and a Muslim. She blogs about the trials of raising her children, "between spaces and identities… from potty training to border crossings." Her husband is a Palestinian refugee and a doctor at Duke. For them, the personal is political. Laila visits our studio to tell her family's story, including what they are experiencing in Gaza right now.

Israeli Navy Gunships surround Free Gaza Boat

2009-01-15T05:46:00.002+02:00

The latest reports are of four Israeli gunboats saying they will use their weapons if the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY does not turn back to Greece. The boat is asserting its right to continue in international waters.

The Free Gaza mercy ship, SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, left port in Cyprus this morning on an emergency mission to besieged Gaza. Aboard the ship are desperately needed medical supplies and 21 passengers and crew, including doctors, human rights workers, journalists, and two parliamentarians from Spain and Italy.

We’ve just received word from the ship (as of 3:15am UST / 1:15am GMT) that they are surrounded by Israeli Naval gunboats. The warships are demanding that the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY return to Cyprus. We are insisting to reach Gaza and complete our peaceful mission.

The Israelis have not yet attacked our unarmed ship, but it is URGENT that everyone immediately CALL the Israeli government and demand that they STOP threatening the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY!

LOCATION OF SPIRIT OF HUMANITY
The location of the ship can be tracked on its Spot Tracker page.

CALL
Mark Regev in the Prime Minister’s office:
+972 2670 5354 or +972 5 0620 3264
mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il

Shlomo Dror in the Ministry of Defence:
+972 3697 5339 or +972 50629 8148
mediasar@mod.gov.il

The Israeli Navy Spokesperson:
+ 972 5 781 86248

If Canada launched rockets at the US...

2009-01-14T06:46:00.002+02:00

I was going to write up this post, and Kabobfest beat me to it. So ... a salute to them and a link to their post:

Hoping to depart from analogies that steamroll all nuance...

Wishing to kill the spirit of comparisons that ignore imbalances of power...

If Mexicans settled the US en masse, and then established a state of their own on American soil, with the blessing of the Latin American Alliance, do you think Americans would just sit there and take it?

If Canada went to war against the US, and then concentrated refugees from that war in a closed-off space the size of Detroit, do you think Americans would just sit there and take it? *or to quote Jon Stewart-does Canada even have rockets that can reach the US?

More here.

The Gates of Hell, the window to Heavan

2009-01-13T06:35:00.006+02:00

I have a routine of sorts. I monitor the situation back home all day- I keep Aljazeera English on continuously as long as I home, despite Yousuf's nagging to switch to cartoons. He stopped asking several days ago, when, tearful and angry I told him Gaza is being bombed, that Seedo and tete are in danger.

If i leave home, I make sure my cell phone is near me at all times. This evening, I was at my friend's house, and my father called me, just before dawn prayers.

"Are you home? Are you there? I don't know what's going on but our whole house is shaking, the whole house. The windows have blown open, your mother is terrified, its horrible, I don't now exactly where it is and the radio hasn't broadcast anything about it yet either. Just continuous explosions all around, and these clouds of white smoke everywhere," he went on, his words at once weary and weighed.

I rush home to turn on the TV again and see what information I can find online. He has the news before they do. Soon, Aljazeera brings my friend Taghreed back on the line. I hear her voice and imagine her sitting next to me, trembling as she usually does in such inexplicably terrifying moments as these despite having covered Gaza for years.

"People cannot find places to stay anymore. They go from one area they were ordered to leave by the Israelis to another. And there is no more room in these UN schools...I refuse to call them shelters because they are not shelters. There are like one or two bathrooms for a thousand residents. I met people sleeping in the public garden of Shifa hospital" she says.

My father tells me he has seen people out on the street-entire families. that his cousin moves from Tel il Hawa to his brother's house nearby.

One resident in Tel il Hawa described the evening as Israel having opened the gates of hell unto them- the shoa that Deputy War Minister Matan Vilnai said they would unleash unto Gaza last year.

I see an AP picture on my computer of a jovial Israeli soldier posing with two of his weapons with a toothy smile.

I then read an article in Haaretz by Amos Harel, writing from the "ruins" of Netzarim, quoting an Israeli tank commander saying he rather likes it in Gaza, because "its interesting" there, and other young soldiers saying they are "excited", anxious to get in on the action, to shell and snipe to death, this being their first war.

A one year old girl, Rula Salha, was shot to death. She was Noor's age. I think of the smiley, war-hungry soldier. I wonder if he got his kick.

My father and I continue speaking. We learn Israeli forces have closed in on Tel il Hawa, and navy gunships are shelling the city again. They speak to Yousuf for a while as I hear the explosions echoing over the speaker, and machine gun fire and the after-math of Phosphorus bombs over the city on my TV. He complains of an ear infection.

The fear is salient; it is suffocating; it is in the air, friends say, and no one knows what's coming next, and there is no where to turn to except up in the Heavens above.

And so many people in Gaza have taken to doing just that: they are waking up for special pre-dawn prayers qiyam il layl in the "last third of the night" - a window of time when believers feel especially close to God and when it is said He is especially close to our calls upon Him, and supplications and prayers are most likely to be answered.

And so they tremble, and they wait, and they pray during this small window to Heaven for the gates of hell to be closed. And then it is dawn once again.

Demand a Stance

2009-01-13T06:31:00.002+02:00

A great website to help you (yes YOU!) contact your MP or state representatives, with British, American, and Canadian iterations, to demand that they act now to ensure an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, to protect civilians on all sides, and to address the growing humanitarian crisis.

demand that our elected representatives act now to ensure an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, to protect civilians on all sides, and to address the growing humanitarian crisis.

http://www.demandastance.com/gaza/

Jon Stewart on Gaza

2009-01-13T06:24:00.001+02:00

Jon Stewart gets it right again-and they wonder why more Americans watch his show for a take on the news than major networks. Because Americans want the truth! Not soundbyte tv...or as he put it 24 hour news coverage on speed

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Recap - Week of 1/5/09

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

We talk in Silence; We stand together.

2009-01-12T05:49:00.011+02:00

We decided to drive to Washington yesterday to attend what was a national "Let Gaza Live" March. It was a last minute decision, weighing the cost of driving a roundtrip of 8 hours with Yousuf and Noor, and the anticipated inclement weather, against the benefit of standing with Gaza.

Two Duke graduate students accompany us, one a Palestinian from Lydd, the other a Syrian Fulbright scholar.

On the way, Yousuf abruptly interrupts our banter to ask whether his grandfather is going to die in Gaza. He asks me to tell "them" not to shoot him.

"seedo ra7 yimoot? uleelhum may tukhoo, mama."

I ask him to make a dua, to ask God to keep him-to keep all of Gaza-safe.

"That is stronger than any bullet" I explain.

We arrive a little late, and have to march extra quickly to catch up with the group of what was estimated to be 10, 000 or so protesters. It is a diverse and civil crowd. Unfortunately, the weather was not so civil. By the end, we are drenched in freezing rain, my fingers as numb as Noor's lips are blue, plastic parkas plastered to our wet faces.

We catch up with my brother and my nephew, Zade, who is carrying a wet sign, its ink bleeding down it as though to simulate Gaza's tears and blood. The sign read:

"Obama: I shed tears when your grandmother died. Will you do the same for me? My Grandmother lives in Gaza."

After complaining he was freezing, his mother promptly told him "freezing is better than dying". He agreed.

Later, he proudly told his grandfather he marched two hours in the freezing rain for Gaza.

We walked by the hotel the president-elect was staying in (though sources say he was busy eating chili), and ended up in front of the White House before heading back to North Carolina.

On the way, I receive the dreaded 9pm call from my father. My heart skipped a beat- late night calls always bear bad news.

"More bombings, I can't sleep. Israeli navy gunships are bombarding #Gaza city's Tel il Hawa neighborhood- you know where Amo Musab lives-where he built his new house" he says, referring to his cousin.

"The suburb is in flames. Residents are calling out to the Red Cross but they can't reach them; and they say they are bombing with firebombs or something, there is a thick black smoke descending on them, choking people" continuing calmly.

I immediately have my brother update my twitter account for me. I feel better, empowered in whatever incremental way, knowing I am broadcasting this piece of information that is at once senseless and meaningful to the world. My brother struggles to condense terror and death and panic to 140 characters.

We continue speaking.

I learn that my cousin's father-in-law has been hurt. His house in northern Gaza was hit by Israeli forces, then bulldozed to the ground. He was arrested, blindfolded and tortured - including made to fall off stairs, fracturing several ribs. He then had to walk an hour to Gaza City's Sheikh Ijleen neighbourhood. His wife was also forced to leave in her pajamas in the middle of the night and walk alone to the city.

I talk to my father until the bombing subsides-until anther hour. Sometimes we don't say anything at all. We simply hold the phones to our respective ears and talk in silence, as though it were an unfamiliar technology. As though I can shield him from the hell being unleashed around him for those few minutes. However absurd it sounds, we feel safe somehow; re-assured that if something happens, it will happen while we stand together.

Yousuf holds a candle during a vigil in front of Duke University's chapel Friday night.

We Will Not Go Down

2009-01-10T15:16:00.001+02:00

This is a song of hope for the Palestinians in Gaza, composed and performed by California-based artist Michael Heart (www.michaelheart.com)
Copyright 2009

MSF: Temporary halt to Gaza bombing a paltry response

2009-01-10T05:55:00.003+02:00

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)has put out the following press release (a day outdated-given the death toll is now over 800, but still) which they asked me to help advertise on their efforts in Gaza, and the extreme difficulties they are facing there.

The military offensive in the Gaza Strip is affecting civilians indiscriminately, while medical teams continue to face serious obstacles to providing assistance, the international medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said today. The international community must not be content with a limited truce, which MSF said is largely inadequate for providing life-saving assistance.

As the Israeli military offensive continues, the toll, estimated at 600 deaths and 2,950 wounded in just 11 days, is reaching alarming proportions and is indicative of extreme violence indiscriminately affecting civilians.

“Today, 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, almost half of them children, are the victims of incessant shooting and bombing,” said Franck Joncret, MSF’s head of mission. “How can anyone believe that such a steamroller attack would spare civilians, who are prevented from fleeing and are crowded in a densely-populated enclave?”

The military offensive has sown terror within a trapped urban population. Residents no longer dare leave their homes to seek medical care. This insecurity also affects aid organisations. Palestinian humanitarian aid and health workers have been killed and hospitals and ambulances have been bombed.

Hospital emergency departments are besieged by wounded patients. In the last 10 days, medical staff at Al Shifa Hospital have performed more than 300 surgeries.

“The hospital’s six operating rooms are operating at full capacity, with two operations underway simultaneously in each room,” said Dr. Cécile Barbou, MSF medical coordinator in Gaza. “The Palestinian surgeons and the medical staff are exhausted, struggling to keep up with the number of wounded.” Most of the emergency cases involve patients with serious wounds, who have suffered multiple traumas, primarily to the thorax, abdomen and face.”

The MSF teams in Gaza, composed of three international and nearly 70 Palestinian staff members, have been trying to support Palestinian medical facilities and treat the wounded since the offensive began. They have already distributed medical supplies and medications to several hospitals that were close to running out of material. Today, approximately twenty MSF staff are treating Gazans in their homes, visiting close to 40 people every day.

“The level of insecurity is so high that our ability to travel and provide medical aid is extremely limited,” said Jessica Pourraz, MSF field coordinator in Gaza. “We need unfettered access so that we can reach the wounded around the clock and civilians need to be able to reach treatment facilities.”

At the request of doctors at Al Shifa Hospital, MSF is sending a surgical team (a surgeon, anesthetist and a surgical nurse) and a mobile hospital that includes an operating room and an intensive treatment unit, which will increase the hospital’s treatment capacity. MSF hopes to obtain the necessary authorisation allowing the team, as well as all necessary supplies, to enter the Gaza Strip.

Under these circumstances, and while entry into Gaza of personnel and material is still restricted, the temporary bombing halt may improve wounded patients’ access to healthcare facilities, allow aid workers to move about and enable the transport of supplies of lifesaving materiel (fuel, food, medical supplies and medication). “However, these partial measures, which are intended to soothe international opinion, have no effect on the direct and massive violence that the population is experiencing,” says Dr. Marie-Pierre Allié, president of the French office of MSF.

This is Gaza.

2009-01-10T05:18:00.001+02:00

Tonight, Duke University held a vigil for Gaza. I was invited to speak, even after certain campus groups said they were displeased at the choice of speakers, saying they found my comments offensive last time I spoke.

Here is a rough copy of my speech:

Imagine if you will a land teeming with refugees; a land of the dispossessed, closed off from the outside world; where smuggling is often the only source of subsistence; where families who are not disappeared-are on the brink of starvation; surrounded by an army and bombarded by that army.

The year was 1943. The place: the Warsaw Ghetto.

The description is hauntingly familiar. But it is now 2009.

And this is Gaza.

As we speak tonight, more than 800 Palestinians have and 14 Israelis have lost their lives over the course of the past two weeks.

17 mosques have been destroyed, a church seriously damaged; Over 12 medics and a journalist killed; ambulances; schools; houses; women, men, children.

In fact-entire families-entire families have been eliminated from existence.

This is Gaza.

Roughly the size of this nation’s great capital, Washington DC, it is s closed in on all sides. There is no escape. There is not entry.

And it’s residents-already stateless after 40 years of occupation and a majority of them refugees - are at once being blockaded and bombarded by land, sea, and sky: it is a situation that is unprecedented in modern history.

Gaza-where acute malnutrition rates, after 3 years of Israeli blockade, are now on scale with the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, according to the UN; where half of all Palestinian families eat one meal a day; Where the siege has killed not only lives, but hopes and dreams and futures.

Today in Gaza, no where is safe. That is what friends and family have been repeating to me day after day after day for the past two weeks. They are trapped, terrorized, and traumatized.

The parliament building down the street from my parents’ home; the mosque around the corner; the university my cousin attends; the ambulance my friend drives; the pier where we get our fish; the playground my son used to play in; the farm my colleague's father grew; the restaurant I had my evening coffees at.

Everything living, beautiful, and ordinary has been a target.

"You don't know who is alive, you don’t know what is a target next; you feel you are in a trap, and where do you run to.. the Israeli navy is shelling from the sea, the F-16s from the sky, the tanks from the ground...where to?" my friend repeated again and again.

This is Gaza.

I have learned that my comments are considered offensive to some. For this, I do NOT apologize.

Sometimes, we need to be offended in order to wake up to the brutal realities around us; realities which we helped create-with our taxes, with our votes, with our silence;

And I say: Occupation is not only offensive; it is lethal;

The United Nations has described what is happening in Gaza as a Crime Against Humanity- both in terms of its Deliberateness; its Scope; and its Disproportionality

That an occupied territory-and yes-Gaza is still recognized as occupied- is not only subject to a deliberate siege after free and fair elections-depriving an already impoverished and dispossessed people` intentionally of electricity, aid trucks, and medicines, is then bombed, is not only unfathomable, it is indefensible.

It is incumbent upon all of us to speak out for peace and justice for all.

For Israel can only achieve the security is seeks by providing that same security to Palestinians.

In order to realize a sustainable resolution to this conflict, we must not only call for an end to arms: whether they are Palestinian rockets or Israeli laser guided missiles.

But we also also address the underlying cause of it all: We must demand an end to Israel’s siege and illegal occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. This is an obligation, not a concession.

We cannot continue to speak of it as an event occurring in a vacuum; or as though the firing of rockets onto Israeli towns was simply an event on its own, without context. As though Gazans were not dying a slow death by way of siege before this; or suffering under occupation throughout.

It is about the denial of basic Palestinians rights. the right to statehood; the rights of refugees to return to their homes; the rights of family to reside together and to visit one another; the right to travel freely; to receive medical treatment; to education; to a childhood free of violence; the right to worship; the right to live free of occupation and siege.

Palestinians must be allowed to realize their most basic human rights-freedom and self-determination, the same concepts this country was founded on.

The United States must change its long-standing policy of blind support for Israel.

It must become an even-handed broker in this conflict, addressing Palestinian needs for justice, equality, and yes, security just as they do Israel’s. It must demand that Israel end its illegal occupation, running on 40 years, of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

And friends don’t let friends run an occupation.

I end with a rough translation of a poem by the late Mahmoud Darwish, titled,

"silence for Gaza"

MAHMOUD DARWISH

"Gaza has no throat.
Its pores are the ones that speak in sweat, blood, and fires.
Hence the enemy hates it to death and fears it to criminality, and tries to sink it into the sea... And hence its relatives and friends love it with a coyness that amounts to jealousy and fear at times, because Gaza is the brutal lesson …and the shining example for enemies and friends alike.
Gaza is not the most beautiful city.
Its shore is not bluer than the shores of Arab cities.
Its oranges are not the most beautiful in the Mediterranean basin.
Gaza is not the richest city.
It is not the most elegant or the biggest, but it equals the history of an entire homeland, because it is more ugly, impoverished, miserable, and vicious in the eyes of enemies.
Because it is the most capable, among us, of disturbing the enemy’s mood and his comfort. Because it is his nightmare. Because it is mined with oranges; children without a childhood; old men without old age; and women without desires. Because of all this it is the most beautiful, the purest and richest among us and the one most worthy of love."

On Hold in Gaza: The Story of Iyas Salim

2009-01-09T07:05:00.003+02:00

Dick Gordon and the crew of the "Story" aired another great piece on NPR's NC station, WUNC, with a contact I put them in touch with in northern Gaza:

"They learn the big words. They should know why their city is attacked. Even if you hide it, it wouldn't make a difference, they see it with their own eyes," says Iyas of his kids, something I can relate to in my conversations with Yousuf.

For almost two weeks, Israel has been bombing the Gaza Strip. Now tanks have entered the territory. Iyas Salim, like many Gazans, has been holed up in a high-rise apartment with extended family. During yesterday's brief cease fire, he emerged for the first time in days, he and his wife squinting in the sunlight. Iyas talks with Dick Gordon about how he and his family keep the kids safe and entertained while the bombs fall, and how he answers their questions about why all of this is happening to them.

Listen here.

"It wasn't me": the Israeli guide to spin control on Palestinian massacres

2009-01-09T05:38:00.005+02:00

A friend of mine who is who worked for multiple human groups describes the Israeli government reaction to Palestinian massacres that have occurred and are occurring in Gaza, such as the Samuni massacre and that at the UN school, like this (an opinion echoed by Robert Fisk in today's Independent):

a. It wasn't us, one of their bombs exploded by accident or it was their own gunfire
b. It was us but they were shooting from (near) there/storing weapons there
c. Ok maybe that's not the case, but our 'purity of arms' makes us better than anyone else: no other army in the world takes such care in avoiding civilian casualties
d. there's no need for an independent/international investigation because we are a democracy and conduct our own investigations; and besides, the world hates us.
e. why are you still talking about it, you anti-Semite

*also known as: "It wasn't me, and so what if it was, you anti-Semite"

Gaza Medic under fire: Aljazeera footage

2009-01-09T05:26:00.002+02:00

A Palestinian medic, traveling with two international Human Rights Activists, was shot by Israeli forces in Jabaliya, northern Gaza. He is one of over a 9 medics killed by Israel during this attack, and 11 ambulances destroyes.

Red Crescent medic, Hassan al-Attal, was shot through the thigh while collecting a civilian killed by Israeli fire from Zimmo, east of Jabaliya refugee camp.

Where do you hide? The terror in Gaza continues.

2009-01-09T01:44:00.006+02:00

"You don't know anymore; you don't know who is alive, you feel you are in a trap, you don't know who is a target" said my friend and neighbour in Gaza city, journalist Taghreed El-Khodary, the fear resonated in her voice, over the phone to Aljazeera. Taghreed lives on the street over from my parent's.

"Where to? Where can I go seek refuge to?" she continued. "I live next to the parliament which was destroyed; next to the police station, which was destroyed; next to the hospitals, which were bombed; and the Israeli navy is shelling from the sea, the F-16s from the sky, the tanks from the ground...where to?" she repeated again and again.

"First your house shakes, and the windows break, and the fear...the fear. And when you see all these children around you in the hospital. Some can draw-and what they drawing is unbelievable. A six-year old boy in my house drew a picture of boy that was alive, and another that was dead. he said the dead boy was his friend, whom the Israelis killed. And the father is unable to protect his child. And the mothers are trying to hide their fear from their kids."

My father today said more flyers were dropped in a bid to intimidate and terrorize an already bludgeoned, starved, and terrified population.

"To residents of the area" read the flyer, which my father scanned and emailed me.

"Due to the terrorist activity that terrorist elements are carrying out from your residential area against the State of Israel, the Israel Defence Force has been forced to respond immediately and operate in your residential area...you are ordered to leave the area immediately".

Taghreed received a copy too, courtesy of your friendly neighbourhood occupying army-just out to watch your backs.

"They are dropping them everywhere- and everyone thinks its their area being targeted, but in reality, no one knows. And even if they were to leave, where do they go to? to another area where flyers were dropped and where bombs are falling? Its a tactic to induce terror and intimidation" my father told me.

For the first time in weeks, they have a few hours of precious electricity today. And things felt "normal" for a while, as they basked in bulb-light and their fridge hummed to life. They took the opportunity to chat with me on Skype. They wanted to talk to me hour after hour, all morning my time, about nothing in particular, before they were immersed in the dark and terror once again.

After speaking to his grandfather, Yousuf looked at me and asked in the inquisitive, matter-of-fact way that he usually inquires about all things small and big in this world, "mama- why don't the Israeli soldiers think before they shoot people?"

"Because they don't think like you, habibi."

Early in the day, UNRWA said it would stop operations after an aid convoy came under direct Israeli attack, and two UN drivers were killed by Israeli shells.

In the afternoon, my father learned that a family living in Gaza's Zeitun neighbourhood-the Samuni clan- who had already lost dozens of members in previous days, lost an additional 70: paramedics from the Red Cross who were finally able to reach them after days of being prevented from doing so by Israeli forces discovered bloated rotting corpses, and 4 children clinging to life, lying limp and emaciated from hunger but alive near their slaughtered mother.

Head of the Red Cross Pierre Wettach accused Israel of deliberately ignoring the besieged, dying family: "The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded."

Yuval Steinitz: Israel planned Gaza invasion for 9 months

2009-01-08T07:56:00.001+02:00

Knesset Member Yuval Steinitz, head of the Knesset Defense Readiness and Fighting Terrorism Committee, tells Aljazeera's Imran Garda they had planned the Gaza invasion for 8-9 months.

hand in hand, Gaza stands

2009-01-08T07:30:00.005+02:00

3 hours. And each person, family, group, had to decide how to allocate that time. Some divided the labor: bread, blankets, food. Others rushed to visit loved ones-or simply to get some fresh air.

My parents decided to visit some of the 'UN schools-cum-shelters', and described the scene to me:

"Every family consisted of at least 10 members; and there was one blanket for the whole lot. We took some donated blankets and clothes with us. Many of these people told me they are well-to-do, but now find themselves with little more than the clothes on their backs."

"But despite it all-remarkably- everybody is standing hand in hand, supporting one another. Their spirits are remarkably high" he said over the phone, his voice sounded more rested than it had in days.

Further south, in Rafah, the news was much more grim. Just as a "pause" was in effect, hundreds of residents there received calls and leaflets from the Israeli army demanding they leave their homes ahead of an imminent bombardment.

I called my my friend Fida Qishta for an update-in the background, a commotion of voices.

"The announcement was for everyone to leave- the border area people; half the city left, but many are refusing to go. We are hosting many families-that is all the noise you hear. We have about 30 people here with us," said Fida.

"You have to understand something: Its not about bulldozers anymore…they are bombing with F-16s..destroying entire families Laila...entire families" she
repeated, driving the point home.

Fida refers to the period during the second Intifada, when Rafah bore the brunt of Israel's military aggression in the Strip-demolishing homes there en-masse with armored Israeli bulldozers under the guise of destroying tunnels. A report by Human Rights Watch at the time found the true intention to be the desire to create a a buffer zone. It seems they now want to "finish the job".

"The first few days of the conflict, they bombed a pharmacy about 60 metres from the house. Nowhere is safe."

What do you tell your daughter?

2009-01-07T06:21:00.005+02:00

Another day, another massacre, more diplomatic deliberation, more silence, more complicity.

The invasion on Gaza has been mentally exhausting. I have tried my best to overcome this feeling of impotence by channeling the energy to action- though we may be powerless to change a government's heinous actions on our own, together our voices rise far above, farther than we can ever imagine.

Last night we capped of our night with the latest hour of coverage on Aljazeera English, which was reporting on how the UN had made shelters out of its schools for those internally displaced.

"I am getting a bad feeling about this- I wouldn't be surprised if this shelter was bombed" I told Yassine.

We woke up in the morning to the heart-rending news, as I rushed to make Noor's pediatrician appointment on time, my mind not quite here.

I then appeared on Canadian Broadcasting live with my father.

The anchor asked why my mom father was still in Gaza City. He replied it was his home, and no one would kick him out of it. I emphasized that even for those who did want to flee for safety, there was no where to flee to- the borders are hermetically sealed, the sea and sky under total blockade.

"Is there anything you'd like to tell your daughter?" the anchor concluded by asking.

"What do I tell her? I honestly don't know if I'll live from one hour to the next," my father replied. "She keeps asking me to describe the casualties for her that I'm seeing; but I can't. What should I tell her? That I've seen bodies with my own eyes reduced to nothing more than pieces of black flesh?"

My father went on to describe accounts of Palestinians being used as human shields-by the Israelis. The Israeli military has been forcing families out of their homes and making them scope out buildings and rooms for the army to enter and for their snipers to nest in. It is a practice they have used before-in Rafah, where i personally reported on it during Operation Rainbow in 2004, in Jenin, and in Nablus in 2007 (where a young girl and boy were abused) . Btselem has said that "Israeli soldiers routinely used Palestinian civilians as human shields by forcing them to carry out life-threatening military tasks", despite an Israeli High Court Order prohibiting the practice.

He went on to speak of the massacre at the UN school turned shelter, which had just occurred, reminding people that these same Palestinians in may cases by the Israeli army to leave their homes through robocalls and other forms of intimidation; then bombed in the only safe place they could find.

I asked if he had gone out at all- he said my mother has not left the house in days, but that they needed some tomatoes to cook supper with. "the stores are empty-there is very little on the shelves; and the Shanti bakery had something like 300 people waiting in line."

Surprisingly, he said people are trying to go on with their lives. It is the mundane and ordinary that often save your sanity, help you live through the terror. It is no small thing to endure: knowing that both in deliberateness and scope, it is an unprecedented modern-day assault against an occupied, stateless people-most of them refugees.

How many more massacres until the human consciousness awakens?

speaking up: protests in NC

2009-01-07T05:33:00.002+02:00

A few pictures of two protests we attended over the course of the week- one in Durham and the other in Raleigh, NC. (yes, that's my little Noor in the fourth picture waving a Palestinian flag, in the arms of a dear Moroccan friend of mine)

A quick note on comments

2009-01-07T05:19:00.002+02:00

Dear all:

Just a quick note to let you know- I literally receive hundreds (and in recent days, thousands) of comments to my inbox, which await moderation. It it not humanly possible for me to read and publish every single one; And of course, the ones that are downright hatemail I do not even both reading let alone publishing-so don't waste your breathe people. That is why I do not leave my comments section as a free for all. But this is just to let you know- its not personal, I just don't have time or womanpower to do it all- this is a one-person machine! thank you, though, every one (even the hateful ones) who take time out of your day to stop by and read what I have to say-and go further by leaving a comment.

Norwegian doctor in Gaza: Israel is deliberately attacking the population.

2009-01-06T05:33:00.000+02:00

A wedding invitation

2009-01-05T19:44:00.001+02:00

Israel's psychological warfare

2009-01-05T07:07:00.004+02:00

We've heard about the flyers the Israeli army is littering Gaza with-telling people Hamas is to blame for their woes, not their f-16s and cluster bombs.

Now, they have taken to robo-calling the citizens of Gaza ala Hilary Clinton, at all times of the night and day.

My father has received a number of calls- including one as we finsihed another CNN interview, and we were on Skype. He tried to put the phone on speaker for me. The rough translations:

"urgent message: warning to the citizens of Gaza. Hamas is using you as human shields. Do not listen to them. Hamas has abandoned you and are hiding in their shelters. Give up now.."

He hung up in disgust, not wanting to hear the rest.

The army has also been calling people to let them know their houses will be bombed.

People have stopped answering their phones now, and do not take calls from unknown numbers, says my father.

Psychological warfare: pictures my father took of TV messages the Israeli army has been broadcasting on Palestinian stations. The captions say: "Hamas leadership: your time is running out".

Israeli shin bet recruiter punked in Gaza!

2009-01-05T04:30:00.003+02:00

A brilliant stunt pulled by Electronic Intifada. I encourage people the world over to begin doing the same-flood their lines with calls telling them who the REAL terrorists are!

In addition to bombs and missiles that have killed an ever increasing number of Palestinian civilians, Israel has dropped millions of flyers on the occupied, besieged Gaza Strip.

One such flyer (which I mentioned in a previous blog entry) seeks to recruit Palestinian collaborators. Signed by the "Israel Defense Forces command," and addressed to the "the residents of the Gaza Strip," the flyer states: "You hold the responsibility for your own fate!" It invites Palestinians to call or email the Israeli army "to inform us about the location of rocket launching sites and the terrorist gangs that made you hostages of their actions." Because collaboration with an occupier is universally viewed as one of the worst forms of betrayal, the flyer warns "For your own safety, please maintain secrecy when you call us."

EI decided to call the number provided. What follows is a translation of the Arabic conversation between an EI editor and an Israeli officer who identified himself using the Arabic name "Abu Ibrahim" (and whose accent slips the more irritated he gets-until he finally goes on a tirade saying that Palestinians do not exist as a nation).

Israel has used cash, but has sometimes attempted to blackmail desperately sick Palestinians by witholding access to medical care unless they collaborate. Israel may also hope that the humanitarian catastrophe it has deliberately created in the Gaza Strip will make Palestinians more vulnerable to this kind of exploitation.

Full conversation plus transcription here:

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10114.shtml

Trapped, Traumatized, Terrorized: Gaza Update

2009-01-04T20:47:00.008+02:00

My father and I made simultaneous back to back appearances on CNN domestic and CNN international last night. My father spoke calmly, eloquently, in the pitch dark of besieged Gaza, with only the the fire of Israeli bombs illuminating his world: "they are destroying everything that is beautiful and living" he told the anchor.

His hands were trembling he confessed, as they lay on the floor of their home, where they moved their mattress far away from the windows, thunderous explosions ripping through the black sky all around them, lighting it up in enormous clouds of fire.

I call them every hour; sometimes every few minutes when I see renewed bombardment on my television. Sometimes he calls me for assurance:

"What's going on? what's going ?" he repeats in a weary, hypnotic tone.

"It just felt like they bombed our street from the inside out. I can't see anything. I don't know what's happening. What's the news saying?" he asks frantically, desperate for any morsel of information that can make sense of the terror being wrought upon them.

"The Apaches are right above our house. Its complete darkness outside, complete darkness" he goes on.

I ask if he got any sleep-I was up with him a good part of my night until dawn rose as the earth was blasting apart around him.

"Two hours, better than nothing." He said he went out for a quick breather, and took a picture of some children who went out for a few tense minutes to kick a ball around

He passes the phone to my mother. She tries to make pleasant chitchat, asking about when we will celebrate Noor's birthday-though I already told her a few days ago we had a small party.

"Oh that's right, that's right. Yassine?" she says, addressing my husband.
"I don't know what's wrong with me. Its strange, strange. My body is literally trembling from the inside. From the inside. Why do you think that is? Its strange" she rambles on.

I ask how they are doing on food supplies. She says she stood in line for 1 1/2 hours for a parcel of bread yesterday.

My father last night tried to communicate a single message: We keep hearing that Israel is after Hamas; but WE are the targets here; Civilians are the targets here, not Hamas.

An entire refugee family in one fell swoop was killed this morning as they took cover in their home, which took a direct hit from Israeli shells. Their deaths do not make Israeli more secure. Their deaths will not stop rocket fire.

6 paramedics and a doctor were also killed as they tried to rescue wounded Palestinians in northern Gaza.

And now, AP reports that the Gaza phone network is on the brink of collapse. I do not know how much longer I will be able to communicate with my parents.

Israeli human rights groups have also just reported that 75% of Gaza is without electricity and the sewage system is on the brink of collapse. In addition, Gaza City, including Shifa Hospital, is entirely without electricity. They also say 20% of those killed have been children or women. They also note that:

· Over half a million residents cut off from water supply.
· Sewage is spilling into streets, risk of more flooding.
· No fuel is being permitted into Gaza since start of military operation.

13, 000 Palestinians-many of them refugees from 1948- are now internally displaced in Gaza, according to the UN. Refugees 3 times over.

Live Free or Die. The motto of the State of New Hampshire, probably one that few Americans are familiar with, has never rung truer. And how similar it is to the feeling of ordinary Palestinians in the Gaza Strip now, trying merely to survive day to day, longing for a life free of Israeli occupation and terror.

Cluster bombs, DU, and White Phosphorus being used in Gaza

2009-01-04T19:52:00.005+02:00

Residents in Gaza have been talking about an unprecedented amount of force being unleashed against them by the Israeli army- but they have also spoken about new kinds of weaponry. It comes as no surprise-Gaza has always been Israel's "testing ground" - from nerve agents used in Khan Younis in 2003 to Sonic Boom "phantom air raids". Now, there is talk of cluster bombs, depleted uranium, and white phosphorus.

And these are only the ones people can identify. CNN corespondents stationed near the borders have also been talking about new kinds of explosions.

Norwegian medics say that some of the victims who have been wounded since Israel began its attacks on the Gaza Strip on December 27 have traces of depleted uranium in their bodies, according to Press TV.

There are also reports that the Israeli Army is using both cluster bombs in the northern part of the Strip, as well as White Phosphorus, an incendiary weapon used by the United States in Iraq (which would explain the large flare-like explosions unseen before in Gaza).

My father yesterday treated patients in Shifa hospital exposed to some of these ordnances. The description he gave was as follows:

"there were a series of bombs in a row, a large white halo, followed by white smoke which caused severe irritation and inability to breathe; the exposed areas become red, blistered all over the skin, and itchy."

Israeli plan to topple Hamas, re-instate Abbas

2009-01-03T23:16:00.006+02:00

An excerpt of an article written in the JTA (Jewish and Israeli News)...summarizing the Israeli National Security Council's assessments for 2009.:

"Whatever happens, the NSC says, Israel must continue to pressure and weaken Hamas. If the current Hamas-Israel truce in Gaza breaks down, the NSC recommends that Israel launch a wide-ranging operation to topple Hamas in Gaza. Whether that would mean reoccupying Gaza, and if so, for how long, the NSC does not say...To keep Abbas in power and the two-state solution alive, the NSC recommends that Israel prevent Palestinian elections."

Breaking the truce Nov. 4, then, was Israel's way of getting the gears rolling for this whole sick game: the toppling of Hamas, and the re-instating of the impotent Abbas into Gaza so the "peace process" can remain forever in formaldehyde, to quote wiseass, er., Weisglass.

Israeli spokespersons on Aljazeera and CNN have effectively confirmed this, saying that the "legitimate Palestinian leadership is in the West Bank" and that they must be returned to Gaza, and that if there is an opportunity, they will facilitate this for them.

So the plan is: destroy infrastructure and government buildings; create chaos and a political vacuum; re-instate Abbas and his stooges as sub-contractors of the occupation.

Jonathon Cooke notes in a recent article on EI: "It should come as no surprise that Israel...has killed substantial numbers of ordinary policemen, the guarantors of law and order in Gaza."

LAND OFFENSIVE BEGINS IN GAZA

2009-01-03T20:51:00.005+02:00

We just came back from a protest in Durham...before we left my father called to let me know a land invasion was imminent, and that a bomb had been destroyed a mosque near them-killing 11 civilians.

He just now informed me that a land invasion HAS BEGUN. Everyone is bracing themselves.

hHe said Israel destroyed 3 JAWAL centers (the mobile provider) so many mobile phhones, including his own, are down, but his landline is functional..

He tells me that a building behind my cousin's house in Gaza City was destroyed, and is now burning down in a voracious fire. It had an orphanage in it.

My mother says she won't lie..they are terrified.

Flares and firebombs are being shot to light up the sky. Propaganda fliers telling the people of Gaza that "they chose Hamas and and Hamas has abandoned them"; that "Hamas will lead them to catastrophe"' superimposed on an image of a bombed-out building; and calling on them to "take charge of their destiny" adn to call a given phone number or email with tips and then a warning to call "in secrecy" (thanks for the tip). Israel is also broadcasting on al-Aqsa TV station there.

My father tells me Gaza's streets are as "dark as Kohl".

for more updates, my Twitter page: www.twitter.com/Gazamom

Also see Sameh Habeeb's photos at: http://www.digitaljournal.com/, and http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb/GazaWar3# (including photos of leaflets being dropped on the city)

Humor under siege

2009-01-03T18:02:00.002+02:00

Yesterday, I wondered had happened to my father's newly acquired bird- the one he purchased from the farmer that tends to my mother's land in southern Gaza.

I feared the poor creature died of a heart attack. My father assured me was doing just fine- but that instead of chirping his usual tunes that hasaseen are famous for singing, he now utters nothing but "boom boom".

My father's "story"

2009-01-02T23:40:00.007+02:00

Gaza is full of stories. My relative's neighbors- 3 young children- were all killed today while playing marbles outside their home. Another distant relative was killed in his home. All in the name of making Israel more safe and secure.

My father has been doing his part by sharing his individual story with the world.

Yesterday, he spoke with NPR's NC station, WUNC. He appeared on the Story with Dick Gordon. You can listen him share his gripping experience here, one not unlike my friend Laila Al-Arian's grandfather's own story, published today in the Nation.

Moussa El-Haddad lives in Gaza with his wife. The bombs have fallen as close as 100 meters from his home. Two nights he was sitting at his desk and the reverberations from a nearby bomb knocked him right out of his chair. He tells Dick Gordon about what life is like for him now that his city is under siege, and about the hope that a new U.S. administration might mean new policies in this troubled region.

LINK TO THE FULL BROADCAST , including images my father took of a bombed out mosque near his house and a bread line winding out from a bakery.

Note: after my father's interview, the host felt obliged to interview someone living in Sderot- because after all the "story" would not be complete without the other view. He ending up interview an American-Israeli woman who was a settler in Gush Qatif, and now lives in Sderot. She reminisces about her wonderful days in Gaza (in illegal, fortified paramilitary complexes) and is nostalgic about living once again next to her "Arab neighbors" there (???). She then goes on to complain about how they have little protection and its not really safe anywhere (try telling that to the Jabaliya residents, Anita). What really bothered me about this was that not once is she pressed about Israel's assault on Gaza, as well as the obvious moral and political equivalencies being implied. But I digress.

Safety is a state of mind

2008-12-31T21:23:00.005+02:00

My father just called. I have learned to expect that the 9pm call is not a jovial one: it is usually to alert me of some awful thing transpiring around them. It helps, in whatever way, to broadcast this event that has yet to be broadcast to the world, to whomever you can. In this case, that person is me.

I see the number on my caller ID; my heart races. I answer my cell phone.

"We ...are under..heavy bombardment. Heavy bombardment" says my father in terrified, articulated syllables.

"They are bombing the Legislative Council building next to our house. They are bombing just down our street."

"Baba...are you safe, are you both safe??" I ask, not knowing what else to say.

"I have to go now..I have to go...i just wanted to tell you that..but I have to go..." he stammers. And the line goes dead.

We have figured out a system. When the electricity is back on in Gaza- which has happened for one hour during the past 48, my parents get on Skype immediately. If I am not around, they give me a quick call from their landline to let me know they are back on; they have 2-3 hours of back-up generator time after this. They stocked up on fuel during the past few weeks.

Then, it is dark again.

When the bombs are dropped around them, they send me a quick note to inform me of what happened before running to safety. I am still not sure where "safety" is; and neither, I think, do they. It is perhaps more a mental state and place than a physical one. In any other situations, people flee to where they perceive are safer locations. In Gaza, there is no "safe". And there is no where to flee to, with the borders closed, the sky and sea under siege.

This afternoon, we had a brief exchange.

[1:56:04 PM] moussa.elhaddad says: F16 and Apaches are in the sky of GAZA now

[1:56:16 PM] moussa.elhaddad says: FIVE new explosions

[1:57:58 PM] moussa.elhaddad says: One near Al-Nasr hospital, two behind our house. Money exchangers ( Al-Bar3asy and Hirzallah ) two other explosions a little bit far away.

Yesterday, my uncle's neighbor's home was leveled. Luckily, no one was hurt. But all 50 occupants were made homeless. They were out on the streets with nothing but their backs. Each had to find shelter with a different relative.

This morning, we appeared together on NPR- WUBR's Here and Now. There was as surreal quality to it. And for a few moments, we were in that "safe" place together, on some distant, sterile air waves. It is windy and cold today in Durham. I shiver when the shutters shake. and I think of Gaza. I think of home.

Israeli Navy Attacks Civilian Mercy Ship

2008-12-30T07:31:00.003+02:00

Yesterday's press release:

Israeli Navy Attacking Civilian Mercy Ship! TAKE ACTION IMMEDIATELY!

The Dignity, a Free Gaza boat on a mission of mercy to besieged Gaza, is being attacked by the Israeli Navy in international waters. The Dignity has been surrounded by at least half-a-dozen Israeli warships. They are firing live ammunition around the Dignity, and one of the warships has rammed the civilian craft causing an unknown amount of damage. Contrary to international maritime law, the Israelis are actively preventing the Dignity from approaching Gaza or finding safe haven in either Egypt or Lebanon. Instead, the Israeli navy is demanding that the Dignity return to Cyprus - despite the fact that the ship does not carry enough fuel to do so. Fortunately, no one aboard the ship has yet been seriously injured.

There are 15 civilian passengers representing 11 different countries (see below for a complete list). At approximately 5am (UST), well out in international waters, Israeli warships began surrounding the Dignity, threatening the ship. At 6:45am (UST) we were able to establish brief contact with the crew and were told that the ship had been rammed by the Israeli Navy in international waters, and that the Israelis were preventing the ship from finding safe harbor. We heard heavy gunfire in the background before all contact was lost with the Dignity.

It is urgent that you TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION!

CALL the Israeli Government and demand that it immediately STOP attacking the Dignity and endangering the lives of its passengers!

CALL Mark Regev in the Prime Minister's office at:
+972 2670 5354 or +972 5062 3264
mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il

CALL Shlomo Dror in the Ministry of Defence at:
+972 33697 5339 or +972 50629 8148
mediasar@mod.gov.il

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The Dignity departed from Larnaca Port in Cyprus at 7pm (UST) on Monday 29 December, bound for war-devastated Gaza with a cargo of over 3 tons of desperately needed medical supplies donated by the people of Cyprus. At our request, the ship was searched by Cypriot Port authorities prior to departure, to certify that there was nothing "threatening" aboard - only emergency medical supplies.

TAKE ACTION IMMEDIATELY TO STOP THE ISRAELI NAVY FROM ENDANGERING THE DIGNITY AND ITS PASSENGERS!

passengers include, among others, surgeons, journalists, and politicians, including former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.

Still as death, dark is life

2008-12-30T07:00:00.007+02:00

“There is a complete black out in Gaza now. The streets are still as death.”

I am speaking to my father, Moussa El-Haddad, a retired physician who lives in Gaza City, on Skype, from Durham, North Carolina in the United States, where I have been since mid 2006- the month Gaza’s borders were hermetically sealed by Israel, and the blockade of the occupied territory further enforced.

He is out on his balcony. It is 2am.

“I can only see gray plumes of smoke slowly rising all over the city, everywhere I look” he says, as though they were some beautiful, comforting by-product of some hideous, malicious event.

He takes a deep restorative sigh before continuing. “Ehud Barak has gone crazy. He’s gone crazy. He is bombing everywhere and everything…no one is safe”.

Explosions are audible in the background. They sound distant and dull over my laptop’s speakers, but linger like an echo in death’s valley. They evoke terrifying memories of my nights in Gaza only 2 years ago. Nights that till this day haunt my 4 year old son-who refuses to sleep on his own.

“Can you hear them? Our house is shaking. We are shaking from the inside out.”

“Laila-your mother, she is terrified” he adds.

She comes to the phone. “Hello, hello dear,” she mutters, her voice trembling. “I had to go to the bathroom. But I’m afraid to go alone. I wanted to perform wudu’ before prayer but I was scared. Remember days when we would go to the bathroom together because you were too afraid to go alone?” she laughs at the thought-it seems amusing to her now, that I was scared to find my death in a place of relief; that she is now terrified of the same seemingly ridiculous scenario.

It was really the fear of being alone. When you “hear” the news before it becomes news, you panic for clarity- you want someone to make sense of the situation, package it neatly into comprehensible terms and locations. Just to be sure-its not you this time.

“It’s strange, my whole body is shaking. Why is that? Why is that?” she rambles on, continuous explosions audible in the background. “There they go again. One boom after another. 15. Before that, one or two, maybe 20 total so far.”

Counting makes it’s easier. Systemizing the assaults makes them easier to deal with. More remote.

We speak to each other throughout the day. She calls sometimes to let me know if there are gunships overhead, or explosions around them. As though there was something I could do about it; as though my voice would somehow make them disappear.

They cracked the windows opened, to prevent an implosion.

“By the way we are sleeping in your room now, it’s safer” she tells me, of my empty, abandoned space.

My mother’s close friend, Yosra, was asked to evacuate building. They live in a flat near many of the ministry complexes being targeted. They were advised not to go to the mosque for services, lest they be bombed.

Another family friend, an elderly Armenian-Palestinian Christian and retired pharmacist, is paralyzed with fear. Like many residents, she is confined to her home. She lives alone, in front of the Saraya security complex on Omar al-Mukhtar Street. The complex has already been bombed twice. Last night, her windows shattered around her. She went outside to seek help-no one was around. She cried all night. Shards of glass now cover the floors of her home, one that has been in the family for generations.

Monday morning, five sisters from one family were killed when Israeli war planes attacked a mosque next to their home. 4-year-old Jawahir Anwar. 8-year-old Dina Anwar. 12-year-old Sahar Anwar. 14-year-old Ikram Anwar. 17-year-old Tahrir Anwar

The small shop down the street from my parents’ home, next to the Kinz mosque where many of the Remal neighbourhood’s affluent residents attend, opens for a little while after prayer. My father goes and gets whatever he can-while he can.

They have one package of bread left, but insist they are ok.

“Those with children are the ones who are truly suffering. Um Ramadan’s grand children will only sleep in her arms now. They are wetting their pants again”.

Yousuf chimes into the conversation unceremoniously, popping his head into my laptop screen.

“Sido? I like the fatoosh you used to make! I miss you. When will the maabar open? Sido…are you ok? ”

“Habibi, when we see other again-if we see each again- I’ll make it for you” he promises. The very possibility seems to comfort him, no matter how illusory.

It is Noor’s one year old birthday January 1. She will turn one. I cannot help but think- who was born in bloodied Gaza today?

Note: this is a shortened version of an article that ran in the Guardian Unlimited today.

Update: Gaza

2008-12-29T01:26:00.005+02:00

Gaza's punishment continues today. Communication has been intermittent, but we have managed to keep the lines open. My father just called to inform me he was ok- after warplanes bombed the Islamic University there, considered to be the Strip's premiere academic institution.

A little later I called my mother, only to hear her crying on the phone. "The planes are overhead" she cried "the planes are overhead". I tried to calm her down- planes overhead mean the "target" is further away. But in such moments of intense fear, there is no room for rationality and logic.

There is you, and there are war planes; and nothing in between, besides orders and a video game screen.

Her panic subsided slightly..."ok ok your father says it was the navy gunships...they hit the pier...the poor fishermen, its not like its even a real pier... its just the pier, just the pier..."

She tried to convince my father not to go out to the mosque today. But he did. Most people stayed indoors.

So far, the death toll has reach over 300, with nearly 1000 injured, many critically.

OCHA reports search operations for dead bodies trapped under the rubble are still ongoing. Piles of bodies were places in front of Shifa hospital for identification-some too charred or dismembered to identify.

Most fatalities were civilian police; others included at least 20 children, nine women, and 60 other unarmed civilians.

The plotters have plotted; the pawns were in place; and the living dead continue to be massacred without a protest.

here are two videos I received from Fida Qishta in south Gaza's Rafah refugee camp:

The rains of death in Gaza

2008-12-27T17:51:00.008+02:00

We woke up this morning to the news in Gaza. It seems we always wake up to news there- so its become a matter of perspective how bad the news is each time; how remote it seems each time; how real or not; how severe-and whether the severity warrants an "international outcry" or whether the animals can continue to fester in their cages for a while longer.

We received a call from my in-laws in Lebanon's Baalbeck refugee camp at an early hour, checking in on my family in Gaza, since they cannot call them directly. We call my parents. My father does not answer. We call his mobile- we reach him. He has just returned from Shifa hospital- we hold our breaths.

"We are OK. We went to donate blood and to see if they needed any help" says my father, a retired surgeon.

"I was out in the souk when the strikes began- I saw the missiles falling and prayed; the earth shook; the smoke rose; the ambulances screamed" he said, the sirens audible in the background. he was on talateeni street at the time of the attacks, just a few streets down from one of the attack sites.

My mother was in the Red Crescent Society clinic near the universities at the time of the initial wave of attacks, where she works part-time as a pediatrician. Behind the clinic was one of the police centers that was leveled. She said she broke down at first, the sheer proximity of the attacks having shaken her from the inside out. After she got a hold of herself, they took to treating injured victims of the attack, before they transferred them to Shifa hospital.

There, she said, medical supplies were in short supply: face masks, surgical gloves, gowns...

My parents live in the the city center, and the Israeli war planes attacked people and locations all around them. Over 50 "targets"by 60 warplanes, read the headlines in Haaretz. And over 220 killed- in broad daylight; in the after-school rush.

Like a movie tagline. Or a game. If you say it enough times, it does not sound real anymore: 50 targets, 60 warplanes, 200 people, 1 day.

All very sanitary. Very sleek. Neatly packaged: war in a gift-box.

"There is a funeral passing every minute. The bodies are piling up." Gaza's air is saturated with the smell of burning human flesh. There is panic, as one would imagine dogs would panic in an overcrowded cell when several of their own are violently, abruptly killed. But dead dogs-in a cage, no less, would create an outcry.

The rains of death continue to fall in Gaza. And silently, we watch. and silently, governments plotted: how shall we make the thunder and clouds rain death onto Gaza? Egypt; the United States; Israel...

And it will all seem, in the end of the day, that they are somehow a response to something. As though the situation were not only acceptable- but normal, stable, in the period prior to whatever this is a response to. As though settlements did not continue to expand; walls did not continue to extend and choke lands and lives; families and friends were not dislocated; life was not paralyzed; people were not exterminated; borders were not sealed and food and light and fuel were in fair supply.

But it is the prisoners' burden to bear: they broke the conditions of their incarceration. They deviated. But nevertheless, there are concerns for the "humanitarian situation": as long as they do not starve, everything is ok. Replenish the wheat stocks immediately.

The warden improves the living conditions now and then, in varying degrees of relatively, but the prison doors remain sealed. And so when there are 20 hours of power outages in a row, the prisoners wish that they were only 8; or 10; and dream of the days of 4.

For more analysis, details, and calls to action, see Ali Abu Nimah's article here:

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10055.shtml

Its in the details

2008-12-25T06:49:00.003+02:00

We celebrated Eid ul adha last week with my brother. We made a 7 layer chocolate cake and decorated it to look like the Kaaba-around which the kids circulated 7 times as though performing the tawaf in Hajj. The children got a kick out of this gastronomical pilgrimage. I was tempted to make little marzipan pilgirms, but I thought that might be a bit gruesome eating their heads off.

As usual I skyped my father to wish him glad tidings and hear of the death of his great cousin, "the one who always sat on the street in front of Khamees's store, sipping a bottle of sparkling water, in the green bottles, from Egypt".

The funeral coincided with Eid, so my father's scraggly, awkard stubble of a beard, which he was growing in anticipation of the holiday following the prophetic tradition (though he has never before grown it as long as I can remember) could have easily been mistaken as a sign of respect in the incidence of a close family member's death: 2 in 1.

The news seemed to get darker by the day. At first they were happy with losing electricity for 4 hours a day. Then 8. 12. 15. And now, they are going for 18-20 horus of outages at a time. They have a geneator- purchased from the Tunnel gray markets in Rafah, says my mother. Its giving them some problems, and so have sent it to be fixed by a local mechanic. They fix anything- old microwaves, broken toasters, laptops, digital cameras, blenders. Most learned during their days as day laborers in Israel.

In addition to the generator, they also share a line from our neighbors, the ones who own a famous Gaza boutique and who are originally from Nablus; 5 brothers. They are on a different grid and so the outages are at different times. and vice versa.

We're skyping less and less these days. When the electricity is on, he takes the opportunity to logon immediately, or call me to let me know he can talk. Sometimes, he logs on with the generator, but then we can only use audio and for a limited time.

"How are things?" I ask, non-facetiously.

"Well, we got a bird"

"What?"

"A hasoon. you know, they are quite rare these days."

"Doesn't he get cold?"

"You're just like your mom. She asked the same question. Birds don't get cold-how do you think he survives in the wild? But anyway, I cover him at night, and put him out on the balcony during the day."

"But he's not in the wild. Anyway where did you get him?"

"the guy who takes care of your mom's land in Mawasi....he likes to catch quails and he caught this hasoon and so i bought it from him..."

"He gave us cauliflower and cabbage from the land..." chimed in my mother. She rambled on about the land, and the man who is taking care of it, and the condition its in, and what's growing there, and what the plans are for it, or lack thereof. details which now escape me; The land, used to be my grandfathers, and it is very sentimental to my mother.

The details seem boring. But they are what keep them going. What keep us all going. You see, trying to find a way to keep up with the boring details, to manage them, also keeps alive the illusion of normalcy. It is some kind of anesthetic I suppose. it keeps the hope afloat that the dawn is near; even if near is someone in the not so near future.

yousuf gets creative-again

2008-11-24T23:25:00.004+02:00

Ok, I honestly don't know what to make of this. First acupunctured teddy bears. Now this. On the face of it, it appears to be some sort of structure constructed out of plastic forks and a traditional Japanese swan vase (and which he later forbade me from taking apart, saying it was his masterpiece).

Should I:

A) Be upset that Yousuf destroyed $10 worth of plastic cutlery
B) Be delighted that his creativity is budding and that he can entertain himself with common household items and to hell with the plastic
C) Be worried that he can entertain himself for hours with plastic and toothpicks

Hmm.

Gaza's darkness

2008-11-15T16:32:00.003+02:00

Last night, I dreamed I was in Gaza. I woke up to Noor's crying and shot out of bed.

It takes a while for my faucet to switch from cold to hot. But the hot water feels better in the winter. Every time I take a warm shower, I think of Gaza. Of the days we had no warm water. Or any water for that matter. Every singal time I take a shower I think of Gaza.

I haven't heard from my parents in two days- unusual considering we are usually on Skype daily.

So I call my father- as I suspected: the electricity has been out for 48 hours now.

"We'll make do, we always do. Just like everyone else" he says matter-of-factly. They are lucky. They are not hungry.

Others have no such faith to fall back on.

UN food distribution centers, on which nearly half of Gaza's population relies, and 20, 000 at any given time, have also shut down, their supplies depleted as a result of Israel's recent tightening of the blockade on Gaza.

Soon, there will be more pressure to get the wheels running again. People must be fed, after all; even prisoners are fed. But no matter if they lose all hope. After all, the civilized world does not invest in hope. It only invests in destroying it. Bullets are more tangible than hope. Hunger is an easier statisical indicator than disallusionment and depression and dreams.

belonging

2008-11-04T05:55:00.003+02:00

everyday i sit down in front of my laptop during that single hour of time that I own , but that somehow, seems to own me, after my children fall asleep (sometimes on the couch...but who's counting). I sit down and I say- ok time to write a new post. but it doesn't happen, and instead I began to go off in tangents until I wonder how my precious hour passed. so today I decided to simply let my words spill out without worrying about excessive editing and beautification . Today my tangent was thinking about a time in my childhood when I actually had timed to feel "bored".

I've also been distracted by other thoughts. Thoughts of homeland; of absence; of belonging; suspension of time and place and space.

And the elections of course and all that jazz.... counting the visit to my brother's this weekend, we've have 5 house visits from Obama campaigners, "change" button plastered to their vests, clipboards in hand. I applauded their efforts, but stopped them short to save them the trouble-, we aren't citizens, I told them, and I'm not sure how I got on their list (their answer: the lists don't specify citizenship), though my sister in law did vote, proudly, for Obama. I also suggested they work on my blue-collar neighbors- with a house full of at least 5 undecided voters, they had their work cut out. You may have heard, North Carolina has been thrust into the limelite as a swing state all of a sudden.

And so on and so forth. As though it mattered, as though I belonged, somehow, to this season, to this cycle, to this time, to this place.

I keep up to date wtih all the Free Gaza news of the ships travelling to and from Cyprus and Gaza. And I think how lucky they are, to have the luxury of choosing to voluntarily sail to Gaza to prove a point. I think how in this day and age, in this time of ours, where borders and all they signify seem to dissolve, they have actually never mattered more; citizenship has never mattered more. the paradox of my existence.

My father provides dad's daily updates on Skype: collection of the olives from his farm during the fall harvest; pressing them for oil today: they had a surplus. Persimmons are finally in season-but still expensive. They'll get cheaper though, he assures me, as though it will matter. As though I belong to that season; that cycle; that time; that place.

Its chilly outside. My fig tree stand upright and green, branching out near the rosemary and loquat, as thoguh snubbing its nose at the weather. It is estranged, too. And who, in my lonely little garden, really belongs to this place or this season. Some thrive, and others make do with the reality before them: they predict a harsh winter this year. Conserve your energy, like the dormant mint, until the season passes.

Eid tidings!

2008-10-10T03:58:00.005+02:00

So I've been a little slack posting lately-story of my life. I would like to share some photos of Yousuf and Noor during Eid ul fitr, as celebrated here in the Raleigh-Durham area. Enjoy!

Bigotry in Virginia, alive and well

2008-09-22T18:54:00.008+03:00

So, I had a run-in with a bigot yesterday. Its one of those scenarios that is almost so generic you might think it destined for made-for-TV films (and its also very likely that's where the bigot in question got his lines from).

I was visiting my older brother and his family this weekend in northern Virginia- Fairfax to be exact. Incidentally, he's a cardiologist. We were toting our small army of children and babes to a local state park, and made a pit-stop at a Walmart for some trout worms and juice (an odd grocery list, I confess).

I'll also confess my brother's driving can be a bit frantic at times. I was trying to keep up as he sped into the parking lot, and next thing I know I'm at the receiving end of a voracious honk from a car to my right in a 4-way intersection. The car was a good distance away, and hadn't moved, but I suppose he wanted to make a point.

That was that, and we parked, waiting for my brother to retrieve the necessary items and come back. Just then, a stout white man of, oh, 45 years, walked by my car, giving me a very prominent middle finger and a very articulate "F*&* You" (and I thought the joke was you wouldn't make it far in Boston without a middle finger!).

Ok- fine, he's clearly upset, not yet making any connection, and I'm fasting, so I need to control my temper I thought, and I let it go.

I stood outside the car with an ancy Noor, while Yousuf took a nap in his car seat. Soon, my brother emerged from the Walmart, and lo and behold, behind him was the same man. He came up to me.

"Is there something bothering you with me, sir?" I beckoned.

"Yes, your driving-you nearly ran into my vehicle!! You..you..."

"I'm sorry-I was actually quite far away from your vehicle and it was my right of way"

"Free Palestine? Palestine's already free!!" he raged, gesturing to a bumper sticker on the back of my windshield as he began to walk away.

Clearly, my driving wasn't the only thing bothering him.

"I'm sorry?"

He then turned around and bellowed out "Why don't you go back to your country! "

"We live here, and I"ll have you know our values are probably more American than your's will ever be."

"Yeah right-" he muttered, continuing on his way.

At this point my brother, an American citizen, went up to confront him. The man came up within an inch of his face pointing and yelling something about his tax dollars, and how there was no occupation, and how we should all go back home. His blood began to boil and he looked about ready to swat my brother, who was explaining to him where his tax dollars were really going.

"I dare you to lay one finger on him" I said. "Go ahead. We'll press charges. Its called a hate crime, and you'll end up where you belong. You, sir, are a bigot. Go ahead and say what you just said on a loudspeaker to everyone in this parking lot if you weren't such a coward."

Mind you, we are in northern Virginia. During the ten minutes I stood in the parking lot alone, we were passed by Indians, Mexicans, Chinese, Arabs, and African-Americans. I wonder what he would have had to say about all of them.

A few people took a moment to glance at what was happening. But for the most part, they kept on their way. And that was what was really frightening- bringing to mind a social experiment was conducted and filmed for ABC news' "What Would You Do?" series about a racist cafe owner refusing to serve a Muslim woman (the incident was staged and repeat dozens of times on tape) on their February 26,2008 show.

Several people vocally supported the man in denying her service and telling her the things he did ("go back to where you came from"..."if you were really American, you wouldn't where a towel on your head"..."take your jihad out to the parking lot" etc. etc.), even giving him a thumbs up and saying they would do the same. Many opposed him, saying they were deeply offended and that he was disgusting. But the overwhelming majority stood by and did nothing.

And that is the scary part- you realize that maybe for every person angry and stupid enough to actually verbalize his racist thoughts, there must be 5 others who are thinking them.

Back to my story. Several other Muslims going shopping with their families emerged from their cars, asking if we needed help, calling him a racist and telling him to leave us alone. He soon backed off and was on his own cowardly way.

As I said, its sort of one of those incidents you anticipate (at least as a veiled Muslim woman; or even as a person of color and minority) your entire life. Shortly after September 11, I was was once called a terrorist by an elderly man in CVS in Cape Cod, who's daughter whisked him way, insisting he suffered from dementia. But for the most part, I usually excpect (and receive) the good in people-people accusing airport personnel of profiling me, for example, or asking if i need help, or just saying hello.

But when something like this does happen, I suppose the shock value is still so high that you never quite know how to respond. And you sit there stewing for a while, wondering how human beings can be so unabashedly vile-especially in this day and age, to one another.

Someone suggested I should have told him to crawl back to the rate hole he emerged from, in respose to his asking me to go back home (I also imagined that if everyone in this country was asked to go back "to where they came from" there wouldn't be anyone left, except maybe the native americans).

That might have been satisfying. Another part of me wished I had just told him that it was Ramadan and that I would pray extra hard for God to bless him with a kinder spirit and a more tolerant soul, so his next victim would be spared a similar, if not worse, fate. Ameen to that.

Like baby, like cat

2008-09-12T21:25:00.005+03:00

When Noor was born, we bought her a used baby bouncer. You know- one of those things that you strap the baby into, which is then supposed to "soothe" them with its womb-like vibrations and musical tunes. Yeah right.

Noor never quite took to it. It seemed to irritate her more than anything. So we left it alone. And now of course, with her crawling around and standing up on our furniture, its become obsolete in any case to strap her into anything.

So there sits the relic of her infancy, gathering dust- or should I say, cat hair, in the corner of our living room. I've recently discovered that our cat Bagheera found a new favorite napping spot. He jumps into the bouncer, even activates the vibrations and music, curls up into a ball, and snoozes away. So there you have it folks-assuming you don't have an allergy to cats, a multi-purpose baby bouncer!

Its interesting to see how Bagheera's interactions with Noor have changed. When we first brought her home from the hospital, he seemed mortified of her-sniffing her all over then wasting no time to run away like a cowardly lion. Now, he'll curl up next to her when she's nursing, and even let tug on his fur when she wants to touch him-something that would invariably be met with a nip and a paw if any of us did it.

Noor's Teething Celebration=سنينية نور

2008-09-12T20:56:00.005+03:00

Noor's first two teeth popped through last month. She wasted no time practicing her new found chompers on you know who's you know what's. Once the novelty of biting her source of sustenance wore off, she quickly became adept at actually using them for their intended purpose: chewing.

Anyway, being the sucker for traditions that I am, I decided to mark the occasion with what we call a "snayniya" in Arabic, sort of a teething celebration. It basically entails making a sweet dish by the same name and passing it out to friends and family, as well as distributing candied almonds and chocolates.

Snayniya (the sweet) consists of whole wheat kernels that are soaked and boiled until tender, then sweetened with sugar or honey, flavored with some orange-blossom water, and mixed with loads of raisins, mixed chopped nuts, and pomegranate seeds if available.

Though she hadn't a clue what was going, Noor seemed to enjoy herself nonetheless! And I'm happy to report she is no longer biting me!

Alternive Tourism- Gaza anyone?

2008-09-10T19:36:00.003+03:00

I recently completed updating the most recent edition of the Beit Sahour-based Alternative Tourism Group's "Palestine and the Palestinians" travel guide. I wrote a little bit about the project last year (when I was updating the 2006 edition).

But I'm particularly excited about the latest compilation. My job was to work on the Gaza section, since a lot has happened over the past two years. I tried to include as many juicy tidbits as possible to really give an insider's view of Gaza as well as suggestions on local favorite spots and so on. Part of the idea is to challenge the mediated perception of the city.

The book is sold in Europe, USA and Canada. In the USA it's sold through "Palestine On Line Store" http://www.palestineonlinestore.com/books/palestineandpalestinians.htm (though the newest English edition is not yet out on the site)

In the UK it's sold at Olive Cooperative, and it's also available on line through their website www.olivecoop.com.

In Sweden available with our representative Mrs. Inga-Lill Rubensson Inga-Lill@atg-sverige.se and also through ATG's Swedish website www.atg-sverige.se

In Belgium at Vlaams Palestina Komitee vpk@vlaamspalestinakomitee.be

In Switzerland:
Geneva: Off the Shelf Bookshop http://www.offtheshelf.ch
Basel: Bider & Tanner: www.biderundtanner.ch
Carol Sheller Doyle: carol.scheller@freesurf.ch

Canada: Zatoun: info@zatoun.com

ATG also has an annual olive-picking campaign in late October, as well as a Bed and Breakfast program where visitors are housed with local Palestinians in Bethlehem.

The group is a Palestinian NGO that specializes in Fair Trade and "justice tourism", focusing in tours and pilgrimages that include critical examinations of the history, culture, and politics of the Holy Land. In so doing, they try to support the local community through the creation of economic opportunities and positive cultural exchange between guest and host, the protection of the environment, and political/historical education.

ATG works to encourage all tourism operators to abandon exploitative mass tourism and to adopt practices that positively affect the host population. Through these methods, ATG seeks to promote a positive image of Palestine and its people and to contribute to establishment of a just peace in the area.

Child Labor?

2008-08-28T19:06:00.006+03:00

I'm excited that Yousuf is finally at the age where he can help me with some very laborious tasks- and does so quite skillfully at that. Now I'm not talking basic chores here-like say putting dishes away or folding clothes. See, I set the bar much higher. Think: stuffing eggplants for magdoos (pickled/brined eggplants) and coring squash for mahshi... :) Good old-fashioned child labor.

Out fishing in Gaza!

2008-08-26T06:50:00.001+03:00

After a long and hard trip to Gaza, international activists who sailed there from Cyprus plan to return, taking with them a few stranded Palestinian Fulbright scholars. In Gaza, they delivered hearing aids to a charity-Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children (one which I absolutely love for their handicrafts, made by deaf men and women which you can purchase online).

But before doing so, they accompanied Palestinian fisherman yesterday morning to help them break the maritime siege on their fishing boats. The Oslo Accords were supposed to "grant them" (a natural right, but they decided it should be bestowed nonetheless) the right to fish 20 nautical miles into see. In reality, this has translated to no more than 12 in the best of times, 4 at the height of the second Intifada based on my interviewees with fishermen; and 6 in the past few years.

Their fishing vessels are frequently shot at by the israeli navy, the fishermen themselves harassed, thrown into the water, beaten, detained, and in many cases killed, rendering their once bustling profession and mainstay of the Gazan economy one of its most dangerous jobs.

The hope was that accompanied by international activists and a swarm of media alongside them, the Israeli naval boats would lay off; and despite circling them from afar with their enormous guns pointing towards them, they did.

My father accompanied one of the fishing vessels to aid in translation and protection. Initially, the fisherman were afraid to leave for fear of being shot at by the Israelis, as they frequently are. Slowly , they decided to attempt to surpass the nautical mile limit imposed on them by the Israelis.

And they did.

The fishermen told him it was their most successful catch in four years!

My parents aboard a Palestinian fishing vessel

Free Gaza boats sail into Gaza port!!!

2008-08-23T17:24:00.010+03:00

Many of you have by now likely heard of the Free Gaza movement, whose two boats full of 46 civilian activists (including my uncle, a UK based engineer) from 14 countries are attempting to break the siege on Gaza by sailing to its shores from Cyprus.

Among the passengers are Jeff Halper, founder of Israel Committee Against House Demolition, an 81-year-old Catholic nun, the sister-in-law of Mideast envoy and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and an 84 year old Holocaust survivor.

They are meant to arrive today, and everyone is waiting anxiously to see whether they will make it or not. Their journey has been fraught with technical difficulties, rough sea conditions, and electronic piracy-scrambled radio signals and jammed phones.

But despite it all, it appears they are making it into the Gaza harbor!! This according to Jeff Halper who is one of those on board the SS Free Gaza- they are 9 nautical miles from the Gaza Port. The SS LIBERTY is still 25 miles out.

Image by AP. Huwaida Arraf throws roses in memory of the A36 mericans killed aboard the USS Liberty.

According to journalist Yvonne Ridley, one of those on board the SS Libery: "We've entered Gazan waters. We're flying the Palestinian flag, and we now believe that we're going to reach the shores of Gaza very soon. I missed the start of the Berlin Wall coming down by just a few days, but now I know how people felt when they tore down those first few bricks. Today is a huge victory of people over power."

Meanwhile, in Gaza, tens of thousands of Palestinians are waiting on shore to celebrate the much anticipated and daring arrival.

Image by AP. Palestinians wait in fishing vessels in Gaza City for the arrival of the Free Gaza and the Liberty.

My mother and Aunt were on board Palestinian vessels on the Gaza side that went out to greet the international vessels; apparently they had to turn back to Gaza shore after hearing Israeli naval warning shots.

I have been unable to make contact with them since this morning, but we all anxiously to hear if this attempt to break the siege will succeed and what the next stage of this heroic saga will be.

You can see a recorded stream of passengers on the from 7pm GMT yesterday night by clicking here.

You can also catch live streaming when available at this link.

UPDATE: The boats both arrived safely earlier today! My parents called to update me earlier today. My mom said she greeted the activists with labaneh sandwiches, cucumbers, and warm mint tea, which they much appreciated. My father accidental fell into the harbor after trying to prevent my mother from doing the same aboard a life raft! They were met by hundreds of thousands of Gazans. They plan on holding a press conference tomorrow morning.

RIP Mahmud Darwish

2008-08-11T06:17:00.001+03:00

Palestine lost one of its greatest sons yesterday, and it is not just Palestinians who mourn the loss of the iconic Mahmud Darwish. His words touched the consciousness of Palestinians and non-Palestinians alike the world over. He was imbued with the ability to stir our emotions, evoking tears and smiles, hope and fear, belonging and displacement, all at once-putting to words what every Palestinian felt, defining us at different moment as a nation. In so doing, he transcended the status of a mere "poet" or artist or even activist. Below is one of my favorite and oft quoted of his poems. Rest in Peace, poet of a nation and their struggle.

The Earth is closing on us
pushing us through the last passage
and we tear off our limbs to pass through.
The Earth is squeezing us.
I wish we were its wheat
so we could die and live again.
I wish the Earth was our mother
so she'd be kind to us.

I wish we were pictures on the rocks
for our dreams to carry as mirrors.
We saw the faces of those who will throw
our children out of the window of this last space.
Our star will hang up mirrors.
Where should we go after the last frontiers?
Where should the birds fly after the last sky?
Where should the plants sleep after the last breath of air?
We will write our names with scarlet steam.
We will cut off the hand of the song to be finished by our flesh.
We will die here, here in the last passage.
Here and here our blood will plant its olive tree.

- Mahmoud Darwish

Noor- a soap opera star?

2008-08-03T18:26:00.004+03:00

I'm going to settle this once and for all people (and I mean you Will!). NO! I did not name Noor after the now insanely popular Turkish soap opera, whose male star (Turkish model Kivanc Tatlitu) has managed to secure a loyal (some would say obsessive) following of several million Arabs and is making women swoon from Gaza to Riyadh (my mother confirmed this when she said she called her friend around Maghrib time in Gaza City to chat and she quipped "I can't talk now- I'm watching Noor. Aren't you? Every TV set in Gaza is turned to it!").

In fact, I'd like to think THEY were inspired to name the show and the character Noor after my own little ray of light... except that the show originally aired in Turkey 3 years ago (where, incidentally, it was a flop).

I guess when you are living in Gaza these days, escapism isn't such a bad thing (though I wish the masses were half as enthusiastic about .... I dunno, any number of things that pop to mind).

Claims are numerous that many a marriage has ended in divorce in weeks past over the show.

breastmilk brownies, anyone?

2008-08-01T18:41:00.003+03:00

ok time for another "gross!" breastfeeding post (for those of you who have been with me from the beginning of my journey-when Yousuf was a baby and I wrote this post on weaning him under occupation, you'll catch my drift).

The other day Yousuf wanted to bake some brownies with me for Yassine's co-workers at the hospital. Turns out we were out of butter "oh well, some other day" I said.

"Well how do you make butter?" the ever inquisitive Yousuf asked.

I gave him a brief, non-technical explanation.

"Tayib, can't you just take your milk and make butter with it?" he responded, in all seriousness.

After a few moments of hysterical laughing, I explain that though its theoretically possible, I doubt that the other doctors want to eat breastmilk brownies. :)

But curiosity got the best of me and I did some research. Not breastmilk butter-but turns out some people have made (a rather runny) yoghurt from their expressed breastmilk. The name for this au natural concoction: Boobie-yo.

Ok-how many people have I scared off now?

Land of the cursed

2008-07-11T17:37:00.002+03:00

A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine sent me a story he had received from someone by email, asking if I could publish it. It was the first-hand account of a Palestinian man, his Gaza-born wife, and their family, all of whom were born and raised in the West Bank. It was the story of their attempt to cross the Allenby Bridge into Jordan for a much needed break, and to visit with some relatives in Amman.

They soon learned that the curse of being Gazan-or in this case, or even being related to someone born in Gaza- followed them even to the West Bank.

Last year I reported on the issue of the 50, 000 some Palestinians living a life of legal limbo in the West Bank and Gaza (and abroad) because one of their family members lacks a hawia- the Israeli-issued ID card used to maintain control over the Palestinian population registry. In my own case, Yassine has not yet been granted a hawia, even though I applied for him in 2004. This is nothing compared to the tens of thousands who have been waiting since the mid 1990s.

Similarly, because Israel continues to control the Palestinian population registry (yes, even after Disengagement), it controls Palestinian movement; Palestinian life; and it tears that movement and life and the families that would want to enjoy them apart.

Gaza Curse

By: Mohammed AlMbaid

Dr. Mohammed AlMbaid is a Palestinian citizen living in Ramallah with his family. Dr. AlMabid is a governance and public administration expert with a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning.

I am a Palestinian father of three young children Nahla, Yousef and Mariam. My wife Rania, was born in Gaza city and we all live in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank city of Ramallah .

On 12 June 2008 , two of my children, Nahla and Yousef have cried as never before, they were punished for a crime they did not commit and could do nothing about; their mother’s birth place is Gaza .

Nahla who is nine years old just finished her 4th grade and Yousef who finished his 1st grade were so excited because I agreed to reward them for their high achievements in their school year. I decided to take them with me to the Jordanian capital Amman to spend few days with their aunt, from mother side, who live there with her husband, and two young children. Nahla and Yousef have been dreaming of this day for a year. They even planed what they will wear, which places they want to visit and restaurants they will eat at including McDonalds and KFC.

We left Rania and our youngest daughter, Mariam, who is less than 2 years in Ramallah. Leaving them behind was not our choice. The Israeli occupation authorities who still control entry and exit to and within Palestinian territories and almost every aspect of Palestinian life, have not recognize Rania as a resident of Ramallah. Our three children however, were all born in Ramallah, the same city where we have been living since we got married 10 years ago. So, in a “normal” world and in accordance with local and Israeli regulations, our children should be automatically getting a Ramallah residency.

On our way from Ramallah to Jericho , where we cross the Allenby Bridge to Jordan , I got a call from a Gazan friend. When I told him I was taking two of my children to visit their aunt in Amman he commented “you and your children are lucky, my children could not leave Gaza due to siege, at least your can.” We exchanged a laughter and I ended the phone call by saying “you guys in Gaza are cursed, I am glad my children are not from Gaza ”

At least, this is what we thought until we arrived at the Israeli side of the Allenby crossing between Jordan and the occupied Palestinian territories when the Israeli women solider stamped my passport allowing me to cross, but refused to allow Nahlah and Yousef to cross. According to her “in our computers, they are from Gaza ”. I was shocked to say the least; because this is the first time I hear this. How could that be? They are my children, born in Ramallah and have been living there since then. How and why they are registered as Gaza residents is beyond me. I tried to talk to the Israeli border police to explain the situation, but she was not very responsive. In fact, she was barely willing to talk to me indicating that it is my problem and I have to deal with it. As she was talking to me with a very straight and angry face, my two children were crying very loudly as they were afraid they will not be allowed to cross to Amman . This was their worst nightmare and it happened. Nahlah and Yousef were turned back and I had to return with them at 6 PM after the bridge was closed.

I did not know what to tell my children except that it is occupation in its most brutal face. As this madness was taking place, it came to my mind what and how my children were feeling and how such incidents may affect young people’s perception of the Israeli neighbors. It made me think whether the Israeli occupation authorities really recognize the devastating impacts that such policies -discriminate and racist that go against all international and national human rights conventions- have on Palestinian children, their psychology, their perceptions of the Israel as an apartheid state, the cruelty of its army and inhumane actions committed by its soldiers and entire governmental apparatus.

Since their birth, Rania and I have been very conscious about teaching our children to respect other people and their differences. We have numerously and persistently explained the difference between Occupation authority and Jewish people. We explained that our problem is only with the occupation no more, no less. While observing and listening to the discussion I had with the border policy and realizing how helpless her father was, Nahla hugged me and whispered in my ears “I hate these people, why can’t they allow us to go, we did nothing wrong.” Listening to Nahla made me very angry as I felt more helpless, how can I explain or justify that. I could not explain it. The situation is ridiculous and humane.

Now that I am back to Ramallah, I feel more helpless and disempowered for not being able to do anything about my children’s residency or that of the more than fifty thousands of Palestinian families that one or both parents are from Gaza , enduring the same or worse problems. The worst aspect of this saga is that no Palestinian Authority can do anything about it. The whole situation is in the hands of the Israeli occupation authority. And there is no indication they will solve this problem unless they are pressured to do so. I know neither I nor any other Palestinian can change it.

The story of Nahla, Yousef, Mariam and Rania and the stories of more than one and a half million Gazans living in the biggest prison on earth, the Gaza strip, and the other Gaza-related families like mine, should be brought to the attention of every human being who believe in justice, freedom and human rights.

I ask for your solidarity and support to stop this madness perhaps we can lift the curse from Gaza .

Interview with the MOSAD

2008-07-08T17:53:00.003+03:00

This is a little late in coming, but here it is anyway. Its an interview I did with former MOSAD spy chief cum Labor politician Danny Yatom (in person). It was published on Aljazeera's english site in two sections (parts 1 and two) but I'm going to include the complete uncut interview here for those interested, let me know.

Pain at the pump? Think of Gaza.

2008-06-17T18:51:00.007+03:00

If you are in the US, you are bound to be feeing the "pain at the pump" as the news networks like to put it.

I was talking to my father today in Gaza. "How's the car doing? Did you fix that loud noise its making?" he asks, ever the concerned parents.

"Yes, its purring like a kitten now, and I'm $400 poorer. Lucky car. But the gas is $4 a gallon now."

"Yeah well we don't have guess, don't complain."

In fact, he was quick to point out that gas is in such short supply now in Gaza that its selling on the black market for 600 Shekels per 20 liters, the equivalent of $35 per gallon. Yes, you read that correctly: ONE GALLON= $35.

Of course the real problem is not for the average "consumer", since Gazans are not really "gas guzzlers"; it is for the things that fuel powers- everything from water pumps to hospital generators.

A brief email from my dad and some pictures he took:

Dear Laila:

I attached some pictures of GAZA today. Almost no cars in the streets as there is no Gas ( my car is parked ), little diesel by ration to taxis. People started using biodiesel ( cooking oil instead of Diesel ) which causes irritation to the skin, eyes and breathing. People use masks when they walk to minimize the smell. Streets are clean as you can see, 100 times cleaner than Cairo. Food supplies are twice as expensive.

Taxis are scarce now. but if you find one it costs double or triple what it used to be. Public taxis run on bio-diesel now because of shortage of fuel. 2 NIS per person. Private taxi costs 20 NIS in town. People walk a lot more now.

I attached photos of empty streets of Gaza because of the fuel shortage and people standing in long lines to receive coupons to get Gas by ration ,just like what happened in Europe during the second world war.

Baba

The sign reads: "Travel...Education...Medical treatment...Hajj...Humanitarian needs..why have we been prevented from them?"

Raising Yousuf and Noor: diary of a Palestinian mother

We've moved!

Lift the Closure-Give Life a Chance!

Mapping the Arab Blogosphere

Gaza Bonanza: the nuts and bolts of the ongoing occupation

Besiege the Siege at the Rafah Gate

Carter in Gaza

8 Nos, but Nothing New

Action Alert: Demand That Saudi Authorities Divest From Alstom NOW!

Images of Palestine in exile

Life interrupted

In Baalbeck

I was born Palestinian

Darwish therapy: Athens Airport

getting deported away from home

Our pause in Cairo Airport

The Success of BDS

Palestine Children's Festival in Gaza

Lessons from South Africa: a Duke event

Remote control death

Goodbye MOTO! Goodbye Apartheid!

Monday, March 307:45-9:30 amMotorola’s NYC Headquarters335 Adams St., Brooklyn

Canada in 8 days

Oh Canada! @Gazamom

Gaza and pain in the distance

My Canada speaking tour

de Gaza a Puerto Rico!

Egypt arrests blogger, Gaza activist, Philip Rizk

Remembering a time

A Gazan feast!

Israeli ambassador gets the shoe

Seeing is not like hearing

What YOU can do: 10 way to help Gaza/Palestine

GISHA: Israel deliberately withholding supplies

Rabbinate publication: Show No Mercy

Wait and see.

Virtual Gaza

What YOU can do: 10 way to help Gaza/Palestine

Occupation: the elephant in the room

In Zeitun, a massacre and its perpetrators desire for genocide

Gaza stencil: Seth Tobocman

Bono's shout out to Palestine

Gaza rising

Human Rights Watch on CNN: Israel intended to harm civlians

Gazan astrophysicist tells his story

Sound Bites

The children of Israel's war, and a "seize" fire

Bomb a Ghetto, Raise a cheer: Pro-Israel rally in NY

Obama as the 3 monkeys

The inebriants of Israel's war

The Gaza Perspective- WUNC

Israeli Navy Gunships surround Free Gaza Boat

If Canada launched rockets at the US...

The Gates of Hell, the window to Heavan

Demand a Stance

Jon Stewart on Gaza

We talk in Silence; We stand together.

We Will Not Go Down

MSF: Temporary halt to Gaza bombing a paltry response

This is Gaza.

On Hold in Gaza: The Story of Iyas Salim

"It wasn't me": the Israeli guide to spin control on Palestinian massacres

Gaza Medic under fire: Aljazeera footage

Where do you hide? The terror in Gaza continues.

Yuval Steinitz: Israel planned Gaza invasion for 9 months

hand in hand, Gaza stands

What do you tell your daughter?

speaking up: protests in NC

A quick note on comments

Norwegian doctor in Gaza: Israel is deliberately attacking the population.

A wedding invitation

Israel's psychological warfare

Israeli shin bet recruiter punked in Gaza!

Trapped, Traumatized, Terrorized: Gaza Update

Cluster bombs, DU, and White Phosphorus being used in Gaza

Israeli plan to topple Hamas, re-instate Abbas

LAND OFFENSIVE BEGINS IN GAZA

Humor under siege

My father's "story"

Safety is a state of mind

Monday, March 30
7:45-9:30 am
Motorola’s NYC Headquarters
335 Adams St., Brooklyn