Monthly Archives: May 2013

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From Palestine… Here is the Syrian Revolution!

28 Tuesday May 2013

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From Palestine… Here is the Syrian Revolution!

This invitation for the planned Palestinian demonstration, as part of the 31/5/2013 international day for solidarity with the Syrian Revolution, was published in the event’s page on Facebook. Considering the importance of the issue, I published it in Arabic and publish here a translation to English.

Global Campaign for Solidarity with the Syrian Revolution

Demonstration in occupied Jerusalem, Bab Al’Amud – Damascus Gate, Friday, May 31, 2013, 18:00

26 months have passed on the Syrian people’s revolution against the Assad regime and his gang. It came as an extension of the revolutions of freedom, dignity and social justice witnessed by the Arab world in the last two and a half years. The Syrian Revolution was launched as a civilian movement with demonstrations, meetings, dancing and singing circles, strikes and other different forms of peaceful expression. It succeeded to remain peaceful for months despite the criminality of the regime that did not hesitate to use the most powerful methods of repression and terror, from live ammunition to warplanes, including Scud missiles and cluster bombs, as well as looting, rape, arbitrary arrests and torture – which forced the Syrians revolutionaries to turn toward armed resistance. In spite of this, peaceful demonstrations still come out and the liberated areas are still teeming with activities and projects promoting the values ​​and goals of the revolution.

We are Palestinians men and women, brought together by our love for Syria, country and people, and our support for its revolution and its principles. We announce our convergence with this revolution. We salute the Syrian people for their heroic steadfastness and resistance to tyranny, until they will realize the objectives of their revolution with the downfall of the regime of Assad and his gang, and the transition to a regime under which they will enjoy freedom, social justice and independence of the national decision.

We firmly reject all forms of foreign intervention in Syria: Whether by the Arab regimes that didn’t fall in the revolutions, especially the Gulf states, which sought to derail the Syrians revolution, make it fail and control it; Or Iran and Russia, which promote their geopolitical interests in the region at the expense of the blood of the people and their rights; And the NATO countries, chattering a lot about support for the Syrian people, while standing by watching the collapse of the Syrian country and state, to ensure their interests and the interest of Israel.

We strongly condemn the practices of groups alien to the Syrian revolution, we don’t have to add on what the Syrian revolutionary public opinion says, in their condemnation. The revolutionaries, who chanted against Assad, are those who condemn any violations from the side of the opposition forces, political, military and civilian. We also support the Syrian people’s resistance, in the means that they find appropriate, whether peaceful or non-peaceful.

Palestine, which struggles during the last sixty-five years for liberation from the brutal occupation, can only be on the side of the revolution of its big sister, which came out to refuse dictatorship and fascism. The freedom of the Palestinian people from the occupation and their historic right to their land, homeland and the return of their refugees, and freedom of the Syrian people from tyranny and their right to justice, are two connected lines that can’t be separated. The prisons of the Assad regime are filled with detainees standing fast, who are not less heroic and patient than our prisoners in the prisons of the Zionist occupation.

If the fate of the Syrian people was that their country became center for the rivalry of sectarian sensitivities, regional accounts and international interests, this doesn’t diminish in any way the justice of their cause.

Because we believe in the revolution of the Syrian people and their choices, we announce our participation in the global campaign for its support and we will organize a demonstration on Friday, May 31, 2013 at six in the evening (18:00) in occupied Jerusalem in front of Bab Al’Amud – Damascus Gate. We call upon our freedom loving people to participate in this demonstration, raising the voice of rights and freedom.

Signed by: “From occupied Palestine … Here is the Syrian Revolution” Group.

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The Stuttgart ODS Conference Concludes with Great Hopes

13 Monday May 2013

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The Stuttgart ODS Conference Concludes with Great Hopes

During the lunch break, after my presentation on Saturday’s morning session, one of the sound technicians interrupted me in the hallway… He was moved and concerned. He heard so much along the day about Palestinian suffering, but is there any hope? He didn’t know much English and didn’t seem to know much about the Middle East, so I had to stick to basics. Yes, I said. The entire Arab world was ruled by tyrannies. The voice of the Arab people was not heard. Now 300 million Arab people are awakening and asking for democracy. They can’t be ignored any more. We just ask that democracy will be implemented also in Palestine. We hope the force of the mass movement and the demand for justice will make this change possible.

The concern of the sound technician was one small example how the conference’s strong voice against oppression reached beyond the (more than 300) registered audience and dozens of organizers, speakers and journalists that attended. It was also broadcasted live on “Aljazeera Mubasher” and friends from Palestine reassured me on Facebook that they were following. It will also echo all over the world, and especially in the German speaking area, as delegates will take the message with them home, discuss it in all different locations and social milieus and initiate activities.

A Long Saturday

I didn’t really believe that people will show up for the morning session, which was set for as early as 9:00 am in what is for us a wintery rainy day. In fact, if I wasn’t assigned to speak in this cold corner, I would probably be late myself. But the hall was almost full. I didn’t really hear my colleague Haneen Naamneh, which spoke about the on-going ethnic cleansing against tens of thousands of Arab Bedouin in the Naqab desert in the south of Palestine. But I hope my neglect will not prevent you from following up on this issue – it is an acute Human-made Humanitarian crisis, as the conditions of the Naqab population are disgracing anyway and are made much worse by the current government onslaught. It also exposes the myth that Israel is a democracy and the entire problem is with the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Rania Madi from Badil spoke about the plight of the Palestinian refugees, and I spoke about the perspective for ODS – you can read about it all around Free Haifa.

The second morning session brought the heavyweights: Historian and peace activist Ilan Pappe and Jaber Wishah, ex Freedom Fighter and POW and currently Human Rights activist from Gaza.

Jaber told the moving story about his refugee family in Al Bureij camp in the Gaza Strip, How he decided to join the military resistance and how he decided to dedicate the rest of his life to the struggle for Human Rights. At the center of this story was the long period spent in Israeli occupation prisons – a period full of suffering and struggle.

Ilan dedicated his lecture to analyzing three of the many obstacles that are confronting the ODS movement and an attempt to outline a way forward. The obstacles he choose to analyze were (1) the wall of official and unofficial actors that are wedded to the two state solution, (2) Media fatigue of the Palestinian suffering and struggle and its marginalization by the dramatic events of the Arab Spring and (3) the illusion that the two state solution is just over the corner and is the only game in town.

The solutions that he suggested were mostly based on the struggle to set narrative of the international discussion by carefully selecting and formulating our propositions. After he played a big role in bringing the issue of ethnic cleansing to the center of the discussion about Palestine, he suggested now to stress the character of Zionism as an ongoing colonialist project in a period that people find it hard to believe that colonialism still exists.

He proposed to combat the media fatigue by learning history and casting each violation of Palestinian rights and current popular struggle in view of the century long historic epoch, giving added value to the significance of each event.

He stressed the importance of being present on the ground with the proposition of ODS so that people in Palestine will know that there is an alternative. Even small experiment on the ground may be significant for this purpose. Historically big changes in the world arena may make ODS possible, just as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war enabled imperialism to withdraw its support – of course under the pressure of local and international struggle – from Apartheid South Africa.

One likely scenario is that current Zionist extremism will lead to some major catastrophe, and there are several possible such scenarios, and then, in face of the collapse of the current system, the availability of clear alternative may suddenly become essential.

The first afternoon session brought Ghada Karmi, a well-known writer and promoter of the ODS solution, and Salah Salah, member of the PLO’s Central Council in Lebanon and head of the Refugees Committee in the Palestinian National Council.

Ghada was looking for ways to break the stalemate that seems to paralyze the Palestinian struggle by raising new ideas. She raised the possibility that the Palestinian Authority will be dissolved and all the responsibility to the future of all the people in Palestine will be returned to the Israeli occupying forces.  The Palestinians may then ask for Israeli citizenship and struggle for equal rights. She was conscious that the idea is hard to hear as Palestinians will feel humiliated even to ask for Israeli citizenship, and said she was only raising the issue for discussion. I’m not sure how relevant it is for this discussion to note that Israel will refuse to give any Palestinians Israeli citizenship anyway – as you can see from the Israeli citizenship law that prevents Palestinians which marry Israeli citizens from even applying to get citizenship.

Salah Salah, as a symbol of the connection between the current struggle and the long history of Palestinian heroism, stressed that the democratic secular Palestine was the historic program of the Palestinian struggle before the 1948 Nakba and at the heights of the revolution. This is the only program that offers a solution for the 7 million Palestinian refugees. It is also the only solution that may offer Jews in Palestine a way to live in peace that Israel will never be able to provide them. He offered to follow this conference by a concentrated effort by Palestinian activists to meet and design a detailed plan for promotion of this program at the center of renovation of Palestinian struggle in current circumstances.

The last Saturday session was probably the most actual, most interesting and most controversial. Mohammad Krichen, a Tunisian journalist working for Al-Jazeera, and As’ad Abu Khalil, a Lebanese-American professor of political science and the “Angry Arab” blogger, were discussing the Arab Spring and its influence on the Palestinian cause. It deserves at least a special post and there is no way to convey anything significant about it here.

While the public was invited to enjoy experimental Arab-German cultural evening, still live on Aljazeera, some enthusiastic ODS organizers, veterans of the Munich conference and people we newly met in Stuttgart, were convening privately in the venue, plotting the next steps for ODS.

Short & Strong Sunday

It started with Attia Rajab, on behalf of the organizing Stuttgart Palestine Committee, that gave a short presentation about the current activities and the perspective of the solidarity movement in Germany.

Hermann Dierkes, from the Left Party but speaking on personal capacity, gave a detailed presentation about the perspective for struggle for Palestinian rights in German political arena.

Economist Shir Hever from the Alternative Information center presented a brilliant and learnt analysis about the interplay of commercial and military considerations in the management of the Israeli military-industrial complex and in the career of the Israeli officers that have a second career as arms exporters. As Adam Smith explained that the baker will prepare bread for you not because he care for your hunger but because he wants to make money from it, it seems Israeli general will wage a war not necessarily because of “security” considerations but also in order to test and promote the sales of their arms and “security services”. He noticed that Israel is not only one of the 10 biggest arms exporters worldwide (since 2000), which makes the death industry a very big part of its relatively small economy, but also that it specializes in “niche markets” like surveillance and home security, as well as it is the safest supplier for pariah nasty dictators and death squads, where its experience in the oppression of the Palestinian people is most highly regarded.

In the concluding session, under the magic hand of Krichen, a whole orchestra of 11 of the previous speakers were requested to summarize in 5 minutes each a perspective and practical suggestions for continuation of the struggle for ODS. I hope that this session will be soon on the internet, not only for you to watch but also for me – and for all the people that should now be working to convert these suggestions into a practical plan of action.

What I didn’t say in the concluding session?

As I ran out of time and Krichen cut me at 5 minutes, there was a very important thing that I missed the opportunity to say.

In the Haifa 2010 conference, we had a concrete plan to build an international movement for ODS. For this purpose we designated a special small session of activists and representatives of different groups and organizations that met on the 3rd day of the conference. In these meeting it became clear that we can make a coalition of all the participants under the slogan of “One Democratic State” – but there was no consensus about the slogan of “Secular Democratic State” that was the title of the conference and of the document of the preparatory committee. The supporters of secularism couldn’t make up their mind whether they are ready to give priority to the creation of a wider coalition by adopting the more general ODS headline. As a consequence the building of the international coalition was frozen, until it started again in Munich in 2012.

In building the Jaffa ODS group we had a lot of deliberations until we found what we felt was the best of all worlds. The common position of the group expresses a wide consensus, while each member or group can promote his or her own vision of the future democratic state.

While relations between Islamist and Secularists are at the center of the crisis of the Arab Spring, Palestine is the place where it is most urgent and clear that we should all unite under a democratic program in the face of Apartheid Israel. Here working for democracy is not only about political rights, not even only about social justice, but about the very right to own your land and live in your house. Uniting secularists and Islamist under a democratic program in Palestine may be our contribution to the democratic change in the Arab world, a change that is creating the conditions for bringing return, freedom and democracy to Palestine.

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The Stuttgart ODS Conference Opening Night

11 Saturday May 2013

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It was a long night, and tomorrow morning we (Haneen Naamneh and me) should be speaking in the first session, set implausibly to 9:00 am.  But I know that if I don’t post now I will not have the opportunity to return to this valuable night… If you want to know all the details you might be able to find the whole session filmed in Al-Jazeera or posted later in YouTube, so I will give only a quick, swiftly organized and not necessarily very accurate outline.

The conference takes place in a big hall in the industrial area, where you can feel the force of the German model. A romantic green mountain is rising just on the other side of the neat street, with some agriculture still taking place in the middle of the city, while the premises themselves are spacious, modern and efficient.

The whole conference is built around the idea of ODS – the assumption that by restoring the rights of the Palestinian people, which were robbed by Zionism, and the establishment of a One Democratic State in a whole of Palestine for the returning refugees and all the current inhabitants of Palestine, everybody can leave in peace and prosper. At first glance it seems strange to discuss solutions to the complicated issues of Palestine and the Middle East from the calm of rich Europe. But if we remember that Europe was torn by wars and bitter rivalries for many centuries, and finished the worse of them just 68 years ago, then the calm of today’s Europe starts to like a promise for better days also in our region.

Except for ODS, all the speakers in the opening were united about one more thing: Praise to the organizers, and mostly to the role of Verena and Attia, that by their devotion and skill made this extraordinary conference possible.

Evelyn Hecht-Galinski gave the first introductory speech, outlining in strong phrases the moral case of the struggle for justice for the Palestinians and rejection of Israeli racism. She shamed the local German leaders that always come running opportunistically to support Israel but ignore events like this Stuttgart conference.

Ian Portman from the Palestinian Committee in Stuttgart, the moderator, demanded that Germany will stand for Justice and Democracy for all. He mentioned the supply of nuclear-capable submarines to racist saber-rattling Israel as the most blatant example where Germany is actively involved in putting the lives of millions in the Middle East in direct and immediate danger.

The highest point in the opening session came with the video message of Richard Falk, a United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. His strong condemnation of the denial of the Human Rights of the Palestinians, as well as the futility of the Two State illusion and his call for adoption of ODS were a boost for the proposition of the conference.

The next two speakers were trapped in the complex that might daunt the rest of the conference: How much time can you spend talking just to denounce evil and preach democracy, Human rights and peace for all? The organizers tried to solve this by assigning the speakers specific intriguing subjects to talk about…

Ilan Pappe, as an Historian, was requested to evaluate the significance of the recognition of Palestine as “non-member state” in the UN. His task didn’t become easier by the fact that this supposedly historic event was almost forgotten since it was hailed as a big achievement and put on the conference’s schedule. Anyway, he gave a learned assessment of the context of this resolution, as part of the international institutions servitude to imperialist policies, in spite of some nicely worded declarations about the sovereignty of the peoples and Human Rights.

Relying on documents that were recently opened to the public about the internal deliberations of the Israeli Government just after the 1967 occupation, he showed how the idea of the two state solution was basically an Israeli design to solve an Israeli dilemma: How to get as much as possible of the land of Palestine with as few as possible Palestinians. He showed how the Israel use the term of “peace process” to create an illusion that will allow it to continue with the de facto annexation of the West Bank, while it aspires to carry no responsibility to the fate of the people it occupies, trying to develop some sort of self-rule. In this Israeli design, which is the real context of the process as long as it is based on Israeli superiority, the proposition of a Palestinian state is not to provide real independence even in the West Bank, but only an enhanced form of the same self-rule.

Joseph Massad made a detailed analysis about the history of Anti-Semitism in Europe (and even the US) – and the common grounds between it and Zionism. He pointed to the fact that both believe that Jews have no place in Europe, and that this idea was opposed by the majority of the European Jews, orthodox and modernizers, which aspired to keep their traditional lives or to be part of the European enlightenment.

The poor Palestinian ambassador to Germany, which attended and welcomed the conference, clearly didn’t know how to compromise his wish to encourage this important gathering in support of the Palestinian rights and the PA commitment to the two state solution, which he felt obliged to confirm. I almost felt sorry for him when he was humiliated by questions from the public, probably by Palestinians in the audience, about corruption in the PA and about its multiple security services, which make life harder for the Palestinian and make the occupation easier for the Israelis.

The real joy was to meet old and new friends, chat and plan for the next steps in the struggle for ODS.

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See you in Stuttgart

10 Friday May 2013

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See you in Stuttgart

Why should well-wishing people outside of Palestine take a stand on the One State issue?

While the world is doing nothing to stop the daily massacre in Syria, we will be meeting tomorrow in Stuttgart, Germany, to convince a sympathetic audience of democratic activists to take a stand on the hardest of issues: Support the return of all Palestinians refugees and the formation of one democratic state in all of Palestine as a solution to the century long conflict that Zionist colonialism created.

It is not an easy task, especially here in Germany, where everyone that criticizes Israel is automatically persecuted as “Anti Semitist”. Many people in the German left find it hard to object to the Zionist “moral pressure” – How can you oppose the descendants of the victims of the Holocaust and undermine their demand to have their own safe haven?

This emotional blackmail is doubly wrong – on principle and in practice.

First of all, the moral lesson from the Holocaust should be the total rejection of all sorts of racism, no matter against whom it is applied. Zionism’s claims that the suffering of Jews in Europe entitles it somehow to the “right” to ethnic cleansing and maintaining a system of racist discrimination in Palestine is totally immoral. Justifying racism as it is applied against the Palestinian people can’t be anything else than what it is – ugly unacceptable racism.

On the practical level, Zionism is a late attempt to force a colonial system in a world where the oppressed nations can’t be subdued any more. Rather than building a safe haven for Jews, Zionism is selling its Jewish followers as canon powder for the wars of imperialist domination in the Middle East.  As imperialism abandoned the Shah of Iran and General Mubarak, they will abandon the Israeli adventure when it won’t serve their interests any more.

Dismantling the Israeli time bomb is the only way for justice as well as for averting disastrous wars for all the people involved.

It is not a complicated issue that should be left for experts or for the people involved to settle between them. If you are not for the right of return than you actively support ethnic cleansing, no matter under what pretext. What the ODS movement proposes is the simple implementation of the principles of Human Rights and democracy. As you will not accept anything less for yourself, you are not allowed to accept anything else for any other people.

The other argument against clear support for democracy for all in Palestine is the wish of many people in the solidarity movement to stay clear of the “political game”. But this leaves the political stage solely to the people that have their self-interests to promote – all those that profit and make career of oppression, occupation, war and exploitation. We have already seen what this kind of politics may produce – and had enough of it.

It is time that the good people will take full responsibility, speak out truth in the face of evil and gain the initiative to set things on the ground going in the right direction.

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Yaffa’s revolutionary spirit… flaring from prisoners’ support to defense of women’s lives

04 Saturday May 2013

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Yaffa’s revolutionary spirit… flaring from prisoners’ support to defense of women’s lives

“Are you envious?” – This is what Iris asked me while we were waiting in Taibeh for the bus from Yaffa to come with the demonstrators… “No”, was my answer, “seeing such wonderful things happening in such places around us like Yaffa and Akka makes me happy. It shows that we are doing the right things.”

Revolution in one square – but how lovely!

What was happening in Yaffa over the last months was very special. As a response to hunger strikes by Palestinian political prisoners, led by Samer Issawi and Ayman Sharawneh, the youth activists in Yaffa declared a permanent daily demonstration is the clock’s square, beginning Sunday, February 3, 2013.

They kept demonstrating every evening for 47 consecutive days. Open meetings before or after the daily demonstrations proved a volcano of creativity. Every detail was discussed. New measures were taken to add interest and effectiveness. New activists were joining daily and many simply stayed as part of the group. After 47 days, as many activists were completely exhausted and out-of-focus with their work, study and family obligations, they decided to switch to weekly demonstrations (every Thursday), with a view to reach out to convey the new Yaffa spirit to other places and organizations.

The slogans, of course, were both democratic and revolutionary (but generally avoided unnecessary exaggerations). But does the intensity of the demonstrations merit the “revolutionary” designation? Isn’t revolution about the falling of governments?

Well, many governments fall without revolutionary movements. And an essential aspect of the revolutionary movement is the intense involvement of the masses, which creates a different thermo-dynamics of the Human matter. In Yaffa, over a relatively short period, the intensity of the involvement of the cadres created new dynamics, accumulating experiences, consciousness and energies.

These new dynamics, now organized also in Facebook in a group called “The Activists of the Clock Square”, were expressed in the leading role of the youth and especially women and girls. Jewish activists were assimilated as natural participants in a youthful Palestinian democratic movement under the Palestinian national flag. The first thing about the revolution is how much people can change and achieve in a short period when they are so intensively involved and openly cooperate in the struggle for a just cause.

Exporting the revolution – Junctions of freedom day

For Friday, May 3, the Yaffa activists declared “Junctions of Freedom” day, a moving vigil to spread the message of solidarity with Palestinian prisoners.

They started at 11:30 with a demonstration in the Clock square, on the home ground. We, coming from Haifa, waited to meet them on the main street of Taibeh at 13:00. Some 60 people came in the bus and some cars from Yaffa, and it was a lively demonstration.

On the next stop, in Kalansawah, the bus entered to the center of the township. It paid the effort, as many bystanders that were astonished by the revolutionary slogans and the chanting youthful demonstrators standing on the central circle of their sleepy township applauded us from their cars and from surrounding pavements or even joined in.

In Bakka AlGharbiya, a town with long experience with Palestinian resistance and political prisoners of its own, local activists and youth were waiting for us in the local circle on the main road. On the Kafr Qara junction, on the main Wadi ‘Ara highway to the north, thousands of cars full with Israelis going north for their weekend vacation, were passing by or waiting the green light while we were waving Palestinian flags and shouting for the freedom of the prisoners.

On the next stop, in Ar’ara, we staged a small march from the junction to the home of the cousins Maher and Karim Younes, who spent more than 30 years in Israeli prisons and Israel still refuses to let them free, not even in the prisoner’s exchange.

The last stop was at 17:00, in front of Mejido military prison, where many Palestinians from the west Bank are held in harsh conditions and where prisoner Arafat Jaradat was killed by torture in the hands of Israeli General Security Service on February 23, 2013.

Yaffa spirits in Um Al-Fahm demo against the killing of women

But this was not the end of this long day of spreading the revolutionary spirit.

On Sunday, April 28, a 30 years old mother of three, Muna Mahajnah was shot dead in her home in Um Al-Fahm, probably on the background of family disputes. Her brother was arrested and accused of killing her.

In response to this murder, a group of local activists called for a protest demo on Friday 3/5 at 18:00 on the first circle on the city’s main entrance. The plan was for the Yaffa bus to continue from Mejido prison and join the demonstration in Um Al-Fahm. But due to the pressing schedule, we didn’t have anything to eat all day, so most of the activist went to look for something to eat before joining the demonstration.

This gave us the rare opportunity to compare the original demonstration to what happened after the Yaffa revolutionaries joined in.

No doubt the most important thing was the voice of the Um Al-Fahm society, mostly young men and women in their teens and twenties, but also whole families, veteran activists and Knesset members from the National Democratic Alliance and the Democratic Front. They all came to speak up, condemn the killing and build public opinion to resist the unjustifiable and destructive violence in their town and in the Arab Palestinian society in general.

There were some 100 people in the demonstration, but when the Yaffa youth joined in, it was not only a matter additional numbers. The female activists with high spirits and great experience in shouting slogans took the lead and converted the demonstration to one of the best feminist protests seen in the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories.

Some slogans from the prisoners struggle could be used “as is” – receiving new meaning in the context. Like “we were not born to live oppressed, we were born to live in freedom!” Many more slogans were adjusted or invented: “Drop your weapon, women will not be intimidated”, “Young man and woman, struggling side by side for liberty”, “whoever beats is the weak one, he has no honor” and much more.

The demonstration warmed up and lasted much beyond the planned time.

Well, maybe I envy after all…