By Linah Alsaafin – The Electronic Intifada -  01/30/2012

In the early summer of 2011, a group of three friends, two from Belgium and one from France, decided to pitch their resources together to make a documentary about the village of Nabi Saleh. Jan Beddegenoodts, Niel Iwens, and Rachel De Plaen spent months filming the inhabitants of the tiny village as they went about their daily lives, in addition to the weekly protests on Fridays.

Says De Plaen:

“The choice of Nabi Saleh was made by Jan. When we met together, he told me that he wanted to make a documentary on Palestine with his friend Niel so we brainstormed [about themes] and came up with Resistance and so on. Jan went to Nabi Saleh in June and found that it was an actual example of Palestinian resistance. We fell in love with the village and are really concerned about the situation in Palestine so i guess that the photos, videos and the documentary we put together is a way to show the situation of Palestine in Europe so one [would be inspired] to try to make some change there.”

The trailer for the documentary, called “We Are Nabi Saleh” was finally released on January 26th. Poignantly, the last shot is of the late Mustafa Tamimi, who was murdered in December after an Israeli soldier fired a tear gas canister at his face from a close distance.

Da Plaen hopes the full documentary will be released in April, yet acknowledges that with two of the documentary makers busy with a full time job, it’ll be difficult but they’re crossing their fingers for it to be out “inshallah before Nakba Day [May 15th].”

For more information, check out their website.

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By Yousef M. Aljamal | Centre for Political and Development Studies | 30 January 2012

Huwaida Arraf - image via Wikipedia

For the third week in a row, the Centre for Political and Development Studies (CPDS), a Gaza-based think tank, held a video link to explore issues related to the Palestinian cause, with the presence of Palestinian and international activists. Huwaida Arraf, the co-founder of  the International Solidarity Movement, chair of the Free Gaza Movement, and a prominent Palestinian-American activist, talked to Gaza activists about “The Palestine solidarity movement: Countering Zionist propaganda globally.”

Choosing discourse to communicate with others is one of the basic requirements to get one’s voice heard. Zionists have mastered this, while Palestinians have been misrepresented in the West. Ironically, Palestine’s just story isn’t getting out. “Through the years we have not done a very good job of conveying our plight, and that’s largely because telling our story was left to our ‘official spokespeople’ who didn’t know how to communicate well with the western media”, said Arraf. “On the other side, Israel depends largely on PR, a fundamental part of its strategy. One of the biggest propaganda projects is The Israel Project. Its annual budget for last year alone was eleven million dollars. This is not counting the official support of the Israeli government, companies, and AIPAC”.

“Israel is losing the PR battle for various reasons: law and justice are on our side, there is an increasing awareness among Palestinians, the growth of alternative media like Facebook and Twitter, and, I believe, the effect of the International Solidarity Movement”, Arraf continued.

The second Palestinian Intifada, which was characterized by Israel’s aggression against Palestinian civilians and the role of the media in covering it, pushed Arraf, with the help of other colleagues, to found ISM. It grew to include 8,000 activists, who have worked hard to expose Israel’s grievous and vivid violations of human rights in Occupied Palestine.

“One of the reasons we founded ISM was because we noticed what was happening in terms of Israel’s massive use of violence”, said Arraf. “The media was not portraying the truth of what was happening. We realised that the Palestinian civil society, and Palestinians as a whole, especially after Oslo, needed a resource to be able to stand up and confront what Israel is doing”.

ISM turned out to be something practical, not merely a plan on paper. Its first campaign included 50 people. Since then, over 8,000 activists have actively worked on the ground to help the Palestinian people.

“The first campaign started in August, 2001”, said Arraf. “Fifty people came. We started another campaign. We tried to say the conflict is not about a religion against another. It’s about freedom versus occupation. It’s not Muslims against Jews. We wanted the mass media to know this. ISM aimed at forming advocacy groups and helping the Palestinian people sustain their struggle and get their stories heard”.

Palestinians share values with all other nations, based on tolerance, understanding, and working together for the good of humankind.

“Once, I organised a meeting between a Palestinian farmer from Bodrous village in the West Bank, named Ayed Murra, and a Vermont senator on Capitol Hill”, said Arraf. “We talked about how the wall affects farmers in the West Bank. We spent an hour talking to the senator, who lives in an area full of farmers”.

Israel tries to tell the world that the entire Palestinian movement is Hamas. They play on an anti-Islamic atmosphere in the West. This clearly distorts history and the facts on the grounds.

“Hamas was founded in 1987” said Arraf. “What about the ethnic cleansing in 1948 and 1967? Op-eds and articles were written on Hamas accepting a truce with Israel.  In 2003, the late Palestinian president, Yasser Arrafat, arranged a ceasefire included all Palestinian factions. In the first two-and-a-half months, Israel killed 74 Palestinians and destroyed 480 Palestinian homes”.

Absence of leadership is one of the things Palestinians are discussing today. “The current leadership does not represent the Palestinian people, particularly who live in the Diaspora”, said Arraf. Elections should be held to represent the Palestinian people as a whole. This will help them win representation for their aspirations and dreams.

“The Palestinian leadership is gone, of course”, said Arraf. “Direct elections to Palestinian National Council should be held. After years of not having a strong Palestinian official voice to be able to refer to in terms of what to do abroad, there came the unification of the Palestinian civil society in the form of BDS”.

“CPDS is looking forward to work hand-in-hand with ISM to help the Palestinian people get heard”, said Dr. Mahmoud Alhirthani, CPDS chairman. “It would be a good idea to organize lectures and courses with your help to make this idea a success”.

Next Sunday, the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) in the United Kingdom will talk with Gaza activists at CPDS on how to be a good ambassador of Palestine when in the U.K. This link is part of a programme named “For you, Palestine”, aiming at drawing Palestinian people’s attention to global issues that can help them represent their cause.

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By Tariq Shadid | Palestine Chronicle | January 29, 2012

The essence of the Palestinian struggle is the battle against Zionism. It is a battle against its racism, against its murderous war crimes, against its insatiable territorial hunger, against its disdain for non-Jewish human rights, and against its devoted attempts to destroy Palestinian national identity. As voices of normalization are on the rise, and social media is invaded by paid pro-Zionist bloggers, there is an increased need for anti-Zionists to draw attention to the crimes committed by ‘Israel’, and to speak up against the ongoing media silence and the apologist activities of those misleadingly portraying themselves as ‘peace doves’. Let us first look briefly at the history of the anti-Zionist struggle, and then see where we stand today.

The Ideology of Zionism

Years before the creation of the state of ‘Israel’, there was already a full-blown battle going on against Zionism. On one side, the Palestinians were resisting against the usurpation of their land, having grown aware of the far-stretching implications of the Balfour declaration of 1917, which laid the foundation for the mass-immigration of European Jews into Palestine. In those same decades, there was also an ongoing struggle within the Jewish communities in Europe, where many were opposed to the tenets of Zionism either on a religious basis, or on the realization that colonizing an inhabited land would inevitably cause an injustice that would continue to reverberate for many years to come. A famous example of this in that period of time was the famous genius Albert Einstein, who in 1938 already expressed his opposition to the creation of a ‘Jewish state’, and in a letter to the New York Times that he wrote together with a number of prominent Jews in 1948, strongly denounced the horrendous Deir Yassin massacre.

The ongoing struggle of the Palestinians against Zionism and the continuing expropriation of their land is well-known, but not everyone is aware that within Jewish ranks, true ideological opposition against Zionism still exists. The most well-known group among these is Neturei Karta (‘Guardians of the City’), an organization of international Jews united against Zionism. On another note, within the current framework of the Zionist state, a coalition of groups that call themselves ‘Campus Watchdogs’ recently went as far as labeling 10 % of Israeli academics as ‘anti-Zionist’. It is likely that this number is highly overrated, since this McCarthyism-like approach can be expected to have lumped together a wide variety of people who expressed criticism at their government’s actions. In a similar way that outside criticism of ‘Israel’ quickly gets labeled as ‘anti-Semitism’, many of the one thousand mentioned academics, publicists and journalists are likely to have received the label of ‘anti-Zionist’ despite adhering to many of Zionism’s principles.

Tribal, Religious, or Ideological?

For some, the ongoing misery is a war between two peoples, basically a ‘tribal war’. Others prefer seeing it as a war between religions, with Judaism on one side and Muslims on the other side. Those who adopt this view are ignoring the pluralistic ethnic and religious composition of the Palestinian people, and are for instance ignoring the fact that many Palestinians are Christians, who have not been spared the gruesome fate of their Muslim compatriots. Thirdly, there are those who view the struggle as a battle between ideologies: Zionism on one side, and anti-Zionism on the other.

As the original PLO manifesto (28 May 1964) stated, the organization declared that “Palestine with its boundaries that existed at the time of the British mandate is an integral regional unit”  and that it sought to “prohibit the existence and activity of Zionism”. It also contained statements calling for a right of return and self-determination for the Palestinians. When reading the manifesto, it becomes clear that the PLO, the first more officially organized Palestinian movement against the land theft and expulsion committed by the Zionist terrorist organizations that later declared the Zionist state, was an explicitly anti-Zionist movement. The PLO incorporated the various existing political movements in one body, and was declared to be the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. This was widely accepted by an overwhelming majority of Palestinians.

The Oslo Disaster

As illustrated above, the foundations of the Palestinian struggle were based on the territorial integrity of Palestine (i.e. the one state solution) and the right of return of all expelled Palestinians. These original foundations became embedded in an entire generation of Palestinians worldwide. In 1993, the leadership under Yaser Arafat adopted the two-state solution instead, which largely happened in a top-down manner and led to the Oslo accords, However, it soon became clear to all that the Oslo accords were only accepted by ‘Israel’ as a deceptive method to hypnotize the Palestinians as well as the masses of the world into an illusion of Israeli willingness for territorial concessions, while in truth confiscating huge swathes of land, building a separation wall and almost tripling the settler population (from 250,000 to 700,000). It should be no surprise that even early on, as the scam became blatantly clear to all except seemingly to the leadership of the newly created Palestinian Authority, the original tenets of the struggle were yet again embraced by many Palestinians inside of Palestine as well as in the diaspora.

Return to the Struggle

As the state of confusion created by the Oslo accords lingered on, some defeatist voices however also turned to normalization, instead of returning to the basics of the struggle. It is not to be wondered at that disillusion and opportunism play their role in such a complex situation, wherein many lose hope when faced with the overwhelming military, economical and strategic dominance of the Zionist state. Nevertheless, youth movements that are currently active in keeping the struggle for Palestinian rights alive, predominantly see anti-normalization as one of their main strategic goals. They adhere to the above-mentioned basic tenets of the struggle, and reject the failed formula of negotiations that is still pursued by the Palestinian Authority, despite its lack of popular mandate for it. For most Palestinians it is blatantly clear, that the so-called ‘Peace Process’ has only caused damage to their cause and has not brought even the slightest prospects of a better future, let alone of self-determination or independence.

Internationally, pro-Palestinian activists also largely adhere to the basic tenets of the Palestinian struggle, namely the one-state solution and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.  There are other issues as well that are deemed non-negotiable to the majority of Palestinians, such as strong opposition against the Judaization of Jerusalem (Al Quds) which is projected as the future capital of liberated Palestine, and the release of all thousands of Palestinian political prisoners.

There is definitely also a group of ‘two-staters’, but their numbers are dwindling fast, and they rarely engage in activism since their views are largely represented by the Palestinian Authority. The strongest cure for the fallacy of the two-state solution was seeing the Palestinian side of that solution being gobbled up by the Zionist state over the years, faster than one could issue statements of protest against them.

New Shape of the Struggle: Back to Anti-Zionism

It is clear nowadays that the Palestinian Authority is not a useful apparatus for waging any form of struggle, but an administrative body that functions mainly as an extension of the Israeli security apparatus, in a framework inherited directly from the Oslo agreements. This does not mean that the people have stopped struggling. The modern Palestinian struggle has moved towards preferring popular resistance over armed struggle, and employing BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) as a main strategy of generating pressure against the Zionist state. What has also changed, is that this struggle has gained large numbers of international supporters all over the world, who support the Palestinians in their pursuit of freedom from Zionist oppression.

These changes have also brought anti-Zionism back to the forefront, and this has far-reaching implications. Whereas a two-state solution almost automatically implies the undertaking of steps towards normalization, since it implies an acceptance of Zionism and relinquishing the claim of 78 % of Palestinian territory to it, a one-state solution which aims to create a state for all of its inhabitants that does not discriminate on the basis of race of religion, requires a strong and uncompromising return to anti-Zionism as a unifying strategy.

Anti-Zionism versus Normalization

In a struggle that aims to achieve this, normalization is an extremely damaging concession that can never be combined with the dismantling of Zionism, which is the ultimate goal of its strategy. After all, a struggle against racism cannot be successful if the inherently racist tenets of Zionism are accepted. The ‘Oslo-period’ has however sown its sorrowful seeds in more places than may directly become apparent. The vast majority of the Arab masses have not accepted Zionism in their midst, but there are stubborn strands of normalization that seem to be enjoying an increasing momentum within ‘progressive’ ranks of various Arab communities.

Two Egyptian examples can be mentioned in this context. One is Mona Eltahawy, who seems to consider ‘Israel’ to be a civilized state and refused to condemn the genocidal massacre in Gaza that claimed the lives of 1,400 Palestinians (including at least 300 children) by massive attacks from drones, tanks, Apaches and F-16′s – on a population that possesses no bombing shelters or anti-aircraft artillery. Another even more mind-blowing example is Maikel Nabil, an Egyptian blogger who enjoyed wide campaigns for his release when he was arrested for criticizing the SCAF military junta of post-Mubarak Egypt. He expressed his love for Israel on his blog and in Israeli media with an enthusiasm rarely ever seen before in the Arab world. There are other examples too, such as Arab-American comedian Ray Hanania of Palestinian origin, who proclaimed himself a candidate for Palestinian presidency in a video that he posted on Youtube, wherein he called for an acceptance of Israeli settlements, and an end to the Right of Return.

The Only Ziocracy in the Middle East

It is true that these examples do not represent the sentiments of the majority of Palestinians and other Arabs, whether in the Arab world or outside of it, but these voices cannot be ignored either. The main reason for this is that voices of normalization like the ones mentioned above often receive disproportionate attention in Western-dominated mass-media, and thereby have a number of insidious destructive effects upon the struggle.

First of all, they make those who are true to the anti-racist struggle against Zionism seem extremist, by offering alternatives that at first sight strike the general public as being more inspired by peaceful motives. This is a distortion of reality: support for ‘Israel’, the most belligerent state in the Middle East, the only state in the region in possession of (over 300) nuclear arms, and the only ‘Ziocracy’ where ones ethnic background automatically categorizes one as having less rights than others, can never be truthfully designated as ‘peace-loving’.

Secondly, the apparently human inclination of the masses to flock around the famous without delving deeply into their philosophies, brings multitudes of people close to positive truth-distorting evaluations of the Zionist state. For example, progressive Arabs who embrace Mona Eltahawy’s feminist activities, are inclined to also automatically defend their idol’s views on ‘Israel’, simply because they are already in a state of adoration of her person. Another example involves Maikel Nabil: when progressive activists rallied for him due to his unjust incarceration by SCAF, his shocking pro-Israel views seemed to be lumped together with his anti-SCAF views under the label of ‘freedom of speech’, effectively paving the way for the perceived ‘right’ of Egyptians to view ‘Israel’ in an undeservingly positive and gruesomely distorted loving manner.

The Struggle Goes on

The true and original struggle of the Palestinians is a struggle against Zionism, and this is entirely incompatible with the views mentioned above. Normalization must therefore be opposed, vocally, directly, loudly and clearly. There is definitely a need for increased activity on this front, since anti-normalization and BDS do not enjoy the support of mass media, unlike the voices of normalization.

If this means that these voices need to be confronted even on a personal level, then so be it. It may not be a pleasant thing to do, and some might argue that it distracts from calling attention to the continuing atrocities that the Zionist state is inflicting on a daily basis upon the defenseless Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. However, as has been argued in the article “Anti-normalization: an necessary part of BDS campaigning”, calling attention to these injustices will remain highly ineffective if the public is simultaneously exposed by mass media to Arab voices that aim to paint a misleading image of ‘Israel’ as if it were a beacon of civilization, and a saviour for mankind.

In other words: if you value BDS and wish it to be effective, and if you believe in opposing the racist ideology of Zionism, one of your tasks is also to confront those who suck up to power for their own personal gain. And since their number is increasing, it looks like you have work to do.

- Tariq Shadid is a Palestinian surgeon living in the Middle East, and has written numerous essays about the Palestinian issue over the years.

By Dave Gahary | American Free Press | January 27, 2012

The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), long known in the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. as the voice for war, moved a few steps closer to irrelevance after an internal power struggle led to the firing of a senior director, who had joined a rival think tank. The firing led to the resignations of 10 members of its “advisory board,” including former CIA director R. James Woolsey Jr., former top Pentagon official Richard N. Perle and Michael A. Ledeen.

According to a January 18 article in the weekly news magazine The Forward, Jewish war hawk Shoshana Bryen, who “had been at JINSA for 32 years and…was considered its ‘public face,’” was terminated after continuing clashes with David Ganz, JINSA’s president and its largest donor. The article explains that “the two have sparred over issues relating to JINSA’s future and the focus of its programs,” and that “Ganz viewed Bryen’s direct style and her open opposition to decisions made by the board as problematic.”

Bryen “served as JINSA’s executive director from 1981 to 1991 and is credited with transforming the organization from a small think tank into a player in the Washington conservative scene…and was the main author of the group’s reports and position papers,” explained the article.

JINSA was founded in 1976 after American Jews loyal to Israel panicked after Israel’s disastrous performance during the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, also known as the Yom Kippur War, which forced both the United States and the Soviet Union to export arms during the conflict which ratcheted up tensions between the two. As a consequence, American citizens continued their suffering for unconditional U.S. support for the Zionist state when Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) instituted an oil embargo “in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military” during the war.

As stated in the Forward article, “JINSA’s main asset in Washington was its advisory board, made up of A-list conservatives such as former vice president Dick Cheney and former United Nations ambassador John Bolton.” This is why the exit of the aforementioned board members is such a blow to JINSA. A brief review of the three notable polarizing figures who resigned from the board provides great insight into JINSA.

Robert James Woolsey Jr. served as Bill Clinton’s head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from February 5, 1993 until January 10, 1995. Woolsey was at the helm of the CIA when Aldrich Ames was arrested for treason and spying against the United States, and refused to dismiss or demote anyone at the agency. With Congress furious, Woolsey was forced to resign.

Woolsey is also a member of the notorious Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and has been accused by critics for both promoting and profiting from the Iraq War. A few hours after 9/11, he made a TV appearance blaming Iraq.  In the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War, Woolsey stated that Iraq was also connected to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

Woolsey is also in the vanguard of the anti-Muslim movement in America, supporting the Oklahoma ban on Sharia law and co-authoring, with neocon Frank Gaffney, Jr., a book entitled Shariah: The Threat to America, published by the Center for Security Policy, a neoconservative Washington, D.C. think tank that focuses on national security issues.

Richard N. Perle served as Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1981 to 1987 and was on the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee from 1987 to 2004, serving as its chairman from 2001 to 2003, when he was forced to resign due to conflict of interests.

Perle’s history as an active Israeli agent and spy and a master at bribery and squeezing exorbitant “consulting fees” from Israeli weapons companies has been extensively documented and reported on by AMERICAN FREE PRESS Corresponding Editor Michael Collins Piper.  Unashamedly, Perle was well known for demanding payment for media interviews while Chairman of the Defense Policy Board.

Finally, Michael A. Ledeen is a founding member of JINSA and a former consultant to the National Security Council and the Departments of Defense and State. Ledeen was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal and the forgery which claimed that Saddam Hussein had bought yellowcake in Niger, a key fabrication leading to hostilities in the 2003 Iraq War.

Some notable quotes attributed to Ledeen include: “The level of casualties in Iraq is secondary,” “Americans are a warlike people…we love war,”  ”The only way to achieve peace is through total war,” “The purpose of total war is to permanently force your will onto another people,” and “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.”

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By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | January 30, 2012

Helping to disseminate Israeli talking points on Iran, The Guardian reports:

Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, has warned that tougher sanctions need to be imposed on Iran despite the unprecedented oil embargo agreed by the European Union earlier this week.

Although he conceded the EU measures would add significant pressure to the Tehran regime, Barak told Israel Radio the embargo was unlikely to force Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. “In my opinion, we are not there yet,” he said.

His comments followed those on Monday by the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, in response to the EU decision. Netanyahu warned party colleagues the impact of the embargo was unknown but it was a step in the right direction‚ hinting that he believed further measures would be needed.

“Very strong and quick pressure on Iran is necessary,” he said. “Sanctions will have to be evaluated on the basis of results. As of today, Iran is continuing to produce nuclear weapons without hindrance.”

As Robert Mitchum once said, “There just isn’t any pleasing some people. The trick is to stop trying.”

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Press TV – January 29, 2012

Kuwait has reportedly provided the US Army with 10 hectares of its Failaka Island to be used for US military bases.

According to Kuwaiti media, the United States has stationed about 15,000 new troops in its military bases in Kuwait. The troops have been relocated to Kuwait from Iraq.

The United States has also installed radar and missile systems in the Kuwaiti seaport region of Shuaiba, the report said.

The report comes despite Kuwait’s denial in November 2011 that the country would host more US troops.

The US currently has several military bases on an area of about 40 percent of Kuwait’s land. Kuwaiti residents are not allowed to pass without a permit through these areas.

Press TV – January 29, 2012

A British Muslim pilot who was dismissed from his position in 2010 has complained to an employment tribunal, saying he was axed because of his religion.

The Metropolitan police officers arrested the Muslim pilot, who was not named by the British press, in 2007 over the allegations of being linked with terror suspects.

Following the arrest, the airline employer, which was not named by the British press either, suspended the Heathrow-based pilot over the allegations that he would be a threat to national security.

The allegations were made based on the British police’s claim that the two suspected extremists could have links with the Muslim pilot and he could be part of an alleged terror plot.

One of the suspects was the pilot’s landlord and the other was someone with whom the Muslim pilot’s brother conducted business transactions.

The pilot was dismissed in 2010 over the accusations that he could “cause considerable harm” to the “national security.”

During the hearing at the employment tribunal in Havant, Hampshire, the pilot said that if he had been a non-Muslim, he would have received a different treatment.

Moreover, the tribunal was told that the case was “unique and unprecedented” and never before had a pilot been axed over accusations of having links with terror suspects.

A union official who represented the pilot during the airline’s inquiry said the airline employer had no substantial evidence to prove any links between the pilot and the suspects.

Moreover, the official revealed that the airline had explicitly stated that the pilot’s religion and race were the main reasons for accusing him of plotting to hijack a plane and sabotage it.

“The airline’s line of questioning came across to us as, ‘You’re a Muslim man with a Pakistani-sounding name. You must therefore believe in all this stuff or at least be familiar with it,’” said the official.

By Shazia Arshad | Middle East Monitor | 29 January 2012

As candidates prepared for elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in 2006, the Israeli authorities began a campaign of detention and imprisonment to thwart the growing move towards democracy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Israeli authorities began to arrest members of Hamas: 450 were detained in 2005 to prevent their participation in the election the following year; many were held in administrative detention, without trial or charge. Despite this the elections took place and a number of the candidates in prison were elected to the PLC.

The 2006 Palestinian elections were overseen by international observers, who declared them to be free and fair (more open, it has been said, than the 2004 re-election of George W Bush). Hamas ended up as the democratically-elected Palestinian government. A number of PLC members under the Change and Reform List (including Hamas members and supporters) were also chosen by the electorate and became the target of the Israeli authorities’ constant campaign of arrest and detention.

There are, at the moment, 27 PLC members and 2 Ministers being detained by the Israeli authorities.

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29 January 2012 | Global March to Jerusalem

Join us as we intensify our struggle against forced exile and the system of Israeli apartheid on Land Day 2012. We Palestinians have been ethnically cleansed and uprooted from our lands starting in the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) which resulted in the creation of the millions of refugees who are now living in the Diaspora. Nineteen years later, in 1967, Israel illegally annexed East-Jerusalem and the West Bank in a move which marked the Naksa (Setback), and subjected the remaining Palestinians to a brutal military occupation.

We are now in 2012, and we are still living in exile or under the Israeli apartheid regime, the illegal construction of colonial settlements is confiscating the remaining parts of Palestine, the Separation Wall divides and separates villages and towns, and Palestinians in Jerusalem are threatened with being driven out of their homes and lands for the mere purpose of the Judaization of this sacred city.

But we will not leave. We will stand and be firm. We will not permit thousands of years of our attachment to our land and our Holy City to be broken. We therefore invite and call upon all persons of courage and good will around the world to stand up and walk, with your fellow human beings, regardless of religion, of political affiliation – to stand up as responsible human beings and walk peacefully towards Jerusalem on the 30th of March, 2012.

We therefore ask all our brothers and sisters throughout the world to join Palestinians on Land Day, 30 March, 2011, in challenging the barriers, borders and procedures that separate Palestinians from Jerusalem and from their homes and lands in all of historic Palestine.

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Al-Manar | January 29, 2012

Russia condemned on Sunday the suspension of Arab monitoring mission in Syria, saying it was surprised by the decision taken by the Arab League.

The condemnation was announced by the Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who said: “We would like to know why they are treating such a useful instrument in this way”.

“We are surprised that after a decision was taken on prolonging the observers’ mission for another month, some countries, particularly Persian Gulf countries, recalled their observers from the mission”, Lavrov said on a visit to Brunei.

“I would support an increased number of observers”, Lavrov was quoted by the Russian ITAR-TASS news agency.

Lavrov said that he did not back those Western countries that said the mission was pointless and that it was impossible to hold dialogue with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

“I think these are very irresponsible statements because trying to sabotage a chance to calm the situation is absolutely unforgivable,” Lavrov said, cited by the Interfax news agency.

The Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi announced on Saturday the halt of Syria observers’ mission because of escalating violence in the country.

Russian has repeatedly said it would oppose any UN Security Council resolution against Syria, stressing that such resolution would surpass the “red lines” it has drawn.

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