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A People's History of Thanksgiving

Friday, 27 November 2009 04:53 RamallahOnline Content - The Palestine Chronicle

This week Americans will observe 'Thanksgiving' commemorating a romanticized era in their nations record, celebrating the supposed solidarity and brotherhood enjoyed by the first settlers and the indigenous people of what is now called the United States. However, this fantastic tale of friendship contradicts the candid remarks of many notable personalities in US history.

Few can be as blunt regarding the legacy of the United States toward the native people of this land as the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. In his narrative, "The Winning of the West," Roosevelt spoke about the "spread of the English-speaking peoples over the world's wasted spaces." He wrote: "The European settlers moved into an uninhabited waste...the land is really owned by no one.... The settler ousts no one from the land. The truth is, the Indians never had any real title to the soil."

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Targeting Muslim Charities in America

Friday, 27 November 2009 04:51 RamallahOnline Content - RoArticle

Stephen Lendman

In a December 2008 article, this writer explained that the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) was the largest American Muslim charity until the Bush administration bogusly declared it an enemy of the state and shut it down.

On December 4, 2001, the Treasury Department declared HLF a terrorist group, froze its assets, and falsely claimed they were being used to funnel millions of dollars to Hamas. HLF's appeal was denied.

It provided vital relief to Palestinian refugees in Occupied Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan as well as aid for the needy in Bosnia, Albania, Chechnya, Turkey, America, and elsewhere.

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Um Salamuna and more

Tuesday, 24 November 2009 01:13 RamallahOnline Content - Dr. Mazen Qumssiya

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD | http://www.qumsiyeh.org

A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home

Today over 150 Palestinians and internationals participated in an activity to reclaim and plant olive trees on a threatened hill in an area called Um Salamuna. Um Salamuna already lost significant amount of its land to colonial Jewish-only settlements like Efrata and Migdal Oz. The wall that includes the settlements has not been completed in this area and is slated to zig-zag to capture the hill we worked on to add it to the colonial settlement area that is already stolen. The village is one of over 20 villages and towns in the Bethlehem area that lost land to these illegal colonial settlements. In total the Bethlehem district had already been shrunk to about 20% of its original size. This 20% is a concentration camp with few openings (that could be closed at whim by the colonial occupiers) but 97% of its residents (including me) are not even allowed into occupied Jerusalem (a mere five miles away). On my way out of the area, I stopped by to take some pictures (see http://picasaweb.google.com/jchangcpa/UmmSalamunaTreePlanting?authkey=Gv1sRgCOqi4qLk6faskgE&feat=directlink# ) and talk with some of the occupation soldiers. Most would not talk to me. A black (Ethiopian) soldier exchanged a few words with me before his officer came and ordered me not to talk to him or other soldiers (lest they get a glimpse of the war crimes they are engaged in!). I think these grass-root Palestinian activities are critical but they have to be far better organized, planned, and managed. There were no instructions and many of the volunteers did not know what to do. Representatives of the PA (Palestinian authority who a friend jokes as standing Public Announcement) spent much of their time talking to the media. I urged them to speak to the people assembled and to organize better/bigger activities and most importantly to participate themselves (and their security staff) in planting and in clearing the land of the rocks etc.

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Tame the Israel lobby with the Seven Principles of Public Life

Tuesday, 24 November 2009 01:06 RamallahOnline Content - Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood | Radio Free Palestine

The recent Channel 4 TV Dispatches programme, which probed the antics of the pro-Israel lobby in British politics, has opened up this hitherto forbidden subject to public debate.

Basic questions now need answering – for example, why are agents of a foreign military power allowed to meddle in our democratic and parliamentary processes?

That was the concern of a group of citizens nearly two years ago. They decided to press the Committee on Standards in Public Life to examine whether there was undue Israeli influence at the heart of British government.

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Have Israeli spies infiltrated international airports?

Tuesday, 24 November 2009 01:00 RamallahOnline Content - Jonathan Cook

Johnathan Cook in Nazareth | www.jkcook.net

South Africa deported an Israeli airline official last week following allegations that Israel’s secret police, the Shin Bet, had infiltrated Johannesburg international airport in an effort to gather information on South African citizens, particularly black and Muslim travellers.

The move by the South African government followed an investigation by local TV showing an undercover reporter being illegally interrogated by an official with El Al, Israel’s national carrier, in a public area of Johannesburg’s OR Tambo airport.

The programme also featured testimony from Jonathan Garb, a former El Al guard, who claimed that the airline company had been a front for the Shin Bet in South Africa for many years.

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Federation? Why Not?

Sunday, 22 November 2009 09:32 RamallahOnline Content - Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery | Gush Shalom

THESE DAYS mark the 5th anniversary of the murder of Yasser Arafat, and bring back to me our last conversation in his Ramallah compound, a few weeks before his death. It was he who brought up the idea of a threefold federation – Israel, Palestine and Jordan. "And perhaps Lebanon, too. Why not?" – the same as he did at our very first meeting, in Beirut, July 1982, in the middle of the battle. He mentioned the term Benelux – the pact between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg that predated the European Union.

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Jerusalem Light Railway: Effects And Legal Implications

Saturday, 21 November 2009 12:05 RamallahOnline Content - RoArticle

Palestinian BDS Campaign National Committee (BNC) | http://www.bdsmovement.net

Construction on the Jerusalem Light Railway (JLR) began in 2006 with the pretext of, “bringing immediate relief to traffic congestion” and “revitalizing the center of Jerusalem”. The project, slated for completion in 2010, is a public-private initiative that purports not to carry any political objectives or intention but instead serves to improve the public transportation system throughout the Jerusalem Municipality.

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Tribute to Kahane planned by Israeli legislators

Saturday, 21 November 2009 00:14 RamallahOnline Content - Jonathan Cook

Johnathan Cook in Nazareth | www.jkcook.net

A plan by right-wing legislators in Israel to commemorate the anniversary this month of the death of Meir Kahane, whose banned anti-Arab movement is classified as a terrorist organisation, risks further damaging the prospects for talks between Israel and the Palestinians, US officials have warned.

A move to stage the commemoration in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, is being led by Michael Ben-Ari, who was elected this year and is the first self-declared former member of Kahane’s party, Kach, to become a legislator since the movement was banned 15 years ago.

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Bantustans and the unilateral declaration of statehood

Friday, 20 November 2009 09:54 RamallahOnline Content - RoArticle

Dr. Virgina Tilley

From a rumor, to a rising murmur, the proposal floated by the Palestinian Authority's (PA) Ramallah leadership to declare Palestinian statehood unilaterally has suddenly hit center stage. The European Union, the United States and others have rejected it as "premature," but endorsements are coming from all directions: journalists, academics, nongovernmental organization activists, Israeli right-wing leaders (more on that later). The catalyst appears to be a final expression of disgust and simple exhaustion with the fraudulent "peace process" and the argument goes something like this: if we can't get a state through negotiations, we will simply declare statehood and let Israel deal with the consequences.

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Breaking The Vessels

Thursday, 19 November 2009 22:36 RamallahOnline Content - RoArticle

Jeff Halper | Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

OK, so the Palestinian Authority will not unilaterally declare an independent Palestinian state. In fact, the whole issue seems a misunderstanding. Concerned that the US has backtracked on a two state solution based on the 1967 borders and that Israel was getting the world used to the “fact” that the settlements and the Wall, rather than ’67 borders, now defined the parameters of a future Palestinian state (on only 15% of historic Palestine), the PA simply wanted the Security Council to reaffirm that principle. “What should we do while the Israeli government is busy with fait accompli actions,” asked Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, “but to turn to the Security Council to preserve the option of two states? We want the Security Council to declare that the two-state solution is the only option and that it would recognize the state of Palestine on the '67 borders and to live side by side with the State of Israel.” The PA hoped, perhaps even expected, that the US would go along. Through an escalation of rhetoric this simple clarification became the basis of speculation, against the background of President Mahmoud Abbas’s threatened resignation, that the Palestinians would attempt to force the hand of the international community and announce the establishment of their state.

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The squeky wheels of hamsters and most politicians

Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:06 RamallahOnline Content - Dr. Mazen Qumssiya

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD | http://www.qumsiyeh.org

A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home

Many years ago my son had two pet hamsters who took turns running on a metal exercise wheel without of course getting anywhere (but occasionally we would let them run free in a room in the home). I was reminded of those two hamsters this week because politicians occasionally do the same running around without going anywhere by only verbally (thus only exercising their speech muscles). The Israeli regime just decided to continue violating International law by building 900 new units in the Jewish only colony of Gilo near us here in Bethlehem. The Bethlehem district has lost nearly 80% of its areas to Israel and the remaining 20% (the concentration camp) is now very crowded with half of the population in the district being refugees or displaced Palestinians. Yet politicians ranging from German Chancellor to French foreign minister to British Prime Minister to the US president took turns repeating meaningless words about this action "delaying" or "harming" the "peace process" (as if there is a peace process or any possibility of a fair negotiations between the 4th strongest army in the world and an occupied colonized people). Ariel Sharon who is just as alive as the peace process used to pronounce it the "piss process". In the 1970s and 1980s European and North American leaders used to accurately describe settlements/colonies are ILLEGAL (Israel is violating International law by building in the occupied areas) yet do nothing about them (actually in many cases fund them and support them). Now they are "not helpful" "unilateral" and "they delay"…

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Globalization Unchecked: How Alien Media is Suffocating Real Culture

Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:01 RamallahOnline Content - The Palestine Chronicle

Ramzy Baroud | The Palestine Chronicle

A Muslim family sits across of me in café, in a largely Muslim Asia country. An older woman shyly hunches over and desperately trying to avoid eye contact with the giant plasma screen TV, blazing loud music on the popular music video channel, MTV. The scantily dressed presenter introduces her ‘top song’ for the week. Beyonce, dressed in so very little, annoyingly reiterates that she is “a single lady.” The old woman’s son is mesmerized by what he sees. He pays no attention to his mother, young wife or even his own son who wreaks havoc in the coffee shop. The man’s T-Shirt reads: “what the fxxx are you looking at?”

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