(source: Human Rights Newsletter)

 Photo above is of Mahfoutha Shtaya, 65 year old who “inspired us when she stood up to Israeli soldiers and settlers in 2004 when they were uprooting hundreds of olive trees in her village-the source of her community’s livelihood. Alone and defenseless, she clung to one of the few trees left standing. Her action spoke out powerfully against the wanton destruction and its disastrous effects for an already suffering people”

My mother says I should have worn long sleeves for the Palestinian olive trees sometimes do not want to part with their fruits without a bit of resistance.  But somehow I feel the few minor scratches are a badge of honor and the least I owe our beloved trees.

The whole year, we look forward to these days. My sister, wife, mother, and I harvested the olive trees sometimes silently, sometimes talking about mundane things, and rarely speaking of things of consequence.  But thoughts are another story.  My thoughts wonder to the Palestinians who lost their olive groves to the colonial settlement activity (over 1 million trees have been uprooted).  The picture of the old women hugging her tree that was being cut by the Israeli occupiers flashes through my mind (above).  I am reminded of my deceased father during such time. I feel at peace with the sorrow and anger overwhelmed by emotions of gratitude and serenity under the old olive trees. The olive harvest is after all a ritual that borders on an act of worship (and maybe it is).

Read More »Palestinian olives

By Ershad Abubacker

(source: South Lebanon blog)

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge. -Stephen Hawking .

The media portrays the Middle East violence as though it is inherent part of the culture and the region, implying that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an ancient problem with little hope of a solution. The world, educated by this media, often sees the issue of Palestine through the tragedy and horror of suicide bombings-an expression of despair by powerless people against an oppressor armed with modern weapons.

The suicide bombings are presented to the Israeli public as an insane act by an insane people with whom there is no chance for peace. Instead of putting a wider analysis that would say that there is a way out of the suicide bombs, while everybody condemns them and rightly so, there is a way out of this. And the way out of this is to provide circumstances in which these young people would find every news of hope instead of every news of despair. But perversely there is an orchestrated campaign to silence that kind of an analysis inside Israel and it is trying to scare people into silence by conflating any criticism of Israeli policies as Anti-Semitism.

Read More »A country of sacred cows and ten commandments