(16:49 min)

May everyone come home this year,

Sam

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The Daily Beast

Bean Counting States 

by Sam Bahour 

May 8, 2012 2:07 PM EDT

As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict faces hunger strikes and the threat of renewed conflict, the question being tirelessly reiterated is whether a two-state solution is beyond us. The answer is "Yes" and "No." But counting the number of states required for bringing about a final status solution is entirely misguided. 

CONTINUE READING ONLINE: http://bit.ly/BeanCountingStates

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TO READ ONLINE: http://bit.ly/TheStoryofIqrit

This Week in Palestine

May 2012

We Shall Return: The Story of Iqrit 

By Fida Jiryis 

“I don’t want to open all my wounds…,” says Maher Daoud, a descendent of Iqrit refugees, as we drive to the site where the village of his parents once stood. I wince and apologise, aware of how difficult the subject must be for him. Iqrit is one of the 350 or so Palestinian villages that were completely destroyed and ethnically cleansed in 1948, its residents barred from returning and turned, overnight, into internal refugees in their own country. 

Maher, 43, is married to my cousin, Njoud, and they live in Mi’ilya, a village in the Galilee. They regularly drive up to Iqrit, whose church is all that remains today, to partake in religious celebrations at Christmas and Easter and to visit dead relatives in Iqrit’s cemetery. The occasion of our visit now is sombre: Maher’s mother passed away two years ago, and we are here to visit her grave on the occasion of Good Friday, as is the custom among Palestinian Christians. 

The drive to Iqrit takes a mere twenty minutes from my village, Fassouta. Both are in the Galilee: the north of historical Palestine, a few kilometres from the Lebanese border. During Israel’s “War of Independence” in 1948, or the Nakba (Catastrophe) as Palestinians refer to it, the residents of Iqrit and Biram, another nearby village, were uprooted from their homes on “security grounds,” presumably for Israel to protect its northern border. The residents of Iqrit were bussed to Rama village, twenty kilometres south in the Galilee, and told it would be for a few weeks, until the security situation was calm and they could return. But they never did. On Christmas Eve, 1950, the Israeli army blew up all the houses of Iqrit, in a timely “Christmas gift” to its expelled Christian residents. My father, a boy of 12 at the time, saw the smoke rising above the village in the distance, and, in panic and haste, told a man named Tu’meh from Iqrit, who had taken refuge in Fassouta. Tu’meh’s eyes filled with tears. 

In 1951, the Israeli High Court ruled that the villagers be allowed to return “as long as no emergency decree” existed against the village. With cold predictability, the government was quick to issue such a decree against the Iqrit evacuees. In 1953, it blew up the houses of Biram, too, leaving only the churches of the two villages standing. Two years later, the theft was completed: the land of the two villages - 16,000 dunams (1 dunam = 1000 m2) in Iqrit and 12,000 dunams in Biram - was expropriated for establishing Jewish settlements, which are there today: Even Menahem, Shlomi, and Shtula. 

I’d read about this before; Israel coldly and ruthlessly destroyed about 350 Palestinian villages and turned close to 700,000 Palestinians into homeless refugees during the Nakba. I had visited Suhmata, another such village, already, so I was prepared for what I expected to see. Nothing stopped the flood of goose bumps, though, when my cousin whispered: “Here it is. The village starts here.” 

“The village” that she was referring to “started” as a small pile of rubble by the roadside. Maher was quick to point to the church atop a hill in the distance. “That’s Iqrit,” he said. 

I experienced the same sickening disbelief I’d felt when an old relative had pointed to a tree- covered hill and told me: “Here it is. This is Suhmata.” 

In fact, it is completely surreal: all you see are shrubs and trees, thick greenery as is characteristic of the wilderness of Galilee. The small piles of rubble dotted periodically around are the only small reason to believe that those speaking to you are not deranged or delusional. 

The climb to Iqrit’s cemetery and church is up a tiny, winding road with tall grass on either side. April is springtime in Palestine, and the Galilee has rightfully been dubbed the most beautiful area in the country, with superb views and hills luscious with thick, deep greenery. The site of Iqrit has one of the best views that I’ve ever seen: the greenery is so vivid, thick, and beautiful that it blows my mind away. 

As we climb up the winding road in Maher’s car, I notice piles of fresh rubble by the side. He says: “We put asphalt on the road a few years ago, just to be able to drive up to the cemetery because the old people can’t walk up this far. But the Jewish settlers came and tore up the road. You can see the piles every few meters.” Such is the refusal and phobia of Israel that Palestinians may exercise their right of return to their stolen homes: even a simple road to get to a cemetery is torn apart, lest it become a precedent. 

We reach the cemetery and walk in with flowers and candles to pay our respects. I notice a large stone at the entrance with these words on it: “We remember and will not forget - This stone was erected in memory of our fathers and mothers who staged a sit-in in Iqrit Church, in the hope of returning alive, as the highest judicial authority in the country deemed, to rebuild what the hands of decision makers have destroyed. But the policy of rights abuses and land confiscation did not allow them to do so, and they died refugees in their own land.” 

I start to read the names that follow… Elias Yousef Daoud, Atallah Mousa Atallah, Elias Diab Sbeit, Najib Jiryis Khayyat, and on it goes… Eighteen names of people who tried desperately to undo the cruel fate that they had been dealt by Israel and return to their homes, but whose efforts were in vain, until they could only return as dead to be buried in their village. 

In fact, such was not even the case - from the time Iqrit was ethnically cleansed in 1948 until 1972, its scattered residents were not even allowed to bury their dead in the village. This posed a serious problem, for they had to rely on the kindness of the people of Rama to give them a space in its cemetery. Suddenly, a death was not only cause for mourning but for logistical worry as well. In a sad story that Maher told me, a group of young men once decided to break the rule and took the body of one of their dead for burial at night in Iqrit. Israeli soldiers heard of the matter and followed them, then forced them to dig the ground again, retrieve the coffin and take it to be buried elsewhere. 

Life for the living wasn’t much easier. The people of Iqrit settled in Rama in harsh conditions. With the sudden influx of refugees, daily living was crowded and difficult, and jobs were scarce. The pain of having just lost, overnight, everything that they owned was compounded by this new and harsh reality. Maher, for example, was the grandson of the mukhtar, or head of the village, of Iqrit. His grandfather was very well off, owned a shop and an olive oil press, and traded in tobacco. The shock of losing all that he owned - his home, lands, and businesses - and being turned into a homeless, penniless refugee overnight was overwhelming. Maher’s father lived in denial. “For years, all the time that I was growing up, my father refused to paint the house or do any badly needed renovation to it. Why? Because he feared that in doing so, he would be seen as acclimatising to his new home, having forgotten Iqrit or his hope of returning.” 

The people of Iqrit proved themselves in Rama, taking menial work and enduring difficult conditions to support their families. Eventually, the next generations moved to Haifa and elsewhere in search of work. 

Do they feel a connection to Rama, now, as their surrogate home? I pose the question to Maher and he says, “Sure, I was born in Rama and grew up there, I have memories there and feel some belonging. But I’m not from Rama. I’m from Iqrit.” He tells me that the people of Rama also add to this feeling; when he asked for directions to someone’s house, for example, the man in the street responded with: “Oh! The man from Iqrit…” before giving him directions. This was despite the man in question having lived in Rama for more than sixty years. 

Maher was sorely reminded of this misfit when he decided to build a house for himself and his family. His father had no land in Rama. When Maher got married, he rented a flat in Kfar Veradim, a Jewish locale near the Palestinian village of Tarshiha where he works, and lived there for a number of years. Then, with rent becoming too high for him, he moved to Mi’ilya, another nearby Arab village, where he bought land to buy a house. He then faced a problem that he had never thought of: some residents of Mi’ilya did not want him. He was labelled a stranger, and an uproar ensued on his owning land in the village, including threats and slander against him. Maher comments bitterly: “If I were still in Iqrit, my grandfather’s land would have been more than enough. I would not have needed to beg anyone for a corner to live in with my family!” 

“Every day, I feel that I’m a living testimony to the injustice that was done to us,” he continues. I ask him how he reconciles, internally, living in Israel, alongside the people who took away his village and committed this injustice. “It’s a huge contradiction,” he says painfully. “They are the ones who did this to me, to us, yet they are my customers in my hummus shop; I need them to survive.” He finds it emotionally difficult to separate work from the personal, though. Sometimes, he enters into political discussions with Jewish customers, but is frustrated because he can’t say everything he wants. He cites an incident that took place when he was living in Kefar Veradim. One of his neighbours had come to his shop to buy food and enquired, “So, what’s it like living in our place?” Maher quickly looked at her and replied, “Actually, you’re the ones living in my place. You’re the guests in this country, and unwanted ones at that.” The customer did not return. 

The people of Iqrit are remarkably tight-knit and steadfast in their resolution to return to their village. Six decades after they were ousted from their homes and lands, they still pray in their church, bury their dead in Iqrit, and hold summer camps there annually for their children, to teach them about their village. A famous poet from Iqrit, Aouni Sbeit, was once quoted telling a reporter, during a demonstration of the people of Iqrit in front of the Israeli prime minister’s office: “If you put your ear to the belly of a pregnant woman from Iqrit, you will hear the baby saying that we shall return!” 

Powerful words, but whether they will ever come true for these internal refugees is anyone’s guess. Despite an on-going legal battle, Israel will not allow them to return, lest it set a precedent for the return of other Palestinian refugees to their homes. Despite the fact that, in 1998, then-justice minister Tzachi Hanegbi recommended to the Netanyahu government that “no obstacles should be placed in the way of the return of the evacuees,” the final settlement offered to them in 1995 and 1996 was that Iqrit and Biram be re-established as community settlements on the basis of long-term land leases. In other words, the residents would have to “rent” their own lands from the state. Not surprisingly, they refused. The case has since been at a stalemate. Maher remarks bitterly: “How many articles have been written about Iqrit… How much material circulated… And we still can’t go home.” 

The story of Iqrit, though, illustrates the power of home and belonging. No one, not even Israel, can take that away. Palestinians have been connected to this land for generations; it’s not a connection that they can sever or replace. They know no other home and ask only for their basic human right: to return to this home that they were so cruelly ousted from. “My father has lived a temporary existence for sixty-four years,” Maher says. “Because, for sixty- four years, he’s been sitting on his suitcase, waiting to go home.” 

Fida Jiryis is a Palestinian writer, editor, and author of Hayatuna Elsagheera (Our Small Life), 2011, a collection of Arabic short stories depicting village life in the Galilee. She can be reached at fida_jiryis@hotmail.com 

Source: http://bit.ly/TheStoryofIqrit

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The exodus from the Holy Land of Palestinian Christians could eventually leave holy cities like Jerusalem and Bethlehem without a local Christian population. Bob Simon reports.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7406228n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox  (14:04 min)

and

60 Minutes Overtime 

The last Christian village in the Holy Land 

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-57418048-10391709/the-last-christian-village-in-the-holy-land/?tag=contentBody;currentVi   (4:19 min)

Hats off to 60 Minutes,

Sam

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Watch 60 Minutes this Sunday   

Bob Simon reports on the slow exodus from the Holy Land of Palestinian Christians, who say life in the middle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become too difficult. Harry Radliffe is the producer.   

Sunday, 22 April at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time on CBS     

For those of you who do not have access to CBS News in your area, you can be certain to watch the story on the CBS website at:

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml

The story will  be posted on Sunday evening after it airs on TV. There will also be an added feature on our online program called “60 Minutes Overtime” at:

http://www.cbsnews.com/60minutesovertime?tag=hdr;cnav

You will be able to view a story on Taybeh, also on Sunday evening. 

Rgds,

Sam

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Of Herrings and Elephants: Benny Morris and "Palestinian Rejectionism"  

by Daniel Levy  

Apr 16, 2012 11:00 AM EDT 

TO READ ARTICLE: http://bit.ly/HESdNz

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And if the news from the airport is not enough, see the Israeli occupation in action in the Jordan Valley today: http://bit.ly/HOu6wq

Occupation = Violence, DAILY,

Sam

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Palestinians Surprised by GOP Congresswoman 

By Daoud Kuttab, Palestinian journalist 

Posted: 04/13/2012 6:26 pm 

Easter is celebrated in Jerusalem and surrounding Palestinians cities both religiously and culturally. Children wave beautifully weaved palm leaves on Palm Sunday, Boy Scout-led marches celebrate Sabt el Noor (Holy Fire), when the light comes out of the Church of the Holy Seplechure and is welcomed with marching bands in towns with Palestinian Christian populations such as Ramallah, Bethlehem Zababdeh, Abood and Nablus. 

Christian Palestinians are a dwindling population. Decades of occupation and hopelessness coupled with opportunities to emigrate have resulted in many more Palestinian Christians living outside Palestine than inside. 

Tourism and Christian pilgrimage constitute perhaps the one source of economic survivor for many Christian families. Many things can be taken away, but holy places and archeological sites remain, and if they are in good shape can attract visiting tourists. But most Christian locations outside the major Jerusalem metropolitan area are in shambles. An opportunity to improve some of these sites gave many hope that things would slightly improve for this dwindling population. But alas this hope was shattered by a single U.S. politician. 

Ros-Lehtinen, who chairs the powerful Foreign Affairs Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, conditioned the lifting of the hold with the understanding that the money not be used for assistance in Gaza. She also prohibited the use of USAID funds for road projects in the West Bank, except if directly related to security. 

Finally, and bizarrely, she denied use of funds for trade facilitation, tourism promotion, scholarships for Palestinian students and other aid for Palestinian Authority agencies and ministries. 

It is hard to understand why a U.S. congressperson would put such conditions over and above the recommendations of USAID officials. The USAID money for the reconstruction of Gaza was pledged by Secretary Clinton and does not go to the Hamas-led government, but to the people of Gaza who suffered tremendous hardships during the Israeli war of 2008-09. 

Road construction and trade facilitating projects in the West Bank fit perfectly within the two-state solution, which the entire world, including Israel's prime minister, supports. By opposing such projects, the Republican congresswoman goes against U.S. and international policies. 

But perhaps the most perplexing decision by the Florida congresswoman is her opposition to promoting Christian tourism to the Holy Land. According to a request for proposals (RFP294- 2011-204) published by USAID last year, the American government was looking for contractors able to help rebuild a number of Christian sites in the occupied West Bank: 

* Burqeen church near Jenin, a Christian sanctuary dating to the early Byzantine era. The current structure dates to the 12th century. 

* Sabastia/Samria. The biblical capital of the Northern Kingdom of (Ancient) Israel, the current ruins date from the Roman period. 

* Tell Balata Archaeological Park in Nablus, which is listed as an archeological biblical site. It's the site of the Canaanite and biblical city of Shechem. 

* Jacob's well, reputed to be the site of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman. The site is also associated with the biblical patriarchs. 

* Shepherd's field in Beit Sahour, which is a Christian site near Bethlehem 

Rep. Ros-Lehtinen's actions put her outside the positions of Catholic and Protestant leaders, who have made numerous public declarations in support of the Christian Palestinian community. Promoting tourism and pilgrims' visits to Christian sites in the Holy Land is something most Americans surely support. 

A hint of that might be found in reviewing the politician's donor base. Campaign finance records show that her top campaign contributor is Irving Moskowitz, the retired Florida businessman who is developing a controversial apartment project -- intended exclusively and discriminatory for Jews -- in occupied East Jerusalem's Shepherd Hotel. 

In the U.S., as in most democratic countries, foreign policy is made by the executive branch. It is irrational that a Republican congresswoman, supported by a radical donor, can single-handedly oppose the will of the American people represented by the full plenary of congress and the executive branch of the U.S. government. 

The full Congress voted last summer on the entire aid package to the Palestinians. Rep. Ros-Lehtinen is the sticking point, and her restriction on the aid bill is damaging U.S. policy. Worse, she has taken a position that harms Christian Palestinians as well as American Christians who might want to visit the sites to which she is denying reconstruction funds. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daoud-kuttab/ros-lehtinen-palestine_b_1413923.html

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April 12, 2012 

Don't Give Up on Mideast Peace 

By JIMMY CARTER 

The current focus of leaders in Washington and Jerusalem on Iran has obscured the near- death of the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and the inevitable catastrophe toward which Israel is now moving. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman have been establishing more and more settlements in Palestine on confiscated land. While they profess their support for a "two-state solution," their actions all aim to create a "Greater Israel," from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. Washington has voiced opposition to these steps, but has not made any strong efforts to prevent them. 

Since 1967, the consensus in the international community and among the majority of Israelis has been that there would be two political entities, with Israelis returning to their pre-1967 borders except for some small land swaps along the border. The Camp David Accords of 1978, accepted by Israel, called for the withdrawal of political and military forces from the occupied territories, and President George W. Bush specifically endorsed a Palestinian nation in this area. As late as May 2009, President Obama accepted this concept as the basis for peace. This strategy has been abandoned as Israel tightens its control over the West Bank and East Jerusalem, now populated by more than 2.5 million Palestinian Muslims and Christians. 

There is a profound difference between "two-states" and "one-state." The former contemplates two nations with citizens living side by side in peace under terms to be negotiated between leaders of the two principal parties. Other world leaders have almost universally acknowledged that strong help and influence of the United States will be necessary, and all the Arab nations have offered to support such an agreement. 

In the case of the "one-state" outcome, if granted the full rights of citizenship, Palestinians would play a major role in the new nation with a possible majority in the future. If deprived of these rights as inferior and second-class dwellers on the land, this will be a system of apartheid that will not be accepted by the international community. 

As former Prime Minister Ehud Barak said in 1999, "Every attempt to keep hold of this area as one political entity leads, necessarily, to either a nondemocratic or a non-Jewish state. Because if the Palestinians vote, then it is a binational state, and if they don't vote it is an apartheid state." Eight years later, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that if the two-state solution collapsed, Israel would "face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished." 

During my last conversation with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon before his stroke, he discussed with approval the "small land swaps" along the 1967 border. His proposal was that Israeli settlers living near Jerusalem should remain, with Palestinians given a land corridor to connect the West Bank and Gaza, on which a highway and railroad could be established. He had earlier said that the "occupation" of Palestinian territories was "a terrible thing for Israel and for the Palestinians and can't continue endlessly." 

Shaul Mofaz, the new leader of Israel's Kadima party, said recently, "The greatest threat to the state of Israel is not nuclear Iran," but that Israel might one day cease to be a Jewish state, because Palestinians could outvote Jews. "So it is in Israel's interest that a Palestinian state be created." 

The people are already greatly mixed. About 20 percent of Israeli citizens are Palestinians, although living under severe restrictions. The number of Israeli settlers in Palestinian territories has grown from about 5,000 when I left office in 1981 to about 525,000. 

However, the overall region is changing. Past efforts by Egypt, the Carter Center and others to bring about reconciliation among Palestinian factions, leading to another democratic election, have been frustrated by differences among them, exacerbated by opposition from Israel and the United States and acquiescence from former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The newly elected leaders in Egypt are determined to use their influence to reconcile Fatah and Hamas and press for a final status agreement including peace with Israel. With international support, such an agreement is entirely possible. 

It is heartening to realize that 'peace in the Middle East," based on the two-state solution, is still feasible — but not for much longer. 

Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States, is founder of the Carter Center, which works to advance peace and health worldwide. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/opinion/dont-give-up-on-mideast-peace.html

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Published 01:02 11.04.12

Israel must understand it cannot be like America

For the sake of hegemony, Israel is mortgaging the well-being of its children and the lives of its grandchildren, together with the well-being and lives of children and grandchildren throughout the region.

By Amira Hass

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/israel-must-understand-it-cannot-be-like-america-1.423677

Amira has my utmost respect,

Sam

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