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Books
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Written by By Jim Miles
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Wednesday, 01 September 2010 08:23 |
| |  |  | | 'Palestine Betrayed' is a hoax - it speaks truth, yet conceals much more. | |
Palestine Betrayed. Efraim Karsh. Yale University Press, London, 2010. Was Palestine betrayed? Of course it was, by the British, the United States, France, the League of Nations, the United Nations, the remnants of the Ottoman empire, all of the regional Arab countries, and by certain elites and powerful of Palestine itself. Efraim Karsh makes the latter two the main if not the sole responsible for the nakba - the disaster - that occurred in 1947-48 with the announced partition of Palestine followed by the declaration of the state of Israel. “Palestine Betrayed,” as portrayed by Karsh, is the story of the connivances of the Arab leaders in the region along with the elites of Palestine while the Jewish population continually offered peace and coexistence with their brethren and encouraged them to stay in their villages and towns to become partners in the new state enterprise. Karsh is both right… Karsh is right in that, yes, the Palestinians were in essence betrayed by the Arab leaders at the time more concerned about their own scenarios and power bases than that of a nascent Palestinian nationality. Further he is correct in that some of the local Palestinian leadership - or what remained of it after the British military violently dealt with them in the previous ‘Arab revolt’ - told the people of the towns and villages to evacuate and retreat away from the advancing Jewish forces. He presents many quotes from Jewish leaders, Ben Gurion in particular, that attempt to show that the Jewish people wished to live in peaceful coexistence with their Arab neighbours. …and horribly wrong. His approach and methodology of trying to reconstruct the arguments around the nakba are horribly wrong in several ways. In the introduction he writes, “It is understandable for leaders and politicians, culpable for their nation’s greatest ever disaster, to revert to hyperbole and lies in their quest for personal and collective exoneration, it is inexcusable for future generations of scholars and intellectuals to substitute propaganda for incontrovertible facts.” In other words, “These politicized historians have turned the saga of Israel’s birth upside down, with the aggressors transformed in hapless victims and vice versa.” His main historical criticism is directed at the “new historians” - who have “total unfamiliarity…with the Arab world…and their condescending treatment of the Palestinians as passive objects.” He says that, “rather than unearth new facts or offer novel interpretations”, they have “recycled the standard Palestinian Arab narrative of the conflict.” Karsh then continues to announce that “the recent declassification of millions of documents from the period of the British mandate and Israel’s early days, documents untapped by earlier generations of writer and ignored or distorted by the “new historians.” The result is that the new documents reveal “that there was nothing inevitable about the Palestinian-Jewish confrontation….that the claim of premeditated dispossession is not only baseless but the inverse of the truth,” and that it was the Arab leaders “against the wishes of their own constituents, launched a relentless campaign to obliterate the Jewish national revival.” “It is to reclaim this historical truth that this book has been written.” Karsh succeeds, and he fails. If the reader is unfamiliar with any other writings on Israel, the “new historians” that Karsh so disparages (and to the uninitiated, the new historians are predominantly if not solely Israeli academics), and if the reader is unfamiliar with the larger historical contexts of the world’s empires during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century and their impacts within the Middle East, the reclamation of historical truth works. That is, it does present a picture of a peaceful Jewish population betrayed by a greedy, backwards, ineffective, and self-serving Arab leadership. Deconstructing Palestine Unfortunately there are several problems with this presentation. The first is that while Karsh casually dismisses the new historians, he does nothing to deconstruct their arguments. And while he attempts to present the situation as a new revelation that the “new historians” have ignored, he is fully wrong. Karsh cherry picks his arguments (looks for quotes that support only his idea) without making any attempt to contradict or counter the arguments of the new historians, with no demonstration of where their arguments are wrong. Much more revealing for anyone who has read the “new historians” is that they agree with Karsh - the Palestinians were betrayed by their own kind - and several of them spend a fair amount of time criticizing the actions of the leaders of the Arab nations struggling for their own position and power in a world still largely controlled by old empires. But that is only one side of the coin, and where Karsh goes wrong is not representing the overall aim of the original Zionist enterprise and its ongoing belief and attitude towards its domination and control over a “land without people for a people without land.” Demographics - as Always Population demographics is another theme where Karsh goes wrong. He has many chosen quotes about how peaceful and trusting the Jewish people were and that they wished the Palestinians to work with them in their new state. The error is that of demographics: this wish for peaceful coexistence was always expressed with the accent on the Jewish people having the majority of the population. By distorting this item, and then ignoring the many statements about the plans for ethnic cleansing via population transfer, expulsion, and/or outright killing of the local inhabitants, Karsh denies support to his argument that “premeditated dispossession is baseless.” From its inception, to the current reality of the ongoing settlements, demolitions, expulsions, and biased civil and military laws, and possible future population transfer during some large military event (created for that purpose, as one could imagine with Iran), the idea of dispossessing the Palestinians cannot be denied. An Imagined Reality There, I stepped into the boundary I do not like to cross, that of conjecture. But that introduces another failing of Karsh’s arguments, that of using conjectural material as if it is valid factual support for his presentation, especially fictional material about a supposed happy future as compared to historical fiction that incorporates the actual events of history. He quotes the Zionist novel “Alteneuland” (1923) by Herzl as if the imaginary speaker’s voice represents the reality of the Palestinian people. In an academic argument that is simply baseless and false, a reversion “to hyperbole and lies in their quest for personal and collective exoneration.” It continues in other arguments, where Karsh describes a besieged kibbutz and how it fought to the last man, followed illogically - at least for an academic argument and not one based on politicizing the saga of Israel’s birth - by the comment “True or not….” Well, is it, or is it not? By the manner in which it is presented I would have to guess not, but it apparently does serve as “a symbol of heroism” for the “Israeli collective memory.” A true ‘false flag’ operation. Military Dominance Another theme that is constantly reiterated throughout the work is the “massive” amounts of armaments that the Arab Palestinian population received contrasted with the isolated, over-whelmed, and poorly armed Jewish citizens. Alongside that, the Haganah is mentioned a few times but never described as to its overall purpose or power, nor are the other Jewish paramilitaries (Irgun and Stern gangs) and their effects and power presented. Karsh never does put a number on the “massive” amounts of armaments although elsewhere in the work he seems quite capable of finding historical records that put very precise numbers on items for discussion be it economics, land sales, food distribution, or the inevitable figure of discussion, the refugee populations and the villages from where they originated. In contrast, the “new historians” are quite capable of finding references to armaments obtained by smuggling in European arms, and their relatively high sophistication compared to the arms of the Palestinians. Similarly with the Jewish paramilitaries, the “new historians” present much documented material concerning the role of these militaries, their training during the Second World War with the British command, and their superiority in numbers compared to the number of Arab fighters in Palestine, before or during the 1948 war. Karsh seems to be able to find all sorts of numbers by town and village for the Arab fighters, but provides little of anything for the Jewish forces, nor does he mention their training and overall superiority in numbers. Deir Yassin - a Unique Tragedy Karsh deals with the displacement and expulsion of the Palestinians dismissively. Except for the one exception of Deir Yasin, a “tragedy” or at worst a “carnage”, all the villages and towns of Palestine as well as the cities of Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Jerusalem were vacated on the orders and recommendations of the existing Arab authorities. He complains that Dier Yasin “would become the most effective Arab propaganda tool against Israel….the widely exaggerated descriptions of Jewish atrocities, especially of alleged rapes of women that never took place, spread panic across Palestinian society and intensified the ongoing mass flight.” Well, again, true and not true. It certainly became the “most” effective propaganda tool against Israeli military occupation, and yes it did spread panic, as that is the intent of any military action on a populace. However it is not the only incident of massacres of civilians, nor does it allow that over 450 Palestinian villages were immediately destroyed in order to prevent the return of the refugees, who under international law have the right of return. Beit Daras - a Reality Any incidence of massacres or forced evictions and destruction of villages of towns would obviously be downplayed in any Haganah/Israeli records. The language of the victors would certainly minimize anything that might incriminate themselves and thus the reports would indicate only that the residents fled on their own initiative, at the urging of their own leaders, in spite of Haganah’s supposed efforts to retain the population in the villages. Beit Daras was situated 46 kilometers north east of Gaza city, with no real claim to fame other than that of a long standing local village that survived many series of invading armies passing over and around its location. However, shortly after 1917, the British built a police station east of the village which served to “ensure the safety of a Jewish colony known as Tabiyya.” While the record supports Karsh’s contention that the Jews and the Palestinians coexisted peacefully, there was till an underlying tension, in particular from the British patrols into Beit Daras. In contradiction to Karsh’s contention however, is the knowledge within the Palestinian population that the “Jewish immigrants of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were not the typical seekers of religious salvation and escapees of oppression. They were part of a Zionist program to conquer Palestine, all of it, and eject its people.” From there the reality became that of another massacre of civilians by Jewish forces, unrecorded in the history books but well represented in the personal lives of those who lived there and survived as refugees retaining the eternal hope of their right of return. [1] Beit Daras was part of the plan in the region to deny Palestinian base operations, create panic and break morale in order to cause the exodus of the inhabitants. On May 21, 1948 the village was surrounded by Jewish forces. News of the Deir Yasin massacre had reached the village and the women and children were encouraged to leave. When the fleeing families reached the outskirts of the village “they were faced with indiscriminate Zionist shelling no less ugly than that of Deir Yassin…265 victims fell on that day, mostly, children, elders, and women.” Another witness recorded that “The Jews let the people get out, and then they whipped them with bombs and machine guns.” I would wonder what the Haganah record shows for the fight for Beit Daras, and how many other Beit Daras’ and Deir Yasin’s there are that would simply be recorded as ‘villagers fled…men of fighting age detained’. ..and more…. Another massacre occurred within recorded history at Tantura, a village on the Tel Aviv/Jaffa coastline. Attacked from four sides, the captives “were moved to the beach. There the men were separated from the women and children….Two hundred men between the ages of thirteen and thirty were massacred by the Alexandroni and other Jewish forces.” Another incident of the not unusual scenario where military actions go against international and humanitarian laws, both for civilians and military prisoners. [2] Certainly two massacres would have been enough to cause widespread panic and fear as an inducement to flee the villages. Yet another “new historian”, Benny Morris (who has more recently rescinded his earlier ideas and become a recidivist historian - yet whose research cannot be denied) reported “a far more plausible reason for the Palestinian flight: a systematic Israeli policy of massacres in Palestinian towns and villages, at least 24 according to his most recent, conservative estimates; the rape of women and girls by Israeli soldiers; and arbitrary killings.” Further: …in the country’s northern Palestinian heartland there was an unusually high concentration of executions of people against a wall or next to a well in an orderly fashion. That can’t be chance….various officers …understood that the expulsion order they received permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to take to the roads…Ben-Gurion [see below] silenced the matter. He covered up for the officers who did the massacres.” [3] Karsh argues that there was no plan to systematically ethnically cleanse Palestine, yet it is known that the idea is an underlying theme of Zionist thought from its inception. And truthfully, again, there was no “systematic plan,” just the underlying motive combined with whatever local situation evaluation the field commander found themselves dealing with while operating under a general plan to gain land and more land with as few Palestinians as possible. Unfortunately for Karsh, the record of anecdotal histories of the massacres, killings, expulsion and destruction of villages immediately after the expulsions - while it does not deny the wish to live peacefully alongside the Jewish people - does not support his thesis that the Jewish leaders and military were at all accommodating to the Palestinian people. Nor does it support his argument that the Palestinians initiated all the fighting and that the supposedly under-armed, under-manned Jewish forces prevailed over enormous obstacles. Ben-Gurion and “Jewish Coexistence” Ben-Gurion is frequently quoted along the theme of desiring the Arabs to remain in place and live peacefully in coexistence with the Jewish population. As mentioned previously, that was generally within the context of the main Zionist fear of demographic dominance by the Arab population. In his conversations with political leaders from the Arab countries around the region, his tone was always one of restraint and egalitarian purpose, accepting that the Arab population remain in place. Similarly with the local Palestinian leaders, his rhetoric as quoted was all about coexistence with the Arabs participating in the wonderful modernity of the Jewish people. Any reader who follows politics should know that the rhetoric provided by political leaders has many purposes: to hide, conceal, manipulate, placate, dissimulate, and on. The rhetoric differs in tones of condescension depending on whether the target is considered to be in a superior position in consideration of the aid that could be provided, or whether the target is considered inferior and, as in this case, backwards, uncivilized, and potentially hostile to one’s real intentions. Ben-Gurion spoke well, disarming his European critics, placating the antagonistic but manipulable Arab neighbours, yet ultimately saying nothing to the everyday Palestinian working and living in the villages and towns of the area he wished to control - other than what was spoken by the deeds of the Jewish militaries. Ben-Gurion was no saviour offering freedom and democracy, which is really above and beyond coexistence, as evidenced by informative quotes that Karsh simply decided to ignore. Ben-Gurion “clarified in his diary that settlement and, when circumstances would allow it, the transfer of the indigenous population would ensure the realization of the Zionist dream….For Ben-Gurion, land was everything.” [4] Early in 1948, he indicated, “If we receive in time the arms we have already purchased…we will be able not only to defend but also to inflict death blows on the Syrians in their own country - and take over Palestine as a whole….This is not a mystical belief but a cold and rational calculation based on practical examination.” Earlier, in 1937, before the holocaust added its impetus to the desire for Palestine, Ben-Gurion “demonstrated a clear stand: it was better that the smallest possible number of Arabs remain with the area of the state.” In 1947, before the UN General Assembly Resolution was adopted, Ben-Gurion spoke to the Executive of the Jewish Agency indicating “in the clearest possible terms that ethnic cleansing formed the alternative or complementary means of ensuring that the new state would be an exclusively Jewish one. The Palestinians inside the Jewish state…could become a fifth column, and if so ‘they can either be mass arrested or expelled; it is better to expel them.”[5] And finally on Ben-Gurion exclusively, he stated in a closed forum meeting, “With compulsory transfer we have a vast area [for settlement]...I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it.” [6] Other than perhaps it is against international law, against the will of the people, against common sense, and the means to the end is by way of massacres and demolitions, certainly gives another meaning to Ben-Gurion’s sense of morality, the Jewish overlord ridding himself of the pestilent, backward, and uncivilized and uncultured Palestinians. How neighbourly, how democratic. These are not statements extolling the virtues of peaceful coexistence, either with regional neighbours or within Palestine. New Historians and Others The new historians, as quoted above, were overwhelmingly Israeli academics and researchers availing themselves of both the newly released confidential government files as well as having direct access to the Palestinian population. Karsh’s condescending - and with a high probability, erroneous - remarks that the new historians were “[totally unfamiliar] with the Arab world - its language, culture, history, and politics - and their condescending treatment of the Palestinians as passive objects….” needs to be reflected in turn upon Karsh himself, as he appears to have viewed the whole spectrum of ideas through rose-coloured polarized laser narrow lenses. The few new historians quoted above are not the only few that have searched the records and examined the history of Israel from a new perspective such that the “saga of Israel’s birth” has been given a new critical perspective that reaches beyond the officially proclaimed propaganda. Beyond those of Israeli heritage are other academics who are able to look at the historical record and give it its proper perspective, not just for the events of 1947-8 but within the overall context of Zionist intentions from the nineteenth century onward. Avi Shlaim notes the “popular heroic-moralistic version of the 1948 war is the one that is taught in Israeli schools and used extensively in the quest for legitimacy abroad….Until recently this standard Zionist version of the events surrounding the birth of the State of Israel remained largely unchallenged outside the Arab world.” The “new historians” he indicates are not all that new as “Many of the arguments that are central to the new historiography were advanced long ago by Israeli writers, not to mention Palestinian, Arab, and Western writers.” His first example of the different interpretations concerns Ben-Gurion as being the driving force behind “the policy of expelling the Palestinians,” but follows with the note that these ideas are foreshadowed by Lieutenant-Colonel Israel Baer a former official historian for the IDF in 1966. Shlaim also indicates “Although many of the arguments of the new historiography are not new, there is a qualitative difference…” the difference being “access to official Israeli and Western documents.” [7] As for the role of the historian, Shlaim says, “the historian’s most fundamental task is not to chronicle but to evaluate…to subject the claims of all the protagonists to rigorous scrutiny and to reject all those claims, however deeply cherished, that do not stand up to such scrutiny. In my view many of the claims advanced by the old historians do not stand up to serious scrutiny. But that does not mean that everything they say is untrue.” From my perspective, as an analyst and advocate, that reflects back onto Karsh, who says much of what is true, but again has only viewed the spectrum of ideas through rose-coloured polarized laser narrow lenses - he saw only what he wanted to see. A Final Few Offerings… Up to this point I have concentrated on Ben-Gurion, as he was central to the whole expulsion/war process and is frequently referenced by Karsh as extolling the virtues of retaining the Arab population within some scheme of peaceful co-existence. Again a reminder that what political figures say to different other people can be many faceted, used to argue, persuade, dissimulate, obfuscate, manipulate but very rarely to provide a balanced honest view with an advocacy of a truly legal humanitarian goal. There is far too much evidence that Ben-Gurion, particularly during the period preceding the Arab revolt before World War II discussed frequently and strongly the need to expel the Palestinian population in order to avoid the demographic problem (which ironically plagues the current situation in Israel, especially if one incorporates Gaza as a de facto Israeli protectorate). To fully deconstruct Karsh’s arguments would involve a much longer article than the present one. The topics would still include more on Ben-Gurion, but also on other ideas that Karsh continually brings forth. But the overall themes, of Jewish acceptance and tolerance of the Palestinians, of Ben-Gurion’s advocacy of coexistence, and the “massive” military confronting the heroic outgunned Jewish settlers are all part of the canard that Karsh creates. Canard Karsh frequently uses the word “canard” to describe the historical record created by the new historians. The word itself is defined as “false report; hoax.” This does not mean that what is said is a “lie” as a false report or a hoax can be created by manipulation of data - omissions, insertion of hyperbole - “massive “ - conjectural statements - “ what ifs - maybe “true or not” - dissimulation - concealing and not acknowledging information - obfuscation (the use of big words to confuse the issue) - so Karsh is not accusing the new historians of lying, but of creating a hoax. The bigger hoax upon analyzing and evaluating Karsh’s work is his own attempt to “reclaim the historical truth,” whereas in reality he does what he accuses, “to substitute propaganda for incontrovertible facts.” Karsh does have “facts”, but used as propaganda - the two actually go quite well together when one is creating a hoax. The missing information, the hidden information, the complete and fully analyzed historical record supports the ideas as represented by the “new historians.” Betrayal One of the particular outcomes of this work is both subtle yet obvious - a nuance of the idea of betrayal. The Israelis have always claimed that there are no leaders to negotiate peace with. This problem started particularly with the brutal British repression of the Arab revolt of 1937-39 and continues through to the present with the few leaders that rise to the occasion being assassinated, imprisoned and tortured, expelled, or bought out to become quisling representatives of the Palestinian people. The message, not stated, is clear from Karsh: the Arabs cannot be trusted as they would betray their own kind - and if they would betray their own kind, how could one expect to negotiate a peace treaty with them now? When one’s leaders are continually done away with in one form or another, yes, it is certainly hard to negotiate with them. One could of course be more democratic and give the people of occupied Palestine a referendum on what they wanted for their own future - as if the answer is not already known. Karsh’s writing is a betrayal - a betrayal of truth, morality, and reality. Yes, the Palestinians were betrayed, yes they were betrayed by their own self-proclaimed leaders, but they were also betrayed by the presumption of Zionist moral superiority, by the British, the French and just about anyone else they came in contact with. That betrayal continues today, with the ignorance and arrogance of U.S. support for a militant, unforgiving, immoral occupation of a people who had little say in their own destiny as the imperial overlords fought to control and colonize their lands, farms, fields, towns, and villages, and to expel them in order to create a “pure” Jewish state. “Palestine Betrayed” is a hoax - one that speaks the truth, yet conceals much more than it reveals, and creates a ’neo-revisionist’ canard about the Palestinian expulsion. In his own words, “rather than unearth new facts or offer novel interpretations”, Karsh has “recycled the standard [Zionist/Israeli] narrative of the conflict.” By all means read it, but also read the sources referenced here and follow along with other sources cross-referenced within them. Notes: [1] Baroud, Ramzy. My Father Was a Freedom Fighter - Gaza’s Untold Story. Pluto Press, London, 2010. p 32-3.
[2] Pappe, Ilan. A History of Modern Palestine, 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006. p. 136.
[3] Cook, Jonathon. Blood and Religion - The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State. Pluto Press, London, 2006. p. 112.
[4] Pappe, ibid. p. 93-4.
[5] Pappe, Ilan. The Ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Oneworld Publications, Oxford, England, 2006. p.46-49.
[6] Morris, Benny. One State, Two States - Resolving the Israeli/Palestine Conflict. Yale University Press, London, 2009, p.67.
[7] Shlaim, Avi. “The Debate about 1948.” Ed. Pappe, Ilan. The Israel/Palestine Question - A Reader. 2nd Edition. pp 139-160. (For further readings, a list of book reviews is available at Palestine Chronicle (search: Jim Miles); or at www.jim.secretcove.ca/index.Publications.html) - Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle. Miles' work is also presented globally through other alternative websites and news publications. |
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Written by By Susan Abulhawa
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Saturday, 28 August 2010 08:06 |
2010 Palestinechronicle.com (Born to refugees of the 1967 Six Day War, Susan Abulhawa is the author of the novel Mornings In Jenin, the profits of which partly go to the children's charity she founded, Playgrounds for Palestine. She chooses five books about Palestine by Palestinian writers.) My Father Was A Freedom Fighter, by Ramzy Baroud This is a wonderful book. It’s a history book, a work of literature and a memoir. Ramzy Baroud is a political commentator and historian, the editor of the Palestine Chronicle and of a book called Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts Of The Israeli Invasion, about the events of 2002. He grew up in the Gaza refugee camp and is very familiar with the psychology of the people in the camps – to this day they’re holding out hope and still dreaming of going home. He captures this delightfully and his descriptions of place and people are just magnificent. Works like this are so important because, you know, when people write about Palestine it tends to be in dry, sterile prose. There is nothing dry about this book. Even though it’s non-fiction it is full of emotion and wonderful characters. I Saw Ramallah, by Mourid Barghouti For me, the language of this book is almost more important than the story, which is a moving account of Barghouti’s homecoming. He writes very much in the Arab tradition of poetry. He depicts a situation that so many of us in exile or living under occupation feel. Occupation interferes in every aspect of life and death, he says: “It interferes with longing and anger and desire and walking in the street.” But life goes on. I am in Palestine at the moment for the literature festival, and what I see among the young people is so humbling. Students from Gaza University tell us how they’re missing basic necessities, but mostly they’re starving intellectually and are desperate for books and knowledge. What they’re living under is so inhuman but they have such remarkable spirit. This is the untold story. For all these years Palestinians have been going on with their lives, getting an education, getting jobs, getting married, and dealing with this occupation as best they can. They go through checkpoint after checkpoint, roadblock after roadblock, one procedure after another, and yet they still live. That’s what is so often missing in the dominant mainstream narrative about Palestine and how Palestinians have been resisting passively for 62 years simply by going on, refusing to break or hate. In Search of Fatima, by Ghada Karmi This is another memoir, the story of violent uprooting and dislocation, presented in an intimate and very personal way. Fatima was the much-loved governess and nanny to the Karmi family, one of the wealthy Palestinian families of Jerusalem. Overnight, [in 1948 during the creation of the state of Israel] the family became penniless. They left their home, their furniture, pictures, food, everything. At that time Jewish families literally walked down the street and picked out the homes they wanted. The family ended up in Britain, and Fatima was left behind. They never saw her again. Ironically, the Karmis moved to Golders Green, a north London suburb with a prominent Jewish community. Ghada integrated fully and had Jewish friends. She gives an account of going to a Jewish friend’s house for a bar mitzvah or wedding or some such occasion, and the family raises the Israeli flag and sings Zionist songs. She describes how strange and shocking it was to see these people she loved raising the flag that flew over the demise of her family and country. You can imagine the emotional conflict yet it’s a very tender book. Palestinian Walks, by Raja Shehadeh No, this is not a guidebook. Actually, Raja Shehadeh is a walker but he’s also a lawyer living in the West Bank and a very unassuming, soft-spoken man. In this book he describes the walks he took in Palestine over decades, detailing the changing landscape. This is just one man who took all these walks, and the outward walks are symbolic of inner journeys. When there are places he can’t walk to due to the Israeli borders, he goes into himself and explores his own personal borders. His reflections on what he sees are gentle in their approach to describing an awful and harsh illegal military occupation. Shehadeh is a beautiful soul who has a way of talking about the politics without talking about the politics. Out Of Place, by Edward Said Edward Said has a very special place in my heart, as he does, I think, in every Palestinian heart. He was a giant of a man and I was gutted when he died. In some ways I thought he was bigger than life, bigger than death but of course he wasn’t. This is a very intimate book about his young life. His parents were domineering or distant, and he talks about always feeling stranded, left behind, out of place. This book resonates with me, not just because I absolutely love the man but because it mirrors a lot of my own feelings about being a diaspora Palestinian – you perpetually feel out of place, you never really have a sense of belonging, just existing in the winds wherever you are. (Susan Abulhawa was interviewed by Ruth Chatto. This article first appeared in www.fivebooks.com) |
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Written by Robin Yassin-Kassab,
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Tuesday, 20 July 2010 19:41 |
The Electronic Intifada, 3 March 2010
"From afar," writes Ramzy Baroud, "Gaza's reality, like that of all of Palestine, is often presented without cohesion, without proper context; accounts of real life in Gaza are marred with tired assumptions and misrepresentations that deprive the depicted humans of their names, identities and very dignity."
Palestinian-American author, journalist and editor of the Palestine Chronicle, Ramzy Baroud's latest book My Father was a Freedom Fighter is an antidote to the US, European and Israeli media's decontextualization and dehumanization of Palestinians. It's also an instant classic, one of the very best books to have examined the Palestinian tragedy.
As the title suggests, Baroud relates the life of his father, Mohammed Baroud. Each step in the story is located in a larger familial, social, economic and political context, one distinguished by eyewitness accounts and made concrete by an almost encyclopedic wealth of detail. But neither the book's detail nor its deep reflection conflict with its compulsive readability. It's quite an achievement.
Sub-headings such as "The World from the Train" point to Baroud's method. Inside -- in this case inside a carriage hurtling through Egypt's Sinai -- are Mohammed's immediate thoughts and feelings. Outside is a historically pinpointed setting which involves Cairo, Jerusalem and Washington as much as Gaza or the Egyptian desert. And the interpenetration of inner and outer worlds is accomplished to an extent that is rare in fiction, let alone in nonfiction. Describing the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada, Baroud writes of "a culmination of experiences that unites the individual to the collective: their conscious and subconscious, their relationships with their immediate surroundings and with that which is not so immediate, all colliding and exploding into a fury that cannot be suppressed."
Mohammed Baroud was born during British mandatory rule in the village of Beit Daras in southwestern Palestine. The British Mandate was supposed to guard Palestine's territorial integrity while tutoring the people for independence. Instead Britain promised Palestine to Zionism without proposing -- in the words of British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour -- "even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country." When the natives revolted, British forces bombarded their homes, detained them en masse, and demolished much of Jaffa's Old City. Britain also organized and armed the joint British-Zionist Special Night Squad as well as the Jewish Settlement Police, which had a base in the settlement of Tabbiya, which neighbored Beit Daras.
For Mohammed Baroud's village -- near the airport through which the notorious Czech arms consignment was delivered, helping to tip the balance during the 1948 Palestine War -- had great strategic importance. On 21 May 1948, Zionist forces from Tabbiya (who had been taught to farm by their Palestinian hosts) and elsewhere bombed women and children fleeing the besieged village, killing 265. But Beit Daras held out until July, when its remaining inhabitants fled to Gaza and Hebron, clutching property deeds, keys and cloths full of earth from the village.
Ramzy Baroud's account of the Nakba, or the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland in 1947-48, is brilliant and painful. He describes the chaos on the strafed and shelled roads, "some people carrying on with a great sense of urgency, others wandering aimlessly, in a daze," bloated or blown-up corpses littering the way, and shoeless feet bleeding, mothers screaming for lost children.
In what would become the Gaza Strip's Nuseirat refugee camp, the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) provided bread and water. Later the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, brought tents. Later still the refugees built mud and straw shelters. Mohammed, overshadowed at home by his elder brother and uncomfortable in the poverty-stricken and claustrophobic conditions of the camp, now jumps a train to Egypt. In the first of a series of attempts to find strength and fortune outside, he spends a year teaching the Quran to Bedouin children.
Back in Gaza he joins the Egyptian army, writes to and receives a reply from the idolized Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, perches in a tree to read Russian novels, and falls in love with Zarefah, an illiterate refugee who has worked in a textile factory from the age of eight. It takes Mohammed several years as an ointment seller and quack healer in Mecca to earn the dowry.
He survives Israel's massacre of 1,200 Gazans during the 1956 Suez War. He survives the June 1967 War, in which discarded Soviet rifles confronted "American hawk missiles, West German Patton battle tanks and French Mirage fighter jets." Three years later, he survives then Israeli General Ariel "The Bulldozer" Sharon's "pacification" of Gaza by "shock therapy," during which the Israeli forces executed and deported young men and destroyed 2,000 houses in August 1970 alone. Mohammed joins the Palestine Liberation Army, because after two decades in the camps the refugees had come to believe in independent, armed action. He becomes part of the National Leadership Committee in 1978 and calls for civil disobedience. Mohammed and Zarefah also supply hunted fighters with cigarettes, food and blankets.
My Father was a Freedom Fighter details a life that is unrelentingly harsh. Pregnant Zarefah lives on weak tea and garlic soup. Mohammed and Zarefah's first son dies of a high fever, of poverty really. Later Mohammed sells carpets in Ramallah and buys scrap metal in Israel, but the siege imposed during the first Palestinian intifada, as well as Mohammed's unusual decision to send his daughter to study in Syria, plunges the family back into penury. Zarefah dies aged 42.
Ramzy is first named George, in honor of George Habash, the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and also as a statement against Muslim-Christian division. As a boy, the author Ramzy collects used bullet cartridges and tear gas canisters, all marked as manufactured in the US. He experiences the thirsty boredom of curfews and runs with the boys who fire marbles by slingshot at helicopter gunships. One day he and his brothers are lined up, as were so many Palestinian youth, to have their limbs broken. The Israelis get as far as asking, "Which hand do you write with?" before they are seen off by the screaming, fighting women of Nuseirat.
Then comes come the Oslo accords of the mid-1990s which according to Mohammed were "the best-timed disaster that had ever befallen Gaza." Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres share the Nobel Peace Prize with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat. The PLO dies so the elitist, collaborationist Palestinian Authority (PA) can be born. PA police forces persecute political opponents and fire on unarmed anti-Oslo demonstrators. Mohammed, now separated from his children by checkpoints and oceans, digests news of "a Palestinian massacre committed by Palestinian police," and understands that he will die a refugee. Mohammed "both feared death and wished for it often, contradictions that were not unique to him, but shared by most Gazans."
Mohammed is proud of the partial victory that removes Israeli colonies from the Gaza Strip, and despite his "fragile religious beliefs," he votes enthusiastically (in January 2006) for Hamas and its "culture of resistance." When the Hamas government clamps down on an attempted Fatah coup, the siege of Gaza is made absolute. Aged 70 and dangerously asthmatic, Mohammed has no power for his oxygen pump, no clean drinking water and no medicine. Israel refuses him permission to visit the West Bank for medical care and to see his sons.
Mohammed's death, though related without any sentimentality, made me weep. The good news is that, even separated from his family, he didn't die alone. Thousands of people attended his funeral, "oppressed people, who shared his plight, hopes and struggles." This solidarity echoes that of Beit Daras during the series of assaults in 1948, when the village "lived its most communal time. Men shared all, and women cooked for all." The hero of the book, before Mohammed, is the Palestinian people.
My Father was a Freedom Fighter is an invaluable social history of this people. It charts the Muslim Brotherhood's influence on Gaza from the 1930s, the ferment of new ideologies in the 1960s, the rise of a class society and also of Palestinian-led nationalism, and then the reawakening of the Islamic movement in the 1970s and its evolution to armed struggle. The book examines the continual struggle between Palestinian masses and co-opted elites as well as between Palestinians and Israel. It recounts endlessly repeated assassinations, demolitions, expulsions and massacres, but the overall picture is one of a people growing stronger, or at least less fearful, because Mohammed Baroud's was the generation which moved from being intimidated and idealistic to being clear-sighted and self-assured.
By putting his father at the center of his narrative Ramzy Baroud takes us a step into novel territory. The reader not only understands Mohammed's position cerebrally, but can also fully identify with the resistance choices (sometimes inevitable) which Mohammed makes. This is because the character, though attractive, is an unidealized and entirely solid human being. For instance, Baroud doesn't shy away from showing Mohammed's violence unleashed against Zarefah during a fit of depression and anger induced by the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt. The same Mohammed refuses to move from his damaged and dangerous home in the Nuseirat refugee camp because from its window he can see his beautiful wife's grave.
Mohammed, like his people, is both flawed and heroic. Both Mohammed and his people know this: "The simple refusal to surrender [is] the most poignant form of resistance of all."
Robin Yassin-Kassab has been a journalist in Pakistan and an English teacher around the Arab world. His first novel, The Road from Damascus, is published by Hamish Hamilton and Penguin. He blogs on politics, culture, religion and books at qunfuz.com. |
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Written by Robin Yassin-Kassab,
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Tuesday, 20 July 2010 19:36 |
The Electronic Intifada, 26 April 2010
Edward Said was one of the great public intellectuals of the 20th century -- prolific, polymathic, principled and always concerned to link theory to practice. Perhaps by virtue of his Palestinian identity, he was never an ivory tower intellectual. He never feared dirtying his hands in the messy, unwritten history of the present moment. Neither was he ever a committed member of a particular camp. Rather he offered a discomfiting, provocative, constantly critical voice. And against the postmodern grain of contemporary academia, his perspective was consistently moral, consistently worried about justice.
Said was primarily a historian of ideas. More precisely, he was interested in "discourse," the stories a society tells itself and by which it (mis)understands itself and others. His landmark book Orientalism examined the Western constructs of Islam and the "East," as depicted by Gustave Flaubert and Ernest Renan, Bernard Lewis and CNN. Said's multi-disciplinary approach, his treatment of poetry, news coverage and colonial administration documents as aspects of one cultural continuum, was hugely influential in academia, helping to spawn a host of "postcolonial" studies. Said's Culture and Imperialism expanded the focus to include Western depictions of India, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, and the literary and political "replies" of the colonized.
Edward Said died in 2003. His friend Eqbal Ahmad -- who wrote one of the excellent introductions to The Pen and the Sword, published this year by Haymarket Books -- died in 1999. This book -- a collection of five interviews with Said conducted between 1987 and 1994 by David Barsamian, the founder of Alternative Radio -- serves partly as a memoriam for Said himself and for the generation he represented.
Two of the interviews concentrate on the dual role of culture in propping up and deconstructing colonial oppression. There are illuminating discussions of Camus, V. S. Naipaul, Joseph Conrad and Mahmoud Darwish, amongst others. Said proclaims the importance of "writing back" to imperialism, and most specifically to Zionism by "telling the story of Palestine." He examines the obstructions to the airing of this story in the West, as well as the contradictions of Zionism's "dominant narrative." Said understood that anti-Palestinian propaganda was not merely a pragmatic tactic for Zionism but central to its epistemology and sense of itself. Significantly, he exposed the connections between Western anti-Arab racism and European anti-Semitism.
Two interviews focus on Said's criticisms of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). According to Said, the leadership lost touch with its people after Israel drove it out of Lebanon (and thus the eastern Arab world) in 1982. The PLO's upper echelons became "bourgeois, ideologically dependent on the US." With the disastrous 1993 Oslo agreements the PLO transformed into "the only liberation movement that I know of in the 20th century that before independence, before the end of colonial occupation, turned itself into a collaborator with the occupying force."
Said demolishes Oslo's substance -- the PLO's implicit abandonment of UN Resolution 194 (which declares the right of Palestinian refugees to repatriation and/or compensation) and thus its desertion of the majority of Palestinians, who live in exile, in return for the "limited self-rule of the residents of the West Bank and Gaza." And he demolishes Oslo's style, down to chairman Yasser Arafat's infuriating "thank yous" on the White House lawn -- "the 'nigger mentality,' the white man's nigger, that we are finally arrived and they've patted us on the head and we've been accepted and can sit on their nice chairs and talk to them."
In a 1993 interview Said calls for a democratic reestablishment of the PLO as a unifying body. "We want," he said, "a Palestinian census in every country where a Palestinian resides in order for there to be assemblies of Palestinians. Our problem is dispersion and representation." Seventeen years later, though the crisis is even more urgent, this call has not been heeded.
Said himself was criticized by some for his "bourgeois humanistic approach." Said had worked since the '70s for a two-state solution and therefore recognition of Israel, and resisted a blanket boycott of Israelis, meeting frequently with peace activists. He understood the struggle as one between two peoples, two voices, two stories. Another thinker may have slid from here into an amoral, ahistorical liberalism in which both sides possessed equal claims and Palestine became "contested" rather than colonized territory. But Said didn't follow this trajectory -- he was too concerned with history and principle. What infuriated him most about Oslo was the erasure of Palestinian memory that it represented, the silencing yet again of the Palestinian narrative.
Certainly there were contradictions in Said's positions. He understood the connection between the Palestinian cause and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, a movement which resisted the notion of bantustan "homelands" for blacks as much as it resisted white supremacism, yet he still supported an unjust ethnic partition of Palestine. To his credit, he was always honest enough to recognize these contradictions. He was keenly aware, for instance, of the tensions between his backing for a mini-state and his abhorrence of narrow nationalism. He emphasized "the plural, the multicommunal aspect of Palestine ... the intersection of many communities and cultures."
By the end of his life, Said resolved many of the tensions by advocating a single, binational state. The shift is not visible in these interviews, but the elements underpinning it are. Said tells Barsamian that he first joined the PLO on the understanding that "we were not interested in another separatist nationalism ... we were talking about an alternative in which the discriminations made on the basis of race and religion and national origin would be transcended by something that we called liberation ... That, it seems to me, is the essence of resistance. It's not stubbornly putting your foot in the door, but opening a window."
It is disappointing that Haymarket Books didn't provide better copy editing of The Pen and the Sword. To pick only the worst examples, "Arafat" becomes "Ararat" (a mountain in Turkey), "pied noir" becomes "pied notre," and "hijra," the Arabic word for migration, becomes "hyra." But the editing is my only quibble. In these valuable interviews we observe a great mind working through knotty problems with humility and discipline. We are reminded too of Said's lessons for the pro-justice movement in the West. While Arafat set great store on buying jewels for Hillary Clinton, Said recommended addressing Palestine's story to "the media, the universities, the churches, the minorities, the ethnic groups, the associations, the labor movement." The fact that this work has now begun is the greatest tribute to Edward Said and will perhaps be his greatest legacy.
The Brooklyn-based performance poet Suheir Hammad put it to me very well in Palestine. "We've lost Said and Darwish," she said, "our towering figures, but thanks to them we now have tens of public intellectuals, writers, musicians, filmmakers at work. It's a gain, not a loss."
Robin Yassin-Kassab has been a journalist in Pakistan and an English teacher around the Arab world. His first novel, The Road from Damascus, is published by Hamish Hamilton and Penguin. He blogs on politics, culture, religion and books at qunfuz.com. |
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Written by By Stefan Christoff
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Tuesday, 13 April 2010 03:20 |
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| April 12, 2010 http://www.rabble.ca/news/2010/04/injured-continue-suffer-gaza Thousands across Gaza live with severe injuries: youth war amputees, mothers severely burned by phosphorus bombs, countless Palestinians coping with physiological wounds, all injuries stemming from the disaster wrought on Gaza by the Israeli military assault in the winter of 2008/2009. And war injuries remain a consistent reality in 2010. "Every night, even last night, Israeli warplanes bombed Gaza," said Muawiya Hassanein, director-general of ambulance and emergency services for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, in an interview from Gaza City during the recent strikes. "Many were injured... there are serious injuries and those people are being treated right now at the European Hospital in Gaza." Serious injuries in Gaza and no major media headlines around the world are a common pattern, with violence normalized, death or injuries regularly inflicted on civilians there virtually ignored.
Constant war injuries are having a devastating impact, with many youth attending school in Gaza with missing limbs, or with shrapnel embedded in their bodies, injuries resulting from ongoing Israeli military violence against the civilian population. "Many in Gaza have physiological trauma and need support," Hassanein said. "Thousands of children have serious trauma or are living with critical injuries that impact their lives, their education, their families and most importantly their dreams for the future, and no Israeli [officials] have been held accountable for these war crimes." As headlines across the world buzzed over moves to push forward a "peace process" in the Middle East, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to the AIPAC convention, affirming unwavering political backing from the Obama administration for Israeli government policy of besiegement on Gaza, relatively little media attention was drawn to the sustained physical and sociological suffering stemming from Operation Cast Lead. In contrast, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon openly expressed "solidarity" with the people of Gaza during a visit to the territory, condemning the ongoing Israeli blockade as causing "unacceptable suffering" for the Palestinian people. Despite political appeals from the highest international levels to end the siege, Israeli authorities continue to collectively punish the 1.5 million Palestinian people in Gaza, leading to a growing humanitarian crisis in a place that John Holmes, the U.N. under secretary general for Humanitarian Affairs, called "a large open-air prison." Medical solidarity in Gaza As Israeli missiles fell on Gaza in the days after Christmas 2008, Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor, flew to Egypt with diplomatic backing from Norway, in order to enter Gaza and provide emergency support to Palestinian medical services tending to the disaster. Direct accounts from internationals on the ground in Gaza on the bombardment are limited as Israel moved to cut-off access to Gaza throughout Operation Cast Lead. International reporters, activists and aid workers were barred from entering the Palestinian territory. Thus it was an exception that Gilbert entered Gaza with political support from the Norwegian government, who negotiated his access with Egyptian authorities. Gilbert was but one of a handful of internationals who made it through during the Israeli bombardment.
This firsthand account detailing the Israeli assault on Gaza was the focus for Gilbert's recent university lecture tour throughout North America. Over a year since the Israeli bombardment, Gilbert focused not only on massacres unleashed on the people of Gaza during Operation Cast Lead but also on the ongoing Israeli airstrikes and sustained social trauma stemming from serious injuries of war. "The losses for families are extensive, painful and long lasting, you never forget that your child was killed by a human hand," said Gilbert in an interview during a visit to Montreal. "This was not a natural disaster, this was not a tsunami or an earthquake, this was a 100 per cent manmade disaster, pre-planned and executed in the most meticulous way by Israeli commanders under the leadership of the Israeli government." Gilbert's firsthand accounts from Gaza, largely based on experiences working at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical center in Gaza, is clearly rooted in principles of international solidarity, articulated by a medical doctor who first experienced an Israeli onslaught during the 1982 siege of Beirut, tending to war wounded in the Lebanese capital when over 10,000 civilians lost their lives. It is the humanity of Gaza that Gilbert focuses on, providing direct accounts on tragedy from a medical perspective, like the Samouni family, who lost 29 members to Israeli attacks according to multiple human rights investigations. In conveying his experiences, Gilbert focuses on the resilience of Gaza's people, outlining a common refrain, "[they] don't need our pity, but our solidarity and support." Beyond the moving details on the struggle for life waged by the hundreds of wounded and dying Palestinians passing through Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza last winter, Gilbert also focused on the sustained impacts of the Israeli besiegement policy that today receives little international attention. "All children in Gaza are traumatized by the ongoing siege," he said. "The long-term impacts of wounds inflicted on the Palestinian survivors in Gaza are painful to live with, because war wounds are physically painful and the rehabilitation resources in Gaza are quite limited due to the siege." "So for young children with war wounds and physiological trauma, it is extremely important to return to normal life, to go to school, to see their friends, to find some sort of reality after the mayhem of the Israeli onslaught," Gilbert continued, "but due to the ongoing siege stunting is increasing among children, malnutrition is rising, widespread anaemia, all this from a manmade hunger and malnutrition, enforced by Israel with the full support of the U.S. -- How can we accept this in 2010?" Ongoing Israeli besiegement of Gaza Beyond widespread condemnation of Israel's recent moves to construct new colonies in East Jerusalem, little institutional political outcry has been focused on the ongoing military siege of Gaza, a mass imprisonment of 1.5 million people in a tiny Mediterranean territory, coordinated by the governments of Egypt and Israel. Water supplies in Gaza are increasingly scarce, over 80 per cent of water available is below the minimum quality standard as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) and recently the Gaza Coastal Municipal Water Utility stressed that unless urgent action is taken the supply of water fit for human use in Gaza will be depleted in five-to-10 years. Under the siege on Gaza, constant electricity cuts by Israel have lead to inconsistent power for sewage treatment plants, while key industrial parts needed to treat contaminated water are barred from entering the territory. Slowly, open-air sewage lakes are steeping into Gaza's underground aquifers; five Palestinians were killed after a sewage treatment pool collapsed in 2007, flooding a village north of Gaza City. Gaza's landscape is shaped by war, many buildings destroyed last winter by Israeli missiles last winter remain in ruins, while social infrastructure is increasingly unstable, key materials for educational institutions are blocked from entering under the siege, food supplies remain consistently low, malnutrition is widespread. Thousands in Gaza tending to war-related injuries are a constant reminder of the unhealed wounds, both individual and collective, stemming from Operation Cast Lead. "Child amputees, people in wheelchairs have become a norm in Gaza, it is something that you see on a daily basis, people are suffering," said Palestinian activist and academic Haidar Eid in an interview from Gaza City. "[In March] in Gaza we commemorated the 1,000 day of this illegal siege that blocks people from receiving basic medical treatment, we are facing a policy of collective punishment, illegal under international law." "In past years, the international community has done nothing concrete to force Israel to lift the siege and to end the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza," said Eid.
"The international community should force Israel to lift the siege through sanctions, and act decisively against the Israeli government in the same manner that the world acted against the apartheid regime against South Africa in the late 1980s, through economic sanctions and political isolation." Samar Aldaghma, a Palestinian journalist and mother currently studying in Montreal, survived the Israeli military bombardment and in conversation on Gaza quickly focuses on the impacts of the siege on Palestinian war wounded. "So many people had serious burns after the Israeli bombing, actually third-degree burns, also some people have serious infections from these burns," recounts Aldaghma. "All the surgery and antibiotics necessary to treat such wounds aren't widely available in Gaza due to the siege, thousands of wounded living right now in Gaza Strip can't access necessary treatment because they are living in the biggest prison in the world. "Many with amputations, those who lost a leg, an arm, an eye, unfortunately can't access artificial extremities. Many children who are seriously injured actually feel [too] ashamed or shy to go to school, say, with one hand. So many children become depressed, although their families and communities generally are giving so much moral support -- special awards for youth with war disabilities are common at local schools." Gaza, global media and action Headlines on Palestine are generally focused on politicking in the halls of power, on theatrical storms between political leaders in Tel Aviv and Washington. Lost in the media buzz are the recent wave of Israeli strikes on Gaza and the ongoing social impacts of the Israeli siege. "Lack of international media coverage [on] the latest air strikes impacts the overall scene of the Gaza Strip," says Rami Almeghari, Palestinian writer. "At a time [when] Gaza continues to suffer from [the] ongoing Israeli blockade and frequent Israeli army attacks, the world media has diverted attention from the conditions here." Attention on Gaza today is critical, and moving the spotlight away from a political "peace process" that until now only provides diplomatic cover for Israeli apartheid is key. Lack of attention on Gaza, argued Almerghari, "relieves Israel [from] the pressure that is amounting [from] the U.N. Human Rights Council's condemnation of Israel for atrocities in Gaza in January 2009." As international solidarity activists gathered from around the world in Cairo this past winter for the Gaza Freedom March, an attempt to collectively breach the Israeli siege via Egypt, global attention was drawn briefly to the besiegement, although the incredible grassroots effort to enter Gaza was eventually blocked by Egyptian authorities.
Stemming from this march was the historic Cairo Declaration, issued in response to the ongoing siege, and providing a platform for global action in solidarity with Gazans. As the siege on Gaza continues and in anticipation of an international day of action to support the global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign on Palestinian Land Day, the Cairo Declaration provides clear points on which to continue to build the growing global movement in solidarity with Palestine.
Stefan Christoff is a regular contributor to rabble.ca and is a member of Tadamon! Montreal. Stefan can also be reached by clicking here. |
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