www.phr.org.il catid=42& pcat=42& lang=ENG

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What I Did on My Vacation

What i did on my Vacation

I lost all faith in the Peace Process.


It hurts.

A soveriegn Palestinian Nation is falling further and futher away, locked behind walls, settlements, closure, economic and spacial strangulation of a nation.
International Aid is Morphine.

Everyone sees what is happeneing, most admit it when directly questioned.

"what can we do?"
get the f-ck out, everyone get the F.ck out.

The time for Palestinians to act was 2 years ago.
Everyday it becomes harder and harder.
It may already be too late, if it isn't yet it soon will be.

"UNRWA's job is to maintain a berable level of utter misery"
"In 10 years the muezzin will call from the masajid of Gaza, 'go to the wall, take back falasteen' and Israel will gun down 100,000 palestinians. No nation can survive that."

Thats our hope?
THAT?

over 50 years of misery, and subservience. and this is what you tell us will happen in ten years?
THAT is our hope for the future?

We wait for miracles. They plan for an impossible future rather than the unavoidable one.
Mobile Blood Banks, Trauma centers, Armored Ambulances, barricades, tank trenches would be planning for the future.
not f.cking hotels and casinos.
A meuseum in Beit lahem? there's a f.cking WALL around beit lahem.
Not a wall.
A wall is a "heit" a wall is 8 by eight and holds up your roof.
This is a Jadar, a Jadar Cuts up a nation, and holds down a civilization.


Ignorance is bliss, there was no mistake that in christian theology it was the fruit of the tree of knowledge that condemed man.

Say good bye to Qalqylia, say good bye to Jenin, say good bye to nizlit issa, Nur Shams, Iktaba... salam...




Pray for Palestine.


I have to come back. There will be another fight very soon.
50 % of the population is younger than 18.
40% unemployment, nearly 60 in gaza and 30 in al-Daffa.
Israel continues to push, to strangle.
Even a complete opening of the borders between Urdun and Masr would not help. They face similar population pyramids, and their unemployment, while not as bad, is not that much better. Even with open borders how could they support an influx of Palestinian labor so large? It would drop wages in all the countries and their regimes will topple.
Assuming they don't do as they did in the past and just slaughter Palestinians themselves.



Gaza will run out of resourses soon. The PA is out of money by the end of this month.
The infrastructure is all Aid dependant.
All the projections read "conflict".

My head hurts, my heart hurts.

Pray for Palestine.

_____________________________


Like So Many Suger Plums


Like So Many Sugar Plums

The last 15 days have been exhausting.

Up at dawn and all day bussing or walking to meeting after meeting after meeting.

7 hours with UNRWA, then another 3 with ICRC.
the Red Crescent dudes take us on a tour, OCHA ( idon't even know what that stands for) and UNESCO and UNSCO and ANERA and USAID, and ECF etc etc etc

the alphabet soup of aid, the lords of poverty, conflict junkies, development diplomats, ex-military, lawyers looking for a challange, bleeding haerts, agenda driven political animals or Missionaries in Disguise.

what a mess. The alphabet soup of UN aid. the EU, and the US.
we met with 2 of the Wolfenson quartet.


the last 15 or so days have been long and tiring. i am exhausted.

i feel quite beaten down. tomorrow i face checkpoints again, but this time i won't be using the Harvard name, the Bruderlien wasta, the white blue eyed yanks in the front of the bus to allay the suspicious paranoid adolescent with the gun.

It'll be me and the Taxi.
nothing will happen, i know this for fact. we'll get stuck in the slow lane at the checkpoints, i may take Kandalya on foot if i decide not to wait for the taxi itself to pass.
i've done it before, no biggie.

but i am tired. i don't want to see another Jundi or Jeysh. I despise the wall and all it stands for.
the Settlements and the state of Israel full of blinding racism and arrogant self-rightousness.

The underlying principal of their existance is their racism. pure, dripping and lethal as cyanide.
The Leftists, Shatsburg, burn in hell, and the "suffering and reconciliation" assholes where by far the worst.

The right wing may be vile evil snakes, but they don't hide it in the least. they do not apoligize for it, and they don't pretend that they are your friend.
the Demographers never even blinked when they went through the demographic bomb, nor did they look ashamed when they explained that Israel's Jewish majority is only extant because of mass forced expulsions. They admited freely and openly that they incite Palestinian civilian population by sending in partrol outside of schools just as the kids are getting out, by opening tunnels under Al-Aqsa.
They admit it and couldn't care less for your opinion.

The Leftists are just as racist, and much more dangerous. To pretend that occupation is a normal state of affairs, to suggest that prison is a learning experience for palestinians, "friendly checkpoints" and teaching israeli occupation solders about human rights. ???? you baztards. you coat poison with honey so that reasonable people will willingly eat it. you offer occupation with a consiounce? you justify the checkpoints, the closures and incursions and suggest we find a way to make them more palatable to the Palestinians?

f.ck you guys, this is not normal, we don't want fluffy f.cking checkpoints, get the f.ck out. A reasonable checkpoint is only reasonable to the f.ckers doing the checking. We are not your slaves b.tches, we want our freedom not golden chains.

making sure solders allow ambulances to pass after only a "short wait" is a f.cking crime, not a favor. so get off your smirking self-congratulatory ideologies and get the f.ck out of my country. Back to Poland b.tch.


the situation has gone well past absurd, and pretending this is a normal state of affairs makes is just blind ignorance. working with an illusion as though it was real is a fools game. Israel has never wanted a Palestinian state, everything it does proves that, why on earth is the multinational community pushing for this when Izrael gets veto power in the form of Appache Helicopters and American Made Missles?

what a joke.

this entire effort is the definition of absurd " link
see? right here it says so, look at the Philosophical definition, that applys to every development NGO superstar, every international and Ex-pat.
the entire point of their existance is useless.

they are not so stupid as to not know this, but are criminally negligent for contineuing this farce at the cost of the lives of Palestinians. Are they still chidlren to mistake their sugar plum dreams for reality? a free palestine may be dancing in their heads but it's shackled to the ground in the real world and they are standing on it's back congratulating themselves for being such good and jolly fellows.
assholes.
planning for the future? development? micro-finance? MICRO-F.CKING FINANCE?
are you kidding? GAZA is a F.CKING PRISON. and you are giving people 500 shekel loans to buy parsley? You KNOW it's a prison, if your intnetion is to build a Prison economy just say so, who are you fooling? surely not yourself you economist from geneva, who do you help by pretending to build a nation?
Not Palestine thats for damn sure. You make things worse, leaving the people in an opium feuled haze so they don't realize that the land is being chewed up by American Bulldozers.

Take your mind numbing opium and get the f.ck out. reality may be horrible and harsh, but we gotta deal with it right now, cause if we don't it will be too damn late.

It may already be to damn late.

i feel like i spent 2 weeks on call.


i am tired and miserable, my heart has been beating faster, and i am not hungry. my fight or flight reflex seems to be working well enough, but i can't rev it down, and there is nowhere to run to.

frustration and anger. inner-rage.


i'm so tired of all this mess. Alhamdullilah i'm done with the meetings, done with the racists and the smirking solders. every last one of them is a settler, from the river to the sea.

Inshallah anyone but Fatah wins a landslide in the next few days. and they take the aid and throw it back at the donors and tell them to get the f.ck out.

Declare an indipendant Nation, and tell the Israeli's to get the f.ck out and take their settler assholes with them.

knock down that f.cking wall. free the prisoners, and redifine the game.

of course that won't work. no money, no indipendant infrastructure, no tax-collection and services, no monopoly on violence, no contigeous border and no control over it.

those 5 things are the very definition of a state, and they don't just happen after a declaration.
if they did i would declare independant statehood rightnow and exempt myself from taxes, clearly not an option.

but they could go hands off.

they could shut down the entire west bank and Gaza and state "we aren't playing anymore, f.ck this, you want to annex it, annex it, we aren't your pawns anymore"

would israel annex it? f.ck no, that alone would topple their racist state. The Palestinians would automatically gain majority statius, their zionist ejaculate of a state would crash and burn.

they would demand the PA, whomever that turns out to be, come back.
and the PA could demand a new set of rules to the game.
because right now Palestine is playing two man ping-pong against israel who uses full contact American Football. the palestinains are forced to continue to wave their little paddles as they get tackled repeatedly.

Israel wrote this book and changes it at a whim, the Palestinians have to realize that they can't win under these conditions, they have to redifine the game.


It's getting so close to being too goddamn late.


dammit i am so tired. i still have to right out my "planning for the future paper"
and what am i gonna right about?

get ready for war?
i don't think thats what they want to hear.
but if i don't then i'm doing the same thing thats enraging me about the drug pushing aid comunity. Seeing reality and pretending it doesn't exist. Working with our dellusions becuase we like them better than the realty that is as clear as the Israeli Tank that is parked outside.



plan for the future?

get ready for a conflict. 3rd times the charm? maybe it'll finally stick.


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No more whips and no more chains
To live free or die is what remains
If life is too short either way
You might as well live free today
All for one and one for all
We'll board the ship and make the call
Join us, all you good men
And have your liberty again
Watch the crew now leave their captain frying
As they come sail with the black flag flying ....


If I could predict the future then I would
But all I know is this is good
1720 is the year
And there is nothing left to fear
We may live or we may die
Perhaps our destiny is nigh
I don't know what the future may hold
But I know these ships are filled with gold
That was stolen from the poor as we lay dying
So let us sail with the black flag flying



-David rovics, "black flag flying"

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Hometown

Hometown

PAlestine gets the most international aid per capita per year in the world, had for years
it gets developing nation aid, when it's acutally a middle income nation.
The problem is that people here, the aid guys, are running with a book called OSLO and don't realize that israel is not reading along with them.

it was a series of well intentioned mistakes, aid helps alot of countries, and if it wasn't for relief aid a lot of people would die.
but not in Palestine.
Aid is our Opium, we are the welfare whores of the world.

I got to my hometown, and life here is good.
It could be worse, it could be better, but it ain't bad
everyone is talking elections, people are voting what they think rather than family lines, and everyone wants to vote.
"Sawit" from the root of "sound" they are sounding out. fatah support is erroding. i've never seen so many green flags.
the town down the road, amazingly enough, is still flying the red People Front flags.
Hamas supporters are everywhere, they where unseen as recently as 6 months ago. now the poor district is green. the beat up cars, the tractors, even the gold merchants. hamas.
the chirstians in Silwat? hammas. even Bir Zeit university, a Christian university, the hamas flags rise like so many evergreens.

it's amazing.
people are campeigning like mad apparently democracy is here, lets see what the poeple who loose do.

good sportsmanship? concession speaches? or violent actions? no se... que cera cera

2 days ago, i sat with my family and went through the Pali info i learned. showed them maps, showed them numbers.
explained everything as best i could. explaining demography is easier than i thought it would be.
they are convinced hamas is the way to go now. though i didn't say that. I don't know where to go from here. I do know the system is broke, time to fix it. Are the greens the guys for the job? the indpentants are running a strong ticket too. Fatah has a spectrum in itself. i can't predict what anyone will do. and it's very likely thingswill get worse befroe they get better. and i said as much. my uncle was a fedae, dropped out of school in the states when IZ invaded Lebnan to join in the fight. he says even if it gets worse, we need to try something. he's got 6 boys, and i saw him wrestling with the two youngest ones. it was the cutest thing. cause he was letting them win then he pretended to get his head hit and was holding it pretending to cry and saying "come look come look!" the boys came and he kissed them.

it was adorable. it was normal. it was life. and it goes on.

i'm still worried, and i still think Aid in Palestine is opium, strings and smoke and mirrors.
i told my grandpa, and my uncle what i know, and they where going fatah, but now they are going hamas, and they've been spreading the word.
i am apparently the spearhead of an election campaign, if hamas takes 35% of turmosayya, i'll send them a bill for my services. we're such a strong fatah group that we've had fatah ministers from out town, and the road in has a fatah symbol.
we'll see where this goes. i'll be here for it. i'm off to ramallah, want to watch the elections, wave a flag.

i've lost all hope in the peace process, but i haven't lost hope in Palestine. in my uncle, in my cousins, in my people.

We still need a miracle, no doubt. But palestine has a long history of producing miracles.

wish us luck and pray hard for us.

salam.


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Crowing Green



The elections are over.

Significance yet to be determined.
Any person who watches what goes on in falasteen knows that when hope raises it's proud head an isreali sniper gets it right between the eyes.

Today the people where extatic. In Ramallah, where i spent a few hours, then back in Turmosayya where i ended the day. People where out in force, everyone, every color, men women and children.

Turmosayya, a longtime Fatah stronghold has had a sisemic shift in political leanings, i'm gonna arrognatly take some credit for this situation, although since i've been here all of two days prior to the elections i don't know how valid a claim i have on it.


Still though, most of my clan went green.
My grandfather, a guy with significant local wasta, and my uncle, who's got a pretty influencial voice in his own right, spearheaded a change of political affiliations. And man did they spread the word. They canvassed in a way that would have brought a tear to a high priced campeign managers eye.
in it's own right an amazing thing to see.

The Ustaz said it best, "when did all of al-kook (the rooster; my clan) become hamas?"

who knows. when i got into town 2 days ago the green banners where already flying.
Like so many evergreens in the long cold winter of occupation. They rose, and with them they symbolized hope, and perhaps a rebirth of a nation not too far off.

This all remains to be seen of course, to get into ramallah i did have to pass an Israeli checkpoint "manned" by the usual surly adolecent. And at the juncture is a spanking new outpost being guarded by the usual racist gun totting hooligan claiming his divine right to malign an entire people because some early 20th century asshole thought it would be a good idea.

Wether this election turns out to be a farce will be seen sooner rather than later. the EU and US have stupidly backed themselves into a legislative corner by putting Hamas on the legal "no-go" list. These guys are going to be major players in the government, the numbers aren't in yes but the trend is clear, Fatah is no longer the only game in town.
It would be a blessing for a significant aid cutoff, the Aid situation in Palestine is better represented by a crackdealer-junky relationship than anything else. dependancy is the least of our problems at this point, the problem is that our dealers are asking us to do them "little favors" and we invariably get it in the azs for our troubles. Painful, Humiliating and demeaning all at once.
we loose more and more of whats ours, and the world looks, shaking a fistfull of cash at us and tells us that we've been bad boys and now have to give them our textbooks to make sure we aren't teaching our kids to hate the guys who broke into their home and shot their uncle the night before.

Hey world, some things, you don't need to teach, people just know.

The election, like everything that the israeli's have a hand in, is more disengenious than it first appears.

The vast majority of Palestinians in Occupied Jerusalem had to vote in the west bank, a way of suggesting that Occupied Jerusalem is not in fact part of the west bank.
The refugee's in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan have been entirely ignored. thats nearly half the population that where not given a voice in this "democratic" process that is theoretically choosing their representatives.
How odd it must be to be a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon right now. Able to look over some barbed wire and still see your home, and knowing that you have no political voice at all. Can't vote in Lebanon, Israel or Palestine. What does that make you?

Palestinian refugee, and israel tells you you can't vote in Palestinian elections. and of course, the world agrees. f.cking hypocrites. You want a representative palestinian government then let the Palestinians vote assholes. theres a disconnect here. there is absolutely no reason they should be barred from participating, other than if Israel lets that happen all of a sudden there's another 5+ million Palestinians, and it already doesn't know what to do with the 4+ it's didn;t manage to scatte to the winds.

For some reason kowtowing to Israel is like an olympic event, where every nation tries to be the best, and, of course, America almost always wins. Just like the Olympics.
When the Arab nations proposed their peace deal with Israel in 2001, Israel didn't even acknowledge its existance, and therefore, unsurprisingly, neither did anyone else. no one even thought to suggest Israel consider it.
Stupid assholes. So we get the god damn raodmap? parallel implementation? open ended negotiations on the refugees and east jerusalem? the Wolfenson Quartet?
now you are trying to force Palestinians to make even more concessions to the Israeli beast, even as it rips off huge chings of land and pumps our aquifiers dry?
God damn internationals suck. Get the f.ck out you useless bastards.


Some of the people running are currently shacked behind bars in israeli prisons, and every person who is taking part are in a larger version of the same prision, complete with guards, informants, walls and gun turrets.
The spiritual head of Hamas, and hte political head of the PFLP where both sent to their graves thanks to Made in America Appache Helicopters with complementary missles.
"Apache" Helicopters being used to force a native population into ever smaller enclaves of their original homeland....
killing their leaders, their children and their hopes.

The insults don't stop coming from these assholes.



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Children of Jerusalem
by David Rovics

This song has elicited a wide variety of response, both positive and negative.
Did you see them praying
And the Army marching in
As they clubbed old women
Did you see the general grin
Watch the stones fly
And the snipers taking aim
On Shatila's birthday
It's a calculated game
They're gunning down the children of Jerusalem

Did you hear the screaming
See the horror on his face
As he hid for cover
In a tiny, unprotected space
Did you hear his father pleading
"There is a child here"
Trying to protect his son
Who yelled in terror and in fear
That they're gunning down the children of Jerusalem

Did you feel the wind blow
From the helicopter blades
Did you smell the tear gas
See the demolition raids
Did you see the rockets
And the dum-dum bullets fly
Did you feel the horror
To watch one more young boy die
As they're gunning down the children of Jerusalem

Did you see the roadblocks
Letting nobody go past
Watch the blood flow
As time is running fast
See someone's brother
Taking his last breath
So close to the hospital
But closer still to death
And they're gunning down the children of Jerusalem

Did you hear the fatcats
Say "It's not what it appears
"It's an armed uprising
"A realization of our fears
"Do you hear them chanting
"That this is their homeland
"They want what's ours
"And we've got to make a stand
"So we're gunning down the children of Jerusalem"

Some want power
And it seems the world's theirs to give
Some just want peace
And a decent place to live
Some talk of destiny
And what their God has willed
And a mother weeps
That her nine-year-old's been killed
They're gunning down the children of Jerusalem

-David Rovica, Al-Awda, the return
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