الله هو أعظم

Who says Palestinian resistance is dead?

2012-02-04T17:01:00.000-08:00

Tahrir Square, Cairo, May 2011.
(Ahmed Asad / APA images)

For decades, Palestine was the focus of nearly every protest in the Arab world. It was the acceptable outlet of frustration for almost every regime in the region, the bone they would throw their frustrated masses. But it was also the vehicle for mobilization and a training ground for political organizing that became useful for activists later on.
To be clear, none of this is to say that much of the emotion and solidarity was not genuine; most often, it was very much so. However, protests for Palestine or against Israel were also instances of populations of Arab countries projecting their own dissatisfaction in a politically “safe” way in light of the repressive nature of the regimes under which they lived.
Recently, while trading stories with a Syrian friend about protests, she recalled that her first protest as a child had been one for Palestine — in fact most of the protests she had participated in or witnessed growing up as an Arab living in the West were about Palestine. I nodded and smiled, not at all surprised. The reality is that Palestine, for better or worse, was the issue that most Arabs — both living in the Arab world or in their respective diaspora communities — spent a majority of their lives protesting.

Adding to the spark

Today in the region, a new culture and spirit of protest is thriving — and it is not one cloaked in one issue projecting onto another. It’s direct, it’s forceful, and it’s brave. These uprisings have been as much, if not more, about people exerting ownership over their own lives and communities as it has been about toppling dictators. It is a myth, and quite frankly disrespectful, to the hundreds and thousands of dissenting leaders and youth who helped build the foundation to these uprisings to discuss them as if they were born out of thin air.
Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and others might not have been exploding in revolt for the past three to four decades, but that is not to say there hasn’t been a constant string of imprisoned, beaten, tortured, killed, or disappeared that laid the kindle for the fire to come.
However, what is particularly interesting is that what is happening in Palestine today is a sort of role reversal, and if you haven’t been paying attention, you’ve probably missed it altogether. The Arab uprisings across the region are serving Palestinian youth in much the same way solidarity with past Palestinian intifadas served activists and populations in Arab countries.
Nowadays, it is Palestinians who have been projecting their own frustrations through solidarity protests. Similar to the case of Arabs protesting about Palestine, it is not as though the emotions are not genuine; they are. However, the protests are serving a much bigger function and one more emblematic of dissatisfaction with the current situation of Palestinian resistance politics than of a simple solidarity with Arab brethren rising up.
The division between Fatah and Hamas, an unsuccessful September statehood bid, a flailing Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leadership, a return of unpopular negotiations with Israel, and a sharp increase in home demolitions and arrests of Palestinians by Israeli forces has left the activists in a state of decentralized bewilderment regarding where to start and who, if anyone, can or should lead. But every new project is a part of a new conversation and bit by bit activists on the ground are chipping away at a comprehensive approach.
Just as protests for Palestine, and in the last decade, for Iraq, served as a training ground for young activists across the Arab world learning lessons on political mobilization, so too have the respective revolution solidarity protests in the West Bank and Gaza. For example, the March 15 movement’s End the Division campaign had a practice round with confrontational Palestinian Authority security forces — protests held in solidarity with Egypt one month earlier.
Palestinians took to downtown Ramallah’s Manara Square in November to once again stand in solidarity with Egyptians protesting the military regime at a time when Fatah and Hamas were scheduled to meet in Cairo with General Hussein Tantawi. Most recently, it is Syria that has garnered the youth’s focus and since this summer, two solidarity protests for Syria took place in Manara Square.
Some of the same activists who helped publicize and lead the charge for the solidarity protests are spreading their wings to more local matters, and for the third week in a row headed to protest in front of the presidential compound, the Muqataa, against the PLO returning to negotiations with Israel.
Some have mistakenly condensed their analysis and questioning regarding Palestine and the uprisings by asking when Palestine will join the “Arab Spring,” or when will we see a third intifada. But asking this question reflects a fundamental misunderstanding with the nature of resistance in Palestinian society and the role of its intifadas in the collective consciousness of most Arabs.

An ongoing intifada

First of all, yes, we are undeniably not in what we consider a formal intifada, but resistance in Palestine is not limited to a traditional understanding of intifada. It is a constant state of being and a struggle which goes through phases of organization depending on numerous factors; it is a dynamic evolution based in a long history of a community regrouping and redefining the form and language of its resistance.
Just as Arabs in the region spent the decades of supposed “quiet” by building and learning, Palestinians, and especially Palestinian youth, are regrouping and reconfiguring. If you think resistance in Palestine is dead, you have not been keeping up whatsoever.
No one watching the coverage of the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and other countries could help but recall images of the first Palestinian intifada — young boys standing in front of armored vehicles, unarmed and defiant. But jumping from emotional connections and imagery of popular uprisings to assuming that a wave of revolution would sweep Palestine displays the application of an outdated analysis to both what will spark a “third intifada” and what it will look like.
For Egyptians, the sheer magnitude of protests on 25 January 2011 — and indeed that it happened at all — was a rupture in their existing imagination. (Of course Tunisia was a rupture in everyone’s imagination of what was possible.) They most definitely built on that rupture, ran with it, and have been pushing forth since. And while the Nakba Day protests in May made for an amazing moment, it was not a rupture in Palestinians’ imagination even close to comparable to that of what was happening in the rest of the region.
The days of one single event sparking a mass movement in Palestine have passed. In today’s entrenched occupation, weak political leadership, growing dependence on state donors and nongovernmental organizations, and general fatigue amongst many Palestinians, the third intifada, if termed that, will not look like anything we’ve seen and neither will its beginning.
We are going to have to retrain our eyes and imagination to recognize the images of the so-called next intifada in Palestine because it will not ascribe to any nostalgic longing for the image of uprising. Palestinian solidarity protests with the uprisings are only one of a dozen examples (the March 15 unity movement; the May 15 Nakba Day actions; the Palestinian Freedom Rides; the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement; diaspora voter registration for the Palestinian National Council) of a slow, but steady restrategizing and shifting consciousness in youth and activist communities.
The third intifada might indeed contain many of the characteristics of its first predecessor. But if the diversity and creativity present in the foundation being built today is any indicator, its beginning will take us by surprise, not because it will be sudden, but because it didn’t look like a beginning at all.
Nour Joudah is an MA candidate in Arab Studies at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and is currently conducting research on the role and perception of exile politics within the Palestinian liberation struggle. She also blogs at isdoud.wordpress.com.

Why is the BBC so afraid of the word "Palestine"?

2012-02-04T16:57:00.000-08:00

Aza Raskin / Flickr

This week, the BBC issued its final ruling on a controversy which has been raging for nearly a year after the words “Free Palestine” were censored from a freestyle rap played on Radio 1Xtra.
Appearing on the popular Charlie Sloth Hip Hop M1X last February, the artist Mic Righteous performed a rap which included the lyrics: “I can scream Free Palestine for my pride/still pray for peace.”
BBC producers replaced the word ‘Palestine’ with the sound of breaking glass and this is the version that was aired and which can be seen on a video on the BBC website (the censorship occurs at 2:59).
The edited performance was repeated in April on the same show.

BBC upholds censorship decision

Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has spent the last eight months trying to find out why the decision to censor an artist who raised the issue of Palestine was made.
During the course of a long correspondence, the BBC’s head of editorial standards for audio and music, Paul Smith, wrote that the show’s producer “did not edit out the word ‘Palestine’ because it was offensive — referencing Palestine is fine, but implying that it is not free is the contentious issue.”
In that single sentence, a senior BBC executive revealed the BBC’s complete disdain for the Palestinians and their suffering, and its shameful disregard for international law when it is being broken by Israel.
The United Nations is clear in its recognition of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land, and UN Resolution 242 calls for the withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank and Gaza. The chant “Free Palestine” is basically shorthand for the same demand.

It is obvious why Israel, the occupier, would want to silence calls for a free Palestine, but not so clear why the BBC feels the same. PSC’s attempts to find out, backed up by a concerted campaign of pressure from members, resulted on 31 January 2012 with the BBC’s ruling that it had been “overcautious” in making the edit but that the final content broadcast on the Charlie Sloth show had not been biased and therefore did not breach its editorial guidelines.
And so this taxpayer-funded public broadcaster evaded our accusation that it had displayed bias against Palestine through its censorship of an artist’s work, and instead defended itself by saying that the final content, from which the word “Palestine” had been removed, was not biased against Palestine.
It is a level of manipulation and duplicity that would not be out of place in Joseph Heller’s novel of self-contradictory, circular logic, Catch 22.

Artists speak out against censoring Palestine

The musician and political activist Lowkey, who has made regular appearances on the Charlie Sloth Hip Hop M1X, said of the BBC’s decision: “This censorship sets a dangerous precedent for the future of the BBC, where it seems people are free to criticize any state in the world, even their own, but not Israel. Moreover, it seems you are free to recognize the plight of any group of people in the world, apart from Palestinian people. One can only wonder why.”
Lowkey was one of 19 artists, MPs, academics and lawyers who signed a letter to The Guardian newspaper on 23 May 2011 protesting the edit as “an attack on the principles of free speech” (“Palestine on the BBC”).
The film and television director Ken Loach was another signatory, and he also condemned the BBC’s final ruling this week, accusing the corporation of making “a perverse, political judgement.”
He added: “The BBC’s bias towards Israel is consistent, relentless and has been clearly documented by the Glasgow Media Group in Bad News from Israel and More Bad News from Israel. One small example: when Palestine was admitted to UNESCO, Radio 5 Live’s news bulletin in the afternoon had one interviewee to comment. Guess what? It was an Israeli. No Palestinian was allowed to speak. In general, the Palestinian voice is not heard.”

Palestinian voices missing from flagship BBC program

The absence of the Palestinian voice from the BBC’s considerable output is glaring. Even more so when compared to the frequency with which Israeli government ministers, opposition leaders and spokespersons are invited to air their views.
The Today program on BBC Radio 4 is promoted by the BBC as being its flagship news and current affairs program. Broadcast daily except Sundays, it is widely acknowledged as setting the political agenda for the day.
In the 12 months from February 2011 to February 2012, Today conducted at least six in-depth one-on-one interviews with Israeli spokespersons, including Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, and Tzipi Livni, the leader of Kadima, now Israel’s opposition party which previously led the government and ordered Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s 2008-09 massacre in Gaza. There was also an interview with the outgoing Israeli ambassador to London in June 2011 and with his successor three months later.
The outstanding characteristic of each interview is that the BBC’s heavyweight journalists, including John Humphreys and James Naughtie, both famous for their aggressive interviewing style, conducted them without challenge or interruption. Moreover, the interviews focused on the issues of “Israel’s security in the light of the Arab Spring” and “the threat of Iran.” Israel’s aggression towards the Palestinians and its daily violations of international law were not considered topics for discussion.
In that same period, not a single Palestinian leader or spokesperson was accorded a similar one-on-one interview on the Today program. While Israelis were interviewed, on average, once every two months, the Palestinian viewpoint was simply not sought.
This culture of promoting the Israeli perspective while denying the same rights to the Palestinians was vividly highlighted during the three day visit of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to London last month. Abbas met Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the principal leader of the Church of England, to discuss the Jordanian-backed peace talks.
During a press conference with Abbas, Clegg condemned Israel’s West Bank settlements and described them as “an act of deliberate vandalism” to peace negotiations.
Yet on the Today programme, and across the BBC, it was as if Abbas’ visit had never happened. The BBC’s self-proclaimed flagship news and current affairs program made no mention of it over the three days he was in London, it found nothing newsworthy to report on from the press conference with Clegg, and there was certainly no long, uninterrupted interview with any Palestinian figures, despite this being the ideal opportunity to seek their views.
Even more incredibly, on the first day Abbas was in London, the Today program not only ignored him, but chose instead to interview Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who happened to be in Manchester, for a full six minutes during which he wasn’t challenged on any of Israel’s well-documented violations.

Palestine “does not exist”

This is all shocking enough, but it doesn’t end there.
In the same letter in which he disputed the occupation, the BBC’s Paul Smith went on to say: “Palestine does not exist at the moment … ‘Palestine’ refers to a historical state or an aspiration.”
According to BBC journalists who have spoken to PSC, this is the BBC’s unofficial policy on “Palestine” and hence the desperate attempts to keep the word out of its broadcasts. An exception, they say, will be made during the Olympics when reporting on the efforts of the Palestinian competitors.
But this does not go far enough. In November, PSC wrote to the BBC to ask why Canon Giles Fraser, the recently departed Canon Chancellor of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, had been allowed to say he was visiting Israel during a report for the Sunday program when, in fact, the towns he visited were Bethlehem and East Jerusalem — both in the occupied West Bank.
We received this reply: “He didn’t refer to going to Palestine because at the moment there is no independent state of Palestine. The aim of the peace process is to establish a state of Palestine alongside a state of Israel but until this happens many people prefer not to use the word.”
So there you have it — as far as the BBC is concerned, Palestine is a dirty word. It’s controversial and using it may offend people who deny its existence.
Who benefits from the erasing of Palestine from our news reports? The same people who benefit from the BBC’s complete failure to place news events from the occupied territories in the context of occupation, blockade, house demolitions, land theft, arbitrary arrest and trial of civilians, including children, in military courts, the destruction of farmland and olive groves by settlers, air and land attacks and much more. The same people who benefit when the BBC consistently invites Israeli spokespeople onto its programs to voice their fears for Israeli security, without mentioning the daily terror of the Palestinians under occupation.
The result is coverage which is incomplete and misinformed at best and complicit in an illegal occupation at worst. Frighteningly, it is produced and broadcast by a media organization which commands the lion’s share of the audience in the UK and has a worldwide reach.
And, in the time of the Arab uprisings, when the BBC is covering the struggles of millions of people for freedom, its greatest shame is that it remains committed to editorial practices that make Palestine invisible.
Amena Saleem is active with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in the UK and keeps a close eye on the media’s coverage of Palestine as part of her brief. She has twice driven on convoys to Gaza for PSC. More information on PSC is available at: www.palestinecampaign.org.

"We won’t be silenced," say students arrested over Peres boycott call

2012-02-01T17:40:00.000-08:00

Khalil Gharra (www.arabs48.com)

Three Palestinian students at the College of Engineering in Jerusalem (JCE) have been put under house arrest for a week and instructed not to contact any of their peers for using the social media website Facebook to urge a boycott of a speech by Israeli President Shimon Peres.
A couple of weeks ago, students received a message from the college authorities, notifying them of a visit by Peres scheduled for 10 January. The message emphasized that attendance during Peres’ speech was “compulsory.”
Three Palestinian students then posted on the college’s Facebook page that they would not attend the speech and asked others to follow suit. In response almost all the Palestinian students of the college boycotted the speech.
Following the event, the three students who urged the boycott were called for an interrogation at an Israeli police station. They were accused of threatening other students, as well as racism. They were then put under house arrest for a week, outside Jerusalem, and were instructed not to contact other students.

“Intense debate”

Khalil Gharra, one of the three targeted students, told The Electronic Intifada, “There was an intense debate on the Facebook page of the college’s first year students between students who rejected the college’s policy regarding the compulsory attendance of Peres’ speech and others who supported it.”

He added, “The debate revolved around the commitment of the students to the decision of the college, and around how the college should not be forcing students to attend a lecture delivered by a ‘political symbol.’ This act contravened the students’ freedom of expression. Within this context, I expressed my opinion, saying that I wouldn’t attend the lecture. And I advised others to do the same.”
Gharra added that another debate is now taking place on Facebook regarding the punishments that the police imposed on him and his friends. He said that many Palestinian students have protested over the case, and have expressed their support for the targeted students.
Referring to his interrogation, Gharra said: “An officer from a police station in the Talpiot area in Jerusalem contacted me more than once and asked me to go immediately to the police station to be interrogated in a case that I knew nothing about. I refused to do so as these kind of invitations are illegal. The next day I received a printed invitation to my room in the students’ dorms.”
According to Gharra, the letter stated, “If you do not arrive to the station immediately, we will come and arrest you in the late hours of the night.”
At the station he was told that he was accused of threatening behavior and of incitement to racism. Ghara said, “I denied all the charges against me. Later the interrogator consulted other interrogators and officers who are in charge of the case, and he decided that I should be deported from Jerusalem and that I’m not allowed to contact any student till 25 January. Moreover, he decided to put me under house arrest until 21 January.”

“Political persecution”

Ghara argued that this specific case should not be viewed separately from other restrictions on Palestinian student activism in Israeli universities. He said, “It’s clear to me from the investigation’s course that the case is about political persecution. However, they won’t stop us from our political activism. I won’t bend to the policy of repression that the police and the intelligence are practicing on Arab students. Our activism is legal and it’s our right to organize and express our opinion.”
Alaa Mahajna, the students’ lawyer, also argued that the case is not criminal but political. He said, “The students are suspected of threatening and incitement to racism following Shimon Peres’ speech. However, Peres is a controversial political figure, some consider him to be responsible for murdering more than a hundred innocent people during the Qana massacre [in Lebanon] in 1996, when he was the prime minister of Israel. The argument about whether to attend or boycott the speech was conducted through the public sphere — Facebook — where everyone could express his or her opinion. As a lawyer, I don’t see any legal basis for the suspicions against the students.”
“These legal actions are part of the whole process of political persecution, which aims to shut down the voice of the Palestinian students in Israeli universities,” he added.
Palestinian students in the college are organizing a petition to express their support for the targeted students, emphasizing their right to protest.
Moreover, the Palestinian students association at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem released a statement condemning the violation of the right to free expression. The association also confirmed the importance of boycotting Israelis who are involved in war crimes, referring to Peres’ role in the Qana massacre.
Yara Sa’di is a postgraduate student and activist from Haifa.

Study: Israel "retaliates" to Palestinian "provocation" in UK press

2012-02-01T17:33:00.000-08:00

British press more often than not describe Israel as retaliating to Palestinian attacks. (Mohamed Al-Zanon/MaanImages)

A new study by Arab Media Watch demonstrates a strong tendency in the British press to represent Israel as “retaliating” in coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The study, the first to investigate this aspect of British press coverage of the conflict, examined a period from January to June 2008. It found that when the British press represents a party as retaliating or responding in the conflict, that party is Israel 72 percent of the time. The tabloid press showed a particularly marked bias, representing Israel as retaliating in 100 percent of all representations of “retaliation.”

Among broadsheets, The Independent portrays Israel as retaliating in the highest proportion at 80 percent, followed by the Times at 68 percent, the Daily Telegraph at 67 percent, and the Guardian at 59 percent. Not a single newspaper, and only 20 percent of reporters and columnists, portrays the retaliating party as the Palestinians more often than Israel.
Among reporters and commentators, only 20 percent portray the retaliating party as the Palestinians more often than Israel. Of those reporters and commentators who write frequently on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and who represented a party as “retaliating” at least five times in the period under study, only Rory McCarthy in the Guardian portrays the Palestinians as retaliating more often than Israel (71 percent of representations). The others portray Israel as retaliating more often: Toni O’Loughlin (Guardian and Observer) 86 percent, Donald Macintyre (The Independent) 75 percent, James Hider (Times) 70 percent, and Tim Butcher (Telegraph) 58 percent.
The study also provides a graphical and statistical representation of the types of actions portrayed as “retaliatory” and reveals that the British press gives short shrift to the idea that Palestinian violence might itself be “retaliatory.” Israeli actions of a military or otherwise violent nature are framed as retaliation in 50 instances in the period under study, compared with only 21 instances of Palestinian violence.
Similarly, the British press rarely portray Israeli violence as a “provocation” or as provoking “retaliation.” Instead, Israeli violence tended to be portrayed as “retaliation” three times more often than it was portrayed as “provocation.” Israel’s February to March 2008 Gaza offensive was portrayed as retaliatory in 19 instances, but was portrayed as provoking the Palestinians in only six instances. Apart from the Gaza offensive, Israeli military or violent action was represented as retaliatory in 31 instances, but was represented as provoking Palestinians in only 10 instances.
The blockade of Gaza, described by UN special rapporteur Richard Falk as a “crime against humanity,” was given comparatively little coverage as a “provocation” to Palestinians. However, Palestinian rocket attacks were portrayed as a provocation to Israel over five times more often than the blockade was represented as a provocation to Palestinians. Forty-one years of occupation were portrayed as a provocation to Palestinians on only one occasion, and settlement building on two.
The discrepancy is most apparent in representations of rocket attacks by the Palestinians. Israel is represented as retaliating to, or being provoked by, rocket attacks in 52 instances, comprising 63 percent of all Israeli retaliations and 45 percent of all retaliation representations. This is four times the 13 instances in which rocket attacks are represented as retaliations.
This study demonstrates that the British press rejects a narrative of “occupation and resistance” in covering the conflict, but also largely rejects a “cycle of violence” narrative in which both sides are portrayed equally as initiators. Rather, the British press has adopted the Israeli narrative in which Palestinian violence constitutes “aggression” to which Israel “reacts.”
This underlying framework for understanding the conflict remains unquestioned, even where large numbers of Palestinian civilians are killed by Israeli “retaliation,” and it causes debate and potential criticism revolves around the “proportionality” of Israeli action.
This pattern of reporting tends to place the blame for even “disproportionate retaliation” on the Palestinians, because it allows Israel a “defense of provocation.” Indeed, the study revealed that there was even an instance in which the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians was portrayed as a “policy option” open to Israel “in response” to provocation.
These trends were very much apparent in the coverage of Israel’s most recent invasion of Gaza. Blinded by the media blockade on Gaza, the British media nevertheless continued to perpetuate a narrative in which the Israeli operation, which killed more than 1,300 Palestinians, was a “response” to rocket attacks.
Consistent with the findings of the Arab Media Watch study, rocket attacks were the focus of the coverage, while the 18-month blockade was given comparatively little coverage, both as a violation of the cease-fire and as a factor in provoking rocket attacks.
Similarly, the Israeli raid of 4 November 2008, which killed six Hamas militants, was rarely mentioned or identified as the reason behind the renewal of rocket attacks, which had almost completely ceased by October 2008 (when only one mortar and one rocket were fired).
The results of the study also confirm similar tendencies in newspaper coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to those found by the Glasgow University Media Group in its study of BBC and ITV television coverage of the second intifada. That study found that Israel is shown as retaliating three to six times more often than the Palestinians.
A similar study of US network news coverage by the organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found that the nightly news shows of ABC, CBS, and NBC represented Israel as “retaliating” in 79 percent of instances, while Palestinians were represented as retaliating in only nine percent of instances.
Download the full report [PDF]
Shipra Dingare is an adviser to Arab Media Watch and is the author of the group’s new study entitled “The British Media & ‘Retaliation’ in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”

New documentary presents shallow view of Arafat

2012-02-01T17:29:00.000-08:00

“What would you sacrifice for what you believe in?” This is the tagline to a recently-launched 80-minute biopic of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the first in a series of documentaries entitled The Price of Kings, from London-based filmmakers Spirit Level. The series claims to “reveal the sacrifices made by some of the world’s most influential, controversial and powerful leaders,” offering “unrivaled access to the protagonists and close family members at the heart of modern history.”
In the case of Yasser Arafat, the filmmakers’ prize interviewee is his widow Suha. Her recollections start with childhood memories of Israeli military curfews imposed on her home city of Nablus, when the army was searching for “Abu Mohammed” — the guerrilla Arafat under one of his noms de guerre.

She states that “he got married with me and had a daughter but he was really married to the cause” and gives some accounts of Arafat’s behind-the-scenes reactions to major events in Palestinian history, ranging from the 1982 massacres at Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon to the various negotiations of the 1990s. Finally, she delivers a tearful description of the 4am phone call to her dead husband’s Paris bedside.
Suha Arafat’s testimony is backed up by more politically informative interviews with Palestinian figures including Palestinian Authority minister Nabil Shaath, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine spokesman-turned-Arafat-advisor Bassam Abu Sharif, and Fatah stalwarts Jibril Rajoub and Husam Zomlot.
Israeli voices include President Shimon Peres (the subject of Spirit Level’s second film in the series), former director-general of the foreign ministry Uri Savir and major peace movement figures Uri Avnery (founder of the organization Gush Shalom) and Arik Ascherman (of Rabbis for Human Rights). Guido Demarco, the late president of Malta and a frequent player in Eastern Mediterranean politics, also gets his two cents’ worth.

Personal portrait or political analysis?

The combination of Suha Arafat with the rest of these interviewees exposes the two main problems with this documentary. Firstly, is this a personal portrait or a political analysis? And secondly, does it seek to give a critical assessment of Arafat’s record, or to deliver a reverential hagiography?
On the first point, the film delivers a number of personal reflections on Arafat — that of Suha, plus early memories from Nabil Shaath of Arafat in his student activist days. Shaath describes Arafat’s “charisma … he was attractive to people” — a characteristic also dwelt on in Shafiq al-Hout’s recent memoirs.
Uri Savir, one of the lead Israeli negotiators in the early days of the Oslo process, notes that his first encounter with Arafat was with a man “as afraid and as cynical as I was.” However, the preponderance of political figures among the interviewees means that any genuine personal insights are far and few between.
So, too, are in-depth political analyses. Much of the narration comes from a middle-of-the-road Western liberal position, nodding its head to Palestinian rights but intoning ponderously that “Attacks [in the 1970s] cast doubt on whether the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] wanted a peaceful resolution.”
Arafat’s continuation of talks with the Israelis after Uri Savir and deputy chief of staff Amnon Shahak refused point-blank his call to remove all settlers from Hebron in the wake of extremist right-wing Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein’s 1994 massacre in the Haram al-Khalil (Ibrahimi Mosque) is portrayed by the narrator as “perseverance” in the face of internal opposition.
Coverage of the second intifada features little information on Israeli invasions and human rights abuses, instead concentrating (predictably) on the phenomenon of suicide bombing.

An unsatisfactory critique

Regardless of the political viewpoint from which the film appears to come, the rather haphazard approach to facts hamstrings its ability to offer a useful historical and political narrative. Fatah spokesman Husam Zomlot, for example, is the main voice on the early history of the movement, giving no context to the founding of the PLO or the existence of other factions in the Palestinian resistance.
Arafat, we are told in the 1970s section of the film, was “now based in Lebanon,” but despite comparatively-protracted footage of the passenger planes at Dawson’s Field, we are never told why the Palestinian resistance movements had to leave Jordan. And a decade later, a viewer new to the subject would be forgiven for thinking that only Arafat, rather than the entire resistance, was driven from Lebanon. The massacres at Sabra and Shatila are mentioned — but the perpetrators go unnamed.
On the one hand, the film doesn’t go into enough depth to satisfy a viewer with a good grasp of Palestinian history and politics, but on the other it assumes far too much background knowledge for a general audience. Who, then, is it intended for? Visually, meanwhile, the film packs in all the cliches of current documentaries on Palestine — Israel’s wall in the West Bank, flying doves, galloping horses and children in refugee camp alleys.
As for the second issue — that of the extent to which The Price of Kings critiques Arafat’s record, and why — the outcome is again unsatisfactory. Suha Arafat, of course, delivers an emotional portrait of a man devoted to his cause but nevertheless loving towards his wife and child. The majority of the Palestinian speakers are members or former members of the Palestinian Authority, mainly from Arafat’s Fatah faction. Opponents of his negotiations with Israel are barely mentioned, or hover on the sidelines as “extremists.”
PA minister Hanan Ashrawi’s criticism of Arafat’s use of corruption and nepotism to control West Bank politics is the only proper attempt to grapple with the issues thrown up by his leadership. In the final minutes of the film, the level of analysis is that of statements such as “the greatest sacrifice is self-sacrifice for a cause” from Jibril Rajoub, Suha Arafat’s “he gave us a place where we can bury our dead” and Guido Demarco’s assertion that “as people united, as a nation, it was Yasser Arafat who made [the Palestinians] believe.”
Husam Zomlot, meanwhile, claims that in “every guest room in the West Bank” there is a photograph of a family member with Yasser Arafat. This leaves it almost entirely to Israeli voices such as Shimon Peres to criticise the best-known leader of the Palestinian people — surely a serious mistake from anyone attempting to make a serious documentary on this subject.

Lack of context, depth

The result of this confusion of aims and objectives is that, while The Price Of Kings: Yasser Arafat delivers an interesting selection of interviews and footage, the whole is less than the sum of the parts. The rather shallow research and analysis is revealed in the narration, for instance when Arafat is described early on as being intent on “returning to Jerusalem and the land he grew up in.” Yasser Arafat spent about four years in Jerusalem as a young boy, living with an uncle after his mother died. The bulk of his childhood was spent in Cairo — but that doesn’t sound quite as dramatic.
The failure of this documentary to probe into its subject in any real depth also leads to some controversial remarks being left unchallenged. Suha Arafat, in a move to distance her husband from accusations of “terrorism,” claims that Fatah’s 1960s raids across the Jordanian border only ever attacked Israeli military targets and that any missions against non-military targets were carried out by “other factions.” The historicity of this claim — or the fact that it falls straight into the trap of accepting Israel’s characterization of armed resistance as “terrorism” — is left unquestioned.
No context to the early armed struggle is given; the whole of the 1960s, ranging from the establishment of the Palestinian resistance factions and the PLO, the 1967 war and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, is skipped over in a few brief references to the foundation of Fatah, immediately followed in the narrative by Arafat becoming chairman of the PLO.
The failings of this film are a pity. It is rare to see major interviews with Palestinian figures such as Ashrawi, Shaath and Suha Arafat — the filmmakers obviously have been given good access to major names in Palestinian politics. Uri Avnery’s account of his role in a tank unit during the Nakba is an illuminating challenge to claims that Palestinian refugees were free to return after the establishment of the State of Israel. And some of the footage of Arafat himself, dating back to the 1960s, including an interview in which he states that he was to become an engineer in a State of Palestine with Jerusalem at its center, and wishes to “return to the world as a civilian,” is fascinating.
But in the end, the components have been poorly formed into a documentary whose purpose is unclear. It is a sadly wasted opportunity.
Sarah Irving is a freelance writer. She worked with the International Solidarity Movement in the occupied West Bank in 2001-02 and with Olive Co-op, promoting fair trade Palestinian products and solidarity visits, in 2004-06. She is the author of the Bradt Guide to Palestine and co-author, with Sharyn Lock, of Gaza: Beneath the Bombs. She is currently working on a biography of Leila Khaled, due out in summer 2012.

I saw Sabra hummus for sale at my high school cafeteria and decided to act

2012-02-01T17:24:00.000-08:00

Boycott Sabra hummus flyers at DePaul University.
(Shirien Damra / The Electronic Intifada)

While walking through the salad bar in my school’s cafeteria a couple months ago, I noticed Sabra hummus for sale. It may look harmless on the surface; however, that could not be farther from the truth.Sabra hummus has become the target of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement because its mother company, the Strauss group, materially and financially supports the Israeli military.
When I saw Sabra on my school cafeteria shelves, I felt a lot of pressure to do something to get the product off my school’s shelves or at least convince my school to offer an alternative brand.
Not knowing where to start, I approached the lunch lady who works in the salad bar and explained to her the link between Sabra and Israel’s human rights violations. She told me she had already heard that Sabra supports the Israeli army human rights violations as a result of the Students for Justice in Palestine’s campaign at DePaul University in Chicago. She added that Sabra hummus was on backorder, meaning that she could not receive any more for the time being anyway, and that she would simply not order any more of the product. I was shocked at how easy ridding our cafeteria of Sabra hummus was.
I was mistaken. When I went back to school the next day, the cafeteria worker told me to provide her with proof of Sabra’s links to the Israeli military for her boss to see.
In a way, I was relieved and looked at it as an opportunity to talk about and bring up Palestine to my classmates. As soon as I got home, I pushed my homework aside and started working on two hefty portfolios with all the information necessary — one for the cafeteria staff and one for just in case.
I tried to stay positive, but I could not help but think about the possibility that my school may not listen to me, a 15-year-old. It certainly did not help that I had relatives who repeated over and over that I might as well give up and not try because, according to their expertise, nobody ever listens to Palestinian activists. That attitude is not going to free Palestine, I snapped back at them, and continued printing out sheets of paper.

“This is for Palestine”

I dropped the portfolio off in the cafeteria workers’ office and walked away. Shortly after, I was called down to the principal’s office, which was expected, but it was still the most nerve-wracking walk I have ever taken in my life — what was around three minutes felt like three hours.
The principal was sitting in his chair, flipping through the portfolio that I dropped off in the cafeteria office. The moment I sat down, all of my worries and doubts washed away. “This is for Palestine, I am not going to blow it,” I thought to myself. I calmly explained to him that Sabra’s mother company, the Strauss group, unashamedly brags about its links to the Israeli military’s Golani and Givati brigades, which have committed appalling human rights violations.
My school’s principal was shocked that a brand so widely sold is linked to atrocious human rights violations and asked me what my solution was, and what move our school should take. I told him about how DePaul University responded to SJP’s campaign by offering an alternative brand to Sabra. After I left the office, he called me down about 15 minutes later and informed me that the decision to offer an alternative brand had been made.
A huge smile broke across my face and I felt empowered. I went down to the social science hallway and told the teachers the result they had been waiting for; they were ecstatic. My classmates, for the most part, gave me a really encouraging response. As soon as I began explaining to one classmate what happened, another classmate would come and ask me to explain it again. One of my teachers asked for an extra portfolio to give to his wife, who is a teacher at another school. His wife ended up giving the portfolio to her supervisor, who ended up giving it to her religious institution to pass around. God knows where it is now.
Overall, this experience taught me that if you are truly passionate about something, anything is possible.
Nadine Darwish is a student at Lincoln-Way High School in the Chicago suburbs.

Palestinian families denied rights by Israel’s racist marriage laws

2012-02-01T17:21:00.000-08:00

Taiseer Khatib with his children Yosra and Adnan.
(Dylan Collins / The Electronic Intifada)

One used to be able to take the Hijaz railway from Akka to Jenin and then to Nablus. The railway, built by Sultan Abdel Hamid II at the turn of the twentieth century, was intended to consolidate his own power over the Ottoman Empire, but perhaps its more lasting impact was to unify the inhabitants of Palestine.
Jenin and Akka are less than 50 kilometers away from each other, but in order to travel between the two cities one must pass through a military checkpoint positioned between the wall Israel is building in the West Bank and the rest of historic Palestine.
Taiseer Khatib, from Akka, and Lana, from Jenin, met in the midst of the second intifada, soon after the Israeli military demolished the Jenin refugee camp in what it named Operation Defensive Shield. Taiseer was visiting Jenin to collect information for a doctoral thesis he was preparing to start at York University in Canada.
“We first met in the ministry of health in Jenin. I wasn’t wearing the traditional dress. I was wearing some sandals and that caught her attention and so did my dialect and accent,” Taiseer remembers.
Their experiences of Israeli rule have been somewhat different.
Taiseer’s family history is defined by the Nakba (catastrophe), the ethnic cleansing that led to the formation of Israel in 1948.
His family, which once lived in the now destroyed village Miar, is currently spread across the Middle East. His mother’s family ended up down the coast in a refugee camp in Gaza and his father’s family was dispersed in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and what is now Israel.
In 1948, Lana’s family lived in the northern West Bank. Her mother was from Nablus, her father from Jenin. It would be another 19 years before the Israeli military would occupy their cities.
Now the two live in Akka, an ancient city that Taiseer proudly explains was freed from the Crusaders by Salah al-Din. They have two young children, Adnan, 4, and Yosra, 3, who like to climb up and over their father while he talks. Taiseer is a tall, slender man. He is finishing his doctorate in anthropology at Haifa University.

The “security” pretext

In 2006, Taiseer and Lana were married, allowing her for the first time to be granted a permit to visit her husband and his family at their home in Akka. Before that, Taiseer routinely visited Lana at her home in Jenin. But upon marrying Taiseer, Lana did not receive citizenship, nor could she begin an application for citizenship.
In 2003, when Taiseer and Lana met, the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) passed a temporary law that forbade Palestinians from becoming Israeli citizens upon marrying an Israeli. Called the Nationality and Entry into Israel Law, the law was introduced under the pretext of security — despite there being scant evidence that suggests Palestinian spouses are threats to Israel.
According to the State of Israel’s statistics, of the more than 130,000 applications for family unification that were accepted between 1994 and 2008, only seven Palestinians were indicted and convicted for involvement in attacks against Israel.
Because the law is temporary it can be amended by the Knesset. In 2006, the Israeli high court found the law unconstitutional because it denied citizens — namely Arab citizens — the right to family life. However, the court stopped short of striking the law down, giving the Knesset a chance to alter it.
However, in 2007, the Knesset paid no heed to the recommendations of the court and instead expanded the scope of the prohibition. Now the law forbids family unification between an Israeli citizen and anyone from a country that the security forces of Israel label an “enemy state.” Currently on that list are Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
For Sawsan Zaher, of Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, it is clear that this law is not meant to protect Israel from an actual existential threat. Rather it uses security as an excuse to discriminate against the state’s Palestinian citizens.

Demographics the real reason

“This is obviously not about security. This is a blanket prohibition on a huge portion of the population. What is behind the law is demographics — it’s about the ability to control the demographics, preserve a Jewish majority, and control the amount of Palestinians that get in. But these demographic concerns are coming at the cost of Arabs’ rights in Israel.”
The law does not apply equally to Jewish residents of supposed “enemy states.” Jewish people all over the world are automatically granted citizenship to the state of Israel through the Law of Return. Other foreigners wishing to immigrate to Israel must go through a gradual “naturalization” process that takes four-and-a-half years. Before the ban on family unification law was passed in 2003, all Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza were able to go through this same process.
In July 2003, the same month that the Knesset enacted the Nationality and Entry into Israel Law, the Israeli army announced the completion of the “first phase” of the wall in the West Bank.
Zaher views the ban on family unification and the West Bank wall serve the same function: “They want to make it clear that this is the border of the state of the Jewish people. The Arab citizens in Israel are now the ‘other.”’
Zaher clarifies that the policy of treating Arab citizens of Israel as second class citizens is not new. “But the problem is that now it is law not just policy.”
The State of Israel has yet to establish a written constitution. Instead it relies on its Basic Law as the basis of what will, one day, supposedly make up its constitution.
“Laws define the future relationship between the state and the citizens, and this is a huge problem because they view the Arabs as a threat instead of viewing them as citizens with rights.”

A useless permit

Since Lana and Taiseer married in 2006, each year Lana has been granted a permit to stay in Israel. This permit provides her with no rights. “I don’t have health insurance, I can’t drive, I can’t go to school and I can’t work. I am just here for my husband and children,” she said.
Adalah estimates approximately 20,000 and 30,000 persons inside the State of Israel are in a similar situation as Taiseer and Lana.
“I can breathe, I can eat, but this is not living,” Lana added.
Her last permit will expire at the end of January, and the two can only hope the Israeli interior ministry will not have a change of heart in light of the court’s ruling. Either way, though, Lana says she will not leave her husband or her children, or her home in Akka.
Charlotte Silver is a journalist based in the West Bank. She can be reached at charlottesilver A T gmail D O T com.

Demanding justice for Yousef, a quiet boy killed by Israeli settlers

2012-02-01T17:16:00.000-08:00

Yousef Ikhlayl, top left-hand corner, attending a demonstration in Beit Ommar less than six months before he was killed by Israeli settlers.
(Palestine Solidarity Project)

On 28 January 2011 at 6:30am, Yousef Ikhlayl, 17, went with his father Fakhri to their farmland on the outskirts of the West Bank village Beit Ommar, where they prepared the land around their grapevines. At approximately 7am, two groups of Israelis from the illegal settlements Bat Ayn and Kiryat Arba were taking a “hike” in the privately-owned Palestinian agricultural land belonging to the residents of Beit Ommar (“Palestinian killed in clashes with settlers near Hebron,” The Jerusalem Post, 29 January 2011).
There was no indication that the settlers were planning on shooting. Yousef’s father reported that the first shot fired by the settlers hit his son in the head. The settlers then began shooting in the air and the surrounding areas to prevent others from approaching, as his father screamed desperately for help.
Yousef was carried to a car that drove him out of the agricultural valley and to the main road, where an ambulance “rushed” him to the hospital in Hebron, passing two Israeli military checkpoints on the way. At the hospital, Yousef was put on a respirator, though he had no brain activity. He passed away soon after.
At his funeral the following day, as is common practice with the Israeli military involving martyr funerals, soldiers numbering in the hundreds invaded Beit Ommar and attacked the funeral with tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and even live ammunition, as the Palestine Solidarity Project reported (“Funeral of Yousef Ikhlayl attacked by Israeli military, dozens injured,” 29 January 2011).
The murder of Yousef Ikhlayl, the impunity with which the settlers acted and the military’s behavior at the funeral are common occurrences in the occupied West Bank. The death of a Palestinian, even a child, is rarely noted and quickly forgotten in much of the world. The killing of Yousef was, however, a profound event for myself, the Palestine Solidarity Project (PSP, the organization I co-founded) and popular resistance in the Hebron district as a whole.

Never safe

PSP began farmer-accompaniment programs in the areas surrounding Beit Ommar — particularly the areas near Bat Ayn settlement — in 2006. We did so because of the extreme violence and the regularity with which settlers from this colony would attack farmers, particularly in the Saffa valley near where Yousef was killed.
Yousef was a regular participant in all of our activities, including demonstrations, farming actions, summer camps, English classes and even a photography workshop we held in 2010. He was a fixture at PSP events, volunteering to set up for conferences and often babysitting my young daughter as we held meetings and tours for international activists. I have vivid memories of Yousef carrying my baby, Rafeef, around the yard of my house, pointing out tree leaves and flowers while my husband, PSP co-founder Mousa Abu Maria, and I met with international delegations and the local popular committee.
Yousef was quite familiar with the Israeli settlers from the area and their potential for violence. Perhaps it was because of this familiarity with them that he did not run when they arrived in the area. He had been with PSP dozens of times as we accompanied other farmers to their land, as settlers watched from the hillside or hurled rocks at us from hundreds of meters away. Perhaps he assumed this time would be no different; but maybe it would have been different if we had been there with his family. I wonder about what he thought when the settlers approached. I have often thought in the last year if things would have been different if international activists had been there; if I had been there.
Our farmer-accompaniment program in the area throughout the years, though it had led to literally dozens of arrests of Israeli and international solidarity activists, was completely successful in deterring settler violence during the accompaniment.
In the end, the settlers roamed the area freely, shooting at residents and youth who began throwing stones for two hours. Two hours before Israeli soldiers, who are responsible for the security of Area C — 60 percent of the West Bank under Israeli military control — could persuade the residents to return to their homes.
The aforementioned Jerusalem Post article adds that twenty settlers were detained at the scene by the military — a highly unusual occurrence, possibly due to the presence of international and Israeli activists who had arrived in the area after the shooting — but were all released the same day.

Israeli impunity

During the two hours that the settlers stayed in the area, PSP activists arrived and began taking pictures of them to provide to the Israeli police responsible for investigating attacks by settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank. Shortly after the murder, Yousef’s father and the activists who took the pictures went to the Israeli police station (located in the settlement Kfar Etzion, next door to Bat Ayn) and filed a formal complaint.
Yousef’s father provided the photographs to the police and even identified a few individuals he saw closest to him and his son when he was shot. In a democracy, one would think this level of evidence, combined with the heinousness of the crime, would lead to a thorough investigation and speedy indictment. But, as we all well know, that is not what happens when settlers attack Palestinians.
In December 2011, Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization that monitors the criminal accountability of Israeli civilians and Israeli military forces in the West Bank, released an updated report on the rate of which Israeli civilians are prosecuted for crimes committed against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Yesh Din discovered, after researching the progress of 700 individual complaints filed with the Israeli police in the West Bank by Palestinians, that 91 percent of all complaints end with the investigation being closed without an indictment, including 85 percent of cases involving violence. The most common reason for closing a case (which can be done either by the police or by the police prosecutor) is “perpetrator unknown,” though a full 2 percent of all cases were closed because of a “lack of public interest,” which begs the question, “which public?” (“Updated data monitoring hundreds of investigations: 91% of cases closed without indictments,” 15 December 2011).
The report reveals that only 7.4 percent of cases involving settler crimes committed against Palestinians from 2005 to 2011 actually ended in an indictment. The statistic regarding crimes committed by Israeli military personnel against Palestinians, which are investigated by a separate entity, is a negligible 3.5 percent ending in indictments.
Yesh Din’s full report shows a series of failures, from the process of filing an initial complaint, to the police investigation, to the process inside the prosecutors’ office for initiating an indictment. In Yousef Ikhlayl’s case, Yesh Din discovered that while an investigation was conducted by the police (which may have only constituted the interview with Yousef’s father) and the file was turned over to the prosecution, the case has inexplicably been stalled for months because the prosecution’s office has refused to assign the case to an individual attorney, a step necessary before a final decision can be made on whether an indictment will be handed down.
It is obvious that individual justice for Palestinian victims of settler crimes — even when the victim is an unarmed child — remains elusive. Perhaps, as was suggested in an op-ed that appeared in Israeli daily Haaretz about the murder of Mustafa Tamimi, knowing the individual perpetrator, and pursuing a case against the individual, only serves to alleviate the responsibility of the system as a whole (“A courageous Palestinian has died, shrouded in stones,” 13 December 2011).
However, violent, ideological settlers, and their counterparts in the Israeli military, will only continue to act with total disregard for the basic human rights of Palestinians if they are assured that they will not face consequences. The death of a civilian, particularly a child, should result both in a black mark on the society that condones it, as well as the prosecution of the individuals responsible.

A call to action

Yousef Ikhlayl’s murder was overshadowed by world events taking place in January 2011. Activists and sympathetic journalists alike were focused on the massive uprising in Egypt that had just erupted, as well as other developments during the Arab uprisings. Beit Ommar, Yousef’s hometown, had fallen into the background as settler violence had decreased in previous months and the demonstrations in Nabi Saleh were gaining attention.
The community of Beit Ommar and the Palestine Solidarity Project have called for an international day of action on Saturday, 28 January, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Yousef’s death and ensure that he will not be forgotten.
People all over the world will hold demonstrations in front of Israeli consulates, and will plaster their cities with posters of with his face (which can be found on the website).
We are calling for an end to Israeli impunity, and the world to remember that behind statistics and policy reports, the victims of Israel’s murderous policies are real, live people. It is imperative that the international community not only hold Israel accountable for its criminal acts, through movements including boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), and solidarity work in Palestine, but also to humanize the victims of these crimes. Yousef Ikhlayl was a goofy, quiet and dedicated boy. He had a sheepish smile and made my daughter laugh. We will not forget him.
Bekah Wolf is a co-founder of the Palestine Solidarity Project, and has worked in the West Bank since 2003. Further details on the day of action to demand justice for Yousef Ikhlayl can be found on the PSP website, www.palestinesolidarityproject.org. PSP can be followed on Twitter at @PalestinePSP.

FROM IN AND OUTSIDE ISRAEL’S PRISON WALLS

2012-02-01T17:09:00.000-08:00

The official Palestinian position on the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails serves to undermine their cause; liberation will only come with a shift in strategy.

Waging liberation in and outside Israel’s prison walls

Liberating Palestinian political prisoners should mean liberating them now.
(Issam Rimawi / APA images)

The success of internationalization can be gauged by the extent to which the issue or question concerned becomes a global concern. It means creating a situation on the ground which makes it impossible for the international system to continue shirking responsibility, or colluding with a dominant or powerful party in usurping the rights of a weaker victim. International mechanisms can then be brought into play to support the restoration of the victim’s rights and enforce compliance on the violator.
In such cases, justice is the victim’s most potent weapon to offset the power and repressive force of the dominant party — in this case, the racist colonial regime of Israel.

But there is a basic rule that has been proven and reaffirmed by every popular revolution and liberation movement: it is not sufficient for a group or people to be victims of injustice to earn the world’s solidarity. For the world to support them, these victims must not only be conscious of and committed to their rights but more importantly, they must resist their oppression and oppressors. The victims’ own steadfastness, defiance and struggle is key to transforming international sympathy into solidarity, in the sense of effective political action with a strategic horizon.
Internationalization lies essentially and primarily in activating and sustaining global popular solidarity, as well as acting to encourage official international bodies to assume their responsibilities.
A mobilized, energized and expanded worldwide solidarity movement can do much to influence governments, legislatures and media in countries and societies throughout the world, and put pressure on international and official bodies, to promote policy changes on two fronts: to support and strengthen the victims of injustice and their hopes of attaining their rights via a combination of their liberation struggle and international legality; and to weaken and isolate the oppressive and racist colonizer, subject it to sanctions and deny it legitimacy, with the ultimate goal being the dismantling of its repressive structures.

Liberate them now

Yet the official Palestinian position on the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails serves to undermine their cause, which is a central component of our people’s liberation struggle.
The official stance, essentially, is that no final peace agreement with Israel will be signed until all prisoners are released from Israeli jails. In practice, this is a recipe for delaying and deferring the liberation of the prisoners indefinitely, and marginalizing the issue within the overall Palestinian agenda. Liberating the prisoners should mean liberating them now.
Israel went to great lengths to turn the case of one of its occupation troops who fell into Palestinian captivity into an international humanitarian concern, while demanding that the world view and treat its 7,000 Palestinian prisoners of freedom as “terrorists.”
Yet why does Palestinian official discourse defer to this twisted logic? Why does the party with justice on its side, the victim, need to make excuses for Palestinians defending their rights? Why employ apologetic language? When was the last time an official Palestinian voice was raised at the United Nations or European Union — or even the Arab League — to defend the Palestinians’ right, and duty, to resist occupation, colonization and displacement employing all means of struggle?
This same mentality recently prompted a senior Palestinian Authority official to raise the issue of “mutual incitement” and demand that Israel reactivate the joint committee supposedly dealing with this issue. How can a supposed representative of a people who are subject in their entirety to colonization, displacement and confinement accept any equivalence in this regard between the aggressive occupying oppressor and its victims?
This is directly relevant to the issue of the prisoners. The official Palestinian position on the international stage is to “condemn violence” and thus denounce acts of resistance against the occupation, while committing to close cooperation with the Israeli security establishment. What message does that send to prisoners incarcerated in Israeli jails for tens of years, who took part in the liberation struggle and are paying the price for doing so? Doesn’t the official Palestinian stance negate their status as prisoners of freedom, national liberation, conscience and justice?
If a message is ever to gain international popularity or official traction, it must be clear and coherent. This is absolutely crucial for internationalization. The words and actions of Palestinian officialdom must be in harmony with those of the popular level, civil society and grassroots movements, and also with the international solidarity and support movement.

Palestinian leadership must not undermine solidarity

That is vital to avoid any repetition of the painful experience of the campaign in the UK to boycott Israeli universities as part of a wider academic and cultural boycott of Israel. This constituted an unprecedented and strategic escalation in the role and effectiveness of solidarity movements. Yet within weeks of the launch of the campaign, the PA’s Al-Quds University at Abu Dis concluded a cooperation agreement with the Israeli Hebrew University of Jerusalem. That dealt a blatant stab in the back to the worldwide movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
One must also question how much importance the PA and the Palestine Liberation Organization really accord to the prisoners issue — in their international diplomacy and at the UN, in their meetings with the Israelis, and as a Palestinian national priority. It is impossible to justify their failure to press it as a central issue in political talks over the years, one that cannot be ignored and must be resolved as a condition of further progress.
Prisoner exchange deals cannot in themselves address the question as a whole. Awaiting a promised peace deal as the magic solution is an exercise in futility. Nor can the release of the prisoners be treated as subject to the Israeli legal system. The Israeli judicial establishment is an intrinsic part of the system that sustains and legitimizes the occupation and the racist state and whitewashes their crimes.
Yet the issue of the prisoners remains a core element of the conflict, and its outcome is determined by balances of power. The Arab revolutions are sure to have a decisive effect both on the regional power-balance and on the management of the conflict. In this context, internationalization provides a way of changing the rules of the game that have prevailed so far, and breaking free of their control.
Alternatively, the official leadership’s retreat from its role, and the accompanying decline in popular struggle, leaves the prisoners with few options other than to go on hunger strike. Yet this does not necessarily achieve even short-term or minor gains, let alone advance the cause of their liberation. There is a need for new forms of struggle to be devised within the prisons, and linked more effectively to the wider struggle and its strategic objectives.

Engaging civil society

There is a huge and diverse array of Palestinian, Arab and international human rights and civil society organizations that are credible, competent and have a long and rich record of defending Palestinian rights, obviously including the prisoners’ issue. Palestinian organizations can collaborate with their counterparts around the world to press for policy changes in favor of Palestinian rights and establish networks of relationships.
Official Palestinian representative offices must also do more to facilitate such work, encourage grassroots input and engagement, and provide it with official support it. Decentralization and complementarity are required. Regrettably, official policy and behavior has all too often obstructed and conflicted with unofficial campaigning work. This was most apparent in the case of the Palestinian and international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel. Palestinian officialdom opposed it, citing the negotiations underway with the Israeli government of Ehud Olmert.
The task of internationalization should be entrusted to a National Coordinating Committee, including representatives of popular organizations and civil society along with officials, both from within historic Palestine and the Diaspora. The roles of all groups should be coordinated with the appreciation that the Palestinian cause is an indivisible whole, and that Israel too is one and the same. In other words, the occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, the racist regime within the Green Line, and the uprooting and ethnic cleansing of the refugees and displaced, are all products of the Israeli state’s colonial and racist nature.

Re-evaluating strategy and priorities

In the process of managing the conflict, there are essential issues which must not be shelved or deferred. No Palestinian official or negotiator is entitled to sideline them in favor of other issues, even if results cannot be reached on all simultaneously.
A wholesale Palestinian and Arab re-evaluation is required of the chosen strategy of negotiating on the basis of achieving interim solutions, and the effect this has had on the Palestinians’ rights and their struggle to achieve them. The disastrous effect of the Oslo accords in this regard has become clear over the past two decades. By sub-dividing basic Palestinian rights into separate components, they were turned into hostages to each other and bargaining chips — the attainment of one package of rights made contingent on conceding another.
On the international level, it may sometimes appear that diplomatic gains can be made by prioritizing one set of fundamental rights — or one issue, such as the colonial settlement in the West Bank and Jerusalem — over the others. But there is a risk of this seeming, both at home and abroad, to abandon those rights which, for whatever reasons, the current Palestinian leadership does not deem a priority. For example, the Palestinian official campaign to focus worldwide attention on the settlements carries the implicit message, inadvertently or not, that freeing the prisoners is not such a high priority.
No Palestinian official negotiator has ever been heard to threaten to halt talks with Israel unless the prisoners are freed, or even that a timetable for their liberation be discussed, or to raise the issue at the UN Security Council. This is due to a Palestinian political decision, or reluctance to take a stand given the prevailing regional and international balance of power. It reaffirms the disastrous legacy of the Oslo accords, in terms of both substance and implementation.
All issues related to Palestinian rights that were deferred under Oslo remain deferred, and look to remain so indefinitely. This applies to the issue of refugees and the displaced, and to Jerusalem. And that’s not to mention the Palestinian leadership’s tacit acceptance that the 1948 Palestinians are a domestic Israeli affair — a notion which they themselves, needless to say, utterly reject and resist by all means available.
With regard to the prisoners, experience shows that Israel does not adhere to its declared principle of refusing to release prisoners who were involved in actions in which Israelis were killed. The same applies to its refusal to negotiate the release of residents of Jerusalem of the 1948 territories. It is the balance of power that counts, and this is not a constant. It can change, largely in accordance with the level of Palestinian popular struggle, official Palestinian policy and the Palestinian will as a whole.
The cause of liberating the prisoners requires the struggle to be waged on two complementary fronts, within and outside the prison walls.
Ameer Makhoul is a Palestinian civil society leader and political prisoner at Gilboa Prison.
This article is co-published by Beirut-based al-Akhbar and translated from Arabic.

„Arabesken der Revolution. Zornige Tage in Tunis, Kairo...“

2012-01-31T18:18:00.000-08:00

Mi 01.02.2012 20 h
Zürich, Rote Fabrik, Fabrikgespräche, Seestrasse 395

„Arabesken der Revolution. Zornige Tage in Tunis, Kairo...“

Lesung und Diskussion zum arabischen Frühling
Mit der Schriftstellerin Salwa Bakr (Ägypten), dem Filmemacher Lassaad Dkhili (Tunesien) und dem Herausgeber und Co-Autor Roland Merk (Basel & Paris)
Moderation: Alfred Hackensperger, Wochenzeitung WOZ.
>>mehr dazu
Ein "west-östlicher Divan" zu den Revolutionen in Tunesien und Ägypten. Die Auswahl literarischer und essayistischer Texte dokumentiert, wie Schriftstellerinnen und Schriftsteller aus dem arabischen Raum und aus dem Westen den arabischen Frühling erlebt haben.
"Packend sind schliesslich die sehr persönlichen Erfahrungsberichte im Buch «Arabesken der Revolution» ... Diese Stimmen zur Kenntnis zu nehmen, sollte Pflicht sein für alle, die sich für den arabischen Aufbruch interessieren."
Beat Stauffer, Beilage "Bücher am Sonntag", NZZ am Sonntag

Quran, chapter 72: The Jinn

2012-01-31T18:14:00.000-08:00

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was praying and a group of jinn was around and they came to listen to his recitation of the Quran, then Allah The Exalted revealed another chapter of Quran called Al-jinn talking about what happened in this event (Quran: surah Al jinn chapter 72)

Allah The Exalted says.....

Al-Jinn

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

Say (O Muhammad): It is revealed unto me that a company of the Jinn gave ear, and they said: Lo! we have heard a marvellous Qur'an, (1) Which guideth unto righteousness, so we believe in it and we ascribe unto our Lord no partner. (2) And (we believe) that He - exalted be the glory of our Lord! - hath taken neither wife nor son, (3) And that the foolish one among us used to speak concerning Allah an atrocious lie. (4) And lo! we had supposed that humankind and jinn would not speak a lie concerning Allah - (5) And indeed (O Muhammad) individuals of humankind used to invoke the protection of individuals of the jinn, so that they increased them in revolt (against Allah); (6) And indeed they supposed, even as ye suppose, that Allah would not raise anyone (from the dead) - (7) And (the Jinn who had listened to the Qur'an said): We had sought the heaven but had found it filled with strong warders and meteors. (8) And we used to sit on places (high) therein to listen. But he who listeneth now findeth a flame in wait for him; (9) And we know not whether harm is boded unto all who are in the earth, or whether their Lord intendeth guidance for them. (10) And among us there are righteous folk and among us there are far from that. We are sects having different rules. (11) And we know that we cannot escape from Allah in the earth, nor can we escape by flight. (12) And when we heard the guidance, we believed therein, and whoso believeth in his Lord, he feareth neither loss nor oppression. (13) And there are among us some who have surrendered (to Allah) and there are among us some who are unjust. And whoso hath surrendered to Allah, such have taken the right path purposefully. (14) And as for those who are unjust, they are firewood for hell. (15) If they (the idolaters) tread the right path, We shall give them to drink of water in abundance (16) That We may test them thereby, and whoso turneth away from the remembrance of his Lord; He will thrust him into ever-growing torment. (17) And the places of worship are only for Allah, so pray not unto anyone along with Allah. (18) And when the slave of Allah stood up in prayer to Him, they crowded on him, almost stifling. (19) Say (unto them, O Muhammad): I pray unto Allah only, and ascribe unto Him no partner. (20) Say: Lo! I control not hurt nor benefit for you. (21) Say: Lo! none can protect me from Allah, nor can I find any refuge beside Him (22) (Mine is) but conveyance (of the Truth) from Allah, and His messages; and whoso disobeyeth Allah and His messenger, lo! his is fire of hell, wherein such dwell for ever. (23) Till (the day) when they shall behold that which they are promised (they may doubt); but then they will know (for certain) who is weaker in allies and less in multitude. (24) Say (O Muhammad, unto the disbelievers): I know not whether that which ye are promised is nigh, or if my Lord hath set a distant term for it. (25) (He is) the Knower of the Unseen, and He revealeth unto none His secret, (26) Save unto every messenger whom He hath chosen, and then He maketh a guard to go before him and a guard behind him (27) That He may know that they have indeed conveyed the messages of their Lord. He surroundeth all their doings, and He keepeth count of all things. (28)

The True Story of Jesus Son of Mary (pbuh)

2012-01-31T17:57:00.000-08:00

Al-E-Imran
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

(44) (And remember) when the angels said: O Mary! Lo! Allah giveth thee glad tidings of a word from him, whose name is the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, illustrious in the world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought near (unto Allah).
(45) He will speak unto mankind in his cradle and in his manhood, and he is of the righteous. (46) She said: My Lord! How can I have a child when no mortal hath touched me? He said: So (it will be). Allah createth what He will. If He decreeth a thing, He saith unto it only: Be! and it is. (47) And He will teach him the Scripture and wisdom, and the Torah and the Gospel, (48) And will make him a messenger unto the Children of Israel, (saying): Lo! I come unto you with a sign from your Lord. Lo! I fashion for you out of clay the likeness of a bird, and I breathe into it and it is a bird, by Allah's leave. I heal him who was born blind, and the leper, and I raise the dead, by Allah's leave. And I announce unto you what ye eat and what ye store up in your houses. Lo! herein verily is a portent for you, if ye are to be believers. (49) And (I come) confirming that which was before me of the Torah, and to make lawful some of that which was forbidden unto you. I come unto you with a sign from your Lord, so keep your duty to Allah and obey me. (50) Lo! Allah is my Lord and your Lord, so worship Him. That is a straight path. (51) But when Jesus became conscious of their disbelief, he cried: Who will be my helpers in the cause of Allah? The disciples said: We will be Allah's helpers. We believe in Allah, and bear thou witness that we have surrendered (unto Him). (52) Our Lord! We believe in that which Thou hast revealed and we follow him whom Thou hast sent. Enrol us among those who witness (to the truth). (53) And they (the disbelievers) schemed, and Allah schemed (against them): and Allah is the best of schemers. (54) (And remember) when Allah said: O Jesus! Lo! I am gathering thee and causing thee to ascend unto Me, and am cleansing thee of those who disbelieve and am setting those who follow thee above those who disbelieve until the Day of Resurrection. Then unto Me ye will (all) return, and I shall judge between you as to that wherein ye used to differ. (55) As for those who disbelieve I shall chastise them with a heavy chastisement in the world and the Hereafter; and they will have no helpers. (56) And as for those who believe and do good works, He will pay them their wages in full. Allah loveth not wrong-doers. (57) This (which) We recite unto thee is a revelation and a wise reminder. (58) Lo! the likeness of Jesus with Allah is as the likeness of Adam. He created him of dust, then He said unto him: Be! and he is. (59) (This is) the truth from thy Lord (O Muhammad), so be not thou of those who waver. (60) And whoso disputeth with thee concerning him, after the knowledge which hath come unto thee, say (unto him): Come! We will summon our sons and your sons, and our women and your women, and ourselves and yourselves, then we will pray humbly (to our Lord) and (solemnly) invoke the curse of Allah upon those who lie. (61) Lo! This verily is the true narrative. There is no God save Allah, and lo! Allah he verily, is the Mighty, the Wise. (62) And if they turn away, then lo! Allah is Aware of (who are) the corrupters. (63) Say: O People of the Scripture! Come to an agreement between us and you: that we shall worship none but Allah, and that we shall ascribe no partner unto Him, and that none of us shall take others for lords beside Allah. And if they turn away, then say: Bear witness that we are they who have surrendered (unto Him). (64)

World’s Oldest Bible available online

2012-01-31T17:48:00.000-08:00

The world’s oldest known Christian Bible is now online — but worryingly for Christians, the 1,600-year-old text doesn’t match the one you’ll find in churches today!
The British government bought most of the pages of the ancient manuscript in 1933,
Discovered in a monastery in the Sinai desert in Egypt more than 160 years ago, the handwritten Codex Sinaiticus includes two books that are not part of the official New Testament and at least seven books that are not in the Old Testament.

The New Testament books are in a different order, and include numerous handwritten corrections — some made as much as 800 years after the texts were written, according to Christian bible scholars who worked on the project of putting this worlds oldest Bible online. The changes range from the alteration of a single letter to the insertion of whole sentences.
And some familiar — very important — passages are missing, including verses dealing with the resurrection of Jesus, they said.
Juan Garces, the British Library project curator, said “it should be no surprise that the ancient text is not quite the same as the modern one, since the Bible has developed and changed over the years.“

An official translation of the book has already been produced by Christians, but true to form they twist things already to decieve the weak and are adding verses not found in the Greek codex into the translation for English readers.
For example,
John 16:15, Mark 15:47, Matthew 24:35.
These verses are not in the codex, yet they put a translation for it. You can check the site and you will find that the Greek verse does not exist!!!
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/
Even with this tampering (and Christians do love to tamper with what they consider to be the word of God don’t they?) scholars and lay people alike are beginning to find many problems for Christians where the Codex and the modern bibles differ, sometimes on matters of massive significance.
For Example,
Mark 1:1, the phrase “the son of God” is not found in the codex.
Codex: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
NIV: The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
KJV: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;
John’s Trinity the verse 1 John 5:7, then the codex doesn’t mention the Trinity.
Codex:
7 For they that testify are three,
8 the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and the three are one.
KJV:
7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
The phrase “the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” is not found in the Codex!!!
If any Christian would like to read an English Translation of God’s last and final message to mankind, – The Quran, which has no changes since the time of its revelation they should contact their nearest Mosque or Islamic group.
Thousands of people in the west embrace Islam every year, especially women and if you have any questions about Islam or wish to become Muslim or just find out more then you are welcome to contact us on…
theislamicstandard@gmail.com

Prophet Adam Alayhissalam Was 90 Feet Tall

2012-01-31T17:26:00.000-08:00

There is but one allusion to giants in the Qur'an, namely to the tribe 'Ad who are spoken of as men "with fifty statures" (Surah lxxxix 6), and the commentator Shah 'Abdu 'l-Aziz of Delhi, says they were men of not less the twelve yards in stature. According to a tradition in the Kitabu 'sh-Shafah by the Qazi 'Ayaz(p 65), Adam was sixty yards in height. In the Ghiyasu 'l-Lughah, a giant named Uj is mentioned who was born in the days of Adam and lived until the time of Moses, a period of 3500 years, and that he was so high, that the flood in the days of Noah only reached to his waist. There are traditions and stories of giants whose graves exist unto the present day, throughout the whole of Persia.
Opposite the Church Mission House at Peshawur is a grave nine yards long, which is held in great reverence by both Muslims and Hindus. De le Belle, in his Travels in Persia, vol ii p 89, mentions several which exist in Persia. Giant graves in Hindustan are numerous

Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, "Allah created Adam, making him 60 cubits tall. When He created him, He said to him, "Go and greet that group of angels, and listen to their reply, for it will be your greeting (salutation) and the greeting (salutations of your offspring." So, Adam said (to the angels), As-Salamu Alaikum (i.e. Peace be upon you). The angels said, "As-salamu Alaika wa Rahmatu-l-lahi" (i.e. Peace and Allah's Mercy be upon you). Thus the angels added to Adam's salutation the expression, 'Wa Rahmatu-l-lahi,' Any person who will enter Paradise will resemble Adam (in appearance and figure). People have been decreasing in stature since Adam's creation. (Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 55, Number 543)"

Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Apostle said, "The first group of people who will enter Paradise, will be glittering like the full moon and those who will follow them, will glitter like the most brilliant star in the sky. They will not urinate, relieve nature, spit, or have any nasal secretions. Their combs will be of gold, and their sweat will smell like musk. The aloes-wood will be used in their centers. Their wives will be houris. All of them will look alike and will resemble their father Adam (in statute), sixty cubits tall." (Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 55, Number 544)"

Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: "The first group of my Ummah to get into Paradise would be like a full moon in the night. Then those who would be next to them; they would be like the most significantly glittering stars in regard to brightness, then after them (others) in ranks. They would neither void excrement, nor pass water, nor suffer from catarrh, nor would they spit. And their combs would be made of gold, and the fuel of their braziers would be aloes and their sweat would be musk and their form would be the form of one single person according to the length of their father sixty cubits tall. This hadith has been transmitted on the authority of Ibn Abi Shaiba with a slight variation of wording. (Translation of Sahih Muslim, Book 040, Number 6796)"

Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: "Allah, the Exalted and Glorious, created Adam in His own image with His length of sixty cubits, and as He created him He told him to greet that group, and that was a party of angels sitting there, and listen to the response that they give him, for it would form his greeting and that of his offspring. He then went away and said: Peace be upon you! They (the angels) said: May there be peace upon you and the Mercy of Allah, and they made an addition of" Mercy of Allah". So he who would get into Paradise would get in the form of Adam, his length being sixty cubits, then the people who followed him continued to diminish in size up to this day. (Translation of Sahih Muslim, Book 040, Number 6809)"

William Olding,age 19 in 1942

Machnov in London at the Hippodrome

During the first of five expeditions to Mongolia, Roy Chapman Andrews photographed this seven-foot-five-inch (2m 13cm) man in 1922 in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar—but that wasn’t the explorer’s biggest find. In an automobile caravan following the ancient routes of Genghis through the Gobi desert, Andrew’s party discovered one of the world’s richest dinosaur fossil fields, featured in the June 1933 and July 1996 issue of the GEOGRAPHIC.“We ourselves are the ‘trail-breakers’ of motor transportation,” wrote Andrews. “Instead of thrilling with pride at the thought, I reflected sadly that we were violating the sanctity of the desert and destroying the mystery of Mongolia.”

This photograph was never published in the magazine.

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/...hback/9612.htm

Tears of Gaza / Tränen von Gaza - Deutscher Untertitel - Full Doku

2012-01-31T16:45:00.000-08:00

The Mahdiand 2012 and the bright Star

2012-01-31T16:18:00.000-08:00


	Surah At-Tariq In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful By the heaven, and At-Târiq (the night-comer, i.e. the bright star); (1) And what will make you to know what At-Târiq (night-comer) is? (2) (It is) the star of piercing brightness; (3) Note: inshallah next Ramadan in 2012 will begin on a Friday and the middle of Ramadan is a Friday inshallah (check the calendar for next Ramadan to see for yourself) Now read these ahadith, Allah knows best their authenticity Abdullah ibn Mas'ud [r.a.] said that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: "When there is a Sayha (scream) in Ramadan, then there will be turmoil in Shawwal, and the tribes will form groups in Zul-Qi'da, and blood will be spilled in Zul-Hijja, and in Al-Muharram! What is prohibited?" saying it three times, "Oh, Oh! The people will be killed in a great massacres." He said: "We said: "What is the Sayha (scream), O Messenger of Allah?" He said: "This will be in the middle of Ramadan, on a Friday morning. That will be when the month of Ramadan begins on a Friday night. There will be a Hadda (powerful, hammering sound) that will awaken one who is asleep, and bring the young women out of their rooms, on a Friday night during a year of many earthquakes (and very cold). So when Ramadan begins on a Friday night in that year, then when you have prayed Fajr on Friday in the middle of Ramadan, then enter your houses, close your doors, block your windows, cover yourselves, and block your ears. When you sense the scream, fall down in prostration to Allah and say: "Subhanal-Quddus, subhanal-Quddus, rabbunal-Quddus (Glory be to the Most Holy, glory be to the Most Holy, our Lord is the Most Holy)." For whoever does that will survive, and whoever does not will perish." (Nuaim bin Hammad's Kitab Al-Fitan, Hadith ) Abu Huraira [r.a] said that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: "There will be a Hadda (a blast or a powerful, hammering sound) in Ramadan that will awaken one who is asleep, and terrify one who is awake. Then, there will appear a group ['isaba] in Shawwal, then bloodshed in (the month of) Zul-Hijjah. Then the prohibitions will be violated in (the month of) Al-Muharram. Then, there will be death in (the month of) Safar. Then the tribes will quarrel with each other in (the month of) Rabi', then the most amazing thing will happen between (the months of) Jumada and Rajab. Then, a well-fed she-camel will be better than a castle sheltering a thousand." (Al-Haakim) Amr bin Shuaib reported from his grandfather that the Messenger of Allah (Prophet Mohammad) صلى الله عليه وسلم said, ''In Zul-Qa'da (Islamic month), there will be fight among the tribes, Muslim pilgrims will be looted and there will be a battle in Mina in which many people will be slain and blood will flow until it runs over the Jamarat Al-Aqba (one of the three stone pillars at Mina). The man they seek will flee and will be found between the Rukn (a corner of the Ka'ba containing the Black Stone) and the Maqam of Prophet Abraham (near Ka'ba). He will be forced to accept people's Bay'a (being chosen as a Leader/Caliph). The number of those offering Bay'a will be the same as the number of the people of Badr (Muslim fighters who participated in the Battle of Badr at time of Prophet Mohammad). Then, the dweller of Heaven and the dweller of the Earth will be pleased with him. ' (Nuaim bin Hammad's book Kitab Al-Fitan ) Abi Ja'far said: "If the Abbas reaches Khorasan, (a star known as) Horn Zu-Shifa rises in the East. The first time it appeared was at the perishing of the people of (Prophet) Noah when Allah drowned them. And it rose at the time of (Prophet) Abraham, peace be upon him, when they cast him into fire, and when Allah caused Pharaoh (at the time of Moses) and those with him to perish, and when (Prophet) John (the Baptist) son of Zakariah was killed. If you see this, seek refuge in Allah against the evilness of Fitan (strifes and tribulations). It will rise after the eclipse of the sun and the moon. Then, soon the Abqa (a man seeking to rule) in Egypt will appear." (Nuaim bin Hammad's book Kitab Al-Fitan, Al-Muttaqi al-Hindi's book Al-Burhan fi `Alamat al-Mahdi Akhir az-Zaman, p. 32) Ka'b said: "It is a star that rises from the East and illuminates for the people of the Earth like the illumination of a moon in a full-moon night." (Nuaim bin Hammad's book Kitab Al-Fitan) Ka'b said: “ 'A star will rise from the East before the appearance of the Mahdi and it has a tail.' And Sharik said:' Before the appearance of the Mahdi, the sun will have an eclipse in the month of Ramadan twice.' ” (Nuaim bin Hammad's book Kitab Al-Fitan) Khaded Bin Madan said: " If you see a column of fire from the East, in the month of Ramadan, in the sky, get food as much as you can, for it is (going to be) a year of starvation (famine)." (Tabarani, Nuaim bin Hammad's Kitab Al-Fitan ) Khaded Bin Madan said: " An Aya (sign) which is a column of fire rising from the East will appear that all people of the World will be able see. Whoever is present (alive) should arrange for his family food supply for one year." (Nuaim bin Hammad's Kitab Al-Fitan ) Thawban reported that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said, "Three men will be killed at the place where your treasure is (most likely, this is the treasure prophesied to be uncovered by Euphrates River, but may alternatively be the oil/petrol in Arabia, or the treasure underneath the Ka'ba). Each of them will be the son of a Caliph, but none of them will get hold of the treasure. Then, the Black Banners will come out of the East, and they will slaughter you, in a way that has never been seen before. If you see him (the Mahdi), give him your allegiance, even by crawling over snow, because he is the Caliph, the Mahdi." (Ibn Maja, Musnad Ahmad, Al-Haakim's Sahiha, Al-Zahabi, Ibn Kathir's Niyaha fi Al-Fitan wa Al-Malahim, Abu Nuaim bin Hammad's Kitab Al-Fitan, Muhammad Al-Barzanji's Isha'ah li Ashrat Al-Sa'a) Allah knows best about the star and its arrival and the authenticity of these ahadith . But the next Ramadan in 2012 does begin on a Friday and the middle of it is also on a Friday inshallah. And this is something that should be paid attention to and we should take precaution, (all of us chasing after the comfort of this dunya(life of the world) need to wake up). We need to return to the the Path of Allah Azzawajal and when this sign occur the Mahdi will also appear in hajj the same year. Bi'isnillah and Allah Azzawajal knows Best Surah At-Tariq In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful By the heaven, and At-Târiq (the night-comer, i.e. the bright star); (1) And what will make you to know what At-Târiq (night-comer) is? (2) (It is) the star of piercing brightness; (3) There is no human being but has a protector over him (or her) (i.e. angels in charge of each human being guarding him, writing his good and bad deeds). (4) So let man see from what he is created! (5) He is created from a water gushing forth, (6) Proceeding from between the back-bone and the ribs, (7) Verily, (Allâh) is Able to bring him back (to life)! (8) The Day when all the secrets (deeds, prayers, fasting, etc.) will be examined (as to their truth) (9) Then he will have no power, nor any helper. (10) By the sky (having rain clouds) which gives rain, again and again. (11) And the earth which splits (with the growth of trees and plants), (12) Verily, this (the Qur'ân) is the Word that separates (the truth from falsehood, and commands strict laws for mankind to cut the roots of evil). (13) And it is not a thing for amusement. (14) Verily, they are but plotting a plot (against you O Muhammad (SAW)). (15) And I (too) am planning a plan. (16) So give a respite to the disbelievers; deal gently with them for a while. (17)