In this digest: 1) A call to join a large gathering of students, faculty and staff to promote boycott, divestments, and sanctions (BDS) at academic institutions. 2) An action call for the release of our friend and nonviolent activist Mohammed Othman. 3) Why the Goldstone report matters by Richard Falk and a call to action from the US Campaign to End the Occupation, 4) two Jewish songwriters on Palestine, 5) A rough poem I wrote after the Obama-Netanyahu-Abbas meeting titled “We are angry”
ACTION 1: This fall from November 20th through the 22nd, students, faculty, and staff from around the country who are engaged in Palestine solidarity activism will converge for a conference on campus Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS).
ACTION 2: My friend Mohammad Othman (from Jayyous, a village that lost a lot of its lands to the apartheid wall), was arrested by Israeli authorities when he returned from a trip to Norway. A colleague wrote”It is not the first time, Palestinian human rights defenders are arrested after trips abroad. Muhammad Srour, an eye witness to the killing of Arafat Khawaje, 22, and 20-year-old Mohammed Khawaje, who were both shot on a Gaza solidarity demonstration in Ni’lin on 28th December. He testified in front of the UN Fact Finding Mission on Gaza and, in a clear act of reprisal, he was arrested on his way back. This strategy of arrests complements the overall policy of isolation of the Palestinian people behind checkpoints, walls and razor wire. “More at http://www.facebook.com/group.
Urge your representatives at consular offices in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem/Ramallah to demand the immediate release of Mohammad Othman. (For your consular contacts, see: http://www.embassiesabroad.
Action 3: Read Richard Falk’s “Why the Goldstone report matters”
http://intifada-palestine.com/
and then act by going to this link http://www.endtheoccupation.
Two Jewish song-writers do a song for Palestine and suggest that you donate to charities to support Palestine
Vimeo, high def, about 12 minutes long: http://vimeo.com/6630724
Youtube, in two parts, about 6 minutes long each:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
For audio download, pay what you want, 20% goes to charities that help
Palestinian kids, (the other 80% goes to helping me recoup the $2K I spent
on this video!):
http://www.richsiegel.
We are angry
By Mazin Qumsiyeh
We are angry at rhetoric of oppression
Hafrada-Segregation-Apartheid and Security
Two-states, one state, cantons and autonomy
The chosen state’s right to exist
While colonialism can persist
Addictws now to talk about talking
And hold meetings about more meetings
Maybe to revive the “peace process” charades
to ensure no peace for a few more decades
giving the monster created by Western powers
time to gobble more of the holy pieces
and belch its pleasure in more negotiations
devoid of human rights or UN resolutions
We are angry at statistics of oppression
11,000 political prisoners
534 Destroyed villages and towns
35% seeking stolen jobs
450 km of apartheid walls
7 million displaced or refugees
1.5 million uprooted fruiting trees
1.5 million in Gaza besieged
62 years of justice denied
We are angry at manufactured misery
Epidemics and pandemics
Genocides hidden with polemics
Swelling ranks of the disempowered
Phosphorous bombs on Gaza showered
An apartheid wall that snakes around
Running sewage in the streets abound
Children barefoot in a refugee camp in 2009!
While the unelected leaders repeat the same line
We are angry at spies
Some come take pictures and pretend to care
Others just watch and hope to avoid the glare
Some punished by law or by a guilty conscience
Others abandoned by their racist masters
Some feed stomachs but starve their souls
Others fall for carnal desires as fleeting as the empty goals
Some serving the colonial racist regime
Others think it safer with the quisling theme
Some commit suicide or die forgotten
Others repent and are soon forgiven
We are angry at hypocrisy
Those who claim then need their human right
While not sparing children from their plight
Those who champion International laws
While leaving heavy trails of bloody claws
Those who smile plunging knives in your back
While screaming loudly that they are under attack
Those who use a religious heritage to support overt racism
While defaming anyone who dares to speak out: “anti-semitism”!
We are angry at collaborators
Those with nice suits and those with guns
Those who sell their people for shekels
Those who do it out of ignorance
And those who with malice and malfeasance
Presidents, Pundits, and peasants
Large or small petty criminals
We are angry at being angry
While it may help us break the chains
Yet our love through anger diminishes
And our faith in humanity shrinks
And even what we want for ourselves
So maybe this final anger motivates ….
To shed anger and keep high our heads and spirits
In our world there are many who deserve merits
good, honest, brave activists
Philanthropists, protestors, poets…
men and women of all life stages
tailor-made therapists for all ages
Political Prisoners and Martyrs
Intellectuals and small farmers
Working to plant the blood-soaked lands
With cactus, figs, olive trees, and almonds
watering hopes and dreams like a growing grape vine
tendrils reaching out to free beloved immortal Palestine
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home
http://qumsiyeh.org
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