Must Read from Bedoin: Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

English following Arabic
لمن يقرأ العربية: الرجاء إرسال رسالة الكترونية إذا أردت أن تستلم منا مقالات وأخبار بالعربية مرة كل أسبوع
وهالك سؤال للتشجيع قد يدهشك-- من كتب وفي أي سنة؟:

مضى علينا 25 سنة ونحن ننبه إلى الخطر الصهيوني, وندعو إلى اتقائه ودفع مضاره بتأليف الرأي العربي والإسلامي. تسلح كثيرون بهذه الدعوة. فهتف لهم الجمهور ومشى ورائهم فتاجروا بثقته واشتروا بها وظائف ومنافع وارتقوا إلى مقامات وأهملوا الوطن وازدروا أهله. هذا لا ييئسنا بل سنستأنف الجهاد...وطنيتنا السابقة تتلخص في هتاف للزعماء وحفلات تكريم وتأبين واحتجاجات ومظاهرات راحت بظلها الأراضي وأفلتت من أيدينا التجارة وانتقلت إلى غيرنا العمال وفرغت جيوبنا وجاعت بطوننا وصرنا نرحل عن ديارنا. نحن بحاجة إلى وطنية صحيحة تمنع انتقال الأراضي
الخ...........
. الجواب: نجيب نصار, محرر الكرمل. بتاريخ 2-1-32 (قسطندي الشوملي. جريدة الكرمل 1908-1941: دراسة نقدية وفهرس تاريخي. مركز اللقاء للدراسات الدينية والتراثية في الأراضي المقدسة. القدس. 1996. ص 61)
والتاريخ يعيد نفسه

Today, Bethlehem University was forced to close because the Israeli authorities imposed a "closure" of the West Bank because of Yom Kippur holiday. As our students and faculty from Jerusalem cannot get to Bethlehem (a mere 5 miles away) because of this closure, the educational activities cannot be carried out. Also all Palestinians who are lucky enough to have permits to cross into Palestinian Jerusalem (for work, education etc) are also thus forced to take a day off. In the meantime, the repression does not take days off. Israeli authorities are very busy in continued colonial activities from ethnic cleansing to stealing water (80% of the West Bank water is taken by Israel), to kidnapping and holding political prisoners, to starving Gaza, and to violence against people and against nature. Israeli sewage still flows down the valleys of Salfit while Israel forbids Palestinians from building sewage treatment plants. News today is that Israel has told hundreds of citizens in East Jerusalem that they will cutoff the water to their homes (which used to be a mere one cubic meter per person per month, barely enough to drink and cook let alone take showers). The forms of ethnic cleansing continue to morph.

But we cannot blame everything on the occupiers. There are some Palestinians who have been playing by Israeli rules for many years and who purport to represent all Palestinians. Mistakenly, they think they can both try to get our rights from the occupying army and at the same time abide by the rules laid out by the occupying/colonizing forces and their lobbies abroad. This week one example illustrates the issues: Israel is holding the approval of wave lengths agreed to for a cellular company (Wataniya) that invested millions here until the Palestinian "authority" drops its support for involvement of the Internatioanl Criminal Court investigation of war crimes committed buy Israel in Gaza (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1117296.html ). This shows the impossibility of trying to pressure Israel while abiding by the corrupt and idiotic system created by the Oslo process.

Mahmoud Abbas went to the UN and repeated the same sentences repeated thousands of times before about sticking to the choice of peace and (endless) negotiations and hoping (without any real pressure or evidence of any International pressure) that the International community help advance their own (unfair but still rejected by Israel) UN resolutions and road maps to peace. As Oslo negotiater Dore Gold stated in the Jerusalem Post 6 October 1995" "Oslo 2 is ultimately the creation of a new psychological reality in the West Bank. After initial celebrations, Palestinians will find themselves confined to a certain degree of cantonization."

President Obama's administration has clearly shown itself spineless to stand-up to the Israeli-lobby that is dragging the US into another war with another Middle Eastern country without even agreeing to halt colonial settlement activity for year (like asking a rapist to suspend the rape for a period to allow negotiations!). I can never understand why politicians keep doing the same thing that proved itself a failure and hope for a different outcome! As one author put it in a different context: “Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts. It is epitomized in a historian's statement about Phillip II of Spain, the surpassing wooden-head of all sovereigns: No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence “ (Barbara Tuchman The March of Folly. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1984).

Ali Abunimah writes more on this subject in electronic intifada:
here and concludes that the struggle will continue elsewhere. I agree. The Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is growing. Download this excellent issue of The Link from Americans for Middle East Understanding (AMEU) titled "Ending Israel's Occupation (PDF file) here which succinctly describes the recent BDS successes

And the olive trees in my yard and everywhere promise a great harvest this year so stay tuned and stay active and you certainly are welcome to come join us in the olive harvest :-)

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
A bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home
http://qumsiyeh.org here