Nakba Action

For the global community, there is nothing more consequential than the catastrophic failure after World War II to learn the correct lessons.  Instead, the world continued with the business of war as usual (and war is business).  One of the most destabilizing forces in the world was created and sustained for 100 years before the USA took on nurturing it after WWII.  I am ofcourse speaking of Zionism.  This is the idea that came from Napoleon in 1799, took official sanction by the British in 1845, picked up by the British and French Jewish rich individuals (deHirsch, Montefiore Rothschild etc), took the name of Zionism in 1890 (by Birnbaum), and then these wealthy Zionist Jews established the "Jewish Colonization Association" in 1891 and the World Zionist Congress in 1897, and received public declarations of support by the governments of France and Britain in 1917.  The result today is unmistakable: millions of refugees, the rape, destruction and transformation of an ancient beautiful Holy land, the destruction of Yiddish and Ladino cultures and languages, countless wars, and destablization and de-development of the Arab world and beyond.  But as I say to my students: do your own homework because you should form your own opinion based on facts and solid information! Here are links about Nakba that came to my inbox in the last week.

Palestine and Palestinians before the Nakba (the ethnic cleansing)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjEBQ_bE7uA

1948 IDF Soldier Tells Nakba Truth - The occupation of the Negev villages http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB0DXF2ObPw

AlNakba English Documentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm7dMhE80dw

The Beauty of Palestine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_VXcOAZxdw 

NAKBA The Untold Story of a Cultural Catastrophe
http://nad-plo.org/etemplate.php?id=321

Important historical study of 1947-1949 period
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/L/Joshua.M.Landis-1/Syria_1948.htm

Erasing the Nakba: Israel’s Tireless Efforts to Conceal the Historical Events Leading to Its Creation by NEVE GORDON, Be’er-Sheva,  Israel http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/16/erasing-the-nakba/

New Book Review: A Palestinian's altruistic world and the archives of a personal nakba; Nammar's spiritual ethos recaptures, etches out his visions firmly throughout archives of his personal, family history, before, during, after the 1948 Nakba.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=52222

(Video in Hebrew) Tel Aviv University Nakba Anniversary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg9XUX_ZKKE

Palestine : les acquis de la résistance populaire
Mazin Qumsyieh : "En ce 64ème anniversaire de la Nakba, nous portons le deuil du nettoyage ethnique qui a débuté en 1948 et qui continue aujourd’hui par des transferts subreptices, des démolitions de maisons, la confiscation de terres, etc. Mais nous célébrons aussi une résilience et une réussite étonnantes du peuple palestinien autochtone, dans des conditions incroyablement défavorables".
http://www.europalestine.com/spip.php?article7237

ACTION: 50 things you can do for peace with justice

http://palestinejn.org/en/resources/resources-for-activism-

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

A Bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home

Nakba anniversary message

On this 64^th anniversary of the Nakba we mourn the ethnic cleansing that began in 1948 and that continues today with silent transfer, home demolitions, land confiscation and more.  But we also celebrate an amazing resilience and success of the Palestinian endogenous people against incredible odds:

-We just celebrated the success of a hunger strike by over 1600 political prisoners despite attempts to stifle the story in Zionist dominated Western media. They succeeded in achieving a part of their basic rights including receiving family visits and ending solitary confinement.

-We are 11.5 million people and while most of us are refugees and displaced people, we remain steadfast and hopeful and connected.  Thanks to persistence and now the internet and modern communications, even the feeble attempts to isolate us from each other failed.  Thousands of Palestinians still go to their main city of Jerusalem without Israeli permission.  Thousands connect across the Green line to the areas occupied since 1948.

-We are still the most educated people in the Middle East with the highest per capita of postgraduates. 

-We now have 12 universities inside the occupied Palestinan territories.  On Saturday we held the second biomedical research symposium in Bethlehem showing scientific work rivaling that done in countries with a strong tradition of research.  This is miraculous considering the conditions under occupation.

-We are still the people who helped develop the Arab world and even remind it of its unity and common destiny.  But more than that, our resistance shielded fellow Arabs from the original plans of Zionists for an empire from the Nile to the Euphrates.  We are still the main obstacle to the victory of the racist Zionist project.

-We have an amazing history of 130 years of struggle against the most well-financed, most-organized, most-supported (by Zionists and their Western backers) colonial project in human history. 

- We have the fastest growing boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement in anti-colonial struggles.  In less than 7 years we accomplished far more than what was accomplished with BDS in any other place (including in 25 years in South Africa).

-Palestine is still the place where people of different religions lived together in the same neighborhod unsegregated until European Zionists came and recreated ghettos for Palestinians (Muslims and Christians) and one large ghetto for Jews called Israel coexist in harmony.  Church bells and the call of the Muezzin to prayer still penetrate deep in our souls despite all the Zionist attempts to silence them (e.g. the ethnic cleansing and destruction of 530 villages and towns).

- We educate our children that racism and notions of choseness are wrong and they grow to believe that we can still have the new Palestine that will be like our old Palestine: multiethnic, multireligious, multicultural and beautiful.

- Palestinians inspired activists around the world.  Polls show great sympathy for our cause among average people.  Palestine is now cause celebre among those struggling against oppression. Even Nelson Mandela said that South Africa will not be fully free until Palestine is free. According to polls, a majority in Western Europe correctly view Israel and the US as the two greatest threats to world peace. Thousands of internationals joined us in the struggle locally.  Israel has become so paranoid about any solidarity visits and in the process exposed its apartheid racist nature.

We are grateful to be participants in shaping a better future for all.  I am 100% sure that our Nakba will end, refugees will return, freedom and equality will happen, and Israelis will also be liberated from being oppressors and colonizers and become integrated into the fabric of the new and better Palestine.  We can then become a "light unto the peoples."

----------------------------

Died: Vidal Sassoon who volunteered for and fought in the Israeli army during the ethnic cleansing in 1948 (the largest since WWII). His "beauty" empire participated (and continues) in the financing of the ugly Zionist crimes against humanity. 

Podcast Radio interview: Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh of Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities, author of Popular Resistance in Palestine: a History of Hope and Empowerment. - Around 2000 Palestinian prisoners, out of desperation, are on hunger strike. Some are near death. Yet western media are silent. Many prisoners have been arrested and re-arrested, under "Administrative Detention", i.e., no charges and no trials

http://plainsfm.org.nz/podcasts/ (then click Earthwise)

Lest we forget: Palestinian Refugees: Right to Return and Repatriation. Chapter 4 from Sharing The Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle" . http://www.qumsiyeh.org/chapter4/

Two chapters from a new book titled  "The Case For Sanctions Against Israel"

Hind Awwad: “Six Years of BDS: Success!”

http://www.odsg.org/co/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2552

Ilan Pappé: the boycott will work, an Israeli perspective

http://www.odsg.org/co/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2555

See this link to an al-Jazeera documentary about the theft of books from Palestinian homes and libraries during the 1948 war.  It is a very tragic story with many of the books looted from Khalil al-Sakakini's library and others, then kept at the Israeli national library. There is an opening poem by Sakakini dedicated to his stolen books http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2012/05/20125915313256768.html

Phil Monsour features Rafeef Ziadah - Ghosts of Deir Yassin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vJR3yss04M

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

A bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home

http://qumsiyeh.org

المقاومة

المقاومة المنظمة الهادئة المصرة

د. مازن قمصية

 المشروع الصهيوني مخطط لها بعناية وبعلم.  ثيودور هيرتزل كتب عام 1897 أن الدولة اليهودية ستتحقق "عن طريق كل وسيلة حديثة." وكما ذكر الأجندة تشمل إزالة السكان الأصليين مع أو من دون اتفاق من بعض العرب وإقامة دولة يهودية كبيرة. هرتزل لم يُحدد حجم "العقار المطلوب" للدولة لكن بن غوريون وآخرين قالوا أنها من الممكن أن تكون "ما بين النيل والفرات." بن غوريون وصف لابنه في عام 1937  كيف أن دولة إسرائيل الجديدة عند تأسيسها على جزء من أرضنا ستكون قاعدة للتوسع والنمو في المستقبل "مع أو من دون اتفاق من العرب". وبالفعل تطور ألاستيطان بدون اتفاقات مع عرب وأيضا (ربما تسارع) مع ألاتفاقات المبرمة: مع الحكومة العثمانية في 1878 ومع راغب النشاشيبي 1937 ومع الملك عبد الله 1947 ومع من وقعوا على معاهدة أوسلو 1993 واتفاق الخليل 1997. هذا ليس جديدا للحركات ألاستعمارية. بعض الأميركيون الأصليون وقعوا معاهدات لا تحصى عبر 200 عام مع حكومة الولايات المتحدة في مرحلتها التوسعية. وانتُهكت جميعها وانتهى المطاف بهم في كانتونات ((Reservations. حصل هذا أيضا بفضل فكرة زرعها ألاستعمار في عقول الجميع وهي أهمية الفصل العنصري وعدم جدوى المقاومة. بالقابل نظمت حركة المقاومة في فيتنام الشعب عبر عقود ليقبل التضحيات ويساعد الناس بعضهم بعضا.

لتحرير أجسادنا يجب أن نحرر عقولنا وهنا لا يمكن النجاح بناء على قواعد اللعبة ألإسرائيلية.  احتياجات ورغبات المستعمرين لا يمكن تلبيتها من قبل شعب مُحتل.  المحتلين والمستعمرين يريدون مزيدا من الفرص للتقدم عن طريق توطيد وتعزيز الوضع الراهن والسماح لهم للمزيد من التوسع. نحن الشعب المٌحتَل نريد وقف وعكس ذلك. السلام لنا هو الحصول على الحرية والعيش بكرامة. نريد العودة إلى بيوتنا وأراضينا والعيش بسلام كما فعلنا لآلاف السنين. نحن نصر على العودة وتقرير المصير. نحن نصر على أن البلاد يجب أن تبقى متعددة الأعراق، متعددة الديانات، ومتعددة الثقافات. مثل النضال في جنوب إفريقيا في ظل الفصل العنصري هذا ليس نزاعا على الحدود ولا يمكن حله بالتخلي عن حقوقنا.  لكن أيضا لن نحصل على أي من حقوقنا باستجداء إسرائيل أو المجتمع الدولي. الطريقة واضحة وهي العمل والتضحية. هنالك هيكل منهجي مخطط له ومن الواضح أنه مع البطولات والتضحيات الملهمة التي نجحت بإفشال مخططات صهيونية كثيرة وتعطيل برامج أخرى فلا زال البرنامج الصهيوني قائما.

تمكن الصهاينة بجهدهم الوصول إلى مراكز القوة في العالم وهنا تكمن تحديات مصيرية لنا ولكن أيضا دروس وعبر. مع التهجير بقي منا الملايين في فلسطين ولو في كانتونات. هل سنقبل بنظام غريب لم يحصل في أية حركة تحرر. لن يتم رد الاستعمار الصهيوني بالعواطف أو الخطابات أو العمل العشوائي.  ركوب سفينة بدون بوصلة أو خارطة أو قائد لا يمكن أن يؤدي إلى شاطئ الأمان إلا بالصدفة.  الناس اليوم تتذمر وتغلي وسيأتي يوم تتمرد.
أعمال متفرقة من المقاومة الشعبية البطولية ليست كافية ويجب تنسيق وعمل مشترك. ما يعوق ذلك هو نظام وضعه المحتل ووافق عليه بعض من شعبنا كما وافق من قبلهم بعض قيادات الهنود الحمر. المحتل طور ألأمور ونشر فكرة أن خياراتنا هي بين سجن خفيف وسجن أصعب. هنا دخلت المفهومات الخاطئة عن "الواقعية".   بدأ الانزلاق نحو "الواقعية" مع برنامج النقاط العشرة عام 1974. وبات واضحا ألآن لكل فلسطيني شارك أو ساعد في مسار أوسلو أن النتيجة كانت تقوية الاحتلال ومضاعفة ألاستعمار. هذا الاحتلال هو ألآن الأكثر ربحا في تاريخ البشرية (عدة مليارات من الدولارات تتدفق سنويا إلى خزائن إسرائيل نتيجة لهذا الاحتلال).  ويجري تنفيذ صفقات تجارية إسرائيلية وفلسطينية على سبيل المثال في المنطقة (ج). وهذه هي "خطة السلام الاقتصادي" لنتنياهو. ويتم التحقيق مع ومعاقبة الأشخاص الذين قد يفكروا في تعطيل الوضع الراهن. لكن من الواضح أن الوضع الراهن مدمر بالنسبة لنا ولا يمكن أن يستمر. القيادة الحكيمة تنشأ عضويا من ناس تريدها ولا تسكت.   لا ينبغي أن نتردد في الضغط على قادتنا الحاليين وإذا لم يستجيبوا فخلق قيادة بديلة تستجيب لتطلعات الشعب وتضحياته.  اعتقد أن على كل الذين يحمون راتب أو موقف أن يفكروا في أطفالهم أو أحفادهم وكيف يعيشون في ظل نظام للعنصرية والاضطهاد لن يتوقف أبدا بدون هزيمة. 

هل حان الوقت للتغيير وخاصة بعد فشل مسار "حل الدولتين"؟ هل حان الوقت لجمع شملنا كشعب من مناطق 1948 من الضفة الغربية وغزة والمنفى و إيجاد آليات وهياكل تأخذنا إلى ألأمام ليس بعاطفية بل بمخطط وترتيبات؟ لماذا لا يتحرك المثقفين الفلسطينيين لضمان وجود مخططات وطرق منظمة لتجنيد الطاقات المتوفرة والكامنة؟ هل يمكننا إقناع العالم والإسرائيليين أننا جادون في العمل من أجل مستقبل من السلام والعدالة والرخاء للجميع؟ يجب أن لا تهيمن أصوات سلبية على هذه المرحلة الحرجة. يجب أن يكون الحوار مفتوحا أمام ذوي النوايا الحسنة من جميع الفصائل والمستقلين. . لدينا الموارد المالية والفكرية والعاطفية والجسدية فلا ينقصنا إلا ألإرادة الجماعية للتغيير.  هل نستطيع تجنيد 5٪ أو حتى 1٪ من الفلسطينيين في مختلف أنحاء العالم للمشاركة في جهد منظم؟.

العالم اليوم لا يحترم إلا أولئك الذين يحترمون أنفسهم. ليس لدينا ما نخجل منه  بل لدينا الكثير لنكون فخورين به من تاريخنا (أنظر كتابي "المقاومة الشعبية في فلسطين: تاريخ حافل بالأمل والتقوية" والذي يسرد قصة 130 عام من النضال).  الأزمة في فلسطين على ضمير العالم ورغم مشاكل الثورات العربية فالتغيير قادم لا محالة. حتى لو فشلنا في تحقيق هدفنا هذا الوقت فإن أي روح إيجابية وحركة شعبية من شأنها التغيير (لنتذكر نجاح الحركة ألأسيرة).  نعرف من دراسة التاريخ أن من الممكن إطلاق العنان للإبداع والطاقة وأنه ليس هنالك المستحيل عندما تكون هنالك إرادة شعبية.  يجب أن يحدث هذا لأن صراعنا هو صراع وجودي ل 11.5 ملايين فلسطيني في العالم ولمستقبل أبنائنا وأحفادنا الذين ولدوا أو لم يولدوا بعد. كل واحد منا لديه دور يلعبه ولديها المهارات والموارد الأخرى للمساهمة.

بات واضحا من انتصار الأسرى الفلسطينيون وما سبقها من انتصارات أن المقاومة المنظمة الهادئة المصرة هي الطريقة الوحيدة للدفاع عن الحقوق في ظل ألاستعمار والتخاذل العالمي والعربي وحتى الفلسطيني. الشهداء والجرحى والأسرى مهدوا لنا الطريق لنبذ الخلافات والتضحية والمسيرة للحرية. فلنترك الرصيف والتأمل ولنمشي سويا على الطريق.

لميس اندوني--حياتهم في أعناقنا

معركة الأسرى هي فرصتنا للمشاركة في مواجهة بطولية وضرورية,

http://www.alarabalyawm.net/pages.php?articles_id=20492

التضامن مع الأسرى الفلسطينيين
http://www.aljazeera.net/analysis/pages/b4a38fb0-b492-494c-b9e9-c4de94905ba5

الحكومة الجديدة والبدائل والأسرى

http://www.assafir.com/article.aspx?EditionId=2149&ChannelId=51390&ArticleId=1285

Dignity

"We did not go into the battle because we love to be hungry or in pain, but for our dignity and the dignity of our nation," Thaer Halahlef, 33 from Hebron, 73 days on Hunger strike

Dignity is such a word that makes us shudder.  We Palestinians want our leaders and political leaders around the world to show a fraction of the dignity shown by Thaer and his comrades.  Dignity.  Self respect. Honor. Independence that begins with freeing our minds from mental occupation.  Dignitry is what we 11.2 million Paslestinians seek on the eve of the Nakba.  5.6 million Palestinians live in historic Palestin; 1.4 million of whom are within the 1948 occupied areas and 4.2 million in the 1967 occupied areas. 

Friday will be a day full of events around the world in solidarity with the hunger strikers and in memorizing the Nakba.  Look in your area fora  nearby event. Here in the Bethlehem district, we will gather in Al Walajeh Friday 11 May 2012 at 12:00 (by the mosque at the entrance of the village). 

This Week in Palestine Nakba issue includes a seriers of brilliant and unexpected articles: You can download PDF here http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com
They also included my book on Popular Resistance in Palestine as book of the month
http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=3714
And from Dr. AbedAlfattah Abusrour a great article on Beautiful Resistance
http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=3706
Abed is in the US now on a speaking tour:
http://www.alrowwad-acts.ps/etemplate.php?id=160

For the first time since 1948 the children and grandchildren of the refugees can see their homeland from which their fathers were expelled. When they tried to return in 1948, they were shot dead as 'infiltrators'.
Now the father and his children can see Palestine as it was in 1948. They can fly over it, but only in preparation for the day when they will actually walk over its soil and recover their patrimony.
Click this link: http://www.plands.org/maps/flightpaths.html

International Red Cross: Lives of Palestinian detainees on hunger strike in danger
http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/news-release/2012/israel-palestine-news-2012-05-08.htm
Palestinian Prisoners near Death 
http://www.alhaq.org/documentation/weekly-focuses/569-palestinian-prisoners-near-death

Rabbis tour and make prayers in Sidon Synagogue (Lebanon) now housing a Palestinian refugee family
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Apr-03/168975-sidon-synagogue-opens-for-rare-prayers.ashx#ixzz1r2y05fX3

South African student leader, Mbuyiseni Ndlozi on Palestine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNbZjTlpM6w

Time for a change!

Palestinian political prisoners illegally held in Israeli jails are on hunger strike and some are near death.  The population of strikers includes 200 child prisoners, 27 Palestinian legislative council members, and 456 prisoners from Gaza who have not been allowed family visits since 2007 [1].  Meanwhile, colonization continued a relentless pace. Ramzy Baroud and Jeff Halper argue that Israel is “fixing” the outcome and is an “end-game” scenario to take over most of the West Bank and leave us in small cantons [2]. Yet, judging from my research into the carefully planned Zionist project, such plans are not end games but mileposts to give the Zionists time to consolidate gains in preparation for the next round of expansion in precisely the way Ben Gurion described it to his son in 1937.  Ben Gurion explained lucidly how the new state of Israel when established on part of the coveted land would be a base of steady expansion and growth in the future with or without agreement from “Arabs” [3].  I pondered how little has changed in the intervening 75 years.  Colonial Israel continues to push the envelope and expand with or without agreement from compliant “Arabs”. Compliant Arabs existed in 1937 (headed by Ragheb Al-Nashashibi) and existed in 1967 and in 2012.  There also existed intellectual and honest Arabs throughout our history.

Zionist colonization is not driven by emotion or haphazard action.  It is done as instructed by the founding father of Political Zionism Theodore Herzl in 1897: "we must investigate and take possession of the new Jewish country by means of every modern expedient." Modern expedients advocated by Herzl include planned methodical structure to remove the native people (with or without agreement of some Arabs) and create a large Jewish state. Herzl was not specific on size of the "required estate" but Ben Gurion and people of his era thought it possible to go as far as between the Nile and the Euphrates.

The plans of colonizers are remarkably similar and known from the diaries of Herzl in 1897, from the letter from Ben Gurion to his son in 1937, the Allon plan of 1967, and from the Hebron accords of 1997.  It is a plan of expansion without some Arabs consenting or occasionally with agreement from some Arabs. These agreements, like the treaties that some Native Americans signed with the government of the United States in its expansionary phase, were and are violated because they are merely consolidation tools [4]. I think like these Native American chiefs some Palestinians thought that they are doing the best they could under difficult circumstances.  Most of the Native American “leaders” had no concept or understanding of the true nature of the notions and emotions driving the Westward expansion of the white colonialists in the USA.  They did not delve deeply into notions of manifest destiny, choseness, and racism that characterize their oppressors.  One could say the ideology of Native Americans exhibited the exact opposite of their colonizers and thus they presumed that whites are ultimately human and could be dealt with as equals.  

Peace for natives is to get their freedom, to live in dignity, and most of all to get the boot of colonization off our necks.  Peace for the colonizers is to have the victim stop wiggling under their boots.  Towards this they devised ingenious plans including a Palestinian Preventive Security force.   Any rational human being can see this dictation and imbalance of power in daily news.  Thus the people are left out of decisions whether on “negotiations”,  on "national reconciliation", ongoing and not going to the UN, or on how they may eventually be liberated.  Despairing and riding a ship without compass or rudder, the people grumble and boil underneath and later erupt in revolt.

Needs and desires of the colonizers and the colonized are not the same.  Occupiers and colonizers want more opportunities to progress via consolidation and strengthening of the status quo and allowing them to expand further.   We, the occupied and colonized people, want to halt and eventually reverse the process of injustice.  Palestinians want to return to our homes and lands and live peacefully as we did for millennia.   We insist on return and self-determination.  We insist that the country must remain multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-cultural.  This is not a border dispute nor is it a quibble over the Israeli illegal control of the religious sites.  Like in the struggle in South Africa under apartheid, it is a struggle that pits two very different visions of the area: one of racism and apartheid and the other of justice and equality. 

Sporadic acts of heroic popular resistance are not enough to reach peace with justice.  Coordination and joint action must take place.  What hinders it is a system developed by the occupiers and agreed to by some of the occupied people.  Personal economic benefit maintains the status quo. What is done with support from a Palestinian authority is nothing short of making this occupation the most profitable in history (several billion dollars flow annually to Israeli coffers as a result of this occupation).  Already Israeli and Palestinian business deals are being executed for example in area C.  This is the “economic peace plan” of Netanyahu and others.  Those who may think of disrupting the status quo are investigated and punished.  Most Palestinians are excellent diagnosticians and have figured this out.  But I think many have not started to articulate solutions or ideas to get out of this mud hole that the Oslo Process (actually started with the 10 point program in 1974) put us into.  It is not going to be easy and it does require sacrifice.  But those delusional individuals who think that they have a salary or a position and they do not want to risk rocking the boat should think again. They should think of how their children or grandchildren would live under a system of racism and oppression.  This is as true of Israelis as it is true of Palestinians.

Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) give us hope.  Shimon Peres, the architect of Israel’s arsenal of Weapons of Mass Destruction and a war criminal once explained: "In order to export you need good products, but you also need good relations....[If] Israel's image gets worse, it will begin to suffer boycotts. There is already an artistic boycott against us and signs of an undeclared financial boycott are beginning to emerge." International figures who worked against apartheid in South Africa argued convincingly of why this can help here in Apartheid Israel [5]. But BDS is only a tool and certainly not sufficient to effect the needed change.  There has to be a structured program from the people which includes an articulation of a vision with concrete goals for the future.  In my book “Sharing the Land of Canaan” in 2004 I argued for precisely such a program to move from apartheid to a state of all its citizens.  These notions have gained widespread acceptance among intellectuals and activists of various religious and political backgrounds.  To arrive to this vision, we need organization.  

Organization requires visionary leadership arising organically from a maturing rising population.   We should not be reluctant to push our existing leaders and if they are not willing to move then to create alternative leadership.   ALL Factions have aging and non-innovative leadership and ALL factions have younger energetic and dedicated (but marginalized) individuals.  Clearly the status quo is devastating for us and cannot last.  We know from history that people will rise-up and DEMAND change.  

  

Is it time for varied voices to coalesce into a thunderous uproar that cannot be ignored?  May we organize meetings and discuss publicly the path forward?  While many for example discussed the failure of the "two state solution" and some articulated future visions, we need more than that. Can we as a people in 1948 areas, in the WB and Gaza and in exile create mechanisms and structures that take us to where we decide to go?  Can we convince the world and even Israelis that we are serious about working for a future of peace with justice and prosperity for everyone?  Voices of negativism must not dominate this critical stage.  This conversation must be open to people of goodwill from all factions and from independents. While it must start among Palestinians, we must later involve our trusted supporters from around the world.  We do have the resources: financial, intellectual, emotional, and physical. Let those who have skills in organizing organize and those who have skills in media work do media work. Let those who have skills in social networking do that.  Those who have skills in music write songs for the revolution.  Imagine if we can get even 5% or even 1% of the Palestinians around the world as participants in an organized effort.  The change that could happen can be monumental.  

The world today only respects those who respect themselves and struggle for their own rights.  We have nothing to be ashamed of as Palestinians even though 7 million of us are refugees or displaced people.  We have a lot to be proud of from our history [6]. We cannot give up now that the crisis of Palestine weighed on the world conscience and when the Arab spring could change the whole geopolitical reality of the Middle East.  Even if we fail at our goal this time, the positive spirit that results would enrich all our lives. It would unleash the creativity and the energy that we know is in us.   Change can and must happen because it ours is an existential struggle for 11.5 million Palestinians in the world and for our children and grandchildren born and unborn.  Each of us has a role to play and has skills and other resources to contribute.  Even if we start slow and among a few individuals, it will grow because we have no other choice. Let us get on with it.

[1] http://www.alhaq.org/documentation/weekly-focuses/569-palestinian-prisoners-near-death

[2] Ramzy Baroud- Israel plots an end-game

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/05/03/illegal-settlements-bonanza-israel-plots-an-endgame/,

Jeff Halper http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/04/2012428124445821996.html but see also Susan Abulhawa's reply to Jeff Halper http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=19274#.T6RigYJSHIA.twitter

[3] Ben Gurion letter to his son, sent October 5, 1937 Translation here

http://www.palestine-studies.org/files/B-G%20Letter%20translation.pdf

[4] The Oslo accords were an excellent tool by Israel to consolidate its hold and in violations of the Geneva conventions allowed Israel “civil control” in >60% of the West Bank called area C.  In further negotiations it was leaked how much people like Saeb Erekat were willing to keep going in handing over these areas to Israel http://www.aljazeera.com/palestinepapers/

[5] Desmond Tutu on the need for Divestment from Israeli apartheid

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/justice-requires-action-to-stop-subjugation-of-palestinians/1227722

[6] “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and Empowerment” http://www.qumsiyeh.org/popularresistanceinpalestine/