Mar 31, 2013

Easter Resurrection of Palestine



Israeli soldiers in the Church of Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Good Friday

Today in Bethlehem, sunny and warmer than usual by 10 degrees (global warming?), is Easter Sunday.  It is a Sunday where Christians following the Western calendar celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.  This got me thinking about resurrection, salvation and what the real message of Jesus, the prince of peace was during his short years walking in the hills that now surround me.  “What would Jesus do” is a question that hovers in the background of this troubled land.  Well, actually the land does not have feelings to be troubled so let us say the troubled inhabitants of this land.  I am certainly troubled as most Palestinian Chritisans and Muslims are.  We are troubled because we cannot even get to our Churches and mosques in Jerusalem.  Palestinians who are already in Jerusalem are being pushed out as Israel continues its relentless program to make the city “Jewish” (whatever that means).  On this Easter, Israeli Jewish soldiers even defiled the Church of Sepulchre where tradition holds that Jesus was crucified and also buried.

We are troubled because just yesterday we commemorated Land Day and our commemorations were marred by Israeli violence.  Even trying to cling to memory of our lands stolen from us is a crime in the Apartheid state of Israel.  A law in the Knesset tried to stop commemorations of the Nakba (the catastrophe of ethnic cleansing of 530 villages and towns between January 1948 and December 1949).  But this is just one of hundreds of racist, discriminatory laws that make Israel the quinticential apartheid state.    

Meanwhile the government of Mr. Abbas approved the “Palestinian Authority” (PA) budget of $3.8 billion that Israeli papers said shows continued dependence on Israel and the US.  The PA in the meantime have sentenced morepeople to jail for expressing dissatisfaction with the status quo.  In one case even sentencing a person for 6 months in jail for clicking ‘like’ on a facebook post that critiqued the PA. There is indeed a grave danger that we will have (if we do not have already) a police state serving Israeli interests. Decent people in Fatah must take note of what is being done in their name lest we have a “village league” scenario.  But back to our main bain and what brought to us the disastrous Oslo and all other disasters: the Israeli occupation.  Bethlehem, the Obama visited for 20 minutes, is still besieged and stripped of ist lands. It is still isolated from its sister cities of Jerusalem and Nazareth.  We still have a “permit system” worse than the one practiced in Apartheid South Africa. We still have Palestinian children being jailed and tortured. We still have owerful occupation stripping us of natural rsources and impoverishing us.  I coud go on and on but then I think again what would Jesus do?  He was actually in a similar situation. The Roman occupation was actually milder than the current Israeli occupation (and colonization).

Jesus was a Palestinian martyr; he was born in Palestine and spoke the language of my ancestors Aramaic, the precursor of the Arabic language.  He believed in resistance like turning tables of profiteers at the temple, challenging the “leaders” etc.  And he worked to help the poor and disenfranchised.  “Comfort the afflicted and make the comfortable a little less comfortable” as Dorothy Day once said.  He did not spend any time congratulating the rich and powerful or visiting their palaces.  When he did encounter the rich and powerful (e.g. Pharisees) he called them hypocrites.   I use it also to describe powerful today.  For example they speak of democracy and human rights while daily violating those.  They speak of love of God but they murder, steal, lie, and cheat to get money and resources and land of others. So I think what Jesus would do if he was still physically walking in these hills here is that he would join us in protests at the apartheid wall and stand in front of bulldozers uprooting olive trees and destroying Palestinian homes.  He would also still be telling us to be hopeful that the Son of Man will be brought to life again and that Palestine will be free again.  We Palestinians do have some experience with resurrection J

Israel troops fire at Land Day commemorators/natives as they challenge continued colonization activities

Manipulating the World to Destruction
The "exodus" story did not free the Jews. Just the opposite, it has been used to keep Jews in perpetual bondage
 to a false history and to promote an attitude of constant victimhood, while distracting them from
realizing they might also play a role in the injustices done to others.

For Palestinian Americans, home brings little freedom

Btselem: mass arrest of children in hebron

Ahfad Younis encampment attacked by Occupation forces last week
Pictures: on.fb.me/YzUG3d

Israelis say to Obama: Thank you for supporting our apartheid state

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD, FABMG
http://qumsiyeh.org

5 comments:

  1. I wanted to say something about false history and there you raise the issue in the linked article. I would call it anti-history. They don't replace a true history with a false history. They replace a true history with a few buzzwords and a lot of silence. They don't say that the UK, League of Nations, UN (thanks, Stalin--maybe he thought it was a good way get them out of Russia (to paraphrase an English woman on why the English government supported it), and US rubber-stamped the "creation" of Israel and then, when the UN and UK lost their nerve, Jewish settlers pushed through the partition of Palestine by force of arms. No account at all, but only some bogus terms. So some Zionists say Israel got "independence". From whom? Some say Israel was "created". Do they mean God created it?
    Blasphemy is only possible if you believe in God? To borrow another current aphorism, God believes in you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My thoughts and prayers are with you especially on this most sacred day in our calendar.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The tragedy of Israel and Palestine is that the Zionists who have suffered immeasurably are now the cause of the suffering of the Palestinians. Whereas the US and many other nations came to the aid of the Jews in Germany the suffering of the Palestinians is mostly ignored. As one who spent over two months in the West Bank and witnessed first hand the building of the settlements, the effects of the wall and the closures, the destruction of Palestinian homes and land and crops I wish to commend the actions and writing of Mazin Qumsiyeh as the Palestinian I admire the most of the people I met. Whatever he writes or advocates or participates in I take note of, as he is extremely gifted in what he does, is fair and just and has the spirit of reconciliation. If only there were more leaders like him. Thank you Mazin for continuing your leadership and commitment to Palestine. Marty in Sydney

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Marty: I generally agree though you have to modify a bit when you know the history of Zionists lobbying US and western countries not to open the doors for Jewish refugees from WWII or how the Zionists broke the boycott of Nazi Germany (the Transfer Agreement) and other historical issues now swept under the carpet as Zionists claim they represent Jews around the world.

      Delete
  4. Healing from HIV-AIDS, i never though dr.camala who could ever get my HIV-AIDS cured with his healing spell, i have tried almost everything but i couldn't find any solution on my disease, despite all these happening to me, i always spend alot to buy a HIV drugs from hospital and taking some several medications but no relieve, until one day i was just browsing on the internet when i come across a great post of !Michelle! who truly said that she was been diagnose with HIV and was healed that very week through the help of these great powerful healing spell doctor, sometime i really wonder why people called him Papa camala, i never knew it was all because of the great and perfect work that he has been doing that is causing all this. so i quickly contacted him, and he ask me some few questions and he said a thing i will never forget that anyone who contacted him is ! always getting his or her healing in just 6 hours after doing all he ask you, so i was amazed all the time i heard that from him, so i did all things only to see that at the very day which he said i will be healed, all the strength that has left me before rush back and i becomes very strong and healthy, this disease almost kills my life all because of me, so i will to hospital to give the final test to the disease and the doctor said i am HIV negative, i am very amazed and happy about the healing dr.camala gave to me from the ancient part of Africa, you can email him now for your own healing too at: dr.camalahivadscure@yahoo.com or WhatsApp him +2348164728160 thank you sir for healing me from HIV

    ReplyDelete