Olives, hope, and more

 Today is the last day we work on our olive trees at the museum gardens in Bethlehem (80 trees). Earlier last week we picked olives in our own home garden in Beit Sahour. This is a form of resistance but it is also physically and mentally healthy exercise that gets us to understand both the blessings and the challenges of life. As a communal event, we receive help from volunteers (local and international) and we get to feel camaraderie and friendship while we also discuss the horrors of starving people of Gaza, of children body parts blown by US bombs, of what motivates genocide, geopolitics, and of our role and purpose in life. T see pictures/reports on activities at our institute, check out our facebook page. 

The olive picking season and the olive tree have been a sacred part of our lives for thousands of years. Here is an article I wrote many years ago about this. Hope is also rekindled in our hearts from our people. Those who volunteered with us like the employees of the red crescent society who helped us pick olives. I am inspired by a Palestinian Tamer who holds two jobs (one as a guard here at our institute but also helped with olives and one as a mechanic), thus working 16 hours a day and yet walks his daughter to school every day. I am inspired by Mosab Abo Taha (see this and this) and Ramzy Baroud a brilliant writer who lost his MD sister in Gaza (see this) and Lebanese women Ghadi Francis. I am inspired by this missionary who walks where Jesus walked, even in time of war. I could list thousands of people like that that I personally know; someone should compile a webpage; I am sure we can list hundreds of thousands of candles in the darkness

Thus, we have hope and faith despite the genocidal onslaught against our people of Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank and also Syria and Yemen goes (76 years of colonialism, supremacy, hegemony, and control).  

The Cactus and the cucumber: A reflection on hope (I wrote this almost 20 years ago)

THINGS NOT SEEN IN THE COMPLICIT WESTERN MEDIA:

Naomi Klein sums things well https://x.com/democracynow/status/1848726603112612275

Col. Larry Wilkerson & Scott Ritter on how Iran destroyed Israeli attack while IDF crushed by a recovered Hezbollah  https://youtu.be/9JoIAfK07uM

Zionist plan: Nile to Euphrates https://youtu.be/KMxooA7CQ8g
This is what it looks like when masses of people are transported to concentration and torture camps in the 21st century. Will the people behind the wheel one day claim that they were 'just drivers'? https://x.com/pawelwargan/status/1849084175829078189
Israeli Soldiers SICKENING War Crimes EXPOSED https://youtu.be/gEo813rYm8g
Nakba happening again in front of the entire world:
https://x.com/Timesofgaza/status/1849378844089647136
and one more massacre (now over 3000 massacres) from Khan Younis
https://x.com/warfareanalysis/status/1849684329582166413
reminiscent of another massacre at same place in 1956:
https://x.com/user104021010/status/1720394748169539715
(yes this is not new)
Kill Them All: The Extermination of Palestinians
https://thecradle.co/articles/kill-them-all-israels-extermination-of-palestinians-in-gaza
UN report confirms MASS RAPE of Palestinian hostages in Israeli torture camps
https://www.naturalnews.com/2024-10-18-un-report-confirms-mass-abuse-palestinian-hostages.html
Chris Hedges: Extermination works - at first
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/extermination-works-at-first
CIA and a private company to run concentration camp in Gaza
https://youtu.be/RRzkIIw2_us
People of Gaza are starving while Arabs hold lavish feasts
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1171559400958009
Australian-Israeli dual citizen Mark Regev under trial for genocide advocacy
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/2024-10-22/ty-article/.premium/australian-israeli-former-diplomat-mark-regev-under-trial-for-genocide-advocacy/00000192-b4e6-d006-a5b3-feee3fa30000
The "President of the European Commission" Ursula von der Leyden not only has excused every crime committed by Israel (war crimes, crimes against humanity, apartheid, genocide) but even advocates suppression of free speech in Europe ala what they have in Germany (no Palestinians flags, no speech against Zionism or colonialism, no "Free Palestine" slogans). She is truly a "daughter of nationalist Germany" which committed the genocide in Namibia and of Nazis and neo-Nazis. And here is a bit about her father and his role in WWII Germany Who was the father of Ursula von der Leyden in WW2? . We do not know if her affinity to Israel is a (deluded) way of making up (she should not because Nazis collaborated with the Zionists who do not represent Jews and even broke the boycotts of Nazi Germany). She should know better. The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell criticized her biased stance which, he said, undermined Europe's geopolitical position and was at variance with reality of a catastrophic Israel induced humanitarian catastrophe.
https://www.quora.com/Who-was-the-father-of-Ursula-von-der-Leyen-in-WW2

Resistance and colonization

Palestinians, like others, reflect on resistance and fate of other nations subjected to colonization. Zionist leaders wish for us a fate similar to that of the Lakota Nation in what became the United States of America. As the Polish new tough-man who received the torch from Hitler said: you have to keep beating them and killing them so hard they never rise. Most Palestinians think of decolonization ala Algeria or (mostly) like South Africa. In Algeria, after a protracted 132 year conflict, the colonizers left (many of them six or seven generations so were not really “returning to Europe”). But this was a costly conflict with some one or two million Algerians killed (a genocide). The South African model is cited more by Palestinians who are recruiting international support with boycott, divestments and sanctions and locally engaged in resistance. Like Algerian or Apache or Lakota or South African or Aztec people, resistance took both armed and non-armed forms. There were those who believed in armed resistance (Crazy horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Nelson Mandela, Omar Mukhtar, Che Guevara) and others who believed in popular resistance (Desmond Tutu, Mahatma Gandhi). Individual way of death varied for each. There were movements like the African National Congress in South Africa and the National Liberation Front in Algeria or the PLO labeled as terrorist organizations by both the colonizers and the West. Most of the resistance whether it was in South Africa or Algeria or Palestine was popular resistance (see my book). That did not matter to the colonizers who wanted the land without the troublesome indigenous people. All resistance was in the cross-hairs of the colonizers past, present, and future.  Genocides, pogroms, massacres continued anyway. 

In all such situations, both the colonizers and the colonized understand it is a fateful and existential struggle for their narratives. Shiny city on a hill, manifest destiny, heroic resistance, terrorism, promised land, defending ourselves (circling the wagons), barbarians, white or red devils, forces of darkness and forces of light, are the language terms used over and over again depending on where you stand on colonization (see books by Franz Fanon and Edward Said). The outcomes are limited with only three possible scenarios: Australia/USA, Algeria/Vietnam, and South Africa/rest of world models. I know that I and millions push for that third model and it is the most common outcome found in 160+ countries/territories (see my other book). But for indigenous people under the boot in times of hopelessness or times of hope, survival itself is a form of victory. We Palestinians survived 76 years of horror that no one saw before and survived even in the midst of horrors of an ongoing extermination campaign in the Gaza Strip.

A message from Omar in the Gaza strip (sent to my friend Heather): "We were informed that we had to head to southern Gaza as it was declared a 'safe humanitarian zone.' On our way south, the road felt like hell itself. A bus carrying a family was bombed, and it was the first time I saw body parts flying through the air. Every kilometer or so, you would see a car, completely charred with the people inside, people who had lives and dreams. These cars were left as they were, and perhaps even run over by tanks. We reached Khan Younis, where I stayed at the Red Crescent for 90 days. I lived through experiences you cannot even imagine. The Red Crescent was bombed more than 10 times. Death was closer to me than my jugular vein. I could almost taste it, yet it refused to take me, until Israeli tanks surrounded us. The Israeli forces then stormed the Red Crescent. A soldier stood at the door, cursing and spewing vile, despicable words. He started yelling, "Come out, you animals!" The path between their tanks was one of the hardest things I’ve ever faced in my life. They humiliated us, and they humiliated our women and elderly in the most brutal ways. They took one young man from among us and ordered him to take off his clothes and dance. When he refused, they put a bullet between his eyes. The road was filled with corpses and tears. We eventually reached Rafah.... the Israeli army entered Rafah and closed the crossing, forcing us to flee to Deir al-Balah. I now live in a tent at a UNRWA school in Deir al-Balah. We are surrounded by the Zionists from all sides. They starve us, kill us, and bomb the schools every day. I’ve been displaced more than five times while in Deir al-Balah, from one tent to another, from one form of death to the next. Each time, I begged death to take me, but it refused, as if it found pleasure in my suffering. This Zionist enemy has inflicted upon us every kind of torture imaginable..."

MSNBC highlights Shaaban (one of many tens of thousands burned or buried alive) in his own words 

Are hospitals collateral damage? Assessing geospatial proximity of 2000 lb bomb detonations to hospital facilities in the Gaza Strip from October 7 to November 17, 2023

The Destructive Legacy of Mass Starvation

Israel Is Routinely Shooting Children in the Head in Gaza: U.S. Surgeon & Palestinian Nurse testify

and this was videotaped just this week in the west bank: https://youtu.be/_Z6VByIrDw0

And what is happening here in the wild West Bank is harrowing 

Palestinian content is censored on social platforms owned by META 

Can Israel survive Netanyahu? and Is Israel plotting its own defeat? 

Who supplies Israel with weapons (to commit genocide)

The Guardian: Israel is a rogue nation. It should be removed from the United Nations
Biden administration helping genocide putting US troops at risk [will the Hannibal directive also apply to US troops like Israeli troops?] and Dr. Jill Stein on US election

On sisters and personal reflection

 This message now reaches over 60,000 individuals directly and many more by forwards. They are mostly activists (perhaps 75-80%), 15-20% spectators and “neutral” people (journalists etc), and perhaps 400 Zionists (which is OK with me as in some cases they may see the light). I usually try to relay situations on the ground that are missing from the manipulated/controlled western “mainstream” media. I also sometimes quote articles for example today I could put links to articles about the extermination in Jabalia and Beit Hannoun.  Craig Murray wrote from Scotland: "A deliberate and complete extermination of the population of Jabalia and Beit Hanoun is happening this very second, so that Israel can annex this piece of Northern Gaza. The world does nothing. Sorry, that is not true. The western world supplies the weapons." And Francesca Albanese wrote: "You can be a celebrity or an ordinary person. If you stay SILENT, PASSIVE, INACTIVE while Palestinians trapped in Gaza - human beings who breathe, feel and dream exactly like you - get slaughtered by an unchecked army, you are no different from those who continued to go by their lives during past genocides who erased millions from the earth." And John Gutterman Tranen wrote: "The IOF observed Yom Kippur by turning Jabalia into an extermination zone. May they never be forgiven and may their names be removed from the book of life." and John Lyons, ABC Sydney correspondent, wrote from Beirut: "Israel has bombed one of the main water channels from Litani River. Thousands of hectares now without irrigation. This will cause huge food shortages. On top of heavy shelling and “widespread” (HRW) use of chemical weapons by Israel (white phosphorus) on south Lebanon. This is devastating."

On some (rather rare) occasions I state my own fears, hopes, and thoughts. This message is one to do so more poignantly. What prompted me to do this is a message from Hiam in Gaza (displaced now a fourth time and living with her surviving family in a tent). Hiam lost an eye to an Israeli bullet in 2001 (she was 7 years old then) and we had hosted her then in our home in the US as we got her a prosthetic eye (which she has since outgrown and now merely puts a batch on her eye. Hiam, now 30 years old, has a 10-year-old son Mohannad whose school was bombed. She still calls me Baba (dad) and calls Jessie Mama (Mom) and our son Akhoya (my brother). Her daily description of the horrors she is witnessing around her and her feelings keeps me awake at night. Islam whose son Mohammad on a whee chair was partly burned with his sister from the Israeli shelling of their tent. But the two families of Hiam and Islam are two of many I am in touch with in Gaza and they are ones still alive (awaiting the machine of extermination to reach them). I dread the coming winter for them all (1.9 million people). Sometimes they tell me they envy the dead (>200,000 dead in Gaza in the last 12 months) as they are starving and since most of them are highly religious they believe in an afterlife which has no suffering and pain.

Hiam  and her son Muhannad in 2023 (before the horrors) 

Mohammad Abulkhair in early 2023 (before that home was demolished and he was burned with his sister) and his sister Layan being treated

Here in Bethlehem, I talk daily to people who were beaten by Israeli soldiers and settlers or who were denied access to tend to their lands. Just last week we lost Ziad Abuhleil (a person I knew who, in his 60s was my age) beaten to death by Israeli soldiers. And yesterday were were informed of the death in Israeli prison of a Bethlehemite 37 year old (he would be 58th tortured to death this past year). This past week, our friend Dr. Ramzy Baroud lost his sister. Ramzi, a renouned author co-edited with Dr. Ilan Pappe the book "Our Vision For Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders & Intellectuals Speak Out"  (available in Arabic and English) in which I had a chapter. Ramzy wrote Friday 1 AM about his sister:

"Early this evening, Israel has killed, or more accurately assassinated, my sister Dr Soma Baroud, by bombing her taxi in the Khan Yunis area, killing her and six other innocent people. She was the kindest soul, a great mother and a most loving sister. She was a member of a generation of female doctors that revolutionized medicine in the Strip. She healed many people, never charged the poor and until the last day of her life remained principled, loving, kind and patient, even when Israel blew up her house a few weeks ago. I don’t know what else to say, aside from the fact that I suddenly feel as if a child who became orphaned all over again. She was a leader of our family, and fulfilled the role of our mother who died at a young age. I am sorry, sister, that I could do nothing to protect you. I feel deep shame that I live in the very country that paid for and made the bombs that killed you. When the numbness is gone, I will try to stay strong only driven by the hope that we will meet again in Paradise."

Dr. Soma

Dr. Soma is gone as a sister. Hiam and Layan are disfigured as sisters but still alive for now. Each death and each injury and each difficulty produces a scar and Palestine has millions of scars.  For each of us who care, these scars are personal and they do not heal. They shape our minds and hearts. We do not forget. The only thing we try to do is channel these traumas towards actions for justice and for peace. I investigated hundreds of forms of resistance and wrote a book and many papers on popular resistance. This allowed me to experiment and work with various forms of resistance also as therapeutic to our traumas. It is not merely civil disobedience or being in the wrong place at the wrong time that results in our detention or arrest (this of course happened to me as to over 1 million Palestinians). There are hundreds of other forms of resistance which I explained in my book and that I personally practice. I must say in retrospect that the most important form of resistance is resistance to mental colonization (see this paper). That also means not losing our mind over all the atrocities we see but to stay focused on the work that needs to be done. I wrote lessons I learned in a reflection in  2018 still valid.

Keep Palestine alive by staying humane and active