Just finished A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ABED SALAMA: ANATOMY OF A JERUSALEM TRAGEDY, by Nathan Thrall
This is both a snapshot of the contemporary state of #palestine and an approachable #history of the area wrapped in heartbreaking personal stories, all rotating around a single catastrophe that could only happen in a city built on #racists#apartheid infrastructure
I've only read a few Palestinian prisoners stories and I have to stop each time. I'm usually one who can sit and read for hours. It's devastating but necessary reading - we MUST get these stories to as many eyes as possible.
Any of the Palestinian memoirs/biographies are great in so many ways. You can come in with little idea of the Middle East and get a human story as well as where that falls in the history/context of something people call complicated, but isn't.
One shows humor in the face of such circumstances as Palestinian refugees face and another shows that this carnage (by Israel) you see today has been happening a very long time (British+Zionists).
"High unemployment, severe shortages of electricity and clean water; a young, educated population with immense potential, and deliberate policy choices by Israel that deny movement, violate rights and block development."
Everything you need to know about the closure on Gaza. Special report produced by #Gisha and published October 28, 2023.
Gisha is “an Israeli not-for-profit organization, founded in 2005, whose goal is to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especially Gaza residents." Gisha "promotes rights guaranteed by international and Israeli law.”
More information on Israel's de-Devlopment of Gaza and the rise of its unique "tunnel economy" due to the Israeli blockade, see: Roy, Sara. 2016. The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of de-Development. Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies USA, Inc.
"High unemployment, severe shortages of electricity and clean water; a young, educated population with immense potential, and deliberate policy choices by Israel that deny movement, violate rights and block development."
Everything you need to know about the closure on Gaza. Special report produced by #Gisha and published October 28, 2023.
Gisha is “an Israeli not-for-profit organization, founded in 2005, whose goal is to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especially Gaza residents." Gisha "promotes rights guaranteed by international and Israeli law.”
More information on Israel's de-Devlopment of Gaza and the rise of its unique "tunnel economy" due to the Israeli blockade, see: Roy, Sara. 2016. The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of de-Development. Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies USA, Inc.
#documentary / "Palestine Is Still the Issue," a 2002 documentary by John Pilger, delves into the persistent challenges faced by the Palestinian people.
Returning to the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza, Pilger explores the unchanged struggles of a desperate population living under illegal occupation.
Pilger has been a vocal critic of mainstream media and its role in shaping public opinion.
While researching the work of the Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC, or UNCPP) , came across this quote from Conciliation Commission member Mark F. Ethridge in Moris' "The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem revisited" (2012):
[...] Mark Ethridge, the Southern Baptist appointed by Truman to the PCC, quickly understood that the developing impasse over the refugees was lethal to any possibility of peace. Ethridge thought Shertok’s attitude – that the refugees were ‘essentially unassimilable’ in Israel and should all be resettled in the Arab world – ‘inhuman’. Israel’s views in this context, he said, were ‘similar to those which I heard Hitler express in Germany in 1933. It [sic] might be described as anti-Semitism toward the Arabs.’ At the same time, he believed that ‘it might be wise in long run to resettle greater portion Arab refugees in neighbouring Arab states’.
While researching something the work of the Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC, or UNCPP) , came across this quote from Conciliation Commission member Mark F. Ethridge in Moris' "The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem revisited" (2012):
[...] Mark Ethridge, the Southern Baptist appointed by Truman to the PCC, quickly understood that the developing impasse over the refugees was lethal to any possibility of peace. Ethridge thought Shertok’s attitude – that the refugees were ‘essentially unassimilable’ in Israel and should all be resettled in the Arab world – ‘inhuman’. Israel’s views in this context, he said, were ‘similar to those which I heard Hitler express in Germany in 1933. It [sic] might be described as anti-Semitism toward the Arabs.’ At the same time, he believed that ‘it might be wise in long run to resettle greater portion Arab refugees in neighbouring Arab states’.
Yacobi, Haim. 2016. “From ‘Ethnocracity’ to Urban Apartheid: A View from Jerusalem\al-Quds.” Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 8 (3): 100–114.
Over the past 20 years, changes in demographic control, militarization, and state violence have radically transformed the city from an ethnocracity into an urban apartheid.
An ethnocracity refers to a city where a dominant ethnic group appropriates and controls the city apparatus to produce a contested, unstable space. Jerusalem was previously theorized as an ethnocracity.
Urban apartheid combines ethnic exclusion and segregation with market-driven forces like privatization, gentrification, and tourism planning. It relies less on formal legal structures and more on economic restructuring.
Urban apartheid intentionally segregates groups and allocates resources/rights based on race rather than residency. It is an intentional creation reflecting ideology and policy goals of domination, not just individual choices.
While researching the work of the Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC, or UNCPP) , came across this quote from Conciliation Commission member Mark F. Ethridge in Moris' "The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem revisited" (2012):
[...] Mark Ethridge, the Southern Baptist appointed by Truman to the PCC, quickly understood that the developing impasse over the refugees was lethal to any possibility of peace. Ethridge thought Shertok’s attitude – that the refugees were ‘essentially unassimilable’ in Israel and should all be resettled in the Arab world – ‘inhuman’. Israel’s views in this context, he said, were ‘similar to those which I heard Hitler express in Germany in 1933. It [sic] might be described as anti-Semitism toward the Arabs.’ At the same time, he believed that ‘it might be wise in long run to resettle greater portion Arab refugees in neighbouring Arab states’.
Yacobi, Haim. 2016. “From ‘Ethnocracity’ to Urban Apartheid: A View from Jerusalem\al-Quds.” Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 8 (3): 100–114.
Over the past 20 years, changes in demographic control, militarization, and state violence have radically transformed the city from an ethnocracity into an urban apartheid.
An ethnocracity refers to a city where a dominant ethnic group appropriates and controls the city apparatus to produce a contested, unstable space. Jerusalem was previously theorized as an ethnocracity.
Urban apartheid combines ethnic exclusion and segregation with market-driven forces like privatization, gentrification, and tourism planning. It relies less on formal legal structures and more on economic restructuring.
Urban apartheid intentionally segregates groups and allocates resources/rights based on race rather than residency. It is an intentional creation reflecting ideology and policy goals of domination, not just individual choices.
#reference#intifada The Palestinian Intifada -- December 9, 1987-December 8, 1988: A Record of Israeli Repression. 1989.
" ... how can a people whose statehood was claimed by reason of history's worst human calamity, the #Holocaust, engage in policies and practices which are reminiscent of what they suffered at the hands of others?" (p.ix)
Note on the word intifada (انتفاضة): “a rebellion or uprising, or a resistance movement” in contemporary Arabic.
"..our universities in Australia must be places where we have the courage to take up our responsibilities as ethical researchers and teachers: our classrooms must be spaces of historical truth-telling that seek to explain why and how this is happening and support students to express their truths, including through student activism."
"As educators and researchers, we pay our deep respect to Palestinian scholars, writers, artists, and activists, including Palestinians based in Australia. We commit to continuing to learn from long histories of Palestinian description, critique, and analysis. Our colleagues in Palestine have called on us again and again to take action, and so we must. Telling the truth in history – as we know from our experiences in this settler-colony of Australia – is an important act of resistance, and we commit to undertaking this task."
#antisemitism vs #apartheid "The academic world is rising up against us": Hidden boycott threatens Israeli scientific research
Last week, a Zoom meeting was held with senior members of Israel's academia and young researchers. The senior academics expressed concern about what is happening and conveyed a sense of emergency. The President of the University of Haifa, Prof. Ron Rubin, recounted in a conversation that he visited the US during the war and felt manifestations of antisemitism "seeping into places where they have never been before. There is a hostile attitude towards Israelis even in places like medical schools. It is terrifying to the nth degree. In the past, the problem was focused on faculties for the humanities and social sciences, but the phenomenon is spreading to additional fields."
The missing word in this article must be #aprtheid... I do see #BDS and antisemitism mentioned, many times, but not a word about the fact the USA and European boycott of Israeli academia is a refusal to cooperate with a perceived apartheid regime.
The story of one woman who Israel calls terrorist and prisoner. This is not the exception, it's the norm. She was released in the hostage deal. She was moving furniture, her car malfunctioned, caught fire. Instead of helping her get medical care, Israeli soldiers watched her burn, accused her of terrorism & arrested, interrogated & tortured her.
"As conflation and confusion abound after 7 October, we need clear thinking about antisemitism"
by:
David Feldman, director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism,
Brendan McGeever, senior lecturer at the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism.
Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, who teaches at the University of #Haifa, #israelPalestine, explained the paradox: “One can detest Jews and love Israelis, because Israelis somehow are not Jews. Israelis are colonial fighters and settlers, just like Afrikaners. They are tough and resilient. They know how to dominate. Jews are different. They are, among other qualities, gentle, non-physical, often passive, intellectual. So one can go on disliking Jews while admiring the Israelis.”