from Skin Magazine: http://www.skin-online.com/PDF.aspx?itemid=8

CIRCUS AGAINST APARTHEID
by Jonas Moffat



More than 100 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza the week that I write this. Israel is mourning eight of her own that were killed in Jerusalem last night. Retribution will be cast upon innocent civilians on either side of the Wall. This seemingly endless vicious circle affects the children more than anyone else. Israel’s policies of assassinations, injuries, home demolitions, imprisonment, bereavement, on top of harsh living conditions of poverty, over-crowdedness, malnutrition, and inability to access necessary educational and health facilities because of the more than 500 checkpoints, add up to take a devastating toll on the psyche of Palestine’s youth. They needed an outlet. And it was with this vision of change and healing that Shadi Zmorrod set out to create the Palestinian Circus School.


Click on the following link to read the rest of the article and to see the amazing pictures:
http://www.skin-online.com/PDF.aspx?itemid=8

Hope Under Siege: Pittsburghers in Palestine
A Photo Exhibit

Opening Reception: Thursday, June 19, 2008 6-9PM
at the Shadow Lounge, 5972 Baum Blvd, Pittsburgh, PA



May 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of what Palestinians call the “Nakba.” It is a date engrained into the minds of every Palestinian, everywhere. The translation means the “Catastrophe,” because three quarters of a million Palestinian women, men, and children were expelled from their homes, massacred ensued, and 531 Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed for what was to become the state of Israel.

For the 60 years of Israel’s existence, Palestinians have been refused the right to return to their homes. Palestinians remain the largest refugee population in the world. Many continue to see the uprooting of their trees, the demolition of their homes, the building of apartheid walls, confiscation of their farmland, and the murder of their family members and friends by the Israeli army.

Over the years, many Pittsburghers have traveled to Palestine to witness and document what is happening on the ground in order to amplify the voices of the marginalized Palestinians and spread the truth through eyewitness accounts of life under occupation, of a hope that is under siege.

Please join the Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee as they reveal their photographs from Occupied Palestine. Hear eyewitness accounts from Palestinians and Pittsburghers who have seen and experienced life under the gun. View the scenes of hope and the images of despair. Share the truth with the world about 60 years of dispossession and a hope that refuses to perish.

WHERE: The Shadow Lounge, 5972 Baum Blvd, Pittsburgh, PA 15206
WHEN: Thursday, June 19, 6-9pm

Hosted by the Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee (www.pittsburgh-psc.org)

Enjoy performances by hip hop artist Rashad Jamaal, funky-folk music by Leslie Addis, crazy beats by Shambolished, slam poetry by local artists, food by Allegro Hearth Bakery, monster raffle, and much, much more!

For more information, contact: Jonas: joeskillet@riseup.net

From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free!

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THESE FLYERS WIDELY!

None so strong as the converted
by Jonas Moffat

NOX Magazine, http://www.nox-mag.com/features/dec07/feature2.html


Enraged by the attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001, Jonas Moffat was set to join the US Air Force – until 90 minutes with the PLO turned his worldview upside down




Pondering from these Prison Walls

Not far from Tel Aviv, as I lay here in my Ramla prison cell staring at the ceiling, not much is there to do besides recap the events in my life that caused me to arrive in this position. I am wearing all black, as if my future self knew before I left my cozy apartment in Ramallah, that this color would represent the mood I currently occupy. Yesterday, I spent the whole day in questioning. “Viscous” is but an understatement for the type of forceful interrogation given by Israel’s Ministry of the Interior. It started as soon as I left Ramallah for Jerusalem on a Palestinian bus. I noted a hint of anxiety. But this anxiousness was not the “normal” kind usually felt when approaching the fortress-like checkpoint of Qalandia, which separates Ramallah from other Palestinian towns and Jerusalem. There was something deeper in this anxiety as our bus waited in the long line and Israeli soldiers checked the permits of Palestinians attempting to cross Qalandia’s walls.

My best friend Katie is beside me. Both of us emanate a sense of nervousness yet skill, having done this so many times. Our fingers slightly touch, offering comfort as one Israeli soldier enters the bus, M16 dangling from his side. Two IDs checked beside us. I’m next. Soldier holds onto my passport, looks me in the eyes, then my passport. “Come with me!” he demands. A shiny pair of handcuffs is pulled from a security official’s pocket. Exiting the bus is Katie, half screaming at the soldiers. Calmly, I ask, “What have I done?” Instead of an answer I find two big security guys on either side of me dragging me to a small white trailer. “This is it,” I thought. “My stay in Palestine has come to an end.” Some ridiculous questioning ensued.

“You are a Muslim, aren’t you?” I responded that I was not a Muslim. “Admit it, we know that you are a Muslim!”

I am not a Muslim, I assured them, but what if I was, I asked.

“Why do you insist that I am a Muslim?”

“Because you have a beard!”

“Have you seen the settlers in Hebron?” I asked. “They all have beards. Are they also Muslims because they have beards?”

“Listen,” they continued, “we know that you are a Muslim and that you have a fake passport.”

Fake passport? “I guarantee you guys that my passport is legit and that I am Christian. I worship Jesus. If you take off my handcuffs I can show you my Jesus keychain.” Katie is detained and released.

“You know it’s dangerous for Israelis to be in Ramallah,” I hear someone consult her. Katie responded with two words, first one beginning with “F” and the second one was “You!” I am placed in a white tinted-window sedan. Part of my optimistic side still believes that all of this is big mistake. Pessimism takes over when I ask the driver where they are taking me and the response is “the airport.”

Our destination is close to the airport. Planes are seen flying low to the ground. “Which one of these is mine?” The next couple of hours are filled with more intense questioning.

“Why do you want a lawyer? Why are you so nervous?” sneers the Interior official with a South American accent.

I turn the questioning over to him: “Are you Chilean?” He smiles but doesn’t answer. And neither do I anymore. I am informed that I will spend the next couple of weeks in jail until my deportation unless I purchase a plane ticket tonight. First word beginning with “F,” second word, “You!” is the response he receives.

Fingerprinted, photographed, and filed alongside the rest of the “troublemakers” who have been booted by the Zionist regime for revealing to the world the horrors and atrocities of the Occupation, now behind bars for these sins of mine.

But it wasn’t always like this.

I contemplated from that uncomfortable jail bed on the chain of events that led me to this land in the first place.

A Tuesday morning in 2001

I arrive at my ambulance company a few minutes late for my 9:00am shift. A handful of Paramedics can be seen glaring at the television when I enter the employee room. No one turns to greet me. I join in on the staring. And there they are, two towers ablaze in New York. This is the moment that a countrywide shock is borne. Subsequently, the paranoia will ensue.

Today, there just so happens to be a supposedly hijacked plane hovering over the skies of Pittsburgh. The fear, admits a superior, is that one of the next “targets” will be one of the many hospitals scattered throughout Pittsburgh. We are dispatched to these facilities.
Shockingly, I am feeling overly patriotic. Maybe it’s the radio? I hear Lee Greenwood’s, “I’m Proud to be an American,” playing almost simultaneously on different stations.

A sense of panic has taken over the streets as my ambulance lights and sirens engulf my perception. My EMT partner is convinced the plane is coming down on the building where his mother works so he makes an unscheduled stop to her department store, loads her into the wagon, and catapults her to the safety of her home. TV and radio stations are already blaming “Arab terrorists” and “freedom-hating Muslims.” And here I am, 21 years old and still impressionable, consuming this information, eating up every piece of it.

I find the nearest shop selling American flag pins and buy a few, pinning one to my chest immediately. “Ooh, look over there, car flags!” (the kind with magnets that stick to the hood of my army-style Jeep Wrangler!) It won’t be long, especially with the help of the mainstream media, before I make up my mind: I will join the US Air Force, to serve as a flight medic, and protect my country! This is the legacy of my family, after all. My parents met via the US Marines. My grandfather served. My great grandfather was on the first ship in Tokyo Bay after Japan surrendered. Now it’s my turn!

The Air Force recruiter is pleased with my decision and schedules me to take the aptitude test next week. I return for the test at the federal building. Once I take this test, I become property of the US military machine. My name, however, is not on the list. The man at the desk apologizes but I “cannot take the test unless your name is on the list.” Luckily, there is another testing in two weeks. He signs me up. Maybe it was a divine intervention, because a week after almost signing away my soul, I will meet a woman who will forever change my course on this planet.

Often, I take a stroll through the Carnegie Mellon University campus. On today’s stroll, I spot a flyer reading, “In pursuit of peace in the Middle East: Diana Buttu, PLO peace negotiation advisor, arrives from Occupied Ramallah to warn of regional disaster as US pursues Iraq war.” Interesting, this presentation starts in an hour. And in one week I join the Air Force, potentially being sent “over there,” so I decide to hear this Diana Buttu. For an hour and a half I listen her. I try and digest what she is relaying to me here in Doherty Hall. The role of the Israeli lobby in the US and their push for war in Iraq, what this all means for US foreign policy in the region, what it means for the Palestinians. Connections never before imagined are made for me here. I imagine myself training with the Air Force and I feel sick.

I follow the crowd to the reception area. There, I meet Diana and the Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee who organized the event. I am introduced to Kate Daher, the chair of the PSC. Although my head is experiencing a whirlwind, I relay my dilemma to Kate: “I am to join the Air Force in a week to go get the bad guys. After today’s presentation, I am beginning to think we are the ones wearing the horns. I am so confused!” Kate passes me some literature. I go home and devour the handouts. I feel shocked yet exhilarated.

Needless to say, I don’t join the Air Force, though the recruiters didn’t stop calling me for months. Instead, I join the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles. And it is with the ISM that I will devote the next five years of my life.

I Don’t Want Your Handouts!

I am the only white guy in this wing of the prison. I assume that I am the only one in the whole complex. My cellmates are Sudanese, Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Nigerian. All have been arrested for overstaying their visas in Israel or for being caught sneaking into the country. Many have not given their names. “Three meals a day and drinking water is good enough for me,” says the Eritrean. “And why are you here?” I ponder this question as four guards enter. They hover over my bed. It is day three and I have not eaten their food or drank their water. I have evoked the principles of Gandhi and I do not accept their handouts—their “charity.”

“We are concerned for you,” says one of the guards. “You need to eat.” I stare at them blankly. If they only knew all that Israel has already “provided” me over the past years. And now they are concerned? And what about the Palestinians—all that has been placed on their tables? Don’t Bite the Hand that Feeds You, some may say. I say, don’t eat from the hands that poison you, arrest you, beat you, shoot you, and deport you. If these guards could transcend themselves into my thoughts this is what they would find:

I find myself on Shuhadda Street in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron. A Palestinian child is walking home alone. Katie and I are posted on the street to observe Israeli settlers, the most extreme settlers in all of the West Bank. Four 20-something year old settlers are walking this way. The Palestinian boy asks us to walk with him. As I reach the boy’s front door, I see a swift motion behind me. I am karate-chopped by the biggest settler. I fall to the ground. They continue to kick me on the ground until Katie comes over screaming for the soldier to intervene. The boys make a quick getaway. I am left shaken, with several bruises.

Fast-forward a month. Here I am at the sink in my kitchen, pouring water for tea. I see a tiny organism exit the facet and enter the teapot. I ask my Palestinian coworker if this is normal. No, was his concerned response. We make our way to the roof where our water tanks reside. Our roof, you see, is a “closed military zone,” however. The IDF is using it as an observation tower. They are also using our water tanks as garbage bins. Inside we find their trash, everything from bullets to army netting to food containers. Immediately, I assume they have used our tanks as toilets and get nauseas. The organism that dove from my faucet was nothing compared to the thousands that were paddling around in our drinking tanks. Eventually, we will hear from our friend in LA, who stayed in our apartment, that she contracted tapeworm. In my book, this amounts to poisoning.

The following year I am in Bil’in, a Palestinian village that is losing 60% of her farmland to Israel’s Apartheid Wall. At a weekly non-violent demonstration against this monstrosity, I am on the medic team because of my experience as an EMT. When I receive word that an Israeli activist has been shot in the head, I go to the rescue. Meters away from reaching Lymor Goldstein, I hear a soldier yell from behind me. From just feet away, he takes aim with his M16. I start to run. My blue jeans turn red on the left leg. The rubber-coated steel bullet pierces my skin, enters my body, bounces off of my bone, and exits. Lymor isn’t so lucky. The bullet penetrates his skull and enters his brain. According to Israeli military law, shooting rubber bullets from a distance under 40 meters is considered deadly. Miraculously, Lymor survives.

Next year I find myself in the Palestinian village of Artas near Bethlehem. Farmers have been warned that Israeli bulldozers will soon arrive to uproot their apricot trees to pave the way for a sewage system for the settlement atop the adjacent hill, currently under construction. For a week we have camped out under the trees to be ready for the arrival of the Israeli Occupation Forces, eating and drinking tea under the stars, bonding with Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists. This is this morning the bulldozers arrive.

Some activists have chained themselves to the trees. Others are making a human wall affront the soldiers. Soon, men, women, and children are seen being launched over a wall, falling to the ground, screaming in various languages for the soldiers to stop. One soldier tries to take my camera and break it but I am too quick. Instead, I am launched over the wall, protecting my camera in my arms, caught by the activists on the other side like stage diving. When the IOF has secured us far enough away from the scene, the sound of the bulldozer can be heard. In a matter of minutes, a whole field of apricot tress is obliterated, along with a whole family’s livelihood. I cannot hold back my tears as a stony-faced Palestinian farmer hugs me tightly.

I would love to relay these stories, and a mountain of others, to the guards standing over my bed urging me to eat their food. Something tells they wouldn’t care. Something tells me that, in their eyes, I am the bad guy. I could spend the next few days telling them why I am not going to eat their food, with images of Palestinians being carried away on stretchers from non-violent demonstrations, women passed out on the ground due to extreme tear gas inhalation, blood stains on walls in Balata refugee camp, miles of concrete separating Palestinians form their schools and families.

But I don’t have a few days. Soon I will be deported for my crime of witnessing and documenting Israel’s human rights violations, for sharing the truth from Occupied Palestine. The Ministry of the Interior judge tells me that I have enough problems in my own country. She tells me that I am outlawed from her country for the next 10 years, “plenty of time to cause trouble in the States.” We shall see. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.



Jonas Moffat has been active with the International Solidarity Movement since 2003. He is the co-founder of the Tel Rumeida Circus for Detained Palestinians. Jonas is currently working as a freelance writer in Cairo. He maintains a blog at: http://joeskillet.livejournal.com









A full version of this article appears in NOX issue 17
(or email me for full version of article)

http://www.nox-mag.com

In the war of words, The Times is Israel's ally

The paper consistently adopts Israel's language, giving credence to an inaccurate, simplistic and dangerous cliche.

By Saree Makdisi, SAREE MAKDISI, a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA, writes frequently about the Middle East.
March 11, 2007

'AS SOON AS certain topics are raised," George Orwell once wrote, "the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: Prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse." Such a combination of vagueness and sheer incompetence in language, Orwell warned, leads to political conformity.

No issue better illustrates Orwell's point than coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the United States. Consider, for example, the editorial in The Times on Feb. 9 demanding that the Palestinians "recognize Israel" and its "right to exist." This is a common enough sentiment — even a cliche. Yet many observers (most recently the international lawyer John Whitbeck) have pointed out that this proposition, assiduously propagated by Israel's advocates and uncritically reiterated by American politicians and journalists, is — at best — utterly nonsensical.

First, the formal diplomatic language of "recognition" is traditionally used by one state with respect to another state. It is literally meaningless for a non-state to "recognize" a state. Moreover, in diplomacy, such recognition is supposed to be mutual. In order to earn its own recognition, Israel would have to simultaneously recognize the state of Palestine. This it steadfastly refuses to do (and for some reason, there are no high-minded newspaper editorials demanding that it do so).

Second, which Israel, precisely, are the Palestinians being asked to "recognize?" Israel has stubbornly refused to declare its own borders. So, territorially speaking, "Israel" is an open-ended concept. Are the Palestinians to recognize the Israel that ends at the lines proposed by the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan? Or the one that extends to the 1949 Armistice Line (the de facto border that resulted from the 1948 war)? Or does Israel include the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which it has occupied in violation of international law for 40 years — and which maps in its school textbooks show as part of "Israel"?

For that matter, why should the Palestinians recognize an Israel that refuses to accept international law, submit to U.N. resolutions or readmit the Palestinians wrongfully expelled from their homes in 1948 and barred from returning ever since?

If none of these questions are easy to answer, why are such demands being made of the Palestinians? And why is nothing demanded of Israel in turn?

Orwell was right. It is much easier to recycle meaningless phrases than to ask — let alone to answer — difficult questions. But recycling these empty phrases serves a purpose. Endlessly repeating the mantra that the Palestinians don't recognize Israel helps paint Israel as an innocent victim, politely asking to be recognized but being rebuffed by its cruel enemies.

Actually, it asks even more. Israel wants the Palestinians, half of whom were driven from their homeland so that a Jewish state could be created in 1948, to recognize not merely that it exists (which is undeniable) but that it is "right" that it exists — that it was right for them to have been dispossessed of their homes, their property and their livelihoods so that a Jewish state could be created on their land. The Palestinians are not the world's first dispossessed people, but they are the first to be asked to legitimize what happened to them.

A just peace will require Israelis and Palestinians to reconcile and recognize each other's rights. It will not require that Palestinians give their moral seal of approval to the catastrophe that befell them. Meaningless at best, cynical and manipulative at worst, such a demand may suit Israel's purposes, but it does not serve The Times or its readers.

And yet The Times consistently adopts Israel's language and, hence, its point of view. For example, a recent article on Israel's Palestinian minority referred to that minority not as "Palestinian" but as generically "Arab," Israel's official term for a population whose full political and human rights it refuses to recognize. To fail to acknowledge the living Palestinian presence inside Israel (and its enduring continuity with the rest of the Palestinian people) is to elide the history at the heart of the conflict — and to deny the legitimacy of Palestinian claims and rights.

This is exactly what Israel wants. Indeed, its demand that its "right to exist" be recognized reflects its own anxiety, not about its existence but about its failure to successfully eliminate the Palestinians' presence inside their homeland — a failure for which verbal recognition would serve merely a palliative and therapeutic function.

In uncritically adopting Israel's own fraught terminology — a form of verbal erasure designed to extend the physical destruction of Palestine — The Times is taking sides.

If the paper wants its readers to understand the nature of this conflict, however, it should not go on acting as though only one side has a story to tell.

By Jonas Moffat
October 21, 2007



http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=9873



CAIRO: In September, a US Court of Appeals dismissed a case against Caterpillar, Inc., which alleged seven claims, including aiding and abetting war crimes, extrajudicial killing, wrongful death, and other serious human rights violations.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) took the case on behalf of the family of Rachel Corrie and four Palestinian families.

Corrie, an American peace activist, was killed on March 16, 2003 by a D9 Caterpillar bulldozer when it ran over her twice while she was trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home. She was 23. The four Palestinian families are representing 17 family members who were either killed or injured by Caterpillar bulldozers.

In their decision, federal appeals judges claimed that they lacked jurisdiction to hear this case. Judges evoked the “political questions doctrine,” which they said would “require the federal judiciary to ask and answer questions that are committed by the Constitution to the political branches of the US government.”

Furthermore, the political questions doctrine, judges claim, would cause them to examine the role of the US government in financing the sale and purchases of Caterpillar bulldozers to the Israeli Defense Forces.

“We knew that 'political questions' might be a factor in the court's decision,” Cindy Corrie told Daily News Egypt, “but we did not think that it would be applied in this way.”

Gwynne Skinner, one of the lawyers representing Corrie's family, told Daily News Egypt that the judges calling on the “doctrine of political questions means that they cannot even look at any of the questions or evidence we are presenting, because of the ‘separation of powers’ in the government. They are saying that they 'constitutionally' can’t review the case.”

Cindy Corrie, Rachel’s mother, said, “In our view and in our lawyers' view, there was not enough information at this early stage for the court to truly determine the level of involvement of the US government in the sales. Also, we and our lawyers believe that it has historically been the role of the courts to hear claims for injuries caused by human rights violations, especially where an American company has aided and abetted those violations.”

Skinner added, “This court is a good court because it is based on law and not politics. If the judges decided to hear this case it would not affect the political body’s support of Israel. However, those who blindly support Israel tend to be very vocal, and any decision by the court will most certainly create a firestorm around it.”

She added that the court is the only forum to hold Caterpillar accountable. “If the judges decide not to hear this case, there will be no relief or justice for the lives of Rachel Corrie or the thousands of Palestinian families affected, and this is a tragedy.”

CCR, the Corries, and the Palestinians families are not giving up with this court’s decision, however. A motion for rehearing was filed on Oct. 9. Whether the court will accept the motion, Skinner said, “is a waiting game.” If the court refuses, they could then appeal to the Supreme Court — a move Skinner doubts they will take.

Corrie added, “We believe the court did not have enough information to decide whether this case should be dismissed based on a political question. We have in the petition asked the court to order more discoveries in the case, wherein more information about how the bulldozers are sold and the level of involvement of the US government in actually approving the sales can be better ascertained.”

According to Attorney Skinner, the court relied on an affidavit filed in separate hearings that the Caterpillar bulldozers were paid for by the US government “without giving any chance to see if this was true. There is no bit of scrutiny being used here.”

Corrie added, “There is no evidence that the US government had a policy that these bulldozers were to be sold and used to demolish civilian homes — in violation of international humanitarian and human rights law.” Asked if the Corries believed the court acted in good faith, she responded, “We think the court acted in good faith, but we believe they ruled incorrectly and we hope that they will reconsider this decision and its potential impact.”

In Sept. 2007, an Israeli bulldozer killed 19-year-old Mahmoud Kayid Al Kfafi in the Gaza Strip. According to eyewitnesses, the Caterpillar bulldozer hit Al Kfafi in the head with its razor, killing him immediately. To escape the gunfire being shot from IDF tanks at stone throwers, Al Kfafi sought refuge behind an olive tree.

Doctors said the bulldozer broke his skull wide open and his brain was out of it.

Corrie said that they are currently active with this case as well, stating that “we are involved today with a day of action against Caterpillar, Inc. calling for them to end their role in this occupation and to cease their sales to the Israeli military of equipment repeatedly used to break international humanitarian law.”

http://www.star-telegram.com/245/story/255318.html

Dissenting at your own risk

By CECILIE SURASKY

Special to the Star-Telegram


A podcast of Walt and Mearsheimer's presentation is available at http://podcast.dfwworld.org/2007_09-17_The_Israel_Lobby.MP3




Last year, I agreed to speak to a Jewish youth group about my organization, Jewish Voice for Peace, and our opposition to Israel's occupation. My talk was to follow one from a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which calls itself "America's pro-Israel Lobby."



A week before, a shaken program leader said the AIPAC staffer had threatened to get the entire youth program's funding canceled if I was allowed in the door. The threat worked, and in disgust, they canceled the whole talk.



Pundits will surely argue for years about professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer's explosive new book, The Israel Lobby, which blames poor U.S. policy in the Middle East on a loose network of individuals and pro-Israel advocacy groups.



But the book, and the response to it, opens up another controversy: the stifling of debate about unconditional U.S. support for Israeli policies.



Why is Israel's increasingly brutal 40-year occupation of Palestinian land regularly debated in the mainstream media abroad, including in Israel, but not here? And why is there an almost total lack of discussion among presidential candidates about the dollars that subsidize this occupation and the American diplomatic support that makes it possible?



In a society built on the free exchange of ideas, as Walt and Mearsheimer point out, one answer can be found by looking at the many self-appointed gatekeepers, such as Abraham Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League, or Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who use their Jewish identity as both a shield and cudgel. They work diligently to silence those who question ill-conceived policies of the Israeli and U.S. governments.



Non-Jewish critics, even former President Carter, are denounced as anti-Semites. Special ire is reserved for Jewish dissenters, who are branded as "self-hating" or "marginal," while Muslim and Arab-Americans are easily smeared and even criminalized with charges of supporting terrorism.



Stunned by the stifling of dissent, we decided to start a Web site, Muzzlewatch, to track the incidents. Just as we launched, Stanford Middle East Studies Professor Joel Beinin was disinvited from a speaking engagement at a high school with just 24 hours' notice.



After an unprecedented campaign of outside interference waged by Dershowitz, Professor Norman Finkelstein was refused tenure by DePaul University because of his criticism of U.S.-Israeli policy.

Palestinian-American anthropologist Nadia Abu El-Haj is fighting a political campaign to deny her tenure at Barnard.



Even Walt and Mearsheimer, who are getting plenty of exposure, couldn't have asked for better proof of their point that the lobby works to stifle dissent when an embarrassed head of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs told them that their scheduled speech was canceled. (They did speak before the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth on Sept. 17.) This was apparently because Foxman was not available that day to "balance" their talk.



(They had initially been booked by themselves. The talk was not rescheduled.)



Many groups that started with the important work of fighting real anti-Semitism now rely on anti-Semitism to insist that to show one's love of Jews, one must offer uncritical support to Israel. They are especially displeased by Jews who believe that enabling Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights is not good for anyone.



Unless this atmosphere of intimidation is confronted, Americans will continue to lack access to information and perspectives necessary to formulate effective Middle East policies, virtually ensuring that Israel and the United States will be at war for many years to come.



'The Israel Lobby'



A podcast of Walt and Mearsheimer's presentation is available at http://podcast.dfwworld.org/2007_09-17_The_Israel_Lobby.MP3



Cecilie Surasky is communications director for the Oakland-based Jewish Voice for Peace.

Well, they did it again. Another refugee to add to the ante. Of course, I have a 'home' to return to in the States. I can go back if I choose and continue to contribute to the fascist continuation of Occupation by paying those tax dollars--watch them manifest themselves into a panel of the Apartheid Wall, maybe morph into one of those atrocious watchtowers or into a rubber-coated steel bullet to be shot at the non-violent demonstrators in Bil'in. Sure, I have that dreadful home to return to.

But my home is in Palestine. My life is there. Those who favor and work for human rights, however, have no place in an Apartheid State, and the Israeli government does everything in their "God-given" power to eliminate this problem, through intimidation or by placing them on a plane and exporting them.

That scene of a field of apricot trees being ripped from the Earth by an Israeli bulldozer has been on replay ever since I lay in the Israeli prison bed. Israeli soldiers and police throwing men and women to the ground as they pray to Allah for this moment in time to cease. Sons are handcuffed. Activists are seen like rag dolls being tossed from here to there. Hundreds of years of livelihood dismantled by the Middle East's only democracy. And soon I find myself forced onto a plane by Israeli security because I bared witness, video-taped and photographed all that this democracy had to offer. I saw this democracy bare its teeth with its unpleasant smile, seeping through a stench of death, a 60 year old rotting lie of innocense.

And I am sent elsewhere. "Go back to your own country--aren't there enough problems with your own government," sneers the judge. God, if she only knew. Those problems with my government brought me here in the first place.

I wonder if when Oprah makes her solidarity visit for those "terrorized Israelis" she will see what's happening across the "border," listening to my or the thousands of other e-mails pleading that America's #1 talk show host experience the Palestinian plight, to see what terrorism means at 2am when an entourage of soldiers invades your village and practices a war games scenario, wreaking havoc on the inhabitants. Somehow I doubt it.

Israel wouldn't deport a high-profile American woman like Oprah because she reported on Israeli settlers attacking an 8-year old Palestinian boy in Hebron, would they?

You know, I wouldn't put anything past the Middle East's only democracy.

So, I am taking six weeks to redirect this anger, sadness, emptiness, and frustration, and hoping to manifest these emotions into something beautiful. A regime of ugliness has no defense against this kind of beauty.

But can this beauty battle billions of American tax dollars?

One can only hope.

Signing off until further notice...

Salamaat,
Jonas

Bikes vs. Bombs

Hey folks. Hope you all are well. How were the demonstrations back home on the fourth anniversary of the US war in Iraq II?

This one is for all you bikers out there:

It started out to be a magnificent afternoon here in Ramallah. Being an avid bicyclist back home in Pittsburgh and San Francisco, biking against oil wars, my eyes lit up like a small child in a sparkling candy store when I read the following announcement:



“The East Jerusalem-YMCA’s “Youth to Youth Initiative” is organizing the Palestine International Bike Race, aimed at promoting peace and tolerance among ethnic, religious and national groups in the region. The idea stemmed from the increasing need to stop violating human rights and lift the movement restrictions and blocks which prevent the Palestinians to move freely. Participants from the Palestinian Territories, Israel and different international identities will join the event.”

The race was projected to be the longest international sport event to protest against human rights violations, Israeli checkpoints, and restrictions on freedom of movement.

Ashrav and I arrived at the Playground in Al Bireh around 8:45 am to see 350 bicyclists ready to put the fun between their legs and pedal the 30-some downhill miles to Jericho, near the Dead Sea.

Ash and I registered, received our numbers (191 and 192 respectively), put on the YMCA issued T-shirts, and chose from hundreds of bikes before lining up for blast-off.



There were many nationalities represented. Hundreds of Palestinians, thirty or so Israelis, Danish, American, Spanish, Canadian, all coming together in the intellectual center of Palestine to bike in solidarity against Israel’s current system of Apartheid.

My heart was pounding and I may have been sporting a slight grin as I rounded the corner, 30 bikers from the frontlines.

Palestinian police did their best to keep traffic to the side. They couldn’t help the fact that the track on which we were racing is littered with ditches. (I refrain from using the word “potholes” where, in Pittsburgh, though they are many, they are no where in comparison to the holes on this road).

“Why,” do you ask, “is this specific road so battered?”

The road is disheveled because the Israeli government will not allow Palestinian construction workers maintain this road. Although this road is in Ramallah (in the West Bank), the Israeli government considers it part of the Jerusalem municipality and, thus, part of Israel…

So, dodging the potholes, I made my way past the atrocious Qalandya checkpoint. This checkpoint is one of the biggest in the West Bank. Built by the Israeli army, the Machsom (in Hebrew), looks more like a fortress styled terminal, equipped with an 8-meter high wall, sniper towers, and is manned and womanned by Israeli soldiers, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.



The Machsom separates Palestinian towns from Palestinian villages, and prevents access to Jerusalem, the economic, social, and spiritual center of Palestinian life—which is 10 minutes away from the Israeli-controlled fortress. In order to get around the checkpoint, Palestinians must take a time-consuming route through rugged terrain to reach hospitals, schools, and family members—destinations otherwise reached in a matter of minutes.

Making a slight turn onto the road to Jericho, I was filled with a sense of joy and freedom via the bike ride against Apartheid, the Tour du Freedom. The fresh spring weather hitting my face, the rocky cliffs and bright green grass on either side of me, Palestinians at crossroads cheering us on.

Those wheels of justice came to a screeching halt further down the road.

The Israeli army was stopping the freedom racers further down the track. Israeli flags were waving above army jeeps and police vehicles. Along with the bike race impasse, Israeli soldiers were refusing passage to Palestinian traffic.



As the rest of the 330 bikers accumulated there at the checkpoint, so did the traffic, for miles it seemed. But the army wasn’t budging. Apparently, a bunch of Palestinian, Israeli, and international bicyclists were too much a threat to the army. Bikes vs. Bombs. And the match was being had right there on the road to Jericho.

An illegal Israeli settlement could be seen in the distance. And the continuation of Israel’s Wall of Apartheid could be seen on the left, and felt in the stomach, a nauseating presence that just won’t go away (yet).



The Israeli soldiers called for back up. They revved their army engines. We straddled our bikes. The soldiers pulled some caution tape from their trunks and sealed us into a makeshift sty, like pigs on bikes. Some negotiating between Palestinians and the army ensued. But the army wasn’t budging. Then Israeli bikers tried to negotiate. Still, Israel’s Occupation Forces would not budge.

For over an hour, the pedal revolutionaries, visions of Jericho in mind, were forced to stand at the side of the road. The soldiers opened the road for traffic, but not for two-wheelers.



The energy was starting to bubble over. A woman from Holland had enough with waiting. She crossed the line, so to speak, and started heading to Jericho. She was approached by the soldiers, however, who began to push her around. Majd, a Palestinian journalist for This Week in Palestine, biked on over to the woman to and protect her. The army, instead, decided to rough him up and detain him.



A spokesperson from the YMCA arrived. The army handed him a bullhorn and the race was officially declared finished. No trophy ceremony, as was planned when we reached Jericho. No speeches to the Palestinian and international press about how tens of nationalities came together to bike towards freedom. Instead, the scene was filled with anger, despair, and hundreds of empty bikes lying at the side of the road.

The adrenaline that was overflowing just 2 hours before now evaporated. All that was left was the stench of Apartheid. Several bikers tried to rally a contingent to pedal themselves around the roadblock. But as more soldiers arrived, so did the fear of retaliation by the Occupation Forces.



And thus, sadly, after the world’s bike lovers met here on this day in Palestine to pedal in solidarity with the Palestinians against Israel’s system of racial discrimination, against their walls and snipers, tanks and jeeps—the day of Bikes vs. Bombs came to an abrupt end.



...And...

More sad news... A couple days ago here was Mother's Day. But there were no gifts and cards and parties. To the contrary:




"No, this is not a happy Mother's Day!" said Fatima Brijea as she pointed to the framed photograph behind me. It was her son. He was assassinated by the Israeli army. I sat in her living room sipping tea. I noticed the strength of Fatima's hands as she poured my sweet tea. She is a farmer and has been all her life. Her greenhouses are lush with vegetables and the view from her yard is breathtaking.



One is rendered speechless, however, when you stroll a few kilometers away to find US sponsored Caterpillar bulldozers ripping apart Fatima's land and others like her. Israel's Apartheid wall, like all over the West Bank, is snaking through the land and separating farmers from their farmland, school kids from their schools, patients from their hospitals. And here, in Um Salamuna, things are starting to resemble places like Qalqilya and Bethlehem, where an 8-meter high wall, the most atrocious eye sore in the most beautiful of lands, is thieving the most precious of things from the Palestinians-- their land.



So yesterday was Mother's Day. It was also the UN International Day for the Elimination of Discrimination. It is observed annually on 21 March. On that day, in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the apartheid "pass laws". Proclaiming the Day in 1966, the General Assembly called on the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination.



And that is what was happening yesterday-- peacefully protesting against Israel's system of Apartheid, protesting peacefully against Israel's discriminatory practices.



Fatima is the leader of the Um Salamuna Women's Organization. Other women from the Organization marched in solidarity with other Palestinians, Israeli, and international human rights groups. The demonstrators marched towards the construction site. Agricultural memories of ancient times were disintegrating into nothingness as the bulldozers tore away at Mother Earth, scattering her ashes in all directions, carelessly, angrily.

The Mothers and the Daughter and the Sisters of the land stood there on Mother's Day.



The bulldozer halted. The Israeli soldiers, with their helmets and guns, hovered in the background. I searched their eyes for an answer. "Why do you let them do this?"

Fatima spoke to the crowd:

"Today represents our struggle. Now our land is taken by Occupation. The land of our children is taken. The land of our grandfathers-- have been related for thousands of years. We want the world to see the Palestinians' suffering. We are calling on the world to stand beside us. Stop the Occupation! Stop the Occupation!... It is not possible to transfer us from out land. We are staying! And the Israelis are staying. So let us be good neighbors for each other. Stop the Wall! Stop the violence!"

Fatima thanked the participants, the media, and all the internationals for joining in on the struggle.

Andareet, a woman from the Organization, spoke next. She thanked everyone present for being there with them and addressed:

"Even when this wall is built. Even if they build 50 walls, we are staying on our land! This wall was built by force-- but we will resist with Faith. And, insha'allah, we will succeed!"

Khaled al Asa from Um Salamuna spoke as well, stating:

"Why today, on Mother's Day, are Mothers all over the Arab world smelling nice air-- but here Palestinian Mothers are smelling Israel's gas? Mothers all over the world are in green land and Spring, so why are Palestinian Mothers participating by seeing their children arrested and their land taken?... Because of the effects of the Wall, all people across Palestine are going to suffer-- socially, economically, and agriculturally... Here in Um Salamuna, it reflects that Israel does not want peace. They make the conflict deeper. They don't want peace for their people. They're preparing for the next revolution by taking our land!"

Beca, and international volunteer from the Palestine Solidarity Project, spoke next. She said:

"Remember on Women's Day, Mothers, Sisters, and Daughters are losing their land. They are losing their sons, husbands, and daughters to the Occupation.We are honored to be here with you, to work in solidarity to stop this Wall."

Not a single rock was thrown by the Palestinians at their colonizers, their Occupiers. The women decided to call off any further marching to the Wall. And as the crowd made their way up the farmland, the bulldozers started back to work at killing the Earth, making way for the continuation of over 500 miles of concrete, equipped with motion sensors and sniper towers- a huge wall, built by Israel out of racial discrimination, an Apartheid state that holds one group of people over another.

No. It was not a happy Mother's Day.

But we are still marching on.

And on...

And on...

It's been a week since I returned home here to Palestine.



And it has been four years since a twenty-three year old American peace activist, named Rachel Corrie, was killed by an Israeli Occupation Forces bulldozer in the Gaza Strip.



I never met Rachel. But I can feel what drove her to this place. The people and the land and the history melds into the tastiest brew. But it goes stale as you witness the harassment around every corner. A concrete wall separates a Palestinian town from Palestinian town. A 22 year old Israeli soldier screams at a 60 year old farmer trying to access his farmland. How can this be? Most of my folks back home would not even believe it. It's hard to keep the blood from boiling. The Palestinians are in a constant state of being pushed from their Land.

The balfour declaration of 1917. Al Nakba (the Catastrophe)of 1948 when Israel was created on top of Palestinian land. Then 1967 brought the illegal Israeli Occupation of what remained of historic Palestine--the West bank and Gaza. Imagine 40...60...90 years of this! All these years of deportation from your home, fear, house demolitions, harassment, destruction of farmland, collective punishment...and the list goes on and on...

And Rachel saw this four years ago in Gaza. Writing through e-mail she said,

"I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. It is most difficult for me to think about what’s going on here when I sit down to write back to the United States. Something about the virtual portal into luxury."

"I have bad nightmares about tanks and bulldozers outside our house and you and me inside. Sometimes the adrenaline acts as an anesthetic for weeks and then in the evening or at night it just hits me again - a little bit of the reality of the situation. I am really scared for the people here."

And then Israel came to bulldoze a house in Rafah, the town where Rachel was staying. Unfortunatley, the house of the civilian Palestinian stood in the zone of Israel's Wall. Israel claimed that under the house, Palestinian militants were using tunnels to smuggle weapons from Egypt. No tunnels have been found.

So, Rachel, with her bullhorn and bright orange jacket stood affront the house. And chills go through me every time I think about what was going through her mind at that time.

"You're gonna stop... This bulldozer is going to stop!"



But the bulldozer didn't stop. Instead, the bulldozer, manufactured and distributed by the American corporation "Caterpillar," moved forward. The Israeli driver did not stop for her screams. He did not stop for her bright orange jacket or when the other human rights volunteers rushed forward, flailing their arms. No, the driver buried her underneath tons of steel and earth, and then wheeled the monstrous Caterpillar back over her, crushing her for a second time.



Yesterday, in the village of Bil'in in the West Bank, there was a small vigil for her in commemoration of her life and resistance. Bil'in has a wall running thourgh it, separating Palestinians from their farmland. 60% of the farmland has been annexed into Israel due to this Wall. For over two years, Palestinians, Israelis, and international non-violent activists have demonstrated in solidarity against this Wall.

Banners in honor of Rachel were seen scattered throughout the demonstration.



We marched to the wall where the Israeli Occupation Forces were waiting for us, as they usually are. The tactics they use to our non-violent demonstrations vary. Some walked past the razor wire to get closer to the farmland on the other side of the Wall. Others stayed back.



The IOF responded by beating people with their batons and pushing demonstrators to the ground or dragging them along it.



After the fog from the tear gas, sound bombs and rubber bullets cleared, it was realized that four people had been arrested, including Palestinian and Israeli demonstrators, and 7 were injured, including a Palestinian journalist.



Another peaceful demonstration achieving a violent response from what Israel calls their Israeli "Defense" Forces. But those who are living under Occupation and those who come to witness see their true colors.

Rachel saw this in Rafah four years ago. And those of us here now, continuing non-violent resistance to the longest-standing Occupation of our time, see these crimes. And many wonder when the rest of the world will realize that their luxury comes at a heavy price to others across the world.

There has been no justice for Rachel to date. And the crimes against the Palestinians continue to multiply as the international community turns its back.

After the demonstration I headed down to Hebron. My eyes were stained with tear gas residue and the smell seeped from my clothes. But I wanted to end this day on a happier note, for Rachel, and for the kids in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron who are living under Israeli military control, and whose neighbors happen to be the most right wing, extremist Israeli colonialists in all of the West Bank.

So I met up with Katie to have our first TRCDP Reunion.



The Tel Rumeida Circus for Detained Palestinians is a circus group that Katie and I co-founded last summer in response to the abuse and harassment placed upon the Palestinians in Tel Rumeida.

More about TRCDP can be found at: http://trcdp.livejournal.com

The kids were so excited to see us back there to do our weekly Friday fire performances. Unfortunately, Palestine is squeezing out the last of its snow and rain and the show wsa postponed due to weather. Kinda' hard to do fire performance in the rain.

But we will be back, and invite all of you to come and see us, coming to a checkpoint near you!

But for now, time for us to get to work. To continue the work of non-violent resistance, be it through writing, photographing, protesting, videotaping, circus performing, interviewing...

_____________________________________________________________________________

I wrote this poem for Rachel Corrie and for Palestine,
may we soon celebrate their justice...

Palindrome

Echoing through my dreams I hear the voices of the peaceful masses
As the Tanks shoot tear gasses
and rubber bullets.

And echoing through the televison
I hear the same old lies
As our non-elected president stares coolly at the lens of this tele-prompter.

The strings grew tighter between Bush and Sharon
But Bush only condoned the evils of that Bastard,
While money,
Faster and Faster
and faster
Was shipped to the Rascist State
as hungry people right outside on our streets
Met their fate
with no food...No healthcare...No money....

Ain't that funny...

Cause echoing through my mouth I say the same old words and I wonder...
Whats that word?
Repition...Repition...
Repetition...

If I say it enough will I reach you?
If I say it enough will I teach you?
If I say it enough, if I preach to you
Will you take what I say and Repeat it?

This tactic semms to have worked for the Administration,
Example:
9-11. 9-11.
9-11.
11th September, 11th September,
11th September...

Remember!...
Remember!...
Remember!...

Remember so I can justify my illegal wars!
Remember so I can pre-empt terror!
Remember so I can be emporer of this planer with
Right hand up to god and
Left hand up to Empire, with
Fingers crossed on Both, I
Pledge allegiance to Umpire
Each and Every Nation on the PLanet 'cause that's how
HE planned it...

Well,... All for one
And one for all...
I for one can't stand it!

'Cause echoing through each and every cell in my body
I feel the desparation caused by Occupation.
Tax dollars manifesting themselves into Caterpillar bulldozers,
D-9 Model,
Specially designed in the United States to
Kill 23 Year Old PEACE Activists
and to Rip through Palestinian Homes,
While a Mother groans,
A Brother phones to tell of his 10-year old sister shot in the head by an Israeli soldier...

Tax dollars transcending themselves into Apache helicopters,
Dropping tons of missiles onto the crowded streets of Gaza.

"Collatoral Damage," they call it.
I call it "A Shame!"
I call it, "Punishable under International Law
and Conventions of Geneva!"
While a Father grieves, a'
D-9 leaves ANOTHER field of Olive Trees Uprooted!

But violence is rooted in these actions.
Can't have a fraction of one without the other.
Can't reach an understanding
When you're standing on the Landing Zone of and F-16 Bomber,
Branded with the words:
"Made in U- S- A-"

Ain't no other way to end this viscous cycle...
Ain;t no other day 'cept for the one in which we are right now...
See, fighting ain't our pride,
But how can't we when our kids are dying?
How can't we when the sounds of all this Crying
Seep into each coming morning?

How can't we when storming through the streets of:
Nablus
Jenin
Jayyus
Qalqilia
Tulkarm
Come tons of tanks and bloodshed?

Fighting ain't our pride
But being on this Ride, down the road of Genocide,
Is not going to cut it!

It's not going to cut it the way we cut down these fences!
'Cause let's face it...

Echoing from the distance, I hear from out persistence:
Freedom.
Justice.
Resistance can only bring about this.

Echoing from my worldwide audience I hear a silent revolution...
But this silence is tragic...
Think of the magic of noise pollution...
Raise your voices and
SCREAM!

'Cause echoing from the distance I hear from our persistence:
Freedom.
Justice.
Repeat.
Freedom.
Justice.
Repeat.
Freedom.
Justice.
Repeat!

----Salamaat
from Palestine

Jonas

Al Hamdu Lillah!



I have made contact, finally....Some bumps in the road but here I sit in Tel Aviv, anxiously awaiting to return home-- to the West bank. One more day, insha'allah.

Ten days ago I found myself on the east coast of the USofA, presenting "Witnessing Palestine" to the University of Pittsburgh and other places.

Eight days ago I found myself on the West Coast, USofA, giving away my material possessions, including my bed, clothes, books, hookah, etc., preparing for this one-way flight to Palestine. It almost seemed like it wouldn't happen. After being arrested by Israeli police in beit Ummar, beaten by Israeli settlers in Hebron, and shot with rubber coated steel bullets in bil'in, I thought they would be waiting for me when I arrived at ben gurion airport...but I'll get to that in a second.

Seven days ago, I attended the ISM-sponsored speaking tour with Mohammad Khatib from bil'in and Feryal Abu Haikal from Hebron. There they relayed their stories and unbelievable video clips of life under Occupation, and their responses to it through non-violent resistance.

After my wonderful friends and I shared a delightfully special going away dinner in San Francisco, I headed off to Egypt to stay with Mrs. Abu Haikal's son. I had my "Let's Go: Middle East" tour book with me, crystallizing my story that I would tell the infamous Israeli security when I arrived in Tel Aviv: that I am a measly little tourist, trekking around a place that the US State Department warns their citizens against. Really they just don't want us to see the truth, but we'll save that rant for later.



So I gathered some photos from the Pyramids that I strategically placed in my laptop for later when the Israeli security would go inside of it and download my files. Look, there's the Nile!



Look, there's Jonas on a horse on the way to the pyramids,

look, there's Jonas dancing on the Pyramids...Etc etc. See, just a tourist.

Two days ago and yesterday I met with a new friend named Ahmed. He sent out a request to one of the ISM lists a couple months ago, I believe. He said that he was a student in Cairo and was extremely impressed with the work of the ISM and wanted to know who could help initiate an ISM group there at Cairo University. I responded saying that I would be in Egypt for a week and would do my best to answer his questions...

There just so happened to be some sort of E.U. simulation convention happening the past few days. At Ahmed's request, I brought him some maps from B'Tselem (http://www.btselem.org/English/) showing the ilegal route of Israel's monstrous Apartheid Wall, showing the Jewish only Settlement roads which chop up the West Bank into an incongrous landscape, and ISM recruitment Brochures explaining who the ISM is, when it was started, and what you can do to help.

And I sat with him and talked with anyone who wanted to listen. Ahmed's hope is to start an ISM support group at Cairo U. We met with dozens of students who right away signed up for this new group and a woman who is a head organizer of student groups is now helping to pave the way for ISM-Cairo's existence.

And today I hopped on my flight from Cairo to Tel Aviv. Those reiki attunements that my amazing friend and mentor Kate gave to me really do come in handy in the most tensive situations. (Reiki is hands on healing energy, treating sadness and suffering through the manipulation of Qi )...



I went over the story in my head-- what will I need to tell the security. I am a traveler...visiting friends in Tel Aviv...coming to see where my Savior Jesus was Born and where he spread the word of the Lord, etc...



When I felt my anxiety rushing on the plane as we landed, I tapped into the reike resource and calmed myself down in the matter of seconds.

Why are you here, they asked at the desk. I told them. They stamped my passport with a 3 month visa. Couldn't Be that easy I told myself... Not six feet do I walk when they start the questioning all over again. Three of them this time...

See, if you happen to Be someone like me, you can pretty much assume that you will Be questioned-- invasively interrogated I should say. Persons in their 20's, Some facial hair, Traveling alone-- apparently these attributes sound the alarms. I took a taxi from my friend's house in Egypt to the airport at 7am this morning. When I entered the taxi he started to speak in Arabic. "Shway aarabi" I said, just a little arabic. He said Really?! You look Khalili! That means I look like a guy from Hebron-- like my friend with who I was staying while in Egypt. Because he studied in the US for 9 years, the taxi driver's English was impeccable so we spoke in English. He said he would have bet money thay I was Khalili. Though I was truly flattered, this is what posed additonal problems this afternoon at the airport (and which posed some proBlems the 2 previous times I came to Falasteen).

But I was cool calm and collected. They went through all of my things and my computer and my phone But found nothing. They also Brought another lone "middle east trekker" in and we sat next to each other. We sized each other up Before we spoke. He was one of us. Or at least similar. Traveling to Palestine and Lebanon and Iraq with Medical Supplies and 2 passports so he can get into all these countries-- to help those people that our media seem to shun or sideline.

After going through all of our things they were left with no choice but to let us enter "the only democracy in the Middle east"--



a democracy that only dishes out equal rights if you are Jewish and the only democracy that fuels itself by Occupying another people's land illegally. And here we are, 2 young individuals doing our small part in making these wretched situations a little better...

So we beat them, and we entered al wajuud assayuni-- the Zionist Entity, with the hopes of cranking up the volume that the media keep turning down, and which still remains a little too quite for the mainstream to hear...

But from where I sit here in al wajuud assayuni, that sound is deafening!

Silence is tragic.
Think of the magic of Noise Pollution and
SCREAM!!!!!

Thanks for listening.
And thanks in advance for shouting.

Jonas
Human Rights Worker
International Solidarity Movement

From US: 972 542 103 657
IN Palestine: 0542103657