Land Day 2012

How many more must lose their lives, suffer severe injuries or unjust imprisonment, or lead lives of violence and despair before the world comes to the realization that in trying to find justice for the Jews of Europe, they created a much larger injustice for the Palestinians?

Damascus Gate Jerusalem

 

* In Jerusalem at least 2 injured, 5 detained at gates to the old city.  (The numbers are surely higher by the time your read this.) 

Israeli mounted police - Jerusalem
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/Land-Day

Kalandia (or Qalandia or Qalandiya) Refugee Camp tweeted by @RichardDufek

* At least 80 wounded in Kalandia and clashes are ongoing. (Before I posted this, the number rose to over 121. May be even higher before the end of the day).

* In Lebanon – In spite of the organizers’ plans to stage their demonstrations at a site several kilometers from the border (see last week’s blog), many angry and frustrated young men cross the barbed wire to wave their flags on Palestinian soil.



 * Gaza – One dead, over 100 seriously injured, including a journalist at checkpoint between Gaza and Israel.

* Confrontations in Bethlehem.

* Syria – Land Day demonstrations scaled back due to ongoing violence.  Five killed today.

* Jordan – More than 15,000 people held a peaceful sit-in near the border with Israel.

As I follow events through live blogs my eyes cloud with tears of frustration and sorrow.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/Land-Day

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2012/mar/30/syria-israel-land-day-palestinian-territories?newsfeed=true

The number of casualties continues to rise as I watch and read. 

In my novel, Refugee Without Refuge, Kareema’s life was changed forever by the demonstration held in the Kalandia Refugee Camp on Land Day, March 30.  Today the story plays out in real life, as it has every year—in Kalandia, in Gaza, in places throughout the Arab World as Palestinians try to draw attention to the continuing encroachment of Israel on private Palestinian land within Israel as well as in the Occupied Territories.

In my novel young Imahn was shot by a rooftop sniper using what is euphemistically called a rubber bullet, causing permanent damage.  Today The Guardian reports: 

12:57pm: Some updates from Phoebe Greenwood at Qalandiya:  “A young protester looks pretty seriously injured, having been shot in the lower back with a rubber bullet which seems to have been fired be [sic] Israeli soldiers in sniper position on a rooftop. He has been bundled into a Red Crescent ambulance.”  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2012/mar/30/syria-israel-land-day-palestinian-territories?newsfeed=true

Am I surprised that the events that happened in my novel are actually happening on the ground?  No more than you would be if you wrote about the tragedy of a tornado hitting a small town, and later read about a remarkably similar incident.  The difference is that this tragedy is caused by acts of men, not forces of nature.  Men who seem to have learned very little through the centuries of civilization.  Tomorrow thousands will mourn the fallen, and for years to come mothers will grieve for their lost sons and daughters, and many more tears will be shed over maimed and broken survivors.

Reading the posts of the reporters for The Guardian as they come over the internet minute by minute describing what is happening, my heart aches for their pain.  Sometime I think I should be there doing my part, but the rest of me realizes that the best I can do now is use my words to continue the fight. 

Al Jazeera has a photo gallery of pictures http://aljazeera.smartgalleries.net/gallery/1333113567642?image_id=00Gfaay3WLc1u including a woman trying to protect her cart of bananas from mounted soldiers.

This 33 second video in Kalandia shows water cannon, tear gas, and sound grenades being used against protesters and efforts by Red Crescent ambulances to reach the wounded

Art and life run parallel as the Land Day Demonstrations in Kalandia today reflect those described in Refugee Without Refuge.


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To see more about Dixiane Hallaj and her books:
http://www.hallajs.com

Global March to Jerusalem 2012

Every year on March 30, Palestinians celebrate Land Day, and this year people from all over the world are planning to join the Global March to Jerusalem, although most of them will be doing so in spirit only.  (Read more at http://gm2j.com/main/ )

This sentence may raise a few questions for those not familiar with the Palestinian problem, such as:  What is Land Day? Is the march really global? Why are most people only marching to Jerusalem in spirit?

What is Land Day?  In 1976 Arab citizens of Israel started Land Day to protest Israel’s plan to expropriate thousands of dunums (1000 square meters) of their land. 

Although most people are aware of the fact that Israel confiscates land in the Occupied Territories for their settlement program, few realize that they also take land from Israeli citizens, who just happen to be non-Jews.  Six Palestinians were shot during the first Land Day protests, and the concept of Land Day spread as a day for people to express their support of Palestine.  Land Day, more than any other single event, united the Palestinians within the state of Israel with the Palestinians in the camps and in the Palestinian Diaspora, which now spreads throughout the world.

Is the march really global?  Marches are planned in Israel, Occupied Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, as well as locations all over the world.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and the Irish Mairead Maguire, both Nobel Prize winners, will participate.  There are many organizations in the United States and Canada that are planning solidarity actions.  If you live in North America, you can find information at http://www.gmj-na.org/localactions.html to find the city nearest you.

In addition to the marches toward Jerusalem, there will be protests outside Israeli embassies in various European and Arab countries.

So why are so many of the marchers never going to make it to Jerusalem? 
Because the organizers of the march have announced that they will not confront Israeli forces.  “We are after all not an army, but popular peaceful international forces aiming to show solidarity with Palestine and with Jerusalem,” said spokesman Zahir Al-Birawi.

ASIAN Caravan – On March 22, 2012 almost 130 members of Asian caravan to Jerusalem crossed the border between Iran and Turkey.  They will proceed to Istanbul and sail to Lebanon to join the global march there.  A simple Google search yields postings from India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and many other countries.

LEBANON:  Participants from Lebanon will march from Palestinian refugee camps toward Beaufort Castle, the Crusader fortress that served as a military base of operations for Israeli troops during Israel’s occupation of south Lebanon.  They will not approach the border.  Last May when Palestinians approached the barbed wire near the border town of Maroun al-Ras, 10 Palestinians were killed, and 112 others wounded.  (http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2012/Mar-23/167729-land-day-march-rerouted-will-not-reach-border-with-israel.ashx#axzz1pyvzKrRG )

EGYPT and SYRIA: Marchers will not leave their countries, but they will not forget Jerusalem on this day.

WE WILL NOT FORGET
A search of YouTube shows many calls for action.

These are two that I liked.

Rachel Corrie, we will always remember

Rachel Corrie was killed 9 years ago today.  On March 16, 2003 she was crushed by a Caterpillar bulldozer on the Gaza Strip as she tried to stop a home demolition by the Israeli Army.  The next day Amnesty International condemned the killing and called for suspension of weapons transfers to Israel, particularly weaponized Caterpillar bulldozers.   http://www.amnestyusa.org/node/75392

Rachel was born in Olympia, Washington, the youngest of three children of Craig Corrie, an insurance executive, and his wife Cindy--just plain middle class Americans. 

By fifth grade Rachel's character and personality were already shining through.  A YouTube video of a speech she gave at that time showed the same selfless, caring philosophy that led her to join the International Solidarity Movement as they attempted to make a difference—to make the world notice and realize what the American media glosses over or ignores entirely.

This photo shows screen shots of the fifth grade speech and a video of an interview done two days before her death.  It was taken from http://www.salem-news.com/articles/march172010/corrie-school-tk.php , the website of Salem News (Salem, Oregon).  Both videos are incredibly powerful and are embedded at the end of this post.

Rachel’s parents have made great efforts to pursue legal avenues to get justice for their daughter’s death.  They started the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace & Justice (http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/rachel) to continue her work.  The Corrie family has also made her emails from Gaza public in hopes that her sacrifice will inspire others—and it has. 

The Evergreen State College, which Rachel was attending, now has a Rachel Corrie Memorial Scholarship.  There are at least 3 YouTube videos with songs celebrating her life.  A play “My Name is Rachel Corrie” has been produced in many countries, and is available from Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/My-Name-Rachel-Corrie/dp/1559362960 ), as is the book Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie (http://www.amazon.com/Let-Me-Stand-Alone-Journals/dp/0393065715).

No, Rachel, you are not forgotten.

I thought it was a great near-spring day...

The sun was shining, the daffodils were beginning to bloom, and my local bookstore sent me an email saying that they had sold out all their copies of my novel, Born a Refugee.  What more could a writer want?

And then I looked at the internet to see what was happening.  I didn’t find anything in the major news sources, but following a link from Twitter I found that this was one of the most violent days in Gaza in nearly a year.  Israeli aircraft killed 14 militants—some of them too torn up to be wrapped in cloth, as Muslim tradition dictates.   This picture was taken from the Connecticut Post website ctpost.com. 

The Gaza Strip is only 139 square miles.  This is roughly twice the area of Washington, DC (and much smaller than the DC metro area) and just over one third the area of New York City (again, only the city--not the NYC metropolitan area).  Within this very small area lives a population of 1.7 million people according to an official report by the interior ministry in Gaza Strip, making it one of the most densely populated places in the world. 

Over half a million of those people live in the 8 overcrowded refugee camps overseen by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.  The over-all unemployment rate is estimated at 40%.  We talk a lot about unemployment in this country and how to lower the unemployment rate.  New business is always cited as one way to increase employment and areas of high unemployment try to attract new businesses.  How do you attract new business to an area where there is constant violence and air strikes can happen any time?  How do you build a place to employ people when the blockade does not allow the import of construction materials--not even materials to rebuild damage caused by the air strikes?  All Gaza has is an abundance of labor.

The on-going blockade only makes the news when attempts to get supplies into Gaza from the outside world results in violence.  The relentless poverty and deprivation that result from the blockade never make the news.

As I was writing this blog post, I received another tweet—three more killed and a further 26 injured, five of whom are in serious condition.

My books, Born a Refugee and Refugee Without Refuge, tell the story of one fictional family living with the constant poverty, overcrowding, violence, and oppression in the Kalandia Refugee Camp on the West Bank.  The conditions I write about do not begin to describe the conditions in Gaza. 

 

Although the spring season seems to have arrived in my backyard, and the Arab Spring has given hope to millions throughout the Arab World, the people of Gaza have not yet been touched by the warmth of hope. 

Censorship rears its ugly head on the internet

PayPal has notified a number of online booksellers that it will no longer do business with them unless they remove certain kinds of material from their sites.   Given that PayPal seems to have a virtual monopoly in processing online transactions for many individuals and businesses, this will have a dramatic effect on online sales of many other things.  One of the ebook distributors given this ultimatum by PayPal is Smashwords that distributes Born a Refugee and Refugee Without Refuge in formats for ereaders other than Kindle.  I receive my royalties through PayPal, and I use PayPal to buy books and other things online, including concert tickets for local events.

Paypal is insisting that material including descriptions of rape, incest (and “pseudo-incest,” whatever that is) and bestiality be removed.  I’m a prude.  I admit it.  Although my novels use the words “desire” and “rape,” I never describe either.  I prefer the reader’s imagination to fill in as many or as few details as suits the individual taste.  The fact that I don’t read or recommend erotica does not mean I think their work should be censored.  Censorship of any kind is unconscionable and abhorrent.

Would Sophocles’ Oedipus be denied because it contains incest?  Wasn’t rape central to Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men?  Is our society regressing to the point of book burning?  What is happening to our individual freedom that we tout so highly as we condemn countries that deny such freedoms?  Yet this censorship is being ignored by the mainstream media.

 “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” a saying often attributed to Voltaire, but first said by Evelyn Beatrice Hall when describing Voltaire’s beliefs, also describes my beliefs about what is happening today.  No, I probably would not really defend it to the death, but I think the word should be spread and that every thinking person should lend support to the right to sell legal material using common methods of monetary transactions.  Every book distributor I have dealt with explicitly asks if the books contain adult content, and such books are clearly labeled.  They are not illegal.

Do not think that this is a fight to keep erotica in print—censorship, once started, is far more insidious.   

This act of censorship does not affect my books—yet.  However, I firmly believe that censorship is a slippery slope.  If this can go unchecked, what might be next?  Censorship of books that do not agree with politicians’ views?   Might my own books be banned in the future because they paint a sympathetic portrait of people who disagree with United States foreign policy?  The idea is not as far-fetched as you might imagine. 

The NCAC (National Coalition Against Censorship) website (http://www.ncac.org/) has a section on News.  There are many articles about instances of censorship, including one headlined “MECA Outmaneuvers MOCHA, Shows Palestinian Youth Art Across From Original Gallery” describing the September 2011 instance where the Museum of Children’s Art (MOCHA) cancelled an exhibit of Palestinian children’s art entitled “A Child’s View From Gaza.”  The article tells how the Middle East Children’s Alliance managed to find another venue and attract an audience of thousands to view the exhibit.  http://www.ncac.org/MECA-Outmaneuvers-MOCHA  If an institution like MOCHA yields to pressure and cancels Palestinian children’s art, how different is that from removing books from library shelves, or asking book distributors to remove them from their websites?

The ABFFE (American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression) website, http://www.abffe.org/, has some eye-opening articles about children’s books that have been banned in Tucson as part of the state’s ban on Mexican American Studies.  The ABFFE home page has a link to a change.org petition to return the books to the students.  It also gives more information about the PayPal Ban.

A letter sent jointly by NCAC and ABFFE that was sent to eBay Inc. and PayPal USA at http://www.scribd.com/doc/83549049/NCAC-ABFFE-Letter-To-PayPal-eBay-re-Ebook-Refusal-2012 shows the email addresses of those who should hear the voices of people crying out against censorship.

Make your voice heard.