Gorilla Radio blog: Dreams of Palestine Persist Yet

Monday, April 29, 2019

Dreams of Palestine Persist Yet

Thinking Big - Dreams Do Come True (And an Invitation)

by Mazin Qumsiyeh - PalestineNature.org

April 29, 2019

We just celebrated Easter in the Holy Land and we look with anticipation to Ramadan. While many of us are not religious, we do recognize the value of these “traditions” to social fabric in our society.

Tradition and culture actually has much more nuance and mix than meets the eye. Easter is Ishtar and a fertility holiday, and Passover is not a historical event but based on earlier mythologies of Gods and redemption.

*Tomorrow/Tuesday at 10 AM we invite you to the opening of our cultural heritage exhibition (ethnography) at the Palestine Museum of Natural History (location here palestinenature.org/visit.

For more on this exhibit project funded by the BritishCouncil’s Cultural Protection Fund, in partnership with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, see https//www.palestinenature.org/cultural-heritage-project/*

If you can't join us donate and support

Staff and volunteers worked over the holidays. Some work every single day to achieve what would otherwise be an impossible dream: to build positively an institute for biodiversity and sustainability in the middle of an area of mayhem, greed, ecocide and genocide. A dream to join hands and shape the future we want instead of merely complaining about the present and past circumstances.

If you will it, it can happen. Dreams only come true with hard COLLABORATIVE work (not petty selfishness so easily seen in political leaders around the world). Our motto is: Respect for ourselves, for others, and for nature.

A short video of our earlier activities (before this new exhibit and the many other projects we worked on) is here: https://youtu.be/BPhFLOsEIM0. (8000 views so far!).

In response to my Easter message, a student said that Jesus was not born in Palestine but in Israel and that he was Jewish.

1) Palestine (geographic name used for nearly 4000 years*) was used at the time of Jesus' birth under Roman rule. There was no "Israel" then. There was Judea and Philistia (geographic parts of Palestine). But Jesus was not Judaic, He was Nazarene (GALILEE). Geography is why even Israel Academy of Sciences publishes book series Fauna Palestina and Flora Palestina (not Israeliana!).

2) Jesus was a follower of the Mosaic law (law of Moses and Abraham at the time). That is not being "Jewish" since that designation as a religious one only came in the fourth century AD (after the writing of the Talmud).

Samaritans who lived in Samaria (now Nablus) for example, even today would be insulted if you called them Jewish (even though they follow/ed the Torah).

But even if you assume a religion why are Christians not called Jews if Jesus is called a Jew by religion. Jesus was neither Judaic by geography (he was Nazarene) nor Jew or Samaritan by religion (though he was a follower of the Mosaic law).

*If you want more info I suggest this book "Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History"

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36645450-palestine

Readers and some media outlets asked me to comment on the pledge of Arab countries to support the Palestinian authority via $100 million in funds every month. Here are my thoughts: The Palestinian authority was created by the faulty process of Oslo negotiations. The Israeli plan for this was a permanent self-rule that can act as (unpaid) subcontractor for the occupation (a la "Vichy government " of France under the Nazi occupation).

The PLO leadership thought of it as an interim 5 years arrangement leading to statehood (this was naive at best and complicit at worst).

Here we are 26 years later and the PLO assets of over $1 billion were turned to a debt of >$4.1 billion (on the Pal Authority) and settlers went from 150,000 to over 900,000 and land access to Palestinian shrunk significantly (not to mention walls and restrictions and home demolitions etc).

This context is important to understand that even the Arab countries do give $100 million a month (unlikely since previous pledges were not met), it will do little to correct the structural problem of a captive Vichy economy under occupation/colonization. What is needed is to dissolve the PA, recreate the PLO and get liberation first. This will happen anyway because band-aids on severed main artery will not solve the problem of need for radical surgery!

This is important: Court rules that anti-boycott laws violate US Constitution

https://www.aclutx.org/en/press-releases/court-rules-texas-anti-boycott-law-unconstitutional-protects-first-amendment-right

Join Israelis calling for the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes and lands (per international law)

https://mailchi.mp/c7294310ffbf/zochrotmovementen

May 15 marks the anniversary of the Nakba. In this petition, Global Kairos for Justice, a partner of Kairos Palestine, asks to the world to support its call to action, to sign the petition

https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/global-kairos-signature-campaign-2.html

Ronnie Kasrils, a leading Jewish anti-apartheid activist who subsequently served as a South African government minister, offers a very well-informed perspective on yesterday's and today's apartheid states.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/03/israel-treatment-palestinians-apartheid-south-africa

My "no" is still no – Norm Lowry http://normanlowry.blogspot.com/

“We have assumed the name of peacemakers, but we have been, by and large, unwilling to pay any significant price. And because we want peace with half a hear and half a life and will, the war, of course, continues, because the waging of war, by its nature is total—but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial. So a whole will and a whole heart and a whole national life bent toward war prevail over the velleities of peace.” — Dan Berrigan