· The Sacramento Bee · Sacramento
· The Charlotte Observer · Charlotte
The White House calls for aid to Gaza but doesn't criticize Israel's use of deadly force.
· Sunday Telegraph · page 1
Just how hungry is Gaza?
Israel insists that its blockade has not created a humanitarian crisis, but Gazans increasingly feel abandoned by the international community — and some in the battered enclave blame Hamas and its overlords for their depredations
Adrian Blomfield
“Just how hungry is Gaza? Israel insists that its blockade has not created a humanitarian crisis, but Gazans increasingly feel abandoned by the international community — and some in the battered enclave blame Hamas and its overlords for their depredations”
“Men scour the ruins of Gaza City, the result of an Israeli bombing campaign, and load rubble on to carts pulled by donkeys. It is a precious commodity because Israel has banned all construction material from entering Gaza. It fears Hamas will use it to make bunkers”
The clipping is the photograph, its caption and the headline stack; the article below was not clipped. The caption explains why rubble is valuable: construction material is banned.
· The Tennessean · Nashville
Editorial cartoon: figure labeled ISRAEL at the Western Wall; graffiti reads 'BE CAREFUL YOU DON'T BECOME WHAT YOU HATE THE MOST.'
· Houston Chronicle · page 1
Israel lifts ban in Gaza for some food, goods
Critics say move still keeps necessary items out of territory
By Steven Gutkin, Associated Press, Jerusalem
“Israel took a first step Wednesday to temper the uproar caused by its deadly high-seas raid on a blockade-busting flotilla by allowing potato chips, cookies, spices and other previously banned food items into the Gaza Strip. But the things Gazans need most — cement, steel and other materials to rebuild their war-ravaged territory — are still mostly banned… Palestinian official Raed Fattouh, who coordinates the flow of goods into Gaza with Israel, said soda, juice, jam, spices, shaving cream, potato chips, cookies and candy now were permitted. He said Israel rebuffed Palestinian requests for construction goods, raw materials for factories to operate and medical devices.… ‘A modest expansion of the restrictive list of goods allowed into Gaza falls well short of what is needed,’ said Maxwel Gaylard, the U.N.’s senior humanitarian official… Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said his country is committed to ensuring that ‘the civilian population of Gaza will receive civilian goods.’”
DEMONSTRATION: Disabled Palestinian refugees demonstrate in Sidon, Lebanon, on Wednesday in solidarity with the disabled of Gaza City, who were due to receive humanitarian supplies aboard the flotilla of ships that was raided by the Israeli army before it reached the blockaded Gaza Strip.
The concession was snack food. In the same column the Palestinian coordinator says Israel refused medical devices, and the photograph above it is disabled refugees in wheelchairs demonstrating in Lebanon for the flotilla that was carrying supplies to disabled people in Gaza.
· The Santa Fe New Mexican · Santa Fe · page 1
Gaza Strip: Hardship falls below ‘emergency’ threshold, but blockade shutters factories and clinics, and leaves everyone relying on aid
“Gaza Strip: Hardship falls below ‘emergency’ threshold, but blockade shutters factories and clinics, and leaves everyone relying on aid.”
“A Palestinian woman holds her baby in a vaccination room as others wait with their children at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency clinic in Gaza City. Gaza’s health service is overwhelmed and advanced care, including cancer treatment, is not available, forcing thousands every year to seek treatment abroad.” Khalil Hamra / The Associated Press
The clipping is the headline and a photograph of a vaccination room; the story was not clipped. Nobody in the photograph is named.
· The Independent · London
'Here in Gaza we have always had the best oranges. Now most of [the citrus groves] have gone'
Salama al-Kishawi, Gaza Juice Factory
· The Miami Herald · Miami · page 1
SLIM PICKINGS
SCAVENGERS COLLECT RUBBLE AT GAZA’S BOMBED AIRPORT
By Ibrahim Barzak, The Associated Press, Rafah, Gaza Strip
“RAFAH, Gaza Strip—Scores of men swinging hammers and pickaxes attack the runway and terminal of Gaza’s bombed-out airport before dawn every day, scavenging gravel and metal bars to resell as construction material. The looting of the Gaza International Airport—once hailed as a step toward Palestinian statehood but destroyed during years of fighting with Israel—reflects the dire situation in the impoverished territory, where a three-year blockade has made jobs scarce and kept out badly needed building supplies. The scavengers who come daily, working long hours to take home as little as $15 a day, say they can’t find other jobs. ‘I have no work but to spend my day under the sun trying to feed my children,’ said Hilmi Izawied, 34, taking a break from work on Monday. Despite the 98-degree Fahrenheit heat, about 120 men worked in the area Monday, some digging up gravel, others hammering on what were once terminal walls to remove bars. Many refrained from food or drink in observance of the dawn-to-dusk fast of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began last week. Izawied and four friends had been there since 3 a.m., he said, pulling up heavy slabs of runway asphalt, digging up the gravel below and filtering it into large sacks.”
“MAKING DO: Above and below, Palestinians dig through what was once the runway of Gaza’s bombed-out airport to collect rubble and gravel needed for construction.” (Photos by Khalil Hamra/AP)
An airport built as a step toward statehood, being carried away by hand as gravel.
· Honolulu Star Advisor · Honolulu
Israel has no desire for a pact, while Palestinians have no clout
· National Post · Toronto
True 'brotherhood' means granting Palestinians citizenship
· Telegram & Gazette · Worcester · page 1
More than words
Oud masters Le Trio Joubran honor Mahmoud Darwish in their local debut
Siddhartha Mitter, Globe Correspondent
“Palestinian artists abroad are used to bearing a heavy symbolic load, whether they like it or not. The history of their people, marked by displacement, occupation, and the endless peace process, imparts a certain intensity to even lighthearted work and invites controversies that might have nothing to do with the performers and their material. But when the Paris-based Palestinian brothers known as Le Trio Joubran, virtuosos of the oud, the ancient Arabic lute, make their Boston debut at the Somerville Theatre on Thursday, their seriousness will speak to a more intimate loss: the death, in August 2008, of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish… Their tribute concert featuring recordings of Darwish reading turned into their third album, ‘A l’ombre des mots’ (In the shadow of words)… ‘The first time Wissam performed with me I realized we had something new,’ Samir says. ‘We didn’t play harmony, and we didn’t play exactly the same melody on the two instruments.’… Darwish disliked reading to accompaniment, Samir explains. But when the two appeared on the same bill at a 1996 performance, organizers suggested they share the stage. A compromise was reached. Darwish agreed to allow brief oud interludes between his poems, no more than three minutes each. ‘He said if I played more than three minutes, I would have to leave the stage.’ Early in Samir’s second interlude, Darwish unexpectedly started to recite, putting the younger man in a dilemma: to continue and risk angering a national icon, or stop? ‘It was the most difficult decision of my life,’ Samir says. ‘I closed my eyes and thought, this is a beautiful chemistry.’ He played on. After a while he looked up toward the poet. ‘He just moved his head,’ Samir says, in approval. Samir and later his brothers would go on to accompany Darwish in several dozen concerts, and learn from his friendship. ‘He taught what universities will never teach,’ Samir says. ‘How to compose a musical sentence and color it, so that you can see, for example, a flower opening. How to look at the silence between the notes.’ Darwish also helped the brothers deal with burdens beyond music. ‘He taught me there is always pressure from the political issue of Palestine on the culture,’ Samir says. ‘We feel it every day, but we don’t know it.’ He says the poet helped the young men free their music from that insidious stress… The three ouds — made by Wissam, who is not just the bearer of the family luthier tradition but a graduate of the Stradivarius violin-making school in Cremona, Italy — share the same size and tuning but have different woods and details, producing distinct colors and tones… ‘Of course we are always fighting, especially when we compose. It’s not easy. Maybe if we weren’t brothers, we wouldn’t stay in the same group… But in the end brotherhood is the most important. It’s for our family; our small family, and also the big family of Palestine.’”
“From left: Adnan, Wissam, and Samir Joubran, the brothers of Le Trio Joubran, often collaborated with Mahmoud Darwish (below) prior to the Palestinian poet’s death in 2008.” · Philippe Fresi
The first paragraph of this concert preview states the subject of this archive in two sentences, and then the piece goes on to be about three brothers, an instrument and a friendship. The scene at its center is a poet who disliked being played over, a young musician told he had three minutes, and a nod. What Samir Joubran says Darwish taught him is the thing itself: that there is always pressure from the politics of Palestine on the culture, and that they feel it every day without knowing it. Wissam Joubran builds the family’s ouds and trained at the violin-making school in Cremona.
· The Monitor · McAllen · page 1
Would Palestine recognition help peace talks?
“A Catholic pilgrim lights a candle Friday outside of the Grotto at the Church of Nativity, traditionally believed by Christians to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ, in the West Bank town of Bethlehem.” Dimitri Messinis, The Associated Press. And: “Palestinian youths throw stones at Israeli troops during a protest against Jewish settlements Friday in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.” Dan Balilty, The Associated Press.
A question in the headline and two photographs under it. The text of the piece is not part of this clipping.
· The Republic · Columbus · page 1
Will protests unite Jews, Arabs?
Michal Levertov, The Institute for War & Peace Reporting
“THE Druze village of Hurfeish seems as pastoral as the rural north of Israel can be. Sitting on the northwestern slope of the Meron Mountains amid a national park, the centuries-old settlement of about 6,000 residents looks like an image taken from a tourist postcard: green, beautiful, serene. But earlier this month, the atmosphere was not so peaceful. A policeman and an official from the national park authority were attacked by village youths when they attempted to enforce a demolition order for an unauthorized building. As the disturbance spread, hundreds of youngsters set fire to tires and blocked Hurfeish’s main road, a central northern Galilee transport route, in protests that took four hours to bring under control. Community leader Fawaz Hossain, 57, denounces the violence. But he puts the blame squarely on the police and the parks’ authority decision to issue the demolition order just as Israel is in the midst of an unprecedented wave of activism over rising housing prices. What started off on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Avenue as a localized protest has turned into a nationwide call for social justice. At its peak, about 300,000 people turned out on across Israel in peaceful opposition to the growing disparity of income in Israel. And although initially seen as a mass movement among Jews, the country’s Arab citizens are increasingly involved in the civil protest. ‘We are clearly a part of the wider tent protest, even though there are differences in our needs and demands,’ explained Hossain. ‘It’s not the housing prices that we protest against, but the utter lack of adequate housing for us.’ Much of the land in Hurfeish was confiscated by the state decades ago, with most of it going to create a nature preserve. But some of the land was also intended for the development of a neighboring Jewish village. Ever since, Hurfeish’s residents have been battling building restrictions on the remaining land. While the residents of Hurfeish are quick to link their protest with those occurring elsewhere in Israel, other Arab communities are hesitant to join in what they see as a Jewish issue. This hesitance, says Aida Touma-Sliman, editor-in-chief of the Arabic al-Ittihad daily newspaper, has been due to a ‘deep disbelief within the Arab population — following decades of exclusion and discrimination — that it is capable of influencing the general Israeli agenda.’ But in truth, Touma-Sliman notes, the issues facing the Arab community — lack of land, housing and limited access to social welfare — are the same ones driving Israeli Jews into the streets… ‘Arabs in Israel also feel that the changes in the Arab states are being generated by a great sense of ownership that the citizens there have,’ Touma-Sliman said. ‘The Arab public in Israel feels disconnected and alienated from the rest of the population, thus being deprived of the feeling of entitlement which enabled the protests of the Arab Spring, as well as that of the Jewish population in Israel.’ Nonetheless, Touma-Sliman said, the Arab public should join the movement. ‘If there ever was willingness in the Israeli Jewish mainstream to hear the Arab citizens cry out against discrimination, land confiscations or house demolishing — and to do that not through a nationalist lens — it is now,’ she said. Others see no chance for the protesters finding common ground. Writing in Haaretz, a major English-language newspaper in Israel, Arab journalist Zuheir Anderus emphasized that he could not identify with the protest because it ‘ignores my existence and my problems.’ Indeed, the 22-member committee that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed to offer solutions to the protestors’ demands does not include a single Arab representative. But others see this as a unique opportunity to unite the country’s diverse communities. Shahin Nassar, a 25-year-old student and journalist, founded an encampment in Wadi Nisnas, an Arab neighborhood in the northern city of Haifa, after participating in a rally in a Jewish neighborhood where he was disappointed by the lack of Arab participation. ‘This protest is definitely mine too, and it is for me to determine its nature and its goals,’ he said. ‘Any achievement, whether it is reducing housing costs or electricity prices, will benefit the Arab population just as much. Of course, we are in a unique position and nobody denies it. We are an integral part of the Palestinian people. But just the same, we are an integral part of the state of Israel.’”
A cartoon runs with the piece: a lawnmower cutting through a field of flowers, a signpost reading ‘ARAB’, and a speech bubble saying “I HATE ARAB SPRING!”
Palestinian citizens of Israel arguing among themselves, in an American paper, about whether to join a Jewish-led protest. Four are quoted and three are named; the last of them ends on being an integral part of both peoples.
· The Redwood Coast Review · Gualala · page 1
Echoes of the Promised Land
Yehuda Amichai and Mahmoud Darwish · Poets & Poetry
Roberta Werdinger
“As a Jewish-American writer whose father survived the Holocaust, I have watched the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a dismayed recognition. A high-school year spent in Israel opened my eyes to a two-tiered society that placed the Arab (I never heard the word ‘Palestinian’ used) firmly on the bottom. I rejected Zionism as an ideology that sought to own and dominate my mind, building walls in which a glorious ‘us’ fought a noble battle against a murderous other… I wandered alone through Jerusalem’s Arab Quarter, encountering a rich and complex culture… Later, when the first Palestinian intifada occurred, my spontaneous reaction was, ‘It’s about time.’ Yet I came to feel increasingly uncomfortable around large sections of the pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist movement, who simply substituted one kind of non-negotiable dogma for another… The result in my mind was simply a poverty of imagination, a denuding of the inner landscape by which I could form an empathetic link to whoever my current society told me was my enemy. For that, I turned to the poets.… Darwish underwent exile, imprisonment, and siege imposed by the state Amichai fought for. Yet both share a kinship in asserting a humanity that reclaims the subjectivity denied them by geopolitics, and then gestures toward the other.… Mahmoud Darwish was born in 1941 in a village in the Galilee. The formation of the Israeli Jewish state, a momentous and long-awaited day for Yehuda Amichai and his ilk, was known to Palestinians as nakba, or ‘catastrophe’; Darwish and his family fled for Lebanon. They returned shortly after and were accorded the status of ‘present-absent aliens,’ a moniker (worthy of the most ironic postmodernist) that denied the family even the second-class status of Israeli Arabs.… He survived the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982, producing a long poem, ‘From Beirut,’ and a prose memoir, ‘Memory for Forgetfulness,’ about the experience. Darwish was invited to draft a charter for peace for the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) in 1988, a position he accepted with trepidation. ‘What does a poet do in the executive council?’ he wondered. ‘Will I be able to write a book of love when color falls on the ground in autumn?’ The first book he produced, when he finally returned to live in the West Bank, was indeed a book of love poems, ‘The Stranger’s Bed.’ While Palestinians at first wondered at its lack of public address of their urgent issues, they came to see and respect that the project of his later poems was to reclaim the inner world in order to ennoble and inhabit the outer. Darwish died in 2008… ‘Throw your gun in the river!’ he implores an Israeli soldier in ‘He Embraces His Murderer.’ Another poem, ‘I Belong There,’ concludes: ‘I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to draw from them a single word: Home.’ Palestine is for him both actuality and metaphor, ‘mother of all beginnings and ends.’ Darwish’s poems are full of the pain of exile, but they never harangue.”
Portraits of Mahmoud Darwish and Yehuda Amichai, captioned with their names.
A small California literary review gives two pages to a Palestinian and an Israeli poet side by side, and the writer states her standpoint in her first line. Two things in it belong to this archive’s subject. The first is her account of a school year in Israel where she never once heard the word Palestinian. The second is Darwish, asked in 1988 to help draft a charter for the PLO, asking what a poet is supposed to do on an executive council and whether he will still be allowed to write a book of love. He wrote one. It is the same question the screenwriter Naim al-Khatib puts to an American reporter in Gaza twenty-six years later, and the same one the director Hany Abu-Assad answers in the Los Angeles Times seven months before that.
· Roanoke Times · Roanoke · page 1
Israel confirms killing Arafat deputy in '88
Israel's military censor approved the release of the information, effectively amounting to acknowledgement of the kill.
Aron Heller, Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM — Israel acknowledged Thursday it killed the deputy of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in a 1988 raid in Tunisia, lifting a nearly 25-year veil of secrecy and allowing a rare glimpse into the shadowy world of its secret operations. One of the commandos was disguised as a woman on a romantic vacation, and one of the weapons was hidden in a box of chocolates. Khalil al-Wazir, who was better known by his nom de guerre Abu Jihad, founded Fatah, the dominant faction in the Palestinian Liberation Organization, with Arafat and was blamed for a series of deadly attacks against Israelis. Two of those involved in the operation that killed al-Wazir now hold high political office in Israel — Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon. At the time, Barak was deputy military chief, and Yaalon was head of the elite commando unit Sayeret Matkal. Their precise roles in the operation were not divulged, and both men’s offices declined comment. Israel has long been suspected of assassinating al-Wazir. But only now has the country’s military censor cleared the Yediot Ahronot daily to publish the information, including an interview with the commando who killed him, at least 12 years after the newspaper obtained the information. ‘I shot him with a long burst of fire. I was careful not to hurt his wife, who had showed up there. He died,’ commando Nahum Lev told Yediot prior to his death in a motorcycle wreck in 2000. ‘Abu Jihad was involved in horrible acts against civilians. He was a dead man walking. I shot him without hesitation.’ Dozens of similar operations have been attributed to Israel over the decades. But Israel rarely takes responsibility and typically does not comment about covert operations. Israeli officials did not openly confirm the operation. But the censor’s decision to allow publication, after years of stifling the account, amounted in effect to confirmation. The military censor’s main task is to block publication of material deemed a threat to national security. Israel has a longstanding policy of preventing publication of any information that would expose agents, tactics and intelligence gathering methods or put anyone still alive who was involved in harm’s way. In the al-Wazir case, though, it appears that after years of rumors and foreign reports claiming to expose the operation, along with the death of the triggerman, the censor’s office decided to drop its objection to publication… Another team killed a separate bodyguard and a gardener before entering the expansive villa. Lev’s partner was the first to fire at the Palestinian leader. When Lev noticed al-Wazir reaching for a weapon, he shot and killed him. Other participants then ‘verified the kill’ by shooting the body several more times before the forces retreated to sea and back to Israel, the Yediot report said. ‘I felt bad about the gardener,’ Lev told Yediot. ‘But in an operation such as this you have to make sure that any potential resistance is neutralized.’ The Palestinians have long accused Israel of being behind the assassination. Abbas Zaki, a top official in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement, said the Palestinians and Tunisia should now ‘work to bring Israel to justice.’”
“Then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (left) sits with his deputy, Khalil al-Wazir, who had long been wanted in a series of deadly attacks against Israeli civilians.” Associated Press / File. A boxed sidebar headed “The target” records that at the time of his death al-Wazir was a main organizer of the first Palestinian uprising, which began in December 1987, four months before he was killed.
A killing confirmed twenty-four years later because a military censor allowed it to be printed. The gardener killed on the way in is mentioned twice and never named.
· Santa Barbara News-Press · Santa Barbara · page 1
‘Hamas is using the Gaza population as human shields’
“In the day’s deadliest violence, the Israeli navy fired at a home where it said a top wanted militant was hiding. The missile struck the home of the Daloo family in Gaza City, reducing the structure to rubble. Frantic rescuers, bolstered by bulldozers, pulled the limp bodies of children from the ruins of the house, including a toddler and a 5-year-old, as survivors and bystanders screamed in grief. Later, the bodies of the children were laid out in the morgue of Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital. Among the 11 dead were four small children and five women, including an 81-year-old, Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said… Mr. Al-Kidra said 20 of 27 people killed Sunday were civilians, mostly women and children. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said that ‘the Israeli people will pay the price’ for the killing of civilians. Israel sought to place the blame on militants, saying they were intentionally operating in places inhabited by civilians… ‘Hamas is using the Gaza population as human shields,’ said Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the chief Israeli spokesman. ‘They are exploiting crowded residential urban areas.’ He acknowledged, however, that it was not clear whether the militant targeted in Sunday’s attack was killed, despite earlier claims of success. ‘I still don’t know what became of him,’ Gen. Mordechai told Channel 10 TV… ‘In this case, you can’t avoid collateral damage if they position the rockets in densely populated areas, in mosques, school yards,’ said Israeli Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon. ‘We shouldn’t be blamed for the outcome.’ Avihai Mandelblit, a recently retired chief advocate general in the Israeli military, said that from a legal perspective, ‘there’s no immunity to anyone if you put weapons inside of civilian infrastructure.’ But he acknowledged the sight of dead civilians could create a public relations debacle for Israel. ‘As more civilians will get hurt, the legitimacy clock is going to click faster to end this operation,’ he said… ‘Israel has every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory,’ Mr. Obama said. Mr. Hague also said Hamas ‘bears principal responsibility’ for initiating the violence, but made clear the diplomatic risks of an Israeli escalation.”
“An emergency rescue worker carries a child’s body following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Sunday.” Associated Press
The headline is a quotation from the chief Israeli spokesman. Two paragraphs after he says it, the same spokesman says he does not know whether the man the strike was aimed at was killed.
· The Register-Guard · Eugene · page 1
Israel hasn’t wanted peace in Gaza
Sterling Rand, Junction City
“Rae LaMarche’s Nov. 21 letter missed a few important events, such as an Israeli incursion into Gaza on Nov. 8 that left a 13-year-old Palestinian boy dead. On Nov, 14 Israeli forces launched dozens of strikes in Gaza, killing at least two Hamas members, including the head of Hamas’ military wing, Ahmed al-Jabari, and at least five civilians. The strikes wounded at least 115 people, including 26 children and 25 women. There were serious efforts to calm the situation and reach a truce. But clearly Israel had another agenda. By targeting Ahmed al-Jabari, leader of the al-Qassam Brigade, it sabotaged Egyptian efforts to conclude a truce between all Palestinian factions and the Israelis. That was confirmed by Egypt’s president on Nov. 17. In 2008 there was a peace treaty until Israel killed some Hamas leaders. How many incursions into Israel from Gaza in the last six years? How many from Israel into Gaza? LaMarche said, ‘Why do the Palestinians lose more than the Israelis? Because Israelis hide their civilians in bomb shelters instead of hiding their bombs in civilian areas.’ Go to Gaza, the most densely populated place on Earth, and find a place where there are not civilians. LaMarche also said, ‘Israel has the right to defend itself.’ So do the Gazans. Don’t like indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Israel? Give the Gazans better weapons so they will only strike military targets.”
One reader answering another by name, in the letters column, quoting her own words back to her.
· The Register-Guard · Eugene · page 1
Writer offers facts on Gaza
John C. Frandsen, Auburn
“Writer offers facts on Gaza. Regarding the spate of letters concerning the conflict between Israel and Hamas, some of the authors appear to be ignorant of certain crucial facts. Israel did not ‘give’ the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians. Israel owns only the land it occupied before the 1967 war. Additional land that it now claims was acquired through conquest, and is properly considered occupied territory according to international law. Further and continuous expansion of ‘settlements’ into land held by non-Israelis for many centuries is fueled by what Roger Cohen (a Zionist) has called ‘a messianic Israeli nationalism claiming all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.’ The people of Gaza are locked into a literal prison, from which they can leave only with Israeli approval. The goods they produce can only leave Gaza with Israeli approval, and the outside-sourced supplies of all sorts, including food, necessary for life and civilization can enter only with Israeli approval. Hence, Israel controls its fuel supplies and systematically denies entry into Gaza of construction materials that are needed to rebuild structures destroyed in Israeli attacks, as well as those substances requisite to maintaining potable water and the sanitary and safe disposal of human and industrial waste. Yes, Hamas’ violence against Israel is reprehensible. Yet, imagine how Alabamians would behave if 2 million of them were confined by the federal government to a 100-square-mile, barricaded-off prison strip on the west coast of Mobile Bay. As in Gaza, the coast would be blockaded and residents barred from taking boats more than 3 miles from shore. The federal government would control access to the strip, as Israel does to Gaza, and would not negotiate with the residents on any matter. After years of living thus, might some of the prisoners justifiably protest violently?”
A letter from Auburn, Alabama, arguing by local analogy: Mobile Bay as Gaza. It runs directly under an unrelated letter about Janet Napolitano.
· The Globe
State of Palestine name change shows limitations
Associated Press, Ramallah, West Bank
“Last week, his government press office urged journalists to refer to a state of Palestine, instead of the Palestinian Authority… In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland expressed U.S. opposition to using the term ‘State of Palestine.’ ‘You can’t create a state by rhetoric and with labels and names,’ she told reporters.”
A government press office instructing journalists what to call a place, and the United States objecting to the word. The mirror of Begin telling reporters the same thing in 1977. Quoted: Nour Odeh, spokeswoman for Abbas’ government; Omar Awadallah of the Foreign Ministry; the analyst Hani al-Masri; and Mark Regev.
· The Monitor
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
State of Palestine’s new emblem shows limitations
Karin Laub and Mohammed Daraghmeh, The Associated Press
“Last week, his government press office urged journalists to refer to a state of Palestine, instead of the Palestinian Authority… ‘You can’t create a state by rhetoric and with labels and names,’ she told reporters.”
The same Associated Press story as the printing in The Globe, the same morning. The Globe ran the wire’s own summary as its headline. This paper kept that line as a second line and put a quotation from Romeo and Juliet above it — answering the question before the reader reaches the story, and landing on the same position the State Department takes inside the article. This printing also carries the byline, which includes a Palestinian reporter.
· The Philadelphia Inquirer · Philadelphia · page 1
Palestinians evacuated, Netanyahu affirms plans
The Israeli prime minister vowed to press ahead with construction in a key area of the West Bank.
Joel Greenberg, Washington Post, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised Sunday to follow through with plans for settlement construction in a key West Bank area known as E-1 after police evicted scores of Palestinian protesters who had set up a tent camp there. ‘We will complete the planning, and there will be construction,’ Netanyahu told Army Radio hours after the eviction, but he cautioned that planning for the new development ‘will take time.’ Netanyahu, who is in the home stretch of an election campaign, moved swiftly against the Palestinian encampment, a new form of grass-roots protest modeled after scores of wildcat outposts set up by Jewish settlers on West Bank hills without government approval. While many of those outposts remain in place, Netanyahu ordered the evacuation of the Palestinian camp — a cluster of about 20 tents that protesters called the village of ‘Bab al-Shams,’ or Gate of the Sun — a day after it went up Friday. It was cleared early Sunday after Israel’s Supreme Court overturned an injunction delaying the removal of the protesters, who had argued that they were on private Palestinian land. The court accepted the government’s argument that the continued presence of the protesters could lead to riots and that there was an urgent security need to remove them. About 500 police officers moved into the area at 2:30 a.m. and evicted about 120 Palestinians, some of whom were carried off when they put up passive resistance, said Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman. He said there were no injuries during the hour-long operation. But Abir Kopty, a spokeswoman for the protesters, said that some were punched in the face as they sat and resisted removal, and that six required hospital treatment. Pictures of men with facial injuries were distributed by protest organizers, known as the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee. Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian legislator and political activist who was at the encampment when it was cleared, accused Israeli authorities of a double standard. ‘They are allowing more than 100 outposts to stay, illegal settlements by every standard of international law, while preventing people from being on land privately owned by Palestinians,’ he said. Israel’s advancement of plans to build in E-1, announced in November after Palestinians gained recognition as a nonmember observer state at the U.N., were condemned. The United States and European nations said the move would hurt prospects for a contiguous Palestinian state.”
“Israeli police evict a Palestinian from an area known near Jerusalem known as E-1. Activists had erected tents in the area in an effort to prevent Israeli settlement construction.” Nasser Shiyoukhi / Associated Press · “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (front) and others visited the Israel Defense Forces Northern Command on Sunday, the day of the evacuation of Palestinians.” Kobi Gideon / Government Press Office via Getty
Palestinians using the settlers’ own method — putting up tents on a hill — and being removed within a day, with the comparison made in the story by a Palestinian legislator. The police account and the protesters’ account of injuries are both printed.
· Press of Atlantic City · Pleasantville
U.S. protests ‘State of Palestine’ placard in U.N.
The United States ambassador says Palestine’s nonvoting member status does not give it statehood.
Peter J. Spielmann, Associated Press, United Nations
“U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice objected Wednesday to the Palestinians’ latest bid to capitalize on their upgraded U.N. status when their foreign minister spoke at the Security Council while seated behind a nameplate that read ‘State of Palestine’… ‘Any reference to the ‘State of Palestine’ in the United Nations, including the use of the term ‘State of Palestine’ on the placard in the Security Council… do not reflect acquiescence that ‘Palestine’ is a state,’ she added.”
The naming argument reduced to an object on a table. Seventeen days after the State Department objected to the word on official stationery, an American ambassador objected to it on a nameplate, and the Associated Press printed the objection with the contested words in quotation marks four times in one sentence. Robert Serry of the UN explained that the placard said what it said because the Secretariat “is guided by the membership.”
· Santa Barbara News-Press · Santa Barbara · page 1
Bus service for Palestinians raises charges of racism
McClatchy News Service, Tel Aviv
“TEL AVIV, Israel — For more than a decade, Khaled Abdi and his uncle, Sami, have navigated the circuitous routes of the West Bank to get to low-paying construction jobs in central Israel. They’d wake at 3 a.m. to leave their homes near Nablus to catch one of Israel’s state-run buses, which also ferried Israeli settlers. It was a rare point of interaction between the two communities, whose members often live near one another but are on opposite sides of one of the region’s most deeply entrenched conflicts. But that rare interaction may be about to come to an end. On Monday, Israel’s Transportation Ministry opened up a new bus system in the West Bank that Palestinian officials say is intended to separate Jews and Arabs. Palestinian officials call it ‘blatant racism.’ Israeli officials call it simply providing better service to the tens of thousands of Palestinians who commute daily to their jobs in Israel. ‘It is yet another rung in the ladder that Israel is slowly climbing until all the world will call it an apartheid state,’ said one Palestinian official, who asked not to be quoted by name because he was not authorized to speak publicly until Palestinian officials determine whether they will launch a formal complaint. In a statement, Israel’s Transportation Ministry denied that the new bus line constituted discrimination. ‘The Transportation Ministry is forbidden from preventing any passenger from boarding any line of public transportation nor do we know of a directive to that effect,’ a ministry statement said. ‘The new lines are not separate lines for Palestinians but rather two designated lines meant to improve the services offered to Palestinian workers who enter Israel.’ In practice, however, there were signs that at a minimum Palestinians would be actively encouraged to use the new line and discouraged from using the old bus lines, which continue to run. One Palestinian construction worker who chose to take the old line Monday said that he was forced to get off the bus at checkpoints and was subjected to extra security checks despite having all the paperwork to work legally in Israel. He asked not to be named because of the controversy involved. Other accounts have cited Israeli bus drivers as saying that Palestinians would be limited to the ‘Arab-only’ bus. ‘There will be checks at the checkpoint, and Palestinians will be asked to board their own buses,’ the Israeli website Ynet quoted one unidentified bus driver as saying… Khaled Abdi was skeptical. ‘They say that in the future it will go other places, but we have no guarantee,’ he said. Fuad Maloof, a 32-year-old construction worker from the town of Qalqilya, said that he doesn’t mind the new line, as long as Israel expands the service. He said he was grateful that the new bus line was half the price of the illegal mini-buses he used to ride from his home to central Israel. ‘I can save money, as long as this bus comes more regularly and there is room for everyone,’ he said. He acknowledged the service made him feel unwelcomed. ‘It is not a good feeling that the Jews don’t want us on the same bus,’ he said… But Sari Bashi, the executive director of Gisha, a group that advocates lifting Israel’s restrictions on the Palestinian territories, said the buses were another example of a ‘dual system of rights for Israelis and Palestinians.’ ‘These settlers and Israeli citizens apparently feel safe enough to allow Palestinians to build their homes and clear their land, so it’s unclear why they can’t ride the same buses,’ she said… In any case, Sami Abdi said he and his nephew will catch the new bus. ‘Really, what choice do we have?’ he asked. ‘Israel creates the system and we live in it. We need these jobs, so we will use whatever bus they tell us to.’”
“Palestinian laborers board a Palestinian-only bus en route to the West Bank from Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday. The Palestinian-only bus lines have been condemned by critics as racism and hailed by Israel as a goodwill gesture created to solve the messy situation created by 45 years of conflicting ideals.” Associated Press
Three ordinary Palestinian workers named and quoted, and they do not agree with each other. The ministry’s denial is printed in full beside them.
· Santa Barbara News-Press · Santa Barbara · page 1
Economic development is seen as a key aspect of Palestinian state building
The Associated Press
“‘We don’t have unrealistic expectations. We know the immensity of obstacles,’ said Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official. ‘If it doesn’t work, of course we have our own plans.’… Mr. Mustafa said the Palestinian economy is in a dire state, with the government $3 billion in debt and unemployment at 23 percent. Among Palestinians ages 20 to 24, the unemployment rate is 40 percent. ‘We can’t continue like this,’ he said. ‘We need an urgent solution.’ The Palestinians have long complained that Israeli control over the West Bank has stifled their economy with military checkpoints, travel restrictions and limits on development… ‘Kerry’s plan should be a comprehensive one, not just economic and confidence-building measures and security, but also political and legal,’ Mr. Ashrawi said.”
Secretary of State John Kerry speaks during a joint news conference with his Jordanian counterpart, Nasser Judeh, not pictured, in Amman on Wednesday. Associated Press.
· The Grand Rapids Press · Grand Rapids · page 1
Caught in the conflict
Holy Land archaeological treasure hurt by politics
Daniela Berretta, The Associated Press, Sebastia
“SEBASTIA, West Bank — The ancient town of Sebastia is one of the major archaeological sites of the Holy Land, with its overlapping layers of history dating back nearly 3,000 years. But today the hilltop capital of biblical kings, later ruled by Roman conquerors, Crusaders and Ottomans, is marred with weeds, graffiti and garbage. Caught between conflicting Israeli and Palestinian jurisdictions, the site has been largely neglected for the past two decades. Beyond the decay, unauthorized diggers and thieves have taken advantage of the lack of oversight to make off with priceless artifacts. ‘You can learn the history of the whole region (by) staying here because all the powers that crossed the region since the time of the Egyptians were passing through,’ said Carla Benelli, an art historian who has been working on restoration projects in parts of the site, financed in part by the Italian government. ‘From this point of view, it’s really important.’ But the site needs basic maintenance, protection and cleaning, she said. ‘There is no one who is doing this here in Sebastia. It will not last forever in this way.’… ‘Sebastia, the archaeological site, is abandoned without any control from 2000. It’s 13 years,’ said Osama Hamdan, a Palestinian architect who has coordinated the restoration works of Crusader-era buildings with Benelli. ‘In this period, Sebastia is suffering a lot because a lot of illegal excavations have happened in this area. A lot of destruction of cultural heritage in this area has happened,’ he said. Statues, vases, coins and glasses all have been taken by looters, he said… With the help of international donors, the Palestinian Tourism and Antiquities Ministry has built an ‘interpretation center’ near the Roman forum at the foot of the hill, which Taha said will provide services to visitors. It is expected to open in the coming months… Hafez Kaye, a local shop and restaurant owner, said that after a difficult decade, business has begun to pick up over the past three years. ‘Slowly, slowly it’s coming back.’”
An archaeology story headlined “Caught in the conflict.” A shopkeeper’s cautious hope is the last line of it. A second photograph on the page shows a bakery called Damashki, The Guy From Damascus, co-owned by a Palestinian born in Syria who fled and arrived in Gaza two months before.
· estimated · Omaha World-Herald · Omaha · page 1
Peace deal still seems far off
Though the sides have returned to the table, many hurdles await them.
The Associated Press, Jerusalem
“That’s because Israel proper, within its recognized pre-1967 borders, contains some 6 million Jews and almost 2 million Arab citizens. In the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem are almost 4 million Palestinians. If Israel does not settle its borders, this argument runs, it may find itself awash in an Arab majority that cannot forever be denied full democratic rights… Refugees. The Palestinians demand that Israel recognize a ‘right of return’ for Palestinian refugees, defined as more than 700,000 people who fled or were driven from their homes in what is now Israel. Plus their millions of descendants… Prisoners. Israel holds nearly 5,000 Palestinians for alleged crimes ranging from stone-throwing to deadly attacks. Dozens of them are being held without charges or trial.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sits with Israeli President Shimon Peres, left, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas earlier this year. The Associated Press.
A wire explainer laying out each issue in turn. Fled or were driven from their homes is the Associated Press’s own formula for 1948.
· Park City Daily News · page 1
Israel may free Palestinian prisoners
Karin Laub and Mohammed Daraghmeh, The Associated Press, Gaza City
“In April 1993, Omar Masoud and three accomplices broke into a European aid office in Gaza City, grabbed a young Israeli lawyer working there and stabbed him to death. Israel arrested Masoud a month later and sentenced him to life… Now Masoud, along with dozens of other long-term Palestinian prisoners, is up for release as part of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s attempt to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks after five years of diplomatic paralysis… The fate of those held in Israeli jails is an emotionally wrought issue for Palestinians, who view the prisoners as heroes who made personal sacrifices in the struggle for statehood… Israelis tend to view the prisoners as cold-blooded terrorists… In a statement late Saturday, Netanyahu said that a decision to release prisoners is ‘painful to the bereaved families, painful to the people of Israel and very painful for me.’… As of late June, nearly 5,000 Palestinians were being held by Israel. Masoud’s mother, 70-year-old Tamam, said she is optimistic. ‘I hope everything will work out between Jews and Arabs,’ she said, speaking in her shack in the Shati refugee camp.”
Tamam Masoud, 70, mother of Omar Masoud, 40, who was arrested in May 1993 for killing an Israeli lawyer, laughs Friday during an interview as she sits with her son Abdalrahman, 28, and grandson Yousef, 3, at her house at Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza City. Adel Hana/AP.
Four ordinary Palestinians named in one photograph, three generations of them, and both views of the prisoners set out in the same column.
· The News Tribune · Tacoma · page 1
Israel to release 26 Palestine prisoners
Karin Laub and Mohammed Daraghmeh, The Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM — Israel approved building almost 1,200 more settlement homes Sunday and agreed to release 26 long-held Palestinian security prisoners — highlighting an apparent settlements-for-prisoners trade-off that got both sides back to peace talks after a five-year freeze. Yet concerns were mounting, especially among Palestinians, that the price is too steep… In Israel, the most vocal protests came from relatives of those killed in attacks carried out by Palestinians slated for release… ‘Why are we releasing butchers now? What for?’ asked Gila Molcho, whose brother, lawyer Ian Feinberg, was stabbed to death by Palestinians who broke into a European aid office in Gaza City in 1993… In all, Israel has built dozens of settlements since 1967 that now are home to some 560,000 Israelis… Fourteen prisoners will be released to Gaza and 12 to the West Bank, according to a government statement. Eight of the prisoners had three years left to serve, and two would have been released in six months or less, the statement said. Meanwhile, Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel announced Sunday that he has given final approval for the construction of 1,187 apartments in settlements.”
Settlements and prisoners announced on the same Sunday, and the wire counts both.
· Chicago Tribune · Chicago · page 1
Israel to release 1st group of Palestinian prisoners
Jeffrey Heller, Reuters, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM — Israel named 26 Palestinians on Monday it will free from jail this week under a deal enabling U.S.-backed peace talks to resume. But the good will gesture was clouded by new plans to expand Israeli settlements that the United Nations and European Union condemned as illegal and that the Palestinians said were aimed at provoking them to pull out of the negotiations… ‘Those who do these things are determined to undermine the peace negotiations, are determined to force people like us to leave the negotiating table,’ Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said… Eduardo del Buey, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said: ‘Settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, they have been and continue to be illegal.’ Mark Regev, a spokesman for Netanyahu, said the new construction would take place in areas that Israel intends to keep in any peace agreement. ‘This in no way changes the final map of peace. It changes nothing,’ he said. Some 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem amid 2.5 million Palestinians.”
The mother, left, of Palestinian inmate Ateya Abu Moussa, pictured in poster and held by Israel for years, reacts Monday with her sister after hearing news of his expected release. Ibraheem Abu Mustafa / Reuters photo.
The prisoner is named in the caption. His mother, who is the photograph, is not.
· Star Tribune · Minneapolis · page 1
Stories in and out of time
Hany Abu-Assad’s Oscar-nominated thriller ‘Omar’ is set in the occupied West Bank but has themes of love and betrayal that are timeless.
Colin Covert
“Two-time Oscar nominee Hany Abu-Assad is used to making films that generate international attention, praise and debate… His Oscar-nominated ‘Omar’ opening Friday at the Edina Cinema, also deals with the anti-Israeli insurgency, but its scope is broader and its story deeper. A propulsive thriller and a romance, it follows Omar’s courtship of a young woman, Nadia, and how their affair evolves after he’s arrested by the Shin Bet intelligence service.… He freely admits incorporating notions from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in the young lovers’ courtship, and ‘Othello’ in the hero’s growing jealousy. ‘“Omar” is a tragic love story about a lover who makes a bad choice,’ he said. ‘These themes are stronger than life. Shakespeare died, but his stories are still in history because they are about themes that are bigger than us.’ Insecurity makes you fall in love, Abu-Assad said, as you become dependent on your lover for happiness. Insecurity also kills the love, he said, because it’s unattractive. ‘I felt it is “Othello” and I tried to reinterpret it in a different time.’ ‘Good drama is always based on conflict between desires and duty,’ Abu-Assad said. ‘Omar’s conflict is between his desire for Nadia and his duty to his people, his country. All the characters,’ including a tough but fallible Israeli intelligence officer, ‘are torn by the good and bad in them.’… As far as Israeli officials were concerned, he met no resistance whatsoever. ‘Maybe they think I am nothing, why should they interfere with me?’ he said. ‘Israelis are humans who do these jobs in censorship or the secret service who could make your life uneasy. They’re not like evil, they’re people. I think they decided not to make my life difficult because someone will ask me how difficult it was and if I had many bad stories, they would be in a bad light. Now I have no bad stories.’ ‘They are very happy,’ he said with a chuckle, adding, ‘I am happy, too, by the way.’”
“Adam Bakri as Omar and Leem Lubany as Nadia in ‘Omar.’” and “Oscar-nominated director Hany Abu-Assad, 51, had a boyhood love of movies but became an engineer. Returning to his passion, he made his first feature, a romantic comedy, in 1998.”
A Palestinian director explaining his thriller through Romeo and Juliet and Othello, and saying the themes are bigger than the place. He also describes the Israeli security services declining to obstruct him, and works out aloud why: if they made trouble, someone would ask him about it. His age is given here as 51 and as 52 in the Los Angeles Times three weeks later.
· The Oregonian · Portland · page 1
Conflict, paranoia, but little propaganda in ‘Omar’
Marc Mohan, Special to The Oregonian
“As only the second Palestinian submission to be nominated for an Academy Award, and with a story set amid the conflict over the Occupied Territories, it’s not surprising that ‘Omar’ is a volatile film. But it’s not a specifically political one. With only superficial alteration, it could be set in Cold War Berlin, or colonial Boston, or any time and place where the dynamics of power conspire to create an atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust. The title character, played by the grimly charismatic Adam Bakri, is one of three Palestinian friends trying to make their mark in the struggle against Israeli occupation. The others are Amjad (Samer Bisharat) and Tarek (Iyad Hoorani), whose younger sister Nadia (Leem Lubany) is the object of both Omar and Amjad’s affections… Facing a 90-year sentence, Omar agrees to help bring Tarek to justice and is released from detention… The freshness of his cast’s faces (all but Zuaiter are making their feature-film debuts) and the fleshed-out humanity of their performances give the untangling of this web of deceit real emotional weight. The movie neither condemns nor lauds its characters’ behavior. Without delving into the particulars of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and remaining much more of a thriller than a piece of propaganda, Abu-Assad captures the everyday reality of life in the West Bank and the psychological cost of living constantly in a state of powerlessness and desperation. 96 min., not rated, Living Room Theaters. Grade: A-”
A four-star review that spends its headline and much of its first paragraph establishing what the film is not. Five Palestinian actors are named, four of them in their first feature. The reviewer reaches for Cold War Berlin and colonial Boston to say the story is universal, which is its own way of saying a Palestinian one would not be.
· Los Angeles Times · Los Angeles · page 1
The front-runners
Films from Italy, Denmark and Palestinian territories have received the most attention
Mark Olsen
“‘Omar’ — PALESTINE. ‘Omar,’ directed by Hany Abu-Assad, is a dramatic thriller of shifting allegiances as a young man is coaxed into cooperating with Israeli authorities in capturing a fugitive. ‘The film is not about the conflict, it’s really about love, friendship and betrayal and about the genre thriller,’ Abu-Assad said. Nevertheless, Abu-Assad, an Oscar nominee for his 2005 film ‘Paradise Now,’ is not reluctant to give the film’s storytelling a definite point of view. ‘The movie is pro-Palestinian, and I’m not apologetic about it,’ he said. ‘If I am not pro my own people, who should I be pro? I want the freedom for my people, and I am not ashamed of that.’… ‘OMAR’ was directed by Hany Abu-Assad.”
The paper labels the country PALESTINE over the entry and Palestinian territories in the smaller line above it, on the same page. Seven months later an American paper filed a Palestinian screenwriter under CONFLICT for saying he was not permitted a subject other than war; here a Palestinian director says his film is not about the conflict, and the word the paper reaches for anyway is Nevertheless.
· Honolulu Star-Advertiser · Honolulu · page 1
Masterful ‘Omar’ dives deep into notion of conflict
Colin Covert, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
“A riveting blend of thriller and romance elements, ‘Omar’ grabs you from the very first image. A fit, energetic young man climbs a knotted rope to the top of Israel’s 25-foot separation wall, the concrete curtain isolating West Bank Palestinians from Israelis. Hand over hand he makes his way to the top of the looming barrier. The long shot shows there’s nothing to break his descent if he slips. You watch, stomach knotted, gripped by fear that he’ll plummet to the roadway below… Nominated for an Oscar as best foreign language film, ‘Omar’ is the latest entry from Palestinian writer/director Hany Abu-Assad, whose 2005 ‘Paradise Now,’ a character study of suicide bombers, was also up for that prize. Abu-Assad packs his film with richly layered characters and vivid visuals. Omar routinely climbs the fence to get to his childhood friend Tarek’s house. He’s there less to hang out with his buddy and their amusing sidekick Amjad than to pass clandestine love poems to Tarek’s pretty kid sister, Nadia.… Abu-Assad draws wonderful performances from an ensemble of unknowns. Adam Bakri’s Omar and Leem Lubany’s Nadia in particular allow vivid emotions to escape their characters’ self-protective facades. The lone professional in the cast, Waleed Zuaiter as Rami, is simultaneously humane and sinister. Abu-Assad borrows from sources as diverse as Shakespeare and Mario Puzo to create this world of interconnected, endlessly escalating injustices. There is no pat sermonizing here, but no lack of indignation, either. The villain in this universe of ethical ambiguity and psychological nuance isn’t Israel. It’s the fever of short-sightedness, duplicity and pack mentality that infects every character. Yet each has his or her share of integrity.… The veteran Israeli agent Rami turns Omar against his friends, yet treats him with an empathy and apparent openness no one else offers… It’s surely no accident that the names of Omar and Rami are near-mirror images. ‘Omar’ leaves it up to us to decide who is more worthy. In Arabic and Hebrew, with English subtitles.”
“Omar (Adam Bakri) is a young Palestinian man without a country, who suddenly finds himself at odds with his clique of friends and with the woman he loves in Hany Abu-Assad’s ‘Omar.’” · Adopt Films
A four-star review by the same critic whose longer interview with the director ran in Minneapolis twelve days earlier. The reassurance appears again, as it did in two reviews of the director’s previous film nine years before: the villain, the reader is told, is not Israel. What the critic notices first about the film is a boy climbing a wall to deliver love poems.
· Los Angeles Times · Los Angeles · page 1
A nail-biter after cameras stop rolling
Issues with funding, locations, self doubts — ‘Omar’ director Hany Abu-Assad overcame them all.
Lorraine Ali
“Hany Abu-Assad should be used to the tension by now. The Palestinian director has shot most of his films (‘Paradise Now,’ ‘Rana’s Wedding’) in a region known far more for its conflict than its cinema, and his story lines often take place in between tangles of barbed wire and crowded checkpoints. But filming ‘Omar’ on the West Bank and in his hometown of Nazareth almost proved too much — even for Abu-Assad. ‘At the end of the shoot, I told everybody, I’m not going to make another movie,’ said the director. ‘The financing, the crew, the locations, problems with the authorities. I was done. It was that stressful.’ During production, investors dropped out, refugee camp mobs sabotaged the shoot and Abu-Assad, 52, battled his own insecurity as his first Hollywood film, ‘The Courier,’ went straight to DVD. Still, Abu-Assad and his all-Palestinian cast and crew stuck it out, and ‘Omar’ made it all the way to the Oscars. The film, completed for just under $2 million, was nominated for the foreign language film Oscar after winning a jury prize at Cannes and being selected to show at the Toronto and New York film festivals. It opened in late February in a surprisingly wide 70-plus cities across the U.S.”
“IN ‘OMAR,’ the occupation is a backdrop to love, paranoia and betrayal,” says the film’s director, Hany Abu-Assad, right, with one of his stars, Waleed Zuaiter.” · Kirk McKoy, Los Angeles Times
The caption carries the line: in Omar the occupation is a backdrop to love, paranoia and betrayal. The piece is about money, locations and a director telling his crew at the end of the shoot that he would never make another film. An all-Palestinian cast and crew, two million dollars, seventy American cities.
· San Francisco Chronicle · San Francisco · page 1
Omar
W. Addiego
“Omar A young Palestinian baker working in the Palestinian territories is captured by the Israelis and pressured to become an informant after an Israeli soldier is killed. The film is ostensibly a thriller, but its virtues are obscured by a one-sided political message. Directed by Hany Abu-Assad (‘Paradise Now’). Not rated. 98 minutes. In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles. — W. Addiego”
Six lines, and they complete the range. In one month of 2014 this archive holds six American notices of the same film: the director saying it is not about the conflict, a review headlined Conflict, paranoia, but little propaganda, a four-star notice assuring readers the villain is not Israel, a production story, an interview about Othello, and this, which finds the political message one-sided enough to obscure the film’s virtues. The paper also relocates the hero: he is a baker here, and a car mechanic’s friend in the film.
· Hartford Courant · Hartford · page 1
PALESTINIANS LOOK at the remains of a missile that witnesses said was fired by an Israeli aircraft on a street in Deir El-Balah
Ashraf Amrah, Reuters
“PALESTINIANS LOOK at the remains of a missile that witnesses said was fired by an Israeli aircraft on a street in Deir El-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Friday.” Ashraf Amrah, special to Reuters.
Witnesses said it was fired by an Israeli aircraft. The missile is lying in the street.
· The Republican · page 1
Security Council urges Gaza truce; no sign of lull
By Khaled Khazziha, Associated Press, Gaza City
“One of the Israeli strikes hit a center for the disabled where Palestinians said two patients were killed and four people seriously hurt… Before dawn Saturday, an Israeli missile hit the Palestine Charity, a center for the physically and mentally disabled in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, said its director, Jamila Alaiweh. The center is home to nine patients, including four who were spending the weekend with their families away from the center, said Alaiweh. Of the remaining five, two were killed in the strike and three suffered serious burns and other injuries, the director said. A caregiver was also injured, she added. The director said one of the women killed had cerebral palsy and the other suffered had severe mental handicaps. Among the three wounded patients were a quadriplegic, one with cerebral palsy and one with mental disabilities, she said. The missile destroyed the bottom floor of the two-story building. Rescuers sifted through the pile of rubble, pulling out a folded-up wheelchair and a children’s workbook. An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, said he was looking into the incident… ‘Am I a terrorist? Do I make rockets and artillery?’ screamed Umm Omar, a woman in the southern town of Rafah whose home was destroyed in an airstrike… At Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, 4-year-old Shayma al-Masri was in stable condition Saturday with shrapnel injuries to her upper body. Her mother, a 17-year-old brother and a 14-year-old sister were killed earlier this week… ‘You can hide your children in the bomb shelters when you need them, but where do I hide her (Shayma)?’ she said. ‘When the child comes to hide in my arms and I find the entire house falling on top of us what do I do then? Just like you fear for yourselves we fear for ourselves too. Just like you fear for your children we fear for our children too.’”
Elderly Israeli women sleep in a bomb shelter in the southern city of Beersheba, Israel, Saturday. While there have been no fatalities in Israel, Palestinian officials said overnight attacks raised the death toll there to over 120, with more than 920 wounded.
The director of the center is a named woman and the source for the whole account. Nine residents, four of them away with their families for the weekend, two of the remaining five killed. The sentence that stays is the one about the rubble: a folded-up wheelchair and a children’s workbook. The bottom half of the page is three advertisements, one of which reads Get Instantly Accepted.
· The Register-Guard · Eugene · page 1
Genocide in Gaza is a lie worthy of Goebbels
Jonah Goldberg, Tribune Content Agency
“Genocide in Gaza is a lie worthy of Goebbels. ‘Here’s the difference between us,’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained on ‘Fox News Sunday.’ ‘We’re using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they’re using their civilians to protect their missiles.’ It’s a classic talking point. It’s also objectively true, and that truth is very frustrating for Israel’s critics. All one needs to do is delve into the muck of Twitter and read the timelines for such hashtags as #GazaUnderAttack and #GenocideInGaza: ‘They’re killing the women and children to ensure there won’t be a new generation of Palestine.’ ‘One Holocaust can never justify another.’ And let’s not even talk about the globally trending hashtag #HitlerWasRight. Of course it’s not just on Twitter. Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the feckless Palestinian Authority, recently condemned Israel for committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza… On the one hand, the Israeli military is supposed to be ruthlessly competent and determined to wipe out the Palestinians. On the other, the Palestinian population has grown more than 100 percent since 1970. The population in the Gaza Strip has grown nearly threefold since 1990. The Palestinians themselves expect the population to double over the next two decades. ‘Genocide’ is a loaded political term, but under any remotely reasonable definition, shouldn’t those numbers be going the other way? It’s just a hunch, but if the Israelis wanted to wipe out as many Palestinians as possible, never mind commit genocide, they probably wouldn’t issue warnings to Gazans (by phone and leaflet) to get out of harm’s way… And if Hamas were chiefly concerned with protecting Palestinian lives, it would not implore Gazans to stay in their homes — serving as human shields and inflating the body count as a propaganda prop to increase international pressure on Israel… It was Joseph Goebbels who said, ‘If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.’”
A cartoon runs beside the column: a Hamas fighter says “LOOK! I TOOK DOWN A DRONE!” and, in the next panel, two figures running from a wrecked building say “NICE SHOT!” over a dead bird labelled PEACE PROP. Signed Summers, Tribune Content Agency, 2014.
The argument against the word, made at length in an American syndicated column in the same summer the archive holds the placards using it.
· Press of Atlantic City · Atlantic City · page 1
Grief, anger for 71 children killed
Karin Laub and Yousur Alhlou, Associated Press
“BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip — Sobbing and shaking, Ismail Abu Musallam leaned against the wall of a hospital Friday, waiting for three of his children to be prepared for burial. They were killed as they slept when an Israeli tank shell hit their home, burying 11-year-old Ahmed, 14-year-old Walaa and 16-year-old Mohammed under debris in their beds. His personal tragedy is not unique: the U.N. says minors make up one-fifth of the 299 Palestinians killed in 11 days of intense Israeli bombardment of the densely populated Gaza Strip, where half the 1.7 million people are under age 18. The Israeli military says it’s doing its utmost to spare civilians by urging residents to leave areas that are about to be [struck].”
Karin Laub again — 1987, 2000, 2014. The record had stopped one sentence before the Israeli military’s account of the same bombardment.
· Anchorage Daily News · Anchorage · page 1
Civilian toll in Gaza mounts as Israeli offensive persists
Eight members of a family, including 4 children, were killed in an attack Saturday... no survivors to receive them, witnesses said. There have been many such mass casualties in the 12 days since Israel began its latest offensive
· USA Today · McLean · page 1
Human rights and human shields
Hamas, Israel blasted for civilian casualties
Oren Dorell, USA Today
“NEWS ANALYSIS. The deaths of at least 15 Gazans taking shelter Thursday in a United Nations-run school contributed to a Palestinian death toll that has surpassed 700 — and a debate about whether Israel is violating human rights or contending with an enemy that is using human shields. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it warned the U.N. to evacuate the building, but that the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, prevented the evacuation, fired more rockets from the site and also hit the site with its own rockets. Violence also spread to the West Bank late Thursday, where thousands of Palestinians protesting the Gaza fighting clashed with Israeli soldiers in Qalandia, near the West Bank city of Ramallah. The deaths Thursday, on the 17th day of fighting in Gaza, come a day after two different U.N. agencies issued condemnations — one of Palestinian militants and one of Israel — for taking actions that endanger civilians. The mounting fatalities are prompting sharp criticism of both Hamas and Israel. The Jewish state is bearing the brunt of the international outrage because of lopsided fatalities — 20 Palestinians for every Israeli — and graphic images such as four Palestinian children on a beach killed by Israeli strikes. Hamas openly targets Israeli civilians, but has been stymied by Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system. Israel says it takes precautions to limit civilian casualties, even as it executes a military operation in a densely populated, urban environment to stop militants from attacking Israeli communities with rockets and terrorist assault teams. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which runs the school hit Thursday, blasted unnamed militant groups the day before for hiding rockets in an abandoned school situated between two other schools used as shelters by 1,500 people. The discovery was the second time UNRWA discovered rockets in one of its schools. Its workers found 20 rockets hidden in a school July 16, according to a UNRWA statement.”
“A Palestinian man grieves at the morgue of the Kamal Adwan hospital after a U.N. school was shelled in northern Gaza.” Mahmud Hams AFP/Getty Images
Filed as news analysis, and it sets both accusations out in the same column, including the U.N. agency’s own condemnation of rockets hidden in its schools.
· The Sacramento Bee · Sacramento · page 1
Young Palestinians sit next to candles forming 848 for the number of Palestinians killed in the ongoing war, and the Arabic word for 'Gaza', at a protest in Ramallah
Nasser Nasser, The Associated Press
“Young Palestinians sit next to candles forming 848 for the number of Palestinians killed in the ongoing war, and the Arabic word for 'Gaza,' at a protest in Ramallah in the West Bank on Friday.” Nasser Nasser, The Associated Press.
· Daily News · page 1
Tank kills Palestinian family of 20
Marked/highlighted by the collector
· The News & Observer · Raleigh · page 1
A Palestinian woman carries her belongings Saturday past houses destroyed by Israeli strikes in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip
Lefteris Pitarakis, AP
“A Palestinian woman carries her belongings Saturday past houses destroyed by Israeli strikes in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip.” Lefteris Pitarakis, AP.
· Ellsworth American · Ellsworth · page 1
It's Time to Recognize Palestine
Nancy Kandutsch, Surry
“Apologists for Israel protest any criticism — saying that Israel warns the Palestinians in Gaza about five minutes before they bomb people’s homes. Well, that is the exact same policy the Jewish people who had settled in Palestine pursued on the eve of their announcement that they were about to declare an Israeli state in 1948. Groups of Jewish men drove around Palestine in pickup trucks armed with rifles and equipped with loudspeakers, which they employed to warn Palestinians in their homes to get out and flee to the mountains, because if they locked their doors, the doors would be dynamited and the residents inside shot. Most of the Palestinians heeded the warnings as the loudspeakers also broadcast tapes of a village that was shot up the previous day — including sounds of screaming residents.”
A reader’s letter; the account of 1948 is the writer’s own. Collected with the genocide search but the word does not appear. Kept for what it says about 1948.
· The Daily Advertiser · Lafayette · page 1
Shells hit shelter, market in Gaza
Blasts kill dozens; residents thought cease-fire in place
· The Daily Advertiser · Lafayette
A Palestinian girl takes cover in Jabalia, Gaza. More than 1,300 Palestinians have died.
Mohammed Saber, EPA
· Johnson City Press · Johnson City · page 1
Facts disprove genocide charges hurled at Israel
Dennis Prager, On Point
“In order to justify killing Jews, Jew-haters throughout history made up libels about the Jews that were so awful that they justified, at least for the Jew-hater, the mass murder of Jews. The charge that the Jews of every age — not just some Jews at one time — killed God Himself was used by medieval Christians to justify mass murdering of Jews. Then came another grotesque libel — what is known as the blood libel. Also prevalent in the Middle Ages, this charged Jews with kidnapping Christian children, sacrificing them and using their blood to bake matzo (the unleavened Passover bread). Later libels against the Jews included the forgery known as ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ which purported to prove that Jews plotted to rule the world. At this very moment, we are living through as enormous a libel — directed not against all Jews, but against the Jewish state: Israel is committing genocide of Palestinians and is, therefore, morally identical to the Nazi regime. This libel is spread by left-wing radicals and by Muslims, especially in the Middle East. Some examples: On a popular radio show in Italy, that country’s most famous philosopher, Gianni Vattimo, was asked whether he would like to see more Israelis killed. Vattimo responded: ‘Of course.’ He then added that Israel is ‘a bit worse than the Nazis ... I’d like to shoot those bastard Zionists ... and [Europeans should raise money] to buy Hamas some more rockets.’ The prime minister of Turkey, Recep Erdogan, told CNN International, ‘What Israel does to Palestine and to Gaza right now has surpassed what Hitler did to them. ... We do not accept this genocide by Israel.’ The foreign minister of Iran, Mohammad Javad Zarif announced: ‘These [Israeli] actions cannot be considered anything other than genocide and crimes against humanity.’ Ilan Pappe, an Israeli leftist who is director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter, wrote an article titled ‘Israel’s incremental genocide in the Gaza ghetto’ on the Electronic Intifada website. On July 9, when a total of 63 Gaza Palestinians had been killed, Al-Arabiya reported that ‘Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told a crisis meeting in Ramallah ... that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza during its military offensive which has so far killed at least 50 Palestinians. “It’s genocide by Israel against our Palestinian people.”’ In a column published by Al-Jazeera, Abukar Arman, former Somali ambassador to the United States, wrote that ‘Israel has defeated North Korea for the rogue state par excellence award.’ Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela, and Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, labeled Israel’s invasion of Gaza ‘genocide’ and Maduro added that it was ‘extermination.’ For the record: Israel attacked Gaza solely in response to hundreds of rockets sent by Hamas to kill as many Israelis as possible. When Israel gave Gaza over to the Palestinians, it did not embargo essentials such as cement. But none of the millions of tons of cement allowed, or later smuggled, into Gaza were used to building schools or hospitals. They were used to build tunnels to smuggle terrorists into Israel and to hide rockets. The charter of Hamas calls for the annihilation of Israel. Israel is the only country in the world targeted for annihilation. Though Israel is charged with engaged in genocide against Palestinians, in the last 20 years, the number of Palestinians has doubled; and since Israel’s founding in 1948, the Palestinian population has grown five-fold. It must surely rank as the least effective genocide in world history.”
The case against the word, made in an American syndicated column in 2014, which assembles eight separate uses of it by heads of state, ministers, academics and an Israeli historian in order to argue against it. The archive holds it because the argument is part of the record. “Charged with engaged in” is the paper’s.
· Lincoln Journal Star · Lincoln · page 1
Genocide against Palestinians with U.S. support
LOCAL VIEW
Ruth Raymond Thone, Lincoln
“‘How long, oh Lord?’ is my worn-out response to the vicious racist genocide raging in the Middle East between Israel and the Occupied Territories of Palestine. More than a thousand Palestinians have been killed so far in this latest grueling war between ancient peoples on the lands of Palestine usurped for the Jewish state 50-some years ago. The dead and injured include women and children holed up in supposedly safe and protected areas of the open-air prison of Gaza, 1.8 million people crammed into 139 square miles of the noncontiguous area that makes up approximately 20 percent of the original land left to Palestine at the founding of Israel. The Israeli death toll stands under 50 after 10 days of rocket firing from Gaza the first weekend in August. The United States supplies Israel with its weapons — we are the largest munitions supplier in the world — and both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are supplied through tunnels on the border with Egypt, weapons mostly provided by Russia and Iran… The father of a large Islamic family, most of whom were killed in a recent bombing, Abdul Karim, buried his dead and declared, ‘I am against violence and killing from both sides. The Israeli children are precious for me. Our children are precious for us.’ Both parties to this bitter war are being used as proxies by other countries the world over.”
A named local columnist, with her photograph, in a mainstream regional daily, with the word bare in the headline and Palestinians as the subject. The column closes with two quotations attributed to David Ben-Gurion; they are the columnist’s attributions, printed as opinion under the heading LOCAL VIEW, not reporting.
· Republican and Herald · Pottsville · page 1
TURMOIL IN GAZA
“Ahmad Baraka, 25, a Palestinian worker at Al Awda snack food factory, inspects the damage at the burned factory in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza Strip. The factory owner, Mohammed al-Telbani, lost his life’s work during the Gaza war after Israeli shells slammed into his four-story factory, one of Gaza’s largest, sparking a fire that engulfed vats of margarine and sacks of cocoa powder.” Associated Press.
Two men named in one caption, with their jobs: the worker and the owner.
· Great Falls Tribune · Great Falls · page 1
Palestinian children release helium-filled balloons with notes of good will attached to them at a UN school in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, where Palestinians who have been displaced by violence in Gaza have sought refuge
Roberto Schmidt, AFP/Getty Images
“Palestinian children release helium-filled balloons with notes of good will attached to them Sunday at a UN school in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, where Palestinians who have been displaced by violence in Gaza have sought refuge.” Roberto Schmidt, AFP/Getty Images.
· Albuquerque Journal · Albuquerque · page 1
Editorial cartoon: a dove with olive branch stands in total rubble asking 'IS ANYBODY HOME?'
A 'permanent' cease-fire has been declared in Gaza...
Taylor Jones, El Nuevo Día / caglecartoons.com
An editorial cartoon by Taylor Jones for El Nuevo Día. The line above the drawing reads “A ‘permanent’ cease-fire has been declared in Gaza…” Below it a dove carrying an olive branch stands in a field of rubble, asking “IS ANYBODY HOME?”
· The Free Lance-Star · Fredericksburg · page 1
Art during wartime, in the rubble of Gaza
CONFLICT ›› DESTRUCTION IS THE SUBJECT
Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press, Gaza City
“GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Palestinian filmmaker Khalil Mozayen’s latest work was already complexly layered — a movie within a movie about a director and screenwriter producing a film about an honor killing in the Gaza Strip. Then the latest Gaza war burst in to add yet another layer: An Israeli airstrike leveled the 13-story apartment tower where Mozayen’s office, studio and archive were located. So he filmed the mountain of rubble and used it for the final scene of his movie, ‘Sarah 2014.’ Mozayen had hoped to create a film not connected to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. But he and his screenwriter, Naim al–Khatib, said they decided they couldn’t avoid addressing the war. ‘It is like, as a Palestinian, you don’t have the right to have your own dream, that everything in your life has to have something to do with war and [Israeli] occupation,’ said al–Khatib, who also plays the fictional screenwriter in the movie. ‘The occupation crashed our privacy… and the war became an integral part of the film’s ending,’ he said. The themes and reality of war impose themselves on Gaza’s small but vibrant arts scene, and the latest war has been a powerful inspiration for its artists in their new work.”
The section header above the headline reads CONFLICT ›› DESTRUCTION IS THE SUBJECT. The story beneath it is about a screenwriter saying he is not permitted a subject other than destruction. The bracketed word in his quotation is the paper’s own. Both photographs on the page are credited to Palestinian Associated Press photographers, Basel al-Maqosui and Khalil Hamra; the top image is al-Maqosui’s own photograph paired with a painting by Pablo Picasso.
· The Anniston Star · Anniston · page 1
Palestinian leader asks UN for end to Israeli occupation
Somini Sengupta, The New York Times, United Nations
“The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, accused Israel on Friday of failing to negotiate in good faith, said any return to negotiations would be ‘naïve at best’ and called on the Security Council to press for a specific deadline to end Israeli occupation. ‘It is impossible and I repeat — it is impossible — to return to the cycle of negotiations that failed to deal with the substance of the matter and the fundamental question,’ Abbas said at the annual session of the General Assembly, reading from a prepared text but visibly enraged. ‘The time has come to end this settlement occupation.’… The fighting this summer damaged more than 100 U.N. schools and hospitals… The United Nations said 2,150 Palestinians, including 500 children, were killed. On the Israeli side, 67 soldiers and six civilians, including one child, were killed… Abbas described the Israeli occupation as ‘an abhorrent form of state terrorism and a breeding ground for incitement, tension and hatred.’”
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the General Assembly at the United Nations’ headquarters, Friday. Richard Perry/New York Times.
· Tri-City Herald · Kennewick · page 1
Winds of war still blowing through Gaza's rubble
Nicholas Kristof, New York Times News Service, Gaza City
“GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — It is winter in Gaza, in every wretched sense of the word. Six months after the latest war, the world has moved on, but tens of thousands remain homeless — sometimes crammed into the rubble of bombed-out buildings. Children are dying of the cold, according to the United Nations. Rabah, an 8-year-old boy who dreams of being a doctor, walked barefoot in near-freezing temperatures with his friends through the rubble of one neighborhood. The U.N. handed out shoes, but he saves them for school… The suffering here has multiple causes. Israel sustains a siege that amounts to economic warfare on an entire population. Hamas provokes Israel, squanders resources and is brutal and oppressive in its own right. Egypt has closed smuggling tunnels that used to relieve the stranglehold, and it mostly keeps its border with Gaza closed… Yet I have to acknowledge that Israel’s strategy of collective punishment may be succeeding with a sector of the population. Gazans aren’t monolithic in their views any more than Americans, but many said that they were sick of war and of Hamas and don’t want rockets fired at Israel for fear of terrible retribution. ‘I don’t want resistance,’ said Khadra Abed, a 50-year-old woman living with her family in the remains of her home. ‘We’ve had enough suffering.’ Halima Jundiya, a 65-year-old matriarch who says the children in her family are still traumatized by war, was blunt: ‘We don’t want Hamas to fire rockets. We don’t want another war.’ One bearded young man said he worked for Hamas but had turned against it, because government salaries were no longer being paid. ‘I hate Hamas,’ he said, which seemed an odd thing for a Hamas officer to say. Yet Israel should understand clearly that its bombings also put some on the path to becoming fighters. A 14-year-old boy, Ahmed Jundiya, is part of the same clan as Halima, but he draws the opposite conclusion… ‘War made us feel we will die anyway, so why not die with dignity,’ Ahmed told me. ‘I want to be a fighter’… ‘I will give my soul to kill all Israelis,’ he said. Some of that is teen bravado, and some may reflect the unfortunate reality that, if you’re a teenage boy, one of the few career paths available is as a fighter… Israel and Egypt both have legitimate security concerns in Gaza… but the Israeli human rights organization Gisha notes that it’s ridiculous for Israel to insist that the ongoing economic stranglehold is essential for security. Gisha introduced me to Aya Abit, 24, who is married to a Palestinian man in the West Bank. They have a 5-month-old baby whom the father has never seen because Israel won’t allow Abit to leave Gaza. ‘I cry every day,’ she says… I found that Israel had bombed Telbani’s factory repeatedly during the war… ‘They burned $22 million for no reason,’ he replied indignantly. ‘What I created in 45 years, they destroyed in less than two hours. What should I tell them? Thank you?’ ‘This is the worst time ever,’ he added. ‘People have nothing to lose. So I expect another war.’”
A column that argues against several things this archive documents and several it does not. It calls Hamas brutal and oppressive in its own right, quotes a Hamas officer saying he hates Hamas, grants Israel and Egypt legitimate security concerns, and quotes a fourteen-year-old saying he would give his soul to kill all Israelis. The record held only the sympathetic half of it until 22 September 2026.
· The Press · page 1
A long way to go to make a difference
Elmhurst teen spends spring break bringing diabetes supplies to Middle East clinic
By F. Amanda Tugade
“ELMHURST — Seventeen-year-old Gabriella Stinsa spent her spring break doing something just a little bit different… Tony Stinsa, Gabriella’s father, said his daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when she was 7 years old… The teen said she looked to her grandfather, Isa Nasr, for direction in planning her trip. Her grandfather left the Middle East during the 1960s, and after settling in Illinois, he never had the chance to return to his home in the West Bank.… What sparked Gabriella’s interest in the organization is its Palestine Diabetes Institute, a clinic built in 2009 in Al-Bireh, a town near the center of the West Bank in Israel… Mohamed said diabetes is a serious problem in Palestine. He explained because of poverty, those affected are not able to afford the necessary supplies to help manage and treat the disease.… Gabriella and her father explained with insurance, it costs about $1 to $2 to purchase blood test strips, needles and insulin. Those with diabetes have to measure their blood sugar level about six to eight times a day… They were able to raise $3,000, which paid for least 2,000 blood test strips and about 20 blood glucose meters… ‘Even the smallest change can make a big difference.’”
Gabriella Stinsa, 17, of Elmhurst visits the Palestine Diabetes Institute to donate diabetic medical supplies.
What it costs to stay alive with a chronic condition under occupation, counted in test strips: six to eight readings a day, at a dollar or two each, in a place the story itself says people cannot afford them. Three thousand dollars raised on a basketball bracket bought two thousand strips and twenty meters. The paper places Al-Bireh in Israel.
· The Record · Hackensack · page 151
Who Owns the “West Bank”?
The ancient lands of Judea and Samaria, east of Jerusalem, have been part of the Jewish homeland for 3,000 years. Today Arabs demand all of it.
Paid advertisement placed by FLAME, Facts and Logic About the Middle East
“Judea and Samaria, the land where Jewish ancestors Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rachel, David and Solomon created Biblical history, was renamed the ‘West Bank’ during Jordan’s brief, illegal 19-year occupation. Today, some 380,000 Jews own land and live in the territory, yet their rights are denied by Palestinian Arabs… Jordan illegally seized the ‘West Bank’ and east Jerusalem, and expelled all Jews from these Biblical homelands… Until such negotiations are consummated, the ‘West Bank’ will remain in dispute—a no-man’s land in which claims of ownership remain cloudy and contested.” Set in a box in the middle of the page: “Israel has an irrefutable legal claim to these territories backed by the 93-year-old Mandate for Palestine.”
Not journalism, and marked PAID ADVERTISEMENT across the top by the paper. It is here because it is the naming argument conducted in the open and paid for. The advertisement puts West Bank in quotation marks every time it uses it, twelve times, and argues that West Bank is itself a renaming of Judea and Samaria. Whatever a reader makes of the claim, it settles one thing: the name of that territory was not drifting quietly in American newsprint. It was contested, by people who bought space to contest it.
· The Times · page 1
Amnesty International deems Israel’s 2014 bombardment of Gaza war crime
Joel Greenberg, McClatchy Foreign Staff, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM — On Aug. 1, 2014, after a temporary cease-fire was announced in the war between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli officer, Lt. Hadar Goldin, went missing after a firefight with Hamas gunmen in the town of Rafah. Suspecting that he had been seized, Israeli troops launched a fierce onslaught, heavily bombarding and shelling parts of Rafah in an attempt to pin down the suspected kidnappers. The intensive attack, following the ‘Hannibal Directive,’ under which Israeli forces can respond to the capture of a soldier with overwhelming firepower, left at least 135 Palestinian civilians dead, including 75 children, according to Amnesty International, one of the deadliest episodes of the 50-day campaign. In a report issued Wednesday that used digital technology and satellite images along with witness testimonies to piece together the sequence of events, the human rights group said Israeli forces committed war crimes during three days of attacks that continued even after Goldin was declared to have been killed in action. ‘There is strong evidence that Israeli forces committed war crimes in their relentless and massive bombardment of residential areas of Rafah in order to foil the capture of Lt. Hadar Goldin, displaying a shocking disregard for civilian lives,’ said Philip Luther, director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa program. ‘Israeli forces appear to have thrown out the rule book, employing a gloves-off policy with devastating consequences for civilians,’ Luther said. ‘The obligation to take precautions to avoid the loss of civilian lives was completely neglected.’ The report was dismissed by the Israeli Foreign Ministry as ‘fundamentally flawed in its facts, in its legal analysis and in its conclusions.’ The ministry said the report ignored Hamas’ strategy of fighting ‘from behind the civilian population’ and showed Amnesty International’s ‘political bias’ against Israel. The report combines witness testimonies with analysis provided by Forensic Architecture, a London-based research team that used photos, videos and digital models to reconstruct incidents based on physical impact left on buildings damaged or destroyed in the conflict.”
The finding and the Israeli Foreign Ministry's rejection of it, in the same column.
· Longview News Journal · Longview
4 Palestinians killed in 'day of rage' violence
· South Florida Sun Sentinel · page 1
Anti-Zionism is racism
By Ben Cohen
“This month marks the 40th anniversary of one of the worst instances of anti-Semitism since the end of the Second World War. On Nov. 10, 1975, the United Nations — a body created out of the ashes of the Holocaust — passed General Assembly Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism, the Jewish national liberation movement, with racism and racial discrimination. That resolution was the culmination of a lengthy campaign by the Soviet Union to turn Israel into the only state within the U.N. system to have its legitimacy questioned… Only a handful of people at the General Assembly grasped this fundamental fact back in 1975. One of them was Chaim Herzog, the Israeli ambassador to the world body… Predictably, the resolution passed. Less predictably, it was rescinded in 1991 — appropriately on the eve of the Soviet Union’s collapse — after a U.S.-led campaign that saw President George H.W. Bush personally introduce the resolution of revocation… But as we know only too well, the slander that Zionism is racism survived that revocation, in much the same way that Holocaust denial has persisted even though it’s illegal in many states. In essence, nothing has really changed: in the name of fighting racism, the same lies and deceits are advanced in order to encourage anti-Semitism.”
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then the American ambassador to the United Nations, addresses the U.N. General Assembly on Nov. 10, 1975, the day the General Assembly adopted the ‘Zionism is racism’ resolution. Moynihan said that the U.S. ‘will never acquiesce in this infamous act.’
Forty years on, the headline is the sentence turned around. The column says the resolution was a Soviet campaign. The clippings in this section, printed at the time, show the two words arriving together in an American paper in January 1968 from the chairman of the PLO, on placards in Hamburg in June 1969, in a message from Nasser that September, and in the Black Panther party paper in 1970, before the Soviet Union took the formula to the General Assembly at all.
· Lebanon Daily News · Lebanon · page 1
Palestinian children join attacks on Israel
Most of those detained, some as young as 11, are denied bail
Asma’ Jawabreh and Jacob Wirtschafter, special for USA Today
“HEBRON, West Bank - Amer Salah was sleeping last May when Israeli forces entered the 14-year-old’s bedroom in the middle of the night. He said he was arrested for throwing stones at vehicles of neighboring Jewish settlers, which he denied, and was jailed with nine other kids in a cell barely 6-feet by 6-feet without fresh air or ample light. ‘We were not even allowed to see the sun,’ he said… The arrests have multiplied since a spate of stabbings and other assaults last fall over Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank. On Thursday, two 14-year-old Palestinian boys stabbed an Israeli soldier to death and wounded a second Israeli man at a supermarket in a Jewish settlement south of Ramallah. Both teens were wounded by armed bystanders. Currently, Israel is holding 420 Palestinians under the age of 18 for alleged attacks in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, according to Israeli Prison Service statistics… The youngest is 11-year-old Ali Alqam, who is charged with wounding a security guard in an October knife attack at a Jerusalem light rail station… Figures released by the Israeli court system after a Freedom of Information request by Military Court Watch show that bail is denied to 70 percent of Palestinian youths who are detained… Since early October, Palestinians have stabbed Israeli civilians and soldiers 199 times, shot at them 41 times and rammed vehicles into pedestrians 23 times, according to the Israel Defense Forces… ‘No one is denying that there is a wave of knife attacks and stone throwing, much if conducted by Palestinian youths,’ said Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for B’tselem — the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. ‘But even when involved in serious offenses, a child offender is still a child, and the authorities who are entitled to charge and prosecute them still should not violate the rights of children.’”
“A Palestinian youth throws stones toward Israeli military vehicles near the West Bank town of Jenin on Feb. 6.” (Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP/Getty Images)
A photograph: one man throwing a stone at an armored vehicle, a soldier walking toward him with a rifle raised. The pull-quote on the page is from Anat Berko, a member of Israel’s parliament with a doctorate in criminology: “I wish we did not have to put Palestinian minors under 14 in prison. … But there is peer pressure to participate in this violence, and Palestinian leaders need to make it clear that this is not the right way for their youth to achieve a solution to the conflict.”
· Victoria Advocate · Victoria · page 1
New Palestinian museum missing one thing: All the exhibits
Debut shows ‘we are still here,’ Abbas says
Shira Rubin, Special for USA Today, Birzeit
“BIRZEIT, WEST BANK — A $24 million Palestinian Museum of Art, History and Culture that opened Wednesday showcases a beautiful building with sweeping views. All that’s missing are the exhibits. It’s an unfortunate metaphor for a people long in search of a national identity and homeland. Still, Palestinians went ahead with a festive celebration marking the empty museum’s debut to ‘tell the world, the entire world, that we are here, that we are still here, and we will continue to be here to build our independent state,’ Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said. ‘We have been planted here since the dawn of history,’ Abbas said. The 43,000-square-foot space was designed by the Dublin-based architectural firm Heneghan Peng in the style of the terraced hills of the West Bank. It has been hailed by Palestinian leaders as a beacon of optimism in a territory under Israeli occupation. Completion of the exhibits has been delayed, in part because the museum’s director resigned last December over disagreements with the museum’s management. With him went the first exhibit, ‘Never Part,’ which showcased personal items of Palestinian refugees to showcase their heritage. Museum Chairman Omar Qattan said that after years of postponements, the decision was made to go ahead with the opening ‘for something affirmative in the midst of all this negative energy.’ ‘It will be even more special when we launch our programs later this year,’ he said. The opening was timed to coincide with the week in which Palestinians mark the 68th anniversary of the nakba, ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic, a reference to the creation of Israel in 1948, which led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.”
“The Palestinian Museum has been hailed by Palestinian leaders as a symbol of optimism.” · Shira Rubin, Special for USA Today
A museum of Palestinian art and history opens with nothing in it, and the reporter reaches for the metaphor in the third paragraph. The exhibit that was to have filled it was called Never Part and consisted of the personal belongings of refugees; it left with the director who resigned. The opening was timed for the week of the sixty-eighth anniversary of the nakba. Birzeit is the same town whose university president this archive holds being deported in 1976 and whose professors are quoted in a Miami Herald feature in 1977.
· USA Today · McLean · page 1
Palestinian museum missing one thing: Exhibits
Shira Rubin, Special for USA Today, Birzeit
“BIRZEIT, WEST BANK — A $24 million Palestinian Museum of Art, History and Culture that opened Wednesday showcases a beautiful building with sweeping views. All that’s missing are the exhibits. It’s an unfortunate metaphor for a people long in search of a national identity and homeland. Still, Palestinians went ahead with a festive celebration marking the empty museum’s debut to ‘tell the world, the entire world, that we are here, that we are still here, and we will continue to be here to build our independent state,’ Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said. ‘We have been planted here since the dawn of history,’ he said… Completion of the exhibits has been delayed, in part because the museum’s director resigned last December over disagreements with the museum’s management. With him went the first exhibit, ‘Never Part,’ which showcased personal items of Palestinian refugees to showcase their heritage. Museum Chairman Omar Qattan said that after years of delays, the decision was made to go ahead with the opening ‘for something affirmative in the midst of all this negative energy’… The opening was timed to coincide with the week in which Palestinians mark the 68th anniversary of the nakba, ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic… Israeli Communications Ministry spokesman Yehiel Shavi dismissed the museum, telling USA TODAY in a phone interview Wednesday that it was an ‘attempt to take away the Jewish identity of this contested place.’”
“The Palestinian Museum has been hailed by Palestinian leaders as a symbol of optimism.” · Shira Rubin, Special for USA Today
The same reporter and the same day as the Victoria Advocate printing held here, under a shorter headline — and with one paragraph the Texas paper did not run. An Israeli communications ministry spokesman told this newspaper by telephone that a museum of Palestinian art and history was an attempt to take away the Jewish identity of the place. The building had no exhibits in it.
· Chronicle-Tribune · page 1
U.S. coach’s mission: Promote wheelchair basketball in Gaza
By Fares Akram, Associated Press, Khan Younis
“KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — A top U.S. coach is in the Gaza Strip to help set up the territory’s first female wheelchair basketball team. ‘I think for Gaza this is a very unique thing,’ said the trainer, Jess Markt. ‘I think there are not so many opportunities for women to play sports here, and particularly for disabled women.’ Markt, 40, was a track athlete until 21 years ago when he suffered a severed spinal cord in a car accident… The perpetual state of conflict, along with substandard health care, has added to the tens of thousands of disabled Gazans.… On Saturday, 15 women and girls in wheelchairs clustered around Markt, listening to the instructions with smiles on their faces… Mona Khattab, 47, is one of the first female basketball players in Gaza… She said that most basketball courts in Gaza are not designed for wheelchairs, and many courts are open to the sun. The players’ wheelchairs are also heavier than those used by basketball teams overseas. ‘With our will and power we challenge the game using these chairs,’ she said. ‘In the international matches, the chairs are light as air. Here, our arms and muscles are sore.’”
WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALL: A disabled Palestinian woman takes part in a basketball training session held by U.S. coach Jess Markt, left, in the Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip.
Fifteen women and girls in a Red Crescent sports hall, an eight-club men’s league already running, and a Paralympic committee trying to form a women’s team in a society where sport can be read as immodest. Mona Khattab is named and quoted. The same wire story ran in another paper the same day under a headline that kept the word female; this one takes it out.
· The Daily Times · page 1
Top US coach promotes female wheelchair basketball in Gaza
International
By Fares Akram, Associated Press, Khan Younis
“KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — A top U.S. coach is in the Gaza Strip to help set up the territory’s first female wheelchair basketball team… In 2015, the International Committee of the Red Cross brought Markt to Gaza to train local referees and coaches. Now, he is back to train players and organize tournaments between wheelchair teams… The success of these teams helped the Paralympic Committee to persuade women and girls to form their own team in this conservative society, in which sports can be seen as immodest.”
Disabled Palestinian women take part in a basketball training session held by top U.S. coach Jess Markt in the Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza Strip on Saturday.
The same Associated Press story as the Chronicle-Tribune, on the same day, with one word restored to the headline. The subject is the territory’s first women’s team.
· The Rock Island Argus · Rock Island · page 1
Israel accuses Hamas of diverting aid
Associated Press
“Israel accuses Hamas of diverting aid. Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon is accusing the Islamic militant group Hamas of diverting international aid to its ‘terror infrastructure’ and called on the United Nations to implement a strategy to end the practice. Danon said Hamas is infiltrating humanitarian organizations in Gaza and using strategically placed operatives to divert funds. The ambassador called on U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to implement a comprehensive oversight mechanism to ensure an end to the practice. He said he has contacted various U.N. agencies and international aid organizations to make similar demands.”
A short wire brief. The accusation is printed; no response from anyone accused appears in it.
· Los Angeles Times · Los Angeles · page 1
A Palestinian lightning rod
Hip-hop artist who found solace in American rap angers Israel’s right and left with his movie
Joshua Mitnick, Lod
“LOD, Israel — Tamer Nafar fell in love with hip-hop growing up amid the faded public housing blocks and garbage-strewn public parks of Ramat Eshkol, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the central Israeli city of Lod where life was punctuated by daily spurts of gunfire… Just a five-minute walk from his home, an upstairs neighbor was shot and killed in a gang [fight] that left multiple people injured. It took the police nearly an hour to arrive. ‘Just a month before, a Jewish guy was stabbed and they had a helicopter in the air,’ he said. ‘I found myself feeling [angry] about the police. At 18, my friends started dying.’ Against this backdrop, Nafar found solace in the lyrics of African American rappers like Public Enemy and Biggie Smalls, learning English and absorbing their social commentary as he listened… Scenes depicting confrontations between police and African American youths reminded them of Lod. ‘They would say, wow, they are talking about us,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly what happened yesterday.’ The audio samples in Tupac Shakur’s ‘White Man’z World’ introduced Nafar to Malcolm X and Spike Lee. ‘I found Palestinian heroes through African American ones,’ Nafar said. The nationalism of the Black Panthers, he said, prompted him to learn about the Palestine Liberation Organization; the verse of Maya Angelou led him to Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish. ‘I had to go West so I could find my Eastern identity.’… Nafar and DAM threw the accusation back at Israel with the lyrics, ‘Who is the terrorist / You are a terrorist / You have taken everything I own in my land.’… ‘Kareem is at a junction — a crossroads. “Do I go with my girlfriend [in public], or not?” Am I Palestinian? Or do I sing at an Israeli club?’ Nafar said. ‘This whole junction and confusion started in 1948.’ On the eve of Israel’s war for independence, Lod was an Arab village on the railway to Jerusalem… Amid fighting there, the Israeli army killed hundreds of Arab civilians in the town and expelled tens of thousands more — part of a larger trauma of Arab displacement accompanying Israel’s birth that Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or disaster.… Then, at the film awards ceremony, Miri Regev, Israel’s right-wing culture minister, left the auditorium in protest during a performance by Nafar because it featured a recitation of passages penned by Darwish. Regev later unsuccessfully tried to have Nafar’s concert at a festival canceled, alleging in a letter that ‘Nafar elects at every opportunity and on every stage to come out against the idea of the state of Israel and its existence as the state of the Jewish people.’ ‘I was educated in an Arab Israeli school. I was denied Mahmoud Darwish before I was 20,’ he said. ‘All they told us is that they saved the country. Nobody told us that they kicked out my grandfather. This whole piece is missing.’… ‘There is very strong self-criticism,’ he said. ‘The good guy in our movie is Palestinian and the bad guy in our movie is a Palestinian.’ Nafar has come out against honor killings in Lod, and he once was threatened by local hard-liners for performing with a woman… ‘Cultural figures are important, but they don’t sway the masses,’ said Jackie Khoury, the news director of the Arabic radio station A Shams… ‘Our movie is a solution,’ he said. ‘The solution is when the strong side, the privileged side, will be part of the story-telling of the oppressed side… When Jews and Palestinians work together to tell the story of the oppressed, that’s where hope comes.’”
“TAMER NAFAR says Israel’s left-wing cultural elites can’t accept a Palestinian rendering of their conflict. ‘That’s how the Israeli left wing rolls: We like your talent, but keep your Palestinian narrative outside.’” · Joshua Mitnick / For The Times
A rapper from Lod who found his own history through Public Enemy and Maya Angelou: I had to go West so I could find my Eastern identity. It joins to the Darwish material in this archive at two points. He says he was denied Darwish until he was twenty, having been taught only that the country had been saved and not that his grandfather was expelled from it. And at a film awards ceremony Israel’s culture minister walked out of his performance because it included a recitation of Darwish — seventeen years after the archive’s clippings on the row over teaching five of the same poems in schools. The line the paper puts under his photograph is the section’s whole subject in one sentence: we like your talent, but keep your Palestinian narrative outside. He also says the bad guy in his own film is a Palestinian.
· Daily American Republic · Poplar Bluff · page 1
Palestinians fear Trump will put them on sidelines
Karin Laub and Mohammed Daraghmeh, The Associated Press, Ramallah, West Bank
“Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who spent hundreds of hours on the phone and in meetings with U.S. presidents and secretaries of state in the past 12 years, has tried unsuccessfully to reach out to President Donald Trump… Erekat, whose contacts are now limited to the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, has been quoted as saying that ‘we have sent them letters, written messages; they don’t even bother to respond to us.’… Many Palestinians are disillusioned with a process they say effectively provided diplomatic cover for Israeli settlement expansion and distanced statehood prospects… ‘not having a relationship with Washington is cutting off their air supply, essentially,’ said Khaled Elgindy, an analyst at the Brookings Institution… ‘The foreign policy of the U.S. administration is not clear yet, aside from its clear support of Israel, but the administration knows nothing can be done without the Palestinians,’ said Abbas adviser Mohammed Ishtayeh.”
A wire explainer in question-and-answer form, printed in a Missouri daily.
· New Jersey Herald · page 1
50 years after war, settlements blur future borders
Israel and the Palestinians
The Associated Press, Jerusalem
“For many Israelis, Har Homa is another neighborhood in Jerusalem, served by city bus lines and schools… But for Palestinians and much of the world, this unassuming neighborhood is far more. It is an illegal settlement in east Jerusalem, and in some ways, the most damaging… ‘It’s a feeling of helplessness,’ said Aziz Abu Teir, the mukhtar, or community leader, of Umm Tuba, a neighboring Palestinian village, as he stared from his balcony at the sprawling rows of apartment buildings across a ravine. ‘You can do nothing.’… ‘This is our homeland,’ said Herzl Yechezkel, one of the founding fathers of Har Homa. ‘And we have to build it up.’… These settlements today are home to over 600,000 Israelis, roughly one-third of them in east Jerusalem… The Palestinians lost more than 150 acres of land to Har Homa. Abu Teir, a 55-year-old British-educated civil engineer, said his village’s lands were passed down from generation to generation, and ownership is difficult to document, making it impossible to stop settlement… ‘The land that used to belong to my forefathers suddenly became a settlement specifically for Jewish people. It’s not a fair thing,’ he said. ‘When did the Israeli government build a housing development for the Arabs?’”
The Har Homa neighborhood is seen in east Jerusalem. For many Israelis, Har Homa has become another neighborhood in Jerusalem, served by city bus lines, schools and public services. But for the Palestinians, this unassuming neighborhood is far more. It is an illegal settlement in east Jerusalem, and in some ways, the most damaging. AP Photo/Dan Balilty.
A named Palestinian community leader and a named settler founder, each given the same room on the same page.
· Hickory Daily Record · page 1
Plight of Palestinian refugees now spans 5 generations
The Associated Press, Jerash Camp, Jordan
“As a boy, Palestinian Abdullah Abu Massoud fled the war over the birth of Israel in 1948 and sought refuge in the nearby Gaza Strip. As an adult, Abu Massoud was displaced again when Israeli forces captured Gaza, along with the West Bank and east Jerusalem, in 1967. He escaped to Jordan, where he has been living in a refugee camp for 50 years. Now 77, Abu Massoud is the white-haired patriarch of a refugee family spanning five generations, including a great-great-granddaughter. The future looks bleak. ‘Fifty years have passed without a step forward,’ said Abu Massoud. ‘We don’t belong here.’… More than 700,000 Palestinians were uprooted at the time… Today, 5.3 million Palestinians and their descendants are registered with UNRWA in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza Strip… A 29-year-old grandson of Bassama and Abdullah, Alaa Abu Awad, has never set foot in historic Palestine… He has tacked a Palestinian flag to the wall of his shop in Jerash camp. ‘It’s the flag of my homeland,’ said Abu Awad.”
Five generations of a Palestinian refugee family, the Abu Massouds, pose for a portrait. The plight of Palestinians uprooted by Israeli-Arab wars is one of the longest-running refugee crises. As the second wave of displacement hits the half-century mark, a solution for millions of refugees and their descendants is more distant than ever. The Associated Press.
Three named Palestinians across five photographed generations, and a man of 29 who has never seen the country on the flag in his shop.
· The Patriot Ledger · page 1
Alliance between Palestinians, Israelis and American Jews offers hope
Commentary
Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian journalist and former Ferris professor of journalism at Princeton University
“While Israelis and Palestinians have mostly failed to find common ground in opposing the 50 years of Israeli occupation, a new Palestinian-Israeli-U.S. Jewish alliance is emerging that many are hoping will take root… A group of 300 Israelis, Palestinians and diaspora Jews from a coalition of five groups decided May 18 to join in support of a beleaguered Palestinian village in the West Bank. Their model was the Standing Rock protest, the North Dakota encampment created in an effort to block an oil pipeline near an Indian reservation… Three times in a span of the first 12 days, Israeli troops raided the Sumud Freedom Camp and confiscated the campers’ tents, sound equipment and even a car belonging to a local Palestinian. Sumud means steadfastness in Arabic… When Palestinians from nearby towns saw that the Sumud Freedom Camp survived, they began making daily visits. Many brought food and broke the Ramadan fast with their newly discovered comrades.”
A Palestinian journalist writing in a Massachusetts daily, not quoted in one.
· The Daily Inter Lake · page 1
Palestinians vow to end talks if U.S. closes PLO mission
The Associated Press, Washington
“WASHINGTON (AP) — The Palestinians threatened on Saturday to suspend all communication with the United States if the Trump administration follows through with plans to close their diplomatic office in Washington… Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the U.S. decision was ‘very unfortunate and unacceptable,’ and accused Washington of bowing to pressure from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government ‘at a time when we are trying to cooperate to achieve the ultimate deal.’… PLO official Hanan Ashrawi said the U.S. was ‘disqualifying itself as a peace broker in the region’ by refusing to extend a waiver from the law… Erekat contended the move was the result of ‘the pressure being exerted on this administration by the Netanyahu government.’”
The Washington office of the Palestine Liberation Organization on Nov. 18. On Saturday, Palestinians threatened to suspend all communication with the United States if the Trump administration follows through with plans to close their diplomatic office in Washington. AP Photo/Alex Brandon.
One of two papers running this dispatch the same day.
· Roanoke Times · Roanoke · page 1
Palestinians say U.S. is bowing to Israel
Talks
The Associated Press, Washington
“Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the U.S. decision was ‘very unfortunate and unacceptable,’ and accused Washington of bowing to pressure from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government ‘at a time when we are trying to cooperate to achieve the ultimate deal.’… The United States allowed the PLO to open a mission in Washington in 1994. That required President Bill Clinton to waive a law that said the Palestinians couldn’t have an office. In 2011, under the Obama administration, the U.S. started letting the Palestinians fly their flag over the office, an upgrade to the status of their mission that the Palestinians hailed as historic.”
The Washington office of the Palestine Liberation Organization has become a focal point in U.S.-Palestinian relations. Associated Press.
The same Associated Press copy as the Montana paper, under a headline that names the accusation rather than the threat.
· Chronicle-Tribune · page 1
Palestinians protest Trump move, more unrest feared
Josef Federman, The Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM — Thousands of Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli forces in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, demonstrators in the Gaza Strip burned U.S. flags and pictures of President Donald Trump… in a show of rage Thursday over the American decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital… The Palestinians declared three ‘days of rage,’ shuttering schools and businesses, and staging angry demonstrations at Damascus Gate, one of the entrances to Jerusalem’s Old City, and cities across the West Bank and Gaza. ‘We are here. We believe in our rights and one day it will become Jerusalem, the capital for the Palestinian people,’ declared Rania Hatem, a protester outside the Old City… ‘People are tired, exhausted. Personally I feel that we are doomed anyway and nothing we do makes a difference,’ said Ghinwa Barakat, a 43-year-old shopper in Beirut. ‘Who’s going to support the Palestinians? Syria is destroyed, Iraq is destroyed. The Gulf countries are fighting each other and competing over who will normalize relations with Israel first. So, who?’”
Palestinians burn posters of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump, during a protest against the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, in Gaza City on Thursday. Khalil Hamra / AP.
Two named ordinary people, one in Jerusalem and one shopping in Beirut, saying opposite things about whether any of it matters.
· The Buffalo News · Buffalo · page 1
Palestinians demonstrate at the Damascus Gate
New York Times photograph
Palestinians demonstrate Thursday at the Damascus Gate outside the Old City of Jerusalem. Widespread predictions of unrest were realized in the region a day after President Trump took the high-risk move of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
A photograph running alone, with no headline on the scan. The caption stands in for one.
· The State Journal-Register · Springfield · page 1
Olive wood artisans carry on Holy Land tradition
Michele Chabin, Religion News Service, Bethlehem
“BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Thirty years ago Bassem Giacaman, whose large extended family has lived in this town for generations, immigrated to New Zealand with his parents and siblings in search of a life far away from the turmoil of the Middle East. They left behind a small shop and olive wood factory, one of a few dozen olive wood enterprises in and around Bethlehem… Most of these businesses are owned by Christian families that have been carving religious items such as crosses, rosaries and Nativity scenes for nearly two millennia. Today these families are struggling because tourists are staying away from Bethlehem, thinking it unsafe… ‘I came back to take care of the family business and because I’m a Christian,’ Giacaman said in the store and factory his grandfather founded in 1925. Giacaman decided to come home after his father, Jiries, 72, said he could no longer manage the family business from afar. ‘I just couldn’t let that happen,’ Giacaman said. ‘First, because of the church. There are so few Christians left here and I felt it was important to strengthen the community. But also because my grandfather created this factory and me and my father worked so hard to keep it going.’ The number of Christians in the Holy Land has declined dramatically due to emigration. Today, Christians comprise less than 2 percent of the Palestinian population. Mahmoud Hawari, director of the Palestinian Museum in the West Bank, says olive wood carving has been a livelihood for Holy Land Christians in Bethlehem since the fourth century A.D., the Byzantine period. ‘This art form goes back millennia and its traditions have been developed over the centuries,’ Hawari said. ‘It is part of the Palestinian national heritage and also important from an economic point of view.’… ‘To this day, it is a niche industry for craftsmen in Bethlehem, who create their own motifs based on the life of Jesus.’ The artisans, both Christian and Muslim, are world-renowned for their intricately carved Mother and Child statues, as well as their Nativity scenes, some small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, others large enough to display in a cathedral. They also produce rosaries, crosses and, for those into more practical items, salad spoons. Since 1971 the Hosh family has been carving olive wood items in a small factory in a residential neighborhood in Bethlehem. The family’s company, the Bethlehem Star Olive Wood Factory, employs 14 carpenters, some of them relatives. ‘We export 95 percent of what we make, to holiday and art fairs in Europe, and to stores including Neiman Marcus,’ said Tony Hosh, the assistant manager. ‘There aren’t enough pilgrims to sustain the industry.’… ‘Sets like this take a year to make and cost up to $20,000,’ he said, pointing to a magnificent manger scene several feet wide. Much simpler items cost between $40 and a few hundred dollars. Walking into the courtyard, where hundreds of olive branches were piled high, Giacaman said he buys the wood from local farmers soon after the October olive harvest. ‘Otherwise we can get ants,’ he explained. ‘The branches come from pruning the trees, never by cutting them.’ Stepping into the adjoining factory — really a small workshop — carpenters surrounded by sawdust chiseled delicate features into the fragrant wood. ‘Each piece is unique. If you find two pieces the same I will give you the shop,’ Giacaman said with a smile. Growing serious, the Palestinian Christian described his profession as ‘an expression of my Christian faith.’ ‘The Bible mentions the olive tree many times, and Jesus prayed among olive trees on the Mount of Olives,’ he said. ‘So our work is part of our religion.’ ‘For me, this is holy work.’”
“The Blessings Gift Shop owned by the Giacaman family and located just around the corner from Manger Square employs 5 carpenters.” · RNS photo by Michele Chabin
A trade story: four named Palestinians, a workshop founded in 1925, a craft dated to the fourth century, prices from forty dollars to twenty thousand, ninety-five per cent of output exported, and a rule about where the wood comes from — pruning, never cutting. The occupation appears as a wall, a shortage of tourists and a line about Trump and Jerusalem. The last words are a man describing what he does for a living as holy work.
· Los Angeles Times · Los Angeles · page 1
On edge over Trump’s threat
Palestinian refugees and Israeli critics worry about ramifications of U.S. aid cutoff
“On edge over Trump’s threat. Palestinian refugees and Israeli critics worry about ramifications of U.S. aid cutoff.”
“PALESTINIANS demand better living conditions at Jabaliya camp in the Gaza Strip. More than 2 million people are registered as refugees in Gaza and the West Bank.” Mohammed Saber EPA/Shutterstock
The clipping is the photograph, its caption and the headline stack; the story below was not clipped. A Palestinian flag and a hand-lettered placard are held above the crowd.
· San Francisco Chronicle · San Francisco · page 1
Palestinian aid; ‘Hannibal’ directive
Chronicle News Services
“Palestinian aid: The United Nations says about $540 million is needed for humanitarian relief in the Palestinian territories in 2018. Jamie McGoldrick, the top U.N. humanitarian coordinator, said Wednesday that 75 percent of that sum is for Gaza, where ‘a man-made tragedy is unfolding daily.’ Gaza has been under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade since the Islamic militant group Hamas took over the territory in 2007. The closure, along with Hamas’ conflicts with Israel and a bitter power struggle with the group’s bitter rival, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, has devastated the economy. Half the sum is to support emergency projects by UNRWA, the main U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, after Washington slashed its funding this year. ‘Hannibal’ directive: Israel’s government watchdog has taken aim at the military’s ‘Hannibal’ directive — a controversial tactic used when soldiers were abducted. The directive, used most recently during a 2014 war in Gaza, authorized the use of heavy fire if a soldier was abducted, even at the risk of killing the soldier. During the 2014 war, troops used the Hannibal procedure after soldiers feared militants had captured an officer. Israel unleashed heavy shelling and air strikes on the southern town of Rafah, killing some 100 Palestinians. In Wednesday’s report, the state comptroller said the directive suffered from a lack of clarity about ‘the value of the abducted soldier’s life.’ It also noted that it did not ‘explicitly’ mention the need to use ‘proportional’ force.”
Two items from a world-briefs column, numbered 4 and 5. The second is the Rafah bombardment the Amnesty report in this archive is about, reported here as an Israeli state comptroller’s finding about a lack of clarity.
· Roanoke Times · Roanoke · page 1
Video shows threats, innuendo in questioning Palestinian girl
The protest icon’s family released an interrogation video from when Ahed Tamimi was 16 years old.
Karin Laub, Associated Press, Ramallah, West Bank
“RAMALLAH, West Bank — The family of prominent Palestinian protester Ahed Tamimi on Monday released excerpts from a video in which an Israeli interrogator threatens the then-16-year-old with the arrest of her relatives if she refuses to cooperate. The interrogator also comments on her body, fair skin and ‘eyes of an angel.’ The interrogator, identified as an agent of the Israeli military intelligence branch, at times moves within inches of the teenager, who doesn’t respond and repeatedly asserts her right to remain silent. The Israeli military said a complaint of improper conduct on the part of the investigator, filed by Tamimi’s lawyer, has been handed to the Justice Ministry and is being ‘thoroughly examined.’ Ahed’s father, Bassem, told reporters that the video is evidence of Israel’s failure to break his daughter. He portrayed Tamimi, who has become an icon to Palestinians, as a symbol of resistance to Israel’s 51-year-old military occupation. Her silence under pressure shows that ‘we are not victims, we are fighters for the cause of freedom of our people,’ he said. A West Bank-based rights group said a majority of minors have reported being verbally abused, intimidated or humiliated in Israeli custody… Tamimi is serving an eight-month prison term — the result of a plea deal — for slapping and kicking two Israeli soldiers outside her West Bank home in mid-December… ‘When I think of my little sister, her eyes look like your eyes,’ he tells her. ‘She is white like you. In the sun, she looks like the hamburger. And what about you? What do you look like in the sun? Red, red, red? When I see your eyes, I say, it’s a shame [haram], you are here [in detention],’ he says.”
“Palestinian Ahed Tamimi’s family released a video Monday in which two male Israeli interrogators are seen threatening the then-16-year-old and commenting on her body.” Associated Press / File photograph.
An American paper printing the transcript of what an Israeli interrogator said to a sixteen-year-old girl, and the military’s answer that the complaint is being “thoroughly examined.”
· Los Angeles Times · Los Angeles · page 1
PALESTINIANS run as Israeli troops fire tear gas into Gaza City on Friday, the first fatality-free protest day since the Great March of Return effort began March 30
“PALESTINIANS run as Israeli troops fire tear gas into Gaza City on Friday, the first fatality-free protest day since the Great March of Return effort began March 30.” Photographs by Mohammed Saber EPA/Shutterstock
A full-width photograph and its caption; no body text on the clipping. The caption measures the day by what did not happen.
· The Philadelphia Inquirer · Philadelphia · page 1
Heavy Toll in Gaza Protests
58 Palestinians killed
“58 PALESTINIANS KILLED. Heavy Toll in Gaza Protests.”
“An elderly Palestinian man falls after being shot by Israeli troops during a protest at the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel.” Adel Hana / AP
The clipping is the headline stack and a photograph; the story was not clipped. The number is in the kicker and the people are in the headline, which is the pattern the archive counts. The man in the picture is not named.
· Times Record News · Wichita Falls · page 1
Scores of Palestinians killed along Israeli border
Violence takes place as move of US Embassy to Jerusalem marked
· St. Louis Post-Dispatch · St. Louis
Nothing says 'peace' like dead Palestinians
· The Independent · London · page 1
Israel faces international condemnation over two-day ‘massacre’ at Gaza border
“Israel faces international condemnation over two-day ‘massacre’ at Gaza border”
“Palestinian protesters flee from tear gas yesterday during demonstrations near the border with Israel, east of Jabalia” (AFP/Getty)
The clipping is the headline and a photograph; the story was not clipped. The paper puts the word in quotation marks.
· Omaha World-Herald · Omaha · page 1
Palestinians' March of Return
Sara Pahl, Omaha
The July 21 World-Herald carried a three-paragraph story headlined 'Israel, Hamas trade fatal fire.' Yet I have seen almost no World-Herald coverage of the underlying Palestinians' 'March of Return,' which has been occurring since March 30. Nor have I seen coverage of the brutal siege of Gaza, now 11 years old, by Israel, which the March of Return strives to break. Why is The World-Herald's coverage of a huge humanitarian story so limited? Why do we see nothing here of the heart-breaking conditions in which Palestinian families are forced to live? Is there a taboo operating here?
· Sarasota Herald-Tribune · Sarasota · page 1
The port city of Jaffa
Old stone buildings and trendy cafes in this historic town
Tali Arbel, The Associated Press, Jaffa
“JAFFA, Israel — Just south of Tel Aviv’s glass towers and concrete houses are the white stone buildings of Jaffa, the ancient port town. Jaffa has existed for thousands of years, but today it is one unified city with Tel Aviv, which was founded in 1909. Both Jews and Arabs live in Jaffa, and that’s reflected in the flavors of the neighborhood. Visitors will find a luxury hotel, the Setai, built out of a Crusader fortress that was later a prison and police station. Trendy cafes, galleries, bars and boutiques line narrow streets, intersecting with Jaffa’s well-known Arab hummus spots and bakeries, along with mosques, churches and synagogues. In and around Jaffa’s famous flea market, Shuk Hapishpeshim, are streets dotted with cafes… But don’t forget hummus. In Jaffa, you can’t eat enough hummus, the chickpea puree that’s a bedrock meal in Israel. There’s Ali Caravan’s famous spot on HaDolphin Street, worth waiting on line for. Another crowded hummus disher is Ha’Asli on Yefet Street, cacophonous with families, workers and tourists, all seeking the platters of hummus, labne, kebab and salads delivered to tables minutes after ordering… Those interested in learning how to cook Arab food can also take a class with a local. Myassar Seri has for years been hosting tutorials in her small kitchen. She can put together a multi-course meal for your group to cook, or you can suggest dishes you’d like to try. Among the dishes we made were maqluba, a mound of rice or bulgur and vegetables inverted onto a plate; meatballs cooked in a sauce of tahini and yogurt; the parsley-and-bulgur salad, tabbouleh; and the Arabic dessert knafe. Her version had thin shreds of pastry and nuts cooked in butter, sugar and lemon. Seri also introduced us to what she called the ‘Arabic Parmesan’: yogurt that had been dried in the sun to a rock-hard lump. She grated the block into a powder whose sharp, savory tang did indeed recall Parmesan cheese and added it to a salad of fried eggplant and thin-chopped celery. Prices for her lessons vary per person according to group size.… One of Jaffa’s most popular spots for tourists is the old port. Vessels have set sail here since ancient times; it’s even mentioned in the Biblical story of Jonah, referred to as ‘Joppa,’ where Jonah embarked on the journey that led to his fateful encounter with a big fish… If you go. Myasser Seri: Cooking lessons vary by group size; facebook.com/myassar.seri”
“People enjoy the day on Jaffa’s promenade overlooking Tel Aviv’s skyline and the Mediterranean sea in Jaffa, Israel…” and “An Israeli shopkeeper works folding a carpet in his store at the flea market in Jaffa, Israel.” · AP Photos / Oded Balilty
A travel page about Jaffa in which the word Palestinian never appears. The people are Arabs, the food is Arab food, the dessert is the Arabic dessert, the dried yogurt is Arabic Parmesan, and the shopkeeper in the photograph is an Israeli. The third maqluba in this archive, and the woman teaching it is named — Myassar Seri in the story, Myasser Seri in the box at the end — with her Facebook page printed for readers in Florida.
· The Bismarck Tribune · Bismarck · page 1
Palestinian artist brings Japanese origami to Gaza City
Wafaa Shurafa, Associated Press, Gaza City
“GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — In a small studio packed with sculptures made of scrap metal, Palestinian artist Ahmed Humaid has found a new medium in origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. It’s an unlikely pursuit for an artist living in the Gaza Strip, which has been largely cut off from the outside world since Israel and Egypt imposed a crippling blockade on the Hamas-ruled territory more than a decade ago. But the 29-year-old Humaid, who has no regular job, says interest in origami is on the rise. ‘With more people asking about it, this work has turned into a source of income for me,’ said Humaid, who lives in Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Humaid practices a form of origami in which he folds and forms the pages of an entire book into a readable inscription of calligraphic letters. He has no formal training. He said he learned about origami when he saw some photos on Instagram. He began following Japanese artists and wrote to them. Some offered help and feedback. When he made his first origami work in October, it took him 15 hours to finish. He shared the photo with some Japanese artists who acclaimed the work. Since then, Humaid has sold 45 works locally, including books folded into names that lovers have given to each other as gifts, as well as logos for local businesses. Depending on the size and number of letters, he charges about $15–30 per order. Unemployment in Gaza, a coastal enclave sandwiched between Israel and Egypt, stands at more than 50 percent, according to U.N. and other international estimates. It is even higher among Gaza’s youth. Humaid would like to expand his business beyond Gaza’s borders, but the blockade has cut off virtually all exports, and Israel and Egypt heavily restrict travel into and out of the territory. ‘I wish to visit the homeland of this art — Japan — so I can be closer to the people who creatively mastered it,’ he said.”
Filed by Wafaa Shurafa, a Palestinian Associated Press reporter in Gaza. The cleanest non-conflict story in this batch: a man, a craft, a price list and a wish, with the blockade appearing only as the reason he cannot travel.
· St. Mary & Franklin Banner-Tribune · Morgan City · page 1
Iconic Palestinian robe fashions a new policital symbol
The Associated Press, Jerusalem
“JERUSALEM (AP) — The traditional brightly embroidered dress of Palestinian women known as the ‘thobe’ was not the type of garment one would expect to become a pop political symbol. Now it’s gaining prominence as a softer expression of Palestinian nationalism, competing even with the classic keffiyeh — the headscarf donned by young stone-throwing Palestinian men protesting Israel’s occupation. The robe, adorned with elaborate hand-stitched embroidery, requires months of grueling labor. Some thobes fetch thousands of dollars. The traditional textiles call to mind a bygone era of Palestinian peasant women sewing on a break from the fields. Last month, Rashida Tlaib proudly wore her mother’s thobe to her historic swearing-in as the first female Palestinian American member of Congress, inspiring masses of women around the world… ‘The historic thobe conjures an ideal of pure and untouched Palestine, before the occupation,’ said Rachel Dedman, curator of a recent exhibit at the Palestinian Museum focused on the evolution of Palestinian embroidery. ‘It’s more explicitly tied to history and heritage than politics. That’s what makes it a brilliant symbol.’… Thobe patterns also expressed women’s different social positions: not for marriage, single but looking for marriage, blue with multi-colored stitches for widows considering re-marriage… During the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in the 1980s, the thobe bloomed with guns, doves and flowers. When Israeli soldiers confiscated Palestinian flags at protests, women wove forbidden national maps and colors into their dresses, according to the Palestinian museum exhibit… ‘A woman typically has one thobe to wear on occasions throughout her life — it’s very expensive and impractical,’ said Maysoun Abed, director of a thobe exhibit in the West Bank city of Al-Bireh, near Ramallah. ‘But demand for the thobe still runs high as a way of expressing patriotism.’… Girls are asking for shorter and less embroidered versions, said Rajaa Ghazawneh, a thobe designer in the West Bank town of al-Birch… ‘Rashida has become a model for Palestinian women everywhere — a strong woman proud of her national identity who can reach high,’ said Saca.… Natalie Tahhan, a designer based in east Jerusalem, produces capes from digital prints that replicate traditional embroidery stitches, ‘connecting tradition with what is new and stylish.’… ‘These dresses are our link between the past and future,’ Saca said.”
Six Palestinian women named in one story, all of them talking about a dress: a museum curator, three designers, an exhibition director, and Maha Saca of the Palestinian Heritage Center in Bethlehem, who gets the last line. The occupation is present but is not the subject. The headline misspells political, and is kept as printed. On the page it runs beside a travel advertisement, Beauty from Bali to Jakarta.
· St. Louis Jewish Light · St. Louis · page 1
Peace plan: White House releases economic portion of peace plan
“In addition to the Gaza-West Bank link, which would inevitably cross Israeli territory, there are proposals to register Palestinian ownership of land and allow Palestinian farmers greater access to water and arable land… Kushner’s plan envisions $50 billion to be disbursed on building infrastructure and capacity in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as to promote trade and tourism partnerships with Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon… ‘A B C economics is that no monetary value can predicate or substitute economic sovereignty which is the first requirement for prosperity,’ Husam Zomlot, the Palestine Liberation Organization envoy to Washington until he was expelled last year by the Trump administration to punish the Palestinians for their boycott of peace talks, said on Twitter… Another $70 million has been set aside for the development of Palestinian arts, which often embrace a nationalist outlook, and $150 million is earmarked for the Palestinian museum near Ramallah. The museum is dedicated to celebrating Palestinian identity, including resistance to Israel. ‘Traditional Palestinian cuisine varies across regions and excites visitors,’ a segment on tourism says. ‘Each Palestinian city boasts its own trademark dishes and flavors, from Ramallah’s Rukab ice cream to the famed knafeh of Nablus.’… ‘A new flagship liberal arts and sciences university in the West Bank and Gaza’ is tagged at $500 million. Palestinian universities have over the decades nurtured the Palestinian national identity and at times have been the nexus of protest at Israel’s occupation. Israeli authorities over the years have repeatedly shuttered the universities during periods of unrest… The website features photos of schoolgirls walking by a school funded by USAID — funding Trump eliminated. It includes a picture of the Israeli and Palestinian co-leaders of the Parents Circle, a peace dialogue group for families of people killed in the conflict — a program once funded by the United States that also was cut by Trump.”
Ramallah’s Rukab ice cream and the knafeh of Nablus, in a White House document, reported in a Jewish weekly in Missouri. This is one of the few places in this archive where ordinary Palestinian life reaches an American page, and it arrives as a line item in an investment prospectus. The photographs on the plan’s own website show a school and a bereaved-families group whose American funding the same administration had cut.
· The Muskegon Chronicle · Muskegon · page 1
Celebrate delicious diversity
Sarah Henry, Washington Post
“It started with a meatball. Anna Francese Gass, born in Italy and raised in Rhode Island, grew up devouring her mom’s meatballs slathered in tomato sauce… ‘Heirloom Kitchen’ is one of several new cookbook anthologies championing the recipes and stories of immigrants who now call the United States (and, in one case, England) home. They are welcome reminders of the rich cultural and culinary variety immigrants bring. Some leave their homeland for love or economic or educational opportunities; others escape violence or political or religious persecution. Many are home cooks: mothers trying to feed their families well while maintaining a connection to their cultures of origin… The author, who left the corporate financial world to pursue a culinary career, traveled around the country to collect recipes with roots in Greece, Lebanon, Ghana, Mexico, Korea and beyond. She also collected stories of what it was like for each woman to leave everything behind to start over in a new land. We meet 85-year-old Palestinian Fethie Abowaznah Loutfi, a child of goat farmers, who fled with her family across the desert and barefoot from Yaffa to Jordan in search of safety. Denied entry, they continued on to Syria, and in a refugee camp there she fell in love with an Albanian refugee; they married, had a son, and decided to move to the United States in search of a better life. The couple raised eight children in New York; Loutfi worked as a member of the United Nations maintenance staff. Used to cooking for a crowd — as her Palestinian rice dish maqluba attests — she delights in feeding her family, which includes members of Muslim, Catholic and Jewish faiths. The book, organized around geographic regions, includes 100 recipes from 45 contributors. A common thread: re-creating the comfort of home through cooking. ‘Food is love. You can taste it in the recipes these women, all mothers, shared with me,’ Francese Gass says. ‘Food made from the heart and soul is the best food.’”
The Nakba in a food column: a woman of eighty-five who walked out of Jaffa barefoot, was turned back at Jordan, met her husband in a camp in Syria, raised eight children in New York and cooked on the United Nations maintenance staff. The dish she is known for is maqluba, which is also the dish a Palestinian family in Phoenix is making two years later in this archive, in a different paper, in a different state.
· The Charlotte Observer · Charlotte
Israeli army kills 4 Palestinians trying to cross Gaza fence
· Roanoke Times · page 1
Unable to vote, Palestinians shrug off elections
The outcome of the election could determine the future for both the West Bank and peace talks
By Joseph Krauss and Mohammed Daraghmeh, Associated Press, Mas’ha, West Bank
“MAS’HA, West Bank — Barhoum Saleh’s town is surrounded by Jewish settlements, the sign above his roadside mechanic shop is in Hebrew, most of his customers are Israeli and he needs an Israeli permit to visit the beach a half hour’s drive away. But unlike his Jewish neighbors, he can’t vote in next week’s elections. Saleh is among the 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank who have no voice in choosing Israel’s next government and no control over whether it decides to annex part or all of the occupied territory… Saleh, who is not particularly political, just wishes it was easier to take his kids to the beach. Israelis who get their cars serviced at his shop describe their trips: one drove down to Egypt’s Sinai, another vacationed in Thailand. But while they can travel in and out of the West Bank freely, Saleh must apply for a permit to enter Israel — and they are not given for family vacations. So, a few years back, he took his family to neighboring Jordan and its Red Sea port of Aqaba, where he and his children could swim in the same waters that wash up on Israel’s shores. ‘My kids were astonished when they saw the sea,’ he recalls, smiling at the memory. ‘They want land without people.’”
“A man walks out of a Palestinian carpentry shop under a sign in Arabic and Hebrew that reads, ‘All the people’s carpenter,’ in the West Bank village of Mas’ha, west of Qalqiliya. The 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank are unable to vote in Israel’s elections next week, which could determine whether it annexes parts of the occupied territory and places their dreams of an independent state even further out of reach.”
Six Palestinians are named in one wire story about an Israeli election: Barhoum Saleh, a mechanic; Maraei Maraei, who runs a hardware store in Mas’ha; Diana Buttu; Tareq Baconi; Ayman Odeh; and Sam Bahour, an Ohio-born Palestinian-American. The last line of Saleh’s quotation is the slogan this archive tracks from 1901 onward, said back by a man who lives on the land in question: They want land without people.
· The Recorder · Greenfield · page 1
Read any good books on ancient Palestine lately?
Edward C. Davenport, Drum Point
“Read any good books on ancient Palestine lately? ‘Read any good books on ancient Palestine?’ I asked an Associate Pastor of my acquaintance. The Associate Pastor chuckled. He clearly understood the joke. Some of the most widely used textbooks in American schools make reference to a millenniums-old nation called Palestine. To cite just a few examples: ‘Sometime during the years 8 to 4 B.C., a Jewish boy named Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a small town in ancient Palestine.’ (World Cultures and Geography: Eastern Hemisphere and Europe, teacher’s ed., McDougal Littell) ‘Many Jews resented Roman rule of Palestine’ (World Geography Today, Teacher’s ed., Austin Holt) Historically, ‘Palestine’ was the name of a region. It has never referred to a specific nation. The name ‘Palestine’ was given by the Roman ruler Hadrian to what was the Land of Israel and Judea because he loathed the Jews and therefore re-named Judea after the Philistines, an ancient enemy of the Jews. Judea and Samaria were a region that was inhabited by the Jewish people since the conquest of the Canaanites, some 3,000 years ago. Those identifying themselves as modern Palestinians sometimes make the spurious claim that they are descendants of the Canaanites, but the historic timeline disputes it. Over 70% of the member states of the United Nations have recognized Palestine as a ‘state,’ notwithstanding the fact that no one can clearly delineate what its supposed borders were, name its monetary unit or identify a single leader before Yasser Arafat. When former Senior KGB archivist Vasily Mitrokhin defected in 1992, he brought with him files chronicling the agency’s disinformation campaign aimed at destabilizing the Middle East. The files reflect that the Palestine Liberation Organization and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine were created with the KGB’s help to maintain conflict in the Middle East. The KGB originated the disgusting practice of drawing comparisons between Israel and the South African apartheid. It is a practice that continues to this day with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. When the PLO was founded in 1964, the Soviets created the myth of a displaced people seeking the return of ‘their’ ancestral homeland, and the calls for Israel’s destruction were replaced with appeals for ‘Liberation.’ It is a lie promulgated on college campuses throughout the country by the Muslim Students’ Association and BDS organizers. By replacing Judea and Samaria with Palestine, textbook content writers delegitimize Israel’s historical ties to Jerusalem, while giving undeserved weight to the benign claims of BDS and other Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups. PLO founder Ahmed Shukari admitted in 1956: ‘There is no such thing as a Palestinian people. There is no Palestinian entity.’ Arab-American journalist Joseph Farah offered the most candid assessment: ‘The truth is, Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land.’”
The argument that Palestinians do not exist, made in a letters column in 2019 and printed in full. The archive holds it because the claim is part of the record it is collecting.