Palestine: the things you don’t hear about

[P F Tinmore]

First-ever Palestinian Flag Raising Event in Chicago​

 

[rylah]

Israel-haters have been bashing Israel for the latest, supposed act of evil: ​

banning the import of donkeys into Gaza.​

In an Arab News report titled Israeli ban on donkey import stops the wheel of Gaza cart economy, you need to read down to the fifth paragraph before you get an idea as to why Israel imposed the ban.

Cattle carts arriving at the vegetable market in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza and vendors and shoppers flocking to them have been a regular feature for years in the strip besieged by Israel.

But this might become a thing of the past as Israel has been preventing donkeys from entering the Gaza Strip since December last year, according to donkey dealers in Gaza.

Hani Al-Nadi, 40, a donkey dealer, said that Israel prevented him and other traders from importing the animals into Gaza.

“In December, I was informed by the Israeli authorities at the Erez Crossing that I am not allowed to obtain an import permit for donkeys,” Al-Nadi told Arab News.

He said an Israeli nongovernmental organization claimed that donkeys are tortured in Gaza and that after they are imported from Israel, they are slaughtered and their skins are sold to China via Egypt.

Ofer Stritch, from Starting Over, a nonprofit Israeli animal sanctuary, said: “We learned from multiple sources in Gaza that many donkeys arriving in the strip via Israel are sent to Egypt where they are slaughtered and their skins sold to China.

“We realized that there is a sudden increase in the number of donkeys that are transported from Israel to Egypt via Gaza.”

Al-Nadi rejected the allegations and said: “We cannot export anything through Egypt, and donkeys are not slaughtered in Gaza. I do not know the reason for this claim.”

According to Al-Nadi, Israel is the only source for importing donkeys, which are used for cheap transportation in light of the high fuel prices, into the Gaza Strip.

Despite the donkey dealer’s denials, I think it is clear this is precisely the reason for the ban. Logically, it makes no sense for an animal rights organization to just invent such an allegation.

Overseas animal rights organizations are also involved. And it is not like the idea of Gazans abusing animals is so outlandish. Donkeys, in particular, have had a rather hard time.

Yet the haters are spinning compassion for animals as just a 'way to crush Gazans'.
Because to them, Jews can do no right and Pal-Arabs can do no wrong.

One moment, please...

P.S.: "Cart economy"...

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

First-ever Palestinian Flag Raising Event in Chicago​

Standards are really slipping around here.

 

[rylah]

A statement by the Arab mayor of Hebron has led to residents killing stray dogs by the dozen, hoping for a cash reward.​

A number of videos circulating on social media claim to show Palestinian Authority Arabs living in Hebron hunting dogs, hanging them, and shooting them to death.

The driving force behind this trend is a statement by Hebron mayor Tayssir Abu Sneinah that, "Anyone who kills a dog or hands us a stray or dead dog, we are ready to compensate him with 20 shekels." It should be noted that Abu Sneinah is a convicted terrorist appointed to the position by the Palestinian Authority.




Considerable criticism was directed at Abu Sneinah, and he retracted his statement and claimed that his words had been misunderstood. Abu Sneinah claims he did not call for the killing of dogs, and that his statement was meant to be an idea for dealing with the stray dogs that have become a nuisance to his city's residents. Kan reports that the mayor claimed "it was meant as a humorous statement," and that he meant it as an idea to be brought for a discussion in the city council.

 

[P F Tinmore]

 

[P F Tinmore]

Photographing the Nakba - Roger Hardy​

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Photographing the Nakba - Roger Hardy​

Whining losers.....on film.

 

[P F Tinmore]

 

[P F Tinmore]

YA Arab American novels: Bringing Palestine into our fictional world

The recent proliferation of novels focused on Arab American youths artfully inject our cultural and political experiences into the broader American landscape

www.middleeasteye.net

Murad skilfully weaves the narrative between Ida’s fantasy and the all-too-real events of life under Israeli occupation (Interlink Publishing)

A new young adult novel, Ida in the Middle, by Nora Lester Murad, explores the deeply unsettling feeling that members of these communities' experience, as they are told in both subtle and overt ways that they do not belong in the United States, even when it is the only country they have ever known.

In this debut novel for Murad, Ida, a bashful Palestinian American teenager, is dreading the final class project: discussing her “passion” with the rest of the class.

 

[P F Tinmore]

17 new books by Palestinian writers that are worth reading

From scholarly works to fiction, poetry, and cookbooks, this non-exhaustive list of new and forthcoming titles showcases the breadth of contemporary Palestinian writing

www.middleeasteye.net

Over the past century, Palestinian literature has flourished in various genres and languages, persisting against censorship, blockade, occupation, and exile.


Palestine has produced writers of world-shaping significance, like poet Mahmoud Darwish and scholar Edward Said, as well as important literary initiatives, like the children’s publishing house Dar El Fata Al Arabi. Palestinian authors have pioneered new styles not only in Arabic, but also in English, French, Maltese, Dutch, and more.

But over the last 73 years, since the Nakba of 1948, Palestinian authors, bookshops, theatres, and cultural spaces have increasingly been targets of Israeli censorship and violence.

Gaza’s largest bookstore destroyed by Israeli airstrike​

 

[P F Tinmore]

 

[P F Tinmore]

Glory to God in the Lowest: Journeys to An Unholy Land - Book Review

Wagner’s memoir is a powerfully written work. It should be a bestseller, it should be on everyone’s shelf who has any interest in the Middle East.

www.palestinechronicle.com

Glory to God in the Lowest: Journeys to An Unholy Land by Donald E. Wagner. (Photo: Book cover)

Wagner identified two main types of Zionism. The first, and original, is the fundamentalist evangelical Zionism promoting the ‘end times’ of humanity in which all the Jews are to gather in Israel and either convert or die. The second form of Zionism is the European/western version that uses the holocaust as the reason for the establishment of a Jewish state on someone else’s land. This is Herzl’s version of Zionism which Wagner describes in one sentence “Zionism’s goal was to take the land and remove the Palestinians: a clear case of genocide.”

Further to the ideas of liberation theology is the idea of colonial-settler colonialism as “a system of power that perpetuates genocide and repression of indigenous peoples and cultures.” This was, and is, aided by the Papal “Doctrine of Discovery” which essentially said to European empires to go and grab as much of the world’s land as you can for they are only inhabited by savages and lesser beings. In Palestine, this idea of terra nullius, of empty land to be settled and exploited by Europeans, became a part of the founding mythology within the Israeli narrative.

 

[P F Tinmore]

Palestinian Olive Oil​

 

[P F Tinmore]

promo of The Islamic University of Gaza​

 

[P F Tinmore]

 

[P F Tinmore]

 

[P F Tinmore]

First Look at The Gaza Kitchen, Third Edition with co-author Laila El-Haddad​

 

[P F Tinmore]

Nathalie Handal & Hanna Khoury - Millennium Stage (March 12, 2015)​

 

[Billo_Really]

Palestinian Women: Runners, Mothers and Breadwinners

...In Summer 2014, Shawqia took a loan from FATEN in order to develop the agriculturally rich land around her home. With the care and tenderness of a mother, she took me for a tour of her hip-height bean plants, a nursery of herbs peeking through the ground, baby fig and olive trees. Over a cup of the most amazing tea I’ve ever tasted (which I am told, is a due to the well-water stored under the home), she told me how she grows almost everything that her family eats and sells any extra, essentially eliminating the need to go to the mini market.

As she lovingly stroked her budding olive tree, she told me how her two sons (who married two sisters!), helped her to plant the fields. Now that everything is in bloom, she is very content spending her days tending her land alone. Hands don’t lie: This is a woman who is no stranger to hard work.

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KIVA is an NGO microloan program that is quite successful. They loan to women primarily because women are more likely to invest it into enterprises to help their families.

What a beautiful story!

 

[P F Tinmore]

Chef Joudie Kalla on preserving Palestinian cuisine, activism, and 'shadow banning'​