Zeinab

:sl: Eid Mubarak all! Ameen to the duas. alhamdulilah this year most Muslims are celebrating together. :sl:

:sl: Ramadan Mubarak all! Ameen ot the duas :sl:

by (you are not allowed to post links yet)"you can't post links until you reach 50 posts_you are not allowed to post links yetjkcook(contact admin if its a beneficial link)/Articles2/0405.htm#Top"]Jonathan Cook[/url], NAZARETH // Thousands of road signs are the latest front in israel’s battle to erase Arab heritage from much of the Holy Land, according to critics in both israel and the wider Arab world. israel Katz, the transport minister, announced this week that signs on all major roads in israel, East Jerusalem and possibly parts of the West Bank would be “standardised”, converting English and Arabic place names into straight transliterations of the Hebrew name. Currently, road signs include the place name as it is traditionally rendered in all three languages. Under the new scheme, the Arab identity of important Palestinian communities will be obscured: Jerusalem, or “al Quds” in Arabic, will be Hebraised to “Yerushalayim”; Nazareth, or “al Nasra” in Arabic, the city of Jesus’s childhood, will become “Natzrat”; and Jaffa, the port city after which Palestine’s oranges were named, will be “Yafo”. Arab leaders are concerned that Mr Katz’s plan offers a foretaste of the demand by Benjamin Netanyahu, israel’s prime minister, that the Palestinians recognise israel as a Jewish state. On Wednesday, Mohammed Sabih, a senior official at the Arab League, called the initiative “racist and dangerous”. “This decision comes in the framework of a series of steps in israel aimed at implementing the ‘Jewish State’ slogan on the ground.” Palestinians in israel and Jerusalem, meanwhile, have responded with alarm to a policy they believe is designed to make them ever less visible. Ahmed Tibi, an Arab legislator in the israeli parliament, said: “Minister Katz is mistaken if he thinks that changing a few words can erase the existence of the Arab people or their connection to israel.” The transport ministry has made little effort to conceal the political motivation behind its policy of Hebraising road signs. In announcing the move on Monday, Mr Katz, a hawkish member of Likud, Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing party, said he objected to Palestinians using the names of communities that existed before israel’s establishment in 1948. “I will not allow that on our signs,” he said. “This government, and certainly this minister, will not allow anyone to turn Jewish Jerusalem into Palestinian al Quds.” Other israeli officials have played down the political significance of Mr Katz’s decision. A transport department spokesman, Yeshaayahu Ronen, said: “The lack of uniform spelling on signs has been a problem for those speaking foreign languages, citizens and tourists alike.” “That’s ridiculous,” responded Tareq Shehadeh, head of the Nazareth Cultural and Tourism Association. “Does the ministry really think it’s helping tourists by renaming Nazareth, one of the most famous places in the world, ‘Natzrat’, a Hebrew name only israeli Jews recognise?” Meron Benvenisti, a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, said israel had begun interfering with the Arabic on the signs for East Jerusalem as soon as it occupied the city in 1967. It invented a new word, “Urshalim”, that was supposed to be the Arabic form of the Hebrew word for Jerusalem, “Yerushalayim”. “I was among those who intervened at the time to get the word ‘al Quds’ placed on signs, too, after ‘Urshalim’ and separated by a hyphen. But over the years ‘al Quds’ was demoted to brackets and nowadays it’s not included on new signs at all.” He said Mr Katz’s scheme would push this process even further by requiring not only the Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew word for Jerusalem, but the replication of the Hebrew spelling as well. “It’s completely chauvinistic and an insult,” he said. Meir Margalit, a former Jerusalem councillor, said official policy was to make the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem as invisible as possible, including by ignoring their neighbourhoods on many signs. The transport ministry’s plans for the West Bank are less clear. In his announcement Mr Katz said Palestinian-controlled areas of the territory would still be free to use proper Arabic place names. But he hinted that signs in the 60 per cent of the West Bank under israeli military rule would be Hebraised, too. That could mean Palestinians driving across parts of the West Bank to the Palestinian city of Nablus, for example, will have to look for the Hebrew name “Shechem” spelt out in Arabic. Mr Benvenisti said that, after israel’s establishment in 1948, a naming committee was given the task of erasing thousands of Arab place names, including those of hills, valleys and springs, and creating Hebrew names. The country’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, told the committee: “We are obliged to remove the Arabic names for reasons of state.” In addition, the Arabic names of more than 400 Palestinian villages destroyed by israel during and after the 1948 war were lost as Jewish communities took their place. israel’s surviving Palestinian minority, today one-fifth of the population, have had to battle in the courts for the inclusion of Arabic on road signs, despite Arabic being an official language. Many signs on national highways were provided only in Hebrew and English until the courts in 1999 insisted Arabic be included. Three years later the courts ruled that Arabic must also be included on signs in cities where a significant number of Arabs live. However, as the political climate has shifted rightward in israel, there has been a backlash, including an unsuccessful bid by legislators to end Arabic’s status as an official language last year. Recently the israeli media revealed that nationalist groups have been spraying over Arabic names on road signs, especially in the Jerusalem area. israel has also antagonised Palestinians in both israel and the West Bank by naming roads after right-wing figures. The main highway in the Jordan Valley, which runs through Palestinian territory but is used by israelis to drive between northern israel and Jerusalem, is named “Gandhi’s Road” – not for the Indian spiritual leader but after the nickname of an israeli general, Rehavam Zeevi, who called for the expulsion of Palestinians from Greater israel.

:sl: La hawla wala quwata ila billah, I'm so sorry to hear about your husband sis Sara :sl: may Allah SWT keep all harm away from you and him, ameen. Of course no one sympathizes with this kind of guards! They belong in jail. My point was about sympathizing with real criminals versus bad guards and your husband alhamdulilah was innocent of any crime which puts him in another category because injustice happened to him.

Five years ago the international court of justice ruled that israel's separation wall should be demolished. But it is still growing by Ben White, (you are not allowed to post links yet)"you can't post links until you reach 50 posts_you are not allowed to post links yetguardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/09/israel-separation-wall-palestine"]guardian.co.uk[/url], Thursday 9 July 2009 Five years ago today, the international court of justice in The Hague published its advisory opinion on israel's separation wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The keenly awaited verdict, requested by the UN's general assembly, was clear: israel's wall is illegal, it must be removed and adequate compensation paid. The wall's illegality, and israel's obligation to dismantle the structure and pay damages for the consequences of the wall thus far, were all agreed by the judges by a margin of 14-1. (The ICJ also accepted the use of the term "wall", since "other expressions" are "no more accurate".) There was also confirmation that israel's settlements were "a flagrant violation" of the convention, established "in breach of international law" (contrast this with the mealy-mouthed nitpicking over outposts and "freezes" by Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu). Overall, the court found that the route of the wall threatened to create "de facto annexation", with the wall itself described as severely impeding "the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination". At the time, the ICJ decision was hailed by Palestinians and dismissed by the israeli government. As Yasser Arafat described it as a "victory for the Palestinian people", a spokesman for the then prime minister Ariel Sharon, Raanan Gissin, opined that "after all the rancour dies, this resolution will find its place in the garbage can of history". Both the US and UK had opposed the entire process, on the odd grounds that the UN's main judicial body for settling legal disputes was not "the appropriate forum to resolve what is a political issue". In the words of Jack Straw, it was better not to "embroil" the ICJ "in a heavily political bilateral dispute". This opposition was rare – later that same month, the general assembly voted by 150 to six in support of the ICJ opinion. The decision was also welcomed by the likes of Oxfam and Amnesty International, with Oxfam's director adding that the ruling was a "step in the right direction" but needed "further action" by the international community. But meaningful "further action" was not forthcoming, and israel pressed on with the wall. Five years on, the wall loops around the West Bank and cuts through East Jerusalem, isolating Palestinian communities and devastating lives, and has become an integral part of israel's apartheid regime in the territories. About two-thirds of the 700km+ route, featuring a 8m-high wall, electric fences, sniper towers and "buffer zones" up to 100m wide, is completed or under construction. Of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, 8.5% will be on the "wrong" side of the wall. In terms of size as well as significance, this would be comparable to the UK losing Greater London and south-east England. For israel to consolidate its hold on the illegal colonies in the OPT, many Palestinians find themselves hemmed in and surrounded by the wall's contortions (pdf). About 35,000 Palestinians with West Bank IDs are to be caught between the wall and the Green Line – if you add (pdf) the East Jerusalem Palestinians in the same position, this figure increases to about 260,000. These are the bare facts five years on from the ICJ opinion. israel has ignored the judges' decision, but that's not a surprise. However, has the Palestinian leadership sufficiently exploited the opinion? Speaking to Palestinians involved in monitoring the wall's progress, or in directly resisting it on the ground, there is a feeling that Palestinian diplomats have not done as much with the ICJ result as they could have. Palestinians in communities directly affected by the wall continue to put up resistance, sometimes at their cost of their lives: 18 Palestinians have been killed by israeli forces during anti-wall protests, the youngest victim a 10-year-old boy. While they fight for survival, the wall has also played a key role in changing the big picture, delineating the borders of the Palestinian enclaves israel will grant "statehood". In 1994, the then israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin said that "we have to decide on separation as a philosophy". However, this is not separation on equal terms – the following year Rabin also made it clear that the Palestinian "entity" would be "less than a state". There is a term for unequal separation in international law – apartheid (I will talk about this tonight). The wall urgently needs dismantling; but it is only one part of a bigger whole. Ever watched the movie mean machine (the English version there are other American versions)? If you watch it you find yourself identifying with the prisoners and rooting for them to win instead of the guards. I find it interesting that people will like criminals who are imprisoned of very horrible crimes sometimes verses the guards of the prison. I think the reason for that is that the prisoners in this case are seen as victims because of the off handed ways of the warden and the guards whose actions are criminal also but they are in a position of authority. Most people stand with justice and abhor the abuse of law or violation of it so anyone in a state of victimhood or even seen in that position are empathize with even if they are criminals themselves. The idea of victimhood from this movie lends it to the world political scene. How do you explain then that with all the horrid actions of the israelis the ranging from genocide and ethnic cleansing to petty harassment of Palestinians are defended by many people other than israelis because they view them as victims? For example, people excuse many things done in Gaza because it is Hamas’s fault for launching rockets or the people who voted for them or the large murder of Pakistani and Afghanis because according to the coalition they are harboring Taliban and their soldiers are under attack signaling victimhood. Another form of exploitation of victimhood is when you apply it to someone else to justify a military or political action. We recently saw the sympathizers with the protests in Iran because the protesters were seen as victims and even all of the Iranian people. Though no one can justify the generalization and I find it funny is when the Iranians protests and hold “down with America” signs for example they are terrorists yet because political interests calls for putting a victim label on them. This label is used for further political policies and is accompanied with the demonization of the ones against those supposed victims. The same issue happened with Iraq, Saddam was used as a pretext for political interest by victimizing the world first for the WMDs then the Iraqis themselves. The policy of victimhood is best utilized by the israelis and I don’t think anyone surpasses them in that department and they justify anything in light. This policy is not only horrid because of the actions that stem from it but rather it erases the real victims around the world from the sick and hungry who are now a billion around the world to the victims of war they don’t have anything to do with and those are in the millions. When you form an opinion about any world event know the far reaches of the issue for there are so many lies running around it is easy to be deceived into them.

Ever watched the movie (you are not allowed to post links yet)"you can't post links until you reach 50 posts_you are not allowed to post links yetimdb(contact admin if its a beneficial link)/title/tt0291341/"]mean machine [/url](this is the English version there are other American versions)? If you watch it you'll find yourself identifying with the prisoners and wanting them to win instead of the guards. I find it interesting that people will like the criminals who are imprisoned for very ugly crimes istead of the guards of the prison. I think the reason for that is that the prisoners in this case are seen as victims because of the off handed ways of the warden and the guards whose actions are criminal also but they are in a position of authority. Most people stand with justice and abhor the abuse of the law or violation of it so anyone in a state of victimhood or even seen in that position is empathized with even if he/she is a criminal. The idea of victimhood from this movie lends itself to the world's political scene. How do you explain then that with all the horrid actions of the israelis ranging from genocide and ethnic cleansing to petty harassment of Palestinians are defended by many people other than israelis because they view them as victims? For example, people excuse many things done in Gaza because it is Hamas’s fault for launching rockets or the people who voted for them. Another example is the large murder of Pakistani and Afghanis is justified because according to the coalition they are harboring Taliban and their soldiers are under attack. Another form of exploitation of victimhood is when you apply it to someone else to justify a military or political action. We recently saw the sympathizers with the protests in Iran because the protesters were seen as victims and even all of the Iranian people. Though no one can justify the generalization and I find it funny when the Iranians protests and hold “down with America” signs for example they are terrorists yet political interests call for putting a victim label on them now. This label is used to further political policies and is accompanied with the demonization of the ones against those supposed victims. The same issue happened in Iraq, Saddam was used as a pretext for the invasion by victimizing the world first fearing the WMDs then the Iraqis themselves. The policy of victimhood is best utilized by the israelis and I don’t think anyone surpasses them in that department and they justify anything in that light. This policy is not only horrid because of the actions that stem from it but rather it erases the real victims around the world from the sick and hungry who are now a billion to the victims of war who don’t have anything to do with it and are in the millions. When you form an opinion about any world event know the far reaches of the issue for there are so many lies running around it is easy to be deceived by them.

:sl: There is no problem bro just this section of the forum was made for a specific reason and some topics may exist in another parts of the forum.

:sl: Alhamdulilah kilna bikhier :sl: Allah ye'teek w 'ayltak ilsiha wel 'afyeh. Ameen to all the duas!

:sl: :sl: 'anjad?! La hawla wala quwata ila billah.

:sl: Are the ones after 10 not so obivious like the rest? If so I found 12.

:sl: Keefak akhi? Insha'Allah khier? Ya Allah, shu natreen ilmuslmeen, shu?!

By Joharah Baker March 02, 2009 There are some people whose faces betray the difficulties they have encountered throughout their lives. Salah Shweiki is one of them. Sitting under the large tent set up in Silwan's Bustan Quarter, seeking warmth from the wood burning in an old wheelbarrow, Shweiki emanates the aura of an elderly sage. In his 56 years of life, he has seen a lot, maybe too much, but today, he is focused, his face determined and his will iron solid. Salah Shweiki is one of approximately 1,500 people who are being threatened with expulsion from their homes by the israeli Jerusalem municipality. According to the eviction order distributed among the residents of the Bustan neighborhood, the demolitions are being carried out under the pretext of lack of proper licensing. Once the homes are torn down, israel plans to construct a national park in its place, a park, its archeological experts say, is part of the ancient City of David. Shweiki disregards any and all of these claims, saying the eviction order falls under a larger scheme for Jerusalem, which is to expel as many Palestinians from the city as possible. Looking at israel's recent activity in Jerusalem, I would say Shweiki hit the nail right on the head. Silwan has been plagued with israeli demolition orders for years, many of this latest group having been handed orders back in 2005. The residents of Silwan say the claim that their homes are built without the proper israeli licensing is preposterous since most of them were built even before israel captured the city in 1967. Shweiki, for example, says he has deeds to his house and land that date back to the British Mandate, which in turn prove that the house was built even before that. "Besides," he says, "This is Waqf land," he said, in reference to the Islamic Endowment that handles the administrative affairs of Jerusalem's Muslim areas. "Wafq lands can neither be bought nor sold," he adds, thus discrediting any claims that Palestinians sold their lands to settlers who have taken up residence in the heart of Silwan. If these demolition orders are put into effect, israel claims it would relocate the residents in other areas of east Jerusalem, mainly in the suburbs of Beit Hanina and Shufat. The people of Silwan's Bustan neighborhood are not having any of it, though, saying they will fight the israeli order tooth and nail. "Before they take our land, they will take our lives," Shweiki says defiantly. He is not the only one who feels this way. Sitting with him in the tent are at least ten other men all huddled around the fire drinking coffee and tea. One man, Abed Shaloudi, says the residents have set up the Public Committee for the Defense of Silwan's Bustan Quarter in order to attract as much media and international attention possible to their plight. Shaloudi himself is no stranger to hardship. He served 10 years in an israeli prison back in the nineties during which Jewish settlers made a claim on his home. He is still in his house but admits he does not know when the day will come when settlers will force him out with a court order. Shaloudi's youth is reflected in his passionate convictions. He says representatives from various media outlets have visited them, emissaries from the Egyptian embassy and European groups have all come to their tent. He has a guest book he asks all to sign as evidence of those who came in solidarity. His hopes are high that their activities will make a difference. "We are planning a march from Sheikh Jarrah to Al Bustan", he says, referring to another east Jerusalem neighborhood under constant attack and confiscation by israeli settlers. "We also hope to form a human chain of children around Silwan." These are all commendable efforts and could certainly bring attention to the injustice being meted out in Silwan. The question is, will it be enough to halt the demolitions? If history is to be our indicator, this possibility is pretty slim. Take Sheikh Jarrah for example. For years settlers have taken over houses in this neighborhood claiming to have ownership deeds that date back before 1948. While israel insists that the Palestinian families whose homes are being taken over have legal recourse in the israeli court system, this is hardly a comfort. The best they can hope for is a stay of the demolition or eviction order for a few months, at best years, but never a reversal. The latest settler takeover was the home of Um Kamel, who slept in a tent with her elderly husband (who later died after their eviction) while settlers moved into their house. In Silwan, Jabal Al Mukabber and the Old City, the stories only differ in the details. Claims of original ownership by Jews almost always trumps years of ownership and family inheritance by Palestinians. The problem with this logic is manifold, first and foremost the fact that it is one-sided. As recent as 1948, Palestinians owned and lived in homes in what is now west Jerusalem, passed down to them by their parents and grandparents. The fact that they hold original and authentic documentation to these homes just across the city's seam line is completely irrelevant to israel, which disregards any Palestinian claim to what is now israel. If only it would stop at that. israel has systematically refused to accept even the principle of the right of return on the basis that any major influx of Palestinian refugees into israel would alter the Jewish character of the state. Its aspirations, unfortunately, go even further than israel proper. In the West Bank and east Jerusalem, israel has built tens of Jewish settlements in the heart of occupied Palestinian land and has filled them with half a million Jewish settlers. In Jerusalem, the thorniest of all final status issues, israel continues to impinge on Palestinian land and residency rights in a bid to vacate the city of as many of its Palestinian-Arab residents as possible. So, it is hard not to agree with Salah Shweiki. When he says the battle is not about Silwan but about Jerusalem, he is right. When he says the issue is not even the buildings, but the land, I can only shake my head in agreement. In Jerusalem, israel does not hide its intentions. To make it the Jews' eternal capital, it will have to rid the city of those who dare to defy that assertion. Sadly, as anyone can see, it is doing just that, one house at a time. Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Program at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). (you are not allowed to post links yet)"you can't post links until you reach 50 posts_you are not allowed to post links yeturuknet.info/?p=m52280&hd=&size=1&l=e"]Source[/url]

:sl: I've been meaning to watch the rest of them just saw the introduction. :sl: bro dot

Dr. Haidar Eid, The Electronic Intifada, 11 February 2009 The ongoing bloodletting in the Gaza Strip and the ability of the Palestinian people to creatively resist the might of the world’s fourth strongest army is being hotly debated by Palestinian political forces. The latest genocidal war which lasted 22 days, and in which apartheid israel used F-16s, Apache helicopters, Merkava tanks and conventional and non-conventional weapons against the population, have raised many serious questions about the concept of resistance and whether the outcome of the war can, or cannot, be considered a victory for the Palestinian people. The same kind of questions were raised in 2006 when apartheid israel launched its war against the Lebanese people and brutally killed more than 1,200 Lebanese. At the beginning of the Gaza war, we were told by certain sectors of the Palestinian political leadership that “the two sides are to blame: Hamas and israel” and that “Hamas must stop the launching of the rockets from Gaza.” Resistance in all its forms, violent and otherwise, was considered, by these same people, “futile.” Now that there are fewer bombs raining down on Gaza, the conflict focuses on whether the outcome of the war was one of victory or defeat. For the israeli ruling class the answer is clear — in spite of the fact that none of the objectives announced at the beginning of the war have been achieved. It is clear because they, like the defeatist Palestinian camp, simply use the numbers of martyrs, disabled and homeless to determine victory and defeat. This approach fails to acknowledge that none of the so-called “objectives” of the war have been achieved: Hamas is still in power; rockets are still being launched; no pro-Oslo forces have been reinstated in the Gaza Strip. The question now being raised by some Palestinian intellectuals and political forces, after the (un)expected brutality of the israeli occupation forces, is “was it worth it?” The “it” here remains ambiguous depending on the reaction of the listener/reader. What is of interest here is the radical change that some national forces, especially the left and their intellectuals, have gone through in their mechanical, as opposed to dialectical, interpretation of history and their role, thereafter, in its making. The war on Gaza has emerged as a political tsunami that has not only put an end to the fiction of the two-state solution and brought liberation rather than independence back to the agenda, but it has also created a new Palestinian political map given the intellectual debate vis-a-vis the outcome of the war. This new classification of the Palestinian intelligentsia and ruling classes has led to many ex-leftists joining the right-wing anthem of Oslo and its culture of defeatism. Not unlike the Oslo intelligentsia, the new pragmatic left is characterized by demagogy, opportunism and short-sightedness. The conduct of these NGOized intellectuals (those emerging from western-funded “nongovernmental organizations” — NGOs) does not show any commitment to their national and historical responsibility. Michel Foucault’s famous formulation, “where there is power, there is resistance,” helps us to theorize the political and, hence, the cultural resistance, represented in some of the (post)war discourse. Within the context of resistance, it is worth quoting Frantz Fanon’s definitions of the role of the “native intellectual” during the “fighting phase”: “[T]he native, after having tried to lose himself in the people and with the people, will … shake the people … [H]e turns himself into an awakener of the people; hence comes a fighting literature, and a national literature.” On the other hand, there are intellectuals who, according to Fanon’s theorization, “give proof that [they] [have] assimilated the culture of the occupying power. [Their] writings correspond point by point with those of [their] opposite numbers in the mother country. [Their] inspiration is European [i.e. Western] …” Hence the adoption of the israeli narrative by some intellectual sections, including NGOized leftists, whereby israel was exonerated of its crimes: “we are to blame for what happened;” “we were not consulted when Hamas started the war!” and “the people are paying the price, not the resistance movement;” “Hamas should have renewed the truce;” “we cannot afford to lose so many lives; Hamas should have understood this;” “there was no resistance at all on the streets of Gaza; resistance men ran away as soon as they saw the first tank.” By the same token, one would also condemn the Algerian, South African, French, Vietnamese, Lebanese and Egyptian resistance to occupation. The same logic was used by the Bantustan chiefs of South Africa against the anti-apartheid movement, by the Vichy government of France, the South Vietnamese government, the reactionary Egyptian Forces against the progressive regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1956, and even by the Siniora-Jumblatt-Geagea-Hariri March 14 coalition in Lebanon in 2006. Obviously, these intellectuals’ assimilation of the Western mentality, through a process of NGOization, and hence Osloization, makes them look down upon the culture of resistance as useless, futile and hopeless. Resistance, broadly speaking, is not only the ability to fight back against a militarily more powerful enemy, but also an ability to creatively resist the occupation of one’s land. The Oslo defeatists and the neo-left camp fail to use people power creatively or even to see that it exists. They are defeated because they want to fight the battle on israel’s terms — through the adoption of an israel-Hamas dichotomy, rather than apartheid israel vs. the Palestinian people — instead of looking at their strengths: that they are the natives of the land, they have international law supporting their claims, they have the moral high ground, the support of international civil society, etc. One good lesson from the South African struggle is the way it tried to define resistance and its adoption of what it referred to as “the four pillars of the struggle” to achieve victory over the apartheid regime: armed struggle, internal mass mobilization, international solidarity, and the political underground. Alas, none of these pillars seem to fit within the paradigm of the Palestinian neo-left. The principled critical legacy of the likes of Ghassan Kanafani, Edward Said and Frantz Fanon is no longer the guiding torch of the NGOized left — the secular democratic left which is supposed to be, as Said would argue, “someone who cannot easily be co-opted by governments or corporations [or donors], and whose raison d’etre is to represent all those people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug.” A fascinating, and timely, remark by Hungarian philosopher George Lukacs points the way that the NGOized left should be talking right now: “When the intellectual’s society reaches a historical crossroads in its fight for a clear definition of its identity, the intellectual should be involved in the whole sociopolitical process and leave his ivory tower.” Decolonizing cultural resistance insists on the right to view Palestinian history as a holistic entity, both coherent and integral. It also reflects a national and historical consciousness that Palestinians are able to be agents of change in their present and future regardless of the agendas of western donors, the Quartet and other official “international” bodies. Yet we see that the neo-democrats of Palestine are unable to acknowledge Palestinian agency because they refuse to respect the will of the people as expressed through the ballot box. This position is meant to synergize with that of their donors and international bodies who have worked hard over the last two years to delegitimize Palestinian agency. This lack of political consciousness and the search for individual solutions — the major characteristics of defeatist ideology — contradict the collective national reality of the colonized Palestinians. Political consciousness must begin with a rejection of the conditions imposed by the israeli occupation and the Quartet (Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union) on the majority of Palestinians and even more crucially, a rejection of the crumbs that are offered as a reward for good behavior to a select minority of Palestinians. Indeed, class consciousness is dialectically related to the struggle for national liberation. It is the interests of some NGOized groups, ex-leftists, and neo-liberals, whose defeatist perspective on the outcome of Gaza 2009 is being disseminated with the help of some unpopular media outlets, which is at stake here — not the interests of the Palestinian people who have gained even more legitimacy through their steadfast resistance to the israeli bombardment. Osloized and NGOized classes argue that the only solution to the israeli-Palestine conflict is the establishment of two states which basically means the creation of an independent Palestine on 22 percent of Mandate Palestine. They maintain that the only way to reach independence is through negotiations, though more than ten years of negotiations have not moved the israeli position at all. The establishment of a Palestinian state is not mentioned in any of the clauses of the Oslo agreement, thus leaving the matter to be determined by the balance of power in the region. This balance tilts in favor of israel, which rejects the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, in spite of its recognition of the Palestinian people and its national movement the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). No israeli party, neither Labor, Likud nor Kadima is ready to accept a Palestinian state as the expression of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. The impasse negotiations have reached has proven the oppositional camp correct. Hence the “shocking” results of the 2006 elections, in which Hamas won the majority of the seats of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Both liberals and leftists were “surprised” and even felt “betrayed!” Accusations of the “immaturity” and even “backwardness” of the Palestinian people have been thrown around since then. Nothing was mentioned about the failure of “the peace process;” nor the end of the two-state solution, and thereafter, the necessity and need for a new national program that can mobilize the masses; a program that is necessarily democratic in its nature; one that respects resistance in its different forms and, ultimately, guarantees peace with justice. It is this lack of a political vision and a clear-cut ideological program that allows for the contortions of the Osloized classes. It is this lack that makes it prepared to recognize a “Jewish state” alongside a Palestinian state, including the legitimization of discriminatory practices applied by israel against its non-Jewish, i.e. mainly Palestinian citizens and residents since 1948, and the end of the right of return of more than six million of refugees. What we are constantly told, is either accept israeli occupation in its ugliest form — i.e. the ongoing presence of the apartheid wall, colonies, checkpoints, zigzag roads, color-coded number plates, house demolitions and security coordination supervised by a retired American general — or have a hermetic medieval siege imposed on us, but still die with dignity. The first option seems to be the favorite of some NGOized “activists.” The new, much-needed program, however, must make the necessary link between all Palestinian struggles: the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, israel’s ethnically-based discrimination and rights violations of more than one million Palestinian citizens, and the 1948 externally displaced refugees. Gaza 2009 was not a defeat but a victory, because in Gaza the israelis shot the two-state solution in the head; it is a victory achieved with the blood of those children, men and women who sacrificed their lives so that we could live and continue to resist, not surrender. Those Palestinians that are mourning the demise of the two-prison solution are out of step with new facts on the ground: there can be no going back to fake solutions and negotiations; it is time for a final push to real freedom and statehood. They can join other Palestinians, and internationals, in their demand for a secular, democratic state in Mandate Palestine with equality for all or they can walk into the dustbin of history. Haidar Eid is an independent political commentator and activist residing in Gaza. (you are not allowed to post links yet)"you can't post links until you reach 50 posts_electronicintifada(contact admin if its a beneficial link)/v2/article10298.shtml"]Source[/url]