A hilarious (and sad) video by dictator-funnyfan Qaddafi, in which he deconstructs the word “democracy”, alleging it is of Arabic origin and consists of two words: ديمو الكراسي “demo” (keep/retain forever) “karasy” (seats”)…in others words, he argues, democracy means that leaders should stay in power indefinitely. Watch how the anchor can’t help but laugh at the response.
“Demo-Karasy” ” ديمو الكراسي “: Qadafi breaks it down
The people have spoken, the people were heard
02/12/2011
Yesterday, I reconnected with a former high school teacher of mine. Her name was Mary Doherty. Ms. Doherty was a mentor to me and instrumental in guiding me to where I am today. It took me years to locate her- and yesterday, finally, through the miracle of the Social Network, I did.
Now, this would not be a significant or blog-worthy event except that this story came full-circle yesterday. Our virtual re-union coincided with the remarkable events that unfolded in Egypt. And many years ago, 16 to be exact, Ms. Doherty single-handedly helped me stand up to the Mubarak Regime. I’m not saying this to be grandiose. I’m saying it because its true. I have always remembered this incident, which forever changed how I found myself dealing with situations of incomprehensible repression and overwhelming odds. Namely, the lesson I learned was to never allow the situation to own me, but to own the situation.
What happened was as follows: I was part of our highschool Model United Nations club in Bahrain. We were invited to participate in another school’s conference in Cairo (the Cairo American College). And so the necessary preparations were made, tickets were booked, and visas were issued. Except mine. It was 1995, and Cairo, still seething from Arafat’s poorly played decision to ally himself with Saddam Hussein, was as punishment still banning Palestinians from entering Egypt. Though I was not an American citizen, the American ambassador intervened on my behalf, our school being affiliated with the Department of Defense, and one of our club’s advisers being a formal naval officer. But the answer was always the same: impossible. There are orders-high ones-and nothing can change them, we were told. But Ms. Doherty, my economics teacher and head of the club, wouldn’t have it. It came down to 2 am the morning before our group’s scheduled departure.
After obtaining approval from the school-and my mother (who was well-aware of the consequences of her decision, but wanted me to try anyway), Ms. Doherty decided to take me with the class to Cairo-without a Visa. She stayed up to 4 o’clock in the morning finding a chaperon from the school that would agree to go with me in case I got stranded in Cairo Airport. And eventually she did. We left at 8 am and by some miracle, Bahraini airport officials did not notice I lacked an Egyptian visa. Eventually we made it to Cairo Airport. All of the students passed through unhindered, and then came my turn. We waited anxiously, as the customs officials flipped through my passport time and again, in search of the missing visa.
“You’ll have to come with us” came the stern response, after the official finally noticed the “Gaza” stamp in my passport. Ms. Doherty, a small, strong, woman in her 60s at least, and very close to retirement, would not take no for an answer, even when I thought we should throw the towel in. She stood-not sat-by my side in the face of the amn il dawla officials-the dreaded state security- to which my case was eventually referred for 14 hours straight, shift after shift, “no” after “no”, “go back” after “go back”. “Ms. Doherty, please, sit down and rest” I pleaded with her. “I will not. I will stay standing untl they recognize we are not going anywhere. You will get through” she stated as though it was an inevitable.
Eventually she had to continue on through with the students, and the chaperon remained with me. But she left with clear instructions to stand my ground until I got through. “But how? how can I stand up to such a system?” I asked, just 16 years old. “You have to show them you really want it, and that you won’t back down”.
The next day, bleary eyed and exhausted, I was brought into the security office for the 4rth or 5th time that night, and the question this time was completely unexpected: “You’re not backing down are you?” asked the official. “No sir, I’m not” I replied bluntly. “Well young girl you really do us proud” came the reply, in a rare moment of sincerity. He left his office without further comment and suddenly I was ushered through customs without even a stamp in my passport. I was stunned, and would be for days and years to come.
The story does not always end this way. Years later, in 2008, as many of my readers know, when facing a similar dilemma with my two young children, we were not allowed through and eventually deported back to the United States, without valid visas. And decades before this, my grandmother was held for hours as they screened her, in the same waiting hall. And after her, my mother, newly pregnant with my brother. “Why?? Why are you not letting us through? What is our crime except that we were born Palestinian” they told the officials.
I never thought anything of my own trial, as a young 16 year old-at least I didn’t think of it as more than a turning point in my own personal growth. Until yesterday. When in the day of triumph, the Egyptian people, banded together, and together, they overcame the repressive will of the regime, and overcame the fear and repression that regime had planted in their minds. And there was no turning back. They owned the situation-the situation no longer owned them. A situation that, as it affected 4 generations of my family-from my grandmother down to my children- has repressed them, mentally and physically. Now, it has come to an end. The people have spoken-the people have acted, and the people were heard.
- Tags: Egypt; Jan25;
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Heading west…
02/09/2011
I’m about to head off to the west coast to begin my book tour there…here is a press release with links to the schedule and so on. I hope to discussing the role the Mubarak regime has played in maintaining and enforcing the blockade, among other things. So please stop by if you are in any of these locations-I would love to see you!
Egypt: the funniest tweets
01/29/2011
Protests continue unabated throughout Egypt demanding the end of the Mubarak Regime’s role, less than 24 hours after Mubarak asked everyone in his government except for himself to resign. Omar Suleiman was appointed Vice President today, Ahmed Shafik Prime Minister, to the continuing protests of the people. Meanwhile, Abbas and other jittery Arab leaders called to express their support for Mubarak, and the Israelis and Americans have expressed their concern for stability in the region (screw freedom). An unidentified Israeli minister quoted in Time Magazine put it best: “”I’m not sure the time is right for the Arab region to go through the democratic process.”
I’ve been following Twitter for the past couple of days, and compiled some of the funniest tweets on the situation.
@Avinunu It’s nearly midnight in the Arab world: do you know where your dictators are? #Jan25 #Egypt #SidiBouzid #Who’sNext
The Arab masses are demanding their leaders hold an emergency Arab League summit in Jeddah and never come home.
مهو يا هرب يا مات … ليكون مات !؟ #jan25 #egypt #whereTheHellisMubarak
RT @anasqtiesh Biden: “Mubarak is not a dictator.” Sure, and *denial* is not just a river in #Egypt. #Jan25”
Hosni Mubarak Reaches Out To Twitter Followers For Ideas On How To Keep Regime Intact #Egypt #jan25
@NaomiAKlein I think Benjamin Netanyahu might be sweating even more than Mubarak right now. Who will help quarantine Gaza after this?
Tzipi Livni:I’m a lawyer who is against Law. Mubarak:I stand with freedom,but not when it threatens the system! LMAO WTF!
عزيزي حسني مبارك: أي جزء من جملة ” الشعب يريد اسقاط النظام” مش مفهوم الك؟؟ كلمة “شعب” شي؟؟ #Egypt #Jan25 #Mubarak
@Omar_Gaza Mubarak:The Great Egyptian people were not demonstrating against me, but against the ministers. Egyptians love me! so I’ll stay! WTF!!!!!
@GregKhalil Mubarak to Egypt: I’m not a witch, I’m you.
@YSalahi America has spoken: Egyptians have a fundamental human right to use Twitter and Mubarak has a fundamental human right to be President #egypt
So not the issue. RT @Falasteeni John Kerry on @AJEnglish re: Egypt: I want the Arab world to speak out on Taliban excesses in Pakistan
Settlers murder 2 youths in West Bank as Egypt is aflame
01/28/2011
lots going on…will comment on Egypt soon; follow me on Twitter for quicker updates. But news from Gaza is Israel is bombing the city tonight…a diversion perhaps, at Mubarak’s request?
But amidst this all- word of Jewish paramilitary colonists murdering two Palestinian youth in as many days- in Nablus and Hebron respectively. A press release follows:
For Immediate Release:
Friday, January 28th 2011, 9am: Around 100 settlers from Bat Ayn settlement descended upon the Palestinian villages of Saffa and nearby Beit Ommar in the southern West Bank, shooting 17-year-old Yousef Fakhri Ikhlayl in his head, leaving him critically injured. Doctors have announced that Yousef is currently brain-dead in a Hebron hospital.
Settlers also shot 16-year-old Bilal Mohammad Abed Al-Qador with live ammunition in his arm.
The large group of armed settlers began shooting towards Palestinian homes in Saffa at around 9am, leaving Bilal injured. At the same time, a second group of settlers attacked an area of Beit Ommar called Jodor. Yousef was shot in the head in this area while he was standing in grapes vines he had planted on his family’s land.
Dozens of Palestinians from Beit Ommar and the nearby village of Surif began coming to the area to defend their communities. Seven jeeps of Israeli Forces also arrived in the area and escorted the settlers back to Bat Ayn.
This is the second settler attack with live ammunition on Palestinians in as many days. On January 27th, Uday Maher Qadous was shot and killed in Iraq Burin, in the Nablus district, by armed settlers as he was working his land.
Yousef Fahkri Ikhlayl is from the village of Beit Ommar and has worked on initiatives with the Palestine Solidarity Project, an ant-occupation organization in Beit Ommar. In the summer of 2010, Yousef attended the Center for Freedom and Justice’s Freedom Flotilla Summer Camp where he engaged in educational projects, community service, and unarmed demonstrations against the Israeli occupation. In the fall of 2010 Yousef was a participant in a youth photography class also sponsored by the center.
“Yousef was a kid who hoped for a better future for Palestine. His life was ended prematurely by right-wing extremists. People around the world should be outraged by his shooting, and should work to bring his attackers to justice. “
-Bekah Wolf, American citizen who worked with Yousef in the Center for Freedom and Justice
Settlers from Bat Ayn routinely attack and harass Palestinians in the Beit Ommar area. In January 27th, 2011 settlers in the area destroyed several hundred olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers.
Photos available upon request.
For more information please contact:
Ahmed Oudeh: 972 0598 519 887 (English and Arabic)
The Palestine Papers: the view from the ground
01/26/2011
So, the Palestine Papers. Egypt. Lebanon. The Middle East’s on fire again I joked with my Turkish mechanic, at the risk of perpetuating stereotypes. “Unfortunately, sometimes we need fires in order for things to be fixed” he replied.
As I stated in the Guardian earlier today, the Palestine papers may have sent shockwaves around the world, but they came as no surprise to most Palestinians, particularly those living out the horrific reality on the ground that has been “non-negotiated” over in the occupied territories, like my own family – or in refugee camps outside the occupied territories, like my husband’s family in the sidelined camps of Lebanon. Ultimately though I think they will mean very little unless they translate into change on the ground-if Palestinians demand for change of the status quo. I should also remind people that Palestinians have been fed up with the situation for a while-and did vote for change in 2006. The rest, as they say, is history (though in Gaza’s case, the “rest” continues to be painfully and punitively enforced).
More than anything, the details in the Palestine papers show just how out of touch with this reality the negotiators were, and how they chose to ignore this reality. It is this revelation – or reminder – that has most angered and distressed many Palestinians.
In Gaza, which has been blockaded with western backing and regional complicity since democratic elections five years ago, friends and family tell me the response is a mixture of anger, suspicion and uncertainty about the future. Fellow blogger Mohammed Suliman told me he found the revelations, chief among them that Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority offered to concede almost all of East Jerusalem, “shocking but not unpredictable”, referring to them as a “tragicomedy”. “I just can’t understand who on earth nominated this man to speak for the Palestinians? When he says, ‘WE’ who the hell are we? Working 20 years in the field never gives him the right to give up on one metre of the land, to divide, bargain and sell.”
The willingness to give up more than 10% of the West Bank and large portions of East Jerusalem, from where his family originally hails, is the most painfully startling part, he added.
The papers also confirm the intransigence of Israel in the face of the most compromising of Palestinians positions. What the Palestinians would appallingly propose to give up, the Israelis would continue not only to withhold, but retreat even further by way of increased land theft and colonization, all while the Americans stood by. It is a searing indictment not just of the Palestinian Authority and their collaboration and ineffectualness, but more pertinently of Israel and its arrogance and intractability. Karma Nabsli describes them as revelatory of the mechanism of negotiations themselves-how colonial they were, as well as a long evolution of de-democratization.
Lina al-Sharif, a friend and author of the blog “360 Km2 of Chaos”, told me she was irritated by the western media focus on Palestinian desperation and incompetency, rather than Israeli and American intransigence. “This shouldn’t just be an exposé of the PA, but also of Israel. And the US was witnessing all this and calling itself ‘an honest broker’! This is just yet another hit to the already dead peace process.”
Evidence has never been more compelling that the Israelis have always had their “partner for peace” – they have simply chosen to neglect them, and propose an alternative fiction in which there was none, irrespective of which Palestinian party was in power.
Because of this, some believe that the papers may actually be bolstering support for Mahmoud Abbas and his posse, whom they see as victims. True, the papers lay out the extent of the Palestinian Authority’s complicity and capitulation. But journalist Fares Ghoul says they also serve to undermine what little credibility Mahmoud Abbas’s Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority has, and questions the motives and timing behind their release. “We should focus on the day: what is going on today? The PA is doing well by resisting pressure to resume negotiations while settlement construction goes on.”
In a bitter irony, and a stark reminder of the conditions many Palestinians in Gaza continue to live under, some cousins and friends there were not yet even aware of the revelations when I spoke with them, because they had no electricity.
“This might make you laugh or cry – or maybe both – but some people didn’t hear about these documents yet because of the continuous power cuts in the Gaza Strip,” my cousin told me.
Gaza continues to suffer from extended power outages since Israel bombed the only power plant there in the summer of 2006. Two years after Israel’s brutal assault, the Strip remains under intense blockade, stifling development, prosperity, and freedoms (the subject, reportedly, of tonight’s latest reveal).
And although Palestine papers was a trending topic on Twitter, 25-year-old computer engineer Ola Anan says not everybody in Gaza cared to tune in. “Last night during al-Jazeera’s broadcast, my father and I were the only ones interested in watching the whole program, my mother was rambling that it’s not breaking news that the PA heads are traitors, and my brother asked me to put the volume down so that he could study for his exam!”
We are unlikely to ever learn who leaked the documents. An insider, an outsider … a combination? Some members of Fateh were quick to point fingers at one-time Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan, who is rumoured to be out of favour with Mahmoud Abbas (and who, incidentally, was curiously absent from the Papers). But there are enough disgruntled Palestinian negotiators with motives. One former negotiator with the PLO’s British-Scandinavian backed Negotiations Support Unit (NSU), from where the leak is rumoured to have originated, told me “we always ‘knew’ but didn’t really know the intimate details and the inside jokes. It is a level of unparalleled desperation.” Another confided that several years ago they were fed up with the cronyism, incompetence and lack of leadership within the Palestinian Authority, saying: “I can’t handle losing when my side doesn’t even try.”
Lizzy Ratner and I discuss the Goldstone Report on GritTV
01/20/2011
A lively discussion about the Gaza Assault and the Goldstone Report two years on. To learn more, please see the new book on the subject by Nation Books, which Lizzy co-edited, and I contributed an essay to: The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict visit goldstonereportbook.com.
The book contains an edited version of the original Report along with essays from a wide range of leading experts, activists, and journalists. They include Archbishop Desmond Tutu; human rights activist Raji Sourani; legal expert Jules Lobel; Israeli philosopher Moshe Halbertal; historians Rashid Khalidi and Jerome Slater; congressman Brian Baird; policy analyst Henry Siegman; authors Ali Abunimah, Naomi Klein, and Letty Cottin Pogrebin; and myself!
I will be posting a teaser essay soon…
Mainstreaming Gaza
01/14/2011
Firstly, apologies for utterly ignoring my blog…its been a busy few weeks and I fear will be busier still in the coming month. Just came back from an energizing series of talks I gave in Chicago. Tomorrow, I head to Minneapolis to speak with Edward Peck in commemoration of the two year anniversary of the Gaza Assault, a series of events sponsored by American Muslims for Palestine.
For now I leave you with a superbly edited montage of my talk/reading in NYC’s New School last month, along with a performance(s) by Musician Rich Siegal (I wish they had his other piece-Laji’ (refugee), sung in Arabic!).
- Tags: Gaza; Activism
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The memories we keep
12/02/2010
Sometimes, when I am deep in thought while performing some banal task like folding the laundry, I wonder what memories Yousuf will harbor from his brief but continuous trips to Gaza. Will it merely be waiting on borders? Will it be factional infighting that scarred our living room windows? Or spontaneous artillery shelling that scarred our nightly slumber? 8 hour electricity outages? Or maybe he will simply forget Gaza as he becomes more and more immersed in suburban America, the way we all slowly forget a place it when it has no presence on our air waves.
You can never really get a straight answer out of 6 year olds-you never know what they are thinking. So I let him live and “experience” Gaza for it is, the reality, the beauty, the horror, without trying to prod and poke and mold his experiences for him. I tried to get him to keep a writing journal this summer, but he was too hot, most of the time, and too busy watching cartoons or swimming the rest of the time.
Yesterday were parent-teacher conferences at Yousuf’s school. Yousuf is a stellar student, told me his teacher. She was stunned-in a good way- to learn we only speak Arabic to him at home, that he didn’t know his ABC’s when he went into KG (part of our Arabic immersion technique). What about class participation, I inquired-is he shy? “Oh no-he is quite the chatterbox-he likes to share just about everything he does, all the extra-curricular activities, bowling…swimming…karate”.
Later that day, I asked what else he shared with his class. “Did you tell the class about your trip to Gaza this summer?” I asked.
“Yes! I did” came the enthusiastic response.
“Oh really? And what did you share?” I continued.
“I told them how I got to go the stores by myself! I also told them I saw a soldier. But I don’t remember- was he a Jewish soldier or Palestinian?”
I smiled. Yousuf remembered Gaza. And for him, the highlight of the trip there, the memory he kept, was the fact that he was able to walk all the way to the store two blocks down the road, down from the bank, across the fading election posters and the ever-present donkey tied to the orange Municipality trash bin with “Sharon” spray-painted on it, with his little sister, and buy things by himself from the shopkeeper that knew him when was a fetus in my womb, and then a nursing babe in my arms. It was this memory that he kept, despite the suffocating summer heat that enveloped us with no reprieve, despite the twice weekly shelling that shook the city streets he shopped on, despite the fact that his father was unable to come with us.
We had just read a story about a boy in Johanessburg, South Africa together-and noted how little things he did in his routine were different-like riding to school in the back of a pick-up truck, while others were the same.
“I guess you can’t do that here in Columbia, can you?” I joked.
We both laughed, as we remembered Gaza. And the memories we keep of it.
Mainstreaming Gaza event: NYC 12/4
12/01/2010
mainstreaming gaza
2–4 pm saturday, dec 4
at the new school, 65 w. 11th st, wollman hall, 5th floor
an afternoon of words and music featuring
laila el-haddad. the writer and blogger will discuss her new book, “gaza mom: palestine, politics, parenting and everything in between.”
rich siegel. the pianist and composer will perform a couple of songs, including “in palestine.”
$5 suggested donation*
free for students
free middle eastern lunch
*will go towards funding future events.