The Age of Judgment (1) ... o o o o

An Ordinary Egyptian

I am an ordinary person.

I look at our old photos and I realize that the sinful world in which you now think that I am living, existed all along when we were little.

You and I.

We lived in this world peacefully and comfortably. You never thought it was sinful.

We co-existed.

You had your own ways and I had mine.

Neither of us thought the other had to change.

Neither of us used loud speakers to insult the other and label him as Kafer.


At the time when I was a child ... Egypt was full of people like me. Like us. Like you and me, at the time. Egypt, surprise surprise, was full of Egyptians ... Ordinary Egyptians ...

Then one day you decided you could not take it here. You decided you wanted to have more. So, you left. You found a job somewhere in the Gulf.


I did not stand in your way.

In fact, I wished you well.

I said that each of us had a role to play.

I stayed behind. Trying to make a living and plant a few more trees.




Years went by. How did they go by? They just went by and I kept on trying.




Then one day you came back.

You looked different.

Your wife looked different.

Your kids looked different from mine.




I felt a little strange, but I honestly did not mind.

But then you started to mind how I looked.

How my wife was dressed ... "safera" unlike yours.

But, brother, when we were little, you never thought that our mother was a whore because she did not cover her hair.

Now you mind how my kids play joyfully, sing, listen to music, whistle and smile casually at everyone in our little village.


Then, one day, after a long debate, you called me Kafer.

And you threatened me with hell and suffering.

Kafer, you said.

Misguided. Min Al Daleen.

My dear brother. Let me tell you this.

It is not my fault that you have gone all nuts and think that there are demons inside your own bathroom.

It has nothing to do with me that you now believe that music is the voice of Satan.

It is not my fault that you see evil where I see beauty.


That you see hell where I see heavens.

You were not like that.

We were not raised to be like that.

I am not like that.




Thank God I am not like that.




Now my brother. Either you mind your own business and let me live my life the way I do.

Or you get the hell out of my sight and go find your own paradise on earth elsewehere.

I am not asking you to change.

I am just asking you to stop asking me to change.

UN Book or the Jungle Book? ... o o o

Statehood Responsibilities and

the Principle of Proportionality

By:

Wael Nawara

Today, I was discussing the massacres in Gaza with a friend and he said ... "well, you poke a bear, even lightly, you should expect that the bear would eat you." I had to agree with that argument about the bear. But then I thought, well, a bear is a wild animal. It has neither a mind nor a conscience. A bear has no choice. The bear is just an animal.

I denounce Hamas for killing Israeli civilians and for taking Gazans as hostages for months to achieve some political gains which are related to Hamas alone, and not to the Palestinian cause or the Palestinian people. But the massacres which Israel performed in Gaza are war crimes of the worst proportions.

Are we to allow States to act like animals? Would this be OK? To act like you were in Jungle Book?


I would like us to reflect for a moment on the concept of "responsibility" and the concept of "proportionality". Israel, as a State has a responsibility to act like a state. Hamas is not a state. It is an organization. Some, perhaps even many say, it is a terrorist organziation. Hamas claims itself as a resistance movement which started in the eighties, with a bunch of kids throwing stones at Israeli soldiers of the occupation forces which in return crushed the children's bones with heavy rocks and hammers. As Oslo peace process reached a dead end, Hamas unfortunately started adopting violence. This shift, in my opinion, did more damage to the Palestinian cause than anything that has happened during the past 20 years.


When Hamas attacks Israel and kills innocent civilians, Israel is expected to have some response and try to protect its citizens. As a State, Israel, on the other hand, must respond with reasonably proportional force. But to kill children and civilians in this way, is neither proportional nor responsible. This behavior is not Stately.


Israel, therefore, must bear consequences to its choices. Hamas is already classified by many countries as a Terrorist Organization. Israel should today be classified as a State which uses, endorses and mass-produces terrorism. Israel must pay.


So, what should we do?


Shall we bring Israel to pay for these war crimes, as responsible states should be expected to?


Or shall we start to consider Israel as a mindless bear which threatens its neighbors and world peace at large?


Shall the UN and the Security Council deal with Israel as per its charter, as per the Book?


Or shall we endorse the Jungle Book?

WE WILL NOT GO DOWN - song for Gaza

WE WILL NOT GO DOWN

a song for Gaza

Written and Performed by

Michael Heart

This is an awesome song. Art can and does inspire people. Art can and does awaken our human conscience ...

... as Boudica would say ... (http://www.lit.org/view/44402)

"Poets come riding on the fearless writer horse" ... (or heart for that matter)

I denounce Hamas for killing Israeli civilians and for taking Gazans as hostages for months to achieve some political gains which are related to Hamas alone and not to the Palestinian cause or the Palestinian people. But the massacres in Gaza are war crimes of the worst proportions.

Michael Heart performs here like a true Hero.

See the Video Here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlfhoU66s4Y

WE WILL NOT GO DOWN (Song for Gaza)

(Composed by Michael Heart)

Copyright 2009




A blinding flash of white light
Lit up the sky over Gaza tonight
People running for cover
Not knowing whether they’re dead or alive


They came with their tanks and their planes
With ravaging fiery flames
And nothing remains
Just a voice rising up in the smoky haze


We will not go down
In the night, without a fight
You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools
But our spirit will never die
We will not go down
In Gaza tonight


Women and children alike
Murdered and massacred night after night
While the so-called leaders of countries afar
Debated on who’s wrong or right


But their powerless words were in vain
And the bombs fell down like acid rain
But through the tears and the blood and the pain
You can still hear that voice through the smoky haze


We will not go down
In the night, without a fight
You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools
But our spirit will never die
We will not go down
In Gaza tonight



All Music and Content Copyrighted. All rights reserved. © 2009

Photo of Michael Heart

Obama Engages a New Era of US Diplomacy & Soft Power

Obama Engages a New Era of

US Diplomacy & Soft Power

أوباما "يحظر" التعذيب

يأمر بغلق جوانتانامو

ويدشن "عصر جديد" للدبلوماسية الأمريكية

في ثان يوم عمل، انتقل أوباما بنفسه إلى وزارة الخارجية ليعلن تدشين عصر جديد من الدبلوماسية الأمريكية، تعتمد فيه الولايات المتحدة ليس فقط على قوتها المسلحة أو موارها الاقتصادية، ولكن على قوة المبادئ والقيم الإنسانية. وكان أوباما في الصباح قد اصدر عدة قرارات رئاسية بإغلاق معتقل جوانتانامو في فترة أقصاها 12 شهر، وحظر استخدام التعذيب. ثم اتجه أوباما إلى مقر الخارجية ليعلن عن فريقه بعد أن وافق الكونجرس على تعيين هيلاري كلينتون كوزيرة للخارجية. وخلال الزيارة أعلنت هيلاري تسمية السيناتور جورج ميتشل كمبعوث الولايات المتحدة الخاص لمنطقة الشرق الأوسط، وهو المبعوث السابق لمفاوضات إيرلندا، كما خدم كمبعوث لبوش في منطقة الشرق الأوسط من قبل. وأعلن أوباما أن ميتشل سوف يتمتع بالصلاحية الكاملة على طاولة المفاوضات في سبيل تحقيق اتفاق سلام بين إسرائيل والفلسطينيين والدول العربية الأخرى، وقيام دولة فلسطينية بجوار إسرائيل، والعمل على إعادة إعمار غزة من خلال العمل مع الرئيس الفلطسيني محمود عباس وحكومته.

Is Gaza an Occupied Territory

Is Gaza an Occupied Territory?




The U.N. position


In February 2008, Secretary-General Ban was asked at a media availability whether Gaza is occupied territory. "I am not in a position to say on these legal matters," he responded.


The next day, at a press briefing, a reporter pointed out to a U.N. spokesman that the secretary-general had told Arab League representatives that Gaza was still considered occupied.


"Yes, the U.N. defines Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem as Occupied Palestinian Territory. No, that definition hasn't changed," the spokesman replied.


Farhan Haq, spokesman for the secretary-general, told CNN Monday that the official status of Gaza would change only through a decision of the U.N. Security Council.





Source:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/06/israel.gaza.occupation.question/




CIA Factbook


West Bank and Gaza Strip are Israeli-occupied with current status subject to the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement - permanent status to be determined through further negotiation; Israel removed settlers and military personnel from the Gaza Strip in August 2005."


Source

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/is.html




The Israeli Settlements


The international community has long recognized the unlawfulness of the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories. UN Security Council Resolution 465 (of 1 March 1980) called on Israel "... to dismantle the existing settlements and in particular to cease, on an urgent basis, the establishment, construction and planning of settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem".


However, the international community failed to take any measure to implement this resolution. Most Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories were built after this resolution was passed, with the greatest expansion having taken place in the past decade. The establishment and expansion of settlements and related infrastructure in the West Bank is continuing on a daily basis, contrary to Israel's commitment under the UN-sponsored 2003 Roadmap peace plan. This week the Israeli government confirmed its plan to built 3,500 new settlement houses in the East Jerusalem area of the West Bank.


As well as violating international humanitarian law per se, the implementation of Israel's settlement policy in the Occupied Territories violates fundamental human rights provisions, including the prohibition of discrimination. The seizure and appropriations of land for Israeli settlements, bypass roads and related infrastructure and discriminatory allocation of other vital resources, including water, have had a devastating impact on the fundamental rights of the local Palestinian population, including their rights to an adequate standard of living, housing, health, education, and work, and freedom of movement within the Occupied Territories.


Source

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/021/2005/en/dom-MDE150212005en.html

Find a Solution or One will be Imposed upon you

Enough is Enough

Our Patience is Running out

By:

Wael Nawara

I look at the decades-long suffering of Palestinians and Gazans and I cannot help it but sympathize with them. I look at the centuries-long suffering and prosecution of Jews and I also cannot help it but sympathize with them as well. I think the whole world one way or another sympathizes with both sides. Each side has a touching story to tell and a number of seemingly good claims, be it religious, Biblical, Quranic, legal, civil, birth-right or otherwise.


But this sympathy, our sympathy, did not seem to have helped either party.


Palestinians and Israelis are somehow like cousins. Many Israelis and Palestinians look alike, cook alike and they even sound alike! But they have been fighting for decades and they seem to be determined to go on. I am not suggesting that they enjoy it, but it just seems that they will still go on fighting like that for a while.


Some friends ask me: “What is it to you? Why do you write or even bother to think about this? It is ultimately the Israelis and Palestinians who suffer and get to lose the most. So, it is up to them to find a solution.” In fact, they sadly point out, that the more they, Israelis and Palestinians suffer, the stronger their urge would be to find a settlement.


The trouble is, the bloody scenes are very disturbing. They haunt you. I mean, if the World will close an eye on murdering Gazan children or blowing up Israeli civilians, where does it stop? If the world had decided to close an eye on gassing Jews on the hands of the Nazi regime, the genocide against the people of Kosovo or Darfur where would we be today? Moreover, we are literally getting injured in the crossfire. When your neighbor’s home is on fire, you are bound to take an interest, lest the fire may spread to your own home and burn your own children too. And this is not just because we, in Egypt, are their next-door neighbors. Neighborhoods much farther away around the world in this global village, where borders and distances are ever diminishing, are also getting injured in the crossfire. The conflict has spilled over to many lands. It is fueling hatred and maniplulating extremist religious sentiments North, East, West and South.


In any conflict, a solution or a PATH, a strategy towards a solution, be it negotiation, arbitration, resorting to the Internal Court of Justice or the UN, should ideally come from the parties in concern: in this case Israelis and Palestinians. But this does not seem to be the case here. It simply does not work. Even wars, for many decades, did not work.


Several countries in the region, including Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Israel waged or got entangled in one war after another but wars never brought about a settlement to the original problem, the Israeli-Palestinian problem. So, they, or some of them, abandoned wars or pretended to be doing so and chose the path of peace, or appeared as if they had made that choice. Yet not a dawn of a solution even seemed remotely apparent at the horizon. We waited and waited, patiently hosting one round of negotiations and mediations after another, yet, the situation seems to only deteriorate.

Israel claims that Hamas is a terrorist organization which fires missiles indiscriminately at Israeli civilian population. That Arafat was a no-good greedy negotiator who showed no gratitude to generous Israeli offers. Palestinians claim that Israelis are using their military advantage to impose an unjust solution. Hamas says that it is a resistance movement which started with kids throwing stones facing armed soldiers who crushed the children's bones. Hamas further reminds us that such violent tactics were first used by the founding fathers of Israel including prominent members of successive Israeli cabinets, such as former Premiere Menachem Begin, also a former Irgun’s member, who was involved in the mass-murder of civilians in incidents such as the one which occurred in Deir Yasin in 1948 as well as the bombing of King David Hotel, Jerusalem, which was filled with civilians including women and children at the time, in 1946. If these were the heroes and founders of Israel, Hamas is following their seemingly successful example. After all, Israel managed to erect a state in 1948 through the use of such tactics and others. The other side claims that several warnings to evacuate King David Hotel prior to bombing were made and ignored. The dispute goes on.


I am personally getting fatigued by this whole situation. I no longer believe that negotiations can bring about a settlement which is deemed fair and acceptable by both parties. Maybe it is because of the power-parity, maybe because each side is clinging to its story and holy claims or whatever. Each party always complains that the other party is the one responsible for the failure of negotiations.


OK, how about we adopt a new direction, settlement through Binding Arbitration, say with the International Court of Justice. Arbitration seemed to have worked well for the Taba dispute between Egypt and Israel. Why shouldn’t it work for Israelis and Palestinians?


I think that the World Patience will one day soon come to an end. It will reach its limit. Our patience will just run out. And if the conflicting parties cannot reach an amicable solution, the WORLD must step in, find and impose a solution on their behalf, through the UN or through ICJ or whatever special court, where both parties are invited to make their claims and substantiate their case and are required to abide by the ruling. The International Community must have enough balls to enforce such a verdict/solution perhaps if necessary through economic sanctions, even blockade or by whatever means deemed fit.


We should tell them clearly and we should tell them now:


Find a solution or a solution will be imposed upon you by the International Community. Patience, sympathy and compassion are all great virtues. But everything has a limit.

For Gazan Children

For Gazan Children

In the Course

of One Life-time

By:

Wael Nawara

.
.
.

how many homes
do we have to build
in the course of one life-time?

how many children
that will have to be killed
before we think it's a crime?

how many people
that will have to die
before we even try?


angry army soldiers sweeping over town in heavy boots
knocking down the doors
crowded ugly cemeteries getting fuller by the day
thirsty yet for more


yet you tell me Christmas time is here
and you dare to even call me dear


lonely men are flying hot balloons around a hot balloon
angry they had to pause
cruise missiles are landing near what used to be our home, real soon
only just because

yet you tell me that love is here
and ask me not to fear



i will only ask you this
i shall have to ask you this

how many homes do we have to build
in the course of one life-time?

.
.
.
.


© Wael Nawara

From:
Diaries of an Olive Tree