Faces in the sky ... #clouds & #sky: image via Monica M. Singer @MonicaMSinger67, 26 June 2015
Sky: photo by Seth Ilys, 2004
Palestinians climbing the Israeli apartheid wall to pray the first Jummah of Ramadan at AlAqsa, Jerusalem. #Palestine: image via صايل @Pxlestine, 19 June 2015
أنا من هناك. ولي ذكرياتٌ . ولدت كما تولد الناس. لي والدة
وبيتٌ كثير النوافذِ. لي إخوةٌ. أصدقاء. وسجنٌ بنافذة باردهْ.
ولي موجةٌ خطَِفتها النوارس. لي مشهدي الخاص. لي عُشْبةٌ زائدهْ
ولي قمرٌ في أقاصي الكلام، ورزقُ الطيور، وزيتونةٌ خالدهْ
مررتُ على الأرض قبل مرور السيوف على جسدٍ حوّلوه إلى مائدهْ.
أنا من هناك. أعيد السماء إلى أمها حين تبكي السماء على أمها،
وأبكي لتعرفني غيمةٌ عائدهْ.
تعلّمتُ كل كلام يليقُ بمحكمة الدم كي أكسر القاعدهْ
تعلّمتُ كل الكلام، وفككته كي أركب مفردةً واحدهْ
هي: الوطنُ...
On the first day of Ramadan a family in #Gaza break their fast amid the rubble of their destroyed home #Palestine: image via Mohammed Matter @AbuYazan_Gaza, 19 June 2015
The next time you hear that "innocent" israeli civilians were targeted in occupied #Palestine, remember these images: image via Abbas Hamideh @Resistance49, 21 June 2015
Israeli army prevented Palestinians from reaching Al-Aqsa mosque so they climbed the wall and made it. #Palestine: image via Mohammed Matter @AbuYazan_Gaza, 19 June 2016
I'm from
there.
I
have memories. Like
any other
human
I
was born.
I come
from
there. And I go
back
crying
to return the sky
to
its mother,
when
it cries
for
her.
I'm from there: Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008); primitivo English version: TC, 2009
On the first day of Ramadan a family in #Gaza break their fast amid the rubble of their destroyed home #Palestine: image via Mohammed Matter @AbuYazan_Gaza, 19 June 2015
On the first day of Ramadan a family in #Gaza break their fast amid the rubble of their destroyed home #Palestine: image via Mohammed Matter @AbuYazan_Gaza, 19 June 2015
Mahmoud Darwish at University of Bethlehem: photo by Amer Somali, 2006
Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008): photo via Arabic Literature (in English), 9 August 2013
Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008): photo via Arabic Literature (in English), 9 August 2013
Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008): photo via Arabic Literature (in English), 9 August 2013
Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008): photo via Arabic Literature (in English), 9 August 2013
The next time you hear that "innocent" israeli civilians were targeted in occupied #Palestine, remember these images: image via Abbas Hamideh @Resistance49, 21 June 2015
The next time you hear that "innocent" israeli civilians were targeted in occupied #Palestine, remember these images: image via Abbas Hamideh @Resistance49, 21 June 2015
The next time you hear that "innocent" israeli civilians were targeted in occupied #Palestine, remember these images: image via Abbas Hamideh @Resistance49, 21 June 2015
Displaced Palestinian children peek from under the door of a shop where their family is taking shelter in Gaza City in July 2014: photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP via The Guardian, 26 March 2015
UN officials accused of bowing to Israeli pressure over children's rights list: Source says officials backed away from recommending that IDF be added to list of children’s rights violators after phone calls from Israeli officials: Harriet Sherwood for The Guardian, 15 March 2015 (updated 26 March 2015)
Senior UN officials in Jerusalem have been accused of caving in to
Israeli pressure to abandon moves to include the state’s armed forces on
a UN list of serious violators of children’s rights.
UN officials backed away from recommending that the Israel
Defence Forces (IDF) be included on the list following telephone calls
from senior Israeli officials. The Israelis allegedly warned of serious
consequences if a meeting of UN agencies and NGOs based in Jerusalem to
ratify the recommendation went ahead. Within hours, the meeting was
cancelled.
“Top officials have buckled under political pressure,” said a UN
source. “As a result, a clear message has been given that Israel will
not be listed.”
The mother of one of the four Palestinian children from the Bakr family who were killed by Israeli military strikes on Wednesday grieves outside a morgue in Gaza City. Eight boys from the Bakr family had gone to the beach because their Gaza neighborhood had become a constant target of Israeli airstrikes: photo by Finbarr O'Reilly / Reuters. 16 July 2014
Organisations pressing for the IDF’s inclusion on the list since the war in Gaza
last summer -– which left more than 500 children dead and more than
3,300 injured -– include Save the Children and War Child as well as at
least a dozen Palestinian human rights organisations, the Israeli rights
organisation B’Tselem and UN bodies such as the children’s agency
Unicef.
“These organisations are in uproar over what has happened,” said the UN source.
The children keep #Gaza #Palestine alive.
Lens: Khaled AbuHassira: image via Bea @Bea4Palestine, 21 June 2014
The IDF’s inclusion on the UN’s list of grave violators of children’s
rights would place it alongside non-state armed forces such as Islamic
State, Boko Haram and the Taliban. It would propel Israel further
towards pariah status within international bodies and could lead to UN
sanctions.
I love Gaza: image via صايل @Pxlestine, 23 June 2015
Although Jerusalem-based officials cancelled the meeting -– and
subsequently decided not to recommend the IDF’s inclusion on the list -–
the UN complained to Israel over the intimidation of its staff. Susana
Malcorra -– a high-ranking official in the New York office of the UN
secretary general, Ban Ki-moon -– raised the issue in a private letter to
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor. The UN in New York said it
could not comment on leaked documents.
The
telephone calls were made to June Kunugi, Unicef’s special
representative to Palestine and Israel, on 12 February, the night before
a meeting to decide whether to recommend the IDF’s inclusion on the
list. One call was from a senior figure in Cogat, the Israeli government
body that coordinates between the IDF, the Palestinian Authority and
the international community; the other was made by an official in
Israel’s foreign ministry.
The children keep #Gaza #Palestine alive.
Lens: Khaled AbuHassira: image via Bea @Bea4Palestine, 21 June 2014
According to UN and NGO sources, Kunugi was advised to cancel the
meeting or face serious consequences. However, Israeli sources described
the telephone conversations as friendly and courteous attempts to
persuade Kunugi to delay the working group’s decision on its
recommendation regarding the IDF until Israel had been allowed to
present its case on the issue.
At 8.54am the next morning, an email was sent on behalf of James
Rawley, a senior official with UNSCO (the office of the UN special
coordinator for the Middle East peace process) who had called the
meeting, to participants. It said: “Please be informed that today’s
meeting scheduled at 13:00hrs has been postponed. Sincere apologies for
the inconvenience this may have caused.”
A joint statement to the Guardian from Kunugi and Rawley said the
“strictly confidential process” of determining inclusion on the list was
still ongoing and was the “prerogative of the UN secretary general, and
it rests with him alone”. The UN in Jerusalem was unable to comment on
the process, it added, but the submission from Jerusalem to New York was
“based on verified facts, not influenced by any member state or other
entity”.
Palestinian girls walk past the rubble of a heavily damaged building in Shejaiya, which was destroyed during the 50-day war between Israel and Hamas militants last year. Israel killed more Palestinian civilians in 2014 than in any other year since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip began in 1967, according to a UN report: photo by Thomas Coex/AFP via The Guardian, 18 April 2015
Unicef has called a fresh meeting to update UN and NGO officials in Jerusalem on Thursday.
The decision on which state and non-state armed forces are to be
included on the list will be taken by UN chiefs in New York next month.
However, according to the UN source, “a political decision has already
been taken not to include Israel”.
There is ample evidence … Israel’s armed forces have committed acts that amount to … grave violations against children
-- Defence for Children International (Palestine)
A separate source told the Guardian: “The UN caved to Israel’s
political pressure and took a highly contentious step to shelter Israel
from accountability.”
The children keep #Gaza #Palestine alive.
Lens: Khaled AbuHassira: image via Bea @Bea4Palestine, 21 June 2014
The list of violators of children’s rights is contained in the annex
of the annual report of the secretary general on children and armed
conflict. A “monitoring and reporting mechanism”, established by a UN
security council resolution, supplies information on grave violations of
children’s rights, such as killing and maiming, recruitment of minors
into armed forces, attacks on schools, rape, abduction, and denial of
humanitarian access to children. The secretary general is required to
list armed forces or armed groups responsible for such actions.
Relatives of Palestinians killed by the Israeli strike at a UN school mourn outside a hospital morgue in the northern Gaza Strip: photo by Mohammed Salem / Reuters, 24 July 2014
Following last summer’s seven-week war in Gaza, a number of UN
agencies and NGOs met to consider whether to recommend the IDF’s
inclusion on the list. According to insiders, participants “agreed there
is a strong and credible case to recommend listing”.
A 13-page internal Unicef paper seen by the Guardian examined the
case for the IDF to be listed on the basis of its actions in last
summer’s war in Gaza, including the killing and injuring of children,
and “targeted and indiscriminate” attacks on schools and hospitals.
The children keep #Gaza #Palestine alive. Lens: Khaled AbuHassira: image via Bea @Bea4Palestine, 21 June 2014
Several of the working group’s participants wrote to the UN secretary
general to urge the inclusion of the IDF on the list. A letter sent in
December by Defence for Children International (Palestine) said: “There
is ample evidence to demonstrate that Israel’s armed forces have
committed acts that amount to the grave violations against children
during armed conflict, as defined by UN security council resolutions,
including killing or maiming children and attacks against schools and
hospitals.”
The
Israeli ministry of foreign affairs and Cogat declined to answer
specific questions about the phone calls to Kunugi, but said in a joint
statement: “Israel has a good working relationship with Unicef and the
United Nations in general. Israel has no desire to get into a slanging
match with anti-Israel elements nor to submit to their intimidations.”
Less than an hour ago, Palestinian boy run over by Israeli illegal settler in Alkhalil...#Palestine: image via Mohammed Matter @AbuYazan_Gaza, 21 June 2015
Israeli settler runs over Palestinian child in Hebron shortly before
... #WestBank #Palestine: image via Said Shoaib - Gaza @saidshouib, 21
June 2015
Freedom to our prisoners written on one of AlQuds streets. Pray for them in this blessed #Ramadan. #Palestine: image via Abbas Sarsour @iFalasteen, 23 June 2015
The beauty of Ramadan atmosphere in AlQuds. #Ramadan_in_AlQuds_is_
Palestinians climbing the Israeli apartheid wall to pray the first Jummah of Ramadan at AlAqsa, Jerusalem. #Palestine: image via صايل @Pxlestine, 19 June 2015
Israeli army prevented Palestinians from reaching Al-Aqsa mosque so they climbed the wall and made it. #Palestine: image via Mohammed Matter @AbuYazan_Gaza, 19 June 2016
Picture of a Palestinian young man when he entered al-Aqsa mosque for the first time. #Palestine #Jerusalem: image via Palestine Social @Palestine Social, 22 June 2015
Israeli army prevented Palestinians from reaching Al-Aqsa mosque so they climbed the wall and made it. #Palestine: image via Mohammed Matter @AbuYazan_Gaza, 19 June 2016
It's a long day of fasting I'm just going to sit here and relax. #Ramadan. #Palestine: image via Abbas Sarsour @iFalasteen, 20 June 2015
"I Come From There..." Courage in the Face of Cowardice. That's #Palestinianism #Palestine: image via Bea @Bea4Palestine, 21 June 2014
Jerusalem. A Palestinian youth uses a satellite dish as a shield during clashes with Israeli security forces in the At-Tur neighbourhood, after Israeli police shot dead a knife-wielding Palestinian who attempted to stab colleagues at a checkpoint: photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via the Guardian, 26 March 2015
Israeli soldier aims his weapon at stone-throwing #Palestinian girl during a protest in #KfarQaddum #Nablus #AA [photo by Ahmed Talat]: image via Anadplu Images @anadoluimages, 12 June 2015
#KfarQaddum #LastStand #respect #SettlementsAreIllegal #Israel #BDS #HumanRights #BoycottIsrael #PalestinianState #UN: image via AJ. @ajwildlife, 20 March 2015
Intifada at its best: 1 Palestinian throwing rocks X at least 5 IDF armed forces. #KfarQaddum: image via Kety Shapazian @KetyBrazil, 6 April 2012
A Palestinian protester throws tyres into a fire during clashes with
Israeli security forces following a demonstration against the
expropriation of Palestinian land by Israel in the village of Kfar
Qaddum, near Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, on Friday: photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via FT Photo Diary, 19 June 2015
Tonight's sunset from Nationals Park @ABC7News @nbcwashington @usa9 @fox5newsdc: image via Chris Duncan @AD4G, 23 June 2015
View from NYC #Sunset #Sky: image via Zaddy @MissZindzi, 23 June 2015
love at first sight with Darwish!
ReplyDeleteDarwish was a tall and noble man, who when he read his poems to an audience, in measured mellifluous Arabic, filled with inner rhymes although in free-verse phrases, became their hearts and tears flowed from their eyes. I read versions the translator and I had done a few years before he died, and the Arab audience held onto every word. The place of poetry in their lives, compared to American's cultural grasp, well, it's day and night. A Palestinian Muslim once collared me, having learned I write poetry, and said, "We don't like our poets." I said, "Oh, why not?" (He was an older man...). "Because, when terrible things happen to us, we get together and listen to poetry, weep, and go home, when we should be resisting!"
ReplyDeleteMunir Akash, a Syrian poet and editor, and translator of his poems, including among the first books in English, who'd known Darwish for many years, from his pop-star poet youth to his mature years, said that Darwish met Greek great, Nicolas Kazanzakis, who wrote the Modern illiad, and Kazazakis told Darwish he was really an epic poet. And that changed his style from more direct political poems to the gorgeously textured, resonant, and vast meditations of his later work, that always seem to spring from anguished nostalgia, and a lament for a vanished but never hopeless world. His deep lyricism seems to have saved him...
ALL THE DEAD CHILDREN
ReplyDeleteAngels are learning new tricks to entertain all the
dead children
just bringing them to a quiet place used to be enough
blue panels sonorous as cool winds rising to
infinite heights and
luminous rivers tasting of fresh milk and
passionflower honey
But now they are more restless and want something
lively such as fabulous displays and real
stellar extravaganzas to shut out the memories
All the wingéd horses have been brought in
and every banner from every battle ever waged
transformed into aurora borealis brightness is
planted on either side of the great arena which is
actually nowhere you can put your finger on and may be as
big as a sparkle or light years across
The angels begin conventionally enough and since they’re
anti-gravitational they are capable of some
pretty amazing feats their specialty being a
spinning array of a few billion shimmering their wings and
turning slowly at first in a
cone that goes up through so many dimensions the
children have to stop counting with
each dimension demarcated by another
color no one on earth’s spectrum has
ever seen before
Then the cone begins
turning faster and faster and shoots higher and higher
finally sweeping their astonished souls wide-eyed into a
vortex so swift they barely notice that they’re
arcing across fields of unearthly green and seas of
unoceanic turquoise
Each shroud has been made into a tent filled with
fabulous fruits and unidentifiable edibles of
uttermost succulence
Each soul has been given the Ultimate Glimpse
and the Accurate Portrayal
the Perfect Sustenance and the Infinite Intensity
Each time they clap their hands a new
universe appears
more fabulous than the last
And when they tire of such delights
William Blake reads to them from his new work
and Mozart comes in and plays them a tune
on a million pianos
4/11/2003 (from Psalms for the Brokenhearted)