Palestinian girls ZINE, and an article

Dear friends,

I'm excited to share with you the new zine, "We Won't Be Silent: Palestinian Young Women and Girls Speak". This is a project I worked on with a couple fabulous young women in Palestine, Shireen and Lubna, and we're happy to make it available for all of you!

For those of you who don't know, a zine is a low budget, usually political or topical, do-it-yourself kind of magazine. This one is 52 pages and includes articles, poems, stories, and drawings by 25
different Palestinian girls and young women, about half of whom are refugees, and most of whom live in the West Bank, though there is also representation from Gaza and from Syria. We asked the girls simply to write, draw, or express whatever they wanted to say to the world, knowing it would be compiled into a booklet and shared with people in the US. For the girls who wrote in Arabic, we (namely Shireen and Lubna) have translated the words into English, and included the original Arabic as well. We have also added photographs throughout to illustrate the stories or topics addressed by different people.

It's the old-fashioned kind of zine, made of paper and not online, so here's what I propose: Send me $3-$5 for each copy you want, to help with printing costs (the zines were printed in Palestine! ...but with my own personal money). If I raise more than I spent, any extra money will go to the next edition. And make sure you give me an address where I should send the zine/s! You can mail the money to Hannah Mermelstein, 18 Northview Drive, Glenside, PA 19038.

Finally, my friend and fellow zine editor Shireen has asked me to share the article below with you all. She wrote it after a harrowing experience last week when she was almost arrested by the Israeli army. Comments are welcome, both about this article and about the zine once you've received and read it.

-Hannah

When it hurts so bad!
by Shireen AbuKhiran

God! I don’t even know how to start talking or what to say! Because I truly doubt that there are any words to express what is in my mind or the way I felt that day, Saturday, August 9, 2008!

First of all, let me give you a brief background about who I am and what I do. My name is Shireen AbuKhiran. I am a Palestinian, 20 years old. I go to Bridgewater College in Virginia/USA on a full scholarship; I have a major in international studies and a minor in French and Culture Studies. I am very interested in politics and of course in Palestine and the policies of the United States, and in the future I want to finish a graduate degree in international law so I can be a lawyer for the Palestinian case and help the Palestinian people.

Currently I am working with an organization called Life Source. The project that I am working on is about Solomon’s pools, one of the biggest sources of water in the West Bank that is not being used now because of many reasons, the occupation being a major one. I am making a study about how can we re-build and use the pools, whose canals were destroyed by the building of Israeli settlements and roads. According to some statistics, the pools could support many of the villages in Hebron, all the area between Hebron and Bethlehem, and ALL of Bethlehem with water.

Anyways, that day was an ordinary day for me. I had two major plans for that day: I had to see the civil engineer in Al-Khader municipality near Bethlehem, and then I had to go with two friends to videotape some of the main canals that used to support the pools. Some of these canals are close to Efrat Settlement-one of the biggest Israeli settlements in the West Bank. One of the main canals was on what the Israelis call “closed security lands” while in truth it’s totally Palestinian land! But they are trying to steal it and take it from the Palestinians because it has some of the best grapes production. So I sneaked there and took some pictures and videotaped it and no one saw us! And I was really glad about that, although it hurts me so bad because I totally believe I have the right to go wherever I want and whenever I want! This is MY land and I have the right to it! Even international law, which I think has no use right now, says that these are Palestinians lands! So what’s left to say?!

After that, we decided to go and videotape more spots, and this time I did not have to sneak because it’s WELL-KNOWN that the lands that we were going to are Palestinian lands! They were close to the settlement but not that close! I gave the camera to my friend and he started filming, and while he was doing that he filmed a few parts of the settlements from far away and he did not mean anything by that! I mean it won’t help us with anything anyway! God! He was just filming, not thinking of anything political! Anyways, from far away there was this settler watching us, and he is one of the settlers who is well-known for his cruelty against Palestinians. He used to throw stones and trash on farmers who came to their lands, and once I even heard a story from one of the farmers when I asked him what happened with his hand! He said: “... I was working in my farm and this settler came up to me and asked me to leave, saying that the lands are his and Palestinians should go to hell! And then when I refused to leave he yelled at me and said, ‘Ok! I will come back in 5 minutes and if you are not out I know what to do!’ Then he came back with four more members of his family and they attacked me and start stabbing me on my hands! And they said, ‘Once your hands are cut off there is no way you will come back!’ And then some other farmers came up and the settlers got scared and ran away, and the soldiers were up the hill looking at us and just watching!” And now when I asked him about his hands, I saw that both of them were injured really badly and were tied with bandages, and he had already had three surgeries and needs two more in order just to keep his hands!! Not even to be able to use them as much as he used to before!!! And when I asked the Palestinian farmer what he is going to do about his lands, he said: “Palestinians are like trees, you might squeeze the fruits, you might burn the leaves, you might even cut down the trees, but you will never be able to hide the roots. If I am gone, my roots are still there and my seeds still alive!” And I was like “What do you mean?” He said: “Three of my sons and four of my grandsons are working there and they go every day! And they are ready to do whatever it takes to keep this land! Not just because it’s land! But because it’s PALESTINE, and it’s MY land!!”

Ok! I know I went off track but I had to tell that story! So the same settler saw us filming and eating from the trees! He called the soldiers and they came with their jeeps! We looked around and saw almost 25 soldiers at the beginning and they kept coming and coming and coming! And we went down trying to ignore them, but they started yelling at us and screaming and it was so terrible! They came to us and even dragged one of the men who were with me up the hill because they did not want to wait for him to come up! The first thing that they asked for was the camera! And when we tried to denied it that damn settler came up to the soldiers and was like, “Do not believe them, we saw them!” So the soldiers threatened to destroy everything if we did not give them the camera so we gave it to them! Then they took all the cell phones and prevented us from calling anyone! They took the laptops, the bags, and even the car! They hid it all down the hill and forced us to stand under the sun for more than 4 hours! And for what? For NOTHING! We tried to talk to them! We tried speaking in English and NONE of them understood what I said!!! None of them knew English and I was like what the hell!! And then they brought another jeep and one of them understood English, and I talked to him, trying to make him understand that we did not want to do anything here, just videotape and eat some fruit from Palestinians lands and then go home! And he tripped when I said Palestinian lands and he said, this is not Palestinian land, this is Israeli land! And I was like, who the hell said that?! And he said this is the law! And I said what law! And he said I do not know, and stop arguing and talking or I will take you to prison and tie your eyes and hands! And I was like damn!!! You do not even have an answer, do you!!!

Then he just looked at me and went away! Then they asked us to stand away and they just sat in their jeep doing nothing but talking and looking at us and laughing! And we went to ask them, “What will happen, what is it that y’all want?” They said, “You were filming the settlement. Why is that? What do you want to do with it?” We told them, “We told you everything. How many times do we have to say it?!!” Oh my god! Now when I am writing I am getting heated and feeling so damn mad! Because I was getting punished for being on my land and trying to help my people! And when we asked why they couldn’t speak English, they said, “We do not have to learn any language, all the people have to learn ours!” ………………………………..BULLSHIT!!!

Anyways, we were waiting and waiting and waiting….nothing yet. They called their FBI, or whatever they call them, to collect information about us, and they found nothing wrong! And then some investigators came up to us and start asking the same damn questions! It was so damn long and painful! And what drove me crazy is that one of my friends needed to go to the bathroom and since we were in the middle of nowhere, he decide to go behind a tree, and then when the soldier saw him he started yelling at him and we were like, he just went to the bathroom, and he was like, COME BACK!!! And he prevented him from going to the bathroom and when we asked why he said: “I am your master! And I am higher than you and you have to take permission from me to do anything!!!” When I heard that I felt like a volcano exploded in my chest! I did not know what to do or what to say! All that I was focusing on was getting out of this thing, and for none of my friends that were with me to get hurt! And not to show that I feel weak or anything, although at that moment I wanted to scream and cry as loud as I could! Because I felt so damn abused and hurt!!! Then we decided that we were thirsty and we asked for water, but they refused to give us any! So we went down to get some grapes or something, and the soldier went crazy!!! And he started yelling, “Come back come back!!” And he took everything and said, “I told you, you need a permit to go!” Then he said, “Ask me and I will give you permission.” None of us asked him. We were like, even if we’re going to die we will never ask you! He looked at us and he was surprised and he did not say anything, just left and took everything! We did not know how long it would take because they refused to tell us anything! All that they said was that they would take us to prison if we kept acting like this! So we totally believed that we were going to prison and we got ready for that! The funny thing is that we were laughing about it! My friends were smoking and joking about the way the Israelis were going to abuse us in prison and how no one knows about us! And all of that! It’s like damn you! So what??!! I looked at my friends and went back to the reality that we really might go to prison, and look at how we are acting about it! That thing itself gave me so much strength to just stand there, be strong, and face what I had to! But also at the same time, the only picture that was in my head was not my mom, or dad, or family, or friends; it was my school. The reason I came all the way to the USA was to get my education and come back and help all these people! And if I went to prison, would I really be able to do that? Would they even let me go back to school? Or would I be considered a “terrorist”? I am not scared of what they think of me, they already think I’m a terrorist and that don’t mean shit to me! Because I know who I am! But the only thing that would have made me real sad is not finishing my education, because that would have screwed up all the plans I have in my head for helping my motherland PALESTINE! On the other hand, thinking about it now, I would have probably found something after a while, because this is what Palestinians always do, try to live with what they have!

Ok! I am sorry I know I been talking for long! There are a lot of things that happened that day! I told y’all it’s really hard for me just to talk about it, and it is totally different to actually experience it! It’s different when YOU are the one being prevented from your lands, not just someone telling the story! They did a lot of things: They yelled at us, they prevented us from moving, they treated us like we were not even there, they refused to even talk to us!! The soldiers said it before: I am your master! And you have to ask me for permission!!! Imagine yourself in your own land, helping your own people, and not even doing anything but some normal routine work, and someone comes up to you and says, hey! This is my lands and you will get punished for entering them!

So at the end, after all their FBI investigations and absolutely unnecessary questions, after all the waiting we had to do, we got really exhausted and we were like, that’s it, we are going to prison, there is no way that we are going back home! All of us just wanted to tell our parents what was going on and why we were not home yet! But we were not allowed to! I mean even if they killed us and threw us between the trees and bushes no one would have had any clue where we were, at least for a while!! And why?! Because we were filming in our lands! So while we were talking the FBI office actually called and said to the soldiers, “Let them go, they are allowed to be here.” The soldiers did not like what they heard so one said, “Keep standing like this!” We were like, “But he just told you that we can go!” The soldier said, “Well, he is not here and he does not know what I do! And because you are Palestinians you have to do whatever I tell you to do!” Then he asked me where I study and I said in the US and he said, “Well, you should be smart, that’s nice! But since you are also a Palestinian and this is NOT your lands, you have to stand here too!” God! Do we really still have this damn racism like this? I guess we really do and even more!!!

After about two more hours of waiting, another soldier came with his jeep and gave everything back and said in Hebrew “e’ref toov” which means have a good day, or a good night! And I just looked at him and said: huh?! What did you just say? And he said have a good night! And I looked at him and said: ARE YOU SERIOUS???!!!! He shook his shoulders and said, “I was not able to do anything and I can’t talk to you anymore.” And we looked at each other and left!!!

I stood there for a while, just trying to get out of the shock. He really did not just say that! This did not really happen! But then I looked around and I felt like the earth was moving! I sat down for a little then I stood up! And I blinked my eyes! I felt these few seconds were like hours! I looked at my friends, who were in shock as much as I was! We just looked at each other and went back to the car without saying a single word! Then we sat down in the car and start laughing. I laughed and laughed and laughed until the tears fell from my eyes, but they did not come because I was happy, but because I was in pain from what just happened to me! Not because I was standing there for more than 4 hours for nothing, but because these are my lands and I could not even do anything or I would go to prison and lose my future! Then one of my friends asked me to check what the soldiers had done! So we checked the cell phone and found that they downloaded pictures that have Jerusalem with the Israeli flag on them and they have Hebrew ring tones singing “Israel forever” and stuff like that! We were like fine, whatever, and we changed that shit! Then we checked the camera and believe it or not they deleted some footage of the destroyed canals but they did NOT delete the pictures of the settlement!!! Because they do not want me to tell the truth! I was like what the hell!!! And now I do not have all the pictures I need, and they said if they ever saw me in that area again I would go to prison for a long time!!! Can you believe this shit!?! Doesn’t this crap get you mad as hell?! You are not allowed to visit your own lands!!!

You know what! I can’t even write anymore! I think you got the picture! It’s just so damn silly and ridiculous how much racism and hatred one can have for the other! I can’t believe this! Sometimes I think, why? Why should this keep happening? Who should I really blame?! And how should I act??! Do all the peace programs and activities I do work? Will they solve anything? Will they help? Are they right? It’s just so hard for you to live with more than one belief! I know that whenever you shape your beliefs they are hard to change, but when you face this kind of shit, nothing is hard to change! I am not saying that I changed or I gave up. No, I thought about this for a long time, and these are some questions that came to mind, but I also listen to other people and I find most people are really confused about what they should think and believe and I used to blame them but I really do not anymore! If I am able to think for a further time, not just for this moment, some other people are not!!! The Israeli soldiers and governments think that when they do this to us, it will prevent us from showing the truth and telling what is really going on! But I am telling them NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!! You are soooooooooooooo damn wrong!!! This will never happen, and you know why? Because again, if you squeeze the fruits, if you burn the leaves, even if you destroy the trees, you will never take the roots and our seeds will ALWAYS be alive!!!

Written by one of the strong Palestinian seeds:
Shireen AbuKhiran…

Gaza blogs

Dear all,

For the past few weeks, I've been corresponding with a young journalist from Gaza named Sameh Habib. He first called me when he found out that I was working on a zine of Palestinian young women and girls' stories (I'll send another e-mail about that within the next couple days). He called to say that he's beginning his journalism and writing career and was wondering if there was anywhere I could publish his recent article about Barack Obama. We started writing back and forth, and I was hoping I would get to meet Sameh, as well as other folks in Gaza whose faces I have never seen, but my colleague and I did not get the necessary permits from the Israeli military to enter the Gaza Strip. Particularly in this time when Gazans are so isolated, the internet can be an especially powerful tool. In that spirit, I want to share with you three blogs from Gaza. Electricity is scarce in Gaza, so the blogs might not be updated as much as their authors or readers would like, but they are good sources to check.

More soon,
Hannah

1. Gaza Strip, The Untold Story
by Sameh Habib
http://www.gazatoday.blogspot.com/

This is Sameh's blog. He is also starting an e-mail list and wants to reach as many people as possible. If you are interested in being added to his list, please write to him at sam_hab@hotmail.com.

2. Raising Yousuf and Noor: diary of a Palestinian mother
by Leila Haddad
http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/

Leila blogs from wherever she is - currently not in Gaza, but very much worth reading! Here's how she describes her blog: "I am a Palestinian journalist who divides her time between Gaza and the United States, where Yousuf's father, a Palestinian refugee denied his right of return to Palestine, and thus OUR right as a family to live together, resides. This blog is about the trials of raising our son between Gaza and the US, while working as a journalist, and everything that entails from potty training to border crossings. Together, we endure a lot, and the personal becomes political. This is our story."

3. From Gaza, With Love
by Mona El-Farra
http://fromgaza.blogspot.com/

Mona is a "physician by training, a human rights and women's rights activist by practice," and is involved in a variety of projects in Gaza. The blog is about women, health, children and human rights in occupied Palestine.

the urgency of recognition

Dear friends,

I’ve been thinking about the urgency of 1948. One of Ben Gurion’s most repeated quotes among Palestinian refugee communities is, “The old will die and the young will forget.” The young have not forgotten. Everywhere I have traveled in the Arab world – Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria – Palestinian children tell me the names of their original villages that they still hope to see someday. Even the youngest of children will say things like, “If I don’t return to my village, then my children or their children will.”

Perhaps this is the nature of displacement, that the desire to return is compounded as long as the right to return is denied. But how to explain the urgency? Those who were young at the time of the Nakba, 60 years ago, are dying. Just as the Holocaust generation of Jews is slowly passing away, so is the Nakba generation of Palestinians. The difference is in the collective world memory of each tragedy. The Nazi Holocaust is denied by very few today (and even fewer with any kind of world power), whereas the Nakba continues to be denied by the powerful, as it has been for 60 years. Each time I visit with Nakba survivors who currently live inside ’48 (Israel) and have Israeli citizenship, I am astounded that the desperation in their voices far exceeds most of what I hear from Palestinians in the West Bank (Gaza, currently, is another story). Why is this? In all superficial ways, Palestinians with Israeli citizenship have a better standard of life than those in the West Bank. West Bank Palestinians, however, while continuously besieged and attacked, rarely find themselves face to face in conversation with people who deny their identities, their histories, and their experiences. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship face this every day.

We visited last week with a man who lives just a few miles from his original village. He showed us a map the survivors have made, in Hebrew, with each person’s name and house and land marked. “We were here,” he kept saying, “and we farmed, and we went to school, and we had a bus station, and we owned land. We were here. This is my father’s name. We were here.” He kept offering tidbits of proof, as though he expected us to doubt his story.

When he took us to the land, as he has so many times before, I couldn’t help but think about the number of Israelis, foreigners, and perhaps even Palestinians who drive by there each day without realizing there was ever anything there before the Jewish National Fund planted a pine forest. The remains of houses can easily be mistaken for stone paths. Not one house remains, but that doesn’t stop our guide from taking us to a spot on the land that to me looks like any other, and saying, “Welcome to my home. Someday you will come back here and visit me in my rebuilt house and I will serve you tea.”

The urgency is in the living memory, the denied reality, the willful invisibility. The Nakba is not something that happened 60 years ago. It is a process that continues to this day, and it is a process that can and must end if we are ever to see a true solution for the people of this land.

little boy in the gardens

Dear friends,

I’ve been back in Palestine for just under a week now, and tomorrow will begin a busy month of work. Since I’ve been back, the most common question I’ve gotten from Palestinian friends, colleagues, store owners, and taxi drivers is, “Who’s going to win, Clinton or Obama?” When I explain that this is only the primary, most people seem to have a small inkling of that, but most of them have never heard of McCain. They seem quite informed, however, about the Democrats, telling me that they used to think Obama might be better but now he keeps talking about how Israel is an important friend of the US’s and that he will continue to support Israel.

I’ve been surprised at the number of people who seem to have taken Bush’s recent visit to Israel as a real slap in the face. Don’t get me wrong, I do not think the president of the world’s only superpower should be unabashedly celebrating Israel’s creation while Palestinians’ mourn and resist the ethnic cleansing of their people. But it was not at all outside of the realm of what I would expect of Bush. Apparently some people here expected at least a surface-level acknowledgment of the Nakba on his part.

The owner of the local music store near my Ramallah apartment mentioned Bush to me, and then thanked me for being here in Palestine at this time. He said it’s important that foreigners be here around the time of the 60^th anniversary of the Nakba. “For Israel,” he said, “it’s a happy occasion. But for us it’s a tragedy. I left a part of me behind 60 years ago. I look like myself, but it’s only my body. My mother, my grandmother, all my family are buried in Jerusalem, and now I can’t go there anymore. Somewhere inside me there’s still a little boy playing in the gardens of Jerusalem. I miss him.”

Until soon,
Hannah

No Time To Celebrate - Action photos

Dear friends,

For the past few months, I have participated in a nationally coordinated campaign of Jewish people commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Nakba (catastrophe) and honoring 60+ years of Palestinian resistance. At http://notimetocelebrate.wordpress.com/ you can get a small taste of some of the actions that have been happening. If you are interested in planning your own action or event, there are resources on this site. You can also sign the petition if you haven't yet done so and you feel it's appropriate for you.

I have mostly been involved in events in Philadelphia. You can see a video, photos, and a report at http://notimetocelebrate.wordpress.com/local-actions/philadelphia/

For my friends in Palestine: These actions are only a beginning. We know that we need to do much much more and are committed to working with you for as long as you ask us to. Looking forward to seeing you all in Palestine very soon!

Salamaat,
Hannah

The following Palestinian villages were occupied and/or destroyed this week (May 18-25) in 1948: al-Kabri, al-Nahr, al-Tall, Umm al-Faraj, 'Arab al-'Arida, 'Arab al-Safa, al-Ghazzawiyya, Jabbul, al-Khunayzir, Khirbat Umm Sabuna, Khirbat al-Zawiya, al-Jammama, al-Sawafir al-Gharbiyya, al-Sawafir al-Shamaliyya, al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya, Khirbat al-Manara, al-Sawamir, al-Tantura, al-Safiriyya, Indur, al-Maghar, Sarafand al-'Amar, 'Ammuqa, Lazzaza, al-Manshiyya, Qaytiyya, al-Zawiya, al-Zuq al-Fawqani, al-Salihiyya, al-Mansura, Mallaha, al-Khisas, Harrawi, al-Dawwara, Baysamun, 'Arab Suqrir, Kawfakha

Source: www.palestineremembered.com

the revolution will be reported in the jewish advocate

Dear friends,

Thanks to those of you who wrote to the Jewish Advocate last week in support of my article
(http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/this_weeks_issue/opinions2/?content_id=4644). The editor says he has never gotten so much response (both positive and negative) as he did with this article. I'm so excited to see this conversation be opened in a mainstream, and when it comes to this issue, right-wing Jewish community. There are three relevant things in this week's Jewish Advocate, and I encourage you to engage and respond in order to keep the conversation open, to show the Jewish community and beyond that there is not consensus (Jewish or otherwise) on this issue, and perhaps even to cause some ambivalence in people who have never really questioned the fundamentals but whose values otherwise might point them in this direction if only given a little push.

1. This week's online poll states: "In light of last week's Leading the Way column, do you think it's helpful for the American Jewish community to talk about and/or acknowledge the issue of who has the right to certain land in Israel?" I know, on one level an absurd question, on the other hand, let's all vote yes! :) www.thejewishadvocate.com (poll at the bottom in the middle)

2. There are letters to the editor (all 5 are about Israel/Palestine, the last 3 are specifically in response to my article): http://thejewishadvocate.com/this_weeks_issue/letters_to_the_editor/?content_id=4685
My suggestion: write a letter to the editor in response! editorial@thejewishadvocate.com

3. There's an editorial that starts well (by stating that my opinions are both widely supported and widely criticized) and then goes on to state as fact a lot of disgusting myths and stereotypes (so brace yourself): http://thejewishadvocate.com/this_weeks_issue/editorial/?content_id=4680
My suggestion: write a letter to the editor in response! editorial@thejewishadvocate.com

Pick whichever inspires you (if any), and let them know what you think! It's so rare that we're able to talk about the fundamental issues of 1948, Zionism, and refugee rights in these spaces - let's see how long it can last! Also, while you should reference what you're responding to when you write, I think the most effective thing to do is to make this a bigger discussion than just about my article - so please write about the issues themselves, rather than about me or my opinions. I have a few of my own thoughts about different kinds of effective responses, so if you're stuck or are just interested, feel free to write and ask me. But for now, take it away!

And, in case any of you are still reading and haven't yet taken a look at the No Time to Celebrate pledge, please do: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/notimetocelebrate If you sign the pledge you'll receive an e-mail pretty soon with suggestions of Nakba-related actions to take this spring.

Thanks, all!

Love and resistance,
Hannah

No Time To Celebrate: Jews Remember the Nakba

Dear friends,

I am so excited to be sharing with you the important effort outlined below. Please take a look, and for all the Jewish people out there, please consider signing this pledge and forwarding it to others. There are more of us than we know - let's show that to ourselves, to mainstream Jewish communities, to the Palestinian people we work in solidarity with, and to the world.

I'm also heartened to let you know that the Jewish Advocate, Boston's Jewish newspaper that is certainly not known for its support of Palestinian rights, has published an editorial that I wrote as part of a column reserved for young people's opinions. You can read it at http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/this_weeks_issue/opinions2/?content_id=4644 and if you feel compelled to write them a letter (to potentially keep the issue in the paper longer), please do.

Okay, now for the campaign and pledge...

Calling all Jews of Conscience!
Join "NO TIME TO CELEBRATE: Jews Remember the Nakba"

"NO TIME TO CELEBRATE: Jews Remember the Nakba" is a campaign organized by anti-Zionist Jews from around the U.S. and Canada to coordinate and make visible Jewish response to Israeli Independence Day celebrations and Jewish participation in commemoration of the Nakba. We invite you to join us in this effort:

1. Sign the NO TIME TO CELEBRATE statement and pledge of action (text below). Go to http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/notimetocelebrate/ to sign! All signatories will be sent additional information about how to get involved in the campaign.
2. Participate in NO TIME TO CELEBRATE's call for coordinated actions across North America by organizing an action or event in your city, such as peaceful disruption of Israel celebration events or Jewish participation in Nakba events and actions organized by Palestinians and the Palestine solidarity movement. Please contact notimetocelebrate+localaction@gmail.com to let us know what you are planning and to request resources/ideas for action compiled by the campaign.
3. Incorporate the Nakba remembrance Haggadah supplement into your Passover Seders. E-mail notimetocelebrate+haggadahsupplement@gmail.com to request the supplement be sent to you once finalized.
4. Take action in other ways to challenge the perceived Zionist consensus among American Jews through education of Jewish and broader communities about the Nakba; about the colonial nature of Zionism; and about the history of Jewish dissent and Palestinian resistance.
5. Spread the word about "NO TIME TO CELEBRATE: Jews Remember the Nakba"! Pass this call on to your organizations, friends and family.

In solidarity with 60+ Years of Palestinian Resistance to Zionism,
NO TIME TO CELEBRATE: Jews Remember the Nakba
notimetocelebrate@gmail.com
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/notimetocelebrate/

******************


NO TIME TO CELEBRATE: Jews Remember the Nakba
Statement and Pledge of Action

This May, Israel will mark 60 years of statehood. In cities across the U.S. and Canada, major Jewish organizations will sponsor celebrations of "Israeli Independence Day." Meanwhile, Palestinians around the world will mourn 60 years since the Nakba – Arabic for "catastrophe" – of 1948. Sixty years ago, Zionist militias destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages and made more than 800,000 Palestinian people refugees in order to create a Jewish state in a land where the majority was not Jewish. This does not deserve to be celebrated.

Today the Palestinian Nakba continues. In order to maintain Israel's artificial Jewish majority, the Israeli government has continued campaigns of ongoing displacement, violence, and occupation. Inside of the 1948 borders of Israel, Palestinian citizens are denied equal rights to Jews under the law. Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem are denied access to land, water, healthcare, and other basic resources. Palestinians throughout historic Palestine experience international isolation, economic devastation aided by the erection of a 730-kilometer wall, and continued closures and invasions including the current horrific siege of Gaza. Today there are more than 6 million Palestinian refugees around the world, all of whom are denied their internationally recognized Right of Return to their homes and land. Meanwhile, we are invited to live on that same land simply because we are Jewish. We renounce this "right" to "return" given to us by Israeli law.

In addition to 60 years of occupation and dispossession, this anniversary marks decades of creative and powerful Palestinian resistance to Israel's violence. With this statement, we support this struggle, which is so often ignored or vilified in the U.S. media.

As Jews committed to justice, we imagine an "independence" that does not depend on an ethnically or religiously exclusive state or on the displacement of indigenous people. As North American Jews, we refuse to celebrate the ongoing colonization and dispossession of Palestinian lives and communities funded by U.S. foreign aid. There has never been Jewish consensus around Israel: not in 1897, not in 1948, and not today. We reject the notion that we have been chosen to displace others. We support Palestinian people's right to return, individually and collectively, to the homes they lost in 1948 and in the violent decades since then.

In response to these historical events and a call from Palestine to mark their significance, we refuse to celebrate "Israel 60." We will take action to make our shared position clear and visible. In cities across the U.S. and Canada this year, we pledge to participate in and to support:

• Refusal to participate in Israeli Independence Day activities;
• Peaceful disruption of these events;
• Nakba commemoration events and actions organized by Palestinians and the Palestine solidarity movement;
• Incorporation of Nakba remembrance into our Passover Seders;
• The movement for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions of Israel;
• Other efforts to challenge the perceived Zionist consensus among American Jews through education of Jewish and broader communities about the Nakba, about the colonial nature of Zionism, and about the history of Jewish dissent and Palestinian resistance.

Together, we stand with Palestinians in mourning 60 years of al-Nakba and in honoring 60 years of vibrant resistance.