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| FEATURED ARTICLE | How Lodewijk Asscher Abused his Position in Dutch Politics to Support Dutch Jewish Settlers Jun 21 2016 / 7:51 pm Lodewijk Asscher abused his position to protect Dutch settlers living in illegal Jewish settlement. (Photo: via demoslimkrant.nl) A major political scandal is unfolding in the Netherlands: politician Lodewijk Asscher has made sure over the years that AOW-pension payments to Dutch Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories were kept at their original levels, while all other AOW-pensions of Dutch expats' were decreased significantly. His astonishing defense, when he was confronted over this discriminatory conduct was as simplistic as it was irrelevant to the issue: "Holocaust survivors cannot be duped that way". In reality, only 7 of the 81 recipients of the controversial AOW-pensions are said to be actual Holocaust survivors. Lodewijk Asscher, himself of Jewish origin and currently Minister of Social Affairs, clearly has abused his position to protect Dutch settlers living in illegal Jewish settlements on confiscated Palestinian land. By doing this, he has been ignoring Dutch policy towards the Israeli settlements, which are held to be illegal in accordance with International Law. He is one of the highest-ranking members of the PvdA-party, historically one of the larger left-wing political parties in Dutch Parliament. Calls for his resignation are increasing in the public sphere, albeit quite cautiously, since the subject of Jewish power in the higher ranks of the Dutch political system is a highly sensitive one. Investigative journalists Derk Stokmans and Leonie van Nierop nevertheless had the courage to delve deep into the issue, and on June 18 published their report in NRC, one of the major daily newspapers in the Netherlands. They traced the controversy over this issue all the way back to 2002, and discovered that the issue had been avoided and covered up by successive Dutch cabinets ever since that time. They broke it down into ten successive phases, detailing all events surrounding the cover-up of the preferential treatment given to Dutch Jewish settlers in the illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory. What follows is a summary of the remarkable - and quite shocking - findings of their investigations. In 2000, the Dutch government decided to decrease AOW-pensions for Dutch citizens living outside of the Netherlands, under a new law known as the BEU. When the law was being put into effect in 2002, the leading Dutch Jewish lobby organization CIDI (Center for Documentation and Information on Israel) responded viciously, as did the Israeli government and pro-Israeli political parties such as the CU (Christian Union). They demanded that an exception be made for Jewish expats living in the Occupied Territories. Mark Rutte, who is currently Prime Minister of the Netherlands, but who was Secretary of State at the time, said that 'Israel is not the sovereign power in the Occupied Territories' and that the law would apply to them just the same as it would for other Dutch expats in other countries. However, he promised to postpone the reduction of AOW-pensions for that group for one year, stating that those involved were notified of the changes 'very late'. In 2004 there supposedly were 'legal complications' which led to another two-year-postponement. Prime Minister Balkenende stated: "There is a powerful lobby being waged for maintaining AOW-pensions in the Occupied Territories, the demand for which was heard in Israel as well as in the Netherlands at a high political level." In 2005, Minister of Social Affairs, Aart Jan de Geus, closed a deal with the Palestinian Authority (PA), which in theory put the responsibility for fraud surveillance in the Palestinian territories in the hands of the Palestinian Authority. However, this was clearly a paper tiger: the PA had no authorization from the Israeli occupation authorities to enter the settlements at all. On top of this, a deal with the Palestinian Authority would require an amendment to the law, which would in turn require the approval of the Dutch Parliament. De Geus simply said: "What will go wrong if we just keep paying?" In short, the reduction of AOW-pensions was put into effect in 2006, for all Dutch expats except those living in the Jewish settlements on Palestinian land. In 2008, Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Verhagen, wrote a so-called 'Blue Letter' to the Minister of Social Affairs, Piet Hein Donner, after an official visit to Israel. The 'Blue Letter', in Dutch politics, is a note that is posted in a blue envelope, and can only be opened by the minister it is addressed to. In this letter, he apparently requested that Donner would find a legal justification for the exemption of Dutch Jewish settlers from reductions prescribed by the BEU law. Donner figured he had a solution: to again hold the Palestinians responsible, but to circumvent previous legal objections by creating a so-called Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). However, officials of both ministries opposed this solution: the MoU would still require an amendment of the law, which would give the topic unwanted publicity. Verhagen also stated that creating a legal exception would violate Dutch foreign policy with regards to the Israeli settlements, which were considered to be illegal. And again, the topic was left alone, and the payments to the settlers continued, unreduced. In the period between 2008 and 2014, the Jewish lobby in the Netherlands continued to exert pressure, in an attempt to stifle calls to end the exemption granted exclusively to Dutch Jewish settlers. Organizations such as IOH (Irgun Olei Holland), CIDI, and the Israeli government put tremendous effort into keeping things as they were, pressuring the government with phone calls and letters. In the meantime, the Dutch organization SVB (Social Insurance Bank), which handles the actual AOW payments and functions independently from the ministry, continued to hand out payments to the settlers without the necessary reduction. According to the investigative journalists, an unnamed source stated that they were well aware of the wishes of the ministry to continue these unreduced payments. "It was a grey area, but one thing was clear: you do not touch Israel." Another source said: "In the beginning, we couldn't find out exactly which postal code area applied to the Occupied Territories. If we had really wanted to find out, we could have, but no one undertook that effort." In 2013, the SVB was headed by a new administration, which insisted on reopening the discussion on the subject. It issued an order to investigate all pension payments in the Occupied Territories. "We were shocked by what we found. It appeared that 28 out of 49 of the entitled had reported themselves as living in Israel instead of in the Occupied Territories, thereby circumventing the reduction of their AOW pensions." In January 2014, these fraudulent AOW-recipients were notified by the SVB that their pensions would be reduced in accordance with the law. However, this decision was met by a barrage of protests at the Dutch embassy in Tel Aviv. This is when Lodewijk Asscher, by then Minister of Social Affairs, entered the scene. He stated that this affair could "affect Dutch-Israeli relations negatively, by creating tensions", and that at the behest of Dutch Prime Minister Rutte and Minister of Foreign Affairs Timmermans, "solutions are to be researched with maximum creativity." Nevertheless, after pressure from legal officials from the involved ministries, he reluctantly announced that he would abide by the law, and put the pension reductions into effect. When push came to shove, on February 21 in 2014, Asscher suddenly backtracked on his decision, after a 15-minute conference with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Two hours later, AOW-recipients in the illegal Israeli settlements were sent a last-minute notification that no reductions would be applied. Apparently, this brazen violation of the law proved to be a bridge too far for the SVB. Legal representatives of the SVB presented their objections, for the first time explicitly opposing the wishes of the ministry. The legal team of the Ministry of Social Affairs frantically looked for a solution, which they believed was found in a new AOW-law that would justify an exemption for reduction of AOW-recipients if the reduction was the result of the expiration of an association treaty, or a 'comparable situation.' Asscher immediately jumped on this, and wrote a letter to the SVB on July 18th 2014, ordering the SVB to continue payments to recipients in the Occupied Territories, pending finalizations of a 'transitional arrangement'. However, he also stated that those requesting AOW payments after January 1, 2015, should be given the reduced pension. Although Asscher would be required to publish this 'transitional arrangement' in the 'Staatscourant' (Newsbulletin of the State) in order for the SVB to be legally authorized to continue to pay unreduced AOW-pensions, he failed to do so, despite having announced that he would. Nevertheless, the payments continued, unchanged. Recipients were given the good news that no reductions would be put into effect. On May 7, 2015, an urgent mail was sent to the Foreign Ministry, by the Dutch ambassador in Tel Aviv. A Dutch Holocaust survivor had complained on Israeli television about the reduction in her AOW-payment. This lady had moved to a Jewish settlement in Palestine after January 2015, and was therefore given the reduced pension as required, in accordance with what Asscher himself had ordained. A creative SVB official, however, found a way out: since Asscher had not published his 'transitional arrangement' in the Staatscourant, it could be stated that this recipient was insufficiently informed, and could therefore still receive the original AOW-pension without reduction, under the 'transitional arrangement'. Asscher happily agreed, as well as Jetta Klijnsma, Secretary of State, despite them both being well aware that sufficient information had been given to the recipients. SVB, in an apparent change of heart, had provided a much wanted legal circumvention: they quickly adapted their website, removing the part that informed recipients of the necessary AOW-reduction. With this swift change on the website, the story of 'insufficient information' now appeared believable. Finally, on December 8th, Secretary of State, Klijnsma, stated in a letter to Parliament that victims of the Second World War would never see their AOW-pensions reduced. It also stated that all 81 AOW-recipients living in Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory would continue to receive their full AOW-payment, again using the fabricated excuse of 'insufficient information'. Until now, the situation remains unchanged, painting a macabre picture of inequality and preferential treatment on the basis of intense lobbying and power play. Remarkably, it apparently pays off even more to be a Dutch Jewish settler, than to be an average Dutch citizen living in the Netherlands: Dutch Jewish colonists will continue to receive income support on top of their AOW pensions, and additionally, SVB will continue to pay the taxes that are due over the AOW pensions. Stunningly, this means that Dutch Jewish colonists will continue to receive a significantly higher AOW pension than ordinary Dutch citizens living in the Netherlands. This realization understandably has many Dutch citizens riled up, and demanding answers, especially after the exposure of this putrid scandal in the NRC. It is only now, 6 months later, thanks to the efforts of these brave investigative journalists, that the issue is being discussed widely in the Dutch public sphere. Public opinion is predominantly speaking out against the preferential treatment, and several Dutch political parties, ranging from the right-wing VVD to the left-wing SP, have demanded that Asscher explain himself in Parliament over the issue. Asscher is facing severe criticism for having ordered an independent institution such as the SVB to violate the law. However, caution still prevails: so far, the only somewhat explicit call for the resignation of Asscher over this political fraud has come from the Socialist Party (SP). Any topic in Dutch politics concerning Israel, just like in many other Western European countries, is bound to generate confusion, caution, undue reverence and careful political maneuvering. If Asscher should be made to pay the price for his irresponsible handling of the issue, it would be the first time in Dutch history that politicians catering to the wishes of the Jewish lobby would face serious embarrassment, or even political damage, resulting from their fraudulent decisions. Critics refer to the fact that expats living in other 'regions of controversy', such as the Western Sahara and Northern Cyprus, are not given this preferential treatment, as is the case with Dutch expats living anywhere else in the world, but in the illegal Israeli settlements. They also refer to the extensive efforts by Asscher to reduce or even abolish AOW-payments to Dutch expats living in Morocco and Turkey, emphasizing the blatantly discriminatory nature of Asscher's policies. It remains to be seen whether enough public indignation will be generated by this uncouth conducting of affairs, to result in the first political defeat suffered by the Jewish lobby in the history of Dutch politics. - Tariq Shadid is a surgeon living in the Arab Gulf who has been contributing articles to the Palestine Chronicle for many years. Some of these essays have been bundled in the book 'Understanding Palestine', which is available on Amazon.com. He also is the founder of the website 'Musical Intifada' featuring his songs about the Palestinian cause, on www.docjazz.com. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. |
| FEATURED NEWS | Israeli Minister Proposes a $5 Billion Island off Gaza Jun 21 2016 / 7:28 pm Israel's Minister of Intelligence, Israel Katz. (Photo: via twitter) The Israeli Minister of Intelligence, Israel Katz, is promoting a $5 billion plan to build an island off the Gaza Strip that would give Palestinians in besieged Gaza a seaport, and maybe a hotel and an international airport, he said. The Minister said, "The Jewish state is actively seeking financial partners for the $5 billion project," according to the Washington Post. Katz cited Saudi Arabia as a possible donor for the Project and China as a possible implementer of it. He said the plan is being debated in Israel's security cabinet, where it has strong support. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "is exploring the option but has not yet made a determination," said an Israeli official involved in the talks. The Intelligence Minister said he has briefed Obama administration officials on the proposal. According to the Washington Post, "The Israelis envision the port complex to be constructed atop a man-made island - dredged with sand from the sea bottom, measuring four square miles - that would be located three miles offshore and connected to the mainland by a two-lane bridge". Israel believes that constructing a bridge will allow it to tightly control the sea port and in case of the outbreak of hostilities in the future, it will be able to shut it down. This news came at a time of reports about a possible Turkish-Israel reconciliation that partially includes lifting the siege imposed on Gaza by Israel. Some suggest that such a proposal would be a perfect recipe for the Israeli government which wants complete control of Gaza, without paying the cost of the occupation. (WashPost, PC)
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| SELECTED ARTICLES |  By Tariq Shadid A major political scandal is unfolding in the Netherlands: politician Lodewijk Asscher has made sure over the years that AOW-pension payments to Dutch Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories were kept at their original levels, while all other AOW-pensions of Dutch expats' were decreased significantly. His astonishing defense, when he was confronted [...]  By Nour El-Borno - Gaza Moons shine through her eyes As she walks past her house: Here, she once laughed; There, she once cried. "I remember," she whispers. The dark hours that once took over Are now gone in the past, But so are the happy moments She once had. "What [...]  Approximately 41.6 per cent of Palestinian residents in the state of Palestine are refugees, Quds Press reported Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) saying yesterday. In an official report, the PCBS said that 26.3 per cent of West Bank residents and 67.7 per cent of those in the Gaza Strip are refugees. According to UNRWA, [...]  Union Construction and Investment's (UCI) major real estate project, TABO, on Monday announced the completion of the extension of a network of high voltage underground electricity cables in QarawaBaniZaid, north of Ramallah. The pioneering project is the first of its kind in the town, which previously only possessed low voltage electricity cables that served a [...]  By Jamal Kanj It is fair to assume that most readers today can't name the current heavyweight boxing champion. The same people would, however, most likely name the champion from 50 years ago. That's what makes Muhammad Ali unique. The champ or the "greatest" brought a special aura to the ring. It didn't matter whether [...]  The Israeli media reported yesterday that the Israeli cabinet approved $18.6 million in funding to settlements in the occupied West Bank due to the "worsening security situation". The approved funds are in addition to the $87.9 million already allocated to settlements. The funds to illegal colonies will include 15 million shekels from the Interior Ministry, [...]  By Yousef Aljamal Palestine Prisoners Center has revealed that there are 485 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails sentenced to life, including Palestinian prisoners from Jerusalem and the 1948 territories. The latest two political prisoners sentenced to life were Maher Alhashlamoun, 32, from Hebron, who was sentenced to four life sentences and Shadi Mtawee, 28, [...]  9Millions of people are marking Refugee Week which starts today, June 20, in the hope of highlighting the bleak reality of life as a refugee. The forced mass expulsion and displacement of the Palestinian people, resulting from the 1948 War, continues to be one of the main focal points of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Due to [...]  Isaac Herzog, leader of Zionist Union, agreed to return to Israel's 1967 borders in secret talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2014. During the 2014-2015 election cycle in Israel, Herzog agreed to hand the West Bank and East Jerusalem (Al-Quds) back to Palestinians, according to Israel's Channel 10. The agreement, negotiated between Herzog's delegate, [...]  The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has denounced a religious decree made by a prominent Jewish rabbi allowing Israeli settlers in the West Bank to poison Palestinian water sources in Palestinian towns in occupied West Bank. The PLO described the decree as "an order to kill". This call is not the first of its kind. Price [...]  Four young Palestinian musicians left the Gaza Strip on June 3, 2016, heading for Brighton to perform music. Singer, Najlaa Humaid, guitarist Mohammed Shoman, oud player Mohannad Abu Safia and qanun player Farouk Abu Ramadan, left Gaza for the first time in their life accompanied by their teacher, Ismail Dawoud. They arrived in the United [...]  Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations said on Friday that the Palestinian and Egyptian foreign ministries have reportedly initiated negotiations to determine the undersea border between their territories. The Associated Press quoted Riyad Mansour as saying the negotiations were part of greater efforts toward "building the structures of a serious, respectable (Palestinian) state in all [...]  By William A. Cook "Conquest and tyranny, at some earlier period, dispossessed Man of his rights, and he is now recovering them. And as the tide of all human affairs has its ebb and flow in directions contrary to each other, so also is it in this. Government founded on a moral theory, on a system [...]  Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip took to the streets to call for national unity, with Palestinian youth turning to social media to call for an end to the divisions. A group of 30 social media activists launched the "End the Division" campaign to mark the ninth anniversary of the Palestinian political [...]  By Blake Alcott PSC (the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, UK) is the perfect go-to place for newcomers, like myself seven years ago, who decide to do something for justice for Palestinians. PSC Fact-sheets on fourteen basic topics from the Nakba to political prisoners are excellent. Its eagle-eye efforts to keep the press honest are precise, punctual [...]  By Yousef M. Aljamal - Rafah Muath Qishta, 13, was not yet born when an Israeli bulldozer driver crushed the body of American peace activist, Rachel Corrie, in March of 2003 in the Palestinian city of Rafah, while she was trying to protect Palestinian houses from demolition. Yet, Muath came this year to watch the [...]  By Ramzy Baroud "(At dawn) ... I will resist ... (Since) upon the wall there is still a white sheet ... And my fingers are yet to (completely) dissolve." This is a translated verse from Mu'in Bseiso' "Three Walls of the Torture Chamber". He was -and remains - one of Gaza's most influential intellectual and [...]
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| SELECTED NEWS |  The Israeli Minister of Intelligence, Israel Katz, is promoting a $5 billion plan to build an island off the Gaza Strip that would give Palestinians in besieged Gaza a seaport, and maybe a hotel and an international airport, he said. The Minister said, "The Jewish state is actively seeking financial partners for the $5 billion [...]  Thousands of Palestinian workers do their shifts during night hours during the holy month of Ramadan to avoid the heat wave that is sweeping the Gaza Strip. The summer season officially started on June 20, 2016 and this year has seen some intensely hot days in Ramadan in Gaza. This situation made it difficult for [...] Union Construction and Investment's (UCI) major real estate project, TABO, on Monday announced the completion of the extension of a network of high voltage underground electricity cables in QarawaBaniZaid, north of Ramallah. The pioneering project is the first of its kind in the town, which previously only possessed low voltage electricity cables that served a [...]  The Palestinian Media Club yesterday called on the Palestinian Authority (PA) to protect journalists from the Israeli occupation instead of harassing them and putting restrictions on their work, the Safa news agency reported. The Media Club condemned the PA's actions against journalists in the occupied West Bank who are often subjected to arrest campaigns against [...]  Palestinian Authority (PA) foreign ministry yesterday refused to comment on Egypt's denial that the two authorities are discussing their mutual sea borders, Quds Press reported. PA ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour had allegedly begun negotiations with Egypt in order to agree on the sea borders for a future Palestinian state. MEMO reported Mansour saying, "Primary discussions [...]  Witnesses and officials from the Islamic Endowment (Waqf) that control Al-Aqsa Mosque told Ma'an that more than 60 Israelis toured the compound, escorted by six Israeli intelligence officers. The Waqf condemned Israeli authorities last week for the latest "provocations and harassment" taking place on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound amid the holy month of Ramadan. It [...]  A Palestinian young man from the West Bank who suffered from Down's Syndrome died on Sunday evening after succumbing to wounds he sustained when Israeli forces shot him during clashes in his hometown of Sair, his family told Ma'an. Arif Jaradat, 21, was shot by Israeli soldiers in the back on May 4 when clashes erupted [...] The Israeli media reported yesterday that the Israeli cabinet approved $18.6 million in funding to settlements in the occupied West Bank due to the "worsening security situation". The approved funds are in addition to the $87.9 million already allocated to settlements. The funds to illegal colonies will include 15 million shekels from the Interior Ministry, [...] By Yousef Aljamal Palestine Prisoners Center has revealed that there are 485 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails sentenced to life, including Palestinian prisoners from Jerusalem and the 1948 territories. The latest two political prisoners sentenced to life were Maher Alhashlamoun, 32, from Hebron, who was sentenced to four life sentences and Shadi Mtawee, 28, [...] 9Millions of people are marking Refugee Week which starts today, June 20, in the hope of highlighting the bleak reality of life as a refugee. The forced mass expulsion and displacement of the Palestinian people, resulting from the 1948 War, continues to be one of the main focal points of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Due to [...]  A Palestinian farmer is to install solar panels on his chicken farm in order to ensure he obtains a continuous electricity supply, Arab48 reported yesterday. Fifty-two-year-old Nahid Abu-Asi, said his farm, which is located to the east of Al-Zaytoun, central Gaza city, was destroyed twice by the Israeli occupation, most recently in 2014. "I hope [...] Isaac Herzog, leader of Zionist Union, agreed to return to Israel's 1967 borders in secret talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2014. During the 2014-2015 election cycle in Israel, Herzog agreed to hand the West Bank and East Jerusalem (Al-Quds) back to Palestinians, according to Israel's Channel 10. The agreement, negotiated between Herzog's delegate, [...]  The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) said Monday that 65 Palestinian prisoners affiliated with the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) have started an open hunger strike in Israel's Megiddo prison, according to Ma'an. The decision to start the hunger strikes, according to a PPS lawyer, was in protest against Israel's decision to [...] The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has denounced a religious decree made by a prominent Jewish rabbi allowing Israeli settlers in the West Bank to poison Palestinian water sources in Palestinian towns in occupied West Bank. The PLO described the decree as "an order to kill". This call is not the first of its kind. Price [...]  Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, PLO Executive Committee Member, said on Saturday that the people of Palestine mourn the loss of 'Palestine's dear friend and peace and justice activist,' British Labor MP Jo Cox. She was murdered by a white British man named Thomas Mair outside a West Yorkshire library on Thursday. "MP Cox, a devoted humanitarian [...]  Three hundred Palestinians from the Gaza Strip were permitted to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem on Friday, according to Palestinian officials. This followed a recent decision to lift a ban implemented last week in response to a shooting in Tel Aviv. Israeli authorities lifted a ban on visitations by elderly Palestinians from [...] Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations said on Friday that the Palestinian and Egyptian foreign ministries have reportedly initiated negotiations to determine the undersea border between their territories. The Associated Press quoted Riyad Mansour as saying the negotiations were part of greater efforts toward "building the structures of a serious, respectable (Palestinian) state in all [...]  Palestinian Authority Representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, has called for international pressure on Israel to stop collective punishment of the Palestinians, Quds Press has reported. UN Secretary General and the current presidency holders of the UN Security Council and General Assembly received letters regarding new "illegal" measures amounting to collective punishment of the people [...]  The Israeli army advised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take appropriate measures to improve Palestinians' standard of living. However, he failed to act on this advice, a member of the Knesset said. Co-leader of the Zionist Union party Tzipi Livni, said in a radio interview, that failure to change the status quo is not in Israel's interest [...]  Israeli government plans to discuss a way to implement demolition orders in Arab towns, Arab48 reported. Likud ministers, Ze'ev Elkin and Yariv Levin presented a comprehensive plan to the government "to implement the organisational and building laws", which mainly target Arab towns that have tens of thousands of unlicensed homes. These homes are a direct [...]  Israel is planning to build a massive concrete wall which will extend underground along the Gaza Strip border, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper has revealed. The barrier is aimed at combating the threat posed by Hamas tunnels crossing into Israel from Gaza. The wall, which will stretch along the 96km (60 mile) border around the Gaza Strip, [...]  Hazem Khairat, the Egyptian ambassador to Israel, urged Palestinians and Israelis on Thursday to resume negotiations and to make peace, warning that "there is not much time left." At Israel's 16th annual Herzliya Conference, Khairat's speech stressed that a two-state solution represented the only hope for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while also addressing a series [...] By Yousef M. Aljamal - Rafah Muath Qishta, 13, was not yet born when an Israeli bulldozer driver crushed the body of American peace activist, Rachel Corrie, in March of 2003 in the Palestinian city of Rafah, while she was trying to protect Palestinian houses from demolition. Yet, Muath came this year to watch the [...]  Miri Regev, Israeli Minister of Culture, aims to allocate state funds to cultural institutions which will perform in illegal Israeli settlements, Haaretz revealed yesterday. Haaretz further reported that Regev's ministry had sent questionnaires to directors of theaters, orchestras and dance companies asking them to state whether they would agree to perform in Negev, Galilee or illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied [...]  Johannes Hahn, EU Commissioner responsible for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, yesterday visited the EU-funded seawater desalination plant in southern Gaza. Al Jazeera reported that the first phase of the desalination plant is in its final stage of construction, and is so far the largest being built in Gaza. The EU invested EUR 10 [...]  A group of employees working with international organizations active in the Gaza Strip have been found to be carrying out activities against the Resistance, security website Al-Majd reported on yesterday. Al-Majd, a Hamas-owned website was told that the group was found to be carrying out suspicious activities related to the Palestinian Resistance. Workers of international aid organizations [...]
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| FEATURED POEM | Stolen Joys - A Poem Jun 21 2016 / 7:35 pm A Gaza morning. (Photo: Via Aljazeera. file) Moons shine through her eyes As she walks past her house: Here, she once laughed; There, she once cried. "I remember," she whispers. The dark hours that once took over Are now gone in the past, But so are the happy moments She once had. "What if it was all a dream?" Faint words escape her mouth. The flowers she gardened, Sunned and watered Lost in the winter of acid rain When raids of autumn Fell on her head: Thorned petals destroying Everything she held dear. Her brother, five year old, was six nevermore; Her sister, 20 days, was never one month old. All she had, her father and her mother, Were beyond her reach: Only in dreams of long nights' sleep. "I remember," she weeps. Despite the joys and the laughs Of the twenty years that had passed, Something within her heart Never forgot who she once was: A daughter and a sister and much more An owner of a house That was now gone. "I lived here," she cried, "My soul still lingers, though; I lived here," she gazed And moved past her fresh wrinkles, And moved past everything she is And held on to what was stolen from her: Her family, her home, her childhood And a lot more. - Nour El-Borno is a published poet and a graduate of English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza. She contributed this poem to PalestineChronicle.com.
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The Palestine Chronicle is an independent online newspaper that provides daily news, commentary, features, book reviews, photos, art, etc, on a variety of subjects. However, it's largely focused on Palestine, Israel, and the Middle East region. The Palestine Chronicle is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization. To contact the editor, submit an article or any other material, please write to: editor@palestinechronicle.com. For other inquiries write to: info@palestinechronicle.com. |
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