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Jerusalem

  • Building Palestine from the Bottom Up by Shlomo Ben Ami

    Shlomo is right, that the only tangible successes in Palestine in recent years have been the local, mayor-based projects of safety and security. He also knows well that without the political, endgame progress, that these local successes are just ways to make the Palestinian open-air prison of the West Bank into a nicer showcase of Bantustans. It can only be the prelude to nation building if President Obama rhetorically crushes the last vestiges of neoconservative tactics, this time in Jerusalem, that insists on driving Palestinians out of any place to live in their ancient city. This cannot continue, because it must be a home for two peoples.

    The “bottom” that Shlomo points to, security and infrastructure projects, are not ‘bottom’ enough for me. The real ‘bottom’ of peacebuilding is the heart of these two peoples, the searing rage, anger, humiliation, fear and paranoia that must be responded to by …

  • In the Land of Hayal’s and Shahids

    Writing from Jerusalem

    No one knows whether the Middle East is at the dawn of a new era with the accession of President Obama to leadership, whether between Obama, the new Saudi king’s very serious Peace Proposal, and President Assad’s keen interest in a peace process, that we are at the dawn of a strong consensus to finally resolve the central conflict of the region, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. We could also be at the beginning of a downward spiral of hatred, revenge, populist rage, military force, fanatical manipulation, and zero sum desperate final measures of power and destruction that will yield unprecedented human misery in the region. I cannot tell, honestly.

    But I do know that we are all responsible for this. We are responsible in everything we say and do, and in every action that we support. The nonsense that corrupt

    …

  • She Sits in a Room that is Dark

    She sits in a room that is dark. There are no lights, there is no gas or oil. There is no heat, there is no electricity. Those were rare luxuries even before the bombs fell because she is in prison. A place of blockades cut off from the rest of the world for over a year. But now there is no heat at all, and it is freezing cold at night. And, more importantly, she must keep all the windows open for if not they will all shatter from the vibrations of buildings exploding nearby and the glass will explode onto her children.

    So she huddles with her children under ten blankets. The children cannot drink milk nor find any meat because she cannot afford these luxuries. She was brought up by a Sufi sheikh, and she was taught so many

    …

  • Israeli Jews Choosing Against a Two-State Solution

    Population analysis says much more than either war or peace slogans. The anger Israeli Jews feel about Kassams and suicide bombs could possibly explain the level of brutality of the Occupation, but it cannot explain the population explosion of Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

    The population growth among West Bank settlers was three times higher than that of the rest of Israel during the past 12 years, according to a report by the Ariel College Center of Samaria.

    The statistical annual report shows that the Jewish population in the West Bank more than doubled during that time, with a growth of 107 percent. The report also shows that the settler population has surged from 130,000 in 2005 to 270,000 by the end of 2007.

    Meanwhile, the entire population of Israel grew by 29 percent over the same period.
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    This population trend has continued over the past three years,

    …

  • ORTHODOX JEWISH LEADER IN JERUSALEM PRAYS FOR OBAMA AT ISRAEL’S HOLIEST SITE

    Orthodox Jewish leader Rabbi Menahem Frohman made an impassioned appeal today for American Jews to embrace Senator Obama as a harbinger of peace in the Middle East. Amidst controversial reports coming out of Israel that most Americans there voted for McCain Rabbi Frohman’s religious prayers stand out as exceptional. Most of those polled are Orthdox, and this dovetails American trends in which Orthodox Jews are mostly voting for McCain. Here is the video from the Kotel, the Western Wall of the ancient Jewish Temple in the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem.

    Prayers in the Old City of Jerusalem for Obama

    We live in an age in which religion as an ideology has been weaponized by at least some people in every culture and civilization. But sometimes one sees exceptions, passionate expressions of piety that are for peace, not war, for love, not hatred. The constant in history is …

  • What is *Reality*? – Welcome to the Sulha

    In the context of major global conflicts, where everyone is analyzing what is right or wrong, black or white, left or right, it has occured to me that the definition of reality sometimes gets lost in the mix.

    Here are few definitons of reality occording to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary

    ‘Reality’

    1: the quality or state of being real

    2 a (1): a real event, entity, or state of affairs reality(2): the totality of real things and events realityb: something that is neither derivative nor dependent but exists necessarily

    Imagine for just a moment if headlines coming out of the Middle East read like this tomorrow….

    Today thousands of Arabs, Jews, Israelis,
    Palestinians, Seculars and Religious, Christians, Muslims,
    Druze, young and old gathered to dance, to cry, to share, to
    laugh, to work, to play and ultimately, to live together for
    three days just a few miles outside of     …

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