Thank you to all the volunteers who helped WESPAC move in to our new location at Good Counsel: Steve, Art, Fareed, Aly and Dan.  We are just about good to go now in White Plains.  Art and Aly were fasting Ramadan (no water) on a very hot day, carrying boxes in and out of vehicles.  Thank you all very much.

We now have a meeting space for nine people in our office room.  I would like to ask for six folding chairs, ideally with cushions, if you are either willing to donate them or send in a contribution for them, we would really appreciate it.

I also need a scanner for the office, either donated in excellent condition or a contribution for a purchase.

Thank you all very much, and hope to see many of you on the 20th if not before,

Nada

US Palestinian Community Network
www.palestineconference.org + This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it + (347) 521-7894
Press Contacts: Monadel Herzallah, US Palestinian Community Network, (408) 849-7977 [California]
Hasan Newash, US Palestinian Community Network, (313) 570-9481 [Michigan]
Nada Khader, US Palestinian Community Network, 914.449.6514 [New York]
Hatem Abudayyeh, US Palestinian Community Network, (773) 301-4108 [Illinois]
*Press contacts will be available in both English and Arabic
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 1, 2010
PRESS ADVISORY SEPT 2: PALESTINIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY REJECTS FUTILE
NEGOTIATIONS IN WASHINGTON, DC
Palestinians in the United States say that renewed negotiations do not represent the will, or the rights, of the Palestinian people, Palestine is not for Sale
WHAT: Press Conference by Palestinians in the United States to say "No" to Washington
Negotiations
WHERE: Outside the US State Department, 2201 C Street NW, Washington, DC
WHEN: 9 a.m., Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010
On Thursday, September 2, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepare to meet in Washington, DC for a new round of direct negotiations, the Palestinian American community will convene at the State Department to demonstrate their support for Palestinian collective rights and reject the ongoing negotiations that marginalize and undermine them. The US Palestinian Community Network, a Palestinian community based organization with members and affiliates in over 20 states, says that these negotiations present a threat to Palestinian rights, including the right of return, and that the Palestinian Authority leadership
has not represented the Palestinian people, especially the seven million Palestinians living in exile and throughout the diaspora.
Well before the expiration of its electoral mandate last year, the Palestinian Authority has not defended the rights of Palestinians to self-determination, equality, and return but instead has negotiated for little more than the ownership of disconnected Bantustans in the West Bank. USPCN Coordinating Committee member, Monadel Herzallah comments, “The Palestinian Authority has failed to establish national unity, has failed to steadfastly demand the end of the Gaza blockade, has failed to dismantle the Annexation Wall. Rather than enter into direct negotiations with Israel--in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead, the flotilla massacre, and increasing aggression against Palestinian resistance, the Palestinian Authority should hold Israel to account by suing them in third party jurisdictions, raising their violations before UN treaty-making bodies, and supporting a grassroots international movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel. Refusing to do so and entering negotiations under duress affords Israel the veneer of diplomatic engagement as it continues to inflict structural violence and racism against all Palestinians the world over.”
Palestinians from Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Ohio, and Washington, D.C. will gather outside the State Department to say that "Palestine is Not For Sale", present a petition to the Palestinian leadership demanding they end these nonsensical negotiations, and declare that Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority representatives cannot represent Palestinians, whom it has shunned throughout its leadership.
--
US Palestinian Community Network
http://www.palestineconference.org/
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Register today for the 2nd Palestinian Popular Conference
October 29-31, 2010
Chicago, IL
http://www.palestineconference.org/

Diana Buttu: direct talks bound to fail Nora Barrows-Friedman, The Electronic Intifada, 30 August 2010

As US officials arrived in Jerusalem last week to meet with Palestinian Authority and Israeli government officials, Nora Barrows-Friedman interviewed Ramallah-based lawyer and former PLO advisor Diana Buttu about this week's US-brokered direct talks between the two parties for The Electronic Intifada.
Nora Barrows-Friedman: What are the realistic expectations for an outcome of the direct talks, as Israel continues to confiscate Palestinian land and expand illegal settlements, and as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces that it is the Palestinian preconditions that threaten to sabotage the talks?
Diana Buttu: The funny thing about Netanyahu's statement on preconditions is that the preconditions are actually Israeli, rather than the other way around. They're making it a precondition that Palestinians have to accept that Israel is going to continue its settlement activity. And if the Palestinian side says no to settlement activity, then somehow that is a precondition, and the world is not into that. The big problem is that while there is this announcement of negotiations, here on the ground [in the occupied West Bank], there is nobody who is greeting this announcement with any happiness, because we have been here before. We know what has happened in the past, and we know what is going to happen. And so, if anything, the direct talks are going to be a direct failure. Unless there is a very strong stance by the international community to stop Israel in its settlement activity, in home demolitions and in setting forth a terms of reference -- that Israel is going to abide by the 1967 borders -- then the talks are doomed to fail. We have been down this path before.
NBF: What is your response to how the PLO approved the talks, even though none of the non-Fatah parties approve of them? How did this happen, and what has the response been from the opposing parties?
DB: In terms of the PLO's response, this is not new. [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas is the same man who hijacked Palestinian elections a year and a half ago, when he unilaterally declared that his term was extended. This is the same man who has failed to hold the Palestinian Legislative Council elections. This is the same individual who has canceled the municipal elections, all under the guise of, "oh, this is too difficult right now." So it is not at all surprising that Mahmoud Abbas, speaking on behalf of Mahmoud Abbas, comes forward and declares that the PLO has accepted such talks when they haven't. And declares that the Palestinian people are welcoming such talks when they are not. And has the audacity to speak on behalf of Palestine and the Palestinians when he is neither elected nor legitimate any longer, and has not even bothered to ascertain the opinion of other organizations, other factions that are members of the PLO. NBF: Will this further split and antagonize the political factions against each other, or are we seeing more unity taking place?
DB: That is the one thing that is becoming interesting out of all of this -- this is no longer the isolation of Hamas. It's becoming the isolation of Fatah, in that you see all the political factions lining up on one side, and Fatah lining up on another side. This is not where the situation was a few years ago, or even a decade ago when the majority of Palestinian factions were, in some way, shape or form, in favor of Oslo or in favor of the negotiations process. Today, it is exactly the opposite. So, if anything, Fatah has marginalized itself, and is becoming increasingly more marginalized. The problem is that there is no way to translate that into any real change, because of Fatah holding the key, because of its inability to hold elections, with its refusal to listen to the factions. What it simply means is that we have this rogue party that is acting on behalf of its own interests and not the interests of the Palestinian people. That is going to continue to dictate the future of Palestine.
Unless this dissent transforms itself into a real push for internal change, then I fear [Fatah is] going to continue going down this path of isolating itself and marginalizing itself, and holding Palestinians hostage to its lack of vision and lack of strategy for Palestine.
NBF: You attended a press conference on 23 August given by PA spokesperson Saeb Erekat. What was revealed in the press conference, and what are most Palestinians concerned or skeptical about in relation to the talks and what is happening on the ground?
DB: There are two things that were revealed during the press conference. The first was that Erekat was unable to explain to journalists or to the Palestinian people what had changed, why they're entering into negotiations now. He kept referring to pithy Quartet statements -- no one really cares what the Quartet says or does, because they don't really do anything -- and he kept referring to the international community and its support for the peace process. But there was nothing that he could point to to explain why now is the time for direct talks. In other words, there was nothing that he could say -- neither in the form of guarantees, nor in assurances, nor in the form of a settlement freeze, or anything that he could take to the Palestinian people and sell. It simply was the result of their utter incompetence. There was no way to explain why they were going to negotiations.
The second thing that came out during the press conference, and this was clear to the journalists who were present, is that this is a leadership of lies. If this leadership had come forward and said, "we are under tremendous amounts of international pressure, both financially and politically" (which we know is the case), then at least we would have been able to give them credit for that. Erekat didn't say that. Moreover, if this was the same individual who came forward and said they would halt negotiations, unequivocally, in the event that Israel does not impose a complete settlement freeze -- not a partial freeze, not a moratorium -- and a complete halt to home demolitions, then at least we would have been able to feel that this is a leadership that is responsive, a leadership that is honest. Instead, Erekat came forward and said that there are going to be no negotiations. In fact, he used the phrase that Netanyahu will have chosen -- no negotiations -- in the event that settlements and home demolitions continue. What we know is the opposite. If they have not pressed for a complete settlement freeze now, if they have not pressed for a halt in home demolitions and land confiscation now, then the PA has to explain to us that somehow, magically, on 26 September -- when the so-called settlement moratorium has expired -- that suddenly the Palestinian Authority and the PLO are going to get a backbone?
So rather than him making these slogans and statements, we wanted to hear the truth. And instead we are faced with a leadership that lies. It lied about the pressure that has been put upon the PLO in order to enter into negotiations, and it will be proven on 26 September that the same leadership is going to -- once again -- lie to us about halting negotiations if there is no settlement freeze. NBF: What are your major concerns about the Palestinian political atmosphere right now?
DB: The major concern is that we all know that this is going to fail. It doesn't require anyone with any particular knowledge or foresight to realize that these talks are going to fail. The real question is what is going to come afterwards, and here is where I'm most concerned. For the past 17 years, the PLO, and in particular, Fatah, has had one strategy and only one strategy: negotiations, negotiations, negotiations. And they have had only one strategy as regards to themselves, and that is survival. We are now at a stage where we are seeing that this is going to be -- and I really hope that it is -- the final blow to the logic and the ideology of negotiations, that people somehow have to negotiate their freedom. The real question is, what is this leadership going to do? Is this leadership going to continue to hold us hostage to this tired, visionless lack of strategy? Or is something different going to come? I'm not concerned with the talks, we know they are going to fail. My bigger concern is about what is going to happen once the talks fail, and is there going to be anybody who is going to come forward with a different plan, a different strategy, a different vision? And that is my fear. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Let me know if you would like one, and I can order a bunch for the WESPAC office in White Plains:

Dear Nada    

I want to take this opportunity to inform you that the 2011 “Colors from Palestine” Calendar has already been posted on our website: www.resistanceart.com; and to thank you for your continuous support.

 

As the world watches Israel is imprisoning 1.5 million Palestinian in Gaza and denying them the most basic needs. With its total control over Gaza ’s land borders, airspace, territorial waters, population registry, tax system, supply of goods and supply of fuel, Israel has managed to maintain its blockade of the 1.5 million civilian population of the territory.

 

While the Palestinian-Arab struggles have produced a great deal of revolutionary ideas, the struggle can sometimes lead us to forget that art can play a role just as important. Art is part of what defines our identity and who we are as a people. We ask for your help to break the siege on Gaza and to support Gaza ’s young artists.

All the proceeds from the sales of our 2011 “Colors from Palestine “will benefit young women artists in Gaza we highly value your effort to help our young artists in Palestine . 

 

To view the 2011 “Colors from Palestine ” calendar click on the link below:

http://www.resistanceart.com/2011_Front_Back_Covers.htm

 

 

Please email me how many copies you can help with and a mailing address where you want the sent and I will mail them as soon as possible.

 

Cathy Said

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

416-890-2331

Each month, we conduct a review of a recent book that deals with issues relating to Palestine and/or the Israel/Palestine conflict. Books that are chosen for review can be academic or non-academic, historical or fictional. Next month we will be reviewing Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: Patterns, Problems, Possibilities by Laura Zittrain Eisenberg and Neil Caplan. If you would like to suggest a book for review, please contact the Palestine Center.

Faith Misplaced: The Broken Promise of U.S. Arab Relations 1820-2003
written by Ussama Makdisi
Hardcover: 432 pages, PublicAffairs; 1 edition (22 June 2010)
Palestine Center Book Review No. 8 (31 August 2010)

By Yousef Munayyer
"Why do they hate us?" It is probably the most asked question regarding the Arab world since 9/11. Many have ventured to ask and answer this question in the years before and after 9/11, and such works became popular with a broad American readership. Sam Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations," which was largely dismissed by the academy when it was first published, became very popular after the terror attacks on the United States in 2001. But "Why do they hate us?" is also one of the most loaded five-word questions imaginable. Who exactly are they? Who exactly is us? (Or is it U.S.?) Are both of these groups monolithic? Is this so-called hate personal; or rather is hate a misleading term all together? All of these questions, essentially the unpacking of this loaded and overused question, are explored in Ussama Makdisi's Faith Misplaced: The Broken Promise of U.S. Arab Relations 1820-2001.
While many who tell the story of this relationship begin with the American encounter with Barbary pirates off the coast of North Africa, the starting point for Makdisi is representative of his general understanding of the relationship which he tries to convey to his readers. When it comes to the Arab world, and particularly the Levant with which the United States has been so enamored, the origins of this relationship are not in violent clashes at sea but rather through initially unremarkable proselytizing missions. His description of the early period of American proselytization attempts is valuable and particularly telling. The fiercest opponents of these missions at the time were not the majority Muslim population, as the "Clash of Civilizations" doctrine would have us expect, but rather the leadership of the eastern Christian churches whose flocks were targeted by the missionaries. Makdisi explains that the eastern churches had struck a balance of comfort in a multi-religious society, and perceived the missionaries as threats to that delicate harmony. Makdisi explains that over time the religious missions, taking into account the resistance they faced from the eastern churches, had morphed into a more secular endeavor. Abandoning preaching and adopting education, American expeditions in the Arab world created institutions like the Syrian Protestant College, which later became the esteemed American University of Beirut.
It would be these institutions that helped create an opening to understanding the West, and the United States in particular, at a time when the Ottoman Empire still ruled the land, and French, British and Israeli occupations where not in the Arab imagination. Likewise, these institutions, Makdisi writes, helped the Arabs form new communal identities:

The emergence of Arabic literary and scientific societies, newspapers and journals in Beirut and Cairo, many of which were founded by men who had worked with or taught alongside missionaries, helped create a feeling of being Syrian, Arab or Egyptian in a national sense that could unite Muslim and Christian Arabic speakers.

While some of the roots of secular Arab nationalism can be traced back to institutions connected with American missionaries, the American failure to account for the general will of the very civil society it helped spark played a significant role in the souring of the relationship. Long before the regular public-opinion polling of Arab populations we have become accustomed to today, the King-Crane Commission of 1919 set out to understand the native feeling about self-determination, mandatory governments, independence and colonialism. This process, which Makdisi devotes a significant part of the book to, was the beginning of a turning point in the relationship. The Commission's report documented a strong sense of self-determination among the Arabs (who distrusted European colonialism but would be more open to the idea of an American mandate) and, importantly, it noted a strong anti-Zionist sentiment. When Woodrow Wilson's White House failed to respond to the report and the Levant became a drawing board for French and British kingmakers with Zionist aspirations in mind, the new world order established by post-WWI idealists began to crumble, and the stage was set for the United States' fall from grace in the Arab world. On the creation of Israel, Makdisi writes:

The question of Palestine would remain at the center of Arab concern, both as an embodiment of collective Arab failure and as a spur to Arab unification. Resisting, indeed reversing, Zionism became the mantra of modern anti-imperialist Arab politics- one passionately believed in by millions of Arabs and one also relentlessly exploited by a bevy of competing leaders who sought to seize the mantel of pan-Arab leadership while struggling to consolidate their grip on power at home. Through its championing of partition and its immediate recognition of a Jewish state, America had drawn first blood. The Arab reaction was not long in coming.

Ussama Makdisi's book tells an important story about a relationship which, in its early years, had tremendous potential based on commonalities and tolerance, but it ultimately soured over time as the spirit of cooperation embodied in the academic institutions established by missions in the Arab world, was replaced with a spirit of domination and dictation from an aspiring superpower to a peoples in the midst of anti-colonialist resistance.

Yousef Munayyer is Executive Director of the Palestine Center. This book review may be used without permission but with proper attribution to the Center. The views in this review are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund.

*Join Palestinians in Washington, DC on Thursday, Sept. 2 for a picket
outside the US State Department to say: Palestinian National Rights Are Not
For Sale!<http://palestineconference.org/wp/2010/08/31/thurs-sep-2-washington-dc-palestinians-say-no-to-negotiations-palestine-is-not-for-sale/>
*

As the direct negotiations begin at the US State Department, it is critical
that our voices are heard saying that the Authority does not speak for
Palestinians and that we will not allow Palestinian national rights –
particularly the right to return – to be bargained away.

Please join us at *9:00 AM – when the negotiations are scheduled to begin –
on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010, outside the US State Department at 2201 C Street
NW, Washington, DC.* Please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with any
questions. We call on all Palestinians, Arabs and supporters in the D.C.
area to join us to make a visible presence against these direct
negotiations.

Click here to sign Arabic-language petition to the Authority
leadership<http://palestineconference.org/wp/2010/08/27/sign-arabic-language-petition-against-negotiations/>
.

The press advisory is below:
<http://palestineconference.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Advisory.pdf>
*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 31, 2010*



*PRESS ADVISORY
SEPT 2: PALESTINIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY SAYS “NO” TO “SHAM” NEGOTIATIONS IN
WASHINGTON, DC*
*Palestinians in the United States say that new negotiations between
Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas do not represent the will of the
Palestinian people: Palestine is not for Sale*

*WHAT:
*Protest and Press Availability by Palestinians in the United States to say
“No” to Washington Negotiations
*WHERE:
*Outside the US State Department, 2201 C Street NW, Washington, DC
*WHEN:*
9 a.m., Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010

*Speakers and contacts will be available in both English and Arabic
languages.

On Thursday, September 2, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepare to meet in Washington,
DC for a round of direct negotiations, the Palestinian American community
says these negotiations are a sham, and undermine the collective will of
the  the Palestinian people at home and exile. The US Palestinian Community
Network, a Palestinian community-based organization with members and
affiliates in over 20 states, says that these negotiations present a threat
to Palestinian rights, including the right of return, and that the
Palestinian Authority leadership does not represent the Palestinian people,
especially the seven million Palestinians living in exile and diaspora. As
Palestinians in the United States, we demand that the Obama administration
stop providing cover and aid to Israeli occupation and oppression.  We will
gather outside the State Department to say that “Palestine is Not For Sale”,
present a petition to the Palestinian leadership demanding they end these
negotiations<http://palestineconference.org/wp/2010/08/27/sign-arabic-language-petition-against-negotiations/>,
and declaring that Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority
representatives do not represent our community.

*--
US Palestinian Community Network
**http://www.palestineconference.org/* <http://www.palestineconference.org/>
*
** This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it * < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

*Register today for the 2nd Palestinian Popular Conference
October 29-31, 2010
Chicago, IL
**http://www.palestineconference.org/* <http://www.palestineconference.org/>

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/14-4

TOXIC GAS DRILLING TOURS OF CHEMUNG COUNTY

 

Al-Awda Shocked by Gruesome Murder of Abu Obeida Omran

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition is shocked, saddened and outraged at the gruesome and trajic murder of Abu Obeida Abdel Salam Omran. On Friday August 13, 2010, Abu Obeida was deliberately run over and dragged with a car apparently during an attempted robbery at one of his gas stations in Houston Texas. The alleged killers were arrested by police after they fled the scene. Abu Obeida died that night from the injuries he had sustained during the attack. Abu Obeida is originally from the village of Burin near Nablus on the West Bank. He was 42 years old, married with two sons, Abu Obeida and Abu Ali Mustafa, and a daughter, Maryam. His wife is expecting another child.   Abu Obeida was a young man full of energy. He was actively involved in building Al-Awda's chapter in Houston which he founded. He was a successful businessman and a leader in the community. He took part in the Viva Palestina US convoy to Gaza in 2009, and actively helped with employment, housing, financially or other ways all of the Palestinian refugees who recently arrived in Texas from Al-Waleed camp in Iraq. Abu Obeida was a dedicated activist for his people's right to return to their original homes and lands from which they have been dispossessed by Zionist forces and the Israeli state beginning in the 1948 era. He was in his first year of service as a member of the national coordinating committee of Al-Awda and was responsible for the external affairs of the organization. He strongly believed in strengthening, expanding and consolidating efforts in Al-Awda, and was working with colleagues in Texas to develop chapters of the organization in four other cities in that state. In addition to several other projects, Abu Obeida was most recently organizing with colleagues in Texas and elsewhere a conference to take place in Houston in October 2010 to advance the campaign for one democratic state in all of Palestine with the restoration and implementation of Palestinian rights in full. Abu Obeida and his leadership will be sorely missed by all those who knew him.   We extend our deepest condolences to Abu Obeida's family, friends and our community. We have lost a comrade and share in your grief.

May he rest in peace.   Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition PO Box 131352 Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA Tel: 760-918-9441 Fax: 760-918-9442 E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it WWW: http://al-awda.org/   Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC) is dedicated to advocacy for the restoration of Palestinian human, national, legal, political and historical rights in full with particular emphasis on the right of Palestinians to return to their homes and lands of origin from which they have been dispossessed since 1948. PRRC is a not for profit tax-exempt educational and charitable 501(c)(3) organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States of America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations to PRRC are tax-deductible. To donate, go to http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the instructions. To become a member, go to http://www.al-awda.org/membership.html

Word is out that Hilltop Hanover Farm and Environmental Center may be forced to close by January 2011. No operating budget as of the end of this year – due to budget cuts.  No staff, no farmers, no programs. This is short-sighted.  

 

Earlier in the summer County Executive Rob Astorino wanted to sell this wonderful farm but the county board voted unanimously that it was too much of an asset to have in its place another McMansion development. If you haven’t been there lately, please go  – it’s gorgeous, open to the public, the only farm of its kind in all of Westchester . Take some friends and walk around the back to the fields and say hi to Wilson, or Stephanie or Kelly or Josh and Jonathan… I started volunteering there in June with students from my English 201 class and they’ve all made us feel so incredibly welcome. It’s such a relaxing peaceful place in which people can learn to reconnect with nature and grow healthy food. When you talk about sustainability, this is where it starts – with the food we eat. That’s why this farm is so vital.

If you feel this farm is not just worth keeping – but worth keeping open -- write a comment to County Executive Astorino at the link below.  And please forward this message. THANK YOU!  -- Tracy Basile

http://socialservices.westchestergov.com/index.php?option=com_chronocontact&Itemid=4242

“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us.

When we see land as a community to which we belong,

we may begin to use it with love and respect.” Aldo Leopold

 

Click here for more wonderful photos of the farm!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hilltophanoverfarm/with/3837687080/