Israelisch Expansionisme 35

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD served on the faculty of both Duke and Yale Universities (six and five years respectively). He is currently serving on the Steering Committee of the US Camaign to End the Occupation (endtheoccupation.org), the executive commttee of the Palestinian American Congress (http://www.pac-national.org/), and the board of the Association for One Democratic State in Israel/Palestine (one-democratic-state.org). His third and latest book is titled "Sharing the Land of Canaan: human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle". He also has an activism book published electronically on the web (http://qumsiyeh.org). His main interest is media activism and public education.

Hij stuurde deze kerstkaart en deze email:

'Christmas Reflections/Greeting 2006.

It is at Christmastime that the sometimes-beautiful and sometimes-poignant
childhood memories of Bethlehem haunt me and other Palestinian Christians
most vividly. Born in Shepherd's Field near Bethlehem to a Lutheran mother
and a Greek Orthodox father, I grew up feeling lucky because we celebrated
two Christmases. The Christmas season was a time of family gatherings
around kerosene heaters where our fingers were cold but our hearts were warm
and stomachs full.

Today, Christmas is a time to reflect on the tragedy that has befallen this
most famous of little towns. Israel militarily occupied Bethlehem in 1967,
but the landscape had begun to change well before that. In 1948, Bethlehem
became home to thousands of Palestinian refugees after more than 750,000
people were driven from their homes in what became Israel. Palestinians were
forbidden to return, and the cramped refugee camps of Dheisheh and Aida on
the outskirts of Bethlehem remain testaments to this nearly 60-year legacy
of dispossession.

After 1967, Israel built new illegal settlements on annexed Palestinian
public and agricultural lands and Israeli-only roads to connect these
settlements to Israel and one another. We could do nothing but watch as
increasing portions of our homeland became off-limits to Palestinians. The
only forested region of East Jerusalem, Jabal Abu Ghneim -- where I used to
picnic and walk almost daily -- became the Jewish settlement of Har Homa.
Today, Bethlehem is surrounded by the settlements of Gilo, Har Gilo, and a
new settlement near Rachel's tomb. The tomb is holy to Christians, Muslims
and Jews but is now off limit to Palestinians, including relatives of the
hundreds of Palestinian Muslims buried there.

Since 2002, Bethlehemites have faced the enormous human costs of a massive,
concrete segregation wall. During my visit last July, I noticed that the
route of the wall zigzagged around Bethlehem, placing fertile Palestinian
agricultural lands on the "Israeli side" of the wall. The wall went straight
through centuries-old villages - separating Palestinian families from each
other and from their jobs, hospitals, schools, churches and mosques.'

Lees verder: http://www.qumsiyeh.org/christmas2006/