Category Archives: peace

Are these the first blooms of a ‘Palestinian summer’? | Ahmad Samih Khalidi | Comment is free | theguardian.com

The new Palestinian “reconciliation” government is first and foremost a response to an overwhelming popular desire to end the seven-year-old rift between Fatah and Hamas – a split that has inflicted deep scars on the Palestinian polity and threatened to leave Gaza in permanent secession from the West Bank.

But it also reflects a new independent-mindedness on the part of the Palestinian Authority’s leadership, and a readiness to give precedence to the Palestinian national interest above other considerations. It is of course no coincidence that the realisation of this aim has followed the collapse of the last round of US-sponsored negotiations with Israel. Long accused of passivity, and an inability to take the initiative, the Palestinians appear to have finally decided to act in their own interest without seeking prior permission from friend or foe.

This new move chimes with other “unilateral” moves designed to upgrade the Palestinians’ status at the UN. This will change little on the ground, but the leadership believes it may slowly build up sufficient political and diplomatic momentum to help define a final resolution based on the two-state solution, otherwise unobtainable via the current negotiations. The appeal to the UN is not intended as a substitute for negotiations, but as a parallel track that involves neither threats nor force. It is also a path that Israel itself trod as a means to its own independence in 1947.

Binyamin Netanyahu may fulminate about Palestinian terrorism (a total of three Israeli civilians have been killed on the West Bank in the past three years, none directly ascribed to Hamas) but the fact is that Mahmoud Abbas, the PA president, is dedicated to non-violence, as is his new government.

via Are these the first blooms of a ‘Palestinian summer’? | Ahmad Samih Khalidi | Comment is free | theguardian.com.

D-day 70th anniversary: ‘I remember every detail of the landing even now’ | World news | theguardian.com

Foote, from Tottington in Lancashire, has no shortage of stories to tell. He arrived in Normandy on D-day on Juno beach with the 51st Highland Division of the Scottish Horse Regiment and spent the rest of the war moving across Europe. He was with the Allied forces that relieved the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp in 1945.

Foote was just 23 when he jumped off the landing craft along with Canadian troops from the North Nova Scotia Highlanders and ran on to the French beach “at tea time … don’t ask when that was because we didn’t know what day it was let alone the time,” he says.

“I remember every detail of the landing even now. It was a terrifying experience,” he adds. “We just kept moving. It was the same after D-day, we kept moving across Europe fighting all the way.”

via D-day 70th anniversary: ‘I remember every detail of the landing even now’ | World news | theguardian.com.

Growing Up To Be Like Yuri Kochiyama | Race Files

She may be best known in the public eye for the iconic picture that shows her cradling Malcolm X’s head in her lap after he was killed in a Manhattan auditorium, but Yuri Kochiyama’s life and legacy stood for much more, especially to Asian Americans. Many of us learned of Yuri Kochiyama’s recent death, not from mainstream news outlets, which have yet to do her legacy full justice, but from one another. And we have had very similar collective responses: tremendous gratitude for how she influenced us, coupled with a redoubling of our commitment to the principles she lived by.

via Growing Up To Be Like Yuri Kochiyama | Race Files.

Divide grows between Israeli, Palestinian journalists – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

The situation of Palestinian journalists has created anger toward their Israeli counterparts for a number of reasons. For instance, Israel continues to restrict Palestinian journalists’ movements, while Israeli journalists are freely granted access to Palestinian areas.

While the Palestinian Journalists’ Association has denounced all acts of violence against journalists, including the attacks against the two Israelis in Beitunia, their Israeli counterparts rarely speak out about the travel restrictions on Palestinian journalists and regular Israeli army attacks on Palestinian journalists. Of note, on May 15, Palestinian cameramen Issam Rimawi and Abdul Kareem Mestaif were injured by rubber bullets that Palestinians believe were directed at them specifically because they were carrying cameras. The Foreign Press Association in Israel, currently headed for the first time by a Palestinian, Samer Shalabi, issued a statement that “condemns in the strongest terms” the incident and called on everyone to “respect the right of journalists on assignment to work unharmed to freely and unhindered pursue their profession.”

via Divide grows between Israeli, Palestinian journalists – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

Cintas chief takes up growth, race | www.journal-news.com

“Yes, a lot of progress has been made in Middletown and America, but … things come up like a pro basketball owner who makes very negative comments related to race, or a Texas rancher who wonders aloud if African Americans were better off as slaves, or we have a Treyvon Martin situation or we have voter suppression laws coming into play,” he said. “Any number of issues just remind us that, unfortunately, no we haven’t moved into this more idealistic, post-racial or racism phase.”

via Cintas chief takes up growth, race | www.journal-news.com.