United Methodists are responding to Kairos Palestine: A Moment of Truth ,a statement of faith and urgent call to action from Christians in Palestine. UMKR seeks, through nonviolent means and in partnership with Palestinian Christians, freedom, justice and equality for all Palestinians and Israelis.
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News & Analysis UMKR News & Alerts
ABOUT OUR NEWS SOURCES
The articles we include in our lists to 'Read More' – in our newsletters and on our website – are provided as an informational service for our readers, and the views expressed may or may not be shared by UMKR.
Some selections may be repetitive;because some periodicals have paywalls, we provide a variety of sources in the hope that every reader will find some of them accessible, with or without a subscription.
Read these sections of the
Winter-Spring 2019
newsletter:
TAKE ACTION:
• NO US $$$ for Abuse of Children - goes to our action alert eblast
• Rise Against Racism, Counter CUFI
• UNITED METHODISTS' NEWS:
Response to GC2019; 2019 Resolutions;
Oppose Anti-Free Speech Bill; MFSA Says "No"; UMC Board's Actions
• PARTNERS' NEWS
Two Steps Forward for Lutherans; AMP: 500 Strong on Capitol Hill; JVP: "Zionism, a false & failed answer"
IN THE NEWS: ISRAEL/PALESTINE
• SUMUD: The Great March Continues
• UN Report: Israeli War Crimes
• Removing Last Restraints in Hebron
• Palestinian Revenues, Economic Crisis
• Waging War on Prisoners
• Deporting and Denying Entry
• Israeli Elections: Game-changer or...?
IN THE NEWS: UNITED STATES
• Ilhan Omar and a New Frontier
• US, Israel Fight Int'l Criminal Court
• Airbnb Whirlwind Ends in Disgrace
• Occupied no longer? Golan Heights
• Deal of the Century...Not!
IN THE NEWS: SPOTLIGHT
• Black-Palestinian Solidarity
• SEIZE THE DAY
Coming Events, June-Dec 2019
• THE HOLY LAND BECKONS:
News on ethical tourism AND
Upcoming 2019 Trips
UMKR Newsletter - Winter-Spring 2019
Read the newsletter eblast in your browser
IN THE NEWS: ISRAEL/PALESTINE
SUMUD: One Year and the Great March Goes On
Sumud - Arabic for “steadfastness” - is perhaps
the quality most often attributed to the
Palestinian people. The Great March of
Return, which began as a six-week protest
and has continued to take place every Friday
for the past year, is the most vivid
illustration the world could have of the
Palestinian people's extraordinary
steadfastness and eternal resistance
to oppression.
Ever since March 30, 2018, thousands of
Palestinians in Gaza have been protesting
along the fence that separates the besieged strip from Israel. That date is commemorated by Palestinians annually as Land Day - see more on the significance of that day in links below . The Great March in 2018 was also timed to culminate six weeks later with the infamous May 2018 celebration of the move of the U.S. embassy to the divided city of Jerusalem.
But faced with "living in hell," as they
describe the humanitarian
nightmare in Gaza, many Palestinians
locked in the prison that is Gaza have
found that the March was an
empowering experience, one of
the few ways they could make
their existence known to the
world and unavoidable for Israel,
and they continued to come to the
fence that imprisons them
every week throughout 2018 and
continuing to the anniversary on March 30, 2019.
And their persistence shows no signs of waning hereafter.
Israel’s deadly force in response to the largely nonviolent protests have been condemned around the
world. According to Gaza’s health ministry, 250 or more people have been killed, including dozens of children, clearly identified medical personnel and journalists, and protesters that were not taking part in any threatening action. Over 7000 demonstrators have been shot by live ammunition; over one hundred children have had limbs amputated, along with many more young men. “The shocking scale and horrific nature of the debilitating injuries inflicted by Israeli forces on Palestinian protesters in Gaza last year suggests Israel pursued a deliberate strategy to maim civilians,” said an Amnesty International official.
Contrary to Israeli 'spin', too often parroted in Western media, the victims are not to blame for what they have suffered; week after week, Israel has continued to choose unnecessarily to respond with deadly force.
Gazans are demanding
the right to return to
their ancestral homes,
which they fled and were
expelled from during the
Nakba (the “catastrophe”),
when Israel declared itself
a state in 1948. Some
750,000 refugees were
never allowed to return to
their homes when that war ended. Two thirds the two million Palestinians in Gaza are refugees or the descendants of refugees; many live just a few kilometers from their native villages. The protesters are also demanding an end to the 12-year-long Israeli blockade of Gaza, which has created a horrifying humanitarian crisis, with 80% or more of the population dependent on humanitarian aid for survival and having virtually no water fit for human consumption.
For the one year anniversary of the
Great March, some 40,000 of
Palestinians joined the protests;
four were killed and hundreds
wounded. A historic first also
happened for this Great March
anniversary: hundreds of
Israelis in Tel Aviv also
protested (photo, right),
to express their solidarity
with the people of Gaza.
Palestinians in the West
Bank also demonstrated,
affirming that "we are one people."
In February this year, the United Nations Human Rights Council issued a harsh report on the unjustified brutality of Israel’s response to the Great March, saying that some Israeli actions may constitute international crimes. B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights center, has been saying the same thing and calling for Israeli soldiers to refuse to shoot the protesters.
[MORE ON THIS STORY:Crimes Against Humanity? UN Report Calls for Arrests]
When will governments of the world acknowledge Israel's horrific treatment of the Gaza people and demand that it cease: not only at the massacres on Fridays at the Great March, but also the slow genocide-by-blockade, happening every day of the last 12 years?
READ, LISTEN, WATCH
AHMAD ABU ARTEMA
Washington Post:
A year after the Great March
of Return, Palestinians are
still fighting for freedom
By Ahmad Abu Artema, the man
who inspired the Great March
Mondoweiss: As Gaza’s Great March of Return approaches one-year, protest founder Ahmed Abu Artema discusses building a non-violent movement
It all started because of a bird. Ahmed Abu Artema, the unlikely leader of the largest popular Palestinian movement in decades, strode beside the separation fence that divides his home in the Gaza Strip from Israel on a January evening last year
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) organized a U.S. tour this year for Ahmad Abu Artema, the man whose post on Facebook got the Great March started. If you missed the tour, see this page for their Media Highlights: reports and broadcasts from his tour.
REPORTS AND COMMENTARY
Middle East Monitor: The Year of the People: The Untold Story of Gaza’s ‘March of Return’
What is the ‘Great March of Return’ but a people attempting to reclaim their role, and be recognised and heard in the struggle for the liberation of Palestine?
Much has been said about what the popular mobilisation in Gaza, which began on March 30, 2018, represents. Sympathetic views rightly understood the daily protests at the fence separating Israel
from the besieged Gaza Strip, as a people frustrated with a protracted and inhumane blockade.
Others also emphasised the fact that the protesters are mostly refugees from historic Palestine
(today’s Israel), who are demanding their right to return home.
Unsympathetic, dubious media reports kept poking holes in the above facts, with Israeli and
pro-Israeli media falsely claiming that the popular initiative is a Hamas-driven ploy to embarrass
Israel by placing people in harm’s way for cheap media attention.
Mondoweiss: On the one-year anniversary of the Great March of Return
Today I participated in the Great March of Return with tens of thousands of Gazans. We marched on the fence of the Gaza concentration camp marking Land Day and the one-year anniversary of the March. We had the mother of all marches, sending a loud message to apartheid Israel, that we have not forgotten any of our rights.
Electronic Intifada: One year of Gaza’s Great March of Return
Reviewing the March over the last year, Israel's actions, the UN report on crimes and more.
Al Jazeera: ’Our people will not back down': Gaza marks protests anniversary
Four killed, hundreds wounded as Israeli forces use live rounds and tear gas on Great March of Return protesters.
Al Jazeera: Gaza’s Great March of Return Protests Explained
The backstory of the Great March of Return protests and the conditions that have brought Gaza to this point. Includes a video explaining the protests, the 12-year long blockade of Gaza and more.
+972 Magazine: The myth of the Gaza border
The Green Line disguises the fact that Palestinians in Gaza are no longer being oppressed
outside the Israeli state, but are being caged and brutalized inside it.
Mondoweiss: ‘The essence of being Palestinian’: what the Great March of Return is really about
The aims of the Great March of Return protests, which began in Gaza on March 30, 2018 are to
put an end to the suffocating Israeli siege and implementing the Right of Return for Palestinian
refugees who were expelled from their homes and towns in historic Palestine 70 years earlier.
But there is much more to the March of Return than a few demands, especially bearing in mind
the high human cost associated with it.
Al Jazeera: How the Great March of Return Resurrected Palestinian Resistance
The march we started a year ago defeated our two biggest enemies: Palestinian factionalism and Israeli propaganda. From the man whose Facebook post sparked the Great March, Ahmad Abu Artema.
Middle East Eye: From inspiration to despair: A year of Gaza's Great March of Return
As Palestinians dream of returning home, Gaza has become synonymous with war, death and suffering
+972mag: In Gaza's Return March, echoes of an Apartheid-era massacre
The Sharpeville Massacre, in which South African police gunned down 250 black protesters,
marked a turning point in the struggle against Apartheid. But it would take another 34 years
until democracy finally came to South Africa. A cautionary tale for Palestinians.
Al-Shabaka: Back to the Future: The Great March of Return
The Great March of Return – which began on March 30 and has not yet ended – has shuffled the
cards and brought crucial questions to the fore regarding the essence of the Palestinian cause
as well as the status of the Gaza Strip. Despite the bleak reality of life in Gaza, which Israel’s
siege will, with international and local collusion, soon render uninhabitable, a new awareness is
emerging.
Mondoweiss: Critiquing the Critique of the Great March
With the first anniversary of the Great March of Return, some disturbing questions have risen. Similar questions were raised in 2009, 2012, and 2014; in fact, this has been happening since 1948. It is becoming even more disturbing now to hear the same arguments being made by some of us who have internalized their subjugation by repeating the Israeli hasbara regarding our responsibility for our own death at the fence of the Gaza concentration camp! Victims blaming victims for their own death at the hands of Israeli snipers stationed on the other side of the eastern fence. Golda Meir, who unashamedly said that she would never forgive Palestinians for making Israeli soldiers kill them, would’ve been so delighted. To Israel’s delight, we are being told by certain sectors that Hamas is behind the Great March of Return. That Hamas has been inciting people, who happen to be ignorant and passive, to demonstrate at the fence for one reason only: gaining more political power at the expense of Palestinian rights.
Palestine Chronicle: On the Meaning of Sumoud
There is a danger in romanticizing Palestinian resilience, or really the struggle of any oppressed
peoples, particularly because no one should be expected to stay strong without ever breaking
down, never be human in the face of daily turmoil. It would also be far better if Palestinian
children did not have to learn this lesson as soon as they can walk.
But it is this kind of courage that inspires so many people to follow the Great March of Return on
social media for nearly now a year. Despite the dire circumstances in Gaza—often no electricity,
always a shortage of safe drinking water, lack of medical facilities due to the frequent intensive
bombing, among other things—it has become a center of Palestinian resistance. Celebrating its
one year anniversary on Land Day, March 30, 2019, the March of Return attests to past struggles
that continue in the present day.
BACKGROUND: LEARN ABOUT GAZA
B'Tselem: The Israeli Information Center
for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
- See their page with all their Gaza publications
Al-Shabaka: The renowned Palestinian
think tank - see their page:Focus on Gaza
IMEU: See their fact sheets related to Gaza
Palestine Portal: Learn essentials, get resources
United Nations:Humanitarian situation in
the Gaza Strip-Fast facts
Al Jazeera: A Guide to the Gaza Strip
See also:
Mondoweiss: Gaza now has a toxic ‘biosphere of war’ that no one can escape
mondoweiss.net/2019/04/toxic-biosphere-escape
SOLIDARITY DEMONSTRATIONS
+972mag: Hundreds of Israelis protest Gaza blockade outside IDF headquarters
The demonstration in the heart of Tel Aviv was in solidarity with Palestinians taking part in the
Great March of Return.
Mondoweiss: ‘We are one people. They are us and we are them’: Palestinians in the West Bank mark Land Day and the Great March of Return
Human waves flooded the Israel-Gaza fence beginning Saturday morning marking the first
anniversary of the Great March of Return protests, facing off against Israeli forces behind the
fortified barbed-wire fence.
ISRAEL'S DESTRUCTIVE RESPONSE: IMPACT ON GAZA
Amnesty International: One year on from protests,
Gaza civilians’ devastating injuries highlight urgent
need for arms embargo on Israel
United Nations UNRWA: Gaza’s “Great March of Return”
One Year On - Impact on Palestine Refugees and UNRWA Services
“This is a situation completely underestimated by the world.
More people were injured in about 10 days of mostly peaceful
demonstrations than during the 50 days of an all-out war in 2014.”
UNRWA Commissioner-General
United Nations OCHA OPT: Approaching the first anniversary
of the “Great March of Return” protests in Gaza: Massive
casualties place enormous stress on health, psychosocial
and protection services
Christian Science Monitor: Gaza youths shot at the border
struggle to see the future
Mohammed Musbaih is one of more than 6,500 Gazans – many of them,
like him, teenage boys and young men – who have been wounded in the
demonstrations by live fire, according to Gaza health officials. Many of them have been hit in the legs by Israeli fire when crowds of hundreds, even thousands, of protesters swell near the border fence with Israel, protesting against Israel’s blockade of the strip. To youths of Mohammed’s generation who have grown up amid persistent violence,participation in the protests is a national act of heroism, experts say, and the idea of beingwounded is seen as a path to self-respect.
Middle East Eye: A void no one can fill: Gaza's children face
trauma of losing friends family in protests
ABOUT MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE GREAT MARCH
Electronic Intifada: Passive Media Whitewsh Israel's Massacre in Gaza
FAIR: When They Don’t Ignore Us, Media Disparage Palestinians’ Right of Return
On the media watchdog website FAIR: For many years, US corporate media have consistently failed to adequately inform audiences about the Palestinian right of return. Even though the refugees are a crucial reason that the issue of Israel/Palestine remains unresolved, only a small portion of the coverage addresses the right of return.
ABOUT LAND DAY, MARCH 30TH
Samidoun: Land Day: Palestinian anti-colonial
struggle against land confiscation, for freedom
and liberation
Land Day, a day of Palestinian struggle against
settler colonialism and celebration of the
connection of the Palestinian people to the land
that continues despite expropriation and
dispossession. The day marks the anniversary
of the mass upsurge on 30 March 1976, in
response to an Israeli state attempt to
confiscate over 20,000 dunums of land
from Palestinians in the Galilee;
Maan News: On eve of Land Day: Israel occupies
more than 85% of Palestinian land
As Palestinians mark the 43rd anniversary of Land
Day, Israel’s expropriation of Palestinian land in the
occupied territories continues unabated.
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