Friday, November 23, 2007
No Deal is Best Which Compromises Rights
Comment left in response to "The Best Deal on Offer":
Dr. Haidar Eid gets to the heart of the matter in "Annapolis Meeting: The Institutionalizaation of Racism":
http://www.amin.org/look/amin/en.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=7&NrArticle=43341&NrIssue=1&NrSection=3
"Article I of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states clearly that 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.' It does not, however, say 'with the exception of Palestinians.' But we, 11 million Palestinians, know very well that we are the exception to that rule. Whether we are 'Israeli Arabs,' 'Arabs of the occupied territories', or Diasporic Arabs, we cannot have the same rights as those of 'all human beings.'"
He states further:
"Unlike Palestinians, Black Africans are considered human beings, and therefore, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights applies to them."
He writes that the Annapolis meeting is an effort to institutionalize racism by offering one-third of the Palestinian people, those of Gaza and the West Bank "3 to 4 truncated Bantustans with a chief that we can call president." He states further that Annapolis hopes to succeed in "order to practically change the meaning of Article I of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by making the victim her/himself accept the status of lesser than an animal."
The Annapolis meeting will also not address the one-third portion of the Palestinian people who are refugees, which is covered by Article 13, Section 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and return to his country."
For further reading about the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, please see Dr. Salman Abu Sitta's earlier story for Comment is Free:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/salman_abusitta/2007/03/salman_abu_sitta.html
And do not underestimate the commitment and steadfastness of millions of Palestinian refugees expressed in this poem by internally displaced Issa Chacour from Bir'im, a village within Israel; many of its villagers watched as Israel bombed it in the early fifties, a village in which the original inhabitants may not live, but may be buried:
Your people, Bir'im have not died
And will not forsake a grain of sand from you
As long as you have men like these
As long as you have men like these
Who continually strive for justice
http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/index.php?id=228
Many among the Palestinians not willing to make peace with those who deny their rights in their homeland and who are not willing to acknowledge that immigrants from the UK, from the US, Europe, South America, etc., have more right to live in Jaffa than our fathers and mothers and their descendents.
Dr. Haidar Eid gets to the heart of the matter in "Annapolis Meeting: The Institutionalizaation of Racism":
http://www.amin.org/look/amin/en.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=7&NrArticle=43341&NrIssue=1&NrSection=3
"Article I of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states clearly that 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.' It does not, however, say 'with the exception of Palestinians.' But we, 11 million Palestinians, know very well that we are the exception to that rule. Whether we are 'Israeli Arabs,' 'Arabs of the occupied territories', or Diasporic Arabs, we cannot have the same rights as those of 'all human beings.'"
He states further:
"Unlike Palestinians, Black Africans are considered human beings, and therefore, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights applies to them."
He writes that the Annapolis meeting is an effort to institutionalize racism by offering one-third of the Palestinian people, those of Gaza and the West Bank "3 to 4 truncated Bantustans with a chief that we can call president." He states further that Annapolis hopes to succeed in "order to practically change the meaning of Article I of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by making the victim her/himself accept the status of lesser than an animal."
The Annapolis meeting will also not address the one-third portion of the Palestinian people who are refugees, which is covered by Article 13, Section 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and return to his country."
For further reading about the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, please see Dr. Salman Abu Sitta's earlier story for Comment is Free:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/salman_abusitta/2007/03/salman_abu_sitta.html
And do not underestimate the commitment and steadfastness of millions of Palestinian refugees expressed in this poem by internally displaced Issa Chacour from Bir'im, a village within Israel; many of its villagers watched as Israel bombed it in the early fifties, a village in which the original inhabitants may not live, but may be buried:
Your people, Bir'im have not died
And will not forsake a grain of sand from you
As long as you have men like these
As long as you have men like these
Who continually strive for justice
http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/index.php?id=228
Many among the Palestinians not willing to make peace with those who deny their rights in their homeland and who are not willing to acknowledge that immigrants from the UK, from the US, Europe, South America, etc., have more right to live in Jaffa than our fathers and mothers and their descendents.
