Reflecting on Another Concert

Friday, February 20, 2016 was a memorable occasion as many people from Ramallah and Jerusalem  gathered at the Naseeb Shaheen Auditorium at Birzeit University to attend a concert.  We were sorry that Naseeb had passed away before seeing this great achievement completed.  In fact the auditorium is the fourth building on the campus contributed by the Shaheen family.   

The young musicians of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music were privileged to join the Palestine National Orchestra and a few  guests from the Geneva Conservatory of Music in the last of three performances under the baton of the Swiss and Australian conductor Elena Schwarz.   They had already been in  Bethlehem, and in Nablus at  Al-Najah University.   The program included a composition by Salvador Arnita, a Palestinian who had taught at Birzeit when it was a high school before 1948 (Images of Palestine, from Suite no. 4 “Oriental Sketches.”  It also included “Wedding,” composed by the renowned Syrian composer Kinan Azmeh, who was the first Arab to win the top prize at the Nocolay Rubinstein International Competition in Moscow in 1997. 

Dima Bawwab a young Jordanian Soprano excelled in Puccini’s Quando m’en vo, from “La Boheme,” and O mio babbino cara from “Gianni Schicchi.”  She also sang  Agustin Lara’s Grenada which was beautiful and lively,  especially with the accompanying percussions.  Attached is a photo. 

As I was listening and watching the bright faces of those young musicians,  while enjoying the comfortable seat in this beautiful and newly inaugurated auditorium, I tried to forget for a moment all about the occupation outside this small haven.  Yet I could not help but wonder.  Will this nightmare ever come to an end?   Despite what we have gone through, we have been able to establish universities and institutions and hold on with our “Sumud” trying to provide our youth with a glimpse of hope for a better future.    Will that day ever come?   Don’t we deserve a better life?  Don’t all those young people languishing in Israeli jails have a right to freedom.  I kept hoping this concert will be a celebration for the freedom of Mohamed Al-Qiq, a graduate of Birzeit University who has been wrestling for his life after a long hunger strike in protest of his administrative detention without charge or trial.

  

On the way to the car I was sharing my thoughts with Leen,  the ten-year old granddaughter of my sister.  She held on my hand and said:  I think we should do something about it!  With the wisdom of children,  I rest my case.  Samia

The ESNCM Orchestra

Amidst all the political absurdities and the violence that is encompassing our region, we managed to enjoy a lovely evening last night at the Augusta Victoria Church on the Mt. of Olives, which ironically has been an area of clashes and road blocks by the Israeli occupation forces recently.  Yet all this was behind us, and we forgot all about it at least for a couple of hours, as we watched and listened to  the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music Orchestra  accompany the Singkreis Wohlen Choir from Switzerland in the first, fourth and sixth part of  Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in this beautiful and inspiring church.  And to add to the Palestinian touch of the performance we were privileged to have Mariam Tamari (the daughter of Vladimir Tamari, the renowned Palestinian artist and his Japanes wife Kyoko)  as one of the soloists along with Martin Snell,  and Dieter Wagner, who was also the conductor;  a lively and charming conductor indeed.   

After a lot of clapping and a standing ovation and an encore of the last lively section of the Oratorio, the conductor announced  that this was the last of their three performances.  The other two were at St. Francis Church in Bethlehem and at Birzeit University at the newly inaugurated  Nasib Shaheen theatre.  He also announced that the orchestra will be accompanying the Swiss choir in three different venues in Switzerland after two weeks. I just hope that music  will continue to be an expression of solidarity with our people and it will continue to uplift our spirits and give those young people some hope for the future. 

Update: Here is a video about the event

Getting Away With It

The resignation of  the Indonesian diplomat Makarim Wibisono as UN special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in occupied Palestine seems to be due to one of the many flaws of the UN body.  Mr. Wibisono announced that he was resigning at the end of March,  because Israel refuses to give him access to the Palestinians living under a military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.  If the UN appoints any position like that of the Rapporteur it should be able to guarantee that he or she can function, and should urge Israel to facilitate the mission of the Rapporteur, and not the other way round.  Why is it that everybody caves in when Israel is concerned and accommodates for its demands, to an extent that it often makes the UN look like a redundant body?  I should think Mr. Wibisono as a UN representative should not have resigned but used some of the UN tools to pressure Israel to facilitate his job.  

Another incident on caving in on a different level took place on January 3,  when Jewish-Israeli passengers of an Aegean flight demanded the removal of two passengers from the flight heading from Athens  to Tel Aviv simply because they were Palestinians.  One of them was a citizen of Israel, and the other had an Israeli residency and had already passed the security checks and boarded the plane.  But the passengers accused them of being “terrorists” and  insisted that they should be removed from the plane.  Although the pilot had said that anyone who does not feel safe to fly should disembark, yet he did not protect those two passengers who were eventually so harassed that they got off the plane.  

Once again Israel acts as if it is above the law.  In fact nothing it does is surprising any more, but what is surprising and disappointing is that they are allowed to get away with it with impunity.   

Happy New Year

As I watched the rains fall this morning on the last day of the year, I could not help but think of how much rain we would  need to cleanse all the atrocities of this past year.  I recalled the words of Shakespeare in Macbeth after he had murdered the king and stood looking at his bloody hands: “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand?” 

We are bidding farewell to a year that has been infested with atrocities and violence as a result of grave injustices, greed, and immorality.  We have sadly watched how  money and power have  been  manipulated by world leaders to determine the destinies of peoples and deprive them of their right to live in dignity in their own country.

In our region,  where water has always been scarce, and has become more so with the draining of its resources by the Israeli occupation, I wonder whether there will ever be enough water to cleanse the atrocities of this past year, and to give hope to the people of the region that justice and peace will prevail. 

With best wishes for a peaceful New Year.

November 29

November 29 is the day that the UN has designated for the Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people   This date is actually the commemoration of the UN resolution 181 on November 29, 1947 to partition Palestine.   A resolution that ended up with the establishment of the state of Israel and the creation of the Palestinian Nakba which saw the exodus of around 750,000 Palestinians ending up as refugees in Jordan, East Bank, and West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, Egypt, and the diaspora, and who were never allowed to return home in accordance with  the UN general assembly resolution 194 adopted on December 11, 1948.

After the Israeli occupation of the rest of the Palestinian territory in the wake of the June 5, 1967 war, UN security council 242 which emphasized the  “inadmissability of the acquisition of territory by war” was adopted unanimously on November 22, 1967.   And with the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority in the wake of the Oslo Accords and the peace process, the UN general assembly voted overwhelmingly on November 29, 2012 to accord Palestine  a non-member observer status.  And in a special ceremony on September 11, 2015 the Palestinian flag was raised at the UN building in New York. 

On November  15, 1988 the Palestine National Council in its meeting in Algiers adopted a resolution to establish the Palestinian State on the 1967 borders, and November 15 was declared officially as the day of  Palestinian independence. 

Ironically we have a so-called state whose borders, and 61%  of its area,  are not under our control.   We have a flag which is raised in New York, but cannot be raised in East Jerusalem. And of course we take a day off on November 15 celebrating our independence while we are still under a brutal occupation.  After sixty seven years of dispossession, and 48 years of Israeli military occupation,  all that the UN was able to grant the Palestinians were  symbolic gestures.  In the meantime it has failed to sanction Israel for not implementing UN resolutions, for its violations of  human rights and international law, and it has turned a blind eye to the new realities that Israel created in the occupied territory with the building of  Jewish settlements. Of course the power of veto that the US has used all along,  played a substantial role in supporting the impunity of Israel. 

So to our  friends who are standing in solidarity with our people on November 29, we want to thank you and express our appreciation for all your support along the years, and especially for those who have taken courageous measures to support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.  We urge you to demand protection for the Palestinian people and especially those children who have reached the limit of their endurance and were bound to rise up to resist the violence of occupation. 

Enough is Enough Mr. Kerry

Please Mr. Kerry spare us one of your historic statements that the violence must stop.    Unfortunately you do not seem to have grasped the root cause of the violence despite the long years of mediation and shuttling back and forth during the so called peace process.  The occupation in itself is the violent action, and resisting an occupation by all means is a legitimate right according to international law. 

Out of all people you should not be surprised Mr. Kerry when the US as the broker of the Peace Process failed to be an honest broker and allowed Israel to build and expand the  settlements in the Palestinian territory,  despite the fact that the USA administration  considers the settlements illegal and has often requested Israel to halt their expansion.  Yet your administration allowed Israel to  create new realities on the ground and vetoed every UN resolution that sanctioned Israel for its illegal acts in the Palestinian occupied territory.  Even when the Israeli army invaded Gaza,  your administration saw it fit to support the invading forces, and to increase its aid in money and armament. 

You should not be surprised that this young generation, which  had enough of both the occupation and the futile peace process, would take matters into their hands after the latest provocations of the Israeli settlers who seek to gradually maintain a foot-hold in Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and especially when the Arab and Muslim countries did not raise a finger in action against that.  Yes we heard a lot of rhetoric.  However,  words without action do not hold water any more for this young desperate generation.

For a number of years the Palestinians have resorted to non-violent resistance through their weekly marches and prayers in the areas that are being threatened to be annexed behind the WALL. Those demonstrations have continuously been attacked by Israeli soldiers with tear gas and life ammunition, and the Palestinians have not been able to retrieve their land, the latest being the issue of the Cremisan property in Beit Jala.   Enough is enough Mr. Kerry.  If you are really keen on stopping the violence, you know very well that you will have to put an end to the occupation and stop treating Israel above the law, especially as it escalates its brutal measures against a defenseless population and literally killing minors extra-judicially.

Present Absentee vs. Absentee present

Every time I start writing about this subject, I feel it is meaningless compared  to the life threatening issues around us such as the refugees, the rampage of the Israelis settlers, home demolitions, the burning of the Dawabsheh family as well as the  fragmentation of the Arab world to an extent that they are unable to protect the daily invasion of Al-Aqsa mosque, let alone liberate Palestine.   Yet the issue of depriving Palestinian Jerusalemites from their right to residency is also very crucial.  According to OCHA, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 14,000 Palestinians  lost their right to residency between 1967-2010. 

For the last eleven years, and ever since my husband Yousef passed away, I continued to receive an invitation in his name from the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality inviting him to Jerusalem day.  Not that he ever responded or attended when he was alive, but the persistence of this invitation eventually got to me and I decided that my reflection was going to be about this issue.  

I am calling it an issue, because ever since my husband passed away, we asked the municipality to name the street that leads up from the main road to our house in Beit Hanina in his name, because he had developed the whole area in the early sixties before the 1967 war.  Neither our street nor any in the area had names at the time.   The response of the municipality to our request was that a few years should pass by before it names a street after a deceased person.  So we kept pursuing the issue but to no avail.  Two years ago when the invitation from the municipality arrived, I wrote back saying that my husband passed away, and requested his name to be removed from their list.  At the same time I seized the opportunity to remind them of our request to name the street after him. 

I was not surprised not to get any response, but I certainly was surprised when we woke up one morning to the sound of  drilling in our wall to find out that the name and number of our street is now Ramallah Road, Zqaq (alley 1) and all the houses were numbered accordingly.  The whole neighborhood cooperated in signing a petition to the municipality to request naming the street after Yousef, but we never received a response.  

Yet despite all this communication,  the invitation from  the municipality came once again this year.  So I could not help but think of the many devious ways by which the Israeli Authority deprives Palestinian Jerusalemites from their right to residency,  while a person who no more exists is still on the municipality list.