[Prefatory Note: Today is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, as established by the UN General Assembly. It was on that day in 2012 that the General Assembly voted to recognize Palestine as a non-member observer state, a status similar to that enjoyed by The Vatican.
It was a symbolic victory for Palestine, made sweeter by overcoming the bitter opposition of Israel, and supported of course by the United State. Despite its concerted efforts to block any Palestinian reliance on international law to put forward their case for a recognition of Palestinian rights, Israel while opposing each and every move, when and if it loses, scoffs at the result as meaningless and changes nothing.
This year the UN agreed to have the Palestinian flag flying along side other member states outside UN Headquarters in NYC, another symbolic victory opposed by Israel. How meaningful is it? True, there is no lessening of the daily ordeal of Palestinians in their various settings, especially those living under occupation or in refugee camps in neighboring countries. Yet, aside from a slap at Israel that contributes to a growing sense of international outrage about the refusal to resolve the conflict, such symbolic moves are battles in the Legitimacy War that Palestine has been waging on many fronts, and with success. The civil society front may be the most important, which centers its efforts on the BDS Campaign that moves from success to success, building a momentum that is challenging the balance of forces that has allowed Israel to ignore Palestinian grievances for decades. From an international perspective, Palestine is now at the very least an occupied state and this has potential consequences in both diplomacy and international law.
I post below a comment from Mazin Qumsiyeh, a remarkable person, who lives the reality of occupation and exemplifies the spirit of nonviolent Palestinian resistance that seeks to counterpose a heroic normalcy against the quotidian cruelties of the Israeli occupation. I have found much inspiration in the example of Mazin and many other Palestinians, reminding me that we all, especially we Americans, share a responsibility to engage in struggle on behalf of justice for the Palestinian people, which is in the end the only foundation for a sustainable peace for both peoples. With so much attention these days diverted to other regional issues, especially ISIS and Syria, we who care about Palestine must especially raise our voices of protest and join in the concrete acts of solidarity that are having an impact.]
The message of Mazin Qumsiyeh:
“This is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people as declared by the United Nations general assembly! But locally people see so little solidarity and Israel continues to violate basic human rights with impunity. For the past week, we mourned ten more young Palestinians killed, and we saw home demolitions, we saw the continued horrific siege of Gaza, we saw health and religious rights violated daily, and we saw roads blocked
to traffic (getting from one Palestinian area to another is becoming
impossible). I just returned from Hebron to Bethlehem, a distance that should take no more than half an hour. It took more than five hours because of closures etc. It is a police apartheid state that makes sure we do not have a normal functioning life. We watched as Turkey shot down a Russian airplane over Syrian territory (and lied about the issue since there is no way, they could have provided warning in the few seconds that the airplane moved across that tiny jetting Turkish territory), we watched as Russia provided evidence of convoys of stolen Syrian oil traveling to Turkey and
funding Daesh/ISIS, we shared on facebook videos of horrors committed by deluded human beings against other human beings, continued to see French government go down the same deluded path that the US government did after 11 September 2001, and continued to suffer from tear gas and other weapons used against us by Israeli occupation forces
Amid the horrors, at Bethlehem University, we welcomed Professor Zuhair Amr who is helping us in research areas on biodiversity, we worked at the museum and botanical garden, we continued our teaching (though students may miss some classes), we received more donation of time and resources from kind people, I gave a talk at an environmental conference about importance of research in environmental and health fields, we met great new people including award winning book writers and artists, and we continued to have joyful participation in the sorrows of this world?. To light a candle in this darkness keeps us sane.
For those in Palestine: You are invited to a workshop at the Palestine Museum of Natural History (http://www.palestinenature.org/visit/ ) 3-6 PMWednesday. Prof. Zuhair Amr and Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh leading discussions and practical training on areas of biodiversity and environmental conservation. Reservations required 02-2773553 or email info@palestinenature.org For those who cannot attend, please donate to keep these activities going: http://www.palestinenature.org/support-us/
For all, please continue and expand your work in boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS), a movement that is accelerating the arrival of peace with justice. Here is a good report by the American Anthropological Association that is very well done which can be adapted to push for BDS in others groups.
American Anthropological Association Report
Prominent Artists Endorse the Cultural Boycott of Israel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfMM0AZ9eWA
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Professor and Director
Palestine Museum of Natural History
Bethlehem University
Occupied Palestine
_______________________________________________
HumanRights newsletter
http://lists.qumsiyeh.org/listinfo/humanrights
Global Justice in the 21st Century 
SUPPORT GAZA FREEDOM FLOTILLA: SWEE ANG and MAZIN QUMSIYEH
14 Jul[Prefatory Note: These two statements about the al-Awda Freedom Flotilla en route to Gaza are contributions from two heroic figures in the long Palestinians struggle, hopefully known to many of the readers of this blog. This flotilla is on a humanitarian mission, carrying much needed medical supplies and is again dramatizing the plight of the population of Gaza, unendurable victim of vindictive Israeli measures that amount to flagrant and deliberate violations of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting and criminalizing measures of collective punishment inflicted upon the population of a society subject to belligerent occupation. Israel claims that it is no longer bound by the Geneva Convention because of its ‘disengagment’ in 2005, but the international consensus is otherwise. Gaza continues to be ‘occupied’ from the perspective of international law and the UN, and has been subject to a harsh blockade, periodic massive military attacks, and virtual closure for the past ten years. These statements below are not only informational, but also calls for solidarity and action. I am proud of my friendship and camaraderie with Swee Ang and Mazin Qumsiyeh. In view of past Israeli violent obstruction of humanitarian initiatives designed to lessen the suffering of the Gaza population solidarity with this initiative, as suggested below, is indispensable.][I have added a further message from Swee Ang worth reading.]
GAZA FREEDOM FLOTILLA: SWEE ANG & MAZIN QUMSIYEH
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(1) Dear Friends and Family,
I am due to join the al-Awda (The Return) Freedom Flotilla to Gaza this weekend on its last leg from Europe to Gaza. She has started her journey from Norway on the 70 Anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba and this journey is highly symbolic. The Nakba is the Arabic word for Catastrophe which started in 1948 when 50% of the population of Palestine was driven out to live in refugee camps and Palestine was erased from the map of the world. Please look at the links about the Awda and the other Freedom Flotilla ships she is joining.
https://sgf.freedomflotilla.org/news/al-awda-freedom-flotilla
https://jfp.freedomflotilla.org/
I am highly honoured to be invited on board. It is important to explain to you why I chose to do this. Among the queries I received is why I have overstepped my role as a doctor to do this. Can I not spend my vacation leave from the NHS on a holiday cruise instead of an old overcrowded fishing boat? My answer is simple. The situation in Gaza is dire. Our articles both published in the British Medical Journal, describe a bit of it;
https://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g6644/rr
https://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g6644/rr-0
A doctor, a surgeon is a human being with a conscience and a compassionate heart, much more than just a skilled technician. The very fact that I can do operations and fix broken bones will not stop me from losing my humanity. A robot might turn the other way, but a child of God does not.
Most of you know that I am going to be seventy come the end of the year and I would like to make this my birthday present to the people of Gaza and Palestine. Please read my statement below which will soon be included in the Freedom Flotilla website. You will know from what I wrote that even if Awda is kidnapped and all of us are put in prison, it is not a failed mission. The Palestinians will know that we have not forgotten them, and that we, like them, live out our lives with hope and love with faithfulness.
Statement of Dr. Swee Ang:
“When invited to come on board Al-Awda, the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, I know I must join them. This summer marks the thirty-sixth year of my journey with the Palestinians. It began in 1982 when as an ignorant Pro-Israel Christian doctor I first stepped foot as a volunteer surgeon in Gaza Hospital in Beirut’s Sabra Shatilla Palestinian refugee camp. There I fell in love passionately with a generous, kind, honest and gentle people – the Palestinians. They were forced out of Palestine in 1948, and found themselves refugees. Despite the dispossession, persecution and injustice they remained human. About 3 weeks after my arrival, more than three thousand of them were cruelly massacred. My heart was broken and trampled on, and would have remained dead and buried in the rubble of their bulldozed homes. But the survivors even while burying their own loved ones nurtured me back to life with their tears and love. The children filled with courage, hope and dignity inspired me and gave me strength to walk on with them. “We are not afraid Doctora come with us”. It is now 70 years since the Palestinian Nakba and Diaspora in 1948. When will their journey home begin? Today, six million Palestinians dispersed in various refugee camps are denied the right of return to their ancestral Palestine; the other six million lived under occupation in Gaza and West Bank. For twelve years, two million Palestinians have been imprisoned under a brutal land and sea military blockade in Gaza. During this time there were three major military assaults where Gaza was relentlessly bombed for weeks. Recently, since 30 March 2018, unarmed Gaza demonstrators calling for the Right of Return are shot at with high grade military assault rifles leaving more than 124 dead and 13,000 severely wounded with hundreds of amputees and potential amputees. The Flotilla brings hope to the besieged Palestinians. They are praying for us in their mosques and churches in the Gaza Strip. They know we are making this journey for them. Even if we are to be abducted, imprisoned and deported, may we remain faithful in solidarity and love for the people of Palestine and Gaza.
Dr Swee Ang, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon; author From Beirut to Jerusalem.
July 2018″
Please remember Palestine and the people of Gaza, and all on board the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.
Love you all and God bless
Swee
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(2) Mazin Qumsiyeh [mazin@qumsiyeh.org]
Human Rights Newsletter [humanrights@lists.qumsiyeh.org]
Saturday, July 14, 2018 7:02 AM
Five times boats have successfully reached Gaza. it can be done with this
flotilla of four boats bringing medical supplies and hope but we need your
help:
hashtags #ShiptoGaza #FreedomFlotilla #CountdownToGaza; share e.g. videos like this short 30 seconds video https://youtu.be/Nau5CPo9feo
using those same tags.
https://jfp.freedomflotilla.org/, our participants and events and insist
they cover the events
demand they let the ships through [your local or national campaing
), Twitter @GazaFFlotilla and Instagram @gazafreedomflotilla/ and encourage
others to spread the word. Follow our boats’ progress at
https://jfp.freedomflotilla.org/follow-the-mission
sail from Palermo) and/or July 28 (second Saturday, close to our estimated
arrival in Gaza or possible interference by Israeli forces) to demand that
our boats be let through and that the blockade be ended, permanently.
https://jfp.freedomflotilla.org/donate
For activism methods/suggestion, see http://qumsiyeh.org/activistmanual/
and http://qumsiyeh.org/whatyoucando/
Earlier this year, the ideas of a very clever young lady in Gaza attracted
attention
https://wearenotnumbers.org/home/Story/One_woman_tackles_two_Gaza_challenges_electricity_construction
Now, Majd and 3 other young people have started a crowdfunding project for
the Sunbox : https://www.launchgood.com/project/bringing_light_to_gaza_1#!/
blog about life in Gaza in French http://carol.blog.tdg.ch/
Ireland to be the world’s first country to divest public money from fossil
fuels
http://www.thejournal.ie/fossil-fuel-divestment-bill-4124211-Jul2018/
Take action to thank Irish politicians who supported the Occupied
Territories Bill (first time European country boycotts settlement goods)
http://www.ipsc.ie/action-item/take-action-to-thank-politicians-supporting-the-occupied-territories-bill
Stay human
Mazin Qumsiyeh
A bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home
Professor, Founder, and (volunteer) Director
Palestine Museum of Natural History
Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability
Bethlehem University
Occupied Palestine
http://qumsiyeh.org
Tags: collective punishment, Freedopm Flotillla, Gaza, Geneva Conventions, humanitarian assistance, Mazin Qumsiyeh, Swee Ang