Sonja Karkar is founder of Women for Palestine and her writing has been featured at Counterpunch, Electronic Intifada and many other good alternative press sites.

Picture credits: Banksy (many thanks Dave) and Polyp.

Christians and Muslims Weep Together
A Christmas Reflection on Palestine

By Sonja Karkar | December 19, 2007

As Christmas approaches this year, the thoughts of Christians all over the world will once again turn to Bethlehem, the holy town where Jesus was born over two millennia ago. Voices will be raised in joyful celebration and children everywhere will re-create the Christmas story to help us remember the circumstances in which the Christ child was born.

Such a momentous occasion in such humble surroundings heralded a new way of thinking about people’s relationship with God and with each other. It shook the foundations of an unforgiving society presided over by an unforgiving God and proclaimed peace and goodwill on earth amongst all people. There was indeed much to hope for.

However, the tranquil pastoral scene so familiar to us is not at all evident in Bethlehem today. Bethlehem does not lie still, and peace on earth and goodwill towards all is as elusive as ever. The tyranny of Israel’s occupation and its colonial expansionism is crippling the lives of both Palestinian Christians and Muslims alike. Read the rest of this entry »

Accompanied by the superlative cartoonists Andy Singer and Carlos Latuff, here is Pepe Escobar in a piece aptly entitled Welcome to Planet Gaza (Asia Times Online, 22 Sept 2007). For a related piece, see also Chris Marsden, Israel’s Collective Punishment of Gaza.

Just added: see also Sonja Karkar, The Quality of Mercy in Gaza, Counterpunch (25 Sept) and Chris Doyle, Life Behind the Wire, Guardian CiF (24 Sept)

Escobar reflects upon the recent decision by the apartheid Israeli regime to designate the occupied territory of Gaza, for which it has responsibility it is attempting to abrogate, a “hostile entity”, and rendering the region’s population as Unpeople in the service of neocon US and Israeli exceptionalism. He writes:

It is one of the most scandalous instances of collective punishment anywhere in the world in recent times. And what is the response of the high-minded “international community”? It’s the standard “three monkeys” - willfully deaf, dumb and blind.

This Thursday, the Israeli cabinet’s decision to declare the 8-kilometer-wide, 23km-long, arid Gaza Strip a “hostile territory” has started to be translated by facts on the ground. The Israel Defense Forces have begun “gradually” to cut the supply of fuel and electricity to the 1.5 million population, one of the highest densities on Earth, 50% of them already living under the poverty line, 50% of them under-15s, 33% of them refugees.

Gaza uses about 200 megawatts of electricity; 120 come from Israel; 65 are produced in Gaza; and only 17 come from Egypt. Israel says supply to generators at Gaza’s hospitals will not be affected.

There’s more to come: a trade ban, no freedom of movement, no visits to prisoners in Israeli jails, an overall hardcore financial squeeze, and sooner rather than later, another military onslaught. As the Israeli daily Ha’aretz so nicely put it, this is just a “plan to limit services to civilians”.

Nobody will get in. Few, if any, will get out. If someone wants to go to Gaza, the only way will be via Egypt.

This comes on top of other “restrictions” already in place. No fewer than 200,000 kids went back to school in occupied Palestine this September - just like millions of other kids around the world. But they had nothing apart from their textbooks because the State of Israel deems paper, ink, ballpoint pens and binding materials not to be “fundamental humanitarian needs”. Read the rest of this entry »