Let me start off by acknowledging two points:

• He is a journalist that criticizes Syria’s Baath regime, Hezbollah, Libya’s Qaddafi.  Wrong as it may be, it’s somewhat shocking that he thought Syria would just let him in the country in with no fuss.  He strikes me as incredibly naive.
• His points about Syria and Libya are well-taken.  Both have a long way to go before they can be considered democratic in the most basic sense, and we should by no means ignore their human rights violations, including imprisonment (and in the case of Libya, murder) of journalists.

If Eldin had stopped there; if he had simply been criticizing the restrictions placed on free speech by Arab regimes, I might have condoned the piece, even retweeted it — or perhaps it would have gone unnoticed.  But then he said this:

Failing to find a glimpse of hope across the greater Arab world, we must concede that Israel has become the only “safe haven” where one can be sure of his life and dignity.

Ah yes – Israel as a safe haven.  Unless you’re Jared Malsin, perhaps — Malsin is the American journalist whom Israel deported because he was working for the Palestinian Maan News Agency.  Or if you’re a journalist aboard the Mavi Marmara — their photographs, videos, and documents were seized, with some used by Israeli authorities without permission.  Or if you’re international news agency Al Jazeera, barred by the IDF from covering nonviolent protests in the West Bank.  Or if you’re a Palestinian journalist documenting Israeli violations of the right to assemble — four were attacked by the IDF this past January for covering protests in Burin.  And the list goes on…

Eldin also writes:

Just like the Palestinian Helles family who fled Hamas “jihadists” in Gaza to Israel, I foresee a time when millions of Arabs might stand humbly in front of IDF soldiers, begging for protection.

So, I urge you, dear fellow Arab, to visit Israel.

Everything about these two sentences is problematic.  First, there’s the issue of the Helles family; they did indeed flee Gaza to Israel.  A pro-Fatah “clan” (as the media would designate them), 181 members of the Helles family sought refuge in Israel; 80 or so were sent to the West Bank, while 60 were sent back to Gaza.  I’m fuzzy on the details, but then again, I presume that Eldin might be as well — the media alternately reported the Helles clan as having attacked Hamas or been attacked — in either case, it was hardly a humanitarian effort on Israel’s part.

As for the final sentence, the urging of Eldin’s “dear fellow Arabs” to visit Israel, perhaps it’s a nice sentiment, but it appears Eldin is (once again) missing out on some facts: Arabs (and some non-Arabs) who fly to Israel hoping to visit the West Bank (either alone or in addition to a visit to Israel proper) are frequently denied access, either entirely, or by receipt of a Palestinian Authority-only visa.

Israel is, by a number of measures, freer than a number of its neighbors.  But it is neither the region’s “safe haven” nor a true democracy.  Journalists in Israel and the land it occupies are hardly freer than Lebanon.  There is of course so much more to say on the subject, and I’m looking forward to reading whomever writes it.

Note: Of course Israel is promoting Eldin’s piece on its Arabic-language Foreign Ministry site.  Even though they know Arabs will never be able to enter the country in droves as Eldin suggests they ought to.  Because image is everything, right?

As Mondoweiss pointed out last week, the report puts forth the (rather unsurprising) findings that Palestinian social media users are educated and primarily use Arabic online, and that the Palestinian Internet is largely uncensored.  All true, certainly.  The report also found that, generally, Palestinians have an overwhelmingly negative view of Israel, that Israel has no genuine interest in the peace process, and that the two-state solution is “on its deathbed.”  Also unsurprising.  There were, of course, more specific findings, but I’m more concerned about the policy recommendations.

The first two recommendations acknowledge that the Palestinian online environment should not be taken lightly be policymakers, and suggest that more intensive study of the environment should be undertaken to get a better feel for what Palestinians think.  Fair enough.

The third recommendation, however, is incredibly troubling when looked at in detail.  The researchers recommend that the State Department’s Digital Outreach Team become more engaged in Palestinian online discourse.  I had the pleasure of meeting one of the people involved with the team at this year’s Al Jazeera Media Forum.  I was pleased, actually, to see such an attempt to engage with them.  What the Outreach team does is engage in conversations online in Persian, Arabic, and Urdu in attempt to “correct misinformation.”  They sign all of their messages with “digitaloutreach@state.gov” and are required to be transparent in their conversations.  Though I’m personally not a fan of this approach–I can’t imagine it’s terribly effective at changing people’s minds–I also think it’s relatively harmless.

The Foundation’s researchers, however, would prefer the Outreach Team not identify themselves a la China’s 50 cent army:

FDD’s research found that, during the nine-week observation period, the State Department’s efforts to influence the online discussions were largely ineffective. This may stem from the fact that the team is small in number, and cannot possibly challenge even a plurality of the views expressed on sites where sentiments run counter to U.S. objectives. However, it also may stem from a process whereby the engagement team has the odds stacked against it. Indeed, the Digital Outreach Team identified itself in every online interaction, which nearly always drew fire from users with a pre-existing bias against the United States.
To be effective, the outreach team must not advertise its presence. More importantly, it must launch a broader campaign to limit and discredit violent messages, expose Palestinian extremists on the Internet, and thwart their ability to gain credibility. This will require a more aggressive approach than the one currently employed. It may also require additional personnel.

The Digital Outreach Team should also be viewed as an important source of intelligence. Indeed, they regularly assess sentiments expressed online in the same way that Foreign Service Officers assess political sentiments on the ground. As such, they can add an additional window of understanding into the Palestinian political landscape. To this end, they could participate more actively in conversation threads and pose specific questions on a range of topics. This will allow them to assess opinions on a range of issues with a higher degree of focus, nuance, and specificity more commonly gauged by polling.
State Department decision-makers can benefit from these findings. For example, if anti-peace sentiment is running high online, an understanding of these sentiments could inform the decisions of State Department officials responsible for advising the White House and briefing Congress on peace talks or other diplomatic initiatives.

Let’s ignore for the moment the disingenuous definition of “anti-peace sentiment” and focus solely on the recommendation at hand.  What we have here is a lobby group that purports to promote democracy suggesting that the United States government manipulate Palestinian conversations in an attempt to “win the hearts and minds” of the Palestinian people…secretly.

The fear, of course, is that the State Department might take this seriously; after all, FDD credits itself with pushing them to shut down Al-Manar broadcasts.  Were the State Department to implement such practices, they would follow in the footsteps of Israel and China.  Incidentally, there is already plenty of suspicion in the Arab blogosphere that the U.S. does pay commenters to surreptitiously engage in discussion, so were it to actually be implemented, it’s possible that Palestinian netizens would be wary enough not to fall for it.

I don’t see how this is in the spirit of democracy.  It seems to be that an institution that claims to defend democracy would consider it wise to honor Palestinian agency, but hey, what do I know?

Note: I had no idea this post was going to get as much attention as it did.  Regardless, readers, I am not implying some vast Facebook conspiracy against Palestinians, just demonstrating yet another example of Facebook’s inconsistency, lack of attention to human rights, and lack of appeals processes.  New readers: There’s a history here; you may want to check the archives or read this post.

I was surprised, but a little skeptical, this morning when I read a blog post stating that Facebook is blocking the word “Palestinian” from its Pages.  After all, a search for “Palestinian” brings back a number of already created Pages.  Here’s what the blogger wrote:

I thought it might be a good idea to make a Facebook page for Palestinian Refugee ResearchNet—a straight-forward thing to do, right? Apparently not, since it seems the very word Palestinian may “violate or page guidelines or contain a word or phrase that is blocked”……A mistake, perhaps? Well, Afghan Refugee ResearchNet is OK. So too is DR Congo RefugeeResearchNet. No threats to innocent Facebook users lurking in those terms, it seems…

…Are Palestinians the only group so banned? Well, not really… after a little fiddling around, I discovered that al-Qaida Refugee ResearchNet and Nazi Refugee ResearchNet are banned too.

It does seem a bit odd, however, that a population of up to 12 million people, receiving more than a billion dollars in international aid, recognized by the UN, and enjoying a degree of formal diplomatic recognition from the United States—is placed in the same banned category as Nazis and al-Qaida.

Odd, indeed.  I decided to try it for myself, with the terms “Palestinian Refugee ResearchNet,” “Palestinian Folklore,” and “Palestinian Music”.  Nada.

Of course, “Israeli Music,” “Israeli Folklore” and “Israeli Refugee ResearchNet” all created no problems.

(see more screenshots of different keyword combinations here)

What is Facebook trying to accomplish by eliminating page creation for a marginalized population?  I would guess that they were trying to prevent abuse of some kind (e.g., pages set up to demean a certain group), but I can’t imagine what kind of abuse would affect Palestinians and not, for example, Israelis.

In any case, as usual, Facebook does not have a strong customer support team to handle complaints about this, nor do they seem to care.  After all, this was their response to the blogger who first documented this:

Unfortunately, we cannot process this request. Your Page name must comply with the following standards:

• Accurately and concisely represent a musician, public figure, business or other organization
• Not contain terms or phrases that may be abusive
• Not be excessively long
• Not contain variations of “Facebook”

If you believe your Page name fits within these guidelines, please respond to this email and we will re-evaluate your request.

Again, activists, I would advise you to stop using Facebook.

More clarification for you skimmers:
1) This affects PAGES, not GROUPS.
2) The term that is blocked is “Palestinian,” not “Palestine.”
3) There are 1,200 existing groups with “Palestinian,” suggesting that the word was blacklisted recently.

Not that it should matter.

When I heard this news, I immediately thought of my friend and co-blogger Mohammad Alsaafin, whose family’s story I wrote about last year. Mohammad’s father was born in Gaza, his mother in the West Bank, where their children were also later born. The whole family possesses British passports, but that doesn’t matter to Israel; his mother, who despite being born in the West Bank possesses a Gaza ID card (thanks to her marriage), is considered an illegal immigrant in her own land.

Thus, I wasn’t surprised when Mohammad wrote about it a few days later. Here are some of his elegant words:

My mother is an illegal infiltrator. She has infiltrated her hometown, where her parents were born and where she was raised. Her activities as an infiltrator are as varied as they are nefarious: She takes my sister to school, with the neighbor’s kids. She cooks and cleans her home. We actually purchased that home so that she would have a base to operate from once she had infiltrated. She goes to the gym (I suspect infiltrators probably do need to stay in shape). She visits her sisters; I can’t say for sure if they assist her illegal activities. I’m sure they provide moral support at least. She helps care for her brother’s young children. You see my uncle might have been an infiltrator. They kicked him out of his homeland too, said he didn’t have the right permit to live there. He actually did, but they didn’t want to renew it. He was kept away from his kids for years. Eventually, he was given permission to infiltrate again, but he died a few months later, before this ruling came into effect. So maybe he became an infiltrator posthumously. I don’t know.

I’m not sure when my mother stopped being a member of the community she grew up in, or a resident of the town where she was raised. Maybe it was when she fell in love with a dangerous inmate. It wasn’t a maximum security prison back in those days-he’d actually been allowed to leave Gaza to study. They met in university: she the future infiltrator, he the future prisoner. They were in love, with each other and with Palestine. And love is what screwed them up.

You can read the rest of his piece, of course. Mohammad’s father’s story was also told today in Canada’s Globe and Mail:

When Abdullah Alsaafin said goodbye to his wife last August, he didn’t know it might be for the last time. The couple and three of their four children live in Ramallah in the West Bank, home of Mrs. Alsaafin’s family, and Mr. Alsaafin was leaving to visit his ailing father in Gaza.

Mr. Alsaafin, a British citizen and working journalist, had travelled frequently back and forth between the territories. On this occasion, however, he was stopped by Israeli authorities who learned he had been born in Gaza. They revoked his press credentials, said his passport was worthless, that he had (Israeli-issued) Gaza identification and was not entitled to live in the West Bank. He was ushered into Gaza and not allowed to leave.

Abdullah Alsaafin left Gaza last year and is currently residing in another country.

Dissident Voice has also covered the story:

But what if both your parents were born in Jaffa, but they ended up being refugees in Gaza? You still get deported to Gaza because you’re not Jewish. What if your mother was a refugee from Nazareth who took refuge in Bethlehem and your father was born in Jerusalem but ended up in a refugee camp in Gaza. You’re still deportable – because you’re not Jewish. There are all kinds of possibilities if you’re not Jewish

I don’t know how anyone can read the facts of this story and not see apartheid. Separate rules for Jews and Arabs (except those Arabs who choose to comply of course; the Druze and the Bedouins, not even considered Arabs by the Zionist government, and even then they’re discriminated against).

To where exactly does one deport a Palestinian? How can a Palestinian illegally live in Palestine? And why should Israel care at all what goes on in the West Bank?

A few years ago, before I became involved in advocacy work, I genuinely believed in the Western solution to the conflict in Israel/Palestine: I thought that eventually, and with some pushing and shoving, two countries would be declared, and with a bit of shaking of course, Israel and Palestine would live together, neighbors at last.

How horribly wrong I was. It becomes more apparent to me every day that the Israeli government has no such intentions. Pushing Palestinians out of what ought to be Palestine (and I’m only referring to 1967 borders!) indicates that Israel has decided that the West Bank will be theirs. And of course they have! How could I have ever thought otherwise?

The more Israel pushes Palestinians out and makes room for more settlers, the more I believe that one, single, bi-national, equal, call-it-whatever-you-want state is the only solution.

She paused to read it, then said, “Wow.  I think that’s just so important.  It’s like one group of people were treated like crap and bullied and then they turn around and do the same thing.”  Her voice was loud, and in my typical public shyness, I could feel the eyes of everyone else on the bus burning into my skin.  I timidly responded, “I’m trying to learn everything I can.”  She said, “Good for you!” then let me get back to my reading.

This book is not my first stop in learning about the history of Palestine and Israel, nor will it be the last–in fact, I read Abunimah’s book a year ago; this is a re-read, an attempt to answer lingering questions.  It is not a simplistic book, whatsoever; Abunimah addresses each possible objection to the creation of one state built on equality and justice, then effectively counters every one.   His is a call for a peaceful solution, an end to violence from both sides.

For those of you to whom the idea one, equal state built on justice and equality, inclusive of Jewish Israelis and Arab Palestinians alike seems self-evident, it is still worth reading–For me, it’s not a matter of being persuaded, but of gaining a more complete understanding of history and of the possible future.

But this post is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a book review, rather, it is a simple musing on a small encounter on a bus that surprised me.  I’ve ordered a second copy of the book, and if I run into that same woman on the bus again, I’ll be handing it to her.

• Charlotte has an excellent piece on “authenticity” on Morocco that makes use of a recent Guardian piece on finding the authentic in Casablanca (also worth a read).
• Naomi Wolf states the ridiculously obvious about Muslim women – read this before reading Phyllis Chesler’s b.s. against Wolf.
• Sudanese blogger Kizzie is questioning the arrest of Lubna Hussein (who was allegedly arrested for wearing trousers).
• Marcy at Body On the Line has written about the visa apartheid currently happening in Israel (I’m about to write a piece for Global Voices on this as well).

And on the negative front, after reading Sarah Braasch’s ridiculous piece on how stupid Moroccans are, I’m left wondering if there’s another Morocco nobody told me about.,

Netanyahu wants the Palestinians to acknowledge that Israel is a “Jewish state.” I don’t understand this demand. Israel is not a Jewish state, it is a multi-cultural state, with about half a million non-Jewish Russians and Ukrainians and 20% of its population is Arab. If “Jewish” is meant religiously, then observant Jews are actually a minority of the population in Israel. If “Jewish” is meant racially, then it is a particularly shameful demand. It is like demanding either that the US be recognized as a “Christian” country or as a “white” country. Obama was ill-advised to use the diction, himself.

From Jewish Voice for Peace. There is also one featuring an Israeli woman with “I refuse to occupy” written across her cheek. I found this one more striking.

Obama’s choice of Irish-Lebanese George Mitchell for Middle East envoy bodes well.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort — even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

He didn’t mean that. I truly didn’t wake up on the wrong side of the bed, nor do I want to be cynical, but as the slaughtering of innocents and inducing of terror is coming from our side, from Israel (aren’t they one in the same?) and he has remained hopelessly silent, how can our new President possibly stand there and denounce terror when it is his country’s support which is perpetuating it?

What more can I possibly say? That Michelle, Sasha, and Malia looked lovely? That I’m happy to hold on to my reproductive rights? That I’ve lost hope?

I was one of the truly hopeful. I planned my vote sometime back in 2006, and held tight, and although I never believe he’d be our savior, for a long time I thought this meant real change, even if it came very slowly.

And then he was elected. And then he starting plucking zionists for his cabinet. And then a Secretary of Education with no educational experience. And then on December 27, America’s greatest ally started murdering Palestinians and Obama stayed quiet. He continues to to this day.

I am somehow reminded of this famous statement, associated with the Holocaust:

“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”

What will it take for our country to stand up against Israel’s state-sanctioned terror?

After failing to figure out how to donate to SARC myself, I began looking into other options. The UNRWA is accepting donations online, so I gave $50 there. The Middle East Children’s Alliance also provides medical aid to Gaza, and credit card donations are simple.

Fortunately for me, I was able to donate to SARC anyway, thanks to a friend who’s behind their web 2.0 initiatives:

(Thanks Anas!)