Knights of the Holy Sepulchre Northwestern Lieutenancy

Amira Hass, Haaretz
[full article]

A West Bank checkpoint managed by a private security company is not allowing Palestinians to pass through with large water bottles and some food items, Haaretz has learned.

Machsom Watch discovered the policy, which Palestinian workers confirmed to Haaretz.

By TIM MCGIRK / JERUSALEM -- Time and Yahoo News
[full article]
Walid Abu Obeida, a 13-year-old Palestinian farm boy from the West Bank village of Ya'abad, had never spoken to an Israeli until he rounded a corner at dusk carrying his shopping bags and found two Israeli soldiers waiting with their rifles aimed at him. "They accused me of throwing stones at them," recountsWalid, a skinny kid with dark eyes. "Then one of them sm

Claire Messud - Boston Globe
[full article]
I recently returned from a literary festival that was to have opened and closed in Jerusalem; but which, to our surprise, opened in France and closed in the United Kingdom.

Some 20-odd writers from the world over - including the popular British travel writer and comedian Michael Palin; Sweden’s preeminent thriller writer Henning Mankell; and Canada’s Giller Prize-winning M.G. Vassanji - found our events at Jerusalem’s Palestine National Theater shut down by machine-gun toting Israeli soldiers in flak jackets.

NORTHWESTERN LIEUTENANCY
ANNUAL MEETING

September 25-27

BOISE, IDAHO

The Annual Meeting Planning Committee is working very hard to provide a very memorable weekend of activities in Boise,Idaho, the City of Trees. Boise will be especially beautiful at the time we are visiting as the trees will be dressed in their colorful autumn attire.

The Grove Hotel will be the center from which we will be directed to the beautiful liturgies at the nearby Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. The liturgies include Vespers and a Vigil on Friday evening and the Promotee and Memorial Mass on Saturday morning. The Saturday afternoon Holy Land Education Committee will provide a discussion among very knowledgeable and interesting panelists that will reflect their personal experiences in the Holy Land. This will be held at the hotel before the evening dinner which will celebrate the Basque culture at the "Basque Block", just a block from the hotel. Sunday morning will include breakfast and the annual Business Meeting. The Formal Banquet will be celebrated at the hotel following the Investiture on Sunday afternoon at the Cathedral. This is another of the very impressive liturgies that the weekend will offer to the members and their guests.

E􀀂UESTRIAN ORDER OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE OF JERUSALEM
NORTHWESTERN LIEUTENANCY OF THE UNITED STATES
Volume 13, No. 2, April 2009
Dear Knights and Ladies,
We have much to report since our last newsletter. Your Lieutenancy
Council gathered in February in the Bay Area for
the mid-year Councillors’ meeting, Mass and luncheon. The
Council meetings are always productive and informative.
They give those in attendance the opportunity to learn about
the activities in our different areas. (We will update you at
our business meeting in Boise, Idaho.) Recent additions to our
Board are: Mary Ann Molitor (Alaska), John and Gene Kates

By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
[full article]
There is a joke among Palestinians that goes something like this: A man applied for a permit to the Israeli authorities to build a barn for his farm animals. The permit was denied and the Israeli officer told the Palestinian he didn't need an extra room. All he needed was to put his animals beside him in the room where he sleeps. The man obliged but after a week of bleating, crowing, mooing and barking, the man thought he would go crazy and put in another complaint with the Israeli authorities. This time, the same officer offered an even simpler solution. "Just let the animals sleep outside. That way you will get some peace and quiet at night." When the man obliged, he had his first restful night in a week and thanked the Israeli officer for making his life easy again.

Gideon Levy - Ha'aretz
[full article]
Would we want a lawbreaker to be a Supreme Court justice? Or a justice hobnobbing with lawbreakers? The danger of this happening is closer than ever. There is a reasonable chance that transgressors and their cohorts will enter the temple - three candidates to the beacon of justice are settlers. Judge Noam Sohlberg is from Alon Shvut and his legal assistant Ariel Erlich is from Ofra, most of whose lands were robbed from private owners. Judge Issaiyaho Schneller is from Karnei Shomron and Professor Dov Frimer is from Ma'aleh Adumim.

The land they live on has been plundered by either fraud or violence. In many cases this is private land that does not belong to them, in settlements whose very establishment is a violation of international law. It was their ideological choice to live in a region of lawlessness, violence and crime, as aptly described in the Sasson Report - an official Justice Ministry paper adopted by the cabinet.

Michael Bell, former Canadian ambassador to Egypt, Israel and Jordan; co-director, Jerusalem Old City Initiative, University of Windsor. Interview with Middle East Bulletin.
[full article]
Why is the issue of Jerusalem so central to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian and the broader Arab-Israeli conflict?

The city is overwhelmingly important in Judaism and in Islam, as well as Christianity, of course. Jews the world over, and Israelis, Muslims and Christians, Arabs and others, feel a particular attachment to it. In this case, both Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims, want to control the holy sites physically; that’s a difference from Christian attitudes today. The city is such a part of their self image, of their narrative, of their belief system, that its possession is critical to both.

By SAREE MAKDISI - Los Angeles Times
[full article]
On Sunday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech that -- by categorically ruling out the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state -- ought to have been seen as a mortal blow to the quest for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On Monday morning, however, newspaper headlines across the United States announced that Netanyahu had endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state, and the White House welcomed the speech as "an important step forward."

By David Shulman - Ha'aretz
[full article]
Bad times bring out the best in some people. Most of us remain passive, even willfully blind, in the face of great crimes that we see perpetrated on others, whether they are strangers or our next-door neighbors. But there will always be someone, probably just an ordinary decent person, to whom this rule doesn't apply - someone who will try to do the right thing at any cost, risking his or her well-being or even, perhaps, life itself. Ezra Nawi is such a man. He's a plumber by profession, a Jewish Jerusalemite, and he is also the unsung hero of the Israeli peace movement in the south Hebron hills. It's largely thanks to him that the Palestinian farmers in this area are still living on their land. Unless something happens to change the current prognosis, an Israeli court will sentence Nawi to jail on July 1.

America Magazine
[full article]
Six weeks ago my colleagues and I from the Catholic Worker attempted to cross into Gaza, but we were not allowed through. We carried with us six large suitcases containing $18,000 worth of medical supplies destined for Al Shifa Hospital, as well as letters, drawings and toys sent by American children for the orphans at the Rachel Corrie Center in Rafah. Friends on the other side of the wall waited in vain for three days for us to arrive.

by Ghassan Khatib - Bitter Lemons
[full article]
Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu's speech last night can only be classified as a failed public relations exercise, mainly because it catered just to the right-wing constituency that put him in the position he is in.

To all others, without exception, the speech was disappointing. The Palestinians and Arabs reacted angrily. The Kadima party criticized the speech as harmful to the interests of the Israeli people. Further afield, meanwhile, European and American reactions focused on reiterating international demands for a complete cessation of settlement building including so-called "natural growth", something Netanyahu failed to commit to in his speech.

By Akiva Eldar - Ha'aretz
[full article]
The prime minister's speech last night returned the Middle East to the days of George W. Bush's "axis of evil." Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a patriarchal, colonialist address in the best neoconservative tradition: The Arabs are the bad guys, or at best ungrateful terrorists; the Jews, of course, are the good guys, rational people who need to raise and care for their children. In the West Bank settlement of Itamar, they're even building a nursery school.

M J Rosenberg - Israel Policy Forum
[full article]
It's a little odd that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is going to respond to President Barack Obama not in a Knesset speech or an official statement but rather in a major address at a university. Leaders of parliamentary democracies almost always deliver major policy pronouncements in parliament. But this is being billed as an address to the nation, something rare in Israel. Expectations are high.

One can only hope that the content of the speech justifies the atmospherics. If Netanyahu accepts the two-state solution, the settlement freeze, and the demolition of the illegal outposts, his speech will indeed merit the hype.

Mel Frykberg - IPS News
[full article]
FAQUA, Northern West Bank, Jun 10 (IPS) - Faqua village has found itself unfortunately named. Faqua in Arabic means spring water bubbles; the village was named after the abundant natural underground springs that were once found all around it.
Today the people are on their own, the water springs have been taken over by Israel.

Faqua's problems started in 1948 with the establishment of Israel, when 24,000 of Faqua's 36,000 dunums of land (one dunum is 0.10 hectare) and most of the underground springs were appropriated by the new Jewish state.

By MUSTAFA BARGHOUTHI - Chicago Tribune
[full article]
Throughout decades of struggle for Palestinian freedom, there has been little cause for optimism. Today, I am optimistic.

President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo last week was the most compelling I have ever heard from an American president. He articulated an understanding of the roots of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that we have not heard from previous American presidents. By acknowledging the legitimate aspirations of Palestinians for freedom, dignity and a state of our own, Obama has shown that he may have what it takes to provide the constructive, evenhanded peace-brokering that past American efforts lacked.

By Dan Lieberman – Palestine Chronicle
[full article]
Israel's latest strategy for complicating the peace process is to delay discussions of Jerusalem's future. Steering debate to other agendas enables Israel to establish more "facts on Jerusalem ground," which consists of annexing lands, constructing bypass roads and housing and preparing for the decisive moment that will allow expansion of the Maale Adumim settlement and the development of the E1 corridor. From a Palestinian perspective, the extensive E1 corridor will join settlements in a ring that separates East Jerusalem from the West Bank. This corridor will divide the northern and southern West Bank and will impede direct transit between Palestine Bethlehem, which is south of E1 and Palestine Ramallah, which is north of E1. Construction of the E1 corridor, portions of which are owned by Palestinians, could prevent the formation of a viable Palestinian state.

Uri Avnery
[full article]
ONE MAN spoke to the world, and the world listened.

He walked onto the stage in Cairo, alone, without hosts and without aides, and delivered a sermon to an audience of billions. Egyptians and Americans, Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, Sunnis and Shiites, Copts and Maronites – and they all listened attentively.

He unfolded before them the map of a new world, a different world, whose values and laws he spelled out in simple and clear language - a mixture of idealism and practical politics, vision and pragmatis

By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
[full article]
"What goes for the geese goes for the gander" is definitely not a catchphrase applicable in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. We "gander" certainly are not granted the rights and privileges of Israeli settler "geese" in any shape or form. This is a well known fact, but incidents that offer further proof of it continue to take place, reminding all that illegal Jewish settlers squatting on Palestinian land can act against the laws of humanity with impunity.

For the past four days, Jewish settlers near the West Bank city of Nablus have been burning Palestinian fields, blocking roads and attacking Palestinians in response to the Israeli government's decision to evacuate a few tiny settlement outposts. On May 31, six Palestinian men were injured after being attacked by Jewish settlers near the Qadumim settlement. Since then, incidents of violence have been taking place almost continuously, the latest being the raging fires in Palestinian fields.

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
[full article]
The Israeli government of Benjmain Netanyahu is seeking to deflect Washington's demand for a total settlement freeze by complaining that it ignores secret agreements between his predecessors and the Bush administration that construction in existing Jewish settlements could continue.

The rift between Mr Netanyahu's government and the US appeared to deepen yesterday, with a clear declaration by President Barack Obama that a freeze – including on "natural growth" of West Bank settlements – was among Israeli "obligations".