al majdal DoubleDouble IssueIssue No.No. 39/4039/40 BADIL Resource Center Resource BADIL quarterly magazine of (Autumn(Autumn 20082008 / WinterWinter 2009)2009) BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights jjabaliyaabaliya a wwomanoman wearswears a bellbell carriescarries a light callscalls searchessearches by Suheir Hammad through madness of deir yessin calls for rafah for bread orange peel under nails blue glass under feet gathers children in zeitoun sitting with dead mothers she unearths tunnels and buries sun onto trauma a score and a day rings a bell she is dizzy more than yesterday less than tomorrow a zig zag back dawaiyma back humming suba back shatilla back ramleh back jenin back il khalil back il quds Palestine's all of it all underground in ancestral chests she rings a bell promising something she can’t see faith is that faith is this all over the land under the belly of wind she perfumed the love of a burning sea Ongoing concentrating refugee camp crescent targeted red NNakbaakba a girl’s charred cold face dog eaten body angels rounded into lock down shelled injured shock weapons for advancing armies clearing forests sprayed onto a city o sage tree human skin contact explosion these are our children Double Issue No. 39/40 (Autumn 2008 / Winter 2009) Winter / 2008 (Autumn 39/40 No. Issue Double she chimes through nablus back yaffa backs shot under spotlight phosphorous murdered libeled public relations public quarterly magazine quarterly relation a bell fired in jericho rings through blasted windows a woman Autumn 2008 / Winter 2009 1 carries bones in bags under eyes disbelieving becoming al-Majdal numb dumbed by numbers front and back gaza onto gaza JJaffaaffa 1948....Gaza1948....Gaza 20082008 for gaza am sorry gaza am sorry she sings for the whole powerless world her notes pitch perfect the bell a death toll BADIL takes a rights-based approach to the Palestinian refugee issue through research, advocacy, and support of community al-Majdal is a quarterly magazine of participation in the search for durable solutions. BADIL Resource Center that aims to raise BADIL was established in 1998 to support the development of public awareness and support for a just solution a popular refugee lobby for Palestinian refugee and internally displaced rights and is registered as a non-profit organization to Palestinian residency and refugee issues. with the Palestinian Authority. Electronic copies are available online at: www.badil.org/al-Majdal/al-Madjal.htm Annual Subscription: 25€ (4 issues) Published by BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency & Refugee Rights PO Box 728, Bethlehem, Palestine Tel/Fax: 972-2-274-7346 Email: [email protected] Web: www.badil.org ISSN 1726-7277 Editor Hazem Jamjoum Editorial Team Reem Mazzawi, Mohammad Jaradat, Nidal al-Azza, Ingrid Jaradat Gassner Layout & Design Wael al-Azzeh, al-Ayyam Atallah Salem Advisory Board Abdelfattah Abu Srour (Palestine) Acknowledgments Diana Buttu (Palestine) Jalal Al Husseini (Switzerland) Badil thanks the Pluto Press, Marcy Newman, Shourideh Molavi, Maher Bitar, Rania Madi, and Anaheed Al-Hardan for Arjan El Fassed (Netherlands) their help in putting together this issue of al-Majdal. Randa Farah (Canada) Usama Halabi (Palestine) Front Cover: Fleeing Yaffa in 1948 (courtesy New Jersey Jeff Handmaker (Netherlands) Solidarity); Fleeing Rafah 2008 (Courtesy rafahkid). Zaha Hassan (United States) Salem Hawash (Palestine) Production and Printing: al-Ayyam Isabelle Humphries (Palestine) BADIL welcomes comments, criticism, and suggestions for Scott Leckie (Australia) al-Majdal. Please send all correspondence to the editor at Karine Mac Allister (Quebec) [email protected]. Terry Rempel (Canada) The views expressed by independent writers in this Shahira Samy (Egypt) publication do not necessarily reflect the views of BADIL Resource Center. Joseph Schechla (Egypt) 2 Autumn 2008 / Winter 2009 Contents Editorial Gaza: The Latest Chapter in a Sixty-Year Nakba ...................................................................................................2 Commentary Resolution 194: A Retrospective by Terry Rempel ......................................................................................................................................................5 Main Feature: Ongoing Forced Displacement Jaffa: Eminence to Ethnic Cleansing by Sami Abu Shehadeh and Fadi Shbaytah ............................................................................................................8 Akka: A Palestinian Priority by Eyad Barghouti .................................................................................................................................................18 Al-Naqab: The Ongoing Displacement of Palestine's Southern Bedouin by Hazem Jamjoum .................................................................................................................................................27 Displacement of the Jahalin Bedouin by Reem Mazzawi ...................................................................................................................................................32 Jerusalem: A Displacement Master Plan Interview with Khalil Tafakgi ..................................................................................................................................38 Palestinians in Burj al-Luq Luq by Emad Jaouny ......................................................................................................................................................44 Jordan Valley: Civil Resistance to Systematic Displacement by Fathy Khdirat ....................................................................................................................................................45 Palestinian Villages of the West Bank between Isolation and Expulsion by Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign ....................................................................................52 Assessing the Response to Situations of Internal Displacement in the OPT by Karine Mac Allister ............................................................................................................................................59 Reviews Book Review: A Doctor in Galilee: The Life and Struggle of a Palestinian in Israel by Janet Walker .......................................................................................................................................................68 Writing My Life and Struggle by Dr. Hatim Kanaaneh ..........................................................................................................................................71 Documents Ongoing Forced Displacement of the Palestinian Population on Both Sides of the “Green Line” Submission to the Human Rights Council Third Universal Periodic Review of Israel .........................................74 “The Rights of Palestinian Refugees and the Final Status Negotiations” Open Letter to President Mahmoud Abbas from Palestinian Refugee Organizations ............................................78 Civil Society Action for Justice in Palestine Final Declaration and Action Plan of The Bilbao Initiative ..................................................................................80 “There is No Alternative to the Return of Palestinian Refugees” Closing Statement of the Fourth Right of Return Popular Conference ..................................................................82 Final Statement of the 2008 Special Meeting Global Right of Return Coalition ............................................................................................................................87 "Stop the Massacre in Gaza – Boycott Israel Now!" Statement of the BDS Campaign National Committee (BNC) ...............................................................................89 “Gross Human Rights Violations and War Crimes in the Occupied Gaza” - Statement to the 9th special session of the UN Human Rights Council Badil and other Palestinian Organizations ...........................................................................................................90 BDS Campaign Update ........................................................................................................................................92 Editorial Editorial Gaza: The Latest Chapter in a Sixty-Year Nakba The Gaza Massacre by Carlos Latuff n December 2008, Israel decided to mark the 60th anniversary of its existence the same way it had established itself: by destroying lives and livelihoods of the Palestinian people. For 23 days, one of the world’s most powerful armies shelled Iand pounded from the air, land and sea the 1.5 million Palestinian inhabitants of the tiny, over-populated and occupied Gaza Strip that was compared to the Warsaw Ghetto by UN Rapporteur for Human Rights, Prof. Richard Falk.1 Israel thus caused the forced displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinians, the death of more than 1,300 and the injury of over 5,000, the great majority of them civilians. 13 Israelis, ten of them soldiers, were killed in this latest round of hostilities. As this issue of al-Majdal goes to print, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are working to dig out what remains of their families, rebuild what remains of the homes built through a lifetime of work and unearth what remains of belongings bearing memories of generations. An official UN fact finding mission has yet to be dispatched to Gaza and “investigate all violations of international human rights law and International