Dedicated to those killed by the occupations and oppressions and to Tanya Reinhardt, Molly Ivins, Haidar AbdulShafi, Leila ElFarra and all other activists who died but who remain alive in our hearts and actions

* "Assay the power you have; our doubts make traitors of us all." Shakespeare

* "Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right." Martin Luther King, Jr.

One could try list all the bad things that happened in 2007: from the destruction of Nahr AlBared refugee camp, to continued atrocities in Iraq, to the Gaza siege (slow genocide), to politicians pandering to AIPAC, and on and on. But the good things are not usually highlighted and there are thousands of these. The below is what I call my own "people highlights" of examples of positive happenings which tend to be overlooked but would otherwise give us a boost for more positive actions. They are culled from the 100 or so messages we sent out in 2007 (we send about two news/action letters per week).

2007 Highlights for Western Asia in no particular order

- The use of "Apartheid" as an adjective with "Israel" or Israeli became common usage this year. A few years ago it was a few of us who used the term (Uri Davis etc). Today, we find it in common usage from Shulamit Aloni (ex Israeli minister) to Jimmy Carter to churches and campaigns around university campuses

- 2007 maybe looked back at in history as the apex and the turning point for the neo-conservative (neocon) push for a global and endless war to divert attention and weaken the demand for peace and justice in Palestine. The push for the war on Iran fizzled in tandem with failures to advance neocon policies from Iraq to Venezuela. The US dollar plummeted together with US government reputation around the world. Neocons remain a force to be reckoned with and are not giving up. What may save their agendas is the "neo-liberals" of the Democratic party (under he Israel-first lobby) who managed so far to continue pumping billions of dollars into wars on Iraq and Palestine. Yet, thankfully, no new major war happened in 2007 (2006 saw the aggression and war on Lebanon) while killing of Palestinians and Iraqis continued. The frenzied Zionist push for new wars (using similar lies to the ones they concocted about Iraq and adding new lies about "Ahmedinijad threatens to wipe Israel off the map") showed how out of touch it was with the "Islamofascism awareness week" at university campuses, which actually backfired on its organizers.

- Despite the concocted debates in the media and presidential that intentionally excluded good and viable candidates in the US for public office, the Internet allows people to hear candidates. Good candidates for office who are not willing to buckle to special interests (e.g. the corporate interests or the Israel lobby) are there and still are viable. The democratic leadership and the media pundits under Zionist pressure excluded Gravel and Kucinich from some of their debates (and when included were unfair to them). Anyway, there are options whether you are Democrat, Republican or Green and Iowa and New Hampshire may yet surprise the (Zionist) media pundits (if we also get working, we maybe surprised nationally). Anyway, in no particular order:

+ president as a Green Party Candidate

+ At the congressional races, there are dozens of good people who will

+ change the self-destructive system in Washington are always running or

+ considering running (and good people are always needed) and need our

+ support. Here is an example from a Democratic Candidate for Sixth

- Mearsheimer and Walt's book on the Israel lobby also rockets in sales despite Zionist feeble attempts to silence, intimidate, scare, and lie.

- Israeli historian Ilan Pappe publishes a groundbreaking study on the "Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" and calls for the right of the native Palestinian refugees to return (this at a time when some Palestinian self-appointed leaders abandoned the right of return)

- A mushrooming of other good books that came out this year that connect our humanity in many ways and help change the oppressive discourse. Examples: “The Host and the Parasite - How Israel's Fifth Column Consumed America" by Greg Felton "Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish & Palestinian Trauma & Resilience" by Alice Rothchild, "Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory" Edited by Ahmad H. Sa'di and Lila Abu-Lughod, "War on Error: Real Stories of American Muslims" by Melody Moezzi, "The Lemon Tree" by Sandy Tolan, New edition of "Witness in Palestine" by Anna Baltzer, among many others.

(my own book on the one state was published in 2004 and was just translated and published in Spanish in 2007)

- The critical Haifa Declaration was issued and it articulates a vision of equality and justice for Arab citizens in Israel calling for a state of its citizens instead of a state for Jewish people everywhere.

- UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination urged Israel to Revoke the Citizenship Law, Dismantle the Wall, Bind the Jewish National Fund to Anti-Discrimination Principles, and Recognize the Unrecognized Villages

- Mohamad Salah cleared of Terrorism charges. Dr. Sami Al-Arian also had most charges found not guilty (the government then made a plea bargain with him and then renegged and keeps him in jail claiming contempt for the court)

- Neoconservative Zionist Paul Wolfowitz resigns in disgrace from the leadership of the World Bank

- First Muslim takes office in the US Congress despite fascist attempts to derail

- Palestine and Arab film festivals show remarkable success (London, San Diego, Chicago etc)

- The UN General assembly voted overwhelmingly (184 to 4) to ask the US to lift the embargo on Cuba. Who are the four? The US, Israel, Palau, and Marshal Islands! Other 2007 votes at the UN were also lopsided especially those on Israel showing increased US/Israeli isolation.

- Palestinian Hip Hop artists and Arab Comedians make national waves

- Thousands of people from around the world visited Palestine (especially in the Summer) with actions, witness, and direct support to nonviolent resistance

- Bil'in Continued nonviolent resistance forces a partial Zionist retreat but the struggle continues

- Council For National Interest puts ads explaining how Israel hurts US National Interest

- CNN airs a three part series by Christiane Amanpour titled God's warriors". Despite shrill Zionist attacks (because CNN dared to mention fanatical Muslims Christians, AND Jews and thus not buying into Jewish supremacy or into Islamic bashing).

- A Social Forum Meeting supported by the Spanish government was canceled after Zionist were invited and Arab civil society and other human rights delegations withdrew

- 1200 delegates from 26 countries attending the World Against War Conference on 1 December 2007 issue a declaration against wars and occupations, Iraq, Palestine etc..

- Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of "occupying forces" as the key to national reconciliation, according to focus groups conducted for the U.S. military last month.

- Despite the attempts to paint all of Hamas as the same color (extremist, uncompromising, impossible to talk to), key mainstream media outlets publishes some articles from Hamas leaders in some cases supportive even of a two state solution. Note: the peace movement is also heterogeneous and those who support nonviolence and ending apartheid in Israel/Palestine in the same way apartheid ended in South Africa have also been called extremist, uncompromising, and impossible to talk to.

- The US Campaign to End the Occupation and other grassroot advocacy resulted in an appropriations bill that regulates delivery of US Cluster bombs. The appropriations bill reads: "During the current fiscal year, no military assistance shall be furnished for cluster munitions, no defense export license for cluster munitions may be issued, and no cluster munitions or cluster munitions technology shall be sold or transferred, unless- (1) the submunitions of the cluster munitions have a 99 percent or higher tested rate; and (2) the agreement applicable to the assistance, transfer, or sale of the cluster munitions or cluster munitions technology specifies that the cluster munitions will only be used against clearly defined military targets and will not be used where civilians are known to be present."

- Kate Dahir who works on issues of Palestinian rights included by Pittsburgh Post Gazette reporter in top 25 "Most beautiful People"

Thousands of events for peace were held during 2007. Examples

- In the first week of January, Zionists tried and failed to stop the appearance of the Wheels of Justice at Andover High School (Since that controversy, we spoke at dozens of high schools around the country). The Eagle Tribune publishes our op-ed exposing ADL and other racists for their hateful and fear mongering tactics.

- January 27 march in Washington against the war

- Excellent Sabeel conference February in Cleveland, Ohio (sold out)

- February: New Jersey picketing the offer of sale of homes in settlements built on Palestinian lands

- Israeli Apartheid Week event at Concordia University

- March 17 march on the pentagon, end the war on Iraq, and free Palestine etc

- Demonstrations and other direct actions held around the world on the fourth anniversary of the illegal war on and occupation of Iraq (March).

- Demonstrations and other direct actions held in Palestine and around the world on Land Day (March 30th), Nakba Day (see for example: ://questionisrael.blogspot.com/ ), and other key days in Palestinian history- March

- May 6: Demonstration at the annual so called "Salute to Israel Parade", NYC

- June mass demonstration in Washington DC to end the Israeli occupation and force Israel to comply with International law

- Aug 24-26 Sabeel Conference in California sold out and was a phenomenal success

- Excellent Sabeel Conference in Boston Oct 26-28 sold out and Desmond Tutu spoke eloquently despite Zionist failed attempts to shut it down.

- Demonstration in Boston and other regional demonstrations October 27 against war.

- Tree of Life Conferences held in November and December in Connecticut and Massachusetts

- November 29, events around the world on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People also this launched a year of activities for Nakba actions and commemorations

An old saying in the fight against segregation in the South was "free your mind and your ass will follow". I was thinking about this in the past few days in several events that ranged from racists lecturing their audience about how muslims treat non-muslims to supposed peace gatherings that did not want to deal with violations of human rights and international law when it is done to Palestinians (too controversial! even though funded by our

taxes) to gatherings of few dedicated activists discussing the growing (but still in its infancy) movement of boycotts, divestments, and sanctions.

Hypocricy, racism, and infiltration of peace movements by government agents, racists and others is not new (read e.g. David Dellinger's book "From Yale to Jail" about the 1960s). But in this short article, I want to focus on something else, 70% of the US public thinks the invasion and occupation of Iraq was wrong, nearly 100% of Arabs and Muslims in America think both the occupation of Iraq and of Palestine are wrong. Yet of these millions few want to change their routine to effect change. I want to take time to address those who have yet to do so by asking them the question How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice? and till when will those who are silently observing (or cursing the darkness instead of lighting a

candle) remain silent. But first, please take the time to review this very short vide on Gaza: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhOa5hv3zas

So How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?

After all, it is about convenience. Fear of inconvenience permeates us.

Our lives are commercialized (go shopping Bush told us after 9/11), sanitized from the suffering of others, routinized lest we encounter the unfamiliar, and stigmatized (both stigmatizing ourselves and others). All in all, avoiding what the Buddhists call "having joyful participation in the sorrows of this world".

How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?

After 60 years of ethnic cleansing, 6 million Palestinians refugees and displaced people. After 530 depopulated villages and towns and more land being confiscated daily (All done with Western governments direct and indirect support).

How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?

After American-made Caterpillar bulldozers uprooted over 1 million olive and other fruiting trees. After colonial settlers (some of them soldiers) with US made M16 killed thousands of native civilians in their own lands including when the natives were protesting peacefully.

How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?

After nearly $1 trillion of OUR taxes were sent to support the Israeli apartheid state (over $11 million daily) and some of it was circulated back to spread propaganda in America and gain the subservience of Congress with bribes (free trips, campaign donations, etc).

How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?

After the lobby, lobby that was rated by Fortune magazine as third and sometimes fourth in power (and the first that advocates for a foreign state) with its tentacles in media and academia, after this lobby managed to get us into a war on Iraq that cost the lives of nearly 1 million people (and made

2 million refugees, a genocide 10 times the size of the atrocities in Darfur), After this lobby ramped up its campaign of lies and distortions about Iran to prepare us for another, even larger catastrophe.

How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?

After an International Court of Justice ruling that the apartheid wall violates International Law, after Israel continues to violate dozens of UN security Council resolutions and hundreds of UN General Assembly resolutions. After our Israeli-Occupied US Congress violates US laws by funding those who persistently violate human rights and by issuing "resolutions" that are contrary to US laws and constitutional protections (e.g. on separation of religion and state).

How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?

After our government held and tortured so many people without charges and without benefit of trial for years at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and countless secret prisons around the world.

How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?

After Howard Zinn once wrote "you can't be neutral on a moving train" and countless books and literature (much of it available on the internet shows that you can't complain while feeding the beast that is devouring your brothers and sisters. Curse not the darkness, light a candle.

How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?

Will we be inconvenienced by working with those whom we do not agree with 100%? Will we be inconvenienced by having to argue for our positions, defend ourselves, speak truth to power? Will it be easier to just talk to the converted or stay away?

How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?

Will we be inconvenienced by joining the massive demonstration in Washington DC this Sunday (see http://endtheoccupation.org) and in other cities instead of watching TV or whatever else we do on Sundays? Will we be inconvenienced by taking time to write letters to editors, churches, and politicians? Will we be inconvenienced by picking up the phone to call them while not sure of the response? Will we be inconvenienced by engaging in boycotts, divestments, and sanctions, thus risking being called names ("anti-Semitic", "self-hating Jew", etc) by those who promote segregation, apartheid and racism? Will we be inconvenienced by taking matters into our own hands instead of waiting for Arab or American politicians (people becoming the leaders that politicians follow)?

How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?

And when death comes knocking on our door (as it inevitably will), will we remember how much time we spent at our jobs, petty lives, conveniences, fun?

Or will we remember ...How willing were we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?

---------------

(Jewish Intellectual) Steven Rose: Why pick on Israel? Because its actions are wrong Academic freedom, it appears, applies to Israelis but not to Palestinians The Independent - Published: 04 June 2007 http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2611732.ece

We Deserve the British Academic Boycott! by Benny Tziper - June 4th 2007 Translated Rann Bar-On English posted at http://qumsiyeh.org/bennytziper/ original Hebrew at http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/866785.html

Last Friday morning I drove to the Palestinian village of Bil'in. Bil'in, the village that has turned into a symbol of the struggle against the Apartheid Wall and against the confiscation of Palestinian land by fraudulent Jewish real-estate sharks who hide behind fake patriotism.

Bil'in, a Palestinian village geographically close to Tel Aviv and central Israel and to all the fake leftists who inhabit Tel Aviv's coffee shops.

It's easiest to cry over the occupation from afar, without ever seeing a Palestinian close up. I believe that there may not be a solution to the Palestinian issue, but that's nothing to do with the fact that one can act like a human being and to show Palestinians, who are imprisoned behind fences and walls only a few kilometers from us, that we share their pain and sadness.

This time I went to Bil'in with my daughter Talila, whose idealism and love of others never stops amazing me and that is expressed in so many different ways. I am so very lucky that none of my children are among those vile conformists who attempt to show how interesting they are by traveling to India and South America!

My mother's cousin Lillian also joined us. She came from Paris for her first visit in Israel after many years of doubts. Lillian, professor of Spanish literature, translator and author, was a communist in her youth. She married a Moroccan Muslim, went to live in Morrocco and had two boys, one of whom I know well. His name is Rashid and he's about my age. He's a nuclear engineer living in Toulouse with his wife and three wonderful children.

Because of all this, Lillian was afraid to come to Israel. She was scared that if she comes, she'll have to undergo an invasive interrogation in the airport. This indeed happened in the El Al section of De Gaulle airport in Paris. She was made to stand on her feet for thirty minutes, attempting to answer questions asked by a woman who spoke very poor French and who had difficulty understanding her answers. She felt pretty humiliated, considering she'd done nothing wrong, and was shocked by the intimacy of the questions. But she wanted to board the flight, so she suffered it all in silence.

Despite all this, Lillian fell in love with Israel, was astounded by everything she encountered and praised the openness of Israelis, the beauty of the vistas in the Galilee and Jerusalem. But her most powerful experience she had here - in my opinion - was our visit to Bil'in. There she saw close up what many Israelis don't want to see. She saw together with me and with my daughter the brute force with which the Israeli soldiers - whom I have nothing against personally, of course, my complaints lie at the door of those who sent them - dispersed the tiny and non-violent demonstration that proceeded, as it does every Friday, from the mosque in Bil'in to the Apartheid Wall.

I should emphasize who the participants in this demonstration were. There is the elderly Palestinian with Parkinson's, who was close to Arafat and looks like a shade of a human being. Next to him there is a guy in a wheelchair, who was paralyzed in the lower half of his body after being shot with live ammunition by soldiers while tending his sheep. There are a few elderly Israelis, demonstration veterans, innocent Israeli and international youngsters, and Palestinians from the village, who really couldn't hurt a fly and for whom the demonstration has become a fixed ritual. And there was, as I mentioned, my cousin Lillian, who passed World War II in hiding.

And there was me. Me, who certainly doesn't pose a threat to the well-being of Israeli soldiers. Despite this, the soldiers attacked the non-violent demonstration aggressively and entirely disproportionately. Tear gas canisters landed on us one after another. This is the army's way of defending those real estate sharks who are scared that if someone will open their mouth too loudly, their plans to build their ugly buildings on land confiscated from Palestinians - idealistically called 'settlements' - will be spoiled.

In the newspapers, including my own, it was reported that two soldiers were injured in Bil'in that day. Maybe they were injured while running after seventy and eighty year-old demonstrators and after children and teenagers.

What I know is that among the demonstrators there were some who required medical attention after being chased by the soldiers, but nobody wrote about them.

If my cousin had been as cowardly as the soldiers, perhaps she too could have said that oh god, she was injured by the gas that penetrated her eyes and throat, but she simply got over it, because she is a brave woman. Much braver than the Israeli soldiers, much to my dismay.

We found shelter in the house of Zahara and Hashem. Their house is the furthest one in village, the closest to the Apartheid Wall. Last week soldiers shot at it and threw tear gas canisters at it, knowing full well that there were children and defenseless elderly people in it. This week, the atmosphere was calmer. Zahara served tea made from herbs from her garden to all the demonstrators who crowded in the small living room. Two rooms and a kitchen, that is Zahara and Hashem's entire house. But it glowed with humanity.

Among the people who sat in the living room were youngsters from Zahara and Hashem's family. They all spoke fluent Hebrew. And there was a lecturer of political science from Al Quds University in East Jerusalem. His name was Issa Ibn Zuhairia. He told me of the torturous journey he has to undertake every day and every evening on his way from his house outside Jerusalem to the university that is in the municipal area of the city. He has been trying to get a certificate allowing him to stay in Jerusalem and that will spare him the wait at the checkpoints, but that takes time. Dr.

Issa is not a violent person. He is an intellectual who wants to lead a normal life. But that is impossible for him, because that's the way it is.

He's a Palestinian. As such, he cannot even step into the campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

No one will let him in there even to visit the library. And I never heard of a single Professor from the Hebrew University who objected to this policy, that under their very noses, they have colleagues who suffer terrible discrimination just because they are Palestinians.

However, there is a storm brewing in Israel about the 'anti-Semitism' of British universities who are threatening to boycott Israeli academics. And what about the boycott we impose on Palestinian academics? I think that the boycott the British declared on us is a wonderful thing, because finally some of our arrogant professors will start to feel a tiny drop of the feelings of Palestinian professors, whose academic freedom is routinely crushed under the force of Israeli occupation. Once there were academics like Leibovich, like Plosser, who protested the occupation with harsh words.

Where are they today?

The vast majority of the Israeli academy today cooperates with the evil.

When I wrote a few weeks ago in Ha'aretz that the digs undertaken by the Jerusalem-based archaeologist Ehud Nezer in Herodion (which is in the occupied territories) were illegal according to international law, I was attacked by two respected professors from the university with harsh words.

They wanted to protect the honor of their colleague instead of admitting, like people with real honor, that confiscation of land is confiscation of land, even if it goes by a scientific name. In the case of Herodion it's the confiscation of the treasures of the past, and in the case of Bil'in it is the confiscation of the treasures of the present for some deluxe settlements.

It is true that one could say that British universities are acting hypocritically, and that they should have boycotted Chinese academics for China's violations of human rights, and Russian academics, for Russia's atrocities in Chechnya. Perhaps that is true, but in my opinon the fact that we are being boycotted should be blessed. After forty years of occupation, it's about time we understand that this situation cannot continue, that while we cry over how persecuted we are, we cynically crush the basic rights of the Palestinians underfoot.

It is true that it is not the professors in the universities who are oppressing Palestinians, but in their silence, they are approving of the atrocities. And with their huge egos they ignore what is happening at spitting distance from them: that there are professors and lecturers just like them who can be treated like dogs by every pissy soldier, whose decision it is whether or not they will give their lesson today, and all this because they are Palestinians.

England, cradle of civilization, I salute those civilized people amongst you, who finally found the courage to to say to Israeli academics that they can't just worry about their own academic freedom, and that true civilization means fighting for the academic freedoms and for the rights of those who do not have them.

You know what? I'm am looking forward to the day when every Israeli who took part in the evils of the occupation will be refused entry into England. I want to see the faces of all those young heroes, who throw tear gas canisters at elderly women and who chase a disabled man in a wheelchair, and then when they're done with the army travel to India and become spiritual.

That disabled guy in the wheelchair, the smiling sheep herder, showed me his arm that had just been burned by a grenade. He didn't hate me for being Israeli or Jewish, despite what other Israeli Jews did to him. Zahara and Hashem could also come to me complaining that I am a citizen of the state that has been oppressing them for forty years. Instead they laid out for us a table in her kitchen, sat us around it and served us soup, and vegetable with zatar and home-baked pita bread.