Poetry for Palestine

Nine Butler, The Con

The street is empty

as a monk’s memory,

and faces explode in the flames

like acorns –

and the dead crowd the horizon

and doorways.

No vein can bleed

more than it already has,

no scream will rise

higher than it has already risen.

We will not leave!

-       Exodus, Taha Muhammad Ali

For Those We Cannot Grieve

Nina Butler, The Con

There has been a Hebrew Facebook page circulating that demands the murder of one Palestinian every hour that the three Israeli teenagers, who disappeared on June 12 while hitchhiking late at night in the West Bank, are missing. The dead bodies of the three teens were found two nights ago near Hebron. Although evidence is yet to be publically released, the Israeli government claims that Hamas is responsible, and it would seem as though the Israeli military is set on carrying out the desire of the 20 000-plus facebookers who ‘liked’ this page. The social media page is premised upon the assumption that ‘Palestinians’ (the entire populace) are behind this, and so has been the Israeli Defence Forces’ campaign of collective punishment – Operation Brother’s Keeper – over the past 18 days that has resulted in the imprisonment of more than 500 Palestinians, the death of six mostly male youths of the same age as the missing Israeli teens, and the destruction and invasion of more than 1 000 homes, offices and buildings. Now that the inexcusable and disgraceful crime of the abduction and killing of three Israeli lives has come to a head, all indications are that the ‘operation’ of collective punishment will evolve into a large-scale mission in multiple forms of vengeance – aimed at harming yet more innocent young lives.

Gaza Through Israeli Eyes

by Nina Butler, The Jacobin

Israel’s largest circulation English newspapers, the Jerusalem Post and Ha’aretz,have constructed an alarmingly patchy impression of the aerial bombardment of Gaza the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) waged last week.

Take Ha’aretz, lauded as the most left-leaning Israeli publication, with sophisticated and provocative “opinionistas” that routinely criticise the conservative, trigger-happy seats of power.

Hebron: The capital of ugly and keffiyehs

The keffiyeh has been a powerful political symbol for decades. But Hebron, where it is manufactured in bulk and worn as a statement of courage, is the broken centre of a fast-unravelling region. By NINA BUTLER in Ramallah. The Daily Maverick

The keffiyeh has been the most provocative and explicit emblem of Palestinian solidarity since Yasser Arafat gave it global exposure in the 60s and 70s. Throughout his political career, Arafat was rarely seen without the traditional headdress of Arab men in the Middle East. Western media outlined its powerful symbolism by circulating images of Leila Khaled wearing a keffiyeh and holding an AK-47. The female member of the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who is famed for being involved in the 1969 high jacking of TWA flight 840, is a prominent face on the Apartheid wall and buildings in Gaza and the West Bank to this day, as are images of Arafat*.

The Value of Palestinian Existence and 'Normality' Under Israeli Occupation

by Nina Butler, Nina Butler

Days are short in Palestine. It is pitch black by 5pm and winter has not yet even solidified over the barren, beige land, scarred with barbed wire and mountains of trash.

Lives are short here too.

Palestinian solidarity and the responsibility of South African intellectuals

by Nina Butler, Thought Leader

“I wish you empowerment to resist; to fight for social and economic justice; to win your real freedom and equal rights.”

These are the stirring words of Omar Barghouti in his open letter to “people of conscience in the West”. The prominent Palestinian human rights activist gave an indication of the poetic ability and charisma that inspires this letter in a recent discussion over Skype. The newly established Rhodes University Palestinian Solidarity Forum (RUPSF) engaged Barghouti in an attempt to inspire students and academics to feel the immediacy of the struggle to our own pasts, and by extension, the power South African voices can hold in the contemporary international sphere.