Where On Earth is a Palestine Football Jersey?

OK this isn’t funny anymore. In the throes of my Palestinian football fervor, I spent nearly 4 hours online yesterday trying to simply locate and purchase a Palestine National Team football jersey. Brimming with respect for the accomplishments of the Palestinian National side against Jordan in Ramallah on Sunday, I felt it my duty to proudly sport the kit around London (at least before it gets too cold) - while trying to politically dilute the annoying club football jerseys you see at every turn.

The result - absolutely NOTHING. Apparently had I desired the national team jersey of Namibia or Kazakhstan or perhaps that casino-rich little island nation of Macau (pop. 400K) I’d be in business.

So as a mild departure from serious issues facing Palestine this week, I am appealing to sportswear manufacturers worldwide to end this blockade of Palestinian jerseys. Let your silkscreens run without prejudice! Free your polyester from the vestiges of imperialism!

Heck, I’d even take a replica t-shirt or some socks at this point…

Freedom for Palestine Rally: London

In keeping with bruised earth’s ongoing offering of original content - the following video ‘collage’ of sights and sounds shot during the recent Freedom for Palestine Rally in Central London on Saturday May 10, 2008 - hopefully provides a bit of background on this impressive day in the capital - seeing over 20,000 protestors commemorating the 60 years since the Nakba (The Catastrophe of the Palestinian People) and corresponding founding of Israel.

Featuring sections of speeches by British MP George Galloway and Professor Manuel Hassassian (UK Ambassador for Palestine), the following video attempts to capture (through photos, videos, and music) the spirit of the demonstration. Other speakers on the day included Dr Mustafa Barghouti (elected Palestinian Legislative Council member), Richard Burden MP (chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Palestine) and former MP, Tony Benn.

http://www.vimeo.com/vimeo.com/1069210

Anti-Zionist Jews: Not In Their Name

I have received a lot of comments recently about bruised earth being either anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli, or both. Like many Palestinians and many Israelis I have met and discussed the occupation with, there is a fundamental and urgent point everyone should understand - there exists a profound difference between speaking out against the political tenets of Zionism and voicing racist, blatant antisemitism. There is also a profound difference between being anti-Israel Policy and anti-Israeli. The difference is governments and people.

It is crucial the difference is understood. We should all be intelligent enough to debate these issues - separating policies from population. If not, we will - like many of our politicians - quietly debate the issue of the occupation in our heads rather than with our voices - frozen in fear of being labeled antisemitic.

People must also wake to the reality that there is a large and vibrant community of Israeli Jews - both in Israel and across the world - who refuse to allow Zionism and the subsequent actions of the State of Israel to be performed in their name. In many ways, they are the bravest and most powerful of voices, refusing to remain silent and speaking out in the face of great opposition from their families and communities.

To that end, I would like to offer a few examples of two exceptional and brave men. Both Jewish - one Israeli, one American. The first is Professor Ilan Pappe, one of Israel’s acclaimed New Historians who debunked the idealized Zionist version of the Jewish State’s history and exposed that massacre, rape and dispossession of the native Palestinians that attended its birth.

Professor Pappe is an advocate for a single secular democratic state in historic Palestine with equal rights for Jews and Arabs. His outspoken views put him out of favour with the Israeli mainstream and recently, he has decided to leave Israel to teach at Exeter University. His most recent work, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is a striking and urgent review of Israel’s actions in 1948, and its ongoing policy of racially segregating Palestinians and Jews today.

An excellent portion of a lecture by Professor Pappe (I encourage everyone to spare the time) can be viewed here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2378048083114640496

The second Jewish profile is American-born Mike Marqusee, an exceptional writer, speaker and intellectual I have had the profound pleasure to meet and work with on a book event some years ago. His latest offering, If I Am Not for Myself: Confessions of an Anti-Zionist Jew is a “thought-provoking exploration of what it means to be Jewish in the twenty-first century”. It traces Marqusee’s upbringing in the 60’s in an Jewish-American family, his subsequent pro-Palestinian activism, and experiences as a Jew living among Muslims in Pakistan, Morocco, and Britain.

Like Professor Pappe, Marqusee has faced and experienced the effects of living as an anti-Zionist Jew, and has chosen to work toward breaking the mold of blindly accepting the actions of the State of Israel simply because of his Jewish heritage.

This post is therefore dedicated to Marqusee, Pappe, and the brave scores of Jewish men and women around the world who against substantial odds, are speaking out and forcing their communities to re-think and discern the crucial difference between Judaism and Zionism; anti-Israel and anti-Israeli; people and policies.

Bravo.