I’ll let you know when I’m dead

Since I haven’t heard from you in a while

Busy, as you are, with your newfound love

Riding high on your accomplishments

And your fat pockets

How can you forget that

I imagine you’re too busy to notice

Other

Me, well

Almost everything around

Is rubble bones and blood

I’ll be joining the pile soon

To be sure

Nourished in heaven with manna

Not available to collective me

Here while alive

I thought about calling you

To see how you are

I’m not the only one suffering

Everyone in their own way

Silent or otherwise

Bombs or no bombs

Food or no food

Love or no love

To be true

Because my heart is bigger than yours

And I can only feel

sorrow  for your shallow

But  can not justify

You your

Ignorant violence

So we live together

In silence

They destroyed everything.
Our homes
Our hospitals
Our place of prayer
Holy Places
They murdered our children
Our Children

My mother lies
In part, in parts
Most of her hot vapor sprayed
Against the wall
Updating paintings
Soaking into the soft cushions

I’m in a tent
On vacation
Plenty of food
Like “Victory”
It’s within reach
A few more meters
A few more deaths

You’re in a tent
You say to me
Rent-free
I should be happy
And quiet
For the privilege I endure

You know in my wildest calculations
You’d be relentless in your attack
Direct
In public
In daylight
To watch
On the Big Screen
RealiTV
You’re in it

And now you’re a criminal, too
Bexause you witnessed it
Like Child Porn
And did nothing, but
Catch yourself in the act
Shame on you and
Everyone else too
You’re easy
You’re it
You brute

A viable solution which would respect the human rights of all concerned and which would solve the problem of borders and resources, as well as demographics and the right to return for all peoples, Palestinian and otherwise, would be to declare the geographic boundaries defined by the Palestine Mandate as terra nullius – no one’s land.

Since this “disputed” land (annexed and occupied by the UN and Israel and the US and others by proxy) is really the last great colonial product of the British Empire – now perpetuated by the US and the other former colonized British states – let it be the first place on earth where there is no state control based on any discriminatory factor, where no one owns the land and where all people are seen as equal under the moral code of the nation as determined by what could be a stateless nation with a constitution (not defining a government structure, per se, but defining a moral code analogous to the Bill of Rights in the US and other international declarations based on equality, peace, justice, liberty, freedom, truth, dignity, trust and the rest of the virtues.

Such a move will require a great deal of courage from the United Nations organs and member states who are willing to uphold the law through their words and actions, an organized popular resistance from Palestinian civil society – and potentially the PA (as, say, exhibited in Abbas’ speech at the UN (in 2011 I think it might have been), and the international solidarity movement through BDS and other means of non-violent popular struggle.

The UN, in order to overcome the inertia of the security council and other organs that prevent the UN organizations – as an expression of its member states – to carry out its functions as prescribed by international law, the UN will likely need to change the structure since the current structure is not properly carrying out its function. The possibility and effects of a Second UN Charter convention should be seriously contemplated by the General Assembly and other appropriate bodies of the UN. Primarily, a restructuring or elimination of the Security Council, the veto, or how it can be used needs to be evaluated and the creation of some body representing civil society needs to take place – a people’s parliament.

In a Newtonian sense, when there are forces acting on a body creating a certain trajectory, in order to alter that trajectory and get it to go in the direction of an international law and human rights based system, the right actions need to take place from the right forces. In this case, as history has shown, there is no political will or skill from the main stakeholders to change the trajectory, so the Palestinian civil society and the respective civil societies of the world need to learn the principles and practices of non-violent popular struggle – which has shown, historically, to be a much more effective means of conflict transformation. It is not the military might that will win the struggle for legitimacy, it is the struggle for equality and justice from international solidarity with the Palestinians that will usher in a durable peace.

The Swiss Parliament passed the “Direct Engagement”  law last week by a near unanimous vote. This new law requires arms manufacturers to train and deploy soldiers, militants, resistance and terrorists to fight with the weapons they sell to foreign governments. It is seen as both a victory for peace workers who believe that a neutral country, as Switzerland, can not maintain neutrality in conflict when it is, in fact one of the largest arms dealers in the world.

“How can we provide the means of war and still considered ourselves a neutral country. It is sheer absurdity to have such a belief that we do not engage in direct violence when we provide the world with the most sophisticated weapons on earth,” says Reudi Knopfler, a former parliamentarian from Bern.

Ironically, it is also considered a victory by arms manufacturers and the military. Since all men must go into the military, Switzerland’s defensive defense posture still makes it one of the most militarized countries in the world – up there with Germany and Israel.

“The very notion that we will be able to fight with and for our comrades in foreign lands, putting our training to good use and, finally, being able to utilize our sophisticated war machinery – which we are most certainly proud of – is a boon to all of our brave young men,” says General Sarmad Rossi one of the bills co-founders.

Still, there are many controversial issues surrounding the new law, yet with a majority of neo-nazi and national socialist groups now on the rise in Swiss parliament and the Swiss population at large, currently amounting to around 33% of the Swiss parliament, this sort of militarization was seen as inevitable by the left and more moderate members of parliament and civil society.

The new law has some rather peculiar features which are sure to raise red flags in the United Nations as they contradict some basic tenets of international law. However, the new law is crafted such that it treads in a sort of no mans land whereby a nations sovereignty supersedes certain aspects of international law when it comes to corporate personhood and the registration of international corporations on sovereign territory. One of the tenets, for example, forbids arms deals that will land weapons in the hands of children of those nations to where arms are sold. However, the bill allows for the training of Swiss children to go and fight as child soldiers under the flag of other nations since the skirts the issue of illegality of arming children of foreign nations. The first group of Swiss child soldiers is already set to deploy to South Sudan at the end of November after their basic training is complete. Protests in Geneva, Bern, Zurich and Basel were peacefully disrupted with tear gas canisters and rubber coated bullets sending a strong message that fringe elements of society will not control the destiny of a legitimately elected democracy.

Another battalion of resistance fighters are training in the alps to fight in Gaza as a result of a long investigation which traced arms sales from Dubai, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the US which finally ended up in the hands of Hamas resistance fighters in Gaza. The new law does not allow for the proxy sales of Swiss weapons to foreign nationals but it does allow for the direct engagement of Swiss civil society in conflicts throughout the world and, thus legitimizes the Swiss battalions intentions to go fight alongside their Palestinian brothers and sisters who would, ultimately, be using their weapons in some sense.

Similar regiments of Swiss civilians are in training to go fight US intelligence in Syria and Iraq as well as the Ukraine, Nigeria, Sudan, and other conflict zones around the world that would ultimately see the equivalent of “made in Switzerland” printed on shells and other ordinance dropped and deployed in their countries.

Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Holland are considering similar legislation. One Dutch Parliamentarian argues, “it makes complete sense, why should we arm innocents and subject them to the brutality of our governments policies which are completely outside of their purview. We don’t see Palestinians voting in Nederlandischer Parliamentary elections, do we? So we shouldn’t see them being subject to our policies without their voice being heard and to that end I support similar legislation as the Direct Engagement law that Switzerland has pioneered. It puts the middle man back in his rightful place. Let out brave citizens fight for our agenda in foreign lands – the way we used to do it during our proud colonial days.”

by H. Gibrain
for Manal

Five minutes
at least five minutes she said
you can’t touch it before that

When I smell cardamom
carried by the winds from Canada
or the Sea of Galilee

Then I leave home
walk across the water
until I reach you

Returning days later
allowing enough time
to make sure its done

Drinking the years
this fenjan
crossroad to civilization

I have to leave now
but these cloths and skin
are yours

Bedouin deeply ensconced
made of sand and sun
our dust ground
aromatic