Evocative CD by Turab

Turab is the name of a Palestinian folk group whose music is traditional and yet vibrantly new. Formed in 2004 by a group of seven musicians led by Basel Zayed, their debut album was Hada Leil, produced in Al Quds in 2006. The lyrics of the songs were taken from contemporary Palestinian poems, set to music by composer, Basel Zayed.

Basel Zayed is composer, vocalist and phenomenal Oud player. The other six members of the group are: Hishem Abu Jabal on guitar, Mohamed Quttati on Accordion, Mohamed Nijem on Clarinet and Nay, Yousef Zayed on Bazouq and percussion, Tariq Rantissi on Percussion and Katie Taylor on String Bass. Now the group has produced a new album entitled 'Adam'.

The songs are amazing, drawing upon classical maqamat, international influences of reggae and jazz but still imbued with the fundamental beauty and intricacy of traditional Palestinian music.

I heard the songs on 'Adam' before I obtained the CD. When I opened the parcel containing the CD, I experienced a profound frisson of intense emotion... The CD is contained in a jacket that resembles a passport.

Mahmoud Darwish's poem, 'Passport' had a profound effect upon me as a young girl and I devoted much of my life to the cause of recognition of the Palestinian homeland as Arab and indivisable, to the rights of the refugees to return and to the concept that the apartheid, racist foreign Occupation known as 'Israel' has absolutely no legal, moral or ethical right to exist.

The words of 'Passport' came back to me as I opened the 'Passport' contained the CD of 'Adam':

'They did not recognise me in the shadows That suck away my colour in this Passport.
And to them my wound was an exhibit
For a tourist
Who loves to collect photographs.
They did not recognize me.
Ah . . . Don't leave The palm of my hand without the sun,
Because the trees recognise me,
All the songs of the rain recognise me,
Do not leave me pale like the moon!
All the birds that followed my palm To the door of the distant airport,
All the wheat fields,
All the prisons,
All the white tombstones,
All the barbed borders,
All the waving handkerchiefs,
All the eyes were with me,
But they dropped them from my Passport!
Stripped of my name and identity On a soil I nourished with my own hands!
Today Job cried out Filling the sky:
Don't make an example of me again!
Oh, Gentlemen, Prophets, Don't ask the trees for their names,
Don't ask the valleys who their mother is!
From my forehead bursts the sword of light,
And from my hand springs the water of the river:
All the hearts of the people are my identity
So take away my Passport! (Mahmoud Darwish)

When this poem was written, the Palestinian Passport did not exist. The only legal identity of any Palestinian who wished to travel was a Passport given by another nation or by the foreign occupier of the Homeland. The idea of a Palestinian Passport represented the very heart of the right of the Palestinian people to recover their homeland and to be recognised by the international community.

The songs contained in 'Adam' express all of the emotions of the Palestinian people from the never-ending consciousness of betrayal to the hope that one day justice will be victorious.

Here are the lyrics of one of those songs: 'Intasar Jesh-Iddifa', written by Amer Badran: 'The Israeli Defence Forces were victorious On Flowers brave and proud, And demolished the house, the fence on the spinach plot, The lot that held it, And the widow that planted it. The Israeli Defence Forces were victorious: They won with Cobra and Merakaba, Victorious over the water connection pipe and the electricity tower. The IDF won and ruined the homeland, Taking revenge on every pavement and document: But at the end of the day, In the courage of the confrontation of a child's gaze, The IDF was defeated.'

There is no substitute for the actual music: From Hada Leil, the song 'Mahmoud': Another song:

The CD is dedicated 'to the martyrs of justice and dignity, to the prisoners of freedom and equality and to the honourable men and women of resistance... To my beloved Palestine, the dream that has not yet been crushed.' Listen to the songs on the internet by all means, but BUY the CD. We need to support the artists who devote their lives to media that expresses the truth of the struggle and the undying aspirations of the Palestinian people.

Atfaluka Aytaroun

Khaled Al Habr

Ummi, a classic

Khaled Al Habr has been underrated, I believe, as a composer and singer. Here is his version of 'Ummi'.

American Jewish ex-Marine sails on 'Audacity of Hope'

The following piece was written by a man named Ken Mayers, an American Jew who is an ex-Marine and who actively is opposing the Israeli Occupation's blockage of Gaza by joining others on 'The Audacity of Hope'.

Newspaper Editor's note: As of 1 July, CNN was reporting that 'The Audacity of Hope', a U.S. ship carrying Americans, was stopped by the Greek Coast Guard near the port of Perama on its way to Gaza. This piece was written before the departure.

Ken Mayers wrote:

'Between 1942 and 1945, 21 members of my mother's extended family are known to have died in German concentration camps. Undoubtedly there were others whose place and dates of death are still unknown. Others managed to escape to Israel, where I still have family.

'So why am I going to be sailing on 'The Audacity of Hope' in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza? My reasons follow two distinct threads.

'The first thread is tied to my ethnic heritage as suggested in my opening paragraph. At a universal and abstract level, I am following this course of action because I believe the blockade is illegal under international law that prohibits the collective punishment of a population. But at a personally more specific level, it is because I believe the power elite that rules Israel has drawn too narrow an understanding from the great lesson of the Holocaust, a lesson often summarized in the slogan, 'Never again!'

The narrow understanding can be stated as 'Never again shall Jews be subjected to the persecution that culminated in the Holocaust.' A broader understanding would be, 'Never again should any people be subjected to the persecution that culminated in the Holocaust.'

'It is a tragic irony that after a millennium of confinement to the ghettos of Europe, the Jewish state turns around and creates the world's largest ghetto in Gaza by blockading its ports, controlling its air space, and with some support from Egypt, imposing tight limits on access and egress by land. But far beyond tragic was the turning of the ghetto into a killing field with Operation Cast Lead from Dec. 27, 2008, through Jan. 21, 2009. According to a B'Tselem report, '1,389 Palestinians were killed, 759 of whom did not take part in the hostilities. Of these, 318 were minors under age 18.'

'Since Cast Lead, the blockade of Gaza has further tightened, further delaying any substantial recovery from the devastation of the attack. Since the weapons and armaments used in the attack in large part either came from the United States or were enabled by the $3 billion annual aid given to Israel by our government, the act of attempting to break the blockade is an act of atonement.

'The second thread is tied to my service as a Marine Corps officer from 1958 to 1966 when I gave up that career in dismay with American foreign policy. It is tied to that brief career in two ways. First of all, I took an oath to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.' That oath had no expiration date. I still feel bound by it and I strongly believe that our policy-makers are violating the Constitution in the carte blanche support, financial and military, that they provide to the Israeli government. The second way is another element of atonement — atoning for the support that I provided the forces of empire in those Marine Corps years.

'It has been almost exactly one year since the Israeli Defense Force attacked the ships of the first international flotilla en route to Gaza, killing nine passengers on the Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara. We must not let the Israeli government or the American government think that stopping one flotilla settles the question for all time.'

END OF ARTICLE

Newspaper Editor's note: Ken Mayers, who resides in Santa Fe, N.M., is a former major in the Marines and a participant in the Gaza Freedom flotilla.

N.B. Nabila Harb does not recognise the legitimacy of the Zionist State in any way, shape or form, but that does not prevent me from saluting the courage of Ken Mayers who is willing to protest against the 'Jewish state' in a concrete fashion.

ei: Activists prevent Israeli ship from unloading at US port

ei: Activists prevent Israeli ship from unloading at US port

'You are only as good as your last story'

Helen Thomas used to declare that 'In my career, you are only as good as your last story.'

Outside the White House, when asked by a Zionist if she had any comments about the Zionist state on what was being celebrated as 'Jewish Heritage Day', Helen Thomas declared:

'Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land. It's not Germany. It's not Poland.'

He asked where the Occupiers should go.

'They should go home,' Thomas declared.

'Where's home?' (As if he didn't know!)

'Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else,' Helen Thomas replied succinctly.

If this had been the end of it, if she had stuck to her guns, she could have retired with honour. Instead, and more's the pity, she did what so many have done after telling the truth and being threatened, intimidated or simply browbeaten by the Zionist-controlled media. SHE APOLOGISED! Shame on you, Helen Thomas! Why shouldn't you be able to 'dare to speak out' and then demonstrate a bit of steadfastness.

She has been punished for her statement and will continue to be punished, however many times she falls to her knees to beg forgiveness. Surely after all her decades of experience, she would have known better than to apologise for speaking simple facts.

If you are going to stand up and be counted among the few who dare to counter the Zionist propaganda, you MUST maintain your position without ever retreating one iota.

Ari Fleischer remarked: 'Helen has a special stature that she earned. That's what's so sad, in that she diminished what she earned.'

Unfortunately, she did diminish herself when she apologised after making a statement that should be heard round the world.

Song for Gaza Disabled by YouTube

ATTENTION
The following video(s) from your account have been disabled for violating the YouTube Community Guidelines:

A Song for Gaza - (NabilaHarb)
Your account has received one Community Guidelines warning sanction, which will expire in six months. Additional violations may result in the temporary disabling of your ability to post content to YouTube and/or the termination of your account.


Date Received: 17 May 2009

Videos posted by Zionnists continue to be allowed. There was NOTHING that was inappropriate in my video, except that it displayed the truth about Zionist actions in Gaza and other parts of Occupied Palestine.