PALESTINIAN SPIRIT THRU' ARTWORKS

SPEECH BY DATO’ FUAD HASSAN
AT THE LAUNCH OF THE CHARITY EXHIBITION FOR PALESTINE
AT BALAI SENI LUKIS NEGARA, ON FRIDAY, 20 FEBRUARY 2009 at 3pm

YB. Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir,
YB. Dato’ Syed Ahmad Jamal,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Friends,

Assalamualaikum Wabarakatuh.

56 days have passed since Israel viciously began their attack on Gaza on 27th of December 2008; 56 days is not even two full months. More than 1300 men, women and children have been brutally killed; more than 5000 have been maimed; of the wounded men, women and also children many have lost more than one of their limbs and will remain crippled to the end of their lives. 22,000 houses have been destroyed, together with schools, hospitals and mosques.

Tons of illegal munitions that burn and poison and tear apart bodies have been unleashed unto the brave people of Gaza. White phosphorus has been rained on them, and they have been pounded by the deadliest arsenal ever seen. The devastation in Gaza is complete.

Yet, the world has moved on. Other headlines are dominating the media of the world, including Malaysia.

Yes, the world has moved on, but we can’t!

Gaza remains under a complete blockade. The Gaza border crossings including the Rafa crossing remain closed. The airspace over Gaza remains prohibited. The sea off Gaza is still off limits. Gaza remains 100% under siege and Israeli military control, while the West Bank is still occupied by a brutal military occupation, and more than 4 million Palestinian refugees are still waiting to go home.

We cannot and we must not go back to business as usual.

The hardship that the Palestinian people have to face has not been eased; it has increased over the years. Every new event is adding to their hardship and deprivation. While the bombing of Gaza has been going on, other attacks causing suffering to Palestinian people have gone practically unnoticed by the world press. Let me give you a few examples.

On 17th of February, two days ago, Al-Jazeera reported that Israel has taken control of 425 acres of land in the West Bank, close to an illegal settlement south of Jerusalem to build an additional 2,500 houses so that that illegal settlement will become a city with 30,000 inhabitants, all of them illegal Israeli settlers. There are now nearly 290,000 illegal Israeli settlers living in illegal Zionist settlements in the West Bank.

In Jayyous, a village near Qalqiliya, the Apartheid Wall (which is completely surrounding Qalqiliya and cutting off many farmers from their land) is to take a new route which results in an additional loss of fertile farm land of 6000 dunums. Hundreds of olive trees have been destroyed in December 2008 alone. The villagers have been taking to the street and have held weekly demonstrations since December 2008.

The occupying forces have met the demonstrators with excessive violence, arrests, imposing curfews and cutting off and occupying the village completely, thus preventing the press from reporting anything about this act of resistance. As a result of this landgrab, the 85% of the people of Jayyous who are farmers have been made unemployed and their livelihoods destroyed.

And a last example of the impact of violence and hardship affecting Palestinians on a daily basis:

In the north of Lebanon, outside Tripoli, the Palestinian Refugee Camp Nahr al-Bared is still waiting for reconstruction. In a three-month battle ending in September 2007, the Old Camp area of Nahr al Bared was leveled to the ground, and the New Camp sustained extensive damage as well. 40,000 Palestinian refugees were made homeless. About half of them were distributed among the other 10 refugee camps, while the remaining 20,000 took refuge in Beddawi, the closest camp, where MSRI has a centre. Today, one-and-a-half years later, most homes, schools and basic services still remain to be reconstructed. UNRWA has taken the lead in the reconstruction efforts, but they are hindered by insufficient funds, as well as technical difficulties such as unexploded ordinance still laying in the rubble. Amidst plans by the Lebanese government for military installations to be set up in the camp, many of the residents belief that Nahr al-Bared will never be reconstructed.

Such are the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza, West Bank, and in the refugee camps.

MSRI has a long involvement with aid and support for the Palestinian people. MSRI was also the first Malaysian NGO to send medical volunteers to help. From 1987 until 1995, 19 Malaysians served stints of 6 months in the refugee camps in Lebanon. MSRI also provided medical aid and set up a centre in Beddawi, in the north of Lebanon with the Palestinian NGO, Beit Atfal as-Samoud (Home of the children of the steadfast) which provides social and other basic services such as pre-school, dental care, vocational training, medical and mental health care. Beit Atfal as Samoud is also MSRI’s partner for the Sponsorship Programme of Palestinian children under which more than 1000 children have been sponsored by caring Malaysians over the years.

In recent years, MSRI has also been cooperating with the Union of Health Care Committees, a Palestinian NGO with headquarters in Nablus, who have hospitals and clinics in West Bank and Gaza, providing free medical services to the poor. The UHCC hospital in Gaza has been bombed into the ground on 5th of January 2009; their three mobile clinics have been buried in the rubble.

MSRI is striving to help rebuild, restore and support their services, and to establish a sponsorship programme for the children of Gaza.

This present charity art exhibition is the third exhibition MSRI has been involved in. It is by far the largest and we believe it a significant contribution by the Malaysian arts community to the Palestinian cause. We warmly welcome the overwhelming support of more than 200 Malaysian artists in this endeavor. We extend our deep-felt gratitude to Dato’ Syed Ahmad Jamal, Seniman Negara, for initiating this exhibition and supporting it whole-heartedly by allowing us to use his art work entitled “?Palestine” as a logo and symbol for this important event.

We also thank Raja Ahmad of RA Fine Arts gallery for co-organizing this current exhibition and his continued support of the Palestinian cause. In 2007, RA Fine Arts and MSRI with Deir Yassin Remembered organized the “Tabah Dalam Derita” exhibition of paintings by a young Palestinian artist, Rouhaifa Qassim, who had transformed her experience and trauma of the destruction of Nahr al-Bared into art.

And last, but not least, I would like to thank the dedicated people of Balai Seni Lukis Negara under the leadership of Director General Dr. Mohamad Najib Ahmad Dawa, who made this exhibition an event of national importance for the Malaysian art scene and gave us the opportunity to be a part of this.

Walking through the exhibition, looking at the more than 400 different art works, it can be clearly seen that there are uncountable ways and means to express one’s feelings and ideas about a cause such as the Palestinian cause. Edward Said once said: “Remember the solidarity shown to Palestine here and everywhere … and remember also that there is a cause to which many people have committed themselves, difficulties and terrible obstacles notwithstanding. Why? Because it is a just cause, a noble ideal, a moral quest for equality and human rights.”

This exhibition is an expression of our commitment for the just cause of the Palestinian people, the moral quest for equality and human rights, the reconfirmation of support for the Palestinian Right of Return and the freedom to live in their homeland as free people.

I will end here with a poem by Kamal Nasir, a Palestinian poet. It is a poem which he wrote in 1961 and which is till as fresh today as it was almost 50 years ago :

The Story, by Kamal Nasir (1961)

I will tell you a story..
A story that lived in the dreams of people..
A story that comes out of the world of tents..
Was made by hunger, and decorated by the dark nights
In my country, and my country is a handful of refugees..
Every twenty of them have a pound of flour..
And promises of relief .. gifts and parcels
It is the story of the suffering group
Who stood for ten years in hunger
In tears and agony..
In hardship and yearning

It is a story of people who were misled
Who were thrown into the mazes of years
But they defied and stood
Disrobed and united
And went to light, from the tents,
A revolution of return in the world of darkness


Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you!

PENJARA TERBESAR DUNIA !!!

LAGI JAWAPAN UNTUK YB PROF. DR. RAMASAMY

Lihatlah video ini wahai YB Prof. Ramasamy. Ianya menjelaskan segala-galanya. Berat mata memandang berat lagi derita ditanggung. Janganlah main politik dalam isu kemanusiaan. Kalau tak faham bahasa Arab cubalah tonton gambar ini. Palestin adalah tempat agama besar dunia yang terpenjara !!

Sila klik disini : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj5XM-vjvVs

MALAYSIA JANGAN BOIKOT HAMAS

SENGKETA DALAMAN PALESTIN

Saya memang tidak dapat menyembunyikan perasaan marah saya apabila melihat Duta Palestin di Kuala Lumpur, Abdel Aziz Abu Goush, menggesa orang ramai yang menunjuk perasaan di perkarangan kedutaan menurunkan gambar-gambar sepanduk pemimpin Hamas seperti Rantisi, Yasin dan lain-lain yang syahid di tangan rejim Israel.

Alasannya adalah penyatuan Palestin. Dan penyatuan itu adalah melalui Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). Hanya gambar pemimpin PLO sahaja yang boleh ditonjolkan. Ini menyebabkan sebahagian daripada penunjuk perasaan itu tercengang-cengang dan sebahagiannya patah hati.

Tunjuk perasaan anjuran badan bukan kerajaan itu bertujuan mengutuk serangan Israel di Gaza yang mengorbankan ratusan dan mencederakan ribuan orang awam yang tidak bermaya melawan senjata canggih Israel..

Memang tidak dapat dinafikan dalam sesebuah Negara itu memerlukan suatu penyelarasan kebangsaan dan dalam kes Palestin PLO. Ianya ibarat pihak berkuasa dalam sesebuah Negara. Dalam kes ini disebut sebagai Palestian Authority. Segala bantuan kewangan harus diberikan melalui PLO dan bukan langsung kepada Gaza.

Masalahnya, umum mengetahui bagaimana PLO dan Hamas masih belum dapat bekerjasama dalam membantu Palestin dan berlaku perebutan kuasa yang ketara antara mereka. PLO lebih cenderung pendekatan kebangsaan dan Hamas lebih kepada pendekatan Islam. PLO mendapat sokongan Amerika sedangkan Hamas mendapat sokongan daripada Iran. Dan Hamas terpilih secara demokratik melalui sistem pengundian rakyat yang sah. Suatu sistem yang memang digalakkan oleh Amerika.

Hamas merupakan parti politik yang menguasai Gaza yang mengambil sikap keras terhadap Israel. Isreal dan Amerika mengetahui persengketaan ini dan berperanan memecahbelahkan mereka. Tidak banyak yang dilakukan oleh PLO apabila Gaza diserang Israel, sepertimana sikap Negara-negara Arab yang lain seperti Saudi, Mesir dan Jordan. Masing-masing menjaga kepentingan ‘perut’ sendiri dengan tidak peduli terhadap jiran seagama dan sebudaya !!.

Amat menyedihkan sekali sikap Duta di Kuala Lumpur ini. Ini bukan pertama kali saya berhadapan masalah dengan beliau. Saya pernah didatangi oleh beberapa pemuda Palestin untuk mendapatkan rawatan perubatan akibat terkena peluru tentera Israel. Mereka terkena senjata kimia yang memberikan kesan kepada tulang mereka. Mereka datang dari jauh untuk memohon rawatan perubatan tetapi ini di halang oleh Duta Palestin.

Kata Duta itu mereka ini merupakan penjenayah dan bukannya pejuang. Saya bernasib baik mempunyai adik ipar Palestin yang bertutur bahasa Arab dan beliau menjelaskan kepada saya keadaan sebenarnya. Saya syaki mereka ini penyokong Hamas.

Tetapi Duta ini begitu amat marah sekali kerana organisasi yang saya pimpin, MSRI (Malaysian Sociological Research Institute) membiayai sebahagian daripada proses rawatan itu. Beliau sebaliknya membuat laporan polis terhadap mereka dan menyebabkan pemuda-pemuda ditahan polis untuk beberapa minggu dan kemudian dibebaskan sebab tiada kes jenayah.

Saya juga mempunyai pengalaman yang sama dengan Duta Palestin dari PLO sebelumnya, Ahmad Al Farra. Beliau juga mempunyai sikap yang demikian. Kalau bercakap memang hebat tetapi saya kurang yakin dengan kehidupan pribadinya yang kaki ….. dan kaki ...... Oleh sebab itu kami dalam MSRI membuat keputusan segala bantuan kemanusiaan harus di salurkan terus kepada mangsa di khemah pelarian di Lubnan dan bukan kepada Duta yang saya sangsi samada wang tersebut digunakan sewajarnya.

Kami telah membina sebuah Pusat bantuan kemanusiaan yang lengkap dengan tadika kanak-kanak dan kelas asas, klinik pergigian, kelas computer dan pusat jagaan kanak-kanak. MSRI juga membantu 300 anak-anak yatim Palestin dengan mendapatkan dana melalui ibu bapa angkat di Malaysia.

Semasa saya menjawat jawatan exco pergerakan pemuda UMNO Kebangsaan di bawah pimpinan Dato’ Seri Mohd. Najib, saya masih ingat bagaimana Dato’ Nazri Tan Sri Aziz yang merupakan Naib Ketua Pemuda UMNO dan memegang jawatan biro antarabangsa pemuda membuat hubungan dengan Hamas yang ketika itu belum begitu dikenali disini. Ini merupakan hubungan awal yang pernah saya ingat. Tetapi saya lihat Pemuda UMNO yang ada sekarang ni di bawah pimpinan Hisham atau Khairy, saya pun tak pasti, tidak mengambil tindakan berkesan yang boleh diharapkan.

Saya berpendapat kerajaan Malaysia tidak harus menutup pintu kepada Hamas. Mereka terlibat langsung dalam tindakan zalim Israel ini. Saya percaya mereka benar-benar menggunakan segala wang bantuan untuk kebajikan rakyat Gaza. Ini tidak bermakna PLO diketepikan. Saya sedar dari segi hubungan diplomatik memang agak sukar, tetapi kita harus lebih realistic dalam menghadapi suasana sebenar.


Saya yakin, apapun yang berlaku mengenai pertelagahan ini tidak akan mengurangkan sokongan dan bantuan kita kepada perjuangan rakyat Palestin yang sedang bermandi darah. Kita harus terus membantu dalam pelbagai cara tanpa mengira mereka muslim atau kristian. Kezaliman sedang berlaku dan ini mesti dihentikan. Saya kagum dengan cara bekas Mantan Perdana Menteri, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad berjuang untuk rakyat Palestin pada umurnya yang sudah mencecah 83. Beliau menggunakan segala saki baki tenaga, suara dan pengaruhnya untuk menyedarkan dunia antarabangsa terhadap kezaliman Israel dan Amerika Syarikat.

Suara Anwar Ibrahim lebih kuat dan lantang. Inilah masa dunia memerlukan suara Anwar yang tergolong dalam 100 orang yang berpengaruh di dunia oleh Majalah Time untuk memberitahu Amerika agar berhenti menyokong Israel dari menganyang Palestin. Anwar memang ada bersuara, tapi nampak macam lebih kurang aje..

HELLO ARAB !! BANGUNLAH...

"Lebih 300 rakyat Palestin terkorban dan lebih 1,400 cedera akibat serangan terbaru Israel terhadap Gaza".

Arab Mesir, tidak mahu membuka pintu sempadan Mesir-Gaza untuk membantu jiran rakyat Palestin yang memerlukan bantuan makanan dan ubat-ubatan. Tetapi sibuk ingin berbaik dengan Israel.

Arab Saudi, asyik mengira berapa kerugian yang mereka hadapi daripada penurunan harga minyak dunia dan kemelesetan ekonomi Amerika. Pemimpinnya sibuk dengan kehidupan mewah dan berpoya-poya.

Arab Jordan, mematikan diri dan tidak mahu campurtangan memberikan tekanan kepada Regim Israel.

Arab Syria, mula mencari jalan untuk berjinak-jinak dengan Regim Israel.

Arab Lebanon, sering menjadi sasaran Israel kerana terdapat banyak khemah pelarian Palestin di situ.

Arab Iraq, menjadi penjilat Amerika kerana terhutang budi menjatuhkan Saddam Hussein.

Arab Al Fattah, sibuk ingin mendapatkan pengiktirafan daripada Israel supaya Mahmoud Abbas terpilih sebagai Presiden Negara baru Palestin.

Wahai Arab, jika kamu semua tidak menunjukkan minat untuk membantu saudara jiran yang sedarah dan seagama denganmu, apa yang kamu harap orang lain untuk membantu. Jangan salahkan orang lain yang kurang menunjukkan minat kerana pertelingkahan dan kesibukan kamu melayari harta dunia.

Mengapa penduduk Gaza dihukum sedemikian semata-mata kerana mereka mengamalkan sistem demokrasi yang dianjurkan Amerika dan melaluinya HAMAS terpilih sebagai wakil mereka?. Kami letih dengan tunjuk perasaan yang tidak membawa sebarang kesan melainkan keuntungan politik setempat kepada mereka yang menganjurkan.

Bangunlah wahai Arab sebelum kamu mengharapkan orang lain bangun untuk membantumu. Kamu lebih banyak wang ringgit dari kami, kamu lebih kaya dengan minyak yang dianugerahkan oleh Allah. Oleh itu gunakanlah untuk membantu saudaramu. Apa punya Arab niii...

BEHIND ISRAEL'S CRUEL WAR ON GAZA

Analysis: Eric Ruder

Eric Ruder explains what the Israeli regime hopes to gain from its all-out war on the Palestinians in Gaza.

ISRAEL'S SIEGE of Gaza is not only intended to continue the policy of strangling the Palestinian will to fight back. The Israeli government also hopes to turn the residents of Gaza against Hamas, the Islamist party that won elections to the Palestinian Authority (PA) parliament in January 2006.

After a series of military clashes with the Fatah Party, which remained in control of the PA security apparatus, Hamas won undisputed control of Gaza in July of last year. Israel's hard-right political leaders are perfectly open about their aim of overthrowing Hamas, despite its solid election victory two years ago, winning 75 of 120 legislative seats.

"Both myself and Kadima's Haim Ramon understand that we need to act decisively and firmly in order to topple Hamas," wrote Israeli member of parliament Effie Eitam, a member of the far right National Union coalition. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is a member of the Kadima Party.

Israeli politicians claim that the firing of Qassam rockets by Palestinians at the Israeli town of Sderot just across the border from Gaza leaves them no choice but to continue the policy of siege.

But as Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery wrote in late January, "Several months ago, Hamas proposed a ceasefire. It repeated the offer this week. A ceasefire means, in the view of Hamas: the Palestinians will stop shooting Qassams and mortar shells, the Israelis will stop the incursions into Gaza, the 'targeted' assassinations and the blockade.

"Why doesn't our government jump at this proposal? Simple: in order to make such a deal, we must speak with Hamas, directly or indirectly. And this is precisely what the government refuses to do...The real purpose of the whole exercise is to overthrow the Hamas regime in Gaza and to prevent a Hamas takeover in the West Bank.

"In simple and blunt words: the government sacrifices the fate of the Sderot population on the altar of a hopeless principle. It is more important for the government to boycott Hamas--because it is now the spearhead of Palestinian resistance--than to put an end to the suffering of Sderot. All the media cooperate with this pretence."

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

DESPITE ISRAEL'S hopes to the contrary, Gaza residents don't blame their wretched conditions on Hamas. After all, Hamas has consistently stood up for Palestinian national rights and opposed Fatah's disastrous strategy of making concessions in negotiations, while receiving nothing but broken promises from successive Israeli governments.

Instead, the people of Gaza rightly blame the humanitarian crisis on Israel and its siege, which is a clear violation of international law. They also blame Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for collaborating with Israel to keep the Egyptian border closed to Palestinians despite their desperate circumstances--and PA President Mahmoud Abbas, for going along with the wishes of the Israeli establishment.

After Gaza residents breached the border with Egypt, Hamas renewed its offer to Fatah to form a unity government, but Abbas refused to consider the offer unless Hamas relinquished control over Gaza.

Instead, Abbas tried to maneuver around Hamas by striking an agreement directly with Egypt to take over administration of the Palestinian side of Gaza's border with Egypt--essentially bidding for the PA to become Gaza's jailer.

This is a role that Fatah has embraced since its former head, Yasser Arafat, signed the 1993 Oslo Accords, hoping that it could win the creation of a Palestinian state from Israel at the negotiating table. Fifteen years later, Israel has expanded its settlements and crushed the Palestinian economy, while continuing to string Fatah along with the idea that a final settlement is just around the corner.

The inability of Fatah to learn from more than a decade of mistakes has led to the slow but steady deterioration in its support--which culminated in Hamas' victory in 2006. For a time after the vote, Hamas and Fatah entered into a national unity government in an attempt to force Western powers to end their economic embargo.

By June 2006, however, skirmishes between Hamas and Fatah forces in Gaza intensified, and some 100 Palestinians died in the fighting. The fighting ended with Hamas' routing of Fatah forces in Gaza.

This should have demonstrated clearly to Abbas that a bold new direction was required. "No amount of collaboration, passivity and obedience to the other side has worked," writes Ghada Karmi in Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly. "The Palestinian situation is far worse today than in 1993, and a different approach is needed.

"The Palestinians may be weak, but they have one major strength: the power to say 'No.' Imagine if they now refused to negotiate with Israel on current terms, dismantled the PA as the scapegoat and whipping boy for Israeli occupation it has become, and established a leadership of resistance that refused to cooperate while under occupation.

"Such a move would wreck the whole construct so carefully designed by Israel and its allies and whose pivot is Palestinian acquiescence. President Bush would have no trophy to save him from total ignominy; Israel would face a rebellious Palestinian population without leaders to do its dirty work; and Europe would have to confront its own ignoble complicity with the occupation by its funding of it.

"Above all, Palestinians would regain their self-respect and their right to resist, and their cause would once again unite the Arab world against its enemies. Fear of such an outcome, disastrous to Israel and its allies, is the Palestinian trump card, if they care to use it."

Essential to the success of such an approach would be a renewed effort by activists in the U.S. to call for an end to the massive financial and military support that the U.S. gives to Israel--to the tune of billions of dollars each year.