David Grossman | UN-Truth

Today is Friday. Palestinian television will normally be show the Friday prayers from Al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, located in the Old City of East Jerusalem, but this Friday Palestinian TV will broadcast live from Burrin, a village in the northern West Bank, near Nablus, where a mosque under construction, the Suliman al-Pharisee Mosque, was served a demolition order, just five days ago — last Sunday, the day on which the Palestinian presidential and legislative elections were supposed to have been held, before they were postponed. The mosque has been entirely built (on Burrin land classified as Arab B), and it’s all finished, except for the minaret…

And, at 3:00 in the afternoon, as they have for nearly four months, a new and growing coalition of Israeli anti-occupation activists will meet to demonstrate their opposition to Jewish settlers replacing Palestinian families in East Jerusalem homes built for them by the UN refugee agency, UNRWA, in Sheikh Jarrah, in the early 1950s under the Jordanian administration. The police have refused to give the activists a permit. But a judge has ruled on Thursday that no permit is needed, as long as the activists don’t block the streets, or make political speeches.

UPDATE: Here is a photo just posted by Didi Remez on Facebook, showing the Israeli author David Grossman – in center of photo below – attending this week’s protest at Sheikh Jarrah just before 3:00pm – (photo apparently taken by Itamar Broderson). Grossman is one of Israel’s most celebrated novelists, and is also a supporter of the Geneva Initiative between Palestinian and Israeli “civil society”, and bereaved father of an IDF soldier who was killed just hours before the end of Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon.

David Grossman at Sheikh Jarrah just before 3pm this Friday 29 Jan 2010 - via Didi Remez

UPDATE: Bernard Avishai reported later on his blog (here) that Dr. Ron Pundak of the Peres Peace Center, and another supporter of the Geneva Initiative, was also present.

UPDATE: IPCRI’s co-director Gershon Baskin reported via Facebook before sunset that the Sheikh Jarrah demonstration is over — “and no one was arrested this week”.

HOWEVER, in the West Bank, it was different. The IDF spokespersons unit reported via Twitter that:
– “120 rioters, hurling rocks @ violent protest @ Bi’lin, security forces responding w riot dispersal mean”
– “100 rioters hurling rocks @ violent protest @Nil’in, security forces responding w riot dispersal means”
– “100 rioters hurling rocks @ violent protest @ Dir Hidhan N of Ramallah, security forces responding w riot dispersal means”

Continue reading It's Friday – protests in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem + West Bank

Leonard Cohen, who celebrated his 75th birthday earlier this week, gave his scheduled concert at Tel Aviv’s Ramat Gan stadium last night without any adverse incident — bringing enormous pleasure to the mostly but not entirely Israeli audience.

It is a pity that he will not be playing in Ramallah this weekend, as he had proposed when the Palestinian boycott committee objected to his performing in Tel Aviv. That suggestion was not acceptable to some — it seems, in fact, to a very few only — but the whole matter therefore became too much, too controversial, and too exhausting for others, who simply chose not to deal with the issues raised.

For the boycott committee, the sole issue was that Leonard Cohen should have totally avoided Israel, and played only in Ramallah.

We reported on this controversy earlier here, as well as
here, and also here.

The Jerusalem Post reported that Cohen told the audience of over 50,000 people on Thursday night that: “I don’t know if we will pass this way again” … so, he promised “to give it everything tonight.” The JPost also said that the concert transported the audience to “a vibrant spiritual high”.

A Youtube video shows Leonard Cohen performing “Hallelujah” in the Ramat Gan stadium on Thursday night:

“I did my best, it wasn’t much”, Cohen sang in this song, “I told the truth, I did not come to Tel Aviv to lie”… and the audience roared in response.

Continue reading Leonard Cohen plays in Israel: one bereaved Palestinian parent said "I can't boycott a heart as big as Leonard Cohen's"