Easter For Palestinians

There are almost 160,000 Palestinian Christians. On Sunday, many of them were denied by Israeli police to attend the Church of Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

From PressTV:

Tens of of thousands of Christian pilgrims from around the world annually flood the city of al-Quds during Holy Week (the week preceding Easter,) to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, an ancient structure built over the spot Christians believe to be the tomb of Jesus Christ and one of the most sacred spots in Christendom.

This year, however, a heavy Israeli police presence has prevented the vast majority of Christian pilgrims, including West Bank-based Palestinian Christians, from reaching the church to pray and attend the ceremonies within, a Press TV correspondent reported on Saturday.

Palestinian Christians from the West Bank rarely make the pilgrimage to al-Quds because Israel does not allow them into the holy city.

Christian pilgrims anxious to reach the Church of the Holy Sepulcher were met instead by a phalanx of Israeli police check points -- both at the gates of the Old City, and inside.

The Israeli checkpoints, manned by at least a thousand Israeli policemen, imposed even more restrictions than usual on the crowds of worshippers, preventing many of them from attending the ceremonies.

Israel has denied free access to holy places of worship to both Christians and Muslims, on several important occasions.

Holy Saturday follows Good Friday and precedes Easter Sunday. According to mainstream Christian beliefs, Holy Saturday commemorates the day when the body of Jesus was laid in the tomb, after his crucification and death on the preceding day, which is known as Good Friday. They maintain he was resurrected on Easter Sunday.

The Holy Saturday vigil culminates with the lighting of a taper kindled by the sacred fire -- an eternal flame, which burns over an altar in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The priest's taper is then used to light the thousands of individual candles held by the worshippers. The lighting of the taper symbolizes the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The light from the sacred fire is then sent to Amman, Damascus, Beirut and capitals throughout Europe.

Merry Christmas!

It's been a long arduous week full of wedding preparations for one of us (her brother's) but we can finally work again on an excruciatingly slow internet connection.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Hope this upcoming year will be full of liberating happiness and renewed resistanc. Wonder if Santa made it to the Holy Land this year or not. Anyhoo, enjoy your burbara and sinus opening smell of pine cones-we've certainly had our share of fun with Christmas lights and tinsels.

Happy New Year!

This week marks the last one of classes before our finals start on Saturday. However, we've been enjoying a couple days off due to the Ministry administered strike on Monday and the Islamic new year (hijra) today. That's 1432 years since the prophet PBUH first made the journey from Mecca to Medina.

And since we're in such a reflective mood, here's what's been sweeping the world this week:

Something small called Wikileaks. Thousands of classified private US documentations have been made public to the entire world, which of course is doing wonders to the US foreign relations. See what they think of world leaders here, and read the brave founder of the website, Julian Assange (great name!) answers to the public's questions. The US have gone on a haters' mission to besmirch Assange's reputation therefore his credibility and/or to see him safely behind bars, and/or...assassinated. The besmirching has already begun-the ridiculous accusations of rape and other sex offences committed by him during his last visit to Sweden in August. The case has highly conspicuous political undertones, and today Assange was refused bail and will remain in custody until December 14th, where he will continue to refuse his extradition to Sweden. One of the six people ready to offer him surety was film maker Ken Loach-who earlier this year boycotted the Melbourne International Film Festival because of its sponsorship from Israel-and was willing to offer 20 thousand pounds in bail. Stay strong, be safe.

The raging wildfire that has consumed Mount Carmel in Haifa was finally put out on Sunday after leaving more than 40 people dead and thousands of evacuees. Israel's poorly unprepared forces were no match as it pleaded to countries all over the world to aid them (since the neighboring countries supposedly loathe them), but they needn't have feared as the imbecilic PA fire-fighters lost their balls and strapped on their boots to help. Because Israel would do the same for us huh. As always, we are astounded by the new levels of depravity that the PA sink to. The best Israel can do as to find who the culprit is is to arrest four teenage boys, boohoo. Anyway, we liked Gilad Atzmon's take on how the JNF's plans to "reclaim" the land back in the 1930's came and bit Israel right on the ass last week.

Several Latin American countries have recognized Palestine's right to exist. Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay (due next year)-thanks, you're about 60 years too late. Unsurprisingly, Bibi and his cronies are not too happy with those decisions, muttering something about how this will upset the balance of peace negotiations or some crap like that.

Old man Abbas has threatened to dissolve the PA if the settlement freeze doesn't get extended yada yada yada. Empty threats, silly notions, must be all those blue pills he's been munching on. And no this piece of news doesn't warrant a link.

A Very Belated Eid Mubarak To You All

Bit late on this, so sue us. Our Eid break was more than satisfactory, with seven long days spent doing something we haven't experienced lately: enjoying life. One of us has the prized Jerusalem kushan (birth certificate) so trips to Tiberius (Tabaria), Jerusalem, and Tel il-Rabi3 (Tel Aviv to the uneducated masses) were undertaken, with various Zionists decomposing on the spot under the glare of withering contempt. The other spent a week in Amman, City of All Things Joyless, but since it was with the family it was still all good. Spending 10 hours on the Allenby Crossing was not so good though, as the pilgrims from hajj caused a massive people traffic jam. We hope you all delighted in the slaughtering of the lamb and didn't choke on the abundant meat!

Eid Mubarak!

Ramadan is over, and its exhausting days too. Not the fasting part, that wasn't so bad, but the continuous family gatherings around food ('azayim) and the staying up until 2 AM socializing (sahrat). Now that the Eid holiday has started, we can resume our 15 hour a day sleep periods.

Twas the Night Before Eid..

..And Ramallah was teeming with hundreds of thousands of people. There was no room to put one's foot. The people were like termites all scurrying around aimlessly, in some places congregating like there was no tomorrow. Stores stayed open well after midnight with people still buying clothes at rip off prices, and oh my we enjoyed it all thoroughly. Gets you in the mood for Eid, you see. Balloons for the kids were at every corner, there was a belly dancing bear shaking its furry butt to Najwa Karam, and cat calls and perverts adorned the manara. Note about the perverts: They claim that you are the most beautiful face they have ever seen, but they don't say mashallah and so you get hit with the evil eye and go tripping over a huge slab of rock in the middle of the street. Ho hum.

It was a good day for street vendors too.

The day of Eid is spent either waking up very early to pray and then visit relatives or sleeping in until the early afternoon. Prayers were held at Old Man Abbas's headquarters, the Muqta'ah so of course we didn't go. The takbeerat weren't even heard throughout the entire day, and the reason for that lies in Salam Fayyad's magnanimity and utmost respect to the nearby Israeli settlements. See, he doesn't want to..BOTHER the settlers with the adhan. Friggin zionut. Right, so before we launch into our customary negativity, we wish you all a very happy Eid!