|
|
About
Contact Donations | ||
 Today'sSituation News |
 EducationalResources for Peace |
 Pleasure:Arts & Letters | |
 AOL users, please note -- due to anti-spam measures by AOL, you sometimes do not receive your update. Please inform abuse@aol.com that Ariga mail is not spam.
| |||
Books and Prints for Sale|
September September 30, 2002 A brief respite from the tragedy of Middle Eastern politics is provided by Kelley White, M.D., a pediatrician/poet. Her poems are about caring for children, whether her patients or her own... September 22, 2002 Force the Palestinians to Surrender and End the War' by Gershon Baskin, Ph.D., of IPCRI, whose sad analysis comes down to this: Israelis accept the illogic of the attempted miltiary campaign against the Palestinians because they have been driven into irrationality; but the Israeli right wing's leadership, embodied by Ariel Sharon, has coolly calculated that it can occupy the territories, expand settlements, and get away wth it, because the Americans, driven irrational by 9/11, are so focused on Iraq that they can't see that the road to regime changes toward democracy throughout the Middle East starts wth a political peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian confict. Sunday, September 22, 2002 September 19, 2002 With regard to the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv today: "There have been so many buses that became symbols: The coastal road bus, the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem bus, the Ashkelon bus. The Ismailia bus. The Hadera bus, the Afula bus, the Number Eighteens in Jerusalem. Each time the pictures show the same thing. Blown tires. Shattered windows. Bloodied seats. Charred skeletons of steel. The mug shots are pulled out of family albums, and the faces are familiar as types, if not known as acquaintances." From Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv September 18 2002 The nightmare is the intertia, an admitedly depressing piece by the usually optimistic Robert Rosenberg: There are dreams -- usually nightmares -- that go on and on without any end in sight, and no matter how hard one tries to end them, the inertia of sleep keeps them going, so much so that it becomes the inertia itself that is the nightmare even more than the unsavory details viewed on the eyelid's interior. That's what it feels like here nowadays. September 16 2002 A new section at Ariga opens today -- Frosties -- are quotes from famous writers, philosophers, poets, actors, and various other people that I. Frost, friend, philosopher and jurist finds particularly interesting, amusing, or enlightening. Check it out September 11, 2002 Where Were You a Year Ago? By Janet I. Buck I was living in a smug halo of sorts. Unfettered by burkas, typing along as if, as if a bomb belonged in history books and would not amputate my toes. First flames, then ash. Orange calling roiling blood. Strike the carriage door of freedom, heroes find another horse. A clothing store becomes a morgue. Shoebox time sits still and silent, little but the tissue left. Where were you a year ago? I was writing grocery lists. An hour into tragedy, I'd roll the cuffs of anger back -- lift an arm -- there they'd fall against my wrist that trembled for a steel bar. A poem becomes a skinny Buddha pressing on the sharpened wire. Where were you a year ago? I was rinsing bacon grease from breakfast plates, unaware the world had cracked, left us in its pinching seam. Where were you a year ago? I was peeling gravestines, trimming a buttery crust as fruit inside went brown, as spices became eyes in a grave, as blueprints of hope hairpin curved into eclipse --- and the world went hunting for light. Janet I. Buck is a well-known poet, whose work often appears at Ariga. Suheir Hammad's First Writing Since appeared at Ariga shortly after she wrote it. A Palestinian-American woman, her poem is about the after-shock of the attack and the trauma of American reactions to her as an Arab woman. Here is what I wrote a year ago today "There is a very simple proposition -- terrorism, meaning violent attacks on civilians, is no longer an option. Calling it the poor man's weapon, saying one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, or all the other ways to explain terrorism and thereby legitimize it, can no longer be allowed. National liberation movements, ethnic liberation movements, cultural liberation movements all have one basic choice -- to engage their enemies politically or violently. If they choose violence, they will rule out any chance of political engagement. As the world lines up now on this issue, there are steps the U.S. government and NATO can take that do not involve immediate military action... " September 10, 2002 Added the Fatah-Tanzim Statement September 10, 2002, A Declaration to the Peaceful and Progressive People of Israel and the World, to historic documents and treaties at Ariga. September 9 2002 Waking up in America By Jonathan S. Friedman, who asks, why do Bush and company (a couple of puns intended -- R.R.) want to attack Iraq.  September 7 2002 Gila Svirsky reorts on a controversy regarding the Women in Black demonstration, a 14-year tradition that right wing demonstrators are trying to bring to an end. And I've been derelict in not highly recommending Karen Alkaly-Gut's online diary about life here in Israel nowadays. Her poetry has been appearing in the Ariga poetry 'zine since the earliest days of the site in 1995. For the last few months she's been maintaining an online diary that is blog-like (though without much in the way of bells and whistles that come with comercial bog applications. Just straightforward text that is terrific reading for insight into the emotional turbulence experienced by a thinking person in a land that sometimes appears to have lost its sanity and is particularly reassuring because of the humanity she expresses without pomposity, vanity, or, in fact, anything other than an attempt to be honest about what she's feeling and thinking in these times. Paintings by Silvia -- From The Borders Series September 6 2002 The New Year: Jewish tradition says that a new year begins with 10 days of soul searching, climaxing on Yom Kippur with a day of atonement. Cleverly (or wisely), the tradition says that those 10 days are to be spent apologizing to all those you over the past year, and forgiving all those who apologize to you. That's clever, because when Yom Kippur rolls around, and it's time to speak directly to God about your sins, seeking forgiveness, there's no point in wasting his time with your problems if you haven't done anything to solve them yourself ... It would be easy to now launch into a rant about how the Israelis have a lot of apologizing to do to the Palestinians, as well as a lot of forgiveness -- and vice versa. By Robert Rosenberg September 2 2002 There's been a lot of talk about a secret plan Ami Ayalon, the former Shin Bet chief, is working on, to reach an agreement in principal for a peace deal with the Palestinians. Now, it appears he's been working with Palestinian Prof. Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al Quds University and the PLO's official representative in Jerusalem, on exactly such a plan. They have drafted a simple, clearly written document that could serve as the outline for a peace plan. They call it The People Vote For more information about the plan, see Akiva Eldar's People and Politics column at Ha'aretz Jordan and Israel announced a plan to channel water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, in an effort to save the world's lowest point on earth as an ecologically sound body of water. The news inspired poet Thomas Fortenberry: Saving the Dead by Thomas Fortenberry Saving the Dead Sea is not hopeless-- just salted with hate and full of ignorant sinkholes. We have to learn to look beyond the horizon see the sea as Mother Earth sees her: embracing us all, hugging our shores, kissing us with waves of joy and hope and redemption. A desert is a desert only if we fail to irrigate our dreams. A sea is a sea only if we succeed in draining our greed. God does not punish those who act only those who fail to act in renewal, in giving back. Anyone can take; this is the easiest act of the babe. But only the blessed grow up, grow wise, can give, hope for tomorrow, and release want from our burning grasp. Quenching our thirst for vengeance is paramount: what better way to triumph than see all our future generations succeed, prosper, grow? If you squeeze a heart in your angry fist the blood will flow away, the tissues dessicate, and in time the pressures build until even the clay yields dust. How do we create a desert in the garden of the world? Go ask the serpent mark tattooed on Cain: the brand of unforgiving ignorance and hate. We can all take a drink of bitter, briney Lethe, forget forever, and fall over the side of the boat to drown beyond the boney grasp of even the Ferryman's care: imagine sinking in the depths of eternal hatred wound five times round hell seeing without hope you are being watched by the coin-bright stare of the leering skull of greed. This is no myth. It is the reality of the world we create every day: we succumb to our own sloth, allow death and cruelty to infect us, we explode our love in the marketplace, exchanging gold for blood while we film it all live, breaking, exclusive. We can go on living that bloated-corpse way, or we can stand in the middle of the desert, and see the wide-blue circle of heaven kissing the horizon of possibilities. If you had faith you could walk on water, levitate: the Dead Sea allows miracles for those who believe. If you had vision you could see a sea moving upon the sand dunes and pipelines slithering like snakes across the desert. We could build a future, grow a new garden, if we dared dream and act. Thomas Fortenberry is an American author, editor, and publisher. Owner of Mind Fire Press, he has judged many literary contests, including The Georgia Author of the Year Awards and The Robert Penn Warren Prize for Fiction. His work has appeared internationally in publications such as Amelia, Cicada, Maelstrom, Contemporary Southern Poets of 1997, Poetry Magazine, Writer's Choice, Fiction Network, Soul Unmade, Poetry Superhighway, Ariga, Eternity, Gravity, Uno, Lower Than the Angels, Wooden Head Review, Poetry Depth Qaurterly, Lumi Virtuale, Storytellers, Left Bank Review, Biblioteca di Babele, The European Legacy, and is the introduction on a new edition of H. G. Wells' The Outline of History. And the latest issue of bitterlemons.org includes: Elections can cut both ways - by Ghassan Khatib Populist politics is not always conducive to the real interest of Palestinians and Israelis; January 1996 and January 2003 - by Yossi Alpher When it comes to Israel's elections, Arafat is really Sharon's best ally; Elections are an instrument in struggle - interview with Azmi Shuaibi Even before the outbreak of the Al Aqsa Intifada, Palestinian elections were a public demand; and Political deadlock generated by election calculations - by Aluf Benn The stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian process will prevail at least until elections in Israel, or until the war in Iraq. Check it out at bitterlemons.org September 1 2002 From a speech delivered by Dr. Gershon Baskin to the weekly Saturday night peace coalition rally outside the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem: "Something peculiar is happening to public opinion in Israel. Ever since the beginning of the second Intifada two years ago, the Israeli public is continuing to show willingness to arrive at an agreement with the Palestinians on the key issues of the conflict. Even today, the majority of Israelis support the establishment of a Palestinian State next to Israel. The majority of Israelis even support dividing Jerusalem and sharing it as a capital of two states. A majority of Israelis are in favor of removing most of the settlements. Almost a majority of Israelis support the June 4, 1967 as the basis for the borders dividing Israel and Palestine. All of these opinions are based on the predication that there is someone on the Palestinian side to make peace with." To the full speech
Today's Situation || Yesterday's Situation
|
Ariga: Today's Situation, 2006
Painting Please check out our Google advertisers
Make a donation to Ariga  The People's Voice Petition for Peace for Israel and Palestine
Don't miss:
|
