Monthly Archives: April 2009

Blog About Palestine Day 2009

Posted by za3tar on April 21, 2009 63 comments

***UPDATE #1:*** A Facebook event for this initiative has been created. Please join the event and pass the message on to your friends (more info here).

***UPDATE #2:*** Topic Suggestions and a preliminary list of participating bloggers has been published here.

***UPDATE #3:*** A sample harvest list of blog posts contributed to this event has been published here.

Dear all,

It is my pleasure to invite you to this year’s second annual Blog About Palestine Day. Thanks to your efforts, last year’s event was a huge success with more than 70 articles published in at least 4 languages. I am confident that with your continued contribution and the contribution of new bloggers, this year’s event will turn out to be an even bigger success.

May 15th of this year is the 61st anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba –which marked the beginning of the modern age Palestinian plight and suffering. This date is remembered annually on local, regional, and global levels.

I am certain that many in the blogosphere will dedicate some posts to commemorate this tragic event. However, inspired by last year’s success, I would like to start a formal initiative to encourage everybody to dedicate one post on Friday, May 15th, to talk about Palestine or the Palestinian Experience.

There are no restrictions on what you can write, or the language that you can use. Really, anything that talks about Palestine, or the Palestinians; in the past, present, or future; political, social, economical, or any other aspect is welcomed. The goal of this event will be to share thoughts, and raise awareness about the Palestinian situation. Hopefully, with everyone’s support, this will be such a spectacular event that it will catch the eye of the mainstream media (specially that the Palestinian situation is inadequately and incorrectly represented in most of the western media outlets).

Blog About Palestine Day

FAQ:

  • Do I have to be Palestinian / Arab to participate ?
    No, everybody is welcomed to join in on this effort.
  • Does it have to represent the Palestinian point of view (or be a positive article) ?
    No, you are free, and encouraged, to write whatever you want.
  • Does it have to be about the Nakba precisely ?
    No, you can talk about the history of the Palestinian plight, current internal and external affairs, or outlooks for possible future resolutions to this conflict and how do you think can we achieve and maintain peace.
  • Does it have to be a political article ?
    No, you are free to talk about any aspect of the Palestinian life inside and outside Palestine. You are free to talk about whatever you want.

I would appreciate it if you could help me spread the word about this event. For your convenience, i have created some simple counters and web buttons for this event. You can find their code below:

Thank you in advance for your help and support.





**NOTE:** Blogs *hosted* on WordPress.com (and possibly other engines) might face some trouble embedding JavaScript code as is done above. If this is the case for you, you can use the following web buttons below:

Blog About Palestine Day
Blog About Palestine Day
Blog About Palestine Day
Blog About Palestine Day

Spring is on the way

Posted by za3tar on April 21, 2009 2 comments

.. and not a moment too soon. I am finally starting to see a few trees blooming. Vivid colors here and there. More moderate temperatures. And frisbees being thrown around. … Ahhh i love spring!

Know how to deliver your message

Posted by za3tar on April 20, 2009 5 comments

You might have the truest message and the most noble cause in the world. But if you don’t present it in an acceptable way to the rest of the world then nobody is going to accept what you are talking about. Worst still, it will most likely negatively affect the cause you are trying to help. You always have to appeal to your audience regardless of the circumstance.

I see this often in Arab-Israeli debates. There is no doubt that we Palestinians have had tremendous injustice bestowed upon us, and we’ve been constantly wronged for the past 60+ years. Yet, Israelis know how to appeal to external/western audiences. There is no magic there, no great conspiracy. Just basic carefully examined messages.

Always know your audience. People in the USA have different mentalities than those in Britain, or France, or Turkey, or Palestine, or Pakistan ..etc. So naturally, what might be a sound argument in one place could be totally useless somewhere else. In Arab-Israeli debates many people immediately jump to issues from the time of the British mandate or 1948. Why ??!! I honestly think this is a bad dialog course. There are far more contemporary immediate problems that we can talk about (and try to resolve). Shouldn’t we try to solve the immediate problems first before tackling the big grand picture problems ?

When talking to people you have to befriend them and think like they do. People are more willing to engage in the viewpoint of somebody who is similar to them rather than somebody who is very different. Never come off too strong. Never be inflexible.

I am often asked questions about the situation in Palestine by Americans. I found it best to start out by telling them the simple most basic things. That is, we don’t like violence. Like them, we too like to live peaceful lives. We like to be able to live, work, visit family, and go about doing our business without hassle. That the vast most Palestinians are not hell-bent on the destruction of Israel but rather want to live normal peaceful lives. Then I tell them how ordinary people who haven’t done anything suffer. How we have more than 500 checkpoints in the West Bank that prevent us from moving around, how Israel imposes city-wide curfews, how people can not move around freely or conduct business freely, how the mobile telephone company struggled with Israel for more than a year just to import a single retransmission tower to meet the increase in demand. I tell them my personal story. People do respond when you tell them about your personal story.

Anyway, this came to mind after seeing what happened in the recent U.N. racism conference. I do not agree with the Iranian president, but he was trying to use Palestine as an excuse for whatever he wants and he was trying to present a case in which, as always, he came off as a nut-job to the west and just managed to hurt the true message of the Palestinian struggle with his idiocy.