Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Balfour 96: Palestine Is Still the Question

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, November 8, 2013

Balfour 96: Palestine Is Still the Question

Click here to access article by Saif Daana from Al Akhbar.

I learned in school that the post-WWII years were a period of decolonization which I later learned was actually a period which morphed the old style colonialism into neo-colonialism, a new and improved version of colonialism. Also in my young adult years following formal ~~education~~ indoctrination I became aware that there was one major exception to this pattern: the settlement of mostly European Jews in the colony of Palestine that became the state of Israel.

The author explains what this latter event, commemorated as Nabka Day, means to Palestinians and Arabs throughout the region. ("96" apparently refers to 96 years after the Balfour Declaration which I read some time ago was a reward to Jewish bankers for loans given Britain in WWI. See this and this.)