Entries this day: AM Francois Niveen_Eilat_lecture zzz_SF_with_wormholes zzzz

AM

7:56am CEST Monday 27 June 2005

Just finished my curriculum for my second term classes. It's due in 4 hours. It's more complete than one I turned in for the first term. It may not be as complete as Audrey would like, but I'm sure it's going to change a lot anyway.

Breakfast time then sleep time.

Francois

Some passengers came up to me, all "where's Francois?"

"He's sleeping."

"Ah."

"Actually, I forgot him."

"What??? You forgot him???"

Yeah.. He is a stuffed rabbit. Not real. He doesn't sleep. How can they be unsurprised that I said he was sleeping, but super surprised when I said I forgot him?

Niveen Eilat lecture

4:03pm CEST Monday 27 June 2005

Took a few hour nap then ate after getting Niveen's camera back to her and then played Pente with Kuni, who walked up to me randomly after I liberated some fried chicken from the Yacht Club. She did pretty well at Pente, I had to do some good thinking to beat her.

I know many of you hear about occupation, but you don't know exactly
what's going on in Palestine.  Before I begin, how are you?  I hope
this lecture will be useful for you so you'll know how things started.

I will begin with a question: when you hear "Palestine" what is the
first thing that comes to your mind?

(me: war)

(people whose land has been taken)

These will be the most important facts, and not too boring, I hope.

What do you know about Palestine's history?

57 years of conflict & Israeli occupation

4 million Palestinians'

3% Christian 97% muslim

Israeli population  7 million

Palestine growth rate of 3.6%  Israaeli growth rate 1.8%

Palestinian territories = West Bank, Gaza Strip & East Jerusalem.

1182 - 1903 First wave of Zionists (25,000( entered Palestine as
illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe

1896 Zionism founded  by Hertzel

1947 UN partition plan

56.5% of Palestine land used for a Jewish state

43% for Palestinians

Internationalization of Jerusalem.

War of 1948 Nakba

First Arab-Israeli war

Birth of state of Israel

418 villages destroyed and Palestinians evacuated from their lands

78% of land for the Israeli state


1948 stats:
               In Jerusalem
Palestinians:      65k         150k 

(didn't get all those numbers)

War of 1967 Naksa

All of Palestine was occupied

Israel Occupied
Gaza Strip
The West Bank
East Jerusalem
Sinai
the Golan Heights


1987 first intifada (uprising)

demonstrations, strikes and rock throwing attacks on armed Israeli
soldiers by Palestinian children


2000 Second Intifada

First year 2160 martyrs 85% civilians, 41,000 injured

300 closed military army (huge prisons)

Curfews and invasions

75% below poverty line,  30% children malnurished


                            Israeli Occupation Policies

      Exportation of land and the Judaization of Palestine- uprooting
      olive trees and take away lands by force
      
      Killing and injuries on a daily basis: Curfew enforced by fatal
      shootings.  Demonstrators also shot.
      
      Arrests and imprisonments (650,000 prisoners since 1967):
      Arrest any who speak out against occupation.
      
      House demolitions: unlicensed homes not allowed for
      Palestinians.  Activits' homes are destroyed.

Occupation Policies include:
Torture (forced to stand in the sun)
Curfews and closures (foot and car traffic blocked at will)
invasions and shelling by heavy weapons, aircrafts, tanks.
Increasing number of settlements
assassinations of activists
Water resources confiscated

When Niveen was in university she had to pass a checkpoint everyday.
She missed many lectures and some exams due to the checkpoint.  Finals
were about to begin so they thought of a new way to get into the
university.  They rented a house near the university. They didn't have
to go through the checkpoint anymore, so it made life easier.  Then,
suddenly tanks and troops invaded Bethleham.  Niveen and housemates
didn't know how to handle the situation.  There was shooting 50 to 100
meters from their house.  They ran out of food and had nothing to eat
for a week. Then they were able to contact another friend in
Bethleham.  Friend picked them up and took them to his home.  There
was limited travel allowed during specified times.  It was a difficult
experience for Niveen, who began to ask herself how people could live
like this everyday (she lived in Jerusalem prior to this, not in a
camp.


Activists were assassinated which pissed off the Palestinians.  The
Israeli's wouldn't alow anyone to stand in their way.

             CHECKPOINTS

360 checkpoints disallow passage by Palestinians.  This wastes lots
of Palestinians' time while traveling.  Outrageous lines

Niveen has myriad checkpoint stories to tell.  The soldiers have no
reason to make the lines fast: they drink coffee and chat with friends
between each ID check.  Cars are stopped and checked.  It may as well
be an international border.

One time Niveen forgot her ID at home.  The previous dayan internet
company had asked for her ID number.  She forgot to put her ID back in
her bag after that.  She finished work and was on her way back home
when she was stopped by a soldier.  "Where's yer ID?"

She told him he forgot it and explained the story of the internet
company.

He didn't believe her and called her a liar and said she had to go
back to West Bank.  She was stuck.  He and his friends chatted about
how she was a liar.  She waited for 20 minutes knowing no one was at
home to bring her ID to her.

She remembered she had her bank ID which included her ID number (which
identifies her neighborhood).  He let her go but said he didn't
believe her.

That was one of many many daily life experiences.

                 WALLS

Trees are uprooted so land may be occupied or walls built.

Racism Separation Wall.

On June 2002, the Israeli govt starte building a 650 km separation
wall between Israelis and Palestinians on the west bank.

this wall does not follow the agreed border

This wall is 30 times longer and double the height of the Berlin wall.

The wall costs $3billion ($4 million / km)

98% of illegal israeli will be outside the wall.

52% of Palestinian will be isolated into cantons enclaves and
military zones.

This effectively imprisons the Palestinians.

                   REFUGEES

The Palestinian refugee problem was created by Zionist colonization of
Palestine and 2 wars in 1948 and 1967

In the West Bank and Gaza 1,600,000 refugees (43% population), with
75% under poverty line.  In 2003 Israeli forces rendered over 12,000
homeless.

1948 726,000 refugees of 8000,000 who lived in the area that became
israeli.

531 villages were destroyed and 920,000 refugees by 1950

In 1967 more than 36,000 refugees were displaced.

                    GOVERNMENT

Palestinians have no government, but have an Authority that
represents them at an international level.  It's to encourage peace,
but not actually govern Palestinians.  13 resistence movements and
parties

Hamas adapts a different policy of resistance which opposes the
Palestinian Authority strategy: it uses suicide bombers.

Hamas says what was taken by force cannot be regained via peace.

I don't know something called Internation Principles.  I vow that
I'll burn every Palestinian child that will be born in the area.  The
Palestinian woman and child is more dangerous than the man because
the children ensures the generation will live on but the man presents
limited danger.

         - Sharon 195_


                  PEACE TALKS

Main issues:

Jerusalem
Borders
Settlements
Refugees
Water

  Many UN resolutions have been written but not applied.

                  PEACE PROCESS

International support is needed

UN resolutions need to be applied

End violence

Go back to negotiations

Palestinians self autonomy

United States: Israel is the military branch of US in Middle East


At a conference in Italy Niveen meet a European Union guy.  He was
talking about reaching advancement in the middle east.  Niveen asked
him how he can talk about development in the middle east, but ignore
the occupation of Palestine by Isreal.  He answered that he has
nothing to say about the issue: only the US can do anything about it.

So even politicians in the EU think the US has sole power in this
issue.

Eilat says

We can't make parallels between this occupation (terrible as it is)
with Holocaust, south Africa, etc.

Throughout history people have done horrible things to eachother and
will not benefit.  The palestinian issue in itself is enough for its
own reasons to require peace.  We don't have to talk about the horrors
of history.

Niveen:

I'm just saying let's not wait until it becomes worse.  I don't mean
it will be the same, only that it will be another horror like the
holocaust.

zzz SF with wormholes

11:14pm CEST Monday 27 June 2005

Silent Football was low on numbers tonight; we had a total of 6 people (not including myself), but only a max of 3 other players at a time. We therefore resorted to including chairs as players to whom we could neither fwap nor zoom, and added a wormhole between two human players (Hitomi and Maki). Hitomi asked for the wormhole to be changed after a while and suggested that chairs could be the start of one way wormholes to players. We played that way for a while, with a chair pointing to me and a chair pointing to Hitomi. I fwapped and shrugged twice to myself at one point just to play with the possibility.

We've just had another laminating party: Pat, Maryann, Kim and Greg laminated their covers. Greg tried but ultimately chose not to feed paperclips as staples through the binder. Pat just wrapped a rubberband around it. Natalie is going to use paperclips, and I'm glad about that. It's definitely a pain, but gives a much better product.

1:00am CEST Tuesday 28 June 2005

I've just whipped out ideas for my three Advanced level Open GET classes. Basically discussions, two ideas were my own:

1) Do we need more greenspace in Tokyo? Why? What three or four step plan can we use to bring more greenspace?

2) What would you do if you had a gremillion dollars? (after you saved the world and paid your bills)

And then this question that Aaron was asking at Millenium House: What three ideas have had the most dramatic affect on civilization in the last 200 years?

zzzz

2:06am CEST Tuesday 28 June 2005

I am basically ready for classes tomorrow and am taking the laminating maching back to the GET office on 6th floor. I have just set up two good things:

1. (for everyone) the schedule of open classes with everyone's name so we can write down our plan and what happened.

2. I set up the attendance sheet for my classes and gave a copy to Natalie. I told her she'd have to pay me 15 minutes of kinky sex. She goes, "five minutes." "10 minutes." "okay, deal."