Among Oday Aboushi’s nine siblings, there are three lawyers, two doctors, one college professor, an accountant and a nurse. They can now add NFL offensive lineman to that group. […]

 

A practicing Muslim with Palestinian parents, Aboushi observed Ramadan during every training camp at Virginia, fasting from sunrise to sunset. He joins former Virginia left tackle and 2006 first-round draft pick D’Brickashaw Ferguson on the Jets roster.

Palestinian American. 6 feet 6 inches and 310-pound 0_0

- 21 October 1993

And this is by far, the most intense ‘thinking’ piece by Edward Said I read - encountered. It’s really intense.

And that means - I say - readers have to think and seek way forward as intense - and expansive as the author did.

At some points, I do feel it sounds like he is really writing to his fellow Palestinians.

Bu then reality is - I really just don’t witness anyone actually thinking this intensely and expansively. 

But that’s always the case about humans. Unfortunately.  

One big name. 

It arrives among us just to be quoted and tossed around. Always impossible to find real successors.

(I’m so genuinely sick of this pattern, but that’s always the case.) 

[…] one can already see in Palestine’s potential statehood the lineaments of a marriage between the chaos of Lebanon and the tyranny of Iraq.

If this isn’t to happen, a number of quite specific issues need to be addressed. One is the diaspora Palestinians, who originally brought Arafat and the PLO to power, kept them there, and are now relegated to permanent exile or refugee status. Since they comprise at least half of the total Palestinian population their needs and aspirations are not negligible. A small segment of the exile community is represented by the various political organisations ‘hosted’ by Syria. A significant number of independents (some of whom, like Shafik al-Hout and Mahmoud Darwish, resigned in protest from the PLO) still have an important role to play, not simply by applauding or condemning from the sidelines, but by advocating specific alterations in the PLO’s structure, trying to change the triumphalist ambience of the moment into something more appropriate, mobilising support and building an organisation from within the various Palestinian communities all over the world to continue the march towards self-determination. These communities have been singularly disaffected, leaderlees and indifferent since the Madrid process began.

One of the first tasks is a Palestinian census, which has to be regarded not just as a bureaucratic exercise but as the enfranchisement of Palestinians wherever they are. Israel, the US and the Arab states – all of them – have always opposed a census: it would give the Palestinians too high a profile in countries where they are supposed to be invisible, and before the Gulf War, it would have made it clear to varions Gulf governments how dependent they were on an inappropriately large, usually exploited ‘guest’ community. Above all, opposition to the census stemmed from the realisation that, were Palestinians to be counted all together, despite dispersion and dispossession, they would by that very exercise come close to constituting a nation rather than a mere collection of people.

[…]

General Assembly live

Washington pressuring Israel not to allow construction in area located between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim as a possible response to the Palestinian bid for statehood recognition November 29 at the UN.

Washington is urging Israel not to allow construction in the area known as E-1 between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim as a possible response to the Palestinian bid for statehood recognition next week at the UN, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Building in E-1, which would create contiguity between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim to the northeast beyond the Green Line, is something various Israeli governments have long wanted to do, but which US opposition has prevented.

Building there is one of a number of measures Jerusalem has discussed as a possible retaliation for a Palestinian statehood bid.

As Haaretz reported earlier, Clinton/USA warned Netanyahu/Israel not to punish Palestinian Authority for UN status upgrade move. So this Jpost’s report is about that Clinton’s warning included specific request not to build on E1, which basically disables Palestinian state from emerging in a contiguous shape.

Then again, on this ‘E1’ problem - there really isn’t good map/visual. NGOs make such complicated map at such small image size - doesn’t contribute to public understanding of the issue. They do need to make 

1. More easy, clear visual
2. Concise description of issues (particulars in bullet points) 

Even on Wikipedia’s entries, descriptions are - not clear:

This plan, if fully implemented, will cut off East Jerusalem from its Palestinian surroundings once-and-for-all, and critics of the plan say this is the real intention of this policy. The massive bubble is intended to cut the West Bank in two, and the E-1 plan is intended to seal off eastern Jerusalem and cut it off from the West Bank.

The severing of the northern part of the West Bank from the southern part will also result from the plan’s implementation, resulting in the total isolation of east Jerusalem residents from their natural Palestinian environs.

According to the Palestinian presidential chief of staff, Rafiq Husseini, “The E1 plan would separate the northern and southern West Bank from East Jerusalem, which would prevent the establishment of Palestinian state”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E1_Plan

There is a separation wall running to ‘bubble in’ (‘envelope plan’) Eastern side of surrounding area of Jerusalem - (can’t be even sure how much it is completed or not) 

And within them? - filling E1 area will 

1. cut off Northern and Southern West Bank?
2. also East Jerusalem become isolated enclave, unreachable from West Bank’s Palestinian area? 

cf: http://www.peacenow.org/entries/archive1100#.UK71FOO32xE (re: Bush Jr admin opposed E1 plan)

[Seems, it’s called Jerusalem ‘envelope plan’, greater Jerusalem plan, Jerusalem security envelope plan etc. Encircling surrounding area with separation wall, and then filling E1.] 

The most ‘telling’ and comprehensive map I found is this (I don’t know why any organization cannot make easily intelligible map/visuals.)

E1 is the area light blue in the middle.