Remembering The Second Intifada

 

From the very first day that Israeli soldiers set foot on Palestine and started the occupation, the Palestinian people have fought that invasion and resisted the occupation.The word Intifada originates in the Arabic root “to shake,” and contextually means uprising. It entered the English dictionary on December 8 1987 with the eruption of the First Intifada in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip when an Israeli settler identified as Herzel Boukiza rammed his vehicle into Palestinian workers returning home through Erez/Beit Hanoun checkpoint between Israel and Gaza. Four workers from Jabalya and Maghazi in the Gaza Strip were killed in the terror attack. Protests and violence erupted; only to end in 1993 with the signature of the Oslo Accords.The word Intifada has since  become synonymous with the Palestinian unarmed rebellion against Israel’s occupation.

The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, lasted from 28 September 2000 to 8 February 2005. This second mass resistance movement against the Israeli occupation was sparked by then-candidate for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s  and his right wing Likud party delegation, stormed the Al Aqsa mosque with thousands of troops deployed in and around the Old City of Jerusalem, Al Quds. therefore violating the terms of the status quo in Jerusalem.  According to the historical arrangement governing the site, which both Jews and Muslims recognize as sacred to their traditions, the compound is administered by the Islamic Waqf. By storming the compound and entering al-Aqsa Mosque with his supporters under heavy military escort, Sharon was signaling that Israel had total control of the site and could disregard centuries-old arrangements between Muslims and Jews.

Sharon's visit was condemned by the Palestinians as a provocation as well as an incursion since his bodyguards were armed. Shortly after Sharon left the site, angry demonstrations by Palestinians erupted outside the compound. The broader context behind the uprising was the failure of the US-based Camp David negotiations between PM Ehud Barak and Yassir Arafat.

What began as a few hundred protesters throwing shoes at Sharon's police escort following prayers at al-Aqsa mosque had within hours erupted into demonstrations across the Palestinian territories, with chants of "we want an intifada". The following day, September 29,in a extremely harsh reaction. Israeli forces opened fire on crowds of unarmed demonstrators in al-Aqsa compound, killing seven and wounding more than 100. "People are being massacred! Bring the ambulances," echoed from the mosque's loudspeakers. Demonstrations raged throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Israeli forces repeatedly met the stone-throwing crowds with live ammunition.In Gaza, a French broadcast crew captured footage of a boy called Mohammed al-Durrahhttps://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2013/09/in-memory-of-mohammed-al-durrrah.html being shot repeatedly by Israeli forces as he clung to his father. Moments later, a paramedic from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society was killed as he attempted to treat the boy and his father.The scene assumed iconic status as it was shown around the world demonstrating Israel's blatant violence against Palestinians.

Inside the Green Line, too, riots took hold in Palestinian communities, with 13 Palestinian citizens of Israel killed in the first days of protests As the intensity of the demonstrations increased, so too did international and human rights groups' condemnation of Israel's violent attempts to suppress what was quickly becoming an uprising. 

Malka, the head of Israeli military intelligence at the time, said that Israeli forces fired more than 1,300,000 bullets in the territories in the first month alone."This is a strategic figure that says that our soldiers are shooting and shooting and shooting," Malka said about what amounted to some 40,000 rounds a day.""The significance is that we are determining the height of the flames."

Palestinian stone-throwers were met with Israeli snipers; gunmen, with helicopter gunships and tanks. 

Whereas the first intifada (1987-1992) was defined by popular protest, general strikes and stones - and to be sure, harsh Israeli counter-measures, including the infamous order by Yitzhak Rabin to break the bones of stone-throwing Palestinians - it was immediately clear that this new uprising was different. Demonstrations were being met with overwhelming force by Israel and it made popular protest impossible. Some analysts point to this overwhelming force by Israeli forces as the reason why the phase of popular protest in the Intifada ended quickly, and armed resistance took its place.

In February 2001, the Israeli public backed the strategy when General Sharon was elected prime minister. While suicide attacks came to define the Palestinian armed struggle, these operations did not begin in earnest until more than a year into the uprising, and after the deaths of more than 400 Palestinians. Against a heavily armed and armored Israeli force, the kind of guerrilla warfare that the Palestinians had access to - namely, ambushes, shooting attacks and defensive armed struggle - was strictly limited and of marginal impact. While Hamas and Islamic Jihad carried out the most attacks, all factions were involved - including secular elements of Fatah's al-Aqsa Brigades and the leftist PFLP.

The Second Intifada also had a prominent unarmed character that was largely overlooked by mainstream media, with local Palestinian communities organizing predominantly nonviolent actions to combat the expropriation of Palestinian land by Israeli settlements and the illegal Separation Barrier; Israeli and international civilians were also involved in many of these actions

Israel's campaign to suppress the uprising took a heavy toll on ordinary Palestinians.During the Al Aqsa Intifada, Israel caused unprecedented damage to the Palestinian economy and infrastructure. Israel reoccupied areas governed by the Palestinian Authority and began construction of its separation wall.

Significantly, the Palestinian leadership was also decimated by a concerted campaign of assassination.While some assassinations were ambushes by undercover Israeli units, helicopters increasingly became a fixture of Israeli attacks.Helicopter gunships and anti-tank missiles were used on cars, offices and homes.They hovered over Palestinian cities and refugee camps. Avi Dichter, Israel's internal security chief during the intifada, characterized the policy by stating simply: "When a Palestinian child draws a picture of the sky, he doesn't draw it without a helicopter."

Between November 2000 and September 2004, Israel carried out at least 273 assassinations, according to data compiled by the Institute for Palestine Studies.High profile assassinations included Abu Ali Mustafa, the general secretary of the PFLP, in 2001, and the top Hamas leaders and founders, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantissi, in 2004.

Perhaps most notoriously, in July 2002, Israeli warplanes dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on a Gaza apartment building that housed Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades commander Salah Shehade and his family. The Hamas founder was killed along with 15 others, including his wife and nine children. The Shehade assassination led to notable criticism, even within Israel, where it inspired the so-called "pilots' letter" - a declaration by several Israeli air force pilots refusing to carry out bombing raids over the occupied territory. The then leader of the Palestinian Liberation Orgnisation (PLO) Yasser Arafat’s headquarters was also demolished and besieged by Israeli forces. 

In what is perhaps the defining moment of the Intifada, in the Jenin refugee camp, Palestinian fighters held off the Israeli offensive of more than 1,000 soldiers during several days of fierce fighting to effectively enter the camp with ground troops, Israel responded by bombing the camp with helicopters and warplanes, shelling it with tanks, and ultimately bulldozing a massive section of the camp - leaving 4,000 homeless according to Human Rights Watch. In 10 days, 52 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed in what became known as the Battle of Jenin.

In April 2002, Israel invaded the West Bank en masse in an operation titled "Defensive Shield", and reoccupied Palestinian cities and towns in the largest military offensive in Palestinian territory since 1967. According to a report by the UN secretary general, 500 Palestinians were killed and more than 6,000 were arrested during the campaign.  

Unlike the First Intifada, which ended at the signing of the Oslo Accords  there is no clear ending date to the Second Intifada. Some claim the uprising ended with Yasser Arafat's death in November 2004, while others say it culminated with a truce signed in February 2005 between Abbas and Sharon, then-Prime Minister of Israel, in Sharm al-Shaikh, Egypt where it.was agreed to the resumption of talks to reach the so called “two state solution”.

Sharon also agreed to release 900 of the 7500 Palestinian prisoners being held at the time and to withdraw from West Bank towns that had been reoccupied during the Intifada. Israel, however, never fulfilled its end of the bargain, which comes as no surprise. 

Two days later, Hamas contested the ceasefire and fired rockets at an illegal settlement near the Gaza Strip. The move prompted Abbas to sack senior security officials within the group, causing tension within Palestinian factions.

The rift grew the following year when Hamas triumphed over Fatah in elections. Ongoing disputes between the groups often led to violent confrontations and in 2007 Hamas eventually asserted control over the Gaza Strip, leaving Fatah to retreat to the West Bank. The divide has endured for over 10 years despite attempts to reconcile, leaving Palestinians frustrated at their state of political limbo. The factions mean the Palestinian territories are divided between two rival powers, and reconciliation attempts have so far failed although recently Hamas and Fatah appear united by their opposition to Arab-Israeli normalisation deals.

The Intifada was, and still is, an expression of a deep disappointment and frustr.ation over the ongoing disrespect and denial of basic rights for Palestinians caused by the occupation – including the right to free access to Jerusalem, security and development, and the refugees’ right to return.

Whilst Palestinians made some material gains as a result of the intifada, after the ceasefire Israeli aggression intensified and human rights violations increased. The peace process was stalled for many years as Israel vehemently opposed a two-state solution.The settler community have also been emboldened, with greater construction and government support for illegal settlement activity.

Palestinians who grew up in the shadow of the uprising, a not to distant memory, sadly find themselves surrounded by physical and political barriers with little hope for the future. The Israeli military controls 60 percent of the West Bank, and in Gaza, Palestinians are facing considerably worse conditions, with the Israeli blockade leading to perennial power cuts, a lack of clean water, and a youth unemployment rate hitting 65 percent, according to World Bank data leaving .many Palestinians lamenting how the occupation has been normalised over the decades following the unrealised Oslo accords.

The current situation in the occupied territories and Jerusalem, is in many ways reminiscent of the period leading up to the Second Intifada. At the time, continued settlement expansion and the failure of the talks at Camp David in the summer of 2000, to finalize implementation of the 1995 Oslo Accords, originally drawn up as interim agreements has reinforced Palestinian public disillusion with the so-called peace process who have also seen that real peace is not a priority for Israel, nor is ending the conflict with the Palestinians. Israel has to be compelled to make peace a priority, because today the West Bank, which has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967, is simmering.

Stationed throughout the West Bank, Israeli soldiers, police and private security firms protect settler populations that the international community consider illegal  at the expense of Palestinian civilians. In this hyper-militarized environment, Palestinian children have face disproportionate physical violence, restricted access to education, and psychological trauma. 

Between the near-nightly Israeli raids, the clashes, the ensuing deaths, arrests and the ongoing animosity between Al Fatah and Hamas in Palestine, and the hawks and doves in Israel, it all continues to make dialogue difficult and peace a permanent mirage and because of this, there are fears it could soon boil over into a third Intifada, or popular uprising that would include all forms or means of struggle against the ongoing Israeli occupation. Where there is oppression resistance will thrive.

Remembering the Radical Abstract Expressionist Artist Mark Rothko ( September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970)

 

Mark Rothko ( Marcus Rothkowitz )  was born in Divinksk, Russia,,today Latvia. on the 25th of September 1903, the fourth child born to Jacob and Anna Rothkovich was one of the most well-known members of the Abstract  Expressionist  movement. As Russia was a hostile environment for Zionist Jews, Jacob immigrated to the United States with his two older sons in 1910, finally sending for the rest of his family in 1913. They settled in Portland, Oregon. His father  was a pharmacist of modest means who believed strongly in a secular and political education for his children. The youngest of four siblings, Rothko was the only one to study the Talmud in a family long affected by fear of their homeland’s anti-Semitism. 

Jacob passed away of  cancer shortly after their immigration to the United States, leaving them without means for support. Only 10 years old at the time, his fathers untimely death a year later shook him badly, but Rothko continued his studies at school, and  was forced to take jobs in his uncle’s warehouse to help his mother, Sonia, make ends meet.. It resulted in a lingering sense of bitterness over his lost childhood. This tragedy was the first in a series of the events that would torture the soul of a sensitive and emotional artist throughout life.

Among the workers,though  he became a passionate proponent of labor rights and revolutionary politics.Portland at the time was the epicentre of revolutionary activity in the US at the time, and the area where the revolutionary syndicalist union the Industrial Workers of the World, was strongest. Marcus, having grown up around radical workers' meetings, attended meetings of the IWW and with other anarchists like Bill Haywood and Emma Goldman, where he developed strong oratorical skills he would later use in defence of Surrealism.

 He graduated early from Lincoln High School, showing more interest in music than visual art. He was awarded a scholarship to Yale University, but soon found the environment at Yale conservative. racist and elitist.As the U.S.’s entry into World War I encouraged a push for immigrants to assimilate and the Bolshevik Revolution (which his family supported) brought on the first Red Scare, Rothko promoted free expression by introducing a letters-to-the-editor column in his high school newspaper. While attending Yale he and a couple of friends founded the publication the Saturday Evening Pest, which promised to critique “international politics, capitalism, socialism, immigration, and poverty.”  He left the university without graduating in 1923, and did not return until he was awarded an honorary degree forty-six years later.

 He spoke four languages- Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, and English, and experienced many cultures which greatly enriched his art. After leaving Yale, Mark Rothko made his way to New York City, as he put it, "to bum about and starve a bit." He studied in the Parsons New School for Design, where one of his instructors was the artist Arshile Gorky, American avant-garde painter of Armenian origin. Over the next few years, he had taken odd jobs before he enrolled at early American Cubist painter Max Weber's still life and figure drawing classes at the Art Students League. A highly criticized figure in the art world, Weber was likewise a Russian Jew who taught the philosophies and methods of Modernism’s major movements. Rothko in particular admired the work of Expressionists Henri Matisse and Milton Avery, and his early paintings emulated their abstracted figurative styles with flat areas of color. It was also under Weber that Rothko began to consider his art as a means of religious and emotional expression.  According to Rothko, this was the beginning of his life as an artist. Rothko's early works were mostly portraits, nudes, and images of urban scenes.

In 1932, he married jewellery designer Edith Sachar, but separated from herin the summer of 1937. They reconciled several months later, yet their relationship remained tense

By the mid-1930s, the effects of the Great Depression were being felt throughout American society, and Rothko had become concerned with the social and political implications of mass unemployment. Working in the Easel Division of the Works Progress Administration, Rothko met many other artists, yet he felt most at ease with a group that consisted mainly of other Russian Jewish painters. This group, which included such figures as Adolph Gottlieb, Joseph Solman and John Graham, showed together at Gallery Secession in 1934, and became known as "The Ten". They sought to communicate human emotion and drama through their paintings.

In the 1930s, Rothko continued to explore different styles and methods. His Subway series depicted the underground subway environments of New York City in a melancholy palette. Although realistic and immediately recognizable with figures throughout, the series emphasized the architectural spaces as abstract compositional arrangements, a key concept he would later develop in his mature work. 

On February 21, 1938, Rothko finally became a citizen of the United States, prompted by fears that the growing Nazi influence in Europe might provoke sudden deportation of American Jews. Concerned about anti-Semitism in America and Europe, Rothko in 1940 abbreviated his name from "Marcus Rothkowitz" to "Mark Rothko." The name "Roth," a common abbreviation, was still identifiably Jewish, so he settled upon "Rothko."

As World War II took hold of American life, Rothko and his fellow artists began to depart from representational work in favor of the symbolism of Surrealism. He became a passionate advocate for the style, stating that, “A time came when none of us could use the figure without mutilating it.” Fearing that modern American painting had reached a conceptual dead end, Rothko was intent upon exploring subjects other than urban and nature scenes. He sought subjects that would complement his growing interest with form, space, and color. The world crisis of war lent this search an immediacy because he insisted that the new subject matter have a social impact, yet be able to transcend the confines of current political symbols and values. 

In his essay, "The Romantics Were Prompted," published in 1949, Rothko argued that the "archaic artist ... found it necessary to create a group of intermediaries, monsters, hybrids, gods and demigods" in much the same way that modern man found intermediaries in Fascism and the Communist Party. For Rothko, "without monsters and gods, art cannot enact a drama.

The tragedy of World War II seems to have had the irreversible consequences for the fragile psyche of the artist. His dream (not destined to be realized) would be to paint a series of canvases for the museum dedicated to the Holocaust. Throughout his life, in most of his works, he sought to express the depth of despair and horror before the deeds of the humanity.

On June 13, 1943, Rothko and Sachar separated again. Rothko suffered a long depression following their divorce. Thinking that a change of scenery might help, Rothko returned to Portland. From there he traveled to Berkeley, where he met artist Clyfford Still, and the two began a close relationship. Still's deeply abstract paintings would be of considerable influence on Rothko's later works.

In the autumn of 1943, Rothko returned to New York, where he met noted collector and art dealer Peggy Guggenheim, who was initially reluctant to take on his work. Rothko’s one-man show at Guggenheim's The Art of This Century Gallery in late 1945 resulted in few sales (prices ranging from $150 to $750) and in less-than-favorable reviews. During this period, Rothko had been stimulated by Still's abstract landscapes of color, and his style shifted away from surrealism. Rothko's experiments in interpreting he unconscious symbolism of everyday forms had run their course. His future lay with abstraction.
Rothko's 1945 masterpiece, Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea, illustrates his newfound propensity towards abstraction. It has been interpreted as a meditation on Rothko's courtship of his second wife, Mary Ellen "Mell" Beistle, whom he met in 1944 and married in the spring of 1945. The painting presents, in subtle grays and browns, two human-like forms embraced in a swirling, floating atmosphere of shapes and colors. The rigid rectangular background foreshadows Rothko's later experiments in pure color. The painting was completed, not coincidentally, in the year the Second World War ended.

 He and Mary had two children, one of whom would later publish a book Rothko had written called The Artist's Reality. It is believed the book was written in the 1940s when Rothko took a break from painting and read a lot of mythology and also existentialist works by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche.

By the beginning of the 1950s, his signature style, ragged rectangular forms on the colored fields, which employed shimmering color to convey a sense of spirituality. Rothko's art is distinguished by a rare degree of sustained concentration on pure pictorial properties such as color, surface, proportion, and scale, accompanied by the conviction that those elements could disclose the presence of a high philosophical truth. Visual elements such as luminosity, darkness, broad space, and the contrast of colors have been linked, by the artist himself as well as other commentators, to profound themes such as tragedy, ecstasy, and the sublime. Rothko, however, generally avoided explaining the content of his work, believing that the abstract image could directly represent the fundamental nature of "human drama." 

His works began to be in great demand, putting Rothko in the top ten of the most highly paid artists of his time.For the next 20 years of his life, Rothko would work in this groundbreaking format,exploring  colours in all its depths and hues,,developing a new language of feeling, exploring freedom and movement. achieving an impressive range of emotion and mood. The massive scale of the paintings intentionally envelops the viewer, creating a feeling of intimacy. Rothko hung the paintings close to the floor in groups, with low lighting, and required that no other art works be shown in proximity. The effect is quietly meditative, for many inviting spiritual contemplation. One of his foremost collectors, Dominque de Menil, summed up this late work by saying the paintings, “…evoke the tragic mystery of our perishable condition. The silence of God. The unbearable silence of God.”

Rothko said that his paintings were large in order to make the viewer part of the experience rather than separate from the painting. In fact, he preferred to have his paintings shown together in an exhibit in order to create a greater impact of being contained or enveloped by the paintings, rather than broken up by other artworks. He said that the paintings were monumental not to be "grandiose", but in fact, to be more "intimate and human."

In 1960 the Phillips Gallery built a special room dedicated to displaying Mark Rothko's painting, called The Rothko Room. It contains four paintings by the artist, one painting on each wall of a small room, giving the space a meditative quality.  

In 1961, Rothko was given  major retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. After years of teaching art to sunsidise his paintings, this show finally brought him the success he deserved.

Rothko was then commissioned in 1964 by John and Dominique de Menial to create a meditative space filled with his paintings created specifically for the space. The Rothko Chapel, designed in collaboration with architects Philip Johnson, Howard Barnstone, and Eugene Aubry, was ultimately completed in 1971, although Rothko died in 1970 so did not see the final building. It is an irregular octagonal brick building that holds fourteen of Rothko's mural paintings. The paintings are Rothko's signature floating rectangles, although they are darkly hued - seven canvases with hard-edged black rectangles on maroon ground, and seven purple tonal paintings.

It is an interfaith chapel that people visit from all over the world. According to The Rothko Chapel website,"The Rothko Chapel is a spiritual space, a forum for world leaders, a place for solitude and gathering. It’s an epicenter for civil rights activists, a quiet disruption, a stillness that moves. It’s a destination for the 90,000 people of all faiths who visit each year from all parts of the world. It is the home of the Óscar Romero Award."

Mark Rothko supported the social revolutionary ideas of his youth throughout his life. In particular, he was all for the artists' total freedom of expression, which was compromised by the market, as he felt it. This belief often put him at odds with the art world establishment, leading him to publicly respond to critics and occasionally refuse the commissions, sales and exhibitions.As a mature painter, Rothko signed an open letter with eighteen other artists (collectively called the “Irascibles”) to Roland L. Redmond, the president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, protesting against the museum’s forthcoming exhibition “American Painters, 1900–50,” which favored figural work to the Abstract Expressionist art then prevalent in the city. In 1959 he reportedly scrapped a commission by the Four Seasons because he didn’t want his work hanging in the hotel’s outrageously expensive restaurant.

 Later in life with the death of the Russian Revolution, the destruction of the Spanish Revolution by Communists and Fascists, and the rise of the Nazis Rothko became disillusioned as to whether there was any hope for social change. But he claimed "I am still an anarchist"!

Rothko was both fortified by his powerful Jewish heritage, a heritage which is one of the oldest, most tenacious and demanding to be found anywhere - one embodying a collective superego and an ethic of cosmic proportion.Rothko himself did not actually adhere to any particular religious faith, but to me his work remains  very mystical imbued with so many layers of meaning.

In 1968, Rothko suffered an aortic aneurysm, this brush with death would shadow him for the rest of his life. Despite his fame, Rothko felt a growing personal seclusion and a sense of being misunderstood as an artist. He feared that people purchased his paintings simply out of fashion and that the true purpose of his work was not being grasped by collectors, critics, or audiences. He wanted his paintings to move beyond abstraction, as well as beyond classical art. For Rothko, the paintings were objects that possessed their own form and potential, and therefore, must be encountered as such. Sensing the futility of words in describing this decidedly non-verbal aspect of his work, Rothko abandoned all attempts at responding to those who inquired after its meaning and purpose, stating finally that silence is 

 

"so accurate." "My paintings' surfaces are expansive and push outward in all directions, or their surfaces contract and rush inward in all directions. Between these two poles, you can find everything I want to say."

 

Rothko began to insist that he was not an abstractionist and that such a description was as inaccurate as labeling him a great colorist. His interest was

“ only in expressing basic human emotions — tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on. And the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions . . . The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationship, then you miss the point. ”

Ignoring doctor's orders, Rothko continued to drink and smoke heavily, avoided exercise, and maintained an unhealthy diet. "Highly nervous, thin, restless" was his friend Dore Ashton's description of him at this time. However, he did follow the medical advice given not to paint pictures larger than a yard in height and turned his attention to smaller, less physically strenuous formats, including acrylics on paper.

Meanwhile, Rothko's marriage had become increasingly troubled, and his poor health and impotence resulting from the aneurysm compounded his feeling of estrangement in the relationship. Rothko and his wife Mell separated on New Year's Day 1969, and he moved into his studio.

Despite the phenomenal demand for his art within his lifetime, the artist was haunted by depression, poor health and alcohol addictions and likely an undiagnosed bipolar disorder. On February 25, 1970, after being unable  to recover from this  phase of deep sadness, Oliver Steindecker, Rothko's assistant, found the artist in his kitchen, lying dead on the floor in front of the sink, covered in blood. He had sliced his arms with a razor found lying at his side. The autopsy revealed that he had also overdosed on anti-depressants. He was sixty-six years old.  

 

 

He had in his possession nearly 800 paintings  yet within months of the funeral, his three trusted friends, acting as executors, relinquished his entire legacy of paintings to the powerful, international Marlborough Galleries (run by Frank Lloyd) for a fraction of their real worth on terms suspiciously unfavourable to the estate. The suit that Rothko’s daughter brought against the executors and Marlborough rocked the art world with its shocking revelations of corruption in the international art trade: from the deceptions practiced on Rothko when he was alive to the scandals after his death involving conspiracies and cover-ups, double dealings and betrayals, missing paintings and manipulated markets, phony sales and laundered profits, forgery and fraud.

After a long court case his works were divided between his two children and the Mark Rothko Foundation .In 1984, the foundation’s paintings were donated to 19 museums in the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Israel. The largest and best portion of these went to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. A collection of murals originally commissioned for the Seagram Building in New York City is held by the Tate in London. Rothko's grave at East Marion Cemetery, East Marion, New York..

Painting consumed Rothko’s life, and although he did not receive the attention he felt his work deserved in his own troubled lifetime, his fame has increased dramatically in the years following his death. At odds with the more formally rigorous artists among the Abstract Expressionists, Rothko nevertheless explored the compositional potential of color and form on the human psyche.

While his work is greatly admired by many, and is remembered as a boundary-breaking pioneer of 20th-century art. his detractors either view his attempts at expressing the sublime as over ambitious or see his paintings as boring  and unimpressive. Personally I was once fortunate to go and  see an exhibition of his work in the Tate and standing before his huge, mute abstract canvasses was drawn into an experience that required no real knowledge of the aesthetics of art - to something quite transcendent, and to feel, if only momentarily, something of the sublime spirituality he relentlessly sought to evoke.it was pretty powerful stuff !  His work remains forever intimate and timeless.

The Awen of Twilight ( A Poem for the Autumn Equinox)

The Autumn Equinox arrives on Thursday, September 22, 2022, at 9:04 P.M. EDT in the Northern Hemisphere. The equinox occurs at the same moment worldwide.

Equinox comes from Latin aequus, meaning “equal,”and it is at this exact moment that day and  night are equal in length, but from now on the nights will start to become longer as the dark half of the year unveils its secrets on the journey through the wheel of the year and the cycle of the natural world moves towards completion.

In Welsh lore, the god Mabon was the son of the earth mother goddess, Modron. Mabon celebrates the autumn equinox and is a time of honouring the spirit world, the changing seasons and celebrating the second harvest.

Mabon is the second of the three Pagan harvest festivals, which include Lammas/Lughnasadh and Samhain.Often rituals  giving thanks for a plentiful harvest and recognises the need to share the Earth’s fruits in the coming winter months were performed at this time. Have a blessed Mabon. I offer you the following poem. 

The Awen of Twilight

 

There is a chill on this magical day

As I watch golden leaves, tumbling from the air,

The world so simple among autumn's splendour

Light and dark equal for all to share.

 

A point of sacred balance we can feel

Moments of understanding, time not to fear,

Releasing specks of joy, instead of sorrow 

Mother Earth calling, Mabon returning.

 

A time for focusing on life, death and rebirth 

To consider where we are and where we need to be,

As we honour those past, hold on firm to the present 

The seeds of life that never fade away.

 

While wild winds whistle out our number

Nothing is ever wasted with Dame nature,

As she shapes and colors shifting mood

Embrace her untamed rippling allure.

Among dancing spirits and earthly aroma

Intimately connected, retaining vigour,

Lets harvest hope, trust the changing seasons

Be grateful to all you hold dear.

 

While darker days approach ahead

Illuminate the paths you tread with reason,

Release the years frustrations and disappointments

So we can step over the threshold with trustful intention.

 

Acknowledging the great powers around us

Within us too, keeping us safe and well,

Respecting all the cycles of life

Surrender in awakening, appease the gods.

May our blessings be rich and  bountiful

Granting us peace, embers of warmth and protection,

Enchanting, keeping us believing, sharing dreams

As we wait for Spring's flowers to raise from slumber.

Chief Joseph I will fight no more forever (March 3, 1840 – September 21, 1904)

 

Chief Joseph, known by his people as In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat (Thunder coming up over the land from the water), is best known for his resistance to the U.S. Government's attempts to force his tribe onto reservations. The Nez Perce were a peaceful nation spread from Idaho to Northern Washington. The tribe had maintained good relations with the whites after the Lewis and Clark expedition the U.S expedition to cross the newly acquired Western portion of the country. 

He was born on March 3rd 1840 somewhere in the dramatic landscape centered on Wallowa Lake in northeastern Oregon. His father, Tuekakas (d. 1871), was the chief of the Wallowa Nez Perce band. They lived far from the main body of the tribe, which was across the Snake River in Idaho, but they reunited often to fish for salmon, gather camas roots, and socialize.

The Presbyterian missionary Rev. Spalding had arrived at Lapwai, Idaho, in 1836 to spread Christianity amongst the Nez Perce. Tuekakas was intrigued by Spalding and his white religion; Spalding baptized him and gave him the name Joseph. When his son came along, he was called Young Joseph. Young Joseph spent much of his earliest years at Spalding's mission, and probably attended some of Spalding's lessons. But he was too young to learn much English and when the boy was still small, Old Joseph (Tuekakas) had a falling-out with Spalding. His band returned to its old ways at Wallowa.

Yet it became increasingly difficult to maintain the old ways of life. White miners and settlers began to encroach on their lands. Uprisings by other tribes across the Columbia Plateau had resulted in U.S. Army incursions, although Old Joseph managed to keep the Nez Perce at peace.

When Joseph grew up and assumed the chieftanship, he was under increasing governmental pressure to abandon his Wallowa land and join the rest of the Nez Perce on their reservation near Lapwai, Idaho. Joseph refused, saying that he had promised his father he would never leave.

In 1855 Chief Joseph's father, Old Joseph, had signed a treaty with the U.S. that allowed the Nez Perce people to retain much of their traditional lands. In 1863 another treaty was created that severely reduced the amount of land, but Old Joseph maintained that this second treaty was never agreed to by his people. A showdown over the second "non-treaty" came after Chief Joseph assumed his role as Chief in 1877. 

A series of violent encounters with white settlers in the spring of 1877 culminated with a young brave named Wahlitis avenging  his father’s death by killing the white rancher who was responsible.Igniting  what an Indian war.

Figuring that they might still be able to avoid annihilation if they flee rather than fight, Chief Joseph begins leading his tribe to seek refuge in Canada in hopes that they can join Sitting Bull and the Sioux and remain free there. 

However at least 700 men, women, and children led by Joseph and other Nez Perce chiefs were then pursued by the U.S. Army under General Oliver O. Howard in a 1,170-mile (1,900 km) fighting retreat known as the Nez Perce War. For nearly a month, they fought the Army and settlers in the canyons and prairies near the Idaho reservation. But in mid-July, after a grueling two-day battle in the bluffs above the Clearwater River, it became clear to the families that they were far outnumbered and had little hope of victory if they stayed in Nez Perce country. For the next 2½ months, they fled with more than 1,000 horses across the Bitterroot Mountains into Montana Territory, down through the Northern Rockies along the continental divide, through the newly created Yellowstone National Park, and finally straight north through the Montana plains toward the Canadian border, the “Medicine Line.” Along the way, soldiers surprised the families several times, massacred dozens, and repeatedly tried to trap and corner them. But each time, the warriors outfought them, and the families and their horse herd proved far more nimble on rough terrain. As they tried to justify their difficulty in catching the renegade bands, officers attributed all of their foes’ battlefield success to the leader they knew best. Even though Joseph was not a war chief, in the minds of his enemies, he was Achilles, Odysseus, Hannibal, and Napoleon.

The skill with which the Nez Perce fought and the manner in which they conducted themselves in the face of incredible adversity earned them widespread admiration from their military opponents and the American public, and coverage of the war in U.S. newspapers led to popular recognition of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce. 

His retreat has been remembered as a brilliant military maneuver, but in truth, it was a desperate attempt at a peaceful end to the violence facing his people. Only once was his tribe engaged in a full battle where they emerged victoriously – with 34 white soldiers killed and only three Nez Perce men wounded. 

In October 1877, after months of fugitive resistance, most of the surviving remnants of Joseph's band were cornered in northern Montana Territory, just 40 miles (64 km) from the Canadian border. Unable to fight any longer, Chief Joseph surrendered to the Army with the understanding that he and his people would be allowed to return to the reservation in western Idaho. On October 5, 1877, his speech, as he surrendered to General Howard, whilst handing over his rifle. immortalized him in American history forever: 

"I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say, 'Yes' or 'No.' He who led the young men [Olikut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are — perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever."

Many of the Nez Perce were sent to a reservation in what is now Oklahoma, where many died from malaria and starvation. Chief Joseph tried every possible appeal to the federal authorities to return the Nez Perce to the land of their ancestors. and up to his death in 1904, the government kept reopening and reconsidering his claims.

Chief Joseph was promised by General Miles that he would be able to go back to Idaho but he was kept captive and never allowed to return to Wallowa Valley. Joseph was allowed to visit Washington D.C. in 1879 to plead his case to president Hayes. It wasn't till 1885 that Joseph and other refugees were returned to the Pacific Northeast. Nearly half (including Joseph) were taken to a non-Nez Perce reservation in the Colville Indian Reservation in the state of Washington, being separated from their people in Idaho.

It was at the Colville Indian Reservation in the state of Washington, where according to the reservation doctor  he died on September 21 1904 of a broken heart at the age of 64.

Chief Joseph's life remains an iconic event in the history of the American Indian Wars. For his passionate, principled resistance to his tribe's forced removal. He never got to return to his homeland as was promised. Still, despite seeing his tribesmen die of disease and at the hands of the white man, he never gave up being the conscience of his people. He never gave up hope that one day, Native Americans would achieve freedom and equality. Chief Joseph will forever be renowned as a brave, honourable Chief and a humanitarian and a peacemaker. 

 Joseph became an inspiration to generations of civil rights and human rights activists due his forceful message of universal liberty and equality. “We only ask an even chance to live as other men live,” he famously said. “Let me be a free man—free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself—and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty.”

In a period when many thought that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian," Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce won the admiration of the American public.Because of this there have been many schools, dams, and even hospitals named in his honor. Chief Joseph spoke many words of wisdom, providing the nation with a hero to be remembered for generations to come. “If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. Treat all men alike. Give them a chance to live and grow.”

Chief Joseph I will fight no more forever

 

International Day of Peace 2022: End Racism. Build Peace.

 

As our nation was put on hold, directed to pause and  reflect on decades of history , I am reminded that every year on September 21, the world comes together to observe the International Day of Peace. The day is marked across the world to promote the concept of peace, and calls upon nations to observe 24 hours of non-violence and ceasefire even during times of conflict. The day is one of the most important international days established by the United Nations (UN) to help the world achieve international peace and cooperation.

The UN Peace Bell is rung at the Peace Garden  New York City United Nations  headquarters every year and observing a minute of silence  to mark the International Day of Peace. The United Nations Association of Japan gave the Peace Bell in June 1945. 

The day was established by the United Nations in 1981. It was originally set to be observed on the third Tuesday in September to coincide with the opening of the UN General Assembly. However, the date was fixed as September 21 in 2001, and it has been celebrated on this day since 2002.

With wars and conflict causing upwards of 108 million casualties in just the 20th Century, there is a greater need  in establishing world peace than ever before. With the advent of modern devastating weapons and nuclear armament, the world can scarcely risk a scale war.

The ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russia  is testament to this fact. Millions of Ukrainians have been displaced and thousands killed, with many more thousands of soldiers dead and inured on both sides. Other raging conflicts like the ones in Yemen and Ethiopia have similar stories to tell. .

With peace being only possible in societies where every group feels that they are equally respected and with equal opportunities for success the theme for this year's International Day of Peace 2022 is "End Racism. Build Peace."The UN revealed the theme  with the idea of promoting the concept of putting an end to hatred and bringing peace to all facets of society. As the name signifies, the theme emphasises encouraging harmony among diverse living communities. The theme also promotes accepting variety while maintaining harmony and peace. Each of us has a responsibility to promote peace. We require global commitment, solidarity, and trust more than ever. This day also encourages inclusivity, trust, and cooperation. We also have an urgent need to hold ourselves accountable for levelling the playing field of our society as we continue to promote world peace and an end to systematic global violence and dedicated to the aim of making a new world free of racism and racial discrimination. 

As the UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said: 

“Racism continues to poison institutions, social structures, and everyday life in every society. It continues to be a driver of persistent inequality. And it continues to deny people their fundamental human rights. It destabilizes societies, undermines democracies, erodes the legitimacy of governments, and the linkages between racism and gender inequality are unmistakable.”

Sadly the concept of the United Nation's ' Peace, Dignity and Equality' mission has too often been overshadowed by political favouritism,  bias and short termism, combined with undemocratic decision processes while being overly bureaucratic and slow in the way it deals with many issues, Despite this criticism peacekeeping should remain a central place in our responses to some of today's global  challenges and conflict prevention should remain a high and central policy.

A Prayer for Peace

Lead us from death to life, from
  falsehood to truth:
Lead us from despair to hope, from
  fear to trust:
Lead us from hate to love, from war to
  peace:
Let peace fill our hearts, our world'
 our universe:
Peace, peace, peace.

Arthur Rackham : The Beloved Enchanter (19 September 1867 – 6 September 1939)

                                                              Self Portrait, 1934

Arthur Rackham, nicknamed  ' the beloved enchanter’, who is best known for his for his lush, detailed illustrations depicting the mystical world of fantasy and fairy tales, was born in, Lambeth. London on September 19, 1867.as one of twelve siblings, the third surviving child of Annie and Alfred Rackham.

After a brief sojourn in Australia due to poor health, he spent his early education at the prestigious City of London School. Rackham won a couple of prizes for drawing during his school days, but showed little of the imaginative genius which marked his adult artwork.

From a solidly middle-class family, Rackham was not encouraged to go into art and he embarked on an artist’s career tentatively by working as a clerk during the day and devoting himself to artistic study in the evening at the Lambeth School of Art. However, by 1892 he was ready to leave his office job to become a reporter and illustrator for The Westminster Budget. Rackham recalled this has one of his most trying periods as an artist, ‘distasteful hack work’ as he described it. but the work served as additional training and he continued to hone his craft. 

During this period Rackham contributed occasional illustrations to magazines such as Scraps and Chums, efforts decidedly indicative of an artist in search of a style.  His first book illustrations were for To the Other Side, a travel guide and now particularly rare book, and the Dolly Dialogues; published in 1893 and 1894 respectively.

These publications marked the beginning of Arthur Rackham’s long and illustrious career as .one of the leading artists of the Golden Age of Illustration: a period of time spanning from about the 1880s to the 1920s,  and is widely acknowledged as one of the most iconic fantasy artists who ever lived. It was in this period that in 1898 over a garden wall  that  Rackham met the Irish  portrait painter and sculpter  Edith Starkie.  She was to be ‘his most stimulating, severest critic’ and future wife, Starkie helped Rackham expand his artistic range; moving away from simpler techniques of pure line drawing, towards intricate washes of colour.

This shift could not have come at a more fortuitous moment, as technological advances in the printing process meant that Rackham’s images could be photo-mechanically reproduced, thus removing the traditional middle-man of the engraver. This allowed Rackham to display his talent for line as well as his expert appreciation of the three-colour printing process; producing the luxurious colours and lavish details which made his reputation.  The images were then pasted (‘tipped in’) after the final book was printed, and whilst this was quite an expensive process, the results helped create the new ‘gift book’ market.

In 1903 after he marred Edyth Starkie she encouraged him to indulge his fancy for fantastical scenes of fairies and elves. The couple had a daughter, Barbara, in 1908. Rackham cemented his position  as one of the preeminent illustrators of his day for his illustrations for The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm.This book featured ninety-nine black-and-white drawings with a color frontispiece. Two new editions were issued within ten years of the original, with new and edited illustrations by Rackham in each. 

Largely influenced by Aubrey Beardsley, George Cruikshank, Randolph Caldecott, and Richard Doyle during the beginning and height of his career, Rackham’s style remained unique and set him apart from contemporaries and competitors.

Rip van Winkle, published in 1905 contained fifty-one colour plates – all drawn by Arthur Rackham, firmly establishing him as the ‘leading decorative illustrator of the Edwardian period.’ Rackham created each plate by first painstakingly drawing his subject in a sinuous pencil line before applying an ink layer. He then used layer upon layer of delicate watercolours, reminiscent of the Art Nouveaux style, to build up the romantic yet calmly ethereal results on which his reputation was constructed. Most recognisable, in retrospect, is the good natured calmness of the drawings, conveying a non-threatening yet exciting thrill to their audience.

 Another practice established with Rip Van Winkle was for Rackham to promote each book with an exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in London. J,M Barrie attended this display, and was so impressed by Rackham’s work that he asked him to illustrate Peter Pan in Kensington  Gardens. 

This was to be Rackham’s next commercial success, becoming the ‘outstanding Christmas gift-book of 1906’ and of course, one of the most beloved children’s books of all time.  He followed it up with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1907.which proved to be much more controversial because of the already beloved version illustrated by John Tenniel. Nonetheless, Rackham’s watercolors for Lewis Carroll’s beloved story were largely a success, because by this point Rackham was at his artistic peak.

 Around this time he being  offered so many commissions that he frequently had to decline. The decision he most regretted was failing to illustrate the first edition of Kenneth Grahame's  classic story, the Wind in the Willows, turned down in order to complete A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Shakespearean drawings were a great accomplishment though, stunning pieces of work  and imagination. .

Published in 1908, the ‘Arthur Rackham Fairies’ are some of his best-known work, with his ‘gnarled trees and droves of fairies… representing the visual reality of the Dream for thousands of readers.’  Fairies were deeply popular during Rackham' time, despite the allure  for these mystical creatures waning over the years there has been a rsuranabe in popularity. 

This publication was followed in rapid succession by three other books for adults; Undine (1909) The Rhinegold and the Valkyrie (1910) and Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods (1911).  Many suggest that Rackham’s finest illustrations can be found in these dramas.

Despite his financial and professional success, Rackham never lost his quiet and unassuming  manner, his love for magic, or his appeal to children.He firmly believed that children would benefit from the imaginative, the fantastic, and the playful, and he shwed the greatest respect for his child audience in all his works. 

The demand for gift books and scenes of fantasy was much affected by the grim realities of the war. After WWI, Rackham’s fame, however, still garnered him lots of work unlike many other great illustrators of his day and Rackham started producing work for the American market, illustrating a variety of books including, Where the Blue Begins by Christopher Morley (1925), Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1928), and Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1935).

The 1930s were trying for the Rackhams as Edyth’s health declined and shortly after, Rackham himself began to have health problems. Despite these trials, Rackham continued to produce numerous illustrations, both for reissued deluxe editions of his books, and additional commissions. Deluxe editions of classics such as The Night Before Christmas (1931), Fairy Tales by Hans Andersen (1932), Goblin Market (1933), and The Arthur Rackham Fairy Book (1933) were released throughout the early 1930s. Rackham’s illustrations for Fairy Tales by Hans Andersen were especially successful, and the work was named the best picture book of the year by Hugh Walpole for The Observer in 1932. By 1936, exhibitions of Rackham’s work took place all over the world, though by now he was suffering from chronic illness and was unable to produce the magnitude of work he once had.

After Rackham had unfortunately declined to illustrate the Wind in the Willows, he was given a final chance in his twilight years. Taking up the offer with relish, Rackham experienced great difficulty in completing the work; exhausted and in failing health,  he insisted that every detail must be right, down to the last oars in Rattie’s boat. In  final triumph with great labour he worked and reworked the drawings to his eventual satisfaction.  The end result was a masterpiece of children’s illustration and a beautiful reminder of the innocence and sensibilities of the Victorian age.

.His illustration to when Mole and Rattie meet the horned God Pan  in my favorite  chapter of the book The Piper at the  Gates of Dawn is utterly  gorgeous.  

The Wind in the Willows was Rackham’s last completed illustrated work before he died on September 6, 1939. from cancer in in his home at Stilegate.Limpsfield, Surrey on September 6, 1939, just before his seventy-second birthday.  

His now iconic illustrations are chilling, bewitching and  continue to provide a colourful contrast to the dark winter months ahead.and his  pictures are evocative of an age when fairy tales seemed real and people believed in the magical past.Highlighting where the magical world overlaps – often subtly – with our own, Rackham’s art reveals dreamlike realms where all manner of strange and fantastical entities reside. Home to lovely maidens and delicate fairies as well as mythical monsters and surreal beasts, there’s no shortage of unusual characters in Rackham’s gritty fantasy worlds. This, however, only serves to make these worlds more enticing, after all, what’s a fairy tale without a little darkness and danger? 

What I like so much about Arthur Rackham’s illustrations is that, even when separated from the storybooks that inspired them, they still communicate something meaningful and emotional to the viewer.In imagination, draftsmanship and colour-blending, his work has never been surpassed. His deep understanding of the spirit of myth, fable, and folklore seems to have afforded him a transcendent range of deep expression  His richly detailed work remains extremely artistically impressive, and it’s easy to understand why his work continually enchants and delights both young and old in equal measure all these many years later. His palette, his fineness of line, and his exceptional translation of literature to art whose influence on fantasy art and book illustration is still very much apparent today.and he has since been propelled  to the top of the list of the world’s greatest illustrators of all time.His images have been widely used by the greeting card industry and many of his books are still in print or have been recently available in both paperback and hardback editions. His original drawings and paintings are to this day keenly sought at the major international art auction houses. His most lasting legacy, however, is the list of books that he has illustrated, which reads like a Who’s Who of fairy tales, fantasy and children’s stories.

 "For children in their most impressionable years, there is, in fantasy, the highest of stimulating and educational powers."-  Arthur Rackham.

Here are some of his autumn fairies, from Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, 1906.

Remembering the 40th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila Massacre

 

“Sabra and Shatila Massacre” (1982-83), by pioneering Iraqi artist Dia al-Azzawi

A date that I try not to forget,is the time that over three bloody days from September 16 through  to 18, 1982, up to 3,500 Palestinian unarmed defenceless refugees in Shatila camp and Sabra neighborhood in Beirut, Lebanon who were horrifically slaughtered at the hands of Phalangist militiamen, encircled, trained and supported by Israeli occupation forces who had besieged West Beirut for 88 days before launching a full-scale occupation-day period, members of the Lebanese Christian militias, with the support of Israeli troops, killed mostly women, children and the elderly living in the camp complex. Exactly how many were actually killed  remains unknown as the real number is hard to determine because bodies were buried quickly in mass graves or never found and many men were marched out of the camp and “disappeared.” Israel actually supplied the bulldozers to bury the dead and later  tanks entered the camps and ran over the whole area, destroying houses and clearing any signs of crime.

Shortly before the massacres, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation was evacuated from Lebanon as a result of an agreement reached after the Israeli invasion of the country. That meant the residents of Sabra and Shatila no longer had protection, despite promises made to them by Philip Habib, an envoy for then US President Ronald Reagan, that their security would be guaranteed.

The massacre was presented as retaliation for the assassination of newly elected Lebanese president Bachir Germavel, the leader of the Lebanese Kataeb Party. It was wrongly assumed that Palestinians militants had carried out the assassination.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF)  had  invaded Lebanon in June 1982 with the goal of pushing out the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). After newly-elected President Bashir Gemayel was assassinated on September 14th, the IDF invaded West Beirut, which included the Sabra neighborhood and the Shatila refugee camp, which predominately housed Muslim refugees. The IDF ordered their allies in Lebanon, the Kataeb Party (also called the Phalange), a right-wing Maronite Christian party, to clear the area of PLO militants to facilitate the IDF advance.

During the massacre, the Israeli army prevented civilians from escaping the camps and arranged for the camps to be illuminated throughout the night by flares launched into the sky from helicopters and mortars.On the 18th of September, after about forty hours of killing, the first images of the massacre showing civilian victims appeared on TV. They provoked worldwide indignation and compassion. Foreign journalists and diplomats entered the camps in the aftermath of the massacre after the IDF had withdrawn from the entrances. Their reports and photographs all expressed despair and brutality. Loren Jenkins, from the Washington Post, wrote on September the 23th: “The scene at the Shatila camp when foreign observers entered Saturday morning was like a nightmare. Women wailed over the deaths of loved ones, bodies began to swell under the hot sun, and the streets were littered with thousand of spent cartridges. Houses had been dynamited and bulldozed into rubble, many with the inhabitants still inside. Groups of bodies lay before bullet-pocked walls where they appeared to have been executed. Others were strewn in alleys and streets, apparently shot as they tried to escape”. Israel for a while denied it had conspired in the massacre, yet as a result of international condemnation it launched an inquiry in 1983, known as the Kahan Commission  http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/kahan.html  set up in 1983 in response to widespread international pressure, concluded that that Israeli leaders were “indirectly responsible” for the killings and that Ariel Sharon, then the defense minister and later prime minister, bore “personal responsibility” for failing to prevent the massacre Ariel Sharon, bore personally responsible, among others, for the massacre. Elie Hobeika later became a long-serving Member of the Lebanese Parliament as well as serving in many minsterial roles. Despite the findings of the Kahan Commission, Ariel Sharon held many influential ministerial roles in the Israeli government, serving in fact as Prime Minister from 2001 to 2006. Thus were the engineers of one of the bloodiest and most appalling massacres in contemporary history rewarded.
It is quite simply one of the greatest human tragedies that we should never simply forget.Israel continues to abuse Palestinian rights without consequence. Settler attacks on Palestinian property, lands, and persons have terrorised thousands and killed almost entire families.Palestinian complaints filed against settlers go unindicted by Israel. In fact, the Israeli military serves the settlers by allowing the attackers to simply walk away". When they do take action, Israeli soldiers are more likely to support the settlers, often allowing them to continue attacking Palestinians rather than shielding innocent civilians.
The dehumanisation of Palestinians by Israel continues and the Israeli military itself continues to commit war crimes with impunity, as evidenced by Israel's repeated attacks on the tiny besieged Gaza Strip over the past decade, which have killed thousands of innocent Palestinians with disproportionate and indiscriminate force. Today there are more than 400,000 Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, most barred from owning property and earing decent wages. They make up part of the nearly 5 million Palestinians refugees living in the West Bank, Gaza and throughout the Middle East, descendants of the 750,000 displaced after the establishment of the Israeli State.
Israel's years of dispossession and half-century of military rule still ongoing and is supported by unconditional American military aid and diplomatic backing. International bodies like the UN Security Council have repeatedly made note of Israel's human rights violations. Injustices continue to this day  through land confiscations, home demolitions, mass imprisonment, collective displacement, racist discrimination, assassination and killing.

One of the reasons why people still talk about Sabra and Shatila, is that despite evidence of what the UN Security Council described as a “criminal massacre,” and the ranking of the Sabra and Shatila massacres in humankind’s collective memory as among the most heinous crimes of the 20th century, the man found “personally responsible” for this crime, as well as his associates and the people who carried out the massacres, have never been pursued or punished. no one has ever stood trial or been  held account for this crime. A massacre so awful that the people of the world should not be allowed to forget it, as we should not forget any crime against humanity, all are of equal importance. It is unfortunately part of us all, a  history and legacy that is  both shameful and bitter.On all accounts this was not an isolated incident, and to this day Israels oppressive policies towards the Palestinians continue.

The United Nations Security Council condemned the massacre with Resolution 521 (19 September 1982). This condemnation was followed by a 16 December 1982 General Assembly resolution calling the massacre as an “act of genocide.”

 Every September since Palestinians and friends from around the world gather now in Shatila at the Martyr's Square  to remember  and mourn, and mark the events that had previously occurred. Even contemplating this dark anniversary, I never give up feeling that there is still much hope in the future for the Palestinian people. I recognise their ongoing plight and make sure that they are not forgotten.

The conscience of the world was terribly wounded on this  day and we cannot, should not and will not ever forget or forgive.With sorrow and with struggle,we must remember Sabra and Shatila  and pledge to continue to work for justice.But as we commemorate the thousands who died at Sabra and Shatila try also to think of all Palestinians who continue to suffer from human rights abuses. 

The international community is obliged to remedy its moral responsibility to the victims of the  massacre by working to end Israel's occupation and other abuses of Palestinian rights.This tragic anniversary is a reminder that the international community also continues to fail to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law and to defend the basic human rights of the Palestinian people.

The dehumanisation of Palestinians by Israel continues.It was this very same dehumanisation that led Israel to allow vengeful militiamen to enter the Sabra and Shatila camps and that permits Israelis to occupy another people for fifty years and inflict humiliation and injury.

The situation in the West Bank and Gaza and for the Palestinians living in refugee camps in countries neighboring Israel could not be more dark and grim. The constant arrests, house demolitions and killing of unarmed Palestinians in the West Bank and the regular bombing of blockaded Gaza are rarely reported in the mainstream media anymore. Funding for Palestinian refugees is also in jeopardy. The Gulf’s normalization with Israel resulted in severe funding cuts to UNRWA.

The six million refugees living outside historic Palestine (now called Israel) are all but forgotten. Many of us have allowed them to fade in our consciousness. Yet every Palestinian killed—be they the recent 256 Palestinians, including 66 children, killed by Israeli bombardment of Gaza in 2021; or the 2,022 killed, including 526 children, in Operation Protective Edge in 2014; the 1,400 deaths, including 300 children, in Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9; or in the Great March of Return cannot be forgotten.

These deaths wrench out the hearts of their family and those who love them, leaving large gaping wounds which have not healed. There is no healing as the violence against the Palestinians is ongoing. There is no post-traumatic stress syndrome; there is only ongoing traumatic onslaughts and wounding of their bodies and souls. Every child born in Gaza after 2008 has experienced four major military assaults with intensive bombardment, deaths and injuries. Two million Palestinians are held under blockade in Gaza since 2007 converting Gaza into a large prison whose “inmates” are bombed and not allowed to escape.

This year also marks the 74th anniversary of the Nakba (‘catastrophe’ in Arabic), where at least 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from and fled their homes at the hands of militias during the creation of the state of Israel,and the 105th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, when  Britain was on its ascent in colonial power, thus paving the way for the giving away of the homes of the Palestinians and wiping Palestine off the world map.

Remember too that remember Palestinian refugees in Lebanon continue to live in a state of permanent exile and humanitarian crisis.Discrimination and marginalisation frustrate Palestinians’ access to health, education, employment and social protection, leaving them perpetually dependent on assistance from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). But UNRWA’s chronic funding deficit and Lebanon’s ongoing economic crisis are increasing health and humanitarian needs, particularly for women and children.

“On this important commemoration of those who were brutally murdered in Shatila refugee camp, we take inspiration from the strength of the victims and survivors,” said Dr Ali Dakwar,Medical Aid for Palestinians Lebanon Director.

“Decades on, Palestinian refugees still remain unjustly displaced from their homes, and are among those worse affected by Lebanon’s economic collapse. We therefore commit to continue our joint efforts towards a better future where all Palestinians can realise their full rights to health and dignity.”

I happen to believe its a  moral responsibility to the victims of the Sabra and Shatila massacre to keep on working to end Israel's occupation and other abuses of Palestinian rights,so that  the lives of many families and the others we  remember will not have been lost in vain. If you agree that every Palestinian has the right to live free from occupation, blockade and forced exile,please consider signing this pledge, https://www.map.org.uk/campaigns/stand-with-map-to-say-everypalestinian-has-an-equal-right-to-health-and-dignity
I conclude this post with the following powerful, moving poem from the pen of the late great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.

Sabra and Shatila  by Mahmoud Darwish

Sabra — a sleeping girl
The men left
War slept for two short nights,
Beirut obeyed and became the capital…
A long night
Observing the dreams in Sabra,
Sabra is sleeping.
Sabra — the remains of a dead body
She bid farewell to her horsemen and time
And surrendered to sleep out of tiredness.. and the Arabs who threw her behind them.
Sabra — and what the soldiers Departing from Galilee forgot
She doesn’t buy and sell anything but her silence
To buy flowers to put on her braided hair.
Sabra — sings her lost half, between the sea and the last war:
Why do you go?
And leave your wives in the middle of a hard night?
Why do you go?
And hang your night
Over the camp and the national anthem?
Sabra — covering her naked breasts with a farewell song
Counts her palms and gets it wrong
While she can’t find the arm:
How many times will you travel?
And for how long?
And for what dream?
If you return one day
for which exile shall you return,
which exile brought you back?
Sabra — tearing open her chest:
How many times
does the flower bloom?
How many times
will the revolution travel?
Sabra — afraid of the night. Puts it on her knees
covers it with her eyes’ mascara. Cries to distract it:
They left without saying
anything about their return
Withered and tended
from the rose’s flame!
Returned without returning
to the beginning of their journey
Age is like children
running away from a kiss.
No, I do not have an exile
To say: I have a home
God, oh time ..!
Sabra — sleeps. And the fascist’s knife wakes up
Sabra calls who she calls
All of this night is for me, and night is salt
the fascist cuts her breasts — the night reduced — 
he then dances around his knife and licks it. Singing an ode to a victory of the cedars,
And erases
Quietly .. Her flesh from her bones
and spreads her organs over the table
and the fascist continues dancing and laughs for the tilted eyes
and goes crazy for joy, Sabra is no longer a body:
He rides her as his instincts suggest, and his will manifests.
And steals a ring from her flesh and blood and goes back to his mirror
And be — Sea
And be — Land
And be — Clouds
And be — Blood
And be — Night
And be — Killing
And be — Saturday
and she be — Sabra.
Sabra — the intersection of two streets on a body
Sabra, the descent of a Spirit down a Stone
And Sabra — is no one
Sabra — is the identity of our time, forever.

(translation by Saad El Kurdi)