Good things and bad things happen daily here. Daily we get to meet great
visitors and work with great volunteers and staff that are making amazing
progress on the Palestine Museum of Natural History and the botanical
garden (palestinenature.org).  We received good news on some grants and
submitted several others just in the past two weeks and got three more
research papers submitted and two more accepted. But politics keeps sending
us bad news. Tribalism and nationalism are rearing their ugly heads and
people suffer.

The people of the world are waking up despite the fact that most mainstream
media is now "managed" to give that Zionist message of danger from Iran,
Hizballah etc while ignoring war crimes and crimes against humanity being
perpetuated daily by Israel and its puppets like Mohammad Bin Salman. What
media is not managed, is blocked in most of the Arab world run by those
dictators. The mainstream media is complicit in ensuring people are not
aware of what is going on. Imagine if a Muslim sniper shot an American or a
Jewish double amputee who lost his legs to another Muslim attack years
earlier? How would the media have reacted. How would the media react if a
dictator who is not friendly to the US was doing what he and his senile
father were doing now. They just arrested the rich guys in their country
and even visiting rich guys from other countries (like Hariri from Lebanon
and Sabeeh Amasri from Jordan) and are stripping them of heir wealth! They
are beheading any opposition.

On good news, the growing mass movement exposing Israeli apartheid
continues to grow and the Zionists are feeling frustrated that despite
increased spending on propaganda by 20 fold over 15 years, the anti-Zionist
movement continues to grow. Instead of admitting they need to start to
respect human rights, Zionists debate doing more propaganda/hasbara. See
this must read report on the analysis by Zionists of their own-movement:
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/leaked-report-highlights-israel-lobbys-failures

Trump's illegal move on Jerusalem is backfiring. It exposed all the puppets
paying the Zionist movement and bending over backward to please Zionist
occupied Washington.It is forcing those who were close to selling it all to
begin to back-track.  It also exposed what Trump called the deal of the
century: profiting rich dictators and sacrificing tens of millions of
Palestinians, Egyptians, Yemenis, Hijazis (I refuse to use the term derived
from "Saudi Arabia") and other Arabs. To be precise the plan is sacrificing
the interests of 350 million Arabs and 1.6 billion Muslims for the  short
term interests sake of a handful of billionaire Zionists and the Jews who
foolishly follow them to the edge of the cliff. Short term, the Trump plan
is to consolidate Israel's control over Jerusalem and the rest of the
occupied West Bank, settle refugees in Jordan and Sinai and strengthen
Israel's hand. The  resistance forces stretching from Lebanon to Iran and
Yemen must be weakened to pass this horrible scheme. That is why these
resistance forces had to be defeated especially now that Iran, Syria,
Lebanon and Iraq won over the US/Israel created and funded "Islamist"
militias including the so called "Islamic State". Yet, the colonial idea of
divide and conquer is falling apart as resistance is coming from Shi'a and
Sunnis and Chrristians and Kurds and Druse and Yezidis and many others.

Trump made his biggest plunder by his Jerusalem announcement. The Sunni and
Shia leaders who gathered in Istanbul included heavy weights like Turkish
leader Erdogan and Iranian leader Rouhani. Despite heavy pressure and
blackmail from the "Saudi" puppets, Mahmoud Abbas and King Hussain also
attended. Much will now happen but Trump and his Zionist son-in-law have
only a few more cards they think they can play (but they will be equally
catastrophic blunders). Conflict and suffering will ensue but there are no
winners in 21st century wars. Spoiled teenage Israel might be the biggest
loser of the Zionist gamble. They and their sponsors like Trump think they
can manage to continue to exploit and go against the will of the majority
of the 1.6 billion Muslims and 2.5 billion Christians (and some 3 million
anti-Zionist and post-Zionist Jews). Sorry folks: Jerusalem will not be a
"Jewish capital" and not even a capital of apartheid Israel. But the price
of arrogance can be high.

Whenever I think the “Israeli army” had sunk to the lowest level, they
surprise me more. For an Israeli nipper to assassinate a double amputee in
his wheel chair is beyond sick (the civilian Ibrahim Abutharya had lost his
legs to a previous zionist attack on Gaza). In another case, a child who
was jailed at 13 for 3 months for demonstrating was hit in the head and s
in critical condition (Moh’d Tamimi of Nebi Saleh is now 15 and fighting
for his life). Words escape me.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/palestinian-double-amputee-killed-israeli-sniper-171216113544411.html
https://972mag.com/in-gaza-israel-is-shooting-fish-in-a-barrel/131607/

An anti-tank guided weapon made in Europe and sold to the United States,
ended up in the hands of Daesh in Iraq within just two months, the Conflict
Armament Research (CAR) group said in a newly-published report. The
acquisition of an anti-tank weapon by Daesh exposes the fact the CIA
knowingly took great risks to arm extremists in a desperate bid to oust
Syrian President Bashar Assad
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201712161060048524-daesh-anti-tank-missile-cia

The unknown hell of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon
http://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/24817/The-Unknown-Hell-of-Palestinian-Refugees-in-Lebanon

Where Does the PLO Leadership Go After Jerusalem?
http://www.sharqforum.org/2017/12/11/where-does-the-plo-leadership-go-after-jerusalem/
[they are meeting tonight to decide what to do. I hope they take real
couragous positions and end the charade of Oslo]

As for most of us in occupied Palestine we continue to resist in many, many
forms. See my book on "Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope
and Empowerment".