PalestineMyHeart
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Posts posted by PalestineMyHeart
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Mine never start budding until December. I am theorizing that latitude has an effect - because the difference between the length of winter days and nights gets more pronounced the further north you go, and less pronounced the further south you go. So I'm guessing that the nights do not get short enough down here to trigger the bloom cycle until December.
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Awesome images. Thanks for posting.
I'm glad you enjoyed - it's my pleasure.
Some more images...
Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem
Lighting candle in the Church of the Nativity
Pilgrims praying in the Grotto of the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem
Lighting candles inside the Church of the Nativity
Christmas mass in Bethlehem
Greek Orthodox priest walks inside the Church of the Nativity
Tourist offers a sweet to Palestinian boy dressed as Santa, Bethlehem
Taking pics in Manger Square, Bethlehem
Greek Orthodox priest leads service for Palestinian Christians at Saint Porfirios Church, Gaza City
Palestinian child at weekly protest against The Wall, villege of al Masara near Bethlehem
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Pilgrim kissing the star in the floor marking the traditional site of the birthplace of Jesus in the Grotto of the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem
Pilgrim lighting candle in the Grotto of the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem
Palestinian Santa in Manger Square outside the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem
Palestinian wood carver in shop in Bethlehem
Greek Orthodox priest inside the Church of the Nativity
Pilgrims inside the Church of the Nativity
Pilgrims dressed as Santa walk to the Church of the Nativity
Pilgrim inside the Church of the Nativity
Palestinian girl outside St. Porfirios Church, Gaza City
Peace activists make display with candles and tear gas canisters inside the Grotto of the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem
- spookyturtle, Expat1 and Novembro
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Excellent photos!
Trying to share some of the best ones I've come across...
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Palestinian scouts perform in Manger Square outside the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem
Priest in the Palestinian village of Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, conducting traditional outdoor Christmas service
Pilgrim in the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem
Orthodox priest lights candle in the Grotto of the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem
Armenian priests watch clergyman carrying figure of the baby Jesus, Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem
Palestinian Santa, East Jerusalem
Latin Patriarch being driven through the Israeli checkpoint to enter Bethlehem
Palestinian children enjoying the Christmas program outside the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem
Weekly protest against The Wall, near Bethlehem
Christmas tree made of empty tear gas canisters and razor wire outside Manger Square, Bethlehem
- spookyturtle, himher and Expat1
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Well the Christmas Cactus did not quite bloom on Christmas Day, but the flowers are about to open. Here they are today:
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Midnight mass underway....
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Ma'an News Livestream from Manger SquarePublished today (updated) 24/12/2013 13:39
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Thousands have gathered in Bethlehem from around the world to mark Christmas Eve and to prepare for Christmas Day in Jesus' birthplace.
Ma'an News Agency is live streaming Christmas Eve celebrations from Bethlehem's Manger Square all day.
Tune in for the broadcast below.The festivities are mostly in Arabic, but the speakers translate periodically into English, Russian and other languages.
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There aren't many of your MENA friends responding. Hmmmmm
Sorry that folks in Palestine haven't answered right away... they've been kinda busy getting ready for Christmas (much like a lot of people who usually frequent this forum)....
I will post my annual Christmas in Palestine thread later... but here's a preview of the preps outside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem:
Merry Christmas !
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My husband is also in the West Bank..in Burin. They have no power, and now they are so very low on water...their water is in the tank on the roof, and they can't get up there. I hope this ends soon for them all.
A lot of people were still without power today, and it's another night of freezing cold.
Kfar a Deek (northwest of Ramallah):
And another from Amman:
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This is segregated Shuhada Street, at the center of occupied Hebron. Hebron is the West Bank's largest city, home to 170,000 Palestinians, and Shuhada Street was once its bustling downtown business district.
On what have become "ordinary" days, Shuhada street looks like this:
Why is it segregated ? Because about 500 illegal Israeli settlers have forcibly taken over buildings in the downtown area, as well as some other properties adjacent to Hebron. Several thousand Israeli soldiers are stationed in Hebron to protect them. After one of the settlers from a nearby illegal settlement, Baruch Goldstein, mass-murdered 29 Palestinians at the local Ibrahimi Mosque in 1994, the Israeli army responded by sealing off Shuhada Street, closing it to Palestinian vehicles and blocking most Palestinians from using it. Of course, illegal Jewish settlers and other Israelis are permitted to pass freely.
Most of the Palestinians whose families lived here for generations have now left their homes. All of the shops have been forced out of business. After 2 decades of these conditions, only a few Palestinian families remain. They must use the small pedestrian lane you see on the left of the pic, or climb over roofs. Jews may walk or drive in the street freely and use the other sidewalk.
Then came this week's heavy snowstorm. Shuhada Street was blanketed in about 3 feet, and it was packed and frozen hard enough to walk on:
And so, at least for a day or two, Apartheid ended on Shuhada Street, and everyone was forced to walk together in the same path, in the middle.
Hat tip to 972 mag for the pics and the original report:
http://972mag.com/photo-snow-makes-everyone-equal-for-a-day-on-hebrons-shuhada-st/83673/
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But it still begs the question. Why are Muslims continuing the practice of dressing like Al Qaeda terrorists to go to weddings?
Where did you get this absurd notion ?
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The flooding in Gaza is really bad - parts are under 6 feet of water, trapping many people inside their homes. The worst conditions are in and around the refugee camps in the northern part of the Strip. More than 5,000 Gazans have been evacuated - Palestinians and UNRWA workers are having to use rowboats to get to them. People there are already dealing with daily 12-hour blackouts, because the power plant can't operate due to the shortages of fuel reaching the Strip.
Hebron is under 3 feet of snow; Ramallah has about 2 feet. Most roads are still blocked with snow, electricity is still out across much of the West Bank - only a lucky few have private generators. All schools and most businesses and government offices were closed again today... we'll see what happens tomorrow, if they can get the power back up and some of the roads cleared.
Here are some fresh pics taken today in Amman, which received just under a foot of snow:
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The snow pictures are beautiful, but this storm is creating some serious problems -- according to Ma'an News, 60% of the West Bank is currently without power.
The majority of the power line malfunctions are located inside Israel on lines leading to the West Bank, but Israeli authorities are not fixing the malfunctions while also prohibiting the access of Palestinian crews to the areas.
This storm is yet another disaster for Gaza, already suffering from extreme power outages and shortages of fuel and other necessities. Now, thousands have been flooded out their homes:
The Gaza Strip was pounded by fierce winds and rain again on Friday as flooding reached dangerous levels in many areas, forcing thousands to flee their homes amid widespread power outages as temperatures plunged into the single digits.
The flooding was worst in the northern Gaza Strip, where hundreds fled their homes and water levels reached 40-50 cm in some parts, forcing residents to use boats to navigate their neighborhoods.Some video of the situation in Gaza:
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More pics in the thread in MENA:
http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/470204-snow-in-the-middle-east-december-2013/
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These pics were taken yesterday near Bethlehem:
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They've gotten almost 2 feet of snow in Ramallah and almost 3 feet in Hebron. Today is the weekend, but people are expecting schools and most businesses to be closed tomorrow as well.
Ramallah dressed in white - these pics were taken this morning:
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Not Thanksgiving anymore but I thought I'd update - Laila was born on December 7 at 9:52am.
She was two weeks early...very much a surprise! She's the opposite of her big sister who is blonde and fair. She has a head full of dark hair just like her brothers had at birth.Awwww congratulations to you and your husband, Mithra !!! I agree - Laila is such a beautiful name - such wonderful news
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Mockupation Israel: IDF trains in Ashkelon playground because it ‘looks like Gaza’
Allison Deger on December 12, 2013
IDF soldiers mock raid an Ashkelon playground in a Gaza invasion overnight training exercise. (Photo: Ilan Assayag)
In late November the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) ran a Gaza ground invasion training exercise by occupying an Ashkelon playground—explosions by the swing set and all. The mock raid was a surprise to suburban residents who awoke to find their town invaded. Haaretz journalist and artist Roy Chicky Arad was tipped off in advance the military would practice a ground incursion for the besieged coastal Mediterranean strip near a manicured recreational play area.
Arad first meets the IDF hiding behind flowers at a gas station. “We are a defense force. We have no idea when the clash will be,” said a commander in the Gaza Brigade before the middle-of-the night operation was underway. As day break approached, Arad tailed soldiers fresh from a nap as they tromped through Askhelon, “a well-maintained city that really doesn’t look anything like Gaza,” to their to their mission site: a playground. Arad continues, the soldiers were ready to “to eliminate any pockets of possible resistance.”
It was still dark when we arrived, but the sun soon rose over occupied Ashkelon, heralding a hot and uncomfortable day for the poor soldiers. It wasn’t clear why a playground had been chosen as a place to establish a position in occupied Gaza, as it were. I assume it was someone’s bad joke. The very fact of the exercise demonstrates aggression, given the relative quiet lately; we certainly wouldn’t be pleased to know that in Gaza or in any other Arab city they were practicing the conquest of Ashkelon.
Ilan, the photographer, and I were the only journalists at the site. The soldiers had been instructed not to talk to us. But in war as in war, and I managed very quickly to obtain intelligence regarding where the other squad had gone. I made my way to Amnon Street, where a young soldier was walking along the cobblestoned streets, of which there probably aren’t too many in Gaza. He said he’d been ordered not to talk to us and continued to walk among the villas.
We’re reported extensively on IDF training exercises in the West Bank. Large swaths of villages in the Jordan Valley are frequently used for live-fire exercises. As one would imagine, these exercises terrify local Palestinians who are unable to immediately distinguish between an actual raid, and a mock raid. Mock raids include parashooting soldiers, tents in the village’s mosque, and even shooting Palestinian residents.
In addition to training in Israeli communities, for years the IDF has engaged in live-fire drills in the West Bank. “Not abandoned villages nor areas specifically developed for training – simply normal towns where people live,” said Shay Davidovich who mock raided Palestinian villages in the Jordan Valley as a reservist. “Imagine a massive amount of infantry troops all around, with explosions shaking the earth under your feet. Tanks and attack helicopters open fire as soldiers run through the village setting off stun grenades,” continued Davidovich who is now a coordinator for Breaking the Silence. “At no point did I stop for a second to think about the fact that we were training around villages where regular people live their daily lives.”
Then in 2012 a series of West Bank villages were closed to Palestinians for Israeli army training. The residents had to relocate to makeshift tent villages in nearby towns. For months they lived in Hoovervilles within earshot of F16s flying overhead. The military said the flat agricultural lands of the Jordan Valley resembled the hilly terrain of southern Lebanon, which are about as visually similar as Ashkelon is to Gaza. Around that same time the U.S. military even joined in on the operations for Austere Challenge, the largest U.S.-Israeli joint live-fire training exercises yet. Live-fire training exercises will likely continue. The high court upheld them in November 2013. +972 Magazine called Palestinians mere “props,” walking and talking props, for the military’s games.
But inside of Israel mock raids are less common.
Still last summer the IDF conducted training practices in a dormitory for Hebrew University. Around noon, without notice the military traipsed through the college student’s halls, weapons-out for the university housing themed exercise. The students “inside the dorms head the soldiers getting off the Jeeps and shouting their codes,” said Hebrew University student Nirsreen Ghanimeh, continuing, “the ones who were outside the dorms and trying to get in had been told they can’t do so, because of ‘something temporary.’” Ghanimeh said most students, except for some activists and a few locked outside the building were not bothered. Mostly her peers were confused. Some said live-fire was used. Some said only sound grenades.
But overall the Israeli students, like the residents of Ashkelon were not bothered to temporarily surrender their living space to the army. “Residents who were walking their dogs seemed pleased to see young fighters trying to catch some shut-eye under the slide,” wrote Arad. Perhaps it’s a mark of how accustomed Israelis are to the military presence. I’ve yet to encounter a day where I walk Israeli streets without spotting the dark green or tan of a young soldier in uniform. Off to serve or back from serving, seemingly most Israelis don’t mind.
http://mondoweiss.net/2013/12/mockupation-ashkelon-playground.html
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The Israeli policy on blood donation is pretty clear: Blood from anyone who has lived in a country with a high HIV rate for more than a year can't be used for medical purposes.. Having said that the Israeli president was asked about this incident.. Here is what he said:
Peres said all Israeli citizens should be allowed to donate blood: "There can be no differentiation between one blood and the other in the state of Israel. All citizens are equal … The Ethiopian people are precious to the state of Israel."
The policy should probably be changed and mandatory testing done to all blood.. The real issue in this case is how the person doing the blood collection stated the policy.. One bad person does not equal a racist country.
Well... it isn't a case of "just one bad person" - the OP articles mentions a number of incidents involving different people, and there have been many other incidents. But of course it doesn't mean that all Israelis or even most Israelis necessarily agree with these policies.
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A lot of Sunny for a little Money. Nice!
It is a bargain. Check the view from the condo:
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Long walks on the beach from what I hear.
Now you're talking ! From my recent trip to Port A (the "Redneck Riviera"):
Oath taking ceremony in Austin/San Antonio Tx.
in US Citizenship General Discussion
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Hi Scott - nice to see you again
Maybe by now your wife already got her notice for the ceremony - I hope so. But to answer your question, my husband's citizenship ceremony was held in the month of September. I think there are several a year in San Antonio (maybe once every 3-4 months) as there are a lot of people naturalizing here (more than 900 in the ceremony my husband participated in, mostly from Mexico.) His was held at Laurie Auditorium at Trinity University, but I think they change the venue frequently.
Good luck and congrats to you and your wife for completing The Visa Journey