Grassroots International

You may have noticed that a man named Mustafa Barghouthi has declared himself a candidate in the national elections being held in Palestine to elect a successor to Yasser Arafat. This may be confusing to people who have seen all of the publicity about the candidacy of Marwan Barghouthi, a leader of the Fatah movement currently in jail in Israel.

Yesterday we received a note from Ziad Abbas with the news that the Ibdaa cultural center's kindergarten had been badly damaged when Israeli forces used explosives to demolish a nearby home. Today Ibdaa sent along these photos from the bombing.

I'm trying to imagine how people here in Jamaica Plain would react if the police came in the middle of the night and blew up someone's house next door to a kindergarten or a day care center, wrecking the kids' classrooms in the process, and it's just unfathomable. (It's also pretty clearly a form of collective punishment, which is illegal under international law.)

In the past few weeks, members of the staff of Grassroots International have had the privilege of visiting young people at schools in Boston and the surrounding area, gaining inspiration from their energy and their commitment to finding ways to make the world of tomorrow a better place.

Meanwhile, in the world of today: This morning we received a note from Ziad Abbas, director of Ibdaa cultural Center, one of our partners in Palestine. He was writing to let us know that the building where Ibdaa's kindergarten was housed had been destroyed, blown up by an Israeli demolition crew in the pre-dawn hours.

Ziad's note begins:

At quarter to four this morning the Hamash family building was bombed by the Israeli Army. At least 12 jeeps invaded Dheisheh Camp and surrounded the families? homes, as well as Ibdaa?s kindergarten ? which share the same building. The Army ordered Musa Hamash, Aziz Hamash, and Ahmed Hamash and their families outside into the damp and chilly morning air. They were given 30 minutes to remove as many of their belongings as possible before the bombing. Not only was this not enough time, but the presence of Army jeeps blocking each of the narrow nearby streets made it even more difficult for them to save some family memories and some meager possessions.

You can read the rest of his letter here.

This morning, two of our partners were guests on a news special on Pacifica Radio. Ziad Abbas of Ibdaa Cultural Center and Hasan Barghouthi of the Democracy and Workers Rights Center talked about the struggle for self determination, democratic reform, and a just peace, but also about the even more profound struggle for respect of the most basic human rights and international law under the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

We also received a note from Hasan, expressing his gratitude for the solidarity and support of Grassroots International in the days since the death of Arafat, and outlining a series of questions that need to be answered in the coming days: what will the Israelis and the Americans do to restore hope that a just peace is possible? What will the new Palestinian leadership do to strengthen civil society and build democratic institutions? You can read Hasan's letter here.

The announcement has come from Paris that Yasser Arafat is dead. We offer our condolences to his family and all Palestinians who feel his loss. His passing is is certainly the end of an era in the Palestinian resistance movement.

Dan Connell, the founder and former director of Grassroots International, writes frequently on the Horn of Africa.