Members of the +972 team at the toast, standing (right to left): Mairav Zonszein, Dahlia Scheindlin, Joseph Dana, Roi Maor, Aziz abu-Sarah, Dimi Reider, Shir Harel, Noa Yachot, Yuval Ben-Ami & 972's friend Issa Edward Bourseh. Kneeling: Noam Sheizaf, Ami Kaufman, Yossi Gurvitz (photo: Shalom Boguslavsky)
It’s been a bit more than a year since we started working on +972 Magazine, and the site was officially launched last summer. To mark this event, we gathered for a toast in the presence of friends and colleagues on the rooftop of the space belonging to the HaYarkon 70 collective in Tel Aviv (overlooking the US embassy…).
This anniversary is a great opportunity to thank all our readers and followers: Those who commented, sent emails, corrected us, shared our work, argued or supported us – you are the reason we are doing all of this. We write because we care, and we are happy that our voices reach so many people who are just as passionate and engaged as we are.
A special thanks to all the kind people who contributed to our fundraising campaign, which is intended to help us take care of some urgent maintenance and bureaucratic issues (if you want to donate, click on the Paypal icon on the right, or go to this page to read more).
Noam Sheizaf read the following remarks at the toast, on behalf of the entire team:
We’d like to thank all of our friends, colleagues, readers and contributors who have joined us today for our site’s 1st anniversary. Big thanks to the people of the Hayarkon 70 collective, who hosted this event.
+972 was born out of two needs:
The first was the will to sound a new (and mostly young) voice, which will take part in the international debate regarding Israel and Palestine.
The second reason we started the site was professional: Some of us were independent journalists, some of us were working full time in existing media outlets, some of us were in other related professional fields, but we all wanted our own “home” – a place to express ourselves freely, where we control the editorial line, where we could be as controversial, personal, creative, and free as we wish to be.
To achieve this, we came up with a unique model – a Web Magazine that is based entirely on blogs, owned and operated by its writers.
It was clear that the Magazine would have a unique political voice.
Perhaps one of the differences between journalism and blogging is not the field work or professionalism, but the level of personal engagement with the issues one writes about.
+972 writers are politically engaged. Although we have differences within the group on almost every issue, I think I’m not wrong in saying that we all write in support of democracy, freedom of speech, and human rights, and perhaps most importantly, we are committed to political justice and to bringing an end to the occupation, which enters today its 45th year.
In less than a year, +972 Magazine has achieved considerable success – actually, more than we could have dreamed of. Each one of us has thousands of new readers every day, and the site has been mentioned and cited by major news outlets in the US and Europe. It is our pleasure to thank all those who took part in these achievements, maintaining the site on a daily basis, and doing it all completely voluntarily.
We started with a group of six bloggers – right now we are a community of 17 people: writers, editors, a developer, a designer and a legal advisor, who recently joined us.
Before naming them all, I’d like to tell you about the fundraising campaign we started, meant to enable us to support the maintenance costs of the magazine, and to expand its reach. I’d like to thank all those who already donated – many are present here – and if you want to help, check the site for more details.
And now, to the people behind this project:
Our editors: Shir Harel, Noa Yachot and Mairav Zonszein (who is also one of our bloggers)
Our developer and product manager: Ofer Luft
Our designer: Idit Frenkel, who is responsible for the site’s unique look, and cartoonist Eran Mendel for the sketches
Our legal adviser: Jonathan Klinger
Our bloggers (in addition to Mairav, who I mentioned): Ami Kaufman and Dahlia Scheindlin, who are also our op-ed editors; Joseph Dana who spent the day breathing tear gas in Qalandia; Dimi Reider; Yossi Gurvitz; Aziz Abu-Sarah; Lisa Goldman; Roi Maor; Yuval Ben Ami; and Roee Ruttenberg
We would also like to thank all the op-ed writers, those who have supplied translation services, and the Activestills photo agency, which has granted us permission to use its work.
Most importantly – thanks to all our friends here for reading; sharing our work; providing us with feedback, insight and information; and encouraging us to keep going. Without each and every one of you, we couldn’t have made it.
See you all next year!
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ezequiel kopel
excellent work!!. happy birthday!!
Mariano
Happy first year, you smart baby!
annie
happy birthday +972 and thank you for everything.
annie
thanks for the pic too, you all look very beautiful.
illana attali
Thanks for your incredible work, long live +972!
Mark Zivin
Mazel Tov! We’re reading for over here on the West Side of the ocean.
EVA GARCIA
happy birthday! thank you for having us informed
Jon
Blessings on all of you! I’ve learned so much from your bloggers.
Swiss Citizen
The Palestinian Conflict – A Metaphor For understand the problem
Dear Reader . Let’s suppose that you, your wife, your five children and your parents are living in a nice two floor house. Your home has a car box and a small handicraft business attached, a garden, a field and a stable with some cows. It is your family’s property since ages and where you make a living with your handicraft business and by growing crops and farming your cows.
One day a man comes up and asks you if he could stay at your place for some days with his family. You let them in the guest room at the ground floor. He pays you a small rent. As time goes by They (your guest and his relatives) grow bolder and start using your laundry, then your garden, then also your car, and then they stop paying you the rent.
One day your patience comes to end. You call them to order but they threaten you with killing. You’re scared and search shelter at your cousin’s. While you are absent They (the zionists) make themselves comfortable on the first floor. When you are back they don’t let you in. You have no other choice but to stay at the guest room on the ground floor. If you go upstairs to the first floor They hit you. As it wouldn’t be enough, They also shoot at you and kill one of your sons. You call the police, but you’re answered that they have no time.
One day They start using your laboratory. They also expand it. With their ability, their international relations and the underpaid labor of two of your sons they make a small factory out of your former business.
One day relatives of Theirs arrive. They suffered difficult times and are in trouble. Needless to say, you are forced to free the guest room and move to the garage. Your sons have to sleep in a tent and your parents camp on the road.
One day you are so fed up that try to get them out by force: you kill one of their sons, but They fire back and kill another one of your sons, und They also damage your garage and destroy your tent. In the mean time in your home and in the neighborhood any trace of yours has been removed and replaced by the emblem of Their family, which sticks on everything. You call the police (the English), but they don’t know what to do because they also fear Them und they suggest you to go stay at your cousin’s.
One day the issue ends up at court (UN) : unashamed They affirm that the property is theirs because nobody lived there when they arrived, their ancestors already lived there 2000 years ago with the help of God, They transformed the once dry land into a green garden, They created a solid industry and now, thanks to Them, everything is tidy and clean. They do not forget to remind of their brothers who got killed by the gangsters (the Nazists) in a foreign country. You too are a believer, but They, lying, claim that God is on their side, not yours, and yours is but a pure religious dispute.
Considering the current situation and facing the fact that They destroyed the land registers and all kind of documents, the judge “impartially” decides that the house and the laboratory belongs to Them, the garden, the car box, the field and the stable to you.
Them as next they kill the judge’s supervisor (Bernadotte) and raise a fence overnight to prevent you from accessing the stable and the field. You helplessly look at them milking your cows and using your equipment.
You become furious and want to conquer back your house with the help of friends and neighbors (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon). But They fight back and hit everyone, and on top They occupy all the property and the neighbors’ vegetable-gardens (the Sïnai + Golan) to also get their vegetables.
Back again at court the judge grants the permission to your sons to stay in the guest room. You are allowed to stay in the car box, but you have to repair it at your own expense.
They employ to your sons in the stable from time to time.
One day, with the help of a powerful friend (the US), and by alternating threats with the promise of giving back a part of the vegetable-garden, They convince your neighbors to no longer help you. In the meantime They work steadily at your definitive expulsion: to convince you to leave They destroy the car box where you live, check your mail and your phone calls, watch any move of yours, seize your car, smash your TV set…. They finance all of these interventions with the taxes they collect from you to pay Their administration. And as if this is not enough, they also receive an indemnity for the death of their brothers abroad. You are reduced in misery, and They prosper. The judge gives you a tent as a gift and grants a miserable indemnity to your parents, who are living in a temporarily but definitive shelter on the land of one of your neighbors Two of your sons live as good as they can at the ground floor, while your third son has emigrated abroad and sends you at intervals some money.
One day They put a gate at the entry of your garden and one at the entrance of the house. You can neither visit your sons nor your parents; you can not even go to work, to the market, to school or to the hospital. Your parents and your emigrant son are denied entrance. In the meantime, other relatives of Theirs arrive and stay in a camper parked in the garden. Saying that he can became dangerous They kill your faithful dog.
One day you give in and admit your defeat. You renounce to your house and accept it is now Theirs in change of the possibility of living in freedom in the garden and of rebuilding the garage. They say they are glad you finally admitted that They are the legitimate owners of the properties, but they demur on the others subjects. Unfortunately, in the meantime some of Them swear at you, destroy your tent again, chop the olive trees from which you got your income and turn off the water supply. They also generously offer you to settle down in a corner of the garden under their control.
One day, because the situation degenerates and becomes unbearable: you take a gun, shoot at the house and wound one of them. They reply by killing another son of yours, hit you, imprison you in the closet, state that you’re a dangerous terrorist and declare that They no longer talk to you until you get reasonable. And on top of this your wife blames you for your ineptitude and threatens to hit here own road and leave you alone.
One day, at the top of desperation your son starts throwing stones at Them. Their reply with rifles, cannons, bombs, helicopters, tanks, prohibitions, controls, destruction and imprisonment with a high separation wall. The public opinion only gets one-sided information (Their side), think that you’re violent and refuse to help you. Many people, including the judge, keep silent because they are afraid of Their powerful friend, or feel sorry for the slaughter of their brothers in another land.
Someone starts saying that you just create disorder, that helping you is too expensive, that you should have accepted their generous offer and that maybe it would be better that you go away.
Others stigmatize the situation but do not dare an intervention, others simply have no interest.
Dear Reader: if you are in this miserable condition you can be nobody else than a Palestinian.
Who are the other “actors”? They are the zionists, the police are the English during the mandate, the judge is the UN, the people (public opinion) are the international community, the neighbors are Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, their powerful friend the US, the wife is Hamas, …
Now how can we convince Them to give back the stolen goods, or at least allow an acceptable cohabitation?
A Metaphor of the withdrawal from the Gaza strip
In a prison there is a political prisoner* that occupies a small cell but with a sure fascination. For this reason the guardian likes it to survey the prisoner at sight watch by remaining with he in the cell in the hope that a day can arrange of all the cell for its personal use. The prisoner, beyond the privation of the freedom, he has always the guardian between the feet that intimidates it, controls it, creates it difficulty, steals a part of the mess, etc. With the time also the position of the guardian makes itself inconvenient, as an example in the relation with the director of the prison and because he must continuously pay attention from the bad jokes of the prisoner. After a long period of reflection, estimated for and against, the guardian decides that it is better for he to be outside and to watch the prisoner through the small window of the door. Made saying he leaves in the cell much soil and one of its photo** (that the prisoner immediately tear) and transfer himself in the corridor where its presence prevents to the other prisoners to go to the bath. The director announce to the credulous world that now “the prisoner is freer” but understood that the prisoner is dangerous (evidence: he has tear the photo of the guardian and he lance objects from the window) and must remain locked up (he order to reinforce the emergency measures). For the prisoner the situation is a little only more comfortable, but the privative of the freedom with relative submission to the guardian is unchanged and on the whole the prisoners are worse.
(* he is in prison because he has protested when the friends of the director confiscated him his house ; ** the synagogues)
Ezzeddin Hassan
Happy Birthday you guys…i wish you all the best and many returns, keep it up!