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17 mei 2012
We can make peace with Israel, if you can make peace with cancer
By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine
By now, and given Israel's brazen lebensraum policies in the West Bank, along with its Shamelessly bellicose regional behavior, it should be amply clear that reaching a stable, durable and genuine peace with the Jewish state is out of question, at least for the foreseeable future.
Israel is fast becoming a Talmudic state, or a state guided by the pornographically racist Talmudic principles, whereby non-Jews, including billions of Christians and Muslims, are viewed as non-human beings.
Don't be beguiled by the Zionist hasbara, which morphs the black into white and the big lie into a "truth." Pay more attention to what Israel does, not what Israel says, because Israel is intrinsically mendacious. Israel after all is itself a big lie, a gigantic war crime, and a scandalous aberration in the history of humanity.
A prominent Jewish religious leader with hundreds of thousands of loyal followers was audacious enough to claim several months ago that non-Jews were actually donkeys or beasts of burden, created by the Almighty so that they may serve the master race, the chosen people: The Jews.
His remarks, which one would mistake for a quote from Hitler's Mein Kampf, raised no eyebrows in Israel as most Israelis probably thought he was only stating the obvious.
But the real danger goes behind hateful homilies and edicts by Talmudic maniacs.
An even more horrible scenario could occur when the followers of such rabbis and like-minded Israelis take control of Israel's formidable nuclear arsenal.
The prospect of these genocidal fanatics taking command of Israel's stockpile of nuclear bombs and warheads is no longer a matter of "if" but "when" it will happen.
Israel is not what it was in the past, Israel is going Talmudic and it can't be both Talmudic and democratic, regardless of the hasbara rubbish we keep hearing that Israel is both a Jewish and democratic state.
In short, with a lethal combination of political extremism, military pugnacity, a phenomenal armament with conventional and nuclear weapons, which is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the late 1930s, and a virulent religious ideology that differs little from the Nazi doctrine, Israel looks irredeemably fascist.
The facts speak for themselves. By dotting the map of the West Bank with hundreds of Jewish settlements, Israel has effectively decapitated any remaining chances for a possible peaceful arrangement with the vanquished Palestinians, who have been transformed into mere supplicants begging for their rights and dignity.
The building and expansion of these hateful entities, inhabited by the worst thugs under the sun, is often done even in violation of Israeli laws, as was the case in the Ulpana outpost.
And when the government, made up of genocidal rabbis and brashly fascist politicians who think that non-Jews are infra-human beings whose lives have no sanctity and whose rights are expendable, the law is changed overnight to suit the settler thugs and enable them to steal even more Palestinian land in broad daylight.
As to Jerusalem, which a dreamful Palestinian Authority is contemplating making it the capital of a future Palestinian state, it has been nearly completely Judaized as its traditional Arab-Islamic identity has been obliterated.
Meanwhile, Messianic Jewish millenarians are trying to seize the opportunity to demolish the Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam's principle religious shrines.
Moreover, Israel is probably preparing for a massive aggression against Iran's nuclear facilities. Fortunately, such an aggression is unlikely to consign Iran nuclear ambitions to oblivion. On the contrary, a brazen Israeli aggression on Iran might embolden the shrewd and determined Shiite leadership in Tehran to effectively, even openly, produce nuclear weapons if only to counter Israeli aggression and regional hegemony.
Again, Israel is pushing the entire region toward some sort of an Armageddon.
And the moment the jungle logic prevails, and it has been prevailing de facto at least, countries such Egypt and Saudi Arabia and probably Turkey will be under immense pressure to go nuclear as well, or content themselves with the status of marginal regional powers.
The Obama administration is trying to delay a prospective Israeli attack on Iran by a few weeks or months, perhaps until after America's elections in November.
But Israeli leaders have very little respect for America's politicians whom they rightly view as political prostitutes par excellance who can be easily bought off with Jewish money or bullied into silence by overwhelming Jewish political power, e.g. AIPAC.
Hence, an Israeli aggression on Iran must not be ruled out with or without America's consent. After all, Zionist Jews rule or control those who rule America. Needless to say, it is only the stupid and naïve or malicious among the estimated 315 million Americans who don't realize this fact.
There is no doubt that Israel seeks more domination, more hegemony and more territorial aggrandizement. A country that builds hundreds of criminal settlements on occupied land, obviously doesn't desire peace.
Likewise, a country that transfers hundreds of thousands of its citizens to live on land that belongs to another people can not claim to have peace on its national agenda.
Instead, Israel is striving to find distractions and "red herrings" to divert the world's attention from the full-fledged Judeo-Nazi state that Israel is fast becoming.
The diversionary tactics include inventing an imaginary global enemy called "Islamism." This happens at a time when Jewish circles in the West are forging alliances with every fascist group in Europe and North America for the purpose of confronting and maligning the "common enemy," Islam and Muslims, the very people who protected Jews from the peril of extinction at the hands of European Christians in the middle Ages.
Now the Jews are paying off the debt by inciting the gullible and notoriously ignorant Christo-Nazis, also known as evangelical Christians, to wage a global holocaust against Muslims!
I am not inventing things or spreading canards. A fleeting glance at the Israeli press would illustrate the horrible extent of Jewish Islamophobia these days.
To conclude, one must be honest and frank and refrain from mincing words. Israel is a real cancer which if left unchecked will plague the entire region from the Nile to the Euphrates.
And by definition, cancer must be eradicated, or else, it would eradicate you. The writing's on the wall.
http://fwd4.me/112n
We can make peace with Israel, if you can make peace with cancer
By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine
By now, and given Israel's brazen lebensraum policies in the West Bank, along with its Shamelessly bellicose regional behavior, it should be amply clear that reaching a stable, durable and genuine peace with the Jewish state is out of question, at least for the foreseeable future.
Israel is fast becoming a Talmudic state, or a state guided by the pornographically racist Talmudic principles, whereby non-Jews, including billions of Christians and Muslims, are viewed as non-human beings.
Don't be beguiled by the Zionist hasbara, which morphs the black into white and the big lie into a "truth." Pay more attention to what Israel does, not what Israel says, because Israel is intrinsically mendacious. Israel after all is itself a big lie, a gigantic war crime, and a scandalous aberration in the history of humanity.
A prominent Jewish religious leader with hundreds of thousands of loyal followers was audacious enough to claim several months ago that non-Jews were actually donkeys or beasts of burden, created by the Almighty so that they may serve the master race, the chosen people: The Jews.
His remarks, which one would mistake for a quote from Hitler's Mein Kampf, raised no eyebrows in Israel as most Israelis probably thought he was only stating the obvious.
But the real danger goes behind hateful homilies and edicts by Talmudic maniacs.
An even more horrible scenario could occur when the followers of such rabbis and like-minded Israelis take control of Israel's formidable nuclear arsenal.
The prospect of these genocidal fanatics taking command of Israel's stockpile of nuclear bombs and warheads is no longer a matter of "if" but "when" it will happen.
Israel is not what it was in the past, Israel is going Talmudic and it can't be both Talmudic and democratic, regardless of the hasbara rubbish we keep hearing that Israel is both a Jewish and democratic state.
In short, with a lethal combination of political extremism, military pugnacity, a phenomenal armament with conventional and nuclear weapons, which is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the late 1930s, and a virulent religious ideology that differs little from the Nazi doctrine, Israel looks irredeemably fascist.
The facts speak for themselves. By dotting the map of the West Bank with hundreds of Jewish settlements, Israel has effectively decapitated any remaining chances for a possible peaceful arrangement with the vanquished Palestinians, who have been transformed into mere supplicants begging for their rights and dignity.
The building and expansion of these hateful entities, inhabited by the worst thugs under the sun, is often done even in violation of Israeli laws, as was the case in the Ulpana outpost.
And when the government, made up of genocidal rabbis and brashly fascist politicians who think that non-Jews are infra-human beings whose lives have no sanctity and whose rights are expendable, the law is changed overnight to suit the settler thugs and enable them to steal even more Palestinian land in broad daylight.
As to Jerusalem, which a dreamful Palestinian Authority is contemplating making it the capital of a future Palestinian state, it has been nearly completely Judaized as its traditional Arab-Islamic identity has been obliterated.
Meanwhile, Messianic Jewish millenarians are trying to seize the opportunity to demolish the Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam's principle religious shrines.
Moreover, Israel is probably preparing for a massive aggression against Iran's nuclear facilities. Fortunately, such an aggression is unlikely to consign Iran nuclear ambitions to oblivion. On the contrary, a brazen Israeli aggression on Iran might embolden the shrewd and determined Shiite leadership in Tehran to effectively, even openly, produce nuclear weapons if only to counter Israeli aggression and regional hegemony.
Again, Israel is pushing the entire region toward some sort of an Armageddon.
And the moment the jungle logic prevails, and it has been prevailing de facto at least, countries such Egypt and Saudi Arabia and probably Turkey will be under immense pressure to go nuclear as well, or content themselves with the status of marginal regional powers.
The Obama administration is trying to delay a prospective Israeli attack on Iran by a few weeks or months, perhaps until after America's elections in November.
But Israeli leaders have very little respect for America's politicians whom they rightly view as political prostitutes par excellance who can be easily bought off with Jewish money or bullied into silence by overwhelming Jewish political power, e.g. AIPAC.
Hence, an Israeli aggression on Iran must not be ruled out with or without America's consent. After all, Zionist Jews rule or control those who rule America. Needless to say, it is only the stupid and naïve or malicious among the estimated 315 million Americans who don't realize this fact.
There is no doubt that Israel seeks more domination, more hegemony and more territorial aggrandizement. A country that builds hundreds of criminal settlements on occupied land, obviously doesn't desire peace.
Likewise, a country that transfers hundreds of thousands of its citizens to live on land that belongs to another people can not claim to have peace on its national agenda.
Instead, Israel is striving to find distractions and "red herrings" to divert the world's attention from the full-fledged Judeo-Nazi state that Israel is fast becoming.
The diversionary tactics include inventing an imaginary global enemy called "Islamism." This happens at a time when Jewish circles in the West are forging alliances with every fascist group in Europe and North America for the purpose of confronting and maligning the "common enemy," Islam and Muslims, the very people who protected Jews from the peril of extinction at the hands of European Christians in the middle Ages.
Now the Jews are paying off the debt by inciting the gullible and notoriously ignorant Christo-Nazis, also known as evangelical Christians, to wage a global holocaust against Muslims!
I am not inventing things or spreading canards. A fleeting glance at the Israeli press would illustrate the horrible extent of Jewish Islamophobia these days.
To conclude, one must be honest and frank and refrain from mincing words. Israel is a real cancer which if left unchecked will plague the entire region from the Nile to the Euphrates.
And by definition, cancer must be eradicated, or else, it would eradicate you. The writing's on the wall.
http://fwd4.me/112n
- 10 febr 2011
Egypt's Focus Largely Ignores Palestine
by Stephen Lendman
In fact, repression throughout the Middle East is largely ignored except some reporting on protests in Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, and Algeria, but they've faded with focus mainly on Egypt.
Though important, most Arabs live in 21 other countries and territories from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Horn of Africa and Indian Ocean on two continents. Their combined populations approach 340 million people, most of them denied freedom and dignity for centuries.
Their plight stretched from Ottoman 16th century rule through WW I, then British and French control, and now America and Israel. They're ruling hegemon partners, mainly Washington, of course, allied with its key regional partner. Together, they virulently oppose Arab nationalism and democratic freedoms. Edward Said once explained that:
"The basic premise of Arab nationalism in the broad sense is that, with all their diversity and pluralism of substance and style, the people whose language and culture are Arab and Muslim (the Arabic-speaking peoples) constitute a nation and not just a collection of states scattered between North Africa and the western boundaries of Iran."
However, any "independent articulation of that premise was openly attacked," by the French, British, Americans, and Israelis through wars and repressive occupation and dispossession of indigenous Palestinian people.
Washington and Israel especially remain deeply hostile to Arab nationalism and attempts to unify Arabs politically. Their goal, in fact, is divide, conquer and control, redrawing the Middle East to suit imperial, not Arab interests. They thrive on "Arab fragmentation, collective inaction, and military and economic weakness," Said explained.
He also said Arabs largely never achieved collective independence in "whole or in part" because outside powers coveted their lands and resources. For over half a century, in fact, Washington based its Middle East agenda on three policies:
*supporting Israel;
*controlling regional oil supplies; and
*assuring Arab states remain reliable vassals, Egypt especially as the region's lynchpin but also Palestine under leaders it controls along with Israel.
Said called it "an unprecedented crisis. Unprecedented means are therefore required to confront" what he said was "a wholesale attack....by an imperial power, America, that acts in concert with Israel, to pacify, subdue, and finally reduce (Arab peoples) to a bunch of warring fiefdoms whose first loyalty is not to their people but to the great superpower" under puppet rulers enriching themselves at their expense.
Kings do it. Shekh leaders do it. Mubarak did it, and so don't Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayyad and other key Palestinian Authority (PA) fellow travelers, profiting at their own people's expense as reliable Israeli enforcers.
In fact, they cooperate actively in pursuing, facilitating, or ignoring systematic attacks against civilians and property in Occupied Palestinian communities. As a result, a typical week resembles late January through early February, including:
*PA security forces arresting targeted figures, including Hamas members;
* Israeli settlers, with impunity, killing two Palestinian civilians, wounding a third in Nablus and Hebron;
*an IDF explosive killing a Gaza child;
*its forces targeting Palestinian workers, farmers, children and fishermen in Gazan waters;
*using brute force against peaceful protesters, causing injuries and at times deaths;
*bombing tunnels south of Rafah numerous times, causing more of them;
*other bombings of a Gaza medicine factory, setting it ablaze, and attacking a metal workshop in northern Gaza; at least 10 injuries overall were reported;
*announced plans for an electric security barrier to wall off Egypt; and
*Israel forces making 31 lawless incursions into Palestinian West Bank communities, arresting 23 civilians, including seven children and a PA representative.
Moreover, Gaza remains besieged over seven months after Israel's Security Cabinet's decision to ease closure. As a result, reconstruction is severely impeded, including the rebuilding of schools, hospitals, residential neighborhoods, and vital civilian infrastructure.
In addition, food insecurity as well as high unemployment and poverty rates remain major concerns. Also, virtually all exports are banned, exacerbating dire economic conditions, worsened because Israel severely restricts entry of humanitarian organizations, international diplomats, journalists, and others wanting to assess conditions or help.
In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, daily life involves severe movement and speech restrictions, including 585 permanent roadblocks, manned and unmanned checkpoints, and closure or militarized control of around two-thirds of all main roads between 18 Palestinian communities. Overall, about 500 km of West Bank roads are restricted, and about one-third of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is inaccessible to Palestinians without IDF-issued (very hard to get) permits.
This is how police states work, daily responsible for crimes against humanity, especially against those who dare resist. As a result, Palestinians suffer grievously, largely out of sight and mind, more than ever perhaps with world attention on Egypt.
For them, daily life involves militarized repression, police state harshness even more brutal than Mubarak's because the entire population suffers, especially besieged Gazans, suffocating under near total closure for over three and a half years, except for restricted exceptions.
On February 7, IRIN, OCHA's humanitarian news and analysis service said Egypt's uprising exacerbated Gaza's humanitarian crisis because Rafah crossing and tunnels have been closed. It explained that:
"The problem is getting fuel to the border inside Egypt. There are no military forces on the Egyptian side....so smugglers are getting hijacked on the road from Cairo and all their stuff (is) stolen. It's very dangerous for them...."
"There is nothing coming through the tunnels now." Only limited fuel amounts are available at triple the recent price. Without relief, it means "no cars, but also no electricity," that's already in short supply, forcing widespread use of fuel-powered generators.
Hospitals are also affected. Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest, has less than a week's supply of fuel, creating a potentially critical situation. A senior intensive care unit nurse expressed great concern, saying:
"This unit, especially, is entirely dependent on electricity. If there's a power cut we have to operate the ventilators manually before the generator kicks in. There are power cuts here for four hours every day. It will be impossible to keep people alive without our generators - the monitors, the ventilators, everything - will be gone."
Bassam Abu Hamad, a senior Gaza health consultant, also said greater closure puts lives at risk, adding;
"People in need of radiotherapy, and advanced surgery in particular, are simply unable to get treatment. While Rafah is closed, we will see increased loss of life here in Gaza."
Already prices have skyrocketed, affecting fuel, food, other consumer goods, and the limited amounts of available building materials.
On February 9, IRIN said tunnels resumed supplying petrol, a week after it was cut off. However, Egypt's crisis means everything is uncertain, including high prices making vital supplies unaffordable for many. In addition, Rafah remains closed, affecting patients unable to reach Egypt for treatment. WHO's Gaza officer in charge, Mahmoud Daher said:
"In cases of closure, like we're seeing now," patients without Israeli permits to leave "struggle to get adequate health care in Gaza. The longer Rafah remains closed, the higher the possibility that these patients' prognosis will be affected. This is a very worrying situation." It promises to stay that way as Egypt's uprising shows no signs of ebbing.
On February 9, Al Jazeera said Egyptian labor unions went on nationwide strike, supporting street protesters. Around 20,000 factory workers were involved. Demonstrators held signs saying "Closed until the fall of the regime."
Correspondent Stefanie Dekker said there's "even an Internet campaign aimed at mobilizing thousands of expatriates to return and support the uprising." Activist Ahmad Salah told Al Jazeera that protesters are "more emboldened by the day....This is a growing movement, it's not shrinking."
Whether or not Egyptians prevail, besieged Gazans face increasing hardships heading toward crisis conditions if essential supplies and services remain spotty or unaffordable. Yet media reports largely ignore them. Even Al Jazeera offers only occasional accounts.
A brief February 9 one headlined, "Egypt events spark Gaza fuel panic," saying Gazans scrambled to make due best they can in coverage running barely over two minutes compared to hours devoted to Egypt.
It's nothing new for Palestinians. They've suffered mostly in silence. Major media coverage largely ignored them for decades, except during two Intifadas and Israeli wars when unjustly they were called terrorists, not heroic freedom fighters, struggling for rights long denied them.
They still do out of sight and mind in most Western societies, especially Americans given carefully filtered managed news, infotainment and junk food news. It leaves large majorities out of touch and uninformed, believing fantasies opposite of realities, including aggressive wars called liberating ones against people only yearning to be free.
A Final Comment
It's no exaggeration saying millions across North African and Middle East countries harbor decades of pent up anger, expressed powerfully by courageous Egyptians after 16 days of protest showing no signs of ebbing. It's also true that Washington maneuvers plan new faces under old policies, creating the impression of change, a longstanding scheme initiated numerous previous times, usually successfully, and odds favor it this time.
As a result, it's hard distinguishing between pro and anti-reformists pretending to want change, perhaps including made for television heros. The latest one comes to mind without knowing whether or not he's credible. At least, be wary. Accept nothing at face value. What's portrayed publicly may be more fiction than fact, so viewers should demand proof. Without it, remember numerous past times manufactured heros were fakes, but don't conclude it arbitrarily.
The latest one comes to mind - Wael Ghonim, Google's regional head of marketing the New York Times called "emotive and handsome....the movement's icon," quoting Professor Ibrahim el-Bahrawy (a former ruling party member) saying, "His emotions exploded. I was very, very moved."
Who, in fact, is Ghonim, a fair question since he practically emerged out of thin air, and overnight become a prime catalyst of revolt? He's Google's Middle East/North Africa head of marketing, who in January, created the Facebook "We Are All Khaled Said" page, honoring the young Egyptian blogger beaten to death by police last June.
Operated anonymously as "El Shaheed" (the martyr), the page helped rally anti-government protests beginning on January 25. On January 27, Ghonim went missing, his same day Twitter feed saying:
"Pray for Egypt. Very worried as it seems that government is planning a war crime tomorrow against people. We are all ready to die Jan.25."
For days, no one knew his whereabouts until learned authorities held him. On February 7, 12 days later, he emerged unharmed, and on Dream 2, a private Egyptian channel, gave a highly emotional interview, admitting he administered the Facebook page.
He also created Mohammed ElBaradei's official web site, the former IAEA head who suddenly parachuted into Egypt after living outside his native country for 30 years. Did he come voluntarily, or was he brought, perhaps serving America's imperial agena, another unanswered question.
For many in them, Egypt's jails operate like roach motels, those entering disappear after lengthy torture/ interrogations. Ghonim, however, said he wasn't harmed, just kept blindfolded incommunicado, his family unaware what happened.
After release, he said many others contributed to the Facebook page, adding, "This was a revolution of the youth of all of Egypt. I'm not a hero," endearing him to protesters.
Though so far no evidence suggests it, at issue is whether a Google executive "Internet activist," in fact, was enlisted for his role. If so, it wouldn't be the first time made-for-television heros were, in fact, villains. Hopefully, he's not the latest, but be wary until known for sure.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m74834&hd=&size=1&l=e 18 mar 2011, 01:43 , Respect -
Maria 17 mrt 2011
Murdering Babies is "Permissible" When They're Palestinian
By ALISON WEIR
US media have been widely and repeatedly reporting on the awful March 11 murder of three small Israeli children and their parents. While no one yet knows who committed this act, reports presume that the murderers were Palestinian, and for this reason the incident is receiving major attention. Various heads of state, including President Obama, have condemned it.
If it turns out that the murderer or murderers were Israeli, as some previously presumed "terrorists" have turned out to be, or a foreign worker who had previously threatened the family over unpaid wages, as some reports from the area suggest, it is likely that coverage of the incident will quickly vanish from U.S. headlines.
For now, however, American news reports continue to provide excruciating details about the atrocity. Given the amount of reportage, it is surprising how much significant information is omitted.
For example, none of these reports mention that the location of the murders, Itamar (near Nablus), is an illegal Jewish-only settlement on stolen Palestinian land in the midst of refugees whom Israel pushed off their ancestral land through massacres and ruthless military actions.
Nor do reports mention the frequency with which Israeli settlers beat, occasionally torture, and sometimes murder Palestinians of all ages, burn their crops, and hack down their groves of olive trees, the livelihood of many Palestinian villagers; hundreds, at least, of these trees, have been destroyed by rampaging Israeli settlers.
Religious extremism
Even lengthy articles on the tragic incident fail to mention the extremely relevant and chillingly ironic fact that Itamar was founded and is largely populated by fanatic Jewish extremists, many of whom believe that the killing of non-Jewish infants is religiously permitted, and sometimes mandated, as discussed in a best-selling book The King's Torah, which was written by authors from the area and endorsed by numerous rabbis and religious schools (but opposed by most Israelis).
In their elaborate descriptions of the murder scene, U.S. articles neglect to mention that the building next door is the house of Chabad Lubavitch emissaries, a Hassidic movement in Orthodox Judaism, and features a photo of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known for his astoundingly supremacist teachings.
Schneerson is widely revered by such settlers (and his followers in the U.S.); many believed him to have been the messiah. In their book Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, professors Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky quote Schneerson's teachings about the differences between Jews and non-Jews:
We do not have a case of profound change in which a person is merely on a superior level. Rather, we have a case of let us differentiate between totally different species. This is what needs to be said about the body: the body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality from the body of [members] of all nations of the world...A non-Jew's entire reality is only vanity The entire creation [of a non-Jew] exists only for the sake of the Jews...
Which children matter?
Finally, news reports on the abhorrent Itamar murders fail to mention the frequent, tragic, and equally abhorrent killing of massive numbers of Palestinian children by Israelis.
For example, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Itamar incident was the deadliest such attack against Jewish settlers in the area since 2002, but didn't bother to report that there have been numerous deadly attacks on Palestinians in the area in the intervening years, that dozens of Palestinian minors have been killed, many more injured and maimed, and even more Palestinian mothers, fathers, and grandparents killed.
This viewpoint is typical of U.S. media. Statistical studies show that primetime network news shows report on Israeli children's deaths at rates up to 14 times greater than they report on Palestinian children's deaths; regional newspapers report Israeli deaths at even more disproportionate rates.
Palestinian deaths are therefore often virtually invisible to American news consumers, even though they occurred first and are far greater in number.
In the round of violence that began in fall 2000, over 90 Palestinian children were killed before a single Israeli child; in total, approximately 1,500 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis, and approximately 130 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians during this period.
Since American media, in stark contrast to coverage of the Itamar victims, so rarely report on Palestinian victims and their weeping families, or provide details of their grisly deaths, at the end of this article is a partial list of these young, largely disappeared victims.
While this very incomplete list does little to balance the moving, detailed reporting on Israeli children's deaths found in U.S. news media, and completely ignores the even greater number of children grieving for parents killed by Israeli forces, publishing it here at least provides the names of Palestinian victims, a rarity in American media coverage.
A few years ago an Israeli army officer emptied, at close range, the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl. Afterward he said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old. Because so many of his underlings reported this particular incident, he was eventually tried in an Israeli military court but on minor offenses, not murder. He was acquitted of all charges.
It is hard to imagine the feelings of Americans if these were our children and if we were suffering this degree of unbearable loss. The population in the Palestinian Territories is less than 1/90th the population of the U.S.; there is hardly a Palestinian family that has not experienced tragedy.
Because Israel partisans consistently screen out the mass of significant information on this issue, and other editors, perhaps through ignorance, negligence, and/or timidity, go along, Americans receive the kind of highly filtered, lying-through-omission journalism that is so effectively creating fear, hatred, and ignorance of Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims and that perpetuates the uniquely massive flow of American money to Israel, currently over $8 million per day. Israel, with a population of seven million, is reportedly about to ask for an additional $20 billion.
Regarding the as-yet unsolved murder of three children in Itamar, President Obama pronounced: There is no justification and there can be neither excuse nor forgiveness for the murder of children. I expect a similar condemnation, and I demand a similar condemnation, from the Palestinian Authority.
Perhaps someday President Obama will have the integrity and the courage to make the same pronouncement about the murders of Palestinian children, and address it to the Israeli government.
A partial list of Palestinian Children Killed by Israelis
The following information is taken from Remember These Children, [ which works to document all Israeli and Palestinian children who have been killed, in the belief, sadly not shared by the U.S. media, that all of these children matter.
In the list below, IDF stands for Israeli Defense Forces, an offensive, occupying force; Incursion refers to an invasion of Palestinian land by Israeli military forces. To reiterate: this is a partial list of children mostly 13 and under of the approximately 1,500 Palestinian minors killed by Israeli forces in the past 11 years; during the same period Palestinians killed about 130 Israeli minors.
http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.com/2011/03/murdering-babies-is-permissible-when.html (also the names of the children)
22 mrt 2011
Rape, occupation and racism all a day's work in Israel
I got to the office minutes before the judges handed down their sentence. It was just enough time for my colleagues to gather in my office and bet how much our former President, Moshe Katsav, would get for being a serial rapist. http://bit.ly/dEuaK0
He raped women when he was Minister of Tourism. Between trips abroad, promoting tourism for Israel, thinking up campaigns to bring tourists to the holy sites, fighting for his ministry's budget, between all that Katsav had one thing on his mind: Man, that secretary is fine! I gotta get a piece of that!.
He sexually harassed women when he was President of Israel. Citizen Number One. Between shaking the hands of prime ministers and kings, accepting letters of credential from new ambassadors, sitting shiva with families of terror attack victims, between all that Katsav had one thing on his mind: Man, my personal assistant is hot! I wonder if I can do her in my office!
When the judges found him guilty a few months ago, they used harsh words. Which is why I thought they'd be hard with him now with the sentencing, too. But others thought they'd go easy on him, because after all, he was president once.
And when I mean hard, I mean what a rapist would usually get. Eight years would be considered severe here in Israel. Easy would be around four.
He got seven. Seven years for causing eternal damage. To numerous women.
But hey, what should I expect from the Israeli justice system, that just to weeks ago handed down a fine of 1,000 shekels to a drunk driver who seriously injured a young girl and crippled her for life, turning her into a vegetable. http://bit.ly/ehoTgx
Palin gets lost
Sarah Palin is visiting Israel. I would usually have a lot of fun with a topic like this, but I've been pretty preoccupied lately.
But still, one has to say something about her notorious geographical skills. Apparently, she was on her way to Bethlehem today, only to turn around at an IDF checkpoint because she didn't know it was in occupied territory. http://bit.ly/eDiwCQ
I even heard that after dinner with Netanyahu last night, she told reporters she could see Iran from his balcony.
Oops, sorry! We killed some kids!
As the day proceeds, I see on the web that things are heating up in the south. They shoot rockets and mortars, we shoot artillery and drop bombs.
Oops, we killed an 11 year old and 16 year old. Sorry! http://bit.ly/fvXhCf
Trespassing my way home
Work is finally over. As I drive back home through Jaffa, I can't help shake the feeling I get every time I drive through I feel like a tresspasser.
On the radio they're playing Hadag Nachash. Although I'm agnostic, I do thank God for Hadag Nachash. They're basically the only guys in this place doing protest music. The song is I believe. Here are a few lines:
I believe that as of today
our responsibility for not achieving peace
is great and significant just as much
as all our neighboring countries
and I also believe that we're going around in circles
that there's no chance that another war will help
and that all the talk on fighting terror
is just to impress the enlightened world
I believe we should invest in education
That our priorities should be just the opposite
that the executive salaries are outrageous
that the Kirya should be moved
I believe there's no equality here
that the racism inside us will bring a disaster
that if we don't do something, we won't understand
and we won't be able to celebrate another 60 years
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTkmOPkuIpo
I had the privilege of seeing these guys in concert. They were amazing. And what was even more amazing, was that all these kids around me, these teenagers and twenty somethings, were screaming the lines you just read, by heart. Singing left-wing (or at least left leaning) lyrics with all strength they could muster.
That concert made me feel good. It gave me hope.
But I still felt like I was a visitor in Jaffa.
Nakba, shmakba
As I write these lines, the Knesset is about to pass two bills http://bit.ly/ee98bI which I and my colleagues here have written about extensively on +972. One of them is the bill that will legalize acceptance committees in communal settlements in the Galilee and Negev. These committees can say no to you if you don't fit with their social fabric, or shall I say, cramp their style, or to put it really bluntly if you're Arab. Or gay.
The other law is the Nakba law, which will bar organizations from receiving public funding if they are undermining the foundations of the state and contradict its values.
I'm too tired to think of anything new to say about this. Honestly.
Those Japs had it coming!
And then, Ynet tells us why the tsunami happened. Apparently, according to an important rabbi who goes by the name of Rabbi David Tabersky, it's because Japan has incarcerated two of his pupils for drug dealing. The Japanese don't get why they're being hit again and again. If they want this to stop, they should free the two boys jailed there, and then they will see salvation. http://bit.ly/ftX1fN
What a day...
http://bit.ly/h5LaYt 13 apr 2011, 11:17 , Respect -
Maria 2 apr 2011
Incitement and violence: A week on the Israeli slippery slope
How much farther down can we slide? Oh, I fear there's still a long way down from here. After all, so far, our skin heads and settlers only beat up Arabs. Lots more to look forward to, no?
By Dror Feuer | Published originally on Globes, translated from Hebrew and linked by Shir Harel. http://fwd4.me/yqL
A. Nice week we had, huh? The sun was shining, in Jerusalem we discovered dozens of skin heads with Rabbi Kahane shirts who attack Arabs, http://fwd4.me/yqM an ifantry soldier'' s cell phone revealed photos and videos documenting abuse of Arabs, including children: The soldiers forced them to dance and sing children's songs. I put my hands up, on my head, on my shoulders, and clap one two three. Settlers continued to exact price tag after price tag from Palestinians. Dozens of cases in only the last several days. They throw stones, they beat people up, and not only with their hands but with iron rods too. They stab, they uproot trees, they burn cars, they light sheep on fire. Yes, you read that right. And not only in the occupied territories, but throughout the country. And not only settlers, by the way.
Evidence about pogroms against Arabs are piling up and adding up, in Bnei Brak, Safed, http://fwd4.me/yqN everywhere really, and Official Israel does nothing. Sometimes the police's excuse for why they don't arrest rioters is that they don't want to contribute to a flare-up in the area. Yes, that's exactly what they say.
Judea and Samaria Division Commander Brigadier General Nitzan Alon said that price tag events are not based on values. That's just brilliant. Maybe he could try just a little harder to come up with a more hollow and cowardly statement? Not based on values. What a pathetic joke.
But the truth is that Brigadier General Alon is wrong and also misleading: The price tag events that are washing over the country like a tsunami of sewage are extraordinarily values-driven. They are a direct result of a system of values which is based on hate, racism and a twisted sense of justice.
Does anyone really think the perpetrators of price tag do it because they're having fun? No, these aren't those empty youth who inhale air conditioner gas and drink vodka Red Bulls from open car trunks in parking lots and then stab each other. Nope, they are the most values-driven people around. All they have is their values. The problem is their values.
And speaking of values, even our Prime Minister, someone who knows a lot about values, said that this was a complete distortion of the concept of civil protest, the concept of human morality and the spirit of Jewish justice. Beautiful words, no doubt, I only wish they were worth anything.
This week the Jerusalem District Court convicted settler Zvi Struck, 28, whose mother calls him Zviki' of kidnapping and abusing a 15-year-old Palestinian boy while he was bound. http://fwd4.me/yqO You should read the verdict, it's lovely weekend reading, really. Struck, one of our finest sons, not only abused the child, but also killed one of his goats. By kicking it. No, I tell you, those Palestinians, they're simply animals.
And this all just comes and goes with little commotion, that's the beautiful thing with this story. The court sentenced little sweetie Zviki to 18 months in prison, before deduction of a third, and ordered him to pay the victim 50 thousand shekels. I'm sure that if the scenario were reversed, and a Palestinian had handcuffed, beaten and abused a 15-yr old settler more than once, the sentence would be just as a light.
B. The important thing is that we good and gave it to Yoram Arbel and Amos Oz. What are they thinking, these two old Ashkenazis, that they can just go ahead and say whatever comes to their mind? They should be ashamed! Amos Oz dedicated a book Marwan Barghouti. Maybe he should have dedicated the book to Baruch Goldstein, and they wouldn't have had to cancel the conference at Assaf Harofeh http://fwd4.me/yqP Medical Center that he was slated to speak at. And Yoram Arbel, if only he had dedicated the soccer game http://fwd4.me/yqQ to Eden Abergil http://fwd4.me/yqR and not Anat Kamm, everything would've been ok.
Has anyone even dreamed of suspending even for two days one of the illustrious rabbis that regularly calls for the harming of soldiers, or justifies murder, or belittles the state, or supports a convicted rapist? Of course, this isn't on the agenda, and meanwhile these rabbis have even been able to influence the Prime Minister to appoint a Shin Bet head that's to their liking. http://fwd4.me/yqS
Yes, I know that now I should pay lip service and say that Barghouti is a murdering scum and that I condemn (as Arbel did, by the way) what Anat Kamm did. But I don't condemn what Anat Kamm did http://fwd4.me/yqT . Kamm helped the public see what its army is doing in its name in the territories, how it kills and bombs, against the law. But the public doesn't want to know about this, it wants to watch football, and it wants Yoram Arbel to keep his mouth shut.
Anat Kamm broke the law. Wow, suddenly we are nation of laws? And what about the laws that the settlers break every day? Let%u2019s see this law directed with the same intensity and determination towards the Right too. This week the media published a story about ten activists, who following the bombing in Jerusalem, knocked on the door of the Deputy State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan's house, a man they hate. There was no violence, lucky, they even received an invitation to meet with him in his office. It was all over with good humor.
How do you think the incident would have ended if ten leftists had come, following a demonstration in Bil'in, and knocked on the door of the head of the Shin Bet? Tell you one thing, friends, it wouldn't end with an invitation to a meeting. At most, a meeting with the infamous George. http://fwd4.me/yqU
C. This is the Unofficial Israel. What Official Israel did this week we also know:
The Nakba law, http://fwd4.me/yqW
the acceptance committee law, http://fwd4.me/yqX
the citizenship law. http://fwd4.me/yqY
The important thing is that Netanyahu continued to demand that the Palestinian Authority to stop the incitement. http://fwd4.me/yqZ Because I tell you, again, those Palestinians are simply animals, they overflow with hatred and prejudice, they are racist and murderous, and there is not, I tell you, there is absolutely no partner.
Every time someone abroad says something against Jews or against Israel, the state jumps up, demands condemnation, dismissal and what not. But what about us? Why we, we're allowed to do anything, because we are the only democracy in the Middle East. If any other country had created legislation preventing Jews from remembering the destruction of the Temple, for example, one could only imagine the holy anger that would arise around here. But really, how can you even compare, I mean those Palestinians, etc.
D. So can anyone really still claim that we are not a racist state, an apartheid state, a state that's violent, full of hatred, discrimination, and exclusion? A paranoid state, in which citizenship is conditional, that in it memory is allowed only under certain conditions? That the right to live in this state is only for Jews, a country where a policeman can perform a physical search on a citizen just because he feels like it (that's of course only if you're not a Jerusalemite skin head who loves Kahane, in that case a search would only serve to flare up the scene, and who wants a flare up? We just want some quiet here), a state that's made shutting people's mouths one of its main activities, the rock of its existence? Yes, this is where we live.
The slope is slippery and we are sliding down fast. Our main problem is that the silent majority continues to be silent. Even in the Knesset, more than half of MKs didn't even bother to vote on the laws mentioned above. Some, like Tzipi Livni or Ehud Barak, even dare to see themselves as belonging to the peace camp. These are the same people who allow the likes of Itamar Ben Gvir and Baruch Marzel, and other racists to do here as they see fit. This is our main shame.
E. How much farther down can we slide? Oh, I fear there's still a long way down from here. After all, so far, our skin heads and settlers only beat up Arabs. After all, in the meantime people like me and you can still speak their minds not that it does anything but we can still speak it. There's still plenty of room for us to slide down into. And it seems like we're heading in that direction. Lots more to look forward to, no? How great that daylight savings time has begun and now there's an extra hour every day to destroy this country.
http://fwd4.me/yqK
NATO's Hypocritical Role in World Affairs
By Mitri I. Musleh
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), also called the North Atlantic Alliance , is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty in which was signed on the 4th of April, 1949. The organization was designed to form a system of collective defence whereby its members agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party. NATO has 28 member state countries.
On March 17, 2011, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 1973 which called for a ceasefire in Libya and authorized a military action to protect civilians. On March 24, 2011, NATO agreed to take control of the no-fly zone from the initial coalition headed by the United States, a far cry from being a collective defence force, considering that the struggle in Libya did not constitute an external attack on NATO.
My intent of writing this article is not meant to judge NATO's response to the events taking place in Libya and in no way, I support old and warn out dictatorships in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world. As a matter of fact, I rather promote and support such positive international interference to protect the Libyan civilians from a tyrant leader that is committed the destruction of his people. I further promote such military interference by NATO, the UN and other members of the world community to prevent injustices being carried out against civilians in the world.
Having said this and as I look around to events taking place in the globe, I find it ironic and extremely disturbing how NATO, the United Nations and all other states of the world allow themselves to stand idle as they turn a blind eye to the injustices Israel is committing against the Palestinian people who are helpless, untrained, leaderless, forgotten and of no match to Israel's war machine.
The Palestinian people, young and old, are being gravely punished by Israel for a crime that was committed against the Jews by the Germans. For over sixty years, the Palestinian people, whether living in diaspora, under direct and brutal Israeli occupation, or living in refugee camps on the charity of the United Nations at a cost of ten cents per day per person, have endured the most inhumane of people's treatment. On daily basis, they are held captive in the largest out-door prison in history.
They are also denied the most basic of human rights other people take for granted. They have been denied the freedom of movements, to and from and their place of employment, schools, mosques and churches. They have been robbed of their freedom of speech as the Israeli army, indiscriminately blow up their homes and confiscate their land making it easier to accommodate the construction of Israel's illegal settlements. On a daily basis, Israel invades Palestinian homes, roads and skies and they often ration Palestinian's drinking water so the few illegal Israeli settlers can swim.
Since NATO and the UN are risking war to prevent a speculative slaughter of Libya's civilians by the oppressive leadership of Libya, shouldn't NATO and the UN risk a war to stop the slaughter of the Palestinians populace on the hands of the oppressive leadership of Israel?
http://fwd4.me/yqI 13 apr 2011, 11:29 , Respect -
Maria 9 apr 2011
Israel returns to its characteristic Nazi mode
By Khalid Amayreh
Once again, Israel is having a free season on the Palestinian people. In less than 48 hours, Israel has murdered as many as 20 Palestinians, most of them innocent civilians. Israel uses the most advanced and most lethal arms in the American arsenal to wreak death and havoc on an essentially unarmed and unprotected civilian population. Heavy artillery shells are often fired into heavily populated neighborhoods, with predictable consequences.
News reports from the Gaza Strip speak of White Phosphorus bombs being used again Gaza civilians. Israel heavily used this lethal type of death agent during its Nazi-like blitzkrieg on Gaza more than two years ago, incinerating many people and causing untold death.
None the less, the strange and conspicuous absence of world anger and condemnation seems to have emboldened the Judeo-Nazi state to commit more crimes.
More to the point, the recent statements by South African Judge Richard Goldstone, which partially vindicated Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 2008-9 blitzkrieg seem to have convinced the Zionist leadership that no matter how many innocent Palestinians Israel may murder knowingly and deliberately, the apartheid Zionist entity will be always exonerated, thanks to American complicity and acquiescence.
Israel claims that its ongoing criminal aggression on Gaza has been a response to an attack by Hamas on an Israeli bus on 7 April, in which two Israelis were injured, one critically.
However, this is an obscene lie.
The nearly empty bus itself was moving in a military Zone which made it a legitimate target for the Palestinian resistance, especially when Israel kept killing Palestinians civilians regardless of the resistance.
This means that the attack on the bus, which Hamas said was not intended to harm Israeli children, was a response to earlier Israeli attacks which killed many innocent Palestinians.
For example, on Friday 1 April, Israel assassinated a 24-year-old member of a Palestinian resistance faction. The next day, the Israeli air force murdered three members of the same resistance group.
Similarly, on Tuesday, April 5, Israeli forces shot dead an innocent Palestinian in Northern Gaza . And on Wednesday, April 6, at dawn, Israeli forces bombarded Gaza in three air strikes, injuring four people, including two women (one of them pregnant) and a child.
On the same day, April 6, hundreds of Gazan children participated in a march, appealing to the international community to protect them against virtually daily Israeli raids and attacks.
Now, since April 7, the Israeli occupation army has killed as many as 20 Palestinians, mostly innocent men, women and children, at the pretext that an Israeli teenager or two were injured.
Dozens of other Palestinian civilians were also injured in these raids by the state-of-the art of the Israeli machine of death, such as F-16 fighter jets and the apache helicopter gunship.
This chronology of events proves beyond doubt that Israel has a fixed policy of attacking and killing innocent Palestinian civilians regardless of any Palestinian provocations.
Hamas has said repeatedly that it is not interested in a new round of war with the Zionist regime. After all, Gazans have not fully overcome the consequences of the last war and certainly have been unable to rebuild what the Israeli war machines destroyed during that criminal war.
However, Gazans will never surrender to Zionist aggression no matter how many Gazans are martyred in this long and bitter conflict with the Judeo-Nazi regime which thrives and prospers on violence and bloodshed.
It is true that the current circumstances in the world are not in the Palestinians' favor. However, this should never mean that Israel will be able to wrest from Hamas now what the Israeli army couldn't wrest during the murderous blitzkrieg more than two years ago, namely a sort of capitulation to Zionist whims and arrogance of power.
It is uncertain whether Israel is planning to re-occupy Gaza , even for a brief period of time.
However, there is no doubt that the current Israeli government, the most extremist and fascist in Israel's history, would like to achieve a number of tactical goals by waging another wave of bloody aggression on the thoroughly brutalized people of Gaza.
These include achieving a high degree of deterrent vis-à-vis Palestinian resistance groups, especially Hamas. This deterrence eroded to a certain degree in recent weeks as Palestinian resistance factions sought to respond to Israeli provocations by firing projectiles onto Israeli-held territory every time Israel waged a new aggression against the Gaza Strip.
Israel also hopes to keep Palestinians under constant psychological pressure by keeping them in a constant state of vulnerability.
In the final analysis, Israel wants the Palestinians to suffer silently and die or more correctly be killed quietly or as quietly as possible, and not even cry out in the faces of their killers and tormentors.
Needless to say, this is not the behavior of a state that is interested in peace or even any acceptable modus vivendi with its neighbors.
It is a state that can't survive without spilling blood and killing innocent human beings.
As such, this state is effectively digging its grave with its own hands. I have no doubt that the demise and downfall of Israel will be dramatic and thundering, at least in proportion to its arrogance and insolence.
http://fwd4.me/zKz
13 apr 2011
Israel's uneven justice
By Mya Guarnieri
Last week, Israeli immigration police arrested and deported a three-year-old boy, born and raised in Israel.
The toddler was detained and expelled to the Philippines along with his mother, M, who is pregnant. The children's father is a migrant worker from Thailand who was deported several months ago. Distance and poverty makes it unlikely that the family, torn apart by the state of Israel, will be reunited.
This is just one heartrending story that has surfaced as the Israeli government steps up its current efforts to ensure a "Jewish and democratic" state by deporting non-Jewish, Israeli-born children of migrant workers, along with their parents.
In addition to the forced separation between herself and the father of her children, M faces another problem she has not spent enough time working overseas to pay back the loan she took to cover the $5,000 fee the employment agency charged for arranging work in Israel. While the law mandates that employment agencies can charge no more than 30,50 shekels (about $900) for this service, a tremendous majority of agencies charge between $5,000 and $20,000.
The few Israelis that dare defend the deportation and there aren't many sometimes argue that this isn't about the children or demographics. They say that this is about enforcing the law.
So let's talk about the law. We could discuss the 2007 Israeli Supreme Court ruling that ordered the army to reroute the separation barrier that slices through the Palestinian village of Bil'in a ruling the state continues to ignore.
Or we could discuss the siege on Gaza, which is illegal according to the Geneva Convention.
In fact, the blockade brings us right back to M's deportation. Just like her encounter with the Israel justice system, the siege on Gaza didn't begin, suddenly, in 2006. The closure was gradual; the restrictions on Palestinian movement began during the First Intifada. And it was then that Israel, dependent on inexpensive labor, began to replace Palestinian day laborers with migrant workers.
Today, it's the same state that prevents farmers in Bil'in from reaching their land and that keeps the people of Gaza locked in an open air prison, which also denies migrant workers the human right to having families. It's about agency the ability to control one's life, the power to self-determine.
But, for a moment, let's say it's about enforcing the law.
Never mind that both the Interior Minister Eli Yishai and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have referred to migrants as a threat to the Jewish character of the state.
Never mind that most of those being expelled have not broken a law they have violated a policy, one that has never been legislated or codified, that states that if a migrant worker wants to have a baby, she forfeits her visa. Never mind that this policy is inhumane, that it violates a woman's human right to love, and to make love, and to reproduce when and where she wants to.
Never mind that the only crime for the child was being born.
For discussion's sake, let's pretend that the few who dare defend this deportation are right let's pretend that this expulsion is just about enforcing the law. For discussion's sake, we'll also set the West Bank and Gaza aside and pretend that this is just about enforcing the laws that apply to migrant workers. If that were true, wouldn't the police be swarming the streets chasing after the Jewish Israelis who own the employment agencies?
Wouldn't there be units running after the thousands of Jewish Israelis who break labor laws by underpaying migrant workers and overworking them sometimes to the point of exhaustion or nervous breakdowns?
This lop-sided enforcement of law and policy, this inhumane deportation, can be explained in one way and one way only it's yet another case of Israel trampling on the basic human rights and freedom of others, all in the name of building a "Jewish and democratic" state.
Mya Guarnieri is a Tel Aviv-based journalist and writer and a regular contributor to Al Jazeera English, amongst other international publications.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=378272 19 apr 2011, 12:04 , Respect -
Maria 14 apr 2011
You Have The Right To Remain Occupied
Map shows Itamar and Awarta click to make bigger
Last week a number of white students were found dead in a dorm room at Columbia University in New York. The police arrived on the scene and the mayor soon declared that he would stop at nothing to find the black murderer. Shortly thereafter, the army was called in and the neighboring Harlem neighborhood, where it was claimed the alleged perpetrator must have came from or fled to, was encircled and besieged. Raids were conducted in each apartment and home, dwellings were ransacked and property destroyed. Hundreds of blacks were detained, many were DNA tested and finger printed. This continued for a month, day in and day out, but no charges were made against any suspects.
If you haven't already guessed, this is a fictional story. Such things should never occur in a functioning democracy with rule of law, civil rights and due process. But something very similar is happening to a Palestinian village called Awarta at the hands of a state that claims to be "the only democracy in the Middle East."
Nearly a month ago, a family of 5 Israeli colonists living in Itamar were found murdered in their home. The gruesome attack was immediately blamed on a Palestinian, and the nearby village of Awarta fell under the cross-hairs. The Israeli government has yet to put forward one shred of evidence that would suggest anything about the identity of the murderer. We are simply supposed to rely on the good intentions of the Israeli government. (Map right shows Itamar and Awarta)
The entire investigation has been under a gag order. This is very, very strange. Ever under the international microscope for their actions against Palestinians in Occupied Territory, the Israeli government has always put forward aggressive PR campaigns in an attempt to justify their actions and vilify Palestinians and their sympathizers. One easily recalls the tapes and images so rapidly distributed after Israeli commandos boarded a Gaza-bound civilian aid ship in international waters last year killing nine civilians. For a state whose government has suffered one PR disaster after the other, you'd think that if there was any evidence showing the murderer was Palestinian, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be screaming about it atop the tallest building in Tel Aviv.
Yet, nothing but complete silence. Silence, of course, except for the Palestinians in the village of Awarta. Constant Israeli raids round up Palestinian civilians http://fwd4.me/zbA in what can only be understood as arbitrary arrests. The terrorizing of an entire village, held hostage to Israeli whims, is collective punishment and a regular feature of occupation.
This is occupation. A people are treated fundamentally differently and stripped of their rights because of their ethnicity. Yet while the media in the land of the free and home of the brave certainly covered the murder of the Israeli settlers, quite poorly I might add, http://fwd4.me/zbB where is the news story about how Israel's massive arrest campaigns run contrary to American values? Where is the news story about arbitrary and forced DNA testing? Where is the story about how groups of people are arrested in the middle of the night, taken from their ransacked homes and then probably tortured and at the least intimidated to provide information implicating others in the village?
Murderers can be of any religion, nationality or ethnicity. But democracies are judged, at least in part, on their respect for civil rights and the rule of law. Israel's collective punishment of occupied Palestinians in Awarta are but another clear indication of where it fails the democracy test.
Today, there was news that a Palestinian teen was found dead in Al-Khadr. http://fwd4.me/zb9 This Palestinian locality outside of Bethlehem has frequently been attacked by settlers. More often than not, the settlement of origin of settlers who attack Al-Khadr is near by Neve Daniel. In recent years there have been instances of destruction of property, assault, theft and arson perpetrated by settlers from Neve Daniel against Al-Khadr (much more on settler violence here http://fwd4.me/zbC ). If this became a murder investigation, would the Israelis stand for the encirclement and collective punishment of their colony Neve Daniel? Would Israelis stand silent as every Jew in the colony was arrested by the IDF, DNA tested, and possibly coerced into testimony without ever being charged?
Of course not. But we will never have to worry about how Israelis would react to such a predicament, since the IDF would never apply the same inhumane treatment and roundups to Israeli settlers, whose mere presence in the West Bank is illegal, as they do to the native Palestinians whom they have completely stripped of their rights. Most of the time, Israeli settler violence goes unpunished while Palestinian are punished whether they attack or not. That is what occupation is all about.
http://fwd4.me/zb8 10 jun 2011, 23:20 , Respect -
Maria 18 apr 2011
Three myths of Israel’s insecurity
Here are the Three Sacred Commandments for Americans who shape the public conversation on Israel:
1. For politicians, especially at the federal level: As soon as you say the word “Israel,” you must also say the word “security” and promise that the United States will always, always, always be committed to Israel’s security. If you occasionally label an action by the Israeli government “unhelpful,” you must immediately reaffirm the eternal U.S. commitment to Israel’s security.
2. For TV talking heads and op-ed pundits: If you criticize any policies or actions of the Israeli government, you must immediately add that Israel does, of course, have very real and serious security needs that have to be addressed.
3. For journalists covering the Israel-Palestine conflict for major American news outlets: You must live in Jewish Jerusalem or in Tel Aviv and take only occasional day trips into the Occupied Territories. So your reporting must inevitably be slanted toward the perspective of the Jews you live among. And you must indicate in every report that Jewish Israeli life is dominated by anxiety about security.
U.S. opinion-shapers have obeyed the Three Commandments scrupulously for decades. As a result, they’ve created an indelible image of Israel as a deeply insecure nation. That image is a major, if often overlooked, factor that has shaped and continues to shape Washington’s policies in the Middle East and especially the longstanding American tilt toward Israel.
It’s often said that the number one factor in that tilt is the power of the right-wing “pro-Israel” (more accurately, “pro-Israeli-government”) lobby. That lobby certainly is a skillful, well-oiled machine http://fwd4.me/zsJ . It uses every trick in the PR book to promote the myth of Israel as a brave little nation constantly forced to fight for its life against enemies all around who are eager to destroy it, a Jewish David withstanding the Arab Goliath. The lobby justifies everything Israel does to the Palestinians — military occupation, economic strangulation, expanding settlements, confiscating land, demolishing homes, imprisoning children — as perhaps unfortunate but absolutely necessary for Israel’s self-defense.
No matter how slick any lobby is, however, it can’t succeed without a substantial level of public support. (How powerful would the National Rifle Association be without the millions of Americans who truly love their guns?) Along with its other sources of power and influence, the right-wing Israel lobby needs a large majority of the U.S. public to believe in the myth of Israel’s insecurity as the God’s honest truth.
Ironically, that myth gets plenty of criticism and questioning in the Israeli press from writers like (to cite just some recent examples)Merav Michaeli http://fwd4.me/zsK and Doron Rosenblum http://fwd4.me/zsL in the liberal newspaper Haaretz, and even Alon Ben-Meir http://fwd4.me/zsN in the more conservative Jerusalem Post. In the United States, though, the myth of insecurity is the taken-for-granted lens through which the public views everything about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Like the air we breathe, it’s a view so pervasive that we hardly notice it.
Nor do we notice how reflexively most Americans accept the claim of self-defense as justification for everything Israel does, no matter how outrageous. That reflex goes far to explain why, in the latest Gallup poll matchup http://fwd4.me/zsO (“Do you sympathize more with Israel or the Palestinians?”), Israel won by a nearly 4 to 1 margin. And the pro-Israeli sentiment just keeps growing. http://fwd4.me/zsP
Our politicians, pundits, and correspondents breathe the same air in the same unthinking fashion, and so they hesitate to put much pressure on Israel to change its ways. As it happens, without such pressure, no Israeli government is likely to make the compromises needed for a just and lasting peace in the region. Instead, Israel will keep up its attacks on Gaza http://fwd4.me/zAK . In addition, if the Palestinians declare themselves an independent state come September, as manyreports indicate http://fwd4.me/zaA might happen, Israel will feel free to quash that state by any means necessary http://fwd4.me/zsQ — but only if Washington goes on giving it the old wink and nod.
If American attitudes and so policies are ever to change, one necessary (though not in itself sufficient) step is to confront and debunk the myth of Israel’s insecurity.
Three myths in one
Israel actually promotes three separate myths of insecurity, although its PR machine weaves them into a single tightly knit fabric. To grasp the reality behind it, the three strands have to be teased apart and examined separately.
Myth Number 1: Israel’s existence is threatened by the ever-present possibility of military attack. In fact, there’s no chance that any of Israel’s neighbors will start a war to wipe out Israel. They know their history. Despite its size, ever since its war of independence in 1948, the Israeli military has been a better equipped, better trained, more effective, and in virtually every case a successful fighting force. It clearly remains the strongest military power in the Middle East. http://fwd4.me/zsR
According to the authoritative volume, The Military Balance 2011, http://fwd4.me/zsT Israel still maintains a decisive edge over any of its neighbors. While the Israeli government constantly sounds alarms about imagined Iranian nuclear weapons — though its intelligence services now suggest Iran won’t have even one before 2015 at the earliest http://fwd4.me/zsU — Israel remains the region’s only nuclear power for the foreseeable future. It possesses up to 200 nukes, in addition to “a significant number” of precision-guided 1,000 kg conventional bombs.
To deliver its most powerful weapons, Israel can rely on its 100 land-based missile launchers, 200 aircraft armed with cruise missiles, and (according to “repeated press reports”) cruise-missile-armed submarines. The subs are key, of course, since they ensure that no future blow delivered to Israel would ever lack payback.
Israel spends far more on its military than any of the neighbors it claims to fear, largely because it gets more military aid from the U.S. than any other Mideast nation — $3 billion a year http://fwd4.me/zsV is the official figure, although no one is likely to know the full amount.
The Obama administration has continued a long tradition of guaranteeing Israel’s massive military superiority in the region. Israel will, for example, be the first foreign country to get the U.S.’s most advanced fighter jet, the F-35 joint strike fighter. In fact, Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently complained that 20 of the promised planes aren’t enough, though he admitted http://fwd4.me/zsW that his country “faces no imminent threat” that would justify upping the numbers. Israel is also beginning to deploy its Iron Dome mobile air-defense system, http://fwd4.me/zsX with the U.S. funding at least half its cost.
In sum, none of the nations that Israel casts as a threat to its very existence can pose an existential military danger. Of course, that doesn’t mean all Jewish Israelis are safe from harm, which brings us to...
Myth Number 2: The personal safety of every Jewish Israeli is threatened daily by the possibility of violent attack. In fact, according to Israeli government statistics, since the beginning of 2009 only one Israeli civilian (and two non-Israelis) have been killed http://fwd4.me/zsY
by politically motivated attacks inside the green line (Israel’s pre-1967 border). Israelis who live inside that line go about their daily lives virtually free http://fwd4.me/zsZ from such worry.
As a result, the insecurity myth has come to focus on rockets — the real ones launched from Gaza and the imaginary ones that supposedly could be launched from a future Palestinian state in the West Bank. Purveyors of the insecurity myth, including the American media, portray such rocket attacks as bolts from the blue, with no other motive than an irrational desire to kill and maim innocent Jews. As it happens, most of the rockets from Gaza have been fired in response to Israeli attacks that often broke ceasefires declared by the Palestinians. http://fwd4.me/zGh
Those rockets are part of an ongoing war in which each side uses the best weapons it has. The Palestinians, of course, have access to none of the high-tech Israeli guidance systems. Their weaponry tends to be crude and often homemade. They shoot their rockets, most of them unguided, and let them fall where they may (which means the vast majority harm no one).
Israel’s weapons actually do far more harm. Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli assault on Gaza that began at the end of 2008, killed far more civilians http://fwd4.me/zsa than all the rockets Palestinians have ever launched at Israel. Despite (or perhaps because of) its grievous losses, the Hamas government in Gaza has generally tried to minimize http://fwd4.me/zsb the rocket fire. When Hamas calls for all factions in Gaza to observe a ceasefire, however, the Israelis often ramp up their attacks. http://fwd4.me/zsc
Jewish civilians do run some risk when they live in the West Bank settlements. In the most recent horrific incident, a Jewish family of five was slaughtered at the Itamar settlement. In response, Israeli Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon showed clearly http://fwd4.me/zsd how the deaths of individual settlers are woven into the myth of Israel’s “existential insecurity.” “This murder,” he declared, “reminds everyone that the struggle and conflict is not about Israel’s borders or about independence of a repressed nation but a struggle for our existence.”
The logic of the myth goes back to the premise of the earliest Zionists: All gentiles are implacably and eternally anti-semitic. By this logic, any attack on one Jew, no matter how random, becomes evidence that all Jews are permanently threatened with extinction.
Most Zionists have been unable to see that once they founded a state committed to regional military superiority, they were bound to be on the receiving as well as the giving end of acts of war. It is the absence of peace far more than the presence of anti-semitism that renders Israelis who live near Gaza or in the West Bank insecure.
However, according to the myth, it’s not only physical violence that threatens Israel’s existence. In the last two years, right-wing Israelis and their supporters in the U.S. have learned to lie awake at night worrying about another threat...
Myth Number 3: Israel’s existence is threatened by worldwide efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state. Early in 2010, Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin told the Knesset http://fwd4.me/zse , Israel’s parliament, that the country was not “suffering from terror or from an immediate military threat” — only to warn of a new peril: “The Palestinian Authority is encouraging the international arena to challenge Israel’s legitimacy.”
The “delegitimization” alarm was first sounded http://fwd4.me/zsf by an influential Israeli think tank and then spread like wildfire through the nation’s political and media ranks.
There are shreds of truth in it. There have always been people who saw the Jewish state, imposed on indigenous Palestinians, as illegitimate. Until recently, however, Israelis seemed to pay them little heed. Now, they are deemed an “existential threat,” as Yadlin explained, only because the old claims of “existential threat” via violence have grown unbelievable even to the Israeli military (though not to the government’s American supporters).
It’s also true that challenges to Israel’s legitimacy are growing rapidly around the world and that the specter of becoming a “pariah state” does pose a danger. The head of that think tank got it half-right when he warned that Israel’s “survival and prosperity” depend on its relations with the world, “all of which rely on its legitimacy.” Survival? No. After all, being a pariah state doesn’t have to be existence threatening, as North Korea and Burma have proved.
But prosperity? That’s at least possible. When the Israelis complain about “delegitimization,” they focus most on the boycott/divestment/sanctions http://fwd4.me/zsh (BDS) movement, which aims not to eliminate the state of Israel, but to use economic pressure to end Israel’s occupation and economic strangulation of Palestinian lands. (Nor is there any real evidence to back up the charge http://fwd4.me/zse that this is some vast conspiracy coordinated by the Palestinian Authority.)
Were Israel to start behaving by accepted international moral norms, the BDS movement would fade from the scene quickly enough, ending the crisis of “delegitimization” — just as the rockets from Gaza might well cease. But here’s the reality of this moment: The only genuine threat to Israel’s security comes from its own oppressive policies, which are the fuel propelling the BDS movement.
So far, however, “effects on the Israeli economy are marginal,” according to a popular Israeli newspaper http://fwd4.me/zsk . The BDS campaign, it reports, “has been far more damaging when it comes to the negative image that it spreads.” A growing number of foreign governments are criticizing Israel, and some already recognize an actual Palestinian state http://fwd4.me/zsl . In diplomatic terms, Israel’s legitimacy rests on the good will of its sole dependable ally, the United States.
More than any military need, that political need offers the U.S. powerful leverage in moving toward a settlement of the Israeli/Palestinian crisis. The triple-stranded myth of Israel’s insecurity, however, makes the use of such leverage virtually impossible for Washington. Israel’s president put http://fwd4.me/zsm his country’s needs plainly in March 2010: "[Israel] must forge good relations with other countries, primarily the United States, so as to guarantee political support in a time of need.” So far, the U.S. has continued to offer its strong support, even though President Obama knows http://fwd4.me/zso , as he recently told American Jewish leaders, that “Israel is the stronger party here, militarily, culturally, and politically. And Israel needs to create the context for [peace] to happen.”
But what if the American public knew the facts that Obama acknowledged? What if every solemn reference to Israel’s “security needs” were greeted not with nodding heads, but with the eye-rolling skepticism it deserves? What if Israel’s endless excesses and excuses — its claims that the occupation of the West Bank and the economic strangulation of Gaza are necessary “for the sake of security” — were regularly scoffed at by most Americans?
It’s hard to imagine the Obama administration, or any American administration, keeping up a pro-Israel tilt in the face of such public scorn.
http://fwd4.me/zsH 17 jun 2011, 09:09 , Respect -
Maria 16 juni 2011
Dennis Ross: go home, you are not welcome
By Khalid Amayreh
So Dennis Ross is back in town in occupied Palestine. He is succeeding the failed U.S. envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell who proved himself too cowardly, too obsequious and too pliant especially in the face of Israeli arrogance and insolence.
Mitchell thought that by employing nice words and habitually invoking America's iron-clad commitment to Israel, whether it goes right or goes wrong and whether its continues to build illegal settlements on occupied land or not, Israel's would probably make some steps, even reluctant ones, on the road to peace.
However, the shocking insolence (and utter disrespect) he often received during his multiple visits to occupied Palestine at the hands of Israeli leaders and officials, seemed to have convinced the obviously gutless and spineless diplomat to quit it if only to retain his personal dignity and not be accused of anti-Semitism.
Mitchell told his equally helpless superior, President Obama, of his impressions. Obama listened and nodded his head, which could be a gesture of desperation and helpless indignation vis-à-vis the powerful Israeli lobby which controls the American government, congress and much of the media.
Nearly totally at loss as to what ought to be done to restrain Israeli rejectionsim and intransigence, Obama decided once again to dispatch Dennis Ross, the once-tried and often-proven venomous Zionist reptile to occupied Palestine, hoping that he will succeed in convincing the weak Palestinian leadership to succumb to the whims and vagaries of Jewish fascism especially those voiced ad nauseam by clearly psychotic Jewish supremacists and megalomaniacs such as Benyamin Netanyahu and his cohorts both in Washington and Occupied Jerusalem.
In truth, the last thing in the world that Ross is capable of doing is working toward a true and just peace in Occupied Palestine. In recent statements, he was quoted as saying that in order for peace to prevail, the Palestinians would have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
For those who can't read behind the headlines, this is a clear allusion to another Palestinian Nakba or catastrophe.
What this fanatical, Zionist extremist is suggesting is that the Palestinian leadership, e.g. The PLO or the Palestinian Authority (PA) should recognize Israel's "right" to expel nearly two million Palestinians in what is now Israel. After all, these people are goyem or non-Jews and Israel is a Jewish state. Such would be the new Talmudic reasoning of the contemplated new Nakba, now being devised and envisaged by the likes of Dennis Ross under the misleading rubric of "two states for two peoples." http://fwd4.me/045i
For those who don't know, these two million Palestinians preceded and predated the immigration to Palestine of Khazari land-thieves, such as Benyamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres from Eastern Europe, at least by a thousand years.
This is really what recognizing Israel as a Jewish state implies, a Jewish state without non-Jews or at the very least with as few non-Jews as possible.
More to the point, Ross during the Clinton administration demonstrated a stunning bias in Israel's favor. This is to put it very mildly.
According to one Palestinian negotiator who took part in numerous rounds of these failed talks, Ross often adopted views and stands that were even more extreme than those voiced by Israeli negotiators.
On many occasions, the chief Palestinian negotiator Sa'eb Ereikat described Ross as "Israel's advocate, par excellance."
It is really hard to imagine any positive contributions by Ross. This is the conclusion that the hopelessly pliant Palestinian leadership in Ramallah should have reached a long time ago.
In the Palestinian culture, we often invoke the following prophetic hadith or saying by the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH): la yoldagho al-Mo'emno min juhren waheden marratayen, which means that a believer shouldn't be bitten by the same snake twice.
Unfortunately, due the imbecility, stupidity and naivety of the Palestinian leadership, we have been bitten by the same snake, and from the same hole, numerous times.
Which begs the question: when will we ever learn from out mistakes and blunders?
Today, Ross, the venomous Zionist reptile, who obviously has no iota of honesty and rectitude, will try to bamboozle and cajole PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his never-repenting aides to drop plans to ask the UN General Assembly for recognition of Palestinian statehood this September. He will probably employ a combination of carrots and sticks to "get the message through to a leadership" that it is facing a growing dilemma of either appeasing an America that is at Israel's beck and call and losing the support and backing of the Palestinian masses or doing the opposite by refusing and resisting the bullying, coercion and political bribery of Washington, which would allow it to retain its own people's backing.
By now, the PA should have discovered the utter foolishness of relying on let alone believing or trusting any promises made by Washington. Hence, there is no point really in holding serious negotiations with the representatives of an administration that shakes to the core at the very thought of saying or doing something that might be disquieting for the real rulers of America, the Zionist Jews.
In the final analysis, why speak to the monkey when you can speak to the organ grinder. And if there is no point in talking to the organ grinder, then the PA should reach to the same conclusion that King Abdullah has reached, namely that Israel doesn't want peace and that the Israeli Jewish society is moving to the "hard right," a clear euphemism connoting Jewish fascism, with all its repulsive and virulent manifestations.
I mentioned the King of Jordan because his candid testimony, which was made in a recent interview with the Washington Post carries a special weight and should be accorded all the seriousness and attention it deserves since the King has no interest in being unduly pessimistic about peace in the region.
Hence, Palestinians at all levels have the right to ask: where are we heading? When will we extricate ourselves from American lies and Israeli deception? And above all, when will we ever learn from the thousands of pitfalls and blunders we have faced ever since we got involved in this scandalous peace process that only gave us more hateful Jewish colonies, more ethnic cleansing, more apartheid and more land theft?
Khalid Amayreh is an American- educated journalist living in the West Bank town of Dura. He can be reached by email at the following: [email protected]
http://fwd4.me/045h
Analysis: And what about statehood?
By Daoud Kuttab
The Palestinian strategy to achieve statehood is making significance progress among certain international political circles, but it is still lacking the necessary coordination and cohesion to bear the desired results.
President Mahmoud Abbas and his West Bank Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have succeeded in detonating the familiar anti-Palestinian arsenal that Israel's public relations teams have employed against Palestinian aspirations.
The rejection by the Palestinian leadership of any form of military resistance, and the focus on building the infrastructure of a state rather than cursing the Israelis, has placed Israel in a difficult position internationally.
However, it is unlikely that Palestinian statehood can be achieved simply by following this course of action.
It is sad to admit, but US President Barack Obama is right about one thing: Going to the United Nations General Assembly and extracting a majority vote will not, by itself, end the Israeli occupation.
A UN vote, however, could be key to statehood if it is part of a wider strategy. But as this moment no such coherent and well-coordinated strategy exists.
What should such a strategy look like?
Naturally, seeking national liberation requires a united domestic front. The most prominent Palestinian factions have taken an important step in this direction by signing the reconciliation accords in Cairo in May, but it doesn’t appear that there is serious, continuous and concerted effort to unify the Palestinian people.
Certainly there is no indication that the present effort is one that can unify, politically and strategically, to the point where Palestinians will be willing to make difficult decisions requiring sacrifice in order to end the Israeli occupation.
If Palestinians can agree on the current political process and receive UN recognition in September, a question needs to be asked of the Palestinian leadership about its strategy on "the day after a UN vote."
What are the plans on the ground in Palestine to implement an international license to statehood? Are the Palestinians in the occupied territories and around the world being mobilized to take concrete steps to turn this “UN license” into a real sovereign state?
Once the Israelis accept the international will for Palestinian statehood and voluntarily exit occupied land, the Palestinian leadership must be ready to take steps to realize statehood on the ground.
The Palestinian Authority will need to disengage from Israel at all levels. Does the Palestinian Authority have alternative plans once this disengagement takes place? Has the PA coordinated with nearby Arab countries to provide for goods and services once this disengagement takes place? Are the Palestinians prepared to bear the pains of such an undertaking?
During the first First Intifada, victory gardens were encouraged as Palestinians were trying to become self-sufficient while rejecting goods coming from Israel. A plan must be designed to “liberate” zones listed as area C, which Israel has direct administrative and security control over. This discriminatory division of Palestinian lands into areas A, B and C should be declared null and void once the Oslo Accords become obsolete with the upcoming UN decision. Maybe the PA should issue land deeds and give them out to any Palestinian willing to live, farm and stay put on lands that Israel continues to occupy.
No such preparation is taking place.
And what about security disengagement? Has the issue of breaking up security coordination been studied? What are the alternative scenarios? Will Abbas give orders to the security forces to defend the newly declared borders of a recognized state?
Much more effort is also needed regionally. Will countries and peoples in the region be asked to help Palestine realize their statehood? Will Jordan and Egypt be asked to help provide essentials, such as fuel, electricity and basic food products? How will such materials be made available? Will the Palestinian leaders ask these neighboring Arab countries to secure the borders?
Finally, what is the international strategy? The PA has been producing relatively good results in some countries, but this is being done almost entirely without strong and constant coordination with solidarity movements. Once Israel refuses the UN declaration of Palestinian statehood, these movements will be crucial to applying a crippling boycott and divestment campaign. The experience of the boycott of the apartheid South African regime after the UN vote needs to be replicated internationally.
Israel and its supporters might be able to pressure governments, and the US Congress, but are unable to stop the vast civil society, people-based international support that needs to be garnered.
The realization of Palestinian statehood needs a holistic internal, regional and international strategy. Such a strategy will require leadership, national unity and sacrifice.
Daoud Kuttab is general manager of the Community Media Network, Amman, and a former Professor of Journalism at Princeton University.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=397126 10 jul 2011, 00:57 , Respect -
Maria 9 juli 2011
Neurotic, psychotic Israel
By Khalid Amayreh
Recent Israeli behavior toward a host of issues and events portrays a state in the throes of an existential anxiety. For example, the clearly hysterical response by the Israeli government to the mobilization of a few ships carrying humanitarian aid to blockaded Gazans caricatured a state that reacts in a phobic manner to dangers and threats that don’t really exist.
After all, the volunteers on board the ships, who include people from different cultures and religions, made it abundantly clear that their mission was to deliver badly-needed humanitarian materials to the people of Gaza Strip, hermetically besieged by Israel for the fifth consecutive year for no convincing reasons.
Another message these courageous men and women, who really represent the real conscience of humanity, is to highlight the utter illegitimacy, illegality and immorality of the criminal siege that is meant to starve and strangulate 1.8 million human beings whose only "crime" is their enduring determination to seek liberty from the grandchildren and great grandchildren of the holocaust.
There is no doubt that Israeli leaders and officials know this fact too well. However, this apparently didn't prevent the inherently dishonest Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu from claiming that the free Gaza flotilla was carrying arms to Hamas, a claim that obviously didn't contain an iota of truth.
The less professional liars among the Israeli government clique claimed that the flotilla amounted to armed armada which was planning to invade Israel, attack the Israeli navy and harm Israeli soldiers. But one would have to send his or her own mind on an extended holiday to believe that a few hundred peace activists, many of them elderly men and women above the age of 70 are planning a blitz against the mighty Israeli army.
Nonetheless, Israel is not a classical neurotic and psychotic case. Israel is perfectly aware of the fact that it is lying to the world and for the world.
Several months ago, Israel claimed it was imposing the Nazi-like siege on Gaza because Gazans were "showering" Israeli towns with rockets. (we are actually talking about nearly innocuous projectiles that do very little damage) Now, the lie is being replaced with another lie, namely that Gaza was endangering Israel's security and even existence.
But, again, one would have to be extremely gullible to buy such pornographic lies. Indeed, one is always prompted to ask how could a thoroughly tormented, thoroughly starved and thoroughly bombed people, many of them can hardly put food on the table for their kids, pose a real threat to a country with one of the strongest armies in the world, a nuclear power with 200-300 nuclear bombs and warheads in its arsenal, which also has the United States president, media and congress, at her beck and call?
In the past few days, the Israeli authorities declared a state of emergency at the Ben Gurion airport in order to arrest peaceful international activists intent on expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Israeli officials stopped short of calling these activists terrorists, although many of them hail from states that maintain close relations with Israel. Indeed, the tone used by the bulk of the Israeli media in reference to these peaceful activists was clearly convulsive and hysterical, as if the arrival of a few dozen peace activists in Occupied Palestine constituted a mortal threat to the apartheid state.
One doesn't have to be a great psychological analyst to realize the pattern of behavior is symptomatic of a country that is not sure of its moral credibility. This utter lack of moral credibility was brazenly displayed a few weeks ago when the Israeli army was ordered to shoot to kill Palestinian refugees demonstrating along Occupied Palestine's northern borders. And the result was the death of several innocent people who never really posed a real danger or threat to Israel.
But Israel does have a mortal fear for losing its so-called legitimacy. And it constantly tries to maintain this "legitimacy" by way of killing and lying.
As an observer of the conflict in Palestine for so many years, I really don't see that Israel (I am speaking about Israel, not the Jewish people) has any authentic legitimacy besides the legitimacy of the fait accompli.
In the final analysis, Israel is based on ethnic cleansing, land theft and organized terror. As such, Israel can't have any atom of moral legitimacy, neither now, or after a hundred years. The fact that powerful states recognize this hateful, racist entity doesn't mean much in moral terms.
Needless to say, when a country lacks moral credentials, as Israel obviously does, that country puts itself on a sure course to self-destruction sooner or later. Military and economic strength might prolong the life-span of oppression and "illegitimacy," but ultimate demise will be the ineluctable fate of illegitimate states.
Numerous Israelis know deep in their hearts that they are living on land that belongs to another people, that they are residing in homes whose real owners were expelled by Israel's terrorist army to the four corners of the globe.
Yet they prefer to keep up themselves in perpetual moral hibernation and detest any thought or anyone that might remind them of the immense oppression they have meted out to their victims, the Palestinian people.
In a few decades, our world is likely to undergo deep, historical changes that would be very bad for Israel and Zionism. Some of the harbingers of these changes are already looming, while others are yet to emerge.
Then Zionism will most certainly face its agonizing moment of death and extinction.
As to the Palestinians, the victims of dispossession, ethnic cleansing and systematic persecution, they must have an enduring vigor that goes beyond day-to-day assessment of events.
And their ultimate goal must be nothing less than having the entire slate thoroughly clean.
http://fwd4.me/06Db 4 aug 2011, 14:04 , Respect -
Maria 13 juli 2011
Breaking The Israel-Palestine Impasse – Analysis
By Didier Jacobs
On a recent trip to Israel, I visited a school in Sderot featuring bunkers in the playground. I asked the principal what she thought about her government: “Things are quiet now, so the policy is working”, she replied. And when rockets rain down, it’s time to retaliate.
Hawks take political advantage of violence, and doves can’t convey the urgency of peace in good times.
President Obama sketched a peace plan in May. The entire international community supports it, as well as the Israeli opposition parties and the Palestinian governing party. But peace remains elusive because the international community clings to the myth that there is no alternative to a bilateral negotiated solution.
The Israeli Alternative
For Israelis, the alternative is the status quo. The peace process has already delivered what they want: security. The Palestinian Authority cooperates with Israeli security services. The West backs the isolation of Hamas. The number of Israeli victims of terrorism has fallen to a dozen a year, but the prospect of a final settlement and ultimately reducing that number to zero has proved insufficient to make concessions for peace.
What seemingly lies ahead in the peace process are Israeli losses: conceding territories, partitioning Jerusalem, welcoming back refugees, withdrawing Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from the Jordan valley, losing access to water.
Of course, enlightened Israelis know their long-term interests lie in peace. The current security is precarious. The end of the Arab boycott will boost the economy. Respecting human rights is important. The settlements enterprise is costly. Israel’s negotiating position will get worse when Palestinians significantly outnumber Jewish Israelis. However, such enlightenment does not sell politically.
Zero-sum nationalist feelings make democratic governance difficult. When Flemings and Walloons in peaceful Belgium cannot agree on the linguistic rights of residents of six towns around Brussels, it is naïve to believe that Israeli politicians can make concessions over Jerusalem without major, tangible, and immediate benefits for Israeli voters. Nothing of the sort is on offer.
The Palestinian Alternative
For Palestinians, the alternative is international law. Ever since it created a stillborn Arab state alongside Israel in 1948, the United Nations has kept Palestinian aspirations alive through a body of resolutions.
Why should Palestinians negotiate something away that they are entitled to? They have done that for 18 years only because they lost four wars. The Palestinian plan to seek redress in the UN this summer shows that they have grown tired of the utter lack of progress and that they see the balance of power shifting to their side as emerging powers become more assertive, Israel-friendly Arab autocrats fall, peaceful Palestinian resistance strengthens, and functioning state institutions take shape.
As Palestinians become more assertive, an agreement in the foreseeable future is less likely than when negotiations broke down in 2000 and 2008, even if the Israeli opposition came back to power.
But international law is sufficiently ambiguous to allow Israelis to discount it. Two years ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could run an electoral campaign without supporting the two-state solution, and to date he can reject the 1967 Green Line as the basis for the border without fear of being cast as an international outlaw.
In his speech at the State Department on May 19, President Obama publicly supported the 1967 border. At AIPAC’s annual Washington conference three days later, he reemphasized that the border will have to be mutually agreed upon by the parties. In other words, the 1967 border is a faint reference. What matters are the mutually agreed swaps of territory alongside it, which can be as large as Israeli hawks desire.
Assuming negotiations restart, and taking President Obama’s hint, Israel will propose to retain large swathes of valuable land around Jerusalem, in exchange for less valuable land elsewhere. Palestinians will obviously reject such an offer. Then what?
The Extremists’ Alternative
The international community likes to repeat that violence does not pay. Thus far peaceful resistance hasn’t worked either. Violent extremists on either side may never succeed in their long-term dreams of total victory. But they can easily thwart compromise in the short- and medium-term.
The main Palestinian party Fatah renounced violence over 20 years ago. The Arab League proposed a comprehensive peace plan almost 10 years ago. Palestinian patience has been fed with aid-dependent prosperity and the painful memories of past uprisings. The Palestinian leadership may yet blink and accept the resumption of negotiations on shaky grounds, buying some time. But failure is inevitable — and the people will rise up sooner or later.
Inspired by the Arab revolutions, a new Palestinian uprising would start peacefully. It is unlikely to remain that way. We saw a preview when the Israeli army fired on Palestinians breaching the borders to mark the “Nakba” (Israel’s independence) in May. Palestinian militants will not shy away from provocations either.
Violence is sadly the most likely outcome to expect after September’s events at the UN. As was the case after the collapse of negotiations in 2000, it would take years to restore any peace process.
The International Community’s Alternative
For the international community, the alternative to presiding over doomed negotiations is to lay down the law. The UN could clarify any remaining ambiguities of past resolutions. Indeed, that is its job. Unlike Libya or Syria, this is an international conflict.
Recognizing a Palestinian state along the 1967 border would clarify that all the land east of that border is Palestinian land. Like any other sovereign states, Israel and Palestine could still swap territories afterwards. However, if negotiations were to fail, the fallback solution would be that the Green Line would become the permanent border.
President Obama opposes action at the UN because he believes that it will harden the Palestinian negotiating position. But Palestinians are convinced that international law is on their side and ambiguity will not induce them to give up their rights. The only thing that ambiguity achieves is allowing Israel to procrastinate.
But President Obama is on to something. The border is only one of the issues at stake. Siding with the Palestinians on borders would harden their position on other issues. (Palestinians retort that the 1967 border is actually not favorable to them, as it represents only a fraction of their historical homeland and of the stillborn Arab state of 1948.)
The solution is to tackle the other issues as well. The UN could transform the Palestinians’ unilateral move for statehood into a multilateral initiative, and Palestinians might get more than what they bargained for.
Thus international law leaves a variety of ways to fulfill Palestinians’ desire for a right of return. The UN could resolve that Palestinian refugees have the right to return to the new Palestinian state, with financial compensation, but not to Israel. Although many Palestinian refugees would be infuriated by such a move, most moderate Palestinian analysts and Fatah leaders expect it to happen — they just can’t say so publicly because it would be political suicide. The UN could take the problem out of the hands of Palestinian politicians and limit both the unrealistic dreams of the refugees and the apocalyptic fears of Israelis.
Again, decisions made at the UN do not preclude further negotiations. Palestinians could always ask Israel to welcome some refugees in exchange for something else, such as more favorable land swaps.
On security, the UN could adjudicate that the new Palestinian state will be demilitarized and that a peacekeeping force will be deployed in it. NATO could offer troops. The UN could also outline an international agreement to ensure access to Jerusalem and holy sites by followers of all faiths.
The notion that there is no alternative to negotiations is a half-truth. Details must be negotiated. But a political analysis of both sides and the peace process’ 17-year track record of failure show that there will be no peace until the UN finds the guts to do its job and make tough decisions, over the heads of both parties if necessary.
The Missing Incentive
President Obama says that an UN-imposed solution will not change reality on the ground. That is true only if the UN fails, as it has historically, to add some teeth to its resolutions. Hamas is subject to sanctions by the West and rightly so. Fatah knows what to expect if it reverts to violence or suspends cooperation with Israeli security services. On the other hand, Israel has pursued a policy of colonization in the West Bank, which violates international law, without facing consequences beyond mild rhetorical condemnations.
The West Bank is a single piece of territory with two peoples living on it. But the Palestinian majority and Israeli minority do not enjoy the same rights. Palestinians are trapped inside “Palestinian only” areas, limiting their access to jobs, social services, friends, and family. Israelis can move seamlessly all around them. The Palestinians are compelled by military force to accept this discrimination. This is apartheid.
I visited the West Bank recently. Oppression is engraved in its landscape. Nothing can justify Hebron and its ghost market closed by the Israeli military to create a physical separation between 600 Israelis and 150,000 Palestinians. Nothing can justify the hate messages tagged on Palestinian shops, the garbage dumped on Palestinian pedestrians, or the street for Israeli cars only with its sidewalk for Palestinians only, divided only by IDF soldiers.
Israelis have a choice to live either within the internationally recognized borders of Israel, or in the settlements. When they choose the latter, they deprive Palestinians of their freedom of movement. It is fair to sanction that choice.
A credible threat of sanctions targeting the settlements is the missing ingredient of the peace process. Avoiding sanctions would be a compelling incentive that the average Israeli voter now lacks to support tough concessions for peace.
The Missing Actor(s)
All that is true, one might retort, but politically unrealistic. The reception of Prime Minister Netanyahu by Congress in May put in full view the partiality of the United States. With its veto in the Security Council, any action by the UN General Assembly is bound to be symbolic.
The European Union is on the fence. If Germany votes in favor of Palestinian statehood the rest of Europe is likely to fall in line. If Europe votes as a block in favor, only a few states will remain on the U.S. and Israeli side.
As the impasse continues, some Latin American or European countries might make the logical next step and adopt unilateral sanctions targeting the Israeli settlements, establishing a new international norm directed at the Israeli occupation. In the next general election, the Israeli public would realize the game is over, despite the unbreakable U.S. bond with Israel.
Alas, Germany and some other U.S. allies are keen to escape their responsibilities and lean toward opposing action at the UN. If Palestinians force a vote, they will win a majority and feel vindicated. However, a critical mass of dissenting states will be sufficient to comfort average Israeli voters in their belief that the problem is not Hebron but the anti-Israel bias of the UN. The diplomatic impasse will be complete. The extremists will win. And innocents will die on both sides.
Didier Jacobs is a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus and the author of Global Democracy.
http://fwd4.me/06UF
30 juli 2011
The Chutzpah of Israeli Tent Protests
Mohammad Al Kurd is dead. An old paralyzed man in a wheelchair, his wife Fawzia, Um Kamel, and their five children and their families, casted out of their home in Sheikh Jarrah in the East of Jerusalem. Went live in a tent and Mohammed died….That is what happens to one in Palestine who puts up a tent.…
The hypocrisy of Israeli tent protests is going beyond every imagination.
While Israeli’s left is protesting the high rents, the rightists come and demolish their tents, and both hit the headlines! While the world, completely ignorant (kept by propaganda or just because thinking of yourself seems to make some tired) forgets a very important issue: both the right or left Israeli manifestors, don’t care a damn about all the Palestinians WITHOUT a home nor is no one complaining about the FREE HOMES “Israel” took in the process of ethnic cleansing Palestine of it’s original inhabitants. Not even mentioning with not one word, this process of hostile, violent and sometimes deadly take-overs of Palestinian houses goes on even today… Not even minding the atrocities and violations of human rights by rightists as well as leftist choosen government of “Israel” transgressing (international) laws and human, moral and common sense or values every day on it’s neighbours.
Maybe both right and left, should reconsider the reason for the so called high rents, for it is the State’s need of security against “imaginary” threats, the by zion created “Islamophobia”, the from childhood funneled up paranoia which seems to be the reason and need of Occupying Israel to invest billions in so called “security”. Apparently even until it’s own people cannot afford rent anymore and some (as we believe media) even live underground in garages.
Below a story about a home eviction of the Al-Kurd Family to put all these protests of Israel in the right perspective. For you should be informed what happens if a Palestinian puts up a tent. Not out of protest, not out of “civil disobedience”, but simple because a zionist entity took over his home for free to live in and whole families are thrown on the street for the sake of the Lebensraum of Israel:
Are Israeli not thinking about the costs, the “State of Israel” is wasting on imaginary threats of Palestine.?
Are Israeli not thinking about the costs, of an Operation Cast lead, which cost over 1400 people’s lives, demolished thousands of homes in Gaza, while for this “budget” or of the daily military machine which has to be deployed against imaginary and funneld up imaginary threats, thousands of homes could have been build, without no deaths at all.
Are Israeli never worried, about what living under this Apartheid and military regime does with their own minds, children or health? Shouting for healthcare and equality, while Palestinians are structurally denied access to healthcare, prevented, or even die in the effort getting to an hospital?
Are Israeli never worried, the chemical weapons they use are not discriminating? The depleted uranium knows no borders. In the end, all these weapons will sicken them and their offspring too.
How long does it take, before Israeli recognize, building walls, shelters, bunkers and machines of war, bombing daily and sustaining the ongoing warfare and genocide cost not only money but lives on all sides, a way, which will lead to no justice for no one at all. Only ongoing empoverishing, untill the day it is visible at the teeth of an Israeli if he owns money or not, able to pay a dentist or not
Do Israeli think about: “We bombed the hell out of Gaza’s sleeping children every night, we fought for our rights but not for theirs, we paid tax for demolishing their homes and we end up without homes of ourselves?”
Mister Mohammad al Kurd can’t think no more. Not even about this.
Mr al Kurd is dead.
Just 55 years old – younger than both of my parents – he died in hospital last night, just two weeks after Israeli police evacuated his family from their house in East Jerusalem. His health had been poor for a long time, but he lived in his home, shuffling about in his pyjamas, sitting out in the sunny courtyard for much of the day. But when 50 Israeli police came to their home at 2am on Sunday 9th November, first arresting the 8 internationals who were staying there, ready to lock-on in such an event, and then forcing him and his wife, Fawzieh, from their beds, dragging them out of the house without letting them even take a change of clothes, rendering them - in one fell swoop - homeless, he had to be hospitalised immediately.
Fawzieh has since been living in a tent on a nearby football pitch. It’s a protest tent, designed to garner media attention, and as such Israeli authorities have been bulldozing it every other day. Luckily, as it’s a tent, it’s easy to put back up again. A small moment of comedic relief came a few days ago, when they also bulldozed the surrounding fence, which was erected not by the Al-Kurd family, but by Jerusalem city council.
Fawzieh is a strong, strong woman. She has been a major force behind this whole campaign - a campaign not only to save her house, but to save all the other 28 houses in the Sheik Jarrah neighbourhood that face the same fate as hers. For many months now she has opened up her house to the general public, letting it become the site of a media circus. Night after night she has explained her story to countless delegations and solidarity groups. Day after day she showed journalists around the area, with grace and alacrity. She developed great media savvy, imploring cameras “Wayn al democrati, habibi? Wayn al democrati?” (Where is the democracy, darling? Where is the democracy?). All this while caring for a sick husband and cooking two meals a day for the internationals who were camped out in her courtyard for months.
Right now, even in her grief she has set up a public mourning site at her tent. For the next few hours she will receive visits from the hundreds of people who will undoubtedly come to pay their respects, despite the rawness of her loss.
How the state killed Mr Al Kurd
Mohammad Al Kurd moved into his house in East Jerusalem with his family when he was 3 years old, in 1956. Theirs and 27 other houses were built as part of a joint project between United Nations Refugee and Welfare Association (UNRWA) and the Jordanian government, for refugees who had fled the Nakba (1948 war that created 700 000 Palestinian refugees). The families were granted ownership of the houses in exchange for giving up their food rations.
After the 1967 war, when Israel occupied East Jerusalem, two Israeli settler groups, the Oriental Jews Association and The Knesseth Yisrael Association, made a claim that they had owned the land prior to 1948, and, in 1972, got the land registered in their names with the Israeli Land Registrar. Then in 1982, the lawyer hired to represent all of the refugee families in the Sheik Jarrah neighbourhood, Tosya Cohen, unbeknownst to the families, made an agreement with the settler associations to recognise the settlers’ ownership of the land in return for status for the families as “protected residents”. It’s unknown why he did this, whether he was just stupid, or was paid off, or was ideologically on the wrong side to begin with. At any rate, the families fired him as soon as they found out what he had done, and denounced his agreement, but it was, in many senses, too late.
Despite the fact that in 2006 the Israeli High Court found the settler associations’ ownership papers to be falsified, and compelled the removal of their names from the Lands Registrar, the Israeli Land Registration department then refused to rezone the land so as to register the land in the true owners’ names. Further, the Israeli courts refused to allow any of this evidence into the separate case concerning the Al Kurds’ eviction, and so on 16th July 2008 the Israeli Supreme Court issued an eviction notice for the Al Kurds, for not paying rent to the settlers associations.
In the meantime, while the family was in Jordan in 2001, getting medical treatment for Mr Al Kurd, the Jerusalem municipality gave the keys to the apartment they had built as an extension to their home to settlers – under the pretext that it had been built illegally. Ironically, the usual excuse for housing demolitions is that, being built without planning permission, they are unsafe to inhabit. The residents are being protected from themselves. In this case the annex was unsafe for the Al Kurd family, but safe for the rotation of settler families who passed through there.
As such, for the past seven years, the Al Kurd family had been living with settlers in their home – in the annex they built for their son and his family. This brought with it all sorts of abuse, even from the small children; as well as harassment from Israeli police and security guards employed by the settlers associations to patrol the property.
The settlers occupying the annex have also received an eviction notice to evacuate the property – but Israeli police have chosen not to carry-out the order. In fact, the same day the Al Kurds were evicted, instead of evicting the settlers as well, more settlers just moved in to occupy the entire house.
All of this has not been the result of a series of accidents and miscalculations. This is part a deliberate strategy to create the “facts on the ground” necessary to preclude the possibility of a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. This collusion between settlers and the Israeli state is the basis of the well-publicised plan to “Judaise” East Jerusalem. Since 2004, more than 1200 Palestinians have been made homeless in East Jerusalem alone through home demolitions. There are currently more than 80 Palestinian houses slated for demolition. If the remaining 27 Palestinian houses in the Sheik Jarrah neighbourhood are evicted, those buildings too will be demolished to make way for a 200 unit settler apartment complex. This will complete the ring of settler apartment buildings needed to effectively annex the old city in East Jerusalem forever. The Al Kurds are just one family victimised by a series of policies whose ultimate aim is the ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem.
And now Mr Al Kurds is dead. A severe heart-attack. He might not have been taken out with a bullet, or a bomb, but he was killed by the Israeli injustice system all the same.
In another Palestinian Tent event on August 8 2009 at noon, about 40 ultra-orthodox jewish squatters, the Israeli terrorists generally known as “Siknaj”, attacked the tent of the Al-Ghawi family and beat and wounded four members of these families, who were forcibly expelled from their own house on last 2 August 2009. The criminal settlers, or “Siknaj”, were wearing black talars and hats, and used stones, sticks, and chairs in their criminal attack. The victims were three children aged between 10 – 13 and a woman. One of them was left bleeding in critical condition.
Naser Al-Gawi, one of those robbed of his house by the israeli government, said that a large detachment of Israeli police came to the place of the assault, and that rather than preventing the criminal attacks of the Siknaj, they protected them and arrested Khaled Al- Gawi, aged 40, another victim of the israeli theft. Al-Gawi denied that his family had provoked the Siknaj settlers. He said that the settlers wanted to remove their tents, which they set up near their houses, which are now occupied by the siknaj. He confirmed that he will not leave the area until he is able to return to his house.
On August 2 2009, the Israeli criminal forces forcibly terrorized and expelled two Palestinian families, Al-Gawi and Hannoun from their houses in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem after they demolished the gates of the houses (11 houses, eight houses belong to Aberd Al-Fattah Hannoun and his sons, and three houses belong to Maher Hannoun and his brothers), and forced the families to get out under the threat of murdering them. The criminal armed Israeli police pointed their guns at the civilians and denied them the right to take the necessary things for their children, or to remove from their furniture and other belongings.
Few hours after the Palestinian family’s expulsion, a truck of ultra orthodox jews, Siknaj, came to live in the Palestinian houses. The Siknaj and the criminal forces of Israel threw the furniture of the two families out of their homes and moved their belonging of the Siknaj to the Palestinian houses, while the Israeli police stood to guard to protect them from any attempt from the Palestinian families to recover their property. Before that, on November 2008, the Israeli military border police forcibly expelled Mahmoud Al-Kurd, an old paralyzed man on a wheelchair, his wife Fawzia, Um Kamel, and their five children and their families, from their home in Sheikh Jarrah in the East of Jerusalem.
Mohammed Al-Kurd had lived in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood from 1956 until the morning of November 9, 2008 when the Israeli police enforced a court order that evicted them. Few days after this expulsion, Mahmoud Al-Kurd died of heart attack in his protest tent in the neighborhood of his house. The criminal Israeli Zionist organization police has since then destroyed the tent of the Al-Kurd family several times.
The Vice President of the European Parliament, Luisa Morgantini, had sent a letter for Al-Kurd family after their expulsion from their house in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. The same text of the letter was sent to all MEs of the European Parliament. Morgantini wrote:
Dear all,
You may remember that last Thursday during the plenary session we passed a urgency resolution on the expulsion of the Al Kurd family from the house they bought and lived in since 1956 in East Jerusalem. A group of extremist settlers claimed ownership to that house and 26 other houses in the same neighbourhood, on the basis of an Ottoman title deed dating from 1880, the authenticity of which is doubtful and which is also disputed by United States. The project of the Jewish associations is to build 200 hundreds colonial units that will replace the Palestinian homes.
Mohammed Kamal Al Kurd, the husband of Umm Kamal, did not survive, yes he was already ill, but the expulsion from the house, and the destruction by the Israeli police of the tents where they were staying after being expelled from their home , has been unbearable to him. He died in the Hospital.
Best regards,
Luisa Morgantini
Vice President of the European Parliament
Currently, a total of around 28 Palestinian families of East Jerusalem face Israeli expulsion from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The Palestinian families had lived in their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood since the days when east Jerusalem was under Jordanian control.
The United Nations, upon contract with Jordan allotted them the land after they became refugees when they were expelled from their homes in west Jerusalem by Zionists during the 1948 war.
Despite the UN and the Palestinian denials, and despite the fact that the lawyer of the Sheikh Jarrah families found that there is no evidence in the Turkish archives that the Siknaj are the owners of the land and the houses, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the expulsion of the Palestinian families following an appeal by the Zionists Nahalat Shimon settler group, which claimed that the Siknaj lived in, or bought plots in these areas before the establishment of Israel itself and by the partition resolution of 1948.
Two third of the houses in the West of Jerusalem belong to Palestinian families whose owners are denied the right to retake them. Some of these owners have appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court to regain their property, but always this court has always rejected their appeals, thus in fact creating injustice and supporting crimes.
What the Israeli Supreme Court and the Zionists organization “State of Israel” must remember and never forget is that we, all the Palestinians will NEVER give up and never forget, and that FOR EVER there are tens of thousands, millions of us who have their land and the homes in occupied Palestine, since 1948 and prior to that, and that we have the documents which prove our ownership.
Over 750.000 of us Palestinians were forcibly expelled in 1948 by the Israeli Zionists, turning us into refugees in Arab countries and in the Diaspora, and that also millions of us live in the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip. We all have the right to return and to demand our property back. The Siknaj will be institutionalized or worse, and the whole criminal enterprise called “Israel” will go, and after that ALL jews of the world will be forever held in contempt everywhere, even in countries where today they are highly respected. Not we, but your crimes against us will destroy you. [Kawther]
There are many houses and land belonging to Palestinians, which since 1948 - and antil now, have been stolen and occupied by these European and American jews, which today are occupied by Israeli ministers. One of these thieves is the current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who lives in a house stolen from a Palestinian family in the Al-Talibia Arab district in the west of Jerusalem.
The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem was built by the UN and Jordanian government in 1956 to house Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war. In 1967 Israel captured and illegally annexed Jerusalem during the six day war. We Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future state that includes the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and so it will be with or without the consent of the Siknaj, who better start packing.
http://fwd4.me/08Eu 11 aug 2011, 10:41 , Respect -
Maria 10 aug 2011
Analysis: 'Prisoners' of Israeli airspace
By Alaa Tartir
I never thought it was possible to be in prison in the sky. I always thought that prisons needed to be on the ground.
I also never thought that the prison could move and even fly: I always believed that cells needed to be rooted in the ground.
However, these two assumptions which I have believed for the last 26 years proved recently to be 'wrong.'
On a recent journey from Ramallah to London -- of course through the compulsory Amman route as the West Bank is not allowed an airport -- I experienced a new form of Israeli detention, this time in Israeli airspace.
It was an unpleasant experience, as passengers were forbidden from fulfilling basic human needs such as using the toilet, receiving food or water, or moving between seats to chat with friends.
I am fully aware that the denial of these basic human needs does not compare with the everyday violations of human rights that the Palestinians suffer on the ground due to the Israeli occupation, or with other violations of human rights in the wider region.
It may even seem ironic or silly to raise such issues in the context of the Arab Spring, while Syrian civilians are being killed and as thousands of Israelis demand social justice from their own unjust system.
But, while traveling, I was puzzled by a simple question: How many people from all over the world are imprisoned everyday in Israeli airspace?
On an Easyjet flight to Amman in June, around 45 minutes before landing, the pilot asked all passengers to remain seated and not to leave their seats.
Initially, I thought we had arrived early but this conclusion proved to be naive.
The crew manager started shouting: "Sit down ... sit down now ... you are not allowed to move ... sit down."
The flight attendant shouted so urgently and with such anger that I thought there was a potential terrorist trying to hijack the plane.
The potential terrorist turned out to be a four-year-old boy who desperately needed the toilet. His mother and father begged the crew manager to let him go, to no avail.
The boy messed his pants and (excuse me readers for this fact) the remaining passengers were forced to endure the smell of the boy's "weapon" which was not fatal but certainly unhygienic.
Several days ago I learned the reason for this scenario: Israeli security concerns.
On my flight back to London, I sat in the front row opposite the crew manager.
Early on in the flight, the pilot announced: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are now entering Israeli airspace and due to security requirements, all passengers must remain seated with their seat belts fastened until a further notice."
I looked at the crew manger at that point and said: "I am in an urgent need to use the toilet, can I please use it?"
While I felt like a pupil asking his teacher in the classroom for permission to use the bathroom, she told me confidently, "Sorry sir, this is not allowed at the moment, please wait and hold it."
I tried again, and she refused once again.
When I asked why, she told me "Due to the rules and regulations."
I asked which "rules and regulations," and after some hesitation, she said she truly didn't know but "We have been told that if any passenger moves that will be a threat to the Israeli security."
As a passenger, I felt I deserved a satisfactory reason why using the toilet presented a threat to Israel's security. I asked how she felt about this "plane arrest" for herself and the passengers she flew with to Amman.
As she blushed, the passenger next to me introduced himself as an American Jew and said: "So the government of Israel is also arresting us, the Jewish people."
I tell this story for illustrative reasons: my concern is that these airlines accept Israel's demand to "arrest" their passengers and deny their basic human rights.
How do the global civil aviation regulations allow Israel to apply this pressure? Why don't the stakeholders confront this policy? Why does the international community allow it?
And what would happen if every country imitated this policy for "security reasons?" Even short flights would be uncomfortable experiences.
I do not intend to discuss the well-known Israeli "rationale" behind its "security first" paradigm.
I wanted to illustrate that the occupation follows us all, not just Palestinians, who try to fly freely.
As the Palestinians try to gain international recognition as an independent state and membership of the United Nations, the international community must assess its role in sustaining and prolonging Israel's occupation and colonial practices.
Alaa Tartir is a PhD candidate at the London School of Economics
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=412253 25 aug 2011, 11:20 , Respect -
Maria 25 aug 2011
Suffering and strategy
While Gaza is coming under sustained Israeli attack, Tel Aviv is manoeuvring to use recent events to its best strategic advantage, in particular relative to Egypt, writes Saleh Al-Naami
Dr Monzher Qorayqa was going home Friday afternoon after a 12-hour shift at Dar Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza when he found his brother Moataz very distraught because his son Islam, aged five, had suddenly developed a high fever. The doctor, who works in the ICU at the hospital, decided to take Islam and his father to the hospital. After the necessary tests, a diagnosis, and a prescription by one of the paediatricians there, Qorayqa headed out to return their family home with his brother and nephew. He was no more than 200 metres away from the hospital when an unmanned Israeli surveillance drone launched two missiles at their car, killing all three instantly. The bombing also injured several passersby.
The scene reminded many in Gaza of the crimes committed by Israel before the last war on the Strip at the end of 2008.
Minutes before the call for prayer at dusk on Saturday, marking the end of another day of fasting during Ramadan, six-year-old Amr and seven-year-old Salim were playing near Al-Wafa Hospital which specialises in paralysis in eastern Gaza City, where their families live. They were targeted by an unmanned Israeli drone and sustained severe to medium injuries.
Since Israel began responding to the Eilat attack on Thursday afternoon, 15 Palestinians have been killed and tens injured. The Israeli army has especially targeted members of the Popular Resistance Committees whose general leader, Abu Awad Al-Nerb, was assassinated Thursday evening, along with several committee leaders in Rafah city. Since even before the Eilat attack was over, Israel claimed the perpetrators came from Gaza. Tel Aviv even justified the assassination of general leader Al-Nerb by saying that the "committees" planned and carried out the attack, despite firm and official denials by the committees.
But Israel does not seem interested in carrying out an extensive land operation in retribution for what happened, since this would not serve its strategic interests ahead of September when the UN is scheduled to look into a Palestinian request for recognition at the UN. Images of death and destruction among civilians would not serve Israel's purpose in preventing the largest number of states from supporting the Palestinian request.
Sources told Al-Ahram Weekly that the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and intelligence apparatus are in constant contact with the leaders of Palestinian factions in Gaza and representatives of the government there, on the one hand, and the Israeli government on the other, to prevent conditions from unravelling and to restore the ceasefire that was in place until events exploded.
The prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, made several phone calls to Egyptian General Intelligence Chief Major General Murad Muwafi to discuss a return to a truce. Sources told the Weekly that Egyptian officials have also contacted Ramadan Abdallah Shalah, the secretary-general of Islamic Jihad, to discuss the prospect of a ceasefire. Informed Palestinian sources said that it is as yet unknown if the Egyptians have received a commitment from Israel not to escalate tensions in the hope that Cairo will be able to bring both sides back to a truce, or whether the Egyptians are mediating without such a commitment. Especially that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has issued several threats about the high price that leaders and members of the Palestinian resistance will pay.
An informed Palestinian source told the Weekly that Cairo has been successful in arranging a return to a ceasefire between the two sides, and that Haniyeh's government told representatives of the Palestinian factions to prepare for a ceasefire at any moment.
Yehia Moussa, deputy leader of the Hamas bloc in parliament, said that his group is interested in a ceasefire, and accused Israel of always violating ceasefire agreements.
"We are interested in a truce," Moussa told the Weekly, "but we want this ceasefire to be based on strong and sturdy foundations, not merely conditions on the ground or subjective reasons that would render it a fragile truce. Israel is the one that always initiates a breach of ceasefire and has a narrow outlook based on Tel Aviv's belief that it can do as it pleases but others can't. This is unacceptable."
Moussa praised Egyptian mediation efforts to restore a ceasefire. He added that in light of conditions in Egypt after the revolution, Cairo -- like Hamas -- is interested in maintaining peace on its northern border. He emphasised that the new leadership in Egypt is acting out of nationalistic and patriotic intentions, and therefore is sensitive to what the Egyptian street wants and would never allow Israel to bully the Palestinian people again.
Moussa emphasised that the response of the people and government of Egypt surprised Israel "and demonstrated to the rulers in Tel Aviv that a new reality has arrived in the Arab world after the revolutions of democracy, and no one is willing to be a 'strategic treasure' for Israel". He noted that Israel's conduct proves it's confused over the repercussions of any escalation of violence against Gaza. The Hamas leader continued that Israel fears opening more fronts if it escalates confrontations against Gaza, and that Israel justified its attacks based on deceitful reasons since the Popular Resistance Committees whom Tel Aviv accused of the Eilat attack have denied responsibility.
If Cairo is successful in convincing the two sides to observe a truce once again, this development would demonstrate that Israeli politicians have not yet agreed with military leaders who are eager to carry out a military strike against Hamas. Yediot Aharonot newspaper reported that all Israeli officers in the southern region are calling for an aggressive attack against Hamas in response for continued missile attacks against southern towns and cities. The paper added that the Israeli army is not preparing for an extensive assault or deploying land troops, but instead is looking into several options that aim to aggressively strike Hamas leaders and the group's military infrastructure.
The newspaper quoted military sources as saying that there are several targets for the Israeli army, and that the army is waiting for orders from politicians. Meanwhile, the opposition led by Kadima Party has taken a hardline position against Gaza and Hamas. Shaul Mofaz, chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee and a leading Kadima figure, urged Binyamin Netanyahu's cabinet to hasten in toppling the Hamas government in Gaza and targeting its leaders and infrastructure.
"Israel cannot participate in a long-term war of attrition," Mofaz asserted during a special session of the Knesset committee. Likud Knesset member Ofir Akonis proposed that Israel will carry out a lethal strike against Hamas to make it regret recent events.
Meanwhile, the spokesman of the Israeli army, Brigadier Yoav Mordechai, said that Hamas is not directly responsible for the missile attacks on the Israeli towns and cities, but told Israel Radio that this does not exempt Hamas from responsibility for what happened.
Undoubtedly, Israel's attempt to blame Gaza for the attack on Eilat is first and foremost a plot to spoil relations between Hamas and Egypt. Israel believes that Cairo will view any Palestinian carrying out attacks against Israel from Sinai as enabling Tel Aviv to bring international pressure on post-revolution Egypt and restrict its mobility. Tel Aviv also believes that the avalanche of international pressure on Egypt would serve Israel's strategic interests, and could force Egyptian intelligence to continue security cooperation with Tel Aviv in a manner that serves its strategic goals.
This is especially true in terms of cooperating with Israel to end arms smuggling into Gaza, and an attempt to block any future government in Egypt from turning over a new leaf with Hamas.
Cairo may be able to convince both sides to a ceasefire, but all signs indicate that this will be a temporary and fragile truce.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1062/eg1.htm
Israel’s ‘Nice Little War’: Gaza, Egypt in the Range of Fire
By Ramzy Baroud
Israeli writer Uri Avnery recently wrote an article entitled ‘How Godly Are Thy Tents?,’ which began with the words, “First of all, a warning.”
The reference was made to the tent cities that have sprung up across the country by middle class Israelis demanding change and reforms. The organizational style of these demands was not entirely different from Arab uprisings.
To everyone’s surprise, the limited Israeli mobilization, which extended from concerns about sky-rocketing real estate prices to calls for ‘social justice’, was seen as Israel’s Tahrir Square moment. The movement was yet to articulate a political agenda, although such enunciation would have been a natural progression.
So what was Avnery’s warning about?
The “social protest movement is gathering momentum,” wrote Avnery. “At that point, there will be a temptation – perhaps an irresistible temptation – to ‘warm up the borders.’ To start a nice little war. Call on the youth of Israel, the same young people now manning…the tents, to go and defend the fatherland.”
It was an unnerving warning, not only because it came from Avnery, a veteran well-versed in his understanding of the Israel ruling class, but also because it actualized in its entirety a few days later.
The ‘war’ had indeed commenced, starting on August 18. The ‘provocation’ had supposedly demonstrated without doubt that Israel’s security was greatly compromised and that the small state with ‘indefensible borders’ was paying a high price for Gaza’s armed intransigence and Egypt’s post-revolutionary chaos.
Israeli sources reported that a large number of militants had crossed Sinai into Israel’s Red Sea resort of Eilat on Thursday (August 18), opening fire on two buses carrying Israeli soldiers. The passage was implacably coordinated, thus the ability of these bold attackers to kill and wound soldiers and other Israelis. According to the Israeli version of events, some of the attackers were killed, but others managed to flee back to Egypt.
This forced the Israeli military to pursue them in an extraordinary chase, which mistakenly killed three Egyptian military personal.
Israeli sources, seemingly clueless to the armed men’s infiltration of a high security area, immediately provided precise information about the attackers. Instant consensus was also reached about the attackers’ link to Gaza. Per the massive strikes on many Gaza targets, it seemed as though the entire Strip was being blamed and punished.
The outcome was most predictable, albeit tragic. Israeli warplanes flew back over the Gaza sky, drones roamed uncontested, and the Palestinian death toll augmented. The whole miserable scene of killed civilians, mutilated children and burnt buildings was once more upon us.
The chorus of support for Israel and condemnation of Palestinians from Washington was reminiscent of a history that never stops repeating itself.
But before delving into counter-arguments, one is tempted to question the conveniently situated Israeli wars of ‘self defense.’ How different is this latest ‘nice little war’ from the horrifying Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982?
When Ariel Sharon requested an American green light to attack Lebanon, Alexander Haig, US Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan, insisted Israel must possess a ‘credible provocation’ before leading such a mission.
Moreover, the case made to justify the war on Gaza in 2008-09 Operation Cast Lead also had its own ‘credible provocation.’ In fact, all of Israel’s wars are sold to the public within this neat package which actually holds little credibility.
This time the provocation had to be convincing enough to justify multiple Israeli strikes on all of Gaza’s factions, as well as politically vulnerable Egypt.
Why is Israel bent on discrediting Egypt, exploiting the most sensitive period of its modern history, and destabilizing the border area so as to show Egypt’s failure to ensure Israel’s border security, as stipulated in the Camp David treaty?
Reportedly, all of Gaza’s prominent factions denied any responsibility for the Eilat attacks, including the Popular Resistance Committees (not affiliated with Hamas), which was accused by Israeli of being behind the attacks.
Responding to Israel’s killing of Egyptian officers, and under pressure by thousands of porters, Egypt pulled its ambassador out of Israel on August 20. In Israel, the discussion is now shifting to security and the need to complete construction of its 200km barrier at the border with Egypt, ostensibly aimed at blocking African immigrants from sneaking into Israel.
Strangely, Egypt, which stands accused of allowing hundreds of militants into Israel from Sinai, had kept an eye on the border despite the effects of the revolution on security throughout the country. On July 7, for example, and on August 11, Egyptian security reportedly killed an Eritrean man and a Sudan migrant respectively for trying to cross the border. Many others have been apprehended during past months as well.
The army’s ability to strike down lone migrants, while supposed laxity allowed for the infiltration of hundreds in one instance raises more questions than it provides answers.
Some hidden hands seem to be orchestrating chaos in the city of El Arish and the rest of the Sinai area. This includes the peculiar daytime attack by hundreds of armed met at police stations in El Arish on July 29, which killed several Egyptian officers.
While deliberate chaos was being engendered in Sinai, fear was returning to Gaza as it was promised another Israeli military assault.
On August 9, residents of the impoverished Gaza Strip feared attack by Israel. The fears were not only based on repeated threats by Israeli officials, but also on a mysterious telecommunication blackout that day which cut off all Internet, mobile phones and international landlines for hours, according to Ma’an news agency.
“Meanwhile, residents of Gaza near the border with Israel said army bulldozers were seen operating shortly before communications went offline,” Ma’an reported.
Why did Israel cut Gaza’s communication off? Was the ‘credible provocation’ being concocted then? Why did Israel fail to provide a reasonable explanation for the blackout? More, why the attempt at embarrassing, provoking and perhaps dragging Egypt into a border confrontation at a time when Egypt is attempting a transition towards democracy?
It ought to be said that “new Egypt’ was also credited for facilitating Palestinian unity, a first step towards taking Hamas out of its international isolation.
Is it not then possible that Israel’s ‘nice little war’ was a response to such a dangerous shift in Egyptian policy towards Hamas - and Palestine in general?
Ramzy Baroud is an internationally syndicated columnist and the editor of Palestine Chronicle.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=415980...Read more 6 sep 2011, 21:36 , Respect -
Maria 6 sept 2011
Not Israel’s best times
By OSAMA AL SHARIF
These are not Israel’s best times. A tussle with Turkey over a commando raid on a flotilla of aid-carrying ships heading to Gaza Strip last year in which nine Turkish citizens were killed, has just turned into a full-fledged diplomatic war.
Ankara expelled the Israeli ambassador this week and vowed to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza at the International Court of Justice. Turkey’s main demand, that Israel issues an official apology for the naval attack, has been rejected — again — by Tel Aviv.
Relations between Turkey and Israel, historically close on all levels, have been under strain since Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza in 2008. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stormed out of a panel discussion, attended by President Shimon Peres, in Davos few months later in protest. Ankara has been critical of Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government and its uncompromising positions on the peace process and the lifting of an economic siege on Gaza.
The Mavi Marmara affair has soured relations between the two and brought about harsh criticisms and warnings from Turkey. President Abdullah Gul said the expulsion of Israeli diplomats would be followed by other measures. The move was taken following the publication of excerpts of the findings of a UN panel, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, a former prime minister of New Zealand, which concluded that the blockade was in fact legal, and that it was not causing a humanitarian crisis in the Strip. It criticized Israel for the way it handled the raid on Mavi Marmara, while acknowledging that soldiers were acting in self-defense! The full report was later released to the media. Its conclusions were condemned by the Arab League, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC), who described it as biased.
As the legal battle flares up, Israel warned Sunday that a planned visit by Erdogan to Gaza Strip next week, via Egypt, would be a “diplomatic mistake.” It is clear that such a visit would cause further damage to strained relations between the two countries.
The demise of special relations with Turkey is a big blow for Israel, especially as Ankara’s regional role grows in influence. Perhaps the biggest loss would be felt in Israel’s military, not to mention trade, circles now that Turkey has suspended all cooperation agreements. Even if Israel backs down and offers a kind of apology, which seems unlikely under the current government, it is doubtful that both countries will ever restore close strategic cooperation.
The latest deterioration in relations with Turkey comes in the wake of a public backlash in Egypt against Israel following the gunning down of five Egyptian soldiers last month on the borders with Sinai. Thousands of Egyptians besieged the Israeli Embassy in the heart of Cairo calling on the government to expel the ambassador and annul the Camp David peace treaty. One protester was able to bring down the Israeli flag amid the cheering of his compatriots.
It was a sign of things to come. The popular revolution that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak in January was bound to affect the once close relations between Israel and the Egyptian regime. It had already ended Hamas’ political isolation while the ruling military council in Cairo was quick to reopen the Rafah border crossing. The future of relations with Israel will feature in the upcoming legislative and presidential elections in Egypt and many believe that the era of close cooperation between the two countries has come to an end.
Israel’s diplomatic nightmare will reach record highs later this month when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to ask the UN’s secretary-general to officially submit Palestine’s application for full membership to the international organization as an independent state along the 1967 borders. Israeli warnings and threats have failed to dissuade the Palestinians and most observers believe the application will receive the needed majority to pass in the General Assembly. Israel will find itself alone, along with the United States which will almost certainly use its veto power in the Security Council.
The political damage for Israel will be huge. Not only that will mean the end of the peace process, and America’s sponsorship of it, but it will underline international support for Palestinian rights. It will bring Israel face-to-face with the international organization, an arena it has always hated and tried to avoid.
Israel’s reaction to the Palestinian move will not improve its bargaining position. By denying financial aid to the PNA, both Washington and Tel Aviv will ensure its fall. This will put responsibility for running the civil affairs of the occupied territories back to the Israelis; a job they had gladly forsaken almost 20 years ago. The prospect of a third intifada flaring up in the aftermath of the historic UN vote is already troubling Israeli generals and politicians.
As if all these developments are not enough to keep Netanyahu awake at night his government is facing unprecedented public protests over skyrocketing living and housing costs. Last Saturday over 450,000 citizens marched all over the country in the largest demonstration in Israel’s history demanding social justice. The protests have been going on for weeks now, inspired by the Arab Spring, and while demonstrators have not dealt with the issue of occupation, there are those in Israel who believe that it is a matter of time before the exuberant cost of maintaining settlers and settlements will be raised.
Israel is not immune to global and regional crises and in this fast-changing landscape it will have to review its position on many issues or face dire consequences.
— Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.
http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article498393.ece
7 sept 2011
Israel and China: Mutual Opportunism
Yang Weiguo, People's Republic of China’s envoy to the Palestinian Territories visits Israel’s apartheid wall near the Aida refugee camp.
By: Housam Matar
The Chinese chief of staff’s visit to Israel on August 14 gave rise to speculation about the nature of the relationship between the two countries: its scope, limits, as well its impact on the Middle East region, particularly its effect on US-Israeli ties. The visit coincided with an increase in the frequency of visits by other Chinese military officials to Israel.
The Chinese chief of staff’s visit comes on the heels of another visit to Israel by the commander of the Chinese navy in May 2011, followed a month later by a visit from China’s Defense Minister. Prior to that, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak went to China on a historic visit in mid-June 2011, during which he affirmed military and commercial cooperation between the two countries and issued invitations for Chinese military officials to visit Israel. Barak told Chinese officials, “Israel is a small country, and our internal market is too small for our technology sector,” which, to Chinese ears, meant that Israel is willing to develop militarily ties with China despite US pressures.
This is a sign of improved Sino-Israeli ties after the relationship between the two countries was stymied for years by US opposition. It appears that the Chinese have not missed this opportunity to revive their military collaboration with Israel. The Israeli-Chinese relationship constitutes an interesting case study in politics, as it is almost impossible to determine which side is being more pragmatic, opportunistic, and cunning.
It is helpful to begin by outlining the role of China in the Middle East. Historically, the Chinese position, influenced by its communist ideology, was closer to that of the Arabs. When Chinese foreign policy began to shift in the 1970s, from an ideological to a pragmatic position, its politics became more realist, and it refrained from taking a clear position in favor of a specific party in the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the 1980s and 1990s, China’s policies towards the region were largely determined by its arms sales to countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran, of which nuclear cooperation was a major part. Current Chinese interests in the region are not restricted to procuring energy resources, selling weapons, and buying high-tech weaponry from Israel.
Sino-Israeli relations have often revolved around military matters, while Sino-Arab and Sino-Iranian relations have largely involved oil. China benefits from the Israeli military industry’s advanced technology, especially in areas of control devices, air defense, and naval equipment. The Chinese are also interested in Israeli operational expertise, as China has not engaged in a military campaign since the 1970s. The international embargo on arms sales to China following the Tienanmen Square events in 1989 proved to be useful to Israel, which has become Beijing's second largest arms supplier after Russia.
The importance of Sino-Israeli military relations was such that their military cooperation, beginning in the early 1980s, preceded political normalization, which did not happen until the early 1990s. However, their partnership has faced numerous obstacles and crises, largely due to US opposition to Israeli arms sales to China, especially in the strategic high-tech weapons sector which affects the balance of power in the Pacific region. US pressure, which has repeatedly forced Israel to cancel signed agreements with China, has represented the biggest obstacle to Sino-Israeli military cooperation.
US-Israeli relations faced a serious challenge in 2000 because of Israel’s agreement to supply China with the Phalcon airborne early warning system. Washington suspended certain sensitive military programs with Israel, fearing they would be transferred to China, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. This forced Israel to cancel its agreement and pledge not to sell China weapons that could threaten US national security.
Many factors may prompt Israel to reassess its previous policy and revive its relations with China, or so the Chinese hope. In light of Israel’s economic crisis, military exports to China could help Israel’s economy, especially at a moment when China is interested in improving its military capabilities, demonstrated by the launching of its first aircraft carrier on August 10.
Meanwhile, China has gained more prominence in Middle Eastern affairs, especially in areas of interest to Israel, namely China’s relationship with Iran and arms sales to Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel wants to benefit from China’s rising global status at time when US influence is in decline.
Israel may also be interested in benefiting from China’s diplomatic power, in light of the Palestinian Authority’s September bid for Palestinian statehood at the UN. China could play a central role in the UN Security Council and in other international venues where Israel faces mounting accusations that they have violated human rights and international laws.
Additionally, Israel has used the issue of military exports to China as leverage with the US, particularly when it comes to the peace process and other Middle East issues. Reviving relations with China may also serve as a counterweight to pressures by the Obama administration. US policy will play a determining role in Israel’s relationship with China. In an essay entitled “Chinese Chief of Staff Visits Israel: Renewing Military Relations?” Yoram Evron from Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies writes, “Unlike the past, when it [Israel] ignored tensions between the US and China or alternately chose one side over the other, it will now have to find a way to maneuver between the two.”
This article is translated from the Arabic Edition.
http://fwd4.me/0AqS 9 oct 2011, 09:36 , Respect -
Maria 29 sept 2011
I demand more than a state with a lowercase ‘s’
By Sami Kishawi
Although the Palestinian Authority’s statehood bid has received its fair share of international support, I can’t say that it represents my hopes, my ambitions, or my idea of a free Palestine. Analysts and experts will argue that the issue of Palestinian statehood and self-sovereignty is complicated, that it requires concessions, bargains, negotiations, and sheer luck, that any other alternative would be too idealistic. I disagree, partially because it isn’t complicated at all, but especially because these claims present Palestinians as a sacrificial bunch that only require a certain percentage of rights. My people did not overcome occupation for six decades to settle for a state with a lowercase ‘s’ or freedom with a lowercase ‘f’.
I understand that I don’t speak for every Palestinian in the world, but I do have my own idea of statehood that most certainly resonates with the ultimate goal of our efforts. It’s a state unbound by political strangleholds and guided by the concepts of accountability, equality, and justice. It is by no means a revolutionary idea — we’ve all thought about it more or less. But with the current bid for statehood being used under my name and the names of millions of Palestinians worldwide, it is time to formally present an alternative and more adequate solution. This is an issue of principle, and even if takes twice as long to achieve, this is the Palestine I hope to see.
The most crucial element of a Palestinian future is to do away with a “bid”. I, as a human being, feel no need to circulate a petition in support of my own personal and guaranteed rights. I will not ask permission to exist as an equal nor will I auction off my rights to the highest bidder. Countries have declared unilateral independence in the past and this standard approach cannot be left out of the equation in order to appease the opposition.
This boldness might appear shortsighted. A unilateral declaration would inevitably lead to an invasion, but this will only justify the necessity for a free and secure state outside of the current system of oppression. Isn’t this the very same excuse Israel used in 1948?
Luckily, none of that will be necessary. The Palestinian struggle is intentionally misunderstood as a movement to establish the prominence of the Palestinian people at the expense of all others, especially Jews. This cannot be any more wrong. The free Palestinian state I envision will not follow the models set forth by Benjamin Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon, and any other Israeli leader intent on putting Palestinians down. In my case, the law — including the Right of Return and freedom of expression — will apply to all. Security will be guaranteed for all. The public transit system will be accessible to all. Residential areas will be open for all. Religious freedoms will be ensured for all. Human and civil rights will be afforded to all. The apartheid wall will fall, and so will anything attached to it and the occupation that attempts to poison the Palestinian identity.
Since well before the inception of the Israeli state in 1948, Palestinian autonomy has been marginalized and consequently mismanaged in the form of contractual dealings that ignore the voices of the actual Palestinian people. Refugees are still to this day pushed to the side and spoken about as statistics with no demands of their own. Israeli settlers are allowed to sidestep international law and construct homes within the current Palestinian territories but Palestinians are prevented from expanding beyond Israel’s encroaching concrete wall or moving beyond checkpoints and bulldozers. The only precondition, it seems, is that Palestinians abandon all of theirs. But there is one condition we will never abandon: our Palestinian identity, an identity we will proudly express in the most liberated manner possible.
Palestinians will embody the total opposite of what bigots take us to be. Whether we have different neighbors near our borders or near our physical houses, we will be at the forefront of establishing a just solution to the occupation for everyone in the region. Just as the people of Palestine have done for over a half century, we will rightfully wage war against the racism and intolerance propped up by hypocrisy and double standards. Once this battle is complete, the occupation will be defeated. What happens next is in our hands, and we are under no obligation to “bid” for permission to live as free and secure men and women.
Negotiations, bids, high profile meetings, and summits all appear to be concerned with peace. True, this might be the most practical approach but it is definitely not good enough. My vision of a Palestinian state is certainly idealistic but it is not impractical and it is definitely not impossible.
I believe in equality, accountability, and justice according to the law as it applies to all. So long as we continue to frame our future around these tenets, we will succeed in doing what a dozen United Nations bids for statehood can never do. It really is that simple: follow the law, treat people as equals, and rather than sacrificing certain aspects of the Palestinian identity as if they don’t matter or are somehow something to be ashamed of, take pride in the fact that they will be more beneficial to humanity than an indefinite and illegal military occupation.
http://fwd4.me/0DMK 13 oct 2011, 10:54 , Respect -
Maria 13 oct 2011
Reem el-Hamed Ahmed: Black, proud and Palestinian
By Arthur Neslen
Minorities can easily be overlooked in the heat of national struggle. No-one knows exactly how many Palestinians of African descent exist in Palestine. But they have lived on the land since the days of the slave trade, at least. They may not be singled out for particularly discriminatory treatment by Israel. However, within their own society, the picture is sometimes less clear.
Reem el-Hamed Ahmed was a founding member of perhaps the only support group for Palestinians of African descent in Israel/Palestine. She exuded a warm and unguarded bonhomie, often beaming with a sunny smile or cracking up with a rich infectious laugh. Reem sat in an office tea room, chewing gum and swiveling her chair slowly from left to right, changing direction every time her toes touched the floor.
Reem’s day job was behind the counter at a post office in Kfar Qassem, where her family had lived since her grandfather moved there from Ramle after the World War I. His wife – Reem’s grandmother – was shot dead by Israeli troops in the 1956 massacre, which claimed the lives of 49 other Palestinian civilians, for nominally breaking an unpublicized village curfew.
"My father and uncle were survivors," Reem said shyly. "I don’t know the exact story because my father never wanted to talk about it but my uncle was in the group that cycled to the village. When they arrived, he saw shooting and hid behind a cactus. My father got in to Kfar Kassem in the last car that was let through. He saw his mother killed there. Later he developed alcohol problems. October was always a difficult time for him." The massacre took place on Oct. 31, 1956.
According to principles of sumud (steadfastness), villagers should rally together in the face of an enemy intent on ethnic cleansing. But Reem looked downcast when I asked if this had happened in her case. "No," she said sadly. "My father and his friends were politically active against the military administration so people here didn’t support them. They even collaborated and talked against them." But "the massacre made him more politically involved," she stressed. He was jailed twice in the years that followed.
While Reem’s mother was a "home-mum" who made dresses in her spare time, her father, a construction worker, was one of the founders of the town’s Communist Party. Reem remembered him reading Russian literature from the Soviet Union, and the newspaper Il Iftishad (the struggle) which was later closed by Israel’s authorities. "My dad taught me a lot," she reflected.
"I was always against Arab leaders, but he said that I should try to look for the positive in them, and not curse them. I also learned to be independent because I saw that no one would support me, just as no one supported him."
In those days, leftist parties did well in the "triangle" of Arab villages bordering the West Bank. But the Islamic Movement had become the strongest party "because it started here," Reem qualified. "All their leaders come from this town. We faced a very hard economic period and they supported people financially. This is a very conservative town and religion is closer to its prejudiced family traditions – against women’s rights to education and work – than the Communist Party. They didn’t bring people to Islam against the traditions. They flowed with the tradition and mixed it with religion."
Asked about her own identity, she smiled. "I am an Arab Palestinian, nothing more," she said gingerly. Despite feeling isolated from her community, Reem had a happy childhood and still kept "the child in myself," she said. "I wasn’t really involved in the town’s social activities. I watched things happen around me. Early marriages were a tradition – and a social problem. Most of my schoolmates were married by (the time they were) 18 years old. But my neighborhood was different because girls got married when they finished their studies and worked afterwards. I felt like I was living in a bubble."
Reem never felt that she belonged in Israel but she never liked the lyrics of artists like Oum Khaltoum either. "They made it sound like the Arab world was dreaming and refusing to wake up," she said. "I grew up during the first intifada and our generation was politically aware. We felt that we belonged more to the Palestinians who were fighting. I got to know some Jews through political activities, but their lives were very Western. They don’t have our tradition of close oriental family relations."
Interestingly, though, Reem believed that Israelis treated black Palestinians "more appreciatively," than other Arabs, "like something exotic. They don’t know that there are black Arabs. They think I’m a freak African or an Ethiopian Jew. Ethiopians sometimes talk to me in Amharic, their language"; she let out a howl of mirth, as she said this.
Although she was studying for a history degree in the Open University, Reem’s workplace was perhaps the most dangerous in town. "The post office is more like a bank now. We’ve even had a few robberies – and each time I was working!" she hooted again. "I’m not a fearful person. I practiced karate for ten years. But last time the robbers were armed, so I was more careful."
"I was about to close up when the first robber came in and shot at the ceiling. Another one jumped out from behind the door and came to the counter and a third guy started threatening two customers who were here. I bent over and the guy who shot first thought that I was going to press the security button or something so he shot a bullet through the glass. Then he pushed it so that the shattered glass fell all over me. I wasn’t hurt. They only took the money that was in the drawer. It wasn’t much, about 3,000 shekels."
"I wasn’t scared," she emphasized and then leaned her head back to let a deep laugh exit. "I always treat these things calmly. Even the police were surprised that I talked about it like nothing special had happened. It made me sad, because people who use the post office are usually old people who are really in need."
The worst thing for Reem was that the robbers were from Kfar Qassem. "I always helped people here and because they attacked my office, it felt like they attacked me personally," she said and her smile finally faded. Bullet-proof glass had since been installed at the counter. It made her feel safe but also distanced from the customers.
Reem first became aware that villagers thought she was "different" as a child. "We had to split into black and white teams even when we were playing hide and seek," she said. "Then, when I was beginning to make relationships, one guy wouldn’t kiss me seriously. We felt different from the majority because of our skin color so me and my cousins formed a gang of 10 or 15 kids to make ourselves strong and support each other. Like, if anyone said a word against one of us, we’d tell them what would happen." More generally, she said, "people treated me as though I were invisible". The black team always won at hide and seek.
But they could not evade racist comments. "The white Arabs always called us 'slaves' because for them a black person is a slave," Reem said. "That’s what they saw in the movies. I used to think that because the Jews looked at them as inferior, they looked for others who they could treat as inferior. But our 'inferiority' has been around since before Israel’s existence. For the whites, we were bought and brought here as slaves so they adapt this idea unconsciously from their fathers." Many Afro-Palestinians arrived as slaves in the Ottoman period but some also fled Sudan in the Islamic period. Reem thinks her family might have been among these.
Their numbers may be small, but black Palestinians make up significant minorities in towns such as Jenin, Tulkarem and Jericho. In Kfar Qassem, Reem was involved in the first Palestinian black consciousness group – for women only, at that time. She had even begun calling herself an Afro-Palestinian – "but only for a joke," she hedged. All Palestinians faced common problems of racism but black Palestinians could easily feel like second-class citizens in their own society. "I don’t want to call it a disability but a black member in the local council would be kind of inappropriate," was how Reem put it. Her nine-member group, initiated by her sister, had just started admitting white partners.
"Many of us couldn’t marry people from the town," Reem said. "They thought our skin color made us too different. You can only marry a black man or someone from the same family. If a woman can’t find a suitable person, she has two options: to marry the first black man who asks her or, like me, to not get married." But you’re very attractive I said, surely you’ve had suitors? "My criteria are not just about liking guys," Reem replied, "but about him being able to stand all the problems that I face. I have many admirers but it’s about finding someone suitable." Black men also felt inferior, she added, and often tried to pair off with whites. But her brother consciously decided to marry someone black.
Her most affecting experience in the group came during an art therapy session. "One young girl drew herself inside a circle," she said "and another group of girls outside it. She wanted to join this group but they were refusing to let her in. I know racism’s not going to change any time soon, but we’re trying to bring it to public attention. Reem lowered her voice several notches when I asked whether she felt an affinity with African culture. "I feel this a lot," she said. "There’s something in the way we react to music that I think I inherited in my genes." She said she wanted to visit South Africa, which had been an inspiration, ever since her father hung a photo of Nelson Mandela on the wall. No family member ever earned such an accolade. But then, invisibility can be a spur to great achievement.
Arthur Neslen is the author of "In Your Eyes a Sandstorm: Ways of Being Palestinian," a collection of interviews about Palestinian identity. A previous version of this interview appeared on Souciant and is republished here with permission.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=428800 22 oct 2011, 21:42 , Respect -
Maria 21 oct 2011
AWWAD: No beauty in prisoner swap
By Hana Awwad
This week marked the beginning of a long-awaited prisoner exchange that will free 1,027 Palestinian political prisoners and one Israeli soldier. While many in the United States, including Yishai Schwartz ’13 (“A beautiful absurdity,” Oct. 17), have celebrated the release of the soldier, the freed Palestinian prisoners have been neglected. But the release of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners has been celebrated in Palestinian communities around the world. To them, the imprisonment of Palestinians is one facet of Israel’s 44-year military occupation.
The world knows that Gilad Shalit was a young man when he was captured, but who were the Palestinian prisoners? The Israeli and American presses have romanticized Shalit, despite the fact that his capture was unremarkable: He was wearing a military uniform and carrying a weapon in a conflict zone. At the same time, the press has universally characterized Palestinian prisoners — minors among them — as criminals or terrorists, whether they were civilians or combatants.
Many of the Palestinians imprisoned by Israel were unarmed civilians. In fact, hundreds of Palestinian children have been arrested for throwing stones at armored vehicles in protest of the occupation. According to B’Tselem, a leading Israeli human rights organization, “at least 835 Palestinian minors were arrested and tried in military courts in the West Bank on charges of stone throwing” between 2005 and 2010.
It is true that some of the Palestinian prisoners are suspected of involvement in armed activities, but it is also true that Israel has not granted them their right to a fair trial in accordance with international conventions. According to B’Tselem, there were approximately 5,200 Palestinians in Israeli prisons at the end of August 2011. Many of them are held under “administrative detention,” a euphemism for imprisonment by military officials without trial. Further, according to Amnesty International, Palestinian detainees are “routinely interrogated without a lawyer and, although they are civilians, are tried before military not ordinary courts.”
While American and Israeli officials routinely voiced concern about Shalit’s treatment, little concern was paid to the documented mistreatment of thousands of Palestinian prisoners by Israeli forces. Amnesty International reports “consistent allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, including of children” and Israeli courts’ acceptance of “confessions allegedly obtained under duress … as evidence .”
These abominable conditions have driven Palestinian prisoners to numerous hunger strikes, including a three week strike that ended only recently. Palestinian prisoners continue to demand an end to solitary confinement, the ban on books and college education in prisons, inhumane treatment and torture, dismal sanitary conditions, the persistent denial of family visits and inadequate medical treatment for ill prisoners.
In this context, the fact that many in the United States value the freedom of one Israeli soldier more than the freedom of 1,027 Palestinians continues a long tradition of disparity and injustice. Twenty-six of the Palestinian prisoners released this week have been incarcerated since before the birth of Gilad Shalit. As observed by Toufic Haddad, a contributor to the online magazine Jadaliyya, 10 other Palestinian prisoners to be released in the swap — Sami Yunis, Fuad al-Razem, Uthman Musalah, Hasan Salama, Akram Mansour, Fakhri Barghouti, Ibrahim Jaber, Muhammad Abu Hud’a, Nael Barghouti, and Salim Kiyal — spent more time in Israeli prisons than Nelson Mandela spent on Robben Island, yet none of them is even the subject of a Wikipedia entry.
“In contrast,” Haddad notes, “Gilad Shalit, who has spent five years in captivity, is a household name in many western countries, holds honorary citizenship in three countries, and has Wikipedia pages translated into 23 languages.”
The 1,027 Palestinians freed by this swap will probably remain faceless and nameless to many, despite the fact that they have all been incarcerated in the context of Israel’s illegal occupation of the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Yet I cannot help but think of them as they see their loved ones for the first time in many years.
I think of the ones Israel will immediately exile outside of Palestine or send to Gaza — an open-air prison — without any guarantees that they will not be assassinated. I think of when — or if — they will get to see their families, and of all those who have been left in Israeli prisons after the swap, and of their loved ones. Most of all, I think of the blatant bias and dehumanization exhibited by those who believe that Shalit’s freedom was worth more than the freedom of those 1,027 Palestinians and that of the thousands more that remain in Israel’s prisons.
http://fwd4.me/0fSk