The Lessons of the Rocks

The Nakba march

2008-05-18T15:07:00.001-07:00

Jonathan Cook writing from Nazareth, Live from Palestine, 16 May 2008

It has been a week of adulation from world leaders, ostentatious displays of military prowess, and street parties. Heads of state have rubbed shoulders with celebrities to pay homage to the Jewish state on its 60th birthday, while a million Israelis reportedly headed off to the country's forests to enjoy the national pastime: a barbecue.
But this year's Independence Day festivities have concealed as much as they have revealed. The images of joy and celebration seen by the world have failed to acknowledge the reality of a deeply divided Israel, shared by two peoples with conflicting memories and claims to the land.
They have also served to shield from view the fact that the Palestinians' dispossession is continuing in both the occupied territories and inside Israel itself. Far from being a historical event, Israel's "independence" -- and the ever greater toll it is inflicting on the Palestinian people -- is very much a live issue.
Away from the cameras, a fifth of the Israeli population -- more than one million Palestinian citizens -- remembered the Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948 that befell the Palestinian people as the Jewish state was built on the ruins of their society.
As it has been doing for the past decade, Israel's Palestinian minority staged an alternative act of commemoration: a procession of families, many of them refugees from the 1948 war, to one of more than 400 Palestinian villages erased by Israel in a monumental act of state vandalism after the fighting. The villages were destroyed to ensure that the 750,000 Palestinians expelled from the state under the cover of war never return.
But in a sign of how far Israel still is from coming to terms with the circumstances of its birth, this year's march was forcibly broken up by the Israeli police. They clubbed unarmed demonstrators with batons and fired tear gas and stun grenades into crowds of families that included young children.
Although most of the refugees from the 1948 war -- numbering in their millions -- ended up in camps in neighboring Arab states, a few remained inside Israel. Today one in four Palestinian citizens of Israel is either a refugee or descended from one. Not only have they been denied the right ever to return to their homes, like the other refugees, but many live tantalizingly close to their former communities.
The destroyed Palestinian villages have either been reinvented as exclusive Jewish communities or buried under the foliage of national forestation programs overseen by the Jewish National Fund and paid for with charitable donations from American and European Jews.
There have been many Nakba processions held over the past week but the march across fields close by the city of Nazareth was the only one whose destination was a former Palestinian village now occupied by Jews.
The village of Saffuriya was bombed from the air for two hours in July 1948, in one of the first uses of air power by the new Jewish state. Most of Saffuriya's 5,000 inhabitants fled northwards towards Lebanon, where they have spent six decades waiting for justice. But a small number went south towards Nazareth, where they sought sanctuary and eventually became Israeli citizens.
Today they live in a neighborhood of Nazareth called Safafra, after their destroyed village. They look down into the valley where a Jewish farming community known as Zippori has been established on the ruins of their homes.
This year's Nakba procession to Saffuriya was a small act of defiance by Palestinian citizens in returning to the village, even if only symbolically and for a few hours. The threat this posed to Israeli Jews' enduring sense of their own exclusive victimhood was revealed in the unprovoked violence unleashed against the defenseless marchers, many of them children.
Like many others, I was there with a child -- my five-month-old daughter. Fortunately, for her and my sake, we left after she grew tired from being in the heat for so long, moments before the trouble started.
When we left, things were entirely peaceful. Nonetheless, as we drove away, I saw members of a special paramilitary police unit known as the Yassam appearing on their motorbikes. The Yassam are effectively a hit squad, known for striking out first and asking questions later. Trouble invariably follows in their wake.
The events that unfolded that afternoon have been captured on mostly homemade videos that can be viewed on the Internet. The context for understanding these images is provided below in accounts from witnesses to the police attack:
Several thousand Palestinians, waving flags and chanting Palestinian songs, marched towards a forest planted on Saffuriya's lands. Old people, some of whom remembered fleeing their villages in 1948, were joined by young families and several dozen sympathetic Israeli Jews. As the marchers headed towards Saffuriya's spring, sealed off by the authorities with a metal fence a few years ago to stop the villagers collecting water, they were greeted with a small counter-demonstration by right-wing Israeli Jews.
They had taken over the fields on the other side of the main road at the entrance to what is now the Jewish community of Zippori. They waved Israeli flags and sang nationalist Hebrew songs, as armed riot police lined the edge of the road that separated the two demonstrations.
Tareq Shehadeh, head of the Nazareth Culture and Tourism Association whose parents were expelled from Saffuriya, said: "There were some 50 Jewish demonstrators who had been allowed to take over the planned destination of our march. Their rights automatically trumped ours, even though there were thousands of us there and only a handful of them."
The police had their backs to the Jewish demonstrators while they faced off with the Palestinian procession. "It was as if they were telling us: we are here only for the benefit of Jews, not for you," said Shehadeh. "It was a reminder, if we needed it, that this is a Jewish state and we are even less welcome than usual when we meet as Palestinians."
The marchers turned away and headed uphill into the woods, to a clearing where Palestinian refugees recounted their memories.
When the event ended in late afternoon, the marchers headed back to the main road and their cars. In the police version, Palestinian youths blocked the road and threw stones at passing cars, forcing the police to use force to restore order.
Dozens of marchers were injured, including women and children, and two Arab Knesset members, Mohammed Barakeh and Wassel Taha, were bloodied by police batons. Mounted police charged into the crowds, while stun grenades and tear gas were liberally fired into fields being crossed by families. Eight youths were arrested.
Shehadeh, who was close to the police when the trouble began, and many other marchers say they saw the Jewish right-wingers throwing stones at them from behind the police. A handful of Palestinian youngsters responded in kind. Others add that the police were provoked by a young woman waving a Palestinian flag.
"None of the police were interested in stopping the Jews throwing stones. And even if a few Palestinian youths were reacting, you chase after them and arrest them, you don't send police on mounted horseback charging into a crowd of families and fire tear gas and stun grenades at them. It was totally indiscriminate and reckless."
Clouds of gas enveloped the slowest families as they struggled with their children to take cover in the forest.
Therese Zbeidat, a Dutch national who was there with her Palestinian husband Ali and their two teenage daughters, Dina and Awda, called the experiences of her family and others at the hands of the police "horrifying."
"Until then it really was a family occasion. When the police fired the tear gas, there were a couple near us pushing a stroller down the stony track towards the road. A thick cloud of gas was coming towards us. I told the man to leave the stroller and run uphill as fast as he could with the baby.
"Later I found them with the baby retching, its eyes streaming and choking. It broke my heart. There were so many families with young children, and the police charge was just so unprovoked. It started from nothing."
The 17-year-old boyfriend of Therese Zbeidat's daughter, Awda, was among those arrested. "It was his first time at any kind of nationalist event," she said. "He was with his mother, and when we started running up the hill away from the police on horseback, she stumbled and fell."
"He went to help her and the next thing a group of about 10 police were firing tear gas canisters directly at him. Then they grabbed him by the keffiyah [traditional checkered scarf] around his neck and pulled him away. All he was doing was helping his mother!"
Later, Therese and her daughters thought they had made it to safety only to find themselves in the midst of another charge from a different direction, this time by police on foot. Awda was knocked to the ground and kicked in her leg, while Dina was threatened by a policeman who told her, "I will break your head."
"I've been [at] several demonstrations before when the police have turned nasty," said Therese, "but this was unlike anything I've seen. Those young children, some barely toddlers, amidst all that chaos crying for their parents -- what a way to mark Independence Day!"
Jafar Farah, head of the political lobbying group Mossawa, who was there with his two young sons, found them a safe spot in the forest and rushed downhill to help ferry other children to safety.
The next day he attended a court hearing at which the police demanded that the eight arrested men be detained for a further seven days. Three, including a local journalist who had been beaten and had his camera stolen by police, were freed after the judge watched video footage of the confrontation taken by marchers.
Farah said of the Independence Day events:

"For decades our community was banned from remembering publicly what happened to us as a people during the Nakba. Our teachers were sacked for mentioning it. We were not even supposed to know that we are Palestinians.
And in addition, the police have regularly used violence against us to teach us our place. In October 2000, at the start of the intifada, 13 of our unarmed young men were shot dead for demonstrating. No one has ever been held accountable.
Despite all that we started to believe that Israel was finally mature enough to let us remember our own national tragedy. Families came to show their children the ruins of the villages so they had an idea of where they came from. The procession was becoming a large and prominent event. People felt safe attending.
But we were wrong, it seems. It looked to me very much like this attack by the police was planned. I think the authorities were unhappy about the success of the processions, and wanted them stopped.
They may yet win. What parent will bring their children to the march next year knowing that they will be attacked by armed police?"

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His new book, Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East is published by Pluto Press. His website is www.jkcook.net.

60 years of Nakba - 60 years of suffering

2008-05-07T15:08:00.000-07:00

Sixty years ago in Battir (Part 2)

2008-05-07T03:42:00.000-07:00

Hasan Abu Nimah writing from Amman, Jordan, Live from Palestine, 7 May 2008
Women and girls in Battir prepare to dance, early 1950s. (Photographer unknown)

For a long time any discussion of the "Arab-Israeli conflict" has skipped one basic fact: Israel, whether one loves or hates it, was created at the expense of the Palestinians. An entire people and hundreds of communities that had lived for centuries in tranquility had to be ruthlessly and unjustly shattered to make room for the Zionist state. The story of my village, Battir, southwest of Jerusalem, is only one of hundreds.

When I was growing up, hardly anyone in the village was aware, or needed to be aware, that our village traced its roots back to the second century. Generation after generation tilled the land, lived off its gifts and engaged in small trade. They adapted to the often harsh environment, brought up their children, interacted with their neighbors from villages near and far and lived their lives relatively happily and peacefully.

Although Palestine had a large Christian population, the 1,200 people in our village were all Muslim -- though there was one German wife who was very popular and known for her kindness, and I believe she was Jewish, by the name of Lina Shaffer -- and lived in effect like a large extended family. Everyone in the village knew everyone else, and everyone shared happy and sad moments. The whole village knew if someone was getting married, got a job in the city, was caught up in a problem, was expecting guests, or even bought a new garment.

Life was simple, indeed you could say primitive. There was no electricity, running water or other services, no paved roads, no cars or any kind of machines. Most houses had one or two rooms, which people often shared with their animals. Unless cold weather dictated otherwise, women cooked on open fires in front of their houses using home-made pottery. So in addition to everything else, the neighbors always knew what you were cooking.

People never locked their doors, even when they were not home. But that does not mean that there were no disputes, rivalries and even fights. Indeed, in such close quarters these were unavoidable. But these were mostly settled through the wisdom and compromise of family chieftains as there was no police station in the village. Only serious cases, involving injuries, were reported to the Mandate authorities in Jerusalem who would come down by car if there was a matter they had to address.

The village elementary school which I attended taught boys Arabic, arithmetic and Qur'an until the fourth grade. By that time they were expected to have learned the Qur'an by heart. The school was gradually extended up to seventh grade by just the time the winds of danger began to gather over the country. Girls did not attend school until UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, established a school for them in the early 1950s after the first war was over and the village people returned home.

The village was much like a voluntary cooperative. If someone wanted to build a house people would offer free labor and contribute small amounts of cash to buy materials, a practice that was strictly and evenly reciprocated village-wide. This system also applied to gathering the harvest and preparing the land for the next planting season. People also made small donations for weddings and attended to the needs of the sick and the poor.

Apart from agriculture, many young men worked for the Mandate government, mainly the railways, the Palestine Police, the post office or other clerical jobs. A few managed to finish high school in Jerusalem to become school teachers.

Battir had a simple mosque with one large room and no minaret. The call to prayer was made from just in front of the mosque and could be heard throughout the village. There were also a few public places for men to meet in the evenings for coffee and conversations. Each family took turns to supply coffee and firewood for these gatherings. Visitors from outside the village were received, entertained and sometimes offered accommodation in those public houses, which were also used for other community occasions such as weddings or mourning.

When the Mandate administration started to crumble, most village men, including those who lost their jobs, started to join militias to defend the country. Though they did not match the Jewish militias in organization, training or arms, they fought as best as they could. Mainly armed with second hand rifles they rushed to help defend neighboring villages as they fell under attack.

The Palestine war of 1948 was disastrous. Neither the volunteers who came to the country from the Arab world, nor the Arab states' armies that intervened in May 1948, well after much of the Zionist ethnic cleansing plan had been put into action, managed to save much.

Once the fighting stopped 78 percent of Palestine had fallen to the Zionists, and became the "State of Israel." After fierce fighting around Jerusalem, the Jordanian army held on to the West Bank, and Egypt held the Gaza Strip, which together formed the remaining 22 percent of Palestine.

Battir itself was not occupied, although all the villagers fled under heavy fire from Zionist forces on the opposite slopes. The village ended up right on the front line when the armistice lines were drawn. Israel wanted to control the entire Jerusalem-Jaffa railway, which it mainly did, except for the small sector which runs through Battir's valley.

A special proviso in the armistice agreement drew the line two hundred yards east of the railway, thus cutting the village almost in half. This was meant to allow Israel to use the railway and to provide a corridor for its protection, but at the same time it allowed the village inhabitants to reach their lands beyond the demarcation line on the Israeli side. This was an unusual overlap which caused serious problems. About 15 village houses and the school ended up on the Israeli side, but two gates in the barbed wire allowed people to cross either way and to reopen the school under the Jordanian administration following the unification of the West Bank with East Jordan in 1950. Nevertheless, several villagers crossing the barbed wire to reach their property were shot dead by Israeli patrols.

For the villagers who had spent months sleeping in fields as refugees, or dispersed further away, returning to the village after the armistice was a great relief. But nothing was the same. Now we were cut off from Jerusalem, the city which had been our lifeline to any services not available in the village, as well as the main market for our produce.

The armistice line became like a wall concealing an alien, hostile and inaccessible world, where before there had been an environment of gracious Arab villages enjoying ties of kith and kin that we had taken for granted and whose end we could not have imagined.

The village of al-Walaja had lain across the valley on the other side of the railway line, close enough that Battir's people could watch al-Walajah's coming and goings, hear people calling to each other, and even hear their wedding celebrations. Similarly, al-Qabu lay just to the south and tens of other villages to which we were linked lay beyond our line of sight. Many ended up deserted and in enemy territory.

Instead of hearing the ordinary sounds of al-Walaja, after the war, we watched with dismay as the Israeli army blew up the deserted houses, as it rushed to eliminate any trace of Palestinian existence. One after another, we would see a house disappear in a cloud of dust and seconds later we would hear the loud explosion. This went on until the entire village was destroyed. (Some of the destroyed town's inhabitants built a new village across the valley from the original site and this new village bears the name "al-Walaja" today).

Nor did the armistice provide much safety. Beyond the barbed wire, people had to move with extreme caution. Israeli patrols repeatedly arrested farmers, led them deeper into the occupied territory and then executed them. Villagers took great risks searching night after night in dangerous terrain until they recovered the bodies. The Israelis also made incursions deep into Arab-held territory with terrible tolls in death and destruction. Husan village a few miles south of Battir, and Nahalin experienced such attacks as did neighboring Beit Jala.

Villagers traveling early to market were also ambushed; one night I woke up to shrieks and wails to find that my sister Zahiyya had been brought home soaked in blood. Caught in one of these ambushes, she had been shot in her upper leg. She survived despite heavy loss of blood and no proper medical care.

When we returned to the village after the armistice, every house had been ransacked and emptied of its contents. Even doors and windows had been removed. Slowly we managed to replace and rebuild many of these things but there was much that was irreparable; we could not rebuild the same community atmosphere. That was lost forever.

But we are thankful that Battir, unlike hundreds of other Palestinian villages, did survive the Nakba -- the catastrophe. That was only a respite. In 1967, it fell under Israeli occupation along with the rest of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Forty-one years later, Battir is drowning in a sea of Israeli settlements and lies virtually cut off from what is left of its Palestinian environment by Israel's relentless construction of settler roads and apartheid walls.

I was there last in the summer of 1966 spending my usual summer leave with my family. The 1967 occupation shut me out until I managed a brief visit in 1997, 36 years later. There was little that I could recognize and I have not been back again.

Hasan Abu Nimah is the former permanent representative of Jordan at the United Nations. This article first appeared in The Jordan Times and is reprinted with the author's permission.

Sixty years ago in Battir (Part 1)

2008-05-07T03:37:00.000-07:00

Hasan Abu Nimah writing from Amman, Jordan, Live from Palestine, 30 April 2008

The author's mother (right) with family members preparing food, early 1950s. (Photographer unknown)

Sixty years ago in Battir, my small hillside village near Jerusalem, I witnessed the chaotic collapse of the British Mandate administration in Palestine and the beginning of the Nakba.

The previous months had been decisive ones for the fate of Palestine, although we did not yet know it. The Jews, fed up with British procrastination in fulfilling Balfour's promise of letting them transform our homeland into their "national home," launched a bloody campaign of terror both against the British and the Arabs. The Jewish militias targeted the British to speed up their departure from Palestine, and hit the Arabs to quell the rising resistance to Zionist colonization. Violence broke out in early 1947, after the British announced that they would leave Palestine by 15 May 1948. When the United Nations passed its partition resolution on 29 November 1947, the violence began to lurch into full-scale war.

Battir's 1,200 inhabitants were wracked by uncertainty. There were hopes that things would turn out all right, but fear dominated as the atmosphere became bleaker by the day.

I vividly remember the stories of horror which haunted the people of Battir, such as the attack on the railway station in Jerusalem on 21 October 1946. The train was their lifeline to the city where they marketed their produce and bought their supplies. People also walked to Jerusalem and often traveled by car on the unpaved road that ran parallel to the railway line, though that was much harder. A few months earlier a Jewish bomb attack on Jerusalem's King David Hotel, which served as the British headquarters, killed 91 people and injured dozens. Later, after the partition vote, when the Zionist forces began their armed campaign to seize Palestine, fighting erupted between Arabs and Jews in the land they both claimed.

The gunfire and chaos edged ever closer to Battir, a village that traces its roots to the second century, and which now found its peace and tranquility under threat.

Apart from home just up the hill, the center of my life was at the elementary school for boys, that I attended, and that lay at bottom of the valley that Battir overlooks. Just next to the school was the railway station which was the first stop on the railway line from Jerusalem to Jaffa. The station and the school with its small football field formed a sort of campus at the edge of the village, surrounded by tall pine and citrus trees providing ample greenery and shade on hot summer days. For us children it was the perfect place to play and loiter in and out of school hours.

I remember these as the lively, busy places they once were with schoolchildren, the station staff, and at one point a British military garrison. Families would take the train down from Jerusalem to enjoy weekly picnics in the romantic rural atmosphere of our village and they would be joined by local people doing the same. At school we experimented with practical agriculture which was part of the curriculum; this included keeping beehives for honey and breeding chickens.

A view of the Jerusalem-Jaffa railway line as it runs along the valley below the village of Battir in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Ruined station buildings can be seen to the left of the track, while the village elementary school can be seen to the right. (Photographer unknown)

Villagers, adults and children alike, never tired of the spectacle of the steam engines stopping to fill their huge tanks with water, and bringing with them all kinds of people to spark local curiosity. Villagers would sell fruit and vegetables to passengers through the carriage windows -- a small but steady source of badly needed income.

The nearest village to Battir was al-Walajah, just less than two miles north, and across the railway line to the west. People from the neighboring villages mixed and intermarried freely.

During the last days of the Mandate all this began to change. Cargo trains became the targets of robbers who forced them to stop along the line and emptied them of all their valuables. British soldiers on board the trains, supposedly to guard them, hardly offered any resistance; they often dropped their arms and left the scene peacefully. Soon the trains stopped coming completely, and when the trains stopped everything else fell apart too. The station offices and the station manager's house were ransacked, and so was our school. There was no law or authority to protect people's lives and property. We had to look after ourselves.

By this time the well-documented and carefully organized campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Haganah and other Jewish militias had begun, with the goal of conquering as much land as possible from the Palestinians so that the state of Israel could be established. One wave after another of people from Jerusalem-area villages, fleeing Jewish attacks, started to arrive in Battir, seeking shelter and safety. People received them hospitably, believing it was only a temporary crisis. But as one village after another fell to the Jewish forces, and the front line approached us, we too had to leave for safety.

That was soon after news of the April 1948 massacre in the village of Deir Yassin reached us. As Deir Yassin was not far away, some of the survivors arrived in Battir. They told of the horror they witnessed and the futile attempts to resist the onslaught. As the Jewish attackers intended, their deeds instilled terror in the hearts of Palestinians.

One afternoon in May 1948, Battir fell under heavy fire from the opposite slopes, across the railway line to the west, which had fallen to the Jewish fighters. We carried whatever belongings we could and headed east a few miles where there were vineyards and a small spring. I was only with my mother and my younger sisters; all the other members of my family had left separately. We too thought it would be a short escape, but we camped in that vineyard with many other people from the village all summer, our hopes dimming as the heat rose.

At first we slept in the open, under the trees. Then we built small shelters out of branches in an attempt to gain some privacy. We cooked and baked bread on an open fire. The one great relief is that the spring gave us a reliable supply of fresh water, but otherwise life was very difficult and dreadfully uncertain. When people started to fear that our departure might not be temporary, some of them risked their lives to return to the village to recover whatever belongings they could.

By the end of the summer, with life under the trees becoming unbearable, people started to disperse in every direction. Many joined refugee camps in the Jordan Valley. My mother, my younger sister and I went to Bethlehem where we joined my older brother who had previously been an officer in the Palestine police and had now joined the Jordanian army. In his tiny officer's apartment, as well as us, he ended up sheltering my eldest sister and her large family as well as his own. It was hard, but we were grateful. We stayed in Bethlehem until the summer of 1949 when the war was ended by the armistice agreement.

Battir lay right on the ceasefire line, and it was now physically divided by barbed wire. Unlike hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians forced out of their villages, we did return home. But there we faced a totally new situation.

To be continued.

Hasan Abu Nimah is the former permanent representative of Jordan at the United Nations. This article first appeared in The Jordan Times and is reprinted with the author's permission.

Gaza death toll, humanitarian crisis escalates

2008-05-07T02:58:00.000-07:00

Relatives of 14-year-old Maryam Talat Mahuf, killed when Israeli forces attempted to assassinate her father, mourn during her funeral in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, 26 April 2008. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

Report, Al Mezan, 6 May 2008

The number of victims killed by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has increased amid continued escalation of its attacks on, and incursions into, the Gaza Strip recently. According to Al Mezan Center's monitoring and documentation, IOF stepped up their human rights violations and committed breaches of international humanitarian law (IHL) systematically in the Gaza Strip.

According to Al Mezan's statistics, 69 Palestinians have been killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip since the start of April 2008. Of them, 20 were children and one was a woman. This brings the toll of Gazans killed by IOF since the beginning of 2008 to 316, including 62 children and 16 women. During the same period the IOF carried out 30 incursions into the Gaza Strip. During these incursions, 127 Palestinians were detained; 17 of them are still under detention. Furthermore, IOF razed 372 dunams of agricultural land, and destroyed 15 homes.

Both IOF's aggression and blockade have caused paralysis to Gaza's economy, as they increased the poverty and unemployment rates, and hindered production and distribution of agricultural goods. The restriction of fuel supply including cooking gas, has also encroached severely on the lives of the population and their livelihood.

According to Al Mezan's investigations, during April, the IOF allowed the entry of 6,406,000 liters of industrial diesel to operate the power plant, with an average 213,533 liters daily. This represents a decrease by over 50 percent when compared with the amount IOF allowed into Gaza before October 2007, when it imposed the restrictions on fuel. Also, IOF permitted 2,229 tons of cooking gas during the same month, with a daily average of 74.3 tons. This amount is less than 30 percent of the previous rates allowed into Gaza, which was over 250 tons per day.

The quantity of ordinary diesel for transportation and electricity generators that entered the strip that same month is 1,306,410 liters, a daily average of 43,547 liters; i.e. less than 10 percent of the pre-October 2007 rate. As for benzene, IOF allowed 135,010 liters to enter during April. This is an average of 4,500 liters per day, only 20 percent of the pervious rates.

Al Mezan renews its condemnation of IOF escalation of its aggression and collective punishment on the Gaza Strip. These acts have brought about serious violations of human rights and are considered as grave breaches of IHL and human rights norms. Al Mezan believes that the occurrence of these violations is, at least partly, a result of the continued international silence as such violations occurred over a long time.

Al Mezan therefore reiterates its calls upon the International community to take urgent actions to provide effective protection for civilians in the Gaza Strip and halt the Israeli violations, some of which mount to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity. It also calls on the international community to intervene to lift Israel's blockade of Gaza, and bring to an end the illegal collective punishment of civilians.

This report was issued on 4 May.

U.S. Aid to Israel: What U.S. Taxpayer Should Know

2008-03-27T07:56:00.000-07:00

by Tom Malthaner
This morning as I was walking down Shuhada Street in Hebron, I saw graffiti marking the newly painted storefronts and awnings. Although three months past schedule and 100 percent over budget, the renovation of Shuhada Street was finally completed this week. The project manager said the reason for the delay and cost overruns was the sabotage of the project by the Israeli settlers of the Beit Hadassah settlement complex in Hebron. They broke the street lights, stoned project workers, shot out the windows of bulldozers and other heavy equipment with pellet guns, broke paving stones before they were laid and now have defaced again the homes and shops of Palestinians with graffiti. The settlers did not want Shuhada St. opened to Palestinian traffic as was agreed to under Oslo 2. This renovation project is paid for by USAID funds and it makes me angry that my tax dollars have paid for improvements that have been destroyed by the settlers.
Most Americans are not aware how much of their tax revenue our government sends to Israel. For the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, the U.S. has given Israel $6.72 billion: $6.194 billion falls under Israel's foreign aid allotment and $526 million comes from agencies such as the Department of Commerce, the U.S. Information Agency and the Pentagon. The $6.72 billion figure does not include loan guarantees and annual compound interest totalling $3.122 billion the U.S. pays on money borrowed to give to Israel. It does not include the cost to U.S. taxpayers of IRS tax exemptions that donors can claim when they donate money to Israeli charities. (Donors claim approximately $1 billion in Federal tax deductions annually. This ultimately costs other U.S. tax payers $280 million to $390 million.)
When grant, loans, interest and tax deductions are added together for the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, our special relationship with Israel cost U.S. taxpayers over $10 billion.
Since 1949 the U.S. has given Israel a total of $83.205 billion. The interest costs borne by U.S. tax payers on behalf of Israel are $49.937 billion, thus making the total amount of aid given to Israel since 1949 $133.132 billion. This may mean that U.S. government has given more federal aid to the average Israeli citizen in a given year than it has given to the average American citizen.
I am angry when I see Israeli settlers from Hebron destroy improvements made to Shuhada Street with my tax money. Also, it angers me that my government is giving over $10 billion to a country that is more prosperous than most of the other countries in the world and uses much of its money for strengthening its military and the oppression of the Palestinian people

Mahmoud Darwish... Mohammad

2008-03-27T07:47:00.000-07:00

Mohamed,
nestles in the bosom of his father, a bird afraid
of the infernal sky: father protect me
from the upward flight! My wing is
slight for the wind … and the light is black

Mohamed,wants to return home, with no
bicycle ... or new shirt
yearns for the school bench …
the notebook of grammar and conjugation, take me
to our home, father, to prepare for my lessons
to continue being, little by little …
on the seashore, under the palms …
and nothing further, nothing further

Mohamed,
faces an army, with no stone or shrapnel
of stars, does not notice the wall to write: my freedom
will not die, for he has no freedom yet
to defend. No perspective for the dove of Pablo
Picasso. He continues to be born, continues
to be born in a name bearing him the curse of the name. How
many times will his self give birth to a child
with no home ... with no time for childhood?
Where will he dream if the dream would come …
and land is a wound ... and a temple?

Mohamed,
sees his inescapable death approaching. But then
remembers, a leopard he has seen on the tv screen,
a fierce one besieging a suckling fawn. When it
came near and smelt the milk, it would not pounce.
As if the milk tames the wild beast.
Hence, I will survive - says the boy -
and weeps: for my life is there hidden
in my mother's chest. I will survive ... and witness

Translated into English by Amr Khadr

Is Israel using prohibited ‘thermo-barbaric’ weapons in its Gaza holocaust?

2008-03-15T07:43:00.000-07:00

The British government doesn't seem to give a damn about the 'holocaust' being inflicted on the Gazans. Our foreign secretary David Miliband said: "I condemn the rocket attacks against Israel. These are terrorist acts. They should be seen for what they are - an attempt to break the political process by breaking the will of those committed to peace.”

No condemnation of Israel's terrorist acts, then. No acknowledgement that any political process involving unrepresentative placemen like Abbas and Fayyad is doomed. No recognition that peace has already been scuppered by the acceleration of Israel's land-grab and illegal settlement programme.

And the dear boy still seems utterly oblivious to the inevitable… that someone, sooner or later, will have to talk with Hamas. Good manners require it, even if good sense is lacking.

So is Miliband equally clueless about thermobaric weapons and whether or not his US and Israeli chums are using them against civilians? The question arises because Gaza’s Ministry of Health has sent me a report into the effects of prohibited weapons Israel is suspected of using.

In July 2006 doctors in Lebanon and Gaza were saying: “We never saw before wounds and corpses like those that arrive in the ward… what are these new weapons that cause such wounding and horrible deaths?” The large majority of victims in both locations were women, children and elders caught in Israeli attacks in the street, in the market place and at home.

Thermobaric bombs and grenades leave no visible wound

What they saw led doctors to believe that a new generation of weapons was being used in both territories. For example, in Sidon 8 victims (3 children, 4 men and one woman) were described thus: "One might think they were burnt, but they are not, only their color is dark, they're inflated, and they have a terrible smell. The hair is not burnt nor the bodies wounded”. Due to the strong smell of the corpses, the medical director said he couldn't breath properly for at least 12 hours after they were handled.

The report stated: “Common features of all the victim’s bodies were lack of main wounds… All victims had serious internal edema and hemorrhage with loss of blood from all body orifices. All the bodies were covered of dark powder so to look black, but were not burnt. Clothes and hair were not damaged or burnt.”

Samples from the skin of six corpses were analyzed for histology in two independent laboratories. The results revealed no altered elements in the skin and derma and no sign of burns. All samples showed particles of dark color covering the skin, histologically staining for iron.

Electron microscope scans showed the presence of phosphorous, iron and magnesium at below the normal level of detection. Analysis of the dark refractive material layered over the skin of one victim showed it contained mainly carbon and oxygen, and lesser amounts of iron, silicon and calcium. Some of these elements are used in particle form as fuel additives to boost the blast of thermobaric bombs or grenades.
Thermobaric, or fuel-air energy (FAE), explosives work in two stages. The shell, or container, is burst open to spread the combusting agent as a fine aerosol, then this is ignited, creating an overpressure blast wave traveling at 3000 metres per second, and burning all available oxygen in the process.
The GlobalSecurity website describes the effect of a thermobaric bomb: “Those near the ignition point are obliterated. Those at the fringe are likely to suffer many internal, and thus invisible injuries, including burst eardrums and crushed inner ear organs, severe concussions, ruptured lungs and internal organs, and possibly blindness. The destruction, death, and injury are caused by the blast wave.”

Enhanced performance is achieved by adding excess metals to the explosive composition, aluminum and magnesium being the metals of choice.

A report on the Defense Technology website says that instead of shrapnel/fragment injuries a thermobaric device produces blast effects. “Each tissue type, when interacting with the blast wave, is compressed, stretched, sheared or disintegrated by overload according to its material properties. Internal organs that contain air (sinuses, ears, lungs and intestines) are particularly vulnerable to blast.”

“Six rounds in three seconds… I thought this thing was sick.”

The US uses dinky 40mm thermobaric grenades developed for the war against ‘terror’ in Afghanistan. Is it too big a stretch of the imagination to suppose they are being supplied for use in places like Gaza? These little beauties produce “a thermobaric overpressure blast rather than fragmentation. As a result of the thermobaric reaction, all enemy personnel within the effective radius will suffer lethal effects as opposed to the conventional fragmentation round.”

The grenades look like cannon shells and are fired from a lumpy, aggressive looking shoulder weapon with a multi-chambered revolving cylinder. “You can put six rounds on target in under three seconds,” one Marine Corps corporal said. “I thought this thing was sick.” Just the job, then, for eliminating Qassam rocketeers and their families and friends and anyone else who happens to get in the way….

In the victim cases examined, the weapon used left no traces visible to the naked eye or detectable by instruments commonly used in hospitals and emergency wards. This makes it all the more difficult to provide proper care for the wounded. “These weapons do not leave fragments on/in the victims' bodies and this fact already puts them outside established conventions of war, regardless of whether they are used against military or civilians,” say the doctors.

According to Geneva Conventions (Protocol on Non-Detectable Fragments), "it is prohibited to use any weapon the primary effect of which is to injure by fragments which in the human body escape detection by X-rays."

Of course none of this is news to the arms industry. But it’s time the public – who pay for the development of such weapons and could one day find themselves on the wrong end – knew more about it.

Thankfully, here in Britain we seem to be a bit queasier about prohibited weaponry than our thermobarbaric allies. Rumour has it that our enlightened government has opted for ‘enhanced blast explosives technology’, which is designed to fully comply with international humanitarian law. How thoughtful. Let’s hope women, children and old folk on the receiving end appreciate the difference.

I suppose this is as near as Britain gets these days to taking a moral lead.

-ends-

Stuart Littlewood
5 March 2008

Palestinian women pay higher price in face of Israeli actions

2008-03-15T07:33:00.000-07:00

Palestinian women pay higher price in face of Israeli actions

GAZA, March 8 -- Um Yehia Dardouna, 34, of Jabalia town in northern Gaza Strip, divides her time between Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where her son Yehia lays, and her house which is close to the border between Israel and northeast Gaza Strip.
Um Yehia said she doesn't care about the International Women's Day which falls on Saturday, adding that her only concern is Yehia, her nine-year-old boy who survived an Israeli airstrike near herhouse on Feb. 28.
He was playing football when the attack happened, and four of his friends were killed in the strike. Doctors at Shifa Hospital said that Yehia suffers from severe shrapnel hits, with breakages and burns in his legs and wounds in his abdomen.
Her thoughts are also divided between tears and prayers, next to her son's bed at Shifa hospital, and fears and worries about the five other children who are left at home in the tense border area.
"The Israeli occupation deepened the suffering of Palestinian women and kidnapped the rights of children. They don't give a damn if it is March 8 or 9; everyday is the same," Um Yehia said as she patted at her son's head.
In the same room, Um Ali Faraj, a neighbor of Um Yehia, was sitting beside the bed of her son who was wounded in the same strike. But Um Ali left three of her children at their grandfather's house and brought the youngest three along to the hospital.
"I dare not leave them alone at the house because the danger of death is always renewed by the missiles, projectiles and the tank incursions," she said.
Hedaya Shamoun, a women's rights activist, said the agendas to mark the Women's Day in Gaza have been interrupted because of last week's Israeli invasion in southeast Gaza Strip and the airstrikes, which killed more than 125 Palestinians.
"Activities to mark this occasion are fading year by year," Shamoun lamented. "The killing of seven women in the latest army operation paints a grim picture on the occasion."
For Jamila al-Shanti, a Hamas lawmaker, Palestinian women "pay higher price for the Israeli occupation's crimes as a wife, a mother, a sister and a mother of martyr."
"The Palestinian woman is a woman of resistance as she looks after the house when the husband or the sons are away for Jihad," Mrs. al-Shanti said as she toured houses demolished by the Israeli army in the east of Jabaliya refugee camp.
"The whole world has turned away from the Palestinian children and women," Mrs. al-Shanti deplored.
In Gaza and the West Bank city of Ramallah, hundreds of Palestinian women demonstrated to mark the International Woman's Day. In Gaza, women demonstrated before the headquarters of the United Nations office in the city.
The Gazan women called for ending the Israeli siege imposed for almost nine months since the Hamas takeover last June in the enclave, where crossings had been closed and life among the population deteriorated to the worst ever, according to international human rights organizations.

Palestine -The Sound of Reason

2007-12-28T15:03:00.000-08:00

Palestinethe sound of reason music video Francis Ku

It just makes me cry..

Sarah, Mahmoud and Yehya

2007-09-21T03:36:00.000-07:00

Yassmin Moor writing from Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip, The Electronic Intifada, Sep 5, 2007

Sarah, Mahmoud and Yehya Abu Ghazal (PCHR)

Sarah Abu Ghazal's school uniform still lay on her mattress, untouched as she had left it before running out after her cousins Mahmoud and Yehya Abu Ghazal on Wednesday, 29 August. She was to begin the fourth grade on 2 September, but her friend Amani, who has accompanied her to school since the first grade, would walk alone this year. Sarah's mother had bought her the blue school uniform, blue jeans and the black shoes just the day before she was killed by Israel tank fire. Her mother waited until the last minute to buy Sarah's school supplies because she was waiting for her husband's salary which he had not received since June. Still full of life, Sarah was readying her new clothes for the start of the school year when Yehya called for her to come out and play.

Ten-year-old Mahmoud looked up to Yehya and followed him wherever he went, as he did not have any brothers of his own. On the day he died he had just finished telling his mother not to buy him anything for school until Yehya had acquired his things. He made her promise only to buy the same things that Yehya had. Mahmoud was killed alongside Yehya and now lies buried right beside him.

One of nine children, Yehya was heading to the sixth grade this year after spending most of his summer herding his family's goats. From a small Bedouin community at the northern border of the Gaza Strip, by Beit Hanoun and the Erez border crossing, Yehya's family always bore the brunt of Israel's frequent incursions into and attacks on Gaza. The army rolls in almost every week and usually razes some land, arrests a few men and pulls out again. Yehya's father was arrested in September 2006 and has yet to be tried or charged as he sits in an Israeli prison. After Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the strip was ostensibly free, yet Israeli tanks rolled into Gaza at 3am, raided the family's house and arrested Yehya's father and uncle.

According to his mother, Yehya was walking his goats close to their house on that Wednesday afternoon when he lost sight of his herd. He spotted them sniffing around abandoned rocket launchers, so he went to retrieve them. Yehya followed the goats, trailed by Mahmoud and Sarah. Unseen soldiers in Israeli tanks identified them as "militants" and shot at them. The boys immediately died of their shrapnel wounds. Sarah passed away later that evening, alone in the hospital. Her family did not make it in time to see her because her body was taken to the hospital Beit Lahiya.

The Israeli army stated it had "identified and fired at several rocket launchers aimed at Israel." According to the Abu Ghazal family, rockets had not been fired from that area for the past nine months and the Israeli army knew this. However, the tanks were close enough for the soldiers manning them to see the children and they could have also relied on their large white reconnaissance balloon that constantly hovers over Beit Hanoun.

Trying to find a driver to go to the children's funeral in northern Beit Hanoun, on the second of the three days of mourning, was nearly impossible as it was like asking them to drive into crossfire. Beit Hanoun feels different from the rest of Gaza. The streets are empty, there is rubble everywhere, uprooted trees, razed land and there isn't much of a market. An area that used to be green agricultural land has been turned into an empty no man's land where no one dares to go. If there is a place in Gaza that feels like a war zone devastated by years of conflict, it's Beit Hanoun. The infamous Qassams can be seen and heard as they fly over the Gazan border and into Israel in retaliation to Israeli F-16 and tank shelling. Also overhead is the reconnaissance balloon that constantly tracks one's movement. The F-16s fly over the town more frequently than any other place in Gaza; no wonder drivers or anyone else don't want to go anywhere near Beit Hanoun.

The Bedouin community that the children came from is situated amongst the northern Gaza Strip's razed citrus groves and demolished buildings. Yehya and Mahmoud's fathers are brothers so they lived in the same three-bedroom house. The bedrooms are covered with asbestos, the living room is comprised of a sand floor in front of the bedrooms and the kitchen consists of a small stove and a table with a few pots. They have no electricity and no running water. The fruit of the villagers' daily labor on their lands used to provide for their subsistence but weekly Israeli invasions have destroyed their lands and therefore their livelihoods. They receive some aid from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, but have to travel to Beit Hanoun or Beit Lahiya for everything else. Their means of transportation are animal-drawn carts.

The mothers of all three children sat next to each other at their funeral while Israeli tanks at the border also sat stationed in the background. Yehya and Mahmoud's mothers were each holding a picture of their sons, while Sara's mother was holding a poster with Yehya and Mahmoud's pictures with their names written below. In between their pictures was an image of a bouquet of red roses, with Sarah's name underneath. "Israel just wants to shed our blood," said Yehya's mother, choking on her words. "They didn't do anything wrong ... they had no rockets, no tanks ... they were just playing," added Mahmoud's mother. They were all sitting on the mattress Yehya shared with Mahmoud. Mahmoud would sneak out of his mother's bedroom at night to go and sleep by Yehya. "They were meant to go together," said Yehya's mother, "Mahmoud would not have lived without Yehya. May God rest their souls together."

The next day, on the BBC the Israeli military stated that the killing of Yehya, Mahmoud and Sarah was an accident: "at the very last second, it was apparent that they were children, but it was impossible to stop the explosion." There was no mention of holding accountable the soldiers who killed them or at the very least any offer of support to the families and the community. They cannot leave their area, or their land, as they have nowhere else to go. Where's the justice for 12-year-old Yehya and his childhood, or 10-year-old Mahmoud who wanted nothing more than to have the same things as his friend, or 10-year-old Sarah who never got to wear her new school clothes?

Yassmin Moor is a Palestinian-American writing from Rafah, Gaza. She is currently working to implement a gardening project through an organization she co-founded, Save Gaza. Yassmin can be reached at yasminemoor A T gmail D O T com.

Sorry for these children, parents and friends... May they have peace in paradise

ROOT CAUSES OF ARAB HATE FOR THE USA GOVERNMENT (2):

2007-09-06T16:20:00.000-07:00

PART (2): UN RESOLUTIONS

All world know that U.S.A government imposes its authority upon the U.N. This makes the U.N away of being an impartial global organization. America wanted the U.N to be instituted for its profits, and this obviously happened.

Israel was the target in almost All U.N resolutions. However, few resolutions targeted Palestine, but they were immediately inactivated by U.S.A.

This prejudiced treatment with the conflict parts is one of the most reasons make Arabs hate U.S.A. Again I'll post my evidence. Remember numbers don't lie. So here are some statics.

Israel is the target of at least 65 UN Resolutions and the Palestinians are the target of none.

"Aside from the core issues—refugees, Jerusalem, borders—the major themes reflected in the U.N. resolutions against Israel over the years are its unlawful attacks on its neighbors; its violations of the human rights of the Palestinians, including deportations, demolitions of homes and other collective punishments; its confiscation of Palestinian land; its establishment of illegal settlements; and its refusal to abide by the U.N. Charter and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War". - Donald Neff

UN Resolutions against Israel, 1955-1992

Resolution 106: "...‘condemns’ Israel for Gaza raid"

Resolution 111: "...‘condemns’ Israel for raid on Syria that killed fifty-six people"

Resolution 127: "...‘recommends’ Israel suspend its ‘no-man’s zone’ in Jerusalem"

Resolution 162: "...‘urges’ Israel to comply with UN decisions"

Resolution 171: "...determines flagrant violations’ by Israel in its attack on Syria"

Resolution 228: "...‘censures’ Israel for its attack on Samu in the West Bank, then under Jordanian control"

Resolution 237: "...‘urges’ Israel to allow return of new 1967 Palestinian refugees"

Resolution 248: "...‘condemns’ Israel for its massive attack on Karameh in Jordan"

Resolution 250: "...‘calls’ on Israel to refrain from holding military parade in Jerusalem"

Resolution 251: "...‘deeply deplores’ Israeli military parade in Jerusalem in defiance of Resolution 250"

Resolution 252: "...‘declares invalid’ Israel’s acts to unify Jerusalem as Jewish capital"

Resolution 256: "...‘condemns’ Israeli raids on Jordan as ‘flagrant violation"

Resolution 259: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s refusal to accept UN mission to probe occupation"

Resolution 262: "...‘condemns’ Israel for attack on Beirut airport"

Resolution 265: "...‘condemns’ Israel for air attacks for Salt in Jordan"

Resolution 267: "...‘censures’ Israel for administrative acts to change the status of Jerusalem"

Resolution 270: "...‘condemns’ Israel for air attacks on villages in southern Lebanon"

Resolution 271: "...‘condemns’ Israel’s failure to obey UN resolutions on Jerusalem"

Resolution 279: "...‘demands’ withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon"

Resolution 280: "....‘condemns’ Israeli’s attacks against Lebanon"

Resolution 285: "...‘demands’ immediate Israeli withdrawal form Lebanon"

Resolution 298: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s changing of the status of Jerusalem"

Resolution 313: "...‘demands’ that Israel stop attacks against Lebanon"

Resolution 316: "...‘condemns’ Israel for repeated attacks on Lebanon"

Resolution 317: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s refusal to release Arabs abducted in Lebanon"

Resolution 332: "...‘condemns’ Israel’s repeated attacks against Lebanon"

Resolution 337: "...‘condemns’ Israel for violating Lebanon’s sovereignty"

Resolution 347: "...‘condemns’ Israeli attacks on Lebanon"

Resolution 425: "...‘calls’ on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon"

Resolution 427: "...‘calls’ on Israel to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon’

Resolution 444: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s lack of cooperation with UN peacekeeping forces"

Resolution 446: "...‘determines’ that Israeli settlements are a ‘serious obstruction’ to peace and calls on Israel to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention"

Resolution 450: "...‘calls’ on Israel to stop attacking Lebanon"

Resolution 452: "...‘calls’ on Israel to cease building settlements in occupied territories"

Resolution 465: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s settlements and 'asks' all member states not to assist Israel’s settlements program"

Resolution 467: "...‘strongly deplores’ Israel’s military intervention in Lebanon"

Resolution 468: "...‘calls’ on Israel to rescind illegal expulsions of two Palestinian mayors and a judge and to facilitate their return"

Resolution 469: "...‘strongly deplores’ Israel’s failure to observe the council’s order not to deport Palestinians"

Resolution 471: "...‘expresses deep concern’ at Israel’s failure to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention"

Resolution 476: "...‘reiterates’ that Israel’s claims to Jerusalem are ‘null and void’

Resolution 478: "...‘censures (Israel) in the strongest terms’ for its claim to Jerusalem in its ‘Basic Law’"

Resolution 484: "...‘declares it imperative’ that Israel re-admit two deported Palestinian mayors"

Resolution 487: "...‘strongly condemns’ Israel for its attack on Iraq’s nuclear facility"

Resolution 497: "...‘decides’ that Israel’s annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights is ‘null and void’ and demands that Israel rescind its decision forthwith"

Resolution 498: "...‘calls’ on Israel to withdraw from Lebanon"

Resolution 501: "...‘calls’ on Israel to stop attacks against Lebanon and withdraw its troops"

Resolution 509: "...‘demands’ that Israel withdraw its forces forthwith and unconditionally from Lebanon"

Resolution 515: "...‘demands’ that Israel lift its siege of Beirut and allow food supplies to be brought in"

Resolution 517: "...‘censures’ Israel for failing to obey UN resolutions and demands that Israel withdraw its forces from Lebanon"

Resolution 518: "...‘demands’ that Israel cooperate fully with UN forces in Lebanon"

Resolution 520: "...‘condemns’ Israel’s attack into West Beirut"

Resolution 573: "...‘condemns’ Israel ‘vigorously’ for bombing Tunisia in attack on PLO headquarters

Resolution 587: "...‘takes note’ of previous calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and urges all parties to withdraw"

Resolution 592: "...‘strongly deplores’ the killing of Palestinian students at Bir Zeit University by Israeli troops"

Resolution 605: "...‘strongly deplores’ Israel’s policies and practices denying the human rights of Palestinians

Resolution 607: "...‘calls’ on Israel not to deport Palestinians and strongly requests it to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention

Resolution 608: "...‘deeply regrets’ that Israel has defied the United Nations and deported Palestinian civilians"

Resolution 636: "...‘deeply regrets’ Israeli deportation of Palestinian civilians

Resolution 641: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s continuing deportation of Palestinians

Resolution 672: "...‘condemns’ Israel for violence against Palestinians at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount

Resolution 673: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the United Nations

Resolution 681: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s resumption of the deportation of Palestinians

Resolution 694: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s deportation of Palestinians and calls on it to ensure their safe and immediate return

Resolution 726: "...‘strongly condemns’ Israel’s deportation of Palestinians

Resolution 799: "...‘strongly condemns’ Israel’s deportation of 413 Palestinians and 'calls' for their immediate return.

At first blush, an alien think that the U.N is unable to apply the just law. Let us remember that the same U.N besieged Iraq, Libya… and many countries, however, I don't want to discuss the equity of like sieges. The U.N has the power but it is tightly bound to American policy. It's really shame on humanity to see like inequity exercised on Palestinians.

ROOT CAUSES OF ARAB HATE FOR THE USA GOVERNMENT(1):

2007-09-03T16:24:00.000-07:00

PART (1): Economical Aids

Many Arabs hate USA government. They simply realize its strategies on Arabian and Islamic world. This anger and hatred sometimes transferred to American people themselves; and this explains what sometimes happens in Afghanistan or Iraq, the gangs there engage in kidnapping American people or any allies for America.

Ok, I'll post some statics and some articles show the way American government deal with each part of the Palestinian\Israeli conflict.

The economic supplies: Every day, the U.S gives more than $7,023,288* to the Israel government and military, (And at least $108 billion since 1948).
But provides nothing* to the Palestinians.

All these moneys come from the American taxpayer, every American have to know that he\she contributes in killing unarmed Palestinian civilians. And as result, you may see the American products boycotts have been a possible way to weaken U.S economy and exercise a kind of pressure on the government.

And with respect to U.S. internal affairs Thomas R.Stauffer says:
“The indirect or consequential costs to the American taxpayer as a result of Washington’s blind support for Israel exceed by many times the amount of direct U.S. aid to Israel. Some of these ‘indirect or consequential’ costs would include the costs to U.S. manufacturers of the Arab boycott, the costs to U.S. companies and consumers of the Arab oil embargo and consequent soaring oil prices as a result of U.S. support for Israel in the 1973 war, and the costs of U.S. unilateral economic sanctions on Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria." (June 2003 Washington Report, p. 20.)

This absolute American support will definitely enhance the anger and will widen the gap between American nation and Arab nation. However, new uncontrollable problems will arise as what happened in regrettable 9/11 events.

USA is the superpower now, and it should bear its responsibilities fidelity and honesty, otherwise the world will get warmer by days, and USA and other world powers will suffer like other nations…

* The United States does not provide any aid to the Palestinian government. Also, following the democratic election of a Hamas government, the United States has cut off all humanitarian aid as well.

Statics

2007-09-02T14:17:00.000-07:00

The Impact of the Conflict on Children

118 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 952 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000.*

Click chart to enlarge. Source: Remember These Children.

“The majority of these [Palestinian] children were killed and injured while going about normal daily activities, such as going to school, playing, shopping, or simply being in their homes. Sixty-four percent of children killed during the first six months of 2003 died as a result of Israeli air and ground attacks, or from indiscriminate fire from Israeli soldiers.”

* Last updated July 18, 2007

An Article Overview

Palestinian children have been the subject of much debate during the second intifada. Israeli government officials have falsely portrayed them as unwitting pawns of Palestinian gunmen who use them as human shields, and as the offspring of calculating parents who value their children’s lives as an economic commodity that they are willing to sacrifice for money.

As the intifada has intensified, the image of Palestinian children in Israel has become progressively melded with the faceless image of the “Palestinian terrorist.” In the international media, children are depicted as either stone-throwing youth or as casualty statistics, lying on a stretcher or in a morgue. Palestinian children are either demonized or victimized. The reality of these children’s lives is far more complex.

For the past 36 years, each generation of Palestinian children has grown up under Israeli occupation. The occupation not only impacts their immediate physical integrity and mental health, but also has a profound impact on their future. At present, children live in an environment of extreme instability and are exposed to violence on a daily basis. Vital factors necessary for their healthy development, including stability, security, recreation, and sound nutrition are frequently lacking. These conditions prematurely force children into adult roles and rob them of their childhood.

By Catherine Cook
*Media Monitors Network***
January 27, 2004

**Catherine Cook is media coordinator at the Middle East Research and Information Project.

My comment:
These statics is for those who have never persuaded by the pictures on tv, or for who have fallen victims of Israeli media and it's allies... I liked the Catherine Cook's sentence: "These conditions prematurely force children into adult roles and rob them of their childhood.". These numbers can show part of what is really happening to Palestinian children... Palestinian children never had a normal life after Israeli occupation... I'll provide you with more statics

Martyrdom of three Palestinian children in Gaza

2007-08-31T05:29:00.000-07:00

BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip - Three young Palestinian cousins were murdered Wednesday in Gaza in what the Israeli army said was an attack on rocket launchers aiming at southern Israel.
The incident could complicate peace efforts, just a day after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met in Jerusalem to try to move the process ahead.
The Israeli army said it spotted figures handling rocket launchers in northern Gaza, and attacked them from the ground.
The three dead were identified as 10-year-old Mahmoud Ghazal, 10-year-old Sara Ghazal and 12-year-old Yehiya Ghazal, Palestinian officials said. They were all cousins, officials said.
"We heard a blast, followed by children screaming," said another relative, Wasfi Ghazal. "We rushed over and found the children bleeding."
"We are victims of the (Israeli) occupation and victims of the misconduct of fighters who have randomly chosen our area to target Israel," Ghazal said.
Chief Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned the killing of the children, predicting violence would breed more violence.
"This will add to the complexities and feed the fire," Erekat said.
Many Palestinian civilians have been killed in past Israeli attacks aimed at militants. The most serious incident was Nov. 8, 2006, when 18 civilians, including eight children, were killed by Israeli shells. Israel announced a halt to shelling in Gaza after that.

My comment: I can't imagine the feeling of their family, friends, and classmates...

I can't imagine myself losing my little brother, cousin or even my little nieghbour!

Israeli army always argues that it's target was the resistance, but I'm wondering, are Israeli army's techniques and equipment unable to distinguish the 10 years old child from the adult masked activist??

Hatred is the only answer, those Israeli soldiers are machines for killing people and elimination of innocence and humanity...

Fatima's Story

2007-08-28T13:44:00.000-07:00

The effects of the occupation are not only felt during attacks such as those in Ramallah. Palestinians must also contend with the day-to-day control over freedom of movement. During curfews people live under a form of house arrest. Without notice they can be locked inside their homes. Their ordinary lives are a maze of controls, road blocks, checkpoints. This is how John Pilger remembered apartheid South Africa. "The hidden effect is the same", he says, "Humiliation and anger and death".

Fatima Abed-Rabo is one Palestinian woman who knows all about the effects of the checkpoints. Last October, she was about to give birth to her second child and she and her husband set out for the nearby hospital. They were stopped at an Israeli roadblock where they pleaded to be let through. Fatima explains what happened next:

"There were six or seven soldiers. We argued. One of them pushed my husband, hitting him with a rifle and throwing his ID card back at him. We had to go home.

"We tried again later on hoping they'd have calmed down. We offered to walk to the hospital but they still wouldn't let us through.

"Then I had my baby.

"My mother-in-law used a razor to cut the umbilical cord. The boy started crying. My husband wrapped him in his jacket.

"One of his relatives found a back route and drove us to the hospital. But the baby had died by the time we arrived."

"We don't know why they did this to us. It wasn't personal. This is the way they treat all Palestinians. I'm sorry to say this but they'd rather help an animal than an Arab."

Palestinians try to lead a normal life. But life is never normal. During Israeli military operations, curfews stop everything. Ambulances are denied access to the sick and wounded. Children are stopped from going to school. The Israelis claim this is necessary for their security. If that's true, it's clearly not working. And the security of Palestinians is almost never mentioned.

Lama Hourani, a Gaza resident, describes the effects of the conditions in which she lives:

"You feel all your life that you are humiliated. You don't control yourself, you don't control the air you are breathing? I don't want? to talk about planning for anything, this is something that we don't even dream about. Plan to next hour or next day what we will do. This is something we don't even dream about because our destiny is not in our hands.

"It's in the hands of the others who decide how we would live. How we even get married? to come and live with my husband in this country, I had to take the permission of the Israelis."

John Pilger
from: http://www.johnpilger.com

The king's pardon

2007-08-24T23:21:00.000-07:00

Joe DeVoir writing from Occupied Ramallah, Live from Palestine, Aug 21, 2007

An Israeli soldier sits in his army jeep preventing Palestinians from passing the Huwwara checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus, 18 August 2007. (Rami Swidan/MaanImages)

Throughout history there has been a misconception concerning the true nature and influence of power. Many of us recognize correctly that power comes from strength, but where we fail to capture it is in the recognition of its ultimate use. To most of us, power -- especially within the context of occupation -- is determined by one's ability to inflict violence unilaterally and with impunity. However, this is wrong. Power, in its ultimate and perhaps most abusive form, is the ability to pardon. Anyone can kill but only the king can pardon -- the acceptance of which by the pardoned is the recognition of the king and his power.

I was reminded of this fact while sitting at a checkpoint for four hours outside of Tulkarm on my way back to Ramallah. It was hot and we chose to turn off the air conditioner, and eventually the car itself, in order to conserve gasoline. Hours pass like agonizingly elongated days in the heat and the wait was exacerbated further by the knowledge that these checkpoints do very little for anyone's security. We would not after all be traveling to Israel, rather from one town in the West Bank to another. Moreover, the soldiers manning the checkpoints did not appear to be looking for "terrorists," only laughing and playing around -- stopping every ten minutes to allow a single car to approach, assume a grim posture, aim their guns at chests and then demand to see identification before deciding arbitrarily whether you are free to pass.

I observed this for quite some time as I left the car for "fresh" air and wandered up the long line of automobiles until the checkpoint was visible. As I got nearer, a soldier approached me on foot yelling in Hebrew and pointing over my head to the long line of cars, obviously telling me to go back where I had come from. As he got close enough to see that my eyes were green and that the passport in my hand was American, he switched to a crude English "don't come closer" before marching back to the line of cars to bark orders at the people waiting in the heat.

Both the soldier and I knew that he could not exert power over me without good reason, which I had not provided. This seemed to terribly perturb him, so much so that he vehemently ordered the first shared taxi full of people to turn around for no apparent reason. I watched as the people inside pleaded to be allowed to continue through the checkpoint. After a substantial delay fraught with anxiety, they had so nearly reached the obstacle that they have become so deeply dependent on, which once passed, would permit them to perform those simple activities we often take for granted such as the freedom to move about their land, to visit family, go to work or any of the countless reasons one gets into a car. Their pleas fell on angry, deaf ears as the soldier brandished his weapon and pointed first to his badge and then to the Israeli flag draped along a nearby roadblock before slapping the quarter panel of the truck in an obvious gesture of "get the hell out of here or something worse will happen." The truck did so, and as I watched the sad faces of the passengers turning around to go back from whence they came, I felt responsible.

After all, it was me who had angered the young soldier. It was his inability to humiliate me, abuse me or exert power over me that sent him in a rage toward the first innocent victims he could find. So I walked back to my car, climbed in with my Palestinian colleagues/peace activists and waited the final grueling hour before being beckoned to the checkpoint, replaying the incident over and over in my mind.

When we arrived, sweat saturated our clothes, ruined our moods, and had long since killed any kind of conversation. The first soldier told us to stop, looked into the window and asked the driver, my colleague, "how are you?" in English. I had to bite my tongue in anger. How do you think we are? We have sat here for hours chewing up precious time and resources, missed a meeting in Ramallah about participative democracy in which my colleagues and our organization were featured, and now had to face the long, cavernous road back to Ramallah without the assistance of sunlight and the risk of being shot at by settlers who did not appreciate our white Palestinian license plates!

My colleague, a well-educated professional and long-time peace activist, managed to contain himself. "We are fine," he answered back politely. "How are you?" This response pleased the soldier who saw no reason to answer back before waving us through. No ID check and no searched car; just a question, the tone and/or the answer to which could change the course of the entire rest our evening. We drove on quietly back to Ramallah rehearsing in our heads all of the answers we had wanted to spew at the guards but did not, knowing that it would have meant the expense of a hotel room in Tulkarm that evening, or worse, the confiscation of IDs or even the imprisonment of my Palestinian friends.

We had allowed the ultimate form of power to be exercised over us. We had accepted the pardon and mercy of the "king" to save us and the cars behind from the wrath of the immature, well armed teenage soldiers who were asked not to defend their country, but to police another's in the hot sun -- and in doing so recognized his domination.

Joe DeVoir is a 26-year-old volunteer at the Palestinian Centre for Peace and Democracy in Ramallah. He can be reached at joe_devoir@hotmail.com.

Bethlehem land destroyed as settlers anchor in

2007-08-23T01:57:00.000-07:00

Nora Barrows-Friedman, The Electronic Intifada, Aug 17, 2007

Israeli bulldozers destroy trees in al-Wallageh village for the construction of the wall near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, 15 August 2007. (Haythem Othman/MaanImages)

BETHLEHEM, 16 August (IPS) - Israeli forces began Wednesday to bulldoze hundreds of trees on land owned by a Catholic convent near the city of Beit Jala near Bethlehem. This section of forest is being razed, according to Israeli plans, to complete a section of the separation wall, which continues to carve the West Bank into pieces.

Near the convent, the Israeli settlement colonies of Gilo and Har Gilo, behind the wall on Palestinian lands, continue to expand over the rocky hillsides.

When this section of the wall is completed, several villages will be separated from each other and the greater Bethlehem area. But this is not an isolated incident these days in the West Bank.

A few kilometers east of the Cremisan convent and Bethlehem city, the small Palestinian village of Wadi Rahaal is facing extinction as a result of expanded Israeli settlement policy and the widening path of the wall.

"We are now surrounded by the settlement of Efrat," Suha Ziyada, 22, one of the 750 residents of Wadi Rahaal tells IPS. "They started constructing the wall several months ago ... and the settlement is growing every day." Efrat settlement colony, part of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, currently houses approximately 9,000 settlers, including Israelis and immigrants from the US, Canada, South Africa, Britain and Russia.

The Efrat settlement colony website states that "a garden city has blossomed in the Judean hills." Yet one can see that large swaths of forest area and wilderness have been destroyed as the settlement grows, and settler-only roads cut the hillsides in half.

"This used to be a beautiful forest where we would go for picnics," Ziyada tells IPS, pointing to a hill near her home. "But now, it's been all cut down. The top of the hill is all gone. There used to be wildlife here, many different animals that would live in the forest. But they're all gone too.

"We can't build any more houses in the village. The Israeli military prohibits any villager to expand their home and build on the land. A few months ago, [the Israeli military] destroyed three houses at the edge of the village because a settler complained to the military that he didn't want to see Arab houses from his window. So the military came in and destroyed the houses."

Ziyada also tells IPS that the settlement practices collective punishment in many ways to eradicate the villagers from their land. "The water supply comes from the settlement, so they control it. Last month, we didn't have running water for three weeks. They cut the water and said there was damage to the pipes, even though we knew it wasn't true."

Last year, the Israeli military blocked every road but one in and out of Wadi Rahaal and installed a locking metal gate on the remaining road that imprisons the villagers every evening. The soldiers lock the gate at arbitrary times; there is no set schedule, and many residents find themselves unable to enter or leave their village at regular hours.

"The settlers enter Wadi Rahaal, they walk around to intimidate and frighten the villagers. They throw rocks at our heads and they are all armed. There are also Israeli helicopters that fly over the village very low. There are checkpoints all over the village," Ziyada says.

Just two weeks ago, Ziyada gave birth to a daughter, Mayar. "I was scared to death to give birth during the closure. When I went into labour, the gate was closed and locked. We tried to go around through another road, but it was impossible. So my mother went to have a fight with the soldiers in the settlement. We have no hospital, no clinic in the village, so I had to go to the Bethlehem hospital."

After hours of anxious waiting for an Israeli soldier to come and unlock the gate, Ziyada, in active labour during that time, was finally able to reach the hospital.

The anxiety of waiting for someone to unlock the gate was worse than the labour pains, she says. "That feeling kills you; not having the ability to control your own life and not having the ability to give birth in security. This is the situation of all the Palestinian women here. The pregnant women are all afraid of what will happen when we give birth."

Meanwhile, the Israeli Interior Ministry has issued a report stating that the population growth of Israeli settlers is double that of the civilian population living inside the 1948 borders of Israel proper. The Ministry revealed that there are currently 275,156 settlers living in illegal settlements in the West Bank, a 5.45 percent growth from last year's census figure of 260,932.*

The fact that settlers are continuing to colonize the West Bank is in direct contravention to international law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention stipulates that "the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, leader of the Palestinian National Initiative, a party that places itself apart from both Fatah and Hamas, told IPS in an emailed comment that Israel is pushing forward with settlement expansion projects across the West Bank, which "immediately negates any possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state ... these developments further support the PNI's long-stated claim that Israel has no intention of ending its occupation of Palestinian territory or abiding by international law. Rather, the Israeli government remains content with its goal of the continued illegal expropriation of Palestinian land."

Ziyada says that she is afraid for her daughter's future. "Being a mother is a wonderful feeling -- but in this situation, it kills your dreams. Everyone wants to have a child, to provide them with the best life, but I can't take my daughter to the clinic when she is sick. I just think, what if she gets sick at night when the gate is closed, what shall I do?"

* Editor's Note: This figure does not include the 250,000 settlers in East Jerusalem, which is considered part of the West Bank under international law.

All rights reserved, IPS - Inter Press Service (2007).

Here we shall stay...

2007-08-20T04:15:00.000-07:00

Here we shall stay
Like a brick wall upon your breast
And in your throat
Like a splinter of glass, like spiky cactus
And in your eyes
A chaos of fire।

Here we shall stay
A hard wall on your breast.
We hunger
Have no clothes
We defy
Sing our songs
Sweep the sick streets with our angry dances
Saturate the prisons with dignity and pride
Keep on making children
One revolutionary generation
After another
AS though we were twenty impossibilities
In Lydda, Ramla, and Galilee!

If we get thirsty
We'll squeeze the rocks.
If we get hungry
We'll eat dirt
And never leave.
Our blood is pure
But we shall not hoard it.
Our past lies before us
Our present inside us
Our future on our backs.
As though we were twenty impossibilities
In Lydda, Ramla and Galilee
O living roots hold fast
And--still--reach deep in the earth।

It is better for the oppressor To correct his accounts Before the pages riffle back "To every deed..."--listen To what the Book says।

Mahmoud Darwish

Dying for life... Martyr's Smile

2007-08-19T11:25:00.000-07:00

You do not understand the meaning of dying happily. Death, this huge wall between awareness and loss of awareness, movement and stillness.

Here death Shifts from a regular daily word, and normal end of stack of years, To a historic act, immortal heroism ,humanitarian issue and a bridge others can cross upon it toward a happy life.

Then this instinctive affection and Fidelity about this issue of life, fun, and sweet become a wonderful and sincere desire to continue the life, continue the movement for the sake of others; for more donation and longer resistance.

why do we become happier every time we get saddened?! Why does our belief become stronger whenever we suffer?! Why do we get stronger as we receive strikes successively?! Why do murder and terrorism expand?!

I'll till you, because we call this the bridge of grief and pain, bridge to return. Because the flower of resistance, grows and thrive in our hearts.

BECAUSE WE DIE FOR LIFE...

A Message...

2007-08-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

In 1916, a violent uprising resulted from English occupation of Ireland. Although it was described as a suicidal mission, it has been a pivotal event in Ireland's recent history.

The Occupation of Ireland by England had continued for more than 800 years, during which Irish culture, economy and language was destroyed. England worked on starving Irish nation forcing them to emigrate for finding a chance of working in other places.

English military knew how to treat with that uprising well. They did not depend completely on fighting; instead, they offered an agreement gave Irish's rebels the homeland, but not the whole national Irish territory. It was a lucrative offer that broke up the uprising by dividing the rebels into supporters and opponents. Watching the disagreement was not enough for England, but, it proceeded to widen the gap between the Irish brothers; by supporting the different parties, till the situation reached a civil war.

Eventually, after suffering from the brothers' conflict. Ireland gained independence on part of the home after losing brothers' blood aimlessly.
Ireland's people are proud of that uprising until this day. But Ireland damns every slide into the abyss of civil war.

"Hamas", beware of accusing "Fateh" of treason, maneuver, and forfeiting the homeland and the sacrifices.

"Fateh", beware of accusing "Hamas" of being thugs and traitorous.
Palestinian people will curse every Palestinian that shed a Palestinian brother by this division.

Mothers never weep martyrs, but their hearts burns up if comrades killed each other.

I Wonder...

2007-08-19T08:50:00.000-07:00

All your armies,

All your fighters,

All your tanks and all your soldiers.

Against a boy holding a stone,

Standing there all alone.

In his eyes I see the sun,

In his smile I see the moon.

And I wonder I only wonder.

Who is weak and who is strong,

who is right and who is wrong.

And I wish I only wish.

That the truth has a tongue...

from (www.intifada.com)

The Lessons of the Rocks

2007-08-18T04:53:00.000-07:00

The Lessons of the Rocks

let me know the secret of the rock...
cuz you're the one who can understand it...

The Lessons of the Rocks

The Nakba march

60 years of Nakba - 60 years of suffering

Sixty years ago in Battir (Part 2)

Sixty years ago in Battir (Part 1)

Gaza death toll, humanitarian crisis escalates

U.S. Aid to Israel: What U.S. Taxpayer Should Know

Mahmoud Darwish... Mohammad

Is Israel using prohibited ‘thermo-barbaric’ weapons in its Gaza holocaust?

Palestinian women pay higher price in face of Israeli actions

Palestine -The Sound of Reason

Sarah, Mahmoud and Yehya

ROOT CAUSES OF ARAB HATE FOR THE USA GOVERNMENT (2):

ROOT CAUSES OF ARAB HATE FOR THE USA GOVERNMENT(1):

Statics

The Impact of the Conflict on Children

118 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 952 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000.*

By Catherine Cook**Media Monitors NetworkJanuary 27, 2004

Martyrdom of three Palestinian children in Gaza

Fatima's Story

The king's pardon

Bethlehem land destroyed as settlers anchor in

Here we shall stay...

Dying for life... Martyr's Smile

A Message...

I Wonder...

The Lessons of the Rocks

By Catherine Cook
*Media Monitors Network***
January 27, 2004