06.30.08
Our reign of terror, by the Israeli army
Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
The Independent of London
The dark-haired 22-year-old in black T-shirt, blue jeans and red Crocs is understandably hesitant as he sits at a picnic table in the incongruous setting of a beauty spot somewhere in Israel. We know his name and if we used it he would face a criminal investigation and a probable prison sentence.
The birds are singing as he describes in detail some of what he did and saw others do as an enlisted soldier in Hebron. And they are certainly criminal: the incidents in which Palestinian vehicles are stopped for no good reason, the windows smashed and the occupants beaten up for talking back – for saying, for example, they are on the way to hospital; the theft of tobacco from a Palestinian shopkeeper who is then beaten “to a pulp” when he complains; the throwing of stun grenades through the windows of mosques as people prayed. And worse.
The young man left the army only at the end of last year, and his decision to speak is part of a concerted effort to expose the moral price paid by young Israeli conscripts in what is probably the most problematic posting there is in the occupied territories. Not least because Hebron is the only Palestinian city whose centre is directly controlled by the military, 24/7, to protect the notably hardline Jewish settlers there. He says firmly that he now regrets what repeatedly took place during his tour of duty.
But his frequent, if nervous, grins and giggles occasionally show just a hint of the bravado he might have displayed if boasting of his exploits to his mates in a bar. Repeatedly he turns to the older former soldier who has persuaded him to speak to us, and says as if seeking reassurance: “You know how it is in Hebron.”
The older ex-soldier is Yehuda Shaul, who does indeed “know how it is in Hebron”, having served in the city in a combat unit at the peak of the intifada, and is a founder of Shovrim Shtika, or Breaking the Silence, which will publish tomorrow the disturbing testimonies of 39 Israelis – including this young man – who served in the army in Hebron between 2005 and 2007. They cover a range of experiences, from anger and powerlessness in the face of often violent abuse of Arabs by hardline Jewish settlers, through petty harassment by soldiers, to soldiers beating up Palestinian residents without provocation, looting homes and shops, and opening fire on unarmed demonstrators.
The maltreatment of civilians under occupation is common to many armies in the world – including Britain’s, from Northern Ireland to Iraq.
But, paradoxically, few if any countries apart from Israel have an NGO like Breaking the Silence, which seeks – through the experiences of the soldiers themselves – as its website puts it “to force Israeli society to address the reality which it created” in the occupied territories.
NAYEF HASHLAMOUN/REUTERS/CORBIS Israeli soldiers detain a Palestinian student during a protest in Hebron in 2005. Hebron is the only Palestinian city whose centre is directly controlled by the Israeli military
The Israeli public was given an unflattering glimpse of military life in Hebron this year when a young lieutenant in the Kfir Brigade called Yaakov Gigi was given a 15-month jail sentence for taking five soldiers with him to hijack a Palestinian taxi, conduct what the Israeli media called a “rampage” in which one of the soldiers shot and wounded a Palestinian civilian who just happened to be in the wrong place, and then tried to lie his way out of it.
In a confessional interview with the Israeli Channel Two investigative programme Uvda, Gigi, who had previously been in many ways a model soldier, talked of “losing the human condition” in Hebron. Asked what he meant, he replied: “To lose the human condition is to become an animal.”
The Israeli military did not prosecute the soldier who had fired on the Palestinian, as opposed to Gigi. But the military insists “that the events that occurred within the Kfir Brigade are highly unusual”.
But as the 22-year-old soldier, also in the Kfir Brigade, confirms in his testimony to Breaking the Silence, it seems that the event may not have been exceptional. Certainly, our interview tells us, he was “many times” in groups that commandeered taxis, seated the driver in the back, and told him to direct them to places “where they hate the Jews” in order to “make a balagan” – Hebrew for “big mess”.
Then there is the inter- clan Palestinian fight: “We were told to go over there and find out what was happening. Our [platoon] commander was a bit screwed in the head. So anyway, we would locate houses, and he’d tell us: ‘OK, anyone you see armed with stones or whatever, I don’t care what – shoot.’ Everyone would think it’s the clan fight…” Did the company commander know? “No one knew. Platoon’s private initiative, these actions.”
Did you hit them? “Sure, not just them. Anyone who came close … Particularly legs and arms. Some people also sustained abdominal hits … I think at some point they realised it was soldiers, but they were not sure. Because they could not believe soldiers would do this, you know.”
Or using a 10-year-old child to locate and punish a 15-year-old stone-thrower: “So we got hold of just some Palestinian kid nearby, we knew that he knew who it had been. Let’s say we beat him a little, to put it mildly, until he told us. You know, the way it goes when your mind’s already screwed up, and you have no more patience for Hebron and Arabs and Jews there.
“The kid was really scared, realising we were on to him. We had a commander with us who was a bit of a fanatic. We gave the boy over to this commander, and he really beat the shit out of him … He showed him all kinds of holes in the ground along the way, asking him: ‘Is it here you want to die? Or here?’ The kid goes, ‘No, no!’
“Anyway, the kid was stood up, and couldn’t stay standing on his own two feet. He was already crying … And the commander continues, ‘Don’t pretend’ and kicks him some more. And then [name withheld], who always had a hard time with such things, went in, caught the squad commander and said, ‘Don’t touch him any more, that’s it.’ The commander goes, ‘You’ve become a leftie, what?’ And he answers, ‘No, I just don’t want to see such things.’
“We were right next to this, but did nothing. We were indifferent, you know. OK. Only after the fact you start thinking. Not right away. We were doing such things every day … It had become a habit…
“And the parents saw it. The commander ordered [the mother], ‘Don’t get any closer.’ He cocked his weapon, already had a bullet inside. She was frightened. He put his weapon literally inside the kid’s mouth. ‘Anyone gets close, I kill him. Don’t bug me. I kill. I have no mercy.’ So the father … got hold of the mother and said, ‘Calm down, let them be, so they’ll leave him alone.’”
Not every soldier serving in Hebron becomes an “animal”. Iftach Arbel, 23, from an upper-middle class, left-of-centre home in Herzylia, served in Hebron as a commander just before the withdrawal from Gaza, when he thinks the army wanted to show it could be tough with settlers, too. And many of the testimonies, including Mr Arbel’s, describe how the settlers educate children as young as four to throw stones at Palestinians, attack their homes and even steal their possessions. To Mr Arbel, the Hebron settlers are “pure evil” and the only solution is “to remove the settlers”.
He believes it would be possible even within these constraints to treat Palestinians better. He adds: “We did night activity. Choose a house at random, on the aerial photo, so as to practise combat routine and all, which is instructive for the soldiers, I mean, I’m all for it. But then at midnight you wake someone up and turn his whole house upside down with everyone sleeping on the mattresses and all.”
But Mr Arbel says that most soldiers are some way between his own extreme and that of the most violent. From just two of his fellow testifiers, you can see what he means.
As one said: “We did all kinds of experiments to see who could do the best split in Abu Snena. We would put [Palestinians] against the wall, make like we were checking them, and ask them to spread their legs. Spread, spread, spread, it was a game to see who could do it best. Or we would check who can hold his breath for longest.
“Choke them. One guy would come, make like he was checking them, and suddenly start yelling like they said something and choke them … Block their airways; you have to press the adams apple. It’s not pleasant. Look at the watch as you’re doing it, until he passes out. The one who takes longest to faint wins.”
And theft as well as violence. “There’s this car accessory shop there. Every time, soldiers would take a tape-disc player, other stuff. This guy, if you go ask him, will tell you plenty of things that soldiers did to him.
“A whole scroll-full … They would raid his shop regularly. ‘Listen, if you tell on us, we’ll confiscate your whole store, we’ll break everything.’ You know, he was afraid to tell. He was already making deals, ‘Listen guys, you’re damaging me financially.’ I personally never took a thing, but I’m telling you, people used to take speakers from him, whole sound systems.
“He’d go, ‘Please, give me 500 shekels, I’m losing money here.’ ‘Listen, if you go on – we’ll pick up your whole shop.’ ‘OK, OK, take it, but listen, don’t take more than 10 systems a month.’ Something like this.
“‘I’m already going bankrupt.’ He was so miserable. Guys in our unit used to sell these things back home, make deals with people. People are so stupid.”
The military said that Israeli Defence Forces soldiers operate according to “a strict set of moral guidelines” and that their expected adherence to them only “increases wherever and whenever IDF soldiers come in contact with civilians”. It added that “if evidence supporting the allegations is uncovered, steps are taken to hold those involved to the level of highest judicial severity”. It also said: “The Military Advocate General has issued a number of indictments against soldiers due to allegations of criminal behaviour … Soldiers found guilty were punished severely by the Military Court, in proportion to the committed offence.” It had not by last night quantified such indictments.
In its introduction to the testimonies, Breaking the Silence says: “The soldiers’ determination to fulfil their mission yields tragic results: the proper-normative becomes despicable, the inconceivable becomes routine … [The] testimonies are to illustrate the manner in which they are swept into the brutal reality reigning on the ground, a reality whereby the lives of many thousands of Palestinian families are at the questionable mercy of youths. Hebron turns a focused, flagrant lens at the reality to which Israel’s young representatives are constantly sent.”
A force for justice
Breaking the Silence was formed four years ago by a group of ex-soldiers, most of whom had served in Israel Defence Forces combat units in Hebron. Many of the soldiers do reserve duty in the military each year. It has collected some 500 testimonies from former soldiers who served in the West Bank and Gaza. Its first public exposure was with an exhibition of photographs by soldiers serving in Hebron and the organisation also runs regular tours of Hebron for Israeli students and diplomats. It receives funding from groups as diverse as the Jewish philanthropic Moriah Fund, the New Israel Fund, the British embassy in Tel Aviv and the EU.
External Link : http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/rot.html
Bush’s Legacy to America
The world is certainly no safer than when you took over, Mr. Bush.
By Tariq A. Al-Maeena
President George Bush should be out of office in a matter of months. “The sooner, the better”, mutter those Americans who view his two terms as president of the United States as one laced heavily with wars and aggression overseas, and poverty at home.
While many Americans still believe he only came into office as a result of vote manipulations in Ohio and Florida during the elections, it cannot be denied that his leadership has been bad for America, period!
While there are still a diminishing number of diehards who believe in Bush’s message body and soul, an increasing number of Americans have been turned off by what he has turned America into. This is the impression I gathered in the course of my conversations with Americans from all walks of life. America has become a land where dissenters are seized and imprisoned without due process of the law.
There is wiretapping and forced entries into homes on the faintest of suspicion. Thousands who were brave enough to speak out against their president’s policies are detained.
It has become a land where a “spook” is believed to be found behind every corner, not much unlike the McCarthy era. Anthrax and the poisoning of water reservoirs were tactics used to shepherd a gullible public along those lines.
It is a land where the investigations and the real truth behind the 9-11 disaster still remain shrouded in controversy. The findings of the 9-11 Commission leave a lot of unanswered questions, and the US media’s failure to investigate such claims has destroyed their credibility around the world and among their own people.
Bush can also perhaps be linked to the delay in sending relief and federal support to the victims of the Katrina disaster. The support given was inadequate. Money and resources that could have provided immediate relief to the disaster victims were spent on more glamorous adventures abroad.
And today, while America bleeds under the onslaught of rising prices and home foreclosures, his tenure was not a loss for all. Those connected to the presidency such as Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld have reportedly done remarkably well, and their personal portfolios have shown positives gains.
The trillions of dollars gone to support Bush’s foreign adventures could and should have been spent on the welfare of his people.
The money spent could have averted the current financial crisis many Americans are experiencing. Old age care, improved health coverage and funding for more schools would have been a far more palatable alternative to Americans than dead bodies littering the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bush is using the little time left for him in the White House for more warmongering. Iran has become the buzzword of his administration, just as Saddam Hussein’s WMDs were then. He does want to shape the world to his distorted view of democracy and peace, and he does that by waging more wars and creating more mayhem.
Most Americans agree today that their quality of life has suffered. And why not? The cost of maintaining Bush’s overseas adventures has taken away critically needed federal funds from domestic use. And with the cost of his war on the rise, very little relief can be forecast, unless dramatic measures are taken as soon as Bush departs. But with his clone in the shape of John McCain waiting in the shadows, is there any hope for Americans?
“I made a decision to lead,” he once said, “One, it makes you unpopular; two, it makes people accuse you of unilateral arrogance, and that may be true. But the fundamental question is, is the world better off as a result of your leadership?”
The world is certainly no safer than when you took over, Mr. Bush. While he would like to be remembered for doing the right thing, I wonder how many of the homeless and destitutes today would agree with such a rosy picture.
- Tariq A. Al-Maeena is a Saudi socio/political commentator. He works out of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and can be reached at this address.
Israel’s Encaging of Gaza
Gaza’s imprisonment has stopped being a metaphor and become a daily reality
By Jonathan Cook
In 1895 Theodor Herzl, Zionism’s chief prophet, confided in his diary that he did not favour sharing Palestine with the natives. Better, he wrote, to “try to spirit the penniless [Palestinian] population across the border by denying it any employment in our own country … Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.”
He was proposing a programme of Palestinian emigration enforced through a policy of strict separation between Jewish immigrants and the indigenous population. In simple terms, he hoped that, once Zionist organisations had bought up large areas of Palestine and owned the main sectors of the economy, Palestinians could be made to leave by denying them rights to work the land or labour in the Jewish-run economy. His vision was one of transfer, or ethnic cleansing, through ethnic separation.
Herzl was suggesting that two possible Zionist solutions to the problem of a Palestinian majority living in Palestine — separation and transfer — were not necessarily alternatives but rather could be mutually reinforcing. Not only that: he believed, if they were used together, the process of ethnic cleansing could be made to appear voluntary, the choice of the victims. It may be that this was both his most enduring legacy and his major innovation to settler colonialism.
In recent years, with the Palestinian population under Israeli rule about to reach parity with the Jewish population, the threat of a Palestinian majority has loomed large again for the Zionists. Not suprisingly, debates about which of these two Zionist solutions to pursue, separation or transfer, have resurfaced.
Today these solutions are ostensibly promoted by two ideological camps loosely associated with Israel’s centre-left (Labor and Kadima) and right (Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu). The modern political arguments between them turn on differing visions of the nature of a Jewish state orginally put forward by Labor and Revisionist Zionists.
To make sense of the current political debates, and the events taking place inside Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza, let us first examine the history of these two principles in Zionist thinking.
During the early waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine, the dominant Labor Zionist movement and its leader David Ben Gurion advanced policies much in line with Herzl’s goal. In particular, they promoted the twin principles of “Redemption of the Land” and “Hebrew Labor”, which took as their premise the idea that Jews needed to separate themselves from the native population in working the land and employing only other Jews. By being entirely self-reliant in Palestine, Jews could both “cure” themselves of their tainted Diaspora natures and deprive the Palestinians of the opportunity to subsist in their own homeland.
At the forefront of this drive was the Zionist trade union federation, the Histadrut, which denied membership to Palestinians — and, for many years after the establishment of the Jewish state, even to the remants of the Palestinian population who became Israeli citizens.
But if separation was the official policy of Labor Zionism, behind the scenes Ben Gurion and his officials increasingly appreciated that it would not be enough in itself to achieve their goal of a pure ethnic state. Land sales remained low, at about 6 per cent of the territory, and the Jewish-owned parts of the economy relied on cheap Palestinian labour.
Instead, the Labor Zionists secretly began working on a programme of ethnic cleansing. After 1937 and Britain’s Peel Report proposing partition of Palestine, Ben Gurion was more open about transfer, recognising that a Jewish state would be impossible unless most of the indigenous population was cleared from within its borders.
Israel’s new historians have acknowledged Ben Gurion’s commitment to transfer. As Benny Morris notes, for example, Ben Gurion “understood that there could be no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab minority in its midst.” The Israeli leadership therefore developed a plan for ethnic cleansing under cover of war, compiling detailed dossiers on the communities that needed to be driven out and then passing on the order, in Plan Dalet, to commanders in the field. During the 1948 war the new state of Israel was emptied of at least 80 per cent of its indigenous population.
In physically expelling the Palestinian population, Ben Gurion responded to the political opportunities of the day and recalibrated the Labor Zionism of Herzl. In particular he achieved the goal of displacement desired by Herzl while also largely persuading the world through a campaign of propaganda that the exodus of the refugees was mostly voluntary. In one of the most enduring Zionist myths, convincingly rebutted by modern historians, we are still told that the refugees left because they were told to do so by the Arab leadership.
The other camp, the Revisionists, had a far more ambivalent attitude to the native Palestinian population. Paradoxically, given their uncompromising claim to a Greater Israel embracing both banks of the Jordan River (thereby including not only Palestine but also the modern state of Jordan), they were more prepared than the Labor Zionists to allow the natives to remain where they were.
Vladimir Jabotinsky, the leader of Revisionism, observed in 1938 — possibly in a rebuff to Ben Gurion’s espousal of transfer — that “it must be hateful for any Jew to think that the rebirth of a Jewish state should ever be linked with such an odious suggestion as the removal of non-Jewish citizens”. The Revisionists, it seems, were resigned to the fact that the enlarged territory they desired would inevitably include a majority of Arabs. They were therefore less concerned with removing the natives than finding a way to make them accept Jewish rule.
In 1923, Jabotinsky formulated his answer, one that implicitly included the notion of separation but not necessarily transfer: an “iron wall” of unremitting force to cow the natives into submission. In his words, the agreement of the Palestinians to their subjugation could be reached only “through the iron wall, that is to say, the establishment in Palestine of a force that will in no way be influenced by Arab pressure”.
An enthusiast of British imperial rule, Jabotinsky envisioned the future Jewish state in simple colonial terms, as a European elite ruling over the native population.
Inside Revisionism, however, there was a shift from the idea of separation to transfer that mirrored developments inside Labor Zionism. This change was perhaps more opportunistic than ideological, and was particularly apparent as the Revisionists sensed Ben Gurion’s success in forging a Jewish state through transfer.
One of Jabotinsky disciples, Menachem Begin, who would later become a Likud prime minister, was leader in 1948 of the Irgun militia that committed one of the worst atrocities of the war. He led his fighters into the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin where they massacred over 100 inhabitants, including women and children.
Savage enough though these events were, Begin and his followers consciously inflated the death toll to more than 250 through the pages of the New York Times. Their goal was to spread terror among the wider Palestinian population and encourage them to flee. He later happily noted: “Arabs throughout the country, induced to believe wild tales of ‘Irgun butchery’, were seized with limitless panic and started to flee for their lives. This mass flight soon developed into a maddened, uncontrollable stampede.”
Subsequently, other prominent figures on the right openly espoused ethnic cleansing, including the late General Rehavam Ze’evi, whose Moledet party campaigned in elections under the symbol of the Hebrew character “tet”, for transfer. His successor, Benny Elon, a settler leader and rabbi, adopted a similar platform: “Only population transfer can bring peace”.
The intensity of the separation vs transfer debate subsided after 1948 and the ethnic cleansing campaign that removed most of the native Palestinian population from the Jewish state. The Palestinian minority left behind — a fifth of the population but a group, it was widely assumed, that would soon be swamped by Jewish immigration — was seen as an irritation but not yet as a threat. It was placed under a military government for nearly two decades, a system designed to enforce separation between Palestinians and Jews inside Israel. Such separation — in education, employment and residence — exists to this day, even if in a less extreme form.
The separation-transfer debate was chiefly revived by Israel’s conquest of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. With Israel’s erasure of the Green Line, and the effective erosion of the distinction between Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories, the problem of a Palestinian majority again loomed large for the Zionists.
Cabinet debates from 1967 show the quandary faced by the government. Almost alone, Moshe Dayan favoured annexation of both the newly captured territories and the Palestinian population there. Others believed that such a move would be seen as transparently colonialist and rapidly degenerate into an apartheid system of Jewish citizens and Palestinian non-citizens. In their minds, Jabotinsky’s solution of an iron wall was no longer viable.
But equally, in a more media-saturated era, which at least paid lip-service to human rights, the government could see no way to expel the Palestinian population on a large scale and annex the land, as Ben Gurion had done earlier. Also possibly, they could see no way of persuading the world that such expulsions should be characterised as voluntary.
Israel therefore declined to move decisively in either direction, neither fully carrying out a transfer programme nor enforcing strict separation. Instead it opted for an apartheid model that accommodated Dayan’s suggestion of a “creeping annexation” of the occupied territories that he rightly believed would go largely unnoticed by the West.
The separation embodied in South African apartheid differed from Herzl’s notion of separation in one important respect: in apartheid, the “other” population was a necessary, even if much abused, component of the political arrangement. As the exiled Palestinian thinker Azmi Bishara has noted, in South Africa “racial segregation was not absolute. It took place within a framework of political unity. The racist regime saw blacks as part of the system, an ingredient of the whole. The whites created a racist hierarchy within the unity.”
In other words, the self-reliance, or unilateralism, implicit in Herzl’s concept of separation was ignored for many years of Israel’s occupation. The Palestinian labour force was exploited by Israel just as black workers were by South Africa. This view of the Palestinians was formalised in the Oslo accords, which were predicated on the kind of separation needed to create a captive labour force.
However, Yitzhak Rabin’s version of apartheid embodied by the Oslo process, and Binyamin Netanyahu’s opposition in upholding Jabotinsky’s vision of Greater Israel, both deviated from Herzl’s model of transfer through separation. This is largely why each political current has been subsumed within the recent but more powerful trend towards “unilateral separation”.
Not surprisingly, the policy of “unilateral separation” emerged from among the Labor Zionists, advocated primarily by Ehud Barak. However, it was soon adopted by many members of Likud too. Ultimately its success derived from the conversion to its cause of Greater Israel’s arch-exponent, Ariel Sharon. He realised the chief manifestations of unilateral separation, the West Bank wall and the Gaza disengagement, as well breaking up Israel’s rightwing to create a new consensus party, Kadima.
In the new consensus, the transfer of Palestinians could be achieved through imposed and absolute separation — just as Herzl had once hoped. After the Gaza disengagement, the next stage was promoted by Sharon’s successor, Ehud Olmert. His plan for convergence, limited withdrawals from the West Bank in which most settlers would remain in place, has been dropped, but its infrastructure — the separation wall — continues to be built.
How will modern Zionists convert unilateral separation into transfer? How will Herzl’s original vision of ethnic cleansing enforced through strict ethnic separation be realised in today’s world?
The current siege of Gaza offers the template. After disengagement, Israel has been able to cut off at will Gazans’ access to aid, food, fuel and humanitarian services. Normality has been further eroded by sonic booms, random Israeli air attacks, and repeated small-scale invasions that have inflicted a large toll of casualties, particularly among civilians.
Gaza’s imprisonment has stopped being a metaphor and become a daily reality. In fact, Gaza’s condition is far worse than imprisonment: prisoners, even of war, expect to have their humanity respected, and be properly sheltered, cared for, fed and clothed. Gazans can no longer rely on these staples of life.
The ultimate goal of this extreme form of separation is patently clear: transfer. By depriving Palestinians of the basic conditions of a normal life, it is assumed that they will eventually choose to leave — in what can once again be sold to the world as a voluntary exodus. And if Palestinians choose to abandon their homeland, then in Zionist thinking they have forfeited their right to it — just as earlier generations of Zionists believed the Palestinian refugees had done by supposedly fleeing during the 1948 and 1967 wars.
Is this process of transfer inevitable? I think not. The success of a modern policy of “transfer through separation” faces severe limitations.
First, it depends on continuing US global hegemony and blind support for Israel. Such support is likely to be undermined by the current American misadventures in the Middle East, and a gradual shift in the balance of power to China, Russia and India.
Second, it requires a Zionist worldview that departs starkly not only from international law but also from the values upheld by most societies and ideologies. The nature of Zionist ambitions is likely to be ever harder to conceal, as is evident from the tide of opinion polls showing that Western publics, if not their governments, believe Israel to be one of the biggest threats to world order.
And third, it assumes that the Palestinians will remain passive during their slow eradication. The historical evidence most certainly shows that they will not.
- Jonathan Cook is a journalist and writer based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest 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
06.28.08
Cry beloved Palestine
Christopher Vasillopulos
IN his beautiful and profound novel, “Cry the Beloved Country”, Alan Paton wrote about the innumerable tragedies European imperialism implied for black and white South Africans. A powerful plea for reconciliation between the races, the oppressor and the oppressed, his beautiful book nevertheless told bitter truths about the brutal, racist regime and the often criminal and violent responses of the people it tyrannized. In the same spirit I offer this piece. It uses the same structure of a speech the murdered and martyred hero of the novel never lived to give.
It is permissible for the Jews to have claimed a homeland in Palestine. It is not permissible for them to have evicted hundreds of thousands of native Palestinians in the process. It is permissible for the Jews to have gathered up the refugees in camps. It is not permissible to have kept them, who now are five million, there in abominable conditions for as much as 60 years.
It is permissible for Israel to have defended itself against Arab attacks. It is not permissible for Israel to thereby confiscate all but 10-12 percent of Palestine.
It is permissible for Jews to use their influence and money to win support in the US and the UK for their objectives in Palestine. It is not permissible for Jews to label everyone who expresses sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians as anti-Semitic or Nazis. It is permissible for Israel to be a Jewish state. It is not permissible to pretend that it can be a Western-style democracy, when double standards based on Jewishness are built into the Basic Laws of the Israeli state. It is permissible for Israel to recruit Jews from around the world to immigrate: The Right of Return. It is not permissible for Israel to deny Palestinians the same right, especially since most of them were coercively exiled. It is permissible for Israel to subsidize Jewish immigrants. It is not permissible to settle them on Palestinian land. It is permissible to have occupied Palestinian territory in the wake of war. It is not permissible to continue to occupy Palestine indefinitely. It is permissible for Israel to defend itself against criminal and terrorist acts. It is not permissible to punish, maim, kill, torture, or terrorize the innocent in the process.
It is permissible to interrogate suspects and prisoners. It is not permissible to torture or imprison them without due process. It is permissible for Israel to regulate water, electricity, garbage collection and other essential services in the territories it controls. It is not permissible to suspend these services to punish Palestinians for alleged support of dissidents.
It is permissible for Israel to defend its borders (indistinct and unofficial as they are). It is not permissible to use border checks to harass or punish Palestinians. It is permissible for Israel to have defense forces. It is not permissible to use it as an aggressive, invading army.
It is permissible for Israel to have weapons of mass destruction, estimated at between 200-400 nuclear warheads. It is not permissible to deny their existence in an effort to deny deterrent capability to its neighbors.
It is permissible to consider Jerusalem, Hebron and other towns as religiously significant. It is not permissible to deny the same claims by Muslims or Christians. It is permissible for Jews to want to live in peace and security. It is not permissible to deny this possibility to Palestinians. It is permissible for Israel to exist. It is not permissible for Israel to deny this right to Palestinians.
Alan Paton died before his beloved country freed itself from colonial oppression. How many Palestinian “Alan Patons” will die before their beloved country will free itself from its oppressors?
— Dr. Christopher Vasillopulos is professor of political science and international relations at Eastern Connecticut State University.
06.27.08
Where an egg tray costs billions
Angus Shaw | AP
HARARE, Zimbabwe: For many Zimbabweans, the chief worry is not political violence or President Robert Mugabe’s iron hold on power. It’s out-of-control inflation that puts anything more than a single daily meal beyond reach.
Underlying the current political crisis is an economic meltdown that has caused a shortage of food and all basic goods, while leaving the people an abundance of zeros.
The official inflation rate was put at 165,000 percent by the government in February, but independent estimates put the real figure closer to 4 million percent.
Zimbabwe is believed to be the only country in the world that now carries out routine financial transactions in dizzying set of quadrillions — one quadrillion is a 1 with 15 zeros behind it, or 1,000,000,000,000,000.
“It’s gone completely crazy. Our computers and calculators can’t deal with all the zeros even on the cheapest products,” said Harare economic analyst David Moyo.
Brokers said this week that the Zimbabwe dollar broke the barrier of 10 billion to a single U.S. dollar in direct bank buying, while in electronic transfers, it exceeded 20 billion Zimbabwe dollars to $1 U.S.
Bread has disappeared from stores. Previously, a loaf in a supermarket cost 2 billion Zimbabwe dollars (20 U.S. cents at the official exchange rate), or 15 billion Zimbabwe dollars ($1.50 U.S.) on the black market, where prices of scarce items can vary up to 10 times higher.
A shopper lucky enough to find milk will spend 3 billion dollars (30 U.S. cents) for about 1 pint. A tray of 30 eggs, also scarce, can bought in a store for 45 billion dollars ($4.50 U.S.).
Butter is hard to find, but 17 1/2 ounces of margarine will cost 25 billion dollars ($2.50 U.S.) and a pack of 10 cookies costs 19 billion dollars ($1.90 U.S.).
Most stores and business across Zimbabwe have already knocked six zeros off price tags, showing 45,000 dollars for two pounds of scarce low grade beef — but at the cash register, it’s tallied back at 45 billion dollars ($4.50 U.S.).
Moyo said a car battery was priced Monday at 2.4 trillion dollars ($240 U.S.), a tenfold increase in the past two weeks.
The largest Zimbabwean bill in circulation is a 50 billion note ($5 U.S.), while the smallest currency unit a one cent coin, which buys nothing by itself.
The sight of a person carrying brick-sized wads of notes — or even wheelbarrows full of cash — is less common now, because consumers are limited to withdrawing 25 billion dollars a day from the bank, usually in five 5 billion-dollar notes.
The highest amount a check can be made out for is 900 billion dollars ($90 U.S.) but many people complain that there is not enough room in the space provided to write out the high figure.
“Whatever happens on the political front, the economy has to be addressed, which no one seems to be doing right now,” Moyo said.
Since the first round of national elections on March 29, shortages of basic goods have worsened, public services have come to virtual standstill, power and water outages have continued daily, and streets and highways have crumbled.
The price of gasoline has soared, pushing up bus and commuter fares to more than what many workers earn in a day.
Production lines have been halted as factories report mounting absenteeism.
“We certainly can’t go on like this. Something’s got to give before too long. Everyone hoped we could move on once the election was over,” said James Davis, a factory manager.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai claims to have finished first in the first round of presidential voting March 29, although he did not win the simple majority needed to avoid a runoff, scheduled for Friday. A campaign of violence and intimidation caused Tsvangirai on Sunday to quit the runoff, saying it would not be credible. That has cleared the way for Mugabe, 84, to continue his 28-year rule, despite mounting condemnation from the international community, including even loyal African allies who say the former independence hero has become a despot who has bankrupted the nation.
“If they think they can tame inflation with an illegitimate election and no international support, let them try,” said Tsvangirai spokesman George Sibotshiwe.
So far, Mugabe has not moved to try to put the country back on a sound financial footing. The problem, analysts say, is that few options are available.
“If Mugabe continues, the economy will continue to decline,” said Brian Raftopolous, a South African-based economic researcher. “Mugabe has no solutions.”
06.25.08
“Forgive Me”
“A couple of days ago I went out on a foot patrol in Sadr City with a young a soldier and noticed the tattoo on his arm, featuring a rosary and the words “Forgive Me.” I asked him what the story behind it was. He said, “After my first tour in Iraq, I went back home to the states and all my friends called me a murderer and killer. I guess I started thinking a lot about all the things I had done over here…you know.””(Text and photo :© Zoriah/www.zoriah.com)/(Source:click here)
Living Among the Dead in a Gaza Graveyard
‘I never leave this place, I live here and I play here.’ (Photo: PalestineFreeVoice)
By Hiyam Noir and Fady Adwan in Gaza
Amid all levels of infrastructural devastation in the Gaza Strip, many families are hit by increasing poverty, and many are forgotten, living absolute marginalized.
In the heart of Gaza City is an old cemetery, where some families have found shelter, and where they live their lives among the dead. One family we meet have lived on the old Gaza City graveyard, for over five decades. Others have become poor and dispossessed during the last decade. Because of the many difficult conditions and the hardship under occupation, many have lost their employment or a business, and without income there is very little money over to pay for the rent, or to build or buy a new home.
“I came here, to live between the tombs, with my husband and children, 50 years ago,” says Um Suhail Jilo, 72. Her family was forced out from their village in the 1948 expulsion, the Al Nakba, this is the time of disaster for the Palestinians. The time when the Jews on Arab Palestinian land erected the illusory state, that became the Zionist state of Israel. Jewish armed gangs like Irgun, the Stern – gang, and the terrorist organizations Palmack and Haganah terrorized and brutalized hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, forcing the inhabitants to flee their homeland and leave their possessions, to search for safe shelters abroad, in other countries.
“In that time, so long ago, no one helped us to build for us a simple house… so we found no other choice, but to find a roof over our heads here inside the Gaza City old graveyard. We bought tin plates to build a house for our family. The house became impaired and corroded by time or wear, so a few years later, we made some small improvements and added cement onto the walls “. Um Suhail tell us, she lives here with 16 of her family members, her sons and daughters, her in-law’s and grandchildren, in a house consisting of three bedrooms.
Um Suhail’s husband, as so many other husband’s and family- supporters were forced to move outside Gaza Strip to work, to be able to support the family. “Now I have not heard from him in tens of years,” Um Suhail says with a sad voice. “I do not know what happened to him.” Mean while she is making food using a wood burning stove, Um Suhail says: “We have got used to live among the graves of the dead… we are like them, depending on charities and handouts.”
Due to the Israeli-led international siege imposed on Gaza Strip since June last year, the son’s of Um Suhail have lost their jobs, and the family have lost their main source of income. For years, this worn out and exhausted woman has hand washed all the clothes for her large family, until a well doing family bought her a modern washing machine.
Mohammed, a six-year-old boy, born in the home on the graveyard tell us , “I never leave this place, I live here and I play here, and I do not fear ghost’s or the tomb’s.” But in the night, Mohammed fear most the snakes and the spiders, says his grandmother Um Suhail. “Last month, we found and killed, a one and half meter long snake in our house, it was not a pleasant experience, believe me.”
All Quiet on the Gaza Front, Yet No Cheers
In Sderot, sighs of relief. Children venture out. But the people of the town are angry.
By Uri Avnery
And suddenly: quiet. No Qassams. No mortar shells. The tanks are not rolling. The aircraft are not bombing.
In Sderot, sighs of relief. Children venture out. Inhabitants who have exiled themselves to other towns return home.
And the reaction? An outburst of jubilation? Dancing in the streets? Applause for the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense, who at long last have come to their senses?
Not at all. The expression on the nation’s face is a grimace of disgust. What kind of thing is that? Where is our victorious army?
The people of Sderot are really angry. OK, so there are no Qassams, but this was supposed to happen only after the army had entered Gaza and wiped it out.
Haaretz headed its front page with the mendacious headline: “Israel pays with deeds – and gets promises”.
“It’s fragile,” Ehud Olmert soothes us, it can come to an end any minute. And the other Ehud, Barak, who pushed for the cease-fire, has an excuse: we have to go through the motions before starting the Big Operation in Gaza. For the sake of Israeli and international public opinion.
And nobody says: Thank God, the killing has stopped!
Why? What causes this almost unanimous reaction of disappointment? Why is there a general feeling of humiliation, almost of defeat?
It’s because the national ego is hurt. How wonderful it would have been to see the Israeli army in Gaza destroying Hamas, together with the entire city. But, instead of the crushing victory, we have something that smacks of a rout. And that in spite of the assertions of those now rooting for re-occupying the Gaza Strip: that at any minute, with just a little more starvation and closure, the population would have broken and rebelled against Hamas.
From the military point of view, a year of war in the Gaza Strip has ended in a draw. IDF-Hamas 1:1. But the IDF and Hamas are not two football teams of equal standing. Hamas is an armed political-religious movement, what is termed in current Western parlance “a terrorist organization”. When such an organization achieves a draw with one of the mightiest armies in the world, it can justifiably claim victory.
The aim of Olmert’s war was to topple the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip and to destroy the organization itself. This has not been attained. On the contrary, according to all reports, Hamas is stronger than ever, and its hold on the Strip is solid. Even in Israel that is not questioned.
For a year, the Israeli government has maintained a total blockade of the Strip – on land, at sea and in the air. It has enjoyed the unqualified support of Europe, which assisted in starving a population of one and a half million men and women, children and old people. The US was, of course, a full partner in this glorious enterprise. Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt, dependent on the US, collaborated, if unwillingly.
All this was not enough to beat poor and crowded Gaza, a narrow strip of land 35 km (22 miles) long and 10 km (6 miles) wide, into submission. Not only did the rockets not stop, but their range increased. Their victims in Israel were few, a child could count them, but their impact on morale was immense.
The Israeli army was helpless against this primitive weapon, which costs next to nothing. The army killed wholesale and in retail, on land and from the air, with missiles, shells and infantry weapons. To no avail.
Hamas has survived, but it, too, did not achieve its aim. It had no answer to the blockade. Only the pressure of international public opinion (as well as the Israeli peace forces) prevented total starvation, but in the Strip there was a shortage of everything. Unemployment was rampant, fuel disappeared, many inhabitants suffered from undernourishment, bordering on starvation.
That is the nature of a draw: neither of the two sides is able to force a decision and impose its will on its opponent.
A ceasefire only comes about when both sides need it. (True, Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian military philosopher, has said that in war it is impossible for a situation to be beneficial to both sides at the same time, that something that is good for one side is necessarily bad for the other. But in real war there are exceptions.)
Indeed, the Israeli army needed the ceasefire no less than Hamas. That became clear from the comments of the “military correspondents”, almost all of whom are thinly disguised army spokesmen. Of course, not one of the cabinet members would have agreed to a ceasefire if the army brass had objected.
Usually, the army bosses press for one more action, one more operation, one more war. Have they suddenly turned into doves? Not really. But they knew that they had to choose between two “bad” options: a ceasefire or the “Great Operation” – the re-conquest of the entire Gaza Strip.
The commanders did not like the first option, and that is an understatement. It means admitting failure. But the second option they liked even less – much, much less.
The Great Operation, which a large part of the public yearned for, which almost all the media demanded at the top of their voices, is very problematical. Hamas has had a lot of time to prepare for it. No army likes to fight in a built-up area, among a crowded population. Every alley is a potential trap, every man – and every woman – a potential suicide bomber. Even if the army succeeded in entering and occupying the strip with only “tolerable” casualties, that would just be the beginning of the troubles. Every day soldiers would be killed. The mutual bloodletting would be endless. See: the Iraq war.
Public opinion is fickle. Every dead soldier whose smiling picture is shown on television increases the pressure to get out. Sooner or later the army would be compelled to leave – and the situation would revert to what it was before, only worse.
The army chiefs know this. Olmert and Barak also know this. The lesson of the Second Lebanon War has not been forgotten. There is no mood for war.
The ceasefire has far-reaching political implications. It changes the Palestinian – and perhaps the regional – map.
One can protest from here to eternity, one can shout from the rooftops that “we don’t negotiate with Hamas” and that “we have no agreement with Hamas” – every child understands that we indeed do, and indeed have.
This is an agreement between the Government of Israel and the Gaza authorities. It means a de facto recognition of the Hamas government there. In Gaza, too, every child understands that the Israeli government was compelled to agree because it was unable to break Hamas by force.
In the eyes of the Palestinians, the situation is clear: Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah has not got anything from the Israelis, Hamas has.
Abbas tries by peaceful means. He is the darling of the Americans and the Israelis. But since the great performance in Annapolis, not only has he not achieved any meaningful concessions at all and not freed a single prisoner, but additional prisoners are being taken every night, the settlements are being enlarged and the Israeli government announces grandiose new building projects in East Jerusalem and the entire West Bank. And the Israeli government would not dream of agreeing to a ceasefire there.
While at the same time Hamas, besieged by the whole world, losing fighters every day, has attained a significant military and political achievement: goods will flow into the Strip, cars will again bounce along the potholed roads, the Rafah crossing, which cuts off the Strip from the world, will be opened. In the coming prisoner exchange, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners will be released in return for the captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit.
The conclusion? Everybody can ask themselves: if I were a Palestinian, what conclusion would I draw?
The ceasefire affects the balance of power within the Palestinian people. Hamas has proved that it can maintain an orderly government. Now it is proving that it can control the radical organizations, too.
The wisest thing Mahmoud Abbas can do now is to form a Unity Government, based on both Hamas and Fatah.
Will the ceasefire hold? The correspondents report that nobody expects it to.
When Olmert says that it is fragile, he knows what he is talking about.
There is no written agreement. No orderly mechanism for settling disputes. No arbitrator to decide, in case of need, which side is responsible for a violation.
If somebody in Israel wants to break the ceasefire, nothing will be easier: a squad leader opens fire on a group of Palestinians near the border fence, because he suspects that they are about to plant an explosive device. A spy helicopter pilot believes that he is being shot at and launches a missile. The army intelligence chief claims that large quantities of arms are being smuggled into the Strip.
It can be done in other ways, too. The army will kill half a dozen Islamic Jihad militants in the West Bank. In response, the organization will fire a salvo of Qassams at Sderot. The army will announce that this is a violation of the agreement and answer with an incursion into the Gaza Strip. It will even be right formally, since the ceasefire does not cover the West Bank.
Every agreement holds only as long as both sides believe that it serves their interests. If one of them thinks otherwise, it will break it (and assert that the other side broke it first). In this case, the first to break it will most likely be the Israeli side.
A ceasefire is not peace (salaam), and not even an armistice or truce (hudnah). It is no more than an agreement between combatants to stop shooting for some time.
In the nature of things, each side will use the ceasefire to prepare for the next round of fighting – to breathe deeply, to rest, to train, to plan, to obtain more advanced weapons.
But the ceasefire can become more than that. It can lead to Palestinian unity, to Israeli re-thinking, to a practical advance towards a peaceful solution. At the very least, every day of the ceasefire saves human lives.
And in the meantime the Hebrew and the international dictionaries have acquired another Arabic word: Tahdiyeh, calm.
-Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom.
Brown’s chutzpah pays off
Linda Heard, sierra12th@yahoo.co.uk
BRITISH Prime Minister Gordon Brown may be increasingly bereft of public support but he’s certainly got chutzpah. With rocketing UK inflation and Britons pinched by the credit squeeze triggered by the subprime crisis, ever-rising fuel prices represent the last straw for ordinary people struggling to maintain a decent standard of living. Faced with a barrage of strikes and public unrest, Brown flew cap-in-hand to see his friends in Saudi Arabia with a four-letter plea — “Help!” And they did. Saudi Arabia called an emergency meeting of oil producing countries and exporters and showed good will by promising to increase its daily production by 200,000 barrels next month as well as invest in refineries. It has also pledged a $1 billion to help ease the pain of developing nations and a further $500 billion in loans to fund energy projects in some of the world’s poorest countries.
Other producing nations were less forthcoming, partly because they disagree over the underlying reasons forcing prices up.
OPEC’s President Chakib Khelil says he believes the upward shift is fueled by speculators and the weak dollar. And despite his willingness to help out, King Abdullah made it clear he also thinks speculation is a major factor along with rising taxes.
GORDON Brown says he believes increased demand from China and India is the cause and increasing output is the magic bullet but he’s already been proved wrong. Less than 24-hours after the oil summit, prices are hovering upward of $136 a barrel due to attacks on Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron Corp. facilities in Nigeria and the evacuation of two North Sea platforms. And some analysts predict it will reach $140 later in the week.
The fact is Brown prefers to ignore geopolitical factors impacting on oil markets because instead of traveling to Jeddah he would have to fly to Washington and Tel Aviv so as to persuade those officials saber rattling against Iran to tone down the rhetoric after first muting his own. Indeed, every time a senior figure in the US or Israeli government indicate willingness — occasionally even an eagerness — to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, oil jumps higher in response.
For instance, a few weeks ago, when Israeli Transport Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz said, “Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable,” oil rose by $11 per barrel in a single day!! When Israel appeared to mount a dry run in the eastern Mediterranean last week and Iran responded with warnings of devastation, the markets were thrown into further turmoil.
“Supply and demand” is just a convenient fall guy for Brown, who, if he seriously wanted to alleviate the burden on the British public could reduce what are arguably the most crippling taxes on petrol in the world. Currently, Britain imposes a fuel duty plus VAT (Value added tax) that adds 80 percent to charges at the pump. So when Britons groan as they pay their already heavily taxed earnings over to fill their tanks, 80 percent finds its way to government coffers. We should remember too that Britain is an oil-producing country itself but little of that bounty shows up in public pockets.
So here’s a man who, among others, is personally responsible for Britain’s military forays that have created such instability in the Middle East and who is directly responsible for the pernicious level of fuel tax levied on the British taxpayer. And yet, he believes it’s all the fault of producers that refuse to open the taps to their full capacity every time British truck drivers or fishermen threaten to go on strike. Or rather, that’s what he says. It also appears to have escaped Brown that for a person who champions a free market economy asking producers to manipulate markets with increased production goes against the fundamental philosophy.
But his cheek didn’t end there. Not only does Brown want OPEC members to pump as though there is no tomorrow, thus diminishing their precious resource, he wants them to invest in his plans to make Britain less oil-dependent. Yes, he wants oil producers to pour their profits into Britain’s new wind, solar and nuclear power stations. That suggestion, understandably, received only polite interest from Dubai and Qatar. He is basically asking producers to cut their own throats, at least in the long run. The next time he comes calling crying crocodile tears over his nation’s poor and asking for favors, OPEC members would be advised to ply him with Turkish coffee, pat him on the head now and again, and send him off with nothing but platitudes.
06.23.08
The Ghosts of Srebrenica
Gwynne Dyer
Last week in The Hague, a Dutch court began hearing a case brought by surviving relatives of the 8,000 Bosnian Muslim civilians, supposedly under UN military protection, who were murdered by Serb forces at Srebrenica in 1995. The survivors are claiming $4 billion in damages from the Dutch state and the United Nations, which had created the “safe haven” at Srebrenica and sent the Dutch troops there to protect it. It’s about time.
Good people make mistakes, and innocent people die; it happens all the time, especially in war. But Srebrenica was the worst mass killing in Europe since World War II, and it probably could have been avoided if the Dutch troops had shown a little more courage. If not, then they could have died fighting to stop it, because that was their duty.
Soldiers talk with understandable pride about the “unlimited liability” of their profession: The same phrase appears in many armies in many languages.
Few other callings require that on some occasions you must die in order to do your duty, and the military profession is quite right in claiming that this sets soldiers apart. But you can’t just talk the talk. You have to walk the walk, and the Dutch didn’t.
The Dutch soldiers were sent to Srebrenica in 1995 to relieve the Canadian battalion that had been holding the UN-protected enclave. I happened to be in Canada at the time, so a Dutch television crew came looking for me for advice on what their soldiers could expect in Srebrenica. I told them that the Canadians were very glad to be getting out, because it was potentially a death-trap.I didn’t mean a death-trap for the tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslim civilians who were trapped there; that was obvious.
I meant a death-trap for the few hundred lightly armed Canadian soldiers who were protecting the Muslim civilians from the thousands of Serbs with artillery and tanks who surrounded the enclave.
If the Serbs attacked, the Canadians would have to fight despite the odds — anything else would be a shameful betrayal of their duty — and they might lose dozens of people. They would probably save the enclave in the process, because even the Serbian commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, would stop short of killing hundreds of UN troops. But it was a dreadful situation, and the Canadians were greatly relieved to be going home. Good luck to the Dutch.
The Dutch were unlucky. In July, 1995 the Serbs began to make probing attacks on the enclave’s perimeter, which was much too long to defend with only 400 Dutch troops.
The Dutch commander, Col. Ton Karremans, was in a difficult position, but his course was clear: Protest loudly to Mladic and to the world, and call in NATO airstrikes if the Serbian attacks continued.
Meanwhile, give the Muslim men within the enclave back the weapons they had surrendered to the UN, and prepare to fall back to the town of Srebrenica, which could probably be held for a day or so — time enough for help to arrive, perhaps. But if the Serbs kept coming, some Dutch soldiers would die.
So Karremans went to see Mladic, drank a toast with him, and agreed to hand over the Muslims in return for 30 Dutch soldiers who had been taken hostage.
The Dutch commander didn’t know that the Serbs were planning to exterminate all the men and boys in Srebrenica; the Serbs themselves only decided on that after meeting with Karremans and realizing that they faced no opposition. But this was three years into the war, and he must have known that at the very least many hundreds of Muslims would be tortured, raped and murdered.
But in 2006 the Dutch government awarded those who had served in Srebrenica with a special insignia “in recognition for their behavior in difficult circumstances.” They still don’t get it. Even if all the higher authorities had failed them, the soldiers’ duty was clear, and they didn’t do it.
I have talked to Canadian soldiers who served in Srebrenica before them, and they wonder if they would have behaved any better when the Serbs attacked. But at least they know that they should have. Real soldiers are old-fashioned people who still believe in honor, and that is the most attractive thing about them.
06.21.08
Palestinians fight with cameras
LIVELIHOOD GOES UP IN SMOKE
Palestinian olive trees burn after being set ablaze by Israeli settlers from the Yitzhar settlement on Thursday June 19 , in the West Bank village of Burin (AFP/Getty Images)
The Neo-Nazi Israeli Thugs(settlers)
Israeli settlers from the Yitzhar settlement watch after a Palestinian olive tree field was set ablaze by a group of Jewish settlers on June 19, 2008 in the West Bank village of Burin.(AFP)
A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli settlers (unseen) from the nearby Yitzhar Jewish settlement try to set ablaze her olive tree field on June 19, 2008 in the West Bank village of Burin.(AFP)
Sarah Yeivin | AFP
HEBRON, West Bank: As a deterrent against armed Jewish settlers it does not look much. But the video camera has become a frontline defense for ordinary Palestinians living between Hebron and the Jewish settlement of Kyriat Arba in the West Bank.
“I always keep the camera at my side; it’s the only thing which prevents the settlers from hurling stones at us or coming into my shop,” says Bassam Al-Jaabari as he stitches a pair of shoes in his dusty and poorly stocked grocer’s shop.
He jerks his head toward a three-story house that can be seen about 100 meters away through the grill protecting his store windows.
More than a year ago, several families of Israeli settlers, who claim they had bought the property, moved into the building in the Palestinian district of Al-Ras.
The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, immediately provided the four Palestinian families living near that house with video cameras, as part of its program “Shooting Back.”
“We know from experience what happens as soon as settler move into the heart of Palestinian areas,” explains Issa Amro, the B’Tselem official responsible for the volatile Hebron sector in the southern West Bank. “They (the settlers) make the life of the Palestinians impossible. But if their neighbors film them, they think twice before harassing them,” he adds.
Since the start of 2007, B’Tselem has distributed about 100 cameras to Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, especially in the Hebron area where tension with the Jewish settlers is particularly intense.
Some of the videotapes have been broadcast by Israeli and international media, including one in March last year that showed an Israeli woman hurling a stream of insults for several minutes at a Palestinian neighbor in the old town of Hebron.
“The pictures of this woman have been broadcast throughout the world and provoked at lot of reaction. It was then we realized the potential of ‘Shooting Back’ which was then in a testing phase,” recalled Oren Yacokovobish, in charge of the B’Tselem program.
“The cameras have above all a deterrent effect; they protect Palestinians. They also enable the public to see incidents which otherwise are invisible and whose veracity can always be challenged,” he added.
Last Tuesday, two settlers were arrested after being filmed beating up two Palestinian shepherds, an elderly man and his wife, near Hebron. The incident was made public the previous week when the BBC broadcast video showing young masked settlers apparently attacking the couple with clubs.
“The settlers gave us a 10-minute warning to clear off from the land,” Thamam Al-Nawaja, 58, told the BBC after spending three days in hospital following the attack.
She said she and her 70-year-old husband stood their ground and that her arm was broken and her left cheek fractured in an ensuing attack.
Hitler Youth in the West Bank
An Israeli soldier walks alongside a group of Israeli settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron, 24 July 2007. (Mamoun Wazwaz/MaanImages)
By Khalid Amayreh
Last week, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem released video clips showing masked Jewish settlers ganging up on and severely beating elderly Palestinian peasants near the town of Yatta, southwest of Hebron. At least three Palestinians were wounded in the unprovoked assault, including a man and his wife, both in their early sixties.
The latest act of settler terror was not an isolated incident, as official Israeli spokespersons would often claim. It represents a disturbing and persistent phenomenon as young and usually heavily armed settlers continue to attack Palestinian farmers, peasants and shepherds and vandalize their property in an effort to drive them away from their lands and villages.
We who live in the West Bank know too well what it means to live next to a Jewish settlement. It means constant harassment, unending vandalism and perpetual terrorism, both psychological and physical.
What is even more disturbing is the often brazen collusion between the army and the settlers. Ask any conscientious Israeli or Palestinian and he or she will tell you that the settlers couldn’t do what they are doing without at least a “yellow light” from the government and army.
Israel claims to be a state where the rule of law prevails. However, it is abundantly clear that when it comes to settler savagery in particular, and Israel’s overall violations of Palestinian rights in general, the rule of law is suspended.
For example, when a Palestinian files a complaint against settlers, he or she is asked to produce nearly impossible evidence, like the names of the perpetrators, their identity card numbers and their places of residence. Eventually, the complaint is registered against “anonymous” and consigned to oblivion. Such was the fate of thousands of complaints filed by desperate Palestinians seeking redress in Israeli courts.
And whenever serious physical damage to Palestinian property occurs, as happens often, the Israeli police challenge the Palestinian victims to prove beyond doubt that the damage was done by Jews and not self-inflicted. In other words, Jews can do no harm and settlers are innocent even if proven guilty.
The routine and nearly daily attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians and their property throughout the West Bank are not merely mundane acts of vandalism by rogue elements within the settler population. On the contrary, they are part of a larger and well-devised plan aimed at driving Palestinians away from their villages and hamlets and lands in order to make more room for Jewish settlement expansion. It is part and parcel of Israel’s ethnic cleansing schemes against non-Jews in Palestine.
Besides, it is well known that whenever a terrorist settler is detained, and this happens rarely, dozens of politicians, Knesset members, retired army commanders and of course, rabbis, are mobilized to free “an innocent Jew whose only guilt is defending Jewish rights and showing loyalty to the Land of Israel.”
This proves, if any proof were needed, that the entire Israeli Jewish society is accomplice and guilty in this shame, not only by keeping silent but also by always covering up for settler crimes.
To be sure, there are some Israeli Jewish and international groups, such as B’Tselem, the Christian Peace-making Teams (CPT) and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) that monitor settler crimes against Palestinians. On this occasion and on behalf of the Palestinian people, I would like to salute these conscientious people and thank them for their dedication and laborious efforts on behalf of humanity and justice.
Nonetheless, settler crimes in the West Bank are so rampant and pervasive that greater efforts are required to monitor and expose them, especially in light of the obvious collusion between the occupation army and the settlers.
Hence, young men and women from around the world including Jews, Christians and Muslims and others, are encouraged to come to the West Bank to be a voice for the voiceless and lend a helping hand to those helpless Palestinians for whom daily life has become a formidable challenge due to settler harassment, vandalism and terrorism.
In addition to physical assaults on Palestinian villagers, settler terrorists routinely burn down fields, orchards and olive groves, often in full view of Israeli soldiers who look on nonchalantly, if not satisfactorily. Moreover, the settlers close Palestinian roads, even roads to one’s home, break water pipes, power and telephone cables. They also often throw poisonous or contaminated substances in Palestinian water wells.
Again, when Palestinians complain to the police, they are made to feel as if they were talking to a wall.
The criminal behavior of the settlers reflects a virulent ideological indoctrination whereby non-Jews in general and Palestinians in particular are viewed as “not fully human.”
For example, Rabbi Abraham Kook, the spiritual Godfather of religious Zionism, e.g. the settler movement, claimed that “the difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle.”
I know that some religious-Zionist pundits would indulge in all sorts of metaphorical interpretations to make Kook’s Jewish supremacy doctrine look innocuous.
However, the behavior of his followers in the West Bank should leave no doubt as to the virulent nature of his teachings.
Today, the vast majority of settlers in the West Bank believe that non-Jews living in Israel-Palestine ought to be either exterminated, enslaved or expelled. To enforce their racist ideas, prominent rabbis often cite the most extremist biblical and Talmudic passages pertaining to treatment of non-Jews living among Jews.
A few months ago, a settler leader in the Hebron region told me, “you have to choose between death, enslavement and expulsion from the Land of Israel.”
Obviously, with such a mindset, there can be no peace and coexistence between Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land.
Indeed, how can you coexist, let alone coexist amicably, with someone who believes that you are not equal to him and that God created you to be enslaved by him as a wood-hewer or water-carrier?
Finally, a few words to the Israeli government. During the Nazi era, the German authorities gave Nazi vigilantes, such as the Hitler Youth organization, free rein to attack Jews and their property. Now, you are effectively doing the same by giving these settler hoodlums a free rein to terrorize and assault innocent Palestinians. So, take note of what you are doing.
Related Article : Israeli settlers wage campaign of intimidation on Palestinians and internationals alike
06.20.08
Palestine in the American Imagination: Religion, Politics and Media
Senator John McCain is greeted by an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man as he arrives at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, March 19, 2008. (Photo: AP)
By Ramzy Baroud
Abstract: A study of the political, religious and cultural factors underlying the pro-Israeli bias apparent in the Western media today, as depicted in the mainstream news and television programmes.
As Palestinians hurriedly buried their loved ones in the Gaza Strip following a deadly Israeli onslaught, which further contributed to Gaza’s worst humanitarian crisis since 1967 [1], US and Israeli celebrities rallied at a Los Angeles benefit concert for the Israeli town of Sderot, located near the border of Gaza. [2] Hollywood movie stars Sylvester Stallone, Jon Voight, Valerie Harper and comedian Larry Miller mingled with Israeli celebrities such as singer Ninet Tayeb and others. Children from the Israeli town of Sderot, which received the lion’s share of homemade Palestinian rockets, were cheerful nonetheless. Song and dance, interrupted occasionally by solemn messages of support delivered via satellite by both Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates, replaced the cries of sirens the images of huddling families in the town’s shelters. It was a bittersweet moment, that of solidarity, a renewal of the vow made too often, that Israel’s plight is that of America, and Israel’s security is an American priority, and, indeed, ‘God loves those who love Israel’.
Welcome to America’s parallel reality on Israel and Palestine, barefaced in its defying of the notions of commonsense, equality and justice, ever-insistent on peeking at the Arab-Israeli conflict from a looking glass manufactured jointly in the church, in the Congress and in the news room, where the world is reduced to characters interacting in a Hollywood-like movie set: good guys, well groomed and often white-skinned vs. bad guys bearing opposite qualities.
One may become accustomed to watching, reading and listening to the chorus of support that America – its politicians, most of its mainstream media and a large conglomerate of its churches and clergies – tirelessly offer Israel. But one must never dismiss such support, as typical, expected or, as some of Israel’s supporters would put it, ‘special’ and ‘historic’. As simplistic and naïve in its articulation as the so-called pro-Israeli sentiment in the United States may be, in actuality, its intricate manifestation of political, religious, and cultural factors are as old, in some way, as the United States itself. To understand these factors, some deconstruction is in order. This article merely aims at shedding light at some of these factors and the history behind them.
Religion Meets Politics – Old and New
“They own the [Holy] land, just the mere land, and that’s all they do own; but it was our folks, our Jews and Christians, that made it holy, and so they haven’t any business to be there defiling it. It’s a shame and we ought not to stand it a minute. We ought to march against them and take it away from them.” — Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad, 1894.
Americans are commonly accepted for being more religious than their Western counterparts, whether in Canada or in Europe. After all, the American Dream was largely initiated by what is widely interpreted as a religious pilgrimage on board the Mayflower in 1620. The history of colonization of the American continent, of course, goes back to earlier years; nonetheless, it was that particular ‘pilgrimage’, in cultural consciousness, that defined the historic relationship between the immigrants from Europe and the so-called New World. One rather significant omission which often occurs is the recognition of the many nations in the new physical landscape, which in fact existed.
Although the Native Americans’ plight has received a somewhat fair share of deserved analysis, I mean to emphasize here an important component that makes their story most relevant to my argument. Native Americans were dismissed as non-existent, were seen as an obstacle to the harbingers of civilizations, and, when they were recognized as an entity, political or cultural, it was meant merely to juxtapose their backwardness, their irrelevance, their savageness, with the progressiveness, the relevance and the civility of the newcomers.
They too, the immaterial ‘Indians’ may have merely owned the land (although Native Americans didn’t believe in such a concept to start with), but it’s “our folks, our Jews and Christians, that made it holy.” The religious aspect of colonization is significant in the sense that it validates the cruelty of the physical uprooting, the massacring and the dismissal of entire races. “Where a command and a faith are present, in certain historical situations conquest need not be robbery,” Martin Buber wrote once. [3] If God, particularly the American God, justifies such acts, who are we, mere mortals, to defy His will? America was and remains in the minds of some, a Holy Land, with many of its towns bearing the name Salem, just like city of Jerusalem, occupied and illegally annexed by Israel. Such notions as legality and illegality might be relevant to the United Nations (itself rendered irrelevant once by US President George W. Bush himself) [4], but among large circles of American religious institutions, these notions are extraneous to the point of ridicule.
But there is more, of course, to the ‘special relationship’ that justified Israel’s robbery of Palestinian land in an American religious, political and intellectual landscape than their combined search for a holy land and their textual, often selective interpretations of the Old Testament.
In 1879, a scale model of the Holy Land known as the Palestine Park was constructed on Lake Chautauqua, New York by Reverend John Heyl Vincent. J. A. Miller explains, Palestine Park was a “visual aid for the legions of Sunday school teachers who flocked to the Chautauqua Institute to bone up on biblical history and geography.” It was the “first ever example of a theme park, a quintessential American construct.” [5] It featured: “…a life-size Tabernacle built to the specifications given in Exodus, a pyramid, a model of Jerusalem, and a small scale replica of the biblical Holy Land itself – complete with a ten-foot-long Dead Sea, a smaller Sea of Galilee, and markers for important biblical sites – landscaped into the rocky terrain of the shoreline …which serves as the Mediterranean Sea.” [6]
The Chautauqua Institute was established five years before the Park, and “spawned hundreds of ‘assemblies’, throughout America, their popularity lasting until radio and cinema decimated their customer base.” That customer base was not only large, but influential, for it included such luminaries as “Amelia Earhart, Helen Keller, Thomas Edison, George Gershwin and at least nine presidents. Ida Tarbell, famed muckraker of Standard Oil, happily recollected cavorting on Palestine Park’s Mount Hermon as a girl.” [7]
Miller argues, that although there were many smaller precursors on American church grounds, “Palestine Park is the iconic example of what geographer John Kirtland Wright called geopiety, ‘a deep religious devotion to a vision of the Holy Land concocted from a ‘curious mix of romantic imagination, historical rectitude, and attachment to physical space’.” [8] He proceeds, “Geopiety is a particularly Protestant obsession originating in England in the 16th century and culminating in the Balfour Declaration. Long before Herzl revved up the Jewish branch of geopiety, the Archbishop of York pugnaciously encapsulated the concept in 1875: “Our reason for turning to Palestine is that Palestine is our country. I have used that expression before and I refuse to adopt any other”. [9]
While these roots continued to be firmly planted, newer religious phenomena helped contribute to that construct, thus widening the parameters of the Park to include a larger segment of American society, using television as the new and relentless platform. Welcome to the Armageddon-seeking American Evangelicals. While the advocacy for Israel by various evangelical churches is both bizarre – since the ultimate objective of this crowed is the annihilation of most Jews and the conversion of some as prerequisites for the Rapture – and widely acknowledged, their influence on the political culture of America is not equally recognized. Pastor John Hagee, for example, a “televangelist to 99 million viewers and pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, established Christians United for Israel (CUFI) in 2005 following the publication of his book, ‘The Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World.’ Hagee envisions CUFI as the Christian version of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby whose political clout has significant influence on US foreign policy in the Middle East.” [10]
Journalist Max Blumenthal took his cameras to the CUFI’s Washington-Israel Summit held in July 2007, in Washington DC. The result was a documentary entitled, “Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour.” It opens with a dialogue with former Republican House Majority Leader Tom Delay, who was asked how important is the Second Coming is in his support of Israel. “Obviously, it is what I live for. Really, I hope it comes tomorrow. Obviously, we need to be connected to Israel to enjoy the Second Coming of Christ.” [11]
Robert Weitzel reports, “John Hagee is not without fawning friends in Washington. Presidential hopeful John McCain made a campaign stop at the Summit and admitted to the audience that, ‘It’s very hard trying to do the Lord’s work in the city of Satan . . .’ House Minority Whip Roy Blunt followed McCain to the podium and assured the faithful that ‘This is a mission, this is a vision that I believe is a vision for God’s time.’ Senator Joe Lieberman was there and described Pastor Hagee as an “Ish Elokim,” a man of God. Never one to be left out of a well-attended Christian Right convocation, President Bush sent his best wishes, ‘I appreciate CUFI members . . . for your passion and dedication to enhancing the relationship between the United States and Israel. Your efforts set a shining example for others . . .’ [12]
Popular Culture
To examine the relationship between political and religious cultures and the popular culture in America is not an easy task, since the relationship is neither one-way nor linier. However, those preaching their version of God, aspiring to hold on to their political powers, understood well how to communicate their messages to the general public. Pop cultures are hardly shaped by polemics, reason and dialectics but by rather seemingly simple and indirect gestures that overtime ingrain lasting impressions. Combined with an already existing bias regarding Palestine, as disseminated by religious and political institutions, popular culture is constantly bombarded with positive imagery and language depicting Israel, and negative representations of Palestinians.
In popular sitcoms such as Friends, Malcolm in the Middle and others, references are quite often made of Israel. One of Friends’ main characters, Chandler, had an Israeli girl friend, attractive and funny. When it was time to break up, he feared that her fighting skills, obtained during her service in the Israeli army would make such a task too difficult. That image of Israel, and the Israelis, being funny, attractive and fearsome is recurring in American television. Palestinians on the other hand are mentioned, sporadically (outside the evening news), and almost always in a negative light. I was up for a big surprise watching an episode of American Dad, one of the most watched animation programs following the Simpsons. The show comes across as progressive, in a roundabout sort of way. A young boy, one of the show’s main characters, was frustrated by the fact that he couldn’t figure out how to operate a homemade rocket. “If a five year old Palestinian boy can do this, so could I.” In another segment, another reference was made to the “anti-Zionist Aryan brotherhood,” an imaginary group that equates an anti-Zionist affiliation to white supremacy. Many such references are made on American television as well as the big screen. However, I will focus the remaining part of the article on media language and its contribution to the manufacturing of an alternative, convenient reality regarding the Middle East, but Israel and Palestine in particular.
Media Language
In the competitive world of media today, swift and conveniently selective reporting is of prime importance. GoogleNews, for example, claims to scan 4,500 news sources, of which only a few are highlighted as main stories. There are thousands of similar services, all competing to produce a story in the fastest time. Thorough – and thus slower – reporting is relegated and crucial information often appears too little too late.
The corporate media’s depiction of the Gaza story, following Hamas’ election victory in January 2006, and which culminated in the clashes between Fatah and Hamas and the latter’s capture of Gaza in June 2007, was reduced to a few typical headlines, depicting Palestinians as unruly, uncivilized, criminal and unpredictable (thus incapable of being a trustworthy peace partner, as often parroted by Israel.)
The imprisonment of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza – where a humanitarian crisis, unemployment and poverty are still underway – should have been depicted first and foremost as a humanitarian disaster compelled by an Israeli siege. The dates related to the successive stages of the siege should follow a line of political, not ‘security’ logic. Any reasonable timeline of recent events could easily verify that (the formation of the Hamas government in March 2006, the ousting of the pro-Israeli Palestinian security apparatus in June 2007 and so on being followed by dramatic Israeli moves to tighten the siege on Gaza, Hamas’ stronghold).
But little of that seemed relevant to the way the Gaza story was amply reported. Like the Iraq story, where the two main trusted sources are the occupation and its puppet Iraqi government, any story of relevance to Israel and Palestine has to be validated by the official Israeli source and to a lesser but growing extent by their allies among Palestinians. The rest are ‘extremist’, radical and hell-bent on the destruction of the ‘Jewish state.’ Note how the Jewishness of Israel is often emphasised whenever the word ‘destruction’ or similar words are infused.
This is what Bridget Johnson wrote in the Los Angeles Daily News, chastising the United Nations’ Human Rights Council for its condemnation of Israel’s siege on Gaza: “There was zero mention of Hamas’ continued rocket attacks on Israel — which preceded the cut-off of supplies that has caused such an uproar — or Hamas’ refusal to renounce violence against and attempted destruction of the Jewish state.” [13] The claims were preposterous – especially that of a small group’s ‘attempted destruction’ of a country saturated with nuclear arms. The words ‘destruction’ and ‘Jewish state’ are simply passed as an innocent ‘opinion’, read by millions of Americans. There are many notable omissions as well. Hamas has repeatedly called for a mutual ceasefire, that was also repeatedly rejected or simply ignored by Israel. The siege followed the democratic election of Hamas, not the rocket attacks. Also conveniently missed is the disparity between the numbers of Israelis killed as a result of the Palestinian rockets – 10 in six years of violence – and Palestinians killed by Israeli ‘retaliation’ – over 120 Palestinians in Gaza alone within 9 days, starting February 27. [14] The killing of any civilian anywhere is tragic, but the facts are rarely contextualised by the media. This is only the tip of the iceberg since human suffering cannot only be measured by those who die, but also those who continue to live in perpetual torment. For Johnson, this is irrelevant, since this is not about right and wrong, but a war of language. To win the war, one must have command over language – and the way it’s manipulated – and access to platforms that reach the largest number of readers. An easy recipe to victory in this non-conventional war is an intentional mix of terms as Islamic extremism, al-Qaeda, Hamas, Jewish state, security, existential threats, right to exist, juxtaposed with images or clips of angry Palestinian youth burning Israeli and American flags, ‘side-by-side’, and you will have an American public and government standing in eternal solidarity with Israel.
While most US politicians are self-seeking, power hungry and would do whatever it takes to be elected, the average American, unlike what it may seem, is not born ‘pro-Israel’, and ‘anti-Palestinian.’ Most Americans are pro-the-manufactured, yet misleading images of Israel reach their homes through television, wait at their doorsteps in the morning and confront them through the web. Israel has mastery over the language of the Western media, which, again, helped create a parallel reality that has little correlation to the real world, that of facts, numbers and actual events. That alternative universe only exists on the pages of New York Times, the images of CNN, and the blabber of Fox News ‘experts’. According to that narrative, Palestinians, are irrational, suicidal, demonic, mad, extremists, self hating, and all the rest.
Conclusion
There is no serious, equitable debate regarding Palestine and Israel in the US media, nor any other cultural, political and religious circles. If the existing narrative is to be called a debate, then it’s one with an imagined, not real, language, almost entirely irrelevant to the realities in Palestine and Israel. It’s one that is largely predicated on a narrow minded, apocalyptic religious discourse which for decades has found itself an accepted point of departure for most politicians, even those who falsely pose as liberals. Between the two discourses, that of misguided religious fantasies and pandering politicians, there exists enough room for alternative narratives. Unfortunately, that space is too overwhelmed by cultural misconceptions, institutional bias and deliberate confusion, introduced and instilled deliberately by media producers, pundits and the other manufactures of American popular culture. Until the gatekeepers of pop culture in America are seriously challenged, Palestine will continue to reside in the American imagination as a battle between good and evil, a ‘Holy Land’ that must be wrestled from the hands of those who might have owned the land, at one point, but now, they “haven’t any business to be there defiling it.”
-Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, London).
(This article was first published in the Palestine Internationalist Journal, Volume 3 Issue 3, Apr 2008 – South Africa)
Bibliography
[1] Gaza humanitarian Crisis ‘Worst Since 1967′, MSNBC. www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23497420/
[2]) U.S., Israeli Stars Rally at L.A. Benefit Concert for Sderot. www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/959308.html
[3] Martin Buber, On Zion:The History of an Idea, 1974, p. 146
[4] Matthew Rothschild, Bush Trashes the United Nations. The Progressive, April 2003. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_4_67/ai_99818480
[5] J. A Miller, Palestine Park, The Palestine Chronicle, http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=13390, Jan 8, 2008
[6] Timothy Beal, Roadside Religion, 2005, p. 28
[7] J. A Miller, Palestine Park, The Palestine Chronicle, http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=13390, Jan 8, 2008
[8] Timothy Beal, Roadside Religion, 2005, p. 28
[9] Issam Nassar, “In Their Image”, Jerusalem Quarterly, October 2003 www.jerusalemquarterly.org/details.php?cat=4&id=185
[10] Robert Weitzel, Children of Palestine and Israel: Cannon Fodder for the Rapture, The Palestine Chronicle, http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=13592
[11] Ibid
[12] Ibid
[13] Bridget Johnson, The U.N. can learn something from Rambo. The Los Angeles Daily News. www.dailynews.com/columnists/ci_8102360
[14] Aljazeera, Hamas sets terms for Israeli truce. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B09F81FA-14D9-4BCA-A7BD-AF2E52693830.htm; and Amnesty International, Children and civilian bystanders in Gaza death toll: www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/children-and-civilian-bystanders-gaza-death-toll-20080303
06.19.08
The Beauty of Islam
P.K. Abdul Ghafour | Arab News
An Australian convert who embraced Islam in 1981 has been using his television channel — Voice of Islam (VOI) — not only to spread information about Islam but to also promote a better understanding of the faith and its adherents in New Zealand.
In a wide-ranging interview with Arab News, Muhammad Thompson, who recently visited the Kingdom with his family to perform Umrah, gave insights into the challenges facing Muslim minorities in the developed world and emphasized Muslims’ responsibility in presenting the faith in an upright fashion.
“It pains me a lot when I see our Muslim brethren neglect their compulsory prayers, do business without following Islamic teachings and engage in un-Islamic activities without fearing Allah,” said Thompson, who lives and broadcasts VOI in New Zealand.
“Hold fast the rope of Islam and don’t give it up. If you leave it, you are gone and will end up in hellfire. We have to hold on to it in order to enter Paradise,” he said, adding that Muslims are being persecuted for not practicing their religion. “If we practice, we will surely receive the support of Allah, the Almighty.”
Thompson said Muslims should be honest in their dealings. “We have to keep our promises. When we say that we’ll be there, we should be there on time without fail and even while driving on the road, we have to be the best examples.”
Asked why Westerners are reluctant to welcome Islam, he said, “People are frightened of what they don’t know. So, if Muslims become friendly and communicate with others, it would change the situation. We should also open our mosques to non-Muslims so that they can see what is going on there and that there is nothing to be afraid of.”
Thompson expressed his delight over the fast growth of Islam all over the world, especially in the West. However, he expressed his disappointment over the lukewarm approach of many Muslims toward their religion. “The majority of Muslims take their religion for granted. They don’t know the beauty and sweetness of the religion, and consider it as a part-time religion,” he added.
He said 9/11 had encouraged thousands of Americans and other Westerners to study about Islam by reading the translation of the Holy Qur’an and other related books. “This helped them understand that Islam does not preach terrorism and that Muslim women are not oppressed but rather enjoy equal rights. These studies have helped remove misconceptions and enhance knowledge about Islam.”
Speaking about VOI, the chairman said the program has had a huge impact on New Zealand. “Many people have been attracted to Islam through our programs.” VOI programs appear on Triangle TV in Auckland and Wellington, CTV in Christchurch and Channel 9 in Dunedin SKY TV CH 89 and Freeview CH 21.
The TV programs are produced and supplied by a nonprofit charitable trust, formed in April 2004. The trust has plans to expand VOI’s programs to Fiji. “We started the TV to propagate Islam in Auckland and today it covers four main cities in New Zealand. We are now working on a website to enable people all over the world to watch our programs on the Internet,” he said.
The one-hour program, which is aired on Saturdays and Sundays after purchasing airtime on commercial channels, includes recitation from the Qur’an with English translation, lectures on Islam, explanation of the basic pillars of Islam, and Harun Yahya’s Islamic documentaries on the creation of universe and animal life. He commended Yahya’s quality programs saying they are equal to those produced by the BBC.
The TV telecasts Islamic lectures of leading converts such as Yousuf Estes, Bilal Philips, Abdul Hakeem Quick and Abdul Raheem Green. “They present Islam in a convincing manner as they know both sides,” he said.
VOI keeps away from politics, focusing more on general topics such as Islam and terrorism, human rights in Islam, Islam and global warming, the rights of women in Islam and family issues. “I am optimistic about the future of Islam, especially when I see the tremendous response to our TV programs,” Thompson said.
He opposed the emotionally charged outrage that Muslims expressed against the Danish cartoons, which involved the destroying of flags and the attacking of embassies. “This is not the proper way. This is overreaction. We have to deal with such issues in a proactive manner. The boycott of products has been found effective. But this will not solve the problem. Holding dialogue with our opponents in an intelligent manner would be more effective and useful.”
Thompson commended Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah’s call for interfaith dialogue, saying it would give Muslims a chance to present their views. “We can also hear what others have to say. People of different faiths, including Judaism and Christianity, can find a lot of commonalities,” he pointed out.
There are more than 40,000 Muslims in New Zealand with 12 mosques and Islamic centers in Auckland City alone. “Muslims are not rich, as a large number of them are refugees from different countries, including Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq and Pakistan,” he said.
A born Australian, Thomson moved to New Zealand in 1996 for a change. He embraced Islam in 1981 and met his wife Wafa, a born-Muslim from Egypt, in Australia. They have two children: Aysha and Ahmed.
New Zealand is a very fertile land for Islamic propagation as its people are open to learning new things and eager to know the truth, Thompson said. “When we speak to them about Islam, they are very understanding. Prime Minister Helen Clark has visited our mosque many times,” he adds.
He also spoke about New Zealand’s principled stand on many world issues. It refused to join the US-led Western occupation forces in Iraq. “Even though it is a small country, it is not afraid of saying ‘No’ to America. We don’t support injustice,” he added.
A former Roman Catholic, Thompson explained the circumstances that led him to Islam. “I used to question many things in Catholicism. I could not agree with the idea of a person telling his sins to the priest in order to cleanse himself from sins. I wondered how a priest, who is a human being like us, can cleanse our sins, especially when we see him as a sinful person,” he pointed out.
He continued his search for truth by joining a group for positive thinking in Australia and began pondering about the creation of God. He later read a translation of the Qur’an and came to understand that Islam is a complete way of life while Christianity has many things missing.
“For me, it was easy to become a Muslim because we believe in the same prophets. I found Islam a continuation of what was taught by Jesus and Abraham,” he said, adding that he accepted Islam while in Australia during Ramadan.
Thompson said he had tried to convince his parents to become Muslims by sending books and Islamic TV programs to them. He hopes God will provide them with the ability to understand the truth. “Both of them are in Australia and we enjoy a very good relationship,” he said.
06.18.08
My Israeli Students: Alienation and Peace
By Neve Gordon
It took me a moment before I understood why my story about a few relatively inconsequential incidents, which occurred years ago at my high school, had such an effect on the undergraduates taking my fall semester course in 2006.
One of my anecdotes related to classmates of mine who lived in the Jewish settlements at the northern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. It was 1981, and the following year they would be forced to leave their homes as part of Israel’s peace agreement with Egypt, but at the time, I told my students, the evacuation did not seem imminent, at least to many teenagers for whom each year stretches without end. A particular issue that did preoccupy us, I continued, was learning to drive. I described to my students how my friends from the farming communities located in the Sinai and the small town of Yamit took their lessons in the Palestinian town of Rafah and were among the first to pass their driving tests.
My students in the politics and government department of Ben-Gurion University found this story incomprehensible. They simply could not imagine Israeli teenagers taking driving lessons in the middle of Rafah, which, in their minds, is no more than a terrorist nest riddled with tunnels used to smuggle weapons from Egypt; weapons subsequently used against Israeli targets.
The average age difference between me and my students is only 15 years, but our perspectives are radically different. When I was a high-school student at the agricultural school Eshel Hanasi, I frequently hitched a ride back from school to my home in Beer Sheva with Palestinian taxis from the Gaza Strip. In the current context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this is simply unfathomable. No taxis from the territories are allowed to enter Israel, and even if they were somehow able to obtain an entry permit, Israeli Jews would be afraid to use them.
Two decades ago, Palestinians were an integral part of the Israeli landscape, primarily as low-wage laborers who built houses, cleaned streets and worked in agriculture, but in the last few years they have literally disappeared. In the 1980s, most Israelis and Palestinians could travel freely between the territories and Israel and, in many respects, felt safe doing so. Currently Palestinians are locked up in the Gaza Strip, and Israelis are not permitted to enter the region. Palestinians from the West Bank are confined behind a separation barrier and only the Jewish settlers living there travel back and forth from Israel.
Most of my students have consequently never talked with Palestinians from the territories, except perhaps as soldiers during their military service. Their acquaintance with Palestinians is therefore limited to three-minute news bites that almost always report on Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets or Israeli military assaults on Palestinian towns.
The students’ reaction to my teenage experiences is accordingly understandable, but it also brings to the fore a crucial issue that is often overlooked: namely, that Israel’s occupation has dramatically changed over the past four decades, and particularly since the eruption of the second Intifada in 2000.
Some of the changes; the most damaging of which are the ongoing expansion of the settlements and the hermetic closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, both of which have, in many respects, led to the rise of Hamas; are often discussed in the media and are rightly understood as hindering the possibility of Israelis and Palestinians reaching a peace agreement based on the two-state solution. The change that is hardly ever mentioned is the current lack of contact between ordinary Israelis (as opposed to soldiers and settlers) and Palestinians.
The separation barrier built deep inside Palestinian territories best symbolizes this change. One of its many devastating effects is the severance of practically all day-to-day contact between the two peoples. The younger generation on both sides of the Green Line no longer sees the ‘other’ as living, breathing beings but rather in stereotypical terms, which are often informed by prejudice and racist assumptions.
The alienation between Israeli Jews and Palestinians consequently serves the interests of all those who would like to portray the other side as a perpetual and mortal enemy.
The effects of this change should not be underestimated. Simply put, it seems that the younger (Jewish) generation within Israel is less likely than ever to support a leader who would have the courage to initiate a just peace agreement based on the full withdrawal to the 1967 borders, including the return of East Jerusalem, and some kind of creative solution for the Palestinian refugees.
Tragically, after 41 years of occupation the two-state solution seems to be more remote than ever before. Peace within the existing context, as Israeli peace activist and former Knesset member, Uri Avnery, has convincingly argued, is like surmounting an abyss. One cannot achieve it with short strides but only with a great leap. My students’ reactions suggest that the gulf between the two peoples is only growing wider.
- Neve Gordon is a senior lecturer in the Politics and Government Department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
06.17.08
It All Starts and Ends with the Occupation
(Photo: Musa al-Shaer/PalestineChronicle.com)
By Joharah Baker
Israeli intellectuals and political pundits often accuse the Palestinians of living in the past, hashing up the old excuse of “the occupation” to push aside any “real and genuine” Israeli efforts for peace. They say that not only is their argument “old”, Israelis cannot possibly consider arriving at a peace deal with a people who continue to attack them. Palestinians, of course, see this approach as just one more way of postponing any final settlement to the conflict and furthering even more Israeli facts on the ground.
Over the past few years, Palestinians have provided fuel for this fire, with the internal split between Hamas and Fateh, the geographical and political separation between the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the various Palestinian factions that continue to fire homemade rockets into Israeli territory, even though these rockets cause minimal or no damage at all.
However, recently, the Palestinians have been showing increasing signs of willingness to put these divisions both between themselves and even with Israel, aside for the sake of creating an atmosphere of calm. Unfortunately, however, Israel is not reciprocating, proving once again that its goals are far more insidious than they seem and are fundamentally expansionist in nature.
Ever since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, Israeli rhetoric has focused primarily on the isolation and condemnation of the Islamic movement’s hold on the Strip. Israel, the United States and by proxy, almost the entire international community, has shunned Hamas and insisted that no peace talks would ever move forward if its de facto government in Gaza remains in place.
For a long time, Hamas also towed a similar line – Israel was not to be recognized, its only capacity on any political playing field being one of a belligerent occupation which by no means should be negotiated with. Coupled with the Fateh-headed West Bank government under President Mahmoud Abbas in place and towing a similar line vis-à-vis Hamas, the internal situation and that with Israel took turn after turn for the worse.
Keeping this status quo was in Israel’s best interests, no doubt, in spite of all of its hullabaloo about the constant threat Israeli citizens are under from the rocket attacks coming out of Gaza. Yes, the rockets, if nothing else, are a nuisance and have occasionally killed a few Israeli citizens. However, the benefits reaped by Israel from maintaining the situation in Gaza far exceed any real threats to its “security.” For one, it has the full backing of the international community in isolating and besieging Hamas and therefore the entire Gaza Strip. Israel has blockaded Gaza, killed scores of innocent civilians and has denied the population food, medical supplies and fuel for days on end, with virtual impunity, all under the guise of combating this “terrorist” organization and trying to curb the rocket attacks.
Furthermore, the continued internal Palestinian divisions have played straight into Israel’s hands. Especially now with peace talks restarted after the Annapolis conference in November of last year, Israel is keen on keeping a united Palestinian front at bay. A weak Palestinian leadership at the negotiating table equals fewer concessions from the Israelis.
Luckily, the Palestinians seem to have realized this, even if considerable damage has already been done. On the Palestinian front, President Abbas has called for reconciliation talks with Hamas based on the Yemeni Initiative last March. This time, it looks as if the two sides may actually make some headway as opposed to previous efforts.
Furthermore, Hamas in Gaza is also trying to put its best face forward, offering a truce agreement – mediated by the Egyptians – to Israel. It has said it would withhold rocket attacks into Israeli territory and has presented a letter – via the Carter Center in Ramallah – penned by captured Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, which was handed to his parents as a gesture of good faith.
These are quantum leaps for Hamas, particularly when coupled with its efforts to reunite with the leadership. But like the old saying goes, “It takes two to tango.” Rather than embrace this offer, Israel is threatening wide scale military action in the Strip. This morning, on June 11, a nine-year old Palestinian girl, Hadeel Al Sumeiri, was killed by an Israeli tank shell in the town of Qarara, east of Khan Younis. Civilian casualties in Gaza have become the rule rather than the exception, with Israel continuing its attacks, which it claims are defensive rather than offensive.
Should Israel carry out a massive military operation into the Strip, this would all but obliterate any talks of a truce and most likely hinder Palestinian-Palestinian talks as well given that Abbas’ government opposes Hamas’ hold on Gaza and its militarization of the conflict there. Israel will thus have more time to stall any peace talks with the Palestinians at the negotiating table, all under the pretext that its number one priority is to protect its citizens from “terror.”
Understanding Israel’s intentions better exposes its bogus argument about Palestinians holding on to the past. It also proves how imperative it is for Palestinians to retain this position if they are ever to make major strides in negotiations. Israel does not want to talk about the illegal nature of its occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. For one, this would de-legitimize its presence there, which it cannot afford because of the high stakes, least of which are the Israeli settlements in these areas. Israel has adopted a policy of imposing virtually irreversible facts on the ground in the form of settlements, bypass roads, the separation wall and the airtight encirclement around Jerusalem. Hence, the more physical structures there are on the ground, the more wiggle room they have for negotiations.
In the past, the Palestinians have fallen into this Israeli-concocted trap. As a result, the Palestinian leadership signed the Oslo Accords, the Wye River Agreement and the Roadmap all of which do not demand the one thing that would ensure an end to the conflict, which is the complete end to the Israeli occupation of 1967.
Israel’s belligerent attitude today towards Gaza despite of Palestinian efforts to bring about calm is further evidence that with Israel, there is just no winning. Palestinians have brought calm to their areas before under Israeli pressure but this has never stopped Israel from continuing its expansionist and oppressive policies towards them.
That is why Palestinian efforts to unite and to relieve the pressure off of Gaza’s residents should be applauded. If Israel continues to shun these efforts, perhaps this will sound the final wake-up call for the international community. It’s about time the alarms go off.
Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Programme at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mip@miftah.org.
Apology: What Can Israel Learn from Canada
By Uri Avnery
This week, the Prime Minister of Canada made a dramatic statement in Parliament: he apologized to the indigenous peoples of his country for the injustices done to them for generations by successive Canadian governments.
This way, White Canada tries to make peace with the native nations, whose country their forefathers conquered and whose culture their rulers have tried to wipe out.
Apologizing past wrongs has become a part of modern political culture.
That is never an easy thing to do. Cynics might say: nothing to it. Just words. And words, after all, are a cheap commodity. But in fact, such acts have a profound significance. A human being – and even more so, a whole nation – always finds it hard to admit to iniquities performed and to atrocities committed. It means a rewriting of the historical narrative that forms the basis of their national cohesion. It necessitates a drastic change in the schoolbooks and in the national outlook. In general, governments are averse to this, because of the nationalistic demagogues and hate-mongers who infest every country.
The President of France has apologized on behalf of his people for the misdeeds of the Vichy regime, which turned Jews over to the Nazi exterminators. The Czech government has apologized to the Germans for the mass expulsion of the German population at the end of World War II. Germany, of course, has apologized to the Jews for the unspeakable crimes of the Holocaust. Quite recently, the government of Australia has apologized to the Aborigines. And even in Israel, a feeble effort was made to heal a grievous domestic wound, when Ehud Barak apologized to the Oriental Jews for the discrimination they have suffered for many years.
But we face a much more difficult and complex problem. It concerns the roots of our national existence in this country.
I believe that peace between us and the Palestinian people – a real peace, based on real conciliation – starts with an apology.
In my mind’s eye I see the President of the State or the Prime Minister addressing a special extraordinary session of the Knesset and making a historic speech on the following lines:
Madam speaker, Honorable Knesset,
On behalf of the State of Israel and all its citizens, I address today the sons and daughters of the Palestinian people, wherever they are.
We recognize the fact that we have committed against you a historic injustice, and we humbly ask your forgiveness.
When the Zionist movement decided to establish a national home in this country, which we call Eretz Yisrael and you call Filastin, it had no intention of building our state on the ruins of another people. Indeed, almost no one in the Zionist movement had ever been in the country before the first Zionist Congress in 1897, or even had any idea about the actual situation here.
The burning desire of the founding fathers of this movement was to save the Jews of Europe, where the dark clouds of hatred for the Jews were gathering. In Eastern Europe, pogroms were raging, and all over Europe there were signs of the process that would eventually lead to the terrible Holocaust, in which six million Jews perished.
This basic aim attached itself to the profound devotion of the Jews, throughout the generations, to the country in which the Bible, the defining text of our people, was written, and to the city of Jerusalem, towards which the Jews have turned for thousands of years in their prayers.
The Zionist founders who came to this country were pioneers who carried in their hearts the most lofty ideals. They believed in national liberation, freedom, justice and equality. We are proud of them. They certainly did not dream of committing an injustice of historic dimensions.
All this does not justify what happened afterwards. The creation of the Jewish national home in this country has involved a profound injustice to you, the people who lived here for generations.
We cannot ignore anymore the fact that in the war of 1948 – which is the War of Independence for us, and the Naqba for you – some 750 thousand Palestinians were compelled to leave their homes and lands. As for the precise circumstances of this tragedy I propose the establishment of a “Committee for Truth and Reconciliation”‘ composed of experts from your and from our side, whose conclusions will from then on be incorporated in the schoolbooks, yours and ours.
We cannot ignore anymore the fact that for 60 years of conflict and war, you have been prevented from realizing your natural right to independence in your own free national state, a right confirmed by the United Nations General Assembly resolution of November 29, 1947, which also formed the legal basis for the establishment of the State of Israel.
For all this, we owe you an apology, and I express it hereby with all my heart.
The Bible tells us: “Whoso confesseth (his crimes) and forsakes them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). Clearly, confession does not suffice. We have also to forsake the wrongs we have done in the past.
It is impossible to turn the wheel of history back and restore the situation that existed in the country in 1947, much as Canada – or the United States, for that matter – cannot go back 200 years. We must build our common future on the joint desire to move forwards, to heal what can be healed and repair what can be repaired without inflicting new wounds, committing new injustices and causing more human tragedies.
I urge you to accept our apology in the spirit in which it is offered. Let us work together for a just, viable and practical solution of our century-old conflict – a solution that may not fulfill all justified aspirations nor right all wrongs, but which will allow both our peoples to live their lives in freedom, peace and prosperity.
This solution is clear for all to see. We all know what it is. It has emerged from our painful experiences, hammered out by the lessons of our sufferings, crystallized by the exertions of the best of our minds – yours as well as ours.
This solution means, simply: You have the same rights as we. We have the same rights as you: to live in a state of our own, under our own flag, governed by laws of our own making, ruled by a government freely elected by ourselves – hopefully a good one.
One of the fundamental commandments of our religion – as of yours and every other – was pronounced 2000 years ago by Rabbi Hillel: Do not unto others, what you do not want others to do to you.
This means in practice: your right to establish at once the free and sovereign State of Palestine in all the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, which will be accepted as a full member of the United Nations.
The borders of June 4, 1967, will be restored. I hope that we can agree, in free negotiations, to minimal exchanges of territory beneficial to both sides.
Jerusalem, which is so dear to all of us, must be the capital of both our states – West Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, the capital of Israel, East Jerusalem, including al-Haram al-Sharif, which we call the Temple Mount, the capital of Palestine. What is Arab shall be yours, what is Jewish shall be ours. Let us work together to keep the city, as a living reality, open and united.
We shall evacuate the Israeli settlements, which have caused so much suffering and iniquities to you, and bring the settlers home, except from those small areas which will be joined to Israel in the framework of freely agreed swaps of territory. We shall also dismantle all the paraphernalia of the occupation, both physical and institutional.
We must approach with open hearts, compassion and common sense, the task of finding a just and viable solution for the terrible tragedy of the refugees and their decendants. Each refugee family must be granted a free choice between the various solutions: repatriation and resettlement in the State of Palestine, with generous assistance; staying where they are or emigration to any country of their choice, also with generous assistance; and yes – coming back to the territory of Israel in acceptable numbers, agreed by us. The refugees themselves must be a full partner in all our efforts.
I trust that our two states – Israel and Palestine, living side by side in this beloved but small country, will quickly come together on the human, social, economic, technological and cultural levels, creating a relationship that will not only guarantee our security, but also rapid development and prosperity for all.
Together we will work for peace and prosperity throughout our region, based on close relations with all the countries of the area.
Committed to peace and vowing to create a better future for our children and grandchildren, let us rise to our feet and bow our heads in memory of the countless victims of our conflict, Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians – a conflict that has lasted far too long.
Such a speech is, to my mind, absolutely essential for opening a new chapter in the history of this country.
In decades of meeting with Palestinians of all walks of life, I have come to the conclusion that the emotional aspects of the conflict are no less – and perhaps even more – important than the political ones. A profound sense of injustice permeates the minds and actions of all Palestinians. Unconscious or half-conscious guilt feelings are troubling the souls of the Israelis, creating a deep conviction that Arabs will never make peace with us.
I do not know when such a speech will be possible. Many imponderable factors will have an impact on that. But I do know that without it, mere peace agreements, reached between haggling diplomats, will not suffice. As the Oslo agreements have shown, building an artificial island in a sea of stormy emotions just will not do.
The public apology by the Canadian Prime Minister is not the only thing we can learn from that North American country.
43 years ago, the Canadian government took an extraordinary step in order to make peace between the English-speaking majority and the French-speaking minority among their citizens. That relationship had remained an open wound from the time the British conquered French Canada some 250 years ago. It was decided to replace the Canadian national flag, which was based on the British “Union Jack”, with a completely new national flag, featuring the maple leaf.
On this occasion, the Speaker of the Senate said: “The flag is the symbol of the nation’s unity, for it, beyond any doubt, represents all the citizens of Canada without distinction of race, language, belief or opinion.”
We can learn something from that, too.
-Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom.
“We Could not Even Bury our Daughter”
Two eight year old girls have been killed by the IOF in the Gaza Strip in less than a week.
Aya Hamdan Al-Najjar (above) was killed by a rocket fired from an Israeli helicopter.
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
15 June 2008
On June 11, eight year old Hadeel Al-Sumairi was killed when her home in south eastern Gaza was shelled by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Less than a week earlier, eight year old Aya Hamdan Al-Najjar was killed by a rocket fired from an IOF helicopter. These two young girls had been living just a few kilometers apart, in villages in south eastern Gaza, near the border with Israel. Their violent deaths highlight both the continual dangers facing families who live anywhere near the Israeli border – and the grim and rising child death toll in the Gaza Strip. Sixty two children have been killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip this year – almost double the number of children who were killed by the IOF in Gaza during the whole of last year. [1]
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is still investigating the circumstances of Hadeel Al-Sumairi’s death. Her uncle, Amin Suleiman Ahmad Al-Sumairi, has given PCHR an eye-witness account of the IOF invasion of Al-Qarara village near Khan Yunis, where Hadeel was killed. “I was at home when I heard a huge explosion. I ran from my house and saw fire coming from the home of my brother, Abdul Karim” he told PCHR. “As I ran towards the house I could smell burning flesh.” The IOF had just fired two tank shells into Al-Qarara village, and both shells struck the house where Abdul Karim Al-Sumairi and his family lived. His daughter, Hadeel, was killed instantly, her small body dismembered.
Six days earlier, On June 5, Zahra Ibrahim Al-Najjar, was at her in home in nearby Khizaa village with her young daughter, Aya. “My daughter had finished school just one week earlier and was waiting for her friends to come and join her” says Zahra Al-Najjar. “At about 2pm I heard the sound of [Israeli] drones and helicopters. I went to the window to see what was happening, but I didn’t see anyone outside. I thought Aya was inside our building, or with a neighbour. Then there was a loud explosion.”
The helicopter had just fired a rocket, which, with pinpoint accuracy, hit eight year old Aya as she stood just three or four metres from her own house. Zahra Al-Najjar, who was struck in the head by shrapnel from the rocket, did not know her daughter had just been killed. It was the neighbours who found a small hand in the rubble outside. After collecting the other parts of Aya’s body, which were scattered over a distance of more than 150 metres, they then had the grim task of telling Zahra and her husband, Hamdan Hamdan Al-Najjar, that their daughter was dead.
Zahra and Hamdan Al-Najjar believe that Aya was deliberately targeted by the IOF in retaliation for the death of an Israeli civilian earlier the same day. The Israeli man was killed between 11-12 am, by mortar shells fired from inside the Gaza Strip that struck the Nir Oz kibbutz near south eastern Gaza. “The mortars [that killed the Israeli] had been fired at least two hours before Aya was killed” says Hamdan Al-Najjar. “But those mortars were not fired from here, there was no shooting in our village, and there was no-one outside our house except for my daughter. She was not carrying a gun and she did not fire a rocket. They wanted revenge for the death of the Israeli.”
Parents of other children that have been killed by the IOF in Gaza this year have also consistently alleged that their children were deliberately targeted by the IOF. On 20 May, twelve year Majde Ziyad Abu Oukal was killed in Jabalia, northern Gaza, by a missile fired from an IOF drone that dismembered him. His parents, Ziyad and Tahariya Abu Oukal, believe he was deliberately targeted in order to pressurize local parents to stop rockets being launched towards Israel.
The deliberate targeting of civilians is illegal under international human rights law, and constitutes a gross violation of human rights amounting to a war crime. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights is investigating these allegations in depth, and this summer will publish its findings in a report on child killings committed by the Israeli Occupying Forces in the Gaza Strip.
Driving along the eastern border of the Gaza Strip is a sinister experience. In between villages like Al-Qarara and Khizaa are vast tracts of empty land and hundreds of boarded up and abandoned houses. The IOF make frequent incursions here, and local Palestinian villagers are fleeing in fear of their lives, and the lives of their children.
“The Israelis can see everything from their planes” says Hamdan Al-Najjar. “They could see Aya was alone outside – and they could see she was just a small child. When we finally saw [the remains of] our daughter, there was almost nothing left of her. We could not even bury her properly, because her body had been completely destroyed.” All that Aya’s parents have left of their daughter now is one small, grainy photograph.
