07.25.08
Israel and Arabs living on different planets
| Uri Avnery | Arab News |
| I spent the whole day flipping between the Israeli channels and Al Jazeera.
It was an eerie experience. In a fraction of a second I could switch between two worlds, but all the channels reported on exactly the same occasion. Never before have I experienced the tragic conflict in such a stunning immediacy as last Wednesday, the day of the prisoner swap between the State of Israel and the Hezbollah organization. The man who stood at the center of the event personifies the abyss that separates the two worlds, the Israeli and the Arab: Samir Al-Kuntar. All Israeli media call him “Murderer Kuntar”, as if that were his first name. For the Arab media, he is “Hero Samir Al-Kuntar”. 29 years ago, before Hezbollah had become a significant factor, Kuntar, a Lebanese Druze and a Communist, landed with his comrades on the beach of Nahariya and carried out an attack that has imprinted itself on the Israeli national memory with its cruelty. In the course of it, a four year-old girl was murdered, and a mother accidentally suffocated her small child while trying to keep it from giving away their hiding place. This Wednesday, the difference between the two worlds was apparent in its most extreme form. In the morning, the “Murderer Kuntar” woke up in an Israeli prison, in the evening the “Hero Al-Kuntar” stood in front of a hundred thousand cheering Lebanese from all communities and parties. It took him but a few minutes to cross from Israeli territory to the tiny UN enclave at Ras-Al-Naqura and from there to Lebanese territory, from the realm of Israeli TV to the realm of Lebanese TV — and the distance was greater than that transversed by Neil Armstrong on the way to the moon. By talking endlessly about the “Bloodstained Murderer” who will never be freed, whatever happens, Israel has turned him from just another prisoner into a pan-Arab hero. Nowadays it is already a banality to say that one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. This week, a slight movement of the finger on the TV remote control was enough to experience this first-hand. Emotions ran high on both sides. The Israeli public was immersed in a sea of sorrow and mourning for the two soldiers, whose death was confirmed only minutes before the return of their bodies. For hours on end, all the Israeli channels devoted their broadcasts to the feelings of the two families, who the media had spent the last two years transforming into national symbols (as well as rating-boosting instruments). No need to mention that not a single voice in Israel said even one word about the 190 families, the bodies of whose sons were returned to Lebanon on the same day. In this whirlpool of self-pity and mourning ceremonies, the Israeli public had no energy and interest left for trying to understand what was happening on the other side. It was, of course, Hassan Nasrallah’s big day. In the eyes of tens of millions of Arabs, he has won a huge victory. A small organization in a small country has brought Israel, the regional power, to its knees, while some Arab leaders are bending the knee before Israel. Al Jazeera brought all this live, hour after hour, to millions of homes from Morocco to Iraq and the Muslim world beyond. It was impossible for Arab viewers not to be swept along on the waves of emotion. I suspect that there were also quite a number of Israelis who made unflattering comparisons between this man and our own Cabinet ministers. For Lebanon it was a historic day. Something like this has never happened before: all the country’s political elite, without exception, turned out at Beirut airport to welcome Kuntar, and at the same time to salute Nasrallah. On Wednesday, Nasrallah became the most important and powerful person in Lebanon. In Israel, some people blame the prisoner swap for the dizzying ascent of Nasrallah and the whole national-religious camp in the Arab world. But one can trace the blame even further back, to Ariel Sharon’s First Lebanon War. The deadly mixture of arrogance and ignorance that is typical of all Israeli dealings with the Arab world is also responsible for what happened on Wednesday. This week, another important thing happened: in one great leap, the Syrian president jumped from American-imposed isolation into global stardom at a grandiose international show in Paris. The new status of Nasrallah as a central player in the Lebanese political game imposes on him responsibility and caution. A strengthened Bashar may be a better partner for peace, if we are ready to take the opportunity. The American negotiations with Iran may avert a destructive war, which would be a disaster for us, too. The legitimization of Hamas by the negotiations, when they are resumed, may lead to Palestinian unity, like the unity achieved now in Lebanon. Any peace agreement we signed with them would really have legs to stand on. In two months Israel may have a new government. If it wants to, it could start a new initiative for peace with Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. |
07.12.08
Nilin: A profile in iron resistance
Seth Freedman | The Guardian
Afer four days of curfew, the village of Nilin is not a pretty sight. Torched cars lie strewn on the sides of the road, bedroom windows sport gaping bullet holes, and debris is scattered the length and breadth of the town: Evidence of the brutality meted out indiscriminately by the army against the locals.
As I followed the trail of destruction, the tales of woe grew ever darker and ever more indicting of the Israel Defense Forces’ cruelty. “Look what they did to me!” screamed an elderly grandmother, hoisting up her robes to display the raw wounds inflicted by soldiers who had thrown her against a stone wall during a raid. She began sobbing as she recounted the events of earlier in the week, utterly bewildered as to how she had come to be mistreated so.
Upstairs, her middle-aged son clutched his two children to his side as he recounted the night the troops burst into his home.
“Imagine what it does to your son and daughter when they see you beaten by a soldier,” Hillal Khawaja said flatly. He showed us the wreckage of a room that had borne the brunt of the military’s ire: Computers ripped from their sockets, beds smashed and furniture overturned, nothing had been spared the wrath of the marauding infantry.
Further up the road, a family pointed out the scorched linoleum in their kitchen and the shattered glass of their windows, the result of a random bullet and grenade attack launched by passing jeeps. “We were inches away from where the shells landed,” said the father of the house, as his children looked on timidly. “If we had been any closer, we’d have had no chance.”
Three residents weren’t so lucky. The trio were hit with live fire during the incursion. All are still in hospital with the bullets still lodged inside them; one entered a man’s spine, and it will be a miracle if he can walk again after surgery.
The psychological trauma is just as bad, with parents talking of children terrified to sleep in their family homes, convinced that the soldiers will come back, and turn their lives into teargas- and bullet-filled nightmares once more. His resolute spirit was evident amongst the entire town on Thursday, as hundreds of residents braved the ring of steel around them and took to the fields to demonstrate against the wall once again. The rally had been billed as a “monumental” gathering to mark the fourth anniversary of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion against the wall, and scores of activists made it in through the barricades to swell the numbers marching determinedly through the olive groves.
There was only ever going to be one outcome to the events: Within seconds of the protesters entering the closed military zone, two dull thuds rang out, sound grenades ringing in round one like the bell at a boxing match. Two minutes later, teargas canisters arced their way through the sky toward the marchers, who donned gas masks, ski goggles, snorkels and any other makeshift shields they could find for protection against the acrid plumes engulfing them.
Rocks were hurled at the soldiers by boys with slingshots; rubber bullets and stun grenades were fired back in response. Youths wrapped keffiyehs around their faces, screaming “Allahu Akbar” as they launched their pathetic missiles toward the heavily armed soldiers protecting the bulldozers on the next hill, but they were fighting a losing battle from the off — in the here and now, at least.
In the long term, however, the locals may well have more success than other villages in their attempts to hold back ever-encroaching tide of concrete slabs. They have managed to capture the attention of the international media, as was evident by the presence of staff from AFP, Reuters, AP and other prominent news agencies. At the same time, the fact that the army had to resort to imposing a curfew demonstrates that they are succeeding in disrupting and delaying the day-to-day construction of the barrier.
What is certain is that the indefatigable spirit of the residents is as strong now as it has ever been, despite the callous pogrom the army is carrying out in retaliation for their unarmed protests. Just as determined to oppose the criminal expropriation of Palestinian land was the 20-strong International Solidarity Movement contingent that had set up camp in an apartment in Nilin’s town center to bolster the locals’ resistance.
With the wall getting nearer to completion with every passing day, time is running out for the Palestinians to prevent themselves being permanently sealed inside their concrete cage. But in what little time remains, they can at least take some solace in the fact that they are by no means alone in their struggle. And that fact, if nothing else, strengthens their resolve to keep on with their fight, despite the crushing blows the IDF relentlessly rains down upon them.
A tourist visa to go home?
Tariq A. Al-Maeena
The Israeli government has been practicing and perfecting the art of ethnic cleansing since 1948 right under the nose of the world and no one has the power or the guts to do anything about it.
In 1948 the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194 on the question of Palestine, which “resolves that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return…”
The government of Israel, however, opposes this universally granted right in order to preserve the Jewish character of the state. Today there are more than 3.7 million Palestinians living in refugee camps and many more exiles scattered worldwide. The following is a true story of one such individual. Perhaps through her own words, some may understand the heartbreaking consequences of denial.
“I am Palestinian – born and raised – and my Palestinian roots go back centuries. No one can change that even if they tell me that Jerusalem, my birthplace, is not Palestine, even if they tell me that Palestine doesn’t exist, even if they take away all my papers and deny me entry to my own home, even if they humiliate me and take away my rights. I am Palestinian.
Name: Zeina Emile Sam’an Ashrawi; Date of Birth: July 30, 1981; Ethnicity: Arab.
This is what was written on my Jerusalem ID card. An ID card to a Palestinian is much more than just a piece of paper; it is my only legal documented relationship to Palestine. Born in Jerusalem, I was given a Jerusalem ID card (the blue ID), an Israeli Travel Document and a Jordanian Passport stamped Palestinian (I have no legal rights in Jordan). I do not have an Israeli Passport, a Palestinian Passport or an American Passport. Here is my story:
I came to the United States as a 17-year-old to finish high school in Pennsylvania and went on to college and graduate school and subsequently got married and we are currently living in Northern Virginia. I have gone home every year at least once to see my parents, my family and my friends and to renew my Travel Document as I was only able to extend its validity once a year from Washington DC.
My father and I would stand in line at the Israeli Ministry of Interior in Jerusalem, along with many other Palestinians, from 4:30 in the morning to try our luck at making it through the revolving metal doors of the ministry before noon – when the ministry closed its doors – to try and renew the Travel Document. We did that year after year. As a people living under an occupation, being faced with constant humiliation by an occupier was the norm but we did what we had to do to insure our identity was not stolen from us.
In August of 2007 I went to the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC to try and extend my travel document and get the usual “Returning Resident” VISA that the Israelis issue to Palestinians holding an Israeli Travel Document. After watching a few Americans and others being told that their visas would be ready in a couple of weeks my turn came. I walked up to the bulletproof glass window shielding the lady working behind it and under a massive picture of the Dome of the Rock and the Walls of Jerusalem that hangs on the wall in the Israeli Consulate, I handed her my papers through a little slot at the bottom of the window.
“Shalom,” she said with a smile. “Hi” I responded, apprehensive and scared. As soon as she saw my Travel Document her demeanor immediately changed. The smile was no longer there and there was very little small talk between us, as usual. After sifting through the paperwork I gave her she said: “Where is your American Passport?” I explained to her that I did not have one and that my only Travel Document is the one she has in her hands. She was quiet for a few seconds and then said: “You don’t have an American passport?” suspicious that I was hiding information from her. “No!” I said. She was quiet for a little longer and then said: “Well, I am not sure we’ll be able to extend your Travel Document.”
I felt the blood rushing to my head, as this is my only means to get home! I asked her what she meant by that and she went on to tell me that since I had been living in the US and because I had a Green Card, they would not extend my Travel Document. After taking a deep breath to try and control my temper I explained to her that a Green Card is not a passport and I cannot use it to travel outside the US. My voice was shaky and I was getting more and more upset (and a mini shouting match ensued) so I asked her to explain to me what I needed to do. She told me to leave my paperwork and we would see what happens.
A couple of weeks later I received a phone call from the lady telling me that she was able to extended my Travel Document but I would no longer be getting the “Returning Resident” visa. Instead, I was given a 3- month tourist visa. Initially I was happy to hear that the Travel Document was extended but then I realized that she said “tourist visa.” Why am I getting a tourist visa to go home? Not wanting to argue with her about the 3-month visa at the time so as not to jeopardize the extension of my Travel Document, I simply put that bit of information on the back burner and went on to explain to her that I wasn’t going home in the next 3 months.
She instructed me to come back and apply for another visa when I did intend on going. She didn’t add much and just told me that it was ready for pick-up. So I went to the embassy and got my Travel Document and the tourist visa that was stamped in it.
My husband, my son and I were planning on going home to Palestine this summer. So a month before we were set to leave (July 8, 2008) I went to the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC, papers in hand, to ask for a visa to go home! I, again, stood in line and watched others get visas unhindered to go to my home.
When my turn came I walked up to the window; “Shalom” she said with a smile on her face, “Hi” I replied. I slipped the paperwork in the little slot under the bulletproof glass and waited for the usual reaction. I told her that I needed a returning resident VISA to go home. She took the paperwork and I gave her a check for the amount she requested and left the embassy without incident.
A few days ago I got a phone call from Dina at the Israeli Embassy telling me that she needed the expiration date of my Jordanian passport and my Green Card. I had given them all the paperwork they needed time and time again and I thought it was a good way on their part to waste time so that I didn’t get my visa in time.
Regardless, I called over and over again only to get their voice mail. I left a message with the information they needed but kept calling every 10 minutes hoping to speak to someone to make sure that they received the information in an effort to expedite the tedious process. I finally got a hold of someone. I told her that I wanted to make sure they received the information I left on their voice mail and that I wanted to make sure that my paperwork was in order.
She said, after consulting with someone in the background (I assume it was Dina), that I needed to fax copies of both my Jordanian passport and my Green Card and that giving them the information over the phone wasn’t acceptable. So I immediately made copies and faxed them to Dina.
A few hours later my cell phone rang. “Zeina?” she said. “Yes” I replied, knowing exactly who it was and immediately asked her if she received the fax I sent. She said: “ehhh, I was not looking at your file when you called earlier but your visa was denied and your ID and Travel Document are no longer valid.”
“Excuse me?” I said in disbelief.
“Sorry, I cannot give you a visa and your ID and Travel Document are no longer valid. This decision came from Israel, not from me.”
I cannot describe the feeling I got in the pit of my stomach. “Why?” I asked and Dina went on to tell me that it was because I had a Green Card. I tried to reason with Dina and to explain to her that they could not do that as this is my only means of travel home and that I wanted to see my parents, but to no avail. Dina held her ground and told me that I wouldn’t be given the VISA and then said: “Let the Americans give you a Travel Document”.
I have always been a strong person and not one to show weakness but at that moment I lost all control and started crying while Dina was on the other end of the line holding my only legal documents linking me to my home. I began to plead with her to try and get the VISA and not revoke my documents; “put yourself in my shoes, what would you do? You want to go see your family and someone is telling you that you can’t! What would you do? Forget that you’re Israeli and that I’m Palestinian and think about this for a minute!”
“Sorry” she said,” I know but I can’t do anything, the decision came from Israel”.
I tried to explain to her over and over again that I could not travel without my Travel Document and that they could not do that – knowing that they could, and they had!
This has been happening to many Palestinians who have a Jerusalem ID card. The Israeli government has been practicing and perfecting the art of ethnic cleansing since 1948 right under the nose of the world and no one has the power or the guts to do anything about it.
Where else in the world does one have to beg to go to one’s own home? Where else in the world does one have to give up their identity for the sole reason of living somewhere else for a period of time? Imagine if an American living in Spain for a few years wanted to go home only to be told by the American government that their American passport was revoked and that they wouldn’t be able to come back!
If I were a Jew living anywhere around the world and had no ties to the area and had never set foot there, I would have the right to go any time I wanted and get an Israeli passport. In fact, the Israelis encourage that. I however, am not Jewish but I was born and raised in Jerusalem, my parents, family and friends still live there and I cannot go back! I am neither a criminal nor a threat to one of the most powerful countries in the world, yet I am alienated and expelled from my own home.
As it stands right now, I will be unable to go home – I am one of many.”
If the Israeli stand on right of return were accepted as rule of law, it would not be just the 3.7 million Palestinian refugees who would suffer. This would be a blow to a basic human right of any individual anywhere in the world. If the Israelis truly want to live in peace with their neighbors, then they should stop denial of such rights to Palestinians. Are there enough courageous Israelis to do that?
07.09.08
The Zionist rabble-rouser
Neil Berry
Launched in June and printed on expensive paper, the new British monthly, Standpoint, is in the tradition of Encounter, the high-toned Anglo-American magazine of the last century that turned out to have been secretly bankrolled by the CIA. Like Encounter, Standpoint is a journal of conservative opinion, though whereas Encounter waged the war of ideas against Soviet communism, Standpoint is part of the intellectual “war on terror,” the struggle to save Western civilization from Islamism.
It follows that the magazine has not been slow to declare its support for Israel. Among the contributors to the second issue is the hard-line British neoconservative Zionist, Melanie Phillips. Written with the stridency which has long been her trademark, Phillips’ Standpoint article “Faking a Killing” (a synopsis of which has since been published by the Jewish Chronicle) maintains that the much-reproduced image of the September 2000 killing of the 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Muhammad Al-Durra, apparently by an Israeli marksman, at Gaza’s Netzarim Junction, told an outrageous lie.
Phillips describes how the footage of the boy screaming in terror before being killed became uniquely incendiary, portraying the Israelis as having gunned down a child in cold blood, even as he cowered for his life. Yet, she goes on, the murderous hatred and acts of Muslim violence inspired by the killing now transpire to have been based on a fabrication, one that amounted to a blood libel in the tradition of anti-Semitic defamation stretching back to the Middle Ages. The proof is that Charles Enderlin, the Jerusalem correspondent of France 2, the French TV station that first broadcast the film of the killing, has been judged by a Paris court to have perpetrated a fraud.
That Enderlin has been so judged came about because he and France 2 brought a libel action against the French media watchdog, Philippe Karsenty, for alleging that the “killing” was pure fiction and that Al-Durra was not dead at all. The original Paris court ruling in favor of the TV station was overturned this May, with the appeal court ruling that Karsenty had been vindicated in the light of evidence that the footage did not correspond to Enderlin’s commentary and that the testimony of his Palestinian cameraman could not be trusted.
According to Phillips, the Israeli physicist, Nahum Shahaf, who presided over the Israeli Army’s investigation of the incident, has demonstrated conclusively that Al-Durra’s lifeless body was brought to Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital before 1 p.m. — two hours before the incident at Netzarim took place. It is, she insists, no longer in doubt that the “whole thing was staged, an elaborate fabrication designed to blacken Israel’s name and incite the Arab and Muslim mobs to mass murder.”
For Phillips, the implications of this “scandal” are “enormous,” far transcending a disgraced French journalist and his TV station. In her mind it raises the century-old specter of the Dreyfus affair, the notorious episode of the French Army Capt. Alfred Dreyfus who, in a France rife with anti-Semitism, was convicted of espionage on the basis of trumped-up evidence. Phillips suggests that the Al-Durra libel is the new Dreyfus affair — with Israel now occupying the role of the victimized Jewish soldier. It is not just France, though, but much of the Western media which is impelling Phillips to cry j’accuse. She stresses that while Shahaf’s findings made their way into a handful of newspapers and television documentaries and onto the Internet, they were otherwise ignored by Western journalists. And this, she charges, represents merely the most egregious recent example of animosity toward Israel on the part of Western journalists driven by a mixture of anti-Semitism and professional self-preservation and all too ready to rely on Arab sources with Islamist agendas.
Such is Phillips’ Zionist zeal that she even indicts Israel itself for feebly acquiescing in the Al-Durra “fiction” in the belief that to challenge a story that had attained iconic global status would be counter-productive. She believes Israel’s political establishment handed the Palestinians and their sympathizers a major propaganda coup. It is almost as if she is attacking Israel for being a self-hating Jewish state.
If what happened at Nazarim Junction on Sept. 30, 2000, is a large knot to untie, it is nevertheless right that anomalies or outright falsehoods in the received version of the story be exposed. But Phillips’ clear implication that many of the reports of the brutalization of Palestinians at the hands of Israel are fictions designed to manipulate Western public opinion and rekindle Western anti-Semitism is itself a flagrant piece of rabble-rousing.
Fulminating about the emergence of “Pallywood,” a “grotesque new genre of terrortainment” that deliberately presents “theatrical fictions” as authentic Israeli atrocities, Phillips presents herself as wholly innocent of propagandist intent. Yet the endless writings on the Palestine-Israel conflict of this professed champion of the truth betray not the least sense that she has ever taken the trouble to acquaint herself with the daily agony of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, she does not hesitate to assert the historic right of the Jews to lay claim to Palestine as the “only people” entitled to regard it as their “national home.”
Quick to accuse others of propagating one-sided, manipulative views, Phillips, in short, is blind to the fact that many are bound to see her in identical terms, as a Jewish commentator so soaked in Zionist righteousness that she has no sympathy to spare for Zionism’s victims, nor any concern to understand the Palestinian point of view. On the most charitable interpretation, her journalism is rooted in denial, a pathological refusal to acknowledge that Israel could conceivably be guilty of committing gross violations of human rights. A Muslim who wrote in the same spirit of sectarian fury would be regarded as a rabid extremist and denied access to the mainstream Western media.
From the embattled stance she is apt to adopt, anybody would think that Melanie Phillips, too, is starved of opportunities to state her case. Yet Standpoint is just one of many media outlets where her extreme views routinely find favor. And what could be more extreme — at a time when the collective punishment being endured by the men, women and children of Gaza is evoking worldwide horror — than to publish an article which not only diverts attention from Israel’s thuggish behavior but insinuates that more often than not stories of barbarous Israeli treatment of Palestinians are cynical Palestinian PR exercises?
Whether Standpoint is going to provide a platform for perspectives on the Middle East conflict other than those of Melanie Phillips remains to be seen, but it seems a fair indication of its basic sympathies that the magazine is endorsing the outlook of a monomaniacal Zionist partisan. Indeed, for all its espousal, in an opening editorial, of the “noblest ideals to which humanity has aspired,” Standpoint appears to be a true heir to Encounter, a journal less committed to truth than ideology.
07.08.08
Iraq a bottomless cash pit
Linda Heard, sierra12th@yahoo.co.uk
THE UAE has generously written off Iraq’s debts to the tune of just under $7 billion to assist Baghdad’s reconstruction efforts. President of the UAE Sheikh Khalifah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan has described the gesture as an expression of brotherly solidarity and as leader of the only Gulf state to step forward in this way he should be congratulated. However, in case other countries are reluctant to follow suit they shouldn’t be negatively judged as, in the past, pumping money into Iraq has been akin to tossing it into a bottomless pit.
A recent BBC “Panorama” documentary presented by Jane Corbin illustrates how a whopping $23 billion, equivalent to the GDP of a small country like Lebanon, disappeared from Iraq’s coffers.
The program interviews witnesses, lawyers and whistleblowers who describe the missing billions as the greatest heist of our time. Unfortunately many of the prominent foreign companies involved in such fraud and mismanagement on a massive scale cannot be named because US government lawyers have placed a media gag order relating to 70 cases, said to involve some of the biggest names in corporate America. Instead, the program focuses on Scott Custer and Mike Battles, a pair of fortune hunters who arrived practically penniless in Baghdad where they were allowed to knock on Green Zone doors and walked off with a $100 million contract to protect civilian aircraft flying in and out of the capital.
We learn how the shady partners came across abandoned Iraqi Airways forklifts in the airline’s colors, which they repainted and leased to the Coalition Provisional Authority for $20,000 per month each. And to ferry pallets of Iraqi currency around they picked up old trucks on the local market that had the habit of breaking down leaving up to $15 million’s worth of Iraqi notes vulnerable to thieves. Eventually, they were caught out and charged with setting up Cayman Island shell companies for the fraudulent purpose of grossly overcharging the CPA.
ANOTHER dodgy duo highlighted by the show was Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Howell, kitchen designers who set up a company called Northstar, which was awarded a no-bid contract to oversee the circulation of Iraqi currency — and they weren’t even certified accountants!!
It also exposes how one well-known catering contractor overcharged millions of dollars for meals served to troops by exaggerating the head count at one particular military base. Then there was the US construction company that was contracted to build 150 clinics all over Iraq for $186 million and ended up delivering the keys to only six.
An Iraqi exile, handpicked by the US for a Cabinet post in the new government is accused of embezzling U$1.2 billion and is said to be wanted by Interpol. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, this individual was a small businessman, who lived in a nondescript home in Acton, London and sometimes on the dole.
Once plucked from London and handed his lofty appointment, he gathered his cronies around him and together they diverted Iraq’s money that was slated to rebuild the Ministry of Defense into a company called appropriately the Ever-flowing Spring. Naturally, the stuff flowing into their private bank accounts wasn’t water. The ex-minister, who today flies around in a private jet and owns a portfolio of central London properties, claims he’s a victim of a plot by pro-Iranian members of Parliament.
Frank Willis, a former CPA official who assisted Iraq’s Ministry of Transport told NBC that there was “pervasive leakage in assets in Iraq, and to some extent, those assets were squandered”. He admits that a lot of money got into the wrong hands remembering when it was time for payment “we told them to come in and bring a bag. It reminded me of the Wild West”. You could say all these dastardly deeds were done some years ago. But how do we know that foreign contractors operating in Iraq or ministers are any cleaner today? Worryingly, Judge Radhi Al-Radhi who used to head Iraq’s Commission for Public Integrity had to resign in September 2007 because of threats to his life by corrupt officials who objected to his role as anti-corruption czar. The last straw came when a missile landed precariously close to his house.
Once in the US, Radhi told NBC that corruption had “made our economy stale” and said “militias are smuggling the oil and using that money to buy weapons”. He says his investigations revealed fraud and graft by high-ranking officials throughout the ministries and that government officials often tried to thwart his investigatory efforts. He did say that the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki wasn’t involved but he blames him for not being more proactive in the fight against corruption.
This year, senators Carl Levin (D-Michigan) and John Warner (R-Virginia) asked Congress to investigate Iraq’s oil revenues to see if the country can now pay for its own reconstruction. They quoted the then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as predicting in 2003 that Iraq’s oil revenue could reach between $50 billion and $100 billion within two or three years.
The senators say they want clarity on Iraq’s total oil revenues from the invasion to date as well as the total spent on security, reconstruction, governance and economic development. They also want to know how much Iraq’s government has earned from oil sales and not spent, and how much has been deposited in overseas banks? Until these questions are satisfactorily answered, we should not expect Iraq’s neighbors to rush to its financial aid.
Worse, we learn from the British newspaper Independent that Washington is holding $50 billion of Iraq’s money hostage in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as leverage against Iraq’s government which has been asked to agree to 51 permanent US bases and an oil law that would hand control of Iraq’s oil to foreign giants.
Mismanagement, theft, embezzlement, corruption and bribery and all while ordinary Iraqis still wait for reliable water and electricity while American taxpayers, who have forked out $534 billion to Iraq, struggle to pay their mortgages and fill their tanks.
The BBC documentary asserts that no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement to date. On the other hand, whistleblowers have been sacked. Whoever said crime doesn’t pay had never been to Iraq after the war, where pickings had never been so rich or so easy.
07.07.08
Only Arabs Are Terrorists
‘Dwayat’s actions were heinous and murderous, but was he a terrorist?’
By Kim Bullimore – The West Bank
On 2 July, Husam Taysir Dwayat, aged 30, took the bulldozer he was driving and rampaged through West Jerusalem’s Jaffa St, killing 3 people and injuring at least 66 others. Dwayat, a Palestinian Arab, who had worked for a number of years as a part of a construction team, held a Jerusalemite ID, which gave him Israeli residential rights but not Israeli citizenship. Dwayat’s murderous rampage eventually came to an end when he was shot and killed by an off duty Israeli soldier, who is now being hailed a hero. Dwayat’s actions were heinous and murderous, but was he a terrorist? Israel’s media quickly labeled him one and continues to do so, as have the majority of Israel’s political establishment including the Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, the Defense Minister, Ehud Barak and the Vice Premier Haim Ramon.
In 2007, the US State Department annual Country Reports on Terrorism defined terrorism as being the “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub national groups or clandestine agents”[1]. For the past 6 years, this is the definition that has been consistently used by the US State Department, with the key point being that “terrorism” is politically motivate, thus distinguishing it from murder or other aggressive acts.
According to the Israeli police, however, Dwayat had no record of being involved in political activity and that the announcements by a number of previously unknown political groups claiming that Dwayat was a member were false [2]. According to the Israeli police, his family, neighbours and his Jewish ex-girlfriend, however, Dwayat did have a criminal record, including charges and arrests for drug felonies, theft and physical assault.
Dwayat’s Jewish girlfriend of six and half years, with whom he had a child, informed the Israeli media that far from hating Jews, he had never shown any ill will to Jews and had no political affiliations. In an interview with Haaretz TV online, Dwayat’s ex-girlfriend said that he “didn’t have any problems with Jews”, going on to say “I don’t think the attack had any nationalist motivations” [3]
So if Dwayat’s murderous act was not politically motivated, if he was not acting as part of a “sub national groups or clandestine agents”, why is he being labeled by the Israeli media, politicians and other state officials “a terrorist”? Why if he acted alone, in what Israeli security forces and police believe to be an unpremeditated act, is Dwayat being marked as a terrorist?
The answer is, of course, simple. Dwayat was a Palestinian Arab, so quid pro quo, he must be a terrorist. This fact and this fact alone is the reason for him being labeled a terrorist.
The anti-Arab racism in this labeling of Dwayat is clearly evident when you ask two simple questions:
(a) If the person who had carried out the bulldozer attack had been identified as Jewish would he have been automatically deemed a terrorist? The answer is almost certainly no.
(b) If the person had been a non-Jewish but also non-Arab, would he have been labeled automatically a terrorist. Again, the likely answer again would have been no.
But Dwayat was a Palestinian Arab, and a Muslim to boot. So of course, he must be a terrorist.
In the days after the murderous act, all three Israeli political leaders, raised the flags of demagoguery and popularism, attempting to out do each other calling for the collective punishment of not only Dwayat’s family but also all the Palestinian people.
On Friday, July 4, Barak ordered the Israeli security forces to issue injunctions calling for the demolition of not only Dwayat’s family home but also the family home of Alaa Abu Dhaim who carried out the attack which killed 8 students studying at Mercaz Haray Yeshiva which conducted a joint religious and military training program.
The day before, on July 3, Olmert had reiterated his call to demolish Dwayat’s family home in East Jerusalem saying “This attack which came from within Israel, into Israel. It creates a string of scenarios we never thought we would have to deal with in the past. We have invested thousands in the construction of the security fence. While it has been effective, it turns out that a fence cannot give us the answer to the problem of terror which comes from our side” [4].
Olmert went on to say that Dwayat’s family should also be stripped of any social security benefits, saying “I think we need to be tougher in some of the means we use against perpetrators of terror… If we have to destroy houses, then we must do so, if we have to stop their social benefits then we must do so. There cannot be a case where they massacre us and at the same time they get all the privileges that our society provides”
However, far from destroying the family homes of all apparent terrorists with Israeli citizenship or residency and stripping their families of Israeli social security benefits, such punitive actions are only being directed at one ethnic group – Palestinian Arabs – revealing once again both the strident anti-Arab racism of the Israeli Zionist state and its apartheid nature.
This is starkly revealed when considering the Israeli state reaction to the terrorist attack carried out three years earlier, by Eden Natan-Zada, a 19 year old Jewish soldier.
On August 4, 2005, Natan-Zada, carried out a pre-mediated terrorist attack in Shfaram in Northern Israel. The attack resulted in the murder of 4 Israeli citizens and the wounding of at least 10 others before the terrorist was killed.
Natan-Zada, who was politically opposed to then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan from Gaza, was an army deserter who had sought sanctuary in the illegal Israeli settlement of Tappauch in the Occupied West Bank. Natan-Zada was a member of the illegal Israeli settler group, Kach, who are followers of the anti-Arab racist, Rabbi Meir Kahane [5]. Kach, along with Kahane Chai founded by Kahane’s son, are the only two Jewish groups listed as terrorist organisations by both the US and Israeli governments. In Israel, Kach and Kahane Chai were outlawed in 1994 after another of Kach’s members, Baruch Goldstein, massacred 29 Palestinian men, women and children at prayer in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Occupied Hebron.
While at the time Ariel Sharon acknowledge Natan-Zada’s act as one of terrorism, there was never any call by Sharon or Olmert or Barak (who were elected politicians at the time) or any other Israeli politician for the demolition of Natan-Zada’s family home or for his family to be stripped of any of their social security benefits, despite the young soldier’s pre-mediated and politically motivated massacre of four Israeli citizens.
One of the reasons for this can be found in the simple fact that the Israelis killed by Natan-Zada were not (European) Jews but Palestinian Arabs who held Israeli citizenship. A little over three weeks after Sharon publicly stated that Natan-Zada was a terrorist, an Israeli inter-ministerial committee in the Department of defense declared that Natan-Zada’s murderous attack was not “terrorist” because he was a serving soldier (this was despite the fact that he was an army deserter)[6]. As a result, those killed by Natan-Zada were denied not only recognition of being victims of terrorism but also their families were denied the right to ongoing state compensation, which the families of Israeli Jews killed in terror attacks receive.
Nazia Hayek, the brother of one of the four people killed by Natan-Zada said at the time that financial compensation was not their main interest as it would not bring back his brother. Instead, according to Hayek, the ruling which stated that Natan-Zada’s act was “neither terror or an act of hostility” sent a message to all extremists that “it was permissible to kill Arabs and [it] does not count as terror”[7]
Like Baruch Goldstein, Natan-Zada far from being reviled as the terrorist he clearly was, instead like Goldstein before him, he was cannonised by the Israeli right wing. While Israeli police moved quickly to remove the mourning tent erect for Dwayat by his family in the wake of the Jerusalem bulldozer attack, in the wake of Natan Zada’s murderous attack it was reported that the illegal settlement of Tappauch built a library in his honour. Similarly, Goldstein was also honoured with celebrations in his names and shrines was built in his honour (which took the Israeli police more than 6 years to remove).
In addition, unlike the solider who shot and killed Dwayat, the Palestinian Arab Israelis who neutralised Natan-Zada, killing him in order to prevent him from killing more innocent people, were not hailed heroes by the Israeli state. Instead, they have been persecuted and hounded.
In June 2008, the Israeli Haifa District Prosecution subpoenaed 12 Shfraram residents to attend a pre-trailing hearing about the 2005 killing of Natan-Zada [8]. Previously in 2006, six Palestinians with Israeli citizenship had also been arrested for the murder of Natan-Zada and held under house arrest. It was only with threats of mass rioting by the residents of Shfraram and surrounding villages and towns that they were they eventually released.
Over the past decade, numerous studies conducted by Israeli organisations have revealed increasing levels of discrimination and racism against so-called Israeli Arabs by both the Israeli state and by Jewish Israeli citizens.
In 2007, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) released a report which revealed that the incidents of anti-Arab racist attacks had increased by 26% and that the expression of anti-Arab views had doubled in the last couple of years. The poll conducted by ACRI revealed that 50% of Jewish Israelis did not believe Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel should have equal rights and that the Israeli government should encourage “emigration” of Palestinian Arabs from Israel. According to the poll, almost 75% of Jewish Israeli youth also believed that Palestinians and Arabs were less intelligent and less clean than Jews [9]. ACRI noted that media played a significant role in “intensifying the Arab image as negative and terrorising”. At the time of the report, Arab Knesset member, Mohammed Barakeh, from Hadash (the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) said the poll was “the natural outcome” of the anti-Arab policies held by successive Israeli governments
A similar poll conducted by Geocartography Institute.in March of 2007, revealed that 75% of the 500 Jewish men and women who participated in the poll would not live in the same building as an Arab, while 60% would not allow an Arab into their home and 50% believed marrying an Arab was “national treason” [10].
The automatic declaration of Dwayat as a terrorist by Olmert, Barak and the Israeli media, simply because he was a Palestinian Arab rather then because he carried out a politically motivated act reveals that the “us” that Olmert spoke about on July 3 does not include the Palestinian Arab citizens or residents of Israel. This along with Olmert and Barak’s immediate call to conduct punitive collective punishment (which is illegal under international law) against Dwayat’s family reveals starkly the apartheid nature of the Israeli state.
If Palestinian Arabs were part of Olmert’s Israeli “us” and Israel was not engaging in widespread apartheid policies, then Dwayat would not have been automatically labeled a terrorist and the punitive policy against his family would also not been enacted, just as such punitive punishment was never enacted against the Jewish family of Eden Natan-Zada.
It seems in Israel, however, only Palestinian Arabs can be terrorists in the eyes of the Israeli Zionist state and many of its Jewish citizens.
-Kim Bullimore is currently living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, where she is a human rights volunteer with the International Women’s Peace Service (www.iwps.info). She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Visit her blog: www.livefromoccupiedpalestine.blogspot.com.
Notes
[1] 2007 Country Reports on Terrorism, US State Department
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2007/103715.htm
[2] Haaretz service (2 July, 2008) Barak: Israel must respond immediately to Jerusalem attack, Haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/998330.html
[3] and [4] Haaretz, Barak orders demolition of Jerusalem, yeshiva terrorist’s homes, 4 July, 2008, Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/998668.html
[5] Cook,J., (14 June, 2006) For Arabs only: Israeli law and order http://www.counterpunch.org/cook06142006.html
[6] and [7] Khoury, J., Eldar A., and Sinai, R., (30 August, 2005) MK submits bill to include Jewish attacks under terror law, Haaretz, http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=7659
[8] Raved, A., (15 July, 2008) Haifa prosecution considering new indictments in the death of Eden Natan Zada, YNet http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3555829,00.html
[9] Israeli anti-Arab racism ‘rises’ (10 December, 2007, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7136068.stm
and
Zino,A., (8 December, 2007) Racism in Israel on the rise, YNET
http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3480345,00.html
[10]Nahmais, R., (27 March 2007) Marriage to an Arab is national treason.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3381978,00.html
07.06.08
The act of a frustrated man
Abdul Aziz Al-Suwaigh | nafezah@yahoo.com
Israelis killed a Palestinian youth for driving a bulldozer onto the midst of a crowd in the heart of West Jerusalem and killing three Israelis last week. But the reaction of the Western political leaders to the action of the Palestinian worker, one of over a million and half living in humiliation of the Israeli occupation, amounted to killing him and other Palestinians a thousand times.
While the Western leaders did not feel any compunction in condemning the poor building worker in the harshest words they could find in the dictionary, they did not have the guts to describe the incident as the natural and likely reaction of a human being put to indignities beyond his endurance powers.
It is true that no Israeli civilian ever drove a bulldozer onto the midst of Palestinians on a crowded street. Why should they when their bombers and missiles can and do kill Palestinians in thousands in their homes and streets?
Over the past six months 365 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, most of them civilians, with children accounting for 50 percent.
The only civilian an Israeli bulldozer killed was an American woman, Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old peace activist from Olympia, Washington. Corrie was crushed to death by a 60-ton Israel Defense Forces bulldozer as she stood before a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip in 2003. She was killed while trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home.
It is high time that we made a clear distinction between the acts of terror, particularly from a state that calls itself a democracy, and the acts springing from frustration, injustice and humiliation.
This Palestinian youth was a human being with normal feelings of pride and honor. He could not be blamed for losing his equanimity for a moment when he thought about the plight of his brothers and sisters who are being treated like dirt in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and put under a blockade denying them the most basic requirements of life.
Fear of Islam: Britain’s new disease
Peter Oborne | The Independent
Three years ago, four young suicide bombers caused carnage in London. Their aim was not just to kill and maim. There was also a long-term strategic purpose: To sow suspicion and divide Britain between Muslims and the rest. They are succeeding.
In Britain today, there is a deepening distrust between mainstream society and ever more isolated Muslim communities. A culture of contempt and violence is emerging on our streets.
Channel 4’s Dispatches program discovered many violent episodes and attacks on Muslims, with very few reported; those that do get almost no publicity.
Last week, Martyn Gilleard, a Nazi sympathizer in East Yorkshire, was jailed for 16 years. Police found four nail bombs, bullets, swords, axes and knives in his flat. Gilleard had been preparing for a war against Muslims. The Gilleard case went all but unreported. Had a Muslim been found with an arsenal of weapons and planning violent assaults, it would have been a far bigger story.
There is a reason for this blindness in the media. The systematic demonization of Muslims has become an important part of the central narrative of the British political and media class; it is so entrenched, so much part of normal discussion, that almost nobody notices. Protests go unheard and unnoticed.
Why? Britain’s Muslim immigrants are mainly poor, isolated and alienated from mainstream society. Surveys show Muslims have the highest rate of unemployment, the poorest health, the most disability and fewest educational qualifications of any faith group in the country. This means they are vulnerable, rendering them open to ignorant and hostile commentary from mainstream figures.
Islamophobia — an unfounded dread and dislike of Muslims — can be encountered in the best circles: Among our most famous novelists, among newspaper columnists, and in the Church of England.
Its appeal is wide-ranging. “I am an Islamophobe,” the Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee wrote in The Independent nearly 10 years ago. “Islamophobia?” the Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle asks rhetorically in the title of a recent speech, “Count me in”. Imagine Liddle declaring: “Anti-Semitism? Count me in”, or Toynbee claiming she was “an anti-Semite and proud of it”.
Anti-Semitism is recognized as an evil, noxious creed, and its adherents are barred from mainstream society and respectable organs of opinion. Not so Islamophobia.
“There is a definite urge; don’t you have it?”, the author Martin Amis told Ginny Dougary of The Times: “The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. Not letting them travel. Deportation; further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or Pakistan. Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children.”
Here, Amis is doing much more than insulting Muslims. He is using the foul and barbarous language of fascism.
All over Europe, parties of the far right have been dropping their traditional hostility to minorities such as Jews and homosexuals; in Britain, the BNP has come to realize that anti-Semitism and anti-black campaigning won’t work if they are serious about electoral success. To move to mainstream respectability, they need an issue that allows them to exploit people’s fears about immigrants and Britain’s ethnic minority communities without being branded racist extremists. They have found it. Since 9/11, and particularly 7/7, the BNP has gone all out to tap a rich vein of anti-Muslim sentiment. The party’s leader, Nick Griffin, has described Islam as a “wicked, vicious faith” and has tried to distance himself and the party from its anti-Semitic past. Party members are now rebuked for discussing the Holocaust and told to focus on terrorism, the evils of Islam, and scare stories of Britain becoming an Islamic state. Griffin’s strategy has been inspired by the press.
Many categories of immigrants and foreigners have been singled out for hatred and opprobrium by mainstream society because they were felt to be threats to British identity. At times, these despised categories have included Catholics, Jews, French and Germans and blacks. Now this outcast role has fallen to Muslims. We should all feel ashamed about the way we treat Muslims, in the media, in our politics, and on our streets. We do not treat Muslims with the tolerance, decency and fairness that we often like to boast is the British way. We urgently need to change our public culture.
— Peter Oborne’s Dispatches film, “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Muslim”, will be screened on Channel 4 at 8 p.m. on Monday
Mohammed Omer: From triumph to torture
MODERATING VOICE: The eldest of eight, Mohammed Omer has seen most of his siblings killed or wounded or maimed by Israeli soldiers. Still he is a moderating voice. (AN photo)
John Pilger | The Guardian
Two weeks ago, I presented a young Palestinian, Mohammed Omer, with the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. Awarded in memory of the great US war correspondent, the prize goes to journalists who expose establishment propaganda, or “official drivel”, as Gellhorn called it. Mohammed shares the prize of £5,000 with Dahr Jamail. At 24, he is the youngest winner. His citation reads: “Every day, he reports from a war zone, where he is also a prisoner. His homeland, Gaza, is surrounded, starved, attacked, forgotten. He is a profoundly humane witness to one of the great injustices of our time. He is the voice of the voiceless.” The eldest of eight, Mohammed has seen most of his siblings killed or wounded or maimed. An Israeli bulldozer crushed his home while the family were inside, seriously injuring his mother. And yet, says a former Dutch ambassador, Jan Wijenberg, “he is a moderating voice, urging Palestinian youth not to court hatred but seek peace with Israel”.
Getting Mohammed to London to receive his prize was a major diplomatic operation. Israel has perfidious control over Gaza’s borders, and only with a Dutch embassy escort was he allowed out. Last Thursday, on his return journey, he was met at the Allenby Bridge crossing (to Jordan) by a Dutch official, who waited outside the Israeli building, unaware Mohammed had been seized by Shin Bet, Israel’s infamous security organisation. Mohammed was told to turn off his mobile and remove the battery. He asked if he could call his embassy escort and was told forcefully he could not. A man stood over his luggage, picking through his documents. “Where’s the money?” he demanded. Mohammed produced some US dollars. “Where is the English pound you have?”
“I realised,” said Mohammed, “he was after the award stipend for the Martha Gellhorn prize. I told him I didn’t have it with me. ‘You are lying’, he said. I was now surrounded by eight Shin Bet officers, all armed. The man called Avi ordered me to take off my clothes. I had already been through an x-ray machine. I stripped down to my underwear and was told to take off everything. When I refused, Avi put his hand on his gun. I began to cry: ‘Why are you treating me this way? I am a human being.’ He said, ‘This is nothing compared with what you will see now.’ He took his gun out, pressing it to my head and with his full body weight pinning me on my side, he forcibly removed my underwear. He then made me do a concocted sort of dance. Another man, who was laughing, said, ‘Why are you bringing perfumes?’ I replied, ‘They are gifts for the people I love’. He said, ‘Oh, do you have love in your culture?’
“As they ridiculed me, they took delight most in mocking letters I had received from readers in England. I had now been without food and water and the toilet for 12 hours, and having been made to stand, my legs buckled. I vomited and passed out. All I remember is one of them gouging, scraping and clawing with his nails at the tender flesh beneath my eyes. He scooped my head and dug his fingers in near the auditory nerves between my head and eardrum. The pain became sharper as he dug in two fingers at a time. Another man had his combat boot on my neck, pressing into the hard floor. I lay there for over an hour. The room became a menagerie of pain, sound and terror.”
An ambulance was called and told to take Mohammed to a hospital, but only after he had signed a statement indemnifying the Israelis from his suffering in their custody. The Palestinian medic refused, courageously, and said he would contact the Dutch embassy escort. Alarmed, the Israelis let the ambulance go. The Israeli response has been the familiar line that Mohammed was “suspected” of smuggling and “lost his balance” during a “fair” interrogation, Reuters reported yesterday.
Israeli human rights groups have documented the routine torture of Palestinians by Shin Bet agents with “beatings, painful binding, back bending, body stretching and prolonged sleep deprivation”. Amnesty has long reported the widespread use of torture by Israel, whose victims emerge as mere shadows of their former selves. Some never return. Israel is high in an international league table for its murder of journalists, especially Palestinian journalists, who receive barely a fraction of the kind of coverage given to the BBC’s Alan Johnston.
The Dutch government says it is shocked by Mohammed Omer’s treatment. The former ambassador Jan Wijenberg said: “This is by no means an isolated incident, but part of a long-term strategy to demolish Palestinian social, economic and cultural life … I am aware of the possibility that Mohammed Omer might be murdered by Israeli snipers or bomb attack in the near future.”
While Mohammed was receiving his prize in London, the new Israeli ambassador to Britain, Ron Proser, was publicly complaining that many Britons no longer appreciated the uniqueness of Israel’s democracy. Perhaps they do now.
07.02.08
Rafah Smuggling Tunnels Life-Nerve For Gaza
This smuggling tunnel was built 8 years ago. (Photo Propa Images)
By Hiyam Noir and Fady Adwan – Gaza
The smuggling of goods through tunnels beneath the surface of Rafah in Gaza Strip continues, in the eighth day of the tattered ceasefire between the Palestinian armed resistance and the Israeli occupant.
The Israelis have closed the crossings for legal imported goods,amidst exchange of accusations of who first violated the truce agreement. Mahmoud Zahar prominent leader of Hamas said in a public statement on Saturday that “Hamas will arrest anyone who make an attempt to break the cease-fire with the Israelis, and will confiscate their weapons. The Israelis have breached the cease fire throughout the Gaza Strip seven times, some of the shootings have seriously injured Palestinian farmers. In retaliation operations the Palestinian resistance fired a barrel of rockets across the border into Israel.
Since September 2000, the smuggling tunnels has functioned as an import of a significant amount of basic supplies, including medicine, food, clothes, auto -spare-parts, medical equipment, electronic items, foreign currency, cigarettes and weapons.
The Palestinians still have to rely on smuggled victualled from Egypt, food, medicine and other basic supplies through the underground tunnels, the life-nerves, which are stretching from Gaza Strip to the inside of the Egyptian border. The smuggling tunnel featured in our reportage, was built 8 years ago, in the beginning of the second Palestinian Intifada, the cost of building this tunnel is estimated to over $50.000. While working in this environment, in the cold, sometimes trapped, suffocating under water or collapsing walls of dirt and concrete, 82 people have died. It took three months to finish a hard and dangerous, 24 hours make shift work.
The excavation of smuggling tunnels in the Rafah area began in 1982, subsequent to the division of the Rafah city between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. The average smuggling tunnel is approximately 500 meters in length, and 20 to 25 meters deep. The tunnels may be equipped with wood-paneling, electrical infrastructure, communications gear, and rudimentary elevators in vertical shaft, to transport people or the freight of goods. The openings of the tunnels are often located within private Egyptian homes or other buildings, near or next to the border with Egypt.
The Oslo Accords of 1994-95, granted the Palestinian Authority control over the majority of the Gaza Strip. However, the Accords stipulated that the Israelis would retain control of a narrow strip of land (known as the “Philadelphi Route”) between the area under Palestinian control, and the border with Egypt. The route is 11 km (6.5 miles) long and approximately 100 metres (330 feet) wide. In the Israelis “peace agreement” with Egypt, the Egyptians signed a granted security control over Egyptian territorial land, running 70 meters east of the Philadelphi Road.
In August 2004, the Egyptians had knowledge what type of weapons being smuggled and could have prevented the smuggling of RPG’s into the Gaza Strip. It is also believed that Egypt wanted..Katyusha rockets to be smuggled in via the tunnels. The Israelis accused Egypt to use the weapons smuggling as a measure against the Israelis. In September 2004, the Israelis concluded that the Egyptians is supporting the Palestinian resistance against the Israelis which has enabled Hamas and other Palestinian political organizations to use Sinai as a logistic rear miles away from the fighting front. However it is also believed that the Israelis have used the Rafah tunnels as a pretext to create a depopulated ‘buffer zone’ along the Gaza-Egyptian border,which resulted in the destruction of 1,600 homes by September 2004.
In August 2005, the Israelis said that the Egyptians deployment of its forces along the border with Gaza Strip to halt smuggling, was a strategic Trojan Horse. The Israelis said that Egypt paved the way for a complete dismissal of the 1978 peace treaty with Cairo. The Cairo treaty stipulates that only one division of Egyptian armed forces, is allowed to be stationed in the Sinai peninsula, and only up to 50 km east of the Suez Canal.
Civil Egyptian police equipped with light weapons, were permitted along the Egyptian side to a depth of 40 km of the border with the Israelis. The Israelis said that it does not matter the small force, but they made a strategic mistake. The Israelis did not have any strategic depth,150 kilometers from the border or 15 km would be significant in an opening shot of a war.
In October 2006, Egypt threatened to increase its military presence by 5,000 troops along the Gaza Strip border. The additional Egyptian security members of the police central security force, were slated to join approximately 750 border guards. An Egyptian official, claimed that the deployment would occur in anticipation of a possible Israeli counter-terrorist operation that could include, bombing of the weapons smuggling tunnels.
In February 2007,Yuval Diskin the Shin Bet Chief, determined that Egyptian security forces were failing to stop the smuggling of weapons from the Sinai Desert to the Gaza Strip. Discin said that” If Egypt starts to thwart the transfer of weapons, then that will slow down the resistance buildup in Gaza Strip and delay a military operation there. The Egyptians have a key in their hands and they know it.”!
The Israelis constructed a wall of 7-9 meter along the Philadelphi Route. In addition,the IOF detonated explosives along the route to cause collapse of tunnels in the area. Canals were also dugged in an attempt to flood the tunnels, with sea water. In addition, the IOF integrated “several sophisticated systems”, inserted explosive material into the ground, including sensor systems that defined the depth of the tunnels. In January 23, 2008, the Palestinian resistance destroyed several parts of the Israeli built wall, dividing Gaza Strip and Egypt in the town of Rafah. Thousands of starving Gazans moved across the Philadelphi Route into Egypt, in search of food and basic supplies.
Hamas has excavated tunnels for operations against Israeli posts and population centers close to the Gaza Strip border fence. The tunnels allow the Palestinian resistance to infiltrate into Israeli territory and then return to the Gaza Strip. In June 25, 2006, members of the Palestinian resistance utilized an “infiltration” tunnel to carry out an operation against a Israeli post near the Sufa Crossing. Two Israelis were killed in this operation and Gilad Shalit was captured.
There are also designed military tunnels as safe passages for operatives in the Palestinian resistance in battle zones. Such tunnels are typically located between buildings. Hamas has also populated “ambush” tunnels with camouflaged IEDs and utilized underground (concrete) firing positions and offensive capabilities, hidden rocket launch sites which is activated via a delay system concealed in vegetation or between buildings.
Back in November 2000, the Israeli Radio reported that weapons and ammunition were smuggled into Gaza Strip and the President Yasser Arafat’s airport, via Arafat’s private air plane. The weapons and ammunition were distributed to Fatah Tanzim in Gaza Strip. Worth notice, even when the Israelis bombed the Gaza airport, and it was closed for traffic, the Israelis continued to permit the air plane to land and take off, and no inspection was done by the Israelis.
- Hiyam Noir and Fady Adwan contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.
