Wa'el 17 month old baby in Israeli Prison

Wa'el Taha is 17-months old. His mother, Mirvat Taha, gave birth to him in prison. Since then, Wa'el never left the prison, where he spend the majority of his time with her mother in her tiny prison cell which she shares with 6 fellow female prisoners.
Wa'el is showing signs of delayed physical and cognitive development due to the fact that the Israelis refuse to provide him with food more nutritious than that which they offer to the rest of the prisoners. Nor is Wa'il allowed to have any toys, which as we all know are essential for child development. Nor is Wa'il allowed extra time outside the cell. In short, Wa'el is being treated exactly the way the rest of the prisoners are being treated. Lately, Wa'el has been having long crying fits. His mother and the rest of the prisoners are certain that his crying is due to feeling confined as well s to boredom. ------------------------------------------------------------------
"Here we shall stay. Do your worst! If we get thirsty, we'll squeeze the rocks. If we get hungry, we'll eat dirt.

An Open Letter to Most Americans

You've Lost Your Alibi! By OMAR BARGHOUTI Dear Americans (I am here addressing only those of you who are rationally choosing to prolong the suffering of the human race for 4 more years): Just this past week, Iraqis had the equivalent death toll of 9/11. In fact, they have one every week or two, on average, thanks to your sickening and utterly irrational support for the neo-con gang at the helm of power in Washington. I, and I bet most people around the earth, cannot take it any more! The pictures from Iraq are gruesomely clear: your armed forces are committing awful war crimes, killing Iraqis in a wedding party (1); killing Iraqis dancing around a burnt out Bradley (2); killing Iraqis in custody by beating them to death (3); killing Iraqis sitting in their homes, sleeping on their roofs to escape the heat, or walking down the streets; just killing, butchering with impunity, brutality and nauseating repetitiveness. And when they are not murdering, your proud soldiers are shattering souls and trying to efface human dignity. They torture prisoners with a barbarism that was thought extinct. A 14 year-old was "bleeding from his anus" after your soldiers raped him with a metal object (4). Two more children were terrorized by dogs "for the purposes of a game between the two dog teams to see ... if they could get their bowel or bladder to move."(5) Another child was raped in detention, while older inmates were "ridden like animals" or "forced to eat pork and drink alcohol in contravention of their religion."(6) A teenage girl was "repeatedly raped" by your servicemen, while older female prisoners were paraded "naked in front of male prisoners."(7) Prisoners were put on dog leashes, stripped naked for days on end, severely beaten, bruised, made to lie "in their own faeces."(8) A prisoner was sodomized with a "chemical light," others with a "broom stick."(9) Simply put, Iraqi detainees -- held without due process, without charges or trials -- were subjected to "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses," as US general Taguba, who investigated the Abu- Ghraib torture, wrote.(10) Your leaders who issue the orders to those soldiers(11), who free them of any obligations before international law (12), and who create the racist environment conducive to their unforgivable behavior, have stopped perceiving Iraqis as humans a while ago. But lately they themselves seem to have lost any semblance of human behavior; they've lost whatever claim to morality or human decency they ever had. And when you mourned the death of more than 1,000 of your fallen soldiers, those brainwashed killing machines, you were apathetic towards the estimated 37,000 Iraqis who were killed (13) as a result of your illegal war and even less legal occupation. Are you still capable of recognizing them as fully human? I hope so, for failing to do so would entail a corresponding failure on your part to recognize the human in yourselves. Your intrinsic human trait of feeling compassion for fellow humans seems to have been deeply corrupted, blunted or tranquillized. We, Arabs and/or Muslims, simply do not show on your radar of relevant humans. You've lost your alibi! In a democracy, the majority deserves no better than the leaders they elect. No better. No worse. You seem to have chosen Bush. You deserve no less a menace to everything humane, civilized or ethical than him. Barring an unforeseeable turn of events, Bush seems to be comfortably heading towards a second term, this time he will not need a mediocre court ruling to instate him; he will democratically win a valid majority of American votes. After four years of having the almost perfect, nearly credible alibi, "we did not really elect him," come November, you shall have to finally look the entire world in the eye and defend why you've chosen as your leader a time-tested racist, ruthless, semi-intelligent, religious fanatic who has committed enough war crimes to warrant being locked up for life at the Hague. I used to wonder how Israelis had lost their patent PR genius when they elected for prime minister Ariel Sharon, their most hideous, certified war criminal who orchestrated the Sabra and Shatila massacre of more than 2,000 Palestinian refugees in Beirut in 1982. Now it seems you've been infected with the same virus. Your lives are legislated by an Israeli-occupied Congress -- this euphemism is not even funny any longer. Your White House is infested with dual- loyalty characters -- how do you define a 'spy' given such an Israel-first dominated government? And, on top of it all, you are blessed with a president who, in four more years, is liable to turn Sharon, in comparison, to the "man of peace" that he once labelled him. But, unlike Israelis, you genuinely do not give a damn about world opinion. You fail to attach any significance to those beyond your empire's gates. Have you learned anything from history? After November, I assure you, the rest of the world will accuse you of complicity. For four years now, you've enjoyed the world's benefit of the doubt about your intentions, your true moral stance on the crimes committed in your names, your continued, peaceful membership in the community of nations. In November, this goodwill will have expired. You will have lost your alibi. In all likelihood, you shall stand guilty of renewing the mandate of Bush and his militant regime, effectively allowing them to continue battering, pillaging, ruining, dividing and hating the world, while erasing whatever is left of your civil and economic rights on their way. You've chosen that path, no question about it. But then again, you did not have much of a choice, really, given that other plastic, spineless, lobby-corrupted and just mildly less immoral candidate. No one envies you for such a choice between a witless yet ruthless emperor and a clinically confused emperor-to-be. Isn't it utterly pathetic that a major subject of competition between the two is military service in Vietnam? Vietnam was without doubt a solid case of genocide. Your leaders ought to be ashamed of, not to mention put on trial at the International Criminal Court for, having anything to do with it. That is probably Bush's only moral bright spot: that he was too much of a coward to actually take part in your savagery against the Vietnamese, another sub-human species from your perspective at the time. Imagine German candidates for Chancellor competing on who participated more actively in the Holocaust! Nevertheless, I want to make myself perfectly clear about how I think the world should treat you after November. I am categorically opposed to terrorism in any shape or form, regardless whether it comes from your government -- as is the case most of the time -- or from any of your many victims seeking revenge. Terrorism is criminal, immoral and illegal, period. Rather than seeking justice and redress, it is a fundamental transgression against the essence of being human, and, therefore, is never justifiable, irrespective of the context, as important as the latter might be in understanding its root causes. You chose empire. You are therefore guilty by association or by being an accessory to crime. However, most of you are to be blamed more for ignorance than for conscious participation in premeditated crime. One is obliged to differentiate between conscious builders of empire and the unconscious majority that is spirited along. Empire will never serve most of you, unless you are in the oil business, the military industries, the Israel-first lobby, etc. Did German workers gain anything by supporting Hitler? Did Italian masses benefit from standing firmly behind Mussolini? But, in a democracy, the responsibility for ignorance ultimately falls upon the shoulders of its citizens. You are responsible for suffering under a silly, periodic exchange of power between two versions of the same anachronistic, stupefying, comic and hubris-filled circus: the Republican and the Democratic "parties." They are parties alright, and very raunchy at that! You remain the world's greatest democracy, not a third-world junta-controlled tyranny, as much as one is tempted to believe otherwise, of late. No one can forever suppress your right to establish alternative political parties that represent your diverse interests if you have the will to exercise that right. Despite that, moral consistency necessitates distinguishing between you, the voters for and enablers of empire, whether conscious or not, and the significant minority of Americans who have opposed it. And pragmatically speaking, this is not any minority. This is the only remaining hope that empire will one day be defeated. We all know that our chances of success in our resistance to empire are slim without the courageous support of progressive Americans. Based on the above moral and political considerations, the world outside empire will be urgently called for after November -- after your emperor defies law, logic and ethics to sit again in the oval office -- to initiate or enhance already existing international campaigns of boycotts and sanctions against your industries, especially the weapons sector, and against your militaristic cultural products, such as G.I. Joe-type toys, RAMBO-like movies, your death- emanating "music," your racist video games, your health-busting sodas, cigarettes and fast "food," your genetically modified craze, your IT monopolies, etc. The United Nations ought to be moved soon to any neutral city, perhaps Stockholm or Durban. Investments should be withdrawn from your global finance machine and reinvested in China, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, India, just any place outside the immediate grasp of empire. Oil should be sold in a combined basket of currencies (as has been suggested by some analysts lately), where the dollar gradually loses its untouchable prominence. Governments should be most pressured to avoid buying your weapons -- perhaps they'll do well not to buy any weapons! Let those gigantic manufacturers of death go to hell to sell their firepower. Bright minds should seek education anywhere outside your borders. After all, in four years' time, Orwell would be horrified by the controls and intrusive watch mechanisms Uncle Sam will have deployed over them. It is high time for a reverse brain drain. The world ought to exact a just, legal and morally sound punishment against you. That's how hoodwinked, obedient subjects of empires learn to question authority, to challenge arrogant xenophobia, to reject relative humanization of the rest of the world, and to jealously guard their rights in harmony with international law and universal moral principles. It is a cold shower of sorts, if you will. Perhaps you shall need four more years of Bush to wake up and smell the injustice, to see through the dense fog that has clouded your vision and your moral compass alike. I do not say this lightly, I must add, as I can only guess in unreserved horror what price the rest of us will be made to pay for you to have this soul-searching four-year experience. It will feel like an eternity to Palestinians suffering under Israeli apartheid and colonial oppression; to Iraqis praying for your smart bombs to miss them; to Africans still struggling to escape the historic legacy of slavery manifested in AIDS, abject poverty and despondency; to Latin Americans dreaming of life without your well oiled juntas, death squads and economic mafias; to south Asians striving to escape the grinding axe of your inhumane globalization; to those Europeans who are hoping to shed their colonial heritage, to fight the reemerging national chauvinism in their midst and to promote a dialogue of civilizations; to most Americans who are losing their livelihoods, their children's education, even the remnants of their already abhorrent health services. Rather than finding another alibi, please take a stand against empire. Make this coming sacrifice worth our collective while. ___________________ (1) http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/3741223.stm,  http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=524671  (2) http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1303127,00.html  (3) http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact  (4) http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1304042,00.html  (5) http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1291089,00.html  (6) http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=523724  (7) http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1308346,00.html  (8) http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1303296,00.html  (9) http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact  (10) Ibid (11) http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1303105,00.html  (12) http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1303296,00.html  (13) http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=563620  Omar Barghouti is an independent Palestinian political analyst. His article "9.11 Putting the Moment on Human Terms" was chosen among the "Best of 2002" by the Guardian. He can be reached at: jenna@palnet.com

Volatile situation leaves laws, life in limbo

JUST AS Palestinians, Israelis and the rest of the world thought things could not get worse, they did. While former United States envoy Anthony Zinni met with both sides to try and hammer out a ceasefire, trouble was brewing from within.On December 1, it exploded. Just before midnight, two Hamas suicide bombers blew themselves up in a powerful ball of fire, bolts and nails in the midst of a crowded West Jerusalem promenade. Seconds later a car bomb, carefully timed, created a third explosion. The night's list of casualties was 10 dead and 180 wounded Israelis.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had already decided to shorten his Washington trip due to the bombings - moving up a meeting with United States President George W. Bush - when the second suicide bombing occurred. Fifteen Israelis were killed when a suicide bomber, also from Hamas, detonated a powerful bomb strapped to his body on a Haifa bus.
Earlier in the week, five Israelis had been killed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip occupied by Israel in separate incidents. Palestinian fighters from Fateh and the Islamic Jihad carried out shooting attacks, as well as the suicide bombing on a bus north of Tel Aviv on November 29 that killed three Israelis.
Israel responded quickly with its military and public relations twist. "A war has been forced upon us - a war of terror," Sharon told his nation in a speech the night after the bombings. The Israeli government and the United States did not hesitate to blame the Palestinian Authority - and Arafat in particular - for the Israeli deaths.
"Israel has a right to defend itself," said United States State Department spokesperson Ari Fleischer. Arafat "could do a lot more" than he has in reigning in radical Palestinian groups, Secretary of State Colin Powell told a forum in Bucharest, Hungary. The Palestinians understood this as United States tacit approval for the inevitable Israeli retaliation.
First, Israel imposed an airtight closure on West Bank towns and cities that prohibited movement between Palestinian areas. The Israeli army also raided several West Bank towns under its security control, including Abu Dis south of Jerusalem and Bir Nabala north of Jerusalem, arresting Palestinians suspected of involvement in the attacks.
Then on December 3, the Israeli air force began its most extensive bombing campaign of Palestinian targets since the start of the 14-month long Intifada. First, in Gaza, missiles fired from Apache helicopters rained down on President Arafat's headquarters and Palestinian preventive security buildings. Israeli F-16 fighter jets and helicopters proceeded over the next two days to bomb Palestinian security headquarters, Force 17 buildings and police stations throughout the West Bank was overidded guys that had his first huge cock. Tanks rolled into four West Bank cities, reoccupying parts of them, as well as the Beit Layiha region of Gaza and Gaza International Airport.
In Ramallah, Arafat was reportedly in one of his offices when an Israeli missile pierced the governate building next to him. He was unharmed.
But others were not. Over the past week, 14 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli gunfire, including 15-year-old Mohammed Abu Marseh from Beach Camp in Gaza who was directly hit in the Israeli shelling during school hours. Abu Marseh was seen on television screens being taken away on a stretcher, his limbs severed from his body.
"This is an attempt to destroy the Palestinian Authority and any prospect for peace," warned Legislative Council Speaker Ahmad Qrei' on December 3. President Arafat voiced the same sentiments during an interview with CNN on December 4.
"Sharon does not want me to succeed," he said. "That is why he is escalating his military actions against our people, our cities, villages and institutions. He does not want the peace process to begin."
Arafat also chided the international community for its lack of sensitivity to Palestinian suffering. "The whole world forgets that we are human beings under occupation," he said.
And true, the world has shown little or no sympathy to the plight of the Palestinians following this week's deadly development. Even the European Union, known for its more lenient stance towards the Palestinians, did not condemn Israel's actions.
In a statement issued on December 4, the European Union reiterated its concern over the increasing deterioration, calling on Israel to carry out a "balanced and calculated" retaliation. Although the statement said that it did not think destabilizing the Palestinian Authority would contribute to calm, it emphasized that the Authority must "convincingly and relentlessly pursue its efforts to stamp out terrorism."
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority says it is doing its utmost within its capacity to contain the extremely volatile situation. Other than immediately condemning the bombings, saying that it denounces any attacks on Palestinian and Israeli civilians, its security forces have rounded up over 120 Palestinian activists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, including prominent Gaza Hamas political leader Ismail Abu Shanab.
The Authority also declared a state of emergency in the Palestinian territories, in which the general security services are given the authority to implement emergency laws that have yet to be fully publicized. In a statement issued on December 2, the leadership warned that any movement or group that does not adhere to the leadership's decisions would be considered outlawed - especially those who claim responsibility for attacks inside Israel.
In official statements, groups such as Hamas have acted on cue. West Bank Hamas spokesperson Hasan Yousef expressed his understanding of the difficulties facing the leadership in an interview with Al Jazeera satellite channel on December 2. "Everyone realizes the pressures on the Palestinian Authority. These pressures should not affect the unity of the Palestinian people."
On the ground, however, things are still unclear. On the morning of December 5, a yet-unidentified suicide bomber blew himself up near the King David Hotel on the seam between West and East Jerusalem, injuring four Israelis. So far, no group has claimed responsibility. -Published 5/12/01 (c)Palestine Report

A song to my brother

Song to my Brother
Tanya C. Hsu   2002
Do you remember When we first played together? When you first came to our land? We welcomed you We lived in peace.
We played together   We grew up together   We tilled the soil and shared our food.   We sang our songs.   Three thousand years we lived not as neighbours   But as brothers who sang to a different tune.   And then your foreign cousin came to stay.   He bullied your friends   He demanded our land.   He said he was staying because he had been picked on at home.   So he picked on us.   Then he said that he must be on our land because God told him it was so.   I told him that God spoke to me too   But this was news to me - please explain.   Your cousin said it was not necessary to tell me more   Because he was Chosen   And that was enough.   So I gently asked him to please leave now   Because I am at peace with my God and do not want to debate you   Or invite you back to force your God on me.   He said no. I am Chosen and that is that.   Please go now, I replied, and stay with your cousins.   There aren't many left, he replied, so what does it matter?   Politely I begged of him, please leave my land.   I think I will stay forever, he said,   They don't want me anywhere else.   I wonder why, I thought. I extended my hand and I gave him my bread.   He took it and kicked sand in my face.   I asked you, my lifelong friend, why your cousin was behaving so badly   No one likes him, you explained.   He is staying here now. Will he live with you, was my question to you,   And you said that you hoped not, because your God is loving   Your cousin is demanding.   He is political.   He inflicts pain.   Your cousin took my bread and hurt me, I said.   He will be back for more.   But I did not ask him.   Ah, you told me, but he thinks he has the Right of Return.   He can bring his brothers and take your bread at will.   And your land.   And your crops.   And your water.   Be careful.   The grey cloud above became heavy and black   And lightning struck down   And marked a line in the sand   Between you, my lifelong friend, and me.   Your cousin laughed in the distance.   He came back.   And he took my land, my crops, and my water.   Then he took my home.   And then he tried to take my dignity.   He demanded I leave   Because he was growing fatter and needed more room   To grow.   I had nowhere to go.   I did not want to live with my aunts and uncles   As they liked different songs and ate different foods   Their flowers were of a different perfume   And they had their own children. I asked the Wise Men and Elders to decide.   They told me to be a good son, and share.   God will reward.   So I went back   To the big foreign boy   Asked for my land back   And said we should share the crops, the water, the food. But he kicked me again   And laughed   And curled his angry fist in to a ball   And pushed it in to my face.   So I picked up a stick.   When I was down, he kicked me.   So I picked up a stone.   He ran away.   Peace?   The next day he returned with a gun   So I picked up a rock.   He ran away.   Peace?   Then he returned with his friends   Who carried missiles upon their shoulders.   So I found a gun.   They ran away in tears and cried to their Elders, their aunts, their  uncles.   He said that I hated him and told him to fall in to the sea.   I went to my Elders and said   Why does he hate me?   Why does he think I want him to drown in the sea?   I shared my bread with him   I just want him to move away from my house.   The Elders talked and agreed that   The big foreign boy must take his foot   Off my land now   And they left. But your cousin did not.   He put both feet on my land instead   And pointed to the sky.   He grinned as his new toy circled above   The jet with the bomb hanging low   Looking for me.   I cannot move.   If I move my foot away from this land   I will lose my home. I will lose the breath of my ancestors   Who worked the soil with their hands   Their sweat   Their tears   Their joy   Their bones   Their souls.   And now I am surrounded by your cousin and his friends   Who are angry and hungry   Tanks, rifles and jets   Shadow the olive trees.   So I put down the stick.   I put down the stone.   I put down the rock.   I rest the gun. But I will not move my feet from my soil.