Loneliness by Carter Conlon

This is great.  Today we have more lonely people in America than before.  With the distance of families, social networking, Facebook, staring at phones rather than conversations at dinnertime.  Running here and there on this metro, or bus, or alone in your car.  This is encouraging.

Isolated in Syria...Again

Susan Brannon
29 November 2012


Here we go again.  While Syrians are fighting and loosing their lives for democracy.  While the people fight for important freedoms, while there are daily massacres killing men, women and children…the Syrian government decided to shut down the Internet.

Now, it will be impossible to find the truths and realities of the horrible situation in Syria.  It will be difficult to filter out the difference between propaganda that leaks through from the reality.  I call it the media war.  This is a new type of war that destabilizes societies from taking action, from gathering together in protection from gross injustices and isolates people from the rest of the world.

Shutting down communication platforms reduces the resources needed to remain safe, to find refuge for the children by not being able to monitor the movements of those who hold guns and drive tanks who are more than ready to pull the trigger and attack.

The American news is blasting numbers like 2/3rds of the networks are shut down while others report 100%. It doesn't make sense, the Syrian government used the internet as tool for tracking dissidents and rebels.  With this being the case, it could be signs that the Syrian government may be making plans to enter into attack at the rebels. The regime should enter into emergency mode and move forward in their movements with extreme caution.  Already it seems that the country has As a response, EgyptAir canceled flights to Damascus, it is already rumored that the rebels are battling for the airport, and fights broke out all over the capital.

In the past, when Syria shut down the internet in February 2011, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made remarks condemning the shutdown.  Rumors inundated the Internet in the rest of the world and left us wondering what was really going on inside.  America has remained "uninvolved" in the Syrian dilemma and it is a concern that this lack of involvement, sends the wrong message to the government of Syria giving them a carte blanche to do just about anything that they want to do to their people.

Activists told the AP that cell phone networks and landlines were also unavailable in parts of Damascus and this cuts off even more communication to the outside world.

What resources can we use on the outside to try to follow the events in Syria?  Here are a few:
Syria Live Reuters
@Bambuser_Alert Twitter
#Damascus
#Syria


Related Links:

Washington Post 

Intensified Israeli Plans to Expel Palestinian Citizens from Jerusalem

Intensified Israeli Plans to Expel Palestinian Citizens from Jerusalem
September 22, 2004 By MIFTAH
The apartheid wall in Jerusalem is taking on new dimensions, as Israel plans to continue to "offer services" in the affected east Jerusalem neighborhoods. This comes in contradiction to a report published last week that revealed Jerusalem municipal plans to drive out the Palestinian inhabitants of the city.
According to estimates from Al Quds, a Palestinian daily newspaper, 60,000 inhabitants in the neighborhoods of Qalandia, Kufur Aqab, Shufat, Abu Dis and Dahiyat al Barid, will face travel restrictions. Hence, the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality announced plans to establish a new coordinating office in order to facilitate the movement of Jerusalem residency card holders. The plan also includes creating 11 "gates" for the residents of these neighborhoods, which includes the paving of five new roads that will offer greater access. After the completion of the wall, the Israeli Civil Administration will allegedly be implementing the first phase of providing services to those neighborhoods; however, no budgets have been announced to date, which casts doubt on the veracity of such plans ever being implemented. These plans may be a cover for the previous week's announcement that the Jerusalem Municipality is planning to push many of east Jerusalem 's inhabitants out of the city boundaries. The most threatened residents will be those in the Old City of Jerusalem, whom Israel is planning to pay off, according to Issa Samandar of the Palestinian Land Defense Committee, who warned of this imminent danger facing east Jerusalem at press conference last Thursday. Israel will most likely use the exodus of Palestinians from the city to strip them of their residency rights there, hence, denying them any further access to their places of work, study and worship. Samandar, however, is confident that these Israeli plans will not prevail, because people understand fully well what Israel is trying to do and will not stand for it. Israel has always had ambitions to completely control Jerusalem , and in 1991, all covert attempts to do so, suddenly became a reality with the onset of the Gulf War. Curfews were imposed and checkpoints were erected; hence, restrictions of movement began, which gradually worsened to the conditions they are today. Settlements surrounding Jerusalem have also been part of the plan to deny any natural growth and expansion for east Jerusalem neighborhoods. While these settlements have expanded to unprecedented size, nearby Palestinian areas face immense difficulties in obtaining building permits to house ever-expanding families. Palestinians then resort to building without permits, and live in perpetual fear of seeing their homes being demolished by Israeli bulldozers. While the route of the apartheid wall will allegedly enable some east Jerusalem residents to retain their rights in the city, many Jerusalem District villages will not be so "fortunate". The wall will completely isolate villages such as Bido, not only from Jerusalem itself, but also from the surrounding villages. This is catastrophic for these villages, as Bido has been central to their livelihood, their children's schooling and immediate access to basic health care.

Israel raises wall on Jerusalem - West Bank Road

After the War...? Israel raises wall on Jerusalem - West Bank Road
Reuters Posted Sept, 3 2004
By Cynthia Johnston AR-RAM, West Bank, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Israel erected the first sections of a towering concrete wall on the middle of a main street linking Jerusalem to the West Bank on Thursday, adding to growing Palestinian feelings of isolation and gloom. The construction came days after two suicide bombers who sneaked into Israel from the West Bank killed 16 people in twin explosions on buses in the southern town of Beersheba . Witnesses said workers protected by soldiers and armed guards came overnight and began raising the 6-metre high blocks down the divide of the urban street as residents and merchants watched in silence.
The wall will cut off Palestinians living on one side of the street in East Jerusalem , captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move not recognised internationally, from neighbours across the road in the West Bank . "They did it today because of the (suicide) attack, without a doubt," said lawyer Muhammad Dahleh, who is representing ar-Ram residents in Israel 's High Court. " Israel thinks now the international community will not be as aggressive in criticising this wall, which is being built in the middle of Palestinian society." Israel says the partially completed barrier, a network of razor-tipped fencing and concrete walls, is necessary to block its cities to suicide bombers, who have killed more than 450 Israelis during a nearly four-year-old Palestinian uprising. Palestinians call the barrier, which the World Court has ruled illegal, a land grab on territory they seek for a state. Israel 's Defence Ministry and army had no immediate comment. Israel 's High Court has yet to issue a final ruling on the course of the wall in ar-Ram. 'KILLING US SLOWLY' Palestinians living and working on the West Bank side of the street -- who for the past three months have watched bulldozers tear up the street and workers lay the groundwork for the wall -- said they felt hopeless. "They are burying people alive. The people here are conscious and they are putting us in the ground ... This is killing us slowly," said ar-Ram tyre dealer Nabil, whose shop is just across the street from one of two new sections of wall. Palestinians say the wall in ar-Ram will cut off from Jerusalem tens of thousands of Palestinians -- many of them legal residents of the city who moved to the suburbs as their families expanded. Israel said in July it would reroute the barrier closer to its boundary with occupied territory under an Israeli High Court order that Palestinians must not be cut off from their lands. But the court said Israel may erect the barrier on land it considers "disputed". It was not immediately clear how the ruling would affect the barrier around East Jerusalem . Palestinians said they expected the ar-Ram wall to be completed within days if work to raise it, which stopped early in the morning, resumes nightly. "I was shocked. It is as if the whole world changed," said Taleb Abu Aysha as he drank tea in his butcher shop on the West Bank side of the street. He feared he would have to close his shop for lack of customers. "Economically and spiritually, this wall kills people," he said. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02322456.htm

Gush Etzion

Gush Etzion
Susan Brannon
August 2004

"The revised route of the West Bank separation fence in the Gush Etzion region will penetrate deeply into the West Bank in order to encompass 10 Israeli settlements with some 50,000 residents, and four Palestinian villages with some 18,000 residents. A sizable amount of Palestinian land in the Bethlehem area will also end up on the Israeli side of the fence."
New fence route grabs in 50,000 Gush Etzion settlers and 18,000 Palestinian villagers 30.12.2004 | 10:48 Aluf Benn The revised route of the West Bank separation fence in the Gush Etzion region will penetrate deeply into the West Bank in order to encompass 10 Israeli settlements with some 50,000 residents, and four Palestinian villages with some 18,000 residents. A sizable amount of Palestinian land in the Bethlehem area will also end up on the Israeli side of the fence. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will bring the revised route of the separation fence around Gush Etzion and the South Hebron Hills to the cabinet for approval next month, following the January 9 election for a new Palestinian Authority chairman.
The route's approval could spark conflict between Israel and the new Palestinian leadership.The route was revised following a June 30 High Court of Justice ruling that invalidated a different section of the fence, on the grounds that it caused too much harm to local Palestinians. The revisions are designed to reduce the hardship that the fence will cause to Palestinian villagers in the Gush Etzion area, in the hope of enabling it to survive the High Court's scrutiny.
For the same reason, the revised plan also includes more crossing points in the fence and longer opening hours for these crossings. In the South Hebron Hills region, the new route will run along the Green Line, whereas the old route had curved into the West Bank to encompass five Israeli settlements, thereby also swallowing a sizable amount of Palestinian land. It was approved by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz in October, but Sharon did not want to bring it to the cabinet until he could also bring the new Gush Etzion route.
Government sources said that this "package deal" has two purposes: To soften international criticism of the Gush Etzion section by linking it with the concessions in the South Hebron Hills region, and to mute rightist criticism of these concessions by linking it to the enclosure of the Gush Etzion settlements.Work on the Gush Etzion section is slated to start this spring. The new route, the product of intensive discussions between the Defense and Justice ministries, will be presented to Sharon next week.