Arafat, Qrei' make up

by Omar Karmi PRIME MINISTER Ahmed Qrei' on July 27 rescinded his resignation ten days after he tendered it, after an emergency meeting with President Yasser Arafat apparently brought the government crisis to an end. “President Arafat demonstrated his confidence in me by rejecting my resignation. I value this confidence that he has placed in me and I will therefore continue in my role,” Qrei' said to reporters after the meeting. For his part, Arafat stressed the need to consolidate Palestinian ranks to confront the challenges facing the Palestinian people. He also criticized the media for focusing too much on the crisis and not enough on “Israeli crimes.” The meeting is reported to have ended in agreement to adopt the reform document issued by the Legislative Council in May 2002, and the Cabinet is to assume control over the police and preventive security service. It was also agreed during the meeting that Legislative Council would hold a special session next week to determine the work and responsibilities of the three security apparatuses, though, according to foreign minister Nabil Shaath, the recent appointments in the security agencies were not discussed. Shaath also said no Cabinet reshuffle would take place at the moment. Legislative Council member, Hanan Ashrawi, who earlier in the week had called for an end to the “one-man-show,” and who was present at the July 27 meeting, said Arafat had authorized Qrei' to take measures against corrupt officials. Minister for Negotiations Affairs Saeb Erekat said Arafat had already instructed the Attorney General to expedite work on corruption files that had been transferred from the government and vowed that there would be no immunity for any official in this respect. Egypt welcomed the outcome of the meeting – “It is a useful development,” the Associated Press quoted Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Maher as saying on July 27 – after earlier in the week on July 21 having to deny a newspaper report in the London-based Al Quds Al Arabi that hinted at a possible Egyptian role in the Gaza protests. On July 21, a presidential spokesperson reaffirmed Cairo 's position that “without Arafat the Palestinian cause will not be solved.” Before meeting Egyptian officials in Cairo on July 28, however, US Secretary of State Colin Powell greeted the agreement with some skepticism. “President Arafat is the master of the ambiguous statement or the statement with the yo-yo string on it. It gets pulled back,” Powell said. “We're looking for action. When we see that (Qrei') has real authority over the security forces and is taking action to make them more effective and efficient, make them more competent and is taking action against terrorism, then we'll be convinced.” The meeting followed a week in which unrest in the Gaza Strip had calmed but not disappeared. On July 25, dozens of armed men took over the Khan Yunis Governorate headquarters demanding the reappointment of members of the security services who had been dismissed. On July 22, Fateh organized a large demonstration in Gaza City in which thousands, many armed, marched through the streets to the Legislative Council building. Addressing the crowd, leading Fateh figure, Samir Masharawi said the movement would continue its demonstrations to remove corruption. He also cautioned protestors, however, that “disagreement does not have to be fighting,” and called on all to desist from attacking any institutions. On July 21, a special commission of the Legislative Council, headed by Marwan Kanafani, and including Ziad Abu Amr, Abu Ali Shaheen, Azmi Shueibi, Hasan Asfour and Imad Falouji, had called on Arafat to accept the resignation of the government because it had failed to assume its duties under the Basic Law, the temporary Constitution. The political turmoil overshadowed the violence, which nevertheless continued apace. On July 21, ten houses were destroyed in Rafah by Israeli forces, and the day after, July 22, two members of Islamic Jihad 's military wing, Al Quds Brigades, were assassinated in the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City by missiles fired from Israeli helicopters. On July 24, a 17-year-old was shot and killed in Beit Hanoun, and five further houses were demolished in Rafah. An incursion into Tulkarm on July 25 by an Israeli special forces unit left six members of Fateh's military wing, the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, dead. According to residents, the Israeli army surrounded the house after the shootings and prevented ambulances from reaching the wounded. On the same day, Israeli Apache helicopters also shelled an empty house in the Zaitoun neighborhood, injuring four bystanders, and 12 children were injured by shelling in the Khan Yunis area, after a Qassem rocket had hit the Gush Katif settlement, wounding seven settlers. Also in Khan Yunis, a woman, 50, and a girl, 12, were killed on July 26 in the besieged town of Beit Hanoun . According to residents, the two were killed and several wounded, when Israeli troops opened fire at homes in the town now in its 29th day under siege. -Published July 28, 2004©Palestine Report http://www.palestinereport.org/article.php?article=446

Militants Force Palestinian Family Into an Agonizing Choice

Militants Force Palestinian Family Into an Agonizing Choice
By JOSEPH BERGER Published: July 24, 2004
ERUSALEM, July 23 - The Zanin family of the Gaza Strip faced a familiar, and agonizing, choice: whether to let Palestinian militants use their land to fire mortar shells at Israel , and risk having their home razed in retaliation by Israeli troops. They balked, and ended up losing one of their own, a 15-year-old boy.
For days, militants used the family's orange and olive groves in the Gaza village of Beit Hanun to set up launchers. On Friday, four members of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, an armed branch of Yasir Arafat's Fatah movement, returned to try to set up a launcher in front of the family's house. The family protested, said Amna al-Zanin, a member of the family. The militants drew weapons. Three shot into the air, but a fourth fired directly at the family, wounding Ms. Zanin and hitting her 15-year-old nephew, Hassan al-Zanin. He died later at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City ; doctors said the bullet had penetrated his heart. "Even if we ask them not to fire from our land, that doesn't give them permission to shoot at us," Ms. Zanin said in a telephone interview from her bed at Alawdah Hospital in Jabaliya. "It's very painful that a Palestinian bullet was directed toward a Palestinian chest." Her 18-year-old nephew was hit in an ear, and her 20-year-old nephew was struck in the hand. Ms. Zanin is no friend of the Israelis. She was interviewed 10 days ago about conditions in Beit Hanun during an Israeli incursion, and she angrily described how children in her clan could not sleep at night and were frightened much of the day. "I wish I could be a fighter to shoot at Israelis," she said then. "I am willing to explode myself out of anger." Militants have launched rockets and other missiles from Beit Hanun at nearby villages in Israel like Sederot. Last month a rocket killed a 3-year-old Israeli boy on his way to kindergarten and a 50-year-old Bukharan immigrant from the former Soviet Union . Israeli forces responded by blocking off roads, bulldozing fruit trees used as cover and sending patrols into Beit Hanun. Militants responded by seeking new vantage points. Ms. Zanin described Hassan as the best student in his grade and said he was supposed to attend a party on Saturday and receive an award for academic excellence. She said Friday that none of the militants who had used the family's land had ever been as reckless as the four this morning. A Palestinian Authority security official confirmed that Israelis had not been involved in the killing of Hassan al-Zanin. "The Palestinians have no power to stop such a phenomenon," he said. "The authority has its own internal problems." He speculated that the clan was particularly angry at the militants because members had lost a house, a car and part of an orchard in a previous Israeli retaliation. "The people have started to have the courage the face the militants," the official said. Israeli military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the broad outlines of the Beit Hanun killing and emphasized that their soldiers had no involvement. "This is part of a growing trend, where residents are exasperated with gunmen," one official said. "We saw it in Rafah, where people were angry at the militants building tunnels under their houses. And in Nablus , where the residents weren't sorry that we were arresting the bad guys in their neighborhood." Hundreds of residents in Beit Hanun demonstrated last year to protest the launching of rockets from their town by militants, though the militants who bore the brunt of the anger then were from Hamas, which is frequently at odds with Fatah. According to news reports at the time, 600 demonstrators marched down the main street, burning tires and chanting slogans against Hamas, saying that because of its activity, the Israeli Army was destroying their orchards and their homes. One of those quoted at the time was Omar Zanin, who said: "We've had enough, because the people here have paid a very heavy price. The Israelis have turned our lives into hell because of the rockets." The latest death, according to Agence France-Presse, brings to 4,189 the number of people killed since the start of the current Palestinian uprising, or intifada, in September 2000. The toll includes 3,192 Palestinians and 926 Israelis. Early Friday morning, Israeli forces and intelligence agents raided Yatta, a village south of Hebron in the West Bank , and arrested Mahmud Mahmed Abu Hutza, a militant they had been seeking for more than two years in the killing of five people. The army official said that in July 2002 in the Mount Hebron region, he had fired shots at two Israeli cars, killing three settlers and an army escort. The following October, the army official said, Mr. Abu Hutza staged an attack at the Zif junction, south of Hebron, killing one Israeli and wounding two other people. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/24/international/middleeast/24mide.html?th

Abu Ghraib, Whitewashed

Abu Ghraib, Whitewashed
Published: July 24, 2004
A week ago, John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was satisfied that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was keeping his promise to leave no stone unturned to investigate the atrocities of Abu Ghraib prison. A newly released report by the Army's inspector general shows that Mr. Rumsfeld's team may be turning over stones, but it's not looking under them.
The authors of this 300-page whitewash say they found no "systemic" problem - even though there were 94 documented cases of prisoner abuse, including some 40 deaths, 20 of them homicides; even though only four prisons of the 16 they visited had copies of the Geneva Conventions; even though Abu Ghraib was a cesspool with one shower for every 50 inmates; even though the military police were improperly involved in interrogations; even though young people plucked from civilian life were sent to guard prisoners - 50,000 of them in all - with no training. Never mind any of that. The report pins most of the blame on those depressingly familiar culprits, a few soldiers who behaved badly. It does grudgingly concede that "in some cases, abuse was accompanied by leadership failure at the tactical level," but the report absolves anyone of rank, in keeping with the investigation's spirit. The inspector general's staff did not dig into the abuse cases, but merely listed them. It based its findings on the comical observation that "commanders, leaders and soldiers treated detainees humanely" while investigators from the Pentagon were watching. And it made no attempt to find out who had authorized threatening prisoners with dogs and sexually humiliating hooded men, to name two American practices the Red Cross found to be common. The inspector general's see-no-evil team simply said it couldn't find those "approach techniques" in the Army field manual. Even the report's release on Thursday was an exercise in misdirection, timed to be overshadowed by the 9/11 commission's report. Senators on the armed services panel were outraged at the report's shoddiness and timing, but should not have been surprised. The Defense Department has consistently tried to stymie Mr. Warner's investigation. It "misplaced" thousands of pages from Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba's report on Abu Ghraib, the only credible military account so far. It stalled the completion of a pivotal look at Army intelligence by two other Army generals until lawmakers went off to the political conventions and summer vacations. And it ignored Senate demands for the Red Cross reports on American military prisons for months. The Pentagon finally brought those documents to the Senate in the last two weeks, in a way that ensured they would be of minimal use. The voluminous reports were shown briefly to senators and a few members of the Armed Services Committee staff after the senators' personal aides were ushered out. Then the reports were hauled back to the Pentagon. Mr. Warner has admirably resisted pressure from the White House and Republican leaders in Congress to stop his investigation. But he is showing signs of losing appetite for the fight. Mr. Warner held only one hearing in the last month - on the new report - and agreed to the ground rules on the Red Cross reports. We've always been skeptical that the Defense Department can investigate itself credibly, and now it's obvious that it plans to stick to the "few bad apples" excuse. The only way to learn why innocent Iraqis were tortured by American soldiers is a formal Congressional inquiry, with subpoena power. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/24/opinion/24sat1.html?th

Hostages and beheading Susan Brannon July 22
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 21 -" Insurgents said Wednesday that they had kidnapped six more foreign hostages and threatened to behead one every 72 hours unless their employer shut down operations in Iraq." Reports The New York Times by Ian Fisher.
This is a new kind of war we have here Kidnappings, beheading, target bombing by suicide. Reporters are risking their lives by going into the area to report to you what is going on over there. I won't go. I've been there, but I won't go now. There is good money to be made for Amerian businessmen in Iraq, developing a country and its infastructure is costly but profitable. Is it really worth ones life? Every foreign worker that I met in Baghdad was earning in the three digit bracket. Good income for a years work. Ian further reports, " Foreigners working for companies employed by the American military have been a frequent target among the dozens of kidnappings in Iraq since April, when violence in Iraq spiked to its highest level." "We have warned all the countries, companies, businessmen and truck drivers that those who deal with American cowboy occupiers will be targeted by the fires of the mujahedeen," The Associated Press reported. Funny I have a photograph of an Iraqi holding a tabloid cover of Bush, referring to him as a cowboy. This photo was taken in October of last year. Thus the Americans are now labeled as "cowboys". The Iraqis, are happy to be free from the dictatorship under Sadam, but they want to earn their own money and build their own country. At least that is what most of the population told me. Now, the civil war has begun, as predicted. Different fractions are now wanting to be in charge, to rule and create thier own Iraq. Boy have we started a mess. "Here you are once again transporting, goods, weapons and military equipment that backs the United States Army." now the other countries are involved, their soldiers and lives. What is the cost? more on cost..later.... reference article: (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/22/international/middleeast/22iraq.html?)

interview with Sakher Habash

Corruption should never be replaced with corruption” an interview with Sakher Habash
This week Palestine Report Online interviews Sakher Habash, member of Fateh's executive committee and coordinator for the Palestinian national forces, on the security situation in Gaza .
PR: What are the most recent developments with regards to the political crisis within the Palestinian leadership and the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in particular?  Habash: The crisis is not between the Palestinian Authority and the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades because there is no one body bearing the Brigades' name. There are several different statements being released by various groups under the name of the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and there are contradictions in the content of these statements – some parties adhere to the party line of the Aqsa Martyrs while others do not. Therefore, we must distinguish between those who are self-proclaimed Aqsa Martyrs members and the true Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
I think the most recent statement, issued under the name of the Aqsa Martyrs about the attack on Palestinian Authority positions and the abduction of [police chief] Ghazi Jabali, is not really from the Brigades. The reason is that the true Aqsa Brigades adhere to the political line of Fateh. The Brigades have their own philosophy when it comes to resisting and striking at the occupation, which varies slightly from that of Fateh's, but on the issue of fighting corruption, the Aqsa Martyrs adhere to Fateh's line. I think the events we have seen recently are an attempt to spark a civil war and that those behind it are at the root of the corruption, claiming to be the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The current crisis, therefore, is not with the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades but with suspicious groups trying to shake the stability and security of the region in order to deliver a blow to the Palestinian Authority. PR: What can we do about the lack of security and rule of law in the Palestinian street?  Habash: The state of security chaos is a result of the failure to deal with problems from their inception. The popular saying goes, “treat your wound and it won't fester.” Corruption leads to more corruption and the state that we are in has occurred because of a few corrupt people who strive for material and financial goals that benefit only them. This situation in Palestinian society in which there is no rule of law, necessitates a strong and solid stance. We need more competent and trustworthy officials to be appointed in order to get matters under control. The honest and powerful should be running things not the deceitful and powerful, such as Jabali. His shamelessness has ultimately led to his weakness. In the end he was delivered a blow in his own workplace. One corrupt person should never be replaced with another. And any replacement should not be on the grounds of personal loyalties but rather loyalty towards the Palestinian cause. I should not appoint someone just because of his loyalty to me in disregard of his faults. The focus of the meeting today [July 20] with President Arafat was that the crisis calls for national unity on a sound and stable basis. We need honest people with integrity. PR: What is Fateh's role in reversing this state of chaos?  Habash: Fateh is calling for national unity and a unified stance in the Palestinian street. [Prime Minister] Abu Ala ' [Ahmad Qrei'] has said that he is convinced this state of chaos is the result of accumulation of going easy on vigilante groups and undisciplined militias. The groups that carry out corrupt actions must have their covers blown and Abu Ammar must be at the helm of this action, followed by the joint national forces. They must stand hand in hand and talk with the same tongue. They must also specify the exact nature of the corruption in order to get a real hold over the security situation. PR: What decisions were take when the Fateh Central Committee met with the national security council?  Habash: Our first decision was that Ghazi Jabali's resignation should never have been accepted. Rather, he should have been expelled from his position and a clean and honest person put in his place as the head of the police service. Saeb Al Ajez was chosen and he is a competent and clean man. As for Musa Arafat, there was a campaign against him because of some of his actions, namely land-taking, which indicates corruption. In my opinion, the choice of Musa Arafat was not a sound one. But, President Arafat is using his authority and he will have to bear the consequences of this decision. I think the people who rose up against the appointment of Musa Arafat are mostly people more clearly involved in corruption. Some are even involved with the Israeli occupation. When Abu Ammar wants to carry out reforms, he must choose the right people and put them in the appropriate positions at the right time. PR: Do you think that this wave of kidnappings signifies a new approach for some factions?  Habash: The people who carried out these abductions were gangs and their actions were criminal, especially when they attacked former police chief Jabali. How could his position as head of the police service be belittled in this way? This has opened the door to chaos in the Palestinian street. Now, we must reverse the mistake these groups have committed - a mistake which has actually given credence to the recent statements of [ UNenvoy] Terje Larson's about the Palestinians. His statements are in fact correct - we must fight the corrupt elements, which are allowing the world to say that the Palestinians should be put behind a security wall. PR: Is the Authority going to remove Musa Arafat because of the people's rejection of his appointment?  Habash: That is up to Abu Ammar. PR: Do you feel that the latest reforms were basically a reaction to what happened?  Habash: These changes were already on the table before all these events occurred. Unfortunately, however, the decisions were made at an inappropriate time. We hope that decisions will always be taken within the PA as actions and not just reactions because this is how things should operate. -Published July 21, 2004©Palestine Report http://www.palestinereport.org/article.php?article=441

Poverty Fuels Anger

Poverty Fuels Anger
Wednesday July 21, 2004   The Guardian As gunfire crackled nearby between between groups of Palestinian gunmen disputing who should head the police in Gaza , Ahmed Kaskin could only wonder at the cost of the ammunition and what the money could do for his family.   If one of his six sons was drawing a policeman's wage, he might have been more partisan.   "If I was employed or one of my sons was employed, I might think differently. But I can only look from the outside and all I can see is angry people around me cut off from that money," he said.
Mr Kaskin, 57, has six adult sons and he has tried repeatedly to get one of them a job with the Palestinian Authority's dozen security agencies.   After the last failed attempt, last month, a neighbour told him to stop complaining. "You know how it works. You have $500 or $1,000 and you pay the right person. You don't have the money so forget about it," he recalled.   The spate of kidnappings and gun battles that have occurred in the last week come against the backdrop of a power struggle precipitated by the Israeli plan to withdraw its settlements from the territory.   They are, in part, about political discontent with the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Yasser Arafat, and the struggle between armed groups associated with the authority and its dominant faction, Fatah, for control of the authority's resources.
These resources in turn come from the European Union and the Gulf states.   It is these resources that Mr Kaskin and the majority of Gazans who live in extreme poverty can only access, he says, with bribes they cannot afford. As a result they have little interest in the outcome.   "Look at who is firing the guns. They are not supporting the people, they are just trying to protect their jobs. The better they support their chief the more likely they are to keep their jobs and get advantages in the future," Mr Kaskin said.   He sits at the head of a family of 44 who live in a roughly built, concrete and asbestos house in the middle of the Shati refugee camp, known as Beach Camp, which stands next to Gaza City 's small hotel strip and its upmarket Rimal district.   "We sleep together packed like rats," said his wife, Majdia.   He was once a fisherman but is now an invalid and must attempt to raise funds to pay for a back operation in Egypt . In Gaza 's third world economy, a job as a police officer means a guaranteed income of $200 (=A3108) per month. Even for such a large family, a single wage would mean the difference between surviving and living.   While Mr Kaskin rails against the corruption of the authority, it is clear that he would rail less if he received more.   "I have six sons. Would Ghazi Jabali [the police chief who was kidnapped and fired by Yasser Arafat] give one a job? No. One was selected for training but he was not picked. We were devastated.   "If you want a job you pay. If you want to breathe you pay. We feel so out of the circle. We are just forced to watch. I am so angry about it but if I expressed my anger, it would do no good and I might land in jail," he said.   The family are divided about who could improve the situation. Mr Kaskin and his 29-year-old son, Muhammad, think that Muhammad Dahlan, a former head of one of the security agencies and an independent power in Gaza , backed by Israel and the United States , would be fairer. "Dahlan would be the best because he is a refugee and would represent us better," said Mr Kaskin.  (Conal Urquhart in Gaza City: The Guardian Wed. 21 July)

Bush 'Didn't Tell the Truth'

The O'Reilly Factor
Fox News Moore : Bush 'Didn't Tell the Truth' Wednesday, July 28, 2004
BOSTON — This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," July 27, 2004 that has been edited for clarity. Watch "The O'Reilly Factor" weeknights at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET and listen to the "Radio Factor!" It was a match-up the media and political observers have longed for. No, not George W. Bush against John Kerry. It's Michael Moore (search) against Bill O'Reilly. Moore, the director who made "Fahrenheit 9/11" (search) and created one of the election season's biggest uproars, said he wouldn't go on "The O'Reilly Factor" until O'Reilly saw the entire movie. And he said any conversation would have to be aired without any editing and with the opportunity for Moore to ask O'Reilly questions. All of the demands were met and Moore sat down with O'Reilly in the FOX News skybox high about the floor of the Democratic National Convention. Following is the full transcript of their meeting:
MICHAEL MOORE, FILMMAKER: That's fair. We'll just stick to the issues. BILL O'REILLY, HOST: The issues… all right good. Now, one of the issues is you because you've been calling Bush a liar on weapons of mass destruction, the Senate Intelligence Committee, Lord Butler's investigation in Britain and now the 9/11 Commission have all come out and said there was no lying on the part of President Bush. Plus, Vladimir Putin has said his intelligence told Bush there were weapons of mass destruction. Wanna apologize to the president now or later? MOORE : He didn't tell the truth, he said there were weapons of mass destruction. O'REILLY: Yeah, but he didn't lie, he was misinformed by — all of those investigations come to the same conclusion. That's not a lie. MOORE : Uh huh. So, in other words, if I told you right now that nothing was going on down here on the stage… O'REILLY: That would be a lie because we could see that wasn't the truth. MOORE: Well, I'd have to turn around to see it and then I would realize, oh Bill, I just told you something that wasn't true… actually it's President Bush that needs to apologize to the nation for telling an entire country that there were weapons of mass destruction, that they had evidence of this and that there was some sort of connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11th, and he used that as a… O'REILLY: OK, He never said that, but back to the other thing: If you, if Michael Moore is president… MOORE : I thought you said you saw the movie? I show all that in the movie. O'REILLY: Which may happen if Hollywood , yeah, OK, fine… MOORE : But that was your question… O'REILLY: Just the issues. You've got three separate investigations plus the president of Russia all saying… British intelligence, U.S. intelligence, Russian intelligence, told the president there were weapons of mass destruction; you say he lied. This is not a lie if you believe it to be true, now he may have made a mistake, which is obvious… MOORE : Well, that's almost pathological. I mean, many criminals believe what they say is true; they could pass a lie detector test… O'REILLY: All right, now you're dancing around a question… MOORE : No, I'm not. There's no dancing. O'REILLY: He didn't lie. MOORE : He said something that wasn't true. O'REILLY: Based upon bad information given to him by legitimate sources. MOORE : Now you know that they went to the CIA, Cheney went to the CIA, they wanted that information, they wouldn't listen to anybody. O'REILLY: They wouldn't go by Russian intelligence and Blair's intelligence too. MOORE : His own people told him. I mean, he went to Richard Clarke the day after September 11th and said, “What you got on Iraq ?” and Richard Clarke's going “Oh well this wasn't Iraq that did this sir, this was Al Qaeda.” O'REILLY: You're diverting the issue… did you read Woodward's book? MOORE : No, I haven't read his book. O'REILLY: Woodward's a good reporter, right? Good guy, you know who he is right? MOORE : I know who he is. O'REILLY: OK, he says in his book George Tenet looked the president in the eye, like how I am looking you in the eye right now and said, “President, weapons of mass destruction are a quote, end quote, ‘slam dunk.'” If you're the president, you ignore all that? MOORE : Yeah, I would say that the CIA had done a pretty poor job. O'REILLY: I agree. The lieutenant was fired. MOORE : Yeah, but not before they took us to war based on his intelligence. This is a man who ran the CIA, a CIA that was so poorly organized and run that it wouldn't communicate with the FBI before September 11th and as a result in part we didn't have a very good intelligence system set up before September 11th. O'REILLY: Nobody disputes that... MOORE : OK, so he screws up September 11th. Why would you then listen to him, he says this is a “slam dunk” and your going to go to war. O'REILLY: You've got MI-6 and Russian intelligence because they're all saying the same thing that's why. You're not going to apologize to Bush, you are going to continue to call him a liar. MOORE : Oh, he lied to the nation, Bill, I can't think of a worse thing to do for a president to lie to a country to take them to war. I mean, I don't know a worse… O'REILLY: It wasn't a lie. MOORE : He did not tell the truth, what do you call that? O'REILLY: I call that bad information, acting on bad information; not a lie. MOORE : A seven year old can get away with that… O'REILLY: All right, your turn to ask me a question… MOORE : “Mom and Dad it was just bad information…” O'REILLY: I'm not going to get you to admit it wasn't a lie. Go ahead. MOORE : It was a lie, and now, which leads us to my question. O'REILLY: OK. MOORE : Over 900 of our brave soldiers are dead. What do you say to their parents? O'REILLY: What do I say to their parents? I say what every patriotic American would say: “We are proud of your sons and daughters. They answered the call that their country gave them. We respect them and we feel terrible that they were killed.” MOORE : But what were they killed for? O'REILLY: They were removing a brutal dictator who himself killed hundreds of thousands of people. MOORE : Um, but that was not the reason that was given to them to go to war: to remove a brutal dictator. O'REILLY: Well, we're back to the weapons of mass destruction. MOORE : But that was the reason… O'REILLY: The weapons of mass destruction… MOORE : That we were told we were under some sort of imminent threat… O'REILLY: That's right. MOORE : And there was no threat, was there? O'REILLY: It was a mistake. MOORE : Oh, just a mistake, and that's what you tell all the parents with a deceased child, “We're sorry.” I don't think that is good enough. O'REILLY: I don't think its good enough either for those parents. MOORE : So we agree on that. O'REILLY: But that is the historical nature of what happened. MOORE : Bill, if I made a mistake and I said something or did something as a result of my mistake but it resulted in the death of your child, how would you feel towards me? O'REILLY: It depends on whether the mistake was unintentional. MOORE : No, not intentional, it was a mistake. O'REILLY: Then if it was an unintentional mistake I cannot hold you morally responsible for that. MOORE : Really, I'm driving down the road and I hit your child and your child is dead. O'REILLY: If it were unintentional and you weren't impaired or anything like that. MOORE : So, that's all it is, if it was alcohol, even though it was a mistake — how would you feel towards me O'REILLY: OK, now we are wandering. MOORE : No, but my point is… O'REILLY: I saw what your point is and I answered your question. MOORE : But why? What did they die for? O'REILLY: They died to remove a brutal dictator who had killed hundreds of thousands of people… MOORE : No, that was not the reason… O'REILLY: That's what they died for… MOORE : …they were given… O'REILLY: The weapons of mass destruction was a mistake. MOORE : Well there were 30 other brutal dictators in this world… O'REILLY: Alright, I've got anther question… MOORE : Would you sacrifice — just finish on this — would you sacrifice your child to remove one of the other 30 brutal dictators on this planet? O'REILLY: Depends what the circumstances were. MOORE : You would sacrifice your child? O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself — I'm not talking for any children —to remove the Taliban. Would you? MOORE : Uh huh. O'REILLY: Would you? That's my next question. Would you sacrifice yourself to remove the Taliban? MOORE : I would be willing to sacrifice my life to track down the people that killed 3,000 people on our soil. O'REILLY: Al Qaeda was given refuge by the Taliban. MOORE : But we didn't go after them, did we? O'REILLY: We removed the Taliban and killed three quarters of Al Qaeda. MOORE : That's why the Taliban are still killing our soldiers there. O'REILLY: OK, well look you can't kill everybody. You wouldn't have invaded Afghanistan — you wouldn't have invaded Afghanistan , would you? MOORE : No, I would have gone after the man that killed 3,000 people. O'REILLY: How? MOORE : As Richard Clarke says, our special forces were prohibited for two months from going to the area that we believed Usama was… O'REILLY: Why was that? MOORE : That's my question. O'REILLY: Because Pakistan didn't want its territory of sovereignty violated. MOORE : Not his was in Afghanistan , on the border, we didn't go there. He got a two-month head start. O'REILLY: All right, you would not have removed the Taliban. You would not have removed that government? MOORE : No, unless it is a threat to us. O'REILLY: Any government? Hitler, in Germany , not a threat to us the beginning but over there executing people all day long — you would have let him go? MOORE : That's not true. Hitler with Japan , attacked the United States . O'REILLY: From '33 until '41, he wasn't an imminent threat to the United States . MOORE : There's a lot of things we should have done. O'REILLY: You wouldn't have removed him. MOORE : I wouldn't have even allowed him to come to power. O'REILLY: That was a preemption from Michael Moore. You would have invaded. MOORE : If we'd done our job, you want to get into to talking about what happened before WWI, whoa, I'm trying to stop this war right now. O'REILLY: I know you are but… MOORE : Are you against that? Stopping this war? O'REILLY: No, we cannot leave Iraq right now, we have to… MOORE : So, you would sacrifice your child to secure Fallujah? I want to hear you say that. O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself.. MOORE : Your child? It's Bush sending the children there. O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself. MOORE : You and I don't go to war, because we're too old… O'REILLY: Because if we back down, there will be more deaths and you know it. MOORE : Say, “I, Bill O'Reilly, would sacrifice my child to secure Fallujah.” O'REILLY: I'm not going to say what you say, you're a, that's ridiculous… MOORE : You don't believe that. Why should Bush sacrifice the children of people across America for this? O'REILLY: Look it's a worldwide terrorism — I know that escapes you — MOORE : Wait a minute, terrorism? Iraq ? O'REILLY: Yes. There are terrorist in Iraq . MOORE : Oh really? So Iraq now is responsible for the terrorism here? O'REILLY: Iraq aided terrorists. Don't you know anything about any of that? MOORE : So, you're saying Iraq is responsible for what? O'REILLY: I'm saying that Saddam Hussein aided all day long. MOORE : You're not going to get me to defend Saddam Hussein. O'REILLY: I'm not? You're his biggest defender in the media. MOORE : Now come on. O'REILLY: Look, if you were running he would still be sitting there. MOORE : How do you know that? O'REILLY: If you were running the country, he'd still be sitting there. MOORE : How do you know that? O'REILLY: You wouldn't have removed him. MOORE : Look, let me tell you something in the 1990s look at all the brutal dictators that were removed. Things were done; you take any of a number of countries whether its Eastern Europe , the people rose up. South Africa the whole world boycotted… O'REILLY: When Reagan was building up the arms, you were against that. MOORE : And the dictators were gone. Building up the arms did not cause the fall of Eastern Europe . O'REILLY: Of course it did, it bankrupted the Soviet Union and then it collapsed. MOORE : The people rose up. O'REILLY: Why? Because they went bankrupt. MOORE : the same way we did in our country, the way we had our revolution. People rose up… O'REILLY: All right, all right. MOORE : …that's how you, let me ask you this question. O'REILLY: One more. MOORE : How do you deliver democracy to a country? You don't do it down the barrel of a gun. That's not how you deliver it. O'REILLY: You give the people some kind of self-determination, which they never would have had under Saddam… MOORE : Why didn't they rise up? O'REILLY: Because they couldn't, it was a Gestapo-led place where they got their heads cut off… MOORE : Well that's true in many countries throughout the world… O'REILLY: It is, it's a shame… MOORE : …and you know what people have done, they've risen up. You can do it in a number of ways . You can do it our way through a violent revolution, which we won, the French did it that way. You can do it by boycotting South Africa , they overthrew the dictator there. There's many ways… O'REILLY: I'm glad we've had this discussion because it just shows you that I see the world my way, you see the world your way, alright and the audience is watching us here and they can decide who is right and who is wrong and that's the fair way to do it. Right? MOORE : Right, I would not sacrifice my child to secure Fallujah and you would? O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself. MOORE : You wouldn't send another child, another parents child to Fallujah, would you? You would sacrifice your life to secure Fallujah? O'REILLY: I would. MOORE : Can we sign him up? Can we sign him up right now? O'REILLY: That's right. MOORE : Where's the recruiter? O'REILLY: You'd love to get rid of me. MOORE : No, I want you to live. I want you to live. O'REILLY: I appreciate that Michael Moore everybody. There he is.

Israel to Expand Biggest West Bank Settlement

Israel to Expand Biggest West Bank Settlement
By Mark Heinrich JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has approved 600 new housing units for the West Bank 's biggest Jewish settlement despite an understanding with Washington not to expand enclaves on occupied land, political sources said Monday. But no building tenders have been published since the decision two months ago and security sources said the United States , Israel 's main ally and key mediator in its conflict with Palestinians, would be consulted before construction began. The plan would add homes to Maale Adumim, a sprawling, suburban-style settlement with 30,000 people. Located a few km (miles) east of Jerusalem , it straddles the mid-section of territory that Palestinians seek for a viable independent state
Political sources conceded the plan could breach an understanding with the United States not to erect more homes beyond existing built-up zones in West Bank settlements. Palestinian officials condemned the move as a violation of a U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan which mandates a freeze on settlement expansion to help make way for Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "This is in total defiance of the road map ... and total defiance of ( U.S. ) President (George W.) Bush's vision. Settlements and peace do not go together," Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat said.
Political sources conceded the plan could breach an understanding with the United States not to erect more homes beyond existing built-up zones in West Bank settlements. Palestinian officials condemned the move as a violation of a U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan which mandates a freeze on settlement expansion to help make way for Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "This is in total defiance of the road map ... and total defiance of ( U.S. ) President (George W.) Bush's vision. Settlements and peace do not go together," Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat said. "We will discuss this new neighborhood with the Americans," said an Israeli security official of the decision, acknowledged by a Defense Ministry spokesman without further comment. The year-old "road map," which also requires a halt to Palestinian militant attacks on Israelis, has been stymied by persistent violence on both sides. SHARON PLAN HAS BUSH'S ENDORSEMENT In April, Bush assured Sharon that Israel could retain some West Bank land under any future peace deal with Palestinians if the Israeli premier carries out his unilateral plan to withdraw from Gaza next year. Sharon 's blueprint to "disengage" from a bloody stalemate with Palestinians would evacuate all 8,000 Jews from Gaza , along with four of 120 settlements in the West Bank . But "disengagement" also entails keeping some West Bank settlement blocs, including Maale Adumim, with the bulk of the 240,000 Jews on land Israel took in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians, in revolt for almost four years, see the right-wing Sharon 's "disengagement" as a ruse to dismember territory that would be heart of the state they seek. Political sources said the 600 new homes would extend Maale Adumim eastwards, which could rupture direct trade and transport routes between the northern and southern West Bank . A U.S. diplomatic official pointed to the road map's settlement freeze clause and declined further comment, saying this could come from the State Department soon. The Bush administration has already expressed dismay at the Israeli government's failure to tear down dozens of unauthorized settlement outposts erected during Sharon 's tenure since 2001. Israeli officials say legal actions filed by settlers have bogged down attempts to remove outposts. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&e=6&u=/nm/20040802/wl_nm/mideast_settlement_dc Related Article: The Guardian Related Article Links: FMEP July Settlement Reportclick here... MidEast Web: a map of the settlements and the Palestine/Israel history. Palestine Monitor: a fact sheet on Israeli settlements B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization Jewish Virtual Library: A Jewish Virtual library on settlements.

The Wall

Hi, the Israeli high court ruled for the IDF (Israeli Defense FOrces) to give back 30K's of land in E. Jerusalem that was to cut into some villages and isolate the people more than they already are. strange.

there is about 730 k's more of land that has been taken from the West Bank. what about that?

The true test is the Court's failure to save from destruction the lives of 13,000 Palestinians in the northern West Bank who now live imprisoned in their villages having to take permits in order to live in their villages and houses and it failed to save 73,000 farmers in 51 villages from losing their agricultural lands and only source of income. More importantly, this is the very same court that approved the demolition of hundreds of houses in Rafah last May, causing thousands of already refugee Palestinians to become refugees for the second time.

yeah. go figure. alla vita...this is..the life.

and...Yesterday, the IDF started construction on the "Apartheid Wall" on the eastern side of Anata; Occupation plans are to turn Anata into a canton linking between the northern and southern Palestinian ghettos which will be created by the Wall. Anata will be surrounded by the Wall from all sides, together with the Shu'fat Refugee Camp and Dahiyat Assalam. Occupation Forces are also constructing a bypass road that will go from Anatot settlement and link with the new highway 45 leading to the Jordan Valley. Another road will connect Za'im village with Anata and link the Wall's southern ghetto (consisting of southeast Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Hebron) to the northern ghetto. Large areas of Anata's land will be confiscated or destroyed in the process of constructing Walls and bypass roads in this area.

Anata is located northeast of Jerusalem and has a population of 15,000 Palestinians, in addition to another 12,000 who are living in Dahyat Asslam, a residential area built on Anata's lands. According to Occupation Forces, Anata is designated to be part of the West Bank, while Dahyat Asslam, and Shufat refugee camp are considered to be part of Jerusalem, despite the fact that there is no clear boundary between them. For example, part of one house may be considered 'West Bank' according to IDF, while other parts of the same house would be considered to be in 'Jerusalem'.

The Wall in this area will isolate Dahiyat Assalam and the Shu'fat Refugee Camp, where more than thirty thousand Jerusalemites live. By isolating these people, it will facilitate the Israeli goal of reducing the number of Palestinians in Jerusalem.

related links here>>>> http://www.stopthewall.org/ http://www.pengon.org/
http://www.arij.org/


so there ya go. thats the bright story for the day!
ciao!

Palestinian Children Poems

Shaheed (meaning a martyr, this was for a 11 year old that was killed)

Someone who fights for what is originally his own,
His beloved country as valuable as gold.
A person who will be gifted with so much more,
He has gained entrance to heaven, the single prize everyone wishes for,
Even though he simply threw a rock,
Everlasting faith possessed his heart.
Death for the Shaheed is the best life he's about to start…
Jina Abdelwahab

Life after the war

This is a blog from someone who lived and worked in war in the Middle East. Yes, a female photojournalist at her best. The ups and downs the stories that everyone always asks me about. The truth of the matter. Yes, have had death threats, emails that bottlenecked my mail, hate letters and love letters.

This is a new quiet moment for me. Is there such a thing as post tramatic stress syndrome? They say yes, I say...I don't know.

Some repeated soldiers do not have PTS, they say it is because they have learned the difference between reality and what is is not normal. They know that when they go to where is is not normal in war, that is what they expect. I wonder what will become of our soldiers returning to America in the next few years. Torture. What about their minds? What will become of those?

I just viewed from a distance the realities of war. I photographed, talked to crying mothers and looked into the eyes of the children. Picking up the pieces. I gather a hard thing to do.

Dual Loyalities

Dual Loyalities
By Eric Walberg
Many readers have written me to express concern about my safety and/or reputation since I have spoken out frankly on the horrible Likud policies of stealing Palestinian lands and brutalizing them with occupation. I'm not a babe in the woods, and I know very well that saying these things is taboo in American political culture. In fact, whenever anyone comes on a cable television news show and is anything but hostile to the Palestinians, he or she is made by the interviewer to denounce terrorism. It is an outrageous implication, and not the job of a news interviewer. But pro-Israeli speakers are never made to denounce land theft or state terror.
I received a very weird phone call from a prominent Jewish-American investigative journalist the other night. He kept muttering about bias against Sharon and how the Israeli security wall is no different from the wall near the Rio Grande (which isn't true: did the US annex Mexican land to build that?) He kept hinting around that he thought I must have some link to some hate group, or to the Ford Foundation, which he coded as linked to "hate groups," which in turn seemed to signify for him Palestinians. It was all very conspiracy theorist oriented. I tried to have a straightforward conversation with him, but it was probably a mistake, since it seems fairly obvious he intends to do some sort of hatchet job. I finally had to end it when his paraphrases of what I said became more and more outrageous and inaccurate. Another journalist named Eli Lake has now begun coming after me, as many readers predicted, using innuendo to suggest that I am to the right of Pat Buchanan and that it is irresponsible of American media outlets to have me on television and radio. One of his charges is that I am accusing the Neoconservatives in the Pentagon of "dual loyalties." That is true, but not in the way Lake imagines. I believe that Doug Feith, for instance, has dual loyalties to the Israeli Likud Party and to the U.S. Republican Party. He thinks that their interests are completely congruent. And I also think that if he has to choose, he will put the interests of the Likud above the interests of the Republican Party. I don't think there is anything a priori wrong with Feith being so devoted to the Likud Party. That is his prerogative. But as an American, I don't want a person with those sentiments to serve as the number 3 man in the Pentagon. I frankly don't trust him to put America first.  Political dual loyalties have nothing to do with any particular ethnicity. It is natural for Armenian Americans to have a special tie to Armenia , for  Greek Americans to have a special tie to Greece , for Iraqi Americans to feel  strongly about Iraq . For them to take pride in the achievements of their  homeland is right an natural, and unexceptionable. There is no reason on the face of it to even bring up their ethnicity with regard to public service. But if a Syrian American is a strong devotee of the Baath Party, would you appoint him Undersecretary of Defense?  The Likud Coalition in Israel does contest elections. But it isn't morally superior in most respects to the Syrian Baath. The Likud brutally occupies 3 million Palestinians (who don't get to vote for their occupier) and is aggressively taking over their land. That is, it treats at least 3 million people no better than and possibly worse than the Syrian Baath treats its 17 million. The Likud invaded Lebanon in 1982 and killed 18,000 or so people, 9,000 of them innocent civilians. This is, contrary to what Bernard Lewis keeps implying, just about equivalent morally to the Syrian Baath's crushing of the Islamists in Hama the same year, which killed an estimated 10,000. Many in the Likud coalition are commited to "transfer," or the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. At the least they want to keep Palestinians stateless and without basic human rights and dignity. The vast majority of Palestinians has never commited an act of violence, but Likud propaganda justifies their expropriation on the innuendo that they are all terrorists. Likud aggression is invisible in American media, and the way in which it provokes violence is off limits for discussion. So I don't see a big difference between having a fanatical Syrian American Baathist as the number three man in the Pentagon and having a fanatical Jewish American Likudnik. Lake wants to suggest that I am a racist, and that the implication of my argument is that there should be an ethnic litmus test for public office. There is no point in replying to such slurs. Anyone who tries to defend himself from charges of being a racist just looks silly. I simply think that we deserve to have American public servants who are centrally commited to the interests of the United States , rather than to the interests of a foreign political party. So my position implies a political litmus test for high public office. And, of course there is such a litmus test. Why bother to have Congress confirm or reject appointees otherwise? Of course, Lake 's salvo is only the first of what will be a campaign to vilify me and misrepresent my views, and to ensure as far as possible that I am silenced. So, why do I do it? It is September 11. It is obvious to me that what September 11 really represented was a dragooning of the United States into internal Middle East political conflicts. Israel 's aggressive policies in the West Bank and Gaza have poisoned the political atmosphere in the Middle East (and increasingly in the Muslim world) for the United States . It is ridiculous to suggest that radical Islamists don't care about the Palestine issue. Now, if it were a matter of Israel 's simple existence causing trouble for the U.S. , then I would say, "Too bad! We stand with our friends, and won't allow you to harm Israel ." But if it is Israeli expansionism and aggression that is causing trouble for the United States , then my response would be to put pressure on Israel to get used to its 1949 borders, which are its only legal ones. Unless the Israeli Palestinian issue is resolved, there will be more September 11s on US soil. So they should resolve it already. And, it is resolvable. If there were a Palestinian state with leaders who would certify that they are happy with Israel , then 99% of Muslims would accept that. It can't be resolved as long as the Likud Party has an aggressive colonialist agenda. It cannot be resolved as long as the United States government is afraid to say "boo" to Ariel Sharon. The taboo erected against saying what I have been saying is a way of ensuring that the Likud gets its way without American interference, even if it means America suffers from the fall-out of Likud aggression. In addition, what the Likud government is doing is ethically wrong. It has put hundreds of thousands of colonists into the West Bank , stealing land, water and resources from the Palestinians there. It has made the Palestinians' lives miserable with a dense network of checkpoints, highways, and other barriers to ordinary commerce and movement. And what possible claim could the Likud have on the West Bank of the Jordan ? The original Zionist colonizers put almost no settlers there. It was not the part of Palestine that the United Nations awarded Israel in the partition plan. The United Nations Charter, to which Israel is a signatory, forbids the acquisition of territory by warfare, so the mere fact that the West Bank was conquered in 1967 gives Israel no rights in it. Sharon and other Likudniks keep demanding that the Arabs "recognize" Israel 's "birthright" to the Holy Land . This language is bizarre. First of all, "peoples" don't have "birthrights" to "land." There are no peoples in the 19th century racist sense, and there is no link between Land und Volk the way the Likud imagines. Israel should be recognized because its people deserve to live like everyone else, not because of any superstitious and frankly racist "birthright." (Population geneticists have shown that the entire human population becomes related over 50 generations, so Isaac and the other Patriarchs are by now the common ancestors of us all. If the birthright is genetic, then it is in everyone by now. If it is based on halakhah or Jewish law, well that didn't exist in Isaac's time. Abraham probably wasn't even really a monotheist in the contemporary sense of the term.) You can't break down taboos unless you challenge them. Of course, there is the danger that if you challenge them, you will be attacked, and destroyed politically or marginalized. Perhaps it is even likely. But our country is in dire danger from the conflicts in the Middle East . If I had been a younger man (I am 51) I would have gone to fight al-Qaeda in Afghanistan . The very least I can do is to speak out about the dangers, and urge solutions of the problems generating the terrorism. What good is freedom of speech if we don't use it?

Death on the Rooftops

Death on the Rooftops
by Omar Karmi
A FEW men sat next to the Bilal Mosque near the center of Tal Al Sultan. May 22 was only the second day residents of this western Rafah neighborhood had been able to venture out of their homes after a three-day curfew. They were still not allowed out to the rest of Rafah, and it would have been the first day they saw journalists. “Look at that,” said one man who would identify himself only as Ahmad. He pointed at the fire-blackened surface of the mosque where all the windows were missing. On May 18, the first day of the Israeli army's “Operation Rainbow,” the mosque had been hit by a missile from an Israeli Apache helicopter just before morning prayers.
“They burnt the Koran,” said Ahmad. “What for? This is a place for prayers. It is not a home for fighters.” Throughout Tal Al Sultan, roads had been torn up and buildings were damaged or demolished. A broken water pipe had created a small flood on Nous Street , the main road that runs through the middle of Tal Al Sultan. Off on a side street, five men had gathered plastic buckets and were filling them from a hosepipe. Water was at a premium after nearly four days without any. When “Operation Rainbow” started, Tal Al Sultan was the area the Israeli army chose to isolate from the rest of Rafah. Along with the roads and buildings, infrastructure, including water pipes, had been damaged and destroyed. For three days, until the curfew on the residents of Tal Al Sultan was lifted on May 21, and Rafah municipality workers were briefly allowed back in to reconnect the water supply and try and repair the electricity network, people had no water, electricity or phones. They were completely cut off from the world. And the world was cut off from Tal Al Sultan. The only news came in from people's cell phones and that news was patchy at best. Under a 24-hour curfew, residents could report only what they saw through their windows. The Israeli army released what it wanted to release, and responded mainly when the last way news could be obtained – by counting the dead and wounded that came out of Tal Al Sultan – made it incumbent upon them. Two of these bodies were those of Asma and Ahmad Moghaia, 16 and 13, respectively. According to officials at Rafah's only hospital, the Abu Yousef Al Najjar Hospital, as well as foreign reporters who saw the bodies, the children had each received a single bullet to the head. The family blamed Israeli sniper fire. Initial Israeli army statements blamed “Palestinian explosives,” though by May 23, the incident was “still under investigation,” according to an Israeli army spokesman. "There were explosive devices detonated against our forces in the area, and we have no specific information about any of our forces mistakenly hitting the children,” he said. But, “it is too early to say anything precisely.” On May 22 there was no evidence of shrapnel from explosives on the Moghraia family's rooftop. On the wall at the top of the stairwell leading to the roof, beside what appeared to be blood stains, were four bullet hole marks. In the corner of the step below was a pool of dried blood. “This is where Ahmed was shot,” explained Asma and Ahmad's brother Ali, 26, first on the roof that day. He and his father Mohammad Ali, 49, an unemployed construction worker, were both calm, almost meticulous, as they recounted the events of the day. “Asma was collecting washing right here,” said Ali, pointing to the corner of the roof where the same clothes Asma would have been collecting still hung, blood spattered and bullet torn. On the floor below was another pool of dried blood where Ali said Asma fell. “Ahmed was feeding the pigeons,” he continued, nodding at a pigeon cage on the other side holding some 15 birds. “He always loved feeding the pigeons.” Ali and his father both think Asma was shot first. “Ahmad heard the shot and saw his sister, and he tried to run down the stairs,” says Ali, who did most of the talking. “I heard him shout for me, but then he was shot and we didn't hear anything else.” Ali said when he got to the top of the stairs more shots were fired. Besides the bullet marks at the top of the stairs, there were also three bullet holes in the satellite dish to the left of the clotheslines and behind where Asma would have been standing. Ali recounted how he pulled his brother down the stairs. His mother was screaming in the background. He placed his brother in a spare bedroom and then went up to get his sister. “I had to crawl on my stomach to get to her, and when I got there I could see her head was spilt open in the middle. I wrapped her head in a towel, and then I carefully dragged her body across the floor. I was flat on my stomach all the way. It took almost fifteen minutes.” The trail of blood is still there, from the corner of the roof to the stairs. “She was a good girl,” said Mohammad Ali, quietly. “She was number one in her class, she liked performing her prayers and she wanted to become a doctor. She was a good girl.” The shooting happened at around 11:30 am . “We knew there was a curfew on,” said Mohammad Ali. “But there was no shooting in the neighborhood, and we thought it was safe for the children to be on the roof. We didn't know there were snipers there.” “There” is the Abu Jalala building, a three-story white building clearly visible from the Moghraia's rooftop. The building stands at the end of the Salahin Mosque Street , where a T-junction has been completely torn up by Israeli bulldozers. Mohammad Abu Jalala, 21, is a business student at the Islamic University in Gaza City . At around 10 in the morning on May 18, he said, Israeli soldiers arrived and took over the building. The family of nine were ordered to stay in their flat. “They wouldn't allow us even to go to the bathroom without taking permission.” Shifts of two and three soldiers took turns guarding the family, according to Mohammad. The Jalala family apartment is on the first floor. They built the house during the Oslo years, in better times, but never finished the top-two floors, which are still uninhabited. The soldiers left plenty of evidence of their stay there, including half empty cans of by now moldy corn, half a loaf of white bread, and tuna cans, all labeled only in Hebrew. One label on an unopened can of corn depicted a smiling cartoon soldier pointing at the sky. There were also empty bullet cases. Mohammad had collected at least 20 and showed them to reporters. On the top two floors and on the stairwell between them, holes had been punched through the walls. The roof affords an almost uninterrupted view of Tal Al Sultan and environs. On one side it looks over the hills that lead to the Jewish settlement of Rafiah Yam to the west and the Mediterranean beyond, maybe a mile away. On the other side, the building overlooks other rooftops, including the house where the children died, about 150 meters away. At the base of a meter high concrete wall at that corner, is a watermelon-sized hole. Through it, the bullet marks at the top of the Moghaias' stairwell were visible with the naked eye. Next to that hole, lay a box. It's label, in Hebrew, read: “20 rounds 7.62 millimeter ammunition for snipers.” Mohammad said they had no clear idea what the soldiers were doing, though they could hear plenty of shooting. The soldiers only spoke directly with Mohammad's father, who had worked as a laborer in Israel and spoke some Hebrew. “I felt they were afraid,” he said of the soldiers. “They always had their fingers on the trigger. They even escorted me to the toilet. We tried as much as we could to ignore them.” The soldiers finally left at around two o'clock in the morning on May 19, said Mohammed. They had been in the building for nearly 15 hours. At the Moghaia house, family and neighbors were at a loss to explain the Israeli army's actions. “There are no fighters here,” said a neighbor, Omar Abu Libdeh, 67. “The streets are wide, so tanks can move easily. Nobody is armed here, and there was no fighting. It was revenge. They avenged their dead soldiers by attacking citizens.” Asma and Ahmad's father had a simpler explanation. “ Israel ,” he said, “is a rogue state. It's a lawless state.” The two children had been buried a day earlier. The closure on Tal Al Sultan made it impossible for their parents and siblings to attend the funeral, but by May 21, the children had been lying in the tiny Rafah hospital morgue for three days. Outside the morgue that Friday there was thus only a single grieving relative, a cousin, Mohammad Abu Ahmad, 34. “It's been three days. They phoned me and asked me to arrange the funeral,” Ahmad said simply, before he got into the ambulance that was taking Asma's body, wrapped in a white shroud, to the mosque for prayers. -Published May 26, 2004 ©Palestine Report http://www.palestinereport.org/article.php?article=374

Child used as Human Shield

Child used as Human Shield
April 17, 2004 : By: RHR Date: April 16, 2004 Biddu, NW Jerusalem
Four arrestees, including a 12 year old boy, RHR Executive Director Rabbi Arik Ascherman, an additional Palestinian and ISM activist, were used as human shields in Bido yesterday, Thursday, April 15. After local Palestinians and Israeli activists saw a young boy being beaten by border police, the boy's mother sent a Palestinian man to try and help him and Rabbi Ascherman also approached the police. Both were arrested, along with a Swedish ISM activist.
The boy, crying, shaking from fear and eventually cold, was sat on the hood of a jeep and tied to the bars protecting the glass. The other three arrestees were bound and placed in front of a second jeep. After the arrests, local Palestinians began throwing stones, a number of them hitting the jeeps. The unit commander was Shahar Yitzhaki Rabbi Ascherman repeatedly requested over the next few hours that they not be used as human shields, that the boy receive medical attention and that the officers identify themselves. He also asked to lend his coat to the child and to stand in front of the child to protect him from stones. All these requests were met with physical and verbal threats, orders to "shut up," and/or derision. The division commander, "Benny," also visited the site during these events. Rabbi Ascherman also directed his requests to him. Rabbi Ascherman was eventually told that the boy had been checked by a medic before Rabbi Ascherman was arrested. Rabbi Ascherman was seized by his throat and head butted by Yitzhaki upon arrest. The arrestees were moved from the scene after several hours, but kept outside. The child was allowed to go home around 18:30 . By this time, the adults were also shaking from cold and sharing Rabbi Ascherman's coat. They were released, but Yitzhaki "rearrested" them and took them to the Givat Zeev Police station. There, after continuing to be held outside, Rabbi Ascherman convinced the attending officers to allow them to sit inside. The Palestinian was taken to Ofer, while Ascherman and the ISM activist were conditionally released late that night. At today's High Court session a final debate on the 9 petitions regarding the route of the separation barrier was set for next Wednesday, April 21st 2004 at 9:00 am . For More Info: Rabbi Arik Ascherman 02-5637731 or 050-607034

Bereaved parents planning anti-recruitment campaign

Accuse country's leaders of callous and cynical indifference, caring only about their careers and personal ambitions  Eitan Rabin Maariv International
A group of bereaved parents has begun organizing an anti-induction campaign, aimed at getting recruits to refuse to join the IDF. The campaign will coincide with the annual August induction, when most high school graduates begin their three-year national service.
They have prepared a flyer, which will be distributed outside the main induction base at Tel Hashomer. Maariv has obtained a draft of the flyer, and brings its main points to the public. “We are not recommending you refuse to join the IDF. On the contrary, we encourage you to join, since the country's oligarchy and political elite needs an army to ensure nothing happens to their ill-gotten gains, which they have amassed at the expense of the average Israeli, having been given a license by the politicians to pillage the national economy, by purchasing major publicly owned economic assets for a pittance”. “Do not be fooled by the officers spinning good lines about joining elite units. Forget the stories about battle and glory; you are young, inexperienced and easily deceived. The truth is that your chances of returning alive are not great, and if you fall on duty you will be forgotten after a few months, as unimportant to the powers that be as the earth under which you will lie for eternity”. “As a national serviceman your sole value to them is as canon fodder. They pay you NIS 15 a day, which is clearly all they think you are worth. If you die your parents will receive the country's thanks, platitudes soon forgotten and a NIS 1,200 check”. “Your commanders are no better, seeing you as stepping stones to higher rank. Negligence and indifference abounds, resulting in the needless deaths of dozens of soldiers every year”. The organizers are all bereaved parents who feel the army has abandoned them. They believe the army has glossed over the blunders that caused their sons to die in vain, covering up for incompetent but well-connected officers. They all complain that bereaved parents of national servicemen are the stepchildren of the Defense Ministry, compared to widows and children of regular army personnel. The IDF spokesperson would not take questions on the issue, other tan a laconic statement saying the IDF cares about all its fallen and their families.

Four More Years in a Bush Whacked Palestine ?

Four More Years in a Bush Whacked Palestine ?
By Genevieve Cora Fraser
Four more years Under a Bush Sponsored And funded Peace negotiation Promises more Israeli Peace barbs Experimental rockets Gasses, bullets Exploding Palestinians Ripped to shreds By Israeli flachette Warhead missiles Over three score Times fifty killed Tens of thousands Wounded over Twenty eight Thousand Made Homeless Farmlands Ground to dust In a wasteland Existence Bleaker than A moonscape Waiting For a rocket Honeymoon Ride to the next World Dismembered Into three parts Gaza is truncated By troops amassed For a dawn raid North and South School children Await execution Of the next atrocity Five weeks to Register to vote In Palestinian Elections may Not be sufficient Time with Palestine Closed for a month Due to Israeli Atonement For transgressions Amassed near the base Of their conscience But unable to penetrate Israeli Foreign Minister Shalom means Peace Promises to rid Palestine (But never say Goodbye) Of its President And Prime Minister In advance Of the election Arafat’s days Are coming To a close In advance Of Israel’s Planned Extinction Of Palestine This could happen Under four more Years of AIPAC Likud Zionist American Rule Want to see?

De-Development Israeli Style

De-Development Israeli Style
by Sam Bahour
Faced with the lopsided Oslo Peace Accords, Palestinians attempted to overcome tremendous odds over the last ten years to sow the seeds of a modern Palestinian economy. However, Israel had different plans, namely to manipulate the uneven balance of power to eliminate any possibility for Palestinian self-sufficiency and the emergence of a Palestinian state. Mixing the greed of the corporate world with the might of the Israeli military, Israel is well on track to undermine Palestinian achievements, and by doing so, Israel has wrecked the Palestinian society with severe consequences that will last for many years.
There are winners and losers in today's cutthroat business world. Corporate America reigns supreme with its breadth and depth into world markets increasing daily. One huge market which is growing at an overwhelming pace is telecommunications, especially the cellular business. Around the world and in the Middle East specifically, the telecommunications sector is proving to be the vehicle that is prodding governments to modernize and become more transparent, accountable and market-driven. Countries, particularly smaller and least developed ones, have benefited from this telecommunications boom by liberalizing their markets in order to attract foreign direct investment and gain firsthand experience in one of today's most dynamic industries. In conflict-stricken Israel and yet-to-be Palestine , this globalized model of development is not working and the Palestinians are losing while those tasked with maintaining the rules and laws of today's global village turn a blind eye. The Telecommunications Market The Israeli telecommunications market may be characterized as such: for a population of 6.5 million, Israel has over 5 million fixed lines, over 6 million cellular subscribers, and a highly competitive market with four cellular operators - three of them with U.S. multi national firms holding majority equity. Israel is in the process of having their independent telecommunications regulator assume full responsibility for the entire telecommunications sector. The Palestinian market is in its infancy: for a population of 3.2 million, it has one privately-owned and publicly-traded on the Palestine Securities Exchange fixed line operator (PALTEL [1]) with 260,000 fixed lines installed; and it has spun off a cellular company (JAWWAL [2]) which has over 310,000 subscribers. The Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology plays the role of the regulator. The total Palestinian Authority market of revenue generating cellular subscribers today is around 770,000, JAWWAL has 40% of the market and has been losing market share to Israeli cellular operators during the past two years. To an outsider, it may seem that this sector is peacefully coexisting in a competitive market despite the ongoing crisis, and may be regarded as a positive interaction. But this is absolutely not the case. The Agreements Just as Israeli tanks and gunships continue to militarily occupy and batter Palestinian cities and towns, there is another facet of this illegal Israeli occupation that is not apparent to the casual observer. Israel refuses to abide by the provisions in the Oslo Peace Accords [3] which gave Palestinians full control over their telecommunications sector. This Israeli refusal is not a recent phenomenon, but deliberate disregard of agreements signed on the White House lawn. The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West-Bank and Gaza Strip (better known as the Oslo Agreement) was signed on September 28, 1995 . Article 36 was very clear as far as the telecommunications sector was concerned. It stated: "Operators and providers of services, presently and in the future, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip shall be required to obtain the necessary approvals from the Palestinian side." (Article 36, Section B, Number 4) The problem is that Israel is allowing its cellular operators to operate within the Palestinian cities and towns in clear violation of the Oslo Agreement and in blunt disregard to internationally recognized agreements, including the World Trade Organization treaties to which Israel is a signatory. The Violations The Oslo Agreement stipulation on the telecom sector is very clear. Any operator must be licensed by the Palestinian Authority if they desire to sell their services to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Not only are all of the Israeli cellular companies illegally operating in Palestinian areas without licenses, but the Israeli government is encouraging them by disrupting the ability of the Palestinians to develop their own telecommunications networks and refusing to take action against these Israeli operators for violating agreements. The result is that these Israeli commercial interests are fully aligned with Israeli political concerns and the military occupation works in tandem with policies aimed at de-developing the Palestinian economy. During this most recent four-year spike of Israeli military aggression, Israel refuses to allow the Palestinian cellular operator to import desperately needed equipment. Since all Palestinian imports must pass through Israeli ports, Israel has repeatedly used the infamous, all encompassing blanket excuse of 'security concerns' to delay or prohibit Palestinian imports. While the same equipment that is destined for Palestine is being held up at Israeli ports for 'security checks', Israel allows it to be freely imported by Israeli operators. Furthermore, Israeli cellular operators have installed a comprehensive network covering the entire Palestinian area. These firms place their equipment inside the illegal Israeli settlements, under the pretext of serving the settlers, but in reality position their equipment and provide it with excess capacity to cover every Palestinian community. This is easily done given that the settlements are usually located on the hilltops next to Palestinian population centers and are well protected by Israel 's military occupation forces.   Furthermore, besides placing towers and equipment in settlements - and recently on contiguous Palestinian lands - these Israeli companies have flooded the Palestinian marketplace with pre-paid scratch cards to market their services. Capitalizing on the inability of the Palestinian Authority to regulate its market, the Israeli companies continue to dump their services in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The pricing schemes for these illegal services are structured in a way that directly threatens the Palestinian operators' ability to survive. Faced with four illegal operators working without licenses and without any type of regulation - commercial, environmental, or otherwise - the Palestinian operator competes against tremendous odds. The Culprits The motivation of the Israeli Government is clear. To them, denying the Palestinians the ability to develop their communications market is consistent with continuing the military occupation and sabotaging Palestinian efforts to develop an independent economy. In addition, there are many hints that corruption within Israel may explain the Israeli government policies that hinder equipment importation to Palestine . The Israeli firms in question are the following: Israeli Cellular Operator Majority Foreign Shareholder and % of Ownership Partner ( Orange ), www.partner.co.il Hutchison Whampoa - 43.10%, www.hutchison-whampoa.com Pelephone, www.Pelephone.co.il Shamrock Holdings, investment arm of the Disney Group - 50%, www.shamrock.com Cellcom, www.cellcom.co.il Bell South Corporation USA - 34.75%, www.bellsouth.com MIRS, www.mirs.co.il Motorola - 66%, www.motorola.com These companies through their Israeli operations are responsible for illegal activities in the occupied territories. At a time when the issue of corporate responsibility has reached the chambers of Congress, these firms blatantly contribute to the internationally recognized illegal occupation of Palestinians in total disregard to their social and corporate obligations. The foreign firms behind these Israeli companies which are illegally operating in Palestine without a license and in full disregard to international agreements are, not only part of the problem, but are putting their own shareholders at risk of legal action which could easily reach into the billions of dollars. The Damage The Palestinian economy has been wrecked during the second intifada by draconian measures and deliberate destruction. The illegal Israeli operators compound these destructive measures and have become an integral part of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. First, the Palestinian government does not collect taxes on the activities of these illegal operators. It is estimated that over $40 million of tax revenue has been lost thus far. While the international donor community, led by the European Union and United States , continue to drip-feed 'development' funds into Palestine , they ignore the fact that these lost tax revenues could have reduced the Palestinian dependence on international donors. Illegal Israeli operators deprive the Palestinians of means to develop their own economy and state. Second, an estimated $500 million of Palestinian funds were drained out of its economy by such operations. This revenue leakage should be going to licensed Palestinian operators and the associated taxes should be deposited in the Palestinian treasury. These are the funds that should be the driving force for allowing the Palestinian market to develop and employ more Palestinians. Further compounding the problems facing the Palestinian operators are the dumping practices used by these illegal service providers. Palestinians consumers are offered telecom services at less than a third of the cost as consumers living in Israel . This price discrimination and dumping is injurious to Palestinian operators who are further placed at a disadvantage. The entire Palestinian communications market is damaged by such developments. While elsewhere in the world telecommunications have provided a tremendous economic stimulus, Palestinians are hindered from developing this key sector, and having the opportunity to create an alternative to the wrecked economy caused by the 37-years of military occupation. The Israeli practice of dumping products and services in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is not new. Widely covered by the media, was the ferris-wheel currently operating in Ramallah that was sold to Palestinians after it did not meet Israeli safety standards. Food products that are expired or near expiration are regularly sold with large discounts into the Palestinian market with no regard to food safety or the rule of law. All of these commercial practices take place with the full knowledge and support of the Israeli government bodies. One can't discount the damage caused by the Israeli military on the Palestinian economy. The Israeli military has damaged the offices of the Palestinian operators and has confiscated network equipments, records and mobile handsets. In addition, dozens of Palestinian engineers have been detained arbitrarily in Israeli military prisons. Many of the Palestinian staff daily risk their lives while trying to service the Palestinian consumer. Several have been wounded, one paralyzed for life. Given that there is no regulation on Israeli operators in the Palestinian areas, the Palestinian consumers have no privacy or data protection guarantees. It is assumed that the Israeli military and the Israeli operators are also extensively using the popularity of mobile phones by Palestinians to track 'wanted' persons movements and whereabouts. One day, when the Israeli military will be held responsible for its violations of Palestinian human rights, it is most likely that these illegal cellular operators will also be held partly liable for their complicity. As Dr. Khalil Nakhleh states in his newly released book, The Myth of Palestinian Development [4], "This is a process of un-developing Palestinian society, and undermining and dismantling any potentially viable Palestinian institution." Israeli driven de-development of Palestinian society is happening at an increasingly rapid pace at all levels - economic, social, and political. It has become explicitly clear that Israel 's policies are designed to voluntarily empty Palestine of its citizens, and thus, clear the way for an Israeli defined "final solution" to the Palestinian "question". The Blind Eye What is happening in the telecommunications market in Palestine is not new or unknown. It has been going on ever since the Oslo Agreements were signed back in 1993. Among others, the United States government has been formally and informally made aware of these blatant Israeli violations of the agreements. They also were made aware of the fact that several prominent U.S. firms are party to these illegal practices. President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell continue to repeat the need for economic development to happen in the Palestinian areas in order for the ruined Palestinian economy to start offering a way out of the Israeli-created poverty and despair. But President Bush and Secretary Powell refuse to move beyond sloganeering. If they were genuinely concerned for Palestinian economic development, then Bush and Powell would inform these U.S. companies of their obligations in front of U.S. and International Law and demand that they move to stop their complicity in these illegal practices by their Israeli partners. Ariel Sharon's current so-called Unilateral Disengagement Plan [5] is sadly viewed by the international community as ending the occupation in Gaza . However, it is clear that the intention is nothing of the sort, and when it comes to telecommunications, we can expect a continuation of the damaging relationship. It has stated: "The water, electricity, sewage and communications infrastructures will be left in place." If Israel were really withdrawing their illegal occupation why would they need to retain the control of the communications infrastructure that was supposed to serve the Israeli settlers only? An Eye on the Future Israel 's intentional and systematic destruction of our past achievements and their refusal to allow Palestinian economic sectors to develop will not shake the Palestinian determination for building for a better tomorrow - one free from foreign military occupation. Commercially, a report issued this month by the Arab Advisors Group ranked JAWWAL as the firm that operates in the highest level of competition in the Middle East and North Africa region. Palestinians will continue to do whatever is humanly possible to develop their economy out of the ruins of military occupation, and will do so while in the face of unfair odds due to the illegal Israeli competition. As Mr. Hakam Kanafani, the CEO of JAWWAL recently stated, "Israeli companies are not doing this for the security of Israel , they do this for a quick profit. This situation is unlike any in the world. No law, no rule, no ethical principal worldwide would permit what Orange , MIRS, Cellcom and Pelephone are doing." The corporate leaders of these firms must be compelled to stop their involvement in illegal activity in Palestine and stop violating international agreements. JAWWAL has already initiated legal action in the Palestinian courts against two of these Israeli firms with action against the other remaining two in the process. Following last month's International Court of Justice ruling, which amounted to the fact that Israel 's occupation is a blatant violation of international and humanitarian law, Palestinians are positioned more than ever to undertake legal actions against violators of international law and accepted treaties. These telecommunication operators clearly violate accepted norms of conducting business, they violate international law, and they violate the letter and the spirit of the signed-treaties.   August 2004 1 www.paltel.net   2 www.myjawwal.com   3 www.nad-plo.org/index.php   4 www.passia.org/publications/Myth/Myth-Palestinian- Development.htm   5 www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=432763&contra ssID=1   * Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American businessman living in the besieged Palestinian City of Al-Bireh in the West Bank and can be reached atsbahour@palnet.com . Sam participated in founding of PALTEL, which also owns JAWWAL. The writer also co-authored Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians.