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.

Wa'el 17 month old baby in Israeli Prison

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

An Open Letter to Most Americans

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

Volatile situation leaves laws, life in limbo

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

A song to my brother

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