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Monday, August 22, 2011

I was arrested for hiring a Palestinian tour guide

After the police ineptitude and harassment experienced today, it is clear that in certain situations, Palestinians are simply guilty until proven innocent
Last week  my tour company, MEJDI, received a tour group from Washington DC. The group members are all part of the same Jewish congregation, and are here on a trip lead by their rabbi, who was inspired by our narratives-based approach to tourism. This morning we took the tour group to the Mount of Olives for a view of the Old City of Jerusalem, and spoke to them about the political and religious narratives of the city. While the tourists were wandering around and taking pictures, a policeman with another woman in civilian clothing approached our Palestinian tour guide, asked for his identity card and tourism license, and arrested him.

Each of our groups has two guides, one Palestinian and one Israeli. Almost all of our Palestinian guides come from East Jerusalem, because of the severe shortage of permits for Palestinian guides based in the West Bank.  This guide, who for security reasons will be called “HJ,” is a resident of Bethlehem, and is the first West Bank guide we hired to lead our groups in Israel, in tandem with an Israeli Jewish guide.

HJ is a good friend of mine and, apart from being a fully licensed tour guide, is also a dedicated peace activist, who has been interested in MEJDI’s alternative tourism initiative for a while. He called me last week to let me know he finally received a permit to work in Israel, and would therefore be able to work with MEJDI. Friendship aside, I double-checked HJ’s permit and legal status and then hired him for the current tour.

When the police saw HJ’s green identity card (ID’s issued by Israel are color-coded; Israeli citizens get blue IDs, Palestinians get green ones), they were visibly  overcome by excitement and a big smile appeared on their faces. They behaved like they made a big catch. They ignored the fact that HJ had a travel permit and a license to work in Israel. I actually heard them say:”Even if he can work in Israel, he couldn’t possibly be a licensed tour guide.” HJ’s tour guiding license was also disregarded.
I tried to explain to the officers that HJ was legal and can work in Israel according to my understanding of the permit. I even called HJ’s lawyer who assured me of the same. But by then, the officers were more interested in their next arrest: Myself.

The police officers decided to arrest me for hiring HJ. I was accused of employing an illegal alien. I tried to reason with the officers but I was speaking to deaf ears. There seemed to be no hope in explaining anything. We were both asked to turn off our phones and not to make any phone calls to anyone, including lawyers. We were also told to stop talking to each other.

Fortunately, because we have two tour guides for each tour, our group was able to continue their tour with the Israeli guide, without major disturbances.

We were promptly asked to sign a paper which indicates that we were not beaten up at the time of our arrest, and we were whisked away to the police station in East Jerusalem, where we waited for about an hour as they processed our arrest. Eventually they  took HJ to the interrogation room.  In less than five minutes the interrogator stormed  out of the interrogation room enraged and began yelling at the arresting officer: “He is legal, why did you arrest them? Release them now.” I was rather relived to have finally met an Israeli police officer who knew how to read a permit issued by the Israeli authorities.

Before leaving the police station, we were both given our IDs’  back, but HJ’s magnetic card was missing. Every West Bank Palestinian that wants to obtain a working permit must also apply for a magnetic ID card from the Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank. When we asked the police officer about it, he said that he lost the card. He shrugged off our request for a statement stating that he lost the card so HJ can apply for a new one without major delays and interrogations. He told us to go away and not to cause any problems if we don’t want to get ourselves into trouble. We knew we had to leave.

This incident puts me in a difficult situation. What do I do next? Do I still hire HJ and possibly other West Bank guides despite the danger of police harassment? Or do I let this incident induce me to boycott Palestinian tour guides?

As a businessman, I cannot allow such situations to happen again to any of my tour groups. It affects the professionalism of my business. But at the same time I cannot let discriminatory police officers win this battle. Is lawful and respectful treatment of Palestinians too much to ask for? Are Palestinians guilty until proven innocent?

In our business, we refuse to let the conflict generate more hatred or propaganda by or against any side. That is why we have both Israelis and Palestinians accompany the group for the entirety of each trip. Our groups meet with Israeli and Palestinian politicians, activists, and artists alike. We hope these tours generate more supporters for peace. We will find ways to overcome the new challenges while keeping to a high professional level, and we will continue to implement this mission regardless of the hostile environment around us.

http://972mag.com/i-was-arrested-for-hiring-a-palestinian-tour-guide/
Aziz Abu Sarah is a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem who divides his time between Jerusalem and Washington D.C.

Aziz is a columnist with Al Quds newspaper and is the co-executive director of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University. Aziz runs alternative tours to the Middle East with a focus on Israel and the West-Bank through MEJDI a social enterprise he co-founded.

WATCH: John Hagee at Glenn Beck event: “I am Israeli!”

And here is an excerpt of Rabbi Riskin’s speech, with a teary-eyed Beck introducing him:


And here is Jon Voight, who came all the way to Caesarea to talk about Israelis who know the bible so well and dig things up all the time. Which is true. I’m going downstairs after I post this to do some digging myself.



And here’s Haggee’s speech in full, if he happens to be your cup of tea.


http://972mag.com/watch-john-hagee-at-glenn-beck-event-%E2%80%9Ci-am-israeli%E2%80%9D/


Ami Kaufman was chief night editor for Haaretz, for the prominent Israeli financial daily Calcalist, and correspondent on Israeli affairs for 93.6 RAM FM. His interest in food and cooking led to culinary studies and a brief stint in the restaurant business.

Ami lives in Bat Yam with his wife and two daughters. In his spare time he blogs at Half & Half.

Co-oping BDS, part II: Filling up the Israeli boycart


The Park Slope Food Coop is probably the only grocery store in America where non-members must: a) accompany a legit member and b) sign in with a photo ID, pledging not to buy any products. There’s just something about exclusivity that makes the kale chips taste better.

“You’re on alert,” the woman at the Coop entrance told me, not unkindly, when I swiped my membership card. Having missed my previous work shift bagging dried nuts and fruit, I am a member in poor standing (which is to say I am basically your average Cooper). Still I was able to bring my friend Jesse Bacon as my non-shopping guest.


Jesse had a cameo in my first Waging Nonviolence installment (“Co-oping BDS, part I: Progressive except Palestine”), which covered the campaign to have the Coop join the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. He’s a longtime justice-in-Palestine activist who is involved in Jewish Voice for Peace’s campaign to get the pension fund TIAA-CREF to divest from Motorola and other companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories. For this second installment, Jesse was a natural choice to help push the Israeli boycart through the aisles of the Park Slope Food Coop. Here’s some of what we found on the shelves.




Item #1: SodaStream, a home seltzer machine made in the West Bank settlement of Mishor Edomim. Situated atop land confiscated from Palestinians, Mishor Edomim is an industrial park where manufacturers receive tax breaks and other incentives from the Israeli government. Like most settlement goods, SodaStream is mislabeled as a product of “Israel,” although Mishor Edomim is beyond Israel’s internationally recognized boundaries. Generally speaking, in addition to violating international law, settlements splice up the West Bank with a system of settler-only roads that cage Palestinians into ever-shrinking areas; create a two-tiered legal system of military rule for the occupied and civilian rule for the occupiers; and appropriate scarce Palestinian water resources.
“Earth friendly,” reads the SodaStream packaging. “Show you care about the environment.”




Item #2: Osem is an Israeli company that uses packaging and machinery that are made in a West Bank settlement. Osem also donates part of their proceeds to the Jewish National Fund (JNF), an Israeli semi-governmental organization that was and is a key player in Palestinian dispossession and legal discrimination against Palestinian-Israelis. Briefly: As detailed by political geographer Oren Yiftachel (and others), before 1948 Jews owned about 8.5% of British mandatory Palestine; afterward, with the forced flight of 700,000 Palestinians, Israel (in partnership with the JNF) simply nationalized refugee land and expropriated Palestinian-Israeli land. (Non-Jews are now effectively barred from owning or renting land in 80% of Israel.) The JNF also planted forests over destroyed Palestinian villages to prevent refugees from returning to their land. Today, teaming up with the Israeli army, the JNF repeatedly razes Bedouin villages in the Negev in southern Israel, officially termed “Judaization”: the project of forcing Bedouins into state-constructed ghettos.

Be sure to watch the video of ultra Orthodox anti-Zionists Jews in Williamsburg denouncing the JNF while little boys with peyos (ear curls) gleefully toss Osem crackers into a flaming trashcan.



Inside the Israeli boycart: settlement-made SodaStream; made-in-Israel Wylde pretzels (although the back of the package doesn’t say so); and Sabra hummus, co-owned by the Strauss Group, an Israeli company that is a popular boycott campaign target. For decades, the Strauss Group has adopted Israeli soldiers in the Golani brigade, notorious for their human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, especially during the 2008–2009 assault on Gaza in which 1389 Palestinians were killed, including 318 children. The Strauss Group provides the Golani brigade with care packages.

Who knows what else might go inside the Israeli boycart? There are rumors of Israeli paprika, perhaps persimmons and bathsalts. Yet, Coop organizers stressed that they don’t want to focus their campaign on de-shelving specific Israeli products (which, by the way, take a significant amount of research to identify due to mislabeling). Their strategy is to focus on the need for democratic process, and so their immediate goal is to bring about a Coop-wide vote.

Coop BDS organizer Nat Pinkerton, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit worker, lamented that much of the coverage of the Park Slope campaign has focused on organizers’ uncertainty about which Israeli products the Coop carries. “It feels important, but it also feels irrelevant,” Pinkerton told me, emphasizing the symbolic over the material. “Boycotting means being part of a movement at large.”

http://wagingnonviolence.org/2011/08/co-oping-bds-part-ii-filling-up-the-israeli-boycart/

Indicted war criminal on payroll of UK Israel lobby

On Friday, I wrote about how Michael Herzog, a retired Israeli brigadier general, is working for one of the most influential Zionist lobby outfits in London. After doing some more research, I realized that as well as being a “senior visiting fellow” with the Britain Israel Communications and Research Center (BICOM), Herzog is the subject of war crime proceedings in Spain.

In January 2009, Spain’s national court decided to open an investigation into Herzog and six other Israeli political and military figures over their involvement in the 2002 bombing of a residential area in Gaza.

The attack was supposedly a “targeted assassination” of Salah Shehadeh, commander of Hamas’ military wing the Izzedeen al-Qassam Brigades. Along with Shehadeh, 14 other Palestinians died. They included a two month old infant, seven other children and two elderly men. Numerous others were injured in the blast from the 2,000 pound bomb used by Israeli forces; 11 houses in the al-Daraj district of Gaza City were irreparably damaged.

Herzog was an adviser to Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, then Israeli defense minister, at the time of the attack. On 29 January 2009, both men (and their co-accused) were ordered to present themselves in Spain within 30 days.

The case has been taken by four Spanish lawyers and the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights. The lawyers have invoked a law on universal jurisdiction, which allows the Spanish judicial authorities to investigate crimes against humanity throughout the world.

Fugitive from justice

This morning I called BICOM to ask if it was aware of the proceedings against Herzog when it decided to put him on its payroll. “I have no idea”, BICOM’s spokesman Dermot Kehoe told me, explaining that he was not yet working for BICOM when Herzog was appointed.

Kehoe promised to examine my query further and get back to me. If he does (and has anything of substance to say), I’ll happily update this blog post.

In the meantime, it is fair to surmise that BICOM was perfectly aware of the proceedings against Herzog, just as it was aware that he counselled Ehud Barak, the current Israeli defense minister, on the conduct of Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza in 2008 and 2009.

It is true that Herzog probably will not be held accountable for his crimes by a Spanish court. Miguel Moratinos, then Spain’s foreign minister, gave an undertaking to his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni in early 2009 that the Spanish universal jurisdiction law would be watered down. Directly as a result of Israeli pressure, the law (which has been in force since 1985) was amended last year.

Spain’s capitulation to Israel does not provide BICOM with any excuse for hiring an indicted war criminal. It should be noted, in particular, that the Spanish national court reprimanded the state of Israel for refusing to cooperate with its handling of the case against Herzog and his co-accused.
It can, therefore, be concluded that BICOM has hired a fugitive from justice.

http://electronicintifada.net/blog/david/indicted-war-criminal-payroll-uk-israel-lobby
 
David Cronin is the author of Europe’s Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation (Pluto Press, 2011). He has written for a wide variety of publications, including The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal Europe, European Voice, the Inter Press Service, The Irish Times and The Sunday Tribune. As a political activist, he has attempted to place both Tony Blair and Avigdor Lieberman under citizen’s arrest for crimes against humanity.

Night of Israeli violence: Al Aqsa Mosque barricade, house demolition, gang beating, arrests

22 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Just after midnight on Monday, August 22  the IDF took the opportunity to trap 1500 Palestinian youth inside al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, blow up a house in Hebron (injuring 30 people in the ensuing riots), and arrested a member of the Freedom Theatre in Jenin.

In Jerusalem, thousands of Palestinians gathered to protest the Israeli escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip. Starting from the Bab Al `Amoud (Damscus Gate) area and marching toward Salah El Deen Street, the protesters suddenly found themselves under attack by IDF soldiers after the latter claimed that a soldier had been stabbed. IDF soldiers and border police closed off the Bab Al Amoud area and Salah El Deen Street and kidnapped several Palestinian youth who were taken to the Al Maskobiyya interrogation center, west of Jerusalem. They also ttacked Palestinian medics and ambulances in the area.

The protesters continued their march into the Old City, prompting hundreds of policemen to break into several homes and cause damage in the area. The protesters ended up inside al-Aqsa mosque, where policemen trapped them inside, closed off the mosque, placed ladders on walls surrounding the mosque, and provoked protesters and those who were simply there to pray and worship during the last ten holy days of Ramadan.

In another incident in Jenin, IDF soldiers surrounded the Freedom Theater at 2 am, closed off the area, and arrested Mohammed Naghnaghiye, the security guard and technician of the theater. On the way out, they fired live ammunition to disperse the crowd of Palestinians who had gathered.
This is the third attack on the Freedom Theater by the IDF this month.

This comes following a daytime attack by a gang of 15 masked settlers of a 10 year old Palestinian boy near Ramallah, outside the settlement of Ramat Migron. The boy is in the hospital being treated for deep wounds.

http://palsolidarity.org/2011/08/19911/

And they did it again! IOF Spokesperson Caught Tweeting (Vanishing) Propaganda…





The tweet below was catched, just before it was removed again by IDFSpokesperson from twitter, so let’s analyze some #FACTS & #LIES by Israel’s most moral spokesperson




The Lies…
  1. Hamas did not break any law, it was Israel starting the violence without any evidence nor connection, and even while Hamas  in Gaza denied any responsibility for any alleged attack.
  2. Gaza does not have “mortar-shells with white phosphorus” maybe the Iron Dome took one of themselve down, OR, whenever it would have been true, let’s be fictional for a moment…..  they returned that which was send to them by Israel, written on it “Made in Israel”
  3. Illegal substances in inhabited areas. Get real! The pro’s hitting highly densed areas and committing these crimes is Israel. Pounding indiscriminate tons of (illegal) weaponry on an air/ground/sea besieged dense populated area which is called Gaza aka world’s largest open air prison in the world.
  4.  Watch it here. And here. And here.


To put things in perspective: This is what white phosphorus does shot by Israel during Cast Lead:




Shocked?

It gets worse. (Warning: Only click of you can bear it and if your stomach is really tough this from the hospital in Gaza)  DIME, depleted uranium,flechettes and more illegal weaponry… 3000 tons of bombs thrown on Gaza of which 100 tons on the 1st day of Cast Lead 2008-2009. To read more about the special and even experimental weaponry sponsored by US to Israel read the Special Topic: Israel’s Weapons a Crime on Humanity
To stay updated on the magnitude of destruction without any evidence nor reason on Gaza, watch the pictures Gaza Under Attack


You should be shocked!
These indiscriminate attacks and massacres go on for 63 years nowTo create the state of Israel is committed over 77 massacres, ongoing, recently updated and the ongoing massacre of Israeli occupation  in which 160 people we’re slained only this year 2011 until now…..  was neither covered by your media.


Neither did the 2 year old Islam Qreqa’a get into the headlines.  Meet 5-yr-old Islam Qreqa’a – BEFORE & AFTER Israeli Attack

Shaheed Islam Qreqa'a - 2 Years Old

Speaking about Law…


Maybe IOFSpokesperson did some soulsearching and decided to remove his tweet for it is a venomous LIE!  And because we do not want people to get punished in the hereafter we  want to remember the Tzahal to the following spoken by G-d:
He who speaks untruths shall not stand before My eyes’ Psalms 101:7
http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/08/21/and-they-did-it-again-iof-spokesperson-caught-tweeting-vanishing-propaganda/

IDF condemns phosphorus shells after ‘Gaza-launched’ attack, possibly tampered with evidence

After targeting over a million Palestinian civilians in Gaza with barrages of white phosphorus shells during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009, the Israeli military is making it clear that phosphorus weapons are illegal under international law. According to the website for the Israel Defense Forces spokesperson:

“Mortar shells containing phosphorus, which when exposed to air burn through anything with which they come into contact, are illegal under international law when fired at civilians.”

Ignoring the blatant hypocrisy behind this particular reminder, the report itself contains a major inconsistency. In the brief news report released on 21 August 2011, the IDF spokesperson alleges that a “mortar shell with phosphorus was fired at the Kerem Shalom land crossing along the Israel-Gaza border”. It shows two photographs (embedded within screenshots of the website):




Although Haaretz did not release any reports on this particular incident, another popular Israeli daily, Ynet, did. Following is a screenshot of a “Breaking News Update”:


According to the Ynet update, one of the mortars launched towards Kerem Shalom “was a phosphorus bomb that failed to detonate”.

Although I am by no means an expert on mortar construction, I do know that the harmful explosives actually lie within the nose of the mortar. A detonated mortar will result in a nose-less shell most likely burned, discolored, or physically scarred during the subsequent blast. In the first photograph offered by the IDF Spokesperson’s website, the mortar is nose-less. This implies one of two things: Either the shell detonated upon impact or the nose was forcibly removed before the mortar could explode.

Unfortunately for the Israeli military, both of these possibilities compromise its credibility.
If the photograph provided by the IDF Spokesperson is in fact of a detonated shell, it stands in direct contradiction with the report released by Ynet which explicitly states that the single phosphorus bomb did not detonate.

On the other hand, if the first photograph shows a suspiciously damaged mortar shell with the nose removed, this could very well be an attempt by the Israeli military to hide the “identity” of the projectile. If this is the case, the first photograph serves the purpose of a stand-in stock photograph. There is no way to positively identify this particular shell as a phosphorus mortar, specifically because the specialized nose capsule where the phosphorus would be held is removed and hidden from view.
Meanwhile, the second photograph shows an undetonated mortar shell dug into the ground. This photograph is significantly more consistent with the Israeli military’s story than is the first photograph, but this still does not verify the presence of a phosphorus shell. Assuming that the mortar was not tampered with, that it did not detonate, and that it had indeed landed in the position it was photographed in, the nose would still be attached to it. But because the nose is yet again hidden from the viewer, the shell’s true identity as a phosphorus mortar is questionable.

How can a viewer be certain that the photographed mortar wasn’t actually the shell of a regular mortar selectively placed into a clearing of sand and dirt?

And more importantly, why is there absolutely no sign of an impact-based crater surrounding the mortar? Assuming this particular mortar shell was launched from an artillery weapon, fundamental physics demands that the high velocity of the shell would inevitably leave some sort of impact even if it did not detonate.

Ultimately, was a phosphorus shell really fired toward an Israeli land crossing today?
These questions cannot be ignored given the fact that the Israeli military has a history of deceptive photo, video, and audio editing and exploiting, especially when the Israeli military urgently needs to justify some sort of military action. For example, after Israel’s deadly raid on the Mavi Marmara in 2010, the Israeli military was forced to retract its edited Flotilla footage. In another instance, the Israeli military released a series of photographs taken from 2006 and earlier to represent the alleged weapons found aboard the Flotilla in 2010. These fake photographs of “seized weapons” offer much insight into the Israeli military’s credibility.

At a time when it appears that Israel is escalating for another invasion of the Gaza Strip, it should not come as a surprise if the Israeli army is revealed to have lied about the phosphorus shell in an attempt to justify a forthcoming assault on the besieged population of Gaza.

But the worst part about this all is that the Israeli military has the audacity to condemn the use of phosphorus weapons only after using them ceaselessly and shamelessly on the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

http://smpalestine.com/2011/08/22/idf-condemns-phosphorus-shells-after-gaza-launched-attack-possibly-tampered-with-evidence/
Sami Kishawi

Israel & U.S. tighten military, political repression



Published Aug 21, 2011 9:17 PM 
 
Almost daily for many years, Israeli soldiers have clashed with Palestinian protesters somewhere in the land claimed by the Israeli state. Now the tempo of struggle is rising once again.

The revolutionary upsurge of the masses in Egypt had loosened the Mubarak regime’s tight control over the Sinai region, which borders the Gaza strip. Gaza is densely packed with Palestinian refugees, who have resisted Israeli rule and been repeatedly attacked by its armed forces. Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza ever since the people there four years ago elected the resistance organization Hamas as their local government.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s fall coincided with a pullback of Egypt’s military from the Sinai region, giving the people of Gaza some relief. But on Aug. 12 the Egyptian military moved “tanks and thousands of military troops in cooperation with Israel into the Sinai Peninsula in an attempt to regain control of the area. ...

“The apparent aim of the operation is to help Israel stop the movement of provisions from Egypt to Gaza through underground tunnels. Israel claims that these tunnels have been used to smuggle weapons into Gaza and that smuggling has been on the increase since Mubarak’s downfall.

“These underground tunnels are often used to provide essential medical, building and food supplies to the 1.5 million Gazans who are under siege in the tiny area of land.

“The Israel government had to first approve the troop movement by the Egyptians as any military advance into the region without coordination would be in direct breach of the 1978 Camp David Accords.” (Palestine News Network, Aug. 14)

The U.S. was Mubarak’s biggest prop. It has armed Israel to the teeth against the oppressed Arab and Muslim peoples of the region. This development shows the U.S. imperialists have successfully maneuvered to keep the same reactionary military forces in power to oppress the Egyptian and Palestinian people, even while they allow popular anger to be somewhat appeased by the ongoing trial of the deposed dictator.

While this military move was happening, the U.S. government cut off almost $100 million in aid supposed to help the people of Gaza in areas like health, education and infrastructure. Hamas had tried to negotiate an agreement with the U.S. Agency for International Development for an independent audit of the U.S.-funded nongovernmental organizations involved in the project. The USAID, which has long been exposed as a conduit for CIA covert operations under the guise of humanitarian assistance, used this request by Hamas as an excuse to cut off the aid.

The Palestinian Authority is preparing to introduce a resolution to the U.N. General Assembly in September that would recognize its right to U.N. membership representing Palestine as an independent state. Knowing that a majority of the world’s nations would be friendly to such a resolution if it were ever to be formally presented, the Israeli regime is speeding up its building of Jewish-only settlements on land it occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

It is telling that it was Israeli “defense” minister, Ehud Barack, not a minister for development or housing, who approved the construction of 227 new homes in Ariel settlement on the West Bank, announced on Aug. 15. This comes on top of news that Tel Aviv would build 900 new housing units in Har Homa settlement and 1,600 in Ramat Shlomo, both in East Jerusalem.  All these settlements are on land seized by Israel in 1967 and are illegal under international law.

On Aug. 2 the U.S. Congress passed a draconian budget that cuts social services in order to continue to pay the banks and bondholders hundreds of billions of dollars of interest on the national debt. Now an unprecedented 81 members of the House of Representatives are on their way to Israel while Congress is in recess. They will be wined and dined in what is a massive junket and lobbying effort to make sure that Democrats and Republicans alike line up behind the Zionist regime.

U.S. imperialism has long had a strategic partnership with Israel that advances the interests of finance capital and the military-industrial complex in an area of the world where U.S.-armed dictatorships in oil-rich lands are increasingly under pressure from the impoverished and disenfranchised masses of people.

The right of the Palestinian people to exercise self-determination, including the right of the millions now living in the diaspora to return to their homeland, has been consistently blocked first and foremost by Washington. This is why support for Palestine must be a cutting-edge issue for all progressives in the U.S.

http://www.workers.org/2011/world/palestine_0825/

Israeli airstrikes on Gaza continue through Sunday; at least 3 children among killed since Thursday

author Monday August 22, 2011 00:16author by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News Report post
According to local sources in Gaza, Israeli missile strikes continued on Saturday and Sunday in various parts of Gaza, averaging one to two air strikes an hour. A two-year old and a five-year old were among the victims of Israel's three-day long bombardment of Gaza, and a 12-year old boy was also among the 15 killed.
Car destroyed by Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia (image by Khalid Khan)
Car destroyed by Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia (image by Khalid Khan)

Early Sunday morning, a car was reportedly struck by an Israeli missile in al-Zaitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. Another airstrike in northern Gaza Sunday reportedly injured seven members of the Sultan family, including two children.

Bombing was also reported in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, and Jabaliya, in northern Gaza.

Also since Thursday, one Israelis were killed and sixteen injured by homemade shells fired from Gaza into southern Israel. Although most of the approximately 80 shells that were fired hit open ground, one hit a home, killing one, and one hit a man running for shelter, wounding him severely. Most of the other injuries were from shrapnel.

Egyptian authorities worked with representatives of Islamic Jihad and Hamas to negotiate a ceasefire on Sunday, Israeli authorities continued the bombardment of Gaza throughout the negotiations. Several shells were also fired from Gaza into Israel on Sunday during the negotiations, causing no injuries or damage.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has threatened to carry out an all-out invasion of the Gaza Strip, similar to one in 2008-9 that killed 1400 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and nearly 400 of them children. He stated after a cabinet meeting Saturday night that Israel needs to engage in serious retaliation against Gaza for the attack on Thursday by unknown gunmen that killed eight Israelis, five of them civilians.

Thursday's attack on an Israeli bus and car took place just two days after Israeli troops stationed on the Gaza border shot and killed a mentally-disabled teenager who had wandered within 400 meters of the border -- an area that Israeli forces have designated a 'kill zone'. 

http://www.imemc.org/article/61865

Bloody Tears of the Gazans

Posted: August 22, 2011 by wr1t1ngjunk13

Voiceless from the continuous screams,

I’ve been voiceless for the past 63 years.

The pain is more unbearable than ever before,

I can’t remember the last time my tears were clear,

Now they are a crimson red, descending rapidly.

Why won’t anyone help us, help our people??

Unanswered these questions will remain

Until my soul departs from OUR promised land
Palestine!

Brushed under the rubble like other Palestinians.

They don’t discriminate age, gender, social status

The only focus is: If you’re Palestinian you die.

Our existence and land being shunned, denied

The name of our land also taken away from us

We have been raped, our dignity gone without a fight

We fight but we’re often seen as the villains

That must be taught a lesson by Israelis

Are we not human?

My blood reaching beyond boiling point,

Witnessing day in, day out my family dying

Becoming part of the death rate statistics.

Do they not have a conscience at all?

How do they sleep after killing small children

With overwhelming tears, begging to go back

To safety, into their mother’s arms. Savages.

In my short life, I’ve seen the bloodshed

Imagine seeing your sister raped in front of you

Then after the thrill, bullet, brain, wall, game over

Like paint on canvas but in reality it’s PAIN!

It’s enough to drive a normal person insane.

I’m a Palestinian; I fight to keep my family safe,

Well what’s left of my family, that is.

We are literally dying for a revolution,

There are lives  lost on a daily basis.

The soil was once brown, just not anymore

The redness of it is destroying the land.

The same way our people are being destroyed

Weapons blowing limbs metres apart.

Help us before it’s too late to do anything

http://wr1t1ngjunk13.wordpress.com/

Kulna Gaza-We are All Gazans


Aug-21-2011 15:34



I call on you - on us - to protest. As loudly and forcefully as possible. A new massacre in Gaza can't and shouldn't happen, and it's in our hands to prevent it.
Kulna Gaza
Kulna Gaza

(CAIRO) - Fifteen people were killed so far, and no end in sight.

Tomorrow the foreigners will be evacuated, Israel threatens with a "massive military attack", a "ground invasion" is not ruled out. Fifteen killed people, including two children. I can give their names, Malek, two years old, and Mahmoud, thirteen years. I can tell how Mahmoud's teacher has described him as an intelligent, bright student, or I can show photos of the two.
As if that would create an outcry , as if the Western media would care enough for the lives of Palestinian children. No, Israel was attacked. Israel must defend itself.
Neither the circumstances, let alone the actual perpetrators of the attack on Israel have been identified so far, every Palestinian military faction has denied any involvement in it. But Gaza is blamed, as Gaza is always to be blamed for, Gaza must be punished, Gazan blood must flow so that the murder on Israelis will be avenged.
How much blood must still flow, you Israeli generals? How many Mahmouds and Maleks will have to die, how many women and children will have to be injured and killed? The signs suggest that it will still be many. And the signs suggest that the world is going to accept it. That it will accept that innocent people are being killed who had nothing but nothing to do with the attack on Israel
But of course Palestinians must be "punished", simply because they are Palestinians. I was at the protests against the Israeli embassy in Cairo. There were also Egyptian soldiers being killed. "Regrettable", called Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, the incident. Since when is it just a pity when you kill the soldiers of your neighboring country. The people outside the embassy were angry, they demanded the expulsion of the ambassador, removed the Israeli flag and replaced it with an Egyptian one.
Yet the Egyptian activists with whom I spoke were skeptical. Egypt is weak, they said. We have no president, no real political leadership, we must first rebuild our country, our economy needs to grow. Economy? I asked. Don't get me wrong. Of course I know that Egypt is in a difficult position. But it's not about economical support for a war torn country.
As we speak, Gaza is being bombed. As we speak, innocent people are dying. If Israel doesn't experience any resistance, any outcry, any appeal from the world public to act carefully, then a new massacre will happen. A 'Cast Lead' two. In which 1382 people were murdered in three weeks, including 320 children.
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I told them, I urge you not to watch your brothers and sisters being murdered. I appealed to the Muslim community spirit, but actually I want to appeal to the humanity of each of us.
My friends in Gaza have changed their Facebook profile pictures to red letters saying: "Kulna Gaza." We are all Gaza.
In a desperate attempt to show the world that the people who are bombed there in that moment are not bloodthirsty terrorists, but people like you and me. Who feel, think, laugh and suffer like we all do. Who are sitting at home in front of their computers, locked up in a tiny coastal strip from where there is no escape, no place to be safe. They are sitting there hoping and praying that the bombs falling around them won't hit their own house, that they will live until the next day. With the Internet as the only possibility to show their existence, their suffering, to draw attention to their humanity.

Kulna Gaza

On their behalf I appeal on our humanity. Because a piece of land having nothing to exploit anymore, neither industry nor resources, which is already completely devastated by bombs, can hardly hope for political support. This land can only be helped by humanity. I appeal to your humanity not to allow any new massacre in Gaza. To show opposition. Through demonstrations, through protests.
In a country like Egypt, with really plenty of own problems, thousands of people were on the streets yesterday to demonstrate support for Gaza and to show the people there that they are not alone. Let us take it as example.
I call on you - on us - to protest. As loudly and forcefully as possible. A new massacre in Gaza can't and shouldn't happen, and it's in our hands to prevent it. Not in the hands of politicians who decide on economic terms, but in ours. It is up to us, that we prevent a new war in Gaza.
Kulna Gaza - we are all Gaza.

Vera Macht is a journalist and peace activist who has lived in Gaza for one year. Currently she is in Cairo in her way back there. She actually is in Cairo where she tries to get a permission to cross Rafah border to get back to Gaza again.

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/august212011/kulna-gaza--vm.php

Thailand to Recognize Palestinian State in September


Date : 22/8/2011   Time : 14:27

BANGKOK, August 22, 2011 (WAFA) - Thailand will recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations when it comes up for a vote in September, Monday said Nabil Shaath, member of Fatah Central Committee.
Shaath discussed in a meeting with the Thai foreign minister, Pisamo Fagan, Palestinian plans to seek UN recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, urging it support the Palestinian bid.
The Fatah official, on a mission by President Mahmoud Abbas to get as many world support for the Palestinian state as possible, will also visit India and Russia to discuss and coordinate political stances regarding the Palestinians’ September plans.
M.H./M.A.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=17087