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UNRWA free of United States interference
Last week the White House stopped its funding to UNRWA, the agencyiin charge of supporting and protecting Palestinians refugees.
At this point is expected that it will continue its mission through personal donations. According to uts official page, UNRWA also receives funding from the European Union and partner organizations.
Skipping the middle man! This could be the best opportunity to sideline the US government, which have been the main obstacle for peace in Palestine—The US Congress also is to blame having funded the Israeli’s military with billions of dollars. This funding have emboldened Israel.
At this moment the future of UNRWA US is unsure. I share their page, but I’m skeptical if the funds can be delivered directly to the occupied territories without official channels. Also taking in consideration that Israel receives the money before is handled to the Palestinian Authority.
UNRWA is a non-profit, that functions as a direct dependent of the UN, which was funded in the same year the agency was funded–In 1949 UNRWA was created with the sole purpose to assist and protect Palestinians dispossessed of their lands, homes and livehood after the partition.
At this point we don’t know what is going to happen to UNRWA. It is true several countries and private organizations also help in its funding, but we need to hear more information from the WH regarding its standing regarding UNRWA—Will the WH allow UNRWA to function without government interference?
“WE PROVIDE ASSISTANCE AND PROTECTION FOR
SOME 5 MILLION PALESTINER EFUGEES,” UNRWA official page
Israel Breaking Palestinian Bones and Article 32 of the IV Geneva Convention
IV GENEVA CONVENTION, RATIFICATION O 1949
Part III: STATUS AND TREATMENT OF PROTECTED PERSONS
SECTION I – PROVISIONS COMMON TO THE TERRITORIES OF THE PARTIES TO THE CONFLICT AND THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES.
ARTICLE 32 – PROHIBITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT, TORTURE, ETC.
The High Contracting Parties specifically agree that each of them is prohibited from taking any measure of such a character as to cause the physical suffering or extermination of protected persons in their hands. This prohibition applies not only to murder, torture, corporal punishment, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments not necessitated by the medical treatment of a protected person, but also to any other measures of brutality whether applied by civilian or military agents.
The principle stated in Article 27 of absolute respect for the human person might have constituted a sufficient guarantee for protected persons in itself. However, the memory of the barbaric acts of which there were only too many examples in the two world wars showed the need to strengthen this principle and to prohibit expressly all acts contrary to it.
C. Corporal punishment and mutilation.- These expressions are sufficiently clear not to need lengthy comment. Like torture, they are covered by the general idea of “physical suffering.” Mutilation, a particularly reprehensible and heinous form of attack on the human person, is also included in the list of “grave breaches’ and is mentioned formally in Article 147 among “acts willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health.” Furthermore, it is expressly forbidden by Article 3 of the Convention.
The four 1949 Conventions have been ratified by 196 states, including all UN member states, both UN observers the Holy See and the State of Palestine, as well as the Cook Islands.
Will violations of International of International Law will send Israel to the ICC?
Who or what is the ICC?
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The International Criminal Court (ICC), located in The Hague, is the court of last resort for prosecution of genocide, warcrimes, and crimes against humanity. Its founding treaty, the Rome Statute, entered into force on July 1, 2002.
Who is watching Israel?
“Israeli forces killed at least 15 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, most in circumstances that suggest the killings were unlawful. Israeli authorities destroyed homes and other property under discriminatory practices, forcibly displacing hundreds of Palestinian residents in West Bank areas under Israeli control, as well as hundreds of Bedouin citizens of Israel.” Human Rights Watch
“Israeli forces committed war crimes and human rights violations during a 50-day military offensive in the Gaza Strip that killed over 1,500 civilians, including 539 children, wounded thousands more civilians, and caused massive civilian displacement and destruction of property and vital services.” Amnesty International 2014 Report
“The ICRC started work in Israel and the occupied territories in 1948, following the first Israeli-Arab conflict. Its presence became permanent in the aftermath of the 1967 war. The organization focuses on the protection of civilians and the welfare of detainees held in Israeli and Palestinian places of detention, and helps the most vulnerable. The ICRC supports the Palestine Red Crescent Society and the Magen David Adom (the Israeli National Society).” ICRC in the Palestinian Occupied Territories
Mainly these three organizations have the legal authority to investigate, and collect evidence that can help to prove the allegations of human rights violations in the occupied territories, but due to the wide spread International Solidarity Movement, its members live in the occupied territories, are both; victims and witness of Israel crimes, for several years its member has been collecting evidence against Israel.
“As we demand that Israel acknowledges and respects international law and put an end to apartheid and its occupation, we must also stand firmly against any form of prejudice, regardless of the target. We oppose any form of bigotry directed at people based on ethnicity, physical appearance, origin, gender, sexuality, physical ability, age, religion and are not limited to just these concerns. We support full equality of all people and expect all ISM volunteers to adhere to these beliefs and take a strong stance against anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and Zionism. In line with a 2012 Palestinian declaration, we object to the baseless use of the term anti-Semitism as a tool for stifling criticism of Israel or opposition to Zionism, partly as this falsely conflates being Jewish with support for an ideology, Zionism, or the colonial and apartheid policies of a state, Israel.” International Solidarity Movement
The Walls will fall from within
The walls will fall from within!
Samsom destroys the temple
Israel has no hope, its leadership is crumbling down, their political figures start pointing fingers to each other for the state of affairs of the Zionist entity, the disbanding of the heads of the state will lead the Apartheid State to finally meet its end.
The avalanche that started rolling in 2005 when the Boycott Sanctions and Divestment movement started to take form is rolling down stronger and bigger, together with the recent assault to the Gaza strip that left half millions homeless, indiscriminately high number of civilians killed have the eyes and ear of the world in Israel judging the ‘Jew State’ as the fascist dictatorship, the killing machine. Israel has been called Genocidal, psychopath that executed thousands of civilians in different events,, the latest this last summer that killed more than 2500 Palestinians. Israel list of extrajudicial killings is long, the number of victims in Palestine since Israel was inserted in the Middle East number in the hundred of thousands, the refugees in the millions. Over the years Israel color of victim have wore out to expose its true colors.
The Palestinian lands were illegally given to a group of European victims of the Nazi Holocaust in 1947 in a well crafted plan to disposes millions of native of their lands and homes
Leftist MK Stav Shaffir (Labor), a former leader of the social protest movements, hailed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s decision Tuesday night to disband the coalition government, firing ministers Yair Lapid and Tzipi Livni.
“The time has come for the public in Israel to internalize that and act together with us to finally replace the government in Israel,” said the young leftist MK, who has vocally opposed the Jewish presence in Israel’s Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria.
Former Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Carmi Gillon on Saturday night launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government.
“Israel is headed today by a bunch of pyromaniacs and is being led by an egomaniac to its final destruction,” said Carmi Gillon, who spoke at a demonstration by leftists protesting against the Jewish State Law outside the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem.
“The Jewish State Law will eat the body of the entire nation like a cancer. The continuation of the radical and messianist policy on the Temple Mount will bring about a Gog and Magog war against the Jewish people,” he added.
This is the side of Israeli politics seldom seen by the western world and harsh words coming from a man who was once responsible for Israel’s domestic security.
The Gatekeepers: In New Film, Ex-Shin Bet Chiefs Denounce Occupation, Compare Israel to Nazi Germany
DemocracyNow.org – Amidst a spate of killings by Israeli forces of unarmed Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, we turn to the stunning Oscar-nominated documentary, “The Gatekeepers.” The film brings together six former heads of Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, collectively speaking out for the first time ever. They detail their methods against Palestinian militants and civilians in the Occupied Territories, including targeted killings, torture, recruiting informants, and the suppression of mass protests during two Intifadas. But in doing so, they also criticize the occupation they were assigned with defending, and warn successive Israeli governments have endangered their country’s future by refusing to make peace. We’re joined by the film’s director, Dror Moreh.
Gaza 50 days War: Hamas’s Return Ticket to the Middle East
By Wahid Mardane
Researcher at Neda Institute
Hamas military wing resistance fighters
October 19, 2014(Tehran, Iran)-After many ups and downs across the Rafah border and early the return of Hamas’s ideological father (Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood) to the pages of history and consequently Hamas’s confusion against the region’s balance in that juncture, most experts acknowledged that this movement had stepped into a period of weakness and even annihilation in its history as political force. The unexpected departure from Syria of the leadership of Hamas, and its turn to the political-ideological front of traditional compromising states in the region, including; Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, etc. from the one hand and Israelis’ spreading “red carpets” to this movement including suppling of cement and drinking water to Gaza Strip, giving more concessions to Gaza’s fishermen. besides, some of Israeli political and military officials comments like the Northern command on preferring Hamas over other factions in Gaza, this caused the future of the resistance in the region to be added to the other multiple puzzles in the Middle East.There is the possibility that many of the experts do not have any information about the military capabilities of Hamas or they have neglected it, because in the afore-mentioned juncture authentic news were broadcast about strained relations between Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran and even the two sides confirmed it. Therefore, very few people were thinking about the fact that in the very juncture, political and military deals were running between Iran-Syria and Hamas and even the political crisis I Egypt and Iran-Hamas disputes behind the doors had made the Zionists neglect the arms transfer to Gaza.Now, after the Zionists’ invasion of Gaza, the Resistance Faction’s advanced arms and offensive-defensive systems are conspicuously visible. In this regard, chief of Hamas’s foreign relations, Osama Hamdan remarks that the Resistance is of the readiness to continue the war for months even if Hams is the initiator of the next war with the purpose of taking the occupied territories out of the claws of the Zionists.
In fact what is currently going on about Hamas can be mentioned as a tangible example of turning a threat into an opportunity. Gaza war took place under the circumstances where Hamas was held accountable by the Iranian and Syrian public opinions and elites for its performance about Syrian and Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt. Therefore, since Hamas was aware of its defensive and arms advances, it was waiting for a chance to see its flag once again at the hands of the Resistance supporters in the region. Now, one can acknowledge that once again this flag has become an identity-constructing one and maybe it is for this reason that Hamas is not keen on putting an end to the war.
This hypothesis seems to be true for 5 reasons:
Stop of Israel-Hamas serial wars
Both Palestinian and Zionist analysts are of the belief that Israel-Hamas wars have been like a never-ending series and will continue as episodes. The time and place and characters change, but according to the definition of episode “place and time of the characters change, but the players and the main subject do not change.” Now, the place of war has been shifted from air to land and the characters from the air force to the land force. So, knowing this, Hamas is going to have more interventions in the scenario of the war of 2014 in order to write its script for its favor.
Change in the intervals of upcoming wars from short to long
Hamas is going to prolong the average interval of its wars against the Zionists from a couple of years to a decade at least. The war of 2008, Gaza siege in 2010 and the war of 2012 and also the recent war of 2014 are indicative of a 2 year pattern in the intervals of the cease fire which is to be changed. In the unwritten goals of the Zionist officials, the notion of a severe war against Gaza with the purpose of achieving a more prolonged peace and security had been applied which can confirm the bi-directionality of the mentioned goal.
Proof of Hamas’s development and maturity without the “assistant wheels” of other countries
Hamas is keen to show that without Syria and Egypt’s spiritual and geopolitical supports, it can continue its resistance and proceed with a draft of getting out of war without the intervention of the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan and Egypt’s new system. Of course, Hamas should know that the present and upcoming victories may once again intoxicate them and cause them to make the same mistakes as they did in the political sphere in connection with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Hence, there is no doubt that the independence of Hamas should be the top priority of pro-resistance countries; but by the time it is fully achieved, assistant wheels should be relied on.
Finding a chance for break time in domestic sphere
Concurrent with the war of 2014, Hamas temporarily got out of the socio-economic crisis it was suffering from. Not payment of the employees’ salaries, striking growth of poverty and unemployment and Gaza people’s social dissatisfactions were among other major issues which had put Hamas in a weak position. But, now concurrent with the war, not only it is not accused as the initiator of misfortunes from the domestic and international point of view, but it is introduced as a savior.
War of 2014 as a return ticket to the region
With surprising psychological and military achievements in the war of 2014, the resistance factions have managed to get the ticket of a powerful return to the region. All in all, as expected, the war of 2014 like the previous ones turned out to be short, because in less than ten days serious proposals for cease fire were offered mediated by Egypt which were supposed to be accepted immediately by the resistance factions as in the previous wars. But we had argued that a cease fire in less than 10 days had depended on the reaction of the resistance factions and these factions seized the new chance in which there were a shortage of mediators and less pressure from the previous compromising Islamic states and thus, they prolonged the war as long as they got more concessions.
The victory of Gaza Children against IDF in 50 days Gaza-imposed-war!
Therefore, a historical victory for the resistance factions due to their steadfastness on the continuation of the war it happened and today we can see fresh eyes on Gaza after 50 days typhoon. Now we can yield and praised the victory of Gaza’s children against IDF. So the new generation of Gaza is known as the Palestine future Iron Domes.
Possibly, the next episode of the Zionists’ war against the resistance factions will take place underground, under the land of the prophets and we should wait some new defence systems by Israel as the Underground Iron Domes.
Neda Institute for Scientific Political Research was established in 1996. Due to the direct impacts of the establishment of the Israeli usurper regime on the international policies, particularly on the Middle East and the world of Islam, a group of researchers, Middle East and international relations of islam’s world followers established Neda institute and launched a new move in the developments of the region. The main object of such institute is to acquaintance with the existing political mechanisms in the Middle East as well as a deeper understanding of current social, political, cultural and economic developments of the political units in the region. According to the role and impact of the destructive policies of the holy Quds occupier regime on the countries of the region as well as on the international system, the general direction of the Neda’s activities focused on a proper and true cognition in accordance with a scientific approach to the current developments and political events in the Middle East. Thus, understanding the roots of the crisis and being familiar with the intellectual foundations of Zionism and the overt and covert advocates of Israel in the West, particularly the United States, was put on the agenda.Since then, Neda Institute has succeeded in carriying out a number of applied studies for the addressees and customers. In the light of the expertise capabilities as well as the contacts and considerable credit it has gained in the international arena, Neda Institute has achieved a special status as a professional institute.The Farsi version of this article can be found here
Wahid Mardane, political researcher at Neda Institute (photo/Neda Institute)
Wahid Mardane is Master student of Middle East Studies at the University of Tehran, he is political researcher at Neda Institute, a non-profit organization that focus on Palestine issues. Mardane is also political and peace activist, he has been invited as a speaker on Middle East affairs in academic meetings. He has written various articles, The function of censorship, Playing with statistics in the literature Gaza 50 days war, The struggle of mediations in the midst of Gaza war. Mardane is also founder of the global movement Celebrities4Palestine hashtag #Celebs4Pal
Urgent Appeal: Palestinian Legislative Council Member Khalida Jarrar Expelled to Jericho
Occupied Ramallah, 20 August 2014 – The Israeli Military Governor in the West Bank has signed a military order expelling Palestinian Legislative Council Member and Addameer board member Khalida Jarrar to Jericho for a period of six months, with immediate effect.
Military Judge Advocate General
6 David Elazar Street
Harkiya, Tel Aviv
Israel
Fax: +972 3 608 0366; +972 3 569 4526
Email: arbel@mail.idf.il; avimn@idf.gov.il
OC Central Command Nehemia Base, Central Command
Neveh Yaacov, Jerusalam
Fax: +972 2 530 5741
Ministry of Defense
37 Kaplan Street, Hakirya
Tel Aviv 61909, Israel
Fax: +972 3 691 6940 / 696 2757
Legal Advisor of Judea and Samaria PO Box 5
Beth El 90631
Fax: +972 2 9977326
If any person, acting through the representatives of the Protecting Power, voluntarily demands internment and if his situation renders this step necessary, he shall be interned by the Power in whose hands he may be.
Israeli military falsifies photograph to justify bombing el-Wafa hospital
The destruction of Civilians facilities are considered WarCrimes under War Protocols and IV Geneva Convention Status, and International Humanitarian Law
“It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive” IHL-Practice Relating to Rule 54. Attacks against Objects Indispensable to the Survival of the Civilian Population
Aerial photos on the left of the screen shot of the photo shows IDF red dots showing Al-Wafa hospital being used to launch rockets
The building in the picture marked ‘Al-Wafa’ hospital is in fact not the el-Wafa hospital but the Right to Life Society.
Aerial photos on the left of the screen shot of the photo shows IDF red dots showing Al-Wafa hospital being used to launch rockets
The building in the picture marked ‘Al-Wafa’ hospital is in fact not the el-Wafa hospital but the Right to Life Society.
On the 21st July at 2:17 PM, the IDF spokesperson released an image on twitter showing an aerial picture of a building marked as ‘Al-Wafa’ hospital. In the image there is a red circle, which they designated as the location from which a M75 rocket was launched.
The building in the picture marked ‘Al-Wafa’ hospital is in fact not the el-Wafa hospital but the Right to Life Society, says palsolidarity.org on their web side.
On July 11, Israel’s army fired four ‘warning’ missiles at the roof of El-Wafa rehabilitation hospital in Gaza City, Gaza. International volunteers now staying in the hospital in solidarity, have said they, “can hear missiles falling close by”.
“The civilian population of Gaza is being bombed. We will stay with them in solidarity until the international community and our governments take action to stop Israel’s crimes against humanity.” States Swedish International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist, Fred Ekblad.
At around 20:00 Basman Alashi, executive director of the hospital, received an unidentified call from a person with a, “heavy Israeli accent”, asking if there were any injuries, whether there was any one in the top floor, and whether they were planning to evacuate the hospital.
Alashi says the hospital will not be evacuated because there is nowhere to evacuate the patients too. “El-Wafa hospital serves the patients that need medical attention 24 hours a day. Including patients that can’t move, or people who need to be fed by tube. This hospital is the only one in Gaza specializing in the rehabilitation of people who need physical and occupational therapy. Some of our patients are over 60 years old, men and women. We don’t understand why the Israeli forces have fired five rockets at the hospital in the last 24 hours so far. We serve humanity.”
On July 18, At 21:45, the Israeli military called the Red Cross and asked them to contact el-Wafa to ask how much time was needed to evacuate the rest of the hospital. Alashi told them that he needed two hours to fully evacuate the hospital.
The last shelling occurred at 22:00 and the last patient was evacuated at 22:45 to Al sahaba medical complex.
According to Dr. Basman Alashi, “There were no physical injuries but emotionally, it is indescribable for the staff.”
Palestine has no army, for such, The whole of Gaza population is under the protection of IV Geneva Convention, and International Humanitarian Law.
I Rather Die: We have nothing left to lose
“We have nothing left to lose. I would rather die with my family under the rubble of our house than have a humiliating truce’: Palestinian youth demand justice”
Palestinian killed under the rubble of his home after an Israel missile targeted his home. “The sleep, that never ends.” reads a post in facebook
The death toll continues to rise in the East of Gaza as Palestinians retrieve their loved ones from the rubble. July 20, 2014 at Gaza, Palestine
Palestinians in Gaza have been suffering a long blockade from the outside world, such blockade, was placed by Israel and enforced in part by Egypt by closing Rafah crossing, which it is the only other border to the outside world.
Palestinians in Gaza see the siege to the Strip worse than a direct war at them, the siege of Gaza is a slow death. A truce with Israel that does not include end of the blockade is only temporary cease of fire.
Fishermen are harassed everyday by Israel boats that illegally patrol Gaza’s waters. Fisherman are confined to a 3 nautical miles to fish.
Excerpt from 3 Miles to Fish or Die,
“Why did you break the 3 mile limit?” an Israeli soldier asked him.
“During Oslo, we were allowed to reach 20 miles so why do you prevent us from going past 3 miles? These 3 miles not enough,” Al-Hesy responded.
Gaza is not a pleasant place to be. The Israeli occupation smothers and suffocates, it makes one highly attuned to one’s surroundings in unnatural ways, or ways that were once natural but should no longer be. Notes from behind the Blockade
Fire Water
I took a much-needed shower after a day of harvesting olives near the buffer zone and my skin still burns. My eyes itch as well. I’m not quite sure what this is about. Gaza’s water contamination is well-documented — Israel damaged the sewage facilities here during “Operation Cast Lead” causing sewage to penetrate Gaza’s coastal aquifer. There is a high level nitrates in the water here (nitrates come from waste and cause “blue baby syndrome”) as well as high saline levels (tap water is undrinkable), but I haven’t heard anything about this weird itching and burning. International Activist in Gaza
Reality of the Israel Blockade in Gaza Graphic
There’s a serious Israeli blockade of Gaza. You’ll notice Israeli fences, boundaries, and supervised crossings all around Gaza. Israel heavily controls the flow of goods through these channels, including food, medicine, construction materials, and the like. The state reason it does that is to limit Hamas’ ability to resupply itself militarily; for instance, Hamas and other militant groups often home-build rockets that get fired into Israeli towns and cities. These restrictions also severely affect civilians. To deal with the military and civilian effects of the blockade, Hamas built well over a thousand tunnels out of Gaza — mostly into Egypt. Israel’s stated reason for the ground incursion into Gaza is shutting down tunnels into Israel built for attacks, but it also may want to shut down Hamas supply tunnels into Egypt. Vox.com
Jerusalem Post published on last week an Egyptian proposed cease of fire that many in Gaza believes to be Israel crafted, such cease of fire agreement was rejected by Hamas for the simple reason that they were not invited to participate in the conversations and the cease of fire does not help to end the conflict in Gaza at all, it is simply temporary cease of fire.
Historically Israel has broke every cease of fire signed when continues with the target assassinations on Palestinian leaders in Gaza and around the world, the latest target assassinations during negotiated cease fire Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, on January 19, 2010 and Ahmed Jabari who Hours before to be assassinated, he have received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the cease-fire in the case of a flare-up between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip.
Gaza ask 10 very easy achievable points to end the rockets to Israel:
End completely Gaza siege including the 3-fishing-nautical-miles, release of all political prisoners including the prisoners re-arrested after Shilat deal exchange, release the 500 or so arrested in West Bank after the 3 Israeli soldiers were killed, including Hamas members of Palestinian parliament , stop the assassination of Palestinian political leaders and and international supervision of the Gazan seaport in place of the current Israeli blockade, which was suggested by Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled Al-Attiyah, on July 14, 2014
I leave you to reflect on the words of Benjamin Netayahu included in a book he co_authored in 1986, in his words he explain exactly why Israeli actions against the Palestinians are carried out. He is doing exactly what he said in 1986.
Benjamin Netayahu best known by Bibi in 1986 co-authored a book called TERRORISM How The West Can Win. In the Chapter “Defining Terrorism”, you find the following statement.
“For in addition to random killing, terrorist often engage in assassinations of society’s leaders. Assassinations, in fact is important to the genesis of modern terrorism, emerging from an older tradition that maintains that a society can be reshaped, or a creed cleansed, by eliminating its leaders or ruling class. For the TERRORIST, assassination is the precursor of mass murder, and both constitute the principal weapons in his arsenal.” Benjamin Netayahu, 1986 in his book TERRORISM
Al-Shujaeia neighborhood military zone
At least 100 Palestinians and 13 Israeli troops have died across Gaza in the deadliest day since Israel began its operation.
The Spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza, Ashraf Al-Qudra, accused the Israeli side of preventing the transport of bodies and injured to hospitals. He told reporters “Israeli forces are heavily firing at and shelling ambulances, civil defense vehicles, as well as civilian homes and the number of those fallen cannot be ascertained amid these circumstances.” He described the attacks since post-midnight Saturday as the fiercest since the start of the assault on Gaza two weeks ago.
A new martyr identified as Zakareya Alashqar, 24 Y, .Death toll is up to 502 . #Gaza Abu Yazan Facebook Updates
He pointed out “there is deliberate, premeditated targeting of civilian homes with mortar shells and air missiles,” and “medical crews are desperately trying to reach the victims”. He added international agencies including the Red Cross are contacting the Israelis to urge them to allow ambulances into Al-Shujaeia neighborhood where the greatest number of victims was reported, “to no avail.” “The Israelis had vowed to destroy this neighborhood completely and considers the area a closed military zone and no one is allowed in.” Al-Qudra said reports of deaths and injuries are pouring in from Rafah, Al-Wusta Governorate, as well as Al-Shujaeia.(end) mt.wsa
Dead and displaced in Shuyaiya neighborhood of East Gaza, updates from Palestinians trapped in the line of fire, have been uploading photos and updates in facebook as the conditions permits.
People fleeing the shelling in the northeast Gazan neighbourhood of Shaja’iya described it as a “massacre”, with many women and children among the dead, said Sky News
Updates from UNRWA office in Gaza put the displaced at 81,000 people whose houses were bombed by Israel missiles since Operation Protective Edge started more than 2 weeks ago.
Distraught civilians are now taking shelter from the relentless violence in 61 UNRWA schools in #Gaza, said UNRWA office, They said to be at least 54 people killed over night. Ten were children – seven boys and two girls. The death toll in Gaza since 8 July has reached 368 people and about 2,295 injured. At least 80 children are amongst the total dead. Official Update on July 19.
According to IDF spokesperson twitter account published at a declassify areal photos of Al-Shujaeia neighborhood, where they said Hamas used civilian infrastructure to throw rockets.
The twitter photo seems as a drawn photo where no rockets can be seen but red dots, that according to the @IDFspokesperson twitter is a rocket site.
Below is the twitter snapshot, judge by yourself, how much credibility Israel have left after killing more than 500 Palestinians mostly children and women.
July 17 Day of International Criminal Justice
Ban Kin Moon holding a sign on July 17 celebrating International Criminal Court, The International body in charge to keep justice in the world, and punish those that transgresses it.
This is a sick joke for people that are following the massacre being conducted against the people of Gaza, where war crimes are being indisputable being committed by the Israeli Defenses forces Aka Israel Occupation Forces, while the United Nations is celebrating July 17 as the International day of Criminal Justice, on reference of the ICC
“The International Criminal Court (ICC), governed by the Rome Statute, is the first permanent, treaty based, international criminal court established to help end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community. ” ICC
Why haven’t the Palestinians officials apply to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court so they can take Israel to the higher court of justice.
Why all the extra wording, it seems as they were playing a game of death with Israel.
Are they waiting for more massacres to occur in Gaza, don’t we have enough evidence of war crimes committed against the population of Palestine?.
There are recorded massacres in the history books that qualify as war crimes.
Hanan Ashrawi, speaks of Threat to Israel to join the Rome Status to take Israel to ICC.
#Israel have committed enough #Warcrimes, #Gaza is bleeding. #Hamas has no recourse but to resist, al-Quds Brigades has no recourse but to resist until you politicians do your job. Gazawans can not subsist much longer, the war and fast dead will be a blessing for them, what they can not take any longer is the siege to Gaza. Do something fast, NOW is almost late..
On an article published by the Israel Times she says that If Operation Protective Edge continues, we will head to Hague-based court ‘sooner rather than later,’ PLO official Hanan Ashrawi said.
What does this means for 350 and counting death under Israel bombs in Gaza?
What does this mean for the almost 1.8 residents of Gaza that had been placed in a slow cooking pressure ghetto?
What does this mean for the people around the world that had been victim of violence by the hands of the armies that belong to the Security Council of the United Nations?
I see this photo and my stomach gets sick with anger and repulsion. I’m outraged to see this photo of Ban Ki-moon holding a sign that reads
JUSTICE MATTER .
They even open a page dedicate to July 17 in facebook where people is submitting their photos with signs #JusticeMatter, I wonder if those people knows what is happening in Gaza or even if they know what justice mean.
Just behavior or treatment: a concern for justice, peace, and genuine respect for people – The quality of being fair and reasonable
Does Justice Matter for Palestinians or they are exclude because Israel is the one committing the war crimes.
“17 July is the Day of International Criminal Justice. The Day marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Rome Statute on 17 July 1998, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court, which seeks to protect people from genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. The Day unites all those who wish to support justice, promote victims’ rights, and help prevent crimes that threaten the peace, security and well-being of the world.” United Nations google+
The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a body of the United Nations established to prosecute serious crimes committed during the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and to try their perpetrators. The tribunal is an ad hoc court which is located in The Hague, Netherlands.
Why the UN haven’t create an The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Occupied Territory of Palestine since 1948 and beyond?
61 people were killed in Friday alone, Saturday 10, the tally is 309 Palestinian killed so far in this 17 days of slaughter. But who is counting right?
Source: Ma’an News Agency
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — 22 Palestinians were killed overnight with at least ten killed just since day break on Saturday as Israeli forces continued their military offensive against the Gaza Strip by air, sea, and land for the twelfth day, Palestinian medical sources said.
The killings follow the deadliest day in the conflict so far, after Israel killed at least 52 Palestinians and injured more than 400 on the first day of their ground invasion of the besieged coastal enclave.
Spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza Ashraf al-Qidra said on Saturday that Israeli forces had “committed a massacre against Palestinian civilians” in the Khan Younis district in the southern Gaza Strip overnight, killing seven.
He identified the victims as 20-year-old Yahya Bassam al-Serri, Muhammad Bassam al-Serri, 17, Mahmoud Ridha Salihiyya, 56, Mustafa Ridha Salihiyya, 21, Wasim Ridha Salihiyya, 15, Muhammad Mustafa Salihiyya, 22, and Ibrahim Jamal Kamal Nasr, 13.
Al-Qidra also said that 27-year-old Raed Walid Laqan was killed in Khan Younis by an Israeli attack on a home belonging to the Tartouri family.
In addition, 30-year-old Said Ali Issa was killed in Juhor Addik neighborhood in the central Gaza Strip near al-Bureij refugee camp.
34-year-old Ahmad Mahmoud Hasan Aziz was killed by an Israeli missile on his home in Abraj al-Nada in the northern Gaza Strip overnight as well.
Saturday morning’s deaths bring the total death toll of 12 days of Israeli military offensive in Gaza to 309 in addition to 2268 injuries, according to al-Qidra.
The spokesman highlighted that Friday was the deadliest day of Israel’s military aggression on Gaza with 52 Palestinians killed as of midnight.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed that 71 children, 25 women and 17 elderly people have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza as of Friday night.
Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip — which it has dubbed “Operation Protective Edge” — in response to rocket fire from the area, which had increased in the weeks before the operation due to a massive Israeli military operation in the West Bank.
10 Palestinians died, more than 130 were injured, and more than 600 Hamas-affiliated individuals were arrested during that operation, which was launched following the disappearance of three Israeli youths in June.
Israel accused Hamas of being behind the disappearance, and in addition to the assault on the West Bank launched nightly airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, which has been under a full economic blockade for the last seven years.
Hamas, however, denied the charges, and many have accused Israel of using the subsequent deaths of the three Israeli teenagers as a pretext for a widespread assault on the group.
Gaza being attacked again-July 2014
Today July 10, 2014 a partial list of the person murdered by Israel in Gaza, Palestine .
UPDATE July 13, 2014 4:29 p.m PCT
The names of the 176 victims of Israel onslaught in Gaza, Palestine
Israel Missiles destroys buildings in Gaza city, July 2014, Gaza, Palestine (photo/RevolutionNews.com
Gazawans have no place to run for cover they live in an open prison surrounded by 25-cement-wall and bared wires in three fronts and Egyptian border sealed on Rafah.
This is an example of how these Palestinians died. The following video shows a Palestinian apartment building being destroyed by an Israeli missile.
This house being destroyed by an Israeli missile housed 5 families of total 45 people or more. As a punishment for living in the same apartment building of a relative wanted by Israel the whole apartment building is destroyed rending homeless the other families.
The IDF sends mobile messages to the people warning them that their home is going to be destroyed, but not everyone have mobile phone in Gaza, and the message comes three minutes in advantage before the missile come down, not enough time to run three, four, five floors down.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=779757395400016&set=vb.179609608748134&type=2&theater
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152599233298112&set=vb.523263111&type=2&theater
The names of 97 martyrs in Gaza strip from the Israeli occupation aggression
More than 665 injuries :
Muhammed shaban 24 years Gaza
Amjad Shaban 30 years Gaza
Khader Abu Jabal 45 years from Gaza
Rashad Yaseen 27 years Alnusirat camp
Mohamed Ayman Ashir 15 years Khan Younis
Ryad Kware’ 50 years Khan Younis
Baker Mohamed Joda 22 years
Amar Mohamed Joda 26 years Khan Younis
Hyssien Yousif Kware 13 years
Mohamed Kware 50 years Khan Younis
Muhammad Habib 22 years Gaza
Musa Habib 16 years Gaza
Saqr Al ajory 22 years Jabalia camp
Ahmed Mahdi 16 years Gaza
Basem Kware 10 years Khan Younis
Hafith Mohammed Hamed 30 Years Biet Hanoun
Ibrahim Mohammed Hamed 26 years Biet Hanoun
Mahdi Mohammed Hamed 46 years
Fawzia Hamed 62 years
Donia Hamef 16 years
Soha Hamed 25 years
Suliman Abu Swawin 22 years
Seraj Abd Alal 8 years
Abd Alhadi Alsofy 24 years
Rasheed Alkafarna 30 years
Naifa Farajallah 80 years
Abd Alnaser Abu Queeq 50 years
Khaled Abu Queek 31 years
Mohammed E’reef 13 years
Mohammed Malaka 1 year and half
Amna malaka 27 years
Mohammed Alnamara 22 years
Hatem abu Salem
Sahar Almasry 40 years
Ibrahim Almasry 14 years
Mohammed Alnwasra 4 years
Nidal Alnwasra
Salah Alnwasra
Nahid Alnwasra
Aisha nijm
Amna Abd Alghafor 40 years
Raneem Abd Alghafor 4 years
Ibrahim Albal’awi 24 years
Abd Alruhman Alzamli 22 years
Ibrahim Abdin 46 years
The twins Mohammed and Mustapha Aby Mor 20 years
Mazen Algarba 30 year
Marwan Sleem 27 years
Hani hamed 57 years
Ibrahim Hamed 20 years
Salima Alarja 60 years
Mariam Alarja 11 years
Khaled Shehab 37 years
Mohammed Khalil Qanan 26 year
Ibrahim Khalil Qanan 24 years
Suliman Alastal 55 years
Hamdi Swaly 33 years
Ahmed Swaly 28 years
Raed Shalat 37 years
Mohammed Alaqad 24 years
The brothers :Asmaa .. Najlaa .. Sa’dy and Tareq Alhaj
Thier mother Fatma Alhaj 62 years
Omar Alhaj
Basma Alhaj 57 years
Ahmed Alhaj 58 years
Ahmed Alastal
Musa Alastal
Ahmed Alzwara 33 years
Bahaa abu Elil 37 years
Salem Qandeel 27years
Amer Alfiomy 30 years
Abdulla Abu Ghazal 4 years
Mohammed Frwana 18 years
Ihsan Abu Jame’ 19 years
Mohammed Ashor 25 years
Ghalia Alghanam 7 years old
Wisam Alghanam 23 years old
Mahmoud Alghanam 26 years old
Kifah Alghanam 20 years old
Mahmoud wlod 26 years Jabalia camp
Hazem Ba’losha 30 years Jabalia camp
Nour Alsultan 27 years Jabalia
Hassan Abu Jame 75 years Khan Younis
Yasmeen Mtwaq 4 years old Biet Hanoun
Ahmed Hamdan 24 years Biet Hanoun
Samy Sheldan 25 years Gaza city
Mohammed Alkahlout 25 years Jabalia camp
Jom’a Abu Shalof Rafah 25 years
Bassam Khatab 6 years Dier Albalah
Abdulla Abu Mahroq Deir Albalah 22 years
Anas Abu Alkas 33 years Gaza city
Nour Alnajdy 10 years
Leaving the Holy Land
I see few truths on the development of the Palestinian resistance.
1.- Israel is making sure to kill the militants in Gaza, West Bank and Jerusalem.
Israel would not be questioned because the international community – I mean the leaders, the organizations in charge to record human rights abuses, and the Institutions that have direct or indirect relations with Israel – will not raise public outrage because according to international treaties Israel has the right to defend itself from attacks, or in the case of Palestine, future attacks.
2.- Israel is making easy for the intellectuals to leave the territories to go abroad to “study” knowing that these bright minds will not come back to Palestine.
The people that leave Palestine to study they do with the idea of not coming back. We can not blame them, they have the right to dream a better future.
Seven years ago that I started being very active in the Palestinian Solidarity Movement I started with hundreds of friends from the territories and now I look back and look for them and I’m finding out that many of them had moved on with their lives. They left Palestine to study and they never came back.
Was this part of Israel plan to get rid of them?
I do not know but I m happy for them that had made it out. Out of the danger of the bombs, the uncertainty of a secure job, the difficulties that the occupation brings to the people.
On the other hand, I m sad because they left their land, the land that their grandparents died for, that land that they themselves fought so hard to keep but at the end they left following their dreams.
Few years ago when I noticed this phenomenon in the Palestinian community I commented with some Palestinian friends and they just nodded their heads saying that Palestine does not offer anything, the ones that fight are the passionate, the idealist but the realists only looking to feed their families and end the violence that had taken their sons for too long.
A big smile and hug for my Palestinians friends that left Palestine for a better future
I wish them good luck and hope they keep the fight for their land. Now they had become Internationals like the rest of the Palestinian Solidarity Movement.
I originally wrote this poem Inseparable Twins for a dear friend from Gaza (over the years I adopted him as virtual son), but now I expand the dedication to all Palestinians that leave Palestine following their dreams.
Inseparable Twins -Read more in Palestinian Poetry
A team of volunteers doctors and nurses arrives to Gaza
Press Release
May 4, 2014
A 12-team-members humanitarian Mission arrives to Gaza. May 02, 2014. A team of volunteers doctors and nurses will take a busy 7 days surgical saga in The European Gaza Hospital in the refugee camp of Khan Younis in the Southern Gaza Strip’s border. The mission goal is to help as many children as possible in the short period of time with limited resources due to the crisis in Gaza(Photo credit/Palestinian Children Relief’s fund
Palestinian Children Relief’s Fund’s communications officer, Eloise Bollack shared by mail the following information regarding the International Gaza Mission that arrived in Gaza last week.
The 12-team-member is comprised of volunteers doctors and nurses who are taking part in a humanitarian mission that will last a week, where they will perform various heart operations in the European Hospital located in the southern refugee camp of Khan Younis in The Gaza Strip, Palestine.
“International mission – Pediatric Cardiac Surgery
European Gaza Hospital – Khan Younis, Gaza Strip – 2 to 9 May 2014
On May 2, a 12-member team of doctors and nurses, mainly from the United Kingdom, but also including
members from Jordan, Portugal, Palestine and the USA, crossed Erez checkpoint into Gaza to start a week of
pediatric cardiac surgery on babies with congenital heart disease at the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis in the Southern Strip. Led by surgeon Dr. B. Sethia from the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, who has been volunteering with the PCRF for fifteen years, the team includes volunteers in many areas of specialties related to this field.
The team started with the screening of 15 cases on their first day; and they will undertake 10 surgeries during
this week mission. In the meanwhile, they will share their skills with local doctors.
This is the third cardiac mission to Gaza in 2014 and part of our “Healing Hearts” project to build a program
there. We are partnering with Cycling 4 Gaza to help treat these kids in the besieged strip.
The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund is an apolitical nonprofit humanitarian medical relief organization providing
free medical care to thousands of sick and injured children from the Middle East. In 2013, PCRF sponsored 81
volunteer surgery missions in the Middle East, providing 1495 operations for needy children. In addition, 63
children were sent abroad for free medical care that they could not get locally.” PCRF Press Release
At this moment is the only information we have, later on today, will be updating this report with question answers from some of the team members.
Palestine Children Relief’s Fund is a Non-profit organization, this organization is always in need of donations to fulfill its mission.
You can go to their web site at PCRF and make a small donation.
The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) is a non-political, non-profit organization dedicated to healing the wounds of war, occupation and poverty for children in the Middle East, regardless of their nationality, religion, race or gender.
Time to End Apartheid-Again
Games Over-The world is too comfortable playing the game.
Gaza’s electricity problems is the last of the concern for the Palestinian people. If you look around, you will see that 25 percent of the population of the world does not have electricity. According to International Energy Agency 1.5 Billion people have no electricity, that is almost half of the world popular, majority of people lit themselves with other elements such: candles, charcoal, petrol, crude oil, and raw fire. Electricity is almost a 21 century invention.
To center our attention on Gaza’s electricity problem is to give Israel what they want, a diversión to the real problem that it is the occupation of Palestine.
Soon we will see the Royal Gulf Kings, coming with their offering-Three Wise Kings Biblical Story- of Petro-dirty-bloody dollars to alleviate Gaza’s electricity problem. Soon, we might also see a resolution calling for Egypt, to Ease, The Rafah Crossing blockade, but we won’t see the real solution, a real call for an end of the occupation. Every one seems to be missing the point.
It is time to call spades as spades and call Israel an Apartheid Entity an illegal usurper, an entity legitimized by British Rich friends in the UN in 1948.
A slowly genocide is taking place in the Land of Palestine; ethnic cleansing is methodically performed in Palestine; “ethnic cleansing, the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups. Ethnic cleansing sometimes involves the removal of all physical vestiges of the targeted group through the destruction of monuments, cemeteries, and houses of worship.” Encyclopedia Britannica
Israel is experimenting with its new weapons using Palestinians as a drills targets for its dirty wars, and the world is busy trying to brake Gaza blockade. Isn’t ironic that contingent of people are planing Gaza convoys, in a way to brake Israel Gaza siege? I’m not saying that this is not good, it is great that people show their compassion with the side of the weak. But the time has come to change the name of the game, we can not be using our energy on small battles. The problem is Israel and has to go, there is no other way.
The times has come to call for the dismantling the whole Apartheid Entity of Israel. The Zionist plan is being exposed. People stop being part of the game. The Holocaust was designed. The whole Nazi Party was part of the plan, the Vatican, The Rich Jews; all of them took part, and they have succeed, until the internet came to expose them.
Every one in Palestine fighting for the rights of Palestinians; should be fighting for the returning of the land to its owners and that means, to leave themselves the land taken from Palestinians. Everyone fighting inside of Palestine for the right of refugees, have to start looking for a place to go. All the resident of Palestine that holds an Israel citizenship, that came after the 1918 and 1948 exodus that resulted in the expulsion of a Palestinian family should be going back to their original countries; them and their children. It is just the right thing to do, for the sake of Justice and truth.
There is so much hypocrisy going on in between the Israelis that support Palestine; helping trying to ease the guilt of the occupation. An Israeli fighting shoulder to shoulder with a Palestinian, has only credibility if, he/she is original native of Palestine.
Time to End Apartheid Israel. History has no space for wars of conquest. The European Voyages of Exploration, were a salvage past of the human history. It’s time to evolve and modernize our thoughts.
There is no chosen race, there is no chosen people, there is no promise land, There is only Palestine. Viva Free Palestine.
Day 34 respectively .. Gaza without electricity, every time a few years ago to hear the Palestinian citizen and returns and plans to solve the electricity problem, but discovered it just lies citizen such as injection of anesthesia .. The question remains on the table in front of us .. How long will the world remain silent in front of the siege on Gaza??
Where the Security Council and human rights organizations, I think it’s best to cancel these organizations for their inability to carry its functions to human rights.
Palestinian people die a slow death and no ones lift a finger.
Gaza 2013 Olive Harvest
by Marivel Guzman
On August 10, International Solidarity Movement called the international community of Palestinians supporters to come to Palestine to help the residents to harvest the 2013 Olive Harvest. Every year the settlers makes the harvest almost impossible, the presence of ISM members with their cameras y their bodies as human shields help Palestinians to get to their groves without being molested by the settlers.
Every year hundreds of Olive trees are burn or uprooted by settlers, the IDFs presence is obsolete, they do not defend the rights of the Palestinians, for the contrary their presence strengthen the settlers bully attitude.
Harvesting the olives in Gaza, 2013
“We often post distressing news of settlers uprooting, burning or wrecking the olive trees of Palestinians. There is such a report from Sarta, in the north-west West Bank at the foot of this post. But first, we post some lovely photos from Palinfo.com of Palestinians – men and women, young and old – picking and sorting their olives in settler-free Gaza.” Jews for Justice for Palestine
Settlers burn olive trees in Sarta
From International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team
September 27, 2013
Settlers burned around 35 olive trees in the Palestinian village of Sarta late on Thursday night, following the area being declared a closed military zone in preparation for the construction of a new settler road.
Around 60 settlers from the illegal Bruchin settlement and surrounding area, many armed with guns, set fire to the trees late on Thursday 26th September. At around midnight, the settlers arrived in Sarta. The town mayor asked the Palestinian Authority to liaise with the Israeli army in order to intervene, but when Israeli forces arrived on the scene they informed villagers that the area had been declared closed and told them to leave.
Two days earlier, town residents witnessed four bulldozers arrive in the village to prepare the ground for the construction of the road, which will connect the settlement with road five and is part of an expansion plan for the settlement which will take it from 40 houses to around 550.
The proposed road and settlement expansion is a source of concern to local Palestinians, who stand to lose much of their land under new plans, including local features such as a 500-year-old cemetery.
Who is Bassem Abu Rahmah in 5 Broken Cameras
Posted on January 15, 2013 by Akashma Online News
Oscar Nominated Film 5 Broken Cameras
This important documentary Film 5 Broken Cameras brings you the story of the life of struggles in Bil’in, a small Village of 1800 residents in Palestine. Bil’in it is just an example of the situation lived in Palestine, a situation sustained for 65 years.
Every family in Palestine has somebody injured, in jail, or killed. Every face has a story. Palestine is not a place of people invented as some ignorant people said.
Bil’in residents have continued to withstand these injustices despite the frequent night raids of Israeli soldiers in the town followed by an increasing number of arrests of inhabitants and of activists. But now, the army has toughened the oppression by systematically arresting members of the Bil’in committee in charge of organizing the non-violent resistance actions. The aim of the arrests is to discourage Bil’in residents and reduce their resistance to the occupation.
By supporting Bil’in, you will help its inhabitants to continue their struggle and maintain hope in their fight for liberty. This site is dedicated to all people of good will – Palestinian, Israeli and the internationals who fight side by side against the injustices endured by the people of Bil’in.
Bassen Abu Rahmah RIP-One of Bassem’s ideas was to fly a kite during a protest, symbolizing the freedom that Palestinians are striving for.
Bassem Abu Rahmah (Phil), known for his Charisma, beautiful smile and kindness. A pacifist struggling to keep his land.
Who Was Bassem Abu Rahmah?
Bassem Abu Rahmah was a 30-year-old Palestinian from the town of Bil’in in the occupied West Bank. Nicknamed “Elephant”, he was known to friends and family for his charisma and kindness, and for his creative ideas for protesting Israel’s confiscation of lands belonging to local residents for the construction of its separation wall, which has had a devastating impact on the lives of Bil’in’s residents, cutting them off from their farmlands and grazing pastures, restricting their movement and their access to employment, education and health care. One of Bassem’s ideas was to fly a kite during a protest, symbolizing the freedom that Palestinians are striving for.
What happened to Bassem?
On April 17, 2009, while taking part in a weekly peaceful protest against the building of the wall, Bassem was struck in the chest and killed by a high-velocity tear gas canister fired by Israeli soldiers in an incident that was caught on videotape.
Bassam Abu Rahmah, who was killed within minutes of receiving a direct hit to the chest from an IDF-fired high-velocity tear gas cannister at a regular Friday anti-Wall demonstration on 17 April 2009.
The day that he was killed was like most Fridays in Bil’in, however on this occasion several Israeli peace activists who had joined the weekly protest became trapped in a no-man’s land dividing Israeli soldiers and village residents. Amidst the confusion, Bassem went to help them, calling on the soldiers to stop firing tear gas and allow the Israeli protesters to escape to safety. Instead, the soldiers fired an extended-range tear gas canister directly at him, hitting him in the chest and knocking him unconscious.
There were no ambulances in Bil’in that day. After a car arrived to take Bassem to hospital, Israeli soldiers shot tear gas at it, forcing villagers to carry his body a distance to the waiting car. During the 30 minutes it took for him to reach the hospital, Bassem died.
What was the Official Israeli Response?
The Israeli army claimed that Bassem’s death was an accident and that the tear gas canister that killed him had hit a wire and changed direction in air. A similar claim was made by Israeli authorities after American citizen Emily Henochowicz lost an eye after being hit in the face by a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops during a demonstration in May 2010. In July 2010, the Israeli Army’s Judge Advocate General announced that it would open an investigation into Bassem’s death after his family threatened to petition the Israeli High Court of Justice. The results have yet to be released.
The Israel Defense Forces first said Abu-Rahma was in a group of Palestinians hurling rocks at troops. But video footage showed him shouting, not throwing rocks, when he was shot.
Video footage filmed during the April 2009 protest against the separation fence in the Palestinian village of Bil’in also showed IDF troops firing tear gas canisters directly at demonstrators while in the presence of commanding officers. See 5 Broken Cameras
U.S. Involvement
Along with other more advanced and lethal weaponry, the U.S. is a primary supplier of tear gas canisters and dispensers for Israeli forces and other repressive regimes across the region. A number of non-violent Palestinian and international activists, including American citizens, have been seriously wounded or killed by Israeli soldiers using American-made tear gas canisters and launchers. A month before Bassem’s death, American Tristan Anderson was seriously injured after being hit in the head with a high-velocity tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops at a demonstration in the West Bank town of Ni’lin.
The video shows plainly that the demonstrators were not violent. Here is a rough translation of the words on the video, supplied by an anonymous friend: The demonstrators are telling the soldiers in Hebrew that there are children and Israelis present and they are asking them not to shoot. Bassem is shouting “Listen, wait a minute, wait a minute!” before he falls to the ground. The soldiers then fire another round of tear gas as the demonstrators yell that he is injured and needs an ambulance.
In the longer video, as [Mohammed] Khatib is arguing with the soldier, you can clearly hear the soldier say, “Do you want more gas?” They can see someone is on the ground and bleeding and because they know it’s a Palestinian, they don’t care.
And the soldier is telling Khatib “Are you going to shut up?” as Khatib pleads with him to stop shooting. The Israeli who’s next to Bassem right after the shooting is just saying, “There’s an injured man, bring an ambulance quickly.” He asks Bassem where he was hit. The demonstrators also repeat throughout, this is a non-violent demonstration. The soldiers merely respond with tear gas.
Bassem Abu Rahmah like the other Bil’in Villagers and the International Activist, and Israel Activities risk their life every Friday to protest the Occupation. Please Watch 5 Broken Cameras, Watch this video, enough evidence to be presented at the ICC in its due time. RIP Bassem
Follow the narrative of “5 broken cameras” as it was made, planned, edited and made in a documentary as a final piece of art, 5 broken cameras presskit, gives you the most intimates details and difficulties presented with the reality of the Israeli occupations and continuous nigh raids and harsh tactics of the IDF trying to stop Bi’lin Village from demonstrating on Fridays after pryers in front of the illegal wall.
The Evidence of A Crime
More Stores……..
Emat Burnat Palestinian Filmaker take you on a road of desperation, occupation, outrage and tears. In 5 years IDF (Israel Soldiers) destroyed 5 cameras, but he continue filming Palestinian Struggles. 5 Broken Cameras
They started this war 7 years ago protesting the Land grab for Settlements and the construction of the Apartheid Wall. They are not deterred by the gas, arrests, the bullets, the bullying and the death. Every Friday after prayer they gather by the Wall pacifically protesting the stealing of the Land. 5 Broken Cameras Exposes Israel True Colors
Israel arrest of Peter Hounam for talking to Vanunu Mordasi
Posted on September 27, 2012 by Akashma Online News
Original story run on May.26, 2004
By Yossi Melman and Yuval Yoaz, Anat Balint Haaretz Service
British journalist Peter Hounam said Thursday night Israel should be ashamed for arresting him, adding he had been held in a “dungeon with excrement on the walls.”
Hounam was released from custody Thursday night, a day after the Shin Bet security services detained him on suspicion that he was involved in interviewing former nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, who was freed in April after serving 18 years for spilling Israel’s nuclear secrets.
Security sources said the object of detaining and questioning Hounam was to ascertain whether he had any cassette recordings of an interview Vanunu gave Saturday to Yael Lotan, an activist in a committee that worked towards Vanunu’s release and against Israel’s nuclear program, which was to appear this weekend in the British newspaper the Sunday Times.
Lotan is suspected of having planned to give Hounam the recordings, because Vanunu was forbidden from meeting with non-Israelis as part of the limitations imposed on Vanunu by the Shin Bet upon his release from prison.
The Shin Bet said Thursday night it believes copies of the recordings have already been smuggled abroad. Shin Bet sources said they had not choice but to detain Hounam so as to investigate suspicions regarding information that Vanunu may have leaked to foreign media.
“Hounam was a central source of danger for the leaking of information,” a Shin Bet source said. “If we hadn’t detained him and investigated the intelligence information we had, and security damage had been done, we would have been blamed for neglecting our jobs.”
The detention of Hounam, who broke Vanunu’s account of the Dimona atomic program in 1980s, evoked vigorous criticism from journalists, politicians and human rights groups.
After his release, Hounam told reporters outside the Jerusalem lockup that Israel should be ashamed for arresting him, complaining of being kept overnight in solitary confinement in a “dungeon with excrement on the walls” and limited to “two hours of sleep.”
Hounam said he was questioned for more than four hours by Israeli security, without being charged. He said he was detained on suspicion of espionage, but during the interrogation, the Shin Bet admitted it made a mistake in its investigation.
“I really have to question the standards in this country,” he said. “This is a country which prides itself on being a democracy in the Middle East, and yet what I’ve experienced in the last 24 hours I’m afraid doesn’t stand up to that.”
Hounam was released with no restrictions. He said he was threatened with deportation, but planned to leave Israel anyway on Friday.
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ordered Hounam’s release, following a meeting between officials from the Shin Bet security service and representatives of the Justice Ministry.
Legal sources told Haaretz Thursday that there was a misunderstanding over the circumstances of Hounam’s arrest. Hounam is covering the Vanunu story and considered one of his closest friends.
Shin Bet detains BBC reporterIt was revealed Thursday that the Shin Bet detained BBC reporter Chris Mitchell at Ben-Gurion Airport on Sunday, and confiscated tapes at his possession. Mitchell is preparing a documentary on Vanunu, and was arrested a day after Lotan interviewed Vanunu. A BBC technician was arrested Tuesday and released later that day, it was also revealed. The BBC has not yet given its response to these findings.
British Ambassador to Israel Simon McDonald has voiced concern to Israeli authorities over the Shin Bet seizure of Hounam. He spoke Thursday to Justice Minister Yosef Lapid and asked for clarifications on the arrest from the Israeli Foreign Ministry and Police. He also demanded a consular visit to Hounam in custody.
Hounam has been covering the Vanunu affair for years and is considered to be one of the closest people to the nuclear whistle blower. He interviewed Vanunu some 20 years ago for the Sunday Times, in which the affair first appeared.
The Foreign Journalists’ Association in Israel announced Thursday that it was amazed and deeply worried over Hounam’s arrest, and by the fact that he did not receive any legal assistance at the beginning of his detention.
The announcement added that Hounam’s documentary film on Vanunu has not yet been aired, and therefore he had not violated censorship rules. The association demanded that Israel reveal the accusations against Hounam, and “provide him with his democratic rights.”
Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said Thursday that he was unaware of the facts of the case, but said he believed that “there was a possible violation here of the legal restrictions placed on Vanunu.”
MK Yossi Sarid (Yahad) said that he hoped that the Shin Bet had “particularly convincing reasons” for Hounam’s arrest. “It is known that the sudden arrest of a journalist is unaccepted in a democratic state, and is hardly recognized in states such as North Korea and Burma,” Sarid said Thursday.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel said Thursday that Hounam’s arrest damaged journalistic freedom and placed Israel in “a shameful light.”
Vanunu’s brother Meir told Haaretz on Wednesday that he did not know whether Hounam had met with his brother since his release. “It is part of the ongoing persecution against my brother and the defense establishment’s attempt to silence and terrorize him,” Meir Vanunu added.
Army Radio reported Thursday afternoon that Hounam’s attorney, Avigdor Feldman, will be allowed to meet with his client at 6 P.M.
According to Israel Radio, Feldman said earlier Thursday that he had been denied access his client, and had petitioned the Jerusalem District Court to overrule the ban. Feldman was quoted as saying that the prohibition, issued by the security forces, was for four days’ duration.
Under conditions imposed on Vanunu with his release, he is not allowed to give interviews or meet with foreigners. Feldman, who also represents Vanunu, said Hounam had not violated any of the restrictions and called the arrest a farce.
“The man was arrested for no reason. He was arrested as part of the security establishment’s never ending obsession with Vanunu,” Feldman told Army Radio.
Danny Seaman, director of the Government Press Office, said that if Hounam was arrested it was for serious offenses. He noted that his office had issued Hounam press credentials two weeks ago without any problems.
“This is irregular and so I assume they did not arrest him as a journalist but because they have real reasons,” Seaman told the radio. “The Shin Bet is a serious organization that deals with serious issues.”
Witnesses said Hounan was concerned as Shin Bet agents took him away from his Jerusalem hotel.
“I was sitting in the garden when he was brought in by five plainclothes security men,” said Donatella Rovera, a researcher with the human rights group Amnesty International, who was staying at the same hotel.
“As they were bringing him through the garden he broke away from them and came running to my table. He said ‘I’m being arrested, tell the Sunday Times,”‘ she said, adding that he was immediately pulled away.
Sunday Times foreign editor Sean Ryan said Hounam, 60, had been in Israel since April 16 to cover Vanunu’s release for the newspaper.
“We are trying to establish exactly what the situation is, where he is now and why he has been detained,” Ryan said.
Since he completed his 18-year prison sentence for espionage earlier this year, Vanunu has been under a number of official restrictions, including a ban on speaking with foreign reporters on his former work as a nuclear technician in the Dimona nuclear reactor complex.
Steinitz said Thursday that “In general, the Shin Bet does not arrest people arbitrarily, but with considered judgement. I am not saying that the Shin Bet does not err at times, but it is generally a very responsible organization, and things like this are done after profound consideration.”
“My assessment, and all of Mr. Hounan’s past and present behavior suggests this, that it is possible that there was a possible violation of the legal restrictions placed on Vanunu.”
BBC ‘very concerned’ over arrestA British Foreign Office spokeswoman in London early Thursday said that U.K. officials were notified of the arrest, and that the British consulate in Israel was looking into the matter.
A BBC spokeswoman in London said the broadcaster was “very concerned” about Hounam’s arrest.
The spokeswoman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to answer any questions about Hounam, including where he was arrested and whether he had met with Vanunu since his release.
Hounam arrived in Israel more than a month ago, ahead of Vanunu’s release. Vanunu was freed on April 21, after spending 18 years in jail for espionage and treason.
Hounam was a member of the original Sunday Times team that interviewed Vanunu and then published his story in 1986. He left the paper several years ago and became a freelance reporter and also published books and produced films.
Unlike the other members of the team, Hounam stayed in touch with Vanunu and was active in the public struggle for his release.
Hounam visited Israel frequently over the past few months, and has been staying in a hotel in East Jerusalem for the past 6 weeks. During his stay, he has reported to the Sunday Times on Vanunu’s release and has been preparing a documentary on the affair for the BBC.
He has also been in close contact with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which is working to file a petition against the restrictions imposed on Vanunu by the defense establishment since his release. Among others, Hounam was banned from meeting Vanunu, who has been living in a church in East Jerusalem since his release.
The Film That Exposed Israel’s Secret Illegal Nuclear Weapons.
Palestinian Bid for UN Statehood Recognition should not be questioned, Israel existence should be
Posted on August 02, 2011 by Marivel Guzman
Parts of this articles taken from To the Point Analyses Deconstructing The News By Laurence Davidson And Again I deconstruct the News and the opinion, but at the end you the readers are the opinion makers.
Lawrence Davidson argues that, while UN recognition of Palestinian statehood could be potentially of psychological value to the Palestinian cause, “boycott, divestment and sanctions within the context of increasing worldwide awareness of Israel’s essential racist nature shows real promise of results in the long term. In my opinion there is actually a good chance that a worldwide BDS movement, growing steadily for say the next quarter century, can actually achieve the de-Zionization of Israel.”
If he Serious, another 25 years of Israel occupation, Really? Professor? are you kidding? Israel only in the last 8 years have annexed over47 % of Palestine land since they started building the apartheid wall, without counting the other already stolen land in 1948 and 1967.
And there is another threat to already death peace process, “Ideas about annexing parts of the West Bank that until recently were considered extreme have been gaining traction in the Knesset in recent weeks as the Palestinian Authority continues threatening to declare a state unilaterally in September. … “We’ll have to protect ourselves,” [National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau] said. “If [the Palestinians declare a state], I’m going to suggest to my government to extend our sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and over the highly populated blocs we have in Judea and Samaria, just to start with.” Jerusalem Post
Going to the UN for recognition.
While Lawrence Davidson is right on his assessment of the great psychological value for Palestinians to boots their moral, if Palestine is recognized, I completely disagree to his second statement regarding BDS to be long term solution, and sending a subtle message to Palestine not to Bid for UN Statehood Recognition, I wonder how long term he is referring to. Even if he is neutral on the conflict and he speaks only as expert, he is sending the wrong message.
When he include in his article the wording of : Ali Abunimah but only on the surface he explore the words of Ali Abunimah, he makes no analysis of the situation only copying pasting the analysis of this great journalist, that on his own words gave us the looming future of a Palestine recognized by the UN in paper but not in essence, not in substance knowing that Israel has laugh and ignored every single resolution ever drafted against her illegalities and crimes.
Journalist Ali Abunimah is one of the most important sources of information and analysis of the Israeli war on Palestine and the ongoing struggle for justice. He is cofounder of the invaluable Electronic Intifada website and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. He talked to Eric Ruder about the latest developments in the region–and what lies ahead for Palestinians.
Right now the International Activist Community, Bloggers, writers, and thousands of old and newly formed Pro-Palestinians Organizations have been spreading the message on the reality on the ground in Occupied Palestine and the serious threat to regional peace with the Existence of Israel as it stands now, playing the bully not just in Palestine, killing indiscriminately but also in the neighbors countries like Syria, and Lebanon and creating an atmosphere of unrest, brewing conflict in a way only Israel is expert on doing, using flag operations and dirty propaganda.
It is hard to accept sometimes that we may be just playing in a chess game that have to end, but we have to rely also on the hopes and ideals that, that we as a spectators have in this conflict we all want peace, so we all are being part of this movement of peace. We can not take away the importance of the Arab revolutions, the threat that the whole of the people raising have in the regime of the region of the Arab world. I don’t think is insulated from the main middle east conflict, all the Arabs want peace, only their leaders keep playing this game of mouse and cat with Israel and the UN.
We know that the official propaganda from Israel and the Paid Media is spreading notion that if Palestine “Unilaterally” bid for statehood in the UN, the Oslo Accord will be buried. As a thread to insult the intelligent of Palestinians and the world that know that Israel never has comply with the accords. The famous Oslo Accords signed in a ceremony in Washington DC by Yasef Arafat RIP and Yitzhak Rabin RIP, which actual documents were signed by Mahmoud Abbas for the PLO, Shimon Peres for Israel, Warren Christopher for the United States and Andre Kozyev for Russia.
The Palestinian Bid for UN Statehood Recognition – An Analysis (1 August 2011)
Robert Serry
Mr. Robert H. Serry of the Netherlands was appointed by the Secretary-General as the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and his Personal Representative to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority in November 2007. In this capacity, Mr. Serry will be the Envoy of the Secretary-General to the Quartet.
PRESS RELEASE
UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process warns Security Council
of “Dramatic” Deadlock in Peace Process, Calls for “Credible Political Path
Forward” and Bold Actions on the Ground
26 July 2011
In a briefing to the Security Council today in which he described the “profound and persistent deadlock” between Israelis and Palestinians, United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry described as “dramatic” the failure of the parties to meet their
agreed timeline for a permanent status agreement by September this year.
The Special Coordinator underscored what is at stake given the current deadlock. He noted that “the Palestinian Authority has, in key areas, reached a level of institutional performance sufficient for a functioning state” and made real security and economic gains in the recent
period. As a result, Mr. Serry said that “the Palestinian Authority is ready to assume the responsibilities of statehood at any point in the near future.”
However, continued Mr. Serry, “without a credible political path forward, accompanied by more far-reaching steps on the ground, the viability of the Palestinian Authority and its statebuilding agenda – and, I fear, of the two State solution itself – cannot be taken for granted,” Mr Serry warned. He called on the international community to unite and “shape a legitimate and balanced way forward that helps the parties overcome their differences and ultimately return to negotiations. We will continue to work with Quartet partners to seek urgent action in this regard. We also note the prerogatives of the Security Council and the General Assembly.”
Mr. Serry noted that Israeli steps of enablement on the ground had been made in the past, “bold measures have been lacking in recent times”, while worrying developments were taking place in the Israeli-controlled Area C of the West Bank, including a surge in demolitions with 700
Palestinians displaced this year, and continued settlement activity, including the recent confiscation of 19 hectares of private Palestinian land. “Settlements are illegal under international law and prejudge final status discussions, and settlement activity must cease”,
he said. “I urge Israel to do more to empower its moderate, committed and peaceful Palestinian partner”, Mr. Serry said. He also called on donors to ensure that the Palestinian Authority’s fiscal position is stabilized, so that it can continue to pay salaries and meet its other
financial obligations.
Mr. Serry expressed concern that a calm between Israel and Gaza that was restored in early April was “challenged by the firing of some 18 rockets into Israel since 23 June”. He also reported that Israel conducted three incursions and 16 air strikes, killing two Palestinian militants and injuring
eight, but also killing one Palestinian civilian and injuring fourteen. “Militants’ firing of indiscriminate rockets towards civilian areas is unacceptable and must cease. Israel must also show restraint. Tensions have subsided in recent days. My office remains active in
promoting a full restoration of calm, which remains a cornerstone for any broader achievements.”
Mr. Serry said the Gaza economy was growing, but from a very low base. He noted approval of $265 million of UN projects for Gaza as a “significant start” to address Gaza’s vast basic needs including education, housing, and sanitation. However, he urged Israel to allow aggregate, iron
bar and cement for use by Gaza’s private sector, to facilitate exports, and to enable freer movement of people in an out of the Strip, stressing that “We continue to seek the full reopening of all legitimate crossings.” He noted the importance of continuing to combat weapons smuggling.
Noting the closure of a Gaza youth NGO and efforts to intrusively audit international NGOs, Mr.
Serry called on Hamas to fully respect “the free and independent exercise of the functions of these Organizations”. He also urge “full respect for the work of UN agencies”, noting that some of their activities in support of Palestinian beneficiaries had been misrepresented recently.
ENDS ..Read all the other UN Resolution on Palestine Matter
Well Politicians knows how to built a case, they know how to structure the wording to make them sound accommodating to their ultimate goals take for instance this three statements:
“shape a legitimate and balanced way forward that helps the parties overcome their differences and ultimately return to negotiations.
With this is de legitimizing the right Palestinians aspirations to self determination, even in her bid for the UN, he is taking away her right to conduct herself as a state, and taking the task to the hands of the “Quartet” and telling straight forward to Palestine that there is no UN Vote, that they have to keep “negotiating” and that is the problem, more time passes there is no land to negotiate, all the rights will be taken away, the only thing to be negotiated will be their right to stay Muslims in a Jew State, that what will boil down to the end, if Palestine do not move forward with the UN Vote in her favor.
“the Palestinian Authority is ready to assume the responsibilities of statehood at any point in the near future.”
He knows that he carries official weight for the Palestinian Bid in SEPTEMBER, so he is sure to leave dates out, the Oslo Accords signed back in 1993 did have a date of “No later than 1996” a resolution should have been meet on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Off course in 1993 Oslo Accords, the most important issues were purposely left out.
Refugee Return, Jerusalem, Settlements expansion, security and BORDERS.
“without a credible political path forward, accompanied by more far-reaching steps on the ground, the viability of the Palestinian Authority and its state building agenda – and, I fear, of the two State solution itself – cannot be taken for granted,”
What is he saying with these classic political demagogy , pure rhetoric with no clear meaning. Both of the above statements “credible political path forward” what is that? absolute nothing, Ah! the the second very clearly is sending the political message; “The viability of the Palestinian Authority and its State Building Agenda-AND , I FEAR THE TWO STATE SOLUTION ITSELF- CAN NOT BE TAKEN FOR GRANTED. ” he gave his verdict to the case, he is denying Palestine her right to be a viable State, and not because Palestine is not capable, but because UN the club make sure Palestine stay subservient of Israel and in a NEAR FUTURE, taking more land until there is no more to claim for a State. which will bring to memory Bush Speech in Public Television US official approval to Israel keep the Settlements Expansion, and really is not that Israel need US permission but with this gimmicks and political charged statements the congress get away to granting money to Israel.
Part I – The Palestinians Go to the UN
On 26 July 2011 Robert Serry, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process, appeared before the UN Security Council. Mr Serry is a career Dutch diplomat and had led the Middle Eastern Affairs Division of the Dutch Foreign Ministry. There is every reason to believe that he knows what he is talking about.
He told the Security Council that the “peace process”, that is the political process allegedly seeking a negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, had reached a stage of “profound and persistent deadlock”. Attempts to resume negotiations are “extremely difficult”, he said. And, “in the absence of a framework for meaningful talks, and with Israeli settlement activity continuing, the Palestinians are actively exploring approaching the UN”. That is actively considering asking for UN recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state within pre-1967 borders.
Mr Serry’s description of the negotiations seems pretty straightforward. The two sides are at a dead end. And, as Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat noted, this dead end follows negotiations that have stretched out over at least 20 years.
“The reason decades of negotiation have settled nothing is because they were meant to settle nothing. The Israelis from the word go used the ‘peace process’ as a cover to steal Palestinian property.”
Indeed, we know that in the most recent phase of these marathon negotiations the Palestinian team had dropped just about all of their original demands. Erekat told US Middle East envoy George Mitchell that the Palestinian negotiators had done everything but “convert to Zionism”.
Yet, the Israelis scorned the Palestinians offered compromises. As Mr Serry indicated, Israel’s settlement of Palestinian land continues. In fact, throughout this entire 20 year process colonization has gone on unabated. And, of course, all of it is illegal under the Geneva Conventions. One of the reasons that restarting any negotiations is so “extremely difficult” is that the Palestinian side has insisted that, as a prerequisite for any new talks, Israel must begin to abide by international law. Israel has refused.
So, it might come as something of a surprise to the uninitiated observer that Israel and the United States are pointing fingers at the Palestinians in this affair.
For instance, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, stated in the Security Council on 26 July that “now is the time for the international community to tell the Palestinian leadership what it refuses to tell its own people – there are no shortcuts to statehood. You cannot bypass the only path to peace.”
For the initiated this statement makes no sense at all. If 20 years of negotiating gets you nothing but more violence and more theft, to describe that process as the “only path to peace” is to contradict yourself. Something that has proven incapable of achieving X, cannot be the “only path” to X. Just so, to say that there can be no shortcuts to X and therefore one must persist along a road that has historically proven not lead to X is, well, a non-sequitur.
Israel’s staunch ally, the United States, also opposes, with equal illogic, the Palestinian move toward UN recognition. Rosemary DiCarlo, the US deputy ambassador to the UN, announced that the US will oppose any “unilateral action”on the part of the Palestinians at the UN. She interpreted the Palestinian move as an effort to “isolate Israel at the United Nations”. She insisted that the Palestinians resume negotiations.
In response to DiCarlo, Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s UN observer, pointed out that “120 countries already recognize an independent Palestinian state” and so coming to the UN is hardly a “unilateral” action on the part of the Palestinians. He went on to explain that UN recognition of a Palestinian state at this time would be “the consecration of the of the two-state solution” and help make that solution more inevitable.
Unfortunately for Mansour, his words belie the fact that Israel has no intention of allowing a meaningful two-state solution. In fact, all this Palestinian National Authority (PNA) talk and manoeuvring goes on against the background of a stark reality: Israel is inexorably eating up Palestine. The reason decades of negotiation have settled nothing is because they were meant to settle nothing. The Israelis from the word go used the “peace process” as a cover to steal Palestinian property. They are close now to being able to present the world with a fait accompli, those ugly “facts on the ground” and they don’t want any complications.
What sort of complications? Actually, these are more psychological than concrete. As Ali Abunimah has pointed out, the United Nations has never done anything to stop Israeli theft and this “symbolic” gesture of UN recognition will not impact it either. So why should the Israelis care?
Well, here are a couple of possibilities: a) such a move toward recognition on the part of the UN General Assembly would actually replicate the process by which Israel itself became recognized as a state and b) this move would also echo the original intention of the UN to have Palestine divided between Jews and Arabs. Psychologically, the entire process must resonate deeply within Israeli/Zionist consciousness. It is giving them a sort of national anxiety attack.
Alternatives
Leaving aside Israel’s psychological angst and the PNA’s fantasy that their manoeuvres will make a viable solution “inevitable,” we come back to the question of what is really most likely to work in the long term? I think that we have to confront some hard truths at this point.
1. Israel will continue to illegally swallow Palestine. For the Zionists this is a zero sum, one-state game.
2. The United States will continue be an accomplice to the crime by protecting the criminal.
3. The PNA is helpless to stop this.
4. Sadly, the peace process is a fraud. A cover for the on-going crime.
So what is the path of resistance that has the greatest chance of changing the facts on the ground?
1. Well there is Hamas. Hamas is in fact the real government in Palestine if we are to take seriously the notion of democracy. That was confirmed by its victory in free and fair elections in January 2006. That makes Hamas a lot more legitimate than the present PNA and in fact as legitimate as the Israeli government. True, Hamas refuses to recognize Israel and would destroy the Zionist state if it could. But then Israel refuses to recognize Hamas and is in fact trying to destroy it. Both governments have used terrorist methods, though Israel has used them more consistently. In the end the real issue is, once more, one of power. Hamas cannot destroy Israel. Ultimately Israel can destroy Hamas. As an option for long-term success, for changing the facts on the ground, Hamas does not look like the answer.
2. That brings us back to BDS: boycott, divestment and sanctions. The Israeli historian and advocate of Palestinian rights, Ilan Pappe, has pointed out that BDS, as part and parcel of an overall “civil society struggle in support of Palestinian rights, has been successful in key European countries”.
There can be little doubt that public opinion is shifting away from Israel even in the heartland of Zionist influence, the United States. The aim of this movement is to replicate with Israel the process that brought apartheid South Africa to its knees. And, through this process, to actually realize a one-state solution for Palestine. Not, of course, the one-state solution the Israelis seek, but rather a new state of Palestine/Israel that offers “equality and prosperity for all the people who live there now or were expelled from it by force in the last 63 years.”
In my opinion there is actually a good chance that a worldwide BDS movement, growing steadily for say the next quarter century, can actually achieve the de-Zionization of Israel. On the other hand, creating “equality” and “prosperity” in the new state that results will have its own problems, but that is a different struggle for a different time.
Right now, Ali Abunimah is right, UN recognition of Palestine as a pseudo state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip will solve nothing and may well cause more problems for the Palestinians on the ground. Alternatively, boycott, divestment and sanctions within the context of increasing worldwide awareness of Israel’s essential racist nature shows real promise of results in the long term.
We should go with what works.
Reade More …………………
European Union Support Palestine Bid for State Hood
Palestinians Rights of Return is Not Debateable: UN Resolution 194 in Force and Enforceable
Palestine Bid for State Hood Does Not Affect Israel Economy, Peace Talks, or Refugee Return Rights
Gaza Exclusive – Vox Pops On The Flotilla
Vox Pops From Gaza On The Flotilla
Wednesday, 29 June 2011, 11:24 am
Posted by:Omar Kream Gaza<
This evening on the Gaza beach (where everyone goes to cool down – rich and poor, men and women, singles and families) I asked several people what importance they attach to the upcoming flotilla. Here are their responses, some in English, some in Arabic with English translations. All are unanimous that the flotilla is both necessary, and very much appreciated, as much for its expression of solidarity with their struggle for justice and freedom, as for the goods they are bringing.
Unfortunately, the recordings of additional women were rendered inaudible by a horde of chidlren who swamped us, shouting and laughing and calling out comments, so although there were equal numbers of men and women interviewed, the men were better at keeping the kids at bay!
Men’s translation by:Omar Karem
********
julie-webb-pullman-gaza-exclusive-vox-pops-on-the-flotilla.htm
Israel and Palestinian territories country profile
POSTER BY:Omar Karem GAZA
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The division of the former British mandate of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel in the years after the end of World War II have been at the heart of Middle Eastern conflicts for the past half century.
The creation of Israel was the culmination of the Zionist movement, whose aim was a homeland for Jews scattered all over the world following the Diaspora. After the Nazi Holocaust, pressure grew for the international recognition of a Jewish state, and in 1948 Israel came into being.
Israeli president: Shimon Peres
The Israeli president has a mainly ceremonial role; executive power is vested in the cabinet, headed by the prime minister.
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Israel’s elder statesman: Shimon Peres
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On 13 June 2007, the Israeli parliament chose the veteran politician Shimon Peres to succeed Moshe Katsav, who had taken leave of absence from the presidency earlier in the year after being accused of various sexual offences.
Mr Katsav formally resigned on 29 June after agreeing to plead guilty to several of the offences as part of a plea bargain that removed two rape charges against him.
Israeli prime minister: Binyamin Netanyahu
Binyamin Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud party, became prime minister after an inconclusive early election in February 2009, a decade after holding the office once before.
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Mr Netanyahu campaigned on a policy of toughness towards Palestinian militancy
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The vote was called when his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, of the centrist Kadima party, resigned amid corruption allegations, and Mr Olmert’s designated successor, Tzipi Livni, failed to put together a new centre-left coalition.
Mrs Livni and Kadima actually won one more seat in the Knesset (parliament) than Likud, but right-wing parties emerged stronger than the left overall.
ISRAELI MEDIA
Israel’s press and broadcasters are many and varied, and account for differences in language, political viewpoint and religious outlook.
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The Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA), set up along the lines of the BBC, operates public radio and TV services and is funded mainly by licence fees on TV sets.
Channel 2 and Israel 10 are the main commercial TV networks. Most Israeli households subscribe to cable or satellite packages. HOT cable and YES satellite TV are the main multichannel providers.
Commercial radio arrived in 1995, but faces competition from unlicensed radio stations, some of which carry ultra-Orthodox programming.
Israel has 13 daily newspapers and at least 90 weeklies. All titles are privately-owned; many are available on the internet.
In the view of watchdog Reporters Without Borders, “the Israeli authorities are capable of both best and worst practice when it comes to respect for press freedom. Despite military censorship, its press still enjoys latitude that is unequalled in the region.”
Israel has a large IT industry and one of the world’s most technologically-literate populations. Around 5.3 million people – around 71% of the population – had internet access by May 2008 (InternetWorldStats).
Palestinian leader: Mahmoud Abbas
Former Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, the candidate of the Fatah faction, won the January 2005 poll to replace the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
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President Abbas succeeded Yasser Arafat as PLO leader
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Mr Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, had already succeeded Yasser Arafat as leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), having been Mr Arafat’s deputy since 1969.
The surprise victory of the militant Islamic movement Hamas in parliamentary polls in January 2006 led to heightened tension between the Palestinian factions. There were recurring bouts of violence between Hamas and Mr Abbas’s Fatah faction, raising fears of civil war. In February 2007, Hamas and Fatah agreed to form a government of national unity.
However, in June 2007 Hamas took control of the Gaza strip, seriously challenging the concept of a coalition, which Abbas subsequently dissolved.
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 Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh
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Mr Abbas’s current term was set to have ended in January 2009, but in 2008 announced he was extending his term by another year, in order to allow presidential and parliamentary elections to be held at the same time. The move was denounced by Hamas.
In November 2009, Mr Abbas said he would not stand again in elections scheduled for 24 January 2010, in protest against the continuing impasse in attempts to resurrect peace talks with Israel.
Many analysts regard Mahmoud Abbas as a moderate. He has condemned the armed Palestinian uprising and favours the resumption of negotiations with Israel. But he faces the challenge of persuading armed groups to stop their campaign of anti-Israeli attacks.
Mahmoud Abbas was born in 1935 in Safed, a town in present-day northern Israel. He co-founded Fatah – the main political grouping within the PLO – with Yasser Arafat in the late 1950s.
He established contacts with left-wing Israelis in the 1970s and was the main Palestinian architect of the 1993 Oslo accords, which led to the foundation of the Palestinian Authority.
His brief stint as premier was plagued by power struggles with Mr Arafat over the control of the Palestinian security apparatus and over planned reforms. Mr Abbas resigned in September 2003.
The former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died in a French hospital on 11 November 2004, aged 75.
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Lucas Koerner arrested in Jerusalem on Day parade
Posted on June 10, 2011 by Marivel Guzmanfrom original article by Lucas KoernerBlog Stronger Than Slavery and protagonist of this video clip, where Israel Forces of the “Great Democratic State of Israel” as some Israelis insist in calling the Apartheid State of Israel, my brave brother and comrade was intimidated, harassed, beat,choked,and ultimately arrested, this is how an innocent peace activist voicing ideas of the wrongs of the Occupation is treated.
The young man being arrested in the video above is Lucas Koerner, and he was a member of the delegation that Adam Horowitz recently co-led to Israel/Palestine. Below is Lucas’s account of what took place in Jerusalem, which he originally posted on his blog.
I am a sophomore at Tufts University in Boston, studying Spanish and International Relations. But more importantly, I am a political activist. I am not affiliated with any political party or sectarian tendency. Simply put, wherever there is oppression, I stand on the side of the oppressed. Lucas Koerner
Accounts of what took place the day Lucas was arrested in Jerusalem for exposing his views on Occupied Palestine.
Returning from Hebron Wednesday afternoon, I glanced outside my window, only to see miles and miles of blue and white. Today was Jerusalem Day, and a parade of thousands marched through the streets celebrating, as if in an orgy of nationalistic fervor, the 44th anniversary of the Israeli conquest of East Jerusalem.
What shocked me initially was how eerily monolithic the procession was: it seemed as though the ocean of Israeli flags was meant to blur all distinctions between old and young, boss and worker, women and men, settler and 48er. In light of the events of recent days, I sensed a strong political undertone beneath the cheers and yells of the ecstatic crowds. Coming on the heels of Netanyahu’s defiant speech before Congress, it appeared to me that the marchers streaming down Sultan Suleiman St. that evening sought to echo their PM’s bold remarks, that all of Jerusalem was “theirs” forever. Indeed, it seemed that this display of triumphal nostalgia concealed a deeper, far weaker emotion, a lurking fear of a future in which nothing between the river and the sea would be exclusively “theirs” but would have to be shared with the other.
After witnessing first hand, over the past week and a half, the many horrors the occupation has inflicted on the Palestinian people, my fellow delegates and I trembled with indignation at the chutzpah of these Israeli marchers as they boisterously paraded through East Jerusalem, brandishing their flags of conquest. Prompted by the traffic to walk the rest of the way to our hotel, we were inspired to launch an impromptu parade of our own. Donning our keffiyehs we had purchased at the Hebron Keffiyeh factory and our small Palestinian flags, we we’re met by spit, aluminum cans, and pure, unadulterated hatred. Police instantly set upon us, accosting me, demanding that I put away my 3 by 5 inch Palestinian flag. It was remarkable how so much as giving voice to the other, the “Arab”, the Palestinian, in 3 by 5 form in E. Jerusalem no less could ignite such visceral fear and hatred.
Upon returning to the Holy Land Hotel, my comrades (Haneen, Amanda, Peter, Lydia, Tammy & Tiffany) and I decided that we would go back to the parade merely to hang out and observe, this time without our small Palestinian flags. In order to avoid any provocations, we simply posted up on the side walk, and, still wearing our keffiyehs, we proceeded to wave and make peace sign gestures to the paraders, who marched on the other side of the street, separated from us by a high gate. The initial reaction of the marchers was a combination of shock and disbelief. I myself had elected to wear, along with my keffiyeh, a kippah adorned with a small Palestinian flag. This last article of clothing on my head contributed, I believe, more than anything else to the climate of collective bewilderment, especially among the youth. For them, Judaism and its physical symbol, the kippah, were inseparably bound up with the particular strain of ethno-religious nationalism associated with the state of Israel. It simply never occurred to them that a Jewish person would, in the name of Jewish ethics, stand in solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom. I feel that it was precisely this cognitive dissonance on a societal level that formed the motivation for my arrest.
As we walked up and down the sidewalk, waving our peace signs, many Palestinians of all ages approached to join us. With twenty or thirty people now gathered on the sidewalk facing the parade, we turned over leadership of what had become a demonstration to Palestinian activists, and we happily clapped and danced to their songs and chants. Standing on two feet high pylons, we tried to maintain our visibility as internationals in order to confer as much protection as possible to the Palestinians. The demonstration remained totally peaceful – just singing, whistling, and clapping. In fact, much to the chagrin of the paraders, we often danced to their music. Many Palestinians, fascinated with my kippah, approached me and exclaimed, “I love you”. For a moment, a space was opened for Palestinians to freely gather in their own streets and protest, peacefully demanding their basic rights. We were soon to learn just how brief that moment would be.
Suddenly, the police moved in without warning of any kind. Officers on horseback came so close to the sidewalk, nearly hitting some of the demonstrators. I stepped down from the pylon. In that instant, my impulse to flee was counteracted by the firm realization that, standing on a sidewalk waving a peace sign, I had every right to be there, and if I fled, who would stand with the Palestinians? I stepped back up on the pylon. Moments later, an Israeli police officer ran up, seized me, and dragged me to the other side of the street. He then punched me in the face, put me in a choke hold, and with four other officers, slammed me to the ground. I was eventually handcuffed and carried to the car; I allowed my body to go limp and refused to walk on my own in a gesture of nonviolent defiance. Throughout the whole affair, the only thing audible coming from the policemen was a constant stream of curses words, “motherfucker”, “piece of shit”, etc., which was to me a ringing confirmation of how infuriated and threatened they were by a 19-year old wearing a kippah and a keffiyeh standing with the Palestinians.
To be continued in the next post: “In Israeli Jail”
Palestinian flag Eastborn To Palestine
Posted by : Omar Karem AKASHMA NEWS GAZA AND Marivel Guzman
Palestinian Fag ‘Eastborn’ To Palestine
Scottish Hip Hop Artist/Youth Worker and Political Activist Eastborn will be traveling out to Palestine in a humanitarian convoy on the 1st July 2011 to help the Samouni family who suffered the great loss when 48 Family members were shelled by the Israeli forces as they sat in a house, a house the Israeli’s knew to be full of children and women as they had moved them to the house “for their protection”. The area is now to stand as a defiant symbol to this disgraceful act by building a Community Center complete with classrooms to help educate the local community.
Eastborn will help with the construction of the building and work with the young people when he is out there. Beforehand the convoy will pass through the Eastern Block visiting children’s orphanages in the area before going on to Gaza.
Eastborn who is currently recording a track for the Project, with a video to come soon, will also pay homage to the fallen comrade Vittorio Arrigoni who sadly lost his life in Palestine after he was murdered protecting the people of Palestine.
So how can you help? Well the convoy desperately needs financial donations to help with petrol costs as well as the Project itself.
A Paypal has been set up at info@dropzonerecords.com (please add PALESTINE in the subject heading). We are also looking for Baby/Toddler/Kids clothes, Sports Equipment, Toys and School Equipment. For a drop off area close to yourself please email info@dropzonerecords.com and we will be happy to help.
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Palestine State! What does it take to become State? A Pen! and Role of the United Nations
Posted April 22, 2011 by Marivel Guzman
On May 14, 1948 the The Zionist Movement Group declared the establishment of the state of Israel. The next day, Britain renounced its mandate over Palestine AND the US recognized the state of Israel. The Soviet Union followed suit along with DOZENS of other countries. A year later in May 1949…Israel became a member of the UN.
In 1974, the UN General Assembly invited Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, to address the General Assembly during the annual debate on Palestine. Arafat appeared before the UN in fatigue uniform, with his pistol showing. This period, following the Yom Kippur war, marked the ascendancy of the Palestinian in the UN for many years, and culminated in the Zionism is Racism resolution in 1975. On November 22, the UN General Assembly passed two resolutions 3326 and 3327, that recognized the cause of Palestinian self-determination and the status of the PLO as representing the Palestinian people, and gave the PLO observer status at the UN.
Further recognizes the right of the Palestinian people to regain its rights by all means in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations
By United Nations Standards this Statement means that Palestine has the right to protect and defend her Land and her citizens by ALL MEANS, so Palestine has done exactly why the United Nations accorded in 1974, except that they did not allow Palestine to arm herself and with this protect the Land and her Citizens, on the other hand since Israel become state, UN by unanimous vote or by omission they had allowed Israel to arm herself even with Nuclear Weapons. So what is wrong with this picture.
Nothing did change for the regular Palestinians, after 1974 after the triumphantly entrance of Yassef Arafat to the United Nations, little did change for the Palestinians in the exile, for the Palestinians that lost their homes, lands and lives. So “Palestinian people to regain its rights by all means” was left to become just print in a paper. After that memorial day, that it is celebrated by ritualistic method as only human can do, has pass to history as another day to “Celebrate”, but what the United Nations has done to give the Palestinians their rights to defend what was theirs in the first place? Wait, let’s back up a few years and be clear on one thing very important because the idea that there was no Palestine is really engrave in the New Comers from Europe with “Ancestral Ties to their Home Land” they learn that there was no Palestine. Well if we follow official documents lets analyze one of the most important documents that exist in the annals of “Jew and Zionist” history; The Balfour Declaration, which is a letter send from Arthur James Lord Balfour to Lord Rothschild. The following letter is posted in the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Foreign Office
November 2nd, 1917Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in PALESTINE of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in PALESTINE, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely,
Arthur James Balfour
So by 1917 the British Crown is officially stating that there is PALESTINE, well it was not independent but so were not 75 % of the world, England, France, Russia, US there were in a frenzy race colonizing somebody else lands around the world, and because the greed of these countries did not make the lands they occupied less of real, only in a paper. But a signed paper does not make a Nation, the people of the land make the Nation.
By the end of the WWI we have the monopoly of the world in few hands, and Palestine was not the exception. It happens that peaceful people dedicated to tender the land and their cattle do not hold colonizer ideas, they are happy with “Their Land” and their people. So their beautiful land was occupied by England and the apologetic idea that the Zionist gives to the new generations as a excuse to take the Land of Palestine if saying that before England Mandate of Palestine, the Turks were occupying Palestine, and before that the Ottoman Empire was occupying Palestine, and before that and all the way to 700 BC somebody else was occupying Palestine, but every time was Palestine only the New Foreigners that came with arms and greed were different, but the people was the same, the land was the same.
The world is a mess and Britain and France formed what it was called the League of Nations; The League of Nation’s task was simple – to ensure that war never broke out again, but did not work and we saw WWII and the birth of United Nations, and again who formed this International Body? The Bullies of the world, the greedy countries that by this time have amazed huge military and economic power, I like to called the Club of 5, because they move with the efficacy of an sport club, their member follow the rules of the membership, if they don’t they pay with Fines(Sanctions) or expulsion, well in reality no one is allowed to abandon the club but their member are punish if they do not follow the rules.
If we make an assessment of the role of United Nations since its inception in the world affairs, they have conducted countless operations in the world including WARS:
UN peacekeeping should not be confused with other forms of multinational military intervention, including “enforcement” actions. On several occasions, the Security Council has authorized Member States to use “all necessary means”—including force—to deal with armed conflict or threats to PEACE Acting with such authorization, Member States formed military coalitions in the Korean conflict in 1950 and, in the 1990s, in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Multinational operations were deployed in addition to United Nations operations in Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1997, the Council authorized action by a “coalition of the willing” to deal with the situation in Albania. It also authorized deployment of a multinational peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic, which in March 1998 was replaced by the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic (MINURCA).The recent-most mandate UN peacekeeping operation was the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL), which was authorized by the Council in Juy 1998.
What is the scope of UN peacekeeping?
Since 1948, there have been 49 United Nations peacekeeping operations. 36 peacekeeping operations were created by the Security Council in the years between 1988 and 1998. There are currently 17 under way involving 14,453 peacekeepers at the end of August 1998. Over 750,000 military and civilian police personnel and thousands of other civilians have served in UN peacekeeping operations; 1,581 have died while serving in these missions up to the 31 August 1998.
All these “Peace Keeping Operations” without count the last 13 years that we can say have been the bloodiest of the wars and conflicts. How many people have died in Wars and Conflicts since the formation of the United Nations. Have they done any Peace Keeping Operations in Palestine since it was occupied by the Newly State of Israel? not in the last 63 years. There were calls from Yassef Arafat the former head of PLO to bring Blue Helmets to Palestine to oversee the situation, to protect Palestinians..but the United Nations never approved such Peace Keeping Operation in Palestine.
Palestine is being recognized as a state by 53 nations in the world, what does it means for Palestinians? Will Israel will stop the incursions in Gaza?
Will stop the house demolitions?
Will the Wall came down? ..Really! if the United Nations put for a vote the resolution to created Palestine State, well in a paper…Will the conditions will better up in Palestine?
What about the Gaza Siege?
What about the Settlers will they go back to Europe? or at least will they be absorbed by Israel?
Will be very hard for Israel, because The settlers are only disposable subjects for Israel’s interest, at least the ones inside West Bank, will Israel really care for them? or they are use as a log for the Fire?
Are the Black Jews that came from Ethiopia are really considered equals with the white blue eye Israelis in Tel Avid? There are so many questions that will be answer in due time.
For now let me ask Again: What will it take for Palestine to become State and be recognized by the supporters of Israel? Will the US will give Loans Guarantees to Palestine, what about weapons? after all United States is a consumer society that is always looking for ways to expand their economic reach to the world. Will Russia, Germany, Pakistan and other will line up to sell weapon legally to Palestine? It is only normal right, that after Palestine be recognized, she will have access to modern weaponry like Israel has, then will be even field. What a disaster for Israel that will be, fighting in an equal war with equal weapons. Maybe if Palestine is recognized as a state, and they are able to adquire arms legally in the War Market, then Palestinians will not be seen as terrorists with home made rockets and sling shots..then the News can rightly report War between two countries, soldiers against soldiers.
I think that will be the negative side of Palestinians becoming state, more deaths..Will be a consolation for Palestinians, for the world that at least now there is an even field, even thought Israel will have the upper hand because they are armed to the teeth from decades ago.
There is no such thing as an inevitable war. If war comes it will be from failure of human wisdom.
Andrew B. Law
Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war;
no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably,
no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization.
We must make our choice; we cannot have both.
Abraham Flexner
Gaza shores is been found to have rich mantle of natural gas and oil, will British Petroleum will invest in Gaza, Palestine in behalf of the Palestinians, I mean after Palestine be accepted in the UN?
Being a recognized state will have some type of benefits, right? Well not really…..
Mexico is a signatory of the United Nations club and its populations have been terrorized by the government and the cartels, for years Mexico’s indigenous people have lived under the poverty level, since 1994 they have been slowly exterminated. Does it make any difference that Mexico was accepted by the UN in 1945, and nothing have changed in Mexico. It is hard to have United States as a Northern Neighbor. Mexican leaders had been puppets of the interest of United States. Sad ..but truth…Since Mexico is one of the top oil producers in the world it makes it a target of the bullies.
What about PANAMA?(Please Watch) It was a republic and well recognized by the UN..and in 1989, the greatest army in the world, under the cloud of the darkness AND for 3 days attacked Panama and killed more than 4,000 innocent people. What the United Nations did?
What are the benefits to be a recognized, independent State? You will think that some kind, and Palestinians are eager to know what is to be a State, rightly recognized by the world and “ITS LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE”, …WELL NOT REALLY!….United Nations body is mostly seen as the stamper of wars, ..sure it has its international bodies that play the Samaritan role, but overall its role is worse than a Death Squat.
Do not go too far, start the trail of blood from the most recent “Peace Operations” LYBIA, it is a good example and follow the blood. And while there, put your nose on the ground and smell the Black Gold, as it plays a role in the “Peace Keeping Operations of the UN Club”
Kosovo, Yogoslavia, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Argentina, Haiti, Chile..I can go on and on and name the 192 countries that belong to the UN and everyone of them can tell you a story. Did the UN got together to protect their citizens? to avert a War?…No for the contrary the wars that we have seen in our modern history, they have been planned by the Club of the UN. So What difference will make for Palestine when all the 192 countries that formed the UN recognize her? will it make a difference in their life? What does it take anyway to be State? A PEN?.or it is better to be a great Nation, a united Nation recognized by the citizens of the World. Will We the People can make a difference? Can we keep raising our voices until is a Roar of great magnitude that the Leaders will take notice? Can we make a difference with the BDS Campaign? Can we bend the will of the leaders and make them do the right thing? We only can go as far as we push!
Lies that Stick, Struggles that Sell. The Media Broke Out the Silence
Posted on March 29, 2011 by Marivel Guzman
Palestine Youth Broke the Silence! Not after the Tunisia Revolution and certainly not after the Egyptian Revolution.
“Palestinian youth have been inspired by uprisings in Arab countries, Pushing for a Palestinian Tahrir” Aljazeera Channel
I don’t think so, [Aljazeera] Palestinian youth have plenty of inspiration to uprise in their own merit. I think 63 years are few generations of struggles, pains, death, suppression and oppression being from their own leadership, but mostly from Israel IDF soldiers. The Palestinian Youth of today have suffered more than other youth around the world, and I don’t think that the inspiration born out of Tunisia or Egypt.
Palestinian youth have been resisting their own internal struggles they have been in the walls of facebook, youtube, myspace and other networks for years, in these days you taking notice of them is different because it seems that you the ‘Big Networks’, the ‘Big Media’ never have paid attention to their cries.
That you the Streamedia are writing about them it is a different story, and you did it because it sound juicy for your ratings.
The Struggles of Palestine
When the Youth Of Gaza Broke Out Manifesto first made the light to the streammedia, it was the first time that the manifesto was in the wires and it was not the first time the youth of Gaza broke the silence (GYBO). They have been braking the silence in their struggle with Israel with the world, they have been dying in front of your cameras and they have been called the perpetrators, they have been fighting with bare hands and rocks against tanks and you the media have been calling them the terrorists, they have been incarcerated and tortured and you have been silenced.
You the media is the one that broke the silence on January when the activists in the worldwide in a bold move sided with them and we all push for their voices to be heard. When you saw that they were making waves then you took advantage of their light and you decided that the story was good enough to be written about it.
They did not inspire out of Jasmin Revolution or the Tahrir Square, NO! Sandy Tolan, you picked up that title because it is catchy and sounds good and will be grab in the crawler of the web.
Now there are conflicts with the two main political parties in Palestine, from one side we have the Palestinian Authority closure of more than 300 NGOs in West Bank, charities that Hamas over the years has financed and sponsored, and they [Hamas] were doing the right thing in the Occupied Territories, but the egos got lose and the PA could not accept Hamas’victory without inflicting low punches, without seeing that the only losers are the Palestinians. Since 1982 Hamas is the organization that has been in charge of most of the health and social life of Palestine.
The United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the occupied Palestinian Territory, Maxwell Gaylard, today voiced his concern about the forced closure on 30 November by the local authorities in Gaza of all Gaza-based offices of the non-governmental organization Sharek Youth Forum.
“I am very concerned about the recent forced closing of Sharek Youth Forum in Gaza. Sharek is an important NGO partner of the United Nations in its work on behalf of children and the youth in Gaza”, Mr. Gaylard said.
Mr. Gaylard noted that “Sharek’s work forms part of the many important activities carried out by civil society organizations in the occupied Palestinian Territory promoting development and the protection of human rights.“
He stated that freedom of association and freedom of expression are fundamental rights protected by international law as well as the Palestinian Basic Law and expressed his hope that Sharek would be permitted to continue its work in Gaza without further delay or undue hindrance.
Statement by Maxwell Gaylard,
United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the occupied Palestinian Territory
On the Closure of Sharek Youth Forum in the Gaza StripJerusalem, 7 December 2010
Since 2007 the Fatah-dominated government in the West Bank has also closed more than 300 Hamas and Islamic-linked charities and NGOs.
I don’t see the UN raising the flag for the 300 Charities closed down in West Bank by the PA, not that Sharek Youth Forum be less important, but my note is in the context of marking the double standards used to emphasize the wrongs of one political party vs the other one, Hamas over their favorite Fatah.
The PA that is being cracking down on the resistance in the West Bank pleasing and serving the interest of Israel. Maybe the goal is toward “The Peace Talks” but we all know that Israel does not recognized Abbas as a “Peace Partner.”
Seriously speaking Israel does not know the meaning of peace.
And let’s mention also the continuous arrests of peaceful protesters in West Bank and Jerusalem, but not from the PA but from IDF forces that without mercy use lethal force to stop the demonstrators from expressing their opposition to the illegal Wall, the closure of Shuhada Street in Hebron, the demolitions of homes in East Jerusalem, the dispossession of homes, the illegal arrests of Palestinians and other very serious issues that the UN keep ignoring, even the murder of internationals is not a serious topic for our “Peace Keepers in New York Headquarters.”
Where is the Big Media in these important events that take place inside Palestine? Why don’t you Brake the Silence and exposed Israel Once and for all?..Will be the day that we will be celebrating Earth Day.
The next excerpts was taken from an article published by Aljazeera, I bring it to you because it has some good information, I do not agree with the way they portray the youth of Palestine taking the merit of their struggles, but now they are taking their time to give you a taste of the occupation with the “Big Media flavor”. Even thought in their article I see the youth of West Bank is not Numb as the great majority of the population, they [youth] see the situation from their young minds from different perspective.
“If you look at our social situation, people in Ramallah don’t care, mostly speaking,” says Dina Shilleh, a 27-year-old piano teacher who returned with her parents from Serbia during the heady early days of Oslo. “If they can go out, they have their car, they have their house, they can dress nicely, that’s kind of what it’s about. There’s a lot that’s been sedated. Because in the end you want to live. It’s like, hey, how long do you want to keep fighting? My grandparents fought, my parents fought. Am I gonna do it? My kids? It would have to be something that would really spark the people to get out of this numbness.”
I personally have experienced the disinterest from some Palestinians here in California and in Ramallah, they simply don’t care, they can come to the US, they work, eat and entertain themselves as long as they are not taking the heat from the IDF they care less for Gaza or for the struggles of Shuhada Street residents or East Jerusalem.
It is disappointing but also I see they are tired of fighting, they lived the occupation in their worse times, what can we do to wake up their dreams of freedom again?
Aljazeera Article published March, 05, 2011
On a cool January evening at the height of Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, Najwan Berekdar and a few friends were sitting at a smoky café in Ramallah, puffing on water pipes and strategising. “We were talking about what’s happening in Tunisia, and we decided, maybe this is the momentum – we should use it,” Berekdar remembers weeks later from her office at Sharek, a youth-oriented Palestinian NGO. “We were, like, five people. We were sitting with our laptops and we said, ‘Okay, let’s make an event.’ We wanted something to encourage people to go out.” Within days, masses of Egyptians began filling Tahrir Square, and 27-year-old Berekdar, her friends and like-minded Palestinian youths were even more inspired. “We wanted to send this message that it is time for us to do something. And obviously we can do it. Look at other people. If they managed to do it, we can do it.” The demonstrations these Palestinian youths helped organized were quickly banned, sometimes with clubs, by a Palestinian Authority (PA) with deep historic and political ties to the Tunisian and Egyptian dictatorships. But then other groups began forming their own demonstrations. And Berekdar and her friends, through email loops and a face-to-face “thinking group” of about 20 academics and intellectuals, organized new protests. “We were suppressed by the PA a second time and a third time,” she says. Soon Palestinian authorities began to investigate the group. “One of our group members was called by the police, and by the intelligence, and by – I don’t know, we have four security forces, I think,” Berekdar says. (Actually, there are five.) “They stayed at his home until one in the morning.” The mukhabarat assumed the young man was the ringleader, Berekdar recalls with amusement. They pressed him for details of the hierarchy of what is in fact a loose, ever-shifting coalition that only recently got a name: Hirak Shebab, or Youth Movement. It is an informal, mostly leaderless group – a concept the centralised PA does not seem to grasp. As Berekdar spoke, at 1:30 on a recent afternoon, an email came in from a friend. About the demonstration that day at 6:00: Should they do it at Manara Square in the centre of Ramallah or outside the Muqata, the PA headquarters? Berekdar was not sure. Scarcely four hours before the event, she seemed unhurried, and confident of Hirak Shebab’s ability to get sufficient numbers to show up at the last minute. Berekdar is trying to involve young people, both unaffiliated and from different Palestinian parties, including Hamas. She estimates that so far about 2,000 people connect with the group’s message pushing for democracy and fundamental change. “It’s about changing the whole discourse of the Palestinians,” she says. “It is time for us to start doing something. Because obviously the political leadership is not doing anything.” The ‘pulse of Palestine’ In the revolutionary spirit spreading across the Middle East, Palestinian youth groups have become a small but important catalyst in a building wave of discontent with PA repression and complicity in a failed “peace process” backed by the US. The groups’ actions are sparked not only by events in the region, but by the US veto of the UN Security Council’s condemnation of Israeli settlements. A widening circle of Palestinian groups are calling for an end to negotiations with Israel, an end to the political division between the West Bank and Gaza and wholesale reform of the PA and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Some advocate dissolving the PA completely. “Fatah and Hamas have failed Palestinian society,” says Nader Said, a Palestinian pollster and political analyst. Youth, he says, “represent the pulse and conscience of Palestine”. In Gaza, Said says, young people “are the ones who have demonstrated in the middle of the shooting, covering their faces with paper bags,” so that security forces would refrain from possibly shooting a brother or cousin. “They are the soul of the Palestinians,” but by themselves, “they’re not strong enough to carry the emancipation agenda.” Yet the message is resonating well beyond the youth groups. As Palestinians under a 43-year occupation watch their Arab neighbours fight for democracy, pressure increases on the PA to reform itself – or at least, to appear to do so. Faced with the threat of the US veto, the PA sought to burnish its resistance credentials by refusing to yield to American pressure to call off the Security Council vote. And Salam Fayyad, the prime minister, recently sent a message to Palestinian youth via Facebook, asking for input as he forms a new Palestinian cabinet. Within hours, he received hundreds of replies – some supportive, some sceptical. “Now suddenly they’re this nationalistic body that’s clinging to Palestinian rights?” scoffed Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and former PA negotiator, in a recent interview. “They’ve put their finger to the wind, and realised that the wind has changed. Right now you don’t want to be seen as the one nation that’s clinging to the United States. So they had to do something.” But others say the pressure from emerging Arab democracies, and what one insider called the “betrayal” by the US, may force the PA to turn inward, and thus make the kind of core changes it has long resisted. “We do not want an authority that is a buffer between the people and the occupation,” says Qais Abu Leila, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and a founder of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. “We need a Palestinian Authority that is part of the people and a continuation of the struggle against occupation.” Abu Leila believes the shifting political landscape may force the PA to confront its increasingly undemocratic, authoritarian character. “We are now facing the danger of the emergence of more or less police regimes” in Gaza and the West Bank. Under the PA, he says, “gradually the democratic checks and balances of government are fading away”. ‘A quiet colonisation’ Fundamental change within the PA, if it happened, would likely include a reassessment of its security cooperation with Israel. Some coordination of visas and safe passages, and movement of Palestinian police between West Bank towns, would continue, reformers say. More draconian measures seen as collaboration with Israel’s occupation could be suspended. These include the extralegal arrest and detention of hundreds of Palestinians, and incidents of torture, documented by Palestinian human rights groups, in the name of fighting terrorism and preventing a Hamas takeover in the West Bank. Human Rights Watch recently called on the US and EU to suspend aid to the PA “pending concrete steps to end a culture of impunity for security service abuses, including torture”. But a Palestinian decision to suspend security cooperation would likely have huge financial consequences. In recent years the US has spent nearly half a billion dollars in training and “professionalising” key parts of a 25,000-strong Palestinian security apparatus under three-star American general Keith Dayton. The money flow would likely reduce to a trickle if basic principles of the arrangement were suspended. Some analysts believe the PA could survive possible cuts in US funding, especially if the EU stepped into the breach. Others are sceptical. “The PA is a security subcontractor for Israel,” says Buttu. Despite the pressure the PA is facing, she does not foresee any change. “The whole aim is to allow Israel to have a very quiet occupation, a very quiet colonisation.” “We alleviated the occupation from its responsibility,” agrees Ali Jarbawi, a longtime critic of the authority who recently joined the government as the Palestinian minister of planning. “And they [Israelis] are living happily ever after when you go to Dizengoff Street and sip wine with the yuppies at these sidewalk cafés. As if the West Bank does not exist. As if Gaza does not exist. As if the Palestinians do not exist.” Jarbawi believes the two-year state-building plan the PA put in place in 2009, overseen by Fayyad, should be given a chance to work – but only until September 2011. Jarbawi insists there must be a limit to official Palestinian patience. “You can’t keep the negotiation track open forever, and keep the dependency on aid also open forever, so the world is paying for the continuation of the occupation. And at the same time they are building settlements on the ground, eating what’s supposed to become our state.” Jerusalem: ‘The next Tahrir?’ After September, Jarbawi says, the Palestinian strategy could include an end run around the US, through an appeal to the other members of the “Quartet” – the EU, Russia and the UN – to recognise a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders. Already nine Latin American nations have stepped forward. “Brazil, through this letter, recognises the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders,” Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the then Brazilian president, wrote to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, in December. Other options Jarbawi envisions include asking for an international presence in the West Bank, building a new, nonviolent intifada – “one million people walking down the streets, chanting for an end to occupation” – or even dissolving the very authority in which Jarbawi now works. “That has to remain a viable option,” he says. Abu Leila believes dissolving the PA is unrealistic. But he insists the pressure for reform has become too great to ignore. “There is an almost universal recognition that there must be radical change in Palestine, and that it must start with ending the division” with Gaza, he says, echoing comments by Berekdar and many others. He calls this step essential “in order to face the occupation and a hostile policy adopted by the US. The PA could organise the Palestinian society in a way that could fuel the struggle against the Israeli occupation. This is a meaningful option.” This may be starting to happen. In February, Tawfiq Tirawi, a member of the Central Committee of the PLO and until recently the PA security chief, called for “days of rage” protests against the American veto in the Security Council. “They consider themselves the masters of the world,” said the man who until recently helped coordinate security arrangements with Israel and the US. “They [the Americans] call for democracy and freedom. They say that they want this for all nations of the world, but when it comes to the Palestinian people, it just evaporates. The interest of our people is the most important thing. We will say no to the Americans if it is not in the interest of our people.” Some Palestinians believe a nonviolent popular uprising is coming in Palestine – whether backed by the PA or not. “Resistance has always been a unifying force,” says Hani Masri of Badael, the Ramallah think-tank. “The youth, they are telling the leadership, either you will be changing or you will be changed.” Masri and others are discussing mass mobilisations, including 50,000 to 100,000 Palestinians marching peacefully to Qalandia, the checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah that now resembles an international border crossing. Beyond that, he asks, “why can’t we turn Jerusalem into the next Tahrir?” Weekly protests in the Palestinian towns of Bili’in, Budrus and Nili’in have already received international attention as focal points of a nonviolent Palestinian resistance. But whether mass mobilisations will actually take place to confront the Israeli occupation is another matter. High price of confrontation “The big question today is whether the Palestinian society has the juice to create a real civil disobedience, refusing-the-occupation campaign,” says Gershon Baskin, the co-director of the Jerusalem-based Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information, and a strong advocate of the two-state solution. “There are 24,000 Palestinians working in settlements. Two Rami Levi supermarkets opened up in the West Bank, and many of the shoppers are Palestinian. If you’re going to wage a campaign to simply say we’re not cooperating any more with the occupation, then what that means is you’re not going to work in Israel any more, you’re not going to work in the Israeli settlements … You’re going to have confrontation with the occupation. And that has a very high price.” Would Palestinians, so dependent on the foreign-funded jobs and services that Buttu calls “donor heroin,” be willing to forego the sharp reduction in aid that would surely accompany a new strategy of confrontation? “In the short term we would really pay a heavy price economically,” Buttu agrees. “For one thing, you wouldn’t see people sitting around in nice cafés like this,” she says, smiling ironically while sitting in Ramallah’s Café de la Paix. But confronting the occupation “would definitely unite people who are not united now”. “Something could spark it,” Baskin says. “Who would have predicted Tunisia, Egypt, Libya? But I don’t see Palestinian society having the energy today to do it. Israelis and Palestinians today feel much more comfortable pushing a ‘like’ button on their Facebook page than going out to the street.” That may or may not be true. As major checkpoints have come down recently, the occupation has loosened around Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin, and relative freedom within a small portion of the West Bank has created a sense of limited breathing room. For some Palestinians, quality of life has gone up. Some say the “donor heroin” has created a sense of comfort, even complacency, in the small enclave inside the West Bank. “If you look at our social situation, people in Ramallah don’t care, mostly speaking,” says Dina Shilleh, a 27-year-old piano teacher who returned with her parents from Serbia during the heady early days of Oslo. “If they can go out, they have their car, they have their house, they can dress nicely, that’s kind of what it’s about. There’s a lot that’s been sedated. Because in the end you want to live. It’s like, hey, how long do you want to keep fighting? My grandparents fought, my parents fought. Am I gonna do it? My kids? It would have to be something that would really spark the people to get out of this numbness.” And yet, when Hirak Shebab organised demonstrations at Manara Square recently, Dina answered the call. “We need a new leadership,” she says, recalling her chants against the occupation and in favour of democracy. “We need a new idea.”
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Unity March 15 a date to remember
Posted on March 15, 2011 by Omar Karem, from Gaza, edited by Marivel Guzman
Opinion
Gaza City, photo by Omar Karem
Thanks to all Palestinians that turned out today for the great March 15 March that markes the beginning to demand for a united Palestine.
The protesters were oppressed by the government forces. Was a little set back but the battle is not lost.
The youth, the women, the men, came in big numbers to demand unity and they will come out again; tomorrow, next week, until unity is achieved.
Battles are not easy to win said Leila Khaled, the Palestinian heroine that fought with Yosef Arafat during the 70s. She will tell you is not easy.
Today was a great day for Palestine, no matter what the outcome, it is a change, for first time lots of women are taking charge of the affairs of their land. Thousands of women were mixed with the crowd of men.
They know they must not be afraid, they are all Palestinians. Hamas, AFLP,FATAH, every one no matter the party they follow, they are all Palestinians, we are all Palestinians.
One Palestine Nation united to fight against the common enemy, ‘The Occupier’, ‘The IOF’ ,’Zionism’,’Ignorance’,’Division,’ those are the real enemies of the people.
Gaza City, photo by Omar Karem
Today the turn of events are only a show of the government to exercise power over the people, “Intimidation won’t work with us,” said a Palestinian, “We are feed up with Israel, even without uniform we know them, they can beat us and incarcerated us, but we wont stop,” he said.
They (Palestinian police) need to stop and unite with us. This fight is not against our government, it is against the division.
The security forces of Gaza are shooting to the air, shooting to the feet of the crowd. The government is afraid, of course they are afraid. Every government should be afraid of its people not the other way around. They need to prove themselves worthy to stay in power and if they have not done it the people is speaking loudly and demonstrating in the street and demanding unity.
It is not going to be easy for Hamas or the PA to contain the discontent because now we know that the power is with ourselves. If tomorrow, we all come to the streets, they won’t be enough bullets, or sticks to scare us. Today we celebrate that we can gather together, I don’t see it as a defeat to the people, No..it is a lesson, for us, for the government, to take notice that the actions are all recorded in history in our land. We must continue to work together to bring us as one Nation, we won’t stop.
We Palestinians are resolved to bring Palestine Unity.
“To really respond to the practices of the occupation, there should be unity behind the leadership that can address the world with one voice, to once and for all end the occupation and establish a Palestinian State as a strategic option for peace” – Issam Samour-Coordinator of Christian Relieve in Gaza, Palestine
The day’s events both exposed Palestinian divisions and underscored the popular desire for political reconciliation between Gaza, controlled by Hamas, and the West Bank, controlled by the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas amd his Fatah party. -The New York Times
Naji Shurrab, a political science professor at Al Azhar University in Gaza, which is unofficially affiliated with Fatah, said on Tuesday that ending the Fatah-Hamas split was beyond the capacity of the youths to correct. “The division is like cancer; the later you are in treating it, the more it spreads,” he said. –New York Times
The main stream media is ready to blame the set backs of the youth of Palestine on the people. They are mute when Israel is bombing our cities or killing us but as soon as the occasion arise they are ready to make headlines. We should ignore them all along, until they bring us the Truth.
We could feel the joy in the last few days in Palestine, all the videos that we shot in Palestine, people in the streets talking about March 15, Unity Day, Reconciliation day. It euphoria was overwhelming, the talks of a nation ready to emerge.
The people is what it make the nation not the leaders. Palestine is One, One land. The Holy Land is Only one. “We the People” make it.
Please stop the fights, come with us, all the fathers, and sons, that work for the respective governments, see us we are you, you are us. We are Palestine.
Palestinian youth at the Unity March photo by Omar Karem
Abu Yazan and other youth leaders, however, insist that unity is required to effectively resist the occupation and that political reform would significantly improve quality of life in the meantime. The slogan for the March 15 event is “End the division. One people against zionism.”
Ali Abdul Bari, a 24-year-old leader of Esha (Wake Up), a liberal, secular group devoted to promoting human rights, tells a story to illustrate just how deep the divide is. His group posted a sign demanding elections near the destroyed Palestinian Parliament building in downtown Gaza City. It was removed by Hamas 90 minutes later, despite the permit they had obtained. Later, many group members were interrogated or had their backgrounds checked. Pam Bailey
We must have high hopes that this movement wont stop, that today was a minor set back, but tomorrow a new day will come, bringing hopes. Specially that we will be commemorating Rachel Corrie day.
Come tomorrow March 16 to the streets to remember her memory, her martyrdom, we will celebrate her life, praise her memory for her sacrifice to our land.
Rachel Corrie
Please come with no banners, no flags, no colors, security forces please do not give bad image to the world. Do not copy the practices of Israel, we are tired of repression and oppression. Support us, in the new Palestine Nation that we all try to build.
Tomorrow is a new day, to rectify the errors, to take lessons of the past. Inshallah
March 15: Palestinian Youth Call for Unify under One Nation, without colors, only by their flag colors
Posted on March 14 by Marivel Guzman in collaboration with Omar Karem
Palestine(Akashma Web Blogs)Gaza one of the oldest districts in Palestine,with 62 Villages and Cities, on the Mediterranean Riviera, facing the sea if you sail in an straight line on the Mediterranean sea you can get to Crete, Cypress, Turkey, Egypt,Libya, Even to the south of Italy then why Palestinians are force to beg to the government of Egypt to let in to Gaza as it is happening in this moments, where thousands of Palestinians are stranded in various airports and main cities around the world, because the New Military Government in Egypt of Omar Suleiman does not allow them to set foot in Egypt territory, and the Palestinians that want to leave Gaza, go through a tedious procedure starting with their own government, where they need to pay a fee to get into a list to be permitted to leave Gaza, then once they cross to Rafah Egypt in the Egyptian side they wait another 5 to 10 hours, to be return back to Gaza without a valid reason what so ever. Some Palestinians are allowed to leave only if they have a Visa and ticket ready to leave the country, or some few cases of patients that cross for treatment to a specific clinics in Egypt. They are some talks about lifting the ban, but nothing concrete yet.
On the other side of Palestine where close to 8 millions of Palestinians live in the various cities and refugees camps, between hundreds of Illegal “Settlements” and “Outpost” surrounded by heavy military personal, a 25 feet wall and dozens of incorporated check points and road blocks, illegal detentions and targeting assassinations, that make their every day life impossible, without counting with the shortage of drinking water, lack of jobs, and a Unite government that oversee the necessities of their citizens.
Since Israel withdrew from Gaza on 2005, the situation in Palestine have gone from bad to worse, the physical division that separate Palestine making it into two different entities, at least that is what Israel have force them to be, and for the last 4 years seems that Palestinians living West Bank and Gaza have fallen into Israel Game.
The situation was looking too gray for the future of Palestine until a group called “Gaza Youth Brake the Silence” that in December 2010 exposed the conditions of the besieged Gaza to the world. This group call for the Unity of all Palestine and this movement started to grow to a magnitude that even Israel was taken by surprise.
In matter of days all the Outlets News of the world took notice of this group and their Manifesto was widely spread across the Internet, and their facebook group grew by the minutes in matter of days they have more than 12,000 members.
They have called for the Unity of the political parties, the people, the ideas to be Palestine One Nation, they are inviting all Palestine to raise their voice at unison, converging their ideas for the common good of Palestinians, not rule by Fatah, or Hamas, not intended for Gaza or West Bank but for Palestine.
Palestinians who carried on their shoulders all the sins of history and jammed events that Promoted a new generation resolutely legacy accumulated over decades in the both sides of Palestine; West Bank and the Gaza Strip. And from Gaza begins its new launch iniciative, said he wished to rectify the deficit of the older generation of parents and the errors committed at the height of the conflict between the sworn brotherhood of power.
The youth of Gaza are in their twenties, they dress sporty, they are University Students, they are the facebook activist, the twitters, youtubers, this generation that want to change the old ideas, they want a new Palestine without the rigor of religion, without the stamp of millitary flavor, their envision a new Palestine United by their flag, their Land, culture and her people, they want to forget about the political parties that have damage so much the reputation of Palestine.
The fight for the power, the hold of the chair, all the political and military mix that did not help Palestine to be United as a Nation fighting for a common enemy the Occupier, the Neo-Colonizer Israel that for 62 years sow the terrain to her convenience.
Israel divided the land in two diametrical entities that it made them believe that they were two people living in two distance lands. West Bank, Palestine dislike for long time Gaza People, they saw them for some time as intruders that came to take their jobs. In the Gaza Strip the situation did not go fine either, they were forced to choose and pick their candidates when the physical division made impossible the central government of Palestine to take care of the affairs of Gaza.
Gaza was forcefully neglected to the point that new factions were formed to filled the vacuum left by the Palestinian Authority, even when Yasser Arafat the revered men in Palestine, was imprisoned in his Rammallah compound, he could not ever serve his closest citizens, under the watch of the whole world. He managed the affairs of the nation from the headquarters of the PA in Ramallah, but Gaza was too far to be served or help. During those years Israel was brewing the fate of Gaza and the separation from Palestine. For almost 8 years and since Israel withdrew her army and dismantle the settlements from Gaza, the Strip is being deteriorating under a siege and a bigger negglect, but this time by the whole world that being witness of the situation and done nothing about it.The activist of the world have work tirelessly to show the raw truth to the world, and now the youth of Palestine is taking the lead.
Now all the lies are exposed, the internal fights need to settled, the youth of Gaza is forcing the old leaders to rethink their role, to lead Palestine as a Nation and come as one voice. They created a big plataform where all the dissidents voices can be heard and the obsolete policies and old practices be clean away.
They said: “We have moved more than a month to work on the ground and left the “Facebook” virtual world for the revolution to end the division and we started working on a campaign of house to house of Rafah to Beit Hanoun and in all parts of the West Bank to translate the Revolution to the ground in all parts of home.”March 15 activists speaking on their behalf and they visited the Office in Gaza.
Revolution Profile: Mohamed Sheikh Yusuf, Youth March 15 for the most we have to work to restore national unity and if we are not united Palestine is lost and her youth will be lost, and the old Palestinian people should carry the idea of the Palestinian flag without the other no one says, “To continued to divide the revolution, to allow for all to wrap around and the most inspirational to continue as young people, we relied on personal spending for this revolution, saying it was a revolution to add personal expense to the contributions of activists, saying sarcastically that the revolution of this kind does not need of funding.
Prosecutions and arrests for police officer and a Rose:
Through the process of build-up and preparation for the start of a revolution young Shaykh Yusuf: We have been prosecuted and there has been arrests and booking, our computer hardware and “Laptop” being taken by our own security services in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but we are saying that young people have decided to give a rose for each element of police Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza during the first hour of the demonstrations, saying, “We get young men in a spontaneous march in the Gaza Strip days before the police and shouted to the societies of young people and police together to end the division, stressing that the youth revolution of the March that we have today we will distribute 1000 rose to the elements of the police.”
Legitimacy belongs to the Palestinians wherever they are:
Sheikh Yusuf saying: “Our response to Palestinian organizations, that he would not only represents the youth and young people will not be able to impose one view, but the view of all Palestinian Society.
Joseph another youth said: that the field will not allow any party whatsoever, or any one that tries to impose party color or class, because the field will not only receives a campaign of the Palestinian flag and raise the slogan of the people wants to end the division and a single emblem of the Palestinian people at this point.
“We will not allow anyone to Tahir March 15, in the interest of partisan or institutional and that it is not only the legitimacy of the field.”
Sheikh Yusuf called on all Palestinian to go on March 15, raising the Palestinian flag only.
He said: We call on Hamas, we also call for Fatah and other factions to get off wearing the Palestinian dress and the Palestinian flag and get free societies in this day of the party and our only goal during this phase is to protect the national project and protect the blood of the martyrs and call for unity, it is a call for great leaders Yasser Arafat and Khalil al-Wazir Ahmed Yassin, Abu Ali Mustafa, George Habash, Shakaki and decided that the young Palestinian leaders invited to meet the bone and split ends and restores unity to strengthen the Palestinian unified.
Sheikh Yusuf said the most important success of the revolution until the moment is to break the deadlock and break the barrier of fear and activation of the silent majority and people express their views and rights of what is going on.
And about gathering places, said Joseph Nouri, a militant revolution Onalamancn March 15 are:
In the central Gaza Strip, the crowd will be in the field of the Unknown Soldier at 12 noon.
West Bank crowd in the central Manara Square in Ramallah
For the rest of the areas in the West Bank, which will not be able to reach the lighthouse in Ramallah, the crowd will be in Bethlehem Church of the Nativity in Jenin in the field of the Jenin Martyrs. It will also be in the crowd in front of the Palestinian diaspora Palestinian embassies or offices of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Joseph Nouri said that the call would be to sit in the same places of the crowd, unless they decided that the field is saying to let the field decide.
As for the organization of the crowd and fields, “said Nouri, said the idea began by inviting youth groups to the crowd after crowd sleep youth work to organize the crowds and space management, explaining that he had been set up committees to the system of committees flags and committees supporting and unifying slogans stressing that young people have all the preparations for the management of post-crowd.
Laila Khaled-Palestinian Resistance Hero-March 8 Internation Woman’s Day
Posted on March 8, 2011 by Marivel Guzman
from original posted by Thee *FREE ARAB VOICE* February 2, 1999
Leila Khaled (also Layla Khalid), long-time activist and Central Committee member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was born on April 9, 1944 in Haifa, Palestine. Her family left Haifa as refugees to Lebanon on April 13 1948, just before the State of Israel was established
In this issue of the Free Arab Voice we interview Laila Khaled.
Laila Khaled is a Palestinian Arab woman, an activist, fighter, and a leader that has become now a familiar part of the Palestinian psyche. She turned almost overnight from another refugee in Lebanon into an unfurled Palestinian flag. Unlike others who folded their flags though, she remains as true to the faith today as when she was fifteen, only smarter. Understanding what she has to say is tantamount to understanding what many Palestinians have to say.
We will not rain on her parade. She will introduce herself by herself.
[This interview was conducted for the Free Arab Voice (FAV) by Ibrahim Alloush ].
Introduction:
FAV: Welcome Laila Khaled. Would you like in the beginning to introduce us briefly to yourself: your position in the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), the Palestinian Woman’s Union, and the Palestinian revolution?
Laila: I’m a Palestinian woman of Lebanese origin, my belonging is Arab, and hence my belonging is Palestinian. I joined the Arab Nationalist Movement early, early with respect to me, cause I was barely 15 years old then.
I moved to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine since its inception in 1967, and continue to be with them until today.
I was a member of the Union of Palestinian students, in the Administrative Committee, when I was still a student in the American University of Beirut in 1963. In 1974, I became a member in the General Secretariat of the Palestinian Woman’s Union. Also I’ve been a delegate in the Palestinian National Council [parliament] since 1979. FAV: What’s your official position in the PFLP?
Laila: I’m a member in the Leadership Council of the PFLP. “Who Are the Palestinians?”:
FAV: We’re not going to well long on that military operation you partook in, and which drew fame and glory. We have surpassed that stage in a sense. We’re in a different stage now, perhaps even at your own personal level. Would you give us a quick glimpse though about that operation so our younger readers may get an idea about what happened then? When exactly, and what was your role in it?
Laila: It was one of the operations undertaken by the PFLP to hijack airplanes. I was the first woman to participate in one, but the PFLP had done a few before. One of those was the hijacking of an El Al flight from Rome to Algeria. The PFLP took this path under the motto of “Going after the Enemy Everywhere”, as one of the tactics or phases of the armed struggle. The main goal behind these operations was to pose a big question to the world: who are the Palestinians? At the time Palestinians were being treated merely as refugees who may need humanitarian aid. So we got showered with tents, UNRWA programs, and so forth!
The other goal behind these operations was to release our political prisoners from “Israeli” jails. From 1968 until 1970, the PFLP performed operations abroad to achieve those two goals. But having posed the question of who are the Palestinians, the answer was not in the final analysis to be answered by the operations themselves but by the Palestinian revolution. There was now a big commotion. People all over the world were asking who those were who were hijacking airplanes and what they wanted.
Regarding the second objective of releasing prisoners, we succeeded in that respect partially. Had we had a liberated base from whence we could have held planes and passengers, and from whence we could have exchanged and negotiated, we could have succeeded much more. The Arab regimes had a clear position of not supporting us, and of compromising us as needed to white wash any affiliation with us.
I participated in two of these operations. One was the hijacking a TWA that Isaac Rabin was scheduled to be on. At the time he was the “Israeli” Ambassador in the U.S. That flight was supposed to go through Rome. We boarded the plane there, and re-directed the plane to Damascus, Syria. Unfortunately however, Rabin was not on board!
FAV: When was this?
Laila: This was in August 1969.
FAV: What happened after you came to Damascus?
Laila: When we came to Damascus, the airport we landed in was still not in use so we inaugurated it. We blew up the cockpit.
FAV: None of the passengers were hurt though!
Laila: No, no, not at all! That was made very clear throughout. We had strict directives not to hurt any passengers or members of the crew at all. Only in the case of clear self-defense, we were told, will you repel anyone who attacks you.
FAV: So you released the passengers upon arrival to Damascus?
Laila: Immediately. We told them to get off calmly, and showed them how to do it safely. Then we handed ourselves over to the authorities. We said we admit having done this, and would like to tell you why we did what we did.
FAV: The second operation you took part in?
Laila: The second one was an El Al plane. Now that’s a different story because it’s an El Al! An “Israeli” thing per se! That flight was carrying Ahron Yarev, the head of “Israeli” Military Intelligence at the time. We boarded that flight in Amesterdam. It was supposed to be headed to New York, but we were going to turn it back east. We had just inaugurated an airport near Amman, Jordan, that became known as the Airport of the Revolution where we had held three planes there already, and we were going to bring our El Al plane there too. But the pilot took us to London instead, and our comrade from Nicaragua, Patrick Aurguillo, was killed there.
FAV: What went wrong?
Laila: What went wrong was that we were to be four doing this, but only two of us, Patrick and me, managed to get on board. Because Yarev had bodyguards too we simply got outnumbered and outgunned. The route the plane took was not the one we thought they would. Landing in London was totally unexpected. We bet that they won’t come near us. I was in charge of the operation and had two hand grenades. I didn’t think they would ever dare to come near me, but it seems that “Israelis” think lightly of dying as well.
They attacked the two of us, and managed to kill Patrick savagely. I wasn’t shot, but tackled and beaten. Media reports later indicated that the body of the plane was riddled with eighty bullet holes. Patrick had one handgun and I had two grenades, so guess who was doing most of the shooting?
FAV: Then?
Laila: The Brits took me. The very following day however a Palestinian guy from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, hijacked a BOAC plane to Beirut because he couldn’t handle the thought of me getting arrested. He requested to talk to the PFLP when he got to Beirut International Airport, and asked them where he should go with the plane. The pilot didn’t know how to get to the Airport of the Revolution because it wasn’t in the official charts. So, he was given directions. Then I was released in exchange, along with a couple of other comrades, after 28 days in custody. All this also raised the political question worldwide of who we were and what we sought.
A Critical Evaluation:
FAV: How do you respond to those who say that this particular type of operations did not help out very much, but had in fact hurt the Palestinian cause? Sure we got the attention of the world, but it was perhaps negative attention, the kind that’s not very good for us?
Laila: There’s an intrinsic difference between armed struggle as one of the main strategies to overcome the enemy, and these transient tactics which we employed only during a very brief period. On the internal Palestinian level, other groups condemned our earlier tactics only to end up adopting them after we abandoned them totally in 1970, as Fatah did with the “Black September” organization! So these were short-run tactical measures that can and should easily be given up if needed.
Anyway, hijacking planes was not the only type of overseas operations we engaged in. In 1972 for example, the PFLP hit the oil tanker Coral Sea which was clandestinely carrying Arab oil & gas (butane), from one of the Gulf states, to “Israel”. It took about a year of careful surveillance and planning to ascertain the route and method by which Arab oil went to “Israel”. But nobody likes to talk about this.
FAV: Where did this happen?
Laila: The Red Sea. Let me also add here that this operation cost “Israel” a great deal in terms of maintaining tight security. From that point on, every tanker that went out to sea had to have military escort, by planes sometimes. Protecting their energy supplies became a real pain.
FAV: So do you call now for resuming this type of operations?
Laila: Now circumstances are different. Every act has to serve a political end. Hijacking airplanes is NOT in our best interest today. Anyway, we in the PFLP totally quit that after the Central Committee took a resolution to that effect in 1970. In this regard I would like to mention, with great admiration and respect, the contributions of the martyr Wadi3 Haddad, who is also one of the founders of the Arab Nationalist Movement. I owe this man most for having taught me how to love Palestine.
FAV: But you continue to be today for the continuation of the armed struggle to liberate Palestine?
Laila: There is a simple and clear formula that I follow which doesn’t require much theorizing. Since there is still today an enemy that raped and cast us out of our land, there is no language to communicate with him but that which he understands best. He talks the language of terror, so we have a legitimate right to resist. History, reality, and the whole world concede the people’s right to resist occupation. That’s all there’s to it.
The Calculus of War and Peace:
FAV: Some say Arafat obtained more for the Palestinian people, with his readiness to condemn and cooperate against Palestinian “terrorism”, than what we have obtained from decades of operations which cost us tens of thousands of martyrs, injured, prisoners, not to mention international public opinion. How would you respond to that?
Laila: Arafat lost and made us lose with him.
FAV: How come? Some say he obtained a small piece that could later become the nucleus of a Palestinian state? Can’t this become a foothold from whence we may liberate the rest? Didn’t he bring back about forty thousand Palestinians with him from Tunisia?
Laila: Arafat as the epitome of a stratum of leaders of the Palestinian movement that embraces the same way of thinking, has chosen to favor its personal interests over those of the people. Consequently they deemed their own return to Palestine, under humiliating conditions, synonymous with the “right of return”.
We have in Palestine today about three million Palestinians. These have conducted one of the greatest uprisings in the world. Their problem was never the right of return for Arafat and a small group with him. Our problem has always been that we are a people that have had its land occupied and that was forcibly evicted from that land.
The Zionists built their state on our land. Our problem can be summarized in two points:
1) sovereignty over the land,
2) the return of refugees.
This is the essence of the Palestinian problem. Now let’s see what Arafat did. Arafat got the legitimacy to speak for Palestinians from the blood of our martyrs, and from our suffering. He got legitimacy because he adopted initially the strategy of armed struggle. Then he stopped halfway. When this stratum got some perks and privileges, they balked on the notion of resistance. Our leadership was spoiled into submission, among other things. They liked hotels, travel, official receptions at their honor and what have you too much. But at the same time they were selling their own selves out.
Those selling themselves out can’t be said to be “obtaining” anything for their people, can they now? It’s true that “Israel” re-deployed its forces in this alleged solution. But even before that was done, Arafat had to sign on to the enemy’s right to exist on our land. That is a negation of the all the precepts of Palestinian struggle.
The PFLP’s Stand on the Existence of “Israel”:
FAV: But some claim that the PFLP has shifted, and is no longer totally opposed to the principle of “Israel’s” right to exist if that meant a sovereign Palestinian mini-state on the side. Is that true?
Laila: Let’s judge the PFLP on the basis of its documents, and I’m part of the PFLP. When we say that we agreed to the program of Palestinian national consensus:
1) the right of return,
2) self-determination, and
3)The Palestinian state. That means a Palestinian state on the land occupied in 1967, not Haifa. But here are our documents, and our strategy, and here’s the Palestinian National Charter that Arafat compromised. They all talk of liberating Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
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FAV: So this is what the PFLP remains formally committed to today?
Laila: Of course. We haven’t changed. We believe in liberation in stages, but we believe in our historical right to all of Palestine as well.
Laila Khaled Prevented from Flying in December to the Palestinian Conference in Damascus:
FAV: With respect to the Palestinian National Charter, there were reports that you were on a plane headed from Amman to Damascus earlier in December 1998, when you were asked to get off the plane right before take-off by Jordanian authorities.
What happened there?
Did they get nightmares from the mere thought of Laila Khaled on a plane?
Was it a matter of flashbacks from the sixties or is it more complicated than that?
Laila: I still travel by airplane by the way : ) : ) I don’t frighten anyone there. I was actually headed for Beirut, not Damascus, to participate in the Second Arab meeting for the post-Peking Women’s conference. No body told me why I was not allowed to fly that day, but I think they expected me to be going to the Palestinian opposition meeting in Damascus that convened on the 12th of December to re-endorse the Palestinian National Charter.
But in fact the real reason is Wye River, and the security deals that took place behind the scenes between the security apparatuses in Jordan and “Israel”. Laila Khaled is a Palestinian activist, and for her to travel and express her views here and there just doesn’t fly very well with the authorities. So they harass me as a member in the Palestinian opposition, not as an individual. But eventually, I traveled again later on, and nobody stopped me
FAV: So what if they thought you were going to participate in the opposition conference in Damascus? What’s their beef?
Laila: I wasn’t the only one prevented from going to Damascus last December. All the delegates headed to that opposition Conference from Jordan were intercepted and turned back. Specifically, 53 delegates were turned back. I left several days before the conference date because I was going to attend another in Beirut, then go to the conference in Damascus.
FAV: But why? What’s the point of preventing you and those people from attending the conference in Damascus?
Laila: The point as expressed rather comically by the Jordanian Minister of the Interior, Nayef al Qadi, was that those 53 delegates were going to Syria to say stuff that was “contrary to the security of Jordan”.
The response to that is straight forward:
The Palestinian opposition was simply going there to discuss its position and options after Arafat went ahead with the annulment of the Palestinian National Charter. That’s all. But let’s not forget I live in a state that has signed an agreement with “Israel” in Wadi Arabah. This agreement, or maybe one of its secret appendices, entailed that the opposition be oppressed, as long as that is done with all the “democratic means” available to the system!
[We will later go back and discuss in depth with Laila Khaled’s the Peking Woman’s Conference and her position on the question of Woman’s Liberation. There’s about 30 minutes of tape here that FAV will reproduce separately due to the extreme importance and the independent nature of that subject- FAV].
Future Strategies for Palestinian Action:
FAV The position you occupy now Laila Khaled in the Palestinian memory and the Palestinian conscience forces us to pose all the hardest questions to you. The Palestinian activism has reached a predicament at this point as is evident.
Can we say that the old forms of struggle have fallen?
Is there a need for new forms to replace them? If so, what are some of the features of these new forms? In short what is a good strategy for Palestinian action for the coming period?
What is to be done? Whence do we begin?
Laila: You posed the question of whence do we begin, so let me say here that we’re not starting out from zero. Every time a new leadership arrives at the scene, it doesn’t study the phase preceding it, and assumes that history began with it. Since the Balfour Declaration in 1917, we’ve had a series of uprisings and leaders in Palestine, culminating in a major armed revolt under the leadership of the Qassam in 1936.
Then there was Abdul-Qader al Husseini in 1948, then el Hajj Amin, and in the sixties the present PLO leadership emerged. We need to study therefore our history and draw hard lessons as much as we need to thoroughly evaluate the previous phase of the Palestinian struggle.
We may have entered a new phase though, characterized by a political settlement in favor of the enemy. The cornerstones of Palestinian activism have been upturned. The precept that the Zionist enemy is occupying our land has been clouded with false rhetoric about peace. The notion of armed struggle has been distorted as well by those who signed shameful agreements, like Arafat and his group.
We have to study thus the previous phase in a comprehensive and careful manner. We have to examine where we hit and where we missed. The great achievement the Palestinian people has perhaps been the Palestinian national identity. We learned how to resist, but the strategies of action now will have to be different from the ones we adopted before. The notion of armed struggle itself though remains necessarily constant because this enemy has not changed its nature.
This enemy does not seek peace. It is still racist, expansionist, and violent.
FAV: What is it that should change then?
Laila: Only the mechanisms have to change, not the objectives. The strategy of armed struggle has to carry on from one generation to the next. It has to remain a historical struggle on all fronts. The military front is not currently open, while the usual measures like demolishing homes, confiscating land, arresting activists, air raiding south Lebanon, and killing civilians continue. We still have Palestinian and Lebanese funerals daily. This means the enemy does not understand any other language.
FAV: This is regarding the objectives of the Palestinian action. How do we get there?
Laila: The objectives of the PLO have not been achieved, including the right of return, self-determination, and the Palestinian state. Some say we still have to uphold those betrayed objectives, and I’m one of those. The problem now is that this [Palestinian] opposition, which is made up of Islamic, nationalist, and leftist components IS NOT UNITED IN ONE PROGRAM OF ACTION.
We don’t have to unite them ideologically. They do have to find a way however to deal jointly with the two most important current issues of Palestinian struggle:
First, how to confront and escalate the fight against the occupation, and second how to tackle the contradiction with the limited self-rule authority of Arafat whose main task is to provide security for the occupation, and to oppress Palestinians. We can’t adopt the same approach in dealing with the two. I don’t think twice about the legitimacy of resisting the occupation by all means necessary.
FAV: How do you respond to people like Edward Said and Azmi Bshara who insinuate sometimes that we need new approaches to Palestinian activism, for example by opening up Palestinian organizations to “Israelis” who recognize “Israel’s” right to exist, yet support Palestinian rights!
Laila: We have to look at the tasks of every concentration of Palestinians in the light of its own circumstances. We have a goal that unites us all, which is to liberate Palestine. But there’s about a million Palestinians right now living in the land occupied in 1948. Those will have tasks that are different from the ones to be addressed by the Palestinians of Lebanon.
In the former, the Palestinian struggle focuses on removing the discrimination they suffer under “Israel”. But in Rou7ah and Um Es-sa7ali when “Israelis” tried to confiscate more land and to demolish homes a while back, the reaction of the Palestinians of 1948 made the Shin Bet report to the “Israeli” government that after fifty years of “Israeli” rule, nationalist feelings among the Arabs of “Israel”, as they call them, are on the rise.
It’s true there are a couple there that call themselves “Israelis”, but the Palestinians of 1948 have overall preserved their Palestinian Arab national identity. Within the framework of the overall objective, these people have the local objective of achieving equality before the law in “Israel”…
FAV: But we can’t generalize the tasks of the Palestinians of 1948 to other Palestinians?
Laila: Yes, that part of our people will have different local objectives because it has different local circumstances. We are a dispersed people you know. Those in the West Bank and Gaza will have different tasks as well.
FAV: So the idea of including “Israelis” in our struggle applies only to the Palestinians of 1948, right?
Laila: No, no, no! Neither including nor excluding, no! I’m talking about something totally different. I’m talking about a relevant Palestinian program for action. I said there are general Palestinian objectives for all Palestinians, and then there are particular Palestinian objectives specific to the local circumstances for each concentration of Palestinians. For example, what is right now the main concern of a Palestinian in Lebanon who is not allowed to work? S/He wants to make a living. But even s/he is trying to observe the general objective of preserving his Palestinian national identity.
He remains steadfast in the refugee camp as a Palestinian under very harsh conditions. His tasks however will have to be different from those of a Palestinian in Gaza, who has to deal with persecution by Arafat’s PNA, and the Zionist occupation. Local strategies have to be decided locally, not imposed from without. There has to be coordination though between the local parts so each complements the other.
FAV: But where do the “Israelis” who allegedly support our rights fit into all this? Some say that our main task on the general level now should be to intensify our efforts amongst Americans and “Israelis”. How do you respond to that?
Laila: Look, there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in North America. The main task of that group is to publicize the Palestinian cause and win support. They also have the additional task of not forgetting, and letting their kids forget who they are and where they came from.
They should think about coming back in the long-run. It’s high-time we learned from our enemies, isn’t it? But let’s also not forget here that this is part of the overall struggle. The children of the West and Gaza didn’t peddle theories about winning over the West in the uprising. They peddled stones. And they won the support of the world nevertheless. The essential thing is to not forget that the things that created the conflict with Zionists are still there. They’re not gone. The land is still occupied and the people are still dispersed.
That’s why we revolted. These agreements are like some ash over the coals. Pour a little gasoline and we revolt again. The gasoline is how to make our local tasks complement each other. The axis of the combined work should be to hit the enemy on the head through and through. They only withdrew from south Lebanon because they were shipping back too many coffins. So coffins is what they understand. And we should make no apologies here because our own graveyards are full. Before preachers try to teach you about the humanity of our enemy, teach them about how we have been dehumanized. They said: “The Palestinians don’t exist”! We have been subjugated to a process of extinction here. Now they’re even talking about making genes-smart bombs that kill only Arabs. These people are not about coexistence.
They still have their kids sing in Kindergarten: this bank of the Jordan River is ours, and the other one too! Why are you asking us to change?
FAV: ..and the “Israelis” that support our struggle!
Laila: This is something that concerns the Palestinians of 1948. It is not a task on the national level, except insofar as it contributes to flaming differences within “Israeli” society, and weakens the occupation. Full stop. But I don’t tell our Palestinian masses there to go to the booth to vote for Labor or Meretz. These still say our land is theirs.
I CHALLENGE ANY OF THE PARTIES THAT CLAIM TO SUPPORT PALESTINIAN RIGHTS IN ‘ISRAEL’ TO SAY THAT JERUSALEM IS OURS. None of them do. So what the heck? We don’t need more empty slogans from “Israelis” who claim to be supporting us. The United Nations resolution that recognized “Israel” tied that recognition to the return of refugees. But that was not observed because in this jungle the strong imposes its code. Let those “Israelis” who say they support us call for our return. Look, if you want to note with appreciation a large demonstration by “Peace Now”, fine. But don’t fantasize.
FAV: Are you willing to share Jerusalem?
Laila: No way and never. I want to go back to Haifa where I was born. What are you talking about?
—————————————————————————————————————–
We can not negate that the PLO headed by Yasef Arafat put Palestine in the Map again, if it was not for him the Palestinian Plight could have been ignored maybe until now. Even if we did not like the methods used by the PLO was the only way that Israel and her supporters were going to negotiate with him. And even if we disagree with the agreements Yassef Arafat was forced to accept we need to understand the circumstances of those agreements.
Not everything was done because personal preferences of Yassef Arafat, most of the documents that he signed were the less of the evils. I do not doubt for one moment that when Yassef enter the United Nations conference he have in his mind to sell Palestinian Identity. For the contrary he enter the conference with his head high and his rifle by his side. And after that day the whole world started speaking about Palestine again.
Even thought after the years the light shed on Palestine will diminish again, the Resistance took form, because the PLO brought energy to the old struggle. We can not deny the power that Yasser Arafat had and have in the young Palestinians. He never wanted divisions, he always spoke as Palestine as one nation, and that we also own to him and his group.
Our woman hero Laila Khaled fought along with Yasser Arafat and she knew the situation, and the agreements in its time, she speaks of her disapproval in some of the issues, I wonder if she have had the power of the pen, if another Palestine have resulted.
We can never underestimate the power of woman intuition. That is another story.
ISRAEL ATTACKED GAZA TODAY
Posted on February 28, 2011 by Omar Karem
Israel Tanks Entered Gaza Today February 28, 2011 their aims to Close the Roads that Connect Egypt and Rafah Gaza, Palestine
yesterday they attacked some people in Magazi camp no death were reported .
Israel now trying to take the time to make something inhumane in Gaza. Trying to inflict fear into the people, that are gathering together to end the internal divisions.
For the last few weeks the unrest can be felt in Palestine as all the people are Uniting to reconciled their differences between their views on the conflict and the aim of Israel to keep the division alive.
All the people inside Palestine and outside are raising their voices for ONE PALESTINE, There is one road to peace, Israel must end the occupation and Palestine be one Nation.
The US and the UN Club need to come to the realization that their support for Israel needs to end if they want to build lasting peace in the Middle East. As the situation is the middle east is concern the people are taking their lands back and the US needs to see itself isolated in its attempt to keep the dictators in place.
Israel is the only danger that we see in the middle east and in the world. Their lobbyists groups around the world are finally exposed and and there is no secrecy.
WHEN ISRAEL ATTACK WHAT WE SHOULD DO?
Posted On February 26, 2011 by Omar Karem
ترجع معظم الإصابات و الحوادث الناجمة عن القصف إلى الأسباب التالية:
– القذائف والعبوات ورصاص القناصة0
– انهيار المباني جزئيا أو كليا.
– ردود الفعل البشرية المتهورة نتيجة الذعر.
– الحرائق المتفاقمة بسبب نقص مياه الإطفاء أو لعدم تمكن فرق الإطفاء والإسعاف0 من الوصول للمكان0
– الأثاث المتساقط و الثريات الزجاجية أو المعدنية و الأغراض الأخرى.
– انهيار أعمدة و كوابل الكهرباء و الهاتف.
قبل حدوث القصف:-
o استكشاف أكثر الأماكن توفيرا للحماية في المنزل و تعريف جميع أفراد العائلة بها.
o إغلاق مصادر الغاز والطاقة و التخلص من السوائل البترولية المخزنة المختلفة ولا يسمح ببقائها داخل المنازل0
o تعريف أفراد الأسرة بأماكن المفاتيح الرئيسية لمصادر الطاقة في المنزل و تدريبهم على كيفية استعمالها في فصل التيار الكهربائي و إغلاق شبكة المياه ومحابس الغاز في حالة الطوارئ.
o فتح الأبواب والنوافذ و أبواب الدواليب والخزن0
o قم بجمع الأموال و المعادن الثمينة والأوراق الرسمية والمستندات الخاصة والعامة ووضعها داخل حقيبة خاصة0
o تأمين سلالم النجاة من خلال إزالة أي عوائق تعرقل عملية إستخدامه0
o تجهيز حقيبة إسعاف أولى وبعض أنواع الأدوية المطلوبة لذوي الأمراض المزمنة و التأكد من جودة وجاهريه وصلاحية هذه الأغراض للاستخدام.
o تخزين كميات كافية من الأطعمة المحفوظة والمعلبات و ماء الشرب0
o الاحتفاظ براديو وكشاف إنارة يدوي يعملان ببطارية مع الاحتفاظ ببطاريات احتياط 0
o وضع شريط لاصق عرض 10 سم على الألواح الزجاجية بشكل مربعات0
o إنزال الأشياء الثقيلة عن أسطح الخزن والرفوف و اللوحات و أحواض الزهور0
أثناء حدوث القصف:-
عدم الوقوف مقابل شرفات ونوافذ و وأسطح المنازل0
إذا كنت تقود سيارة توقف على الفور بجانب الطريق وقم بفتح النوافذ وإيقاف محرك السارة وتوجه لمكان أمن0
التنقل والسير داخل المنزل أو الشقة عن طريق الزحف أرضا ويمنع منعا باتا استخدام المصاعد الكهربائية0
عدم شغل الهاتف والمحمول إلا عند الحاجة الماسة والضرورية جدا0
التدخل الفوري لإخماد أي حريق قد يحدث باستخدام أجهزة الإطفاء المتوفرة0
النزول إلى الأدوار السفلى ( يفضل الجلوس على سلم البناية ) في حال عدم وجود ملاجئ0
المحافظة على الهدوء وعدم الارتباك و الفزع والخوف وطمأنة وتهدئة الأطفال0
متابعة المحطات الوطنية المحلية من خلال مذياع يعمل بالبطارية0
الالتزام والتقيد التام بالتعليمات الصادرة عن الدفاع المدني والهلال الأحمر والشرطة0
استخدم سلالم النجاة عند الطوارئ دون التوتر و الخوف والفزع مع الحرص الشديد على عدم التزاحم و التدافع0
الابتعاد عن المباني و خاصة المباني القديمة.
الابتعاد عن أبراج التوتر العالي و المنحدرات و الجدران العالية المعرضة للانهيار ( الأسوار).
لا تحاول العودة إلى المنزل إلى أن ينتهي القصف0
إطلاق سراح الحيوانات الأليفة فهي ستتدبر أمرها بنفسها.
GAZAN YOUTH’S MANIFESTO FOR CHANGE
Posted by Marivel Guzman
Original posted by Abu Yazan
GAZAN YOUTH’S MANIFESTO FOR CHANGE
F**k Israel! F**k USA! F**k UN!, F**k UNWRA!, F**k Hamas!, F**k Fatah!.
We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!
We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference. Like the Israeli F16’s breaking the wall of sound; we want to scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this f*****g situation we live in.
We are like lice between two nails living a nightmare inside a nightmare, no room for hope, no space for freedom.
Sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land.
Sick of being portrayed as terrorists, homemade fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes.
Sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions, but cowards in enforcing anything they agreed on.
We are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas, and completely ignored by the rest of the world.
There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of canalizing this energy into something that can challenge the Status Quo and give us some kind of hope.
The final drop that made our hearts tremble with frustration and hopelessness happened on November 30th, when Hamas’ officers came to Sharek Youth Forum, a leading youth organization (http://www.sharek.ps) with their guns, lies and aggressiveness, throwing everybody outside, incarcerating some and prohibiting Sharek from working.
A few days later, demonstrators in front of Sharek were beaten and some incarcerated. We are really living a nightmare inside a nightmare. It is difficult to find words for the pressure we are under.
We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the shit out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams.
They did not get rid of Hamas, as they intended, but they sure scared us forever and distributed post traumatic stress syndrome to everybody, as there was nowhere to run.
We are youth with heavy hearts. We carry in ourselves a heaviness so immense that it makes it difficult to us to enjoy the sunset. How to enjoy it when dark clouds paint the horizon and bleak memories run past our eyes every time we close them?
We smile in order to hide the pain. We laugh in order to forget the war.
We hope in order not to commit suicide here and now.
During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to erase us from the face of the earth. During the last years Hamas has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behavior and aspirations.
We are a generation of young people used to face missiles, carrying what seems to be a impossible mission of living a normal and healthy life, and only barely tolerated by a massive organization that has spread in our society as a malicious cancer disease, causing mayhem and effectively killing all living cells, thoughts and dreams on its way as well as paralyzing people with its terror regime. Not to mention the prison we live in, a prison sustained by a so-called democratic country.
History is repeating itself in its most cruel way and nobody seems to care. We are scared.
Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed.
We are afraid of living, because every single step we take has to be considered and well-thought, there are limitations everywhere, we cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want, sometimes we even cant think what we want because the occupation has occupied our brains and hearts so terrible that it hurts and it makes us want to shed endless tears of frustration and rage!
We do not want to hate, we do not want to feel all of this feelings, we do not want to be victims anymore. ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart aching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough incarceration!
WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want!
We want three things; We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life and We want peace.
Is that too much to ask?
We are a peace movement consistent of young people in Gaza and supporters elsewhere that will not rest until the truth about Gaza is known by everybody in this whole world and in such a degree that no more silent consent or loud indifference will be accepted.
This is the Gazan youth’s manifesto for change!
We will start by destroying the occupation that surrounds ourselves, we will break free from this mental incarceration and regain our dignity and self respect.
We will carry our heads high even though we will face resistance. We will work day and night in order to change these miserable conditions we are living under.
We will build dreams where we meet walls.
We only hope that you – yes, you reading this statement right now! – can support us. In order to find out how, please write on our wall or contact us directly: freegazayouth@hotmail.com
We want to be free, we want to live, we want peace.
FREE GAZA YOUTH!
*********************************************************************************
This Manifesto is for the whole apparatus of repression that engulf Gaza, Starting with Israel the Occupier,US the financier,UN the official Solicitor and Signatory of Wars,UNRWA the front of the UN that keeps Gaza under an inhumane welfare system,to Fatah that have forgotten that Gaza is Palestine, and to Hamas ultimately because keeps an invisible gag on the population under the guise of religion righteousness.
If There got to be Freedom in any society, Justice must be the base of the same. Human Rights is an inalienable right of every human being, being Gaza, US, Germany, Lebanon, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba(should not exist),Cuba, China, Iran, Mexico, Congo, Russia..or any place on Earth that humans co-habit under any authority of any type.
The right to disagree, the right to have a different opinion, or different feelings is a right that we all humans have a primordial born right, it calls dissent from the Status Quo, governments of the world dissenters are not criminals, they are free minders that choose their own path, and oppression only make them more aware of the situation that you want to force them to be.
This right is inalienable is part of the human rights that we all must enjoy as a citizen of this Earth.
I m speechless this is what I want to hear. Out with all the rules that bound you in your own mental prisons. Liberation yes, I m 110 % agree with your Manifesto, free, freedom and liberation.
I m sharing your courage. I m sharing your dreams, your hopes, your pains, your deaths, your ideals, your free and open mind.
I wanted to hear the youth speaking, I do no k,ow if will make a difference now, but certainly your message will spread in the world, in the mind of the old and tired souls, tired of their struggles.
It will infuse energy to the resistance, to the old and decrepit bodies that have fought for more than 6 decades without seeing compassion from the world, that have not received justice from the international bodies than have appointed themselves as the saviors of the world, to the peace activists, the justice seekers that are fighting for your land.
I was almost giving up my fight for Gaza, I was getting stiff and tired of yelling, writing, posting, complaining. I thought no one was listening, but I was wrong.
This Manifesto full or courage. rage dissatisfaction and pain have given me hopes again.
I m awake again, your words have giving me the food for the soul that I was missing.
I love you Gaza, I m proud of you, I m with you, in your fight against indifference, against the oppression of your mind, in this fight for your land, for your human rights, for your motherless children, and your childless mothers, I m with you with your olive trees that with one last stand they resist to let go and still embracing the land, I m with you, with your flag, that not being mine, have awaken the fighter on me once more.
I m sharing this word in every wall, available, in the blogs. my channels, everywhere that there is space.
Thanks Gaza youth I love you all…Free Palestine.
Dear Susan Life is Not Fair
Posted in November 15, 2010 by Marivel Guzman
Dear Susan life is not fair, and has not been less unfair for Palestinians since the Zionist Movement started at the beginning of the century.
The situation in Gaza is deplorable worse than in the West Bank, and we know that everything that we people of the world wanted to happen for the good of Peace in the world, will only going to be possible if WE THE PEOPLE take the initiative and the lead in our world affairs.
Gaza Siege
The time has come when we must move the strings of power by the only way that is possible, Economic boycott of the diverse industries that finance Israel development and growth.
Hollywood Movie Industry, Knows for their support to Israel and their continuous subliminal messages against Palestine Rights to Resist the Occupation, Christian Non Profit Organizations, givers of astronomical donations to finance illegal settlements in West Bank and East Jerusalem, and every product that it is in the BDS list that give economical life to the Zionist Entity Israel.
The most important is keeping the pressure to our leaders in the US to stop the economic help to Israel. And to stop being the spoiler in the United Nations resolutions against Israel war crimes and pressure Israel to comply with the more of 350 resolutions put in place by this body.
Israel of 2009 is a spoiled country, arrogant and condescending, convinced that it deserves everything and that it has the power to make a fool of America and the world.
Raising awareness in our children about the prospects for peace in the world, educating them about the evil enterprise that is the War Complex Machine and their multi-billion dollars money deals they make with Israel.
Bodies with dead tissues and no apparent wounds; 'shrunken' corpses; civilians with heavy damage to lower limbs that require amputation, which is nevertheless followed by unstoppable necrosis and death; descriptions of extensive internal wounds with no trace of shrapnel, corpses blackened but not burnt, and others heavily wounded that did not bleed
The only way we will make our governments stop acting with impunity is showing them that we are united, that we are a uni-voice, a strong force growing every day, that we can not stay silence with the crimes they perpetrate and silently cover up, that we are awake and aware of the situation in Palestine, and elsewhere in the world.
That Israel is an entity that needs to disappear from the face of the Earth, because is causing great threat to World Peace, and was founded under false pretenses, deception, lies and deceit. And since the creation of this entity, the world has been in a constant battle to support it, against the will of the population of the government that finance her.
There is no secret any more that the Nazi regime so much vilified by the founders of Israel were in concord agreement with the Nazis to transfer as many Jews and their properties to Palestine. We know more about the deception played to world to created Israel. They did not stop at murder to cover up their lies in their way to the creation of Israel.
We have sons and daughters, they are our future educated them.
World peace is an ideal of freedom, peace, and happiness among and within all nations and/or peoples. World peace is a Utopian idea of planetary non-violence by which nations willingly cooperate, either voluntarily or by virtue of a system of governance that prevents warfare. Although the term is sometimes used to refer to a cessation of all hostility among all individuals, world peace more commonly refers to a permanent end to global and regional wars with future conflicts resolved through nonviolent means.
We have sons and daughters, they are our future educated them on the issue of Peace. Educate them on the horrors of war and their profiteers and financiers.
Israel is the biggest arm dealer in the world. And she profits every time there is a death somewhere in the world. BE WAR OR just a random shoot out.
Facebook is just one outlet to spread the truth, they are hundreds of this socials networks that we can use to change our world.
We can not just complain that nothing is happening, because is happening.
We are a force growing. Do not let us be just few raising our voices.
Be a peace activist too, reading is good because you are getting informed, then do your part, share the posts to other walls, export them to others blogs, others channels, other spaces.
Myspace, youtube,meta cafe,tweeter,digg this,blogerspot,wordpress.com. I can search the net and find maybe thousands of this social networks.
Soon the change will become our reality. Do not be discouraged by the tragic events, we all take lessons and must move on, we must make changes to our advantage, and ACT in our behalf, in the name of a brighter future, that for some parts of the world is just Future a temporary word.
They live in the situation of “Be Or Not To Be” where the fight for their life is an everyday affair.
We ALL are thinkers and able to share our concerns and give ideas of how to do better. How to participate in our political process and our world affairs.
Do not let no one dictate you what is good for you, if what you are witnessing is injustice and struggle and does not feel good for you, probably is not good for anybody else.
We can not move on as a society if we permit this tragic events pass in front of our News, and Television Sets and think and pretend that will never happen to us.
We can not move on as a society if we stay indifferent to the pain of other human beings, and look the other way pretending everything is right and there is nothing to change.
If There got to be Freedom in any society, Justice must be the base of the same. Human Rights is an inalienable right of every human being, being Gaza, US, Germany, Lebanon, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba(should not exist),Cuba, China, Iran, Mexico, Congo, Russia..or any place on Earth that humans co-habit under any authority of any type.
Take your future in your hands. If you do not do it, others will do for you.
Then you will have no face to complain or time to ACT.
ACT NOW for your future and for the change you want to see.
ACT NOW for betterment of our society.
STATEMENT FROM HOSTAGES ON BOARD STROPHADES IV…URGENT
Posted by Marivel Guzman
HOSTAGES ON BOARD STROPHADES IV…GREEK SHIP..
We have been kidnapped at the Libyan port of Derna, by the Captain and crew of the Straphades IV. The Captain and crew have since left and the Greek authorities are now holding us hostage on board the Strophades IV.Ten of us are being held …at gunpoint by a… Greek SWAT team, in a small room 8x8ft. We have been told if we move we will be shot. We have requested sleeping facilities, showering facilities, access to telephones/internet and consular assistance – all have been denied. In the last 48 hours we have had one tin of coke and one sandwich to eat. We have had no access to water other than that in the toilets. We have to ask permission to do anything, including using toilets. We have no status. We do not know the nature of the charges we are being held under and feel extremely vulnerable. We ask that everyone please put pressure on the Greek government and demand that they end this nightmare. We want the Greek authorities to release us and allow us safe passage to Libya, where we can join the remaining members of the Road to hope convoy and proceed with humanitarian aid to Palestine.
Message ends…..
ARE THE MASTERS of deceit playing with our intelligence? this is atrocious .ridiculous and non sense act of piracy.theatery and blatant abuse of power.What the people is waiting to yell your outrage.
Yesterday when finally few outlets News picked up the SOS from the hostages and the attention was in the hijacked ship, Israel f16 were bombarding Gaza and terrorizin the children with sonar bombs. Off course Zio-terrorist Israel and her puppets are behind this distracting tactical event.
The situation created by this twist of events with the Internationals peace activists was clearly planned and calculated by Israel Egypt Uk to disrupt the land convoys and knowing that all the activists are exhausted.
We only can do so much from our stand as International peace activists. Sharing the News raising awareness to the world, we must brake this block of indifference and impunity that keep us lethargic and divided, and showing to our governments that we are united and not be deterred by gimmicks.
Do not let them distract you, keep the pressure. Write to the diverse embassies of the governments involved in this outrageous incident, demonstrate in front of the embassies.
The activists Stranded in the Libyan/Egyptian border need our help.
Raise money to send them to finish the mission to deliver the humanitarian aid to Gaza…Thanks.
The Times They Are A-Changin’
Posted by Marivel Guzman on November 4, 2010
We are in an important moment, the world is awakening, we are taking responsibilities never before felt as a duty. The situation of Gaza has gone now for 5 years and we were asleep, in a lethargic state, pacified by the lies of the
Media. Now we are the Media, we are broadcasting directly from the ground. Our friends in Gaza send us the News every day, all day. Now our brothers that took the challenge of delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza are Stranded in the border of Egypt, we have said that the convoys are non political movements, for that reason we need to participate, and help them in a non violent fashion way writing to the embassies, to your head of state to make the transfer of the Aid to Gaza. The activists are in a difficult situation they take enough money to travel but not
luxury is allowed. Please spread the message and do you part also. Maybe Bob Dylan and Eddie Vedder Explain it better with this message made song. Thanks to all
We seen more and more that that standoff of the
Road to Hope Convoy is awakening the ordinary citizens their humanitarian side, their voluntarism, it is so important the union, the show of great force of the people of the world, do not leave this courageous justice and peace seekers on their own. To Show our Governments that we can created a tremendous force. To all the peace activists in the world from all nationalities, to keep raising their voices in support of this noble cause.that we won’t stop to the effort to deliver the aid to Gaza. That the stubbornness of the Egyptian government needs to stop and cooperate with the humanitarian convoy and with their neighbors. Gaza.
5 days ago our brother Ken O’keefe important member of this delegation for peace speaks from the Libyan Border.
Road to Hope convoy stalled at Egyptian border
Via <ahttp://kenokeefe.wordpress.com/Ken O'keefe Blog
Posted by Marivel Guzman on October 31, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Road to Hope convoy stalled at Egyptian border
The Road to Hope humanitarian aid convoy continues its role in the international community’s collective mission to break the illegal siege of Gaza and deliver desperately needed aid to the people of Palestine in Gaza. The convoy comprises 30 vehicles and 101 humanitarian aid workers. Among them are 8 survivors of the Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla, 7 of them were aboard the Mavi Marmara, including Ken O’Keefe who was involved in disarming two Israeli commandos. The convoy has traveled four and a half thousand miles and is currently located at the Libyan / Egyptian border. As it stands the convoy finds itself at a standstill, with direct communication with the outside world being limited, and access to the internet very difficult.
It has always been a central aspect of the Road to Hope convoy that it acts in a non-political, non-confrontational manner. To work with and cooperate with every government in every country through which it traveled. Thus far this approach has rewarded it with exceptional receptions in every nation. All of the North African governments have been extremely accommodating and the people of each nation even more so. We must give special praise to the Libyan government for its constant support; when the convoy have had challenges, including breakdowns of vehicles, the authorities here have provided the means to repair those vehicles and continue our mission.
Ken O’Keefe: “Now we find ourselves in our third day at the Libyan / Egyptian border and we remain hopeful that the land route will be opened to us in the coming days”. The convoy departed from London with the understanding that the land crossing through Egypt had not been closed to it. Convoy leader, Kieran Turner: “One reason for our optimism that we will travel the land route is the fact that the Al Quds convoy, a Libyan convoy also delivering aid to Gaza, is set to travel the land route in the coming days. For several weeks we have hoped to join our convoys and travel together.” However, the convoy is awaiting permission from the Egyptian authorities to pass through Egypt in this way.
Mr. Turner understands that there is a possibility the Egyptian government will deny the convoy the land route, in which case they will have only two acceptable options —
1) To press on via the land border without permission, at which time our only chance of success will be by way of significant international pressure and a reversal of a policy which tacitly supports the illegal siege of Gaza.
2) If the land route is denied the only remaining option is to deliver our aid by sea. This option inherently requires significant increases in the cost of our mission, and importantly, to all subsequent aid missions. The end result of this policy is a reduction in the already limited resources that can be brought to bear for the people of Palestine.
The convoy leadership urge the Egyptian authorities to allow us safe passage to Gaza by land in the coming days, allow the convoy to join the Al Quds convoy, and ultimately increase the “easing” of the blockade which continues to collectively punish the people of Gaza.
Mr. Ken O’Keefe calls on all the supporters of Palestine “to support Road to Hope and the Al Quds convoys by spreading awareness of our missions and encouraging Egyptian Cooperation”.
Contacts:
Primary contact: London – Eleanor Merton +44 777 037 6701
Libya / Egypt – Kieran Turner +44 779 22 66 111 (interviews in Libya available if the roaming costs are covered.)
Dream of Peace: View from Gaza
Posted by Marivel Guzman
On September 24, 2010
During the Israeli War on Gaza in 2009, we were so terrified. I prayed for God to save our lives. AlhamdulAllah, He did.
I am a Gazawi, from a large family of eleven brothers and one sister. My father is a poor farmer, but as is the case of so many of us here, he is now unemployed.
Living in Gaza has been difficult since the Israeli Assault of 2009, and the inhumane Siege that have affected so many Gazan families.
The lack of basic services such water and electricity are shocking us, medical supplies and medicines indispensable to treat our sick are in short supply creating a double humanitarian crisis.
But my dreams of peace for my land stay in my heart and mind.
My Goal is to inform people outside of Gaza, about the situation that we live in and to raise international awareness about the blockade of the Gaza Strip and to send a message to the international community to stop the support to Israel and stop the occupation of our land.
We Gazawes along with all Palestinians are dreaming to break the siege and stop the suffering for Gaza.
Gazans dreams to break the siege and stop the suffering is shared by all our Palestinians brothers in West Bank and in the world.
May this year be a year of peace in Palestine!
We Palestinians have the dream of live in peace, despite of having terrible experiences and reactions to the war, the siege, and the occupation.
We have no borders, no life, we are all walled in and blockade.
Life is full of difficulties and constant danger, and we are forced to live with so little and some of us with nothing.
With the checkpoints and so many restrictions, there is no way out. We are trapped inside our own Land.
However, I personally believe things can change, and I work toward that goal in every way I am able.
I refuse to allow hope to die in me. I have dreams of finishing my degree in PT conflict resolution and of spreading the news about Gaza widely in such a way as to help my people and my land.
I pray day and night to see my people’s face cheer up, expressing the love for each other in a peaceful condition.
I have worked with the youth project in Khan Younis for demonstrating our rights in jobs, expressed in study. The EU youth Parliament nominated me as the member from Gaza to represent Gaza Youth in the “Berlin Conferences” in 2007 I was unable to attend due to the border restrictions and the Siege.
Life for nearly all refugees in the Khan Younis Camp is more difficult because of the blockade of Gaza, with much higher unemployment. Fewer families can provide for themselves, leaving a staggering proportion of the population dependent on UNRWA’s food and cash assistance. Ninety per cent of the camp’s water is unfit for human consumption, so basic hygiene is another big concern.
I worked for the American Friends Service Committee, training for responding to conflict situations, transforming the conflict to opportunities for young people, and encouraging peace on our side, so we can live our lives with various other trainings and experiences.
I am now the Project Coordinator with Catholic Relief Services CRS, basically the Gaza Emergency and Recovery Project. as it is. In Catholic Relief Services we work with local partners in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza and for nearly half a century.
Our projects aim to support peace with justice for all people in this troubled region, while responding to the humanitarian and sustainable development needs of Palestinians.
I do believe there is always a reason to hope and dream of peace despite whatever horrors are surrounding us. I am learning and hope to continue learning the tools needed to meet conflicts with resolution, teaching people to have hopes and dreams of peace, reconstructing peoples’ lives.
Issam Sammour
Gaza Strip, Palestine
Email :Sammour.issam@Gmail.com
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Issam Sammour like thousands of young Palestinians cherish the dream to Study Abroad, it should not be a hard quest, 
why they have to see their future with so many obstacles?, from the signing of documents to the visa request, they have to go through hell is there no better word to designated their troubles.
Israel makes almost impossible to fulfill the basic requirements to obtain the Passport and Visa, the check points on Ramallah and the blockade of Gaza are in the way. They can not travel to to other side of Palestine, there is a blockade a permanent check point on Erez. the point that divide Gaza Strip from the West Bank. And in Ramallah the friends that volunteer to help with the documents encounter countless obstacles as well.
You need to live the everyday struggles to understand their state of mind. With an alarming rate of underemployment, preparing themselves for a better future is not a luxury but a necessity. They need to obtain higher education to be able to compete in so tight market. The situation in Gaza is worsened since Israel imposed a blockade, where does not let export or imports to cross and in complicity with Egypt have kept Gaza Strip impoverished to the point where more than 80 % of the population is in public assistance.
Palestinian Diaspora
The Palestinian Diaspora
Posted on 14. Sep, 2010 by by Marivel Guzman Original Posted by Raja Mujtaba in Gaza Today
Does It Care Enough To Become Engaged?
By Alan Hart
IDF doing ethnic cleansing
The real history of the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel invites the conclusion that the Arab regimes – more by default than design in my view – betrayed the Palestinians. The question this article addresses is: Will future historians conclude that the Palestinian diaspora betrayed its occupied and oppressed brothers and sisters?
There’s no mystery about the Arab (regime) betrayal. When the Palestine file was closed by Israel’s 1948 victory on the battlefield and the armistice agreements, the divided and impotent Arab regimes secretly shared the same hope as the Zionists and the major powers. It was that the file would remain closed for ever. The Palestinians were supposed to accept their lot as the sacrificial lamb on the altar of political expediency.
Nor is there any mystery about why the Arab regimes were at one with the Zionists and the major powers in hoping that there would never be a regeneration of Palestinian nationalism. They all knew that if there was, there would one day have to be a confrontation with Zionism; and nobody wanted that.
When Yasser Arafat, Abu Jihad and a few others lit the slow burning fire of the regeneration, it was the security services of Eygpt, Jordan and Lebanon which took the lead in trying to put it out.
Fast forward to today.
The incredible almost superhuman steadfastness of the occupied and oppressed Palestinians is the reason why Zionism will never be able to close the re-opened Palestine file again unless it resorts to a final round of ethnic cleansing, to drive the Palestinians off the West Bank and into Jordan or wherever. In my analysis it is more likely than not that Zionism’s in-Israel leaders will create a pretext to do just that at a point in the foreseeable future
What point?
When it becomes apparent even to them that with bombs and bullets and brutal repressive measures of all kinds they can’t break the will of the occupied and oppressed Palestinians to continue the struggle for their rights and compel them to accept crumbs from Zionism’s table.
As things are I think it is unrealistic to expect the governments of the major powers either to use the leverage they have to call and hold the Zionist state to account for its past crimes, or to intervene to prevent the crimes it will commit in a foreseeable future.
And it can be taken as read that the Arab regimes will not lift a finger to prevent a final Zionist solution to the Palestine
problem. (Before Sharon sent the IDF all the way to Beirut to exterminate the PLO’s leadership and destroy its infrastructure, Gulf Arab leaders met in secret, without advisers present, in order to agree a message to the Reagan administration. The message was to the effect that they would not intervene in any way when Sharon made his move. After that message was sent, one of the Arab leaders present, Oman’s Sultan Qaboos, said to Arafat: “Be careful. You are going to ask for our help and it will not come.” Last year I had a private conversation in London with a major royal from the Arab world. I said to him, “Nothing is going to change in the Arab world until your regimes are more frightened of their own masses than they are of offending Zionism and America”. He replied, “You’re right.” I also said to him, “If the Zionists do resort to a final round of ethnic cleaning to close the Palestine file, Arab leaders, behind closed doors, will give thanks and celebrate.” His reply was the same, “You’re right.”)
Question: What can the Palestinians do to help themselves?
My view is that they should wind-up (close down) the discredited Palestine National Authority (PNA), and put policymaking and implementation back into the hands of the Palestine National Council (PNC), which is supposed to be (it once was) the highest and most supreme Palestinian decision-making body. To become relevant again it would have to be reconstructed and re-invigorated by elections in every place where there are Palestinians – the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem, the Gaza concentration camp and the diaspora.
The fact that the PNA is corrupt, impotent and discredited is reason enough for it to be put out of its misery, but there’s more to it.
In their claim for justice, the Palestinians have 100% of right, legal and moral, on their side (whereas the Israelis have 99% of the might, conventional and nuclear, on their side). If this claim was properly presented and pressed by a credible Palestinian leadership, by definition a democratically elected leadership duly authorized to represent the views of all Palestinians, it would be more difficult for the governments of the major powers, the one in Washington DC especially, to go on refusing to use the leverage they have to end Israel’s occupation of Arab land grabbed in the Zionist state’s 1967 war of aggression. (Not self defense as Zionism asserts).
Because Israel and the major powers won’t talk to Hamas (despite the fact that its leaders have signalled their willingness to live in peace with an Israel inside its pre-1967 borders), and because the Fatah-dominated PNA is so discredited (I imagine Arafat is revolving with anger in his grave), the occupied and oppressed Palestinians are effectively leaderless in the sense that they are without an institution to represent them in the corridors of power.
It follows, or so I believe, that a demand for putting policy making and implementation back into the hands of a reconstructed and re-invigorated PNC must come from the Palestinian diaspora – from Palestinian communities in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Eygpt, Kuwait, Iraq, Yemen, Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, Chile, Honduras, Brazil, Columbia and Guatemala.
The question arising is the one of the headline for this article: Does the Palestinian diaspora care enough to become engaged?
I have long been of the view that the major difference between Jews and Arabs is that Jews know how to play the game of international politics and Arabs don’t. The Palestinians could prove me wrong. The world, not just the occupied and oppressed Palestinians, needs them to do so.
Alan Hart has been engaged with events in the Middle East and their global consequences and terrifying implications – the possibility of a Clash of Civilisations, Judeo-Christian v Islamic, and, along the way, another great turning against the Jews – for nearly 40 years…
He’s been to war with the Israelis and the Arabs, but the learning experience he values most, and which he believes gave him rare insight, came from his one-to-one private conversations over the years with many leaders on both sides of the conflict. With, for example, Golda Meir, Mother Israel, and Yasser Arafat, Father Palestine. The significance of these private conversations was that they enabled him to be aware of the truth of what leaders really believed and feared as opposed to what they said in public for propaganda and myth-sustaining purposes.
It was because of his special relationships with leaders on both sides that, in 1980, he found himself sucked into the covert diplomacy of conflict resolution…Now Alan is an Institution in himself. Now, Alan is a regular contributor to Opinion Maker.
Lauren Booth Letter to Israel
Lauren Booth’s Letter To Israel
by Marivel Guzman (videos) 10:52
Journalist Lauren Booth In Gaza
Journalist Lauren Booth was on the first Free Gaza voyage and stayed to work in Gaza after the boats left.
Her heartfelt letter to the people of Israel should be read by everyone who hopes for peace in the Middle East.
This stunning video tribute to her words was designed and produced by the Free Gaza movement.
Make sure to share, every one has the right to know what The Moral Army of Israel is capable of.
Every one that knows has the obligation and the moral duty to inform others of the crimes committed in Occupied Palestine.
We need to raise our voices and stand for Justice and Peace. Palestinians needs your support.
The Samouni Family is one example of the thousands of families massacred in Gaza and in West Bank. This is not an isolated case, this is one that was known to the world.
The Arabs Clowns with Crowns
Posted by Marivel Guzman on September 01, 2010
Arabs Clowns with Crowns
The Arabs countries in their role of subservient of the Royal Power in England, they have not forgotten the pen, that institutionalized and officialized their existence.
Since their separation from the Real Arabs Lands and Rich antique civilizations they have become little islands of Royal Power.
They have never done anything worth it for the Palestinians in the 62 of official struggles and death.If the 6 days war of 1967 can be even taken in consideration as an attempt to take back the stolen lands.
For the contrary they have been the worse employers, the worse refugee hosts, and if this was not enough they have treated their Palestinians brothers worse than their worse enemies.
They have denied every human rights that every human being deserve just for being in this earth.
They have denied any rights as residents and they go to the extent to deny the right to buy any property. Anybody else ca buy land in their territories except “the Palestinians Refugees”.
The excuse have been that if they absorb the Palestinian population and grant them citizenship, Israel will deny the right of return in any future peace agreement.
What a pathetic and convenient excuse, it’s more than a convenient position, to use Palestinians as a cheap labor and to use them as flag for their political agenda.
Arabs Clowns with Crowns
Where the kings live the people starve.
There is no richer country that that one that share equally the resources of the land.
When the king wear silk sheet beds, the people struggle for a loaf of bread.
When the king posses palaces, the people posses shacks.
“Long Live the King”
Long Live the King
The original phrase was translated from the French Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi!, which was first declared upon the coronation of Charles VII following the death of his father Charles VI in 1422.
In France, the declaration was traditionally made by the Duc d’Uzès, a senior Peer of France, as soon as the coffin containing the remains of the previous king descended into the vault of Saint Denis Basilica.
The phrase arose from the law of le mort saisit le vif—that the transfer of sovereignty occurs instantaneously upon the moment of death of the previous monarch.
“The King is dead” is the announcement of a monarch who has just died.
“Long live the King!” refers to the heir who immediately succeeds to a throne upon the death of the preceding monarch.
We are in a new era,
We do not need Kings: to take the riches of the land to accumulate them in their Palaces.
to subjugate the people. to wear a Gold Crown and wear Gold Rings…
to make secret deals on behalf of their family interest, to Parade on red carpets.
to Silence and kill the thinker crowd, to speak in God’s name.
We need Leaders:
that Lead by example, that seek the welfare of the population,
that gives their support to their people, that have loyalty to their people and not to the Foreign Powers,
that works incessantly for their people and not for their money
To Members of US Congress
This Missive is in response of your letter, signed by 300 of you and given to Hillary Clinton, where you are expressing your support for Israel.
The concerned citizens of the free world, need an explanation for your lack of accountability,
in the issue of Israel intentions of construct 1600 units in Occupied Jerusalem. In Contravention of the Geneva Conventions Statutes that prohibit the transfer of residents to an occupied land.
The International Community and Member of Official Institutions are in completely disagreement with your position.
We do not have anything in common with Israel, they DO NOT HAVE equally laws for Jews and Arabs and Christian and they are not a democratic State, they are a Radical, Human Right Violator, They have completely violated every single International Law in every aspect.
They have ignored more that 300 United Nations Resolutions.
They have ignore the most minimum rules of engagement of war, killing indiscriminately grand numbers of Palestine residents, including children, women and elderly.
They have destroy the infrastructure of Gaza, and that of villages in West bank, with the sole intention of colonizing the land.
We have no bonds with the State of Israel others that the military and economic aid that your signatures provide every year.
We the Citizens demand that you retire your political support and stop the economical aid to Israel Immediately.
You are mocking our intellect with your infantile attitude, we are adults, so you are, you can not bend the rules of law, because Benjamin Natayahu comes to AIPAC in US, and tell a bunch of lies, and you believe the promises. Besides AIPAC should be barred from operating in United States territory, they are working in behalf of Israel, a foreign state. If they are dual citizens they should have their allegiance with United States, but they don’t, their allegiance is with Israel.
Akashma Online News 
