:: Article nr. 75386 sent on 27-feb-2011 07:26 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=75386

My Palestine, February 26, 2011

On the early hours of Friday, 11.02.2011, Husam Hussein Hasan Ar-Rweidi, a 24 year old Palestinian from the eastern part of occupied Jerusalem, was on his way to work when he and a friend were attacked by a group of ultra orthodox Jews. Both were stabbed several times and while his friend was seriously injured, Husam died later in hospital.

Israeli occupation forces rushed to steal Husam’s body from the hospital and kept him a hostage, a form of collective punishment often used by the Zionist entity.

They wanted to punish Husam for being a Palestinian; they wanted to punish him for refusing to give up his birthright Jerusalem. They wanted to punish his family, friends and comrades for defying the Zionist entity and its terrorist settler militias.

They wanted to punish all Jerusalemites for daring to live, for daring to breathe, for refusing to leave, for remaining steadfast in occupied Jerusalem, for remaining steadfast in their city, in their home despite Zionist terrorism, for remaining steadfast in the face of the Zionist colonialism.

And while Palestinians are murdered for no other reason than being Palestinian, while Palestinian homes are raided and ransacked by Zionist militias on a daily basis, while Palestinian property is destroyed, while Palestinian homes are demolished, while Palestinian land is stolen and usurped, while Palestinian children are kidnapped from their beds in the middle of the night, Zionist terrorists walk free, are praised for the theft of Palestinian land and property and are rewarded for their crimes against Palestinians.

The militias of the Zionist entity who, in contradiction to all known human values, keep the remains of over 300 Palestinian martyrs hostage, informed Husam’s father that they didn’t want "any scenes" during the burial, that the body of Husam will be returned to the family for burial only if the family were to agree to the army’s terms and conditions. The Israeli occupation army wanted to cover up yet another one of its crimes, another of the crimes committed against unarmed Palestinians, another crime that will yet again show the ugly face of the Zionist entity and expose its "we are peace-seekers" and "only defending ourselves" lies.

Husam was murdered and Husam was being punished for being murdered; his body was to remain hostage. Day after day, they refused him a burial unless his family agrees to their stipulations. They who lecture on peace and humanity, they know not what peace is, nor what humanity is.

They placed conditions on a bereaved family, those who kill innocent Palestinians and protect terrorist settlers placed conditions on the time and place of the burial of murdered son, on the number of mourners, they who lecture on human values, on human dignity. Not even in death do they spare us, they who know no mercy for the living or the dead.
They informed the family that Husam’s body would only be released for burial if the family consented to bury him in silence, in the darkness, at 12 am in the middle of the night where no cameras are present to record the crime, no day light to expose the cruelty, where no voices would shout out in rage.

They informed the family that Husam was not to be taken to Al-Aqsa mosque for pre-burial prayer service. They didn’t want Husam to pay a last visit to Al-Aqsa. They didn’t want Al-Aqsa to kiss Husam’s forehead.

They fear Husam, even in death, they feared a Palestinian body laid in the heart of Al-Aqsa, they feared a Palestinian soul wandering in the Noble Sanctuary. They fear everything that is Jerusalem, they fear everything that is Palestine.
They informed the family that Husam is to be taken to his final resting place by a limited number of mourners.

They wanted no more than 40 relatives to mourn Husam, otherwise he will remain hostage. They didn’t want his friends and comrade, his neighbours, his fellow Jerusalemites and Palestinians to accompany him on his final journey to become one with his mother Palestine.

They didn’t want Jerusalem to mourn her son, they didn’t want Palestine to mourn her son. They fear our mourning, they fear our anger, they fear our sadness, our rage. They think if they prevent us from mourning that we will forget Husam, that we will forget and forgive.
They informed the family that Husam will not be allowed a burial place in Jerusalem, in his birthplace, in his city. They informed them that he is only to be buried in Ramallah, the Ghetto they have reserved for the Palestinians.

They didn’t want Husam to be buried in Jerusalem, for a city void of Palestinian graves cannot expose their lies. They destroy thousand year old Palestinian graves to delete a history of a nation, to rewrite a history of a fake entity.

They fear the dead and their final resting places, they fear every tombstone with a name that speaks of Palestine, they fear every tombstone that shouts: he lived a Palestinian.

Husam’s family challenged the Zionist stipulations in an Israeli court, and despite the court’s decision to allow Husam to be buried in Bab Ar-Rahmeh cemetery in occupied Jerusalem, Husam was still to be buried at midnight and in the presence of no more than 40 mourners.

Islamic rituals such as prayer and washing of the dead were to be attended by no more than 20 mourners and performed in Ras Il-Amoud mosque and not in Al-Aqsa. Yesterday evening, Tuesday 15.02.2011, the Israeli occupation authority finally released Husam’s body to his family for burial.

Huge numbers of Israeli soldiers besieged Silwan and Ras Il-Amoud, all roads and entrances were closed. All entrances to the cemetery were also closed and a helicopter was roaming over the area while Israeli army vehicles surrounded the cemetery. Husam was buried under heavy Israeli presence, in the darkness with only lamps lit.

Despite Israeli threats and army presence, over 50 mourners managed to break the siege on the cemetery and angry voices rose out in rage and in promise: Husam, rest in peace, you will never be forgotten. And outside the cemetery, in every Palestinian home in the eastern part of occupied Jerusalem; in the old city, in Silwan, in Ras Il-Amoud, in Il-Isawiyyeh, in Sheikh Jarrah, in Beit Hanina, in Shu’fat, in Sawahreh, in Izerayyeh, in Ar-Ram, in Abu Dees, in Wadi Al-Joz, in At-Tour, in Kufr Aqab. In every part of occupied Jerusalem Palestinians said a prayer for Husam, Palestinians said their farewells until "we meet again", Palestinians sang for Husam and promised him that he is never forgotten, will never be forgotten as long as there is one single Palestinian in occupied Jerusalem.

Husam Ar-Rweidi was killed by a gang of Zionists in the middle of the night, colonists transported in airplanes and planted like cancer in the body of our beloved Jerusalem, in the heart of our beloved Palestine. Husam was buried yesterday. He was finally united with his mother, our mother, was finally united with Palestine. He finally became one with Jerusalem. Husam was buried in the darkness, not allowed to see the sun shine over Jerusalem for the last time, not allowed to kiss Al-Aqsa for the last time. But the warmth of Jerusalem will always shine over him and his name will forever echo within the walls of Al-Aqsa. Like many Palestinians before him, Husam Ar-Rweidi was buried in the darkness under the muzzle of a hundred machine guns, because like in life, they feared him in death.

They feared the Palestinian giant that is within him, they feared the Palestinian giants that Husam’s soul would summon. They thought by burying him under cover of darkness, under the eye of thousands of soldiers they will bury their crime, that they will bury the truth. They thought that by sending him to the grave alone, that Jerusalem and all Palestine would soon forget him and burry his memory. They don’t realize that they are lighting the fire that will soon engulf them.

They don’t realize that they are feeding the giant that will soon crush them. They don’t realize that they are kindling the spark of a revolution that will soon shake the foundations of their fake entity.

They deprive Palestinians of their home, of their land, they deport Palestinians of Jerusalem; they issue restriction orders preventing them from entering the old city, from entering Al-Aqsa, they place them under house arrest or deport them from their homes, they deprive them from Al-Aqsa, from Jerusalem, and want to deprive them from Jerusalem even when they are dead. But they don’t know, and how could they know, they who don’t know what it means to love your land to no limit, to be one with your land. They don’t know that Jerusalem is in the heart of every one of us, that Jerusalem lives within us, that every cell of our bodies cries out "Jerusalem", that every shred of our souls cries out "Jerusalem", that we are Jerusalem and Jerusalem is us.

They besiege your city, your home and besieged your body even in death. They feared you because in your life your mere existence is a witness to their lies and in your death your grave is a witness to their lies and crimes. They feared your body, feared the body that will free the land, that will water the poppies, that will summon the Palestinian spring, that will give birth to freedom.

They wanted to uproot you from Jerusalem, but even after murdering you they couldn’t. You remain steadfast in your home, for this is your birthright, you remain steadfast in Jerusalem; our home, where we were born and where we will be buried, our beginning and our end. Jerusalem.

You remain steadfast in Jerusalem.
Rest in Peace Husam, you will forever remain in our hearts.

© http://avoicefrompalestine.wordpress.com

The Electronic Intifada, 25 February 2011

Hussain Rwidy speaking at a demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah two weeks after the murder of his son, Hussam. (Jillian Kestler-D'Amours)

Dawg’s Blawg, February 23, 2011

A few days ago the US finally had the courage to let us all in on the truth: it supports the continued annexation of the West Bank by Israeli settlers. All of its protestations to the contrary have been erased by a simple veto—a monumentally cowardly act.

When we read about the settlements, and too often when we write about them, we tend to slip into geopolitical abstractions, familiar rhetoric, entrenched positions. What all of us need to do is to grasp the cost in human terms.

Annexation is a zero-sum game. Where Israeli settlers assisted by the occupation forces take, Palestinians lose. The people most affected tell their stories in simple, unvarnished, non-ideological terms. And very often those stories are about water.

The settler population in the West Bank, 10% of the whole, consumes 80% of the available water, leaving Palestinian farmers unable to maintain their livestock and their fields. Their Israeli overlords refuse to allow them to dig wells, making them dependent upon expensive trucked-in bottled water.

At the link, some of the farmers explain the effects of this deliberately imposed privation. But that was nine years ago. Here’s a story in the here and now.

Meet Abu Taha. He just had 250 olive trees chewed up so that a water line could be laid to supply a nearby settlement. When he was finally able to prove that the land was his, the Israelis simply moved on to his neighbour, and tore up 150 more olive trees.

The reason for this act of violence against Palestinian property can only be assumed to be for the aid of settlement expansion. Close to the violated fields, caravan outposts loom ominously on the hillside.

Within reach of the settlement of Beit Ein, these caravans are used when the residents of settlements wish to expand their land grab. They are placed away from the settlement, but within a few kilometres, so that the land between them is effectively annexed. Once the settlement has been expanded the surrounding areas, usually right up to the built up area of local Palestinian towns, are confiscated to the settlement under the auspices of providing a safe buffer zone from the Palestinian communities nearby, robbing Palestinians of their property, their livelihood and their home land.

It all eventually comes down to individuals—ordinary workers trying to scratch a living out of the soil, and having that living taken from them, drop by precious drop of water, tree by tree, so the beautiful people from across the wall can move into gated communities and enjoy the good life.

That’s what annexation means; these are the facts on the ground. And it is precisely this slow, steady, metastasizing presence that Barack Obama has now endorsed. With that veto, he sealed the fate of the Palestinian people. There is no peace process now that anyone can seriously believe in, no diplomatic resolution, no two-state solution on the horizon.

That was always talk in faraway places, where hope springs eternal among the optimistic and the naive. The farmers know better. The truth of the occupation is written on their bodies, their minds and their lands. There is nothing left for them but resistance. And there is nothing left for us—already celebrating the democratic, leaderless uprisings in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Libya—but to support Palestinians in their struggle against a tyranny no less brutal than the ones that are currently crumbling. Surely now is the time to choose sides.

:: Article nr. 74764 sent on 09-feb-2011 00:04 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=74764

February 8, 2011

HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces on Tuesday detained a teenager who soldiers had shot with rubber-coated steel bullets hours earlier, a local committee spokesman said.

Shadi Ahmad Ekhlayel, 18, was injured in the back and neck after soldiers opened fire during an arrest raid in Beit Ummar, a town near the West Bank city of Hebron, Mohammad Awad said.

Awad said that Ekhlayel did not know that he had entered an area where military activity was taking place.

An Israeli military spokesman said forces used riot dispersal means against a group of around 20 throwing rocks at troops, who he said were conducting a search operation.

Ekhlayel was transferred to a hospital in Hebron with moderate injuries, medics said.

Awad said Israeli forces detained Ekhlayel on his release from hospital.

The local spokesman added that forces detained two others from Beit Ummar on Tuesday, identified as 23-year-old Razi Ahmad Za’aqiq and his brother Ismail, 19.

February 1, 2011

Israel is an equal opportunity abuser, treating women, old men, invalids, and children like young adults because they're Palestinians, not Jews, so they're fair game, vilified as national security threats or terrorists for wanting freedom, equality, justice and peace.

Numerous previous articles discussed it, several specifically on children, accessed through the following links:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/03/brutalizing-palestinia
n-children.html

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/04/imprisoning-palestinia
n-children.html

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/07/palestinian-children-u
nder-occupation.html

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/09/israeli-soldiers-sexua
lly-abuse.html

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/10/israel-shooting-and-el
ectric-shocking.html

Defence for Children International (DCI) Palestine "is a national section of the international non-government child rights organisation and movement (dedicated to) promoting and protecting the rights of Palestinian children," according to international law principles.

Each year, hundreds, under 18, are arrested, detained, interrogated, tortured, and prosecuted, around 6,500 since 2000 alone.

In June 2009, DCI/Palestine's report titled, "Palestinian Child Prisoners," documented their systematic, institutionalized torture and abuse, including testimonies providing chilling evidence, including from Mahmoud speaking for others saying:

"I went from having a normal life at home to handcuffs, deprivation of sleep, shouting, threats, rounds of interrogation, serious accusations," beatings and other abuse. As a result, "life (is now) dark, filled with fear and pessimism - tough days that words cannot describe."

On January 6, DCI/Palestine issued an "urgent appeal (for the) children of Silwan," an Arab village adjacent to Jerusalem's Old City, one of 28 such communities incorporated into the city.

Evidence of serious forms of abuse were documented. In 2010, sharp increases in child arrests occurred. According to Israeli police data, 1,267 criminal files were opened between November 2009 and October 2010, accusing children of throwing stones, based solely on unconfirmed suspicions.

On November 24, 2010, 60 prominent Israeli professionals, including educators, authors, psychiatrists and psychologists, social workers, and children's rights specialists wrote Prime Minister Netanyahu and other top officials saying:

"....children and teenagers related that they had been dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night or arrested in their neighborhoods by undercover detectives and special security forces; taken in for questioning while handcuffed and unescorted by their parents; in certain cases, the families were not notified of the arrest in real time; minors were asked to give names and incriminate friends and relatives as a condition of their release; were threatened and humiliated by their interrogators; and some were even subjected to physical violence while taken in for questioning and under interrogation."

DCI/Palestine investigated 24 cases, collecting 18 sworn affidavits, 15 from children, aged seven to 17. Specific violations included:

-- detaining, interrogating, and abusing children as young as seven; yet under Israeli law, they're not criminally liable and must be released;

-- 76% reported violence during arrest, transfer and/or interrogation, including punching, slapping, kicking, beating with rifle butts, and in one case, throwing a pen at a child's head during questioning;

-- 61% reported painful hand ties, yet under section 10B of Israel's Youth Law relating to trial, punishment and modes of treatment, other methods should always be employed; restraints may only be used to prevent escape of harm to others;

-- 53% reported interrogations with no parent present; under Israeli law, they're entitled to be there, except in special limited cases; and

-- 53% reported threats during interrogation, suggesting long imprisonments, various forms of abuse, and other forms of intimidation.

Imagine, their alleged "crime" was stone-throwing, not theft, vandalism, assault or murder, yet they were treated like dangerous criminals, beaten, humiliated, isolated, and otherwise abused. One case involved a seven-year old boy beaten by soldiers on his way to school. He's now terrified to leave home.

DCI/Palestine's December Bulletin commemorated the killing of 352 children during Cast Lead, but regular violence never stops. Last December, four more Gazan children were shot for being too close to Israel's border.

On December 23, a 17-year old boy was shot in the head while buying strawberries about 800 meters inside Gaza. On the same day, another 17-year old boy was shot in the right elbow while collecting gravel about 350 meters from Israel's border fence. On December 21, a 17-year old was shot in his right leg collecting building materials about 400 meters inside Gaza. Incidents like these occur regularly, nonviolent Palestinian civilians, including children, attacked, abused and at times killed by Israeli soldiers or police.

Gaza remains a war zone, subjected to regular Israeli incursions, drone and F-16 attacks, fishermen fired on at sea, farmers attacked in their fields, and children shot while buying fruits and vegetable, collecting gravel, wood, or other materials, grazing goats, or simply living too close to Israel's border fence. Snipers in watchtowers use them for target practice.

From March 26 through December 23, twenty-three shootings were documented, willful crimes gone unpunished even though Israeli and some Western media report them, none in America.

Israeli repression devastated all Gazans, suffocating under siege and reeling from Cast Lead's aftermath, especially those living too close to Israel's border fence, in easy range of rogue snipers able to pick them off with ease.

In addition, reports from Gisha, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), Amnesty International, and other human rights groups showed little improvement since Israel's announced siege easing last June, besides regular documented instances of assaults, shootings and killings.

Yet international law absolutely prohibits targeting civilians and non-military facilities or infrastructure, regardless of circumstances. Israel remains systemically in breach, criminally complicit as a serial violator, flouting all legal principles with impunity.

Life in Besieged Gaza

"Gaza on the edge of no return," Amira Hass headlined on January 6 in the New Statesman, saying:

One mother, like others, fears Israeli drones may strike anytime without warning, like Cast Lead's devastating onslaught. "In Gaza slang," drones are called "zanana," three kinds a Hamas official told her. "One watches over us and photographs every move, every person; the second fires missiles at us....And the third kind? Its whole purpose is to annoy us, to drive us crazy."

Their use is central to Israeli intimidation and "process of turning Gaza into a vast panopticon, a detention camp under constant supervision and increasing invisible control."

For days leading up to Cast Lead, Gazans noticed regular humming. "They grew more anxious - and rightly so." Now every sound scares them, "reawaken(ing) fears of another attack," and small ones happen regularly. Gazans never know when Israel will next strike full force, perhaps with intent to entirely destroy Gaza and kill thousands of its residents. Some feel it's just a matter of time. Israeli leaders commit unspeakable crimes, then lie calling them self-defense, including when young children are shot.

In a recent weekly Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) report, incidents, included:

-- Israeli air strikes wounding three Gazan civilians;

-- soldiers firing at Palestinian workers, farmers, and fisherman in Gaza border areas;

-- four Palestinian fishermen arrested, their boat confiscated;

-- residences bombed and damaged;

-- 30 West Bank incursions and one in Gaza, causing one death, five injuries, and 28 arrests, including nine children, a PLC member and one Israeli journalist;

-- two East Jerusalem houses demolished; and

-- continued settlement expansion, and settlers allowed to attack Palestinian civilians and property freely.

On January 9, Israeli bulldozers began demolishing the old Shepherd Hotel compound in Sheikh Jarrah, to be replaced by 20 new East Jerusalem homes for Jews - on stolen Palestinian land. Hatem Abdel, overseeing Palestinian Jerusalem affairs, called the matter "extremely dangerous." Abdel Qader said Israel is trying to "create (an irreversible) belt of settlements," around East Jerusalem, one Palestinian property demolition at a time until the entire city is Judaized.

In 1967, after Israel annexed East Jerusalem, the hotel was declared "absentee property," subject to confiscation. PA-appointed mayor Adnan Husseini called destroying it an "act of barbarism." His family claims ownership and went to court, challenging what led to its sale.

After annexation, East Jerusalem residents struggled to stay where their families lived for generations and they were born. Many, however, were forced out, their status to remain revoked. Those there aren't wanted in their own city, facing possible expulsion at the whim of Israeli authorities, targeting all Palestinians for removal.

In Occupied Palestine, the rule of law is null and void. Israel rampages freely as it's done for over 43 years, terrifying millions of residents wanting only to live free on their own land, regularly stolen for settlements and other development, excluding unwanted Arabs.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

:: Article nr. 74428 sent on 30-jan-2011 06:12 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=74428

January 29, 2011

HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces on Saturday fired tear gas, sound grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets at the funeral procession of a Palestinian teenager who was shot by settlers in Hebron, witnesses said.

Thousands of mourners attended the funeral of Yousef Ikhleil, 17, who died hours after he was shot in the head by settlers from a nearby illegal settlement north of Hebron on Friday.

Israeli troops fired tear gas at the funeral procession after young men threw stones at a military watch tower, Palestinian Solidarity Project spokesman Mohammad Awad said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said Palestinians threw a fire bomb at an army post, and that forces responded with riot dispersal means.

Awad said around 50 mourners were injured and transferred to Beit Ummar medical center and several hospitals in Hebron.

He added that forces detained two locals, identified as Saddam Awad, 22, and 35-year-old Ibrahim Bahar. Soldiers also assaulted Saddam Awad and his mother Faten, 45, the PSP official said.

An army spokeswoman said no detentions were made, but that some mourners were taken aside for questioning at the scene.

Hebron governor Kamil Hamid and the heads of security departments attended the funeral, and shops in Beit Ummar closed to mourn the teenager's death.

Ikheil was the second teenager to be killed by settlers in the West Bank two days.

On Thursday, 19-year-old Uday Maher Qadous was shot and killed while working on his land near the northern West Bank village of Iraq Burin.

His cousin, who was with him at the time, said a group of four settlers on a nearby hilltop opened fire on them, hitting Qadous in the chest.

The Israeli military on Friday condemned both events and said settler suspects had been arrested.

"So far, a number of Israeli settlers were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the recent events," it said, and warned both sides to keep the peace. "Action will be taken against all forms of violence on either side."

Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib denounced the killings, and called for the killers to be brought to justice.

"'This is the second killing this week of an unarmed Palestinian by settlers, and the sixth killing by settlers this month. The Israeli government cannot evade its responsibility for these cold-blooded crimes. The killers must be brought to justice and punished," he said in a statement.

"Our people need greater protection from armed settlers."

:: Article nr. 74390 sent on 29-jan-2011 04:05 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=74390

Palestine Monitor , January 28, 2011

As a quick Google search for 'Nabi Salih’ will demonstrate, it is clear that intimidation tactics are standard fare from an Israeli military whose presence in the village has increased significantly since 2009. But a more in depth look reveals the wider goal at hand. Palestine Monitor reports.

In December 2009, settlers from Halamish seized control of Nabi Salih’s main water supply, a natural spring called Ein Al Kus. That same month, the villagers retaliated by staging unarmed demonstrations, protesting the theft of the well and Israel’s policy of supporting the settlers’ encroachment.

Despite the fact that Halamish settlement itself is illegal under international law, as is the seizure of the village spring, the IDF has made it its business to protect the settlers at every turn, and punish the villagers for protesting.

The punishments themselves make for troubling statistics. Since the protests began, 58 villagers have been arrested. Detainment without charge generally lasts anywhere between a few hours to a few months. In one case, a man accused of throwing stones at soldiers was held for 8 months before being released. The oldest among those arrested was a man of 63 years, the youngest a boy of eleven.

On January 22, 2010 the wife of Basem At-Tamimi, coordinator of Nabi Salih’s popular committee against the wall, was arrested and charged 10,000 shekels for participating in the 'illegal’ demonstrations. She has also been placed under indefinite house arrest; if she is not at home when soldiers come to check on her she will be imprisoned.

Twenty-five internationals and Israelis have also been arrested while participating in the demonstrations. However, since the military began its policy of blocking the single entry to the small village four months ago, international presence has thinned. This has left the villagers feeling increasingly vulnerable, as unwatched soldiers are more likely to participate in violent acts against people and property.

And violence is not in short supply. In the last year and a half, a total of 120 people have been hospitalized due to injuries from teargas canisters, rubber-coated steel bullets or beatings. Among the list of wounds received at the protests are broken legs, caused by the soldiers using teargas canisters as projectiles, firing them directly at the bodies of protesters. The worst occurred in February 2010 when a 14-year-old boy was shot in the head with a rubber bullet and the projectile lodged 6cm inside the young man’s brain. Nearly every house in the village has had its windows broken; many have suffered internal damage from teargas fires, small explosions that cause burns to furniture and curtains.

The Wider Strategy

On Tuesday, At-Tamimi, was detained and beaten. With him were two fifteen-year-old boys. Witnesses reported that the group was arrested at a checkpoint and treated harshly by soldiers who refused to give an explanation. Ultimately, the issue here is not just the imprecise nature of the charges themselves, as the IDF often makes false arrests based on spurious evidence. Nor is it just the unnecessarily harsh treatment of very young children; a glimpse at occupation archives demonstrates that authorities are prone to viewing Palestinians of all ages as a potential threat to Israeli security. Outrageous as they may be, this week’s arrests are merely recent examples of everyday incidents. As Basem explained, the wider context is a systematic strategy of expropriation.

Nabi Salih is surrounded by settlements, which by their very nature wish to expand. As the village is an obstacle to such expansion, the obvious solution is to make it go away. This task is approached in Nabi Salih in much the same way as it is in the rest of the West Bank – by making life difficult for Palestinians, through false arrests and violence, but also by legal means. Five months ago, the villagers all received written notices from the Israeli administration declaring that they were forbidden to extend their houses under threat of immediate demolition at their own expense (Bulldozer hire costs up to $8000). Traditionally, families will live in the same house for generations, adding rooms as new children arrive to fill them. By preventing the villagers from building new structures the policy aims to force new generations out of the village and into the urban centres.

The policy aims to weaken the spirit of resistance, compressing and isolating populations. Many of the residents of Nabi Salih have already moved the 20 kms southeast to Ramallah, where life is expensive, and village customs slowly disappear. 'When my son is older’ says Basem, 'he will be living in area A as a refugee’.

Two weeks ago Nabi Salih made the news again when two boys were arrested. Majd, 15 years old, was taken from his home without shoes at 11am and not returned until it was dark, 8 hours later. His family was not provided with any explanation for the arrest, or news of his whereabouts while he was gone. Aslam, 14, was also detained for several hours.

The eventual explanation from the army was that both boys had been photographed throwing rocks. Upon returning the children to their parents, the soldiers produced pictures of stone-throwing kids and suggested that the images depicted the boys engaged in violent and illegal acts.

According to the parents, the images did not resemble their own children. Taken in isolation, this incident might not seem particularly shocking. First, why doubt the boys culpability at all? At a stretch, one might say that the parents were lying to protect the identity of their own. It could also be argued that the IDF’s treatment of the children was merely a harsh way of handling a pair of young, but nevertheless delinquent boys.

But as the above makes clear, the arrests are not isolated incidents. The village is being targeted; every act of harassment is evidence of the greater strategy of expropriation.

View photos of Nabi Salih here: http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1254
>

+ 972, January 25, 2011

The 11 year old brother of Isalm Tamimi- a 14 year old child who was arrested in Nabi Saleh during a night raid on the village- has been arrested this morning by the army in Nabi Saleh. Isalm Tamimi was interrogated for eight hours after his arrest early Sunday morning. Yesterday, the state asked for him to remain in jail until a hearing on Thursday.

In an escalation of the repression on unarmed demonstration in the West Bank, 14 year old Islam Tamimi was arrested from his home at 0200 on Sunday morning. It was the second time in roughly three weeks that he was taken by soldiers. However, the army moved him to the Ofer military jail instead of interrogating him on the spot and releasing him. After an eight hour session of interrogation on Sunday, Tamimi confessed to throwing stones during the weekly demonstrations against the occupation in Nabi Saleh. Tamimi’s lawyers were present in the police station and constantly pleaded with interrogators to talk with the child but were only given access to their client after five hours of interrogation. His parents, who have legal right to be present when a child is under investigation, were denied access to their son. Imagine a 14 year old child pulled from bed at 02:00 in the morning by fully armed soldiers and then interrogated without parents or lawyer present. Horrifying and sick.

Islam Tamimi was arrested on Saturday night in Nabi Saleh. Picture Credit: Alison Rammer

After five hours of interrogation, lawyers were finally able to gain access to the horrified Tamimi and learned that he made the exact confession of stone throwing that the army was after. Due to the traumatic experience that he was put through, Tamimi said that we would provide any information which the army wanted about Nabi Saleh. He was ready to make up information because, as a child, he really does not know the workings of the village and the planning of the demonstrations. On Monday morning, Tamimi was brought before a military court. The state asked the court to hold Tamimi until Thursday when he was scheduled to have a trial. Tamimi’s defense requested to have the trial date closer because Tamimi is a child. The judge has yet to give a decision.

In a cruel twist of events, Israeli police and soldiers raided the village of Nabi Saleh Tuesday morning and arrested Tamimi’s 11 year old brother. The child is now being held with his brother and is undergoing the same interrogation process that his brother did on Sunday. Defense lawyers believe that this is a sick tactic designed to punish Tamimi for requesting a quicker trial date. The 11 year old has not been charged with any crime. However, the pressure of Israeli integrators and the absolute fear of being taken by armed soldiers almost always resulted in a confession of stone throwing whether or not it is the truth.

–

Beyond the headlines of the Palestine Papers, the arrest of Tamimi and his 11 year old brother demonstrate the inner workings of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and control of the Palestinian population. Israel is using one of the most advanced military machines in the world to raid small villages and arrest children. The children are put through traumatic and psychologically scarring experiences in order to glean false testimonies which are used against the leaders of unarmed movements of civil resistance. Numerous Palestinian Gandhi’s such as Bil’in’s Abdallah Abu Rahmah are thrown in jail based on these false testimonies. It is part of the cycle of Israeli repression of Palestinian civil resistance. Sadly,this story is one of hundreds that go unreported every week in the West Bank. This is the what maintenance of the Israeli occupation looks like.

UPDATE 13:47: There is now a large military presence in the village. The army has brought in a bulldozer and a number of trucks. Villagers are fearing that a house might be demolished today. The collective punishment continues.

WSWS, January 24, 2011

Military documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union after a lengthy lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act provide important new evidence of American war crimes. The documents include autopsy reports and investigative reports on the deaths of 190 prisoners held by the US military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The more than 2,600 pages of documents were turned over to the ACLU on January 14 and made public on the organization’s web site five days later.

An ACLU statement said that 25 to 30 cases were "unjustified homicides." US military investigators themselves identified many of the deaths as homicides, although there were very few trials or convictions of the soldiers involved.

The ACLU issued a statement declaring: "So far, the documents released by the government raise more questions than they answer, but they do confirm one troubling fact: that no senior officials have been held to account for the widespread abuse of detainees. Without real accountability for these abuses, we risk inviting more abuse in the future."

Some of the deaths are well known cases of atrocities committed by American soldiers, such as the killing of four prisoners who were shot and then thrown into a Baghdad canal in 2007. Others are previously unknown or not widely reported.

The autopsy reports make for gruesome reading. One document details the beating death in 2003 of Abid Mowhosh, a prisoner at Abu Ghraib, the infamous prison outside Baghdad that was the site of the largest number of deaths.

The autopsy report concludes: "This 56-year-old Iraqi detainee died of asphyxia and chest compression. Significant findings of the autopsy included rib fractures and numerous contusions (bruises), some of which were patterned due to impacts with a blunt object…"

Another autopsy report describes the killing of Farhad Mohamed following a military raid in 2004 in Mosul: "This approximately 27-year-old male civilian, presumed Iraqi national, died in US custody approximately 72 hours after being apprehended. By report, physical force was required during his initial apprehension during a raid. During his confinement, he was hooded, sleep deprived and subjected to hot and cold environmental conditions, including the use of cold water on his body and hood."

The young man is described as a "well-developed, well-nourished male," who was six feet tall and 190 pounds. He died after three days of torture. The techniques described—hooding, sleep deprivation, and some form of waterboarding—are prohibited under the Geneva Conventions. Those who are responsible for his death are guilty of a war crime.

The ACLU highlighted one case in which a sergeant walked into a room where the prisoner was lying wounded "and assaulted him… then shot him twice, thus killing him." The sergeant then told other soldiers present to lie about the murder. Another soldier, a corporal, subsequently shot the corpse in the head.

According to a summary of the documents carried by CNN, US soldiers were suspects in 43 of the deaths, with the rest due to natural causes, outside attacks on US prisons, or fighting among prisoners. In 13 cases, probable cause for a murder prosecution was found and a total of 19 Americans were convicted of some offense.

The ACLU noted that more than one-quarter of all the deaths were attributed to cardiac problems, although most of the prisoners appeared healthy when first detained. In restrained language, the organization said, "This could potentially raise serious questions about the conditions of confinement or interrogation of the detainees."

Lt. Col. Tanya Bradsher, a Pentagon spokeswoman, told the press, "The fact that so many autopsies and investigative reports exist indicates the seriousness with which the Department takes its responsibilities regarding detainee treatment and accountability." By this remarkable logic, the 190 deaths in custody are proof, not of the savagery of American imperialism, but of its humanitarian concern.

Equally remarkable is the response of the American media. As of Sunday afternoon, only six mentions of the ACLU report were logged in a Google News search, of which three were by the Iranian English-language Press TV. There was no mention of the material in the New York Times, the Washington Post or any other television network besides CNN.

The ACLU released the documents one day after a federal appeals court upheld a lower-court ruling that the Obama administration can continue to suppress transcripts in which former prisoners of the CIA now held at Guantanamo Bay describe torture and abuse they suffered while in CIA custody.

These prisoners are being denied their own statements, made to Combatant Status Review Tribunals, the hearings held at Guantanamo to determine whether prisoners are "enemy combatants." The courts have refused to enforce requests for full transcripts of these hearings, filed under the Freedom of Information Act, the same law used by the ACLU to obtain the prisoner autopsy records.

The documents made public by the ACLU are a devastating exposure of the bloody role of American imperialism in Afghanistan, Iraq and throughout the world. They deserve further study and careful analysis. Along with the hundreds of thousands of documents made public by WikiLeaks, they form the factual basis for a war crimes indictment of the leaders of the American government.

Bush, Cheney & Co., along with their successors Obama and Biden, and all the top military and foreign policy officials who served in both administrations, are guilty of the most serious crimes against humanity. All these officials deserve to face an international war crimes tribunal.

Patrick Martin

January 21, 2011

Israelis and Palestinians dedicated to the village Lifta’s preservation have called the plan to build 212 luxury units and a small hotel the end for the last Palestinian village of its kind.

IOA Editor: Yet another example of Palestinian history to be erased by Israel — this time, while not physically razed, it will be raped and pillaged by government planners and private developers. Even greater than the loss of the remarkable architectural beauty of the remnants of this village (which somehow managed to escape Israeli bulldozers for 63 years) is the importance of the 'big picture’ behind the story: Israel has methodically eradicated most of Palestine’s pre-1948 Palestinian history, the more than 400 conquered Arab villages it destroyed after 1948, while reconstructing Palestine’s Jewish history. This is particularly true for Jerusalem, where the 'battle of the narratives’ continues to be at the forefront of the Occupation.

Other recent Jerusalem examples include the Shepherd Hotel and the ongoing struggle over the Mamilla Cemetery. Finally, as noted in the Hebrew version of the story, Lifta is located near Deir Yassin, the ultimate symbol of the Nakba.

Note: The header of the Hebrew version of the story is: "Palestinian memory monument to turn into prestigious neighborhood."

Lifta (Photo: Aisha Mershani)

Odeh doesn’t see the "Death to the Arabs" graffiti at the entrance to the village or the Arabic version of the name that someone blotted out on the sign there. He sees a village and an area as it existed until March 1948, before it was abandoned by its Palestinian residents.

Lifta - Yakub Odeh

"Ali Badr’s family lives here, and here’s Salah Mohammed’s house," he says on a walk through Lifta. The village for him is not limited to the houses left standing around the well-known village spring. For him, it is also the remnants of houses in the Romema neighborhood of Jerusalem. the land on which new housing in Ramot was built. It is also the village school, which now serves as an ultra-Orthodox educational institution, at the entrance to Jerusalem.

"My roots are here. My whole mentality is from here. I will never be able to forget," he says.

Now, the remains of the village are threatened by changes to the special character of the place. Two weeks ago, the Israel Land Administration published a public tender for construction in Lifta, which is to transform an abandoned Palestinian village on the edge of Jerusalem and a popular location for hiking into a luxury residential neighborhood. The developers have committed to preserve the houses and meticulously restore them. Plans call for the houses to become restaurants and galleries.

Odeh calls the redevelopment plan a second Nakba, Arabic for "catastrophe" and the word the Palestinians use to speak of the events surrounding the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Architect Gabriel Kertesz, who designed the new development in Lifta, together with Shmuel Groag and Shlomo Aronson, said the redevelopment is the best thing that could happen to Lifta.

"There is one approach that nothing should be done, which means the disappearance of the village. Our approach is one involving preservation and revival. The plan requires the most meticulous preservation rules and permits construction only after the historic buildings are preserved and everything is done under the supervision of the Antiquities Authority and a conservation architect," he said.

Odeh is now involved in human rights work, but he is a former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who served a lengthy prison term. He was eight when his family fled Lifta. His former house overlooks the spring in the center of the village.

Lifta is an anomaly. Among the hundreds of Palestinian villages abandoned in 1948, it is the only one that was neither destroyed nor reinhabited. The villages of Ein Karem and Ein Hod, for example, remained standing but were inhabited by Jews.

Odeh and others see the remaining 55 homes in Lifta and the surrounding terraces as a kind of memorial to Palestinian society before Israel’s War of Independence. After the village was abandoned, the ceilings in the buildings were deliberately destroyed to deter intruders, however the homeless and others on the margins of society took up residence there.

One of the buildings houses a successful program for young drug addicts, which has been operating there for 20 years. The program’s director said yesterday that he doesn’t know what will become of the program once the redevelopment of the village begins.

In open areas around the existing homes in the village, plans call for 212 luxury housing units and a small hotel. Israelis and Palestinians dedicated to Lifta’s preservation have called the plan the end for the last Arab village of its kind.

Odeh said: "Our dream is that there be peace, and that we be able to return to our village.

There is enough room in Palestine for everyone. These are our homes. We were born here. We breathed the air here, and we are entitled to return here."

Not all of the opponents of the proposed development share Odeh’s aspiration that he and descendants of other villagers return to live in Lifta. Architect Gadi Iron envisions Lifta as a world heritage site that should be preserved. He called it a "Garden of Eden" of streams and fruit trees and beautiful landscapes and a site containing important Palestinian architecture.

Iron said: "Lifta is more important than the Taj Mahal, from the standpoint of its beauty and for its Mediterranean heritage. The Taj Mahal is kitsch. In Lifta, there’s no kitsch." He proposed the village be preserved as an architectural museum.

Posted here on 16 Jan 2011

January 15, 2011

There is something particularly horrifying when someone is shot in the head. Perhaps it’s the gruesome image, the destruction of the brain, the clear intent to kill. The recent shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is made even more nightmarish by the location of her devastating injury.

Those of us who focus on Israel-Palestine are acutely aware of this horror.

Several years ago, I was researching the cause of death of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces during the first months of the Second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation. As I counted up the numbers, I was chilled to discover that the single most frequent cause of death in those beginning months was "gunfire to the head."

In the past 10 years Israeli forces have killed at least 255 Palestinian minors by fire to the head, and the number may actually be greater, since in many instances the specific bodily location of the lethal trauma is unlisted. In addition, this statistic does not include the many more Palestinian youngsters shot in the head by Israeli soldiers who survived, in one form or another.

Below is a small sampling of those who died. (The term IDF stands for "Israeli Defense Forces," although these forces are, in reality, an occupation army and are almost always deployed offensively; the incidents below took place on Palestinian territory):

Sami, 12, died of head wounds from IDF gunfire during a demonstration. Abdul, 9, was killed by IDF gunfire to his head during a funeral. Ala, 14, died of head wounds from IDF gunfire while on the terrace of his home one hour after injuring an Israeli soldier with a stone. Omar, 11, died of head wounds from IDF gunfire during a demonstration. Diya, 3 months, was killed, along with her older brother, by Israeli settler gunfire to her head and back. Bara, 10, was killed by IDF gunfire to his head while near his home. Ayman, 15, was killed by IDF tank fire to his head while farming. Khalil, 11, was killed by IDF tank fire to his head while playing with a friend. Rami, 13, was killed by IDF helicopter fire to his head while playing in front of his house. Yaser, 11, died of head wounds from an IDF rubber-coated bullet fired at close range during a demonstration…(1)

Imagine if these names were Bobby… Michael… Susan… Melissa… Jimmy…and that the foreign troops killing them were invading Arizona, Connecticut, Ohio…

I remember seeing one little brain-dead boy when I was in Gaza in February of 2001; long before any rockets had been fired out of this already assaulted enclave. It’s not a sight you forget, regardless of the name or nationality.

A 2009 article in the UK Telegraph entitled "Bullets in the brain, shrapnel in the spine: the terrible injuries suffered by children of Gaza," investigated a situation in which doctors at a hospital near Gaza were "almost overwhelmed by the number of Palestinian children needing treatment for bullet wounds to their heads." (2)

The article began: "On just one day last week staff at the El-Arish hospital in Sinai were called to perform sophisticated CAT brain scans on a nine-year-old, two 10-year-olds and a 14-year-old – each of whom had a bullet still lodged in their brain, after coming under fire during the Israeli ground assault on Gaza."

Asked about the nature of these shootings, a physician replied:

"I can’t precisely decide whether these children are being shot at as a target, but in some cases the bullet comes from the front of the head and goes towards the back, so I think the gun has been directly pointed at the child."

Israeli soldiers in a group called "Breaking the Silence" have provided chilling testimonies about Israeli military culture; the titles alone tell a great deal. Following are a few:

"The battalion commander ordered us to shoot anyone trying to remove the bodies", "The commander of the navy commandos put the muzzle of the rifle into the man’s mouth", "They told us to shoot at anybody moving in the street", "You can do whatever you feel like, nobody is going to question it." (3)

Another person shot in the head by Israeli forces was 21-year-old Tom Hurndall. The anniversary of his death is this week.  Hurndall, a student and photographer, had wanted to "make a difference" with his life. In 2003 he went to Gaza to join the nonviolence movement against Israeli aggression and to photograph what he saw.(4)

On April 11th he was nearby when a group of children who had been playing suddenly came under Israeli rifle fire. Most of the children fled, but three, aged four to seven, froze with fear. Hurndall dashed over, rushed one small boy to safety and returned for two little girls. Just as he was reaching to lift one up, an Israeli sniper shot him in the head.

Despite the urgency of his injury, Israeli officials delayed his transport to specialized medical care for over two and a half hours. A British television crew in the area filmed a powerful on-the-scene report that was aired on England’s Channel 4 (5) but has never, to my knowledge, been shown on American television. Tom remained in a vegetative state for nine months, finally dying on Jan. 13t, 2004.

From the end of 2002 to the spring of 2003, Israeli forces killed four internationals and shot another in the face. One of the dead was a UN official, Iain Hook. As with Hurndall, Israeli forces retarded efforts to provide critical medical care. (6) Another was filmmaker James Miller, who had been waving a white flag. He was shot in the throat. (7)

Two recent non-Palestinian victims shot in the head, in this case by high velocity tear gas canisters, are 37-year-old Tristan Anderson  (8) and 21-year-old Emily Henochowicz. (9) Both have survived, Emily without an eye and Tristan in a wheelchair. Part of his right frontal lobe has been removed, he is partially paralyzed, blind in one eye, and it is unclear to what degree his cognitive abilities will return. After shooting him at close range, Israeli forces twice delayed his ambulance to a hospital.

It is difficult to know how many of the 45,000 Palestinian men, women, and children killed or injured by Israeli forces since September 29, 2000 (10) have been shot in the head. Quite likely the number is staggering. Former Yale professor and author Mazin Qumsiyeh describes one:

[Mohammed] was 12 years old when Israeli soldiers shot him in the head with a rubber coated steel bullet, fragmenting his skull and damaging part of his brain. Ten years later, Israeli army officers severely beat and tortured him.  He got married… the young couple received a blessing in the form of a donation of a very small plot of land from their uncle and they built a humble one room house… they lived in this house for 3 years…Then the Israeli army demolished the home saying that it was built without permit (Israel gave no permits for any houses in the village since the occupation began in 1967.)  The family rebuilt the house but Israeli threats forced them to not live in it (Israel wants also some NIS 20,000 for the cost of destroying the home and wants to levy other fines on the family.)  So the young family came to live in a small dwelling underground… (11)

A Dec. 23rd news story by the International Middle East Middle Center mentions another:

"After being brought to the hospital, 22-year old Salamah Abu Hashish succumbed to his wounds. He had been shot in the back by Israeli troops stationed at the border. Another of the victims was a 14-year old boy who was critically injured when he was shot in the head while collecting rubble near where Abu Hashish was tending his sheep." (12)

The stories go on and on.

Gabrielle Giffords

Ironically, the American Congresswoman recently so tragically shot in the head has been extremely close to the Israel lobby, which has played a critical role in enabling the tragedies sketched above. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) works year after year to ensure that the approximately $7-8 million per day of American tax to Israel (13) keeps flowing regardless of how many civilians its troops kill. (14)

Giffords has been known as "a safe pro-Israel vote in the House" (15) and could be counted on to support AIPAC’s various initiatives to shield Israel from negative consequences for its ruthless and illegal use of American weaponry. (16)

She called a 2001 visit to Israel a turning point in her life (Israeli forces killed 103 children that year, 31 of them shot in the head) and wrote in 2006 (a year in which Israeli forces killed 665 Palestinians, 139 of them children, and Palestinians killed 23 Israelis, two of them children) that "the United States must do everything possible to secure Israel’s long-term security." (17) Palestinian victims – killed first and in far greater numbers – seem to have been invisible to her. (18)

Giffords, of course, wasn’t the only victim of the Tucson shooting; 14 were injured and six were killed. It is deeply saddening to read about the dead and to imagine the unending grief for their survivors. (19) It is particularly difficult to view the sweet, smiling picture of nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green, knowing that her bright life is no longer before her.

It is equally tragic to read of nine-year-old Akaber, killed by Israeli gunfire to her head while riding in her uncle’s car to get medical stitches removed, and of the 29 other nine-year-olds killed by Israeli forces in the past decade, eight of them by Israeli gunfire to the head.

It is too late for Akabar, Diya, Mohammed, Tom, and the multitude of others. But there is hope that Gabrielle Giffords is going to survive. Let us pray that she recovers fully, that she is able to return to Congress, and that she then works to prevent others – including Palestinians – from being shot in the head.

We have better uses for our money than to fund atrocities.

- Alison Weir is President of the Council for the National Interest and Executive Director of If Americans Knew, which has produced posters and cards for people to disseminate in commemoration of the seventh anniversary of Tom Hurndall’s killing and about Palestinian children, (which contain a picture of the Gaza boy she saw). Contact her at: alisonweir@ifamericansknew.org and visit: http://ifamericansknew. (This article was first published in Counter Punch: www.counterpunch.org)

Notes:

1. Remember These Children. Since Sept 29, 2000 Israeli forces have killed at least 1,452 Palestinian children; Palestinians have killed 124 Israeli children. Every single one of these deaths is a tragedy.  91 Palestinian children were killed before any Israeli children were killed.

2. "Bullets in the brain, shrapnel in the spine: the terrible injuries suffered by children of Gaza," The Telegraph, Jan. 2009.

3. "The Darkness to Expel! Israeli soldiers’ book 'Breaking the Silence’ describes 'routine’ oppression," The Missing Headlines, Uri Avnery, Dec. 27, 2010.

4. Section with articles on Tom Hurndall, If Americans Knew website.

5. "Dispatches: The Killing Zone,"  Sandra Jordan and Rodrigo Vasquez, UK Channel 4, May 19, 2003.

6. "Israel’s killing of British citizen Iain Hook, UNRWA’s Project Manager in Jenin
Caoimhe Butterly as told to Annie Higgins writing from Jenin Refugee Camp," Live from Palestine, 22 November 2002.

7. "Film-maker’s death 'was murder’," BBC News, April 4, 2006.

8. "Facts about Tristan". http://justicefortristan.org

9. "EXCLUSIVE…Emily Henochowicz Speaks Out: Art Student Who Lost Her Eye After Being Shot by Israeli Tear Gas Canister in West Bank Protest Discusses Her Life, Her Art, and Why She Plans to Return," Democracy Now, Aug 5, 2010.

10. If Americans Knew website, from B’Tselem and Remember These Children.

11. "The Story of a Palestinian Shot in the Head with a Rubber-Coated Steel Bullet by Israeli Occupation Soldiers," Mazin Qumsiyeh, Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, September 20, 2010.

12. "Shepherd killed; 3 injured in Northern Gaza," IMEMC, Dec. 23, 2010.

13. "U.S. Military Aid and the Israel/Palestine Conflict," If Americans Knew, from Congressional Research Service reports; "$3.4b in US military aid delayed: US military aid to Israel in 2011 is due to be largest amount Israel has ever received," Globes Israel’s Business Arena, December 26, 2010.  http://www.globes.co.il.

14. "The Israel Lobby," London Review of Books, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, March 23, 2006.

15. "Gabrielle Giffords Shot in the Head," The Forward, Jan 8, 2011.

16. "Israel Violates Law on U.S. Weapons in Mideast," IPS, Jan 17, 2006.

17. AIPAC Facebook post, Jan. 9, 2011, 3:35 pm.

"A Tribe of Candidates Leads Drive To Retake House for Democrats," The Forward, Sept. 22, 2006: "…Several candidates who spoke with the Forward did say that they would be strong advocates for Israel in Congress. This is 'an opportunity to send someone to Congress who’s going to work for Israel,’ Giffords told the Forward…"

18. B’Tselem – Israeli Information Center for Human Rights. http://www.btselem.org/

If Americans Knew. http://ifamericansknew.org.

19. "Thumbnail sketches of those shot in Arizona," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jan. 11, 2011. http://www.ajc.com.

:: Article nr. 73688 sent on 08-jan-2011 05:23 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=73688

Sixteen Minutes to Palestine, January 7, 2011

Devastating news today. By now, many of you might’ve heard about the 65-year-old elderly Palestinian man riddled with bullets while sleeping in bed. If not, here’s an excerpt from the New York Times:

HEBRON, West Bank — Israeli soldiers shot and killed an unarmed 65-year-old Palestinian man in his bedroom in this tense city early Friday, in what appeared to be a case of mistaken identity.

The man’s wife said he was sleeping and she was praying when soldiers burst into the apartment before dawn, entered the bedroom and immediately opened fire. Afterward they asked her for his identity card. She gave her account a few hours later, standing next to the bed, whose mattress, sheets and pillows were soaked in blood. The headboard, an adjacent wardrobe and the ceiling were also spattered with blood and bits of what appeared to be brain matter.

Israeli Soldiers Kill Palestinian, 65, in His Bedroom, New York Times

His name was Omar al-Qawasmeh and he was mistaken for a terrorist. His native tongue was Arabic, he had tan skin, he was Palestinian, and therefore he fit the criteria. But the Israeli army (which goes so far as to title itself the most moral army in the world) was searching for Wael, his nephew who has been involved in previous run-ins with Israeli law as an alleged militant.

The Israeli military expressed regret over the death of this elderly individual and promised an investigation. I try my best to refrain from being a cynic but I question the sincerity of the army’s response. I wonder how long it took for Ehud Barak to finally give in to mounting global and internal pressure before allowing a spokesperson to issue a semi-public apology. I call it "semi-public" because it wasn’t directed at the immediate victims of this tragedy; it was more of an announcement made to appease reporters and news agencies. The real victims continue to mourn Omar’s gruesome death.

4,000 Palestinians gathered for Omar's funeral prayer

I also question any potential investigation. Especially obvious since the Second Intifada, the term "investigation" has been used as an excuse to politely prolong a situation in the hopes that it might fizzle out and be forgotten. If this comes off as too pretentious of a claim, consider the following statistic as reported by Yesh Din, an Israel-based human rights group:

Up until 2010, no more than "six percent of investigations yielded indictments against Israeli soldiers who harmed Palestinians." (B’Tselem, another Israeli rights group has done extensive research on Israeli soldiers being cleared of having any responsibility in the deaths of unarmed Palestinian civilians. Read their publication Void of Responsibility here.

An investigation is not necessary. This was not collateral damage. This was not a botched operation. This was not the result of a Hamas rocket. This was not an accidental killing or a misfired weapon. This was murder. Omar was killed in cold blood while his eyes were closed, his head turned away, and his wife was praying.

A screenshot of a video canvassing the scene of the murder. Pictured is a blood-soaked bed and a portrait of Omar.

This is the culture of the Israeli military. We’ve seen it before in Deir Yassin in 1948, Sabra and Shatila in 1982, Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009, and hundreds of other times all throughout. No, today’s tragedy doesn’t involve as many deaths as in the previously mentioned massacres but the incidents are all comparable in nature. Once again, this really is the culture of the Israeli military. Israel soldiers practice zero discretion, and while people blindly defend them by pointing out that as soldiers, they grow hardened to the sights and sounds of everyday war, no human being can ever be considered righteous in doing what what these Israeli soldiers did to Omar. Ignoring emotional sentiment, their actions don’t even correspond to the type of task they were assigned to.

According to the Israeli army, the soldiers were on an arrest mission. I’m sure we can all agree than an arrest generally involves a law-enforcing figure, the arrester, and the target, the arrestee, who is put into the custody of some police authority for a justifiable reason. An arrest, however, is not to be undertaken with guns ablaze nor should it involve anyone other than the intended arrestee.

In today’s case, the soldiers climbed the stairs and instead of announcing their presence or at least explaining what they plan on doing, they fired a barrage of bullets at the man’s upper torso and head, killing him instantly. Only then did they request identification to verify their task. So what necessitates an investigation? What court in the world will find it hard to punish the individual or individuals involved in the murder of a fellow human being? What army will hesitate to put a murderer behind bars, especially if the army is the most moral one in the world?

It is a case of mentality, of crooked, racist, and deliberately-brutal mentality. Ingrained the minds of Israeli soldiers is the radical idea that brown skin, Arabic names, Palestinian heritage, and dreams of living independent of occupation are all somehow related to a crude Hamas rocket. Being that Omar represented each of these categories, the soldiers must have felt justified in their actions.

If I were facing any Israeli soldier, I would ask him to consider an alternative scenario: Imagine an Israeli citizen sleeping beneath those sheets. Would you have fired so quickly and forcefully? If you were arresting Avi Yagni or Mr. Rosenberg or Ayalah Oren, would you have checked identification before shooting at their heads?

But Omar’s family members must now deal with the holes in their hearts and the holes in their walls. The Israeli army is free to regret all it wants but the soldiers that killed Omar are still walking free. Tomorrow, they might "arrest" someone else, just for old times’ sake. I don’t have faith in any Israeli investigation of the matter because their is no dispute: today, the world witnessed yet another side effect of the world’s longest occupation. Even Israeli soldiers will contend, morality was thrown out the window decades ago; human lives followed soon after, but today sets in stone the army’s standard approach used in the systematic removal of Palestinians from their homelands: just shoot at them.

Omar is survived by his wife, Sobheye. I couldn’t find anything about the remainder of his immediate family but even so, his murder has affected people well beyond Israel’s apartheid wall.

That night, Sobheye finished her prayer, turned to the soldiers after hearing the rounds go off, and asked "What did you do?"

They cuffed her mouth, held a gun to her, told her to shut up, and walked out.

Sami Kishawi

For more pictures, click here.

:: Article nr. 73587 sent on 05-jan-2011 03:42 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=73587

(AFP) , January 4, 2011

JERUSALEM — Controversial hard-right Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told AFP on Tuesday "at least a decade" would be needed to reach a peace accord with the Palestinians.

"I think that we have good cooperation (with the Palestinians) on the economy and security and we must continue cooperation on these two levels and postpone the political solution for at least a decade," he said in an exclusive interview.

"I think that it's impossible in an artificial way to accelerate the political process. I think that we must move step by step. All relations between... two countries, two entities are on three levels -- the political level, security and the economy.

"We must advance step by step," said the hardline leader of the Yisrael Beitenu party, who has been largely sidelined by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in peace talks with the Palestinians.

"What we need today is a long-term intermediate agreement."

But he said he does not see what he thinks is "any readiness, any goodwill from this Palestinian leadership for a real political process. They think that they can achieve from the international community everything they want without talks, without any compromise. This is their strategy."

Asked what the steps were to achieving peace, he said "first of all we must tighten our economic and security cooperation; second, less international involvement... which creates a lot of expectations and after the expectations you get frustration and it will lead to violence and clashes."

He said there was an "overdoing, overspeaking and over involvement" on the part of the "whole international community," including the United States, the Middle East diplomatic Quartet and others.

He also pointed to what he said was the "emotional" nature of the conflict.

"It's not a logical one. Issues like refugees and Jerusalem and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state ... It's very difficult to resolve emotional issues."

And he repeated Israeli objections to Palestinian threats to declare independence unilaterally if the avenue of talks fails, saying "it's against all our agreements, all our understandings and what we signed.

"I think they will lose much more than they can gain in establishing a unilateral independent country," adding that the Palestinian Authority could not exist without Israeli assistance.

Direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians, the first for nearly two years, began in Washington on September 2 but quickly stalled when a 10-month Israeli settlements freeze expired on September 26.

The Palestinians refused to return to talks until all settlement building stopped in the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem.

After weeks of seeking to convince Israel to extend the freeze, Washington acknowledged on December 7 that it had failed.

Netanyahu had reluctantly accepted a US proposal to extend the moratorium for another three months, but the Israeli premier demanded written guarantees from Washington and the matter went nowhere.

The United States subsequently proposed a return to the indirect "proximity" talks the two sides had been engaged through US Middle East envoy George Mitchell.

But that was rejected by the Palestinians, who continued to insist on a halt to settlement construction.

On Monday Netanyahu said talks to secure a new settlement freeze ground to a halt when the United States stopped pressing for the ban, not because Israel rejected it, media reported.

:: Article nr. 73554 sent on 04-jan-2011 02:56 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=73554

January 3, 2011

(CNN) -- A Palestinian man who was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers was left on the ground for 30 minutes before receiving medical attention, a man who said he witnessed the incident told CNN.

The witness, who would identify himself only as Abdallah for fear of reprisal by Israeli authorities, said he was standing behind the victim just before the shooting.

Abdallah, who was located by CNN, said the man had passed through the security checkpoint near Nablus in the West Bank when a female Israeli soldier started speaking to him in Hebrew. The man turned around and began walking toward her, Abdallah said. The soldier then started to scream at him and, moments later, a soldier next to her opened fire. Abdallah told CNN that other soldiers then fired, and the man fell to the ground, where he lay for about half an hour before receiving medical attention.

The Israeli military said Sunday the man had approached soldiers from an unauthorized lane and was holding a glass bottle. The military said soldiers called on him to stop, but that the man did not comply and continued to approach the soldiers.

He came within a few meters of soldiers, "who then operated according to (Israeli military) rules of engagement, firing towards him," the military said in a statement.

The Israeli military said it was investigating the incident, and reported that the soldiers feared the man was going to stab them with the glass bottle.

Abdallah said he did not see the victim holding a glass bottle when he was shot.

Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib told CNN on Monday that his government condemned the checkpoint shooting and called it murder.

"The man was shot in cold blood and the Israelis said after the killing there were no arms, there was nothing. It was unjustified," said Khatib. "One can describe it as coldblooded killing."

Contacted Monday, the Israeli military could provide no new details on the incident and said it was still under investigation.

CNN's Karen Smith and Kevin Flower contributed to this report.y 3, 2011

On the 2^nd Anniversary of the Israeli Offensive on the Gaza Strip, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Escalate Attacks against Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)

· IOF killed two Palestinians shepherd in the Gaza Strip.

· Two activists of the Palestinian resistance were killed by IOF in the southern Gaza Strip.

- 3 Palestinian civilians were wounded by Israeli gunfire in the West Bank.

· IOF continued to fire at Palestinian workers, farmers and fishermen in border areas in the Gaza Strip.

- 4 Palestinian civilians were wounded.

- IOF arrested 6 Palestinian fishermen and confiscated their boat.

· Israeli warplanes attacked a number of targets in the Gaza Strip. 

· IOF continued to use force against peaceful protests in the West Bank.

- 5 Palestinian civilians and an Israeli photojournalist were wounded.

- IOF arrested 17 human rights defenders. 

· IOF conducted 51 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank.  

- IOF arrested 18 Palestinian civilians, including a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and 7 children.

· Israel has continued to impose a total siege on the OPT and has isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world.

- Israeli soldiers positioned at military checkpoints in the West Bank arrested one Palestinian civilians.

· Israel has continued to take measures aimed at creating a Jewish demographic majority in Jerusalem.

- The Israeli municipality of Jerusalem waged a campaign of destruction and demolition in al-Tour village near Jerusalem.

· IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property.

- Israeli settlers seized 600 donums of Palestinian land near Hebron..

Summary

Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law in the OPT continued during the reporting period (23 – 29 December 2010):

Shooting:

During the reporting period, IOF killed two Palestinian civilians and two activists of the Palestinian resistance, and wound 12 Palestinians, including a woman and two children, and an Israeli photojournalist.

In the Gaza Strip, on 23 December 2010, Israeli soldiers positioned at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel killed a Palestinian shepherd in the northern Gaza Strip.

On 26 December 2010, two members of the al-Quds Brigades (the armed wing of Islamic Jihad) in clashes with IOF near the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east of Khan Yunis.

On 28 December 2010, IOF killed a Palestinian civilian near the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east of Khan Yunis.

During the reporting period, IOF fired at Palestinian workers who were collecting scraps of construction materials. As a result, two workers, including a child, were wounded by Israeli gunfire. 

During the reporting period, a shepherd and a farmer were wounded by Israeli gunfire in the northern Gaza Strip. 

During the reporting period, Israeli warplanes attacked a number of targets in the Gaza Strip. On 25 December 2010, they bombarded a site of the 'Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades (the armed wing of Hamas) in al-Nughraqa village in the central Gaza Strip. The site was heavily damaged and 3 activists of the Palestinian resistance who were traveling in a car near the site sustained bruises.  IOF also bombarded tunnels along the Egyptian border south of Rafah.

In the West Bank, 8 Palestinian civilians and an Israeli photojournalist were wounded by Israeli gunfire in the West Bank.

On 23 December 2010, Israeli soldiers opened fire at two Palestinian civilians who were traveling in a car in the east of Hebron. The two civilians were wounded and then arrested by Israeli soldiers. 

During the reporting period, IOF used excessive force to disperse peaceful demonstrations organized in protest to Israeli settlement activities and the construction of the annexation wall. As a result, 5 Palestinian civilians and an Israeli human rights defender were wounded, and dozens of Palestinian civilians and international human rights defenders suffered from tear gas inhalation or sustained bruises.   IOF also arrested two Palestinian civilians, 4 Israeli human rights defenders and 11 international ones.

Incursions:

During the reporting period, IOF conducted at least 51 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, during which they arrested 18 Palestinian civilians, including a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and 7 children.

Restrictions on Movement:

Israel had continued to impose a tightened siege on the OPT and imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.

Gaza Strip

Israel has continuously closed all border crossings to the Gaza Strip for over three years. The illegal Israeli-imposed closure of the Gaza Strip, which has steadily tightened since June 2007, has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the Gaza Strip. 

· The illegal closure has caused not only a humanitarian crisis but a crisis of human rights and human dignity for the population of the Gaza Strip. Measures declared recently to ease the blockade are vague, purely cosmetic and fail to deal with the root causes of the crisis, which can only be addressed by an immediate and complete lifting of the closure, including lifting the travel ban into and out of the Gaza Strip and the ban on exports. PCHR is concerned that the new Israeli policy is simply shifting Gaza to another form of illegal blockade, one that may become internationally accepted and institutionalized. Palestinians in Gaza may no longer suffer from the same shortage of goods, but they will remain economically dependent and unable to care for themselves, and socially, culturally and academically isolated from the rest of the world.

· Expanding the list of items allowed into Gaza does not change the illegality of this policy, which is inconsistent with Israel’s legal obligations both as an Occupying Power and under international human rights treaties to which it is party, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 

· Facts on the ground refute Israeli claims with respect to the easing of the closure imposed on the Gaza Strip and the reduction of restrictions imposed on the entry of goods.

· Israeli declaration of allowing new goods to be entered into the Gaza Strip constitutes an attempt to delude the international community, as such goods do not meet the minimal needs of the Gaza Strip. 

· IOF have continued to ban the entry of raw construction materials into the Gaza Strip. 

· IOF have imposed a ban on all exports from the Gaza Strip.