Wednesday, August 06, 2008
United By Misery in Gaza and Nilin
Ramzy Baroud/ Arab News
AHMAD Musa was a 12-year-old Palestinian boy from the West Bank village of Nilin, near Ramallah. Mohammed Bahloul is a 12-year-old Palestinian boy from Gaza City. The former was shot and killed July 29, by Israeli forces, following a peaceful protest against the Israeli wall. The latter is awaiting death in a dilapidated hospital in Gaza.
Reports on Ahmad’s death vary. Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign’s report said that the boy was “sitting under a tree with his friends when a military jeep drove up and the army shot him — a live bullet pierced his head. The boy died immediately.”
Agence France Presse report, a day following his death, confirmed the nature of the death, but said that the boy was killed during the demonstration. Nilin, one of the numerous villages losing land to the Israeli Wall — deemed illegal according to the International Court of Justice in 2004 — holds regular protests against the confiscation and destruction of the village’s farms. It’s part of a sustained nonviolent campaign that brings together Israeli, Palestinian and international peace activists. “Musa tried to run away but his sandal slipped off after he stumbled over a part of the fence,” according to one of Ahmed’s friends.
The fact is, a young boy who should be home enjoying the company of his family and friends, or attending a summer camp is now dead. He is one of hundreds of Palestinian children killed by Israeli soldiers in recent years in a consistent pattern of deliberately targeting children.
Trying to make sense out of his tragedy, the father had this to say. “God gave me my son Ahmad, and he took him as a martyr.”
Not an hour and a half drive away from Nilin, another 12-year-old, Mohammed Bahloul is suffering from kidney failure. He is hooked up to a pitiable looking dialysis machine in a Gaza hospital. Aljazeera.net reported on Mohammed’s case. For three months, said his mother, Nadia, Mohammed received no medications and no vitamins to strengthen his sickly body. “There isn’t one door I didn’t knock on, hoping to find medicine for Mohammed,” said Nadia. In a place similar in many respects to a concentration camp, where 1.5 million people are held under extremely inhumane conditions, Mohammed’s case is hardly the exception. Despite the cease-fire between the Hamas government in Gaza and Israel, which ensured that homemade Palestinian rockets are no longer fired at a southern Israeli town, there is no respite from poverty and siege in Gaza. UNRWA head of Gaza operations, John Ging, said that the situation is getting “worse and worse” for 1.2 million people in Gaza, who are aid-dependent. He promised that his office would do all it can to help “those poor people, as they continue to get poorer and poorer.”
The extent of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has already passed many thresholds as poverty has rendered most Gazans dependent on food aid for survival. Hospitals are lacking equipment and medicine, and neither Israel nor Egypt allows Palestinians from Gaza suffering from life- threatening illnesses to travel freely, and on a regular basis. And now the water of Gaza is polluted beyond foreseeable remedy.
The Christian Science Monitor reported, on July 21 that only one-sixth of Gaza’s daily sewage — estimated at up to 120 million liters a day — is fully treated. The massive amount of untreated sewage finds its way into the sea, and into the Strip’s water supply. “If there is a stronger word than catastrophe, I would use that word,” said Nader Al-Khateeb, the Palestinian director of Friends of the Earth Middle East. The catastrophe is a “result of Gaza’s dilapidated water and sewage infrastructure undermined by (Israeli) attacks and fuel blockades.”
According to Monther Shoblak, the director of Gaza Emergency Waste Project, funded by the World Bank: Due to sewage seeping into the ground, the aquifer beneath Gaza, which provides water for drinking and washing, is now polluted with nitrate that only 10 percent currently meets World Health Organization standards for safety. As a result, water-related diseases in Gaza are rife. Gaza is experiencing real devastation on so many levels that it is impossible to locate any positive health or economic indicators whatsoever. Mohammed’s mother’s search for medicine to save her son is not promising either, as her husband lost his job due to the siege, and there are other mouths to feed. Unemployment in Gaza is skyrocketing, and children are often forced out of school to help with poor families’ meager income. Selling tea in the street from giant teapots hauled by little children, often not old enough to enroll in school, is a growing profession.
While Palestinian villages in the West Bank are fighting eviction notices from their homes and lands to make space for Israel’s projected 723 kilometer-long wall (454 miles), out of which 57 percent is already complete, Palestinians in Gaza are fighting for mere survival. Their plight is dreadfully similar. Despite the fact that the West Bank and Gaza were divided by occupation and self-seeking and wealthy politicians, they are united by grief, and by common struggle.
AHMAD Musa was a 12-year-old Palestinian boy from the West Bank village of Nilin, near Ramallah. Mohammed Bahloul is a 12-year-old Palestinian boy from Gaza City. The former was shot and killed July 29, by Israeli forces, following a peaceful protest against the Israeli wall. The latter is awaiting death in a dilapidated hospital in Gaza.
Reports on Ahmad’s death vary. Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign’s report said that the boy was “sitting under a tree with his friends when a military jeep drove up and the army shot him — a live bullet pierced his head. The boy died immediately.”
Agence France Presse report, a day following his death, confirmed the nature of the death, but said that the boy was killed during the demonstration. Nilin, one of the numerous villages losing land to the Israeli Wall — deemed illegal according to the International Court of Justice in 2004 — holds regular protests against the confiscation and destruction of the village’s farms. It’s part of a sustained nonviolent campaign that brings together Israeli, Palestinian and international peace activists. “Musa tried to run away but his sandal slipped off after he stumbled over a part of the fence,” according to one of Ahmed’s friends.
The fact is, a young boy who should be home enjoying the company of his family and friends, or attending a summer camp is now dead. He is one of hundreds of Palestinian children killed by Israeli soldiers in recent years in a consistent pattern of deliberately targeting children.
Trying to make sense out of his tragedy, the father had this to say. “God gave me my son Ahmad, and he took him as a martyr.”
Not an hour and a half drive away from Nilin, another 12-year-old, Mohammed Bahloul is suffering from kidney failure. He is hooked up to a pitiable looking dialysis machine in a Gaza hospital. Aljazeera.net reported on Mohammed’s case. For three months, said his mother, Nadia, Mohammed received no medications and no vitamins to strengthen his sickly body. “There isn’t one door I didn’t knock on, hoping to find medicine for Mohammed,” said Nadia. In a place similar in many respects to a concentration camp, where 1.5 million people are held under extremely inhumane conditions, Mohammed’s case is hardly the exception. Despite the cease-fire between the Hamas government in Gaza and Israel, which ensured that homemade Palestinian rockets are no longer fired at a southern Israeli town, there is no respite from poverty and siege in Gaza. UNRWA head of Gaza operations, John Ging, said that the situation is getting “worse and worse” for 1.2 million people in Gaza, who are aid-dependent. He promised that his office would do all it can to help “those poor people, as they continue to get poorer and poorer.”
The extent of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has already passed many thresholds as poverty has rendered most Gazans dependent on food aid for survival. Hospitals are lacking equipment and medicine, and neither Israel nor Egypt allows Palestinians from Gaza suffering from life- threatening illnesses to travel freely, and on a regular basis. And now the water of Gaza is polluted beyond foreseeable remedy.
The Christian Science Monitor reported, on July 21 that only one-sixth of Gaza’s daily sewage — estimated at up to 120 million liters a day — is fully treated. The massive amount of untreated sewage finds its way into the sea, and into the Strip’s water supply. “If there is a stronger word than catastrophe, I would use that word,” said Nader Al-Khateeb, the Palestinian director of Friends of the Earth Middle East. The catastrophe is a “result of Gaza’s dilapidated water and sewage infrastructure undermined by (Israeli) attacks and fuel blockades.”
According to Monther Shoblak, the director of Gaza Emergency Waste Project, funded by the World Bank: Due to sewage seeping into the ground, the aquifer beneath Gaza, which provides water for drinking and washing, is now polluted with nitrate that only 10 percent currently meets World Health Organization standards for safety. As a result, water-related diseases in Gaza are rife. Gaza is experiencing real devastation on so many levels that it is impossible to locate any positive health or economic indicators whatsoever. Mohammed’s mother’s search for medicine to save her son is not promising either, as her husband lost his job due to the siege, and there are other mouths to feed. Unemployment in Gaza is skyrocketing, and children are often forced out of school to help with poor families’ meager income. Selling tea in the street from giant teapots hauled by little children, often not old enough to enroll in school, is a growing profession.
While Palestinian villages in the West Bank are fighting eviction notices from their homes and lands to make space for Israel’s projected 723 kilometer-long wall (454 miles), out of which 57 percent is already complete, Palestinians in Gaza are fighting for mere survival. Their plight is dreadfully similar. Despite the fact that the West Bank and Gaza were divided by occupation and self-seeking and wealthy politicians, they are united by grief, and by common struggle.
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The Hebrews of Israel
The
Hebrews
of Israel
Israel is a small country about the size of Lincoln, Giles, Limestone,
Madison and Morgan counties combined. The population is roughly Seven
Million with about Four and half Million Jews and about Two Million Arab,
the other half Million comprise of mainly Oriental workers whether they be
from China, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Singapore etc. The Hebrews of
Israel are from all over the globe, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa,
which is predominately Semitic, India and North and South America. By the
way speaking of the Americas the American Indian are a Hebraic,Berber,
Arabic people meaning Semitic. They came from the Middle East area. The
term Hebrew is the proper term that should be used but in some cases the term
Jew is used. But the term Jew is the religion which is short for Judaism and
that came from the term Judah one of the twelve Hebrew tribes. Today
Hebrew and Jew are usually interchangeable. But a thing to remember is that a
person who practices Judaism can be any race or ethnicity just like a
Christian or Muslim can be. But a Hebrew can't, you see the Hebrews are
from the Caucasoid or i.e.; white race. There ethnicity is Semitic and to break
it down further there tribe is Hebrew etc. People say well what about the
Ethiopians, well as far as being Jews there are some but when referring to
Hebrews there aren't any. Let me make this blunt there are no such people
as black Hebrews. But now when referring to the Ethiopian Jews we need to
realize and remember the original Ethiopians were Semitic meaning a
Caucasoid people. Just the past couple to few hundred years has the Nubian
influence moved in to Ethiopia and especially since the twentieth century
with the negative influence of the civil rights movement. But enough on
that tanjin, back to the real topic of discussion. Israel is a country that
God gave to the Semitic peoples and I mean the seed of Abraham meaning Arab,
Hebrew, Armenian etc. Now you people are probably wondering well what
about the German, Russian, and the Polish Jews i.e.; Hebrews. Well those peoples
from those countries that are Jews or i.e. Hebrew are Semitic, but there
are a lot of converts from those countries that are just plain converts and
not Semitic. You see there are people out there who are converts and that's
it, they don't have a drop of Semitic blood in them and they say that they are
Gods chosen people, and if you say anything against them they scream
anti-Semitic. Well how can you be an Semite if you don't have any Semitic
blood, all you are is an convert and that's it. People you can not become
Semitic by just simply converting to Judaism you have to be Semitic
Ethnically, meaning a blood Jew or I.e. Hebrew . You can not simply
convert and become a Semite. People need to realize that converting to a religion
does not change you racially or ethnically etc. So the Jewish converts
that have converted to Judaism that do not have any Semitic blood that think
they are Gods chosen people they are not. They are strictly converts and that's
it. They are Jew by religion only not blood Jews. About a Million of the
Jews in Israel are converts and that's it they are not blood Jews. People
say that what is going on in the Middle East is a Holy war in some ways it
is, but deep down it is a blood feud, I mean between brothers and cousins.
The Arabs that are in Israel right now and the blood Jews have the right
to that land of Israel more than some convert who doesn't have a drop of
Semitic blood running through his veins. Wake up people! Christians, Jews,
and Muslims if you're not of Abraham's seed you have no business in this
struggle. It's a family feud.
The Writings of Moshe Historian of Latin and Middle Eastern Studies
Post a Comment
The
Hebrews
of Israel
Israel is a small country about the size of Lincoln, Giles, Limestone,
Madison and Morgan counties combined. The population is roughly Seven
Million with about Four and half Million Jews and about Two Million Arab,
the other half Million comprise of mainly Oriental workers whether they be
from China, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Singapore etc. The Hebrews of
Israel are from all over the globe, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa,
which is predominately Semitic, India and North and South America. By the
way speaking of the Americas the American Indian are a Hebraic,Berber,
Arabic people meaning Semitic. They came from the Middle East area. The
term Hebrew is the proper term that should be used but in some cases the term
Jew is used. But the term Jew is the religion which is short for Judaism and
that came from the term Judah one of the twelve Hebrew tribes. Today
Hebrew and Jew are usually interchangeable. But a thing to remember is that a
person who practices Judaism can be any race or ethnicity just like a
Christian or Muslim can be. But a Hebrew can't, you see the Hebrews are
from the Caucasoid or i.e.; white race. There ethnicity is Semitic and to break
it down further there tribe is Hebrew etc. People say well what about the
Ethiopians, well as far as being Jews there are some but when referring to
Hebrews there aren't any. Let me make this blunt there are no such people
as black Hebrews. But now when referring to the Ethiopian Jews we need to
realize and remember the original Ethiopians were Semitic meaning a
Caucasoid people. Just the past couple to few hundred years has the Nubian
influence moved in to Ethiopia and especially since the twentieth century
with the negative influence of the civil rights movement. But enough on
that tanjin, back to the real topic of discussion. Israel is a country that
God gave to the Semitic peoples and I mean the seed of Abraham meaning Arab,
Hebrew, Armenian etc. Now you people are probably wondering well what
about the German, Russian, and the Polish Jews i.e.; Hebrews. Well those peoples
from those countries that are Jews or i.e. Hebrew are Semitic, but there
are a lot of converts from those countries that are just plain converts and
not Semitic. You see there are people out there who are converts and that's
it, they don't have a drop of Semitic blood in them and they say that they are
Gods chosen people, and if you say anything against them they scream
anti-Semitic. Well how can you be an Semite if you don't have any Semitic
blood, all you are is an convert and that's it. People you can not become
Semitic by just simply converting to Judaism you have to be Semitic
Ethnically, meaning a blood Jew or I.e. Hebrew . You can not simply
convert and become a Semite. People need to realize that converting to a religion
does not change you racially or ethnically etc. So the Jewish converts
that have converted to Judaism that do not have any Semitic blood that think
they are Gods chosen people they are not. They are strictly converts and that's
it. They are Jew by religion only not blood Jews. About a Million of the
Jews in Israel are converts and that's it they are not blood Jews. People
say that what is going on in the Middle East is a Holy war in some ways it
is, but deep down it is a blood feud, I mean between brothers and cousins.
The Arabs that are in Israel right now and the blood Jews have the right
to that land of Israel more than some convert who doesn't have a drop of
Semitic blood running through his veins. Wake up people! Christians, Jews,
and Muslims if you're not of Abraham's seed you have no business in this
struggle. It's a family feud.
The Writings of Moshe Historian of Latin and Middle Eastern Studies
<< Home
