umkahlil

Our Beautiful Palestine in Art

2011-08-03T00:24:00.000+02:00

Whispers of Palestine

he Jerusalem Fund Gallery invites you to

Whispers of Palestine

Photographs by Bassima Mustafa

August 12- September 23, 2011

Opening reception to meet the artist:

Friday, August 12, 6:00-8:00 p.m.

Open to the Public | Free | No RSVP Needed

Cool olive groves on a hot summer day, a perfect exhibition for a hot August. New Jersey photographer Mustafa’s “Whispers of Palestine” revisits her family’s olive groves, to trace Palestine through its land and architecture, which she feels are integral to understanding the country and its history.

In Praise of the Israeli Spring

2011-08-02T18:00:00.001+02:00

http://www.ismail-shammout.com/
Not to be outdone by the Tunisians or the Egyptians, 120,000 Israelis are marching in the streets because of the high cost of housing and groceries. It's even being referred to as #J14, i.e., July 14, reminiscent of the dates attached to the Tunisian and Egyptian people's uprisings.

Quotables:

Remi Kanazi

Still waiting to see a picture of a #j14 protester with a sign that reads "This Land is Stolen!"

Palestinians have had a housing crisis for 63 years: Their houses were stolen.

Imagine how high housing prices would be if someone actually paid for the land?

Yousef Munayyer

Last time masses of people from the Tel Aviv area were relocated to tents it was by force and they've waited 63 for their right to return.

Israeli Army Kills Aspiring Journalist Mutassim Issa Udwan

2011-08-01T13:29:00.001+02:00

I am sorry to resume my blog on such a grim note. According to Palestine Festival of Literature, Mutassim was an aspiring journalist. He was only twenty-two years old. He was killed by random fire and Israel soldiers pillaged houses during an early morning raid. In addition another Palestinian, Ali Khalifa was killed. Israel routinely raids Palestinian refugee camps and villages,ransacks houses and arrests young men. Ma'an News Agency provides more information.

Plain Speaking from Helen Thomas, Dean of White House Press Corps

2010-06-07T21:29:00.001+02:00

The Diab family. Three generations of Palestinian refugees, their village was depopulated in 1948 and its buildings destroyed. Israel has ruled out any repatriation of the millions of Palestinians in the Diabs' position because that would jeopardise the Jewish majority in the world's only Jewish state.

Avigdor Lieberman. He's from Moldova. He came to Palestine in 1978. If you are a former bouncer from Soviet Moldova, welcome to Palestine.

A Russian family who went to Palestine in 2008.

And this lady is from LA. She plans to join the Israeli Defense Forces in October.

Helen Thomas is vilified for speaking plainly and truthfully, as so many Palestinians and their supporters have been since the artificial imposition of a "Jewish" state in Palestine.

"Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. These people are occupied.

"Go home. Poland Germany and America and everywhere else."

Helen Thomas, American-Arab, Dean of White House Press Corps

Big Deal Over Edward Said on AP Lit Test

2010-05-15T15:28:00.004+02:00

When the 2010 AP Literature and Composition Test Free Response Questions were released, there were initially twenty responses of a relatively mundane nature on the AP Lit teacher listserv. Teachers were concerned over which part of the prompt on which students would mess up; i.e., "I'm sure my kids will have blown the phrase 'both alienating and enriching' and instead written on only one or the other." Edward Said's name wasn't mentioned, nor was anyone concerned about his designation as "Palestinian-American." Just normal teacher talk, and many agreed that the three free response questions (there is one in which students analyze a poem; one in which students analyze a prose passage, and then the third question (the "controversial" one) to which students must answer based upon a novel, play, or epic they've read. This is the prompt which ultimately inspired a lot of noise and obfuscation (although I admit it was a big, BIG deal for me to read the prompt for the first time; I felt as if I was flying).

"Palestinian American literary theorist and cultural critic Edward Said has written that "Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted." Yet, Said has also said that exile can become "a potent, even enriching" experience.

Select a novel, play, or epic in which a character experiences such a rift and becomes cut off from "home," whether that home is a character's birthplace, family, homeland, or other special place. Then write an essay in which you analyze how that character's experience with exile is both alienating and enriching, and how this experience illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a work from the list below or one of comparable literary merit. Do not merely summarize the plot.

The American
Angle of Repose
Another Country
As You Like It
Brave New World
Crime and Punishment
Doctor Zhivago
Heart of Darkness
Invisible Man
Jane Eyre
Jasmine
Jude the Obscure
King Lear
The Little Foxes
Madame Bovary
The Mayor of Casterbridge
My Ántonia
Obasan
The Odyssey
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
The Other
Paradise Lost
The Poisonwood Bible
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Road
Robinson Crusoe
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Sister Carrie"

My message to the AP Literature Listserv:

I have taught AP Literature and Composition for 17 years, and I am also a Palestinian-American; my father immigrated to the United States in 1951. This is my first time to comment on this board.

About a year ago, when I read that Edward Said was a recommended non-fiction writer in the AP Literature and Compostion Course description, I felt elation, affirmation and a bit less "exiled."

My students took Form B, and until I saw Form A on the College Board website last Thursday, I didn't know that a prompt inspired by Edward Said was used. I was excited, overjoyed and incredulous when I read the prompt.
Edward Said is Palestinian; Edward Said experienced exile, and Edward Said is a brilliant thinker and considered by many in academia to be one of the great intellects of the twentieth century. He is revered and respected not only by Palestinians, but also by many, many others.

The initial responses on this board on May 8 were rational and ones I would expect from teachers of literature. Much of what ensued later was mere obfuscation and noise. Dixie Dellinger, in her post in regard to "prejudice" gets to the heart of the matter.

"I don't want to be in this fray either, since it arose because of The Test, but I see it as pretty simple at the core. It's a matter of prejudice, one of the most emotional and least rational of mental constructs . . .

"We do not indulge that prejudice because of the students' feelings. We acknowledge them, but we do not validate or legitimize them. "

Christmas Eve Morning

2009-12-24T11:56:00.000+01:00

Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign: Jamal Juma’, coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign, in Israeli jail

2009-12-21T07:24:00.000+01:00

Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign: Jamal Juma’, coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign, in Israeli jail

What Would Jesus Say (to a Zio-Christian)?

2009-09-10T00:07:00.005+02:00

Holy Family Catholic Church in Ramallah

Time to re-visit, as administrators like to say, the Christian Zionists. This is a response to the usual blather from one of the the Armageddon is nigh types:

You ask rhetorically, Who Are the Palestinians? just before you admonish them to take up residence in one of the twenty-two Arab countries so that European and American Jews may live in Palestine without Arabs.

What you don't seem to get, full of the usual canards that you are is that Palestinians are a diverse people, just like any people. We certainly are not all alike. I am a Christian Palestinian; twenty percent of the Palestinians are Christian. We are the original stones; that is, the original Christians descended from the apostles. My father was born in Ramallah, which before 1948, was a totally Christian village. I can asssure you that none of my relatives nor I wish to see Jews obliterated.

Most Palestinians would just like to return to their towns and villages from which they were expelled to make way for European and American Jews. I think that it is very sad that our grandmothers and grandfathers may not return to their villages to be buried, yet any Jew, from anywhere in the world may immigrate to Israel and become an instant citizen. I wonder how Christ would view this injustice.

Would Christ be happy that Zionist Jews shoot children in the head and the heart? Johnny Thalijieh was an altar boy at a Greek Orthodox Church; he was shot by an Israeli soldier while he was standing in front of his uncle's store. Do you know that the Christian villagers of Bir'im watched as the Israelis bombed their village in the 1950's? Even though the villagers wanted to live peacefully among the Israelis and didn't even want the part of the land back that European Jews had stolen from them, the Israelis wanted to assure that they would not return so they bombed their beloved village.

Would Christ condone land theft and house demolitions? Would Christ condone a Zionist Jewish settler in Hebron who screams "whore" at her Palestinian neighbor and directs her children to throw rocks at her in hopes that she'll leave her home?

I find it very arrogant to expect my relatives and countrymen to leave their homes and take up residence in any Arab country so that European and American Jews may continue to devastate and wreck havoc in what once was a Holy and peaceful land. We do not come from Syria; we do not come from Saudi Arabia; we do not come from Qatar or Dubai or Kuwait; our home is Palestine. This is a story that I wrote about Christian Zionists:

An Apology From a US Christian to Palestinians

This is my apology for Christians in the US to Muslims, the Arab World, and particularly Palestinians. Too many of my co-religionists have made a travesty of the Golden Rule which unequivocally compels us, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

For example Ed McAteer, founder of the Moral Majority, and a Christian Zionist who doesn't believe Israel should relinquish any of the illegally occupied territories, was asked by Bob Simon of CBS News: "What about the three million Palestinians who live on the West Bank and Gaza?"Simon said that McAteer suggested that " . . . the bulk of them could be cleansed . . . and moved to some Arab country."

Not to be outdone, Kay Arthur, of Precept Ministries, an organization that leads tours to Israel, told Simon that Yitzak Rabin's signing of the Oslo Accords was a mistake " . . . and I believe that God stopped it by the things that happened," a not so indirect reference to Rabin's death by assassination.

In March 2002, Ariel Sharon invaded the occupied territories again. George Bush unequivocally told him to get out. Jerry Falwell launched a campaign in which his minions, estimated at 20-26 million, phoned, e-mailed, and wrote letters to Bush and Congress. Bush didn't say another word as Sharon unleashed another vicious attack on the indigenous people of the occupied territories and Falwell boasted, "The Bible Belt is Israel's safety net in the US."

One incitement to hatred that I found particularly appalling from my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ is the following from the Fourth International Christian Congress on Biblical Zionism.

"We also urge the Church to recognize that local Christian Arabs have been living under unbearable circumstances due to abusive Islamic coercion and intimidation."

My father was a Palestinian Orthodox Christian. When he lay dying four years ago, the person who visited him most frequently, and who came a long way from Northern California to do so was the son of a prominent Jerusalem Muslim cleric. Indeed, my father and Sa'eb were friends for most of their adult lives. For US Christian Zionists to make a proclamation about supposed animosity between Muslim and Christian Palestinians is the height of audacity and ignorance.

Indeed, the fate of the Christian Palestinian is no different than that of the Muslim if these millions strong fanatical hatemongers hold sway. In fact, Palestinians are chastised for seeking solace in Christ for their suffering. To the Christian Zionists it is no more than "exploitation of His suffering and sacrifice for temporal and devious political purposes."

Christian Zionist websites still peddle misinformation that has been debunked not only by Palestinian historians, but also Israeli historians. "There simply is no distinct Palestinian entity," proclaims retired Brigadier General James Hutchens of the JerUSAlem Connection. Particularly galling is his pernicious use of the word "so-called" when putting "Palestinian" before people.

And then he proceeds to pontificate on what we are "in reality." People without a "distinct culture." People to whom he referred in "An Open Letter to President Bush," as "from God's viewpoint . . . the illegal occupants, not the Israelis."

Christian Zionist websites repeatedly bleat that Allah is not "our" God although as a Christian Palestinian I call upon God, "Ya Allah." As the daughter of a Christian Palestinian I am the descendent of the original stones, the first Christians, although the Christian Zionists consider my Palestinian brethren, both Muslim and Christian as "illegal" occupants of the land to which they're indigenous. It is particulary hateful for these Bible Belters to make the ignorant assumption that Palestinians lack a discernable "culture." Assuming that they did not have a distinct culture, does it give anyone a right to ethnically cleanse them? To the Christian Zionists, Palestinians are the children of a lesser God.

For their malice, for their perversion of Christianity, for their promulgation of lies regarding the Palestinian people and their history in Palestine, for their demonisation of the Palestinians, for their lack of regard for the dwindling numbers of their co-religionists in Palestine, for the lies that their leaders spew about God; i.e., "Those who promote a Palestinian state have placed themselves in alliance against God," for their incitement to hatred, for their advocating ethnic cleansing, for their role in promoting Israel's repressive measures in the occupied territories, for those who believe as does Gary Bauer, co-founder of Stand For Israel, that it is an "obscenity" to give up land for peace, and for their complete and total abdication of the Golden Rule, I apologize to the Palestinians on behalf of US Christians.

For those US Christians among us who are appalled at what our co-religionists are doing in our name, and who still consider "the least of their brethren," please look to those Palestinian Christians such as Reverend Naim Ateek, the founder of liberation theology, and an advocate of "spirituality based on justice, peace, nonviolence, and love." That's what I thought Christianity was all about. Let us not allow it to be hijacked by the fanatics.

Why Do We Embrace Zionists Like Uri Avnery?

2009-08-17T09:19:00.004+02:00

It never ceases to amaze me that Palestinians promote Zionist writers and thinkers. Case in point is Uri Avnery, a man who has never renounced Zionism; in fact, he is a proud Zionist. Helena Cobban in Counterpunch points out that Avnery seems to plead with Dov Yermiya, who recently renounced Zionism, to reconsider. Avnery, who obviously knows better or should know better if he could get beyond his tribal affinity, writes about a vision of Zionism that was in its incipient stages more "idealistic." One wonders what's idealistic about a state built upon the ruins of another culture and civilization; one wonders what's idealistic and laudable about a state which has refugees at its gates seeing Jews from all over the world reaping the benefits from ill gotten gains, yet Avnery rivals the best of the Zionist proselytizers:

“You, Dov, have invested in this state much too much to turn your back on it in a gesture of anger and despair. The most hackneyed and worn-out slogan in Israel is also true: ‘We don't have another state!’

“Other states in the world have sunk to the depths of depravity and committed unspeakable crimes, far beyond our worst sins, and still brought themselves back to the family of nations and redeemed their souls."

Would that Avnery was concerned for the Palestinian refugees he and his fellow European Jews have supplanted rather than bringing an ex-Zionist back into the fold.

Cobban's story

Why Don't You Go Back From Where You Came?

2009-08-13T23:20:00.006+02:00

Isn't She Lovely?

This woman from the US made "Aliyah" to Israel. Don't expect me to tell you she has the "right" to haul herself and her family to Palestine when many Palestinian refugees live within a stone's throw of their property and contrary to international law are not allowed to return.

Zionist propagandists never tire of repeating that Arabs have twenty-two countries, Jews have only one, but try telling a Zionist to go back from where he/she came, and be prepared for an all out assault.

My friend and mentor, Annie Annab, writes daily letters to the media in regard to the Palestinians’ universally recognized right of return. She often points out how many Jews enjoy rights and privileges in two countries, i.e., those who have dual American/Israeli citizenship, whereas the indigenous Palestinians have no rights anywhere.

The Zionists, after usurping and destroying our land, as well as anti-Zionists, have a propensity to own the conversation, here, there, and everywhere. My late father was correct when he told me that the world would know about what really happened in Palestine when the Jews wanted it to know. Now, I will be called an anti-Semite, but consider, when Palestinians speak, no one listens. Case in point is today when Amnesty International revealed that Palestinians carrying white flags during Israel’s Cast Lead horror were shot. Every Palestinian who subscribes to a list serve knew this months ago, but now it's made the news.

When we do speak honestly, we risk careers or we are vilified and marginalized. I used to write at Daily Kos, but I was banned. At the time I was banned, I was the last Palestinian standing. Recently, a couple of Palestinians have joined the ranks, but for a long while only so-called anti-Zionist Jews could present their version of the Palestinian story at Daily Kos. I say "so-called," because some of them did not advocate for right of return.

To elaborate on my point that we risk careers if we speak out, let me reveal what happened at a social justice presentation I recently attended. I can’t reveal the particulars or I will most assuredly not make the cut to be a social justice trainer for a very large US organization. But what is telling to me is that many Jews were comfortable speaking before the group in regard to how their worldview was shaped by the Holocaust, but I could not get up and ask the presenters how in the hell could they presume to talk about social justice and not even mention the Palestinians?

Many Jews, who are Palestinian sympathizers, actually serve the function of mitigating Israel's image as a pariah state, and most likely would prefer that we steer away from uncomfortable questions, and when we don’t; for example, when we ask someone like Rabbi Arik Aschermann of Rabbis for Human Rights, “Why don’t you go back to America,” we risk being called “radicals” and worse. We’re supposed to be so grateful that there are Jews who support us, even, as in the case of the highly touted “kinder and gentler” Zionist Martin Buber, who for all his humaneness, lived in the usurped house of Edward Said.

Some of the really nasty Zionists at Daily Kos kept harping on some blog post I’d written on my own blog in a distant past in which I used the term “Zionist occupied America,” and, as if to prove my point, they called upon me to repudiate this phrase (they also were ticked because I’d compared a little Palestinian girl to Anne Frank). But America is Zionist occupied. The fact that I may not get up and speak freely in a forum about social justice is all the evidence that I need that if I want this position that’s good for my career I need to STFU. And the fact that Zionists who claim to be Palestinian supporters stop the conversation when we question the legitimacy of Israel, proves the point, also.

Recently, a Palestinian friend of mine who spoke her mind in a Facebook comment section was told "no one likes you" by an American/Iranian/Israeli who gained a little attention when he didn’t shave and put on a "Free Palestine" tee-shirt to walk around Tel Aviv, then wrote about it. Her mistake was to speak candidly instead of humbling herself before his so-called anti-Zionist self. I wonder if he would have written the same sentiment to an African-American. He presumed to tell her how she differed from other Palestinians he’d encountered. As if all nine million of us are alike. Her mistake was not worshipping at the altar of the Palestinian sympathizer who doesn’t sympathize enough to hightail it back to Europe or America and leave Palestine to the Palestinians (and I know that some of them have no place to go; I'm not proposing to throw the Jews into the sea). Her mistake was adhering to the highly radical notion of letting Palestinians interpret themselves for themselves and perhaps her naivete was in believing that there are spaces for us in public forums to speak freely about our own experiences when in fact there are not if one wants approbation from our Zionist and even anti-Zionist friends.

David Letterman, Get A Clue

2009-08-01T11:08:00.004+02:00

I have a problem sending youtube videos to this blog so if you haven't seen this video in which Ayman Abu Aita, whom Sasha Baron Cohen called a "terrorist" on the Letterman show, exposes his blatant Zionist propaganda, go to this link. Ayman is sueing Cohen for his defamation; I hope he is successful, and I hope this disgusting portrayal of Palestinians comes to an end once and for all. People in Letterman's position should know better than to be part of an ethnophobic charade.

Also, check out the Guardian story: The non-profit worker from Bethlehem who was branded a terrorist by Bruno

Promoting the film recently on the David Letterman talkshow in the US,
Baron Cohen explained that finding a "terrorist" to interview for the movie took
several months and some help from a CIA contact. He described the secular
Martyrs Brigades, most of whom signed an amnesty deal with Israel in 2007, as "the number one suicide bombers out there".

Abu Aita said: "My file is clear with the Americans. I was in the states
twice and I travel all the time." He is a Christian Fatah representative – of
the movement's political wing, he stresses – for Bethlehem district. He is also
a member of the board of the Holy Land trust, a non-profit organisation that
works on Palestinian community-building. "I am a non-violent activist and I am
not ashamed of that," he says.

Henry Louis Gates Should Know Better

2009-08-01T10:55:00.003+02:00

One would think a leading professor in African-American studies might venture out of his field in regard to the oppression of other people. Evidently, this is not the case for Henry Louis Gates, Jr (thanks David and Mondoweiss):

"’The Case for Israel’ is indispensable reading for those of us who are deeply disturbed by the rise of anti-Semitism in American society, even on college campuses." -Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Chairman, Department of African and African-American Studies at Harvard

"On one of his many visits to Israel, Dershowitz analyzed the Israeli government's program of collective punishment against the Palestinians – demolishing the homes of innocent relatives of those involved in suicide bombing. It is a practice outlawed under international law," writes Bamford.

"Nevertheless, Dershowitz decided to recommend a more effective policy – leveling the buildings in entire villages. 'The next time the terrorists attack,' he said, 'the village's residents would be given twenty-four hours to leave, and then Israeli troops would bulldoze the houses.'"

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/capozzola1.html

Leonard Cohen is not playing in Ramallah

2009-07-14T22:45:00.000+02:00

PACBI Press Release

Occupied Ramallah, 12 July 2009

PACBI has been heartened by the untiring efforts of BDS activists in the US and UK in organizing demonstrations and pickets at Leonard Cohen’s performances in advance of his planned concert in Tel Aviv later this summer. The call, “don’t Play Israel !” has been heard loud and clear.

After exhausting all attempts to convince Cohen to apply his avowed humanistic principles in a morally consistent way by refusing to entertain Israeli apartheid and whitewash its crimes, we called on all supporters of a just peace in our region to shun Cohen's concerts and CDs and to protest his appearances everywhere. In an open letter to Cohen in May, we warned that we considered his performance in Israel a form of complicity in its grave violations of international law; we reminded him that by violating the Palestinian boycott against Israel he would bring back the ugly memory of artists who violated the boycott against apartheid South Africa and insisted to perform at Sun City, drawing condemnation and revulsion by people of conscience the world over [1].

We are now pleased to announce that we have received confirmation from the Palestinian Prisoners' Club Society that they will not be hosting Leonard Cohen in Ramallah. A strong consensus has emerged among all parties concerned that Cohen is not welcome in Ramallah as long as he insists on performing in Tel Aviv, even though it had been claimed that Cohen would dedicate his concert in Palestine to the cause of Palestinian prisoners. Ramallah will not receive Cohen as long as he is intent on whitewashing Israel‘s colonial apartheid regime by performing in Israel.

PACBI has always rejected any attempt to "balance" concerts or other artistic events in Israel--conscious acts of complicity in Israel‘s violation of international law and human rights--with token events in the occupied Palestinian territory. Such attempts at "parity" not only immorally equate the oppressor with the oppressed, taking a neutral position on the oppression (thereby siding with the oppressor, as Desmond Tutu famously said); they also are an insult to the Palestinian people, as they assume that we are naive enough to accept such token shows of "solidarity" that are solely intended to cover up grave acts of collusion in whitewashing Israel‘s crimes. Those sincerely interested in defending Palestinian rights and taking a moral and courageous stance against the Israeli occupation and apartheid should not play Israel , period. That is the minimum form of solidarity Palestinian civil society has called for.

We feel that this is an occasion to reaffirm our position first articulated two years ago in relation to visits to the occupied Palestinian territory by artists, performers, and academics who wish to show solidarity with Palestinians while primarily coming to Israel to perform or participate in academic or artistic activities. As we noted then, Palestinians have always warmly welcomed solidarity visits by international visitors; however, most Palestinians firmly believe that such solidarity visits should not be used as an occasion to organize performances, film screenings or exhibits in mainstream Israeli venues or to give lectures at Israeli universities ; collaborate in any way with Israeli political, cultural or academic institutions; or participate in activities sponsored or supported -- directly or indirectly -- by the Israeli government or any of its agencies [2].

The Cohen team's motives may not be so innocent, however. We believe that the plan for Cohen to perform for Palestinians is an effort to defuse the bad publicity and animated demonstrations by BDS activists at performance venues in several cities. Cohen's managers probably felt that by adding a Ramallah gig at the last minute, they could deflate the growing protest and the PACBI call for boycott against the tour. While this is a reflection of the positive effect the boycott call has generated, it also shows that Tel Aviv is still on the tour agenda. More protests and more publicity about the boycott are needed, and this is why the demonstrations and pickets in London , Liverpool and elsewhere are so welcome.

www.PACBI.org
pacbi@pacbi.org

[1] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1006
[2] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=539

On the Occasion of World Refugee Day

2009-06-20T10:15:00.003+02:00

Displacement from Ramle, 1948.

http://www.badil.org/Publications/Press/2009/press508-09.htm

Statistics released by UN agencies on the occasion of the 2009 World Refugee Day testify to the fact that Palestinian refugees are the largest and longest standing refugee population world wide. They lack access to just solutions and reparations, including return, because Israel and western governments continue to deny or belittle the scope of the problem and make no effort to respect and implement relevant international law and best practice.

According to a forthcoming Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons for the years 2007-2008 produced by Badil, at least 7.6 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced since 1948 as a consequence of Israel's systematic policies and practices of colonization, occupation and apartheid. That figure represents 71 percent of the entire worldwide population of 10.6 million Palestinians. Only 28.7 percent of all Palestinians have never been displaced from their homes. (click here for information pdf)

The great majority of the displaced (6.2 million people - 81.5 percent) are Palestinian refugees of 1948 (the Nakba), who were ethnically cleansed in order to make space for the state of Israel and their descendants. This figure includes 4.7 million Palestinian refugees registered with the United Nations (UNRWA) at the end of 2008. The second major group (940,000 – 12.5%) are Palestinian refugees of 1967, who were displaced during the 1967 Arab-Israel war and their descendants.

More attention and concern should be given to the phenomenon of forced displacement of Palestinians because it is ongoing.

Steadily growing populations of internally displaced Palestinians (IDPs) are the result of ongoing forced displacement in Israel (approximately 335,000 IDPs since 1948) and the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 1967 (approximately 120,000 IDPs since 1967). Badil's Survey identifies a set of distinct, systematic and widespread Israeli policies and practices which induce ongoing forced displacement among the indigenous Palestinian population, including deportation and revocation of residency rights, house demolition, land confiscation, construction and expansion of Jewish-only settlements, closure and segregation, as well as threats to life and physical safety as a result of military operations and harassment by racist Jewish non-state actors. Israeli governments implement these policies and practices in order to change the demographic composition of certain areas (“Judaization”) and the entire country for the purpose of colonization.

Data about the scope of ongoing forced displacement of Palestinians is illustrative and indicative, because there is no singular institution or agency mandated and resourced to ensure systematic and sustained monitoring and documentation. The total number of persons displaced in 2007 – 2008 is unknown. UN agencies, however, confirm that 100,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes in the occupied Gaza Strip at during Israel's military operation at the end of the year; that 198 communities in the OPT currently face forced displacement; and that 60,000 Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem are at risk of having their home demolished by Israel.

The Palestinian refugee question has remained unresolved and forced displacement continues, because Western governments and international organizations have been complicit in Israel's illegal policy and practice of population transfer and have failed to protect the Palestinian people. Indicators of the severe gaps existing in the protection of Palestinian refugees and IDPs are seen in the recent crises in Iraq - where thousands of Palestinian refugees became stranded on the Jordanian/Syrian and Iraqi borders, Lebanon - where 27,000 Palestinians refugees of the Naher al-Bared camp are still waiting to return to their 2007 destroyed camp, and Gaza - where over 1,400 Palestinians were killed and 100,000 displaced, most of them 1948 refugees).

On this World Refugees Day, Badil calls upon all those concerned with justice, human rights and peace to:

Challenge Israel's racist notion of the “Jewish state” and immediately halt its practices of displacement, dispossession and colonization;

Strengthen the global Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) in order to ensure that Israel other states become accountable to international law and respect their obligations;

Improve the mechanism of international protection so that all Palestinians receive effective protection from, during and after forced displacement, including the right to return as part of durable solutions and reparation;

Ensure that the Palestinian refugee question is treated in accordance with international law and UN resolutions in future peace negotiations, including return and reparation.

More Comments

2009-06-05T22:43:00.002+02:00

In response to some idiotic Zionist diversionary post how partioning Palestine was any different than the partition of Pakistan and India

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/05/obama-israel-cairo-speech

umkahlil
05 Jun 09, 1:26pm (about 8 hours ago)

I'd be more than happy too talk about the partition:

Partition was seen by the Palestinians as imposing unilateral and intolerable sacrifices on themselves . . . The area of the Jewish state according to the UN plan would actually be larger than that of the proposed Palestinian state (5,500 square miles as compared with 4,500 square miles) at a time when the Jews constituted no more than 35 percent of the population and owned less than 7 percent of the land. Within the proposed Jewish state, Jewish land ownership did not in fact exceed 600 square miles out of the total area of 5,500 square miles. Nearly all the citrus land (equally divided in ownership between Jews and Palestinians), 80 percent of the cereal land (entirely Palestinian-owned), and 40 percent of Palestinian industry would fall within the borders of the proposed Jewish state. Jaffa, the Palestinian state's major port on the Mediterranean, would be altogether cut off from its hinterland, and Gaza would lose its traditional links with the wheatlands of the Negev.

Hundreds of villages would be separated from communal fields and pastures. The Palestinian state would lose direct access both to the Red Sea and to Syria. The economic union between the two states, on which partition had been postulated, was know beforehand to be impracticable. The patchwork of subunits into which partition would divide the country bore little relationship to the human and social realities on the ground.

Khalidi, Walid. Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians 1876-1948.Washington DC: Institute For Palestine Studies, 1991.

In response to Berchmans
05 Jun 09, 3:07pm (about 7 hours ago)

umkahlil
.
## What effrontery. To insist that Palestinians recognize the "right" of of European and American Jews to dispossess them. Like these, who forgot to put their make-up on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxt9HwfPwPo ##
.
The link was horrific. Shocking...I hope this is not what young Israelis in general are like ..I hope they were completely drunk and not like that when they get back into uniform. They really think they are about to die. WTF? They seem to live in a parallel world...WTF is the news there like? No wonder so many Israelis come to CIF ! :)
B

The maker of the video writes:

As a resident of Jerusalem, I can say that the people represented in this video are not members of a fringe group or simply drunk college kids. These people reflect the sentiments shared by many people in this country and this city. These people and their families are the core of the opposition to meaningful peace between Israel and her neighbors. This is what Obama is up against.

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/max-blumenthal-feeling-the-hate-in-jerusalem-on-eve-of-obamas-cairo-address.html

But really, no more shocking than destroying more than five hundred villages and ethnically cleansing more than half of those who became refugees before any Arab army entered Palestine . . . no more shocking than Petra's pretty, polished propaganda. No more shocking than the hysterical rants of those here who divert from the issue, no more shocking than the majority of Israelis who sneer at Obama's very own words:

"Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail."

No more shocking than denying those people who were born in Palestine and their descendents from stepping foot in their homeland. No more shocking than demonising an entire group. Why do you think a tiny faction of Palestinians engage in violence? Because it is inherent in our nature? Or because of the massive injustice that has been perpetuated on Palestinians? I am not Hamas; I am not Fatah; I am the daughter of a man who had to leave Ramallah in 1951 because his economic prospects were next to nil after Palestine had been truncated in 1948. I would take a bullet before I would acknowledge the "right" of Israel to exist. I am not an extremist. I have the God given right to move freely in the land from which my father and ancestors came, and I will never renounce that right.

umkahlil
05 Jun 09, 5:14pm (about 5 hours ago)

Another Palestinian protesting the theft of his land killed today:
The slain Palestinian was identified as Yousef Aqel Sadiq Srour, 36, who was shot in the chest with live fire, according to medics at the scene.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=38333

And par for the course, the Israelis fired on an ambulance:
A Palestinian ambulance was also fired upon, injuring one of its medics, witnesses said.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=38333

In response to Zionist diversion:

umkahlil
05 Jun 09, 6:13pm (about 4 hours ago)

I did not say my father was a refugee, but he was a victim of the truncation of his land. Jaffa was a place where many people from Ramallah did business. Once again, the Palestinians are not responsible for what happened to the Jews in Iraq. Many reject the title "refugee," as they were "proud Zionists" who came of their own free will. This is documented in "Hitching A Ride on A Magic Carpet." There were also black ops on the part of the Zionists facilitating the exodus from Iraq. There is no moral equivalence here, but we know that marching orders of Zionists are to mention Jewish refugeees every time Palestine's refugeees are mentioned. This is a bill that came up in the US Congress. Zionism is the root cause of the problem. All else is diversion.

Further Zionists attempts to divert and dissemble and claim that the Palestinians opposed to partition were Nazis (I'm not including their comments):

umkahlil
05 Jun 09, 6:44pm (about 3 hours ago)

Petra,

Your claim "and starting in the mid-1920s, the development of the land, exclusively due to Jewish immigrants' efforts (as all historical sources agree) attracted a lot of Arab immigrants" is disgraceful. Any fool can check out the photographs at Palestineremembered.com to disprove your disingenous and egregious denial of the Palestinian presence on the land. And anyone may leaf through the photos of numerous books including Before Their Diaspora by Walid Khalidi to see the Palestinian farmers, potters, businessmen, etc. who were thriving prior to the European Jewish immigration. We were not primitives, but had a well developed agrarian and cosmopolitan society.

The Mufti is another diversion; the term Nakba isn't employed because the truncation of Palestine was considered a picnic by Palestinians.

umkahlil
05 Jun 09, 7:20pm (about 3 hours ago)
I never claimed that my father was a refugee; for the second time a Zionist says I claimed something I didn't say in order to discredit me. Then you make some claim about my father, whom you know nothing about.

And if the Zionists did so well with the land, why don't you read Raja Shehadeh's Palestinian Walks. He does a great job of claiming how the hills around Ramallah were decimated by the people who claim to love the land so much.

You continue to go out of your way to deny Palestinians rights on their own lands. It's really rich that a German immigrant calls me an extremist for insisting that Palestinians have the right to live on their own land. You are the extremist, Petra, bringing up other situations in order to justify Israel's continuing oppression of Palestinians.

umkahlil
05 Jun 09, 7:34pm (about 2 hours ago)

Typical Zionist tactic, Petra, throwing up a lot of bs in order to mislead.

I said Palestine was an agrarian and cosmopolitan society; where do I mention the fellahin?
I didn't say anything about the Mufti other than throwing him up is another Zionist diversionary tactic, and I didn't say anything about Jews in Arab lands, which has nothing to do with Palestinians, other than some left of their own accord and some left because of Zionist black op operations.

And Petra, destroying hundreds of villages is wrong. And ethnically cleansing a civilian population is wrong. And trying to justify it is also wrong.

Let me quote Salman Abu Sitta's words to Gershon Baskin:

The Palestinians, and most of the world with them, are determined to pursue justice, eradicate racism and Apartheid. Just as South Africa did. They have no intention of disappearing.
Baskin, true friendship should go to the Israelis to help shake them off their collective amnesia about what they have done and are doing to the Palestinians and to advise them that their salvation lies in shedding racism fully and forever. They have to amend their ways, reverse ethnic cleansing and make reparations.

For it is clear that the history of Jews will ultimately be marked indelibly, and above all other historical events, by what they have done in Palestine.

umkahlil
05 Jun 09, 8:13pm (about 2 hours ago)
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story420.html

It's hypocritical for Zionist apologists to hold Palestinians responsible for the actions of one man, considering the alliance made between the Stern Gang and Nazis.
And this really has nothing to do with the ongoing oppression of the Palestinians.

umkahlil
05 Jun 09, 8:19pm (about 2 hours ago)

Dr. Abu Sitta has a very pragmatic approach.

The Right of Return is Feasible.

http://umkahlil.blogspot.com/2005/06/dr-salman-abu-sitta-right-of-return-is.html

And no, Ehad, Palestinians did not immigrate to Palestine and steal the land and dispossess the people; we were there; Jewish immigrants from all over the world did this. And there are no excuses for what the Zionists did to Palestine and what they continue to do.
I

Comment

2009-06-05T13:54:00.004+02:00

Comment left on the Zionist's post on CIF

umkahlil
05 Jun 09, 12:50pm (1 minute ago)

Palestinians are not responsible for Jews who either emigrated from Arab countries or were forced out. Zionism is.

What effrontery. To insist that Palestinians recognize the "right" of of European and American Jews to dispossess them. Like these, who forgot to put their make-up on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxt9HwfPwPo

umkahlil
05 Jun 09, 4:29pm (18 minutes ago)

The maker of the video writes:

As a resident of Jerusalem, I can say that the people represented in this video are not members of a fringe group or simply drunk college kids. These people reflect the sentiments shared by many people in this country and this city. These people and their families are the core of the opposition to meaningful peace between Israel and her neighbors. This is what Obama is up against.

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/max-blumenthal-feeling-the-hate-in-jerusalem-on-eve-of-obamas-cairo-address.html

But really, no more shocking than destroying more than five hundred villages and ethnically cleansing more than half of those who became refugees before any Arab army entered Palestine . . . no more shocking than Petra's pretty, polished propaganda. No more shocking than the hysterical rants of those here who divert from the issue, no more shocking than the majority of Israelis who sneer at Obama's very own words:

"Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail."

No more shocking than denying those people who were born in Palestine and their descendents from stepping foot in their homeland. No more shocking than demonising an entire group. Why do you think a tiny faction of Palestinians engage in violence? Because it is inherent in our nature? Or because of the massive injustice that has been perpetuated on Palestinians? I am not Hamas; I am not Fatah; I am the daughter of a man who had to leave Ramallah in 1951 because his economic prospects were next to nil after Palestine had been truncated in 1948. I would take a bullet before I would acknowledge the "right" of Israel to exist. I am not an extremist. I have the God given right to move freely in the land from which my father and ancestors came, and I will never renounce that right.

Palestine Festival Participants "Walk in the Ramallah Hills"

2009-05-25T08:45:00.004+02:00

Photos are from Palestine Festival of Literature's Day 2 "Walk in the Ramallah Hills"

From the Palestinian Festival of Literature's Festival Blog for Sunday, May 24

After the drama of yesterday we were well prepared for the potential tranquility of a walk in the Ramallah hills with Raja Shehadeh. We got on the bus and headed through the Wall and Qalandia checkpoint and north to Raja’s house. After a brief introductory talk we took the bus out to middle of a valley – to the start of a walk Raja had chosen that would keep us as out of of sight of the army and the settlements as possible.

The walk was slightly more challenging than people had been expecting – we dropped down into the valley then slowly scrambled up the other side, finally reaching a qasr: a solid16th century stone structure that used to house workers and crops during the summer agricultural months.
We moved back down and through the valley to reach the village where the bus was to pick us up. On reaching the outskirts, we fanned out on to the new tarmac in front of us. But we are quickly called back, behind a barn. An Israeli watchtower looms on the crest of a hill in the distance and we are advised to stay out of its sight.

We had a few problems checking in to the hotel, as seems to happen rather too frequently in Ramallah , but managed it eventually and people headed to the home of Dr. Saleh abd el-jawwad and Islah Jad for drinks in their garden before moving to the Sakakini Centre.

The night’s event was held in the garden of the centre, and though it was a windy at times, it is a wonderful setting. The night passed with an atmosphere of calm and ease that had been so missing in Jerusalem, and as with the combined comedic forces of Michael Palin, Suad Amiry and Carmen Callil it was a night that brought us back to feeling like a literature festival. This night didn’t insist on being dominated by Israel and by occupation. Though they are never far away, just having the choice of when to talk about them felt empowering. Which shows just how totally consuming, mentally, this occupation is.

Palestine Festival of Literature 23-28 May 2009

2009-05-24T15:33:00.000+02:00

Day 1-Palestine Festival: 'Confronting the Culture of Power with the Power of Culture'

2009-05-24T10:33:00.004+02:00

Participants in the Literature Festival are pictured in the new venue for opening night as they were kicked out of the Palestinian National Theater by soldiers carrying out their government's genocidal plan to rid Jerusalem of its Palestinian culture.

Unfortunately, I can't get this video from Day 1 of the 2009 Palestinian Festival embedded, but here is the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJU7-9r-pVA&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Epalfest%2Eorg%2Fvideo%2Ehtml&feature=player_embedded

And here is a video of Chinua Achebe reading his poem "Refugee Mother and Child" for the 2008 Palestinian Literature Festival. Achebe, the acclaimed author of Things Fall Apart is a patron of the Paletine Literature Festival.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNk7S-RKsFU&feature=related

From writer Ahdaf Souief's blog for May 23 regarding the festival going on despite Israeli soldiers forcing the particpants and audience to move from the Palestine National Theater:

"Today, my friends, we saw the clearest example of our mission: to confront the culture of power with the power of culture."

Follow the festival, which takes place from May 23-28 here.

Children Mark Nakba

2009-05-16T07:18:00.002+02:00

Couldn't resist this little cutie.

Palestinian children wear traditional clothes as they reenact the 'nakba,' Arabic for catastrophe, in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, near the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Thursday, May 14, 2009. The children marked the 61st anniversary of the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who either fled or were driven out of their homes during the 1948 war over Israel's creation.(AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//090514/481/7ed3af974c404f1eb81ecdb6f2f27c9c/

Comment is Free Ignores Nakba!

2009-05-15T22:20:00.002+02:00

I was checking out the Guardian's "Comment Is Free" all day to see if anyone was going to write about the Nakba, but the Guardian's propensity is to have Israelis explain the Palestinian world view to us, so no story is better than having an Israeli write about the Nakba, I guess. They did post a story by that great ueber Zionist mensch, Benny Morris. I posted a comment on an editorial which just appeared encouraging Obama to persuade Netanyahu to agree to some two-state solution. No mention of Palestinian refugees anywhere in the generic editorial except here, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense:

[Regarding Netanyahu's starter that Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state] But the purpose of raising it [Netanyahu's crap that Palestinians must recognize Palestine as a Jewish state] before a final status solution is to deny negotiation on the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel, which Israel says threatens the in-built Jewish majority. Not even those Palestinians who recognise the state of Israel could accept this formula. It is a show-stopper.

Here's my first comment:

I was hoping for a story from a Palestinian; i.e., Dr. Salman Abu Sitta, or someone of his caliber, about the Nakba, which is today.

Maybe next year, since it's ongoing for sixty plus years.

And I was moved to write another comment, just because I am so ticked off that the Guardian didn't acknowledge the Nakba today:

Instead of an informative story on the Nakba, we get another story about Israeli politicians who are all the same. Livni [the editorial said she didn't find a Palestinian state "anathema"] advocated transferring the "Arab Israelis" (what a sickening term to erase the Palestinianness out of the Palestinian) to anywhere except where they are from. She is not the great hope for the Palestinians. And no one may "negotiate" my personal right to return to my home. [This in response to their stupid assertion: "But the purpose of raising it [recognizing Palestine as a Jewish state] before a final status solution is to deny negotiation on the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel, which Israel says threatens the in-built Jewish majority.] It's an inalienable right, no matter how some of the erudite Zionists try to spin it.

[BAPD] Al Nakba

2009-05-14T23:39:00.005+02:00

"It is our ancestors' legacy that we never leave our land that we never let go of 'Ayn Ghazzal, that we never forget that it is us and our families who are Palestine, and that ultimately we have to return to our beloved land, and that its love will return to us." Mohammad Mansara

In disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
Alone,

beweeping our outcast state
suffering a deaf heaven, heedless of our cries,
our truncated country,
our jacked up lives.

They pulled off a big armed robbery
In Jaffa, the Bride of the Sea,
One hundred sixteen thousand expelled
four thousand remaining
forced into Ajami.

Hot march away from Lydda
Audeh sees a baby suck

the breast

of its ummi
Dead under the Palestinian sun.

Another mother, jostled by throngs

Drops her baby, a metal cart wheel

runs over its neck

Farmers work for the land thieves
Who call them Israeli Arab
They work
To feed their children scorpions.

Notes:

ummi: mother in Arabic

Read further about the ethnic cleansing of Jaffa, how its residents who weren't expelled were forced to live in a slum in Ajami as they watched Jewish immigrants take over their houses and possessions, and how once proud landowners were reduced to working as laborers on their own land that was stolen by the Zionist immigrants in "Jaffa: From Eminence to Ethnic Cleansing."

Read Mohammad Mansara's "We Loved the Land and the Land Loved Us." in Al-Majdal's Nakba Special Issue, Winter 2007/Spring 2008 His life as a refugee in Iraq and now in Sweden has been both tragic and inspiring.

Read excerpts from Father Audeh Rantisi's Blessed Are the Peacemakers: The Story of a Palestinian Christian. Father Audeh, a refugee from Lydda, witnessed the baby sucking at its dead mother's breast and also the death of the baby from the metal wheel as he and his family were forced to walk in one hundred degree heat after expulsion from the town in which his family had lived for 1600 years.

Father Rantisi Remembers Al-Nakba

2009-05-14T00:32:00.002+02:00

Al-Nakba means 'catastrophe,' and it not only refers to the horrifying events of 1947-48, but also to the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians and their way of life. It is commemorated May 15, but it is lived every day by Palestinians. Father Audeh Rantisi remembers (from Al-Nakba):

From "Blessed are the Peacemakers ...The History of a Palestinian Christian

In these extracts from his memoir, Father Audeh Rantisi remembers the horrific scenes that confronted him, aged 11, when his family were brutally deported from their home of many generations to make what life they could for themselves in the refugee camps of Ramallah.

Father Rantisi was born in Lyda, now the site of Ben Gurion Airport, in 1937. From 1955 to 1958 he attended the Bible College of Wales, moving in 1963 to continue his studies at Aurora College in the state of Illinois. He then served as a missionary in Sudan. In 1965 he opened the Evangelical Home for Boys in Ramallah, West Bank. In 1976 Father Rantisi was elected as Ramallah's deputy mayor and he is now the director of the orphanage of the Evangelical Home of Boys.

I cannot forget three horror-filled days in July of 1948. The pain sears my memory, and I cannot rid myself of it no matter how hard I try. First, Israeli soldiers forced thousands of Palestinians from their homes near the Mediterranean coast, even though some families had lived in the same houses for centuries. (My family had been in the town of Lydda in Palestine at least 1,600 years). Then, without water, we stumbled into the hills and continued for three deadly days. The Jewish soldiers followed, occasionally shooting over our heads to scare us and keep us moving. Terror filled my eleven-year-old mind as I wondered what would happen. I remembered overhearing my father and his friends express alarm about recent massacres by Jewish terrorists. Would they kill us, too?

We did not know what to do, except to follow orders and stumble blindly up the rocky hills. I walked hand in hand with my grandfather, who carried our only remaining possessions-a small tin of sugar and some milk for my aunt's two-year-old son, sick with typhoid.

The horror began when Zionist soldiers deceived us into leaving our homes, then would not let us go back, driving us through a small gate just outside Lydda. I remember the scene well: thousands of frightened people being herded like cattle through the narrow opening by armed soldiers firing overhead. In front of me a cart wobbled toward the gate. Alongside, a lady struggled, carrying her baby, pressed by the crowd. Suddenly, in the jostling of the throngs, the child fell. The mother shrieked in agony as the cart's metal-rimmed wheel ran over her baby's neck. That infant's death was the most awful sight I had ever seen.

Outside the gate the soldiers stopped us and ordered everyone to throw all valuables onto a blanket. One young man and his wife of six weeks, friends of our family, stood near me. He refused to give up his money. Almost casually, the soldier pulled up his rifle and shot the man. He fell, bleeding and dying while his bride screamed and cried. I felt nauseated and sick, my whole body numbed by shock waves. That night I cried, too, as I tried to sleep alongside thousands on the ground. Would I ever see my home again? Would the soldiers kill my loved ones, too?

Early the next morning we heard more shots and sprang up. A bullet just missed me and killed a donkey nearby. Everybody started running as a stampede. I was terror-stricken when I lost sight of my family, and I frantically searched all day as the crowd moved along.

That second night, after the soldiers let us stop, I wandered among the masses of people, desperately searching and calling. Suddenly in the darkness I heard my father's voice. I shouted out to him. What joy was in me! I had thought I would never see him again. As he and my mother held me close, I knew I could face whatever was necessary. The next day brought more dreadful experiences. Still branded on my memory is a small child beside the road, sucking the breast of its dead mother. Along the way I saw many stagger and fall. Others lay dead or dying in the scorching midsummer heat. Scores of pregnant women miscarried, and their babies died along the wayside. The wife of my father's cousin became very thirsty. After a long while she said she could not continue. Soon she slumped down and was dead. Since we could not carry her we wrapped her in cloth, and after praying, just left her beside a tree. I don't know what happened to her body.

We eventually found a well, but had no way to get water. Some of the men tied a rope around my father's cousin and lowered him down, then pulled him out, and gave us water squeezed from his clothing. The few drops helped, but thirst still tormented me as I marched along in the shadeless, one-hundred plus degree heat.

We trudged nearly twenty miles up rocky hills, then down into deep valleys, then up again, gradually higher and higher. Finally we found a main road, where some Arabs met us. They took some of us in trucks to Ramallah, ten miles north of Jerusalem. I lived in a refugee tent camp for the next three and one-half years. We later learned that two Jewish families had taken over our family home in Lydda.

Those wretched days and nights in mid-July of 1948 continue as a lifelong nightmare because Zionists took away our home of many centuries. For me and a million other Palestinian Arabs, tragedy had marred our lives forever. Throughout his life my father remembered and suffered. For thirty-one years before his death in 1979, he kept the large metal key to our house in Lydda.
After more than four decades I still bear the emotional scars of the Zionist invasion. Yet, as an adult, I see what I did not fully understand then: that the Jews are also human beings, themselves driven by fear, victims of history's worst outrages, rabidly, sometimes almost mindlessly searching for security. Lamentably, they have victimized my people.

Four years after our flight from Lydda I dedicated my life to the service of Jesus Christ. Like me and my fellow refugees, Jesus had lived in adverse circumstances, often with only a stone for a pillow. As with his fellow Jews two thousand years ago and the Palestinians today, an outside power controlled his homeland-my homeland. They tortured and killed him in Jerusalem, only ten miles from Ramallah, and my new home. He was the victim of terrible indignities. Nevertheless, Jesus prayed on behalf of those who engineered his death, "Father, forgive them..." Can I do less?

The key to the conflict

2009-05-13T06:46:00.004+02:00

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2009/05/10/t17.html

BETHLEHEM, West Bank – Pope Benedict XVI will not be standing on the stage prepared for him by Palestinians inside the Aida Refugee Camp following Israel’s disapproval of the stage’s position. The Vatican gave in to Israel’s demands not to have the separation wall and a military watchtower behind him on Wednesday as he visits this camp hosting around 5,000 of the refugees forced out of their villages since 1948.

It will go down as an insignificant footnote in the history of this troubled region, if at all, but the people here are clearly furious. “It’s the occupation,” a Palestinian Authority (PA) official told said resignedly at a press briefing ahead of the pope’s visit last Wednesday. “The Vatican has agreed to Israel’s demands, but the wall will still be very visible behind him.”

Even though the modest stage prepared for the occasion lies on the Palestinian side of the wall, Israel declared the stage illegal last week in what appeared to be an attempt to conceal the uncomely signs of the occupation.

Just days ahead of the pontiff’s visit, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released a damning report about Israel’s measures that are stifling Bethlehem, the city where Jesus was born.

The OHCA said that out of 660 square kilometres, only 13% of Bethlehem’s land is available for Palestinian use, and much of it is fragmented. The wall cuts Bethlehem off completely from its historic, religious and economic connection to Jerusalem, denying villagers access to some of the most fertile farmland in the area.

However, the PA official said that despite Israel’s efforts to divert the wall from media attention, the pope’s route will still take him next to the wall and a gigantic icon that symbolises the plight of Palestinians denied their homeland for the last 40 years.

In fact, as he enters the camp on Wednesday, Benedict will pass through an arch shaped into a massive keyhole with an iron key (muftieħ) above it.Many refugees forced out of their homes in 1948 still hold the key to their old homes, in the decades-old hope of returning to the villages of origin.Incidentally, Palestinians commemorate their expulsion in 1948 the day after the pope’s visit to Bethlehem. 14 May is remembered as Nakba Day (the day of the catastrophe).

Mohammed Adrahman Azza, 75, from Beit Jibrin, is one of the oldest refugees at the camp.He vividly remembers the night his family was forced out by the Israeli military 60 years ago, when he was aged 14. The Azza family owned most of the land and properties in the village.“In the summer of 1948, my village was attacked by Israeli forces. They came with war planes launching an air attack that lasted from the evening till the next morning,” he says.

The local police station was guarded by Egyptian forces, which had entered Palestine to protect the locals for a short while, but these were quickly overpowered.“The Israelis came again to attack by land. They reached the police station, mined it and exploded it, killing two and injuring many others. Most of the people were fleeing the village and started living in caves.

“The Egyptians suffered deaths and injuries. Some Palestinians stayed with them to help in the fight, but it was an unequal war. Only few tens of Palestinians were left. The city was empty. When Israel occupied the village, we had to leave through the mountains towards Hebron, where we lived between 1948 and 1963.”

We will return

During his visit to the refugee camp, the pope may see the many murals along the separation wall. One of them says: “If the olive trees knew who planted them, their oil would become tears”. The most recurrent slogan is: “We will return”. That is what Azza dreams of everyday, holding on to his old iron key. “I lost my land, my home, my friends, everything,” he says. “But I dream of returning and I keep telling my children and grandchildren that our home is in Beit Jibrin... It’s always on my mind. We have many acres of land there. Why is it forbidden for me to go to my house? There is someone from Poland, Russia, or the US on my land, and it’s forbidden for me to even touch the land where I was born.”

Before the 2000 intifada – after which moving into Israel became totally forbidden – Azza often visited what was once his village. “Everything was demolished, schools, houses, mosques... nothing remains.”

Denied to this day, the Israelis’ “cleansing” operations 60 years ago wiped out hundreds of Palestinian villages and displaced thousands of families who are still living in the multitude of refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan. For Azza, the 1948 catastrophe wiped out his childhood.

“I was the oldest of four brothers and one sister, so I was the one most responsible for them,” he says. “Our father was old, so I left school to work. I had to do lots of jobs, from carrying heavy things for people to farming. In one summer I went to Jordan on foot with my father. It took us three days to get there, but after working there we managed to buy two sacks of wheat. That would feed us for most of the year.”

After working in Jordan, he could return to school, moving on to become an Arabic language and religion teacher, but his meagre salary could not sustain him and his family.

“In 1963 we moved to Aida camp. We couldn’t pay rent or buy a house, so the refugee camp gave us shelter. My uncle was the camp leader and he encouraged us to move here. We were some 150 families at that time.”

Even inside the refugee camp, things only got worse with time. Besides the expanding families that nowadays have no more space to build new houses within the camp’s confines, refugees and Bethlehem villagers have been cut off completely by the wall erected since 2002.

“The wall makes our life much worse; we can’t work in Israel as we used to. Our sheep and cows used to feed on the mountains, now they have all died because the mountains are closed to us. Our children used to play on the green hills, now they’re confined to a prison cage. Families are getting bigger but spaces for houses remain limited, in fact we can’t build anymore. Agricultural land of the villagers from here has been stolen.”

Israeli forces still come here, especially at night, arresting people and imposing curfews.

“For them anyone could be a fighter who should be arrested,” Azza said. “They enter freely arresting people, demolishing some houses, and leave. My grandson was arrested for two years ... they said he was a ‘Fatah fighter’ but he couldn’t defend himself in a military court.

“In 1983 they arrested my 14-year-old son. Released two years later, he must have been the youngest Palestinian in prison. He was a 14-year-old fighter... throwing stones. He was beaten, tortured, hanged upside down from his legs and pulled by ropes.”

Azza clutches his old key as he speaks. His mind is clearly in his faraway village of Beit Jibrin, as he dreams like every other refugee of the right of return – a right consistently denied to them for decades.

“You know, if I had to meet the person who is staying where our house was, I can’t fight with him,” he says. “I would explain to him that this was my father’s house; it was our family’s land for hundreds of years. I would tell him ‘You came here from nowhere and took it just like that. You’re a foreigner in my house.’ Israel always teaches foreigners that they just came over to live in empty lands, or in villages where people just left voluntarily. They never admit the truth that their country is built on stolen land.”

karl.schembri@ramattan.com
Karl Schembri is a correspondent for Ramattan news agency in the West Bank and Gaza

Seven Palestinian Children

2009-04-26T23:28:00.003+02:00

A response to Caryl Churchill's Seven Jewish Children:

Tell her Bassem always smiled. Tell her that Bassem was killed because he wanted to live on and tend his own land in Bil’in. Tell her Bassem wasn’t involved in any ‘violent’ protest. Tell her he was telling the soldiers to stop throwing tear gas projectiles because a woman was wounded. Tell her when people ask ‘Where is the Palestinian Gandhi’ that Bassem is one of many Palestinian Gandhis. Tell them the morning that Bassem was killed he gave medicine to Hamis, whose skull was broken because he wanted to live on and tend his own land in Bil’in. Tell her that people from all of the surrounding villages came to Bassem’s funeral. Tell her that Bassem still walks with us.

Tell her that Ghassan was blown up in his car with his thirteen year old niece, Lamees,whom he loved very much. Tell her that Ghassan wrote a story for each of Lamees’ birthdays. Tell him that Annie, his wife, heard the explosion but “could not find Ghassan.” She could only find his left leg. Tell her that Ghassan’s son “started knocking his head against the wall.” Tell her that “little Lalya was crying: ‘Baba . . . Baba.’”

Tell her that he was killed for writing that Palestine was a land filled with people:

I saw the long line of the big cars enter Lebanon leaving faraway the land of oranges…I started weeping in a loud sharp way…your mother was still looking in silence to the
oranges…In your father’s eyes were the reflection of all the orange trees he had left
behind for the Israelis …all the clean orange trees he had planted one by one glittered
in his face. He failed to stop the tears that filled up his eyes, when facing the police
head officer. When we reached Saida, in the afternoon, we became refugees.

Tell her that Kamel Nasser was a beloved poet. Tell her that Ehud Barak, the Lithuanian-Pole, dressed up like a woman and shot him in the mouth and his right hand. Tell her that Kamel was babysitting for some friends who went to Jordan for a funeral when Ehud Barak burst into his bedroom and shot up the right hand which held a pen that wrote:

Shed no tears in sorrow for me
For in my homeland
Life is degradation and wounds
And in my eyes the call of danger rings.
Beloved, if word of my death reaches you
And the lovers cry out:
The loyal one has departed, his visage gone forever,
And fragrance has died within the bosom of the flower
Shed no tears...smile on life
And tell my only one, my loved one,
The dark recesses of your father's being
Have been touched by visions of his people.

Tell her that Dr. Salman Abu Sitta dedicates his life to recording the names of the villages which the genocidal Pole David Ben Gurion, whose real name is David Gruen, changed from Arabic. Tell her that Dr. Salman's atlas contains "40,000 names which were in use in Palestine in 1948 and prior." Tell her that this atlas "shows the locations and the names of 1300 towns and villages, 10,000 religious, cultural and historic landmarks and 20,000 place names." Tell her that these "names are the vocabulary of Palestinian life." Tell her that Dr. Salman's painstaking labors were in part so that "the young generation who have not seen their homes but heard about it, can navigate through it and find where their villages were and where their lands were, so they can reconstruct Palestine." Tell her that Dr. Salman warns the Jewish people,

“. . . the history of Jews will ultimately be marked indelibly, and above all other historical
events, by what they have done in Palestine.”

Tell her that you may as well forget saying you’re Palestinian if Jews are in the room. Tell her that if Jews are in the room the room fills up with their suffering, and there is no room for yours. Tell her that if you find yourself at a workshop about social oppression with African-American table mates and they tell you their hot button is that they don’t like it when people ask “What are you,” and you tell them, “I like it when people ask me what I am because my people are vilified and demonized as terrorists and I like to tell them what I am so they’ll see we aren’t all terrorists,” to forget getting up and speaking to the group even if your table mates force you because no sooner than you’re done speaking a Jew in the room will stand up and say “I am a Jew and we are hated all over the world so I don’t tell people that I’m Jewish because Jews get killed for being Jews.” No, don't tell her that because it's Anti-Semitic.

Tell her that you may commemorate the Holocaust every day, but may not teach about injustice in regard to Palestine. No don't tell her that. Tell her that one must sort of teach around injustice and Palestine. Tell her you may teach Cry, the Beloved Country, but don't talk about apartheid and Palestine. Tell her that we're the Jews' Jews and Hitler's final victims. Tell her that we're f*****d. No, don't tell her that. Tell her that we will "forget the bitter days." Tell her "we shall return." Tell her that one day we will not be forced to keep many things inside us.

Tell her that she has every right to live on her own land and to tend her own olives. Tell her she has every right to live from where her grandmother was forced into exile. Tell her that she has every right to live where her grandfather was gunned down when he tried to return to his home. Tell her she has every right to 'pick the fruits.' of her land. Tell her she has every right to remove their poison from our wells. Tell her to shun their peace process. Tell her it's a ruse. A ruse as they salivate anticipating the annihilation of our presence on our land . Tell her that their concern for demographics is racist and hateful. Tell her that there is no compromise with evil. Tell her that there is no compromise. And tell her not to be intimidated by those who call those of us who want to go to our homes extremists.

Tell her that our smiling Bassem loved her. Tell her that our gifted Ghassan loved her. Tell her that gentle Kamel loved her. Tell her that Dr. Salman labors with love for her. Tell her that Raja Shehadeh who writes with love for a landscape he walks, now desecrated by people who lied that they made the desert bloom, loves her. Tell her that we once lived peacefully with Jews. Tell her that we may "breathe," but we must also "eat." Tell her that we may "have our house," but we also need our "children." Tell her they can't kill us all. Tell her to remain resolute and to keep up her spirits.

Sources: http://umkahlil.blogspot.com/2005/06/dr-salman-abu-sitta-right-of-return-is.html

http://www.nobleworld.biz/images/sad_orange.pdf

http://www.bilin-village.org/english/articles/different-look/His-name-was-Basem

http://umkahlil.blogspot.com/2005/12/what-spielberg-left-out-said-reveals.html

http://umkahlil.blogspot.com/2006/06/drsalman-abu-sitta-reversing-ethnic.html

His Name Was Basem

2009-04-21T21:39:00.003+02:00

From Bil'in, A Village of Palestine

His name was Basem, which means smile, and that is how he greeted everyone. But we all called him ‘Pheel’, which means elephant because he had the body the size of an elephant. But Basem had the heart of a child.

He loved everyone, and because of his sweetness and ability to make us laugh, everyone loved him. Basem was everyone’s friend: the children talk about how he would play with them, scare them and then make them laugh. He would tend the garden in the playground and bring toys and books to the kindergarten. The old ladies in the village talk about how he used to visit, to ask after them and see if they needed anything. In the village, he seemed to be everywhere at once. He would pop in to say hello, take one puff of the nargila, and be off to his next spot. The morning he was killed he went to the house of Hamis, whose skull had been broken at a previous demonstration three months ago by a tear gas canister projectile - the same weapon that would kill Basem.

Basem woke Hamis and gave him his medicine, then off he went to visit another friend in the village who is ill with cancer. Then a little girl from the village wanted a pineapple but couldn’t find any in the local stores. So Basem went to Ramallah to get a pineapple and was back before noon for the Friday prayers and the weekly demonstration against the theft of our land by the apartheid wall. Pheel never missed a demonstration; he participated in all the activities and creative actions in Bilin. He would always talk to the soldiers as human beings. Before he was hit he was calling for the soldiers to stop shooting because there were goats near the fence and he was worried for them. Then a woman in front of him was hit. He yelled to the commander to stop shooting because someone was wounded. He expected the soldiers to understand and stop shooting. Instead, they shot him too.

People came to his funeral from all the surrounding villages to show Basem that they loved him as much as he had loved them. But those of us from Bil’in kept looking around for him, expecting him to be walking with us.

Pheel, you were everyone’s friend. We always knew we loved you, but didn’t realize how much we would miss you until we lost you. As Bil’in has become the symbol of Palestine’s popular resistance, you are the symbol of Bil’in. Sweet Pheel, Rest in Peace, we will continue in your footsteps.

— Mohammad Khatib, member of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements

Gaza War Crimes Investigation

2009-03-23T22:01:00.002+01:00

Gaza War Crimes Investigation

Dear Friends I am writing to you from Guardian Films the documentary arm of the Guardian Newspaper to bring to your attention a series of films we have produced on alleged war crimes committed by Israel during the 23-day offensive against Gaza earlier this year.

The films focus on three separate cases of alleged war crimes;

(1) The use of Palestinian children as human shields.

(2) The systematic targeting of medics and hospitals by the Israeli Army.

(3) The use of state of the art precision weapons such as UAV aircraft to fire on groups of unarmed civilians.

Three documentaries produced by Guardian Films and Clancy Chassay made during a month-long investigation add weight to calls this week for a full inquiry into the events surrounding Operation Cast Lead, which was aimed at Hamas, but which left over 1400 Palestinians dead - around 300 known to be children.

PLEASE FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW TO OUR GAZA WAR CRIMES PAGE:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/gaza-war-crimes-investigation

We are requesting from you all where possible to please embed a link to our 'Gaza War Crimes' page on your blog and web sites. Look forward to hearing from you soon

With Kindest Regards

Mustafa Khalili

Israel Does Not Target the Palestinian Civilians

2009-03-16T23:43:00.001+01:00

Excellent, informative, and heartbreaking video by Dr. Thameen
Darby.

Mahmoud Darwish:'It is the goal of my life to write poems that are claimed by children'

2009-03-12T20:31:00.005+01:00

A beautiful story, "Remembering Mahmoud Darwish," by Naomi Shihab Nye in Rethinking Schools. And a wonderful "Teaching Idea" from Linda Christensen for Darwish's "The Prison Cell."

Photo: Michael Nye

A Palestinian refugee and her poem

Naomi Shihab Nye put this picture on the cover of her collection of poetry, 19 Varieties of Gazelle — Poems of the Middle East. She was called by angry "scholars" who informed her that the poem was by Mahmud Darwish. When Nye met Darwish a week later she said to him: "'Please forgive our mistake. If this book ever gets reprinted, I promise we will give the proper credit for the verse. ' He stared closely at the picture. Tears ran down his cheeks. 'Don't correct it,' he said. 'It is the goal of my life to write poems that are claimed by children.'"

I think that it is important to thank publications that recognize Palestinians in such a positive way. My letter to the editor:

Dear Editor,

It is with profound gratitude that I thank you for publishing Naomi Shihab Nye's "Remembering Mahmoud Darwish" and Linda Christensen's "Teaching Ideas: The Prison Cell." How beautiful for Nye to document Darwish's words upon learning that the refugee child had claimed his poem as her own: "'Don't correct it,' he said. 'It is the goal of my life to write poems that are claimed by children.'" I intend to incorporate Christensen's ideas for teaching "The Prison Cell" in my AP Literature classroom.

Sincerely,

Nancy Harb Almendras

Alice Walker On Obama Re Palestine: 'Our Job is to help him see . . .'

2009-03-11T20:47:00.004+01:00

(AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x281810

AMY GOODMAN: Alice Walker, can you tell us why you chose to go to Gaza at this time?

ALICE WALKER: Well, because I really love people, and I wanted to be here with the women who have lost so much in their lives. They’ve lost their homes. They’ve lost their children. And they just seem to be people I wanted to spend International Women’s Day with, so I made sure to call up Medea and get on the—in the group.

AMY GOODMAN: And where are you now? What are your travel plans in these days?

ALICE WALKER: I think we will be going to visit more refugee camps. We were visiting one this morning. We also went around and saw a lot of the places that had been bombed. This was, of course, very disturbing, and very disturbing to see the look in some of the children’s eyes. I saw two little boys being held by an older brother. He seemed to be about eight years old, and they were like five and four. And they were—they seemed to me to be children who had lost their parents. And I feel that there are a lot of children in that situation, and this is especially difficult to bear.

Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Netanyahu, and Ms. Livni Search for Coalition

2009-02-22T10:11:00.000+01:00

It is regrettable . . .

2009-02-16T16:18:00.002+01:00

In the Guardian

Whose court is the ball in?

It's regrettable that Shahar Peer has been denied a visa to play tennis in Dubai. We need dialogue to move forward, not boycotts

My comment

It is also regrettable that all those born in Palestine and their descendents have been denied their right to enter their ancestral homeland.

Precious Palestinian Boy Still Smiling And Bright Eyed

2009-02-07T20:48:00.002+01:00

When I saw this baby's picture at Jews Sans Frontieres, it was all over for me . . . love at first sight.

The Wounds of Gaza

2009-02-04T06:28:00.002+01:00

The Lancet
Global Health Network

Two Surgeons from the UK, Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr Swee Ang, managed to get into Gaza during the Israeli invasion. Here they describe their experiences, share their views, and conclude that the people of Gaza are extremely vulnerable and defenseless in the event of another attack.

The wounds of Gaza are deep and multi-layered. Are we talking about the Khan Younis massacre of 5,000 in 1956 or the execution of 35,000 prisoners of war by Israel in 1967? Yet more wounds of the First Intifada, when civil disobedience by an occupied people against the occupiers resulted in massive wounded and hundreds dead? We also cannot discount the 5,420 wounded in southern Gaza alone since 2000. Hence what we are referring to below are only that of the invasion as of 27 December 2008,

Over the period of 27 December 2008 to the ceasefire of 18 Jan 2009, it was estimated that a million and a half tons of explosives were dropped on Gaza Strip. Gaza is 25 miles by 5 miles and home to 1.5 million people. This makes it the most crowded area in the whole world. Prior to this Gaza has been completely blockaded and starved for 50 days. In fact since the Palestinian election Gaza has been under total or partial blockade for several years.

On the first day of the invasion, 250 persons were killed. Every single police station in Gaza was bombed killing large numbers of police officers. Having wiped out the police force attention was turned to non government targets. Gaza was bombed from the air by F16 and Apache helicopters, shelled from the sea by Israeli gunboats and from the land by tank artillery. Many schools were reduced to rubble, including the American School of Gaza, 40 mosques, hospitals, UN buildings, and of course 21,000 homes, 4,000 of which were demolished completely. It is estimated that 100,000 people are now homeless.

Israeli weapons

The weapons used apart from conventional bombs and high explosives also include unconventional weapons of which at least 4 categories could be identified.

Phosphorus Shells and bombs

The bombs dropped were described by eye witnesses as exploding at high altitude scattering a large canopy of phosphorus bomblets which cover a large area.

During the land invasion, eyewitnesses describe the tanks shelling into homes first with a conventional shell. Once the walls are destroyed, a second shell - a phosphorus shell is then shot into the homes. Used in this manner the phosphorus explodes and burns the families and the homes. Many charred bodies were found among burning phosphorus particles.

One area of concern is the phosphorus seems to be in a special stabilizing agent. This results in the phosphorus being more stable and not completely burning out. Residues still cover the fields, playground and compounds. They ignite when picked up by curious kids, or produce fumes when farmers return to water their fields. One returning farming family on watering their field met with clouds of fumes producing epistaxis. Thus the phosphorus residues probably treated with a stabilizer also act as anti-personnel weapons against children and make the return to normal life difficult without certain hazards.

Surgeons from hospitals are also reporting cases where after primary laparotomy for relatively small wounds with minimal contamination find on second look laparotomy increasing areas of tissue necrosis at about 3 days. Patients then become gravely ill and by about 10 days those patients needing a third relook encounter massive liver necrosis. This may or may not be accompanied by generalized bleeding , kidney failure and heart failure and death. Although acidosis, liver necrosis and sudden cardiac arrest due to hypocalcemia are known to be a complication of white phosphorus it is not possible to attribute these complications as being due to phosphorus alone.

There is real urgency to analyze and identify the real nature of this modified phosphorus as to its long term effect on the people of Gaza. There is also urgency in collecting and disposing of the phosphorus residues littering the entire Gaza Strip. As they give off toxic fumes when coming into contact with water, once the rain falls the whole area would be polluted with acid phosphorus fumes. Children should be warned not to handle and play with these phosphorus residues.

Heavy Bombs

The use of DIME (dense inert material explosives) were evident, though it is unsure whether depleted uranium were used in the south. In the civilian areas, surviving patients were found to have limbs truncated by DIME, since the stumps apart from being characteristically cut off in guillotine fashion also fail to bleed. Bomb casing and shrapnel are extremely heavy.

Fuel Air Explosives

Bunker busters and implosion bombs have been used . There are buildings especially the 8 storey Science and Technology Building of the Islamic University of Gaza which had been reduced to a pile of rubble no higher than 5-6 feet.

Silent Bombs

People in Gaza described a silent bomb which is extremely destructive. The bomb arrives as a silent projectile at most with a whistling sound and creates a large area where all objects and living things are vaporized with minimal trace. We are unable to fit this into conventional weapons but the possibility of new particle weapons being tested should be suspected.

Executions

Survivors describe Israeli tanks arriving in front of homes asking residents to come out. Children, old people and women would come forward and as they were lined up they were just fired on and killed. Families have lost tens of their members through such executions. The deliberate targeting of unarmed children and women is well documented by human right groups in the Gaza Strip over the past month.

Targeting of ambulances

Thirteen ambulances had been fired upon killing drivers and first aid personnel in the process of rescue and evacuation of the wounded.

Cluster bombs

The first patients wounded by cluster were brought into Abu Yusef Najjar Hospital. Since more than 50% of the tunnels have been destroyed, Gaza has lost part of her lifeline. These tunnels contrary to popular belief are not for weapons, though small light weapons could have been smuggled through them. However they are the main stay of food and fuel for Gaza. Palestinians are beginning to tunnel again. However it became clear that cluster bombs were dropped on to the Rafah border and the first was accidentally set of by tunneling. Five burns patients were brought in after setting off a booby trap kind of device.

Death toll

As of 25 January 2009, the death toll was estimated at 1,350 with the numbers increasing daily. This is due to the severely wounded continuing to die in hospitals. 60% of those killed were children.

Severe injuries

The severely injured numbered 5,450, with 40% being children. These are mainly large burns and polytrauma patients. Single limb fractures and walking wounded are not included in these figures.

Through our conversations with doctors and nurses the word holocaust and catastrophe were repeatedly used. The medical staff all bear the psychological trauma of the past month living though the situation and dealing with mass casualties which swamped their casualties and operating rooms. Many patients died in the Accident and Emergency Department while awaiting treatment. In a district hospital, the orthopaedic surgeon carried out 13 external fixations in less than a day.

It is estimated that of the severely injured, 1,600 will suffer permanently disabilities. These include amputations, spinal cord injuries, head injuries, large burns with crippling contractures.

Special factors

The death and injury toll is especially high in this recent assault due to several factors:

No escape: As Gaza is sealed by Israeli troops, no one can escape the bombardment and the land invasion. There is simply no escape. Even within the Gaza Strip itself, movement from north to south is impossible as Israeli tanks had cut the northern half of Gaza from the south. Compare this with the situation in Lebanon 1982 and 2006, when it was possible for people to escape from an area of heavy bombardment to an area of relative calm - there was no such is option for Gaza.

Gaza is very densely populated. It is eerie to see that the bombs used by Israel have been precision bombs. They have a hundred percent hit rate on buildings which are crowded with people. Examples are the central market, police stations. Schools, the UN compounds used as a safety shelter from bombardment, mosques (40 of them destroyed), and the homes of families who thought they were safe as there were no combatants in them and high rise flats where a single implosion bomb would destroy multiple families. This pattern of consistent targeting of civilians makes one suspect that the military targets are but collateral damage, while civilians are the primary targets.

The quantity and quality of the ammunition being used as described above.

Gaza’s lack of defense against the modern weapons of Israel. She has no tanks, no planes, no anti-aircraft missiles against the invading army. We experienced that first hand in a minor clash of Israeli tank shells versus Palestinian AK47 return fire. The forces were simply unmatched.
Absence of well constructed bomb shelters for civilians. Unfortunately these will also be no match for bunker busters possessed by the Israeli Army.

Conclusion

Taking the above points into consideration, the next assault on Gaza would be just as disastrous.

The people of Gaza are extremely vulnerable and defenseless in the event of another attack. If the International Community is serious about preventing such a large scale of deaths and injuries in the future, it will have to develop a some sort of defense force for Gaza.

Otherwise, many more vulnerable civilans will continue to die.

Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr Swee Ang

A Palestine Primer

2009-02-01T02:14:00.011+01:00

I took the train to Stuttgart with my Area Director in the Teachers’ Union last Wednesday. The Middle East came up and he told me that he knew very little about it and added that he thought that there should be some way for the people there to divide the land so that everyone would be satisfied. I tried to fill him in on over one hundred years of history in about ten minutes.

Later, I thought that if an educated American like he owned up to knowing nothing about Palestine, most likely millions more Americans know little to nothing as well. Much of the time we Palestinian-Americans engage with people who are like-minded and assume that people know a lot more about Palestine than they actually do.

I’m thinking that it would be helpful to have a Palestine primer in order to educate people, a one page handout to explain the story of the Palestinians.

OK, a lot of my students don't know the difference between Palestine and Pakistan, so check out the links if you are already confused.

So let me begin to try to tell you a little bit about Palestine. First of all, have a look at Palestine’s Jaffa City, which Lawrence of Cyberia has rendered beautifully in "Those People in Gaza: Where Do They Come From, And Why Are They So Mad?”

One will note from this blog post that Jaffa, which is now a part of Israel, was a cosmopolitan Palestinian-Arab city over one hundred years ago. In 1948, Jaffa’s population included 70,000 Palestinian Arabs. After 1948, only 7,000 Palestinian Arabs remained in Jaffa. Many of them left Jaffa on boats headed for Lebanon and Gaza, the very same boats with which they used to export their famous oranges, since appropriated by the Israelis. Since my companion to Stuttgart, my inspiration for this primer, is an art teacher, I’ll include Palestinian artist Tamam Al Akal Shammout’s painting (above) which depicts the fleeing refugees.

What happened to cause this exodus?

We have to go back to Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, when Theodor Herzl, a Jew, founded political Zionism, which is the idea that European Jews should go to Palestine and form a Jewish state. It was little concern to him that Palestine was already occupied by Palestinian-Arabs, who comprised a thriving and well-developed society. The Jews didn’t want to come to Palestine and blend in to live with the people already there; they wanted the land without its people; i.e., an ethnically pure Jewish state. And so one of many Zionist lies came into being: that Palestine was a land without a people for a people without a land.

After World War I, the British administered Palestine. They made it very easy for European Jews to immigrate to Palestine. The “Jewish” lobby that now influences the US Congress, was quite effective in influencing the British powers that be. Palestinians were alarmed at the influx of Jews, whose purpose was to create a “Jewish” state in a land that was predominantly Palestinian-Arab. What ultimately happened is that Palestine was partitioned. By 1947, Jewish immigrants comprised thirty-three percent of the population of Palestine. They were granted fifty-five percent of Palestine for their “Jewish” state, although they owned only six percent of the land. Who would agree to such a plan? And why would a Palestinian Arab who lived in Ramallah, but had business in another part of Palestine, want to see his country rendered asunder? Raja Shehadeh, writes in Palestinian Walks how difficult it was for his refugee father to leave cosmopolitan Jaffa for the relatively provincial Ramallah.

The Zionist Jews also realized that they couldn’t very well have a “Jewish” state if the majority of its inhabitants were Palestinian. So they embarked on a systematic ethnic cleansing campaign. Their propagandists still proffer that “tiny” Israel was besieged by four Arab armies, yet no Arab armies entered Palestine until half of the 750,000 Palestinians who were ultimately expelled, had already been ethnically cleansed from their towns and villages.

The Palestinan refugees, who were expelled to Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, saw their homes, their orchards, their businesses taken over by Jewish immigrants. The refugees who tried to return were shot. Many refugees ended up in Ramallah, my father’s hometown, which was administered by Jordan after 1948. Israel demolished at least four hundred and eighteen Palestinian villages to wipe out Palestinian culture, which is genocide, and also to ensure that the refugees would have nothing to which to return. They also depopulated 675 towns and villages of their Palestinian inhabitants. To this day, in spite of UN Resolutions and in contravention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Israel refuses to let the Palestinian refugees and their descendants return to the land of their birth and the place of their heritage.

After the Six Day War of 1967, Israel ended up occupying the rest of Palestine. Again, in contravention of international law, they’ve moved hundreds of thousands of settlers on Palestinian territory and subject the Palestinians in these areas to apartheid practices.

I read in This Week in Palestine about contemporary Jaffa. Only one Palestinian pharmacy remains in Jaffa today. As a person of Palestinian background, my heart is broken when I contemplate the destruction that the Zionist invaders have carried out in the land where my father was born. It is an ongoing decimation of Palestinian life. Raja Shehadeh, upon contemplation of the destruction of his beloved hills, conveys the irony inherent in Zionism: “Beautiful wadis, springs, cliffs, and ancient ruins were destroyed by those who claim a superior love of the land.”

I see that I have exceeded the one page limitation I put on myself. All that I have in my heart about Palestine takes more than one page. When I see a dead Palestinian teenage boy, I see my own son, Kahlil. When I see an old respectable man in an old-fashioned suit holding his granddaughter, I see my father. This man (pictured above) was a judge, the father of Akram Fares, a journalist for the British Independent. His father was recently killed by Israeli soldiers while he was walking to the gate in front of his farm.

The Zionists are very adept at spin. The people of the United States acknowledge that slavery was a crime. The people of South Africa acknowledge that apartheid was a crime. The Zionists figure out ways to work a story to excuse their heinous crimes, and they know how to work the system to get their lies published in the Washington Post. Recently at the Davos Forum, Israel’s President Shimon Peres in shrill abusive tones in fractured English spewed out words justifying the recent murder of 1300 people in Gaza. He and his fellow Zionists have been getting away with murder, theft and the destruction of Palestinian society and culture for over sixty years now. The audience politely clapped at the end of his sophomoric rant. This was too much for the Turkish prime minister who got right into the self-righteous old murderer’s face and called him a “killer.” He also admonished the audience for applauding the killer.

People seem to be talking more about Palestinian history now and the roots of the conflict. I am hopeful that this will aid everyone’s understanding. The Zionists don’t want the Palestinians to return to their original villages and towns from where they were expelled in 1948 because then the Jews won’t be a majority in Israel anymore. Today’s Palestinian refugees and their descendents number in the millions. Another irony is that they can go to Brazil; they can go to the US; they can go anywhere in the world if they’re lucky enough to immigrate, but they can’t go back to the village or town in historic Palestine (now called Israel) from which they or their parents came. But your next door neighbor in Florida or New Jersey, who has never set foot in the Holy Land, may immigrate to Israel and become an instant citizen.

So, there you have it. The Zionists like to say how "complicated" it all is. It' actually quite simple. Zionism is racism. It excludes the indigenous population from living on much of its own land and it wiped out most of Palestine’s heritage by systematically bombing its villages. The Zionists almost completely wiped out a thriving and well-developed society in 1948 and have done a pretty good job of colonizing and destroying the rest of Palestine they took over in 1967. Israel has no “right” to exist on stolen lands which belong to the refugees. The dismantling of Israel as an ethnocentric state which privileges Jews at the expense of its indigenous Palestinian-Arab inhabitants is just and right, just as the eradication of a state policy that instituted slavery was right. The Zionist Jews will have to get over themselves and own up to their crimes. We’re never going to forget our heritage and we’re never going to surrender and become the accomplices of our own dispossession. The right of return to one’s home is enshrined in international law. It’s about time more people stand up to the thuggish, bullying, thieving, dissembling, home wrecking Zionists, just like decent people gave no quarter to slavery and apartheid.

Pictured Above: Uprooting

At dawn on April 28, 1948, armed Zionists over-ran Jaffa, and forced the townspeople out of their homes at gunpoint. The terrorized citizens were forced into boats and driven out to sea, pursued by a hail of Israeli bombs and bullets. Tamam Al-Akhal, 1998

Picture of Akrem al-Ghoul, the father of the Indepedent's reporter Fares Akram

See "The death and life of my father"

A STORY OF A CHILD-(Dalal from Gaza)-English Subtitle

2009-01-28T00:08:00.001+01:00

Unconfirmed: Gaza Children Murdered by Israeli Soldier in Front of Mother

2009-01-27T06:27:00.002+01:00

Unconfirmed: Gaza Children Murdered by Israeli Soldier in Front of Mother

Barbara Lubin and all of us at the Middle East Children's Alliance believe that we should have confirmed the story about the Gaza woman who was told by an Israeli soldier to choose which five of her ten children should die, and then witnessed their murder. We are doing everything we can now to verify the story, but have been unable to do so. We ask that you do not publish or post this story on the Internet. If you have already done so, please post this statement, as well.

Barbara Lubin went to Gaza to deliver four tons of medicine and other aid to the people there. When she arrived in the immediate aftermath of the Israeli assault the scene she encountered was chaotic and the people traumatized. She heard and retold many horrifying accounts, and saw for herself the devastation to homes, schools, businesses, land and lives. In these catastrophic circumstances, it’s not difficult to see how Barbara would find this story credible. Unfortunately, we sent it out before taking the time to verify it.

We know that several hundred children lost their lives in the assault, and that some appear to have been shot at close range. There are reports of family members being shot in front of each other. Israeli forces entered Gaza homes and apparently used people as human shields. Israel is now being investigated for using unconventional weapons like white phosphorous and dense inert metal explosive (DIME). (See links below.)

All of us at MECA are committed to accuracy as we relate the stories of what we see when we travel to Palestine. We will keep you informed about what we learn.

Doctors at a hospital near Gaza are almost overwhelmed by the number of Palestinian children needing treatment for bullet wounds to their heads.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/ palestinianauthority/4279102/Bullets-in-the-brain-shrapnel-in-the- spine-the-terrible-injuries-suffered-by-children-of-Gaza.html

Israel accused of executing parents in front of children in Gazahttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/ 4309611/Israel-accused-of-executing-parents-in-front-of-children-in- Gaza.html

Gaza 'human shields' criticised
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7818122.stm

Outcry Over Israel's War Crimes
http://www.jkcook.net/Articles2/0361.htm#Top

Gaza family recounts day of horror
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-zeitoun26 -2009jan26,0,7849544.story?page=2

'Tungsten bombs' leave Israel's victims with mystery wounds
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/tungsten-bombs- leave-israels-victims-with-mystery-wounds-1418910.html

Deborah Agre
Middle East Children's Alliance
1101 Eighth Street, Suite 100
Berkeley, CA 94710
ph: (510) 548-0542
fx: (510) 548-0543
www.mecaforpeace.org
FOR GAZA:GAZA CHILDREN'S VIGIL AND MEMORIAL
HELP MECA SEND MEDICINE: https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=1171

Help Rebuild Gaza Community Mental Health Program

2009-01-25T17:34:00.002+01:00

For Immediate Release
January 25, 2009
Help Rebuild Gaza Community Mental Health Program

Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, is seeking financial donations to assist the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP), which has suffered massive damage to its headquarters during the recent Israeli bombardment.

Help is needed urgently. At this moment in the Gaza strip, the destruction caused by the recent murderous Israeli assault has resulted in patients being out of touch with health care professionals. The victims of the recent military action are in dire need of medical assistance to deal with the consequences of war-induced trauma.

Concern has been raised among health care professionals world-wide. These professionals have called for immediate actions of solidarity to help combat the lasting impacts of murderous bombardment, ground invasion and carnage in Gaza. Those most affected in the Gaza Strip are the elderly, women and children who are at the greatest risk of long term mental health problems.

While the number of people in need of help is increasing fast there are little resources to help. As a consequence of the continued bombardment and blockade, the Gaza Strip has witnessed a terrifying growth in mental health problems with victims suffering from stress related conditions including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Medical sources have even noted how some mental health workers have needed to receive counseling themselves to enable them to cope with the terrors which have been imposed upon their patients. Mental health services within the Gaza strip are "over-stretched"and lack substantial funds. Without a properly functioning Gaza Mental Health Program in the Gaza Strip, patients will continue to suffer and will remain at a great risk.

The staff of The Gaza Community Mental Health Program provide crucial and irreplaceable mental health services to thousands of Gaza residents with aspecial emphasis on vulnerable groups such as children, women, and victims of torture and human rights violations. For more information about the program, see http://www.gcmhp.net/

How you can help: To help with the reconstruction of the Gaza Community
Mental Health Program, please donate online at http://www.al-awda.org .

Alternatively please address your check or money order to:

Al-Awda, PRRCPO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA

Thank you for your support.

When Exactly Did Israel Lose Its Soul?

2009-01-25T15:19:00.010+01:00

In 2009? Lina Hassan (2000-2009)

From 2000-2008?

1050 Palestinian Children Killed

In 1987 when the Prime Minister ordered Israeli soldiers to "break the bones" of Palestinian demonstrators?

In 1982? Sabra and Chatila

In 1967?
Approximately thirty-five percent of the Palestinian population of the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip were expelled during the 1967 war.

Or was it in 1956?

Kafr Qasem massacre?

Was it as early as 1948?

When "more than 500 Palestinian villages were depopulated and later destroyed to prevent the return of the refugees"?

'Our Houses, Our Futures, Our Hopes, and Our Hearts'

2009-01-25T11:29:00.001+01:00

And What About the Sensiblilities of the Palestinian Untermenschen

2009-01-25T04:46:00.003+01:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2009/jan/25/readers-editor

The readers' editor on ... the important line between argument and insult

The reason this comment will have come down is because it directly compares Israel with Nazi Germany," a moderator told me. "Though it may not be intended as such, this sort of comment is deeply offensive to Jewish readers of all political stripes and alienates them from discussion in a way that undermines the conversation all round. Our aim is to make space for constructive and inclusive dialogue, so we take such references down in line with our community standards, which state, 'We understand that people often feel strongly about issues debated on the site, but we will consider removing any content that others might find extremely offensive or threatening.' " read more

My response to the editorial above:

Dear Mr. Pritchard:

It is four AM in the morning, and I am plagued by images of Palestinian children bandaged from head to toe and with injuries the likes of which doctors have never seen before. And when I see Palestinians living in tents today, I recall images of Palestinians in tents in 1948. I read reports of Palestinian children shot at close range with bullets through their brains in 2009, and I am reminded of reports of Palestinian children shot at close range through their brains in 2002. And I remember the order of Yitzak Rabin to break the bones of Palestinian kids who picked up rocks in 1987. And I recall kids trapped for days in their houses in 2002 in Nablus watching their parents bleed to death as I read in January 2009 about a father trapped in his car for twenty hours helpless as his son bled to death, while the other son was dead in the street. And I read how a soldier defecated in a Palestinian lady's cooking pot in 2002, and I am reading today how soldiers urinate and defecate in the houses in Gaza that they comandeered. And I remember that Sderot is built on the village lands of Najd, a defaced and depopulated Palestinian village, one of over four hundred destroyed and depopulated Palestinian villages from 1948. And I see poor refugees, some of whom may originally be from Najd, some originally from Jaffa, some originally from Ashkelon, some originally from Bir Saba, picking through the rubble of their destroyed village today so kindly bear with me if the furthest thing from my mind is the sensibilities of the perpetrators of these outrages against God and humanity.

Nancy Harb Almendras

Israelis' Slow, Tenacious Genocide Spans Decades

2009-01-24T03:30:00.003+01:00

When I saw the photos of the slaughtered Palestinian children in the Guardian's photo gallery and when I read Rory McCarthy's story,
I thought of Samia Halaby's MEMORIAL on the 50th Anniversary of the Kafr Qasem Massacre.

"Adham Mutair (large photo), 17, was shot by Israeli troops at his home near Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza, on 9 January. Israeli tanks had taken up positions in the area around the houses and the family had been trapped inside their home for a week. Adham went upstairs to the roof to check on their pigeons, which were housed in a large hut. As he stepped out into the open, he was shot three times and collapsed. Two of his brothers carried him out of the house along a back route. Using a motorcycle and then a car, they carried him to the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. He died the next day. Most of the family could not get out of the house to make it to the burial. 'We haven't even had a chance to set up a funeral tent to mourn him properly,' said his uncle, Khader, 53. 'I don't think the rest of the world understands how painful our lives are here.'" Rory McCarthy in "Child casualities of Israel's War on Gaza."

Pictured in the small photo is Abdalkarim Salim Nuwwara Freij, 14 years old. He died in the seventh wave of the Kafr Qasem massacre in 1956.

From Palestinian artist Samia Halaby

"Fifty years ago, on October 29, 1956, 49 Palestinian residents of Kafr Qasem were murdered by Israeli border police who at that time were officially attached to the military. Countless more were wounded and left bleeding and unattended. Their families were unable to offer aid because of a 24 hour curfew lasting for some two days and three nights. Violation of the curfew was punishable by death. In the following two days (while the families were thus imprisoned in their homes) the Israelis unceremoniously buried the victims without permission, or the presence of witnesses. On the following morning, the unattended wounded who had helplessly lain in the streets were torn away from their deceased loved ones, thrown into trucks (not ambulances) and hauled off to hospitals. This deliberate massacre had been planned in advance to coincide with the Israeli and Anglo-French attack on the Suez canal."

Israeli Soldiers Play 'Sophie's Choice' With Palestinian Mothers

2009-01-24T02:58:00.010+01:00

Update: This story is unconfirmed

The sickening horrors to which the Zionists have subjected the Palestinians for more than sixty years defy credulity. I received this message from Barbara Lubin, founder of Middle East Children's Alliance today:

I entered the Gaza Strip on Wednesday night with my friend and fellow activist Sharon Wallace after waiting ten hours at the Egypt/Gaza. The destruction and trauma is even greater than I expected. In just two short days I met with families who were given minutes to evacuate their homes and are now living in overcrowded UN schools; I saw the ruins of bombed greenhouses; I looked out the window at fields and roads torn up by the tread of Israeli tanks; and I visited two universities where MECA supports students with scholarships-severely damaged by Israeli bombs.

Out of all the devastation I have seen so far, there is one story in particular that I think the world needs to hear. I met a mother who was at home with her ten children when Israeli soldiers entered the house. The soldiers told her she had to choose five of her children to "give as a gift to Israel." As she screamed in horror they repeated the demand and told her she could choose or they would choose for her. Then these soldiers murdered five of her children in front of her. The concept of "Jewish morality" is truly dead. We can be fascists, terrorists, and Nazis just like everybody else.

I spent the first morning visiting Rafah then drove north to Nuseirat Refugee Camp where our partner organization Afaq Jadeeda Association is buying food a delivering cooked meal to displaced families with funds MECA provided. Then to Gaza City.

Today I visited Jabaliya Refugee Camp and the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City, two of the areas hardest hit by Israel's brutal attacks. Pharmacies, schools, and homes were indiscriminately hit in Jabaliya. Mohammed, one of our volunteers in Gaza, and his family were forced to evacuate their home because of intense bombing in their area. In Zaytoun, I saw families gathering wood from charred trees. The almost two-year blockade of Gaza has deprived people cooking gas, so these terrified families build fires to keep warm and cook the little food they can get.

I talked to people on the street who told stories of wild dogs coming to eat their dead neighbors, relatives bleeding to death because Israel would not allow emergency workers into the area, and Israeli soldiers entering homes to beat and kill.

But despite the immense mourning and devastation, people are starting to put their lives back together. Sabreen, a young woman from Rafah, told me, "We are a strong people. No matter how many times Israel bombs us we are not leaving. We will keep trying to live as normal a life as possible."

Sincerely, Barbara Lubin
Gaza City, Gaza, Palestine

web: http://www.mecaforpeace.org/

Also see Bullets in the brain, shrapnel in the spine: the terrible injuries suffered by children of Gaza

Doctors at a hospital near Gaza are almost overwhelmed by the number of Palestinian children needing treatment for bullet wounds to their heads.

Regev Loses It on TV Dissembling Re Flechettes and White Phosphorous

2009-01-23T03:09:00.003+01:00

Mark Regev, Zionist Minister of Propaganda Loses it

Channel 4's compelling evidence of flechettes, white phosphorus, and dime bombs

Palestinians Arabs Are Rightful Owners of Najd (so-called Sderot)

2009-01-22T23:53:00.003+01:00

The Guardian's Comment is Free commentators take on the Zionist hasbarists. My comment below on an odious post by one of Israel's apologists. a

Sderot, established in 1951 and Or ha-Ner, established in 1957, sit atop the village lands of Najd. According to Village Statistics from the 1945 Mandatory government, Palestinians own 12,669 dunums of land (ninety-five percent of which was cultivated before their expulsion) to which the Israeli government forbids them to return, while Jews owned 495 dunums of uncultivated land.
The villagers were expelled on 13 May 1948. Many villagers who attempted to return to their lands were shot.

In 1596, according to Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi in All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948, Najd had 215 inhabitants. In 1945, 620 Palestinian Arabs were living in 82 houses.

Zaid Nabulsi in his precise and humorous "Zionism is an incurable disease" pegs the attitudes of the usurpers:

"To deny the orchestrated eradications of hundreds of Palestinian villages in 1948 and then denounce the Israeli historians who later exposed this truth as self-hating Jews is compulsive forgery.

"To claim that having escaped the horrors of the Nazis is a justification for the murder, expulsion and occupation of another, guiltless, people is moral incapacity.

"To legislate that any resident of Poland, New York or Brazil, who happens to be blessed with a Jewish mother (yet cannot point to Palestine on the map), has a right to 'return' and settle in Palestine, unlike someone who has been expelled from his own land, confined to a squalid refugee camp and still holds the keys to his house, is racism."

Zionism is an incurable disease of the mind

2009-01-22T01:34:00.004+01:00

http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=13464

By Zaid Nabulsi

I lost my gloves one day in a coffee shop in Geneva, and I tell you, it's difficult to ride without them when it's really cold. So as I was paying for a new pair with a credit card, the salesman, whom I knew was from Israel, tried to start some small talk by asking me what my family name means. I told him that it relates to the city of Nablus where my family is originally from.

Suddenly, the most bewildered look was plastered on his face. "Where is Nablus?" he asked, "I've never heard of it." Then, after realizing that I knew he was bullshitting me, he pretended to remember, "Ah, Shkheim you mean?"

With my insistence not to learn these ugly names that the deranged Zionists have dug up from oblivion to erase our identity, that name certainly didn't ring a bell. But now it was my turn. Although I knew where he was from, I asked "And you're… from?" As he smiled while reminding me, I replicated the same look on his face moments ago. "Israel? Where is that?"

Then after a brief pause, "Ah, the land of Canaan you mean. Palestine".

You see if you want to get biblical on me, there is no such thing as Israel either, and I made that clear to this smartass. Here we were all of a sudden; my family descended from a place called Shkheim, and this guy a Palestinian. God does work in mysterious ways, but I still thanked Him for His small mercies that at least my name was not Zaid Shkheimy. "Have a nice day", I told my Israeli friend. It was in fact a very cold, but still magnificently sunny day to hit the roads. The gloves warmed up my grip on the bike, but my heart was still frozen. I just cannot stand thieves who steal your gloves, or any other kind of thieves.

It was then that it finally occurred to me. Zionism is a sickness, for it takes much more than just a twisted ideology to make people think like that. It requires a profound leap of immorality of a higher order to instill this mentality in your followers. Zionism is not merely a political movement, but in its essence represents a deeply disturbed view of the world, which is a reflection of a terrible disease of the mind.

Indeed, to deny the existence of a vibrant community such as the Palestinian society in the early twentieth century and describe Palestine as "a land without a people for a people without a land" is a disease of the mind.

To assert property claims over real estate after the lapse of more than 2000 years with the same certainty of title as if one resided there yesterday is a disease of the mind.

To describe the colonial immigration to Palestine of a European people with no proven historical link to the ancient Israelites – and whose great, great recorded ancestors have never set foot there – as some kind of a "return" to that land is indicative of a perverted misunderstanding and misapplication of the verb to "return" and can only be a result of a disease of the mind.

To blame the Palestinians for being unreasonable in rejecting a partition plan in 1947 which gave the Jews, who only owned 7 percent of the land, an astonishing half of Palestine, is a disease of the mind.

To demand of the Arabs at the time to peacefully succumb to such partition, where 86 percent of the land designated for the proposed Jewish state was Palestinian-inhabited and owned land, is a disease of the mind.

To eventually grab 78 percent of Palestine through war and to force the flight of the population through deliberate massacres and then call it a war of independence is a disease of the mind.

To deny the orchestrated massacres and eradications of hundreds of Palestinian villages in 1948 and then denounce the Israeli historians who later exposed this truth as self-hating Jews is a disease of the mind.

To claim that having escaped the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, and Dachau is a justification for the murder, expulsion, and occupation of another guiltless people is a disease of the mind.

To legislate that any resident of Poland, Hungary, New York, Brazil, Australia, Iceland, or even Planet Mars, who happens to be blessed with a Jewish mother (yet cannot point to Palestine on the map) has a superior right to "return" and settle in Palestine to someone who has been expelled from his very own land, confined to a squalid refugee camp, and still holds the keys to his house, is a disease of the mind.

To blame God for the theft and occupation of someone else's land by claiming that it was He who had pledged this land exclusively to the Jews, and to seriously promote the myth of a land promised by the Almighty to His favorite children as an excuse for this crime, is a disease of the mind.

To milk the pockets of the world for the atrocities of the Nazis, while stubbornly refusing a simple admission of guilt, let alone compensation or repatriation, for the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people is a disease of the mind.

To keep reminding and blackmailing the world of the plight of the Jews under Hitler 70 years ago, while at the same time inflicting on the Palestinians today the same fate of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, is a disease of the mind.

To impose a collective guilt overshadowing Western civilization for the Holocaust and then to criminalize all legitimate historical debate of the nature and extent of that horrific event is a disease of the mind.

To virtually incarcerate the Palestinian people inside degrading cages, destroying their livelihoods, confiscating their lands, stealing their water and uprooting their trees, and then to condemn their legitimate resistance as terrorism is a disease of the mind.

To believe you have the right to chase the Palestinians into an Arab capital city in 1982 and to indiscriminately bombard its civilians for a relentless three months, murdering thousands of innocent people is a disease of the mind.

To encircle the civilian camps of Sabra and Chatila after evacuating the fighters and to unleash on them trained dogs (while providing them with night-illuminating flares for efficiency) and then deny culpability for the carnage is a disease of the mind.

To publicly declare a policy of breaking the bones of Palestinian stone-throwers to prevent them from lifting stones again and to enact this policy is a disease of the mind.

To have the sadistic streak of exacting vengeance on the innocent families of suicide bombers by punishing them with the dynamiting of their home is a disease of the mind.

To describe the offer of giving the Palestinians 80 percent of 22 percent of 100 percent of what is originally their own land as a "generous" offer is a disease of the mind.

To believe that you have the right to continue to humiliate the Palestinians at gun point by making them queue for hours to move between their villages, forcing mothers to give birth at check-points is a disease of the mind.

To flatten the camp of Jenin on its inhabitants and deny any wrongdoing is a delusional condition which is symptomatic of a serious disease of the mind.

To build a huge separation wall under the pretext of security, which disconnects farmers from their farms and children from their schools, while stealing even more territory as the wall freely zigzags and encroaches on Palestinian land is a disease of the mind.

To leave behind, in the last 10 days of a losing war in Lebanon, more than one million cluster bombs which have no purpose except to murder and maim unsuspecting civilians is a product of an evil disease of the mind.

To believe that the entire world is out to get you and to denounce any critic of the racist policies of the State of Israel as an anti-Semite, the latest victim being none other than peace-making Jimmy Carter, is an acute stage of mass paranoia, which is a disease of the mind.

To possess, in the midst of a non-nuclear Arab world, more than 200 nuclear warheads capable of incinerating the whole planet in addition to having the most advanced arsenal of weaponry in the world while continuing to play the role of a victim is a disease of the mind.

Yes, and for that salesman in peaceful Geneva to be so insecure as to refuse to acknowledge the name of the largest West Bank city under his country's brutal military occupation is, sadly, nothing but an infectious disease of the mind.

That's all what it is, ladies and gentlemen: Zionism is an incurable disease of the mind.

The writer is an attorney, partner in Nabulsi & Associates law firm. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.

14 January 2009

An Excursion to the Gaza War: An Adventure for Young and Old

2009-01-21T06:08:00.001+01:00

http://www3.ndr.de:80/sendungen/extra_3/media/extra548.html

German TV video of young and old Israelis, enjoying refreshments and the burning of Gaza. One young woman with an American accent says: "It should be all be razed to the ground. I'm just a little bit facist."

Thanks to Claudia

Those Who Would Co-Exist Are Not Immune

2009-01-19T17:43:00.003+01:00

In this video one sees hateful Israelis vilifying Dr. Abu Eish, who just lost three of his daughters and his niece in a rocket attack on his house.

Advocates of co-existence fare no better than any other Palestinian. Ask the villagers of Deir Yassin, Kafr Birim, and Iqrit, who were advocates of co-existence with their Jewish neighbors. Deir Yassin was the site of an infamous massacre and the villagers of Kafr Birim and Iqrit, mainly Christian, were invited by Zionists to witness the destruction of their villages on a Christmas Eve, in the case of Iqrit.

A young woman was asked to compare Barack Obama's inaguration with Dr. Martin Luther King's March on Washington. She said that she was too young to remember Dr. King's March on Washington, but that even a bigger event than Obama's ascent to the presidency would be when Dr. King's dream is realized. That day has not yet arrived.

Not when Palestinian children are shot through the head. Not when medics are fired upon. Not when a father trapped in his car in full view of Israeli soldiers watches his son bleed to death for twenty hours. Not when Palestinians are denied their inalienable right to return to their ancestral homes and villages. Not when the United States' first African-American president is cowed into silence over the deaths in twenty days of hundreds of Palestinian children. Not when children's homes are demolished while they are in them. Not when whole families are massacred. Not when soldiers tell hundreds in one clan to asssemble in one house and then blow up the house while they are in it. Not when people with white flags are fired upon. Not when theh least of our brothers, the Palestinians, are vilified and dehumanised by the mayor of New York, the governor of New York, the entire US Senate, and all but five of the House of Representatives.

Israeli soldiers like to defecate and urinate all over the houses that they take over. They speak of "purifying" an area when they kill Palestinians. Rory McCarthy reports here of graffiti found in the house of one of the Sammounis in Zeitoun, where at least forty-eight members of one family were massacred: Arabs Need to Die.

The Israelis don't want to sully Barack Obama's inaguration with too much blood so they've announced that they will pull out of Gaza before his inaguration. How very civil and considerate of them. Let us ponder who will design Michelle's dress while Palestinians dig their loved ones out of the rubble and clean up the defecation and urine, the calling cards of the Israeli soldiers.

Trauma and Terror in Gaza

2009-01-17T00:29:00.002+01:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/16/gaza-middleeast/print

Sami Abdu-Shafi

I never imagined I would, but now I know what it feels like to be stalked by death. Last week, I had just arrived for an engagement at a media building in Gaza City only to find the studio crew huddled in fear and peering out of the window. An Israeli rocket had just landed, killing four pedestrians close to where the car that drove me had turned just minutes prior. On Thursday night, media offices in that same building were rocketed by Israel's air force. Later the same evening, I called on relatives who live about 100m from our house. On my way back, one of Israel's angry jets, which have covered Gaza's skies for more than 20 days now, seemed to release a bomb. Suddenly panicking, I let go of my torch and, unable to see anything in the dark, crouched on the sidewalk – even though I knew that would be no protection from an F-16's bomb if it landed nearby. I was lucky; the bomb never came – it was just my anxiety.

But for ordinary Gazans, this is a real fear; it is hard to take seriously Israel's claims that it is not deliberately targeting civilians. I am still alive, but I feel I am losing hope. How can we rebuild the Gaza Strip once this all ends when we fear even to raise ours heads? Our business and commerce had already been destroyed by the long blockade. Now, Gaza's public sector and civil institutions, as well as a hospital and several clinics and schools, have been reduced to rubble. Gaza's civilian population is left without any safety net or feasible means of subsistence.

While the world witnesses from afar the tragic destruction, death and injury visited on Gaza, with grim effects on its civilians, the international community is deliberately shielded from how it is carried out by Israel's refusal to admit foreign media to Gaza. It has been incredibly traumatising for ordinary people here to be subjected repeatedly to massive and simultaneous attacks from air, sea and land, in assaults that seem to target large areas at once. For the people of Gaza, it is a process of psychological torture – like being in prison and hearing a guard beating an inmate in the cell next door. It is only the Gaza Strip's community spirit that has come to the rescue. Those who have a generator running on benzene exchange a few extra litres of diesel, if they have it, with some excess benzene someone else may have. Those who run out of cash borrow from friends to buy basic necessities if they can find them. Friends and family offer their homes to each other when families evacuate their homes under fire. Incredibly, as I ran out of cash while banks are closed, a poor man I had helped for years offered to come to my rescue with a few hundred Israeli shekels – less than £100 – he had set aside for "dark days". Those days are here, and no friend or neighbour can now replenish our dwindling water supply or other necessities.With most of Gaza's deposed government officials forced into hiding for protection since the war began, and as the Palestinian National Authority, based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, is distant and so weakened as to be unable to help even if it wanted to, Gaza's ordinary people feel lost and abandoned. After having already endured siege and shortage, they are without resources to withstand Israel's onslaught.

As the war rages on, we wonder whether part of Israel's strategy is to engineer a reinstalled PNA presence in Gaza. But most believe that the PNA will not permit itself to reenter Gaza "on an Israeli tank", and hope instead for some kind of rapprochement with Hamas, particularly in Gaza.Israel's government created a much graver problem for itself than Palestinian rockets landing in southern Israeli towns. It is the profound disrespect of Gaza's population towards it for having slipped into what people clearly feel is a brutally disproportionate and deliberately abusive war, in the name of stopping rocket fire. It would not have escaped severe criticism from its own people either, had Israelis not been exposed to censored news as journalists and diplomats have been barred from entering war-torn Gaza.

On January 7, in what Gazans saw as a transparent manoeuvre to divert the attention of an increasingly critical international community from the scandal of its attack on a United Nations-run school in Gaza, the IDF announced a daily three-hour ceasefire, to allow residents to secure their basic needs in safety. It was also meant to facilitate the entry of trucks with limited supplies through a "humanitarian corridor" into the Gaza Strip. On the first day, during the period of its effect, three sisters were reportedly killed in Jabalia in northern Gaza. Unmanned surveillance drones and air force planes continued to patrol the skies, impatiently waiting to resume hammering Gaza after the brief respite.

What Israel's government seems not to understand is how the entire Gaza Strip is now united in resistance to protect its dignity and right to a peaceful and prosperous life. Despite what Israeli officials say, I see little evidence that ordinary people in Gaza have changed their position on the firing of rockets. What Israel continues to miss is that when people are harshly deprived of such basic needs, rights and simple hope, they become increasingly desperate. One unfortunate symptom of that has been the launching of rockets. We wish they would stop, and they had, until Israel broke the truce with Hamas on November 4 and tightened the grip of its blockade.It is an illusion that Palestinians can be beaten into submission; this will not bring long-term stability. Instead, a never-before-seen solidarity with Gaza's plight has emerged the world over. Surely this must shake Israel's policymakers awake.

Gazans eagerly await the success of Egypt's initiative to enact a ceasefire. However, they also see how complex and delicate Egypt's role is, especially as Gazans are suspicious that Israel would be eager to maintain control over Gaza by a policy of "divide and rule". We appreciate that Egypt is rightly wary of any move that would compromise the notion of a contiguous Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem. For the same reason, many, like me, are anxious to see an early end to political divisions on the Palestinian side.

Once the war has ended, the US, UK and the other major European countries must challenge Israel's rogue policies and realign a misguided peace process. In the absence of a genuine and just peace with Israel, merely pouring vast funds in aid and development to rebuild Gaza's ruined infrastructure will only paper over a failed process and Palestinians' forgotten rights.

All of Our Humanity Is At Stake

2009-01-16T23:30:00.001+01:00

Palestine Center for Human Rights, Gaza

All Of Our Humanity Is At Stake

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) has documented death and destruction across the Gaza Strip throughout the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) ongoing military operation in the Gaza Strip. Since December 27, 2008, the IOF have killed at least 983 Palestinians in Gaza. 85% of the victims are civilians, and 35% of them are children. In addition, more than four thousand Palestinians in Gaza have been maimed and injured by IOF. Thousands of civilian objects, including homes and schools have been destroyed. The UN estimates that 35,500 civilians are now being housed in shelters it is providing for internally displaced civilians across the Gaza Strip.

As thousands of IOF surge into Gaza City amidst intense bombardment and shelling, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians are now sheltering in homes, schools and other buildings, in fear for their lives. Reports indicate that the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) compound in Gaza city has been shelled, that Al Quds Hospital in Gaza city, which is within the compound of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) is now on fire, and that IOF are also surrounding the Al Aqsa Hospital in Gaza city. However, PCHR staff are unable to verify these reports as they too are now sheltering in their homes, and homes of friends and relatives in fear for their lives.

IOF are also continuing to use incendiary bombs in densely populated residential areas across the Gaza Strip. These weapons, which have not been formally identified, are causing horrific injuries to civilians, including second and third deep burns, suffocation and severe eye pains. Doctors at the Burns Unit in Al-Shifa hospital have been forced to carry out amputations on patients who have been maimed by these bombs. PCHR is gravely concerned these bombs may contain white phosphorous.

PCHR have published numerous press releases detailing IOF war crimes throughout this military onslaught, and have repeatedly demanded the international community act immediately in order to stop the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip. As the civilian death toll continues to rise, the Centre reiterates its repeated demand for international responsibility, and action, in order to the ongoing atrocities being inflicted upon the 1.5 million civilians of the Gaza Strip.
International Humanitarian Law represents a bare minimum, a threshold which, in the interests of humanity, must not be crossed. It is apparent that IOF have systematically and repeatedly violated this humanitarian threshold, and in doing so are committing war crimes against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. The 194 High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions – virtually the entire international community – have a legal obligation to ensure respect for the Conventions in all circumstances. They have a further legal obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and to bring them to justice; before their own courts if necessary.

The civilian population of the Gaza Strip is entitled to enjoy the rights enshrined in international human rights and humanitarian law. But all of their lives are now in danger because of the relentless IOF military campaign in the Gaza Strip. The international community must act immediately in order to save the lives of civilians in Gaza. All of our humanity is stake if the world continues to stand aside and bear witness to civilians being slaughtered by the IOF in Gaza.

PCHR:

1. Calls for an immediate halt to the IOF offensive against the population of the Gaza Strip.

2. Calls upon the international community, in the interests of internationalpeace and security, and in accordance with their obligations underinternational law, to end this IOF military offensive immediately

3. Holds Israel responsible for the lives of Palestinian civilians who areprotected, by international law, against the use of such excessive,disproportionate and indiscriminate force

4. Calls for the prosecution of all political and military officials whoare suspected of committing war crimes

Palestinian Journalists Report Despite Personal Suffering

2009-01-16T05:56:00.005+01:00

Rami Almeghari wrote "Targeting A Cup of Tea in Gaza,"

Pictured is "Jihad Abu Jbarah in front of the wood stove his family were sitting around when they were killed by Israeli-fired missiles. "

Rami also photgraphed the picture of Dr. Ehab Jasir al-Shaer and his son. Rami wrote "Dr. Ehab Isn't There Anymore." for IMEMC.

"How many more will be lost like Dr. Ehab?" Almeghari writes. "As I write this story Israeli warplanes, including American-made F-16 jet fighters and drones, are dropping bombs on my town as they have been for the past few hours, wounding so far five people. The injured may be neighbors of mine, I don't know. Is this really a war against Hamas or is it a war against the people?"

Akrem El-Ghoul, Fares' Akram's father

killed on the family farm in Beit Lahiya. He is pictured with his granddaughter, Fares' niece.

Although some decry the reporting from CNN and other western outlets, the fact that western reporters are reporting from Jerusalem or on the border of Israel and Gaza means that for first hand accounts one must seek information from Palestinian journalists, which is illuminating, poignant, insightful, in addition to being informative. I've always been an advocate of "New Journalism," i.e., journalism which incorporates personal history, observation, dialogue, and news reported as it happens with the insight of the reporter thrown in. Not objective, one may say, but what's objective? What the so-called objective reporter includes and excludes is subjective so to speak of objective journalism is to speak of something that has no basis in reality.

I am heartened and humbled to read accounts by the Independent's Fares Akram, who continues to report despite the death of his father, a judge. Fares' father remained on the family farm in order to feed the livestock; as he was walking to his gate, he was killed by a missile fired by Israeli forces. Fares is reporting for the British Independent. His wife is due to give birth any day:

This is from his January 14 Journal:

I found my mother at her apartment which is next door to my own; she was showing the local media the destruction and the window frames that had crashed down on my father's bed. "They killed Akram and now they’re destroying the few belongings he left behind” she was saying.

It’s just 10 days since my Dad, Akram, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on the day the ground offensive began. Inside, I retrieved all the baby clothes that we’ve bought for my daughter. It seems we’re going to be away from our home for longer than we imagined. Later Alaa [Fares' wife] looked sadly through the photos I took of the destruction at the apartment where we’ve lived for less than a year. She never expected, she told me, that our baby would spend the first days of her life outside of our home moving from shelter to a shelter.

Laila El-Haddad, now in North Carolina, frequently contacts her mother and her father, retired physicians in Gaza. Laila's posts, in spite of the immense anxiety that she's undergoing because of her many friends and relatives in Gaza, are her best to date:

I was unable to speak with my parents all day, and so I rang him just after midnight my time. He sounded wrecked and suffocated, not his usual collected self. "I'm so tired... I'm just so tired. I didn't sleep all night, the bombs are tearing through my head. I really have no idea what's going on outside, nobody has any idea what's going on...Aljazeera in Qatar called to ask me if I knew what was going on...and what this is about anymore. I can't even here anything on the radio anymore, everyone is just praying. I really just want to go now dear, I'm sorry. Goodbye." he ended abruptly.

Laila and her father were recorded on Canadian Broadcasting. The reporter asked her father:

"Is there anything you'd like to tell your daughter?"

Laila's father replied:

"What do I tell her? I honestly don't know if I'll live from one hour to the next . . . She keeps asking me to describe the casualties for her that I'm seeing; but I can't. What should I tell her? That I've seen bodies with my own eyes reduced to nothing more than pieces of black flesh?"

Hospital under fire - Israeli snipers fire on fleeing Gazans

2009-01-15T17:30:00.000+01:00

Gaza – Ma’an – Israeli snipers opened fire on families running to take shelter in a Red Crescent hospital in the Tel Al-Hawa area of Gaza on Thursday afternoon, witnesses said.

Sharon Locke, an Australian volunteer at Al-Quds Hospital said that when one family approached the hospital, ”Israeli snipers started firing at the family. They shot a young girl in the face and abdomen. She is now being operated on. The father of the family was shot in the leg and fell to the ground.”

“The mother was screaming that one of her daughters was still outside, behind a bush, too scared to move. Mohammed, a medic I have been working with, ran outside and carried her to the hospital," Locke said.

Locke later told Ma’an that some 600 Palestinians who had taken shelter in the medical facility have now been evacuated on foot to a nearby UNRWA school.On Thursday morning parts of the hospital went up in flames when Israeli artillery shells struck the buildings. At the time of writing, the operations building of the hospital was still burning.

Gaza's Child Victims

2009-01-15T17:07:00.003+01:00

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/200911591418168902.html

At least 300 children are among the more than 1,000 Palestinians who have died since Israel began to bombard the Gaza Strip on December 27.Al Jazeera has obtained the names of 210 of the young victims, 44 of which were under five years old.

27/12/2008
Ibtihal Kechko
Girl
10

Ahmed Riad Mohammed Al-Sinwar
Boy
3

Ahmed Al-Homs
Boy
18

Ahmed Rasmi Abu Jazar
Boy
16

Ahmed Sameeh Al-Halabi
Boy
18

Tamer Hassan Al-Akhrass
Boy
5

Hassan Ali Al-Akhrass
Boy
3

Haneen Wael Mohammed Daban
Girl
15

Khaled Sami Al-Astal
Boy
15

alaat Mokhless Bassal
Boy
18

Aaed Imad Kheera
Boy
14

Abdullah Al-Rayess
Boy
17

Odai Hakeem Al-Mansi
Boy
4

Allam Nehrou Idriss
Boy
18

Ali Marwan Abu Rabih
Boy
18

Anan Saber Atiyah
Boy
13

Camelia Al-Bardini
Girl
10

Lama Talal Hamdan
Girl
10

Mohammed Jaber Howeij
Boy
17

Nimr Mustafa Amoom
Boy
10
29/12/2008
Ismail Talal Hamdan
Boy
10

Ahmed Ziad Al-Absi
Boy
14

Ahmed Youssef Khello
Boy
18

Ikram Anwar Baaloosha
Girl
14

Tahrier Anwar Baaloosha
Girl
17

Jihad Saleh Ghobn
Boy
10

Jawaher Anwar Baaloosha
Girl
8

Dina Anwar Baaloosha
Girl
7

Samar Anwar Baaloosha
Girl
6

Shady Youssef Ghobn
Boy
12

Sudqi Ziad Al-Absi
Boy
3

Imad Nabeel Abou Khater
Boy
16

Lina Anwar Baaloosha
Girl
7

Mohammed Basseel Madi
Boy
17

Mohammed Jalal Abou Tair
Boy
18

Mohammed Ziad Al-Absi
Boy
14

Mahmoud Nabeel Ghabayen
Boy
15

Moaz Yasser Abou Tair
Boy
6

Wissam Akram Eid
Girl
14
30/12/2008
Haya Talal Hamdan
Girl
8
31/12/2008
Ahmed Kanouh
Boy
10

Ameen Al-Zarbatlee
Boy
10

Mohammed Nafez Mohaissen
Boy
10

Mustafa Abou Ghanimah
Boy
16

Yehya Awnee Mohaissen
Boy
10

Ossman Bin Zaid Nizar Rayyan
Boy
3

Assaad Nizar Rayyan
Boy
2

Moaz-Uldeen Allah Al-Nasla
Boy
5

Aya Nizar Rayyan
Girl
12

Halima Nizar Rayyan
Girl
5

Reem Nizar Rayyan
Boy
4

Aicha Nizar Rayyan
Girl
3

Abdul Rahman Nizar Rayyan
Boy
6

Abdul Qader Nizar Rayyan
Boy
12

Oyoon Jihad Al-Nasla
Girl
16

Mahmoud Mustafa Ashour
Boy
13

Maryam Nizar Rayyan
Girl
5
01/01/2009
Hamada Ibrahim Mousabbah
Boy
10

Zeinab Nizar Rayyan
Girl
12

Sujud Mahmoud Al-Derdesawi
Girl
10

Abdul Sattar Waleed Al-Astal
Boy
12

Abed Rabbo Iyyad Abed Rabbo Al-Astal
Boy
10

Ghassan Nizar Rayyan
Boy
15

Christine Wadih El-Turk
Boy
6

Mohammed Mousabbah
Boy
14

Mohammed Iyad Abed Rabbo Al-Astal
Boy
13

Mahmoud Samsoom
Boy
16

Ahmed Tobail
Boy
16

Ahmed Sameeh Al-Kafarneh
Boy
17

Hassan Hejjo
Boy
14

Rajeh Ziadeh
Boy
18

Shareef Abdul Mota Armeelat
Boy
15

Mohammed Moussa Al-Silawi
Boy
10

Mahmoud Majed Mahmoud Abou Nahel
Boy
16

Mohannad Al-Tatnaneeh
Boy
18

Hani Mohammed Al-Silawi
Boy
10
01/01/2009
Ahmed Al-Meshharawi
Boy
16

Ahmed Khodair Sobaih
Boy
17

Ahmed Sameeh Al-Kafarneh
Boy
18

Asraa Kossai Al-Habash
Girl
10

Assad Khaled Al-Meshharawi
Boy
17

Asmaa Ibrahim Afana
Girl
12

Ismail Abdullah Abou Sneima
Boy
4

Akram Ziad Al-Nemr
Boy
18

Aya Ziad Al-Nemr
Girl
8

Ahmed Mohammed Al-Adham
Boy
1

Akram Ziad Al-Nemr
Boy
13

Hamza Zuhair Tantish
Boy
12

Khalil Mohammed Mokdad
Boy
18

Ruba Mohammed Fadl Abou-Rass
Girl
13

Ziad Mohammed Salma Abou Sneima
Boy
9

Shaza Al-Abed Al-Habash
Girl
16

Abed Ziad Al-Nemr
Boy
12

Attia Rushdi Al-Khawli
Boy
16

Luay Yahya Abou Haleema
Boy
17

Mohammed Akram Abou Harbeed
Boy
18

Mohammed Abed Berbekh
Boy
18

Mohammed Faraj Hassouna
Boy
16

Mahmoud Khalil Al-Mashharawi
Boy
12

Mahmoud Zahir Tantish
Boy
17

Mahmoud Sami Assliya
Boy
3

Moussa Youssef Berbekh
Boy
16

Wi'am Jamal Al-Kafarneh
Girl
2

Wadih Ayman Omar
Boy
4

Youssef Abed Berbekh
Boy
10
05/01/2009
Ibrahim Rouhee Akl
Boy
17

Ibrahim Abdullah Merjan
Boy
13

Ahmed Attiyah Al-Semouni
Boy
4

Aya Youssef Al-Defdah
Girl
13

Aya Al-Sersawi
Girl
5

Ahmed Amer Abou Eisha
Boy
5

Ameen Attiyah Al-Semouni
Boy
4

Hazem Alewa
Boy
8

Khalil Mohammed Helless
Boy
12

Diana Mosbah Saad
Girl
17

Raya Al-Sersawi
Girl
5

Rahma Mohammed Al-Semouni
Girl
18

Ramadan Ali Felfel
Boy
14

Rahaf Ahmed Saeed Al-Azaar
Girl
4

Shahad Mohammed Hijjih
Girl
3

Arafat Mohammed Abdul Dayem
Boy
10

Omar Mahmoud Al-Baradei
Boy
12

Ghaydaa Amer Abou Eisha
Girl
6

Fathiyya Ayman Al-Dabari
Girl
4

Faraj Ammar Al-Helou
Boy
2

Moumen Alewah
Boy
9

Moumen Mahmoud Talal Alaw
Boy
10

Mohammed Amer Abu Eisha
Boy
8

Mahmoud Mohammed Abu Kamar
Boy
15

Marwan Hein Kodeih
Girl
6

Montasser Alewah
Boy
12

Naji Nidal Al-Hamlawi
Boy
16

Nada Redwan Mardi
Girl
5

Hanadi Bassem Khaleefa
Girl
13
06/01/2009
Ibrahim Ahmed Maarouf
Boy
14

Ahmed Shaher Khodeir
Boy
14

Ismail Adnan Hweilah
Boy
15

Aseel Moeen Deeb
Boy
17

Adam Mamoun Al-Kurdee
Boy
3

Alaa Iyad Al-Daya
Girl
8

Areej Mohammed Al-Daya
Girl
3 months

Amani Mohammed Al-Daya
Girl
4

Baraa Ramez Al-Daya
Girl
2

Bilal Hamza Obaid
Boy
15

Thaer Shaker Karmout
Boy
17

Hozaifa Jihad Al-Kahloot
Boy
17

Khitam Iyad Al-Daya
Girl
9

Rafik Abdul Basset Al-Khodari
Boy
15

Raneen Abdullah saleh
Girl
12

Zakariya Yahya Al-Taweel
Boy
5

Sahar Hatem Dawood
Girl
10

Salsabeel Ramez Al-Daya
Girl
6 months

Sharafuldeen Iyad Al-Daya
Boy
7

Doha Mohammed Al-Daya
Girl
5

Ahed Iyad Kodas
Boy
15

Abdullah Mohammed Abdullah
Boy
10

Issam Sameer Deeb
Boy
12

Alaa Ismail Ismail
Boy
18

Ali Iyad Al-Daya
Boy
10

Imad Abu Askar
Boy
18

Filasteen Al-Daya
Girl
5

Kamar Mohammed Al-Daya
Boy
3

Lina Abdul Menem Hassan
Girl
10

Unidentified
Boy
9

Unidentified
Boy
15

Mohammed Iyad Al-Daya
Boy
6

Mohammed Bassem Shakoura
Boy
10

Mohammed Bassem Eid
Boy
18

Mohammed Deeb
Boy
17

Mohammed Eid
Boy
18

Mustafa Moeen Deeb
Boy
12

Noor Moeen Deeb
Boy
2

Youssef Saad Al-Kahloot
Boy
17

Youssef Mohammed Al-Daya
Boy
1
07/01/2009
Ibrahim Kamal Awaja
Boy
9

Ahmed Jaber Howeij
Boy
7

Ahmed Fawzi Labad
Boy
18

Ayman Al-Bayed
Boy
16

Amal Khaled Abed Rabbo
Girl
3

Toufic Khaled Al-Khahloot
Boy
10

Habeeb Khaled Al-Khahloot
Boy
12

Houssam Raed Sobeh
Boy
12

Hassan Rateb Semaan
Boy
18

Hassan Ata Hassan Azzam
Boy
2

Redwan Mohammed Ashoor
Boy
10

Suad Khaled Abed Rabbo
Girl
6

Samar Khaled Abed Rabbo
Girl
2

Abdul Rahman Mohammmed Ashoor
Boy
12

Fareed Ata Hassan Azzam
Boy
13

Mohammed Khaled Al-Kahloot
Boy
15

Mohammed Samir Hijji
Boy
16

Mohammed Fareed Al-Maasawabi
Boy
16

Mohammed Moeen Deeb
Boy
17

Mohammed Nasseem Salama Saba
Boy
16

Mahmoud Hameed
Boy
17

Hamam Issa
Boy
1
08/01/2009
Anas Arif Abou Baraka
Boy
7

Ibrahim Akram Abou Dakkka
Boy
12

Ibrahim Moeen Jiha
Boy
15

Baraa Iyad Shalha
Girl
6

Basma Yasser Al-Jeblawi
Girl
5

Shahd Saad Abou Haleema
Girl
15

Azmi Diab
Boy
16

Mohammed Akram Abou Dakka
Boy
14

Mohammed Hikmat Abou Haleema
Boy
17

Ibrahim Moeen Jiha
Boy
15

Matar Saad Abou Haleema
Boy
17
09/01/2009
Ahmed Ibrahim Abou Kleik
Boy
17

Ismail Ayman Yasseen
Boy
18

Alaa Ahmed Jaber
Girl
11

Baha-Uldeen Fayez Salha
Girl
5

Rana Fayez Salha
Girl
12

Rola Fayez Salha
Girl
13

Diyaa-Uldeen Fayez Salah
Boy
14

Ghanima Sultan Halawa
Girl
11

Fatima Raed Jadullah
Girl
10

Mohammed Atef Abou Al-Hussna
Boy
15

Zionists Snipers Target Palestinian Children at Close Range

2009-01-15T14:19:00.003+01:00

Palestinians line up for food at a UN school in Jabalya while the immigrants from all over the world picnic and watch the carnage.

BBC Video Palestinian doctors depicting children shot at close range by Zionist soldiers, a past time Zionist soldiers have enjoyed throughout their history in Palestine:

From Chris Hedges' 2001 Gaza Diary

"Yesterday at this spot the Israelis shot eight young men, six of whom were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve. This afternoon they kill an eleven-year-old boy, Ali Murad, and seriously wound four more, three of whom are under eighteen. Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered – death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo – but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport."

Zionism Exemplifies Man's Inhumanity to Man

2009-01-15T12:38:00.008+01:00

Although we are proffered one self-righteous Zionist after another who assure us that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the history of the inhumane actions with which the Zionists have plagued the Palestinians, who are a voiceless people in the words of the heroic Norwegian Dr. Mads Gilbert, belies the unctuous drivel their war criminal leaders and proponents in the media spew. Americans should be outraged that American born Steve Rubin is free to be a dual citizen of both the US and Israel. For him this privilege of dual citizenship, denied to just about anyone else in the world, is not enough. For him the privileges that a carrier of an American passport holds is not enough. He's got to get in a few Palestinian dead babies to warrant that jock smirk on his face.

"American-born Steve Rubin (left) said that making aliyah wasn't enough -- he had to join the Israel Defense Force to really feel like a sabra."

Sorry to break it to you, buddy, but you'll never be a so-called "sabra." A "sabra" is merely a Jew who was born in Palestine, i.e., the son or daughter of an immigrant from Poland, Russia, France, the US. We certainly didn't glorify the sons and daughters of Afrikaaners, who never even thought about inflicting upon the indigenous people of South Africa the horrors in the Zionists' arsenal of atrocities.

The true heirs of the land are the Palestinian people, which is why Zionists have gone out of their way to pulverize them either into subservience or when that doesn't work, non-existence. So if you want to call anyone Sabra, save it for the Palestinian Arabs. Immigrant Jews from the US, Europe, South America, in spite of the fact they've managed to raze 531 Palestinian villages to the ground, have no more "right" to Palestine than the Absynnians, who once ruled Palestine. Or the Egyptians. Or the Mamelukes. Most definitely not the American Jews from New Jersey. No matter how much hummus you appropriate as your own. No matter how many name changes from "Gruen" to Ben-Gurion you make.

Below are pictures of the devastation Zionists like American born Steve Rubin have wrought: refugees from 1948, 1967, and 2009. The sad and unique fate of the refugees in Gaza is that they have no where to flee; they are in the words of Israeli war criminal Rafael Eitan like "drugged cockroaches in a bottle." Although Steve Rubin and his fellow Zionists have no compunctions regarding their ongoing destruction of Palestinian life and culture and their wholesale theft of Palestinians' properties, it is clear that it is a matter of time before they will have to account for their egregious criminal inhumane actions against the Palestinian people before an international tribunal.

Palestinians flee in January 2009

Palestinians ethnically cleansed from Galilee to Lebanon on October, 1948

410,000 more Palestinian refugees, 1967

Pundits: Not My Idea of Heros

2009-01-15T12:23:00.002+01:00

Comment left at the Guardian's Comment is Free in response to Hamas, Not My Idea of Heroes:

Israel has a history of knocking off Palestinian leaders and thinkers . . . Ghassan Kanafani ring a bell? Kamel Nasir, the poet shot by Ehud Barak in drag? Mubarak Awad advocated non-violent resistance during the first intifadeh, and he was expelled from the country. Dr. Hanan Ashrawi has faced bullets as has Dr. Mustapha Barghouti. Ever hear of the village of Beit Sahour? Well, it has a long history of non-violent resistance,but Israel still helps itself to its village lands. The villagers in Bil'in have non-violent protests every Friday, but that doesn't stop the Israelis from raiding their houses, intimidating their leaders, and shooting at the demonstrators. It really is morally repugnant to divert attention from the wholesale slaughter going on in Gaza right now, but that doesn't stop myriads of writers hoping to capitalize on Palestinian suffering . Hard at it is for many to fathom, Palestinians come in all shapes, sizes, and are of many different political persuasions. Hamas plays a very small part in the history of the Palestinian struggle. There was no Hamas when 531 Palestinian villages were razed to the ground by Israel between 1948-1960 and when half of its population was expelled in 1948 before any Arab army took part in the conflict. Look at the whole picture and the Zionists' plan for the land without the people is clear. Ashkelon, and Sderot are built on the ruins of Palestinian villages. Many of the refugees were expelled and ended up in Gaza; they still are the legal owners of the land. This is the root of the conflict; Palestinian refugees and their descendents have the right to return to their homes, just as I, although employed in Germany, have the right to return to my native California whenever I feel like it.

Israel 'Shocked and Distressed' Over Cardinal's Remark

2009-01-11T01:57:00.006+01:00

Photo from 1948 and photo from January 2009. Zionists aren't shocked and dismayed when they destroy villages and raze houses and make Palestinians refugees many times over. Their shock and dismay is reserved for statements by Cardinals.

Oh mercy me, Israel is "shocked and distressed" over Cardinal Renato Martino's statement that Gaza "now resembles 'a big concentration camp.'" No doubt the holy men of the Vatican will now fall all over themselves in order to placate the Eastern European Zionist butchers who nurture such tender sensibilities when it comes to such unkind cuts about their murderous, bloodletting Zionist project that one would think they are innocent pre-pubescent choirboys.

Oh, these contemptible home-wrecking practicioners of ethnic purification who have a track record of slaughtering families wholesale, razing villages to the ground and shooting anyone who dares to return; these monsters who put typhoid in wells and mete out death to children on a daily basis are shocked at the Cardinal's utterances!

How hypocritical that the self-righteous blond bombshells that the country parades in the western media to justify child murder, school bombings, limb amputations, starvation, dehydration, medic killings, ambulance shelling, land stealing, village razing, prattle on that these Nazi comparisons are so heinous because six million haven't been killed, yet justify killing over eight hundred Palestinians, including almost two hundred children, in two weeks for a handful of Israelis by these rockets in ten years! So, why can't Palestinans say, well, only a few Israelis have died from the rockets; why does that give you carte blanche to burn the government builidings, kill people sheltering in schools, bring down homes with people in them? Yet, God forbid anyone compare the Eastern European Zionist to a Nazi because they haven't managed to kill six million Palestinians yet (not that they haven't tried), but thousands of civilians in Lebanon were bombed for a couple of immigrant soldiers. And one French immigrant soldier is a lot more newsworthy and otherwise worthy than are 650,000 Palestinians who have seen the inside of Israeli prisons.

Although the Israelis are shocked and distressed over the Cardinal's comments, they will most asssuredly get over it as their shock and dismay is most assuredly mitigated by the pleasure and joy that comes from Palestinian carnage.

Gaza medics face war's carnage daily

2009-01-11T00:14:00.003+01:00

Associated Press Writers Ibrahim Barzak And Ben Hubbard

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – The medics who brave Israel's assault on Gaza have come under fire from tanks and faced days-long delays in getting to the scene of attacks, sometimes finding animals gnawing at corpses when they finally reach the dead and wounded.

Few are more exposed to the carnage of Israel's two-week military offensive than Gaza's medics, who number around 400 including volunteers. They work long hours, get little sleep and risk their lives daily. Many have lost friends and family, but the overwhelming workload leaves no time to process what they've seen.

Awaiting coordination with Israel often delays access to the injured, medics said. Some reported finding people stranded in their homes for days, or bodies lying in the streets uncollected.
"Disgusting is not the word," said Shawki Saleh, 24, a volunteer medic at Kamal Adwan hospital. "If it's not a dog, it's rats around the bodies. ... I've been doing this volunteer work for two years but I never imagined I'd see this. Who knows how many people are still under the rubble. We were carrying them out screaming."

In one long workday, medic Haitham Adgheir carried five corpses, saw six more at a Gaza hospital, and his medical convoy took Israeli tank fire that showered a driver with glass.

"My mind is like a video of body parts and injured people," said Adgheir, 33.
Israel launched airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Dec. 27 and sent in ground troops a week later in an attempt to halt years of Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel. More than 800 Palestinians have been killed, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinians medical officials. Thirteen Israelis have also been killed.

Israel says it targets only Hamas sites, but has hit mosques and apartment buildings throughout the crowded seaside territory. Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields and launching attacks from schools, mosques and homes.

Since the fighting began, 21 Palestinian medical staff have been killed, 30 have been injured and 11 ambulances have been damaged, according to the World Health Organization.
The International Committee of the Red Cross made a rare public criticism of Israel this week, saying there were "unacceptable" delays in letting rescue workers reach the injured. And Gaza staff say soldiers sometimes fire on ambulance crews.

Earlier this week, after waiting four days for coordination, ambulance crews entered the Zeitoun neighborhood and found at least 12 bodies and four small surviving children next to their dead mothers, the Red Cross has said.

Ahmed Abu Sal, 26, a volunteer medic who responded to the scene, recalled finding a young girl still clutching her dead mother. The girl, who was perhaps 9, was unable to speak from dehydration, her lips shrunken and dry, he said Saturday. He carried her from the building.
Elsewhere in the rubble he found a woman quietly weeping and still holding the bodies of two young men who appeared to be her sons, he said.

Red Cross officials working with ambulance crews coordinate with the Israeli military by cell phone before moving, said Red Cross spokesman Simon Schorno in Geneva. At other times, fighting breaks out near authorized crews, putting them at risk.

The Red Cross has similar lines of communication with Palestinian militants, Schorno said, though they are less organized. He knew of no recent run-ins with Palestinian militants.
An army spokesman said Israel works hard to coordinate with aid crews and that soldiers don't fire at clearly marked medics.

"The area is a combat zone, and obviously the risk of any medic working in a combat zone is that there is fire from all sides," said Capt. Benjamin Rutland.

But many medics say they are deliberately targeted, though ambulances in Gaza are clearly marked.

Adgheir, a medic with the Palestine Red Crescent at al-Quds hospital, said Israeli soldiers fired toward him four times in the past week, despite Red Cross coordination.
On Tuesday, he waited more than 12 hours for coordination with Israeli forces before he could reach a car full of people who had been shot at by an Israeli tank along the beach road near the town of Khan Yunis.

The tank fire sent shards of glass into the driver's eyes. Only able to reach the car after dark, Adgheir said Israeli soldiers shot at his ambulance as he approached.

He also said an Israeli tank fired Thursday at an ambulance convoy that he was part of at the Netzarim crossing in central Gaza. One of the ambulance drivers, who was showered with glass, was lightly injured and the convoy aborted its mission.

The medics say they have no time to deal with the psychological toll of their job. They report nightmares, short tempers and feelings from numbness to rage.

The fighting allows little time to pause — even to pray. On Friday, doctors and medics at Gaza City's Shifa hospital joined relatives of the injured in a communal prayer outside the emergency room. In blood-spattered smocks, the medics prayed for the dead.

Moments later, an ambulance rushed in with the body of a man killed by shelling and the medics rushed back to work.

Mohammed Azayzeh, a central Gaza medic, said the hardest thing to handle is not seeing the dead but rescuing the wounded, some of whom have horrific injuries such as missing limbs that leave them screaming for help.

"What can you do?" he said. "I want to smash my head against a wall."
___
Hubbard reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press Writer Diaa Hadid in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Dear Michelle Obama: Please do not abandon the Palestinian Children

2009-01-10T08:37:00.004+01:00

This letter was written by my son-in-law, a school psychologist:

Dear Michelle Obama,

I am writing to you from US Army Garrison Wiesbaden, Germany. I am a school psychologist working with children of military and civilian families stationed in Wiesbaden. I have been working for the Department of Defense Dependent Schools (DODDS) since February 2001. I have witnessed and experienced the impact war has on the kids and families I serve. I do not need to elaborate on the damaging effects war has on children. Literature, history and the arts have documented the horror and trauma in multiple instances. From my perspective, it is sufficient to say that it leaves indelible emotional and psychological marks on our kids that therapy, or time is insufficient to adequately heal. The legacy of misery war leaves behind seldom seems to justify the military objectives of the tacticians. While our nation has experienced the horrors of war we have never endured the devastation and humiliation of a protracted invasion or occupation by a foreign power. It is with great anguish and a frustrating feeling of powerlessness that I continue to watched the restricted news reports of Israel’s calculated devastation of the Palestinian people in Gaza. The indiscriminate bombardment of an already destitute community is heart wrenching. It provokes so much anger but primarily compassion to see the faces of these helpless children. Unlike most other children around the world, the Gaza children run in desperate and often futile attempts to save their lives. There is no joy in running for the Palestinian kids. In fact, they no place to run or hide. Their innocence has been destroyed forever.

Please forgive me for calling you Michelle, but Michelle many in America actually voted for you when they voted for your husband. You are our hope. When we listen to you and see you on the media we feel strongly that you are the one who can make a difference in our country. Please do not abandon the Palestinian children. The indifference of the world to the atrocities against the children of Palestine is a senseless crime that needs to be stopped. Please help. Many in America and the world over will support you.

Sincerely,

Benhur Arcila
School psychologist
DODDS-Germany

photo

Vote No on Resolution 34

2009-01-09T22:18:00.003+01:00

letter sent to my congressman via

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/

Dear Representative McCarthy:

I am urging you to vote no on Resolution 34 in support of Israel's slaughter of innocent Palestinian children, women, and other civilians. I am a Palestinian-American, a graduate of Cal State, Bakersfield like yourself, and I know that with the inception of a state which privileges one religious group in what was once a multi-cultural area, all matter of horrors have been inflicted on my friends and relatives, including the destruction and depopulation in 1948 of over four hundred villages in what is Israel today. Israel also refuses Palestinians their universal right to return to their ancestral homes; it may surprise you to know that Sderot is built upon a Palestinian village that was ethnically cleansed and depopulated in 1948. Israel continues its genocide in Gaza today, with its murder of entire family clans; the ICRC reports that a family of upwards of 80 people was murdered in a house in which they sought refgue, and a UN school to which people fled for their lives was also the scene of an Israeli massacre. Massacres are nothing new for Palestinans. I urge you, sir, to educate yourself; in the age of the internet, news flows freely; in years to come, you will not want to have been complicit in what are most definitely crimes against humanity in contravention of the Geneva Convention.

Sincerely,

Nancy Harb Almendras

photo Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images in The Guardian

The body of a girl who was found in the rubble of her destroyed house following an Israeli air strike on a house in Zeitoun

Despite Personal Suffering, Palestinian Journalists Report From Gaza

2009-01-07T23:56:00.005+01:00

Mourning Wassem Saba, 22, a Christian victim of the Israeli Gaza offensive, at the Latin Catholic Church.

Stories from three Palestinian reporters in Gaza, a Palestinian reporter from Gaza currently in the US, and a final excerpt from UCLA Professor Saree Makdisi:

AP Gaza reporter finds hometown in rubble

A compelling story by AP reporter Ibrahim Barzak with concrete details about the destruction of his hometown. Today Orthodox Christians in the Middle East celebrate Christmas. Barzak visited his friend, Orthodox Christian Eyad Sayegh Tuesday:

"On Tuesday, the only shop I found open was the Shifa pharmacy run by my friend Eyad Sayegh. He's an Orthodox Christian, and I stopped to wish him a Merry Christmas — Eastern churches celebrate Christmas on Wednesday.

"Eyad told me he forgot it was Christmas."

Barzak begins "I live alone in my office. My wife and two young children moved in with her father after our apartment was shattered. The neighborhood mosque, where I have prayed since I was a child, had its roof blown off. All the government buildings on my beat have been obliterated.

"After days of Israeli shelling, the city and life I have known no longer exist."

From Laila El-Haddad:

The anchor asked why my mom and father were still in Gaza City. He replied it was his home, and no one would kick him out of it. I emphasized that even for those who did want to flee for safety, there was no where to flee to- the borders are hermetically sealed, the sea and sky under total blockade.

"Is there anything you'd like to tell your daughter?" the anchor concluded by asking.

"What do I tell her? I honestly don't know if I'll live from one hour to the next," my father replied. "She keeps asking me to describe the casualties for her that I'm seeing; but I can't. What should I tell her? That I've seen bodies with my own eyes reduced to nothing more than pieces of black flesh?"

From Reporter Rami Almeghari's "A Dad, a Refugee, and a Reporter in Gaza":

"The most important thing that I need is to keep up, whatever pressure I am facing. I am a Palestinian in Gaza who lives the situation minute-by-minute. Israel has denied international reporters access into Gaza, so I need to do what I can to get information out . . .

"Today I can file, I can have my voice and the voices of others heard in the US. But who knows if these voices will still be heard tomorrow.

"Journalist Fares Akram's blog for the Independent. Fares' father was killed by the Israelis as he walked to the gate of his family farm. Right now, I'm not able to access his blog, but there is a link to it on the Independent's main page, which may work later. His entries are beautifully written and despite being separated from his pregnant wife and the recent death of his father, he continues to write.

In spite of their personal suffering, these Palestinian reporters continue to report to the world the situation in Gaza. Their tenacity and resiliance is admirable and their steadfast efforts attest to the conclusion that Saree Makdisi draws in his brilliant "By Choice They made Themselves Immune": 'This inhuman madness will end only with the end of the violent ideology that spawned it -- when those who are committed to the project of creating and maintaining a religiously and ethnically exclusivist state in what has always been a culturally and religiously heterogeneous land finally relent and accept the inevitable: that they have failed.'"

Inevitably, the proponents of Zionism will fail. Any project that kills, maims, injures, destroys and abuses language to sustain itself is destined for oblivion. "My grief carries no desire for revenge, which I know to be always in vain," writes a grieving Fares Akram, two days after the death of his father. Ibrahim Barzak wanders the streets of his hometown, Gaza City and passes the Latin Patriarchate School his father used to walk him to every day. It still stands.

"I reached the Catholic Latin Patriarchate School I attended, where my late father _ also an AP correspondent _ used to bring me every day. The building was undamaged.

"I stood in front of it, wondering if I will ever be able to walk my children to this school."

I am confident that he will.

Natan Sharansky Doesn't Know What the Meaning of Refugee Is

2009-01-06T18:20:00.002+01:00

My comment:

Thank you for addressing the op-ed, which also demonized Palestinians. Let's also not forget Article 13, Section 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says that everyone has the right to leave his country and return to his country, something the Russian immigrant Sharansky should ponder. My Palestinian friends and relatives may not return to the place that they were born. Evidently, the injustice, that he a Russian became an instant citizen upon immigration to historic Palestine while those born there and their desecendents are denied their right to return to their homes from where they actually come, is lost on him as he blames everyone for the refugees' plight except for Israel. Is it coincidental that his odious op-ed is published just before the Israelis attack two UNWRA schools in which Palestinians sought shelter?

by John Boonstra

The UN refugee agency occupies itself with over 30 million refugees across the world. In about the only words worth quoting positively from Natan Sharansky's otherwise galling op-ed in The Wall Street Journal today, the organization "works tirelessly to improve [refugees'] conditions, to relocate them, and to help them rebuild their lives as quickly as possible." However, in Sharansky's sickening formulation, the UN refugee program in Gaza is also responsible for perpetuating the vast suffering of Palestinian refugees.

Sharansky's problem, it seems, is that the UN program in Gaza, known as the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), has not been forceful enough in clearing the estimated 1 million refugees (out of a population of about 1.4 million) out of camps in Gaza. He takes particular umbrage at the perfectly legitimate question raised to him by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas: "How can we move [the refugees] if we do not know where they will live?"

The Gaza strip, it bears reminding, is about one-seventh the size of the state of Rhode Island. With 1.4 million people. The job of a refugee agency is not to force people to their homes -- even presuming they have homes to return to. On the contrary, the UN operates under humanitarian law that explicitly upholds the rights of refugees not to face forced return to places where their lives are in danger. And while Sharansky may claim that leaving camps would not endanger refugees' lives, the situation in Gaza right now, coupled with Mr. Abbas' very pertinent question, makes this contention, at the least, deeply unsettling.

The UN is not abetting terrorists in Gaza. It is helping address what, by any account, is a dire humanitarian emergency, and it, unlike Mr. Sharansky, unequivocally considers every refugee's life -- Palestinian or Israeli -- equally.

Sharansky Softens Up Public for Israel's Genocide at UNWRA Schools

2009-01-06T17:20:00.006+01:00

Photo of a boy whose family sought refuge in a UN school. Notice how poor most of the people are that Israel likes to kill. Oh, I forgot, they're doing this for humanitarian reasons. They also favor killing poets and intellectuals. Reuters

Comment left on a Wall Street Journal forum in response to an op-ed by Russian immigrant to Palestine, Natan Sharansky, most likely to lay the groundwork for Israel's genocidal bombing of two UNWRA schools. No guarantee that it will be published. The astute Annie of Annie's letters pointed out the the op-ed appeared just before the bombing of the Palestinians' places of refuge.

The Russian Sharansky immigrated to Israel, which is built upon the remains of over five hundred destroyed and depopulated Palestinian villages, while my Palestinian friends and relatives and their descendents are denied their universal right to return to the places where they were born. Would the Wall Street Journal give equal time to a bigoted Afrikaaner to extoll the virtues of apartheid and to demonise the indigenous people of South Africa? How timely that this op-ed appears when Israel has targeted to UNWRA schools where Palestinians have sought refuge.

Amazing also that in each story about the bombing of the schools Israel is always provided an out; i.e., the latest report, rather confusingly states "The army declined comment, but said Hamas often uses schools, mosques and civilian areas for cover. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev also refused to react, saying he was waiting for the military to comment" while in another report about a bombing of another UNWRA school AP reported "The Israeli army had no comment on the incident, but in the past has accused militants of using schools, mosques and residential neighborhoods to store weapons or launch attacks."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090106/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians

GAZA CITY, Gaza – An Israeli bombardment hit outside a U.N. school where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge on Tuesday, and Palestinian medics said at least 34 people died — many of them children — as international outrage grew over civilian deaths.

It was the second fatal strike in the vicinity of a U.N. school in hours, and the deadliest assault since Israel sent ground forces into Gaza last weekend. The ground operation is part of a larger offensive against the ruling Hamas militant group that has killed nearly 600 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians, according to U.N. and Palestinian officials.

Ignoring international calls for a cease-fire, Israeli soldiers edged closer to Gaza's major population centers. A total of 58 Palestinians were killed Tuesday in fighting — with just two confirmed as militants, health officials in Gaza said.

"There's nowhere safe in Gaza. Everyone here is terrorized and traumatized," John Ging, the top U.N. official in Gaza, said after the first strike on the compound of a U.N. school killed three people.

A Palestinian rocket — one of two dozen fired from Gaza on Tuesday — wounded an Israeli infant.

The United Nations said three civilians were killed in the first airstrike late Monday on the courtyard of its school, where hundreds of people from a Gaza City refugee camp had sought shelter from Israel's blistering 11-day offensive.

A second Israeli strike about 10 yards (meters) outside a U.N. school in the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya. Witnesses reported several explosions, and it was not immediately clear whether they were caused by Israeli airstrikes or tank shells.

Dr. Bassam Abu Warda, director of Kamal Radwan Hospital, said 34 people were killed.
"I saw a lot of women and children wheeled in," said Fares Ghanem, another hospital official. "A lot of the wounded were missing limbs and a lot of the dead were in pieces."
Majed Hamdan, an AP photographer, said he rushed to the scene shortly after the attacks. He said many children were among the dead.

"I saw women and men — parents — slapping their faces in grief, screaming, some of them collapsed to the floor. They knew their children were dead," he said. "In the morgue, most of the killed appeared to be children. In the hospital, there wasn't enough space for the wounded."

He said there were marks of five separate explosions, all in the same area outside the school.
U.N. officials say they provided their location coordinates to Israel's army to ensure that their buildings in Gaza are not targeted.

The army declined comment, but said Hamas often uses schools, mosques and civilian areas for cover. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev also refused to react, saying he was waiting for the military to comment.

The international Red Cross said an ambulance post was hit as well on Tuesday, injuring one medical worker.

Israel launched its offensive on Dec. 27 to halt repeated Palestinian rocket attacks on its southern towns. After a weeklong air campaign, Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza over the weekend.

Nearly 600 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 100 civilians, according to United Nations and the latest Palestinian figures. Ten Israelis have died since the operation began, including a soldier who was shot on Tuesday.

"I am appealing to political leaders here and in the region and the world to get their act together and stop this," Ging said, speaking at Gaza's largest hospital. "They are responsible for these deaths."

United Nations staff estimate around 15,000 people have fled to 23 U.N.-run schools they have turned into makeshift refuges. U.N. food aid has halted in the northern Gaza Strip because officials fear residents would risk their lives to reach distribution centers.

Tanks rumbled closer to the towns of Khan Younis and Dir el Balah in south and central Gaza but were still several kilometers (miles) outside, witnesses said, adding that the sounds of fighting could be heard from around the new Israeli positions. Israel already has encircled Gaza City, the area's biggest city.

The rising civilian death toll has drawn international condemnations and raised concerns of a looming humanitarian disaster. Many Gazans are without electricity or running water, thousands have been displaced from their homes and residents say that without distribution disrupted, food supplies are running thin.

"This is not a crisis, it's a disaster," said water utility official Munzir Shiblak. "We are not even able to respond to the cry of the people." He said about 800,000 residents in Gaza City and northern parts of the territory had no access to running water from Tuesday.

Israel says it won't stop the assault until its southern towns are freed of the threat of Palestinian rocket fire and it receives international guarantees that Hamas, a militant group backed by Iran and Syria, will not restock its weapons stockpile. It blames Hamas for the civilian casualties, saying the group intentionally seeks cover in crowded residential areas.

"The battle is bitter but unavoidable. We set out on this operation in order to deal Hamas a heavy blow and to alter living conditions in the south of the country and to block smuggling into the Gaza Strip," Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

The army says it has dealt a harsh blow to Hamas, killing 130 militants in the past two days and greatly reducing the rocket fire. At least 15 rockets were fired Tuesday and one landed in the town of Gadera, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the Gaza border, lightly wounding a 3-month-old infant, police said. At the outset of the fighting, militants launched dozens of rockets each day.

Hamas is believed to have 20,000 fighters.

Israeli forces have seized the main Gaza highway in several places, cutting the strip into northern, southern and central sectors and preventing movement between them. Israel also has taken over high-rise buildings in Gaza City and destroyed dozens of smuggling tunnels — Hamas' main lifeline — along the Egyptian border.

Late Monday, a paratroop officer and three Israeli infantrymen were killed in two separate friendly fire incidents, the military said. Heavy Israeli casualties could threaten to undermine what so far has been wide public support for the operation.
A high-level European Union delegation met with President Shimon Peres on Tuesday in a futile bid to end the violence. Commissioner Benita Ferraro-Waldner acknowledged Israel's right to self-defense, but said its response was disproportionate.

"We have come to Israel in order to advance the initiative for a humanitarian cease-fire and I will tell you, Mr. President, that you have a serious problem with international advocacy, and that Israel's image is being destroyed," she said, according to a statement from Peres' office.
In Geneva, the international Red Cross said Gaza was in a "full-blown" humanitarian crisis. Its head of operations, Pierre Kraehenbuehl, said the few remaining power supplies could collapse at any moment.

Israeli leaders say there is no humanitarian crisis and that they have allowed the delivery of vital supplies.

The EU delegation was one of a flurry of diplomatic efforts to forge a cease-fire. French President Nicolas Sarkozy left Israel after a day of meetings with leaders.
Europe "wants a cease-fire as quickly as possible," Sarkozy said Monday, urging Israel to halt the offensive, while blaming Hamas for acting "irresponsibly and unpardonably."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stressed to Sarkozy that any agreement "must contain at its foundation the total cessation of all arms transfers to Hamas," said Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev.

Regev noted that Hamas used a previous six-month truce to double the range of its rockets. About one-eighth of Israel's 7 million citizens now live in rocket range.
International Mideast envoy Tony Blair said ensuring weapons smuggling to Hamas is halted would be a key step to restoring calm.

Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, Blair said that stopping Hamas' rocket supply would be a "very significant advance in terms of Israel's security," which would allow Israel to halt its offensive and relieve the suffering of Gaza's civilians.

He would not give details of an international proposal to stop the flow of weapons into Gaza from Egypt.

In New York, Arab delegates met with the U.N. Security Council, urging members to adopt a resolution calling for an immediate end to the attacks and a permanent cease-fire. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a Hamas rival who runs a separate government from the West Bank, was expected Tuesday morning to press his case.

Before Tuesday's deaths, U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said the overall Palestinian toll since the opening of the Gaza campaign on Dec. 27 stood at about 500, with about 125 of them civilians.

Israeli forces detained 80 Palestinians — some of them suspected Hamas members — and transferred several to Israel for interrogation, said military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to release the information.

Israel's operation has angered many across the Arab world and has drawn criticism from countries such as Turkey, Egypt and Jordan, which have ties with Israel and have been intimately involved in Mideast peacemaking.
___
Barzak reported from Gaza City, Weizman from Jerusalem.

Our Country is a Graveyard

2009-01-06T06:52:00.010+01:00

Welcome to Israel, happy American immigrants. The price Palestinians pay for your smiles is immense. Enjoy your life built upon destroyed villages and Palestinian graves! Hope the spirits don't rise up one day and make life too unpleasant for you.

Our Country is a Graveyard

by Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish

Gentlemen, you have transformed

our country into a graveyard

You have planted bullets in our heads,

and organized massacres

Gentlemen, nothing passes like that

without account

All that you have done

to our people is

registered in notebooks

translated by Asad AbuKhalil

Every day we follow the same routine. We try to sleep from 6pm to 6am because there is no electricity. When we sleep we turn the radio up to cover the noise of the drones flying overhead and the bombs. Every day we go out looking for water, food and bread. I'm always buying batteries for the radio. We haven't had electricity for five days and fuel is low so we turn the generator on for two hours a day to charge up our mobile phones and lights. Hani Abu Komali in Gaza City in the Guardian's 'Everyone is looking for their relatives to kiss them goodbye'

Gaza, Where Families Die Together

2009-01-06T06:44:00.002+01:00

They are falling inside their homes, as Israel attacks cowering families with impunity. It is not attacking 'Hamas operatives'. These are men, women, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters and cousins, just like my Uncle Mohammad and Areej and Nada and Adham and Haya and Dina and Yazeed. And they are being bombed and killed from the air, the ground and the sea. They have been, for years now, trapped in the world's largest prison. They are the children and grandchildren of those forced out of the homes and lands where they were living in peace and safety for generations. They are being massacred because they have not forgotten, have not capitulated and because their resistance to this injustice grows ever stronger.

Read the entire story at kabobfest

Doctor Decries Israeli Attacks

2009-01-05T23:55:00.001+01:00

Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor, describes the horrifying effects of Zionist bombing of children . . . "children are arriving with open abdomens; we had to amputate two legs and an arm of one child." Israel is deliberately attacking civilians, and this is no surprise to anyone who knows the history of the Zionists in Palestine.

Scared But Steadfast in Gaza

2009-01-05T18:08:00.002+01:00

One of my neighbors said that even if they destroy Gaza completely there are millions of Palestinians outside and they can simply continue the struggle against the Israeli occupation. I'm not saying this to be sentimental -- this is what the people say. People are scared for their lives but they are much more concerned about their existence as a people, their homeland, history and roots in this holy part of the world.

Rami Almeghari writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 4 January 2009

As Israel's relentless bombardment of the occupied Gaza Strip raged on for an eighth day, The Electronic Intifada correspondent Rami Almeghari, via Skype, described how people were coping early Sunday evening in Gaza:

My family is from Karatiya village a few kilometers away from the Gaza Strip in what is now called Israel. Karatiya is one of the 450 towns in historical Palestine that were cleansed by Zionist militias in 1948, displacing my family along with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians.

I now live in Maghazi refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, which is currently being bombarded by Israel from tanks along the border, American-manufactured F-16s in the sky, and from the sea. Last night Israeli forces invaded the Gaza Strip and heavy fighting is happening in the northern Strip and east of Gaza City.

I have just come back to my computer that I'm using when there is electricity. There are electricity cuts here that are very prolonged throughout the day. I managed use a power generator for my computer when the electricity is out but the generator needs fuel, which is scarce here in Gaza because of Israel has closed the border and everything is locked own right now. Shortly I will run out of fuel to run the generator and stay online; this will be devastating because I am a journalist.

There aren't clashes between the invading Israeli army and resistance fighters in the central Gaza Strip, where I am, yet. We have heard about fighting and clashes in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. We journalists are finding it very difficult to report from the scene of clashes because of the danger. We must avoid danger and risk because we need to keep reporting the truth about what is going on the ground.

There are reports of casualties and injuries as a result of the fighting in the northern Gaza Strip. There are reports that about a dozen Israeli soldiers were wounded, in addition to the soldier and officer who were killed, which was confirmed by Israeli media. This indicates that the resistance is fighting on, including the ruling Hamas party which has been under attack by Israel for the past two and a half years.

In eastern Gaza there were clashes in Shajaiyeh, east of Gaza City. The Israeli army has effectively divided Gaza into two sections, as witnesses in the area confirm. Israeli tanks rolled deeper into the Gaza Strip today and according to witnesses, tanks are present at the former Israeli settlement of Netzarim to the south of Gaza City. Night falls on Gaza as the Israeli shelling on different parts of the Gaza Strip continues. The casualties since the ground invasion are more than 50 killed, unfortunately, and 200 others wounded. Among those killed are approximately 15 women and children.

One of the air strikes hit a house in the al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City, claiming the lives of a woman, a mother and her four children inside their home. In addition, this morning Israeli forces targeted the popular Firaz marketplace close to the Gaza City municipal building. Five were reported killed and at least 15 wounded.It is being reported that the Israelis are using weapons with depleted uranium. Many medics at hospitals report bruises, burns and fractures in the bodies of the wounded and dead -- consistent with these kinds of illegal weapons which are prohibited under international law.

Earlier today I went out into the neighborhood to try to get something from the shop and to talk with some neighbors -- really that's what all people in Gaza are trying to do right now. The main roads in Gaza are almost totally devoid of cars and people. People are staying near their houses and leaving only in the case of an emergency.

I found that my neighbors are dealing very patiently with what is happening right now. They don't have any place to go and are staying close to their homes, expecting that the worse has yet to come. However, they are saying that they will remain steadfast in their homeland and neighborhood and homes, even if Israel destroys Gaza completely. These people have been refugees for six decades and this conflict is one of existence -- the Israelis don't want the Palestinians to exist and hope they will go to Egypt and Jordan. Refugees recognize this and they are remaining steadfast in their homeland.

One of my neighbors said that even if they destroy Gaza completely there are millions of Palestinians outside and they can simply continue the struggle against the Israeli occupation. I'm not saying this to be sentimental -- this is what the people say. People are scared for their lives but they are much more concerned about their existence as a people, their homeland, history and roots in this holy part of the world.

People here are really surprised by the unprecedented demonstrations and protests around the world for the sake of the Palestinian people who are currently under attack. Gazans feel that there will be a light at the end of this dark tunnel. Conversely, people are very outraged about the reactions of governments around the globe.

Rami Almeghari is contributor to The Electronic Intifada, IMEMC.org and Free Speech Radio News and is a part-time lecturer on media and political translation at the Islamic University of Gaza. Rami is also a former senior English translator at and editor-in-chief of the international press center of the Gaza-based Palestinian Information Service. He can be contacted at rami_almeghari A T hotmail D O T com.

2009-01-05T06:23:00.003+01:00

Read at Annie's Letters first thing this morning

The death and life of my father

PAVEL WOLBERG

Akrem al-Ghoul, pictured with one of his grandchildren, was killed on his farm near the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza

For Fares Akram, The Independent's reporter in Gaza, the Israeli invasion became a personal tragedy when he discovered his father was one of the first casualties of the ground war

By Fares Akram in Gaza

Monday, 5 January 2009

The phone call came at around 4.20pm on Saturday. A bomb had been dropped on the house at our small farm in northern Gaza. My father was walking from the gate to the farmhouse at the time. It was our beloved place, that farm and its two-storey white house with a red roof. Nestled in a flat fertile agricultural plain north-west of Beit Lahiya, it had lemon groves, orange and apricot trees and we had recently acquired 60 dairy cows.

It was the closest farm to the northern border with Israel. Ironically, we always thought the biggest danger there was not from Israeli troops, who usually went straight past if they were mounting an incursion, but from stray Hamas rockets aimed at the Israeli towns north of us.
But shortly before sunset on Saturday, as Israeli ground troops and tanks invaded Gaza in the name of shutting down Hamas rocket sites, the peace of that place was shattered and my father's life extinguished at the age of 48. Warplanes and helicopters had swept in, bombing and firing to open up the space for the tanks and ground forces that would follow in the darkness. It was one of those F16 airstrikes that killed my father.

The house was reduced to little more than powder, and of Dad there was nothing much left either. "Just a pile of flesh," my uncle, who found him in the rubble, said later with brutal honesty.

Like most Gazans, my mother, my sisters and my wife – who is nine months' pregnant – and I have spent the past week of the Israeli onslaught trapped inside our flat in the city. But my father had decided to stay up at the farm; he knew it would be impossible to get back to tend the livestock if the expected troop invasion began. But he called us every day.

The last time I saw him was on Thursday when he brought cash and a bag of flour. We talked about the imminent birth of my first child and how we would get my wife, Alaa, to hospital amid the bombing and chaos. Of course, on Saturday evening there was no hope of getting an ambulance up to the farm because the roads were cut off by the Israelis. So my uncle and brother drove the 8km and the rest of us sat, in shock, shivering in the dark apartment, bed covers over us to keep warm, the sound of non-stop tank shelling around us. Deep down we all knew Dad was dead. He would have been in or near the house, and if an F16 strikes directly at your house you know what it means.

They arrived to find a smoking pile of rubble. Most of the cows lay dead; others had run off injured. Mahmoud, a teenage relative, was with my father when the Israeli bomb smashed into the house. The force of the airstrike threw him 300 metres. They found Mahmoud's body in a neighbour's field.

We buried my father and Mahmoud yesterday morning in a very quick funeral, knowing Israeli tanks were just 3km away, on the outskirts of the city. We could hear the rattle of the machine-gun fire accompanying the tanks. The Israelis may say there were militants in the area of our farm, but I'll never believe it. The most advanced point for rocket-launchers is 6km south. Up at the border, it is just open farmland with nowhere to hide.

My father, Akrem al-Ghoul, was no militant. Born in Gaza and educated in Egypt, he was a lawyer and a judge who worked for the Palestinian Authority. After Hamas took over, he quit and turned to agriculture. Dad's father, Fares, who had been driven out of his home in what is now Israeli Ashkelon in 1948, had bought the land in the 1960s.

During the second intifada and until the Israelis withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the farm was taken over by Israeli settlers, but after 2005 we went there every holiday. In Gaza, the only escape is the beach or, if you are lucky enough, the farmland. My father hated what Hamas was doing to Gaza's legal system, introducing Islamist justice, and he completely opposed violence. He would have worked hard for a just settlement with Israel and a better future for Palestinians. When the PA gained control over the West Bank, he moved to Ramallah to help establish the courts there.

My grief carries no desire for revenge, which I know to be always in vain. But, in truth, as a grieving son, I am finding it hard to distinguish between what the Israelis call terrorists and the Israeli pilots and tank crews who are invading Gaza. What is the difference between the pilot who blew my father to pieces and the militant who fires a small rocket? I have no answers but, just as I am to become a father, I have lost my father.

Images From Palestine, January 4

2009-01-05T00:53:00.003+01:00

Praying for Gaza at the Dominican Church in East Jerusalem.

The young girl in North Gaza cries at the funeral of her brother.

An injured baby being taken to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

All photos from Yahoo News Mideast Conflict

'This is against all that is beautiful and living'

2009-01-05T00:15:00.005+01:00

This is a genocide by all standards against humanity . . . against all that is beautiful and living.

Dr. Moussa El-Haddad on View from Gaza: CNN's Don Lemon talks with Palestinian journalist Laila El-Haddad and her father about what it's like on the inside of Gaza.

Ruth Raad in the traditional costume of Ramallah, circa 1943.

Khalidi, Walid. Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians 1876-1948. Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1991.

Poet Remi Kanazi at the Gaza Massacre Protest

2009-01-04T23:32:00.001+01:00

'This is one Child. One Story'

2009-01-04T22:30:00.003+01:00

Memory Eternal. Memory Eternal. May Your Memory Be Eternal (Prayer Sung at Greek Orthodox memorials).

From Sam Bahour in Ramallah

Dear friends,

The attached photo was published in Jerusalem's Al-Quds Newspaper (Jan 4, 2009) - the caption reads:
Gaza - During her funeral in the Latin Patriarchate Church, a citizen kisses the forehead of the martyred Christine Turok (14 yrs old) who was martyred due to a heart attack from fear of the Israeli bombardment. (Reuters).

In a phone conversation today, from Gaza the Latin Patriarchate Church priest, Father Manaweil Musallam, clearly shaken, said, "her name is Christine, a tenth grade student. Her father is a doctor and she lived near the YMCA in Al-Remal area. She died of fear. Since the war started she felt apprehensive of the danger. She suffered from neurotic disorder and a hysteric situation just as many children are suffering. On Friday, during the shooting of F-16 missiles, she fell on the ground due to the dreadful sound. Her father tried to help, but he couldn't. Then he held her in his arms hoping to rescue her in the hospital, but she died before reaching there."

He continued, "the Latin Patriarchate school [where Christine attended] did not face any damages, however, the Rosary Sisters School did face physical damages, since it is located near to the Preventive Security building. Today, no one attended Sunday Mass, no one was able to reach the church...we tried to find an alternative place in the school to do the prayers...I tried to gather the nuns with my own car. Today, the area in which the church is located was shelled, we cannot go there."

Being part of the Greek Orthodox Church, the other congregation in Gaza, means that Christine and her family were looking forward to celebrating their Christmas on January 7th. Instead, they will bury Christine at a time where funerals are a rare commodity, for Gazans cannot keep pace with the mounting dead.

This is one child. One story. There are hundreds more and yet hundreds more about to happen tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day...until this madness ends. When the dust settles and the all the dead are buried, some in mass graves, Gazan's children will return to their overly crowded classrooms to find many empty seats. Another Palestinian generation is being destroyed by Israel's killing machine. The US cares less. The UN cares less. The EU care less. The Arab League cares less.

Palestinians are depending on themselves and all those grassroots solidarity communities around the world to weather this madness.
Christine, farewell. I never met you but love you like I love my 14-yr old daughter Areen nevertheless. Christine you lived 14 years in constant fear. I apologize that I, and the world, could not act swiftly enough to bring you a normal life, a dignified life.
Christine dear, you are one of the older ones to be killed and we need you to be brave to look after all those young children and infants being sent your way by US-supplied Israeli weaponry.
May you rest in peace and find yourself in good company with all those other children. Please look after them and yourself.

You will never be forgotten. Never!

Sam

White Phosphorus, DU, Cluster Bombs being used in Gaza

2009-01-04T19:53:00.002+01:00

Gazamom

White Phosphorus, DU, Cluster Bombs being used in Gaza, say residents about 1 hour ago from web

More about Cluster Bombs and White Phosphorus Being Used in Gaza

Gaza Civilians Unprotected: Doctors, medics killed by Zionist attackers

2009-01-04T18:54:00.001+01:00

From Professor Abdelwaheb, Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Al-Azhar University, Gaza to the Palestine Electronic Forum:

In Gaza, we are caught in a rain of missles and a barage of artillery shells! Its totally dark right now but it is interrupted by a buzzing sound of unmanned planes and heliocapters. Streets are deserted! Between now and then, we hear sirenes of ambulances and fire brigades! Civilians flee their homes in the north of Gaza towards the west of the city, and they flee from Zaitoun neighbourhood to the Western parts! Civilains are vulnerable and who cares! They are unprotected at all. Today, three paramedics dies while trying to save lives. The dy before yesterday one medical doctor and a paramedic were killed too. Tonight, all mobile phone net have been totally paralyzed now. Land telephone lines are bad, but it is working! Before dawn, clouds of black smoke were everywhere in Gaza skies! Oooooops. right now, land shakes under us! Booooooom!

Moussa and Laila El-Haddad on CNN

2009-01-04T17:16:00.003+01:00

I just watched Laila El-Haddad, author of Raising Yousef and Nour, and her father, Moussa, a physician in Gaza City on CNN. I also wrote to CNN thanking them for interviewing Laila and her father. Moussa El-Haddad refers to Israel's onslaught on Gaza rightfully as genocide. People in Gaza who have access to a computer may tell their story to CNN here:

http://audience.ireport.com/services/cnn/register.do?quick=true&pid=cnn.ireport&requestedpage=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ireport.com%2Fupload%2F169745.topic

I can not find a link on CNN to to the Haddads yet. Here is the link to Laila's twitterpage.

Thank God that every Palestinian I've seen on CNN and BBC is effectively countering the Zionist spin regarding the rockets, referring to the violence of the occupation as the root of the current problem although I'd like to see everyone educate western audiences about the real root of the problem, which is the Zionist destruction of Palestinian life in 1948, its ethnic cleansing to make way for western invaders, its destruction of over five hundred Palestinian villages, and its refusal to implement the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

Palestinian refugees, who were born in Palestine, are denied the universal human right to return to their homes, while Jews from anywhere in the world, with no previous ties to the land, may immigrate to historic Palestine, and become instant citizens. This injustice must be addressed. I do not accept that any Jew anywhere in the world may immigrate to historic Palestine, while our grandfathers and grandmothers and their descendents are denied the right of return to their homeland.

Since even the western media can not spin the genocide that is currently taking place, the rogue state and its citizens, which have no rational arguments for their ongoing efforts to destroy Palestinian civilization, have resorted to libelous and laughable attacks on any and every Palestinian, part and parcel of their sixty year demonisation of Palestinians. There is even a ridiculous comment on CNN which refers to Hanan Ashrawi, a Christian and dean of Humanities at Bir Zeit University, as a Hamas terrorist. Why is it that Zionists must demonise, dehumanise, obfuscate, and lie about the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine in order to justify their country made up of European, US, Russian, and Arab Jews?

If Jews wanted to immigrate to Palestine, why didn't they blend in with the indigenous people instead of ethnically cleansing them and destroying their villages? Why did they impose themselves on Palestine, creating the devastation that continues to this day? And now, they manufacture all sorts of libels in order to demonise the indigenous people of Palestine.

Many citizens of the US are on to the perfidious nature of the so-called "Jewish" state, as evidenced by the comments on the horrid story in the Washington Post by the Jewish immigrant to Palestine gloating that he feels "fully Israeli" now that his son is killing Palestinians.

At least as we view the latest massacre of the Zionists of the Palestinians, we hear a few Palestinian voices on a major news network and in print journalism. It still doesn't make up for the time afforded to the professional liars representing racist Israel, but it is progress. The information age affords us the opportunity to slowly make inroads in the deadly Zionist spin.

Gaza Home for Ethnically Cleansed Palestinians From Bir Saba (Beersheeba)

2009-01-04T03:55:00.003+01:00

Photo of Bir Saba (pre-1948) scanned from Walid Khalid's All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948

From "The Darker it is, the Closer We are to the Break of Dawn," Rafat Abu Ghali - Al-Shabora refugee camp, Gaza Strip,Occupied Palestinian Territory

My family’s name is Abu Ghali and my family comes from Bir Saba. We used to own 48,000sq meters of cultivatable land. People used to cultivate their land in winter and move to another area called Sidna Ali, near Jaffa. There, they used to rent land lots and cultivate them. During the harvest season they would go back to Bir Saba. In 1933, the British came and expelled the Arabs from Sidna Ali in order to settle Jewish immigrants on their lands. They offered compensation to the land owners. The compensation was one camel, twelve cans of oils, and 20,000sq meters of land with a house built on it in Moqibla area near Jenin. Most people accepted the offer, among them was Khalil Abu Ghali, my grandfather. Those who rejected the offer were expelled by force. A Jewish settlement called Kabus was built there.

The Zionist schemes started in Tel Aviv and Jaffa. Arab owners understood the real intention of these schemes; they were offered two-storey houses built on Palestinian lands. According to the plan, the ground floor was to be occupied by Palestinian land owners while the first floor was for Jewish immigrants. When violence erupted, the Jewish residents started firing from the first floor on their Palestinian neighbors. The British did not allow Arabs to own guns, but they provided weapons for the Jews.

'This is the Destruction of Civilization'

2009-01-04T01:50:00.004+01:00

There are no words, unless they are the words ofa poet, to adequately depict Israel's continuing savage assault on Palestinian civilization that has been ongoing for sixty plus years. Consider that Zionist forces depopulated 675 Palestinian villages and towns sixty years ago and razed over four hundred villages. The most recent barbarity is strictly in character for the usurpers of Palestine; finally, the information age is shattering the self-righteous myths that saturated the west about this criminal state for most of the past sixty years. The cruelty and indifference manifested by the Zionists to the indigenous inhabitants of the land astonishes:

From Gaza Diary: Do Israeli pilots feel happy killing innocent women and children?

In one ward, I meet four children aged five or six. They are in deep shock. They can't speak, they just look at you.

Only one child could say his name: "Abdel Rahman". That's all he can say. Otherwise, he just stares. He's five. His ear was wounded by shrapnel, his head is covered by bandages.

There is a 16-year-old girl also suffering from shrapnel injuries. Three of her brothers were killed; all her family were injured. She looks like a zombie and says nothing at all. Her mother is dying in the intensive care unit.

Zionists bomb the American International School, Gaza

They leveled the school to the ground. The school's night watchman was killed in the attack. His name is Salem Mohammed Abu Klaik and he was just twenty-four years old.

"Most of the school's buildings, which offered American-style curriculum in English for kindergarten through 12th grade, were destroyed by the strikes, which also killed the night watchman.

"'This is the most distinguished and advanced school in Gaza, if not in Gaza and the West Bank,' said Iyad Saraj, chairman of the school's board of trustees. 'I cannot swear there was no rocket fired, but if there was, you don't destroy a whole school ... this is the destruction of civilization.'"

From Sam Bahour in Ramallah

Dear All,

I would like to inform everyone that Paltel Infrastructure is severely damaged in Gaza, all means of communication with the Gaza Strip will be highly affected and may totally cut of; this will include PALTEL , Hadara and Jawwal Mobile services.

We are experiencing, Loss of Fuel, infrastructure damage by missiles, towers hit by rockets, ….

Our technical Staff are unable to fix the damages due to the delicate situation especially after the death of 3 employees while on duty , and dozens hurt from shrapnels.

Our teams are working around the clock, to maintain the service and keep the communications up with gaza.

We hope that this nightmare will end, and we wish safety for everyone.

Best Regards
Mustafa Deeb

From Al-Jazeera

"Two of my neighbours were killed on their way back from school - sixteen-year-old Yasmeen and her sister, 15-year-old Haneen. They were innocent girls.

I wonder how cheap Palestinian blood is." Hamoudi

"We never expected an attack of this scale and this number of people killed. It is a massacre. I didn't believe my own eyes at first, because it is so disgusting to see such a thing." Ghada Snunu

"I'm homeless now after my home was destroyed." Hatem Shurrab

"Eight of our students were killed by a rocket as they left their classrooms to get the bus home."
Adnan Abu Hasma

"While the Israeli response has been beyond any expectations, it is just an episode in a bigger project which aims to kill people's will and turn them into cattle whose top priority is not to resist the occupation but just to survive." Baha Enaya

From January 3 Press Release, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights

"The death toll resulted from IOF's attacks has reached 363, including at least 59 children and 18 women. This figure reflects only those cases which Al Mezan Center has been able to verify, and is expected to rise."

Palestine Center for Human Rights, Gaza

"The victims [24-31 December] include 121 civilians and 165 civil police officers."

Immigrant Gloats About Son Killing Palestinians

2009-01-04T00:47:00.002+01:00

Comment on "As My Son Goes to War, I am Fully Israeli At Last"

Most of the inhabitants of Gaza were ethnically cleansed in order to create Mr. Halevi's Jewish state. Many live in refugee camps a few kilometers from their destroyed villages. Mr. Halevi already enjoyed rights and privileges before he immigrated to a place where he could feel "Israeli." Unfortunately, my Palestinian friends and relatives who were actually born in Palestine may not return to their villages and homes, but this evidently doesn't register on Mr. Halevi's morality scale.

Thank you for publishing, "As the Troops Enter, We Fear the Worst."

2009-01-04T00:00:00.002+01:00

Comment on Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj's op-ed, "As the Troops Enter, We Fear the Worst."

Thank you for publishing this. Dr. El-Sarraj is absolutely correct when he says that the grievances of the Palestinians must be addressed. The root of the problem goes back to 1948 when Zionists destroyed and depopulated over five hundred Palestinian villages and towns. Most of the people in southern Israel are living upon the ruins of the villages and lands once cultivated and inhabited by the people in Gaza and their descendents. Not only does Israel refuse to implement Article 13, Section 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which ensures everyone's right to return to one's home, Israel continues to wreak havoc upon the rightful owners of its stolen lands.

As the Troops Enter, We Fear the Worst

2009-01-03T23:41:00.003+01:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/02/AR2009010202195.html

As the Troops Enter, We Fear the Worst
By Eyad El-Sarraj
Sunday, January 4, 2009; B01
GAZA CITY

How much worse can it get? After a horrifying week, the Israelis have arrived once again at our doorstep. What now? Already we have experienced so much terror and want.

When the Israeli strikes first began, my wife and I were worrying about lentils. She said we could not have lentil soup for lunch because there were no lentils in the shops. Nor any rice or flour. Suddenly there was a deafening noise, followed by a succession of blasts the likes of which I had never experienced. Our house was rocking, the windows rattling in their panes.

Panicked, we ran into the small hallway. My sister-in-law, who lives upstairs, joined us, frantic because her young daughter was not yet home from school. Sari, a boy from the neighborhood, banged on our door asking for shelter. He trembled as he told us that he'd been on his way home from school in a taxi when there was a thundering blast. The driver stopped the car and ran for cover. The passengers scattered in all directions. Sari found himself running aimlessly. The explosions seemed to be chasing him, he said. Suddenly, he came upon people lying bleeding in the street. He went up to a man, wanting to help him, and touched his hand. It was nothing but a piece of burnt flesh. Somebody shouted at him to get away, so he ran off.

The news came over the telephone and the television. More than 200 people had been killed and even more wounded in less than 10 minutes. The numbers were climbing and the funeral scenes filled the TV screen. Apparently F16s had dropped more than 100 tons of bombs on crowded Gaza and had hit more than 300 targets in one mission. The pilots must have reported back to their commanders that their mission had been accomplished. But they never reported the pain and suffering of the innocent people and the fear their fighters had spread in the hearts of our children.

Noor, my stepdaughter, was silent throughout the day. Then she suddenly burst out alternately crying and laughing hysterically. She is a bright girl with artistic talents. She wants to write poetry.

On Monday, the phone rang. It was my friend Salam, asking for advice. His four children, ages 11, 9, 7 and 5, had wet their beds the night before. They'd mostly outgrown that a long time ago.
Three days after the attacks began, Fawaz Abu Sitta, a professor of political science at Al-Azhar University here, was declared dead on the radio. The announcer said that the rubble of a bombed ministry building had completely smothered his small villa. A friend who happened to hear the broadcast alerted civil defense officials to search Fawaz's basement. They did, and Fawaz was rescued along with his wife, his children and his elderly mother.

This carnage goes on, as does another humanitarian crisis brought about by the Israeli siege of Gaza: a lack of medicines, bread, flour, gas, electricity, fuel and almost everything else. The Israeli siege has literally turned Gaza into a massive prison. All our borders are sealed, so there is no way out.

By Tuesday night, Gaza was like a ghost town. Its streets were deserted and people didn't dare to come out of their houses.

The children suffer the most, I think. They see the fear in their mothers' eyes. The image of their fathers as a source of security is shattered. Their fathers could not provide them with food, and now they are unable to protect them. The rockets will eventually stop flying, I am certain, but it may be too late for these children. To me, the chances seem great that they will join Hamas as they search for a replacement for the father figure, someone to provide and protect. In this way, Israeli actions will only strengthen Hamas.

Wisdom tells us that violence can only breed violence. Israel's brutality guarantees that its people will not be secure. Israel may destroy much and kill many in Hamas, but that is not the solution. Hamas was born because of the occupation and won the democratic elections in 2006 because of false promises of peace and people's disillusionment with the Palestinian Authority.

Israel and its allies should address Palestinian grievances instead of aggravating them by denying justice and security and by violating basic human rights. Most of the Palestinians in Gaza are here because they were expelled in 1948 when Israel was created. Since then, we have not had a day of freedom or of equal rights with Israelis. We can barely feed our children or provide them with medicine, because Israel controls everything that goes in and out. From where I sit, in the middle of this barrage of bombing, Israel looks to be increasingly living outside the norms of the world community and outside international law.

I am not alone in thinking this. U.N. Human Rights envoy Richard Falk declared that what Israel is doing is a crime against humanity. Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mary Robinson, former head of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, have expressed similar views in the past. Israel must be stopped.

It looks increasingly likely, though, that before the missiles stop exploding, we will have more days like last Thursday, when a family that lives across the street came to our house. They had gotten a phone call telling them to evacuate because their home would soon be bombed. Israelis sometimes make these calls, but you can't always be sure what will happen. Some houses are actually bombed after such messages. But some are hoaxes.

Our neighbors stayed with us for a couple of hours before they found out that the threat was just a joke -- a very dark kind of humor.

Then on Friday we got word that my stepdaughter's friend -- a Christian -- had died from wounds she had sustained earlier in the week. Noor spent the day crying.

So many people have left their homes. The people who live near Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, have fled. The entire neighborhood is empty.

I'm scared, but I'm staying put, though I am fearful of what's next. I'm worried about what will happen next, the serious bloodshed that will surely follow as the Israeli forces come through on land.

Hamas fighters will be battling from homes, in the streets, in the neighborhoods where we remain.

Eyad El-Sarraj, a psychiatrist, is the founder and president of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program and a commissioner of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights.

Ashdod Built on 'Leveled' Arab Suqrir

2009-01-03T01:59:00.004+01:00

Arab Suqrir before the diaspora.

A refugee from Arab Suqrir (below).

Ashdod has figured prominently in the western press because one Israeli woman died there as a result of a rocket attack. One hundred times as many Palestinian Arabs have died during Israel's latest massacre, but the woman who died in Ashdod featured prominantly in a Newsweek story.

The Israeli town Ashdod sits on the remains of 'Arab Suqrir. It was established in 1955.

According to Walid Khalidi in All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948, "Arab Suqrir was the subject of the first Haganah operational proposal to level a village . . . ." He cites an intelligence report that recommended: "The village should be destroyed completely and some males from the same village should be murdered" (80). The village wasn't "physically destroyed until 24-28 August, during Operation Nikayon ("Cleansing")" (80).

The population af 'Arab Suqrir was 390 in 1944/45(80). Palestinian Arabs owned 12,270 dunums of the land, and Jews owned none (80). Their houses were made of stone. The villagers cultivated orchards, citrus, cereals, citrus and bananas (80).

Israel was quite busy during the second truce of the 1948 war leveling villages and ethnically cleansing the Arab Palestinian population.

"The Brigade [Giv'ati] made use of the second truce of the war 'to expell all unarmed [persons] from [the area],' according to the operational orders. A Giv'ati intelligence officer claimed that most inhabitants had left by the time the orders were implemented, so the units blew up stone houses and burned huts, and 'ten Arabs who tried to escape were killed'" (80).

"Two houses remain standing" (81).

One House Left Standing in Al-Jura, Site of Ashkelon

2009-01-01T14:52:00.003+01:00

Comment left on the Guardian's Comment is Free:

To put in context the most recent Israeli assault on the Palestinians, one must consider the roots of the conflict. Modern day Ashkelon, the target of some of the rockets, which is the pretext Israel uses for its latest atrocity, is built on the ruins of ethnically cleansed and largely destroyed Al-Jura, a microcosm of Israel's overall destruction of Palestinian life. The Zionists left one house of 246 (Khalidi 117) standing in Al-Jura. The former inhabitants of Al-Jura and their descendents make up some of the mostly refugee population of today's Gaza.

Al-Jura is one of over four hundred destroyed Palestinian villages. Just sixty years ago, Al-Jura was the summer destination for the villagers of Al-Majdal, a village 5 kilometers inland from Al-Jura, and it was also destroyed by Zionist forces.
Walid Khalidi, in his book All that Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 writes: "An annual spring mawasin (a season of celebration) was held in it [Al-Jura], to which people in the cities and villages of Gaza District flocked for swimming, sports events, and religious festivals."

He also reports that fishing and bird hunting were the main occupations of the villagers.

Khalidi reports of a UPI story from 1948 in which an Israeli intelligence officer claims "Israeli military activity in the coastal areas had 'caused despair among the local inhabitants.'"

What is happening in Gaza today is an example of the continuing destruction and despair that the Zionist project has sown for the Palestinian people and their way of life. The roots of the conflict must be addressed, most importantly the Palestinians' right to return home, which is Article 13, Section 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Ashkelon Built on Ruins of Ethnically Cleansed and Destroyed Al-Jura

2009-01-01T11:07:00.006+01:00

Photo of Al-Jura, ethnically cleansed and "mostly destroyed" by immigrant Jews in 1948. They left a "single house" standing.

Every US politician makes the obligatory trip to Sderot, an Israeli town built on the defaced and ethnically cleansed Palestinian Village, Najd. I wrote previously about Najd, "Sderot Built on Ashes of Ethnically Cleansed and Defaced Najd." Astute politicians, albeit unconcerned about getting re-elected, might find my article about the history of what is now called Sderot, and might also find interesting the history of what is now called Ashkelon, which is built on ethnically cleansed and destroyed Al-Jura. Because the root of the problem between the Jewish immigrants who came to Palestine from all over the world and ethnically cleansed the Palestinians and then destroyed over five hundred of their villages and the Palestinians is that the initial injustice to the Palestinian people, is not addressed and most of the time not put into context for people not familiar with the history of Palestine.

I wish that every Palestinian-American and others concerned about justice for the Palestinians would flood the newspapers and media with letters and comments about the relatively recent history of the area.

Consider what is now called Ashkelon, which is an Israeli town built on the ruins of Al-Jura. We learn from Palestine Remembered that just 21,972 days ago its Arabic name was Al-Jura.

Walid Khalidi reports in All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948, that Israeli "bombing and strafing left its mark on the population in the region which was psychologically unprepared and had no access to air-raid shelters." He quotes a United Press International report which cites an Israeli intelligence officer that "Israeli military activity in the coastal areas had caused 'despair among the local inhabitants'" (82).

Probably similar to the despair which the still living inhabitants of Al-Jura and other Palestinian villages ethnically cleansed by Israel are experiencing today in Gaza. Zionists have a long history of destroying every aspect of Palestinian life.

Consider that 21,972 days ago, before Al-Jura was ethnically cleansed and destroyed, Palestinian Arabs owned 12,015 dunums of Al-Jura and Jews owned none (117). Al-Jura was a summer resort for their likewise ethnically cleansed neighbors of Al-Majdal (116). Khalidi reports "An annual spring mawasim (a season of celebration) was held in it, to which people in the cities and villages of Gaza District flocked for swimming, sports events, and religious festivals. A market was organized specially for the occasion where visitors could shop (116).

We also learn that "fishing and bird-hunting were the villagers' main occupationss, and their fish and game were sold in several neighboring towns and villages. (In fact, the village was one of the main fishing centers in Palestine.)(116).

Consider Al-Jura, whose inhabitants currently live in Gaza, some of whom fire rockets on Ashkelon, which sits atop its remains. Consider more than 400 other Palestinian villages that were destroyed or depopulated by Zionists in 1948. Consider that Israel denies the fundamental right of return home for these people who just 21,972 days ago were bird hunting, fishing, and hosting summer festivals in their villages. Al-Jura is a microcosm of the damage Zionism has inflicted on Palestinian life.

We Will Return

2009-01-01T10:43:00.001+01:00

From Zahi: An image which appeared on December 31 in Belfast on the Falls Road.

End the Brutal Siege of 1.5m Palestinians!

2008-12-30T12:53:00.005+01:00

Gaza Demonstration in New York City

Israel Continues Its Sixty Year Plus Genocide Against Palestinians

2008-12-30T12:29:00.002+01:00

Palestinians carry the body of 4-year-old Lama Hamdan during her funeral in the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip December 30, 2008. Israel on Tuesday rejected any truce with Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip before cross-border rocket fire ceased and said its air strikes, the fiercest in decades, heralded "long weeks of military action". In Beit Hanoun, two sisters, one of them Lama Hamdan, were killed in a air raid as they were taking out the trash near their home, medical workers said. Reuters/Mohammed Salem

Five Girls From One Family Murdered by Israel

2008-12-30T00:51:00.002+01:00

All my pretty ones? Did you say all?

Ross in Macbeth upon learning that Macbeth murdered his wife and child.

The five Ba'lousha children murdered by Israel:

4-year-old Jawahir Anwar

8-year-old Dina Anwar

12-year-old Sahar Anwar

14-year-old Ikram Anwar

17-year-old Tahrir Anwar

Photo by Mohammed Abed AFP

Israeli Massacres in Gaza Continue: 284 Killed; Including 32 Children

2008-12-29T18:54:00.001+01:00

Reference: 114/2008
Date: 29 December 2008

Press Release

Israeli Massacres in Gaza Continue: 284 Killed; Including 32 Children, and 755 Injured
Gaza's Service Systems Paralyzed under Severe Lack of Medicine, Food and Power

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has continued its airstrikes on Gaza. For the third day in a raw, Israeli aircrafts, helicopter gunships and surveillance drones have continued to roam Gaza's skies, spreading death around the impoverished coastal strip. Attacks targeted dozens of houses and other civilian premises, such as mosques and education facilities that are located in urban areas causing dozens of civilian casualties. These attacks continue as the international community failure to uphold applicable international law seems to encourage more Israeli attacks, despite their clear disregard of civilian life and international law.

Al Mezan Center's monitoring indicates that at least 30 Palestinians (12 children and one woman) have been killed since yesterday, whereas the number of people who have been injured reached 158 (25 children and 14 women). 38 houses were targeted directly by the IOF and approximately 3,000 homes have sustained varied degrees of damage. Additionally, the IOF airstrikes targeted and destroyed 4 mosques, 34 workshops, 16 security installations, 3 CBO offices, 3 fishing boats and 6 vehicles. This is besides the bombardment of a building in the Islamic University. The UNSCO office and a building hosting international UN staff and a number of their cars were also damaged.

As IOF's attacks continue, more casualties and damages are expected to occur in Gaza.

Two of the most tragic events took place in Jabalia refugee camp, north of the Gaza Strip, and Rafah refugee camp in the south of the Strip. In Jabalia refugee camp an Israeli airstrike targeted the Emad Aqel Mosque in Block 4 of the camp. The Mosque was destroyed. But so were tens of the refugee camp's humble homes, which asbestos roofs and weak walls fell down. Two homes adjacent to the Mosque were completely destroyed, one of which on their inhabitants, killing five girl children and injuring six, including an infant, a toddler and two girl children as well as their parents. Al Mezan's field worker reported that the victims were identified as:
- 4-year-old Jawahir Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 8-year-old Dina Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 12-year-old Sahar Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 14-year-old Ikram Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 17-year-old Tahrir Anwar Ba'lousha.
Those who were injured are:
- Two-week-old Bara' Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 2-year-old Mohammed Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 11-year-old Samah Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 16-year-old Iman Anwar Ba'lousha,
The parents of the children were also injured in this attack, which destroyed tens of homes and caused various injuries to another 24 civilians.

In the southern Gaza camp of Rafah, Israeli aircraft destroyed tens of homes in a series of airstrikes. The bombardment of the Al-Attar family and the Al-Absi family were particularly severe. According to Al Mezan's field investigations, at approximately 1am today, 29 December 2008, Israeli aircrafts launched two airstrikes which simultaneously hit the houses of Al-Attar family and the Al-Absi family in the camp. The latter house was completely destroyed and many of its inhabitants were buried under its rubble. Three of the family's children were killed and five other persons were injured. Medical sources in Rafah reported to Al Mezan that the children's mother sustained serious wounds. Those who were killed in this house were identified as:
- 3-year-old Sedki Ziad Al-Absi,
- 12-year-old Ahmad Ziad Al-Absi,
- 14-year-old Mohammed Ziad Al-Absi.

Three other people from Al-Kurd family, who reside a neighboring house, were also injured in this attack, which caused damage to another four houses.

Aircrafts also bombarded and destroyed the Al-Attars house in Rafah. Four other neighboring homes were severely damaged and four people residing an adjacent home were injured, including 12-year-old Mahmoud Abu Hashim. The Al-Attar family had evacuated their house shortly before the shelling.

IOF's airstrikes also targeted civilian premises in Rafah, including the buildings of Rafah Municipality and Governorate, and metal workshops, a medicine stores, and police stations.

The IOF also intensified its attacks on the borderline between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, forcing thousands of civilians to evacuate their homes starting approximately 40 minutes after midnight today. Families sheltered in UNRWA schools, which are not equipped to receive refugees, especially in the cold winters.

In Gaza City, IOF's attacks have continued to target civilian premises. One attack targeted a two-story house owned by the Kishku family in Az-Zeytoun neighborhood in the city, at approximately 7pm yesterday. Israeli aircrafts hit the house with missiles while its 13 inhabitants were inside it, killing one woman and a girl child and injuring another six. Those who were killed were:
- 8-year-old Ibtihal Abdullah Kishku,
- 22-year-old Maisa Muneer Kishku.

At approximately 1:20pm yesterday, 28 December 2008, Israeli aircrafts fired missiles into two uninhabited apartments in the Al Azhar and the Education apartment compounds in Tel Al Hawa area in Gaza City. Numerous apartments were damaged. Later at night, Israeli aircrafts fired five heavy missiles at a building hosting classrooms and the labs of the Science and Engineering colleges at the Islamic University in Gaza City. The building was completely destroyed and other buildings at the university were damaged.

Al Mezan's field workers reported that the IOF launched numerous attacks on police and security buildings in Gaza City, including the presidential guesthouse in Ansar security compound. Israeli aircrafts and naval vessels took part in these attacks, which also struck the fishermen's haven and destroyed three fishing boats.

Also in Gaza City, at approximately 2:30am today 29 December 2008, Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles at the house of Ala' I'kilan in the Beach refugee camp, destroying it and causing damages to tens of houses in the camp.

In Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip, Israeli aircrafts bombarded various targets. At approximately 9:15pm on 28 December 2008 fired a missile into a crowd of people in Al Qarara town, east to Khan Younis, killing 22-year-old Ahmad Fayyad and moderately injuring another man.

At 10:20pm on the same day IOF bombarded the Ezadin Al Qassam Mosque in the town of Abassan, east to Khan Younis, destroying the mosque and causing severe damage to many houses around it. About an hour later, Israeli aircrafts bombarded the Abu T''emeh family's house in Bani Suheial town, also east to Khan Younis. The house was destroyed and many other houses damaged.

In the Middle Gaza district, IOF fired missiles at an empty car in the An-Nuseirat refugee camp. Three bystanders were killed, including a child. They were identified as:
- 15-year-old Diya Abu Khubizeh,
- 20-year-old Mohammed Abu Khubizeh,
- 21-year-old Younis Abu Khubizeh.

At approximately 11:30pm on Sunday 28 December 2008, Israeli aircrafts bombarded the house of Talal Hassan Issa in the Al-Bureij refugee camp. The house was completely destroyed and tens of other houses were damaged. However, no casualties were reported. Eyewitnesses reported to Al Mezan that the inhabitants had evacuated following a telephone call informing them that their house would be attacked.

This Israeli bloody escalation comes while the tight siege of Gaza which has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis for Gaza's 1.5 million people, who have had to live under severe shortages of food, water, medicine and power. These conditions impact seriously on the services sectors, especially as some of their facilities are being bombarded.

According to the monitoring of Al Mezan Center for Human Rights there is evidence that the IOF has perpetrated grave breaches of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in Gaza during the past few days. Many of the IOF's conducts qualify as war crimes and/or crimes against humanity. The Israeli aggression also represents a multiple violation of human rights standards.

It has been observed that the IOF target civilian premises directly and wantonly, while showing blatant disregard to civilian life and property. Israel's attempts to prescribe its recent actions as self-defence against Hamas and rocket launchers is distorted and misleading. When a state chooses to resort to the use of force, it is bound by rules that prevent it from the abuse of this force, for its actions must observe the basic principles of IHL and human rights, both of which absolutely prohibit the disproportionate use of force and place an obligation on it to distinguish between military and civilian targets. In pursuing political gains in Gaza, Israel must show respect for human rights.

Therefore, and as the international community continuous failure to uphold its own legal and moral obligations, by turning a blind eye to the recent developments in Gaza and refraining from taking any effective actions to restrain Israel's violations or providing aid and protection for innocent civilians, Al Mezan calls for an urgent convention of the conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilians in Times of war, of 1949, to consider the continuous, and scandalous, disregard of its obligations under the Convention and taking the necessary measures to ensure respect of its rules with regard to the Israeli action in Gaza.

Al Mezan Center, while welcomes the worldwide popular reactions in solidarity with the Gaza Strip, calls for more pressure by civil societies on their governments to ensure that they take actions in compliance with their international obligations, which require them to act to stop and punish war crimes.

END

For Palestine

2008-12-29T17:23:00.006+01:00

A Palestinian boy watches the funeral of three children in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip December 29, 2008 (Ibraheem Abu Mustapha, Reuters)

A Palestinian man carries the body of his 4-year-old daughter Dena Balosha during the funeral for her and her four sisters in Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip December 29, 2008 (Mohammed Salem, Reuters).

Five of this man's daughters were murdered by Zionists.

How hard it is to look at the TV. I'm a school teacher, but when I watched CNN's "Putting Gaza in Context" yesterday I hurled expletives that wouldn't be tolerated in a bar. While the fresh-faced engaging young man put Gaza "in context" for us, he failed to mention that 44.7% of Gaza's population is fourteen years of age or under (thanks, Annie, for that fact from the CIA factbook). Instead he told us that Israel was engaged in a war with Hamas militants. Tell that to the father who carried his dead seven year old son in a cardboard box. And tell us why this monstous faux country bombed a defenseless refugee population at high noon, when school was getting out. (And for comprehensive coverage of Israel's latest in a long line of massacres against the Palestinian people check out Annie's blog).

He did tell us that Israel ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005, leaving the ignorant viewer to wonder just why the Palestinians there are so unhappy with Israel, the plucky nation of immigrants, self-described as the "light unto the nations." Well, at least no one buys that bull any more. He also didn't put in context that most of the residents were ethnically cleansed from their villages, which were bombed to oblivion in 1948 by the immigrants from Poland, Russian, and the US, nor did he mention that the people in Sderot live in ethnically cleansed and courtesy of Israel defaced Najd. We hear a lot about Hamas this, Hamas that, Hamas hospital, Hamas University, Hamas school, Hamas day care, Hamas house, Hamas mosque, Hamas civil defense building, Hamas neighborhood, ad nauseum.

There are a lot of nasty and not so nasty commentators on the Guardian's Comment is Free, but no one really gets to the heart of the matter. Except for Ali Abunimah who wrote "We Have No Words Left." Well, we have words, but no words in the English language to describe the despicable way that Zionists have vilified their victims for over sixty years and turned this story on its head unless our words are reduced to the basic Anglo-Saxon expletives hurled at the TV for the disgust we feel for how our suffering is portrayed and for the indifference to our plight from the Zionists and much of the world. Actually, the indifference is better than the insidious Zionist lie after lie after lie that saturate the comments boards and the media. The Israeli Zionists want a state "for the Jews, of the Jews, and by the Jews," and damn everyone else.

The Zionists spit on international law and human rights. Zionists, no matter from where they come in the world, don't give a damn that they deny the right of return to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees. They happily immigrate to their faux country, indifferent to the natives they ethnically cleansed and to the villages they eradicated. They have no concern that by immigrating to Israel they are collusive in an ongoing genocide of a people and their culture. They bombed and eradicated over five hundred villages to ensure that the refugees wouldn't return home, and those who tried back in the fifties were gunned down by the vicious predecessors of today's Zionists.

Any other people would have the world's sympathy, but sympathy or not, at least I'm not going away, and I will resist the evil manifested by the despicably racist Zionist movement consisting of a host of invaders from all over the world, who for sixty long years have denied the Palestinians' their inalienable right to live peaceably in their homeland.

Stop your killing, stop your lies, your insidious, despicable lies about the people for whom Palestine is home, the true heirs of the land. Go back from where you came, Zionist Jews from Poland, from Russia, from France, from South America, from the US, from Canada, from Germany, from Ethiopia, from wherever you decided to leave, or else resolve to live in peace with the indigenous people of Palestine.

Palestine Walks: Vanishing Landscape

2008-11-25T22:48:00.001+01:00

Heartbreaking slide show with Raja Shehadeh narrating excerpts from his book Palestine Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape (thanks to Muna).

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3305336102094143351&hl=en

A Modern Day Lesson For Israel . . . in dealing with refugees

2008-11-04T16:48:00.000+01:00

thanks to Sam Bahour

BBC NEWS

Passport offer for Spanish exiles

Descendants of people who fled Spain during the country's civil war are to be allowed to apply for citizenship.

The decision will allow an estimated 500,000 children and grandchildren of civil war-era exiles to seek to return.

That number is believed to include 300,000 people in Argentina alone, Spain's government says.

The measure is part of new legislation passed last year that aims to compensate and rehabilitate victims of Spain's 1936-1939 civil war.

An estimated 500,000 people died in the civil war, which left Spain as a dictatorship under the rule of the Fascist General Francisco Franco.

Old wounds

Descendants of Spaniards who left the country for fear of political persecution or economic hardship between 1936 and 1955 will now be able to apply for nationality before 2011.

Spain's government has said those who accept any offer of citizenship would not be required to give up their current passports.

Thousands of Spaniards fled their home country during the war, which saw the Nationalists defeat the Republican armies.

An estimated 500,000 people died in the conflict, which divided Spain sharply along ideological lines.

The country only began a transition to democracy after the death of Gen Franco in 1975.

As part of the new law, the current Socialist government will now be allowed to embark on an effort to remove Franco-era symbols and rename roads, avenues and squares.

Passing the law of restitution - of which the citizenship offer forms a part - was controversial in Spain, where opposition conservatives complained the legislation reopened old wounds.

Elderly former members of the International Brigades, the collection of anti-fascists who travelled to Spain to fight Gen Franco's forces, will also be eligible for citizenship under the new law.

Previously members of the International Brigades would have been required to give up their other nationality to accept a Spanish passport, the Associated Press reported.

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7704055.stm
Published: 2008/11/01 15:27:13 GMT
© BBC MMVIII

Present and Past Palestinian Autumns

2008-10-30T19:22:00.000+01:00

Just remembering today, a miniscule sampling of the effects of Zionism on present and past Palestinian autumns

Victims of Kufur Kassem: A Past Zionist October Surprise

Flood Ordeal for Palestinians stuck on Iraq-Syria Border (October 29, 2008)

Nine-year-old Aya said she was terrified. "The lights were all off, there was water everywhere. My mother was crying. She is pregnant and the baby will come soon. Please get us out before my brother is born. I am scared he will die if we have to live here after she delivers."

Palestinians Denied Visit to Villages of Ancestors (Since 1948-present)

“He was killed 60 years ago as he was travelling to work,” she said, struggling to hold back the tears. “My mother was four months pregnant with me at the time. This photograph is the closest I’ve ever got to him.” Six decades on from his death, she has never been allowed to visit his grave in Galilee and lay a wreath for the father she never met.

IOF Unit Guns Down Seventy Year Old Palestinian (today)

They told PIC that Mohammed Abahra was instantly killed when the IOF soldiers fired at him after he got out of his house with a lamp in his hand to inspect the noises he heard in the vicinity.

October 29, the 52nd Anniversay of the Kufr Qassim Massacre

The massacre started at 5 in the evening ,at the western entrance to the village. The army executed 43 men at the western entrance, three more at the northern entrance, two inside the village, and a child, 11, was killed in a nearby village.
On that day, Israeli soldiers shot and killed 48 Palestinians in Kufur Qassim; among them were ten children and nine women.

Remembering Beit Hanoun

November, 2006

A group of women gathered around me. Each of them is trying to tell her piece of the story. Nisreen, Nema's daughter, explained that "My mother, Manal, and Fatima Masoud, the three of them turned to piles of burnt and torn flesh. We collected what was left of them from the walls, doors and trees, and then put them in buckets carrying their names. We recognized them from pieces of their clothes which were stuck to their burned flesh."

My Mother

2008-10-26T21:59:00.000+01:00

On Friday I read Mahmud Darwish's "Ummi" [Mother] at Wiesbaden High School's lunch time Poetry Slam. Our school has under five hundred kids and there were about thirty kids and a smattering of staff present, which is pretty good considering many of the kids were involved in preparations for the annual Powder Puff football game.

I believe that "Ummi" will be read worldwide on Mother's Day, on our mothers' birthdays, and also at our mothers' funerals. It resonates universally, and I was thrilled when co-workers commented "Beautiful," and when students attended with rapt faces:

My Mother (Ummi) by Mahmoud Darwish

I long for my mother's bread
My mother's coffee
Her touch
Childhood memories grow up in me
Day after day
I must be worth my life
At the hour of my death
Worth the tears of my mother
And if I come back one day
Take me as a veil to your eyelashes
Cover my bones with the grass
Blessed by your footsteps
Bind us together
with a lock of your hair
With a thread that trails from the back of your dress
I might become immortal
Become a god
If I touch the depths of your heart
If I come back
Use me as wood to feed your fire
As the clothesline on the roof of house
Without your blessing
I am too weak to stand
I am old
Give me back the star maps of childhood
So that I
Along with the swallows
Can chart the path
Back to your waiting nest

Blood on their Hands: Summary of Another IOF Child Killing

2008-10-22T22:25:00.000+02:00

Another summary I've made which is taken from Palestine Center for Human Rights, Gaza's Blood On Their Hands: Child Killings From the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the Gaza Strip, June 2007-June2008. The sixty-four page report was released on October 21 and may be found here. One of my first summaries of a horrific child killing was posted yesterday here.

Abdel Khader Yousef Ashour, 13, and Mansour Al-Kafarna met their deaths on August 21, 2007. They were playing in an orchard in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip next to an Agricultural School. Both kids were killed instantly by a surface-to-surface missile, courtesy of Israel's Occupation Forces.

Abdel Khader's mother heard an explosion at 5:45 PM. She was just a few hundred meters from the school where she knew her son had been playing football. As she headed toward the school, she asked a man she'd met along the way if he'd seen a boy in blue. He told her that the boy in blue had been "dismembered." Another boy playing with the two who were killed suffered shrapnel wounds. There were several other children in the proximity of the schoolyard. No rockets had been fired from the neighborhood the day that the boys were targeted. The parents are convinced that the IOF deliberately targeted the innocent children as a warning "to pressure local parents into preventing rockets to be fired from Beit Hanoun towards Israel."

In five days, beginning on February 27, 2008, Israel killed twenty-seven children in Gaza. Half of them were killed in Jabalia in twenty-four hours.

"The circumstances of child deaths during Operation Winter Heat strongly and consistently indicate that children were deliberately targeted throughout the operation." On February 28, a group of boys were playing football near their homes. IOF launched a missile, killing four of them, Mohammed Na'im Hammouda, 9; Ali Munir Dardouna, 8; Dardouna Deib Dardouna, 12, and Omar Hussein Dardouna, 14. Three other boys were seriously injured. PCHR investigations indicate that there was no resistance activity at the time the boys were killed. They were playing in an open area in a residential district that was "clearly visible" to the IOF in the aircraft which targeted them.