END THE WAR! END THE OCCUPATION!
END STATE TERROR! END AMERICAN EMPIRE!
ICAHD, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, condemns all attacks on civilians, whether by Israel, the Palestinians or Hezbollah. We recognize Israel’s ever-repressive Occupation as the main source of conflict and instability in our region. Had Israel taken the many opportunities it had to secure a just peace, the peoples of the region would never have reached this point of despair and futile violence. Israel believes it can achieve “quiet” and normalcy through military power while retaining its Occupation, encouraged and protected by the US. This is the true convergence: Israel’s Occupation in return for an active Israeli role in expanding American Empire.
Like Russian babushka dolls, Israel’s disproportionate attacks on both Gaza and Lebanon contain an agenda within an agenda, hidden within the pretext of freeing Israeli soldiers.
In its vicious attacks on Gaza in which 3000 houses were demolished in the second Intifada and as a months-long campaign of starving the local population into submission continues, Israel seeks to break the will of the Palestinian people and destroy any resistance to the imposition of an apartheid regime. This is the only plausible explanation for Israel’s delegitimization of the democratically-elected Hamas government which had been moving steadily towards a negotiated two-state settlement with Israel, and for its campaign to physically liquidate Hamas leaders, in contravention of international law. The massive toll in innocent Palestinian civilian lives is to be condemned. ICAHD will work with the international courts to bring the military the political perpetrators to justice.
Although Hezbollah contributes little to the Palestinian cause and only adds to regional violence, it is merely a product of Israeli refusal to negotiate with Syria, despite repeated overtures. By creating straw enemies like Hezbollah, Israel creates the violence and instability that allows it to retain its Occupation. Hezbollah and Israel share equally in the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians in both Lebanon and Israel.
Israel, of course, could not have reached this point without American and European complicity. Indeed, American refusal to countenance a ceasefire only affirms Israel’s role as its military surrogate in the Middle East. Their shared aim is a Pax Americana over the region for which Israel will be allowed to keep its settlements.
The war must end immediately and all UN resolutions be implemented. All attacks on civilians must end immediately and permanently. Israel, which holds some 9000 Palestinian and Arab political prisoners, must negotiate a meaningful exchange in return for its captured soldiers. Above all, Israel must realize that there is no military solution to the conflict in our region. Relinquishing its Occupation in favor of genuine negotiations with the Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese is the only guarantee of Israel’s security. It must recognize that America is not its “friend,” and that an Occupation sustained only if Israel does America’s dirty work will not offer it the peace and security it craves. A total end to the Occupation is Israel’s only path to peace and the only way to ensure that the Middle East conflict does not become a global conflagration.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Saturday, July 29, 2006
What I wrote on Tony Blair's site 27.7.06
Sir. I know you care. I know you're working hard on this. But at what point will you consider pulling out of the Triad in order to end Israeli war crimes?
>
Israel, my country, is an occupying, colonial power and the system is now worse than apartheid (I lived there for years and here for 25 yrs).
Friends do not let friends drive drunk; the juvenile delinquent funerals are only beginning. We need tough love not appeasement. We desperately need saving from ourselves, and forcing back to the negotiation table. We are too high up trees to get there alone. Please save us -- you know talking is inevitable, and super urgent before the region is aflame and more good human beings die savagely. You (maybe Ted Kennedy and Wolfensohn, too) are amongst the few who have the position to impose it. Before we all go out with a bang. Or whimper. Save us from Bush. Save us from our military's win-lose idiocy. Save us from militarism's curse. Escalation, fascism, racism & slaughter.
>
Israel, my country, is an occupying, colonial power and the system is now worse than apartheid (I lived there for years and here for 25 yrs).
Friends do not let friends drive drunk; the juvenile delinquent funerals are only beginning. We need tough love not appeasement. We desperately need saving from ourselves, and forcing back to the negotiation table. We are too high up trees to get there alone. Please save us -- you know talking is inevitable, and super urgent before the region is aflame and more good human beings die savagely. You (maybe Ted Kennedy and Wolfensohn, too) are amongst the few who have the position to impose it. Before we all go out with a bang. Or whimper. Save us from Bush. Save us from our military's win-lose idiocy. Save us from militarism's curse. Escalation, fascism, racism & slaughter.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Amnesty International: Letter to Rice in Rome
Open Letter: 26 July 2006
Lebanon/Israel: Open letter to foreign ministers meeting in Rome
Dear Foreign Minister,
I write to you on the occasion of this Wednesday’s governmental meeting in Rome, called in response to the current conflict involving Israel and Lebanon.
Civilians on both sides of the Israel/Lebanon border have borne the brunt of this conflict. In Israel, at least 17 civilians have been killed and hundreds of others have been injured by rockets fired into civilian areas of Israel by Hizbullah, while in Lebanon Israeli air attacks and bombardments have killed more than 300 civilians, more than a third of them children, and wounded thousands. More than half a million Lebanese have been displaced by Israeli bombings and threats.
Israel is imposing a naval and air blockade of Lebanon. It has attacked Beirut’s airport and bombarded the main road out of the country to Syria and dozens of other roads, bridges and other infrastructure, as well as residential areas. The humanitarian situation for civilians remaining in the south is worsening by the day, including in the southern port city of Tyre, which is also having to cope with a large influx of people internally displaced from villages in the south of the country. The destruction by Israel of electricity power plants and other infrastructure has left hospitals, clinics and other medical facilities without the necessary resources and supplies at a time when they have to cope with a massive increase in casualties. Ambulances and rescue crews have reportedly been attacked by Israeli forces as they have tried to reach victims of the bombing.
Some foreign nationals caught up in the conflict have been evacuated through the intervention of their home governments but, as international humanitarian agencies warn, the civilian population of Lebanon now faces a humanitarian disaster.
The international community must ensure that Hizbullah and Israel comply with international humanitarian law. The evidence so far, including the pattern of attacks, the extent of civilian casualties and statements by the parties indicates that serious violations of the laws of war have been committed and continue to be committed by both sides in the conflict.
Intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects and launching indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks are war crimes. All states have an obligation to ensure that allegations of war crimes are investigated promptly. Perpetrators must be brought to justice, and victims and their families must receive reparations. This is the responsibility of all state parties to the Geneva Conventions, not only the parties to the conflict.
The swift and effective nature of the foreign evacuations contrasts sharply with the slowness with which the international community is addressing this burgeoning crisis. At the Rome meeting, key governments must show greater determination to press the parties to the conflict to end attacks on civilians and ensure respect for international humanitarian law.
In particular, Amnesty International calls on your government to:
Make clear to the parties to the conflict, at the highest level, that it is a war crime to target civilians or civilian objects or to carry out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks and that they are obligated to conduct criminal investigations of anyone suspected of serious violations of international humanitarian law during the conflict.
Press the parties to the conflict immediately to establish and guarantee humanitarian corridors for the provision of urgent humanitarian assistance to civilians affected by the conflict and safe passage for humanitarian workers.
Call for the urgent dispatch of the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC), established under Article 90 of Protocol I relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I ), to investigate incidents where serious violations of the Geneva Conventions and the Protocol are alleged to have taken place. Scrutiny by the IHFFC will be essential to establish the facts independently and authoritatively. It can also act as a deterrent against further abuses by the parties to the conflict.
Pending the establishment of such mechanism, ensure that the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has the necessary resources to monitor, report on and document comprehensively abuses committed by both Hizbullah and Israel.
Call for the convening of a meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to decide on measures to ensure compliance by the parties with international humanitarian law.
Suspend all sales and transfer of arms and military equipment to the parties to the conflict and ensure adequate oversight arrangements are in place to prevent such transfers, and support a UN Security Council arms embargo.
We call on you to act expeditiously to ensure the protection of civilians in Lebanon and Israel, bring the parties into compliance with international humanitarian law, and ensure that there is no impunity for perpetrators of war crimes in this conflict.
Sincerely,
Irene Khan
Secretary General
For more information please call Amnesty International's press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW. web: http://www.amnesty.org
For latest human rights news view http://news.amnesty.org
Lebanon/Israel: Open letter to foreign ministers meeting in Rome
Dear Foreign Minister,
I write to you on the occasion of this Wednesday’s governmental meeting in Rome, called in response to the current conflict involving Israel and Lebanon.
Civilians on both sides of the Israel/Lebanon border have borne the brunt of this conflict. In Israel, at least 17 civilians have been killed and hundreds of others have been injured by rockets fired into civilian areas of Israel by Hizbullah, while in Lebanon Israeli air attacks and bombardments have killed more than 300 civilians, more than a third of them children, and wounded thousands. More than half a million Lebanese have been displaced by Israeli bombings and threats.
Israel is imposing a naval and air blockade of Lebanon. It has attacked Beirut’s airport and bombarded the main road out of the country to Syria and dozens of other roads, bridges and other infrastructure, as well as residential areas. The humanitarian situation for civilians remaining in the south is worsening by the day, including in the southern port city of Tyre, which is also having to cope with a large influx of people internally displaced from villages in the south of the country. The destruction by Israel of electricity power plants and other infrastructure has left hospitals, clinics and other medical facilities without the necessary resources and supplies at a time when they have to cope with a massive increase in casualties. Ambulances and rescue crews have reportedly been attacked by Israeli forces as they have tried to reach victims of the bombing.
Some foreign nationals caught up in the conflict have been evacuated through the intervention of their home governments but, as international humanitarian agencies warn, the civilian population of Lebanon now faces a humanitarian disaster.
The international community must ensure that Hizbullah and Israel comply with international humanitarian law. The evidence so far, including the pattern of attacks, the extent of civilian casualties and statements by the parties indicates that serious violations of the laws of war have been committed and continue to be committed by both sides in the conflict.
Intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects and launching indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks are war crimes. All states have an obligation to ensure that allegations of war crimes are investigated promptly. Perpetrators must be brought to justice, and victims and their families must receive reparations. This is the responsibility of all state parties to the Geneva Conventions, not only the parties to the conflict.
The swift and effective nature of the foreign evacuations contrasts sharply with the slowness with which the international community is addressing this burgeoning crisis. At the Rome meeting, key governments must show greater determination to press the parties to the conflict to end attacks on civilians and ensure respect for international humanitarian law.
In particular, Amnesty International calls on your government to:
Make clear to the parties to the conflict, at the highest level, that it is a war crime to target civilians or civilian objects or to carry out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks and that they are obligated to conduct criminal investigations of anyone suspected of serious violations of international humanitarian law during the conflict.
Press the parties to the conflict immediately to establish and guarantee humanitarian corridors for the provision of urgent humanitarian assistance to civilians affected by the conflict and safe passage for humanitarian workers.
Call for the urgent dispatch of the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC), established under Article 90 of Protocol I relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I ), to investigate incidents where serious violations of the Geneva Conventions and the Protocol are alleged to have taken place. Scrutiny by the IHFFC will be essential to establish the facts independently and authoritatively. It can also act as a deterrent against further abuses by the parties to the conflict.
Pending the establishment of such mechanism, ensure that the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has the necessary resources to monitor, report on and document comprehensively abuses committed by both Hizbullah and Israel.
Call for the convening of a meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to decide on measures to ensure compliance by the parties with international humanitarian law.
Suspend all sales and transfer of arms and military equipment to the parties to the conflict and ensure adequate oversight arrangements are in place to prevent such transfers, and support a UN Security Council arms embargo.
We call on you to act expeditiously to ensure the protection of civilians in Lebanon and Israel, bring the parties into compliance with international humanitarian law, and ensure that there is no impunity for perpetrators of war crimes in this conflict.
Sincerely,
Irene Khan
Secretary General
For more information please call Amnesty International's press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW. web: http://www.amnesty.org
For latest human rights news view http://news.amnesty.org
Ms. Rice - Stop the War Crimes!
Jerusalem, Monday 24th July, 9.00 p.m.
Prof. Jeff Halper, Co-ordinator of The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (http://www.icahd.org/) and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee this year (nominated by the Quakers), holding aloft a sign outside her hotel in Jerusalem this evening, demanding that US Secretary of State,
Condoleezza Rice, newly arrived here (finally) on shuttle diplomacy, stop the war crimes Israel is committing. Rice had said in Washington that "As to the timing of this, look, yes, I could have gotten on a plane and rushed over and started shuttling, and it wouldn't have been clear what I was shuttling to do. " We would respectfully suggest, Madame Secretary, that you could have been shuttling for the past two weeks trying to save lives. Stopping Israel from destabilising the whole region, pushing us all nearer to the edge. Instead, you stayed away while the whole world went up in smoke and thousands are homeless, with future lives in shreds. Not to mention anyone who still didn't hate us, now doing so. Doesn't anyone out there understand how terrorism is fuelled by all this s***? Whether you want to call them terrorists or freedom fighters or militants, seems to me nothing more terrorising than F16s raining phosphorus and cluster bombs.
Well you can see the riot police were all over us. We were about 60 people, with a dozen or so of them. We had four arrests - they were really violent, pushing, shoving, grabbing. Doing everything to get us away from the hotel lobby area. Not before the press there came in for photos (helping to keep it less violent, too) and an AP TV interview. "Why have you come here?" asked the AP cameraman. "Because she has to stop it. These war crimes. We see it all on TV. It has to stop. The Occupation, the bombings, the violence. It's just creating more and more hatred and terror. I came to say it's not in my name..." We even shouted all the slogans extra loud when we saw that the main TV station was doing a live link-up at the time of the 9 pm News. Hope it got onto the screens and into Israeli homes. Maybe make them think some of them...
Prof. Jeff Halper, Co-ordinator of The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (http://www.icahd.org/) and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee this year (nominated by the Quakers), holding aloft a sign outside her hotel in Jerusalem this evening, demanding that US Secretary of State,
Condoleezza Rice, newly arrived here (finally) on shuttle diplomacy, stop the war crimes Israel is committing. Rice had said in Washington that "As to the timing of this, look, yes, I could have gotten on a plane and rushed over and started shuttling, and it wouldn't have been clear what I was shuttling to do. " We would respectfully suggest, Madame Secretary, that you could have been shuttling for the past two weeks trying to save lives. Stopping Israel from destabilising the whole region, pushing us all nearer to the edge. Instead, you stayed away while the whole world went up in smoke and thousands are homeless, with future lives in shreds. Not to mention anyone who still didn't hate us, now doing so. Doesn't anyone out there understand how terrorism is fuelled by all this s***? Whether you want to call them terrorists or freedom fighters or militants, seems to me nothing more terrorising than F16s raining phosphorus and cluster bombs.
Well you can see the riot police were all over us. We were about 60 people, with a dozen or so of them. We had four arrests - they were really violent, pushing, shoving, grabbing. Doing everything to get us away from the hotel lobby area. Not before the press there came in for photos (helping to keep it less violent, too) and an AP TV interview. "Why have you come here?" asked the AP cameraman. "Because she has to stop it. These war crimes. We see it all on TV. It has to stop. The Occupation, the bombings, the violence. It's just creating more and more hatred and terror. I came to say it's not in my name..." We even shouted all the slogans extra loud when we saw that the main TV station was doing a live link-up at the time of the 9 pm News. Hope it got onto the screens and into Israeli homes. Maybe make them think some of them...
Stop the Killing. Start negotiations now. So we chanted, "Peretz. Peretz. Saar habitahon. Kama yeladot ratzahta ad ha yom?" (Peretz, Minister of Defence. How many little girls have you killed to date?)
Difficult to find the energy, because of the violence, and the emotion of all the anger and fury at this. 
And now we're having weekly large demos in Tel Aviv and daily vigils at 6.00 pm outside the Prime Minister's office. Hope it grows. There again, hope soon there will be no need for it. Negotiations? Please God so.
From Every Mountainside, Let Freedom Ring!!
Monday, 24th July 2006
Is it only coincidence that last month I was in Birmingham Alabama (at the Presbyterian General Assembly, where the Presbyterians voted to keep on with the whole selective divestment issue from industries which support the Occupation). We went to the Civil Rights Institute where Martin Luther King's message had us in tears, yet again.... "From every mountainside, let freedom ring!" Is it only coincidence that I hadn't had time until today to go through my photos of that trip?
I came across them when looking for a photo of Saturday's anti war demonstration. Lebanon, I dedicate that visit and these photos to you. So that any Americans who come across this site - Jews, Christians, Moslems or others, should remember what their moral compasses should be.
And here is Saturday's demonstration. The third major one we've held, but the first to hit over the 1,000 mark. Here you see Uri Avnery of Gush Shalom and a past member of Knesset, together with Israeli-Palestinian members Jamal Zahalke and Mohammed Barakeh.
We're demonstrating tonight in front of the hotel where Condoleezza Rice will be having dinner with our Foreign Minister. We have daily vigils too now, in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. You may not see it on the News, but we are trying to be heard. We have written letters and notices to Ms. Rice, demanding she work to stop this madness and if she hasn't come here to do so, then she should go home...
--
Posted by Angela Jerusalem to Peace in our Time? at 7/24/2006 05:08:00 AM
Is it only coincidence that last month I was in Birmingham Alabama (at the Presbyterian General Assembly, where the Presbyterians voted to keep on with the whole selective divestment issue from industries which support the Occupation). We went to the Civil Rights Institute where Martin Luther King's message had us in tears, yet again.... "From every mountainside, let freedom ring!" Is it only coincidence that I hadn't had time until today to go through my photos of that trip?
I came across them when looking for a photo of Saturday's anti war demonstration. Lebanon, I dedicate that visit and these photos to you. So that any Americans who come across this site - Jews, Christians, Moslems or others, should remember what their moral compasses should be.
And here is Saturday's demonstration. The third major one we've held, but the first to hit over the 1,000 mark. Here you see Uri Avnery of Gush Shalom and a past member of Knesset, together with Israeli-Palestinian members Jamal Zahalke and Mohammed Barakeh.
We're demonstrating tonight in front of the hotel where Condoleezza Rice will be having dinner with our Foreign Minister. We have daily vigils too now, in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. You may not see it on the News, but we are trying to be heard. We have written letters and notices to Ms. Rice, demanding she work to stop this madness and if she hasn't come here to do so, then she should go home...
--
Posted by Angela Jerusalem to Peace in our Time? at 7/24/2006 05:08:00 AM
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
The Spirit of the King David by Tom Segev
The Spirit of the King David
Tom Segev
The terror attack on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem was in its day the equivalent of the Twin Towers; yesterday was its 60th anniversary. There are two historic plaques at the hotel, one of whose wings was used by the British Mandate authority. On one of the plaques, which has been hanging there for some time, a few words note the terror attack: "On July 22, 1946, the Etzel underground bombed the southern wing." The action is attributed to Etzel alone, but there is no condemnation. "Underground" generally has a positive connotation.
The unveiling of the other plaque this week was meant to cap an academic conference held at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center on the issue of who is a freedom fighter and who is a terrorist. It was quite a week to clarify such a question. They can be distinguished by organizational affiliation, goals, targets, means of combat and mode of operation. They all assume that a freedom fighter is a good person and a terrorist is a bad one. Nearly every terrorist defines himself as a freedom fighter, and vice versa: freedom fighters are usually defined as terrorists. So was Begin. He invested a lot of effort to convince history that he was not a terrorist. Among other things, he emphasized that his organization did not harm civilians. There's a thesis that could serve as an historic lesson from a moral standpoint: not harming civilians.
The new plaque identifies the perpetrators of the attack as "Etzel fighters." It's important for them to emphasize that they acted "under orders from the Hebrew rebel movement," in other words, the Hagannah, among others. They called the hotel switchboard, the editorial offices of the Palestine Post, and the French Embassy (presumably they meant the consulate) "to prevent casualties." In other words, they sought a terrorist attack without casualties, but something went wrong. Twenty-five minutes went by and then "for some reason" the British did not evacuate the building "and as a result" 91 people were "regrettably" killed. There were 28 British, 41 Arabs, 17 Jews and five others. To emphasize the military aspect of the operation, the plaque notes that one of the Etzel people was killed "in an exchange of fire."
The British government is demanding the plaque's removal. Her Majesty's ambassador and the consul have written to the mayor of Jerusalem that such an act of terror cannot be honored, even if it was preceded by a warning. To this day, it is not clear what made the bombing's planners believe the British would evacuate the building. Would Benjamin Netanyahu, as prime minister, have ordered his bureau evacuated on the basis of telephone threat from a Palestinian terror group?
Netanyahu spoke at the conference. The difference between a terrorist operation and a legitimate military action is expressed, he said, in the fact that the terrorists intend to harm civilians whereas legitimate combatants try to avoid that. According to that theory, the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by a Palestinian organization is a legitimate military operation, and the bombing of Dresden, Hanoi, Haifa or Beirut is a war crime. Of course this is not what Netanyahu meant. He learned only this from the bombing of the hotel: that the Arabs are bad and we are good. Arab actions starting in 1920 and through the Iranian nuclear plan reflect, in his words, "a terrorist mentality." Israel, on the other hand, only harms civilians by accident or when there is no alternative. For example, when terrorists hide among civilians.
The historic truth is different: In the 60 years since the attack at the King David Hotel, Israel has hurt some two million civilians, including 750,000 who lost their homes in 1948, another quarter million Palestinians who were forced to leave the West Bank in the Six-Day War and hundreds of thousands of Egyptian civilians who were expelled from the cities along the Suez Canal during the War of Attrition. And now tens of thousands of Lebanese villagers are being forced to abandon their homes, and air force pilots are once again bombing Beirut and other cities. Hundreds of civilians have been killed. Regrettably. It's all in the spirit of the King David Hotel. One can always say there was a mishap.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=741434
Tom Segev
The terror attack on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem was in its day the equivalent of the Twin Towers; yesterday was its 60th anniversary. There are two historic plaques at the hotel, one of whose wings was used by the British Mandate authority. On one of the plaques, which has been hanging there for some time, a few words note the terror attack: "On July 22, 1946, the Etzel underground bombed the southern wing." The action is attributed to Etzel alone, but there is no condemnation. "Underground" generally has a positive connotation.
The unveiling of the other plaque this week was meant to cap an academic conference held at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center on the issue of who is a freedom fighter and who is a terrorist. It was quite a week to clarify such a question. They can be distinguished by organizational affiliation, goals, targets, means of combat and mode of operation. They all assume that a freedom fighter is a good person and a terrorist is a bad one. Nearly every terrorist defines himself as a freedom fighter, and vice versa: freedom fighters are usually defined as terrorists. So was Begin. He invested a lot of effort to convince history that he was not a terrorist. Among other things, he emphasized that his organization did not harm civilians. There's a thesis that could serve as an historic lesson from a moral standpoint: not harming civilians.
The new plaque identifies the perpetrators of the attack as "Etzel fighters." It's important for them to emphasize that they acted "under orders from the Hebrew rebel movement," in other words, the Hagannah, among others. They called the hotel switchboard, the editorial offices of the Palestine Post, and the French Embassy (presumably they meant the consulate) "to prevent casualties." In other words, they sought a terrorist attack without casualties, but something went wrong. Twenty-five minutes went by and then "for some reason" the British did not evacuate the building "and as a result" 91 people were "regrettably" killed. There were 28 British, 41 Arabs, 17 Jews and five others. To emphasize the military aspect of the operation, the plaque notes that one of the Etzel people was killed "in an exchange of fire."
The British government is demanding the plaque's removal. Her Majesty's ambassador and the consul have written to the mayor of Jerusalem that such an act of terror cannot be honored, even if it was preceded by a warning. To this day, it is not clear what made the bombing's planners believe the British would evacuate the building. Would Benjamin Netanyahu, as prime minister, have ordered his bureau evacuated on the basis of telephone threat from a Palestinian terror group?
Netanyahu spoke at the conference. The difference between a terrorist operation and a legitimate military action is expressed, he said, in the fact that the terrorists intend to harm civilians whereas legitimate combatants try to avoid that. According to that theory, the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by a Palestinian organization is a legitimate military operation, and the bombing of Dresden, Hanoi, Haifa or Beirut is a war crime. Of course this is not what Netanyahu meant. He learned only this from the bombing of the hotel: that the Arabs are bad and we are good. Arab actions starting in 1920 and through the Iranian nuclear plan reflect, in his words, "a terrorist mentality." Israel, on the other hand, only harms civilians by accident or when there is no alternative. For example, when terrorists hide among civilians.
The historic truth is different: In the 60 years since the attack at the King David Hotel, Israel has hurt some two million civilians, including 750,000 who lost their homes in 1948, another quarter million Palestinians who were forced to leave the West Bank in the Six-Day War and hundreds of thousands of Egyptian civilians who were expelled from the cities along the Suez Canal during the War of Attrition. And now tens of thousands of Lebanese villagers are being forced to abandon their homes, and air force pilots are once again bombing Beirut and other cities. Hundreds of civilians have been killed. Regrettably. It's all in the spirit of the King David Hotel. One can always say there was a mishap.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=741434
Why do they hate us? asks Yair Lapid on YNet today!!!
The well-known TV talkshow host and journalist, Yair Lapid, (also son of a recent Member of Knesset and Minister) has asked -- with horrifying naivete -- in his column published also in English on Y-Net: "Why do they hate us?" As one answer, I want to publish a letter I received about a week ago, from a friend who lives in the States. It speaks for itself. (I put some of it on the talkback of Y-Net...)
He says:
"Unfortunately, the editor deleted my main point which is: focusing on
Israeli soldiers not Palestinians and Lebanese civilian casualties and
accepting Israel right “to defend itself” without acknowledging the
right of others to defend themselves amounts to selective morality.
--
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=1e809abe-62ac-47b1-9844-9b3204207541
Editorial's Use Of Word 'kidnapping' Is Wrong
To The Editor Of The Day:
Published on 7/18/2006
As a member of an American delegation that interviewed Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and others last February (www.cnionline.org), I am familiar with recent Lebanese grievances.
These include Israeli abduction and imprisonment of several Lebanese. Israel continues to occupy three sectors of Lebanese land overlooking the Litani River, and it frequently violates Lebanese airspace. Israel refuses to share a map of the 140,000 mines it left behind from its 20-year occupation. Several Lebanese civilians have been killed or maimed from these mines. During our visit, Israeli soldiers entered the south and shot and killed a 15-year-old Lebanese shepard. Such incursions are not uncommon.
None of the above were mentioned in the editorial titled “A widening conflict,” published July 14. Your term “kidnapping” is inaccurate. Capturing soldiers who are enforcing a blockade to starve the Gaza population or while patrolling occupied Lebanese territories is legitimate resistance. It is Israel that kidnapped numerous civilians, including one third of the Palestinian cabinet. Israel is holding more
than 9,000 Palestinians, including women and children; many were abducted from their homes, held without due process and are subject to torture.
Since the election of Hamas, Israel has intensified punishment against Palestinians, and after its soldiers were targeted, it killed more than 80 Palestinians and 100 Lebanese civilians. It also destroyed bridges, highways, government ministries, power generators and more.
The Day editorial focused on the captured Israeli soldiers with no mention of Lebanese and Palestinian casualties. It supported Israel's right to “defend itself” without acknowledging that Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians whose territories are occupied have a legitimate right to defend themselves.
Terrorism is targeting civilian noncombatants. Readers are smart enough to determine who is struggling for liberation and who is colonizing and terrorizing.
Hassan Fouda
Groton
---
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=171d8ac1-2e01-4994-925b-f1de3c9c8db4
A Widening Conflict
Clashes between Israelis and militant organizations in Gaza and Lebanon run the risk of another Arab-Israeli war.
By Day Staff Writer
Published on 7/14/2006
The conflict in the Middle East is escalating to an alarming degree with attacks and counterattacks this week between Israeli defense forces and the militant organization Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. This strife follows military clashes between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, opening for Israel a second front and raising the disturbing possibility of another Israeli-Arab war.
The situation is typically complicated. The Israeli military reacted to kidnappings of Israeli soldiers. In the more recent incident, Hezbollah crossed the Lebanese border into Galilee and kidnapped two soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces. Israel responded by sending troops into southern Lebanon, shelling the international airport in Beirut and blockading the Lebanese coast.
President Bush says he supports Israel's right to defend itself, but is calling for restraint. As general and ineffectual as this sounds, it is good advice. The price of freeing several IDF soldiers should not be another outright war in the Middle East. It is one thing for Israel to make a show of force to discourage further aggression by the two militant groups, and another to get drawn into a wider conflict, a response that would not be proportionate to the nature of the crisis.
The clashes harm both sides. Hamas, by its shelling of Israeli targets and kidnapping a soldier, has undone the progress it helped achieve in getting Israel out of Gaza. Hezbollah has, in effect, invited Israeli forces back into southern Lebanon. This is a losing situation for everyone.
This development is a shame both for Hezbollah and for Hamas, which have achieved substantial political stature and credibility in Lebanon and in the Palestinian Authority, respectively. Responsible leaders in both those parties must point out the madness of these latest developments. That there are such leaders is evident in the remarks of Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the PLO and a member of Hamas, in an
op-ed article in the Washington Post this week. Prime Minister Haniyeh underscored the importance of serious and fair negotiations with Israel as the only route out of this quagmire. The Olmert government in Israel also must resist the temptation to expand its military operations and focus on a negotiated settlement. That means negotiating with Hamas.
Israel has made its point about its deterrent capacity in the last several days. Now it needs to concentrate on averting a war.
He says:
"Unfortunately, the editor deleted my main point which is: focusing on
Israeli soldiers not Palestinians and Lebanese civilian casualties and
accepting Israel right “to defend itself” without acknowledging the
right of others to defend themselves amounts to selective morality.
--
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=1e809abe-62ac-47b1-9844-9b3204207541
Editorial's Use Of Word 'kidnapping' Is Wrong
To The Editor Of The Day:
Published on 7/18/2006
As a member of an American delegation that interviewed Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and others last February (www.cnionline.org), I am familiar with recent Lebanese grievances.
These include Israeli abduction and imprisonment of several Lebanese. Israel continues to occupy three sectors of Lebanese land overlooking the Litani River, and it frequently violates Lebanese airspace. Israel refuses to share a map of the 140,000 mines it left behind from its 20-year occupation. Several Lebanese civilians have been killed or maimed from these mines. During our visit, Israeli soldiers entered the south and shot and killed a 15-year-old Lebanese shepard. Such incursions are not uncommon.
None of the above were mentioned in the editorial titled “A widening conflict,” published July 14. Your term “kidnapping” is inaccurate. Capturing soldiers who are enforcing a blockade to starve the Gaza population or while patrolling occupied Lebanese territories is legitimate resistance. It is Israel that kidnapped numerous civilians, including one third of the Palestinian cabinet. Israel is holding more
than 9,000 Palestinians, including women and children; many were abducted from their homes, held without due process and are subject to torture.
Since the election of Hamas, Israel has intensified punishment against Palestinians, and after its soldiers were targeted, it killed more than 80 Palestinians and 100 Lebanese civilians. It also destroyed bridges, highways, government ministries, power generators and more.
The Day editorial focused on the captured Israeli soldiers with no mention of Lebanese and Palestinian casualties. It supported Israel's right to “defend itself” without acknowledging that Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians whose territories are occupied have a legitimate right to defend themselves.
Terrorism is targeting civilian noncombatants. Readers are smart enough to determine who is struggling for liberation and who is colonizing and terrorizing.
Hassan Fouda
Groton
---
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=171d8ac1-2e01-4994-925b-f1de3c9c8db4
A Widening Conflict
Clashes between Israelis and militant organizations in Gaza and Lebanon run the risk of another Arab-Israeli war.
By Day Staff Writer
Published on 7/14/2006
The conflict in the Middle East is escalating to an alarming degree with attacks and counterattacks this week between Israeli defense forces and the militant organization Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. This strife follows military clashes between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, opening for Israel a second front and raising the disturbing possibility of another Israeli-Arab war.
The situation is typically complicated. The Israeli military reacted to kidnappings of Israeli soldiers. In the more recent incident, Hezbollah crossed the Lebanese border into Galilee and kidnapped two soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces. Israel responded by sending troops into southern Lebanon, shelling the international airport in Beirut and blockading the Lebanese coast.
President Bush says he supports Israel's right to defend itself, but is calling for restraint. As general and ineffectual as this sounds, it is good advice. The price of freeing several IDF soldiers should not be another outright war in the Middle East. It is one thing for Israel to make a show of force to discourage further aggression by the two militant groups, and another to get drawn into a wider conflict, a response that would not be proportionate to the nature of the crisis.
The clashes harm both sides. Hamas, by its shelling of Israeli targets and kidnapping a soldier, has undone the progress it helped achieve in getting Israel out of Gaza. Hezbollah has, in effect, invited Israeli forces back into southern Lebanon. This is a losing situation for everyone.
This development is a shame both for Hezbollah and for Hamas, which have achieved substantial political stature and credibility in Lebanon and in the Palestinian Authority, respectively. Responsible leaders in both those parties must point out the madness of these latest developments. That there are such leaders is evident in the remarks of Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the PLO and a member of Hamas, in an
op-ed article in the Washington Post this week. Prime Minister Haniyeh underscored the importance of serious and fair negotiations with Israel as the only route out of this quagmire. The Olmert government in Israel also must resist the temptation to expand its military operations and focus on a negotiated settlement. That means negotiating with Hamas.
Israel has made its point about its deterrent capacity in the last several days. Now it needs to concentrate on averting a war.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
How Much Safer Can the World Afford to have Bush Make Us?...
Come Back, Uncle Walter, Don't Leave Us!
Michael Winship
Last Thursday night, I was a guest at the screening of a new, first-rate, public television documentary, "Walter Cronkite: Witness to History," part of the PBS series, "American Masters." It airs Wednesday night, July 26 (check your local listings).
Hard to believe it's been a quarter century since Cronkite, soon to be 90, signed off for the last time as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News. Over the course of a career that ranged from covering the Eighth Air Force's bombing raids on Nazi Germany during World War II through the Kennedy and King assassinations, man on the moon and the first months of the Reagan administration, Cronkite became the avuncular tribal elder to whom the nation turned for truth and reassurance.
When he departed his newscast, one article observed, "Walter Cronkite leaving the air is like George Washington's face leaving the dollar bill."
There was a valedictory air to Thursday's screening and not just because those in attendance included veterans of the CBS glory days: folks like Sandy Socolow, former executive producer of the Cronkite newscast, and friends Joe and Shirley Wershba, who were played so engagingly by Robert Downey, Jr., and Patricia Clarkson in "Good Night and Good Luck," George Clooney's movie on Edward R. Murrow and the fight against McCarthyism.
Nor was what made the night soggy with nostalgia simply a wistful longing for a time when TV news could entertain but still had standards of literacy, taste and a seriousness of purpose it now too often lacks.
No, what the documentary summoned was a sense of reverse déjà vu: events of the past so reminiscent of what's taking place in our world today, but with a major difference -- the greater willingness then of mainstream, broadcast news people like Cronkite to stand up and demand to be heard, to point fingers, tell truth and shame the devil.
Iraq now, Southeast Asia then. There on the screen is a disenchanted Uncle Walter in 1968, after the Tet offensive put the lie to American claims of progress and victory in Vietnam. "With each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster..." he warns. "We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders both in Vietnam and Washington to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds."
Surveying scenes of destruction in the Vietnamese city of Hue, he tells viewers, with just a trace of sardonicism, "If our intention is to restore normalcy, peace, serenity to this country, the destruction of those qualities... is obviously a setback."
Similarly, this week, the Washington Post published excerpts from a new book by its senior Pentagon correspondent Thomas E. Ricks called "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq."
He writes, "This book's subtitle terms the U.S. effort in Iraq an adventure in the critical sense of adventurism -- that is, with the view that the U.S.-led invasion was launched recklessly, with a flawed plan for war and a worse approach to occupation. Spooked by its own false conclusions about the threat, the Bush administration hurried its diplomacy, short-circuited its war planning, and assembled an agonizingly incompetent occupation."
But those are the words of a newspaper reporter -- you're probably not going to hear that kind of forthrightness from any of our current-day, primetime anchors any time soon. Yet, back in the day, it was commercial network newscasts that widely disseminated the investigative journalism of their print counterparts. "American Masters" points out it wasn't until Cronkite and CBS Evening News broadcast stories summarizing the reporting of Woodward and Bernstein that the nation began to comprehend the implications of Watergate's skullduggery.
In the Cronkite film, Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee says, "I remember how important that was to the movement of the story... 'The great white father' had decided that this was going to be a good story. And that gave us a big boost."
Media consolidation, conglomerate ownership and the intimidating tactics of the current administration prevent today's broadcast journalists -- as opposed to the conservative squawking heads dominating cable news -- from speaking their minds. It didn't stop Cronkite. "We're not defending a precious right of our own, a freedom of speech and freedom of press," he told the St. Joseph, Missouri, Chamber of Commerce in 1969. "What we're defending is the people's right to know. And we have to be in the front line of that battle at all times."
Then there's Israel. As Richard Wolffe reports in the current Newsweek, "Bush thinks the new war vindicates his early vision of the region's struggle: of good versus evil, civilization versus terrorism, freedom versus Islamic fascism. He still believes that when it comes to war and terror, leaders need to decide whose side they are on.”
Oversimplified, undiplomatic, biased -- a thought process that has smashed America's former reputation as a largely honest broker in the Mideast peace process.
Rewind 18 years and there's Cronkite, shuttle diplomat of the airwaves, bringing Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat and Israel's Menachem Begin together via telephone and television. In the film, he recalls, "It set up the whole series of meetings and finally the Camp David meeting and the rapprochement, the first between an Arab state and Israel." Former President Jimmy Carter adds that it led to "this treaty between Israel and Egypt, not a word of which has ever been violated. And which I think still sends a signal or a clear message to the rest of the Mideast that peace is possible."
A sister-of-law of mine, stranded during some of Cronkite's heyday in the sweat and dust of El Paso, Texas, would yell to the TV at the end of every newscast, "Walter, please, don't go! Don't leave us!" He was her contact with the world outside, her reality check, the most trusted man in America.
Ironically, it seems that now the most trusted man is a fake newscaster, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. Unlike the real thing, only he has the temerity to say, as he did to Senator John McCain Monday night, "President Bush has been very clear that he believes he has made the world a safer place... My question is, how much safer can the world afford to have him make us?"
And that's the way it is. Uncle Walter would be proud.
copyright 2006 Messenger Post Newspapers
Michael Winship
Last Thursday night, I was a guest at the screening of a new, first-rate, public television documentary, "Walter Cronkite: Witness to History," part of the PBS series, "American Masters." It airs Wednesday night, July 26 (check your local listings).
Hard to believe it's been a quarter century since Cronkite, soon to be 90, signed off for the last time as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News. Over the course of a career that ranged from covering the Eighth Air Force's bombing raids on Nazi Germany during World War II through the Kennedy and King assassinations, man on the moon and the first months of the Reagan administration, Cronkite became the avuncular tribal elder to whom the nation turned for truth and reassurance.
When he departed his newscast, one article observed, "Walter Cronkite leaving the air is like George Washington's face leaving the dollar bill."
There was a valedictory air to Thursday's screening and not just because those in attendance included veterans of the CBS glory days: folks like Sandy Socolow, former executive producer of the Cronkite newscast, and friends Joe and Shirley Wershba, who were played so engagingly by Robert Downey, Jr., and Patricia Clarkson in "Good Night and Good Luck," George Clooney's movie on Edward R. Murrow and the fight against McCarthyism.
Nor was what made the night soggy with nostalgia simply a wistful longing for a time when TV news could entertain but still had standards of literacy, taste and a seriousness of purpose it now too often lacks.
No, what the documentary summoned was a sense of reverse déjà vu: events of the past so reminiscent of what's taking place in our world today, but with a major difference -- the greater willingness then of mainstream, broadcast news people like Cronkite to stand up and demand to be heard, to point fingers, tell truth and shame the devil.
Iraq now, Southeast Asia then. There on the screen is a disenchanted Uncle Walter in 1968, after the Tet offensive put the lie to American claims of progress and victory in Vietnam. "With each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster..." he warns. "We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders both in Vietnam and Washington to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds."
Surveying scenes of destruction in the Vietnamese city of Hue, he tells viewers, with just a trace of sardonicism, "If our intention is to restore normalcy, peace, serenity to this country, the destruction of those qualities... is obviously a setback."
Similarly, this week, the Washington Post published excerpts from a new book by its senior Pentagon correspondent Thomas E. Ricks called "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq."
He writes, "This book's subtitle terms the U.S. effort in Iraq an adventure in the critical sense of adventurism -- that is, with the view that the U.S.-led invasion was launched recklessly, with a flawed plan for war and a worse approach to occupation. Spooked by its own false conclusions about the threat, the Bush administration hurried its diplomacy, short-circuited its war planning, and assembled an agonizingly incompetent occupation."
But those are the words of a newspaper reporter -- you're probably not going to hear that kind of forthrightness from any of our current-day, primetime anchors any time soon. Yet, back in the day, it was commercial network newscasts that widely disseminated the investigative journalism of their print counterparts. "American Masters" points out it wasn't until Cronkite and CBS Evening News broadcast stories summarizing the reporting of Woodward and Bernstein that the nation began to comprehend the implications of Watergate's skullduggery.
In the Cronkite film, Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee says, "I remember how important that was to the movement of the story... 'The great white father' had decided that this was going to be a good story. And that gave us a big boost."
Media consolidation, conglomerate ownership and the intimidating tactics of the current administration prevent today's broadcast journalists -- as opposed to the conservative squawking heads dominating cable news -- from speaking their minds. It didn't stop Cronkite. "We're not defending a precious right of our own, a freedom of speech and freedom of press," he told the St. Joseph, Missouri, Chamber of Commerce in 1969. "What we're defending is the people's right to know. And we have to be in the front line of that battle at all times."
Then there's Israel. As Richard Wolffe reports in the current Newsweek, "Bush thinks the new war vindicates his early vision of the region's struggle: of good versus evil, civilization versus terrorism, freedom versus Islamic fascism. He still believes that when it comes to war and terror, leaders need to decide whose side they are on.”
Oversimplified, undiplomatic, biased -- a thought process that has smashed America's former reputation as a largely honest broker in the Mideast peace process.
Rewind 18 years and there's Cronkite, shuttle diplomat of the airwaves, bringing Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat and Israel's Menachem Begin together via telephone and television. In the film, he recalls, "It set up the whole series of meetings and finally the Camp David meeting and the rapprochement, the first between an Arab state and Israel." Former President Jimmy Carter adds that it led to "this treaty between Israel and Egypt, not a word of which has ever been violated. And which I think still sends a signal or a clear message to the rest of the Mideast that peace is possible."
A sister-of-law of mine, stranded during some of Cronkite's heyday in the sweat and dust of El Paso, Texas, would yell to the TV at the end of every newscast, "Walter, please, don't go! Don't leave us!" He was her contact with the world outside, her reality check, the most trusted man in America.
Ironically, it seems that now the most trusted man is a fake newscaster, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. Unlike the real thing, only he has the temerity to say, as he did to Senator John McCain Monday night, "President Bush has been very clear that he believes he has made the world a safer place... My question is, how much safer can the world afford to have him make us?"
And that's the way it is. Uncle Walter would be proud.
copyright 2006 Messenger Post Newspapers
INVITATION TO REBUILT HOME DEDICATION
ICAHD is swimming against the stream of destruction, yet again, even as we watch the aerial bombardment of Lebanon and feel the weight of Sisyphus bear down. So we invite you to come see what we’ve been up to -- rebuilding a demolished home in Anata, near Jerusalem. By this weekend, a group of 30 citizens of the world, each contributing $1000 for the effort, coming from far and wide and all age groups, will have entirely rebuilt within two weeks, not only a home, but a family, a future, a shared reality, a concrete example of what bears fruit between two peoples. Our answer to the world, if it can hear. An alternative way that calls the bluffs.
On Saturday, 29th July at 4.00pm, the dedication ceremony takes place. There’ll be celebration. There’ll be Palestinian dabke. Speeches, wide smiles. Food. The key will be handed over to the family so they and their 17 children will have that basic human right the Geneva Convention should guarantee – a roof over their heads. Please be there. To give us all hope that not only war is newsworthy and important. That, just as in BILI’IN HABIBTI (the film), in some almost secret places, sacred work is being done, celebrating and safeguarding life.
In these days of destruction and despair, funerals and convoys of refugees or tanks, the peace camp is hardly heard. Why? Good question. It’s not we don’t have analysis. It’s not we’re so small in number! And it’s not we’re not busy. Or don’t have charismatic, seriously articulate people--Uri Avnery, Mikado Warschawsky, Jeff Halper--all with scores of years of getting behind the news to what’s really going on, insider-mentality, wealth of wisdom and proven track record as lie-detectors. Why are they less newsworthy than the gravitas of official spokes?
Seen women apart from Condi Rice interviewed recently? 50% disempowerment. Zahava Gal-On is one of the most articulate Knesset members, even in English, but – again – what Israeli opposition parliamentarians do we see? By focusing only on Arab MKs (Bishara, Barakeh) the impression is they’re traitors to the cause, not voicing criticism that’s expressed by other parties, too. Tamar Gozansky. Tanya Reinhart. Shulamit Aloni. Naomi Chazan. Only the army is wily enough to have women spokespersons…
This week, our group of volunteer builders was in the Negev, hosted by Bedouin. Full citizens of the State, they can’t understand why weekly demolition of homes --they call it racist in origin: although they’re land owners, Israel refuses to grant building permits or zone that land except for Jews-- goes unnoticed, while there’s so much fuss now when Jewish homes get hit. For Jews, assessors arrive, insurance is paid, the world sympathises, hotels are paid for by the State, even in holiday cities such as Eilat. For hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in Israel, Jerusalem or Gaza and the West Bank, demolished homes bury futures, hope or trust in Israeli peace, together with buried furniture and possessions.
Whilst Israel is busy bombing the hell out of Lebanon and Gaza (a war disproportionately waged in which war crimes are being committed), the world is led to believe it’s a just war: “they started it first”. But Israeli Occupation policies even inside Israel have long been busy bombing the hell out of our shared future, including thousands of internationally illegal home demolitions. Deliberately. And the press is silent. Why? Because it’s no longer News. It happens so regularly, it’s boring. Misery fatigue. Appeasement of Israel’s occupation in the upper echelons of international governments, too, perhaps. Or because people have fallen for the lies – “they’re criminals, they build without permits, we must enact the law”. Go tell it to Nuri El Okbi, who went to court and won, and STILL hasn’t seen the law upheld - six times his protest tent’s been demolished, and possessions stolen by the Israeli police. Go tell it to Palestinian landowners in East Jerusalem where Nof Zion’s new settlement building speeds ahead on their private land, even though the Municipality told us it was only building a road! Har Homa, Maale Adumim, Beitar Ilit, Modi’in, Matityahu East, the Wall -- expansionism endlessly mindless, generating only hate, and never – never – about security or peace, international law or basic morality, or Judaism’s ethical code.
No one’s asking: WHY DO THEY HATE US? For peace activists, crying in a wilderness, it’s obvious. Occupation. Colonialism... Militarism and its cursed sisters, Racism and Fascism, that so cruelly destroy. Not to mention the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees still unacknowledged. As Tom Segev said in yesterday’s Haaretz: “In the 60 years since the attack at the King David Hotel, Israel has hurt some two million civilians, including 750,000 who lost their homes in 1948, another quarter million Palestinians who were forced to leave the West Bank in the Six-Day War and hundreds of thousands of Egyptian civilians (…) And now tens of thousands of Lebanese…”
ICAHD rebuilding a demolished Palestinian home, an act of civil disobedience and non-violent resistance to occupation which says “We refuse to be enemies”, is a tiny drop in the ocean. In a region without summer rain, except the cynical Summer Rain of missiles and rockets, please join us to acknowledge that drop.
For further details, see www.icahd.org
On Saturday, 29th July at 4.00pm, the dedication ceremony takes place. There’ll be celebration. There’ll be Palestinian dabke. Speeches, wide smiles. Food. The key will be handed over to the family so they and their 17 children will have that basic human right the Geneva Convention should guarantee – a roof over their heads. Please be there. To give us all hope that not only war is newsworthy and important. That, just as in BILI’IN HABIBTI (the film), in some almost secret places, sacred work is being done, celebrating and safeguarding life.
In these days of destruction and despair, funerals and convoys of refugees or tanks, the peace camp is hardly heard. Why? Good question. It’s not we don’t have analysis. It’s not we’re so small in number! And it’s not we’re not busy. Or don’t have charismatic, seriously articulate people--Uri Avnery, Mikado Warschawsky, Jeff Halper--all with scores of years of getting behind the news to what’s really going on, insider-mentality, wealth of wisdom and proven track record as lie-detectors. Why are they less newsworthy than the gravitas of official spokes?
Seen women apart from Condi Rice interviewed recently? 50% disempowerment. Zahava Gal-On is one of the most articulate Knesset members, even in English, but – again – what Israeli opposition parliamentarians do we see? By focusing only on Arab MKs (Bishara, Barakeh) the impression is they’re traitors to the cause, not voicing criticism that’s expressed by other parties, too. Tamar Gozansky. Tanya Reinhart. Shulamit Aloni. Naomi Chazan. Only the army is wily enough to have women spokespersons…
This week, our group of volunteer builders was in the Negev, hosted by Bedouin. Full citizens of the State, they can’t understand why weekly demolition of homes --they call it racist in origin: although they’re land owners, Israel refuses to grant building permits or zone that land except for Jews-- goes unnoticed, while there’s so much fuss now when Jewish homes get hit. For Jews, assessors arrive, insurance is paid, the world sympathises, hotels are paid for by the State, even in holiday cities such as Eilat. For hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in Israel, Jerusalem or Gaza and the West Bank, demolished homes bury futures, hope or trust in Israeli peace, together with buried furniture and possessions.
Whilst Israel is busy bombing the hell out of Lebanon and Gaza (a war disproportionately waged in which war crimes are being committed), the world is led to believe it’s a just war: “they started it first”. But Israeli Occupation policies even inside Israel have long been busy bombing the hell out of our shared future, including thousands of internationally illegal home demolitions. Deliberately. And the press is silent. Why? Because it’s no longer News. It happens so regularly, it’s boring. Misery fatigue. Appeasement of Israel’s occupation in the upper echelons of international governments, too, perhaps. Or because people have fallen for the lies – “they’re criminals, they build without permits, we must enact the law”. Go tell it to Nuri El Okbi, who went to court and won, and STILL hasn’t seen the law upheld - six times his protest tent’s been demolished, and possessions stolen by the Israeli police. Go tell it to Palestinian landowners in East Jerusalem where Nof Zion’s new settlement building speeds ahead on their private land, even though the Municipality told us it was only building a road! Har Homa, Maale Adumim, Beitar Ilit, Modi’in, Matityahu East, the Wall -- expansionism endlessly mindless, generating only hate, and never – never – about security or peace, international law or basic morality, or Judaism’s ethical code.
No one’s asking: WHY DO THEY HATE US? For peace activists, crying in a wilderness, it’s obvious. Occupation. Colonialism... Militarism and its cursed sisters, Racism and Fascism, that so cruelly destroy. Not to mention the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees still unacknowledged. As Tom Segev said in yesterday’s Haaretz: “In the 60 years since the attack at the King David Hotel, Israel has hurt some two million civilians, including 750,000 who lost their homes in 1948, another quarter million Palestinians who were forced to leave the West Bank in the Six-Day War and hundreds of thousands of Egyptian civilians (…) And now tens of thousands of Lebanese…”
ICAHD rebuilding a demolished Palestinian home, an act of civil disobedience and non-violent resistance to occupation which says “We refuse to be enemies”, is a tiny drop in the ocean. In a region without summer rain, except the cynical Summer Rain of missiles and rockets, please join us to acknowledge that drop.
For further details, see www.icahd.org
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