Residents of As Sawahira ash Sharqiya village have many questions about their future
By Palestine Monitor, Jerusalemites 1/22/2004
Fifty three year old Mohammad Sarkhe looked over towards his elderly father's house, just eighty meters away and asked himself if he would still be able to visit after Israel has completed its "separation" wall.
Indeed he says this wall is one of separation - separating too many Palestinians from their land, their places of work, their schools, shops and services, but ultimately from their families, their loved ones. The Israeli wall that so abruptly severs Palestinian family ties will not only impair the relations between Sarkhe and his father but also those between himself and his four brothers and their children. They will also find themselves living on the other side of the wall.
The house of Mohammad Sarkhe is located on the outskirts of As Sawahira ash Sharqiya village, south-east of Jerusalem. The village is not itself easily definable, it forms part of a larger community, merging into and sharing the facilities, particularly schools and health ammenities of the villages of Jabal al Mukabbir and Ash Sheikh Sa'd. The wall being built through and around the Palestinian districts of East Jerusalem however pays no heed to the social groupings or distribution of amenities located in the neighborhoods it is isolating. According to PARC, when the 17km wall being built around the south of East Jerusalem is completed As Sawahira ash Sharqiya village along with al - Aseriya, and Abu Dis and their populations comprising roughly 74,000 Palestinians will be completely isolated from the rest of the city.
Al Haq: Campaign Against Collective Punishment
By Al-Haq, Palestine Media Center/Electronic Intifada 1/22/2004
Al-Haq, the oldest Palestinian human rights organization and the West Bank affiliate of The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), recently launched a campaign to stop collective punishment.
Collective punishment is simply penalising a group as a whole with no regard for individual responsibility. Such punishments and other measures of intimidation have been utilised by the Israeli authorities against Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for decades, in such forms as mass arrests; house demolitions; movement restrictions; the Annexation Wall; and property destruction.
As observed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in its 2003 Humanitarian Action Plan for the OPT, “the impact - if not intent - of the measures imposed by Israel has been collective punishment of the civilian population.” Despite Israeli claims that its authorities impose penalties only in response to criminal acts, these measures are often applied as a means to repress political dissent, exact revenge, or obtain political gains.
Living War: Palestinians Refugees in Lebanon
By Stefan Christoff, Electronic Intifada 1/22/2004
The youth who play football on the small streets and narrow alleys of Bourj El Barajneh represent an entire generation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who live in a day-to-day low intensity war. This is a war waged against Palestinian refugees by the government of Lebanon. It is not waged through military campaigns and guerrilla battles as in the Lebanese civil war, but through policies and laws which are slowly choking the life from Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps.
This economic warfare is carried out through specific laws and regulations which attack Palestinian refugees' ability to survive. They are forbidden from owning property, working in over 70 professions receiving proper health care, and moving and traveling freely. They do not hold Lebanese citizenship, which gives them little influence over the political decisions of the country in which the majority of them have lived for over 50 years. Most Palestinian refugees in Lebanon live in poverty stricken, war destroyed camps as non- citizens with the struggle for the right of return to Palestine the only light shining in an otherwise dark future.
Essentially there has been a war against the Palestinians in Lebanon since their arrival in after the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967. Throughout the Lebanese civil war the refugee camps became subject to countless military attacks from Israeli forces and Lebanese right-wing militias. Until the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Beirut had become the political and military headquarters of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). This created a political situation where the refugees of the camps became deeply and directly involved in defining the broader Palestinian struggle for liberation.
Arik Sharons Corruption =Mind Over Matter. If we don't mind, it don't matter!
By Anonymous, Place4Peace/Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information 1/22/2004
If we the people do not mind corruption in our government, then it doesn't matter.
Most countries take pride in the honesty of its politicians-Americas George Washington never telling a lie, not even after cutting down the cherry tree and risking a spanking.
We are different. We laud Cain for slaying Able. We honor a sleazy King David as a hero for bedding Beersheva & sending her husband to his death.
We honor gangsters of the Stern gang and our murderers who blew up the King David Hotel killing 75 women & children.
We honor the butcher of Qibya and Sabra-Chatilla electing him to the highest seat in the land.
We make this butcher a hero and shout "Arik, King of Israel" whose murderous exploits rival those of Joshua, recorded historys first war criminal who committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansed the Canaanites using the non-excuse God ordered him to do it
Then like sheep we b-a-a, and ask ourselves, how could a butcher we forgave and elected to our highest office be so unkind and take bribes from anybody and everybody.
The Future of American Muslims: A Human Rights Perspective
By Siraj Islam Mufti, Ph.D., Muslim American Society 1/21/2004
It is ironic that human rights should become an issue for American Muslims in a country dubbed “The Land of Free.” However, Japanese-Americans faced internment during World War II, and African-Americans have a history that clearly illustrates the lack of freedom. Media reports bear witness to Muslim rights being violated after 9/11. As a result, the Council of American–Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim rights advocacy group, has gained a degree of prominence during this period. This article highlights some of the major events of this sad saga and what American Muslims must do to restore their rightful place in American society.
A Review of Major Events: It all happened after that ignominious day of 9/11, when some terrorists attacked the U.S. American Muslims had nothing to do with it, but nevertheless are all held as suspects and singled out in the war on terrorism. Thus, the crime of a few malevolent individuals has caused clear a violation of the constitutionally guaranteed rights of American Muslims and Arab-Americans. As a result, these most law-abiding citizen groups now live in constant suspicion and fear.
This is the case despite the fact that 358 of the estimated 3,000 fatalities were Muslims, and that within hours of the attack, the Muslim American society (MAS), Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), issued a statement, endorsed by every major Muslim organization, which read in part: “American Muslims utterly condemn what are vicious and cowardly acts of terrorism against innocent civilians. We join with all Americans in calling for the swift apprehension and punishment of the perpetrators. No political cause could ever be assisted by such immoral acts.”
A Legacy of Betrayal
By Admiral Thomas Moorer, Electronic Intifada 1/21/2004
While state department officials and historians assemble on Washington DC this week to discuss the 1967 war in the Middle East, I am compelled to speak out about one of U.S. history's most shocking cover-ups.
On June 8th, 1967, Israel attacked our proud naval ship -- the USS Liberty -- killing 34 American servicemen and wounding 172. Those men were then betrayed and left to die by our own government.
U.S. military rescue aircraft were recalled, not once, but twice, through direct intervention by the Johnson administration. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's cancellation of the Navy's attempt to rescue the Liberty, which I personally confirmed from the commanders of the aircraft carriers America and Saratoga, was the most disgraceful act I witnessed in my entire military career.
To add insult to injury, Congress, to this day, has failed to hold formal hearings on IsraelĚs attack on this American ship. No official investigation of IsraelĚs attack has ever permitted the testimony of the surviving crewmembers.
A 1967 investigation by the Navy, upon which all other reports are based, has now been fully discredited as a cover-up by its senior attorney. Captain Ward Boston, in a sworn affidavit, recently revealed that the court was ordered by the White House to cover up the incident and find that IsraelĚs attack was "a case of mistaken identity."
'Right to fight for their rights in Palestine'
By Anne Gwynne, icWales 1/22/2004
I WAS in Nablus as a journalist, not as a "gran" - honourable though that role is.
In the Zionist-dominated media any journalist who reports the truth is dubbed a "militant" voice. What word, then, shall we use for Zionists?
Second, I did not spend "my life with Hamas" - I carried out a unique series of interviews with resistance members, a task I feel was worthwhile and important in dispelling the lies which have become accepted about their aims and philosophy.
Will you head your story "Son gives insight into life with the Tories" if you were to carry out a series of interviews with Michael Howard?
Third, I did not work as a nurse with UPMRC, since I am not one. I worked with the courageous young ambulance driver Feras al Bakri, who has been attacked and injured by the Israeli troops - including having had his legs and arms broken by rocks, and been shot several times, once while he and I were supporting the stretcher bearing a besieged woman giving birth.
Which leads to my fourth point. I do not "claim" to have been shot at, beaten with a rifle butt, threatened with gang rape by a commander. All these incidents were taken up with my MP, various offices of the Government of Israel, embassies, and the IDF spokesman - they are witnesses to them all. Despite Jean Evans's assertion, Israeli soldiers are never punished.
Palestinian rights curtailed by high fence
By Dr. Hussein Abdulmunin Amery, Gulf News
What do names or descriptions like "illegal settlements", "security wall", "Israeli Defence Force" and "rubber bullets" have in common? These and others like them serve to legitimise Israeli conduct and to minimise the impact of Israeli killings.
The graphic terminology offers softer mental frames and tinted lenses through which consumers of the news can view and understand the Arab Israeli conflict.
Shortly after the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, Israelis started building colonies there. Their number and size have been growing ever since. The word "settlement" implies a temporary, crude, small-scale encampment - the type of mundane event that should not raise any political or legal red flags.
Although some of the so-called settlements such as Ma'ale Adumim now house tens of thousands of Israelis, and have been there for many decades, the world's media continue to describe them as mere settlements. Also, very few journalists remind their audiences that it is illegal for Palestinian Christians and Muslims to live in these Jews-only cities and towns.
Upon pressure from the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, stated in the spring of 2003 that, in the interest of re-kindling peace talks with the Palestinians, his government will dismantle a few "illegal settlements" that have been erected in the West Bank in the past two years. The phrase portrays Israel as a law-abiding, peace-seeking state.
|
