Blatant apartheid in Hebron
By Ahmad Jaradat, Alternative Information Center 10/2/2003
One day last week, 12-year-old Islam Da’ana left her home in the Wadi El-Nasara neighborhood in the old city of Hebron to visit her uncle’s house and play with her friends. As she was crossing the main street in her neighborhood that has been closed to Palestinians for the last year, Israeli soldiers started shouting at her, running towards her with their rifles raised and firing in the air. Islam was extremely scared and ran towards a neighbor’s house. The soldiers chased after her, entered the house, threatened her and everyone else there, and told them they were forbidden to walk on the street at any time.
Wadi El-Nasara is a Palestinian neighborhood with about ten thousand residents, next to which Israel has built the illegal settlement of Qiryat Arba’. Over a year ago, after a gunfight between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters, the Israeli military closed all the entrances to the neighborhood. Consistent with Israel's ongoing policy of brutal collective punishment to Palestinian civilians, the army commander ordered the closure of dozens of shops along Wadi El-Nasara Street, the main artery through the neighborhood and also the main road leading to Beni Na’im and other villages and towns east of Hebron. Palestinians were also forbidden from driving on the street, literally pushing them to the era of the Middle Ages by forcing them to walk. But what about those Palestinians unable to walk or needing to transport goods by car? These Palestinians are now forced to make a huge detour, going around to the south towards the Abu Sineina neighborhood and then west to the center of Hebron. Because the occupation forces prevent them from driving the measly hundred meters along Wadi El-Nasara Street, Palestinian vehicles, ambulances included, now have to cover a distance of at least four kilometers and negotiate numerous other roads blocked by the Israeli military.
A message from Gaza
By Mona El-Farra, Electronic Intifada 10/2/2003
How should I start, I asked myself, to send a message of love, hope, and steadfastness on this 3rd anniversary of the Intifada?
I am not a politician or a political analyst to write an analysis about Palestinian people's life under 36 years of Israeli occupation. I am an activist in social and health work, I am one who has experienced and witnessed many acts of aggression, violence and injustice by the Israeli army against my people.
I personally went through the traumatic experience of losing my childhood home, when the Israelis demolished my parents' home and destroyed our citrus grove. That grove was one day full of fruitful trees and a main lifeline for many farmers who used to work there, and then it was gone. Nobody is allowed to set foot there any more. Later a bridge was built there to allow a safe passage for the Israeli settlers who are illegally living there. There are plenty of UN resolutions on occupation and occupying forces, which spell out this illegality.
In the Gaza Strip of 360 square kilometres where I live, 5000 settlers occupy 40% of the land, while 1.2 million of Palestinians live on the rest of the land on one of the most highly populated areas of the world.
My Baby Boy's American Freedoms Vanish In Occupied Palestine
By Elizabeth Price, AlterNet 10/1/2003
Every mother fears the day when her children wander beyond her ability to keep them safe. There is an eternal battle between the desire to hold them close and the need to let them grow into independent adults. I am new to mothering, having first given birth only four months ago. But, when my son was only 2 months old, I had an unexpectedly early lesson in the pain of being helpless to protect him from the harsh realities of this world.
My son was born in San Francisco. He is an American. He was also born to a Palestinian father. He is also Palestinian. This summer, at 6 weeks old, he became an international traveler, with a brand new American passport, when we traveled to Palestine to introduce him to his father's family. Two days before we were supposed to return to America, we were told by the Israeli military that my infant son was not allowed to travel with me on his American passport. As a Palestinian citizen, he was subject to the regulations of the Israeli military occupation and needed a Palestinian passport and permission from the Israeli army to leave the country.
In one fell swoop, my son gained another passport and lost his freedom. Once he left Palestine, he could roam the globe, protected by the most powerful government in the world. But within the boundaries of his father's country, he could not travel from one town to another without permission from an occupying army.
Should the U.S. Military in Iraq Adopt Israeli Methods?
By James Bovard, The Future of Freedom Foundation 9/26/2003
The Associated Press reported on September 18 that an Israeli military official declared that the U.S. military “is showing interest in Israeli software instructing soldiers on how to behave in the West Bank and Gaza.” The United States is looking at the Israeli policies as examples of how American soldiers can better handle a hostile population in Iraq.
That may not be the perfect recipe for peace in the American-occupied territory. The Israelis are justifiably anxious to protect themselves from the torrent of murderous suicide bombers. While some Israeli policies may reduce short-term casualties among Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), other Israeli policies stir up hostility that can help inflame Palestinians.
The IDF has sought to tightly control Palestinian activity. Uri Savir, the chief Israeli negotiator for the Oslo accords between the Palestinians and the Israeli government, noted that before the 1993 agreement “a West Bank Palestinian could not build, work, study, purchase land, grow produce, start a business, take a walk at night, enter Israel, go abroad, or visit his family in Gaza or Jordan without a permit from us.”
The Tiger of Baghdad
By Satya Sagar, ZNet 9/30/2003
‘There was once a Tiger of Baghdad. He was in a cage, hungry and quite unhappy but at least he was - ALIVE. All that was, till the US armed forces entered his town one day----’
That would sure make a nice children’s tale in current day Iraq. Unfortunately it is based on a true story and here is the description from my local newspaper last week.
‘Drunk US Soldier tries to feed tiger in Baghdad zoo. Tiger bites soldier. Fellow soldier shoots the tiger dead’.
(‘ Take that! You remnant of the Saddam regime!” I could hear the soldier shout. )
As metaphors describing the US occupation of Iraq go, it does not get richer than this tragic tale of the Tiger of Baghdad.
The United States, drunk with its sense of being the globe’s lone superpower, tries to force ‘feed’ democracy to a captive Iraqi people. People bite the US arm. US soldiers shoot the people.
That’s the obvious parallel, but not the only one. Deconstruct the tale of the Tiger of Baghdad and you can come up with a lot more sub-tales about what the US occupation really represents. The parable-like quality of the episode also offers some lessons on what to do and what not to do when dealing with tigers (of all kinds) in general.
India wooing Turkey and Israel adds up
By K Gajendra Singh, Asia Times 10/2/2003
During his recent visit to Turkey, when questioned about the "claims that the United States is working to create a new axis between Turkey, India and Israel", Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee replied that there was no such proposal. He added, however, "Terrorism affects all societies. There is an international struggle against terrorism and India, Turkey and Israel are a part of it." India has, though, felt the need to intensify defense cooperation with Turkey, which has been "at a lower level than what we would have liked".
....The idea of bilateral Indian-Turkish, Indian-Israeli or even a trilateral axis between the three under the overall American umbrella has been encouraged and promoted by the US since the collapse of the USSR in the late 1980s, and after September 11, 2001, in particular.
Israel is a US watchdog in the Middle East to guard American interests, and Turkey has been a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally since the early 1950s. Although non-aligned, India was close to the USSR during the Cold War. Now, with a billion-plus population and huge market, India, with its million-strong army, fits into the US scheme of having an ally to match China.
....The pro-Israel and pro-India lobbyists successfully worked together to gain the Bush administration's approval for Israel to sell the Phalcon early warning radar planes to India and now US approval for India to purchase Israel's Arrow ballistic missile defense system. The coalition of groups include the US-India Political Action Committee, the America Israel Political Action Committee and the American Jewish Committee (AJC). The AJC, for example, has sent seven delegations to India since 1995, and two years ago it took a group of Indian American leaders to visit Israel. So far, the Jewish-Indian alliance in the US has focused on foreign policy. But the two communities also have combined forces on electoral politics to defeat those whom they perceive as antagonistic both to Israel and to India.
A heretical thought for Middle East peace
By John V. Whitbeck, YellowTimes.org 10/2/2003
(YellowTimes.org) – With the latest American "peace plan" joining its predecessors in history's trash heap and with the United States astounding even those who expect the worst from it by vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution urging Israel not to exile or assassinate Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, the time may be ripe for a radical reevaluation of the American role in the search for Middle East peace.
In June, the respected Pew Research Center released the latest of its global opinion surveys, which polled more than 15,000 people in 21 countries in the wake of the invasion and conquest of Iraq. A primary focus of press reports was the surge of anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world. In traditionally pro-American Jordan, 97% of those polled opposed America's "war on terror," while, in NATO-member Turkey, 83% expressed an unfavorable opinion of the United States. The selection of Osama bin Laden by the publics of five of the eight Muslim countries surveyed (Indonesia, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and Palestine) as one of the three political leaders they would most trust to "do the right thing" in world affairs did not go unnoticed.
Less noticed, but no less significant, were the responses to another question. Those polled were asked whether the United States is too supportive of Israel. In 20 of the 21 countries surveyed (notably INCLUDING Israel), most of those polled said "yes." There is no prize for guessing the one country where most said "no."
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