Is Israel’s booming high-tech industry a branch of the Mossad?
Yossi Melman, Ha’aretz 10/16/2008
In 2006 the Check Point Software Technologies company, which specializes in protecting computer systems from hackers and data theft, wanted to acquire an American company called Sourcefire, which works in the same field. The great advantage of Sourcefire was that its clients include the American Defense Department and the National Security Agency. The U.S. administration, however, by means of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, did not approve the acquisition. The committee made its decision based on an opinion by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and NSA security officers. The two organizations were afraid that Check Point, which was founded by Gil Shwed and fellow graduates of Unit 8200, the Israel Defense Forces’ high-tech intelligence unit, would have access to top-secret information, which it could pass on to Israel’s intelligence community. The fear and suspicion currently is directed not only toward Check Point, but also other Israeli high-tech companies like Verint, Comverse, NICE Systems and PerSay Voice Biometrics, some of which work in data mining and engage in software development for tapping telephones, fax machines, e-mail and computer communications. more..e-mail
Getting Drunk on Weapons
Nadia W. Awad, Palestine Chronicle 10/15/2008
’Israel gets drunk on weapons.’ Israel has just come back from its latest spending spree. By the standards of your average shopper, its shopping list was quite boring, with only one item on it: weapons. What for? To tackle those pesky Palestinians who will not stop talking about some occupation they claim to be living under. And of course, there’s the need to defend the mighty nuclear state of Israel against the possibly nuclear (maybe, maybe not) state of Iran. Israel has just spent $15.2 billion on 25 F-35 bombers, each plane costing about $70-$80 million. On the other end of the scale, it has also invested funds into developing a new weapon called skunk gas. The aptly named skunk gas is a concoction of organic but absolutely disgusting ingredients that results in a foul-smelling but harmless liquid which is then sprayed onto the offenders (mostly those pesky Palestinians again). The stench is so bad that most people who are sprayed with it retch and try to rip off their clothes to get away from it. Only -- they can’t. The smell lingers for about a week and permeates your skin, your clothes, and pretty much everything you touch. Needless to say, if you get sprayed by skunk, you’ll be a very lonely individual for the following week. Israel has invested in this new invention as a less noxious alternative to rubber bullets and tear gas. Perhaps they’re learning their lesson, even if it is very late in the day. Accused on a daily basis of using excessive force to disperse protests and demonstrations, and scare off rock-throwing children, clearly their poor soldiers are getting sick of shouldering the criticism. After all, there’s nothing like an accusation of human rights abuse to get you down. more..e-mail
More than menacing, fearful
Yoav Stern, Ha’aretz 10/16/2008
The Shaaban family were imprisoned in their home in Acre’s Hamizrah neighborhood for a full hour and a half after Tawfik Jamal arrived on the eve of Yom Kippur. MK Abbas Zkoor (United Arab List-Ta’al) was urgently called to help and joined those closeted inside. After an hour and a half of turmoil outside, the apartment inhabitants realized they would not be able to leave. Zkoor, who had phoned the police to no avail, called his friends in Acre’s Old City. The effect was immediate. The time-worn local communications system - the mosque loudspeaker and bullhorns on the street - sweeped into action. "Help! An Arab family is being besieged!" they announced. The call touched a nerve with local Arab residents, stirring feelings of persecution and the old fear of expulsion. Cars loaded with youngsters left the Old City for Hamizrah neighborhood and made several rounds, bringing more and more youths to the area. But they were not able to rescue the besieged family. Frustrated, the youths returned to the Old City on foot, smashing car and shop windows on Acre’s Ben-Ami Street along the way. We will probably see security camera footage of the events on TV in the not-too-distant future. "These are not very nice pictures," said a senior official at the municipality, who saw them this week. Not very nice, perhaps, but surely a good sell." more..e-mail
Um Nasser: I wish the Israelis would leave our olive trees in peace
Kristen Ess, Palestine News Network 10/15/2008
Um Nasser talks with ease about her native Palestine until the recorder is turned on.Despite decades of hardship as an unregistered refugee living in the Old City of Amman, the small microphone is enough to render her childish for a few moments. Four of us lean around a coffee table and laugh; she holds a wrinkled hand to her mouth. Two granddaughters join in quietly as if behind a screen guarding a secret. "I am from Na’lin." Her native town in western Ramallah is known to many as a thriving scene of the nonviolent Palestinian resistance movement. Um Nasser has not seen it in years. "My name is Fatima Srour Mousa, Um Nasser. I am from Na’lin. I wish the situation were better. I’m from Na’lin and I wish that I could go back there if even for one day to go and live there because my whole family lives there and I was born there..." more..e-mail
Harvesting in solidarity with Gaza’s farmers
Rami Almeghari, Electronic Intifada 10/15/2008
On a beautiful sunny day this week, a group from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a non-partisan grassroots initiative, went to the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun in order to help protect Palestinian farmers harvesting their olive crops from the Israeli army.
According a group of Beit Hanoun residents promoting voluntary agricultural work, at least three attacks have been reported over the past four months, the most serious of which was when Israeli soldiers fired on farmers working in a field, about 600 meters away from the border.
The agricultural town in northern Gaza is the point in Gaza closest to Israel. The town has been repeatedly attacked by the Israeli army over the past eight years, and nearly two years ago 19 Palestinians were killed and 40 wounded when Israeli forces shelled a row of homes there.
Four months ago, Israel erected what it called a "buffer zone" of 300 meters along the Gaza-Israel eastern border. The Israelis claim that this zone was created to keep homemade rocket launchers away from the Israeli border. more..e-mail
Extremist West Bank settlers help stir Acre violence
Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada 10/15/2008
Acre, a mixed city of approximately 52,000 people in northern Israel, recently witnessed four days of violent clashes between Palestinian citizens of Israel and Israeli Jewish residents.
Israeli national leaders, including caretaker prime minister Ehud Olmert, prime minister designate Tzipi Livni, and President Shimon Peres, called for calm and for "both sides" to refrain from violence. They portrayed the events as being local, religious and communal in origin. Peres visited Acre and convened a meeting of Arab and Jewish civic and religious leaders aimed at restoring peace. Palestinians in Israel view the events as the product of widespread incitement and organized efforts by Jewish extremists to force them out of their homes.
While the facts and meaning of these events have been heavily contested, one of the underreported factors is the extent to which militant Israeli settlers from the West Bank, funded by donors in the United States, have instigated tension in Acre and other cities in an attempt to reduce their Arab populations. The Palestinian residents of Acre are amongst the 1.5 million Palestinians in Israel, who unlike Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, have Israeli citizenship, though their rights are severely curtailed.They are the survivors and descendants of the 1948 Nakba during which most Palestinians were expelled from their homeland.These Palestinians are often referred to generically as "Arabs" within Israel both in their own population and by Israeli Jews. more..e-mail
Will EU Be a More Just Mediator?
Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle 10/15/2008
European food aid is delivered to Palestinians in Hebron. (Photo: Reuters) Europe has showed greater willingness in recent months to play a larger part in the Middle East’s most protracted conflict, that of Israel and Palestine. But willingness doesn’t necessarily indicate readiness. For the European Union (EU) to be truly ready to take on a conflict of such magnitude, it must fully and clearly abandon its old ways of almost complete subservience to US-tilted and pro-Israel stances, and of refusing to treat Palestinians as equally deserving of the same rights and security gladly assigned to Israel. In other words, Europe would have to function as a truly independent political body, and renounce the damaging policy of treating Israel with utter sensitivity, and perceiving Palestinians, at best, as a people undergoing economic hardship. True, Palestinian projects funded by the EU are many and far reaching, but while Europe has demonstrated a degree of generosity towards Palestine, it has never had a fraction of the leading role that the US gives itself in the region. This is partly because while Israel mostly welcomes American involvement, it has long shunned a significant European role under various guises and logic, claiming Europe is soft on terror and that the continent is rampant with anti-Semitism. more..e-mail
Migrant workers’ children face discrimination
Report, Electronic Lebanon, Electronic Intifada 10/15/2008
BEIRUT (IRIN) - Children of domestic workers in Lebanon are an invisible segment of society.
Many of the estimated 200,000 migrant domestics living in Lebanon -- most of them women from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia -- have no legal status in the country.
Their children born in Lebanon thus have no official identity, and no statistics on their numbers exist.
For Sri Lankans, Filipinos and West Africans, Lebanese law allows for a child who is already registered in a Lebanese school to have residency, but many children of domestics face marginalization and racism because of their parents’ social status.
They long to leave for their parents’ country and be with their families. Nisha, 11, was born in Lebanon though her parents are originally from Sierra Leone. (Simba Russeau/IRIN) Nisha’s story
Nisha, 11, was born in Lebanon. Her parents, originally from Sierra Leone, decided to seek employment in Lebanon during the mid-1990s due to the civil war in their country. A few years after Nisha was born her father was deported because he lost his legal sponsor and was caught by the Lebanese authorities without legal work papers. Nisha’s mother stayed behind and continues to work as a domestic laborer. more..e-mail
Separated and Still Unequal
Joharah Baker, Palestine Chronicle 10/15/2008
The Arab driver was arrested for ’harming’ Jewish sensitivities (Photo: AFP) Following the American Civil War, the "separate but equal" laws were established in the United States, which basically stipulated that the blacks, finally emancipated, would be ’equal’ citizens of the US but would be granted separate services from the whites. It was not until the civil rights movement in the 1960s that the laws were overturned and blacks were allowed to attend school with whites, go to the same restaurants, sit on the same buses and use the same bathrooms. Still, the remnants of black/white racism are sometimes as palpable today in the United States as they were half a century ago. The events that transpired in Acre over the course of the week are another ugly reminder that racism is still alive and kicking, this time in a country the US praises as the only democracy in the Middle East. In Israel, democracy is probably at its best -- at least for Jewish Israelis. But for the one million-plus Palestinians living in what is now Israel and who hold Israeli citizenship, it is only befitting to parallel them to the black Americans of the 1960s. more..e-mail
It Was Never About Borders
Yousef Abudayyeh, Palestine Think Tank 10/15/2008
The Palestinian-Zionist conflict is not about disputed borders, it’s about the very existence of the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. The Zionist invaders came to Palestine because according to the Zionists, Palestine was a land with no people and needed to be filled with "people who have no land." Unless the whole world and especially the Arab Palestinians understand this, things will get worse. What we saw in Akka (Akko) this week is a continuation of the emptying of Palestine of its original people. This has always been a fruitless undertaking, fueled by the invader’s realization of the ultimate failure of the Zionist adventure - make no mistake about it. And just to let you know, what’s going on in Akka has been happening on a different scale in all the cities and village of Palestine 48. A few days ago, a friend of mine with some of his family members were driving in Haifa when his car was stoned by these fascist Zionist invaders with the “police” watching on and not doing a thing, a very familiar scene. more..e-mail
Daniella Weiss: ’The Arabs are a filter through which we find our way to land’
Donald Macintyre in Kedumim, West Bank, The Independent 10/12/2008
She is a 63-year-old grandmother who uses "revolutionary" and "extremist" as terms of praise. She is a religious former mayor who regards many forms of illegality short of murder as permissible in the cause she passionately espouses. And her image as the idol to many hundreds of militant young supporters in their teens and early twenties will only be enhanced when she appears in an Israeli court this morning on charges of assaulting and hindering police. Daniella Weiss’s activism is right-wing, in defence of a Greater Israel, including the West Bank, and she openly strives for the annexation of that territory. She is one of the most formidable individual forces in a struggle to ensure that the Israeli government does not withdraw a single Jewish West Bank settlement- -- unilaterally or by agreement with the Palestinians. It’s a struggle which she herself describes as an "ongoing rebellion" against a West Bank withdrawal plan, which she is convinced the Israeli government is determined to implement, a rebellion "against any attempt to make any change of the map of Israel between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean." more..e-mail
A little Bosnia in the making
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 10/12/2008
A young woman - kerchief on her head, baby in her arms - stood behind the barred windows of her apartment yesterday and shouted: "Get all the Arabs out of here... We don’t want them here... They’ve made our lives a misery." The balcony blinds of the adjacent apartment are shattered. Its former residents, the family of Mahmoud Samary, are gone, having temporarily fled the hail of stones on their home. The young woman yelled: "They should get out. The Arabs are taking all our girls." It was Saturday afternoon at number 18, Burla Street in Acre - part of a crowded, shamefully neglected housing project where three Arab families and 29 Jewish families inhabit a single building. At the entrance to the building, a group of policemen stood around idly. The street was lined with cars with shattered windows. It was not only Bosnia that Acre called to mind yesterday; the city was also reminiscent of Nablus - checkpoints at every corner, hundreds of policemen under every parched tree. A city that could have been a tourist attraction was instead the most miserable in Israel. My colleague Jack Khoury, an Israeli Arab, said as we entered the neighborhood: "I don’t believe I’m traveling here in such fear and tension. more..e-mail
They shot our son but they can’t kill his spirit
Kate Kellaway, The Observer, The Guardian 10/12/2008
This story begins with an ending. On 11 April 2003, Thomas Hurndall, a 21-year-old photojournalist, was shot in the head in Gaza by a sniper from the Israeli army. Tom was a brilliant, intrepid young man, driven by an energetic morality, a wish to make a difference in the world. The shooting left him with unsurvivable brain damage, but he clung to life - against the odds - in a coma, for nine months. While he lay dying in Tel Aviv and later in the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, north London, his parents, Anthony and Jocelyn Hurndall, took on a heroic struggle against the Israeli army. They were determined to seek truth and accountability at all costs. They had no idea how hard this was going to be. The Israeli army appeared to view Tom’s death with indifference; there were no plans to investigate the shooting, interview witnesses or go to Gaza. Nor, at first, were they willing to meet the Hurndalls. Their claim was that their soldier had fired at an armed terrorist. Tom, dressed in an orange jacket (a known sign for peace workers), was unarmed. What’s more he was shot while rescuing Palestinian children. more..e-mail
Sawt el-Amal (the Laborer’s Voice) No Bread and No Roses, Arab Women Textile Workers in the Galilee
Mary Rizzo, Palestine Think Tank 10/11/2008
In the past decade, more than30,000 textile workers lost their jobs in the Israeli textile industry, and mostof them are Arab women. In the first half of 2008, another 850 employees weremade redundant as a result of the continued outsourcing of textile manufacturingto cheap-labour countries and the falling shekel-dollar exchange rate. As oftoday, the Israeli textile industry still employs approximately 16,000 workers,and World Day for Decent Work is an appropriate day for their stories to betold… The textile industry has been themain source of employment for Palestinian Arab women inside Israel ever since the rapid industrialisationduring British-Mandate times (1920-1947) and the dispossession of thePalestinian people from their land by the establishment of the state ofIsrael in 1948. The nature of the textile and garment industries as a highly labour-intensive trade traditionally occupied by women has always abetted exploitation and inequality: for instance, a census conducted in Palestine in 1937 - at the height of the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939 - indicated that on average, the salary of a Jewish worker was 145% higher than that of his Arab colleague; in tobacco factories, it was up to 233% higher, and in textile factories employing women it was 433% higher. At the same time, historic labour struggles in the textile and garment sectors have shaped both the international labour and women’s movements.... -- See also: Sawt el-Amalmore..e-mail
In a Void: International Aid and Palestine
Alexander Costy – Jerusalem, Palestine Chronicle 10/10/2008
’Working in a political void has had troubling effects on the ground.’ Aid workers are supposed to be the good guys in international relations. Their work is steeped in ethics. They try to do what’s good for people, or at the very least, to do no harm. Yet international assistance can produce contradictions that make even the most seasoned aid professionals cringe. As far back as the 1940s, Marshall funds meant to support civilian reconstruction in Yugoslavia were used to violently suppress opponents of the emerging Tito regime. In the 1990s, international aid enabled warring factions in Angola to divert their domestic oil and mineral revenues toward military operations, while up to 2 million civilians languished in a state of chronic hunger, insecurity and displacement. Aid professionals usually blame such twisted outcomes on the "politics" beyond their control. In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, well over $12 billion in international assistance has been spent over the past 15 years. Yet, for most Palestinians the economy is worsening and public institutions are more fractured than ever. Statehood seems more elusive today than at any time in the past. In this context, there is a standing argument that the primary function of international aid has been to subsidise Israel’s occupation. Here too, well-meaning aid experts can be forgiven for wringing their hands, resorting to ready arguments about neutrality and urgent needs, and for regarding, once again, "politics" with grave suspicion. more..e-mail
The One-state Solution
Sari Nusseibeh - Jerusalem, Palestine Chronicle 10/10/2008
’Israelis described their West Bank settlements as organic extensions of the Israeli community.’ In a recent report, peace now (an Israeli NGO) revealed that since President George W. Bush convened the Annapolis peace talks last October, the number of construction tenders issued in East Jerusalem has increased by a factor of 38 compared to the previous year. Since 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, and especially since the Madrid peace negotiations of 1993, Israel has built almost 13 new neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, which is now home to more than a quarter million Israelis—almost the same number as Palestinians allowed to reside within the city. If you recall that most plans for a two-state solution envisage East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state (alongside the Israeli capital in West Jerusalem), it’s easy to understand why many Palestinians are losing faith in this project. There is another reason the two-state solution is losing support: Washington’s attitude. On a recent trip to Ramallah, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, when reminded that Palestinians have already shown willingness to concede 78 percent of what they consider their rightful territory to Israel, reportedly shot back, "Forget the 78 percent. What is being negotiated now is the remaining 22 percent." The message was clear: Palestinians must be ready to give up more land. more..e-mail
Another Israeli West Bank Land Grab Scheme
Stephen Lendman – Chicago, Palestine Chronicle 10/10/2008
’Israel now controls over 40% of the West Bank for settlements..’ Since 1967, Israel has systematically and relentlessly sought control of the entire "Holy Land" by seizing Gaza, the West Bank and all of Jerusalem. The entire area remains occupied and, according to Israeli professor and activist Jeff Halper, the aggressive "Nishul" agenda continues. It entraps and commits genocide against 1.5 million Gazans under siege in the world’s largest open-air prison. It also displaces Israeli Arabs inside Israel and West Bank Palestinians for expanding Jewish settlements. It depoliticizes the process to normalize it. Casts it as part of the "war on terrorism" and "class of civilizations." What Edward Said called the colonized and the colonizers. "The familiar (Europe, West, us, and of course Israel) and the strange (the Orient, East, them)." Halper refers to "adherents to ’evil’ religions, ideologies or cultures." Needing to be dealt with. Not people with real grievances, needs and rights. Israel’s solution: "warehousing a surplus (unwanted) population" in prisons, open-air ones, and by isolating and oppressing it relentlessly until all fight is beaten out of it. Others give up and leave. more..e-mail
High Time to Move Beyond Clichés
Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle 10/10/2008
’I’m so encouraged to know that we both love Israel.’ One should rightly assume that the weight of the US financial crisis, the full impact of which is just beginning to unravel, and the widening military debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, would compel new thinking amongst leading US politicians. And then again, maybe not. Aside from tactical and rhetorical differences, presidential candidates and their vice-president-hopefuls are yet to strictly champion and act upon a truly different leadership strategy: Barack Obama’s current foreign policy visions are more or less those of President Bush in his second term. Republican candidate John McCain, however, advocates a less solid and increasingly confusing set of principles: he strives to distance himself from a discredited, unpopular president, position himself as a man of experience and resolve, yet pander to the religious right and defend a hawkish strategy that is no less destructive than that championed by the neoconservative-designed Bush Doctrine, which led to two major wars and a near-complete loss of US credibility and leadership abroad. more..e-mail
Celebrating criminality
Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly 10/9/2008
In Israel, the murder of Palestinians and their mutilation is openly applauded at the highest levels. Is anyone in the West watching? asks The tension in the audience was apparent last Saturday as it waited for Emanuel Rozin, presenter of the popular Israeli television Channel Two, to announce the channel’s "man of the [Hebrew] year". To heighten the audience’s suspense, Rozin listed the personality’s achievements before announcing his name. Saleh Al-Naami looks into the man’s cv. "He’s the man who has only done good deeds... He’s the person who is famed for cutting off Palestinians’ heads with a Japanese knife... He’s the man who was born with a knife between his teeth... He’s the head of Mossad, Meir Dagan!" The hall thundered with applause when Rozin announced Dagan as man of the year. Rozin made sure to mention some of Dagan’s "secret" achievements, especially the assassination of Hizbullah operations commander Imad Mughniyah, and providing the intelligence information that allowed the Israeli air force to bomb a research station in northeast Syria, among others. After announcing Dagan man of the year, the station broadcast a profile of him that addressed his achievements during his military service and as the head of Mossad. more..e-mail
A Hard-Liner’s Call for Peace
Uri Dromi, Middle East Online 10/11/2008
In a farewell interview he gave to the Yediot Aharonot newspaper on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert dropped a bombshell. "What I’m telling you now," he said to his interviewers, "no Israeli leader ever said before me: We have to pull out from almost all the territories [in the West Bank], including in East Jerusalem, including in the Golan Heights." But for those of us who have been advocating these actions for years, his words were not really a bombshell; they simply reveal a coming to grips with reality. In order for Israel to survive as a Jewish and democratic state, the government should not rule millions of Palestinians. It is in Israel’s best interests that a viable Palestinian state emerge, a state whose citizens, though forced to give up their dreams of returning to their homes in Jaffa and Haifa, will nevertheless feel that, given the historical circumstances, this was a deal they could live with. But what was remarkable about this cold, realistic assessment is that it came from the mouth of Ehud Olmert himself. more..e-mail
International Jewish network condemns Israel and Zionism
Release, IJAN, Electronic Intifada 10/10/2008
As Jews around the world observe the Jewish New Year, a new Jewish group honors the holiday by denouncing Israel and Zionism. The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) launches this week, with a month of actions and events in over eight countries and the release of its founding charter.
This growing network of Jews, with local network affiliates in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, Israel, India, Morocco, Mexico and Argentina, was formed to join the struggle for justice in Palestine and the Middle East and challenge the Zionist censorship of Palestinian and other resistance to Zionism. IJAN seeks to rekindle a long Jewish tradition of participation in struggles for liberation and against exploitation and oppression.
"We intend to contribute to a growing international voice that challenges Zionism and its claim to speak on behalf of Jews worldwide; Israel and the Zionist ideology upon which it was built does not speak for us, nor does it reflect our vision of a just and safe world," says IJAN organizer Sara Kershnar."The movement against Zionist apartheid must be as uncompromising as was the movement against South African apartheid. Anti-Zionism is part not only of the movement against racism but also the movement against war. We are convinced that we speak to a great unexpressed, in fact censored sentiment of support for this perspective, including among Jewish people." more..e-mail
Society in Action
Ruth Tenne, Middle East Online 10/10/2008
Will the international community continue to look in silence on the walled in and trampled upon Palestinian people who have been subjected to the longest and most repressive occupation in modern history? BOYCOTTING ISRAELI GOODS In spring 2003 the ex-Prime Minister of Israel - Ariel Sharon - declared that ’the only possibility for a solution for the Palestinians would be the establishment of Bantustans’. Sharon’s map for the planned Palestinian cantons was published by the Israeli newspaper - Ha’aretz in September 2004.{1} Ironically, the month of September (2008) signifies also the re-launch of the campaign for Boycott Israeli Goods (BIG). A recent press release by the Palestinian General Delegation to UK appealed to the British public to uphold international law, pointing out that ’among other policies, the confiscation of land, the building of the Wall, creeping annexation and expansion of settlements, construction of hundreds of bypass roads for Israeli settlers only, denying access to natural resources particularly water, movement restrictions and siege, all meant that Palestinian economy is near collapse and the Palestinian people are being imprisoned in an ever shrinking Bantustans ’ {2}. In view of the appeal by the Palestinian representatives, and the exposed malpractices employed by British supermarkets in trading with the West Bank illegal settlements, the BIG campaign has intensified its activities - focusing on three main areas of actions: more..e-mail
Palestine ignored
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's Senior Political Analyst, in Washington, Al Jazeera 10/10/2008
Richard Falk, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories, recently delivered his report to the General Assembly. He cited continued "abuse of international humanitarian law" associated with the "separation wall", "children fatalities due to Israeli use of excessive force" to quell nonviolent demonstrations, and abuses at border crossings. Despite the details and warnings in the report, Israel’s policy of incarceration, targeted assassinations, and near starvation of millions of Palestinians has gone unabated for too long under the eyes of the international community. This is the longest occupation (and refugee problem) since the establishment of the UN itself; four decades old ’ and counting. Failure to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and "Israel’s 40-year occupation" would, in the words of Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, "continue to hurt the reputation of the United Nations and raise questions about its impartiality." more..e-mail
Gazan industries downsize as imports remain banned
Report, PCHR, Electronic Intifada 10/10/2008
The date is etched in his mind. "Our last delivery of raw materials from Israel was on 28 August 2007," says Rafat Redaisi. "But for more than a year now the imports we need have been banned. Before the closure [of Gaza] we used to buy a ton of raw plastic for $2,500. Now we’re forced to rely on the black market, and we have to pay twice as much for the plastic."
Redaisi is Head of Marketing and Sales at the Badreddin al-Redaisi and Partners polystyrene and plastics factory in Gaza city, the largest plastics manufacturer in the Gaza Strip. The factory opened more than two decades ago, and until recently there were 65 full time staff plus another 35 at several other smaller subsidiary workshops and factories owned by the same company. But the workforce has now been halved and the remaining staff have had their hours cut back. "Our problem is we don’t have enough raw materials to work with" says Redaisi. "We have an order of four hundred and 20 tons of plastic and polystyrene waiting over the border, in Ashkelon [in Israel]. It has been in storage there for more than a year, because we can’t get permission to bring the materials across the border into Gaza, but we still have to pay storage fees. So instead of making money, we are losing it." more..e-mail
Licence to kill
Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly 10/9/2008
Jewish settler fanatics continue to kill and steal from Palestinians without censure from Israel. Israeli security circles have warned recently that "organised Jewish terror" against Palestinians (and also against peace-oriented Jews) is on the rise and that steps must be taken to "nip that terror in the bud". However, Israeli officials, including Defence Minister Ehud Barak, have admitted that "confronting the settlers" is an uphill struggle, given the wide support they receive in Israeli-Jewish society and the strong political backing they enjoy from powerful government circles. Barak also alluded to the shocking laxity shown by the Israeli justice system towards the settlers, which effectively allows them to commit acts of murder and vandalism, especially against unprotected and near helpless Palestinian villagers, with virtual impunity. The ultimate goal of the settler terrorists is to intimidate and terrorise indigenous Palestinians into leaving their land so that more settlers can take it over. However, despite years of permanent terror and harassment, very few Palestinians if any have left their villages and land, prompting the mostly religious terrorists to intensify their attacks against Palestinians and their property. more..e-mail
Preparing to fail
Saleh Al-Naami, Al-Ahram Weekly 10/9/2008
Ahead of talks in Cairo aimed at national reconciliation, Palestinian factions are doing everything possible to weather the worst. As the procession of Hamas leaders headed down Salaheddin highway on their way to the Rafah crossing, two other cars were speeding ahead carrying the team who would advise the leaders during their meetings with Egyptian officials. Although Hamas leaders had announced that their delegation would include an advisory team, they refused to reveal the identities of its members and kept them out of contact with the press. There is no doubt that Hamas is heading to Cairo ready to take crucial decisions. Al-Ahram Weekly has learned that among the advisors are Ahmed Abu Shamaa and Nazal Awadallah, whom Hamas leaders routinely consult before taking any major decision. So what margin of manoeuvrability will the Hamas delegation have? An official Hamas source confided to the Weekly that Hamas leaders have a clear idea of what Egyptian officials intend to propose and, hence, a clear perception of the principles that should underline an Egyptian-sponsored formula for a solution to the internal Palestinian rift. According to the source, Hamas will insist upon the following. more..e-mail
Who is targeting Syria?
Bassel Oudat, Al-Ahram Weekly 10/9/2008
A bombing in Syria’s capital joins a considerable list of unexplained terrorist attacks on Syrian soil, Syrian authorities take special pride in keeping things quiet in the country of 19 million. They do so by clamping down on dissidents and suspected terrorists. But the recent explosion, in which 17 died, must have shaken their sense of confidence. The authorities are tight lipped about the whole thing. But it has been noted that Syria has been experiencing a series of unexplained events, such as the assassination of Hizbullah commander Imad Mughniyah in an area known for tight security and the murder of Mohamed Suleiman, a senior Syrian army officer. Recently, Mohamed El-Baradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that a senior Syrian official connected with the Syrian nuclear programme had been assassinated. The recent car bomb went off near a branch of the military intelligence services. Soon afterwards, Syrian television was on site, relaying live the aftermath of the explosion. This was the first time Syrian media covered a bombing in such a manner. While focussing on the civilian victims of the explosion, authorities seemed to be diverting attention from the security implications of the bombing. more..e-mail
Courting Nasrallah
Ammar Ali Hassan, Al-Ahram Weekly 10/9/2008
Cairo’s overtures to Hizbullah are about shoring up Lebanon’s now fragile Sunni community. Breaking with its customary reserve in dealing with Hizbullah, Cairo has invited the Lebanese resistance party for talks in Cairo. The move surprised many, as Hizbullah and Cairo don’t exactly see eye to eye on many issues, from Israel to Iran to Lebanese domestic affairs. But there are a host of reasons, most pragmatic, that enticed Cairo to move in that direction. In fact, there have been for sometime now signs of a change in relations between the biggest Arab country and the best-known political party in the region. Egypt may have lashed out at what it called "Hizbullah’s adventure", a reference to the party’s capturing of Israeli soldiers on 10 July 2006. But it didn’t want to see Hizbullah defeated in the ensuing war, and the Egyptian people were thrilled by Hizbullah’s outstanding performance in that war. There is a regional dimension to the matter. Cairo has taken keen interest in the resumption of talks between Syria and Israel. Cairo must have also noticed that Washington is not in a mood to attack Iran and that its support to its Lebanese allies is waning. These are all matters that Egyptian officials would like to discuss with Hizbullah. more..e-mail
BOOKS-IRAQ: Kurdish Jews Recall a Paradise Lost
Aaron Glantz, Inter Press Service 10/11/2008
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 10(IPS) - It’s become popular, when talking about ongoing violence in U.S.-occupied Iraq, for officials in Washington and the media to paint the Iraqi people as savages who can’t help but keep killing each other. In last Thursday’s Vice Presidential debate, Democrat Joe Biden said "the history of the last 700 years" showed the Iraqi people could never get along with each other.
But is that really true?
A different, more accurate version of history comes in a beautifully-written new book by Kurdish-American journalist Ariel Sabar: "My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Northern Iraq."
In it, Sabar tells the story of his father Yona, who grew up in 1940s Zakho, a small northern Iraqi city where Jews, Muslims, and Christians mixed relatively seamlessly. Though their community was small, Jews like Yona Sabar "went to work, prayed to a Jewish God, and spoke their own language without major disruption" just as they had "without major disruption for some twenty-seven hundred years." more..e-mail
This band of brothers
Rania Khalaf, Al-Ahram Weekly 10/9/2008
The story of the Palestinian oud Trio Joubran is an unusual and fascinating one. Rania Khallaf interviews Samir Joubran, the oldest member of the oud -playing family trio, on their latest visit to Cairo. The Story of the Trio started in the mid- 1990s in the small town of Al-Nasserain in Northern Palestine when Samir Joubran, now 35, began to perform solo on the oud... Samir’s younger brothers Wessam, 25, and Adnan, 24, joined him some years later to form Trio Joubran, which soon became one of the best and most widely-known Arab music ensembles. The brothers come from a talented musical family. Their father was a third-generation oud maker. When Samir was 16 he presented the first ever solo oud concert in Palestinian territory. He studied Arabic music in Palestine and Cairo in the early 1990s, and attended several workshops in Europe. He started teaching music at his home town of Al-Nasserain and Ramallah, and in 1998 he set up Awtar Sharqiya, the first Arabic music troupe in Gaza, which was unfortunately prevented from carrying on by the outbreak of the 2000 Intifada. In 2001, and with the assistance of the Red Crescent organisation, then led by Fathi Arafat, Samir produced his album Sou’ Fahm ( Misunderstanding ); an outpouring against the harsh conditions in Ramallah during the years of the Intifada -- which included the shelling of the Joubran family home. more..e-mail
Israel’s surprising best seller contradicts founding ideology
Jonathan Cook, Electronic Intifada 10/8/2008
No one is more surprised than Shlomo Sand that his latest academic work has spent 19 weeks on Israel’s bestseller list -- and that success has come to the history professor despite his book challenging Israel’s biggest taboo.
Sand argues that the idea of a Jewish nation -- whose need for a safe haven was originally used to justify the founding of the state of Israel -- is a myth invented little more than a century ago.
An expert on European history at Tel Aviv University, Sand drew on extensive historical and archaeological research to support not only this claim but several more -- all equally controversial.
In addition, he argues that the Jews were never exiled from the Holy Land, that most of today’s Jews have no historical connection to the land called Israel and that the only political solution to the country’s conflict with the Palestinians is to abolish the Jewish state.
The success of When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? looks likely to be repeated around the world. A French edition, launched last month, is selling so fast that it has already had three print runs. more..e-mail
Interview: Neve Gordon’s New Book
Palestine Chronicle 10/7/2008
’I decided to focus on the structures and forms of control.’ Israel’s Occupation by Neve Gordon, [Year: 2008; ISBN: 978-0-520-25531-9; Publisher: University of California Press Interviewed by Chris Spannos Chris Spannos: Where did your book Israel’s Occupation come from? Neve Gordon: The book has two distinct sources. First and foremost, it is a product of many years of activism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. My understanding of the forms of control deployed in the Gaza Strip and West Bank began during the first Intifada, initially as a member of the Gaza Team for Human Rights and later as the director of Physicians for Human Rights, Israel. During the second Intifada, I became an active member of Ta’ayush (Arab-Jewish Partnership) and spent much time in the Occupied Territories resisting, together with Palestinians, Israel’s abusive policies. This kind of first-hand experience is invaluable and cannot be replaced by books and reports. The book is also the outcome of discussions and research carried out by a group of Israeli and Palestinian students and scholars that I was fortunate to join a few years ago. The aim of this group was to try and theorize Israel’s particular form of colonization. more..e-mail
Israel-Palestine’s Future is One Nation
Ghada Karmi - London, Palestine Chronicle 10/7/2008
’A unitary state is inevitable.’ Imagine the scene: the United Nations General Assembly meets to discuss a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Unlike previous resolutions, which have been based on a Jewish state in most of historic Palestine with Palestinians relegated to the remnants, this one calls for a new state, covering what is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, the present and former inhabitants of which are equal under the law. Such a resolution has, in fact, already been drafted and discussions have begun to place it on the agenda at the UN. The one-state solution is now part of mainstream discourse. Increasingly, Palestinians -- and some Israelis -- support it as the only alternative to a Palestinian state subordinate to Israel. One-state groups have sprung up and conferences and studies are under way. A UN resolution is the logical next step, underlining the issue’s global importance and exposing the inequity and dishonesty of the two-state solution, replacing it with something fairer and more durable. It would be encapsulated in the following clauses, part of the draft UN resolution for a one-state solution, which has been under discussion for six months. more..e-mail
Olmert’s Belated Wisdom
B. Michael, MIFTAH 10/7/2008
Even though Prime Minister Olmert had been ridiculed on more than one occasion for his delayed grasp of reality, it is very difficult not to feel great anger in the wake of his Rosh Hashana interview with Yedioth Ahronoth. In fact, this interview is truly infuriating. A few moments before he departs the political stage, two and a half years after he officially assumed his post, and after 30 months where he did nothing to advance all the beautiful notions he discussed in the interview, suddenly he has been instilled with wisdom and courage. All of a sudden, he speaks up in order to warn us and issue predications, advice and consult, outline a path, and discover “new” ideas, which in fact have been known for ages. Had we been able to only accuse him of complete diplomatic blindness and a special talent for failing to grasp reality around him, this would be one thing. We may have been able to forgive that. However, the prime minister himself praises himself for saying “five years ago already,” (in an interview with Nahum Barnea,) that time is running out, and that we must understand this, and that if we fail to grasp this, heaven forbid. more..e-mail
Palestinian torture victim seeks justice in the Netherlands
Press release, PCHR, Electronic Intifada 10/7/2008
Dutch prosecution authorities failed to arrest Ami Ayalon, currently Minister without Portfolio in the Israeli Government, while he was visiting the Netherlands from 16 to 20 May 2008. An application for his arrest was submitted to the Dutch authorities by Khalid al-Shami, who alleged that he was a victim of torture from 1999-2000, when Ami Ayalon was the director of the Shin Bet (the Israeli General Security Services - GSS), which investigates individuals suspected of committing crimes against Israel’s security. Ami Ayalon was the director of the GSS from 18 February 1996 to 14 May 2000.
Al-Shami’s evidence file was collected by his lawyers in Gaza City from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and he only sought justice abroad after the Israeli authorities failed to act on his allegations, in part because torture is routinely sanctioned in Israel.
The Dutch authorities failed to arrest Ayalon, even though there was a prima facie case and they concluded he was not immune from prosecution -- that failure will now be the subject of a legal challenge in the Court of Appeal in The Hague, and an order will be sought requiring a criminal investigation supported by an extradition request or an international arrest warrant. more..e-mail
Where water leaves a bitter taste
Ramesh Jaura, Electronic Intifada 10/8/2008
BARCELONA (IPS/Terraviva) - Palestinian villagers drink unsafe agricultural water rather than trusting water provided by an Israeli company, says Buthaina Mizyed, who has worked in Arraneh village near the conflict-laden West Bank city of Jenin.
The reason the Palestinians avoid the water from a station in the nearby village of al-Jalameh is that it smells of chlorine. So deep is the mistrust of Israelis that they fear it might have been contaminated, and would damage their children’s health.
"We assured them that water from the al-Jalameh station is being constantly tested and that its quality is definitely better than that of the water from the agricultural wells," says Mizyed. "But they would not believe us. They said the water could be contaminated in the time gaps between one quality test and another. They would ask us to guarantee water provided by the Israeli company was safe. But of course we could not guarantee."
Mizyed related this at a daylong event on "the inequality of groundwater allocation: the Palestinian-Israeli case" organized at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona on Tuesday. more..e-mail
Investigation demanded after prisoner dies in PA custody
Report, PCHR, Electronic Intifada 10/8/2008
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) calls on the Attorney-General of the Palestinian Authority to disclose the circumstances of the death of Shadi Mohammed Mohammed Shaheen, from the town of al-Bireh in the West Bank, who died on 29 September 2008 while in police custody in the city of Jericho. PCHR also demands a full investigation into the death, with the results publicly published.
Twenty-seven-year-old Shaheen was originally detained by a Palestinian military court order. On 8 March of this year he was summoned by the General Intelligence Service (GIS) in Ramallah, and was interrogated regarding charges of committing "crimes that endanger the safety of internal homeland security." Shaheen was detained by the GIS until 15 June 2008, when he was transferred to the Palestinian Police Rehabilitation and Discipline Center in Jericho, after an arrest warrant had been issued by the military prosecution.
At approximately 3:00pm on Monday, 29 September, Shaheen’s brother, Ashraf, received a phone call from a police officer who informed him that Shaheen was seriously ill. Ashraf immediately went to see his brother, and he was informed that Shaheen had just died at Jericho Hospital. Shaheen’s family stated that he had been interrogated about firing at the house of former PA Minister of Information, Nabeel Amru. more..e-mail
Israel: wedded to war?
Ben White, The Guardian 10/7/2008
For Israel, the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon war was all about questions. What mistakes were made, and who made them? What could be done to restore the Israeli military’s "deterrence" after a widely perceived defeat? In general, what lessons could be learned from the confrontation with Hizbullah in order that next time, there would be no question of failure? Unfortunately, it seems that entirely the wrong kinds of conclusions are being reached, at least in the military hierarchy and among the policy shaping thinktanks. On Friday, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper published comments made by Israeli general Gadi Eisenkot, head of the army’s northern command. Eisenkot took the opportunity to share the principles shaping plans for a future war. The general promised "disproportionate" force to destroy entire villages identified as sources of Hizbullah rocket fire, the reasoning being that they are "not civilian villages" but rather "military bases" – the kind of reasoning that can land you in a war crimes tribunal. more..e-mail
The Dance of the Cranes in Jerusalem
Mats Svensson, Palestine Chronicle 10/7/2008
’During our absence, holiday, some houses have been demolished.’ Woke up early. Had had a strange dream. Got up and looked out the window. Foggy, could hardly see the house on the other side of the street. Far away, within myself, I heard the shrill, strong, desolate sounds, the sounds of calling cranes. Together with my brother I had gone to Hornborgarsjön in the middle of Sweden. Early spring morning, had arrived during the night. Had slept a few hours in the car, in the dream we were in the car, Renault 4L, in a hiding spot in the forest. Unclear dream, but then it begins to grow light, the fog remains across the plain and when it lifts we see black silhouettes in the distance. With the lake in the background we see thousands of cranes, munching on potatoes. We put up our tube binoculars, point the long lenses and see how the cranes begin to dance. In the dream I hear their high calls, that’s when I wake up. Last night I was at a reception, cocktail party or why not call it a diplomatic get-together. Diplomats meeting after the summer, diplomats, like the migratory birds, the cranes, returning to their permanent playgrounds. Repetition, everything is repeated, as if nothing has happened in the meantime. more..e-mail
Image Makers
Larry Derfner, MIFTAH 10/7/2008
The settlers from Yitzhar had left their mark on the "Suleiman" house: Stars of David spray-painted in black on the walls. They’d come down the hill into the Suleimans’ village, Asira al-Kibliyeh, on Saturday morning, September 13, after a Palestinian burned down an empty Yitzhar bungalow, stabbed a nine-year-old boy and fled into the village. (The young victim, Tuvia Shtatman, suffered two superficial wounds, one of which required stitches, and spent a day in the hospital.) After the stabbing and arson, scores of Yitzhar settlers - who had been at synagogue during the Palestinian’s attack - effectively commandeered Asira al-Kibliyeh, throwing rocks and firing guns. They wounded several Palestinians, pushed a parked car down the hill and smashed windows and balcony furniture. The IDF soldiers on the scene appeared to be mainly standing around, occasionally steering a marauder away. That night, Israelis watched scenes from the melee on television. It was caught on video camera by a member of the Suleiman family standing at a window inside their house. The camera was provided by B’Tselem, the Jerusalem-based human rights organization, as part of its high-profile "Shooting Back" project of Palestinian "video activism" in the West Bank. more..e-mail
Nilin village resists Israel’s land confiscation
Report, Electronic Intifada 10/7/2008
NILIN, WEST BANK (IRIN) - As the olive harvest gets under way in the West Bank, residents of the Palestinian town of Nilin say much of their land, where their trees are, is off limits because of Israel’s wall.
According to estimates by residents, some 5,000 olive trees sit on 270 hectares between the path of the wall and the border of the West Bank with Israel, known as the Green Line.
"People depend on this land, especially because they have already lost so much," said Hindi Misleh, an activist in the village.
The village, Misleh said, lost over 4,000 hectares of land to Israel in the 1948 war and then another 800 to Israeli settlements which started to pop up around Nilin in the 1980s.
"Every year the settlers took more land," he said. Permits
In the past Nilin residents did not have a problem accessing the land they still maintained control over. However, this year, residents said they are being told Israeli-issued permits will be required.
"Last year, we had access without permits, and now they say we need permits, but they won’t give them to us," said Bahjat, a resident whose family has some 20 hectares on the "wrong" side of the wall. more..e-mail
Palestine, Israel Fairy Tale
Uri Avnery, Palestine Chronicle 10/7/2008
’Peace is not made between governments but between peoples.’ It has happened. In a solemn ceremony, on a stage bedecked with Israeli and Palestinian flags, the peace treaty between Israel and Palestine has been signed. Negotiations did not take long. The essential elements of the treaty had been known for a long time. The document held no real surprises. Israel agreed to recognize the State of Palestine. The border between the two states was based on the so-called Green Line (the pre-1967 line), but both parties agreed on a limited exchange of territory. About 5% of the West Bank, including several "settlement blocs", were joined to Israel, in exchange for an equivalent area alongside the Gaza Strip. Both sides expressed the wish to keep the border open for the movement of people and goods. In Jerusalem, the Arab neighborhoods, including al-Haram al-Sharif (the Temple Mount) became part of Palestine, while Jewish neighborhoods and the Western Wall stayed in Israel. The two halves of Jerusalem remained physically united under a joint municipal authority, with equal representation. more..e-mail
Guardian Held Hostage
Mary Rizzo, Palestine Chronicle 10/7/2008
’The Star of David has been transformed into a Jewish nationalist symbol.’ In what can only be described as a shocking glimpse into Zionist lobbying at the heart of British media, the Guardian last week dismissed an Iranian contributor after a group of pro-war, Islamophobic Neocons accused her of anti-Semitism. Soraya Terani, an Iranian mother who lives and works in London at a children’s charity, was commissioned to write 2 pieces to Comment Is Free (CIF) chronicling the routine horrors endured by Arab women whose lives have been ravaged by the US and Israeli invasion. But then, due to mounting pressure from Zionist "watchdogs" and blogs her pieces were dropped. Seemingly, Terani also posted comments on an open blog forum which, according to editor Matt Seaton, betrayed all the hallmarks of ’anti-Semetic racist discourse’. However, on reading both her editorial contributions and comments one is struck by Terani’s sharp, eloquent political criticism that is totally devoid of any racial, ethnic or religious reference whatsoever. more..e-mail
Dehumanising Metaphors in ’War on Terror’
Iqbal Jassat, Palestine Chronicle 10/7/2008
In the light of fresh debates centered on Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, particularly within the United States whose armed forces are deeply entrenched in the military conquest of the region under the guise of the ’war on terror’, many fraudulent theories are advanced to justify hostilities against largely unarmed and defenseless populations. The same can be said about the Horn of Africa and the US-sponsored war of aggression against Somalia. One of the concepts used to perpetrate these military adventures is that of ’failed states’. The argument used is that the all-knowing West has to ’remake the world’ in order to pave the way for democracy to flourish. Millions of people have been displaced as a consequence of these military adventures while the American presidential candidates bicker over their potential moves in this game of chess, which is what the terrible results of the Bush administration’s war games have seemingly reduced these tragedies to. more..e-mail
Blindfolded
Gideon Levy, MIFTAH 10/6/2008
Take a quick look at the photo before you. We took it last fall by chance. In the course of another interminable wait at the Hawara checkpoint, on our way to another story in Nablus, we saw this man being arrested. Bingo, the game of the checkpoint soldiers. We didn’t know his name, why he was arrested or when he’d be released, if ever. But we noticed his proud bearing - solitary, upright. His eyes were already covered by the IDF-issue flannel, the type meant for cleaning guns, and his wrists were about to be bound with plastic handcuffs. We seemed more upset by his sudden arrest than he was. After 41 years, the Palestinians are used to it, that on any ordinary day, on the way to or from work, everything might be abruptly turned upside down. This was a routine year, another year of the occupation of which no end is in sight. From Rosh Hashana 5768 to Rosh Hashana 5769 our forces killed 584 Palestinians, 95 of them minors. Many fewer than in 2002, when 989 were killed; many more than in 2005, with 190 killed. Eighteen Israelis were also killed in the past year, many more than in the previous year, when just five were killed, and much less than in 2002, when 184 Israelis were killed. All in all, an average year for bloodshed. more..e-mail
Economic Roadmap Leading to Nowhere
Nadia W. Awad, MIFTAH 10/7/2008
Episode three of the Palestinian National Economic Development Conference took place in Jericho this Sunday October 5, hosted by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The conference did not receive much local or international coverage, despite the fact that about 400 men and women attended the event, representing ministries, institutions in the public and private sector, businesses and investors. The aim of the conference was to discuss ways to increase partnership between the public and private sectors of the Palestinian economy, as well as to enhance investment in the private sector. Since the beginning of the second Intifada in 2000, the Palestinian economy has descended into a severe downward cycle. Israel imposed curfews and closures on Palestinian towns and villages, rendering the movement of goods and people very difficult if not impossible. As instability and violence in the West Bank and Gaza increased, private sector growth came to a standstill and subsequently began to shrink, forcing a rapidly growing labor force to look to the public sector for employment. The public sector, i.e. the Palestinian government, began directing funds towards the hiring of employees, as well as increasing government subsidies, which at the time was necessary to prevent an economic catastrophe from occurring. As such, many families came to rely on the Palestinian government for their livelihood.Consequently, there was little money remaining to invest in much needed public infrastructure and development projects. In fact, most such projects ceased. This situation continued unabated, and today there is very little private sector investment, very little investment in infrastructure, negative economic growth rates, high unemployment figures, and a people who are heavily reliant on the government for survival (an average of 5.3 people were dependent on a government employee in 2007). The Palestinian government is now almost completely reliant on donor funding to survive, using those funds to pay salaries and cover daily operating costs. more..e-mail
Huffing and puffing to silence criticism of Israel
Carel Moiseiwitsch and Gordon Murray, Electronic Intifada 10/7/2008
In June 2007, the Palestine Media Collective produced a newspaper parody of The Vancouver Sun that satirized the anti-Palestinian bias of CanWest, the largest media conglomerate in Canada.One example was an article entitled "Study Shows Truth Biased Against Israel" by Cyn Sorsheep. Six months later, CanWest launched a lawsuit against those who "conspired" to produce and distribute the parody. The original writ named Mordecai Briemberg, Horizon Publications (the printer), and six Jane and John Does.
CanWest Mediaworks Publications is the parent company of the Global television network, ten large market and national daily newspapers, 25 community newspapers, and 20 specialty television channels. Canwest bought Canada’s largest newspaper chain from Conrad Black in 2000 and in 2007 purchased Alliance Atlantis, one of Canada’s largest specialty television operators.
We stated publicly that the two of us were solely responsible for producing the newspaper parody, and CanWest has added our names to the lawsuit. We maintain that the parody was the exercise of the "fundamental freedom" under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms "of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication." Although we have confirmed that Mordecai Briemberg was not involved in producing the parody, Canwest has refused to drop its suit against him. more..e-mail
A reckoning in Gaza
Simon Block, The Guardian 10/8/2008
My first encounter with Tom Hurndall came on April 11 2003, via a BBC headline: "Israeli troops wound Briton." Weeks earlier in Gaza, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had killed peace activist Rachel Corrie, and before that, UN project manager Iain Hook. I tracked the story until the news agenda rolled on, and Tom Hurndall became yet another name on the list of casualties from what was then described as the most dangerous place on earth. I attended Tom’s public memorial service a year later, having discovered the student photographer had been more than "wounded". During a Palestinian demonstration against IDF violence, three children had come under fire from an Israeli position. Tom ran forward to move the children to safety and was shot in the head. I was curious to know what had compelled this young Englishman to step into mortal danger. The eulogies inched me closer to understanding Tom, but raised a second question: what could possibly have been gained by shooting him. more..e-mail
Rights group protests arrest of former lawmaker by Gaza police
Report, PCHR, Electronic Intifada 10/5/2008
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns the attack, and subsequent humiliations, of former Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member, Rafat al-Najjar (65), his wife, son and brother-in-law by the Palestinian police in Khan Younis. The Centre calls upon the relevant authorities to investigate the attack and bring the perpetrators to justice.
According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 12:30pm on Friday, 3 October, a row erupted between neighbors of Rafat al-Najjar, in the Jourat al-Lout area of Khan Younis. When the row escalated into an armed confrontation, local residents, including al-Najjar, his family and friends, intervened to quell the row. In the meantime, a large contingent of Palestinian police arrived at the area, and fired into the air. Police officers also beat some individuals. When the officers attempted to enter al-Najjar’s house, saying they were pursuing those engaged in the row, there was an altercation between the police and al-Najjar’s relatives, who were standing in front of the house. The police officers attempted to assault two members of the al-Najjar clan, and Rafat al-Najjar intervened. A police officer pushed and insulted him, and he fell to the ground. Al-Najjar’s 18-year-old son, Othman, intervened and began fighting with the police. When Othman fled into the house, the police pursued him. His mother, 58-year-old Siham Abdul Hamid Zaqqout, attempted to stop the police, and they beat her with batons. The police also assaulted her brother, 57-year-old Jihad. The police then searched the house, but did not find nor arrest anyone inside the house. more..e-mail
The Olive Harvest: a symbol of steadfastness and solidarity
Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, Stop The Wall 10/5/2008
As part of the activities marking the sixth week against the Apartheid Wall (November 9 – 16 2009), the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign and its Popular Committees are coordinating collective efforts to safeguard the olive harvest and are calling on volunteers to stand in solidarity with Palestinian communities and join in the olive harvest, which will begin 15 October and end on 15 November.
This year we are focusing on 105 villages across the West Bank that have been subjected to ongoing attacks and land confiscations, with the aim of offering support and bringing attention to local grassroots resistance.
The 2008 olive harvest will begin with opening activities on October 15 in the Ni’lin (Ramallah district). The people of this village have been waging an intensive struggle against Occupation forces that have been laying the foundation for the Apartheid Wall on village land. A festival to mark the final day of the harvest will be held on November 15 in the village ‘Asira al-Qibliya (Nablus district), culminating the Week against the Apartheid Wall. ’Asira al-Qibliya has faced continued settler attacks, including physical assaults and the burning of community land and crops. The festival will feature Palestinian cultural activities and exhibitions of olive related products. Stop the Wall will also publish a report detailing Occupation abuses against farmers in the various villages. more..e-mail
Nonviolence is not a synonym for negotiation
Hiba Lama, Palestine News Network 10/2/2008
PNN -- In June 2007 the United Nations declared Ghandi’s birthday, 2 October, as International Day of Nonviolence. Popular resistance in all its forms, including economic and cultural or through the media and direct action, remains less popular this year than political armed resistance. Many in the Palestinian nonviolent resistance movement see it not as an alternative to armed resistance, but rather as the only viable path. Among them is the director of the Bethlehem-based NGO Holy Land Trust, Sami Awad. "Nonviolent resistance is the best strategy for the Palestinian people at this time to eliminate the Israeli occupation. I say this not as a criticism of the armed resistance and the sacrifices of the people involved. It is based on what is there and available to the largest number of people and what their strengths and weaknesses are. It is also based on a study of the strengths and weaknesses of the other side. Consequently we note that the strength of the Palestinian people is not in arms against the occupying power which is the forth largest military force in the world.&rdquo. more..e-mail
The right of no return
Hasan Abu Nimah, artwork by Carlos Latuff, Palestine Think Tank 10/2/2008
The debate on the Palestinian refugee problem has been confused and badly mishandled. While Israel maintains a consistent position, the Palestinians and the Arabs are often contradictory, vague and inconsistent. For some unclear reason, the refugee problem has, with time, been limited to only one aspect: the right of return. This narrowed the scope of discussion to an extent that not only shifted emphasis but also played well into the hands of the Israeli hardliners who stubbornly deny all refugee rights as well as denying Israel’s responsibility in creating the refugee problem, first through the systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestine and then by refusing to allow refugees to come back home. Yet the refugee problem entails more rights than the right of return and should be dealt with on that basis. The Arab Peace Initiative of March 2002 provides for the “achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.”. more..e-mail
In a void: international aid and Palestine
Alexander Costy, Daily Star 10/3/2008
Aid workers are supposed to be the good guys in international relations. Their work is steeped in ethics. They try to do what’s good for people or, at the very least, to do no harm. Yet international assistance can produce contradictions that make even the most seasoned aid professionals cringe. As far back as the 1940s, Marshall funds meant to support civilian reconstruction in Yugoslavia were used to violently suppress opponents of the emerging Tito regime. In the 1990s, international aid enabled warring factions in Angola to divert their domestic oil and mineral revenues toward military operations, while up to 2 million civilians languished in a state of chronic hunger, insecurity and displacement. Aid professionals usually blame such twisted outcomes on the "politics" beyond their control. In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, well over $12 billion in international assistance has been spent over the past 15 years. Yet for most Palestinians the economy is worsening and public institutions are more fractured than ever. Statehood seems more elusive today than at any time in the past. In this context, there is a standing argument that the primary function of international aid has been to subsidize Israel’s occupation. Here too, well-meaning aid experts can be forgiven for wringing their hands, resorting to ready arguments about neutrality and urgent needs, and for regarding, once again, "politics" with grave suspicion. more..e-mail
Twilight Zone / Blindfolded
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz 10/3/2008
Take a quick look at the photo before you. We took it last fall by chance. In the course of another interminable wait at the Hawara checkpoint, on our way to another story in Nablus, we saw this man being arrested. Bingo, the game of the checkpoint soldiers. We didn’t know his name, why he was arrested or when he’d be released, if ever. But we noticed his proud bearing - solitary, upright. His eyes were already covered by the IDF-issue flannel, the type meant for cleaning guns, and his wrists were about to be bound with plastic handcuffs. We seemed more upset by his sudden arrest than he was. After 41 years, the Palestinians are used to it, that on any ordinary day, on the way to or from work, everything might be abruptly turned upside down. This was a routine year, another year of the occupation of which no end is in sight. From Rosh Hashana 5768 to Rosh Hashana 5769 our forces killed 584 Palestinians, 95 of them minors. Many fewer than in 2002, when 989 were killed; many more than in 2005, with 190 killed. Eighteen Israelis were also killed in the past year, many more than in the previous year, when just five were killed, and much less than in 2002, when 184 Israelis were killed. All in all, an average year for bloodshed. more..e-mail
Learning from South Africa
Savera Kalideen and Haidar Eid, Electronic Intifada 10/2/2008
The strategic value of international solidarity with the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, refugees in the Diaspora and Palestinians in Israel raises some fundamental questions. The most immediate and urgent are: what the nature of international solidarity should be and how it can best support the Palestinian struggle for self-determination?
International solidarity needs, first and foremost, to address the ways in which colonial Zionism has followed and continues to follow the Bantustanization policy of apartheid South Africa. There is also an imperative to address the severe damage that the Oslo Accords have caused to the Palestinian struggle, given the degree of confusion that these accords have created in the international arena.
A historical analysis of the current Palestinian quagmire cannot separate apartheid and Zionism from colonialism. As Samir Amin argues very persuasively in Unequal Development, in 19th century South Africa, central capitalism and colonialists forcefully dispossessed rural African communities to satisfy their need for a large proletariat to exploit the country’s great mineral wealth. The indigenous people were driven into barren regions which left them with no alternative but to become cheap labor for European mines and farms, and later, rising South African industry. This initial dispossession slowly transformed a vibrant and dynamic society into mere labor reserves, with a gradual loss of independence, and, ultimately, to the creation of apartheid and Bantustans. more..e-mail
Venezuela’s Support for Palestine, a model for third world democracy
Nikhil Shah, Palestine Think Tank 10/2/2008
At a time, when the international community has turned a blind eye to Israel’s crimes towards the Palestinians, Venezuela has been one of the few nations who has the courage to openly condemn Israel for its crimes and express support for the Palestinian people. Most members of the non-aligned movement professed support for the Palestinian cause during the cold war and severed relations with Israel as they saw the Palestinian struggle as part of the same anti colonial struggle that they were a part of. Other commentators have stated that the non-aligned support for the Palestinian cause was not formed out of any genuine concern for the Palestinian people but as a way to align their foreign policy to that of the former Soviet Union for strategic purposes or to gather favor from several oil producing Arab nations for their development. After the U.S. imposed Oslo Peace Process began in the early 90’s, the international community eagerly resumed diplomatic ties with Israel and immediately started a process of military and technological cooperation with them. May of these nations such as India and China had admired Israel as a nation that was technologically and militarily advanced and desired to have Israel share its expertise in these areas with them.[1] This build up of military cooperation and trade made many nations change their policy on criticizing Israel. ... more..e-mail
Tepid contact between US and Syria
Jim Lobe, Electronic Intifada 10/2/2008
WASHINGTON (IPS) - A series of meetings between United States and Syrian diplomats, including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterpart, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, at the United Nations over the past week is stirring speculation that Washington may at last be moving toward engaging Damascus.
Instead of focusing on specific issues of special interest to the US -- mainly Washington’s demands that Syria crack down hard against the infiltration of Sunni extremists into Iraq and stop supplying Hizballah in Lebanon -- the discussions also reportedly covered other topics as well, notably Damascus’s appeals for Washington to involve directly itself in a burgeoning peace process between Syria and Israel.
Both Damascus and Tel Aviv have called for US engagement as a way of furthering year-old indirect talks that have been mediated by the Turkish government. While Rice has publicly blessed the process, hawks within the administration of US President George W. Bush, particularly Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and a deputy national security adviser in charge of the Middle East, Elliott Abrams, have opposed any additional involvement. more..e-mail
Double standards
Seth Freedman, The Guardian 10/2/2008
Conscription in the Israeli defence forces (IDF) is a particularly sensitive topic in Israel; unsurprisingly, given that the majority of families will send at least one of their offspring to don the uniform in defence of their country. Refusal to play the game and join up is tantamount to treason in many people’s eyes, so much so that politicians have realised there is huge political capital to be made out of relentlessly hounding and scapegoating those who fail to do their time in the forces. The latest target for the wrath of the righteous is New Profile, an NGO dedicated to assisting would-be soldiers to avoid the draft. The pursuit of New Profile is part of the all-out war being waged by the authorities against the burgeoning section of Israeli youth that successfully eludes the IDF’s clutches. Last year nearly a third of eligible males managed to evade enlistment, causing a national outcry that has yet to die down. more..e-mail
Project Censored’s Media Democracy Advocacy
Stephen Lendman - Chicago, Palestine Chronicle 10/2/2008
’Follow their work. Support their activities. Know what’s at stake.’ For 32 years, Sonoma State University’s (SSU) Project Censored has pioneered US media democracy, research, and First Amendment issues. Founded by Carl Jensen in 1976, it’s now headed by Professor Peter Phillips, currently on sabbatical leave, with Professor Mickey Huff in charge as Interim Associate Director of the program until his return. PC works cooperatively with numerous independent media groups, primarily to train SSU students "in media research, First Amendment issues and the advocacy for, and protection of, free press rights in the United States." Since its founding, it’s trained over 1500 students in investigative research and the importance of our most fundamental right without which all others are at risk and now currently hang by a thread. PC is a "partnership of faculty, students, and the community" to conduct research "on important national news stories that are underreported, ignored, misrepresented, or censored by the US corporate media." Each year, it ranks the top 25 and publishes them in its yearbook, "Censored: Media Democracy in Action." more..e-mail
MIDEAST: Breaking the Silence
Cherrie Heywood, Inter Press Service 10/3/2008
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Oct 2(IPS) - An Israeli police commander has called them "provocateurs", "militants", and, "lawbreakers". Earlier in the year the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) decided that their presence in the city of Hebron, 30km south of Jerusalem in the Palestinian West Bank, constituted a security threat and banned them from the city, stating that any member of the organisation caught there would be expelled forthwith.
They’ve been spat at, stoned and assaulted, but these former members of the IDF, many of whom served in Hebron, are determined to expose what is being done in their name and in the name of Israel’s security.
Breaking the Silence (BTS) was co-founded in 2004 by Yehuda Shaul, 26, an Israeli soldier who served for nearly three years in the volatile city of Hebron. The organisation’s main aim is to break the silence and taboo surrounding the behaviour of Israeli soldiers in the Palestinian territories in an endeavour to enlighten ordinary Israelis on what happens behind the scenes as their sons and daughters, husbands and wives serve the Jewish state. more..e-mail
Rattling the Cage: Militias in the mirror
Larry Derfner, Jerusalem Post 10/1/2008
As I write this, Sunday morning, a teenage Palestinian shepherd has been found shot to death near Nablus, which is surrounded by more Baruch Goldstein wannabes than anyplace else in the country except for maybe Hebron. Some Palestinian witnesses say they saw a white car with settlers in it chasing the shepherd. Recently I interviewed a Palestinian shepherd near Nablus who said the settlers in the area harass him all the time, killing his sheep. He complains to the police, the police do nothing. I’m sure they’ll do nothing this time, too. Another unsolved murder of a Palestinian in Israel’s "heartland." "Nationalistic motives" - Jewish "nationalistic motives" - are suspected. What’s new?
On Friday there was a story in Yediot Aharonot about an IDF reserve unit that had just gotten back from a month of guarding Yad Yair, one of the illegal outposts near Yitzhar, the jewel in the crown of the Kach-minded settlements near Nablus. Yad Yair is officially slated for evacuation, and after the reservists dared accompany a Civil Administration official there on a visit, the soldiers were repeatedly set upon by mobs of hooded "hilltop youth." One soldier had his hand broken, another was bitten by an attack dog. They were beaten, chased, had their tires slashed, their water line cut, their guard post blockaded.
more..e-mail
How I became a target for Israel’s ’Jewish terrorists’
Donald Macintyre, The Independent 10/2/2008
Peace campaigner attacked with a pipe bomb tells Donald Macintyre why militant Zionism should be feared. Zeev Sternhell is careful about his choice of words when he unhesitatingly calls the pipe bomb which exploded outside his front door last week "an act of Jewish terrorism." As a Holocaust survivor orphaned by the age of seven and a combat veteran of Israel’s wars, Professor Sternhell, 73, who was lucky to have only been injured in the leg by flying shrapnel from the bomb, is "horrified" not for himself but because it might have hit his wife, daughter his grandchildren on one of their sleepovers, or their neighbours. "It was a terror act because they couldn’t know who would have been hit." Given that, as he wryly puts it, he has no known enemies in the "criminal underworld", the reason for what police think was attempted murder isn’t hard to find. As a veteran member of Peace Now, and vigorous opponent of the occupation since the late 1970s, the Hebrew University scholar, Israel Prize laureate and internationally-known authority on the roots of fascism apparently became the target of the highest-profile attack inside Israel by far right-wing Jewish extremists since Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in 1995. more..e-mail
Iran fears nuclear witchhunt
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, Asia Times 10/2/2008
The latest news from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), aside from a gloomy portrayal of an international agency starved of cash and manpower, is that it cannot confirm the absence of a clandestine Iranian nuclear program. The head of the United Nations’ watchdog, Mohamad ElBaradei, should know better that this is not his agency’s mandate to begin with, no matter how much new affection is poured on the troubled agency by Western powers. Hence the question: is there a discrete for the simultaneous announcements whereby the IAEA tags along with the United States’ plan of action with regard to Iran, as long as Washington promises no military action, and then it is rewarded with Washington’s and London’s power of the purse? On Monday, ElBaradei warned that the agency’s ability to carry out its core work was at risk unless funding was increased. He pointed out that 90% of the IAEA’s nuclear security program depended on voluntary funding, rather than on its regular budget, which in 2008 amounted to US$415 million. The reason of raising the possibility of a quid pro quo is that the IAEA has recently flip-flopped over Iran’s "outstanding issues", which were thought to have been put to rest in the agency’s February 2008 report. They have cropped up in a subsequent report, albeit around the contentious issue of certain alleged "weaponization studies". more..e-mail
Holy Time and a Call for Peace
Hesham Hassaballa, Middle East Online 10/1/2008
I hope and pray that both Israelis and Palestinians could - this year - stop and remember that they are children of the same holy father, Abraham. I hope and pray that both Israelis and Palestinians could - this year - see through the fog of hatred and the smoke of intolerance and realize that they both are heirs of the same tradition, servants of the same God, and bound to the fate of the Middle East, says Hesham Hassaballa. On Wednesday, October 1, Muslims the world over mark the end of the month of Ramadan with the Eid ul Fitr festival. On this day, Muslims celebrate with their friends and families the completion of a month of intense worship and spiritual reflection. It is always a special occasion for me and my family: We gather together dressed in our nicest clothes, attend special prayers in the morning, and - very important to me - we drink our coffee during daylight hours once again. This year’s Eid festivities are also unique as they fall immediately after the beginning of the High Holy Days of Judaism, with Rosh Hashana on September 30. Thus, the followers of two of the most significant Abrahamic faiths will be celebrating back-to-back, including in the Holy Land. Whenever these "accidents of the calendar" occur, it always causes me to stop and reflect. more..e-mail
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Is Israel’s booming high-tech industry a branch of the Mossad? 
