With the Media Focused on Saddam, Israel Makes Hundreds Homeless
By Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi, Palestine Chronicle 12/16/2003
Out of sight, out of mind - a ploy Israel has often used with brutal effect, most recently today. With the media and world attention on Saddam's capture, Israeli occupation forces demolished 22 homes in a Gaza refugee camp, making over 200 people destitute (again). As shameful as this atrocity is the fact that if you followed British news coverage, you would be none the wiser.
The event was ignored, save for the last few paragraphs of an article on the BBC's website - it seems making Palestinian refugees homeless again is not deemed newsworthy, especially if there is news elsewhere. Israel has long been aware of this media flaw, and has honed it into a cruel art.
Contrary to Israeli claims that the buildings in the Khan Yunis camp were uninhabited and used "by Palestinian terrorist cells to launch mortar bombs and fire missiles" at Israeli targets, preliminary investigations conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) revealed that 178 Palestinian civilians (25 families) were left homeless. In addition, homes belonging to six families (approximately 40 civilians) have become uninhabitable.
The BBC, bizarrely, reported that "Palestinians said the structures were homes". Was the sight of children and the elderly trying to salvage furniture and belongings amid the rubble not proof enough that they were in fact homes, and that Israel's claims were false and deceitful?
Rafah, a city that struggles to exist
ReliefWeb/Xinhua Feature 12/15/2003
"I started my day by becoming homeless," Fouad said, while still looking through between the broken bricks in attempt to find anything that was not completely broken and could at least remind him of his house. -- Misbah Mwafi, a 65-year-old resident of the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, woke up early Monday as he does everyday to take his daily morning walk in the neighborhood and talk to his neighbors.
That morning, Misbah saw his neighbors sitting at the neighborhood's modest cafe and chatting. He said good morning them and then continued his walk, showing no interest in joining them in their conversation.
The people sitting at the cafe was talking about the Geneva initiative, announced recently by a number of Israeli and Palestinian figures, who agreed on giving up the right of return of Palestinian refugees in exchange for the establishment of an " independent" Palestinian state.
Misbah himself is a refugee, and he has been living in a rented apartment in one of the city's suburbs buildings since the Israeli army destroyed his house at the Block (O) of the refugee camp, near the borderline with Egypt.
The old man lives with his wife in the apartment. Their two sons were killed -- Salim, the elder son, killed by the Israeli army in the first Intifada (Uprising) that lasted between 1987 and 1993, and Mussa, the younger one, killed in the second Intifada that broke out since September 2000.
Misbah's apartment looks almost bare from any furniture, a bed and closet in the bedroom, a few plastic chairs in the supposed-to- be living room and two large pictures of Salim and Mussa on the wall.
"My family was expelled from a village called Simsim in 1948, and I can still remember everything about it, even the small details like our old home, our backyard, the neighbors and the vast lands we used to own and work on for a living," Misbah said in a nostalgic tone.
Most of all, he remembers how the Israeli army destroyed his house in the refugee camp and rendered him and his wife homeless after losing their two sons.
The Pervasive Fear of Talking About the Israeli Connection
By Bill and Kathleen Christison, CounterPunch 12/14/2003
It is wide open now. Israelis are training Americans at Fort Bragg on their well tested techniques for carrying out targeted--and of course extrajudicial--assassinations. Americans in Iraq are copying this and all the other wretchedly cruel, unjust (and failed) Israeli occupation tactics in the West Bank and Gaza, tactics that the U.S. through its massive aid enables and encourages Israel to pursue. It is impossible to exaggerate the stupidity and just plain evil of the Bush administration in transferring such copycat policies to Iraq, at a time when hatred of U.S. policies is already rising daily around the world. The training of assassination teams is only one of many manifestations of the United States' "Israeli connection."
At the same time, almost all influential individuals and groups in the U.S. political landscape still shy away from discussing the degree to which this Israeli connection has been a major factor in determining the entire complex of U.S. policies on Iraq and the Middle East since September 11. In the eyes of most Americans, the correctness of the ever stronger ties between the right-wing governments of the United States and Israel is simply not to be questioned. (If you do question these ties, you must be prepared to deal either with suspicions of anti-Semitism that may be directed at you, or, more likely, with suggestions that you are simply "too far out" of the mainstream and therefore deserve no further consideration. In the latter case, an unspoken motive of your interlocutors is often that they fear being charged with anti-Semitism, or with being "self-hating Jews," if they seem to agree with you.)
Here are a couple of examples that we have observed in recent weeks.
Night and day
By Ibrahim Nafie, Al-Ahram Weekly on-line 11 - 17 December 200
Last week's meeting of Palestinian factions in Cairo has paved the way for future progress -- That the dialogue between the Palestinian factions in Cairo ended on Sunday without an agreement led many to judge the talks as a failure. A more astute reading of what transpired, though, makes clear progress has been made, and can be built on.
Against the backdrop of Israel's relentless aggression 12 Palestinian factions with widely differing viewpoints and ideologies were brought together. Add to this that the parties discussed a number of sensitive issues they had not previously explored together, many of which the PA, as the elected government of the Palestinian people, had previously considered its own preserve, and there is ample ground to call the meeting a success. Certainly there can be no doubting the degree of patriotic and political acumen exhibited by the participants, which reflects a qualitative shift in the Palestinians' performance across the board.
The Cairo meetings have contributed to strengthening the hand of the PA. Now Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei is armed with the backing of the factions on such issues as the truce, the separating wall and Palestinian prisoners and detainees. He is also in a much stronger position with regard to the demand for Israeli reciprocity. Above all, what Israel cannot and should not expect is for the Palestinian factions to offer a truce free of charge. A truce not backed by mutual guarantees is a truce destined to collapse.
Geneva Accord: Relapse to Structural Discord for Beilin "Absolutely Kosher."
By Brock L. Bevan, Electronic Intifada 12/15/2003
Not quite a deus ex machina, the Geneva Accord demonstrates the manifest inability of elements within both the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Israeli 'Left' to fight for a just resolution to the over 100 year Zionist enterprise in Palestine. In 1993, the Oslo process was initiated with the signing of the Declaration of Principles on the lawn of the White House culminating in a tepid handshake between, the then alive, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat.
Although the Oslo process was pushed as a mutually beneficial project that would provide Israelis with security and Palestinians with a quasi-state, it in effect provided a diplomatic and official cover for the perpetual Israeli territorial conquest that commenced in 1948 with the proclamation of the Jewish state of Israel and has never stopped.
Palestinians who desire to negotiate with Israeli politicians face an intractable problem. All Israeli officials who are capable of negotiating (i.e., who are elected to the position of Prime Minister) are ardent Zionists. As any review of seminal Zionist literature will tell you, Zionists of the peculiar bent that ethnically cleansed Mandatory Palestine of over 750,000 Palestinians (with British connivance) are committed to the maintenance of a thoroughly Jewish dominated state that possesses land claimed to biblically belong to 'the Jews'.
Permission to work?
By Suraya Dadoo, Electronic Intifada 12/16/2003
It is 12:30pm at the Nablus area District Civilian Affairs Office (DCO). It is over 40 degrees outside, where a long queue of Palestinians had been waiting in the oppressive heat (some for over three hours) with dust and dirt and no place to sit. They are here to request a permit, formal permission from the Israeli government to travel from the surrounding villages into Nablus to work.
Thousands of Palestinians go through this torture daily in Israeli offices throughout the Occupied Territories (OT) as the Israeli government intensifies restrictions on the movement of Palestinians. Israeli government restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the OT are terrifyingly reminiscent of apartheid South Africa's pass-laws.
Since March 2002, permits have been required to travel from one district to another. The Gaza Strip - only 30 kilometres long - is divided into three districts itself. The web of permits required has become mind-boggling following the construction of Israel's apartheid-style "security" wall, which divides the West Bank into eight separate and isolated "Bantustans". Apart from work, study and travel permits, some Palestinians even need permission to live in their own homes!
This new permit is for people caught between the "security fence" and the West Bank-Israel border, an area being called the "seam zone". More than 12 000 Palestinians are caught in this trap, and more may follow as the wall snakes its way around and through towns. Palestinians living within these areas are required to obtain permits to enter the area and live there.
Ready for the world
By Nevine Khalil, Al-Ahram Weekly on-line 11 - 17 December 200
Accompanying his president on the tour, Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim spoke to Nevine Khalil in Cairo about his country's vision for changing the commercial and political geography of the world -- President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's five-stop Middle East tour comes at a sensitive period in this region's politics. Is there a specific reason for the timing?
President Lula took office 11 months ago and he has a very clear [idea] in this mind about changing the commercial geography of the world. We have had meetings with business communities in every country we visited. It's a trip with broad dimensions. We have worked a lot inside South America, we have worked with India and South Africa in the so-called G-3 and Lula visited Africa, and of course we are working with our traditional partners, Europe and the United States.
He was really keen to make this trip during his first year of office, and it so happens to be a very important time for the region. There is the question of the reconstruction of Iraq and the Palestinian peace process. Important events have been taking place in this region for some time.
How relevant is the situation in the Middle East to Brazil's foreign policy?
It's relevant for the world, and we live in a world that is feeling the effects of globalisation. We are affected not only economically, but also emotionally. The Brazilian people follow these issues very closely. With regard to Iraq, we took a very clear position on finding a peaceful solution through the UN.
On the peace process, we were very impressed, in a positive way, that the Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath travelled eight hours to meet with President Lula in Cairo. Among other things, Shaath suggested that Brazil should be part of the task force that supports the Quartet. So, it's not only us seeking a role in issues outside our immediate region, but also other countries thinking we can have this positive role. And we are prepared to assume it.
Abdurahman Alamoudi on the Charges He Faces
By Abdurahman Alamoudi, Washington Post Letters 12/12/2003
I would like to respond to the Dec. 1 front-page story about me, "Jailed Muslim Had Made a Name in Washington; Alamoudi Won Respect as a Moderate Advocate," by Mary Beth Sheridan and Douglas Farah. The story quoted from an interview I gave in 1999 while traveling for the State Department; the quotation implied I supported terrorism. But the story did not mention that the excerpt -- inaccurately translated from Arabic -- was preceded by sentences in which I clearly and unequivocally denounced terrorist violence.
I do know political and religious extremists. In my work for the State Department, I spent time in embassies with diplomats, but also with people on the fringes of society in the countries I visited. I believe that maintaining a dialogue with those on the fringes is one of the free world's greatest defenses against terrorist violence. I talked to such people, using their own rhetoric at times, to persuade them of the uselessness and waste of terrorism. Everything I did on my State Department trips, I did as a service to the United States.
Email from Nazareth
By Jonathan Cook, The Guardian 12/15/2003
Through the dark nights of the intifada, the gigantic illuminated spire of the Basilica of the Annunciation has glowed brightly in the centre of Nazareth like a beacon of inextinguishable hope. The basilica, the biggest in the Middle East, is built over a grotto believed to have been the home of Joseph and Mary and the place where the Archangel Gabriel appeared to tell Mary she was bearing the son of God.
This Christmas the two cities associated with Jesus - Nazareth, in Israel, and Bethlehem, in what might one day become Palestine - will be shunned again by pilgrims. The nativity festivities will have to wait for another day, and a far-off peace. But the story of Nazareth, the town of Jesus's childhood, is not just of interest to pilgrims. The hills and the valley in which we know it has nestled for the past 2,000 years are revealing an older, but sadly neglected, record of human history, of our species' struggle to survive and its search for meaning.
A short stroll from the basilica, a disused road leads through a rocky valley under Jabal Qafzeh, a hill whose name the local Arab population translates into English as "Jumping Mountain" but might be better known to Christians as the Mount of Precipice. This is the site where, according to legend, Jesus was led by the citizens of Nazareth to be hurled down its cliff into the Jezreel valley.
The road ends abruptly close to an exposed, large dome-roofed cave whose only visitors nowadays - if the beer bottles and charred wood can be relied on - are teenagers seeking late-night thrills. But 100,000 years ago it was home to what scientists call the "first modern men".
Challenging the Justification of Killing
By Kim Petersen, Dissident Voice 12/15/2003
One who exults in the killing of men will never have his way in the empire. - Lao Tzu -- Information Clearing House has a video clip from a CNN Presents segment entitled "Fit To Kill." The video clip features the slaying of a wounded Iraqi lying prostrate on the ground "next to his gun." It is hard to discern any weapon near the man in the video; nevertheless, he was incapacitated and the marines kept firing at him. (1) Next a bullet rips into the doomed man's body; it heaves one final time; the neck snaps back and flips forward, and his body slumps deathly limp. Whoops of merriment are plainly audible from the killers.
It used to be that morality decreed that one should "never hit a man when he's down." The inescapable conclusion is either that this morality is no longer in effect or that these killers are behaving immorally.
The killer of the wounded Iraqi is Sergeant Anthony Riddle. Interviewed by CNN correspondent Candy Crowley afterward, Mr. Riddle comes across as giddy. Whether this is due to nerves or not is difficult to distinguish. His words, however, ring falsely of bravado: "Like, man, you guys are dead now, you know. But it was a good feeling."
Shooting a man when he is sprawled face-down on the ground is cowardice and a war crime. Feeling good about it is a sinister revelation about the inner workings of the killer.
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