AshkeNazi threatens Gaza with another “little holocaust”

by Ben Heine

WRITTEN BY KHALID AMAYREH, Palestinian think tank

There seems to be a perfect conformity between Gabi Ashkenazi and his last name. The Israeli chief of staff is considered one of the main Israeli war criminals responsible for the virtual genocide against the Gaza Strip during the past winter. On his murderous hands, he carries tons of innocent blood, including that of more than 340 children, killed in Israel’s pornographic bombing of civilian neighborhood.

Last week, Ashkenazi was quoted as saying that Israel was likely to wage another quasi holocaust on Gaza, adding that the Israeli occupation army would enter the innermost corners and streets of the coastal territory.

As a nefarious mass murderer, Ashkenazi, like the rest of Israeli war criminals, ought to be in the Hague preparing his defense against charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. After all the crimes he perpetrated put him on equal footing with Nazi war criminals who had stood trial for their own crimes against humanity during the Second World War.

However, because of the serious moral imbalance afflicting our world today, which finds a brazen expression in western complicity with Zio-Nazism, Ashkenazi and ilk are not only free but are even threatening their victims with a fresh holocaust.

In a certain sense, Ashkenazi’s arrogant behavior falls within the normal order of things. The totally inappropriate reaction by the international community to the Nazi-like blitz against the unprotected Gazans must have further emboldened Israeli leaders, convincing them that Israel can always have a free season on the 1.5 million helpless, blockaded and thoroughly starved inhabitants of the coastal enclave without having to worry about any serious ramifications and repercussions.
Hence his repulsive statements.

It is true that many free-minded political and moral leaders, such as the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have strongly condemned Israeli barbarianism in Gaza.

It is also true that the Goldstone report, prepared by South African Judge Richard Goldstone, denounced Israel for perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza blitz, which is a positive development.

However, it is also true that war criminals pay little attention to verbal condemnations even if coming from prominent international bodies and figures.

This is why Askenazi’s remarks ought to be taken with utmost seriousness for two main reasons: First because the Israeli army, or Zionist Wehrmacht, is capable of committing the unthinkable, including the carpet bombing of civilian areas, using cluster bombs, as happened over Lebanon in the summer of 2006, or white phosphorus as happened in Gaza last winter. And second, because Israel is essentially a rebellious state which has never taken international law seriously. What is even more scandalous is that western countries, especially the United States, have always treated the Judeo-Nazi entity as above international law.

Hence, it is imperative that the Palestinian people play their cards very carefully and smartly. After all, when wrestling with a huge bull, one has to rely on his brain, not his muscles, otherwise one may end up getting crushed by the mighty beast.

Palestinians ought to be always mindful of this fact because their very survival as a people depends to a large extent on the good will of the international community, not their own military or political strength. After all, most Palestinians are effectively prisoners of the enduring Israeli military occupation.

Hence, the Palestinian must seek to recruit the best minds and most gifted spokespersons to raise the awareness of the peoples of the world about the creeping holocaust Israel is trying to wreak on our helpless people.

We must not flinch from invoking the holocaust lest we be accused of making hyperboles. Indeed, if even one tenth of what happened in Gaza earlier this year had happened to Israeli Jews, Israel would have invoked the holocaust nonstop, and urgent calls from around the world would have been made for saving the Jews and preventing the Arabs from completing what Adolph had started nearly seventy years ago.
More to the point, the idea of Israel carrying out a sort of a holocaust is not unthinkable at all.

Last year, the Israeli deputy defense minister Mattan Vilna’ai warned that Israel would launch a holocaust against the Palestinians if that was what the Palestinians wanted. And during the blitzkrieg on Gaza, the psychotic Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman was quoted by the Israeli media as saying that a nuclear bomb ought to be dropped on Gaza.

Hence, Palestinian fears are not and shouldn’t be viewed as phobic and irrational. After all, we are dealing with an irrational state and a morbid society that are overwhelmed with a unique type of collective psychosis.

Never the less, raising our voices is not sufficient. We must also seek to enlist the attention and support of international human rights organizations as much as possible. These are credible witnesses whose testimonies might be proven crucial for safeguarding the rights of our people, the dead as well as the living.

We must also gather and meticulously document every conceivable piece of information pertaining to Zionist crimes and criminals, from the ordinary soldier in the field to the highest-ranking commander. This shouldn’t be a difficult job as there is already a huge amount of information pertaining to Israeli war criminals available, even through the internet.

Furthermore, Palestinians and their supporters should always confront states all over the world with information indicting Israeli military and political leaders. We should seek to narrow their horizons, make the capitals of the world off-limit to them, we should pursue them wherever they go. These people are war criminals and child killers must not be allowed to have any shred of peace of mind . Their murderous crimes must condemn them to a life of existential anxiety, stress and depression.

Of course, the Zio-Nazis will not surrender and allow themselves to be easily defeated by our efforts.

Moreover, manifestly immoral governments such as those of the US and Germany, to name just a few, will hasten to support Israel and shield it from any proactive measures that would make the Zionist regime feel the heat and understand that the occupation has a cost that must be paid in full.

But we and our allies could counter this true axis of evil by building a worldwide front comprising millions of free and honest men and women who would chase the war criminals wherever they go and expose their evil deeds.

Luckily, we already have such a movement in place. But we need to get more organized, and be more effective. These goals are not difficult to realize as the world is already fed up with Israel, a state that we must never stop comparing with Nazi Germany because in the final analysis when Zionist Jews think, behave and act like the Nazis of the past century, they become Nazis.

We must never be apologetic about this.

 

Settler rabbi authors guidelines on killing gentiles

Bethlehem – Ma’an – Jews have the right to kill non-Jews in just about any circumstance, said Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the head of a religious school in the illegal settlement of Yitzhar, near Nablus.

“If we kill a gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments… there is nothing wrong with the murder,” Shapira wrote, according to Hebrew-language Israeli newspaper Maariv.

In his new book, The King’s Torah, Shapira, who heads the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva, justifies the slaying of “non-Jews who demand the land for themselves,” and for, among other transgressions, “hostile blasphemy.”

“Those who, by speech, weaken our sovereignty” – deserve to die, the book explains. “It is permissible… even if they are not responsible for the threatening situation.”

According to Maariv, the book is a manifesto, “230 pages, no less, on the laws of the killing of gentiles, a guide to deciding whether and when it is permissible to take the life of non-Jews.”

Shapira and his followers began selling the guide at Saturday’s memorial in Jerusalem for Rabbi Meir Kahane, the Israeli Knesset member who urged the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Israel and the territories.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Shapira based the majority of his teachings on passages quoted from the Bible, to which he added his opinions and beliefs. Several prominent rabbis have recommended the book to their students and followers, the newspaper reported on Monday.

Shapira’s book includes a chapter entitled, “Intentional Harm to Innocent People.” The book explains it is permissible to kill civilians in other nations if the population “helps a murderer of Jews… Any case in which the life of the civilian endangers Israel – it is allowed to kill a gentile.”

“The permit also applies when the persecutor is threatening to kill indirectly rather than directly,” Shapira ruled. “If the civilian is aiding fighters it is permissible to kill. Anyone who helps the army and the wicked in any way strengthens pursuers.”

He added, “Citizens [of the enemy nation] contribute to the war… So any citizen who supports the war or the fighters or expresses satisfaction with their deeds – the killing is permitted.”

Even babies and children are fair targets, “if it is clear they will grow up to harm us,” the rabbi wrote. “If hurting an evil leader’s children will pressure him to stop acting maliciously – you can hurt them,” the newspaper reported, quoting Shapira.

However, the book does not mention Palestinians or Arabs even by implication, Maariv pointed out, explaining that the author meant to discuss the killing of gentiles as a theoretical concept rather than in the context of the region’s politics. The newspaper noted that he was “careful not to explicitly encourage private individuals to take the law into their own hands.”

The report also quoted responses from settlers, including one who explained, “We respect the rabbis, but they do not represent the settlements nor the outposts.”

In any case, the book’s publication comes just two weeks after a gag order was lifted revealing that Israeli police had arrested a West Bank settler for a string of killings and murder plots, including the slaying of two Palestinians. An immigrant from the US, Yaakov Teitel allegedly confessed to shooting to death a shepherd south of Hebron in 1997 and killing an East Jerusalem taxi driver the same year. Teitel is also suspected to have carried out a series of bomb attacks, including a blast that damaged a police car during a gay pride parade.

After the March 1997 shooting of Palestinian Issa Jibril, Teitel told authorities that he had come to the country with the specific aim of shooting Palestinians in revenge for suicide bombings.

Shapira’s book touched on the topic of revenge, as well.

“To defeat the wicked one should be vengeful, tit for tat,” he wrote. “Revenge is a necessity… and sometimes doing savage things intended to create a true balance of terror.”

 

The ‘Unknown’ Fight the Illegal

by Jalal Al Rifa'i

By Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler

OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM, Nov 8 (IPS) – “Make sure your father gets this,” the municipal inspector tells a ten-year-old boy at the gate of the concrete house in an alleyway in the Al-Bustan quarter of Silwan, a Palestinian neighbourhood right under the shadow of the walled Old City.

“This” is a court-approved demolition notice, “No. 59″. It’s for a house under imminent threat of being torn down by the Israeli authorities because it does not have the requisite building permit.

The demolition notice is headed: “To Unknown Addressee”.

“Now they refer to me as ‘Unknown’. But they know my name very well – they address payment orders for all municipal and other taxes to me by name,” says Moussa Oudeh.

Moussa, father of five, is one of 78 householders in Al-Bustan whose homes are slated for demolition. Since the election of a new Israeli mayor exactly a year ago, ten other houses in Al-Bustan have been bulldozed.

A handful of armed Israeli police and border police bar access to the narrow alleyway.

A small crowd of residents gathers.

An argument breaks out in Hebrew between Sergeant Fares and Moussa, who is flanked by Fakhri Abu Diab, the elected coordinator of the Silwan Committee Against House Demolitions.

“This is the State of Israel, this is the Land of Israel,” says the sergeant. “What are you talking about,” counters Moussa. “My father, my grandfather, my grandfather’s grandfather were all born here. We’re from Silwan, you’re the occupiers.”

“It may be your land, but it’s our land too,” answers Sergeant Fares.

A balding officer in sunglasses throws his arm around his sergeant’s shoulder and escorts him a few metres off. “Cool it,” he whispers, “don’t get drawn into a political argument, please.”

“What I don’t understand,” chimes in Fakhri, “is why the provocation. Why come here with your helmets and battledress and rifles and jeeps – to intimidate us? To push us to violence so that you think you can justify what you’re doing? If you’re going to deliver demolition warrants, why not simply send them in the post, like you do with our taxes?”

“How many demolition notices are you serving today, all 78?” we ask the two baseball-capped city officials. “None of your business,” replies the one in the red cap, “You’re in our way, clear off!”

“Their policy is to do it in dribs and drabs,” explains Mohammad Nakhal, a community coordinator in Palestinian neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem. “If they did it all at once, the whole world would come down hard on them.”

Mohammad has been caught up accidentally: he’d come to Silwan to talk to Fakhri about future tactics for strengthening the peaceful community resistance to active Israeli takeover policies in East Jerusalem.

If for Palestinians the timing of any demolition procedures is always ill-timed, this time it may be ill-timed for Israel as well.

It’s the eve of another meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama; the Israeli leader reportedly hopes the U.S. will side with Israel and fault the Palestinians for failing to resume peace talks.

On the eve of Monday’s planned Washington meeting, Palestinians were encouraged by reports that the Obama Administration intends to harden its stance on Israeli policies in occupied East Jerusalem.

The U.S. is apparently trying to appease the beleaguered Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas who last week declared that he will step down soon because of the impasse in peacemaking.

“We’re growing disappointed. Obama has yet to translate his verbal promises into deeds,” says Mazen Abu Khulbein, another Silwan activist. “Still, we haven’t given up hope on him yet. His position on East Jerusalem will really test his intentions.”

The two police Land Rovers and two Toyota vans, all with iron grills protecting their windscreens against stone-throwing, speed off to their next destination, out of Wadi a-Nar and up the hill. Just 200 metres away, the silver-blackened dome of the Al-Aqsa mosque inside the Haram Al-Sharif, Noble Sanctuary compound-, looms over the imposing 16th century Old City walls.

The vans park near a new seven-storey block of flats. A blue-and-white Israeli banner, with a large Star of David, has been unfurled from the roof down to the alley beneath.

It’s one of several buildings in Silwan where nationalist religious Israelis have settled in recent years in a bid to boost the Jewish presence in the Arab neighbouhood.

For some time, it’s been an open secret that the settlers also don’t have the requisite permit for their building.

According to Israeli press reports, after the recent demolition nearby of a small Palestinian home, human rights groups took the matter to the Israeli courts. A city inspector called to the dock was asked by the magistrate, “How come you didn’t serve a demolition notification on the seven-storey building as well?”

“I simply didn’t notice it,” replied the inspector.

The court has yet to take action on the petition against the settlers for their infraction.

Down the road, outside the Al-Maleek pizza parlour, some of the policemen have been on standby in case of trouble. Suddenly, the calm is threatened. From a couple of alleys back, a small shower of stones comes over the roofs. The policemen move quickly into battle position.

Sergeant Fares holds up his hand, staying any response.

Fakhri steps in as well, calming the clump of Palestinian onlookers. “We don’t want any additional trouble. Our main purpose is to get these orders rescinded, and violence won’t serve us at all,” he says, addressing both the policemen and the crowd.

“Mr Unknown” Moussa is still seething. As the vans prepare to drive off, he flings his demolition notice into the face of the blue-capped city inspector. It’s flung contemptuously back.

Fakhri sums up the low-keyed, but potentially explosive, incident: “We’re still waiting to see light at the end of the tunnel. We have to keep clinging to our hopes. Unfortunately, for the moment, if there’s any light at all coming into the tunnel, I fear it’s no peace train, only the usual oncoming train that’ll just run us down blindly once again.”

(This is the latest in an ongoing series on the changing face of East Jerusalem after 42 years of Israeli occupation.)

 

Abbas may quit Fatah, PLO posts

*Rolls eyes*

November 10, 2009

Nablus – Ma’an – President Mahmoud Abbas is considering resigning from his roles on the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee and the Fatah Central Committee, Palestinian officials said on Tuesday.

The sources, who spoke on the condition that their names be withheld, also said that Abbas’ announcement last week that he will not seek reelection as president was a serious decision and not a political maneuver as analysts have said.

Abbas is also waiting for the appropriate moment to announce his resignation from the PLO and Fatah governing bodies, the sources added.

The sources said that this is what the president was alluding to in his speech last Thursday when he referred to making “the right decisions at the right moments.”

In a speech last Thursday Abbas said he had “no desire” to stand for another term in an election that he scheduled for 24 January, citing frustrations with a year of stalemate in the peace process with Israel.

Analysts said the announcement was likely a tactic to get the US to apply more pressure on Israel to comply with its obligations to halt the expansion of West Bank settlements.

In an interview with The New York Times published on Monday, chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat said Abbas had lost faith in the Palestinian Authority as an institution.

“He really doesn’t think there is a need to be president or to have [the Palestinian] Authority,” the PLO chief was quoted as saying.

Framing the crisis as larger than mere politics, Erekat warned of far-reaching implications: “This is not about who is going to replace him. This is about our leaving our posts. You think anybody will stay after he leaves?”

“I think he is realizing that he came all this way with the peace process in order to create a Palestinian state but he sees no state coming.” Without that prospect, Abbas no longer feels relevant, Erekat added.

 

Taliban fighters display ‘US weapons’: video

Al Jazeera has obtained exclusive footage showing the Taliban in Afghanistan displaying what appears to be US weapons.

The fighters say they seized the arms cache from two US outposts in eastern Nuristan province.

Days after the alleged assault, the US military pulled out its troops from the area.

Al Jazerera’s Jonah Hull reports.

 

US deploys new naval forces in PG

Tue, 10 Nov 2009, Press TV

The US has deployed a new expeditionary force in the Persian Gulf — the first time a permanent self-sustaining US naval force has been set up in the region.

The newly established Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) 5 will serve in the area of responsibility of the US Navy 5th Fleet Combined Task Force (CTF) 51 in Manama, Bahrain.

The group, which is responsible for all amphibious forces deployed to the region, supervises naval operations by the US and its allies in Iraqi territorial waters, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

It is mainly responsible for the US naval operations in connection with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as counter-piracy and counter-terrorism operations.

The ESG 5 comprises of 45 vessels and three amphibious vehicles. It is capable of transferring almost 3,500 marines trained to conduct maritime humanitarian aid and military operations.

Introduced by the US military in the 1990s, ESGs allow US naval fleets to provide highly movable and self-sustaining forces for missions in various parts of the globe.

 

Marking Berlin anniversary, Palestinians breach “Israel’s” wall: video

by Haitham Al Katib

Around 100 demonstrators waving Palestinian flags and wearing fluorescent jackets reading, “We are going to Jerusalem,” broke through near the Qalandiya military checkpoint, onlookers said. A truck was used to pull down the concrete slabs making up the wall, an organizer said.

Early reports said the demonstration was planned by the “popular committees” local groups organized to oppose the construction of the wall.

Last Friday, protesters in the village of Ni’lin also managed to tear down a section of the wall. Residents of the village, like those in many towns along the route of the wall, participate in weekly demonstrations against the barrier and the associated annexation of their land.

Intended to be 709 kilometers in length, Israel had completed 413 kilometers of the wall by June 2009, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The barrier, in reality a network of walls, fences, watchtowers and checkpoints, snakes through the interior of the West Bank, looping around Israeli settlements and fragmenting Palestinian communities.

The International Court of Justice ruled that the wall is illegal under international law in 2004. Israel maintains the barrier is for its security.

‘We refuse to be put in cages’

 

Rabbi’s Book Says Israelis Can Kill Children, Women and Elders

The Israelis are already doing this so this makes it an official open policy for all to know and acknowledge that for some unknown reason the Israelis can break any religious or human law on this Earth to attain their despicable aims?!

Al Manar

09/11/2009 Goldstone report, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes against civilians in Gaza, was not folded yet till a book for one of the Israeli rabbis was issued permitting the killing of children, women, the elderly and the innocent of non-Jews in the necessities of war.

The book also accuses all nations of non-Jews of shedding the blood of Israelis and thus dealing with them on the basis of this opinion, which allows the killing of their children, women and their elders.

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira of the occupied West Bank settlement of Yitzhar released the book Monday.

Shapira, head of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva, also said in “The King’s Torah” that it is permissible to kill children if they pose a threat.

In addition to his own opinions, Shapira claimed that the book is based on Bible quotations.

“The King’s Torah” was released shortly after the announcement of the arrest of an Israeli terrorist who admitted to killing Palestinians and attacks on messianic Jews and left-wing Jews

 

Abbas politically failed after making losing wagers

{American support to Abbas} by Amjad Rasmy-Middle East newpaper-London

Abbas politically failed after making losing wagers

09/11/2009

GAZA, (PIC)– Palestinian political analyst and writer Talal Okal stated Sunday that Mahmoud Abbas’s political platform has failed after he made a number of losing wagers, adding that US president Barack Obama’s defense of Israel’s interests contributed to this failure.

Okal added that the political life of Abbas was terminated by an Arab and international decision, noting that most of Arab and international parties coldly responded to Abbas’s declaration that he would not run for elections.

He said that Abbas complained in his last speech that international and Arab parties did not support his political project which he always called for.

For his part, Israeli political analyst and expert on Palestinian affairs Dan Margalit said Sunday that Abbas is politically gambling against Israel and the world, noting that Abbas laid down his last card on the negotiation table after he announced his intention to hold elections early next year to defeat and delegitimize Hamas.

“Abbas’s goals are very clear. He does not want to hold elections, but he wants to keep the situation as it is without opening the ballot boxes,” Margalit underlined in an article published by an Israeli newspaper.

“Abbas wants to remain in power running continuous fruitless negotiations with Israel without reaching an agreement,” he added.

The Israeli analyst pointed out that Abbas should be given a chance to step down because the Palestinian street did not care about his intention not to run for elections.

For his part, Hamas lawmaker in Israeli jails Anwar Al-Zaboun said that Abbas’s last speech included a clear confession of the failure of his policies which he believed in for more than 40 years.

In a letter leaked from the jail, Zaboun added that this confession was late and should have been made years ago, but he said that Abbas still has the chance to make up for what he had done through returning to the national reconciliation dialog.

Palestinian Sources: Abbas Plans to Quit before Elections

Al Manar

09/11/2009 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in private meetings in recent days that he intends to resign from his post in the near future, Palestinian sources told Haaretz. The remarks come after Thursday’s announcement that he would not seek reelection as Palestinian president.

Abbas’ closed-door statements on a possible resignation were made to an Egyptian diplomatic delegation visiting the Palestinian Authority’s Muqata compound in Ramallah. The delegation was led by Yasser Othman, Egypt’s new ambassador to the PA, who was visiting Abbas to try to convince him to reconsider his decision to step down from the presidency.

The visitors were surprised to see that Abbas was not amenable to reconsidering the decision, and appeared intent on quitting his post.

Abbas’ decision not to seek reelection will not necessarily hold, as pundits expect the Palestinian leader to remain in his post for the foreseeable future, given the ongoing tension between Hamas and Fatah, which could push the election back indefinitely.

Fatah, Abbas’ movement, has also refrained from naming a successor to take on the president’s role. Still, Abbas’ resignation could reshuffle the cards in Ramallah, leaving the Palestinian political arena in disarray. It remains unclear whether Abbas also intends to quit his other positions, as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization working committee and of the Fatah movement itself.

Top Palestinian officials predicted Sunday that if Abbas makes good on his declaration that he won’t run in the upcoming Palestinian presidential election, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and his entire cabinet would resign.

If that’s the case, Abbas’ retirement from politics would signal the destruction of the PA, the institution that is supposed to serve as the temporary administrative organ preceding establishment of an autonomous Palestinian state. Furthermore, the American effort to renew negotiations over a final-status agreement would come to an end, and the United States and European countries would stop donating a total of more than $1 billion a year to pay the salaries of teachers, doctors and PA officials.

However, sources close to Abbas said they expect him to retract his decision to quit politics if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commits publicly to freezing settlement construction during final-status talks. As an alternative to such an Israeli commitment, Abbas is seeking a guarantee from U.S. President Barack Obama that would explicitly mention cessation of Israeli construction in occupied East Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, other Palestinian sources said recently that even if Abbas tried to resign, he would likely be kept in the position as a “temporary president” for an extended period, as Hamas refuses to hold elections in Gaza, and Fatah refuses to hold elections in the occupied West Bank without its rival movement on board.

On Sunday, Abbas took a rare tour around the West Bank, visiting Bethlehem and Al-Khalil, and a pro-Fatah rally of 10,000 in the town of Halhul near Al-Khalil.

According to Palestinian law, if a president resigns or is unable to continue in his position, the speaker of the parliament takes his place for 60 days. The current speaker is Aziz Dweik, one of the leading Hamas figures in the occupied West Bank.

Some Fatah sources, however, have been examining the possibility that Abbas will resign, without elections being pushed back. The sources raised the name of Marwan Barghouti, a top Fatah figure held in Israeli prisons since 2002, as a possible candidate to replace Abbas in such a scenario. Should Barghouti decide to run for the presidency, pressure on Israel to release him would rise significantly.

Senior Palestinian sources also denied reports that the Palestinians are planning to unilaterally declare independence within the 1967 borders, and claim that the Palestinian Legislative Council declaration of independence in Algiers 21 years ago is still in force. At that time, 104 countries recognized Palestine on the basis of UN Resolution 242, which requires Israeli forces to withdraw from territory captured during the Six-Day War.

However, the Fatah leadership will inform the Quartet that in light of the failure of the Oslo process, it is abandoning the two-state solution in favor of a single state, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, which would grant equal rights to all its citizens

 

Marking Berlin anniversary, Palestinians breach “Israel’s” wall

Israeli apartheid wall

November 9, 2009

Bethlehem – Ma’an – Marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Palestinian demonstrators breached Israel’s concrete barrier near the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday.

Reporting live from the scene, Ma’an’s correspondent said the protesters, once they reached the other side, set fire to tires. Israeli forces also opened fire, the reporter said.

Early reports said the demonstration was planned by the “popular committees” – local groups organized to oppose the construction of the wall – as well as the Fatah movement.

Around 100 demonstrators waving Palestinian flags and wearing fluorescent jackets reading, “We are going to Jerusalem,” broke through near the Qalandiya military checkpoint, one report said.

Last Friday, protesters in the village of Ni’lin also managed to tear down a section of the wall.