Total racism, total war

by Ben Heine

On the first anniversary of Israel’s war on Gaza, shocking revelations are appearing on the methods and reasoning behind the war, writes Saleh Al-Naami, source.

Mahmoud Hussein tries to hold back his tears as he looks at his 30-year-old brother Ahmed who suffers from colon cancer. The family is impatiently waiting for the Gaza border to open so Ahmed can travel abroad for treatment, since in light of the Israeli imposed siege, medical facilities in Gaza cannot treat his condition. Ahmed, who lives in Gabalya, north of Gaza, is not the only Palestinian who developed cancer at a relatively young age.

According to Palestinian medical sources, the number of patients with cancerous tumours residing in areas that the Israeli army targeted during its war on Gaza is on the rise. As the first anniversary of the war on Gaza approaches, the Palestinians are shocked to discover more of its damaging effects. A Palestinian woman whose house in the district of Al-Shaaf, east of Gaza City was targeted with white phosphorous missiles gave birth to a baby with a deformed heart. Doctors reported another pregnant woman in north Gaza, whose home was attacked with the same chemical agent, gave birth to a baby with the same deformity.

The infant’s chances of survival are very low because under siege medical services in Gaza are not equipped to treat such cases. The mother told doctors that during the war she inhaled excessive amounts of white phosphorous smoke because of repeated attacks on her area. White phosphorous is a chemical incendiary agent that is highly combustible when mixed with oxygen. It burns through skin, body tissue and bones; the corpses of white phosphorous victims are usually heavily charred.

In a report marking the first anniversary of the war, the Dameer Centre for Human Rights reported “high levels of deformed births and miscarriages”, and that the use of radioactive and toxic ammunition by the Israeli army on Gaza resulted in significant deterioration in the health of Palestinians. The report was based on a survey that found that health and environmental conditions in the Gaza Strip are worsening by the day as a result of Israel’s aggression and border closure by occupying forces for the third consecutive year.

Meanwhile, Italian researchers revealed that the soil in Gaza now contains carcinogens and toxins as a result of Israel’s use of internationally prohibited weapons during the last war on Gaza. In a news conference in Gaza City, experts said that these toxins and carcinogens are a high risk to unborn children, and called on the Palestinian Health Ministry to test all Palestinians in areas that were bombed during the war. The Italians, who carried out fieldwork in these areas, further warned that many Gazan residents would suffer from chronic gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses.

According to these experts, tests that were carried out inside Gaza indicated that 12 toxins and radioactive materials were released by Israel’s abundant use of internationally prohibited weaponry. Such weapons led to the bodies of many victims being mangled.

More disturbing facts are being disclosed. Adala Human Rights Centre asserted that the Gaza Strip is now home to the highest number of disabled people in the world. Some four per cent of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, or 70,000 residents, have some form of disability. Their suffering is compounded further by Israel’s refusal to allow the passage of necessary medication and rehabilitation materials for them. At the same time, Israel prevents any of them from travelling abroad to seek medical help.

As Palestinians mark the first anniversary of the war, Israelis are revealing the reasons behind their army’s savage treatment of Palestinians during the war. An edict by Chief Military Rabbi Brigadier General Avi Ronzki to Israeli troops on the first anniversary of the war called for no mercy or compassion for Palestinians. The edict, quoted in the Israeli media, stated that, “the goal of the recent war on Gaza aimed to destroy and annihilate the enemy, not to take prisoners.” It continued that, “some 80 jets focussed on various targets in Gaza; then the tanks began their assault. We fought the gentiles with all our willpower and force.”

Oren Yiftahel, political science professor at Ben Gurion University in the Negev, described Israel’s atrocities during the war. “It was expected Israeli behaviour and an extension of Zionist policy that believes in the annihilation of the Palestinian people, and erasing their history and existence. It ignores the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, which they are entitled to, and not out of Israeli charity.”

Yiftahel argued in an article in Haaretz newspaper that, “Israel’s invasion of Gaza was not purely a military operation to end missile attacks, or an attempt to restore Israel’s deterrence capability or even an effort to impose order on others and oust the elected Hamas government. The war was a continuation of a long-standing strategy to deny, erase and eliminate any historic reference to the Palestinians and their existence.”

He further accused all Israelis of participating in the hostile plot against the Palestinians, noting that Israeli politicians, artists, the media, university researchers and intellectuals supported this war with enthusiasm. Yiftahel asserted that Israel’s war on Gaza, and Hamas specifically, came in reaction to Hamas’s rise to power that undermined the possibility of reaching a two-state solution. “This solution is ideal for Israel because it would mean Israel could continue its settlement project indefinitely,” he stated.

According to Yiftahel, the appointment of Ismail Haniyeh, who was born to a refugee family, as prime minister of the Hamas government gave Palestinians another reason to insist on the right of return for Palestinian refugees, which Israel believes is an issue that threatens its very existence. “Instead of confronting reality with all its complications, Israel resorted to state terrorism,” wrote Yiftahel. “More bullets, explosives, killing of children and burning down towns will not succeed in silencing history. The time lost to war drums will be restored after they are muted.”

Israeli historian Tom Segev believes that “one of the main goals of the war on Gaza was to exercise a principle rooted in Zionism, namely the necessity to strike against Palestinians to teach them a lesson. This is one of the main bases of the Zionist project since its inception.” Segev explained that the thinking behind this is that “we, the Jews, represent modernisation and civilisation, logic and ethics. The Arabs are primitive savages of irrational violent tendencies, who are ignorant and must be disciplined and educated in the proper ways of thinking with the use of a carrot and stick.”

Segev continued that Israel believed the war would topple Hamas from power, “out of another Zionist belief, namely the need to impose on the Palestinians a moderate leadership which will concede on national aspirations.” Segev described Israel’s reasons and goals of the war on Gaza as “revisiting failed beliefs, but Israel continues to rehash them from one war to the next.”

In fact, Israeli political and military analyst Ofer Shelah was the first to point out that the assault on Gaza marked the birth of “a new defensive doctrine for Israel, namely for Israel to act as a rogue nation in the face of enemies who adopt a strategy of attrition and shelling at a distance.” In other words, “to respond to sources of gunfire with a savage and massive military operation, irrespective of the number of casualties in its ranks.”

These arguments explain the shocking outcome of the war on Gaza. During this war, Israel acted on a clear security principle of settling confrontation with the Palestinian people regardless of losses in civilian ranks.

The Palestinian farmer who grows his own resistance

Murad al Khofash, from the West Bank village of Mardam, taken from the National

by Rachel Shabi, source

MARDA, WEST BANK // As a means to counter the creeping expansion of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, a permaculture farm might not seem like the obvious approach. But for Murad al Khofash, who runs Marda farm in the northern West Bank, it is the natural choice.

Squashed between some of the largest and most powerful settlements, Mr al Khofash’s three-year-old eco-friendly farm is a Palestinian template of how to grow-your-own resistance, from the roots upwards.

“There are many ways to resist the occupation,” explained Mr al Khofash, who has just returned from the climate change summit in Copenhagen where he demanded the international community put the Palestinian Territories on the environmental map.

“Some resist with weapons and violence, others choose the path of negotiation. My way is to encourage Palestinians to grow trees, and to encourage them not to leave their land.”

Permaculture – an organic, holistic and sustainable system of working the land – is Mr al Khofash’s preferred weapon at a time when swathes of Palestinian land and water resources have long been appropriated or contaminated by Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law.

Marda, a picture-postcard village lined with ancient olive trees, nestles at the foot of a rugged green mountain range that ensures a healthy supply of underground water. But, as is the case in most parts of the West Bank, Palestinian villagers at Marda – which has a population of around 25,000 – are not permitted to dig wells and instead have to rely on a temperamental supply of water from the Israeli authorities.

According to a World Bank report published this year, Palestinians receive only a quarter of the water that Israelis have access to – a particularly cruel irony given the fact that much of this water comes from the West Bank in the first place.

Meanwhile, the population of Ariel – one of the largest Jewish settlements in the West Bank – shows no qualms about releasing sewage water into the villages below, flooding the soils, poisoning lands and choking olive trees.

Earlier this year, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem released footage showing how the Palestinian village of Salfit, near Marda, has for years suffered from the free flow of sewage water from Ariel.

The organisation reports, more widely, that “tens of millions of cubic metres of wastewater flow freely in the West Bank, from settlements, from Jerusalem and from Palestinian communities, greatly damaging the environment. In many settlements, the wastewater treatment plants are outdated and cannot treat the load currently placed on them; other settlements have never built plants.”

Israel has made the building of Palestinian sewage plants conditional on them serving the settlements as well, a legitimising clause that the Palestinian Authority continues to reject.

On top of which, Mr al Khofash points out that a nearby industrial settlement pumps toxic chemical waste into the Palestinian landscape.

There have been media reports of Palestinian children falling sick after swimming in streams polluted with untreated water from settlements, while Palestinian livestock has fallen victim to the same fate.

Mr al Khofash, dubbed the “Palestinian with a green thumb”, is picking up on a permaculture project that began in Marda in 1993 but was shut down by the Israeli army at the onset of the second intifada in 2000. The Sustainable Development Centre, in Marda, was initiated by Australian permaculturists and involved dozens of villages in the Salfit district. It ran training courses in water management, composting and other aspects of organic, sustainable farming that were attended by thousands of Palestinians, but was a target of nearby settlers who would burn trees and vandalise farm property before the Israeli military closed the centre completely in 2000. Now, locals say, the military use the building to question Palestinians that they have detained in the area.

The farm begun by Mr al Khofash in 2003 utilises all the skills he learnt while working a four-year stint at the centre, and during a remote-study permaculture course. The farm, which is a member of the UK Permaculture Association and the Global Ecovillage Network, is a blooming tract of land, on which everything is sown with careful consideration to the principles of permaculture.

Mr al Khofash is energised with enthusiasm and ideas as he bustles around the robust-looking farm, pointing out patches of aubergine, chilli, potatoes, beans and onions. Demand routinely exceeds supply for his vegetables.

“The methods we use in permaculture are some of the same methods of traditional Palestinian farming,” said Mr al Khofash.

At the farm, the stones that are a ubiquitous feature of the soil in this part of the territories have been used to build walls. Stacked, discarded car-tyres make borders and also double up as flower beds: tyres attract dew and therefore provide a microclimate for plants.

Trees are planted according to their capacity to emit nitrogen or to proved shade. A clump the of sweetly-fragranced Louisa bush is utilised to detract fruit flies. Acacia trees act as a windbreak and feeding ground for the honeybees Mr al Khofash plans to bring to the farm.

There are other plans too: to rear farm animals; use methane gas as a power source; run permaculture courses; and start recycling and composting projects to deal with the rubbish that despoils the Palestinian countryside. It all depends on securing funding and investment – and the idea is to share knowledge and to spread this model to other villages as well.

“If I succeed in getting Palestinians to grow their own food, in a few years’ time we will be self-sufficient,” Mr al Khofash said. “If [the Israeli authorities] put us under curfew again, we will cope because we will have everything we need. And we won’t need to depend on the Israeli market – not for work and not for food.”

Ever since the West Bank and Gaza strip were occupied by Israel in the 1967 war, Palestinians have become a captive market for Israeli products and were also the source of cheap labour until the second intifada. On top of which, trade agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have deepened Palestinian dependency on Israeli goods.

Mr al Khofash is aware of the farm’s vulnerability, located so close to imposing and powerful settlements. “Yes, they could come and take my farm and land away anytime, if they wanted to,” he says. “But should I just sit here idle because of that? No. Our roots are here and we will stay here. We will do our best to keep our roots firmly in the ground.”

Awaiting a miracle from Washington

From Al Jazeera.net

The Palestinian Authority may be seeking renewed talks with Israel even in the absence of an Israeli freeze on settlements, writes Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank, source.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is apparently seeking an opportunity to resume peace talks with Israel without losing face due to the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements and US failure to get the Jewish state to stop stealing Palestinian land.

The PA is still clinging to its erstwhile position, namely that it won’t return to the negotiating table unless Israel agrees to stop all settlement expansion, including so-called natural growth, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The PA had hoped that the Obama administration would force Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to freeze settlement growth.

However, despite more than eight visits to the region, Obama’s envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, seems to have failed to make any real dent in the Israeli stance, which vehemently rejects a comprehensive settlement freeze, especially in East Jerusalem.

Netanyahu announced last month that a 10-month settlement freeze would be observed in the West Bank but not in East Jerusalem. Washington, while not showing any particular enthusiasm towards the Israeli announcement, called on the PA leadership to reciprocate by resuming peace talks with Israel.

However, Palestinian officials, as well as European diplomats, did not place much store in the credibility of the Israeli announcement, especially after the Netanyahu government gave settlers a green light to build hundreds of new settler units despite the announcement.

Feeling that Netanyahu has succeeded in overruling, or at least outmanoeuvring, Obama on the issue of settlements, the Palestinian leadership is now trying to find a way to evade or bypass the settlements knot, while at the same time not appearing to give Israel any important concessions that would undermine the PA’s standing and popularity among its own people.

Last week, PA President Mahmoud Abbas revealed that he had been urging Israeli officials, including Defence Minister Ehud Barak, to effect, even secretly, a settlements freeze, saying that such a step could lead to the conclusion of a final peace agreement in six months.

“I spoke with Defence Minister Ehud Barak twice over recent weeks. I suggested to him three weeks ago that Israel freeze all settlement construction for six months, including in East Jerusalem, without saying so in public, just carrying it out in practice. I want to emphasise that he need not even declare it, but I demanded a complete freeze of settlement construction.”

Abbas added that “during this time we can return to the negotiating table and perhaps even achieve a final-status agreement. I have yet to receive an answer.”

He spoke bitterly about Israel’s failure to do its part for the roadmap, saying that “we were required to stop terror attacks, recognise Israel and even stop incitement. So come and see what we have done. Although the joint committee against incitement is no longer active, we did act and are acting against incitement. There is no longer incitement against Israel in the mosques.”

Abbas’s remarks that a settlements freeze for a few months could lead to a final peace agreement raised a lot of eyebrows in Palestinian as well as in Israeli quarters.

One Palestinian commentator, Zakaria Mohamed, scoffed at Abbas’s remarks, suggesting that the PA president was out of touch with reality.

“What type of miracle would occur if Israel froze settlement expansion for six months? Is this the real problem impeding the conclusion of a final settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?” wrote Zakaria last week.

He added that the unrealistic tone adopted by Abbas suggested that he either did not know what he was talking about, or that he was simply out of touch with reality.

This assessment is probably accurate, since the PA spent months talking with the former and presumably less extremist Israeli government of Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni, but to no avail. Given the make- up of the present government, there is little chance that Netanyahu will agree to restart talks from the point the previous negotiations left off.

Indeed, there is no evidence that Netanyahu has mitigated the stance he voiced in his speech at Bar-Ilan University in June, when he said that any Palestinian state would have to be without Jerusalem and effectively controlled by Israel. Likewise, Netanyahu said no to the repatriation of the refugees and a return to the 1967 borders.

It would therefore not be an exaggeration to say that Abbas’s remarks, made to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, were a form of day-dreaming. Day-dreaming signals a high degree of frustration.

However, Abbas’s frustration is mild in comparison to the rampant disillusionment permeating Fatah, the PLO and the Palestinian population as a whole, the main source of which is Obama’s failure to act on pledges he made following his inauguration as US president earlier this year.

Obama promised that his administration would see to it that Israel froze settlement building in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

However, nearly six months after his landmark speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, Obama has done next to nothing to enforce his stance, which suggests that either he did not mean what he said in Cairo, or that he has been unable to act because of stiff opposition from the so-called “Clintonite neo-cons,” the pro-Israeli democrats allied with US secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Obama’s failure to put pressure on Israel is causing a lot of frustration and disenchantment in the Palestinian streets, and much of the blame is being deflected onto the PA, which had given Obama the benefit of the doubt.

Moreover, many Palestinians are questioning the wisdom of waiting for a miracle from Washington, which ironically is already pressuring the PA to resume peace talks even without guarantees that such talks will eventually lead to ending the Israeli occupation that started in 1967.

Indeed, it was Abbas himself who cited this reality to justify his refusal to nominate himself for a second term in office as head of the PA.

This week, the PLO Central Council meeting in Ramallah extended the soon- to-expire term of the Palestinian leader, an expected step that will allow Abbas to remain in office indefinitely and at least until new elections can be organised.

Apart from reiterating the PA’s longstanding refusal to return to negotiations with Israel before the latter freezes settlement expansion, there was nothing substantive in Abbas’s long speech.

Frustrated by the absence of progress in the stalled peace process, some delegates urged the adoption of a new Palestinian strategy, such as demanding the creation of one unitary state in all mandatory Palestine from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean.

While Abbas said he would not reconsider his decision to resign as PA president, he did indicate that he would take certain decisions soon, depending on developments on the ground.

In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly Hassan Khreisha, former deputy-speaker of the Palestinian legislative council, was asked what he thought Abbas was alluding to when he spoke of decisions he would talk in the foreseeable future.

“I think he was referring to putting his resignation into effect, and I think he is sincere about this. Yet, it is uncertain if he will retain his post as chief of the PLO,” Khreisha said, asking “what will become of the PA after the departure of Abbas?”

That is a question that many are already trying to find the answer to.

Protests against Egypt’s Steel Wall and Deadly Salt-Water Pipe System

{Egyptian wall underground} by Faris Garabet

Al Manar

26/12/2009 International activists planning to enter Gaza from Egypt for a march appealed to President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday to allow them to enter the blockaded enclave through the Rafah crossing.

Organizers of the Gaza Freedom March had earlier said they would try to defy the ban after Egypt turned down their request to pass through Rafah, the Gaza Strip’s only crossing that bypasses the occupied territories. “We plead to you to let the Gaza Freedom March continue so that we can join the Palestinians of Gaza to march together on December 31,” the activists said in a statement addressed to Mubarak.

Egypt said it would prevent their passage because of the “sensitive situation” in Gaza and warned Monday of legal repercussions for anyone defying the ban.

Around 1,300 international delegates from 42 countries have signed up to join the Gaza Freedom March which was due to enter Gaza via Egypt during the last week of December.

From Gaza, a committee to break the siege set up by the Gaza Strip administration called on the Egyptian government to facilitate the arrival of the international aid convoy headed by George Galloway and endorsed by many prominent figures such as the US scholar Noam Chomsky and others. The committee expressed concern at the Egyptian moves to put obstacles in the way of the convoy bringing food, medicine and other primary goods to the Gaza Strip residents, who have been under Israeli siege for the past four years.

The committee called on the Egyptian government to lift the siege instead of participating in it by building the “wall of death.” The reference was to the huge steel wall currently under construction by Egyptian workers and supervised by US and French officials to enforce a more efficient isolation of the Gaza Strip population. The Palestinian Information Centre reported on details obtained from sources in Cairo saying that the death wall is conceived to function as a water-leaking system, by which existing tunnels will be flooded and anyone trying to build new tunnels would be drowned.

According to the report, on the Palestinian side of the steel wall holes will be dug, into which 20 to 30 meters long pipes would be inserted vertically and at a distance of 30 to 40 meters one from another; these pipes would be connected through a 10 km-long horizontal main pipeline, from which sea water would be poured into them. The pipes, equipped with holes, would then release the sea water into the soil causing existing tunnels to collapse and preventing new ones to be dug.

The comb-shaped pipe system would also destroy the soil on the Palestinian side of the steel wall, which would contemporaneously prevent the salty water from soaking Egyptian territory.

In the Gaza Strip mass demonstrations were held against Egypt’s plan to build the steel wall which claimed its first victim on Friday.

According to Palestinian security sources, a Palestinian man was killed after a tunnel collapsed over him due to the Egyptian excavation.

During the demonstration, Hamas spokesperson Hammad Al-Ruqab urged Cairo to open the Rafah border crossing and facilitate the entry of food and construction materials needed to rebuild Gaza which is in ruins due to Israel’s war which left thousands of homes destroyed last year.

“We in the Hamas movement announce our deep shock at the construction of the wall which bypasses every diplomatic rule. Egypt is building the wall between Gaza and Egypt in a sensitive period of time,” Ma’an news agency quoted Al-Ruqab as saying.

Reports revealed earlier in December that Egypt was building an underground wall with a depth of 30 meters and 10 kilometers long along the Rafah border.

Turkish parliamentarians and politicians raised their voices describing the Egyptian steel wall as a new instrument meant to kill Palestinians.

Talking to Al-Alam TV, Muhammad Patuk, vice-chairman of Turkey’s Saadet Party said on Christmas Eve, it is difficult to look on as Palestinians face additional oppression from the Egyptian side, which is seen helping the Israeli occupation forces turning the Gaza Strip into an open-air prison.

Israeli army murders six Palestinians in cold blood

Israeli army murders six Palestinians in cold blood

From Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank, December 26, 2009

NABLUS, (PIC)– In an ominous sign indicating that a fresh cycle of bloodshed may be in the offing in the West Bank, Israeli occupation forces on Saturday murdered in cold blood three Palestinians in the city of Nablus, shuttering a relative calm lasting for several months.

Three more Palestinians youths were killed Saturday morning in the northern Gaza Strip as they were reportedly walking by a security wall.

The Israeli army said the three were suspected of trying to infiltrate the borders between the Gaza Strip and the Israeli territories occupied in 1948.

In Nablus where security coordination between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Israeli army was often described as exemplary, Israeli forces, backed by armored vehicles, killed three Fatah members, including an officer in the Preventive Security Force (PSF) who had been pardoned by the Shin Beth, Israel’s chief domestic security agency.

The three are Adnan Subh, 33, Raed Abdul Jabbar al-Sarkaji, 38, and Ghassan Abu Sharkh, a brother of Nayef Abu Sharkh, the former head of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in Nablus who was killed several years ago.

Eyewitnesses said a large number of Israeli military vehicles stormed the city of Nablus, (pop.150,000) shortly before dawn, placing the town under curfew. The troops then surrounded a residential building in the Ras El-Ein neighborhood where Adnan Subh and his family were living.

A former member of Fatah’s armed wing, the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Subh was shot dead as he emerged unarmed after the forces ordered him to surrender.

His brother Nidal Subh described the killing as “execution.”

Similarly, eyewitnesses and relatives reported that the invading forces murdered in cold blood Ra’ed Sarkaji in full view of his wife and children. When his wife sought to shield him, soldiers fired at her feet and legs.

The Governor of Nablus, Jibril Bakri, described the Israeli operation as a “full-fledged crime.” He called on “international institutions” to intervene to end the siege clamped down on the Subh family home.

An Israeli army spokesman said the three people assassinated were members of the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades who had carried out “terrorist acts” against Israelis and Israeli targets.

The three had reportedly been assured by the PA security authorities that they were no longer “wanted” by the Israeli army and that they could resume their normal life.

The manner in which the operation was carried out shows that the PA security forces, estimated at 70,000 troops, are completely neutralized whenever Palestinian population centers are invaded by the Israeli army.

PA officials repeatedly claimed that the main purpose of national security forces was to protect the interests of the Palestinian people.

However, Israeli operations in the heart of Palestinian towns, where thousands of American-trained PA troops are deployed, cause a lot of embarrassment to the PA leadership, especially the western-backed government headed by Salam Fayyad.

There are indications that disenchanted Fatah activists might try to avenge the latest killings as the PA regime stands completely powerless to stop the murder of Palestinians by the Israeli army.

WITNESS: Wife, brothers describe Israeli assassinations

Nablus – Ma’an - At least 20,000 Palestinians came out for the afternoon funeral processions of the three Nablus men assassinated by undercover Israeli forces during the early hours of Saturday morning.

The group began to gather outside the Rafediyah Hospital in the west end of Nablus’ city center, where the bodies of the three men, Raed Sakarji,38, Anan Subih, 33, and Ghassan Abu Sharkh, 40, were transferred when Israeli forces withdrew from the city.

Mourners denounced the execution of the men in or beside their own homes as a crime, and many were calling on the Palestinian Authority to change its policy toward Israel based on the gruesome incident.

Member of the Fatah Central Committee Mahmoud Al-A’lul attended the march, where he praised those who were killed in Nablus along with three others slain in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza the same morning, saying “the killing of three in Gaza is a clear message that the Palestinian national unity is response to Israeli crimes.”

Israeli officials released statements to the media saying the men assassinated on Saturday were responsible for the shooting death of a settler on Thursday. The men were shot moments after they were detained by the soldiers.

Raed Sarakji, 38

Now a widow, Tahani Ja’ara is 32 years old and seven months pregnant. “We were sleeping in our bedroom, not bigger than 6 square meters, when Israeli soldiers began yelling ‘get out…get out’. I thought I was dreaming. When I heard the Israeli soldiers and their police dogs outside the room, that was hen I realized it was real.”

Tahani said her husband told soldiers he would get out of the house, so they started shooting through the door and the windows. “He fell between my hands bleeding. I started crying ‘they killed him…they killed him. Then soldiers broke the door and got in. He was already dead, but they continued to riddle his body with bullets to make sure he was killed.”

Three months before his death, Sarakji opened a used tools shop in the old city of Nablus. He had just been released from Israeli prison in January 2009 after spending seven years in jail, he was trying to re-start his life.

According to a statement from the Israeli military, Sarkaji was involved with the manufacturing of explosives and the establishment of an explosives-manufacturing laboratory in Nablus.

Ghassan Abu Sharkh, 39

Ghassan’s 16-year-old brother Diyaa Abu Sharkh saw him shot dead Saturday morning. “Everything happened very quickly… when we opened the door and saw the soldiers, two masked collaborators pointed to my brother Ghassan who was walking down the stairs. Before I knew it he was being shot. I couldn’t really make sense of what was going on at all. Then an Israeli officer asked me whether the dead was Ghassan, and I said yes. ‘Good, then ask everybody to leave the house,’ the officer said.”

“I was stading close to Ghassan when they killed him. They could have detained him very easily. [But now he has] He passed to join my brother Nayif who was killed by Israeli forces a few years ago [2004].”

Ghassan Abu Sharkh was a car electrician and owned a small workshop. He left behind a wife, three sons, and a daughter.

Anan Subih, 33

Farid Subih is 45, his brother Anan, was killed Saturday morning in the Ras Al-Ain neighborhood of Nablus. “At 3am, dozens of Israeli troops surrounded our four-story building. They blew open the the main gate then started shooting randomly and throwing grenades in all directions. Anan was inside, and he asked everybody to leave the building to avoid being hurt.”

He continued, “We headed to the nearby house of the Al-’Amoudi family. Then soldiers entered the house with police dogs, and they started throwing more grenades, and a fire erupted in the warehouse full of plastic chairs and sponge material.

“My brother was not armed, but we could see soldiers continue to ransack the house. For three hours, we didn’t know what was going on. After the soldiers left, we found Anan dead…bullets tore all his body and bones. They could have detained him, and he died believing he had been granted amnesty by Israeli forces. He left behind a widow, two sons, and five daughters,” adds Farid said.

Anan was an activist within Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Brigades, he was completely pardoned in an amnesty deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Israeli policy leaves family stranded: video

For seven years, Saeed Darwish of Bethlehem has had to apply for an Israeli permit to be able to live in his own home in a part of the city that Israel says is under its jurisdiction.

But a month ago, Israeli authorities decided not to renew his permit, leaving the family’s sole breadwinner stranded.

Now, Darwish must decide whether to stay in his home or go to work and risk being denied permission to return.

Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh reports from the occupied West Bank.

“Israel” to raze 12 Palestinian homes in WB

Fri, 25 Dec 2009, Press TV

Israeli authorities have delivered eviction orders to a dozen Palestinian families in a village near the northern West Bank city of Jenin.

The demolition orders this time were handed the Arab residents in of Barta’a Ash-Sharqiya, a village isolated between the Israeli separation wall and the Green Line border, established following the 1948 Arab-Israeli war to separate Israel from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Israeli forces “broke into several homes, searched and ransacked their contents, and handed over demolition orders for homes and other structures,” Ma’an quoted a member of the Municipal Council in Barta’a Ash-Sharqiya.

A recent UN report said Israel effectively bans Palestinian construction in 70 percent of the West Bank’s Area C, which includes all the Israeli settlements, roads used to access the settlements as well as almost all of the Jordan Valley and Judean Desert.

The report by the world body’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) explained the number equaled to about 44 percent of the West Bank lands.

According to the OCHA, Israel demolished 180 Palestinian-owned structures in Area C in 2009 on the grounds that they lacked permits from the Civil Administration — a branch of Israel’s Defense Ministry. The move has left at least 319 people homeless.

This is while, according to the report, the Israeli institution often denies building permit requests to Palestinian residents for failing to comply with Israeli-authored planning schemes, or outdated plans from the British Mandate period.

Egypt Bars Viva Palestina Convoy From Entering It’s Territory: video

by Press TV

The Viva Palestina Aid Convoy en-route to Gaza, has been prevented and blocked by Egypt from entering it’s territory so as to provide aid and assistance to the people in the impoverished and battered Gaza Strip. Includes an interview with a convoy leader. Aired on 25th December 2009.

“Israel” summons envoys from all over the world

Sat, 26 Dec 2009, Press TV

Israel’s ambassadors and consuls generals from all over the world have been summoned to attend a conference to be held over global challenges facing Israel.

The meeting to be attended in Jerusalem Al-Quds on December 27-31 is hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the ministry reported on its website.

“The idea is to facilitate direct dialogue with the country’s leaders, mutual updates on major diplomatic issues, and a discussion of action plans to deal with the challenges awaiting Israel in the international arena in the coming year, including the Iranian threat,” it said.

This is while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called a report by the UN Human Rights Council’s Gaza commission a real threat to Israel.

The UN Special Rappoteur for the occupied Palestinian Territories has also urged western powers to push Israel to end its blockade of the Gaza Strip immediately. Richard Falk also called for economic sanctions against Israel.

This is the first time a conference for all of Israel’s heads of missions has been held.

Benyamin Netanyahu will also attend the conference along with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy Dan Meridor, and other senior officials.

Targeting Lebanon’s Al Manar at Congress

by Carlos Latuff

By Franklin Lamb – Beirut, source

“Regarding Al Manar it’s personal for Israel. The reason is that Al Manar did to the Israeli government propaganda machine during and following the July 2006 war what Hezbollah fighters did to Israeli troops. Al Manar kicked butt. That station must be made to disappear. The plan is to stop the 15-20 million daily viewers of Al Manar from receiving its transmission and well as to intimidate all the other Middle East TV channels that are suspected of moving toward the growing “Culture of Resistance’ spreading in the Middle East from Lebanon.” — A Washington DC observer of how Israel controls the US Congress 12/9/09.

Lebanon is a small country, approximately 0.7% the size of Connecticut with a population a bit more than 1% of America’s. But according to the four public US ‘Terrorist’ and Watch lists and at least seven supposedly secret US ‘T lists’ there are more Lebanese ‘terrorists’ and ‘inciters’ on the loose per square meter of planet Earth than any other nationality. Way more than say Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan or Pakistan could reasonably hope to muster. Increasingly these ‘terrorists and inciters’ work is claimed by some in the US Congress to be done via satellite TV channels. Such is the thesis of Congressman Gus Bilirakis, the ‘author’ of the 122nd US Congressional anti-Arab, anti-Muslim initiative in the past decade now known as the “Terrorist TV” Bill which passed the House on 12/08/09 and is now before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

A Fresh Lobby Frontman

Veteran Congressional staffers sometimes identify the following four general groupings of supporters of Israel in Congress:

• Jewish members who care a lot about Israel and some of whom may or may not be ardent Zionists but who generally, but not always, put Israel’s concerns first;

• Evangelical Christians, who are eager to advance end-times, believe in Biblical prophecy and that Armageddon is rapidly approaching and strongly supports Israel over Arabs and Muslims in the Holy land conflict.

• Ultra Zionists with elements of racist feelings towards Arabs and Muslims

• Members who normally don’t favor Israelis much over Arabs or Muslims in their normal lives but who are regularly collared by the Israel lobby and who get the message and want to keep their congressional seats and add to their generous $100,000 –plus yearly pensions and are willing to ‘go along to get along’ and generally will do AIPAC’s bidding.

Gus Bilirakis, Reagan Republican from Florida’s 9th District is from this latter category. Filling the seat his late father Michael held since 1983, “Congressman Gus” as he prefers to be known back home, has the reputation of being a nice, affable fellow who does not claim to know much about the Middle East or foreign affairs. Hard to stereotype as being a fanatic supporter of Israel, gross Islamophobe or Arab basher, Bilirakis basically wants to get along by going along. AIPAC likes him because he appears ‘regular American’ and not too ‘neurotically pro Israel.’ as one of his District office interns explained, adding that “our boss is ordinary, folksy, and just wants to help the simple people.” Certainly he appears to fit the recent AIPAC mode shift of lining up more conservative members of Congress to do Israel’s bidding and to pull back a bit from the type casted “Liberal Jewish establishment” stereotype. By selecting Gus to introduce H.R. 2278, AIPAC and friends scored a public relations bonus.

Gus told his District’s Bay 9 News TV station on 12/9/09 that:

“My legislation will provide the United States with critical baseline information to combat media outlets that serve as vehicles for violent anti-American incitement,” said Bilirakis, who is a member of the House Committees on Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security. “Given the danger such incitement and radicalization poses to Americans both at home and aboard, it is crucial that these tools of terror be distinguished from reputable news outlets.

“We already spend too much on foreign aid to countries that take our money with one hand and slap us with the other. This legislation will help us ratchet down foreign aid to countries who take this approach.”

Bilirakis’ reputed suspicion towards ‘foreigners’ may be part of his general conservatism. The American Conservative Union Chairman, David Keene, noted during an award ceremony in May of 2009 that Gus scored “way higher than the 80% necessary to win ACU’s top award during the second session of the 110th Congress. In a short space of time, Congressman Bilirakis has already shown he is someone grass roots conservatives in Florida and elsewhere who love Israel will be turning to for future leadership.”

The Washington DC based “U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation” a pro Middle East Peace advocacy group saw things differently and gave Gus a -4 rating on its just released Congressional Report Card for the 111th Congress, which was barely above the worst rating assigned to any member of Congress, earned by Illeana Ros-Lehtinen (who represents Florida’s 18th District including the Florida everglades opposite Havana, Cuba, about which she likes to joke, “on a clear day I can see Havana and keep an eye on the Castro boys”, reminding some of Sarah Palin learning about foreign affairs by watching Russia from her bob sled), who kept her position from the 110th on the groups ‘Hall of Shame’ with a -5 score. Gus calls Ileana ‘my main Middle East tutor’.

How HR 2286 Can Save America from ‘Terrorists and Inciters’

The ‘TV Terrorist” bill passed on a House roll call vote, while, as is the norm, an eager AIPAC staffer in the front row of the House Visitor’s Gallery with clip board and pen in hand, peered down on the Floor keeping tabs on how the Members voted. As is the Congressional practice with ‘Israel Bills’ or Psych-War Resolutions Israel wants passed, the vote on H.R. 2278 was held under a suspension of the rules to cut debate short and pass it quickly with the needed two-thirds majority. This fast track is normally used for relatively minor items like honoring “butterfly watchers day”, “national be kind to fat stray cats day” etc. The totals were 395 Ayes, 3 Nays, 36 Present/Not Voting- a slightly above average tally when AIPAC sends a legislative request ‘up the Hill.’

H.R. 2278 is what some employees in Congress call “a sleeper bill”. Legislation that is quickly and quietly passed, without much public notice, but which is very powerful in its effect. The language of the Bill, while far overbroad and many first Semester law students would no doubt hammer it on Constitutional Law grounds, and some lawyers think a case brought under this law would be nearly impossible to prosecute, this legislation, if it passes the Senate, will de jure establish that “It shall be the policy of the United States of America to designate as a Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) any satellite provider in the Middle East (including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen) that knowingly and willingly contracts with entities designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order No. 13224, to broadcast their channels, or to consider implementing other punitive measures against satellite providers that transmit anti-American declarations (read criticize US support for Israeli crimes) or incite violence against Americans.

Bilirakis’ bill also requires that state-sponsorship of anti-American incitement to violence be taken into account when determining the level of assistance to, and frequency and nature of relations with, all states (Ed: such as Lebanon whose hoped for millions in US aid could be stopped) and urges “all governments and private investors who own shares in satellite companies or otherwise influence decisions about satellite transmissions to oppose transmissions of telecasts by… al-Manar … or any other Specially Designated Global Terrorist owned and operated stations that openly incite their audiences to commit acts of terrorism or violence against the United States and its citizens.”

The Bill also provides that beginning 6 months after the date of the enactment of the new law and annually thereafter, the President must prepare a report on anti-American incitement to violence in the Middle East including a description of all media outlets in the Middle East for program and news broadcast scrutiny.

Congressional sources report that the political goal is to stop the 10-15 million daily viewers of Al Manar from receiving its transmission as well as to intimidate other Middle East TV channels that are suspected of moving toward the growing “Culture of Resistance’ in the Middle East.

More than 600 Middle East TV channels risk being closed down among the 19 target Countries listed in H.R. 2278. Some of the most strident criticism of America comes from Israeli colonists and extremist Rabbi’s in occupied Palestine.

MEMRI as Congressional Staff

Part of the job description of all Congressional staff employees who works on legislation includes doing research in support of proposed legislation or to demonstrate to the Member who employees them the need for a new law. This system by and large works in the US Congress except for the Middle East. This area of inquiry is hands off for all but ardent supporters of Israel.

One Congressional staffer who recently retired after 28 years working on the hill, noted on 12/13/09:
“It used to be that Congressional staffers actually did research and wrote recommendations for their bosses around here. Those days are long gone when it comes to Middle East issues. The Israel lobby handles all that now. If staffers want to be heard on Middle East issues from Iran to Palestine, they are discouraged. If they persist they run the risk of being targeted for unemployment by AIPAC and their bosses may cut them loose rather than confront the Lobby. In essence Israel is saying to Congressional staffers, “Listen up! We know best and will handle Congressional Middle East legislation. Just get out of the kitchen, leave this to us and busy yourselves elsewhere.”

Those who demonstrated to Congress the urgent need for a “TV Terrorism” law included the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

This was confirmed by the office of Congressman Gus Bilirakis and indeed the Congressman himself noted that ‘research’ provided by MEMRI helped to establish the need for the new legislation.

MEMRI supplied the video excepted from Al Manar and cited by the sponsors as ‘evidence’ of incitement against Americans by the station and its satellite provider because it broadcasts the speeches of Hezbollah leaders on special occasions, as does virtually every other TV news channel in the Middle East that transmit at least portions of the speeches which are popular across the region. In fact all the video shows in spliced together excerpts from two speeches Hassan Nasrallah gave and two by his deputy Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Naim Qassim. They contain no incitement against Americans but rather criticism of Israel and of US support for Israel that can be heard any day of the week in all 50 States in the US.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) describes itself as a “free media monitoring service.” Based in Washington DC with half a dozen offices set up in countries including China, Tokyo, Germany, England, Italy and Israel, MEMRI was founded in 1998 by Yigal Carmon, a former colonel in Israeli military intelligence and its first three employees were also veterans of Israeli intelligence. Following 9/11 and George W. Bush’s executive order 13222 and the unleashing of the War on Terrorism, MEMRI shed much of its earlier pretense of being objective and became stridently anti-Arab and anti-Muslim.

Increasingly, MEMRI’s work has been criticized on three grounds: that their work is biased; that they choose articles to translate selectively so as to give an unrepresentative view of the media they are reporting on; and that their translations are frequently inaccurate.

The Middle East editor for the UK Guardian newspaper, Brian Whitaker has been one of the most outspoken critics of MEMRI, writing: “My problem with MEMRI is that it poses as a research institute when it’s basically a propaganda operation, “to further the political agenda of Israel.”

Several critics have accused MEMRI of selectivity. They state that MEMRI consistently picks for translation and dissemination the most extreme views, which portray the Arab and Muslim world in a negative light, while ignoring moderate views that are often found in the same media outlets.

Juan Cole, Professor of Modern Middle East History at the University of Michigan reported that MEMRI “cleverly cherry-pick the vast Arabic press, which serves 300 million people, for the most extreme and objectionable articles and editorials.” Laila Lalami, writing in The Nation stated that MEMRI “consistently picks the most violent, hateful rubbish it can find, translates it and distributes it in e-mail newsletters to media and members of Congress in Washington”.

Professor Norman Finkelstein,in a June 2007 interview with In Focus newspaper explained that MEMRI “uses the same sort of propaganda techniques as the Nazis… it’s a reliable assumption that anything MEMRI translates from the Middle East is going to be unreliable.”

In 2007, CNN correspondent Atika Shubert and Arabic translators accused MEMRI of mistranslating portions of a Palestinian children’s television program. MEMRI translates one caller as saying ‘We will annihilate the Jews,”‘ said Shubert. “But, according to several Arabic speakers used by CNN, the caller actually says ‘The Jews are killing us.” According to one CNN source, “Put bluntly, MEMRI is a hate group”.

Working with MEMRI, as its Al Manar specialist, Avi Jorisch senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies published ‘research’ in 2004 entitled “Beacon of Hatred-Inside Al Manar”, funded by the Israel advocacy ‘think tank’, Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), with the assistance of Dennis Ross. Jorisch proudly admits he had the political goal of getting the Bush administration declare Al-Manar a “Terrorist organization.” One of Jorisch consistent worries is “that al-Manar broadcasts may contain coded communications — a way for Hezbollah’s terrorist “generals” to command terrorist “troops” in the field, for example sleeper cells in the United States and elsewhere.”

During its 2008 annual Conference, Jorisch was honored in a private reception arranged by MEMRI and AIPAC, and given a champagne toast while being introduced “as the man who put Al Manar on the Terrorism list.” As recently as 11/4/09, writing in the Wall Street Journal, Jorisch accused Iran of using the UN to skirt sanctions and various other ‘terrorist’ acts relating to importing “foodstuffs, textiles and medicine” which could help it create a nuclear weapon.

Jorisch’s campaign against Al Manar is designed to show that it is anti-Semite, but he repeatedly misunderstood the context of some of his ‘proof’ including the phrase, “Jerusalem we are coming”, which he claimed to have heard on Al Manar.

Jorisch and MEMRI claim this language shows a threat against the Jewish state and therefore is anti-Semitic. In fact, the phrase “Jerusalem, we are coming” comes from the classic song of the Lebanese Christian singer Fairouz, whose, “Jerusalem, we are coming”, extols religious unity, worshiping in Jerusalem by all religions, and Jerusalem as a city of peace. Viewers in Lebanon and the Middle East and fans of Fairouz everywhere know this song which is in no way anti-Semitic and it’s been played on hundreds of TV and radios stations including many in Israel.

With the 22 State member Arab League and the 57 member International Organization of the Islamic Conference condemning the House bill, and the Lebanese Foreign Ministry planning to summon US Ambassador Michele Sisson to discuss the matter, late word is that John Kerrey, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman may actually hold hearings on the Bill. If so it will be a major setback for AIPAC and friends. Will Al Manar actually be invited to present testimony? Debate AIPAC?