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Old November 17th, 2008 #1
Adi18
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Israel executes four in Gaza; siege affects access to drinking water

Monday, 17 November 2008 16:37 Al Mezan Center for Human Rights

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) continued to seal off the Gaza Strip for the eleventh day in a row, in an escalation of the collective punishment of Gaza's population imposed since 2000. The IOF resumed its military attacks and killed four Palestinians this morning in an air strike in east Gaza.

The humanitarian conditions have quickly deteriorated in the Gaza Strip as Israel's tight siege has affected all aspects of Palestinians' lives and violated their human rights, which are protected by international human rights and international humanitarian law.

Gaza's power plant has suspended its work for the third day in a row due to lack of fuel necessary to run it. Hospitals and clinics are greatly affected. Not only do they suffer from suspension of surgery sections and intensive care unis, but also from the damage to vaccines and serums that are preserved in refrigerators. Moreover, tens of thousands of Palestinians suffer from a severe shortage of drinking water, especially those who live in tall buildings and have no access to water even when municipalities manage to pump water to their area.

Municipalities cannot run their water pumps for sufficient periods of time due to power failure.

Power failure also disrupts sewage treatment plants and internal transportation due to the lack of fuel. Gas stations are now empty after the IOF stopped pumping fuel supplies for the eleventh day in a row.

Power failure and the lack of fuel negatively impact the education sector especially that the crisis is worsening with the start of school mid-term exams. Students and teachers also have difficulties when they go to their schools and universities.

The Gaza siege is continuously tightened as IOF resumed military attacks and killings of Palestinians in Gaza. This morning, Sunday, 16 November 2008, the IOF killed four Palestinians in an air strike in eastern Gaza city. The victims were identified as Talal al-Amoudi (23), Muhammad Hassouna (22), Ahmad al-Hilo (22), and Basil al-Uff (21).

Al Mezan Center for Human Rights is highly concerned with the IOF's determination on imposing collective punishment on the Gaza Strip in spite of the appeals and frequent condemnations by the United Nations and other international and local human rights and humanitarian organizations.

The Center warns the international community about the outcome of ignoring the exacerbating humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip and about the international community's failure to fulfill its legal and ethical responsibilities towards civilians in the Strip. This silence, particularly in light of the IOF's contempt for European Union consuls and representatives last Thursday [when it denied them entrance to the Gaza Strip], serves only to encourage Israel to proceed with its violations.

Therefore, Al Mezan Center asserts that the international community and the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention in particular must assume their legal and ethical responsibilities and take immediate action to end Israel's gross violations and provide international protection for civilians. The Center also believes that the international community's action is significant in view of the threats of a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip if the IOF continue to imposing the tight siege on it.

Source: Al Mezan Center for Human Rights
 
Old November 17th, 2008 #2
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Chronic malnutrition in Gaza blamed on Israel

Monday, 17 November 2008 15:07 Donald Macintyre


The Red Cross says the diets of those living in the impoverished Gaza Strip are deteriorating.


Explosive report by the Red Cross on a humanitarian tragedy
The Israeli blockade of Gaza has led to a steady rise in chronic malnutrition among the 1.5 million people living in the strip, according to a leaked report from the Red Cross.

It chronicles the "devastating" effect of the siege that Israel imposed after Hamas seized control in June 2007 and notes that the dramatic fall in living standards has triggered a shift in diet that will damage the long-term health of those living in Gaza and has led to alarming deficiencies in iron, vitamin A and vitamin D.

The 46-page report from the International Committee of the Red Cross – seen by The Independent – is the most authoritative yet on the impact that Israel's closure of crossings to commercial goods has had on Gazan families and their diets.

The report says the heavy restrictions on all major sectors of Gaza's economy, compounded by a cost of living increase of at least 40 per cent, is causing "progressive deterioration in food security for up to 70 per cent of Gaza's population". That in turn is forcing people to cut household expenditures down to "survival levels".

"Chronic malnutrition is on a steadily rising trend and micronutrient deficiencies are of great concern," it said.

Since last year, the report found, there had been a switch to "low cost/high energy" cereals, sugar and oil, away from higher-cost animal products and fresh fruit and vegetables. Such a shift "increases exposure to micronutrient deficiencies which in turn will affect their health and wellbeing in the long term."

Israel has often said that it will not allow a humanitarian crisis to develop in Gaza and the report says that the groups surveyed had "accessed their annual nutritional energy needs". But it warned governments, including Israel's, that "food insecurity and undernutrition, including micronutrient deficiencies" were occurring in the absence of "overt food shortages".

A 2001 Food and Agriculture Organisation definition classifies "food security" as when "all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life."

The Red Cross report says that "the embargo has had a devastating effect for a large proportion of households who have had to make major changes on the composition of their food basket." Households were now obtaining 80 per cent of their calories from cereals, sugar and oil. "The actual food basket is considered to be insufficient from a nutritional perspective." The report paints a bleak picture of an increasingly impoverished and indebted lower-income population. People are selling assets, slashing the quality and quantity of meals, cutting back on clothing and children's education, scavenging for discarded materials – and even grass for animal fodder – that they can sell and are depending on dwindling loans and handouts from slightly better-off relatives.

In the urban sector, in which about 106,000 employees lost their jobs after the June 2007 shutdown, about 40 per cent are now classified as "very poor", earning less than 500 shekels (£87) a month to provide for an average household of seven to nine people.

The report quotes a former owner of a small, home-based sewing factory, who said he had laid off his 10 workers in July 2007. "Since then I earn no more than 300 shekels per month by sewing from time to time neighbours' and relatives' clothes. I sold my wife's jewellery and my brother is transferring 250 shekels every month ... I do not really know what to say to my children." Others said they were not able to give their children pocket money.

In agriculture, on which 27 percent of Gaza's population depends, exports are at a halt and, like fisheries, the sector has seen a 50 per cent fall in incomes since the siege began. Among the two-fifths classified as "very poor", average per capita spending is down to 50p a day. In the fisheries sector, which has been hit by fuel shortages and narrow, Israeli-imposed fishing limits, "People's coping mechanisms are very limited and those households that still have jewellery and even non-essential appliances sell them".

The report says that if the Israeli-imposed embargo is maintained, "economic disintegration will continue and wider segments of the Gaza population will become food insecure".

Arguing that the removal of restrictions on trade "can reverse the trend of impoverishment", the Red Cross warns that "the prolongation of the restrictions risks permanently damaging households' capacity to recover and undermines their ability to attain food security in the long term."

The detailed Gaza fieldwork for the report was carried out between May and July. An International Monetary Fund report confirmed in late September that the Gaza economy "continued to weaken".

Mark Regev, the spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said that, contrary to hopes when Israel pulled out of Gaza, the Gazan people were being "held hostage" to Hamas's "extremist and nihilist" ideology which was causing undoubted suffering. If Hamas focused resources on the "diet of the people" instead of on "Qassam rockets and violent jihadism" then "this sort of problem would not exist", he said.

Source: The Independent
 
Old November 17th, 2008 #3
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'Truce depends on halting Israeli crimes'
Monday, 17 November 2008 17:59 Agencies

GAZA CITY, Nov. 17 (Agencies) – Hamas leader Ismail Haniya has said a deal between Israelis and Palestinians will continue if the Zionist regime halts its crimes in the Gaza strip.

On Sunday, during the funeral of Palestinian fighters killed by Zionist forces earlier in the day, Haniya said the continuation of the Egypt-mediated ceasefire between the Zionist regime and the Hamas movement depends mainly on the Zionists halting their crimes and lifting their blockade on the Gaza Strip.

"The continuation of the truce deal depends mainly on the halt of the Zionist war machinery against our Palestinian people as well as lifting the imposed siege and reopening the crossings," he told the crowds.


"Israel should turn its verbal commitment to the ceasefire into actions on the ground, by simply stopping all forms of aggression against the Palestinian people", International Middle East Media Center quoted Haniya as saying.

The Hamas leader stressed that what the Palestinian nation wants are their national legitimate rights and ending the occupation.

Haniya's remarks come as the Apartheid regime has completely sealed off the Gaza strip from the outside world as the already impoverished region is in desperate need of vital supplies including food, drug and fuel.

Despite the Egyptian-brokered truce deal, Zionist ground and aerial strikes have killed several Palestinians in the Gaza strip during the past two weeks.

On Sunday, a Zionist air strike left four Palestinian fighters in the northern Gaza Strip dead.
 
Old November 17th, 2008 #4
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Zionists kidnap 10 children in West Bank

Monday, 17 November 2008 17:46 Agencies

IDF kidnapping childrenRAMALLAH, Nov. 17 (Agencies)

Zionist forces have kidnapped ten Palestinian children in al-Bustan neighborhood, near the al-Aqsa Mosque in East al-Quds.

Zionist soldiers and policemen kidnapped 10 Palestinian children in East al-Quds, and took them to an unknown destination, International Middle East Media Center quoted Palestinian sources as saying on Sunday.

The ages of the detained children are no more than 13. They were abducted for allegedly obstructing the work of municipality workers who were preparing for demolishing more Palestinian homes in the neighborhood, the sources added.

The Jerusalem Municipality is preparing to demolish nearly 97 homes in the neighborhood as it is planning to build gardens for "the Jewish temple" which the Zionists claim it exists under the al-Aqsa mosque.

The detentions of Palestinian children come as the Zionist outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chief will meet on Monday over the peace process.
 
Old November 21st, 2008 #5
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Family’s Eviction Draws Global Outrage

Friday, 21 November 2008 16:14 Jonathan Cook



A girl from the Khurd family from East Jerusalem chops wood outside a newly erected tent for them in the city.


The middle-of-the-night eviction last week of an elderly Palestinian couple from their home in East Jerusalem to make way for Jewish settlers is a demonstration of Israeli intent towards a future peace deal with the Palestinians.

Mohammed and Fawziya Khurd are now on the street, living in a tent, after Israeli police enforced a court order issued in July to expel them.

The couple have been living in the same property in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood since the mid-1950s, when East Jerusalem was under Jordanian control. The United Nations allotted them the land after they were expelled from their homes in territory that was seized by Israel during the 1948 war.

Since East Jerusalem’s occupation by Israel in 1967, however, Jewish settler groups have been waging a relentless battle for the Khurds’ home, claiming that the land originally belonged to Jews.

In 1999, the settlers occupied a wing of the house belonging to the couple’s son, Raed, though the courts subsequently ruled in favour of the family. The eviction order against the settlers, unlike that against the Khurds, was never enforced.

The takeover of the Khurds’ house is far from an isolated incident. Settlers are quietly grabbing homes from Palestinians in key neighbourhoods around the Old City of Jerusalem in an attempt to pre-empt any future peace deal with the Palestinians.

What makes the case of the Khurd family exceptional is that it has attracted the attention of western consulates, particularly those of Israel’s important allies, that is, the United States and Britain. They have appealed without success to the Israeli government to intercede.

In particular, the diplomats are concerned that the takeover of the Khurds’ home will set a dangerous precedent, freeing settler groups to wrest control of most of Sheikh Jarrah. The settlers plan to oust more than 500 Palestinians from the neighbourhood and build 200 apartments for Jewish families.

If the settlers can take control of other areas, such as Silwan, Ras al-Amud and the Mount of Olives, the Old City and its holy sites would be as good as sealed off not only to Palestinians in the West Bank – as is the case already – but also to nearly 250,000 Palestinians in the outlying suburbs of East Jerusalem.

Because the Palestinians expect East Jerusalem and its holy places to be the core of their state, the Sheikh Jarrah judgment effectively offers the settlers a blocking veto on any future negotiations.

That may be one reason why the Israeli government has shown little inclination to intervene in cases like that of the Khurds. In Israeli law, all of Jerusalem, including the eastern half of the city, is the “indivisible” capital of the Jewish state.

The eviction order also worries western diplomats because it opens up a Pandora’s box of competing land claims that will make it impossible for Palestinian negotiators to sign up to a deal on the division of Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Authority has already pointed out to the consulates that nearly two-thirds of West Jerusalem’s land was owned by Palestinians before the creation of Israel. Fawziya Khurd, for example, lived in Talbieh, in what is now the city’s western half, before 1948.

If the settlers can make property claims in East Jerusalem based on title deeds that pre-exist 1948, why cannot Palestinians make similar claims in West Jerusalem?

The US involvement in the Khurd case demonstrates its desire to mark its red lines in East Jerusalem. The concern is that Israeli actions on the ground are seeking to unravel the outlines of an agreement being promoted by Washington to create some kind of circumscribed Palestinian state.

In the US view, the basis of such a deal is an exchange of letters between George W Bush and Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister at the time, in spring 2004 in which the US president affirmed that Israel would not be expected to return to the armistice lines of 1949. Instead, he declared that Israel would be able to hold on to its “population centres” in the West Bank – code for the established settlement blocs.

As a result, the current US administration has turned a blind eye to continuing construction in the main settlements, home to most of the West Bank’s 250,000 settlers. The unstated agreement between Tel Aviv and Washington is that these areas will be annexed to Israel in a future peace deal.

In an indication of Israel’s confidence about the West Bank settlements, the Israeli media reported at the weekend that Ehud Barak, the defence minister and the leader of the Labor Party, had personally approved hundreds of new apartments for the settlers in the past few months.

The separation wall is being crafted to include these blocs, eating into one tenth of the West Bank and leaving only a few tens of thousands of settlers on the “wrong side”.

For the time being, the US is showing indecision only about two settlement-cities, Ariel and Ma’ale Adumim. If the wall encompasses them, it will effectively sever the West Bank into three parts.

In relation to East Jerusalem, the White House has so far appeared to favour maintaining the status quo. That would entail the eastern half of the city being carved up into a series of complex zones, or “bubbles” as they have been described in the Israeli media.

Another 250,000 Jewish settlers live in East Jerusalem, though almost all of them reside in their own discreet colonies implanted between Palestinian neighbourhoods. These settlements are considered so established by Israelis that most of their inhabitants do not regard themselves as settlers.

However, the more ideological settlers of the kind taking over homes in Sheikh Jarrah refuse to accept partition of the city on any terms. They are trying to erode the Palestinians’ chances of ever controlling their own neighbourhoods in the eastern half of the city.

Backed by powerful allies in the courts, government and municipality, the settlers look set to continue expanding in East Jerusalem.

Nir Barkat, the millionaire businessman who was elected mayor of Jerusalem last week, forged close ties with some of the most extreme figures in the city’s settlement movement during his campaign.

Like his chief rival for the mayoralty, he has promised to build a new Jewish neighbourhood, called Eastern Gate, that will be home to at least 10,000 settlers on land next to the Palestinian neighbourhood of Anata.

The move, much like the eviction of the Khurds, has been greeted with silence from the government. Both developments are a sign of Washington’s powerlessness to force even the limited concessions it expects from Israel in East Jerusalem.

Source: The National
 
Old November 21st, 2008 #6
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Israel army studies abuse video

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Israel army studies abuse video
Thursday, 13 November 2008 14:06 BBC News


The Israeli military is investigating a video in which a Palestinian detainee appears to be humiliated by a group of Israeli soldiers.

The video, broadcast by Israeli TV after being posted on YouTube, shows a blindfolded man kneeling near a barrier being forced to repeat Hebrew phrases.

Some refer to the elite Golani infantry brigade. Others are of a sexual nature.

In a statement to the BBC, the Israeli army said it considered the incident "grave", and condemned the behaviour.

"Investigative procedures were opened as soon as the footage was received" from Israeli Channel 10 TV on Thursday, it added.

Abuse 'the norm'
The video shows a bearded Palestinian detainee, blindfolded, and apparently kneeling close to a high concrete barrier.

Investigative procedures were opened as soon as the footage was received
Israeli army statement
Around him are a group of Israeli soldiers, some of whom are jeering. One soldier goads the blindfolded man into repeating what he is saying.

The taunt ends with the words: "Golani will bring you a log to stick up your ass."

As the man repeats it, the soldiers can be heard laughing loudly.

The BBC's Tim Franks in Jerusalem says we have no clue as to when or where this video was shot and it is impossible to know just how frequently such incidents occur.

But a leading Israeli human rights group says "many instances of abuse are not exposed because they have become the norm".

Palestinians themselves frequently complain that their contact with Israeli soldiers on occupied territory results in delays, insults and sometimes violence, our correspondent says.

The Israeli army insists though that behaviour of this type goes against the force's "core values and high standards".

Source: BBC
 
Old November 22nd, 2008 #8
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Gaza's Hospitals Struggle to Save Lives Amid Israeli Siege

Saturday, 22 November 2008 12:25 Rami Almeghari


A Palestinian patient at the European hospital in the Gaza Strip, August 2007.


Over the past two weeks, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have faced a sharply deteriorating humanitarian situation as Israel further tightened its closure of the border crossings. Virtually no food, medicine or other vital supplies have been allowed in to the territory that is home to 1.5 million people. The impact of the siege is most directly observed in Gaza's health sector. Despite desperately needed medication, equipment, supplies, and spare parts, doctors continue to try to save lives and look after their patients at the European Gaza Hospital, one of territory's largest medical centers.

Dr. Zaki Azzaq Zouq, an oncologist, explained, "There is a widespread shortage of essential medicines which we used to give to patients prior to the blockade. Currently, there are no tools for physicians to treat patients who suffer from lung, stomach, colon or brain cancers."

The situation is just as dire in Gaza's other hospitals. Unable to get life-saving treatments close to home, Israel also prevents patients from Gaza leaving the tiny coastal territory to receive medical care. Nael Alfaqawi, 28, has kidney problems, but was denied entry to Israel so he could seek treatment abroad. Instead, he is now being treated at the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza.

Mr. Alfaqawi said, "When I wanted to travel out of Gaza for treatment, the [Israeli] intelligence personnel asked me to collaborate with them, but I refused. They said, either you collaborate with us or you go back to Gaza. Of course, I refused to comply with them, saying I'm going to die sooner or later, so I returned home."

An estimated 70 percent of the Gaza Strip has experienced lengthy power outages for the last two weeks as Israel has cut off fuel supplies to Gaza's only power plant. Hospitals must rely on generators to keep life-saving equipment running.

"We are unable to ensure that we have needed spare parts to provide heating for patients," said Nihad Swaty, head of the European Gaza Hospital's maintenance department. "We also have our own sewage processing plant to provide water. The current lack of equipment will lead to the plant's total collapse and consequently to an environmental crisis at the hospital itself," he warned.

International agencies and officials, including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have condemned the closure as a violation of international humanitarian law and called on Israel to lift the blockade. But there is no sign of relief. Israel has even blocked foreign journalists, who are usually based in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, from entering the Gaza Strip.

Dr. Abdellatif Alhaj, director of the European Gaza Hospital, said "We continually send our appeals to international organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organization and the United Nations. But unfortunately, it appears that the United Nations is facing a crisis itself, as it has started to warn that it will cut off services to residents. We are calling on the United Nations to help us, but it seems that this international organization is no longer able to bring in essential needs such as flour and rice."

Dr. Alhaj said that spare parts for the hospital's CT scanner -- one of only two such vital devices in the entire Gaza Strip -- had been held up by the Israelis for over five months.

Earlier this month John Ging, the Gaza director of UNRWA, the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, warned that "UNRWA is unable to deliver food in Gaza due to the strict Israeli blockade."

Israel says the borders will remain closed until Palestinian resistance militias stop firing rockets at nearby Israeli towns. A ceasefire negotiated between Israel and Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza, has generally held since last June. It was broken on 4 November, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, when Israeli occupation forces invaded the central Gaza Strip and then killed six Palestinians in air attacks. Palestinian resistance groups retaliated for the killings by firing rockets into Israel.

In June 2007, Israel imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza after Hamas took over the interior of the territory amid violent clashes with US-backed militias loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israel was supposed to lift the Gaza blockade gradually, but it has never done so.

Source: Electronic Intifada http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9984.shtml
 
Old November 22nd, 2008 #9
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Israeli Gunboats Kidnap Gaza Fisherman, Peaceworkers Saturday, 22 November 2008 12:16 Eva Bartlett


An Israeli naval ship sprays a Palestinian fishing boat with a water cannon off the coast of the Gaza Strip. (David Schermerhorn)


On the evening of Tuesday 18 November Khalid al-Habeel sat surrounded by his wife, family, and other concerned fishermen. Until the early hours of the following day, they had no idea what charges were being laid against 15 fishermen, including two of al-Habeel's sons, Adham (21) and Mohammed (20), after they were nabbed from Gaza's territorial waters earlier that morning and taken to an Israeli interrogation center at Ashdod port. Nor did they know when or if their boats -- their livelihoods -- would be returned.

Khaled Al-Habeel, or Abu Adham (father of Adham) explained the events leading up to the fishermen's arrest. "Shortly after 10am, I got a panicked call from Adham, who was captain today, saying their boat was surrounded by Israeli naval boats."

"There are many ships around us; there's no way to leave," said Adham to his father. Their boat was approximately seven miles out from Deir al-Balah, in the center of the Gaza Strip.

Although Palestinian fishermen have the right to fish up to 20 nautical miles from Gaza's coast, as laid-out in the 1994 Interim Agreement signed by Israel, since 1996 Israel has downsized this distance in stages, documented by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). Imposing a sea blockade on Gaza in 1996, Israel illegally reduced the allowable fishing zone to 12 nautical miles. From 2002 to 2003 this was further reduced to six miles from Gaza's shore.

While Adham and the more than 3,500 professional fishermen that scour Gaza's waters for needed sustenance and sources of income are accustomed to Israeli navy harassment, Tuesday's encounter was different, heightened.

"We're used to facing Israeli attacks in the sea, but we've never seen anything like what happened today. Usually, the Israeli soldiers surround us with a large ship and a smaller gunboat. They shoot at and around our boat with automatic rifles, and they water cannon the boat. When they arrest us, they make us strip down to our underwear, jump into the water, and swim to their ship where we are then hauled up, handcuffed, and taken away to an Israeli interrogation center and even arrest. Today was very different. It's the first time they've actually boarded our boats," al-Habeel explained.

Khaled's brother, Abed al-Habeel, and the father of another of the arrested fishermen, Rami (30), corroborated the testimony, adding that their greatest worry was the boats right now: "In the past, I've had my boat confiscated. It was three years ago, and the Israeli soldiers arrested Rami, who was fishing four miles off the coast. They held him for four months, and kept our boat for 70 days. This was a huge loss to us, and when it was finally returned to us it had been seriously damaged by the soldiers' shooting. The nets, the motor, everything was destroyed or stolen," he said, adding that the total losses and damages amounted to US $40,000.

"We've done nothing wrong. We are innocent, just trying to earn our living. Our boats are our only source of income," said Abu Adham. "But what can we do?" he asked.

A crisis created

The two al-Habeel fishing trawlers and equipment together amount to approximately US $280,000. With the entire family being either fishermen or dependent on the livelihood and food source fishing provides, the confiscation of their boats is a severe blow to the family. In an area which has already been devastated a siege on the economy, exports, health sector, education, and basic existence of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians, the fishing sector is one of the few reliable sources of income and food.

According to Abu Adham, it is not only his immediate family which is punished by the boats' confiscation. "Our boats are like a company," he said. Around 300 people in total are affected by the loss of their two trawlers: other workers employed on the boats, at the docks, in the fish market, transporting fish goods, as well as the buyers themselves who have come to rely heavily on the sea's offerings as a source of protein and nutrition at a time when red meat is scarce and very expensive.

Since September 2008, after the arrival of the Free Gaza boats, human rights observers with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) have been traveling with Gaza's fishermen, into waters further out than the arbitrarily-imposed six-mile limit. The observers have documented numerous instances of attack at the hands of the Israeli army, from as little as three miles from shore, including being shot at with live ammunition and shelling, being water cannoned -- during which soldiers specifically target the boats structural components, particularly breakables like glass, glass panels and machinery -- and more recently being doused with a foul, sewage-smelling water shot from the water cannon. The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem has documented testimonies of fishermen who suffered harassment and arrest, had their nets cut, and boats and equipment confiscated, often returned with broken and missing equipment, and costly damages to key boat structures.

Behind the kidnapping

In the early hours of Wednesday, 19 November, all 15 arrested fishermen were released to the Erez crossing into Gaza. Their boats, along with the three internationals, are still being held by Israeli authorities. Nidal, a 23 year old father of one child, was among the arrested fishermen.

"We were just over seven miles out off the shore from Deir al-Balah and we saw two Israeli gunboats approach our fishing vessel. Five smaller boats surrounded Abed Almoati al-Habeel's boat," the boat that Scottish volunteer Andrew Muncie (34) was on, Nidal explained. "We began quickly pulling our nets in," he continued. "When they had arrested people on that boat, one of the gunboats came and ordered us to turn our motor off. They ordered us to come to the front of our boat, threatening to shoot to kill."

Italian volunteer Vittorio Arrigoni ("Vik") (33) on the 2nd boat to be surrounded, continued filming as Israeli soldiers boarded the boat. Colleague Darlene Wallach (57) was on the third boat and related via phone what happened next. "They used a taser on Vik while he was still on the boat, then tried to push him backwards onto a sharp piece of wood. He jumped into the sea to avoid being hurt more than he already was, and was in the water for quite a while," Nidal said.

"Almost 20 soldiers had boarded the boat, pointing their guns in our faces and ordering us not to move. They left the captain, Mohammed, on the boat and forced us off and onto the smaller boat, which transferred us to the larger gunship."

Mohammed confirmed this account, adding, "This was the first time we weren't forced to strip and jump into the water." Three soldiers remained on Mohammed's boat and, after the operation was repeated on the third boat, ordered Mohammed to head towards Ashdod, the first Israeli port, along with the other two fishing vessels.

Wallach by phone said this of her arrest: "I was told 'You are in Israeli territory.' even though it was obvious that all three boats were in Palestinian territory," she said. "They kidnapped me and Andrew and Vik, and all of the Palestinian fishermen."

Later, at the Ashdod port, during their interrogation, the fishermen were questioned specifically on the international observers. "Why did you have internationals on your boat?" they were asked. "Who is responsible for sending the internationals? Who pays them? Where do they live? Do you get a good catch when the internationals are on board?" the questioning continued, with a very specific and evident interest, including a non-veiled threat: "You think that you have protection because you have internationals on your boat? Let's see what these international can do for you now," one fisherman said soldiers threatened.

After their half-day detention, the fishermen were released without any charges, although their boats remain confiscated.

Abu Rami feels the kidnapping of the 15 fishermen and three international observers was a clear message: "It's a message to internationals in Gaza to not accompany fishermen. It's also a message to fishermen not to go far out in our own waters, although we need to because that is where the fish are."

Steadfast against the siege

Prison time has not broken the spirits of the three human rights activists, who are all being held in Israel's Maasiyahu prison, near Lydd. Rather, they are determined to protest what they say is the "stealing" of Palestinian fishing boats, as well as their kidnapping from Gaza's waters. Wallach maintains that "at no point, before we were transported by the Israeli navy into Israel, did we enter internationally-recognized Israeli waters."

Arrigoni commented via phone on Thursday: "A few days ago I was in a big prison with no electricity and little running water. Now I'm in a smaller prison with electricity and clean, running water."

On 21 November, the three began a hunger strike, calling foremost for the return of the fishing boats, and further calling for their own return to Gaza.

The incident comes just a week after a delegation of 11 European Members of Parliament, all denied entry through Egypt's Rafah crossing, visited the Gaza Strip, arriving via the third Free Gaza voyage. Amongst the delegation were: former UK Secretary of State for International Development Clare Short, Lord Ahmed Nazir, and Baroness Jenny Tonge. Tonge condemned the arrests.

"The time has come for the international community, and especially the European Union to take action against Israel's consistent breaking of international law. The EU-Israel Association Agreement should be suspended until Israel complies with this law. It was only last week that I personally met with the fishermen whose boats are illegally water-cannoned and fired upon by Israeli gunboats as they peacefully fish in Gaza waters."

Clare Short's comments addressed not only the recent arrests, but the devastating siege which has been imposed on Gaza for 18 months now. "I am pleased that the fishermen have been released because they should never have been arrested. But their boats must immediately be returned to them, otherwise their livelihoods are lost and the wrong has not been righted. The siege of Gaza must be lifted and the UK must insist that these illegal attacks by the Israeli navy on Gazans, fishing peacefully within their own water must cease," Short remarked.

Indeed, while the arrest of the 15 fishermen and three internationals highlights the continual and systematic injustice fishermen face, over 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners remain incarcerated in Israeli prisons and the siege on Gaza's 1.5 million civilians worsens ever still.

While Israel is seemingly trying to conceal the alarming deterioration of humanitarian conditions in Gaza by preventing journalists from entering Gaza for over 13 days now, pressure is growing, from European parliamentarians to UN officials, for Israel to end its siege.

"By function of this blockade, 1.5 million Palestinian men, women and children have been forcibly deprived of their most basic human rights for months," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement. Pillay continued, stating: "Only a full lifting of the blockade followed by a strong humanitarian response will be adequate to relieve the massive humanitarian suffering evident in Gaza today."

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who spent eight months in 2007 living in West Bank communities and four months in Cairo and at the Rafah crossing. She is currently based in Gaza, after the third successful voyage of the Free Gaza movement to break the siege on Gaza.

Source: Electronic Intifada

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9985.shtml
 
Old November 22nd, 2008 #10
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The Price of Jewish Blood
Saturday, 22 November 2008 11:08 Khaled Amayreh


Olmert and Abbas in Jerusalem for the first time in two months.


There is a growing impression among observers in Palestine-Israel that Israel may be preparing a "rescue operation" to free Gilad Shalit, the Israeli occupation army soldier who was taken prisoner in Gaza by Palestinian fighters more than two years ago.

Israeli intelligence services claim they know the whereabouts of Shalit, specifically the Gaza street where he is being held. However, serious observers here doubt the credibility of these claims, arguing that Israel would have carried out a rescue operation a long time ago had the Israeli intelligence known Shalit's place of detention.

The rescue operation scenario is described by some Israeli political analysts as "generally politically safe" if the operation ends successfully. Needless to say, "successfully" here means accomplishing the mission of liberating Shalit and bringing him back to Israel alive.

The Israeli intelligence services have been hunting for very conceivable piece of information that would enable Israel to locate Shalit's place of captivity. This week, the Israeli press, quoting anonymous sources, reported that the Shin Beth was offering potential Palestinian informers the sum of $10,000 in return for providing credible and authentic information that would lead to the liberation of Shalit from Hamas's custody.

However, Palestinian officials scoffed at the latest Israeli feat, calling it "a reflection of frustration and despair". Some Israeli security services, relying on information extracted from Gazans rounded up during the repeated Israeli incursions into the Gaza Strip prior to the Egyptian-mediated ceasefire with Hamas, have pointed out that powerful bombs were planted in the vicinity of the building where Shalit is thought to be held. This implies that any prospective rescue operation to free Shalit is expected to end in failure.

There are certain indications that the current transitional government in Israel may well be willing to carry out a rescue operation regardless of the consequences. The reason for this is linked to the upcoming Israeli elections and the end of the Olmert government's term in office.

The Kadima Party and its erstwhile junior coalition partner, the Labour Party, headed by Defence Minister Ehud Barak, realise that with Shalit remaining in captivity in Gaza, Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu is likely to put them on the defensive and use the issue as an effective propaganda tool in his election campaign.

Hence, a successful or even partly successful rescue operation would serve as a spectacular publicity booster for both the new Kadima leader Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak, the man who would be directly responsible for ordering and overseeing the operation.

Nonetheless, while a decision to carry out an operation can be taken anytime, assuming that Israel does possess sufficient intelligence information to ensure a successful outcome, the Israeli government would have to seriously consider the political and other ramifications of failure since the chances of failure equal if not exceed the chances of success.

In this case, "whoever takes the decision to carry out an operation will have to bear the full consequences," says Ahmed Youssef, advisor to Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Hamas-led government in Gaza. "The Israelis have left no stone unturned in a desperate effort to discover Shalit's whereabouts, but to no avail."

However, some analysts argue that the Israeli army might very well opt to assassinate or abduct a number of important Hamas figures, including high-ranking officials in order to compensate for the failure of the operation and also to mollify Israeli public opinion. "They [the Israeli army] would abduct ministers and lawmakers and humiliate them publicly in order to compensate the Israeli public for the possible death of Shalit and failure of the operation," one Israeli journalist intimated to Al-Ahram Weekly.

Israel had already abducted hundreds of Hamas's members, including some 40 lawmakers, government ministers and other elected officials, in a failed attempt to bully Hamas to release Shalit. Israel had also carried out numerous deadly and devastating incursions all over the Gaza Strip to pressure the Islamist government to free Shalit, prompting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to complain that the Palestinian people have already paid too much for Shalit.

More to the point, the Israeli government is giving the impression that it has nearly exhausted all political efforts to get Shalit released, including exerting pressure on the Egyptian government to in turn pressure Hamas to show "flexibility" and accept a more modest number of Palestinian prisoners who would be freed in exchange for Shalit.

However, the Egyptian leadership has refused to succumb to Israeli pressure. A few weeks ago, President Hosni Mubarak was quoted as telling an Israeli reporter that Egypt expected Israel to address Hamas's demands with regard to the Palestinian prisoners. Hamas interpreted Mubarak's remarks as implying that Egypt is rejecting Israeli efforts to instigate President Mubarak against Hamas.

Apart from a possible rescue operation, Israel has two alternatives vis-à-vis the Shalit affair. First, reaching a swap deal with Hamas through Egyptian mediation in which case the Israeli government would have to release most or all Palestinian prisoners Hamas is insisting must be freed before Shalit can be returned to Israel.

This is the view of Saleh Al-Naami, an Israeli affairs correspondent based in the Gaza Strip. "I think Mr Olmert is in a better position now to agree to a swap that would more or less meet Hamas's conditions without having to pay a devastating political price," Al-Naami told the Weekly. "Olmert has nothing to lose; he is leaving for good, and he must be contemplating culminating his rule with something he would be remembered for."

However, this scenario is unlikely to materialise, at least before the Israeli elections slated to take place on 10 February. Indeed, releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, along with the concomitant spectacular celebrations, would be a serious public relations liability for the present government, which would translate into a significant PR asset for the right-wing camp, especially for Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu.

In addition, releasing a large number of Palestinian prisoners would undoubtedly be a great booster for Hamas which could undermine PA President Mahmoud Abbas's public standing, especially in light of the clear failure of the American-backed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Hence, it is nearly out of question that Olmert would take such a decision even if Hamas decided to relent on the number and quality of the prisoners Hamas wants to see released. Moreover, the stiff opposition by the Shin Beth, Israel's chief domestic security agency, to releasing a large number of Palestinian detainees is likely to militate against this scenario.

A third and plausible possibility is that the current Israeli government will simply leave the matter for the next Israeli government to resolve. In this case, the next Israeli prime minister, who many pundits assume will be Netanyahu, will have to resolve the issue, but under less public and political pressure in comparison to the current Kadima-led government.

However, even hawkish Netanyahu would have to consider the consequences and ramifications of a rescue operation, especially with President-elect Barack Obama in the White House. "The scene of murdered and mutilated children in the streets of Gaza wouldn't be the right thing to begin healthy relations between Netanyahu and Obama," one Israeli journalist said.

Furthermore, a military operation targeting Hamas would certainly spark off an all-out confrontation with Hamas and other resistance organisations in Gaza, which could seriously complicate the delicate relations between Israel and Egypt as well.

In 1997, Netanyahu ordered the assassination of Hamas's politburo chief Khaled Meshaal in Amman. The assassination attempt failed and the two would-be Mossad assassins were captured by Jordanian security. However, the operation prompted then King Hussein of Jordan to demand that Israel release from custody Hamas's founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Yassin was released and allowed to return to Gaza, contributing to the growing influence of Hamas. He was eventually murdered by Israel on 22 March 2004.

Source: Al-Ahram Weekly

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/923/re3.htm
 
Old November 22nd, 2008 #11
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Heil, Feiglin!

Khaled Amayreh in occupied East Jerusalem shudders at the drift to fascism in Israeli politics

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With Israeli Jewish society drifting towards right-wing extremism, especially with regard to the Palestinian issue, Israeli political parties contesting the upcoming elections, slated to take place on 10 February, are radicalising the tone of their public discourse in the hope of wooing as many potential voters as possible to their respective agendas.

The Kadima and Labour parties, erstwhile coalition partners, are escalating their rhetoric against the Palestinians, with ministers and former ministers calling for the resumption of assassinations of Palestinians.

For example, Shaul Mofaz, widely considered a certified war criminal, has been urging the Israeli government to launch devastating land and air attacks on Gaza, regardless of the political and moral price Israel may have to pay.

Mofaz, who is responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent Palestinians in his capacity as both chief of staff and defence minister, suggested this week that the Israeli army ought to carry out ruthless operations in Gaza in order to defeat Hamas which he termed a "key strategic threat".

Tzipi Livni, Kadima leader, reportedly has Mofaz in mind for the defence portfolio in case Kadima emerges as winner in the elections and she succeeds in forming the next Israeli government.

Interestingly, acting Defence Minister Ehud Barak has been conspicuously less bellicose. This week, Barak called for preserving the fragile truce with Hamas despite "the provocations", an allusion to the firing of pathetic homemade projectiles on Jewish border settlements near Gaza in retaliation for deadly Israeli attacks that have so far killed more than a dozen Palestinians.

Barak, his aides argue, is not interested in making a big conflagration in Gaza prior to the inauguration of the Obama administration in the White House on 20 January because this might leave a bad impression on the new president. Moreover, Barak and Livni seem to calculate that an outbreak of deadly violence in southern Israel would seriously undermine the Israeli campaign to press the West to force Iran to end or suspend its nuclear programme.

Israel, which is widely believed to possess a huge arsenal of nuclear bombs and warheads and delivery systems, has been saying that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities will not be ruled out.

Apart from sporadic statements by Kadima leaders, including an unprecedented remark by outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in which he said Israel would have to return to the 1967 borders, much of the action has been taking place in the right camp, where the Likud is regaining its former status as Israel's number one political party. In recent days, a number of former Likud leaders, who had either left politics or switched to other parties, have decided to return to their former home.

The returnees include such renowned figures as Benyamin Begin, the son of former Israeli prime minister Menahem Begin and Dan Merridor, a former minister of justice. Begin is viewed as embodying honesty and integrity in politics, while the latter is seen as representing political moderation, characters that would be a valuable asset to a government formed by a notoriously dishonest and pugnacious Benyamin Netanyahu.

However, two more hawks are also joining Likud. The first is Moshe Yaalon, a former chief of staff, who is also widely viewed as a certified war criminal, not only by Palestinians, but also by human rights organisations around the world. Yaalon has been warned against entering several European countries, including Britain and Spain, lest he be arrested for his role in the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians.

Yaalon's tenure as chief of staff of the Israeli army 2002- 2005 was marked by numerous acts of almost pornographic murder of civilians in both Gaza and the West Bank, including the bombing and extermination of many Palestinian families as well as the deliberate targeting of children and other civilians. Yaalon is also a leading proponent of bombing Iran's nuclear facilities, with or without American backing.

Speaking in occupied Jerusalem this week, Yaalon was quoted as saying that he decided to join the Likud "because I can no longer remain on the sidelines during such a critical time in Israel." Yaalon was against the Israeli army redeployment from the Gaza Strip and is an ardent supporter of Jewish colonisation in the West Bank. With regard to the peace process, he believes Palestinians would have to spend many years "educating themselves about peace" during which time Israel would create more settlements in the West Bank.

Nonetheless, the most dangerous and problematic right- winger, dubbed by some Israeli intellectuals in Israel as the Hitler of Israeli politics, is Moshe Feiglin, who advocates the ethnic cleansing or extermination of non-Jews in Israel-Palestine Old Testament-style.

Feiglin is very popular within Likud and there are serious concerns in Israel and within Likud itself that he would be elected as the number two man in the party.

This prospect is reportedly causing a lot of unease to Likud leader Netanyahu who is worried that the character of Feiglin would have a decidedly negative impact on the Likud image, especially if the party formed the next government, as widely expected.

Feiglin advocates the idea of manhigut Yedhudit or "the Jewish leadership". According to this concept, Israel would have to adopt four steps towards resolving the Arab Israeli conflict once and for all:

First, induced Arab emigration from both Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Needless to say, "induced emigration" is effectively a mere euphemism for genocidal ethnic cleansing.

Second, Israel would have to reconquer and tightly control every part of the occupied territories and place non-Jewish inhabitants under a harsh military occupation until they can no longer endure the persecution, which then would force them to leave.

Third, Israel should resume intensive Judaisation of the territories, including the destruction of Christian and Muslim holy places.

And, fourth, Israel should dislodge itself from the peace process since this process is incompatible with the rules and teachings of the Torah and Talmud.

Feiglin also openly advocates an all-out war on Islam for the purpose of eradicating the religion and its estimated 1.5 billion followers. Feiglin is viewed as a fascist figure even by traditional Likud hardliners. A few years ago, Limor Livnat, a former minister of education, called him "a foreign weed, his blood is not our blood, his flesh is not our flesh". One Israeli journalist has compared the ascendancy of Feiglin as the number two man within Likud, conceivably succeeding Netanyahu as prime minister, to the ascendancy of Adolph Hitler to power in Germany, nearly 80 years ago.

What is more worrying still is that the current Likud head Netanyahu seems quite helpless as to what he could do to neutralise Feiglin and his many supporters within the Likud. When Netanyahu was asked about Feiglin last week, he reportedly said ,"I can't do anything about him."

However, observers in Israel speculate that Netanyahu would seek to appease Feiglin by undertaking to stop the peace process with the Palestinians. Netanyahu has been alluding to this for weeks, saying that he believes in a peace that is based on economic prosperity, not territorial concessions, a euphemism for keeping the occupation intact.

Now the big question is how the Barack Obama administration will relate to an Israeli government run by the likes of Feiglin and a further radicalised Netanyahu who has the heart and mind of Feiglin, but the tongue of an eloquent public relations officer.

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/923/re2.htm
 
Old November 22nd, 2008 #12
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This is something that isn't to easy to find on the jew controlled internet. Simply joogle Israel Plan B and you'll see why this doesn't come up unless you know what to look for.

Quote:
The Nakba: Ethnic cleansing and the birth of Israel

May 12, 2008. A World to Win News Service.

On the occasion of Israel’s sixtieth anniversary, we are reprinting the following article from the AWTWNS news packet of December 10, 2007, the anniversary of the beginning of the Nakba.

Palestinians call what happened to them beginning in 1947 the Nakba—Arabic for catastrophe. It was perpetrated by Zionist leaders looking to form the state of Israel on Palestinian land without the Palestinians.

During the Nakba almost a million Palestinians (half the population at that time) were brutally forced from their land, villages and homes, fleeing with only the possessions they could carry. Many were raped, tortured and killed. To ensure that there would be nothing for the Palestinians to return to, their villages and even many olive and orange trees were so well razed that few visible remnants remain. When the Nakba ended, there had been 31 documented massacres and probably others. Some 531 villages and 11 urban neighborhoods were emptied of their inhabitants.

Former Arabic village and road names were Hebrewized. Ancient mosques and Christian churches were destroyed. Theme parks, pine forests (trees not native to the region) and Israeli settlements sit atop many of the old Palestinian villages. All this was to wipe out any physical evidence that the land belonged to Palestinians and give finality to the Nakba.

How many times have you had a discussion about the plight of the Palestinians with supporters of the existence of the Israeli state and met the argument that the problem arose from Palestinian intolerance of Jewish settlers? How many people know—or admit—that from the beginning Zionism had planned to permanently expel the Palestinian people from their land? In many Western countries, Nakba denial is as obligatory as Holocaust denial is condemned. How did this happen?

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Israeli historian and senior lecturer at Haifa University Ilan Pappe, explores the period of the Nakba (One World Publisher, Oxford, 2006). The premise is that the Nakba was nothing less than an act of ethnic cleansing, normally regarded by international law as a crime against humanity. To support this theory, the author outlines various definitions from different current sources, including "an ethnically mixed area being turned into a pure ethnic space." He shows how the slaughter and/or forced expulsion of the Armenians in Turkey, the Tutsis in Rwanda and the Croatians and Bosnians in former Yugoslavia is akin to what the Zionists did to the Palestinians on a massive scale in 1948 and are still doing today. Pappe also draws a connection between ethnic cleansing and colonialism as it occurred in North and South America as well as Africa and Australia.

His research is based on primary sources: newly released material (1990s) from the Israeli military archives, David Ben-Gurion’s diary where summaries of many of his meetings are recorded, the rereading of the older archival material through the prism of the ethnic cleansing paradigm and extensive use of Palestinian oral history archives.

Pappe provides a brief historical background leading up to the Nakba and a few chapters at the end of the book about the situation today for Palestinians. The following is a very sketchy timeline of events leading up to the Nakba.

The first Zionist settlements began in 1878, when Palestine, like much of the Middle East, was a part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1917, with the end of WWI and the defeat of the Ottomans, the British army marched into Palestine and took over. Later that same year, the British Lord Balfour issued the Balfour Declaration, which promised a "national home" for the Jews on Palestinian land even though by most accounts, Jews constituted at most only 8 percent of the population and even less according to some estimates. The League of Nations legalized the British occupation by giving it a mandate to run Palestine. In 1938 major fighting between Jews and Palestinians broke out. The bombs of the Zionist military organization Irgun killed 119 Palestinians; Palestinian bombs killed eight Jews. In 1947 Britain told the newly formed United Nations that it would withdraw from Palestine. In November the UN formulized the plan to divide Palestine into two states. By December 1947, the Zionists began mass expulsions of Palestinians. When the British pulled out in May 1948, the Zionists declared independence. The Nakba continued into the early months of 1949.

Pappe’s book reveals how meticulously the Zionist movement planned, executed, lied about, and then denied their takeover of Palestinian land and the removal (through force and terror) of its population. He presents Israeli policies against the Palestinian minority inside Israel as well as in the West Bank and Gaza in their proper historical framework, setting the record straight on truths that conceptualize the situation faced by Palestinians today. Pappe only briefly touches on the role of Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement in the late 1800s, to show how deeply rooted the concept of "transfer" of the indigenous population was, how the "demographic problem" as viewed by most Israelis today is a continuation of the original Zionist exclusionist view. A map from 1919 clearly illustrates Zionist intentions to grab all of Palestine. The Herzl ideologues stated that "strangers" lived in their biblical land and by stranger they meant everyone who was not Jewish, although most of Palestine’s Jews had left after the Roman period. And even today, a recent poll indicated that 68 percent of Israeli Jews want Palestinian citizens of Israel to be "transferred."

Much of the book’s exposure concerns David Ben-Gurion, one of the masterminds and leading overseers of the Zionist project and the ethnic cleansing that implemented it. From the mid-1920s, Ben-Gurion functioned as the unofficial defense minister (or minister of war) of the not-yet officially formed state and later became its founding prime minister. He worked on an international level as well as locally organizing other Zionists around his methods and goals. It was in his home that ethnic cleansing was first discussed with a combination of security figures and "Arab affairs" specialists (Jews who grew up in the region and could speak Arabic) who would advise future governments of Israel (Pappe calls it the Consultancy). His view toward achieving a Zionist state was ambitious and strategic. He thought it could only be won by force, but that the Zionists had to wait for the opportune historical moment to be able to deal "militarily" (as Ben-Gurion put it) with the demographic reality on the ground: the presence of a non-Jewish native majority population. When in 1937 the British offered the Jewish community a future state (on a much smaller percentage of land than the UN was to give it in 1948), he accepted that as a good beginning in that it formalized the idea. He had far more ambitious plans. In 1942 Ben-Gurion publicly stated the Zionist claim for all of Palestine, but later came to believe that this was not realistic and that 80 percent would be sufficient for a viable Israeli state.

The book talks about one important strategic project guided by Ben-Gurion—the "village project" of mapping all of Palestine. Through the use of aerial photography, details of every Palestinian village were recorded: its access routes, quality of land, water springs, main sources of income, socio-political composition, religious affiliations, names of its mukhtars (traditional village heads), relationship with other villages, the age of individual men and an index of "hostility" toward the Zionist project measured by involvement in the 1938 revolt against the British policy of allowing increased immigration of Jews into Palestine (including those who may have killed Jews).

Those involved in the village mapping understood that this growing database was not a mere academic geography exercise. One person who went on one of these data collection operations in 1940 recalled many years later: "We had to study the basic structure of the Arab village. This means the structure and how best to attack it… how best to approach the village from above or enter it from below. We had to train our ‘Arabists’ (the Orientalists who operated a network of collaborators) how best to work with informants."

The book describes another preoccupation of Ben-Gurion and the Consultancy—the "demographic balance" between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Whenever there was a majority of Palestinians living in an area it was considered a disaster. The public policy that was adopted was to promote widespread Jewish immigration. But the Jews who were moving to Palestine since the 1920s preferred living in the more urban areas which were inhabited by Jews and Palestinians in equal number, whereas the countryside was overwhelmingly inhabited and cultivated by Palestinians. The Zionists understood that immigration would not counterbalance the Palestinian majority and use of other means would be necessary. Already in 1937 Ben-Gurion told his cabal that the "‘reality’ of a Palestinian majority would compel the Jewish settlers to use force to bring about the ‘dream’—a purely Jewish Palestine." "We have to face this new reality with all its severity and distinctness. Such a demographic balance questions our ability to maintain Jewish sovereignty." "They can either be mass arrested or expelled; it is better to expel them."

When the British decided to leave in 1947 the Palestine question was transferred to the UN, which, like the British, also accepted the Zionist claims on Palestine and that partition of Palestine was the best way to solve the issue. Even if you accepted the Zionist logic, a partition according to relative population would have allowed less than 10 percent of the land for a Jewish state. But after considerable negotiations, the UN Partition Resolution 181 of November 1947 allotted the Zionists 56 percent of Palestine. While Jerusalem, because of its religious significance to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, was kept as an international city, much of the most fertile land was included in the Zionist portion. Although disappointed again, Ben-Gurion appreciated the international recognition of the Jewish state while ignoring the part which stipulated how much and which territory. He declared that Israel’s borders "will be determined by force and not by the partition resolution.” Ben-Gurion skilfully sidestepped what little there was of the worldwide opposition to their schemes. While the Zionists publicly proclaimed to uphold the Resolution, inside the country they began to implement their own plans. This ignoring of negotiations "before the ink is even dry” became characteristic of subsequent and current negotiations Israel engaged in.

Pappe relates how the Arab leaders opposed the partition of Palestine and boycotted these UN negotiations. They refused to participate on the grounds that the division of their land with a settler community (by then one third of the population, who owned only 6 percent of the land and had long proclaimed that they wanted to de-Arabize Palestine) was illegal and unjust. Resolution 181 created tremendous anxiety for the Palestinians. They sensed the impending showdown with the Zionists. The slaughter began in December 1947, even before the British left Palestine.

Pappe details the combination of meticulous planning as well as allowing "unauthorized" initiative to the more terrorist military groups, like the Irgun, Stern gang and the Palmach (special commando units who pioneered the building of Jewish settlements). With a group of military and civilian people, which included some well-known figures like Moshe Dayan (a military leader who was army chief during the 1956 Suez crisis and defense minister during the time of the Six Day War in 1967) and Yitzhak Rabin (a general and two-term prime minister, assassinated in 1995), Ben-Gurion established and supervised the different plans to prepare the military forces of the Jewish community for an offensive against the Palestinians. Plan C (a revised version of Plans A and B) spelled out the actions that would be taken: killing Palestinian political leadership and those who financially supported them, killing Palestinians who acted against Jews, killing officers and officials, attacking villages that seemed more militant and might resist future attacks by the Israeli army, and damaging Palestinian sources of livelihood. Then Plan Dalet (or Plan D) was drawn up, the blueprint for the systematic and total expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland. Plan D described operations in the following way: "destroying villages (by setting fire to them, by blowing them up, and by planting mines in their debris) and especially those population centres which are difficult to control in a constant manner; or by mounting combined control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the villages; conducting a search inside them. In case of resistance, the armed forces must be wiped out and the population expelled outside the borders of the state."

In the course of carrying out Plan D the Zionist leaders were not so concerned with resistance on the part of the Palestinians or other Arabs who might come to their defense, as opposition from the Arab states was half hearted and their soldiers poorly trained and equipped. Publicly the Zionist leaders railed about the possibility of a "second Holocaust," this time at the hands of the Arabs, but privately they were fully aware that the war rhetoric of the Arab states was not matched by serious preparation on the ground. Often irresolute army leaders from the Arab states were ignored by some Arab soldiers who took initiative and fought valiantly to defend the Palestinians. The Zionist leadership’s main fear was the British army. But while it was still in Palestine, the British army rarely intervened against the massacres, even when beseeched to do so by the local Arab population.

Expulsions began by December 1947, in villages and larger towns. The following is a condensed description from Pappe’s book of what happened in Haifa under British eyes. The morning after the UN resolution, the Hagana (the main military group that would become the Israeli army) and the Irgun (an early split from the Hagana, led by future prime minister Menachem Begin, which also later became part of the army) unleashed a campaign of terror on the 75,000 Palestinian residents of Haifa. Jewish settlers who had come in the 1920s and lived in the hills around the city took part in these attacks alongside Zionist military units.

Various tactics were used. Frequent shelling and sniping was reined down on the Palestinian population, oil mixed with fuel was poured down the roads and ignited, barrels full of explosives were rolled down into the Palestinian areas. When panic-stricken Palestinians came out to put out the fires they were sprayed with machine-gun fire. Jews who passed as Palestinians brought cars stuffed with explosives to be repaired at Palestinian garages and the cars were detonated. In a refinery plant in Haifa, Jews and Arabs worked shoulder to shoulder and had a long history of solidarity in their fight for better labor conditions against their British employers. The Irgun, which specialized in bomb throwing into Arab crowds, did so at this refinery. Palestinian workers reacted by killing 39 Jewish workers, one of the worst and also one of the last retaliatory skirmishes in that period. Later the Hagana units went into one of Haifa’s Arab neighborhoods, Wadi Rushmiyya, expelled people and blew up their houses. The British army looked the other way while these atrocities were being committed. Two weeks later the Palmach went into the Hawassa neighborhood of Haifa, where around 5,000 of the poorest Arabs lived in dismal conditions. Huts and the local school were blown up, causing the people to flee. Pappe regards this as the official beginning of the ethnic cleansing operation in urban Palestine.

By March 1948, Ben-Gurion commented to the Jewish Agency Executive, "I believe the majority of the Palestinian masses accept the partition as a fait accompli and do not believe it is possible to overcome or reject it… The decisive majority of them do not want to fight us."

The armies of the Arab countries were no match for the well-equipped Zionist military clandestine units, which had received weapons from Britain, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. Arab irregulars ambushed Israeli convoys but refrained from attacking the settlements. The Consultancy decided that ruthless retaliation was not sufficient and they needed to change to more drastic actions.

Ben-Gurion used the Arab world’s attempts to rescue the Palestinians to whip up a fear factor among the Jewish community that he carefully nourished to the extent that it overcame any opposition these tactics would engender. The "security" of the Jewish state (then as it is still today) became the overriding fear that allowed many Israelis as well as people outside the country to turn a blind eye to what the Zionist leadership was doing, what their plan constituted.

Until March 1948, the Zionist leadership still portrayed their activities as retaliation to hostile Arab actions. Then, two months before the British were to leave, they openly declared that they would take over the land and expel the indigenous population by force. When the British left in May, the Zionists declared their state. They were officially recognized by the U.S. and the USSR. Ruthless expulsion went into high gear and the word retaliation was no longer used to describe what the Israeli military forces were doing. Ben-Gurion said, "Every attack has to end with occupation, destruction and expulsion." There was no longer any need to distinguish between the "innocent" and the "guilty." Pre-emptive strikes and collateral damage became acceptable and necessary.

Deir Yassin

On a hill to the west of Jerusalem lay the town of Deir Yassin. The massacre there is well known throughout the world but bears mentioning here as it reflected the systematic nature of Plan D as applied to hundreds of villages throughout Palestine. Pappe describes how on April 9, 1948, Jewish soldiers burst into the village and sprayed the houses with machine-gun fire, killing many. "The remaining villagers were then gathered in one place and murdered in cold-bold, their bodies abused while a number of women were raped and then killed.

"Fahim Zaydan, who was twelve years old at the time, recalled how he saw his family murdered in front of his eyes: ‘They took us out one after the other; shot an old man and when one of his daughters cried, she was shot too. Then they called my brother Muhammad, and shot him in front of us, and when my mother yelled, bending over him—carrying my little sister Hudra in her hands, still breastfeeding her—they shot her too.’

"Zaydan himself was shot, too, while standing in a row of children the Jewish soldiers had lined up against a wall, which they had then sprayed with bullets ‘just for the fun of it’, before they left. He was lucky to survive his wounds."

When villages were entered, destroyed and the inhabitants rounded up, decisions were made about who would live and who would die. Intelligence officers on the ground aided the military officers in this decision. The intelligence officers with the help of local collaborators (hooded spies) would point out different people to the main intelligence officer.

Israel and the Palestinians Today

As a result of the Nakba, there are now almost 4.5 million Palestinians dispersed throughout the world, in addition to the 1.4 million under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank and 1.3 million in Gaza, a formerly sparsely populated desert strip now full of crowded refugee camps and towns. About 1.5 million Palestinians continue to live in Israel itself as second-class citizens. The Jewish population of Israel numbers roughly 5.5 million. The Zionist state now comprises about 78 percent of historic Palestine, not counting the still-growing number of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. It has no parallel in the world—a state consciously built, since its inception, for one people, one culture, on religious grounds and with no real permanent borders.

Pappe’s argument that the Nakba was an act of ethnic cleansing is convincing. The human and physical geography of Palestine was transformed by the Zionist consciously punitive plan to wipe out Palestine’s history and culture and thus deny any future claim Palestinians could make to their land. Through the years since the Nakba, the killing machine that is the Israeli army has continued its dirty work. Pappe lists the following: Kfar Qassim in October 1956, Israeli troops massacred 49 villagers returning from their fields. Qibya in the 1950s, Samoa in the 1960s, the villages of Galilee in 1976, the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, Kfar Qana in 1999, Wadi Ara in 2000 and the Jenin refugee camp in 2002. There has not been an end to Israel’s killing of Palestinians.

Pappe ends his book with the hope that Israelis will wake up from their distorted view of wanting retribution, shed racism and religious fanaticism, and wake up to the truth portrayed in this book. He thinks that not accepting the Palestinian right of return equals the continuing defense of the "white" apartheid-like enclave and upholding Fortress Israel. He says that Palestinians and Jews coexisted peacefully before the Nakba and even now many have strong social ties, which shows that the two peoples can live in harmony. He calls for the transformation of Israel into a secular and democratic state.

Pappe’s book does not concern itself with the central role that Israel has come to play as the bastion of American imperial interests in the Middle East. Without the military and political backing of the U.S. government and the unparalleled financial support that is central to Israeli society and its way of life ($3 billion a year in U.S. government aid, along with officially encouraged private funding), Israel would not be what it is today—if it even existed at all. Nonetheless, the book is well worth the read for its historical accuracy and as a vivid reminder of the tragedy that is the Nakba.
http://revcom.us/a/130/AWTW-Nakba-en.html
Quote:
Israel's ethnic cleansing and apartheid in Palestine


The Gush Etzion block of colonies (Gilo, Har Gilo, Efrata etc) was successful in destroying the Palestinian economy in the Southern West Bank (from Jerusalem to Hebron). Jewish colonial settlers live in subsidized housing built on stolen Palestinian land and drive to Western Jerusalem or Tel Aviv without ever seeing the victims or noticing their plight. But movement of Palestinians is impossible between Arab Jerusalem and its suburbs like Bethlehem and Alkhader or areas farther south. This killed the Palestinian economy on both sides of the apartheid wall. Jerusalem's Arab old city is a ghost town compared to what it was just 20 years ago. And the unemployment rate in Bethlehem is twice what it was in the US during the height of the Great Depression.--Mazin B. Qumsiyeh


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, Ph.D., Special to PalestineChronicle.com
August 13, 2007

Palestinians and many Israelis are encouraged that civil society in Europe and North America has now engaged in other forms of struggle for peace with justice, including the growing movement of boycotts.

I just returned from my latest trip to Palestine, or at least to the part of Palestine I still have access to as a Palestinian Christian. You see, we Palestinians from the Bethlehem area (the birthplace of Jesus) are now denied entry to over 90 percent of Palestine and even to our capital and major economic center, Jerusalem (which is merely 7 miles from Bethlehem).

Israeli colonies dot the landscape from the Mediterranean to the River Jordan on land stolen from the native people. Six of the 10 million Palestinians in the world are now refugees or displaced people and the remaining Palestinians live in increasingly shrinking and impoverished ghettos (à la South African Bantustans at the time of Apartheid).

In all areas we visited the trend is the same: maximizing geography (under Israeli control) and minimizing demography (Palestinians on their land). Israeli authorities have evolved ingenious ways of ethnic cleansing since the more direct uprooting practiced in 1947-1949, when 850,000 Palestinians were driven out. The details of how this is done differ from area to area. A few examples may illustrate this.

The Gush Etzion block of colonies (Gilo, Har Gilo, Efrata etc) was successful in destroying the Palestinian economy in the Southern West Bank (from Jerusalem to Hebron). Jewish colonial settlers live in subsidized housing built on stolen Palestinian land and drive to Western Jerusalem or Tel Aviv without ever seeing the victims or noticing their plight. But movement of Palestinians is impossible between Arab Jerusalem and its suburbs like Bethlehem and Alkhader or areas farther south. This killed the Palestinian economy on both sides of the apartheid wall. Jerusalem's Arab old city is a ghost town compared to what it was just 20 years ago. And the unemployment rate in Bethlehem is twice what it was in the US during the height of the Great Depression.

The old city of Hebron, near the Ibrahimi Mosque (the mosque of Abraham), is deserted. Tens of thousands of local Palestinians (and thousands of foreigners) used to flock to this busy commercial district until the few extremist Israeli settlers (with Israeli government support and protection) literally just moved in uninvited. They took over whole buildings or, in some cases, just the upper floors. They go on rampages, making life impossible for the native Palestinians. From the upper story rooms they squat in, they throw trash at the shops and pedestrians below. They routinely shoot at Palestinian civilians and destroy shops.

Thus some 400-500 colonial racists (under the protective eye of over 5,000 Israeli occupation soldiers, many of them from the settlements) control the lives and destroy the livelihoods of tens of thousands of native Palestinians. It is as if 400-500 KKK members where put in the middle of New York's Harlem and were given permission and protection (with 5,000 white soldiers) to do what they want with the black population.

In this season of fruits and vegetables, villagers still try to sell products from their shrinking land holdings. But this brings much less money than in the old days when they had more land and were free to move and sell their products in large cities like Jerusalem or Jaffa or Nablus (or even to other countries). The cancer of the settlements built on Palestinian lands grows more destructive, while politicians stall with talk of a fictional "two-state solution" and "Israeli [but not Palestinian] security". Israel's plan was to do ethnic cleansing and colonization and then use any Palestinian resistance as justification ("security") for further colonization activities. But Israel's colonization continued even in times of relative calm (e.g. the seven years between the first largely nonviolent uprising and the more recent and more violent uprising).

All of this is done contrary to International law and with full US military, diplomatic, and economic support. It is also not in the interest of a just peace nor in our US national interests.

While the US infrastructure is decaying, the Israel lobby convinced President Bush to propose giving Israel $30 billion more of our tax money over the next 10 years. If Congress succumbs, as it did in the past, the consequences for US interests can only be dire among 300 million Arabs and 1.5 billion Muslims (not only in increased violence but the erosion of US economic power and interests around the world).

Palestinians and many Israelis are encouraged that civil society in Europe and North America has now engaged in other forms of struggle for peace with justice, including the growing movement of boycotts, divestments, and sanctions (BDS) along the same lines that helped transform Apartheid South Africa. That effort must now be intensified for the sake of all inhabitants, not only of Western Asia but also in the USA and around the world.

-Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, PhD is the author of "Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle." He served on the faculties of Duke and Yale Universities.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Last Updated August 15, 2007 8:19 AM



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and
do not necessarily reflect those of the World Prout Assembly.


The World Prout Assembly is a non-profit organization affiliated with
Proutist Universal Global Headquarters, Kolkata, India.
One World, One Humanity, One Family
http://www.worldproutassembly.org/ar...ls_ethnic.html
 
Old November 23rd, 2008 #13
Adi18
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Gaza Child Massacre Photos!
Children Killed By Israeli Zionist Thugs...
October 12, 2006

http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-genocide...ober122006.htm

1998 Qana Massacre by Israel

http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-genocide...-qana-1998.htm

2006 Qana Massacre By Israel

http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-genocide...sacre-2006.htm

History of Israel's Atrocities in Lebanon--A Pattern of Jewish State Terrorism
http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-atrocities-lebanon.html



Quote:
I have just received these pictures from Hanady Salman, an editor at As-Safir, with this message:

"Dear friends and colleagues,

You will all have to excuse me for sending this. It's pictures of the bodies of babies killed by the israelis in South lebanon. They are all burnt. I need your help. I am almost certain these pictures won't be published in the West, although they are associated press pictures. I need your help exposing them if you can. The problem is these are people who were asked to leave their village , Ter Hafra , this morning , within two hours , or else. ... So those who were able to flee went to the closer UN base where they were asked to leave. I think that after the Qana massacres in 1996 when civilians were bombed after they took chelter in UN headquarters , the UN does not want to be responssible for the lives of civilians.A FEW MINUTES AGO , the Israeli asked the people of Al Bustan village in the south to evacuate their homes. I am afraid massacares will keep happening as long as Israeli actions are unchecked. Please help us if you can.

Hanady Salman"
http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-occupied...afra-2006.html
Quote:
Early in the morning of April 9, 1948, commandos of the Irgun (headed by Menachem Begin) and the Stern Gang attacked Deir Yassin, a village with about 750 Palestinian residents. The village lay outside of the area to be assigned by the United Nations to the Jewish State; it had a peaceful reputation. But it was located on high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Deir Yassin was slated for occupation under Plan Dalet and the mainstream Jewish defense force, the Haganah, authorized the irregular terrorist forces of the Irgun and the Stern Gang to perform the takeover.

In all over 100 men, women, and children were systematically murdered. Fifty-three orphaned children were literally dumped along the wall of the Old City, where they were found by Miss Hind Husseini and brought behind the American Colony Hotel to her home, which was to become the Dar El-Tifl El-Arabi orphanage. http://www.deiryassin.org/
Israel's Nuclear Blackmail-The Sampson option

http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-atrociti...an-israel.html
 
Old December 28th, 2008 #15
lazer
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They shipped my grandfather to Europe to fight for those sinister fucks?

Only in the world of the jews is where justice is a dirty word.
 
Old December 28th, 2008 #16
Brian Foley
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Israel could not destroy Hamas as the Palestinian people who are sick of Fatah stuck with and backed Hamas . So the Israeli blockade of Gaza , designed to break Hamas's appeal with the Palestinian people was a failure . This attack was designed to make Gaza a living hell .

One lesson here to acknowledge is that Hamas is the only democratically elected government in the Mid East .
 
Old January 9th, 2009 #17
Mike Mazzone of Palatine
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Exclamation Coffin Stufferz. That's the generation RP sez will suffer.

http://westernfrontamerica.com/2009/...dments-israel/

10 commandments for Israel By Dr. Ellis Washington
January 8th, 2009 • Related • Filed Under
Filed Under: Featured
Tags: gaza • iran • Israel • jerusalem • jews • palestine • torah • war on terror
Buzz up!

israel_flagBut if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.

~ Numbers 33:55

As I watch the “experts” on TV prattle on about what Israel must do to stop the war in Gaza, because of their humanist and liberal bias, most of them are totally missing the point. Here is a primer of what Israel must do, not to “win the war against terror,” which is a gutless, meaningless phrase used by U.N. bureaucrats, President Bush, Democrats, Republicans and craven, uninformed “experts.” Instead, if Israel is to win her liberty, she must first defeat all of her enemies – internal enemies and external enemies.

Here are my 10 commandments for Israel in modern times:

1. Victory before peace

I believe it was President Ronald Reagan who famously said and practiced a similar wartime policy of “peace through strength” – a tried and true strategy that helped America defeat communism and the evil Soviet empire.

Israel must achieve victory over Hamas and against other terrorists groups like Fatah, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Muslim Brotherhood operating in Israel, before the Palestinians will negotiate with Israel for peace in good faith.

2. Israel for Israelis

Israel must declare martial law and remove all of its enemies, both internal enemies, including socialist, self-hating Jews who collaborate and sympathize with the Palestinians, as well as external enemies, the Muslim and Arab member states in the United Nations who send financial aid to terrorist groups operating in Israel (i.e., “the Palestinians”). Of course, those Palestinians, particularly the Christian Arabs, that love or at least respects Israel’s right to exist and defend herself, as well as other Christian groups that are allied with Israel, should be permitted to stay.

3. Defrock the rabbis who follow the dead religious traditions of the Pharisees and Sadducees and lift up the rabbis who obey the righteous traditions of the prophets, priests and teachers of the Torah

Several of my well-informed readers living in Israel have told me that the Orthodox Jews have been the Kadima (or liberal) Party’s biggest supporters. These rabbis are on the public dole; most don’t even serve in the Israeli army and are essentially mired in the delusion of liberalism, socialism and egalitarianism.

These Orthodox rabbis connected to the Interior Ministry oftentimes set up many road blocks to certain Jews desiring to immigrate to Israel despite the fact of Israel’s Law of Return, a liberal policy for Jews all over the world to immigrate to Israel. Ironically, it is Christian evangelicals, conservative Republicans and Christian Jews who are some of the most pro-Israel, pro-Jewish people in the world.

4. Demand that all Israeli politicians justify any policy decision according to the black-letter text of the Torah

I am told by my Jewish friends, many whom have lived in Israel for decades, that most politicians there are secular and have little interest or concern of Israel’s critical place in biblical history or in end time events as the nations of the world, like tectonic plates, shift menacingly against tiny Israel. On this point, to me one definition of a fool is a politician (Israeli, Arab or gentile) that is so arrogant and delusional to think that his vain, secular or Quran-based policies will stand against the flaming fire of God’s holy word regarding Israel’s ultimate destiny.

5. ‘Land for peace’ is a vile lie from the pit of hell

At the behest of America, Europe, the 44 Arab and Muslim nations and the corrupt, jealous bureaucrats of the U.N., Israel keeps giving land to the Palestinians under the vain and foolish belief that she will obtain peace. In return for giving the Muslims Gaza, Hebron, Bethlehem, the West Bank (greater Judea and Samaria) and half of Jerusalem, including the Jews’ holiest site, the Temple Mount, the Jewish people in Israel have not been granted one day of peace, but instead have been rewarded with over 3,000 rocket attacks and over 2,500 mortar attacks from Hamas just since 2001.

6. The “Two State Solution” cannot work

America, the Arab member states of the U.N. and the socialist states of Europe notwithstanding, I challenge anyone reading this article to name any nation, from tiny Togo in West Africa to the land behemoth, Russia, with its 11 time zones, that would tolerate a terrorist group to freely practice wanton and daily destruction against their population? Furthermore, what rational nation would allow the U.N. to tell a nation under daily terrorist attacks not to retaliate and protect their country or to follow such U.N. mandates as “bilateral diplomacy,” “hear the Palestinian side of the argument” or a “Two-State Solution”? Only the secular, socialist Jewish leaders in Israel seem delusional enough to allow others that utterly hate them to dictate to Israel how they must handle an internal enemy. Outrageous!

7. In 2009, Israel must launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran before they achieve full nuclear capacity

As I stated in an earlier article, “Iran is putting the final touches on her nuclear missiles conceived for the singular purpose of the annihilation of Israel.” Note that the Iranian mullahs are quiet as Israel goes through Gaza like a hot knife through butter. Why? That wicked regime fully understands that they are next.

8. Israel, act like God’s chosen people!

Not even Christians were chosen by God as a group as were the Jews. You have a unique and honored position within the nations of the world. You don’t have to say “Mother may I” to anybody when it comes to defending the sovereign, holy land of Israel.

9. Find a philosopher-king to raise Israel from her knees

When I read the magnificent and poignant history of the Jews in the Torah, I am struck by the fact that repeatedly when she fell into idolatry or some other grievous sin that after 40 years God would anoint a judge, a champion to deliver Israel from her enemies. Well, Israel, it has been just over 40 years since your last definitive victory in the Six Day War (1967). My advice: Get a philosopher-king, a wartime consigliere like Abraham, Deborah, the prophet Samuel, boy David, Judas Maccabeus, Richard the Lionhearted, Gen. George Patton or Ronald Reagan to run the country under martial law and drive out all of the enemies of Israel.

10. Withdraw membership from the anti-Semitic United Nations

Finally, Israel you must immediately withdraw your membership from the diabolical, corrupt, jealous, anti-Semitic United Nations. The U.N. has been in the tank for the Arab member states since they mistakenly allowed Israel to become a sovereign nation on May 14, 1948. The very next day an Arab coalition consisting of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Northern Palestine (Samaria), backed by Saudi Arabia and Yemen, launched a comprehensive frontal assault to try to kill Israel reborn in her cradle, but God fought with you that day and gave Israel a miraculous victory. That day Ezekiel’s dry bones prophecy of chapter 37:1-14 was fulfilled.

Israel, remember the Ten Commandments of the Torah that you may learn to live in the land that God has given to you and your posterity to dwell in, without fear, without apology … and without compromise.

Shalom, Israel!
 
Old December 2nd, 2010 #18
Alex Linder
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Mossad suspected of murdering two Iranian physicists
http://vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=119856
 
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