Saturday 18 October 2008

Traitor urge Hamas in the West Bank to abandon Hamas in Gaza

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Hamas in W. Bank condemns "divisive" statements of Fatah governor

[ 18/10/2008 - 10:48 AM ]



RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, has strongly condemned Saturday the "divisiveness" statements of Talal Dwaikat, the governor of Tulkarem city, in which he urged Hamas in the West Bank to abandon Hamas in Gaza Strip.

"These are irresponsible statements and considered as clear invitation to divide the country into two parts in addition to foiling efforts for holding the Palestinian national dialogue in Cairo", the Hamas Movement in Tulkarem city asserted in a statement it issued in reaction to Dwaikat's call.

According to Dwaikat, the condition in the besieged Gaza Strip was poor and miserable, but Hamas swiftly responded by saying that situation in the West Bank was not far better than that in the besieged Strip.

"It seems that Fatah faction and the PA in the West Bank still undermine urgent calls for national dialogue, and attempt to spoil the national reconciliation by dancing with external and foreign pressures and dictates", Hamas underlined in the statement.

It added, "It would have been better for the governor to reject and dissociate himself from the crimes of the PA security apparatuses in his governorate against the Palestinian people and Hamas members, the PA-Israeli security coordination, the futile peace negotiations with the Israelis, the Israeli hostile practices against Palestinian olive farmers, and graft and corruption in the PA institutions in the West Bank instead of uttering such adverse statements ".

Hamas also stressed that economic condition in the West Bank was very bad amidst uncontrolled increase of prices and delay of salaries of the PA employees, wondering where the big money sums donated by foreign donors to the "installed" PA government in Ramallah had gone?.

Finally, the Hamas statement underlined that the Movement was and will remain the safeguard of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian unity despite the joint criminal practices of the PA security forces and IOF troops against it, urging the governor to clean his jails of political detainees and to stop chasing Palestinian resistance fighters.



[ 18/10/2008 - 10:37 AM ]




RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- The infamous PA preventive security apparatus in the West Bank has arrested late Friday night Palestinian student Abdul Rahman Eshteyya, the coordinator of the Islamic bloc for the elections at the Najah University.

The crucial students' elections will be held two weeks from now at the Najah University, the biggest Palestinian University, that the Islamic bloc, the academic wing of the Hamas Movement, decided to contest.

According to the Islamic bloc website, the PA security elements raided the home of Eshteyya and rounded him up after he attended a meeting of the elections' preparatory committee upon invitation from the students' affairs dean in the university.

The bloc condemned the arrest of Eshteyya, who is a full-fledged member in the incumbent students' council of the University, and held the PA security department fully responsible for his safety, urging the University administration to protect its students.

Eshteyya was arrested twice at the hands of the IOF troops, in addition to being arrested several times at the hands of the PA security departments.

In an unrelated matter, a Palestinian resistance fighter from the Islamic Jihad scrummed Saturday to wounds he sustained last week after a bomb he was preparing exploded next to him.

The Islamic Jihad fighter was identified as Ala Waleed Abu Mousa, 28, of Khan Younis city.

Update:

Anonymous said...
Hamas would never allow Abbas' forces to resume their previous activities in the Gaza Strip. Farhat said that Abbas' security forces had conducted an act of betrayal by uncovering a tunnel used by the resistance in the West Bank. http://www.imemc.org/article/57354

1:52 AM, October 19, 2008

"Bush Offers Golan for Iran"


"Bush Offers Golan for Iran"
17/10/2008

US President George W. Bush suggested to Syrian President Bashar Assad that Israel would withdraw from the occupied Golan Heights in exchange for a complete disbandment of the Syrian-Iranian alliance, Kuwaiti newspaper al-Jarida reported Friday.

According to the report, the offer was made in a secret letter from Bush delivered to Assad by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during his recent visit to Damascus.

The letter included a US proposal to reach "a quick and satisfactory solution" to the Golan issue in return for defined moves and a declaration that the Syria would abandon its alliance with Iran once and for all.

A Palestinian source close to Abbas told the paper that the offer was included "in a secret letter sent personally by President Bush.

"In the letter, Bush suggested finalizing the agreement within several weeks, before the US presidential elections, in order to push the Middle East peace process, an achievement the president will be able to proudly present before leaving the White House in January."

The same source added that the delegation accompanying Abbas on his visit to Syria "was unaware of the letter or its details, and the US insisted that this be carried out secretly and far away from the official channels."

The newspaper went on to report that the US ambassador to Damascus was not informed about the issue as well. The source added that the real objective of Abbas' arrival in Damascus was to deliver the letter to Assad.

During his visit to the Syrian capital, the Palestinian president refrained from meeting with most of the leaders of the Palestinian organizations residing in Damascus. According to the report, he only held a few polite meetings with a number of senior members of the Palestinian groups.

McCain's 'crusader' logic concerns Syria
Hamas-Fatah Talks Tops Agenda in Abbas-Assad Meeting

Comment
For Stupid Abbas it's Golan for Gaza, he and his boss are dreaming, that Assad would sell Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine, for Golan, to let Bush proudly leave the White house.
Loosers are trying to stop loses

Flashback

The Pressure Mounts on Syria, but Israel May Still Pay the Price

Leslie Susser
Jewish Telegraphic Agency JERUSALEM
October 20, 2005

(...) As international pressure mounts on Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime, decision-makers in Jerusalem are considering what a Syrian accommodation with the West could mean for Israel.

(...)Assad buckling under, or a new, more American-oriented regime emerging in Damascus. In either case, it could lead to pressure on Israel to negotiate a land-for-peace deal with a supposedly reformed Syria.

(......) Establishing peace with Syria once would have been a top Israeli foreign-policy priority. Today, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and most of the Israeli defense establishment are less enthusiastic. They realize that peace with Syria would mean giving back most of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War. That's a price they don't believe is worth paying in the current circumstances.

[Above quotes confirms that Israel was afraid that Syrian accomodation with west or A new syrian regime could lead to pressure on Israel to negotiate a land-for-peace deal with a supposedly reformed Syria. And because Syria is so week Israel is not ready to pay the Price]

The Question in Israel was: Can the Regime Survive?

(......) "The Syrians feel the noose tightening around their necks," Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom has said. The report into the investigation "is closing in on direct Syrian involvement in Hariri's murder." The assessment in Jerusalem is that a scathing report could lead to international sanctions on Syria, which the already-wobbly Assad regime wouldn't survive.

(.....) There are rumors that some top Syrian officials, including a former vice president and a former military chief of staff, have been in touch with Washington about helping to create a regime change. (....)

October 20, 2005 Washington had made the Assad regime an offer: The United States would stop pressuring Syria if it prevents anti-American insurgents crossing into Iraq, stops meddling in Lebanon, withdraws its support for Palestinian terrorists and stops arming Hezbollah in Lebanon. (.....)

(.....) Ha'aretz political analyst Aluf Benn quotes security officials as saying that the best scenario for Israel would be a weakened Assad succumbing to American pressure: There would be no Syrian presence in Lebanon, no Syrian support for Hezbollah or Palestinian terrorist groups, and no need to negotiate over the Golan. (.....)

(.....) Ironically, the renewed debate over Syria coincides with the anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which the Syrian and Egyptian armies caught Israel by surprise and threatened its very existence. That war convinced Israelis of the need for peace with Egypt and Syria. Since then, however, a series of events altered the balance of power to such an extent that Israel no longer feels threatened by its northern neighbor, and sees no urgent need to change the status quo. (.....)

(.....) Syria's weakness when acting alone was confirmed during the 1982 war in Lebanon......... Despite Syria's growing military, political and economic weakness, successive Israeli leaders continued to put a premium on peacemaking with Damascus throughout the 1990s. The turning point came with the death of Assad's father, Hafez, in June of 2000. (.....)

[Syria acted alone (without Egypt) since Camp David, despite the weakness refused to bow, or sell it's national constants, Syria forced the US to accept its return to Lebanon. Year 2000 was a turning point, not because of the death of Hafez Assad, but because Hezbullah, sponsored by him and Iran, forced Israel to leave south Lebanon without conditions. The Israeli withdrawal was the first nail driven into the the theory of "PEACE" as the only stratigic option. It paved the way to Israeli pullout from Gaza, and 2006, July Victory]

(.....) The younger Assad made a string of blunders that led to Syria's international isolation. Mainly, the younger Assad failed to understand that after Sept. 11, the American administration would show zero tolerance toward regimes that harbored and supported terrorists, leaving Syria out in the cold. (.....)

[THE YOUNGER BUSH, and Almart failed to understand the limits of their power, at the end the bowed to facts on the ground, in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan. The Regime of younger Assad resisted the huge international pressure refused to bow servived and emeged after 2006, july war stronger than ever. Loosers are trying to stop loses and Winners, Hizbullah, Hamas, Iran, Syria, Talban are consildating their gains]

However, Stupids and ANAL-ysists shall insist on turning things upside down





WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE PFLP (POPULAR FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE) ?

October 16, 2008 at 1:00 pm (Associate Post, Corrupt Politics, Israel, Palestine)

By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank


The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is not what it used to be. Today the organization which sired Laila Khalid, George Habash and many other luminaries in the skies of the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice is functioning very much like a hanger-on vis-à-vis the American backed Palestinian Authority (PA).

The continuing affinity between de-facto PFLP leader Abdel Rahim Mallouh and his namesake, the Chairman of the PA and Fatah Chief Mahmoud Abbas seems to suggest that the leftist group is effectively abandoning its erstwhile principles. What is even more shocking is that the scandalous misdeeds of the Ramallah regime is having little bearing if any on the marriage of convenience between the PFLP and the PA leadership.

Not too long ago, the PFLP didn’t hesitate to physically eliminate any Palestinian figure that would “cross the red lines” with regard to dealing with the colonialist Israeli occupiers. The assassination by a PFLP cadre more than two decades ago of the Israeli-appointed by PLO-accepted former mayor of Nablus, Thafer al Masri, can be viewed as a classical example in this regard.

Now, however, with virtually all Palestinian red-lines being crossed in broad daylight by the PA leadership, the PFLP is not only silent and submissive but is also providing a certain cover of “national consensus” to legitimize policies and practices that George Habash, Abu Ali Mustafa, Wadee’ Haddad and Ghassan Kanafani would have viewed as representing ultimate national treason.

Since the inauspicious Oslo Accords more than 15 years ago, the PFLP has been projecting itself as representing the conscience of Palestinian secular nationalism.

However, the past few years witnessed a serious deterioration in PFLP commitment to upholding and safeguarding Palestinian national goals and interests.

At the theoretical level, the PFLP leadership continues to recite the same old rhetorical rituals about the evils of Zionism of the American-led imperialistic camp.

However, in a sharp contrast to the high-sounding rhetoric, the PFLP leadership has been quietly and obediently walking, side by side with the Ramallah-based regime, in the path of sacrificing national interests for the sake of obtaining American and Israeli acceptance.

In fact, the PFLP has committed more than just forgivable mistakes. It has committed grave sins which really dishonor and disfigure the history of an organization that always judged individuals, entities and regimes in accordance with the level of their subservience to American imperialism.

Let us examine some of the national and moral blunders recently made by the PFLP, which I am sure make many of the group’s members and supporters seethe with anger.

The current PFLP leadership ( I am talking about Mallouh, not Ahmed Sadaat who is languishing in Israeli dungeons) has effectively allowed Abbas to manipulate the PFLP as a cheap and readily-available propaganda pawn in the enduring showdown between Fatah and Hamas. This is a fact that many honest PFLP leaders, such as Khalida Jarrar, readily acknowledge.

Moreover, whenever Abbas wants to advance his own approach toward ceding Palestinian national rights, such as the paramount right of return, or gain propaganda points in the crisis with Hamas, he simply invokes the old boring mantra that the PLO is the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

Interestingly, this is done despite the fact that the policies pursued and the goals sought by Abbas and his regime, which survives on handouts from the US, Europe and some oil-rich Arab states, constitute the exact antithesis of the very goals and aspirations the PLO was founded to achieve.

In addition, the PFLP leadership said nothing and did nothing during all these years when the Fatah group was steadily eroding, corrupting and eviscerating the PLO of its national substance and even relevance until the organization eventually became a mere pale ghost of it once was.

A few months ago, I asked Mr. Mallouh during a Ramallah conference if his faction would still cling to the PLO if the Abbas regime compromised on the inviolable Palestinian national constants such as Jerusalem, the right of return for the refugees and Jewish colonies on the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Mallouh refrained from giving a straightforward answer. In stead, he said that “we shall cross the bridge when we reach it.”

But Mallouh and all the Palestinians have already reached the bridged as Mr. Abbas has been saying in no unmistakable terms that he won’t demand the return of all Palestinian refugees to their homes and ancestral motherland in what is now Israel.

Yes lower-ranking PFLP operatives did condemn Abbas’s remarks, which should be commended and appreciated.

But the deafening silence of Mallouh and his close associates can’t be forgiven. This is not the same PFLP that we grew with and respected.

It is really sad that the PFLP, along with other Palestinian groups and organizations that claim to adhere to the leftist traditions of siding with the worker-class and upholding the principles of justice, is surrendering to the American hegemony, either for the sake of money or out of despair of the possibility of defeating the imperialistic schemes.

These organizations seem to have preferred to appease the PA, the Israelis and Americans rather than speaking up and loudly protesting some of the manifestly criminal acts that Israel and the PA have been carrying out in the West Bank, including the destruction or closure of boarding schools, orphanages, charities and other civil institutions serving poor Palestinians and enhancing their ability to withstand the Nazi-like Israeli occupation.

More to the point, the PFLP stood silent while the American-backed regime in Ramallah refused to pay regular salaries to some 6000 teachers whose dossiers and files continued to be withheld in the Mukhabarat (General Intelligence) offices in Ramallah.

So, why did the PFLP not speak up on behalf of these wronged people? Why did Mallouh not urge his close friend Abbas to treat these unfortunate working men and women with the respect and dignity they deserve?

Another serious behavioral flaw undermining the image and reputation of the PFLP is the continued companionship of Mallouh and Abbas, which suggests that the leftist group has no serious objections to the full-fledged conversion of the PA regime to the American-Zionist camp. Is the PFLP leadership too gullible to realize that the PA has become an integral part of the overall American scheme against the forces of resistance and steadfastness in the Middle East?

Finally, the PFLP silence in the face of the police-state regime being consolidated in the West Bank, thanks to the active intervention by the CIA and Israel, is more than telling. It reflects a high level of complacency and moral bankruptcy on the part of the PFLP leadership which watches all these blasphemous acts being committed while keeping its mouth shut.

In fact, the PFLP seems to follow the old adage: “if speech is silver, silence is gold,” but in an obviously pathetic manner. Maybe the real adage the PFLP leadership is adopting these days is that which was coined by Saadi Shirazi, “when money appears, heads bow.”

Unfortunately, this seems to be the most plausible explanation of PFLP behavior vis-à-vis the PA in recent years.

To be sure, no one expects the PFLP to assume the role of a mighty rectifier or leveler on the Palestinian arena.

However, the PFLP is expected to be at the very least faithful to its own principles, especially those pertaining to the sanctity of Palestinian rights and honor and dignity of the Palestinian struggle, both of which are being clearly compromised by the very entity the PFLP leadership is now pandering to.

Palestinian "Left"- Selling their souls for 30 coins, miserably failed their people.

Friday 17 October 2008

The crimes of Israeli massacres of Palestinian civilians during An-Nakbah


The crimes of Israeli massacres of Palestinian civilians during An-Nakbah...in pictures. (thanks Raed)
Posted by As'ad at
7:00 AM

صور تذكّر بجرائم عصابات النكبة
الرجـل يعـرف أن نهايتـه وشـيكة



الصورة التي نشرتها »يديعوت« أمس وتظهر جنديين إسرائيليين يسوقان عربياً معصوب العينين إلى الإعدام (»السفير«) كتب محرر الشؤون الإسرائيلية:
تحت عنوان »الصور التي تكشف السر العتيق«، أعلنت صحيفة »يديعوت أحرنوت« أنها ستنشر اليوم سلسلة صور والقصة الكاملة لعمليات إعدام الأسرى العرب على أيدي القوات الإسرائيلية في حرب العام .١٩٤٨
وأشارت الصحيفة إلى أن ما ستنشره، بما في ذلك صورة نشرتها أمس على صفحتها الأولى، هي صور تُنشر للمرة الأولى و»تثبت ما لم نرد معرفته: قتل عربي مقيد على أيدي محاربين إسرائيليين، على ما يبدو أثناء حرب الاستقلال«.
وكتبت »يديعوت« أن الصور التي وقعت بين أيديها، بعدما كانت محفوظة لدى ضابط إسرائيلي توفي مؤخراً، قادتها إلى إجراء تحقيق صحافي واسع، مع العشرات من مقاتلي قوات »سرايا السحق« المعروفة باسم »البلماخ« والهاغاناه ووحدات الاستخبارات آنذاك، والتي كانت تعرف باسم »شاي«، معززة مادتها بشهادات من مؤرخين وخبراء.
وقال الصحافيان، اللذان أعدا التحقيق، أن هؤلاء »نشروا أمامنا فصلا مظلما في تاريخ الصراع اليهودي ـ العربي قبل وفي إطار إقامة الدولة«.
وبكلمات تصوّر »الفصل المظلم« الذي تحدثا عنه، كتب الصحافيان أن »التعبير على وجه المحكوم بالإعدام، التقطته عدسة التصوير. جبين الرجل مجعد. قبضتاه متوترتان ملتصقتان بصدره، يخيل لوهلة انه يستند إلى عصا. كلا. الرجل يعرف أن نهايته وشيكة. لغة جسده تقول ذلك«.
ورجح الصحافيان أن تكون هي »المرة الأولى التي تنشر فيها صور إعدام لعربي على أيدي مقاتلين إسرائيليين. سلسلة صور بالأبيض والأسود.. صور توثق، بشكل تقشعر له الأبدان، آخر لحظات الحياة«.
وروى الكاتبان تصورهما لما جرى »في البداية يدير العربي، الذي يلبس جلباباً صوفيا وحافي القدمين، نقاشا مع المقاتلين الذين يحتجزونه. ويبدو أنه يحاول أن يشرح ـ أو يبرر ـ شيئا ما. في الصورة، في سياق السلسلة، يقف إلى جانبيه إسرائيليان. احدهما يوجه نظرة إلى الكاميرا ويبتسم. صورة أخرى: قماشة تعصب عيني الرجل. صورة أخرى: احد المقاتلين يرفع سلاحه. على مسافة بضعة أمتار منه يقف العربي، والى جانبه مقاتل آخر. كلمات أخيرة؟ وصورة نهاية: جثة وبركة دماء. من ضغط على الزناد؟ من أصدر الأمر؟ من كان الضحية؟ أين حصل هذا، ولماذا؟«
وبحسب الصحيفة فان الحدث وقع أغلب الظن أثناء »حرب التحرير« التي اندلعت في تشرين الثاني ،١٩٤٧ وانتهت في تموز .١٩٤٩ الصور التي توثقه بقيت على مدى عشرات السنين في علبة أحذية قديمة، في بيت خاص، بين مئات الصور العائلية. الرجل الذي احتفظ بها، ضابط كبير سابق في الجيش، توفي مؤخرا، ولا احد سمع منه في أي ظروف التقطت هذه الصور. كما أن أحدا لا يعرف لماذا احتفظ بها كل هذه الأعوام.

More on the Yom Kippur Pogrom in Akka


Yom Kippur Pogrom in Akka


Coexistence is a [just] a slogan. After all, Akko [i.e. Akka] is a city like ra'ananna, Kfar Saba and Haifa, whose Jewish identity one needs to preserve. I don't think there is any controversy. Akko is the capital of the Galil, thousands of years of Jewish history. We are here to preserve Jewish identity, to strengthen the spirit and to pass the national test with honor. (Rabbi Yossi Stern, head of the Akka military Yeshiva)

[the goal of the assaults is]: to kick us out of our neighborhood, and to make the Arabs leave Akka. But we will stay in the Akka of our birth, despite the violence against us." (Runza Ramaal, who fled Akka after being attacked by the mob, cited by the Committee of Activists for Akka)

Background for the Pogrom that is completely absent from the media. Akka is the site of an on-going ethnic cleansing campaign, spearheaded by settlers from Hebron and other settlements who decided to settle in the middle of the Palestinian Akka and to repeat the technique they used to destroy Hebron. One of their motivation is to prove that there is no real difference between Akka and Hebron. And in this at least they are right. According to 'Ala khalikhal from the committee of activists for Akka, there are 200 Rabbinical students and about a thousand Jewish settlers in Akka. Their operation is part of a recent settlement activity within mixed cities like Akka, Ramla and Lydda, and is coordinated with and supported by the local authorities and religious foundations. These settlements are part of a capmaign of ethic cleansing that begins with making life miserable to the local resident through discrimination and defunding, and follows through the destruction of the city's Palestinian heritage, the takeover of public spaces by Jewish institutions and gentrification through the real estate market.

The Yom Kippur Pogrom against the Palestinian residents of Akka takes place on this background. The Jewish mob that "took offense" at the Arab driver sees the wink-wink-nod-nod of the authorities and feels it is serving a national cause. The police stands aside or sides with the mob. Jewish rioters are released on bail while Palestinians are held in custody. The police even plans to charge the driver who was assaulted with recklessness! Yet the same police refuses to guarantee the safety of the Palestinian families whose homes have been vandalized. And many are still away huddles with relatives. It is not inconceivable that they will not be able to return.

The Nakba continues.


Yitzhak Laor on the Yom Kippur Pogrom in Akka

It is time to face facts: Israel forsakes the blood of its Arab citizens each time the Jewish collective is pitted against the Arabs. It doesn't matter if these are Arabs from without (in the territories) or from within. The right of the Jewish collective to protect its identity is self-evident. We have already found a sociologist who espouses this ideology, just as we have found jurists, all of whom have succeeded in providing a philosophical basis for these privileges, in addition to other rights we claim for every area of our lives. It is always about "defense of the identity."

The events of October 2000 have been swept under the rug. The killers have not been brought to justice. Alik Ron was dismissed from
the police force, but he did not answer for what happened. In fact, he was the recipient of compassion. Let us try to imagine that Wadi 'Ara was being blocked off by Jews (let us assume they were settlers): Would those events have ended in the deaths of 13 rioters?

...

Once again, the pogroms repeat themselves, those that we hear about and those that "only" involve humiliation or harassment that we do not hear about. The incident is always turned into a case of deeds carried out on behalf of the collective against those outside the collective who pose a threat.

This is the logic that the average Israeli needs to digest on a daily basis: This place belongs to the Jews. The Arabs are foreign. Some think that we need to behave nicely toward foreigners. Some think we need to oust them. Here is the pus. (Haaretz, Oct. 17 2208)
As the fine military Rebbe Yossi Stern says, this is what Jewish identity today amounts too. And the Jewish communities around the world that fund this abomination and give it succor and political cover are guilty of it as much, if not more, of the hoodlums who perpetrated it.

(Pictures provided by the committee of Activists for Akka)





Jews have no problem having an Arab neighbor when this is the result of ethnic cleansing. So it's O.K. to build Yeshivas in Lydda and Akka. But they'd rather not have Palestinans come to "their cities". Here is the enlightened Mayor of Carmiel explaining Apartheid in a way that even Western journalists can understand.


"Carmiel," she says, "is different from Acre, which has always been defined as an ethnically mixed city. There is no need for Carmiel to become a mixed city. We can have harmonious relations with the Arabs, but the Arab and Jewish communities must live separately." (Haaretz, Oct. 17 2008)

**************************************
Pogrom Acre-style
The word takes on a new meaning as Jews celebrate the Day of Atonement, reports Khaled Amayreh from Acre

Israelis look at a car that was flipped over during riots between Jewish and Arab residents of Acre; Israeli policemen arrest a rioter for driving during Yom Kippur (below)
(photos: AFP)



Israelis look at a car that was flipped over during riots between Jewish and Arab residents of Acre; Israeli policemen arrest a rioter for driving during Yom Kippur (below)
Racism raised its ugly head in the northern coastal town of Acre this week, exposing Israelis' shocking bigotry and intolerance towards its non-Jewish citizens, especially the sizeable Palestinian minority which constitutes nearly one fourth of Israel's population.

It all started the evening of 8 October, the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, when an unsuspecting local Arab resident of the city drove his car through a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood, reportedly to pick up his daughter from her fiancé's family home.

Upon spotting the middle-aged man, dozens of Jewish fanatics ganged up on the man, beating him and stoning his car, injuring him and his son.

"Suddenly, five metres from the building we were trying to reach, a group of young men came out and started shouting Mavet le Arabim! [Death to the Arabs!] and throwing big rocks at us. My son was hit in the face, back and chest. I dragged my son out of the car and we all ran up the stairs," said Jamal Tawfik.

Soon, hundreds of Jewish fanatics converged at the scene, shouting anti-Arab slogans, and preventing Tawfik and his son, who was badly bleeding, from reaching hospital.

"We eventually succeeded in leaving the building, jumped over a number of ditches, and headed for a police car. Suddenly Jewish youths spotted us and began throwing rocks at us. We got into the car, but the police officer couldn't get the engine started.

"Eventually, the officer told us, 'Forget it. Run for your lives!' So we all ran away though we had no idea where we were. I saw a construction site. We entered a guard's hut and asked him to protect us. We hid on the floor, and the mob passed us by. It was the Jewish guard, Nessim, that saved our lives."

Having let the man escape "from under their very eyes" -- remember, this is at the start of the Day of Atonement, when Jews ask God for forgiveness for their sins -- the fanatics then laid siege to the Arab home where the man's daughter was staying, chantting Mavet le Arabim! and "Arabs out of Acre!"

Soon afterwards, word reached the old town, where the town's Arabs are concentrated, that a local Arab was being lynched and killed by Jewish extremists and that Jews were laying siege to an Arab home in a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood. This prompted dozens of youths to take to the streets in an effort to rescue the Arab family.

However, as the disgruntled youths were heading towards the home in the northeastern suburb of the town, police reinforcements intervened, shooting tear gas, rubber bullets and beating the Arab protesters, effectively preventing them from reaching the building where the Arab family was being besieged. As many as 20 protesters were reportedly injured.

Infuriated by police brutality, the protesters vented their frustration on parked Jewish cars and shops, smashing windscreens and vandalising property. Israeli sources said some 40 shops and a hundred cars were damaged, which further enraged the Jewish inhabitants of the city.
The Jews retaliated by torching several Arab homes.

Seeking to justify the hysterical overreaction to the original "provocation", the rumour was spread that the hapless prospective father- in-law was paid by "extremist Arab elements" to provoke the Jews and that he was drunk, smoking and playing his car stereo loud.

The man categorically denied all these charges, saying, "I am a religious man and the last thing I would do is to hurt people's feelings. I just want to go home, I am a religious Muslim. I don't drink at all, and I wasn't playing music. I wonder where the police are getting this information from?"

Some sources spoke of dozens of Jewish settlers from the West Bank, including followers of Rabbi Meir Kahana, who advocates ethnic cleansing of non-Jews from Israel-Palestine, arriving in Acre to further incite violence against the Arabs.

However, even without the arrival of such settlers, many Jews of Acre needed no further incitement to jump on the bandwagon of hate. One Jewish lady shouted at reporters, "Get all the Arabs out of here. We don't want them here. They've made our lives a misery."

One particularly nasty message that was posted on extremist Jewish sites reads, "We will no longer buy anything from Arabs, we will not honour any of their holidays or any of their holy places. Arabs of Acre, go find you place in the villages." The message was signed with the following epigram: "A Jew is the son of a king; and Arab is the son of a dog."

As tension and incitement continued, Jewish and Arab youths hurled rocks at each other at the Acre train station and other "friction areas" with several people sustaining injuries.
According to the Mosawwa (equality) Centre for Arab Human Rights, 14 Arab families, a total of 50 people, were left homeless after Jewish hooligans either burned their homes or forced them to fee, stealing or destroying their property. Earlier, the families narrated to reporters how Jewish thugs threatened to lynch them if they didn't leave their homes, forcing them to leave without taking anything with them but the clothes they were wearing.

Arab leaders, including Knesset members, accused the police of siding with Jewish rioters against the Arabs. The charges are supported by the fact that the police failed to stop rampaging Jewish fanatics even five days after the original incident.

The Israeli government called on the police to take decisive action to stop the violence, with outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert saying that there was a feeling that the inhabitants of the city were being "held hostage by a group of extremists".

However, despite this seemingly even- handed approach to the violence, it was clear that Israeli politicians were reluctant to call a spade a spade, given the pre-electioneering atmosphere in Israel.

Avigdor Leiberman, a notorious right-wing politician and former cabinet minister, described the events in Acre as a clear vindication of his calls for the expulsion of non-Jews from Israel.
On Monday, 13 October, the police arrested Jamal Jawfik, apparently to appease Jews in Acre. Arab Knesset member Ahmed Teibi called the arrest "unreasonable" and "amounting to punishing the victim instead of punishing the criminal. This is a kind of appeasement, the police are only trying to appease Jewish hooliganism at the expense of the Arab citizens of Israel."
The communal violence in Acre, Jewish and Arab leaders admit, epitomises the simmering tension that could eventually spark a wider conflagration in the so-called "mixed towns" such as Jaffa, Haifa, Ramleh and Lod.

Haaretz quoted a community activist in Lod (Al-Led) as saying that they were worried that the violence could spread to their town. "I don't know if it will be happen in a day, two days, or two months, but it is certainly a possibility," said Buthaina Debit, who pointed out that the Arab community was suffering from social and economic distress due to long-standing discrimination by the Israeli state.

"It happened in Acre, but I thought it would happen in Lod because there are masses of Arab residents who have nothing to lose, and there are many poor Jews stuck here. Acre could just be the beginning."

A Jewish activist, also interviewed by Haaretz, warned that what happened in Acre was a signal to all those involved. "Too many people are sitting on the fence. This is the time to act, for both government and social organisations. We must invest in the mixed cities," said Aviv Wasserman.
Interestingly, even Olmert himself recognised that the Arab citizens of Israel are discriminated against and that this discrimination creates frustration and indignation amongst the Arabs against the state.

But Olmert, as was the case with all his predecessors, wouldn't say why he failed to rectify this systematic discrimination which renders the claim that Israel is "democratic state" devoid of meaning.

Yousef Abudayyeh - It Was Never About Borders
THE SETTLER’S WAR WITH ISRAEL
http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.com/2008/10/israels-democratic-facade-erodes_16.html

CAMERAS ARE A TO ZIOVIOLENCE



ZIOVIOLENCE
October 17, 2008

Palestinian children inspect the car of Hamdallah Afaneh after an attack by Israeli settlers while Afaneh was harvesting olives in the West Bank village of Azmout, near the city of Nablus. Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinian farmers almost daily since the beginning of the olive harvest, particularly in the Nablus area. (Rami Swidan, Maan Images)Last week the Jerusalem Post carried an article about the use of video cameras to expose the violence of settlers against Palestinians. One particular group called NGO Monitor, based here in Israel seemed visibly upset that these ongoing attacks against innocent Palestinian civilians are now being caught on videotapes, thanks to the efforts of B’Tselem.

The following article shows how the use of these videos might be the deterrent needed against those attacks……

When settlers strike, Palestinians point and shoot video

An Israeli human rights group hopes the 150 video cameras it gave to West Bank Palestinians deter the rising tide of attacks by radical settlers.

By Ilene R. Prusher

Reporter Ilene Prusher discusses recent West Bank violence and one possible deterrent.
Asira IlQabliya And Yitzhar, West Bank - Nahla Mohammed says that it happens almost every weekend. Right-wing Israeli settlers from nearby Yitzhar come to vandalize houses such as hers, which are on the edge of the Palestinian village of Asira il-Qabliya.

When she hears them coming, she makes sure her children are inside, locks up, and waits with a small video camera that she was given by Btselem, a human rights group. She tries to capture them cutting water mains, breaking windows, or scrawling graffiti on the sides of the Arab houses.

Video cameras like hers have emerged as a new nonviolent weapon for West Bank Palestinians – who face a rising number of attacks at the hands of settlers anxious over their fate in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. But the Palestinian video footage often ends up on Israeli TV, thus becoming a tool for both deterrence and justice.

“We’re trying to use the cameras to reduce the level of violence as a whole. When settlers see the camera, we hope that they will behave less violently,” says Sarit Michaeli, the spokeswoman for Btselem.

“We also want to use the footage to provide to the Israeli media to raise awareness of the problems and to pressure the law enforcement bodies to do their job.”

Btselem has given out 150 cameras as part of its Shooting Back program that started slowly last year and is beginning to show results. Already, footage shot by Palestinians has been used in at least 20 cases involving settler violence.

In one well-publicized case in June, four masked settlers were filmed clubbing three members of a Palestinian family grazing their flock south of the Susiya settlement, near Hebron.
“All of them had their faces covered,” says Ms. Michaeli. “So, therefore, those who were arrested as suspects were released.”

Israeli police have 407 criminal cases against Israelis involved in public disturbances in the West Bank since the beginning of the year.

Danny Poleg, a spokesman for the Israeli police division that covers all of the West Bank, said that between January and August of this year, there was an 11 percent increase in reports of violent incidents over the same period last year.


Settlers on edge
The clash of settlers and Palestinians, especially in this part of the northern West Bank, seems to have become chronic and even cyclical. It rears its head particularly strongly at this time of year, when Palestinians start the olive harvest and have regular run-ins with settlers.
Palestinians says settlers often sabotage their season by cutting down or burning trees, or otherwise preventing them from reaching their orchards.

Settlers deny such activity but say that Palestinians are trying to “illegally” expand their sphere of agricultural influence and take over land the settlers see as their own. Settlers also complain of damage to their crops by Palestinians.

Even though the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has not made major tracks in recent months, many here expect that it could in the near future and this may mean they will be forcibly removed from their homes.

And in Yitzhar, this sort of anxiety about their future is leading to an increasing sense of not being represented by their own government, army, or the Yesha – the leadership arm of the settler movement that many viewed as having “collaborated” with the government during Israel’s disengagement from Gaza three years ago.

Now, the more radical wing of the settler movement is trying to show that any move to evacuate settlements – even small outposts – will be met with a tidal wave of resistance.

“Some historians of the conflict say that the settlers are feeling weakened by the increasing pressure of the international community on Israeli public,” says Yaron Ezrahi, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University. “They think Amona [a settlement outpost where police clashed violently with right-wing activists in Feb. 2006] increased their deterrence, so they want more of that.”

Moreover, the younger generation of settlers look at some of the founders of the religious settlers’ movement, called Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful) as having “sold out” because of their attempt to work in conjunction with the government.

“It has now reached a point in which the violence is also now directed against even the leaders of Gush Emunim, who are considered by the new young generation to be too moderate,” Professor Ezrahi says.

Video camera as a deterrent



“We don’t start up with them. They start up with us,” says Mohammed, a mother of four. “They want to take our house, our land. But we had this land registered in the time of our grandfathers. If they would stay in their place and we stay in ours, there could be peace.”

On many occasions she’s rushed to turn on her video camera when settlers come – which she says happens every week – for her house in particular. It’s one that is closest to Yitzhar. The problem is that in the process of wanting to stay away from the windows, which the settlers try to break, sometimes she captures only sound and not the video.

“The settlers have even come and tried to reach in through the window to take the camera,” she says. “But this is the most we can do, because if we try to call the army to complain, they don’t do anything. They’re here to protect the settlers, not us.”

Btselem says that the “attacks include throwing stones at passing cars, physically attacking farmers, burning crops, and stealing livestock.”


Israeli officials seem to be taking notice.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has ordered the establishment of an inter-agency task force to coordinate efforts to rein in settler violence, according to reports in the Israeli media. The task force would include representatives from the agencies that deal with settler violence in the West Bank, including the police, the army, the Ministry of Justice, and the Shin Bet internal security agency, the Jerusalem Post reported.
‘We’re in a war’

On the other side of the hill from Mohammed’s family in Asira il-Qabliya lives Hillel Ben Shlomo and his family. He doesn’t see the attacks on the Palestinian village as unprovoked at all. To him, it’s deterrence.

A month ago his family was made homeless when a Palestinian from Asira il-Qabliya burned the Yitzhar settlement and set fire to his house, stabbing a 9-year-old several times before being shot dead by another settler. Mr. Ben Shlomo and his family were away for the weekend.
“You can’t imagine after such a scene, we should stay silent. You can’t expect people not to defend themselves,” says Ben Shlomo, sitting in his temporary mobile home. “In a war, we should act as if we’re in a war.”

His wife, sitting quietly nearby, defends the acts of revenge. “All our people do when they go into villages is make noise and break windows and say, ‘If you hurt us, it won’t go without comment.’ It’s only for deterrence,” she says.

Amid increasing recognition of the problem of settler violence toward Palestinians, the people of Yitzhar and other nearby settlements see the Israeli establishment – from the politicians to the police – as part of the problem, and are hunkering down for further confrontations. They have recently formed a group called “The Settlers Committee of Samaria. It is advertising with pamphlets and posters that encourage people to sign on to a new “Samaria Pact” dedicated to expanding the settlers’ presence there.

One of the spokesmen from Yitzhar, Yigal Amitai, explains what this means to him.
“Yitzhar is not dependent on the state. We think that in order to advance the situation, we need to take charge of our future,” Mr. Amitai says. “A small elite stole the state of Israel from the people of Israel.”
Source

Israeli Spying on the United States

Israeli Spying on the United States
By Andrew I. Killgore

ACCORDING TO the MSNBC News Service for April 22, Ben-Ami Kadish, a former U.S. Army mechanical engineer, was arrested on charges that he had sneaked classified information about nuclear weapons to the Israeli Consulate in New York. Kadish’s Israeli handler, Josef Yagur, was also the handler of Jonathan Jay Pollard, who is serving a life sentence for spying against the United States.

Yagur, under cover as a science attaché at the Israeli Consulate, fled the United States after Pollard was arrested in 1985 and has not returned. The fact that the 85-year-old Kadish and Yagur have recently been in touch with one another leaves the suspicion that Kadish may still be active, perhaps as a “spotter” of potential spies for Israel.

“Ben-Ami Kadish faces four counts of conspiracy, including allegations that he conspired to disclose U.S. National Defense documents to Israel and that he acted as an agent of the Israeli government,” the FBI and U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said. Whether he will ever come to trial remains to be seen. The trial and conviction of Pollard would seem to indicate yes. But Pollard, pursued by the FBI, fled directly to the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC, and actually got inside the front gate. Not recognizing the spy for Israel, the Israeli guard released Pollard to the FBI.

Steve Rosen, former foreign policy director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and Keith Weissman, AIPAC’s former Iran specialist, were indicted three years ago, on Aug. 4, 2005. Abbe Lowell, Rosen’s lawyer, and John Nassikas, attorney for Weissman, have filed one delaying motion after another which have been received favorably by AIPAC aficionado Judge T.S. Ellis. Lowell and Nassikas, whose legal fees AIPAC has promised to pay, have sought to so delay the case—or force the government to reveal national secrets—that the trial may not take place at all.

This raises the question of whether Zionist penetration of American institutions has become so comprehensive that it literally is impossible for our government to take action that Israel opposes. According to the May 22 issue of the Jewish weekly Forward, Abbe Lowell has called on AIPAC and other Jewish groups to support Rosen and Weissman with material assistance and jobs while they fight the charges against them. So far, however, Jewish groups have taken a hands-off attitude.

Rosen and Weissman are charged under the Espionage Act of 1917, a law that forbids disclosure of government secrets—obviously on the outdated assumption that only U.S. government employees would have access to them.

There is a long pattern of Israeli espionage against the United States (see accompanying box). Except for Pollard, however, prosecutions have been rare. Nearly all similar cases have been settled generously for Israel by “diplomatic” or “political” means. But in the Rosen and Weissman case the security and intelligence components of the U.S. government seem, so far, to be determined for a showdown.

The MSNBC item on the Kadish matter has a senior Israeli defense official telling Reuters, “I find it hard to believe that, after the Pollard case, we would recruit an American spy.” Assuming that the defense official, for once, is telling the truth that the freewheeling Israeli spy masters would have hesitated to recruit American government employees, they obviously would have thought of using AIPAC instead—as is now clear that they did.

After all, why not use the once-removed-from-government AIPAC to subvert government employees, get the illicit classified information, then pass it on to the Israeli Embassy (and to certain passionately pro-Israeli Washington Post journalists)? This enabled AIPAC to harness the freedom-of-the-press argument and claim that “everybody does it” around Washington, DC. The disingenousness of AIPAC’s case is indicated by accounts of Rosen and Weissman changing tables three times at one luncheon to avoid what they must have suspected were the prying eyes of the FBI.

Andrew I. Killgore is publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

THE SETTLER’S WAR WITH ISRAEL


(Ben Heine © Cartoons)

* Paul Raymond

In any peace deal with the Palestinians, Israel will also have to tackle the problem of militant Jewish settlers

No religious festival in Jerusalem would be complete without a controversial political incident, and this year`s Yom Kippur was no exception. A group of nearly a hundred rightwing radicals forced their way on to the plaza of the Dome of the Rock, one of the most sacred sites in Islam. Entering the precinct on Yom Kippur was a symbolic way of claiming Jewish sovereignty over the site many consider to be the location of the second temple, destroyed by the Romans in AD 70.


While it is not unusual for events on the Temple Mount to trigger renewed Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the second Palestinian intifada (uprising) was triggered in 2001 by then Israeli defence minister Ariel Sharon`s controversial visit to the site – the latest events also have much to say about the current political situation in Israel itself. A growing current of hardline neo-Zionist militancy is terrorising Palestinians, leftwing Israelis and state authorities alike. As the Israeli government desperately tries to come to an agreement with the Palestinian Authority and undermine Hamas, the problem of evacuating settlements inhabited by violent ultra-nationalists will be near the top of a list of thorny challenges for the next Israeli administration.

There is plenty of evidence that the right wing radical fringe is growing. In mid-September, over 200 vigilantes from the illegal West Bank settlement of Yitzhar invaded the nearby Palestinian village of Asira al-Qibliyyah with guns and slingshots, in response to the stabbing of a Jewish boy from the settlement.

But settler violence is not limited to attacks against Palestinians. Two weeks after the assault on Asira, leftwing Israeli professor Ze`ev Sternhell, a staunch critic of the settlement movement, was injured by a pipe bomb on his doorstep. It was widely assumed that rightwing activists placed it there, although the settlers` supporters were quick to accuse Israeli intelligence forces of launching a sinister leftwing conspiracy to discredit them. Later, prominent settler leader Daniela Weiss was arrested for attacking Israeli police officers during the evacuation of the illegal settlement of Shvut Ami, giving a further indication of the gulf between Israeli state authorities and the radical right.

It is clear that the rift has implications for the current round of talks with the Palestinians. Ehud Olmert, the outgoing Israeli prime minister, has argued that Israelis should abandon the Zionist utopia of the Greater Land of Israel, resorting instead to a territorial compromise in order to achieve peace with the Palestinians. After the events of September 13, Yitzhar`s rabbi, David Dudkevich, who claims that the Arabs should emigrate from the `Land of Israel`, launched a public tirade against the idea. Among other things, he endorsed the proposal of a separate state, Judea, which would be established alongside Israel should the latter decide to abandon the Zionist dream.

`It`s obvious that a great many people who are secure in their Judaism feel emotionally distant from the state, which is in another place altogether,` he told Haaretz newspaper. `The state of Israel is not the be-all and end-all. If it decides it does not want to be in the hereditary lands of our forefathers, then other Jews have the right to organise themselves in order to live there, even without a link to the state. When there`s talk about another expulsion, then on the ideological level, the `State of Judea` is no worse than expulsion.`

The irony is that settler radicalism was nurtured by the Israeli state in the first place. Over the years, Likud governments in particular encouraged non-ideological Israelis to settle in the West Bank in the hope that they would adopt views that fitted the rightwing agenda of that party. It was also an effective strategy for gaining control of the Occupied Territories and guaranteeing that the maximum possible territory would be ceded to Israel should the US force her into a deal with the Palestinians.

However, the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from Gaza placed the state authorities charged with implementing government policy – namely the police – at loggerheads with those settlers. The image of Israeli police forcibly evicting Jews from their homes created a wound in Israeli society that has been festering ever since. Several thousand young people who lived their entire childhoods in Gaza settlements now feel abandoned by the state and are willing to take out their frustration, often violently, against both Palestinians and the Israeli authorities.

Thus the Israeli government now faces huge dilemmas in the context of the current round of Israeli-Palestinian talks and also in how it deals with its own citizens. If the implication of Olmert`s comments is that more settlement evacuations are on the cards, and forcing that past a group of armed, radical settlers who have sworn their enmity to the state will be every bit as hard as negotiating an agreement with the Palestinians.


Source
* Paul Raymond is working in Yanoun, near Nablus in the West Bank, for the World Council of Churches’ EAPPI programme. EAPPI provides protective international presence to Palestinians and campaigns for a just resolution to the Israeli
Palestinian conflict through the application of international law. Paul recently graduated in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies from Leeds University in the UK
Comment:
Every Israeli is a settler

Thursday 16 October 2008

Yousef Abudayyeh - It Was Never About Borders

By Mary Rizzo
• Oct 15th, 2008 at 12:54
• Category: Analysis, Culture and Heritage, Israel, Newswire, Opinions and Letters, Palestine, Quotes, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Zionism

The Palestinian-Zionist conflict is not about disputed borders, it’s about the very existence of the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. The Zionist invaders came to Palestine because according to the Zionists, Palestine was a land with no people and needed to be filled with “people who have no land.”

Unless the whole world and especially the Arab Palestinians understand this, things will get worse. What we saw in Akka (Akko) this week is a continuation of the emptying of Palestine of its original people. This has always been a fruitless undertaking, fueled by the invader’s realization of the ultimate failure of the Zionist adventure - make no mistake about it.

And just to let you know, what’s going on in Akka has been happening on a different scale in all the cities and village of Palestine 48. A few days ago, a friend of mine with some of his family members were driving in Haifa when his car was stoned by these fascist Zionist invaders with the “police” watching on and not doing a thing, a very familiar scene.

These stepped up attacks on ‘48 Palestinians should make clear the following:

- Our people of the ‘48 land have been living for more than 60 years, under the worst of racist conditions. All the attempts that the Arab leaders made in order to co-exist with the Zionists were attempts that needed to be made in order to prove to the world, and more importantly, to the Palestinian people, that the Zionist invaders were really not interested in co-existence. All these invaders are interested in are finding ways to push the Arabs out of their homes so they can salvage their colonization “dream” of (at least half of) Palestine.

- The so-called Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, (in no way smarter or tested than the leadership of the Arabs of ‘48), should go back to the original writings of the PLO and study them and understand them. The original understanding of the conflict was the right one. These Zionists invaders are not interested in anything less than an empty Palestine. Any misunderstanding of this fact will lead to more blood and misery. The least they can do is talk with our leaders in ‘48 and learn from them.

- The Arab countries should at once stop all dealings with the Zionists.

- The Zionist idea and doctrine is dead or at least cracked and cannot be fulfilled. The building of racist walls and even getting involved with “peace talks” are signs of the Zionists getting used to the fact that they cannot have all of Palestine, definitely not without its original inhabitants, and for sure not on their terms. Having said that, this will bring the fascist elements of the invaders (and they are many) to commit desperate acts. This will no doubt lead to more killing of Arabs in the near future. The world community should be put on notice that these fascists and their leaders should be tried for war crimes. The whole Zionist state should be held responsible for any more suffering the occupied Palestinian people will face.
- The only viable solution remains the one democratic state where Palestine will go back to its Arab womb and where anyone who wants to live in Palestine will be free of hatred and will have the same duties, obligations and rights as anyone else that lives there.

Please visit
Israel's democratic facade erodes
The Gang called "Palestinian Authority"
Fatah: Eject the traitors from your ranks
Coexistence with Israeli enemy impossible
Uprooted Palestinian: On A letter from an old settler in 1948 Land to Settlers in Gaza
TALMUD AT WORK "RIGHT OF RETURN" FROM AKRE TO PA "LAND"
A Genuine Peace Movement Cannot be Zionist
http://wewillreturn.blogspot.com/

ISRAEL/PALESTINE: AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE HATRED

Source
October 14, 2008 at 9:50 pm (Extremism, Intolerance, Israel, Nakba, Occupation, Palestine)


(Ben Heine © Cartoons)


Acre: a fractured history
Hatim Kanaaneh
I just finished reading the news about riots and clashes between Arabs and Jews in Acre in Haaretz, the one Israeli paper that still attempts a modicum of balance in reporting on Arab/Palestinian issues. I have resisted canceling my subscription as a reaction to the paper’s recent dropping of Amira Hass and demoting of Gideon Levy, the two main reasons for my subscription to start with. It is difficult in Israel to get a balanced picture of this inter-racial and interfaith blow-up, symbolic as it is of the entire Israeli-Palestinian and even of the whole Middle East strife.
The clashes started on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, and are continuing on for the fourth day. Acre is our regional administrative center and my old stomping ground as a government official. It is a half-hour’s car drive from my home and once, in an emergency, I even covered the distance in eighteen minutes flat.

Before the Nakba my maternal grandmother and two aunts lived in Akka (Arabic for Acre) and it was usual for people to travel there on horseback or, more commonly, on the back of a donkey. My grandmother would come to visit us in our village, Arrabeh, and surprise us with a variety of presents: candies for the young and silk kerchiefs for the adults. For my mother she brought the special gift of a piece of red rubber sheeting fashioned out of the inner tube of a car tire. The wooden cot my mother used for her babies was the envy of the village womenfolk for the rubber sheet that protected it from soiling. My grandmother, Sitti Rahmi (Grandma Mercy) we called her, pulled rank over her village hosts and would bring her own personal supplies and utensils with her including a lot of snuff and a private ’sharbi’ or small ceramic water jug. If anyone drank from it she would smash it on the spot and demand a replacement. My sisters, all afflicted by housecleaning obsession despite their rheumatoid arthritis, blame both on genes from Sitti Rahmi. My influential uncle Salih, the head of our clan, had a second home with a second wife in Akka where he hobnobbed with the city’s effendis. On occasion he would come back with a camel load of Jaffa Oranges for his extended family here and we, the favored children, would get the special treat of a link of fresh sugarcane to suck on. Akka was truly our capital city.

Then my grandmother passed away and after her uncle Salih and then the whole country, Akka included, went to the dogs and my aunts became refugees in Lebanon.

The Zionists came along and cleansed Acre of its original residents and replaced them with Jewish immigrants, housing some in existing Arab homes and building for others public housing in new neighborhoods that fanned east and north from the ancient walled city. Some of the new housing projects replaced the former Arab Manshieh neighborhood better known formerly as New Acre or ‘Akka el-Jadideh’. The old walled city became the refuge for internally displaced Palestinians, squatters from neighboring destroyed villages, with a smattering of original residents who dared stay put. As in other cities such as Jaffa, Lidd, Ramla and Haifa, the system of the new state lacked the administrative capacity to stop their influx. Initially, most were tolerated by the official new owner of all Palestinian ‘abandoned’ property, the Custodian of Absentee Property. It failed to penetrate the emerging solidarity and minimal cohesion among the new Palestinian social collective in such cities. Left with no leadership but prodded on by need and fear this rabble held together against the pressure brought to bear on them by Amidar, the Israeli government housing enterprise that was accorded responsibility for emptied Palestinian homes by the Custodian of Absentee Property. Amidar’s first responsibility, of course, was to house and nurture newcomers, the self-engendered flood of Jewish immigrants.

By the time I broke on the scene in Acre again, two and a half decades later, as the sub-district’s medical officer in charge of the population’s medical services and health, a movement was in full swing to drive the residents of old Acre out to the neighboring villages of Jdaideh and Makir, both already overwhelmed by the 1948 influx of refugees from destroyed neighboring villages, famous among which is el-Birweh, the destroyed village of the late poet of Palestinian resistance, Mahmoud Darwish. A two-pronged justification was offered for the attempted second forced evacuation of those unwelcome ’squatters’: The old city with its rich Crusader and Ottoman archeological treasures was a perfect site for development as a tourist attraction. The very same attribute, the cultural and physical seclusion of those dark dungeons of old, had rendered them the perfect hideaway for drug dealers and addicts. Old Acre then ranked even ahead of old Jaffa as the capital of drugs and sex trade. I was marginally involved in all of this in a couple of ways: One of my predecessors at the Acre Ministry of Health office was killed and another left paraplegic, the outcome of an attack by drug dealers. And on a couple of occasions I had to lean on my head sanitary engineer to declare specific residences of Arabs in the old city fit for occupation contrary to the wishes of the city engineer and the Acre Development Authority. The residents were denied the needed permits to repair the roofs over their heads. If a house was found to be in danger of collapse or in such a state of squalor that it was not fit for human inhabitance, the only option they were offered was to move out.


The majority never moved out; no major calamities were recorded; Acre still struggles to sell itself as a tourist attraction; drugs are still plentiful on the streets of old Acre and have spread to new neighborhoods; and I was dismissed long ago from my position with the MOH for meddlesome activism.
As in other mixed cities, some better off young Arab couples have found their way to residences in the new, originally exclusively Jewish, neighborhoods. The rare Arab worker in the government offices in Acre was often made the attractive offered of subsidized housing in these new neighborhoods, specifically in the proudly anointed project of coexistence in the Wolfson neighborhood, Shkhonat Wolfson. Even the Ford Foundation invested in this ambitious project at one point. I remember turning down the offer of subsidized housing there along with that of a handgun for my personal protection. Both Wolfson and Akko Tzafon (North Acre Neighborhood) have been thoroughly infiltrated by Palestinian residents. Even now, sixteen years after my exile from my office in acre, I can claim half a dozen Arab friends there: two doctors, a lawyer, a nurse, a teacher and an income tax big boss.
Interracial trouble has been brewing in these mixed quarters from the start. The embers are kept live mainly by religious fanaticism: On the Arab side the young are increasingly turning to religion as is usual for members of deprived communities. On the Jewish side the fires of extremism have been further fanned by the recent arrival of a band of hardened settlers relocated from the evacuated settlements of Gaza. A religious study cum army service center has been established for and by them in Wolfson. A while back trouble started over their objection to the Arab Moslems’ broadcasting their calls for prayer on their mosque’s loudspeaker during the holy month of Ramadan. Violence broke out and a movement was set afoot for cleansing Acre as a Jewish city of its Arabs, as if that were new. Now clashes ensued over the ‘right’ of observant Jews to enforce a total ban, for Jews and Goys alike, on vehicle movement on the Day of Atonement. That is how they have internalized the meaning of the ‘Jewish and democratic’ state. And the young man at the center of the clash is accused of even smoking openly on the street and having his car radio on. “How come their youth were running around our neighborhoods drinking beer and making out in the open during Ramadan?” a young Moslem protested.

And now, as I write this, I receive an email in Hebrew calling for a total boycott of all Arabs. It declares: “A Jew is a descendent of kings. An Arab is a descendent of dogs.” It further calls for a mob to gather at a specific location after sundown assuring all that a group of 300 settlers will be arriving to lead the crowd. It ends with an online survey that shows 63% of respondents favoring attacking/finishing-off Arabs. Here is the link if you read Hebrew: www.akko.txt.co.il And finally, the annual Acre Alternative Theater Festival, one of the most significant art happenings in Israel, held annually during the Jewish Sukkoth holiday, has been cancelled. Gideon Levy opines: “To all, it was clear that Mayor Shimon Lankri’s hasty decision to cancel the festival had one purpose, and one only: to punish the Arabs who earn their living from the event.”

It is reported that a police source noted that violence between Jews and Arabs stems from gaps in infrastructure and services between the two communities, and is the responsibility of the state but often lands in the “police emergency room.” This is reminiscent of the conclusion reached by the Or Investigative Committee appointed by the government to look into the killing in 2000 of 13 Palestinian unarmed youth, 12 of whom were citizens of Israel, by the police. The conclusion was understood by the police as exonerating them. Their Department of Internal Investigations, Mahash, closed the file with the excuse that it was too late to gather evidence. 29 more Palestinian citizens of Israel have been shot dead by Israeli security forces since then and in most if not all such cases the murderers were exonerated. In the entire history of the state no Jew has ever been killed by the security forces in quelling a demonstration. And the Jewish citizens of Israel have always demonstrated big time. Adalah is busy educating itself, the local Palestinian leadership, and the families of the dead youth on the experiences of other disadvantaged groups who suffered from state-sponsored crimes against them in modern times such as in Northern Ireland and South Africa.

The killing of six Palestinian unarmed youth on March 30, 1976 by Israeli security forces under the direct oversight of both Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, to stop us from striking for one day against the stealing of our land, was committed in an era when we lacked the human rights acumen and political civil society savvy to do anything beyond consecrating the day as Land Day, commemorated ever since by all Palestinians. And two decades before, in the village of Kufur Qasim, scores of villagers returning from their fields were summarily executed for breaking a curfew that was announced after they had left their homes. The scapegoat Israeli officer, Shadmi was his name, was found guilty and fined one cent.

Listening to the news from Acre yesterday I was struck by the fact that every adult in my circle of a dozen radio listeners could recount an incident in which he or she was attacked by stone-throwing Jewish youth on Yom Kippur or on the day of Sabbath in one location or another. It is a wonder riots haven’t broken out before in every mixed city. The only explanation I can think off is the degree of submissiveness we, the Palestinian citizens of Israel, have learned to accept and practice. It is way past coexistence and several steps beyond tolerance, meekness at its best. This begs the question of why in Acre and why now? Here is my guess:

Akkawis - Acre Arab residents - are known in the Galilee for their chip-on-the-shoulder demeanor and contentious uppity ways. This is part of the city’s heritage of old. Acre’s residents have an oft repeated motto: “Ya khouf Akka min hdeer el-bahar – the Mediterranean is no threat to Acre.” And Napoleon camped outside its walls for a long time before giving up and lobbing-in his hat fitted on a cannonball so as to claim a symbolic victory. I remember my father telling the story from his younger days, long before Zionism messed up the place, about a fat woman, properly outfitted for a stroll on the Korneesh, Acre’s stylish seaside promenade, who slipped and fell flat on her butt on the stone pavement. He rushed to offer his help and got a proper scolding: “Get away from me you scrawny fellah! You couldn’t lift me up if you tried! And a fellah like you would have fallen flat on his face not landed safely in a sitting position like me.” He had to swallow his pride and move on.

A story is told in Galilee about the first pilgrim from Acre in recent times to gain permission to visit the holy sites in Saudi Arabia. As he entered the mosque in Medina where the prophet Mohammad is buried, he is reported to have casually addressed the prophet using the diminutive form of the addressee’s name the way Acre adults do in talking to their children: “Eishak Hammudi - How goes it my boy!” he is reported to have shouted from the door over the heads of thousands of pious supplicants. Akkawis are also known for sneering at people loudly for the slightest mistake. For any minor irritation a father would encourage his child to snicker at the offender by making the sound one makes in imitating a pig, a combined expression of disapproval, disdain, and challenge: “Ishkharlo ya walad!”

Now you understand why a Palestinian young man from Acre would dare to stand up to a bunch of Jewish youth throwing stones at his car.

I personally have never dared drive on the High Holiday of the Jews. I don’t smoke but I eat secretly at home.

Hatim Kanaaneh, M.D. is the author of A Doctor in Galilee: The Life and Struggle of a Palestinian in Israel. He completed his medical and public health degrees at Harvard in 1970. He then returned to Galilee where, in 1973, he became the Public Health Doctor of the sub-district of Acre. He is the founder of the NGO, the Galilee Society

Prisoners of Zion: Administrative Detention

Israeli interrogators force Palestinian female detainee to remove her Hijab
[ 16/10/2008 - 10:06 AM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation interrogators have forced Palestinian female detainee Sana Salah of Bethlehem city to remove her headscarf (Hijab) during interrogation sessions at the Maskobeyya detention center in occupied Jerusalem.
Salah revealed her experience to lawyer of the Palestinian prisoner club who visited her Wednesday in jail where she also added that six Israeli investigators were questioning her for 8 continuous hours with her hands and feet chained.
She also added that the Zionist officers beat and slapped her on the face in addition to uttering insults.
"I stayed in Maskobeyya detention for one month and a half without being given a change of clothes for the first 20 days", Salah affirmed, adding she suffers from chest pains, and weakness in the right eye.
For her part, Palestinian lady legislator MP Muna Mansour of Hamas's parliamentary bloc urged the PA agencies and institutions to seriously work for the release of all Palestinian female captives in Israeli jails.
Mansour's remarks came as she paid a visit to houses of a number of Palestinian female captives in Ramallah city as a sign of solidarity with the female captives and their families.


16/10/2008

Two Palestinian girls detained in Israel without trial for months

By Fadi Eyadat
headAbout
On the night of June 5, someone knocked on the door of the Salah house in Khader, near Bethlehem. Had it not been 2 A.M., nobody in the family would even have been suspicious. Nevertheless, said Siham Salah, her eldest daughter, Salwa, opened the door.

"Soldiers and a [Shin Bet security service] officer entered," Siham related. "They sat down calmly and began to ask questions about members of the household. They asked how many children we had and about the fact that there are problems in our neighborhood. Suddenly, they went outside, brought in female soldiers and took my daughter.

"I told the officer she's a girl, all of 16, studying for her matriculation exams, and that she never had any involvement in politics or belonged to any organization. He ignored me. I began to scream; Salwa began to cry and shouted at me: 'Mother, don't let them take me!' But the soldiers shut me into an inside room and kidnapped her."
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Only two months later did Siham finally see her daughter again, in the Damoun Prison near Haifa. There, she discovered that her 16-year-old cousin Sara had also been arrested. Both girls were being held in administrative detention, or detention without trial.

Since then, four months have gone by. Last week, the girls' detentions were extended by another three months. But the Salah family still does not even know why their daughter was arrested, and all their efforts to find out have been in vain.

According to attorney Sahar Francis, who is representing both girls, the security services "claim they are dangerous, based on classified information. We tried in court to ask the prosecutor the nature of their 'dangerousness': Did they act alone? What was their role? But we didn't receive any answers. And other than an initial interrogation at the time they were arrested, neither has been questioned."

Altogether, some 600 Palestinians are in administrative detention in Israel, including about 15 minors who do not even know why they are being detained.

Some 100 people organized by the Coalition of Women for Peace protested Wednesday opposite the prison to demand that Salwa and Sara be released. "We oppose the use of administrative detention, because it is undemocratic," said Adi Dagan, one of the demonstration's organizers. "It is part of the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people. And we're talking about two schoolgirls. No one even knows why they are being held in jail."

The Re'ut-Sadaka youth movement has collected some 500 signatures, mostly from other youths, on a petition demanding that the girls either be indicted or released.

Siham Salah said that the first time she saw her daughter in jail, "she was in a difficult emotional state. She cried and asked us to get her out of there. She's a baby, a girl who lived from school to home and back again. That very day [of her arrest], she had signed up for matriculation prep classes in English and math. Today, when I see the girls of her class going to school, I burst out crying."

Not One Cent For Gaza: "Hail Habila"

It seems the Palestinian leader is overseeing the brutal siege of his own people in Gaza without a care or thought for them.


"They are living a hand-to-mouth existence and innocent men, women and children are dying in this collective punishment because they are being denied vital medicines and access to the outside world, but their support of Hamas is growing by the day. I've seen it with my own eyes"



By Yvonne Ridley

JUST when you think the Zionist leaders have peaked in arrogance and the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has peaked in ignorance, a new scheme comes along that is almost beyond belief, prompting me to wonder if they are all taking crack cocaine.

Apparently Defence Minister Ehud Barak and the Pharonic Mubarak opened serious discussions about the deployment of an Arab force in the Gaza Strip consisting largely of Egyptian and some Saudi troops.

Apparently the two said they would eventually like to expand the deployment of Arab and international forces to the West Bank as well, with those troops consisting largely of Jordanian forces, according to the Israeli plan.

The reason for this nonsense? Well I believe it is because Hamas, the democratically elected government (certainly in Gaza) is doing such a good job of maintaining law and order and are growing in popularity with ordinary Palestinians that their continued rise is viewed as a huge threat ... not just to the Zionist interlopers but to the rest of the leadership in the Arab world.

Gaza is the world's largest open air prison and its infrastructure, emergency services and day to day operations have been crippled by the brutal Israeli-led siege.

Yet despite this, Hamas - since it kicked out the corrupt Fatah fat cats last year - has managed to try and hold things together for its 1.5m citizens on the Gaza Strip.

They are living a hand-to-mouth existence and innocent men, women and children are dying in this collective punishment because they are being denied vital medicines and access to the outside world, but their support of Hamas is growing by the day. I've seen it with my own eyes and so, unlike most of the outside politicians including the Quartet's Peace Envoy Tony Blair, I am coming from a point of knowledge.
I, along with more than 40 other international peace activists, went to Gaza recently by boat to smash the seaborne part of the siege, and we saw for ourselves the dreadful situation imposed on the Gazans.

But I was also able to wander and move around freely and discovered Gaza to be among one of the safest cities in the world ... certainly much more safe than the streets of London or New York. Crime is down more than 80 per cent since Hamas police took over - the statistics are available.

One day myself and film-maker Aki Nawaz wandered down on to the beach and took part in a lively, political discussion with ordinary Palestinians ... and some of them made it clear they did not like or support Hamas. But what we did was taken part in a full and frank discussion and such freedoms of speech are not allowed or encouraged in the rest of the Arab world.

The fact is, there is so much irrational hatred for Hamas from Israel, America and Europe that the politicians just refuse to accept the truth and the truth is the majority of Gazans love and support Hamas.


And here's why. The Hamas leadership and members are suffering just as much as the ordinary citizens of Gaza. They endure the hardship of the siege, they have their power supplies cut off, they have to put up with Israel switching off the tap water when it chooses. They, too are suffering and the people can see this with their own eyes.

It really does appear as if the Hamas leadership can not be bought or corrupted.

Millions of dollars and Euros are pouring in to the Palestinian Authority's coffers controlled by Abu Mazen and NOT ONE CENT reaches the people of Gaza. Sadly, it seems the Palestinian leader is overseeing the brutal siege of his own people in Gaza without a care or thought for them.
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Flashback

I am quoting below, Tony Sayegh, seen as a great analysist by some readers at Palestinian Pundit. I called him name, the last was, the Great Anal-ysist.

I continueosly mocked him for blaming deaths of Gazans on Hamas, and calling Hamas to hide, and, and...

"With this poor performance, Hamas is likely to lose support, which is the opposite of what happened to Hizbullah. The masses need to see brains at work, not just one funeral after another.
Tony Sayegh"

"Keep that closed mind of yours (The closed mind is MINE)and keep offering martyrs for nothing; the results are what counts."

"The Palestinians by refusing to learn are moving from one defeat to another."

"You know, now I realize why the Palestinians, even though they have been resisting far longer than any other Arab people (90 years!), are still incapable of developing an effective resistance."

"The Palestinians need to get serious about resistance if they want to resist. On the other hand, if this is all a show (as Arafat did) to get to the "negotiating" table, then no Palestinian should be willing to die for such a charade."

*******************************************

"17 Killed in Gaza, Today

And Yet, Hamas "Massed" its Forces to "Confront" Tanks, Helicopter Gunships and Missiles......

Excuse Me, But This is Mass Suicide, Not Resistance

Damn It! God Gave You a Brain; Use It!!"

TON TFUUUU concluded: "You ask, what can Hamas do? At a minimum hide, in the face of a superior force."

I am sure you shall recognize the smell, and know who did it..
Uprooted palestinian 03.03.08 - 4:11 pm #

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Tony is right , when he said At a minimum , Hide in the face of a superior Force . Absolutely spot on he does not want the resistance to be wiped out by the criminals in the IOF . HE CARES , im not sure why you refuse to understand it .

fatima 03.03.08 - 5:35 pm #
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He was never right. Read his words.

He assumed, immagined, farted that, "Hamas "Massed" its Forces to "Confront" Tanks, Helicopter Gunships and Missiles......"

Knowing hamas fought its biggest battle the last few days with only 20% of its manpower, you may conclude that Hamas never massed it's forces to "Confront" Tanks, Helicopter Gunships and Missiles......"

Was he right in saying: '"Hamas is copying Arafat in using the "resistance" as a vehicle for political negotiations."??

Was he right in attacking Haneya day and night for months?? Was he right in Saying (farting):

"With this poor performance, Hamas is likely to lose support, which is the opposite of what happened to Hizbullah. The masses need to see brains at work, not just one funeral after another.Tony Sayegh"

Hamas with it's "poor"performance, won the elections, won the battle with Dahlan, used the months that followed, to prepare for knocking the wall, to get more that food supply, and use it to confront and stop the invasion.Uprooted palestinian 03.04.08 - 6:23 am #

Was he right in ivolving Syria in the consipracy to kill Maghiye?

Was.....was.....

Well, I have to confess he was partially right once.

"One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results. By that definition, a certain amount of insanity is apparent in the leadership of the resistance."

Insanity is farting the same fart over and over.

Uprooted palestinian 03.04.08 - 6:29 am #

http://www.haloscan.com/comments/christiansunni/7750664373324408323/?a=35572#125959
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/christiansunni/4601133426889820725/#127713
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/christiansunni/8674098709508443606/#129091

Tony, over several month was mocking Hamas Leaders, calling them Habillas

I search for and got this thread of posts. Click it please in order to know Tony the great Anal-ysist,

I recently learned Molly, the real founder of PP, is a an anti-Zionist Jewis "Seaking Justice" She rarely post, I assume she stay on the bachground, (kitchen) cooking the policy of PP,
http://palestinianpundit.blogspot.com/search?q=Habila