Great stats: 71% of Americans want their gov't's policies vis a vis Israel and the Palestinians to be "even-handed." (SO LET YOUR CONGRESSpERSONS know they're out of step with main street America -- and they're "back home" next week so see if you can get a meeting.)
Here's an excerpt from Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com
A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 18 countries finds that in 14 of them people mostly say their government should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Just three countries favor taking the Palestinian side (Egypt, Iran, and Turkey) and one is divided (India). No country favors taking Israel's side, including the United States, where 71 percent favor taking neither side.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/20/israel/
The original study:http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/503.php?nid=&id=&pnt=503
REALLY interesting poll of 6 Arab countries from 2008
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/503.php?nid=&id=&pnt=503
JOIN DESMOND TUTU'S CALL TO END THE SIEGE OF GAZA http://www.freegaza.org/
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
What do US citizens want?
Monday, April 13, 2009
Meeting Torture Victims in Gaza
Meeting Torture Victims in Gaza
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3001387077853267719
Whynotnews Gaza Video playlist
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8030E34DC8051C01
Sunday, April 12, 2009
More US congressman visit Gaza
US congressmen visit aid projects, ruins in Gaza
By BEN HUBBARD
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Two U.S. congressmen made a rare visit to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, meeting with aid workers and touring scenes of destruction left by Israel's military offensive.
Reps. Bob Inglis and Stephen F. Lynch pointedly avoided contact with the Hamas militant group, which rules Gaza and which the United States, European Union and Israel consider a terrorist organization.
Lynch, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said the world must find a way to address a "legitimate humanitarian crisis" in Gaza.
"We need to act with some urgency here. There is a humanitarian crisis going on and we can't dawdle," Lynch told the Associated Press.
Israel launched the three-week offensive in December with the aim of ending rocket fire on southern Israel by Hamas militants. Palestinian human rights groups say more than 1,400 people were killed, including more than 900 civilians. Thousands of buildings and much of Gaza's infrastructure were destroyed or damaged.
Israel says the death toll was lower, and most of those killed were Hamas militants.
Lynch said he and Inglis, a Republican from South Carolina, visited a project run by Catholic Relief Services in a heavily damaged neighborhood and a tent camp where displaced Gazans have been living since the war ended on Jan. 18. They also visited the grounds of the American International School of Gaza, a U.S.-style school the Israeli army flattened during the offensive, saying militants launched rockets from its grounds.
Lynch said the destruction in Gaza was worse than he expected.
Since Hamas violently seized the territory from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in June 2007, Israel and Egypt have maintained tight border control. Restrictions on cement and other building materials — which Israel says could benefit Hamas — have greatly hampered the reconstruction effort.
"It is problematic having the checkpoints closed," Lynch said.
He said aid could be brought into Gaza through the U.N. and other organizations, and that safeguards could be put in place to make sure resources were used properly. But the U.S. will not work with Hamas until it changed its policy toward Israel and rejected violence, he said.
Tuesday's visit followed a similar tour earlier this year by Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, and two Democratic congressmen, Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Brian Baird of Washington.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Today is Rachel Corrie's Birthday
Dear Sandee,Today would be the 30th birthday of my daughter Rachel, who was run over by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in 2003 as she tried to save a Palestinian family's home from demolition. Last month, when my husband Craig and I traveled to Gaza with CODEPINK, it was so moving for us to reconnect with the families and the children that Rachel cared so deeply about.
They deserve life, freedom, and hope.
We hope you will join CODEPINK in the campaign to Speak Out for the Youth of Gaza.
One, May 28-June 5, is open to everyone and will enter from Egypt
A Jewish delegation, June 5-14, will enter from Israel. Click here to find out how to travel with us.
If you can't join our delegation, you can still help the children of Gaza. Your donation of $10 will purchase a backpack full of school supplies for one child. $100 will contribute toward building an International Friendship Playground at one of the schools bombed during the invasion. To donate, click here and if you want to help Gazan children in your mother's name, you can donate and we will send her a card with news of your gift.
What 'Israel's right to exist' means to Palestinians
by John V. Whitbeck
JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA - Since the Palestinian elections in 2006, Israel and much of the West have asserted that the principal obstacle to any progress toward Israeli-Palestinian peace is the refusal of Hamas to "recognize Israel," or to "recognize Israel's existence," or to "recognize Israel's right to exist."
These three verbal formulations have been used by Israel, the United States, and the European Union as a rationale for collective punishment of the Palestinian people. The phrases are also used by the media, politicians, and even diplomats interchangeably, as though they mean the same thing. They do not.
"Recognizing Israel" or any other state is a formal legal and diplomatic act by one state with respect to another state. It is inappropriate – indeed, nonsensical – to talk about a political party or movement extending diplomatic recognition to a state. To talk of Hamas "recognizing Israel" is simply to use sloppy, confusing, and deceptive shorthand for the real demand being made of the Palestinians.
"Recognizing Israel's existence" appears on first impression to involve a relatively straightforward acknowledgment of a fact of life. Yet there are serious practical problems with this language. What Israel, within what borders, is involved? Is it the 55 percent of historical Palestine recommended for a Jewish state by the UN General Assembly in 1947? The 78 percent of historical Palestine occupied by the Zionist movement in 1948 and now viewed by most of the world as "Israel" or "Israel proper"? The 100 percent of historical Palestine occupied by Israel since June 1967 and shown as "Israel" (without any "Green Line") on maps in Israeli schoolbooks?
Israel has never defined its own borders, since doing so would necessarily place limits on them. Still, if this were all that was being demanded of Hamas, it might be possible for the ruling political party to acknowledge, as a fact of life, that a state of Israel exists today within some specified borders. Indeed, Hamas leadership has effectively done so in recent weeks.
"Recognizing Israel's right to exist," the actual demand being made of Hamas and Palestinians, is in an entirely different league. This formulation does not address diplomatic formalities or a simple acceptance of present realities. It calls for a moral judgment.
There is an enormous difference between "recognizing Israel's existence" and "recognizing Israel's right to exist." From a Palestinian perspective, the difference is in the same league as the difference between asking a Jew to acknowledge that the Holocaust happened and asking him to concede that the Holocaust was morally justified. For Palestinians to acknowledge the occurrence of the Nakba – the expulsion of the great majority of Palestinians from their homeland between 1947 and 1949 – is one thing. For them to publicly concede that it was "right" for the Nakba to have happened would be something else entirely. For the Jewish and Palestinian peoples, the Holocaust and the Nakba, respectively, represent catastrophes and injustices on an unimaginable scale that can neither be forgotten nor forgiven.
To demand that Palestinians recognize "Israel's right to exist" is to demand that a people who have been treated as subhumans unworthy of basic human rights publicly proclaim that they are subhumans. It would imply Palestinians' acceptance that they deserve what has been done and continues to be done to them. Even 19th-century US governments did not require the surviving native Americans to publicly proclaim the "rightness" of their ethnic cleansing by European colonists as a condition precedent to even discussing what sort of land reservation they might receive. Nor did native Americans have to live under economic blockade and threat of starvation until they shed whatever pride they had left and conceded the point.
Some believe that Yasser Arafat did concede the point in order to buy his ticket out of the wilderness of demonization and earn the right to be lectured directly by the Americans. But in fact, in his famous 1988 statement in Stockholm, he accepted "Israel's right to exist in peace and security." This language, significantly, addresses the conditions of existence of a state which, as a matter of fact, exists. It does not address the existential question of the "rightness" of the dispossession and dispersal of the Palestinian people from their homeland to make way for another people coming from abroad.
The original conception of the phrase "Israel's right to exist" and of its use as an excuse for not talking with any Palestinian leaders who still stood up for the rights of their people are attributed to former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. It is highly likely that those countries that still employ this phrase do so in full awareness of what it entails, morally and psychologically, for the Palestinian people.
However, many people of goodwill and decent values may well be taken in by the surface simplicity of the words, "Israel's right to exist," and believe that they constitute a reasonable demand. And if the "right to exist" is reasonable, then refusing to accept it must represent perversity, rather than Palestinians' deeply felt need to cling to their self-respect and dignity as full-fledged human beings. That this need is deeply felt is evidenced by polls showing that the percentage of the Palestinian population that approves of Hamas's refusal to bow to this demand substantially exceeds the percentage that voted for Hamas in January 2006.
Those who recognize the critical importance of Israeli-Palestinian peace and truly seek a decent future for both peoples must recognize that the demand that Hamas recognize "Israel's right to exist" is unreasonable, immoral, and impossible to meet. Then, they must insist that this roadblock to peace be removed, the economic siege of the Palestinian territories be lifted, and the pursuit of peace with some measure of justice be resumed with the urgency it deserves.
• John V. Whitbeck, an international lawyer, is the author of, "The World According to Whitbeck." He has advised Palestinian officials in negotiations with Israel.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Meeting with Hamas
On the evening of March 10th a small group from our delegation met with a representative from the Hamas government. She was soft spoken, polite, very articulate and intelligent. These are the notes I took at that meeting. Broken up and mostly her words.What It Means to Talk to Hamas
By Ben White
March 30, 2009
Sao Paulo, Brazil - March 2009 may come to be seen as a critical month in the ending of the international community's isolation of Hamas. Finally engaging Hamas would spell the end of hypocritical Western policy and bring the peace process in line with the realities of the Middle East.
First, a group of high-level US foreign policy officials, past and present, went public with their recommendation that the Obama administration talk to Hamas. Coincidentally, European politicians who visited Hamas officials in Syria about the same time echoed that view.
Typically, meetings between European lawmakers and Hamas leaders are conducted discretely, if not entirely in secret. Now, the trips have begun to be publicized: In March there were trips by a cross-party group of British and Irish members of parliaments, as well as their counterparts from Greece and Italy.
There was also an open letter to President Obama, published on March 10, and signed by more than 120 experts and academics. The letter urged a change of US policy in the Middle East. Significantly, the signatories advocated an end to the US "fear of Islamist parties coming to power," and also urged prioritizing human rights over supporting the region's autocrats.
Originally, the rationale behind isolating Hamas (a social and political movement condemned by many in the West as a terrorist group) was to weaken the organization and force a change in policy vis-a-vis the armed struggle and Israel, while simultaneously supporting the Ramallah-based leadership of Mahmoud Abbas. The international boycott emerged in parallel with the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip that began post-Palestinian parliamentary elections in early 2006. The aim: Punish the civilian population into rethinking their choice, and make a Hamas government untenable.
But the attempt to sideline Hamas has not worked. Hamas is no weaker for the cold-shoulder from diplomats, and, in fact, has been able to use the siege to deflect criticism of its policies in the Gaza Strip. The West Bank "moderates" dominated by Fatah have little to show for their negotiations with Israel; rather, the colonization of the occupied territories continues.
Consequently, the anti-Hamas united front is starting to crack. European politicians have been independently visiting Hamas leaders in Syria, and urging a rethink in the position of the so called Quartet of the US, the UN, the EU, and Russia. The appeals to Obama represent this shift in approach, reflective of both how the current policy has failed, and how engaging Hamas will be beneficial.
Ending the isolation of Hamas would strike a blow to hypocritical foreign policy – a small but important step toward changing the way the US and international community relate to Middle East politics. After Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman's success at the polls, Quartet envoy Tony Blair said that "We've got to work with whoever the Israeli people elect"– a courtesy not yet offered to the Palestinians.
Israel's propagandists have tried to use Hamas's increased power in recent years to their benefit by placing the movement at the centre of the debate, presenting the group as an extremist, Iran-sponsored existential threat to the Jewish state. Yet Hamas has only been around for 20 years; Israel conquered the occupied territories in 1967, while Palestinians were originally expelled from their homes more than 60 years ago.
Thus to engage Hamas is to acknowledge that the movement is not integral to the conflict, but neither is it peripheral nor ignorable. It has grown into a powerful social and political force, with a tendency toward prioritizing the pragmatism of political power. The oft-cited Charter – rightly condemned as anti-Semitic, but penned in 1988 by one person – has become increasingly insignificant; the discourse of ceasefires, truces, and national liberation typically trumps inflexible religious doctrine.
But engaging Hamas is fundamentally about accepting (perhaps uncomfortable) facts. Hamas was democratically elected and continues to enjoy considerable support from Gazans. It's important to ask not just why it got such substantial backing in 2006, but why it continues to despite the ongoing Israeli siege and the devastation wreaked in the December war, as well as the cases of human rights abuses by Hamas personnel.
The lesson is that the Palestinian people saw through the flaws of the international community's approach to the conflict long before a few voices in foreign capitals started raising questions about the wisdom of isolating Hamas. In the Middle East, the international community's self-defined moderate/extremist division is but a transparent charade.
The peace process game, the vacuous endorsements of a two-state solution as Israel absorbs the occupied territories, the lack of will to hold Israel to account – this is the fuel for Hamas support, and no amount of "isolation" can change the profound unpopularity of current US and Quartet policies among Palestinians.
Ending the boycott would not be an endorsement of Hamas, but an end to the obtuse – and damaging – refusal to recognize reality.
Ben White is a freelance writer, specializing in the Middle East. His articles appear in a wide variety of publications and his forthcoming book, "Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide" will be published later this year.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Join us in Cuba this July!
Application forms are now available for the 20th IFCO/Pastors for Peace US-Cuba Friendshipment Caravan this July.
Join us when a caravan vehicle passes through your community, or join us in McAllen Texas on July 18th
Join us in taking tools, construction supplies and other humanitarian aid to assist the Cuban people as they rebuild after the three devastating hurricanes that hit Cuba in the fall of 2008.
Join us in breaking the US blockade as we take the aid and ourselves to Cuba without a US government license.
Be with us for 9 days in Cuba in solidarity with the Cuban people as they celebrate the 50th anniversary of their revolution, and as we learn about the problems caused by the blockade and how they have creatively responded, as well as how they are rebuilding after the hurricanes.
Skilled construction workers can opt to spend a week of this time working alongside Cubans on a hurricane reconstruction brigade.
Hip Hop and related artists are invited to come with us on caravan routes to help get our message across via their artistic medium. In Cuba there will be opportunities to meet, record and perform with Cuban artists.
To get an application form and more information - email cucaravan@igc.org or fill in the form on our website http://www.pastorsforpeace.org/ or call our office 212-926-5757
Caravan Dates
July 3-18 Caravan routes through US and Canadian cities
July 18-21 Orientation period – McAllen, TX
July 22-23 Border Crossing into Mexico and travel to Tampico
July 24-Aug 1 Fly to Cuba for Cuba program
Aug 2 Fly to Tampico and travel back to border
Aug 3 Reverse challenge crossing into Texas
IFCO/PASTORS FOR PEACE
418 West 145th Street, 3-FL.
New York NY 10031
tel: 212.926.5757 - fax 212.926.5842 - e-mail ifco@igc.org
Gaza War Crimes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7W06iJ8q3c
While I was in Gaza we visited this neighborhood, or what was a neighborhood. It was almost completely flattened. We could see the greenness of Israel on the horizon. We could also see the tracks of the tanks and the route they took as they approached the homes. There was a tent camp nearby. There were also several people and children hanging out around the piles of concrete as if they had no where else to go.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
I need you my son
Driving from Beit Sahour to Birzeit yesterday, I was listening to a program on radio Falastin titled "Wala Budda LilQayd An Yankasir". The term is a verse from a poem that roughly translates that "the chain is destined to be broken". The program is a lifeline for the nearly 13,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails to hear from their families outside the prison walls. Since visitation rights are routinely denied or highly restricted, family members call in and have three minutes to say something on air. For those prisoners who have access to radio, it is a way to hear and connect with their loved ones. I listened for nearly one hour to impassioned messages and harrowing stories. All the voices I heard were of women. One woman started her message by saluting women prisoners on International women's day and specifically mentioned one leading prisoner, a friend of hers whom she shared a prison room with the year before. She went on to encourage all prisoners to be steadfast. Then she directed her message to her husband, still in prison. Saying encouraging words "I know you are strong and you can withstand what they do you" "I believe in your spirit yearning for freedom and justice" etc. She states that she is sorry that she is unable to visit this time because the authorities told her that it was a Jewish Holiday of some sort so visits are stopped for this week. Another woman started with questions that will get no answers perhaps until the next personal encounter: "How is your health?" "How is your spirit?" "How are they treating you?" "Are you eating well?". She then put her five-year-old child on the phone who said "I miss you daddy," and "don't worry, my mom puts on her seat belt and drives slowly." Another women tells her husband to not worry about the family, they are all doing fine and to just take care of himself then passes the phone to her mother-in-law who tells her son something along these lines: "How are you my son Mahmoud? Inshallah [God Willing] your health is good. Inshallah your spirit is good. Inshallah you will be returned to us safe and sound. Your father's funeral went well. Everyone in town came. He died 15 minutes before I arrived back home… [here she breaks down crying and the announcer gently encourages her and says "Allah yirhamu" "Allah Yi3azzeekum" etc and then she continues].. He died 15 minutes before I arrived home from visiting you. Everyone was there everyone took care of him. I pray to God every day to bring you back to me. I had you and your father. I need you my son. I miss you my son…."
That call made me cry and I turned the radio off for a few minutes as I gathered my thoughts. But I turned it back on to hear a few more. They are young women, old women, and a daughter of 10 who spoke with more poise and articulation than most adults and recited a poem that she had written.
On the way back from my university course I am a bit more relaxed and enjoying the beautiful green countryside between Ramallah and Birzeit. The Palestinian villages unobtrusively on the sides of hills with green fields stretching before them (a friend said to me it reminded him of the Irish countryside at this time of year). I try not to think of the settlements on top of the hills and the slow cancerous growth of these. But I notice I am running on close to empty tank of gas and I need to find a gas station. All the gas stations along the main roads in the West bank are Israeli (Colonial settlements dot the landscape and Palestinians have been herded into concentration camps called areas A and B while most of the West Bank is area C being Judaized). I enter the first Gas station in front of the colony of Ofra and while the lights are on, no one is there. Iconsider what conversation might have ensued with an attendant at such a gas station. I move on and try the gas station near next colony (Shaar Binyamin) but when I entered the gas station and found it also closed, it dawns on me that it is Saturday and that is why they are closed. Then two fears ran through my mind that caused me to sweat: What if I run out of gas near a settlement on a Jewish religious holiday whn those settlers think we should not be driving? And even worse, what if the soldiers in the towers or security people at the gates of these settlements see this Palestinian car making a turn in an empty gas station? With known hair-trigger fingers they could simply shoot and ask questions later (as they do before). I immediately detour through an Israeli checkpoint into an area A and barely get to (sputtering) a Palestinian gas station. Then I arrive home exhausted and a bit disturbed. But it was good to get home to my family and two Jewish friends (Allison and Michael) who were visiting us. After a late dinner, we meet up with more friends; internationals attending a talk on boycotts, divestments, and sanctions at the Alternative Information Center.
Today Sunday, we are uplifted by the garden, seeing the new flowers of the lemon trees while harvesting the remaining batch of lemons of the last growth, the small new fig leaves emerging, the beginning of the almonds, the vegetables that are starting to take off (beans, spinach, sunflower seedlings). If the weather predictions are correct, we have one more large rain fall this week and this would make this winter an average one (as opposed to really dry winters the last two years). So farmers (and small home gardeners like us) are encouraged. I only wish we could travel to Jerusalem today/sunday (Palestinians like us are barred) to join the demonstration at 2 PM in front of the UNRWA school in Silwan in appreciation of women's day and to show solidarity with the people of East Jerusalem (including Silwan) whose homes are being demolished in the continuing program of ethnic cleansing and changing the character of the ancient city. That school is also the school in which some students were injured when the floor caved in because Israel is digging tunnels underneath the remaining Palestinian areas in Jerusalem. But there are other events in the Bethlehem area.
In good news, the Viva Palastina convoy (120 cars and vans etc from Europe) is near Al-Arish and we hope it will be allowed into Gaza. In other good news, Mauritania closed the Israeli (apartheid) Embassy and hundreds of protesters battled authorities using tear gas in Sweden at the Davis Cup tennis competition where Israeli athletes were scheduled to participate. Today marked the end of the 5th Israeli apartheid week held this year in over 40 cities around the world and I am sure next year it will be held in 100+ cities. The scenes everywhere around the world are becoming reminiscent of 1980s era of struggle against South African apartheid.
Muslim friends around the world celebrate Mawlad AnNabi (the birthday of prophet Muhammad, PBUH). May it come to us next year with us closer to peace and justice in Palestine and around the world.
Video of life in Palestine (2 parts)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m7eaTFWyAs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWKa29g25yYhttp://www.thelancet.com/series/health-in-the-occupied-palestinian-territory
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
A Bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home
Monday, April 6, 2009
Israeli Navy abducts fishermen
Gazan fishermen abducted by Israeli force
ISM Gaza Strip
http://fishingunderfire.blogspot.com/
Since Friday 13th March 2009, 16 fishermen from the Gaza Strip have been abducted by the Israeli Navy.
12 were abducted while fishing off the coast of Beit Lahia;
Zaki Mostafa Tarowsh, 44; Ismaeen Zaki Tarowsh, 16; Thaher Mahmoud Zayad, 45; and Nedal Thaher Zayad, 23 were abducted on Friday 13/02/2009.
Kamel Deeb Alankah, 57; and Yoness Deeb Zayal, 36 were abducted on Wednesday 18/03/2009.
Ramzy Mostafah Alsultan,36; Anes Mohammed Alsultan, 20; Ashraf Hossan Alsultan, 34; Mohammed Hossan Alsultan, 23; Mahmoud Mohammed Zayad, 23; and Fahme Salah Abu Reash, 18 were all abducted on Thursday 19/03/2009.
4 were abducted on Wednesday 25th March while fishing near Rafah;
Mohammed Abulah An Najjar, 26; Khalil abdullah an najjar, 20 ;Yousif Abdullah An Najjar, 18 ; and Ali Hasan an Najjar,18.
The fishermen were forced at gunpoint to strip naked and swim from their boats to the Israeli warships. After being taken to Ashdod they were all released within 24 hours. The Israeli Navy have however impounded all of their boats - 7 in total.
International law, and various agreements to which Israel is a signatory indeed recognise that the Fishermen from Gaza have a right to fish at least 12 miles from shore at a bare minimum. In practice however a "law of the gun" has been enforced by the Israeli Navy, and this right has been denied to them.
According to numerous reports from the international media the Israeli Navy were enforcing a no fishing zone 6 miles from shore prior to the wholesale attacks on the population of the Gaza Strip. It has been commonly reported that in the wake of these attacks, this limit has been reduced to 3 miles.
The fishermen abducted from Beit Lahia however say that this is not the whole story, and that for them, the limit has been reduced to a mere 200m. Were this not bad enough, all of them were actually within this limit when they were abducted. Several of them say that whilst in captivity, when they told Israeli investigators where they had been abducted from, the investigators expressed surprise and told them "… but that is not a forbidden area."
It is unclear what the Israeli military regard as the official "forbidden" area. There are no official channels of communication open between the Israeli Navy and the fishermen from Gaza. All the information regarding this that the fishermen have is delivered at gunpoint, and is inconsistent with the actions of the gunboat crews. Experience informs the fishermen that at any moment any portion of Gaza's territorial waters can be deemed "prohibited" by the gunboat crews, no matter how close to shore, and irrespective of what the gunboat commanders have previously decreed (the status of these decrees as both arbitrary and illegal in the context of international law should also be noted).
This uncertainty is further compounded by what the fishermen say are unusually high levels of aggression by the gunboats. On the 17th March 2009 a gunboat crew shot Deeb Alankah, in the arm and the back. He was less than 200m from shore near Beit Lahia, and says that no warning was given to him nor demand made before he was shot. Other fishermen confirm that typically when the Israeli gun boats begin shooting at them, they now do so without warning.
Deeb's father Kamel Deeb Alankah was one of the fishermen abducted on the day after his son was shot. He says of his interrogation;
"A colonel in the intelligence said "We shot Deeb by mistake."
I told him "why did you shoot at us, on the sands and the small boats, you killed us."
He said all of this was done by mistakes, I said "no its not by mistake, when the shots hit a boat 3 meters long? Is that by mistake?""
Israel is refusing to return the 7 fishing boats - the sole means of income for fishermen already greatly impoverished by the siege on the Gaza Strip.
This is a great blog to follow.
See the video below of Israeli gun boats shooting water at the little fishing boats.
Israeli shooting palestinian fishermen boats
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTUYivihoTE
What is really crazy is that these videos and stories found online have so many different dates. I think it is what is happening now but I look at the date and it happened 2 years or 5 years 0r 10 years ago. AND it is still happening now.
The Palestinians have been living with this for years and years and years. How could I get out of bed in the mourning knowing I was going to have to struggle. Struggle to get to work, struggle to feed my family, struggle for my children to become educated, struggle not to loose it and say or do something to an Israeli guard or policeman that would get me or my family shot.
Struggle to get out of bed at all, struggle to stay optimistic and hopeful, struggle to not teach my children to hate and want to kill. Struggle to just smile.
Gaza economy piece airs on DN
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/6/land_of_ruins_a_special_report
Anjali Kamat
Producer, Democracy Now!
anjali@democracynow.org
+1 212 431 9090 Ext. 835
WILPF delegation to Gaza
This is an email sent to me from a WILPF member that was with us on the last delagation to Gaza calling for an international WILPF delagation to the Gaza boarder at the same time as the next CodePink trip. Let me know if you are interested.
Date: April 4, 2009 11:47:44 AM PDT
Please share widely.
Dear all,The plan for the next Gaza action organized under Code Pink Women for Peace leadership, is that there will be several smaller delegations converging at Rafah.Dates: May 28 - June 3. All delegations will meet in Cairo May 27 - latest May 28 and be ready to depart early for Rafah on May 29.Return to Cairo June 4.There is also a delegation being organized to enter at the Israel/Gaza entry point but plans are not as far along.There is no guarantee that any or all delegations will be allowed into Gaza. So delegations are preparing to camp at the site (sleeping bags, tents, etc).CodePink is organizing the Gaza portion of the trip WITH input from all the delegations and with the assistances of UNRWA.We could have a WILPF delegation with members from several countries perhaps organized in the US -OR, we can encourage WILPF members to join other delegations already being put together, now organizing, and have purchased tickets and made reservations at the necessary hotels in Cairo and El Arish or possibly Gaza if home stays are not preferred (Delegations aredy under way: CodePink returnees, student delegation, Canada delegation, New York, etc).I think it is important to act quickly so that plans can get on the way for a WILPF delegation with members from several countries. A delegation size of 8 - 15 would be ideal. All would have to realize that the trip is not easy or comfortable, is costly, and that there is no guarantee of entry into Gaza. However, this is a very important political action.We could also consider two WILPF delegations: one entering from the Israeli entrance, the other from Rafah.Naturally, we will want to be engaged with our members in Gaza and Israel.WILPF delegates who cannot fund themselves will have to fund-raise.I WANT TO POST THIS TO THE INTERNATIONAL OFFICERS, US SECTION BOARD AND WILPF NEWS.IF WILPF M.E. COMMITTEES AND THE INTERNATIONAL BOARD OR US BOARD DO NOT RESPOND, MEMBERS WILL JOIN OTHER MINI-DELEGATIONS ANYWAY BECAUSE THE LEVEL OF INTEREST IS VERY HIGH. SO SOME WILL BE WITH STUDENTS, SOME IN CANADA, SOME IN NY, ETC. THAT MAY BE ANOTHER PLAN.Regina Birchem
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Israel on Trial
April 4, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor
Israel on Trial
By GEORGE BISHARAT
San Francisco
CHILLING testimony by Israeli soldiers substantiates charges that Israel's Gaza Strip assault entailed grave violations of international law. The emergence of a predominantly right-wing, nationalist government in Israel suggests that there may be more violations to come. Hamas's indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians also constituted war crimes, but do not excuse Israel's transgressions. While Israel disputes some of the soldiers' accounts, the evidence suggests that Israel committed the following six offenses:
• Violating its duty to protect the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. Despite Israel's 2005 "disengagement" from Gaza, the territory remains occupied. Israel unleashed military firepower against a people it is legally bound to protect.
• Imposing collective punishment in the form of a blockade, in violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. In June 2007, after Hamas took power in the Gaza Strip, Israel imposed suffocating restrictions on trade and movement. The blockade — an act of war in customary international law — has helped plunge families into poverty, children into malnutrition, and patients denied access to medical treatment into their graves. People in Gaza thus faced Israel's winter onslaught in particularly weakened conditions.
• Deliberately attacking civilian targets. The laws of war permit attacking a civilian object only when it is making an effective contribution to military action and a definite military advantage is gained by its destruction. Yet an Israeli general, Dan Harel, said, "We are hitting not only terrorists and launchers, but also the whole Hamas government and all its wings." An Israeli military spokeswoman, Maj. Avital Leibovich, avowed that "anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target."
Israeli fire destroyed or damaged mosques, hospitals, factories, schools, a key sewage plant, institutions like the parliament, the main ministries, the central prison and police stations, and thousands of houses.
• Willfully killing civilians without military justification. When civilian institutions are struck, civilians — persons who are not members of the armed forces of a warring party, and are not taking direct part in hostilities — are killed.
International law authorizes killings of civilians if the objective of the attack is military, and the means are proportional to the advantage gained. Yet proportionality is irrelevant if the targets of attack were not military to begin with. Gaza government employees — traffic policemen, court clerks, secretaries and others — are not combatants merely because Israel considers Hamas, the governing party, a terrorist organization. Many countries do not regard violence against foreign military occupation as terrorism.
Of 1,434 Palestinians killed in the Gaza invasion, 960 were civilians, including 121 women and 288 children, according to a United Nations special rapporteur, Richard Falk. Israeli military lawyers instructed army commanders that Palestinians who remained in a targeted building after having been warned to leave were "voluntary human shields," and thus combatants. Israeli gunners "knocked on roofs" — that is, fired first at corners of buildings, before hitting more vulnerable points — to "warn" Palestinian residents to flee.
With nearly all exits from the densely populated Gaza Strip blocked by Israel, and chaos reigning within it, this was a particularly cruel flaunting of international law. Willful killings of civilians that are not required by military necessity are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and are considered war crimes under the Nuremberg principles.
• Deliberately employing disproportionate force. Last year, Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, head of Israel's northern command, speaking on possible future conflicts with neighbors, stated, "We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction." Such a frank admission of illegal intent can constitute evidence in a criminal prosecution.
• Illegal use of weapons, including white phosphorus. Israel was finally forced to admit, after initial denials, that it employed white phosphorous in the Gaza Strip, though Israel defended its use as legal. White phosphorous may be legally used as an obscurant, not as a weapon, as it burns deeply and is extremely difficult to extinguish.
Israeli political and military personnel who planned, ordered or executed these possible offenses should face criminal prosecution. The appointment of Richard Goldstone, the former war crimes prosecutor from South Africa, to head a fact-finding team into possible war crimes by both parties to the Gaza conflict is an important step in the right direction. The stature of international law is diminished when a nation violates it with impunity.
George Bisharat is a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/opinion/04bisharat.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bisharat&st=cse
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Next codepink trip to Gaza
Dear Friends,
In March, a 60-person CODEPINK delegation traveled to Gaza to pay tribute on International Women's Day to the sorely neglected mothers, daughters, sisters and wives who are struggling to hold their families together. We witnessed the terrible destruction from the 22-day Israeli invasion; met with inspiring human rights, health and women's organizations; and delivered 1,000 gift baskets to women who told stories of profound personal loss.
The people of Gaza greeted us with love and appreciation, and asked us to return with more delegations. We listened, and our next "expedition" will be from May 28-June 5. We will travel, via Egypt, at the invitation of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and our focus will be on the children of Gaza. Children make up more than half of Gaza's population, and this next generation – who will help decide the future of the region – is struggling with extraordinarily high rates of malnutrition, homelessness and depression.
Of course, there is always the possibility that the Egyptian government won't let us cross the border—in fact, many individuals and delegations have been denied entry. In that case, we plan to set up an encampment near the border to call attention to the need to open the borders and end the siege of Gaza.
See more details below. For more information or to sign up, contact gaza.codepink@gmail.com or call 415-558-5700. Space is limited, so contact us asap. We also are planning a Jewish delegation to enter Gaza through the Israeli crossing, and are facilitating the entry and participation of groups from other organizations in the following weeks.
So, spread the word. We hope you will join us!
Sincerely,
Tighe Barry, Medea Benjamin, Gael Murphy, Pam Rasmussen, Ann Wright
The CODEPINK Gaza Team
Building a Better Future for the Children of Gaza
Delegation from May 28-June 5
Itinerary:
Meet in Cairo, Egypt, on May 28
Travel to Gaza on May 29
Meetings and programs in Gaza May 30-June 3
Return to Cairo on June 4
International delegates return home on June 5
Cost: $600 from Cairo, including transportation, lodging in Gaza, translation, program, some meals and contributions to local groups. Not included: hotel in Cairo, visas, border fees.
Program: Meetings with UN program staff, humanitarian and development agencies, teachers, students, health workers and political analysts. Visits to areas devastated by Israeli attacks. Participation in building of a children's playground/painting a mural.
Purpose of the trip: Provide support to children and children's organizations in Gaza; exert pressure on United States, Egyptian and Israeli governments to lift the blockade and promote peace, reconstruction and human rights in the region.
Organizers: The trip is organized by the U.S.-based peace group CODEPINK. Sponsoring groups include National Congress of Black Women, Global Exchange, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, American Muslim Voice and Women's Intercultural Network.
Call me with any questions or if you are interested in joining the delagation!!
Friday, April 3, 2009
International Women's Day
We just left Gaa Al Qureen Developement Center in Khan Younis.
It was a very moving experience. The women were all so open to talking and sharing their lives. They were personable and warm and so interested in these strangers. Very interested in pleasing us and making us feel welcome.
Our group of 62 had been divided into 3 groups on 3 separate buses and then each of those groups was divided into groups of 3 people each.
My group went to a rural center that has been ran by a man and his wife for about the last 15 years.
Our program included discussion groups, Dabka, poetry, energizing games, group games, skits, crafts, and bread making. These were divided up into sessions. For reasons I could not figure out we would be in the discussion group, then all of a sudden someone would come to the door, it seemed to me, frantic and we would go off to another activity and then after awhile return to the discussion group. This happened 3 or 4 times.
In my discussion group there were probably about 25 women. We all set on the floor. They offered me a chair, (and tea)but everyone else was on the floor without tea. Everyone was dressed in black and had there heads covered. Only one woman was completely covered and she even stopped her participation in our group and prayed during the time we were in the room. Every one else just went about their business and paid her no mind. Many of the women were very eager to share the details of their limited and oppressed lives. . One older woman said she was very unhappy to not know how to read. She said she had traveled somewhere once and could not know where she was or what to do because she could not read the signs.
A vivacious, cute, precocious women told the moving story of how she had been force to quite school, which she loved and was very good at and get married when she was 14. She was unable to have children for several years and because of this she lost her status in the family. She did have 2 children later and said that now at the age of 24, with the help of the development center, she is finally happy.
The center is a huge part of these women's lives living out in the middle of a very rural area. Many of them had no contact with the world outside their village until the center opened.
That same 24 year old asked me later if I was just there to look and then I will go back home and they will again be forgotten.
My insufficient answer to what I could do about this huge injustice being done to this group of imprisoned people was " I will not forget you. I have come to visit and to listen to you and I will go back home and talk about you and tell everyone what I saw until they are tired of listening to me and still I will continue to tell them of what I can attest to is happening in Gaza because I saw it with my own eyes"
The resilience of these women and all of the people I met in Gaza was truly amazing and inspiring. Their joy when they welcomed us and shared what little they had with us. Their gratitude to us that we would even think to visit and care about them.
The center also included a sports center with exercises machines, a computer lab with a special program to learn how to drive, a craft center and a library.
The women took us upstairs to a room filled with the craft items they had made. They served us chocolates from a basket and had candles lit around on the floor. One girl got too close to one of the candles and her long dress caught on fire. She was very calm, bent over and smashed it out with her hand and waved off my sympathies with a "Oh don't worry." There was a hole the size of a quater and I wondered how she would afford to but another dress or if she would have to wear this burned one for a long time to come.
We went up on the roof right before lunch. Several women were baking bread on a small hand made mud stove. I was told they had used these for baking bread many years ago and have to return to using them since the siege. They seemed to think it a rather funny joke that they were hurting the siege because of their cleverness in knowing how to make and use these primitive stoves and called it their "siege buster".
At lunch we had skewers of barbecued beef and chicken with a few vegetables. Also yogurt, bread (of course) and bottles of soda. At lunch another woman told us her story of having lived in Jordan . Her husband and daughter were killed in a fire at heir home. She moved back to Gaza to bee near the rest of her family. She said she lives in fear every day because her 2 remaining children can be taken away from her any time by her brother in law because she no longer has a husband. She has a gentleman right now who is interested in marrying her but she can not because her children will be taken from her for sure if she remarries. Even though, she states, she is a very good mother and loves her children dearly and her brother in law does not care for them at all. Never sees them or even talks to them. She also stated she can not just move away because her family is all here and she needs them.
We were entertained by a skit with all the parts played by women. I did not understand it all but the just of it was about a young girl being forced to get married at the age of about 14. She begged her mom and aunt to not make her quit school and get married but they could not go against her father's wishes. When the father came in the room all the children ran away in fear.
My favorite part of the visit was the music and dancing. What seemed like reserved, quiet women became quit the opposite while dancing and singing. The 24 year old who told her story earlier was singing and dancing like crazy. She could also do that belly dancer yoddle with her tongue which she did often and loudly.
Then on Monday, March 23, 2009 this article appeared in the paper:
Israell Opens Fire on Gaza
Gaza Strip, 23 March, 2009-(The PT) The Isreali army launched several air attacks on the Gaza Strip. KhanYounis City, mid of the occupied Gaza Strip, faced heavy Israeli bombings from the naval forces in the western part.
I may have only known those women for a day but I feel they are my friends and I care about them and what happens to them. I wonder if any of them were hurt in those attacks. I wonder if they were afraid. I wonder if they had their children next to them or if they had to worry and wonder if their babies were hurt or if they were even alive. I wonder if they still have homes to go to. I wonder if they are living in tents. I wonder if they still have a center to help them cope with the injustices and struggles of their everyday lives. I wonder if they can still laugh and dance and sing.
I will try to think only of the dancing. The laughing. The singing.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
An Amazing Family
When I'm asked what my favorite part of Gaza was I do not hesitate to say The People. We met so many warm, giving people. It was amazing. People who have so little and yet were willing to give us, people from a country that at the least is not doing anything to help them, and at the worst is participating in their oppression. But they look at us as humans and as friends.The family I stayed with during my stay in Gaza is at the top of my list. I have been wanting to write about them since I left Gaza. It was because of them, (they showed up unexpectedly to see us off on the bus) that I had tears in my eyes as we drove away.
Samah, Hussan, and baby Myse. And their mothers and aunts, and brothers and sisters.
They were so unbelievably welcoming and giving. The first night Samah and Hussan picked us up and we went by taxi to pick up Myse at Samah's moms. Her mom and aunt sat and talked to us in broken English. They gave us cold drinks and offered us pizza for dinner. They were all smiles. We were the most important people in the world.
We heard the story of how Samah's sister, who's beautiful picture was displayed on a side table had died just 4 months before from an illness and of their father, who had been dead for 4 years. We sat on the sofa under a broken out, taped up window and Samah explained how the window had been blown out during the last bombing attack. She said the whole family spent the days and nights in fear, holding hands and huddled together in that living room hoping they would not be hit directly.
Every morning we were fed a wonderful breakfast of tea, bread, eggs, jams and hummus while we watched Myse chew quietly on a pickle slice and smile from her baby swing. They wanted us to sleep in their bed, in their room, while they slept in the spare room on the floor!! That is were we drew the line.
Then either Samah or Hussam would take us by cab to whichever location we were scheduled to visit that day. And never would they let us pay. We planned to pay up and give them a little something before we left but they refused that also. They considered us friends.
A few days after we left while we were still traveling I received an email from Samah. She wrote "I hope you spend an interesting time, and I like to tell you that we miss you so much, every day in the morning and when we come back from work, we are very sad because you leave us, my mother, sister, brothers, husband and Myse send their greetings to you and they tell you come back please. For joking I want to tell you I put our picture together on my computer desktop and Myse always looks at you and laughing. She remember you and she love you."
Samah, and all our friends in Gaza, we miss you too. We love you and and admire you, your openness, your ability to survive and persevere against all odds. We admire your ability to keep being gracious, loving, giving human beings while being imprisoned in your own country.
I dedicate this to you and I hope to see you soon.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Adios
When I decided to write this blog I told myself I would write every day.
No matter what. I did not realize what a commitment this would be. And now that President Obama has said he will end all military aid to Isreal and open the borders what is the point.
So after only a few posts this will be my last. See you at the beach.
April Fools
