A Moderate View from the Middle East

Pink Floyd - Song for Palestine

2011-09-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

Enough is enough

2011-09-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

There is no place like home & for those who have never known a home or felt they belonged anywhere then yes, this is our hour and we have paid dearly for it. Enough already. We have *all* had enough.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVwPW9zCUYo&feature=colike

2011-09-27T01:47:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD65oBsTJsM&feature=player_embedded

2011-09-27T00:57:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lixYEZ9M_dU

NO! to Injustice, in any form by anyone, anywhere.

2011-02-12T10:44:00.000-08:00

Silent no longer!

2011-02-12T10:42:00.001-08:00

Sakteen Sakteen By Amir EID

Arab Emancipation

2011-02-12T08:25:00.000-08:00

Gleaming pride
No fear to hide

Heads held high
Reaching the sky

Hear them roar
From shore to shore

The Egyptians have spoken
All chains forever broken

Who could have thought
Such an end to the drought

Freedom & Liberation
The birth of a Nation

A role model for all
That dictators must fall

The true emancipation
Of a proud Arab Nation

The Re-Birth of Arab Pride

2011-02-12T08:21:00.001-08:00

Sheer elation. Indescribable admiration. A sense of pride. But most of all, awe.

They pulled it off. And how!

If you ever doubt that you can make a difference, take a leaf out of Egypt's latest papyrus. They have irrevocably changed the course of history in the Middle East!

For the past 18 days we watched, cheered & cried in desperation & frustration as the fortitude & resilience of the protesters was challenged time & time again.

The culmination of their sheer determination & national pride was inspirational.

That people of all walks of life could be so united & connected helped renew our faith not only in humanity but in our very ethnicity.

Long reputed to be Om il-Donya (Mother of the World), Egypt delivered. They have reunited Arabs with their essence and more importantly reminded us that human dignity & freedom are basic rights that we are all entitled to.

People power in the age of social media is no longer a myth. We can make a difference. Small ripples lead to huge changes.

"Yes we can" has been usurped by "Yes we did!" . Egyptian's have walked the talk and set a role model not just for Arabs but for people everywhere.

Clearly the road to Egypt's liberation from 30 years of regime abuse & corruption will take time but when 80 million people share the same vision & aspirations, they can move pyramids, literally.

Freedom Calls!

2011-02-12T07:51:00.000-08:00

Sout Al Horeya صوت الحريه
Amir Eid - Hany Adel - Hawary On Guitar & Sherif On Keyboard

Bill Maher interviews Muna Al-Tahawy

2011-02-12T07:47:00.000-08:00

She displays the exact same spirit that set them free!

Revelation 2/8

2010-01-21T14:37:00.001-08:00

Revelations 1/8

2010-01-21T14:36:00.001-08:00

HaPpY 2010 :)

2009-12-31T03:30:00.001-08:00

This occupation has got to go

2009-12-26T01:11:00.001-08:00

"America must take back the Government without Foreign Interference" ~ Traficant

2009-09-21T07:35:00.000-07:00

"It's a Trick, We Always Use It." (calling people "anti-Semitic")

2009-09-19T15:14:00.000-07:00

Israeli soldiers fire on Al Jazeera Correspondent

2009-09-05T18:21:00.000-07:00

sraeli soldiers have fired tear gas on Palestinians protesting against the Israeli separation barrier which cuts through their West Bank village.

The soldiers also fired tear gas at Jacky Rowland, Al Jazeera's correspondent who was covering the event live from near the village of Bilin.

Justice for Palestine

2009-09-05T18:14:00.000-07:00

An idea whose time has come....in fact...which is very much overdue. Palestine. It is time.

Gaza children shatter world record

2009-09-02T05:48:00.000-07:00

It was an unlikely place to shatter a world record, but the beaches of the Gaza Strip were the venue for thousands of Palestinian children who flew the largest number of kites simultaneously from the same place.

The record that once stood at 713 has been broken, thanks to the efforts of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and about 6,000 kite-flying children.

The event is part of the Summer Games programme run by UNRWA - an activities and curricular programme set up for students during their break from the academic school year.

More than half of Gaza's 1.5 million people are under the age of 18 - so there is no shortage of potential record-breakers.

Popular programme

Although only 200,000 are actually enrolled in UN-operated schools, there are nearly 240,000 children who participate in the Summer Games, proving that the UNRWA programme has been a popular activity during the summer break.

Thousands of teachers give up their summer holidays to partake in the programme each year that is aimed at fostering a positive summer experience for Gaza's children.
But unlike elsewhere in the world, the children and the people of Gaza are now entering their third year under an Israeli-imposed siege and blockade, and are still reeling from the devastating war just seven months ago.

While the summer programme helps students who have fallen behind during the school year to catch up academically, the kite-flying event was a genuine world record attempt.

Clear guidelines

The Guinness Book of World Records was invited to verify the attempt, but due to a security advisory by the UK government warning against any travel to the Gaza Strip, they instead sent event organisers very clear guidelines in order for the record to be considered.

More than 119 schools were allotted open areas along the beach for their students.

Independent observers organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross supervised each school’s area. Every child’s name was registered.

The kites had to remain in the air for 30 seconds all simultaneously - and when it came time for the record - the media, fans, and above all the children were not disappointed.

UNRWA officials say they are confident the record has been broken with some estimates putting the number of kites flown to around 4,000.

Message to the world

International media, including Al Jazeera English, witnessed the record-breaking event.

The world record event, however, was not just about records, say organisers.

Gaza's children have been suffering from three years of Israeli siege

They say it sends an important message to the world.

"There is a glorious symbolism about thousands of children in the world's most locked down community heading to the beach with beautiful kites they have created themselves and showing the world that they are able to have fun like kids anywhere and indeed, be number one in the world," Chris Gunness, the UNRWA spokesperson, said.

"Thousands of kites, soaring skyward with kids gazing upward allowing their thoughts to rise up from the grind they confront on the ground: it is a symbol of the quest for happiness, freedom and human fulfilment," he added.

The event's organisers say they have succeeded in inspiring the children of Gaza to gaze into the skies above, whether the Guinness record is shattered or not.

So as Gaza’s blue skies turned into an array of coloured paper kites, the sounds of children laughing and paper flapping served as reminder to the youth of Gaza that they, too, can be among the world's best despite the odds.

Gaza's kids flying high!

2009-09-01T05:53:00.000-07:00

It is truly about time to come across a feel-good story emanating from the war-torn poverty stricken occupied territories:

Thousands of Palestinian children have gathered in the Gaza Strip in an attempt to break the world record on the number of kites flown at the same time, in the same place.

Thursday's event was part of a UN initiative organised to restore hope and normality to the war-torn territory.

Palestinians out, Jews in

2009-08-03T07:21:00.000-07:00

Shiekh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. Interviews with homeowner who has lost his house yesterday in East Jerusalem contested neighborhoods as well as interviews with Jewish settlers.

Palestine Pre-1947

2009-07-25T03:37:00.000-07:00

Slide show on You Tube of Palestinian urban life from 1800 to 1947. This clip allows people to see the beauty of the Palestinian people.

When you reach 1939 this is the photo of Sameera Buderiri on her engagement day.

The old lie that Palestine was a dry desert waiting for a people is just that - a lie.

Music by Joaquin Rodrigo, lyrics Helmut Lotti, sung by Lotti.

It is impossible not to be moved by the evocative images of Palestinian society in happier times when people lived and loved in freedom.

Can you forget? I cannot.

2009-07-11T03:26:00.000-07:00

Persistance - The Palestinian Way!

2009-06-18T08:40:00.000-07:00

My Gran - may God rest her soul - had this painting above her fireplace. Persistance. The title says it all. Title: Persistance Material: Oil on canvas , 50 X 70 cm Year: 1963 Mr. A.M. Kattan collection , Beirutt

Carlos Latuff on Palestine: Resistance & Culture

2009-05-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

Carlos - you are an amazing talent and a true gentleman. Bless you for creating messages that resounded with millions around the world.

It is the ultimate truth that a picture is worth a a thousand words and none have ever been more eloquent than yours.

I wrote to you last year & you generously allowed me to use your cartoons: http://www.ireport.com/people/RulaZ?numResults=10&view=documents .

Together we have so far reached over 14,000 people. A small drop in the ocean but that is still >13k more enlightened people aware of the injustices of the illegal occupation.

You are an inspiration - keep up the great work!

'Go back and die in Gaza'

2009-05-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

Since Israel's closure of the Gaza Strip in 2007, only severely sick Palestinians have been allowed to seek medical attention elsewhere provided they receive authorisation and security clearances from the Israeli authorities.

However, getting the special permit that allows patients to leave Gaza for medical treatment is a bureaucratic hassle and, many Gazans say,
comes with strings attached.

According to the Israeli organisation Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Palestinian patients are increasingly being asked to make an impossible choice: Either to become collaborators with the Israeli intelligence apparatus - or to remain in Gaza without medical treatment.

Al Jazeera spoke with Hadas Ziv, the director of PHR.

Al Jazeera: Your organisation has collected dozens of testimonies of patients who were pressured to collaborate with the Israeli General Security Services. How did you find out about this? A Palestinian will not easily admit he or she has been asked to become an informant.

Ziv: True; it is not a subject people talk about easily and it happened gradually. Our organisation tries to support Gazan patients who were prevented by the Israeli authorities from treatment in Israel, or from crossing Israel on their way to hospitals in the West Bank.

Instead of clear rejection or admittance, the Israelis started saying: "permit pending interrogation". The permit became conditional - not so much on individual health conditions, but on the outcome of the interrogation at the Erez Crossing.

Then, many of the patients we were in touch with came back from interrogation and told us they did not get the permit: "They tried to extort me to collaborate and I wasn't willing to give them information, so they sent me back to Gaza."

When more and more people told us the same story, we understood that this was a new policy.

How do you know the testimonies are true?

The testimonies come from very different people, of different ages, different political opinions and from different towns in the Gaza strip. To believe that there is such a high degree of co-ordination among all the patients is pretty far-fetched. But more importantly, it needs a lot of courage to speak to us about this.

Some of the patients have a lot to lose if they talk.

You started collecting testimonies in the summer of 2007. But when do you think this practice started?

Very soon after the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. Since then Israel sees Gaza as an enemy entity, as something that has to be closely monitored and controlled.

And since then, it has become more difficult for the General Security Services (GSS) to gather intelligence from Gaza. They have little direct contact with Palestinians.

The only ones who are still allowed to cross Erez, even if they also have a lot of difficulties, are the patients. They are an easy prey for the GSS. They are very vulnerable - for some, getting out of Gaza can be a question of life and death.

The GSS is using this situation to exert pressure.

Is there a standard procedure for these interrogations?

It varies. The newest development is that you have a specific appointment for interrogation and it's not on the day of your treatment. But there are also cases where people think they have a permit and can go out, but then they are suddenly being taken to interrogation. Sometimes the patient has to wait in a room for several hours, without his family.

Then, they take him to another room for interrogation. They may ask just a couple of questions to find out if you know any Hamas members or they may suggest a deal for long term co-operation: "If you help us, we will help you. You need a treatment, we need information. We will give you a number, you call us once a week and give us information about your neighbours."

If you refuse, they become more blunt: "Okay, go back and die in Gaza."

What happens back in Gaza?

The patients are in a lose-lose situation. If they refuse to co-operate with the Israelis and are sent back, they may die because they can't get appropriate treatment in Gaza.

If they do manage to get the permit, they will be branded as potential collaborators.

Whether you really did it or not is not so important. If people think you collaborated, your life may be at risk. In the end, everyone suspects everyone else. It's like Orwell's 1984.

And this is the objective - humiliation and fragmentation.

Isn't the objective in the first place a more immediate one - simply gathering intelligence?

That's just the surface.

I think the main goal is to break the cohesiveness and solidarity among Palestinians. This way, it's much more difficult for them to unify and to struggle for a common cause.

What already happens between Fatah and Hamas then also happens between neighbours, between families ... and this is good for the one who tries to control you.

But the Israeli government says it wants a partner for negotiations and thus a united Palestinian position.

What troubles me most as an Israeli citizen is that we suffer from a kind of collective psychosis.

We are governed by fear and manipulated by fear. Security is everything.

But what we are being offered is a very narrow definition of security. No one has the courage to say that long-term security is security for everyone, not just for us but also for Palestinians. But we are obstructed from seeing this, because we let fear govern our lives.

We constantly have something to fear. If one fear stops, another comes up. When Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, it was very convenient for the Israeli government to use this. Hamas is being presented to the Israeli public as an entity that you cannot talk to. But 20 years ago, we claimed Fatah could not be talked to. Every time, a situation is being created in which you claim you have no one to talk to.

How are your views received by other Israelis?

When I argue with people they tell me I should be grateful to the people who defend me. That the GSS may be saving my life through these interrogations. They say I'm naive, that I am not patriotic and things like that.

But I think my point of view has the same legitimacy as others.

In Israel, if you mention the word "security", no further arguments are needed. They say patients may come to Israel to organise terror attacks. In this case, Israeli society does not demand further explanation.

The result is that even things that we wouldn't think about doing with convicted criminals, these things are suddenly permissible when it comes to Palestinians. It is as if we had two different sets of values. And this is only possible because we constantly dehumanise the Palestinians. If we would consider them as normal human beings, it would not be possible.

Everything is conditioned according to us. To our needs and our security. I think this is not justifiable. Not just because the victims suffer. Of course, the victims' suffering is unimaginable.

It is beyond what I can express. Imagine you are the mother of a 17-year-old girl who has cancer, needs urgent treatment and is being extorted by the GSS. You, as a mother, are in a different room and you don't know what your daughter is going through. This is unimaginable to me.

But it is also unimaginable to me what future my society has if it continues to act like this. I'm afraid for my society as well. I think we are at a crossroads. We have to choose. If we want to remain human, we cannot continue like this.

In a written statement given to Al Jazeera, the Israeli defence ministry has denied all the allegations made by Ziv.

"These charges are false. The only considerations Israel has are humanitarian and security-related ones," the statement says.

"There is no truth to the contention that other factors are involved. The reason why clarifications are conducted by our security personnel is to ensure that those granted medical entry permits are indeed in need of such permits, and to ensure that those planning on abusing these permits to foment terror in Israel cannot gain entry into Israel."

Source: Al-Jazeera (By Stephanie Doetzer)

The Pope arrives in Jordan

2009-05-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

Dick Cheney had a death squad!

2009-03-30T06:38:00.000-07:00

Dick Cheney was in charge of an assassin ring which killed enemies of the US in Afghanistan and Lebanon, says investigative journalist Wayne Madsen.

The Twouble with Tweeting!

2009-03-23T13:19:00.001-07:00

Biddi Koon SuBerStar!!

2009-03-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

Suheir Hammad on 9/11

2009-03-18T13:44:00.000-07:00

Peace a Myth: Zip-it-Up Livni & Barbaric Bibi rush to woo Loopy Lieberman!

2009-02-11T06:08:00.000-08:00

Gaza 2009: We Will Never Forget

2009-02-01T04:16:00.000-08:00

Montage documenting the genocide commited by Isreal in "Operation Cast Lead".

Conversations with History: Amira Haas

2009-02-01T03:44:00.000-08:00

Host Harry Kreisler welcomes Israeli journalist Amira Hass for a discussion of the Israel occupation, Palestinian terrorism, and the consequences of the conflict for the daily lives of both Israeli...

Noam Chomsky: The United States - Israel's Godfather

2009-01-30T14:13:00.000-08:00

The bloody Israeli sojourn in Gaza

2009-01-30T13:28:00.000-08:00

Controversial American Jewish scholar and specialist on the Middle East, Norman Finkelstein, says Israel committed massive atrocities in Gaza during the three-week war against Hamas militants.

Palestine: Resistance or Terrorism?

2009-01-27T14:39:00.001-08:00

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Text in the picture states:

"Ahmad of Palestine yearns to be Mahatma Gandhi. Dare we say that his yearning is in vain?

Gandhi wanted peace & freedom above all things Ahmad wants exactly the same thing.

The path to peace begins by understanding why Palestinians are not even free to yearn. Ahmad is dying to believe that such a path exists "

(Source: wwww.dyingtolive.com)
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In Gaza, Palestinians have once again been blamed for their own deaths.

The British made a similar argument 151 years ago when they killed thousands of Indian civilians -- 1,200 in a single village -- in response to the largest anti-colonial uprising of the 19th century.

If Israel truly desires peace with the Palestinians and safety for its citizens, it should look back to one of the greatest, and misunderstood, independence movements in history.

Most people believe India won its independence from the British exclusively through Gandhi's famous strategy of nonviolence.

They're wrong; armed resistance has deep roots in India. During the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, also known as the First War of Independence, Hindus and Muslims serving in the infantry for the British East Indian Company revolted against the British Empire, killing British officers and civilians alike.

While the majority of these cavalrymen were Hindu, Muslims also partook in the rebellion. These Muslim fighters called themselves "jihadis" and even "suicide ghazis."

The British quashed the revolt, but for the next 90 years Indian violence, even terrorism, in response continued.

In the early 20th century, Indian militants, frustrated with the Congress party -- the party of Gandhi and Nehru -- regularly resorted to acts of violence to overthrow the British. Official government reports note 210 "revolutionary outrages" and at least 1,000 "terrorists" involved in more than 101 attempted attacks between 1906 and 1917 in the state of Bengal alone (see Peter Heehs, "Terrorism in India During the Freedom Struggle," The Historian, 22 March 1993).

One young revolutionary, Bhagat Singh, later referred to as "Shaheed" Bhagat Singh, bombed the Legislative Assembly in 1929.

On the other hand, Palestinians are usually portrayed in Israel and the West as exclusively militants or terrorists.

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Yet Palestinians have a vibrant, albeit unsuccessful, history of nonviolent resistance.

In 1936, the Palestinians maintained a six-month general strike, the beginning of what became known as the Great Arab Revolt.

The British retaliated by declaring martial law, jailing and killing large numbers of Palestinians, and destroying numerous Palestinian homes. The revolt lasted for three years and was the largest and longest anti-colonial uprising in the British Empire.

Fifty years later, the first Palestinian intifada was largely nonviolent and included acts of mass civil disobedience like flying the Palestinian flag, organizing strikes and boycotting Israeli products.

In 1985, Mubarak Awad, a Palestinian-American psychologist from Jerusalem established a center for nonviolent resistance on the teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. He was deported by Israel in 1988 (see Mubarak Awad, "Non-Violent Resistance: A Strategy for the Occupied Territories." Journal of Palestine Studies. Summer 1984).

A year later, Beit Sahour, a town near Bethlehem, engaged in a tax revolt against Israel, under the famous American slogan "No taxation without representation." The Israeli army responded by arresting over 80 Palestinians, cutting telephone lines, blocking food shipments into the town and confiscating millions of dollars in Palestinian goods.

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What about the current conflict?

All the public hears about are the small, makeshift rockets Palestinians fire into southern Israel. But farmers, fisherman and children had been nonviolently resisting the Israeli occupation for years.

Up until the Israeli invasion, Gaza fishermen had been d*isobeying Israeli orders by fishing in their waters* -- not unlike Gandhi when he urged Indians to march to the sea to collect their own salt against British orders.

In response, the British beat and imprisoned Gandhi's marchers. Likewise, the Israeli navy repeatedly forced Palestinian fisherman to strip to their underwear and swim to Israeli navy ships, where they are detained and their boats confiscated.

Since 2002, Palestinian men, women and children have been sitting in front of Israeli bulldozers flattening their olive groves to construct a wall deep into the West Bank.

The Israeli army has responded to these peaceful protestors with tear gas, beatings, arrests and even death.

The pattern occurred time and again: nonviolent Palestinian resistance would be crushed by Israeli force and ignored by the West.

With nothing to show for their efforts, is it any surprise that the Palestinian peaceful protest movement founders?

Violence has always been a historical response to colonialism and repression, in conflicts from India to Algeria to South Africa.

That doesn't make attacks on civilians right -- or strategically effective, for that matter.

In fact, as we all know, the Indian revolt against the British Empire only finally succeeded when Gandhi convinced his countrymen to resist peacefully.

Extremist factions, like those during the Indian independence movement, only gain strength and popularity when Israel flattens even the most harmless dissent.

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Radhika Sainath is a civil rights attorney and an editor of Peace Under Fire: Israel/Palestine and the International Solidarity Movement. She lived in the West Bank from October 2002-December 2003.

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The questions raised by Radhika in this fascinating comparison are very valid. So let's consider:

(a) Do you think that Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation should continue to be labeled terrorism or freedom fighting?

(b) Do you think that Israel's continued disproportional response will breed more violence?

(c) Do you think that the collective punishment inflicted upon Gaza - (inc. 18 months of seige culminating in the recent war) - is justified when Hamas was their democratically elected choice?

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Hasbara: Facts or Fiction?

2009-01-27T13:05:00.001-08:00

Miri Eisin / Is only the Israeli narrative 'the truth' and all the others wrong? ~ Ha'aretz

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Israel has a national obsession with everything concerning hasbara (a Hebrew word for "explanation" and referring to information, spin, propaganda or a strategic public relations policy).

Every time a warlike event takes place, the Israeli broadcasting networks turn to hasbara experts with the recurring question - what must we do to improve Israel's international image?

They really mean "how can we prove to everyone that we're right, they're wrong and everybody hates us and they're anti-Semites?"

In the 22 days of fighting in the Gaza Strip, as in the 33 days of fighting in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the war was presented in very different ways - informed by three parallel narratives.

The Israeli narrative focuses on us, our war, our suffering, the families and reserve soldiers, the home front and decision making.

The other side is shown only on the margins as part of the spin.

The three Israeli broadcasting networks turn into news channels, zooming in on every local aspect and become part of the national effort during the fighting.

The Western media's narrative concentrates on showing both sides - Israel's dilemma and its right to self defense, but also the Palestinian tragedy, with an emphasis on the proportionalism of Israel's actions.

In both wars of the last few years the gap between the two narratives - Israeli and Western - was very pronounced.

Most Israelis would be profoundly shocked by the way the foreign networks present the wars.

In Israel it was clear that it was a war of self defense and many people can't understand how the world doesn't see that.

But is the narrative presented by the foreign networks false? Isn't there more than one way to present a war?

The narrative shown in the Western media, especially in Europe, is based on a different world of cultural references than Israel's.

It says the era of wars is over, that military force is not the way to solve disputes and that there is a direct link between occupation and violence.

The challenge facing Israeli hasbara is not simple - certainly as long as the Palestinians' tragedy is shown to the world. The Western media scrupulously present the Israeli side, but does not accept its narrative.

The third narrative is the Arab media's, especially since Arab broadcasting networks like Al Jazeera and Al-Arabiya have started operating. They focus on the Palestinians' tragedy (or the Lebanese tragedy of 2006), see the Israel Defense Forces as an occupation army and stress its conduct during the fighting.

The Arab media, unlike the Western, show extensive horror footage of dead bodies and wounded people. Israel is described as an occupying force, belligerent, expanding, lacking moral values, in contrast to the Palestinian, who has nothing.

However even here the Israeli voice is heard. T+he Arab networks are ready to interview Israeli spokespeople and confront them on the air.+ It's not that they accept the Israeli point of view, but their very readiness to hear it is a new approach.

Israelis are exposed mainly to the domestic networks and are shocked to hear how we appear to others. But is only the Israeli narrative "the truth" and all the others wrong?

The challenge facing Israeli hasbara is to understand the cultural world and conceptual approach of other target audiences and talk to them in their language.

Israel's national fortitude would not be impaired if we learned to look at reality in a more complex way. If we know, without renouncing our truth, how to open up to the existence of another narrative.

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Source: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1059104.html

The writer was formerly the prime minister's foreign media adviser.

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Fascinating article. So the question is:

(a) Is only the Israeli narrative "the truth" and all the others wrong?

(b) Do you think that if Israelis were presented with both sides it would reduce the violence in this region?

(c) Would a less biased media - in the West & in Israel - help to bring about a peaceful solution sooner?

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The Audacity of Silence is Complicity

2009-01-27T01:22:00.000-08:00

How can Obama legitimately support ALL of Jerusalem being the capital of Israel?

This is a direct, blatant violation of international law. The legal borders of Israel from June 1967 dictate that West Jerusalem is Israeli, East Jerusalem is Palestinian.

This is another sad example of U.S. foreign policy.

Judaism rejects Zionism

2009-01-26T14:44:00.000-08:00

"We seek the return of all Palestinian refugees to their rightful land.

We seek to live in the land of Palestine as anti Zionist Jews.

To reside as loyal and peaceful Palestinian citizens, in peace and harmony with our Muslim Brethren.

Just as our ancestors lived in Palestine for centuries before the usurpations of this tragic century."

Jews united against Zionism: http://www.nkusa.org/AboutUs/Palestine/support.cfm

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Consider the following:

One of the greatest myths created by the zionist movement is the claim that zionism is a fulfillment of the historical aspiration of every jew to return to Palestine. By the year 250 B.C., Alexandria, Egypt contained the largest number of jews in the world; most had fled from Palestine.

These Palestinian Jews would never return to Jerusalem.

As Judaism spread due to vigorous proselytizing, Jewish communities, which emerged in Yemen, India, China, Italy and France, never considered migrating to Jerusalem or Palestine.

Even during the periods of extreme persecution, such as under the Romans at various times, and under the Spaniards after the demise of Islamic Rule in the Iberian Peninsula, there was never a movement to migrate to Palestine.

The Jews who fled the Spanish Inquisition went to other parts of Europe, to North Africa, and to other regions of the Islamic world.

The central idea of Zionism, an organized worldwide Jewish migration to Palestine, has no precedence in Jewish history.

Zionist occupation of Palestine has no moral, historical or religious basis.

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The question here is:

Do you think that Zionism is racist?

Why do you think religious Rabbis are protesting against Zionism?

Do you think that Zionism breeds violence?

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Background reading: http://www.nkusa.org/AboutUs/Zionism/index.cfm

Background Video: CBS report: Is Peace out of reach? (25/1/2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7XtT91yO6g

Has peace in the Middle East become nothing more than a pipe dream? As Bob Simon reports, a growing number of Israelis and Palestinians feel that a two-state solution is no longer possible.

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Gaza: Too little, Too Late

2009-01-26T08:27:00.000-08:00

by Rula Zein-Iddin
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Like puppets on a string
To the table with nothing to bring

In anger we rise to the bait
Regardless of whether it is too late

Despite such obvious manipulation
We always succumb to the temptation

Such impressive degrees and education
Open minds, closed doors, misinformation

It is hard to look in the mirror
And envision the brutal horror

To stand hands ever tied
Shocked mouths open wide

How dare they do this again we exclaim!
But what do we do beyond the disdain?

Outrageous condemnation ensues
Followed by guilt money to try and subdue

How long will we remain so morally corrupt?
For it to end will we just have to erupt?

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Is Peace out of Reach?

2009-01-26T02:01:00.000-08:00

Watch CBS Videos Online

Has peace in the Middle East become nothing more than a pipe dream? As Bob Simon reports, a growing number of Israelis and Palestinians feel that a two-state solution is no longer possible.

Is CNN really allowing free speech on ireport?

2009-01-26T00:12:00.000-08:00

The ireport I posted on bias in the media was pulled three times.
Below is the discussion I tried to initiate in good faith.

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Quoting: http://inthefield.blogs.cnn.com/tag/paula-hancocks/

"Wars today are fought on the battlefield, or in this case in the crowded streets of Gaza, the rest is won or lost on television screens and through public perception.

The vast majority of Israelis see this as a military success, but approval of Israel's operation around the world - even among its strongest allies - could be undermined by a disturbingly high Palestinian civilian death toll and misery inflicted on a far wider target than Hamas."

Which would be true in Europe but not in the US where the Jewish Lobby ensures that the pictures of the suffering and devastation wrought on an incarcerated population of 1.5m people in the open air prison that is Gaza is kept well hidden. This obstruction of the truth goes against the very essence of journalism and only serves to increase misunderstanding, prejudice and hatred.

So how do you propose that Arabs in general & Palestinians in particular can get a fair hearing in the US media?

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

My Question to you now is:
Have you had your ireport pulled?
If so then how is ireport actually promoting free speech?
Where else can we go to be heard?

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

You can vote here:

Israel: Stop Crying Wolf

2009-01-25T06:49:00.000-08:00

By Rula Zein-Iddin
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-200507

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

It is clear that your oppression
Consistently breeds repression

And such blatant suppression
Only provokes more aggression

This constant brutality
Induces fatality

Why is all this mutilation,
Greeted with jubilation?

Distasteful salivation
At destroying a whole nation

How can you rejoice
Giving racism a voice?

Realize that what you once beseeched
Is about to get you impeached

Tell me, how did all this hate spawn?
Will you forever only act out with brawn?

Knowing that children are being used as a pawn
When will you stop rendering them forlorn?

Will the suffering awaken a conscience asleep?
Your silence speaks volumes, not even a peep

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

Gaza: Death by Amnesia

2009-01-24T10:34:00.000-08:00

by Rula Zein-Iddin

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

As I stare at the headlines in bewilderment
It appears the veiled aims obtained fulfillment

For nowhere in the foreign media transmission
Is Gaza mentioned once, such a blatant omission

For political analysts this is a clear portent
Of a biased administration's avid intent

So who designed Michelle's elegant white dress,
Takes precedence over a whole nation's distress?

With talks of recession & even depression
It is clear that we must repress the oppression

As I continued to watch with mounting rage
What would it take for us to be centre stage?

Let's not wait any longer with baited breath
For a miracle to extract us from this bleak myth

The human psyche and its frail humility
Razed to the ground by rampant brutality

No need for expectations since the writing is on the wall
For Gaza & its children have been failed by one & all

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

Quoting: http://inthefield.blogs.cnn.com/tag/paula-hancocks/

"Wars today are fought on the battlefield, or in this case in the crowded streets of Gaza, the rest is won or lost on television screens and through public perception.

The vast majority of Israelis see this as a military success, but approval of Israel's operation around the world - even among its strongest allies - could be undermined by a disturbingly high Palestinian civilian death toll and misery inflicted on a far wider target than Hamas."

Which would be true in Europe but not in the US where the Jewish Lobby ensures that the pictures of the suffering and devastation wrought on an incarcerated population of 1.5m people in the open air prison that is Gaza is kept well hidden. This obstruction of the truth goes against the very essence of journalism and only serves to increase misunderstanding, prejudice and hatred.

So how do you propose that Arabs in general & Palestinians in particular can get a fair hearing in the US media?

Who am I?

2009-01-24T08:47:00.001-08:00

Today I was asked on http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-199704 who I 'represent'.

Well here is my answer:

Who am I?
I am the voice of every innocent child that was cruelly murdered.
Of every orphaned child who no longer has a mother.
Of every mutilated child whose limbs were amputated by Israeli's DIME weapons.
Of every scarred child still burning from the Phosphorous bombs dropped on them
Of every disturbed child who wakes up petrified because they can still hear the F16's about to bomb them.
Of every wretched child whose spirit has been broken.

I, am your worst nightmare. For I am here to shatter the prejudice, racism & hatred that you perceive is reality.

A Girl (child) from Gaza/Palestine tells her story describing her family's experience under the war

2009-01-23T14:00:00.000-08:00

President Obama, do the right thing! Appointing pro-Israeli hawks isn't change we can believe in.

2009-01-23T13:17:00.000-08:00

One of the greatest myths created by the zionist movement is the claim that zionism is a fulfillment of the historical aspiration of every jew to return to Palestine. By the year 250 B.C., Alexandria, Egypt contained the largest number of jews in the world; most had fled from Palestine.

These Palestinian Jews would never return to Jerusalem. As Judaism spread due to vigorous proselytizing, Jewish communities, which emerged in Yemen, India, China, Italy and France, never considered migrating to Jerusalem or Palestine.

Even during the periods of extreme persecution, such as under the Romans at various times, and under the Spaniards after the demise of Islamic Rule in the Iberian Peninsula, there was never a movement to migrate to Palestine.

The Jews who fled the Spanish Inquisition went to other parts of Europe, to North Africa, and to other regions of the Islamic world.

The central idea of Zionism, an organized worldwide Jewish migration to Palestine, has no precedence in Jewish history.

Zionist occupation of Palestine has no moral, historical or religious basis.

Obama, take away the pain in my stomach

2009-01-23T12:21:00.000-08:00

The I Word: Part Six

2009-01-23T12:09:00.000-08:00

The I Word: Part Five

2009-01-23T12:08:00.000-08:00

The I Word: Part Four

2009-01-23T12:06:00.000-08:00

The I Word: Part Three

2009-01-23T12:02:00.000-08:00

The I Word: Part Two

2009-01-23T11:59:00.000-08:00

Israel's Right to "Self -Defense"

2009-01-22T13:22:00.000-08:00

We are by now familiar with the over-abused "defense" card. It is continually used to explain away the mass murder of civilians and to support the pathetic "we had no choice" argument.

It says that Hamas rhetoric and their ineffectual tin pot rockets are so awful that it's ok to deliberately kill children.

If you want more offensive rhetoric try the "better Zip-it-up" Livni saying "there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza" or anything out of the mouth of aussie Mark Regev from the moment he wakes to the second he sleeps.

Why more offensive? Because Israel not only claims the moral high ground, they also claim sole and uncontested ownership of it!

They assume, quite mistakenly, that they are automatically right because they are automatically the victims.

And it's always self defense against terrorists; even as they scrawl hate graffiti on the wrecked walls of homes & mosques they've destroyed for no other reason than a Palestinian lived or worshiped there.

Except this loathsome theory is the product of twisted minds in Tel Aviv, in Jerusalem, and inside IDF tanks.

Israel's words bear no relation at all to it's deeds, and its constant pontificating on it's own moral superiority is a worthless exercise in emotional self-delusion as the Gaza Genocide has proven.

The injustice of Israel's actions over 61 years just leaps out of the page, only to be slammed shut by a residue of international guilt, perverted international political structures, good old fashioned religious bigotry, and by Israel officially & publicly abandoning the last remnants of it's humanity.

Israeli "Defense" Forces are Mass Murderers of women & children. Your politicians are War Criminals. Plain and simple.

It's there for all to see, in front of your eyes, unless you're Mark Regev and can call every broken child in Gaza a politically motivated liar.

Zionist Quotes

2009-01-22T13:17:00.000-08:00

One more thing on the holier than thou Zionist mannifesto:

"We must expel Arabs and take their places."
David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.

"There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist."
Golda Meir, The Sunday Times, 15 June, 1969.

"[Israel will] create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza Strip and the west Bank to Jordan. To achieve this we have to come to agreement with King Hussein and not with Yasser Arafat."
Yitzhak Rabin (Quoted in David Shipler in the New York Times, 04/04/1983)

If you want more offensive rhetoric try the "better Zip-it-up" Livni saying "there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza" or anything out of the mouth of aussie Mark Regev from the moment he wakes to the second he sleeps.

"The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized .... Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever."
Menachem Begin, the day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine.

"The past leaders of our movement left us a clear message to keep Eretz Israel from the Sea to the River Jordan for future generations, for the mass aliya, and for the Jewish people, all of whom will be gathered into this country."
Yitzhak Shamir November 1990. Jerusalem Domestic Radio Service

"The settlement of the Land of Israel is the essence of Zionism. Without settlement, we will not fulfill Zionism. It's that simple."
Yitzhak Shamir, Maariv, 02/21/1997.

"Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories."
Benyamin Netanyahu, Hotam, November 24, 1989

"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."
Ariel Sharon, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998

"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours...Everything we don't grab will go to them."
Ariel Sharon, Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998.

So you tell me - who is spreading the hatred now?

The "I" Word:Seeking dialogue: Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

2009-01-22T09:42:00.000-08:00

Lowkey @ Gaza demo in London 10 Jan 2009

2009-01-17T22:50:00.000-08:00

UK Jewish MP: Israel acting like Nazis in Gaza

2009-01-17T10:58:00.000-08:00

Israeli TV airs telephone call to Father after 3 of his Daughters were killed

2009-01-17T10:55:00.000-08:00

Chris Hedges condemns Israeli Gaza Massacre

2009-01-16T14:56:00.000-08:00

Israelis Soldiers refuse to serve in Gaza

2009-01-11T12:51:00.000-08:00

Occupation 101

2009-01-09T05:08:00.000-08:00

The Fundamental Rights of Humanity

2009-01-09T02:17:00.000-08:00

by ALBERT SCHWEITZER

The fundamental rights of Humanity are:

First: The right of habitation;
Second : The right to move freely;
Third: The right to the soil and subsoil, and to the use of it;
Fourth: The right of freedom of labor and of exchange;
Fifth: The right to justice;
Sixth: The right to live within a natural national organization; and
Seventh: The right to education.

7 Myths about Gaza

2009-01-08T22:27:00.000-08:00

by Daoud Kuttab - Jordan Times www.jordantimes.com/index.php

It is known that truth is the first casualty in wars. The current war on Gaza is no different. Below is a list of myths perpetuated by Israel and repeated ad nauseam by may in the media.

Myth No. 1: Israel had no alternative.

Ever since starting the air campaign, the Israelis have been stating that they had no choice but to carry out this invasion. The acting Israeli prime minister repeated this myth, saying that Israel had no alternative but to begin the ground war on Gaza Strip.

The truth is that Israel had a clear alternative. The Islamic Hamas movement and the various Palestinian factions in Gaza offered to extend the truce in December if the Israelis agreed to lift the massive blockade and siege on Gaza. Israel would have had an even easier alternative: agree to talk to Hamas and work out a true and lasting ceasefire, but it chose to refuse to legitimise the rulers of Gaza, helped by the so-called global war on terror that Israel’s main ally, the Bush administration, has been carrying on.

Myth No. 2: Hamas rockets were targeting Israeli civilians without provocation.

Every Israeli spokesman repeats this myth. International leaders and media anchors repeatedly ask how could any country tolerate its citizens being attacked without provocation, as was happening to the citizens of south Israel.

The truth is that Palestinians and Israelis have been at war since 1948, when nearly 500 Palestinian villages were erased and its residents became refugees (the refugees constitute more than 50 per cent of the population of Gaza). The UN resolved that the refugees should be allowed to return and the Arab countries have offered a peace agreement that includes a resolution of the refugee problem. Furthermore, Israel occupied Gaza in 1967 and has not (according to international standards) ended its occupation of Gaza. As stated above, Hamas has offered short- and long-term truce to Israel, but the latter rejected these offers.

Myth No. 3: Israel is acting in self-defence.

This myth has been repeated so many times that the naïve rotating head of the European Union initially stated that Israel’s ground invasion is a defensive act (he later recanted). Emerging from a Security Council meeting that failed to stop the Israeli ground attack, the United States’ deputy chief at the UN stated that the UN Charter allows member countries to defend themselves and that “Israel’s right to defend itself is not negotiable”.

The truth is that the Israeli offensive against a population still legally under its occupation is anything but defensive. Countries do have a right to defend themselves, but they do not have the right to occupy and continue to occupy. The same charter that the deputy US official was quoting also states in its preamble: “We the peoples of the United Nations determine to: save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind” and “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small”.

Myth No. 4. Israel is only targeting Hamas fighters not Palestinians.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livini has been repeating that the Israeli army is targeting only what she called Hamas terrorists and that her country has no fight with the Palestinian people.

The truth is that by shelling the densely populated Gaza Strip (1.5 million living in a 350-square-kilometre area) the Israelis hit both Hamas combatants and civilians. One of the best proofs of this is the fact that about one-third of the casualties in the first week alone were children - hardly members of Hamas.
International law is very clear about the responsibility of warring parties to limit deaths of civilians. The Israelis totally destroying a four-storey building in which a Hamas leader and his wives and children living with F16 planes is a clear example of lack of desire to distinguish between civilians and fighters.

Myth No. 5. Israel ended its occupation of Gaza in 2006.

Part of the well-weaved Israeli narrative is that Palestinians are not really interested in land-for-peace because they have continued to attack Israel after the Israelis ended the occupation of the strip in 2006.

Again the truth is different. The UN Security Council Resolution 242, which called the occupation of Gaza “inadmissible”, called on Israel to withdraw from occupied territories, to acknowledge the sovereignty and territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognised boundaries, and affirmed the need to “achieve a just settlement to the [Palestinian] refugee problem”. By all standards, and as agreed by neutral international observers, the occupation of Gaza that started in 1967 continues with all the responsibility that befalls on the Israeli occupying authorities.

Myth No. 6. Hamas is the military arm of Iran.

As part of justifying the attacks on Gaza, Israel and its apologists paint a much larger regional picture, with Hamas and Hizbollah as the military arm of Iran and the Iranian Islamic revolution.

The truth is that whereas as a Shiite movement, Hizbollah might have natural relations with Shiite Iran, Hamas is a Sunni Islamic movement and in general Sunnis look down on Shiites and reject them theologically. True, Hamas leaders have visited Iran, but it is a long shot to say that they are the military arm of Iran.

Myth No. 7 Hamas uses the Palestinian population as human shields.

The difficulties that Israel has had in locating and destroying Hamas leaders has led to this myth. The Israeli PR machine uses quotes made by Hamas leaders that the Palestinian population is not afraid of death as proof that they are using Palestinians as human shields.

The truth is that the international law that forbids the use of human shields is referring to militants who use captured enemy civilians as hostages to prevent an attack. There is no evidence that Hamas is forcing its own population to be where it is. In fact, the irony is that Palestinian civilians have nowhere to go within the Gaza Strip even if they wanted to leave.

Security Council calls for cease-fire in Gaza

2009-01-08T22:25:00.001-08:00

Media bias about the Israeli - Palestine conflict EXPOSED!

2009-01-08T11:42:00.000-08:00

Jon Stewart

2009-01-08T09:11:00.000-08:00

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Strip Maul

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

CNN Confirms Israel Broke Ceasefire First

2009-01-05T03:46:00.000-08:00

Rick Sanchez does the research and finds that Israel violated the terms of the ceasefire first by killing 6 Gazans on November 4. Shouldn't media outlets check the facts before running with a story?

We will not go down

2009-01-01T04:08:00.000-08:00

WE WILL NOT GO DOWN (Song for Gaza)

(Composed by Michael Heart)-Copyright 2009

A blinding flash of white light
Lit up the sky over Gaza tonight
People running for cover
Not knowing whether they’re dead or alive

They came with their tanks and their planes
With ravaging fiery flames
And nothing remains
Just a voice rising up in the smoky haze

We will not go down
In the night, without a fight
You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools
But our spirit will never die
We will not go down
In Gaza tonight

Women and children alike
Murdered and massacred night after night
While the so-called leaders of countries afar
Debated on who’s wrong or right

But their powerless words were in vain
And the bombs fell down like acid rain
But through the tears and the blood and the pain
You can still hear that voice through the smoky haze

We will not go down
In the night, without a fight
You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools
But our spirit will never die
We will not go down
In Gaza tonight

I am to blame...

2008-12-29T13:59:00.000-08:00

“They stole my land, burnt my olive trees, destroyed my house, took my water, imprisoned my father, killed my mother, starved us all, humiliated us all.

But I am to blame : I shot a rocket back.

So they stole more of my land, burnt my olive trees, destroyed my house, took my water, bombed my country…”

Ben Affleck defends Arabs

2008-10-23T00:53:00.000-07:00

Mahmoud Darwish, the voice of Palestine, died on August 9th, aged 67

2008-08-21T22:54:00.000-07:00

Economist, 21 August 2008

Poetry exercises a special power for Arabs. To a people of desert origins, it takes the partial place of icons and cathedrals, stage drama and political oratory. Yet the Arab canon extends far wider, linking the tribal bards of pre-Islamic Arabia to Sufi mystics, bawdy medieval jesters and angst-ridden modernists. Poetry also carries a special meaning for exiles, who must sustain themselves with what they can carry, their lightest but most precious burdens being memory and language.

Exile was certainly personal to Mahmoud Darwish. His first forced flight came in 1948, when he was seven. Fearing the advance of Israeli forces, his family abandoned their ancestral wheatfields in Western Galilee and walked, destitute, to the apple orchards of Lebanon. Sneaking back across the border later, they found their village razed to make way for Jewish settlement. His father became a labourer; his family, having missed a census, were classed as “present-absent aliens”.

But exile was also an experience that Mr Darwish shared with his entire people, the Palestinians. Sixty years after the creation of Israel, more than half of them remain in physical exile from their homeland, while the rest, partitioned into enclaves under various forms of Israeli control, remain exiled from each other and from the wider Arab world. Mr Darwish was their voice and their consciousness.

It was a role that often bothered him. Rightly, he felt it belittled his devotion to the poetic craft and made him over-solemn. He sometimes berated his huge audiences when they clamoured for nationalist odes rather than the subtler, metaphysical verse of his later years. He fretted that some would recall only lines such as “Go! You will not be buried among us,” and forget those praising a Jewish lover or commiserating with an enemy soldier.

Yet it was inescapable that he should be lauded as Palestine’s poet laureate, and not merely because his words were made into popular songs and splashed as headlines to sell newspapers. His own life was entwined with the tragic Palestinian national narrative. When he was barely in his teens, the village schoolmaster tasked him with writing a speech to mark Israel’s independence day. He wrote it as a letter to a Jewish boy, explaining that he could not be happy on this day until he was given the same things that the Jewish boy enjoyed. This earned him a summons before the Israeli military governor, who warned him that such behaviour could get his father’s pass revoked, making him unable to work.

A few years later Mr Darwish took the bus to a poetry festival in Nazareth, the largest Arab town in Israel. He read one long poem, and was asked to recite more. All he had was a crumpled paper on which he had jotted some rough verse inspired by a visit to the Israeli police, to renew his travel pass. The poem included these lines:

Write down!
I am an Arab
You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors
And the land which I cultivated
Along with my children
And you left nothing for us
Except for these rocks…

The result was electric. The crowd demanded three encores, and Mr Darwish’s fame was born. By the mid-1980s, his 20 volumes of verse had sold well over a million copies.

For all that time he had no country of his own. Though a citizen of Israel, he was too often jailed there for his activism, and eventually had his citizenship revoked. He tried living in Moscow, then Cairo, then Beirut, where Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation had been allowed to build a proto-state in exile. When Israel invaded in 1982, Mr Darwish sailed for Tunis and later lived in Paris. Not until 1996, after the Oslo peace agreement made it possible, did he return to Palestine.

But Palestine was a shambles. Arafat’s dictatorial style repulsed him; the drift towards the second intifada of 2000, and the vicious schisms that followed, reduced him to despair. Much of his later verse avoided overtly political themes. After a heart attack in 1998, he wrote:

One day I shall become what I want.
One day I shall become a thought,
Which no sword will carry
To the wasteland, nor no book;
as if it were rain falling on a mountain
split by a burgeoning blade of grass, where neither has power won
nor fugitive justice.
One day I shall become a bird,
And wrest my being from my non-being.
The longer my wings will burn,
The closer I am to the truth,
Risen from the ashes.

Yet he could never fully escape the duty to help his people sustain their sense of destiny. In his last poem, Mr Darwish described Palestinians and Israelis as two men trapped in a hole:

He said: Will you bargain with me now?
I said: For what would you bargain
In this grave?
He said: Over my share and your share of this common grave
I said: Of what use is that?
Time has passed us by,
Our fate is an exception to the rule
Here lie a killer and the killed, asleep in one hole
And it remains for another poet to write the end of the script.

Palestine: Dying to Live

2008-08-16T09:30:00.000-07:00

Israeli Soldiers Refuse To Serve In Palestine: Part 2 (2002)

2008-07-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

Israelis using Palestinian Kids as Human Shields

2007-03-07T10:17:00.000-08:00

This video shows the Israeli army using Palestinian children as human shield forcing these kids to enter homes ahead of the soldiers incase gun fire breaks out. Funny how CNN never shows this type of footage.

Jewish group against Zionism: Israel should not exist.

2006-12-26T23:43:00.000-08:00

Why they Hate Israel

2006-10-03T15:01:00.000-07:00

Refusenik Yonatan Shapira

2006-08-09T12:31:00.000-07:00

Deir Yassin Massacre

2000-07-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

The King David Hotel explosion of July 22, 1946 (Palestine), which resulted in the deaths of 92 Britons, Arabs and Jews, and in the wounding of 58, was not just an act of “Jewish extremists,” but a premeditated massacre conducted by the Irgun in agreement with the highest Jewish political authorities in Palestine-- the Jewish Agency and its head David-Ben-Gurion.

According to Yitshaq Ben-Ami, a Palestinian Jew who spent 30 years in exile after the establishment of Israel investigating the crimes of the “ruthless clique heading the internal Zionist movement,”

The Irgun had conceived a plan for the King David attack early in 1946, but the green light was given only on July first. According to Dr. Sneh, the operation was personally approved by Ben-Gurion, from his self-exile in Europe. Sadeh, the operations officer of the Haganah, and Giddy Paglin, the head of the Irgun operation under Menachem Begin agreed that thirty-five minutes advance notice would give the British time enough to evacuate the wing, without enabling them to disarm the explosion.

The Jewish Agency’s motive was to destroy all evidence the British had gathered proving that the terrorist crime waves in Palestine were not merely the actions of “fringe” groups such as the Irgun and Stern Gang, but were committed in collusion with the Haganah and Palmach groups and under the direction of the highest political body of the Zionist establishment itself, namely the Jewish Agency.

That so many innocent civilian lives were lost in the King David massacre is a normal part of the pattern of the history of Zionist outrages: A criminal act is committed, allegedly by an isolated group, but actually under the direct authorization of the highest Zionist authorities, whether of the Jewish Agency
during the Palestine Mandate or of the Government of Israel thereafter.

The following is a statement made in the House of Commons by then British Prime Minister Clement Attlee:

On July 22, 1946, one of the most dastardly and cowardly crimes in recorded history took place. We refer to the blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

Ninety-two persons lost their lives in that stealthy attack, 45 were injured, among whom there were many high officials, junior officers and office personnel, both men and women. The King David Hotel was used as an office housing the Secretariat of the Palestine Government and British Army Headquarters.

The attack was made on 22 July at about 12 o’clock noon when offices are usually in full swing. The attackers, disguised as milkmen, carried the explosives in milk containers, placed them in the basement of the Hotel and ran away.

The Chief Secretary for the Government of Palestine, Sir John Shaw, declared in a broadcast: “As head of the Secretariat, the majority of the dead and wounded were my own staff, many of whom I have known personally for eleven years. They are more than official colleagues. British, Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Armenians; senior officers, police, my orderly, my chauffeur, messengers, guards, men and women - young and old - they were my friends.

“No man could wish to be served by a more industrious, loyal and honest group of ordinary decent people. Their only crime was their devoted, unselfish and impartial service to Palestine and its people. For this they have been rewarded by cold-blooded mass murder.”

Although members of the Irgun Z’vai Leumi took responsibility for this crime, yet they also made it public later that they obtained the consent and approval of the Haganah Command, and it follows, that of the Jewish Agency.

The King David Hotel massacre shocked the conscience of the civilizedworld. On July 23, Anthony Eden, leader of the British opposition Conservative
Party, posed a question in the House of Commons to Prime Minister Atlee of the Labor Party, asking “the Prime Minister whether he has any statement to make on the bomb outrage at the British Headquarters in Jerusalem.”

The Prime Minister responded:
“…It appears that, after exploding a small bomb in the street, presumably as a diversionary measure-- this did virtually no damage-- a lorry drove up to the tradesmen’s entrance of the King David Hotel and the occupants, after holding up the staff at pistol point, entered the kitchen premises carrying a number of milk cans. At some stage of the proceedings, they shot and seriously wounded a British soldier who attempted to interfere with them. All available information so far is to the effect that they were Jews. Somewhere in the basement of the hotel they planted bombs which went off shortly afterwards. They appear to have made good their escape.

“Every effort is being made to identify and arrest the perpetrators of this outrage. The work of rescue in the debris, which was immediately organized, still continues. The next-of-kin of casualties are being notified by telegram as soon as accurate information is available. The House will wish to express their profound sympathy with the relatives of the killed and with those injured in this dastardly outrage.”