Friday, February 25, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
VERA MACHT: VISITING NASSER
Gilad Atzmon 
But even under these circumstances, and even in this weather you cannot help but noticing how beautiful this area must have been, and actually still is, in spite of everything. While almost every other place in Gaza is loud and overcrowded, here's open land and soothing silence. There are a few olive trees that have survived the uncountable tank invasions, and a few new minor ones planted bravely. In between there’s the lush green grass from the winter rain. At least where it wasn’t again plowed up by Israeli bulldozers. And just as we talk about how peaceful this place actually is, we become suddenly aware of this calm being deceptive. On the other side of the barbed wire border, a jeep of the Israeli military appears. He stops as he sees us. My two colleagues and I exchange anxious glances, and without a word we open our hair and begin to inconspicuously walk in front of our Palestinian translator. What kind of a world is that in which blonde hair is a lifesaver.
The jeep drives on, we breathe a sigh of relief. I cannot even imagine how it is to know one’s children are in this danger every day.
We had made two appointments for Nasser with UNRWA. The first time he was sent away after a long journey, without anyone talking to him, the second time he was only told that an employee of UNRWA would visit him. The worker however didn’t even reach the house - the coordination with the Israeli side failed.
Nasser takes us on his roof and shows us the latest bullet holes. At the places where the wall is made of concrete, you see the bullets stuck in the concrete, at softer parts of the wall they went all the way through. The walls facing the border look like Swiss cheese, and you can everywhere see the little nails of the Flechette bombs sticking out.
For despite everything, Nasser has a good day today. His children will soon get the urgently needed therapy, and with the first money that has reached us and therefore him, he has ran electricity to his tent. That in a place like this it is more important for frightened children to have light in the night, when shots are fired, than a few blankets more, that we didn’t even think of. We cannot even imagine what it is like to grow up as a child in such an environment. Every evening, the family goes into the tent when it gets dark.
But still it is light, and we sit in his house, drinking tea, and Nasser tells us how the staff of Save the Children had asked his eldest son what he wants to become when he has grown up. "What am I supposed to grow up for," responded Alaa, 10 years old. "My mother is not here. I just want to see my mother again”. But then Nasser stops talking, he jumps up again, his children are outside. He runs to the door, like every time he hears something suspicious, maybe a bang, who knows if it really was just the wind, or maybe one of his children has called him.
The wind gets stronger, it blows through the leaky house, we shiver in our jackets. And ask Nasser, who is back, whether it would help if we stayed a few nights in the area. "No, no," he replies softly. "It's too dangerous for you. The soldiers sometimes come until our house. When they see you, they would arrest you."
So we go back up the narrow dirt road that runs past his tent, it's getting dark, and also Nasser and his children cannot stay in the house much longer. The tents are flapping in the wind, you can see the two thin mattresses on the floor. On the wooden wall of the hastily set up outhouse next to the tent hangs a brand new white light bulb.
Vera Macht lives and works in Gaza since April 2010. She is a peace activist and reports about people´s daily struggle in Gaza
A letter from German activist Gabi Weber:
Dear friends and readers,
Overwhelmed by the incredible wave of helpfulness, which many of you have been showing in this first week of our fundraising project, Vera could already take the first small steps to help Nasser’s family after destiny dealt them such a heavy blow.
In the meantime Nasser could get electricity for a light bulb which can burn during the night and thus giving some kind of security to his heavily traumatised kids.
Furthermore Vera and her friends succeeded in getting some psychological help for the family. For details please read Vera’s own report enclosed.
Vera’s second article unfortunately witnesses further dramatic happenings in Gaza’s buffer zone.
Once again I would like to appeal to you all tonight, just to make a small donation (or a big one if you want and can…). 5 ¤ in Gaza is a lot of money, which already can make a big difference. We are trying to collect as much money as possible in order to have the basis to build just a small house which is a little bit further off the border. The old house, which you can see on the enclosed picture, is around 350 m away from the border. Nasser’s wife Naema was killed directly in front of the door, while she tried to rescue the baby.
Please join in and help us, and please share this fundraising appeal as widely as you can!
I would like to thank you with all of my heart, on behalf of Nasser and his kids, Vera and her friends in Gaza.
All my best wishes and greetings from Freiburg
Gabi Weber
Peres: Google and Facebook will bring Mideast peace
Unlike other Israeli leaders who have voiced apprehension over the unrest in the Middle East, Peres describes revolutions that toppled the Egyptian and Tunisian regimes as 'opportunities for peace.'
By News Agencies and Ora CorenPresident Shimon Peres called on the West to push leading software and internet companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook to help Middle Eastern countries reform, and said the recent events in the region were an opportunity for peace.
Peres was speaking before the Spanish Parliament yesterday, the first day of a four-day trip to Spain.
As opposed to many other Israeli leaders, who have voiced apprehension over the unrest in the Middle East, Peres described the revolutions that toppled the Egyptian and Tunisian regimes as “opportunities for peace.”
“We believe the biggest guarantee of peace is having democratic neighbors.
We are happy to witness this democratic revolution taking place in the Arab world,” said Peres, observing, “Now is the time to resume the talks with the Palestinians.”
Analysts discussing how the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings could affect Palestinian politics have said they could inspire people to try to topple the Fatah-led government in the West Bank.
Earlier this month, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for general parliamentary and presidential elections in the Palestinian Authority no later than September. Hamas has said it will boycott the polls.
In his wide-ranging remarks, Peres said Israel aspired to a lasting peace with its neighbors, including Syria and Lebanon.
“I turn to Syria and ask that it not become hostage to Iran. Iran is not seeking peace,” Peres said. He accused Iran of “creating terrorist cells in other nations, in the Middle East and even in Latin America.”
Regarding the role of internet and software giants, Peres said that these companies have more available cash than many states, which are going through a financial crisis, and are therefore in a better position to assist.
“These companies have the means and they can help,” he said. “Aid is currently directed mainly at sick people in poorer countries. It’s better to cure the state and let it treat its own ills.”
Joining Peres in Spain is a delegation of Israeli businessmen.
Large international companies need to be called on to join the mission, he said.
“They can set up modern economic networks based on information and technology nearly anywhere in the world,” he said. “They can establish high-tech outlets and provide jobs for the young and unemployed, and provide hope for an entire people.”
http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/peres-google-and-facebook-will-bring-mideast-peace-1.345108?trailingPath=2.169%2C2.225%2C2.226%2CTuesday, February 22, 2011
Egypt Reopens Gaza Border Crossing
New Junta to Allow 300 Gazans a Day to Leave
The new military junta in Egypt has officially reopened the Rafah border crossing to the Gaza Strip, allowing Palestinians lined up at the border to enter Sinai Peninsula. The terminal authority says they will allow 300 people per day to cross the border.
But now, the border will be opened permanently going forward, with officials saying that it will soon be open 24 hours a day. So far it is only operating during the day. The government says it has received requests from over 3,000 Gazans already to cross.
The early use of the crossing will likely be to give Gazans access to modern medical facilities, but in the long run may also lead to a healthy amount of trade across the border. It may also provide a more promising route for humanitarian aid than by sea, where Israeli ships regularly capture aid boats, or through the often closed Israeli crossings.
http://news.antiwar.com/2011/02/22/egypt-reopens-gaza-border-crossing/With settlement resolution veto, Obama has joined Likud
An America that understands that the settlements are the obstacle should have joined in condemning them.
By Gideon Levy
February 20, 2011 "Haaretz" - - This weekend, a new member enrolled in Likud - and not just in the ruling party, but in its most hawkish wing. Located somewhere between Tzipi Hotovely and Danny Danon, U.S. President Barack Obama bypassed Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan on the right and weakened their position.
The first veto cast by the United States during Obama's term, a veto he promised in vain not to use as his predecessors did, was a veto against the chance and promise of change, a veto against hope. This is a veto that is not friendly to Israel; it supports the settlers and the Israeli right, and them alone.
The excuses of the American ambassador to the UN won't help, and neither will the words of thanks from the Prime Minister's Office: This is a step that is nothing less than hostile to Israel. America, which Israel depends on more than ever, said yes to settlements. That is the one and only meaning of its decision, and in so doing, it supported the enterprise most damaging to Israel.
Moreover, it did so at a time when winds of change are blowing in the Middle East. A promise of change was heard from America, but instead, it continued with its automatic responses and its blind support of Israel's settlement building. This is not an America that will be able to change its standing among the peoples of the region. And Israel, an international pariah, once again found itself supported only by America.
This should have disturbed every Israeli. Is that what we are? Alone and condemned? And all for the continuation of that worthless enterprise? Is it really worth the price? To hell with the UN and the whole world is against us?
We can't wrap ourselves in this hollow iron dome forever. We must open our eyes and understand that if no country, aside from weakening America, supports this caprice of ours, then something fundamental is wrong here.
Israel, which is condemned by the entire world but continues merrily on its way, is a country that is losing its connection to reality. It is also a country that will ultimately find itself left entirely to its fate. That is why America's decision harmed Israel's interests: It continued to blind and stupefy Israel into thinking it can go on this way forever.
A friendly U.S., concerned for Israel's fate, should have said no. An America that understands that the settlements are the obstacle should have joined in condemning them. A superpower that wants to make peace, at a time when Arab peoples are rising up against their regimes and against the U.S. and Israel, should have understood that it must change the old, bad rules of the game of blanket support for the ally addicted to its settlements.
A friendly America should have mobilized to wean Israel of its addiction Only it can do so, and it should have started, belatedly, at the Security Council on Friday.
But promises of change and of real concern for Israel are one thing, and diplomatic behavior is another: another automatic veto, as if nothing has changed. Obama or George W. Bush, there's no difference. When Ambassador Susan Rice said that the draft resolution risked hardening the positions of both sides and could encourage the parties to refrain from negotiations, she misled. She knows that what prevents negotiations and hardens positions is continued building in the settlements.
And when the Israeli Foreign Ministry said it is "peculiar that the Security Council should choose to consider one single aspect" of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations "while ignoring the wider scope of events in our region," it, too, misled. Do the Foreign Ministry's spokesmen really believe there is a serious party that would agree to Israel creating irreversible facts on the ground without let or hindrance?
And to call this "one single aspect?" Perhaps it is only one, but it is certainly the most destructive. And thus it is the one the world sought to condemn - and rightly so.
Moreover, this veto was not cast during ordinary days. These are days of boiling lava in the region. If there were a responsible government in Israel, it would have stopped settlement building long ago - not only to deflect fire from Israel, but to promote an agreement that has never been more vital for it.
If the U.S. had been a responsible superpower, it would have voted for the resolution on Friday to rouse Israel from its dangerous sleep. Instead, we got a hostile veto from Washington, shouts of joy from Jerusalem and a party that will end very badly for both.
WHAT McCARTHYISM AND ZIONISM TRIED TO SILENCE ON CAMPUS
Monday, February 21, 2011
Israeli Army Targeting Children in Beit Ummar
The Israeli army has been arresting children in the village of Nabi Saleh for the past two months as a means of applying pressure on the village to end its popular unarmed resistance against the occupation. On Saturday 19 February, Israeli army officials adopted a similar strategy against the southern West Bank village of Beit Ummar. The village has been holding weekly unarmed demonstrations against the occupation and the confiscation of their land by illegal Jewish settlements such as Karmaei Tzur.
Demonstration in Beit Ummar. Photo: PSP
The weekly demonstration on Saturday attracted supporter from other villages including Nabi Saleh, Susya, Tuwani and Wad Rahel as well as Israeli and international demonstrators. The demonstration remained nonviolent despite the excessive use of tear gas and sound bombs by Israeli soldiers. After one hour, the demonstration was finished with no arrests or injuries.
According to the Palestine Solidarity Project, one of the organizing groups of the demonstrations, a special forces unit of the Israeli army entered the village at 15h00 following the demonstration. Soldiers took over the house of one resident of the village, a common practice throughout the West Bank, and then began an attack. According to the press release issued by the PSP, “Other soldiers, accompanied by special units, invaded a park full of children between the ages of 12 and 15 years. The Israeli Forces attacked and shot rubber bullets and sound bombs at the children so they could not run away, and then proceeded to arrest 13 of them. Several army vehicles came into the area for support, attacking houses and cars to frighten people so they could not come to the children’s defense. The army shot tear gas and sound bombs toward women who attempted to rescue the youth, and then beat a group of women, including Mona Abu Maria. The army arrested 13 children, all of whom are under the age of 18, and took them out of the village. Their families do not yet know where they are being held”
The method of using children to crush unarmed protest movements has been proven successful in villages like Ni’ilin where the demonstrations against the Separation Wall have been rendered meaningless. Now, the main target of this form of repression is the village of Nabi Saleh. No Nabi Saleh popular committee leaders has been arrested as of the time of this writing but activists connected to the demonstrations worry that it is only a matter of time. On Tuesday 22 February, 14 year old Islam Tamimi will begin his trial in an Israeli military court. His testimony, possibly obtained by torture methods such as sleep deprivation, exposure to the elements and beating, could be used to frame the leaders of the popular committee. Israel has perfected a method to destroy legitimate unarmed resistance in the West Bank leaving the possibility of a new armed resistance movement which would spell disaster for both sides.
Palestinians protest at 'despicable' Obama UN veto
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories — Around 3,000 Palestinians gathered in the West Bank on Sunday to protest against the US veto that nixed a Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements.
The crowd massed in Ramallah's Manara Square, a central roundabout in the West Bank city, waving banners and shouting slogans against the American administration.
"Obama, you despicable man, we want self-determination!" shouted protesters, many of them members of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party, of the US president.
Fatah central committee member Mahmud al-Alul told the crowd: "This decision is against the Palestinian people and its freedom, and it supports Israeli injustice, oppression and occupation.
"We tell (President Barack) Obama that we are a people that doesn't bow to anyone," he said, before demonstrators interrupted with cries of "get out Obama, get out you settler."
In Jenin, Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad accused the United States of blackmail amid Palestinian allegations that Washington threatened to curtail aid if the settlements resolution was not withdrawn.
"We didn't and will not accept blackmail and neither will our people," Fayyad said. "We are not interested in aid from any party that threatens to cut it for political reasons.
"The US approach must change because these double standards cannot continue and this situation is unacceptable."
Fatah called for the protest after the United States used the first veto of Obama's administration to prevent a resolution that would have condemned continued Israeli settlement building.
The resolution, drafted by the Palestinian leadership in an attempt to pressure Israel to halt settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, was supported by all 14 other members of the Security Council.
The United States said its veto should not be interpreted as support for Israeli settlement construction, but that it did not believe the United Nations was the best place to resolve the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But in Ramallah, the veto drew fury and disappointment.
"No to negotiations with Israeli settlements and American arrogance," one banner held by demonstrators read.
Tawfiq Terawi, another Fatah central committee member, said the demonstration sent two important messages.
"First, when all the Arab people are demonstrating against their leaders, the Palestinian people comes today to support its brave leadership's decision," he said.
Second, it exposes America's "false claim that it is the country of freedom, as it officially announces its support for the occupation and settlements and the oppression and injustice against our people."
The United States secured the relaunch of direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians in September 2010, after a hiatus of nearly two years.
But the negotiations ground to a halt just weeks later, with the expiry of an Israeli moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank.
The Palestinians insist they will not negotiate while Israel builds on land they want for a future state.
Palestinian officials have said they will launch a new bid for UN condemnation of Israeli settlement building, bringing a resolution before the General Assembly.
The Veto and the Case for Impeaching President Obama
February 21, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- Never before has an American President’s fear of offending the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress been so exposed as it was by Obama’s decision to veto the Security Council resolution condemning continued, illegal Israeli settlement activities on the occupied West Bank and demanding that Israel “immediately and completely cease” all such activities. In a different America – an informed America – some might think, I do, that Obama should be impeached. The charge? TREASON.
After she had exercised the Obama administration’s first veto, the plea made by U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice for understanding of America’s position could not have been more absurd. “Our opposition to the resolution before this Council today should not be misunderstood to mean that we support settlement activity. On the contrary, we reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity.”
So why the veto? Ambassador Rice said:
“The United States has been deeply committed to pursuing a comprehensive and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, In that context, we have been focused on taking steps that advance the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security, rather than complicating it. That includes a commitment to work in good faith with all parties to underscore our opposition to continued settlements.”
What nonsense! If the Obama administration really wanted to underscore its stated opposition to Israel’s on-going colonization of the occupied West Bank including Arab East Jerusalem, there was no better or more effective way of doing so than voting for the resolution or abstaining. In either case the resolution would have passed and that would have opened the door to real global pressure on Israel if it continued to defy international law.
As for advancing the goal of a two-state solution, the Obama administration has done the opposite. By allowing Israel to continue its illegal settlement activities and consolidate its occupation, it, the Obama administration, has helped to guarantee that there can never be a viable Palestinian state living side by side with an Israel inside its borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 war.
In the context of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, the only thing to which the Obama administration has been deeply committed is not provoking the wrath of the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress and the mainstream media. For all practical purposes Obama has surrendered policy making on Israel-Palestine to this lobby. (The veto marked the complete surrender).
The essence of the problem this presents can be simply stated. The Zionist lobby’s agenda – unquestioning support for Israel right or wrong – is not in America’s own best interests. (In reality it is not in anybody’s best interests including those of Israeli Jews and the Jews of the world).
As I pointed out on I February in my post Crunch time coming for America in the Middle East?, what all Arab peoples want is not only an end to corruption and repression and a better life in their own countries. They also want an end to the humiliation caused by Israel’s arrogance of power and American support for it.
It is clear that the manifestations of Arab people power the world is witnessing were not instigated by Islamist extremist groups and are spontaneous protests with demands by citizens from all sections of civil society. So at the present time that is no evidence to suggest that change brought about by people power in Arab states will create more cover, more scope and more popular support for extremist and violent forces which use and abuse Islam in much the same way as Zionists use and abuse Judaism. But this could change, in my view will change, if America goes on supporting Israel right or wrong. In other words, the more the administration in Washington D.C. is perceived by the Arab street as being complicit in the Zionist state’s defiance of international law and crimes, the more American interests and citizens are likely to be targeted and hit.
The American Constitution states that a president can be impeached and removed from office for “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanours.”
In my view a president who allows a lobby group to put the interests of a foreign power above those of the country of which they are citizens, and who by doing so puts his fellow citizens more in harm’s way than they otherwise would be, is guilty of treason. (And all the more so when the American-Jewish lobby in question does not speak for more than about a third, and possibly only a quarter, of America’s mainly silent and deeply troubled Jews)
Footnote:
The admirable and courageous Gideon Levy, the conscience of Israeli journalism, has a brilliant article (which I have tweeted) in today’s Ha’aretz with the headline With settlement veto resolution, Obama has joined Likud.
And this is how Gideon concluded his piece:
“If the U.S. had been a responsible superpower, it would have voted for the resolution on Friday to rouse Israel from its dangerous sleep. Instead, we got a hostile veto from Washington, shouts of joy from Jerusalem and a party that will end very badly for both.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27537.htm