Washington and Israel Threaten Humanity

By Stephen Lendman 

So does NATO. It's America's imperial tool. An alliance for war, not peace, enemies were invented post-Soviet Russia.

 

Communism then was the alleged threat. Today it's terrorism. Strategically intervening under US control, world peace and humanity are threatened.

NATO wages America's wars. Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asian ones involve Israel. Both countries threaten world peace.

Israel wants unchallenged regional power. Washington wants it globally. Together, they threaten humanity. Hell hath no fury like their alliance.

 

Obama is America's latest warrior president. He exceeds the worst of his predecessors. He accomplished the impossible. He governs to the right of George Bush. Yet he retains enough support so far for reelection.

In November, perhaps the economy will undo him. Perhaps he'll avoid it by heightening fear for more war. He's more belligerent than all his predecessors.

Public apathy lets him get away with it. People worry more about pocket book issues. Manipulated fear diverts them to security. It works most every time.

Peter Bergin's an establishment figure. He directs national security studies for the New America Foundation. He's also a right-wing print and television contributor, as well as a member of the National Security Preparedness Group. It replaced the 9/11 Commission to perpetuate its whitewash.

On April 28, his New York Times op-ed headlined "Warrior in Chief," saying:

After getting the Nobel Peace Peace prize months into his tenure, he "turned out to be one of the most militarily aggressive American leaders in decades."

He's worse than that, of course. He exceeds all his predecessors by far. No one's been more belligerent. No one waged more wars simultaneously and threatens more. No one endangers humanity like he does.

Candidate Obama promised peace. President Obama doubled down George Bush and then some. Discussing Afghanistan on October 27, 2007, he said:

"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this (and the Iraq) war(s). You can take that to the bank."

Months earlier he said:

"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and (Afghan) President Musharraf won’t act, we will. I will not hesitate to use military force to take out terrorists who pose a direct threat to America."

Perhaps no remembers either statement. Perhaps too few know America's only enemies are ones it invents. Terrorism is a catch-all term used to incite fear and justify conflict. When it wears thin, something else will replace it.

Bergin tried having it both ways. His title implies criticism. His content combines praise and muted disapproval. He avoided rule of law principles, truth and full disclosure. 

 

His article ignores Obama's threat to world peace, his Nobel award hypocrisy, and how he and Bush alienated more countries than any previous US leader.

Liberals helped elect him, said Bergin "in part because of his opposition to the Iraq (and Afghan) war(s)." They "probably don't celebrate (his) military accomplishments."

 

Bergin calls them "sizable," but couldn’t name any. He tried, of course, but failed. He "decimated Al Qaeda's leadership," he claimed. In fact, popular resistance across North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia looks stronger than ever. The more deaths at America's hands, the more enemies it makes.

"He overthrew the Libyan dictator."

In fact, Africa's most developed country was ravaged, not liberated. Libya's a charnel house, a raging cauldron. No central authority exists. Battles rage for control. Libyans are terrorized, traumatized, and impoverished. Some accomplishment!

"He ramped up drone attacks in Pakistan, waged effective covert wars in Yemen and Somalia, and authorized a threefold increase in the number of American troops in Afghanistan."

Is Bergin pleased or critical? It's hard to say. He admitted that Obama "became the first president to authorize the assassination of a (US) citizen." He falsely called Anwar al-Awlaki a threat. He also claimed Obama killed Osama.

He ignored the staged event. Bin Ladin wasn't killed or targeted. Seriously ill, he died naturally in December 2001. On December 26, 2001, Fox News reported it, saying:

He "died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who allegedly attended (his) funeral."

Other media also reported his death. In October 2007, appearing on BBC with David Frost, former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said bin Laden died years ago. In December that year, she was assassinated in Rawalpindi. Perhaps her admission played a part.

Obama didn't kill Osama. Dead men don't die twice.

Bergin wonders why Obama supporters ignore his "acting as judge and executioner" by ordering hundreds of drone strikes, killing thousands since 2009.

There's been a "dramatic cognitive disconnect between (his) record and the public perception of his leadership." Despite his belligerence, conservatives and others think he's a "peacenik."

 

Political posturing, of course, explains it. Supporter views are another matter. Clear facts are in plain sight. Many don't accept them. Obama's rhetoric belies his policies.

During Bush's tenure, drone attacks struck Pakistan "every 43 days." In Obama's first two years alone, it was "every four days."

Perhaps it's now multiple times daily in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Iraq, other targeted countries, and more to come. Obama the peace candidate is "more Teddy Roosevelt than Jimmy Carter."

In 1906, TR won a Nobel Peace Prize, but didn't wage war on humanity. Carter was the 2002 recipient. Obama elevated Nobel hypocrisy to new heights. Bergin noted how fast he opts for military intervention.

 

Knowledgeable supporters shouldn't be surprised. Politicians always say one thing and do another, especially on issues matter most like waging war.

In office, Bush expanded CIA funding, staff, and operations. Obama outdid him and then some for covert missions, drone wars, and other initiatives. Stopping short of calling him "trigger-happy," Bergin said he's "completely shaken the 'Vietnam syndrome...."

Perhaps he forgot GHW Bush saying on March 2, 1991, after the Gulf War:

"By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all."

He was right. From January then to now, America's been at war with Iraq, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere from North Africa to Central Asia. Obama's its latest exponent. Trigger-happy fits him well.

Waging multiple wars, he can't wait to start another. In a second term, who knows what he'll do.

Partnered with Israel should give supporters pause. Both nations are modern day Spartas. Militarism and war is their way of life, overtly and covertly. Both are also nuclear armed and dangerous.

Under its current leadership, Israel is especially threatening. On April 28, Haaretz headlined "Israel's former Shin Bet chief: I have no confidence in Netanyahu, Barak," saying:

Yuval Diskin harshly criticized both leaders. They're not worthy to lead Israel, he said, explaining:

"My major problem is that I have no faith in the current leadership, which must lead us in an event on the scale of war with Iran or a regional war."

"I don't believe in either the prime minister or the defense minister. I don't believe in a leadership that makes decisions based on messianic feelings."

Both are "messianics," he said. One's from "Akirov or the Assuta project." The other's from "Gaza Street or Caesarea." He referred to where they live. They ought to be cordoned off and kept there.

"Believe me, I have observed them from up close.... They are not people who I, on a personal level, trust to lead Israel to an event on that scale and carry it off. These are not people who I would want to have holding the wheel in such an event."

"They are misleading the public on the Iran issue. They tell the public that if Israel acts, Iran won't have a nuclear bomb. This is misleading. Actually, many experts say that an Israeli attack would accelerate the Iranian nuclear race."

In March, former Mossad head Meir Dagan said attacking Iran would be "devastating" for Israel. Doing so would ignite regional war. You know how things start, but not end. Attacking Iran will put Israel "in a very serious situation for quite a time."

Diskin added that over the past 10 or 15 years, Israel got "more racist....toward Arabs and foreigners, and we are also....a more belligerent society."

He also worries about extremist Jews. He fears another political assassination like Yitzhak Rabin, and wonders what could come next.

Commenting at the time, Haaretz contributor Amos Harel headlined "Shin Bet chief's vote of no confidence is another blow to Netanyahu and Barak," saying:

His rebuke and Diskin's elevated "the confrontation over the Iranian question to another level....Dagan seems to be on a divine mission to stop the bombing."

Diskin feels the same way. So do other cooler heads, but they're outnumbered in high places.

Nonetheless, senior Israeli security officials "whisper" similar views. Shouting might work better.

Diskin's rebuke followed IDF chief Benny Gantz calling Iran's leadership "very rational." He doubted Tehran would "go the extra mile" to develop nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu, Barak, and others around them go to great lengths to cite nonexistent threats, Israel's determination to remove them, and efforts to enlist America's support. In an election year. Perhaps 2013, not now.

Political Washington wants regime change. Whether by war isn't known. Even America has cooler heads but not enough.

"Nothing has been determined in the Iranian story, and the spring is about to boil over into another summer of tension," said Harel.

If Obama heads for Israel soon, it'll show Washington's going all out to avoid war this year. Wait 'till next year, he may say. Belligerent partners may delay another fight, but seldom decline them. 

 

For now, Syria is top priority. Obama and Netanyahu want Assad replaced with a puppet regime subservient to Washington and Israel. Western generated violence rages for it. Intervention may follow.

Harel left that issue unaddressed or the legitimacy of waging wars against non-belligerent states. What's more important than that.

Haaretz contributor Gideon Levy believes "Nothing has changed in Israel since 1948," saying:

Business as usual continues. "In 1948, new immigrants were brought straight from the ships into abandoned Palestinian homes with pots of food still simmering in the kitchen, and no one asked too many questions."

"In 2012, the Israeli government is trying to whitewash the theft of Palestinian lands, all the while scorning the law."

Earlier crimes repeat now. Those in power "us(e) the same corrupt means" as before. War crimes then become today's. Justifications always are fraudulent. At issue are land and power grabs.

Continuing them sends the world a message. "We will never stop this crushing, ultranationalist melody - then as now, in 1948 and in 2012." 

Levy also came down hard on Zionist ideology headlining "After 115 years, it's time for Zionism to retire," saying:

It should have happened long ago. Something more legitimate is needed. In its 64th year as a state, "no one even knows what" role Zionism has or "how it is defined."

Consign it to the history books and be done with it. It's no longer relevant. It's done enough damage. Reinvigorating or reinventing a bad idea assures something worse as a result. 

"In Israel 2012, a pursuer of justice and human rights is by definition not Zionist." Even discussing morality and rule of law principles "is blatantly 'not Zionist.' "

"Anyone who blindly supports all of Israel's misdeeds (is) Zionist. Critics are called anti-Semites, even if they are Jewish."

"Zionism is a negative epithet and....mark of shame." It's time has passed. It never should have been in the first place.

Imagine the bloodshed avoided. Imagine how many lives will be spared if peace, reconciliation, and justice replace Zionist instigated conflict.

It's about dominance, not Jewishness. Everyone for right over wrong should want it sent to history's dustbin and rejected.

It might even slow Washington's war machine. Stopping it takes heavier lifting. What better time to start than now.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

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Jabal-Nablus, a Page from Palestine's History

Prior to Israel's occupation of the West Bank, the ancient City of Nablus had been a Palestinian principal trade and manufacturing center for centuries. Nablus natural beauty captured the imagination of visitors throughout recorded history. With its twenty gushing springs, fruit gardens, public fountains and mosques courtyards, Nablus City, embedded in a valley between two steep mountains, Jerzeem and Eibal, was described by Shams al-Din al-Ansari back in the fourteenth century as “a palace in a garden”.

After visiting Nablus in 1881, the English clergyman and renowned traveler Henry Baker Tristram described the city as “its beauty can hardly be exaggerated…Clusters of white-roofed houses nestling in the bosom of a mass of trees, olive, palm, orange, apricot, and many another varying the carpet with every shade of green…..Everything fresh, green, and picturesque with verdure, shade and water everywhere”.

The British Reverend John Mills, visited Palestine twice in the 1850’s and published a geography book, “Palestina”. He wrote about the Palestinians of Nablus as “most proud of it [their City], and [they] think there is no place in the world equal to it.” John Mills was impressed by the mutual respect and harmony among the town’s communities, Muslim majority, the Christian and the Samaritan minorities. The Samaritans consider one of Nablus two mountains, Mt. Jerzeem, their spiritual center.

Nablus City has always been a farmers-town or as Professor Beshara Doumani described it as “a very large village” where the cycles of business activities are at peak during the agriculture production seasons. The City has been the anchor for hundreds of villages in the hills, the valleys and the plains that stretch from Jenin in the north to the hills of Ramallah and al-Bireh in the south. As a geographic and population unit, Nablus and its hinterland has been known as Jabal-Nablus. The “Jabal” in Jabal-Nablus literally means “mountain”, but in this context it suggests tough, enduring, regionally based merchant-farmer society actively involved in the productive capacity of the land. The farmers of Jabal-Nablus learnt over the millennia to exploit every geographical feature of their land. The flat land has been sown with grain and planted with vegetables and legumes; hills have been terraced and planted with trees; and the high stony land has been utilized for grazing cows, lambs and goats. The popularity of the Nabulsi cheese in the families’ pantries and the sweet pastry shops is matched only by the French cheese in Europe or the mozzarella cheese in the US pizza eateries.

The land is famous for its plentiful olive for pickling and oil, table grape and raisin, different kinds of fig fruit and sweet dry fig, hazel nuts, apricot, pomegranate, grain, tobacco, watermelon, cotton, summer vegetables and the famous wild thyme. The olive tree has been the symbol of Palestinian nationalism and economic independence since thousands of years when the Palestinians lived off the land and before they became refugees or dependent on the hand outs of foreign donors.

During the olive harvest season in autumn of every year, the villagers’ families get busy collecting the olive from the groves that cover the slopes in a festival atmosphere. Olive oil mills are the center of the next level of activities. Quality and price of the olive becomes the talk of the farmers, the merchants, the money lenders and the consumers in town. Tons of olive oil are being transported from the villages, sold for consumption, deposited daily in the soap factories underground wells or exported to Syria, Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt. The farmers spend the olive-oil money buying clothes, shoes, rice, sugar, coffee, cooking utensils, work tools and other items and payoff loans. The olive season is the time when many eligible young people and the young in heart tie the knot buying wedding clothes, gifts, gold and wedding candy. Good olive season is a happy time for the cloth merchants, the tailors, the goldsmith craftsmen and perfume businesses.

The Palestinian farmers proved they had nothing to fear from free trade when the free trade Anglo-Turkish commercial Convention was signed in 1838. Professor Beshara Doumani wrote that in the nineteenth century, “large agricultural surpluses were generated as Palestinian wheat, barley, sesame, olive oil, soap and cotton were sold on the world market. Exports exceeded the imports of European machine-manufactured goods.”

The olive oil-based soap industry of Nablus expanded significantly beyond the local market in the nineteenth century, exporting a variety of the product to many Middle East countries. Huge soap-factories were built and a class of rich industrial families was created. 

 

 Jabal-Nablus also has another name, “Jabal-al-nar” which literally means “the mountain of fire” because its inhabitants played leading roles in fighting invaders through history since the periods of the Egyptian pharaohs. In recent history, they lived up to their reputation when they fought against the invading Egyptian forces in 1834; they rebelled against the British rule in 1936-39; The first armed uprising against the British was led by Sheikh Izeddin al-Qassam who set his headquarters in the wooded hills of Ya’bad village; and the Palestinians of Jabal-Nablus led the intifada against the Israeli occupation in 1987-88.

In 1799, when Napoleon Bonaparte landed in Cairo and was planning to invade Palestine that was part of the Ottoman Empire, Shaikh Yousuf Jarrar of Jenin, a member of a local prominent family and a Turkish official appointee wrote a poem in which he exhorted leading families of Jabal-Nablus to get their men ready to repel the French once they landed in Palestine:

House of Tuqan, draw your swords,
And mount your precious saddles.
House of Nimr, you mighty tigers,
Straighten your courageous lines.
Muhammmed Uthman, mobilize your men,
Mobilize the heroes from all directions.
Ahmad al-Qasim, you bold lion,
Prow of the advancing lines.

The Palestinian Yusuf Diya, was elected to the Ottoman Parliament in 1877 and later on became a professor of Arabic in Vienna. He was described by an American diplomat as “the finest orator and ablest debater in the chamber [the Ottoman Parliament].” Diya communicated with Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, in 1899 via the Chief Rabbi in France, telling Herzl, “Palestine was heavily populated by non-Jews…[and asked] By what right do the Jews demand it for themselves?” The colonialist Great Britain granted the Jews a homeland in Palestine. Britain Foreign Minister Arthur James Balfour submitted “Balfour Declaration” in a letter to Lord Rothschild in 1917 that became the basis for creating the State of Israel and disrupting the Palestinians’ life that survived thousands of years.

Hasan Afif El-Hasan is a political analyst. His latest book, Is The Two-State Solution Already Dead? (Algora Publishing, New York), now available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. He was born in Beit-Eiba, a small village near Nablus. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

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American Methodists Must Be Fearless About Divestment

True Christians everywhere – not just the Methodists – need to stiffen the sinew and toughen up. Why continue all this inter-faith lah-di-dah with religious delinquents?

by Stuart Littlewood


Why is the United Methodist Church apparently making such heavy weather of voting for divestment from corporates – specifically Caterpillar, Motorola and Hewlett-Packard – that profiteer from the brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine?

Americans can surely learn from their British brethren who blazed a trail through this minefield at their annual conference nearly two years ago.

"The goal of the boycott is to put an end to the

existing injustice. It reflects the challenge that

settlements present to a lasting peace in the

region," said Christine Elliott, the church's

secretary for external relationships, after vote

on the issue at the denomination's highest

decision-making body, the Methodist Conference.

They voted to boycott products from Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestine, regarded as illegal under international law, and to encourage Methodists across the country to do the same.

Been there, done that
Their action answered a call from Palestinian Christians, a growing number of Jewish organizations both inside Israel and worldwide, and the World Council of Churches.

Christine Elliott, Secretary for External Relationships, explained: “The goal of the boycott is to put an end to the existing injustice. It reflects the challenge that settlements present to a lasting peace in the region.”

Yes, they got some flak. Right on cue, the Board of Deputies of British Jews blew a fuse. In a joint statement with the Jewish Leadership Council they said the Methodists should “hang their heads in shame”.

The Chief Rabbi led the charge warning that the implications would “reverberate across the hitherto harmonious relationship between the faith communities in the UK”.

Ah, those precious inter-faith relationships… The truth is, Israeli Jews simply don’t do “harmonious relationship” out there in the Occupied Territories. Terror, oppression and dispossession are more their style.

What upset the Chief Rabbi most was the report ‘Justice for Palestine and Israel’ submitted to the Methodist Conference. Its recommendations included the following…


Ah, those precious inter-faith relationships… The truth is, Israeli Jews simply don’t do “harmonious relationship” out there in the Occupied Territories. Terror, oppression and dispossession are more their style.

What upset the Chief Rabbi most was the report ‘Justice for Palestine and Israel’ submitted to the Methodist Conference. Its recommendations included the following…

After 21 years, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is retiring as Britain's

chief rabbi. (United Synagogue)

“In listening to Church Leaders and our fellow-Christians in Israel Palestine as well as leaders of Palestinian civil society we hear an increasing consensus calling for the imposition of boycott, divestment and sanctions as a major strategy of non-violent resistance to the Occupation. The Conference notes the call of the WCC [World Council of Churches] in 2009 for an ‘international boycott of settlement produce and services’ and calls on the Methodist people to support and engage with this boycott of Israeli goods emanating from illegal settlements (some Methodists would advocate a total boycott of Israeli goods until the Occupation ends).”


It also said that the Methodist Church had consistently expressed its concern over the illegal Occupation of Palestinian lands by the State of Israel, and that its continuation not only compounded Israel’s illegal and immoral action but also made any accommodation with the Palestinian people and future peace in the region less likely.

The Chief Rabbi declared the report “unbalanced, factually and historically flawed” without saying in what way it was inaccurate. The Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council said the authors of the report had “abused the goodwill of the Jewish community”. Here is their full text:

“This is a very sad day, both for Jewish-Methodist relations and for everyone who wants to see positive engagement with the complex issues of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The Methodist Conference has swallowed hook, line and sinker a report full of basic historical inaccuracies, deliberate misrepresentations and distortions of Jewish theology and Israeli policy. The deeply flawed report is symptomatic of a biased process: The working group which wrote the report had already formed its conclusions at the outset. External readers were brought in to give the process a veneer of impartiality, but their criticisms were rejected. The report’s authors have abused the trust of ordinary members of the Methodist Church, who assumed that they were reading and voting on an impartial and comprehensive paper, and they have abused the goodwill of the Jewish community, which tried to engage with this issue, only to find that our efforts were treated as an unwelcome distraction.

“This outcome is extremely serious and damaging, as we and others have explained repeatedly over recent weeks. Israel is at the root of the identity of Jews and of Judaism, and as an expression of Jewish spiritual, national and emotional aspirations, Zionism cannot simply be ruled as illegitimate in the way that the Methodist Conference has purported to do. This smacks of breathtaking insensitivity, as crass as it is misinformed. That this position should now form the basis of Methodist Church policy should cause the Conference to hang its head in shame, just as surely as it will cause the enemies of peace and reconciliation to cheer from the sidelines.”

If Israel is at the root of their identity you’d think they’d demand from the regime the sort of conduct that projected a better image. For 46 years the “goodwill” of the Jewish community has counted for nothing in securing justice for the Palestinians and bringing to an end their misery at the hands of the State if Israel. Who are they to talk of “breathtaking insensitivity”?

If arrogance is the only response to serious concerns about Israel’s barbarity towards Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land, perhaps it’s time that implications did indeed “reverberate” across the faith communities, not only in the UK but around the world including (and especially) the US.

Infiltrators avidly support “unrighteous nation” of Israel
It’s no surprise to hear that the United Methodists, and even their legislative body, have been infiltrated by Zionists. They should expect it and be ready to throw them out.

Over here the grit in the Methodists’ vaseline call themselves Methodist Friends of Israel. “We are Christians who are members or adherents of the Methodist Church, who love Israel and want to bless her and who fully accept God’s everlasting covenant with His chosen people,” they say. “While recognizing that the nation of Israel is, like all nations of the world, an unrighteous nation that does not always get things right, we firmly stand with her at all times and continue to support her in an increasingly hostile world.  We will not turn our backs as so many did in the 1930s.

“We see that anti Semitism is on the rise throughout the world with synagogues and graveyards vandalised and Jews being attacked both verbally and physically and that there appears to be a direct relationship between the increased attacks on Jews and the blanket condemnation of Israel by the media, many charitable organizations and world bodies such as the UN. We are concerned that the whole, true picture of what life is like in Israel is given to the world rather than the biased half truths, distortions and lies that are presently reported.

“We are concerned that many churches are going down the politically correct line of condemning Israel’s policies and are thus contributing to the strong anti Semitic views of the world.”

Note that they are concerned only with “what life is like in Israel”, not the hell Israel has created in the Occupied Territories for Christian and Muslim Palestinians. They blame others for rising anti-semitic sentiment and fail to see that the lawless thuggery of the Israeli regime is the problem.

What else do these deviant Methodists believe in?

• They believe the Scripture prophesy restoring the Jews to the land of Israel. What we see today is a fulfilment of the prophecy and it is a privilege to witness this fulfillment.

• They believe Israel is central in the enactment of God’s purposes as we move in these “last days”.

• They believe in blessing Israel however possible including buying goods and produce from Israel and resisting all calls for boycotts.

• They believe in supporting Israel’s defence of its people and their right to live without the threat of missile attacks, homicide bombings etc.

• They believe in standing against libelous attacks against Israel.
• They believe in fully supporting Israel’s right to the land given them by God.

Needless to say, the Methodist Friends of Israel website reads like pages from some Zionist propaganda rag. At this very moment they are running a tour of Israel. Of Israel, mark you, not Palestine. What sort of view of the Holy Land will that give their pilgrims?

Enough of this inter-faith lah-di-dah?

Having taken their bold decision at the conference and bravely flown through the flak, UK Methodists let themselves down somewhat by turning wimpish. They began trying to mend fences with the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Why bother, one is tempted to ask. Why demean themselves? Have the Board of Deputies ever condemned or punished the Israeli regime’s crimes against humanity?

Until they do, let them stew.

The President of the Methodist Church, Revd Alison Tomlin

Nevertheless the President of the Methodist Conference wrote to the Board of Deputies and the President of the Board of Deputies, we’re told, welcomed the opportunity for a constructive conversation. They explored in particular, said a statement, the need to clarify the use of specific words and phrases such as Zionism and Christian Zionism. And they expressed their gratitude for the support given by the Council of Christians and Jews.

So they’re friends again and all’s well that ends well. Which must be gratifying for Palestinians as they continue to starve under the jackboot and fry or be parted from their limbs under almost daily air-strikes.

It’s not good enough. True Christians everywhere – not just the Methodists – need to stiffen the sinew and toughen up. Why continue all this inter-faith lah-di-dah with religious delinquents?

Decent and sensible people from all faiths get along just fine without help from religious busybodies and loudmouths.

But if the irredeemable hardcore are determined to stir up “reverberations” they are of course free to do so, within the limits of the law.

 ___________

United Methodist Kairos Response – Answering the Call from Holy Land Christians

 

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Why are Gaza children being robbed of fun this summer?

The annual Summer Games in Gaza has been canceled this year.
(Mohammed Asad / APA images)

Saif Saleem
 
Living in besieged Gaza, nothing gives us greater joy than watching our kids play football, jump on a trampoline, fly a kite or go to the beach.

However, this year the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) decided to cancel the Summer Games, a vital source of happiness for children in Gaza, an estimated 250,000 of whom participated in the fifth annual Summer Games last year. The reason given for the cancellation was the shortage of funds.

Was this a political or a financial step?

Israel’s best friend

Who is controlling and funding UNRWA? More than 190 countries support the agency. But the funding cuts are largely due to a decrease in contributions from the US, Israel’s best friend. In January, Washington announced it would give $55 million to UNRWA in 2012 — about a quarter of funds the US donated in 2011 (“United States contributes $55 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East,” State Department media note, 3 January 2012).

Is the US using its aid cuts to increase pressure on Palestinians in Gaza by depriving them of the few sources of enjoyment previously open to them?
Obviously not for the first time, the US’s stance smacks of double standards.

Under Barack Obama’s presidency, the US has increased aid allocations to Israel dramatically, even though Israel has refused to cancel the construction of illegal settlements in the West Bank.

UNRWA recently had to reduce spending on a number of programs because of a funding shortfall of $35 million.

According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UNRWA has to decrease by one-third its allocations to employment generation programs that provide about 3,500 jobs per month (“Protection of civilians weekly report,” Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 29 June - 5 July 2011).

This has had an adverse impact on services provided to more than 1.1 million people in Gaza.

Denied basic rights

Restricting the services available in Palestine means that we are being denied basic rights that are essential for a decent quality of life. We are being forced to think only of bread, water and jobs.

Human dignity is not about bread or water alone. It is about living in freedom and enjoying the same rights as people in the rest of the world. These are rights that the US and Israel are determined to deny us. And as well as depriving us of sources of enjoyment, the US is giving weapons to Israel that are used to kill and maim our children.

Cutting funds to UNRWA not only robs our children of sources of enjoyment, it harms our workers and our factories which help sustain the Gazan economy. Why should our children not be allowed to play and be happy because of an unfair political decision?

Saif Saleem is a journalist based in Gaza.

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Palestinian prisoners' strike enters a serious stage

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Palestinian PM Ismail Haneyya called, in a solidarity tent in Gaza city on Monday, to use all means and ways including resistance options to free the prisoners and support them in their hunger strike that continues for the 14th day running. 

Haniyeh called on the Arab and Islamic people and governments to rise up in all revolution squares in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners who represent "a part of this Umma”.

He stressed on the need for a concerted effort at the Palestinian, Arab, Islamic, and international levels to support the prisoners' steadfastness and to work by all means for their freedom and dignity. "All the world was moving for releasing the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit whereas 5 thousand Palestinian prisoners are being ignored," he said.

He stressed that the prisoners' determination needs more support from the Palestinian people, promising the prisoners to stand behind them till their freedom and to keep fighting and resisting till attaining their safe return to their homes.

Haneyya confirmed that resistance will never accept negotiating on prisoners' freedom and dignity and they will work to enforce prisoners' rights that are guaranteed by international law and principles.

He appreciated the Palestinian factions’ unity around this issue that is more superior to all differences.

Meanwhile, minister for Detainee Affairs Dr Attallah Abu al-Subah, stated that the two coming days of the strike will be critical, either the prison service respond to the prisoners' demands, else the prisoners are entering  a serious stage where hunger striking prisoners might start dying.

Abu al-Subah stressed, in an exclusive statement to the PIC, that the coming days will witness an escalation in the strike where many prisoners will join the open-ended hunger strike and will launch a mass civil disobedience campaign disrupting all facilities and workers within the prison. 

He revealed that many meetings were held last week between the captives’ movement leadership and prison service discussing ways to end the strike.
The prison service tried in these meetings to get around the prisoners’ real demands but the prisoners refused to cede their fair demands.

Abu al-Sabuh confirmed that solidarity activities will expand more inside and outside Palestine, stressing on the need to unite all efforts to support the prisoners' fight for their usurped rights.

The Tadamun International for Human Rights stated that the isolated detainee Abdullah Barghouti suffers from low body temperature and low blood sugar and severe weight loss.

Ahmad Bitawi,a researcher for the organization, affirmed that in his meeting with Barghouthi, 19 days into his hunger strike, he noticed that he suffers from a low body temperature about 36° and a sharp decline in sugar reaching 65, causing his dizziness while moving, as he has lost 16 kilograms of his weight, pointing out that at the same time he shows a great steadfastness and determination, insisting to continue his strike. 

He added that the prison service of Aylon offered the detainee vitamins and minerals but he refused to drink but water.

For his part Barghouti sent a message from his isolation cell saying that he and his fellow captives are gain to extract their rights and not beg for them from the occupation, praising the Palestinian people solidarity asking them for more support. He also thanked the Jordanian people and the Jordanian engineers Association that has given so much to serve and support the prisoners' issue.

Barghouti stressed that his demands are to allow his family to visit him and to go out with his brothers from isolation, which prisoners call the “graves of the living”, and he expected to be transferred to hospital during the next few days because of his serious health deterioration.

A court hearing to look into his isolation is slated for 2 May 2012 o decide whether to extend or end his isolation.

The Engineer Abdullah Barghouthi, who is serving 67 life sentences, the highest sentence in the history of the Arab-Zionist conflict, is married and a father of 3 children and holds Jordanian citizenship. He was detained since 5 March 2003.

Barghouthi is one of 18 isolated prisoners in occupation prisons and their release from isolation is one of the demands of the captives’ movement and a condition to stop the hunger strike, which entered the 14th day.

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Jewish settlers start building new settlement outpost north of Ramallah

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Jewish settlers started building a new settlement outpost in Yanbu area near Nabi Saleh village to the north of Ramallah, Hebrew press reported on Monday.

Ha’aretz newspaper recalled that the civil administration had declared as a historic spot an area of 15 dunums in Yanbu in February 2010, despite being owned by Palestinians.

Villages to the north and west of Ramallah are the target of a rabid settlement campaign that races against time to expand existing settlements or build new outposts.

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Israeli Navy Kidnaps Five Fishermen

Zionist Terrorist Boat

by Saed Bannoura

Palestinian sources reported that the Israeli Navy kidnapped, on Sunday morning, five fishermen, four of them brothers, near the Gaza Port and took them to the Ashdod Port.

Nizar Ayyash, chairman of the Gaza Fishermen Association, stated that the Navy attacked the boat and kidnapped five fishermen who were on-board.

The five were identified Ashraf, Amjad, Ahmad and Yasser Ash-Shirafy, in addition to a fifth fisherman who carries Egyptian citizenship.

The attack is one of dozens of similar attacks targeting Palestinian fishermen in Palestinian territorial waters; these attacks include opening fire at the fishermen, spraying them with water, and even attempts to crash their boats. Casualties and arrests in previous attacks were reported.

As part of its siege on the coastal region, Palestinian fishermen are facing further and more serious restrictions on their right to fish in Palestinian waters.

Restrictions on the fishing zone are of considerable significance to Palestinian livelihood. Initially set at twenty nautical miles, it is presently often enforced between 1.5 – 2 nautical miles (Palestinian Center for Human Rights, PCHR: 2010). The marine ‘buffer zone’ restricts Gazan fishermen from accessing 85% of Gaza’s fishing waters which was agreed to by Oslo.”

The fishing community is often similarly targeted as the farmers in the ‘buffer zone’, and the fishing limit is enforced with comparable aggression, with boats shot at or rammed as near as 2nm to the Gaza coast by Israeli gunboats.

The “buffer zone” is a no-entrance zone Israel has enforced on all areas in the Gaza Strip that are close to the border.

Most of these areas are farmlands, an issue that devastated the families that depend on farming as their only source of livelihood. Dozens of casualties were reported when the army opened fire at farmers working near the border.

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Jewish Man Exposes Israel’s Lies – The General’s Son

By Miko Peled

As I write these words I am in Jerusalem and it is a cold, windy and rainy day. Yesterday at the protest in Nabi Saleh, facing the IDF terror squads and in full view of the villas of the settler terrorists, we were drenched in rain and then frozen by the cold wind. Some of the protesters, a group of young women who were gutsier than most, did not run like most of us but stood firm as the IDF terror squad operated its “Skunk” and sprayed them with a foul smelling substance that remains on the skin for days. Now, in this horrid weather, tweeting from the Mukata’a, young Palestinians are protesting against the useless, demeaning process of the PA negotiations with Israel.

The injustices all over Palestine are more obvious than ever. Israeli children in West Jerusalem get more of everything that Palestinian children in East Jerusalem, particularly if they live in Sho’afat refugee camp for example. Settlers in the West Bank can take the land of the people of Yanun in the West Bank at any time, and are not held back by any law while the people of Yanun have no law and no authority that protects their rights. People in Gaza are bombed and left to die as the world watches and here too there is no one to whom they can turn. Equal rights in a single democracy is the one demand that covers all the demands and deals with all the injustices.

The levels of injustice and despair here are only matched by the great possibilities that a single democratic state with equal rights offers to all people who live here. Equal rights means equal rights to land, water, immigration, education, work, and above all life. When the apartheid state of Israel is transformed into a single political entity with equal rights for all of its people, residents of Jenin and Deheishe will vote in the same elections as those in Tel Aviv. The results will then reflect the will of all people who live in Palestine/Israel, our shared homeland, not only the ruling class which happen to be Zionist Israeli Jews.

People often claim that it is an unrealistic, utopian dream and hope for a compromise, for a “moderate” Zionist government that will curb the settlers and reign back the army. However, it was a “moderate” Zionist government that allowed the settlers to terrorize Palestinians and take their land, it was a “moderate” Zionist government that attacked in and murdered innocents in Gaza, and “moderate” Zionists did nothing when less “moderate” Zionists continued to massacre in Gaza. The settler terrorists are the foot soldiers, they are the trail blazers of Zionism, they were created by “moderate” Zionist governments and are now being rewarded with villas on choice Palestinian land in the West Bank.

There are those who hope that if elected to a second term, President Obama will turn his attentions to Israel/Palestine but this is quite naive. Had he or any other president been serious about this issue they would have to come down on Israeli human rights abuses, denial of civil rights, incarceration of political prisoners and massive assaults on civilians resulting in thousands of innocent deaths. It is naive to assume that the political climate in the US allows any of these issues to be brought up. So anyone out there that is banking on a solution coming from the US, will surely be disappointed.

The quest for equal rights is not a easy one and will not be easily won. Indeed, any fight against the brutal militant Zionist behemoth is not easy and calls for great sacrifice. But the people in Palestine and abroad who are engaged in the struggle are dedicated and determined and if they put their minds and efforts towards a single demand of complete equal rights within a single democracy, they are sure to succeed.



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United Methodists Face Moment of Occupation Truth

The mainstream media does not know it, and far too many high steeple church folk do not want to know it.

 

by James M Wall

 

But in Tampa, Florida, this week, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church will make a decision.

They will spend the week writing and rewriting. Some, like  Alissa Bertsch Johnson, a campus minister at Washington State University (at right), will passionately state their case.

Before the gavel falls on the last session of the 2012 General Conference, the people called Methodists will have responded, one way or another, to the call from Palestinian Christians that they take one small step toward ending the Israeli Occupation.

They may vote to endorse a targeted divestment resolution.

Or, they may declare that such action is not needed, forgetting that in doing so, they follow the path of those segregation-tolerating Birmingham church leaders who wrote to Martin Luther King, Jr., in words to this effect, “it is too soon to attack this evil. We must wait until our people are with us.”

A half century since King died in his battle with the evil of racism, we are still waiting for the end of  yet another manifestation of racism, one which continues to be tolerated, and even worse, financially sponsored, by the spiritual heirs of those earlier Birmingham church divines to whom King wrote his historic letter from a Birmingham jail.

In Martin Luther King, Jr’s, time, the “go slow” church leaders tolerated the evil that was in Selma, Alabama, the suburbs of Chicago, and the dark, frightening country roads of Mississippi.

In our time, “go slow” religious leaders refuse to see the evil of a so-called security barrier, a wall built not for Israel’s security, but as a land-stealing, prison enclosure, of the Palestinian people.

The “go slow” church leaders, and the parishioners they lead, choose not to acknowledge that the evil of Selma, Alabama, the South Side of Chicago, or the country roads of Mississippi, are still with us in Palestine where US church funds are used to build and maintain an Occupation.

The final United Methodist divestment vote will involve a resolution that instructs the church’s financial managers to divest from three American corporations that have refused to cease from profiting from the Occupation.

Israel’s supporters who have infiltrated the United Methodist legislative body, both as delegates and observers, are waging the divestment effort with half truths and outright lies, the same tactic used by secular politicians for whom  truth-speaking is an unknown language.

During the first week of the General Conference, delegates met in committees and sub committees to hassle over the wording of the final resolution. Occupation supporters want language in the resolution they can spin in their favor.

The waiting game

Above all, they want to remove the term “divestment”, which evokes the image of Israel as a modern day South Africa. In the past, one way to avoid this image is to employ evasive language like “constructive engagement”.

The winner of the resolution game will be the side that can spin the final action with its own special twist that produces a victory headline.

No matter how you spin it, as James Carville once said in an earlier political conflict, “its the Occupation, stupid”.

Opponents of the divestment resolution claim the church is endorsing a “boycott” of Israel. On the contrary, this resolution has nothing to do with boycotting. It is a divestment resolution that controls how the church invests its own funds, period.

Remember well the names of the three corporations which refused to listen to those for whom “going slow” has meant a continuation of humiliation and suffering.

They refused to listen to the case delegations of United Methodists have made to them to stop supporting the Occupation. Call this step, the failure of “constructive engagement”.

After several of these failed efforts to persuade the three corporations to cease and desist from  causing the suffering of others, activist United Methodists decided  to write specific divestment resolutions.

These resolutions were debated in local churches, then taken before regional conferences, and finally, this week, presented  to the United Methodists’ highest legislative body, the General Conference.

The three US corporations targeted by this resolution are Caterpillar, Hewitt Packard and Motorola, each of whom heard the pleas for support from Palestine, and hearing, passed by on the other side of the road.

United Methodists cannot halt the brutalization of the Palestinian people carried out by the Occupation.

Nor can they end the downfall of the state of Israel, a downfall most certain to take place unless this illegal and inhumane Occupation ends. No one knows this better than Jews who love Israel and hate what the Occupation does to both the Israelis and Palestinians.

Look not to the mainstream media for news of the internal conflict within world Judaism over this issue. Go instead to the internet and foreign media, and there you will find that the conflict is joined.

A respected Jewish writer and former New Republic editor, Peter Bienart, wrote a book he called The Crisis of Zionism, a plea for Israel to wake up from its nightmare of Palestinian oppression. He was viciously attacked by  neo-conservatives and right-wing Jews.

Ha’aretz knows that New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman steers clear of  this topic. His speciality is economics, not politics. But Ha’aretz reported a blog comment from Krugman which revealed his support for Beinart.

Paul Krugman believes that the policies of the current “narrow minded” Israeli government “are basically a gradual long-run form of national suicide.”

Writing in his New York Times blog “Conscience of a Liberal” about Peter Beinart’s controversial book The Crisis of Zionism, Krugman writes, “Like many liberal American Jews I basically avoid thinking about where Israel is going.

It seems obvious from here that the narrow-minded policies of the current government are basically a gradual, long-run form of national suicide – and that’s bad for Jews everywhere, not to mention the world.”

The battle also rages within the highest Israeli political circles.

Ha’aretz reports that former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin harshly criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Friday during a meeting with residents of the city of Kfar Sava, Israel.
Diskin said the pair “is not worthy of leading the country”.

“My major problem is that I have no faith in the current leadership, which must lead us in an event on the scale of war with Iran or a regional war,” Diskin told the “Majdi Forum,” a group of local residents that meets to discuss political issues.

He also addressed the issue of racism in Israel.

“Over the past 10-15 years Israel has become more and more racist. All of the studies point to this. This is racism toward Arabs and toward foreigners, and we are also become a more belligerent society.”

Why do United Methodist delegates have to ponder more than a few seconds to realize that for the UMC to continue to support Israel’s Occupation with church funds, places the denomination on the wrong side of  the battle for Israel’s soul.

Israeli blogger Larry Derfner writes a post this week, “Israelis are living in a fear society, not a free society”, which is another reminder that the Occupation is not in the best interest of either Israelis or Palestinians.

Enabling a “fear society” is not the way American religious communities can best serve the cause of either peace or justice.

British Parliamentarian William Wilberforce, whose political activism had been influenced by John Wesley, did not end slavery, but he did finally persuade  the British Parliament to end the slave trade from British seaports.

It took him several decades to end the trade. During those decades, many slaves were transported to America from Africa as the British Parliament followed the political “go slow” policy in which evil flourishes.

American politicians, bought and paid for by forces that reward them for their absolute loyalty to the current right-wing Israeli government, have closed their minds, and most certainly, their hearts, to the injustices of the Occupation.

One day, when these politicians look back on their period of political service, they may recognize the evil they sponsored.  And one day, when United Methodist delegates to the 2012 General Conference look back on how they voted on the divestment resolution, they will realize how their vote will follow them into the Hereafter.

And there, I truly do hope they will be invited to one of Brother John Wesley’s heavenly society meetings where they will be confronted by the reality of the evil Occupation they tolerated for the sake of what they liked to call, “the delicate fabric of interfaith relations”.

What Wesley will say to them about that delicate fabric is chilling to contemplate.

A good preparation for watching how the United Methodist General Conference delegates will conduct themselves in the week ahead, is to spend some time attending to a 25 minute newscast discussion produced by Al Jazeera.

You will find appearances by former President Jimmy Carter, two Jewish panelists, Max Blumenthal and MJ Rosenberg, and Walt Davis, a major leader in the Presbyterian Church, the second Protestant denomination to vote on a divestment resolution during their national meeting this summer.

In his brief appearance at the start of the newscast, President Carter corrected the Al Jazeera host who surprisingly used the lie that Israel wants the world to hear, “boycott”, in describing the United Methodist and Presbyterian resolutions, neither of which use the term.

Carter points out, in his careful manner, that the two denominations are calling on their own leaders to divest from three US corporations. He quietly notes that they are not calling for a boycott of the Israeli economy. It is obvious that Carter follows this issue closely.

Click on the screen below to view the video. Watch it in segments, if you prefer. But watch it.

The picture above of Alissa Bertsch Johnson, a campus minister at Washington State University, is from the United Methodist News Service.


http://www.bdsmovement.net/

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About the author: James M. Wall is currently a Contributing Editor of The Christian Century magazine, based in Chicago, Illinois. From 1972 through 1999, he was editor and publisher of the Christian Century magazine.

He has made more than 20 trips to that region as a journalist, during which he covered such events as Anwar Sadat’s 1977 trip to Jerusalem, and the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. He has interviewed, and written about, journalists, religious leaders, political leaders and private citizens in the region. Jim served for two years on active duty in the US Air Force, and three additional years in the USAF (inactive) reserve. His website: Wall Writings. View all posts by James Wall.

Desmond Tutu supports United Methodist Church decision to divest

 

British supermarket chain to boycott all settlement trade

 

Britain’s fifth biggest food retailer and the country's largest mutual business, the Co-operative Group, has extended a boycott of goods from illegal settlements that have been produced on occupied Palestinian territories in the West bank.

The supermarket chain has taken the lead among European supermarkets to end trade with companies that purchase produce made in illegal Israeli settlements.

"Following an audit of the Group's supply chain, it will no longer do business with four companies, accounting for £350,000 worth of sales, as there is evidence that they source from the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian occupied territories," the statement said.

"The Group will also continue to actively work to increase trade links with Palestinian businesses in the occupied territories.”

The Co-op, which has not bought goods from the illegal settlements since 2009, decided to extend the boycott further by "no longer engaging with any supplier of produce known to be sourcing from the Israeli settlements".

The decision is expected to hit four Israeli companies including Agrexco, Arava Export Growers, Adafresh as well as Mehadrin which is Israel's largest agricultural export company.

Welcoming the supermarket chain’s move, Hilary Smith, Co-op member and Boycott Israel Network (BIN) agricultural trade campaign coordinator, said the Co-op "has taken the lead internationally in this historic decision to hold corporations to account for complicity in Israel's violations of Palestinian human rights. We strongly urge other retailers to take similar action."

Furthermore, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Union of Agricultural Work Committees said, trading with companies such as Mehadrin “constitutes a major form of support for Israel's apartheid regime over the Palestinian people, so we warmly welcome this principled decision by the Co-operative."

 Source

Surviving Israeli jail: Torture, humiliation and giving birth

Hamas militants stage a mock prison break during a rally,

calling for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli

jails, in Jabalya, in the northern Gaza Strip, April 13, 2012

(Reuters/Mohammed Salem)

Thousands of Palestinians are on hunger strike in Israeli prisons - for over a week, they have been protesting against indefinite detention without charge and alleged ill-treatment. Some of those who got out, told RT about their life behind bars.

Human rights groups in the West Bank say 2,000 Palestinians have been on hunger strike for more than a week, and others are ready to join next week. At the moment there are an estimated 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails. Each year, 700-800 minors are arrested, and in all, 20 per cent of Palestinians have experienced Israeli prison.

Yahya as-Sinwar was arrested in 1988 and sentenced to 462 years in prison. He served 23 years and is now 50. He is one of the founders of Hamas and the Islamic University of Gaza.

Israel accused him of organizing and leading Hamas internal security unit MAJD and killing Palestinian traitors who spied for Israel. As-Sinwar says that they had no choice, because these people put the resistance movement in jeopardy.

Speaking about his years spent in an Israeli jail, as-Sinwar says different kinds of torture were routine practice.

“They kept me awake for 10 days in a row. Whenever I dozed off, they would pour ice-cold or boiling water on me – depending on their personal preferences. They would tie my arms behind my back, throw me on the floor, a prison guard would sit on my stomach or chest, apply pressure to the groin – the pain was excruciating,” Yahya as-Sinwar recollects.

According to as-Sinwar, the Shabak [Israeli General Security Service] handles torture during the investigation, and the Shabas [Israeli Prison Service] tortures sentenced prisoners. “They have two departments – Nahshon and Metzada – which are responsible for the total psychological destruction of a person. These methods are not used anywhere else in the world.”

He says Israeli prison guards could tie a prisoner to a child’s chair and make him balance on it for days; put a person in an ice box (after this the person’s limbs are usually amputated).

“They have this form of torture when they tie a prisoner’s hands and leave him hanging for 24 hours. Or they suffocate the prisoner, watch him turn blue, let him breathe for a bit, and then repeat this several times,” as-Sinwar told RT.  “When they tortured my close friend, they beat him on the back of the head with tightly rolled newspapers. A person has terrible headaches afterwards, becomes hysterical, all the internal organs get damaged.”

According to as-Sinwar, these kinds of torture leave no marks and even a very keen doctor would find it very difficult to discover any signs of abuse.

“They study the prisoners and come up with something especially humiliating for this particular convict. For a Palestinian it is easier to die than suffer humiliation – they know it very well and humiliate our people in a very cruel way.”

As-Sinwar says the prisoners could not get proper medical treatment in custody: “After long hours of waiting in pain, all you get is not a doctor but a nurse without any experience who gives you one cure for all conditions – a painkiller. They don’t care if a prisoner lives or suffers terrible pain.”

As-Sinwar believes hunger strikes are the only way for Palestinian prisoners to express their protest.

“Prisoners in Israel get 10 per cent of the amount of food served in the prisons of other countries. After many days of hunger strikes convicts look like the walking dead. Prison guards have to carry them to interrogation sessions on stretchers, and throw them on the stone floor in their prison cells.”
­

Cells space of 1.2 by 0.8 m

All the fences in the neighborhood around Ayman Hatem Afif al-Shakhshir’s house in Gaza are covered with citizens’ wishes of health and well-being to him.  He spent 19 years in an Israeli prison out of the 550-year term he was sentenced to, and was released in exchange for Corporal Shalit. Ayman Hatem Afif al-Shakhshir stems from a well-known Palestinian family. He was arrested at the age of 28. His three daughters grew up, and two of them got married and had children without him around.

Ayman was the head of one of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. He was arrested on charges of taking part in assaults on Israeli military personnel deployed in Gaza.

“None of the detainees had a single visitor for five years since 2006. My father died without seeing me once in the last 10 years of his life. It was only through the Red Cross that I occasionally received letters – it was the only way to keep in touch with the family, while my children were growing up without me,” says Ayman.

He says his cell was not fit to hold people.

“It was a tiny cell measuring 1.2 by 0.8 m where one person could not lie down, or stand up or stretch his legs, it had no furniture, and food was given once a day, and it’s so bad you couldn’t eat it. I know three prisoners who spent 25 years each in such cells.”

“Israeli propaganda is advertising their prisons to the world as if they were five-star hotels – but this is all lies. And what they say about prisoners having the opportunity to complete their education in Israeli schools is also a lie.”

Ayman himself got his Bachelor’s degree in Social Defense through the remote education program from Gaza University. “Now prisoners are denied any education opportunities whatsoever. A whole system to break the prisoners’ will is in place, they get denied everything a person needs to feel connected with the outside world,” he says.

Ayman is convinced that meaningless imprisonment terms of many times a lifetime are given with the sole purpose of breaking the prisoner’s will.

“They want a person to sit in this stone well and know that this is where he is to die. But they are hugely mistaken. Each Palestinian has a hope for help from God, and there is no taking this away.”

Yahya as-Sinwar with his wife (Photo: Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT)

Giving birth with hands and feet tied

Samar Isbeh was arrested when she was 22 following a student protest. She was sentenced to 2.5-year term in prison. She is now 28, and lives in Gaza, while her own and her husband’s families live in the West Bank.

“I was arrested three months after my wedding. I was the head of the student council at the Islamic University. We organized a protest against occupation. I was arrested in my husband’s home in Tulkarm. Two days later my husband was arrested too and sentenced to 9 months in prison, although they had nothing to charge him with whatsoever,” says Samar.

Samar Isbeh (Photo: Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT)

She has now been deported to the Gaza Strip and is denied entry to Tulkarm, so she can see neither her husband nor her children.

“I was in my fist weeks of pregnancy when I got arrested. I went through every kind of torture. They tortured me in an underground cell for 66 days. They made me balance on a children’s chair, they kept me in a freezing cold disciplinary cell,” says Samar.

“My hands and feet were tied when I was going through labor. They C-sectioned me, not because I required it but simply out of hatred. They let me have the child but treated him as a prisoner, too. They gave us no milk or diapers, or only expired ones. I was kept in terrible conditions during and after I gave birth. I wasn’t allowed to go out for fresh air. The only medicine they ever gave me and my child for any condition was Paracetamol.”
­

Pregnant on Hunger Strike

Patima Zakka is 42. She was released from an Israeli prison in exchange for a video tape featuring Gilad Shalit during his captivity. The video was passed by Shalit’s captors just before Patima was due to stand trial, and she was released one day short of the hearing. That is why she never received a sentence.

Patima Zakka with her son (Photo: Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT)

Patima had been charged with conspiring to suicide-bomb a bus full of Israeli military personnel. The prosecution had demanded a 12-year prison sentence for the mother of eight.

“I did not know I was pregnant before I got arrested,” says Patima. “A nurse found that out while I was in detention. My eight children were left without me at home. No one had instructed me to blow up anybody. It is true that they [Israelis] had killed my brother and a number of relatives – but that is the case with most people in Palestine.”

Patima says she was put through the full sequence of interrogation techniques.
“They tortured me while I was pregnant,” she says. “They kept me in an ice-cold cell, relocating me from one cell to another time and again. They wanted me to have a miscarriage. This mistreatment got me to the point of bleeding.”

This prompted Patima to go on hunger strike. She lasted 21 days.
“They did not leave me a choice,” she explains. “Allah be praised, I did not have a miscarriage. My son was born in jail. His name is Yusef.”

“The obstetrician yelled at me and treated me like I was an animal,” says Patima. “She refused to put me on an IV, and she denied me anesthesia. She was calling down terrible curses upon me. But you know, a punishment ensued for her right away: she hit her head real bad right in my cell. Allah helped me. She told me, “You are a terrorist, and your child will be a terrorist.” But I delivered my beautiful Yusef. And the real terrorists are those medics in Israeli prisons.”

­Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT

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