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Today in Palestine! ~ Headlines ~ |
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Land theft / Destruction
The Israeli
Central Court is expected to hear a petition on Sunday filed by
Palestinian families whose homes were slated for demolition in occupied
East Jerusalem.
The Nakba
[with videos,
Palestinian National Anthem] Sunday evening at sundown, sirens will
sound throughout Israel to commemorate the start of Holocaust
Remembrance Day. On Monday, ceremonies will be held in various cities,
the main one being at Yad Vashem, the memorial park in Jerusalem. Friday
was the anniversary of the massacre at Deir Yassin, the start of the
‘other holocaust’, known as the Nakba. There were no sirens to signify
this as the Nakba is the ‘forgotten child of the holocaust’. In Israel
today it is forbidden to even speak of this, to make sure it remains
forgotten. You can read about The Children of Deir Yassin in this
essay.
This is the
story of a Palestinian Odyssey. This narrative is being written today
Thursday, the 8th of April 2009, here in London (the city that gave the
world The Balfour Declaration which offered Palestine as a national home
for the Jews). On the very same day in 2009, a photo was taken in USA,
(the country which offered Israel its 'eternal' friendship) of these
Palestinian brothers and sister who are the subject of this narrative.
The same day, but 60 years earlier, in 1949, in Al-Mina (the Lebanese
fishing port of Lebanon's second largest city, Tripoli), a Palestinian
father had gathered the same children for a photo shoot to
commemorate one year since their expulsion from Haifa on the morning of 8
April 1948, also a Thursday, like today. More anniversaries will follow
until they all return to the Homeland.
...Looking
onto the grand, monumental view of Yad Vashem erected to honor those who
so unjustly lost their lives in the Holocaust, I stood on the land
where my own family too lost their livelihoods and lives so unjustly
without so much as a marker to honor them ... Wiped off the post-1948
maps of Israel, Deir Yassin can never and will never be wiped out of the
minds of Palestinians worldwide, those under occupation and those in
the diaspora ... today, I commemorate the 62nd anniversary of
the Deir Yassin Massacre
Anti-apartheid activism /
Solidarity / Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions
...Protesting
Israel's wall and settlements, which have claimed over 40 percent of
the village's lands, demonstrators marched toward the barrier armed with
flags. According to participants, Israeli forces responded by firing
tear gas, rubber-coated bullets and live ammunition. Soldiers invaded
the village's olive groves, where they continued opening fire, but there
were no injuries, a statement from the International Solidarity
Movement said.
Palestinians
and foreign nationals were arrested across the occupied West Bank and
East Jerusalem on Friday, as Israeli forces dispersed weekly protests
against Israel's wall and settlements ... In the nearby village of Nabi
Salih, west of Ramallah, demonstrators said dozens of protesters choked
on tear gas, while Israel said at least one border police officer was
injured by rocks. An estimated 200 human rights advocates, among
them international and Israeli solidarity activists, joined the weekly
Palestinian protest against Israel's wall. Participants insisted the
event was generally peaceful.
Four
international peace activists were detained in occupied East Jerusalem
on Friday, during a protest supporting Palestinian families who were
evicted from their homes and replaced by Israeli settlers. Photographer
Mustafa Abu Turk told Ma'an that Israeli forces assaulted
photojournalists in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah "in an attempt to
prevent us from doing our jobs." Maysoon Al-Ghawi, a resident of
the flashpoint East Jerusalem district and a member of one of the
Palestinian families expelled by settlers in 2009, also told Ma'an that
"Israeli forces attacked protesters and used force to to keep them from
approaching their confiscated homes."
Protestors
detained for questioning after approaching Jewish houses in east
Jerusalem neighborhood, forcibly refusing to leave. Demonstrators:
Police acted brutally -- Public figures and intellectuals toured the
homes of the Arab families evacuated from the neighborhood under a court
order. They included former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, author David
Grossman, former Knesset Member Zahava Gal-On, New Israel Fund President
Naomi Chazan and Professor Zeev Sternhell. According to the protestors,
at a certain stage the police asked the crowd to leave, used force and
shoved Grossman and Burg.
The latest news from Bil`in: Haitham Al Khatib was
arrested while filming at today’s demonstration, held on the
anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre. Details below. I’m reminded of
the story Haitham told me when I asked about the deep scar between his
eyebrows. The thing to keep in mind is that all of the soldiers know
Haitham and Hamde Abo, the
Bil`in photographer: they are the dynamic duo that arrives on scene to
document each and every night raid. It’s the same soldiers day in and
day out, so Haitham and Hamde can recognize familiar eyes and mouths
beneath the masks.
Our four
boats are purchased or refurbished, flagged and registered. The cargo
ship is now named the MV Rachel Corrie with the blessing of the Corrie
family. Children in Gaza and the occupied West Bank will name the other
two boats, and we will let you know what they chose. We are hard at work
collecting the cargo… cement, books for children and universities,
paper for printing books, water filtration equipment, and medical
equipment, all being denied the people of Gaza by Israel’s brutal
blockade. So we ask one last time for a $25.00-$100.00 donation from
each of you, a donation that will be used for our operating costs.
The European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG)
strongly denounced threats made against activists who intend to
participate in the upcoming convoy of solidarity ship heading to the
besieged and improvised Gaza Strip. The vehicle of one of the activists
was also attacked while parked in front of his home in Greece. The
authorities were notified and opened an investigation.
For eight
hours on Thursday, students at Princeton University in the US were
greeted by a 16-foot wall, made of wood and Styrofoam, representing
Israel's separation wall, local media reported. [from the Daily Princetonian
report: After the event, Hogan said, she was "touched and amazed by the
number of faculty and community members who approached us to thank us
for what we are doing.”]
Pro-Apartheid
BRUSSELS, Apr 10,
2010 (IPS) - Dexia, a major Belgian-French bank, is continuing to
finance Israeli authorities in the occupied Palestinian territories
almost a year after it indicated that it would cease providing loans to
illegal settlements. In May 2009, Dexia promised that it would not lend
any fresh money to councils representing Israeli settlers in the West
Bank.
Human interest / Human rights / Siege /
Restriction of movement
The sole power
generator in the Gaza Strip has completely closed down, the head of the
electric company announced Saturday, following a day of unheeded
warnings that a humanitarian crisis was at hand ... Shortages have
plagued the power plant since December 2009, when European Union
officials handed over responsibility for fuel transfers to the
Palestinian Authority, apparently at the PA's request so EU aid could be
channeled into civil servant salaries.
The de facto
border crossings administration said Saturday that 212 residents
returned to Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt on Thursday. The
majority of Palestinians returning to the coastal enclave were patients
having completed treatment and individuals stranded in Egypt ... The
northern Erez crossing with Israel was partially open on Thursday, with
27 individuals departing the Gaza Strip, among them five residents, 11
foreign nationals and 10 Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, the
committee noted.
It takes an Arab to live in the midst of political divisions,
years of siege and occupation, and still say, "everything is fine."
Specifically, it must be an Arab man. Ask any woman in Gaza and she will
tell you the opposite. That is, at least, the main message that comes
across so clearly in the latest play staged in the Gaza Strip bearing
the name "Kull Shi Tamaam" (Everything is Fine), written by local
playwright Atef Abu Seif -- a prolific author from Jabalia refugee camp.
...In an
essay published by the Adalah legal centre, its director, Hassan
Jabareen, proposes that Arab citizens and their municipalities challenge
the endemic discrimination in Israeli society, and the courts’ frequent
backing of it, by treating Jews in a simiiar manner. He proposes
several examples of reverse discrimination that the Arab minority might
easily adopt: restaurants could deny Jews admission, Arab communities
could refuse to put up roadsigns in Hebrew or bar Jews from buying
homes, and Arab libraries could refuse to stock books on Jewish history.
Extrajudicial
killings
Following the
removal of the gag order imposed in Israel on the publication of
details about the charges against Israeli journalist Anat Kam, the
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem reiterated that the case hinges on
documents that raise grave suspicions that the Israeli military
conducted assassination operations in the West Bank under the guise of
arrest operations. The last openly-declared assassination that Israel
conducted in the West Bank took place in August 2006. Since then, Israel
has declared that whenever possible, its armed forces shall arrest
Palestinians that it deems "wanted". In spite of this, B'Tselem's
research revealed that soldiers in the West Bank often operate as though
they are on assassination, not arrest, operations.
Political developments / Diplomacy
National Security
Advisor Jim Jones tells reporters Obama administration believes Jewish
state's delegation to next week's nuclear security summit in Washington
will be 'robust,' despite Prime Minister Netanyahu's decision not to
attend
Media restrictions
Are Israelis
entitled to know that the IDF's highest ranking officers gave advanced
written permission to fire at innocent people during "targeted
assassinations?" Isn't the media's supreme duty, not only its right, to
report this? Are Israel's citizens entitled to know that IDF commanders
approved killing people even when it was possible to apprehend them, in
blatant violation of the High Court's ruling? Aren't we entitled to know
about a secret Defense Ministry report saying about 75 percent of
settlements construction has been carried out without a permit?
When the Shin
Bet removed the gag order against Anat Kamm recently and released a new
indictment, it accused her of harming the security of the State of
Israel by stealing documents whose contents would be much sought after
by Israel’s enemies. At first, knowing that the basis of her indictment
was for documents Uri Blau published in Haaretz which proved that IDF
top generals knowingly ignored a Supreme Court ruling which limited
targeted killings, I disparaged the Shin Bet’s claim. But the IDF is
now putting out word that Kamm also stole sensitive military planning
data and strategic documents which, for example, laid out the orders of
battle for what would become Operation Cast Lead.
...Experiences
I had read about in suspense novels have become my reality in recent
months. When you're warned "they know much more than you think," and are
told that your telephone line, e-mail and computer have been monitored
for a long time and still are, then someone up there doesn't really
understand what democracy is all about, and the importance of freedom of
the press in preserving it.
All possible
legal means will be adopted in order to ensure Haaretz journalist Uri
Blau returns to Israel, senior Justice Ministry officials told Ynet
Thursday.
...At
first glance, this 'affair' has to do with the transfer of classified
material to Haaretz correspondent Uri Blau, the very act of which was
supposedly "harmful to national security." In reality, however, the
crime in question is far more severe - the one committed by the security
apparatus (GOC Central Command in particular) in ignoring a High Court
order and approving the targeted assassination of wanted men who could
otherwise have been detained, in strikes that claimed the lives of
innocent civilians.
...Some
of the same prominent politicians and security figures who are today
expressing shock at Kam's alleged misdeeds have, during my decades of
journalism, in fact given me material for countless articles related to
strategic issues. The difference between the journalist who thrives off
of access to classified material and the kind who earns his livelihood
printing the statements of spokespeople is akin to the difference
between a democratic state and a totalitarian regime. A democratic
government does not, as a rule, stem leaks. Nor does it interrogate
journalists.
There is a mythical aura surrounding
Israeli intelligence. [Example: the Mossad operative Ziva in the US TV
series NCIS] Much of it is well-deserved, as a string of spectacular
covert operations has consistently shown in the decades since the
formation of the Jewish state ... Nevertheless, no spy agency is
infallible, and recent events have revealed gaping holes in the
formidable Israeli intelligence apparatus ... if the
indictments filed against Israeli journalist Anat Kamm on Wednesday
prove true, it would appear that about 2,000 classified Israeli military documents,
including 700 marked "secret" and "top secret", were
copied and remained undetected in private possession for years. These
are all documents whose content could "gravely damage state security and
endanger the lives of both soldiers and Israeli civilians", in the
words of counter-intelligence agency Shin Beth's chief, Yuval Diskin.
...For
the sake of proper disclosure it should be explained that, 15 years
ago, I was questioned at length by the police on suspicion of possessing
top-secret document, and at the end of the interrogation, the police
recommended that I be tried for "aggravated espionage."
The decision -
at long last - to lift the gag order on the reporting of the case of
Anat Kam should be welcomed by all those who believe in independent,
fair-minded journalism. Veteran U.S. anchor Dan Rather once famously
defined news as "something that someone, somewhere doesn't want you to
know." Never has that been truer than of this newspaper's investigation
into the Israel Defense Forces' rules of engagement.
Nuclear Israel
LONDON (AFP) – Israel, whose prime minister withdrew
Friday from next week's US-hosted nuclear summit, is viewed as the sixth
country to have acquired nuclear weapons -- a title it has neither
denied nor confirmed. Analysts at British defence specialists Jane's
believe the Jewish state has between 100 and 300 nuclear warheads,
putting them among the more advanced nuclear weapons states and roughly
on a par with Britain.
JERUSALEM —
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to abruptly cancel a
trip to a nuclear conference in Washington spotlighted a key sore point
Friday in international nonproliferation efforts: Israel's own atomic
weapons. The Jewish state wants to help lead the charge against allowing
nuclear weapons to end up in undesirable hands, even when nobody doubts
that Israel itself possesses them.
...The United States is not on the brink of pushing Israel to sign the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but it could be signalling its
willingness to see pressure applied by others as it provides a platform
in Washington for such an effort. Moreover, in a little noted move, the
Obama administration appears to be using a new diplomatic tool to signal
that Israel’s days of “nuclear ambiguity” may be numbered: Israel’s
nuclear scientists are now being shut out of the United States.
Binyamin
Netanyahu's refusal to attend a summit in the US is less to do with
defence and more about East Jerusalem
Other news
The
conjoined Palestinian twins that made the long, difficult journey out of
the blockaded Gaza Strip to Saudi Arabia cannot be separated and do not
have long to live, the Saudi health minister said Saturday.
Opinion / Analysis
It is important to recognize first that all efforts
to settle the century-old conflict caused by the Zionist invasion of
Palestine have failed because they were unjust, arbitrary, distant from
legality, and did nothing to right fundamental wrongs. A new political
strategy would involve recognizing this basic shortcoming and demand a
return to legality, in effect a return to the days before the 1991
Madrid Conference which launched the past two decades of futile
"negotiations" and accelerated Israeli colonization.
Fayyad.. puts
all his – and the Palestinians’ - eggs in one basket. He chose a single
strategy and sticks to it. That is a personal and national gamble – and
bold and dangerous indeed. Fayyad believes, so it seems, that the
Palestinians’ only chance to achieve their national goals is by
non-violent means, in close cooperation with the US. His plan is to
build the Palestinian national institutions and create a robust economic
base, and, by the end of 2011, to declare the State of Palestine
... Fayyad’s plan is based on the assumption that the US will recognize
the Palestinian state and impose on Israel the well-known peace terms:
two states, return to the 1967 borders with small and agreed-upon land
swaps, East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, evacuation of all
settlements which are not included in the land swap, the return of a
symbolic number of refugees to Israeli territory and the settlement of
the others in Palestine and elsewhere.
Iraq
WASHINGTON -
April 9 - Josh Stieber, who is a former soldier of the “Collateral
Murder” Company, says that the acts of brutality caught on film and
recently released via Wikileaks are not isolated instances, but were
commonplace during his tour of duty. “A lot of my friends are in that
video,” says Stieber.
On
April 9, 2003, exactly seven years ago, Baghdad fell under the US-led
occupation. Baghdad did not fall in 21 days, though; it fell after 13
years of wars, bombings and economic sanctions. Millions of Iraqis,
including myself, watched our country die slowly before our eyes in
those 13 years. So, when the invasion started in March of 2003, everyone
knew it was the straw that would break the camel's back.....
A novelist
and former prisoner of Saddam Hussein's regime gives her reaction to the
Wikileaks Iraq video -- I know the area where this massacre was
committed. It is a crowded working-class area, a place where it is safe
for children to play outdoors. It is near where my two aunts and their
extended families lived, where I played as a child with my cousins Ali,
Khalid, Ferial and Mohammed. Their offspring still live there.
The release last Monday of the US military video Collateral
Murder by Wikileaks has already being dubbed a landmark equal to the Abu
Ghraib pictures. It could not have come at a more appropriate time
as global organisations of journalists commemorate today a similar
slaughter of journalists that took place at the hands of the US army
seven years ago. Just before noon on 8 April 2003, journalists billeted
at the Palestine hotel in Baghdad watched in horror from their balconies
as an M1A1 Abrams tank fired a heat round from
nearly a mile away on the Jumhurya bridge toward the hotel.
Collateral
Murder forces us to confront the deplorable unreality of US aggression
and the grim fate of those caught in its scope -- Like many of the
millions who have viewed, re-viewed and analysed the video, it instantly
reminded me of a videogame, specifically the game that currently sits
inside my Wii – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare ... One of the most
alarming aspects of Collateral Murder is that it demonstrates how
similar the logic of the Apache pilots is to that of the average gamer.
Excerpt: Thousands
of Iraqis demonstrated on the seventh anniversary of the fall of
Baghdad, but violence itself remained light. At least three Iraqis were
killed and five more were wounded. Also, a foreigner of unknown
nationality was wounded in Baghdad. Meanwhile, the Islamic State of Iraq
militant group took responsibility for a deadly triple bombing
targeting foreign embassies last Sunday but also denied any connection
for a coordinated attack against apartment buildings just two days
later.
Excerpt: At
least seven Iraqis were killed and six more were wounded in light
violence. Security officials across the country are re-evaluating their
plans after two days of devastating attacks in Baghdad this
week. In Fallujah, a pair of bombs killed a woman and wounded four
family members. A bomb in Qayara killed two policemen and a soldier.
A 10-year-old child and a soldier were killed during a blast inHammam
al-Aleel. Gunmen killed the head of the local Awakening Council in Jurf
al-Sakhar.
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2010/04/10/saturday-7-iraqis-killed-6-wounded/
Other Mideast
BEIRUT:
Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) leader MP Walid Jumblatt stressed
during a meeting Thursday night with Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan
Nasrallah his support for the resistance and the need to embrace it,
according to a statement by Hizbullah. Jumblatt also thanked Nasrallah
for mediating his last trip to Damascus after five years of ruptured
relations with Syria.
BEIRUT: Recriminations flowed Friday
following the armed clashes between Palestinian militiamen in the Bekaa
Valley. Internal Security Forces (ISF) confirmed the arrest of four
members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General
Command (PFLP-GC), following gun battles at the group’s Ain al-Bayda
base near the town of Kfar Zabad on Thursday.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=113641
Dr. Mohammed
ElBaradei is quickly becoming the Middle East’s most prominent
progressive voice. Candidly and calmly articulating beliefs long held by
average citizens, he does so not from a faraway think tank in the
United States or Europe, but from the very heart of the Arab world.
On Easter
Sunday, 2010, Al Ahram published a photo on its front page, that shows
ElBaradei, ex-IAEA Chief and a possible candidate for Egypt's 2011
Presidential Race, sitting next to Margaret Scobey, U.S. Ambassador in
Egypt, attending Easter Mass at the Orthodox Cathedral in Abbassia,
Cairo ... The message intended by this photo is multi-faceted. First, it
is an attempt to say that El Baradei, ex-Chief of IAEA, represents U.S.
interests in Egypt. Second, it is an attempt to alienate Muslim
conservatives by showing ElBardaei and Scobey participating in this
Christian ceremony.
WASHINGTON, Apr 7,
2010 (IPS) - The Yemeni government and Houthi rebels should investigate
allegations that war crimes took place during recent hostilities
between the two groups in the northern region of the country, according
to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released Wednesday.
U.S., other world news
US officials have confirmed a Yemen-based Muslim cleric has
become the first US citizen added to a CIA list of targets for capture
or killing. Anwar al-Awlaki is a US-born cleric accused of having ties
to the failed Christmas Day airline bombing and the shooting at Fort
Hood. Many legal experts have questioned the legality of the
assassination order under US and international law. We speak with Philip
Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary
and Arbitrary Executions. [includes rush transcript]
We take a look at
the threat of deportation that non-citizen veterans of American wars
continue to face despite US military promises of citizenship. We talk to
Rohan Coombs, a Jamaican-born US vet who was in the US Marine Corps for
six years and served in the Persian Gulf War. He spent eight months in
prison for a marijuana-related conviction. The day he was to be released
he was told he would be deported. He speaks to us from an immigration
jail. We also speak with immigration attorney Craig Shagin ... An
estimated two to three thousand non-citizen vets of US wars face
deportation [includes rush transcript]
The Pentagon is
reeling after two lethal episodes uncovered by diligent journalism show
trigger-happy U.S. Army helicopter pilots and U.S. Special Forces
slaughtering civilians, then seeking to cover up their crimes.
How does a
website run by just five full-time staff generate so many scoops? Archie
Bland investigates -- When the [UK] Ministry of Defence first came
across Wikileaks, staffers were stunned. "There are thousands of things
on here, I literally mean thousands," one of them wrote in an internal
email in November 2008. "Everything I clicked on to do with MoD was
restricted... it is huge."
While
President Barack Obama speaks overseas of his vision of a world without
nuclear weapons, his military commanders at home are quietly
accelerating a programme to develop and deploy a new class of
conventional intercontinental ballistic missiles which will have the
capacity to strike targets anywhere in the world within an hour.
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