http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021111190343685
Israeli Settlements Are Unwittingly Leading to Bi-nationalism
Monday, November 11 2002 @ 07:03 PM GMT
By Sheri Muzher
MASON, Michigan (PC) - Bi-nationalism – the idea of two national groups living in one state -- is becoming a realistic solution in the face of illegal Israeli settlements.
The settlements, which are strategically spread throughout Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, have made physical separation impossible.
And while many bi-nationalists thought that a two-state solution would be the prerequisite to this inevitable reality, expanding illegal settlements may be pushing the two sides into living together more intimately and sooner than could have been imagined.
Illegal Israeli settlements have long been recognized as a thorn in the side of Middle East peace. They’ve been referred to as war crimes by International Committee of the Red Cross head, Rene Kosirnik, since the Geneva Convention forbids resettling individuals on occupied lands. Even then-President Ronald Reagan proposed a peace plan in 1982 that required freezing such settlements. “The immediate adoption of a settlement freeze by Israel, more than any other action, could create the confidence needed,” Reagan said.
Twenty years later, the settlement building continues, and leaders from both Labor and Likud have never taken a reprieve since occupying the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. In fact, there was more settlement building under former Prime Minister Ehud Barak than there was under rightwing predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Israel’s Peace Now. Barak – often credited for his “generous” offer to Palestinians at Camp David – clearly reneged on prior declarations of freezing settlement expansion.
Numerous reasons have been cited by Israelis for the need to build Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories, including the need for more housing to accommodate Jewish “immigrants.” But last year, the Israeli Housing Ministry admitted that almost a quarter of all units built by the government in the West Bank between 1989 and 1992 had never been occupied.
Jewish settlers will tell you that their presence in the West Bank, known as Judea and Samaria to religious Jews, is necessary because God said the land must belong to the Jews even if it means ridding the land of its inhabitants.
Some say that the settlements in the Occupied Territories are necessary to protect Israel’s security. However, Binyamin Begin, son of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin and a prominent voice in the rightwing Likud party stated that "In strategic terms, the settlements are of no importance." Adding, “they constitute an obstacle, an insurmountable obstacle to the establishment of an independent Arab State west of the river Jordan."
But nobody expressed the objective of settlements better than Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who once urged that, "Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements, because everything we take now will stay ours."
Indeed, Sharon, Begin and other supporters of Israeli settlements are correct that a viable Palestinian Arab state cannot be established west of the river Jordan. The settlements and the exclusively Jewish bypass roads leading up to the settlements have left Palestinian areas looking like Swiss cheese.
It is doubtful that bi-nationalism was in the cards either. Bi-nationalism is perhaps the greatest fear of those who wish to maintain the Jewish character of Israel since Palestinians would become the majority.
However, short of transfer or the deportation of Palestinians from the Occupied Territories, an idea which has sadly gained the support of nearly 50% of Israelis, there doesn’t seem to be any other way. And in 2002, it is difficult to imagine that the world would sit by while truckloads of Palestinians are transported to neighboring countries.
I would also like to raise one interesting thought raised by a Jewish acquaintance. He said, "As long as there is a state which describes itself as ‘the state of the Jewish people,' I cannot feel fully secure as a Jew elsewhere, and it is in my immediate interest to challenge this.”
Ultimately, there is no question that Israeli settlements have affected Palestinian daily life and impact long-term Palestinian developmental needs.
And this much is known: Palestinians aren’t leaving and Israelis aren’t leaving. They share the same land and the same natural resources. Their economies are linked. Israeli settlements have made physical separation impossible. The only solution is a democratic bi-national state where Palestinians and Israelis live as equals and are forced to make it work.
-Sherri Muzher, JD in International Law Writer and Media Analyst. She is a regular contributor to the Palestine Chronicle
-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
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dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 5:37 pm Post subject: Child of Holocaust Survivors REALLY sees in Palestine
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Child of Holocaust Survivors REALLY sees in Palestine
http://www.ipsjps.org/jps/125/roy.html
Vol XXXII, No. 1, Autumn 2002, Issue 125
What a Child of Holocaust Survivors REALLY sees in Palestine
Living with the Holocaust: The Journey of a Child of Holocaust
Survivors
Sara Roy
----------------------------------------------
Sara Roy, author of The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-
Development, among other works, is a senior research scholar at
the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University. This
essay was given as the Second Annual Holocaust Remembrance
Lecture at the Center for American and Jewish Studies and the
George W. Truett Seminary, Baylor University, on 8 April 2002.
----------------------------------------------
Some months ago I was invited to reflect on my journey as a child of
Holocaust survivors. This journey continues and shall continue until
the day I die. Though I cannot possibly say everything, it seems
especially poignant that I should be addressing this topic at a time
when the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is descending
so tragically into a moral abyss and when, for me at least, the very
essence of Judaism, of what it means to be a Jew, seems to be
descending with it.
The Holocaust has been the defining feature of my life. It could not
have been otherwise. I lost over 100 members of my family and
extended family in the Nazi ghettos and death camps in Poland--
grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, a sibling not yet born--people
about whom I have heard so much throughout my life, people I
never knew. They lived in Poland in Jewish communities called
shtetls.
In thinking about what I wanted to say about this journey, I tried to
remember my very first conscious encounter with the Holocaust.
Although I cannot be certain, I think it was the first time I noticed the
number the Nazis had imprinted on my father’s arm. To his
oppressors, my father, Abraham, had no name, no history, and no
identity other than that blue-inked number, which I never wrote
down. As a young child of four or five, I remember asking my father
why he had that number on his arm. He answered that he had once
painted it on but then found it would not wash off, so was left with it.
My father was one of six children, and he was the only one in his
family to survive the Holocaust. I know very little about his family
because he could not speak about them without breaking down. I
know little about my paternal grandmother, after whom I am named,
and even less about my father’s sisters and brother. I know only
their names. It caused me such pain to see him suffer with his
memories that I stopped asking him to share them.
My father’s name was recognized in Holocaust circles because he
was one of two known survivors of the death camp at Chelmno, in
Poland, where 350,000 Jews were murdered, among them the
majority of my family on my father’s and mother’s sides. They were
taken there and gassed to death in January 1942. Through my
father’s cousin I learned that there is now a plaque at the entrance
to what is left of the Chelmno death camp with my father’s name on
it--something I hope one day to see. My father also survived the
concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald and because of
it was called to testify at the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961.
My mother, Taube, was one of nine children--seven girls and two
boys. Her father, Herschel, was a rabbi and shohet—a ritual
slaughterer--and deeply loved and respected by all who knew him.
Herschel was a learned man who had studied with some of the
great rabbis of Poland. The stories both my mother and aunt have
told me also indicate that he was a feminist of sorts, getting down
on his hands and knees to help his wife or daughters scrub the
floor, treating the women in his life with the same respect and
reverence he gave the men. My grandmother, Miriam, whose name
I also have, was a kind and gentle soul but the disciplinarian of the
family since Hershel could never raise his voice to his children. My
mother came from a deeply religious and loving family. My aunts
and uncles were as devoted to their parents and they were to them.
As a family they lived very modestly, but every Sabbath my
grandfather would bring home a poor or homeless person who was
seated at the head of the table to share the Sabbath meal.
My mother and her sister Frania were the only two in their family to
survive the war. Everyone else perished, except for one other sister,
Shoshana, who had emigrated to Palestine in 1936. My mother and
Frania had managed to stay together throughout the war--seven
years in the Pabanice and Lodz ghettos, followed by the Auschwitz
and Halbstadt concentration camps. The only time in seven years
they were separated was at Auschwitz. They were in a selection
line, where Jews were lined up and their fate sealed by the Nazi
doctor Joseph Mengele, who alone would determine who would live
and who would die. When my aunt had approached him, Mengele
sent her to the right, to labor (a temporary reprieve). When my
mother approached him, he sent her to the left, to death, which
meant she would be gassed. Miraculously, my mother managed to
sneak back into the selection line, and when she approached
Mengele again, he sent her to labor.
A defining moment in my life and journey as a child of Holocaust
survivors occurred even before I was born. It involved decisions
taken by my mother and her sister, two very remarkable women,
that would change their lives and mine.
After the war ended, my aunt Frania desperately wanted to go to
Palestine to join their sister, who had been there for ten years. The
creation of a Jewish state was imminent, and Frania felt it was the
only safe place for Jews after the Holocaust. My mother disagreed
and adamantly refused to go. She told me many times during my life
that her decision not to live in Israel was based on a belief, learned
and reinforced by her experiences during the war, that tolerance,
compassion, and justice cannot be practiced or extended when one
lives only among one's own. “I could not live as a Jew among Jews
alone,” she said. “For me, it wasn’t possible and it wasn’t what I
wanted. I wanted to live as a Jew in a pluralist society, where my
group remained important to me but where others were important to
me, too.”
Frania emigrated to Israel and my parents went to America. It was
extremely painful for my mother to leave her sister, but she felt she
had no alternative. (They have remained very close and have seen
each other often, both in this country and in Israel.) I have always
found my mother's choice and the context from which it emanated
remarkable.
I grew up in a home where Judaism was defined and practiced not
as a religion but as a system of ethics and culture. God was present
but not central. My first language was Yiddish, which I still speak
with my family. My home was filled with joy and optimism although
punctuated at times by grief and loss. Israel and the notion of a
Jewish homeland were very important to my parents. After all, the
remnants of our family were there. But unlike many of their friends,
my parents were not uncritical of Israel, insofar as they felt they
could be. Obedience to a state was not an ultimate Jewish value,
not for them, not after the Holocaust. Judaism provided the context
for our life and for values and beliefs that were not dependent upon
national boundaries, but transcended them. For my mother and
father, Judaism meant bearing witness, railing against injustice and
foregoing silence. It meant compassion, tolerance, and rescue. It
meant, as Ammiel Alcalay has written, ensuring to the extent
possible that the memories of the past do not become the
memories of the future. These were the ultimate Jewish values. My
parents were not saints; they had their faults and they made
mistakes. But they cared profoundly about issues of justice and
fairness, and they cared profoundly about people--all people, not
just their own.
The lessons of the Holocaust were always presented to me as both
particular (i.e., Jewish) and universal. Perhaps most importantly,
they were presented as indivisible. To divide them would diminish
the meaning of both.
Looking back over my life, I realize that through their actions and
words, my mother and father never tried to shield me from self-
knowledge; instead, they insisted that I confront what I did not know
or understand. Noam Chomsky speaks of the “parameters of
thinkable thought.” My mother and father constantly pushed those
parameters as far as they could, which was not far enough for me,
but they taught me how to push them and the importance of doing
so.
***
It was perhaps inevitable that I would follow a path that would lead
me to the Arab-Israeli issue. I visited Israel many times while
growing up. As a child, I found it a beautiful, romantic, and peaceful
place. As a teenager and young adult I began to feel certain
contradictions that I could not fully explain but which centered on
what seemed to be the almost complete absence in Israeli life and
discourse of Jewish life in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust,
and even of the Holocaust itself. I would ask my aunt why these
subjects were not discussed, and why Israelis didn't learn to speak
Yiddish. My questions were often met with grim silence.
Most painful to me was the denigration of the Holocaust and pre-
state Jewish life by many of my Israeli friends. For them, those were
times of shame, when Jews were weak and passive, inferior and
unworthy, deserving not of our respect but of our disdain. “We will
never allow ourselves to be slaughtered again or go so willingly to
our slaughter,” they would say. There was little need to understand
those millions who perished or the lives they lived. There was even
less need to honor them. Yet at the same time, the Holocaust was
used by the state as a defense against others, as a justification for
political and military acts.
I could not comprehend nor make sense of what I was hearing. I
remember fearing for my aunt. In my confusion, I also remember
profound anger. It was at that moment, perhaps, that I began
thinking about the Palestinians and their conflict with the Jews. If so
many among us could negate our own and so pervert the truth, why
not with the Palestinians? Was there a link of some sort between
the murdered Jews of Europe and the Palestinians? I did not know,
but so my search began.
The journey has been a painful one but among the most meaningful
of my life. At my side, always, was my mother, constant in her
support, although ambivalent and conflicted at times. My father had
died a young man; I do not know what he would have thought, but I
have always felt his presence. My Israeli family opposed what I was
doing and has always remained steadfast in their opposition. In fact,
I have not spoken with them about my work in over fifteen years.
***
Despite many visits to Israel during my youth, I first went to the
West Bank and Gaza in the summer of 1985, two and a half years
before the first Palestinian uprising, to conduct fieldwork for my
doctoral dissertation, which examined American economic
assistance to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. My research focused
on whether it was possible to promote economic development under
conditions of military occupation. That summer changed my life
because it was then that I came to understand and experience what
occupation was and what it meant. I learned how occupation works,
its impact on the economy, on daily life, and its grinding impact on
people. I learned what it meant to have little control over one’s life
and, more importantly, over the lives of one’s children.
As with the Holocaust, I tried to remember my very first encounter
with the occupation. One of my earliest encounters involved a group
of Israeli soldiers, an old Palestinian man, and his donkey. Standing
on a street with some Palestinian friends, I noticed an elderly
Palestinian walking down the street, leading his donkey. A small
child no more than three or four years old, clearly his grandson, was
with him. Some Israeli soldiers standing nearby went up to the old
man and stopped him. One soldier ambled over to the donkey and
pried open its mouth. “Old man,” he asked, “why are your donkey’s
teeth so yellow? Why aren’t they white? Don’t you brush your
donkey’s teeth?” The old Palestinian was mortified, the little boy
visibly upset. The soldier repeated his question, yelling this time,
while the other soldiers laughed. The child began to cry and the old
man just stood there silently, humiliated. This scene repeated itself
while a crowd gathered. The soldier then ordered the old man to
stand behind the donkey and demanded that he kiss the animal’s
behind. At first, the old man refused but as the soldier screamed at
him and his grandson became hysterical, he bent down and did it.
The soldiers laughed and walked away. They had achieved their
goal: to humiliate him and those around him. We all stood there in
silence, ashamed to look at each other, hearing nothing but the
uncontrollable sobs of the little boy. The old man did not move for
what seemed a very long time. He just stood there, demeaned and
destroyed.
I stood there too, in stunned disbelief. I immediately thought of the
stories my parents had told me of how Jews had been treated by
the Nazis in the 1930s, before the ghettos and death camps, of how
Jews would be forced to clean sidewalks with toothbrushes and
have their beards cut off in public. What happened to the old man
was absolutely equivalent in principle, intent, and impact: to
humiliate and dehumanize. In this instance, there was no difference
between the German soldier and the Israeli one. Throughout that
summer of 1985, I saw similar incidents: young Palestinian men
being forced by Israeli soldiers to bark like dogs on their hands and
knees or dance in the streets.
In this critical respect, my first encounter with the occupation was
the same as my first encounter with the Holocaust, with the number
on my father’s arm. It spoke the same message: the denial of one’s
humanity. It is important to understand the very real differences in
volume, scale, and horror between the Holocaust and the
occupation and to be careful about comparing the two, but it is also
important to recognize parallels where they do exist.
As a child of Holocaust survivors I always wanted to be able in
some way to experience and feel some aspect of what my parents
endured, which, of course, was impossible. I listened to their stories,
always wanting more, and shared their tears. I often would ask
myself, what does sheer terror feel like? What does it look like?
What does it mean to lose ones whole family so horrifically and so
immediately, or to have an entire way of life extinguished so
irrevocably? I would try to imagine myself in their place, but it was
impossible. It was beyond my reach, too unfathomable.
It was not until I lived with Palestinians under occupation that I found
at least part of the answers to some of these questions. I was not
searching for the answers; they were thrust upon me. I learned, for
example, what sheer terror looked like from my friend Rabia,
eighteen years old, who, frozen by fear and uncontrollable shaking,
stood glued in the middle of a room we shared in a refugee camp,
unable to move, while Israeli soldiers were trying to break down the
front door to our shelter. I experienced terror while watching Israeli
soldiers beat a pregnant women in her belly because she flashed a
V-sign at them, and I was too paralyzed by fear to help her. I could
more concretely understand the meaning of loss and displacement
when I watched grown men sob and women scream as Israeli army
bulldozers destroyed their home and everything in it because they
built their house without a permit, which the Israeli authorities had
refused to give them.
It is perhaps in the concept of home and shelter that I find the most
profound link between the Jews and the Palestinians, and perhaps,
the most painful illustration of the meaning of occupation. I cannot
begin to describe how horrible and obscene it is to watch the
deliberate destruction of a family’s home while that family watches,
powerless to stop it. For Jews as for Palestinians, a house
represents far more than a roof over one’s head; it represents life
itself. Speaking about the demolition of Palestinian homes, Meron
Benvenisti, an Israeli historian and scholar, writes:
It would be hard to overstate the symbolic value of a house to an
individual for whom the culture of wandering and of becoming
rooted to the land is so deeply engrained in tradition, for an
individual whose national mythos is based on the tragedy of being
uprooted from a stolen homeland. The arrival of a firstborn son and
the building of a home are the central events in such an individual’s
life because they symbolize continuity in time and physical space.
And with the demolition of the individual’s home comes the
destruction of the world.
Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians is the crux of the problem
between the two peoples, and it will remain so until it ends. For the
last thirty-five years, occupation has meant dislocation and
dispersion; the separation of families; the denial of human, civil,
legal, political, and economic rights imposed by a system of military
rule; the torture of thousands; the confiscation of tens of thousands
of acres of land and the uprooting of tens of thousands of trees; the
destruction of more than 7,000 Palestinian homes; the building of
illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands and the doubling of
the settler population over the last ten years; first the undermining of
the Palestinian economy and now its destruction; closure; curfew;
geographic fragmentation; demographic isolation; and collective
punishment.
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dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 5:39 pm Post subject: Occupation is humiliation 2nd part/child of holocaust surviv
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Occupation is humiliation 2nd part/child of holocaust survivors
Israel's occupation of the Palestinians is not the moral equivalent of the
Nazi genocide of the Jews. But it does not have to be. No, this is not
genocide, but it is repression, and it is brutal. And it has become
frighteningly natural. Occupation is about the domination and dispossession
of one people by another. It is about the destruction of their property and
the destruction of their soul. Occupation aims, at its core, to deny
Palestinians their humanity by denying them the right to determine their
existence, to live normal lives in their own homes. Occupation is
humiliation. It is despair and desperation. And just as there is no moral
equivalence or symmetry between the Holocaust and the occupation, so there is
no moral equivalence or symmetry between the occupier and the occupied, no
matter how much we as Jews regard ourselves as victims.
And it is from this context of deprivation and suffocation, now largely
forgotten, that the horrific and despicable suicide bombings have emerged and
taken the lives of more innocents. Why should innocent Israelis, among them
my aunt and her grandchildren, pay the price of occupation? Like the
settlements, razed homes, and barricades that preceded them, the suicide
bombers have not always been there.
Memory in Judaism--like all memory--is dynamic, not static, embracing a
multiplicity of voices and shunning the hegemony of one. But in the
post-Holocaust world, Jewish memory has faltered--even failed--in one
critical respect: it has excluded the reality of Palestinian suffering and
Jewish culpability therein. As a people, we have been unable to link the
creation of Israel with the displacement of the Palestinians. We have been
unwilling to see, let alone remember, that finding our place meant the loss
of theirs. Perhaps one reason for the ferocity of the conflict today is that
Palestinians are insisting on their voice despite our continued and desperate
efforts to subdue it.
Within the Jewish community it has always been considered a form of heresy to
compare Israeli actions or policies with those of the Nazis, and certainly
one must be very careful in doing so. But what does it mean when Israeli
soldiers paint identification numbers on Palestinian arms; when young
Palestinian men and boys of a certain age are told through Israeli
loudspeakers to gather in the town square; when Israeli soldiers openly admit
to shooting Palestinian children for sport; when some of the Palestinian dead
must be buried in mass graves while the bodies of others are left in city
streets and camp alleyways because the army will not allow proper burial;
when certain Israeli officials and Jewish intellectuals publicly call for the
destruction of Palestinian villages in retaliation for suicide bombings or
for the transfer of the Palestinian population out of the West Bank and Gaza;
when 46 percent of the Israeli public favors such transfers and when transfer
or expulsion becomes a legitimate part of popular discourse; when government
officials speak of the "cleansing of the refugee camps"; and when a leading
Israeli intellectual calls for hermetic separation between Israelis and
Palestinians in the form of a Berlin Wall, caring not whether the
Palestinians on the other side of the wall may starve to death as a result.
What are we supposed to think when we hear this? What is my mother supposed
to think?
In the context of Jewish existence today, what does it mean to preserve the
Jewish character of the State of Israel? Does it mean preserving a Jewish
demographic majority through any means and continued Jewish domination of the
Palestinian people and their land? What is the narrative that we as a people
are creating, and what kind of voice are we seeking? What sort of meaning do
we as Jews derive from the debasement and humiliation of Palestinians? What
is at the center of our moral and ethical discourse? What is the source of
our moral and spiritual legacy? What is the source of our redemption? Has the
process of creating and rebuilding ended for us? I want to end this essay
with a quote from Irena Klepfisz, a writer and child survivor of the Warsaw
ghetto, whose father spirited her and her mother out of the ghetto and then
himself died in the ghetto uprising. I have concluded that one way to pay
tribute to those we loved who struggled, resisted and died is to hold on to
their vision and their fierce outrage at the destruction of the ordinary life
of their people. It is this outrage we need to keep alive in our daily life
and apply it to all situations, whether they involve Jews or non-Jews. It is
this outrage we must use to fuel our actions and vision whenever we see any
signs of the disruptions of common life: the hysteria of a mother grieving
for the teenager who has been shot; a family stunned in front of a vandalized
or demolished home; a family separated, displaced; arbitrary and unjust laws
that demand the closing or opening of shops and schools; humiliation of a
people whose culture is alien and deemed inferior; a people left homeless
without citizenship; a people living under military rule. Because of our
experience, we recognize these evils as obstacles to peace. At those moments
of recognition, we remember the past, feel the outrage that inspired the Jews
of the Warsaw Ghetto and allow it to guide us in present struggles. For me,
these words define the true meaning of Judaism and the lessons my parents
sought to impart.
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dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 6:17 pm Post subject: The “Neighbor Procedure” Is Harming Pale
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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021114200158168
The “Neighbor Procedure” Is Harming Palestinian Civilians: B’Tselem
Thursday, November 14 2002 @ 08:01 PM GMT
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PC) - The Israeli rights group, B’Tselem protested once again the Israeli army use of Palestinian civilians as human shields to achieve its military goals. The Israeli army practice is strongly criticized on moral and legal levels, and was reportedly outlawed by the Israeli high court.
But B’Tselem, at outspoken group that often lashes out at the practices of the Israeli army in the Occupied Territories said in its report Thursday that “for an extended period of time, the IDF has been using Palestinians as human shields and ordering them to carry out military tasks that pose a threat to their lives.”
The practice, which was used heavily in Jenin during the Israeli army atrocities committed against civilians there, has resulted in the death of several Palestinians and wounding of many. The latest reported case of the use of human shields was in Jenin last Saturday, when the wife of Iyad Sawalha was ordered, along with a neighbor to stand between the army and her “wanted” husband, Islamic Jihad leader, before the latter was gunned down and killed. The pregnant wife was detained and is still in prison.
B‘Tselem said that, “In implementing this policy, Palestinian civilians have been forced to carry out tasks such as removing suspicious objects from roads, ordering people to leave their homes to be arrested by the IDF, and standing in front of soldiers who were firing from behind them.. These tasks were forced upon civilians who were chosen at random and could not refuse the orders given to them by armed soldiers.”
The Israeli army continued to carry out such practices, although discredited by the Israeli high court. The army refers to the practice as the “neighbor procedure” and says it doesn’t mount to the outlawed human shield practice, prohibited under international law.
“The position of the state said the IDF Spokesperson .. that the ‘neighbor procedure‘ is legal because it does not come within the rubric of human shields, is inexplicable. The main reason that soldiers do not themselves knock on the door of the house of a person they want to arrest is because they fear that they will be injured. The assumption that a Palestinians chosen to carry out the task instead of the soldiers would not get hurt is entirely unfounded,” the report stated.
An Israeli army spokesman said that the B’Tselem report highlights important cases, and promised that these cases “will be checked carefully,” alleging that 30 investigations have been opened to confront this matter.
Palestinians however say that the human shield practice is used constantly, not on rare occasions and it is clearly the policy used by the Israeli army, not just a few disobedient soldiers.
-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
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dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2002 10:12 am Post subject: “Snapshots“, a Visual Dedication to Pale
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http://palestinechronicle.com/index.php
“Snapshots“, a Visual Dedication to Palestine, Launched
Monday, November 18 2002 @ 06:28 PM GMT
SEATTLE/JENIN (PC) - PalestineChronicle.com, the leading news source about Palestine on the Internet, launched its newest venture on Monday, “Snapshots” a visual dedication to life in Palestine.
The photo gallery, a collaboration of several leading photojournalists around the world is designed to be a medium for story-telling through images, using the most effective technological resources available on the Internet.
“Snapshots” , unlike many photo galleries depicting the Arab-Israeli conflict, is aimed at humanizing the face of the Palestinians, by showing a side of them hardly reflected in Western media, Palestine Chronicle staff say.
“This is not your every day ‘violence in the Middle East’ gallery,” Ramzy Baroud, Editor-in-Chief of Palestine Chronicle said. “This is an experience, or collective experience of several photographers, who are by no means detached from their subjects. These photographers were narrating stories, depicting life in the occupied territories, good or bad, cheerful or depressing, under army curfews or free. The idea behind the photos was not simply getting a picture out to the wire before the others, these are well-thought-out images. It’s a narration of the human life, not simply set to depict pictures of violence.”
Bilal Chadury, PalestineChronicle.com Webmaster explains, “the Snapshots project was a vision more than anything else. Our goal is to present stories in a manner you have never seen before on Palestine Chronicle. They say a ‘picture is worth a thousands words‘, and the new Snapshots is worth much more than that.“
He adds, “The design and navigation of the site was created to make it easy to view pictures in a story-like fashion and to allow higher interaction from our users. Snapshots will tell our readers a story without words, it will be a voice without sound. Snapshots will enable our readers to witnesses life in Palestine as it unfolds.”
Suzanne Russ, the Chronicle's Managing Editor said that the new gallery is part of the Chronicle’s “ceaseless efforts to introduce new ideas, to reach a greater audience, and to fill some of the gap left unfulfilled in the world’s media.” “Palestinians are often seen in a category that is hard to escape, either violent people or victims of violence. Many find it hard to see Palestinians out of this diagram. ‘Snapshots’ is a unique change to that depiction. Palestinians are not violent people, and their violence is a natural response to aggressions. We are set to prove the truthfulness of that, to zoom in on the human face as it is.”
Snapshots can be found at: palestinechronicle.com/snapshots
The PalestineChronicle.com’s photo gallery is launching with the work of four leading photojournalists, and will soon incorporate more. The Palestinian web site also intends on expanding its photo coverage to other parts of the Middle East in the future.
The PalestineChronicle.com is an award winning web site, with coverage that focuses on Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict, but also includes regional and world news, commentary and features.
PalestineChronicle.com
Tel: 206-718-3637
Fax: 425-778-9237
E-mail: editor@palestinechronicle.com
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dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2002 10:18 am Post subject: Every Day is a Major Invasion in Gaza
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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021119013308321
Every Day is a Major Invasion in Gaza
Tuesday, November 19 2002 @ 01:33 AM GMT
By Kristen Ess
GAZA CITY (PC) - Gaza City did not sleep last night. 35 Israeli tanks plowed into the Tal Al-Hawa area in the south of the city. Apache missiles fired from the sky. The explosions lasted throughout the night.
Red light bullets passed by my nose, sometimes hitting a building, while others fell to the ground. Two Caterpillar bulldozers destroyed the home of Palestinian Preventative Security officer Yousef Mkdud, who Israeli soldiers arrested last week while Apaches fired missiles into another area of Gaza City. His family was at home.
A man called out that the international community must wake up. He said, “They are killing our children but we are here to stay. The world must listen to the truth.”
Another said quietly, “No one heard you.”
A few media have contacted me since the news is that there is a “major attack on Gaza.” Here in the Gaza Strip, children, men, women, doctors, professors, students, are killed or displaced daily. Their houses are knocked down, they often cannot pass from one end of the Strip to the other, cannot leave it at all, do not have access to drinking water because Israel diverts the best water for its own agriculture and illegal settlements. People here are easy targets for the Apaches and F-16s. There is nowhere else to go.
The residents of Block 0 in Rafah, along what is now the most exposed row of houses after several rows deep have been demolished, are not staying in their houses at night anymore. The situation is too dangerous for them: midnight demolitions and constant shooting. They sleep on the ground under white sheets that barely pass for tents. More than 300 homes have been demolished in this area in the last year.
What is most alarming is not the increased frequency of the demolitions, but the complete acceptability of them. They go unnoticed by anyone except the Palestinians who are rendered homeless in the process. The tents sit in messy rows on the sides of dusty roads around the town of Rafah.
Today the PA was handing out $100 checks for emergency aid. With $1000 there is still nowhere for Palestinians to go. 42% of the Gaza Strip is occupied by illegal Israeli settlements and more are being built. Between September 1993 and March of 2001 settlement building increased by 72%, with the peak time under then Israeli Prime Minister Barak (recall his “generous offer” in that time which was considered “a time of peace”). That, along with humiliating checkpoints, targeted assassinations, random killings and frequent invasions, is “the Israeli peace.”
Friends who live next to Abu Holi checkpoint have just called. Israeli soldiers have been shooting at them for the past hour, but this is not considered a part of the “major invasion,” nor are the Apaches firing missiles near the tents in Rafah.
-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
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dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2002 10:21 am Post subject: Reuters Journalist Wounded by Israeli Tank Fire in Gaza
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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021118210801820
http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021118210801820
Reuters Journalist Wounded by Israeli Tank Fire in Gaza
Monday, November 18 2002 @ 09:08 PM GMT
GAZA CITY (PC) - In the most recent round of assaults on the Gaza Strip Monday morning a TV journalist who works for Reuters was wounded by Israeli tank shelling.
Reuters cameramen under fire
(archive)
The bombardment, which took place from land, sea and air targeted Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s crumbling offices, which were destroyed earlier in a similar attack.
According to officials in the Al-Quds hospital, who treated the journalist, Israeli soldiers prevented the wounded from reaching the hospital.
The California based group, Committee to Protect Journalists issued a report earlier this year, stating that the Occupied Territories are the world's most dangerous place for journalists, due to Israel's "potentially lethal force" to enforce severe restrictions on the coverage coming from the area.
In the recent past, journalists reporting for the Boston Globe, NBC, Agency France Press, Al-Quds and Palestine Chronicle among others have been illegally detained or have come under fire by the Israeli army.
-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
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dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2002 10:24 am Post subject: Gaza Under Fire by Land, Sea and Air
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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021118210420542
Gaza Under Fire by Land, Sea and Air
Monday, November 18 2002 @ 09:04 PM GMT
GAZA CITY (PC) - Early Monday morning, Gaza City was bombarded by Israeli tanks and helicopters. Targeting a Palestinian security compound, the shelling could be heard from miles around.
The area was also bombed by Israeli gunboats waiting at the harbor for the shelling to start. The gunboats began shelling, targeting Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s offices, which had been destroyed earlier in a similar attack.
Earlier this week in a press conference, Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the international community to “support Israel’s right to defend itself” and to take whatever action it found necessary to curb the growing violence in the region, and to “destroy terrorism and the regimes that support terrorism,” referring to the Palestinian Authority.
With phone lines cut and medical personnel denied access to the site by the Israeli army, Palestinian security officers who were wounded were stranded without medical attention. A nearby hospital in Gaza said that their facilities had been struck by Israeli fire as well. It was also reported by medical personnel that a TV cameraman who works for Reuters news agency was wounded as well.
The Israeli attack was apparently in retaliation to the killing of 12 Israeli soldiers and illegal Jewish Settlers who were ambushed and killed by Palestinian fighters last Friday.
Although Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are illegal under international law, many officials in the Israeli government advocate the expansion of settlements in the Hebron area. Working in unison with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Housing and Construction Ministry is working with the settlers of Kiryat Arba to fortify their outposts in Hebron and to connect and strengthen their presence there.
Israeli Housing and Construction Minister, Natan Sharansky to Israel army radio, “We have to build settlement contiguity between Kiryat Arba, the Cave of the Patriarchs and the settlement community in Hebron.”
-Palestine Chronicle (palestinechronicle.com). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
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dangerousdna
Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 13274
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2002 10:27 am Post subject: Israeli Army Invades Gaza City
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http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20021118205817512
Israeli Army Invades Gaza City
Monday, November 18 2002 @ 08:58 PM GMT
GAZA CITY - Israeli Occupation Forces, backed by helicopters and tanks, invaded Gaza City early Monday, targeting the Preventive Security Forces Headquarters.
According to Palestinian security sources in Gaza City, US-made Israeli Apache gunships fired several air-to-surface missiles at the headquarters, while tanks and soldiers moved in shelling buildings and randomly opening machine gunfire at residential neighborhoods.
As tanks rumbled into the city, Israeli gunboats opened fire on the shoreline, shelling the area where President Yasser Arafat’s offices are located. The offices were destroyed in an Israeli air raid several months ago.
Several nearby Apartment buildings and a local hospital also came under fire from IOF.
Moreover, Israeli occupation troops fired shells at the house of Yousef Mukdad, a Preventive Security officer detained recently by the Israeli occupation authorities.
Panic and fear spread instantly as the sounds of tanks shelling and explosions spread all over the city of about 300,000 residents.
Mustafa Mughrabi, 45, told the Associated Press by telephone that he was hiding under a bed with his children after gunfire hit his house from three directions. Outside, he added, he heard “the sound of explosions mixed with screams of children.”
Palestinian medical sources said two security officers and a TV cameraman working for Reuters news agency were lightly injured.
Later on, IOF troops pulled out after more than three hours, leaving several of the 11 buildings in the compound in ruins.
At the main administration building, furniture was smashed and computers destroyed, their parts littering the floor, as firefighters fought a blaze nearby.
PNA official Tayeb Abdel Rahim, who lives about 100 yards from the targeted base, told AP his house was hit by bullets but he was not harmed.
He condemned the Israeli “aggression” and warned that, “security and stability for [the] Israeli people cannot be achieved at the expense of the Palestinian people.”
Monday’s massive invasion came a few hours after Israeli Apache gunships targeted civilian workshops in Gaza City.
The invasion was also concurrent with a full Israeli military occupation of Nablus, Jenin, and Hebron cities in the West bank.
-Palestine Media Center (http://www.palestine-pmc.com/). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
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Guest
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2002 8:28 pm Post subject: Bogus Camp David "Generous Offer" by Barak
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Here are three excellent sites where you can download writings and maps to rebut the "generous offer." If this were successfully refuted, it would make an enormous difference. Jeff Halper says this is an even more important argument than the occupation itself. See below why he says this.
http://www.wrmea.com/html/faq.htm
excellent presentation of FAQs, Frequently Asked Questions
http://www.gush-shalom.org/english/
Barak's "Generous Offers"
http://www.ameu.org/ -
Writes Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper in our latest Link:
If anything has turned public opinion in Israel and abroad against the Palestinians, it is the contention that Israel under [Prime Minister] Barak made far-reaching concessions to the Palestinians and that they rebuffed this generous offer with violence. In this popular view the Palestinians are to blame for the breakdown of the peace process and, in light of terrorism, Israels policies of repression are justified.
Current Issue
Title: A Most UnGenerous Offer
Author: Jeff Halper
September - October 2002
Volume 35 , Issue 4
Download PDF
I first met Dr. Jeff Halper earlier this year when AMEU sponsored a seminar he gave at The InterChurch Center in New York City, where our office is located.
Jeff began by saying that, while the root cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is Israels 35-year occupation of Palestinian land, that was not where the focus of the public relations discussion should be.
As soon as one mentions the occupation, he explained, the pro-Israeli side counters: But we offered the Palestinians at Camp David 95 percent of their land back, with fair adjustments for the other five percent, and they rejected it. Its Arafats fault, not Israels, that the occupation drags on.
Its this generous offer, Jeff argued, that must be refuted. And thats exactly what he proceeded to do with clarity and maps.
When he finished I invited him to share his thoughts with our Link readers.
Jeff Halper is professor of anthropology at Israels Ben Gurion University. He is also coordinator of The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. His E-mail address is icahd@zahav.net.il.
We felt that this issue was so important, and the maps that Jeff uses so relevant, that we have reproduced the maps in their original color-coded design. This marks the first time in our 35 years of publishing that we have used color. We are indebted to Just Peace Technologies and The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions for making the two maps and explanatory notations available to AMEU.
The maps are from an 11x17-inch, four-fold, full color brochure produced by Just Peace Technologies. Copies are available from Just Peace Technologies for 40 cents per copy plus S&H. For example, the charge for 250 copies would be $100 for the brochures plus $20 for handling and shipment by UPS Ground. Payment by check is required in advance of shipment.
Contact Just Peace Technologies, POB 610061, Redwood City, CA 94061, phone and fax (650)261-1235, E-mail: pamphlets@justpeacetech.org, web: www.justpeacetech.org.
-- John F. Mahoney, Executive Director, September 2002.
Articles
A Most Ungenerous Offer, by Jeff Halper
