OCHA: Israel displaced dozens of children and their families last August

[ 07/09/2010 - 04:38 PM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) reported that Israel last month displaced 50 Bedouin families at least, including 39 children and destroyed their tents in an area near Doma village in Nablus city.

OCHA's report, which covered the Israeli violations that took place between 25 and 31 August, said that Israel demolished these tents at the pretext that they were erected in the area classified as C which is used for military purposes.

The report added that Israel, since the beginning of this year, has demolished 247 homes and structures in area C.

Israel, according to OCHA, carried out during the reporting period 79 search and arrest operations inside the towns, villages and refugee camps in the third week of Ramadan compared with 95 similar operations since early 2010.

In Gaza, two Palestinians were injured when Israeli forces opened fire at Palestinian civilians collecting scrap metal and rubble a little far from the security fence. Since the beginning of the year, 35 Palestinians have been injured in similar incidents.

Also, on a number of different occasions this week, Israeli forces launched incursions a few hundred meters into Gaza and withdrew after leveling land. Such incidents continue to take place in the context of Israeli-imposed restrictions on access between 500 and 1,000-1,500 meters from the fence dividing Gaza and Israel.

Similar restrictions continue to apply to Palestinian access to fishing areas beyond three nautical miles from the shore. In one incident, the Israeli navy fired ‘warning’ shots towards Palestinian fishing boats, forcing them ashore, the report said.

Although recent weeks have witnessed an increase in the imports into Gaza, reconstruction efforts and the revival of the private sector continue to be limited by Israeli restrictions on both construction materials and exports, it added.

In another context, the Palestinian independent committee for human rights (ombudsman office) expressed its deep concern over the ongoing mass arrest campaign being carried out by the Palestinian Authority's security apparatuses in all West Bank areas following Al-Khalil resistance operation.

In a statement on Tuesday, the committee explained that the PA's security apparatuses carried out widespread and collective arrests in the ranks of Hamas members and supporters without observing the law in force in West Bank areas.

The committee stressed the need for stopping the mass arrest of West Bank citizens and referring them all to the justice to consider their files.

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Israel baffled as U.S. group vows to bust Gaza siege by air

[ 07/09/2010 - 03:09 PM ]

NAZARETH, (PIC)-- Israeli channel two says Israel fears efforts led by a pro-Palestinian U.S. organization to break the four-year siege on the Gaza Strip by air.

Israeli military correspondent Nair Dfore told the channel that Israeli security leaders see the U.S. organization as an active branch of the Turkish IHH organization, one of the organizers of the Freedom Flotilla, which was subjected to a deadly attack by Israeli troops on May 31.

Israeli leaders are in a state of confusion, the channel explained, as it is the first time a group of pro-Palestinians send aid to Gaza by air.

California-based Free Gaza Movement official Paul Arodi said the movement resolved to send a plane to Gaza, adding that Gaza authorities have backed the initiative and are working to fix a place for landing.

Arodi says Free Gaza officials will be looking for a plane designed for difficult landings and take-offs, such as planes used in Alaska and other locations that lack adequate aviation facilities.

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Egypt's FM Equates 'Jewish State' to “Islamic Republic”

07/09/2010 Israel's demand to be recognized as a Jewish state is worrying, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told the al-Arabiya television network.

"If the international community defines Israel as a Jewish state – such a decision should be approved by the UN," Aboul Gheit said.

In the interview, Aboul Gheit equated Israel's demand to Iran's decision to call itself the "Islamic Republic of Iran," saying, "Israel wants to call itself a Jewish or Hebrew state. This is worrying."

The Egyptian FM expressed concern about the fate of what he called “Israel's Arabs” should the UN approve a resolution defining Israel as a Jewish state. "Will they receive all the civil rights? Will they remain a minority or will they be expelled?" he said.

Turning his attention to the recently launched direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Aboul Gheit said, "The Israeli side decided to freeze settlement construction, and I called this decision disgraceful because (Israel had issued building) permits that allow continued construction for the next two or three years."

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who attended last week's summit in Washington along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah, also urged Israel to extend the construction moratorium in the West Bank.

Mubarak said settlement building constituted a "violation of international law."

Enticing the PA to strike a deal with the Israelis, Aboul-Gheit said Palestinians could get up to $50 billion in compensation under a future peace agreement with Israel. He did not say how such deal would solve the issues of (Palsetinian refugees’) right of return and occupied Al-Quds.

Aboul-Gheit did not elaborate on where he had received that information, nor did he say who would supply the funds. He did say that the money – which he believes could total between $40 and $50 billion – would be designated toward building infrastructure in a nascent Palestinian state and to compensate those who lose land in an exchange with Israel.

"Arabs make up 20% of Israel's population," Aboul Gheit told Al-Arabiya. "What will happen when they're 30%, say in 25 years?"

Aboul-Gheit also denied during that interview that there was any "political significance" to reports that Netanyahu had met separately with Egyptian President Mubarak's son's Jamal, the latter's heir apparent. "That is a lie. This is not the first time that the president's son has accompanied him, and there is no political significance."

Source: Agencies

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IOA on alert, restricts entry into Jerusalem of Islamist leader

[ 07/09/2010 - 01:47 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Israeli police force raised level of alert to the highest point in preparation for Jewish holidays that coincide this year with the anniversary of the second intifada that broke out in September 2000.

Hebrew media on Tuesday reported that the policemen would be deployed in city centers and densely populated areas especially in Jerusalem in anticipation of "provocative acts" or conformations between Palestinians and Zionist settlers.

Meanwhile, the commander of the Home Front in the Israeli army issued an order banning the entry of Sheikh Ali Abu Sheikha, the advisor for the Islamic movement in 1948 occupied Palestine for Jerusalem and Aqsa affairs, into Jerusalem for six months.

Sources in the movement said that the order was delivered to the Sheikh after midnight yesterday despite the fact that it was issued on 12/5/2010.

The Sheikh said in a press release that he does not recognize the Israeli occupation authority's decisions. "We are entitled to pray in the Aqsa and to enter Jerusalem whenever we so wished and without permission from the occupation".

Israeli occupation forces (IOF) in the meantime continued detention campaigns against Palestinians in the West Bank and rounded up ten of them on Tuesday.

IOF troops also prevented farmers in Akraba, southeast of Nablus, from tending to their land on Monday and gave them ten minutes to leave at the pretext that their land was a closed military zone.


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US Fears Planned Holy Quran Burning, Muslims Warn

NATO chief: Please don’t burn the Quran in Florida

"... Rasmussen's comments came just one day after Afghanistan commander Gen. David Petraeus issued a statement criticizing the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, which plans to burn copies of Islam's holy book for 10 reasons they explain on their website. "It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort in Afghanistan," Petraeus said...."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 12:28 PM

US Fears Planned Holy Quran Burning, Muslims Warn

07/09/2010 US military commanders in Afghanistan denounced a Florida church's plan to burn copies of the holy Quran on the anniversary of the so-called September 11 attacks.

Two senior US commanders in Afghanistan said on Monday the proposed burning of the Muslim holy book risked undermining President Barack Obama efforts to reach out to the world's 1.5 billion Muslims and could endanger American troops’ lives in Afghanistan.

The centre, calling itself a "New Testament, Charismatic, Non-Denominational Church", says it will go ahead with the “torching” of the Quran on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the 2001 attacks against the US.

"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort," Top US military commander David Petraeus said in a statement to US media organizations. "It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world, we are engaged with the Islamic community."

Commander of the NATO training mission in Afghanistan Lieutenant-General William Caldwell also told CNN that news of the planned Quran burning was already provoking popular anger in Afghanistan.

The US embassy in Kabul said the "United States government in no way condones such acts of disrespect against the religion of Islam, and is deeply concerned about deliberate attempts to offend members of religious or ethnic groups".

The warnings come amid angry protests by several hundred people in the Afghan capital, Kabul, who chanted "Death to America" as they condemned the planned burning event by the Dove World Outreach Centre church in Gainesville, Florida.

Iran warned on Tuesday that burning the Quran could lead to an uncontrolled Muslim response. "We advise Western countries to prevent the exploitation of freedom of expression to insult religious sanctities, otherwise the emotions of Muslim nations cannot be controlled," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters.

Mainstream Muslim groups have also denounced the plan and lamented the sentiments promoted by the Gainesville church. Two days earlier, thousands of Indonesian Muslims rallied outside the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta and in five other cities to protest the church's plans.

Several religious organizations have joined with US Muslim groups to oppose the Quran-burning. The National Association of Evangelicals is urging the Florida church to cancel the event, warning it could cause worldwide tension between the two religions.

Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Hindu leaders in Gainesville have organized a 'Gathering for Peace, Understanding and Hope' the night before the scheduled Quran burning.

With many American Muslims already feeling intense scrutiny over the controversy surrounding a proposed Islamic centre and mosque near New York's ground zero, many mosques and Islamic groups are dramatically altering their usual plans for Eid El-Fitr, the end of the holy month of Ramadan, CNN said.

In comments broadcast on CNN, Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Centre, said it would be "tragic" if anybody's life was lost as a result of the planned Quran burning. But he said: "Still, I must say that we feel that we must sooner or later stand up to Islam, and if we don't, it's not going to go away."

The church's website says it seeks to "expose Islam" as a "violent and oppressive religion". It displays a sign reading "Islam of the Devil".


Merkel to Honor Cartoonist Who Offended Islam

07/09/2010 Chancellor Angela Merkel will make a speech at an event this week honoring a Danish cartoonist who sparked Muslim anger by depicting the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb as a turban, organizers said.

The German chancellor, 56, will make a speech on press freedom at Wednesday's ceremony in Potsdam, near Berlin, awarding Kurt Westergaard, 75, the M100 Media Prize 2010, organizers said in a statement.

Westergaard drew the most controversial and offensive 12 caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, first published in a Danish newspaper in 2005, which sparked world and Muslims anger.

In 2008, around 20 Danish newspapers reproduced the drawings triggering further protests in Muslim countries including Sudan, Egypt, Pakistan and Indonesia.

"We Germans are remembering during these months the end of the (East German) dictatorship and the reunification of our country 20 years ago," Merkel was quoted as saying in the organizer s’ statement. "We still know what no freedom means and we should never forget how valuable liberty is. Press freedom is one of the features of a free democracy," said Merkel.

(AFP)


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Israel Preparing For “Mother of All Flotillas”

September 7, 2010 by politicaltheatrics

Israel is preparing for what is being described in Tel Aviv as the “mother of all flotillas,” which could include up to 20 different ships planning to set sail for the Gaza Strip in the coming months to break the seige, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The flotilla is being organized by a coalition of NGOs from Europe and the United States, including a group calling itself European Jews for a Just Peace.

“We hope to have a broad coalition from European countries, and also maybe the United States,” Dror Feiler, an Israeli-Swedish musician and artist who lives in Stockholm – and one of the organizers behind the flotilla – told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. “We would like it to be double the size of the last flotilla, with at least a dozen ships and more than thousand people.”

The Israeli occupation forces said it is closely tracking the planned flotilla and is preparing for a wide-range of scenarios, including the possibility that due the large number of ships, it will need to stop the flotilla far from the occupied Palestinian shores.

“The Israeli army can stop 12 or 50 ships if it wants,” Feiler said. “There are so many ships since so many people want to get together to stop the siege, which is a collective punishment of the people of Gaza and is unacceptable.”

The coalition behind the new blockade-busting effort includes the Turkish IHH and the Free Gaza Movement, both of which were involved in the May flotilla. It is demanding “an immediate and complete lifting of the closure, including a lifting of the travel ban as well as the ban on exports from Gaza.”

The last flotilla to Gaza was stopped by the navy at the end of May martyring nine Turkish passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara passenger ship.

Turkey renewed threat of severing its relations with Israel, should Tel Aviv fail to redeem itself over its bloody attack the Mavi Marmara ship.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Sunday that “Israelis have three options: They will either apologize or acknowledge an international-impartial inquiry and its conclusion. Otherwise, our diplomatic ties will be cut off,” Turkish daily Hurriyet reported.

The United Nations has launched a probe into the incident. A report by the Israeli website Ynetnews, however, has pointed to Tel Aviv’s intentions to prevent the international team from questioning Israelis.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman have insisted that Tel Aviv will not be apologetic about the attack.


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Israel/Palestine: More on the Sham Peace Talks

Dear Steve

Thanks for reporting the Truth about, special thanks for this great one, for highlighting the crimes committed, between From August 26 - September 1, by IOF against  Palestinian civilians and international activists By Israel Israeli settlers, the innocent peacfull Israelis as claimed by the hasaba outlet "Desertpoison", attacking "Palestinian farmers and shepherds in Hebron and Salfit as well as other civilians and their cars on main roads, acting lawlessly with impunity as they always do, authorities practically incentivizing them to commit violence and destructive acts.", while a real Pro-Palestine friend are calling Hamas not to spoil the "Golden chance" , to start an alternative "On and Of "peace process" and here another one is storming his mind to prove that Tel aviv stands behind the attack on its settlers, and has nothing to do with what happened between From August 26 - September 1,
UP

Israel/Palestine: More on the Sham Peace Talks

by Stephen Lendman (A Must Read)

On and off for the past 35 years, so-called "peace" talks repeatedly have been stillborn from inception, a grand illusion masking an Israeli/Washington partnership intolerant of peace, demanding unconditional surrender, nothing less, the de facto Oslo result, one-sided for Israel, Palestinians given nothing to this day, enduring worse conditions now than then.

What chance then now for peace with no legitimate partner, its democratically government excluded, a coup d'etat president 20 months past his term's expiration representing them, and an Arab hating Israeli Prime Minister once calling it "a waste of time."

In addition, the Israeli Lobby controls Washington's Middle East agenda, unwilling to grant Palestinians any rights. As a result, they endure daily violence, not stopping even as a show of good faith, and Netanyahu's announced settlement freeze was bogus. Construction slowed, but never stopped. Some process. Imagine what's coming. More of the same, not an equitable just peace. The charade goes on, a spectacular deception, Palestinians to be blamed when it fails for not negotiating in good faith.

Here's more. From August 26 - September 1, Israeli forces made 37 incursions into West Bank communities and another into Gaza, arresting 15 Palestinians, including three children. Four paramedics and two human rights workers were also detained, and six Palestinian civilians and an international activist injured. In addition, Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian farmers and shepherds in Hebron and Salfit as well as other civilians and their cars on main roads, acting lawlessly with impunity as they always do, authorities practically incentivizing them to commit violence and destructive acts.

These incidents aren't isolated. They occur daily in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, women and children treated like men, none of it reported in America and most Western media sources.

However, after four retaliatory Palestinian attacks killed four Israeli settlers, it made headlines, New York Times writers Israel Kershner and Mark Landler as one-sided as others headlining, "Killing of Israeli Settlers Rattles Leaders," calling it disruptive on the eve of peace talks, saying:

"The military wing of Hamas, the Islamic group," carried out the attack, quoting Netanyahu "condemn(ing) the 'atrocious murder,' which Israeli officials said seemed calculated by Hamas to upset the negotiations," a White House statement calling the attackers "enemies of peace."

However when Israeli settlers attack nonviolent Palestinians, they're never called militants, the Jewish group, or "enemies of peace."

Their repeated offenses aren't even reported, even when deaths occur, nor are daily IDF incursions and horrific crimes. They slip quietly under the radar, never when Jews are harmed.

On September 5, Israel's Foreign Minister/Deputy Prime Minister, Avigdor Lieberman (an outspoken anti-peace extremist) addressed his ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party calling peace with the Palestinians unattainable, "not next year and not for the next generation....Our proposal is: No to unilateral concessions, no to continuing the settlement freeze (never, in fact, frozen), yes to serious negotiations and mutual gestures of good faith," though Lieberman offers none of his own.

Instead, in late August, he disingenuously proposed ending Israel's Gaza occupation, letting Hamas establish an independent state, conditional on its "satisfying legitimate Israeli security concerns." It's a ruse from a hard right extremist, contemptuous of democracy and Palestinian rights. He called Arab Israelis a fifth column, wanting citizenship rights revoked for those unwilling to sign a Loyalty Oath pledge it to a "Jewish, Zionist, and democratic state," its emblems and values, and to perform military or equivalent service as a condition for a national identity card signifying citizenship.

Lieberman, of course, knows Hamas won't agree or stop resisting Israel's illegal West Bank/East Jerusalem occupation and theft of Palestinian land for expanded settlements, commercial development, and other Jews-only projects.

For many years, however, it offered to recognize Israel and renounce resistance in return for a long-term Hudna (armistice or truce), ending the occupation, and withdrawing Israeli forces inside 1967 borders.

Lieberman, his party, and the entire Netanyahu government want all valued West Bank land and Jerusalem Judaized, Palestinians confined to isolated resource poor cantons, surrounded by hostile settlers, allowed to commit violence with impunity. Hamas never will agree nor should they. It's hard imagining Fatah acquiescing, though its subservience to Israel stops only rhetorically.

In agreeing to peace talks, Fatah isolated itself from all other Palestinian political factions against it, knowing the sham process and unacceptable demands. Abbas, however, conceded, a man contemptuous of his people, an illegitimate leader, his appointed prime minister, Salam Fayyad, a former IMF operative and World Bank official, his Third Way party getting only 2.4% of the 2006 election vote, electing two of 132 Palestinian National Authority (PA) seats - in other words, a renouncing rejection of the man, his party, and his commitment to Israeli and Western interests, precisely why he's Abbas' prime minister, a contemptible rogue leader.

One of many reasons clear after the settler killings, Hamas' Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades claiming responsibility.

In response, Abbas' security forces arrested dozens of Hamas members and supporters unrelated to the incident. Instead teachers, traders, workers, students, professionals, and imams were rounded up and detained, many at home or work, others summoned to come to security services' offices, then forcibly held.

Detainees include 45 in Hebron, 23 in Tulkarm, 20 in Salfit, 19 in Qalqilya, 15 in Nablus, 11 in Ramallah and al-Bireh, eight in Tubas, and six each in Bethlehem and Jenin.

From past experience, none will be treated kindly, Fatah known for torture like the Israelis to extract confessions and get names of others to arrest.

Abbas goes along, yielding voluntarily to Israeli authority in return for Washington aid and special favors, including White House photo-ops and personal rewards, his son Yasser, in fact, a millionaire who admitted "collaborat(ing) with Israel."

President Abbas’ family (L-R son Yasser, wife Amina, son Tarek and daughter-in-law Nisreen) attend his January 2005 swearing-in ceremony (REUTERS-Atef Safadi/Pool)

Unsurprisingly, his father is a "reliable" peace process partner, willingly participating in the charade, condemning his people to futility and disappointment, worst of all if he accepts unconditional surrender, an uncompromising Israeli demand - capitulation or state-sponsored terror, an Israeli specialty. Against Palestinians, it's endless, even during "peace" talks.

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.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

posted by Steve Lendman @ 2:54 AM  

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Abbas: Intifada Destroyed Us… PA Won’t Leave Gaza to Hamas

07/09/2010 Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said on Tuesday that the “Palestinian Authority would not leave Gaza or the West Bank to Hamas or others.”

Speaking to the Kuwait-based daily newspaper Al-Rai, Abbas vowed to try to end rivalry through dialogue. “Everybody knows the circumstances that led to the coup and to rivalry. We decided to avoid any armed confrontation with our brothers, and instead we will try to end rivalry through dialogue," he said.

Abbas rebuffed criticism by Arab leaders over his decision to re-enter negotiations, a move not endorsed by all factions within the PLO. “Let Israel wage war and we will be at the front lines, but we don't want them to choose to wage their war against ,” he went on to say, adding that “the Intifada which erupted in 2000 destroyed all that we built and what was built by our predecessors.”

Countering criticism, Abbas further said the Ramallah-based leadership had “played the role of mediator to launch indirect negotiations between Israel and Syria to be sponsored by Turkey.”

The Palestinian president in turn criticized Arab leaders for failing to transfer $500 million pledged by the Arab League in March for the Jerusalem fund. The PA, he said, required political and economic support at this stage. “The Palestinian leadership will update them on all what is going on, and we want the Gulf States to support us politically, spiritually, and financially as usual.”

Meanwhile, Palestinian officials on Tuesday were skeptical that the latest round of peace talks with Israel would succeed but said the US-backed negotiations were not likely to collapse.

Nabil Shaath, a member of the Palestinian negotiating team, recalled in this context that Abbas announced with the utmost clarity and positivity that he is prepared to succeed in these negotiations, and that the climate in Washington was different. "But this climate means nothing if there are no results," he told reporters.

But another senior Palestinian official said the total collapse of the peace talks was unlikely. "These negotiations have been launched and there is no retreating from them," the official said on condition of anonymity. "It is impossible to imagine the US administration calling for direct negotiations at the start of the month and accepting that they stop at the end of the month, because that would hurt their credibility." He added that "it is not in our interest for there to be a complete collapse of the negotiations," and that he believed Israel and the US administration were working on a compromise on settlements.

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Hezbollah Supports Aoun’s Criticism as “Cry of Pain”

07/09/2010 One day after the head of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc MP Michel Aoun raised the voice against the current situation in the country, Hezbollah declared solidarity with its ally in its frank ‘cry of pain’.

In a statement he released late Monday, the head of the Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc MP Mohamad Raad expressed support for Aoun’s demands of reform, urging a positive attitude from various Lebanese leaders in dealing with his cry.

“Criticism launched by General Michel Aoun on some issues and practices is in fact a cry of pain issued by an aching official keen to put an end to what could distort the country's image and torpedo plans to revive the system,” Raad said.

He called upon all concerned to deal positively with this call and to give it serious and effective attention in order to tackle the issues calmly and responsibly, and put them on the correct path to strengthen citizens' conviction in the State and make them confident in maintaining their safety, dignity and interests as well as ensuring their rights.

Meanwhile, Aoun has reportedly decided to quit all-party national talks, an MP close to him was quoted as saying by Lebanese daily As-Safir. The mentioned MP said the Free Patriotic Movement leader is likely to announce his decision during the next national dialogue session.

On Sunday, Aoun launched a verbal assault against politicians, including President Michel Sleiman and his ministers, over the lack of productivity in the cabinet and the country. “How would we trust a judiciary which protects the false witnesses? How would we trust a judiciary which doesn’t accomplish its duties, and a government which takes unconstitutional measures?” he wondered in a speech he delivered after attending mass at St. Mikhayel church in Nabey. “What are the ministers doing? Are they sleeping? Why don't they resign?” the Free Patriotic Movement leader went on to ask, before assailing the President himself. “What is the president doing other than crying? He has taken the oath on the constitution and has vowed to preserve it. From now on, we have to see dismissals or resignations.”

But President Michel Sleiman said on Monday that the situation in Lebanon demands people to adopt a sense of responsibility, keep away from verbal disputes, and work on tackling matters with seriousness and calm. “Negativity, putting people down, and crying on regret are unbeneficial and do not build a state,” he pointed out, calling on all those who are working in the public and political sectors “to stay away from the blame game and be above opportunism and instead adopt calm and balanced rhetoric.”

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Scottish activists campaign nationwide boycott against Israel

[ 07/09/2010 - 01:29 PM ]

EDINBURGH, (PIC)-- Activists launched a national campaign last weekend to boycott Israeli products throughout Scotland. The group said it will target Muslim-owned shops in Scotland as a first step.

The Scottish Sunday Herald reported that after the campaign achieved success in Glasgow, campaign organizers decided to expand the boycott to Muslim shops throughout Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee, and Fife.

The campaign’s organizing body called on Muslim shops in Glasgow to stop buying Israeli products and to take them off their shelves, warning that any uncooperative stores would be placed on the “list of shame”.

All of the shops the campaign visited were in support of boycotting Israeli products, the Herald quoted campaign chairman Mick Napier as saying, adding that support received by customers and the public was remarkable.
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Munir’s Story, 28 years after the Massacre

PICTURES

More Pictures Here


Franklin Lamb
Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp, Beirut

The untreated psychic wounds are still open. Accountability, justice and basic civil rights for the survivors are still denied.

Scores of horror testimonies have been shared over the past nearly three decades by survivors of the September 1982 Sabra- Shatila massacre.

More come to light only through circumstantial evidence because would be affiants perished during the slaughter. Other eyewitness are just beginning to emerge from deep trauma or self imposed silence.

Some testimonies will be shared this month by massacre survivors at Shatila camp. They will sit with the every growing numbers of international visitors who annually come to commemorate one of the most horrific crimes of
the 20th century.

There are no average massacre testimonies.

Zeina, a handsome bronzed-faced middle-aged woman, an acquaintance of Munir Mohammad’s family, asked a foreigner the other day: “How can it be 28 years? I think it was just last fall that my husband Hussam and our two daughters, Maya, 8 years old, and Sirham, 9 years old, left our two room home to search for food because the Israeli army had sealed Shatila camp nearly two days before and few inside Shatila Camp had any. I still pray and wait for them to return.”

In Shatila Palestinian refugee camp and outside Abu Yassir's shelter, the bullet marks still cover the lower half of the 11 “walls of death” where some of the dried blood is mixed and feathered in with the thin mortar. An elderly gentleman named Abu Samer still has some souvenirs of the American automatic pistols fitted with silencers and a couple of knives and axes that were strapped to some of the killers belts as they quickly and silently shot, carved and chopped whoever they came upon starting at around 6 p.m. on Thursday September 16, 1982. These weapons were gifted to Israel by the US Congress and subsequently issued along with drugs and alcohol and other "policing equipment" by Ariel Sharon to the killers in his "most moral army."

•Earlier this year, one of the murderers from the Numour al-Ahrar (Tigers of the Liberals) militia, the armed wing of Lebanon’s right-wing National Liberal Party founded by former Lebanese President Camille Chamoun, nonchalantly confessed, “we sometimes used these implements in order to advance silently through the alleys of Shatila so as not to cause unnecessary panic during our work.” The Tigers militia, one of five Christian killer units, was assisted inside Shatila by more than two dozen Israeli Mossad agents, and led in this blitz by none other than Dani Chamoun, son of the former President.

No plaque or sign notes what happened here.

The world learned of the slaughter at Sabra-Shatila on the morning of Sunday September 19, 1982. Photos, many now available on the Internet, taken by witnesses such as Ralph Shoneman, Mya Shone, Ryuichi Hirokawa, Ali Hasan Salman, Ramzi Hardar, Gunther Altenburg, and Gaza and Akka Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) Hospital staff, preserve the gruesome images deeply etched in the survivors memory. The Israeli Kahan Commission, five months later in its February 7, 1983 Report, substantially whitewashed Israeli responsibility referring more than once to the massacre as “a war.”

Zeina ushered me down a narrow alley from her house arriving at the 3 by 8 meter wall outside her sister’s home, spraying here and there with an aerosol can as we walked. She apologized for the spray but insisted that she and her neighbors could even now smell the slaughter that happened there three decades earlier.

For readers unfamiliar with the location of Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp in Beirut, this particular “wall of death” is located across from the PRCS Akka Hospital, such as it is, after years without adequate financial or NGO support. Locating the 11 “walls of death” requires help from the few older Palestinians who still live in this quarter. They are among those still living at the scene and who still vividly recall the details of the massacre. Some provide personal history of some of the butchered, seemingly urging the dead to return by making them seem so alive, often describing a personality trait and the name of their family village in Palestine.

“A sweet boy who adored his older brothers Mutid and Bilal”

Zeina recalls that Munir Mohammad was 12 years old on September 16, 1982, a pupil at the Shatila camp school, named Jalil (Galilee). Virtually all of the 75 remaining UNRWA schools in Lebanon, like other Palestinian institutions, are named after villages, towns or cities in occupied Palestine.
Often they are named after villages that no longer actually exist, being among the 531 villages the Zionists colonizers obliterated during and after the 1947-48 Nakba (Catastrophe).

Zeina recalls that it was late on a Thursday afternoon, September 16, that the Israeli shelling had grown intense. Designed to drive the camp residents into the shelters, almost all of which Israeli intelligence, arriving the previous day in three white vehicles and posing as "concerned NGO staff" had identified and noted the coordinates on their maps. Some residents, thinking aid workers had come to help the refugees, actually revealed their secret sanctuaries. Other refugees, based on their experience in the crowded shelters during the preceding 75 days of indiscriminate, “Peace for Galilee” Israeli bombing of Shatila, suggested to the "aid workers" that the shelters needed better ventilation and perhaps the visitors would help provide it.

According to Zeina the Israeli agents quickly sketched the shelter locations, marked them with a red circle and returned to their HQ which was located less than 70 meters on the raised terrain at the SE corner of Shatila camp still known as Turf Club Yards. Today, this sandy area still contains three death pits which according to the late American journalist Janet Stevens is where some of the hundreds of still missing bodies of the more than 3,000 slaughtered are likely buried. Janet had theorized that there was a second Sabra-Shatila Massacre that occurred on Sunday morning, September 19th, which piggybacked the first and was conducted on the west side of Shatila inside the second Israeli-Phalange HQ, known as the Cite Sportiff athletic complex. As the Israeli soldiers took custody from the Phalange militia of the surviving refugees, trucks entered Cite Sportiff loaded with hundreds of camp residents on the back to be taken to “holding centers”. Family members forced to wait outside heard volleys of gunfire and screams from inside the complex. Hours later the same flat beds drove away to unknown
locations, tarps covering the unseen mounded cargo.

Camp resident, Mrs. Sana Mahmoud Sersawi, one of the 23 complainants in the Belgium case filed against Ariel Sharon on June 16, 2001, (currently but not fatally sidetracked) explained:

“The Israelis who were posted in front of the Kuwaiti embassy and at the Rihab benzene station at the entrance to Shatila demanded through loudspeakers that we come to them. That’s how we found ourselves in their hands. They took us to the Cite Sportiff, and the men were marched behind us. But they took the men’s shirts off and started blindfolding them. The Israelis interrogated the young people and the Phalange delivered about 200 more people to the Israelis. And that’s how neither my husband nor my sister’s husband ever came back.”
Journalist Robert Fisk and others who studied these events, concur that more slaughter was done during the 24 hour period after 8 a.m. Saturday, the hour the Israeli Kahan Commission, which declined to interview any Palestinians, ruled that the Israelis had stopped all the killing.

Eyewitness testimony also established that the "aid workers" described by Zeina passed the shelter descriptions and locations to Lebanese Forces operatives Elie Hobeika and Fadi Frem, and their ally, Major Saad Haddad of the Israeli-allied South Lebanese Army. Thursday evening, Hobeika, de facto commander since the assassination the week previously of Phalange leader and President-elect Bachir Gemayel, led one of the death squads inside the killing field of the Horst Tabet area near Abu Yassir's shelter.

It was in 8 of the 11 Israeli-located and marked shelters that the first of the massacre victims were quickly and methodically slaughtered. There being few perfect crimes, even in massacres, the killers failed to find 3 of the
shelters. One of the overlooked shelters was just 25 meters from Abu Yassir's shelter. Apart from these three undiscovered hiding places there were practically no Shatila shelter survivors.

American journalist David Lamb wrote about this first night of butchery and the “walls of death”:

“Entire families were slain. Groups consisting of 10-20 people were lined up against walls and sprayed with bullets. Mothers died while clutching their babies. All men appeared to be shot in the back.
Five youths of fighting age were tied to a pickup truck and dragged through the streets before being shot.”

At around about 8 p.m. on September 18 Munir Mohammad entered the crowded Abu Yassir shelter with his mother Aida and his sisters and brothers Iman, Fadya, Mufid and Mu’in. Keeping the relatively few camp shelters for the woman and children while the men took their chances outside was a common practice as the massacre unfolded. But a few men did enter to help calm their young children.

“If any of you are injured, we’ll take you to the hospital”.

Munir later recalled events that night: “The killers arrived at the door of the shelter and yelled for everyone to come out. Men who they found were lined up against the wall outside. They were immediately machine gunned.”
As Munir watched, the killers left to kill other groups and then suddenly returned and opened fire on everyone, and all fell to the ground. Munir lay quietly not knowing if his mother and sisters were dead. Then he heard the
killers yelling: “If any of you are injured, we’ll take you to the hospital.

Don’t worry. Get up and you’ll see.” A few did try to get up or moaned and

The killers were looking in the shadows”. Suddenly Munir’s mother’s body seemed to shift in the mound of corpses next to him. Munir thought she might be going to get up since the killers promised to take anyone still
alive to the hospital. Munir whispered to her: “Don’t get up mother, they’re lying”. And Munir stayed motionless all night barely daring to breath, retending to be dead.

Munir could not block out the killers words. Years later he would repeat to an interviewer as they passed the Shatila Burial ground known as Martyrs Square:

They were instantly shot in the head.

Munir remembered: “Even though it was light out due to the Israeli flares over Shatila, the killers used bright flash lights to search the darkened corners.

“After they shot us, we were all down on the ground, and they were going back and forth, and they were saying: ‘If any of you are still alive, we’ll have mercy and pity and take them to the hospital. Come on, you can tell us.’ If anyone moaned, or believed them and said they needed an ambulance, they would be rescued with shots and finished off there and then…What really disturbed me wasn’t just the death all around me. I…didn’t know whether my mother and sisters and brother had died. I knew most of the people around me had died. And it’s true I was afraid of dying myself. But what disturbed me so very much was that they were laughing, getting drunk and enjoying themselves all night long. They threw blankets on us and left us there till morning. All night long [Thursday the 16th) I could hear the voices of the girls crying and screaming, 'For god’s sake, leave us alone.'
I mean…I can’t remember how many girls they raped. The girl’ voice, with their fear and pain, I can’t ever forget them.”

The same kind of dégagé is displayed by the half dozen confessed militia murderers featured in German director Monika Borgmann's 2005 film Massaker, one of whom opined: "With hanging or shooting you just die, but this is double," explaining how he took an old Palestinian man and held him back against a wall, slicing him open in the shape of a cross. "You die twice since you also die from the fear," he said nonchalantly describing white flesh and bone as if in a charcuterie waiting to be served.


The killers also explained how they began a frantic rush to dispose of as many bodies as possible before the media entered Shatila. One testified how the Israeli army gave them large plastic trash bags to dispose of bodies.

Another confessed that they forced people into army trucks to ferry them to Cite Sportiff where they were killed. And that they used chemicals to destroy many of the corpses. Several mentioned that Israeli army officers conferred with the militia's leaders in Beirut on the eve of the massacres.

The venomous hatred persists to this day

To this day, the Hurras al-Arz (Guardians of the Cedars) boasts of its role in the carnage. Less than two weeks before the massacre the party issued a call for the confiscation of all Palestinian property in Lebanon, the outlawing of home ownership and the destruction of all refugee camps.

The party statement of September 1, 1982 declared: “Action must be taken to reduce the numbers of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, until the day comes when no single Palestinian remains on our soil.”

In 1982 certain political parties referred to Palestinians as “a bacillus which must be exterminated” and graffiti on walls read: ”The duty of every Lebanese is to kill a Palestinian”--the same hatred commonly expressed today
in occupied Palestine among colonists, extremist Rabbis and politicians.

The ‘Guardians’ call for outlawing Palestinian refugee property ownership was indeed achieved in 2001 by a law drafted by current Minister of Labor, who pledged on September 1, 2010 that “Parliament will never allow

Palestinian refugees the right to own property.”

The mentality that allowed the Massacre at Sabra-Shatila 1982 is largely unchanged in 2010, as Lebanon still resists the call of the international community to grant the survivors of the Sabra-Shatila massacre basic civil rights. Some who have studied the Arabic websites and observed gatherings of the political parties represented at the 1982 massacre, claim the hate language is actually worse today and is being used to stir up Parliamentary opposition Palestinian civil rights.

During the month following the 1982 Massacre, British Dr. Paul Morris treated Munir at Gaza Hospital approximately one kilometer north of Abu Yassir's shelter, and kept the youngster under observation. Dr. Morris reported to researcher Bayan Nuwayhed al Hout (Sabra and Shatila: September 1982, Pluto Press, London, 2004) that Munir “Will smile once in a while, but he doesn’t react spontaneously like others of this age, except just

occasionally." Then the doctor banged on the table, and said: ‘The lad has to be saved. He has to leave the camp, if only for a while, to recover himself.”

When Munir was asked by al Hout if one day when he grew up and would be able to carry a weapon would he consider revenge. The pre-teen replied, replied: “No, No. I’d never think of revenge by killing children. The way
they killed us. What did the children do wrong?”

Munir’s 15 year old brother Mufid was among the first to enter Abu Yassir’s shelter, but he left and later appeared at Akka Hoppital with a gunshot wound. After being bandaged he left the hospital to seek safety and his family. No one has seen him since and for a long time Munir could not even mention him.

According to camp residents, Munir’s older brother, Nabil, then 19 years old, being of fighting age would have been shot on sight by the killers. Aware of this, Nabil’s cousin and his cousin’s wife fled with him as the Israeli shelling increased and camp residents reported indiscriminate killing. The trio dodged sniper bullets to seek refuge in a nursing home where his aunt worked. Like Munir, Nabil soon learned that his mother and siblings were
all dead.

Postscript

Now in America, both Munir and Nabil are leading relatively ‘normal lives’ considering the horror and lost family they experienced while escaping death at Sabra-Shatila. Munir and Nabil have become a credit to Shatila camp, to Palestine and to their adopted country. Residing in the Washington DC area, Munir is married and busy with his career. Nabil is devoting his life to advocacy for peace and justice in the Middle East, working with an NGO.

Both brothers return to Shatila camp regularly.

Also apparently living ‘normal lives’ are the six “Christian” militia killers featured in Borgmann’s film Massaker. "They are all living ordinary lives.

One of them is a taxi driver," Borgmann explains.

As is well known, the massacres at Sabra-Shatila were undeniable war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Each killing was a violation of international laws enshrined in the Fourth Geneva Convention, International Customary Law and jus cogens. Similar massive crimes have seen charges brought against Rwandan officials, Chile's ex-president, General Augusto Pinochet, Chad's former president, Hissein Habre, former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Liberia’s Taylor and Sudan’s Bachir.

No one has been punished or even investigated for the Sabra-Shatila massacre. On March 28, 1991 Lebanon’s Parliament retroactively exempted the killers from criminal responsibility. However, this law has no standing in international law and the international community remains legally obligated to punish those responsible. The victims and their families of the Sabra-Shatila massacre as well as virtually all human rights organizations including but not limited to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Humanitarian Law Project, strenuously oppose blanket amnesty for the killers. They argue that the 1991 violates Lebanon’s constitution, as well as international law and promotes impunity for heinous crimes.

It was precisely to achieve justice for the victims of crimes such as Sabra-Shatila that the International Criminal Court was established. The ICC must begin its work without further delay and all people of goodwill must ncourage Lebanon to grant the survivors of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre basic civil rights.

Franklin P. Lamb, LLM,PhD--
Director, Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace, Wash.DC-Beirut

Board Member, The Sabra Shatila Foundation and the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Beirut-Washington DC

Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp
Beirut Mobile: +961-70-497-804
Office: +961-01-352-127fplamb@palestinecivilrightscampaign.org

Palestine Civil Rights Campaign-LebanonFranklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon. He can be reached at
fplamb@gmail.com

Palestine Civil Rights Campaign-Lebanon


PLEASE SIGN HERE! http://www.petitiononline.com/ssfpcrc/petition.html


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“Failure is not an option for the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, our only choice is success” 15 year old Hiba Hajj, PCRC volunteer, Ein el Helwe Palestinian Camp, Saida, Lebanon

Also see:

A Letter To Janet About Sabra-Shatilla By Franklin Lamb

Comment from Dr. Swee Ang, London, England

Dearest Franklin,

Thank you very much for forwarding this to me. It is very difficult but I recall every single event the night of 17 Sept 1982 when Mounir was brought into the Gaza Hospital emergency room by his friends. All he could say was Israelis, Haddads, Kataebs and then passed out. He was the last patent I operated on before we were ordered out of our basement operating theater by militiamen. He was shot 3 times and bled alot- his hemoglobin dropped to 4 gms (normal 12-13 gms).

Mounir like others, lived months in the same house in Shatilla where his family was murdered, reliving the nightmares until finally they managed to get his brother and him to the USA to start a new life. I met up with Mounir many times, and even now, he would ask me to look at his scars.

Out of respect, I changed his name in my book, but last year he told me he felt stronger and I can tell his story - that of a little 11 year old. I also printed pictures of his grandmother and grandfather in my book, and the lamentation of his grandmother.

Perhaps it is about time the lamentation of his late grandmother who walked 20 kilometers from South Lebanon to Shatilla is heard in Lebanon and world-wide.. She arrived in Shatilla that September day to find 27 members of her family killed - there is only Mounir and Nabil left.

She said:

" Our doves are still here. Our carnations give fragrance.The sparrows sing their usual songs. Yet Abu Zuhair is nowhere to be found.

Beirut you took all I had. You took my last spark in life and my heart dies dead on your streets.

Abu Zuhair, the tall young tree was cruelly snapped off his roots on your soil

May the blood of whoever murdered you mingle with yours. May his mother suffer the same agony.

Who dug your grave, Abu Zuhair? Who brought this disaster onto us? What can I say in your memory?

My heart is full of reproach towards this unfeeling world. Not even a hundred ships, or two hundred stallions, would be enough to carry the load of pain in my heart

What can I say? "Mother" you tell me, "go visit our graves and pray for those they engulf"

I go to the graves and tenderly embrace its stones. I tell it " Please let your stones warmly embrace the bodies of my loved ones within, take care of them, I have entrusted them to you.

I mourn your youth and mourn for all the young girls who never knew a moment of happiness or contentment.. They went to meet life so hopeful and eager, only to be trampled and torn by its ferocity.

Oh God I cannot go on. He was the handsomest of men and the strongest of youths. He used to pave the way for others, to facilitate their path.

Your young body mingled with the sand too soon, your eyes filled with the sand.

What else can I give to my country? My heart is full of agony and reproach to life.

How I envy those of you who were there when my loved ones died. Did they die thirsty ? Or were you merciful enough to give them a drink?

I implore every passing bird to carry my anxiety and love to you, then to come back with news of my loved ones.

My child, your body is strewn with bullets. Who sent you to me, crow of ill omen? Why do you inflict disasters on me all at once? Spare them a bit Oh God.. God - wait at least a year, then thy will be done.

I implore you, bearers of coffins, move slowly. Do not hurry. Let me see my loved ones once more.

I go to the graves, and roam listlessly around. I call Abu Zuhair, then I call Um Walid (his sister). My call remains unanswered. They are not there. They followed Um Zuhair (Abu Zuhair's wife) and the young ones. They all left one night by the moonlight - all my loved ones.

My child you are near me no more. Mountains of distance are between us.....

Nabil ( Abu Zuhair's nephew) calls his mother. " Mother", he says, "to whom have you left me?"

Zahra answers" I have left you to your uncles. They should tell you of me and take you to my grave so my eyes can look at you and my heart reach out to you" But Abu Zuhair is gone and he cannot carry out Zahra's will.

Zuhair ( Abu Zuhair's son) asks his father " To whom have you entrusted me?"

"your grandfather will come for you. You are the continuation of his life"

But life, what life is left to us? Our hearts have died. Our tears have dried for all the young men and women who died.

Where can I turn to? Where are my children?

My child, may God show you the holy path, and may my love and care be a lantern to accompany you along the way.

Almighty God, give me patience. Young men, please stay away: you renew my wounds, and I am so weary. What can I say"

The Lamentation of Hadja Hassan Mohammed, October 1982. (Pagse 84.85,86 of From Beirut to Jerusalem.)

Please circulate this - from a Palestinian grandmother to her family, murdered in the Sabra and Shatilla massacre- I have kept her words and read them to all who care to hear for 28 years.