Shame on these cowards and their leadership who besmirch the very name of the heroes that laid down their lives before them for Palestine!
Mike
Palestinian police ban pro-Hamas protests
PA security officers in West Bank treat green flag as sign of dissidents and disburse all rallies protesting Israel's military operation in Gaza
Associated Press
Israel News
Palestinian police violently cracked down on protests organized by their rivals in Hamas throughout the West Bank on Friday as rallies against the military operation in Gaza turned into demonstrations against the Palestinian Authority.
Police of Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority pounced on demonstrators protesting seven days of heavy Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip targeting Hamas.
Security forces particularly focused on anyone carrying Hamas' green flags, a telling indication of Abbas' determination to thwart any challenges to its own rule in the West Bank from Hamas.
Abbas, together with his allies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have blamed Hamas for bringing the attacks on themselves by repeatedly firing rockets into Israel. These remarks have angered many, however.
Abu Mazen is on the side of the Jews!" yelled 66-year-old Umm Maher at a small demonstration in east Jerusalem, referring to Abbas by his nickname.
In Hebron, demonstrators who for decades had being throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers, now pelted Palestinian police after they tried to disburse 400 Hamas loyalists brandishing the movement's green flag.
"We will prohibit any signs and slogans that are hostile to the Palestinian Authority, and prohibit incitement," said Riyad Malki, Information Minister. "Security forces have been instructed to deal with these demonstrations."
Police detained five Hamas supporters at a 3,000-strong demonstration in the central West Bank town of Ramallah and ripped up placards with pro-Hamas slogans.
"The more they try suppress us, the more popular we will become," vowed Muna Mansour, a prominent Hamas operative.
In several cases, the Palestinian police stopped protesters from approaching some of the Israeli checkpoints scattered around the West Bank, which youths target with rocks and firebombs.
Demonstrators were shocked to suddenly find themselves clashing with their own police forces.
"When I saw the police coming with their batons, I thought of the Jews. They also don't deal with people except with clubs and live bullets," said Najiyeh Awdeh, a 50-year-old protester, referring to Israeli forces.
Gilad Atzmon - Living on Borrowed Time in a Stolen Land
By Gilad Atzmon • Jan 3rd, 2009 at 17:28 • Category: Analysis, Education, Gilad Atzmon, Gilad's Choice, Israel, Newswire, Opinions and Letters, Our Authors, Palestine, Religion, Resistance, War, Zionism
Communicating with Israelis may leave one bewildered. Even now when the Israeli Air Force is practicing murder in broad daylight of hundreds of civilians, elderly persons, women and children, the Israeli people manage to convince themselves that they are the real victims in this violent saga.
Those who are familiar intimately with Israeli people realise that they are completely uninformed about the roots of the conflict that dominates their lives. Rather often Israelis manage to come up with some bizarre arguments that may make a lot of sense within the Israeli discourse, yet make no sense whatsoever outside of the Jewish street. Such an argument goes as follows: ‘those Palestinians, why do they insist upon living on our land (Israel), why can’t they just settle in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon or any other Arab country?’ Another Hebraic pearl of wisdom sounds like this: ‘what is wrong with these Palestinians? We gave them water, electricity, education and all they do is try to throw us to the sea’.
Astonishingly enough, the Israelis even within the so-called ‘left’ and even the educated ‘left’ fail to understand who the Palestinians are, where they come from and what they stand for. They fail to grasp that for the Palestinians, Palestine is home. Miraculously, the Israelis manage to fail to grasp that Israel had been erected at the expense of the Palestinian people, on Palestinian land, on Palestinian villages, towns, fields and orchards. The Israelis do not realise that Palestinians in Gaza and in refugee camps in the region are actually dispossessed people from Ber Shive, Yafo, Tel Kabir, Shekh Munis, Lod, Haifa, Jerusalem and many more towns and villages. If you wonder how come the Israelis don’t know their history, the answer is pretty simple, they have never been told. The circumstances that led to the Israeli Palestinian conflict are well hidden within their culture. Traces of pre-1948 Palestinian civilisation on the land had been wiped out. Not only the Nakba, the 1948 ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinians, is not part of the Israeli curriculum, it is not even mentioned or discussed in any Israeli official or academic forum.
In the very centre of almost every Israeli town one can a find a 1948 memorial statue displaying a very bizarre, almost abstract, pipe work. The plumbing feature is called Davidka and it is actually a 1948 Israeli mortar cannon. Interestingly enough, the Davidka was an extremely ineffective weapon. Its shells wouldn’t reach more than 300 meters and would cause very limited damage. Though the Davidika would cause just minimal harm, it produced a lot of noise. According to the Israeli official historical narrative, the Arabs i.e., Palestinians, simply ran away for their lives once they heard the Davidka from afar. According to the Israeli narrative, the Jews i.e., ‘new Israelis’ did a bit of fireworks and the ‘Arab cowards’ just ran off like idiots. In the Israeli official narrative there is no mention of the many orchestrated massacres conducted by the young IDF and the paramilitary units that preceded it. There is no mention also of the racist laws that stop Palestinians[1][1] from returning to their homes and lands.
The meaning of the above is pretty simple. Israelis are totally unfamiliar with the Palestinian cause. Hence, they can only interpret the Palestinian struggle as a murderous irrational lunacy. Within the Israeli Judeo- centric solipsistic universe, the Israeli is an innocent victim and the Palestinian is no less than a savage murderer.
This grave situation that leaves the Israeli in the dark regarding his past demolishes any possibility of future reconciliation. Since the Israeli lacks the minimal comprehension of the conflict, he cannot contemplate any possible resolution except extermination or cleansing of the ‘enemy’. All the Israeli is entitled to know are various phantasmic narratives of Jewish suffering. Palestinian pain is completely foreign to his ears. ‘Palestinian right of return’ sounds to him like an amusing idea. Even the most advanced ‘Israeli humanists’ are not ready to share the land with its indigenous inhabitants. This doesn’t leave the Palestinians with many options but to liberate themselves against all odds. Clearly, there is no partner for peace on the Israel side.
This week we all learned more about the ballistic capability of Hamas. Evidently, Hamas was rather restrained with Israel for more than a long while. It refrained from escalating the conflict to the whole of southern Israel. It occurred to me that the barrages of Qassams that have been landing sporadically on Sderot and Ashkelon were actually nothing but a message from the imprisoned Palestinians. First it was a message to the stolen land, homes fields and orchards: ‘Our beloved soil, we didn’t forget, we are still here fighting for you, sooner rather than later, we will come back, we will start again where we had stopped’. But it was also a clear message to the Israelis. ‘You out there, in Sderot, Beer Sheva, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Tel Aviv and Haifa, whether you realise it or not, you are actually living on our stolen land. You better start to pack because your time is running out, you have exhausted our patience. We, the Palestinian people, have nothing to lose anymore’.
Let’s face it, realistically the situation in Israel is rather grave. Two years ago it was Hezbollah rockets that pounded northern Israel. This week the Hamas proved beyond doubt that it is capable of serving the South of Israel with some cocktail of ballistic vengeance. Both in the case of the Hezbollah and the case of the Hamas, Israel was left with no military answer. It can no doubt kill civilians but it fails to stop the rocket barrage. The IDF lacks the means of protecting Israel unless covering Israel with a solid concrete roof is a viable solution. At the end of the day, they might be planning just that (link).
But this is far from the end of the story. In fact it is just the beginning. Every Middle East expert knows that Hamas can seize control of the West Bank within hours. In fact, PA and Fatah control in the West Bank is maintained by the IDF. Once Hamas takes the West Bank, the biggest Israeli population centre will be left to the mercy of Hamas. For those who fail to see, this would be the end of Jewish Israel. It may happen later today, it may happen in three months or in five years, it isn’t matter of ‘if’ but rather matter of ‘when’. By that time, the whole of Israel will be within firing range of Hamas and Hezbollah, Israeli society will collapse, its economy will be ruined. The price of a detached villa in Northern Tel Aviv would equal a shed in Kiryat Shmone or Sderot. By the time a single rocket hits Tel Aviv, the Zionist dream will be over.
The IDF generals know it, the Israeli leaders know it. This is why they stepped up the war against the Palestinian into extermination. The Israelis do not plan upon invading Gaza. They have lost nothing there. All they want is to finish the Nakba. They drop bombs on Palestinians in order to wipe them out. They want the Palestinians out of the region. It is obviously not going to work, Palestinians will stay. Not only they will they stay, their day of return to their land is coming closer as Israel has been exploiting its deadliest tactics.
This is exactly where Israeli escapism comes into play. Israel has passed the ‘point of no return’. Its doomed fate is deeply engraved in each bomb it drops on Palestinian civilians. There is nothing Israel can do to save itself. There is no exit strategy. It can’t negotiate its way out because neither the Israelis nor their leadership understand the elementary parameters involved in the conflict. Israel lacks the military power to conclude the battle. It may manage to kill Palestinian grassroots leaders, it has been doing it for years, yet Palestinian resistance and persistence is growing fierce rather than weakening. As an IDF intelligence general predicted already at the first Intifada. ‘In order to win, all Palestinians have to do is to survive’. They survive and they are indeed winning.
Israeli leaders understand it all. Israel has already tried everything, unilateral withdrawal, starvation and now extermination. It thought to evade the demographic danger by shrinking into an intimate cosy Jewish ghetto. Nothing worked. It is Palestinian persistence in the shape of Hamas politics that defines the future of the region.
All that is left to Israelis is to cling to their blindness and escapism to evade their devastating grave fate that has become immanent already. All along their way down, the Israelis will sing their familiar various victim anthems. Being imbued in a self-centred supremacist reality, they will be utterly involved in their own pain yet completely blind to the pain they inflict on others. Uniquely enough, the Israelis are operating as a unified collective when dropping bombs on others, yet, once being slightly hurt, they all manage to become monads of vulnerable innocence. It is this discrepancy between the self-image and the way they are seen by the rest of us which turns the Israeli into a monstrous exterminator. It is this discrepancy that stops Israelis from grasping their own history, it is that discrepancy that stops them from comprehending the repeated numerous attempts to destroy their State. It is that discrepancy that stops Israelis from understanding the meaning of the Shoah so can they prevent the next one. It is this discrepancy that stops Israelis from being part of humanity.
Once again Jews will have to wander into an unknown fate. To a certain extent, I myself have started my journey a while ago.
[1][1] Jews only law of return- http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/1950_1959/Law of Return 5710-1950
Gilad Atzmon is a jazz musician, composer, producer and writer.
Email this author All posts by Gilad Atzmon
On collaboration and resistance of the oppressed
In 1835, Thomas Macaulay, a British colonial officer in India, decreed that "We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, a class of persons Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, words and intellect." European colonial powers often used political outsourcing through a network of native collaborators as a convenient way to subjugate the masses. These collaborators would tame the colonized on behalf of their masters who became sheltered in this way from popular uprisings. However, this process was not always predictable. In 1857, the sepoys, Indian soldiers allied to British rule, revolted against their colonial masters. Britain's response was fierce. Over 100,000 sepoys and hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in cold blood. This became known as India's first struggle for independence; which was finally realized in 1947.
A year later, European settler colonialists established the state of Israel through a pre-mediated campaign of ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population. Despite divisions amongst Arab governments and self-interested manipulation of the Palestinian plight, the response was that of opposition and generally in line with the feelings of the Arab masses. As a result, western governments have sought for decades to bully those governments into submission by forcing them to accept the premise of an inherently racist Jewish state in their midst.
As Israel massacres the Palestinians in Gaza once again, one may ask what has happened to this Arab voice. It is no surprise that the world's super powers condone Israel's genocidal acts in Gaza. Colonization, slavery, apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing have been constants in western colonialist adventures. What has now reached new levels is the open, vocal and active support of Arab governments to the massacre of the Palestinian people. As the Indian sepoys once did, new collaborators have joined the chorus of voices condoning the carnage.
The Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt is a case in point, symbolizing this painful new reality. Hosni Mubarak's government in Egypt and the unelected Palestinian Authority in Ramallah have actively colluded with Israel, first to unsuccessfully overthrow Hamas from Gaza through force and then to choke the Palestinians in Gaza by denying them basics such as food, clean water, medical treatment and a decent education. While this "holocaust in the making" was occurring, as the UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk fittingly described it, PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies were collaborating with Israel to deploy forces across the West Bank cities to suppress resistance to the occupation. As US general Keith Dayton put it, these forces were taught that they "are not here to learn how to fight against the Israeli occupation," but instead to fight "the lawless elements within Palestinian society."
Not surprisingly, Abbas blamed Hamas for the ongoing bloodshed, claiming that they have refused to renew the truce. The best he could come out with, in the face of growing popular discontent, was a "threat" to discontinue negotiations (read, collaboration) with Israel. Hamas has in fact shown willingness to extend the truce but under the condition of ending the illegal siege. This is tantamount to requesting basic human rights for Palestinians, something Abbas never conditioned in his dealings with Israel.
Israel's other ally, Egypt, has accused Hamas of barring the wounded from escaping Israel's attack, conveniently ignoring their own long-term refusal to allow any Palestinians to cross in and out of Rafah. According to the London-based daily al-Quds al-Arabi, the Egyptian Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman deceived Hamas into believing that Israel would not launch an attack on the Gaza Strip while sending their forces to seal the border in preparation for an Israeli attack. Egyptian forces later opened fire against Palestinians wanting to escape the carnage.
This form of hypocrisy found expression all over the Arab world. In the United Arab Emirates for instance, protests in solidarity with the Palestinians were banned or tightly controlled. The Arab League with its usual incompetence has been remarkably slow in reacting, first delaying their meeting for days and then issuing an insignificant declaration for all parties to cease violence offering no solution to the desperate plight of the Palestinians under siege.
But a more important question is how the Arab masses and people of conscience around the world have reacted. What are their real democratic wishes? If the Arab governments surpassed their own low standards in usurping Palestinian rights, the Arab masses have conversely renewed their determination to reject foreign domination, for every time they are stripped off their dignity; their spirit of resistance to oppression is revitalized. Across the Arab world, there has been a renewed sense of revulsion and determination to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians, uniting their causes with the occupied Iraqis and others suffering under oppressive regimes sponsored by the West.
In a very sober address to the Egyptian people, Secretary General of Hizballah Hassan Nasrallah, stated: "Let the Egyptian people take to the streets in their millions. Can the Egyptian police arrest millions of Egyptians? No!" These words sum up why today, Hamas and Hizballah, have gained more respect and legitimacy in the Arab popular opinion than any of the corrupt Arab regimes. The resistance organizations represent the aspirations of the ordinary people, who want their rights and freedom reinstated, not because they support terrorism or are subhuman, as much of the western media portrays them to be. Israel and its allies are sowing the seeds of more radicalism and greater instability in the Middle East. While powerlessly watching the massacres in Gaza, one cannot discern whether this instability is a means or an end in itself. As for the corrupt Arab regimes, they are left with two choices: either they listen to their citizens or they will have to face continuous revolt by the people. The pages of history have taught us that oppression never existed without provoking revolt for liberation and rights.
Abbas and his minions can learn much from the sepoy mutiny in India and the Ghandian nonviolent struggle for liberation that ensued. Since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, the 15 years of collaboration with Israel has yielded more settlements, thousands of house demolitions, kidnappings and massacres -- the truth is that the leaders have nothing to show to the people in return. The time has come for the Palestinian factions to unite behind the popular masses, for active and passive legitimization of Israel's actions to stop and for a return to basics. Resistance to Israel's occupation can most effectively be done through a nonviolent struggle calling for equal rights to that of their Israeli occupiers under one secular state. It is time that we extend the basic premise the West has insisted upon for themselves: that freedom is non-negotiable.
Ziyaad Lunat is an honorary life member of the London School of Economics (LSE) and an activist for Palestine.
Related Links
Photostory: World demonstrates for Gaza
Photostory, The Electronic Intifada, 3 January 2009
Around the world people took to the streets outraged by the scenes of death and destruction in the Gaza Strip that began when Israel bombarded the coastal territory on 27 December. The below images were sent to The Electronic Intifada from around the world and document various actions, demonstrations and vigils in solidarity with Gazans under siege. If you have images to which you hold the rights documenting Palestine, Palestinian life, politics and culture, or of solidarity with Palestine, please email images and captions to photos A T electronicintifada D O T net.
Related Links
"Mickey Mouse Resistance" Capable of Reaching Dimona
Protesters have decried a number of Arab governments, besides Israel and the US [AFP]
Gaza rockets put Israel’s nuclear plant in battle zone
Rocket attacks from Gaza have forced Israelis to flee in ever greater numbers and military chiefs have been shaken by the size and sophistication of the militant group’s arsenal.
In Beersheba, until a few days ago a sleepy desert town in southern Israel, there is little sign of the 186,000 inhabitants. Schools are closed and the streets of shuttered shops echo with the howl of sirens warning of incoming rockets.Israel has said that its aim is to smash Hamas’s rocket-firing capability but also to topple the elected by the people government (while the world's observers watched) seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007 after bloody street battles with its secular rivals Fatah. Until that goal is achieved, many in Beersheba are packing their bags and heading for Tel Aviv or Eilat.
“Maybe 30 or 40 per cent of people have left the city,” said Ron Shukron, 26, running one of the few grocery shops still open. As he spoke a siren echoed through the empty streets. With only 15 seconds to take cover, he stepped under a reinforced support beam in the ceiling. Seconds later came the dull thud of a rocket exploding on the edge of town.
01/01/2009 A Grad rocket fired by Palestinian resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip on Thursday scored a direct hit on an eight-floor building in the northern Negev city of Ashdod.
The rocket caused a fire to erupt in the building. There were no physical injuries reported.
The strike on Ashdod was the ninth rocket to hit the western Negev on Thursday. Six Qassam rockets exploded in the Eshkol region over the course of the morning, and two Grad rockets hit the city of Beersheba.
Hamas's armed wing said Thursday it had fired a rocket at an Israeli military base. The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement they had fired a developed Grad-type rocket at the Hatzerim air force base west of Beersheba, some 40 kilometers from the Gaza border.
The Israeli military confirmed Thursday that the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip had fired another six rockets into the occupied territories.
Five Qassams landed in the Eshkol settlement. In addition, a Grad-type missile struck the Beersheba city. There were no reports of injury or damage in the attacks.
Three Grad-type rockets were also fired at Beersheba overnight Wednesday, causing no casualties.
According to Israel Radio, the city's alarm system was not functioning and the Home Front Command would fix it by Thursday afternoon. Due to the malfunctions in Beersheba's air raid siren system, residents of the Negev city are asked to monitor broadcasts on Radio South (97 FM) and Army Radio (102.3 FM), where sirens will be heard in case of a rocket attack.
Also overnight Wednesday, two Qassam rockets were fired at Netivot. No casualties or damage were reported. More than two dozens rockets and mortar shells had been fired by mid-day. One rocket landed in a small farming community about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of Tel Aviv.
School was cancelled in large swaths of Israel's south because of the rocket threats. The 18,000 students at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, southern occupied territories' only university, were also told to stay home.
Wednesday evening saw Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak order a "special situation in the home front" applied to the greater Beersheba area as well, effectively giving security forces municipal jurisdiction over it.
Barak's order will elapse in 48 hours, unless sanctioned by the cabinet, and in the meantime, the defense minister urges the city's residents to comply with the Home Front Command's emergency instructions.
"We have struck Hamas, but as we all see, it's still striking back," he said during a tour of Beersheba.
Flashback:
