Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts
Friday, July 18, 2008
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Omar Qassis: Administrative Detainee
The case of Palestinian prisoners held in administrative detention in Israeli prisons is a particularly horrible side of Israeli oppression. Of the roughly 11,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, there are over a thousand languishing without charge, without a release date, without access to any evidence held against them.
Administrative detention is a system of incarceration without charge, where secret evidence from the Israeli General Security Services (GSS) is shown to the military judge and used to justify incarceration for a period up to six months, on a renewable basis. The information provided by the GSS is not communicated to the detainee or to his/her lawyer. The mental suffering caused by not knowing the grounds for detention can amount to torture as defined under the UN Convention Against Torture and such lengthy detentions without charge or trial also constitute "arbitrary detention" which are a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 9[1]) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 9).
For the Zionuts about to trip over their panties in the rush to justify this practice, note the part where the detainees are held without charge. As in, they have not been charged with any crime. As in, many of these prisoners serve many years at a time under administrative detention without ever being accused of anything.
10 students from Birzeit University currently languish under administrative detention in Israel, among them the former head of the student council, Fadi Hamad, and his deputy, Abdallah Oweis.Also amongst them is Omar Qassis. Omar has been detained since March 17, 2008. He was taken from his home in the mostly Christian village of Birzeit where he lived with his mother and older brother Hanna, and has spent his time in incarceration between the Mascobia Detention Center in West Jerusalem, notorious in Palestinian society for its harsh interrogation methods that frequently include torture, the Naqab Prison in the middle of the Naqab desert, notorious for its inhumane detention conditions (prisoners are kept in tents in the desert), and Ofer military court near Ramallah. Throughout his detention, the Israeli occupation and its intelligence services failed to charge Omar with any crime. On May 1st, a month and a half after his arrest, he was placed under administrative detention for three months. He was also charged with throwing stones sometime between 2001 and 2002. He pled not guilty.
The ridiculousness of the charge is breathtaking, but within the maze of Israeli oppression, hardly unique. Note also the fact that Omar is being accused of throwing stones when he was 16 years old, a minor, yet is being tried in a military court as an adult. Several months after his detention, his family have yet to receive permission from the occupying forces to visit him.
I know Omar and Hanna personally. We all worked together at a local newspaper a couple of years ago, and Omar was due to graduate with me last week. He will now have to wait until he is freed. Omar is an unbelievably hyperactive dude, always ready with a quip or a quote one of the many varied thinkers he has read. I missed seeing his lanky body bouncing up and down at campus handing out flyers around student union election time, or volunteering his time to guide foreign delegations around the school. But it doesn’t matter what kind of person he is-what matters is that he is being held without charge (or a pathetic, trumped up charge if you choose to count throwing stones 7 years ago) , under deplorable conditions, with no idea of when he will be let free.
A detailed account of Omar's ongoing ordeal.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Syria (Maybe) Kills Prisoners of All Stripes
Syria, that beacon of transparency, is denying that a riot in a Syrian jail may have cost the lives of dozens of prisoners. Human rights groups in Damascus are claiming bloodshed. The authorities said they squelched an uprising at Sidnaya prison but did not mention any casualties, according to the Financial Times.
Whether or not dozens were killed, prisoners fear a bloody assault by Syrian troops will led to a massacre.
Supposedly, the rioters took hundreds of guards hostage, and negotiated their release in exchange for not being tortured or killed. Good luck with that.
As one of the country's largest prisons, it is used to hold political detainees, of all political stripes.
The official Syrian Arab News Agency said it held "prisoners sentenced for crimes of terrorism and extremism caused trouble."
A human rights groups said it held, leftists, Palestinians, Islamist militants and detained Syrian soldiers -- basically anyone who crossed the regime either in action or belief. The legal basis continues to be the Baath-imposed Emergency laws, put in place since 1963, which makes Syria the police state it is.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Settler violence and more batshit excuses
Just a few days after B’Tselem video captured masked Israeli settlers brutally beating a Palestinian shepherd and his wife, another Israeli human rights group, Ta’ayush, has captured more evidence of the daily abuse suffered by Palestinians at the hands of these fanatic colonists.
Midhat Abu Karsh, a teacher from the Hebron area, was out with his cousins farming land in the village of Samoa’ when they were attacked by settlers from the illegal settlement of Eshael. Midhat was beaten, then led away and tied to a telephone pole by the hands and neck. The video captures Israeli soldiers surrounding Midhat. With absolutely no danger posed to them by the shackled and beaten man, they still refrained from untying him. A settler (dressed in white) is seen speaking to the soldiers, before another settler walks right through them and kicks Midhat in the face.
That the soldiers did nothing to protect or free Midhat should come as no surprise. Even after being kicked, they still refused to untie him until the Israeli police arrived on the scene.
Last week’s attack on the shepherd family was justified by the Israeli authorities because supposedly the Palestinians had provoked the settlers by not wearing ‘Arab clothes’. I don’t know just what it is the settlers and Israeli authorities smoke when they get together to come up with excuses for their brutality, but its some strong shit. They defended this beating by claiming that Midhat set fire to some fields in the area.
Lemme break it down:
1. Israeli settlers steal Palestinian land and resources and build illegal colonies on said land.
2. Israeli settlers actively engage in the abuse and mistreatment of Palestinians, particularly those who try to defend their land from confiscation or try to farm the land they are left with that lie near the settlements. Burning farmland is not uncommon.
3. I don’t want to say Israeli settlers set fire to the field, but, that’s what they do. Then, apparently deciding they want peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians whose land they have usurped (and burned), they attempt to defend Palestinian lands, beating up a Palestinian farmer burning his own field.
I guess we should commend them for trying though.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Lie down and surrender: Nil'in under siege
The village of Nil’in, west of Ramallah, has been facing a struggle familiar to many West Bank villages that lie near the green line or illegal Israeli settlements. For the past few years, the Zionist occupation forces have been constructing the illegal separation wall on these villages’ lands. Like Bil’in, another village that has had the vast majority of its lands confiscated behind the wall and annexed to nearby illegal settlements, Nil’in’s residents have been conducting, along with Israeli and international supporters, weekly protests against the wall every Friday.
Bil’in pioneered these Friday protests. For the better part of three years now, protestors would gather near the lands that are to be confiscated and engage in nonviolent resistance. The weekly events, particularly at Bil’in, are well covered and documented by the local and regional media. The protests usually end with the Israeli soldiers firing rubber bullets and tear gas at the demonstrators, with Palestinians, Israeli and international sympathizers and members of the media facing the same fate. Bil’in has now hosted two international anti-racism conferences, and the demonstrators have managed to have a small part of the wall’s route changed. Their struggle continues.
This Friday, however, the spotlight fell on Nil’in. Israeli forces attacked the protestors with beatings and bullets, with over 130 injured over the last three days. The occupation forces placed the entire village of 5,000 under a strict curfew that has yet to be lifted three days on. The Israeli army spokeswoman justified this because apparently the protestors had thrown rocks at the heavily armed soldiers, injuring one. [Al Jazeera English]
I always like breaking these things down for you guys:
1) The Zionists confiscate thousands of dunums of village land deep inside the West Bank to loop the illegal apartheid wall around the illegal Israeli settlements which already sit on stolen Palestinian land.
2) The villagers protest this illegal land confiscation and ghettoization of their communities. The protests are mostly nonviolent, unless they throw a few rocks at the heavily armed occupying soldiers.
3) In a bid to stop the villagers from protesting the theft of their land, the army places the entire village under strict curfew.
4) Among the methods used by the army to enforce the curfew is the lobbing of tear gas inside closed homes, banning patients from leaving for treatment (the village clinic is running low on supplies) and threatening the villagers with live fire if they venture out in their own streets.
Activists with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) inside the village said the Israeli forces intensified their assault on Saturday afternoon. According to the human rights activists, the Israeli army "had ... invaded the village in force, bringing bulldozers to break through the barricades set up in the streets. During the following hours youths attempted to drive them out by throwing stones. The army responded with immense shooting. Tear gas was fired into houses, and at least one home was set on fire."
"When the army finally pulled back eleven people where left severely injured," ISM said, "one of them a young boy shot through the throat. His situation is as of now unknown." [MaanNews.net]
Ouch. Why would a state respond with such force to villagers defending their lands from confiscation for the benefit of illegal settlers? As Jamal Gomaa, the director of the Stop the Wall organization said:
"The people go to protect their land at every minute of the day, and it's something the Israelis don't want. They don't want this kind of resistance to spread to other villages."
The following is a report by Aljazeera International's David Chater, describing the conditions inside the besieged village.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Resistance Art, Pt ...
Palestinians watch a live projection of the Euro 2008 European Soccer Championships final between Germany and Spain on a section of Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank refugee camp of Aida, near Bethlehem, Sunday, June 29, 2008.(AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
[Tarboush Tip: Shashabone]
Thursday, June 26, 2008
CNN will publish anything the Israelis feed them
CNN.com recently carried this report about the infamous video of Israeli settlers sadistically beating an elderly Palestinian woman, her husband and another relative. The report is not actually about the beating itself, or about the illegality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, or the abuse Palestinians face on constant basis at the hands of settlers and soldiers.
Rather, CNN saw fit to carry the Israeli authorities’ justification for the attack. Apparently, the Palestinians deserved to be beaten so savagely because they were ‘not wearing traditional Arab garb.’
I’m fucking serious. Read it.
Then there is this snide little quote: “So far, B'Tselem's cameras have captured a number of incidents, many of them taking place in the Israeli-occupied West Bank -- a place where there are routine reports of Palestinians hurling rocks, and occasionally crude bombs, at Israelis passing in cars.”
How about that for subliminal justification. There is no mention of the fact that those Israelis in their passing cars are illegal settlers who use stolen Palestinian land and abuse the indigenous population. Or the fact that settler attacks against Palestinians are a constant and daily occurrence.
Tarboush Tip: Fadi
Friday, June 20, 2008
Today's Pic
Olive grove near Nablus, Palestine, set ablaze by Israeli settlers from near by colonies yesterday. It was known yet whether the settlers were protesting the cease-fire agreement or just celebrating Thursday. (Al-Jazeera)
Chaim Sugerman, KABOBfest's resident theologian explained that the blaze may be a part of the Sabbath preparations. He indicated that Orthodox Jews are not allowed to light flames during the sabbath; therefore that set a fire large nought to burn through the weekend, and when needed, for a barbecue for instance, they "transfer" a flame, but not "start" a new one.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Israel is a Beacon of Democracy
I don't understand how anybody can refer to Israel as a colonial power. Sure, Israel steals Palestinian land, builds illegal Jewish-only settlements on stolen Palestinian lands, and illegally transfers its civilian population to said settlements. But to refer to Israel as a colonial power is simply absurd! Israel, the civilized, is a beacon of democracy in an ocean of savages. Israel is a shining example of respect for human rights, because Israel has shown tremendous self-restraint. Certainly, Israel has the power to kill every single Palestinian in the West Bank and Gaza. That Israel has not exercised this power is initself enough to declare Israel a champion of human rights. Israel the civilized, here are her heroes:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7451691.stm
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Accept the ceasefire
Despite unending calls for a reciprocal ceasefire in Gaza and southern Israel (i.e. no bloodshed, no Israeli incursions, and no Palestinian ‘rockets’ fired at Sderot), Israel’s government still doesn’t know how in the world it is to stop said rockets from being fired at Sderot.
Its military institution has come with multi-hundred million dollar plans to develop highly advanced missile defense systems to neutralize the effects of the flying pipes launched by the Palestinian resistance. Its politicians continually threaten to wipe out Gaza, to kill more and destroy what they still haven’t. Every other day the ‘widescale invasion’ of Gaza is announced to be just days away.
But the calls for a ceasefire are ignored.
The suffocating siege imposed on the world’s largest open air prison is unbelievably catastrophic. Sewage flows in the streets because there is no fuel to power the treatment plants. Drinking water is scarce because there is no electricity to power the water pumps. Ambulances run out of fuel rushing towards the latest victims of the Israeli army’s unchecked killing spree all over Gaza.
If the victims get lucky and die, they’re wrapped with hospital bedsheets and blankets because the morgues have run out of supplies and new covers aren’t allowed in. And those that stay alive sleep without covers, in the cold because there isn’t any fuel or electricity to power the hospitals heating.
The everyday effects of the siege are too overwhelming to describe in any one post, or even a full length article. You can only really experience it by being there. One of the few foreigners to have been allowed in recently is Nora Barrows-Friedman. This is some of what she had to say:
“On a massive and wide-ranging scale, every single aspect of life in Gaza is punctuated by the Israeli occupation and the blockade. There are 1.5 million people here, trapped and hermetically sealed, in this 22-mile by 6-mile strip of devastated open-air prison compound. Fuel is scarce and the streets are thick with the soupy smoke of cooking gas, falafel oil and benzene as Israel's collective punishment policies force people to fill their cars with their families' gas rations.
This trickles down. Hospitals, grocery stores, butcheries, fishing boats, administrative centers, schools, factories, clinics, they all either run on generators or have been forced to quit operations altogether because of the fuel crisis. In the sewage treatment facilities, the fuel shortages mean that sewage plants can't operate at full capacity -- and remember, there are 1.5 million people here -- so millions of gallons of raw sewage are being dumped into the sea, untreated, making the ocean extremely toxic.
Giardia, dysentery, cholera -- diseases not known just five miles up the beach, in the cities of historic Palestine (some call it Israel), where toilets flush and water is safe to drink, where people lay in the mid-day sun getting tan and drinking pina coladas and speaking a language resurrected just in the last hundred years, unknown to the indigenous and dispossessed here in Gaza -- are now common. And once Palestinians get really sick, hospitals try to do all they can to alleviate the pain and eradicate the disease, but, as my friend told me, since the blockade began last summer, there are 95 medicines on the "blacklist" -- prohibited from entering Gaza.”
95 medicines banned from reaching 1.5 million human beings? Shit, no wonder Israelis are so proud of reaching 60 years of statehood. With those kinds of morals, it’s a miracle they’ve lasted this long.
There are very limited supplies of most medicines left, but they are close to running out. The fastest dwindling medicine? Anesthesia.
This is a siege run by sadists. They want the Palestinians to literally feel the pain.
If anybody still believes this siege is designed to stop Palestinian attacks, pull your head out of your ass. Apart from the fact that the casualty numbers between Palestinians and Israelis cannot even be compared, Israel remains the occupier in this unequal equation and the Palestinians have the right to fight back. If you really do care about the number of bedwetters in southern Israel, then the solution is accept the ceasefire and end the siege.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Today's Pic
Ahmed Sawafiri, 19, of Gaza City, studies with a friend's help for the college entrance exams, Tawjihi, earlier this week. Ahmed lost both legs, an arm, and two fingers when an Israeli missile exploded in a crowed as he walked to class in April. (Al-Jazeera)
Chaim Sugerman learned that he actually is not studying for exams, rather, reading manuals on installing tools and gadgets to his limbs in his quest to become Gaza's first Inspector Gadget, and he is very grateful to the Israeli occupation forces for the opportunity.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Jalame is Open, but with Restrictions
Israel has opened Jalame crossing to Palestinian citizens of Israel for the first time since 2000. Jalame is located in the far northern tip of the West Bank. Since the wall has been completed in this area, the residents of West Bank villages, as well as of the Arab villages inside of Israel who are often the relatives of people on the other side, have been prohibited from crossing here to see each other.
In 2005, the Israelis built a huge terminal, like the one at Qalandia but three or four times the size. I walked through it once into the West Bank when they had just completed construction, and there were as many as eight of those tall, narrow metal turnstyles, and a maze of pathways lined with chain link, not unlike a place where you keep cattle before slaughter.
The second time I had an experience with Jalame, it involved sitting for five and a half hours on the Jenin side. The soldiers manning the crossing told me and my friend, two US passport holders, to wait just one more hour and they would open the terminal. After an hour passed, they said wait one more, and on and on. In the end, we were told that this crossing is for Palestinians with passes only, and we have to go down south to Qalandia to enter Israel. I am relating this story not to show that we got a little bit of the Palestine treatment simply because of which side of the electric fence we were on (while it's interesting also how people, animals, you name it, become ethnicized simply by being on the wrong side), but to show how we then saw what no news agency has yet gone to film: the throngs of workers returning home at nightfall from Israel, faces lined and tired spilling one after the other through the metal gates, trying to fit three bodies through a space for one racing each other for taxis so they can arrive home, sleep, and leave again at 3 am.
This is what Jalame terminal was built for: to allow an entry for cheap labor from Jenin, to render that labor invisible, and to effectively choke the city's economy into submission. The labor is in fact invisible. These people, mainly Palestinian men and some women, go to work in Jewish areas throughout the north of Israel at 3 am, and return to their homes at 5 or 6 pm. No one will ever see the state of those homes. No Israeli passes the opposite way. Unless it is to take part in the Occupation- in that sense, MOST Israelis have seen at one point or another what has been rendered invisible to them in their everyday lives.
The opening of the terminal to Arabs on the Israeli side is a positive move, but comes only after the wall and restrictions on movement have served to make Jenin completely invisible to those who live only ten minutes away. In Shefa Amr, where I am living now and incidentally the second largest Palestinian locality in Israel, peoples' eyes practically bug out of their heads if I tell them I went to Jenin. You went to JENIN? People will tell you that they used to go, the market was cheap, we had friends there. This rug is from Jenin, or these glasses. But this was before the Intifada. Now, the only people who go are those who have family, or another pressing personal reason to take advantage of the movement privileges that come with an Israeli passport. Why else would you travel two hours to the nearest crossing in the Wall, and subject yourself to the checkpoints and treatment you will certainly receive from the Israeli soldiers along the way?
Until now, the nearest way for someone on the Israeli side of the Wall in the north to get to family just on the opposite side has been to drive south as far as Tul Karm and then backtrack parallel to the road you just took, heading north inside the West Bank. (In fact my description is simplified- since the main highway to Jenin has been made off-limits to Palestinian use, a windy and convoluted road through the mountains suffices.)
Palestinian citizens of Israel have been the drivers and primary occupants of the public transportation that I have taken to visit Jenin over the past two years. It's the proximity that gets me every time. You can see Nazareth and Afula from roads just outside Jenin, not to mention all of the villages along the Wall. If you begin driving from one point in a southern direction, cross into Israel, and then continue back north, you end up looking down on where you were two and a half hours previous.
It remains to be seen how long it will take for people to actually begin crossing from Jalame to visit Jenin. The restrictions reported are as such: Under the new rules, the IDF barred those younger than 18 from entering Jenin and said all the travelers must return to the terminal before nightfall, where they will be subjected to security questioning, according to a flier given to those who crossed.
The crossing will be open to an estimated 100 Israeli Arabs per day, Sunday to Thursday, Palestinian officials said. A Defense Ministry official said the plan was to increase the number and over time to allow more travelers to enter.
Return before nightfall for questioning? If I go with a friend from inside, we'll just as well make the 3+ hour trip down to Tul Karm and back, thank you very much.
Friday, May 30, 2008
New Email: Sorry, You Can Forget About Your Future
The US State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students from Gaza.
They notified them of the decision by email.
Imagine studying to learn a second language, getting a college degree in a war zone, studying for and succeeding in expensive exams to prove your proficiency in that language, spending time and money applying to study in the US for a PhD or Masters program, and succeeding.
And then one day, before you can go, you get an email tell you sorry, the program has been canceled because the US government is afraid that Israel is making the money we were going to invest in you go to waste. They just won't give you a visa, even though we give them millions of dollars in a year to continue occupying what remains of your country. Reapply next year if you want.
I mean, they couldn't even bother to call!
Please Note: While the Fulbright grants are administered by the Institute for International Education, this decision has been made by the State Department. And, IT CAN STILL BE REVERSED. If you would like to write a letter or call, it should be directed at one CONDOLEEZA RICE.
Tarboush tip: Fadi and Tiffany
Monday, May 19, 2008
Shooting Back
Click here to read about B'Tselem's video project Shooting Back, a project employing citizen journalism whereby Palestinians who face daily harassment document their experiences on film.
Check out this film - Settlers at the Door - if you want to be creeped out by a crazed settler woman in Hebron. This family was being pelted by debris every day by the settlers living next to their house, and so now there is metal grate around the house. They literally are living in a cage. The film is taken by the 14-year-old girl living inside as she tries to get the soldiers to make a pathway for her little brother so he can run the gauntlet home from school.
I get the feeling that so many people don't bother to document harassment when it happens to them here, solely due to the ubiquitous and daily nature of the harassment. When the same thing happens to everyone, why should you write it down? It's commonplace and expected. Yet if you sit in room and people start talking, every single person has stories that you wouldn't imagine.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
60 years ago
60 years ago, the state of Israel was founded on the land that was formerly known as Palestine. It is regarded as a miracle country, a state able to grow in strength and power as a home for the Jewish people in the midst of millions of hostile Arabs. Or so the narrative goes.
The problem with that narrative is that it completely fails to acknowledge the rights of the Palestinian people, at whose cost Israel was established. Palestine was never a barren, empty land. It had a vibrant, thriving culture and a settled population that had lived there for hundreds of years. Between the years of 1947 and 1949, most of that population -hundreds of thousands of men, women and children- were expelled from their homes by Zionist militias intent on cleansing the land of the native Arabs so that a purely Jewish state could be created in their wake. As Israeli historian Benny Morris puts it, "a Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians.”
Israel’s supporters claim that the refugees were forced out in the fighting that broke out when Arab armies attacked the new Israeli state. This version of events completely ignores the fact that Palestinian towns and villages were emptied of their populations by Zionist gangs before and after the war. Furthermore, the issue is not the circumstance of the flight of these refugees-rather, it is the fact that they were never allowed to return.
My grandparents were forced out of their homes in the village of Fallujah near Gaza in March 1949, months after an armistice was reached in that area. They left believing they’d be back in three days. Instead, they still live in the Khan Younis refugee camp where I was born, 60 years on.
Despite what many would like to believe, these refugees, now numbering several million, won’t disappear. Not only are their calls for the right to return to their homes natural and just, but they are enshrined in international law and UN Security Council resolutions. If Israeli society believes that they can ever live in total peace and security while continuing to deprive the Palestinians of their most basic right, the right to return to their own homes, it is deluding itself. The entire conflict stems from this point. To solve any problem, we must go back to the cause instead of attempting to gloss over it with vague promises of statehood or sovereignty, of defiant (and hypocritical) statements against ‘terror’
and incitement.
I am not advocating the destruction of Israel or the expulsion of the Jewish people. Palestinians have accepted that Israelis have made their homes in this country. What I am advocating is an end to the continued attempts to destroy the Palestinian people. In an age where many try to characterize the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as one waged between moderates and extremists, the Palestinian people are demanding nothing more than the implementation of international law and of their human rights. For 60 years now, Israel has rejected the demands of the international community, portraying the people it displaced and dispossessed as the obstacles to justice.
60 years on and the Palestinian people have not disappeared. It is time to recognize the grave injustice committed against them, and end the decades of longing and suffering. It is time for the Israeli people to realize that the Palestinians have the right to share this land as equals.
It is time to return.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
60 Years Later, Nakba Front Page News
Israel is today celebrating it's 60th anniversary. I was surprised and pleased to see this article on the front page of the International Herald Tribune yesterday: After 60 Years, Arabs in Israel Are Outsiders, complete with pictures and video.
Then I read the first paragraph. The author feels the needs to qualify from the start the Palestinian discontent inside of Israel:
As Israel toasts its 60th anniversary in the coming weeks, rejoicing in Jewish national rebirth and democratic values, the Arabs who make up 20 percent of its citizens will not be celebrating. Better off and better integrated than ever in their history, freer than a vast majority of other Arabs, Israel’s 1.3 million Arab citizens are still far less well off than Israeli Jews and feel increasingly unwanted.
Why? The first thing the author points out is to the effect of, 'You should thank your lucky stars that you're living here in a westernized civilized society, and not with those backwards barbarians we're surrounded by.' And does he really believe that they are freer than other Arabs? If he's talking about ability to get a visa to the US, ok. If he's talking about freedom from harassment by intelligence and police, freedom from state oppression, freedom from discrimination, the right to hold property without anyone taking it from you arbitrarily, or freedom of the press, he's got some research to do.
The article also curiously ignores the Bedouin, who have the worst living situation and rights abuses inside of Israel's self-chosen borders not including Jerusalem. The article ignores the situation of Jerusalem residents, who have lived under Israeli governance since 1967 yet who do not have Israeli citizenship and hence have a different, lesser set of rights. While I understand the purpose of focusing on Palestinian citizens of Israel, which does not include the Golan or Jerusalem, I find that simply mentioning their plight in the consideration of Israel's treatment of the native population within what it considers its borders demonstrates the nature of the colonial settlement and ethnic cleansing that has been ongoing for 60 years. It gives some context to the 'freedoms' the author cites, that these apparently civilized barbarians should be thankful that they've been enlightened with.
Despite my criticisms, however, the Nakba on the front page is a positive step.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Shoot First, Renew the Contract Later
Blackwater disclosed that it engaged in 195 shootings since 2005, wherein its personnel shot first 84% of the time.The security contractor Blackwater has been running loose in Iraq above the law and to the detriment of ordinary Iraqis. Amnesty International is calling for greater accountability in the contracting of such entities.
On September 16, 2007, private contractors working for the U.S.-based company Blackwater Worldwide shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians in streets near Nisour Square, Baghdad. The shootings occurred while Blackwater was under a contract with the U.S. State Department.
So pleased the government is with this excellent track record, it renewed Blackwater's contract.
It probably sounds like I am being a bit hyperbolic. The government takes no pride in such slaughter, right?
The State Department did conduct "investigations" -- probably so it could say it did -- but it also gave Blackwater contractors immunity for providing information about the shootings. "Just admit you did it, and we won't punish you... we'll even renew your contract."
Amnesty is calling for the contract's suspension.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Myanmar
10,000 people are dead today in Myanmar. 24 million people are living in disaster zones.
In addition to hundreds of thousands of people being made homeless, the security forces killed 36 people rioting when the roof blew off a prison.
Watch the BBC video images of the storm here.
If you're like me and had to look up Myanmar to find out that it is also called Burma, and that it is where Ang San Suu Kyi is from and lives under house arrest, now's your chance to learn about it. Kind of like learning about the Ninth Ward.
The Burmese government has refused emergency disaster aid from the US (which is stupid-- people are dying. kind of like how new york refusing money from the gulf was stupid.) I'm curious as to the reason they give for the refusal, and whether it's related more to the US's sanctions on Burma and interference in Burmese affairs, or whether it's because of the havoc we tend to cause in the world. I'm inclined to think it is most likely due to the previously existing strained relationship.
Eventually I hope that we are able to help, and I wish we actually had money to help with and that it wasn't all dumped into destroying Iraq. Check out this site: how fast can you spend 3 trillion dollars, which is the amount spent on the Iraq War. It takes a long time! 3 trillion dollars would be health care for us and disaster aid for New Orleans AND Burma, and much more.
**For more on Burma, see Quiqui's post and pictures.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Wiping out a family is how Israel says 'no'
Israel’s supporters are well-known for their inability to accept historical truths, bless them. Amongst their favorite lies, and one which sounds so good in the unassuming media, is the claim that Israel has always held its hand out in peace to its neighbors, who always reply with hellfire and brimstone. Or, um, rocks. The danger is one and the same.
A couple of days ago I wrote about how Israel had just turned down a six-month ceasefire offered by Hamas. The chance is there for Israel and the Palestinians to enjoy six months of quiet and an end to killing for the first time in 8 years. Israel, however, is an insecure cock. It can’t accept the fact that the Palestinians are making initiatives, that there might be calm for any other reason apart from it crushing them all. So while Egypt continues to mediate, Palestinian factions meet in Cairo to discuss supporting Hamas’ offer, and Abbasshole whines on about how Israel is making his negotiations difficult, Israel made sure yesterday that the Palestinians realize the price they have to pay for having the audacity to suggest a reciprocal end to fire.
The town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip awoke to yet another Israeli military incursion. The Israeli army, needing to get rid of its surplus munitions, began firing into densely populated civilian homes. Around 7 AM, at least two Israeli takn shells hit the modest home of the Abu Meitag family. Miysar Abu Meitag was sitting around her breakfast table with her four children-Rodayna, 6, Hana, 3, Saleh, 2, and baby Mosab.
That was to be their last meal. The mother and her four children were all killed.
moThe bodies of the four Abu Meitag children and their mother are carried to their final resting placeThe Israeli army cooked up some good bullshit for this one. Apparently, the shells targeted two militants who were running next to the home, and the shells set off the explosives they were carrying, and those explosives were the ones that killed the mother and her four children.
Right, so it wasn’t the actual shells that could have done the damage.
Anyway, its always great to have eyewitnesses that disprove this crap. A passerby certainly was killed in the attack - a 17 year old schoolboy on his way to school, not two militants with bagfuls of explosives. This callous disregard for civilian lives certainly is not new. It comes packaged in with that whole occupation mentality. But what’s really sickening is the extent to which the murder of entire Palestinian families in their own homes has become accepted. Or that the death of an occupation soldier will garner much more sympathy and coverage. Israel will always claim that Palestinians civilian deaths are caused by Palestinian fighters using civilian shields. That’s what they claimed when they killed cameraman Fadel Shana and 2 boys who were in the vicinity. But eyewitnesses and camera footage showed that there were no militants in the area. Similarly, there were no ‘rocket squads’ near the Abu Meitag home today-but there were rockets fired at Israel after the attack.
And that, I think, is what Israel tried to achieve. Everybody here wants a truce, some semblance of calm. Everyone but the Israeli government. Murdering a family at their breakfast table is a very good way to end the growing momentum towards a ceasefire.
NOTE: The Israeli army shelled the main electricity generator in Beit Hanoun yesterday, leaving 200,000 residents of northern Gaza in the dark. I’m sure there were militants hiding inside the generator though.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Trying to kill the truth
Palestinian cameraman Fadel Shana'a in an undated photo. Having already survived an Israeli missile attack that targeted his press vehicle in August 2006, Fadel vowed to continue filming in Gaza. "The only time I'll stop filming is if I die or lose my legs." He was indeed killed by an Israeli tank shell on April 16th, 2008.
The vehicle Shana'a was traveling in moments after being hit. The insignia marking it as a Press vehicle are clearly visible from all angles.
Shana'a lies dead along with a Palestinian boy. Near Fadel's shoulder is his camera on its tripod. The tape retrieved shows the tank firing on him, before going blank two seconds later at the moment of impact.
The muzzle blast from an Israeli tank firing (at left) is seen on Shana's videotape seconds before he was hit. The last frame on Shana's tape (center) shows a dust cloud rising around the tank two seconds after it fired. The frame then goes blank and the camera stopped when Shana was hit. An ambulance and rescue workers (right) go past Shana's flaming Reuters TV vehicle. (Courtesy of Reuters).
The Reuters bureau chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories, Alastair Macdonald, described Shana as a "gentle soul, happy, extremely bright, and one of the most skilled cameramen in Gaza. He will be greatly missed by all his colleagues."
To the forefront of the picture, the legs of another man killed in the attack are visible.
To the forefront of the picture, the legs of another man killed in the attack are visible.
Jackie Rowland reports on Shana's death and that of the many others killed in Gaza today:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)