Israeli Soldiers Speak About Gaza

This information comes from Sam Bahour, a telecomm entrepreneur in Ramallah (www.epalestine.com):

Yesterday MSNBC and the Haaretz newspaper in Jerusalem both featured news about Israeli soldiers' frank discussions of how the war on Gaza was conducted--in contradiction to official Israeli news releases during the attacks in December-January, "Operation Cast Lead." Watch a 2.5-minute report on MSNBC NightlyNews (March 19, 2009) (2:24 minutes):
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp=29779841&#29782064

Read the March 20 article in Haaretz, which includes excerpts from the transcripts of soldiers recounting their experiences in the Gaza war: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072475.html

'Shooting and crying'
By Amos Harel

Less than a month after the end of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, dozens of graduates of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military preparatory program convened at Oranim Academic College in Kiryat Tivon. Since 1998 the program has prepared participants for what is considered meaningful military service. Many assume command positions in combat and other elite units of the Israel Defense Forces. The program's founder, Danny Zamir, still heads it today and also serves as deputy battalion commander in a reserve unit.

The previous Friday, February 13, Zamir had invited combat soldiers and officers who graduated the program for a lengthy discussion of their experiences in Gaza. They spoke openly, but also with considerable frustration.

Following are extensive excerpts from the transcript of the meeting, as it appears in the program's bulletin, Briza, which was published on Wednesday. The names of the soldiers have been changed to preserve their anonymity. The editors have also left out some of the details concerning the identity of the units that operated in a problematic way in Gaza.

Danny Zamir: "I don't intend for us to evaluate the achievements and the diplomatic-political significance of Operation Cast Lead this evening, nor need we deal with the systemic military aspect [of it]. However, discussion is necessary because this was, all told, an exceptional war action in terms of the history of the IDF, which has set new limits for the army's ethical code and that of the State of Israel as a whole.

"This is an action that sowed massive destruction among civilians. It is not certain that it was possible do have done it differently, but ultimately we have emerged from this operation and are not facing real paralysis from the Qassams. It is very possible that we will repeat such an operation on a larger scale in the years to come, because the problem in the Gaza Strip is not simple and it is not at all certain that it has been solved. What we want this evening is to hear from the fighters." Read the rest of the article... http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072475.html

Take 90 Seconds & Two Minutes to Understand

These two VERY SHORT videos tell a very long story.

From "Gisha" - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement...
and the animator from "Waltz with Bashir"
"Closed Zone": 90 animated seconds on the closure of Gaza
http://www.closedzone.com/

*********
AFSC
"Israel-Palestine: A Land in Fragments"
2-minute video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ewF7AXn3dg

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A March 7, 2009, New York Times article, linked on www.ePalestine.com, the news web site of Sam Bahour a Palestinian American/American Palestinian living in Ramallah.

BEITAR ILIT, West Bank — Boulders the size of compact cars are carved out here at a vast quarry near Bethlehem and pushed noisily through grinders, producing gravel and sand that go into apartment buildings in this rapidly growing Israeli settlement and all across Israel itself.

The land of the West Bank is, of course, disputed. Israel occupies it, and the Palestinians want it for a future state. But more and more of it is gone — quarried by Israeli companies and sold for building materials, a practice that is the focus of a new legal challenge.

“Israel is transferring natural resources from the West Bank for Israeli benefit, and this is absolutely prohibited not only under international law but according to Israeli Supreme Court rulings,” said Michael Sfard, lawyer for the Israeli rights group Yesh Din, which is bringing the case to the high court next week. “This is an illegal transfer of land in the most literal of senses.”

Sand and rocks might seem like trivial resources in a country that is half desert. But with strict environmental restrictions on quarrying because of the noise and dust produced, they turn out to be surprisingly valuable. Building contractors are often caught in the Negev Desert stealing them by the truckload in the dead of night. A 2008 government study predicted a serious shortage of raw building materials within a decade. Read more....

Fueling Conflict: Foreign Arms to Israel/Gaza, Amnesty International Report

Amnesty International Report - Fueling Conflict: Foreign Arms Supplied to Israel/Gaza

In the three weeks following the start of the Israeli military offensive on 27 December, Israeli forces killed more than 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 300 children and many other civilians, and injured over 5,000 other Palestinians, again including many civilians. Israeli forces also destroyed thousands of homes and other property and caused significant damage to the infrastructure of Gaza, causing a worsening of the humanitarian crisis arising from the 18-month blockade maintained by Israel. Some of the Israeli bombardments and other attacks were directed at civilians or civilian buildings in the Gaza Strip; others were disproportionate or indiscriminate.

Amnesty International has found indisputable evidence that Israeli forces used white phosphorus, which has a highly incendiary effect, in densely populated residential areas in Gaza, putting the Palestinian civilian population at high risk. Israeli forces’ use of artillery and other non-precision weapons in densely-populated residential areas increased the risk, and the harm done, to the civilian population......

During the same period, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups continued to fire
indiscriminate rockets into residential areas of southern Israel, killing three civilians.

Direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, disproportionate attacks and indiscriminate attacks are war crimes.

Amnesty International is calling on the United Nations, and the Security Council (SC) in particular, to establish an immediate independent investigation.....

Amnesty International is deeply concerned that weaponry, munitions and other military equipment supplied to Israel have been used by Israeli armed forces to carry out direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects in Gaza, and attacks which were disproportionate or indiscriminate. Amnesty International is also concerned that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups have been firing indiscriminate rockets, supplied or constructed of materials supplied from outside Gaza, at civilian population centres in southern Israel. Read more.... Amnesty International's report, "Fueling Conflict: Foreign Arms Supplies to Israel/Gaza," released on February 23.

Israel Targets Civilian Resistance to the Separation Wall

Jayyous is one of the villages I visited in June. Sam Bahour in Ramallah forwards this disturbing news story from the Guardian about Israeli attack on West Bank towns and escalating settlement-building, even as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits the region today.

The real Israel-Palestine story is in the West Bank

Israel's targeting of civilian resistance to the separation wall proves the two-state solution is now just a meaningless slogan

Ben White
Friday 20 February 2009 14.00 GMT

It is quite likely that you have not heard of the most important developments this week in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the West Bank, while it has been "occupation as normal", there have been some events that together should be overshadowing Gaza, Gilad Shalit and Avigdor Lieberman.

First, there have been a large number of Israeli raids on Palestinian villages, with dozens of Palestinians abducted. These kinds of raids are, of course, commonplace for the occupied West Bank, but in recent days it appears the Israeli military has targeted sites of particularly strong Palestinian civil resistance to the separation wall.

For three consecutive days this week, Israeli forces invaded Jayyous, a village battling for survival as their agricultural land is lost to the wall and neighbouring Jewish colony. The soldiers occupied homes, detained residents, blocked off access roads, vandalised property, beat protestors, and raised the Israeli flag at the top of several buildings.

Jayyous is one of the Palestinian villages in the West Bank that has been non-violently resisting the separation wall for several years now. It was clear to the villagers that this latest assault was an attempt to intimidate the protest movement.

Also earlier this week, Israel tightened still further the restrictions on Palestinian movement and residency rights in East Jerusalem, closing the remaining passage in the wall in the Ar- Ram neighbourhood of the city. This means that tens of thousands of Palestinians are now cut off from the city and those with the right permit will now have to enter the city by first heading north and using the Qalandiya checkpoint.

Finally – and this time, there was some modest media coverage – it was revealed that the Efrat settlement near Bethlehem would be expanded by the appropriation of around 420 acres land as "state land". According to Efrat's mayor, the plan is to triple the number of residents in the colony.

Looked at together, these events in the West Bank are of far more significance than issues being afforded a lot of attention currently, such as the truce talks with Hamas, or the discussions about a possible prisoner-exchange deal. Hamas itself has become such a focus, whether by those who urge talks and cooption or those who advocate the group's total destruction, that the wider context is forgotten.

Hamas is not the beginning or the end of this conflict, a movement that has been around for just the last third of Israel's 60 years. The Hamas Charter is not a Palestinian national manifesto, and nor is it even particularly central to today's organisation. Before Hamas existed, Israel was colonising the occupied territories, and maintaining an ethnic exclusivist regime; if Hamas disappeared tomorrow, Israeli colonisation certainly would not. Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/20/israelandthepalestinians-israeli-elections-2009

War Crimes in Gaza Attacks?

"'The one-sidedness of casualty figures is one measure of disproportion,' says Richard Falk, the UN's human rights envoy for the occupied territories. A total of 14 Israelis have been killed in the fighting, three of them civilians killed by rockets, 11 of them soldiers, four of the latter by 'friendly fire.' Some 50 IDF soldiers were also wounded.

In contrast, 1330 Palestinians have died and 5450 were injured, the overwhelming number of them civilians."

"Hamas' use of unguided missiles fired at Israel would also be a war crime under the conventions."

These are some of the findings published in an article by Conn Hallinan in the Berkeley Daily Planet on February 18, as reported by Jewish Peace News:

Berkeley Daily Planet
Dispatches From The Edge—Gaza: Death's Laboratory
By Conn Hallinan
Wednesday February 18, 2009

It was as if they had stepped on a mine, but there was no shrapnel in the wound. Some had lost their legs. It looked as though they had been sliced off. I have been to war zones for 30 years, but I have never seen such injuries before.
—Dr. Erik Fosse, Norwegian cardiologist whoworked in Gaza hospitals during the recent war.

What Dr. Fosse was describing was the effects of a U.S. "focused lethality" weapon that minimalizes explosive damage to structures while inflicting catastrophic wounds on its victims. While the weapon has been used in Iraq, Gaza was the first test of the bomb in a densely populated environment.

The specific weapon—the GBU-39—is a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) and was developed by the U.S. Air Force, Boeing Corporation, and University of California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2000. The weapon wraps the high explosives HMX or RDX with a tungsten alloy and other metals like cobalt, nickel or iron, in a carbon fiber/epoxy container. When the bomb explodes, the container evaporates and the tungsten turns into micro-shrapnel that is extremely lethal up to about 60 feet.

Tungsten is inert, so it does not react chemically with the explosive. While a non-inert metal like aluminum would increase the blast, tungsten actually limits the explosion.

Within the weapon's range, however, it is inordinately lethal. According to Norwegian doctor Mad Gilbert, the blast results in multiple amputations and "very severe fractures. The muscles are sort of split from the bones, hanging loose, and you also have quite severe burns."

Those who survive the initial blast quickly succumb to septicemia and organ collapse. "Initially, everything seems in order … but it turns out on operation that dozens of miniature particles can be found in all their organs," says Dr. Jam Brommundt, a German doctor working in Kham Younis, a city in southern Gaza. "It seems to be some sort of explosive or shell that disperses tiny particles … that penetrate all organs, these miniature injuries, you are not able to attack them surgically." According to Brommundt, the particles cause multiple organ failures.

If, by some miracle, victims do survive, they are almost to certain develop rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), a particularly deadly cancer that deeply embeds itself into tissue and is almost impossible to treat. A 2005 U.S. Department of health study found that tungsten stimulated RMS cancers even in very low doses. Out of 92 rats tested, 92 developed the cancer.

While DIMEs were originally designed to avoid "collateral" damage generated by standard high explosive bombs, the weapon's lethality and profound long-term toxicity hardly seems like an improvement. And in Gaza, the ordinance was widely used. Al-Shifta alone has seen 100 to 150 such patients.

Was Gaza a test of DIME in urban conditions?

Dr. Gilbert told the Oslo Gardermoen,"There is a strong suspicion I think that Gaza is now being used as a test laboratory for new weapons." Read more....

Arrests of nonviolent protesters in Jayyous: Please contact your congresspersons

You may remember reading about the village of Jayyous which I visited last June. I wrote about it in July on my other blog. It is in the West Bank, a Palestinian area. The Israeli security barrier there is a road flanked by barbed wire and it was built on Palestinian land, between the village and the olive groves belonging to the village farmers. Israel uprooted many of their hundreds-of-years-old olive trees and took much of the olive orchard. So, in order to get to their fields, the farmers must cross at a checkpoint that is open limited hours. Each day they wait to be recognized by the soldiers. (See photo of the farmers waiting for the soldier to recognize them). The day we visited, they cheered us and asked us to come every day because they got through the checkpoint much faster when we were there.

During the past week, Israeli troops have been storming Palestinian towns in the West Bank, arresting large numbers of people and taking them to unknown locations. They have been attacking Jayyous for the past three days, taking over homes and raising the Israeli flag over them. In the latest attack, they arrested 65 young people, herding them into a nearby school and taking many away.

Recently the town has been protesting the planned re-routing of the wall running through their village because it would entail the destruction of more farmland and uprooting of more fruit and olive trees, making the swath of devastation twice as wide as it is now.

All the principles of land and water confiscation, home invasion and denial of basic rights so common to the West Bank exist there. It is important to contact our Members of Congress at (202-224-3121) and the State Department (202-647-3672) to let them know this village we love is under attack for nonviolent resistance to the theft of their land.

Here is an article from Ma'an News Agency describing what is happening:

Bethlehem – Ma’an – In a third consecutive day of mass arrests Israeli forces stormed the northern West Bank town of Jayyus near Qalqiliya early morning Wednesday and seized 65 Palestinian youth in an ongoing military operation. As of press time Israeli soldiers had declared the town a “Closed Military Area” and prevented local and international journalist from entering. Civilians are being kept under a town curfew and are unable to leave their homes for school or work. Soldiers told the families of those detained that they were “wanted” by Israeli intelligence.

Local sources said several Israeli military vehicles surrounded the town, blocked the main road using earth piles and rocks, and used loudspeakers to announce a curfew and order all the youth of the town to gather for inspection in the local school. Once the youth were gathered Israeli soldiers separated 20 and took them to an unknown location and by noon more than 65 had been detained.

Eyewitnesses said the military activity was concentrated at the Shamasnah neighborhood and the town’s center. They noted that soldiers occupied several homes and raised an Israeli flag on the roofs of several buildings. According to members of the Stop the Wall campaign in the area Israeli troops have occupied ten homes in the village, each with an Israeli flag hoisted on the roof. The homes are described as tall buildings with strategic vantage points across the town. Two of the raided and vandalized homes were that of Jabir Shamasnah and then that of town’s mayor Abu At-Tahir. According to Israeli sources the village was raided in a sweep for illegal weapons. An army spokesperson told the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, that forces were operating in the town following a rise in the number of incidents involving the throwing of stones at Israeli vehicles. Eight of those taken were identified as: Sakhr Shamasnah, Jabir Shamasnah, Kamal Shamasnah, Adli Shamasnah, Anwar Aarif, Mahir Aarif, Muhammad Bilal and Hamadah Nimir.

The residents of Jayyus organize a weekly demonstration against the construction of the separation wall on village land. Foreign activists frequently attend the events and Israeli soldiers regularly invade the town and harass its residents following the departure of the foreign activists. Meanwhile, Israeli forces on Wednesday morning apprehended two Palestinian university students from the northern West Bank town of Far’un, south of Tulkarem.Soldiers stormed the town at dawn, ransacking a residential building and seizing two students at the Palestine Technical University. Two of the students detained were identified as 22-year-old Sami Al-Jaroushi, affiliated with Fatah, and 20-year-old Fawzi Qarqur, apparently a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) On Tuesday, 30 Palestinians were arrested from across the West Bank, and on Monday close to 50 were taken. All were deemed “wanted” by Israeli authorities and taken to unknown locations for questioning.

***Updated 13:11 Bethlehem time

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=35865

Freedom of the Press - more so in Israel than in the U.S.

from Haaretz, February 13, 2009
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1063597.html
an example of the more critical nature of the Israeli press - U.S. newspapers are not usually quite so frank (makes me wonder about the pressures American newspapers face):

Does Zionism legitimize every act of violence?
By Gideon Levy (Israeli columnist)

The Israeli left died in 2000. Since then its corpse has been lying around unburied until finally its death certificate was issued, signed, sealed and delivered on Tuesday. The hangman of 2000 was also the gravedigger of 2009: Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The man who succeeded in spreading the lie about there being no partner has reaped the fruit of his deeds in this election. The funeral was held two days ago.

The Israeli left is dead. For the past nine years it took the name of the peace camp in vain. The Labor Party, Meretz and Kadima had pretensions of speaking in its name, but that was trickery and deceit. Labor and Kadima made two wars and continued to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank; Meretz supported both wars. Peace has been left an orphan. The Israeli voters, who have been misled into thinking that there is no one to talk to and that the only answer to this is force - wars, targeted killings and settlements - have had their say clearly in the election: a closing sale for Labor and Meretz. It was only the force of inertia that gave these parties the few votes they won.

There was no reason for it to be otherwise. After many long years when hardly any protest came from the left, and the city square, the same square that raged after Sabra and Chatila, was silent, this lack of protest has been reflected at the ballot box as well. Lebanon, Gaza, the killed children, cluster bombs, white phosphorus and all the atrocities of occupation - none of this drove the indifferent, cowardly left onto the street. Though ideas of the left have found a toehold in the center and sometimes even on the right, everyone from former prime minister Ariel Sharon to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has spoken in a language that once was considered radical. But the voice was the voice of the left while the hands were the hands of the right.
On the fringes of this masked ball existed another left, the marginal left - determined and courageous, but minuscule and not legitimate. The gap between it and the left was supposedly Zionism. Hadash, Gush Shalom and others like them are outside the camp. Why? Because they are "not Zionist."

And what is Zionism nowadays? An archaic and outdated concept born in a different reality... (read more: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1063597.html)

Palestinian Bishops Denied Entry to Gaza

This is the latest alert from the ELCA - take action

Please see the ELCA news story below, describing Palestinian bishops being denied Gaza entry by Israeli authorities and US presiding bishops sending a letter to the Israeli Ambassador in response to the incident.

Following the article are links to press releases from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL) and the Episcopal Diocese in Jerusalem and the Middle East. In their statements, Bishop Younan and Bishop Dawani reaffirmed their commitment to work for justice and peace, in spite of their treatment at the Gaza crossing.

• >>>Take Action: Recognizing that this one incident is a part of a much larger crisis, we urge supporters of Middle East peace to continue to reach out to elected officials with the message that Christians care about the welfare of all persons in the region and to this end support a just peace. If you have not already done so, please check to see if your representative signed onto the important letter to the Secretary of State urging aid to Gaza, and if they did so, be sure they know this is deeply appreciated by sending them a short e-mail or making a phone call. They need to know we’re behind them! Go to www.cmep.org to send a thank you to your representative.

ELCA NEWS SERVICEFebruary 5, 2009
ELCA, Episcopal Church Top Leaders Ask Israel about Bishops' Denied Visit 09-036-JB

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The top leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Episcopal Church sent a letter to Israel's ambassador to the United States expressing "grave concern" and requesting help to determine why a Lutheran bishop and an Episcopal bishop were denied entry to Gaza Feb. 4.

The Feb. 5 letter from the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, and the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, was sent to Sallai Meridor, ambassador of Israel, in Washington, D.C.

On Feb. 4, the Rev. Munib A. Younan, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL), and the Rt. Rev. Suheil Dawani, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese in Jerusalem and the Middle East, were part of a delegation of five heads of churches in Jerusalem who traveled to visit Christians in Gaza. Three members of the delegation were allowed to enter Gaza, but Israeli security officials denied entry to Younan and Dawani.

According to an ELCJHL news release, Younan and Dawani were the only Palestinians in the delegation. Both said they had obtained permits from Israeli officials to enter Gaza.

"The purpose of their visit was pastoral -- to visit churches, humanitarian projects of the Middle East Council of Churches and the Al Ahli Hospital, an institution of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem," the two U.S. presiding bishops wrote. "We are concerned that they were not allowed freedom of movement into Gaza to carry out their pastoral responsibilities."

"We believe that it is urgent that adequate humanitarian assistance reach the people of Gaza immediately, and we underscore Bishop Dawani's statement that 'most certainly pastoral care is an important factor in such services,'" Hanson and Jefferts Schori wrote.

The presiding bishops wrote that they support their partner bishops and churches in their Christian ministry, and they share their continued commitment to work for peace in the region. Statements from Younan and Dawani, following their denial of entry, reaffirmed their commitments to work for peace in Gaza, the presiding bishops wrote.

"We hope that, having discovered the cause of their denial, you will assure that they will be permitted to enter as soon as possible to offer support and pastoral care to the people they serve," the presiding bishops' letter concluded.

Copies of the letter were sent to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and George Mitchell, U.S. special envoy for Middle East peace.

For information contact:John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.orghttp://www.elca.org/news
ELCJHL press release, 2/4/09: www.elcjhl.org

Episcopal Diocese in Jerusalem and the Middle East press release, 2/4/09: www.j-diocese.org

Impact of Conflict on Children

The Impact of the Conflict on Children

123 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 1,487 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000 (through the end of 2008).

From http://www.ifamericansknew.org/ Source: Remember These Children.

“The majority of these [Palestinian] children were killed and injured while going about normal daily activities, such as going to school, playing, shopping, or simply being in their homes. Sixty-four percent of children killed during the first six months of 2003 died as a result of Israeli air and ground attacks, or from indiscriminate fire from Israeli soldiers.”
- Catherine Cook

Source: Remember These Children, a coalition of groups calling for an end to the killing of children and a fair resolution of the conflict, reports that 1,056 Palestinian children and 123 Israeli children were killed between Sep 29, 2000 and early December 2008. (View the complete list of the victims, which was last updated on February 3, 2009.) The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that at least 431 Palestinian children (and no Israeli children) were killed during Israel’s Dec 27, 2008 - Jan 18, 2009 assault on the Gaza strip. This number does not include any killings of Palestinian children in the West Bank, which may have taken place since the beginning of 2009.

Passengers of freighter seized by Israel return home with tales of abuse

First, Some video of Thursday's Israeli attacks on parsley farmers (see February 5 post below).

Sedond, here is the latest news from the Free Gaza movement, which has been sailing to Gaza in defiance of the Israeli blockade which prevents food, medical supplies, fuel and other goods from entering Gaza.

BEIRUT: A group of activists arrested after the Israeli navy seized an aid ship bound for the devastated Gaza Strip were expelled from Israel on Friday, a day after being detained by the military. Fifteen of the Togolese-flagged Tali's crew members were deported back to Lebanon and Syria early on Friday, and three others were preparing to fly to London.

Nine Lebanese and a Palestinian were handed over at the border with Israel to the UN peacekeeping force responsible for monitoring stability in southern Lebanon.

The freed crew told how they were beaten and handcuffed after Israeli gunboats fired on the ship and sailors stormed the vessel, arresting everyone on board. The boat was then towed to the Israeli port of Ashdod where it was searched.

Salam Khodr, an Al-Jazeera journalist who was on board the vessel, said the Israelis had taken the crew's possessions when they were arrested. "The Israeli army confiscated all our videotapes; we were separated from each other, we were blindfolded and handcuffed. They beat some of us; I was beaten," she said. Read more....

Today in Gaza - Shooting at Farmers Harvesting Parsley

Shooting at farmers, what gives Israel the right?
Tuesday 3rd February, 2009
Eva Bartlett

(read other stories from Gaza)

See video of the attack by Israeli soldiers on Gazan parsley farmers.

from Gaza, where international human rights observers are accompanying Palestinians and documenting what is happening----

This morning, farmers from Abassan Jadiida (New Abassan), to the east of Khan Younis , the southern region, returned to land they'd been forced off of during and following the war on Gaza. The continual shooting at them by Israeli soldiers while they work the land intensified post-war on Gaza. The Israeli soldiers' shooting was not a new thing, but a resumption of the policy of harassment that Palestinians in the border areas have been enduring for years, a harassment extending to invasions in which agricultural land, chicken farms, and the houses in the region have been targeted, destroyed in many cases.

Today's Abassan farmers wanted to harvest their parsley.

Ismail Abu Taima, whose land was being harvested, explained that over the course of the year he invests about $54,000 in planting, watering and maintenance of the monthly crops. From that investment, if all goes well and crops are harvested throughout the year, he can bring in about $10,000/month, meaning that he can pay off the investment and support the 15 families dependent on the harvest.

The work began shortly after 11 am, with the handful of farmers working swiftly, cutting swathes of tall parsley and bundling it as rapidly as it was cut. These bundles were then loaded onto a waiting donkey cart. The speed of the farmers was impressive, and one realized that were they able to work 'normally' as any farmer in unoccupied areas, they would be very productive. A lone donkey grazed in an area a little closer to the border fence. When asked if this was not dangerous for the donkey, the farmers replied that they had no other choice: with the borders closed, animal feed is starkly absent. The tragedy of having to worry about being shot once again struck me, as it did when harvesting olives or herding sheep with West Bank Palestinians who are routinely attacked by Israeli settlers and by the Israeli army as they try to work and live on their land. (photo shows farmers loading donkey cart with parsley - demolished farmhouse in the background)

After approximately 2 hours of harvesting, during which the sound of an F-16 overhead was accompanied by Israeli jeeps seen driving along the border area, with at least one stationed directly across from the area in question, Israeli soldiers began firing. At first the shots seemed like warning shots: sharp and intrusive cracks of gunfire. The men kept working, gathering parsley, bunching it, loading it, while the international human rights observers present spread out in a line, to ensure our visibility.

It would have been hard to miss or mistake us, with fluorescent yellow vests and visibly unarmed–our hands were in the air.

Via bullhorn, we re-iterated our presence to the soldiers, informing them we were all unarmed civilians, the farmers were rightfully working their land, the soldiers were being filmed by an Italian film crew. We also informed some of our embassies of the situation: "we are on Palestinian farmland and are being shot at by Israeli soldiers on the other side of the border fence."

For a brief period the shots ceased. Then began anew, again seemingly warning shots, although this time visibly hitting dirt 15 and 20 m from us. Furthest to the south, I heard the whiz of bullets past my ear, though to estimate the proximity would be impossible.

As the cracks of gunfire rang more frequently and louder, the shots closer, those of the farmers who hadn't already hit the ground did so, sprawling flat for cover (photo shows farmer hitting the ground). The international observers continued to stand, brightly visible, hands in the air, bullhorn repeating our message of unarmed presence. The shots continued, from the direction of 3 or 4 visible soldiers on a mound hundreds of metres from us. With my eyeglasses I could make out their shapes, uniforms, the jeep… Certainly with their military equipment they could make out our faces, empty hands, parsley-loaded cart…

There was no mistaking the situation or their intent: pure harassment.

As the farmers tried to leave with their donkey carts, the shots continued. The two carts were eventually able to make it away, down the ruddy lane, a lane eaten by tank and bulldozer tracks from the land invasion weeks before. Some of us accompanied the carts away, out of firing range, then returned. There were still farmers on the land and they needed to evacuate.

As we stood, again arms still raised, still empty-handed, still proclaiming thus, the Israeli soldiers' shooting drew much nearer. Those whizzing rushes were more frequent and undeniably close to my head, our heads. The Italian film crew accompanying us did not stop filming, nor did some of us with video cameras.

We announced our intention to move away, the soldiers shot. We stood still, the soldiers shot. At one point I was certain one of the farmers would be killed, as he had hit the ground again but in his panic seemed to want to jump up and run. I urged him to stay flat, stay down, and with our urging he did. The idea was to move as a group, a mixture of the targeted Palestinian farmers and the brightly-noticeable international accompaniers. And so we did, but the shots continued, rapidly, hitting within metres of our feet, flying within metres of our heads.

I'm amazed no one was killed today, nor that limbs were not lost, maimed.

While we'd been on the land, Ismail Abu Taima had gone to one end, to collect valves from the broken irrigation piping. The pipes themselves had been destroyed by a pre-war on Gaza invasion. "The plants have not been watered since one week before the war," he'd told us. He collected the parts, each valve valuable in a region whose borders are sealed and where replacement parts for everything one could need to replace are unattainable or grossly expensive.

He'd also told us of the chicks in the chicken farm who'd first been dying for want of chicken feed, and then been bulldozed when Israeli soldiers attacked the house and building they were in.

My embassy rang me up, after we'd managed to get away from the firing: "We're told you are being shot at. Can you give us the precise location, and maybe a landmark, some notable building nearby."

I told Heather about the half-demolished house to the south of where we had been, and that we were on Palestinian farmland. After some further questioning, it dawned on her that the shooting was coming from the Israeli side. "How do you know it is Israeli soldiers shooting at you?" she'd asked. I mentioned the 4 jeeps, the soldiers on the mound, the shots from the soldiers on the mound (I didn't have time to go into past experiences with Israeli soldiers in this very area and a little further south, similar experience of farmers being fired upon while we accompanied them.).

Heather asked if the soldiers had stopped firing, to which I told her, 'no, they kept firing when we attempted to move away, hands in the air. They fired as we stood still, hands in the air. " She suggested these were 'warning shots' at which I pointed out that warning shots would generally be in the air or 10s of metres away. These were hitting and whizzing past within metres.

She had no further thoughts at time, but did call back minutes later with Jordie Elms, the Canadian attache in the Tel Aviv office, who informed us that "Israel has declared the 1 km area along the border to be a 'closed military zone'."

When I pointed out that Israel had no legal ability to do such, that this closure is arbitrary and illegal, and that the farmers being kept off of their land or the Palestinians whose homes have been demolished in tandem with this closure had no other options: they needed to work the land, live on it… Jordie had no thoughts. He did, however, add that humanitarian and aid workers need to "know the risk of being in a closed area".

Meaning, apparently, that it is OK with Jordie that Israeli soldiers were firing on unarmed civilians, because Israeli authorities have arbitrarily declared an area out of their jurisdiction (because Israel is "not occupying Gaza" right?!) as a 'closed area'.

Israel's latest massacre of 1,400 Palestinians –most of whom were civilians –aside, Israel's destruction of over 4,000 houses and 17,000 buildings aside, Israel's cutting off and shutting down of the Gaza Strip since Hamas' election aside, life is pretty wretched for the farmers and civilians in the areas flanking the border with Israel. Last week, the young man from Khan Younis who was shot while working on farmland in the "buffer zone" was actually on land near where we accompanied farmers today. Why do Israeli authorities think they have an uncontested right to allow/instruct their soldiers to shoot at Palestinian farmers trying to work their land?

If Israeli authorities recognized Palestinian farmers' need to work the land, Palestinian civilians' right to live in their homes, then they would not have arbitrarily imposed a 1 km ban on existence along the border, from north to south. What gives Israel the right to say that now the previously-imposed 300 m ban on valuable agricultural land next to the order extends to 1 full kilometre, and that this inherently gives Israel the right to have bulldozed 10s of houses in this "buffer zone" and ravaged the farmland with military bulldozers and tanks.

Furthermore, what gives Israel the right to assume these impositions are justifiable, and the right to shoot at farmers continuing to live in and work on their land (as if they had a choice. Recall the size of Gaza, the poverty levels)?

Nothing does.

Photos taken on 3rd February in Abassan:
https://rcpt.yousendit.com/649432150/5a2f56e8e0393fa3fd0dc7f47df33271

Support Bob Simon's coverage "60 Minutes" story

If you watched "60 Minutes" on Sunday or if you have seen a replay of the story Bob Simon did on Palestine, please support his unbiased reporting by writing to CBS to let them know you appreciate his work: http://www.jstreet.org/ (J Street is primarily Jewish pro-Israel, pro-peace organization for promoting American leadership for peace and security in the Middle East.) IIf you missed the "60 Minutes" segment: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/23/60minutes/main4749723.shtml?mpid=1732#ccmm (note: you'll have to watch a few seconds of an anti-smoking ad at the beginning)

Conflict Spills Over into International Sports

Sent to me by my son Tim - how the politics of Palestinian Israeli relations is being played out in sports, from http://www.edgeofsports.com/:

Politics on the pitch: When Gaza and Sports Collide
By Dave Zirin

In January 2008, Egyptian soccer star Mohamed Aboutreika followed a goal by raising his shirt to reveal the slogan "Sympathise with Gaza". His actions were meant to put a spotlight onto the economic embargo that Israel had imposed on Palestinians in Gaza after the election of the Hamas government.

Days before the ceasefire halted the carnage in Gaza city this month, history repeated as Sevilla (Spain) striker Fredi Kanoute raised his shirt after scoring a goal to reveal a shirt that said "Palestine" in multiple languages. Kanoute is not an obscure player. In 2007, he was named African player of the year, even though he was born in France (his family is from Mali).

After earning a £3,000 fine for his political gesture, famed Barcelona coach, Jose Guardiola stood up for him, saying: "The fine is absolutely excessive. If they always banned these type of things, then journalists would not be able to write columns. ... Every war is absurd, and too many innocent people have died for us to be fining people for things like this."

Welcome to 2009, when Israel's offensive on Gaza, ceasefire or no, is finding expression in the sports world. It's a development that should give supporters of Israel's actions in Gaza a great deal of pause..... Read more: http://www.edgeofsports.com/

Thirteen Minutes to Understanding Peace Prospects in Isarel/Palestine

Kudos to CBS coverage of peacemaking in Israel/Palestine!!!!!!

Spend 13 minutes and take a look at Bob Simon's report on yesterday's 60 Minutes. He does an excellent job with on-site interviews and video footage of what is happening on the ground in Israel/Palestine to show why peacemaking is so difficult: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/23/60minutes/main4749723.shtml?mpid=1732#ccmm (the report comes on after a short anti-smoking commercial)

Song for Gaza

Watch this video - a song of hope for the people of Gaza in their suffering:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlfhoU66s4Y

An Israeli Jewish Woman Laments What She Has Seen

All of us are on pilgrimage. What we see and experience shapes who we become.

When I visited Israel in June, we met with Hannah, one of the volunteers with Machsom Watch. She, along with 500 other Israeli women, many of them grandmothers, monitors the checkpoints - documenting the way Palestinians are treated and helping them get through the checkpoints when she can. She told us that there are no rules for the checkpoints. It is up to each commander and each soldier how people are treated - what documentation is requred to pass, how long people must wait, how they are treated as they wait. I was very moved by her story and have told it often to people who ask about my trip (read it on my July 9 blog: http://apilgrimstales.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-07-22T11%3A04%3A00-06%3A00&max-results=3

Hannah did not come to her conclusions about the destructive nature of Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands easily. Her family and her community does not agree with her actions, but she sees how treating Palestinians as less than human in a system that allows freedom for Israeli Jews, but not for Palestinians, has dehumanized everyone - especially since every Israeli is required to serve in the military at age 18.

Here is another Jewish woman's story of how she experiences Israel's treatment of Palestinians. She, too, is part of Machsom Watch. She has seen what happens at the checkpoints - her lament:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcGm-gxmxHw

Israelis and European Jews Protest Against the War in Gaza

• Protesters in Tel Aviv: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc9DN2Oi0-w&NR=1
• Gerald Kaufman, Jewish British MP, raised orthodox and Zionist, denounces Israel's actions in Gaza, comparing them to the Nazis who killed his grandmother in Poland, says "Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism," including the actions of Tzipi Livni's father, commander in the Irgun, which bombed the King David Hotel, killing 91 people in 1946: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8&feature=related

More News We Don't See....

Genocide in Gaza

These are some VERY DIFFICULT-to-see photographs of what is happening on the ground in Gaza - a memorial to the 1000+ people - many of them women and children - who have been killed in the fighting. Please view them ONLY if you are prepared to see some horrific shots of the mayhem inflicted by the bombs and shelling of Gaza: http://www.elfarra.org/gallery/gaza.htm

I link you to these photos, not because I want to sensationalize the attacks on Gaza or manipulate you to action. I viewed these photos simply because I cannot imagine what it is like to be living in Gaza - or anywhere in the Palestinian Territory - where soldiers can come in any time of the day or night and attack. Whether you are being attacked by planes and tanks in Gaza or you are sitting at your breakfast-table in East Jerusalem and the soldiers come with a demolition order and give you two hours to vacate your home before the bulldozers come to turn it into rubble. I am so lucky to live in the U.S., where this cannot happen and I need to never forget that this is not the way of life for most people on this planet.

Article by Dr. Mona El Farra, Gazan pediatrician

Read this article from the Guardian, written by a Palestinian pediatrician from Gaza, who is currently in London. She talks about the deaths, especially of her cousin (no pictures here): http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/30/gaza-doctor-victims

Demonstrations Across Palestine Protest Israeli Attacks on Gaza

While world attention focuses on what is happening in Gaza, Palestinians are rallying to support their brothers and sisters in Gaza - these demonstrators, too, are being attacked for expressing their views. Read the news story from Palestine News Network: http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4523&Itemid=1

Israelis Oppose Attacks on Gaza

Although public opinion in Israel supports the Army's attacks on Gaza, there are small groups of Israelis who oppose the attacks. Some of these stories are listed here:

Nine Israeli human rights organizations call for investigations into human rights violations by the Israeli Army: http://www.btselem.org/English/Press_Releases/20090114.asp

Ometz L'Sarev (Courage to Refuse) demonstration in front of the Ministry of Defense in the heart of Tel Aviv; video includes interviews with multiple refusers and advocates of refusal: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cMs0nai4JQ>.

Reservist Refuses to Serve: Ha'aretz reports that at least one reserve soldier has already been jailed for refusal to serve: <http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054861.html>.

Commentary by an Israeli protester
Sharon Dolev: "A lefty in Israel." Accompanying video shows firefighters hosing protesters outside of the air force base: <http://news.walla.co.il/?w=/4560/1416660>.

Resistance in Sderot - (from Jewish Peace News) a little Israeli town that has been bearing the brunt of rocket fire from Gaza for over 7 years now. Its population is mostly Middle Eastern Jews and new immigrants from the former USSR - both are groups whose worldview tilts right, especially with regards to Israel-Arab relations. Its mayor Eli Moyal has been extremely vocal in demanding heavy-handed IDF attacks on Gaza.

Yet, Sderot is not monolithic. Jewish Peace News received a posting from Israel, written (in Hebrew) by a member of Kol Aher (Another Voice http://www.othervoice.org/welcome-eng.htm) - a Sderot-based peace group:

Sderot War Diary, Naamika Zion, Sderot, 8.1.09

"I talk with Sderot people and everyone's cheeks are rosy again", boasted Fuad on the war's second day [Fuad is Benjamin Ben Eliezer, a long-time centrist Labor minister - Assaf]. "The heavier the blow we deliver - the wider the hearts get".

Hey Fuad, not everyone. Even if I was the only one around Sderot feeling differently - and I am not - my voice should be heard.

Not in my name and not for me you went to war. The current bloodbath in Gaza is not in my name and not for my security. Destroyed homes, bombed schools, thousands of new refugees - are not in my name and not for my security. In Gaza there is no time for burial ceremonies now, the dead are put in refrigerators in twos, because there is no room. Here their bodies lay, policemen, children, and our nimble reporters play acrobatically with Hasbara strategies in view of "the images that speak for themselves". Pray tell me, what is there to "explain"? [Hasbara literally means "explanation" - Assaf] What is there to explain?

Read the entire text, translated from the Hebrew on Jewish Peace News (scroll down to the second piece on the page): http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com/2009/01/dissident-voices-everywhere.html

"Shministim" Resist Service in Occupied Palestine

Nearly 2000 Israeli military personnel and high school students ("Shministim") refuse to serve in the Occupation, sometimes as great cost to themselves. Interviews with some of these "refusniks" are found in Ronit Chachem's excellent book, Breaking Ranks. Learn more and meet some of these courageous young people: http://december18th.org/

From Gaza - Jewish Peace News

Read more on my other blog: http://apilgrimstales.com

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10169.shtml

Gaza is sinking in a river of blood
Mohammed Fares Al Majdalawi writing from the occupied Gaza Strip:

I want to write about the suffering of my people and my family in these days of siege against the people of Gaza. At least 888 people have been killed and more than 3,700 injured. The International Committee of the Red Cross has accused the Israeli military of repeatedly refusing to allow ambulances to go to the al-Zeitoun area of Gaza City. As a result, those who are injured become those who die, a premeditated and willful violation of human rights.

In my house we can't get basic needs. No food. No bread. No fuel. No future. Yesterday, my father went to the bakery at 5am. He waited 5 hours to get one loaf of bread, which is not enough for my family because there are 11 of us. So today it was my turn. I went to all the bakeries -- all were closed.

There is no safe place we can go. We cannot communicate with our relatives and friends -- networks are down as missiles rain on our homes, mosques and even hospitals.

Our life is centered around the burials of those who have died, our martyrs. At night our camp, Jabaliya refugee camp, is a ghost town, with no sounds other than those of Israeli military aircraft.

There is horror every minute and it is clear especially in the lives of children. For example, there were five sisters in one family killed in their home by the Israeli occupation forces. But there are 800,000 other children in Gaza, all afraid, all waiting for someone or something to help them. They are caught in a prison that is becoming a concentration camp. Every day we sleep and open our eyes to the Israeli crimes of killing children and women and destroying civilians' homes. My words are unable to convey my feelings about this life in Gaza.

I have two messages to the world, to those who claim they love peace and seek freedom.
Imagine your life consisting of no electricity, destroyed homes, the sounds and strikes of missiles, day and night, and the only hunger as great as that for food is the hunger for an end to this occupation and siege. Imagine it is not just you but your children and your family who tell you through their eyes and cries: "We are afraid of the missiles." "We cannot sleep." "We may never sleep again." Imagine you are the dam and the river of blood has turned into a flash flood. How long could you stand it?

We wouldn't have to stand it any longer if the world stood with us. If they demanded an end to the siege and the killings and demolition of houses for our children. If they demanded assistance reach the people through rallies and sit-ins.

Finally, I invite you to come to Gaza and see the Holocaust. Because despite the siege, the barriers, the killing of my people and the destruction of their homes, and the total destruction of our lives by the Israeli occupation, they cannot and will not kill the will of our people for equality and justice.

Update: After taking this testimony, the Middle East Children's Alliance received a message from Mohammed that all the homes in his neighborhood have been destroyed. He and his family are now staying at the United Nations-administered school in Jabaliya, where 43 people were killed in an Israeli attack on 6 January. He cannot reach his brother and does not know if he is alive.

Mohammed Fares Al Majdawali is a university student, member of al-Assria Children's Library, and volunteer with Middle East Children's Alliance, which is sending medical aid to Gazans under siege (www.mecaforpeace.org). He lives in Jabaliya Refugee Camp with his family and aspires to be a professional filmmaker.
-----------------------------
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10168.shtml

All signs point to systematic targeting of civilians
Ewa Jasiewicz writing from the occupied Gaza Strip

Last night was a quiet one in Jabaliya. "Only" six homes bombed into the ground, the market, again, maybe four lightly injured people -- shrapnel to the face injuries -- and no martyrs. Beit Hanoun saw a young woman, Nariman Ahmad Abu Owder, just 17, shot dead as she made tea in her family's kitchen. It was 9pm in the Hay Amel area when witnesses reported "thousands" of bullets shot by tanks onto homes in Azrah Street.

We got a call to go to Tel al-Zaater looking for the dead and injured, around 2am. "This area is dangerous, very very dangerous," warned one volunteer rescuer, Muhammad al-Sharif, as our ambulance bumped along sandy, lumpy ground, illuminating piles of burning rubbish, stray cats, political graffiti, and the ubiquitous strung-out colored sack cloth and stripey material in large thin squares, tenting the pavements. What is it? Protection, I am told, so that the surveillance planes won't see the fighters. Palestinian body armor.

Muhammad, and Ahmad Abu Foul, a Civil Defense medical services coordinator, told me they had been shot at by Israeli snipers yesterday. Muhammad had recounted the story, still counting his blessings, earlier on at the ambulance station. They'd gone hurtling over graves and tombstones to fetch casualties when Israeli snipers opened fire. They'd laid down flat on the ground until the firing stopped. Ahmad, 24, another rescuer here, told me he had been shot in the chest -- in his bullet-proof vest -- close to the Atarturah area while trying to evacuate corpses three days ago. His brother, he had told me, had been injured 14 times working as a paramedic. "Fourteen times. Then he got hit by an Apache. Then it was serious. That took him out of work for a few months," he explained.

Back to Tel al-Zaater, we searched with micro torches, sweeping over slabs of broken homes and free-running water from freshly smashed pipes. A black goat was trapped in a rubble nest. We stepped over broken blown-in metal doors off their hinges. Nothing, none, "snipers" on our minds. We ended up leaving with one casualty, lightly injured, more in shock than anything else. Explosions continued through the night. Abrupt slumps into concrete echoing around the hospital, like rapid beats to a taut drum skin.

This morning was a different story. I've been finding that the most missile-heavy times seem to be between 7-9am. I counted 20 strikes in those two hours this morning. I'd come to Muhammad's house. He went straight to bed, exhausted. I'd caught some sleep spread across the front seats of the rickety ambulance, waking up periodically to respond to calls.
At Muhammad's I did some badly overdue washing and went towards the roof with it. "Ewa, do you want to martyr yourself?" said Sousou, Muhammd's 19-year-old sister, a bright sciences student unable to finish her studies due to her university -- the Islamic University -- having been bombed last week. Hanging out washing on the roof here is a potential act of suicide; there are stories of people having been shot dead on rooftops. Walking down the street to buy bread, also a potential act of suicide. Visiting family, going to the market, drinking tea in your own home -- a potential act of suicide. In the end I do go up, with nine-year-old plucky Afnan, who hands me pegs nervously as we scan the skies periodically, while the murderous sneer of Israeli surveillance drones leers above us.

Zoumou

The call comes as soon as I get to al-Awda Hospital. It's 11:40am. A strike in Mahkema street, Zoumou, eastern Jabaliya. The streets of Moaskar Jabaliya are fuller than I've seen them for weeks. Fruit and vegetable sellers with wooden carts full of potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines, mountains of strawberries, bags of flour, plastic bottles of vegetable oil and rice, line the streets. The reason everyone's here, exposed like this is because with the market being bombed, the streets have become the market.

We roar through manically, siren blaring. Abu Bassem, one of the oldest and most hyper ambulance drivers, yells hoarsely at anyone nonchalant enough to not notice the screaming column of ambulances zooming towards them, past broken buildings, debris-covered streets, twisted tin can warehouses and rubble homes.

Out of the city, we're met by a crowd running towards us with a blanket hump on the back of a donkey cart. Jumping out I see bloodied legs and arms sticking it out of it, "Shuhada!" -- martyrs! -- yells the crowd running along with it, while others gesture wildly to go on, go on ahead. Jumping back in we get to the house where it all happened. A woman in her 50s, in black, has her arms around a large, lifeless woman. Pools of blood surround them. They're cramped into a corner, the woman crying and clinging to her. We need to peel her away and lift the woman, cold, lifeless and shoeless, onto a stretcher. This is Randa Abed Rabu, 38. Her relative or friend comes in too, unable to stand, unable to speak or move; we drag her on and she has to slump on the ambulance floor. Next we bring in Ahmad Mohammad Nuffar Salem, 21, with 16 shrapnel injuries, tearing at his own clothes in pain, they needed to be cut off.

Six members of the Abed Rabu family were killed in the strike on their house. It happened at 11:40am. Ahmad, 21, explains, "We were all eating together, and then we were struck." The consensus amongst paramedics was that it was a tank shell, although the family thought it was a shell from an Israeli navel vessel.

Muhammad Abed Rabu, 50, explains to me, that in the night his other family homes were struck three times by F-16 fighter jets. "Thirty of us spent the whole of last night hiding under ground, in the basement. Our whole street was full of fire. They [the Israelis] spent one and a half hours attacking us. They destroyed three of our family's homes. All the martyrs today, they were underground with us last night."

Kamal Odwan's "Mosque"

Kamal Odwan Hospital is the main port of call for the bulk of emergency services, once a local clinic, it has now grown, concomitantly with the population of the north, now 350,000, into a hospital. Since the bombing of an average of one in 10 mosques in the Jabaliya area according to local Imams, Kamal Odwan is now also a prayer site, an open-air mosque. Rows of men kneel together daily in the car-park round the corner from the overflowing morgue; praying also takes place at the side of the lines of parked ambulances and in the little garden area in front of the reception and emergency room. The emergency staff, the families and friends of new martyrs, all pray together in perhaps the last place of sanctuary in Jabaliya, knowing that as soon as they set foot outside, they're fair game for snipers, surveillance drones, Apaches, Cobras, F-16- and F-15-fired missiles, shrapnel, flying chunks of house, glass, and nails that are shredding people here. White phosphorous too is reportedly being used, along with a white mist of nerve gas hanging in Jabaliya a few days ago and over Beit Hanoun, in the Zoumou street area.
Today at least three casualties, all of them elderly women, were brought into Beit Hanoun hospital suffering from inhalation of this gas, which chokes people, tightening chests and nasal passages and rendering people dizzy and disorientated; we were all affected by it, despite being maybe half a kilometer away from the site of its release. As I finish writing this now, in the offices of Ramatan News, the same gas, nerve fraying, chest tightening, tear-inducing and confusing is seeping into the offices.

The director of public relations at Kamal Odwan, Moayad Al Masri, whose family now lives in the Fakhoura school in Jabaliya refugee camp gives me the stats for the past week. Every day approximately 20 people in Jabaliya are being killed, by tank shelling, Apache, F-16, and surveillance plane missile strikes. On 27 December, 14 people killed, 52 injured; December 28, six killed, 22 injured; December 29, 15 killed, 102 injured; 30 December, two killed, 11 injure; 31 December, three killed, three injured; New Year's Day, 17 killed, 67 injured; 2 January, six killed, 10 injured; 3 January, 13 killed, 43 injured; 4 January, 28 killed, 35 injured; 5 January, 15 killed, 98 injured; 6 January 50 killed, 101 injured; 7 January, 17 killed, 33 injured; 8 January, 11 killed, 53 injured; 9 January, 15 killed and 63 injured; 10 January, 22 killed and 53 injured, and today, this morning, six people had been killed so far. Four of them were childre: ssters Saher (16) and Haowla Ghabban (14) , and Fatima Mahrouf (16) and Haitham Mahrouf. Witnesses report that they were leaving their home at the United Nations-administered Beit Lahiya school, to go home to wash and make food. They were walking near strawberry fields in Sheyma when they were struck by a surveillance plane missile.

I go to meet a friend from Beit Hanoun at the hospital. It takes stopping five different taxi drivers before I finally get one who agrees to take me. Missiles have been falling throughout the afternoon "ceasefire." Everyone has heard about cars and their passengers zapped in two by missiles from surveillance drones. We all engage in a kind of Russian roulette every time we move, knowing we might be the next unlucky ones.

In Beit Hanoun we hear about six families from the Abu Amsha House -- 50 people -- having to flee their four-story home after the Israeli occupation forces called to give them five minutes to leave before being bombed. As the families frantically gathered their belongings -- mattresses, blankets, clothes, documents, photographs -- and made their way down the stairs, an Israeli F-16 war plane bombed them. Twenty-seven were injured, four of them seriously, including one with shrapnel in the spinal area.

A house upon them

We meet Muhammad Zuadi Abu Amsha, a United Nations employee running a local job creation program and the son of Hajj Zohaadi Amsha, the owner of the destroyed house. Muhammad's house, opposite his father's house, had its windows blown out in the attack. I asked him why he thinks the house was targeted. "This is the policy of Israel, the logic is to make us leave this land, make us leave our homes, to clear this land for their occupation and ownership of it. That's what this is about. There were no fighters here by the way," he says. "This is a civilian house, my father is 80 years old, he worked as a teacher for the UN." As we're talking, children who have gathered around us point to the sky and say "look, look, Apache." And we look at it, flying silently across the sky, puffing out a perfect line of burning dazzle flares. A boy of about 10 spots a piece of missile, the size of a large marrow, electronic parts still intact, and lugs it up to us, "Take care" we shout to him; he scrambles over debris and then lobs it onto the ground in front of us. All our hearts skip a beat.

Back at Kamal Odwan, we hear the news. Wafa al-Masri, 40 years old, and nine months pregnant was walking to Kamal Odwan Hospital to give birth. With her was her sister, 26-year-old Raghada Masri. They were passing through the Diwar Mabub crossroads in the Beit Lahiya Project area. It was 4:30pm. Witnesses said they were hit directly by a missile from a surveillance drone. Daniel, a half-Ukrainian paramedic here described the scene. "Her legs were shredded, there was just meat, and she had a serious chest injury, hypoxemia." Wafa was transferred to al-Shifa Hospital for a double leg amputation, from the upper thigh area down. Paramedics were apprehensive about her or her unborn child making it. Medics managed to save the right foot of Raghada Masri, 26. I visited her at Kamal Odwan today. Visibly distressed and writhing in pain, she recounted the story: 'We were walking down the street when we heard the sound of the plane, I can still hear ringing in my ears. We were hit by a missile.

We were in the area right in the main street, in broad daylight. We would never have expected this. I saw smoke, and I saw Wafa's legs all mangled. She was thrown meters away from me, I was thrown too. Her scarf was torn off her head, her hair was all burnt, she didn't look like my sister, her hair was gone, everyone was saying to me, 'She's a martyr, she's a martyr.'" Today I learned medics managed to save one leg and that she gave birth to a healthy boy.

Bombing civilians

At 5pm, while we're gathering information on the bombing of Wafa and her sister, ambulances and taxis bring over casualties. There's been a tank bombing of an apartment building, the Burj al-Sultan, in Jabaliya. Three dead, two of them children, and five injured. Again Daniel brought them in. He's sitting in the ambulance stunned and staring into space. "In all my days, I've never seen anything like this," he says. "First they fired one missile at the roof of the building, this got people running out of the building. Then they fired another one, at the people outside, and then when we turned up, they fired another one. I don't understand. And they were all civilians." The weapon of choice was a tank shell that releases tiny flachettes, spiked arrows that tear into flesh at lightning speed. Daniel went on to say that ambulance staff and helpers were shot at by snipers when evacuating casualties. Ashar al-Battish, 33, lost his two brothers in the attack. "Kids were playing in t he street, and then three missiles were shot at us," he explains. Gesturing to his brother on an emergency room bed, Ashar adds, "he was shot by a sniper in the chest, and another sniper's bullet grazed his face."

When I began writing this I was on the fifth floor of the al-Awda Hospital, a few things have happened in between. I was buying coffee, Snickers bars to chop up for the guys, and some shampoo from the local shop when we got a call at around 9:30pm, to pick up casualties from the Beir Najje area, western Jabaliya. We wove our way up, a column of rickety vans. Our ambulance had a plastic bag held up with brown parcel tape for a back window after it was blasted out last week -- too close to an F-16 repeat attack.

When we reached the casualty zone, near a mini roundabout flanked with painted portraits of pale Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine fighters, and orange groves on our right, we drove slowly up towards the leading ambulance which had stopped up ahead. As we were approaching, the crew suddenly came running towards us, waving their arms for us to move, move, get back, get back. We reversed sharply and a minute later advanced again as they receded back to the ambulance. I jump out with the stretcher and start to assemble it but I'm told, "Get back inside, get back inside, this is a dangerous area!" They have their casualty, we pick up another with a leg injury on our way back, and when we get back to base it transpires that a surveillance plane missile was shot directly onto the crew ahead but failed to explode. Unknown to us, it had been lying beside the ambulance when we came up to see about the injured.

As well as this, there were two F-16 missile strikes on targets just a few hundred meters away from al-Awda. Both enormous bangs shook the building, shattered a window and sent everyone running for cover.

An empty dead-zone

I asked the paramedics what happened when they went to collect bodies and the injured from the areas where street fighting is taking place, places like Tel al-Zaater, Salah al-din Street, Atahtura, Azbet Abu Rabu -- closed to everyone and anyone but the Israeli occupation forces. During 1-4pm there is supposed to be a ceasefire and coordination between paramedics and the Israeli army, through the Red Cross. Of the three paramedics I asked, all of their replies were the same. "We saw none." "It was like a ghost town." Despite finding bodies over the past week, including one baby which had been half eaten by dogs -- photos, film and witnesses at Kamal Odwan confirm it -- and bodies which had been run over by tanks, when they went yesterday, they found nobody, and came back to base empty-handed. "I think the Israelis must have taken the bodies away, I think they must have taken them away by bulldozer and buried them." The terrifying thing is that there are still people trapped in their homes if their homes are still standing, without food, water, or electricity. Refugees at the al-Fakhoura school report not being able to recognize their areas, their streets after the heavy fighting and destruction of so many houses. When these areas are finally accessible to people, the full extent of the killing and destruction will at last be known.

Meanwhile, as the killing continues, the Ministry of Health ambulances in the north are becoming slowly paralyzed. Four Ministry of Health ambulances based at Kamal Odwan have no fuel and have been grounded, two have just half a tank each. One in Beit Hanoun has also been immobilized. A senior source coordinating the rescue services who did not wish to be named, said, "We don't have the capacity now to respond. The Civil Defense and the Red Crescent will go out; we cannot, only in case of a major emergency. In case of another strike like the one at Fakhoura [which killed 43 people taking shelter at the school], the injured will have to be transported by donkey cart. People will die." Petrol is available, just a short drive away in Salah al-Din Street, but Israeli occupation forces control the area and won't let any vehicle pass. To add to the Ministry of Health's woes, the radios they've had since the beginning of the invasion have had no service -- there's been no radio cont act between the base and ambulances and the Jawwal mobile phone network is also frequently down.

So everybody who can, still keeps going. Israeli war planes keep targeting civilians. The evidence piling up points to a deliberate campaign and policy of targeting civilians. And the bombs keep falling, thudding all around all of us, everywhere we go, everywhere we sleep, everywhere we walk, drive, sit and pray. Everyone is exhausted and just wants these attacks to end and for a real ceasefire to materialize.

Ewa Jasiewicz is an experienced journalist, community and union organizer, and solidarity worker. She is currently Gaza Project Co-coordinator for the Free Gaza Movement (www.FreeGaza.org).
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Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Shlensky
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Alistair Welchman
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Jewish Peace News archive and blog: http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com
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More on Gaza - from Jewish Peace News

The posting below is a bit dense and hard to read because it is quite a harsh critique of Israel, U.S., European and Arab powerful players in the Middle East. But, it is a perspective we definitely do not hear in mainstream media. It comes from an organization called Jewish Peace News, created for the purpose of presenting these otherwise unheard views. It shows the Israeli anti-war movement, which we are not seeing here on our news.

There is so much news now about Gaza and about what is needed for peacemaking. There is more on my two blogs, and I will continue to post news I receive: http://www.blogger.com/www.apilgrimstales.blogspot.com and http://www.blogger.com/www.peacenewsinks.blogspot.com Also, be sure to follow the ELCA bishops' travels to the Holy Land - they arrived today (January 6, Epiphany), [Rocky Mountain Synod Bishop Allan Bjornberg decided not to go, citing the restrictions on movement and the cancellation of some of the planned meetings at this time]: http://blogs.ELCA.org/09cobacademy/

In this post:
1. The Gaza Ghetto Uprising by Joseph Massad
2. Letter from Mazin Qumsiyah
3. "In the south, support for Gaza op is far from unanimous," by Fadi Edayat, Ha'aretz
4. "Barak's political fortunes seen rising with each missile that pounds Gaza", Roni Singer-Heruti, Ha'aretz
5. Amira Hass: "No Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza?"

Rebecca Vilkomerson on Massad and Qumsiyeh:

The following two pieces, each by highly regarded Palestinian scholars, may make for uncomfortable reading, as they did for me. They are both very strong, and very harsh, as befits the situation. They are also both very analytical and incisive about the implications of the Gaza invasion, both morally and politically, and do not spare the blame to go around, starting and ending with Israel, but also including the U.S., complicit Arab regimes, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. The piece by Joseph Massad, published in the Electronic Intifada, is titled "The Gaza Ghetto Uprising" and the title intentionally evokes the Warsaw Ghetto, drawing a chilling historical parallel and along the way offering an explanation of the true relationships among the countries of the Middle East. Perhaps most important, it challenges all of us to think about our moral responsibility during this time.The piece by Mazin Qumsieh also pulls lessons from history, but focuses more on key conclusions and strategic lessons to be learned from how the invasion has unfolded, especially the local and international reactions of people, as compared to their governments.

I don't agree with everything in them (especially Massad's implicit endorsement of suicide as a political message) but they both made me think long and hard, and broadened my understanding of the place of this particular invasion in the history of the Palestinian struggle and the potential future implications for all the peoples of the region.

Rebecca Vilkomerson on Ha'aretz:

Two articles from the January 5th Haaretz pull back the curtain on what is going on during this invasion. The first briefly profiles two residents of the south who are threatened by Hamas's rockets but oppose the war nevertheless. Haaretz has not done a great job of covering internal Israeli dissent against the invasion, especially Jewish Israeli dissent, and even when it does it is always presented as "people from Tel Aviv" as a pejorative--those not actually affected by the rockets. In fact, one of the favorite taunts from the pro-war crowd is "are you from Sderot?" So this article is significant because it acknowledges that support for the war is not unanimous, even in the South. An anti-war protest is scheduled for today in Beersheva, another town hit by rockets.

The second piece notes that Ehud Barak's political fortunes are rising thanks to the war. The money quote: "Labor officials insist that the operation's timing has nothing to do with the fact that elections are due to take place in another month, on February 10. But they readily admit that, as one put it, "his conduct in managing the operation in Gaza enables the public to examine Barak's conduct in the real world and not the world of image and style." This insistence is nicely framed right inside Barak's campaign slogan.


Sarah Anne Minkin on Amira Hass:

Because we cannot hear enough of the details of just how bad things are in Gaza: there is little water, no electricity, no heat; the cellphone network is collapsing or already collapsed; landlines are spotty; hospitals are totally overwhelmed and medical evacuations can barely be arranged, if at all. The sewage treatment plant in north Gaza might overflow and flood the area (see http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1049817.html). The assaults on Gaza continue from land, air and sea.

For testimonies on Gaza, read here:
http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/01/mads-gilbert-norwegian-doctor-in-gaza.html - on hospitals and doctors being completely overwhelmed;
http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/01/gaza-where-families-die-together.html - by Mohammad, writing from the West Bank, reporting on daily phone calls with his family in Gaza
http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/01/gaza-24-hours-into-ground-invasion.html - also by Mohammad in the West Bank
***
The Gaza Ghetto Uprising http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10110.shtml ((worth clicking to see the picture)

Joseph Massad, The Electronic Intifada, 4 January 2009

One is often baffled by the ironies of international relations and the alliances they foster. Take for example the Israeli colonial settlement that had declared war on the Palestinian people and several Arab countries since its inception while at the same time it built alliances with many Arab regimes and with Palestinian leaders.

While Hashemite-Zionist relations and Maronite Church-Zionist relations have always been known and documented, there has been less documentation of the services that Israel has provided and continues to provide to Arab regimes over the decades. It is now recognized that Israel's 1967 invasion of Egypt aimed successfully to destroy Gamal Abdul-Nasser, the enemy of all US dictatorial allies among the Arab regimes, whom the US and before it Britain and France had tried to topple since the 1950s but failed. Israel thus rendered a great service to Arab monarchies (and a few republics) from "the ocean to the Gulf," whose survival was threatened by Nasser and Nasserism. Israel's subsequent intervention in Jordan in 1970 to help the Jordanian army destroy Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrillas and its final crushing of that organization in its massive invasions of Lebanon in 1978 and 1982 were also important services it rendered to these same regimes threatened by the P LO's "revolutionary" potential and its sometimes recalcitrant positions. Israeli intelligence has also provided over the decades crucial information to several Arab regimes enabling them to crush their political opposition and strengthen their dictatorial rule. Prominent examples among recipients of Israeli intelligence largesse include the Moroccan and the Omani dictatorships.

Israel's services to Arab regimes continue apace. Its 2006 invasion of Lebanon, engineered to destroy Hizballah, was cheered by Arab regimes and neoliberal Arab intellectuals hostile to Hizballah and employed exclusively by Saudi media outlets. Though the massive Israeli destruction of southern Lebanon and south Beirut and the massacres of more than a thousand Lebanese strengthened Hizballah and weakened Israel's military standing, the invasion was much appreciated by Israel's Arab allies. Indeed since 2006, Israel's Arab regime allies as well as neoliberal Arab intellectuals have been openly calling on it to neutralize the so-called Iranian "threat" for its own sake and at their behest as well. The US has seen this as an opportune moment to fully integrate Israel in the region, so much so that it signaled to its Gulf allies to make proposals for a new regional alliance that includes Israel in its midst. The Bahraini foreign minister suggested a few weeks ago that Israel join the Arab League. Many such proposals have already been made in the past few months welcoming the colonial settlement to the regional alliance against Iran.

Since 2006, Arab regimes, neoliberal Arab intellectuals, as well as the Palestinian Collaborationist Authority (PCA) in Ramallah have reached an understanding that only Israel will be able to save them from Hizballah and Hamas, both organizations constituting a threat to the open alliance Arab regimes have with the US and Israel against Iran and all progressive forces in the region. These were not closely guarded secret hopes, but strategies that were openly discussed in private meetings, which often spilled into the public realm. The discussions in the Arab media and the declarations made by Israeli officials in the context of the ongoing Israeli massacres of the one and a half million Palestinians in Gaza in the last 10 days have left little to the imagination. A veritable open alliance now exists between the Palestinian Collaborationist Authority, Arab regimes, and Israel with the support of neoliberal Arab intellectuals, wherein Israel is subcontracted to decimate the Ham as government -- the only democratically elected government in the entire Arab world.

Here let us remember that Hamas was democratically elected in free elections and that its elected officials and members of parliament were kidnapped by the Israeli occupation and have been languishing in Israeli jails for years, and that the Palestinian Collaborationist Authority set their offices on fire, staged strikes against them, and signaled the PCA bureaucracy not to follow their orders. It was after all this failed to dislodge Hamas from power that the US, Israel, and the PCA staged a coup to massacre Hamas leaders in Gaza that backfired on them. The carnage unleashed by Israel in the last 10 days is the latest attempt by Israel to ensure that all Arabs and all Palestinians are ruled by dictators and never by democratically elected officials.
Many are wondering how the Arab regimes and the PCA can be so brazen in their "treachery" of the Palestinians. "Don't they fear being overthrown by the people?" is an oft-repeated question. The answer of course is a resounding "no." It is true that collaboration with Israel by Arab regimes is not new, and that what is new is merely their openness about it, but there is a perfectly good reason for this. In the 1940s and the 1950s, these regimes could not declare openly their alliance with Israel, as there were popular and international forces that would have removed them from power had they done so. Indeed, some at the time flirted with alliances that unofficially included Israel, like the Baghdad Pact, but they paid a heavy price for such collaboration. The Cold War, Third World revolutionism, Arab nationalism, the Soviet Union, China, Nasser, were all factors to be considered. While a few of these factors had remained when Egypt's Sadat declared his open alliance with the US and Israel in the late 1970s, none of these factors remains today. The US, Israel, and their major Arab allies have neutralized these forces one by one since 1967, opening the way for this brazen alliance between Israel and the Arab dictatorships, all of which are in the service of US interests in the region. These Arab regimes rule by terror and fear and have at their disposal the best secret police and repressive security apparatus that the US can train and equip and which oil money and US aid can buy.

When Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was asked point blank by al-Jazeera's anchorman if Israel had an arrangement with Arab regimes to commit the Gaza massacres, she refused to answer and finally denied such an arrangement existed but could not help but affirm that there are those in the Arab world who "think" as Israel does and that Hamas is their enemy as it is the enemy of Israel. This is, incidentally, the same Tzipi Livni, who only a few weeks ago informed Palestinian citizens of Israel that she has slated them for denationalization and deportation to the Palestinian Bantustans once Israel and the international community grants these West Bank prisons the status of an independent Palestinian state enclosed within the apartheid wall. After her war on Palestinians in Gaza started last week, Livni declared that her war against the Palestinian people is not only about security but also about Israel's "values" which non-collaborator Palestinians (unlike the PCA) do not s hare.

Livni is of course right. Unlike Livni and the Israeli leadership, whose ethnic-cleansing ideals and plans are to make Israel a purely Jewish state that is Palästinenser-rein, most Palestinians believe that they should remain present on their lands even and especially if this sullies the purity of a Jewish Israel.

Livni has also asserted that Israel's values are shared by the "free world" and by unfree Arab regimes that are allies of the "free world." We can add, that her values are also shared by Saudi-funded neoliberal Arab intellectuals and by the leadership of the Palestinian Collaborationist Authority ensconced in the Green Zone of Ramallah. The civilized values of Israel are not unlike those espoused by the US in its ongoing wars against Arabs and Muslims, and are very much like European colonial values during the high age of colonialism and beyond. Livni and the Israeli leadership speak of human rights, democracy, peace, and justice as universal while applying them only to Jews and denying them especially to Palestinians. This is hardly an Israeli ruse. Let us remember the undying words of Frantz Fanon in this regard: "leave this Europe where they never tire of talking of man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the corner of every one of their own streets, in all the c orners of the globe."

On the Palestinian front, the term of chief Palestinian collaborator and coup leader Mahmoud Abbas ends on 9 January. Israel hopes to extend his collaborationist rule as head of the PCA it set up through the Oslo agreement in 1993. As Palestinians are murdered and injured in the thousands, world powers are cheering on. This is hardly a new development. It happens often in the context of other populations being murdered by allies of the US and Europe, and it even happened during World War II as the Nazi genocide was proceeding. On 19 April 1943, Britain and the US met in Bermuda, presumably to discuss the situation of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. That was also the day when the Nazis had launched their war against the remaining Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto but were met with unexpected courageous resistance. Little came out of the Bermuda Conference and the ongoing war against the Warsaw Ghetto proceeded uninterrupted. The Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto executed Jewish collaborators with the Nazis and bravely faced up to the Nazi army with what little weapons it had before being massacred. Their uprising was always inspirational to the Palestinians. In the heyday of the PLO as a symbol of Palestinian liberation, the organization would lay flower wreathes at the Warsaw Ghetto monument to honor these fallen Jewish heroes.

Szmul Zygielbojm was the leader of the Jewish socialist party, the Bund, in Poland and was part of the resistance against the Nazi invasion in 1939. He would later become a hostage held by the Nazis but would later be released and made a member of the Jewish council or judenrat, the Nazi equivalent of the Israeli-created Palestinian Collaborationist Authority, and which was charged with building a Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. Zygielbojm opposed the Nazi order and fled to Belgium, France, the US, and in 1942 ended up in London where he joined the Polish government in exile. On 12 May 1943, after he received word that the resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto was finally crushed and many of its fighters killed, Zygielbojm turned on the gas in his London flat and committed suicide in protest against the indifference and inaction of the Allies to the plight of the Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. He also felt that he had no right to live after his comrades were killed resisting the Nazis. In his suicide letter, Zygielbojm insisted that while the Nazis were responsible for the murder of the Polish Jews, the Allies, through their inaction, were also guilty:

"The latest news that has reached us from Poland makes it clear beyond any doubt that the Germans are now murdering the last remnants of the Jews in Poland with unbridled cruelty. Behind the walls of the ghetto the last act of this tragedy is now being played out.

The responsibility for the crime of the murder of the whole Jewish nationality in Poland rests first of all on those who are carrying it out, but indirectly it falls also upon the whole of humanity, on the peoples of the Allied nations and on their governments, who up to this day have not taken any real steps to halt this crime. By looking on passively upon this murder of defenseless millions, tortured children, women and men they have become partners to the responsibility ...
I cannot continue to live and to be silent while the remnants of Polish Jewry, whose representative I am, are being murdered. My comrades in the Warsaw ghetto fell with arms in their hands in the last heroic battle. I was not permitted to fall like them, together with them, but I belong with them, to their mass grave.

By my death, I wish to give expression to my most profound protest against the inaction in which the world watches and permits the destruction of the Jewish people ..."

The Palestinian Collaborationist Authority that runs the judenrat set up by Oslo has never even attempted to resist Israeli orders. Not one member of the top leadership decided to resign and not serve. Mahmoud Abbas, having provided so many dishonorable services to Israel, lacks Zygielbojm's integrity and noble principles and would never follow in Zygielbojm's footsteps.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian people will resist the invading Israelis with all their might and against astronomical odds. The Palestinian people, like Zygielbojm before them, understand very well that Abbas, his clique, the Arab regimes, the US and Europe are all culpable in their slaughter as much as Israel is. In the case of Zygielbojm, he blamed world powers for their indifference and inaction, in the Palestinian case, world and regional powers are co-conspirators and active partners in crime.

The crushing of the Gaza Ghetto Uprising and the slaughter of its defenseless population will be relatively an easy task for the giant Israeli military machine and Israel's sadistic political leadership. It is dealing with the aftermath of a strengthened Palestinian determination to continue to resist Israel that will prove much more difficult for Israel and its Arab allies to deal with. While the thousands of dead and injured Palestinians are the main victims of this latest Israeli terrorist war, the major political loser in all this will be Abbas and his clique of collaborators. The test for Palestinian resistance now is to continue to refuse to grant Israel the right to conquer populations, to steal their land, to destroy their livelihoods, to imprison them in ghettos, and to starve them without being resisted.

The only constant in Palestinian lives for the last century of Zionist atrocities has been resistance to the Zionist project of erasing them from the face of the earth. While Zionism sought and recruited Arab and Palestinian collaborators since its inception in the hope of crushing Palestinian resistance, neither Israel nor any of its collaborators has been able to stop it. The lesson that Zionism has refused to learn, and still refuses to learn, is that the Palestinian yearning for freedom from the Zionist yoke cannot be extinguished no matter how barbaric Israel's crimes become. The Gaza Ghetto Uprising will mark both the latest chapter in Palestinian resistance to colonialism and the latest Israeli colonial brutality in a region whose peoples will never accept the legitimacy of a racist European colonial settlement in their midst.
Joseph Massad is associate professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University in New York.

***
By Mazin Qumsiyah

Dear friends:
Israeli leaders intensified their blitzkrieg following intensive aerial "shock and awe" that killed hundreds of civilians. This was intended to subdue not only the 1.5 million impoverished and starved Palestinian but the larger human community around the world and reengineer the political map. After nine days, it is worth taking time to do some analysis in the middle of constant events (demonstrations, vigils, interviews with media). Those of you occupied doing actions for Palestine may not have time to read this while others have specifically asked for it. To make it easy for all, let me start with conclusions and then explain to those who want to read on:
a) when this aggression ends (and it will), Israeli army and leaders will not emerge victorious,
b) the political map will indeed change but not in the ways that Israeli leaders, US leaders, or even some Arab leaders predicted or planned,
c) we Palestinians have an opportunity to make sure that the sparks of unity already in the air turn to a fire of unity that will change the power structure in the Middle East in a way that will really bring justice to Palestine and defeat political Zionism and its collaborators and benefactors but only if we recognize our mistakes as individuals and political factions (including Hamas, Fatah, PFLP, DFLP, etc).

To be honest with ourselves, we must recognize that what Israel counted on materialized in a few cases: ineptness of the UN security council under threat of a US veto (itself under threat of the Zionist lobby), ineptness of the Arab league, the collaboration of many Arab governments, the apathy of large segments of the Israeli public, predicted local attempts to contain the anger in the street (from Cairo to Ramallah to Baghdad etc), and success of Israeli and Zionist forces and well financed propaganda not only in preventing reporting from the ground in Gaza but in controlling the message in much of the supine western media. Some of these initial predictables are beginning to crack after 9 days of massacres that could not be hidden. But there were other more significant failures of the Israeli blitzkrieg.

Let us review these:
1) Gaza resistance and steadfastness comes as number one surprise for the planners. Despite the massacres, it is amazing to watch the spirit. Just one image of a child no more than 10 year old with an open large wound in his belly exposing his intestines but he does not scream, does not yell.. he is talking (obvious pain only in his eyes and facial expression but with no tears), maybe just anger and a question mark to the camera directed at the world. That is Gaza today. In other images women calling not slogans against the occupiers and the war criminals bombing them from the sky but calls to the Arab and Islamic people "WaMu3tasima" (call of anguish, call for aid that goes to the history of the requirement of Muslims and Arabs to aid those who are in need).

2) Massive popular solidarity with Gaza inside 1948 Palestine (current state of Israel), including thousands demonstrating in Tel Aviv, and over 100,000 demonstrating in Sakhnin (Palestinian citizens of Israel).

3) Massive demonstrations in the West Bank that included clashes with Israeli forces despite attempts by Palestinian police to intervene. Just in the Bethlehem area, we have had at least two events (vigils or demonstrations) daily since the start of the blitzkrieg.

4) Massive demonstrations in the Arab world even when these demonstrations were banned, demonstrators beaten or arrested by governments beholden to fake peace treaties that do not protect rights or dignities of the people. Demonstrators demanded cutting all diplomatic and economic ties with Israel and a real unity and solidarity.

5) Massive demonstrations in thousands of locations in the rest of the word that really could not be ignored even when Zionist editors tried to minimize their impact.

6) Massive pouring of material support for Gaza (for example a campaign in Saudi Arabia collected 32 million just in the first 48 hours).

7) The presence of the internet and the failure of Israel to break all access of reporting and communication with Gaza. Millions of people are now learning firsthand what is going on (your receiving this email with its links is just one of the examples).

It might be too simplistic to say that rational human beings draw rational conclusions and that tribal/emotional human beings go down the path of irrational behaviors. Some claim to look pragmatically at things and yet draw the conclusion that it is inevitable that Palestine will be vanquished in favor of the Zionist Jewish state of Israel. Hence we are asked to accept the Bantustan called a state on 9% of historic Palestine AND without sovereignty. They remind us that of Hegel's words that "what we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history".
As Palestinians we must also say "mea culpa" and take some responsibility for the state of affairs. We Arabs and Palestinians have been the victims of western imperial and Zionist designs and colonization for 100 years. Yes, most of our problems could be directly connected to that. But yes also, some of our "leaders" have been less than desirable to say it charitably (this applies to other Arabs). And our leaders do originate from among us so we must work on that. But we must be clear that our societal weaknesses do not justify or excuse the slaughter or ethnic cleansing of our people. In 1948 we did not have good leaders because they were all massacred and exiled in the 1936-1939 uprising but even if we did, this does not justify our ethnic cleansing or dispossession at the hand of Zionists who had well-organized and strong leadership (Ben Gurion). The slaughter of the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII similarly cannot be said to be justified by weak Jewish leadership and strong Nazi
leadership. History is not kind to aggressors and in this case history will be written differently. An army that shells a market place causing this kind of destruction will not be successful at surviving any more than any other fascist army in history (see the graphic video of the minutes after the Israeli attack on the marketplace in Gaza at: http://muslimtv.magnify.net/video/ISRAEL-CARNAGE-CIVILIANS-CHILDR ).

Need we be reminded of the terrorist actions of Zionist groups like the Hagannah, the Irgun, and Stern (all forerunners of the current Israeli terrorist army). Over 2000 attacks on Palestinian civilians killing over 15,000 occurred before Israel was declared a state. In the six weeks that preceded declaring Israel a state, 33 massacres were committed by the prestate Jewish forces including the famous massacres of Tantura and Deir Yassin.

Over half the Palestinian refugees (and thus half the 530 Palestinian villages and towns ethnically cleansed) were driven out before May 14, 1948 (Israel's founding). After that date, with far more superior in arms and manpower than any opposing force (largely haphazard formations of Arab forces that came in to stop the ethnic cleansing), the nascent state proceeded to expand its territory beyond what was recommended in the partition resolution of the UN general assembly. In so doing, once the cease fire was declared instead of Palestine we had a state of Israel on 78% of Palestine and a collaborationist Jordanian regime occupied the 19% leaving a small sliver controlled by Egypt called the Gaza strip. In that strip, the refugees from over 150 towns and villages ethnically cleansed were squeezed. Israel of course expanded more by occupying the remainder of Palestine in 1967. With population growth, the Gaza desert ghetto became home to 1.5 million

The late Professor Edward Said wrote about Gaza in August, 2002:

"Every Palestinian has become a prisoner. Gaza is surrounded by an electrified fence on three sides: imprisoned like animals, Gazans are unable to move, unable to work, unable to sell their vegetables or fruit, unable to go to school. They are exposed from the air to Israeli planes and helicopters and are gunned down like turkeys on the ground by tanks and machine guns. Impoverished and starved, Gaza is a human nightmare. Hope has been eliminated from the Palestinian vocabulary so that only raw defiance remains. Palestinians must die a slow death so that Israel can have its security, which is just around the corner but cannot be realized because of the special Israeli "insecurity." The whole world must sympathize, while the cries of Palestinian orphans, sick old women, bereaved communities, and tortured prisoners simply go unheard and unrecorded. Doubtless, we will be told, these horrors serve a larger purpose than mere sadistic cruelty. After all, "the two sides" are engage d in a "cycle of violence" that has to be stopped, sometime, somewhere. Once in a while we ought to pause and declare indignantly that there is only one side with an army and a country: the other is a stateless dispossessed population of people without rights or any present way of securing them. The language of suffering and concrete daily life has been either hijacked or so perverted as, in my opinion, to be useless except as pure fiction deployed as a screen for the purpose of more killing and painstaking torture - slowly, fastidiously, and inexorably. That is the truth of what Palestinians suffer."

Things have become much more difficult six years later. Gazans I talked to say direct and quick death by sophisticated weapons has now become just another alternative to the slower death by starvation but they all want to live in freedom and will not succumb to terrorism anymore. Why would people who are not facing these horrible choices stand and watch and imagine negotiating with such an "army with a state" (as an Israeli leader called Israel)?

The aggression as in basic laws of physics will generate reactions. Did we not see that over the years Palestinians and Arabs learned how to fight better? When I use the term to fight I do not just mean the violent resistance (with its various forms, some forms that individuals may not agree with) but all forms of nonviolent resistance and methods of wars (such as the media wars, the wars of ideas etc).

But could we do better? Could we learn to fight better in the media arena? After working over 15 years in the Western media I ask myself why we cannot do better. Why is it that during the critical periods of the latest uprising we had a PLO representative in Washington who was not the best communicator (or at least had good communication team who would write his talking points)? Or with Hamas spokesm,en speaking to excite their membesr instead of making their case. Why do we not use Palestinians of very high caliber in communication (people like Hanan Ashrawi and Ali Abunimah and hundreds of others) that could transmit to the West the reality of what is going on here? Why do we talk about Fatah and Hamas need to reconciliate when hundreds of Palestinians living in the same country do not even talk to each other because they have different ideas about tactics? It would be interesting to see how many leaders of Palestinian communities abroad and in refugee camps called fo r their rivals to meet, asked for forgetting their differences, starting new leaves etc.? It will be interesting to see if our differences will reemerge like they did after the brief unity over the massacres in Jenin and Nablus in 2002 and 2003?

I know some people by now are saying this is not the time when our people are massacred to do such questioning. But our people have been getting massacred for 100 years by Western backed Zionists and we are all (all factions, all individuals) mature enough to learn from our mistakes and evolve. Need we remember the long list of oppressions and uprisings (192-21, 1929, 1936-1939, 1947-1950, 1956, 1967, 1970-1977,…)? Don't we remember that the sacrifices and the successes of things like the 1936-1939 uprising, the 1968 Karama battle, the brilliance of the first uprising of the stones 1987-1993 (largely nonviolent uprising) and many many more? From all of these things did we not learn some lessons? Were some of these lessons not lessons of better organizing, more actions and less talk? Did we not modify and change and evolve AND SURVIVE? And was that survival not in itself a thwarting of the most entrenched ethnic cleansing machine that attempted to remove us all from our land?

Was it not that resistance that kept five million Palestinians still living in our historic homeland despite the most sophisticated power structure of any colonial history in the last 500 years?
And why do some of us (humans that is, all humans) despair or even collaborate with the enemies of peace and justice? For Israelis and those who want to live in peace, would it not be better to get educated about the original injustice of ethnic cleansing and begin the process of true reconciliation and restorative justice? For Zionized Western media, why do you think you can keep a lid on the anger of and keep oppressing the aspirations of 10 million Palestinians, 300 million Arabs, 1.5 billion Muslims, and nearly 6 billion human beings who aspire for JUSTICE with peace? Why do you consider war a solution to anything?

Among Palestinians, did we not always find older generations that got tired and wanted to fold or at least wanted to hold the younger generation from stepping forward to take responsibility? Isn't it the time to drop everything and gather as PALESTINIANS (not as faction or political ideologies or competing Palestinians for positions and visibility), every day, speak to each other in humility and in brotherhood/sisterhood to resolve the differences? Can't we all pick up the phone and email others and simply invite them for a physical meeting and if not possible virtual meeting? And for those who are not Palestinians, what can you do to ensure such reconciliation happen and that you are not helping divisions but helping unity? For all of us, the question remains whether to light a candle or curse the dark.

Other links and resources
Gaza Website
http://gazasiege.org/
The Jewish ethical tradition means embracing Palestinians, too.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0102/p09s01-coop.html
(In Arabic) Azmi Bshara analyzes the current situation http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C9AF6054-1CC3-461E-9C5B-C7746EC65345.htm
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052605.html
In the south, support for Gaza op is far from unanimous
By Fadi Eyadat

At the end of an interview with him, Fredo Goldfarb of Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak in the Eshkol region asked that people "take into account that in any democratic country, thinking differently does not mean we are traitors; it doesn't mean we don't love our country and care about its future. Our political analysis is different."

He has good reason to make that statement. These days, as it seems that most public opinion strongly supports the Gaza operation, those holding fast to the opposite opinion are scorned.
"As someone who has lived for the past eight years with my family under the threat of Qassams, explosive charges and tunnels [dug by terrorists] that might pop up in the middle of the kibbutz, I know what I'm saying - only agreements with the other side will bring an end to these threats," Goldfarb said. "I am afraid for my family and those around me. But does that give me the right to kill 400 Palestinians? What do I get out of this? Only more families that come into the circle of enmity."

Goldfarb's opinion is not one often heard these days in the south. But a significant number of people feel that way. Some did not want to say so publicly yesterday, especially after reports came to light that a soldier was killed and others were wounded.

Na'amika Tzion, who has lived in Sderot for 22 years, said the first time she felt secure after eight years of bombardment was when the cease-fire agreement was signed with Hamas. No matter what the army did, "we always got hit back."

"A channel of communication has to be found that will lead to an extension of the cease-fire and to the problem of [kidnapped soldier Gilad] Shalit and to the crossings," she said.
Tzion herself talks on the phone to people in Gaza.
"For me they have names and identities. There are catastrophic things happening there," she said.
Tzion agreed with Goldfarb that Hamas is extreme, "but I want to be sure our leadership has done everything to extend the cease-fire through a third party and I have major doubts, she says.
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052602.html
Barak's political fortunes seen rising with each missile that pounds Gaza
By Roni Singer-Heruti

The Israel Defense Forces operation in Gaza has prompted a surge in the number of people volunteering at the Labor Party's campaign headquarters over the last week, party officials say.
Thus far, the operation has been very popular with the public, and most of the credit has gone to Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is also Labor's chairman.
The surge in people calling or emailing to volunteer their services is yet another sign of a trend already evident from the polls: a sharp rise in support for Labor in general and Barak in particular. Last week's Haaretz poll, for instance, found that Labor had risen to 16 Knesset seats from 11 in the previous poll.

The turnabout is particular striking for a party whose demise has been widely forecast just two weeks ago.

"There is no doubt that the [Gaza] operation has highlighted Barak's advantages and enabled a real discourse about the truly important matters," one senior Labor official said this weekend. "That's what we were trying to say all along: He's not a pal, he's not nice, but he's a leader. And now, people see that."

Even in the Ramle market, generally a reliable bastion of the right, support for Barak was virtually unanimous last week.

"Barak has proven himself in this operation as someone who knows how to do the work," said Shlomo Sarur, who has been a member of rival Likud's central committee for 25 years. "On security, he's good, and you can't take that away from him."

Labor officials insist that the operation's timing has nothing to do with the fact that elections are due to take place in another month, on February 10. But they readily admit that, as one put it, "his conduct in managing the operation in Gaza enables the public to examine Barak's conduct in the real world and not the world of image and style."

Officially, the party's campaign has been suspended since the operation began 10 days ago. But party officials know the campaign will have to resume the day after the operation ends, and they are therefore busy preparing their day-after strategies.

However, these strategies depend largely on how the operation turns out. If, by the time it ends, it is still perceived as a success, Barak will feature prominently in Labor's campaign as a "leader with a proven record." If not, Labor will clearly need a different tactic. But Dr. Tamir Sheafer of Hebrew University's political science program predicts that Labor's surge in the polls will be short-lived either way.

"It's all a question of how long the operation lasts and how many screw-ups there are," he said. "But from the polls we have conducted, it is possible to say that in general, rightist voters will ultimately have trouble putting a Labor ballot in the box."
****

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052606.html
Last update - 09:41 05/01/2009
No humanitarian crisis in Gaza?
By Amira Hass

Three hours after the Israel Defense Forces began their ground operation in the Gaza Strip, at about 10:30 P.M. Saturday night, a shell or missile hit the house owned by Hussein al-Awaidi and his brothers. Twenty-one people live in the isolated house, located in an agricultural area east of Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood. Five of them were wounded in the strike: Two women in their eighties (his mother and aunt), his 14-year-old son, his 13-year-old niece and his 10-year-old nephew.

Twenty hours later, the wounded were still bleeding in a shed in the courtyard of the house. There was no electricity, no heat, no water. Their relatives were with them, but every time they tried to leave the courtyard to fetch water, the army shot at them.

Al-Awaidi tried to summon help on his cell phone, but Gaza's cell phone network is collapsing. Shells have hit transponders, there is no electricity and no diesel fuel to run the generators. Every time the telephone works, it is a minor miracle.

At about noon Sunday, Al-Awaidi finally managed to reach S., who called me. There was nothing else that S., who lives nearby, could do.

I had known Al-Awaidi for eight years, and I called Physicians for Human Rights. They called the IDF's liaison office to ask it to arrange to have the wounded evacuated. That was shortly after noon - and as of press time, the liaison office had still not called PHR back.

Meanwhile, someone else had managed to reach the Red Crescent Society. It called the Red Cross and asked it to coordinate the evacuation of the wounded with the IDF. That was at 10:30 A.M. - and as of press time Sunday night, the Red Cross had still not been able to do so.
While I was on the phone with PHR, at about noon, H. called. He just wanted to report: Two children, Ahmed Sabih and Mohammed al-Mashharawi, aged 10 and 11, had gone up on the roof of their Gaza City house to heat water over a fire. There is no electricity or gas, so fire is all that remains.

Tanks are spitting shells, helicopters are raining fire, warplanes are causing earthquakes. But it is still hard for people to grasp that heating water has become no less dangerous than joining Hamas' military wing.

An IDF missile hit the two boys, killing Ahmed and seriously wounding Mohammed. Later Sunday, an Internet news site reported that both had died. But H.'s cell phone was not answering, so I could not verify that report.

And there was no point in trying H.'s land line: A bomb destroyed his neighborhood's entire phone system on Saturday. The target was a print shop (yet another of the IDF's "military" targets). Its owner, a retired UNRWA employee, had invested his entire pension in the shop.
In B.'s neighborhood, the bombs hit the water mains, so she has had no water since yesterday morning. "I'm already used to coping without electricity," she said. "There's no television, but I hear what happens from friends who call. One friend called from Lebanon, another from Haifa. And Ramallah. But without water, how will we manage?"

A. offered his own take on the situation: "I keep the children away from the windows because the F-16s are in the air; I forbid them to play below because it's dangerous. They're bombing us from the sea and from the east, they're bombing us from the air. When the telephone works, people tell us about relatives or friends who were killed. My wife cries all the time. At night she hugs the children and cries. It's cold and the windows are open; there's fire and smoke in open areas; at home there's no water, no electricity, no heating gas. And you [the Israelis] say there's no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Tell me, are you normal?"

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Racheli Gai
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