Mr Mubarak, Tear Down That Wall!
By Guest Post • Dec 31st, 2008 at 12:45 • Category: Analysis, Israel, Middle East Issues, Newswire, Opinions and Letters, Palestine, Religion, Resistance, War, Zionism
WRITTEN BY Franklin Lamb in Beirut (Illustration by Carlos Latuff)
"I'm not calling for a coup d'etat, but go talk to your leaders and tell them you do not accept what is happening in Gaza".
– Hezbollah Sec-Gen Hasan Nasrallah calling for Egyptians "in millions" to demonstrate their support for opening the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt, 28 December 2008
"…it is essential if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law." (Preamble) – Universal Declaration of Human Rights December 10, 1948
Giggling like smitten teenagers, exchanging Channakah and Eid greetings (neither acknowledges the more Shi'a associated Ashoura) Hosni Mubarak and Tzipi Livni 'hooked up' this past week in Cairo to discuss Gaza.
Both spoke of their desire to see Corporal Shalit returned safely. Both knew Israel's former Mossad operative, current Foreign Minister, and Prime Minister wannabee had a permission slip from the Bush Administration for all-out war against the Palestinians in the 25 by 6 mile territorial snippet along the Eastern Mediterranean. When the correct photo-op was selected for public distribution, it showed a concerned and dour Egyptian President brooding with arching brow.
The duo focused on 'diplomatic logistics and cover' and the urgency to crush Hamas. They appeared oblivious to all who happened to be in the vicinity of American rockets and bombs or institutions leveled by waves of F-16 fighter jets and missiles kept in ready use from the $ 200 million worth of spare parts supplied by US taxpayers from 200l-2006, as well as 186 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel , and thousands of TOW, Hellfire and "bunker buster" bombs and missiles, freed up for delivery to Israel last year when the Bush administration signed a $ 1.3 billion contract with Raytheon.
What was not on the agenda was what both knew but ignored. The fate of 1.5 million people, one of the highest population densities in the world with nearly 60% of its population 16 years or younger and nearly 75% of whom are malnourished, and according to one recent estimate by the World Health Organization, 46% of whom are afflicted with acute anemia, with 30% suffering from stunted growth as a result of chronic malnutrition and who would need an escape via Rafah.
One wonders if the dynamic duo discussed the fact that 10% of these children have permanent brain damage or that eighty-two percent are afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder; the great majority of them having witnessed death first-hand or that more than eighty percent of the population as a whole is dependent on food aid? Were Mubrak and Livni aware of reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children?
The UN and eyewitnesses such as members of the Free Gaza Project report that unemployment is rampant upwards of 60% with most Gazans subsisting on less than $2 a day.
Shooting fish in a barrel
Even a cursory examination of the events which began on December 27, 2008 require that Mohammad Hosni Mubarak be added as an accomplice to the pending International Criminal Court (ICC) case concerning international crimes being committed by Israel with American weapons.
HOKOK, the Beirut- and Washington DC-based International Coalition against Impunity, which filed a case against Israeli political leaders regarding Israeli crimes committed in Gaza with the International Criminal Court at The Hague on December 10, 2008, will send international lawyers back to the ICC on January 15, 2009, to amend its complaint under the Rome Statute and indict Egypt's Mubarak among the Defendants.
To his great credit, Professor Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories and professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, has joined HOKOK's call for the International Criminal Court to investigate Israeli violations and determine whether the Israeli leaders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.
The Case against Mohammad Hosni Mubarak
Mubarak knew that Gazans would need a safety valve, an escape route from the coming carnage, which according to the Washington-based Council for the National Interest (CNI), appears to be another Sharpeville Massacre. CNI points out that "Nearly fifty years ago, the South African regime attacked a crowd protesting the conditions in the Bantustan of Sharpeville and in a matter of minutes killed some 69 black South Africans. Eventually, after world reaction to this "incident," sanctions were imposed and they led to the end of apartheid in South Africa. Using American weapons, Israel has just indiscriminately killed more than four times that number in Gaza. In 1960 there were 20 million black South Africans and today there are only one and a half million Palestinians in Gaza. So the first two days of the American-supported Israeli attempt to wipe out Hamas is sixty times as criminal as the Sharpeville massacre.
Mubarak's actions make him complicit in International Crimes outlawed by Article 2 of the Convention on Genocide by assisting in the killing members of a specific ethnic group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
By sealing its border with Gaza and forcing back many Palestinians at gunpoint who were trying to escape the slaughter, Mubarak violates basic Islamic, Christian and Judaic morality that requires that he open the cork of the bottle and let these men, women and children live. So does international law. Otherwise he is actively responsible and complicit in Israel's project of creating a situation where Palestinians, in Rafael Eitan's infamous phrase, "will only be able to scurry around like drugged roaches in a bottle."
By denying the possibility of a broad range of necessities food, cooking or heating oil, water, electricity, shelter, medicines, for a population unable to be self-sufficient at the end of decades of occupation, and locking them inside Gaza in a blazing holocaust, amidst millions of gallons of untreated sewage is criminal conduct: Moubarak is complicit.
Oh mightiest Pharaoh, Let my People go!
By forcing Palestinians from Gaza back into killing fields and subjecting them to massive collective punishment, Mubarak is in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
On Monday morning, Israeli planes bombed a mosque. The house next to the mosque collapsed and inside, five sisters aged 2 to 10 years old were killed. Mubarak is helping Israel turn Gaza into a modern version of the Warsaw ghetto.
By slamming and sealing the life saving escape route Mubarak signs on to the effects of the scorn of international revulsion, the genocide, the political objective, the empirical objectives of Western dominance of the Middle East for a Greater Israel alongside an Egyptian Kingdom, the religious fanaticism, the psychopathology and the indiscriminate brutality and ruthlessness.
Mubarak's actions make him complicit in International Crimes outlawed by Article 2 of the Convention on Genocide by assisting in the killing members of a specific ethnic group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
Some believe Egypt's President went further. London-based newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi quote sources who say Egyptian intelligence minister deliberately misled the Palestinian organization about IDF intentions. Hamas sources say this is why movement's compounds were not evacuated: "Egypt collaborated with Israel in its Gaza attack and lulled Hamas into thinking the Israel Defense Forces would not attack Gaza", Al Quda al-Arabi claimed The report, based on Arab diplomatic sources, claims that Egyptian Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman told a number of Arab leaders that Israel was intending to attack the Gaza Strip in a limited manner in order to pressure the Palestinian organization into agreeing to a renewed ceasefire.
Hamas sources close to former Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar also reported that Egypt told Hamas on Friday evening that Israel had agreed to begin negotiations about a potential ceasefire and would not attack Gaza before Cairo had attempted to settle the issue.
These sources noted that, in general, Hamas' internal ministry orders the evacuation of its security compounds following any Israeli threat of operative action. They had not done so this time based on Egypt's assurance that Israel wouldn't attack and based on the assumption that an IDF attack would not be launched on Saturday.
Colluding with Israel, the Bush administration and the Palestinian Authority in this aggression toward the Palestinians of Gaza, Mubarak reminds one of the Jews who served the Nazis as capos inside the ghettos of German controlled Europe during World War II, their baksheesh being that that they will be the last to be destroyed.
Hasan Nasrallah has reminded the Egyptian people of their duty, and once it becomes widely known that Mubarak cooperated with Israel as an adjunct of its colonial army in the assault against Gaza he may be deposed as un-redeemable. Rejecting the Resistance to Zionism, Mubarak invites Revolution.
UPDATE: Lebanon reacts to the Gaza Massacre
Lebanon has witnessed no fewer than 30 demonstrations and day and night student vigils against the Gaza slaughter during the past 72 hours. Tens of thousands of people massed in the southern suburbs of Beirut and packed the surrounding streets for a Hezbollah-led protest rally yesterday, calling for support for Gaza as it underwent its third day of Israeli attacks. Three more demonstrations are planned for this evening.
Sunday saw a joint Fatah-Hamas demonstration which included Osama Hamdan and Fatah's Abass Zaki outside the UN HQ known as ESCWA (Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia). Hezbollah plans daily demonstrations until Gaza is free according to its Media Office.
All alongside countless smaller manifestations composed of smaller groups, boy and girl scouts from various confessions, individuals, shopkeepers, and increased attendance in Mosques and Churches, some of the latter ringing bells, throughout Lebanon.
The sewage and rain flooded alleys of Beirut's Palestinian Refugee Camps, Shatila, Burj Burajneh and the smaller Mar Elias Camp, are filled with equally steadfast refugees in support of their countrymen to the south.
Franklin Lamb, currently based in Beirut, drafted, for HOKOK, the International Coalition against Impunity, its Complaint/Submission filed, on December 10, 2008, the 60th Anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the Internationally Criminal Court in The Hague. The Case charges Israel with continuing Rome Statue International crimes in Gaza and throughout Occupied Palestine. In January 2009 HOKOK will petition the ICC to include Mohammad Hosni Mubarak as an additional defendant in the Case.
Lamb can be reached at fplamb@sabrashatila.org.
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NASRALLAH’S HEZBULLAH
“Why the war? Leave small details to a future Plutarch; this is another round of battle for Palestine. Supported and supplied by their captive empire, the US, the Jews had all the weapons, all the ammunition, all the diplomatic support, when hubris-drunk they drove into disarmed and starved Gaza to kill off its last resisters and impose the Yoke of Zion. Their invasion was prepared by a yearlong siege and incessant shelling; they were cock-sure they can devour Gaza at will. And indeed, all kept mum: the Egyptians traded the glory of the Ramadan war for greenbacks, sons of Hejaz and Nejd were too busy serving at the oil pump, and the princes of the Gulf cared but for their falcons. The Jews felt secure as they stooped to kill off Gaza: who will disturb the lion of Judah roaring at his prey? And a tiny force from the Mount Lebanon said: we will. They attacked the all-powerful Jews; thus the hobbit pierced the sinew of Nazgul when he stooped to kill. The Israeli army roused from his prey turned north and lashed with all its might at the Hezbullah fighters. But they stood fast.” [2]
1.
And yesterday, on August third, I heard –
That Israeli planes are dropping from the air leaflets over Beirut
Urging its population to evacuate immediately,
For the city will soon be razed from the surface of the earth.
The teacher said:
“Hezbullah’s deeds deserve to be immortalised by poets”.
I say, the poet must need, have a deed to be needed, or kneaded -
Like the dough of good fresh bread whose sweet smell rises
In the air all over Senegal before the dawn appears light crimson
Once more above the blackness of the night –
You are that prayed for deed, and need, that precedes The Twelfth Imam’s
Glorious and luminous appearance upon the terror of this firma –
Cries of my children now dying in Lebanon,
The wailing of my mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers in Lebanon,
The destitution from destruction and unrighteous slaughter
Of innocent multitudes now in Lebanon,
And this was your measure of measured measurement Israel?
I saw the horrid pictorial sequence of your obvious intention,
Your objective – to amputate the feet of an entire living nation,
To cut out its heart and soul – an ethnic and ethic cleansing that came,
Just after the announcement was made to leave before the bombing began,
And as they obeyed, you bombed everything until there was nothing left to leave.
The finest stitch of hypocritical dress, you are still a mess Israel,
You are still the same wicked harlot you were when my brother Ezekiel
Wrote you his prophetic poem, his song of blood, sweat, and tears,
The vivacious and vicious need of your historical and masochistic yearning
To desperately burn in the depths of karmic hell, a measured swelling,
Your insatiable greed of world domination; in the meantime -
All nations of the world are presently invited to attend the present
“Mono-Jewish Cultural Festival” held on land and in the skies over Lebanon.
IT IS NOW RAINING MOLTEN FIRE IN THE SKIES OF LEBANON,
IT IS NOW RAINING MOLTON FIRE ON THE LAND OF LEBANON,
IT IS NOW RAINING MOLTON FIRE ON THE INNOCENT OF LEBANON,
IT IS NOW RAINING MOLTEN FIRE ON THE FLESH OF LEBANON,
2.
AND NOW A NONABEL LEBANON IS PRESENTLY UNDER HISTORICAL SEIGE OF THE WRATH AND JEALOUSLY OF CAIN, AS HE SLAYS HIS BROTHER OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AND NOW YOU WANT TO CRY ANTI-SEMITE AS THE REST OF THE WORLD POINTS YOU OUT ISRAEL. YOUR HOLLOWEEN FALSE FACE OF TYRANICAL MASK FINALLY REMOVED AND WHO SHALL NOT RECOGNIZE YOUR MARK BROTHER CAIN, WHILE YOU CALL DOWN BLOOD FROM THE SUN? YOUR COLORFUL BRILLIANT PLUMAGE, A MULTITUDE OF HYPOCRITICAL PROMISES AND ATROCIOUS LIES -
I will don the Holy prophetic dress of sackcloth and ashes,
I will walk the streets of the nations as a living breathing witness and sign,
I will beg the Lord of the Worlds to chastise you,
I will cry a haunting cry to awake the sleeping of the population,
I will call upon ALL the righteous of the world to undress you,
You, a nation born in a single day,
You, the victim have now become the victimiser,
You, the oppressed have now become the oppressor,
You, who claimed six million innocent unjustly slain and exterminated -
Now YOU exterminate sixty million more????!!!!
Zeina Karam of the associated press reports:
“BEIRUT, Lebanon (Aug. 9) – Ali Rmeity lies broken and bandaged on a hospital bed, wincing in pain. Three of his children and his parents are dead — but he doesn't know all that yet. Doctors fear telling the 45-year-old now would be a bigger blow than he can sustain. Rmeity was at home with his wife and four children shortly after nightfall Monday when Israeli missiles slammed into their apartment building in the predominantly Shiite southern Beirut suburb of Chiah.
At least 41 people were killed – including 15 from Rmeity's family – making it the deadliest single strike of the four-week-old Israeli offensive in Lebanon. Workers continued to retrieve bodies from under the slabs of concrete Wednesday.”The hospital's owner, Dr. Nazih Gharious, said it was too early to tell Rmeity of his loss, which might prove to be too much of a shock. Rmeity's brother-in-law, Ibrahim Jomaa, repeatedly warned visitors not to slip and tell Rmeity that his children were killed.
"If he finds out he will surely die," he said.
"I had been feeling tired, so I went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed. Five minutes later the bombs fell and I found myself crying for help under the rubble," Rmeity said Tuesday. "My wife, who was on the balcony, was thrown in the air. They found her somewhere, I don't know where”
…In total, 15 of Rmeity's relatives were killed, according to hospital officials and relatives. Ali so far had only been told that his mother had died.”
3.
When it rains death from the heavens,
Where does one go, where does one hide?
As you deliberately target innocent victims,
Your insatiable and barbaric appetite for revenge,
You cannot defeat them from the land,
So you hunt, bomb, and kill them like dogs from the sky,
It doesn’t matter who, anyone will do – YOU,
A terrorist state supported by Little Boy George and Crew,
You are now the New Aryan Race – and from your
American Co-Murderers, as Azmi Bishara, rightly informs:
“Comes the laser, micro-optics, microelectronics,
And high tech aerodynamics allowing for precision flying,
Hairline fine guidance, dead-on targeting and surgical destruction.” [3]
You are the New and Improved Freddy Krueger now piloting F16 jets,
Technolo-fied, multiplied, and amplified in Surround-Sound 3D,
A resurrected and rabid Frederick Nietzsche foaming at the mouth,
Streaking across the skies faster than the speed of sound,
Soaring – Beyond Good and Evil – you think,
An arrogant immoral creeping shrieking Frankenstein horror movie
Stalking the crust of the earth,
An insane army of Jeffrey Dahmer pedophiles feeding upon the flesh
Bone and blood of the innocent little children you shoot down from above.
THIS IS A KATYUSHA REVOLUTIONARY GUERILLA KING KONG GODZILLA POEM – CALLING INTO EXISTENCE A BURNING SEARING CLEANSING FLAME TO GO BEFORE NASRALLAH’S HEZBULLAH, TO BURN THE LAND, AIR, AND SEA, ON BEHALF OF ALL THE WAR CRIMES YOU HAVE COMMITTED ISRAEL –
THIS IS A WARRIOR POEM FOR ALL THOSE UNAFRAID TO FIGHT,
FOR ALL THOSE WHO DO NOT FEAR THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE LIGHT,
THIS IS A POEM OF WAR ON BEHALF OF THE POOR, THE DISTRESSED,
THE DISPOSSESSED, AND THE OPPRESSED OF THE WORLD WHO DO NOT FEAR TO GIVE THEIR LIVES FOR WHAT IS RIGHT –
THIS IS A NEEDING SCREAMING RINGING BLEEDING POEM:
For all the little babies and children you have murdered,
For all the little babies and children you have left faceless,
For all the little babies and children you have left headless,
For all the little babies and children you have crippled for life,
For all the mothers and fathers you have left homeless and hopeless,
For all the husbands and wives you have left emotionally castrated
For all the families you have completely destroyed,
THIS IS A MULTICOLORED MANY FLOWERED POEM –
A RADIANT FRAGRANT LOVE SONG
ON BEHALF OF NASRALLAH’S HEZBULLAH:
RISE UP YOU FEARLESS ONES AND REMEMBER – THE SAHABA
WERE ALSO OUT NUMBERED, ILL-EQUIPPED, AND CHALLENGED
TO THEIR FAITH AS YOU FEW, ONLY LATER TO BE ASKED BY THE ENEMY,
“WHO WERE THE MEN IN WHITE FIGHTING WITH YOU?”
4.
Rise up! Oh Noble Warriors and remove the yoke of Zion!
Rise up! Oh Courageous Warriors and break the yoke of Zion!
Rise up! Oh Fearless Warriors and throw off the yoke of Zion!
Oh Glorious Sons of Ali, alaihi salaam, the Power of God is with you!
Oh Glorious Sons of Ali, alaihi salaam, the Glory of God is with you!
Oh Glorious Sons of Ali, alaihi salaam, the Truth of God is with you!
Remember the innocent MASSACRED in Qana,
Remember the innocent MASSACRED in Qubya,
Remember the innocent MASSACRED in Qasba,
Remember the innocent MASSACRED in Beit Hanoun,
Remember the innocent MASSACRED in Bint Jbeil,
Remember the innocent MASSACRED in Jabalya,
Remember the innocent MASSACRED in Jenin,
Remember the innocent MASSACRED in Al-Shajalya,
Remember the innocent MASSACRED in Al-Bureij,
Remember the innocent MASSACRED in Nablus,
Remember the innocent MASSACRED in Nahalin,
Remember the innocent MASSACRED in Lebanon,
Remember the innocent MASSACRED all over Palestine,
The Ahl’al-Bait and all the Imams of the past, present, and future, support you! [4]
THIS POEM IS FOR THE GLORY OF NASRALLAH’S HEZBULLAH, A HOLY DHRIKRULLAH AND SACRED CHANT PROCLAIMED, [5]
For all the Red Cross and supply trucks you have annihilated,
For all the doctors, nurses, and workers you have obliterated,
For all the people’s homes and automobiles you have disintegrated,
For all the schools and schoolteachers you have pulverized to ash and dust,
For all the hundreds of fleeing refugees you blew away from the face of the earth,
As they peacefully fled their homes and cities to escape your hate -
A NOT TOO LATE ANSWER TO YOUR SECULAR YET SPECTACULAR
DENIED PROTOCOLS OF ZION –
I WISH FOR YOU ONLY WHAT YOU HAVE WISHED FOR OTHERS ISRAEL.
INSHALLAH HEZBULLAH’S NASRALLAH
SHALL BECOME AN INTERNATIONAL DHIKRULLAH
HEARD ACROSS THE ENTIRE WORLD AND WITHIN YOUR VERY BORDERS SHALL ENTER A STRONG VIOLENT BLAST OF RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION FROM THE LORD OF THE HOLY KABA THAT SHALL BURN YOUR VEHEMENT EVIL FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH AND JERUSALEM SHALL ONCE AGAIN BECOME THE HOLY CITY IT ONCE WAS BEFORE YOU ARRIVED –
A NINETEEN FORTY-EIGHT SELF IMPOSED – JOHNNY COME LATELY,
WANNA-BE NATION OF SUPPORTED CRULETY AND RACIAL TYRANNY.
Epilogue
Oh my beloved Sheikh Hassan, we say to you, As Salaam Alaykum.
We love and honor you and all the great brave Mujahideen who follow you,
Remember – YOU are the Noble and Illustrious Sons of Ali, alaihi salaam,
And remember -
There is no power less than the Power of God,
That can withstand the Power of God –
“Verily, We have given you (O Muhammad) a manifest victory.
That Allah may forgive you your sins of the past and the future,
And complete His Favour on you, and guide you on the Straight Path,
And that Allah may help you with strong help,
He it is Who sent down As-Sakinah (calmness and tranquillity) into the hearts
Of the believers, that they may grow more in Faith along with their (present) Faith.
And to Allah belong the hosts of the heavens and the earth, and Allah is Ever-Knower, All-Wise.” [6]
SIAM
An excerpt taken from Rain of Grace, New & Selected Poems by SIAM
http://www.rainofgrace.com