This psychosocial support program was initiated by our partner Afaq Jadeeda (New Horizons) to address children's psychological needs after the New Year's assault on Gaza.   Let the Children Play and Heal is giving tens of thousands of children and youth opportunities to express themselves though art, dance, music, story-telling, theatre and puppetry; to get support from the larger community; and to have fun and just be children.

Additionally hundreds of mothers have also been trained to help their extended families cope with the aftermath of the attacks, and a psychologist identifies and refers children who need individual counseling. All programs are free, thanks to the support of MECA donors.

Dear Friend of the Children,

As you probably know, I spent five days in Gaza last January right after the devastating Israeli attacks. I was there helping MECA deliver the more than six tons of food, medicine, and medical equipment – including an ambulance and wheelchairs – that you helped provide.

I am so proud, as you should be, at the enormous difference we are making in the lives of thousands of children and their families.

Still, I must tell you that every single day I am haunted by images from that journey four months ago. The horrifying injuries I saw. The silence of suddenly orphaned children just staring into space or searching though the rubble of their destroyed homes looking for cherished belongings. I think of the schoolchildren sitting next to desks with candles marking the places where their friends sat just weeks or days before.

I think, also, about the many children I have heard or read about – as I'm sure you do -who have suffered almost unimaginable inhumanity. Like the small children found starving next to the bodies of their dead mothers while Israelis soldiers prevented rescue workers from reaching them.

Most of the children may heal from their physical injuries over time, but it is the invisible wounds – the deep psychological trauma they suffer from the brutal Israeli assault – that's of the gravest concern to me today.   

Every family in Gaza has witnessed or experienced the horror in some way. Children have seen their loved ones turned into shattered corpses, their homes turned to rubble. As a result, some have stopped speaking or eating. Children of all ages experience terrifying nightmares, bed-wetting, or are unable to sleep at all.

I hope you feel, as I do, that we must do whatever we can to address the profound psychological injury the children in Gaza bear in the aftermath of Israel's 22-day assault.

The best hope for helping the children overcome their trauma is to involve their families and community in their healing through multiple forms of therapy.

That's why I'm writing to you today to ask for your generous support once again..

New Horizons — Afaq Jadeeda in Arabic — is an extraordinary organization the Middle East Children's Alliance has worked with for many years. New Horizons provides a creative environment for developing the kids and teenagers personalities psychologically, culturally, technically and socially. They have developed outstanding programs to deal with aggression and despair – the two most common expressions of trauma among Gaza's children.

MECA has helped New Horizons start summer camps, sports teams, and after-school programs. This past January, while the war on the people of Gaza was still underway we were able to send in $30,000 for New Horizons to prepare and deliver hot meals to families whose homes were destroyed.

Our friends at New Horizons have sent us their plans to launch a major community mental health project they are calling Let the Children Play & Heal, with a goal of reaching at least 50,000 children. I'm asking you to, please, make a special gift today to enable them to to:

• Send teams of staff and volunteers to hundreds of schools and day care centers to work with children through painting, singing, drama, and dance. For more than a decade New Horizons has been using the arts to help children living with violence, loss and trauma
• Bring in psychologists to train the teams and to identify and refer children for counseling at community mental health clinics.
• Train approximately 500 mothers to work with their extended families on how to use play to help children express and resolve aggression, anxiety and grief. 
• And distribute 10,000 booklets to the community about coping with the psychological trauma of the war.

The project will cost $76,000, and they are counting on you and me and hundreds of other MECA supporters to make sure the children's psychological injuries do not become permanent – with disastrous consequences for the children, their families and Gaza's future.

New Horizons has given us a tremendous opportunity to help heal tens of thousands of children who might otherwise be facing a lifetime of profound anxiety, rage and an inability to cope with daily life. I hope you'll join me in telling New Horizons that, together, we will Let the Children Play & Heal.

I realize, especially in these difficult times, that your contribution may mean some personal sacrifice for you, and I am deeply grateful. I know – because I was told over and over again in Gaza – that your continued support means so much to people who are struggling to rebuild their lives after the most horrifying violence and destruction.

Many thanks on behalf of the children,

Barbara Lubin
Founder and Director

P.S. A recent UNICEF study concluded that that mental health, anxiety and stress are the main health problems in Gaza, essentially affecting the entire population. With your help now, the New Horizons community initiative will be able to make an enormous difference in the lives of so many children and families who may not have visible injuries, but are nonetheless in terrible pain. Please send your special contribution in the enclosed envelope to MECA within the next ten days. Thank you.

Make a secure online donation to this important program for children in Gaza.

http://www.mecaforpeace.org/article.php?id=492

Loss Of Innocence: Gaza children's artwork

The paintings show the destruction of apartment blocks, mosques, ambulances and civilians, through the use of helicopters, planes, drones, phosphorous weapons, bulldozers and direct fire from soldiers. The sun, trees, birds and Gaza cry. Gaza sends an SOS and the world simply stands still and looks on. A Dove of Peace, in one painting, sails in a boat over a Desert of Indifference. As a result of Operation Cast Lead over 300 children were killed, many more injured, 1400 children orphaned of at least one parent, 30% of children suffer serious mental health problems and all the children are traumatised. Not surprisingly, the children say that what they dream of for the future is freedom and peace. 
  
The launch of the exhibition took place in the cathedral on Saturday 26th September. The Cathedral Dean welcomed everybody and Professor Victor Merriman from Liverpool

Hope University, gave a remarkable and inspiring keynote speech. Rod Cox guided people around the exhibition adding interesting personal anecdotal material to each painting. A wonderful team of volunteer stewards have patiently watched over the precious paintings from 8am-6pm every day for the duration of the ten-day exhibition.

Hundreds of visitors have now viewed the exhibition. Their comments attest to being profoundly moved and shocked by the children's paintings. Photographs of the paintings in the setting of this magnificent cathedral, the largest cathedral in the UK, will be sent to the children in Gaza so that they can follow the progress of their artwork and know that people are seeing their truth: the truth of the assault. The exhibition has been booked by schools, colleges, conferences and hospitals in the UK where it will continue to do its invaluable work of reaching the hearts and minds of ordinary people.

Anne Candlin

Exhibition Co-ordinator, Liverpool

October 2009

FFI

YouTube movie showing the contents see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=575N0JRzaIs

Rod Cox has a website with some background information at

http://rodcoxandgaza.blogspot.com/

Currently on show at the Cathedral in Liverpool see

http://www.liverpoolcathedral.org.uk/content/musicandevents/whatson/detail/Loss_of_Innocence__Exhibition__Gaza_childrens_artwork_until_6_Oct_09/371.aspx

http://rodcoxandgaza.blogspot.com

In Palestine, under the Israeli occupation and the boundless criminal practices of the IDF, every unimaginable and never heard of horror is possible, while outside, most people never know or even  imagines these things to be possible. In Palestine it is not enough to steal the land, to build colonies for Jewish squatters, an apartheid wall and increased military check points, to assassinate, to kill, kidnap and harvest the organs of victims, it is not enough to jail, torture, and to restrict the daily life of the people, but even the homosexual of the IDF get to rape boys in the middle of the street of the old city of Hebron after turning its heart into a theater of ghost. The events of this story are part of my memories, and they should be presented as evidence against the criminal commanders of the Israeli IDF.

On August 14, 1997, an Israeli homosexual and IDF officer with yellow hair, about 180 cm high, carrying two silver stars on his uniform, a member of the so-called “Israeli border Police” raped a Palestinian teenager in the old tunnel (Khozq El-Far, what could be translated “tunnel of the mouse”) in the old city of Hebron. The victim, aged 17 years, with blond hair, was wearing a blue t-shirt. He was on his way back home to the village of Yatta in the south of the district of Hebron city. The heart of Hebron city and Al-Shuhada street are the only way to Yetta and the other towns south of the city.

The story of the rape of the Palestinian boy by the Israeli homosexual officer from the border police was published in the Palestinian daily newspapers. It caused a huge reaction and controversy in the government of Israel, specifically at the IDF headquarters in Hebron, the Israeli Government Press Office at Beit Agron in occupied Jerusalem, and the Palestinian regional military commander office of Hebron, a thug of Israel. Everybody made great efforts to hide the crime under the pretext of protecting the so called “peace process” in Hebron, when actually there is no peace process but an unending string of crime from the Jewish squatters.

Instead of investigating the crime, punishing the Israeli homosexual officer and defending the defenceless boy, the victim who had been raped while he suppose to be protected under Fourth Geneva convention and the international treaties which Israel itself had signed. The criminal Israeli commander and his ally from the Palestinian Authority, Brig. Gen. Abdel Al-Fattah Al-Jaidi, (who died of cancer during the Al-Aqsa Intifada), coordinated between themselves to use their power to force me to deny the story which I had published in the daily newspapers.

General Al-Jaidi invited me to his military office and tried to put all kind of pressure on me to publish a new story in which I would say “after investigating the story of raping the child, I talked to his family and his father confirmed that the was not raped”. General Al-Jaidi said that he would not accept any evidence which confirmed the crime, and neither would he accept any kind of confrontation with his Israeli counterpart. He added that “this kind of shameful stories would bring negative impact and shame to the family of the victim in his village and on the Palestinian Authority”. He also told me that he would not accept that I threat his power by exposing this kind of story, and that he planned to submit a report to the PA military headquarter in which he would state that the story was not true.

General Al-Jaidi also threatened the eyewitness of the crime, and asked them to shut up about everything, and he invited the father of the victim and asked him to retract the story before me. What ever Gen. Al-Jaidi said and did had no impact on me and my sources, and the eyewitness who saw and talked with the homosexual IDF officer while doing his crime.

Parallel to the cover-up attempts of the general, the Israeli military commander in Hebron demanded that the Israeli government press office GPO use their power to end the story. He told them to threaten me with the confiscation of my press card which issued by their office if I continued to deny them to write a denial and to retract what I had published through newspapers and TV stations about the crime of this Israeli homo.

A meeting was set between me, Col. (res) Fawaz Kamal, director of the Arabic department at the GPO,  Col. (res) Moshe Fogel, former director of the GPO, and the Israeli government spokesperson. The meeting was held at the Beit Agron Press Office.

Dr. Kamal, a Druze who speaks fluent Arabic, he asked me in a friendly way “why do you put yourself in the front line, facing everybody, and publishing stories which could bring war, while you can do your work very quiet and receive all our respect? Why do you not ignore the stories which could put you in danger and bring you hate and at the end you will loss your rights in our office?” Dr. Kamal also told me that the director of the GPO would confiscate my press card.

At the office of Gen Fogel, I let them hear the eyewitness testimony which I had recorded. The recording made Fogel quite. He said “I do not know if this recording is true or not”, and then, that the Israeli police should investigate the issue. He added “I am not against publishing the truth, and I will not confiscate your press card, but I will send an urgent letter to the Israeli police to investigate this issue and I will decide after I receive the final results of the investigation”. Fogel asked me “Why wouldn’t you report about the good relationship and coordination between the Palestinian commanders and the IDF commander?” We all decided (Fogel, Kamal and me) that the Israeli police would investigate the story of the homosexual IDF officer who raped the Palestinian teenager.

Some days later I met an Israeli police officer in Al-Shuhada St. near Qurtoba school in Hebron. He said: “we received a letter from the Israeli government spokesperson Moshe Fogel, in which he orders us to investigate the story of the IDF Officer who raped the boy. This letter was submitted to the Police commander”. He added that the Police commander, at that time Col. Efraim Arditi, had spoken with the IDF military Commander, then Col. Yigal Sharon, and that Col. Sharon “had recommended that we ignore this story”.

I asked him “why does your police commander and the military commander want the investigation unit to ignore this crime?”. He said that because it was shameful, and that it would bring trouble for everybody, and it was possible that an investigation could lead the soldiers to make revenge me, and “because you are living under the military laws, the final word in this issue is not ours, it is the word of the military commander Yigal Sharon”.

Walid Abed Al-Moneim Kafishe, then aged 53, was the eyewitness of the crime. He heard the loud screaming of teenager while he was being raped. He called the temporary international observers patrol “TIPH” and identified the IDF officer who raped the teenager to them, and then clashed with him and rescued the boy. Kafishe also took the boy to Palestinian-Israeli DCO office to file a complaint. Kafishe told the IDF officer: ”shame on you to hold that high rank on your shoulder and behave like animal”. He said that the child was not able to walk, had clear signs of fatigue and tiredness, and when he tried to stand up, he would sit back down and limp, and then he sat again on the floor and said that he couldn’t continue walking because the blond officer had raped him.

Under the strict pressure which both sides (Israeli military and PA military) used to force the retraction of the story, and after Police commander Col. Efraim Arditi did not investigate the crime and ignored the official letter of the Israeli government spokesperson to investigate the issue, I found out that:

• The IDF military Commander of the time, Yigal Sharon, and the Israeli Police commander, Efraim Arditi, were friends at work before they were transferred to the occupation headquarter in Hebron. Col. Arditi told me this and added that Yigal Sharon was “very sweet like the honey and smoothe like a breeze of fresh air in spring”. I eventually found out that the settlers accused Yigal Sharon of being a homosexual, what was also confirmed by other sources.
  

• I also found out that the Al-Jaidi was giving “secret lectures” at the Jewish squatter colony of Beit Hagai in South Mount Hebron in coordination with Col. Yigal Sharon. The lectures were behind the backs of the Palestinian population this collaboration happened despite their daily suffering, and were about the “PA plan to protect the Jewish settlers according the redeployment protocols”.(Al-Jaidi himself told me this secret and asked me to keep silence about it at that time.

The health of the minor is deteriorated after breathing the chemicals. She is vomiting and suffering of constant headache. The inhuman situation and ill treatment which the minor suffers is a clear violation of the duties contracted by Israel by signing the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and other treaties of international humanitarian law. The incarceration of this minor is equally a violation of obligations acquired by Israel to protect civilians, as she is incarcerated and mistreated by Israel solely for being a Palestinian.

Read further information’s published by Women's Organization for Political Prisoners (WOFPP) in English, Arabic as PDF, and Hebrew as PDFPDF.

19 Septmber 2009

Since the last month WOFPP has accompanied, with deep concern, the minor political prisoner who complained of sexual harassment by one of the guards in Hasharon Prison where she was held.

WOFPP's lawyer, Taghreed Jahshan, visited the prisoner many times during the recent period and has sent a very urgent letter, on 6 September 2009, to the Prisons Service Commissioner, with copies to the Central Area's Commander and other persons of the Service Prison staff and to the Chairman of the Bar Association's Prisons Committee.

Since there was no reply, another urgent letter was sent on 14 September, and again it had not been answered in writing.

The letter raised serious claims of the prisoner – verified by affidavit – according to which, following the complaint she has submitted, the Prisons Service harassed the prisoner, by transferring her to another prison to the isolation/separation wing in which criminal prisoners are being held, without any legal basis, and holding her in inhuman conditions: a stuffy, very damp cell, without any sunlight, without TV, ventilator, books (except one book she brought with her) and without handicraft materials. The prison authorities also had taken from the prisoner her head coverings. In addition, there were many ants in the cell that disturbed her sleep at night. In fact, the prisoner sat about 24 hours a day facing the walls without anything to occupy herself with.

All these details were reported in a letter to the Prisons Service Commissioner; however he did not see fit to reply in writing concerning these claims. Even worse, probably following the letter, insecticide was sprayed in the wing. The prisoner was taken out of her cell for a few minutes and, immediately after the spraying, she was returned. As a result, she was overcome by feelings of suffocation and dizziness for some hours, and she continued to feel chest pain.

[Additional Comment: this means that the child is being poisoned deliberately with dangerous chemicals by the Prisons Service Commissioner. This is  attempted  of murder against the girl]

Only on 15/9/09, after a month during which the prisoner was held in the conditions described above, she was transferred to a cell with reasonable conditions, but still in the same isolation/separation wing.

These last days, staff members in charge at the prison where the prisoner is detained, made telephone contact with attorney Jahshan and told her that the most senior ranks handle the matter of the prisoner, aiming to find a solution for her by transferring her from the wing which she is held in.

Our position is clear in this matter: a political prisoner should be in a political prisoners' wing – there is no other solution.

The same staff members promised attorney Jahshan to update her on Monday 21 September 2009. If the decision that will be taken will not meet the required objective, a plea in the prisoner's name will immediately be submitted to the court.

Regarding the prisoner's complaint against sexual harassment (attorney Jahshan represents her also in this matter): The prisoner says that she will continue to fight until the guard will get the punishment he deserves.

It should be noted that WOFPP is in close and continuous contact with the prisoner's family which is updated on every detail.

The minor prisoner has been held in isolation/separation for over a month and probably will have to spend the holiday of Eid-elFiter alone.

Isolation/separation is a kind of torture

Please write letters of protest to the Israel Prisons Service:

Prisons Service Commissioner
P.O. Box 81
Ramle 72100
Israel
Fax: +972-8-9193800

And to the Israeli embassy in your country.

A drawing by Nour Naser from Gaza

A child from Gaza sent us this drawing after the Israeli attack on Gaza. The barbed wire is evident in the drawing that talks of the siege on the city, and the sky is almost blocked by the Israeli planes that are raining on them lots of missiles and fire, while Palestine is bleeding exactly like the injured children who are dying. The faces of the dying children are full of sadness and sorrow, their home has been bombed, yet the Israeli soldier is still firing at them and at the ambulance that came to their rescue.
A picture or a drawing speaks better than a thousand words can.

Romi Elnagar: Art therapy enables children to deal in nonverbal ways with traumatic events in their lives.

Many who work with children who have experienced traumatic events, such as child psychologists, believe it is crucial for children to express their feelings about those events if they are to recover from their suffering.  Art is a way for children to communicate the full range of emotions, and one of the most important ways to express feelings of anger, pain and fear.  Child psychologists have found that art therapy works to enable children to show in nonverbal ways what they have experienced and to deal with traumatic events in their lives.

For example, the organization Darkness to Light, which deals with child sexual abuse, uses art therapy in its work, and says, "Anyone who has experienced psychological trauma may have difficulty expressing their experience directly or effectively in words…Art is a non-threatening way to visually communicate anything that is too painful to put into words." (1)

People working with child survivors of the horrendous civil war in Sierra Leone also used art as part of the healing process.  Children can show in pictures events that are too traumatic to be even brought to the surface of consciousness.  Often, it is only when a child begins to draw that he can even remember what he has suffered, as painful events are brought to consciousness in the pictures he makes.  Elsewhere in Africa, children's drawings of torture, rape and murder have been so detailed and so powerful that they have been used to bring a case in the International Criminal Court against janjaweed groups in Darfur.

I am more concerned, however, with helping children to deal with and overcome their terrible experiences through their art, and in particular, those children who have suffered the devastating and brutal Israeli Occupation of Palestine.

There are some organizations and individuals working on the West Bank and Gaza to help children overcome the traumas caused by seeing the helplessness of parents and caretakers in the face of vicious genocidal oppression, the hopelessness of poverty, starvation and incarceration in Gaza, which has been called the largest open-air prison on the planet and the brutality of daily beatings, violence and murder.  While art therapy cannot be expected to right these wrongs, it may help to make young victims able to achieve a humanity that their oppressors can only envy, if they were even able to comprehend it.

Giving these children in the Occupied Territories and Gaza the tools to show what they have witnessed furthermore enables adults in their lives to understand and to validate their experiences.  Artistic expression can nurture dignity and self-respect when individuals feel powerless in the face of oppression and violence.  Helping children to regain a lost sense of safety and peace is what art therapy is all about, for Palestinian children and for the young victims of war, genocide and oppression everywhere.

These are the goals of organizations like the Palestinian Child Arts Center in Hebron, and Hope and Play.org (a British organization that works with refugee children worldwide).  Another organization, the Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts in Lebanon (al-Jana)  says, "…the belief of Al-Jana [is] that the challenges that face these so called "marginalized communities" have enriched their existence and as such have contributed to a stronger sense of community building; creative problem solving; and communal initiative and resiliency. Their vibrant culture reflects this resourcefulness and deep human spirit." (2)

In Jenin, a Freedom Theater provides a refuge for children from a world of Israeli raids and harrassment.  The director of the theator, Juliano Khamis, says, "Art cannot free you from your chains, but art can generate and mobilize discourse of freedom.  Art can create debate. Art can expose."  (3)

Most of all, children's art can expose the ordeals they have suffered, and by doing so, pave the way for healing.

(1) http://www.darknesstolight.org/KnowAbout/articles_art_therapy.asp
(2) http://www.al-jana.org/thome.htm
(3) http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2008/09/20089513844349738.html

Romi Elnagar is a Palestinian Mothers’ Network Member, retired elementary schoolteacher with master's in art education

(photo by Daniela Spano "Nelle Mani di Nonna")
I woke up yesterday morning to find an email from my father, who is on a business trip in Europe at the moment, informing us that my grandmother had a stroke Sunday and passed away.

The last time I heard Bibi's voice was August 8, my wedding day. She called to congratulate us as I walked out of a salon. If there was ever such a thing as "mixed feelings", it's feeling happy to hear from your grandmother on your wedding while cursing the distance and displacement created by your homeland's turmoil. I fought off tears to avoid smudging the bridal make-up I'd just had applied.

Netherlands/ The Hague, Amira Al-Qirim, a Palestinian girl aged 15, a victim and survivor of the Israeli massacre in Gaza last January, held a press conference together with her lawyer Gilles Devers in The Hague, in front of the building of the International Criminal Court, ICC, during which she stated: “I am here to present a complaint and to hand to the office of prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo in the ICC a file requesting an investigation into the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli Zionists against the Palestinian civilians of Gaza Strip in which my father, my brother aged 14, and my sister aged 16, all civilians, were murdered by the IOF in the Tel Al-Hawa area south of Gaza City”.

Amira’s lawyer, Gilles Devers from the Court of Lyon (France) said “This was a crime against humanity, and we are here to raise the case to the International Criminal Court, against the Israeli politicians and the military leaders who must take responsibility of what they did. They murdered hundreds and injured thousands more of civilians”.

Amira herself was injured seriously, she survived and arrived in France for medical treatment.
Over the period of 27 December 2008 until the ceasefire of 18 Jan 2009, the criminal Israeli IOF deliberately dropped on Gaza more than one million and a half tons of explosives during their so-called “Operation Cast Lead”. With over 1.5 million inhabitants, Gaza is the most crowded area in the whole world. The IOF executed Palestinians in their houses in cold blood, either by shooting them directly or by launching missiles and rockets at them. The cold-blooded executions of these “prisoners of war” is clear violation to the international humanitarian treaties and conventions.

Since February 2009, the attorney general of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is making a “preliminary study” of the charges of war crimes against Israel. According to his press office, the attorney general has received more than 360 letter, petitions from persons, association of human rights, and casualties in this regard:

The Israeli military massacre in Gaza had the purpose of ethnic cleansing of the civilians and murdering politicians in Gaza. According to the former cabinet chief of Ehud Olmert,  the criminal Ehud Barak, and the chief of the Israeli intelligence, Yuval Diskin, the military Operation “Cast Lead” had the purpose of putting an end to some political activists, Palestinian resistance activists and their families as the only solution to “decrease the terror” of revenge against Israel. The war criminals stated that the murder of the families of Palestinian political activists and resistance fighters was very important for the security of Israel. By murdering their families, Israel would guarantee that no revenge would be possible in the future. Another motive for this willfully planned crime was for it to secure votes for its organizers.

During the Israeli war crime in Gaza, most of the murdered and the causalities were civilians. Israel dropped phosphor bombs on civilians, and the victims have been found to be contaminated with depleted Uranium.

Simultaneously, and in solidarity with Amira Al-Qirim, another press conference was held by children in Gaza on Tuesday September 1 2009 in the “Small Journalist Club”, during which they demanded that the International Criminal Court and peace-loving people around the world “criminalize the Israeli occupation” and its officials, and sue them before to the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes against the civilians of Gaza.

The children demanded an international intervention to lift the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip and to provide Gaza with the humanitarian supplies which can guarantee a human life for the children there, just like all other children around the world.

During the conference in Gaza, the children accused Israel of committing war crimes, genocide and of targeting the Palestinian people. The children called for international protection for them and for an end to the the violations of their rights.

During the Israeli crimes against humanity in Gaza, the so called “Operation Cast Lead”, over 1400 Palestinians were murdered and thousands more were injured, among them over 420 child who were murdered, and over 1600 more children are among the causalities.

Source: http://www.kawther.info/wpr/2009/09/01/a-palestinian-child-against-israel-at-the-icc

Back then, the Israeli military censorship in “Beit Agron”, the so-called Government Press “GPO”, currently headed by Danial Seaman, censored my report about the night of terror experienced by doctors, nurses, patients and guests during the IDF incursion to their rooms, putting their lives at big risk.

• Why did the military censorship ban my report from being published in Al-Quds newspaper in Jerusalem, where I worked as a journalist and investigator? Was it not true, or did they just not like what they read?
• Has the military censorship thought even for a while that I would keep my right to publish my report about the unwarranted IDF crime in the Augusta Victoria Hospital, even 15 years later, and that censoring is not the right way to deal with journalists?
• A copy of my report, which was censored back then, can be seen in the scan of the article, which is stamped in Hebrew by the military censor as “publication not allowed”.

After 42 years of living under the Israeli military laws,  under the unjust laws of the British mandate which ended in 1948 but still used illegally by the Israeli occupation in the occupied West Bank until today, the Palestinian publications (newspapers, magazines, publishing houses and advertising, … etc.) must present all material to Israeli military censorship 24 hours before publishing. The IDF censor is the only one who approves or disapproves the publication of an article.

Here is the report which the IDF military censorship banned from publishing back in 1994. I watched the IDF storming the hospital with my own eyes, and I was threatened with death twice by the IDF and the special forces during this crime.

An hour and half of Terror in Al-Motala Hospital.
Storming the Surgery and Maternity.
Cases of Hysteria Hit the Children as Consequence.

Jerusalem: On Saturday, July, 2 1994, I was in company of my nephew “Mahmoud”, a child of 18 months, in the Augusta Victoria hospital in Jerusalem, also known as “al-Motala” hospital. The father and mother of the child were denied entry to Jerusalem by the Israeli military, so I went with him to the hospital. I heard at 17:10 that the doors of the hospital were knocked down loudly and loudly, then I heard glass falling, scattered on the ground.

Immediately I left my nephew and rushed to the surgical ward of the hospital to find out what was happening there. I saw a group of Israeli Special Forces death squads and another group of Israeli Special Forces in uniform, numbering more than fifteen troops running around in the hospital and breaking the glass doors of the operation room with their boots. The soldiers were fixing their fingers on triggers and pointing their rifles at doctors and nurses. I saw the soldiers coming out of the operating room and entering the next doctor’s room after also breaking the door.
Dr. Alaa Ashour was in a pause room wearing pyjamas. The soldiers (IDF) asked him to prostrate himself on the ground, and one of them stepped on him with his jackboots. I saw this and immediately ran to the pediatric section to carry Mahmoud away. I told the doctor in the section what was happening elsewhere in the hospital. Before I could finish my sentence, the soldiers had entered the children’s section. I spoke English with the soldiers; I told them that they were entering the children’s ward, a place which has a special sanctity, and that they should take this into account. It is not necessary to terrify children and break the glass doors before their eyes.

The soldiers were very angry. They shouted at me in Hebrew “Shaket”, what means “shut up”, they pointed their guns toward my head and chest, and they ran around everywhere in the section, turning over the beds, throwing sheets on the floor, knocking on the doors and breaking the glass, just as if they were in a fierce battle with an enemy.

I continued repeating, “please be quiet, you are in the children’s ward”. Suddenly, one of the Special Forces who was wearing a white shirt and black trousers pointed his pistol to my head accusing me that I had cursed his father. I told him, “no, I just asked you to remain calm in this section”.

I saw how a soldier pulled a nurse by her hand and pushed her firmly back, then another soldier broke the door of the intensive care unit, and all the soldiers rushed into the room. Women started shouting and insulting the soldiers. They got out of the rooms with children with the glucose needles still hanging from their arms. The children were all crying and trembling in fear. The children continued crying even after the soldiers had left the ward.

Breaking into the Maternity Ward

The soldiers broke the door leading to the maternity unit located at end of the children’s section. They entered the department of women and ordered all the men to lie on the ground and then trampled over their heads with their boots. Among those men who were prostrated on the ground, with the military boots over his head, was a professor from Jericho.

I was shocked when I saw one of the soldiers kidnapping a newly-born infant, aged one and a half hours. He was carried by his grandmother when the soldier threw him on the ground, and then pushed the old grandmother violently and closed the door of the room.

Another soldier was molesting another woman who had given birth only hours before, he asked her many questions in English until she fell in coma. I thought that she had died, and then I ran out to the first floor. I saw over 50 IDF soldiers deployed in the hospital. I called the emergency, I also called Dr. Anis Al-Qaq, a member of the Supreme Health Council, and I asked him to inform the security information office about the horror going on in the hospital.

At the entrance to the main gate of the hospital I saw about twenty soldiers standing with the director of the hospital, Gordon David Rosenthal, after they had closed the gate. I asked them what was going on in the hospital. I told the soldiers and the director of the hospital that I was a journalist and that I had seen everything they had done in the hospital. I asked them about a clarification.

An IDF officer told me to keep silent. I said I couldn’t do that, I asked if this was the new Israeli peace which the Israeli government brought us with their Palestinian partners of the PA. The soldiers looked angry but no one said one word. I got out to the street and saw that the hospital was surrounded by an uncounted number of soldiers.

The people told me that the soldiers invaded the hospital looking for the body of a Palestinian. Others said that the Islamic Jihad had spread fliers in the hospital in which they declared their responsibility for a suicide bombing on the past 30 July 1994 near Gaza, and they took the body.

The soldiers left without finding the INVENTED BODY and after they destroyed everything their hands reached in the Hospital.

Mr. Gordon David Rosenthal, the hospital director who I interviewed after the IDF left the hospital, strongly condemned the IDF invasion and said that he would make a statement in which he would describe everything that had happened in the hospital, and that he would follow legal steps because the IDF did not clarify why they were in the hospital.

On the other hand, the President of the Lutheran Union, R. David Johnson arrived at the hospital after the IDF soldiers left. We toured the hospital wards together and listened to the testimony of doctors, nurses and patients. He described what happened in the hospital as a clear crime, and he said that he would follow legal steps against the criminal invaders.

SOURCE: http://www.kawther.info/wpr/2009/08/26/night-of-israeli-horror-in-jerusalem-hospital

High prices

Abu Hassan, an owner of a vegetable store in the corner market of Gaza City, attributes the rise in prices to the siege. "There is a rise in the prices of vegetables and fruits in this season, as a result of the Israeli siege on Gaza Strip and the high cost charged to farmers. Although it is the third time for us to spend Ramadan under siege, sales are down by 60% compared to those over the last three years."

"The market is in a recession, despite the approaching of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan," said Abu Alam, an owner of a butchers shop. "The price of meat is three times higher than the past years due to Israel not permitting it to pass through the borders."

According to Atef, a tool cleaning vendor, the high prices are from the lack of access to goods coming from the Israeli crossing points, the prohibition on what can enter, and those which come through the tunnels. Goods would not be coming through the tunnels, if Israel did not prohibit their entrance or restrict the level of foodstuff. Confounding the problem of high prices is low income. It is therefore not surprising that there is an absence of consumers. The people are suffering.

Suffering

With the suffering, many ponder how to feed their families. "We have never seen these high prices, low income and level of unemployment such as this year; we must but what is necessary and ignore everything else. It is too hard for us and we don't know how we will go on," says Abu Samir, a father of five and a grandfather of nine. Hossam, a father of three sons, wonders how he can feed his children. Parents are not the only ones suffering.

Youth also have issues that exacerbate their own suffering. Ahmed, who should be finished preparing to marry, is shocked and confused by the high the prices and low incomes. "Sometimes I regret thinking about getting married because of the situation. I don't know how people can afford their lives." The collapse of the economy is adding additional burdens to the lives of the young and old.

Economic collapse

The Gaza Strip is collapsing economically because of tightened siege. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, "the economic collapse in the Gaza Strip is as a result of the Israeli siege, which has led the unemployment rate to increase by 44% since April 2009. This is a huge increase in the percentage of poverty, with 70% of the population living in poverty and on 30 dollars a month." How could any individual live on such a small amount? How can one consider getting married or starting a family? How can one even have a future?

As Ramadan approaches, Palestinians living in Gaza will be struggling with high prices, unemployment and suffering. They will be worrying how to fed their families and survive from one day to the next.

Salem El-rayyes
PT Exclusive writer SOURCE: http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/gaza-strip/1924-ramdan-in-gaza-by-salem-el-rayyes

http://www.alhaq.org/pdfs/gaza-operation-cast-Lead-statistical-analysis%20.pdf

Al-Haq is an independent Palestinian non-governmental human rights organisation based in Ramallah, West Bank. Established in 1979 to protect and promote human rights and the rule of law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), the organisation has special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

Al-Haq documents violations of the individual and collective rights of Palestinians in the OPT, irrespective of the identity of the perpetrator, and seeks to end such breaches by way of advocacy before national and international mechanisms and by holding the violators accountable. The organisation conducts research; prepares reports, studies and interventions on breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law in the OPT; and undertakes advocacy before local, regional and international bodies. Al-Haq also cooperates with Palestinian civil society organisations and governmental institutions in order to ensure that international human rights standards are reflected in Palestinian law and policies. The organisation has a specialised international law library for the use of its staff and the local community.

(Introduction to the PDF)

On the morning of 27 December 2008, the Israeli occupying forces launched ‘Operation Cast Lead,’ a wide-ranging military offensive against the Gaza Strip. 80 warplanes carried out a devastating surprise airstrike campaign whose scale and intensity signalled Israel’s intention to inflict widespread destruction throughout the Gaza Strip.

After 22 days of unrelenting aerial attacks coupled with an intensive ground invasion that began on 3 January 2009, the death toll exceeded 1,400 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians including women and children. Over 5,000 more were wounded. Excessive civilian casualties were compounded by the unprecedented destruction of civilian infrastructure across the Gaza Strip including hospitals, schools, mosques, civilian homes, police stations and United Nations compounds.

During the offensive, Al-Haq’s fieldworkers, as well as those of its partner organisation, the Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights, collected information and evidence relating to the ongoing attack throughout the Gaza Strip. Owing to the sheer volume of incidents that occurred over the 22-day assault, Al-Haq, supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, recruited six additional temporary fieldworkers to assist its two permanent field workers in Gaza, who are supported by Diakonia. During the assault and in the months following it, the field workers set about comprehensively documenting the destruction wrought during the offensive. 30,000 copies of questionnaires were prepared in order to collect data on the damage inflicted during the attack, and the fieldworkers went from site to site meticulously documenting the details of each incident. Sworn affidavits were taken from witnesses and victims, as well as supportive visual evidence in the form of photographs and videos.

Medical reports were obtained from hospitals where relevant. Details were verified and cross-checked, and all the information was entered into a single database kept jointly with Al-Mezan.

This report presents a selection of the data collected, with tables illustrating the extent of the killing and the destruction perpetrated by the Israeli Occupying Forces during the offensive.

(Conclusion of the PDF)

On the basis of the data presented in this report, an analysis of the choice of targeted areas, methods of attack and the number of civilians killed and injured clearly indicates a reckless disregard for civilian life synonymous with intent. Further, it is clear that 'Operation Cast Lead' was not just an assault against the Palestinian population, but also against the Gaza Strip’s infrastructure and the livelihoods of its people, with factories, farms and other economic resources systematically targeted. Prima facie evidence exists of the commission of war crimes amounting to grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, most notably wilful killing of civilians, including women and children; extensive destruction of property, both residential and commercial, public and private; and wilfully causing great suffering and serious injury to body or health. This is in addition to the fact that the resort to the use of force by Israel was unlawful in the first place.

The denial of access to foreign journalists during the siege and Israel’s refusal to cooperate with various international investigation mechanisms that have been established are testament to a desire to suppress the truth and full information regarding the scale of the destruction wrought by this unprecedented attack. The figures contained in this report are intended to contribute to a growing database of documentary evidence on 'Operation Cast Lead'.

More than six months after the end of operation, the Gaza Strip remains under siege. The continued border closures by Israel and the prevention of crucial supplies from entering Gaza, ensure that the humanitarian situation remains dire.

SEE ALSO: http://www.alhaq.org/index.php

http://ingaza.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/widespread-attacks-on-gaza-leave-at-least-227-dead-hundreds-seriously-injured/

Adam, our baby, is less than two months, he’s exactly 54 days old today as he went to visit his detained uncle for the first time.

The "israeli" jail is some 40km away from our home, and the journey to it takes some 30-40 minutes in a normal country. In a normal country everything is normal but in a racist regime like in "israel", everything is hell for the "less human" native Palestinians. In a normal country the trip takes 30-40 minutes, but in a racist regime it takes more than 12 hours.

Today, my wife got up in down and prepared herself to go and meet her dad and sister in Jenin city before they go to the busses of the International Red-Cross to take them to the "israeli" jail. She went and took our baby and they all got in the busses and seemingly everything was OK.

The busses drove 20 minutes to reach the Israeli Apartheid Segregation Wall to get into the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948, ie inside the racist "israeli" regime.

When they got there, the busses were stopped and the "israeli" soldiers, or intelligence agents got into the busses scrutinizing every human and every aspect inside there, they intend to turn the visitor’s journey into hell and they always succeed.

The soldier, interrogator, security agent or who the hell he was kept searching until her reached my wife. He looked at her angrily asking of our baby: "Who’s this?"
-"It’s my baby." Replied my wife.
-"And what is he doing here?"
-"He’s my baby." Replied my wife amazed at his question.
-"You are violating the rules, he is not allowed to go in." said the soldier decisively.
-"What? He’s just a baby." Shouted my wife unbelieving what is going on.
-"He’s not allowed and you are violating the law. Next time you got to be punished."
-"What?" still unbelieving what is going on.
-"He is not a first degree relative, and not allowed to visit accordingly." Replied the soldier angrily.

And for those who don’t know the "israeli" "law", their racist law anyway, only the first degree relatives are allowed to visit the prisoner, ie his mom, dad, sisters and brothers…. And Adam, our 54 days old baby is not allowed simply because he’s just a nephew and not first degree relative…. The hell with the racist "israeli" regime’s "law"!!!

For my wife’s luck, who didn’t see her brother in jail for seven months, she had her old father with her, some 70+ years old man. Her father suggested a solution that he would return and take the baby back to his grandma until she comes back from the visit, that finally it’s been a long time she didn’t see her brother in the jail.

Yes, it was like this today, a crazy racist country called "israel" prevented our 54 days old baby from visiting his uncle, that their "law" decided it is forbidden for a nephew to see his uncle even if he was less than two months old. But my little Adam was happy to spend a joyful day with his grandma until his mom came late in the evening frustrated and exhausted of a journey that lasted more than 12 hours!!

This is the racist "Israel" that Adam must know and fight against. I will teach him to fight for his freedom and I wouldn’t mind if he loose his life for a dignified life!!! The hell with the "israeli" law, the hell with all the racist regimes.

Sami, the Bedouin.
Aug. 6th 09.
source: Uruknet http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m56774&hd=&size=1&l=e

“Lebanon’s endangered Green Sea Turtles are no less genetically imprinted by nature to return West to the Sea than her Palestinian Refugees are imprinted by justice to return south to their homes.”
Nehme Hamie, Horse Rancher near Baalbek, Bekaa Valley

It is hard to believe that it has already been three years since July 13 and 15, 2006, when American MK 82 and MK 83, 500 and 1,000 lb. bombs, and four US TOW missiles, gifted to Israel, destroyed Lebanon’s oil storage facility at Jiyeh, 30 kilometers south of Beirut.

The attack at Jiyeh was one of more than 12,000 Israeli air force bombing missions during the 33 day attack on Lebanon, as its navy fired 2,500 missiles as its Army fired over 100,000 shells. Large parts of the Lebanese civilian infrastructure were destroyed, including 400 miles of roads, 73 bridges, and dozens of other civilian targets bombed such as Beirut's Rafic Hariri Airport, ports, water and sewage treatment plants, electrical facilities, 25 fuel stations, 900 commercial structures, up to 350 schools and two hospitals. More than 15,000 homes were destroyed and an additional 130,000 damaged.

The intentional environmental disaster at Jiyeh was the worst of its kind in Lebanese history with more than 15,000 pounds of thick oil soaking Lebanon’s beaches turning some into tar pits. According to the World Bank the bombing of the oil storage tanks produced a 50,000 sq meter “carpet” of oil sunken below the sea just off the coast of Sidon which Greenpeace claims will require decades if not centuries to recover. Efforts by UN Sec.-General Ban Ki-Moon to collect close to a billion dollars from Israel to reimburse Lebanon for clean up and restoration costs remains stymied today by a US veto threat of any Security Council resolution that attempts to hold Israel responsible.

Why clean a Lebanese beach?

The Washington DC-Beirut based Sabra Shatila Foundation as well as American, European, and Lebanese co-sponsors, decided, as part of next month’s 27th Anniversary commemoration of the 1982 Massacre at Beirut’s Sabra Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp, to clean nearby Ramlet el Baida Beach and develop a continuing program to keep it clean. As one of very few free Lebanese beaches, Ramlet el Baida is used daily by Palestinian refugees, poor Syrians, Lebanese, and the nearly enslaved foreign ‘guest’ workers from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Ethiopia, Sudan, Bangladesh and other countries.
To its great credit, and in support of the Free Gaza Campaign’s (freegaza.org) efforts to break the siege of Gaza, Beirut’s Municipality agreed with SSF that Beirut’s main beach would be renamed “Free Gaza Beach” for 24 hours and that Ramlet el Baida would be forever ‘twinned’ with Palestine’s Gaza Beach.

Since the beginning of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, Beirut’s beaches suffer from an inordinate amount of trash, some quite heavy. According to two Lebanese environmental NGO’s, Cedars for Care, and Big Blue, part of the garbage is from the huge sea-edge mountain of trash 45 kilometers south in Saidon. The eastern Mediterranean coast current runs approximately south to north and so as Saidon’s trash mountain rubbish washes out to sea, which it does daily, some of it ends up on Lebanon’s northern beaches. The further north one goes along Lebanon’s beaches, the more washed up trash one observes. When Lebanon resolves to recycle Saidon Trash Mountain, her beaches will be in much better shape for all to enjoy.

Some conspiracy theorists claim, without compelling proof, that the large number of plastic hypodermic needles on Lebanese beaches are from Israel’s sea dumped medical waste and relatively large heroin drug addict population, among the highest in the world on a per capita basis, according to the World Health Organization and UNODC (UN Office of Drugs and Crime).

Beach clean-up volunteers were asked to be particularly careful of handling needles, especially with Hebrew markings, or to leave them in place and report to their “team leaders”.

Most studies of the growing drug use to Lebanon’s south indicate that drug abuse is spread among all social strata in Israel. The most abused drugs among Israel’s growing West Bank settlement population are anti-anxiety and anti-depressant ‘cocktails’ as well as cannabis, heroin and synthetic ‘downers’ with heroin becoming more prominent in recent years. In 2006 Israeli authorities again reported a rise in the consumption of cocaine and a sharp increase in the use of LSD and amphetamines. In addition, Israel authorities are concerned about the widespread abuse of tranquilizers; attributed to “the pressure of living surrounded by enemies”. The drug-related crimes are reported to represent 75% of the total crimes committed in Israel. (See Isralowitz R; Reznik A; Spear SE; Brecht ML; Rawson RA. Título: Severity of heroin use in Israel. April, 2007).

Pollution from Israel is not new in Lebanon. Southern villagers have long experienced and resisted Israeli efforts to pollute their farm lands, steal fertile top soil, steal water, sabotage Lebanese crops, weaken the economy and attempt to eliminate commercial competition and ‘put the Lebanese on a diet’ to paraphrase former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert with respect to Gaza.

On August 2, shortly after 8 am hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese volunteers assembled on “Free Gaza Beach” to fill blue trash bags of trash from the 1.5 mile beach. Hezbollah pledged to send Madhi scouts and has since offered more beach cleaning help in the future. (For more on Hezbollah’s Madhi girl guides and boy scouts, see the forthcoming volume by F. Lamb: Hezbollah: Inside Out! Chapter 14: The Madhi Scouts: “Boys and Girls from Brazil or the kids next door?)

As the sun rose rapidly from Syria to the East, temperatures quickly climbed to 35 degrees. Palestinian Refugees Camp volunteers and supporters from Hezbollah, the USA, Iran, Europe, England, Canada, and Lebanon, fanned out across the beach in teams of 15-20 each.

One precocious 12-year-old Hezbollah Girl Guide from Haret Hreik in Dahiyeh, didactically inquired of her American companion from California, “Just how people expect the tiny baby turtles who, Inshallah, will hatch next month and try to crawl to the sea to grow up, can possibly climb over all the beach garbage?”

From the, skinniest tyke, with a determination that inspired some beefy battle hardened elders, they scoured the hot sand and plucked trash.
Some participated in a discussion led by a Syrian teacher who stood in front of a display of the Lebanese, American, Iranian, Palestine, Hezbollah, and various NGO flags. They considered the question of how these flags belonged to their people and not just to their governments. And why it is quite appropriate on such an occasions to fly them next to one other, despite differences among their governments. “Flags represent people, not just governments, flying them does not mean we accept the policies or military actions of governments du jour”, the teacher advised.

The kids learned more about the environment of the Mediterranean, its fragility and the need for helping its many species in danger from man’s abuse.

As the volunteers from various confessions and countries co-mingled, some asked fellow beachcombers questions including the “why do you guys hate us?” one and the “are you guys really terrorists and Islamophobes, you seem sort of nice?” one.

These questions and many others were heard here even among adults, as more and more visiting Americans and Europeans value the chance to engage in dialogue and gain reliable information, as well as understanding and insights unavailable in many media outlets.

No help from Uncle Sam this time

The US Embassy was asked if USAID might donate water or ice cream for the kids cleaning Beirut’s beach. USAID apologized and told the Sabra Shatila Foundation representative, lovely Ms. Nancy from Cape Cod Massachusetts, that after 3 days careful study of the subject that USAID “regrettably does not have the budget to provide water (cost? maybe $50) for Palestinian and Lebanese children who will be cleaning Ramlet el Baida beach on August Second”. During a follow up call by one of the American Boy Scouts who looked forward to joining fellow scouts from Muslim Sunni Jarrah Scouts and the Muslim Shia Madhi Scouts of Hezbollah, “that ice cream is a luxury these days and not in the USAID budget. However we are able to supply an American flag for display if you would like”.

Bless its heart; the American Embassy in Beirut did indeed present a fine large American flag which flew proudly on the beach next to the flags of Hezbollah, Lebanon, Palestine, Iran, Norwegian People’s Aid, and Big Blue and Cedars for Care, Lebanese environmental groups.

As the thirsty camp kids contemplated “water, water everywhere and ne’er a drop to drink”, and trudged east to west, with the rising Lebanese morning sun on their backs, picking up trash, God shined his grace upon them and with the help of cash donations from American citizens from Florida, Washington State and New York and a Palestinian scholar in Oxford, England, 600 bottles of Lebanon’s finest ice cold pure mountain water, Sohat by name, as well as delicious Lebanese Cortina ice cream, and “Keep our Beaches Clean!” T-Shirts and Baseball caps appeared just in the nick of time.

In defense of USAID’s apparent stinginess it should be conceded that the Agency is not without its own issues. Giving anything to a Palestinian these days requires lot of analysis. One can imagine the hullabaloo in the Israeli occupied US Congress if USAID had provided water for this particular mixture of beach cleaning kids. Which member of Congress would be the first to complain of aiding potential future terrorists? A Congressional investigation might be demanded by close to 20% of its Members beefing up the AIPAC campaign to destroy President Obama’s Middle East initiatives in Palestine.

To excuse USAID further, in its 8/5/09 edition, the Washington Post suggests that decision making at “the main U.S. foreign aid agency(USAID) is in limbo, entering its seventh month without a permanent director despite pledges by the Obama administration to expand development assistance and improve its effectiveness in poor countries.

Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton have said how important helping foreign countries with environmental problems is.

“Increasingly, it's a painful contrast between their rhetoric and the reality of having no leadership at USAID”, according to Carol Lancaster, interim dean of the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, who served as deputy administrator of the aid agency under President Bill Clinton.

Lancaster claims that USAID assistance oversees doubled, to $13.2 billion in 2008 and the agency has become a conduit for money flowing to contractors, who have limited supervision from the agency.

Reverend David Beckmann, president of the aid group Bread for the World, describing the plethora of political claims attached to USAID helping grassroots projects such as beach cleaning. The development program, he said, "is a mess. In the USAID budget, every dollar has three purposes: help build an Air Force base, support the University of Mississippi, and get some country to support our projects.

According to Reverend Beckmann, “The waste of billions of U.S. reconstruction dollars in Iraq and the growing role of development in the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan have given new urgency to long-running debates about reforming the USAID system.”

Sometimes cheery in outlook, the Sabra Shatila Foundation US Embassy contact noted that “after we finish our Iraq and Afghanistan work, and depending on what happens with the US economy, we may have more funding available for projects such as Lebanon’s environment. Next time gives us more notice and we will see what we can do.” No hard feelings.
The beach project was good event. Some volunteers called or emailed the Sabra Shatila Foundation this week and reported, ”we want to do more stuff”.
Slowly, slowly maybe mutual understanding in the Middle East is deepening.
One example, perhaps unrepresentative:

Last year, a former American Ambassador, part of a delegation from a Washington DC based US delegation who had served in the region at the time of Hezbollah’s birth, explained that he had changed his views of the Party of God. “Lamb, he said, “if the average American could come here to observe what is going on in Lebanon today and the ‘human face’ of Hezbollah, I am sure 85% of them would support the Lebanese Resistance and its work.”

Another former US Ambassador recently told a gathering of Americans in Beirut, relaxing with a drink or two following a long day of briefings: “Not only is Hezbollah the most secular of the Lebanese groups in my opinion, Hezbollah is as American as Apple Pie! We are very similar in many ways how we think and analyze problems.” He continued, “Our peoples are much alike. It’s no less than a goddamned shame that our government is currently at odds because if we worked together, with Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, we could solve many Middle East problems from Iraq, Afghanistan to Palestine. We should also calm down about the Iran is seeking nuclear weapons b——-! That’s a red herring if ever I saw one! Hell I don’t claim to know what the Iranians are doing but if I was Iran facing that bunch running Israel I would sure get me a couple for self defense if I could! And while I am on this subject, when and if Iran gets a nuclear bomb, Israel is likely finished. Not because Iran will use it, but because its deterrence will stop Israel from threatening the region and you will see and international resistance bloom like Mao’s thousand flowers!”

Then the retired American Ambassador, who had served in China in the late 1970’s, downed his third scotch on the rocks and fixed his gaze on a svelt Lebanese beauty who entered the Hamra bar and smiled at him.

Fplamb is doing research in Lebanon and can be reached at fplamb@sabrashatila.org .

This ominous orientation is being constantly promoted by a number of manifestly racist cabinet ministers and Knesset members who declare openly that their aim is to make everyone in Israel “submit to the Jewish nature of the state.”

The brash racism is now permeating through the entire apparatus of the Jewish state, from the police, to the justice system, to the army, to the educational system and, of course, the media.

Last week, Israeli courts showed off their racist credentials when two Israeli settlers, a murderer and a would-be murderer were acquitted of murdering a Palestinian and seriously wounding two others.

In the first case, a West Jerusalem judge acquitted a Jewish settler named Ze’ev Braude who had shot and seriously injured two unarmed Palestinians in al-Khalil (Hebron) several months ago.

The settler was caught on video shooting at the two Palestinians who were pleading to Israeli troops to stop rampaging settlers from attacking their homes and families. The settlers were vandalizing Arab property and trying to set homes on fire in protest against the evacuation by the army of Jewish squatters who had seized an Arab building a few years earlier.

Braude’s lawyer reportedly asked for “classified information” which he said  would help clear his client of any wrongdoing.  However, instead of meeting the lawyer’s request, the attorney-general decided to drop all charges against Braude.  Thus the would-be killer, who had shot and seriously injured two innocent Palestinians,  was effectively declared innocent.

In the second case, a Jewish farmer by the name of Shai Dromi was acquitted of manslaughter by a Bir al Saba’a (Beer Shiva) court despite damning evidence indicting him.

In 2007, Dromi shot and killed a Bedouin “infiltrator,” claiming that he was trying to steal his livestock.

Racist system

One doesn’t have to be a great expert on Israel to be able to describe the Israeli justice system as inherently racist, being based on religious-ethno centricism.

Indeed, had the victims been Jewish, there is not the slightest doubt that the perpetrators would have been given harsh prison sentences, without a chance for parole for decades.

However, in a state that murders innocent children at will “for self-defense” and lies as often as it breathes, this type of justice ought to be viewed as being within the normal order of things.

Indeed, Israel itself, one might argue perfectly rightly, is a crime against humanity, having been created on the ruins of another people, the Palestinians.

Hence, it is only “natural” and “normal” that Israeli courts would deal with utmost flaccidity and utter leniency with Jewish perpetrators of crimes as long as the victim is not a member of the “holy tribe.”

This tradition goes back to the establishment of Israel more than 62 years when a given Jewish murderer of a Palestinian was fined a dime on the ground that the life of a non-Jew wasn’t worth more than a dime.

A few years ago, an Israeli soldier who was serving in southern Gaza murdered a Palestinian school child, Iman al Hums, as she was going to school.

The soldier, dubbed Captain R.  shot and seriously wounded the young girl,  and as he saw her agonize and wallow in pain, he walked toward her, empting an entire magazine of bullets into her tender body to make sure that she was dead and didn’t pose a threat to his life.

The practice is still widely practiced in the Israeli army and is known as “verifying the kill.”

The reaction of the Israeli justice system to this event was very telling, indeed.

For instead of prosecuting and punishing the murderer, the Israeli army actually awarded him thousands of dollars in damages he claimed he deserved because his reputation was tarnished by the media.

Westerners, especially North Americans, who have been consuming Zionist lies for decades may be prompted to think that the above-mentioned cases are an aberration and in no way represent Israel’s general behaviors.

However, the truth, which Israel and her supporters strive to hide from the eyes of the world, is that the Israeli justice system is inherently and profoundly racist, to put it mildly, especially when non-Jews, particularly Palestinians, are involved.

In recent years, hundreds of settler judges and others affiliated with extremist terrorist Jewish groups, such as the Kahana group, Gush Emunim and Chabad infiltrated the Israeli justice system.

These people are indoctrinated in the Nazi-like ideology that Jews are genetically and humanly superior than non-Jews and that Jewish lives are worth more than non-Jewish lives.

Hence, when a Jew and a non-Jew appear in court, the Jewish judge feels obliged to take all these considerations into account and refrain, as much as possible, from  passing stiff punishments against Jewish defendants.

This is often done by meticulously searching for or even concocting  extenuating circumstances, or by finding a procedural loophole, that would make the judge seriously reduce the proscribed punishment for the Jewish defendant or acquit him of any wrongdoing.

Israel claims to be a western country, a democracy and a state where the rule of law is upheld.

Well, this trinity of lies should be obvious for anyone who has had the opportunity to know Israel first-hand.

But, there is always a certain level of “veracity” in these claims. In Israel, the rule of law is indeed upheld just as the rule of law was also upheld in Nazi Germany.

But the question remains, what laws are exactly being upheld?

The lunatic apartheid system unleashed here over the past 127 years is producing some really weird anomalies beyond the sad story of Tqu' and villages like it.  The intensity of these anomalies have increased recently perhaps heralding in the end of the racist ideologies of chosenness (and us versus them) that manifest itself in Zionism. Weird stories are here told every day:  Ultra Orthodox Jews stoning cars in Jerusalem Saturday (hurting 4) in a rioting that will not be quelled with home demolitions or administrative detentions (let alone rubber coated steel bullets or live ammunition) that Palestinians face regularly. It will be little covered in Western media (self-censored due to Zionist sympathies).  Ultra Zionists are creating a new settlement to spite Obama and calling it, wait for this, Obama! The Israel ministry of transportation will change signs to show more "Jewish" (Hebrew) names even when written in Arabic.  Thus Nazareth (English) and An-Nasreh (Arabic) will be scrubbed for the hebrew version (Notsrim).  Ditto for AlQuds/Jerusalem which will hence be Yerushalaym (the latter is ironically stolen/distorted from the Aramaic Canaanitic name of the city Ur Salem, the house of Salem, the Canaanitic God of Peace). The Israeli foreign ministry hired legions of commentators to scour the internet and produce blogs and comment-back to make Israel look good and Palestinians bad (http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=34520  ).

Israel, which kidnapped Internationals in an act of state piracy in International waters (on their way to Gaza) gave the permission to Egypt to let the same group into Gaza (but for one day). Gaza civilians continue to die due to a siege that is a war crime and a crime against humanity yet few people in position of influence protest. It is also absurd that the Palestinian "leadership" cannot get the courage to rise above the pettiness (both between people in Fatah, and between Hamas and Fatah not to mention the self-marginalization of other groups) or to rise above the trappings of imagined "authority" while not standing with our own people (when was the last time a "leader" was arrested blocking a bulldozer or protecting a family from eviction). Meanwhile Israeli prosecutors quietly dropped a case against a settler who shot two Palestinians at point blank range because the defense threatened to demand Israeli security services expose what they consider information harmful to state security (my guess is that the information is that the defendant like other racist settlers and state security services are team).  Another court released a settler who shot a Palestinian (on Palestinian land) claiming the unarmed Palestinian "appeared threatening." The Palestinian "authority" (which has limited other authorities) banned AlJazeera television and then unbanned it (at least they respond to some pressure).  Hamas and Fatah officials continue to hold hundreds of prisoners from the opposing camps (but only one Israeli occupation soldier, in Hamas's hands).  Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation authorities continue to "harvest" "wanted" Palestinians going to extremes of joining demonstrations, helping cut apartheid fences and egging on demonstrators to use violence and then arresting those that fall into the trap (e.g. as Happened in Ni'lin last week). And the war criminal and disgraced ex-prime minister of the apartheid regime (Olmert) has the Chutzpah to write and publish a column in the Washington Post titled (this is not a joke): "How to Achieve a Lasting Peace: Stop Focusing on the Settlements".

Perhaps all this fits under the misnamed condition called the "Jerusalem syndrome".  Perhaps like the Swine flue (but far more deadly), it is becoming pandemic since it is spreading around the world.  Obama like Condy Rice before him caught it and began to wisper and wimper nonsense (Condi: we said Israel should withdraw from the cities and we mean it; Obama: We said Israel should freeze settlement activities and we mean it). We mean it by giving Israel billions of our taxes, don't you see.  The Prime minister of Canada shamelessly supports a racist entity called "Jewish National Fund" (imagine a "white national fund" that takes lands to clear them of dark-skinned people). And on and on. 

The few sane people (or at least those saner than the average person here in Apartheid land) get together and try to challenge the system (see for example: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8149464.stm
http://www.time.com/time/video/?bcpid=1485842900&bctid=9018740001 ) but it is not easy when you are swimming against the tide and is surrounded by sharks swimming the other direction, blocking it and taking bites every once in a while. Fortunately some sane people remain and more are awakened every day.  I meet such great people everyday.   I just gave a talk to group of 40 bright inquisitive young people from around the world and their understanding of the situation was amazing.   

"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness — and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling — their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them."

"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

Both quotes from Arundhati Roy

PS As several readers pointed out to me, the quote I put from Ali Hebshi was simply his retelling of a famous marxist quote but the above are definitely original Arundhati

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
A bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home
http://qumsiyeh.org

The original plan was to visit Palestine to express solidarity with Palestinians. But what ended up happening was that Palestine immersed me in solidarity to my ears. 

Aside from learning valuable lessons in the strength of the Palestinians’ resilience and dedication to freedom, which I could write an entire book about, my two trips to Palestine have convinced me that Palestinians hold extraordinary reverence for Iraq, perhaps more than Iraqis even care for ourselves.  For an Iraqi to be in Palestine truly means to love and be loved. For every single Palestinian I met, just being born in Baghdad and speaking in a functional Iraqi accent was enough for them to express humanity and generosity one encounters only in Hatem Al-Taie(1)

Karen Armstrong wrote that some people have a God-shaped hole in their conscience. An expatriate for a long time, I have an Iraq-shaped hole in mine. Every Palestinian I met seemed to feel personally responsible for filling that hole with their memories of Iraq, pointing me to graffiti of solidarity with Iraq, condemning the US occupation, refusing to accept a penny for services and goods, and suggesting that I visit the Iraqi cemetery in Jenin. The Iraqi army had defended Palestine against the invading Zionist army in 1948 and liberated Jenin, an area that witnessed another heroic battle some 54 years later during the second intifada. Jenin Refugee Camp played a key role in the Palestinian people’s resistance to their occupation and subjagation. This in turn led the Zionist occupying forces to murder and imprison scores of the Camp’s residents and demolish many of its houses.

The road to Jenin Refugee Camp that sunny morning in July 2005 was every bit as heartwarming for this perpetually homesick Iraqi as was the camp itself. I shared the taxi, called "the service", with four people and my friend from Britain, Rana. The man in the seat in front of us had worked as an engineer in Baghdad in the 1980's. During our journey to the camp, he told me about the bridges he helped build over the Tigris. Although we'd known the guy for only two hours and were most likely never going to see him again, when we arrived at our destination he paid for my and Rana's full taxi fee over our objections!

I had asked the father of my host family in Jenin Refugee Camp, whom I had met briefly on my previous Palestine trip, to direct us to a hotel. But he insisted that we stay at his house. Chatting on the roof of their house, which overlooks the entire camp, I was very surprised when he told me the first night I got there that the occupation of Iraq had caused five guys from the camp to have heart attacks! I've never even heard of any expatriate Iraqis who were that devastated over anything that has happened in Iraq since 2003 (let's not even talk about the Iraqis who celebrated the war). He introduced me to his little children and nephews and nieces, who all had the Sba’ AlFalluja (Lions of Falluja) song memorized. He said people in the area did their zaffa (wedding) to that song!

His 12 year old son told me how Jenin Refugee Camp collected a million pencils to send to Iraq during sanctions. They couldn't physically deliver them to Iraq, of course, because of the borders. The father told me how Iraq had sent trucks of supplies to Palestine that said "to our people in Palestine" instead of "to our brothers in Palestine". Those trucks were never allowed in either. However, while borders stop solidarity cargo between Iraq and Palestine, they don't stop the free flow of solidarity sentiments, as I was about to learn at the cemetery.

On my first trip to Palestine four months before that, I had visited the cemetery of Jenin's martyrs from the April 2002 incursion. I revisited the Jenin Cemetery the day before I went to the Iraqi Cemetery. Our host family’s eldest daughter, 10 years old, was our guide. Visiting the cemetery where her relatives and friends were buried seemed as normal to her as kids in other countries visiting playgrounds.

A Palestinian historian from Haifa told me there were a couple more Iraqi cemeteries in Nablus, but I didn't have a chance to see those. It is clear, though, that this one in Jenin is the best known Iraqi cemetery in Palestine (if not the best known outside Iraq generally).

My hosts suggested taking me to the Iraqi cemetery my first night in Jenin Camp (after a feast and tea with basil), and of course I jumped to the opportunity. It was dark because there were no street lights, and the gates were locked. But the flash on my camera was strong enough to show the picture I took of the sign on the door. It displayed the martyrdom verse from the Quran. Under it: “Palestine’s martyrs from the Iraqi Army in the Battle of Jenin”, then a beautiful poem about the brotherly bond that this place symbolized.

We went again the next day during the afternoon. There was a guard on duty. You don't see guards even at cemeteries in the US, so this was a sign of serious concern for the martyrs of a war that happened six decades ago. My heart always flutters when I encounter the slightest indication of my beleaguered homeland; when I see an Iraqi painting or when I overhear a child speaking Iraqi at a supermarket for instance. So I had told myself to be ready for a grand meeting with Iraq at the cemetery, but little did I know what lay ahead. When I entered the cemetery I spent a few of the most profound minutes of my entire life.

Much of Jenin Camp was flattened in April 2002. I had just seen the victims' graves for myself earlier that day. I saw maimed people. I met the mothers of martyrs. I saw the "football field" that a belligerent drunk Zionist soldier decided to make, and went on a demolition rampage in his bulldozer. But Jenin somehow managed to display very high esteem towards the Iraqi martyrs. In spite of their dire economic situation and the devastation of their lives and livelihoods under Zionist occupation, Palestinians have flooded the graves of the Iraqi martyrs of 1948 near Qabatiya/Jenin with flowers and wreaths. The cemetery is protected by a wall, and is very well taken care of. You'd think a Palestinian royal dynasty was buried here. Such courtesy and generosity from people who have been robbed of everything. The Iraqi soldiers are held in such high reverence, as if 1948 occurred just yesterday.

For the first time ever, I was in a place where Iraqis were buried. I've never been to Iraq. So my connection to Iraq has always been abstract. There was never anything tangible or concrete between Iraq and me. To enter the space of a large number of dead Iraqis was overwhelming. I'd been disconnected all my life from the heroisms that my homeland has produced, and I've regretted not being there for Iraq during its anti-occupation protests. Iraq was always accessible to me only as images on a TV or computer screen, news headlines, ink on paper, words of solidarity from activists, memories buried deep in my parents' conscience. But Iraq suddenly manifested itself to me as I stood in Jenin where my fellow Iraqis had once roamed.

My fellow Iraqis' bodies were beneath this soil. Their spirits were present, stroking Jenin's blossoms and living on in its people's fond memories. The Iraqi cemetery near Qabatiya captures a memorable moment in history. Here, time has frozen to preserve a shrine for the call of duty that these Iraqi soldiers heeded. Here, time embodies the warm, sincere emotions that Palestinians selflessly hold towards Iraq, which is a lesson in humanity in itself. How a people, in spite of 60 years of brutal Zionist occupation, can afford the emotional and material capacity to care so genuinely for another people attests to the steadfastness of the Palestinian spirit and the selflessness of the Palestinian character. Khalil Gibran's words from The Prophet are a proper description for the special interaction between time, duty, solidarity, love and transcendence of geographical boundaries here in the Iraqi cemetery:

That which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space. Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless? And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the center of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds? And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless? But if you thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons, and let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

Moments within walking into the cemetery, when its deep significance struck me, a profound sadness engulfed me. I, usually talkative, became silent. This Iraqi flag and these Iraqi graves for people who were killed by foreign Zionist aggression in 1948 probably resemble the graves where Iraq's victims of today's foreign American aggression are buried in Baghdad and elsewhere. My host family's kids, who are far more mature than their age, must've noticed a sad expression on my face, and they walked to the opposite corner of the cemetery to give me some space. Rana asked if I was ok, and I nodded without saying a word, fearing that the tears I'd been holding back might start flowing if I spoke.

I suddenly forgot everything outside these walls that usually consumes every waking and sleeping moment. The US occupation of Iraq, the Zionist occupation of Palestine, my work in Ramallah, my family, my friends; all these thoughts ceased. The cemetery engulfed every iota of my existence.

This piece of Palestinian land was much more than soil under which fighters from my homeland were buried. I'd mentioned to my hosts from Jenin Refugee Camp that I'd never been to Iraq and they understood that my lifelong dream has been to go home. I finally understood why they really wanted me to see the Iraqi cemetery. They were exceptionally generous towards me and Rana, both emotionally and materially, but this was their ultimate expression of hospitality; they were placing me in Iraq. They were giving me, a lifelong expatriate, a strip of my homeland. Such a thoughtful gift, indeed an oasis for a lifelong desert dweller, was more precious than I can ever hope to pay back.  

The closest I had ever physically been to Iraq before that was on a highway in Jordan when I was 14 years old. I saw a road sign that pointed to "Iraq", so I rolled down the car window and took a deep breath, hoping I was filling my lungs with an Iraqi breeze that escaped the Iraqi border. But here in the cemetery, for the first time in my life, I finally felt home thanks to my hosts' thoughtfulness. For giving me these few minutes in my homeland, Jenin has my eternal gratitude.

Probably noticing that I was so stunned, the father of my host family gently woke me from my bittersweet stupor by asking if I wanted to take any pictures. So I approached the tombstones and read the names on them. Many were "unknown".

Some tombstones had very Iraqi-sounding names like Kathim, Hussain, Abbas, Khthayir, which are commonly used by Iraqi Shiis. These engraved names are gems from an era when imaginary sectarian divisions didn't stop Iraqi Arab Shiis from fighting and dying alongside Palestinian Arab Sunnis.

While the cemetery of Jenin's martyrs in the April 2002 assault had shrubs and bushes, here in the Iraqi cemetery fully grown trees stood tall. Many years from now, when Palestinians visit the graves of the Palestinian brothers who defended Iraq in 2003 against US aggression, they'll notice tall palm trees casting shade and chronicling the passage of time.

I saw the seal of the Iraqi state engraved on a tombstone. My country's seal, my people's tombstones, my Iraq right here. As burdened as I felt by the heavy hand of death, Iraq’s motherly presence quenched my yearning for my homeland.

My host family told me there used to be an Iraqi tank from the 1948 war parked outside the cemetery. It sat there for nearly 60 years, but the Zionists removed it very recently. If I live long enough to see liberation in my lifetime, and after we reclaim our self-determination, our oil, our children's happiness, our infrastructure, our looted art, maybe we can reclaim this tank as a souvenir of intra-Arab solidarity.

The cemetery was a microcosm of Iraq and probably a window on my own future. Will it feel like this when I finally go home? Is this a small scale of how conflicted I will feel when I see Baghdad? Torn at the sight of its bombarded streets and oppressed population, but at the same time relieved to finally thrust myself into the embrace of my hometown?

On the 15^th of July 2005, an Iraqi stood in the Iraqi cemetery in Jenin despite the overwhelming odds of the Zionist occupation, the barbed wire, the checkpoints, the barriers and numerous other obstacles. As if that wasn’t touching enough, my hosts later said I was the first Iraqi to walk there since 1948. Since that day, I've asked myself what good deeds I must've done in my life to deserve this privilege. Unable to think of any, I can only perceive this visit as a footnote in the long narrative of the Arab struggle, a testimony that our superpower oppressors and their lethal weapons will never stand in the way of our compassion with each other. 

The release of the report came just days after an article was published in The Independent newspaper reporting the testimonies of two Israeli soldiers which detail the deliberate abuse of Palestinian children. One soldier is reported as saying that in an incident that occurred in a Palestinian village in March, he saw a lot of soldiers 'just knee (Palestinians) because it's boring, because you stand there for 10 hours, you're not doing anything, so they beat people up.'

The report published contains the testimonies of 33 children, one as young as 10 years old, who bear witness to the abuse they received at the hands of soldiers from the moment of arrest through to an often violent interrogation.

Most of these children were arrested from villages near the Wall and illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. There is evidence that many children are painfully shackled for hours on end, kicked, beaten and threatened, some with death, until they provide confessions, some written in Hebrew, a language they do not speak or understand.

Following are some excerpts from this chill-shocking report. It is a must-read report and worth saving for your reference in the future. It can be downloaded from here and here (both PDF format):

Executive summary

The Israeli military court system in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has operated for over 42 years almost devoid of international scrutiny. Each year an average of 9,000 Palestinians are prosecuted in two Israeli military courts operating in the West Bank, including 700 children.

From the moment of arrest, Palestinian children encounter ill-treatment and in some cases torture, at the hands of Israeli soldiers, policemen and interrogators. Children are commonly arrested from the family home in the hours before dawn by heavily armed soldiers. The child is painfully bound, blindfolded and bundled into the back of a military vehicle without any indication as to why or where the child is being taken. [...] Most children confess and some are forced to sign confessions written in Hebrew, a language they do not comprehend. These interrogations are not video recorded as is required under Israeli domestic law.

Children as young as 12 years are prosecuted in the Israeli military courts and are treated as adults as soon as they turn 16 [...] In 91% of all cases involving Palestinian children, bail was denied. [...] With no faith in the system and the potential for harsh sentences, approximately 95% of cases end in the child pleading guilty, whether the ofence was committed or not. [...] Many children receive no family visits whilst in prison and limited education [...]

Some examples of torture

What amounts to torture or ill-treatment will depend on the circumstances of each individual case. However, it is useful to list some of the types of circumstances that have been held to amount to torture and ill-treatment by the Committee as a general guidance:

- Restraining in very painful conditions;
- Hooding under special conditions;
- Playing loud music for prolonged periods of time;
- Threats, including death threats;
- Violent shaking;
- Kicking, punching and beating with implements;
- Using cold air to chill;
- Excessive use of force by law enforcement personnel and the military;
- Incommunicado detention (detention without access to a lawyer, doctor or the ability to communicate with family members);
- Solitary confnement;
- Sensorial deprivation and almost total prohibition of communication;
- Poor conditions of detention, including failure to provide food, water, heating in winter, proper washing facilities, overcrowding, lack of amenities, poor hygiene facilities, limited clothing and medical care.

The above list is by no means exhaustive and in every case, the particular vulnerability of the victim, such as his or her young age or medical condition should be taken into consideration.

Case Study No. 15

Name: Islam M.
Date of arrest: 31 December 2008
Age at arrest: 12
Accusation: Throwing stones

On 31 December 2008, 12-year-old Islam from a village near the West Bank city of Nablus, was out hunting birds in an olive grove when he and his friends were arrested by Israeli soldiers and accused of throwing stones. The olive grove was located about 500 metres from an Israeli settler bypass road.

At around 4:00pm we decided to go home. We collected the nets. Our houses are about one kilometre away. After walking 20 metres we heard a gun shot from the bypass road. We began walking faster towards our houses in the opposite direction to the bypass road. When we reached the edge of the village, we were surprised to see Israeli soldiers, about 10 to 20 metres behind us, with their guns pointed at us. They were shouting at us to stop in Hebrew. We stopped where we were. [...] One of them approached me and grabbed my hand. Another soldier grabbed Hasan's hand. They then tied our hands together with the same plastic cord. They tied my right hand to Hasan's left hand. The soldiers then pushed us and forced us to walk towards our house. The soldiers did not tell me why they were arresting me [...] When we reached the jeep, the soldiers blindfolded me and Hasan with a piece of cloth that the soldiers had. They pushed me inside the jeep. I fell on the ground. I was seated on the floor of the jeep. I lifted the blindfold using my untied left hand and looked around. I saw six soldiers inside the jeep, sitting on seats. Hasan and I were seated between their legs.

Twelve-year-old Islam was arrested by Israeli soldiers while out hunting birds. He was transferred to an Israeli military base for interrogation. Ten minutes later a soldier asked me [...] whether I threw stones at the soldiers. Three minutes later a captain called Hasan, wearing a military uniform, came to us … He took me to a pine tree and made me sit on the ground. 'Have you seen kids throwing stones at the soldiers?' he asked. 'Yes,' I answered. 'Do you know them?' He asked. 'No,' I said. He threatened to pour hot water on my face. 'I don't know who threw stones,' I said. Five minutes later he took me to a place full of thorny bushes. He ordered me to sit in the bushes. I refused. He pushed me and I fell in the bushes. That really hurt me. They placed me inside a jeep [...] Captain Hasan approached me and asked me to confess to throwing stones. I refused. 'We'll put you in jail, patriotic boy' he said. [...] A policeman in blue uniform came and took me to interrogation. I was still tied and blindfolded, but managed to see things from beneath the blindfold. In the interrogation room, there was one policeman with a solider sitting next to him. 'You threw stones. You were photographed while throwing stones' the policeman said. I denied it [...] I asked the soldiers for food. They brought me an apple, one half rotten. I ate the good half and gave the rotten half back to the soldier [...] They seated me on a chair for about five hours without asking me anything.

A policeman in blue uniform came and took me to an office. He allowed me to watch a DVD that had children throwing stones at soldiers. 'See yourself throwing stones?' He said. I did not see myself because I had not thrown stones. He then took me out of the room. I was kept alone, tied and blindfolded, sitting on the ground for three hours. (2 February 2009)

Islam was charged with throwing stones and fned NIS 1,000 (US$ 250) by a military court after entering into a plea bargain. He spent three days in detention in Ofer.

Case Study No. 22

Name: Afaf B.
Date of arrest: 5 February 2008
Age at arrest: 16
Accusation: Contact with a wanted person and the intention to carry out a suicide bombing

On 5 February 2008, Afaf and her father voluntarily went to the Israeli intelligence headquarters at Ras al-Amoud, Jerusalem, after being ordered to attend. Afaf was immediately taken for interrogation where she was accused of having contact with a wanted person and intending to carry out a suicide bombing. Afaf's father was not permitted to remain with her during interrogation. Afaf was then interrogated for 59 consecutive days and then sentenced to 16 months imprisonment inside Israel.

The interrogator began asking me general questions about myself and how I was doing. I asked him to stop asking such questions and get straight to the reason why they brought me here. He said that I had committed some security ofences [...] he then asked me about a young man called Murad … I agreed that I had never seen Murad but I used to talk to him on the phone [...] The interrogator did not charge me directly with any wrongdoing, and he did not accuse me of a specifc accusation. He only said that I had committed some security ofences without giving any further details [...] An hour later, the interrogator came back to the room and told me I was under arrest and that they would transfer me to Al Mascobiyya Interrogation and Detention Centre in Jerusalem. [...]

Two interrogators named Arsan and David were already in the room. They had a typed paper written in Hebrew. They told me that this paper was sent via fax from the same interrogator who interrogated me earlier in Ras al-Amoud, and that I had confessed to doing many things. I told them that what was in the paper was a lie and that I did not confess to anything and no specifc accusation was made against me. They said that the paper says that I knew a young man named Murad and I knew that he was wanted by the intelligence … This interrogation lasted until midnight. [...] In the morning of 6 February 2008, they came and took me to Jerusalem's Magistrate's Court. My hands and feet were tied. A lawyer hired by the State was waiting for me, but none of my family was there [...] In the court, the prosecution asked for my detention to be extended for 10 days, relying on a secret file submitted to the judge. My lawyer objected and asked for my immediate release. However, the judge decided to extend my detention [...]

Israeli Military Court

My interrogation lasted for several hours for 59 consecutive days. In one of the interrogation rounds, a tall interrogator told me that I should confess that I had asked Murad to help me carry out a suicide bombing. I denied that of course, and he slapped me so hard that I fell over to the ground and my mouth began bleeding.

On the seventh day of my arrest [...] the interrogator told me that Murad had been arrested, and he had interrogated him. He added that Murad confessed that I asked him to help me to carry out a suicide bombing. [...] After 10 days of interrogation [...] I came back from the court and I was put in a room inside the Centre with another detainee named Nisreen Z. She was detained on a theft case. On the same day I had a stomach ache. Nisreen handed me a white pill, which turned out later to be a narcotic pill. I fainted for some time. When I woke up, Nisreen told me that I had said many things and confessed to many things and that it was recorded. I was then removed from the room and taken to the interrogation room. The tall interrogator asked me to confess to everything but I refused [...] the interrogator played the recording. I heard myself speaking with Nisreen who was asking me many questions about Murad and carrying out a suicide bombing, and I would answer her 'yes' without giving further details [...] I did not sign any confession papers. (23 December 2008)

Afaf was charged with contact with a wanted person and the intention to carry out a suicide bombing. She was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment by a military court after entering into a plea bargain. She is currently detained in Telmond Prison inside Israel. Afaf was released on 7 May 2009.

Case Study No. 33

Name: Ezzat H.
Date of arrest: 11 June 2008
Age at arrest: 10
Accusation: None

On 11 June 2008, Israeli soldiers stormed Ezzat's family's shop in a village near the West Bank town of Qalqiliya, situated near the Wall. The soldiers said that they were looking for a hand gun.

At around 10:30am, I was sitting in my father's shop selling animal feed and eggs. I was wearing a red T-shirt and blue jeans. My brother Makkawi (7) and sister Lara (8) were sitting with me [...] I was surprised by the arrival of two Israeli soldiers to the shop. One of them had dark skin, wearing khaki jeans and a black T-shirt with a blue vest on top. The other one was in green clothes. Both of them were wearing helmets and carrying black weapons. The soldier with the black T-shirt was carrying a pistol around his chest in addition to the assault rife.

They suddenly walked into the shop. Once they entered the shop, the soldier with the black T-shirt began shouting at me, telling me: 'your father has sent us to you and we want the pistol your father has.' I became terrifed and said: 'my father has nothing. He doesn't own such things.' He slapped me hard across my right cheek and he slapped my brother on the face too. He then asked my siblings to get out of the shop. He asked me all over again and I told him we had nothing. He asked me to get out the pistol from the animal feed sacks. I answered him we had no pistol. He slapped me again and this time it was on my left cheek. [...]

A group of locals gathered around the store and some of them tried to enter and help me, but the soldier standing by the door prevented them from doing so. When the other soldier did not find anything, he asked me again to tell him where the pistol was. When I answered him back saying: 'we don't have anything' he punched me hard in my stomach and I fell over onto the empty egg boxes. I was crying and screaming because I could not stand the pain and I was terrified too.

The soldier with the black T-shirt made fun of me and imitated my crying. He spoke very fluent Arabic. He kept me inside the shop for 15 minutes. He then grabbed me by my T-shirt and dragged me out of the shop. I asked him to let me close the shop but he said leave it open so that it would be robbed. Some of my friends who were at the scene closed the shop.

When he dragged me out of the shop, he ordered me to walk in the street in front of him. He and the other soldier, who was pointing his weapon at me, walked behind me, and some people gathered around. While walking, the soldier in the black T-shirt would slap me hard on my neck now and then … I was slapped three to four times on my nape while walking towards the house. When we reached the house, 100 meters away, I saw many soldiers around the house and a number of dark green military vehicles. The word 'Police' was written on an olive coloured jeep. When I entered the house [...] the soldier with the black T-shirt made me stand in the yard and asked me to get the pistol out of the flower basin. When I was about to answer him and say we had no pistol, he slapped me so hard that I fell down on my face in the fower basin. [...]

My father was standing by the door of the guest room, where my family was held. The soldier slapped me on my nape in front of my father and I fell to the ground. He slapped me again on my nape and I fell to the ground after I stood up. All of this was in front of my father. He then lifted me in the air after he grabbed my T-shirt. He told my father that he was going to take me to prison [...] He threatened to arrest my older sister who was 19 years old [...] he then pushed me into the guest room where my mother and siblings were held. My mother was crying. When she saw me crying, she asked me why and I told her that I had been hit. She asked them to leave me alone and hit her instead. They told her that they would take me to prison. [...] The soldier with the black T-shirt took me to the bedroom and slapped me at the door. He then brought my older sister to search and interrogate her while forcing me to stand by the kitchen door. They then moved me to another bedroom.

Torturing Ezzat H

While passing me, the soldier with the black T-shirt slapped me so hard on my face that I fell on the ground. He asked me to stay there in the room. He would go for five minutes and then come back to slap me on the face, and punch me several times in my stomach. I would shout and burst into tears. He would imitate me and make fun of me. He continued coming to the room around six times where he would hit me and slap me. [...] I spent about one hour in the room all alone with the soldiers. During this hour, the soldier with the black T-shirt ordered me to stand on one foot and lift my hands up in the air with my back against the wall. This lasted for about half an hour. I was exhausted but I did not dare to put my foot on the ground because he ordered me not to. [...] The soldier with the black T-shirt [...] then brought my older sister and asked me whether I cared about her or not. I said: 'yes I do.' He then asked me to tell him where the pistol was and he would not tell my father. I said we did not have a pistol, so he took my sister out, and then came back and hit me all over my body. He left the room and after a while he came back and ofered me 10 Shekels if I would tell him where the pistol was. I told him I did not care about money. He really became so angry that he took of his helmet and hit me with it from two metres away. He asked me to bring him the helmet and when I did, he threw it again at me, but this time he missed. He again asked me to bring him the helmet but this time he did not hit me with it. Instead, he left the room for five minutes and came back and slapped me on the face and stomach without asking me anything. Once again he left the room and was gone for a while, and I was all alone in the room. He then came back and asked me about the pistol and I answered that we did not have any pistol. He slapped me twice on my face and pushed me back. He then left the room for a while and came back to repeat it all over again. [...]

Afterwards, a soldier wearing black sunglasses came into the room where I was held and pointed his rife at me. The rife barrel was a few centimeters away from my face. I was so terrified that I started to shiver. He made fun of me and said: 'shivering? Tell me where the pistol is before I shoot you.' I replied by saying that we had nothing. He lowered his rife and took out the bullets [...] (21 June 2008)

After initially wishing to file a complaint against the soldiers involved, Ezzat's father changed his mind for fear of retaliation.

Since DCI-Palestine last published a report on Palestinian child detainees (April 2008), the practice of ill-treatment and torture has continued unabated. During the course of the reporting period DCI-Palestine continued to receive numerous testimonies from Palestinian children speaking of their ill-treatment and torture at the hands of Israeli soldiers, policemen and security operatives. This abuse occurs from the moment of arrest, and continues during transfer, interrogation and detention. The ill-treatment documented by DCI-Palestine appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalised, suggesting complicity at all levels of the political and military chain of command. This abusive system operates with the knowledge and assistance of some doctors, and is overseen by a military court system that ignores basic principles of juvenile justice and fair trial rights, whilst willfully turning a blind eye to the presentation in court of one coerced confession after another. This system imposed by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory operates beyond international legal norms and within a general culture of impunity.DCI-Palestine continues in its eforts to bring this situation to the attention of the international community which is itself bound by a number of legal obligations to ensure that these violations are fully investigated, and where appropriate, prosecuted and that such conduct is not rewarded.

Without some measure of accountability, it is unlikely that the situation endured by Palestinian children described in the pages above, will improve.

* Defence for Children International – Palestine Section (DCI-Palestine) is a national section of the international non-governmental child rights organisation and movement, Defence for Children International (DCI), established in 1979, with consultative status with ECOSOC. DCI-Palestine was established in 1992, and is dedicated to promoting and protecting the rights of Palestinian children in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), as well as other international, regional and local standards. As part of its ongoing work to uphold the rights of Palestinian children, DCI-Palestine provides free legal assistance, collects evidence, researches and drafts reports and conducts general advocacy targeting various duty bearers.

The concrete and ambitious project we are proposing to everyone who shares our spirit is to take part in a work brigade in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh in the south of Lebanon. Ein el-Hilweh is a real ghetto where the almost 100.000 Palestinians have been living for generations in a terrible situation.

We have engaged with our partners of Nashet, a youth association composed of both Palestinians living in the camp and Lebanese, in a wide task aimed at improving the condition of young people and families of the camp by means of a drop-out recovery program (school dropout is a dramatic problem in the camp) and professional education.

The first step requires the renovation of a building inside the camp – a building formerly used as an office by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and half-destroyed by Israeli rockets – to turn it into a place suited for the activities planned in the project.

Our role in this phase will be to help the renovation works by finding funds, but above all by the labour of our own hands. The latter activity has both a concrete and symbolical implication for us because we want to establish human relationships rather than bureaucratic nets.

In order to emphasize this aspect, the volunteers will be hosted by families of the camp, while meetings and other initiatives will be organized to get them in touch with the culture and society of the camp and the daily problems of its populace.

The work brigade will operate from August 19th to September 3rd. The final program will be released in some weeks but a first draft of the work brigade plan can be found here. If you wish to have a general idea of the place in which the Sumud work brigade will operate, you can glance at some of the pictures taken by our delegation and collected in this photo gallery.

Restoring the building presumes finding funds (€25.000). Sumud isn't an ONG, it isn't subsidized by state governments or by European Union or UNO. The money that will be used to erect the building destined for the political and cultural activities of Ein el-Hilweh Youth will be clean, they will not come from the same institutions that support or back aggression towards the Palestinian people. We will be able to reach the needed amount of money only if many people participate.

The costs of the airplane tickets are to be met by the volunteers, as are those of the stay (200-300€) which cannot be afforded by the very poor guest families.

All this has been discussed in detail and finally approved by the first assembly of SUMUD, held in Florence (Italy), on June 6th, 2009.
 www.antiimperialista.org/content/view/6163/50/
The directive committee of SUMUD
www.sumud.org/EN_index.htm

http://www.sumud.org/missioni-2009-foto.htm

Today, 61 years after the Nakba of 1948 and despite the on-going Zionist terror and ethnic cleansing, we are still here and we have not forgotten, nor will we ever. In 1948/49, accompanied by looting, pillage and plunder, 418 Palestinian localities, including towns, villages and tribes, were destroyed by Zionist terror groups, the predecessors of the IOF. A study by researcher Salman Abu Sitta lists 531 destroyed localities and 11 emptied urban neighbourhoods. (2) Many villages were completely erased off the face of the earth, while others stand in ruins today. The inhabitants of these villages were faced with massacres and forced expulsion, and Palestinian houses, belongings and lands were usurped. 70 massacres left 15,000 Palestinians dead and up to 850,000 Palestinians were made refugees. (3) The Zionists did not spare those living peacefully on their lands nor the dead lying peacefully under their lands. Graves were desecrated, dug and destroyed. Knowing they were stealing something that didn’t belong to them, and as if fearing that even the dead would wake up one day and demand justice and their homes back, they wanted to erase every trace of its real owners, including the graves. Palestinian towns and villages were given Jewish names to hide their Palestinian origin, new Zionist colonies were built on the ruins of many of them and resettled by Zionists coming from Europe and elsewhere and who had no right to Palestine and its lands. Addressing the Technion in Haifa in 1969, Moshe Dayan said: “Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population”. (4)  Israelis and others, using Sderot as an excuse for Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, should remember where it stands, on the ruins of which Palestinian town, on the ruins of whose houses. Sderot was built on the remains of the Palestinian village Najd, which like other villages was ethnically cleansed before being erased from today’s world map. A map created by a biased world, which even after 61 years of on-going ethnic cleansing could not bring itself to shed its bias and take action. But these villages still stand in our maps because we didn’t forget. 

The original residents of these and other Palestinian towns and villages and their descendants, ethnically cleansed from their homes, are scattered all over the world. Today, there are over 7 million displaced Palestinian, constituting the world’s largest displaced population. On the 60th Anniversary of the Nakba, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) issued a special report stating that Palestinians worldwide have multiplied 7.5 timers since the Nakba of 1948. While there were 1.4 Million Palestinians in Palestine in 1948, there were some 10.6 million Palestinians worldwide in 2008, half of which are refugees. 3.76 Million Palestinians live in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, 44.6% of whom are refugees. (5) One of my favourite songs as a child was a song aired on the Syrian TV. Little children singing: “my country is very beautiful” while painting and playing with small toy houses. The song goes on: “Do you know what happened? In 1948 they took everything. They burned the room, and they broke down the houses. They uprooted the forests and erased the whole village, and they changed the names.” The children then gather the destroyed houses and tree figures and place them in boxes and sing that the chests have remained in their hearts, with them grandmother’s tales, mother’s tales, grandfather’s proverbs and father’s bequests. The song ends with “My country is still beautiful, my country is called Palestine.” And then, one child after the other says his/her name and where they come from. It is clear that these are Palestinian children living in refugee camps either in Syria or Lebanon, but even the smallest of them knows that she comes from a small village in Palestine (6). As in the song, Palestinians worldwide carry the “chests from Palestine” in their hearts and with them their national and cultural identity as Palestinians. This is not exclusive to Diaspora Palestinians. My cousins in Dheisheh Refugee camp, their friends and other kids from the refugee camp know how it feels to be at home and not yet at home. Although they live in Palestine, they are not in their original villages. When asked where they come from, they would say: from Jrash, from Zakariya, from Dayr Aban, etc…. Their answer would be full of confidence and pride, and would come quick and natural, because there was nothing there to think about: “My home is Jrash, I am here on a temporary basis.” Not only do they know that these villages are their one and only home, these villages are part of what they are: in addition to the family name Ramadan or Salem, today they are also known as Jrashi (from Jrash) or Derabany (from Dayr Aban) or ‘Ajjuri (from ‘Ajjur). 

The Zionists see themselves as the ultimate victims. They refuse to accept any comparison between the Holocaust and any other human catastrophe. They insist that their suffering is the ultimate suffering, as if suffering can be measured by the kilo or the litre. Every cry of a child, every agony, every death counts, and is a human suffering. And if they measure their “ultimate suffering” with the atrocities committed by the Nazis, then they better look closely at their own state and their own deeds, for there is only one reflection to see. What they are, other than the “ultimate murderers” and “the ultimate racists”, are the ultimate thieves, and Zionism not only incorporates terror but the ultimate theft. They not only stole another peoples’ land, they are stealing their culture as well. For even with a land, you can’t have a nation without a culture that reflects and represents this nation and binds all its members together. And since they stole the land, and since they come from all parts of the world except that part they stole, the culture of that land is necessary to give the thieves some kind of “right” or “legitimacy” to the land. There is no surprise there: for one thing; if you steal the land, why not also all that comes with it? For another: no wonder with all those illegal settlers and “immigrants” gathered from all over the world trying to establish some sort of “nation”. Some 10 years ago, during my first trip to Amsterdam, I remember friends and I stopped at a small kiosk and bought Falafel Sandwiches. That was during my first trip outside Palestine and I was still naive, believing European countries were at the least “neutral” and not biased in favour of Israel like the US. At least, that was what the Israeli government was always complaining about. I later understood this complaining to be yet another of Israel’s PR gags, a manoeuvre to blackmail Europe to yet more bias. European countries seem pleased with this, since on the one hand they and Israel know exactly well that these countries are in no way neutral. On the other hand, they can continue deceiving the Arabs and the Palestinians and creating this image of a neutral Europe, who has both sides’ interest at heart. During every visit to Palestine since then, I was often confronted with people asking me about Europeans: it must be great living there, especially that they support us and so on. Sometimes I tell those asking the truth: that they see these international activists and think that all Europeans are alike. That many Europeans don’t give a damn one way or the other, and that if it were up to them, they would sink both of us in the deepest ocean. The only thing preventing many of them from saying that out loud is the threat of “anti-Semitism” when to comes to talking about Israelis. When it comes to talking about Palestinians, Europeans can be as racist or as brainwashed as they want thanks to the one-sided “freedom of speech”. And thanks to the biased media or the biased governments, many are brainwashed. The activists who choose to come to Palestine do this because they choose to investigate and search and find out about the truth for themselves, they realize that there must be something amiss with the general presentation of the conflict: i.e., the Palestinians are always the bad guys and the Israelis always the victims. More than once I heard from such activists that the reason behind their investigating the truth about the conflict was the way it was presented in their media and what they were told by their governments, and that no clear mind would accept the concept of a people that has no goal in life other than to destroy another nation and for no reason at all. Why would the Palestinians “hate” the Israelis so much? And then the important question: what have the Israelis done to the Palestinians to deserve their “hate”? Those with a still-functioning brain would come to the conclusion that there is something wrong with the media presentation of the conflict and that the Israelis must have done, or are still doing, something really bad, namely the on-going ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the brutal military occupation. But often, when asked about Europeans, I just nod and say: yes, they are good. I know how disappointed I was when I came to Europe and slowly discovered the lies. I remember how many times, after the IOF killed children or unarmed demonstrators or after massacres, how many of us said: This news would reach Europe today and they will support us to end this brutal occupation. Little did we know. 

Returning to the Falafel shop, I was pleased to find Falafel in Amsterdam and to see that so many people stood in line in front of that tiny kiosk to buy a sandwich. It was years later that, during one conversation, I realized that that kiosk owner was actually an Israeli. It made me angry. The truth is, I wouldn’t have minded if it was a Dutch, a German or any other nationality selling Falafel, but it upset me that an Israeli was selling Falafel. For one very simple reason: the Dutch, the German or the American would never claim that Falafel is a Dutch, German or American national food. They would be just another person selling something, like a Dutch selling Pizza. He would never claim the Pizza to be a national Dutch dish. But with the Israelis selling Falafel is another thing: they claim that Falafel and other Palestinian and Arab dishes are their national dishes, which is yet another theft. In Europe and the US many conceive not only Falafel, but Hummus as well, as Israeli traditional dishes. In these countries, Msakhan, Maqluba, Mansaf, Manaqeesh Za’tar are unknown and are being marketed as Israeli. The Israeli government, assisted by the media in these countries, established this idea through campaigns, ads, etc. Last August, the Israeli foreign ministry started yet another campaign, this time in Vienna, to introduce Israel to the Austrian public. Entitles “Israel – love from second sight”, the campaign aimed at promoting Israeli “culture” inside Austrian trams. Using the newest media technologies, info about Israel, Israeli sights, sounds and tastes were presented, and the trams were decorated with posters of Falafel, Humus, Maftoul and other Palestinians and Arabic dishes depicted as Israeli.  (7)Lebanon is suing Israel for exporting Hummus, Falafel, Tabuleh, Fatush, Baba Ghanuj and other dishes as its own dishes. Greece on the other hand had already won a case against Israel and other European countries for exporting “Feta” cheese as Israeli product. 

To steal the cultural identity of another nation is not limited to its national dishes. The cultural heritage of a nation distinguishes one nation from another and is transferred from one generation to the next. It is the identity of that nation, and includes traditional costumes, dance, music, literature, sculptures and handicrafts such as embroidery, weaving, pottery, glass-making, olive-wood and mother of pearl carvings and soap-making. Embroidery is an integral part of the Palestinian cultural identity, part of our cultural heritage. The Palestinian traditional dress “Thob” is part of the family heirloom, handed down from mother to daughter. Every region in Palestine has its own stitch form, its own symbols and motifs and its own colours. The symbols usually depict some feature of the region, its heritage and beliefs. According to Maha Sacca of the Palestinian Heritage Centre, the red colour prevails in Palestinian dresses, for example the red wine colour for the Ramallah dress, and the orange red for Beer Sabi’ (Beersheba). The Beer Sabi’ dress has cypress and palm trees as symbols and changes colour according to the status of the wearer: the bride’s dress is dominates by the red colour, while that of a widow is dominated by blue. If a woman marries for a second time, flowers and other motifs are added to her red dress. The “Paradise and Hell” dress is called so because of its prevailing red and green colours. The Rafidia dress, a town in Nablus, is characterized by its red and green stripes, the green tie and the shawl distinctive of the Nablus region. (8) Bethlehem dresses are known for their use of gold or silver cord. The trousseau of the Palestinian bride included 12 embroidered dresses, headdresses, shawl, belts, kerchiefs, cushions and Kohl containers, all embroidered. Every girl learns to do embroidery, even nowadays it is taught at school as part of the home management curriculum. Embroidery goes beyond clothes to decorative pieces. Such pieces are found in every Palestinian home. 

During the Nakba, Palestinian homes were looted and their content stolen. In the 1970s, Moshe Dayan filled his house and garden in Tel Aviv with stolen artefacts, while his ex-wife opened a shop in London and sold Palestinian traditional dresses as Israeli heritage. (9) In 1980 the Israeli airline El Al adopted the Palestinian dress worn in the Ramallah region as the official uniform for its stewardesses, and introduced it as Israeli culture during the tourism season. In 2007 Sacca reported that Israel stole the Bride dress of the Bethlehem area known as “Malak” and registered it in the 4th volume of the International Encyclopaedia as its own. After a campaign of the Palestinian Heritage Centre, the dress was removed. (10) The “Malak” dress is characterized by its thick embroidery, mainly on the neckline and the sides, and by its head cover, “Shatwah”, decorated with silver and gold pieces. Other Palestinian traditional dresses, such as those of the Naqab and Galilee are introduced in international exhibitions as Israeli traditional costumes. Not even the traditional Kuffeyah, another symbol of Palestinian national identity, escaped the theft. Claiming that Israel has the right to have its own Kuffeyah, two Israeli designers designed one with the colours of the Israeli flag and small David stars instead of the usual dots. Palestinian traditional dresses, jackets, handbags and shawls, decorated with Palestinian stitches, are being sold to tourists as Israeli souvenirs. One day, I was waiting at the train station for my train, when I noticed some German woman sitting nearby wearing a jacket decorated with Palestinian embroidery. The truth is I hoped she knew what she was wearing. So, I asked her where she got that jacket from. As if waiting for someone to notice the jacket, she started talking about how beautiful it is, how rare and expensive and how lucky she was to have one, adding that one can only get them from Israel. I asked her if she knew what the lines, the colours, the patterns and symbols meant? When she said she had no idea, I told her that this was Palestinian embroidery, Palestinian cultural heritage, and to make my point clear, I explained to her that these patterns and colours have meanings, that every region in Palestine has its own colour and pattern. As I explained, she just kept nodding her head and her face grew redder, I hope out of shame for helping promote the theft of our culture. During the first Intifada, embroidery was a means of living for many families. Being a symbol of Palestinian identity, it was also used as a form of protesting the Israeli occupation. Since owning a Palestinian flag was punished with imprisonment, women started stitching the Palestinian flag or its colours on dresses, on shawls, on cushions, and even on wool blouses and jackets. 

And the list of thefts goes on: from stealing our traditional dance, the “Dabka” to an Israeli version of the “Dal’ona” song, which is an integral part of the Palestinian wedding. Palestinian weddings are characterized by popular songs, whereas every village and town had its own songs describing the beauty of the area and relating some of the local stories. The Dal’ona and the Ataba are common among all regions of Palestine. During a 6 month stay in Germany some 10 years ago, I remember watching on TV a group of dancers dancing the Dabkeh and other well-known Palestinian dances. I thought at first it might be the famous Palestinian dance group the “Founoun”, until it was made clear that this is an Israeli dance group performing “Israeli traditional dances”. When on the next day I mentioned this shameless theft in class, the teacher abruptly and in a somewhat impolite way changed the subject. I suppose, for that German teacher, discussing Israeli theft is part of the “Israel-Criticism Taboo”. Imitations of Palestinian pottery, silverware and jewellery, are also being sold to tourists as Israeli souvenirs. The olive tree and the poppy (Anemone Coronaria) have also been stolen and at the Chinese garden, held during the last Olympic Games in China, they were adopted and claimed by Israel as representatives of the Zionist state. [11] Palestinians have been celebrating the Olive tree as a symbol of their steadfastness in Palestine and the Poppy as a symbol of the sacrifices given on the road to freedom and independence for decades, and long before Israel start promoting them as their own symbols. 

But one thing they forgot: they can – for now – steal the land, the culture and forge history, but they can’t delete our memory nor forge the blood that flows in our veins. One afternoon, back in 1982, my sister, brother, some friends and I, decided to have a picnic. At school, we used to do this often. All we would need would be some slices of bread, a couple of tomatoes, and some salt in a paper. During the second break, which lasted some 20 minutes, we would have our picnic in one corner of the school playground. On that afternoon, we planned to have the picnic with our friends after we get back from school the following day. We were very enthusiastic, because our friends didn’t know what a “picnic” was and we wanted to share that with them. That evening, when we told our parents about our plans, father said: no, there will be no picnic tomorrow. For me, that was one of those days that remain branded in one’s mind for ever, memories of what we Palestinians should never ever forget and never forgive. On TV, we saw the pictures of butchered Palestinians, piled up like sacks one over the other. We saw pictures of murdered women, children and elderly filling the streets. We saw women crying and shouting and cursing. We saw what had happened in Sabra and Shatila. It was like waking up from a dream, and realizing that for you, as a Palestinian, there was no place for picnics, no place for happiness when other Palestinians are being murdered. These Palestinians were not in Palestine, they were far away from us, but they were part of us. They were a part that makes Palestine full, for Palestine belongs to all Palestinians, and when Palestinians bleed, whether in Palestine or in the Diaspora, Palestine as a whole bleeds. More massacres and Israeli crimes followed, and with every massacre, with every crime, with every war, we stood together as one. We cried for every child, we went to the streets for every martyr and every wounded and every prisoner, we protested and made our voice heard. It is our unity that makes us strong, a blood bond that not Israel, not the US, not even some treacherous Palestinians can break.

Despite their Nazi-like methods, Zionists continue to deny it and shout anti-Semitism when accused of it, although a number of Zionists had as early as 1948 realized and admitted they were acting like Nazis towards the Palestinians. Aharon Cizling of the 1948 Israeli cabinet commented on reports of Israeli war crimes against Palestinians: “… But now Jews too have behaved like Nazis and my entire being has been shaken … Obviously we have to conceal these actions from the public, and I agree that we should not even reveal that we’re investigating them.” (12) Also, the “Stern” terror gang collaborated with Nazi Germany during WWII, and a scanned copy of the document sent by the “Stern” in 1941 asking Nazi Germany for alliance can be seen at Palestine Remembered (13). One would expect that, when Jews are being sent to gas chambers in Germany, armed Jewish gangs in Palestine would rush to Germany to save their brothers and sisters. What they did, in addition to terrorizing Palestinians, was attack British troops in Palestine, who contrary to these gangs, were fighting the Nazis in Europe. (14) Defending themselves, Zionists usually rush to claim that they have not erected any gas chambers. Well, although it would have much pleased the Zionists to erect the Nazi gas chambers in Palestine and get rid of the Palestinians once and for all, they are not that stupid. They realize that even the strongest of their allies won’t be able to turn a blind eye anymore and would have to say: stop. But this doesn’t mean that there are no gas chambers in Palestine. Times change and mass murderers develop their gas chambers to fit the times. Sharon knew this and in 1988 he was reported saying: “You don’t simply bundle people onto trucks and drive them away … I prefer to advocate a positive policy, to create, in effect, a condition that in a positive way will induce people to leave”. (15) The positive policy being the policy of land grab, siege and military operations. Instead of killing millions in a few months and drawing world uproar, why not kill gradually? Every couple of years a war here and an incursion there, wiping out thousands and leaving thousands crippled. Every now and then an air raid here and there, leaving dozens killed and hundreds other crippled. And why not use checkpoints, peaceful demonstrations and the siege to kill an extra few here and there? The problem here is that with every Palestinian killed, at least 10 others are born, and with every massacre committed, our roots in the land get deeper and our memory gets stronger. 

So, although after 61 years of an on-going Nakba, an on-going ethnic cleansing and terror, we are scattered everywhere, one thing binds us: our Palestinian identity, the place we all call home, the home we all want to return to. No matter what nationality some of us have today, or where we were born, as long as Palestinian blood flows through our veins, we have one nationality and one homeland: Palestine. During my Masters programme, there were students from all over the world who had enrolled in the same programme as me. Among those, I was not the only Palestinian, but the only Palestinian with a Palestinian passport and the only one who was born and grew up in Palestine. There were others who were born in the Diaspora. To the other students, except for those who knew better, we were of different nationalities. To us, we were Palestinians, share the same history and heritage, and have the same homeland. And while statistics show that many Russian and European Jews see Israel only as a step towards the US, we see Palestine as the “ultimate” step: a return to Palestine, to stay there, and plant ourselves there and spread our roots deep into this land like the olive tree. This is why the olive tree is our national symbol and can never be the symbol of a Zionist who was brought to Palestine by financial inducements and to escape poverty elsewhere. 

In 1983, Chairman Heilbrun said: “We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves.” The dream of completely ethnically cleansing Palestine and of getting rid of all Palestinians failed, but not out of lack of trying on the side of Zionists. Nor have they succeeded in making slaves out of us, for despite the suffering, we stand armed with our pride and dignity against those armed with hate and terror. After 61 years of Zionist terror and land theft, the Zionists are fighting a lost war. Many of us are still standing steadfast in Palestine, others are packing their bags to return to Palestine. When passing towns, villages and refugee camps, and seeing all the illegal settlements scattered everywhere, the confiscated lands surrounded by barbed wire, one would realize the extent to which the Zionists state would go to delete a whole existence, a whole nation and a whole country. The greatest threat to Israel is our existence, and as long as we are steadfast in Palestine, they can’t take Palestine away from us. The destroyed homes will be rebuilt one day, and the empty villages will be refilled one day and all those ethnically cleansed will return one day. This is no wishful thinking, nor an illusion. History teaches us that nothing lasts forever, especially injustice. It might take another 61 years or another 10 years or another 100 years, but one day all Palestinians will return and Palestine will find its rightful place on the world map again. And today, 61 years after its establishment, the only thing the Zionist state achieved is that the more they kill, the more they expose themselves as a racist and a terror state and the harder we cling to the land. At a time when Israel is doing its best to get rid of us, it is bringing us closer to our homeland, because it is our duty to stand still on our land, and those who can return should return, it is a national duty.

This is a real news report from Gaza that shows a sample of the inhuman result on our Palestinian health system caused by the the Zionist-Israeli occupation siege on Gaza, which continued even after the Israeli genocide war there.

But first, here is a description of what you expect to see (the news report is in Arabic):

Another Palestinian child died in a very dramatic scene documented on T.V. A baby aged 2 died today from a heart defect made worse by lack of medical care due to the Israeli imposed siege.

Aljazeera's reporter, Tamer Al meshal, reveals one of the miseries resulting from the Israeli siege on Gaza . Feras As'ad Al Mazlom, an infant aged 2, was the only child of newly married couple As'ad and Amal.

Infant Feras who was born with a heart defect, he had to spend more time in a hospital bed rather than his loving parents' arms. He never played nor enjoyed his innocent life like others.

Like many Palestinians, Feras paid for the siege with his precious life. The hospital and equipment were not able to rescue him nor could his parents move him to Egypt for treatment. However, the hospital managed to coordinate a transfer to an Israeli hospital.

With hope, the father tried obtaining permits for both his wife and son to cross the border, and he finally succeeded. The father moved like crazy to complete the travel documents necessary for Feras to be transferred for treatment.

Unfortunately, as they were on the way to pick their child and head to Erez crossing into Israel, they received an excruciating phone call saying their only was no longer alive and there's no need to take him anywhere.

It was minutes or rather seconds between life and death for Feras. This baby, didn't fight Israelis, never shot at them, nor fired a rocket rather, his only fault was being, "a child born in Gaza".

Thousands of Palestinian like Feras are still on the waiting list of death. Israel is hindering access to their basic right of treatment. Those patients' rights are highly recognized and guaranteed by the 4th Geneva convention and humanitarian law. However, Israel does not respect UN authority or declarations regarding human rights.

Spread the video! Embed code:
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/3y+BgcxOAA%2Em4v" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="295" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>

Please, retweet, digg, share, email, etc…

Sources: The Palestine Telegraph and Aljazeera

YouTube: http://bit.ly/hP6H8
Original Video link: http://bit.ly/2EHtnX

Allow me to join you.. And tell her that….

Tell her soon she will grow up like all young girls do, she will get married and become a mother…

Tell her blood is dearer than oil. Explain to her what kind of oil you are talking about; explain to her how many chocolate bars one can buy for the price of one bomb. 

Tell her she should reject discrimination and call for equal rights for all when she grows up… No… do not tell her that now… discrimination is a big word… just tell her every human being is special and we are all equal, you might have to tell her why some people are more equal than others. 

Tell her if the killing stops we will enjoy art, music, and literature… don't tell her that, just tell her that she will play outside as much as she wants, and she can play with all the children.    

Tell her to demand an apology of the Israeli state to every mother who lost a child. No… don't… just tell her no more children are going to be killed.  

Tell her to request compensating people for their losses. Tell her that she might have to share her toys.   

Tell her that we never intended to kill the children and women of Gaza, and did not mean to bomb the schools, hospitals, universities, and ambulances, tell her we are going to rebuild everything. Do not tell her that her father was flying an F-16 and that he bombed the school in Gaza… tell her F-16s deliver milk sometimes… No… do not lie to her, she will find out later. 

Tell her Israel is no democracy, no democracy will discriminate against one's beliefs. Don't… she does not know yet what democracy or beliefs mean, she only knows lollypops, dolls and candy floss, just tell her that all children should be able to taste some sweets.

Tell her a democratic state will never imprison 55 MPs who represent the people. Don't tell her that Palestinian MPs have children her own age.  

Tell her children of her age are in prison with the criminals deprived of schooling because they dared to love their country. Tell her not to be worried, for Jewish children do not go to prison.  

Tell her to thank God that she is not a pregnant Palestinian woman about to give birth at a checkpoint. Tell her if she becomes pregnant she will deliver her baby in the most comfortable way and she will be supervised by the best doctors in the best equipped hospitals.  

Tell her we love her. Tell her the USA loves her. 

Tell her she can change everybody’s future because she will save many lives. Do not tell her that we never cared about the blood of Palestinians unless it was donated for transfusion to our sick. Tell her that her great grand parents lived in peace with Palestinians for hundreds of years before the apartheid regime ruled over the land of peace. Tell her Muslims are now fanatics, do not tell her about the Christian Palestinians. Just tell her we do not need their help any more.  

Tell her we want to sleep without fears. Tell her about the mini rockets fired from Gaza to Sderot, but do not tell her that Sderot was the home of those refugees of Gaza. Do not tell her about the tons of rockets and missiles fired on Gaza. 

Tell her the white phosphorus bombs were fireworks celebrating the New Year.  

Tell her not to be frightened, all the Palestinians want is equal rights and justice. Do not tell her that we consider Palestinians as animals and unworthy of life.  

Tell her if she is brave to change this ugly system one day we will all meet like all good neighbours do.  

Tell her Palestinian mothers used to babysit for Jewish mothers like sisters.  

Tell her not to believe all the lies she hears from mainstream media. She can only trust Tom and Jerry, but not to believe in Superman.  

Tell her if she really believes in God she will respect life and dignity of others. Do not tell her that we consider Palestinians not worthy of respect.  

Tell her God is capable of making prophecies come true if he wants without the help of Zionists. Do not tell her that we manipulate relegion whenever we like to suit our agenda, do not tell her that most of our government are secular people who never practiced Judaism.  

Tell her no God will favour some of his children over the rest of them. But still tell her we are the chosen people.  

Tell her it is not fair that she came from Russia and she lives in a Palestinian home while a Palestinian woman and her family were expelled from their home where they used to live for 1400 years.  

Tell her… to ask them… why this woman can't go home now.  

Tell her why people in her home town can't pray in their local mosque as they used to for hundreds of years. 

Tell her 11,870 Palestinians are detained in prisons the majority were never tried at a court.  

Tell her a Palestinian woman said when she dies she wants to be buried in her home under a vine tree, tell her do something to stop them uprooting the trees.  

Tell her my body blossomed from the soil of Palestine and one day it should be reunited with Palestine's soil to nourish a jasmine tree….climb the windows and stretch to hug the sky.  

Tell her when she prays for children's safety, she should not pray only for Jewish children, God would not like that… angles are immuned against Zionist propaganda.  

Tell her only justice can bring peace.